Episode Details

Day thirteen of Chad Daybell’s trial focused heavily on cellphone-location evidence and the increasingly inconsistent accounts Chad gave about Tammy Daybell’s death. FBI cellular analyst Nick Ballance walked jurors through the movements of Alex Cox’s phone on September 9, 2019, the day after Tylee Ryan was last seen alive, showing Cox’s device traveling to Chad’s property and remaining near the area where Tylee’s remains were later discovered. Ballance also testified that Cox’s phone returned to the property on September 23, the morning after JJ Vallow was last seen alive, and was detected near the area where JJ’s body was eventually found. At the same time, Chad’s phone showed repeated calls and texts with Lori and contacts with Alex, giving prosecutors a timeline they argued linked all three together around the children’s disappearances. Later, Tammy’s relatives Hannah Munoz and Patricia Later testified about Chad’s demeanor after Tammy died and the differing versions he gave them about what had happened during the night. Hannah said Chad first told her Tammy had been coughing and vomiting and that he later found her on the floor after she rolled out of bed, but she heard another version only hours later that differed in important details. Patricia described Tammy as young and healthy and said Chad appeared less distraught than she expected, while also recalling that he publicly described Tammy at her funeral as difficult to live with, lazy and depressed.

Day fourteen brought some of the strongest medical testimony of the trial when former Utah Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Erik Christensen told jurors that Tammy Daybell died from asphyxia and that her manner of death was homicide. Christensen testified that Tammy’s heart and other major organs were generally normal, toxicology did not reveal a substance capable of explaining her death, and he found no evidence supporting seizures or a fatal heart arrhythmia. He also documented multiple bruises on Tammy’s arms and chest that had occurred shortly before her death and said those injuries could have been consistent with someone restraining her while she was suffocated. Neighbors Alice and Todd Gilbert then testified that Chad had predicted months earlier that Tammy’s “life mission” would end before her 50th birthday, appeared unusually businesslike after her death, and told them only days after the funeral that he had found the woman he intended to marry. They also recalled Chad saying Lori had a daughter who had recently died even though Tylee was still officially missing, and said Chad later asked them to put up their home to help bond Lori out of jail. Tammy’s co-worker Janice Olson reinforced testimony that Tammy had been active and healthy immediately before her death, while insurance broker Taylor Ballard testified that Chad discussed adding a future wife to insurance coverage shortly after Tammy died and later raised concerns that Tammy’s life-insurance payout might have been fraudulent.


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