Hidden True Crime - Beyond the Veil: Oprah and Portals and Daybell- Oh My!

Episode Date: July 30, 2020

Before we move on to explore Lori Vallow’s role in these murders, we examine Chad Daybell’s peculiar obsession with portals and his and Lori’s disdain for Oprah Winfrey- and what these two quirky beliefs mean for this case and, more generally, for understanding the criminal mind and the human condition. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands 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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And this is Lorian Matthias. And we're happy to be here with our fifth podcast because that means the world has not ended. Yeah, right. We were prepared for the end. We had our son's third birthday party the day before the end of the world. And then, of course, that evening I went on a massive spending spree and went into serious debt thinking that we wouldn't have to repay it.

but apparently I'll be returning that boat. We didn't really buy a boat. But we did buy something. We bought a new house. That part is true. And we moved into the new house when we realized the world wasn't going to end. We moved into the house. And here we are.

There's no boat. Although people apparently own boats in Las Vegas, I wouldn't be one of them. Right. There's not a lot of water here. And the water that is here is receding quickly. So a boat probably isn't the best idea. Anyway, if you're listening, thank you. We assume that you too survive the.

end of the world? First off, a toast to still being here. A toast to Chad Daybell's poor powers of prediction. As if you didn't know it, I'm sure you figured out by now that Chad Daybell's powers of prediction are horrendous. Let's hope you didn't have to learn that by watching the 22nd pass us by. But if you did, we're glad you're here. There's a few things that from the beginning of this case that Lauren and I, and I don't want to speak for her, but there's a few. few things from beginning in this case that I've been completely obsessed with. I give you permission to speak for me because I think it's fair that you know we both have been obsessed with these. Right. And so we have to get them out of our system and we hope that this will illuminate a little

bit more about Chad Daybell. I know we spent a lot of time on Chad. And Lori too. This will help us understand something of Lori. Those two things are the portal. I just can't stop talking about the portal and neither can our three-year-old. The other thing is Oprah. Oprah. We brought her up last time. Oprah is the darkest spirit, according to Lori and Chad. This comes from their best friend, or Lori's best friend, Melanie Gibb, told Keith Morrison this that Oprah is the darkest spirit of them all. Do you know what that means? Because I thought the darkest spirit of all was Satan. So we're talking Oprah being Satan, Satan incarnate. Oh, she actually won up Satan. True. She's the evilest of the evil beings. I wonder what Oprah would think of that.

I have a guess. She'd probably be proud. And then maybe ask Lori why since she's never killed a child. We'll be talking about Oprah a bit more later. But now I want to dive a little bit into this whole idea of portals. Okay. Do we know where Chad's portals begin? We don't know where they begin. But let's talk about how the public started to learn about the portals. We started to learn about Chad Daybell having portals or believing in portals or liking portals through the fact that, that he, according to Lori's best friend, Melanie Gibb, created Lori a portal in her bedroom while she was still married to Charles Vallow, where she could visit with Chad in the portal. Even though he was in Idaho, she was in Arizona, they were both married to their other spouses at the time before their spouses died or were murdered, and they would visit with each other in a so-called portal. And this just blew our minds when we heard this.

Right. Even in the interview with Nate Eaton, and Nate is a true professional. Nate tries to keep his composure. When he's interviewing Melanie Gibb. When he was interviewing Melanie Gibb, right, he asked about the portal and he kept a straight face. I'm not sure how. That kind of kept a straight face. You could tell.

He asked what we were always asking. Is it real that they believed in portals? And the answer apparently is yes. It's definitely real. In fact, in Chad's last book called Reclaiming Liberty, he has an entire passage. He devotes to portals. The public knows about portals through Lori's best friend, Melanie Gibb. But we, as we read Chad's fictions, learned that he has liked portals for quite some time.

Let me read you that paragraph that John just mentioned from his last fictional book. Reclaiming Liberty. It is about the second coming. That's all Chad thought about, as we now know. He was a doomsday prepper, and this is about what he thought was going to happen towards the end of times. And as we've mentioned before in past episodes of our podcast, Chad has claimed that his fictions are real, that he doesn't write fiction, that what he writes is prophecy. So here we go. Rose went first and told him the information.

He typed it in and then smiled. Your records are in order. Please step forward. Rose passed through an entryway and was greeted by. a smiling woman who handed her a gold medallion that matched the one Glenn had shown the man. This token is used to verify you're authorized to enter paradise, the woman said. Be sure to keep it with you. Dan and Tyson soon joined her and received their tokens. Then Glenn led them to a portal, a large circular opening similar to what Tyson had seen in

some Marvel movies. Dr. Strange isn't in there, is he? Tyson asked. Glenn laughed. No, but it's interesting how close they got it in Hollywood to matching reality. Follow me. We'll be at your new home in no time at all. They each stepped inside the portal, and soon they were traveling at a great speed in a tunnel 50 feet above the shimmering waters of the Great Gulf. Soon they reached the shores of paradise and Rose marveled at all of the beautiful buildings and parks. She saw hundreds of people in white robes walking or chatting in the streets. Everything looks so pristine and clean, And Rose said as they passed above several sparkling communities. So is this ours, Dan asked, feeling overwhelmed with gratitude?

Yes, you actually built it yourselves through the good Christian lives you led on earth. The portal came to an end on the front lawn and they stepped out onto the grass. Rose laughed with the light as the large rabbit hopped towards her. Flopsy, I've missed you. Rose knelt down on Flopsy, put her front paws on Rose's knee. This is so marvelous, Rose said. I love the flopsie ending because it actually reminds me a lot of Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, where there is a portal and it's entirely fiction and fantasy.

That's part of what I want to talk about in terms of understanding the psychological meaning of a portal. We go to a Wonderland. Well, Chad's observation that Hollywood almost matched reality, I think it's misleading. I think it's actually that Chad's reality was being matched to Hollywood. Yeah. Can I just say this? He was totally plagiarizing everything. His mind is so simplistic he would just copy things. There's so many things you see in there.

You're like, oh, that's from that, that's from that, that's from that. Did Chad have one original idea? Or one abstract idea? Original or abstract. Zombies, portals, been there. There's a French psychologist who did a great deal of research on child development. And one of the things he discovered was the final stage of development he referred to us the formal operational stage of development. And that stage is achieved when we're able to develop abstract thoughts and think in terms of analogies and metaphors.

And he actually estimated that about 50% of people never get to a formal operational stage of thinking. And I think it seems fairly clear that Chad was one of those 50%. Very clear. One thing I want to bring up and ask you about in that passage was the end result of the portal was getting to Paradise, which was a sparkling, clean, white community. Did you see that? Did you read that? What's that about? So Paradise is essentially Pleasantville? There's so many directions I could go in with that. But it's interesting because that idea, a sparkling, pristine community, it's consistent with another psychologist who studied moral development in children.

It's consistent with one of Colberg's lower stages of moral development where everything is divided into black and white or good and evil or clean and dirty. Right. Light and dark. Things are broken down into the most simplistic elements. Here's that quote one more time. Everything looks so pristine and clean, Rose said, as they passed above several sparkling communities. So this is ours, Dan asked,

feeling overwhelmed with gratitude. Yes, you actually built it yourself through the good Christian lives you led on earth. So in other words, our reward for being good is a perfect, clean, pristine community. That speaks to some of the ideas we talked about earlier about Chad being a deity, that if you're a deity,

then nothing is ugly or deformed. or imperfect, right? It kind of picks up on that theme about what's the ultimate form of perfection? What's the ultimate expression of divinity? It's something without impurities. As someone who thrives on chaos, sounds like I don't want to be in paradise. Sounds like that's not the place for me.

I don't know if that's a place I'd like to live for the rest of eternity. Then maybe you need to rethink that because if you don't want that, then I presume you can join Oprah somewhere. You and I have been talking about portals now for months. Have you found any research on any criminal that believes in portals? No criminals I'm aware of? Like I said, you could find the Mad Hatter and Alice in Wonderland, and you can probably pick it up in Narnia. But there is research on the paranormal. I would consider a portal to fall within the realm of paranormal research. Probably the most interesting study related to a portal and the psychological research was conducted by Harvey Irwin in 1990. 91, it's still probably one of the best studies looking at the paranormal. What Irwin discovered was that there was a strong correlation between belief in the paranormal and fantasy-proneness. It's fairly obvious from Chad Daybill's musings about the portal that he is very fantasy-prone,

which is ironic because he denies that any of this has to do with the imagination. The irony there. Right. The irony is that he's extremely fantasy-prone. This is all a huge fantasy. And yet, he treats it as if it's literal. Which is what explains Chad Daybell. I don't believe in fantasy. My fantasy is reality. Right, exactly. That he's mistaking this fantasy proneness for something real.

And not only real, so real he's willing to murder. Kill children. Kill children over it. And his wife of almost 30 years. Another interesting thoughts, since this is the hidden podcast, and we're going to take you below the surface, way below the surface. Another interesting thought about portals that occurred to me is based on the book The Shining Girls by Lauren Bukas.

I might have thought that Chad read this book at some point, but I would guess most of his reading is confined to a fairly narrow. Marvels, Marvels, probably religious readings. This is not a religious book. True. The basic idea in this book, The Shining Girls, is it's about a serial killer who is able to time travel to avoid detection. And so I wonder, I've had the thought that maybe

somewhere in Chad's fantasy world, he created the notion of a portal because he felt as if he could get away with crimes. You know what? There was a commenter on Facebook that had an interesting idea, which is when the bodies were being discovered in Chad Daybell's yard, Chad Daybell was watching police.

That was confirmed by multiple witnesses. He sat in his car across the street watching police officers, find these bodies of JJ entirely. And just sat there. there watching them. And then the moment that the police were seeming to find the exact location of the bodies and were discovering the human remains, Chad Daybell took off in his car. And that was also confirmed by several witnesses. Well, this commenter on Facebook said that she believed that

Chad was watching, believing that angels would protect the area where the bodies were, that the police were not going to find the bodies, that she believed that Chad was thinking that there was going to be spiritual intervention and the bodies weren't going to be found. That is a very interesting theory that I think needs to be brought up because I think that that is a possibility. I think that person might have been on to something. Well, and also it fits in with the idea of a portal. A portal is not just a way to travel through space. It's a way to travel through time. I think part of this portal idea is Chad's belief that somehow as a deity he can do whatever he wants or commit a crime and avoid detection by traveling to a different time or a different place.

Right. And so I think maybe in that car, as he watched the bodies being uncovered, not only did he think angels in an intervene, but he thought maybe he could just jump in the portal and head away. Car portal down the street, which, by the way, he didn't get very far. They pulled him over and he pulled over when they turned their lights on. Too bad his portal was defective. Like most things in Chad's life.

Before we finish some of our thoughts on portals, I have to tell this story about our son. We were eating dinner one night. and we were talking about portals and he didn't understand it and I tried to explain it to him. At the time, the belief was and I think this was still true, I think Melanie Gibb mentioned this,

that the portal was in Chad's closet. I picture parting your clothes, looking at a bullseye, like a target bullseye on the end of the closet and then you get like some type of running start and you just jump into the portal and you're gone. That's Hollywood, right? That's Marvel.

We were talking about this idea of the portal and I talked about it being in the back of the closet and the target bullseye was there and he said, but daddy, wouldn't that hurt? He didn't say it exactly like this. He said, but daddy, wouldn't that hurt his head? And I think he was thinking of it like a bike that if he fell from his bike, he would have to wear a helmet.

He said, doesn't he need a helmet? He asked if he wore a helmet. I think what he was trying to understand was why would he hit his head? He should be wearing a helmet. He should be wearing a helmet if this is how it works. Right, because he has to wear a helmet when he rides a strider and he understands the importance of

helmet when you hit your head. And the way I was explaining the portal was Chad would launch himself into this target bullseye in the back of his closet and just somehow apparently find himself going from Rexberg to Hawaii, as he described in the passage in the book. Even a three-year-old was a suit enough to recognize that jumping into a portal might present problems. Right. That one should wear a helmet when using their portal. And it's pretty good advice. Now that we reflect on it, I think, Chad probably would have been a lot better off if he had worn a helmet. One of the comments on a blog I wrote that talked about the story was, well, maybe he had a traumatic brain injury because he didn't wear a helmet.

Maybe so, not wearing a helmet entering his portal. And John did just mention his blog post. I'll quickly say this. In our last episode, we said we were going to have his blog post up with a fabulous new episode. Well, here is a new episode, but the truth is, we moved this week. and it was hard to say the least. I think sometimes John and I weren't very happy with each other while moving either. Moving stressful.

Here we are doing our podcast. Connecting again. On a bunch of Home Depot, medium-sized boxes with tape on them, and we still don't know what's in them because our father-in-law, who was very helpful, pack them, but forgot to mark a bunch of boxes. So if he's listening to this, I wish I could tell him what boxes, that our laptop is now perched upon, but we love you, Dad. Yeah, thanks for the help. I think before we move on from portals, there's just one final thought I have to mention, which has been bothering me a lot, and that is, can Chad use his portal in jail? Is he visiting Lori's cell through his portal, or does it somehow

get disabled? It's a good question. According to multiple sources, they are both spending a lot of time and their separate cells reading scriptures. It was reported that on the last day of the world last week, Wednesday, that they both continue to do what they always do, which is reading religious books. And that's a good question. Are they visiting each other? Do they have a closet in prison? Can the portal be set up somewhere that's not a closet? Can you paint the target bullseye on a bunch of cinder block walls and get the same result? I don't know. Anyone have any ideas? In fact, anyone listening? Let us know your thoughts on how you think Chad and Lori's portals work. because we love to hear your ideas.

We're still figuring this out. The portal piece is just going to remain an obsession for a while because it's so bizarre. Let's use that as a segue. And to the next piece of this puzzle. We love a good segue. And that's Oprah. Oprah. I love Oprah, by the way.

John, I think, knows this. Maybe not. I came from the Oprah generation. The girl who came home on a Thursday from high school and sat and watched Oprah at 4 p.m. and didn't miss a show. I was raised on Oprah. I love Oprah. And I wasn't, but I did watch a few episodes here and there.

I thought it was interesting. We'll talk more about that in a moment. So what is it about Oprah that apparently gets under Chad and Lori's skin? I have a few ideas. Okay. Well, one thing we both know about Lori and Chad is they had delusions of grandeur, that they believe they were powerful, that they believe that they were leaders of the 144,000, the New Jerusalem. They would lead children warriors to fight for righteousness.

To me, my thoughts are that Oprah is a powerful woman and it comes down to jealousy. It's as simple as that. Oprah has to be dark because people look to her for advice and think that she's wonderful and she's rich and she's famous. These two had a thing about fame. They love talking about celebrities, rating celebrities light or dark. I think it came down to good old-fashioned jealousy, envy. I think there's a lot of truth. This show is supported by Odu.

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In the last podcast, we talked about Chad trying to reclaim some of his power that during his childhood and afterwards into middle age, a lot of times, Chad experienced rejection and feelings of vulnerability and weakness. And so he was seeking ways to feel powerful. And one of those was to create this belief that he was a deity. So I think that's consistent with that. But since this is the Piddon podcast and since we dig deeper than just the average crime show, I would suggest that the underlying issue here is one of clashing paradigms. Oprah is what I would call, for lack of a better term, I would call Oprah a secular prophet. And that Oprah created what I would call the Church of the Best Self and that she was the

prophet of the best self. And this, by the way, is a very American idea. It's the idea of rugged individualism and self-reliance and independence. And it's the idea of conquering the West and conquering the world and conquering everything. Oprah's focused on the individual. She's secular, and Chad Debel is not. Chad Daibel's leading a group of pristine soldiers into the Jerusalem that take their directions from God. Everything is predetermined.

Everything is set in advance. Chad Daibald's pulling visions back from the other side of the veil with the knowledge of the future, or he was at least until he lost all credibility on July 22nd. But the point is that Oprah's worldview and paradigm is in direct. contrast to Chad Daybell's, and in some ways it's a threat. Because if Oprah's right, if the Church of the Best Self is the paradigm that fits reality better, or at least our current circumstances, and Chad Daibel's paradigm of prophetic guidance and divine intervention is less accurate than he's wrong. And so I think Oprah, without obviously knowing it, but Oprah unknowingly

poses a direct threat to all his beliefs and to his entire paradigm and worldview. And I think that's why the jealousy wasn't just over the fact that Oprah was a powerful female who influenced millions of people, although I believe that was part of it. It was more than that. It was the challenge to the very way that he perceived the world. It was a challenge to his belief that there would be a new Jerusalem and he would lead it. I want to explain this to on Dateline, it was said by Melanie Gibb that Lori believed that Oprah was the darkest of dark. So John and I interpret that as both Chad and Lori, believing that since Chad was often the one who raided individuals. Lori talked about Oprah as the most evil spirit based on the rating system, which ties it, I think, to Chad,

because Chad was the one who developed this whole rating system, which, by the way, let me just say this about the rating system. So we had Emily Trujillo over visiting us on the 21st of July. the day before the world was going to end. And thank you, Emily, if you're listening to this, for spending some time with us. We know that your husband, George, was unable to make it because George understood more than most of us that the world was not going to end,

so he didn't need to be here to celebrate. He had things to do. He had real, right. He had real work to do, unlike some of us that were taking time out midweek to celebrate the end of the world and to buy boats. But Emily stayed with us, and several times we talked about this case,

and we talked about Chad. Both of us numerous times brought up this rating system and how absolutely absurd it is. We've talked about this before, but this idea that somebody could be a 6.3582, how many decibel points do you need here? We get that Chad's system is scientific, actually it's pseudo-scientific,

but he's trying to make it more scientific. I think there's also something else in this rating system, which is legitimacy. He's coming up with more and more decibel places to create the illusion that the system is real and legitimate. It's as if the Library of Congress is categorizing everyone. So Chad takes

over that function with his rating system. I would assume at some point he was going to have some minions categorize everyone. The whole decimal system is what just makes it laughable. It's so random. I think also the other thing that's interesting about the rating system

is the fact that it even exists because it's so judgmental. You're operating from the position of omniscience. Most humans judged to some degree. It's a matter of survival and figuring the world out. But to sit back from a position of omniscience and create the system where you're above everyone else and naming them and judging them and dividing people up into light and dark is absurd. I agree with you that it's absurd. But psychologically, why is it absurd? What type of person does this? Person who thinks he's a deity?

Okay, but even if I thought I was God, I would just say, okay, everyone, let's love each other and be happy. I wouldn't decide, hey, you know what I want to do with my time as profit? Judge people and decide who's worthy and who isn't. What type of person chooses to be a prophet and sit and judge? A person who's trying to win over Lori Vallow. Okay, go on. Part of his goal here was to get the girl. This rating system seems to have originated around the time that he met Lori.

I think part of this was an attempt to impress her. To glorify her. You're a light. You're a prophetess. You're a. Look at all the powers I have. Look at how special I am. Look at how powerful and wonderful. This was all, in some ways, a marketing ploy to get the girl. But it's more than that. It's also to proclaim that he's a prophet and to get power in the church. There's a lot of other things going on. I think he realized at some point that when Lori started showing interest in him, that he maybe needed a few more gimmicks to make it work. Makes sense. Disgusting, though, that he got the girl by rating her own child as dark. Right. I agree.

We've covered portals. We've covered the light and dark scale one more time. Back to Oprah. I don't think I'm done talking about Oprah. What is the relevance of Oprah? More than just the jealousy, but was Chad threatened by Oprah? He was very threatened because she challenged his perception of reality. She challenged his view of the world that he needed to maintain to not only keep Lori. interested and to keep her in the cold, but to proclaim that he was a prophet and that he knew when the world was going to come to an end. I think when I've been able to step back this past week and think about this issue of Oprah and her worldview and Chad and his view of the New Jerusalem,

the one thing that stands out for me is how Chad's threat from Oprah in some ways was completely misguided. Chad was still operating within the paradigm that something is either all secular or all divine. Oprah's secular, he's divine. But I think what Chad failed to understand, and this is really critical, is that we all have what I would call a shadow self. And I think this is something that Oprah misses, to some degree, too, that because Chad was so stuck in these dualities, in this paradigm of good and evil, that he couldn't see that he had a dark side. If you think about it, I mentioned this in our first episode. I said, crime was a metaphor for the human condition. The existence of a crime challenges our notion of human existence.

And what I meant by that, now I have a chance to explain that, that we all have a shadow side or a darker side. We're all capable of things that sometimes we can't imagine. And I can tell you this week, having this move and not feeling great during some of it, that it's easy to get angry at the smallest things. It hasn't been the best week. Our realtor, actually, Megan, Irving, thank you, Megan. She called me at one point during the move,

and she said, are you getting ready to kill someone? And I said, you know, I think that would be an end to our podcast pretty quickly. No, you know, I've had some bad moments, but no fatalities on the horizon. My point is that there's parts of all of us that we struggle with. And the classic paradigm for this in crime would be Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Because Jekyll isn't fully willing to acknowledge Hyde, hides the evil one, Hyde eventually becomes ascendant and takes over Jekyll, and there's nothing that Jekyll can do about it. And I actually think that's a really good analogy with Chad Daybell.

The Chad Daybell had this darker side that he had no awareness of, and he was not willing to do anything about it. And it grew, and it grew just like Mr. Hyde. But at least Jekyll at some point recognized it, right? Jekyll would wake up and see in the paper that Hyde had killed someone, and he had to acknowledge it. Whereas Chad Daybell never acknowledged it. The modern version of Jekyll and Hyde is Dexter. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to watch a lot of that scene. series, but the episodes I've seen have been remarkable. It's a modern version of Jekyll Hyde.

It's the same notion. It's the same idea that Dexter lives this normal life and he's married and in love and has a family. And yet lurking below the surface is this, he calls it the dark passenger. The dark passenger is the same as Mr. Hyde. It's the shadow self. It's that part of us that we struggle with, that we don't want to acknowledge. And if we don't, if we don't give that side of ourselves any credence or any attention or if we don't develop any insight into that part of ourselves, it presents problems. The problem with the church of the best self is if we're always focused on perfectability and the best self, then we lose sight of this other side of ourselves that exist. And if we're always focused on New Jerusalem or a world that doesn't exist,

and in that world, everything is pristine and perfect, then there's no shadow self, right? That's when we're in trouble. I think to become a fully functioning whole human being means that we have to embrace the darker parts of ourselves, whether we want to or not. And that makes us whole. That makes us real. Makes us human. Exactly. I think my aspiration for this week would be to find your best self, but to recognize the impossibility of achieving a perfect self, that the best self is really an imperfect, vulnerable, fragile self that has a darker side. And that's okay. It's okay to have that side as long as you're willing to acknowledge it and to embrace it to some degree. That doesn't mean it has to take over. Embracing your shadow self doesn't mean go out and kill someone. The basic

concept behind the shadow self is that human beings to some degree are all capable of violence. That aggression is hardwired into our brains to some degree. Aggression is hardwired into our brains from an evolutionary standpoint. It has a lot of survival value. It's been used by different species for many, many years to protect themselves within their small groups. It's been used to protect themselves from predators and enemies that I would argue aggression is fundamental to who we are. One of the interesting things in this case is Chad Daybell lives in this fantasy world. He's created this utopia where there is no aggression, where everything is pristine and clean, and everyone is kind to one another, and it's filled with love and kindness and charity.

I don't think that's consistent with not only how we have evolved as human beings and how our brains are, but human nature in general. Right. The sparkling community that is a reward at the end of our good Christian lives is his fantasy. It's not even, is it even possible? It might be possible if his world came to pass, but in terms of this world, in terms of human beings living in the here and now, it's not consistent with the way human beings are. I remember one of my forensic psychology professors used to say that the problem of crime gets to the root of the problem of human existence. And what he meant by that is exactly what we're talking about. Human beings have anger. Anger is a fundamental emotion. And anger is behind aggression and violence most frequently, right?

The very notion that human beings can somehow remove all anger from our brains or from our existence is just not feasible. Well, that's interesting because one thing that people point out about Chad Daybilt that know him, there wasn't an angry bone in his body that he came across as this meek, humble, quiet, subdued man. Proves my point exactly that lurking beneath all of this calm exterior is a very angry, vindictive, vengeful side that he had no awareness of, that obviously came out in a different form. Looking beneath this calm, tranquil exterior was a darker self filled with anger, aggression, and vengefulness that came out later. So are you saying that when we meet a very meek, humble, submissive person, we should be afraid? If you look at the history of crime or true crime, oftentimes those are the types of people that show up.

Jeffrey Dahmer was one of those characters. Everyone saw him as very passive and submissive and humble and quiet. It's the cliche about the reporter knocks on the neighbor's door and says, oh, my gosh, what did you think of Jeffrey Dahmer? And the neighbor says, oh, he seemed like such a nice guy, right? That's what we're talking about. Being a nice guy has value in society for sure. And it's important. We all want to be nice and kind and loving, of course.

But we also, I think, need to acknowledge our baser instincts like anger and aggression. and if we don't, it's going to be much harder to control them. The person that doesn't acknowledge those things is the person that's going to go off on a tangent and is going to be the person that flies off on a handle at the smallest provocation. Is what you're saying then that our best self is to understand all of our emotions, even the anger, even the darkness, that is our shadow self? Yeah, the anger, the shame, the sadness, all the emotions we don't want to deal with, the negative emotions.

In the end, the shadow self is really some version of all of our negative emotions that we try to push away because those are the emotions that can come back to haunt us. Those are the emotions that will show up and hurt us or trigger us or cause reactions or overreactions. And so what I'm saying is that in Oprah's Church of the Best Self, for example, the basic idea is to overcome all of those emotions. It's not to necessarily deny those emotions. I think the fundamental premises somehow we can replace those emotions with happier emotions. Joy.

The joy, right, that we're supposed to be. We enjoy all the time. That's just not a realistic view of human beings. Life is not always easy. And loss and grief and suffering are built into the human condition. There's nothing we can do to avoid those things. I'm simply talking about a more realistic picture of human beings and how in some ways that should be, I think, a relief to us because we don't have to reach for this unrealistic

expectation of perfection all the time of never feeling a negative emotion and always being joyful and happy. That's sort of the Oprah world. Both Chad and Oprah create these utopias that are false, that don't really represent human beings as we are. Please don't hear me as saying that we shouldn't strive for perfection. There's a difference that we shouldn't try to attain our goals or dreams, even if they're far-fetched. I think we should. The issue comes in in developing the expectation that we're striving for something that's unattainable, like Chad's utopia, unattainable. He's reaching for something that's a pure fantasy. We can set really high goals, but we have to recognize the limitations of ever achieving those, or in some cases, if we're

striving for perfection, the impossibility of doing that. We all know that cliche by the positive thinking guru, Norman Vincent Peel, who said, shoot for the moon, and if you miss, at least you'll land among the stars. I remember having a professor who talked about the issue of positive thinking, His statement was, we should shoot for the moon, but be aware of the fact that if you miss, you're probably going to be jettisoned out into the abyss and the endless void of space for eternity. The Peel comment has value, but it also has limitations that we can't lose sight of the fact that there's risks. If you're shooting for the moon and you're shooting for perfection and you're shooting for something that's unattainable, there's risks.

There's a downside to that. It's not all joy all the time. And you might not just be satisfied when you're among the stars. You may not want to be among the stars. Especially if they're pristine and perfect. Chad Daybell. Definitely don't want to be there. My aspiration would be to find your best possible,

imperfect, fragile, vulnerable self, and to recognize that's fine. It's fine not being perfect. It's fine not wanting to live in a pristine, shining, shimmering. A fantasy world. Yeah, not to live in a fantasy world. To live with the reality of the fact that we're human. Which is what we keep coming back to when it comes to Chad DeBelle and Lori Vallow.

Right. That it's okay, everyone, to be human. Raise your hand. I am human. And that is okay. It's beautiful. And so I've noticed that dinner is wrapping up on our Home Depot boxes. On our Home Depot boxes.

We're both exhausted. We weren't sure we were going to able to find the time to do a podcast this week. But we pulled it off. I've actually had a few people write us and say, when does the next one come out? Before we started this, we said, we've got to keep going. We have to be consistent. But please be understanding that our website is still not up. John's blogs that we've often talked about are still not up in one place where you can find them all. We are working on it while unpacking boxes, and we will have some good news,

hopefully, to share soon. And as I can see, my son, my final thoughts are, stay safe and where I helmet. Always wear a helmet, which is what we tell our son. I wish people had told that to chat more often when he was younger. Don't make the same mistake and always tell your children and your children's friends to wear a helmet and hopefully we can stop. Especially if they're going to launch themselves into a portal at the back of a closet. Our Facebook page, Hidden a True Crime podcast or at Hidden True Crime. Twitter is at Hidden Crime. And our Instagram, our Instagram, and our Instagram Instagram is at Hidden True Crime. And as we've said before, our website is coming soon.

It will be hiddentruecrime.com. Until then, please tell your friends we're saving a seat for the M2. Until next time, good night. Good night. 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,

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