Jury selection continues in Daybell Trial
BOISE, Idaho (KIFI) - Jury selection continued Tuesday in the Chad Daybell trial and ended shortly after 1 p.m. for the day. It will proceed Wednesday morning at approximately 9 a.m.
Daybell is charged with the deaths of his former wife and two of his current wife's children.
Jury selection began Monday with District Judge Boyce reading the charges to potential jurors and telling them it is up to the prosecutors to prove the charges against Daybell. Daybell does not need to prove his innocence.
The 55-year-old self-published author is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Tammy Daybell, 7-year-old Joshua "JJ" Vallow and JJ's big sister, Tylee Ryan, who was last seen a few days before her 17th birthday.
The children’s mother, Lori Vallow Daybell — who married Chad Daybell shortly after the deaths — was found guilty last year and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
The couple claimed they could tell if people had been possessed by dark spirits that could turn them into “zombies,” former friend Melanie Gibb testified in court. They believed the only way to get rid of a zombie was to destroy the possessed person’s body by killing them.
The children’s bodies were found buried in Chad Daybell’s eastern Idaho yard in the summer of 2020.
Daybell also is charged with insurance fraud in connection with Tammy Daybell's death and two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and grand theft by deception in the children's deaths.
If convicted, he could face the death penalty.
