What did you know about the case, if anything, when you were first called for jury duty?
Nothing. We were fairly new to Idaho, and I didn't follow any of it at all.
So you were the ideal juror.
That's why I suspect I was selected because I remember filling out the initial questionnaire and it took me about five minutes to go through it. They ask you if you know lists of people. I'm like, “No, I don't know anyone here.” I handed it in and there was still a ton of people sitting there. Was there something I missed?
What were your first impressions of the case and did that change throughout the trial?
Well, it was hard to understand for a long time because it is a really complicated case. I knew so little. I didn't even understand when I went in for questioning to be selected that she was the defendant because she looks normal. I mean, she doesn't look normal now, but back then she looked very normal and I didn't even realize at the time that she was in jail. She was currently incarcerated. Those were not things that I was thinking about. I was more just trying to figure out what was going on. It took a couple of weeks, three weeks before I really thought, oh, this is a real possibility, and she had everything to do with this.
How did being a mom impact your thoughts on the trial?
Significantly. Our youngest was the same age as JJ was when he was killed, so that's the thing that probably sticks out the most in my mind is going home and seeing him and seeing how little he was and JJ being nonverbal and having other challenges … it's hard to fathom how you could treat another baby like that. To me, he was my baby.
The jury was not sequestered in this trial. How did you unwind or take your mind off the darkness of the case when you went home?
You don't deal with it. It just kind of comes out in random tears and outbreaks and it was hard. You can't talk about it. You can't explain why you had a hard day, so it makes it really hard. When you're going through trauma like that, you withdraw from the world that you don't participate in things. My son was playing baseball at the time, and I didn't even want to do that. I did it, but I didn't want to be there. I felt like everyone's looking at me. No, no one knew who I was, but you feel that I can't talk, I can't do that.
How were you able to avoid coverage of the case during the trial?
I don't do a lot of social media, so that is helpful. You're being shielded from it and you just kind of know where to go and what not to do. And my husband didn't follow it at all either for that same reason, and we didn't want to have any slipups. We don't watch the news.
Was there a specific moment in the court proceedings or a piece of evidence that confirmed it was going to be a guilty vote for me you?
It was more the accumulation. Something would happen, and it's more like, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. And then waiting for her to explain some of these things. You think, I must be missing something? There has to be something else, but there was no defense. She thinks that the world was really ending sometime in 2020 that Chad had predicted.
Is there any particularly tough or standout moment from the trial that's really stayed with you?
Probably the autopsy. I try not to think about it too hard [about it].
How has this whole experience shaped your perspective?
I feel like there was a reason that I was put into that position. I was called to serve. I was called to be there to give justice to Tylee and JJ and Tammy, and that was my role, and I made some really good friends out of that that I hope to have for a lifetime. I think about Tylee and JJ and Tammy still a lot, but I don't think about it in context of my real life, so maybe that's a separation to be able to deal with it. It just exposes you to the evils of this world.
Have you started to follow popular trials more closely since serving yourself?
I used to think like, oh, the jurors must know this is happening in the media, or they're talking about this. How could they think any other way on really big cases? Going back in time to O.J. Simpson, you think, how could they not know all of this? But being on the other side, people, when they're called to do that, and especially in a high profile case, I think a really high percentage of people try to do it the best they know how and to honor the system. I was very careful on my phone of what I was looking at.
If you could go back before you were selected for the jury in the Lori Vallow Daybell case, what advice would you give yourself?
That maybe we as a family during it might have handled it differently? I may have asked my husband to see what was going on so he could understand why I couldn't come home and be normal. The advice I would give to other people is that what you will get out of serving is much greater than what you put into it.
