BOISE, Idaho — The jury in the murder trial of Lori Vallow, or Lori Vallow Daybell, watched as body camera footage depicted her appearing to lie to police as they confronted her about her missing son -- and then she was gone a day later.
Police issued a welfare check at her apartment in Rexburg on Nov. 26, 2019 after Lori Vallow's son, JJ Vallow, had not made any sort of contact with his grandmother, Kay Woodcock. Due to the nature of the interaction with Lori Vallow -- in which police said was "evasive" -- a no-knock search warrant was obtained a day later.
Three recordings were shown on Thursday from the body camera of Rexburg Police Det. David Stubbs. Here are some takeaways.
1. Lori is fairly lighthearted with police
At the time of the welfare check, Lori Vallow's two children, Tylee Ryan and JJ Vallow, had not been seen a over two months.
In Stubbs' body camera footage, Lori Vallow appears confident when she tells police her son is with her friend Melanie Gibb in Arizona. She casually giggles about the movie as police chat with her.
"This is a big mess," she tells police. Stubbs tells her in the video that all of this seems "weird."
"It is very weird," Lori Vallow responds calmly. She appeared to be smiling in points of the video.
Police left and tried to call Gibb to confirm JJ Vallow was with her, but she didn't answer her phone. In a new recording of Stubbs' body camera footage, it shows officers going back to the home and knocking on her door for a second time.
Lori Vallow tells them Gibb and her son are probably at the movies watching "Frozen 2."
"Well if she could just return (the officer's) call that would be great," Stubbs said.
"OK," Lori Vallow replied. JJ Vallow was never with Gibb.
2. She mentions life insurance
Prosecutors are charging Lori Vallow with grand theft along with murder and conspiracy to commit murder because they claim she wanted benefits from those around her who have died.
She mentions life insurance multiple times in the body camera footage -- Vallow tells police her brother is trying to kill her for her $2 million life insurance policy and that her other brother, Alex Cox, is staying with her to protect her. Stubbs later said there was no evidence anyone was trying to kill her.
Vallow also tells police her former husband, Charles Vallow, changed his life insurance policy before he died to make his sister, Kay Woodcock, the beneficiary instead of her.
"We got nothing," Vallow tells police.
3. Lori never mentioned Chad Daybell was her husband
Stubbs testified he had been doing surveillance on Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell since the beginning of November 2019. He knew the couple were married on a Hawaii beach earlier that month.
Right before police made contact with Vallow, they ran into Daybell and Cox. Police tell her in the footage that they "ran into your brother and someone else."
Vallow tells police, arms crossed on her chest, that his name is Chad Daybell and he is her brother's friend.
"Chad Daybell? Isn't that the guy whose wife passed away recently?...It sounds familiar," one officer says. Daybell's wife, Tammy Daybell, had just died a month prior.
Stubbs later tells the jury he was concerned Vallow only referred to her new husband as "a friend."
4. She says she looks like a suspect
Lori Vallow tells police in the footage that she doesn't want people to know where she lives. She said Kay Woodcock was trying to sue for her son and harassing her.
"I just don't tell people where I am, ever," Vallow says. "It's just a mess... Constantly causing me trouble."
Vallow's only surviving child, Colby Ryan, testified earlier this week that his own mother never told him where she was moving to after living in Arizona. Colby Ryan said he only found out from watching the news.
Vallow also mentions Tylee Ryan to police, her other child, who was last seen Sept. 8, 2019. She tells police -- like she has told her other friends -- her daughter was off at college attending BYU Idaho. Tylee Ryan was never enrolled there, the dean of students confirmed on the stand Friday.
"I look like a suspect but I'm a good person," Vallow said in the footage.
5. Her home looked lived in, but not her closet
Police issued a no-knock warrant on Vallow's apartment the day after they spoke with her. Footage from Stubbs' body camera shows snowflakes falling on the ground and children's toys outside the home. The door is broken in.
Vallow is not there.
Stubbs walks through the home, narrating what he is seeing. The door opens to a living room with the couch facing the side of the stairs and there are portraits of the LDS temple on the walls.
Amazon envelopes and packages are lying on the kitchen island and there are dishes on the counter in the background near the sink.
In her garage, there are storage tubs lining the walls with multiple guns.
Stubbs walks upstairs to the master bedroom and into the closet, where it is completely bare. Some hangers are left, but there are no clothes on them. A towel is still hanging on the bathroom door. Stubbs said the desk in the bedroom seemed to have computers on it, but those were gone.
Down the hall there is a laundry room and two bedrooms -- one bedroom has two twin beds with a closet that is open, containing some boxes that "appear to store women's clothes." The other has one larger bed with a duffel bag on top that Stubbs said in the video contained men's clothing.
The closet in that room was fairly empty with the exception of two Samurai swords.
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