Chad Daybell is sharing his thoughts — from death row.
The convicted killer has started a website called Letters from Chad, which features “uncensored and unfiltered” letters “from his cell on Death Row,” according to the opening page.
Even though he was found guilty in 2024 of killing his first wife, Tammy Daybell, 49, and his current wife Lori Vallow Daybell’s two children, Joshua “J.J.” Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16, he continues to say he is innocent.
“I have never caused anyone’s death, and never conspired to commit such acts against anyone,” he writes in his first letter. “I share in your sadness, pain, and grief over the deaths of Tammy, Tylee and J.J. I don’t have all the answers even now, but I’m grateful a more complete story will be shared during my appeals process.”
Daybell is on death row at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, where convicted killer Bryan Kohberger is also housed.
The former doomsday cult leader is able to send out his letters with help from his daughter, Emma Murray.
Murray, who believes her father was framed, shared the letters with The U.S. Sun, saying in an email: “My father, Chad Daybell, was convicted by the state of Idaho to die. I started a page on X to share his letters and thought you might be interested.”
In his first letter, posted at the end of August, Daybell wrote: “Hello, my friends! This is Chad Daybell, writing to you from my cell in Idaho’s Maximum Security Institution. This is the first of several letters I will send. I want to thank everyone who sent me cards and letters while I have been incarcerated. Your kind words of support really helped me. I cherished each one!”
He mentions that he started his prison sentence in June 2024 and writes, “I suppose you could say I’ve settled in. As for Death Row itself, I won’t be sharing details about my daily schedule or information about my fellow inmates. As the newest arrival on Death Row, it isn’t my place to talk about such things. It really is a different world in here, but I’m surviving, and I spend a lot of time working on my upcoming appeals.”
He hopes the letters will help people see him differently. “I am aware of how I have been portrayed in the media,” he writes. “Frankly, those portrayals of me are unrecognizable.”
“I am not a cult member who should be feared. I am not a conspirator or a killer,” he said. “I never have been.”
Although he knows some people “will never change their negative opinion of me,” he writes, “all I can hope for is that these letters can begin to generate feelings of healing, reconciliation, and understanding.”
