Chad Daybell’s former sister-in-law has opened up about the alleged cult leader’s bizarre behavior in the wake of his first wife Tammy’s sudden death in 2019 as authorities continue to investigate the possibility that she was murdered.
Tammy Daybell died aged 49 on October 19, 2019, at the home she shared with Chad in Salem, Idaho. Chad refused an autopsy at the time, despite the fact that she was said to be in excellent health.
Just two weeks later he married Lori Vallow, the so-called ‘cult mom’ who shot to infamy after the disappearance of her children, Tylee Ryan and Joshua ‘JJ’ Vallow, who vanished in September 2019 and were found murdered and buried on Chad’s property last summer.
Lori and Chad, who were allegedly enmeshed in a dangerous doomsday cult, are currently behind bars awaiting trial on charges of conspiracy to hide the kids’ remains. No one has been charged with the murders as the investigation remains ongoing.
Meanwhile, authorities are also still investigating allegations that the couple may have also played a role in Tammy’s death.
Tammy’s sister Samantha Gwilliam broke her silence about the twisted case in a new Dateline special airing on Friday.
In a preview for the episode, Gwilliam described the moment Chad called to tell her that his wife of 29 years and the mother of his five children was gone.
‘[Chad said] that she’d been sick and had a coughing fit and passed away,’ Gwilliam recalled. ‘He sounded upset and devastated. I mean, I was crying and he was crying. It was a really hard moment.’
Chad Daybell’s former sister-in-law has opened up about the alleged cult leader’s bizarre behavior in the wake of his first wife Tammy’s sudden death in 2019 as authorities continue to investigate the possibility that she was murdered. Pictured: Tammy and Chad
Tammy’s sister Samantha Gwilliam broke her silence about the twisted case in a new Dateline special airing on Friday (pictured)
‘There’s just so many thoughts running through your head,’ Gwilliam added. ‘And a lot of it was, like: “No. That didn’t happen.”‘
Just 17 days later, Chad was on a beach in Hawaii tying the knot with Lori, whom he’d met in the fall of 2018 at a church conference.
‘I was shocked because at that point, Tammy had only been gone for a month,’ Gwilliam said.
‘I just thought: “Is the grief clouding his judgment?” I mean, who goes and does that? It didn’t make sense to me. And obviously, I was really upset.’
Gwilliam said she felt betrayed, adding: ‘That was too soon for anybody to get over my sister.’
Chad (left) and his second wife Lori Vallow (right) are currently behind bars awaiting trial on charges of conspiracy to hide the remains of her children, Tylee Ryan and Joshua ‘JJ’ Vallow
Lori’s kids Tylee and JJ (pictured) were found buried on Chad’s property last June, nine months after they disappeared. An investigation into the children’s deaths remains ongoing as Lori and Chad face charges for conspiring to hide their bodies
An obituary stated that Tammy died in her sleep and her cause of death was ruled as natural after Chad declined an autopsy.
Many friends of Tammy have insisted that she was in great shape and was even training for a marathon in the weeks leading up to her death.
‘She was into healthy living, very fit — and then all of a sudden we hear she has died,’ a friend told DailyMail.com last year. ‘It didn’t make sense then and it doesn’t make sense now.’
Tammy had also visited with her siblings and parents two weeks earlier in Utah and showed no sign of sickness, according to the East Idaho News.
The case was reopened weeks later when authorities mounted a search for Lori’s children, who had vanished three months earlier but were never reported missing by their mother.
Investigators began to suspect that Tammy’s death could be linked to the kids’ disappearance after learning about the abrupt marriage of Chad and Lori, who fled from Idaho the day after police first questioned the mother about JJ and Tylee’s whereabouts.
An obituary stated that Tammy (pictured) died in her sleep and her cause of death was ruled as natural after Chad declined an autopsy
Tammy’s body was exhumed from the Evergreen Cemetery in Springville, Utah – where Chad had once worked – on December 11, 2019.
But over 17 months later, authorities have yet to release the results of Tammy’s autopsy and toxicology tests.
In February the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office in Idaho, which is leading the death investigation, announced that the medical examiner had completed the autopsy.
Sheriff Len Humphries said information from the autopsy would not be released because it is being used as evidence in the ‘open and ongoing investigation’.
It was previously revealed that Chad and Lori were being investigated in Tammy’s case for conspiracy, murder and/or attempted murder.
Tammy’s death is one of at least five linked to the couple, who were allegedly members of a dangerous cult devoted to preparing for the end of the world.
The first death is that of Lori’s estranged fourth husband Charles Vallow, who was shot dead by her brother Alex Cox in Arizona on July 10.
Charles and Lori had gotten into an argument when the father came to pick up JJ at the mother’s home in Chandler. Lori’s brother intervened and fatally shot Charles.
Police initially determined that Cox acted in self defense – but the case was reopened amid the multi-state search for JJ and Tylee, who had moved to Idaho, where Chad lived, with their mother in August.
Cox himself died aged 51 on December 12, 2019, in Gilbert, Arizona. An autopsy determined he died of natural causes with blood clots in his lungs and the overdose drug Narcan in his system.
At the time of his death Cox was under investigation for both the deaths of Charles and Tammy, according to police reports.
Months after he died, Cox was implicated in two more deaths as the bodies of his niece and nephew, Tylee and JJ, were found buried on Chad’s property.
Tylee, 16, and JJ, seven, disappeared in September 2019 but were never reported missing by their mother, their uncle or Chad.
Investigators believe Cox helped bury the bodies hours after the children vanished, according to affidavits for Lori and Chad’s arrests.
The couple are jailed in Idaho while they await a June trial on charges of conspiracy to hide the kids’ remains.
