Mega Edition: Chad Daybell Trial (Part 18) (10/22/26)

Day eighteen of Chad Daybell’s trial centered first on Zulema Pastenes, the widow of Lori Vallow’s brother Alex Cox, who gave jurors another firsthand account of the belief system Chad and Lori had built around themselves. Pastenes testified that Chad claimed he could communicate through the veil, access information about people’s pasts and futures, determine whether someone was “light” or “dark,” and identify people whose bodies had supposedly been taken over by evil spirits or “zombies.” She said those ideas originated with Chad and were then passed through Lori to members of their circle, including the group known as the Seven Gatherers, which participated in “castings” intended to remove evil spirits. Pastenes testified that Charles Vallow, Tylee Ryan, JJ Vallow and eventually Tammy Daybell had all been classified as dark or possessed. She also described Alex’s behavior shortly before his death in December 2019, saying Chad and Lori called him the night before Tammy’s body was exhumed and told him what was happening. After the call, Pastenes said Alex became unusually quiet and repeatedly told her, “I think I’m going to be their fall guy.” Defense attorney John Prior attacked Pastenes’ credibility, emphasized that she had received immunity, highlighted inconsistencies between her testimony and earlier police interviews, and got her to acknowledge that Chad and Lori had never explicitly told her that a person’s physical body needed to be killed during a casting.

The afternoon shifted to some of the most graphic medical evidence of the trial when forensic pathologist Dr. Garth Warren testified about the autopsies of JJ and Tylee. Warren concluded that JJ died from asphyxia caused by a plastic bag placed over his head and duct tape covering his mouth, and he described bruising on JJ’s arms, abrasions on his neck and hemorrhaging beneath a thumbnail that indicated trauma before death. He found no natural disease that could explain JJ’s death. Tylee’s remains presented an entirely different forensic problem because her body had been dismembered, burned and recovered in multiple bags mixed with dirt and debris. Warren classified her death as a homicide by unspecified means because there was too little intact tissue remaining to determine exactly how she had been killed. Toxicology testing detected several substances, including GHB, but Warren cautioned that GHB could have developed naturally during decomposition and said nothing in Tylee’s known medical history explained her death. Day eighteen therefore connected the prosecution’s ideological case directly to the physical evidence: jurors first heard how Chad’s circle had labeled the victims dark or possessed and then heard a medical examiner describe in clinical detail what had actually been done to JJ and Tylee.


to contact me:

[email protected]