Hidden True Crime - BEYOND THE VEIL: Juror#18 - An Interview with Lori Vallow Juror Tom Evans

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

Tom Evans served as a juror in the Lori Vallow Daybell trial in the spring of 2022. While we briefly interviewed Tom during Lori's sentencing, in this episode He speaks candidly of his time on the jury, hearing the shocking details about the murders of JJ Vallow, Tylee Ryan and Tammy Daybell. After interviewing Tom on this episode, Tom spends the last half of this episode interviewing the hosts --Lauren and John Matthias. HIDDEN: A TRUE CRIME PODCAST is: CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY REINVENTED. Hosts Dr John Matthias and his wife Lauren Matthias, a forensic psychologist and a journalist, invite you to join them on a journey into the darkest recesses of the human mind and the unconscious motivations that drive human behaviors in order to understand the world and ourselves. 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. LAUREN MATTHIAS worked as an anchor and reporter for ABC, NBC, and FOX News in Idaho and Salt Lake City, Utah. She spent a decade reporting on a diverse range of topics from high profile crimes to Presidential visits. Most recently, she reported for Salt Lake City’s ABC affiliate News4Utah. In 2015 she received the Idaho State Broadcaster’s Association Best Reporter award. She left the reporting world to produce the Hidden True Crime Podcast along with her husband Dr. John Matthias, a forensic psychologist. She is a frequent contributor for News Nation. WEBSITE: https://hiddentruecrime.com/ TO SUPPORT: https://www.patreon.com/hiddentruecrime https://paypal.me/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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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. Hello, Hidden Jens. This is a very special hidden hour tonight. And yes, it is Friday night, not Saturday.

So thank you for shifting your schedules, if you were planning on Saturday, to be with us Friday, because we are so honored to have with us Tom Evans. Tom Evans is also known as juror number 18 when it came to the Lori Valo-Dabal trial in Boise, Idaho. Tom was there every day. I was there every day. We did not know each other. We could not speak. We could not look at each other. We could not acknowledge one another. He faced, you faced Lori Valo every day of trial and looked directly at her. That's how the courtroom was situated. And where I sat, I looked straight ahead at jurors, actually, and had to give you guys space and only tweet, live tweet from my phone as to not cause typing noises.

But we're so grateful to see everyone here. Please let your friends know we are here tonight because this is going to be a great conversation. This is going to be a conversation among friends. We have questions for Tom, but it's not every day that someone with us, a guest with us, has questions for us. and Tom has those for us tonight as well, specifically Dr. John. So we are going to be talking to Lori Ballo and Chad Daybell case tonight, but specifically Tom's experience through Tom's lens, learning about the case through evidence at trial.

And we'll turn the time over to Tom because who we're all interested in right now tonight is Tom. But thank you everybody for being here tonight. This is going to be a conversation among friends. I did hit subscriber only on chat and I made it five minutes. You have to be a subscriber for five minutes before you can join just because this is, we have such a sensitive guest with us tonight. So please be understanding of that. And our moderators are going to be a little bit more vigilant tonight too with the chat.

So thanks everyone for being here. John, do you want to, do you want to jump in and start talking to asking Tom some questions? And I'll take a look at chat and make sure everything's good tech-wise. Sure. So Tom, if you're okay, maybe you could just. in itself and tell us a little bit about yourself. And we obviously know, I assume that the state of Idaho is like other states and that jury selection is random. So presumably you received some type of summons to be on the jury. But then it's an interesting question about, could you tell us a

little bit about the process, how you were selected? Sure. So I've lived in Idaho for 20 years. I lived in Northern California before that. Spent most of my life as a contractor. Never expected to find myself on the jury for this case for sure. And I didn't even know when I went in. I mean, I just got a notice in the mail to amend. So I did and took me a while to figure out what case it was for. I just thought it was business as usual at the courthouse, even though there was a massive jury room.

It was probably, I don't know, there's hundreds of people in there, 100 anyway. And I guess they had like 2,600 callouts for jurors. Wow. Somehow I ended up being one of the ones on the jury. I still don't know how that happened. Could you describe that process a little bit? I presume that both the prosecution,

you obviously had to fill out a fairly detailed form describing a lot of things about yourself, but it would be up to the prosecution and the defense to vet you by your answers. Could you tell us a little bit about that process for you? The first couple times I got called in, It was just to fill out some forms. And so I did that and, you know, wasted a few hours through that process.

And then finally, I think it was the third day. I actually got called into court. And we were asked questions by Judge Boyce. And mostly it was, you know, is this a hardship for you and, you know, what do you know about this case? And it was kind of going down the line of people toward me. And I was thinking of all the things I could say. get out of this because, you know, it's a jury trial. I don't want to. Yeah. Some of the hardship cases that I heard before it got to me were pretty real, and mine didn't seem like much by the time

it came to me, so I couldn't really, you know, say much about that. But then the next thing was, how do you not know about this case? And I was just honest. I basically just said that I didn't really pay much attention to it because it was sorted. It was sad and it didn't touch my interest at all. And also during the COVID years, I spent a lot of time. We have a cabin up in northern Idaho. And I spent a lot of time up there. I have no internet or anything building that cabin. So I really didn't know much going in. So yeah, that was a question I was going to ask you actually. Did you know anything about the case? Had you seen it in the, I presume, because you're in Idaho, You must have probably encountered some media talking about the case.

I knew of it. I knew what Lori looked like. I knew that kids had been killed. And I think I knew they'd been found buried in the backyard. That's about it. I don't even know if I really knew that much. I remember listening to jury selection. We could not see you, Tom, or anyone.

They made all reporters sit in the overflow that week. but there were so many and the questions they asked were very repetitive and very detailed they asked if you could see the Netflix documentary did they ask that? I heard that many times I think the defense attorney actually asked me that one so here's the question have you seen it now

I can find on it now I know so much more about it now than I did when the trial was over it's ridiculous okay I mean I'm not there still with a million questions. You know, you and I met, and we'll go back to the beginning where John is, but you and I met at the sentencing in Rexburg. And even then, you know, you're really to talk to me because I know that the Woodcock's

and other people, you know, said, yeah, Lawrence, Lawrence safe, you can talk to her. But you didn't know who I was then. But now you certainly, as you say, you've heard and listened to everything. Oh, yeah, everything that I could have, you guys. And actually going to that sentencing turned out to be a great thing for me because I did get to meet you and some other people. I was not expecting that. I didn't know, you know, I just picked a hotel in the town. I didn't know that it was going to be the one that everybody was staying at.

And I was going to walk right into the lobby and there everybody was. So that was great. I remember you were, I think you were interviewing Peyton Larry when I walked in, I believe, and just kind of walked right in the middle of that. Yes. Yes. But that's what I remember out of the jury selection is it was a lot about have you see the Netflix documentary, have you seen the datelines, have you seen? What is the coverage you've seen? What were your answers to those questions? What had you seen? I hadn't seen any of that. I hadn't watched any of the shows. Like I said, I just didn't pay attention to it. So it would be reasonable to say, I always wonder, I'm sure a lot of our gems wonder how they find jurors that are reasonable.

reasonably unbiased in situations like this where a case has, you know, international attention and everyone knows about it. And I guess you're helping us answer that question. Well, and that's the big thing at the hearing right now. They're trying to get it moved back to Rexburg. And the jury pool there is so much smaller. Right. It is even hard for me to believe that out of the 2,600 or whatever the number was, they were able to find 18 who knew as a Liz, I think. Many people say there's no way they'll find anyone that doesn't know about this in Idaho. So yeah, you're answering the question. But yeah, I'm surprised they're trying to move it back to Rexburg. It's going to be a harder now after that trial, right? Right. And even you knew of

Lori Valo, you knew what she looked like. You knew there were some children that were found. Yeah. In Rexburg, that would be harder. So I guess if we're going to find unbiased jurors for Chad's trial, maybe we need another pandemic then with some cabins with some cabins in the middle of, you know, beautiful places. But 2,600 is a huge number of jurors to that. When you learned you were going to be seated as a juror, how did you react to that? Or what was your response? I didn't realize. We were boiled down to 18. So it's the second to the last day. We're sitting in the courtroom. There's, you know, I think there was 42 people in there, it turns out. And they're doing

this thing where the prosecution would write something down on a piece of paper and handed the bailiff. The bailiff would walk over to the defense. The defense would look at it. They would write something down and the bailiff would walk it back. This went on for hours and hours. I had no idea what they were doing. I'm just sitting there like rain dead watching this. but it turns out that they can each pick 12 jurors to just send away for they didn't need to have a reason to do that. So out of those 42, they sent away 24 and we were down to 18. So they're all done. They call out some juror numbers and say, you guys can go, thanks for your service and all that.

And so there's 18 of us left in the room. And I just thought I was another group of 18 and there was several other groups still. But then we walked out and the jury administrator, Randy, started talking. to us and then it dawned on me. Like I was probably the last one to figure this out. But I was actually on this jury. Did you have any idea that this was going to be Lori Valo's trial then?

I mean, you clearly started to think that this was a really big deal. The questions, they were asking you some tough questions, too, about children. By that point, of course, I knew. And so when we finally actually went into court for the first time, she was sitting there. And I knew who she was. So we walked in.

down and she's there and she was like looking at each of us making eye contact and that it hit me hard. This is what I'm in for. That was one of the jury questions too. Can I ask you this? They asked if you would be able to handle scenes some really difficult things and I don't know if there was a single person that answered oh yeah, absolutely. Many people said that would be very, very difficult for them. They're unsure, but they would do their best. Other people simply said, absolutely not, no way. Can I ask if you remember how you answered that question? I don't remember how I answered, but I know I felt like I was probably as well equipped for that as anybody would be. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. I think this would take us into opening arguments.

And this would dovetail with your book, by the way, Tom. So you're writing a book or you're in the You have written a book, I guess, right? And your script is done. It's in editing right now. And could you tell us the title of your book? It's Money, Power and Sex, the Lori Valladaybill trial by juror number 18. Okay, great. And so that brings us into opening arguments where one of the prosecutors talked about this case,

being a case of Money, Power, and Sex. So using it in the title of your book would obviously, that that seemed like an important moment for you. When you heard that, when you heard those opening arguments and you heard the prosecution use that term or describe it in those terms, what did you, how did you respond to that? I don't know. I mean, that didn't have any special significance for me, I guess. I mean, I was just trying to understand what this was going to be all about at that point. I think more than anything. Her opening statement was interesting. Yeah. I mean, so what were your

different reactions to both the prosecution and defense during those opening statements? I got the feeling that the defense was pretty on the ball. They seemed to have it down pat what they wanted to prove. They seemed pretty sure of themselves. The defense, honestly, they seemed very good. Both those guys well qualified. I've done a lot of research on them since, so I know what their past is and everything. But two really super qualified public defenders. I don't think you could find anybody better than those guys. But it just kind of felt like they were helpless.

They didn't have a lot to go on there. You know, it's interesting to me to ask you these questions because I think those of us who knew this case very well before the trial probably had some biases. So I think that, you know, I mean, we try not. to, of course, but we try to be fairly objective around here, but sometimes it's hard to. I was evaluating everything as it was happening because I was so in the dark, I think. Okay.

Like judgments on everybody. One thing I want to ask too is not only during the whole trial, hearing all of the heavy stuff you were hearing, I was able to go decompress. I would go out at lunchtime while you guys ate and talk here. to our hidden gems and to our audience and share with them what I was feeling and what I had just heard. You were in lunch with a bunch of jurors not allowed to even talk to each other about the case.

Isn't that right? It is right. We couldn't talk. If we even sounded like we might be talking about something, we would get reminded not to because possibly somebody would over here or whatever. But it was hard because we would go into our really impossibly small jury room. There's one table with everybody sitting around

It was nice. There was a window looking out in the mountains. But that was hard for me to just be kind of stuck in that room all the time. I think we spent as much time in that room as we did in the courtroom, probably. And you couldn't talk about what you were listening to. I think John is a psychologist would say that's a really great way to make trauma even worse. I think, yeah, we all got a lot. Stuff it down and don't talk about it.

We talked about everything else. What would you talk about? That's another question people have. That's a question to chat. Would you talk about sports, politics? Like, what do you talk about? No, I think we avoided politics because we all realized we're 18 strangers and who knows where everybody's politics are.

I think it became kind of clear through just personalities by the end where people were politically. And it's, you know, I think there was a good mix in there, which is great. But it's probably good that we avoided the subject. So we talked about kids. grandkids, you know, the weather. We could look out and slowly see the snow receding up the mountain as, you know, in the springtime and starting to get nice outside.

See, that's what I said. I said the weather. Thanks for confirming that. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off there, Tom. But I think I don't want to lose what, I think what Lauren is partially getting at there is the emotional impact. Did it having to deal with that level of trauma? of pain, suffering every day for six weeks

and not being able to process it with anyone? I mean, what? It was harder for me than I would have thought it would be. But I think I was kind of in the role, I guess. I was older and I think, I don't know, there were some people that were really struggling. And so I kind of took on the role maybe of comforting them a little bit. And that probably helped me, I think, more than,

They probably were helping me as much as I was helping them because I wasn't outwardly crying like some of them were, but it was still, you know, inside. You can't hear and see. 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 robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where ORA comes in. ORA actively removes your data from broker's sites and keeps it off.

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Just stop without having it affect you. So that's fascinating to me. You're saying that members of the jury would, when you were excused for lunch, for example, that some of them would be in tears. Some of them would be. Occasionally, not always, but, you know, there were some pretty. tough days and I think they were probably in tears before they left the courtroom. I couldn't really see, you know, there would be beside me down the row or whatever or in front of me, but their backs to me, but by the time we got out of that courtroom, there were definitely some

tears. Interesting. Yeah, and I saw tears as well, so they continued in the back room then. There was one juror in particular that I was concerned about. She was very young, and I really didn't think it was fair for her to have to go through that. I don't think she was equipped. for that kind of thing. It's a lot to go through for somebody who doesn't have that kind of life experience. So you were more concerned

about the other jurors over here. That says a lot about you. You knew you could handle it, but you weren't sure if the others could. What's one financial lesson you learned the hard way? I'll go first. It's not too late to start saving.

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hidden true crime at checkout. That's code hidden true crime. Use that with happy mammoth.com for 15% off today. This is a question that the chat is asking, and I think it's a question I've heard again and again. So let's just visually, I saw a wide range of ages, ethnicities, but there are some things I couldn't see. I've let the chat know that you are not Mormon. It's a question that people ask because this is a religious case in the sense of that

there is a religious motive involved. Do you know if there was a variety of religions with all of the jurors there? That's a question in chat. I could tell you out of the 18 people in there, I think I knew one of them was Mormon. The rest, I have no idea. Yeah, Boise is often surprisingly diverse, too, and people don't always realize that when it comes to Boise. Yeah, I live there, and I live there, and I reported there, and it's a lot more diverse than people realize. I talk about that a little bit in my book, and I came from a very Mormon part of Idaho, and very small ten.

very isolated town. And it was kind of dysfunctionally Mormon, in my opinion, because it was so isolated and controlled everything. And it was hard for me to be there, do business there and stuff. So coming to Boise, it's been kind of healing for being in that way, I think. Thank you for sharing that. Go ahead, John. Did you want to follow? I know that you had some questions you really wanted to ask. You know, in talking about the emotional impact of the trial on the jurors, I think I want to, was thinking of an important question to follow that up with would be, what were the most emotional moments during the trial for you?

Are those things that you would be willing to talk about? Yeah. For me personally, leading up to and finding the bodies, it was kind of for me like if you're watching a horror movie or something, you know it's leading up to this, you know it's coming, but I didn't know what things happened to get to that point, right? So I'm watching it all or hearing it all in court through the witnesses and everything. What led up to all that?

And then we get to the point where I think listening to Detective Hermesio and some others talk about that day, that was probably the hardest thing for me to think about. That really made me start to think about the living victims as much as anything else. And by living victims, I mean the police, everybody involved, not just the family and people who were close, but people who got close over time got really involved in this. Some extremely dedicated people, I think, that really stuck to this and followed it through. I think that was probably the hardest thing for me to deal with is just thinking about those people. Not that, I mean, the victims who were murdered, that's the worst thing, but they were gone. And these other people were still living and suffering.

Were there any specific people or specific testimony that you found particularly compelling or more emotional? The really strange thing for me, it turned out to be that all of the FBI, the detectives, all the professional people, the medical examiners, all of their testimony wasn't, didn't turn out to be as important as all of Lori's flaky friends and the prepper people and all that because the cops, I 100% believe what they said. They were extremely believable. They had proof to back up everything that they said. I had no question with any of that. But what it came down to was some of these other people in their testimony, that had to be important in the case. It had to actually make my mind up whether she did this or not, more than anything, because it was all circumstantial.

So yes, you have this proof, that proof, and that proof, but none of that actually proves that Lori was behind it all. But the testimony of some other witnesses, Zulema, Audrey, and, you know, People like that, that turned out to be, those were the important witnesses for me. Yeah, interesting. Important. Could you go a little further with that thought? Important in what way specifically? Well, because the police and all their technical stuff that they did in ways that they proved what happened,

they didn't really prove that Lori was behind it, right? Because she wasn't actually at the murder scenes on any of those murders. It was she conspired to print murder, which is murder in Idaho. So those things didn't prove it, but what did prove it was, I can't think of offhand the specific things that were said by people like the dilemma, but taken as a whole, it was enough to convince me that for sure she was behind this. She caused this. She did this. Gotcha. That's... You know, that really took a while at the dawn on me that that's the way I was going with, you know, sitting in court. But by the time it was all over and I was sitting there thinking about all this stuff, I realized, wow, you know, these people that I was like, I couldn't take anything they said very seriously.

It turns out that their testimony is what proved to me that she was guilty. Did you, so sometimes this group has been referred to as a cult. Did you start seeing it that way or how did you see this group? You know, I was at the time sitting in court, I couldn't tell you, that I saw any particular way because there was so much that I didn't know. Now, for sure, I see it as a cult. Okay. I think it's part of a bigger cult in fact, too.

I'm sorry to jump in here, but that leads me to ask a question. One of the things you said the first time we met Tom in our interview at the sentencing, you did say you weren't sure if Lori really believed it. and maybe I'm jumping ahead, but I'm curious what you think now. I kind of have that question for you guys, actually. Okay, well, I jumped ahead then. We'll ask that in a minute. That's okay.

Go ahead, John. Yeah, that's interesting. So, I mean, you're really describing sort of two different versions of this trial. There's the technical element with long. enforcement and detectives and all that kind of stuff and timelines. And then there's more of the, I don't know, let's call it the emotional element of group members or let's call them cult members and how they work together and how they, their belief system. And it sounds to me like that second component may have been a little more influential. Well, it was because like I said, I believed everything the police said.

I knew the bodies were buried in Shad's backyard and everything they said because they proved it all, but it didn't necessarily prove that Lori was the one behind it all. But listening to all the other witnesses and just the accumulation of it all is what did it for me, I think. Not just listening to one particular one. There wasn't like this aha moment where a witness said something and I went, oh, that's it. It was just all the evidence put together. And on that issue, what did you think the most compelling pieces of evidence were? Is that something you've thought about since? Not really.

I haven't thought about it that much, but I think some of it, you know, they brought the rifle into the courtroom, the one that was supposedly used to shoot at Tammy. That didn't affect me much because, to me, they didn't really prove that that was a rifle. I think they were trying to impress this with the rifle. Okay. But I did think that the prosecution was pretty believable. And that pretty much everything else they said and did. Yeah, on that issue, what did you think the prosecution did the best?

Or what did the prosecution do well with? You know, I think they were so sure of themselves. Okay. I really think that was a lot of it. But it wasn't just that. I mean, their evidence that they presented, and they, you know, a lot of times it was monotonous. They presented it over and over in different ways. They spent more time than I needed on a lot of things,

but I understood why they needed to do that. But they were pretty convincing as far as this is the evidence that we have that these kids were murdered. It just didn't all necessarily lead quite up to Lori without the testimony of their other witnesses. They were still their witnesses. They were all their witnesses. Right.

Just from the police, from the police, detectives, FBI. I guess I would ask you, I should ask you, if I'm asking about the prosecution, what did you believe that the defense did well with? You know, I think they did well to give her the opportunity to have her day in court. That's what she gets, right? She's guaranteed her day in court. And I think they did their best. I don't think they did.

There wasn't much they could do. So I couldn't really say, well, they did this really well, they did this really well. or that really well, because there wasn't much they could do. They tried to cross-examine witnesses. I think the prosecution preempted a lot of their questions. That's one thing, the question you asked me before, that the prosecution did really well. When they called a witness to the stand and questioned that witness, they asked the question that they thought the defense was going to ask them also before the defense could get to that.

So by the time the defense stood up and came to cross-examine, there wasn't a lot of they could ask. I think their hands were really, really tied. I think some, some by Lori. And also by the fact that they couldn't, insanity is not a defense in Idaho. So they couldn't they couldn't even talk about it. I think it's a lot important. So on that issue, by the way, and obviously, so that that's getting in a little bit into my area, do you feel like it would have been more compelling if they brought in some mental health issues or evidence around mental health? I think they could have made a compelling argument in the defense that she was crazy. I mean, if it were a state that had that as a defense, I don't know if I could have convicted

her because I think she's pretty crazy. You were shocked by her statement at sentencing. Because you didn't understand sort of how deep this went belief wise, right? Because you had, you'd never heard from her at trial until the sentence. She never heard her speak before until that moment. So, yeah, that was really something. I couldn't believe. I was offended by a lot of what she said, and I think a lot of other people were, too. I think she tried to compare us all to her, like saying, you know, who would throw the first stone?

Yeah, that didn't go too. And I'm sure the detectives and everybody else in that room were pretty upset by that one, too. And she went on to say some pretty weird things. Yeah. And, you know, so at that point I'm really questioning. like, okay, she's either crazy or she's making herself sound crazy. But why would she do that at this point? She's got it at the game now.

You know, she'd stock like that in court, maybe. It's just kind of crazy, and we might have, I don't know what in the defense anyway. Right. Or maybe she's setting up something for an appeal. Yeah, right, right. So when you talk about the defense that way, Tom, it almost sounds like you're saying that the defense really sort of had a bad hand. hand. You use the hand word, by the way, not in that context, but they were kind of belted,

you know, they were dealt a bad hand. When you say that, you know, it makes me wonder, at what point during this trial did you sort of feel like the outcome would be clear? Were you experiencing that fairly early, or did you kind of reserve judgment until the end? I reserved judgment until the end. I was trying to, you know, be a good juror. and be fair. You know, my, I guess, on the surface, feeling about it all was she's guilty and she needs to go down pretty early on, but I was still trying not to let myself think that way or feel that way. And, you know, I would have been able to if they had come up with any kind of defense

that made sense to me in spite of all of the, everything that was against her. If I didn't think she was guilty, I would say she would not guilty. But there was not really any question, you know, at least halfway through the trial, I would say. When you think about it now, is the, do you believe that there, there could have been a defense that would have worked more in her favor? I mean, is there something that? No, I don't, how can you, how could anybody defend her? I thought those guys, you know, so that was one of my questions coming out of this. Okay.

I looked into them. And they're very qualified defenders with a really good past. They've got a lot of experience. She was well-faulted. She was well-represented there. I just think there wasn't a whole lot they could do. I was really surprised when they didn't call any witnesses. But looking back on it, who would they have called?

Yeah. I mean, I think they did a very good job, given what they had. I agree. I do, too. do you, so you mentioned you were at sentencing. Do you think this sentence was just? Do you think it was fair? Yeah, that was interesting because when Judge Boyce started speaking,

as he was leading up to his actual sentencing at the end, he had me kind of nervous. I was, you know, he was sounding like he might go easy on her, talking about her past and how exemplary it was and made me start to think, oh, man, he's going to find a way to go light on her. I didn't know, but that didn't happen, obviously. The sentence was everything that I was hoping for at that point. I was hoping that there was no way she was ever going to see the light of day.

Okay. What about, did you have thoughts about, you know, even though the death penalty was taken off the table, did you have any thoughts about that? Yeah, so I've had a lot of thoughts about that. Okay. Even if I was not confronted with that outright, I was confronted with that in my own mind.

Okay. How would I have felt about that? So yeah, I thought a lot about that. Could you talk a little bit about your... I think, yeah, I think the people in the Chad Daybill trial are going to struggle with that. The jurors are going to struggle with that more than they realize. Because by the time this trial was over, I kind of thought, well, you know, I hope, I wish she could have gotten the death penalty.

I wish there could have been more justice there. But then I had to really think about that. What is more just for her? Is it more just for her to... And I talk a lot of... about this in my book actually. There's like a whole big long chapter on this because I did think a lot about it. But is it better for her to spend life in prison and maybe at some point she'll be confronted with what she did. Maybe reality will sink in and she'll have to deal with that. Or if she had been given a death sentence and her death was imminent, would that have been more just? Would that have caused her to come to terms of it sooner? Maybe to ask forgiveness, maybe not to ask forgiveness. Maybe not to ask, but to God or whatever. I don't know.

It's a tough one. Yeah. Well, now I want to read your book. Which many people are asking about your book in chat. So will you share the title one more time? It sounds like YouTube might be blocking the title of your book when people write it in chat. It could just be one of the words in it. Will you share the title of your book and explain to people that it's not available yet?

We'll share why. But yes, what is the title? It's money, power, and sex, the Lori Valo Daybail trial by juror number 18. And it won't be released until the Chad Daybail trial, until there's either a verdict or a plea agreement in that trial. So probably around the end of May. That's what I'm hoping. It'll be available. Okay.

And I want to ask you why you chose to go to the sentencing because you did not need to go there. It is also, people don't realize this, but Rexberg is, despite being in the same state as Boise, hours away from each other. And you went there with several other jurors. Yeah, there were three others there. It was really important for me to see it through. It was important enough. My grandson was born that night, and I knew he was due to be born that night, the night of the sentencing, and I wouldn't be there. but I needed to be there.

And I'm so glad that I went because some things happened to me there that I wasn't expecting. So I drove into Rexburg. I drove out to, I had to drive by the Daybill property. And when I drove by there, I was, I sat there, I pulled out, there's a little turnout there. I pulled out by myself. There was nobody else out there. And I just kind of looked over. I knew the property really well from sitting the pictures in court of where the brave sites

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Front and all the things that went on there. And it was kind of a somber experience for me. And I sat there for a while. And then I drove off. And I went to the hotel and ran into my fellow jurors there. And they were disappointed that I had been out there. and they wanted to go out there, but they wanted me to come with them. They didn't want to go out by themselves.

So, you know, I really didn't want to go back out there, but I went back out there. And I'm so glad that I did because this time, the turnout that I had parked in by myself earlier was full of people, and media was there, and they'd made a little monument to Kylie and JJ there. And Kay and Larry were there, and I had talked to them on the phone prior a couple of times, times and I kind of stood there and just stood back for a while, but then I thought I would go

introduce myself and I was kind of nervous to do that, but I wanted to. I just felt compelled to. So I did, and they immediately pulled me in and hugged me and thanked me and just made me feel so good. Those people who have been through so much were concerned about me, and I'm a complete stranger to the thing. It doesn't affect me personally, really, not like it does to them. And so that really meant a lot to me. And then I got to meet you, Lauren, and and everybody else after that. So it turned out to be a really good thing. Now I know why I went,

but I didn't know why I was going for it. I just felt like I had to. Yes, and I understand that the being present, now that we've learned that Chad's trial will be live streamed, we've considered staying home and watching it here. But I understand exactly what you're saying. There's a part of being there that's really important to be able to experience something.

And so I certainly think that I'll be attending some, if not all of Chad's trial now, and I hope to see you there. Oh, you will. I'll come see you when you're there. I'm not going to go watch the whole thing or anything, but I'll be following it pretty closely on TV because I plan to do a follow-up bug on that trial. Let me share a little bit about Tom's book that I know about so that you guys can hear this.

And by the way, we've got a big show tonight because Tom has questions for Dr. John, too, so stick with us, everyone. but there was one moment. It was after the sentencing. I think it was that evening. I remember I reached out to you because the producers for News Nation wanted to talk to you. And we were all in the same hotel and we were all in the lobby together. I mean, I don't know if I should be naming all names because some people probably want their privacy there.

But many of us, right? Many of us were there. Yeah. And many people affected by this case. And Justin Lama and I are sitting there chatting. and we're looking over at you far in the corner at the other table talking with Detective Hermesio and interviewing him and you had your pat of paper out

and you were taking notes. Justin was like, dude, how'd he? How'd he get to do that? And I know exactly why you did. You served in a, you did not want to do this. You did this. You sat through this. And you, I know that that trip to Rexberg,

you interviewed detective from a CEO. you interviewed the prosecution. You have many, many interviews that many do not have, including reporters. And yes, yes, yes. Yeah, you had us going, what the heck over there in the corner.

No, we were excited and honor. It was touching to see him talking to you, a juror number 18. Maybe another one. It just made me feel good. Yeah. But that is also why your book cannot be released until after Chad's verdict. And I think that's what we need to explain here.

The draft is done. But because of the sensitive interviews you have, it simply cannot be released until after. And I have a publisher. And so it's going into editing right now. Yeah, there's some things I'd like to tell you about it, but I'm not sure if I'm supposed to yet. So I'll just wait, I guess. You just wait. You just wait.

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And I have to ask you what your impressions of Chad Daybell were when you were listening to all the evidence. And, you know, did you formulate any opinions on Chad and what the evidence might mean for him? Yeah. So sitting through the trial, I was questioning that exact thing. I have a definite opinion now, but at the time, you're asking how I felt during the trial, I think. At that time, I wasn't sure. I mean, were they both just as guilty? I mean, as far as I was concerned, Lori had to let her kids be killed at the very least, right?

So to me, that's for her mother. She's guilty. So was Lori just guilty of following along with him? Was he the mastermind behind it all? Was she the mastermind behind it all? Or did they come together in this horrific? chance thing were two really miserable human beings

come together and do horrible things. Were they both capable of it before they met each other? I don't know. I didn't know at the time. Did you feel like some of the evidence presented that involved Chad was fairly damning to him? Yes.

So would it be fair? Yeah. His conversation with the crematorium, I guess, in Arizona. Yeah, that was pretty bad. The funeral home, we played that on our channel yesterday. Yes, Chad calling the funeral home after Charles's death. Yeah, that was really something. Chad DeBal or whatever. Yeah, it's, I guess it's now become a part of his best hits.

I mean, he came up with all these zombie names and he couldn't come up with a name for himself rather than Chad DeBelle. Sorry. I've hard time even with people like Chad to be critical, especially, you know, the whole audience watching, but that guy's a moron. not very smart. Better you saying it than us. Yeah, that's, that wouldn't, that's, this is exactly why we had you on because we can't say stuff like that.

Yeah. And say professional. Right. Rebecca Randall gave us a good one too. Chad, DeBelle. DeBall. Yeah. Well, what's your professional word for a moron then, Dr. John?

It's not a diagnosis in the DSM, but it's, it's a word I, heard a lot in this case. But I think you're the first person we've had on that said that. So I'll accept it as your diagnosis. Yeah, there you go. The layman's diagnosis. The best word I can come up with. Low IQ. That'll be your diagnosis in the book. And by the way, I should mention about the book that the profits are going to be donated to a nonprofit organization called Hope House. Could you tell us a little bit about Hope House, please? Yeah, so I spent a lot of my time since the trial looking for the right organization to donate money to.

If I'm fortunate enough to write a good enough book and actually make some money, the profits are going to go to the Hope House. And the Hope House is, it's in Marcing, Idaho, small town just outside of Boise. And right on the Snake River, they take in children who most of the children have been adopted. and some of them were adopted from outside of the United States and came here as part of their adoption. And the families, for whatever reason, didn't follow through, couldn't hang on to the kids. The adoption didn't work out. So, you know, they're here in this country with nowhere to go. Parents don't want them anymore.

Their adoptive parents don't want them anymore. And so the Hope House takes them in. And we got to meet some of the kids and do a tour of the place and meet the directors, Donna and Ron. and they're awesome, and they do everything good there, and I'm really happy to have found them. I think it's just the right place, just what I was looking for, because they help kids who otherwise could be in some serious danger. Yeah, that's great, thank you.

I noticed that Kay just, Kay Woodcock just jump on, so thanks for joining us, Kay. We're happy to have you here tonight. Thank you. Kay says, hello everyone, John Lauren, and a special hello to you, Tom. Hello, Kay. Very nice to hear from you.

Glad you're listening. So let me, I'm going to shift gears a little bit here because I know you want to ask me a few questions, I guess. Okay. So I'm going to put you on the hot seat here for a second, though. So I'm glad I asked you about the vetting process. When you were being considered as a juror early on, you said that the only thing you knew about this case was that it was a sorted and sad case. And that was one of the reasons you didn't want to get involved or to follow it. You know, it strikes me that if that's how you felt before and then you obviously became a juror, that I'm imagining or guessing that this trial probably had a big impact on you in some way. Could you talk about that a little bit? Yeah.

More than I want to admit to myself, I think. Okay. More than I was expecting it to. I knew it was going to be hard when I found out what it was. my wife says I've changed with something different about me. She can't quite explain what it is. But I feel it. You know, there's something a little bit different.

It's not that I've lost hope in humanity or anything like that. I think the opposite is actually true because she was the only bad player in that room and so many good people were there that by the time the trial was over and I'd been through sentencing and I've been associated with all the people that I got associated with, I think I had a better feeling about our justice system, about the media, everybody involved, besides her. So it wasn't so much that as maybe it's just being confronted with that. It just hurts something inside of you. It kind of breaks something maybe.

I don't know. Quite how to say it. Not broken, but a little part maybe is kind of taken away. I can imagine how people like, hey, you know, people are so close to this. something huge has to be broken. Well, I guess is that answer your question? Yeah, yes, it does. Thank you for being so open about that.

It seems to me that perhaps I'm just, this is, I'm interpreting here, but I guess that's what I do as a psychologist, but it sounds like maybe that initial sadness you talked about, maybe that, maybe that grew a little bit. There was some real sadness from being a part of this process. And maybe that's true of all of us,

that have followed this case. Nothing else. And the court offered counseling for jurors, and I know there are some jurors that are taking advantage of that. I have not. I think my idea, once I decided to do this book, I thought, you know, this is what's going to kind of heal me and get me through all this.

And it has in a lot of ways, but I'm still kind of considering it. I might take advantage of counseling at some point. Okay. Yeah. And so I guess the last thing I would ask you is, you know, do you feel like, I guess you've kind of,

of answered this in various ways, but any takeaways for us? Any kind of thoughts about not only how it's impacted you, but just thoughts in general about this case? A lot of takeaways. The main, I mentioned before, but the main, probably more than once, but the main one was, I was actually pretty proud, very proud of how the justice system worked, the people within the justice system, both teams, the prosecution and the defense, and looking into them since the trial has been over, you know, my opinion of them in court was correct. They are top notch at what they do, top of their game, good people, you know, everybody involved. I got to, when the sentencing was over, we got invited into the judge's chambers afterwards, which I was not expecting. So I got to spend

about 45 minutes with Judge Boyce and his clerk and his wife. I really appreciated that. That was a privilege. We had been isolated from him the whole time. We weren't allowed to speak, of course, or have any contact at all during the trial. So that was really nice. And there was just a lot of that kind of thing.

A lot of concern for the jurors that really came through, showed, and made us feel appreciated. So that was my main takeaway. You know, I guess it's kind of opened my eyes to a lot of the bad things going on and then doing a lot of the research for the book and delving in deeper. Did a lot of things, listening to you guys' podcasts and some other ones, realizing that there's quite a lot of bad things going on in the world. You know, I guess my eyes have been kind of opened up.

I guess I kind of always knew it, but I just didn't pay attention to it as much in the past. So I didn't really deal with it. Got a little bit of that. Okay. I'm not sure that's a great takeaway, but I hear you. Did you pay attention to crime stories at all before being a juror? I know that during, you know, you didn't know about this one, but was that something you paid attention to? You know, I like to read, and, you know, I've read books like Truman Capote's in Cold Blood, But these were, you know, crimes from way back in the past, whatever.

I like to read about Dillinger and, you know, all the bad guys during the Depression and things like that. So, yeah, I kind of, I guess, but not like people who are in the crime world nowadays, you know, it's a big thing now. True crime and everything that's going on currently. I never was involved in any of that or interested in any of that until this. until this that that was my next question is john has the belief that really delving into crime and true crime really is touching upon a part of humanity that many people maybe don't always explore and it can teach us about humanity in a unique way sometimes a dark way but to see both and so i was curious if if the until now sort of answered my question if it is

sparked your mind a little bit to understand crime and how the unfathomable can happen sometimes. Yeah, and doing my research into this, I come across other things and get interested in other things that are going on. I found out that a guy that I used to know, he was a county sheriff, and he had written a book. I didn't know. I had having had contact with this guy for like 30 years. But I found out he wrote a book about some of his experiences as a sheriff. And so I got into reading that and just things I would have never found otherwise, I guess. And mostly, though, as it relates to the book I'm writing, so I don't have a lot of time to

dig into other crimes that are going on. But if it has anything to do with this or it can help me understand in any way what happened in this case, then I'm interested in that. So I've been kind of following and reading whatever stuff about. somehow relates. Yes, as S.L. Conley just wrote here, after true crime touched my family, it changed the way I parent. It's always in the back of my mind. It does. It makes you think a lot more, for sure. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

John, maybe that's, maybe that's one of your first questions for John. Yeah. Well, I, right. That's a big question. So you're, you become more interested in true crime, but I don't suspect that you're binge watching Netflix true crime documentaries either. No, only the one that had to do with this case. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. That makes sense. So those are pretty much the questions I had if you want to. Well, Patty G. is asking what remaining unanswered questions does Tom have? And maybe that's a great segue right there. All right. You guys ready?

I don't know. I'm sitting down, but... Yeah. My questions are not simple. I mean, these are things that I've struggled with and have not been able to answer for myself. Okay. I'm hoping Dr. John, you can help me with this.

And also, Lauren, this first one especially, I'll just, I'll ask, I'll start to ask the question. Let's see how it goes. I'm wondering, how does Mormonism transfer to Mormon fundamentalism and just religious fanaticism. And I asked that not just because of this particular trial, but because of all the things that I've learned that are going on that have been going on in southern Utah and Northern Arizona,

the preparing of people, avow, all those kind of things. So I've gotten kind of curious about that. What leads us to that? Well, first off, I'll say I might turn the basis of this question, actually over to John, surprisingly, because if you ask me, I might give you an eight-hour podcast, like the one I did over on Mormon stories and tell you all about it, how it can shift.

But I actually consider your question more of a psychological one in how can beliefs. Because I think the question you're asking is the question that lingers has lingered with me for the past four years. I'm working on a book proposal about that very question right now. And a lot of that, a lot of my questions, John really helps me with them. At what point does a belief become a delusion? How does the religion create the fringe? I guess I could answer a specific question about Mormonism, certainly, or specific parts about that? Well, that's because I'm not Mormon.

And I actually write some about this in my book. I have a lot of friends that are Mormon, and I respect them, and I respect their religion. And I don't want to be critical of that. But I think the question needs to be asked. How will we get from like the conventional Mormon church to people that are out there just kind of taking a fanatical view of it all kind of going off fringe? Well, I'll answer the Mormon aspect. And then John, I think a broad answer about religion would be great coming from you. As far as the LDS religion goes, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-D saints, I use the term Mormon as a movement. This starts with Joseph Smith, but there are breakoff groups of

Mormonism and the mainstream Mormon church is called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-D-S Saints, the LDS Church. That is what Lori and Chad belonged to. I think what we've seen again and again and again when it comes to the LDS Church and Mormonism, that it was founded with a man who was a prophet who saw God of Jesus Christ and who then became a prophet. Of course, many religions do start with a magical, sort of mystical moment like that. I don't know if Mormonism is any different, but in the 1800s, this origin story, and John is always teaching me about how important origin stories are and why they sometimes are replayed again and again and again, generational things that happen again and again throughout

a family, origin stories matter. And that origin story is something that we see repeated again and again that someone is going to claim that they speak for God, that they had a vision. Chad claimed to speak for God. They had missions. He had a vision. The book, Visions of Glory, that I've been delving deep into over on Mormon stories with John DeLin and who has really, that book has inspired Tim Ballard, who is also LDS and it has inspired Jody Hildebrandt, who is also LDS. what all of these people have in common I'm seeing is a belief in being a superior being that they are called of God, that they have had visions, and that they have a mission and a purpose, and they are in charge of leading people through the second coming of Christ, all three of those people.

If you look at Warren Jeffs, he was FLDS, not LDS, but in that broad range of Mormonism, a breakoff group, he too took on that mantis. of being a prophet. And I think that where we see issues with religion is this ability for people to not just say that they're a prophet, but for people to believe that the people that say it, that they believe them and follow them. But as far as the first question you asked me, that's a broad question about how does

something religious? And that's very beautiful to many people become something so sinister. I think is more question for John. Actually, I should have framed it all that way. And that's what I've been asking for four and a half years. So, John. Right. So you want this answer in a minute.

So my answer, first of all, my answer would be more in terms of beliefs and not religion. I would take religion, extreme religious beliefs to be a subset of belief. So I think my broader answer will just be in terms of belief. And part of the question is, how do you radicalize someone? And I think the short answer, the best way to radicalize someone is through grievance. So if you take certain grievances and you add stress and you add fear and you add, if you start amplifying those grievances, then beliefs are more apt to become more extreme and you're more likely to find. people believe in in, say, conspiracies or the paranormal or that kind of stuff. But I think, like, in this particular case, I think you have to go back to childhood issues.

And you're looking at, like, Lori, for example, was raised in a family that had fairly extreme beliefs to begin with. And then those beliefs become reinforced. And there's certain personality variables that come into play, too. such things is resilience. So somebody that's less resilient is more likely to move an extreme direction. Somebody who there's a there's something called the five factor model of personality. And one of those factors that's relevant to belief is called openness to experience. So people that are low on that variable tend to move more towards extremism too because they're

not they're not curious. They're not open to new experiences into learning from those experiences. So there's a number of variables here, I think. So family culture, these personality variables like openness to experience, typically people that end up with more extreme beliefs, they might be a little more fantasy prone. So in this particular case, you know, people were seeing angels and talking to Jesus. And, you know, that involves a certain level of fantasy proneness

that you wouldn't see in somebody that's a little more grounded. So those are just some, I mean, you know, we could, some we can come on here and do probably the next, you know, five hours talking about this. But that would just be kind of my quick. Okay, so as far as followers of a fanatic go, what would you say they're missing in their lives that lets them believe in somebody like Chad

or any of these Warren Jeffs? Yeah, so you're talking specifically about Lori here? Well, I'm just wondering in general, actually. what somebody's missing in their lives to make them vulnerable to become a follower of somebody who has fanatical beliefs. Maybe I'm getting too far off the track. I don't know. So the research on cult, there's not a huge amount of research on cults, but some of the research on cult shows that typically people that move more towards cults or become involved in cults, usually they're oftentimes they're experiencing some event in their life,

some type of trauma or some type of upheaval in their life that gets them questioning who they are and what they should be doing. And so the way I think of it is a lot of times you have, let's say a rupture in their life, whatever that is. And that creates a bit of a void. And the goal is to try to fill that void with something meaningful that gives them a sense of belonging and purpose. So I think that sense of belonging and purpose are really what drive cults or joining cults.

And oftentimes that's created by something traumatic or some type of rupture or questioning of one's life path or something along those lines. I love the way you explain things. It really kind of clears. You say it in a way that makes it clear. Thank you. Have a good way of doing that. I mean, I've been struggling with that question really and kind of answered itself. Thank you.

Yeah. That's a big question. It's a tough question. Yeah, I know. Do you think that the book, you've mentioned visions of glory, Lauren, do you think that that book played a big role, like a huge role in what Chad and Lori ended up doing? I do. I think that the book played a huge role. They were lovers of the book, but I think the book, maybe I should frame it this way, because I've been thinking a lot about this, actually how much influence the visions of glory book had and i did a crash course on the daybell case um sort of explaining some basic beliefs and i brought up mike stroud and i brought up

denver snuffer and some other influential people in the day bell case but when it comes down to it all of these people we're also feeding on one another so so you take a group of people with some fringe beliefs and some extreme beliefs. And they're all collecting from one another. And so at what point does this book come in? Visions of Glory isn't a 100% its own creative work of art. We've learned that even that book copied some things from some other places. But this book had such a cult following and still does. And I think that one reason is the secrecy of spent. 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 robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where ORA comes in. Ora actively removes your data from broker's sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But Orra goes beyond data protection. With one app, you get a VPN, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance,

all backed by 24-7 U.S.-based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring, or just a VPN. ORA gives you all of it, together, at the same price competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today atora.com slash remove. Protect yourself now atora. dot com slash remove. Sermis and who he is. We know that's Tom Harrison

and that Spencer was this behind the scene sort of Wizard of Oz guru that people would know of him. There was this reverence with the book. The apostolic, so Tom Harrison, aka Spencer in the book, has an apostolic friend that he keeps referring to in the book, meaning an apostle

sort of okaying this book. There's some mystery and some excitement there. And the belief that this book is scripture took all of their fringe beliefs to the extreme. It bottled them up with a nice ribbon and said, here is your book. Here's your scripture. And then to know that Tom Harrison had met with them, I've learned, and that they really, there was a lot of reverence around him. And I think just seeing Lori reading at Poolside, you probably didn't even notice that when I was noticing it.

Did you? I remember specifically sitting there and seeing the video they showed us of her getting served. And I thought, oh, she's got a religious book. Well, that's standard reason. But that's all I thought at the time. And I didn't know what it was. I still haven't read it. But I didn't know what it was and that had all these connections with all these people

are involved in all this weird stuff. Did you watch our deep dive on that book, Mormon stories? Yes. It's long. Yeah. It's long. It's long. John hasn't even seen the whole thing.

He's like, dude. Eight hours. These questions are, though. I mean, there are several heart questions and answers. They're not easily answered. Right. And to me, I guess my biggest question coming out of it was how, not why it is a mother killer children.

That was easy. How does she do it? How do you get yourself in a frame of mind to be able to do that? And I think listening to you guys a lot has kind of helped me figure that out. What in particular, I know you're the one asking questions, but what is, in particular in our podcast that has helped you the most? Not one thing. Accumulation of things like everything else in this case.

There's not one thing, like an aha moment or whatever. It's just everything adds up to. You know, you talked about, Dr. John talked about Lori's childhood or her family, all that stuff, the narcissism aspect of all of that. And just kind of all adds up still doesn't quite answer it. I don't think it can possibly be answered. to where you get to that point where you can murder your children. But you can kind of, on an academic level, I guess, maybe make some sense of it.

Yeah, I think that's a good point. I think that in these types of cases, we can come up with reasonable explanations, but I think there's always a little bit of mystery. Yeah. That why human beings do exactly what they do is always going to have an unknown variable. And there's always going to be a certain amount of mystery. And in the end, none of us are going to be exactly right. And that's why, you know, that's one of the reasons we do this is because we want to have a dialogue with our audience and our community and the gems.

And that dialogue is so important. I'll get, you know, Lauren jokes that after every show, people will write to me and say, I disagree with you. You're completely wrong. And I think that's great because it means that we're getting people thinking about these cases and alternative points of view. And that dialogue is important. Yeah. I think a lot of people have asked why. There's a lot. I've read, there's books, there's all kinds of stuff. Why did you do this?

Yeah. That's hard to figure out, but how you get to that point we used to do it is stuff. So the next big question that I have for you guys has to do with Kylie. And like I told you before we came on, it's, you know, we're getting into the darkest, to me, the darkest part of all this. Okay. A trigger warning maybe for any of year. It's tough.

But listening and watching her statement in court that she gave to the police after Charles was killed, brought the question to my mind, how her reaction was so bizarre. And I wasn't, at that point, I wasn't even really thinking that much about Lori. I was looking at Tiny Lee going, how is it this girl? I mean, all that I know now, Charles was really nice to her and had a good relationship. She didn't act like she was affected. Even if she didn't like the guy that he'd been killed, a 16-year-old kid would be, that would be a big deal.

And she was just acting like it was nothing. And so that really raised the question in my mind about Tiley and what would make her do that. And so I started thinking about her relationship with her mother, and I started asking myself, has Tiley been manipulated by her mom her whole life? Is she afraid to do anything that her mom's not going to approve of? Does she know her mom's a killer and she's just lying for her mom?

I had all these questions. And the biggest question I had about her and the one that's haunted me ever since the trial is did Tiley know she was in danger? Was she afraid of her mom growing up? Did she know she might be murdered? There was that audio tape of her in the background when Lori was on the phone, and Lori called her dark, and she said, not me, Mom, I'm not dark.

And I just, you know, to think that maybe she knew what was going to happen to her is a horrible thought. So I'm just wondering if you have anything, Dr. John, any ideas about Kylie, and if she knew, she didn't know, what do you think? How to have fun. Anytime, anywhere. Step one, go to chumbacasino.com. Chumbacasino.com. Got it. Step two. Collect your welcome bonus. Come to Papa welcome bonus. Step three. Play hundreds of casino style games for free. That's a lot of games.

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It's a bone-chilling moment, I think. It's a really frightening moment in this case. And that's exactly the question I asked. She knows, I think she knows what happens when people are considered dark and labeled zombies. And here she is with her mother calling her a zombie. You know, it's, I don't know tightly well enough to really answer that question in depth. What I can say is I looked at the interview that she did with the police after Charles was murder. and we did a little bit of analysis of that on YouTube.

I think it's still posted somewhere right, Lauren. Yeah, that was never posted on our podcast, but John's assessment of Tiley's interview after Charles was killed is on our YouTube channel. I'll try to find it. My analysis of Tiley is that she's, there's a lot of turmoil there psychologically. I think you see Tiley,

I see Tyler as someone who is a bit passive aggressive. She's, I believe she was struggling with depression. And I don't know how deep that goes. And I'm not trying to diagnose that, but there's signs of depression entirely a lot all over the place. And I think it could be very severe, but I don't know. You know, I can't go too far with it. I wouldn't diagnose that unless I knew more about her.

But let's just call it depression, broadly speaking. So I think you have someone who has, potentially who has this deep depression, and I think a lot of that is due to the fact that she feels somewhat crippled by her mother. Her mother was probably a bit overprotective and really didn't let her become that, or didn't want her to become that independent, I think. And so you have this kind of overbearing mother. And yet, Tiley is a very smart, intelligent, independent person who wants to express herself. And so you see this side of Tiley that's always pushing back. And I think he, I think he rebelled against Chad, for example. And I think he, you know, he told, she probably, Tiley probably told her mother, Lori, what, what she really felt.

And, you know, Melanie Gibb perceived her to be a rebel and not a kind child. And, you know, so you've got the side of Tiley that's trying to find her voice and that's really kind of fighting to have an identity and is pushing back. But then her mother will, you know, she'll get sick and her mother will take her to the hospital and her mother will tell her you need me and I'm the one who's taking care of you and I'm rescuing you. Right. So you've got this, you've got this tremendous turmoil, I think, with Tiley. and she's really kind of fighting to be herself and fighting to find her own identity. And her mother is really trying to squash that at every turn. And so I think that, to me, that seems to manifest or to present itself in terms of depression.

And when you look at the interview that Tiley did with police, to me, it seems that there's a lot of depression there. So to answer your question, I have a lot of respect for Tiley. in the sense that she was a really smart, independent person who really was fighting for her autonomy, and maybe for her life to some degree. But then there was a part of her that knew there were limits to what she could do. And I do think that in that moment, I think she may have known the awful truth.

But like most children, you're probably not going to want to believe that your mother's capable of killing you. Right. So I think that probably shows itself through the depression. And I think at some level she had to deny that, or, you know, I like most of us, if somebody told us that our parents were going to kill us, I think most of us would want to question that.

That's a good point. That actually helps me deal with my thoughts about Tiley. And this is kind of out there. But the other thing that helps me with it is the idea that possibly, and the same goes for JJ, maybe they had been drug before they were murdered, so maybe they didn't actually know

what's going on when it was happening. We can only hope, yeah. Yeah, the most horrible thing I can think of is a kid being murdered by the people who are supposed to take care of them. The one thing I want to add about Tiley in that interview with Charles, I think one of the most profound moments

besides the fact that she's cracking every joint in her body as she sits there. anxiety. She's wiping tears from her eyes. It's actually really interesting. She stops crying. She starts to cry and she stops it showing that emotion is being shut down in her. But she, I don't know if you know this, Tom, but she starts humming a song and the song she is humming is from the song, from the Disney movie Moana. Did you know this? And it's how far I'll go. Listen to the lyrics to the song. This is all you need to know about Tiley in her life. I've been staring at the edge of the water, long as I can remember, never really knowing why.

I wish that I could be the perfect daughter, but I come back to the water, no matter how hard I try. Every turn I take, every trail I track, every path I make, every road leads back to the place I know where I cannot go, where I long to be. I know everybody on this island seems so happy. Everything is by design. I know everybody on this island has a role, so maybe I can roll with mine. I can lead with pride. I can make a strong. I will be satisfied if I play along.

But the voice inside sings a different song, What is wrong with me? Wow. That is the song. She is humming during that interview. That's crazy. I think that's what she was dealing with her whole life. Trying to play a role,

trying to play along, trying to please her mother. I see a codependent relationship that she had. her mother triangulated. I believe there might have been when she has been by proxy with her sickness. Her mother made her dependent. I've also heard from people that when Tiley did have friends

that she wanted to have friends, she would say, I can't go out. My mother says I'm too sick. There was a lot of manipulation there. Do you think Lori was really controlling? I do. In a very manipulative way. In a way that says only I will protect you.

You need me. Everybody else is out to get you, but I always have your back. I listened to Dr. John's explanation. I don't remember what it was called, but you put the baby on the blanket and something that maybe decided. Yeah, blanket training. Yeah, I thought a lot about that.

Yeah, that blanket training is that blanket training is something else. It's hard to imagine that people actually do it. But yeah, if you want to abuse a child or be, eat a child into submission without actually hitting them. I think sometimes they do hit them with the, right, with the wooden, what is it they use, Lauren? The wooden spoons, right?

Yeah. I think sometimes the children are hit, but it's certainly a way of creating a very passive, traumatized child. That helped, that simple explanation helped me a lot to understand that frame of mind. So you want to move on to some easier questions? Yeah, yes, please. You're making me sweat a little bit here, Tom. They're still really deep.

They're just not, you know, relative to that, these are easier ones. Do you think that Lori might have been capable of murder before she met, Chad? You know, we, in our last show two weeks ago, we talked about that issue. We were, from one of our sources informed us that there was a reasonably high probability that Lori may have been present when Joe Ryan, who was one of her ex-husbands, that she may have been present when he was, when he died.

She saw her at his last breath or something like that. Yeah. Right, exactly. And then there's also her sister Lolly and her sister Stacy. Yeah, there's, right, there's so many question marks. All these people died under strange circumstances. Do you think she actually believes that she talks to Jesus in dead people? Yep.

I do think she does. I think she's very literal and her religious beliefs are very literal. And I think she's obviously very narrow-minded. And as you heard during the sentences, sentencing, you know, Judge Boyce mentioned that one of the forensic people, one of the forensic psychologists diagnosed her with delusional disorder. So that would be consistent with someone who may very well think they're talking to Jesus. So but if that's the case, do you think she'll ever come to terms with what she's done? Or will she always just believe that she was holding? Yeah, that's a question we ask all the time.

I don't see any, at this point, I don't see any changes on the horizon. I think she'll continue to be in denial for quite a while. I think over time, depending on the influences, you know, her influences in prison, you know, I mean, it's possible she may work through some of that denial, but at the moment, I don't, it's pretty, pretty entrenched. Here's here's a little tidbit. This is, this is unknown information. This is some tea, as we say here, a hidden chew crime. But it'll give you an example where her mind is now. You know, we all heard her, refer to her eternal friend Tammy Daybell at the statement. That was a wild moment even for me. Even me believing that she believes some of this wild stuff, my mouth dropped.

I just wonder how Tammy's sister felt about hearing that. Yeah, yeah. And this is a bit of a trigger warning for any of Tammy's dear friends or family listening to this. That, you know, I've been curious about, you know, now that I know that Chad and. Lori might be able to talk. I've been sort of curious. And I reached out to some, these are good sources. And what Lori is talking about behind bars these days is visiting with her dear friend Tammy Daybell.

And that's what she's been talking about behind bars presently. So in her mind, if Dr. John is right, in her mind she believes she's talking to Tammy Daybell. And Tammy Daybell is her dear friend in heaven. Yeah, despite being the mistress who conspire to killed. But that's true, she probably really would welcome her death. He's got a firm belief. Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, we've speculated on that, right? I think, well, that goes along with her belief that she believed that the world, the apocalypse was going to occur in July 20th, 2020, right?

So in that sense, potentially because she had that firm belief in the apocalypse, I don't think she put as much emphasis on the, you know, the murders. Yeah, right. But when those things don't happen, so how does that

blow it all up for these people? They just think, well, it's going to happen later. You have to be wrong. Tom, you're trying to see this from a rational standpoint. We're not talking about it. We're not talking about. We're not talking about the most rational people here. So it's a good question, but I think, you know, there's something, we talk about this a lot,

there's something called cognitive dissonance, which is exactly what you're mentioning, which, you know, when evidence contradicts your beliefs, you basically have two choices. One is you amend your belief or the other is you just distort the evidence. So, you know, these people distort the evidence so that they can live with it or they can still see themselves consistently or they can keep their beliefs. So the way you distort the evidence is you say, well, my belief is correct, but, you know, I just got the date a little wrong. I just read a few things incorrectly. Let's go tweak those. And then, you know, clearly the apocalypse is going to occur in 2024 or whatever it is. So essentially, this cognitive dissonance

allows people that believe, that set those types of dates to continue believing in the same thing, they just continue to distort the evidence. That kind of really explains why she thought she would get away with it all. She thought July 2020, 2020 is a good day. Yeah. And I want to point out something specific about the end of world beliefs that they have. I think that there's, if you think of it this way, some tribulations in most religions in the book of Revelation talks about a lot of tribulations.

And I think there's people that believe the end of the world is the end. You know, everything just blows up and that's it. And then there's other people I think that are thinking at the end is where the many people die. And the tribulations begin, but they are left standing to then gather the remaining 144,000. So I think to put that into perspective, too, that the end of the world to them was where all the tribulations were going to happen, the natural disasters, the family. and the wicked were going to be killed, but they would be standing with 144,000 of the most righteous. Crazy. Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. Bingo. Yeah. Crazy also, by the way, crazy is not a diagnosis either, Tom. No, it's crazy. Crazy and moron are not valid. Right.

diagnoses, but, you know, it's fine if you use those terms rather than me. Yeah, or evil. Crazy, moron, evil. All those easy terms we just want to be able to throw out to make sense of something. They're not in the DSM, unfortunately. Yeah. Although I think someone could make a compelling argument that maybe we should add crazy to the DSM, but we haven't gotten that far yet.

Right. Seems like a legitimate term to me. So I wanted to ask you about the living victims, family members, the police who had to be at the exhumations and all that kind of stuff. Long-term, how do you think this is going to affect some of those people? Do you think some of them might have long-term problems with it? You know, there's something that in my field we talk about in clinical psychology, but also, I guess, in forensic work, we talk about the idea of vicarious trauma. the idea is that by just by being close to a case like this and say for example with law enforcement I mean the people that actually were present when the bodies were found for example I mean that

obviously is that's not vicarious that's real that's actual trauma and so I think the people that actually witnessed those types of things are probably I wouldn't be surprised to see if there's some residual trauma from those instances. or from their experiences, but also people like yourself, you know, that, that participated on a jury and really didn't know what you were getting yourself into. And you're kind of forced to be in a cloistered situation for a while, for, you know, a long period of time. I think that can have a real impact.

And you pointed that out. You talked about that a little bit in terms of some changes you've made and maybe being a little traumatized. So I think you call them living victims that the living victims will be deeply impacted by this. They can't help it be. That's my thought. What do you think about

Alex? I'm thinking mostly him and Lori when they were kids growing up, their family. Do you think that they had a sexual relationship? I mean, I guess you have to either have knowledge of that or not. You guys know something I don't. Well, I could probably talk

more freely. Do you want me to just share my non-psychologist opinions? I think they probably possibly had a sexual relationship. I do. I think that there was, this is my opinion. This is me and not John. I personally think that there was abuse in the household and I think there might have been. 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 robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere.

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Start your free trial today atora.com slash remove. Protect yourself now at aura.com slash remove. Things that overstep boundaries, but perhaps it was even normal to them. That's a conclusion I've been coming to also. Alex is the wife that he had for a year, her description of what she saw when she met the family. And then she ran is kind of telling, I think. Yeah, the family has steadfastly denied that, by the way. So I think I should point that out.

I mean, there's, do we have proof of that? No. Right. Okay. Does it seem like something untoward happened during their childhood? Yeah, probably. It certainly seems that way. Well, how do you think you could have been convinced to actually be the actual physical murderer?

I think there was a lot of codependency with Lori. There's probably some history of dependency in that relationship. I guess the pop term would be codependency, but I think the term I would use would be deep dependency. And Alex was very literal also in his beliefs, and he was a bit of a true believer as well. So I don't think it took a huge amount of convincing to get him on board. That makes sense. For Chad to kind of see him as the ideal, kind of an ideal follower of his belief system. He was a true believer also.

Although it does seem like he was questioning it at the end before he died. Yeah, a little bit. Although the blessing, the blessing that Chad gave him might indicate otherwise. But yeah, there might have been, you're talking about Zulat. right? There might have been a little bit of question marks. He said something, I forget. It was like, I'm either a man of God or I'm not,

I'm either their fall guy or I'm not. Yeah, I might be their fall guy. I'm either a man of God or I am not. Exactly. According to Zilemma, according to Zilemma, in her police interview, she stated that this is yeah, what he said at the end. Yeah. So.

Or he's a dilemma, so maybe he said. Well, even Lori, you know, if you think about the the Melanie Gibb call. Even Lori questioned Chad a little bit. I mean, it didn't last, but even Lori apparently said something to the effect of either Chad Daybell is a profit or the, what, like the biggest devil that there ever was or something

like that. I hear that. Interesting. So, I mean, I, you know, I think that's an interesting element of this case is that some of the biggest players had moments of questioning and moments of kind of soft reflection that where they were able to stand back a little and wonder if this was real. Unfortunately for us, though, those moments didn't last very long, I guess. Those seem to be fleeting moments.

So you mentioned Zilemma. Do you think that it's possible that she killed Alex? Tom said he was coming with the questions and he has not disappointed. These are all questions that have come up. Yeah. Yeah, you came in with guns blazing, Tom, but thank you anyway. I, that's a really, that's, I think, wow. Did you want to take that one, Lord? You know, I'll take that one. I'll take that one. This is what I think after looking at the evidence and like everything else I can't, I can't prove this. His autopsy is a pulmonary ambulism, just like everybody else in this case. Oh, that's it. There's a lot of incidences. Yeah,

Tammy, Eldon Klausen, don't know if you've looked at Eldon Klausen, but I can send you down that. The Eldon Klausen, watch Bernadine's interview on our channel for that. I'll be sharing that on our podcast soon.

I think one of two things, Zulema or Alex himself, I tend to lean towards Alex in the patriarchal blessing that Chad gave Alex that was shared, in court, that was something all of us heard for the first time. We had read that but never heard it. That was a heavy moment for me.

When we heard Chad giving Alex this patriarchal blessing that said that he was his, you know, his sister's protector, that he was going to be an incredible person that even in the afterlife, he would help save children. And it stated that he would know when to cross over to the other side. And to me, that is a very very important. very telling line that that chat is almost implying you're going to know when it's time you're not it's going to happen when it happens like most of us when it comes to to death or thinking about our own mortality it's you will know when then you throw in the fact that there was a call before

his death with chad and that chat allegedly gave him a blessing from hawaii he was in hawaii with Lori at the time of his death and there was a blessing. That one, to me, like you gave him permission to die. Correct. Exactly. And then you throw in that the day before Tammy Daybell's body had been exhumed and that he was saying, I'm either a man of God or I'm not, I might be their fall guy. He throws in to Zilema where a bag of money might be if something happens to him.

He goes to Mexico prior. All of these things tell me that it was not. just a natural pulmonary embolism it might have been and i also believe correct me if i'm wrong but i think it was too a bilateral like two that's that's unique so so i believe that the autopsy says both of his lungs so that's unusual and i do believe so i believe the autopsy but what caused that and i think there might have been something he picked up in mexico and he might have chosen to do that himself and maybe zulemen knew perhaps de lemon knew that that was going to happen this is another thing all speculation everyone that whole thing that whole thing right there lord's opinion no fact well i shared the evidence

that took me there i shared the evidence that took me there but we don't know what happened to even get further out on a limb though that made me kind of wonder if drugs weren't more involved in all of this not not like psychedelic drug but drugs that'll kill you that may be hard to identify maybe in all the deaths. And that's what took me kind of back to Tiley, thinking, you know, maybe she was dragged hopefully. Yeah, we can hope.

We can hope. Or the allegedly Tammy becoming more tired before her death, even though she was also doing Zumba. So, you know, it depends on who you talk to. Right. But yeah, yeah, we can only, I'm with you. We can only hope. I know what you mean.

Like, you just hope for some sort of mercy. It gives me a little bit of something to hang on to, I guess. I understand. Yeah. So on a lighter subject, Lauren, you were at the trial every day, right? Yes. Was some of it confusing as it was happening to you? Like, were you able to just keep up with it right along?

Or was it kind of like, well, that's a lot trying to wrap my head around all this stuff? Well, I had a benefit that you didn't have. I knew a lot about the case going in. Everything that you guys, you know, were not supposed to have watched. I had watched and I had been. reporting on it. There were particular moments that were difficult for me to keep up on when it came to the technical stuff when they were going through the FBI cast data system, keeping the

different phone numbers straight. But that's where I felt you guys had the upper hand because you had your notebooks in front of you with like the lists of the different burner phones. And we didn't have that. They had it on the screen, but it was so tiny. None of us could see it. So I was trying to like memorize or tweet the entire phone number. I needed like a graph to be able to know because because the way they have to say it is this burner phone with this number pinged here and then this burner phone pinged here.

And they're not telling you that Alex's phone pinged here. They're telling you a phone number ping somewhere. So those are the moments that were really hard for me. And I've had to go back in my notes and really, really study that. So on those moments, I think actually you were better off with what was in front of you. I didn't take a lot of And as it was kind of getting around the middle of the trial, I was thinking

maybe I should have been taking better notes all along there, but it didn't matter because other people were doing that for me. Yeah, yeah. And then deliberation access to that. But, you know, I have the religious background, and I had the reporting

background and a vast knowledge about this case sitting in there that you didn't have. So that was helpful to me. I was having hard time sometimes. Which parts? Which parts? You know, a lot of the detectors,

you mentioned the texts and emails and whatever, all that kind of stuff kind of got to be a lot at times, trying to understand how they could figure out that Alex was over here at a certain time. I understand all that now because I went back and studied it all and figured it out. But at the time, I was really not following all that. But I got the point.

The point was that they were able to figure out where he was and pinpoint it. That's all I needed to know at the time. Right. I kind of didn't understand it. Yeah, they had to share that in a very technical way that it was, it was kind of hard. I agree. So this one's a little more conjecture. But do you think that people, some other people maybe knew the kids were dead,

the Melanies, Zilema, Audrey, you think any of those people might have known? That was a question actually. The chat wanted to ask you, but your thoughts and what they might know. So maybe we can all share. I think so. Yeah. They must have, which I'm wondering now,

are the cops getting robbed or some of these people? Do they have deals? Maybe we'll never know. Yeah, the chat has been wondering what you thought of, particularly Melanie Gibbs or David Warwick's testimony, knowing that they were there, right? They were there that night in a small. all town home. This isn't like they didn't like have their own wing.

Didn't they have a nightmare? I know they, I remember that they. There's a nightmare. Alex walked by them with Jay Grona's shoulder and walk upstairs, right? Mm-hmm. And was it Warwick who had a nightmare woke up or something? Yeah. That's all just weird to me. Yeah. Yeah. And he conveniently didn't remember anything.

Yeah. Right. He, I mean. So either he knew what was going on or he was a, involved in it. Yeah. Yeah, I appreciated actually the defense when it came to David Warwick or others. I actually thought that the defense did a valuable job there pointing out their strange beliefs as well. I'm curious what you thought of that because that this would be confusing if you didn't know much about the case. I knew who David Warwick was. I was looking forward to hearing from him. I knew his story. So I can't imagine having to take all of that in for you. I needed time to

think about and luckily you know things move along slow and then there's a break or whatever so you do get time to contemplate what you heard and I would think back and think I think I think it was being kind of goble listening to that witness you know like maybe an hour later I was in the jury room or something thinking back on what I heard thinking you know I'm just taking that person's word for the truth but who knows if they're telling the truth or not always very easy to tell right and I think the defense, one thing the defense did well is point out that did they know more by pointing

out their very odd beliefs and their conspiracy theories and how united they were with Lori and Chad, I don't know if it diminished their testimony as much as it showed that there was a large group of people that likely

knew more. Especially when Audrey Therotiero Baritero. Baritero. Audrey Otero. Yeah. I like that.

The defense is putting up a little bit of a fight there, and I thought that was good. Yeah. How did you feel about her testimony? That was a new one for me. I mean, I knew of her, but nobody had heard from her until that moment. Right. So that was a big one. Yeah.

She had to say anything to the grand jury or anything growing into it. That was just a surprise. What did you think of her testimony when you heard it? I was kind of thinking, wow. you know, that's crazy. But then it's, I don't know who she is. Is she telling the truth? And then when she got cross-examined,

it was a little bit kind of like, yeah, who knows if any of what she said was true or not. It didn't really matter that much to me, whether she was telling the truth or not at that point. Yeah. Did you, I just have a quick question here, Tom. On the issue of all the people that seem to know, that, you know, with the defense implying

that there were multiple members of this group that knew, did you feel like that that, I think the defense was trying to do that to lessen Lori's culpability. Did you feel like that was effective in any way? No, because I felt like they were probably right. I think that it was a bigger conspiracy and there were more people involved. Lori was their mom. That's all.

So, okay. So in some ways that strategy may have backfired a little bit. Exactly. And being her mom, their mom, if she had like the next day called the police or whatever, was, oh, my kids have been killed and then tried to cover it up. That would be one thing. But she lied about it. She went to Hawaii and led her along on.

She did all this crazy stuff and just went on with her life after her kids had been killed. Yeah. Yeah, not a normal response. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how much time we have. I have more questions. Okay.

Go for it. Okay. Yeah, go ahead, John. What do you just? I think we're kind of getting close to wind you down here. Yeah, so yeah, a little bit close. Yeah, because of our, we're going to hit bedtime soon for our child. I think go on.

But keep going. Okay. But I wanted to ask you about John Thomas. Do you have any opinion on why he felt like he had to tell us? So I've looked into his background. He's an impressive guy. He's a very qualified defender. But he felt for some reason that he had.

had to tell us he was a diver in college when he was talking about himself in court. And I just thought that was kind of curious. And I wondered why did he do that? I actually don't even remember that part, honestly. Yeah, but you brought him up. I thought of a lot of things and I don't remember that moment. What was the context with that? It must have been the first time that he introduced himself for the jury, I guess. I don't remember exactly. They were doing introductions. You're right. They were doing introductions. I remember very well, him describing himself as a diver in college. And well, yeah, okay. I'll leave it at that. Yeah, that's a number of that.

I think they were trying to make it a little more personal. I think they were trying to be a little more relatable. I think they both did that. You know, it's a common defense strategy just to try to connect to the jury, I think, to make things a little more personable. Okay. So I think there would be no compelling reason to do that unless he's just trying to connect to the jury. Yeah.

For my perspective, it was the first time juror. it seemed like out of nowhere. Okay. Maybe it's not usual, I don't know. You're thinking, what does this have to do with the case? Well, not just that, but why did he? There was a lot of things he could have told us about himself that would have had a big impression on you.

Anyway, some of these would kind of gone over. So I've been watching the hearings for the Chad hearings, and he sits there like a statue. John, is there any kind of psychological explanation for that? Thank you for bringing this up because it's a question. I would also like to ask my husband. Yeah. And John, you've seen this.

You've seen this in every hearing, but this last hearing, just you know, John, because I was watching it live with our gems and John was busy. John's been dealing with a lot this week, as many of you know. but this was a four-hour hearing, John. And we see him in these spurts, but like he did not move. He was like a wax figure. And he would kind of slouch too, right?

He was kind of slouching. I mean, John knows what he looks like. He slouches, but he hardly moves. You're like waiting for him to blink. Yeah, I mean, I think my short explanation would be that if he's standing there like a statue, it's because he is a statue. And what I mean by that is that, this isn't someone with a lot of affect or a lot of emotion.

You know, Chad is, he's not someone that seems really comfortable with his emotions, and he's not comfortable expressing his emotions. And that would not be atypical of someone who lacks empathy or someone who might engage in these types of activities. That, you know, that he's, there's a detached quality to Chad Debo. And I think that type of detachment, you know, makes committing crimes, especially heinous crimes like this, more likely or more probable. I mean, some of it could be a strategy. You know, some of it could be his defense attorney prior telling him, look, don't show any

emotion, try to act like a statue because I don't want people, I don't want the cameras to, or I don't want the public to speculate about certain, if you show emotion or if you cry or not that he's capable of that. But if so some of it could be a defense strategy in the sense that his lawyer, his attorney's trying to keep a lid on any speculation about his body language. And we all know that there's now, I don't know, hundreds of YouTube channels that do body language analysis. And so every one of them would be picking it up. Right. So some of it could be that.

But some of it, I think, is just who he is. That's, you know, he's, he's very statue-like in his life. And he doesn't express a lot of emotion. And so I think I think that's part of it. Somebody just mentioned he's a psychopath. I can't definitively say that, but a psychopath, if he was a psychopath, a psychopath is someone who does typically psychopaths do not express emotion. And it's actually kind of hardwired in their brains that they struggle with emotion.

They're able to feign emotion sometimes when it's necessary to dupe people. But they don't really have emotions the way most normal people. would. So I can call him a crazy psychopath. You can, I can't. That's correct. Yeah, I'll let you get in there with it. As Collette points out, put Jason Mao in front of him, and then he'll show emotion.

He'll cry when he talks about Jason Mao in his speeches. But there's someone else that doesn't ever move. And we have that on our true crime collection on YouTube as well. We talked about John's assessment of the Tiley interview after Charles was killed, but he also assessed Alex Cox. And while he was being interviewed after Charles's death, and it is precisely the same. He doesn't move.

Even when they leave the room. So this whole question about it's John Pryor telling Chad not to move. The police officers leave the room and Alex still sits in the same position. It still doesn't move. It's a remarkable. It's a remarkable. I don't remember how long it lasted. We took a look at it.

hour and a half. But yeah, it's an amazing moment in terms of understanding Alex Cox because he really, he really is just like a statue. He has no affect, no empathy, no remorse, apparently. I haven't been around people like that. Yeah. It was something really funny. And I got to a point where I was just staring at him, waiting for him to do something

And it just didn't. It was crazy. Do you think that part of his game early on? Was he like a wannabe polygamist or at least? I think so. I think so. Yeah, but I don't even know if he had an end game. I think if you were to say to him,

John says this a lot about the criminals he assesses is that one of the questions you always asks them is, why did you do this? And their answer is usually, I don't know. I'm telling John's story for him. He can jump in anytime he wants. but I'm going to suspect that perhaps Chad might say the same thing. I don't know if he said, well, I set this plan in motion because what I really wanted was five wives.

I think that he probably would have loved five wives and he was collecting quite a harem at the end there. But I don't know if he knows that, if that makes sense. Something I wondered about too with the other witnesses and the women. Was there more going on than we know about? I've heard pretty much with Julie Rowe. I know that he shared with Julie Roe. She was a wife in a past life and he certainly talked with Julie Roe

about Tammy dying and he shared with Melanie Gibb that she had been a wife in a past life and his story and that there was definitely another woman that he was having at the very least an emotional affair with in Arizona that we also know of that

investigators of police were interviewing. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you didn't have the conscious goal of polygamy, I think it was definitely on his radar. So it may not have been a deliberate conscious goal that he was striving to attain. But I think it was, he was clearly experimenting with that possibility, I think. I think Lori may have changed the equation a bit

in the sense that when he meets Lori, so prior to Lori, he's flirting with a lot of different people, including Julio. That's a complicated topic. But I think when he meets Lori, Lori fulfills a lot of his fantasies and he checks a lot of boxes in terms of his so-called perfect woman. And so I think at that point, maybe he wasn't as interested in polygamy maybe.

But I don't know. Maybe Lori, who knows? Who knows what may have happened? I was wondering about his relationship with Tammy and how much of it she was aware of. She doesn't seem to be involved in any of his things other than their publishing business. I think she definitely knew about his relationship with Lori at some point,

maybe late in the game. Yeah, that might be what caused her demands. Yeah, right. There was an email exchange with Charles that seemed to indicate that she was aware of their relationship. Yeah. Well, we actually got to the end of the questions that I wrote down. I didn't think that would ever happen.

have a lot more but that was more than I thought we would get through. Well, we're getting many requests to have juror number 18 back. They want Tom back. And I don't know if you know this, Tom, but did you know that we have over 4,000 people watching with us right now live? Good thing I did not know that. Yeah, I wasn't going to tell you that. There you go.

There's the bomb drop. Surprise. Oh, that's a lot. That's significantly more than we're in the courthouse for two months. Right. Right. That's a lot. But when you say that more, let's bring up the book again,

just so everyone knows what the book is and when it's coming out. Yeah, share your book, share your project, Tom, with us. And then, yes. Again, the title is Money, Power and Sex, the Lori DeBell trial by juror number 18. And I get into as deep as I can get into in this trial, not as deep as these guys, because I'm not as knowledgeable about it as they are. I'm trying, but I get into some other stuff too that might be interesting.

So I'll just kind of leave it at that. I hope people will read it. The profits from the book are going to a good organization that helps children in need. And that's kind of what motivated me to do this. I'm not a writer. It's my first attempt. but now that I'm mostly done with it, I think I'm really glad that I did it.

So hopefully people will read it. We will certainly be reading it here. We look forward to it. A juror is such an important perspective. And the more I talk to you, the more I realize just how important your Tom's perspective is. We'll look forward to reading it. And of course, having you back and when it's published, again,

because of the sensitive nature of the people you have interviewed and the information you have, It cannot be published until after Chad Daybell's verdict, but you will be starting some pre-sales soon, perhaps, and we'll let everybody know when that happens. I'm not sure when that will be, but yeah, I'll let you know for sure. I see that Kay is listening and I like her comments.

She is. Kay says, Tom, you've been a spectacular guest. Please do come back. Yeah. So you came with the questions. It's not every day. that John. Right.

We didn't get to interview you. It was reciprocal. Just a few for me to get this opportunity, and I'm going to take advantage of it. Okay. Well, as we shared, this is a conversation among friends, including our gems here in chat, and we're so grateful for our gems that are here and for also being here. Such short notice, switching from Saturday, our typical night to Friday. Thank you, everyone.

And thank you, everyone, for the warm wishes you've sent John this week. as well. For those that know, it's been a hard week for John. And Tom, we we couldn't have had a better guess and a better conversation. This is exactly what we wanted tonight after kind of a long week for our family. So thank you for being here. Yeah. Yeah. And thank you for giving us a chance to kind of look behind the curtain into the jury box a little bit. And that's a rarity. We don't get to see that often. So thank you for sharing your thoughts and your perceptions and what it was like to to sit there. Yes, thank you for trusting us.

Go ahead, John. Yes, exactly. trustworthy journalists, and I appreciate that. I'm very happy to talk to you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And for our gems, thank you so much.

Please hit subscribe. Please hit like. If you appreciated this with Tom, please hit the thumbs up or the like because it is actually how more people will learn about Tom and his book and his experience. It will show up in the algorithm.

more and thank you everyone for subscribing and for being here tonight and truly Tom thank you for being so open to have this very vulnerable conversation with us with friends so thank you for me appreciate it yes all right thank you everyone have a wonderful Friday night and we'll see you soon again we'll see you all right take care good night take care good night hello hidden gems 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,

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