The upsetting murder trial of Lori Vallow Daybell — the Idaho woman who allegedly killed her two youngest children and her husband’s ex-wife nearly three years ago – begins Monday with jury selection.
Vallow Daybell and her husband, Chad Daybell, have pleaded not guilty to a slew of charges including murder, conspiracy and grand theft in the deaths of Joshua “JJ” Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16.
Both were also accused of killing Chad Daybell’s former wife, Tammy, who died in October 2019, about two weeks before Chad Daybell married Vallow.
Likely at the center of the trial will be Vallow Daybell’s mental state at the time of the killings, experts say.
“We’re going to see a very complicated and bizarre trial,” said Carole Lieberman, a forensic psychiatrist who has been following the case. “There are all kinds of possibilities that could happen.”
Insanity or strategy to defraud?
Prosecutors will be on the hook to prove what allegedly drove Lori to go to such drastic lengths to kill people. Prosecutors say the couple’s bizarre strategy was part of a plot to steal social security funds and insurance money.
The Daybells could face life in prison or, in the case of Chad, the death penalty, if convicted.
Daybell: Belief in ‘zombies’?
What could become contentious at trial is Lori’s apparent belief in zombies. Friends of the Daybells told investigators that the couple believed people could become “zombies” if they were possessed by evil spirits, a state in which their soul was trapped in limbo, according to police reports.
The couple reportedly believed that the only way to rid a person of a zombie was for their body to die, police reports said.
A friend, Melanie Gibb, told investigators that allow Daybell referred to her youngest children as “zombies.” Police in Arizona said the couple exchanged text messages saying that Tammy Daybell had been possessed by a dark spirit.
The jury will surely become mentally exhausted when they reached a verdict.
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NOTE: Photo above is from Pexels