Jurors in the murder trial of “cult mom” Lori Vallow Daybell saw body camera footage from January 2020, when police officers finally tracked down her and new husband Chad Daybell and served her with a court order requiring that she present her missing children to authorities in Idaho.
The video was obtained by KSAZ in Phoenix and shows a bikini-clad Vallow Daybell and her new husband lounging poolside at the condo they rented in Kauai, Hawaii.
The children, 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 17-year-old Tylee Ryan, had already been dead for months, but their bodies weren’t found until the following June, on Daybell’s property in Idaho.
Vallow Daybell, of course, did not comply with the court order and was arrested on February 20, 2020. Daybell was arrested in June, after the children’s bodies were found.
She is currently on trial for their murders as well as the murder of Daybell’s wife, Tammy Daybell, who died mysteriously on October 19, 2019. Vallow Daybell and Daybell married three weeks later and fled to Hawaii in December after police, prompted by the JJ’s grandparents, began searching for them.
Vallow Daybell also faces a conspiracy to murder charge in Arizona for the death of her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, who was shot to death by her brother, claiming self-defense, in July 2019. Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox, died in December 2019, reportedly of natural causes.
Although Vallow Daybell’s defense rested on Tuesday without calling any witnesses or presenting evidence, court documents have indicated her position is that Cox killed the children and she had nothing to do with the murders.
Closing arguments in the trial are set for Thursday. The judge in the case, who barred cameras from the courtroom during the evidentiary portion of the trial, announced Tuesday he would allow cameras for the reading of the verdict.
Chad Daybell, who faces the same charges as his wife in Idaho, will go on trial later, but a date has not been set. He is not charged in Charles Vallow’s death.
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[Featured image: Screen shot from Kauai Police Department video, via KSAZ}