An Idaho judge has granted a request to add a veteran Missouri prosecutor to a high-profile case involving the bodies of two children who were found dead and buried in the backyard of a popular Mormon author.
At the request of Madison County (Idaho) prosecutor Rob Wood, District Judge Steven Boyce is allowing Rachel Smith to assist in the state of Idaho’s case against Chad Daybell who married Lori Vallow, the mother of the two children who were discovered deceased on Daybell's property in Rexburg, Idaho, in June 2020.
“The impact Rachel Smith could have is figuring out, based on reviewing the case, what happened and how to prove it,” said Patrick A. McInerney, a former state prosecutor, and Western District of Missouri assistant U.S. Attorney.
Daybell is currently detained in a jail in Fremont County, Idaho where he has pleaded not guilty to felonies related to the alterations, destruction, and concealment of the bodies of 7-year-old Joshua "JJ" Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan.
Daybell and Vallow are both reportedly members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, however, Daybell branched out and founded a specialty sect based on his doomsday books, which include Living on the Edge of Heaven, One Foot in the Grave, Evading Babylon, and The Great Gathering.
“This is an entirely circumstantial case because, from what I see, there doesn't seem to be any direct evidence, which makes it pretty difficult,” McInerney told the St. Louis Record. “This is not the only case of its kind where the bodies of people who've been murdered have been found buried on someone's property and there's not any obvious evidence that the person who owned the property killed the deceased. There are some significant obstacles in terms of the evidence but just because it's a circumstantial case, doesn't mean it's a weaker case. It means it's a different kind of case.”
A 1992 graduate of Washington University School of Law, Smith served as a special assistant attorney general and special prosecutor with the Missouri Attorney General’s Office before joining the Community Affairs Bureau of the St. Louis City Circuit Attorney’s Office, according to Washington University’s website.
“If I'm a small county prosecutor in Idaho without a lot of resources and I've got a case like this that's getting an immense amount of attention and appears to be highly complex from an evidentiary standpoint, somebody like Rachel Smith would be a godsend,” McInerney said.
Smith is an adjunct professor and co-director of the Washington University Law School’s Prosecution Law Clinic.
“In small counties like Madison that have relatively limited budgets, I'm a little bit surprised that they reached as far as they did,” McInerny added. “I'd be eager to know what compensation agreement they have.”
Neither Wood nor Smith was immediately available to respond to requests for comment.
Although Wood is Madison County’s prosecutor, the Fremont County (Idaho) Attorney’s office appointed him to investigate felony charges against Daybell but without additional pay, according to media reports.
Daybell and Vallow are co-defendants but the East Idaho News reported that a previously sealed court order suspending all upcoming hearings had prevented joining Smith to Vallow's case so far.
"As a former prosecutor, when you deal with a case long enough, sometimes it is beneficial to get the perspective of somebody, especially another lawyer who doesn't know anything about the case, who is able to come in without any sort of preconceived opinions or views to take a look at the evidence and the law from a fresh perspective," McInerny said.
"It's a smart move on Robert Woods' part. He's pretty dedicated to figuring out what the possibilities are in terms of charges and I think he wants to exhaust all his avenues in making charging decisions."