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The grandfather of one of cult mom Lori Vallow’s children says he wants her husband, Chad Daybell, to face a firing squad if he is convicted of murder in Idaho.
Larry Woodcock, the grandfather of JJ Vallow, called for the death penalty during a heartbreaking interview Tuesday on NewsNation’s Banfield program.
When asked if that was the method he would like Daybell to face if he was found guilty and sentenced to death, a smiling Woodcock replied: ‘Absolutely.’
Last month, Republican Gov. Brad Little signed a bill allowing execution by firing squad, making Idaho the latest state to turn to older methods of capital punishment amid a nationwide shortage of lethal-injection drugs.
Vallow and Daybell have pleaded not guilty to murder, conspiracy and grand theft charges in connection with the deaths of her children, Joshua Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, who was last seen a few days before her 17th birthday. They are also charged in connection with the death of Daybell’s late wife, Tammy Daybell.
The case is now in the jury selection phase. In March, the judge in the case ruled that the death penalty was not on the table for Vallow but that Daybell could still face that fate.
Lori Vallow in a courtroom in Hawaii on February 26, 2020, after her arrest
Chad Daybell (left) sits in a courtroom alongside his attorney on August 4, 2020
Vallow is accused of killing her kids, seven-year-old Joshua (JJ) and sixteen-year-old Tylee
The new law passed in the legislature on March 20 with a veto-proof majority. Under it, firing squads will be used only if the state cannot obtain the drugs needed for lethal injections.
Pharmaceutical companies increasingly have barred executioners from using their drugs, saying they were meant to save lives. One Idaho death row inmate has already had his execution postponed repeatedly because of drug scarcity.
The shortage has prompted other states in recent years to revive older methods of execution. Only Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma and South Carolina have laws allowing firing squads if other execution methods are unavailable, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
South Carolina’s law is on hold pending the outcome of a legal challenge.
During their NewsNation interview, Woodcock and his wife, Kay, said that they still have not been told if they are permitted to be inside the courtroom in Boise before they are due to testify in the trial.
Vallow’s defense team is fighting to keep them out of the court, arguing that they aren’t officially the children’s grandparents. The judge has yet to rule on the defense’s request.
That has left the couple feeling ‘powerless,’ Kay Woodcock said.
The couple are also accused of killing Daybell’s ex-wife, Tammy Daybell, who died in 2019
Lori Vallow Daybell grins in a police car after a hearing at the Fremont County Courthouse in St. Anthony, Idaho, on August 16, 2022
Lori with her daughter Tylee, who she accused of murdering along with her young son
It was earlier reported that Larry and Kay Woodcock of Louisiana, were increasingly worried about the kids in 2019.
For the first half of the year, Lori Vallow was still married to JJ’s father, Charles Vallow, but the two were estranged and he had filed for divorce.
Formal voire dire questioning of prospective jurors, who have all completed questionnaires, got underway in Ada County Courthouse, Boise, Monday morning and is likely to take several days.
The proceedings have already been delayed more than a year as Vallow was initially ruled ‘incompetent’ to stand trial and placed in the custody of Idaho Department of Health and Welfare for 10 months.
Vallow’s lawyers still contend that she is a ‘mentally ill person’ and said so when they argued for the death penalty to be taken off the table earlier this month.
Ultimately Judge Steven Boyce removed the threat, not because of that argument, but on a technicality. Prosecutors failed to meet the deadline by which they had to share evidence with the defense.
Police looking for human remains at the home of Chad Daybell in Salem, Idaho, in 2020
Prosecutors say the couple used doomsday-focused religious beliefs to further a plan to kill the kids and Tammy Daybell, and that it was part of a plot to steal social security funds and insurance money.
Idaho law enforcement officers started investigating the couple in November 2019 after extended family members reported that the children were missing.
During that period, police say the couple lied about the children’s whereabouts. Their bodies were found buried later on Chad Daybell’s property in rural Idaho.
The couple married just two weeks after Chad Daybell’s previous wife, Tammy Daybell, died unexpectedly.
Tammy Daybell’s death was initially reported as due to natural causes, but investigators had her body exhumed after growing suspicious when Chad Daybell quickly remarried.
Vallow is separately charged with conspiracy to commit murder in Arizona in connection with the July 2019 death of her previous husband, Charles Vallow.
He was shot and killed by Vallow’s brother, Alex Cox, who claimed it was self-defense.
The Arizona legal proceedings are on hold while the Idaho case is underway.
Vallow claimed to be a deity, her estranged husband wrote in divorce papers. She called the children ‘zombies’ before they vanished, a friend told police. A handful of followers seemed to buy into her doomsday claims, Arizona investigators reported.
Following her divorce from Charles Vallow, she moved the family to eastern Idaho, and JJ’s grandparents struggled to reach him by phone. The Woodcocks said Vallow wouldn’t tell them why their grandson was constantly unavailable. They grew suspicious and called the police.
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Rexburg police performed a welfare check in November of 2019, and said the couple lied about the children’s whereabouts.
When police returned the next day, the couple had left town.
Police determined Tylee Ryan was last seen in September headed into Yellowstone National Park with her mom and other family for a day trip, and JJ was last seen by school officials several days later.
The search spanned several states and continued until June 2020, when the children’s bodies were found buried in the yard of Daybell’s eastern Idaho home.
Several family members and friends described to detectives a group led by Lori and Chad that met to pray, believing that they could drive out evil spirits and seek revelations from ‘beyond the spiritual veil.’
Though the beliefs Vallow’s friends described to detectives were loosely based in theology from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they veered into the extreme.
