The Rexburg, Idaho, townhome complex where Lori Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell were staying in November 2019 is pictured Thursday, March 30, 2023. At Vallow Daybell’s trial on Tuesday a detective testified that when police served a search warrant on the townhome they found two silencers, a mask, several guns and camouflage suits.
Spenser Heaps, Deseret News
When police served a search warrant on Lori Vallow Daybell’s Rexburg townhome on Nov. 27, 2019, they found two silencers, a mask, several guns, including two rifles, and camouflage suits.
They also found two Tyvek suits — white, full body, personal protective equipment that are often used for cleaning up hazardous materials.
That’s according to Rexburg police detective Ray Hermosillo, who was called as a witness Tuesday in the trial of Lori Vallow Daybell.
Vallow Daybell is charged with conspiracy, murder and grand theft in the deaths of her two children, 7 year-old JJ Vallow and 17-year-old Tylee Ryan. She also faces charges in the death of her new husband’s first wife, Tammy Daybell, who prosecutors revealed was killed by asphyxiation.
Vallow Daybell appeared in court Tuesday morning looking relaxed, wearing a pink blouse and black pants, her ankles shackled to the floor. She talked and joked with her attorneys, at one point throwing her head back in laughter.
This courtroom sketch, from left, depicts Madison County prosecutor Rob Wood, Lori Vallow Daybell and defense attorney Jim Archibald during opening statements of Vallow Daybell’s murder trial in Boise, Idaho, Monday, April 10, 2023.
Lisa C. Cheney via The Associated Press
Her husband, Chad Daybell, who is also charged in the three deaths, has pleaded not guilty and will face a separate trial.
The day before police went into Vallow Daybell’s home with a search warrant, Hermosillo had attempted to conduct a welfare check, after JJ’s grandparents in Louisiana contacted police in Gilbert, Arizona, concerned about his whereabouts. Gilbert police then reached out to Rexburg officers, and on Nov. 26, 2019, Hermosillo confronted Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox, outside an apartment near downtown Rexburg.
“Alex had a blank look on his face,” Hermosillo said, describing the moment he asked where JJ was. “A frightened look. (He) looked over at Chad Daybell ... Chad then looked at Alex, and they kind of just looked at each other, they didn’t answer my question ... it raised some red flags, just the way they acted with that question.”
Hermosillo, with another Rexburg officer, knocked on Lori Vallow Daybell’s door. She didn’t respond. He then saw Chad Daybell, driving away, and flagged him down to ask for Vallow Daybell’s phone number. Daybell said he didn’t have her number.
“He stated that he hardly knew her, and that he had only met her a couple of times,” Hermosillo said, responding to prosecutor Rob Wood’s questions. The longtime Rexburg police officer said that was suspicious.
“We knew that Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell had been married two weeks prior,” he said.
Though Vallow Daybell eventually met with two other detectives that afternoon, the following day, on Nov. 27, police obtained a warrant. When she didn’t answer, police broke down the door to Vallow Daybell’s apartment.
That’s where officers found the Tyvek suits, a mask, silencers, and guns. The barrel of one of the rifles, Hermosillo said, was “threaded to fit a silencer.”
On Monday, Brandon Boudreaux, who was married to Melanie Boudreaux, Vallow Daybell’s niece and a follower of her fringe beliefs, testified about the day someone shot at him outside his apartment with a rifle, with a silencer attached, in October 2019. Tammy Daybell was also shot at by a masked man in her driveway that same month, police have said.
During the search, officers also located Alex Cox’s passport, rope and duct tape found inside a bag, a cellphone, books written by Chad Daybell, and various documents, according to Hermosillo.
Cox died from what authorities say were natural causes in December 2019, the day after Tammy Daybell’s body was exhumed as part of the investigation.
This story will be updated.
