An Idaho jury has recommended the death penalty on multiple counts in the murder trial of Chad Daybell, the so-called “Doomsday Prophet.”
Daybell was convicted on charges that he killed his first wife and the two youngest children of his second wife.
As Court TV reported, Daybell was found guilty of conspiracy and first-degree murder in the October 2019 death of Tammy Daybell. He was convicted of those same charges in the deaths of 7-year-old JJ Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, children of Lori Vallow.
During Saturday’s sentencing hearing the jury recommended the death penalty on counts 1 through 6.
Vallow was convicted of conspiracy and murder charges in her children and Daybell’s first wife’s deaths, last year. She has since filed a notice of appeal.
Daybell’s wife, Lori Vallow, faced trial last year. Both were charged in the murders of Tammy Daybell, in 2019 as well as that of Vallow’s 7-year-old son JJ Vallow and 16-year-old daughter Tylee Ryan.
Daybell was also convicted of one count of grand theft and two counts of insurance fraud. Attorneys agreed to consolidate the sentencing, Court TV reported, and more details on the sentencing for counts 8 and 9 related to the insurance fraud charges were expected later.
A jury reached a verdict after less than six hours of deliberation to end a two-month trial.
An indictment accused Vallow and Daybell of espousing religious beliefs to justify the murders of JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan. The children’s remains were found on Daybell’s property in June 2020, several months after JJ’s grandmother contacted police looking for him. By then, Vallow was sitting in an Idaho jail on charges stemming from the children’s disappearances. She was arrested in Hawaii in February 2020, where she and Daybell had relocated amid a cloud of suspicion.
The couple were initially to be tried together, but a judge severed the cases weeks before Vallow’s began and took the death penalty off the table for her.
