(NewsNation) — Supervisory FBI Agent Douglas Hart took the stand Friday in the trial of Lori Vallow and went through text messages exchanged between her and husband Chad Daybell.
Hart is the FBI boss who oversaw the investigation of Vallow, who is accused of killing her two youngest children, almost 17-year-old Tylee Ryan and JJ Vallow, 7. Lori Vallow is also charged in connection to the October 2019 death of Chad Daybell’s previous wife, Tammy.
While Chad Daybell also faces these charges, the two are being tried separately.
Tylee and JJ went missing in September 2019, and their bodies were later found on Chad Daybell’s Idaho property.
From early on, when the FBI was called in to investigate, Hart said, they determined Lori Vallow was lying. That is why they did not immediately call in the FBI child abduction team, which would typically be protocol if they thought the kids were abducted.
However, investigators knew something else was going on with Lori Vallow, Hart testified.
As part of the probe, Hart reviewed Lori’s iCloud account, from which there were between 130,000 and 150,000 records and 40,000 text messages. Reading every single text message took Hart about 200 hours.
Texts reveal Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell were messaging back and forth about loving each other long before Tammy Daybell died.
One text, sent from Chad Daybell to Lori Vallow on July 14, 2019, said, “I love you so much. You are my greatest desire and my best friend. Now on with the story!”
In the texts, Hart found discussions about Lori Vallow’s late husband Charles’ life insurance and Social Security payments connected to JJ and Tylee.
Charles Vallow died July 11, 2019, after he was shot by Lori Vallow’s now-deceased brother, Alex Cox. Cox claimed the shooting was in self defense.
After Charles Vallow died, records show, Lori Vallow texted his sons, saying she was “working on making arrangements” and will “keep them informed.”
“I’m still not sure how to handle things,” she told them. “Just want you to know that I love you and so did your dad!”
Charles Vallow’s sons pressed her for more information, to which she replied they were still waiting for the medical examiner report.
“Lori what the (expletive) happened? You can’t just tell us our dad died and disappear,” one of the sons wrote. “You’re not too busy to just let us know he died and disappear.”
