Coroner describes changing Tammy Daybell’s cause of death to homicide

BOISE — Brenda Dye, the Fremont County coroner, testified Wednesday that as she was responding to Tammy Daybell’s death, she got multiple calls asking when she would get there because Chad Daybell was “very distraught.”

Dye said he was very upset and walking around when she arrived at the home.

After observing the body’s cold temperature, bruises the coroner identified at the time as “old,” rigor mortis, pink foam at her mouth, and blood pooling in the body showing Tammy Daybell had died on her back, Dye said she asked Daybell about his wife’s medical history.

He reported that his wife had been up in the night coughing and had thrown up, and that and he helped her back to bed, Dye recalled. Then he said he woke up because she fell off the bed and pulled the blankets off him, and that’s when he noticed she was dead.

At the time, the coroner said she believed Daybell’s explanation that he could have caused his wife to fall by moving blankets.  But looking back on it she determined that it would take more force than that to roll a body out of bed.

“If someone’s dead, they can’t roll out of bed. … If someone’s dead they can’t move,” Dye said.

Daybell is on trial for first-degree murder in the deaths of Lori Vallow Daybell’s children — 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan — and the death of his former wife, Tammy Daybell, in late 2019. He is also charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder of each of the victims, grand theft and two counts of insurance fraud. Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty if he is convicted.

Please read Emily Ashcraft’s complete story at KSL.com.