News
Chad Daybell found guilty of murder in deaths of two kids and ex-wife
An Idaho doomsday author who prosecutors say became obsessed with apocalyptic beliefs and labeled people as “zombies” and “dark spirits” was found guilty Thursday in the deaths of his ex-wife and his current wife’s two youngest children.
The verdict concludes Chad Daybell’s nearly two-month trial in the deaths of his ex-wife, Tammy Daybell, and Joshua “JJ” Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16.
Daybell, wearing a blue-collared shirt and yellow tie, stood stoically as the jury found him guilty of all counts against him including insurance fraud.
The children’s remains were found in June 2020 on Daybell’s property in Fremont County, Idaho. Police said they believed Daybell hid the remains between September 2019 and June 2020.
Tammy Daybell died in 2019, weeks before Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow married. Her death was initially considered to be natural causes, but her remains were later exhumed. Following an autopsy, her death was determined to be a homicide by asphyxiation.
Daybell, along with Vallow, were indicted in 2021 on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and grand theft by deception in the children’s deaths.
They were also charged with insurance fraud and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in connection with Tammy’s death. In addition, Chad Daybell was charged with first-degree murder in her death.
Vallow was convicted in May and received multiple life sentences in prison without the possibility of parole.
Zombies, dark spirits and mysterious deaths
The case began in 2019 after several concerned family members told Rexburg police that they had not seen or talked to Joshua and Tylee. Police formally started looking for the children that November.
Authorities had accused Daybell and Vallow of failing to cooperate with the investigation into the children’s disappearance and lying to police about their whereabouts. They had initially told officers that Joshua, who was adopted and had special needs, was in Arizona with a family friend, but police determined it was a lie.
The couple abruptly left Rexburg and went to Hawaii. In February 2020, Vallow was taken into custody by police in Hawaii after she failed to produce the children to authorities in Idaho.
As the investigation into the children’s whereabouts continued, police uncovered a trail of mysterious deaths connected to the couple.
Vallow’s fourth husband, Charles Vallow, was fatally shot in July 2019 by her brother, Alex Cox. Five months later, Cox died from a pulmonary embolism, a condition that causes one or more arteries to become blocked by a blood clot. (Lori Vallow and her brother had initially said that Charles Vallow was shot in self-defense. Lori Vallow was later charged in Arizona, where she and Charles lived, with conspiracy to commit murder in the first degree. Cox was never charged.)
In October 2019, Daybell’s ex-wife, Tammy Daybell, was found dead of what was believed to be natural causes at the time.
Chad Daybell and Vallow married two weeks after Tammy’s funeral, NBC affiliate KSL of Salt Lake City reported. In December 2019, investigators exhumed Tammy’s body and conducted an autopsy that ruled her death a homicide.
In opening statements in Chad Daybell’s murder trial, prosecutors said that Lori Vallow and Daybell, a self-published author of more than two dozen books about doomsday and near-death events, had become obsessed with apocalyptic beliefs and labeled people who stood in the way of their dreams as “zombies” and “dark spirits.”
“You’ll hear in the world Chad and Lori planned for themselves, they identified those who stood in the way of their dream as dark,” Madison County Prosecutor Rob Wood said.
“Their spouses, Lori’s own children and anyone who opposed them were labeled sometimes as dark spirits or even zombies,” he added.
Vallow’s niece, Melani Pawlowski, testified that the couple believed people could be possessed by evil spirits and that “zombies” would eventually be overcome by a dark spirit and die.
Prosecuting Attorney Lindsey Blake reiterated Wood’s remarks, insinuating in closing arguments Wednesday that Daybell was the mastermind behind the couple’s scheme and decided who was “dark.”
“Chad has the answers, Chad has the knowledge, Chad has that special ability,” she said.
Once he deemed a person dark, they had to be killed, she said.
Children’s remains found in pet cemetery and fire pit
Rexburg Police Detective Ray Hermosillo testified at Daybell’s trial about the moment officers found the children’s remains.
Court documents revealed that Joshua had been buried in a pet cemetery on the property and Tylee had been dismembered and burned in a fire pit.
“There were taller shrubs. In the middle of the 6-by-6 section, it looked like there was just a little bit of grass,” Hermosillo said about law enforcement discovering Joshua’s remains under a tree.
“The ERT team began excavating that site. They removed the top layer of soil. … At that point, you could see what appeared to be three large white rocks,” he told the jury. “As soon as they did that you could start to smell the odor, through my training experiences a decomposing body.”
The detective said officials found a “small body wrapped in black plastic with duct tape around it.”
Hermosillo told the court that Daybell tried to flee “as soon as that was discovered.”
Dr. Garth Warren with the Ada County Coroner’s Office testified that “Tylee was received in multiple” body bags.
One body bag had smaller bags inside that contained “multiple collections of soft tissue, bone and debris including dirt and rock,” he said. The second body bag contained pieces of a “melted green bucket” and a “collection of human remains” and organs including the heart and lungs, he told jurors.
“This isn’t what heart and lungs typically look like,” he said as jurors were shown photos. “They’re obviously charred, portions of them are burned away and significantly shrunken as well.”
In the third bag was a portion of a “blackened and charred” skull, Warren said, as well as a portion of a jaw with “partially charred” teeth. The remains were identified as Tylee’s through dental X-rays, he said.
Daybell’s children come to his defense
Daybell’s son and daughter testified in his defense, telling the court that he “valued” their mother, Tammy Daybell, and was distraught over her death.
“He was more distressed than I ever seen him in my entire life,” his daughter, Emma Murray, told the court. “I was used to my parents being in control and in charge and seeing him so distressed and emotionally out of control was very scary to me. I didn’t doubt his grief at all.”
Murray said her mother had some health issues and would bruise easily. Before her death, her mother had been working on becoming more physically fit, Murray said.
At the trial, Murray was questioned about Joshua and Tylee. She told the court that when she asked her father where the children were, he told her that they were in a “safe place.”
Garth Daybell said his mother would “collapse” after coming home from work, had a hard time moving heavy items and had “fainting spells.” On the day of her death, he said he did not hear any sounds of a struggle or fight.
One observer of the current Senate race in Louisiana noted that Sen. Bill Cassidy could lose his reelection bid.
Annie Flanagan for NPR
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Annie Flanagan for NPR
Sen. Bill Cassidy lost Saturday’s Louisiana Republican primary according to a race call by the Associated Press.
Cassidy, who served two terms in the Senate, was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict President Trump after the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol. That vote put him at odds with Trump and his MAGA coalition, ultimately leading Trump to push Rep. Julia Letlow to run against Cassidy.
Cassidy’s bid for a third term was viewed as a test of Trump’s grip on the party–and of what voters want from their representatives in Washington. The primary pitted Cassidy, a veteran lawmaker, former physician and chair of the powerful Senate health committee, against Letlow, a political newcomer and a millennial MAGA loyalist.
A detailed view of a hat that reads, Run Julia Run, is seen at a campaign event for Rep. Julia Letlow (R-LA) on May 6, 2026 in Franklinton, Louisiana.
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A former college administrator, Letlow won a special election in 2021 for the House seat her late husband, Luke, was set to assume before he died from COVID in 2020.
In Congress, Letlow sponsored a bill to collect oral histories from the pandemic and has focused on education and children. She introduced the “Parents Bill of Rights Act,” which would allow parents to review classroom materials like library books and require schools to notify parents if their child requests different pronouns, locker rooms or sports teams.
She also serves on the powerful appropriations committee and has embraced Trump’s agenda.
Letlow, who came first in Saturday’s primary, will face Louisiana state Treasurer John Fleming in the runoff on June 27. Cassidy came in third.
The election result is a victory for President Trump who has put Republican loyalty to the test on the ballot so far this year in Indiana state senate primaries and in Cassidy’s race.
Another major test of Trump’s influence comes in Kentucky’s primary on Tuesday when Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, who has found himself at odds with the president, faces a challenger endorsed by Trump.
News
Brass bands in Beijing make way for sticker shock at home as Trump returns to escalating inflation
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump returned from the spectacle of a Chinese state visit to a less than welcoming U.S. economy — with the military band and garden tour in Beijing giving way to pressure over how to fix America’s escalating inflation rate.
Consumer inflation in the United States increased to 3.8% annually in April, higher than what he inherited as the Iran war and the Republican president’s own tariffs have pushed up prices. Inflation is now outpacing wage gains and effectively making workers poorer. The Cleveland Federal Reserve estimates that annual inflation could reach 4.2% in May as the war has kept oil and gasoline prices high.
Trump’s time with Chinese leader Xi Jinping appears unlikely to help the U.S. economy much, despite Trump’s claims of coming trade deals. The trip occurred as many people are voting in primaries leading into the November general election while having to absorb the rising costs of gasoline, groceries, utility bills, jewelry, women’s clothing, airplane tickets and delivery services. Democrats see the moment as a political opportunity.
“He’s returning to a dumpster fire,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, a liberal think tank focused on economic issues. “The president will not have the faith and confidence of the American people — the economy is their top issue and the president is saying, ‘You’re on your own.’”
The president’s trip to Beijing and his recent comments that indicated a tone-deafness to voters’ concerns about rising prices have suggested his focus is not on the American public and have undermined Republicans who had intended to campaign on last year’s tax cuts as helping families.
Trump described the trip as a victory, saying on social media that Xi “congratulated me on so many tremendous successes,” as the U.S. president has praised their relationship.
Trump told reporters that Boeing would be selling 200 aircraft — and maybe even 750 “if they do a good job” — to the Chinese. He said American farmers would be “very happy” because China would be “buying billions of dollars of soybeans.”
“We had an amazing time,” Trump said as he flew home on Air Force One, and told Fox News’ Bret Baier in an interview that gasoline prices were just some “short-term pain” and would “drop like a rock” once the war ends.
Inflationary pain is not a factor in how Trump handles Iran
Trump departed from the White House for China by saying the negotiations over the Iran war depended on stopping Tehran from developing nuclear weapons. “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.
That remark prompted blowback because it suggested to some that Trump cared more about challenging Iran than fighting inflation at home. Trump defended his words, telling Fox News: “That’s a perfect statement. I’d make it again.”
The White House has since stressed that Trump is focused on inflation.
Asked later about the president’s words, Vice President JD Vance said there had been a “misrepresentation” of the remarks. White House spokesman Kush Desai said the “administration remains laser-focused on delivering growth and affordability on the homefront” while indicating actions would be taken on grocery prices.
But as Trump appeared alongside Xi, new reports back home showed inflation rising for businesses and interest rates climbing on U.S. government debt.
His comments that Boeing would sell 200 jets to China caused the company’s stock price to fall because investors had expected a larger number. There was little concrete information offered about any trade agreements reached during the summit, including Chinese purchases of U.S. exports such as liquefied natural gas and beef.
“Foreign policy wins can matter politically, but only if voters feel stability and affordability in their daily lives,” said Brittany Martinez, a former Republican congressional aide who is the executive director of Principles First, a center-right advocacy group focused on democracy issues.
“Midterms are almost always a referendum on cost of living and public frustration, and Republicans are not immune from the same inflation and affordability pressures that hurt Democrats in recent cycles,” she added.
Democrats see Trump as vulnerable
Democratic lawmakers are seizing on Trump’s comments before his trip as proof of his indifference to lowering costs. There is potential staying power of his remarks as Americans head into Memorial Day weekend facing rising prices for the hamburgers and hot dogs to be grilled.
“What Americans do not see is any sympathy, any support, or any plan from Trump and congressional Republicans to lower costs – in fact, they see the opposite,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Thursday.
Vance faulted the Biden administration for the inflation problem even though the inflation rate is now higher than it was when Trump returned to the White House in January 2025 with a specific mandate to fix it.
“The inflation number last month was not great,” Vance said Wednesday, but he then stressed, “We’re not seeing anything like what we saw under the Biden administration.”
Inflation peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 under Biden, a Democrat. By the time Trump took the oath of office, it was a far more modest 3%.
Trump’s inflation challenge could get harder
The data tells a different story as higher inflation is spreading into the cost of servicing the national debt.
Over the past week, the interest rate charged on 10-year U.S. government debt jumped from 4.36% to 4.6%, an increase that implies higher costs for auto loans and mortgages.
“My fear is that the layers of supply shocks that are affecting the U.S. economy will only further feed into inflationary pressures,” said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon.
Daco noted that last year’s tariff increases were now translating into higher clothing prices. With the Supreme Court ruling against Trump’s ability to impose tariffs by declaring an economic emergency, his administration is preparing a new set of import taxes for this summer.
Daco stressed that there have been a series of supply shocks. First, tariffs cut into the supply of imports. In addition, Trump’s immigration crackdown cut into the supply of foreign-born workers. Now, the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has cut off the vital waterway used to ship 20% of global oil supplies.
“We’re seeing an erosion of growth,” Daco said.
Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, the Food and Drug Administration’s top drug regulator, said she was fired from the agency Friday after she declined to resign.
She said she did not know who had ordered her firing or why, nor whether Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. knew of her fate. The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The departure reflected the upheaval at the F.D.A., days after the resignation of Dr. Marty Makary, the agency commissioner. Dr. Makary had become a lightning rod for critics of the agency’s decisions to reject applications for rare disease drugs and to delay a report meant to supply damaging evidence about the abortion drug mifepristone. He also spent months before his departure pushing back on the White House’s requests for him to approve more flavored vapes, the reason he ultimately cited for leaving.
Dr. Hoeg’s hiring had startled public health leaders who were familiar with her track record as a vaccine skeptic, and she played a leading role in some of the agency’s most divisive efforts during her tenure. She worked on a report that purportedly linked the deaths of children and young adults to Covid vaccines, a dossier the agency has not released publicly. She was also the co-author of a document describing Mr. Kennedy’s decision to pare the recommendations for 17 childhood vaccines down to 11.
But in an interview on Friday, Dr. Hoeg said she “stuck with the science.”
“I am incredibly proud of the work we were doing,” Dr. Hoeg said, adding, “I’m glad that we didn’t give in to any pressures to approve drugs when it wasn’t appropriate.”
As the director of the agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, she was a political appointee in a role that had been previously occupied by career officials. An epidemiologist who was trained in the United States and Denmark, she worked on efforts to analyze drug safety and on a panel to discuss the use of serotonin reuptake inhibitors, the most widely prescribed class of antidepressants, during pregnancy. She also worked on efforts to reduce animal testing and was the agency’s liaison to an influential vaccine committee.
She made sure that her teams approved drugs only when the risk-benefit balance was favorable, she said.
The firing worsens the leadership vacuum at the F.D.A. and other agencies, with temporary leaders filling the role of commissioner, food chief and the head of the biologics center, which oversees vaccines and gene therapies. The roles of surgeon general and director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are also unfilled.
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