LIVE UPDATES FROM THE LORI VALLOW DAYBELL TRIAL 11:55 a.m. Hart says he found no signs of regret or sorrow in any of the text messages following Charles’ death. We are now adjourning for the day and will be back at 8:30 a.m. on Monday. I’ll break down everything that happened in court tonight at […]
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Some of the testimony. See link above for all of it.
11:02 a.m. Chad and Lori met at a Preparing a People seminar on Oct. 26, 2018. The conference ended on Oct. 28. This was the first known electronic contact between the two, Hart says.
11 a.m. The first slide is a line in the contact section of lori4style. It was saved under the name of Bishop Shumway on Oct. 28, 2018. The phone number was the known cell number for Chad Daybell.
10:59 a.m. Smith asks to admit the summary PowerPoint presentation. Thomas objects. Boyce overrules the objection.
10:56 a.m. Hart describes how he pulled information from Cellebrite into the summary PowerPoint. He cut and pasted each message from the program into the presentation so the words/letters were not altered.
10:53 a.m. “There were a number of communications between Alex Cox and Lori Vallow deemed to be pertinent to the investigation, and it was clear there was a relationship between Alex Cox and Chad Daybell as well,” Hart says. “Those relationships were important because those individuals were ultimately charged with the alleged crimes.”
10:52 a.m. Hart says there was communication and direct references to a large life insurance policy possessed by Charles Vallow as well as Social Security payments attributed to JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan.
10:51 a.m. Hart also found financial information and information regarding the relationship between Alex Cox and Lori and Chad.
10:50 a.m. Hart says Chad and Lori used the word “obstacles” to describe JJ, Tylee, Charles and Tammy.
10:48 a.m. Hart discovered leads in the messages, such as Lori and Chad saying they wanted to get married and lead a life together. “There were several communications regarding JJ and Tylee that were relevant to their deaths. They discussed their deaths. After the affair began, there began to be communication regarding the deaths of Charles Vallow, Tammy Daybell, JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan.”
10:47 a.m. Hart’s initial review of the iCloud account began before the children were found. He believes it has taken him well over 200 hours to go through all the records.
10:46 a.m. Lori is chatting with her attorneys while the FBI agent speaks about these messages. She’s also taking notes on her yellow pad.
10:45 a.m. Hart says every single text Lori sent was not relevant to the investigation. He says there were thousands of “normal, everyday” type of texts that had no bearing on the case. If a message was relevant, he would flag it.
10:43 a.m. The program was able to retrieve the contents of the message, whom it was sent to, who sent it, the date and time.
10:41 a.m. Hart applied a date filter starting Oct. 26, 2018, through November 2019 on lori4style. There were approximately 4,500 text messages. Hart read every text. Then went to each category (voicemail, photos, etc.) and did the same thing.
10:40 a.m. Smith asks Hart how many records of data were on the iCloud. He says he doesn’t have an exact number, but his best estimate is 130,000 to 150,000 records.
10:39 a.m. Hart says he followed a “very methodical” process in searching the iCloud accounts. “My process was to open up a compartment and examine the data in there. If there was something that was pertinent or relevant, I would make a document of that.”
10:38 a.m. Lollytime has far fewer files than lori4style. Lollytime was created in April 2019. Lori4style was first used in December 2000.
10:37 a.m. We see an image on the screen that shows the Cellebrite dashboard with menu items showing different categories of what was found in the iCloud. Over 13,000 text messages along with images, voicemails, etc.
10:35 a.m. Smith asks Hart about viewing Lori’s iCloud accounts through Cellebrite. Cellebrite is a digital intelligence company that provides tools for federal, state, and local law enforcement to collect, review, analyze and manage digital data, according to their website.
10:32 a.m. Boyce is back on the bench. Jurors are being brought in.
10:02 a.m. Time for a morning break. We will be back by 10:30 a.m.
10 a.m. Hart says with each section of the iCloud, you can apply filters. You can use a “capture time” filter. He did this often in the lori4style account. The earliest records on this account go back to December 2000. For this case, Hart started with data from Oct. 26, 2018 – the day Chad met Lori at a Preparing a People conference in St. George.
9:57 a.m. Hart says you can delete something from your phone to increase the storage on your phone but if your phone is backed up in the cloud, it still exists in the cloud. “Carved strings” are data have been deleted from the iCloud but not overwritten. “It’s bits and pieces of messages and communication. They don’t make a whole lot of sense. The carved strings weren’t really of any value to us in the investigation.”
9:55 a.m. We are back to the iCloud accounts. Hart says he has several years of experience in analyzing voluminous amounts of records. He has personally worked with Apple iCloud accounts and records. “Whatever is on your smartphone is in the iCloud. It’s more than a mirror – it’s a storage device of the activity of your phone. It contains your contacts, your messages, your cookies, your strings (data that has been deleted but not overwritten), it contains images, videos, the list goes on and on.”
9:54 a.m. Hart helped exhume JJ’s grave and body. He also helped recover Tylee’s remains.
9:52 a.m. We see an image of the rocks that were placed on top of the boards on JJ’s body.
9:51 a.m. Hart attempted to put the probe in the ground, but it did not go in. “Ultimately we understood why the probe didn’t go in. Once we lifted the sod away, we saw a board and rocks were placed on top of JJ’s body.” The probe was hitting the rocks and board.
9:48 a.m. A new photo shows a closer view of the yellow spot where the vegetation isn’t growing as well. JJ’s remains were found in this area. Hart felt the ground with his hands and had a probe (a rod with a point) with him. “If hard, undisturbed ground exists, it doesn’t go in. If you’ve dug the earth up, it goes in considerably easier.”
9:46 a.m. We see an image that shows, from a distance, a spot on the property that is yellow. The rest of the area around the spot is green. The spot stuck out to Hart.
9:44 a.m. Hart noticed a mound of dirt and changes to vegetation in the area. He felt the ground with his hand, and it was different. Smith asks to show photos of the site where JJ was found.
9:41 a.m. On June 9, 2020, the FBI Evidence Response Team was present to oversee the search of Chad’s property. Due to the size of the property, other FBI agents were asked to help. The first thing law enforcement did was walk the property to look for evidence. As they did so, they located JJ’s grave. “When you’re looking for a clandestine grave, there are certain tell-tell signs that you want to find. If a grave has been dug, the vegetation around where the digging took place is slightly different than the vegetation around the ground. Typically, you’ll see a mound of dirt where the grave has been dug, or you’ll see a depression in the earth where the person has been buried.”
9:40 a.m. “In this instance we have a large volume of direct communication between Lori Vallow and others in this case. We have a number of emails and notes and recordings that were discovered during the review and analysis of the iCloud account,” he says.
9:38 a.m. Hart interviewed witnesses and was present when the search warrant was served at Chad’s house on June 9. His biggest role was to examine Lori’s two iCloud accounts. It was important to look at the accounts “because of the value of information that’s contained in the cloud storage.”
9:37 a.m. Hart’s primary role was to be the investigator on the case. He lives in Boise, but he traveled multiple times to Rexburg every month. “Due to the complexity of the case and the fact two children were missing, I felt it was important to play an active role given my background. Moreso than my supervisory role, I played an investigator role in the case.”
9:34 a.m. Hart was the supervisor over the investigation for the FBI. He was not in charge of the case (the local agencies were), but he was in charge of the FBI role.
9:31 a.m. The FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit was also consulted on the case. Cell phone records, business records, tips, leads, everything was followed up on.
9:29 a.m. Hart got involved in the Daybell case on Nov. 27, 2019, when Rexburg Police contacted him. The CARD team was contacted but not called in. “We knew very quickly that Lori Vallow lied when the welfare check was conducted and due to the span of time that had taken place (since JJ and Tylee disappeared), it didn’t fall under the parameters of a CARD deployment for those things done in the aftermath of a child going missing.”
9:27 a.m. Hart says there is a special unit in the FBI called CARD – the Child Abduction Rapid Deployment team. “They come and help the investigators ensure all the appropriate steps are being taken. Collectively the unit has responded to over 160 child abductions in the United States in the past 20-plus years. They are the world’s foremost experts in those types of cases.”
