Lori Vallow’s seven-year-old son, JJ, was suffocated with a plastic bag that was wrapped around his head and sealed with duct tape, his murder trial was heard today. Dr. Garth Warren first revealed that JJ’s cause of death was “asphyxiation with a plastic bag over the head and duct tape over the mouth.” The coroner suggested that the boy had scratched his neck as he struggled to free himself.
Vallow and her lover Chad Daybell are accused of killing JJ and her 16-year-old daughter Tylee in Rexburg, Idaho, in September 2019. The state says the couple was doomsday cultists who believed the children were ‘ zombies’ inhabited by Satan.
The children’s bodies were buried in shallow graves in Daybell’s yard and were not discovered for nearly a year. Tylee’s remains were so burned that the coroner could only say that she died by homicide, but could not say how she died.
But Warren was able to conclude JJ’s cause of death after finding his body sealed in a black garbage bag. Beneath this cloak, his head was covered with a white plastic bag taped tightly from his mouth to his neck. The coroner also chillingly revealed how the scratches on the boy’s neck could have been caused when JJ was “trying to remove the bag from his head.”
Tylee Ryan and J. J. Vallow Cause of Death
Vallow, 49, dressed in a white blouse and black jacket, took notes and looked at Warren as he gave the gruesome evidence. When the graphic images were displayed on the screen, he looked at the ground.
She and Daybell, 54, are also accused of killing her wife Tammy Daybell, who also died of asphyxiation a month after the children were allegedly murdered. The couple, who had been having an affair, married two weeks later in Hawaii.
Previously, the jury was shown photos of JJ’s grave, where a detective first discovered the boy’s head sticking out of the ground during digging. After removing the black garbage bag, the officer discovered the white plastic bag that he opened. The pictures showed JJ’s mop of brown hair sticking out of the incision.
Unlike his sister, whose body parts melted away after being burned and dumped in the backyard pet cemetery, JJ’s remains were better preserved. The coroner recounted how he too had his arms, hands and ankles tied with adhesive tape.
“There were also other areas that were concerning or suspicious: bruises on the ankles that may have been associated with the duct tape,” Warren added. JJ’s corpse had decomposed by the time the coroner conducted his examination.
He was wearing red pajamas and black socks that were covered in dirt and mold from his rotting flesh. Warren described how the boy’s head and neck had a green discoloration, while other parts of his body were white or brown, indicating that his flesh was decomposing. Another sign was ‘slipping off the skin all over the body, skin falling off the hands and feet’.
The toxicology report found low levels of ethanol, the drug GHB, caffeine, and theobromine, which are found in cocoa and tea. Warren said that GHB (gamma-hydroxybutyric acid) can be found in liver tissue after death and that the levels could have been “natural.”
“There’s really no way for me to know for sure if this is just a natural product in the body that was there or if JJ was given GHB. I can’t say one way or the other based on the levels,” he told the jury. Tylee’s autopsy took about a week compared to JJ’s four hours. Her remains were delivered to Warren in three separate sealed bags.
‘Two of the bags were black body bags and the third was a large brown paper bag that was sealed. Within that, he contacted another five paper bags inside him. So essentially I received Tylee’s remains in several different bags,” Warren said.
He found Tylee’s heart connected to her right and left lung, a kidney, some small segments of the intestine, a portion of her liver, and small fragments of brain matter. He was also able to find his pelvis and femur, portions of his skull, including around his eye socket and mouth.
Warren told the jury: ‘These organs had severe decay, significant burning artifacts, they were charred and shrunken. Presumably, the rest of the organs were burned or never found. He added: ‘There were no nice clean bones. These were bones that had a significant artifact secondary to fire. They were blackened and charred.
The coroner said he made a determination of homicide, but couldn’t be specific. “The cause of death was homicide, but I can’t say exactly what it was,” he told the court.
The boys were missing for nearly a year before their bodies were found buried in the Daybell yard on June 9, 2020. During the opening, prosecutor Lindsey Blake described how the charred remains were all that was left of Tylee. She told the jury: ‘You will hear it explained as a mass of bone and tissue. That is what was left of this beautiful young woman.
Tylee’s DNA was later found on a pick and shovel in a shed on the property. JJ’s body was wrapped in garbage bags and duct tape, her tape tying his arms in front of him and wrapping around his head.
Daybell’s two children and previous wife, Tammy, were killed because they got in the way of the couple’s relationship, the State says. “Remember, the defendant will remove any obstacle in her way to get what she wants, and she wanted Chad Daybell,” Blake told the jury.
The defendant used money, power, and sex to get what she wanted. Jurors heard from Vallow’s friends and family that she and Daybell believed the children were “dark” and referred to them as “zombies” before they disappeared.
“The common theme was that the body had to be destroyed,” Blake said. “The defendant and Chad used their self-proclaimed religious teachings to justify their actions to others, their actions from affair to murder.”
Prosecutors say the couple planned to use the life insurance money from Tammy’s death, and that Vallow continued to collect and spend Social Security and children’s benefits after her death. The trial began on April 10 and the state is expected to rest its case later this week. Daybell is being tested separately.
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