A former friend testified on Wednesday that Lori Vallow Daybell threatened to kill her and cover up the slaying.
According to East Idaho News, Audrey Barattiero explained that she did not mention the threat during the grand jury hearing because she was afraid. Barattiero claimed Lori made the comments in October 2019, the same month as Tammy Daybell’s death.
Barattiero testified that she had asked Lori if anything “weird” was going on after visiting Lori at her home. According to her, Lori was laughing when she told her, “You’re so naive… So trusting… You’ll believe anything. You think the world is all unicorns and rainbows.”
“She threatened to kill me. She said she would cut me up. Something about that she wasn’t in the mental place to do that but she would get herself in that place to be able to do it… She said something about bleach and trash bags. And she would bury me.”
Barattiero also testified that Chad claimed a deceased relative told him Tammy would die before 50. Tammy was 49 when she died in October 2019.
Lori and Chad were married in November 2019, days after Lori’s two children disappeared and a month after Tammy’s death. Tammy was Chad’s wife; Lori’s husband, Charles Vallow, was killed the summer before she married Chad, her fifth husband.
Tammy’s initial cause of death was listed as pulmonary edema with the manner being ruled as natural. However, officials now believe she was asphyxiated her death was a homicide.
Lori and Chad are charged with killing Tammy and Lori’s two children, Tylee Ryan, and J.J. Vallow. Lori is currently standing trial and Chad will be tried later.
J.J. and Tylee were missing for nine months before their remains were discovered on Chad’s property in June 2020. 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.
Prior testimony revealed that J.J. was suffocated with a plastic bag and duct tape. Tylee’s cause of death was undetermined due to the condition of her remains.
Lori has 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. She allegedly said she was at her residence, also in Rexburg. She claimed she was in Hawaii when Tammy was killed at her husband’s home in Salem, Idaho. She stated she was with two other people at the time.
Lori — 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.
In Arizona, Lori is charged in connection with Charles’ death. Her brother, Alex Cox, fatally shot Charles in July 2019, months before Tammy’s death and J.J. and Tylee’s disappearances. Cox died, reportedly of natural causes, in December 2019.
Lori, 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.
The trial continues.
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[Featured image: Lori Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell/KTVB screenshot]
