Welcome to The News at 4.
I'm Doug Pet Cash. A big day in
the Lori Valo Debell murder trial.
Closing arguments in the eastern Idaho mom's
trial wrapped up just about 90 minutes ago.
Now the case is in the hands of the jury.
They started deliberating this afternoon.
Valo was charged with murder,
conspiracy to commit murder,
and Grand Theft in the deaths of
two of her own kids, JJ and Ty Lee,
and her husband's late wife, Tammy Debell.
My coanchor here on the News at 4,
Shira Massazawa, has been covering
this trial since the beginning.
Sure. What's it been like today?
Well, you know, Doug, for the first
time since this entire trial started,
we saw more than 100 people inside
the Overflu flow room with me today.
And that's way more than we've seen
this entire duration of the trial,
which speaks to the interest
of this case moving forward.
But like every day that we've been
here in court, we saw Larry Woodcock,
JJ's grandpa, as he arrived this morning.
Take a listen.
Guys, today is the day that song was JJ song.
He played it, he sang it, he loved it.
And I can't think of a better
day to play that song in memory
of JJ and I am ready for this.
The gloves are off.
It's time to get this show on.
Rob Wood delivered the closing
remarks for the state.
He opened with money,
power and sex the same way the
prosecution began its opening statement.
Wood says Lori and Chad acted together to
cause the deaths of JJ, Ty Lee and Tammy.
Wood told the jurors.
You saw evidence of Ty Lee's
body burned beyond recognition.
But Laurie kept collecting Ty Lee's money.
He said JJ's voice was silenced forever
by a piece of duct tape and buried like
a piece of trash in Chad's backyard.
The court saw those photos again.
As the prosecution talked,
he said the evidence is clear.
Laurie, Chad and Alex, Laurie's brother,
conspired to murder Tammy, Wood said.
Laurie was conveniently gone
when Tammy was murdered.
She was out of state.
But those trips were not coincidences.
And Lori wasted no time in making
sure she benefited from Tammy's life
insurance money because two weeks later
Lori married Chad on a beach in Hawaii.
The jury also saw a text from Chad to
Tammy again from September 9th of 2019.
It's a text where Chad talks about shooting
and burying a raccoon in their pet cemetery,
Wood said.
This text is where Chad told
us where to locate Ty Lee.
This text tells us where he burned her limbs,
Wood said.
This was all a plan.
A plan for Chad and Lori to be together
without obstacles and his closing
argument would said Chad and Lori used
religion as a tool to manipulate others.
The defense was up next.
Valo's attorney,
Jim Archibald, said.
Testimony showed Lori was a good mom,
he says,
while evidence showed Alex and Chad and
Chad's backyard where the kids were buried.
It doesn't place Lori there,
he said.
If Lori had a plan to kill her kid,
why would she hire a babysitter
only to kill JJ the next week?
Archibald says it's because
Lori didn't have a plan.
Did she lie about her kids whereabouts?
Yeah she did.
But he says if this was about money
then why didn't she get an insurance
policy on her two kids before they died?
He also told the jurors when one of Lori's
hairs were found on that duct tape,
it wasn't a smoking gun
because decomposition,
pajamas,
socks and a blanket were also in that bag.
He also put a lot of blame on
Chad and that all of the beliefs
Lori was following was from Chad.
Archibald also addressed the jury,
saying of the 15,000 text
messages you have in evidence,
show me one where Lori says When
are you killing Ty Lee or JJ?
He says you can't.
The state then had a chance
to respond to the defense.
Rob Wood close by saying Lori would
tell her friends that nothing
in this life counted for her,
Wood said Make it count for Lori
Valo that Ty Lee was burned.
Mutilated,
buried in a bucket next to a dog and cat,
he said.
Make it count for
JJA boy with special needs who had
a plastic bag around his head,
and make it count for Tammy.
Earlier this morning,
Judge Steven Boyce denied the
defense's motion for an acquittal.
You can read more about this at
ktvb.com and I will say that there
was a moment when we broke for lunch,
Doug, where Lori was seen crying and
emotional while talking to her attorneys.
The fate, her fate,
now lies in the hands of the jurors.
And
she was Speaking of the jury.
Is there any indication of how
long they could deliberate today?
Yeah. No, not at this moment.
I think a lot of people were trying to
figure out if there was a time frame,
but there wasn't at this point.
So it's up to anyone's guess.
We'll just have to wait and see.
And obviously, it could go for hours.
It could go for days even.
And we'll be on top of it.
Sheera, thank you so much.