(NewsNation) — One of the observers at Lori Vallow Daybell’s latest trial is a former Idaho police detective whose investigative work helped convict the “Doomsday Mom” of killing her two youngest children.
Ron Ball was a lieutenant with the Rexburg Police Department when authorities were searching for Vallow Daybell’s missing children, 16-year-old Tylee Ryan and 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow. Their bodies were found in June 2020 on the property of her fifth husband, Chad Daybell, who would also be convicted of their murders.
“He knew what we were going to find on the property that day,” Ball recalled Wednesday on “Banfield.”
Chad Daybell tells family he’d ‘probably be going to jail’: Detective
The former investigator said he told Daybell he was being detained after one body had been recovered.
When asked if he would like any message relayed to his family, Daybell reportedly replied, “I’ve already told them that I’d probably be going to jail today.”
“It was almost a confession. It’s probably the closest we had to any type of confession from Chad,” Ball said. “At that point in time, we knew that he knew that it was just a matter of time and that he was on the clock and his freedom was on the clock.”
Ball said that, at the time, they knew Daybell had an attorney, which is why it might not have been mentioned in the trial.
Lori Vallow Daybell serving 3 life sentences, on trial for murder conspiracy
Vallow Daybell was also convicted of conspiring to kill Daybell’s spouse, her romantic rival, in a case that drew national attention. She is serving three life sentences. Her nickname, “Doomsday Mom,” derives from her reported beliefs that people can be possessed by evil spirits and turned into zombies.
Currently, she has been standing trial for murder conspiracy in the 2019 shooting death of her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, in Arizona, and is acting as her own attorney.
Ball, who is now the sheriff for Madison County, Idaho, has been watching the trial unfold.
“Lori… has to have things her way, I think. And she wants people to hear her story,” Ball said.
In opening statements, the prosecution said Vallow Daybell conspired with her brother, Alex Cox, to kill Charles Vallow and cash in on a life insurance policy, while espousing the belief that he was possessed by an evil spirit.
Vallow Daybell has pleaded not guilty and said in her opening statement that Cox acted in self-defense, describing the death as a tragedy but not a crime.
“She gets to tell the story how she wants to tell it,” Ball said.
The prosecution rested Wednesday, with Vallow Daybell telling the court she doesn’t intend to call witnesses but may herself testify. Ball said he thinks Vallow Daybell wants to tell her story to jurors.
“I’m extremely interested to see how she closes this thing out — whether or not she does testify — or her closing statement,” he said.