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Prosecution outlines financial paper trail as Vallow Daybell trial continues

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BOISE, Idaho — The day after Lori Vallow Daybell's only surviving child took the stand in his mother's murder trial, the prosecution called other witnesses to testify on day 7.

First to testify Wednesday was Rexburg Police Detective Chuck Kunsaitis who was questioned about finances, bank statements and other business documents related to the case.

One document presented to the jury was an email sent by Chad Daybell to Julie Black, a realtor in Hawaii.

The email was sent just three days after Lori and Chad were married and read, "We are interested in seeing this property. Would the owners be interested in leasing this property to a couple with no pets or children? Please let us know. Thank you."

The next exhibit concerned a transaction from Tylee Ryan's Venmo account made on October 10, 2019. $100 was sent from Tylee's account to Colby Ryan with the message "We love you" attached.

The courtroom then viewed an email that Lori sent to her accountant.

In the email, Lori explained that Charles Vallow died and she wants information about how to tax returns to her new address. The email is dated September 9, 2019, at 5:03 p.m. which is just "hours after we believe Tylee was buried in the backyard" says Kunsaitis.

FBI forensic accounty Mike Douglass was called next by the prosecution. Douglass reviewed 80 bank accounts for multiple individuals involved in the case and began his testimony by presenting two exhibits.

The first was a timeline relating to Tylee's life beginning with the death of her father, Joeseph Ryan, in April 2018. The second timeline outlined JJ's life following the death of Charles Vallow.

While outlining the details of the bank accounts, Douglass explains that "Tylee was responsible with her money. I never saw her have one negative balance."

Despite this financial responsibility, the death benefits of her father's life insurance policy were paid into one of Lori's bank accounts. Additionally, Tylee's social security benefits were modified to be deposited in one of Lori's accounts starting on August 16.

After a brief recess, Douglass continued his testimony, explaining that JJ's social security funds, which were being sent due to his father's death, also began to be paid to Lori's account in September 2019.

The jury then saw a document that details social security deposits made to Lori's bank account a month after JJ and Tylee died.

Additionally, Douglass explains documents that outline suspicious behavior on the Venmo accounts of both Lori and Tylee. After multiple attempts to transfer funds on Lori's account, a new account was added to Tylee's Venmo account. This account was added after her death and was used to send money to Colby as both Lori and Tylee often did. After Tylee's death, Lori's account would stop sending money to Colby while Tylee's account continued to do so.

Douglass then moved on to the accounts of Chad Daybell, explaining how his spending habits drastically changed after the death of his former wife, Tammy Daybell. Chad was the beneficiary of his wife's life insurance policy.

The spending habit increases included tickets for a family trip to Knott's Berry Farm purchased right after Tammy's death.

Highlights in the transaction history of Chad's accounts also include three transfers of $8,000 to each of his children. The transfers occurred as officers were searching his property, leaving $4,400 in the account.

Following a lunch break, firefighter Scott Cowden was called. Cowden responded to the July 11 shooting of Charles Daybell.

Fremont County Prosecuting Attorney Lindsey Blake asked Cowden to recall the scene of the shooting. Upon entering the house, Cowden says he and other firefighters found Charles lying on his back unconscious
on the floor.

After assessing the body, Cowden began to administer CPR.

"We were led to believe CPR had started prior to our arrival communicating with dispatch. We were led to believe the caller, the shooter, had started CPR," said Cowden.

However as Cowden was giving CPR, he noticed a "crunch" in the victim's sternum. If someone had been performing CPR, he would not have expected to feel that "crunch".

Cowden also noticed that his gloves were covered in blood after administering CPR due to the amount of blood on Charles' shirt. Cowden believes that there would have been blood on the hands of anyone doing CPR on someone who had been shot.

Later in the day, the prosecution called Det. Sandra Ynclan with the Chandler Police Department to the stand.

Ynclan responded to the scene after Charles Vallow was shot and officers had secured the area. Ynclan recalled moving Tylee and Lori to the crisis response unit van to discuss the shooting. This is when Ynclan recalled learning that Lori was the wife of the victim and sister of the shooter.

Ynclan was with Lori when she learned that Charles had died.

According to Ynclan, "she didn't have much of a reaction. When she was informed that Charles was deceased, she responded that she already knew and made statements that she was present when it happened. This was new information to detectives."

Ynclan also noted that Lori "appeared calm, very non-emotional, was kind of hanging out and having general conversations. She was not really upset and at one point she was laughing."

Ynclan was also assigned to follow up with Lori and Tylee later that day in the police station's family advocacy center.

Lori told Ynclan that Charles had been living in Houston and that at one point she had allowed him to take JJ back there with him despite JJ's special needs, which Charles did not have the services or support for.

As Lori moved on to discuss the day of the shooting. She explained that Charles arrived at the house that morning to pick up JJ for school. She described JJ as reluctant to go with Charles, but they got him settled down to leave for school.

According to Lori, Charles left the house to take JJ to school only to find that he had forgotten his phone inside the house. Lori then explained that Charles was very angry when he returned to find that Lori was holding his phone.

Lori claimed Charles began to move around the kitchen to get the phone back and she refused to give it to him. This sparked an argument.

Lori then told Ynclan that Tylee responded to this argument by coming out of her room with a bat which she was using to keep Charles away by "prodding" him in defense of Lori.

Charles ended up taking the bat from Tylee's hands before Alex Cox came into the room behind Charles. Alex grabbed him from behind and pulled him backward, at which point a physical struggle broke out between the two.

At this point, Lori says she told JJ and Tylee to go outside. She then moved into the kitchen where she could hear the struggle but did not see when Alex fired his gun. After the shot was fired, Lori went back into the room to find Charles on the floor.

Lori says she then went outside, where JJ and Tylee were waiting, and drove off to drop JJ at school with Tylee.

Charles' phone was later recovered, though it was not in the house at the scene of the crime. Instead, it was found in Charle's rental car.

With Lori's interview finished, Ynclan began her interview with Tylee while Detective Moffitt interviewed Alex separately. After these interviews finished, the detectives returned the group to the house.

Ynclan says Lori was "very nonchalant about what had happened, not upset, and there was some chatter about Tylee, school and mundane conversation,"