Charles Vallow Urged Lori To ‘Come Clean’ About Affair With Chad Daybell Weeks Before His Death, Records State

Charles Vallow had urged his wife Lori Vallow to “come clean” about her alleged affair with Chad Daybell and threatened to tell Daybell’s wife Tammy about the indiscretion just weeks before he was killed, according to new records in the case.

Chandler Police released all its records connected to the investigation into Charles’ death on Wednesday—including a 1,108-page police report, interrogation videos, an order of protection Charles had filed against Lori, and 911 audio.

The records, obtained by The Arizona Republic, provide new details about the growing tension between Charles and Lori in the months before he was shot to death on July 11, 2019 by her brother, Alex Cox.

Alex claimed at the time that he had killed Charles in self-defense after a heated argument had broken out that morning.

New details included in the police records reveal that Charles believed his wife was having an affair with religious author Chad Daybell and had threatened to expose the relationship.

Investigators discovered that Lori allegedly began the affair shortly after meeting Chad at a religious event in October of 2018, according to police records.

On June 29, 2019—less than two weeks before he was killed—Charles allegedly discovered that Lori had sent Chad a “fictitious letter” that appeared to have been written by Charles. It asked Chad to come to Arizona to help Charles write a book.

“This discovery would send everything into action,” the records said, according to the paper.

After discovering the letter, Charles told Lori to “come clean about her relationship with Chad Daybell” by the end of the day or he threatened to tell Chad’s wife, Tammy Daybell, about the affair, according to the records.

Charles was also planning to hold an intervention for his wife about her “radical beliefs” with her brother Adam Cox, but Lori learned about the plans on July 9, 2019 and allegedly enlisted help from her other brother, Alex.  

Charles was killed two days later.

In new inteview footage obtained by local station KSAZ-TV, Lori told investigators that Charles arrived the morning of July 11, 2019 to take JJ to school and was being “smirky” and “jerky.”

Lori said Charles went to the car with JJ but came back into the house because he had forgotten his phone and she refused to hand it to him.

“He said, ‘Give me my phone’ and I said ‘Why don’t you show me your texts that you’ve been texting,’” she said, adding the he had been “acting really weird like he had been plotting something.”

She said she had grown suspicious because she knew he had been texting her brother, Adam.

Lori said Charles “goes nuts” as she continued to hold the phone from him, eventually waking up Tylee, who came out of her room with a bat.

In her own interview with police, Tylee said she had woken up to find her mom, stepfather and uncle all arguing outside her room.

She said she told Charles “you’re too close and you need to step back” but said he grabbed the bat from her at some point and knocked her to the ground.

"My stepdad was like, he was like — I don’t even know how to explain it," Ryan told investigators. "He honestly just looked like kind of a crazy person. Like screaming and like his face was beet red, he just looked like really mad. I remember when he took the bat from me I saw his face for a split second and honestly it didn’t even look like him, he just looked like pure rage, like he was just seeing red.”

Ryan said she went outside to be with JJ and later heard a loud noise she later learned had been a gunshot.

Vallow also told investigators that she didn’t see the shooting, but had been in the home at the time that Charles and Alex were wrestling and fighting.

“I had gone around to the kitchen to get away with him, and then back around so I didn't see--I didn't see the shot, I heard it and I came back around and I saw that he was on the ground,” she said.

Alex insisted he had killed Charles in self-defense, but the ballistics report showed that one of the gunshot wounds occurred when Charles was “down on the ground,” according to the lengthy police report, which was obtained by Oxygen.com.

Alex told police that he had tried to perform CPR on his brother-in-law—although investigators said there was no evidence to suggest that—and had called authorities right after the shooting.

Lori and Tylee both told investigators that they had heard a gunshot, before leaving the home to get JJ Burger King on their way to his school. Yet, investigators noted that there was 42-minute delay from the time Lori had gone through the drive-through to when Alex had called 911, which investigators said suggested “someone’s timeline is inaccurate.”

Months before his death, in February 2019, Charles had procured an order of protection against Lori after he said Lori had claimed she was “a God and was assigned to carry out the work of the 144,000 at Christ second coming in July of 2020.”

“Lori said Charles was in the way and she would have to murder him if he tried to stop her,” stated a search warrant affidavit included in the report.

He also wrote that on Jan. 30, 2019, Lori called and told him she “did not trust him and would have to kill him when she got home.”

She allegedly added that she “would have an angel there to help dispose of the body.”

Alex was never charged in connection with the death. He died himself later that year from what authorities have said was natural causes.

Lori now faces charges of conspiracy to commit murder in the case after authorities have alleged that she conspired with Alex to kill her estranged husband.

She and Chad are also facing charges of first-degree murder in the deaths of Tylee and JJ, who were both found buried on Chad’s Idaho property in June of 2020, nearly a year after they were last seen alive.

Chad is also accused of killing his wife Tammy, who died at the couple’s home in October of 2019. He and Lori got married in Hawaii just two weeks later.

Those who knew the couple have said the pair were drawn together by their shared religious doomsday beliefs, which predicting an impending end of the world.

Chad has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. The case against Lori in Idaho is on hold after a judge ruled she was mentally unfit to stand trial.