Crime Weekly - S3 Ep128: The Daybell Doomsday Cult Murders: Brotherly Love? (Part 2)

Episode Date: June 9, 2023

JJ Vallow didn’t have the best start in life. Both of his parents struggled with drug addiction, and so when he was born premature in May of 2012, JJ was also addicted to drugs and it took months for doctors to safely wean him off the substances that had been coursing through his little body. But shortly before his first birthday, JJ was adopted by his uncle, Charles Vallow, and Charles’ pretty young wife, Lori Vallow, who had two children of her own, a son named Colby and a daughter named Tylee. Tylee and JJ hit it off immediately, and Tylee became a best friend and mini mother to her younger half brother. It seemed like JJ and Tylee were a part of one big happy family, so when they both vanished in September of 2019, and their normally attentive and loving mother Lori didn’t seem overly concerned about the fact that two of her children were missing, people started asking questions. But no one could have prepared for the answers we would get. Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: 1. IQ BAR Now get 20% off all IQBAR products, plus get FREE shipping. Just text WEEKLY to 6400. Message and data rates may apply. See terms for details. 2. Babbel Right now, get up to 55% off your subscription when you go to BABBEL.com/CRIMEWEEKLY. 3. Magellen TV Claim your SPECIAL OFFER for MagellanTV here:https://try.magellantv.com/crimeweekly. Start your free trial TODAY so you can watch THE KILLER NURSE WITH TREVOR MCDONALD, and all of MagellanTV’s other exclusive true crime content: https://www.magellantv.com/video/the-killer-nurse-with-trevor-mcdonald 4. ALO Moves For a limited time, Alo Moves is offering our listeners a free 30-day trial PLUS 50% off an annual membership. But you can only get it by going to ALOMOVES.com and use code CRIMEWEEKLY in all caps.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. Today, we're diving into part two of I don't even know what to call this series at this point because, you know, it's like a doomsday cult. Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, the victims, Tylee Ryan, J.J. Vallow, so many people involved in this case. Obviously, we like to usually name our series by the victims. But there's just so much intertwined here. So I don't even know what to even call this. It's such a cluster that even as I'm going through it again, I'm like, holy shit, this is crazy.

I don't even know where to start. I don't know where to end. And it all loops around. So we're going into part two of that tonight. Yeah. Yes, we are. Before we dive into it, wanted to announce we just did it on Crime Weekly News on Wednesday. We are announcing here on Crime Weekly as well that we will be at CrimeCon 2023 in Orlando. Apparently, we could have announced this a while ago. We were waiting for the go ahead, but I guess we could have announced it to crimecon.com. I believe it is. You can see it up on social media. We reposted it and just use our code crimeweekly. That lets them know that you're coming under our name. And I believe there's actually a discount with that as well.

Double check it, but I'm pretty sure there's like a 10% discount or something like that when you use the code. Pretty confident. Absolutely. Let me check that real quick. I'm sorry. And while he's doing that, I will say, and I said this on Crime Weekly News, like CrimeCon is fun. I think that there was a whole new kind of generation of true crime fans that sort of came into the concert, live event, gathering thing during the pandemic, a lot of people have never been to CrimeCon who are true crime fans. And maybe they're like, is it worth it? Is it fun? It is worth it. It is fun. with some of your favorite true crime personalities. And I don't even mean like me and Derek because we're just podcasters, but people like Paul Holes and Nancy Grace is usually there if you're into that, things like that.

You get to kind of see them, talk to them. Keith Morrison. But you also get to talk to your favorite podcasters and meet them. And we'll usually have like a meet and greet and we'll get everybody together, have a couple of drinks. It's a fun time.

And there's great speakers, great presentations, like just a really good weekend if you're in the true crime space at all or interested in it. So we definitely suggest that everybody try ScrimCon at least once. And I think this year is going to be amazing. Amazing. And that is confirmed 10% off the Crime Weekly code. So when you use that code, save a little bit of money, get to meet us. Plus, it'll give us an idea of how many people are coming when we're there, because sometimes we do a meet and greet or whatever. And that's kind of how we play off those numbers. Absolutely. It'll be a lot of fun, a lot of fun. So today we're going to open up with Lori's brother, Alex Cox. We have touched on him briefly. We've mentioned him so far in the first episode,

the first part of this, but he's been just've mentioned him so far in the first episode and the first part of this. But he's been just a side note so far in the story. But he will become intertwined with Lori and her activities and her crimes from here on out. So remember that last week we discussed how one of Lori's childhood friends stated that when Lori was a child, she had confided in this friend and claimed that her brother Alex was trying to have sex with her. And we don't know if this is true. I think it is, but we don't know if this is true or if Alex's sexual pursuit of Lori continued after this. We do know, based on statements from people who were familiar with Alex and Lori, who watched them together for a portion

of their lives or all of their lives, Alex did seem to be obsessed with Lori. Everyone said he would do anything for her. And he had this weird kind of fixation on her that kind of, you know, went beyond what a brother-sister relationship should be. In 2007, a 38-year-old Alex Cox was living in Phoenix, Arizona, emptying porta-potties by day and taking the stage as a stand-up comedian at night. And two years prior to 2007, in 2005, Alex had met and bonded and developed a close relationship with another local Phoenix comedian. And her name's Mary Tracy. And basically, Mary would probably be considered Alex's best friend. They were very close. They talked all the time.

They saw each other all the time. They would see each other out at clubs. They'd talk on the phone because Alex would eventually become a truck driver, which is the job he was doing when JJ and Tylee went missing. But he would eventually become a truck driver, so he'd be on the road for long periods of time, hours on end. And he would call Mary, and they would talk, and he would confide in her and things like that. So we're going to hear a little bit from Mary Tracy in this clip. So we were both stand up comedians and not hugely successful, but we had fun and we we'd perform at different places around Phoenix mostly. And one night he was in the same lineup that I was in.

And afterward, I walked up to him and we both pointed at each other at the same time and said, you're funny. And so we just laughed about that and that's how we became friends. So yeah, it was just a chance meeting at a little bar called Chili Bombers in Phoenix. And from that, we became friends.

And then our friendship just grew from there. I had kind of a sad thing happen at one of the comedy stores. Kicked me out. They wouldn't let me perform there anymore because I had performed at other places. And so I was just like, so upset. And so I called Alec. And I said, I can't you won't believe what just happened to me. And he said, I don't worry about it. Come over here and help me paint this bathroom.

And so you can't paint a little bathroom with a big guy like that without becoming friends, you know? And so, yeah, he got me out of my head. And yeah, we were just pal around buddies and we wrote jokes together and we had a great time together. So Mary said that although they spent a lot of time together and they were close, Alex was always joking around. So you really couldn't tell what he was serious't tell what he was serious about and what he was kind of just like maybe exaggerating or maybe making a bit about. And due to that, she said she may have been missing some important things that were happening in his life because, you know, she thought they were jokes or hyperbole. Mary also said that she

knew Alex and his sister Lori had a very tight relationship and that whatever Lori needed, Alex would drop everything to be there for her and accommodate her. And throughout the entire investigation into Joe Ryan and his alleged abuse of Tylee and JJ, Lori had been constantly calling Alex and talking to him about it, keeping him updated and basically working him up into like a frenzy about it, you know, getting him very agitated, basically lighting a fire inside of him and driving this hatred towards Joe Ryan. Mary Tracy said, quote, he was obsessed that Joe Ryan was molesting Tylee and there was

no question in his mind, end quote. Alex had even once asked Mary to call the police and report Joe Ryan for being in possession of child pornography. But Mary told Alex, like, logically, this wasn't going to work. She was like, I don't know Joe Ryan. We don't even live in the same state. How would I know this? Like, I'm going to have to give some evidence of this. I'm not just going to be able to call and make a random accusation about somebody that it can be proved I've never met in my life. Like, so this doesn't make any logical sense and it's not

going to work. In August of 2007, Alex told Mary that he had to leave Phoenix and go to Texas to handle a family matter. And as it turned out, that family matter was attacking Joe Ryan with a taser. It was August 5th, 2007. And this was a big day for Joe Ryan because after years of fighting to clear his name and after years of fighting to clear his name and after years of being kept from seeing his young daughter, Joe was finally allowed to visit with Tylee for the first time. Joe arrived to the kids exchange facility where the visit was to take place, and he remained there with Tylee for two hours before signing out of the facility around 2.15 p.m. and heading back to his car in the parking lot. According to the Austin Police Report, Joe Ryan made it to his car and he was loading

things into the trunk when he noticed a man sitting at a picnic table near the car. And this man got up and approached Joe Ryan and he said, we need to talk. And Joe was like, well, who are you? Because he didn't recognize this person. And the man said, you know who I am. And that's when Joe Ryan recognized that this man was his ex-wife's brother, Alex Cox. And he basically told Alex, like, no, we have nothing to talk about. He tried to ignore him. And Joe then turned to a woman who was also sitting at

the picnic table. And he asked her to be his witness. He basically said, hey, can you witness this? This is my ex-wife's brother. I've had problems with my ex-wife and her family in the past. Can you just witness this? And she was like, yeah, sure. But immediately after Joe said this, Alex stated to him, you know what you did. This is for my nephew. And then he pulled a taser from his pocket. He pointed it at Joe and tased him in the shoulder. So Joe began to run. And Joe said, like, he didn't know at first, was it a real gun? He didn't really know at this point. And that's how crazy he kind of already knew Alex was. But he ran away and Alex shot him in the back again

with the taser as he was running. And this caused Joe to fall to the ground. Joe got up again, began running again. And again, Alex pursued him. But Joe yelled out to another person who was leaving the kids exchange facility, and this was a man this time, and he basically yelled out to this guy, hey, call the police. This guy's trying to kill me. And once Alex saw this person and saw that the person had heard what Joe Ryan said, Alex pretty much stopped chasing Joe and immediately began to calmly walk back towards the parking lot and then down the street where his vehicle, a Pontiac Grand Prix, was parked. Later, Tylee, who I think was like maybe five years old at this time, she would

admit that she and her mother had been sitting in Alex's car watching the whole thing go down. You know, I wanted to ask more about Alex because, first off, I haven't seen any photos of him. I should probably go look those up because the photos, is he a bigger guy? Was he like kind of like, my perception of him when you first described him is like, you know, like a host, like I figured he was a little scrawny dude, but I'm starting to think that maybe he might be a more like imposing figure. I don't think he was a more imposing figure. And in one of the clips that we're about to play, you'll see him because I'm going to have you watch one of his stand up comedian routines for a couple seconds. Well, there we go. You'll see him.

But like he could. So he could be, you know, like it's always hard to tell unless you're like when I first talked to you and I saw you like we're talking now, I didn't realize how tall you were, even though you said you were over six foot. Like it didn't compute with me until I saw you in person. And then I was like, oh, Derek's like a tall person. So it's just about, you know, I think it's different to see somebody in person. I don't think he was. I don't think he was big. I don't know.

But Mary Tracy did say like when you're in a small bathroom with a big guy. I don't think he was I don't think he was big. I don't know. But Mary Tracy did say like when you're in a small bathroom with a big guy. I don't know. He doesn't look big to me. He looks like a little like scrawny little piece of shit bully who like I mean, to be fair, like it doesn't take a lot more, a lot more courage when you have a weapon to utilize as well. You're not just having to use your hands. But I ask it because it seems like he kind of looked at himself as like the enforcer, right? Yes. Well, I think everybody did. Everybody in this like cult kind of did see him that way. the people he was in charge of protecting so i just i had a vision of who he was or what he would look like and i usually do this and they never look like you think but i feel like he would look like you think i'm thinking he's like a bigger guy so it might not be i'm thinking like this is like like bigger like strong or bigger like just like a big overall like a like a like a an intimidating figure maybe maybe six, two, six, three, 250 pounds. Definitely not. Okay. Well then, yeah. So there we go. Definitely not. But yeah, he's considered like, if you were a part of the mob, Alex would be like the enforcer,

which, you know, as you know, is not usually the person who's in charge or calling the shots. They're kind of like the dumb one, dumb one who just is good at following orders. And if the orders were being given by Lori, Alex wouldn't even ask any questions. He wouldn't think twice. He would do it. And the fact that Lori, I mean, I have no proof of this

and Alex is dead so he can't tell us, but the fact that he attacked Joe Ryan with this taser right after Joe's visit with Tylee and then Tylee and Lori are watching it happen, that you would do that to your daughter? That you would have your daughter watch her father be attacked like that by her uncle and think that it's going to have a positive effect on her or not

care, you know, whether or not it does have a positive effect on her? And this is just another reason of why Lori is a complete narcissist. And she always has been because narcissists only care about, you know, their emotional feelings, what they want. They don't care what anybody else is going through, even their own children. And this is a time where supposedly Lori was still being a good mother, you know, because everybody said she was such a great mother.

Was she a good mother or did she just appear externally to be a good mother? Those are questions that I think we're going to have to consistently come back to. Well, I think we have the answer to that question now, but I do think in the moment she might be looking at it as, well, listen, this is what happens when someone disrespects you, you know, regardless of who it is. Like trying to show her, like, see how good Uncle Alex is?

He's protecting your mommy because your daddy's a bad guy. And protecting you. Yeah. Yeah. He's protecting you guys because he's a bad guy. So he's protecting us. This is a good thing for you to see. So their perspective, when you have people who are bad parents, not to this extent of Lori Vallow, they find ways of justifying what they're showing their kids, how they're showing them. Happened to me all the time as a police officer, we show up and these kids are doing things they shouldn't be doing. And I'm thinking, wow, wait till I tell your parents what I just caught you doing. And then I, I approach the door, I knock on the door and I'm expecting it to be us, you know, teaching this child the rights from wrongs. And they're looking at me like, well, why did you stop him? Why did you do

this? Why? Well, how would you know that he had a BB gun on him, why did you stop him? Why did you do this? Well, how would you know that he had a BB gun on him if you didn't search him? Ma'am, I just told you he shot out windows of a vehicle while I was driving by. Yeah, but still, they're just kids. They're just kidding around. How do you know that that person in the car didn't deserve it? There's all these things, and I'm giving an exaggeration, but believe it or not, those types of stories are the types of things that I've dealt with where then as I'm sitting there talking to them, I realize, oh,

okay. So that's why these kids are doing it. They have no guidance at home. So they're just doing, they're just emulating the people that are responsible for raising them. And so I think this is obviously a more extreme example as we know who Lori Vallow is and obviously who Alex is, but on a lesser scale, these things are happening on a daily basis where you have these young obviously a more extreme example as we know who Lori Vallow is and obviously who Alex is but On a lesser scale these things are happening on a daily basis where you have these young children Watching their parents act like idiots and then unfortunately in many cases they grow up to be a similar type of person Because that's all they know so this is just this was like the tip of the iceberg as far as Lori having her child in the car witnessing this Obviously, we know how bad it really got. got yeah and I mean we we have Lori and Alex basically and

I've always asked myself this because I think that Alex definitely questioned whether or not Joe Ryan was doing the things that Lori said he was doing. But I wonder, did Lori actually believe this? Or was this just kind of another way of like muddying Joe's name, making him look bad so that she could take complete control of Tylee and not have anybody else kind of in the way of her relationship with Tylee and her manipulation of Tylee? Like, did she actually think Joe Ryan did these things? Was she actually like upset about that? And she believed that he was like molesting her children? Or was this just a story she came up with and like convinced her children was a thing so that she could completely cut him out and retain control over her children

completely? I don't know. I don't think you're wrong. I think that it definitely a manipulation tactic, a way of controlling it. I definitely think that's part of it. As we discussed in episode one, where we posed the question at the end, you know, was Lori a puppeteer or a puppet? You know, a lot of the comments were like, no, she's a puppeteer. Yeah. So, I mean, I think there's a plan here, right? There's a method to the madness. And I think as terrible of a person that Lori is, she knew what she was doing most of the time. When the police arrived, they found that Joe had two holes in the back of his shirt from being tasered, and he had wrenched his wrist after he fell on it that second time that Alex shot him. And Joe told the police that he was afraid of what Lori and her brother Alex would do to him because Lori and her entire family had been

causing problems for him, and Lori had stated that she would rather have a death than for him to have another visit with Tylee. And Joe Ryan said he didn't know if that meant that Lori was going to have him killed, or if she would kill herself, or Tylee, or all of them. He didn't know. He didn't really want to find out. He just was concerned that this woman and her family were not stable.

The day after this attack, Joe Ryan went into the emergency room complaining of severe chest pains, and it was there it was discovered that he had a fractured wrist. And Joe would always, from that day forth, suffer from heart problems and health problems, and these were issues, health issues he believed were caused by Alex Cox and his taser. Now, Alex was arrested in Maricopa County on February 28, 2008. He was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He was then sent back to Texas he lived in a world where an upstanding good citizen could get in trouble for trying to do what was right. He was like, why am I in jail? But the pedophile is walking free. So Alex's friend, Mary Tracy, visited him while he was in jail and she said the entire time Alex would not let go of the Joe Ryan thing. He told her that he felt like he was a hero and that if he could do it all over again,

he would, he wouldn't change a thing. And during his time behind bars, Alex exchanged letters and calls with Mary as well as with his sister, Lori, who made sure once again to keep Alex pretty riled up that he was the one sitting in jail while the sexual predator, Joe Ryan, was walking free and getting away with it.

While in jail, Alex talked to joe ryan was walking free and getting away with it while in jail alex talked to other inmates about what joe had done and he sent mary letters always talking about joe and asking for mary's help in one letter he said quote the world is coming undone the pedophile goes unpunished and i'm in jail i guess it's time for the apocalypse can you get a picture from lori of one of her ex-husbands and send it to me? Some of the guys would like to hang out with him, end quote. In another letter, Alex said, quote, Do me a favor.

Call Janice. Ask her to put Joe's address on a postcard and his license plate number. I think it will be popular in here, end quote. And Janice is his mother, Lori's mother. And he's basically saying, like, let me set these prisoners, these inmates on Joe. Like, I couldn't take him out, but one of these guys will. You know, I'm just going to send a bunch of soldiers out into the world thinking that this guy, Joe, is a pedophile. Even though by this point they did a sexual predator kind of test and analysis on Joe.

There was no evidence that he had sexually abused Tylee at all. There's no proof. But Alex is like, I'm going to set these like prisoners or these inmates on this guy, even though I have no actual proof that this happened. Yeah, I mean, it's a really dangerous thing. And there's some bad people in prison that I'm not complimenting in any way, shape or form. But I will say the one thing I do agree with, with most prisoners is they do not take kindly to pedophiles. They'll deal with a lot of stuff. They'll deal with a lot of stuff in there. But when it comes to kids- Pretty nonjudgmental otherwise, right? When it comes to kids, it's a death sentence for a lot of those people when they go in there. They

have to be put in solitary confinement because guys who have nothing to lose and are going to be in there for life anyways, they'll take those people out in a heartbeat. And then you have people who may not be in there for the rest of their life but are still very dangerous guys. And you essentially have Alex in there putting a target out on this guy where if you have someone who really takes this type of shit to heart, he may make a drive down to Joe's residence, knock on his door, do what he has to do and then get out of there. And how do you really track that down? Unless there's cameras or something, this person has no previous relationship with Joe, be a really hard case to solve.

But you know, it's interesting as we're talking about all this, because I think some people might listen out there and go, oh, you know, Alex must've known what he was doing was wrong. No, just like a lot of criminals out there, although to you and I, it may seem completely obvious that what they're doing is wrong and unethical and in many cases illegal. These individuals who commit these types of crimes in many cases believe that what they're doing is warranted and it's justified. That's why they're able to do it without any type of afterthought or even forethought where they're thinking, maybe I shouldn't be doing this because what you kind of laid out there as far as Joe being a pedophile, him being the hero and doing the right thing, that is 100% not an act. He truly believed that in that moment and felt like he would be praised for what he did. And I think that's why he did it right in public.

He didn't care because he felt like he was the good guy in the situation. Not always the case. You do have criminals out there who just do it because they're doing it for themselves and they're selfish. But I truly believe that's a part of Alex, whether it was because of Lori's manipulation or the outside factors of everybody else, but however it happened, however we got there, Alex was under a true belief that what he was doing was the right thing.

Yes, but it was because of Lori's manipulation. Oh, for sure, yeah, for sure. She continues to call him. She's putting it in his head. She's crying on the phone. She's using the fact that he's obsessed with her. And in fact, if you ask me, I think she did certain things

and made sure he continued to be obsessed with her and continue to feel like she was this little damsel in distress that she needed his big masculine help. And, you know, she just was taken advantage of by all these guys. And how how how poor, poor Lori, how sad, how sad. I need help. And she continued to take advantage of that and keep him like hooked But I do think there was times where he was like Maybe this isn't really like do I have proof? I don't know how I feel about this I think he did kind of go back and forth

But at the end of the day his loyalty would always be to Lori and I think I'm over too And I think there was a part of him that almost didn't care if what she was saying was true As long as she was saying was true as long as she was happy at the end of the day i really do think that there was a big part of that do you you said something there and i want to go too off the rails here but was there a sexual interest on alex's part oh we're gonna talk about that we're gonna talk about that oh okay yeah yeah we're definitely gonna talk about that so alex cannot let go of the joel ryan thing all through his like 90 days in jail and

then when he was released from jail in july he returned to the comedy stages of phoenix and he incorporated his attack on joe into his act my name is alex cox when i was in the eighth grade i actually learned that my real name was also my porn star name i was uh i was fortunate enough to do a little jail time last year. I'll confess to you guys. You ever had something that you knew was the right thing to do, but it turns out that later on it was a felony? This is a true story.

I found out that my ex-brother-in-law was a pedophile, so I took a stun gun and I discharged it right in his nutsack. And in Texas, that's a felony. I'm thinking, you know, maybe I'll get a handshake or a parade or something. I got probation. So I bet you want to weigh in on that one. Oh, yeah. So we're going to take a quick break, and we'll be right back.

Okay, so we're back. First off, Alex is not what I thought he would be. back. Okay. So we're back. First off, Alex is not what I thought it would be. That's clear. Not this like super imposing figure. You know, I'm not very intimidating just looking at him, but it goes into what we were just talking about, right? Where I, it's part of his act here, but I, I truly believe, however, it was, however

he was influenced, believes that what he did was something that would be cheered about from the people around him, especially in Texas, where he felt maybe he was going to get a wink and a nod from the cops locally saying, hey, you did the right thing. Thanks for doing it, buddy. You did what we can't do. And instead he was slapped with a felony. He was in Austin, so. A little different. That's a little different part of Texas. But either way, that's not how they saw it. There was nothing to prove that Joe was in fact a pedophile. That was just a conclusion that he and his family came to.

And that's not enough, especially not in the eyes of the courts. So yeah, I think he's telling this act as a joke, but he truly believes every word he's saying. He really felt like he was doing something that was a betterment to the community by tasing this guy in the genitals so that maybe he wouldn't be able to ever do this again to another child. Obviously, we can't go around. He didn't tase him in the genitals, though. That's just like part of that, right?

That was part of the joke. Yeah, that's part of the joke. Well, I know he said the back. I know he hit him in the back. I didn't know maybe if he attempted to do it or something, you know? Who knows? But at the end of the day, like Joe Ryan was there for a court mandated visit with Tylee. And to me at that point, like that's enough to at least say to me like, OK, the law doesn't believe that he's done anything wrong. And like, what am

I going to what am I going to like attain by attacking him in the parking lot after his legal court mandated visit with his daughter that enough people have said, we don't think you're a pedophile, so you can see your daughter now. After years of not even seeing her. So I don't know. I think he's just so mind fucked by Lori as so many others will be and were. And I don't understand how And I don't understand how. I don't understand how. I don't. I think it's hard for us from an outside looking in.

But I feel like you're going to get into it more where the dynamic when we're talking specifically between Alex and Lori. Right. For Alex and Lori, I think it's pretty clear what happened. There's some things going on there, right, that we're not susceptible to because we don't have those same feelings about Lori. You see it time and time again, even if it's not like a sibling relationship where guys or gals will do things for the other party that they probably shouldn't necessarily do, but they're so enamored by that person, they're willing to do whatever they can to gain their affection. And so it's not as uncommon as you think, but will they go to this extreme to impress someone? Some people. Some people, but thankfully not most people will do that.

We hope. Yeah. But there's some sick things going on here where it's more than a brother-sister kind of love. That's the vibe I'm getting right now. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what Lori's got going on. They can be this powerful, but damn. No comment. No comment. I was going to say power of the P powerful, but damn. No comment. No comment.

I was going to say power of the P word, but I'm kind of grossed out by it because it's Lori Vallow. Powerful tool. Disgusting. So once again, we do see a pattern, right? In the way that Lori and her immediate family behave. They're above the law.

They think that something is right. Therefore, objectively, everyone should feel that way. And Alex was expecting like a handshake for what he did to Joe Ryan or even, you know, an award or a parade. He couldn't understand why an unprovoked attack on someone who had not been found guilty in the court of law would land him in jail. He just could not wrap his head around it. And the threats and intimidation of Joe Ryan did not end there. So Lori and her family members, they clearly also don't learn from their mistakes. If they face repercussions, like Alex goes to jail for 90 days. So if they face repercussions, that's like everyone else's problem. It's just like they don't understand us. It doesn't mean that they still won't attempt to right these perceived

wrongs that they believe exist. It just means they'll be more careful about not getting caught in the future. In January of 2008, Lori didn't even bring Tylee to her scheduled visit with Joe Ryan. The following month in February, Lori did bring Tylee, but when Joe left the kids exchange facility with Tylee and the supervisor who would be remaining with Joe and his daughter during their visit, Joe noticed that they were being followed by two pickup trucks. So Joe, who was obviously still paranoid from his most recent interaction with Alex Cox, he called the police and told them what was happening. And he was told to go to a public place and meet the police there. Joe did this and the trucks followed. They parked a short distance away and they watched while Joe

talked to the police and the police made sure everyone was safe. They made notes of the license plates of the watching trucks. And then they escorted Joe and Tylee back to Joe's house and then escorted them back to the drop-off point, the kids' exchange, later that night when the visit was over. That night, Joe claimed he received menacing phone calls warning him to stay away from his daughter and not show up to visitations anymore. Now, Tylee's supervisor, basically the social worker that's going to just be watching Joe and Tylee interact during their visits together, she was concerned about the psychological impact all of this was having on the little girl. Fogle said that she was surprised when Tylee barely reacted to the whole trucks following them drama.

And she believed Tylee was suffering from a high level of repressed anxiety because she was used to the adults in her life being upset and angry. And that by the age of five, Tylee had already accepted that this stuff was just going to happen. There was just going to be police around and all the adults are going to be fighting and just mad and, you know, stressed out all the time. Mary Fogle wrote in a report, quote, Her father was visibly shaken. Tylee had no emotional reaction at all. It was as if nothing was happening.

End quote. In August of 2008, Tylee would have her first sleepover with her father, Joe. And once again, Mary Fogle would be present for this. She would remain in the house all night to make sure Tylee was safe. And when Mary went through Tylee's overnight bag that Lori had packed, she was surprised at the things she found, including a baby blanket, a diaper and two toy guns. And Mary Fogle said these items are strange and surprising given Tylee's age and her interests, meaning like why is this five-year-old child have a diaper packed when she's not in diapers? She's not of diaper age. And why are there two toy guns in here when she doesn't play with toy guns? This is really odd. And then Mary Fogle, the supervisor, also noticed that when Tylee first got there, she

walked around Joe's house taking pictures of everything. And when Tylee was asked why she was doing it, she responded that her mother had told her to. So what do you think about that specifically? I mean, it's kind of what we were going back to earlier, right? When I was talking about that example of the parents influencing their child and also in some cases using their child as scapegoats in certain things. But I think with Tylee, you have a situation where I'm not going to go out on a limb here first and foremost and say Joe was like this amazing guy. I don't think even you're saying that. We don't know. So why would I? I wouldn't say that. I don't know. We don't know. He had an anger problem. We know that, you know? Yeah, exactly. And so I don't know. I mean, with Laurie, there's a lot of things going on there

that she's exposing the children to specifically Tylee. That's what we're talking about so far that obviously you or I wouldn't do. But are you seeing in the context of like, as far as Mary Fogle's observations and how she handled it, or just more so what she observed? I think it's weird that Lori would pack two toy guns for Tylee. Like, what is that? Are you trying to get her comfortable with weapons? Like, what's happening here? I almost wonder, at least Lori's messed up, man. So I almost wonder if Lori was trying to almost, I know this sounds messed up up but this is where my head went if laurie was trying to almost train ty lee like to get comfortable with toy guns so that maybe one of the times ty lee spent the night at joe's

laurie could pack like a real gun and almost have ty lee act as like a little mini assassin you know kind of like sneaking in behind enemy lines and then saying like well i don't know where she got that gun from i don't know how it got in her bag or probably she found it at joe's house like laurie might even have had like a weapon that had been registered to joe because they were married and then she would kind of try to do something like that and then just say like well i didn't kill him i it was ty lee and you know i can't help it he was abusing her it's no surprise that she did that like laurie will think that way like she'll plan for the long ahead i don't know i mean that's an interesting theory i know it's just you're just giving out an idea of what it could be i don't

know i i honestly don't know it also could be as was was laurie someone who was into guns i know that obviously miss texas i mean no not that i know of you know i wonder if like you know you have younger children this isn't necessarily a bad thing but you have people who are hunters things like that who are around guns all the time will get their kids into guns at an early age sometimes maybe buying them a toy gun at first but it doesn't just so far of what i've known about this case doesn't seem like laurie's a big gun person so i don't know why she was i think a Alex was into guns. So there could be something there.

Because I've seen that before where there's no, there's nothing nefarious going on. But like, obviously people who are pro-gun, like really pro-gun, may want to expose their children to guns at a young age so that they're not scared around them and they know how to handle them. Right.

I don't know if that's the case here, though. I don't know if that's the case here. It doesn't sound like it anyways. No. It doesn't like that kind of thing. I want to keep moving forward in the timeline. So in September of 2008, Lori and her new husband, Charles Vallow, they made a surprising decision to pack up, leave Texas and move to Chandler, Arizona. And this was especially surprising to Charles' ex-wife because he had already spent so much time, energy and money fighting for custody of his sons. And before that had even been settled, now he just announced that he was just going to leave Texas without them.

Like he would still visit them and everything. But it was like, okay, I'm leaving. I'm taking off and you're good. You can keep custody of them and then I'll have visitation. And the reason given was that Charles was away a lot for work. And so if they lived in Chandler, Arizona, Lori could be closer to her brother Alex, who was living only a few minutes away. And so she could have like family around her and she wouldn't be lonely when Charles was on the road. So this was definitely, once again, a decision I believe fueled by Lori.

Oh yeah, clearly. Absolutely. She might have spun it to him where he bought it, but it clearly was for her. And in all of the decisions that it seems like Charles and Lori make together are fueled by her. But it's almost as if he doesn't even really realize that. And just once again, like Alex, Charles Vallow's main objective always is to make Lori happy. And it makes me mad because like all of these men bending over backwards to like make Lori happy and she's like a bad person and doesn't deserve it. But then there's like good women out there who are like giving everything they have to the men in their lives.

And they're being like, you know, taken advantage of and not appreciated. But you got like good men like Charles Vallow just like doing everything he possibly can for Lori, who's an absolute psychopath. But maybe that's why he was. Maybe she was so manipulative and like brainwashed. Who knows? Who knows? So they moved to Chandler, Arizona. And in Chandler,

things were going really well for their little family. Colby was making friends at school. Tylee was attending a charter school where she could foster her talents for the performing arts. It said that she was a natural born singer and dancer and just a really good performer. Lori and Charles became highly respected in their community and in the local LDS church, and everyone was really happy with this new arrangement, except for Joe Ryan, who had just gotten visitation with his daughter back, but now he would have to travel hundreds of miles if he wanted to see Tylee. By this point, the legal battles and the emotional warfare waged on Joe Ryan by Lori and her family had drained him in every possible way, including

financially. And it was around this time, this move to Arizona, where Joe started drinking heavily. He was battling depression, anxiety, all these health issues, and his life was falling down around him. But Lori did not let up. It seemed like she went harder. It seemed like the more broken Joe Ryan became, the harder Lori pushed to break him further. On July 26th, 2009, Joe flew from Texas to Arizona to see Tylee, which is what he has to do now if he wants to see his daughter. And during the handoff, he and Lori got into an argument. Well, actually, it looked like she provoked this argument out of nowhere because Joe ended up having to call the police, and he basically told them Lori had disturbed Tylee's peace

by causing a confrontation with him in front of Tylee. Basically, like, there was no reason for this fight. She just picked it so that we were arguing in front of Tylee, and I'm sick of it. A week later, Joe flew to Arizona again, but Lori didn't even show up to let him see Tylee, so he flew of it. A week later, Joe flew to Arizona again, but Lori didn't even show up to let him see Tylee. So he flew back home without ever seeing his daughter. There was another time where Joe would fly to Arizona because he wanted to see Tylee in like a recital, like a dance recital

and Lori wouldn't let him come. That year, Lori would violate the terms of their custody agreement no less than seven times. And it appeared that she was on a mission to make sure that Joe never saw Tylee again. Eventually, Joe Ryan would pack up his entire life and move to Phoenix, but this made his financial problems even worse because he ended up taking a massive pay cut, like some sources have said, 40%. He gave up 40% in salary to leave Texas and move to Arizona. In the summer of 2011, Joe tried to reason with Lori over email asking if she would please just cooperate with him for Tylee's sake and writing, quote, Tylee is worth everything. She is smart and talented and beautiful, and I'm not sure what your intentions are. You really are only hurting Tylee, and I hope you will find it in you to

sacrifice for your daughter and do the right thing, end quote. And I mean, at this point, Joe must have been at the end of his rope and completely delusional because he should have known better that Lori Vallow would never sacrifice anything for anyone else, not even her own child. Or not even for a child that she would adopt and call hers. And that's going to bring us to J.J. Vallow. But before we dive into that, let's have a quick break. So we're back from break and really sad stuff in that last section there, because as you said, there's no chance with how selfish Lori was that she would ever consider doing something that was in the best interest of the child. If it, if it wasn't what she wanted for herself, that's number one, but also what it does is essentially at that point, he's showing his cards a little bit, right? So at that point now

that she, Lori knows this, she's going to use it to her advantage. She realizes how much this is affecting him. And he's just trying, he's moving all over the country. He's doing all these different things to try to be around his daughter. And Lori knows that. Now she knows that she has a tool that she can use to get what she wants. And she also knows that she's breaking him.

He's giving her the affirmation to say, hey, listen, what you're doing, I'm finally here on my knees just trying to work something out so I can see my daughter. Cause that's really all that matters to me. And Lori and maybe a normal person would be, you know, would see that and try to find some compromise, some middle ground. She's going to take that and thrive off of it. It's going to make her stronger, even more steadfast

and whatever she was doing before it, because she gets off on it. So that's not going to be thinking it's unfortunate because we see this with men and women who are not of this mental capacity like Lori. And this happens all the time. I'm sure people out there listening, watching, have seen this in their own personal lives where you have, you know, one or both parties in a divorce like this using the children as leverage happens all the time. So this is unfortunately not an uncommon story. It's just probably a little bit more extreme here because we're talking about a woman in Lori Vallow and we know what she's capable of now. So you think about what she would be willing to do with those children to gain that level of leverage over Charles. Yeah. I don't understand

people that do that. Use their kids to like hurt their partners. Like it, cause it's hurting the kids too. And I think that they know that I don't, I don't get it. Obviously someone like Lori, cause she's clinically, you know, bananas, but normal people who end up doing this and making a divorce really dirty and dragging it out and just trying to hurt everyone. I don't understand. it's hard enough for everybody as it is like we all see it too right all the time all the time so it's just why do they do it right they want something the other person's not responding to them because they're obviously not in love with them anymore so the only thing they have is that chip because they know that what are you trying to get for different people it's different things is it

property is it money is it is it just to to cause that other person pain because you feel like they hurt you? Whatever it might be, that motive might be, but it's usually one of those three things or a combination. Very unfortunate. But what we see with Lori here is this is what she does with everyone, right? She will use whatever chips she has, even if they're human, to gain control, gain an advantage, or get her way. Anytime, anywhere, no holds barred. She does not care. Nothing's off limits, which is unfortunate. So like I said, Lori would go on to adopt a child, and that child was born on May 25th, 2012, to a woman named Mandy Ledger and a man named Dennis Trahan. And we know this child as JJ, but he was born 10 weeks premature with drugs in his system, and his name at birth was Kanan Trahan.

The baby's father, Dennis, was actually Charles Vallow's nephew, and Dennis and his girlfriend, Mandy, were both drug addicts, and they were unable to care for their newborn son. So for the first seven weeks of life, JJ was weaned off of drugs at the hospital, and when he was released from the hospital, his grandparents, Kay and Larry Woodcock, brought the baby home with them to Lake Charles, Louisiana, and they named him Joshua Jackson or JJ. Now, Larry and Kay are really integral in this case. We're going to talk about them a lot more going forward because they are the first people to start making noise about JJ and Tylee's disappearance years later because they loved JJ so much. So even when they eventually were like, we can't take care of him the way he needs because he has special needs, because we are getting up there in age. Larry Woodcock was in his 70s and he's like, I'm too old. We are running a business. We can't

give JJ what he needs. So they're going to eventually let Lori and Charles adopt JJ. But even after Lori and Charles adopted JJ, the Woodcocks were still able to see JJ whenever they wanted. They would visit him all the time. He would visit with them. They called him almost every day. They liked to FaceTime with him. They loved this child. Larry Woodcock remembers like getting up with JJ in the middle of the night and like feeding him his bottle. And he was so tiny, you know, because he was born premature. And Larry just felt like this child is my responsibility and in my hands. And he loved him so, so much. So when they stopped hearing from J.J. and they had already had some suspicions about Lori and the red flags she was raising from like the end of 2017 on, they knew something was wrong and they started making a lot of noise.

And it is because of Larry and Kate Woodcock that this became, you know, as notable as it was in the early days. So like I said, for the first few months, Larry and Kay, they did their very best for JJ. They gave him a happy home. But within a few months, they realized there were things they could not give JJ because they had a lot going on. Like I said, Larry's in his 70s. He's advanced in age. And so they were pleased initially when Kay's brother, Charles, and Charles's pretty young wife agreed to adopt JJ and raise him as their son. Now, here's Larry Woodcock talking about Lori. Lori is an extremely attractive young young lady, lady, and she knows how to play. She knows how to play to the camera. She knows how to play she knows how to play to the camera she knows how to play to people that's the

reason everybody loves laurie immediately because she's she's a narcissist did you ever sense anything like that when you first met her throughout the years not when we first met her but like i told you just a minute ago, I listen loud and I watch deep. And by 2017, I knew there was something not right. I told Kay that. 2017. 2017. And Kay will tell you that. I told her there's something not right.

Was it a lack of emotion? Was something aloof about her? It was the package, but it was numerous things. Over the years, I just saw Lori playing to everybody. Now, I like Lori. I'm not going to say any difference. But as far as her pulling the wool over my eyes, that never happened. What did you think of her as a mother to JJ in the early years? She was a good mother. She truly was. She loved JJ. See what I'm saying, though? People are always like, she was a good mother. She was a good mother. She loved

them. I don't think she ever did. She was and is still a narcissist. What is a narcissist's definition of love? What is that to them? What does love mean to them? Usually, how does this person make me look? I love the way they make me look. JJ makes me look like a good mother. Charles makes me look good because he's handsome and successful and wealthy. And we make a good power couple. It's all about like what the people in their lives can do for them and how well they make them look. I don't know if there's there was any real love there. I just can't imagine. But it seems like she was really good at playing the part. I don't know. Like I could be wrong. I don't know. I'm not a Lori Vallow defender here,

but just talking in general, I think there's different types of people, right? Like there's people who are just all about their significant other, all about their children, but still have this yearning or this ambition to do well for themselves, right? I wouldn't call them narcissists, but still have ambitions, right? Like they're still trying to better themselves and to still live their own lives and do things that they want to do for themselves and be successful in their own right. Right. But if faced with the choice of me or my children or me or my significant other, they always choose their children's happiness or their significant other's happiness over themselves.

They put those people in their lives in front of their own goals and dreams. With Lori, you could have a situation, right? And again, just looking at it from the perspectives of the people we're hearing from, where on the surface, she really did love those children. And she loved them to the extent of, I'm willing to do whatever I she loved them to the extent of i'm willing to do whatever i can for them to make sure they're happy as their mother however if ever faced with a choice of their well-being or their happiness over her own she's so selfish that she would always choose hers she would never put their well-being or their happiness in front of her own so anything that she could do for them

That didn't impact her own ambitions and goals. She would do it, but Maybe they hadn't exposed maybe she hadn't exposed that other side to her to these people where she was faced with a choice to You know do something for her kids or do something for herself and she chose herself where they said Oh, that's that's a little weird. So that could be what they're observing. Right. But like even the sacrifices that go along with like becoming, well, this is a good question. And maybe it's not even accurate because JJ definitely not, but was, was Tylee alive when she was Miss Texas? No. Right. She wouldn't have been. No. Tylee, hold on. Tylee was alive. She was a little baby. Yeah.

But even that, right? That's a tough thing and a lot of mothers do it. So I'm not comparing Lori Vallow to anybody who's been in a pageant, but there's a big commitment with that, right? Yeah. And in a lot of cases to make yourself look that good and be prepared, you got to put yourself in front of everybody. And so a lot of great people out there can do both without, without their children suffering or noticing in any way, shape, or form that you're doing all these extra things for yourself, but you know, still giving them what they need. Where with Lori, maybe that was some early signs of like, Hey, I have these things that I want to accomplish. As long as you don't get in my way, I'll be there for you to help you out as much as

I can. But if ever faced with a choice, me or you, I don't care that you're my child. I'm choosing me. And so that could be where these- But by definition, that makes her not a good mother, right? Agreed. And that's why I'm saying I agree with you. But on the surface, when they're referring to her as a good mother, they're referring to the incidences where they're seeing her interact with her children and acting as a mother should not knowing internally that this woman that you're looking at, although she's very nurturing and caring in person, if faced with a choice of her or them, she's choosing her. And you wouldn't know that until you see her face with it. So I feel in their defense,

that's what they may have seen. So, you know, that's what they're going off of. But again, I don't, I don't think that comes off as a Lori Vallow defender, but more so a defender of the individuals who are saying she was always, she always appeared to be a good mother to me. I think that's what they were seeing. Yeah. And I mean, that's, that's a narcissist too, right? Like they love you and they're great to you while you're doing what they want you to do. But the second things get hard or there's stress or something like that, they'll turn on you ears as I'm hearing it, but I wouldn't even say that, like, there may have been times where she, they inconvenienced her, but it didn't affect her long-term goal. So she was willing to bend to that. But if there were choices where it would affect her long-term, her future, whatever she had

planned, she would never choose them over her. But like the small inconvenience things that like you might have come up in a day where all they spilled something on the ground or whatever, maybe she wouldn't react like in a negative way. And they saw that and they took, they perceived that as compassionate and caring and loving. And those are the minor things, but those are things that parents do on a daily basis. You're expecting that. However, maybe they didn't get to see a side to her where they were life altering decisions decisions where she would have to give something up for herself in order for them to progress and succeed and do whatever and grow and have a better life. that example, for example, with Alex, we're talking about here, that's a situation where Lori, in my opinion, just the way you described it, wanted to be present for the assault of Joe. That was her gratification. She wasn't going to miss that. And unfortunately, even though she might've known it wasn't good for Tylee to witness that, she put her own wants and needs

in front of Tylee at the sacrifice of Tylee's well-being and her mental stability and her ability to process that her dad's being assaulted in front of her. Lori didn't care enough for her to make sure she wasn't there or remove her from that situation because Lori wanted to see it firsthand. That is a prime example of who Lori was in her full context of, is she a good mother or not? The answer is obviously no, she wasn't. I think also the fact that she's constantly moving them around from place to place to place to place. We're not even done.

Like that's not good for your kids. No, and she's doing that, why? She's doing it to get away from whatever problems she's caused. She's doing it for her own well-being. Yeah, of course. Because it's what she wants for whatever reason. It's what she wants. But even Colby would say later like

The fact that I never was in the same school for more than a year and I couldn't make friends and that was always like A really hard beginning to my life. It was a hard start of my life because we just were never settled There was never any consistency. There was never any security. It was chaos and And it was constant and yeah, I agree I think that there's things that she could have done that she would have sacrificed for her kids. That most mothers do. Most good mothers will do. I mean, damn, you know how much I want to leave all the time? Every day I want to pack up and leave and move someplace else. But obviously that's not what's good for my kids. You sacrifice your own situation in many instances for your kids. Yeah.

Every day. Yeah. And I think 99% of the parents out there do the same. And that's where if you really want to pull back the curtain on Lori Vallow, you put her in a situation where it's like, hey, this is going to benefit you. This is going to benefit your kids. Most parents are going to say without question, without hesitation, I'm going to do what's better for my kids. Not Lori Vallow. No, no, I think you're absolutely right. So Lori and Charles, they did take JJ. They adopted him.

They took him to Arizona on February 14th, 2013. And at first there was some pushback from the two children they already had at the home, Colby and Tylee. By this time, Colby and Tylee were older. They were kind of like already independent. And they just couldn't understand why Lori and Charles would want to start raising a baby because at this point, JJ was just nine months old. But it felt like as soon as JJ was there, he always had been. He was perfect there with them. And Tylee and Colby, they said they couldn't really remember a life before he arrived. They said that he was such an amazing person. He made everybody feel at ease and he made everybody feel like it was okay to be whoever they were. He just had that sort of impact,

this intense impact that JJ had on people around him. When JJ was a little older, he would be diagnosed with autism. And from what we know from all available sources, Lori really stepped up to the plate, taking care of all of his needs and teaching her other two children how to care for JJ as well. April Raymond, a friend of Lori's, said, quote, JJ was very difficult to take care of, so I really admired how patient Lori was with him and how much she took care of him end quote it's for me it's one of those things where like if a tree falls in the forest and no one's around to see it or hear it did it really fall you know if Lori had thought nobody was around to see how patient and how tentative she was to JJ and his special

needs would she have been interest that's an interesting question I think that's a very considering the circumstances surrounding this case a very interesting question. I think that's a very, considering the circumstances surrounding this case, a very interesting question. And I still think that the template we talked about pretty extensively where she was willing to be attentive, willing to be caring, because maybe there was some part of her that did have a motherly instinct, but it was only when it didn't cost her anything for herself. So taking care of JJ, being loving with JJ, all those things, stepping up to the plate when he was obviously diagnosed with autism, she was willing to go to the extent of, hey, as long as this is impeding what I'm trying to do, I'll be there. But the minute it crosses over

into my lane, watch out, kid or not, I'll run you over. Damn. Right? I mean, simply. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I think that she reached a level of like delusion and like religious, like a grandeur. Right. It could have got worse. Right. We're not we're not. I think it got worse. That's a great point. I think it was always an insidious sort of trait where it was like she always had the capability to do that. But when she started losing touch with reality. Wasn't full blown extreme yet. Right. So that's a great point. That's a great point that we haven't said yet. There's an evolution here, right? Like she may not have been. Allegedly there is. Yes. Right. And I think what you're describing would suggest that like, there are all these people who really have no skin in the game. Some of these people coming out after the fact and still saying like, Hey, from what we saw, she was a loving mother. Well, that may be true. Maybe at points in her life before she went completely over the edge she did show signs of being a good mother and as things got worse as you just laid out and she became more on to an extreme side of it that dissipated but at this

point in the story as we're telling it there was a part of her that was still left that did at times show a motherly instinct yeah i don't think that's wrong. I think what you're saying is probably the most likely scenario. Both can be true. At one point, she could have been somewhat motherly. And as time progressed, that was less and less. I think it was always about how it made her look and how it served her, though. You always go back. You're not going to get it.

No, because I think when she became crazier, she just didn't care what it looked like. And before she at least had enough self-awareness to be like, well, I don't want people to know how selfish and what a piece of shit I am. You know, like I don't want people to know that. So you just to put it bluntly, you don't think there was ever a point where what she was doing was authentic or genuine? No, I don't think so. It was all a show. I think it was all a show. That's fair.

I mean, I'm not going to say he defended. I mean, look what she did to joe ryan man like that was before she went crazy look what she did to you know like for her whole life we we talked about how crazy her and her family are yeah i'm like i'm not gonna i'm not gonna be the one to defend her so i was just giving another side to it so you could completely be right that is definitely something it's just my opinion it's not about being right because there's no way to prove right or wrong at this point. And we weren't there for everything. We weren't just like the family. We weren't there behind closed doors all the times. But that is an interesting point. And if you're following along, make sure you do the timestamp or whatever and weigh in right there. Like, what do you think? Do you think it's that this was

something where she was nurturing, she was caring as long as it didn't interfere with what she was doing? Do you think it was basically a time where she was always very narcissistic, always about herself and would only show love and affection for her children when she knew optically it looked really good for her and she was trying to put on a certain look to the people around her so that they wouldn't be tipped off to who she truly was? Or do you think this was an evolution where maybe at this point, as we're going through this case, there was a part of her that was still human to a certain degree and showed some genuine love for her children. But as we're going to progress in this story, that evaporated. Let us know what you think.

Maybe there's someone in the comments who has a background in this might have some more insight. Ultimately, we'll never know because we weren't there. I don't think there's a nurturing bone in that bitch's body. You know what I love about you? You know what I love about you? You do this all the time too. It's, it's, it's almost, it's, it's cute. It's cute because you'll do this thing where I'll pose a question. And at the end of the question where I give all scenarios, you'll make sure you get that final word in there that pushes your narrative. You do it every-

I mean, they already know my narrative. It's not like anybody's like, they know it and you just- How does Stephanie feel about this? They know it. And you're just like, but on the final no, after posing that question, just know this is what I think. It's amazing. Yeah. I mean, because I kind of felt like you were asking me that question too. We already know your answer. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. I mean, because I kind of felt like you were asking me that question too, you know? We already know your answer.

I'm like, here's what I think. That bitch does not have a nourishing or like nurturing or maternal bone in her body and never dead. Yeah. And the sad thing is we're smiling about because we're talking to each other and we play around with each other all the time. There's nothing funny about this because at the end of the day, we're talking about two kids that one way or another were being used as pawns, was being used as chess pieces in Laurie's game. Or at best scenario, their mother at one point had some level of love for them and that completely went away. Which is almost like more tragic. Yeah, it's terrible. It's terrible.

It really is a terrible story. If she really was a good mother and she really did love them and they really did have a good relationship and then all of a sudden she turned on them and started going like, you know, nuts. Yeah. And they have this realization that like something's happening here. Like, why doesn't she love us anymore? Like, that's almost more tragic than I mean, it's all tragic. I don't know. No, I agree.

It's terrible. So April Raymond, who's Lori's friend, she was also touched by the bond that J.J. and Tylee shared, saying, quote, I loved being around J.J. and Tylee. Tylee was really protective over J.J. and she was kind of like another mama to him. I just kind of loved how she would just play with him and always have like a really good time with him, end quote. And in a way, J.J. became the glue that sort of held them all together. He was the last puzzle piece that the family, Charles, Lori, Colby, and Tylee, they sort of rallied around him. And he was what kind of kept them together and sustained and going. So JJ, it's just so tragic. What a sweet child, man. On that note, because I'm feeling a

little sad right now, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back we're back from break real quick because we're talking about it off record so we might as well come back from break what an ordeal what an ordeal i'm in a new studio we were taking a break i'm like i'm gonna hit the head real quick go to the bathroom real quick and i shut the door and the door is one of those like office style doors where like it locks from the inside, even though the outside handle won't still move. So I locked myself out with everything, everything except the cell phone. So only thing I had in my hand, I was in here, she was in here and I'm like, I locked myself out. So I essentially had to take an Uber to my, to my place, grab for those of you on, uh,

for those of you who are on YouTube, you can see this, grab this device that I was basically for search warrants for like breaking into like, not breaking in, but to getting inside apartments. Yes, breaking in. Yeah. Well, whatever. But with a search warrant. And it's been in my closet for years.

Haven't used it. But Stephanie was watching on FaceTime while i was doing it actively rooting against me to not be able to get inside well yeah i wasn't because i didn't want to like have to record the rest of this tomorrow right also i was amused yeah all right so we got in so it's now an hour later for that ordeal and we're going to pretend like nothing happened yeah so let's let's keep it going let's keep it going back to the keep it going. Back to the case. All right. So even though everything was going well in Arizona, even though everyone had settled in and made friends and integrated into the community,

Charles and Lori made the decision to move again in 2014 after Colby graduated from high school and JJ's adoption was finalized. And this time they were moving to the happiest place on earth, not Disney World, Lori's happiest place on earth, Hawaii. In April of 2014, Lori, Charles, Tylee, and Lori's mother Janice all flew to Kauai to view homes there because Lori's parents were going to be relocating to the same island. And Lori had wanted to keep this secret from Tylee's father, Joe Ryan, but he found out through Tylee's school that Lori was planning to move to Kauai. And on April 22nd, he emailed her to see if these were just baseless rumors or if Lori was actually going to go through with it. If she was going to go through with it, Joe wanted her to know that he would exercise his legal rights to prevent it from happening. Lori responded back basically saying, I don't care what you think and I don't care what you

want and you can't stop me. She said that Charles had accepted a new job. It was a great opportunity for them to live in paradise and to learn about the culture there. And they were leaving August 1st. Although Joe vehemently opposed the move, Lori and her family settled into a big, beautiful home in the Princeville area of Kauai, leaving Joe with no legal recourse. At first, it was as Lori had said, it was like living in paradise. Lori made friends quickly with other women from the LDS church. Colby was 18, obviously loving life on the island. He and Charles became very close and created a bond they never really had before. Tylee was attending a local traditional Hawaiian school. She loved learning about the culture and about Hawaiian dance and song.

And JJ had a new puppy, a Pomeranian named Crushy. There were pool parties and beach trips, cookouts and family adventures around the islands. Lori was an active participant in church activities. She wasn't there long before she was appointed the president of the primary program for children aged 6 to 12, where she would tell them stories and teach them songs. Members of the church remembered Lori as being happy, bubbly, and singing with unbridled joy. Colby would later tell Dateline, quote, it's the most beautiful place you've ever seen. Charles was super happy. My mom was super happy, end quote. And at this time, Lori seemed to be pretty normal and calm when it came to her religious beliefs, which were still pretty mainstream.

But her friend April Raymond remembered that Lori did have a fixation on near-death experiences. At this time, Lori owned and operated a juice shop on the beach that Charles had bought for her, basically to give her something to do while he was away for work. Lori did not take an active role in this business that she ended up naming Juice Island. She hired someone to run for her, and she showed up like once a week to collect the profits. According to Lori, moving to Hawaii was once again a message she had gotten from the other side. In the Netflix series, Sins of Our Mother, you can hear audio of Lori. And this is audio from like a, I don't know, like a group that she would eventually join, like a podcasting, like LDS, end of times kind of group. And, you know, they would tell each other stories about their lives and stuff.

So that's what this audio is from. But she said, quote, The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints is a gateway to get you to the temple so that the Lord can teach you himself. I was in the sealing room one time and I saw a spirit sister come over and she kissed me on the cheek before she disappeared through the wall. All of a sudden, I hear this voice super loud and I look around and I'm like, anyone hear that? No? Okay. And he sent me on a mission and he told my husband and I to move to Hawaii.

Hawaii, Hawaii, Hawaii. We were in Hawaii for three years. I thought we were going there forever. My whole life is full circle. I had to marry this husband to adopt this child to get to this point, to be in Kauai at this time. I loved it there. End quote. It seems to be in Hawaii where Lori's relationship with her husband, Charles, began to deteriorate, or at least where people started to see the cracks.

Lori's friend, April Raymond, who was also a part of the LDS church, said that Lori was the one in charge in the relationship. She called the shots, but this seemed to work for Charles. He didn't mind. He just wanted Lori to be happy. According to Lori's friend, April Raymond, Lori did not consider Charles Vallow to be her spiritual equal. April Raymond said, quote,

That was a big point of contention in their marriage. I felt like he was constantly trying to play catch up with her as far as like understanding concepts that maybe he just really didn't understand. But I don't know how much he knew of how frustrated she was. Lori really wanted a spiritual dynamo and a partner being attached to Charles. She felt like he was holding her back. End quote. It's interesting that you say they moved to Kauai and that she was looking for someone who was more in touch with their spirit, things like that, because I went to Kauai for a case. And one thing, my own personal observations that I just took away from it was a lot of the people there were kind of of that same mindset. Searching for something. Searching for something kind of because Kauai is very underdeveloped. Like it's, you know, I mean, they film movies and stuff there. But as far as like the other islands, it's like hasn't been commercialized as much. Yes.

And people are it seems like a lot of people go there to get away from something somewhere else. And it's a place to disappear. And like everything's very simple out there. Like like you said, a juice stand or something like that. Like people are selling arts and crafts and things on the side of the road. It seems like a lot of people go there and are transients. They might be there for a few years. And then once they've found what they were looking for or had enough time away, they'll go back.

So it's interesting that she chose this place. And if you've ever been there, it does give some insight into maybe her mindset robin pope the case you know it was exactly no no no not robin pope amber jackson amber jackson was that where she was dating she was like with that guy who was kind of like exactly this way that you're describing kind of like a hippie exactly he lived in the yurt yeah exactly amber jackson so you know, I don't know. It's not a bad thing, by the way. But just more in touch with their spirit.

You know, they're like, you know, that side of things. A little bit more loose, you know. And I feel like a lot of the people that go there, like, I wouldn't fit in there. You wouldn't fit in there either, by the way. You don't know that. I could be super chill. Not unless you're high. If I'm high enough, man.

Not unless you're high. But, like, normal you, no. You're, like. Not unless you're high, but like normal, you know, you're like more on my mindset where we'd be like, come on, get it together. Let's get it going. Like everyone's a little slower there. What are we doing?

Nothing productive. Yes, exactly. So when you said that, I'm like, Hmm, it just made me think of it. And then as you kind of went on a little bit further,

so it almost makes me wonder, even though indirectly it wasn't being said, if Lori was looking for something more and she didn't find what she was looking for there which is why the relationship deteriorated as much as it did because she felt maybe by going there it would strengthen it because she would get what she needed and when she didn't it almost made the situation worse between the two of them or maybe going there she found the spiritual connection that he didn't. And so she felt that like she was kind of riding that wave and like getting closer to the other side or whatever. And he was just kind of like, this is fun.

Let's go surfing, you know, kind of like not seeing it on the deeper level that she wanted him to see this experience. Possible. Yeah, that's possible, too. But very interesting that that's the place she chose because at all the locations I've been, that was one of the ones where I was like, wow, they're definitely still back 30, 40 years ago. I don't know. I might like it, man. I think you'd love it there. I loved it there, but it's short term for us.

To make it your home, interesting characters that decide to do that. And again, most of the time, even when we were doing this case, it's tough to do these cold cases because people are usually only there for a few years. And then, like I said, they leave the island and they go somewhere else. Yeah, they're only there for three years. There you go. But it was here in Kauai, right, that April and others noticed Lori's religious beliefs were getting maybe a bit edgier. And she would, you know, tell them about podcasts that she was listening to and new Mormon authors that she was reading, like Chad Daybell. But before we go down that path, let's return to Alex Cox and his relationship with his sister Lori, because I've been promising that we're going to talk about it, and we are.

So Alex, in my opinion, always kind of a lost soul. He was also kind of weird and awkward, especially around women. I think he had like you and you can see if you watch his comedy sketches for longer than two minutes, you'll see he has like a fixation on sex. He's always talking about sex, always talking about like body parts. He's always like referring to his penis. It's like constant, man, constant. And that's weird because you don't usually see that in like the Mormon population. You know, they're not usually all about that. But Alex had briefly been married in 1992 to a woman named Debbie. They did not remain married long. I think they were married for a year, but they only lived

together for like five months. According to Debbie, a lot of that was because Alex was sexually inappropriate. She thought he was a sex addict. In fact, she didn't think. He admitted to her. He told her he was a sex addict. And she also thought he had a really creepy relationship with his sister Lori. So when the disappearance of JJ and Tylee became national news in 2020, Debbie actually contacted the police in Chandler, Arizona and described the crazy dynamics in the Cox family. She said that she and Alex had only lived together for about four or five months, and then she figured out his family was just too weird and that she'd made a big mistake and she got out. And Debbie said that Alex kept getting excommunicated from the LDS church because he could not control his sex drive. And then she'd also learned that he'd had

sex with a 15-year-old girl. She doesn't seem to make as big of a deal out of that as I would have, I guess. I don't know. I don't know. But anyways, here are some important points from a recorded phone interview between Alex's ex-wife, Debbie, and a detective with the Chandler Police Department. Alex, I'm sure you know from your investigation, was a comedian. And he was always joking about things in a funny way or trying to be funny. And he did tell me he was still really, really mad about at Joseph Ryan because of things with his sister Lori. Okay. Custody issues.

And he had told me that Joseph Ryan had possibly sexually abused the kids, Colby, as well as Tylee. But when I would ask Alex a lot of questions about it and try to dig deeper, then it would turn into, well, we're just trying to get custody, and he would flip-flop around quite a bit on whether or not that abuse had actually taken place, whether they had any proof it had taken place, or if they were just playing games to try to help his sister get custody. But in that conversation, he told me that he wanted to bait Joseph Ryan into a fight so that he could kill him. And if I had really at that time thought he was serious,

because I said it in a joking way, but it was still creepy and weird. So then you got divorced in 93? Yeah. You know, I don't know that this helps anything with the investigation, but as soon as I married him, I didn't know his family before we got married. We dated whirlwind romance, got married. Then I got to know the family and there were so many crazy dynamics in that family that, and I've gone back since all of this came out and read my journals from that period of time. and there was just a lot of crazy dynamics in that family back then and it caused a lot of issues right away and it actually

made me scared and nervous how so and we thought about um because there was a lot of inappropriate there was a lot of inappropriate sexual touching and things going on in the family, particularly between him and his sister. So between Alex and Lori? And Lori. Okay, you kind of got me at a loss on this one. What do you consider inappropriate sexual touching? Like they were simulating sex acts, which is not normal to me for a brother and a sister.

For example, he would pick her up and she'd wrap her legs around his waist and he would kind of bounce her up and down on himself in front of me and they would moan and simulate sex acts. And I have brothers and I would never act like that with one of my brothers. Okay. And his mom and dad talked about their sex life in front of us constantly and it just kind of seemed to be a game for them to talk about their... Oh, the mom and dad didn't really object to it then, huh? No, not at all. All of this was going on in the family in front of

everybody they had no shame hmm okay so that obviously was kind of a an alarm for you I'm assuming during your your marriage. Yeah. And did it continue? Was it more than one time that you saw it? Yeah, it was just about every time we were with them. Now, Alex and I only lived together married for about four or five months, and then I just knew that that family was too weird that I had made a big mistake and so I got out how did Alex talk about Laurie well he was a really really protective big brother but he also talked about her being hot and he

sexualized her quite a bit and but he was just also really really protective we lived in the same apartment complex for a while and it just kind of seemed like Alex just chased after her a lot. Did you ever suspect anything more going on other than their, I guess, their playfulness, I guess? Well, I asked him because he did touch her breasts and things, but they were allowed to do that in their family. So to him, he didn't think it was weird. He thought I was weird for thinking it was weird. And so we talked about that stuff a lot, but I didn't think he was sleeping with her.

Okay. I just thought he had the liberty to touch her. Did you ever confront him on that? Yeah, I did. I did and I confronted him on, what about when we have kids? Would you allow that between our kids? And he just didn't think that there was anything wrong with what was going on. So we thought about it.

So you mentioned that he was a protective big brother. Can you talk to me a little bit more about that? But if anybody kind of looked at her wrong or treated her how he thought was not right, then he was always talking about how he wanted to kick their ass. Lori and Alex both lived here in Utah and then we just went to California a lot and so a lot of the inappropriate behavior that I saw I didn't see any of that in Utah. All of the inappropriate behavior I saw was in California at their mom and dad's house. So anytime that you guys went to visit the parents, that's when you saw this behavior? Yeah. Okay.

And otherwise, how was his behavior at the apartments other than, I guess, kind of touching her? At the apartments, I didn't really see them interact too much. It seemed like here in Utah, she had her friends that she ran around with, and Alex and I were always together. And so I didn't see a whole lot of interaction. I just remember a lot of the conversations about him wanting to beat up the guys she was dating. And he was always kind of obsessed with where she was going and what she was doing,

but we didn't do a lot with her. Okay. And is that also during that time frame that he would refer to her as being hot, or would that be only when you were visiting the family? No, that was, yeah, during that time he would talk about how hot she was. Okay. And to your knowledge, are they biological brother and sister? They Okay and to your knowledge are they biological brother and sister? They are to my knowledge. Did Alex ever talk about religion with you or any ideology that he had? Yeah he did. While he and I were married, he got excommunicated from the Mormon church.

And then over the course of the years of our communicating after our divorce, I know that he said he got rebaptized, and then he got excommunicated again. And then I just don't think he ever bothered to try to get rebaptized, but he was always really, really convicted in the faith. He had very strong opinions. But where Alex is weak is he was just sexually promiscuous. And so then he just kept getting kicked out of the church because I think he was a sex addict so what makes you think he was sexually promiscuous oh my goodness because he told me he would tell me he couldn't control having he couldn't control having, he couldn't control sex. He would find it wherever he could find it. And is this after you were divorced?

And it was before also. I was just foolish and thought, oh, he's married now, so that's going to be over. But we were actually living in, when we first moved in together, we were living in Texas. And he had told me about his struggles with sex addiction before we got married. I just didn't really understand what that was at 22. And so I thought, oh, okay, we get married and it's over. But when we were living in Texas, then he came, I had been wanting to move back to Utah because I didn we were living in Texas and he came I had been wanting to move back to Utah because I didn't like living in Texas and he wanted to stay but then

all of a sudden he came home from work one day and said okay we're moving pack up the car let's go I didn't ask questions because I was excited to leave so we packed up the car and we left, but it was really hurried. And we even left some things behind. But once we got back to Utah, I found out that actually he had slept with a 15-year-old girl while we were living in Texas. And her dad had found out, and so her dad was going to come find him. Gotcha. So that's why we left.

I'm going to take care of this problem on my own type of a deal. Yeah. So Alex, that was why Alex came home and said, okay, we're leaving right now. And then the other sex issues for us were really the situation with his sister. The situation with his sister? Just the touching and, yeah, the touching and the things that we've already talked about. Okay. It was just so blatant all the time when we were around her.

And it was always Lori. He didn't act like that with his other sister summer because summer was really really young so and he didn't act like that with his older sister Stacy he only acted like that with Lori so there is a lot there that was a long recording I don't think it's super deep to say that clearly Alex had some issues. And as we had said earlier in the episode, there's something more going on between Laurie and Alex, and it's not normal sibling behavior. The protectiveness over her.

You will see that sometimes with older brothers or whatever, but, but this was, this is something different. I don't know how to describe it. Just, I can't put my finger on it. Just feels different, you know? And, and it was more so like he was defending a girlfriend as opposed to a sister. And then you have these comments where I didn't even know about this. In my opinion, having two sisters, the type of behavior that was being described between Lori and Alex,

not normal. Three sisters all day. Oh yeah, not normal, right? The motions that were described, all these things. Now I'm not even gonna get into the whole 15 year old and all these other things, but it almost seems like with Alex, he was overcompensating for his disgust with the idea that Joe may have abused his child to kind of give off the perception that it was really something he was offended by when in reality.

He was just offended by Joe being with Lori. Exactly. He didn't really give a shit about the kid because he was doing things like that as well in his own life. So talk about a pedophile, right? Right. Exactly. There's definitely a form of projection there where you'll have someone who hates that person because they remind them of themselves in some way. And then add to it,

him having feelings for Lori that are not just brotherly sister love. And clearly, it was being reciprocated in certain ways by Lori. And I almost wonder behind closed doors, because Lori was smart in that way where she knew Alex had feelings for her or was attracted to her and That's what she was allowing to happen in person with other people Imagine what she was allowing behind closed doors in order to get what she wanted out of Alex and it makes you wonder Was she just doing it to manipulate him to have somebody who she knew would always be on her side no matter what?

That's basically is her personal servant to do what to execute whatever she wants. And all she asked to do is give him some attention physically to keep him going to keep him motivated. And who you know, who knows what was happening behind closed doors, but really interesting, really enlightening. Totally believe everything she was saying, not even because of the people that we're talking about, but just because of the behaviors we talked about earlier in the episode. Yeah. And I thought it was interesting that she said it seemed like when they weren't at home around the parents, they were kind of just normal or they barely would interact. But when they were

home, it was like they were all over each other and that behavior was almost like encouraged by their parents which is a whole another can of worms yeah right and so we won't even go there for this but there's there could be some things there and also wouldn't be the first time we hear about family dynamics where for whatever reason there are practices happening within that household that society obviously doesn't condone, but within that group or that cult, if you will, there's behaviors happening, multiple wives, things of that nature where young girls are being passed off to older men, a lot of things that most people don't agree with, but within that culture, it's socially acceptable. So might have a version of that going on here. In some LDS circles, yes.

Yes. Not mainstream LDS. Right. We just want to make that clear. And I wasn't even specifying LDS, just in general where we have- You've got multiple wives and young girls being handed over to old men. That's exactly what you're describing. It is.

But we also had situations. What was Waco? What was their religion background? What was their religion? Branch Davidians. Okay. So a little different, but there was stuff like that going on there as well. Yeah.

You know, multiple wives, kids, you know, being pawned off to older men, you know, well before they should be able to do that, allegedly, you know? And so it's not isolated to LDS at all. Agreed. It's not. Usually it's anytime these men kind of branch off to start these cults. Right. One of the main hallmarks of the cult is that the old guys get to pick from whatever young

girls they want. And they're deserving of multiple women, by the way, at the same time. Hey, if you're making the rules, might as well just say, hey. just say hey as well so yeah this is not an uncommon thing no i get you um we're not saying that happened but i will say like that is probably not super healthy uh in in general so fair to allow your children your as siblings to be like simulating sex with each other and talking about your sex life in front of your children. Like, I don't care how old they are. It's inappropriate. Like it depends on how descriptive you're getting, you know, like obviously it's okay when your children are adults to let them know that you as also adults still have a healthy sex life, but you don't need

to be like descriptive, you know? Auntie shouldn't be bouncing off uncle's lap at any point at any time at any party. It's never that's weird man uncle alex should not be touching aunt laurie's boobs yeah if you're offended by us saying that i'm sorry you gotta you gotta reevaluate your your family dynamic if if you're offended by us saying that then it's you you're the problem i don't know if it's me or no it it's you. It's you. It's you. Objectively. Yeah, yeah. I think we speak for everyone.

It's you. I hope so. So Debbie, Alex's ex-wife, she's not the only person who noticed Lori and Alex's weirdly close relationship. After he got out of jail for attacking Joe Ryan, Alex brought his comedian friend Mary to his parents' home. At that time, they were living in Arizona. And when they arrived, Lori was already there parading around the house in a skimpy bikini, according to Mary. And Alex just could not seem to keep his eyes off of his sister. And Mary Tracy also claimed that although Alex could not keep a girlfriend in North America, he liked to go to South America, get set up with women there who would have sex with him. Basically, it was like this weird kind of dating service.

And you would like sign up and they would arrange your airfare and your hotel and then like make sure that there was women there. I don't freaking know. That sounds horrible. Sounds pretty bad. But during one of these trips in Colombia, Alex met a woman named Maria, who said that everything with Alex moved really fast. She said within a few weeks, he was asking her to marry him, that he was very into sex. He liked talking about it. He liked doing it. And he told her that this was the reason he'd been excommunicated from the LDS church, because he liked sex so much. And Maria said that Alex scared her, stating, quote, the second time we had sex, he had such a glare in those green eyes, such lust. His eyes were shining in an evil way, and that made me feel uncomfortable and scared,

end quote. So in 2015, Alex flew to Hawaii to visit with his sister Lori and their parents. I guess he was having a hard time in Arizona, and he wasn't happy, and he was considering moving to Hawaii. And while he was there, Lori's friend met Alex and found him to be kind of off, lacking social skills, feeling that he didn't maybe know how to connect with people. This was April Raymond. But April did notice that Alex was very loyal to Lori and he would do anything she asked. April said the weirdest thing Alex did was compare her to his sister Lori because they were both blonde and they kind of looked alike, like they could have been sisters. And Alex seemed to be like really fixated on that and April said quote Alex seemed to have a very strange preoccupation with Lori and he would want to know things like how much I weighed or what

my ring size or shoe size was and then compare it to Lori and that just made me feel very uncomfortable end quote yeah same like that's definitely. So let's take our last break and we will be right back. We're back. And as I mentioned, towards the end of their stay in Hawaii, Lori had become a bit more religiously devout, less mainstream in her beliefs. She told her friend April Raymond that she'd been in communication with the angel Moroni and that he appeared to her on a regular basis. And this figure is very important to Mormons because told her friend April Raymond that she'd been in communication with the angel Moroni and that he appeared to her on a regular basis. And this figure is very important to Mormons because Moroni was the angel who is said to have visited Joseph Smith on September 21st, 1823, to inform

Smith that he had been chosen to restore God's church on earth. And April Raymond was stunned when out of the blue, Lori told her they were leaving Hawaii and returning to Chandler, Arizona in the summer of 2017. And this was probably when more people began to notice Lori's bizarre behavior. Lori's mother said that at this time, Lori and Alex were both kind of like listening to these strange like end of times podcasts and talking to each other about it and talking to her about it. And Alex would send Janice like links and be like, mom, you got to listen to this and just kind of really into the whole podcast thing, which was more like of an extreme religious variety. And also Colby and Tylee even started to notice. And Colby said that he and Tylee would like kind of look at each other and be like, is everything okay with mom? She's kind of acting kind of weird. And then Colby, he got a new girlfriend, Kelsey, and he met her during his freshman year of college. And right away, Kelsey did not get good or welcoming vibes from Lori.

She felt that Lori viewed her as a rival. And then Lori started treating her son Colby more like a boyfriend. And Lori started acting like a jealous girlfriend. Lori also did not like that Kelsey was not a Mormon and that Kelsey was bringing Colby to a Christian church. And Kelsey said, quote, she felt like I was taking Colby away from the LDS church. I think it was more about control for Lori than anything. She was just very passive aggressive. She would like snake her way into things and try to manipulate things or make Colby feel bad. She was always competing with me for Colby's love and attention. After we got engaged, Lori was acting so bizarre. She would say really off-the-wall random things like, Jesus loves you, but he loves me the most, end quote.

Dude, I totally vibe with this. Totally get it. That does happen sometimes when mothers are not super mentally stable or emotionally stable and they're like too emotionally attached to their children, especially their male children, and then a girlfriend comes in. And then you will sometimes see the mother do this weird thing where she almost tries to like stake her territory and like chase the girlfriend off by being like very weird and like knocking down boundaries and not being respectful of the relationship and not being respectful of the girlfriend. And it's odd, but you have to remember for a long time, it was just Lori and Colby. So she may have felt a special, I guess, claim to him. Also, if we're looking at the family dynamics, it doesn't seem like blood really

matters when it comes to being sexually inappropriate. So there may have been some part of Lori that did feel kind of like he was a replacement boyfriend for her. This and not necessarily in a sexual way, but in an emotional way, they will like project their feelings and turn to this child for, which is usually an opposite sex child for support, like emotional support and love and, you know, validation and stuff. So that does tend to happen. And it could be a sign that things weren't going well with Charles Vallow. And it could also be a sign that Lori just did not want any other female encroaching on what she believed to be her territory. Because I think Lori had a really great connection with men. She had a way with men. But with women, and if you see Kelsey, I mean, she was gorgeous. Gorgeous.

She was tall and blonde and beautiful. And knowing Lori and how much she placed emphasis on her own physical appearance. And as she's getting older now, Colby brings this beautiful, gorgeous woman into the picture. And it may have left Lori feeling a little insecure and less than. 100%.

And I also think there's some times where, regardless of the relationship, the woman, if it's a Lori Vallow type, they want all the men's attention on them. And even if they're not interested in that guy, the minute he shows interest in another woman, now she's interested in them more. Yeah. So there could be a lot of different things going on there. Yeah.

And then Colby and Kelsey got married in the backyard of the Vallow home in January of 2018. Two months after that, Charles Vallow's mother passed away, and Lori claimed she was too busy to attend the funeral with him, which was a big red flag for Larry and Kay Woodcock. They felt that this not only said something about Lori, but also something about the marriage itself, right? Like when the spouses stop supporting each other, when they stop being there for events or important things

where they may need emotional support from the other, that it's a bad sign. And then right after that, on April 3rd of 2018, the body of Joseph Ryan was found badly decomposed in his rundown, bare-bones Phoenix apartment. Things for Joe Ryan had progressively gone downhill since his daughter, Ty Lee, had moved to Hawaii. I mean, let's be honest, they had gone downhill since he met Lori Vallow and and let her into his life i was thinking exactly was it ever on the upward trajectory really even though he just tried to own it yeah she destroyed him man uh he was broke financially emotionally he had a couple dw eyes under his belt he was on medication for depression and he felt that his

daughter hated him because of Lori isolating Tylee from Joe and because of the things that Lori was telling Tylee about Joe. By April of 2018, no one had seen Joe for a few weeks, and then a neighbor smelled a pungent odor coming from Joe's apartment. He called the police. They came and they found the 59-year-old in bed. He had passed away and he was in an advanced state of decomposition. The police did not find a lot in Joe's apartment to indicate who his next of kin was. The place was pretty much empty besides a few pieces of furniture and pictures of Ty Lee. But a week and a half after Joe was transferred to the morgue and then they figured out Lori Vallow was his ex-wife, she was notified of his death. Officer Jason Smith wrote in his report that Lori had claimed she and Joe

shared a child in common, but they had not spoken in years. But the odd thing was Lori never called Joe's sister, Annie Cushing, and informed her about Joe's death, even though she and Annie had been very close and they were still close. They were still talking and keeping in touch. Now, someone Lori did tell about Joe's death was her current sister-in-law, Kay Woodcock, who claims that Lori was shining with joy when she described how Joe had been dead for weeks, but no one had missed him because he had been evil, and no one even knew he was gone until they smelled his dead body. Lori said that God had taken Joe because he was too evil for this world, and now she entirely would not have to worry about him anymore. In fact, she said this was a good thing because now Lori stood to benefit

from Joe's $150,000 life insurance policy, which was part of like the divorce and the settlement that he had to, you know, put her on this life insurance policy. For a while, Joe's sister, Annie Cushing, was completely in the dark about her brother's death. But eventually the police were able to track Annie down to tell her that he had died and also to let her know that her brother's body had not been claimed. Basically, Lori like went into his apartment and cleared out anything she found to be of value, including like his photo albums and like his personal papers. But she just left his body there to, I don't know, whatever would happen to it. She didn't claim it and she didn't let any of his family know so that they could claim it. So then Annie Cushing finds out that Joe's dead and she's like, oh my God, I have to let Lori and Tylee know. And so she's trying to get ahold of Lori. She's

calling, she's texting. She's like, I have to talk to you. It's like an emergency. And Lori is ignoring all of these attempts to get ahold of her. And when Annie finally did speak to Lori, she found out that Lori already knew Joe was dead and seemed happy about it. Lori invited Annie to come visit them in Phoenix to help comfort Ty Lee, which Annie did, but even in person, she was stunned to kind of see that Lori was outwardly happy that Joe was gone. Annie also found out that Lori had gone into Joe's apartment after his death, taken all his documents, photo albums, and she'd left Joe's body at the morgue. Lori told Annie that, quote, the world is a better place without Joe Ryan, end quote. Can you imagine seeing that

to somebody's sister? Like, that's, you have no self-awareness at this point. No self-awareness. The official cause of death for Joe Ryan was a heart attack, but you cannot blame anyone, like especially Annie Cushing, from wondering if Lori or her brother Alex, who Colby claims was becoming very close to his mother at this time, could be involved or responsible in some way for the death. especially after we know that Alex attacked Joe Ryan with a taser, especially after we know, even though we haven't talked about it in this series yet, we know that Alex Cox would eventually shoot Lori's husband, Charles Vallow, to death. And then we know that Lori and Chad and Alex were responsible for Tammy

Daybell's death. And then when you see all these other spouses and things popping up, like, yes, there's a question of whether or not they were involved in some way. And then this audio surfaced of Lori admitting she'd wanted Joe dead. She said she would have killed him herself. No, but I mean, I'm sure Annie Cushing was. Well, let's hear what Lori has to say. I had been married to someone who was very awful, who raped my children. And I had divorced him and gotten away from him. And he had joined the church. He spoke in state conference. Everyone thought he was wonderful. He was very good showman of all those things. And after we were divorced, he told everybody that I was this lying, crazy Mormon and got up in court and said all these horrible things about me and turned it around to where the judges believed him instead of me and he was constantly trying to get custody of my three-year-old daughter and just to rub it in my face and I went through a lot of years of this kind of hard stuff and I was going to murder him I was going to

kill him like the scriptures say like Nephi killed it just to stop the pain and to stop him coming after me and to stop him coming after my children and I was just I Thought I couldn't take it anymore And I would go through the scriptures and find all the things like if he comes against you once if he comes against you twice if It comes against you three times then you can kill him. It says it in the scriptures There it is. there's my answer

i don't want to do anything that's wrong i did not have a murderous heart i just wanted to stop the bleeding and stop the pain and so someone wise was speaking to me and said you need to go to the temple so i went went and met my bishop, and I was like, I'm either going to turn my life to the temple, or I'm going to commit murder. So do you want to give me a temple recommend? And I was perfectly honest, because at that point, I had nothing to lose. You get to the bottom rung, and I had nothing to lose.

And he gave me my temple recommend. And I started going to the temple every week by myself, not with my current husband, just by myself. So far, doesn't sound like Lori was involved. I don't think she was more than likely. If she had an opportunity to do it and get away with it without being caught or have someone do it for her without it linking back to her, you don't have to take our word for it. She had already had previous thoughts about it.

So it's not too far of an idea to think that if given an opportunity she would have killed him i think that um when the whole alex attack failed you know lori felt maybe she wouldn't be able to get close enough to joe she kind of thought well if i can't like physically destroy him i'll just destroy him in every other way and that's why she went so hard basically trying to break him and I mean it's not crazy to think that the taser attack affected his heart in a way that left it weak and open to you know having a heart attack at such a young age because he wasn't even 60 yet, you know, it's kind of young to be be having

Cardiac arrest like that and jo And Joe Ryan did say like from the moment that he had gotten attacked with that taser, like he had heart problems and chest pains and stuff like that. So it could have been attributed to something that Alex did. Not a doctor. Could have been. I mean, he could also have been the, I mean, he was an alcoholic, you said, right? I mean, eventually he became, yeah. Yeah. There could have been a lot of, a lot of issues there, but. Or he just like died of a broken heart, man, because he loved Tylee so much. And Lori just took away the only thing that gave him like any hope in this world. Like that's all that's in his freaking apartment are a few pieces of furniture and just pictures of Tylee all over.

That's heartbreaking. I would go on a limb and say it was probably a totality of circumstances where you have depression, stress, not taking care of himself, not eating right. You know, we all know the effects alcohol can have on the body as well. And usually it's too late before you realize it. So combination of things there, but to think that Lori was happy about it. Real happy. Yeah. Not, uh, not surprised by that that especially after hearing her own words and i will say like i can confidently state that in my humble opinion i believe if joe ryan had not met laurie velo he would have lived past the age of 59 okay that's all okay that's all i have to say

because she shortened his lifespan and you know like chronic stress and torture mentally and emotionally can do that to somebody for sure and it was around this time early 2018 that people noticed a shift in Lori she seemed sad she was devoutly religious she talked about how scary the end times were so scary that she sometimes thought about putting her kids in the car and driving off the side of a cliff she said she would rather do that than live through the end times she said this to Annie Cushing when Annie came to visit Tylee after Joe's death. And Annie was like, oh my God, don't say that. And Lori's like, I'm just kidding. I wouldn't really do that.

Okay. Colby said his mother started buying all these dried goods like rice and beans and powdered milk as if she was actually preparing for an apocalypse that she believed she would have to sustain herself through. And all of this coincides with the time that both she and her brother Alex began spending a lot of time listening to podcasts that focused on these end times. Lori became very close and friendly with some of these podcasters. She started going to conferences that these podcasters were attending. And that is where Lori Vallow met Chad Daybell, a married father of five from Rexburg, Idaho, and an LDS doomsday author. Within five months, Charles Vallow, who everyone knew was head over heels for his wife, he had filed for divorce, saying he was concerned for her mental health because Lori thought she was a god preparing for the second coming of Christ.

And within a year, Charles Vallow was gone, shot to death by Lori's brother and forever protector, Alex Cox. And then Lori would move to Rexburg, Idaho, and suddenly become married to Chad Daybell. And Chad's wife would suddenly become dead as well. It's crazy how this all happens. But we're going to talk about Chad. Next time we're going to talk about Chad and his past, his history, his marriage, what his beliefs were and how he kind of also seemed to fall head over heels in love with Lori as soon as he met her. Definitely has that effect.

I mean, this whole case and Lori, and I hope this doesn't happen. And I mean that, but I'm surprised. You might have had some specials out there that I just haven't seen, but I can see a movie being made out of this somehow because there's so much going on here. There's so many storylines. But hopefully there's no production company that would ever actually do that. Do what? Make a movie? Out of this whole story.

Because of the outcome, they probably never would because of what we're, you know. I don't know about that. Didn't they do like a Gabby Petito, like a Lifetime movie? Exactly. That's why I said I would hope, but I don't have high expectations. But you would have. But it's an already well-written movie script on its own is what you mean. Right.

Just without even adding any movie, you know, magic to it. This story is, if you didn't have this information, you wouldn't believe it. You'd be like, no way. This is just exaggerated for the sake of the movie. No, this is a true story. You wouldn't have to use your imagination. You wouldn't have to exacerbate it or exaggerate it or add creative flourishes. All on its own.

It's stranger than fiction. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's fascinating. I can see why. I was looking at the numbers on, you know, it's stranger than fiction. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's fascinating. I can see why I was looking at the numbers on, you know, because we had some people, and we always have this, but you had some people who were like,

oh, you know, I love you guys, but I don't want to hear about Lori Vallow. I was so sick of it. Honestly, we are too, you know, but it's one of those things where- I'm not. Okay. Because I covered it like in 2020 when it was going down,

but like since then, you know, when everything was transpired. Yeah, it's been like two years and a lot has come out like all this new information. And I wasn't like on it all day long. And the trial just happened. So all this new information came out in the trial that we had never discussed. So I don't know. You could possibly be sick of it when all of this new information came out in the trial that we didn't know before. How could you be sick of it?

Yeah. And for us, and I've said it about many of the other cases we do, we're building up a catalog, right? Where you can search for certain cases. And if you, you're just joining us, if you,

if you've seen other series on Lori Vallow and you're like, oh, I wonder what Stephanie and Derek think. Well, you can go back and look and we've covered it some longer than others, but we have, we're going to build up a Rolodex where ideally five years years from now we'll have almost everything you can think of on there you know and i mean also it's like there's nothing to get sick of these there's two kids that are gone

like that's that's what we're talking about this for if we don't talk about tylee and jj on that what i knew you're gonna focus on that why wouldn't i it was like who says they're sick of it when it's like literally people's lives? It's not like, oh, I've seen this movie already. I don't want to watch it again. No, I think it's more so like they feel like they know everything there is to know about it. And so they want to watch us, but they don't want to listen to something they've already heard before. But that's the whole point, right?

Like we cover it more in depth than most people do. So you're going to get some new information. And the reality is, like I said, the point I was going to make with it is you have some people who were like a little disappointed that we were covering it. But you think about the depths that we're going to here where there may be people who consider themselves very well versed on this case, but are probably learning new things by what we're throwing in here. And I know for someone like myself, who didn't go into the specifics two years ago, when you, you know, someone like yourself covered it, I'm hearing it all for the first time and having the complete picture, it really does make sense when you put it in the context of what this case or this whole dynamic ultimately resulted in, which was the death of at least two young children

that we know of. So who knows if there's others out there, but- I mean, there is like Tammy and- Tammy, exactly. But you know, just even how much deeper does this run? I mean, it's going to go deeper. Like next episode, we're gonna talk about Chad Daybell, but I'm also gonna talk about Melanie Pawlowski.

Well, Melanie Bordeaux and her husband brandon who was also like attacked by alex and how melanie and laurie sort of like went off and they were like on this fringe thing and then they got new husbands you know like and then alex got a new wife he started he married somebody who was like in the cult you know know, too. And and and that was weird, you know, so like it goes deeper and there's so much more. And then we're going to see how Chad was talking about like light and dark spirits and how he labeled Lori's ex-husbands and her husband and her kids as whether they were light or dark spirits and how she said she thought JJ was a zombie like it's going crazy we haven't even touched on it and I I can't wait to see your reaction because I'm enjoying watching it because it's clear you didn't know that much about this you hadn't scratched the surface really and to see just like you you you're stunned at points you're like how is this real yeah no I mean my book I'm four pages of notes already we're on the half of the next page there so we're going to keep it going oh there's really nothing else

we'll just we hope we appreciate you guys joining us like comment subscribe if you're watching on We're on the half of the next page there. So we're going to keep it going. There's really nothing else. We'll just, we hope we appreciate you guys joining us. Like, comment, subscribe. If you're watching on YouTube, leave a review and a comment on iTunes or even Spotify. You know, we're trying to build up our Spotify presence because I don't, we don't usually promote it, but you know, cause I'm just used to iTunes, but you know, if you're a Apple podcast, whatever you call it, but go, go leave a review on Spotify. If you want to support us, get us up on the list there so we get seen by more people. As we said at the top of the show, CrimeCon Orlando, I believe it's September.

We're going to be there. If you're coming. It is September. Yep. If you're going to be there and you want to meet, we actually had someone DM me while we were recording. And it's one of those things where they're like, hey, are you gonna do a meet and greet? I haven't seen that.

Like Stephanie said, we'll probably do something. Even if it's not like an official thing, if we get enough people, we're gonna be out and about and we'll make like a crime weekly meetup where we'll get together while we're down there and go have some drinks or some food or whatever. So that'll be fun. And that's really it.

Final thing, Criminal Coffee. If you wanna buy Criminal Coffee, criminalcoffeeco.com, go check it out. And as far as merch, it's actually a good point. Stephanie's wearing the sweatshirt right now. I was talking to the merch team. We may at some point, at least for the summer months, whatever we have in stock for the sweatshirts, the hoodies, we may just run out of those and bring something else in.

So if you're like really set on a hoodie or like a long sleeve crew neck, we'll bring them back in the colder months. But if you want to get it before then now would be the time to do so. Cause we may just not refill that stock once it goes, at least for the hotter months, nobody's wearing a hooded sweatshirt and 95 degree weather. Yeah. I want some tank tops. Any final words from you? No, I want some tank tops. Tank tops. We'll make them happen. Those are my final words. Final words. We've been sitting down here for like straight up eight hours.

My neck hurts. I can't even feel my freaking back anymore. This was not a good episode for us between you having to push, me having to push. Like I just tried to max you. It was not great. But you guys will get an episode under two hours. Hopefully you were able to. No, it's about two hours.

Yep. Right about two hours. And that's with whatever. So be a good one for you. We'll be back next week. Everyone stay safe out there. be a good one for you we'll be back next week everyone stay safe out there have a good night bye