Hidden True Crime - BEYOND THE VEIL: Colby Ryan's Jailhouse call and David Warwick's testimony

Episode Date: July 28, 2023

Lori Vallow Daybell will be sentenced on July 31st, 2023 and Lauren is traveling to attend. HTC will livestream the sentencing on their YouTube channel http://YouTube.com/HiddenTrueCrime so make sure to subscribe. Lauren attended each day of Lori's trial, and was there when she was convicted of murdering her two children. While we prep for her sentencing, we've decided to share some never before recordings we made during Lori Vallow Daybell's trial, this one taking place three weeks into the trial, after her son Colby Ryan testified. 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. While Lauren attended Lori's trial and plans to attend her sentencing in July of 2023, the hosts continue interviewing and investigating what's Hidden, just as they have been for three years. You can get caught up by listening to our full 'Beyond the Veil" season. 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 has been reporting 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. DR. JOHN MATTHIAS is a licensed clinical and forensic psychologist with 30 years’ experience in both clinical and forensic work. He serves as an expert witness for the federal government and has consulted on numerous high-profile cases for District Attorney’s offices and defense attorneys in several states. In the forensic area, Dr. Matthias has developed expertise in personality assessments, hidden behavioral motivations, complex trauma and criminal psychology. In the clinical realm, he has worked with numerous victims. He received his Master’s degree in Marriage, Family and Child counseling, as well his doctorate degree, from the University of Southern California.  Dr. Matthias graduated with honors in philosophy from Princeton University, and he won the prestigious McCosh Thesis prize while there. In high school he graduated valedictorian from a large public high school in Chicago where he was chosen to participate in a ground-breaking valedictory study that continues to this day.  Dr. Matthias is an adjunct assistant professor in the University of Nevada Las Vegas clinical psychology doctoral program. He supervises UNLV doctoral students on forensic assessments, clinical case formulation, and various therapeutic approaches to clinical work. Contact them at [e-mail] WEBSITE: https://hiddentruecrime.com/ TO SUPPORT: https://www.patreon.com/hiddentruecrime https://paypal.me/hiddentruecrime https://cash.app/$hiddenTruecrime. 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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This week takes us back to the Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell case and are Beyond the Vail series. Thus, we've decided to share some episodes we recorded during the trial that we never published here on our podcast. This particular episode was recorded live in April, 2020. a few weeks into Lori Valo-Davelle's trial and the week that Lori's son, Colby Ryan, testified. Hidden, a true crime podcast. A forensic psychologist and a journalist explore the hidden motives behind unthinkable crimes while examining our deepest fears along the way. We have a really exciting hidden hour for you. John has told me that there's going to be a big reveal tonight. This is true. He's told me.

me this. A little sarcastically, but I think it's a bit of a different slant on the phone call with Colby. I listened to it. This is like the third or fourth time I've heard it. Finally, I think something kind of clicked for me today when I listened to it that I hadn't really seen before. John is one of the few people that had heard this phone call before court because he had sat and listened to it with Colby. I didn't know much about it. I'm the journalist and John's the forensic psychologist. So I come back and I know how to recap. I'm like, okay, this is what was said. This is what's important. Here are my life tweets. John comes home from hearing this phone call. And I say, well, what was in this phone call? He said, well, Colby was really angry. I'm like,

so tell me more. Right. Yeah. He never told me. We're looking at things a little differently. Yeah, he never told me that Colby wanted to hit Chad in the face with a shovel. He never told me a lot of the things that were said. I was really proud of Colby. So to clarify, I am going to trial every day. I have been going every day for three weeks now. We've been following this case for three years. It's become personal to us. We're so grateful to be able to follow this trial. We're going to talk about this phone call. And then I would like to talk about David Warwick. So I think the two biggest witnesses, though, that John and I want to talk about here tonight are. Colby, and Colby, specifically Colby's jailhouse call, which John has a huge reveal for us.

I don't even know this reveal. And then I really want to delve into David Warwick because I was definitely triggered. So I need to tuck that one out. All right, John, where would you like to start? Let's start with Colby. You mentioned that we have been following this case for a while and I know Colby personally. So, you know, I listened to the call again and to Colby's testimony and it was very emotional. I think every time I listen to that, it's very emotional. And I just want to set the stage a little bit for the call and say that it's important to understand with Colby, I believe that there's some prentification going on. And so what I mean by that is that sometimes in families, children will take on the role of a parent and they'll take on, especially the emotional role of

the parent. And I really feel like prior, at least prior to Charles, with Charles, it may have shifted a little bit, but certainly with Joe Ryan and Lori's previous husbands, I think Colby was her main person, her main relationship. And in that sense, Colby was very much parentified as a child. So I think he served this, he played this adult role for Lori quite often, at least emotionally. And my guess is that Lori really leaned on him more than a parent should for emotional support. I think that's important to know because it sets the stage for this call. It shows just how courageous this call is in the sense that parentified children in particular, they're usually not going to challenge their parent, the adult parent, as much as they might otherwise. So I think that in many ways,

Colby and Lori were extremely close and very, very emotionally close. So I think for Colby to do this, even though he's obviously an adult and he's married, I think for him to do this takes a lot of courage. And it's a very, you can tell. He's quite angry. but it's a very emotional call for Colby. And I just, so I just want to acknowledge that how difficult this was for Colby and how in some ways this means that he's had to separate more and more from his mother, obviously.

And this has created a lot of turmoil for him. But I really think that this is a parentified child. And I don't think in a million years, Colby would have imagined that he would have been standing up to his mother like this. And showing up in court and testifying against his mother. So, So I want to set the stage with that because I think it's important. This isn't just a call where these two people really dislike each other or there's a lot of conflict or right.

These are two people that were extremely close. And this was a relationship that was probably dysfunctional as most prerentified relationships are. But it was a relationship where there was a lot of emotional support given and taken, not necessarily always in a healthy manner. but to do what Colby did, I think it took a lot of courage and it took a lot of fortitude. And I think, you know, I give Kobe a lot of kudos for doing what he did. Yes. And I do want to say, as far as his testimony goes, his whole testimony, I was very impressed with him. He answered directly, specifically, with certainty, with confidence.

He did not go off on tangents. He did not sit and ponder and wonder. He answered most questions with a yes or no. he answered most questions. If he had to share a little bit more, it was one or two sentences, which is actually being an excellent witness for the court is to answer so straightforward.

And he did that. At one point, though, they did ask him, Colby, do you love your mother? And he said, yes. And then they said, does your mother love you? And he said, I think so. So he had some profound honest answers, I felt for him. Right.

I don't think you just stop loving someone, given their history. And even though everything's, changed. It's certainly been an unforeseen journey for Colby. It's been a difficult journey for Colby. And obviously, that doesn't mean that he doesn't still love her and he's still not heartbroken. He says that in the call that she broke his heart. So that's true. Yes. And I do think that Colby's testimony hit the jury hard. I don't think it could not be. It was very overwhelming. It was an emotional moment. Right. I don't know how it couldn't influence the jury unless the jury's

made of steel. It's a very human and emotional. call and between a mother and the son. I put Colby's jailhouse call on our YouTube channel as well, and you can listen to it there. Hello. Hello. Can you hear me?

Yeah. You're all the honey? You think you can hide for me? Probably because you murdered my siblings. Probably lying. It's a pugging you. Maybe you should understand. I didn't.

I'm sorry that you found that way. You didn't do anything, right? Mom, I've prayed for you in my worst moments. I have prayed for my siblings who you swore with me. We're okay. I thought I could trust you. I thought that you were a completely different person. I don't know.

I don't know if you were a mother. You can make judgments when you weren't there and you don't know what happened. How, what happened? Everyone's making their own judgments. Mom, you've been shoving Vs on my throat for a very long time. I'm going to talk to you. Hey, listen to me. I'm not mad.

Listen to me. Fine, listen to me. I sat there and prayed. I can't tell you the amount of pain that I felt from your decisions in Jesus Christ's name. It kills me. to watch you sit here and tell me this is a trial. It kills me

to watch you take the victims route and say that this shouldn't have happened to you. When you are telling that Chad Dayville came into your life and all of a sudden everything changes and I'm talking about my spirit feels of this.

I'm afraid. I just. I trust in you, I believe in every chance I could pass my own limitations as a human being. I pushed past all of everything to try to get to you to help my own mother. You will lie to me specifically to me more times than I can tell you to know that they're gone and you knew and my phone's being texted by my little sister who's not even alive my little brother

who's the sweetest little kid ever for what purpose can you tell me that this is God's will for my whole family including my stepfather to be dead after everything that you try to

come me. You can tell me right now that Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, is on your son. You tell me that with all the condition in your heart that Jesus Christ is on your side. Please. That can't tell you that. Say it. Say his name. Say that he told you. And you followed him on exactness because I have prayed for you. I sat there and tried my best to forgive

you and Chad and Alex and I was deceived and I was broken by my own mother. What are you doing? What are you doing? Let's unpack some of that a little bit.

Let's start with fairly early on in that conversation Lori says you weren't there and you didn't know what happened. This is going to be a perpetual theme in this call. She will repeatedly tell Colby that he wasn't there, that people weren't there, they don't understand, they don't know what happened. And we'll talk about that in a bit. But before we do, I think one of the critical moments in this call is he,

Colby asks Lori, he says to Lori, tell me that you have Jesus on your side. and she says, I can tell you that. In other words, she answers affirmatively. Very rarely in this call, does she answer anything affirmatively? But in that moment, she says, yes, I have Jesus on my side. She won't say his name, but she says that Jesus is on her side. So right away, we have this, she's playing her hand a little bit. She's telling us that she still believes everything that she believed before during this call,

that she does in a peculiar way she sees Jesus as condoning the murder of the kids, right? So, I mean, a lot of people have pointed out and told us over the past few years how crazy it is that if you see Jesus as signing off on murders and being fine with that, condoning murder, that obviously that's very contrary to how most people I think would think of Christianity. So right away, I think this affirmation that she can say that, yes, Jesus is on my side. He agrees with what we did here is okay. Right away, she's telling us that not only does she believe all this stuff and continue to believe all this stuff, but in many ways she's showing us how distorted her belief system is from, say, like a historical Christian viewpoint. or Mormon viewpoint, right?

She's deviating so far from the norm that in some ways, I think that's part of the issue here, is this becomes really hard to understand because she's so far on the extreme. You have to try to get into her mindset, and we'll kind of do that tonight. This is the first moment, I think,

that's really significant, is that he pushes her and forces her hand to acknowledge whether Jesus is on her side In other words, he's kind of pressing her belief system about Christianity. She says, I can tell you that. So she's basically saying that Jesus thinks that murdering all of these people and these children is, okay. To me, that's an incredible moment. It shows you how far down the rabbit hole she's gone and how extreme her beliefs have become

and how she won't relent. She won't relinquish in spite of the fact that the world has been looking at her and challenging her and her son is confronting her. Her son is in her face. She will not relinquish her belief system or she will not look at reality. That's where I start because it really shows that very little has changed. Colby's trying to confront her on this issue by saying essentially, you know, Mom, Jesus does not condone murder. But you are.

So what gives? Do you not see what you've become? And of course he can't make any headway. So this is really the moment where I think we see that very clearly. Colby is challenging her belief system, the belief system that he knew growing up when she was different and maybe not as extreme. And so I think this is an interesting moment to me. Some people are pointing out and it's something I brought up to you and maybe we'll get into this a little bit later. But she didn't really answer him.

You know, he continued this. You know, she said say he's on my side and then he said, say it. Right. Say that he did this, that this is his thing. And he kind of kept that theme throughout the whole call. And Colby's really religious. Laurie's really religious for good or for bad, mostly bad. But that's a part of their relationship.

And she, to me, never seemed like she was fully answering beyond this moment. She said he is on my side. But then as he pushed and prodded, I actually felt like she did avoid saying it so firmly. Well, she knows she's been recorded. You know, that's another interesting component of this. I think that this question about competence and whether she understands fully what's going on, she shows here she does because she's being recorded and she never plays her hand openly. I mean, we can read between the lines when she says,

when he says, do you have Jesus on your side? And he says, she says, I can tell you that that she does. She's not saying it, but she is saying it. It shows that she's aware. It shows that she's playing a little bit of a game with Kobe here in the sense that she's not going to really fully play her hand because she knows she's being recorded. Somebody who is incompetent and maybe floridly psychotic is going to have a lot more trouble understanding those nuances, by the way.

She understands those nuances. She goes up to the edge with Colby and she won't take, you know, she's obviously not taking any accountability, but she, she avoids crossing that line and saying what Colby wants. I think that's another interesting part of this phone call is that at least in this moment, she certainly seems to be aware and competent and more than capable of kind of playing this cat and mouse game with Colby. So that's something else going on here. I breathe to heaven and I said, you tell me, father.

They think they know what happened. They think they know what happened. Do you know that you told me? Everything. Do you know what you told me? Yes. Because you weren't there. You're right.

I wasn't there. I was kept in a laugh. And one day you will know murder. One day you will know what actually happened. You're right. Because you know what, Matt. And you know what, Matt.

We all will stand there with everything. You're absolutely right. He will convict the people who act in his name in pure black. This funny? This is funny? This is funny. You're laughing.

Like this is funny. How come your cameras on my mom? You don't want to look at me in the eye? Why can't you look at me? It's just me. I'm in my house alone. I love you. I always will.

One day you will see and one day you won't understand. you don't understand. Go ahead and hang up. See, how that works for you. You're going to hang up? I don't. I don't have anything else to say. You obviously don't know.

You weren't there. You weren't there. Summer wasn't there. My mom wasn't there. The police weren't there. The FBI weren't there. Rovey was there. Tyler and Jamie Long.

Yeah, and just what they know. They know exactly what happened. And they love me. And we are sealed together forever. They love me and they are fine and they do know the truth and I know the truth. And we're the only people that do. So you can judge me, Colby, all day long. Go ahead and judge me.

The whole world has. The whole world has judged me. They don't know and you don't know. You don't know what I've been through and you may even give a crap when they've been through. Nobody does. Except for me. I'm the one that knows. I'm the one that was in the hospital with Tiley Birch.

For hundreds of days watching her suffer. I'm the one that was there doing everything with JJ every day. I was the one who did it all these years. You did it all to throw it in garbage. They're not gone. You don't know what happened. You don't know what happened. Freaky matter what happened if they're buried in your new husband's backyard.

Tell me that matters what happened. You tell me that you did this in Jesus name, Mom. I have to hear that I am now. You believe it and you are not afraid. Every witness of Christ will scream his name when he comes back. So you are that person. I am that person. I am that person.

And we will come to you. Okay, yeah, because that's what it is. You don't even know. When I see about five in October, when I see about five in October, what did you tell me? What did you tell me? What lies did you see me? Why would you lie to me if you are so, if you're with the Lord and you've seen him? And I'm just talking purely to you.

And you've seen Jesus Christ. Where's the fear? Why would you tell me something? Why are you afraid? Why is everyone against you? Why is everything against my mom? You can be against me all you want. One day, we will all stand there with Jesus.

We will also have everything. Not for me. you're telling me that this was all done in light say it telling me that this was done in Jesus name you don't know what happens why why don't know mom oh because I was kept in the dark

to protect me you know who needed protecting my little dead siblings that's what you're protecting mom this is not a month later if you guys believe I was picking those kids in one second I would bring it into my home and I would have taken care of them. That's not even a question to me. Yeah, everything is.

You can't say that you know. Says it now. Where was my offer? What you did have everything for just a week. While me, Peter Griffin, run away together in Hawaii? How about that? If you had offered me, you would have known. You cannot sit here in life.

Like that's what everything is. That is not the truth. Okay. That's what people are. They were murdered. They were sitting there. And then you walk away. So,

You don't know. No, you don't know that. No, that is not what happens. That is not what happened. You tell me what happens. If you can tell me what happens, then I don't care. If you can actually swing it, then it's different. I would love.

But you can't talk to you about it. Mom, you've been saying that you've been wanting to tell me for a very long time, and you never say it. When I listened this again earlier today, and I keep hearing this banter, I keep thinking, I'm trying to figure out what Colby's thinking. And Colby, Colby sees this as murder. Yes. He sees this as probably Alex Cox or maybe Chad. You know, he's assigning a human being to these murders.

Yes. And so when I listened to it again, I started to figure out why they're not communicating and why this is a miscommunication. And so here's the, this is the big reveal. And I think for me, you know, for me, I see human beings as committing murder, right? Most of us do. Human beings kill one another. That's what they do sometimes.

Hopefully not that often. But when human beings are dysfunctional and angry and violence, sometimes that's what happens. But I realized that Lori doesn't see this as murder because Lori doesn't see these murders as having been. committed by a human being. The reveal is that Lori believes that the children weren't murdered. They were taken in a merciful fashion by an angel or angels or some translated being or something that wasn't human. And so they're not communicating because when Lori keeps saying, one day you'll understand

and you weren't there, like this whole thing about being there is really important. But because I think Lori doesn't actually see that a human being did this. I think even if Lori says or thinks it's Alex Cox, she thinks that Alex Cox is not human in the sense that he's a warrior and he might be translated. Right. During the blessing, we see how Chad interprets Alex Cox, how he perceives Alex Cox. And remember that when Lori and Chad were sealed, they both said that Jesus Christ was present. Correct. Lori's always talking about angels.

When Chad was arrested, Chad believed that the children, that the remains would be taken up to heaven or that they would be removed so the police wouldn't have any evidence by an angel. Although I will share one little scoop, Chad right before his arrest on June 9th, 2020, as police were searching in his yard

for JJ and Tiley's remains, which they were about to find, wired or sent, I don't know how he did it, but sent three of his children, $8,000 each. I'm prepping for an arrest. But you're right, there's another.

If you look closely enough, I think, and if you get into Lori's really delve into Lori's belief system, I think the thing that hit me today was the miscommunication here is that Lori doesn't see any of this as occurring between human beings. The Lori thinks that the kids were literally zombies and they weren't murdered. they were somehow released from their bodies and they were released by angels or translated beings that Lori doesn't see this drama as occurring

between humans in the human materialistic world. And I think that's where her smugness comes in. That's where when she keeps saying, one day you will understand you weren't there. Like what she's saying essentially is, you don't get my beliefs. You don't get Colby that they weren't murdered at all. They were just released or taken or whatever term she wants to use. So I think there's a fundamental miscommunication because Colby is like most of us.

Colby thinks that when you take someone's life in a violent fashion, you're murdering them. But Lori doesn't see it that way. I think Lori truly believes that this has to do with angels. it occurs on a spiritual plane. And so that's the miscommunication. When she says you weren't there, I think what she's saying in a way is, you can't see what I see.

You can't see the spiritual dimension that I can see so you won't understand. You can never understand. And it's hard to get into that mindset because it was hard for me to see it because I'm used to dealing with, you know, real life materialistic murder, which is exactly what happened here.

But that's not how Lori. This is murder. Yeah. This is murder, but that's not how Lori sees it. She sees it as something else. So when you use the term murder with Lori, it's not going to register. Because to her, this is not murder. This is, she said, Zolema said that Lori felt like the children being deceased was an act of mercy.

Right. That's similar in the sense that she believes these children are possessed. In fact, she says, and part of that will we just listen to, you don't know. She says, you don't know what they've been through, meaning the children. You don't know what they've been through. What she means is... This is the worst part for me. What she means is they're zombies, they're suffering, they're in pain.

Again, to us, it's counterintuitive because we don't live in this spiritual plane that Lori's on, but I think what she's saying is they've been through more than you can imagine. These kids suffered. They needed to be released, and they were released on the spiritual dimension or the celestial dimension by something that wasn't here. human. Even if that was Alex Cox, Lori doesn't see that as occurring in the human world, in the materialistic world. She sees that occurring in another dimension. And so I think that's where this becomes really confusing to a lot of people. Because to get into that particular

worldview, it takes some work. It took me, it took me some work. But I finally, it finally clicked for me when I, when I listen to this again, that these two are just, they're miles apart because Colby sees his siblings as real people that he interacts with and loves and wants to play with again. That's not how Lori sees it. Laurie sees these children as zombies. She sees them as existing in a different dimension and therefore being released in a different dimension. And so it's obviously a really peculiar belief system, but it's a belief system that's driving her and it's driving her communications and it's driving everything in her world. And it's what's leading to their inability to connect.

And they'll never connect unless Lori acknowledges that this was murder and not something else. I don't know what she would call it release. I don't know. Whatever it is, she thinks this is. She doesn't think this is murder. I want to go back to April Raymond's testimony, actually. April Raymond testified as well on Thursday.

April has a lot of stories to share a lot of things to say, but she pretty much stuck to how Lori tried to recruit her into the belief system. That she had been friends with Lori for a long time. They were in what was called the primary presidency together, meaning that they helped the kids that they learned of Jesus in a faith. They traveled together. They spent time on the beach together. Their kids were friends. They were all close, in other words. and that her belief system sort of changed and that Lori tried to then recruit April.

And April shared how she started telling her about the second comforter experience. She gave her this book, The Second Comptor, that all of a sudden she started talking about meeting Jesus Christ, being a gatherer, being 144. It had to do with Jason Mao, she said. She dropped Jason Mao's name and Thor's name and Chad's name. Anyway, she answered this question. She didn't believe it. and she told this to Lori. And at that moment,

Lori concluded that April was not ready to hear this message. Rather than thinking, oh, I might be wrong, you know, let me check my confirmation bias. Oh, a few people in my life are telling me that maybe this is bizarre. Lori just took it as, oh, April is just not ready for this higher message, this higher belief system. She has to be ready. and if she doesn't believe it, she's just not ready.

So as far as why didn't she tell Colby about it? At this point, Colby wasn't even a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Laudity Saints. He had left that church when he got married and joined his wife Kelsey's. I don't know if it was non-denominational, but he became what he refers to as Christian. I think more of a non-denominational. Let me chime in on that too quickly. So, you know, some people are more suggestible than other people. And some of that's temperamental.

Some of it is I could get into a whole. whole thing about beliefs and why people believe things. And that's probably best left for a later show. But in a nutshell, let me just say this really quickly, that there was a philosopher, David Hume, a Scottish philosopher, David Hume, who was probably the first person to really think deeply about the nature of beliefs from a philosophical standpoint. And his perception was that beliefs are essentially feeling, or they can be. But for some people, beliefs are feelings, for other people beliefs are more rational. There's something that's called justified true belief,

which is that exactly what it sounds, that some people step back from their beliefs and they have to make sense of them from a rational standpoint. In other words, they justify their beliefs based on reason. Other people are much more emotional, and they just cling to beliefs based on their feelings about certain things. And so I think in that broad sense,

some people are much more suggestible and much more susceptible to spurious beliefs, such as that the earth is flat, for example. You know, there are people that still believe that, even though the evidence is clearly against that. They believe it because it has to do, it's not rational, it has to do with something they're feeling. So for whatever reasons and whatever the context is and whatever the subject is, people really vary.

But people that are more susceptible to seeing beliefs as feelings are going to jump on beliefs much more readily if they somehow resonate with someone emotionally. Psychologists sometimes call this hot cognition. Hot cognition is when you have a set of beliefs or thoughts that are closely associated with emotion. And hot cognition essentially means that when certain beliefs get triggered or thoughts get triggered, that you're immediately emotional about it. So you can't really step back and assess it, which is kind of contrary to the whole

philosophical idea of justified true belief. beliefs, which is the ability to step back and look at your beliefs and examine them to see if they're logical and if they make sense, if they're empirically grounded, which means they're based on facts and evidence, right? Those are two very different ways of looking at the world. So the short answer is, do I know which Camp Colby's in? No, I don't know for sure, but my guess is that April Raymond, for example, is probably less emotional about her beliefs and more factual and in that sense she's less easily to persuade. Lori and Chad clearly would fall in the camp of being more emotional and more feelings

based about their beliefs. That's an important distinction to make in terms of evaluating that question. By saying Lori believes we're in no way excusing her, may justice be served. In fact, it's the opposite. By saying that she believes, I think we're holding her more accountable because the other thing about beliefs, I think there's a big question of philosophy about If you hold a set of beliefs just based on your feelings and they're completely irrational and illogical and they can create harm, do we have a moral and ethical obligation to then examine our beliefs and correct our beliefs so that they're not as harmful?

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Get started today. Do you have a moral and ethical obligation to examine these beliefs? Because people have died because of these beliefs, right? So that was the next thing I wanted to share. In court, every day of trial, there hasn't been a single day. that these beliefs and this belief system and people that believe these things have come up. This trial is an absolute examining of extreme religious beliefs. In the opening statements, they brought up extreme beliefs.

Every witness so far, not every, not law enforcement, but as far as friends, they have discussed extreme religious beliefs, even Colby's call April, dulemma, Melanie, David, people that aren't official, but just witnesses to what they saw happening. It's been about religious beliefs. You know, Melanie Gibb tries to claim she didn't totally believe, as does David Warwick. And you're right, John, that actually just drives me crazy. It makes it worse to me. Someone can have faith and still evaluate their beliefs based on evidence.

I think it's when that split becomes too extreme that it presents problems. You can have faith and you can be a believer and you can still evaluate evidence that's consistent with, unless maybe the faith, maybe if your beliefs are too extreme, it's going to be more difficult. But I don't think it's necessarily one or the other. I would agree with that. As someone that is a faithful person, I concur. As a journalist, I can really weigh evidence and even try to separate myself from my biases. Again, I think my insight earlier today in listening to this conversation again was that Lori does not, she really does not see this as murder. You know, what about this though? What about that day that she refused to see the children's

autopsies. As you said, she was disassociating. And, and you know, she did cry. She did cry while listening to Colby's testimony and seeing Colby. It was legit. Her face was red. She was dabbing her eyes with a tissue and dabbing it in not a very dramatic way, kind of lightly trying to, I think, save a little bit of mascara. She might have had on or something. The two most emotional days have been seeing her children's autopsies and for everyone in the court and the jury as well as Colby's phone call. I would say it's been the two most emotional. moments. Those are the two most factually based days, too, in the sense that those are both instances of significant evidence challenging her beliefs. So I think there's a lot of denial there,

and it's probably almost impenetrable her belief system. But in the two instances where there may have been a little bit of a challenge to her beliefs, yeah, she's emotional because it's probably the first time that her defenses have really been, I don't want to say, cracked a little. little bit. They've been challenged or they've been confronted. So that would explain why, right? That those have been the most emotional and factually based challenges to her belief system. And I agree. We're not taking away accountability by sharing this belief system in no way are we even saying she's incompetent. As people have pointed out, she manipulates people, she lies to people. She deceives people. All those things are still true. She dismisses people. She dehumanizes people. She

dehumanizes people. She allows people to be killed. She has a lot of confirmation bias, I see, where she wants something. And so thus, she'll create a belief system around it somehow to make it happen. But in some way, she strangely believes it. So again, by pointing out truth to some bizarre things, you're right, we're not taking away her accountability. And you're right, we started hidden a true crime podcast to delve into the hit of motives because we don't want things like this to happen again. And if we deny what we see, we don't ever get to the root of the problem. We don't ever say, this is a problem, and we can stop it next time or acknowledge what it really is. Yeah.

Right, exactly. So the other side of the belief equation is one of the things Hume, the Scottish philosopher, said, was even though beliefs for many people are largely feelings, that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be a certain amount of logic. and reason that enters the equation too. So I think Hume would definitely say that if your beliefs are based solely on feelings, then you're going to have a lot of problems too, because you're going to be dragged through life by your feelings and you're not going to sit back and evaluate anything logically. So I think for Hume, the ideal is to kind of meet halfway,

to meet in the middle, to have reason and logic with feelings in some combination. And that's probably the best way to challenge your beliefs, or to consider our beliefs is to find that middle ground. One question that has been posed throughout this, and then we'll get back to listening to Colby's jailhouse call. And we're not dismissing Colby's anger either. I am actually so proud of Colby. I don't think anybody's thinking that,

but I feel like some people saying, oh, you're dismissing her accountability or you're dismissing this call. Colby was doing what needed to be done to attempt to drill reality into his mother. He was so angry. agree and rightfully so. And that's why she would not acknowledge anything. And he deserved that acknowledgement. And she deserved his rage after what she did to him and his whole family.

Yeah, Colby told me that he just wanted her to acknowledge what she did. He just, he was looking for some type of closure and he felt like the best way. And when I say closure, I don't mean full closure. I mean, just some way to accept the situation. and to cope with the situation. He was just looking for some way to, as he says later in the call, that he wasn't sure he would survive, that he said the pain in his body was so intense that he felt at times like he would die.

He wasn't sure he could survive this. So when I say closure, I mean, he just wanted to survive. He wanted, and the best way for him to do that, according to Colby, was just to have his mom own up to some of it, to take some accountability and to acknowledge it. Otherwise, he felt like he was living, in this alternative universe. I think a lot of us are really triggered by Lori possibly being incompetent or innocent or all

that. And again, we're not saying any of that. But what is the difference between really, really extreme religious beliefs? And at what point does that become delusional? That's something I've been having a hard time. And sorry,

maybe that's a whole other show. You don't need to answer that. But that's actually a question I posed to Ashley Banfield on News Nation before this trial started is, what do you think might be some of the questions that we're going to have to process and analyze during this trial? And I said, at what point do these extreme religious beliefs? Are they extreme religious beliefs?

Is it delusional? You know, at what point? So the field of psychology has been, has a lot of research trying to answer that question. It's a really difficult question to answer. And the evidence for that would be the fact that multiple people have performed evaluations, forensic evaluations on Lori. And they've come to different conclusions. So, you know, this, this actually goes back.

in terms of the history of Western thought, this actually goes back to Plato and the idea of the cave and how in the cave you couldn't see reality, but if you left the cave in the true light of the sun, you would see reality and truth. Your question at the highest level is a question about how do we make distinctions between truth and fiction and basically, or truth between reality and illusion.

That's the way Plato would put it. And I don't, you know, I mean, that's so your question is, you're talking about almost 3,000 years of Western thought that's tried to answer that unsuccessfully. So from a very pragmatic standpoint, I think the experts that were brought into assess Lori have not agreed. And I think that's really all you need to know that I haven't seen any of that work, so I can't comment on it. But I do know that there's been multiple opinions and there's no consensus. So that alone tells you that if forensic experts can't agree, that we're probably dealing with some gray area and some difficult terrain

in terms of knowing when it crosses over into delusion or knowing, you know what I mean, knowing what's too extreme and what's not? I think it's a really, really hard question to answer. You know, what we just listened to, I hope that most people heard it before we started this discussion was Lori. Again, you did state this, Lori saying, well, Tiley and JJ, you weren't there. The FBI wasn't there.

Summer, her sister wasn't there. I know, you know, JJ and Tiley were there, which just sounds like the most horrendous thing ever. They were there while being murdered. Yes, of course, they were there. J.J. and Tiley were there, and they love me. And then after she states with this certainty that her murdered children love her, she then jumps into, you weren't there when I spent hundreds of hours with Tiley

at the hospital. That was such a bizarre jump to me. And you and I have discussed Tiley's hospitalization. You have suggested through research and evidence some possibilities there, some possibility. Lori has a history of poisoning people. Lori has a history of wanting this type of attention. We wondered about Munchausen, which is now not called that.

But what did you think about this strange transition from? You weren't there when the kids were murdered. the murdered kids were there. They loved me. You weren't there when I spent 100 hours with Piley in the hospital either. That's some twisty stuff right there. Yeah, I know, right. She's associating murder and love with one another,

which is, yeah, that's a, you're doing a lot of mental gymnastics. When you go down that path that, you know, we murdered the kids, but I know they still love me. I think it speaks to this idea that we've talked about repeatedly with Lori, which is what she wants above all else is love. The attention and the validation and all of that is in some ways playing into this need for love, this endless abyss of love that she seeks. And in fact, that's precisely what Chad Daybell sort of used to persuade her, was he was telling her that she was a goddess and that they would have a celestial love sort of like we knew that

she was obsessed with Twilight, that she wanted this immortal, eternal love that would go on forever. And again, we're back in the celestial realm, right? It's not, she struggles to really be grounded in this world. And so I think that speaks to that. To acknowledge that these children were murdered without somehow equating it with love, I think is nearly impossible for her. She has to bend that a little bit. She has to distort that in association.

it with love because that's what she wants. That's what she's all about. And she's, no matter what, she's going to cling to this idea that the children loved her, even though they were murdered and presumably murdered in part because of her. But yeah, it is a really peculiar moment in that call where she's equating love with murder

and the kids still love her, even though they were murdered. I mean, it's hard to fathom. Okay, so this is actually a good transition because people are actually asking a few things about if the defense is, if this is going to help the defense because Colby was blaming Chad for his mother changing.

He wanted to hit Chad in the face with a shovel. He, you know, the defense, when they cross-exam, you can tell that they're often sort of pushing for this narrative of other people being responsible, whether it's Chad, whether it's David Warwick, whether it's Malib, whether it's Zulama. and that leads us to David Warwick. So in order to answer that question or talk about that question that people have, is this somehow helping the defense by blaming Chad?

I think we should delve into David Warwick. I was fascinated. I was triggered. I was angry. I was all sorts of things with David Warwick. And I've talked to John a lot about it. You've listened to a lot of the things, a lot of his testimony that I shared with you, particularly the defense's cross-exam.

Let's start there and we'll get into this discussion a bit. Yeah, on that question quickly, though, it could potentially be a problem for the prosecution, but they, unless they're able to tie Chad and Lori's belief systems together. Right, and that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to connect them. That's how so. But if they just try to pin it, the defense,

I'm sure this is what I've called the Breaking Bad defense, which is Chad comes in the picture. Lori breaks bad. She becomes this completely different person. And Chad is responsible for everything. That's the breaking bad defense. I think the prosecution is aware of that. And they're going to want to obviously tie Lori closely to Chad.

They have the Melanie Gibb call. There's a lot of evidence showing that Chad and Lori both knew. They both acted together. Right. And so that's how he. you, I think that's how you kind of overcome that obstacle. We're not team defense or team prosecution. We're team, we're team, truth. We're team evidence. We're team justice. One thing I want to say that is interesting about the defense is, you know,

they did get the death penalty off the table early on. We've probably one of their biggest goals. So I think probably a bit more relaxed, knowing that they have already accomplished their main goal. One thing I've appreciated about the defense is that they, Their defense doesn't seem to be Lori is innocent. In fact, their opening statements kind of implied that. This is a hard case. But everyone deserves a fair trial, and I'm here to make sure things don't get taken out of context, and things are accurate.

And then the truth is out. I actually really respected the opening statements. I mean, I know that a lot of people disagree, so I'm not trying to persuade someone the other way. Just sharing my opinion. It's also worth noting that the goal of every defense team is to force the prosecution or the state to make their case and to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. So no matter what else they're doing,

they're forcing the state to really up their game and to prove their case, right? And that's good too. That's the way our legal system works. So whether you love them or hate them or whatever, it's just the nature of the game. It's the nature of the game and you're right. When you have a good defense, you have a good prosecution. Because right, the prosecution then has to up their game and really prove their point.

You're exactly right. And what the defense is doing is how I see it is I think they're really showing that if Lori is guilty, so are these other people. I know that they probably have maybe a different agenda. So I'm not saying what they're doing. I'm saying how I feel, which is I feel that they're additionally, you know, co-conspirators. Those have been discussed by both the prosecution and the defense. And a lot of those co-conspirators are walking free and pointing the finger. one woman in the court who, again, I hope justice has served, but I hope other people are held

accountable too. And in many ways, I feel like the defense, their arguments, is holding other people accountable. And that's good to me. One of the ways to introduce reasonable doubt or so reasonable doubt is to blur the lines of accountability. Yes. I think they're definitely doing that or trying to do that, you know, how the jury sees it, I don't know. But to me, it reminds me a drug cartel in the sense that you, you know, you go after El Chapo. You don't go after the middleman that's distributing drugs and doesn't really, you know, has a role in the cartel, but doesn't have a massive role and isn't really responsible for a lot of the major drug transactions and getting drugs into different countries. And I think you have that problem here, that you have a lot of

witnesses that are sort of mid-level players in this cold or whatever you want to call it, but they're not running it, right? And so the prosecution always has to make decisions about immunity and witnesses, and they have to define what they're trying to do and what their goals are. So obviously it seems like their major goal here is to go after the people at the top, just like you would go after El Chapo and not some mid-level, you know, drug runner. So there's always compromises. But I agree. I think that, There is some issue here about blurring lines of who did what and when and who was accountable and who made decisions. And that's a sound strategy if you're trying to introduce some reasonable doubt.

Sure. I agree. I just want everyone to know, though, some of that's been sitting in court. I feel like there has been a lot of evidence pointed at both Lori and Chad. I feel like in more of a sense, the defense is pointing out that there are other accountable people here that should be held accountable. And that, again, feels good to me. I'm so grateful for the defense when it came to David Warwick. And no doubt. You and I have talked about this. We talked about this, I don't know, over a year ago, about Melanie Gibbs' role and

David Warwick's role. And we analyzed Melanie Gibbs' interview. And there's a lot of questions there. It's certainly not clear cut. There's a lot to talk about. We want to talk about the nightmare. I want to talk about a few things the defense said. Where would you like to start?

The nightmare, I think the most important part of the testimony has to be the nightmare because I've got some serious questions about that. So the nightmare, do you want to just talk about what that is really quickly? Yeah, yeah, let me set the stage for what this nightmare is. So the nightmare came out in some early police interviews that were released in FOIA docs with Melanie Gibb and David Warwick explaining that the night, JJ died. Not only were they in Rexburg, staying in a little tiny, townhome with Lori and sleeping in JJ's room and Tiley wasn't there. In the middle of the night, David had a nightmare that he claimed is the worst nightmare he's ever had. And it was so bad, according to Melanie and David, they got up in the middle of night and Melanie rushed to Lori's

room to try the door to get, or sorry, Melanie rushed to Lori's room. Yeah, to try to open her door and request that Lori come out to give David a blessing, meaning, you know, that was a question that the defense drill told him, why did you need a blessing for a nightmare? And the door was locked. And at that point, they tried calling Lori and they tried calling Chad. This would be the early morning hours. So two-ish, three, I think two o'clock is what Melanie said. Again, this was the night.

So they had seen JJ that night. David Warwick was possibly the last person to see JJ. He claims he saw JJ being carried upstairs by his uncle Alex in two Lori's bedroom that night while they were podcast. I'm casting, asleep on his shoulder. And then we fast forward to middle of the night in this little tiny town home house where I'm sure you can hear a lot. And he has a nightmare middle of the night.

They are trying desperately to get a hold of Chad and Lori. No success. The next morning comes around. And according to David and or Melanie, Melanie says that David asked if he could see JJ to find out if JJ was a zombie. Melanie Gibbs says that to police. David Warwick in court says that he asked where JJ was because he had heard he'd been crawling on cabinets and knocking off a picture of Jesus and he wanted to make sure JJ was okay. He was just concerned about JJ.

Although when he mentioned in his testimony that Chad and JJ got into a scuffle and that Chad then came away with a scratch on his neck's neck, a six foot three inch man had a scratch of his neck from a seven-year-old boy. That didn't seem to concern him. but not knowing where he was next morning after this serious nightmare, they were allegedly concerned. So concerned, though, that they did not be leaving and never calling police. And here we are today. I think the scratch indicates that Chad Dable is perfectly capable of violence. Yes.

So let's just say that. But putting that aside, the nightmare. So the way I see it, there's, this nightmare is really important for many reasons. But let's, let's break it down. There's essentially three scenarios, I think, that can occur with nightmare. Number one, there's no nightmare at all. The nightmare is fabricated that they hear stuff, they hear perhaps violence, screaming, who knows what, and they call it a nightmare because they don't want to deal with the reality of what's occurring in that house. So that's scenario number

one. That's a really big question I have. I mean, Melanie Gibb claims that he was screaming or talking in his sleep and that I think she woke him up. right? Like if that's accurate, then I guess we have to say that he was asleep. But I think it's not, I'm speculating, but I think it's entirely possible that maybe he wasn't even asleep, that the so-called nightmare was in fact hearing something that they shouldn't have heard. They didn't want to get involved. They both agreed that David just conveniently lost all his memory that night. Also, as far as the nightmare goes, we don't know the content. Nobody has ever, he has never once disclosed what is in that nightmare, which for a psychologist, you know, if a client comes into my office and they have a nightmare, I'm going to want to know what that is. Freud is famously known for saying that the unconscious is the royal road. I mean, I'm sorry, that the royal road to the unconscious is dreams. So if you're having a nightmare, it in theory would give you a lot of information, especially depending on the content. Like what was in that nightmare?

What happened in the nightmare? Why don't we know the content of that nightmare? Is it because there was no nightmare? Is it because they actually heard stuff? And then they both agreed that they didn't want to talk about it. They didn't want to be dragged into court. They didn't want to become a part of the case. They both, I don't know.

I mean, I'm not, I don't want to push over into like conspiracy stuff here. But I have concerns that when you have the worst nightmare of your life and you don't remember it, it makes me question whether there was a nightmare at all and whether in fact perhaps there was something they heard that they didn't want to hear and they wanted to distance themselves from this entire situation so that's scenario one the second scenario is that perhaps he was partially asleep and he heard some screaming and he ignored it and went back to sleep and then he had a nightmare another scenario is that maybe he was fully asleep that he heard some screaming or something.

He was aroused a little bit. He was awakened a little bit, but went back to sleep and then had the nightmare. So I think to me, those are different versions of what could have occurred. I think it's unlikely to me that on the night that JJ is murdered, he just happens to have the worst nightmare of his life. That seems like a little too coincidental. I don't agree with the timing of that. so also not being able to identify the content of that nightmare.

That's, I don't, I presume he's been asked many times what, what was that nightmare about? And I don't, as far as I can tell, he's never described it. So that's troubling. He was asked again, tell us about this nightmare. And he stated that this nightmare was the worst nightmare of his life and that he was screaming. And then they went to go get a blessing. And then when they said, well, why would you need a blessing? he actually pointed the finger at his wife, Melanie Gibb,

who I actually feel like he does a lot. He's kind of used her as a scapegoat. She gets a lot more public shame and ridiculed than he does because he kind of hides behind his wife. And so, you know, the defense, Arjibald asks David Warwick, why did you need a blessing? And David said, well, it was my wife that wanted it. I didn't need a blessing.

She wanted it. But this was also after the defense had to him, what's the difference between a nightmare and a vision? You're a visionary man. And he did this word salad. Like, it was so confusing. Like, look, I'm trying to follow these belief systems that they have. I could not understand what in the world David Warwick was saying when it came to the difference

between a nightmare and a vision. And then at one point, Archibald says to him, well, they're both, then they're, they both are real. They're both real. You know, and he doesn't say, yeah, I mean, yeah, he kind of admitted that they're both real in some way they're a vision. And that made it a little weird too. Can I talk about how, at the beginning, when he almost wasn't even able to, to, to testify because that kind of is important, I think, to the nightmare too. So this is what I noticed.

So right when David walked in, oh, so this is how David walked into. I was outside. We were having a break. We were having a 10, 15 minute break because the witness needed to arrive still. That would be David Warwick. I was out talking to Nate Eaton. And all of a sudden, some guy comes by throwing Nate a fist bump. I mean, Nate was just kind of standing. But, you know, he, he accepted the fist bump, I guess you could say. I looked over and it was David Warwick running in. Then he ran into court. And then once we were all seated, it started with David stating that he had completely forgotten that he had been subpoenaed and all the rules of the subpoena that he wasn't supposed to talk to Melanie Give about her testimony nor watch her testimony nor watch anything

about the case because, you know, how can you forget these rules the day before? you're supposed to testify and he admitted to watching Melanie Gibbs or listening to Melanie Gibbs audio of her testimony. He was not with her. They live in different states. She's in Arizona. He's in Utah. They have a long distance marriage. And they did not talk, but it took him 45 minutes of watching her testimony before he realized maybe he shouldn't. And they asked him where he was watching it. And then he said he stalled for a bit and said it was either East Idaho News or hidden crime. So then I said, objection to your honor were hidden true crime. No.

So you mentioned hidden crime. And the thing that stood out, though, that reminded me of Chad Daybell is he's explaining how he's explaining that he was sick and he was on antibiotics. So he blamed the antibiotics for making him forget and then said, well, it was around 45 minutes when all of a sudden I realized my conscience was telling me that I should stop. And that's where I'm getting to is when you reach chat. had Daybill's autobiography, Chad sort of has this outside voice that's talking to him. There's never just a thought process in chat. It's always a different voice telling him something, whether it's

don't go get your master's degree in college. It's not just his brain thinking, it's a voice telling him, don't kill these bees. He talks about killing bumblebees. Don't kill these bees. And then it's an outside voice that tells him to stop, not his own conscience or his integrity or inner moral compass. And that's what I sensed with this statement by David Warwick is he's watching this testimony. He doesn't seem to have any feeling around it. He just pretty much admits, well, then around 45 minutes of conscience, which I also take as a voice, is telling me that I should stop. And so then I stopped. In Melanie Gibbs' interview with Chandrow Police, she says that he literally remembered nothing at all, nothing, zero. He completely blacked out. I mean, that's not a reasonable

explanation for you have this horrible nightmare, the worst nightmare of your life, and you don't remember it? You remember nothing? I mean, it's just, it's hard to fathom. Is it possible that he has some memory problems and maybe he's got some early dementia? Yeah, sure. There's some of that. Maybe this was very stressful. Maybe he did forget a big chunk of it. That's all possible, but I don't know. I just had to feel like there's more going on here than meets the eye. He remembered a little bit more this testimony. Yeah, he's stated before that he's blocked things out. I mean, he stuck to the basics and would like Hem and Haugh, sort of like Melanie

Gibb, but he never did say, I've completely forgotten everything like he has in the past. Yeah, which shows, again, that makes one question his credibility. He doesn't remember anything. now I remember some. I mean, it just, he goes back and forth. It's a problem. But again, for me, I still wonder what they heard that night. And I don't know.

I mean, is it possible that this was a nightmare? Is it possible that it was based on maybe he didn't hear anything? Maybe there was no screaming. Maybe there was no scuffle with JJ. I don't know. It seems to me that's possible. but it seems that there's some connection between what happened to JJ and maybe some sounds or some whatever was going on there in that room and that nightmare.

Well, yeah, they said that JJ woke up in the middle of the night. Again, this is a small town home. The JJ woke up in the middle of the night was climbing on top of the fridge, on top of the cabinets. I thought that was earlier in the day. No, that we were told. during the trial by David Warwick that they were, when he asked where JJ was, they relayed this information to him from the middle of the night,

that he'd woke up and done these things. So of course they heard things. So I guess my question to you, though, is John, I sense sort of a disconnect between David Warwick and his conscience, sort of like this, it's like a limb of his that he has to remember. I think it's worthwhile. So, and again, this kind of gets into the little bit of Freudian stuff, but I think the nightmare is indicative of a fair amount of guilt. I think it's about guilt.

And guilt obviously has a tie to conscience. So I think it seems to me like this nightmare is in some ways his attempt to work through his guilt. And in that sense, it becomes a proxy for a conscience, I guess, because he doesn't, let's go with the first scenario where they heard stuff and didn't want to report it. Even then he's going to feel guilt. Even if there was no nightmare, he's going to have to have guilt. And for a normal person, of course, you just report it, call the police. But in this case, with their belief system, that's not as clear cut.

So in that sense, he's got to work this through. I mean, whose side is he on? Is he on the side of justice if a child's being murdered? Or is he on the side of the cult and their beliefs? And I mean, he's doing podcasts with them. He's going to conferences and speaking, right? I don't know. That's where this becomes really.

To this day, he's still doing it. That's what else the defense got out of him. You know, so you're still preaching with. Yeah. So that's where this becomes really complicated. You know, if there's no nightmare at all and he's just covering it up and trying to keep some distance from there. and perhaps he had nothing to do with it,

that he was just in the wrong place at the right, wrong time. There's still a big issue here about conscience, and it seems to be a word he likes to throw around, by the way. But he's definitely trying to figure out, he's feeling some guilt, and he's trying to figure out his loyalties and where they belong. I mean, for most of us, I think it's a no-bringer. We pick up the phone.

We say, hey, look, I'm worried. You know, he knows about the belief systems. He knows about zombies. and possession. He knows about all of this stuff. And he's hearing this, right? I don't know what he's hearing. Let's say he's hearing JJ scream. For most of us, that's a no-brainer. You get on the phone 911 and you say, hey, look, I don't know what's going on here, but please get the hell over here. For him, I don't know. Maybe it, you know, maybe there was a nightmare. Maybe there wasn't. But if there wasn't, it becomes really problematic. It's hard for me to not want the defense to succeed.

in showing that there were other people involved. I'll just say that. It's hard for you to not want. Well, you know, this was the type of witness. The prosecution puts them up on the stand to verify certain facts that are critical to their case, that JJ was in that room, that they saw him. He was wearing the pajamas, right? I think they basically just wanted a simple fact witness.

And the problem with that is when you bring on somebody like Warwick with these nightmares, you open the door to a lot of uncertainty, and you open the door. This is precisely the sort of thing the defense really relishes, and because you have a witness that's maybe not the best witness and obviously has some very extreme beliefs, and he's still involved in this group. And so, you know, this becomes a problem for the prosecution,

this type of witness. And if you really, if you look closely at this whole nightmare scenario, I mean, they're not breaking it down like we are, obviously. But, man, it raises a lot of questions. And I'm not arguing that he didn't have a nightmare. I just think it seems peculiar. Someone said, what do you mean he feels guilty because it seems like perhaps they don't have a lot of guilt?

Well, that's why he's processing it. Because it's a struggle. My point is that there's guilt there in the sense that he's trying to process it unconsciously through this nightmare rather than picking up the phone and doing the right thing immediately, which is to call the police. So that's what I mean. Like most of us would just know what to do. It wouldn't be a question. We'd pick up the phone and we'd report possible violence or whatever's going on. Right.

But for him, he's calling it a nightmare and he's deferring it. He's waiting. Oh, let's, you know, let me process this and figure out if I'm going to experience any guilt or let's see what my conscience does with this. It took him 45 minutes for his conscience to kick in after he listened to Melanie Gibb. And he wasn't supposed to, right? 45 minutes is a long time for your conscience to kick in when you know you're not supposed to be doing that. Right.

Ozzie Tad says, nightmare is an excuse for waking up and knocking on the door instead of saying they heard the crime being committed. Yeah. Someone else said that. someone else said that this idea that, you know, he was climbing on the cabinet was also a cover up perhaps from Lori and Chad when other things are happening. And I do want to say about the climbing on cabinet story. It's very interesting. If someone happens to have the link, feel free to share it.

But Chad has a blog. A lot of it is private, but, you know, what goes on the web stays on the web. It's sort of like Vegas, I guess. And so Chad tells this exact story about his son Garth, by the way. That Garth was little and he climbed on top of the fridge and on top of the cabinets above the fridge. It's very interesting that he went to the temple and he prayed about it. But if they're going to make up a story, there's a story for you. Well, it's also disturbing in the sense that there's this intentionality that they're attributing to JJ,

which is that somehow it's, what? What's most upsetting to me is that they somehow see JJ as being responsible for his own murder because he knocked over a picture of Jesus. Right. Like they're making this connection between, oh, man, he really defiled Jesus because he knocked over a picture of Jesus. In his testimony, he says essentially that JJ had an episode. He knocked over the picture of Jesus. And that's when Lori called Alex.

Like this was the final straw. A seven-year-old mistakenly and by accident knocked over a picture of Jesus and now he needs to be punished because that's it. Like how could you possibly defile Jesus by knocking over his picture? Right? Like that's awful. And then to hear Colby State, he was the sweetest, you know, little boy. Right.

So I don't know. There's so many disturbing things in his testimony. And for me, there's more questions and answers for sure. But that seems to be the nature of his trial. I can't find the blog right away. But it's also in his autobiography. I'll try to post it later for those that are interested. You do need to go get our son.

Is there anything else you want to say, sweetheart? I think that's about it. I think for the Warwick testimony, the most important element was the nightmare because it really, really, like I said, it really raises a lot of questions about what really went on that night and who knew what and who heard what. And, you know, unfortunately, David Warwick and Melanie Gibb, you know, assuming that they know what happened, they're, you know, they're not going to disclose that. So. And I'm not saying they did.

I don't know. I guess I'd give them the benefit of the doubt and say, okay, they were there. They were in close proximity to potentially a murderous incident. Maybe they didn't hear anything. Maybe they don't know anything. I suppose I give them the benefit of the doubt, but with a lot of question marks. We are so grateful for our Army of Gems to be here with us because this case, for those of you that know that have been here with us from the beginning, this is our case. This is a case. We care about. This is a case that means so much to us.

Hello, Hidden Jems. It's Lauren with Hidden a True Crime podcast. As a TV reporter, I learned the art of visual storytelling. So if you're like me, you enjoy listening, but also viewing. You can actually head to our YouTube channel, Hidden True Crime, to watch these interviews. Hit the subscribe button for surprise lives and breaking news. And for exclusive content, things, Dr. John and I only dare say behind a paywall, become a Patreon member at patreon.com slash hidden true crime. You'll find bonus episodes, early releases, and insider info. Thank you for your endless support. 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,

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