Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Cult Mom Lori Vallow: New Bombshell Evidence!

Episode Date: July 20, 2021

The Chandler, Arizona, Police Department has released some 2,500 documents from their investigation into “cult mom” Lori Vallow after the disappearance of two of her children, 7-year-old Joshua ��JJ” Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan. Among the documents is a photo of young JJ, dated September 22, 2019. It’s unknown if it’s the last photo taken of the boy, but it was taken on the last day he was seen before investigators found his body and that of his sister buried in Chad Daybell’s backyard on June 9, 2020. Lori Vallow and Daybell have been charged with two counts of murder and three counts of conspiracy to commit murder in the deaths of the children and Daybell’s then-wife, Tammy Daybell, who died suddenly in October 2019. Daybell has been charged with Tammy Daybell’s murder. Joining Nancy Grace Today:Ashley Willcott - Judge and Trial Attorney, Anchor on Court TV, www.ashleywillcott.com Dr. Shari Schwartz - Forensic Psychologist (specializing in Capital Mitigation and Victim Advocacy), www.panthermitigation.com, Twitter: https://twitter.com/TrialDoc, Author: "Criminal Behavior" and "Where Law and Psychology Intersect: Issues in Legal Psychology Joe Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet", Featured on "The Piketon Massacre: Return to Pike County" on iHeartRadioNate Eaton - News Director, EastIdahoNews.com Twitter: @NateNewsNow, Instagram: @n.eaton - Instagram\Dan Schilling - Former Lieutenant Colonel, USAF, 30-year Special Operations Veteran, Author: "The Power of Awareness", danschillingbooks.com, Instagram: @danobooks Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. We all saw the headlines. In fact, we watched the case before it became a headline. But now even more gruesome details are emerging in the case of cult mom Lori Vallow and her fifth husband, cult leader Chad Daybell, as the two of them, the puppet masters, manipulating everyone around them, their scenario, their activities, their manipulations now being laid bare in a treasure trove of evidence just released by police. Remember when everybody kept saying, you guys are calling in and writing in, texting, emailing, saying, why isn't there an arrest? What's happening? Where's JJ?

Where's Tylee? Well, now we know. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. of emails and texts, documents from cult mom Lori Vallow to everyone around her, weaving a web like a spider that ultimately included JJ, her seven-year-old, Tylee, her teen girl, husband 4, Charles Vallow, Daybell's wife Tammy Daybell, and I believe others. Now, you don't have to be a legal eagle to know that three or four thousand documents of emails and texts import it. Wait till you hear this. a listen newly released evidence by chandler police comes after the indictment of laurie vallow in maricopa county the investigation into laurie and her two missing kids jj vallow and tylee ryan spanned multiple states and involved the fbi this photo recovered from laurie's icloud account could be the last known picture taken of seven-year-old jj

dated on the morning of September 22, 2019. A day later, two more photos from Lori's iCloud show ammunition in an Idaho gun store. Why is that one photo of little JJ so important? Because that's how he was found buried. Let's go to our cut 49. The ME grabbed a small sharp instrument and cut down the middle of the black plastic. And what did you observe?

I observed a small child in red pajamas red pajama shirt red pajama pants black socks that had the word sketchers in orange across the toes i also observed a light and blue blanket that had been placed on top of him. Okay. Detective, were there, when you observed what you perceived to be a child, was there anything that drew your attention? Yes. Can you describe for the court what drew your attention?

The amount of duct tape that was covering the body. You were hearing Detective Ray Hermosillo speaking in court about the autopsy, about when the people at the scene cut open a bag and they find a little boy in the bag still wearing red pajamas and black socks. Now, why is this information, this one photo, so critical, Jackie? If you would play Cut 50 one more time. You're hearing Justin Lum from Fox 10 Phoenix. Newly released evidence by Chandler Police comes after the indictment of Lori Vallow in Maricopa County. The investigation into Lori and her two missing

kids, JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan, spanned multiple states and involved the FBI. This photo, recovered from Lori's iCloud account, could be the last known picture taken of seven-year-old J.J. dated on the morning of September 22, 2019. A day later, two more photos from Lori's iCloud show ammunition in an Idaho gun store. I'm going to circle back to that ammo, but first let me introduce to you an all-star panel with me, Ashley Wilcott, judge, trial lawyer, anchor court TV at ashleywilcott.com. Dr. Sherry Schwartz, forensic psychologist. You can find her at panthermitigation.com, author of Where Law and Psychology Intersect Criminal Behavior.

Joseph Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, death investigator and author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon. He's a star of the Piketon Massacre on iHeartRadio. Dan Schilling, a personal safety expert, former Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Air Force, 30-year special ops veteran, and author of The Power of Awareness. And I find that really interesting in this case because Charles Vallow, God bless him, was so wrapped up in his love for J.J., his little boy. He kept trying and trying and trying to get to J.J., and he ended up dead.

Aware, but not aware of what was swirling around him. And right now, to the news director of EastIdahoNews.com, Nate Eaton. Nate, you are the one that first reported on this treasure trove of evidence. I want you to explain to me the critical significance of that one photo found in Lori Vallow's iCloud. Well, here's JJ Vallow in the red PJ sitting on the couch. It looks like he's playing with a cup this was taken hours before police say he was killed and his body was later found wrapped in that plastic bag and duct tape at chad daybell's property wearing those same red pajamas with his mother taking this photo it was off of lori's phone taking the photo hours before he died okay let. Let me ask you a lightning round.

Number one, you believe cop mom, Lori Vallow, took the photo. Why? Well, it's unknown who actually took the photo, but a lot of these photos were taken off of Lori's phone, according to the police documents. This is 2,500 pages of stuff taken from the cloud, photos and emails and text messages, communication. Nate Eaton, what's in the background of the picture? You said he's sitting on a sofa. Where? He's sitting on a sofa. We don't know exactly where, but it's likely that it was Lori's townhouse. Well, I can tell you right now to you, Joe Scott Morgan, that's going to be

matched up to her townhouse. That kind of forensic evidence, you hand it over to the FBI or the state crime lab, they'll tell you where it is. They can match the paint and the background. I'll tell you how I know this. I was working on a case where there was a photo of a little girl, and the girl was molested, molested, molested. Turns out the cops could identify the hotel by the bedspread.

You know, in every hotel they have the same pictures on the wall, the same bedspreads, the same paint, the same everything. They could figure out, based on that photo, where, what city, and even the date. And that's critical here because when this goes to trial, you're going to want to tell the jury, we believe this photo was taken on this date. You can tell in the iCloud at what time and where and by whom because it's her phone. Explain, Joe Scott. Yeah, you're talking about connectivity with this, Nancy. Remember, you can't take the jury by this vis-a-vis the documentation that you do when you go back to the scene, back to that location, take the photos.

If you take a real close look, Nancy, at this photograph, you can see a countertop there, and it looks like it's some kind of like faux stone. I'm looking at it right now as we're talking. It's JJ in these cute little red pajamas with looks like choo-choo trains or trucks or something on them. And I think it says Sleep Hero. Sleepy Hero. Sleepy Hero. And he's got a cup.

It looks like he's making something. He's got a plastic cup over his hand upside down. It looks like he's pulling something. He's got a plastic cup over his hand upside down. It looks like he's pulling something up through it like a string maybe. Now let's talk about what you're talking about. I mean, there's enough of that sofa. I would be able to identify that sofa, maybe even the make, model, brand, the whole shebang. But back to what you're saying in the background, it's a dead giveaway.

Yeah, it is because that countertop is very specific. And if this is a townhouse that was built by the same company, you might have multiple of these in each one of the adjoining condos or townhouses or whatever. And there will be specific identifiers that you can tie back to this. You can say pretty definitively that this is her place. You got a throw pillow here. There's any number of things. And, Nancy, one thing that's very haunting about this that has kind of haunted me throughout this case, remember what they said early on about JJ acting out of control, climbing on countertops.

Do you remember that? Yeah, and that's not what he's doing at all. No, it's not. But if that's the same area boy what a marker in time and just fyi uh nate eaton that looks like a look at that doesn't that look like a rooms to go you know how they have the the sofa and they have the throw pillows all set out for you look at that i mean even i with an untrained eye can figure out whose place this is, what kind of sofa it is. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. We're talking about 3,000 photos and documents just released of cult mom Lori Vallow's phone, her computer, and a lot more. And how it's going to be used at trial when her multiple murder charges go to trial. And her hubby number five, the cult leader, Chad Daybell, as well.

Ashley Wilcott, the significance also, other than placing him definitely in her apartment, that proximity to her, she's taking this photo. He's got on PJs. That tells me what time, but the iCloud will probably tell me what time the photo was taken. But you just heard Nate Eaton say this was just before he's gone missing. That's right, Nancy. Talk about opportunity, right? And the timeline.

And let me just tell you this. So I really, as you do, look at the facts in the law. And here's the reality of the facts in this case. A, law enforcement has done an incredible amount of work. And because it's an ongoing investigation, we don't know all the details now that they've released these photos we know for a fact that they have evidence the facts surrounding this case are deep and it shows she's a liar liar pants on fire i'm relieved to see this information because this is what's going to catch her this is what's going to catch her. This is what's going to prove the

case against her. Because not only, like you said, does it show where her children are, but on the day that this child goes missing in her care, right? Remember, she tells all these stories. This released information shows that she tells the nanny, oh, we've left the children with grandparents. And the reality is the grandparents, like we haven't seen the kids. We don't know where they are. Just please. You're absolutely right. That's another point I'm going to circle back to you, Nate, because she's telling everybody

that JJ has gone to his grandparents. Well, there he is based on this photo in her apartment. Take a listen to our cut 41. This is Fox 13 news reporter Lauren Steinbrecher. When the nanny messaged Lori again the day after JJ was last seen on September 24th, she responded to me that JJ was with his grandparents for a month and that she was in Hawaii. She said in about a month when they come back that I could work again. Well, once that month passed, I texted her again around Halloween time asking if I could work. There was no response. Oh, Rexburg police have said they confirmed Tylee never attended BYU-Idaho, which was what they say Lori was claiming to other people. A search warrant

revealed that Lori left behind JJ's medication in that Rexburg townhome with pills still in the bottle. They said that medication has not been filled in Idaho. Back to you, Nate Eaton, News Director, EastIdahoNews.com. Nate, also in that treasure trove of evidence, what proves JJ's last whereabout, what in this 3,000 documents shows Tylee's last location, it's all there. If someone will take the time and the effort to comb through it like we've been trying to do, I want to circle back to the photos, two photos in Cult Mom Lori Vallis iCloud of ammunition in an Idaho gun store. What can we glean from that? What does it prove? Well, this photo was taken on the day,

right after the day that JJ, police say he was dead, but also died. As you remember, on October 9th, 2019, Tammy Daybell got home, got out of the car, and somebody tried to shoot her with a paintball gun. She was scared. She said, what are you doing? The person ran away. Then 10 days later, she dies in her sleep. Well, we now believe, police now believe that that person was Alex Cox and that it wasn't a paintball gun, that it could have been actually a real gun. And maybe ammunition in this photograph was in that gun and it misfired. Wow. Wow. I was wondering what the significance of the photos were. And I want to circle back to you, Nate, on another thing regarding the photo of J.J. Because the scenario is that, as Joe Scott Morgan was pointing out,

that J.J. had been crazy, off the chart, climbing on cabinets, had knocked over a photo of Christ that cult mom says she had in her kitchen, and he was out of control. But then we learn that Alex Cox comes in, and suddenly J.J. seems to be sedated, and Alex Cox leaves with J.J. Tell me about how we know that's what happened. So Lori's friend, Melanie Gibb, was at the house. She was visiting Rexburg, Idaho for the weekend. She said that they were getting ready to record a podcast and that Alex comes in and JJ was kind of draped over his shoulder, like you put a toddler to sleep or something. Melanie and her boyfriend, David, saw Alex leave the townhouse with JJ asleep.

And that was the last time that she saw JJ. And the next morning before she left town, Lori was telling Melanie, JJ's a zombie. He's out of control. You know, we don't know what's happening with him. And these days are crucial. These are absolutely crucial. On the 22nd, you have that photo of JJ on the couch. On the 23rd, believed to be the last photo. On the 23rd, there's the photos of the ammunition. Sometime in that time period, police believe JJ's body was taken to Chad Daybell's property and buried. On the 24th, hours after her boy, her son, has died, Lori sends that message to the nanny saying, JJ's grandparents came this week. They needed to give me a break. That's one of

the interesting things in all of these emails, Nancy. All of them that Lori sends seem to center around her. I needed a break, so I no longer need your services. I wish I had more work for you to do. I understand if you need to get another job, smiley emoji. The email that she sent two weeks previous to JJ's school in Arizona, she said, you know, due to our change in circumstance, we need to suddenly move to Idaho. I have another job out of state, which police say she did not. We need to withdraw JJ from school. We need to move to Idaho. It all seems to be centered around her emotional well-being, what's happening in her life.

Well, back to what Justice Scott Morgan was saying about how calm JJ looks sitting there on the sofa in his PJs, I can tell you why he's suddenly sedated. I'll tell you why. Take a listen to our cut 40 out of Fox 13. The nanny says Lori messaged her through the website care.com and she came over to Lori's townhome on September 18th to meet JJ. She explained to me how they recently moved here from Arizona. The nanny said her husband had just died of a heart attack and how JJ doesn't quite understand the situation. Lori's brother Alex Cox shot and killed Lori's husband Charles Vallow in July before Lori, her brother and the kids moved to Idaho. The nanny said Lori also told her her daughter also lives in Rexburg and is going to

college. She said her daughter doesn't like to babysit JJ without being paid so she wanted me to work for her. Occasionally her daughter would come visit for dinner or to do laundry but she never said that she lived there with them. It appeared only Lori and JJ lived there. The next day September 19th the nanny says she came over to watch JJ. She mentioned how if she got home later to give JJ his medicine right before bed because it makes him tired fast. She joked about how she liked that because some days when he was extra tough for her to handle, she would give him his meds and have him go to bed early to give her a break. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we were talking about thousands of pieces of evidence that have just been made public in the cult mom Lori Vallow case and her

fifth hubby cult leader Chad Daybell the two of them really racking up the body count seven-year-old JJ teen girl Tylee the wife of Chad Daybell who mysteriously dies in her sleep, and the two of them, Colt Mom and Chad Daybell Mary, about a week later. Then you've got Charles Vallow, the husband that comes over to pick up JJ, and he's shot dead. I've always thought there was a link between her and the death of Joseph Ryan. I'm afraid we'll never know the truth of that. But I want to circle back to Dr. Sherry Schwartz, forensic psychologist and author of Criminal Behavior, where law and psychology meet. You heard Nate Eaton at EastIdahoNews.com describing a photo of J.J. in his PJs, very calm, sitting on the sofa.

This is just hours, about, I would say, maybe 36 hours before he's dead, maybe less. That photo of Ammo, I believe, is going to be linked back to other deaths, other murders. Here's my question for you, Dr. Sherry. Why do people take pictures, incriminating pictures of their crimes? Like, you know, bank robbers that then suddenly post them laying in the money. Why? Nancy, the word that comes to mind is pride. This is clearly a woman who is comfortable with killing, with the deaths of loved ones, including her own children. She clearly plans this because she's making up these stories ahead of time to explain the

disappearance of her kids, and then takes the photo of the ammunition, which makes me think the photo in the PJs and the photo of little JJ on that ride all by himself, it is an indication that these are souvenirs. This is a way to pat herself on where full I am. And we've seen that also with, for instance, serial killers that keep mementos of their crime victims. They may keep underwear or a photo or a piece of jewelry. And years and years, when the case is finally solved, those mementos, like you and I would keep ticket stubs or prom photos, they find mementos of the dead people, the victims. Guys, I want you to take a listen to Our Cut 54 more on this treasure trove of evidence you're going to be hearing about at trial linking cult mom Lori Vallow and her husband, Chad Daybell, to murders.

Take a listen to our friends at CBS 5. Chandler PD just released more than 2,000 emails along with photo evidence linked to the investigation into Lori Vallow. New details trace the timeline back to before authorities told the public that Lori's kids, J.J. Vallow and Tylee Ryan, were missing. Investigators recovered this photo from Lori's iCloud account, possibly the last picture taken of 7-year-old J.J. on the morning of September 22, 2019, the last day he was seen. On the 23rd, two more photos of ammunition in Idaho gun store. Detectives pulled from her iCloud. On October 8th, Lori flew from Idaho into Phoenix Mesa Gateway while investigators say her brother Alex Cox tried to shoot Tammy Daybell the next day.

Chad Daybell's first wife would end up dead a little more than a week later. Chandler PD says Lori flew back into Idaho immediately after the death. Within weeks, she and Chad got married in Kauai. Straight out to Nate Eatonatoneasidehonews.com. Nate, the ammunition photo may also link back to the murder of Charles Vallow. How? Well, it could have been the same ammunition that Alex Cox used when he said he shot Charles in self-defense. Even before all of this, Nancy, what we've learned from these new documents is Charles was pleading with Lori to get involved in her son's life and his life. His family says he was crazy, crazy in love with Lori. And there's an email where he basically,

Lori's vanished. Lori's disappeared. We know now that she was likely having an affair with Chad. But in this email, Charles says, you have not had contact with us for 38 days. Your son misses you. Please be his mother. And he lays out everything Lori has done, and he ends the email with, I'm going to take action and continue to take care of JJ because I'm not getting any response from you. I have no other choice. You've taken away all his family here. It makes us both really sad and I really hurt for him. You're his mother. He misses you. Please agree to see your son. So here's this father pleading with JJ's mom, get involved in his life. And then when she suddenly does appear,

we know now that she was planning with her brother Alex to kill Charles. And back to the ammunition photo, yeah, it's very possible that maybe that's the same type of ammo they used with Charles and it worked. So they were sending the photo later on in September saying, maybe we should use this for Tammy's death.

I'm wondering about showing premeditation. I don't think it's going to be hard to do in this case. But the sad reality is that husband number four, Charles Vallow, told police he felt that he was in danger and that JJ was in danger. Take a listen to our cut 45. This is ABC's GMA. Charles Vallow, the now deceased husband of Lori Vallow, speaking to Gilbert, Arizona police in January of last year. She's not here. She lost her reality. We've been at a great marriage. All of a sudden, the last month just blew up. In this body camera video obtained by ABC News, Charles accuses his wife of behaving erratically, withdrawing large amounts of money, even threatening to kill him.

I will kill you because you're not Charles and nobody will care. OK, so she she at this point doesn't think you are her husband. She thinks I'm Nick Schneider. Who's Nick Schneider? I have no idea. It's a name she used. I don't know where it came from. OK, I just'm just like, I'm as bewildered as you are. Authorities issued an order for Lori to receive a mental health evaluation. But according to a police report,

when she visited officers the next day, she was allowed to drive herself to the hospital with a friend. And the officers wrote, during my conversation with Charles, I found his demeanor to be strange for a person in his circumstances. He seemed more concerned with asking questions about the legality of financial withdrawals Lori had made than her alleged incoherence. Well, I don't know about that. Because take a listen to R-Cut 43. This is the actual body cam footage of cops as Charles Vallow pleads to them about his and his son's safety. She's lost her mind. I don't know how else to say it. We're LDS.

She thinks she's a resurrected being and a God and a member of the 144,000. She's come. Jesus is coming next year. She took all the money out of her bank account today. My truck has gone from the airport. She went to the airport and got it. I just flew in from houston from dallas in houston and dallas so where's your truck i don't know because a friend of mine's truck had picked me up i went to the csi to follow a report

which is the community bridges or something to follow report so you did you did you did the petition yeah they ordered a pickup okay What time did you do that? Hour and a half ago. Okay. So what makes her a danger to herself and to others? She threatened me, murdered me, killed me. She threatened to murder you? Yes. Straight out to Dan Schilling, safety expert, former Lieutenant, U.S. Air Force, 30-year

Special Ops veteran and author of The Power of Awareness. And you can find him at DanShillingsBooks.com. Dan Shilling, thank you for being with us. Here you see someone with the awareness to tell cops she's threatened to kill me, but yet he goes into the situation to try to get his son. Well, Nancy, you know, part of the problem for someone like Charles in his position, he's very close to what's happening. He's emotionally invested as any father or husband or spouse would be when their spouse goes off the rails.

But to prevent something more catastrophic from happening usually takes place on the periphery. And I think in this tragic stories case, it's the sister-in-law and the grandmother who are listening to their intuition. They're telling themselves something is wrong and they reach out to the law enforcement authorities as well. But what you really need to do in order to sort of head these things off is listen to that intuition and then ask those questions. You know, do we really have a problem here? It's a deliberate question to ask because it allows you to then say, okay, how not, how do I manage this problem? That's sort of incrementally getting worse, but we have a problem here. And then you can take action and make plans to sort of engage others to save these lives that were tragically lost. And that's where people fall short is listening to their intuition.

Listening to intuition. Everything went completely out of control with called Mom Lori Vallow. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we are talking about thousands of pages of documents and evidence, photos, emails, texts that have just been released that support the indictment of cult mom Lori Vallow in multiple murders, now including that of husband number four, Charles Vallow. Guys, I want you to take a listen to Our Cut 42. This is NBC 12's Michael Dudna speaking.

It's a 911 call. I had a fight with my brother-in-law and I shot him in self-defense. Calm, emotionless Alex Cox calling 911 on a hot July day from a Chandler home, sparsely decorated, except for Charles Value's body and a bat on a living room floor. Is he breathing? I can't tell. Are you willing to go over to him and check? Sure.

Cox telling police he shot his brother-in-law after breaking up a fight between Charles and his estranged wife, Lori. After Lori left, Cox initially claimed Charles attacked him with a bat hitting him on the head. So he went to his room, got his gun, and eventually shot his brother-in-law. Yeah, there's blood. He's not moving. But this is just the start of the mystery, as five months later, Cox turns up dead, with both deaths still under investigation. But to you, Nate Eaton, how does this call? This is body cam footage where they're speaking to Kaltman's brother.

How does that fit in with the new evidence that we have obtained that shows that Colt Mom Lori Vallow and brother Alex Cox let Charles Vallow lie there and bleed out for 43 minutes? And when is it that Colt Mom Lori Vallow goes to Burger King, I guess murdering her husband made her hungry, and shopping for flip flops? Right after Charles was shot, according to the documents, Alex shot Charles. Lori then takes JJ out to Burger King and to Walgreens. And then, as you mentioned, 43 minutes later, the police are called. Alex didn't just shoot him once in self-defense as he claimed he shot him once and then when charles fell to the floor and was lying on the floor he shot him again and that that's the the the you know clincher here i guess you could say

is that he if it wasn't self-defense you would think you might shoot once and take off from the house but now we know that that that isn't the case. And meanwhile, Lori goes dark after all of this. She doesn't have any communication with the grandparents. And in these new text messages that we received in these documents, you've got the grandmother sending her a message saying, are you all okay? Just days after Charles died, she wants JJ to be able to come to his father's service. But Lori would not let him. JJ wasn't able to be able to come to his father's service, but Lori would not let him. JJ wasn't able to go pay final respects to his dad. Grandma says, are y'all okay? I'm worried.

Please just send a text. Did you see the flight itineraries? Are you good with it? Kisses for JJ from me and Papa. And Lori responds, sorry, yes, we are okay. Been busy. I've never received an email. We have to do some figuring out. JJ won't be able to go to Louisiana next week. We're moving back to Hawaii ASAP. Send me the address that you want me to send the ashes to for your memorial. I'll also send a box of things for Cole and Zach, Charles's other sons, if you could give it to them. That would be great. Thanks. I mean, there's no emotion there. Well, you know, I noticed that.

And to you, Ashley Wilcott, you'll have a field day with us in court because Alex Cox is speaking. He shows no emotion whatsoever about the day guy. Right. Absolutely. No, when you watch that, it's unbelievable to me. He's just sitting and not doing anything and no big deal. It is the most bizarre but best evidence. Because remember, let's talk about what's going to happen in trial.

All of these pictures, all of this evidence, all of these videos are going to come in, not only to prove the elements of the crime of murder, but also, Nancy, as you well know, to show motive. The jury's going to want to know why. They're going to show all of this to show she killed everybody in her way from her perspective. Nancy, I have to say one other thing. I didn't want to jump in, but I have to comment. If you notice on the photos recently released from her iCloud, they are all posed. They're perfectly centered. There is a photo of Tylee Ryan and Lori Vallow Daybell that is contained in those documents with the beach behind them and the water, perfectly posed. There is a picture from Lori's phone that shows J.J. Vallow sitting on a ride at Yellowstone Bear World. Not only is he the only one on the ride, it's perfectly centered. This photo of him

on the couch on the day that he was last seen, most likely, it's perfectly taken. And it's almost like he's perfectly posed playing with something in his hands. It creeps me out that all of these photos, to me, looked posed. To Dr. Sherry Schwartz joining us, forensic psychologist and author of Criminal Behavior, weigh in, Dr. Sherry. Well, I agree that the photos seem to be posed there. I do believe, I agree with you wholeheartedly, Nancy, about the mementos, but not sentimental because these are clearly an attachment to people, people who are close to them. So when you have something like this, that I think helps fuel the evidence

for the prosecutor that this was planned, these people were in the way, and Daybell and Vallow are very comfortable with killing people or having people killed who are in their way, who are interfering with whatever life it is that they have imagined for themselves. It's chilling to me. Just got Morgan way in. Yeah, you know, the fact that these moments in time are frozen, I think, is striking. Because it's almost, Nancy, the bizarre thing about this is almost like they have left a trail of breadcrumbs everywhere they have gone. I think some people would want to paint these people as master criminals.

But yet in their wake, they have left a lot of forensic evidence behind documenting everything that they did and not just what they did, but where they were at specific times. That's why I agree with you that there is going to be a tremendous amount of evidence that's going to come out at trial in this case. Dan Schilling, I don't think there was anything that the children, JJ and Tylee, could have done to protect themselves from their own mother. But what's your takeaway? With me, Dan Schilling's author of The Power of Awareness at danschillingBooks.com. What do you make of it? Well, the safety lesson really is, you know, for the children, as you mentioned, Nancy,

it's impossible for them to parse out where threats might come from because all they know when they're children is, this is my normal life. This is life as it's supposed to be. But, you know, really it's for everybody else who is involved in the situation who has a stake in these children and their well-being. You know, the safety lesson is you don't wait for law enforcement to reach out. You have to take that step yourself because personal safety can't be delegated. So it goes back to these people who see something happening. The necessity to take action is really, it's driven by these things that are human, they're innate. It's that back to intuition and understanding don't need it to survive till tomorrow morning, as our ancestors did thousands of years ago. So it's to our detriment to not take those steps. And that's where all of us can walk away from this with something that we can utilize to take care of the other people in our lives where we see a problem.

Wow. That's very insightful, Dan Schilling. You know, to you, Nate Eaton, I've been pouring through the documents that we've been able to see. What do you consider to be the most explosive or probative, in other words, that proves something, information, evidence that we've received from this data dump. Well, I think one of the major things police are going to be looking at is why Alex Cox was booking flights to Columbia. That was an interesting new tidbit we had not heard before. He was going back and forth to Columbia. We also have multiple, multiple phones that Lori was using behind the scenes.

Burner phones, at least six numbers that Lori was using behind the scenes, burner phones, at least six numbers that she was using. And we also have a live stream camera that was set up in Hawaii. Remember when everybody was saying, what's happening with Chad and Lori? What are they doing? Well, they were in Hawaii and police had set up a phone or a camera right when they got there and they were monitoring their every move. and for days there was no movement outside of their recitando, which was interesting. It makes you wonder what they were doing, how they were coming and going. The fascinating thing to me, Nancy, is this is one agency that released these documents, and a lot of them were redacted. Probably 33 percent were redacted.

What do all the other agencies have? What does the FBI have that they haven't released? What do the authorities in Idaho have that they haven't released? This is the Chandler Police Department, and you've got four or five other agencies. Imagine what we will know when this all comes out. We wait as this heads to trial. Cult mom Lori Vallow, her fifth husband, Chad Daybell, cult leader, stewing in the pot together. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, Fred. This is an iHeart Podcast.