End-times cult leader Chad Daybell's attempt to cover his tracks with a text message actually led to his arrest and that of his wife Lori Vallow on suspicion of murdering her two children, a new book, exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com, reveals.
He had sent the text to his then-wife Tammy saying he had shot and burned a raccoon, but when a cop saw the message months later he realized something was wrong.
Raccoons are nocturnal, Detective Ron Ball of Rexburg Police Department in Idaho reasoned — but the text had been sent at 11.35 am, writes author John Glatt in his book The Doomsday Mother.
Ball called in the FBI's Cellular Analysis Survey Team (CAST) to analyze the text and others based on cell phone tracking data pinging off local cell masts and when they did, the whole case started to unravel.
And rather than finding a burned raccoon, cops found the charred body of Lori's 17-year-old daughter Tylee Ryan in a shallow grave in the backyard.
Lori Vallow and doomsday evangelist husband Chad Daybell were charged on multiple counts including the first-degree murder of Lori's two children, Tylee Ryan, 17, and JJ Vallow, 7.
Tylee was last seen on September 8, 2019 while JJ was last seen with his uncle Alex Cox on September 22. Their bodies were found in Daybell's backyard in June 2020
Detective Ron Ball worked out that Daybell is unlikely to have killed a raccoon in broad daylight as the animals are nocturnal
Tylee and her brother Joshua 'JJ' Vallow, 7, vanished in September 2019, leading to a nationwide hunt. Their bodies weren't found until the following June.
Tylee was last seen in Yellowstone National Park on September 8, the day before Daybell sent the raccoon text. Lori's brother Alex Cox had taken her and JJ on a day trip.
Photographs of that day were released by investigators when they still hoped they might find the children alive. They show Tylee and JJ with their uncle, smiling and trusting.
JJ was known to be alive as late as September 23, the day before his mother told his school in Rexburg that she was pulling him out.
The Doomsday Mother, by John Glatt will be published by St. Martin's Press on January 18, 2022
He was last seen being carried — apparently asleep — across Cox's shoulder.
The FBI discovered Cox had been at the Daybell property on both September 9 and 23.
A joint task force of law enforcement, across states in which Vallow and Daybell had lived, began looking for Tylee and JJ in November as Vallow's initial claims that Tylee was at university and JJ was staying with friends fell apart.
Daybell, 53, had met Vallow, 48, at a 'prepper' conference in 2018. With his apocalyptic prophecies and visions, the best-selling author and excommunicated Mormon drew thousands of followers – most of them women – into his thrall.
Unknown to Tammy, the couple started a torrid affair. In his September 9 text, he told his wife he had been burning 'lime debris' in the yard.
He said he had had 'an interesting morning' and that he had, 'shot a huge raccoon and burned it.' He signed off, 'Fun Times!'
Daybell is currently awaiting trial for the murders of the children and of Tammy who was found dead less than a month after the raccoon text was sent. He faces the death penalty if found guilty.
Vallow has been been determined mentally unfit to stand trial for the killings and is being treated in a secure mental health facility.
In his book, Glatt exposes the depths of Daybell and Vallow's depravity and lays bare their outlandish beliefs, including Daybell's conviction that wizards and witches exist and that the spells of JK Rowling's Harry Potter could be manifested with, 'great focused will.'
Vallow was arrested in connection with her children's disappearance on January 26, 2020, four months after they were last seen alive. But it wasn't until that June that the bodies were found and murder charges could be brought.
Tylee had been dismembered and burned. JJ was bound, stuffed in trash bags and covered with planks of wood and dirt. Both were buried behind Daybell's home in Salem, Idaho.
Daybell had been a gravedigger for many years when he was younger. It appeared to investigators that he had put his old skills to use to help dispose of his mistress's children's bodies.
He was at his house when cops came to execute their search warrant. Sitting in his truck he looked on. He made a call to Vallow as the bodies were unearthed before making a break for it, Glatt writes.
He didn't get far. He was flagged down by police within a mile of his home, cuffed and taken into custody. The jig was up.
According to Glatt, Vallow had made overtures to cooperate just before the bodies were found but Daybell talked her out of it.
Daybell had 'prophesied' about his wife Tammy's death for some time, but when the mother of his five children died in her sleep in October 2019, the apparently healthy 49-year-old's death was initially ruled to be from natural causes.
Daybell married Vallow in Hawaii two weeks later.
It was only after suspicion fell on Chad and Lori over her kids' disappearance that Tammy's body was exhumed from a cemetery in Utah. An autopsy was carried out and her death was ruled suspicious.
Vallow was arrested in connection with her children's disappearance on January 26, 2020, four months after they were last seen alive.
Siblings JJ and Tylee are seen smiling and hugging while standing on a boardwalk in front of a thermal feature at Yellowstone National Park in Idaho on September 8, 2019 with their uncle Alex Cox
Both Tylee and JJ's remains were uncovered on the property belonging Lori Vallow's new husband Chad Daybell on June 9, 2020. Human remains were discovered near both the pet cemetery and the pond. Alex Cox's cell phone had pinged at both of those locations
No cause of death has ever been made public, but Glatt notes that first responders observed 'pink foam' around her mouth.
As well as the murder counts that Vallow and Daybell now face, the couple has been charged with theft and insurance fraud.
Vallow has also been indicted in Maricopa County, Arizona, for conspiring to kill her third husband, Charles. He was shot by Alex Cox in July 2019. Cox claimed self-defense.
But Cox himself died on December 12, 2019, the day after Tammy Daybell's body was exhumed.
He was found unconscious at home and, like Tammy, had pink foam coming out of his mouth. But blood clots were found on his lungs along with signs of arterial disease.
With his history of high blood pressure, his death was not ruled suspicious.
Between July and December 2019, three people had died and two children had disappeared — and the one thing they all had in common was their closeness to Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell.
Cox's death made the case against Daybell and Vallow more complicated as cops believed that he may have been the person who actually killed Tylee and JJ.
Vallow, pictured during a March 2020 hearing, is awaiting trial. The once devout Mormon and doting mother has been declared mentally incompetent and is currently being treated in a secure mental health facility in Idaho
According to investigators and interviews with family members, Vallow and Daybell had become convinced that certain people – including Vallow's husband Charles and her children Tylee and JJ – were zombies who had been possessed by dark spirits and could only be released through death
In his book, Glatt explores Vallow's hold over her older brother. Cox, a strange misfit and wannabe stand-up comedian would, others noted, do 'anything' for his sister.
Friends recall Vallow parading around in her bikini at Sunday lunches, in front of her apparently fascinated brother.
And one of Vallow's closest childhood friends reveals that Vallow confided to her that Cox was trying to sleep with her.
The true nature of the sibling bond may never be known, but whatever it was it saw Cox shoot Vallow's third husband, Charles, dead.
Cox claimed self-defense telling officers who attended the scene in Chandler, Arizona, that Charles had attacked Tylee then come at him with a baseball bat.
At first
