Hidden True Crime - Inside Chad Daybell’s Mind | Prison Letters Revealed & Lori Vallow Connection Explained

Episode Date: September 20, 2025

Chad Daybell's Prison Letters are here and Lauren and Dr.John are back together, at their kitchen table where it all began. About Hidden True Crime What started as a simple conversation at their dinner table became a captivating podcast. Join the dynamic duo of Dr. John Matthias, a criminal psychologist, and Lauren Matthias, an investigative journalist, as they delve into the psychological facets of unthinkable crimes every week. Their unique perspectives and in-depth analysis offer a fresh take on true crime storytelling. Sponsors: -Head to http://letsliveitup.com/hidden and use code HIDDEN for 15% off your first Super Greens order! -For a limited time, save up to $300 on the Tovala smart oven when you order 6+ meals, by visiting http://Tovala.com/HIDDEN and using code HIDDEN. Thank you for your support through sponsorships, subscribing, listening, and becoming a Patreon member at⁠ Patreon.com/HiddenTrueCrime⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This is the very table. The very table, the same table too. So the table hasn't changed. We haven't bought a new table. This is the table. And many of you have asked us to always to be together, rather than the split screen. They're like, if you guys are not just co-hosts,

but also married, which by the way, we are for those confused right now, some people don't know still that we're married. Yep, we are. You know, you have asked us to be together. And so here we are. Will this happen every time now? No. We're going to work on doing more of these.

Yeah, it's already complicated. I'm leaning over, your knees in the way. I'm not looking at it. at the camera. You're not looking at you. I can't, I can't look away from you. Oh, that's so sweet. Yeah. And, uh, we're sharing one microphone because we don't want to wear earphones. So, but, but thank you for joining us for this momentous, uh, reunion event. We're, we're back where it all began. We're back in the garage, so to speak, where hidden true crime was launched. Yeah. Except it wasn't the garage. It was our table. The metaphorical.

Yes. The living room. The living room is our version of the garage. But yeah, we were actually set up here for another shoot that we did yesterday. We had everything here. So we said, let's keep it here. Let's keep the momentum going. Yeah.

And we're here to talk about the very thing we talked about in our first podcast. So it feels right that we're here. And that is Chad Dayball. For those of you that were with us, have been with us since the very beginning, we sat at our kitchen table and I said to John, help me understand Lori Valo. And he said, before we understand Lori Valo, we need to take a look at Chad Daybell and understand Chad Dayball. And full circle, Chad Daybell has broken his silence from behind bars on death row. I shared with all of you some of the things he was saying in his letters. And I said, Dr. John Matthias will be here to help us understand it even more.

It was very difficult for me to read. It was, it was cringy. It was hard. I thought that I would like just read all the letters to everyone and I couldn't do it. So I picked out excerpts and sort of shared my initial thoughts. One of them being, you know, the fact that he's like, before we understand the, what happened in 2019, we need to understand these facts. And then he laid out his near-death experience. I know.

Yeah. We haven't talked about this yet. No. He's been reading them. You haven't even watched my show, right? Nope. I sent it to him to watch. He just chose not to.

No, I didn't have time. Okay. So, and plus I think it's more interesting if I don't watch it so that we can debate or have some discussion about things we agree on and disagree on. Yeah. And because we are sharing my microphone, I will be getting close. Luckily, we're not just go host, but married. don't worry anyone at home. Right. Flirting's okay in this circumstance.

So yeah, it is, it is interesting that here we are. It does feel like we've come full circle. And so, you know, it's interesting in looking at the letters and reading the letters, there's so much that has not changed. In fact, I'm not sure much has changed. Like, I think our analysis is going to, we're going to revisit a lot of old hits. But I mean, I think, I think there's some new ideas here, but What's fascinating about this is obviously Chad Daybell is now a convicted murderer on death row. And so you would think that he would be approaching this from a bit of a different perspective. Right.

And I mean, so I have some, I don't know how many, did you read all his letters or just some of them? I didn't read all of the letters. Or no, I read all of the letters. I think I missed like the last music one. because did you read the music notes? I read all of them. Unfortunately, I read all of them. But we'll talk, right, you have what he calls.

What does he call them? Musical notes, I think. Yeah. He has bookshelves. He has bookshelves and musical notes. That's what he calls him, musical note and bookshelves. And so we'll talk about those to some degree. But let's, I'm going to pick up from letter one.

I'm going to just read a little bit from letter one to start off here. And just make sure to hit. That microphone. As in like, re-let pop. I thought, like, hit it like a punching bag. Like, what do you?

Okay. Like, that's weird. Yeah, no, I don't, I don't need to be at the gym right now. So I'll hit, you mean, speak into it is what you mean. Yeah, okay.

Hit it. Hit it like. Drop that mic. Yeah. This is a little excerpt from letter one. I think I'm going to read quite a bit of these. Hopefully not too many. So he says he gets to this issue of people always ask him,

how has he changed, question mark? He says, my relatives give the same response. He hasn't changed. He's the same Chad we always knew. People are surprised by that answer after hearing a different story for so long. I am still the quiet, gentle person you all know. I've always been a peacemaker. even now in prison.

I have never caused anyone's death and never conspired to commit such acts against anyone. I share in your sadness pain and grief over the deaths of Tammy, Tiley, and JJ. I don't have all the answers even now, but I'm grateful a more complete story will be shared during my appeals process. Let's just consider this idea that he hasn't changed.

So here's a guy on death row who went through a very lengthy trial. he's convicted, right? You see in these letters that this is true. Like in many ways, his voice hasn't changed, his worldview, his writing hasn't changed, his worldview hasn't changed. Nothing, he's right, nothing has changed. And also what hasn't changed is his denial, right?

His absolute denial, his belief that he didn't cause anyone's death, the fact that he's never conspired to commit such acts, right? Like, so let's, let's just start with, let's just, I'll start my analysis, but just saying that this, this is to a large degree and all of our analysis, all my analysis will be driven by, this is obviously good old-fashioned denial, which is simply put, maybe we don't define that well enough, but simply put, denial is an inability to really integrate and acknowledge facts and evidence. It's a defense mechanism. So I mean, I think most of us know what denial is, but,

but denial is. Denial, this is, this is so exceptional in the sense that he spent months with facts and evidence being presented and in his face, right? And he's basically saying nothing's changed. I'm the same person. I didn't learn anything from that. And now he's coming back with these letters to really kind of argue that we never really knew him. He's going to present the real story, right, that the real story wasn't presented. And so you have another, there's another issue here. There's another line issue. And I think this is obvious too, but clearly he's interested in impression management.

You know, he's trying to repair this, this shattered reputation that's occurred through this trial by engaging in what I would call what I call narrative repair and maintenance, which is if you can't change the facts or if you can't change the events in your life, right? If you clearly he can't go back and redo the trials, then the one thing you can try to control is the narrative around those events, right? And this is what politicians do all the time. There's something, right, there's something very political about this in the sense that he's to use a political term, he's spinning this, right? He's spinning this in a way that he thinks will

capture public opinion in a positive fashion. Yes. And so, you know, to me it's interesting that he's so blatantly, it's so, it's so transparently obvious what he's trying to do here. Thank you. That's what I thought, too. I just can't imagine that a single person would be swayed by this. like basically what he's saying to us is I'm a good guy you know all the stuff that that people said I did I didn't really do that you know I didn't kill anyone right like I don't if you're going to engage in narrative repair like at least have some creativity right like he can't even he can't even

be trying to spin this but the only way he knows how to spin it is through something that's clearly false. Yeah. It actually feels like these letters actually feel like for those who have not read his book, it feels like he's taking excerpts from his book. He's like he's basically rewriting his book or writing a version of his book again.

Yeah. I agree. To me, one thing that I noticed was when he says, this is who I've been portrayed to be. And I've thought to myself, we've been following this case for six years. We've read all his books.

We've read all his blogs. We've heard him speak. We've heard all his interviews. No, actually, this is exactly who I think you are. And I don't like you, honestly. And you're very unlikable. And I also thought it was interesting. And I actually pointed out during my report

when I was sharing with everyone these letters that I wanted to ask you this particular question, I thought it was really telling when he said, I'm still the same chat, you all know, you all know, gentle and quiet. He's not saying I'm still the same chat that I know. He's letting, to me, I wouldn't say, I'm still the same, Lauren, you all know. I mean, I don't know how people perceive me. Everyone has a different opinion about me. I don't, I don't know who I am to everybody. And he's sort of decided, this is, this is me. This is who I've portrayed to the world. This is who I want to be. So thus, in my brain, everybody thinks this about me. I don't know. You would never say I'm the John, you all know. I just, I'm the Lauren that I know and everybody else can have a different

opinion of me. Right. It would be, for somebody who knows themselves, for somebody with a shred of self-awareness, it would be, if I'm trying to describe a similar scenario, I'm going to say, I don't even, I'm not going to say anything similar to anything he's saying, but, but I'm not going to say, I'm the John I know, right? But I mean, yeah, it's not going to be, I'm the person that you all know. It's going to be, this is how I know myself.

Thank you. Yes. This is how I know myself. I can't control what other people think of me or how they know me. I can't control that perception. So it doesn't really matter to me. Right. Or if it matters, it clearly matters among people that I really care about.

But other than that, like, he's saying that because he's, again, he's trying to engage in narrative repair. He's trying to engage in this impression management. And on that issue, you bring up, he says, I am still the quiet, gentle person you all know. That's what I'm saying. Right. But what's interesting about that is he's trying to, he's playing into the stereotype of the quiet,

gentle person that can't possibly be someone who murders, right? He's clearly trying to pull on that thread of, we know that the only people that murder are these violent, grazed attention-seeking psychopaths. And I don't fit that stereotype, so I can't possibly have done this. That, by the way, is a similar stereotype that Richard Allen and his defense team

and the Delphi murders use to great benefit. That's their biggest argument. You and I know FBI profilers that have been profiles for years that say about Richard Allen, look at him. He's 5'4. He's small.

He could not have committed. He has no, criminal history, right? It's a version of that. What Chad Debo is saying here, look at me, I'm a quiet, gentle guy. I'm not the type of guy that would commit murder. Therefore, you have to believe this. Because heaven, heaven forbid, people can't be multifaceted either. Well, he's not, by the way, but except Chad isn't. Yeah, he's not, but, but I mean it. But others are. I am. You are. Well, I hope so.

It speaks to this issue around impression management. He's trying to pull in these stereotypes. He's trying to pull in these perceptions of how he wants to be perceived. A quick word from our sponsor. And look, if you're anything like me, mornings can feel like total chaos. Let's be honest, not just mornings, the days. And it's not just feeling like chaos, it is chaos. And between getting my work done, prepping for the podcast and just trying to keep

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cure, or prevent any disease. Here's other language he's using, right? Like this is very similar. He says, I am a father, a grandfather, a husband, a son, a brother, and a friend. So was Ted Bundy. So was Jeffrey Dahmer. Dahmer was also somebody who was perceived to be very quiet, a loner, right? And maybe not a grandfather. Don't be too literal with my Ted Bundy scenario, but, but my point is a lot of, right, serial killers. So was, so was Rex Hewerman.

Go ahead. He's, again, he's appealing to these different roles that he thinks are going to give him credibility as a normal person, right? I mean, he's also going to pick up. So it's not just father, grandfather, husband, son, brother, and friend with a firm faith and the gospel of Jesus Christ. We'll get to that in a minute. It's also he talks about being a missionary,

and he talks about being a peacemaker, right? He's intentionally pulling out this language and these roles to give him more credibility. As a matter of fact, there's something that psychologists call moral licensing. And he's really playing on that here. And moral licensing basically is the idea that past good deeds allow us to behave immorally with no threat to our moral self-concept. What?

So you can behave in a poor way? Wait, if you've been good? Think of it is that he's building up. I'm not saying, this is, I'm not saying, I'm not saying that it's accurate. it. What I'm saying is that this concept is that some people believe that they build up all these credits. Let's think of it as a bank account. You build up all these credits of being good and moral in his mind, righteous, right? Religious, spiritual. He's got this bank account. He's giving us,

he's telling us what he's putting in this bank account. He's a father, a grandfather. He's a good guy. He's a husband, his son. He's a missionary. He's a peacemaker. Right. This is all things. things you're putting in the bank account. And the idea is that if you have, if you put enough of goodness in the bank account, it somehow exempts you from committing immoral acts, or it exempts you from, from at least you perceiving yourself to be immoral when you commit immoral acts because the credits,

all the good elements you put in the bank account that make up for the negative. And so you still, if you go to the bank account, it's still positive, right? You still have money in the bank account. That's called moral licensing. And he's really plain on that here in the sense that he's basically, even if he's, there's a sense I think in which he's saying, look, you know, even if you think I committed this murder or was involved in these murders,

I didn't, but if you think that, I have enough credits in the bank and I've been in these roles and I've been this good guy for so long and I've been this spiritual guy. that you're getting me wrong. You know, you're not giving me enough credit here. Okay, yeah, maybe I did a few immoral things. But for the most part, like, he's doing it, first of all, to kind of rescue his own self-image. But he's also doing it to change public perceptions and say,

that's why he's throwing out all these different roles. It's also a way to stick to denial. Yeah, this is all part of denial. And we'll get more to that later, too. So you've got impression management. You've got so much denial. It's just this general inability to deal with reality. You've got this moral licensing. This is another part of his letters. This is from letter one that I liked. I enjoyed this one. Quote, I fully realize many people will never change their negative opinion of me. Now,

it gets better. in this age of social media podcasts. Oh, yeah. I think he's talking about us, by the way. And the merging of the mainstream media with law enforcement, very few defendants are portrayed in a positive way, especially if they committed murder and been convicted. True.

All I can hope for is that these letters can begin to generate feelings of healing, reconciliation, and understand. I just love to say it. That is bold. That is so bold. Healing, reconciliation, and what was the third one? Healing, reconciliation.

Understanding. Understanding. I mean, that, I hope that that's it. That is asking for a lot. A lot. And it's shocking to me that he even thinks that this is his goal. So, and this actually starts to touch on something we talked about a lot.

So now we're going to revisit some of the old hits with Chad Daybill. This touches on the idea of what I would refer to as spiritual authority, which is, and he, so we're jumping ahead a little bit, but he starts talking about his near-death experience. He says he has four. In his book, by the way, he said two. But now he keeps adding near-death experiences. And before he mentioned two in his book, family and friends said he'd never talked about any. And then all of a sudden he had two in his book.

They just multiply. His autobiography and now they've doubled. And Lori's double. Julie Rose double. They just multiply. This is like a thing with this group too. They just keep coming. So first he talks about in these letters, he talks about why near death experiences are important and how they're universal and there's a lot of research supporting them.

And by the way, that's not totally clear cut. But whatever. Chad Dable's making an argument. So the question is, why is he doing this? Like, what does a near-death experience have anything to do with the murders? Right. What does it have anything to do with, if he's trying to explain away the murders or justify the murders, why should we care about this?

Right? That's the question. And the answer, here's the answer. And we've talked about this many times. It has to do with this idea of spiritual authority, which is, which is he's bringing this up because he believes this gives him special knowledge and powers, right? Because he's unique and has these near-death experiences. Now he's, he has the potential to be a prophet.

He has, he's, he's seen visions, right? He's getting into portals. He doesn't, unfortunately, he doesn't talk about. the portals. That's like my favorite part, but... That might be coming. Okay. We'll wait for the portal. Yeah, the portals could be in letter. So we wrote five letters so far, right? There's definitely installments coming.

Yeah, although the next installment was supposed to already be here, and it is not here, which makes me wonder if they're already running into some legal issues. But yeah, keep going. So you have this idea of what I call spiritual authority, which is essentially that none of this is possible without these near-death, experiences because that gives him, he uses the term in here in the letters. That gives him the gift. That's the term he uses.

Yeah. That gives him the gift to have visions and special powers that normal human beings like ourselves don't have. Right. So therefore, right, because he has the spiritual authority, it changes the equation. It changes the equation. And as a matter of fact, because of this spiritual authority, I mean, this is one way to think of it,

especially now that we're on the other side of a conviction. Because he has this spiritual authority, it gives him the capacity to kind of override social norms. In other words, he can justify harm because he's operating on a spiritual level and not in this plane. So I think part of what he's saying, so he's revisiting this for a lot of reasons. But number one is it shows, according to him,

it shows that he's special, that he has this gift, that he's not a typical human being, right? He's significant. But he also, it gives him this divine authority. So part of what he's saying, I think, is that you human beings, right, you non-translated human beings convicted me in a court of law, right? But in what's call it the divine court, in the divine court, in the spiritual realm, I'm not convicted. I'm still this brilliant spiritual authority that's taken seriously, that's not treated this way.

Right. And so he's trying to argue. Part of this in prison management is he's trying to say, I'm special. I have the spiritual authority. I don't care about social norms because I have this, right? I can do what I want, essentially. I can cause harm because I'm on a different plane. I'm translated.

And your courts got this wrong, but I'm still right. Like in the spiritual realm, I'm still right. And so when I read the near-death experience stuff, I thought, oh, my God, you know, really. Here we go again. Really? I know. I said the same old song and dance. And I'm proud to say I also use the term spiritual authority.

I was like, oh, it's trying to say it was also really chilling to me because he said, in order for you to understand what happened in 2019, you need to understand my near death experiences to me is almost subtly saying, I am responsible for this. I know what happened. But you have to understand my nearer the experiences because if he was like,

I don't know what happened, why do we have to understand this near death experience? I don't know. I mean, I know he hasn't shared what happened, but to me, it's sort of like saying, if we need to understand 2019, we have to understand my near-death experiences. So how are those connected then? Like, you're saying they're connected. Well, they're connected because it's all about, it's all about privileging his perspective.

I know. Right. And so, I mean, there's really no, there's no good reason or there's no ostensible reason why he should be visiting, revisiting their death experiences. There is no reason. No reason whatsoever. And he doesn't make that connection. Because I don't think, number one, I don't think he can.

I don't think he can create that link for himself, but at least intellectually, right? But he's trying to say that. He's trying to, he's trying to, he's trying to throw it out to us so that we see him differently in terms of, I mean, he's always done that. that to some degree. But now it's more interesting because he's convicted, right? He's sitting on death row. This is a different perspective. He's sitting on death row and he's here we are revisiting it. And so I think there's also some element here of rationalization. He's trying to rationalize this away. Look, I have this near death experience. I'm special. You can murder me, but it's not going to really matter, right? I'm still going to be the spiritual authority. I'm still going to go to the

New Jerusalem. I'm still special. You guys are just too stupid to see it. Yeah, because I've not had not only one, not only two, but four now near-death experiences. Yeah, right. Right. They just keep multiplying. So this part, this bit about general, let's, he's trying, um, all I can hope for is that these letters can begin to generate feelings of healing, reconciliation, understand. That's, that is all part of this. this spiritual transcendence, Chad Daybell, that is now calling for healing and reconciliation. He can do that because of the spiritual authority. But he can't do that.

If he doesn't have these near-death experiences, then he can't call for healing. Right. And we'll talk about healing more at the end because I think this idea of Chad asking for healing is preposterous, right? We'll talk about kind of what would healing? look like for Chad Daybell. So the first letter is really about largely about impressive management. The second letter, he gets into Tammy, which again, like, I started reading this letter

and you have to ask, I mean, you know, on the one hand, I think it's great that he's celebrating Tammy and acknowledging her, right? But you have to, like, why is he writing about Tammy? Right. Right, that's the question. Like, what, I mean, it's peculiar, right? Because he didn't, he murdered Tammy so he could marry Lori. Right, and he is married to Lori.

He is married to Lori. And so notice, too, so if we're going to talk about denial, there's no mention. We have five letters. There's not a single mention of Lori Valdei. I know. Not a single, right? Isn't that peculiar? I thought the same thing.

So talk about denial, right? Like all and again, like all of these strands are coming together, right? It's impressive management, it's denial. I think there's some guilt, potentially, not remorse. Any regret? No, guilt. I think there's some guilt. Guilt is about a behavior.

It's about doing wrong. and, you know, feeling bad about that behavior. I think our viewers are probably going to have a, you know, rigorous debate about this, whether he experiences guilt. I'm having a rigorous debate. Yeah. Right, right. I mean, the reason I throw that out there is because I, it seems to me like this whole tribute to Tammy,

there's a little tinge of guilt in there that I haven't really seen in Chad Daibo before. because I don't, I don't, I just don't see him devoting so much time and energy to Tammy. Well, he devotes time to her, but then he throws her under the bus later and fat shames her. But we'll, we'll get to that with all of our health problems, in my opinion. Well, yeah, he, I mean, the other thing is, in the Tammy part, in the Tammy letter, the thing that really stands. out is, again, he's trying to repair or reframe the narrative in terms of she really had serious health problems, right? And that really explains her death. So the problem with this explanation is, number one, it was totally debunked in court. Number two, like some of the

examples he gives about that she collapsed and went to the hospital, right? None of those were brought up in court. Well, and a lot of them are just like the signs of menopause, older weight gain. That's where I was really sensitive. I mean, look, Chad's no looker. And he really is sort of fat shaming her in a lot of it as well. It was sensitive because then he killed her and two weeks later married, you know, a petite cheerleader who he, you know, referred to as hot.

And so to kind of claim that Tammy gained weight really rubbed me the wrong way. Yeah, it was insensitive for sure. I mean, I think the biggest issue, so in some of the stuff, in some of the letter where he talks about Tammy, you know, he's really minima. I mean, he says he's basically saying she died from these physical ailments, but then the best he can give us is she has a cold and she has menopause. Right. Right. Like you can explain the lethargy almost entirely based on hormonal changes in menopause, right? But people don't just drop dead because they have a cold. Thank you.

I mean, maybe if they have like severe COVID. Or if they gained weight or don't have energy. I mean, I'm reading these symptoms thinking it sounds a lot like me right now these days. Yeah. And here's, I'm going to read a little quote. So I think this, there's a real, again, this gets into denial and minimization and rationalization that he's presenting these really benign causes of her, like, of her fatality. I know.

He's negating the fact that the coroner ruled this to be a homicide, and the cause of death was asphyxiation, right? So this is not, this is not a, or somebody suffocated her, right? This is not, or whatever, they strangled her. This is not a case of somebody dropping dead from a cold or menopause. And that, of course, is completely ignored. Right? There's no mention whatsoever of the fact that that maybe the cause of death here is not what Chad Daybell says it is. But he can't deal with that narrative.

Right. Right. I mean, that would be too overwhelming for him. And it would certainly run against the grain of him trying to repair his damaged reputation. So, but to your issue, I'm going to read a quote from letter one. He talks about how they met and how they were, you know, giddy in love, right? And remember when we were getting in love. We're still giddy in love. Ten years since meeting you this month. 10 years.

10 years. 10 years. I love you. I love you too. I'm going to read. Sorry, guys. Yeah, sorry. I'm going to read a, to your point, I'm going to read,

a little snippet, a couple of sentences here from letter two. Tammy's eyes, this is when he was falling in love, Tammy's eyes seemed to sparkle. And I was delighted that this petite, dynamic woman was clearly spunky as well. I was smitten. Why? So he, I mean, the thing he's focusing on here is that she's petite. Wow. Right.

The spunk is secondary to the petite. The thing that stands, I mean, why is he saying this? He can't even edit and filter this out. Like, he can't see what he's doing here. But just saying why he would have wanted Lori Valo. Right. Lori was petite. Lori was dynamic.

Lori was spunky. All the things that he believed Tammy used to be and is not anymore because now she's lethargic. Now she's put on weight. He mentions she can't fit in her clothes anymore. He implies, however, that it has to do with physical ailments. But still, like, indirectly, he's pointing out, he's developing this contrast between Lori Valo-Daybell

and Tammy, who's essentially throwing under the bus and saying she put in all this way she's not fun anymore she's not spunky all these things that i used to know tammy to be she no longer is and he's seen this as being positive and yet he threw her away for this reason he's giving us the reason he threw her away exactly right exactly murdered her yeah well yeah i mean and so again like he's trying to do impressive management, but I mean, I think this is really, if you read this closely, it's really backfiring. Yeah. In the sense that he's clearly nostalgic for this old Tammy, this Tammy he fell in love with that's petite.

He has to tell us, yeah, she was petite. Great. I love that, right? That's what he's saying. I mean, it's crazy. So, however, I do think, I do think there's, just a little bit of guilt in here. I think there might be a little sense of betrayal. But I mean, you have to think that, you have to think that at the very least, it's odd. That he's writing an entire letter to Tammy. And yet he's married, as we speak, he's married to Lori.

Yeah. And so, I mean, what's your opinion? Why do you think, why do you think he's writing? this letter about Tammy? I think it's actually, I think it's a lot of excuses. I think he's making himself feel better by saying that she was gaining weight

and sick and lethargic. I think he's convincing himself that it was her time to go because he made the choice and he knows he made the choice, but he's saying, oh, well, I knew she was going to die. I have spiritual authority.

I can see things beyond the veil. I've always known that she was going to die. He told Julie Rose she was going to die. He told Lori she was going to die. He told Eric Smith, his friend, that she was going to die. So all these people, Tammy was going to die. And then he starts by saying, and I know, because I've had not one before near-death experiences, which opens up the veil. I know.

So I know I was right. And I know that she had all these illnesses and all these things. and all these symptoms, not illnesses, all these symptoms, so I know it was her time. And even though I helped her through the veil, murder, aka murder, even though I helped her go, it was her time. And he's convincing himself of that.

That's what I think this is. Do you see, so does that imply, does that imply a little bit of guilt? I don't know. A guilt and denial of anything. Maybe, yeah, maybe, maybe. Or convincing, yeah, convincing himself that he was right to do this. Is that guilt?

Well, the guilt is, I think. And I want to point out, too, that the visions of glory book says that when you're a translated being and you're in these later times of tribulations, that people will make the choice sometimes to take people's lives from them. You'll act as God. Okay. That book says that. Yeah.

And the author of the book also claimed multiple near-death experiences. Which I think is a good segue way to some of the later letters. A quick word from our sponsor. Does anybody else dread that 5 p.m. question as much as me, that question, what's for dinner? Yeah, I used to stare into my fridge hoping something would magically cook itself. Spoiler, it never did. But now I've got Tavala. And dinner is officially off my to-do list.

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Go to T-O-V-A-L-A dot com and use promo code hidden. With Tavaula, dinner is taken care of. So the letter shift from Tammy to his near-death experiences and kind of his spiritual side. This is, this is, I'm going to read, I don't, you read everything? The letters. You read all the letters? Yeah.

Okay. You're doubting me. I'm not doubting you. They're just, you're like, are you sure? They're just so boring. I don't know how you got through them. Like, and I don't want to be too redundant here, but, I mean, they're so boring. Man, his writing is just, if you want to, like, if you have insomnia and you want to fall asleep,

just read this stuff. This is, so he identified, this is, this is fascinating me because he identifies, he's on his mission. So he's talking about his, back to New Jersey we go. Back to New Jersey. He talks about his mission in his autobiography,

his pseudo autobiography, but he identifies a key event. And I think he mentioned, he talked about this a little bit in his book, but he really is going to give it more attention here. So I want to read, some of this because it's really it's really fascinating i wonder i wonder i was a companion feels about this now by the way oh he's he's he's name dropping him he's not just saying my companion he is

name dropping this elder in his letter yeah elder hanson yeah his bf right so brother from another mother they're in new jersey and i'm going to get a little bit of drink too um I don't know what that was, by the way. That was very refreshing. They're in New Jersey. I'm going to give this setup to this. Okay. And they're out doing mission work.

And they're basically walking. They have a specific destination they're trying to get. And they're walking and like, you know, the people in Newark can see how they're dressed. right they've got the the standard issue missionary gear and they're being heckled there's people in the street that are mocking them they run into this group of teenagers or young adults and they felt intimidated and chat is clearly like the kid from the kid that the sheltered kid of all sheltered kids let's be honest From, right, from Utah, from...

He's never left Utah before, you know, and he's in what he considers a foreign land in New Jersey. So he's reeling, he's intimidated, he's afraid, he's apparently questioning everything about this mission and whether he belongs. And then he describes this moment. He says, quote, I suddenly felt exasperated and overwhelmed. And it must have shown on my face.

Elder Hansen stuck his index finger in my chest pushed me against the wall and said don't start having doubts, man, you know this is the true church and that Joseph Smith was a prophet. Are you going to let a bunch of losers on the street corner change your mind?

I thought you were bigger than that. That's what he says. So let's continue that. I want to ask Elder Hansen if this is really how it went down. But keep going. We'll talk about this in a minute. put it away. He continues. Quote,

when we reached our apartment, I went into our tiny bathroom and set a fervent prayer to Heavenly Father, apologizing for my weaknesses. Then I gave thanks to the Prophet Joseph Smith, and suddenly my mind opened up. It felt like I was actually witnessing the first vision when Joseph as a 14-year-old boy saw and talked with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I felt the spirit of God burning within me, and I knew without a doubt that this event really happened. That day, I had experienced fear, exasperation, and even doubt. But then I received an outpouring of truth and comfort.

Why did I share this experience with you? Because from that day on, I have been completely devoted to the LDS Church. Bravo. Do you want me to? I'll just say this. This story of religious confirmation is nothing new. I've heard something like this before, but this is where it stood out to me. I thought he was going into, and then I felt like Joseph Smith was the prophet of God, I believe, the LDS Church, but instead he went into, I was essentially receiving the first vision, which is the origin story of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterty Saints, that Joseph Smith, the founding,

prophet saw a vision of God. And it's called the first vision. It's a very holy thing in the LDS faith. And he's not saying, I received confirmation of this first vision. He's saying, I essentially had a first vision. That's like even, I just want to explain that religious aspect of this. That's even saying, I am like the prophet Joseph Smith. It's not saying, I am.

I am a member of this LDS church, and I believe it firmly now. It's saying, I am like a prophet. I am like Joseph Smith. So I just want to point out how strong that story was in sort of, again, asserting his authority and knowing more than perhaps other leaders of the church, which sets him up for also what's about to come. Go on. I think, so I'm going to present the other side of that, not the very side of that. vision side. I mean, what's interesting about that part, so you just explain that, is this idea

he acknowledges, he says this prayer to Heavenly Father, quote, apologizing for my weaknesses, right? He's acknowledging how weak he is here, or at least how he perceives himself to be weak. What's interesting to me is that his whole faith experience is based on this one episode where he's being heckled on the streets of Newark by a couple of teenagers or whoever, right? And like that throws him off enough that he's questioning his faith. That's crazy to me. Like, so really, so what convinces Chad Debo to become a believer is some fellow missionary putting his finger in his chest and saying, dude, you can't doubt this now.

know you feel weak. I know you feel like a loser, right? Like, but because, because a couple of guys heckled you. Like, think about, think about how absurd that is. Yeah. Like, I, he spent his whole life. He's, he's, what, how old, he's like 18 when he goes on the 17? He'd be like 19, 20. Okay. He's 19. We're 20. Let's throw out 20 just for kicks. He's 20. He spent his whole. life in the church. And a couple of kids on a street corner heckling him, making fun of them, are sufficient to create enough fear and doubted him that he's going to walk away from his faith? Like, what kind of insecurity is that? Interesting.

Right? Like, I don't, I read that and I'm like, so in other words, he basically came. convinced himself to believe. Or he was worse yet. He was intimidated. He was intimidated and coerced into believing because an elder put his finger in his chest and said, dude, don't doubt this. He says, don't start having doubts, man. But he says, profound.

Don't start having doubts, man. Right. That's like, exactly. That's like a really brilliant spiritual moment. I just found that incredible. Like, what kind of faith did he really have? Like, that's a moment where it seems like there's this, this coercion that pushes him to believe that he doesn't really want to believe. In other words, there's really no foundation.

There's no foundation of belief here at all. That you could take this sandcastle and just topple it over by a couple of kids like lobbying some insults. at you. That's not faith. And then he's going to pray about it though and decide he's just as big of a deal. Right. As Joseph Smith. As Joseph Smith. Exactly. Talk about going from one extreme to the other, right? On the one extreme, like, he's ready to give up his faith because a couple of kids are insulting him. And then he solidifies his faith because of this elder who's intimidating him.

And then he goes in the bathroom and cries and thinks he's really, week, but then he has this vision that apparently consolidates all of these spiritual, you know, feelings and... And makes him feel important, too. I just want to point that out. Yeah. And so he describes this as a, quote, key event in the letter. So he sees this as pivotal in his spiritual journey.

I mean, the thing that... So it was this heckling as well as his belly flop that created his new death experience. These are the profound moments. Yeah, that right, exactly. In Chad Daybell's life. Yeah, the heckling. And yeah, I mean, it's a good thing he wasn't like a stand-up comedian. Definitely a good thing.

I mean. I thought of that just makes me speechless. Well, I mean, just, you know, the thought, like the comedian that's like really mediocre and like Alex Cox and has like tomatoes thrown at him, right? Like her heck gets heckled for not being funny, right? I mean, of course, let's not forget the Chad Deabel has no sense of humor. whatsoever. That's where I kind of froze. I was like, I can't even comprehend that. Yeah. And so, you know, that was, that was a really interesting moment. I'm going to pick up a little bit

on his near-death experiences now. So that was in, that was in letter four. The near-death experiences are in letter five. So I'm going to move on a little bit here to letter five. Okay. He talks about being excommunicated a little bit, and he wasn't given due process so he doesn't really buy it right and somehow this was a big deal to me keep going uh he he he's basically again he's kind of in denial and rationalizing that they you know he doesn't know the evidence against him i mean clearly some of that evidence would be murder maybe two dead children buried in your yard like it's so shocking that he says i don't even know what evidence they would have it's me.

Yeah, it's like, yeah, it's, this was important to me because he was excommunicated by the LDS church, this very church that he just said he dedicated his life to, that he received almost a first vision to, or a vision equivalent to Joseph Smith.

And he is saying, I don't buy it. They did it wrong. I know better than the leaders of the church that did this to me. Not only have I not been excommunicated, I have felt my priested power increase. And I know that I am still an active member of the LDS Church. Talk about spiritual authority.

Right. He is literally overriding his LDS leadership and saying, yeah, no, they're wrong. And it also shows me that this is also about defending his faith, not just defending himself against murders. I mean, talk about not understanding priority. Yeah. Like nobody cares right now about this aspect. In fact, they probably didn't care until you said this, and there's probably a lot of LDS people now that are offended.

But it's it's the same attitude, by the way. Go ahead. Wait. Say that in the mic. It's, it's, it's, I'm looking at the camera too. So way to go. Look at our. Look at that.

Yeah. I've learned something over the years. We have really come full circle in five years. Not full circle. We have really improved. We'll keep improving. But you go on. It's the same attitude.

What you just talked about, it's the same attitude he displays prior to the murders in terms of seeing his books as scripture. Seeing his books, which initially he thinks of his fiction as being nonfiction, as being absolutely true. He tells his kids that. Right?

It's this idea that somehow he is bigger and better than the church. that he's a prophet and the church needs to acknowledge that. I mean, he's not going to take that attitude in these letters because it's going to hurt his impression. It's not going to help repair that narrative. If he wants to present himself as this humble, meek guy, it's not going to help for him to say, well, I'm better than the church, basically.

I'm bigger than the church. But thank you for explaining that. You thought this was your run club era. Turns out it was more of a thinking about run club era. The good news? Someone's marathon training is about to start. Sell your workout gear on Deepop. Just snap a few photos and we'll take care of the rest.

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How comes very. 3.3%. Base API as of January 30th, 2026, is representative variable and earned on funds swept to program banks. 0.65% new client boost for three months on up to $150,000. Direct deposit $1,000 a month and fund an investing account for a 0.25% increase. Cash account offered by Wealthfront Brokridge LLC, member FINRA SIPC, not a bank. I think there's a huge discrepancy between Chad Daybel, the arrogant prophet spiritual authority, who has these near-death experiences who knows more than Joseph Smith, and Chad Daybell, the repentant guy who got excommunicated, right, who is in some ways beholden to the church leadership, or at least

I don't want to say, you know, at least somewhat submissive or compliant to church leadership, right? You're not really, you've got two versions of Chad Debo. I know, I got to jump in here. I'm like, yeah, exactly. He starts by saying, I'm just this gentle, quiet guy you all know. And then just showed us how arrogant he is. Could this guy be any more arrogant? And it drives me crazy because when we first, again, sat here in 2020, we would receive letters

from people and say, no, he is so humble. That was the word they used. Chad Daybill is humble. And it kind of makes my head explodes because everything about his writings is arrogance. One arrogant thing after another. And yes, he talks in this quiet voice. Yes, he looks like a potato. So yes, he, you know, seems shy.

Those things do not equate humility. Listen to his words. See his actions. Like, again, actions speak louder than, I don't know. It's just it. He's playing, right, he's trying to have it both ways. He's playing on that stereotype that somehow if he's this quiet, meet guy, then he's done nothing wrong.

He's not capable of murder, right? He's trying to play that card. Now, however, we're going to get to my favorite part of the presentation. This is the moment I've been waiting for. Really? This might be. Bring it home, Dr. Johnson. Bring it home.

This might be. This might be. Oh, I need another refreshment. This might be one of my all-time favorite Chad Daymo moments, by the way. So get ready for this. Okay. All right. So he's.

He's talking about his near-death experience, right? And he's going to give us some details about what that's like. Okay. This one, you're right. I did kind of scan through because I was like, been there, done that. Oh, man, you can't, you can't miss this. Okay.

So I might have missed something. All right. Here we go. Quote. So he's talking about being in the near-death experience, right? Here's what he says. Oh, my gosh. I don't, I may like this more than portals, by the way.

Really? if it's possible. Like the portal thing is just so bonkers. I can't wrap my mind around it. But this could be better. But here we go. I'll let the viewers decide. Quote, during those few moments, I was in another dimension. I saw an endless white plane in all directions and I heard a deep, rich melody that sounded like a synthesizer. Like a synthesizer? I was thinking. Oh, don't interrupt. Please don't interrupt. Like this is, this is. This is like fine cuisine.

Go on. You can't just, you have to taste the whole thing to really enjoy it. I saw an endless, I got to repeat this now. I saw an endless white plane in all directions and I heard a deep, rich melody that sounded like a synthesizer. As I pondered the music later, it was very similar to the song 1984 that opens Van Halen's 1984 album. The song is an instrumental

that is just over a minute long and it definitely has the same uplifting rich heavenly sound that I heard while out of my body. So for all of those listeners who wondered what a near-death experience was like

and better yet, like if you wondered what heaven was like and what it's like to approach the pearly gates, now you know. It is a Van Halen song. It is 1984. Like, if you want to feel like you're in heaven, just play this song. As a matter of fact, like, after I read this, I'm like, I don't remember this song. So I played it.

I had to play it. And I have to tell you, like, here's the thing about this song. Did it feel like heaven? I'm getting there. You're getting ahead of me. So here's the thing about 1980. Right? Like it starts with the synthesizers. Okay. Oh, it starts with the...

It starts with the synthesizer, but then the 1984 synthesizer leads into the song. Do you remember the song, Jump? Yes. Jump by Van Halen? It leads into jump. So like, not only does Heaven have this synthesizer opening, but it's jump. Like, being in Heaven is jump. Like, you...

I remember going to parties where people, they play the song, and they would jump. around because they were so happy. And you know what happened? You know what happened when I Googled this? Like, I feel like we should Google it right now. I want to hear it. And I don't, we'd probably get a copyright strike. But I played this thing and jump came on.

I haven't heard jump for 20 years, maybe longer. I haven't heard jump for 30 years. I was so happy. I love this song. I felt like jumping. Like, after reading these letters, I was so depressed. It was so hard to read these letters.

And then I came to this part about I wanted to know what heaven was like. So I played this song. I had Google music play it. I was so happy. I started jumping. I didn't jump very high, by the way, but I tried. Like this brought such joy to me. I'm like, Chad Daybel really understands heaven.

Chad Dave, this is one thing Chad Daybo got right. Did your veiled pair? No. I wasn't so lucky but it was sufficient to bring a certain amount of light and levity and joy into my day and I owe Chad Daybill a great thanks for that

so I I just want to say can we play that during this? Would we get a copyright strike we can play it on the pod maybe yeah yeah we can put it on the pod we should we should play it on the pot and then do a close with that song because it really is a fun song

for those do a separate video on how you dancing We're going to do a Patreon. A dance party. We're going to do a Patreon of me playing, you know, dancing to jump and not jumping very high. We are going to have our not-not-apocalypse parties come CrimeCon in Vegas next year. So we'll make sure to play that. This, like this moment, this gift that Chad Debo gave me was so great.

Because not only did he reintroduce me to jump. I haven't heard this song in 30 years. years. Like, I was so happy. I was so happy. And so like, after five years of like pure misery from Chad Debo, he gives us this gift. This gift is even better than portals. Did you feel like you're in a portal? I mean, I had a vision. Like I, there was, I talk about the portals as being kind of the target, like symbol at the end of a clock. He describes portals as being in a closet. I felt like after jumping around and listening to Van Halen, I could have, like, put the target symbol at the back of our closet

and tried to portal into it. That's how happy I was. Like, this was a good moment. So, so, so, yeah, I, this, like, I love this quote from Chad Day, but, like, if you want to know what it's like to approach the pearly gates, just play Van Halen's 1984 and then which leads in the drum. He didn't, he didn't talk about it. that I think he gave short shrift to jump in all fairness like Van Halen now that they're the

they're the people that know heaven at least know how to capture heaven musically they should get credit right credit is credit where credits do i think it needed more cowbell but okay yeah so so just let's i'll talk i'll talk about this i'll talk about this paragraph a little more seriously And I mean, obviously, so there's an absurdity to this, right? Like, this is a guy who's like literally trying to capture a near-death experience moment with Van Halen, right? It's so incongruent. It doesn't make any sense. This is not, whatever your experience of the near-death is, right, like, it's probably not going to include Van Halen.

But Ted Devo, who's immersed in pop culture and like Marvel and portals and all this fiction. it makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense to him. But it also like it discredits him. Yes. Right. It paints him as kind of a clown. Like it discredits him, right?

It undermines everything he's trying to accomplish here. You can't tell me that you're a prophet with the spiritual authority. And then, you know, tell me the jump is the song that's going to get me into heaven. I know. I know. What happened to how great though art? you know i mean you can't you can do that but i'm not going to take you seriously right and that that gets to that gets to kind of another issue here which is um he talks about not changing right

like i've talked about this a lot before i'll talk about it here and it especially as it relates to like this beautiful moment of van halen this van helen moment um and yeah i mean i i i mean i I just wanted to jump all day. I can't get that song out of my mind. I'm going to be pulling the Nescam to see what was really going on when you're listening to the phone. Oh my gosh. I was so happy. If it's good, I'll share it on Patreon.

I was so happy. I was running circles around the island. I'm pulling the Nescam. Done. Yeah, don't do that. Don't do that. That could get me in trouble. So this gets to this issue of Chad Dable, the thinker.

Chad Dable, the intellectual. Yeah. Which, which there's, there's a, you know, I've talked about this before. There's a real simplicity here. There's a real kind of overly simplistic, literal quality to his thought. You know, if you ask Shakespeare to describe the same situation, you're not going to get Van Halen. You're going to get something poetic.

You're going to get something that you, it, it's, metaphorically, it's going to be really hard to describe a near-death experience, right? Like, that's, you don't do it with Van Halen, if you want to be taken serious. And so one thing I've talked about a lot with Chad Daibel is like this simplicity of thought, Chad Daibel, the thinker, is a very simplistic thinker. He's a very concrete thinker. He's a very literal thinker. And this, I think, really speaks to the larger point.

He's very narrow-minded. And you mentioned earlier, he's very sheltered. His writing is simple. His level of abstraction and thinking is very simple. And he just isn't someone who, you know, I talk about this with criminals all the time, that they lack what's called metacognition or mentalization, which is essentially the capacity to reflect.

They lack this capacity to reflect and self-reflect and to develop self-knowledge. if you have this ability to reflect, you can build into your thinking process the capacity to delay. Right. And what that does for you, if you can build in this capacity to delay, that means you're not going to act impulsively. If you're holding a gun and you're really angry and you want to pull the trigger, but you have some capacity for metacognition or reflection, you may not pull the trigger because you're going to have the awareness to say, I'm about to pull the trigger and spend the rest of my life in prison. So I'm not going to pull the trigger, right?

Criminals don't have that. Right. Chad Daybell doesn't have that. And Chad Daybell is a criminal. Chad Dayball, not only is he a criminal, he's a criminal on death row. Yeah. He won up his wife. She might have had three trials, but there's only one of them on death row.

Right. And so I think there's a, a sense. He talks about this in the letters. There's a sense, he talks about this before. There's a sense in which, because he's so literal, I think there's a sense in which he really thinks that he didn't murder because he doesn't get the concept of co-conspirator. He thinks that murder is, you take out a weapon, whatever that weapon is, and you kill someone, and now you're a murderer. It's not like, he doesn't think that planning and assisting, right? He doesn't think that any of that that's related to murder.

So I think there's a very real sense here in which Chad Debao, we've talked about this a number of times where Chad Debo really thinks he's not a murderer because he didn't necessarily murder. Alex Cox probably did. Right. He is that literal. When he says, I didn't do it.

He's like, I'm not lying. I'm telling the truth. Right. I didn't do it. You know, and I want to say this, I talk to people that are deep in this case that have believed that when he wrote that text to Tammy, the day that he buried Tiley's remains,

when he said there was limb debris that I needed to burn and clear it before the storm, that he was being literal limbs. And he was thinking, I'm not lying to her. I'm telling the truth. Yeah. That, you know, so yeah, that's how literally he is,

if that is accurate. And so I think that that's kind of my, final point my final takeaway here and again that this is sort of revisiting our greatest tits a little bit with chad dabo i think a lot of these ideas are revisiting our greatest tits with the exception of the gift of van halen but um getting back to this thing he says here about redemption right or healing um i want to quote this again and think about this for a second before we end all i can hope for is that these letters can begin to generate feelings of healing reconciliation and understanding um so what

You know, when I read, a question I have here is, what does that mean for a murderer? What does that mean for an offender of any kind, right? What does it mean to heal? So I've done therapy groups for years with offenders of all kinds, sex offenders, violent offenders, teenage offenders, juvenile sex offenders. I've done hundreds of groups with, I don't know, hundreds of offenders. and ultimately the goal is to prevent them from reoffending. It's to get them to a point where they have enough insight

or emotional intelligence not to reaffend. That's the goal, but a big part of that, of course, is healing. So Chad Dable is picking up on that term, and he's saying he's here to heal. One of the things that my group members demand always is some degree of accountability. So in other words, if a group member So typically in my groups, there's different levels.

There's level one, which has to do, you know, you get guys that are totally in denial. There's level two, which has to do mostly with empathy. And then there's level three, which often deals with issues around shame or childhood stuff. I mean, we deal with that all the way. But just in general, those are kind of the three main areas. And there's no way that a member of any of my groups are going to graduate. And by the way, I don't, I'm not the one who. has the final say in graduation.

The group votes. So it's really a group matter. It's put to the group. And there's never been someone who's graduated from one of my groups or completed one of my groups who was completely in denial, who wasn't in some ways accountable for the crime that they committed. No member of my groups would ever say to someone, like Chad DeBell, for example, they'd say,

hey, you know, we know that you're, you're saying you never committed this murder and we know you're totally in denial but don't worry about it we're just going to let you go we're going to let you go out on the community right and so i think part of healing is this capacity to be held accountable and to tell the truth right like to tell the truth about yourself and to somehow tell the truth to other group members to the community if you think of a group as a community it's bringing truth into that kind of community, whatever that means, but truthfulness in terms of their crimes. And having them see that truth, integrate that truth, understand it, cope with it, feel it, right? It's dealing with

that truth at a number of levels. It's not trying to, if somebody comes into my groups and they try to create this fictitious, fictitious mythology about who they are and what they did, the group's not going to buy it. Yeah. If they try to create this. revisionist history like Chad Daybell, or as I said, like this mythology like Chad Daybell, that's not real, they're not going to buy it. At my bank, I was literally getting pennies using wealthfronts. Checking. Meet Angela, a wealthfront cash account client since 2023.

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And so when I think about healing, like, so there's something preposterous here for Chad Debo to talk about healing. Thank you. It is, it is despicable. This is for healing for who? It's actually, it's actually putting salt in the wounds. before reporting on this, I had to really think about it because I thought, who is this going to hurt

if I talk about this? And I actually, you know, I did make a couple of calls. Like, hey, FYI, this is happening because this is the opposite of healing. This is pouring salt in the wound and twisting the knife and all of that. I would go so far as to say

that the only healing for Chess Daybell here is if he changes public perception. He doesn't know what healing is. He doesn't want healing. He doesn't want healing for himself. Healing to him is changing the narrative about who he is. If you think differently about Chad Daybell because of these letters, then he will be healed. It's about him. It's about him. Exactly. And so what is healing? I'm going to speak to healing in terms of my groups. And what I would say, like, healing occurs in my groups because group members are able to receive and accept accurate feedback

from the community about who they are and how they're acting in group and what they're feeling and whether their perceptions are accurate. Right. Healing is about being open to feedback and being able to take that feedback and integrate it into who you are and to change who you are. based on that feedback so that you come out of that group or that therapy, a different person, a changed person, right?

And that's not who Chad Daybell is. As he says from the, like at a minimum for these letters to work, don't tell me you haven't changed. Don't tell me you're the same guy. Like, he's taking pride in that. What you should be telling me is I spent five years with this. and it's been hell. And I've had to really get a lot of bad feedback,

but I've learned from it. And I've changed. And all this near-death experience stuff, that's all bull. Right? Like, I'm going to tell you the truth. I didn't have a near-death experience. I just use that to promote myself. Yeah.

I just use that to become more of an authority figure. Right? And so, don't tell me you've healed. don't tell me you want healing. That's bold. I don't buy it. It's ridiculous. It's upsetting. If you want to heal, tell me how you've changed. Well, I can tell you from an LDS perspective, I know that what Chad Daybill was taught to do in order to heal. I know the LDS repentance process that is that Chad surely taught on his LDS mission and learned it as a

child growing up in the church and it's admitting what you did, acknowledging what you did, feeling remorse for what you did. There's four steps. This is literal, like, LDS doctrine, admitting what you did, feeling remorse for what you did, going to the people who you harmed and hurt and apologizing to them, and then apologizing to God. And then changing, changing your way and not doing it again. So the irony. is he hasn't done anything in what you would do or in his church that he claims to love would do. It's just like double, just double whammy of like he is not what he proclaims to be. And so, right.

So similar to that in a therapy group, the basis of the therapy group, the essence of change in the therapy group is accepting feedback from the group, taking that feedback and integrating it into who you are, who you could be, and then exiting that group as a different person, as a change person. Right? None of that is happening with Chad Debo. I mean, this is just pure impression management. It's pure spin, right? It's upsetting, right, in that sense, that a murderer like Chad Daybell should have this platform.

In fact, this would be, if you think about the so-called son of sand. laws, which occurred when David Berkowitz, who's the son of Samkiller in New York, when he was trying to profit from his murders, they passed laws essentially prohibiting murders from profiting from their crimes. So there's no sense in which I think that he's profiting from this. Like, I guess that's true, right? But, I mean, I think there's a lot of people whom this is going to upset, a lot of victims. Yeah, absolutely.

No, he needs to go away. And to think about it this too, he doesn't have a public platform being on death row, but he has found one through social media through somebody posting his letters. It's actually so upsetting that I don't know if the legal system is caught up with social media that this is so cruel.

This is the opposite of healing. This is so cruel what he's doing. We shouldn't even be talking. about Chad Daybill anymore. The irony again that it was our very first episode. And here we are, you know, six years later or five and a half years later, talking about him once again because somehow someone's decided to post his letters on X, but here we are and it feels so wrong.

And so does that, do you see Emma as being complicit in this? I mean, because clearly Emma is trying to rehabilitate his image, right? she's trying to resuscitate his image she's trying to tell the world my dad's fine my dad's a good guy you got it all wrong i don't know i see a daughter in denial who uh for her own sanity is trying to resuscitate her dad's image yeah um maybe complicit it's sad because she's not just had chad daybell's daughter she's also tammy's daughter so that's difficult for me to swallow that's the thing that makes it the hardest for me. I feel sad for Tammy.

But I guess I don't hold her to the same responsibility. She wants to believe her dad. And I actually put that blame on Chad. He should come clean to his daughter. He should tell his daughter the truth. He should admit to his daughter what he did and stop filling her mind with his lies and his delusions and his grandiosity and his beliefs. system. So actually, no, I put this on Chad. And don't put his daughter up to this either.

Yeah. So I feel like I've covered pretty much everything, since you read the letters, by the way, in their entirety, I feel like I've kind of picked out the main bits and pieces that I felt were important. But I do feel like I don't want to end on a sour note here. So it's If I could play Van Halen right now, I would. Well, I didn't catch the synthesizer. So, as I always say about Dr. John, you always catch the things that I miss. And I thought I did a pretty solid job of catching, you know, the spiritual authority. The right.

How he was trying to make himself look. The narrative he was trying to create. But I did miss the synthesizer. So, yeah, I passed right over that one. I can't believe you missed. I was scanning the near-death experiences. They're painful for me to read those near-death experiences. I was like, I've done this before.

So I did kind of scan those. Who seriously would have guessed that the road to heaven was paved with 1984? You know what I was looking for when I was scanning them? The third and fourth NDE. Oh, yeah. And I never saw him. Well, he said he's, he's, those are forthcoming. Those will be coming.

So those will be free-ture installments. He left us on a cliffhanger. I guess we're going to have to wait for, yeah, we'll have to wait for more. I guess we're not done with this then. This is. Well, we might be. Yeah, we might be. As in, yeah, do we want to keep going?

We can't take much more. And also, I will just say that there were supposed to be letters posted this week according to his schedule that he laid out and they haven't been. So it makes me wonder if he's run into legal issues or if the backlash has been too much. I don't know. But, or maybe he's just behind, you know, the, the male doesn't always, you know, run the same way. Right. Behind bars. Yeah. Um, Riders block. Who knows, right? Um, I mean, I don't know how you can get writers block when you write this simply. But that was burn. It was a good one. I like that. But who knows? You know, maybe it's possible.

It's possible. I also just want to say this. You and I have both come a long way since 2020. So it is taking me back to our first episode. We had bought two microphones off of Amazon. It was the pandemic. I couldn't stop talking to you about this case. It was so upsetting.

We saw, unfortunately, the riding on the wall. Yeah. And the children were missing, but I think we knew both of us deep down that this was not good. And it wasn't. It wasn't. It was actually worse. Oddly, I thought that we were expecting the worst, you and I. And then oddly, it was worse than I could have ever imagined.

Yeah. But I would spend all night editing. You were really hard to edit. You were difficult. You would be like, stop. I got to redo that one. Well. And all, you've come a long way.

In fairness, I didn't know about jump back then. if I had jumped back then, man, things would have been a breeze. I would have been just like... We didn't have cameras. We didn't have camera. You said no way in hell you'd go on YouTube. And now here we go on with microphones and a camera and light. No, things have changed.

A producer? I've changed. I can acknowledge that. I've changed. You're not the same old John. I'm not the same old quiet. You're not the same old John of 2020. Yeah.

You've changed. I've changed for sure. Yeah. You have. Because of you. Oh, and good and bad. That's a compliment. You went there.

I didn't. I never said it was bad. It's been 10 years. That's your, I mean. 10 years this month, really. Yeah. Since we've known each other, since we've met, since our first conversation about murder,

that was our first phone call. That's true. Yeah. Yeah, it's been over 10 years. Yeah. Yeah. I've wanted a new table since I've met you too. Maybe it's time.

Yeah. This is like, this is like, this is a. out like now, man. We can't get rid of this thing. We've had a lot of wonderful people at this table. The Woodcocks? Yeah. Heather Daybell. Right.

More, more than that. I'm going to get writers block. I'm trying to think, but we've had. Skyborgman. Skyborgman. Yeah, we've had a lot of great people here. And, you know, now that we're thinking about that journal, on journey, I'm really grateful to all of them.

I've learned so much from everyone we've interacted. with all the victims, families. It's oddly been a place of healing. Mm-hmm. Right. In this table is a place for transparency and honesty and truth, right? And facts, right? Like, or at least I hope it is.

And healing. And healing, but that's part of healing. Yeah. You can't heal if you're spinning fictions. Right. You can't heal if you're creating this pathology. Chad Debo is literally. trying to create this mythology about who he is.

It's not true. Right. Ted Debo would not be invited to this table. No. At least not yet. Never. Never. Never.

I was going to say maybe if he goes soon. Never. Okay. Don't touch my table. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. The only potatoes at this table are sweet potatoes. Okay.

I don't know what that means. I feel like we should just put on. jump yeah and end with that because that makes me happy yeah so but anyway that but not for all of you because yeah yeah we'll we'll do that right right exactly um yeah so anyway we've come a long way yeah we have and yeah it was fun to reflect on yeah a bit of our journey and thank you i wish that chad dable would reflect on his journey but yeah never well not not not gonna happen um and i just I just want to thank our community too because they're amazing, they're wonderful. I feel like every time we do this, we welcome them to the table with us and thank you all

for everything you guys have given us and for supporting us to get to this point that we can continue doing this. It was so fun to meet so many gems at CrimeCon and there were oftentimes where they'd come up and say, I have been with you from the very beginning and that's what they would say since you're at your table. So it was really fun. And I also want to say this before we end, this Friday. I don't even think you know yet.

Or maybe I told you. No, I know. Oh, you know. I know. Well, they don't know. You know. I know. I know that you know that I know that I know that I know.

I'm going to be on 2020 this Friday. You are. I'm proud of you. And it's a very important story about James Craig and his wife, Angela Craig. I do know this, that 2020 has really cared about this story. Their producer, Lindsay, and I'm proud to have collaborated with 2020 on this one. They have, they have been a place of healing for a lot of victims in the James Craig trial. So I will be watching that this Friday.

We will all be watching that. So, will you? Oh, because you're not in it. You'll watch it. Yeah, I'm not in it. Right. I can watch it. Yeah.

All right. Well, thanks, everyone. As we always used to say, stay safe and don't go into portals. Yeah. Do not go into portals for sure. However, I can now, I think I can now change that to don't go into portals, but feel free to jump. Does that work?

Yeah, that was poetic. More poetic than Chad Daybell will ever be. Yeah, I don't know. I wasn't trying to be poetic, but yeah, I just, I love that song. Okay, anyway. We'll see you. Good night. Before I switched to Wealthfront, my APY was probably 0.1. Once I switched, chiching, with a wealthfront cash account, earn up to 4.2% APY on your cash.

I can trust. Welfront is taking care of me. Make your money earn more. Get started at Wealthfront.com. Clients were paid $1,000 for their testimonials, creating a conflict of interest. Howcomes vary. 3.3%. Base API as of January 30th, 2026 is representative variable and earned on funds swept to program banks. 0.65% new client boosts for three months on up to $150,000. Direct deposit $1,000 a month and fund an investing account for a 0.25% increase.

Cash account offered by Wealthfront Brogeridge LLC member FINRA SIPC, not a bank. At my bank, I was literally getting pennies using Wealthfront. Cheching, there's this much that I'm getting an interest and I didn't have to do anything. Clients like Angela earn up to 4.2% APY on their cash with the Wealthfront cash account. Get started at Wealthfront.com. Client was paid $1,000 for their testimonial, creating a conflict of interest. Outcomes vary. 3.3%. A.P.Y as of January 30th, 2026 is representative variable and earned on funds swept

to program banks. 0.65% new client boost for three months on up to $150,000. Direct deposit $1,000 a month and fund an investing account for a 0.25% increase. Cash account offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC member FINRA SIPC, not a bank.