Relative says Chad Daybell told inconsistent stories about wife’s death

BOISE, Idaho (ABC4) — Hannah Parker, whose mother was a cousin of Tammy Daybell, told jurors Monday in Chad Daybell’s murder trial that he told conflicting stories about the night of his wife’s death.

Parker testified that she attended the viewing service for Tammy Daybell in Springville, Utah, days after her death on Oct. 19, 2019. She said that she went through the line twice, once with her father and again with her mother.

CONTEXT A complete timeline for the Daybell, Vallow murders

Each time when her parents asked what happened to Tammy Daybell, Chad Daybell responded with a slightly different story about how he found his wife’s body cold at the side of their bed. The stories were also different from what Chad Daybell initially told Idaho police.

“I was confused,” Parker said on the stand.

When Chad Daybell spoke to her father, he said that his wife was feeling sick and vomited before going to bed while he stayed up to work, Parker said. When Chad Daybell went to go to bed around 1 a.m., he found Tammy Daybell on the floor near the bed.

This was different from what he said just hours later at the service. According to Parker, Chad Daybell told her mother that after his wife vomited they went to bed at the same time and he woke up when she rolled out of bed and hit the floor the next morning.

“It was inconsistent with what I heard earlier that evening,” Parker said.

According to police reports, Chad Daybell called 911 around 6 a.m. on Oct. 19, 2019 to report that he found his wife dead. Initially, the medical examiner said she died of a heart attack, but her body was later exhumed and her cause of death was changed to homicide.

Patricia Later, Parker’s mother, also testified Monday, telling the court that she was childhood best friends with Tammy Daybell. She cried several times while on the witness stand.

“It just didn’t make any sense,” Later said, when asked by prosecutors about Tammy Daybell’s death. “She was so young and healthy.”

Later recounted she was upset that Chad Daybell said disparaging things about his wife at the funeral service, telling the congregation that Tammy Daybell had depression, was difficult to live with, and was “lazy.”

Chad Daybell is facing first-degree murder changes in the death of his wife. He is also facing murder and fraud charges in connection with the death’s of 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, the children of his next wife, Lori Vallow Daybell.

Prosecutors are currently working to show the jury that Daybell, a self-published author of doomsday fiction, created a bizarre apocalyptic belief system to justify the killings and benefit from his wife’s life insurance policy. A close friend of Vallow Daybell testified earlier in the trial that Chad Daybell deemed Tammy Daybell and the two children to be “zombies” before their deaths.

On the other hand, Chad Daybell’s defense will later to argue that Vallow Daybell pulled the strings in the murders and lured the devoted member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints into an extramarital affair.

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Also on Monday, an FBI agent testified that cell phone information put Chad Daybell and Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox, near where the children’s bodies were found shortly after they were last seen alive. Investigators discovered the bodies in shallow graves on Daybell’s property.

This week marks the fourth week of trial, which was initially thought to take up to two months. Due to a scheduling conflict, court will not be held Tuesday, but testimony is slated to resume Wednesday.

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