Crime Weekly - S3 Ep129: The Daybell Doomsday Cult Murders: Chad and the End Times (Part 3)

Episode Date: June 16, 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. SimpliSafe Right now, get 20% off your new system when you sign up for Interactive Monitoring. Visit SIMPLISAFE.com/crimeweekly. 2. Helix Helix is offering 20% off all mattress orders AND two free pillows for our listeners! Go to HelixSleep.com/CrimeWeekly. 3. HelloFresh Go to HelloFresh.com/crimeweekly16 and use code crimeweekly16 for 16 free meals plus free shipping!

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. So today we're diving into part three of the Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell saga, the never ending saga, and the plot saga, the never-ending saga, and the plot just keeps getting thicker. But before we dive in today, do you have anything you want to discuss, anything you want to mention at the top of the episode?

We just got done recording Crime Weekly News. If you haven't seen that, go check it out. And as I mentioned in Crime Weekly News, we just hit 50,000 followers on Instagram for the Crime Weekly account. So as I said before, if you didn't see it, super appreciative of everything you guys are doing with us and following us on this journey. I'll actually give you a little bit behind the scenes. I didn't even say this on Crime Weekly News, but I was telling Stephanie.

Spotify had reached out to us and was just telling us how well our show is doing in comparison to other podcasts across all podcast platforms, how we're doing. And it was, I told Stephanie the numbers and she was shocked too. We really genuinely were shocked at how well it's doing and it absolutely is because of you guys. So we appreciate- How well is it doing? We're in the top 200 podcasts in the world, you know, and that's across all true crime. And not just true crime, just like in general. On Spotify. Yeah. On Spotify. I don't know about other platforms, but that's just for audio. That's not even for you guys who are watching on YouTube. So we're doing extremely well and we wouldn't be doing it or wouldn't be performing as well as we are without you guys. And that's why we put so much into this because we

know if you put out a good product and you tell these stories the right way and you're empathetic to the people involved in it and you do in a way that's respectful to them and everybody else who's listening, then people will stick around and people will support you. And we're glad to see that that's paying off and that we're growing together and we're just going to keep it going. We're going to keep doing what we're doing and we'll go as far as you guys will allow us to take us. So we're just very appreciative of that. Yeah. And like Derek said, obviously, without you guys listening, watching, etc., this isn't even a thing. It's not even us because there's a lot of people out there who put out a lot of good podcast content. And just because they haven't gotten a following yet

or they haven't hit that algorithm, they're going unnoticed. And we could be one of those podcasts, but because of you guys, we not so it's not like crime weekly is in the top 200 of all podcasts on spotify it's like derrick stephanie and every single person listening right now is in the top 200 because we did this together so thank you so much and we got some big news coming you know we talk about criminal coffee we got some stuff coming that we are we're chomping at the bit to tell you about champing is it champing that's what it is champing at the bit man i think it's chomping at the bit you're chomping at the bang like i know it makes sense that you'd be chomping at the bit but it's

champing you're the script writer so i'm not going to be looking it up right now look no no no hands are right here not looking it up well i'm saying you can i wouldn't know i don't want to look at it because it literally doesn't sound like it should make sense. I'm going to stick with chomping at the bit, but I'm probably wrong. And I acknowledge that. Every time you say it, I'm going to say chomping. I have a few things that I say that are definitely not grammatically correct or English language whatsoever, but that's fine.

That makes me me. So it's fine. But that was really it. We're excited about the stuff that's coming uh the stuff that's happening behind the scenes at criminal coffee is some of the cases that we've already donated to so we will we will keep you informed and you know you're part of like stephanie just said you're part of the journey and we're i say it all the time we're just we're just getting started it's we're this show is only less than two years old so we're just getting started okay i'm done i'm sorry okay it's already 11 o'clock i don't know how yeah let's dive into

today's episode should we we should by the way episode starts at 358 there you go you're welcome this is stupid you're welcome you're welcome all right let's dive in without further ado so we kind of left off i don't know where we left off we've been done talked about so much but basically we focused on like lori bello for the most part and uh today we're going to talk about ch Daybell. We're finally going to be introduced to Chad Guy Daybell. So but we have to kind of open this up to sort of revisit where we left Lori Vallow last week. So by 2018, Lori Vallow was fully committed to her new religious awakening, and she was actively listening to podcasts that explored ideas which were on the fringes of the Mormon faith. Ideas like near-death experiences and having visions and being able to hear and see spirits from beyond the veil.

Apparently, like, this is not something or these things are not really, like, actively taught or talked about in traditional mainstream Mormon kind of life. Lori was listening to a podcaster named Julie Rowe, who was also a published LDS author. Julie had published five books with a company called Spring Creek, which also happened to be Chad Daybell's publishing company. So what did Julie Rowe believe in and share with her listeners and followers? Well, let's look at one of her books to get that answer. This book is called From Tragedy to Destiny, A Vision of America's Future. And the synopsis is as follows. Quote, in 2004, Julie Rowe was a happy wife and mother.

Then her health took a turn for the worse. While in a weakened state, her spirit left her body and entered the spirit world. An ancestor named John greeted her there and entered the spirit world. An ancestor named John greeted her there and showed her many wonderful places. He also allowed Julie to read from the Book of Life, which showed her a panorama of the earth's past, present, and future. These scenes included the Savior's mortal life, along with his crucifixion and resurrection. During her time in the spirit world, Julie met several of the founding fathers of the United States. They expressed their worries about the country's

eroding moral fabric, and she promised to share their counsel and warnings when she returned to earth. Julie was then shown upcoming world events that will be both tragic and glorious. Earthquakes, famine, plagues, and wars are coming to the United States, but Julie saw how God is preparing places of safety to protect righteous people from the coming calamities. She was shown that after the turmoil, America will rise above these tragedies and fulfill its destiny as a bastion of freedom and liberty. Throughout the book, Julie stresses that we not delay our preparations for these coming troubles. These events are not far off. And from tragedy to destiny will help you be ready for what awaits America, end quote. And

you're going to see this is a common thread in these sort of like offshoot LDS groups. These like, you know, they kind of are like culty, like they have message boards online, specifically the Avow message board that Chad was like a big part of. And these message boards you have to like pay to be a part of and they're very secretive. And they basically are just saying like, hey, this time is coming. But if you're aware of it and you know, you'll be able to stock up food and make sure you have supplies and you'll be able to prepare like they're like big time preppers. Right. Because they think that it's going to it's going to happen, like the world's going to end. But they'll know a safe place to go and like ride out the apocalypse. And then they'll like come out kind of like Charles Manson and his followers.

Like that's what he told them. I'm not sure how familiar you are with Charles Manson, but he told them, like, listen, the race war is coming and we're going to go underground. Right. And we're going to wait out the apocalypse. And while we're underground, we're going to turn into fairies and pixies and stuff. And we're going to get all these great powers. And then we're going to come up and rule the world because we're the chosen ones and we're the ones that are going to be left. It's a very common theme among like these offshoot fervent religious groups that turn very culty. And you're going to see this and you're going to see that Lori is also suddenly preoccupied with the end times. And a lot of these people, almost all of them that followed Chad Daybell followed him because of the fact that he had

these near-death experiences. And he claimed that these near-death experiences put him closer to the other side. So now he has visions and he's getting all this like inside secret information that nobody else can get just simply because his veil is thinner or ripped or whatever. Yeah, the whole cold thing is fascinating to me. Any case we talk about, it's so interesting when you look at it from a perspective,

like I consider us to be somewhat sane, although we have our moments. But you think about the type of people that gravitate towards these groups. And they say a lot of the times when you have someone who's starting a cult or gathering a group of people, in many instances, the people that they recruit, if you will, are people who are going through their own things. They're looking for something. They don't even know what that something is. But as dangerous as these quote unquote cult leaders are, they have a knack for identifying these types of people.

The people that are going to be most susceptible to their practices or their beliefs. Because there's an opening there that somehow they're able to identify. And I believe we've talked about instances where maybe it was Waco. Maybe we didn't talk about it, but you'd have these transients or people who were just trying to find themselves and may have been passing through this community. And those leaders were always there to pick them up and to be whatever it was that they were looking for at the time, whether that's a father, a brother, a sister, a mother. They would fill the role, that void that that individual was looking for. And by filling that role physically, they could implement the beliefs behind whatever they were trying to promote. And that person who has lost their way is more willing to accept it because they just

want to have someone that they can look to for guidance. And so the whole thing is fascinating. I know we're doing this case and we're calling it the Daybell Colt case, but I think it's gonna be interesting to do a case with you down the road where we specifically really focus on, maybe it is Charles Manson that we do, but something where we can really dive

into the psychology behind that because I do think it's very fascinating. Heaven's Gate would be a good one to do. The Hellbob Comet. I'm down. I'm down. I'm down to really dive into one and look at it from that perspective, that angle. How does it come to be? We know the ending. We know where it gets really bad and then everyone knows about it, but how did we get there? I think that's fascinating. I mean, I've done a lot of work on cult stuff because it fascinates me, right? And I look at something like

this and I understand because I always try to put myself in people's shoes. Maybe people don't think I do this, but I do do this. I understand being afraid of like the end times. And I understand if you're a deeply religious person, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being deeply religious, but if you're deeply religious, that is sort of an underlying theme, you know, like, oh, there's going to be like a second coming and only the faithful survive. Like that's a theme amongst kind of like all religions, right? That there's this like, there's this time that it's going to be, you know, like over and we're going to be judged. That is all religions kind of have that in there. I understand being terrified of that

and trying to sort of like find a way to almost like avoid it, you know, because it's scary. And so if you have a group, this offshoot group that opposes as LDS and they're like, oh, hey, there is a way to avoid it. You can prep and you can be ready and you can be vigilant and you can, you know, listen to us because we're going to tell you. We're going to tell you when it's all going to go down and we're going to tell you where you can go and how you can be safe. You just got to listen

to us. You got to come to our conferences. You got to give us money. You got to pay to be in the message boards and we're going to make sure you're okay. I completely understand how somebody could like kind of fall into that, especially if you've got a lot of people who seem to be normal. Like look at Julie Rowe, right? Mother, wife, just a normal person living her life. And you'll see that pattern again. A lot of these people are parents and have partners and they are in the LDS church. And I think there's a sort of concept where it's like oppressive almost, like I'm a mother, I am a wife, I'm in the LDS church, I can't drink, I can't smoke, I can't swear, I can't do any, and it's very oppressive. And so you're almost like looking for an outlet. Like Lori would go into the church room and dance all night. You know, you're looking for an outlet to just be human, to just be almost not civilized in a way, to just I was reading, I didn't get on that avow message board

because I was like, I ain't paying. It was like 70 bucks or something. I was like, I ain't paying that shit. But I did read some Reddit forums of people who were on it and they would like take screenshots and stuff. And a lot of the people responding were like, okay, this is not the LDS church. Like what this is, is people that are just trying to feel special. People that are trying to feel like they're exempt from everything else that humans have to go through. Oh, we hear visions. We've been chosen by God for this special mission. I call it the Harry Potter syndrome, right? You look like a normal person. People are pushing you around. You're sleeping under the goddamn stairs. Nobody respects you, but you're special. They just don't know it yet. You know, they just don't know it.

But one day they freaking will. And they'll wish they didn't make you sleep under those damn stairs. I call it the Harry Potter syndrome. Like this is what happens. People need, they feel so unseen. They feel so pushed to the side. They feel so aimless. They need something to believe in and to be a part of.

And in my opinion, that's exactly what you're going to see with Chad Daybell. With Lori, I don't know what the hell happened to her. I couldn't tell you why she would fall for something like this because she seems to always be in control. I think there's mental illness that stems throughout Lori's family that made her susceptible to this. Whereas Chad Daybell, I think he had low self-esteem. He felt inadequate.

And this made him feel special and valued by people. They were listening to him. And he's like, oh, shit, let me keep saying the same crazy stuff because people are giving me respect. And I've always felt like I deserved this respect. So it's a very complicated, psychological, chaotic web that there's not one reason that people kind of find themselves in these positions is what i'm trying to say i guess long story short no i i agree and we're talking more macro like a whole cult right and i think we're gonna get there but i think just as it pertains specifically like you said to laurie and more importantly this the other the significant others in her life on a more specific level and i'm right at the the heart of it she's able to manipulate or be malleable to whatever she identifies that the person she's targeting is looking for you know like you said we're gonna talk about chad dable tonight so as crazy as she is right for all her flaws there is something about her that she's very good at understanding who the target is and how to and how to get them and

there's how to become- That whatever they need. Whatever they need. Yeah. And that is a super valuable manipulative technique, but super, it's like salespeople do that, right? I mean, look at what she's done as far as some of the things she was able to accomplish, right? Obviously, Miss USA or Mrs. USA.

I know we went back and forth. Is it Mrs. USA or Miss USA? It's Mrs. Yeah. Mrs. USA, right? Yeah. So Mrs. USA, again, being what the judges want, understanding what they're looking for and becoming that.

Even Wheel of Fortune, as far as casting is concerned. Oh, yeah, for sure. You know, understanding what they're looking for, answering the questions and the way they need you to answer for you to put you on the show and looking a certain way. You know, she was an extra on Modern Family. Like she got herself on Modern Family. So she knows how to play the game. She knows how to play the game.

And it's not just professional. It's personal as well. And if you think about it too, like she was able to find all of these successful men who are like wealthy and what I guess the red pill community would call high value men in today's terminology. And she was able to, even as she was getting older,

even though she already had kids from all these other relationships, able to get them to fall in love with her, marry her and give her anything she wanted. Right. Right. And that's pretty valuable. Yeah. It definitely is something that can be good, be used for good and evil. Imagine what she could have done if she channeled that towards something positive. That's what I'm saying. I mean, there are people out there in all lines of work who have similar skill sets and are able to use it for positive things and promote businesses, etc. But she obviously went a different route. She did.

And in July of 2018, Lori took her daughter, Tylee, back to Kauai to visit her friend, Lori's friend, April Raymond. And April hadn't seen Lori in 14 months, so April was easily able to immediately see a change in her old friend because she wasn't seeing her every day. So it was like a drastic difference between that past year and how Lori was behaving now. April said, quote, this was my first taste with some of her crazy beliefs. She told me she had seen Jesus Christ face to face. It kind of got shut out pretty quickly because it wasn't something I wanted to explore. End quote. April also said that Lori spoke a lot about a new author she'd been reading, a man named Chad Daybell from Idaho. And April described the way Lori spoke about Chad kind of like the way a super fan would talk about

their favorite pop star. Kind of like she said, like a fangirl, you know, like, oh my God, she's enamored with Chad. Like she needs to meet this man. She she thinks that if she meets this man, she will find finally her spiritual equal on Earth. In October of 2018, Lori attended an evening class at the LDS building in Gilbert, Arizona. And this was a class that was intended to help people prepare for the end times. This was a class run by mother of three and LDS author Melanie Gibb. And Melanie, once again, normal person, part of the LDS church. She's got kids. She's married to a chiropractor in Gilbert, Arizona, and she was about to publish her first

book called Feel the Fire with Chad Daybell's publishing company. So after the meeting, Melanie and Lori chatted and Lori talked about some of her own personal spiritual experiences. And when she found out that Melanie had this direct connection to Chad Daybell, Lori decided all of a sudden, like, all right, me and Melanie are going to be best friends. Like, she has something I need. And Lori said she felt that the other side had delivered Melanie to her because she was supposed to meet Chad. She was supposed to be in his life and he was supposed to be in her life. And Melanie was like this bridge from Lori to Chad. Melanie said

that she and Lori hit it off immediately, which is funny because I don't think they did, right? She said, oh, we had all the same feelings and we liked the same things. And like, I don't think she did. Like you said, I think Lori read her and said, what will make this woman trust me? What will make this woman believe that I am like her? And how can I get her to introduce me to Chad Daybell? I'm going to just be exactly what she needs. And Melanie and Lori began to spend a lot of time together. And Lori even had Melanie to her home often. She introduced her to the family.

Melanie said that JJ seemed like he was a handful for Lori, which is different than what everybody has always said, that Lori was such a good mother, so attentive, so patient. But by 2018, by the summer of 2018, Lori's patience with JJ is running out. And we can tell. Also, interestingly enough, because everybody had always said that Lori was a good mother and her and Tylee had such a close relationship. But Melanie Gibbs said that it seemed that Lori and Tylee did not had such a close relationship. But Melanie Gibbs said that it seemed that Lori and Tylee did not have such a great relationship. Tylee was often short or rude to Lori. And at this point, Lori is kind of acting a little unhinged

and Tylee's relationship with Lori is becoming a little bit strained. Even though in July of 2018, Tylee did post on I think her Instagram and she said something, it was like a picture of Lori by the pool and she said, so lucky to have this person as my mother. Like, I look up to her so much. So it was probably like a normal teenage relationship with her mother. She didn't realize how off the rails Lori had gotten. And she was probably just annoyed with her in general,

as teenage girls usually are with their mothers. Melanie also said that Charles Valo attempted to speak deeply about the kind of stuff that she and Lori would discuss in great depth, like the second coming and near-death experiences, but she could sense that there was underlying tensions between Lori and her husband, and it seemed like Lori was often impatient and frustrated with Charles, and she seemed to disapprove of him. Now, at this time, Charles was working a lot and he was traveling often, so he didn't seem to see the change in Lori at first, but others did. Lori's brother, Adam Cox, claimed that at this time, Lori was obsessed about Christ coming back to earth and she was actively preparing for it, like buying cans of food and dried goods and toilet paper,

you know, kind of like early on in the pandemic, everyone was buying those things. And even Tylee and Colby had noticed with Colby saying, quote, I can't tell you how many times me and Tylee talked about it specifically. And we were like, do you not feel off about this? Does this not seem weird? Like the way mom acts and the way her and Melanie would get into a conversation and they would just slip away and keep talking. I was excited for her in a sense because she hadn't had friends for so long. I even told her one time, I'm so proud of you. Like, go have fun.

Go find some mom friends. That's awesome. I didn't know there was a group. I didn't know she was leading something. I had no idea she was involved in any type of group, end quote. It's interesting that Colby says she's leading something, right? Because once again, a lot of people will say Chad was leading something. But I think once Lori came into Chad's

life, he was the weaker personality, the one with the low self-esteem. And she did take the reins, if you ask my opinion. That's what I think. And Lori's mother, Janice, she said, you know, we thought that Lori was hanging out with some odd ducks, you know, basically some like people that were kind of off and like a little strange. But Lori seemed happy. So nobody really pushed the issue. We're going to take a quick break and then we'll be right back. On October 19th, 2018, Melanie invited Lori to her home for a small gathering of preparing a people followers. Now, preparing a people or PAP, because that's easier than saying preparing a people a million times.

PAP was an organization that is going to be very important going forward. They put on a series of lectures and events designed to prepare the people of this earth for the second coming of Jesus Christ. And they have like conferences, they got like podcasts, a website, all sorts of resources, things like that. Now, the LDS church has come out and said this group is not affiliated with them in any way. The church never endorsed them. Church leaders never spoke at preparing a people events. And the group was founded by some church members on their own initiative for their own purposes without any church involvement.

That's what the LDS church says. And I mean, honestly, like I believe them. It's fine. It's like people from the church started this offshoot group sort of like as a way to come together and bring people together. And I have I have no doubt that the the mainstream LDS church wasn't completely like supportive of it, because according to this official church statement, preparing a people's teachings were on the fringe of church beliefs and sometimes an outright violation of church teachings. And several PAP leaders have since been excommunicated. This statement goes on to talk about the fact that Preparing a People focuses on sensationalism rather than doctrine, stating, quote, Preparing a People often focused on dreams and visions, inviting speakers like Daybell to talk about their supposed visions or holding workshops to help participants receive their own visions. The church does believe in revelation. However, it is unseemly at best and

priestcraft or manipulation at worst to pay or charge money for a workshop to develop one's visionary skill. And the scriptures are clear that only the prophets can receive revelation that interprets the scripture or predicts the future for the entire church. One's own revelation is only applicable to one's self. Preparing a people was out of line in promoting individual visions as necessary to prepare for the second coming. End quote. Okay, listen, I loved the show Big Love. Watched it religiously. Bill Paxton, his best work. I remember in and because I don't know, do you know what Big Love is? No, I do not. I was like, oh, OK, maybe I should know the show, but I don't.

You should watch it. It's awesome. So Big Love is like it's this guy, this Mormon guy living in Utah and he has three wives and just like a bunch of children. Right. But he's also like the owner of a sort of Home Depot like it's called Henriksen's Plus. I know way too much about this. It's called it's like a you know, like a Home Depot type store. And he's got like a bunch of chains. And you know, he's got he wants to open more stores. And he's focused on this like family values, like Mormon thing, but not like polygamy because it's illegal. So he has to hide his wives. He has to only have one public wife. And he has to hide his wives. He has to only have one public wife and he has all his other wives like on the side and they like have separate

houses that are all next to each other. But they like go back and forth and crazy. And like, honestly, if any guy ever thought like, oh, I want more than one girlfriend or I want more than one wife, you all need to watch this and see how distressed Bill is all the damn time, because these wives are like arguing over who he's got to sleep with that night and who he's going to, which kids he's taken. It's terrible. That sounds horrible. Horrible.

Girls fighting. Oh, that's terrible. No, it's not girls fighting. It's like, we need you. We need you to do this. We need you to not like sleep with them like sex. Like, oh, who are you like attending to tonight? Like whose house are you going to be in?

Who are you helping put their kids to bed? And like basically all your responsibilities as a father and a husband times it by three and then just have a heart attack. But Bill always be having these visions, right? He'll be like, oh, should I open a second store or is it not the right time? And then he'll be like, let me pray on this. And then he'll have like a revelation, they call it, which is he hears a spirit guide or something in his head telling him what the right thing is to do. And so what the LDS church is saying here is like, yeah, we believe in revelations for like your own personal life and your own personal choices. But as far as like, oh, hey, we see the world is ending and there's going to be a flood and everybody has to do this, that's not legitimate. You do not speak for the entire church and the entire LDS population,

and you can't predict things for the entire LDS population. But Chad Daybell's big on these visions, man. Chad Daybell and Julie Rowe and Melanie Gibb and Lori, we've already heard her talk about these visions and how her sister's speaking to her. They are big on this stuff because they want to feel special and unique and set apart. So what happened here and how PAP kind of started is it looks like the preparing of people members would recruit other people during their regular mainstream church because they were still going to like the LDS temples and stuff. But their beliefs were not regular or mainstream. For instance, one woman who moved to eastern Idaho in 2015 remembered being approached by a man in her new LDS congregation. And he told her that he had been spiritually prompted to offer her a job. Like he saw her and he heard a voice in his head say,

give this woman a job. So he goes up and he's like, you're working for me now. And according to East Idaho News, quote, she found her new boss had beliefs that were different than what is typically taught in the church. Latter-day Saints believe God gives people spiritual gifts to help them serve others. The man who hired her took this belief to an extreme. He claimed to have power to see spirits and cast out evil spirits from people in his home who were supposedly struggling with evil spirits inside of them, and he would claim to cast the spirits out. End quote. This man reportedly had people coming from all over to be healed by him, right? And he kind of made it seem as if he helped this woman who now worked for him with her

health issues. Like she had thyroid issues and high blood sugar and celiac disease, and he was like preying on her, and he's like, you're healed. And this woman actually felt healed. And so she stopped taking her medication, started eating gluten again. And then obviously in a few years, she realized like that was a bad idea. But this guy applied this to everything. If the computer wasn't working or the printer wasn't connecting, he would use his spiritual powers to fix these things. And if he couldn't fix them with his spiritual powers, then he was like, oh, this is due to like dark spirits interfering. They're blocking me from fixing the printer. So this woman said that her boss brought her to a preparing the people conference and he

introduced her to Julie Rowe and Chad Daybell, two people who were apparently idolized in a lot of these LDS circles for their close connection to the spirit world due to their near-death experiences. Chad, Daybell, Julie Rowe, and Melanie Gibb were all Preparing a People followers and active and invested in the PAP events and the online community and the podcast. So Chad had been on the podcast. Julie Rowe obviously been on the podcast, Melanie Gibb on the podcast. So they got their own little like circle going on here. And then Lori meets Melanie Gibb and she finds out that she knows Chad Daybell. And suddenly Lori's being pulled into this preparing a people kind of cult, cult like thing. So just to confirm, because I'm writing this down and I'm actually typing some notes, preparing a people, we looked that up. That is a cult that was mainly started by or a group started by Lori. That's the way that's-

No. The preparing a people was started by, we're going to talk a little bit more towards the end, but a husband and wife team from Utah, Springville, Utah, the same place where Chad Daybell grew up. But this was the group that Lori was in. This is the group that Lori found herself in, which allowed her to have access to Chad Daybell. Yes. So she didn't start it, but this was the conduit in which got her exposed to Chad Daybell. Okay. Got it. Preparing a people.

Yeah. Okay. Got it. So during this small preparing a people group meeting at Melanie's house, Lori spoke openly and freely about some of her experiences, her relationships, her visions from the other side, and the missions she'd been hand chosen by God to participate in. Exactly what that mission is, we will talk about soon. But according to Lori, she'd been surprised to have been chosen because her whole life, she had thought she was just totally sweet and innocent. That's what Lori said. She's like, I don't understand. I'm just a sweet, innocent little girl. Why is God choosing me to be like

a warrior for him? But God was able to convince her that she was a warrior. She said, quote, and he gave me a pre-mortal memory of me. And I got to see myself as a warrior fighting for the She said, quote, And that's who I am. And I came down here to be a warrior and fight. And I only thought that I was sweet and innocent, end quote. Yeah, and nobody's under any like illusions that you're sweet and innocent, Lori. No one. No one who's met you, at least. Now, according to Lori, everyone who dies, it's not like they're dying and it's a bad thing, right? They're dying because it's part of their mission. And then they go to the other side.

And to follow that note, she also has some thoughts on children, saying, quote, your kids are adults in eternity. They're your friends. They're loaned to you for this short time. They are adults and they have their own mission and their own eternity to live.

We do not need to worry about the souls of our children, end quote. And if that isn't some foreshadowing, I don't know what is. Besides Lori saying that she was on the verge of a mental breakdown when she was in the Mrs. USA pageant. I mean, there were signs. I can't say that it was obvious. I don't think people would make the jump of her saying that to where we are now.

And it's so interesting because there's so many cases like this where people say things, but they don't really mean it. Overall, I would say there are always things we can do better. And we're early in the story, but I'm looking for a moment where it would be obvious to most people that this is what she was capable of, an incident or something like that. I don't know if that's going to come or not, but to be fair. Do you think her telling people like, oh, I'm so afraid of the end times that sometimes I feel like it's better to just put myself and my kids in a car and drive off a bridge. Do you think that might be like, ugh, kind of a weird thing to say? Yeah. I do. I do. I do. And I think that is something where sometimes people say things that are really, really stupid. And I think we've all met someone who in a moment of

weakness says something along the lines of, I'm going to kill myself. I can't take it anymore. And most of the time they don't truly mean it. It's just something they say in the heat of the moment and it's not something they carry through with. But there are those occasions where people say something like that and their family members or friends do not take them seriously and they end up doing it. And then the family members are left with that guilt for not acting on it. So it's a really fine line between is this person just saying this because they're upset or are they saying it because they're truly intending or contemplating doing it? Yeah, they don't know. You don't know. And that's why with this case, my curiosity is being drawn to the idea of, okay,

I can see that from a religious standpoint, this woman is someone you'd want to be cautious of, right? Her beliefs and what she thinks. And I wouldn't necessarily be around it. But considering what Lori did to her children, I'm following along with the viewers and the listeners of this story to see if there was a moment where I would have liked to think that I would have said, oh God, these kids are not safe here. You know, these kids are not in a position where they should have been in the home anymore. And it's always tough to identify that point if you truly believe it, because then you think about what could have been done. And I don't know if we're going to have that in the story. I truly don't know where

you're going with this, but that's just so you guys know where my mindset is. I'm looking to see like, as I'm making these notes for everyone who was on YouTube, you can see here two pages of them. Oh, peepers are falling out. I'm a mess. So Derek, next episode is going to blow your mind.

It's going to get crazy. Cause that's a great, that's a great foreshadowing way to, way to plug it. We're going to talk about, cause you were like, I don't know if anything like that happened in this case. Hell yes.

Okay. So first of all, we're going to talk about, I won't get too far off the path then, but you just so you know where I'm coming from, you Stephanie, and then everyone listens. Like I'm always looking at from like the preventative side of things. Like I guess that's the cop in me. Like could there have been something that we could have stopped this? We, we, so that Stephanie and I, we're not covering it here today. Right. And, And that's the thing that I'm trying to see if there's that moment, because in some cases there isn't. In some cases, it's just a series of unfortunate circumstances where everyone is shocked by

what happens. I mean, I think you can be shocked by what happens and also like have some hindsight and be like, yeah, I see how this happened, right? So let me ask you this. And again, I know we're going off here. Would you agree if I said to you, because without knowing the rest of this case, although I can't stand the guy, Christopher Watts was a little bit more of a surprise. Yes. It was something where there was obviously troubles in the relationship, but there was nothing when we covered that case and we covered it really early on. I wish we had covered it when you and I found our groove. Right. But, and we kind of rushed it

almost because we were trying to find out duration. Because we were still with like just a simple podcast. That's right. We could have done so much more with that. But I feel like with that one, there wasn't this moment where you're like, oh man, they got to get it. He just went from zero to a hundred. From what we see and what we know. From what we know, what's documented. Where here, there's a lot of documentation that red flag, red flag, red flag, you know, so. To the point where like, you can tell it's some like juncture or junction, whatever. Lori became so not self-aware that she wasn't even trying to hide this crazy shit anymore.

You know, there's so much documentation where it's like, what? Like, okay. So I think maybe me joking, I would say something like, oh, I'm really afraid of the apocalypse. I'm going to like drive my, I would rather just drive myself and my kids off a bridge, like joking. But if you combine that with being deeply religious, right? Believing that the end times are an actual thing, buying a crap load of food and supplies to prepare for this actual end time that you think is happening, because that takes an investment time, like a time investment, as well as a money investment. You're not just doing it for no reason. All of those things combined might make

me worried about a person saying that, rather than a non-religious person who isn't like filling their garage with cans of peas and, you know, getting a bunker ready for the end times. When you have all of those things in combination and you're talking about like being face to face with Jesus Christ. Yeah, I would start to be concerned at that point. Like I think a lot of people missed it. And I think that there's a lot of like negligence on the people around Lori where I think they were just like, we don't even want to be around. Like her friend, April Raymond was like, I didn't want to talk about it because I didn't want to entertain that stuff. I don't want to talk about that stuff. You know, you kind of just like sweep it under the rug. Like, let's pretend she didn't say that crazy shit. No,

I'm hearing what you're saying. And in totality, I agree with you. You know, definitely more that can be done. And I will give someone the benefit of the doubt where it's like they might get one piece where someone gets the other and you're still working on it. But yeah, from when we're looking at it from the outside, looking in now where we kind of have a complete picture. Yeah, I'm with you. The totality of everything that's going on, the way she kind of processes things, how deeply she invests into something once she buys into it. Yeah,

those are things you got to, when she says something like that, knowing Lori Vallow, like you would at this point, when she says something, she's going to do it. She's contemplating it. She's thinking about it. Yeah. And next episode, we're going to talk about Charles Vallow when he files for divorce. The things he says when he files for divorce, you write why you want to get divorced and the things he says, he was trying to do something. He was trying to draw people's attention to what was going on with Lori. And you'll see that like the shit she was doing and saying to him was bananas. Like there was a point where it was very obvious that this woman was not in her right mind. And it just doesn't seem like

anybody did anything and nobody was there to help Charles. And it's very unfortunate because nobody really like believed him or helped him. And we're also going to talk about Chad's crazy ass and how he was like writing this like fan fiction about Lori from the moment he met her and like, I knew she was the one and I trembled to kiss her. Like, yeah, there's signs, man, that these two people are off their rockers and nobody really pays attention. So the following week after this little meeting at Melanie's house, Lori and Melanie drove together to St. George, Utah to attend a Preparing a People conference in person where, of course, Chad Daybell was scheduled as a guest speaker.

Now let's talk about Chad Daybell. According to his biography, Living on the Edge of Heaven, which I had to read, by the way, unfortunately, he can trace his ancestry all the way back to Finity Daybell, who lived in England during the 1840s. Finity and his wife Mary were devout members of the LDS Church, and in May of 1864, Finity moved his family to Salt Lake City, Utah, and settled on a little farm in the Heber Valley. Finity's descendants would come to be respected citizens and leading members of the LDS community and church. Now, Keith Daybell was Chad's grandfather, and he grew up in Provo, Utah in the 1930s during the Great Depression. Keith met his wife,

Rosalie, at the Springville High Junior Prom. They opened up a Texaco station and had two sons, Ray and Lanny. And in 1944, Keith was drafted to fight in World War II and he was sent to the Western Front where he would be taken as a POW, prisoner of war, by German soldiers. Three months later, Rosalie received a letter from her husband telling her that he was alive and being held at a German prison outside of Frankfurt. Now, Keith would eventually be liberated by Russian soldiers on May 20th, 1945, and he would be awarded two Purple Hearts for heroism. After the war, Keith joined his two brothers in building the Daybell Lumber Company. And in 1947, Keith and Rosalie had another son that they would name Jack and Jack would become Chad Daybell's father.

So Keith Daybell died in a work accident in 1955 at the age of 32. I can't believe he did all of that by the time he was 32. Like he fought in a war. He was a POW. He started a lumber company. He had three kids. Most people, most men by the time they be 32 today barely can get off their PlayStation. It's a damn shame. Not you, Derek. I mean, I don't, I listen, I have a PlayStation. I wish I had time to play it,

but I don't. But isn't that crazy? Like man fought in a war, was taken prisoner, spend time in a POW camp, had three kids, you know, had a farm, built a lumber company in 32 before he's 32. Like, that's just bananas to me. Impressive man. So Keith Daybell would be buried at the Spring. Yeah, an impressive man who I'm sure would be ashamed, ashamed of what his grandson, Chad Daybell, is up to. And with a kind of like pathetic excuse for an empty shell of a man that Chad Daybell would become. But anyways, Keith was buried at the Springville Cemetery and his wife Rosalie

had herself sealed to him in a temple so they would be together for all eternity. And then she had the children sealed to both herself and Keith. So for those of you who don't know, in the LDS faith, they believe that civil marriages end at death. But if you're sealed together in a temple, that's for forever. Like, so in the afterlife, you'll be with your husband and your children forever and ever. And, you know, if it was like back in the day and you were still practicing plural marriage, it would be you if you were the man and like 12 of your wives and all 500 of your children together forever in eternity, which, damn, that sounds pretty miserable. It's amazing. Not amazing.

Like the fights don't even stop at death, okay? The fights don't stop. So Rosalie's son, Jack Daybell, also went to Springville High School where he met Sheila Chestnut. After high school, Jack attended BYU, Brigham Young University, where many Mormons end up going to college, and he was planning on serving a mission after college, but then he was called to service in the Navy for the Vietnam War. Before being shipped out, Jack and Sheila got married in 1967, and she went to live with him at the U.S. Naval Base outside of San Diego, California.

On August 11, 1968, Chad Guy Daybell was brought into the world. Even though they were living in California, they wanted him to be born in Utah. So his father, Jack, purposely planned his shore leave, his two weeks of shore leave, around Chad's due date to make sure that Chad would be born in Provo, Utah. And after being born, Chad was brought back to California, where he and his mother lived for a year in a National City apartment. National City is like outside of San Diego. After he was done with his Navy service, Jack moved his family back to Springville and began to work as an electrician for Geneva Steel. In his biography, Chad claimed that his father, Jack, heard voices and received messages from the other side as well. For instance, one day his route was going to bring him through some underground tunnel,

and as he was about to enter the tunnel, he heard a voice warning him to not enter that tunnel, and then 15 minutes later, the tunnel collapsed. So Jack felt that the voice had belonged to his father, Keith, and that Keith was guiding him from beyond the grave. Chad also claims that his first encounter with death was in the third grade when his classmate Randy was killed during a cave collapse. And Chad said that this was very impactful for him because he was told that Randy was in heaven, but he didn't know what that meant.

So death became a very scary subject to him. This is crazy to me because this is the only time in his autobiography or his biography that Chad ever mentions a negative feeling towards death. Otherwise, he seems to be fascinated by the subject of death and death in general. Chad loved to read, especially scary stuff and mysteries, everything from Alfred Hitchcock to the Hardy Boys. And in fourth grade, he wrote his first book called The Murder of Dr. J and His Assistant, because Chad's really afraid of death. He's writing books about it. And in his biography, Chad says, quote, My teacher, Mr. Bushman, really liked it. And he had a school employee type it up. It was a fun story, despite the gruesome title. And they put it in the school

library so my friends could check it out to read, end quote. Chad stated that by the time he was in the eighth grade, he was mad at the world. He wasn't having a great time. He said he felt like he had no friends and he'd become the target of a bully in woodshop class. And this bully would punch him in the back every time his teacher's back was turned. Chad said, quote, I finally told my teacher what was happening and he moved the kid away from me. But my self-esteem was pretty low. End quote. In my opinion, Chad's self-esteem will remain low throughout his entire life.

When he was 13, oh my God, this story pisses me off, by the way, to no end. When he was 13, Chad was walking home from school through Memorial Park when he happened upon an innocent honeybee buzzing around, pollinating flowers, doing its thing, minding its own damn business. And Chad was like, I can't have you doing that. I can't have you minding your own business and doing the thing that keeps all of us alive. Chad said, quote, I peered at it for a moment, then smashed it with my shoe. I spotted another one, then another one. Chad said, quote, them alone. I jumped back and looked around, but there wasn't anyone in sight. I was really shook up because the man had sounded really angry. I walked in a circle for a minute trying to make sense of it. Finally, I realized that maybe an angel was fed up with me killing God's innocent

creatures. That incident helped me realize how pathetic I had become, and I decided to start making some better choices. End quote. Okay, Dude's a psychopath. Dude's a psychopath. Like who does that? Yeah, that's a problem. That's a problem. For sure. I know like some people don't mind killing bugs and stuff, but I do. I won't. Like you'll find me chasing a damn fly around my house for an hour trying to like shoo it outside. I just, I don't, I can't do it. Right. So like, and especially honeybees, like who are the most innocent, helpful creatures on earth. It's the fact that he kept count and kept killing them and he got to 120 and you feel no remorse about this as you're doing it. It blows my mind. Like to me, that's the biggest red flag of anything I've ever seen. Because some people

don't value the life of insects or whatever, but it's still life that is their one life. And you're just taking it from them mercilessly for no reason other than you can because you're bigger and stronger. And, you know, we know that he was a part of killing JJ and Tylee, two individuals who were not as big and not as strong as he was. So clearly this is not a big deal for him. Yeah, the whole situation is tough. And I will say this goes back to what we were talking about a little while ago, because as you mentioned, you could have a little kid kill a bee or something like that. And it's not a sign that they're going to be a serial killer. That's not what we're saying here.

But the way he's describing it, how he was viewing what he was doing, it wasn't as simple as I'm just killing this bug because I don't like it or whatever. It was more to it. It was deeper than that. Anger. Yeah. And there's something to be said for that. And it is a sign of things to come in the future. So here it did mean something. It's one of those situations I would say that you are kind of faced with a tough role of like not knowing until it's too late maybe here because what are you going to do? Commit a kid for killing a bee? There's no really way to know what he was feeling internally when he did it. I think most parents

or whoever's seeing this would see it and just think it's a young kid being stupid. So I don't know what we could pick up on that when, again, what he's describing is something he was feeling inside of himself, maybe not something he was necessarily vocalizing. So how would you know unless you're sitting down with this kid on a couch and he's telling you this this way where you could say, whoa, there's more here than just the killing of a bee, you know? So I don't know. I don't know. It's you always want to call out opportunities to grab someone and get them off, you know, away from society before they do something bad. I don't know how you do that here.

The random voice did the random voice in his head. And it's concerning to me. If he's serious and he's actually hearing voices like this and he's 13 and he's like, is he schizophrenic? Was he just undiagnosed schizophrenic? Is he actually hearing voices? Because this is a constant theme for him throughout. Or is this just something in hindsight when he's adult, he's making up these stories?

Either way, kind of like psychopathic, right? Not the best sign of a healthy person. Not good. No, especially what we know now. Yeah, exactly. It did kind of seem like, at least the way Chad puts it in his book, that this revelation was what made him focus more on religion than he had before. He said he had never been yelled at by an unseen voice before, and he didn't want it to happen again. So he started setting some goals for himself, including reading the Book of Mormon. And in the ninth grade, while he was reading this book, Chad claims he had a spiritual awakening that made him cry with joy. Throughout high school, Chad kept really good grades. He was on the honor roll every year, and he played on the football team along with Scott Mitchell, who would one day be the quarterback for the Miami Dolphins.

During the summer between his junior and senior year, Chad got a job digging graves at the cemetery. And throughout his life, Chad would come back to work at this cemetery and other cemeteries over and over again. Literally, like for the next 20 years, whenever he has a break in jobs or he's home from school, he's working and he's digging graves at the cemetery. And he would even end up writing a book about his experiences called One Foot in the Grave. In fact, he would be working at a cemetery as a sexton, which is the person who maintains church property, including the graveyard, when he met his future wife, Tammy Daybell. So in 2001, Chad told the Desiree News that although it was a physically demanding

job digging graves, it was also a rewarding one. And he would come up with some of his best ideas for stories while sitting amongst the headstones. He said that one time he'd been digging a fresh grave next to a plot that was known to be haunted. And he said, quote, as I hit the vault of the haunted grave, I just felt a real jolt go through me like electricity. And I felt a presence there. I just took off running and I didn't even look back, but I could feel it on my tail, end quote. Now, in fairness,

because you're someone who reads a lot of books, I will also say this could be a biography for someone who turned out to be brilliant and a great storyteller and didn't do all these side things. Would you agree with that at least? Not the bee killing thing, no. No, not the bee killing thing.

Okay. Well, the bee killing thing along with the gravedigger thing is concerning. But you follow what I'm saying though? I mean, I can't judge. I love hanging out in cemeteries. You get what I'm saying? Like, I think there's something, but it's, we're having a lot of like coming back to what we said earlier, which isn't planned. It just happens. But in totality, put it all together and it doesn't sound great, but there are separate things here where you may look at it individually and say, well, that's not a big deal. I actually can see how someone who thinks differently would put themselves in that situation.

It would allow them to be even more creative. So yeah, I guess it's, yeah, trying to find ways to look at it and see it for what it is without defending anyone because I have no skin in the game for that. But really interesting set of circumstances. Yeah. I mean, like I said, the cemetery thing, whatever. I completely get it. I could definitely see you doing that.

I do do that. I hang out in cemeteries, but I'm not digging graves, dude. Okay. So I think there's like a fine line. Like that would be disturbing to me. Like he told a story where he had to, they had buried a woman and then they forgot that she was still wearing her wedding ring and her husband wanted it back so they had to like dig her up and get the wedding ring off of it and he was like oh whatever like not a big deal he was like oh you know it's kind of sad when you have to bury the kids like he would just say things like

so weirdly and like we know that he would end up burying two kids on his own property like not long after this so it's like yes i guess in hindsight it's creepier that he was a gravedigger because we know what happened. And I guess it's a job and somebody's got to do it, right? But it shouldn't have been Chad Daybell, who's like the murderer of honeybees. I don't know if that's on the application though. Have you ever murdered a bee? How many honeybees have you murdered? Yeah, I don't know if that's something that they would pick up on. It's definitely Jesus. 120 honeybees? I mean, you can't hide the murderer of honeybees have you murdered? Yeah, I don't know if that's something that they would pick up on. 120 honeybees? I mean, you can't have the murder of honeybees.

Too many honeybees, Chad. I'm so sorry. We have to turn down your application. My God. Whatever. The summer he worked as a gravedigger, Chad also had his first near-death experience. This is the year before his senior year of high school. And he claimed that this experience changed his life forever.

He and his friends were jumping off cliffs and into the water below at the Flaming Gorge Reservoir. And Chad decided to jump off a 60-foot high cliff so that when he finally hit the water, it felt like he was hitting concrete. He writes in his book, quote, A shock went through my entire body and I saw a white flash of light. I felt an audible pop at the base of my skull and I thought, oh no, I broke my neck. I also wondered if I had cut my forehead open because there was a brief searing pain above my eyes. I quickly realized something even worse was happening. My spirit was partly out of my body. The best way to describe it is my physical

body went deeper into the water than my spirit did. This caused my spirit to pop out through my head, but then it felt like my spirit's knees got stuck in my skull and didn't make it all the way out. During those few moments, I could see on the other side of the veil. I saw an endless white plain in all directions. There seemed to be a distinct horizon hundreds of miles in the distance. So, I mean, good thing that his spirit's knees got stuck in his skull or he might have died, you know? Good thing his spirit has big knees. Yeah. I'll be nice. I saved us a lot of trouble. I'll be nice, but not really. Not really. Yeah. So let's take a quick break, actually, because we're going to come back and talk about how Chad felt after this near-death experience.

All right, we're back. So Chad Daybell said after this, after his spirits and knees got stuck in his skull. He was spiritually changed. He had glimpsed another dimension and it had, quote, felt like home, end quote. Chad said he had an infusion of spiritual energy around him and now he had an interest in gospel topics like never before. And he just would read everything he could get his hands on.

He would devour church-related books and scriptures, having a strong impression that he would need this information later on in life. He became very receptive at sensing disembodied spirits, as well as receiving direct promptings and impressions that would help keep him out of danger. Some spirit should have warned his ass to stay away from Lori Vallow is all I'm going to say. Clearly, your talent is not good enough that it's that good at keeping you out of danger. It can warn you about a tunnel collapse, but not about a black widow creeping up on you. All right. So he said he said that this whole like intuitive thing, it was a problem when he was dating a girl he really liked because he would always pray on

whether or not the relationship should continue. You know, he'd go on a few dates, he'd be like, I really like this girl. And so he'd be like, hey, should I like get serious with this person and like pursue this relationship? And he said, without fail, he would always hear a loud voice in his head saying no. So he was like, I got to break up with her. Chad said he believed when he'd hit that water and his spirit left his body, his personal veil was ripped open near his forehead. That's why he felt that searing pain like Harry Potter. You know, whenever Voldemort's close by, Harry feels like his scar just lighting up. That's Chad Daybell.

And so his veil was ripped open near his forehead and never sealed back up completely. He said, quote, to fulfill my mission in life, I needed a good shot to the head to tear my veil a little. And the angels finally orchestrated it, end quote. Chad Daybell would graduate from Springville High School and he would win a two-year scholarship to BYU. But going away to college, even though Chad said he loved and he felt comfortable there, from what I read in his biography, he did seem to feel kind of isolated and alone too. And he kind of has this throughout. He's a person that I feel like is socially awkward and shy. And he never feels like he has friends and he never feels like people look up to him or respect him or like give him the respect he deserves. And he kind of just feels like isolated and alone. So he said he vividly remembered walking

the campus during a snowstorm one January and thinking that not a soul on Earth cared about what he was doing at that moment. I think that's very telling. This is something that that I think a lot of people, especially in the time of social media, feel this need to like project their lives out to be seen, right? So everything they're doing, everything they're eating, whatever movies they're watching, they got to put it on social media because it's like, okay, it didn't happen if I don't like show everybody that it's happening. They're not content with just being alone and experiencing something in real time. They need to feel validated externally by someone or multiple someones. And that to me is a little concerning because it says like your self-worth is not super high. It's not sustainable on its own.

Well, you think about it, not to go on an extreme here, but you think about the school shooters and things like that where we have individuals where if you start to really look at these individuals before these incidences, In many situations, they feel like they're not being seen or heard. They feel like they're walking amongst people and nobody notices them. And they're trying to find a way to get someone's attention. They're looking for that infamy at the end. And I feel like a lot of the times, there's a lot more going on here. I'm scratching the surface of why these things happen. They don't care how they get it at this point. They're just looking to be seen or heard. And they feel like they've been ostracized by society. And this is one of the elements that we are starting to find when they're looking into the psychology behind these mass shootings and what's the motive for the killer. And I think that this is one of those elements. And so obviously

Chad Daybell is not a school shooter, but that's kind of, I hate to even say this, but before his time where that's like a thing now, right? Like when someone wants to get attention in our country, unfortunately, this is the way they do it, where Chad chose a different path, which was instead of trying to get the attention of others, surrounding himself with people who he could manipulate into believing what he believed so that he would be the center of attention. He would be the person they would go to for advice. And so this is a sign of that, things to come. He doesn't feel like he can rest on his own laurels.

He doesn't feel like I am who I am and I'm pretty great and people will gravitate towards me. He felt like he had to, kind of like Lori, become what other people needed. It's sad. And I hate to sound like this old person, like, rockin' my day. But I think that we are seeing that now more and more. We're seeing things like your Brian Kobergers and these like insane acts. I mean, every day I read like a husband has killed his wife and children and then taken his own life.

Every single day there's another one of these. And it's just like this huge dramatic thing that like just doesn't need to happen. But I think it's because we have isolated ourselves so much. The social media has become so important and real life friendships and real life communications and real life community has become so unimportant. And we're moving away from family values and we're moving away from community support. And we're kind of like just depending on social media and these random faceless people to validate us. And when that doesn't happen, and now we are so isolated from everyone in real life, and you're not getting that like dopamine hit that you need every time you post a picture or a post on like Instagram or Facebook or whatever,

you start to feel very depressed. You feel very depressed. And then you're like, what is the point? No one cares about what I'm doing. Kind of like Chad said, not a soul on this planet cares about what I'm doing right now. Oh, man. Tough situation to really kind of wrap your head around because I always we always try to look for the signs. But sometimes if they're not voicing those concerns or their feelings, how would you know?

And I feel like it's happening so much today, so much today that like it's hard to look for the signs because it's just like everywhere you look. One thousand percent. That's that. That's the scary part is we've even signs because it's just like everywhere you look. Absolutely. One thousand percent. That's the scary part is we've even talked about it with my kids being in school, the preventative measures. There's actually software and different things that now that they're implementing in the school systems for teachers to make note. And it could be something minor, but the system has an algorithm where one teacher may see

one thing about student A, they document it and it doesn't raise any flags in the system. But then another teacher documents something about student A without even knowing about what else is in the system. And the combination of the two reports internally start to raise a flag for the algorithm to say, hey, flash, flash, flash, someone may want to look at the student and talk to them because there's a combination of things happening now where that's good.

Separately. Yeah, there's a whole very unfortunate thing is it's expensive for some of the software. put something into the system that may not rise to the level of discipline, but just something worth noting, where this computer system has been developed by psychologists all around the world, where if there's a combination of things that are recognized, it will notify administrators to maybe have some type of intervention to try to prevent these tragic situations. I mean, it's just unfortunate that we have to have that, right? And then we can't be proactive and return to a time when people felt productive and needed in society. That's what's happening here. People feel like, where's my place here? I don't give it to anything.

Nobody cares about me. I'm not a productive member of society. I have no purpose. And a person with no purpose can be a very dangerous person. Agreed. So Chad said things like, you know, he was taking classes with hundreds of students, and he never sat next to the same person twice. And not only that, he was being hounded by people in other realms. He said, quote, some of them were friendly spirits, while others were definitely dark souls. They never approached me, but I was able to discern they were people who had lived in the area many years earlier. For some reason, when they died, they didn't go to

the light. They'd stayed behind on earth and were now stuck in limbo. If they got too close to me, the hair on my head would stand on end. I tried to ignore them because if I acknowledged them, they seemed to hang around me a lot longer. I found it interesting that these spirits weren't congregated in cemeteries, abandoned buildings, or quiet areas. Most of the time, they were End quote. I mean, you'd think he'd be grateful for them because he's feeling so lonely. So Chad Daybell was assigned to complete his LDS mission in a place called Morristown, New Jersey, where he was assigned to spread the Mormon doctrine in some of the most poverty stricken areas in New Jersey. And it was here amongst the gray skies and abandoned buildings that Chad claims he not

only came face to face with dozens of disembodied spirits, but that's when he realized his torn veil could help him tell the difference between the good ones and the bad ones, aka for people who are familiar with this case and know what's to come, the dark and the light spirits. Chad also got closer to his grandfather, Keith Daybell, while he was in New Jersey, who he would find walking beside him one day as he went knocking on doors. Keith Daybell is going to pop up a bunch in Chad's life. He's going to be his main spirit guide. After two years of missionary work, Chad returned to BYU in 1989. But before the fall semester started, Chad was at home in Springville,

flipping through his brother Paul's 1988 yearbook when he came across a half-page feature of a girl with short blonde hair named Tammy Douglas. Chad said that when he saw her face, he felt the most electrifying shock of his life. And he realized that she would have been a sophomore when he was a senior, but he didn't remember her. And he needed to find her and he needed to meet her. So he asked his brother Paul if he knew where Tammy Douglas had ended up after she'd graduated the previous year. And Paul said he did. He said, easy. Tammy is the secretary for the Springville Parks Department. And the Parks Department of Springville also had purview over the city's

cemeteries. And that's when Chad started working at the cemetery again. And Chad said he realized why he couldn't remember Tammy. He said his spiritual veil had been placed over his mind when it came to Tammy because it wasn't their time when they were in high school. He said that he knew if they'd met too soon when they were in high school, they would have become inseparable and they still had things they needed to do and experience individually before becoming one. So basically, he'd probably seen her and maybe even met her and talked to her. But the veil had been placed so that he just wouldn't remember this and he wouldn't like get attached to her. So he finds her, he meets her.

And after some brief courtship, Chad prayed and he asked if Tammy was the one he should marry. And finally, he got a yes. The voice said yes. And then he proposed to her the night before Thanksgiving, and he got another yes from Tammy herself. The couple had their engagement photos taken at the Springville Cemetery. And Chad and Tammy were married in March of 1990 in the Monte Temple. She got promoted at work. Chad was still finishing up his studies and progressing through BYU's journalism program. Life was good for them. Their first child, Garth Douglas Daybell, was born a month after Chad graduated from BYU with a bachelor's degree in communications. Tammy left her job, and she, Chad, and their son moved to Ogden, Utah, so that he could work on the copy desk of the Ogden Standard Examiner. Now, the copy chief of the examiner said that Chad Daybell seemed like a very standard mainstream LDS guy with a wife and a kid. And Chad would become known.

He got a nickname Chatterbox, not because he talked a lot, but because he didn't. He didn't talk at all. He was very, very shy. He only spoke when he was asked a question and he was known to blush if he heard a swear word. Chad was well respected at work, though. He was seen as a family man who was devoted to his wife and child. He kept his head down. He did clean work. He never went out drinking with the other copy editors after his shift. He would just like go home to his family. And like I said, he just didn't talk much and he did his work and he was a good writer and everybody was happy with him, you know. And he would go on to have another near-death experience in May of 1993 when he

joined his family for a vacation in San Diego. They were all hanging out at the La Jolla Cove and Chad was in the water looking for seashells when a 15-foot wave hit him like a ton of bricks, but he didn't feel it because moments before, a loud voice inside his head had told him to grab onto the rocks and hold tight. Chad said all of a sudden when the wave came down, he was in a tunnel of light. He was protected. And when he looked up to see what was going on, he saw the faces of Finity Daybell and Keith Daybell smiling down on him.

And they started talking to him about the children that he and Tammy, who was pregnant again at this point, they were going to have all of these children and the missions that Chad was going to be responsible for completing throughout his life. Chad agreed to fulfill the assignments outlined by his forebears, and then Keith Daybell waved his hand, and Chad's spirit reentered his body, and the wave subsided. So after this near-death experience,

Chad felt his veil had been torn open even wider, leading to more enlightenment. And Chad would go on to claim that he experienced waking visions and also periods of deja vu. So Chad would eventually quit the paper in 1995 because he wanted to work on his own writing. He and Tammy and their now

three kids, Garth, Emma, and Seth, moved back to Springville, and Chad began working at the cemetery again, stating that he went from writing headlines to digging graves. Tammy was rehired by the city as a receptionist, and in the winter of 1997, Chad was busy digging paths through the snow in the cemetery so that funeral guests would have a place to walk when he was again struck by his grandfather's voice telling Chad that he needed to write books. And he said in that moment when he heard his grandfather's voice, Keith Daybell saying, Chad, go forth, write books. If you write it, they will read it. Chad said he said, all right. And he leaned against the shovel and he said out loud, that's great, but I have no idea what to write about.

And then suddenly the entire plot to his first book flooded into his head. And this book would be called Errand for Emma. And it was a fictional book based on his daughter, who was three at the time. But in the book, she was a teenager who'd gone back in time to solve the mystery of her LDS family history. Errand for Emma was followed by One Foot in the Grave, which we've already talked about. And then another book called Doug's Dilemma, where Chad wrote himself as the character Doug Dalton, who finds himself in 1944, where he has to save his grandfather during World War II. This just always reminds me of The Office. Whenever I hear about this Doug Dalton thing, I don't know if you're an Office fan,

but I know a lot of people out there are. When Michael Scott was writing his series of books and he wrote he wrote a character like the hero, Michael Scarn. I got to watch that episode today. Now I have to watch it. I haven't seen it before, but I've seen obviously a lot of clips from it. But everyone's a huge fan of The Office. Hilarious. And the Dementor episode, the prison Mike episode. Those are the two. There's so many more. But anyways, Michael Scarnia. Let's take a quick break while I put in my calendar that tonight I have to go up and watch The Office. All right, we're back. So for a while, Chad worked for his publisher. So the people who were publishing his book, Cedar Fort, and he continued to write books. And this marked his entrance into the LDS circles, who would eventually turn him into a mini celebrity. He would travel around doing book signings and giving talks. But then in 2003, one of Chad's books, Chasing Paradise, would be banned by the biggest Mormon bookstore chain in the Western United States, Desiree Books. And apparently it was banned because he had written a scene where a angel drop kicks a bad spirit through a wall. And this was like

controversial because it was violent or something. But Desiree Books was like, we don't know what he's talking about. Like we didn't put his book in our stores because the projected sales were not looking good. So like there was no point to do that. So there's plenty of Mormon authors and it just didn't look like a good, like this book was going to make good sales. So he's probably being dramatic. But in 2004, Chad and Tammy started Spring Creek Book Company in a warehouse in Provo, Utah, because Chad was like, well, I'm going to publish my own books now. And I'm going to publish other Mormon authors who are maybe writing things that are a little bit more edgy and a little bit more like, you know, controversial hot takes. And they're going to be banned by like mainstream LDS enterprises and stuff. So I'm going to help them be like seen and heard and show them to the world.

Makes more sense that he would start his own, you know, his own business, his own agency because, you know, yeah, he was doing so well without him. Yeah, exactly. Like he's got to take control of it himself. And the first book that they published was called Led by the Hand of Christ by LDS author Suzanne Freeman, who wrote about her recent near-death experience. And it's funny because Suzanne Freeman, all of these people came out of the woodwork to give interviews after the kids went missing. Julie Rowe was one of them. And it's crazy because Julie Rowe is really annoying to me. She initially came out and she defended Chad and she was like, he would never do this. And I'm speaking to Tammy and her spirit beyond the veil and this, this, and that. And she says, I have to tell the truth.

And like, she's just annoying. But Suzanne was a little bit more chill. And she was like, I thought it was weird that I wrote a book about near-death experiences. Chad was my publisher. We talked all the time, but he never told me about his near-death experiences, which she wouldn't even find out about until many years later when he finally wrote that biography that we've been reading from. And she's like, I just thought it was weird that we'd had so much talk and conversation about my near-death experiences, and he never shared his with me even

though he shared so many other things with me which makes me believe chad did not have those near-death experiences but he sort of like glommed on to other people who were like i'm having near death experiences and this isn't that he made his own up in my opinion allegedly don't come for me i think i think you might be on i mean it wouldn't be the first time we've heard someone exaggerate their own life experiences to increase their clout or their credibility within the space of whoever the audience is they're trying to attract. I mean, that's not something that's uncommon in many fields. Yeah, I agree. And at this book company, Tammy was working there. She was working in the back office. She was trying to keep the books, doing the accounting, trying to

keep things in line while Chad was doing, I don't know what he was doing. But apparently the company grew under Tammy's careful eye and Chad kept writing books, including a five-part series he called Standing in Holy Places. The first book in that series, The Great Gathering, topped the LDS Fiction Bestsellers chart, as did the second novel, The Celestial City. And it kind of seemed like everything was going great. And Chad had told everyone that the Spring Creek Book Company was firing on all cylinders. But then something happened in 2008, something that sort of reflects what happened with Lori Vallow. So Chad and Tammy Daybell declared bankruptcy, and the Spring Creek Book Company was forced out of business. The couple owed more than $200,000 to over 60 different creditors, and the bankruptcy filing showed that the business had only been generating an income of $2,000 a year, and that decreased each year. So they were making less than $2,000

a year as time went on. Tammy and Chad were making less than $50,000 a year combined, and they were trying to support a family of seven with that income, and it just wasn't working. Chad went back to digging graves, and Tammy worked part-time at an elementary school computer lab, but Tammy was going through a rough spot at this point, most likely because they're making all of these decisions based off of Chad's visions, like where they move, what they do, what they open, what he writes. And she's over here like trying to be a good Mormon wife and following her man and listening to him and respecting him. But he's leading them to places that are not healthy. And so she became depressed.

She had to become medicated. And Chad said she had a mental breakdown. And then she started escaping with a computer game called Frontierville. And Chad really hated this. He told Tammy that he wanted her to stop playing the game and she didn't. And so then he said he'd gone to the temple and received a message from the other side to say that she needed to stop playing Frontierville immediately. So this just also shows you like this dude gets messages that are just convenient for him. Like whatever he needs to happen, he's getting a message, right?

Like, oh, I hate that she's playing this game. Tammy, the spirits on the other side, they said you need to stop playing Frontierville, man. It's bad news. Cut it out. Cut it out. Like the spirits on the other side really have time to be worried about what freaking computer game Tammy Daybell's playing. Get the fuck out of here, Chad. I cannot take him. I honestly thought you were about to say she was playing Farmville. It's kind of similar. You know what I mean? These are like pioneers. They're pioneers and they're like, yeah, it's like that. It's kind of like that. Yeah. It really did seem that by this point, Tammy was over following the advice of Chad's spirit guides. So she did not stop playing Frontierville. But it was the spring of 2012 when Chad told Suzanne Freeman, his first published author, that he was getting out of publishing because he had been told the call-out was coming. So I've done a lot of like

Mormon cases, not that they just seem to pop up a lot, but they do seem to pop up a lot. And I've done a lot of Mormon cases and I've never heard of this call-out thing. So from what I can tell, the call-out doesn't seem to be a mainstream LDS belief. But like I said, I went into some of these dark corners of the LDS-like internet world, and I found some mention of the call-out. And apparently, it means that certain church members are going to leave everything behind and travel to different gathering places where they will be protected at the end of the world while the rest of the world's getting destroyed. People are going to, you know, stock up on food and supplies and then just leave one day. And like I was reading,

it's not funny. It's actually really sad, but I laugh when I'm uncomfortable. So I was reading one person and they were like, what's going on? Like my parents are really into this. Like they've been going to these groups and all of a sudden they're talking about this call out that certain church leaders have talked about. And they have like their entire garage filled with food and one whole extra bedroom in their house filled with food. And they said that one day they're just going to leave when the call out happens. And they're going to tell everyone they're going camping because they can't let just everyone know that they have to like get to safety. And they're going to go and like bury their food supply so that it's safe and they know where to get it.

And, and this guy was like, my parents are wrecking themselves financially. They're mentally not well. They've been going to this group and on this message board. And this message board or this website is called Avow. And Avow stands for another voice of warning. And Chad Daybell is super active on this Avow message board website thing that you can't even go to this website until you pay, like, I think it's like $60 a year. So to me, that already feels very cult-like, right? Like it's hidden and like behind a paywall, which is like, if you have this important, like, message that you want to send to like your people, you're going to put it behind a paywall. No, you're not. You know, it's very like exploitative, like kind of like a pyramid

scheme sort of thing. So Chad Daybell told Suzanne Freeman that this was all happening. The end of the world was coming the following July and all the righteous would gather for the second coming. Obviously, nothing happened in July. And by the following spring, Chad was like, oh, we're still here. So I'm going to relaunch the Spring Book Company to publish my new book series, Days of Turmoil, which was apocalyptic fiction because that's the best kind of fiction. The end of the world fiction. And the following year in February, Chad found Julie Rowe on the Avow website. She had posted in the dreams and vision section of the website about a near-death experience she'd had in 2004 and Chad messaged her and he was like, listen, we were destined to meet because I had a vision of a tall, dark-haired woman and that's you and you should write a book and I'll publish it with my

publishing company. So on May 14th, 2014, Spring Books published A Greater Tomorrow, My Journey Beyond the Veil by Julie Rowe. The following summer, Chad heard a voice telling him that he needed to move his family to Idaho. And this happened after he spent some time with his wife and kids in Island Park in Idaho. And in October, Chad received his fork in the road vision, that's what he calls it, which was a voice telling him that moving to Rexburg, Idaho would be a tremendous blessing for his children and grandchildren. And somehow, Chad became convinced that Rexburg, Idaho, was a sacred place where the 144,000 would gather and hunker down to ride out the apocalypse that was raging through the world

with all their cans of peas. A few weeks later, he announced to Tammy that he'd had a vision and they were moving to Rexburg, 300 miles away from everything they had known from their families, their friends, their community. And Tammy was kind of pissed at first. She was like, you're not just going to tell me where to move. And she complained about it to her sister.

But then she was like, OK, well, I have to obey my husband. And they moved. They ended up actually living in Salem, just four miles outside of Rexburg. They got a large four-acre property. And this is the same property that the bodies of Tylee Ryan and J.J. Vallow would later be found buried on and disposed of on. And Chad got to work on his next book. He started promoting himself around the community who in Rexburg, they were mainly LDS anyways. He gave talks and he signed books and he basically talked to people to see who thought like he did or who he could convince to think like he did. He was also lucky that his author, Julie Rowe, had become a big name on the LDS speaking

circuit. And by default, he would go with her to conferences and meetings. And because he was with her, he was front and center. And one of these conferences focused on near-death experiences. And all of a sudden, Chad had a near-death experience, right? And Julie let Chad talk for 10 minutes before he introduced her. And even though she was the main speaker, she let him take some time so that he could introduce himself to everybody. And people found him to be genuine, unassuming, soft-spoken, and truly devout in what he believed in.

Within no time, Chad had found himself his own little following in Rexburg. And Rexburg resident Eric Smith said that Chad did very well with smaller groups, like more like one-on-one where he could kind of give you personal attention, especially with females. And Eric Smith said that Chad would hypnotize the women with talk of end days and how only the strong and faithful would survive. Eric Smith said, quote, I've seen him use those skills. There was always a little group of women and he would be drawn to them. They would get that kind of googly eyed look and they'd ask him questions that he would answer in a very personal way.

End quote. So, yes, Chad did have a way of making women feel special. So while Chad became an in-demand celebrity in the LDS literary world, his wife Tammy had started working as a librarian at Madison Middle School, trying to keep the faith in her husband's vision and grand plans. And then in 2017, Preparing a People was formed. We've already talked about Preparing a People. This is when they come to be. And on July 25th, 2017, they held their first conference at the Rexburg Tabernacle featuring Chad Daybell as their main speakers because Preparing a People's owners or like founders were husband and wife Michael and Nancy James, who'd known Chad back in Springville, and they respected him very greatly. So they wanted him to be a part of this, and he was at their first conference. Over the next year or so, Chad was featured often

on the PAP podcast, which was called Rexburg, Idaho, the promised land. And he was front and center every time PAP held a conference. He finally felt as if he was being seen and respected for the first time in his life. And remember earlier, I talked about a woman who had moved to Idaho, and then she got hired by this guy who was like, I had a vision, and I needed to give you a job. And this guy introduced her to Chad Daybell and Julie Rowe. Well, when she met Chad Daybell, she said, quote, he was idolized. He was just this remarkably well-spoken, kind man who was helping bring people together to prepare for the return of Christ, end quote.

Chad met Melanie Gibb, who we've talked about being Lori's friend, in the fall of 2017 at a preparedness camp in Ogden, Utah. And he introduced Melanie to the PAP people. And she was then a part of preparing people. And she was appointed a part of preparing people and she was appointed as their official Arizona representative, which is why she would end up having this gathering at her house and kind of like pulling people in and recruiting them. Like, let's be honest, that's what they're doing. Why do they need a representative in every state, right? Because they're recruiting people to their group. And in June of 2018, Melanie put together Arizona's first PAP conference, and she asked a newly unemployed Chad Daybell to speak at it. Five weeks later, Chad would see

Melanie again at a PAP conference in St. George, Utah, and this time she had a friend with her, Lori Vallow, his eternal wife throughout time. And before we wrap up, I want to quickly talk about a necklace that Chad Daybell had. This was a gold necklace with an owl on it. And he claims that he found it, he was like, they had church and then everybody left and he was cleaning up and putting everything straight. And he found this gold owl necklace on the floor, like under a pew. And he said that he heard a voice saying like, this necklace has been left here for you by God. And, like, you should take this necklace. It's a special magical item. And Chad would use this necklace to figure out if people had dark or light spirits.

And he would ask it questions, almost like it's a magic ball, like a, you know, like a fortune teller's ball or something like that. And he was known to bring this necklace out while he and his followers were sitting and talking. And then he would like ask the necklace questions. Eric Smith said, quote, he'd hold it up and let it swing. If it swung right to left, it would mean yes. If it was a circle, it was no. It was interesting and fascinating. And I was touched by it. End quote. Chad would try to figure out who celebrities had been in their past lives. We're going to talk about this, but he's obsessed with like past lives and who people were in their past lives, who he was in his past life. And he would start making lists about which of these celebrities had light or dark spirits. And apparently he thought that Oprah had one of the darkest spirits he'd ever seen. Now, this parlor trick would actually help build Chad a very loyal following because people thought he was magical.

And as people like Chad usually do, he pulled from the actual Book of Mormon and he sort of like twisted things to draw people in. So in the Book of Mormon, we do hear about magical items that give their users special powers. And this was Chad finding some janky owl necklace and using it basically like a con man and being like, oh, I can answer your questions. I can see your ancestry. I can see who you were in your past lives, things like that. And Eric Smith said that Chad would research people before he did this, right? He would research people that he knew he was going to see and find out like about their ancestry and stuff. And then he would use what he discovered with the necklace later to kind of like draw people in and make them think like, oh, this guy's really something. Yeah. It's a scam's a magician not saying magicians are scam i don't want any

magicians coming after me i mean casting a spell on me or something if they're a scam they can't cast a spell on you valid point valid point mrs harlow so i mean personally I'm I'm really amused by this. I'm sorry. So I think it's kind of funny that Chad was known to palm readers. Well, like just had it. Yeah. Palm readers or like the people who used to do like seances and stuff. Right.

And they'd like figure out a way to like dislocate the bones in their feet so they can make these like weird tapping sounds. And like it's a tale as old as time, people still fall for it which i get i get we all want to believe in magic we all want to believe there's something bigger than us out there like i get it and it's harmless i think until it's not right so um i just think that this is very ironic and very funny to me because chad was known to sort of like woo these ladies and impress them with his big spirit and his connection i Oh, I see what you did there. Yeah, you saw that? Yeah. So glad we're on the same page. And his connection to like these

spirits beyond the veil, you know, people were like, oh my God, his veil and his head is like ripped wide open, man. Like just all sorts of shit's coming through there. Anything could happen when Chad Daybell's around. And he's just otherwise, outside of this and he's just otherwise outside of this he's like kind of pudgy kind of pale very socially awkward you know not like your typical ladies man but when he pulls out the damn owl necklace and he starts working his magic all of a sudden he's got a ring of ladies around him and he's like okay okay I see what daddy Chad can do here and it's just funny because Lori's over here getting close to Melanie Gibb as soon as she finds out that Melanie knows Chad because she wants to get close to Chad and then when Chad does meet Lori and

we're going to talk about this next time he says like he was already married to her and they had been together during the time of Jesus Christ and they were in an eternal union that was going to change the world forever and it's like she played this game to get close to him and he started working to get close to her as soon as he met her. And it's like they were manipulating and playing each other. And like these were both manipulative people who just wanted to use each other and take advantage of each other. And like each of them probably thought they had the upper hand because they never encountered somebody as evil and manipulative as they were. So who can really be called the victim here? Like I know we've asked like who led and who followed and I still think Lori ended up

leaving. I'm waiting till we get to the end but I got some comments because I've been writing a lot of notes here. Anyways I'll let you get to that. They were just equally manipulative and calculated but I do think that Lori has a big ego and has high self-esteem and Chad has low self-esteem and needs like constant approval from external sources. So I definitely think at the end, he was the weaker personality and she used him as a tool basically to like get in because he already is established in this like LDS literary world and this like preparing a people thing. He's already established. She wants to be an important person. She also wants to be an important person she also wants to be an important person she's going to use him as a stepping stone to get there just like she's used everybody else in her life so i think she was

using him i don't think that she you she loved him at all i'm with you but i will say that i going into this episode was of the mindset when we, cause we asked that question and a lot of you responded to it saying Lori Vallow was the puppeteer. And it does feel like, although she wanted to meet him, there might've been something that kind of naturally brought them together with some mutual friends. But then I do feel like I asked myself this question, if Lori Vallow doesn't come into the picture does Chad Daybell still do half the things he's doing and from I think so no I think so see that's that's where we that's where we differ because I feel like he was already on this path before he met Lori he was someone naturally who was going this direction. Do I think Lori enhanced

what he was doing? Do I think she gave him the confidence to do even more? Yeah, I think it was this recipe where she took what he was already on the path of doing and found a way to harness that for him because of her innate ability, which we already discussed, her ability to identify the audience and then present information or present themselves in a way that the audience would be receptive to what they had to say. That element is something that in most people happens naturally. You either have it or you don't. And I don't know if Chad necessarily had that on his own, but the ideology that he was trying to convey to others was falling flat for the most part until Lori came into the picture and was able to help him in that area. But I feel like—

So the ideology he was trying to convey to others was not falling flat. People were buying it. He was like super popular. Like I said, he was like a celebrity, dude. It was not falling flat. They were buying it. He was like super popular. Like I said, he was like a celebrity, dude. It was not falling flat. They were buying it. And I think he would have been content with that for the rest of his life. You got a woman like Lori who comes in and she sees a man like Chad, and this is the power that women have over men. Like we're going to act like women don't have any power over men. They do.

She sees a man like Chad who clearly is lacking something, who clearly is lacking any guidance. And she's like, I'm going to make him feel like a king. I'm going to build him up. I'm going to make him feel like the most special, valuable person ever. And because making a man like Chad feel that way is so powerful, he is going to follow me until the ends of the earth. She's the stronger personality. She's the more confident personality. She wanted what he had, which was that celebrity, which was thousands of people watching her, hearing her

talk about her visions, hearing her talk about her mission, which like, as we'll find out, she's a God. She's a literal God. Okay. Not just like she's on a mission. She believes she's a God who's on earth to like save everyone. Not everyone, just the people she wants to save. Right. She's on a mission. She believes she's a god who's on earth to save everyone. Not everyone, just the people she wants to save. She's got an ego, whereas I think he would have been fine with the attention. He's a kid who wasn't popular in people and what they wanted and telling them what they wanted. He would have this, these friends in this circle of people, sycophants around him, always just kissing his ass and telling him what he wanted to hear. That would have been enough for him, I think. Yeah, I want, I, I definitely think he had something where, you know, this is the one part we differ on. I feel like she amplified what he was going to do.

Like, I don't know what his capabilities were on his own. I don't think they were worth what they ended up being, But he was just this author who had this following of people. And I feel like it went to a level where he was even more popular than he would have been if he hadn't met Lori. I feel like she was able to. No, because as soon as they meet, their plans go into effect really quick. Well, I mean, maybe they did appear on like podcasts. I guess we'll see. We'll see as we go through this.

Like how it shakes out. Moral of the story, I feel like this episode has changed my perspective slightly. Not like, oh, oh my God, this is life altering. Now I feel completely different. Still feel like Lori was a huge part of this equal partnership as to where we're going to end this series when we finish. I don't feel like she was manipulated by Chad. If I had to say one or the other, I would say more than likely Lori manipulated Chad. But I will say that hearing some of the things you're talking about as far as Chad's concerned

and these tricks that he's pulling to convince people of what his beliefs makes me think that he may have been a bigger contributing factor to the overall decision to do what they did to the children than just Lori convincing him I think that he fed off he fed off her but yet there were a lot of the undertones that he believed in personally even before meeting Lori yeah we'll see I mean I don't think it's going to change a lot of people's opinions as far as like, oh, Lori's the puppeteer or a puppet. You know, I still feel like she had a lot to do with this, but I will say I'm more,

okay, put it in number perspective. I was going to partnership before this episode, 70-30 being heavily in favor of Lori. I'm now like 60-40. But like, where's his motive? You know, like at the end of the day, it made his life worse, everything. But like, where's his motive? You know, like at the end of the day, it made his life worse, everything.

And her kids are the ones that, and I mean, his wife ends up dead too, but I think that had a lot to do with the insurance money and also him desperately being like obsessed with Lori to the point where it was like, you kill your husband, I'll kill my wife, we'll be together, you know? But there was a point where you talked about his necklace and being able to tell him who was a light But there was a point where you talked about his necklace and being able to

tell him who was a light and who was a dark spirit. And I wonder if when it came to the children, however he got there, there was a decision made that they were dark spirits. Now, I don't know the rest of the story. I don't know how this ends, but just where we are right now, part three, could Chad have said something? Listen, it's not me. It's coming through the necklace. They are dark spirits. This is now no longer our choice.

It's coming through the necklace. So, I mean, that's what I'm saying. But then you got Lori's dumb ass taking the owl necklace's word for it and killing her children. Like, was she manipulated or was she kind of just looking for a reason? That's the question. And I think we're going to answer that as we continue to go. Right now, I don't think she was manipulated.

I think she truly did believe in a lot of what Chad was saying. She was more so amplifying his voice because she had the charisma. She knew how to target an audience. So she took what he was able to do, his signal, if you want to put it in that way and amplify it to even more ears and eyes because of her ability to, as we said

at the beginning, she had the natural skillset of seeing her target audience and knowing how to, how to gravitate to her, how to, how to get them to believe in her. Right. She passed that. She taught him. She did it with Mrs. USA. She did it with Wheel of Fortune. She did it in many elements of her life. Every element of her life, I would say. And Chad, and she rubbed off a lot on Chad, giving him that ability to do it by watching her.

Now he was- She gave him confidence, right? Gave him that confidence. So it afforded him the opportunity to take what he believed in organically and get it seen and heard by even more people. And I wonder if there was a combination where the decision was made about the children where it was deeper than that. It was something that came from Chad's beliefs as far as what he was able to determine through his trinkets, if you will. So I'm fascinated by this case because now i feel like it's not just one person pulling the strings there might have been multiple people in charge of different strings

yeah and i mean like dude i can't wait for next episode because i get so like i wanted to like put it in here but i knew it was going to go too long no this was a lot i didn't have to digest yeah we went so deep into chad into laurie's background for two episode. I needed to give Chad like The episode so you could really just understand like he's been claiming to have visions since he was very young like once again That's what I'm saying. This is all before true. I don't think it's true though. I do I don't think this guy was actually from the beginning. I don't think he was actually having visions time I wanted to kill that bee. I don't think he was actually having visions. Tommy wanted to kill that bee. I don't think he was actually having visions. I think that once he started like publishing these other authors

and they were having near-death experiences and stuff, he's like, man, they got way more to offer than I do. You know,

like. Their story's way more cool. Their story's way more interesting and how am I supposed to be this like prolific figure in this community if I don't have something equally cool

or more cool to bring to the table? Look at publishers telling him that. Hey, your story's not that interesting. It's not going to sell. Can you do more near-death experiences

and ripping of the veil? We're going to need more of that. We need more of that. Definitely, this is not going to be made into a movie unless there's at least two near-death experiences, Chad. I'm really interested to see the comments this week because I wonder if I'm like the outlier. Like, am I just the only one?

I think you will never convince me that Lori Vallow is manipulated by anybody, by the way. Ever in my life will you convince me that that woman would allow herself to be manipulated by anyone? She's the kingpin, man. She's running the show. You can see it in her eyes. She's she's not sweet and innocent. She's a warrior. She's old. She's not sweet and innocent. She's a warrior. She's old.

She's been fighting this battle for a millennia, man. All right. She ain't sweet and innocent. Don't get it twisted. Nobody's saying she is. I just wonder as we get there, and I know you probably already know what has been said, so don't spoil it. But I wonder who was the driving force behind the decision to do what they did to the children.

I don't think we know. Okay. Because Lori's blaming Chad and Chad's blaming Lori now. See how their eternal love bond that goes back to the days of Jesus Christ really broke quick when they're sitting in a courtroom. Okay. And that's the question that maybe, I don't know, maybe you think it's a good question for this episode. But do you think based on the trajectory that Chad was going to, you kind of already answered it, that you don't think so. You think you would have been happy just doing what he was doing, but

I wonder if it would have gotten here, whether it was Lori's children or someone else, but this was where this was leading, where he was going to get to a point where he felt that he had the right to decide who lived and who died based on his perception of them. Were they a dark spirit? Were they a light spirit? He was going to create himself into this God where he decided who remained here. And would that have happened without Lori? Or was it because of Lori? And like you said, we don't know. They're blaming each other. But I wonder what the consensus is amongst our listeners and our viewers as far as now that you're telling the story and you gave a lot about chad tonight more than i expected

based on our first episode and where i was like oh i can see where this is going i was wrong chad's definitely a player in this game and i don't know man i just see him as like a weak see that's why this is great because i I don't. A weak, pathetic, like low self-esteem, like weak. Did I say weak yet? You said weak, but you can say it again. Weak, freaking bee killer. All right. I don't see him as anything special.

I don't see him as anything like charismatic or manipulative. I think that he found his niche along among these like, you know, stay at home moms who were like, and again, chat, tell me about my future. Tell me about my past. Am I, are you in it? You know, like weird people who ain't got nothing going on and just looking for something to like give them some freaking dopamine in their day. And he would have been happy with that. You know, he would have been happy with that. But at the end of the day, like, yeah, Chad's the guy who's talking about the dark and light spirits, but we remember what Lori said, which is some people die and that's their mission to die. So did he talk about light and dark spirits?

And then Lori's over here like, well, maybe it's the dark spirits mission to die. You know, like what's going on? Because he never talks about how dark spirits need to be dying. I don't know. We're going to have to see next time because we're going to next next episode is going to be a wild ride. Stay tuned, y'all. Anything else? That's it. I think we're good. It's one is going to be a wild ride. Stay tuned, y'all. Anything else? That's it.

I think we're good. It's one o'clock in the morning. It's one o'clock in the morning. But that was a good episode. It's 3 a.m. I must be lonely. All right, guys, as always, like, comment, subscribe on the video. If you're watching on YouTube, if you're listening on audio, we really we did it last.

We could do it again. Please leave a five star review review on Apple Podcasts. And if you're on Spotify, they don't allow you to leave comments, but you can definitely leave reviews. Gets us up on the charts. We really do appreciate it. More people will see it.

More people will hear it. As always, we will see you next week. Stay safe out there. Bye.