An FBI forensic anthropologist testified on Wednesday that Tylee Ryan’s remains — which were found burned and dismembered on her mother’s husband’s property — were cut with an unknown tool.
East Idaho News reported that Dr. Angi Christensen performed the initial visual assessment, conducted a CT scan of the bones, and measured Tylee’s bones at the behest of the Ada County Coroner. Christensen said that Tylee’s remains were fragmented, but all major parts of her skeleton were intact.
Christensen said it appeared the bones were burned and at least one of the bones was bent or hinged. She also mentioned that it seemed an animal chewed on the back of Tylee’s femurs.
According to East Idaho News, the court was shown photos of three sections of Tylee’s skull. The right side of the face and upper jaw appeared to have been subjected to heat.
Christensen testified that Tylee’s bones were subjected to blunt trauma, sharp trauma, and high-velocity trauma. She said something with a “small service area” damaged the bones, but it is unclear what tool was done to do this.
“The purpose of dismemberment is to break the body into smaller pieces. In this case, all of the sharp traumas are in the area of the pelvic region,” she explained, per the news outlet.
Tylee and her brother, J.J. Vallow, 7, were missing for nine months before their remains were found on Chad Daybell’s property in June 2020. Lori Vallow Daybell is their mother, while Daybell is her fifth husband, whom she married after their disappearances.
J.J.’s body was reportedly found in a plastic bag that was wrapped in plastic. His face, arms, wrists, and feet were wrapped with duct tape. Tylee’s burned remains were on the property, though her entire body was not intact.
During Wednesday’s testimony, it was revealed that J.J. was suffocated with a plastic bag and duct tape. Due to the condition of Tylee’s remains, her cause of death remains undetermined.
Vallow Daybell and Daybell are charged with the children’s murders. They are also charged with killing Tammy Daybell, Chad Daybell’s wife, who was also killed in Idaho in 2019.
Vallow Daybell is currently standing trial for the three slayings, while her husband’s trial has not yet begun. In Arizona, she is charged in connection with the death of her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, who was shot by her brother, Alex Cox, in 2019. Cox died, reportedly of natural causes, in December 2019 — and prosecutors have implicated him in J.J. and Tylee’s murders.
Vallow Daybell said she was with Melanie Gibb, David Warwick, or her husband when her son and daughter died in her brother’s apartment in Rexburg, Idaho. Lori allegedly said she was at her residence, also in Rexburg.
Vallow Daybell claimed she was in Hawaii when Tammy Daybell was killed at her husband’s home in Salem, Idaho. She stated she was with two other people at the time.
The defendant — who is believed to have been involved in a so-called doomsday cult — allegedly told a friend that her children had become zombies and the only way to exorcise their bodies of evil spirits was to kill them.
Vallow Daybell — who is not facing the death penalty — underwent psychiatric treatment twice before she was deemed fit to stand trial in Idaho. Cameras are not allowed in the courtroom per a court order.
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[Featured image: Tylee Ryan and JJ Vallow/Facebook]
