The woman accused of murdering two of her children in a case that has gripped the US googled life insurance policies for them weeks before they were last seen alive, her trial has heard.
Lori Vallow – dubbed the ‘Doomsday Mom’ – and partner Chad Daybell are charged with plotting to kill Tylee Ryan, 16, and seven-year-old Joshua ‘JJ’ Vallow.
Rexburg Police Detective David Stubbs told jurors an email account associated with Vallow looked up ‘gerber life policy’ and ‘life insurance for children – the Grow-Up Plan’ on July 21, 2019.
Five days later, searches included ‘Phoenix pet service’, ‘sell service dog’, and ‘Service Dogs for Sale’. JJ had autism and used a service dog.
The children disappeared two months later in September 2019.
On September 20, the user searched the phone number of JJ’s school, Kennedy Elementary, in Rexburg, Idaho, and ‘define possess’.
The principal, John Wilson, earlier testified the youngster was a student there between September 3 and 24, with his last attendance noted on September 20.
Detectives believe he was murdered on September 23.
The search for the children spanned several states and continued until June 2020, when their bodies were found buried in the yard of Daybell’s eastern Idaho home.
Prosecutors claim the couple espoused doomsday-focused beliefs involving demonic possession and ‘zombies’ to further their plan to kill the kids, then collect life insurance money and other benefits.
The pair are also said to have conspired to murder Daybell’s ex-wife Tammy, who died in October 2019 –two weeks before they wed in Hawaii.
Searches that same month included wedding dresses in Hawaii, with Stubbs telling the court: ‘What also caught my attention was this was being looked at on the same day as Tammy’s funeral.’
He also said the account was linked to searches for wedding rings while Daybell was still married.
Fremont County Prosecutor Lindsey Blake said in her opening statement that Vallow was willing to ‘remove any obstacle in her way to get what she wants’.
She told juror the children and Tammy all stood in the way of her relationship with Daybell, an author whose fictional books focused on the apocalypse and were loosely based on the LDS church.
Friends of Vallow have testified that she said the children and Tammy were ‘dark’ before their deaths. At least one told police she called both children ‘zombies’ before they disappeared.
Tylee was last seen alive during a trip to Yellowstone National Park with JJ, Vallow and her mum’s brother Alex Cox on September 8.
David Warwick, who recorded a religious podcast with Vallow, earlier testified to seeing JJ with Cox on the day he was last seen, September 23.
Jurors heard on Monday that FBI investigators tracked a cell phone belonging to Cox to the vicinity of the fire pit and pet cemetery in Daybell’s yard on both those dates.
Vallow is separately accused of plotting with Cox to murder her ex-husband Charles Vallow, who he shot dead in Phoenix in July 2019.
Cox, who insisted the shooting was self-defence, was never arrested in the case and died five months later from what medical examiners said was a pulmonary blood clot.
His widow, Zulema Pastenes, told jurors earlier in the trial that he feared ‘being their fall guy’.
She described coming home from work the day before he died to find him on the phone to Vallow and Daybell, who told him Tammy’s body was being exhumed.
‘I was very confused about the reason why they would be exhuming Tammy’s body, and I was asking why would they be exhuming her body if she died of natural causes,’ Pastenes said.
‘And I asked [Cox] if he was involved in anything to do with Tammy’s death. He said no.’
She went on: ‘He was very quiet and unresponsive. He said, “I think I am being their fall guy”.
‘I said, “Fall guy for what? What have you done that you would be the fall guy?”’ I kept pressuring him because he wasn’t answering me.
‘He passed away the next day.’
Vallow’s trial continues. Daybell similarly denies all the charges and will be tried separately later this year.
