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Jurors deliberated for just six hours before finding Chad Dable guilty on all charges, ending a trial that began in 2019 and spanned at least four states. Deibel, standing tall and wearing a long-sleeved shirt, was stoic as the verdicts were read.
Jurors will now be tasked with deciding whether Dable, 55, should die for the murders of Tammy Dable, 16-year-old Tylee Ryan and seven-year-old Joshua “JJ” Wallow. The penalty phase of the nearly two-month trial began Thursday and will continue Friday.
The children’s mother, Lori Wallow Deibel, was sentenced to life in prison without parole on the same conspiracy and murder charges last year. She married Chad Dable just two weeks after Tammy Dable was murdered.
The case attracted widespread media attention, and the judge moved the trial from the rural eastern Idaho community where the murders took place to Boise, Idaho, in an effort to ensure a fair and impartial jury.
In the penalty phase, prosecutors will try to show that the crimes merit the death penalty because they were particularly depraved, heinous or cruel, or that they meet one of the other “aggravating factors” described in state law. Meanwhile, Dable’s defense will try to present jurors with mitigating circumstances that could show the jury that a lesser sentence is more appropriate.
The case began in September 2019 when family members reported the two children missing and law enforcement officials launched a multi-state search. The ensuing investigation took several unexpected turns.
Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell were having an affair when both their husbands died unexpectedly, investigators said. Vallow Daybell’s husband was shot and killed by her brother Alex Cox in Arizona in July 2019; the brother told police it was in self-defense. He has not been charged.
Vallow Daybell, her children JJ and Tylee, and Cox subsequently moved to eastern Idaho to be closer to Daybell, a self-published author of doomsday-focused fiction based somewhat on Mormon teachings.
In October 2019, Tammy Dable passed away. Chad Dable initially told police she had been battling an illness and died in her sleep, but an autopsy later determined she died of asphyxiation. Chad Dable and Wallow Dable were married just two weeks after Tammy Dable’s death, surprising family members.
Nearly a year after the children disappeared, their remains were found buried on Chad Dable’s property in eastern Idaho. Investigators later determined that both children died in September 2019. Prosecutors say Cox conspired with Chad Dable and Wallow Dable in all three deaths, but Cox died of natural causes during the investigation and never was accused.
Prosecutors called dozens of witnesses to support their claims that Chad Dable and Wallow Dable conspired to kill the two children and Tammy Dable because they wanted to get rid of any obstacles to their relationship and get money from survivors benefits and insurance life.
Prosecutors say the couple justified the killings by creating an apocalyptic belief system that people could be possessed by evil spirits and turned into “zombies” and that the only way to save a possessed person’s soul was for the possessed body to die.
Fremont County Prosecutor Lindsey Blake said Dable called himself the leader of what he called the “Church of the Firstborn” and told Wallow Dable and others that he could tell if someone had become a “zombie.” Deibel also claimed to be able to determine how close a person was to death by reading what he called their “death rate,” Blake said.
With these elements, Daybell follows a pattern for each of those killed, Blake said.
“They will be labeled as ‘dark’ by Chad Dable.” Their “death rate” will drop. Then they will have to die,” she said in her closing speech.
Blake also said that Dable manipulated Vallow Dable and her brother Cox into helping with the plan, sometimes giving Cox “spiritual blessings” and warning Vallow Dable that the angels were angry because she sometimes ignored him.
Dable’s defense attorney, John Prior, rejected the prosecution’s descriptions of Dable’s beliefs. He described Deibel as a traditional member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a deeply religious man who spoke about his spiritual beliefs whenever he could.
Prior said police were only looking for things they could use against Dable, not the actual facts of the case – and he claimed the children’s late uncle, Cox, committed the crimes. He noted that Cox had previously killed JJ Vallow’s father in Arizona and that the two children were the only witnesses to that shooting. He also said the Coxes tried to defraud Deibel by burying the murdered children in Deibel’s yard in eastern Idaho.
Witnesses on both sides agreed that Chad Dable and Wallow Dable had an affair that began well before Tammy Dable’s death.
Defense witnesses included Dr. Cathy Raven, a forensic pathologist who reviewed Tammy Dable’s autopsy reports and said she believed the cause of death should have been classified as “undetermined.”
JJ Vallow’s grandparents, Kay and Larry Woodcock, were among those watching the sentencing. Kay Woodcock is the person who initially got the police to investigate after she asked them to carry out a welfare check on JJ in 2019. She became increasingly concerned after she said Vallow Daybell started refusing to contact with JJ on the phone, even though the child had previously had frequent video and voice phone calls with the Woodcocks.
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