Day 7: Rexburg police detective testimony in Vallow Daybell trial to continue

Find live updates on Day 8 of the trial here.

Editor’s note: This story contains graphic language about the deaths of children.

Brandon Boudreaux on Monday said the Rexburg Police Department asked him to identify Joshua Jaxon “JJ” Vallow’s body. Lori Vallow Daybell’s 7-year-old son was found in a shallow grave on her husband Chad Daybell’s property wrapped in garbage bags and duct tape.

“It’s a pretty overwhelming task to do,” Boudreaux, the uncle of JJ and Tylee, said to the courtroom Monday about identifying JJ. Vallow Daybell’s 16-year-old daughter, Tylee Ryan, was also found on Chad Daybell’s property in what the prosecution called a “mass of bone and tissue.”

On Tuesday the courtroom is expected to hear from Rexburg Police Det. Ray Hermosillo — who was on the scene in June 2020 when JJ and Tylee’s bodies were found.

While Hermosillo has testified before, this is the first time public testimony from the 22-year veteran of the Rexburg Police Department will be used as evidence for Vallow Daybell’s case.

Hermosillo initially testified during an August 2020 preliminary hearing in Chad Daybell’s case — before the murder charges — when he faced two felony counts of concealment, destruction or alteration of evidence and two felony counts related to conspiracy.

An 18-person jury — 12 jurors and six alternates — will decide whether Vallow Daybell is guilty of the first-degree murders of her two children. Vallow Daybell is also charged with three counts of conspiring to commit murder in her children’s deaths and the death of Tammy Daybell. Vallow Daybell later married Tammy Daybell’s husband, Chad Daybell.

Chad Daybell — whose trial date has not been set — is also charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the children’s deaths. He is accused of the first-degree murder of Tammy Daybell. The Daybells have pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Vallow Daybell also faces a charge of conspiring to commit first-degree murder in the death of her former husband, Charles Vallow, in Arizona.

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

3:30 p.m. — Defense begins cross-examination

Vallow Daybell’s attorney John Thomas began to cross-examine Hermosillo on Tuesday afternoon, asking him to clarify various details from his hours-long testimony.

Hermosillo said the Rexburg Police Department surveilled the Daybells over the course of two weeks, after they first made contact with the Gilbert Police Department in Arizona.

Thomas asked Hermosillo whether authorities performed any surveillance on Chad Daybell’s property — where the children’s bodies were located. Hermosillo said they didn’t. Hermosillo also said, after being asked by Thomas, that the officers didn’t record their initial conversation with Chad Daybell and Alex Cox with body cameras or audio recordings.

Thomas asked Hermosillo to reiterate Vallow Daybell’s location when Tammy Daybell died. Vallow Daybell was in Hawaii on the day Tammy Daybell died.

“So she wasn’t anywhere near Tammy Daybell when Tammy Daybell died?” Thomas said.

“That’s correct,” Hermosillo responded.

After a lengthy 7-hour day, Hermosillo is expected to return to the Ada County Courthouse on Wednesday, and Thomas will continue cross-examination.

2:30 p.m. — ‘A little boy in red pajamas’

The last known photo of JJ showed him wearing red pajamas on Sept. 22, 2019.

That is what he was wearing when Ada County Medical Examiner Garth Warren performed an autopsy on the high-energy seven-year-old boy with a goofy smile, Hermosillo said during his testimony Tuesday

“I saw a little boy in red pajamas,” Hermosillo said describing the autopsy of JJ. “He had a white plastic bag around his head.”

Warren removed the black garbage bag from JJ’s body, Hermosillo said.

But, the boy was still not identifiable because of the layers of duct tape across his face. Hermosillo said he had a strip of duct tape from “jawline to jawline.” JJ’s hands and feet were also bound with duct tape.

After Warren removed the duct tape and a white garbage bag — which had a red drawstring and is commonly used in a kitchen trashcan — from JJ’s head, Hermosillo said, they were able to identify him.

“It was easy to identify that little boy as the one we had been looking for,” Hermosillo said.

2 p.m. — Vallow Daybell asks to be excused from testimony

After officials located JJ’s body, they began searching the pet cemetery on Chad Daybell’s property. Hermosillo said they began excavating an area where they located charred flesh and pieces of bones.

Those pieces would later be identified as the remains of Tylee.

The hours-long process was tedious and slow, since officials weren’t able to dig for more than a few minutes before needing to switch out because of the smell, Hermosillo said. He added that they used paintbrushes, towels, and their gloved hands to pull out pieces of bones and flesh without damaging the evidence.

Hermosillo said that most of the remains were inside a melted green Platt bucket, and they found a partial human skull underneath.

“There were three or four of us that attempted to lift it out, but it broke,” Hermosillo said about Tylee’s skull.

Officials weren’t able to finish the excavation process on June 9, 2020, and the process continued into the next day. Both Tylee and JJ’s remains were taken to the Ada County Coroner’s Office.

In the middle of Hermosillo’s testimony, before images of Tylee’s remains were presented to the jury, Vallow Daybell’s attorney Jim Archibald motioned the court to allow Vallow Daybell to be excused from the remainder of Hermosillo’s testimony.

Vallow Daybell’s defense team, the prosecution, judge and other members of the court were behind closed doors discussing the motion for over 30 minutes. When Vallow Daybell returned to the courtroom, she looked like she’d been crying and was holding a tissue in one hand.

“It was emotional this morning,” Archibald said, but 7th District Judge Steven Boyce denied the request.

11:30 a.m. — Hermosillo details location of JJ

It was early on June 9, 2020, when the Rexburg Police Department along with state and national authorities knocked on Chad Daybell’s door in Salem, Idaho, Hermosillo said during his testimony Tuesday.

One of Chad Daybell’s children opened the door — a bowl of cereal in hand — and informed the officials that his father was still sleeping. Hermosillo said they woke up Chad Daybell and handed him the search warrant.

Hermosillo said as officials began to search the property, they “located an area of concern” because there was longer grass in the surrounding areas, and the FBI’s evidence recovery team began to excavate the soil. In photos presented to the jury Tuesday to show the excavation process, a near-perfect square of dirt was shown where authorities had removed the topsoil.

As authorities, including Hermosillo, began to dig, they noticed three large rocks and underneath them “thin wood paneling.” Hermosillo said that as soon as officials removed the topsoil, they began to smell the scent of a decomposing body.

Hermosillo said that once they removed the paneling, they were able to see a portion of a black garbage bag, which he said looked like “the crown of a head sticking out of the dirt.”

After officials cut open part of the black plastic bag, they saw brown human hair — which would later be identified as JJ.

As officials were unearthing JJ’s body, Chad Daybell attempted to leave the area at a “high rate of speed,” Hermosillo said, and Chad Daybell was pulled over by police and arrested.

10 a.m. — Police locate survival items, gun, ammo in garage

On Nov. 27, 2019, the Rexburg Police Department obtained warrants to search the apartments of Vallow Daybell, Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox, and her niece Melani Pawlowski.

Inside Vallow Daybell’s apartment, Hermosillo said, they located dishes in the sink, food in the kitchen and “everything that looked like someone had lived there,” except there were no clothes in the closet.

“There was nothing in that closest other than empty hangers,” Hermosillo said.

Hermosillo said authorities also found toys, a risperidone prescription for JJ and a Star Wars suitcase. Brandon Boudreaux, the uncle of JJ and Tylee, on Monday said JJ loved suitcases.

Authorities also searched Cox and Pawlowski’s apartments, which were in the same apartment complex. Nobody was located in any of the apartments.

Police located several firearms, silencers, ammunition, knives, duct tape and rope inside Vallow Daybell’s garage. They found ghillie suits typically used for camouflage and survival preparedness items, like a bag, which Hermosillo called a 72-hour bag, with water, flares and MREs.

The Daybells, who were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had extremist beliefs that the world was going to end in July 2020, and that Vallow Daybell was one of the 144,000 people — which is a reference to the Book of Revelations — who would be saved during the second coming of God.

Hermosillo said police then contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigations and began trying to get ahold of members of the Daybells’ families. Hermosillo said they spoke to Vallow Daybell’s eldest son, Colby Ryan, who mentioned that he also hadn’t heard from his sister, Tylee.

“Our search of JJ also started to encompass Tylee Ryan, as well,” Hermosillo said.

The Rexburg Police Department then began to look into the death of Tammy Daybell and publicized the case through a news release, which caused the disappearance of Tylee and JJ to garner national attention.

On Jan. 25, 2020, Hermosillo said, they located the Daybells in Hawaii and served Vallow Daybell with an order to bring her children to the Rexburg Police Department or the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. Hermosillo said police were able to locate Vallow Daybell through cellphone records and tips they received from a hotline authorities set up.

“Did you see anything that might indicate minor children had been living there?” Wood asked Hermosillo about the Daybells’ home in Hawaii.

“No,” Hermosillo responded.

9 a.m. — Rexburg police asked to surveil Daybell home

The Rexburg Police Department first became aware of the Daybells on Nov. 1, 2019. Authorities in Gilbert, Arizona, notified Rexburg police that a Jeep Wrangler in Idaho may have been involved in the attempted homicide — the shooting of Brandon Boudreaux.

Hermosillo in his testimony said the Gilbert Police Department asked officers to seize the vehicle if they located it and to perform “intermittent surveillance” on the Daybell’s Rexburg apartment. Hermosillo said they saw Chad and Lori Vallow Daybell, but they never saw Tylee or JJ.

“Is it fair to say — at that time — you weren’t looking for children?” Madison County Prosecuting Attorney Rob Wood asked Hermosillo.

“Yes,” he responded. At that point, the Rexburg Police Department hadn’t been notified of Tylee and JJ, and he said it wasn’t until Nov. 18 that they’d hear about the children.

JJ’s biological grandparents, the Woodocks — Kay and Larry — began contacting authorities after they hadn’t heard from JJ for a while and were concerned. After authorities checked with friends in Arizona to see if JJ was there and were unable to locate him, Rexburg police performed a welfare check at Vallow Daybell’s Rexburg apartment on Nov. 26, 2019.

Hermosillo said he and another detective, Dave Hope, located Cox, Vallow Daybell’s brother, and Chad Daybell outside the garage of Vallow Daybell’s Rexburg apartment unloading a pickup truck. Cox told Hermosillo, when asked, that Vallow Daybell wasn’t home. When Hermosillo asked where JJ was, Cox got a “blank look on his face,” he said.

Cox then looked over at Chad Daybell, Hermosillo told the jury, before eventually saying that JJ was with the Woodcocks. But Hermosillo said he knew that wasn’t likely because the Woodcocks were the ones looking for JJ.

“It raised some red flags,” Hermosillo said in his testimony.

Hermosillo later that day asked Chad Daybell if had Vallow Daybell’s phone number and asked about their relationship, he said, and Chad Daybell told him that he’d only met her a couple of times.

Hermosillo during his testimony told Wood that he believed Chad Daybell was lying, since officials knew Chad and Lori Vallow Daybell had recently gotten married.

“But he said he hardly knew her?” Wood clarified.

“That’s correct,” Hermosillo said.