May 14, 2024 • 31 mins
Was 7-year-old JJ Vallow alive when he was buried? Was 16-year-old Tylee Ryan dismembered before her remains were burned? What does the autopsy say about the death of Tammy Daybell? On this episode of Body Bags, Joseph Scott Morgan will explain the forensics of all 3 victims and Dave Mack will fill in the background on the story of what really happened to JJ Vallow, Tylee Ryan, and Tammy Daybell
Transcript Highlights
00:00:08 Introduction, loving arms that didn’t hold JJ and Tylee
00:04:21 Discussion of the deaths, JJ, Tylee, and Tammy Daybell
00:07:54 Discussion of bodies buried near one another
00:11:19 Discussion of death of Tammy Daybell
00:14:57 Explaining asphyxia
00:18:45 Talk about access and opportunity
00:22:58 Discussion of Dr Warren on witness stand
00:26:02 Discussion of Bones being scattered, broken up while burning
00:29:07 Talk about JJ Vallow trying to pull bag off his head
00:30:47 Conclusion: Justice, whatever that means, is coming.
Justice, whatever that means, is coming and there is a reckoning coming.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. Loving arms ain't nothing
like it when you're a kid, those arms that you
can rush to that no matter what the problem is,
they're going to embrace you and give you that feeling
(00:30):
that's unlike any other that you know, regardless of what happens, everything,
and I mean everything, it's gonna be okay. I've experienced
it in my life. It was actually the arms of
my grandmother. I knew what it was like. It's like
the warmest blanket on the coldest day. But there are
(00:51):
two kids that I've talked about before on this podcast
that didn't have those loving arms. They had the arms
of perhaps murderous mercenaries that they were surrounded by. Today.
It's important. This is an important time because of a
(01:15):
trial that's going on right now involving Chad day Bell.
But I don't want to talk about Chad day Bell.
I want to talk about again JJ and Tyley. I'm
Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Body Bags Dave. As
(01:38):
of this recording, I've appeared on a couple of national
television shows within the last twenty four hours, and the
reason I was asked to join those shows was because
a huge bit of forensic evidence was revealed in the
ongoing trial of Dave Well in regards to three homicides
(02:04):
that he has The prosecution says he has direct involvement in,
and Dave, I got to tell you almost I didn't
almost almost wept on air on Court TV just last
night because there was news that was revealed yesterday about
JJ and a little bit more about Tyley and what
(02:26):
they went through and also what was found in the
wake of I don't know how to describe it other
than desecration, the desecration of their remains out there in Rexburg, Idaho.
I don't know. I know you were shocked when I
(02:47):
was to reveal this to you, Yes, and it takes
a lot to shock you.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Joe and I were sitting and working on a couple
of things and you matter of factly told me about
and I this whole story. I have followed JJ Valo
and Tyler Ryan and Tammy Dave Bell, but we have
followed this story since it began when JJ and Tyler
were missing. That's how long we have been on this story,
(03:13):
since before Laurie Vaalo married Chad day Bell, and we
have done a number of stories with Nancy. We've done
a number here. The bottom line on this particular episode,
We're going to assume that you know the story of
what happened with Chad day Bell and Lourie Vallo, and
I encourage you. If you don't know it, you can
(03:35):
look back at previous episodes here, you can look at
episodes of Nancy Grace. East Idaho News has done a
phenomenal job covering the case. Just can't can't say no
good about what they've done in terms of the coverage.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
But our boy, I'm going to do a shout out here,
our boy, Nate Eaton. Yes, Nate, he might be out
of everybody. I've never seen a career that came around
like his, and it came around as a result of
the cases specifically, And boy, what a job he has done.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Just so we'll tell you you have to have talent
and skill to take advantage of something that's dropped in
your lap like this story was. But Nate Eaton is
the reason we know about it. Nate Eaton is the
one who followed it. Nate's the one who broke the story.
But your bottom line, the overview is Chad Dave Bell
married Tammy Dave Bell for twenty eight years. Laurie Vallo
(04:25):
has been married to several men. Laurie Vallo was married
to Charles Valo. Charles was murdered by Laurie Vallo's brother
Alex and as soon as Charles vallow was dead, Laurie
Vaalo moved with her old seventeen or sixteen year old
daughter Tylie and her seven year old son JJ, and
moved to Rexburg, where Chad da Bell was still married
(04:48):
in living with his wife Tammy. I say still because
that was the plan all along, was that Laurie would
get rid of her husband, Chad would get rid of
his wife, they would get married and live happily ever
after with no children. By the way, that means JJ
entirely both had to go too. That is the thumbnail sketch.
But what we're here to talk about today is JJ
(05:11):
and Tyley. You and I both did shows right when
their bodies were discovered. Yep, they had been missing and
presumed dead. There was plenty of evidence to show that
they were probably no longer with us. The day that
they were found in Chad day Bell's backyard was a
shocking day. I didn't know how much more we could
(05:35):
be shocked until they started talking about the autopsies I had.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
I didn't. And this is one of these things that
you know, as a as a foreigner death investigator, forensic scientist,
college professor, podcast host, you think that there's nothing else
to be revealed. You think that every stone has been
over turned, if you will. I did until today, Yeah
(06:03):
I did. You know, I didn't see. I didn't see
this coming. And you know, I think that what's important here,
and I'll try to keep this brief, is that when
we in forensics go into a courtroom after we've done
an assessment of whatever the evidence, whether the evidence is
(06:25):
human remains or its fiber evidence or tool mark or
tire track or fingerprint or whatever it is, we we
have to tell. We are compelled to tell the truth,
not just morally but legally, and we try to stay
within within our guardrails, all right. And I saw something
(06:50):
that really that really gave me pause when I was
reviewing reviewing this case, and that that was a test
money of the pathologists that actually was tasked with doing
the examination on both of these kids. And just again,
(07:11):
I want to mention his name so that everybody remembers
it all right, and that's doctor Garth Warren and what
he observed. Let me talk to you as an academic
right now, what he observed and what he he annotated
in his findings. This is the kind of case. These
(07:31):
cases will be cases that will be used in the
future to teach with. Okay, because they're so markedly complex.
And even though these two victims are buried, you know,
I guess we could say, you know, within close proximity
(07:52):
of one another, you know property, Yeah, same property, and
you could if you were standing at JJ's grave, you
could look over and see where Tyler's remains were found.
But they're they're two very distinctly different events, totally different,
completely And if I were a profiler, which I am
(08:15):
not and have no desire to be, I would think
that there would be quite a bit of data there
to go through and kind of assess just based on
the burials themselves. Uh, what type of person you're dealing with,
what was going on in their in their mind? You know,
we hear a lot about organized versus disorganized crimes or events, uh,
(08:38):
and that generally applies to serial killers. But you can
still have that that is part of the profile when
you're talking about an isolated event like this, What what
do you make of it? Because if you're the pathologist
and you're trying to look for commonalities when you're working
two cases which you think are connected somehow, the police
(08:59):
are going to be staring you down. Man. They're going
to be looking at you, and they're going to say, hey, look,
is there anything here that you can see that there
is something in common with these events where we've got
an idea that the same perpetrator was involved. I got
to tell you ain't much. It ain't much. The only
thing that we have is geographic proximity.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
And familial and they are.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
You're right, you're right, You're absolutely right. Familial relationship here
between these two that in and of itself. And again
we go back to this idea of the circle you
know that these kids are contained in and there's look,
ain't much happening in Rexburg, all right, it's not the
crime capital of the world. What I'm saying, Oh boy, Yes,
(09:49):
when you look at Tammy day Bell uh, and you
look at you know, God rest her soul, uh, And
then you look at JJ and tilely, what are the
odds you know that you're gonna have three three, one
two three three people that either well, I think that
we can safely say met their end, met their end
(10:13):
at that at that location. What was the odds that
we happened in that when we play, when.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
We watched JJ and Tylee their remains coming out of
the ground, and totally different they the way they were
packaged at death, totally different. Yes, Now I want to
put Tammy Dave Bell in her proper place right now
and just say, look, Jammy day Bell was married to
(10:40):
Chad Dave Bell for twenty eight years. She was in
his way to get married to Lori Valo. He had
to get rid of her. She died and he married.
She died October nineteenth. Her funeral was three days later,
less than two weeks after that, he was married to
Lori Valo.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeh.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
And it was in December, December eleventh when there was
enough chatter going on around Rexburg about the relationship between
Laurie and Chad and the fact that her children, JJ
and Tyley were missing at that point, yep, that there
was enough interest in the story that they exhumed Tammy
(11:16):
day Bell's body. She supposedly died a natural death or
familiesai she've been in poor health. That was actually going
against what her friends said that she was training for
a marathon.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
You know, on the one hand, your friends and people
who know you and see you every day say you're
training for a marathon. But children who are no longer
living in the house with you believe their father who said, oh,
she was really sick and died in her sleep, and
of course didn't want to have an autopsy, so her
body's exhumed.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, I can I tell you please Mammy real quick.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
You know, with Tammy, you know, Kim and my wife,
Kim and I we followed, you know, we've followed this, uh,
these cases together, you know, and she'll hear what I'm
talking about and all that stuff, and of course she's
compelled to dig into it. And when she found out
that that Tammy had actually been a media specialist in schools,
and you know, Kim's a retired teacher and she was
(12:08):
heavily dependent upon people what used to be called the librarian,
the media specialist, and her best friend is a former
media specialist, and so there was like a connection there.
And you know, as Tom went by, I came, we
came to like Tammy. It's like it's almost like, if
(12:32):
you knew her, it seems like she'd be somebody you'd
want to sit down and have cup coffee with or
just chat with. She seems like, you know, like this
saintly woman that's walking to earth that helps everybody. The
kids went on and on, her colleagues went on and on.
But here's the thing, Dave, here's the thing. That morning,
(12:54):
when they found Tammy and she's there in that bedroom,
I knew something was up. And this is why, because
when the story began to come out and I heard
that she had this kind of pink, frothy cone that
was issuing from her nose in her mouth, I knew
that that was anything but natural. No answers, no answers
(13:33):
at all. As a matter of fact, Tammy Daybell took
answers to her grave. And I think that the speed
with which that was done is indicative of this case,
in cases, in their totality, because you know, it's it's
(13:54):
really it's if you're an investigator, it's really, really tough
to look for evidence at a crime scene if you're
sprinting over the surface of the crime scene as opposed
to half step in it. And that's what That's what
happened with Tammy. Tammy's body was embalmed and she was
taken out of state Dave and buried in Utah. And
(14:18):
it took a while. It took a while. They had
to get an order of exhamation, and then the people
in Idaho didn't do the examination on her. These are
the people in Utah with the Utah State Emmy's office
down there, which is a fine organization, and they conclude
that she did, in fact die as a result of asphyxia.
Now asphyxia. Does Mama died in her bedroom as a
(14:39):
result of asphyxia?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Does that mean that a pillow was put over her face,
that she was strangled? I don't when I hear asphyxia, Okay,
I'm just a regular Joe. I don't know. Are there
optional ways that somebody can be asphyxiated?
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Oh yeah, yeah, you've got any number weight. When you
say asphyxia, that means that you're being deprived of oxygen.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Okay, So holding my holding your jawsh shut and putting
my nose, my hand over your nose where you just
like that.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
That's a six yeald death. Okay, that's that would be
I guess that that would be considered probably that's a
unique thing. I've never thought about that. That's uh, that's
that could be classified probably as a suffocation or maybe
even a smothering. Smothering is generally associated with a pillow,
right that's you know classically, and then you've got you've.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Got heating Murphy and one filow of the cook's nest
chief holding the pillow over.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah, holding the pillow over his face. What a what
an incredible scene that was in that movie. But yeah,
you've got that plastic bag. Or then it can go
to a literature strangulation, you know, so you've got all
of these things are choking you know, perhaps and I
mean external like strangulation right.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Now, Okay, would that be real differently a strangulation different
than an asphixial death.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I'm curious it. No, In in my estimation, they're all
asphyxial deaths because when they are being asphyxiated, you're depriving
them of oxygen. And it can be a mechanical event
like with a ligature. They doctors will refer to that
as a mechanical assixiation. You can have compression asshixiation where
(16:18):
you literally have somebody sitting on someone's chest or literally
holding their body weight over somebody's face. There's just there's
a myriad of these things and they extend, and you
can have oxygen deprivation by being closed in a in
a small contained space where you consume all of the
oxygen in there, and you know, people dyeing grain silos
(16:40):
as well, because there's an absence of oxygen right now
with any datil.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
You mentioned the frothiness the phone that she had at
her death, but I read on Dabell's autopsy on December
eleventh that she still had some foam and froth in
her lungs.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Oh yeah, yeah, do you know why that's happening? We
see it, you see it would gone away? No, No,
you could still see it. And uh, that's interesting because
she had been evolved, right, so there's still evidence of it,
you know, and they they found that, I would imagine
that that was discovered. I guess they could see it
with the unaided eye. But what's really going to be
the tail of tape with her is going to be
(17:25):
the microscopic slides, you know, because this is a very
violent event and it's it's like in a microcosm is
happening in a very tight space like this, and somebody's
preventing you from being able to breathe. And we've all
experienced not being able to breathe, you know at some
point in time, whether you're you had a big brother,
or if you know, if if you're you know, you
(17:47):
wake up with a start in the middle of the night,
you can't catch your breath. You know that happens. Uh,
there's any number of Tom's. You know that this can occur.
But does that lead us to this idea that for me,
the specter kind of raises its head with the death
of Tammy and those those kids are missing. Yes, and
(18:07):
you're thinking about lightning striking right, what's the chances, what's
the chances baby, that's going to happen three times? And
the fact that these here's the thing. I don't know
if it's possible, because they ain't never been in the house. However,
I wonder if you could actually stand in Tammy Dave
(18:31):
Belle's bedroom, open up the blinds on that window sill
that she's got in there, and look out and see
the area where those bodies are buried. That's a chilling
thought when you think about it, all of this in
proximity to one another. Availability opportunity, access, access is the
big thing with all of these deaths. Who has access
(18:51):
to somebody's wife in bed in their domicile, Who has
access to these kids? Who has the opportunity with That's
what the prosecution is looking at. And so when the
bodies of JJ and Tally are found, oh boy, it's
all at that point, Tom.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
It's Tyler Ryan's body was found at a place in
the backyard of you mentioned Tammy Dave Bell in her
bedroom and looking out over their burn pit, which is
where the they had a burn pit area and they
had a pet cemetery.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
And there's one interesting thing that tied back to all this.
Alex Cox, that is Lorie Vallow's brother who worshiped her.
Alex was still alive at the time and around the
last time that Tyler Ryan was seeing after she was
last seen. It was amazing how Alex Cox's phone put
him in Chad day Bell's backyard. And the same time
(19:50):
Chad Dave Bell sends a text to his wife about
shooting a raccoon out in the backyard and having to
uh he was using the burn pile shot a raccoon,
which they don't come out during the day, and so
if she heard anything or smelled anything weird, that's what
she was smelling. Now we'll get back to the burn
pit and what was found in this burn pit area
(20:13):
in just a minute. But I really need to get
to JJ Vallo because the last thing we have from
JJ Vallo seven years old, and I remember the story
that Alex Cox, his uncle, was carrying JJ asleep up
to bed the last time he was seen alive by
(20:33):
people other than those who were into his demise. I
thought JJ might very well have been drugged and was
out then Joe, until what you told me today. I
thought JJ Valo's death was peaceful, as much as it
(20:54):
can be for a seven year old. But now I know, oh,
what forensic pathologist Garth Warren shared at trial that you're
going to explain, he was not asleep or dead at
that time in Alex's arms.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
No, And you know why you said that. You know
why you thought that because you had a sliver of
hope in all of this horror. But let me tell
you something. If we are to understand correctly what doctor
Garth Warren is saying here, JJ's death was something almost
(21:40):
unfathomable as to the level of horror that this child experienced.
(22:04):
The thing about folks in my field, and it's I
think people call it a trope. I've never really known
what a trope is, but I think that that's what
they call a trope. I'm not really sure that the
old adage is that we speak for those who can
no longer speak for themselves, and people just kind of
(22:27):
when you go to conferences and you see things, people
throw that term out a lot. I've been guilty of it,
chief amongk centers here. But what I witnessed Dave on
the stand with doctor Warren was a man putting his
money where his mouth is. He painted a picture up
(22:49):
there on the stand of what these kids went through,
just just having to discuss the the links that he
had to go to with their deaths. And I know
that we want to talk about JJ, but just so
that folks understand, he talked about Tilely too in the
(23:11):
burn pit and they had a heck of a job
to have to undertake that. Dave, let me put you
this way. Her quote unquote autopsy that took place on
her remains took days days, days, plural.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
It's understand it take two hours to do Tammy day
Bells autopsy. It took a day to do JJ's and
now you're talking a week.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah, it took days because she came in. Her mortal
remains came in in individual bags, not just a body bag,
but a body bag containing multiple bags, and it's everything
that they had collected and Dave, according to according to
what doctor Warren had stated, there were particulate remains throughout.
(24:03):
And let me give you a kind of a brief overview.
What he talked about is that he had multiple skeletal remains,
which you would expect after this period of time and
plus being subjected to fire. And he talked about the fire.
He talked about how these are obviously charred remains, but Dave,
can you believe this? There was still soft tissue. There
(24:24):
was still soft tissue with her, and he described it
as being I just I want to get his words right.
I think he used the word shrunken. And what that
means is, so when you see remains like this and
they've been burned, you talk about how the remains become dehydrated,
(24:44):
obviously because of direct heat, but also there's a process
that goes on after death with remains, particularly when they're
separated from the hole. When you have they're particulated all out,
there's a process that takes place where you have this
dehydration of remains. Actually is a term that referred to
as desiccation. So desiccation happens and the remains, the tissue,
(25:09):
the soft tissue is so contracted that when you see it,
you look at it and say, you know what that's
That is tissue. I don't know which muscle group it's from,
you know, I don't know if it's from the thigh
of the calf. I don't know if it's from the bicep,
the tricept, you know, wherever. But you know that it's
soft tissue. But she was so fragmented that they could
(25:33):
not come up with a specific cause of death for Tyley.
All they could say is that it is a homicide
and that it's homicidal violence. We've heard that term a lot.
And her her body was desecrated. I've touched on this
in the past, but he confirmed this. Doctor Warren confirmed this.
Her body was desecrated after death in the in the post, well,
(25:56):
what it means is that somebody took sharp, heavy tools
and stirred the fire with them and chopped her body up.
She's got extensive injuries they're talking about. I think, if
I'm not mistaken, there was a shovel found and this
ties this ties Alex and Chad Daybell together. At that location,
(26:21):
they found a shovel there that had her DNA on it.
So if you're stirring a fire and nobody's ever stirred
a fire, and you're turning it, you have to spin
it over, but you're trying to get rid of a
human remain. You're chopping because in your mind you're thinking, Okay,
the smaller I can make this, the easier it is
to burn. Let that just sink in and kind of
(26:44):
drip down into your ground while they're just for a second,
when you begin to think about whoever is tending to
this fire standing over this little I say, little girl.
You know, I'm an old guy. She's a little girl
to me, and she's somebody's little girl. And she is
there having been burned, and you've got somebody over her
(27:06):
with these tools that are trying to break her up
to the point where she's more manageable in the superheated
environment where they're trying to render her down till there's
nothing left. And the problem is is that what else
do you have to examine when it comes to Tyley,
Because if you're trying to determine what exactly killed her,
(27:32):
then you don't really have anything else left to hang
your hat on, and that becomes problematic, particularly when the
police are looking at this case. But we have to
go literally across the pasture at this point in time
and begin to think about what did they find with JJ. Well,
we do know that doctor Warren actually found when he
(27:58):
received JJ's remains. Doctor Warren actually discovered that the body
was essentially neatly packaged in bags secured with duct tape. Externally,
that JJ apparently had had duct tape over his mouth,
(28:18):
his wrists are bound with duct tape, his ankles are
bound with duct tape. But the most telling thing about this,
and this is where the true horror comes in, is
that what doctor Warren described was the fact that during
the course of this thing, at some point in time,
(28:41):
JJ had scratches on his neck. Now, what can be
implied by that, Well, doctor Warren believes that there is
a possibility that JJ had enough awareness where he is
trying with his bound hands in front of him by
the way, trying to reach up, perhaps in a confined space,
(29:05):
perhaps even buried already. He comes to and he's trying
to get the bag off of his head. Now, these
these scratches were located on his neck, and the way
doctor Warren described it, it was as if he were
attempting to peel the bag off. And here's the key.
(29:28):
These scratches are not post mortem injuries. Doctor Warren actually
noted in his examination that there was indwelling hemorrhage in
the scratch marks along this child's neck. So that leads
us to believe that JJ, contrary to what people may
(29:53):
have thought, was not quote unquote knocked out. He was there,
present in the moment that as he was dying, he
was trying to catch his breath with everything that was
within him, trying to seek out oxygen any way he could.
(30:13):
But yet there he was buried, perhaps already trying to
get that bag off of his head, but it wouldn't work.
He ran out of oxygen, he died. This is anything
but merciful, it's anything but humane. I don't know how
(30:35):
we can kind of do the calculus in our mind
to understand the depths to which people will go. But
I do know this. I do know that justice, whatever
that means, is coming, and there is a reckoning coming.
Let's wait and see how this one's going to play out.
(31:00):
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body backs. M
mm hmm
Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. Loving arms ain't nothing
like it when you're a kid, those arms that you
can rush to that no matter what the problem is,
they're going to embrace you and give you that feeling
(00:30):
that's unlike any other that you know, regardless of what happens, everything,
and I mean everything, it's gonna be okay. I've experienced
it in my life. It was actually the arms of
my grandmother. I knew what it was like. It's like
the warmest blanket on the coldest day. But there are
(00:51):
two kids that I've talked about before on this podcast
that didn't have those loving arms. They had the arms
of perhaps murderous mercenaries that they were surrounded by. Today.
It's important. This is an important time because of a
(01:15):
trial that's going on right now involving Chad day Bell.
But I don't want to talk about Chad day Bell.
I want to talk about again JJ and Tyley. I'm
Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Body Bags Dave. As
(01:38):
of this recording, I've appeared on a couple of national
television shows within the last twenty four hours, and the
reason I was asked to join those shows was because
a huge bit of forensic evidence was revealed in the
ongoing trial of Dave Well in regards to three homicides
(02:04):
that he has The prosecution says he has direct involvement in,
and Dave, I got to tell you almost I didn't
almost almost wept on air on Court TV just last
night because there was news that was revealed yesterday about
JJ and a little bit more about Tyley and what
(02:26):
they went through and also what was found in the
wake of I don't know how to describe it other
than desecration, the desecration of their remains out there in Rexburg, Idaho.
I don't know. I know you were shocked when I
(02:47):
was to reveal this to you, Yes, and it takes
a lot to shock you.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Joe and I were sitting and working on a couple
of things and you matter of factly told me about
and I this whole story. I have followed JJ Valo
and Tyler Ryan and Tammy Dave Bell, but we have
followed this story since it began when JJ and Tyler
were missing. That's how long we have been on this story,
(03:13):
since before Laurie Vaalo married Chad day Bell, and we
have done a number of stories with Nancy. We've done
a number here. The bottom line on this particular episode,
We're going to assume that you know the story of
what happened with Chad day Bell and Lourie Vallo, and
I encourage you. If you don't know it, you can
(03:35):
look back at previous episodes here, you can look at
episodes of Nancy Grace. East Idaho News has done a
phenomenal job covering the case. Just can't can't say no
good about what they've done in terms of the coverage.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
But our boy, I'm going to do a shout out here,
our boy, Nate Eaton. Yes, Nate, he might be out
of everybody. I've never seen a career that came around
like his, and it came around as a result of
the cases specifically, And boy, what a job he has done.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Just so we'll tell you you have to have talent
and skill to take advantage of something that's dropped in
your lap like this story was. But Nate Eaton is
the reason we know about it. Nate Eaton is the
one who followed it. Nate's the one who broke the story.
But your bottom line, the overview is Chad Dave Bell
married Tammy Dave Bell for twenty eight years. Laurie Vallo
(04:25):
has been married to several men. Laurie Vallo was married
to Charles Valo. Charles was murdered by Laurie Vallo's brother
Alex and as soon as Charles vallow was dead, Laurie
Vaalo moved with her old seventeen or sixteen year old
daughter Tylie and her seven year old son JJ, and
moved to Rexburg, where Chad da Bell was still married
(04:48):
in living with his wife Tammy. I say still because
that was the plan all along, was that Laurie would
get rid of her husband, Chad would get rid of
his wife, they would get married and live happily ever
after with no children. By the way, that means JJ
entirely both had to go too. That is the thumbnail sketch.
But what we're here to talk about today is JJ
(05:11):
and Tyley. You and I both did shows right when
their bodies were discovered. Yep, they had been missing and
presumed dead. There was plenty of evidence to show that
they were probably no longer with us. The day that
they were found in Chad day Bell's backyard was a
shocking day. I didn't know how much more we could
(05:35):
be shocked until they started talking about the autopsies I had.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
I didn't. And this is one of these things that
you know, as a as a foreigner death investigator, forensic scientist,
college professor, podcast host, you think that there's nothing else
to be revealed. You think that every stone has been
over turned, if you will. I did until today, Yeah
(06:03):
I did. You know, I didn't see. I didn't see
this coming. And you know, I think that what's important here,
and I'll try to keep this brief, is that when
we in forensics go into a courtroom after we've done
an assessment of whatever the evidence, whether the evidence is
(06:25):
human remains or its fiber evidence or tool mark or
tire track or fingerprint or whatever it is, we we
have to tell. We are compelled to tell the truth,
not just morally but legally, and we try to stay
within within our guardrails, all right. And I saw something
(06:50):
that really that really gave me pause when I was
reviewing reviewing this case, and that that was a test
money of the pathologists that actually was tasked with doing
the examination on both of these kids. And just again,
(07:11):
I want to mention his name so that everybody remembers
it all right, and that's doctor Garth Warren and what
he observed. Let me talk to you as an academic
right now, what he observed and what he he annotated
in his findings. This is the kind of case. These
(07:31):
cases will be cases that will be used in the
future to teach with. Okay, because they're so markedly complex.
And even though these two victims are buried, you know,
I guess we could say, you know, within close proximity
(07:52):
of one another, you know property, Yeah, same property, and
you could if you were standing at JJ's grave, you
could look over and see where Tyler's remains were found.
But they're they're two very distinctly different events, totally different,
completely And if I were a profiler, which I am
(08:15):
not and have no desire to be, I would think
that there would be quite a bit of data there
to go through and kind of assess just based on
the burials themselves. Uh, what type of person you're dealing with,
what was going on in their in their mind? You know,
we hear a lot about organized versus disorganized crimes or events, uh,
(08:38):
and that generally applies to serial killers. But you can
still have that that is part of the profile when
you're talking about an isolated event like this, What what
do you make of it? Because if you're the pathologist
and you're trying to look for commonalities when you're working
two cases which you think are connected somehow, the police
(08:59):
are going to be staring you down. Man. They're going
to be looking at you, and they're going to say, hey, look,
is there anything here that you can see that there
is something in common with these events where we've got
an idea that the same perpetrator was involved. I got
to tell you ain't much. It ain't much. The only
thing that we have is geographic proximity.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
And familial and they are.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
You're right, you're right, You're absolutely right. Familial relationship here
between these two that in and of itself. And again
we go back to this idea of the circle you
know that these kids are contained in and there's look,
ain't much happening in Rexburg, all right, it's not the
crime capital of the world. What I'm saying, Oh boy, Yes,
(09:49):
when you look at Tammy day Bell uh, and you
look at you know, God rest her soul, uh, And
then you look at JJ and tilely, what are the
odds you know that you're gonna have three three, one
two three three people that either well, I think that
we can safely say met their end, met their end
(10:13):
at that at that location. What was the odds that
we happened in that when we play, when.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
We watched JJ and Tylee their remains coming out of
the ground, and totally different they the way they were
packaged at death, totally different. Yes, Now I want to
put Tammy Dave Bell in her proper place right now
and just say, look, Jammy day Bell was married to
(10:40):
Chad Dave Bell for twenty eight years. She was in
his way to get married to Lori Valo. He had
to get rid of her. She died and he married.
She died October nineteenth. Her funeral was three days later,
less than two weeks after that, he was married to
Lori Valo.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeh.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
And it was in December, December eleventh when there was
enough chatter going on around Rexburg about the relationship between
Laurie and Chad and the fact that her children, JJ
and Tyley were missing at that point, yep, that there
was enough interest in the story that they exhumed Tammy
(11:16):
day Bell's body. She supposedly died a natural death or
familiesai she've been in poor health. That was actually going
against what her friends said that she was training for
a marathon.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
You know, on the one hand, your friends and people
who know you and see you every day say you're
training for a marathon. But children who are no longer
living in the house with you believe their father who said, oh,
she was really sick and died in her sleep, and
of course didn't want to have an autopsy, so her
body's exhumed.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, I can I tell you please Mammy real quick.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
You know, with Tammy, you know, Kim and my wife,
Kim and I we followed, you know, we've followed this, uh,
these cases together, you know, and she'll hear what I'm
talking about and all that stuff, and of course she's
compelled to dig into it. And when she found out
that that Tammy had actually been a media specialist in schools,
and you know, Kim's a retired teacher and she was
(12:08):
heavily dependent upon people what used to be called the librarian,
the media specialist, and her best friend is a former
media specialist, and so there was like a connection there.
And you know, as Tom went by, I came, we
came to like Tammy. It's like it's almost like, if
(12:32):
you knew her, it seems like she'd be somebody you'd
want to sit down and have cup coffee with or
just chat with. She seems like, you know, like this
saintly woman that's walking to earth that helps everybody. The
kids went on and on, her colleagues went on and on.
But here's the thing, Dave, here's the thing. That morning,
(12:54):
when they found Tammy and she's there in that bedroom,
I knew something was up. And this is why, because
when the story began to come out and I heard
that she had this kind of pink, frothy cone that
was issuing from her nose in her mouth, I knew
that that was anything but natural. No answers, no answers
(13:33):
at all. As a matter of fact, Tammy Daybell took
answers to her grave. And I think that the speed
with which that was done is indicative of this case,
in cases, in their totality, because you know, it's it's
(13:54):
really it's if you're an investigator, it's really, really tough
to look for evidence at a crime scene if you're
sprinting over the surface of the crime scene as opposed
to half step in it. And that's what That's what
happened with Tammy. Tammy's body was embalmed and she was
taken out of state Dave and buried in Utah. And
(14:18):
it took a while. It took a while. They had
to get an order of exhamation, and then the people
in Idaho didn't do the examination on her. These are
the people in Utah with the Utah State Emmy's office
down there, which is a fine organization, and they conclude
that she did, in fact die as a result of asphyxia.
Now asphyxia. Does Mama died in her bedroom as a
(14:39):
result of asphyxia?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Does that mean that a pillow was put over her face,
that she was strangled? I don't when I hear asphyxia, Okay,
I'm just a regular Joe. I don't know. Are there
optional ways that somebody can be asphyxiated?
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Oh yeah, yeah, you've got any number weight. When you
say asphyxia, that means that you're being deprived of oxygen.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Okay, So holding my holding your jawsh shut and putting
my nose, my hand over your nose where you just
like that.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
That's a six yeald death. Okay, that's that would be
I guess that that would be considered probably that's a
unique thing. I've never thought about that. That's uh, that's
that could be classified probably as a suffocation or maybe
even a smothering. Smothering is generally associated with a pillow,
right that's you know classically, and then you've got you've.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Got heating Murphy and one filow of the cook's nest
chief holding the pillow over.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah, holding the pillow over his face. What a what
an incredible scene that was in that movie. But yeah,
you've got that plastic bag. Or then it can go
to a literature strangulation, you know, so you've got all
of these things are choking you know, perhaps and I
mean external like strangulation right.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Now, Okay, would that be real differently a strangulation different
than an asphixial death.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I'm curious it. No, In in my estimation, they're all
asphyxial deaths because when they are being asphyxiated, you're depriving
them of oxygen. And it can be a mechanical event
like with a ligature. They doctors will refer to that
as a mechanical assixiation. You can have compression asshixiation where
(16:18):
you literally have somebody sitting on someone's chest or literally
holding their body weight over somebody's face. There's just there's
a myriad of these things and they extend, and you
can have oxygen deprivation by being closed in a in
a small contained space where you consume all of the
oxygen in there, and you know, people dyeing grain silos
(16:40):
as well, because there's an absence of oxygen right now
with any datil.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
You mentioned the frothiness the phone that she had at
her death, but I read on Dabell's autopsy on December
eleventh that she still had some foam and froth in
her lungs.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Oh yeah, yeah, do you know why that's happening? We
see it, you see it would gone away? No, No,
you could still see it. And uh, that's interesting because
she had been evolved, right, so there's still evidence of it,
you know, and they they found that, I would imagine
that that was discovered. I guess they could see it
with the unaided eye. But what's really going to be
the tail of tape with her is going to be
(17:25):
the microscopic slides, you know, because this is a very
violent event and it's it's like in a microcosm is
happening in a very tight space like this, and somebody's
preventing you from being able to breathe. And we've all
experienced not being able to breathe, you know at some
point in time, whether you're you had a big brother,
or if you know, if if you're you know, you
(17:47):
wake up with a start in the middle of the night,
you can't catch your breath. You know that happens. Uh,
there's any number of Tom's. You know that this can occur.
But does that lead us to this idea that for me,
the specter kind of raises its head with the death
of Tammy and those those kids are missing. Yes, and
(18:07):
you're thinking about lightning striking right, what's the chances, what's
the chances baby, that's going to happen three times? And
the fact that these here's the thing. I don't know
if it's possible, because they ain't never been in the house. However,
I wonder if you could actually stand in Tammy Dave
(18:31):
Belle's bedroom, open up the blinds on that window sill
that she's got in there, and look out and see
the area where those bodies are buried. That's a chilling
thought when you think about it, all of this in
proximity to one another. Availability opportunity, access, access is the
big thing with all of these deaths. Who has access
(18:51):
to somebody's wife in bed in their domicile, Who has
access to these kids? Who has the opportunity with That's
what the prosecution is looking at. And so when the
bodies of JJ and Tally are found, oh boy, it's
all at that point, Tom.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
It's Tyler Ryan's body was found at a place in
the backyard of you mentioned Tammy Dave Bell in her
bedroom and looking out over their burn pit, which is
where the they had a burn pit area and they
had a pet cemetery.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
And there's one interesting thing that tied back to all this.
Alex Cox, that is Lorie Vallow's brother who worshiped her.
Alex was still alive at the time and around the
last time that Tyler Ryan was seeing after she was
last seen. It was amazing how Alex Cox's phone put
him in Chad day Bell's backyard. And the same time
(19:50):
Chad Dave Bell sends a text to his wife about
shooting a raccoon out in the backyard and having to
uh he was using the burn pile shot a raccoon,
which they don't come out during the day, and so
if she heard anything or smelled anything weird, that's what
she was smelling. Now we'll get back to the burn
pit and what was found in this burn pit area
(20:13):
in just a minute. But I really need to get
to JJ Vallo because the last thing we have from
JJ Vallo seven years old, and I remember the story
that Alex Cox, his uncle, was carrying JJ asleep up
to bed the last time he was seen alive by
(20:33):
people other than those who were into his demise. I
thought JJ might very well have been drugged and was
out then Joe, until what you told me today. I
thought JJ Valo's death was peaceful, as much as it
(20:54):
can be for a seven year old. But now I know, oh,
what forensic pathologist Garth Warren shared at trial that you're
going to explain, he was not asleep or dead at
that time in Alex's arms.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
No, And you know why you said that. You know
why you thought that because you had a sliver of
hope in all of this horror. But let me tell
you something. If we are to understand correctly what doctor
Garth Warren is saying here, JJ's death was something almost
(21:40):
unfathomable as to the level of horror that this child experienced.
(22:04):
The thing about folks in my field, and it's I
think people call it a trope. I've never really known
what a trope is, but I think that that's what
they call a trope. I'm not really sure that the
old adage is that we speak for those who can
no longer speak for themselves, and people just kind of
(22:27):
when you go to conferences and you see things, people
throw that term out a lot. I've been guilty of it,
chief amongk centers here. But what I witnessed Dave on
the stand with doctor Warren was a man putting his
money where his mouth is. He painted a picture up
(22:49):
there on the stand of what these kids went through,
just just having to discuss the the links that he
had to go to with their deaths. And I know
that we want to talk about JJ, but just so
that folks understand, he talked about Tilely too in the
(23:11):
burn pit and they had a heck of a job
to have to undertake that. Dave, let me put you
this way. Her quote unquote autopsy that took place on
her remains took days days, days, plural.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
It's understand it take two hours to do Tammy day
Bells autopsy. It took a day to do JJ's and
now you're talking a week.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah, it took days because she came in. Her mortal
remains came in in individual bags, not just a body bag,
but a body bag containing multiple bags, and it's everything
that they had collected and Dave, according to according to
what doctor Warren had stated, there were particulate remains throughout.
(24:03):
And let me give you a kind of a brief overview.
What he talked about is that he had multiple skeletal remains,
which you would expect after this period of time and
plus being subjected to fire. And he talked about the fire.
He talked about how these are obviously charred remains, but Dave,
can you believe this? There was still soft tissue. There
(24:24):
was still soft tissue with her, and he described it
as being I just I want to get his words right.
I think he used the word shrunken. And what that
means is, so when you see remains like this and
they've been burned, you talk about how the remains become dehydrated,
(24:44):
obviously because of direct heat, but also there's a process
that goes on after death with remains, particularly when they're
separated from the hole. When you have they're particulated all out,
there's a process that takes place where you have this
dehydration of remains. Actually is a term that referred to
as desiccation. So desiccation happens and the remains, the tissue,
(25:09):
the soft tissue is so contracted that when you see it,
you look at it and say, you know what that's
That is tissue. I don't know which muscle group it's from,
you know, I don't know if it's from the thigh
of the calf. I don't know if it's from the bicep,
the tricept, you know, wherever. But you know that it's
soft tissue. But she was so fragmented that they could
(25:33):
not come up with a specific cause of death for Tyley.
All they could say is that it is a homicide
and that it's homicidal violence. We've heard that term a lot.
And her her body was desecrated. I've touched on this
in the past, but he confirmed this. Doctor Warren confirmed this.
Her body was desecrated after death in the in the post, well,
(25:56):
what it means is that somebody took sharp, heavy tools
and stirred the fire with them and chopped her body up.
She's got extensive injuries they're talking about. I think, if
I'm not mistaken, there was a shovel found and this
ties this ties Alex and Chad Daybell together. At that location,
(26:21):
they found a shovel there that had her DNA on it.
So if you're stirring a fire and nobody's ever stirred
a fire, and you're turning it, you have to spin
it over, but you're trying to get rid of a
human remain. You're chopping because in your mind you're thinking, Okay,
the smaller I can make this, the easier it is
to burn. Let that just sink in and kind of
(26:44):
drip down into your ground while they're just for a second,
when you begin to think about whoever is tending to
this fire standing over this little I say, little girl.
You know, I'm an old guy. She's a little girl
to me, and she's somebody's little girl. And she is
there having been burned, and you've got somebody over her
(27:06):
with these tools that are trying to break her up
to the point where she's more manageable in the superheated
environment where they're trying to render her down till there's
nothing left. And the problem is is that what else
do you have to examine when it comes to Tyley,
Because if you're trying to determine what exactly killed her,
(27:32):
then you don't really have anything else left to hang
your hat on, and that becomes problematic, particularly when the
police are looking at this case. But we have to
go literally across the pasture at this point in time
and begin to think about what did they find with JJ. Well,
we do know that doctor Warren actually found when he
(27:58):
received JJ's remains. Doctor Warren actually discovered that the body
was essentially neatly packaged in bags secured with duct tape. Externally,
that JJ apparently had had duct tape over his mouth,
(28:18):
his wrists are bound with duct tape, his ankles are
bound with duct tape. But the most telling thing about this,
and this is where the true horror comes in, is
that what doctor Warren described was the fact that during
the course of this thing, at some point in time,
(28:41):
JJ had scratches on his neck. Now, what can be
implied by that, Well, doctor Warren believes that there is
a possibility that JJ had enough awareness where he is
trying with his bound hands in front of him by
the way, trying to reach up, perhaps in a confined space,
(29:05):
perhaps even buried already. He comes to and he's trying
to get the bag off of his head. Now, these
these scratches were located on his neck, and the way
doctor Warren described it, it was as if he were
attempting to peel the bag off. And here's the key.
(29:28):
These scratches are not post mortem injuries. Doctor Warren actually
noted in his examination that there was indwelling hemorrhage in
the scratch marks along this child's neck. So that leads
us to believe that JJ, contrary to what people may
(29:53):
have thought, was not quote unquote knocked out. He was there,
present in the moment that as he was dying, he
was trying to catch his breath with everything that was
within him, trying to seek out oxygen any way he could.
(30:13):
But yet there he was buried, perhaps already trying to
get that bag off of his head, but it wouldn't work.
He ran out of oxygen, he died. This is anything
but merciful, it's anything but humane. I don't know how
(30:35):
we can kind of do the calculus in our mind
to understand the depths to which people will go. But
I do know this. I do know that justice, whatever
that means, is coming, and there is a reckoning coming.
Let's wait and see how this one's going to play out.
(31:00):
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body backs. M
mm hmm
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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