Chad Daybell is sentenced to death for brutal triple murder of his first wife and co-conspirator Lori Vallow's two young children

By Rachel Bowman and Sophie Mann For Dailymail.Com

Published: 18:44 BST, 1 June 2024 | Updated: 19:57 BST, 1 June 2024

'Doomsday prophet' Chad Daybell was given the death penalty for killing his ex-wife and co-conspirator Lori Vallow's two children in a chilling triple murder case that rattled the state of Idaho.

Daybell, 55, was stone faced as the sentence was handed Saturday as the Idaho jury unanimously agreed that no mitigating factors would make the death sentence unjust. After a brief recess, the judge returned to officially render the court's decision to end the man's life.

After a nearly two-month trial he was found guilty of killing Tammy Daybell, Joshua 'JJ' Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16, on Thursday.

Wearing a blue shirt and tie, Daybell showed no emotion when he declined to make a statement in court after becoming the ninth person on Idaho's death row.

The judge handed down a 15 year sentence for each of the two insurance fraud counts to run concurrently with his murder sentence.

There will be no fines added to the insurance fraud sentence, because Chad has been deemed indigent, however prosecutors have asked for restitution to be paid totally $433K - an amount that the judge said he will take under advisement. 

Before the jury began deliberating on sentencing, family members gave impact statements to the court, reported 12News.

'It's not an overstatement to say that I lost everything, but more importantly we all lost Tylee and JJ,' said Colby Ryan, Tylee and JJ's brother, Lori's only living child.

'I stand here today motherless, fatherless, sisterless and brotherless.' 

Tylee Ryan's aunt, Annie Cushing, said, 'She was intelligent, clever, funny, sarcastic and had the voice of an angel.'

JJ Vallow's grandmother Kay Woodcock noted he would have turned 12-years-old earlier in the week if he were still alive. 

'Would he have been the next Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, Tim Burton, Elon Musk? We will never know,' Woodcock said. 

Tammy Daybell's younger sister Samantha Gwilliam said, 'My sister was ripped from our lives, because of her murder, we lost a beloved mother, grandmother, sister, aunt and daughter. She is irreplaceable.'

During the summer of 2020, the remains of the children were discovered on Daybell's Fremont County, Idaho property.

Police said they believe the bodies were buried by Daybell sometime between September of 2019 and June of 2020.

Tammy Daybell died in 2019, mere weeks ahead of Chad and Lori Vallow's wedding.

Though her death was initially believed to be due to natural causes, her corpse was later exhumed and following an autopsy, it was determined that she had been suffocated to death.

Daybell and Lori Vallow were indicted in 2021 on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and grand theft by deception in the children's deaths.

The pair were slapped with a handful of additional charges relating to Tammy's death.

Last year, Vallow was convicted and handed a sentence of multiple life sentences behind bars without the possibility of parole.

During his trial, Daybell was accused of crafting an alternate reality so that he could fulfill 'his desire for sex, money and power.' 

'When he had a chance at what he considered his rightful destiny, he made sure no person and no law would stand in his way,' prosecutor Rob Wood said.

Prosecutors, who called 67 witnesses throughout the trial, said the couple justified the three killings by creating a detailed and apocalyptic belief system, part of an elaborate scheme to eliminate any obstacles to their relationship and to obtain money from survivor benefits and life insurance.

Daybell's defense attorney John Prior presented a different picture to jurors - noting that Chad Daybell was a religious person but suggested that his belief in things like premonitions were fairly mainstream. 

Prior also explained to jurors that Lori Vallow Daybell's brother, Alex Cox, had a violent history. He had previously been convicted of attacking Vallow Daybell's third husband, and he shot and killed her fourth husband.

 'Whenever there was a problem with Lori Vallow, Alex Cox ran to the rescue,' Prior said in opening statements.

Daybell's attorney also argued that his client lived a normal, faith-focused life before he met Lori Vallow Daybell, who he said showered Daybell with attention. 

His legal team described her as a 'beautiful, vivacious person' who drew Daybell into an extramarital relationship.

Daybell's attorney also said he would present several experts in DNA, forensics and pathology who would testify that it's impossible to determine what caused Tammy Daybell's death and that none of Chad Daybell's DNA was found with the children's bodies.