LORI Vallow and Chad Daybell could have prepared a burial site for her children to hide evidence linking themselves to the killings, a crime scene expert believes.
Lori stands accused of murdering kids JJ, seven, and Tylee, 16, whose remains were found buried on Chad Daybell's Idaho property after a months-long search.
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The so-called cult mom, 49, sparked nationwide fury after she was spotted enjoying a Hawaiian honeymoon with her fifth husband Chad, 54, in November 2019 amid a feverish search for her children.
The two enjoyed months of marital bliss while allegedly helping to gather supporters for their so-called doomsday cult.
Lori was eventually arrested in February for failing to report a missing child, and Chad was taken in months later after a haunting discovery was made.
In June 2020, authorities received a warrant to search his property and look for signs of the kids and eventually found remains buried in makeshift graves, a detective who was at the scene said.
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Detective Hermosillo revealed horrifying details about exhuming the decaying bodies while testifying at Lori's highly anticipated murder trial last month.
The bodies were discovered in a vault which is typically built to weigh down remains and prevent them from coming to the surface.
Daybell worked as a gravedigger before he began writing and podcasting his strange religious beliefs full-time.
Speaking exclusively to The U.S. Sun, former detective sergeant and crime scene analyst Mike McCutcheon said that keeping the crime close to home could have been part of a sick plot.
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"My assumption is that they prepared this prior to the kids being killed because it wasn't last minute," the criminal justice educator said.
"A lot of times they will hurriedly try to bury a body or burn a body.
"A person will only move a body if it's necessary. So, if it's the stepdad's property, then that's where they're being killed because they're not going to kill them somewhere else and bring 'em back there.
"They knew this was coming. It wasn't an accident."
McCutcheon said that Daybell could have even been so confident in his skills as a gravedigger that it ultimately led to his capture.
To the crime scene expert, the gravesite right beside Chad's home shows "he believed that his expertise was going to be better than what the police could discover."
LORI'S 'HATRED'
Detective Hermosillo said that Tylee's remains were unrecognizable after she had apparently been burned and dismembered.
Meanwhile, JJ's body was found more intact with authorities tragically saying he still had on his pajamas and pull-up from the night he was killed.
Speaking to the Boise court, Hermosillo recounted digging up Tylee's partially melted remains that were left in a plastic bucket and said that JJ's hands were duct-taped together.
"We started finding burnt flesh, decomposing bones," the detective told the court. "We had to take turns digging because the smell was so bad."
McCutcheon, who is now a criminal justice professor, speculated that the differing treatment of the bodies could say a lot about Lori's relationship with her kids.
"This could be Lori having hatred," he said of Tylee's remains.
"It could be where we've seen parents are very jealous of their children and perhaps Lori was very jealous of her daughter and treated her that way."
He went on to say that JJ's treatment could have been more of a burial, and guessed that he likely didn't anticipate the crime due to his outfit.
"So I certainly there's there's a psychological aspect of disgust or some type of increased hatred towards the daughter to have her body treated so differently than the sons," he told The U.S. Sun.
MURDER TRIAL LAUNCHED
Jurors continue to hear devastating details on JJ and Tylee's deaths, including last week when prosecutors revealed that JJ's cause of death was asphyxiation by a plastic bag.
Tylee's cause of death, meanwhile, could not be determined because of the state of her remains, but officials confirmed that her corpse was dismembered by using a pickaxe.
On May 25, 2021, an Idaho grand jury indicted Lori and Chad on several counts, including first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and grand theft in connection to the children's deaths.
Chad was also charged with the murder of his former wife Tammy and both he and Lori were charged with conspiracy to commit murder in Tammy's death.
Lori and Chad both pleaded not guilty to all murder, conspiracy, and grand theft charges, and have maintained their innocence as her trial continues.
They face separate trials, as requested by Chad's lawyers.
It's unclear when Chad will stand trial as he waved his right to a speedy one, but he could still face the death penalty.
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Lori Vallow's trial is expected to last for up to eight weeks.
She faces life in prison if convicted of all charges.
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