Day 14: Cell records show Alex Cox in Chad Daybell’s backyard, where kids were found

It’s week four of the Lori Vallow Daybell jury trial. The 49-year-old Rexburg mother — along with her husband Chad Daybell — is accused of killing her two children.

The Daybells — who had a months-long affair before getting married — are being tried separately and Vallow Daybell’s trial began in early April and could last another four weeks. Chad Daybell’s trial date has yet to be set.

So far, the prosecution has called roughly two dozen witnesses including law enforcement officers from Idaho and Arizona, where Vallow Daybell’s fourth husband Charles Vallow was killed. Vallow Daybell faces a felony charge in Arizona for allegedly conspiring to kill Charles Vallow with her brother Alex Cox.

In Idaho, the Daybells are charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of 16-year-old Joshua Jaxon “JJ” Vallow and 7-year-old Tylee Ryan, along with three counts of conspiracy to commit murder. Vallow Daybell is accused of conspiring to kill Chad Daybell’s then-wife, Tammy Daybell.

Chad Daybell also faces a first-degree murder charge in Tammy Daybell’s death. Chad and Lori got married on a Hawaii beach two weeks after Tammy Daybell’s body was buried in a Utah cemetery, according to witnesses throughout the trial.

Authorities said they believe Cox — who died from natural causes — also conspired to kill JJ, Tylee and Tammy Daybell, according to the indictment filed by prosecution teams from Madison and Fremont counties.

The prosecution is expected to continue its direct examination of Rexburg Police Det. David Stubbs.

Check this story for live updates on Vallow Daybell’s trial.

2:30 p.m. — Cell phone records show Cox in Chad Daybell’s backyard on Sept. 9

Nick Ballance, who works with the FBI’s Cellular Analysis Survey Team, began testifying about cell phone records and how authorities used them to locate Cox on Sept. 9, 2019 — the day authorities said they believe Tylee was killed.

Ballance during his testimony clarified that cellphone towers can’t pinpoint someone’s exact location, but that data from a physical phone’s Google location services allow them to get a closer estimate of someone’s location. Cox had his location services turned on.

“I’m looking at the location of a phone, not the location of a person,” Ballance said, referring to the fact that cell records can’t tell them who was carrying a phone.

At 8:49 a.m. on Sept. 9, 2019, Google location data showed Cox’s cellphone at his Rexburg apartment. By 9:15 a.m. he was at Chad Daybell’s property, Ballance said during his testimony, using maps to show Cox traveling. The data also showed Cox just northwest of Vallow Daybell’s apartment around 2:30 a.m. before he returned to his apartment.

Cell records also showed texts and calls between the Daybells around 7:20 a.m. to 8:04 a.m., and then again from 8:15 a.m. to 9:06 a.m. Chad Daybell also had a three-minute phone call with Cox at 8:11 a.m.

The data then showed Cox’s cellphone around Chad Daybell’s backyard — which is where Tylee’s remains were found — at 10:39 a.m. and 10:57 a.m.

The prosecution is expected to continue its direct examination of Cox on Tuesday.

1 p.m. — ‘Missing you desperately,’ Vallow Daybell texts Chad Daybell

Federal Bureau of Investigations Analyst Nicole Heideman during her testimony showed that the Daybells visited six Latter-day Saints temples together before they were married. They also visited a temple together in Hawaii after they’d gotten married, Stubbs said during his testimony earlier in the day.

The trips began in November 2018, when the pair visited a temple in Gilbert, Arizona, and then a temple in Houston, Texas, in April 2019. The Daybells also made several trips to temples in Idaho: twice to a temple in Idaho Falls and twice to a temple in Rexburg.

But Vallow Daybell’s defense attorney, John Thomas, pushed back on the presentation and asked what the significance was of the Daybells’ visits to various Latter-day Saints temples.

“That’s up to interpretation,” Heideman said.

“I’m asking you to interpret it,” Thomas responded. He then asked her if she was trying to show that the temple visits in some way lined up with the dates of JJ, Tylee and Charles Vallow’s deaths.

Heideman said she doesn’t know what the Daybells spoke about in the temples and can only talk about the records. She pointed to the fact that one of the temple visits — a Sept. 7, 2019, trip to Idaho Falls — was just a day before Tylee was last seen.

Heideman also presented text messages that authorities had obtained records of messages between the Daybells on July 22, 2019 — 11 days after Charles Vallow had been killed.

In the text messages, Chad Daybell texted Lori that he loved her and was going to see a movie with his son. She responded, “Missing you desperately but so excited to be with you.”

11 a.m. — FBI analyst testifies about Daybells’ Google searches

Heideman reviewed search histories from the Daybells’ Gmail accounts and pointed out specific searches throughout her testimony that law enforcement flagged.

Vallow Daybell made two separate searches on Sept. 20, 2019 — two days before JJ was last seen — first looking for a phone number for a Rexburg elementary school and then searching for a definition of “possess.” JJ’s last day of school at Kennedy Elementary in Rexburg was Sept. 20, and by Sept. 24, Vallow Daybell sent an email to the school. She said she was removing JJ from school because he was being sent to Louisiana to live with his grandparents, according to testimony from the school’s principal.

The Daybells believed that JJ, along with others, was possessed by dark spirits, witnesses told the jury.

The searches also showed several references to malachite jewelry in March and June of 2019 — while both Chad and Lori Vallow Daybell were still married to their respective spouses, Heideman said. The Daybells wore malachite rings during their Hawaii wedding ceremony in November 2019, according to images and testimony presented throughout the jury trial.

Chad Daybell also searched in March 2019 for the compatibility between his and Vallow Daybell’s horoscope sign and then also searched for the compatibility between himself and Tammy Daybell, Heideman said during her testimony.

9:30 a.m. — Account linked to Vallow Daybell searched how to remove backseat of Jeep Wrangler

Stubbs said during his testimony that a Gmail account linked to Vallow Daybell searched and then watched a video on how to remove a rear seat from the back of a Jeep Wrangler on Sept. 30, 2019.

Stubbs reviewed hundreds of records from cellphones and accounts that belonged to the Daybells and Cox.

Police said they believed Cox attempted to shoot Brandon Boudreaux from the back of a grayish-green Jeep Wrangler on Oct. 2, 2019. Boudreaux during his testimony on April 10 said he was driving back from the gym when he noticed the Jeep outside his home, and that as he was driving up, he saw the back window open and “heard a bang.”

Charles Vallow purchased Tylee a Jeep Wrangler, according to testimony from witnesses, which included Boudreaux.

“It caught my attention because of the attempted shooting of Brandon Boudreaux — a couple of days later,” Stubbs said during his testimony.

Vallow Daybell’s defense attorney John Thomas asked Stubbs whether evidence on any of the accounts that he reviewed showed Vallow Daybell directly mentioning a plan to kill the children. Stubbs said no.