Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
IDAHO FALLS — Prosecutor Rob Wood said detective Ray Hermosillo came to visit him on Nov. 4, 2019, to get a warrant for a Jeep belonging to Tylee Ryan.
He said he would never forget Hermosillo asking if he wanted to hear a "crazy story" and looking at photos of Lori Daybell, Tylee Ryan, and other key players in what would become a case that would pull in people from around the country.
Most of the events Hermosillo knew about at that time happened in Arizona, but he soon got a request to check and see if JJ, a missing child of Lori Daybell, was in Rexburg, Idaho.
In interviews with EastIdahoNews.com, investigators and witnesses in the Daybell case spoke out about the investigation process and how strange the case seemed, almost immediately.
Chad Daybell was found guilty in May and given the death penalty for the murders of his wife, Tammy Daybell, and his new wife Lori Daybell's two children, Joshua "JJ" Vallow and Tylee Ryan. He was also found guilty of conspiring to murder each of the victims. Lori Daybell was found guilty in a trial last year and was given five sentences of life in prison.
Proceeding with hope
Doug Hart, who was with the FBI during the investigation, said on Nov. 27, 2019, he received a call. He said agents were concerned because they could not figure out where the two children were.
Hart said he had no concept of the case he was getting into, but he followed the protocol for working with local police by immediately opening a kidnapping case and interviewing people. He said they had to believe the children were alive at that point, which gave a sense of urgency and responsibility.
"In most situations, you have to proceed with that hope and as if they are alive until proven otherwise," Hart said.
When he spoke with Lori Daybell's brother Alex Cox, Hermosillo said he already knew what Cox was accused of in Arizona, including shooting and killing Lori Daybell's then-husband Charles Vallow.
"It was a weird feeling talking with Alex, and I remember thinking and looking at him, and he was just staring — he had that thousand-yard stare that made me feel uncomfortable. And when I was talking to him, he would keep taking a couple of steps toward me … and I'd take a couple steps back," Hermosillo said.
Hermosillo said he had heard in recordings that he was labeled as "dark," and he was worried and warned his family to be careful.
When he heard Cox had died, Hermosillo said he had a sense of relief but he also thought, "How can this get any crazier?"
When he traveled to Hawaii hoping to arrest Lori Daybell, Hermosillo said it was odd to see her and Chad Daybell "just enjoying life."
Hermosillo said Chad and Lori Daybell would speak on the phone "multiple times a day, for hours on end" from when she was arrested until he was arrested. He said they sounded like junior high school students — "a bunch of silly nonsense" — but officers had to listen in case something important was said.
After Chad Daybell was arrested, however, Hermosillo said he called his children, not Lori Daybell.
In their efforts to verify when Tylee and JJ were last alive, Hart said investigators had no idea if Tylee had left Yellowstone National Park, where the last photo of her was taken. He said they had coordinated with park authorities to arrange a massive search before the park opened for the next season.
"Fortunately, we didn't have to do that, but it's a great demonstration of the complexity of this case," he said.
Part of Hart's investigation was Lori Daybell's iCloud account, and he said going through the digital records was "a painstaking process," but it played an important part in the case.
Finding the bodies
Hermosillo said when law enforcement first served the warrant to Chad Daybell, he read it and had very little response, making Hermosillo think they were looking in the wrong spot. However, he said when Chad Daybell went outside, made a phone call and started looking toward the backyard, he thought they may have the right place.
When they found JJ's body, it was emotional for the investigators.
"You felt a lot of different emotion: You felt anger, you felt relief, confusion … but then you have to bury that and still work and still get him out of the ground and still continue throughout the day," Hermosillo said.
Wood said it was on that day he started thinking about his arguments for the jury trial.
When the bodies were found, Hart said his heart broke, and there was both "tremendous sadness" and a sense of duty.
He said the search of Chad Daybell's property was the culmination of months of effort — connecting location data from Alex Cox with the last known sighting of Tylee and JJ and information found in Lori and Chad Daybell's electronic accounts. Referring to a text about "burying a raccoon" that helped lead them to Chad Dabyell's backyard, Hart said: "You can't just do a keyword search … no keyword would have caught that."
Hart said he believes, initially, the plan was probably to burn Tylee's body to bury the evidence, but they didn't realize how much heat and time that would take. Dismembering her body and burying the parts, he estimates, was a Plan B.
"The first experience was a catastrophe for them, and so they did it differently the second time," he said, talking about JJ's burial.
Lasting sorrow, and relationships
Hermosillo and Wood both said they felt "jetlagged" after the eight-week trial for Chad Daybell.
Wood said during the last four and a half years, this case has been in the forefront of his mind each day.
Hart said cases like this "tear your heart out," but the cases that add the most to his baggage and require the most are the ones where bonds are formed.
"When you look back, those bonds that you've forged with the people that were shoulder to shoulder with you in bringing the case to a conclusion, those are meaningful. The harder the case, the more meaningful those associations become," he said.
Watch the interviews below:
