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!
I arrived here at the prison in June 2024, and 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.
I express my gratitude to each of you who have been part of my life. While I was in the Fremont County Jail, I spent thousands of hours in an isolation cell. I wasn’t allowed to have a clock, and it often felt like time stood still. During those challenging days, I would reflect on my life, working forward from childhood to more recent years. As memories came to me, I would write down the names of the people who had been positive influences in my life. I felt strengthened as I remembered my extended family members, neighbors, co-workers, school classmates, business associates, church members, and friends I have been privileged to know. You have all enriched my life in so many ways.
I am using this method to share my story because I want you to receive it uncensored and unfiltered, directly from me. I am aware of how I have been portrayed in the media. Frankly, those portrayals of me are unrecognizable. I am not the man the media has created. I am not a cult member who should be feared. I am not a conspirator or a killer. I never have been. I am a father, a grandfather, a husband, a son, a brother, and a friend with a firm faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I have recently been able to have a few in-person visits with several of my family members, and those have been wonderful. I will always be grateful for the unconditional love and support these family members have given me. When people find out that my relatives have visited me, they usually ask them, “How has he changed?”
My relatives give the same response: “He hasn’t changed. He’s the same Chad we always knew.” People are surprised by that answer after hearing a different story for so long. I am still the quiet, gentle person you all know. I have always been a peacemaker, even now in prison. I have never caused anyone’s death, and never conspired to commit such acts against anyone. I share in your sadness, pain, and grief over the deaths of Tammy, Tylee and JJ. I don’t have all the answers even now, but I’m grateful a more complete story will be shared during my appeals process.
During my court trial, I followed my attorney’s advice to sit quietly, not smile, and not show any emotion as evidence was presented. I know that is standard protocol for defendants in the courtroom, but I realize now that it made me appear to be cold and uncaring, which is the opposite of who I am. I assure you my heart was breaking many times throughout the trial, and there were moments I couldn’t hold back the tears, especially as I saw and heard family members suffering the same feelings of anguish that I was experiencing.
A key purpose of these letters is to share with you what I had hoped would have been explained in court. I will strive to make each letter informative and worth your time. I fully realize many people will never change their negative opinion of me. In this age of social media, podcasts, and the merging of the mainstream media with law enforcement, very few defendants are portrayed in a positive way. All I can hope for is that these letters can begin to generate feelings of healing, reconciliation, and understanding.
Thanks again, my friends, for the many ways you have helped and inspired me throughout my life.
Bookshelf
When I attended Springville Junior High in the early 1980s, I enrolled in a woodshop class. The instructor said we could build anything we wanted, so I decided to make a bookshelf. I designed it myself, and it was about five feet high with several shelves. I was pleased with how it turned out, and over the past four decades, that sturdy bookshelf has become our family’s most enduring piece of furniture.
Beds, sofas, tables, and recliners have come and gone, but the bookshelf has made every move with us, and my son now has possession of it. Our family’s favorite books have resided on those shelves throughout the years, and I’m eager to share the significance of those books in upcoming letters.
One of the most important books I have ever read is “Life Everlasting” by Duane S. Crowther. It was one of the first books placed on my new bookshelf after I discovered the book as a teenager. The book examines eyewitness accounts of more than 200 individuals who have ventured into the Spirit World and returned to tell their experiences. It is LDS-themed, but the truths it contains apply to everyone. I will be sharing quotes from it many times in upcoming letters.
If you have any interest in where we came from before birth, why we are here on Earth, and where we go after death, “Life Everlasting” provides those answers.
The book was first published in the 1960s, but Duane released an excellent updated version in 2008 with five additional chapters. I would recommend that version.
You can access it here (paid link)
Musical Notes
I love all kinds of music, and in my upcoming letters I will sometimes mention songs that have been the soundtrack to my life. Rather than disrupting the flow of the letter by discussing a song’s importance to me at that point, I will include these “musical notes” afterward to give added meaning and depth.
Most of my memories are tied to specific songs that had an influence on me.
However, during my first three years in the Fremont County Jail, I rarely heard music. It was a genuine hardship, since my life had been immersed in music before my incarceration.
Then a few months before my court trial began, the jail staff provided a portable radio I could listen to when I was allowed into the jail’s “ball court.” The court was a concrete rectangle with 20-foot-high walls that usually blocked the sun, but it was nice to breathe some fresh air.
There was a giant communication tower directly above the jail that interfered with the radio reception, but if I stood in a certain spot in the ball court and held the radio at a tilted angle, I could hear a few stations. A country station, an oldies station, and a Christian station called K- LOVE came in the best.
At first I listened to the other two stations more often, but as I became more familiar with the K-LOVE songs and their emphasis on Jesus and uplifting topics, I came to rely on those songs to boost my morale.
One song that stood out to me was “I’m So Blessed” by the group Cain. It has a catchy beat, and the lyrics include the phrase, “On my best day, I’m a child of God. On my worst day, I’m a child of God.” Those were definitely some of my worst days, but the song helped me remember that the Lord was with me at all times, especially when the going got tough. So if you’re having a hard day, click on the link, and hopefully the song helps lift your spirits!