Dateline Originals - Mommy Doomsday - Ep. 4: Somewhere Cold

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

Lori moves to Idaho, as mysterious and disturbing events continue to unfold around her and Chad.This episode was originally published on February 25, 2021. 

August 2019, the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona. Lori Vallow waved goodbye to her son, Colby Ryan, as she drove away with her two other children, Tylee and JJ. Lori's brother, Alex, had killed her husband, Charles, the month before. And now, Lori was hitting the road to start fresh somewhere cold. Rexburg, Idaho. Small city, bit out of the way perhaps? About 95% Latter-day Saints, also known as Mormons, of course.

It's where Laurie's spiritual leader, Chad Daybell, lived. Laurie's friend, Melanie Gibbs, said that was the reason for the move. So Chad invited her to move up there. And then she said she didn't want to. And then she said, let me go pray about it. And then she said, I was told I need to go up there in September. And she went quickly. She moved quickly, too. She gave other people a story that she was going to get a job there. That's what she told me. She's like, oh, yeah, I told some of my family members that I'm getting a job. But her and I both know it wasn't about a job. It was about her connecting with Chad and living up there and being part of their mission. Yeah.

Their mission, as Melanie understood it, choosing and gathering the 144,000 elect, the people who'd be saved in the end times. Everyone else, the people who weren't with them, lake of fire. And Lori and Chad would rule the elect as king and queen. According to their followers, this was happening soon. Any day now. But Laurie's duty and privilege wasn't only to select good people,

save people, no. She also had to root out evil. And that's when this story gets even darker. Hard to imagine. I know. That was during the time, seems to me, that there was a lot of talk about zombies and people becoming zombies.

That's right. To Laurie's friend, Melody, it seemed that as Laurie got closer to Chad, more and more people in her life became zombies. Or so Chad and Laurie decreed. And these zombies? They could be eliminated. Charles, for instance. He was possessed by that evil spirit, Nick Schneider. In other words, a zombie. One of the darkest, according to Chad's scale. And once Chad and Laurie declared someone a zombie, it seemed as if that person was in line to be killed. At the time, Melanie

was all in on these ideas. But now she has a theory about Laurie and Chad and anyone else who got in their way. They didn't want anybody to stop them from being together, basically. And I think he was in the way. And I think that's why he became a zombie. And what happens to zombies? Seems like

they are dying. Lori and Chad said their union would lead to salvation for their followers. Chad and Lori gave this impression to all of us that they knew that when they were able to get together, that things were going to start changing in the world. So it was kind of a sign that things were stepping up. And so there was a little bit of feeling like, wow, things are getting ready to happen. Lori and Chad's plans seemed to be falling into place, even as bad things kept happening to the people around them. Lori's husband, Charles, shot dead in her empty living room. Chad's wife, Tammy, and Lori's kids, Tylee and JJ.

The almost six-month search for Lori's two missing children was about to lead us to two attempted shootings in different states, the mysterious death of a healthy young woman, and a surprise wedding on the beaches of Kauai. This story is about the charming Lori Vallow, her two missing children, her spiritual leader, Chad Daybell, and their destiny union. You're listening to Dateline NBC's newest podcast, Mommy Doomsday. Just a few weeks after telling Melanie the plan, Lori moved into her own new place in Rexburg, Idaho, a townhouse along a quiet road. The building was plain, newly built, surrounded by matching units, each with the same beige stucco,

the same sand-colored door, the same manicured bushes out front. The Mormon school, BYU-Idaho, was just up the street from her new place. It was September in a college town. Lori's friend, Melanie Gibb, visited once, just a few weeks after Lori moved into the townhouse. In her new Rexburg life, Lori spent a lot of time with her spiritual leader, Chad Daybell. Went on walks around the BYU campus. Held hands as they looped the track at the university, bold as brass. Melanie joined them when she visited. By then, she'd already seen love blossom between Lori and Chad. She'd been told about their immortality, their many past lives, and their plan to be together.

But she also knew that Chad's loyal wife, Tammy, was at home, not very far away. Did you ask them, aren't you afraid of being discovered by Tammy? Yes. What did they say? They said, well, Tammy usually doesn't come out over here. Also, a lot of people don't know them together, that know him.

They don't know them together, so they wouldn't know what his wife looked like. It's a small town. I know. That's what I thought. This is a small town. I did say that. This is a small town. They didn't seem to be worried about it.

They had faith, believed everything would work out. Lori didn't take interest in much else. Even her kids, Tylee and JJ. They seemed to take a back seat to her new relationship. Did you see Tylee there? No. She was not around? No.

Lori told Melanie that Tylee was at BYU-Idaho going to school. It seemed a little odd to Melanie, but Tylee had always been independent, a mini-adult. Maybe she was ready to leave the nest. I don't think she liked her mom. I mean, she was, we would say, a teenager that strong-willed and didn't really care to even be around her, I don't think. I mean, they just had a strained relationship. Wow. That's funny because only a few months earlier, back in Arizona, just after Charles was shot to death, Tylee and Lori met Chandler P.D. outside their home, and the detectives observed an extremely close mother and daughter pair. Tylee reflected her mother's words.

But then, mothers and daughters, there are often multitudes of love and strain. She did not talk nicely to Lori, that's for sure. And then J.J., she was pretty talk nicely to Lori, that's for sure. And then JJ, she was pretty affectionate to him, but it was more of a running after him, trying to keep up with him kind of a feeling. But of course, something had changed since then, something big. Now there was Chad. And according to Lori's friend, Melanie, Tylee didn't seem to like Chad at all. That was during the time, seems to me, that there was a lot of talk about zombies and people becoming zombies. That's right. Who was a zombie and who wasn't at that point? Tylee was one. JJ was one.

What was it like to hear that? That Tylee and JJ were zombies? Yeah. Well, the interesting thing about Tylee being a zombie is she wasn't... Chad had told her, oh, she wasn't made a zombie just recently. She turned a zombie back when she became a difficult teenager. We know Tylee had gotten her GED when she was thinking about her future. So maybe it made sense that she wanted to escape to college a little early, and that J.J. would be the only kid in the house.

Did Lori seem sold on the idea that J.J. was a zombie? He was declared, and then the next day he was gone, right? I would say yes, because when I got there, she was obsessed about talking about it to the point where she was saying, oh, this look how he's behaving. He's look how hyper he is here or look how calm he is. He's talking more intelligently than usual. Look at that. He's looking at that program on TV. She was planting ideas to show me that she believed he was a zombie.

In other words, he was possessed, not acting like himself. But Melanie didn't see anything unusual. Thing was, Melanie knew all about JJ, that he'd been diagnosed with autism, that he never had consistent moods. He might be running around with friends one minute, focused on an iPad game the next. So given that, Melanie thought his behavior was, for JJ, completely normal. But Lori seemed convinced an evil spirit had taken over his body.

Why was JJ a zombie? So he became a zombie the day before I arrived. So I arrived on a Thursday of that weekend, and she said he became one Wednesday. And the reason why I believe he became a zombie, my own internal thoughts now processing it, is that he was going to stop Chad and Lori from going forward. They didn't want anybody to stop them from being together, basically. And I think he was in the way. And I think that's why he became a zombie. Things didn't seem to end well for zombies.

Colby didn't know anything about this new life in Rexburg. He didn't even know where his mom and siblings had moved. He knew they wanted to get a fresh start. He wished they'd told him where. But Laurie moving around was normal. A disappointment, maybe, to Colby. Not a big surprise. At least, not at first. But it did get weird over time. And it was mostly when I was trying to talk to Tylee. And I just couldn't get a response. I just hit FaceTime, nothing. It would just ring all the way through.

It wouldn't go to voicemail, anything. He couldn't get Tylee on the phone. So he texted her. I sent her videos of my daughter laughing for the first time. I remember sending her just random texts. Hey, I love you. Like you want to talk, let's talk. Cause I, in 2018, we, my wife and I had spent time with her actually trying to counsel her a little bit just to see, like, give her someone to talk to an outlet because I know her dynamic with my mom and with Charles, I felt like maybe she just felt more alone. So we really tried to do an outreach. So I kind of felt, especially after Charles, I felt like I want her

to know like the door is completely open. Call me, let's talk about anything you want. I understand you. So it was stuff like that. Just like, Hey, I love you. Call me when you can. And just normal, like just seem normal. Like, and what was the response? You got a response at some point? So every time I did reach out, which was maybe every week or a couple of weeks, I would just say, Hey Ty, I love you. And be like, Hey, love you. Super busy. And I was like, why? What does that have to do with that? So at first it didn't ring like a bell, right? Then over time, as the calls never got answered, as all that stuff happened, you know, just time going by, so many calls and just trying to outreach. And every time it was,

she's super busy or my mom would say that, right? I'd text her, hey, is Tylee okay? Yeah, she's super busy. And so I text Tylee and be like, sorry, busy week with my friends at a movie. And I remember I just blew up at one night and I just had to text her and be like, can you please just call me? Like, it cannot be hard for you. Like, I know you're busy. I said, if you're mad at me, I understand. If I did something, I understand. I know you're going through a lot.

Please just like, I want to hear your voice. Ten seconds. And just avoided it like the plague. Kay and Larry were also trying to get in touch with Lori. They wanted to talk to their grandkid, JJ. And eventually, they did. But it was different, off. Before, when they talked to JJ, he'd get all excited and run around the house. He had free range of FaceTime, which usually gave Kay and Larry the perfect view of a ceiling fan. But the last time they talked to JJ... So it's like somebody was holding something written up here for him to read,

and as soon as he's, hey, mama, hey, papa, and then he looks up, and I mean, you can see his eyes move, and he goes, I gotta go, gotta go, bye, and I mean, you can see his eyes move. And he goes, I got to go, got to go by. And that was it. And it was, that was it. And Kay and I talked about it, that, you know, there's an issue. There is a true issue.

And then you never heard from him again? Never. It must have been so difficult for you over that period of weeks and months when there's just no contact. You know, we called Laurie so many times. I emailed her, texted her, left voicemails. Please. Everything.

Please, whatever. We want to see JJ. It was, it was, where's JJ? Where's JJ? Where's JJ? And Tylee, make sure we understand. And it's still hard right now. I mean, this whole thing could settle

in two minutes. Two minutes. None of it made any sense to Kay or Larry or Colby. J.J. and Tylee's Uncle Alex, Lori's brother, had just shot her husband Charles to death. It was a time they needed family most, needed people who could be there for them.

Instead, they were uprooted, plopped into their mom's new life with her new group of disciples. Didn't seem like there was much space for J.J. and Tylee. Before Alex killed him, Charles was trying to get his wife some help, tried to have her mentally evaluated, was worried about Lori being around Tylee and J.J. But that didn't end well for Charles. And now the people who could protect those kids didn't know where they were. Couldn't get them on the phone. The last known pictures of Tylee were taken on September 8, 2019. The family had just moved to Rexburg. They took a day trip to Yellowstone National Park with Lori's brother.

They went in Alex's F-150 pickup. As the FBI later pieced it together, Lori, Alex, and the kids left the park around 6.30 p.m., drove to Buckaroo's Barbecue in West Yellowstone for dinner. Much later, the FBI would distribute a photo showing Tylee, JJ, and Alex in the park. When we talked to Colby, he was in Rexburg, but he hadn't seen the picture yet. Let me show you. I've got it somewhere. Oh, that's like a picture she took of them? Yeah. But it's just, it's, I saw the picture and I thought, oh my God, there's a girl who is so protective of her little brother. And there's a shot of your mom and JJ.

Those are the two pictures. That's it. What do you think when you look at that? Last time anybody, any evidence? That's hard to see. Ever since I heard that she's just missing from that day, just like, it's really hard. It's just hard, you know. Can't imagine what it would be like for you

because the whole world has been speculating what happened to those kids. Everybody seems to care about it, but nobody understands what it's like with a big brother. I mean, it's just so weird, like, to know that there's, like, a time that they,

like, Tylee specifically, and she's gone, and then she had JJ, so it's like, and I'm just just a total you know side thought but there's nothing out here like that's scary to me if I'm being honest with you just because of the things that I've heard and I know that they're trying to find them and it's just like there's nothing out here like there's a house here and then that's just a huge field and then just under maybe another little house and so that made it, for me, just harder.

Just being here has been like, that's just crazy. But Colby couldn't let himself imagine the worst. He was determined to be strong for his siblings. Tylee was going through her teenage years, a time in life when people often question why things are the way they are. Maybe Tylee was skeptical of her mom's new beliefs. But we can't know what Tylee was thinking, what she was going through. That's a difficult part of this story.

What we do know is that so far only two adults had joined Chad and Lori and her kids in Rexburg. Lori's brother Alex and Lori's niece, also named Melody like Lori's friend, but this one was Melody Boudreaux. Both were part of Lori and Chad's great in-gathering, part of the 144,000 destined for salvation after the second coming of Jesus Christ. Like any divine being, Laurie needed followers. And who makes a better first recruit than your own flesh and blood? Two months after Laurie moved to Rexburg, Idaho, Laurie's niece, Melanie Boudreau, followed.

She rented a matching townhouse right next door to Lorry But when Melanie got there she didn't have her four kids with her Their stuff didn't make it either on the U-Haul to Idaho It was sitting on the curb outside her old house in Arizona

That's because Melanie was in the middle of a terrible divorce and custody battle with her husband, Brandon Boudreaux. Just how terrible? Well, Brandon thought Melanie was part of a plan to kill him. 911, where's your emergency? Um, someone just shot my window. Okay, where's your emergency? Um, someone just shot my window. Okay, where at?

Um, I'm in the Cooley Station neighborhood. I was pouring in my house. I drove away, but I can see them driving off. It was a few weeks before Melanie's move. Her estranged husband, Brandon, had just dropped off his kids at school, parked his car outside his new house. Okay, someone shot at your vehicle?

Yeah, and it hit my window, shattered my driver's side window. Okay, when you pulled into his driveway? As I was trying to pull into my driveway. Sorry, I'm a little off breath. They just drove off. I saw them drive off. Do you know who these people are? I have no idea. I moved into a new home about a week ago. Brandon was determined to put the pieces together.

He hired a private investigator, Rich Robertson. At first he thought it was like a paintball. But then he looked at the car and realized this was actually a bullet. But he quickly recognized what he thought he recognized, a Jeep Cherokee with Texas license plates. A vehicle that he knew to have belonged to Charles Vallow. Somebody he knew pretty well. And this was like the first week of October. Okay.

And Charles Vallow had been killed in July. A Jeep belonging to a dead man. Was. And he was convinced at that point, whether it was because of what he saw or what he inferred from it, he was convinced that the person driving that vehicle was Alex Cox. Alex Cox, Lori's brother, who had shot her husband, Charles.

Years before Alex killed Charles, he attacked another of Lori's ex-husbands in Texas, Tylee's father, Joe Ryan. Alex was convicted of aggravated assault for shooting Joe with a taser. Joe survived, only to die of an apparent heart attack 11 years later, which an insider told us led to an insurance payout for Lori. You might want to keep that in mind. Anyway, most recently, Alex had been working as a truck driver. But right down at the heart of things, he saw himself as his sister Lori's

guardian angel, her protector. Alex would do anything for Lori. And he, like Lori, had become enthralled with Chad Daybell. And Chad had encouraged him in those thoughts. He had told him that he was a special protector in another life. And so it's like made him feel good about who he was. It was a very horrible deception on Alex. And Alex believed Chad. And he felt like, you know, this was his, this is why he was on this earth, is just to protect her now at this point.

So he had really convinced Alex. And he was 100% sure that zombies really were zombies. I questioned him. I said, this zombie thing, I'm not too sure about it. And he says, 100%, Melanie, I 100% believe it. So they did a good job of really convincing him to the point where he took lives. But why go after Brandon? Well, Laurie's friend, Melanie Gibb, told us that Chad convinced Alex that Brandon was a zombie, that he needed to go.

Chaz's lawyers have not responded to our request for comment. The private investigator thought that Brother Alex played a very special role in Laurie's life. So he was kind of moving around, but he certainly seemed to be his sister's protector. Or muscle, if you will. Or something, yeah. He was definitely the go-to guy to get rid of husbands. Or wives. Which brings us back to Rexburg, Idaho. And the puzzlement Lori's friend Melanie felt as she watched Lori and Chad walking around the running track at the BYU campus, so close together, holding hands, not a care in the world. You knew he was married. Yeah, I did. Had five kids.

Did he seem to be concerned about that at all? He seemed to think that his wife would be okay with the idea when she passed on someday, that she would understand because he seemed to know who she was in all her probations or her multiple lives. So he already knew, according to his revelations, that she had these experiences. So he felt like that it was okay because of how many lives he lived. And he didn't think that she'd have a problem with it someday. But it appeared that someday was not today. In fact, Tammy did become suspicious and confronted Chad. Is that right?

I had heard that from Lori that she became suspicious. Do you know what she, how she confronted him or what she said? No, I don't recall. She just said that she was. Right around this time, Tammy visited her sister Sam in Springville, Utah. Sam, who's speaking about the case for the very first time, said Chad encouraged his wife to take the trip. And that if Tammy was suspicious of Chad, she sure didn't say so.

Did Tammy ever express a concern to you, Sam, about their relationship or maybe the possibility that Chad was seeing someone else? No. No, she never said anything. I mean, she stayed with us, and we stayed up late visiting and talking, and she never said anything. So if it had been weighing on her mind, she was keeping it hidden from me even because I didn't know anything about it. Tammy and Chad had been married since 1990. As family and friends told us,

close didn't even begin to describe their bond. Even after three decades and five children together, they still held hands, put their hands on each other's knees. Plus, they were sealed for eternity through the LDS church. Did she fall pretty hard for him? Yes. Pretty quick? Yes, she did. She loved him.

Just knew? Yeah. Huh. And they were happy. Did they seem to fit? I mean, do they seem to, you know, personalities either blend or don't? Yeah, no, they kind of filled each other in a really good way. They balanced each other out. And Tammy was a good balance for him and he was a good balance for her.

And they really loved each other. And at their wedding, you could see how happy they were. As far as Tammy's sister could tell, that was still the case. And it was a really fun visit. She was happy, and we had a great time. We laughed a lot, and it was a good visit. It was good to spend time with her because we didn't get a lot of that being, you know, apart in different states. She seemed healthy?

Yeah. Like, was she fit? Was she in good shape? Yeah. Tammy was a lot fitter than I am. I avoid exercise sometimes, but, you know, she was always very conscious about her health and doing what she could to exercise, and she was taking a clogging class, and I think she'd even been doing Zumba and doing some minor running just to stay fit.

Such a normal visit. But when Tammy returned to Rexburg to the home she shared with Chad, there was an incident. She posted about it on Facebook. Something really weird just happened. A guy wearing a ski mask was suddenly standing at the back of my car with a paintball gun. He shot at me several times. A paintball gun? Tammy told her sister Sam about it.

Was she sure it was a paintball gun? I don't know. That's just, I mean, I think in her mind, what else could it be? I mean, hi, we live in Idaho, and I mean, what else would it be? I think in our mind, that's the rational option. That it must have been a prank of some kind. Yeah. Yeah.

But who pulls that kind of a prank, too? I mean, let's think about that. I don't know. Yeah. But who pulls that kind of a prank, too? I mean, let's think about that. I don't know. And then, ten days after the paintball gun incident, Tammy went to sleep and never woke up. I got a phone call from Chad earlier on Saturday morning. And telling me that she had passed away in her sleep. How do you process something like that? You don't. I mean, like, there's just so many thoughts running through your head. And a lot of it was like, no, that didn't happen, right?

Because I had just seen her, and it just didn't feel real, didn't feel right. What did you have to say happened? That she'd been sick and had a coughing fit and passed away. Had been sick, but she wasn't sick. I don't know. She hadn't been sick when I saw her, but I don't know if she'd gotten something in the two weeks after I'd seen her, but I don't know.

And that's something I don't have the answer to. How did he sound on the phone? He sounded upset and devastated. I mean, I was crying and he was crying. Yeah, it was a really hard moment. When police came to the home, they said Chad showed all the signs of a grieving husband. And autopsies are expensive,

especially for a small county in Idaho. An autopsy was not performed. Tammy died a month and a half after Lori's move to Rexburg. Lori's friend, Melanie, wasn't surprised. But you knew that they intended to be together, Chad and Lori. Correct, I did, yeah. And you knew that Chad was saying that Tammy would die. Right. And then, sure enough, she did. Mm-hmm.

This wasn't the first time Lori and Chad seemed to know someone was going to die. Remember, Melanie said Lori and Chad told her Charles was a zombie. Charles told police Lori said she could kill him with her powers. And sure enough, he ended up dead too. To their followers, maybe this made Chad and Lori seem all-knowing. To investigators, it makes them look suspicious. Chad collected Tammy's life insurance, $430,000, and started planning. You had no feelings of suspicion about her death? Well, no, not really.

Not at the time? No, not at the time, but there was always a little bit of a, just that little uncomfortable feeling. Okay. And so, yeah, when I heard about it, I was, those were some of my feelings. Like, they said it was going to happen. It really happened. Whoa, things are getting ready to speed up for the world. So I was looking at it more of a global level instead of just, you know, Tammy.

I was looking at it more of the things that were setting in place, things that were going to, a sequence of things that were supposed to happen, if that makes sense. The end is nigh. Two weeks after Tammy's death, Chad and Lori were married. It was the perfect Hawaii wedding. White dress on the beach, big smiles. The couple danced and held each other while they posed for the camera. The only thing missing? All their family and friends. JJ was not the ring bearer. Tylee wasn't the flower girl. Colby didn't walk his mom down the aisle.

From the photos, you wouldn't think they had any children at all yeah i saw the pictures of them and just the dancing and just knowing that they are there alone married and on the beach and that was hard so to see them married and just paying for a photographer and both of them having so much family that they just cut and just went to, I mean, it's just hard. It's just, I don't even know. There's just no words for it. But leaving out family was the least of it.

Chad and Lori didn't seem to care what anyone in the world thought about them or all the questions their actions were raising on their path to this Hawaii wedding. Why would they leave so many breadcrumbs? Lori had this idea that destruction, earthquakes, something disastrous was going to happen. And so she was told by whoever she was talking to when she prayed, she always talked about on the other side of the veil. So for those that are listening, you know, either

spiritual people on the other side of the veil, I don't know, somebody. She'd always have different names for people. But anyway, this particular one would let her know that the end of 2019, Melanie, it's going to happen. People won't even know, you know, anything about Chad and I getting married and, you know, that kind of talk. And so. And they certainly won't be following breadcrumbs because the world's going to be. The world's already going to end or I'd say not end, but I would just say in a disastrous kind of situation. And so I think that they they're very sloppy because of that. They didn't think it would make a difference. Yeah. So I know because it's, I'm thinking to myself later after I

realized what happened and the kids are missing and everything, I'm thinking, I wasn't very smart. Your daughter disappears, then your child disappears. You don't think people are going to notice? Well, people were noticing. The world was noticing and wanted answers. And we'll get them next time on NBC's newest podcast, Mommy Doomsday. day.