Hidden True Crime - BEYOND THE VEIL: AN INTERVIEW WITH LORI VALLOW'S PREPPER COUSIN BRAXTON SOUTHWICK

Episode Date: August 26, 2023

This interview with Braxton Southwick takes us deep into his beliefs and worldview as well as his cousin Lori Vallow Daybell. Braxton and Lori were close and often shared near death experience books as well as beliefs about the last days. Braxton talks with Lauren Matthias about zombies, portals, preparing, and even politics. Our original Beyond the Veil season continues as a forensic psychologist and journalist (who are husband and wife) explore the inner workings of Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow Daybell's minds, as well as the hidden motivations driving a series of inexplicable murders in 2019. LAUREN MATTHIAS worked as an anchor and reporter for ABC, NBC, and FOX News in Boise, Idaho Salt Lake City, Utah. She spent a decade reporting on a diverse range of topics from high profile crimes and criminals to Presidential visits. Most recently, she reported for Salt Lake City’s ABC affiliate News4Utah and in 2015 she received the Idaho State Broadcaster’s Association Best Reporter award and reported with News Nation throughout the trial. She is the producer and editor of the Hidden True Crime Podcast along with her husband Dr. John Matthias, a forensic psychologist. Contact them at [e-mail] Our Sponsors:* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Armoire and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.armoire.style* Check out Effecty and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.effecty.com* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://happymammoth.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/hidden-a-true-crime-podcast1836/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You're close to her. You are someone I have been waiting to interview when it comes to perhaps understanding a little bit more the belief system of Lori Valo-Daybell as well as where she got some of these ideas and an understanding prepping. First off, Braxton, just explain a little bit about who you are and how you know Lori. You're her first cousin. Yeah, first cousin. So my entire family was from Texas.

My mom and my aunt and Janie, who is Lori's mom, they both moved to Southern California together and both got married and raised their families, that raised their family. there. So really on my on my mom's side of the family, it was just Lori, Adam, Alex, Summer, and me and my two brothers and two sisters. So we were only cousins that were by each other. Everybody else was in Texas. So kind of was the only cousins we had on that side of the family. Okay. And then to get some background, your Janice Cox's sister's son. Yes. And Janice was a convert to the church.

Does that mean your mother was too? Yes. Yes. Okay. So it was your... His mom was baptized. They joined the church when she was seven, almost eight, and then just immediately got baptized. So that's how old my mom was.

My aunt Jenny was a little bit older. Okay, right. So she was the younger sibling. You know, the things I've learned so far from watching your other interviews, are that you and Lori were very close when it comes to the prepping community. And that's what I call it. And if there is a better word. No, it's true.

Yeah, for sure. There isn't a better word for that. Okay. Okay. The prepping community. You know, let me even go back a little bit. When this case first hit the media and just, you know, I've been following this case since December 2019 when it hit the media when Tiley and JJ were missing.

And I was living in things, George, Utah at the time. And I just, I had just recently quit reporting. And I was really intrigued from the very beginning and trying to understand and trying to help, trying to learn. You and I come from similar faith backgrounds. And unlike you, I did not know anything. I had never heard of Julie Rowe. I did not know anything about the book visions of glory. I did not know Chad or Chad Daybell.

I didn't know of a preparing a people conference. I didn't know of a vow, which seems like a strong prepping community. We'll talk about that in a little bit. I didn't know about all these things that I was going to soon learn about and delve into and read. But you and I talked before this interview, and I remember when I was I said that to you, you said, really? You didn't know. No, it was all new to me. So I guess I, first off, I just want to set the stage and kind of understand this aspect of your faith a little bit more. Well, every Christian religion, you know, talks about Jesus's return, the second coming,

and it's always talked about, and of course it's talked about in the Mormon religion, because Jesus returns is a big deal to the Mormons also. A lot of Mormons are preppers only because our prophet talks about it a lot. Used to. They haven't lately in the last few years. It's more of spiritual preparedness, more than physical preparedness. But growing up through the 90s, 80s and 90s, it was all physical preparedness, and that's really what got me into it.

more now, you know, the church is really about spiritual preparedness. So a lot of us in the church that are preppers, you know, we all talk about it and we're amongst it. So when these books came out, we all talked about it in church, not over the pulpit or not in Sunday school class, but as each other, you know, like-minded other Christians that are preparing. And so that's why it got around. And not a non-Normons, I guess, didn't hear about it because they weren't into that as much. I've always been into it. So in other words, side conversations at church, not as you say, not the pulpit and not in Sunday school, but like someone pulling you aside in the hallway and saying, hey, you read this near-death experience. Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. Okay. Okay. That's helpful. That makes sense. And people kind of know who's into it. So you kind of know who to pull aside, would you say? That's fair.

I have my friends that are huge preppers, our own little prepping community that we talk amongst each other. We send each other stuff on phone and talk about it and do stuff together. So you talked about the difference between spiritual prepping, physically prepping, and so that everyone knows where I'm coming from. My family did have some food storage in case of emergency, you know, maybe have a three-week supply, take care of your friends. family, we'd buy, maybe have a few cans. That's what I know as prepping. So what does prepping mean to you and your friends then? I've taken it to the next level, of course.

I've always been worried about not having anything for my children if they were starving and not having resources. I'm a huge planner. I'm like that even today. If I plan for a trip, that's four months ahead. It's all planned out four months ahead before, four months before we go. I will be, my wife and I are usually done with Christmas shopping by September 1st. That's just how we are.

And so prepping is like that for me. So I went way above and beyond. My children have grown. They've grown up being preppers. We all did a TV show on National Geographic of Doomsday Preppers, and my family was on it. I talked to them and helping them and judging and the other contestants, the other people on the show, the first season. And then I have three boys, three girls. So they always called me the Brady bunch of preppers.

So then the producers called me and instead of asking me questions about the people that are on the show, they said, hey, Braxton, we really want you on the show as the Brady Bunch Preppers. So I'd even talk to my wife. And I said, okay, let's do that. This is what we'll do. And then I told my wife, I'm like, hey, just so you know, the production team is on a flight right now. They'll be here in three hours. We're going to spend three days of filming the show.

I've kind of taken the level. So just to give you an example, I mean, it's, but I have six kids and then I have grandkids. So just give you example, like wheat, I have 1,800 pounds of wheat, 900 pounds. Wow. I have a bedroom that's the tuts in my house. It's the size of two bedrooms. It's just a huge, huge room. And it's packed full from, it looks like grocery store.

there. 300 gallons of diesel fuel stored on my property, 250 gallons of fuel, 1,000 pounds of coal, different ways of cooking. I mean, I've got it all planned out. So I'm a little more extreme than usual people. More extreme than your fellow prepping friends? Like, would you say you're kind of like the key of it? Yeah, more money, definitely.

They've prepared also. I was really into prepping in, I started in 2001 when I really got into it after the 9-11 tax. And I kept talking to my friends, hey, we need to be prepared for this if anything else happens. And they were just him haunted. So I wrote a letter explaining to my friends like some of the things that we need in this area to be prepared for. Earthquakes, flooding. This is in Salt Lake Valley. We sit on a huge fault, drought.

I just prepared a couple. I wrote it down. And I kept writing and writing and writing. And after a year, I had 380 pages and ended up being a book. And that's how I started being recognized as a prepper. You wrote a book. You wrote a book. All the letter to my friends.

And that's how National Geographic got a hold of me because of that. And that's how I started that. And after we did the show on National Geographic, I did seven. more TV shows on prepping. And from other countries, the Netherlands came out and we did a film to show. Sweden came out. We filmed a show. And then I spent about six months traveling in the country with National Geographic promoting the show. So we did Good Morning America, the Today Show, Fox and Friends with Megan Kelly, Anderson Cooper had me on CNN and interviewed me and my wife. Jeff Probes from Survivor. He had a TV show and we interviewed with him. Inside Edition.

And then I did like morning shows, good morning Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Miami. I think I did 53 good morning shows and like 120 radio stations. So we just kind of promoted it and they thought I was a good candidate to promote National Geographic's Dune's Day Preppers. So we did that in 2012, 2013. Actually, I was on the front page of USA Today as a prepper. That was really cool. A couple magazines. I did it. I had a four-page spread in men's health.

So I did a lot of stuff on prepping because I guess I was a good ambassador for them. So, yeah, I'm a little bit more than everybody else on extreme prepping. No, that makes sense. And that is a helpful understanding. And so when this was happening, a lot of this publicity for your prepping, what year was this then? The show aired in 2012. Okay. Promotions in 2012 and 2013.

Lori must have been super proud of her like-minded cousin. Was she? Yes. She probably thought it was pretty funny at first, but yes. Does you guys have conversations about, I know you had conversations about prepping and we're going to get into that. But did you guys have conversations about your publicity and you're touring around and those stuff we did. Yeah, I did. Yeah. Of course we did. And my family's just like, oh, Breston. What did she say? What did Lori say? She thought it was funny and exciting,

you know? And all my family thought that was, it was fun and exciting for me, but they're like, you're just a little too crazy is all they thought. So you mentioned the 9-11 attacks. You've mentioned earthquakes. I do want to say it is true that Salt Lake City is on a very large fault line. Growing up in that area, I remember watching movies in elementary school. And one movie was called Not If But When. And it was earthquake preparedness. That same thing, if not when, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And that's how they taught us how to get under our desks was this. I remember like being like 12 going. What? You know, but what else?

What else? Any national disaster, or is this the second coming? You mentioned the second coming of Jesus Christ. That's the book of Revelation. Yeah, but I'm prepared for all natural disasters, and that's what I try and tell everybody to do, because they have natural disasters in those areas. And then you're still planned for the second coming,

which is basically the same thing. You know, a lot of people think I talk to a lot of Christians. I think, oh, the second coming, it's going to be awesome because Jesus Christ is going to come and wipe the wicked and we're all going to be just brought right up to heaven. And that's actually not how it's going to be at all. And so when I talk about this in my book, and in the book of Revelations, there's seven years of tribulation. And there's three and a half years of tribulation and three and a half years of great tribulation. And in that three and a half years, great tribulation is when the Antichrist will rule and reign the earth.

And so I said, I talked about, let's just say the people that are going to be here for the second coming, you know, a million people. I don't know. I just said that. So if there's a million people to be here when Christ comes and there's eight billion people, that means, that means in the three and a half years of great tribulation, seven and a half million people a day will have to die to kill eight billion people on this earth. That's going to be horrific. That's interpreting book of revelation. Yeah, the seven years of tribulation.

Yeah, seven years of tribulation. Okay. Now, I don't know how many people are going to be here on earth. I don't think I'm going to be when Jesus Christ comes, but it's just going to be a horrible, horrible time. So that's why I really want to prepare it. And I want my friends to be prepared. And Lori, Louis talked about it all the time. Yeah.

Speaking of Lori, I want to make one thing clear too. Maybe you can help us make something clear. You know, Chad, Davell allegedly predicted the end of the world. And that gets a lot of people confused. Why would they need millions of dollars and prepping if the world was ending? And I think you tell me, if I'm right, I've always kind of explained is I don't think they were thinking the world was going to blow up. I think that perhaps they considered the tribulations beginning,

but maybe you can help me know if I'm right or help any of us understand. The last time I talked to Lori, we actually talked about the tribulation, and she knew it. She knew there's going to be a lot of tribulation and stuff, but she thought she was safe in Rexburg. and a couple of books talk about Idaho being pretty secluded away from a lot of catastrophe. And that's why she thought she wanted to go to Rexburg is because she really felt she was safe up there. She's gone purely off the books that other people wrote. And these are other people's visions and dreams.

And they're awesome to read. And I think maybe there's a lot of truth to it. But she took it to the next level on that. So she automatically assumed being in Idaho, she's going to be fine. I have so many questions. What to go back to what do you think Lori and Chad were preparing for when, if he's stating the end of the world is July, I believe it was July 22nd, 2020. Was he preparing for the world to blow up or was he preparing for seven years of tribulation?

I never talked to her about that date. and I never talked to Chad, obviously, about that date. I just talked about Lori when I did talk to Chad. I have no idea why they said that. Now, of all the books, you have all the dates and everything that they think it is. And a lot of it is, you know, a financial collapse in September or October. I think three or four of the books that people have dreams are talked about that, a financial collapse.

So a stock market collapse. the following year of the same month, September, October, it was going to be a dollar collapse where it's worthless. So I'm not quite sure where they came up with that. I don't know if that's a date Chad made up by himself. I'm not sure. I never once talked to her about that date. I think he just made up that date. Okay.

And what happens at the end of the world? Like, is that it? Or is there? No, no. So let me go back a little bit. the book of revelation isn't understood by that many people, truly, or the second coming, including those that are religious, those that are LDS, those that are Christian. You ask, what does the book of Revelation mean to you?

You get a variety of answers. So I guess what I'm asking is I genuinely am asking. You meant it was very helpful when you said the days of tribulation seven years, but I don't know what that means the end of the world. Does that make sense? I don't know. Seven years is when. Christ comes. Now, we don't know the date. It says in the Bible in the book of

Revelation, it says in Matthew, and a lot of them, it says we don't know the date of the Christ, but we do know there's the seven years of tribulation before Jesus Christ comes. And it's kind of wiping the wicked off the earth. So the thing is with Lori, I have no idea what came up with the July. It had nothing to do with any of the books that she read or was published by Chad, by the people in these authors of these books and their dreams. But I do know, they really thought the seven years of tribulation will be start with an earthquake, a very big one. And it's supposed to be in the fall of the year.

So you're talking October, November. Okay, that's when the big earthquake is going to come. and then the next spring is basically the seven years of tribulation starts with that one earthquake. This is what they've read in the books, and I know this. And I know they felt like this because I talked to Lori about it several times. So I think they really thought that the earthquake was going to happen, the huge one. And nobody's going to be paying attention to where the kids are or what's going. Is this the same earthquake that Julie Road talks about?

Yes. So when you say the books, the books, what do you mean? I'm talking a Julie Rose book. Michelle McDermott put one together, Hector Sosa, the visions of glory, through the windows of time by Susan Freeman, all these books. Suzanne Freeman. We've interviewed Suzanne on our channel. Oh, have you? Never talked to the lady, but she seems really nice.

So they all talk about the earthquake that's starting the seven years of tribulation. They all have that same, same thing. The earthquake starts the seven years of tribulation. So I personally, I don't know this, but I personally believe that's what Lori thought. In that fall, we were going to have an earthquake. Okay. So they were waiting for the big earthquake. Thank you for clearing that up.

That was helpful. That's what they were waiting for. You know, all these books, you mentioned, so they're, I actually, need to understand these books a little bit more because this is the genre I'm gathering. And again, this is the genre I did not know existed until this happened despite being raised in a similar faith as you. But it seems like it's somebody discussing their near-death experience

in which they then have visions of the second coming of Christ or the days of tribulation or the collapse. Everything you mentioned, that's what I'm gathering. Is that fair? Yeah. Okay. So is that a normal thing for a near-death experience to have the visions of the catastrophes or the days of tribulation? No. Well, for these, what, six individuals it was. Okay. They saw the end of the world.

Have you had these visions, by the way? No. Okay. But do you believe everyone that does have them? With a grain of salt, you know, it's their experience. And just like you and I can go to a movie, and then when we get home, we could explain what that movie interpreted. And yours and I is completely different, 100% different of what we watched in the same movie an hour ago. And I believe the same with these people, you know. They had a vision and they explained what they saw, interpreted what they saw. It doesn't mean I would explain the same thing.

but they're entertaining and I do like it. I feel like I do have a little bit of a look into the crystal ball, so say. Okay. And are you friends with the people, Julie Rowe, Hector Sosa, you mentioned Suzanne Freeman, Michelle, is it, Michelle McDermott? Are you friends with any of these people? Yeah. No, well, yeah, not all of them, but yeah, I am friends with some of them. Michelle McDermott didn't write a book.

Just to clarify, she didn't write a book. She just put all these books together in a book. Like a pamphlet of the genre that I kind of mentioned. It's called The Great Gathering by Michelle McDermott. She basically took everybody's dream or vision they had and wrote a book, and she kind of put it together and how they all kind of lined up. It's pretty interesting. Okay, I will have to check that out.

It's sort of like, I don't know. even know what to call the genre, the near death experience doomsday. I don't know. But sort of like doomsday visions through near death experiences. You know, so a lot's happened since 2012, since your publicity tour. And I'm going to get to some conversations you and Lori have had soon because I'm sure that people are actually dying waiting for me to get into your relationship with Lori. So everyone, I will. But I'm just, you are helping me answer so many questions right now. So thank you, Braxton. A lot has gone on in your family since this time, though, a lot of tragedy. And I want to say, I'm so sorry, it's affected

the world. I don't, I don't personally know how it's affected you. And so I'll say that. But a lot of Lori's trial and the documents from police and things I've read and her relationship with chat revolved around a lot of the books you mentioned in a lot of her belief system and in and in text she states that she believes her children are zombies you did mention something I wrote it down in quotes that a lot of the books you know the second coming is wiping the wicked from the earth with Chad, she states that, you know, Tiley and JJ were zombies. And let's switch that term because I've never heard that term and tell them. And I think you haven't either.

But let's switch that term to the wicked or to those, you know, to a possessed spirit or something more familiar in Christianity, you know, less walking dead, more biblical. You know, does this affect? Has this affected this tragedy in your family and Lori knowing Lori has this affected your beliefs? No, it hasn't affected my beliefs at all. As tragic it is, it hasn't changed anything about me, you know, and what I believe and what I do. I think I do want to address the zombies, though. I never once ever in my life talked to her about that. She never said that one. So that what I could guarantee 100% that didn't come from her.

That was 100% in Chad. Okay. So that was never. I believe you on that. I do believe because I do believe that he is the one who created. He had to. He used it on a vow. That's the earliest I can find is that he used it in comments on the website of

Vow, which was a large prepping website. But. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Vow. I was, um,

um, um, um, You had to be invited to that to be into it. Anybody can read it. But you had to be invited in to be a part of it. And I was invited to them. Yeah. And after a little while, looking at it, I'm like, I didn't like it. I can see, I like to keep a straight and a straight and narrow with my religion and

prepping and making it hand in hand. And they tended to go off a little bit. And I have a, and I have a, um, a, uh, well. what's it called, an hypothesis why I think they did that. Like Chad, you know, Chad wasn't even a writer. I'm sorry, go ahead. No, I'd love to hear your hypothesis. Well, Chad wasn't a writer, right? He was a publisher. And when I went up, Julie Roe did a thing after one of her books and did a talk, and I couldn't wait to go. So I went. It was up in Idaho and Rexburg. And I got a ticket to it. You had to be invited to it.

they just want to let anybody in because she was having problems with people coming in and disturbing it so i got invited in got a ticket i went up there and watched it chad daybell was there and somebody said because i wanted to have her sign one of my books and i was up there and somebody said that's chad daybill and i'm like oh wow the day pal publishing you know that's how i knew him now i got his books he had three books i think it was just three and uh i got them after this because I wanted to see his books and read him. And I got through half of the first one, and it was, to be honest, it was just trash.

I thought it wasn't good. It wasn't genuine. You know if it's genuine. And it was weird. So I didn't even finish them. I still have them, but I still haven't even cracked them open and looked at it. So that didn't get to you the way Julie Rose or Visions of Glory,

Spencer, or Tom Harrison's book. I loved all those books. I enjoyed reading them. I felt lifted up and hope and a direction in my prepping a little bit with all of those books, not Chads. Okay. So do you say you kind of go with your gut? Like you know when you feel a book is?

Yeah. Well, all their books were good. But then following them after, it kind of, they just kind of went off a little bit. So let me explain what I mean. when you have a dream, you have one dream or one vision, and you write a book about it. It is so awesome and everybody loves you. Now, Julie Roe, when I went to that gathering, she did and she did a talk, it was packed there. I mean, packed.

Is that the Rexberg Tabernacle? Yeah, yeah. I've interviewed many people that were there and they've all repeated the same thing. It was packed. I feel like I was there. Yes. Yeah, it was packed. And it was so good.

And I think when people get a good following and people want more and they ask for more, you only had the one dream. You only have the one vision. But people wanted more because they just thrive on it more. And so you have to, you're not going to have another dream. You're not going to have another vision. And if you lie and say you do, everybody will know because it won't be genuine, I think. But they have to keep it going, right?

They have to keep the people interested and keep it going because they like the publicity. They like the attention. And so she kind of went off the rails a little bit and I noticed it right out right away. And I'm like, it turned me off. You did notice. Oh, totally. Totally. And then she kind of went sideways.

So I stopped following her and everything. I still love her book. I still have it here in my library and I love it. Now, Chad, I think the same thing. Lori was in awe with Chad. I didn't see them together. I never, I honestly didn't even know they were together. Okay.

She never said word. Now, I knew she'd met him. I know they talked. He's invited them over. They did stuff together. I knew all that. You knew that they were friends. And you,

so you were talking to her right before tragedy struck then? No, not totally. Because I didn't know. When she moved up to Rexburg, that's the last time I talked to her, when she just moved up there. I mean, when she moved, it was two weeks later, Tiley was murdered after she moved up to Rexberg. Yeah, and I didn't. But my point is, sorry, so when was the last time you talked to her?

I guess that's where I'm getting at. I'm just trying to understand how she lived in Arizona. What was the year? Did you say? I talked to her when she still lived in Arizona. Okay. I don't know before. But you knew that she knew Chad.

You knew that she. Yeah, but I didn't know they were doing anything. or involved at all. But what I was going to say is, Chad, too, he had a following. I mean, he was publishing all these books. He was coming up with his own ideas about everything, putting them all together and coming up with his own ideas. So people were starting to follow Chad and look up to him as a prophet.

Let's say a profit. For lack of better word, I'm going to call it a profit. And everybody's looking at him for direction and the future. Well, once somebody says they have the future, they have all the power in the world. Because everybody wants to know the future. And if somebody believes that you know the future, they're going to look at you with star to eyes and want your opinion and your direction. And I think he was going that way. So when Lori was giving him attention, and I got to tell you, Lori is very chrismatic.

You're around her for five minutes. You feel good about yourself. you feel happy. She makes you feel like you're the most interesting person in the world. Like she makes you feel good. She makes you feel love, just talking to her,

and you're exciting and you're funny, and you're, even if you're not. She just makes you feel that way and says the things. I know, I know Chad was in, emammered.

What's the word? Yeah, enamored. Yeah, just with it. I mean, Lori, I mean, everybody saw Lori in prison. She didn't look. good she didn't have makeup on she didn't have her hair she is stunning she is stunning beautiful um she still had a six pack at 46 years old i mean perfect body beautiful loving fun to talk to and you

felt good around her i know chad like oh my gosh this is the girl so he had to keep up that image of he knew the future and he knew what to plan for and i think it's bun off that way. I mean, they were definitely, one was a match and one was gasoline. And I've heard people say that too. I definitely, he had to keep it going. So he had to keep going and making up more and more and more stuff to keep Lori interested and the other people interested. Because I talked to him on the phone. Now, this is after Lori's arrest, I talked to him. So I knew everything about Chad, everything that had been going on. It came out. The family knew a lot of stuff and we are all talking about it. So I'm thinking, dude, this is a David Kores guy, you know, like can swoon people and they

just want to be around him and listen to him. And he called me because he was, he wanted to bail out Lori and he wanted me to help bail out Lori. And I got on the phone with him and I thought I was going to talk to the guy I was even going to be impressed with. It was not at all that I thought. He was the most plain vanilla, soft-spoken guy, didn't even have good words, wasn't just didn't grab my attention, blew me away how he was. And I'm like, what in the world did Lori see in this guy? And the other girls, you know, the whole group that followed him. I'm like, what in the world do they see in him? The eternal question.

Yeah. I sat and thought about it and it had to have been just telling people he knew the future and knew what, what's going on. So he's telling Lori, hey, look, the earthquake's coming. We all know it. It's in the fall, this coming fall. And then I don't know what it's going to happen July the 22nd, I think it was. I don't even know what he was talking about. It was in none of the books. So he just made up his own thing. But to get back to the part about the zombies and stuff, he made that up. He had to have done it only because Lori never talked about that. Why he did that, I have no idea. They had a list of all the people, the 144,000 that are going to be saved, you know, at the end of the world.

Right. More than that. But that are going to play a significant role in the end of times. So, and they kept putting people on the list. My wife kind of and I joked and were like, well, we hope we were on the list, you know. But, yeah, I think he just had to keep going on with his lie. and he made updates. As far as I know, that's all I know.

And I've talked to... So he authored the belief system and kept making things up. Not the entire thing, because you're telling me a lot of things that she believed, but the extremes, the zombies. Yeah. The end of the world. Absolutely crazy. So when Chad called you, I've actually talked to a few people that have told me stories of him

asking them to mortgage their homes or to... It's fascinating. to get Lori out of of jail when she was originally put behind bars, ironically, shortly after we see body camp footage of her reading visions of a glory that we're going to talk about here by the pool. She did not produce her children and she was put in jail. You said at that point you did understand what was going on and you were in touch with family members and so you thought you were kind of dealing with a cult leader, David Koresh. Where was the family and where were you then at that moment? What did you think was going on? at this time when the kids weren't around. Oh, okay. Well, Charles died. And I remember that phone call, my dad called me and said, Charles is dead.

And I'm like, what? We were just there in Hawaii. And we stayed with Lori, my wife and I for the week. In fact, Lori actually set my wife and I up. Quick story, she lived in Texas. And I was single and I flew out there for a week to hang out with Lori in summer, because they live together. And just to hang out for the week and visit.

And she's like, Braxton, have you been on LDS singles? That's the Mormon Church singles website. And this is 98, 9798. And I heard war stories about people hooking up on the internet. It was just brand new. And I'm like, absolutely not. And she's like, well, I'm on it. Let's change my profile to a man and let's look up girls for you.

So we did that. one night. And there was a picture of my wife Kara on there, which was very attractive picture. So when I got home, I emailed her and we got together. And so my wife and Lori are friends, too, because that whole thing. Wow. She handpicked your wife for you. Well, I'll be a singles. You picked like five or six girls. And Kara was one of them. But Kara is my wife Kara, just a stunning picture. So I, that was the only one I even. emailed. Yeah. But anyway, emailed the right one. So yeah, wow, I can't imagine. So you're, yeah, your wife is dear friends with Lori too. I can't imagine then. So then again,

where were you got? So you'd learn that Charles. Yeah. So he died. Back to my story, my dad calling Charles died. And I'm like, what? And he goes, Alex shot him. And I'm like, What? Why? And he told me the story that Charles was harassing stuff. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, that doesn't sound right. So the family got the story that Charles was on his business trips because you know the financial advisor. He was getting, this is the family story that I heard, that he was hiring hookers when he was gone. And I'm like, my wife and I look at each other and we're like, no, no, no, that's not true. Because this is the family story that I heard, that he was hiring hookers when he was gone. And I'm like, I'm like, no, no, no, that's not true. That's not true. Because this. guy was so stupid in love with Lori, stupid in love with Lori. Clearly. And I'm like, that's not that. And I'm like, how did Lori find out? And I actually was embarrassed, so I never even asked Lori about it.

So this is what I heard from the family was she caught him on the credit cards. And I'm like, wait. And I asked my wife, I'm like, dude, Cookers take credit cards because everyone I've seen on the movie didn't have a credit card machine in their purse, right? Right. Right. I'm pretty sure it's a cash only business. So I'm like, like, it just didn't add up to me.

And so she was leaving Charles over it. I knew she was going to all this stuff, you know, the thing Chad Daybill was doing and the prepper stuff. So I never put two and two together about it. So when I found out about that, I was just absolutely floored. And I just, it just didn't make sense to me. right so when Lori had the kids I know JJ um his family I got the story this is the story I kind of yeah you're the messenger sharing what you had learned from the family right and that they wanted

jj back because Charles was dead I'm like okay that kind of makes sense to me you know Lori is a phenomenal mother she's just a great great mother and I've seen her be a mother you know, the whole life of her children. And I'm like, I was impressed. Her attitude, her patience, her love, everything I saw. She was just a super mom. And so they're like, the Wilcoxes want JJ back. And I'm like, that didn't make sense to me, first of all,

because they didn't want him when he was born. You know, Lori took him. And Lori's not going to let him happen. So she happened, have them. so she's hiding them until the court is, you know, she could make sure she keeps them. And I like, okay, you know what? That made sense to me, right? I would do, if I had children and, well, I do have children, but if I had a child and it was adopted and the other family wanted it back and everything else, I would probably, I'm like,

yeah, I could see that. I would fight tooth and nail. So the first little bit, I'm like, okay, I understand what she's doing. Now, I never called her and asked her about it. right Lori was kind of hard to get a hold of anyway she was constantly changing her phone number

she was always doing phones she was very James Bond about it I have no idea why she was always

been like that so at the end of this when this was all going on she kept changing her number and phones

it didn't throw up a red flag for me so the kids are hidden away including Tyley now everybody's

seen pictures of Tyley a lot of people don't know what Tyley is like Like, Tiley, just a phenomenal kid, a great teenager. But she's a teenage girl. And the loudest teenage girl you know, not in a bad way.

She's very loud, voistrous, boisterous, in your face. She has opinions, a typical teenager, but she's a little more extreme. A girl of my own, probably like me. Yeah. And so I'm like, okay, she's watching JJ, all right? Lori's got them hidden away until this whole court thing is on. That made sense. For me, for about two weeks.

After two weeks, I'm like, there's no way on God's greener, Tiley is this quiet. Right. She's not. Yeah. And so it flew, it just were, bells were going off. Now, after this whole time, then Lori gets arrested, I'm like, this, I, my whole family's A lot of my family was like, well, Lori's still hiding the kids. And I'm like, no.

So my family was really split on this. There was a lot of yelling and fights between my whole family because there's voice of reason and there's people on Lori's side. Now, I get my Aunt Janie and I get summer and I get my mom. My mom's being on my Aunt Janney's side. I understand. You don't want to think anything is bad to your grandchildren. So you're believing your daughter. I would do the same exact thing.

But after that whole time, and then Chad calls me and wants to bail out Lori, at this moment when he called me, that's when I'm like, this is not right. So he actually called me and asked me, look, Braxton, will you put up your house for Lori? And I said, yeah, I would do that for Lori, but I don't know if I'm going to do it for this situation. I said, you know what? Let me think about it. And then he called me, I think it was two weeks after that again and talked to me about it.

And he had his cell phone and he had another cell phone. And he's like, hey, I got Lori on the line on the other. Holding them both up. Yeah, all three talked. And she wanted me to put up the house. And I'm like, Lori, you know, that's a big commitment because that's my biggest asset in my life. And I talked to her a little bit about it. And then we hung up because she had a certain amount of time she could talk on the phone.

and I was talking like, look, Lori's not going to run or anything. And I said, well, no, because she's going to be under my 24-hour watch. She wouldn't run. But I said, still, Chad, this is a big, big deal to me to put up my house because I could lose that. He's talking to a prepper who cares about the safety of his family. You've got 18 billion things of wheat in your garage. Yeah. You're not going to mortgage your home.

I have a good, good friend that was a federal judge here in Salt Lake. And I talked to him and I said, hey, do you ever have people that have ran after they've been put on bail? He gave me like 50 stories. And like 20 of them still have the people have never found and people have lost their houses. So I'm like, if Lori asked me to bail her out the minute she was arrested, I would have said yes. Because I felt she was doing the right thing. And I'd ask her questions. I said, okay, tell me where the kids are and I'll let you do it.

You know, I've hit him away in a cabin because I don't want the Wilcoxes to get them. Okay, I agree with that. After this amount of time, I'm like, Chad, I'm not doing it. I just, I had a hard time at that point. I'm like, so I go, I'm not going to do it. And then he called me the third time and said, hey, your Uncle Dato, can you talk to him and ask? Because Lori didn't have his number. Who's Uncle Dato?

Uncle Dato is an uncle we have in Texas. That's worth a lot of money. Okay. He wanted me to call Uncle Dato and ask. Okay. Okay, Chad, I'll do that. And I'm like, I'm not asking Uncle Dada for anything. Yeah.

Good. Yeah. Were you able to that second phone? Oh, go ahead. Keep going. What did you say? Went out a bit. I talked to Chad.

And then after that, he was arrested. Okay. So you talked twice. Three times. Oh, he did call one more time to see if you talked to your uncle. Yeah. To ask, he called the third time to ask if I would call my uncle. Uncle Daddow in Texas.

Gotcha. Which clearly Lori told him to do. That second time when Lori was on the phone, and it was quick, it sounds like, were you able to ask her any questions? Like, where are the kids? No, and I didn't want to get into that. I made the decision I wasn't going to,

and I really didn't want her to lie to me, and I knew at that point she would. And so I didn't even ask where the kids were. She wasn't going to tell me anything anyways. I knew that she was in jail, so they were all recorded lines. Right. So it was pointless for me to get into that. You know, I told her how sorry was this was all happening to her, how much I loved her,

the right thing will happen, you know, the stuff she wanted to hear, kind of. But no, I wasn't going to get into any of that with her. Why? One of your friends, Hector Sosa, supported chat a little bit longer than others, Were you in touch with him at this time? Yes. And what, I mean, what were those conversations like? Because I know that he really wanted to believe in Chad.

Chad published his book. Yes. And they're friends for that reason. And he called me and asked me, he's like, why is Lori hiding the kids? And I told him my theory on that. And he believed it too. Like, that's the most reasonable theory. You know, she was hiding the kids.

So they couldn't get to them, you know, the Wilcoxes. Boecoxes. And so, yeah, he was with that too. And then I don't know when he turned. Last time I talked to him, we had lunch, I think, in 2021, we had lunch and talked about it. And then I haven't talked to him since about it. How did he come to the realization then in 2021? The truth?

Yeah. So, yeah, yeah. He would at 2021, I think, yes. Okay, okay, good. I know a lot of people had a, there were a lot of people in Chad Circle that didn't believe it until the children's bodies were fun. That is a guy that could not convince all these women

that they had these powers and to do this and murder and cheat on Tammy and kill Tammy. I mean, it's just, it was unheard of by his personality. So nobody would believe it did. You know, none of them did. Like it almost would have seemed more possible had he been a boisterous, Zuberant personality, almost?

Like, the kind of just like... I don't know those guys. You know, they had a more intimate relationship with Chad. I did not. You know, I only knew him as a person since, I don't, no, no, no. 2018, I think it was. You know, because he was publishing the books that I loved.

So I didn't really have a person, a relationship with him like these authors did. I'm sure they were very close because they spend a lot of time together. Yeah, and going back to those books and that I want to say like a lot of this, I think there's a prepping community, but there's even a tighter knit group when it comes to this sort of book group, this book genre I keep bringing up.

The near-death experiences have a vision of the last days books that were being written, the Julie Rose, the Chad, the Suzanne Freeman, Tom Harrison. he's Spencer and visions of glory. And then that's, those people sort of got together. And I'm saying this to actually either get confirmation and validation from you or be corrected. So I'm stating this isn't you tell me. This is what I feel. And then they all got together sort of at these conferences and the conferences that gave Chad Daybill's platform,

as well as these other authors you mentioned are preparing to people, the Firm Expo, and the website, a vow or another voice of warning. But you weren't into a vow. But did you attend the preparing to people in firm? Nope. You didn't? Never. Okay.

So that wasn't everyone going to those. No. I knew about them, but again, like I said, kind of they strayed off from what I know to be right. And I didn't like it. Yeah. I mean, there's some popular voices speaking of these conferences. I know Tim Ballard is a speaker there.

Jason Mao. Did you ever know Jason Mao? Uh-uh. No. And what about? At it either. And who? What do you say?

Allard, I didn't know he spoke at it. Yeah. I even just attended a firm expo where he was the main speaker. This is Post. But I know that he was speaking and friends with preparing a people founders as well as the firm expo founder Rod Meldrum. So Mike and Nancy James. And then he was even speaking with Eval founder, Roger K. Young at one point. So it's just that, you know, so that's maybe where I gathered that there's sort of these like-minded groups, maybe going to these conferences together, but maybe it was just a speaking circuit. I don't know. Maybe that's more of the speaking circuit. Yeah, maybe. So there are these conferences. You never attended them ever then.

You know, Lori liked to attend them. Did you ever know Melanie Gibb? No. I never met Melanie. Okay. And then did you ever know Mike Stroud or attend a fireside by Mike Stroud? Okay. This is helpful. It sounds like maybe you were more into the books than say the podcasting crowd too. There's kind of both. Oh, I knew the podcast. I didn't listen to it. I knew Lori had been on it a couple times, but I never searched it out to listen to her on it. not because any other reason was I just I didn't get to it. I'm like, oh yeah, Lori's not okay. I'll check that out. It just never happened.

Who would you and you and Lori talk about together when you would talk about your like-minded beliefs when it came to the prepping community? Who did you discuss? Just the books. Nobody. And then which books? Which books? The biggest one was,

visions of glory. Okay. That was just a great book. We liked talking about that one. We talked a few times. A few times? Parts in the book and what we thought and what we interpret it when we read it. It was just fun, you know.

Did she take it literally? I think so. I kind of do too, some of the stuff, you know, take literally. but for me it's all good and fun and I think she just took it as scripture. And I think that's what a lot of these people did was take it more scripture than anything else. So, okay, I have so many questions. Thank you for delving into this. So Visions of Glory.

You said you have your book with you, right? Do you have your book? I just pulled it out of my library downstairs. Yeah, that book became, I've been reading this book. I've read it a few times now. I didn't know about it until this case. This is, that was research.

So you and I talked on the phone even and he said, well, did you like? I said, I have to be honest, Prax, and I read it very biased because I was reading it for research of this case. And so,

so no, I have to admit, I didn't like it because I'm seeing all these similarities in the book that Lori's seen. I've seen similarities in Tom Harrison. He's Spencer's beliefs and Lurries. We'll get into that in just a second. You know, this book, though, I've heard from many people she liked it.

And then it was definitely confirmed in trial when body cam footage or cell phone footage, I should say, from Kauai police showed Lori reading it by the pool side when she was delivered the order to present her children to the court. And then in addition to that, it confiscated it. and it showed it in all of the search of her vehicle that they had taken this, this religious book. You know, it's, it's really interested me for quite a while.

I've talked to numerous people who have told me they felt that this book played a role to the point where I finally listened to it. And I, I can't help but see what they're talking about. I feel like this is where portals began. Everyone sort of made fun of Chad and Lori's belief in portals, but it's very clear that portals are all the rage and visions of glory. And that many people do take this book literally.

I want to, well, first off, before we delve into some things in the book, and I have some recordings, but I want to pay to you some audio from the book. But what's the difference between believing it's real, but it's all good and fun? And Lori believing it's scripture. Isn't scripture just believing something's literal? believing in that as scripture is like basically from the word of God. And that's how I look at it. And a lot of people look at, read that book and think it's like as much as scripture.

You know, they put it on the same plane. Where I put scripture, the Bible, the Book of Mormon, I put them way up above and these are entertainment books. I think they brought the Bible and the Book of Mormon and put them all these books together. And they all say the same thing. I didn't look at it that way. I'm a bright lace member of the Church of Jesus Christ and Lighter Saints where the Bible is the word. And so it doesn't give dates and different things. But it's fun to read other people's opinion of a vision they saw and kind of put it to the Bible,

like I did with the book of revelations in the seven years of tribulation and different things. I think that's fun. but I think they put all those books as equals and then made up, concluded their own ideas. Okay. So to let our audience understand what visions of glory is, it was written by a man named John Pontius. And I've talked about this book several times.

I started talking about it because we learned on the burner phones from the FOIA documents that some people were called were plugged in as Spencer's wife. Spencer's wife was a name. And we know that Chad Daybell mentioned Spencer in the speech he gave the day. he met Lori at the preparing a people conference in St. George, Utah. I have that speech on our channel that he gave, and he mentioned Spencer from Visions of Glory. You didn't know that? Yeah.

I believe the 10 tribes have great gifts that we don't understand. And Spencer's book, Visions of Glory, he talks about how they can just mold rock. They can take a tree and tell it to be a chair or something like that, and the tree will obey. And so as the Ten Tribes return with these gifts, we will build these cities quickly and magnificently. And maybe that's part of it too. When I listen to Chad's speech and when I hear Visions of Glory, I'm like, they're saying the same thing.

Yeah. So Visions of Glory is written by a man named John Pontius, but he's essentially like the ghost writer. He's writing the visions of Spencer. Spencer is an alias, but his real name is Tom Harrison. which I can share because he has come out publicly multiple times. I actually grew up near the Harrison family. So Tom Harrison wrote this book, Visions of Glory. And he states that the book that these are his visions,

that he had dreams, dreams and visions of the last days. And it's a near-death experience book gone. Here are the visions of the last days. It's just one of this genre. we keep talking about. But it's it's in great detail. And he discusses portals. He discusses the days of tribulation.

He discusses his wife dying suddenly because he has another mission to fulfill. He does share a chapter. And I'm sure you know this. You've read a few times too where evil spirits are getting into a man who's looking at porn. They're getting into the top of his head. Yeah. Lots of books. Not just these books that were.

reading a lot of books. A lot of books. The same thing. And to me, he might not have used the word zombie, but to me, that's what a zombie is. Yeah. Maybe that's why they called it a zombie. They are saying the same thing. But yeah.

There's intro through the crown of your head. Yes. And when you do evil things, they're going to be able to get in and they don't want to leave. They want to take over your whole body. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to me, that's a zombie. Yeah.

They want to feel what humans feel because they're disembodied. They never had a body. And so they, in a moment of weakness, like drugs, alcohol, his example of porn, any of those, they enter through the crown of the head and they get to feel for a moment human body emotions. Okay. That's what I get from all the books. Now, not just these six books, back in the early 2000s, I was. really into near-death experiences. And so I went to the library and looked for every book on near-death

experience. I didn't want it to be a religious book. I just wanted people to have it. And so I found like literally 20-30 books and I read them all about that. And they all kind of said the same thing about evil spirits roaming amongst the earth and entering people and feeling the emotions and everything. So when he wrote that, I'm like, yeah, I get that from a lot of people. Now, Chad and Lori, if they wanted to call him a zombie. I guess they're calling a zombie because an evil spirit entered their body. But they took a lot of because envisions of glory in other books, it was just for the moment, right? The moment of human weakness. When like one book, and it's escaping my mind, but it was a World War II pilot that died and had a vision. He

died in the hospital and had a guide and walked around and he went to a bar and watched. these evil spirits go through drunk men through the crown of their head and got to feel the emotions of their body for a moment. So when he said that, envisions of glory, I recognized it. So I like that stuff because I believe that stuff too. Okay. A lot of people. Okay. And I read it differently. I felt like he was kind of implying that they were trying to stay in the body. You're right. They entered the crown of the head. They wanted to feel what this. Yeah, but they couldn't take forever. I guess. It's what they wanted to stay and kind of take over his body.

I'm sure they do. And there's examples of that happening in the Bible a lot of evil spirits take on. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the Internet, and then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless roe. robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where ORA comes in.

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Minus the term zombies, which I think we both think is ridiculous, do you believe in an evil spirit being able to take over a good person's body? If that person is allowing them to, yes. And how does one of them? allow them to. When you're drunk. Yeah. That.

Or you're playing with a Ouija board and inviting an evil spirit in and letting it take over your body. I believe that. Yes, absolutely. Okay. And Lori believed it. Apparently, but they, yeah, they called it a zombie and I guess the zombie stayed there and they had to do away with the person like her children. Is there any thought in your mind then that that could have happened actually to JJ and Tiley? No.

No. And so, I mean, well, what's the difference? What keeps somebody from believing that? Do you know what I mean, like believing that and then other people like realizing? I mean, I agree with you. I'm like, thank you. Like, no, no. But why would Lori believe that? I think the short answer to that is because she wanted to believe it. She wanted to believe it. She wanted to believe Chad was right. And she wanted to believe that. this is all for a reason and he's correct I think she wanted to now let me explain something when you're a prepper like me and you're preparing for one event the second coming of it and you spend hundreds and thousands of dollars preparing and having a plan and getting your family prepared and your friends prepared and you spend all this time and it consumes you and you do it day after day after day you're you are mentally like I'm prepared I am ready there's nothing more I can do

Now I want to be challenged. I want to go through it and do well in it. And I think Lori was in that position where she talked about it every day. She knew what was going on. She was prepared. Chad told her the future and what was going to happen. She knew it. She had a key to the future and it was Chad.

And he's telling her and she's been preparing and talking about it and telling everybody is coming, it's coming. And everybody around her is believing her that it's coming because Chad told me is coming. She wanted it so bad, so bad she wanted it that at that point, she's like, I, Chad says this and I want it to happen. I want it to happen. So I'm going to go past this envelope, go a little bit more and kind of help it along. I think that was right. Now, that's my opinion on it. I don't know if she thought that, but that explains to me how she did this horrific.

I value your opinions and I understand that you're sharing opinions and thank you. I guess my next question then is if she did that and she chose to believe that because of the reasons you suggested, do these beliefs in evil spirits entering bodies become dangerous? What do you mean to become dangerous? What do you mean by that? Well, you seem to have a level head and I say to you, you know, are JJ and were JJ entirely taken over by evil spirits and you smirking, you go absolutely not. You know, no, of course not. Lori wanted to believe that.

But allegedly, she did want to believe that. And that's what she claims happen, whether we believe her or not. So is that belief then, just to have that belief that an evil spirit can enter a good body, if they choose it by sinning, I think is what you're saying, is that a dangerous belief to have because not everyone is Braxton. Not everyone is healthy like you and can roll your eyes and be like, of course it didn't enter my child's body. I love my child, but can everyone think like, is this not an unhealthy belief that we read

in Visions of Glory or these other books? Yeah, I think mentally, mentally it comes into, you know, a little bit, for the back of, lack of a better word, a little bit crazy. And so mentally, Lori, I think, is maybe on the borderline of going over the edge. She's sitting on the fence of going crazy and reality and life. I think she was on the fence on that. I never saw her as being crazy into all of this, but maybe she was sitting on the fence and Chad kind of pushed her over the edge on the crazy side.

And so maybe that explains why, okay, I accept that my children had evil spirit. and other zombies. What I personally think, and we, Lori and I talked about this several times on the phone and in person that she knew the seven years of tribulation was going to be horrific. She knew it. And I talked about it all the time and how bad it'll be. And she always said she didn't want her kids to experience that. Do you?

Would you want your kids to experience that? And you can't protect them in that. If we have no government, lawlessness, an EMP, and if we have an EMP in this country, let me tell you, in the first year, 90% of America is dead. In the first year, we go back to the 1800s, and it'll be just horrific. And she didn't want that for her kids. No parent on this planet. I don't want it for my kids. Nobody was.

So I think deep down, she thought she was protecting them maybe and not letting them go through it. says the earthquake's going to be in November, October, November, and your kids are going to have to deal with this. She didn't want that. Now he adds on, well, they're now zombies, and you don't want them to deal with it. So I think maybe she felt she was doing the right thing and not letting him have to go deal with the second coming and horrible things are going to happen, and to her children and they have to deal with it. So I think she felt she was being taken the power away from everybody else and her children and having them to go through this and taking their lives because she didn't want them to go through it. That's how I think about it. Maybe that explains

something about her and what she did. Okay. Okay. You know, So visions of glory. I have concerns listening to it. I see a lot of Lori and Chad's belief system in the book. A couple things for our audience to understand. This is still, I would say, a popular book among like-minded people like you. Is that fair to say people that have your interest in prepping or believe in sort of that these days of tribulation and the collapse of the financial institution? You know, all this stuff.

Book of Revelation. So there's a bit of a political. I feel like there's a little bit of a political vibe to it too. We'll get into that in a minute. Okay. But you go to, again, I don't think it's something discussed in church. And I'll share you my communication with Tom Harrison here in a second because he sent me something. but I'm on Facebook groups that discuss this book.

I'm very respectful in these groups. I appreciate that they allow me to be there. But people believe it literally. Many people believe this literally. There's actually a post where people write, do you believe this is literal? And people say, yes, yes, you believe it's literal. The things in this book are going to happen.

The book has high reviews on Amazon, thousands. Really? Thousands of reviews. I think over four stars. Tom Harrison faced excommunication for this book in 2014. I actually have, he sent me a letter he wrote in order to not be excommunicated for this book. I did hear about that. Okay, yeah.

The book, he starts the book by referring to a dear friend that's an apostle, who I know who that is. That's Neil Maxwell. Neil Maxwell was in his ward. That's his congregation. So in other words, they're forced to know each other because they go to church together. They live by each other. So one of the 12 apostles who's now deceased is Neil and Maxwell.

And he refers to him throughout the book as his dear friend. And the first thing he writes is I told Neil Maxwell, my dear apostle friend, about my visions. And Neely Maxwell told me pretty much not to share it. At least that's how I read the beginning of the book, not to share it. So now here's a book of my vision. Well, it was. He said to prepare it until what the time was right. Something, I can't remember what it was, but he, oh, he was given a time that, I don't know if a celestial being came to him and said it's time to write the book or what. It was something like that. I don't know, but it was after Neely Maxwell had passed. Yeah, it was a book.

After this experience that he wrote the book, it was several, several years. Yeah. Here's the letter. I will definitely not read the full letter, but I do want to discuss some things with you. Oh, I don't bore everyone with all of it. It's a three-page letter. Signed by, let's show you. Oh, where's the last page? Oh. Signed by. Okay, it's blurry. I have the blur filter on. This book probably more than anything else, huh? What did you say? I said, was this book more of a curse to him? I don't know. No, I think he, I think he's proud he wrote it.

Okay. I know, I know that he was meeting with Julie Row and Chad in his office. So I've heard that from multiple sources, by the way, not from Tom. But I've heard from multiple sources very close to Tom and very close to Chad, that he was meeting with Chad and Julie Row. And in this letter, he had to, so he was originally receiving financial benefit from this book and was speaking at these conferences. These conferences I mentioned, I think it was before preparing to people was like created, but like. Yeah.

Preparing to people before John Pontius died of cancer, John Pontius would interview him and introduce him as Spencer, Tom Harrison. And that's sort of what got the attention of the brethren who then he faced excommunication. And they pretty much told him, you need to disavow the book. And you need to, you need to not be associated with anymore. Like you can't make financial. You can't have any financial say. And you need to stop speaking, which she's done a decent job of that, I think. but he does write that he says,

I don't want to give the impression I'm throwing John Pontius under the bus. However, I can only be responsible for that which I actually relayed to him and experienced for myself the remainder of John's work and capacity for writing and his placing my experiences into appropriate context and timeline, you know, is on him, which I felt he was kind of throwing him under the bus there and a dead man can't talk.

Right. You know, so I didn't think, that was very fair. But the part I wanted to write was, I disclose that I am Spencer, the person who the majority of my account, of this account, is written about. I have been asked here to discuss the origins and my present feelings associated with this book. This is March 23, 2014. He explains how he met John. He shared his experiences with John. He sees far more clearly that it would have been a better to follow the council of elder Neil Maxwell, a member of our ward, when he said to me, in quotes, brother Tom, do not try and interpret these things or read into them. He counseled me

that I should wait and see and experience these things in proper timing of the Lord. Then he states, from the start, I do not, or have not seen myself or visions of glory. Wait, let me repeat that. I want to get that right. From the start, I do not or have not seen myself or visions of glory the book as attempting to speak for the church or saying this is in any way doctrinal or a true account of what we as a people have in store for us. It was and is experiences given to me alone, not meant to be generalized into what will happen to the church or people as a whole. I believe much of it is a metaphor or analogy and should be taken as such. That's what I wanted to read you because as you point out, you see some things as literal,

but here he is sort of denouncing the book to his leadership. I want to create that context. This is 2014. I want to reiterate the context in which he's writing this to be fair. But he's saying that it's a metaphor or analogy. And he sent that to me a year ago when I started asking him questions. Do I send you a copy of the letter? Yes.

Yeah. Well, like I said at the beginning when you and I talked, you and I can go to a movie and see the exact same movie, interpret it differently. So when I read these books, you know, it's their interpretation of what they saw. It doesn't mean it's literal to me in any way. And I think Lori and Chad and a lot of those people took it as literal to them. And then there's gaps, of course, in that when you do. that there's gaps and they kind of filled in the gaps with their own ideas and on ideology and from there it really went offline okay you know what i'm saying i think so i want to clarify it because i

do want to genuinely understand when you say you believe it's literal you're not saying that there isn't metaphor and analogy in the book it's his experience yeah it's not doctrine It's not doctrine. They thought they looked at it as doctrine. That's where you go. A lot of people do, I think. Not you. Not you.

You can't. You have to look at as entertainment and enjoyment. And I like it. He says he saw the future. I kind of believe he did. And it's his interpretation. Well, I can take that and look and say, okay, Bragston, if that's his future, you know, be prepared for this and have this and that.

But I'm not going to take it as scripture. and I'm like, this is how it is for me in my life. They did that. But like I said, when you do that, you have little gaps and you kind of fill it in with your own ideology. And I think they did that. So they took it a little bit above and said, okay, these bad spirits entering people's bodies are,

he didn't call it, but we're going to call it zombies. And you can't overcome being a zombie, so you have to be put to death. You know, they just did, I think they did something like that. I think Chad did something like that. Maybe they did all together and talked about it and it came up with the same idea. I'm not quite sure. But anybody that takes any of these books literal and takes it as doctrine and gospel,

your way off line, off key. Okay. Thank you. I know I've kept you already longer than I said. I still have some questions for you, but can I just share some? What did Adam want to ask me? Or you to ask me, because he had to ask me. So what did he want you to ask me?

He wanted me to ask you about your book and your prediction about the end of the world when you think the end of the world might be. It's funny. And because I even talk about that, that I think the first chapter was, you know, I said, I think it was in Matthew. Somebody will correct me on this. but it was nobody knows the time that Jesus Christ will come. Nobody knows it. Not even the angels in heaven know it. That's true.

That's great. I don't want to know that day. I want to know the seven years of tribulation before there. So I said, let's have fun and predict and guess the dates. You know, we're not going to try and decide when Jesus Christ comes. We just want to know the tribulations and the years of that. And, you know, all these books, they all, they don't have a date. but they all kind of predict kind of a time.

And I've never done that. I've never wanted to say because when you start telling people what you think the future is, it's the worst thing you could do because it won't come true. It's your ideology. I mean, honestly, it could be this next year. It really could with the way of the world's going. It could be this next year.

A lot of these books talk about a presidential cycle. And it could be this. next year. I mean, look at it with Trump running again and everybody that wants Trump in because they feel that the election was stolen from them. And then like me, I have one vote. And if you steal that one vote, I'm not going to let you steal it again. And I think a lot of people are thinking that. And so, and this administration and this government now isn't going to let Trump in no matter what. the only other people that had their presidential competition arrested was Mao,

Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler. They had the opposition arrested. And so you could say with what's going on in the world today, that tribulations can start this next year. We could have a full on war because of if Trump is, if he's cheated out of election. and all his, the people that want Trump in can start a civil war. We don't know.

So that can start it off. It could be 10, 20 years in the future. I really don't know. But I like to be. Yeah, I worry about a civil war. I'll be honest. Yeah. We have a very divided country right now.

Very. Were you at the Capitol on January 6th? I was at the Utah Capitol on January 6th. The Utah Capitol. Yeah. Okay. I used to give tours of the nation's capital. It was a heartbreaking thing for me to see what happened in there.

Yeah, it was sad. So you're at the Utah Capitol in January 6th. Yeah, I did an interview up there for the radio station or, yeah, at the TV station. Okay. There was in sort of being concerned about the stolen election. Yeah, but I wasn't there holding flags. I wasn't, you know, chanting. Me and a buddy went up there kind of a support to the Constitution.

And I did an interview up there about it and how I felt about it. And it wasn't really like, oh, I want this whole thing torn down. And Trump was really truly elected. I have my own personal beliefs on the whole thing. and what went on with that. But it was my first kind of demonstration of my First Amendment. Does that make sense? I've never demonstrated my First Amendment and I felt I got to do it there.

So, yeah, I went to the U.S. capital of Utah. Not the U.S. America capital, the Utah. The Utah, yes. And they look very similar. The Utah Capitol was built to look like our, Capital in Washington, D.C. Just a little bit smaller. Yeah, just a lot smaller.

Yeah, you know, Chad, also in the speech we have, that he gave the day he met Lori at the Preparing of People Conference in St. George that we have at Hidden True Crime, that he actually mentioned the presidential elections and shadow government of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. and then that it was a miracle of God that Trump was elected. Of course, this was back in 2018 that he gave this speech. I've seen Obama there. I've seen Hillary Clinton there. They're not going away.

Whether they get reelected or they just continue their parallel shadow government, I don't know. But they are part of the coalition. And that's really what they tried to do the previous eight years before Trump was elected. And I do believe President Trump, it was a miracle that he became president. Otherwise, we would probably be headed right into these tribulations. Would you say that's a like, sort of similar like-minded belief among the prepping community?

He's getting all that from, I can't remember now all the books are bleed into me together. but one of the books talks about that and having there was a prophecy that the second coming started when there was a president that wasn't of European descent so and Barack Obama is not of European descent so they automatically assumed it was Barack Obama and now I remember Chad saying, oh, that God was answering the prayers and didn't start the second coming with Barack Obama. And that's why Trump was elected. I mean, something ridiculous and stupid. But all that is about Barack Obama and that being the last president of the United States was all because of a book. It'll pop in my head which one it was. Yeah, I would be very curious. And if we can't think of

here i'd love to hear but yeah yeah um i would love well i'm i'll tell you right now what yeah look at that thank you yeah i can always edit this so that you know once you get it or whatever my glasses my old man glasses here because i do i do believe that chad took everything from a lot of places including visions of glory you know i do believe he took everything from other people he was very he was the opposite of creative. No, he was. That's all he did was take it from all these books and put his own thing together

and then called it his own kind of, which was a charlatan. Did you ever read Sarah Mene's book? That's who I thought Michelle McDermott was when he mentioned her. I was thinking of Sarah Meney, and I do know about her. I've never read her book.

She's the one that writes about how she overcame and was able to forgive someone in her family for sexual abuse. Is that correct? It was very powerful book. I loved her book because of that. It was very powerful. And she wasn't LDS, but after this, she sought out religion and it was the Mormon church that she said was the true church. I found it very interesting.

I think she's passed on now. Oh. It moved to you, but her book was good. Yeah, I, yeah. I believe there were other people discussing. Were these books popular in your family in general? Was it just you and Lori? No.

Just you and Lori? Yeah. I mean, Summer was a little bit involved in it. My brother, BJ was a little bit involved in it, but not like Lori and I. Okay. And Alex seemed to get involved. Yeah. Alex is another story with all that.

See, Alex was always, look, Alex had a rough life, a really, really hard life. And a lot of sexual sin in his life. He just couldn't get on the straight and narrow path. He just had a very turmoil life. He just couldn't get his sense of being. He was always like that. Now, when Chad came along and told him, him that he was the angel layman and Lemuel in the first book of Nephi, right?

When they were beaten Nephi with a stick and an angel came down and stopped them, and why are you smiting your brother, your younger brother with a rod? Correct. That was angel, I can't remember the angel, but he was told that he was that angel. That was him in a past life. Oh, wow. And he was a protector. And now he's on this earth because you come to earth several times and gain experience,

which I like to think of that as a good idea. I got it right here. This is President George Albert Smith's vision. Okay, it wasn't a book. It was a vision from President George Albert Smith. He was a prophet of the other page. And he said in. There will be a non-white president leaving office.

Okay. The Sherman, the blood moons. She's adding that in there. But he said that the new president will not take office. So basically the non-white president. He's saying that because I don't think he was saying it's a black president. He was saying of not European descent. Right.

And we're all here in America of European descent. Well, Barack Obama's not from what everybody says. He's from Kenya, right? That's his, not that it was born there. I'm not going to go there. I'm just saying that is his heritage is Kenya, not European. And so Albert Smith said a non-white president leaving office, meaning a non-European. And the new president that will be elected will not be able to take office.

he'll go through an election, not take office, because the country will be destroyed before he takes office. So that's what that was. Okay. You know, I googled just now because I wanted, I was like, I'm pretty sure he's part, I mean, English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, German. Yes, he's African American. He's a wide ancestry. But he does have European heritage. Yeah, well, that's what they just, that's what he says.

But it's how they're interpreting this. Well, so they're thinking, you know, whenever you see something, what was that in that late 1800s? When you want to know the future so bad and you see a non-white president. So you're saying, oh, well, that's it. He doesn't have European descent. Well, he does because his grandmother was white and she's of European descent. So the next thing people are saying, not from any of these books. In the circles, I hear, because everybody likes to predict that Joe Biden will not finish this term.

Camila Harris will be president. And she is not of European descent. Oh, wow. I don't know if that's true. I've never looked it up because I've never cared to. But these are the political beliefs going among the circles. Well, just that they're just trying to interpret his. George Albert Smith's specific prophecy here.

Right. And saying that's what's going to happen. Biden, which who knows, honestly, he can drop dead tomorrow as old as he is. And then Kamala Harris says, we all could. And then she will, the next president will be elected but never take office. I don't know. I don't know if she has any white or European descent. I don't know.

But there's a lot of superstition. per se around presidents and the presidential cycle. Yeah. Uh-huh. Okay. Okay. Okay, we'll go back. We're done with that. Yeah, no, thank you.

I want to play a couple of these, you know, just to explain where I see some similarities between Lori's belief system and visions of Lori. This is the one where I feel like it kind of implies a lot of the similar beliefs of Lori and Chad. And I know you've read this book, so I'd love your take. Okay. By this time, every translated person had his or her own portal, but there was a learning curve to using it. For an inexperienced person, they could only travel so far, and would have to walk or obtain other transportation to go beyond that. Some newly translated people would go out on their missions, and then become overwhelmed by what they saw,

and with fear or sorrow in their hearts they could not return via the portals, and thus pollute Zion. They had to begin their journeys back to Zion afoot. awaiting the time when they could regroup their faith and overcome their fear so that their portals could bring them back home. All of us began serving the Lord in this way, with little knowledge of what we were doing. We all went out and taught and blessed those to whom we were assigned, and then brought them home by boat, on foot, or by whatever means were available. As we learned how powerful our gifts were,

and as by greater faith and greater experience in obedience, we obtained full use of the translated state, We began to be able to bring the pure among them through the portals directly into Zion. Those whom we gathered this way were perfectly pure in heart prior to our coming to them. Any self-interest or impure desire would simply stop the portal from working, and we would have to leave them to find their own way to Zion. Even for us, the first citizens of Zion, this was our journey, the systematic stripping away of everything we possessed,

and everything we thought we needed to survive. It was this process that had purified us and taught us how magnificent life is with total confidence in our loving God. It was the only way to learn this exalting form of purity. Those whom we found ready to join us, the very elect of God, had submitted to this purifying process already during the course of their lives, and we brought them to Zion singing songs of everlasting joy. These pure hearts were the ones whom Isaiah proclaimed we would bring back on our shoulders into Zion, singing songs of everlasting joy.

These did not sleep or slumber, or come in haste, and did not unlatch their shoes. We brought them through the portals with joy into Zion, but they were the vast, vast exception. We also learned that agency was forever in force, and being translated did not eliminate the possibility of incorrectly using our agency. I don't have knowledge of any translated person turning to evil, and losing their status and their salvation. But I did hear of a few who learned by hard experience that they had to diligently maintain their stature of righteousness

or the gifts and the portal would cease to work. Oops, and I was still going. But, oh, wow, you get the point. I think it was portals, translated beings, and of course, forgive the like AI voice. They could have gotten a better voice there. I think there's two things I'd love to talk about. Please.

Was the translated beings. Please. So when you read the book, that is really, really an awesome thing. For any Christian, they know what translating is. You translate and you turn into more of a spiritual being, more of your own spirit. Because we can't meet God in a physical body. it's in a spiritual body that we can meet God. Jesus Christ is different.

This is God I'm talking about. And so translated beings are closer to that. Lori always talked about she's going to be translated. She's going to turn. Now, in Spencer's book, he talks about him through the book. He's slowly translating into a translated being. That weird. He's slowly morphing into a translated being in his journey.

where he stopped needing food for substance. And he thought more clear. He had more energy. He felt younger, which is all true things as a translated being. I mean, think about it. You know, the human body isn't weighing you down with its limitations. And Lori talked about her being translated, that she was slowly. A lot.

Yeah, she felt she was slowly translating. to weird, Lori wasn't even eating. She was like, I don't need food anymore. And she did that in jail too. And I'm like, how long before she gets hungry and realizes she's not translated? But I think kept it going. That, I accuse her, again, for lack of a better word, going crazy a little bit, her thinking she's translated.

She wanted to be so bad that she was trying to convince herself. that she was translating. Okay, almost delusional, maybe. Yeah, so her mental capacity, not mental capacity, her mental being on that, I think she was mentally not thinking correctly, and her mental health was deteriorating, that's a better word, her mental health was deteriorating, and thinking that she was being translated.

Now let's talk about the portals. I happen to believe in that quite a bit. Really? Yeah. Well, I've never heard of portals until this book, I want to say. Really? A lot of books talk about it. Not these six books that you and I are talking about it,

because this is about the Mormon religion and that. But a lot of books that I've talked to, I've read about near-death experiences, talk about porals. And a portal is something in the spirit world, but we build ourselves. You built one for yourself. I built one for myself. And the portal is the way we get from heaven, the spiritual world to earth. We don't just fly through space.

We have a portal that transports us. And it's personal. It's personal to us because we made it. Nobody else can be given this portal and use it. So we have our own portal. So that's what Spencer's talking about in his business. book. Now the portal isn't just between heaven and earth, but he was using it in earth time. Like portal to, I think it was the North Pole or south. He was like a lot of carsed in Canada going on

in his book. Yeah. He was up in. He would portal from different places on earth. And he had to go to different places and he used his portal. And a portal only worked if you were righteous, which I believe to. and you can use it for other things. You know, God is a time traveler, and he does it through a portal. He doesn't just fly through space. He has a portal also. And he travels through space, and we know that, and through time, because he's shown people the future and he showed them in the past in the Book of Mormon

and in the Bible. And so we know he's a time travel, and he does that through a portal. So I actually believe that we each have our own. personal portal. And we'll use it again once we died because we used it to get here on earth. Now, can we use it as human beings? No, you have to be, I think, like Spencer was partly translated, and he could start using his portal. It's a special gift that we've built ourselves to come to Earth. So what do you think of Chad and Lori using portals to visit one another in each other's closets? Because that's sort of this ongoing joke.

I think that's completely mental health. I think that's completely mental health. and her children visiting her and all that stuff. It's just a mental health decline of hers. Do you think that a portal could actually do that in the days of tribulation, transport people to different parts of her? I get translated being. Translated is you're a human body translating into a spirit. Now, let's talk about this in the second coming.

a lot of people will be alive when Jesus Christ comes. And they will be translating or a translated being, I think. Oh, shoot, I lost my translet on this, what I was going to tell you. Anyways, darn it. I'm glad I'm not the only one because I just... Just ask me another question about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Portals, do you believe that...

You were telling me about what a translated being is. That's really helpful because I don't think a lot of people understand. And then are you saying then when we're translated or when one is translated, they can use the portal to, like, could that be feasible? That Lori could go into her closet and use a portal she created to go visit Chad. If they were being and doing something righteous, something, a work of God. Yes, but she's not doing, she's not righteous and she's not doing anything for God. So no. That's completely, her mental health decline. This is, this is a big question I want to ask. And it's funny because this is a major book of revelation. I feel like most Christian religions believe in the $144,000.

Yeah. I've asked many, many people, including LDS, what the 144,000 means. So what Braxton are the 144,000? The 144, gosh, I hope I get this right. This is what I've been taught and learned, but the 144,000 isn't, a lot of people think there's only going to be 144,000 left here on Earth when Jesus Christ comes. And that is not true. The 144,000, is you have the 12 tribe of Israel. And what is that? There's 12,000 people in each tribe. So the Jewish tribe has 12. The Ephraim tribe has 12,000. These are 12,000 people of each of the 12 tribes that are kind of going to be leaders and teachers of the rest of the people.

So I don't know how many people they're going to be here when Jesus Christ comes. 10 million, 100 million, I have no idea. But the 144,000 are kind of leaders and teachers of the rest of the people. And so going back to one of the first things you said, wiping the wicked from the earth, is that what happens before the second coming? Yeah, that's the seven years of tribulation. And the righteous survive and the wicked are destroyed. Yes.

The righteous are taken off the earth And the last thing that happens to this earth Is another planet comes extremely close to it And burns it And the whole planet as it turns just burns Completely everything Every tree root, every living organism, everything The rapture is where everybody is taking off this earth

And goes into heaven right before the avarian And the very wicked that are left will be burned to a stubble. You want to read a really good book. It's called, And the moon shall turn to blood. You know what? I will text it to you after this,

and it's about the Noah. And you know all the things that happen. Not Noah. Moses? Thank you. I know. I get those two mixed up a lot. do that's probably maybe he mean the moasosos right the frogs and the l coming down and burning all the

crops and the red sea splinting you know um it all correlates with how this earth would act if another earth came very very a planet came very very close to earth and it would have a gravitational polar world split like the earth in half like the equators and pull the waters apart and then a lightning strike would hit between the two and release it and all the oceans would go back up. And he did a correlation of that with Moses and the second coming. And it's awesome. A lot of people don't know about that book. It was given to me as a gift for my wife's parents. And I read that and I loved it. It was really interesting. I will send it to you in a text. You've got to read it. It's pretty interesting. I will. Thank you. I appreciate that, Braxton.

Let me play this other thing. This was an interesting. part of visions of glory. Okay. The most common was an assignment to use the portal. The most common was from Jesus Christ himself. My office was in the temple and only one door separated us. If he needed me, he came to me through that door. I always knew when he was coming.

I never went from my office into the Holy of Holies. The second way was by a calling from the prophet or one of the apostles. These calls were to more local servants. us, dealing with some need within their stewardship. They could have gone themselves, and often did through their own portals, but delegation is a true principle, and others were often sent. The third way I might use the portal was by a prompting from the Holy Ghost. This usually happened when I was initially sent by Jesus Christ to begin a work. I would then return to Zion, and the Holy Ghost would prompt me when I needed to return to them to rescue or assist them

in continuing their journey to Zion. As my spiritual maturity grew, I found that I needed less and less to see or preview my mission through the portal. My faith and ability to receive revelation and to be guided in the moment became much more powerful than sight or prior knowledge. This was to actually have the mind of God. I think it was the very beginning that I was most interested in, where it says that Jesus Christ had an office next to him in the temple and that they would portal to one another. Is Jesus Christ going to, is that a thing? Jesus Christ is going to be here? No, I don't think so.

Because he comes during the Second Coming. Now, but that makes sense of a portal between his office. A portal basically isn't a door jam and he's going through the next door. The portal could be 100 billion light years away. And he's using the portal to go to Jesus Christ and get his information and come back to his office. The Holy of Holies is a room that they have in the temple. And supposedly, the Holy of holy is where the prophet prays and gets guidance from Jesus Christ. Because really, the Church of Jesus Christ is the Church of Jesus Christ, and he's the one directing it. So the prophet gets his,

when he prays, he prays in the Holy of the Holy and that's where he gets Jesus Christ answers. So that makes sense to me that he has that. The portal he has to go through, isn't a door, Jim, like I said, and going to the next office where Jesus Christ is. He's probably going to heaven or the spirit world, the celestial kingdom. I'm not quite sure, but he's going where Jesus Christ is to get direction. Okay. Does that make it? It does make sense.

Yes. Thank you. I hope I'm reading this right of Spencer's book. You hope what? I hope I'm interpreting that right. Well, as he stated himself, it's a metaphor and analogy, which means I think we can all interpret it the way. Yeah. And that's how I interpret it.

So Lori and Chad interpreted it the same way the porals. They just assume that they are being translated, turning into a spirit, and their body is turning into a spirit. Where you die and leave the mortal body here on earth and the spirit goes to heaven, they feel they're turning into a spirit with the human body, which people will do the very righteous. That's not Chad. I want to go back to Alex really quickly because you said some things that were interesting about him. You said he had a very, very hard life. You mentioned his sexual sin, which I've heard that from other people. But why was his life in general hard?

He didn't really, he was like a nomad and really had no direction. He got married once shortly. He didn't have a path. And we all have a path in life, right? after high school we go to college we find the girl of our dreams we marry her we have a plan of a career

how many children I'm going to have we all have a plan and Alex really never had a plan he may have he just didn't follow one so he was really all over the place there was a lot of sexual sin in his life and he had a hard time with that the Mormon church well, all Christianity is pretty, follows the Ten Commandments.

But the church is really strict on the sexual sin, and he just, he really had a problem with that. So he really felt like maybe I'm going to hell. I'm not going to make it to heaven. I've tried so hard. I keep failing. I keep falling on my face. We all do as humans. I think he just took it really, really hard.

And Chad comes along. and him and Lori look at him as a savior, almost as a prophet. He's a false prophet. And in the second coming, the Bible talks about many false prophets. Well, that's Chad Daybell. He came in as a false prophet. And he's telling Alex, you know, you're forgiven. You're going to be forgiven.

I forgive you for all this. And we could start fresh. well, anybody that's had a hard life and feels guilty of all the stuff they've done, that sounds pretty awesome, you know. And this is just one of many of your lives. So the church doesn't talk about this at all, having more than one life. And they felt, and I'm not quite sure why, and I have no proof of this, but other than what they've read, I have no proof that they actually read in of this but they felt we had many lives which when you sound you know why we came to this earth is to gain a body and gain experiences because we chose Heavenly

Father's plan you know Satan had his plan of coming to this earth and he'll make everybody be good and go to heaven and Jesus Christ plan was have everybody come to earth, screw up, but I will give them a Savior, which is Jesus Christ, and repent of our sins and make it to heaven. And some people won't. Well, a third of the host of heaven went with Satan because he promised them he would make them return to Heavenly Father and be a God. Jesus Christ said, all the people that here on earth, all of us here on earth chose Jesus Christ's plan. Right? Right.

This is LDS doctrine that you're sharing. This is not. Yes, this is all Christianity that we chose Jesus Christ planning here on Earth. But LDS doctrine, though, theology really focuses on this, I think. Yeah, it does. It does. And so Lori and Chad and Alex thought they had multiple lives. They've been here on Earth several times.

and Chad told them that his sins are forgiven, that he was actually a protector in other lives. He was an awesome, awesome advocate for Jesus Christ and God and protected people that needed it. And he was a superhero. Basically, he was a superhero in another life. Well, that makes you feel pretty good from somebody who you think is a prophet and talks to Jesus Christ daily.

Right. And so it made Alex feel good. And so they said, hey, Alex, you need to protect Lori, because that's why you were here put on this earth at this time. And you need to do this and that and that and this. And he did it. He did do it. He felt like they were forgiving him for his sins and he was here. He had a purpose and a mission.

All of us here on earth, you know, we don't know our purpose and our mission. We just kind of float through life and go through our experiences. Alex was told his purpose and his mission, and he just did what he was told. Okay. Thank you for sharing about Alex a little bit with us. The whole thing is so tragic. I can't imagine. Well, let me ask you this.

You gave Lori the Visions of Glory book, correct? I think if I remember right, because this was like in 2010, I think I called her and I'm like, you've got to read this book. I pretty sure I did. You recommended it. It was a long time ago. I recommended so many books to so many people. I don't. I can't say I did.

But yeah, I remember it as that way. I'm like, you've got to read this book. Did she ever introduce you to any book? Yeah, but there were books I've already read. Okay. You're like, I'm so ahead of you, Lori. Yeah, I never said that. But yeah, she did.

She called me a couple times. She's like, you got to read this book. And I'm like, oh. okay, you know, I'm like, yeah, I read it. They're done that, Lori. Yeah, I did. Jump on board. Do you believe in multiple probations then?

We were just talking about that. I want to say yes and no. Now, we've never been taught that, but also I think about it like this. If I'm here, because God, I want to be like God, we all do, want to be like God. How can I have one earth experience and know everything? I can't. I grew up in an awesome home. My parents are still married. They still love each other. I grew up on middle class, tons of love and support. A friend I grew up with, his parents were on drugs. When he graduated high school, he went on drugs. He is an alcoholic. He floats around. He's kind of homeless. I still get word about from him. He's had a hard life.

Yeah, he's had a hard life. And so I'm like, he hasn't had any of my experience and I haven't had any of his. So how can I expect to know everything like God does, like to be like God? So maybe we do come here several times. I don't know. I don't want to say, no, we definitely don't. And I said, yes, we have multiple lives. I'm floating zero on that one.

Because our church doesn't preach that. No, they don't. No, they don't. Again, let me explain this. if the Mormon church did or any religion did, hey, you have multiple lives. Oh, good, because, gee, I've really screwed this life up. So, you know what? I'm not going to take the hard road and follow Jesus Christ's teachings.

I'm just going to do what I want and I'll be better in the next life. That's what we do. You know why? Because we're human. So no religion teaches that. Well, I think Buddhism, I don't know. Some religions, I think they talk about reincarnation coming back as something else. but not being a human over and over again.

There's lots of experiences of people that you could watch it on YouTube. There's a TV show about it, about people that little kids are talking about this other life they had, little little kids. And oh gosh, I can't remember the TV show. But like, for example, one little kid, he was like four years old telling his dad he was a World War II pilot and died in. his plane and he had four old nightmares and his dad's all like oh yeah well what plane did you fly and he's like it was a corsair dad and he's like that's not even a plane and then he said he looked it up and that was a world war two airplane of corsair and he goes well where did you fly and he goes i flew it off um the u s something this is a four-year-old kid he looked it up and it was an aircraft carrier that um the

corsair flew off of and um and he his dad asked him well who who shot you down? And he's like, it was a Japanese dad, of course, you know, stuff he would have never known. So,

I mean, so you see stuff like that and I'm like, yeah, maybe we do have multiple lives. I don't know. But Lori really believed that. She did. Let's go back to Lori's mental health on this.

Lori thought she had several lives and she was going to have several more. So again, she could have said, well, if I do take my children's life and become a murderer, that's all right, because I could make it up in the next. slide. Interesting theory. Interesting theory. Two comes into play. You know, if they have multiple lives,

you know, I already screwed this one up. I know Lori thought that because we all do. You do, I do, everybody listening to the podcast does. I already screwed up this life so bad. Why be better, trying to be better because it's a hard road. I'll just do what I want and I'll make it up in the next life. Well, I think maybe she thought that too. That's an interesting theory. Throw around. Do you think that, you know, she seems to still be denying any, if that was her theory, you'd think she'd confess and be like,

you know what, I did this, but I'll have another chance. And she's not going there. She's not. But again, going back to her mental state, she has to keep this up. Because if she doesn't, she has to admit. she murdered her children, her innocent children. Correct.

And she doesn't want to do that. So she, her mental health comes into play again. She has to keep it up because if she doesn't, she lets it, she loses everything and loses. Look, she has to admit what she did. And I absolutely, I absolutely agree with you. Neither would you. Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. and I think she's compartmentalizing it for survival sake.

Yeah, totally, because we do that as humans. It's called normalcy bias. I talked about it in a chapter in my book. You don't want the reality of life, so you normalize it. And then it takes all the boogeymans and the danger and the horribleness away. There's a perfect example of normalcy bias in 2001 during the World Trade Centers. A whole office building was across from the first tower and watched, actually watched the plane because it went by their building. They heard it, watched it, slam into there.

This is a story of a lady. And they all were screaming because they watched the whole thing and they were evacuating building number two. They all, their whole office went down the stairs because they, I don't know why they were going down the stairs. Because the elevators were closed or everybody was using them. They were going down the stairs. She got down three flights and said, oh my gosh. I forgot to turn off my computer. She went against everybody, back up the stairs to turn off her computer.

That's called normalcy bias. She didn't want to notice the horrific thing she just witnessed, or it's going to happen to her. So she normalized it as an inconvenience and went and turned her computer off because she was acting like it was a normal thing. So we avoid threats. I think Lori is kind of doing that, a normalcy bias. It's normal because she doesn't want to face the reality. Okay. Speaking of that, how has your family been? Have you guys been experiencing normalcy bias in this? Have you guys, are you guys okay? What? You didn't just know Lori. You knew Tiley. You knew Charles. You guys have experienced a tragedy. Your wife knew Lori. How are you guys doing? Better after the trial. I think that it really split my family. I mean, I am talking really split it.

And to where I couldn't talk to my mom about it. And I understood my aunt Janney wants to believe her daughter. Of course, she does because she doesn't want to think of this actually happened. So my mom is supporting her sister, my aunt Jenny. My mom's supporting her sister and saying Lori didn't do anything. This is all when Lori was arrested and they haven't found the bodies yet. Right. Pre-trial.

So my mom is 100% standing by her sister because she has to, you know. And I'm saying, hey, mom, this. This is the reality of it. And it got to where my mom and I couldn't talk about it anymore. My sister who agrees with me really couldn't talk to my mom anymore. So we kind of just didn't talk about it. And our kind of family split. Now that the trial's over and everything, I think everything's mending back together with the family.

And we can talk and be a whole again. But it's really, really hard, really hard for a while. Yeah. And then to lose these family members too. Absolutely. I mean, Charles was an awesome guy. He had us false, but like we all do, but he was an awesome guy and he didn't deserve to die. Of course, Tiley and JJ didn't deserve to die.

I didn't know anything about Tammy, but absolutely she didn't deserve to die. You know, everybody was a victim to this, including family that wasn't directly involved in it. victims to it. Right. And while your wife didn't ask to be part of this podcast, knowing though, that she knows Lori, how is she doing? She thinks the same way as I do. I love Lori. Lori is, has been just a great cousin in my life and all our experiences together. And I love her. And it absolutely breaks my heart of what she is going through because of her actions. And I know deep down, she realizes what she did she just can't face it and I understand that because she has to accept what she did and so she's going to deny it and still think she did something that was actually

righteous and the right thing but um it just breaks my heart and I pray for her every day and I pray for my aunt Janie and my cousin summer because they've gone through the ringer with this whole thing too. They're their products of the, they're victims also and they're products of what happened and what Lori did and chat date bill did. And it's just a sad deal for everybody all the array around. But my family is doing a little bit better. They are all, they are mending. I'm glad. Well, yeah, and you've even been able to speak out and I'm really grateful for the amount of time you spent with me tonight. You know, one other question, and if you want to do no common it's okay i don't know if rex and adam told you or you know i don't think adam's listen i only

think rex has but i did interview another cousin of yours megan connor and i don't know if you've listened but i i do want to give everybody the opportunity because she shared things about the cox family about the connor family if there's anything you want to say to that interview to say it but i don't know if you even know about it or what you want to share i didn't listen to it my cousin preston who's my age and Megan's brother, him and I are extremely close. We talk weekly. And so I knew all about it. He told me. Here's the thing. I love Megan. She was a great cousin too. But she doesn't know that much about the family. They lived in Connecticut and North Dakota. So we never saw them. I saw them growing up maybe a handful of times when they'd come out on vacation.

So they saw Angeny and Uncle Barry and spent time with Lori a handful of times through our whole childhood. So she really doesn't know the family all that much. Her biggest beef, I think, is the church. And from what I gather, I didn't listen to anything. It just snippets of what her interview was. but she has no virility to the family, really. But thank you, yeah, just for just sharing your perspective.

I always try to be fair and balanced, and I want that as they interview family members. I want everyone to be able to have a voice and to be able to share. What do you think happened to Alex? Do you believe that Alex passed away naturally? Like the autopsy does say, do you think there's more to it? Gosh, I really, really don't know. There's so many of what it should have could us with that. When he passed away, nobody knew any of the stuff that was going on.

So I think Aunt Janney had his body cremated, so they couldn't do any test. Zulimma is... His wife? Yeah, she's just really weird. I've never talked to her before. I didn't even know of her until this all went down. She could control the elements, allegedly. I heard those.

Again, how did Chad convince her that she had power to control the weather? It blows me away that he convinced these people of that. So, I don't know, some of the things that I heard during the trial, you know, that he could be the fall guy. I think he was at the very end realizing what he did that this whole this whole thing was a sham. I don't know. You know, that's my only personal opinion on that from what I heard from the courts, that maybe he was, I think he was starting to realize that this whole thing was a sham. But as far as a murder or dying natural, I really don't have an opinion on that.

I have no idea. I'd like to think that it was natural because then there's one less murder in the story. but honestly, I don't know. Fair enough. Yeah. Anything else you want to say that you feel like we haven't covered that you feel as important? No, everything I thought was important to you asked and we talked about. Yeah, I really value everything you shared. I have a lot of questions answered. Like I do, I feel a little bit more content.

I feel like I understand their belief systems a little bit more where it stem from. It's been helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, good. I'm glad. Hello, Hidden Gems. It's Lauren with Hidden a True Crime podcast. As a TV reporter, I learned the art of visual storytelling.

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