BOISE, Idaho ā An FBI agent who specializes in analyzing cell phone records testified Monday in the Chad Daybell murder trial about the location of phones that helped the investigation.
Nicholas Ballance said the children were discovered after the bodies of 7-year-old Joshua āJJā Vallow and his sister, 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, were found in Chad Daybell's backyard. He said they analyzed equipment found near where the body was found shortly after the incident. Last seen.
He used which base station the phone was connected to to determine the phone's location.
Investigation into Tyree's death
Tylee Ryan was last photographed on September 8, 2019, during a family trip to Yellowstone. Since that day, friends of Lori Vallow Daybell have testified that they thought she lived and attended Idaho State University, but someone from the University of Idaho said the school was not her school. He testified that he did not even receive an application for admission to the school.
The cell phone of Alex Cox, Lori Daybell's brother and the children's uncle, was in her Rexburg apartment from 2:42 a.m. to 3:47 a.m. that day, and then at 4:37 a.m. I returned to his apartment in the housing complex.
Around 9:15 a.m., deputies said Cox was located just south of Chad Daybell's home in Salem, Idaho. The two children were found buried in the backyard several months later.
Ballance said the phone was in a location “very similar” to where Tyree's body was found between 9:15 a.m. and 10:57 a.m. At one point, Cox's phone was He noted that it was located near a gate that allows vehicles to enter the property. He said reports showing the location of Cox's cellphone at the back of the house were within the range of 3 to 8 meters.
Read the full story on the Chad Daybell case
At approximately 11:45 a.m., Cox left Chad Daybell's property. At the same time, Chad Daybell's phone called Lori Daybell's phone, which was located near his home, from near his home.
He said he was just getting a record of where the phone was at a particular time. “I'm not finding people, I'm finding devices,” Ballance said.
FBI agents also spoke about communications between Chad and Lori Daybell, telling jurors that the two communicated on a “fairly regular basis.” On the morning of September 9, 2019, multiple text messages were sent between the two starting at 7:20 a.m., and at 8:03 a.m., Lori Daybell (who was near her home at the time) called Chad Daybell. There was one phone call. They talked for a little over two minutes.
Using location information from a text message received on Chad Daybell's cell phone, Ballance was able to determine that Daybell was at his home around 9:30 a.m. that day.
Shortly after noon, both Chad Daybell and Cox's phones were located around Lori Daybell and Cox's home.
Investigation into JJ's death
JJ's last photo was taken on September 22, 2019, and friends who were staying at Lori Daybell's house said they saw the boy that day, but he was gone the next morning. Ballance said he was asked to investigate the whereabouts of Chad Daybell, Lori Daybell and Alex Cox.
Starting at 3:59 a.m. on September 23, 2019, Chad Daybell sent multiple text messages to Lori Daybell and received one text message in response.
Ballance said Cox was at his Rexburg apartment that morning from 9:01 a.m. to 9:41 a.m. At 9:25 a.m., Chad Daybell called Cox from his home. He made a call, but the call lasted less than a minute. Cox's phone was then moved to Chad Daybell's property, where it remained from 9:55 a.m. to 10:12 a.m. He returned to his Rexburg apartment around 10:20 a.m.
At 10:13 a.m. that morning, Cox called Lori Daybell.
Deputies said some of his locations were very close to where JJ's body was found.
During the same time period, Chad Daybell again communicated with Lori Daybell from his property multiple times between 9:30 a.m. and 10:27 a.m., Ballance said.
inconsistent story
Hannah Parker, whose mother was Tammy Daybell's cousin, said she went to see Daybell before her funeral and heard Chad Daybell tell her many different stories about his wife's death. Once when she crossed the line with her father, and once with her mother.
Neither story matched what Chad Daybell told the police officers and medical examiner who responded to his wife's death.
As Chad Daybell talked with her father, Parker said Tammy Daybell vomited around 10 p.m. that night and decided to go to bed, and when she went to bed at 1 a.m. she passed out and got cold. He testified that he told him that he had found him.
In a conversation with his mother, Chad Daybell said his wife had been coughing all day and he was worried about her, so he went to bed with her, but he woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of her falling out of bed. That's what it means.
When Parker's mother testified Monday, she didn't remember being told the specific time Chad Daybell learned of his wife's death, but she said she woke up when she fell out of bed. , said that that's when he realized his wife had died.
Parker said she noticed the discrepancy and was confused. She also said he wasn't acting like someone who had just lost his wife.
“I expected someone who had just lost a partner to be a little more distraught. And he was more calm than I expected,” Parker said.
His mother, Patricia Leiter, spoke emotionally about his relationship with Tammy Daybell. She said they grew up together and are like sisters. When she heard of Mr. Daybell's death, she said she didn't understand.
“She was very young and healthy,” Leiter said.
She said Chad Daybell sometimes cried when others cried, but mostly he was just hanging out, and felt he “should have been sadder”.
He later said that during the funeral he said some things to his wife that he felt were not nice. She said he brought up her depression in front of a group of people and told her that she was not easy to live with and that she was lazy.
At his funeral, Chad Daybell's reaction was observed when his children talked about helping their mother hide things from their father, such as bringing home pets or playing video games. He spoke later. She said he looked worried at first, but then started laughing off the comment.
Chad Daybell is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of his wife, JJ and Tylee. He is also charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, grand theft, and two counts of insurance fraud against each victim.
Lori Daybell was found guilty of murdering her children and conspiring to kill Tammy Daybell after a jury trial last year. She currently faces two counts of conspiracy in Arizona to commit murder in connection with the death of her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, and to attempt on the life of her ex-girlfriend's nephew-in-law, Brandon Boudreau.
Due to Boise court staffing constraints, the trial will not be held Tuesday, but testimony is scheduled to resume Wednesday morning.