Hidden True Crime - INTERVIEW: LOR VALLOW DAYBELL'S COUSIN - MEGAN CONNER - shares Bombshell info about growing up with Lori Cox

Episode Date: May 9, 2023

Megan Conner shares about growing up with Lori Cox Vallow Daybell and the family system surrounding the mother who is currently on trial for murdering her two children. Our original Beyond the Veil season continues as a forensic psychologist and journalist (who are husband and wife) explore the inner workings of Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow Daybell's minds, as well as the hidden motivations driving a series of inexplicable murders in 2019. While host Lauren Matthias sits each day in court during Lori Vallow Daybell's trial in Boise, Idaho and sharing updates from court, you can get caught up by listening and listening to our full 'Beyond the Veil" season.as well as our numerous interviews like this one. LAUREN MATTHIAS worked as an anchor and reporter for ABC, NBC, and FOX News in Boise, Idaho Salt Lake City, Utah. She spent a decade reporting on a diverse range of topics from high profile crimes and criminals to Presidential visits. Most recently, she reported for Salt Lake City’s ABC affiliate News4Utah and in 2015 she received the Idaho State Broadcaster’s Association Best Reporter award and has been reporting with News Nation throughout the trial. She is the producer and editor of the Hidden True Crime Podcast along with her husband Dr. John Matthias, a forensic psychologist. Contact them at [e-mail] WEBSITE: https://hiddentruecrime.com/ TO SUPPORT: https://www.patreon.com/hiddentruecrime https://paypal.me/hiddentruecrime https://cash.app/$hiddenTruecrime Our Sponsors:* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Armoire and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.armoire.style* Check out Effecty and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.effecty.com* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://happymammoth.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/hidden-a-true-crime-podcast1836/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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See store for details. I am with Megan Connor. Megan is someone really important when it comes to the Lori Vallow Daybell case in trial happening right now in Boise, Idaho. She is the first relative. That's not Lori's immediate family to come forward to share her experience growing up with Lori Valo. Megan is Lori Valo's cousin. And we are so glad to have you here with us.

We know that this is a really big deal for you, Megan, also coming forward, that this is something you've been contemplating for a very long time. So thank you from us at Hidden True Crime. for trusting us with your story. First off, Megan, why don't you share with us how you are related to the Cox family, to Lori Vallow, and your relationship with her growing up? So my dad is Janice's, one of Janice's younger brothers. And so Lori and I are first cousins, Janice and Barry of my aunt and uncle. And we were relatively close growing up. we spent a lot of time in the summers together.

And Lori is the closest in age to me of the cousin group. There were 21 of us total cousins. And so when we would spend time together, it was Lori and I that would hang out together. And then when we got a little older to be teenagers, Summer joined us as well. She's just a little bit younger than me. So it was kind of the three of us together.

And we spent a lot of time together in the summers. And then I lived with Lori for a short time when I first moved to Texas. And after that, when Janice and Barry lived in San Antonio, we did a lot of family events together for many years while they were still living here. Cousins, you grew up together. You were close. You were close. Yeah. And it sounds like, you know, Janice's family is close.

Also, are they, is Janice still in touch with your dad? brother are they still close today no um i think definitely some of these circumstances surrounding lorry's uh case and everything have definitely polarized our family into um people who believe and support what lorry is doing and those who don't um i haven't spoken to most of that part of the family for for quite some time and there are some other family dynamics that are just really unhealthy and have made it really impossible for us to stay in touch. Okay.

And when you say support Lori with all she's done, nobody's supporting her due to the crimes, are they? Or do you mean? Well, not right now, but when all of this first started happening and when Charles was killed, there was almost an immediate polarization of those who believed that it, it was self-defense and those who did not. And so that's kind of what I'm talking about, is that that created this schism in our family. And there were very few of us who were on the side of believing that it was not self-defense. And it definitely created a rift where it was almost not

there. It was unproductive to have a conversation with anybody who is on the opposite side of you. Okay. Thanks for clarifying that. That makes, yeah, I can't imagine. So, just the moment Charles was killed. There was a polarization, a family rift, sides being taken, in other words. This might be a loaded question right now, but why are you choosing to do this interview? Well, I have stayed as much as I could away from all of the media coverage and everything. It's been pretty impossible to do that, but I've tried to. to keep myself isolated and have good boundaries around that because it just hasn't been good for my

mental health. It's been really taxing, and I feel like it prolongs the grieving process. And so I have tried really hard not to get embroiled in it. But every once in a while, I will get texts from family members, and I especially will get texts from friends of mine who know that I'm related to Lori asking me if I've seen this or that interview. And a short time ago, I got a couple of texts from a family member who sent me some links to some of the interviews. And there was one in particular that really stuck out to me. It was the interview between Summer and the prosecutor, Rob Wood, I think it was.

And that was a recorded conversation. Yeah, that they were talking back and forth. and it was recorded, I believe, by Summers' attorney. Yes. Right. And in that conversation, the prosecutor was saying things like that he believed that Lori had been duped and he really didn't believe that there was malicious intent and things like that.

I don't remember exactly. I just remember thinking to myself, this is wrong. This is not right. There's no way that somebody could have manipulated Lori. to that extent because she was the manipulator. She was the one who was always in control and in charge. And thinking about the Cox family structure with Barry as definitely the patriarch of the family, there was always sort of this undercurrent of Lori getting what she wanted.

And I think probably Barry would disagree with this, but I think that there was a lot that Lori did to control the family system as well. Okay. Thank you. She was she was in charge in other words whether whether people could see it or not. Yeah, I think there was a lot of behind the scenes manipulation suggestion. And if everybody keeps Lori happy, then everything will go smoothly. And, you know, when she's unhappy, it disrupts everything. And so it's like almost easier to to placate her, do what she wants than it is to deal with the fallout of her. not getting what she wants. So then take me back then to, I don't know whether this is childhood or growing up or teenagehood, take me back to maybe explaining a little bit about what you saw in this family

system or in this family growing up. And if that includes your family, are there separate? Yeah. So in my family of origin, my mom's side of the family is. very straight-laced, very traditional Mormon, very strictly adhering to, you know, the Mormon lifestyle, the Mormon culture. And in Janice and Barry's family, we always perceived them to be like, they were like the fun family. They were the Disneyland family, you know, and they had a pool, they had money, we'd go to visit them in California, and we'd go to the beach and we'd go to Disneyland

and, you know, things like that. So it was as a young child growing up, it was like that was the place we wanted to be. Those were the cousins we wanted to be with. And we wanted to hang out there as much as possible. As a teenager, it started to become pretty apparent that things were not healthy and safe in that family. And I say that now with a lot of perspective back then as a teenager, I thought it was normal. There was, you know, almost everything about my family growing up was not healthy emotionally, but it was all I knew. And so I didn't really know.

I didn't know a lot of these things were unhealthy, but I do remember visiting the Cox's as a 13-year-old and observing for the first time what I felt to be like, this is very strange. This is not normal. But I didn't really have a frame of reference to put that in and to understand. why it wasn't normal. I just knew it didn't feel right. Do you remember what that was? Can you, can you take us back to that experience? Yeah, it was, you know, we as a family, my family would go, and we lived in South Dakota at the time, and we would travel to Utah, visit my mom's family for a week, and then we'd go and stay for two weeks in California and then go back. So during that two week period, we would stay, you know, with various people, and it ended up that,

that my older brother and I stayed with the Cox's. My parents stayed with our step-grandfather who lived one street over with our younger siblings. And so it was the two of us older kids. And I remember having meals with them and there was a lot of arguing that would go on. Sometimes Barry and Janice would leave the table and go away and argue and then come

back. When they were arguing there was a lot of volatility, I was not used to hearing that kind of yelling and screaming that went on. We were sitting eating dinner one night and Janice had her plate of food and she kept taking bites and she would chew up the bite and then spit it back out on the plate. And I was, I remember thinking that was so odd and somebody commented on it like, what are you doing? And I can't remember if it was my brother or one of her kids. And she said, you know, I don't really need to taste. I don't really need to swallow the food. I just need to taste it. You know, and I just thought that was so odd. And I, I've thought about that so many times over the years when I think about like my own body image

struggles and all that kind of stuff about, you know, like, well, maybe I don't need to taste the food or swallow the food. Maybe I just need to taste it like Janice used to do, you know. Wow. And but one thing in particular that really struck me that time, of visiting that time was that Lori and Summer and I were in the bathroom getting ready to go swimming. And getting ready was like a big deal around their house. They spent hours and hours getting ready. It was like the big deal, you know, do the hair, do the makeup. And I hadn't experienced that.

In my family of origin, it was like, you know, we brush our hair, we go. You know, but for that, it was like getting ready was a really big deal. So we're getting ready to go swimming. And, you know, we all have our swimming suits. on and you know, Lori's sort of like crimping her hair and stuff and she looks over at me and she goes, oh, you need to shave your pubs. And I was like, what? I was, you know, 13 for the first time not realizing that my swimsuit didn't cover everything, you know. Right, right. She goes, we can help you with that. You can, we can do that. It's fine. Just don't shave all of it or

nobody will want to fuck you. She actually said that word. She said that. Yes. And I remember, I remember just being so incredibly shocked because first of all, I don't think I'd ever really heard that word before, you know? Yeah. And not only that, but all of the ramifications started spinning through my brain of like, how do you know what that is? And I thought you were supposed to wait until you got married. So have you done that already? How do you know that somebody won't want to have sex with you? how do you know that that's a component and how does the hygiene aspect of it figure in like my mind

was just spinning i had no idea what to think about that or how to frame it or anything but the two of them worried summer were just continuing to get ready like it was no big deal and just i was kind of just like frozen in that moment not knowing how to frame all of that stuff and then we just went on and went to the pool like it was no big deal and so those kind of comments during that visit It was the first time that I had spent overnight with them, I think, that I can remember. And it was the first time that I'd been there with their family without my parents present. And I think that was the big changing factor. So you were 13.

How old would, let's give context, Lori be and how old would summer have been? So Lori is about 18 months older than I am. And summer is about a year younger than I am. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So about 14, 12, 12, 13, 14. Yeah, that that is startling, especially for, you know, an LDS family.

And Lori, we know, is really religious. Yeah, and you explain that a little bit in your LDS upbringing, I assume that you said you don't have sex before you're married. You're taught about the law of chastity. that is shocking to hear. Did they talk about religion in their family? Because Lori does seem to be fairly religious. Was this Barry seems to talk about religion a lot?

Was this something that was discussed at the Cox household? Yeah, I mean, Barry's favorite thing to do is to pontificate, or at least was. I haven't had a lot of contact with them in many years, but I can't imagine that aspect of his personality, he has changed much. His prayers were always very, very long and wordy. He loved to quote scripture all the time. He loved to sort of hold the family hostage with his pontificating about, you know, whatever religious topic he felt like talking about. And also, you know, news of the day or anything like that,

he loved to have a commentary on that. He wanted everybody to know what his opinion was and that it was rooted in scriptural doctrine and he was just very, he was very adamant about using scripture to talk about his opinions on everything. Okay. So there is sort of this contradiction going on already at a young age,

this sort of a household that's very sexual with children while also religious. Yeah, and it was shocking to me mainly from the standpoint that my parents never talked about sex, like not ever. I don't think I remember ever hearing them say the word sex until I was an adult. And it was always, I think my parents really left it up to the church leaders to make sure that we knew what we were supposed to do and not do. But in the Cox household, it was like a very frequent topic of conversation about what's appropriate and what's not appropriate from the standpoint of like what the doctrine teaches.

But then it seems to be very contradictory to what they actually said and did. So the kids were very open about telling me and my brother that after church on Sunday to his parents would just go take an app. And that meant they were going to go have sex. and the kids would talk about it, about how vocal they were or about, you know, what they thought was going on. And that was very foreign to me. It was something that I had no frame of reference for whatsoever. And they would talk about which of their friends were having sex and, you know, what kids in the church were having sex and all that kind of stuff. So it was very, it was really overwhelming for me to hear all of that as a 13, 14, 14 year old kid.

Yeah. So you were the same age. So this was staying there that year for two weeks with the Cox family in California. What else? Do you have any other stories from that moment or that time? Not that particular time, but there were two more times that my brother and I went to visit the Cox's without our parents. And one of those times, Janice and Barry were away in. They were either in Hawaii or Las Vegas.

I don't remember which. But Stacy was in charge. And there were a lot of kind of crazy shenanigans that happened during that visit because there were no parents. Can you share what those crazy shenanigans are or do you want to keep that private or? There was just a lot of, I mean, there was a lot of the typical stuff that we would do, like going to, going to theme parks and going to water parks and stuff like that. I remember that Barry had given Stacy a bunch of money to pay for food and other things,

and he had left strict instructions about us not driving his sports car, which of course, that did not get followed. There were some joyride situations. There was one instance in particular that was really disturbing to me where Lori was dating this guy and she wanted all of us to go out together to go mini golfing or whatever. And so she made sure that her boyfriend or the guy she was dating brought a friend along so that I would have somebody to be with. And we did this kind of typical date thing where we went mini golfing and then we got something to eat. And then Lori wanted to go to this golf course so that she and her

boyfriend could have some privacy. So it's late at night. There's no lights on. Nobody's around. You know, she and her boyfriend went off into a corner somewhere. And I sort of had a struggle with this guy who had this expectation that, well, Lori and my friend are making out. So we should be making out too. And I was like very unhappy with that situation. I had never really had dating experience. I didn't really know how to deal with sort of a handsy person. I didn't, I had no, I had no boundaries and my family of origin growing up. It was like no was not acceptable. It was not acceptable to say no to things. And, you know, I also had some past history of abuse. And so it was impossible for me to say no to this person. No, I don't want to do this,

you know, whatever, it was just what he wanted. And so it was that. That was really difficult for me. And then we all jumped in his Jeep to go drive Lori and me home after their makeout session was over. And we're driving down the street and he's like swerving in and out. And he's being really reckless with the way he's driving. And it was one of those open jeeps with, you know, the doors and the roof were all off and everything. I felt very unsafe. And then we're driving down this residential street and they see a cat running across the road.

And the guy who's driving the Jeep decides to hit the cat. And so he hits and kills this cat that's running across the street. And after he hits the cat, he sort of taps the brakes and slows down a little bit. And they look to make sure the cat's dead and then he speeds off. Wow. And I was distraught. And I was looking over at Lori and she was just laughing and, you know, seem to still be having the greatest time. And for me, everything in that moment just stopped.

and I couldn't believe what was happening. And I wanted to go back and see if the cat is okay or I want to see if did it have a caller? Was there an owner? All of these thoughts are running through my head. And they're just still laughing and hanging out the sides of the Jeep. And we turned the corner to go home.

And I was sort of hyperventilating. And, you know, Lori just didn't seem to be faced by that at all. And I don't think she had any recognition that I was having a hard time with it. I think she just went on with it. like it was normal. You know, that was just a thing that we did. And nobody ever talked about it again or brought it up or anything. But it was, you know, these few memories that I have of us spending time together, like they were not, they were not happy memories, you know.

You know, I want to go back to one story really quickly. And I don't want you to tell anything too personal, but one aspect of the story you told about, you know, getting ready to get in the get in the pool. It was Lori, I believe, that said, will help you. Did that happen that they helped you? Or was it, were you able to just kind of ignore them and do your own thing after that? I'm sorry, that might be, if that's something you don't want to answer, you don't need to answer it. No, that's okay.

It was, we kind of ignored it until the next time we were getting ready. And then Lori just handed me a razor and said, you can just go in the shower. Okay. That was it. Okay. And I'm sorry that that happened to you. It's such a young girl. Yeah.

You know, and I'm sure, so you're thinking as a young girl as a teenager now, these things aren't normal. But and one other thing, too, I want to go back to you said your family of origin, saying no wasn't an option. Well, I know that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Lori. Can you share a little bit about that? Because your dad is also Janice's sibling, just trying to understand. how you grew up to. Yeah. Our family system was very much, you know, you do what you're told. You do not question. You're not really allowed to have an opinion, especially if it's one that's different from the parents. Any sort of raising of question or opinion was shut down as you're being

argumentative, you're not being cooperative. You know, I'm not going to argue with you about this was kind of the MO of that. We really, and when I say we, I'm talking about me and my siblings, but I should just say what I felt. But what I felt was that I was not allowed to be who I really was. I had to fit into this neat little box that my parents wanted me to fit into. There was definitely a culture of control. I think the only way that my parents knew how to parent was by controlling us. And there was a lot of shame and a lot of secrecy. And the shame aspect of it was you don't make mistakes. We don't talk about our mistakes. We want to put on this veneer of appearing to be the perfect little Mormon family. And if somebody makes a mistake, we're just, we're going to

to pretend like it never happened or we're going to pretend like it was resolved, but we're not ever going to really talk about it. And you keep the secrets of the family because it's nobody else's business and you are loyal to the family system. And that was part of the reason why interacting with the Cox's and our other family members was it was not, there was no sort of understanding about boundaries or about this is not healthy for me. or I don't want to see this family member or any of that kind of stuff. You were family. You stuck together no matter what.

And whenever there were problematic behaviors in the family system, it was like, you just accept it. There's not an option of, oh, I'm not going to hug this family member because they make me feel uncomfortable. That was not an option. It was just you accept everything that happens in the family system. you don't question it and you just keep interacting with the family because that's what families do okay um i mean i have to point out then you mention loyalty to the family system

secrets in the family system the cox family is not in court as is right now watching their daughter's trial they haven't done any interviews since uh their original interview when the children were missing to state that Lori would never hurt her children. Is there going to be fallout for you doing this interview? I guess that's where I'm going. Well, I've been, I would consider myself out of the family system. I've been out of the family system for a long time. So I don't really anticipate that things are going to change that much for me. I went no contact with my parents several years ago to try and get some healing for myself. and our relationship is beginning to be repaired at this point, which is good.

And I think from, you know, I'm coming at it from a healthy standpoint now where I realize what I do and do not want and need for my parents for the first time in my life, you know, as an adult. And there was a sort of polarization that happened on both sides of my family when I drew that boundary. And it was the polarization of those who think that Megan is crazy and, you know, is ungrateful and is a terrible daughter and those who, you know, who didn't, you know, or who didn't have an opinion of it. So of all those 21 cousins, I think there are two who are out of the church and, you know, maybe, maybe only a couple who are really out of the family

system in a way that's healthy. And when you say out of the church, you mean out of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? And that was the way all of the 21 cousins were raised. Yes. Accurate. Okay. And you're one of those. You've left, right? Okay. And we'll talk about that in a little bit. Unless you want to talk about it now. mean. No, we can we can we can we can cover that later. Okay. Excuse me. Um, so that help that helps me understand like right the dynamic, um, as a whole with all of the cousins, all of the siblings, uh, was sort of this, could I say like a meshed loyal family system? Is that fair to say?

Like so across aunts and uncles, cousins, um, on Janice's side of the family. Mm-hmm. But, you know, not everyone married, you know, a berry. How was how was the Cox family then? Oops, sorry. How was the Cox family then specifically unique to all of the cousins and aunts and uncles? How many siblings does Janice have then? Can I ask?

So she has two brothers and one sister. Okay. Okay, two brothers, one sister. So four kids. Yeah. So when it comes to Janice and Barry's family, the Cox family, you shared a few experiences that were different. What else did you see or sort of observe, even looking back with newer eyes? Well, I have to say going back to the interview that Janice and Summer did, that's one of the few things that I did see.

Somebody sent me this and said, you know, have you seen this? is, you know, is this your aunt? And I have to say watching that interview really turned my stomach. It was the first time since I've been through my healing process of realizing what's healthy and not healthy that I've, that I've sort of, that I was sort of pushed back into that dynamic to where I could see so many things that were just red flag behaviors. And one of one of the worst things and the thing that haunts me the most about that interview is towards the end when the interviewer asks Janice,

you know, do you think Lori did this? This was before the kids had been found. And it was when people still largely had a lot of hope that they were alive. And the interviewer asked Janice, you know, do you think she hurt the kids or harmed the kids? And Janice said just very dismissively, I don't see it. Do you?

And then she turned to Summer. And Summer said, no, I don't see it. And what I see in that behavior is Janice saying, this is what we believe, turning to Summer for confirmation of you're going to parrot what I said and you don't get to have an opinion. And Summer parody, I don't see it. So when I go back and I watch, when I watch that interview, the dynamic between Summer and Janice is very troubling to me. I feel very, I have so many emotions come up for me thinking about that. But the major one is thinking about where summer is in that family system and the fact that she probably doesn't have her own identity at all.

So even as adults, the parody continues. Yeah. And it's this, it's very much this dynamic of you want love and accept. and belonging from your parents and your family. And so when you think that that's the only way to get love and belonging is from your parents because they create that world for you and they make you feel like that's the only place you can get love and belonging, when you do something that doesn't fit with what your parents want or with what they think, it is incredibly risky.

You're risking tearing apart that feeling of acceptance and love. and you're risking not getting it not getting acceptance in love from your parents which when you're healed and you're healthy you realize that that's an okay thing you know but it's almost like there still is this parent child dynamic where the children even though their adults aren't allowed to have their own lives or their own thoughts or their own feelings or anything outside of the family system so um to remind people when that that interview you're referring to is again as you said before the children were found, people still had hope. Janice in Summer did do their one and only interview when it comes to their daughter and

sisters case. When a friend sent it to you and you watched it, were the children still missing? Was it around the time they did the interview? It was, yeah, it was shortly after the interview aired. So the children were still missing. And that was sort of the time where I decided I needed to. to work through my own grief and process my own grief because every time something came up, it was like I was starting the grieving process all over again.

And so I made a conscious decision. I had been doing EMDR therapy, which I'm sure you know, but for those who don't know, it's a reprocessing kind of therapy where you try to separate negative emotions from traumatic events. And I was having a lot of success with that and it really, really saved my life, I think. And I made a conscious decision to do an EMDR session regarding Lori and JJ and Tiley and Alex. And I just remember making all of these notes in my journal and thinking, what do I even process? Because you really have to fixate on one particular thing in order for EMDR to really be effective, or at least for me, that was my experience.

And I said, what do I even process? Is it my family system? That's too broad. My relationship with Lori, that doesn't cover everything. You know, the possibility that these kids are no longer alive. I couldn't think of one thing that was going to make it better, you know, because it's so all encompassing. It's not just about the family system, but it's also about these horrific acts that at the

time, you know, we didn't know if the kids were alive or dead, but my gut feeling was that they were not alive. I felt at that point that there was no way from, you know, what people in the family had said is that, you know, Lori's hiding the kids or, you know, she's trying to avoid Kay and, you know, all that. So I just didn't, I didn't, none of that rang true to me at all. And I thought there's no way that these two kids have been gone this long and that they're still alive. So for me, I had to make a conscious ever to go in and process the death of the kids before they'd been found before we really knew that they were gone. And doing that for me gave me the ability to be able to look at this whole situation in a different light,

making the assumption that the kids were gone. And that actually really helped me because I believed, that the spirits of those children were being cared for after their death. That's sort of what my mind landed on when I was doing my EMDR therapy. And that gave me the ability to then start trying to understand everything that was happening and try to go back and analyze the family system and the patterns and all of the things that I felt like led to this. And it's still,

and it's one of the reasons I have to say selfishly why I'm doing this is because it helps me to try and make sense of an insensible situation and to try and process through these memories and think, you know, there were red flags, there were warning signs. There, you know, were times where all these people who say, Lori was this sweet, wonderful person, she was a doting mom. that was not the Lori that I knew. And actually, I have to say, that was Lori's veneer.

That was her external personality. So people who didn't know her, of course she would come off that way. She was very charming. She was beautiful. She was the primary president in Hawaii, you know, meaning she's in charge of all the children and they're singing. Yes. Yeah.

She was a hairdresser. You know, she was a beauty queen. She was a cheerleader. It's like if you took every stereotype of, you know, the all-American sweet, successful mom. Lorry did all of those things. She was all of those things, unless you disagreed with her or unless you stood in the way of her getting something that she wanted. And then she was vicious. And you saw that. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me how you saw that. I mean, you've told a couple

stories that I'm thankful that you told. Any other examples of that you can share? Well, the main one, I have to say, and the only time I was really on the receiving end of Lori's displeasure was shortly after I moved in with her and Adam. We lived in Austin together in an apartment. And was this between, by the way, she was married to Joe Ryan during that time, divorced, than them at Charles. At what point in her, clearly she's living with Adam, so she might be single, but where in this sort of order of marriages was she or in life? Do you know? So she had already married and divorced Nelson at this point. Okay. And Nelson was her first husband. Right. So no Colby yet, no William. No Colby yet. Okay. So this is before she had children.

Yep, we were both single. I was 18. I think she was 19. And Adam was a private. And Adam was a primetime DJ in Austin, which gave him a little bit of local celebrity status. And my family had already moved to San Antonio, but I was still living in Connecticut while our house sold. And I decided to come down and live with them rather than going back to living with my parents. And actually, Lori and Adam invited me to come and live with them. And so I came down there and Lori was working at a tanning salon, so she got me a job at a tanning at the same tanning salon.

We worked together. And we were only, we only lived there together for about four months. And it was very much like we were, we were not working hard. We were not working full time. Neither one of us was in school. And, you know, Adam sort of the local celebrity would take us out at night and, you know, we would go out to clubs on 6th Street. And neither one of us, of course, were of age.

But it didn't matter because we were with Adam. we could get in anywhere. So there was some drinking and partying that was going on. There was another situation with a date where Lori was dating this boyfriend. And she tried to set me up with a guy. It was very similar to what had happened when we were kids. Anyway, eventually there was a guy that was coming into the tanning salon pretty frequently. And, you know, clearly liked Lori, wanted to date her.

And they went out on one date. And when she got back from that date, you know, I was asking her how it went, how it was. And she was like, oh, he's kind of a loser. I don't really like him. He's not that good looking, you know, all this kind of stuff. She really seemed like she wasn't interested in him at all. And a few days later, he was in the tanning salon and Lori wasn't there or she was in the back. I can't remember exactly what the circumstances were.

but he and I were alone. And he asked me if I wanted to go out on a date. And I was like, sure, we can do that. So we went out on a date. When I got back, I remember Lori being, she gave me very much gave me the cold shoulder. She was being really standoffish with me, which was odd. And the next morning,

she started asking me all these questions about exactly what happened and exactly what we did and all of this stuff. And I was like, you know, I didn't really like him that much either. It's not a big deal. If you want to go back and go out with him, that's totally fine. You know, it was nothing that was that big of a deal to me. And it was not like somebody that I had pine for and wanted to date or something like that. And it seemed to me that was the case with her too.

She didn't really seem to like him that much. And you're 18, 19 years old, you know, this is sort of this time you go out with guys. You have fun. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was not a serious thing for either one of us.

the next day, Lori told me that we were going to the airport to pick up her mom. And I was shocked because I didn't know her mom was coming into town. So we drive to the airport and the whole time that we're driving there, she's continuing to grill me about this guy and about what we did. And then she reveals to me when we get to the airport, the reason her mom is coming is because she told her mom, Lori told her mom what I had done and that I was a bad influence in January. wanted me out. She wanted me gone. And so we went to the airport. We picked up Janice.

We didn't say much on the way back to the apartment. But I was kind of stunned because I wasn't doing anything that Lori wasn't doing at that point. We were all sort of in this, all three of us in this sort of phase of like partying and exploring and whatever. And I didn't feel like I had done anything wrong at all. But it was very clear that nobody was going to have a conversation with me about it. It was very clear that this was not a debate. It was very much like, we're going back to the apartment to pack up your stuff and you're leaving. And so I did. I packed up my stuff and I got on a grand hound bus and came to San Antonio. My parents had no idea I was coming. And that was it. Janet didn't even tell your dad, like, you know, her brother. I don't think they had.

a conversation about it because when I talked to my dad about it recently, he didn't remember any of that happening. So that was not, that would not have been the way that things go in the family is like you don't have a conversation with them in advance. It's like if something happens, we may talk about it later, but it's never in the interest of, hey, help me understand what happened here. It would have been, it very much would have been this passive aggressive, sarcastic kind of so you kicked my daughter out kind of thing. You know, I'm just, I'm speculating. But that's, it doesn't seem, it would not have been normal for Janice to call up my dad and say, hey, your daughter's being a bad influence on my daughter.

And I don't think they should live together anymore. That would have been. Nothing ever direct like that. No, that would have been proactive and somewhat healthy, you know. But that's not the way things were done. So you were talking to your dad recently, you mentioned. And of course, you know, I want your dad's privacy to remain private. But I am curious.

So, well, I'll just ask if you don't want to answer. It's okay. You are talking to your dad about this. Has this affected all of the family, all of the, you said there was a polarization. So I guess the answer is yes. But is your dad trying to process it too or is he mostly there for you to process it? No, I think he's, I think all of us are trying to process it. We're all trying to wrap our brains around it.

And I think all of us, there have been points where we, We've all sort of questioned our role, our possible role in any of this in our relationships with Lori are growing up and dealing with the family. And all of us have had to sort of do a gut check moment of, you know, are we in danger? Those kinds of things. But I think, you know, my dad's trying to process through it too. My siblings are it's really hard. Nobody wants to talk about it.

Nobody in our family wants to talk about it. It's because it's just hard to process. So I have felt pretty alone in this too because most of my friends are not really true crimeers, what I would say, you know, like really interested in pursuing these following these kinds of cases because they find it disturbing and understandably so. And so I felt like I've had to kind of deal with this

largely on my own. which is okay because I do have the tools that I need to process these kinds of things, but it sure would be nice to feel supported and, you know, and have some outlet for it. It's like we can talk about it to a certain extent, and then it's, then we have to let it go because it's just too hard to deal with. Yeah, and I'm sorry about that, you know. My husband, forensic psychologist always says a better understanding of crime is a better understanding of ourselves and I can see that in you. You are you're trying to understand and sometimes it takes

crime. It takes these tragedies to really process things, to really look back and understand ourselves and our families and people. And it is true that some people are willing to look at crime and other people. It's very difficult. But sometimes I think that we like to think that it's because crime doesn't affect us. It only affects other people. Right. Until it affects us. Until it does. Yeah. And that's exactly what we're dealing with here too. You know, all of us and me included have had to look back and say, well, I came from this family system too. And it's sort of a there before the grace of God go I thing. You know, why was, why was Lori?

How did Lori get to that place? But I didn't. know you mentioned a couple of things I want to bring up because it relates to a zulemus testimony in court this week and i and i find it really interesting and i'm seeing a pattern with lorry religion was a big part of their life you say as you say very like to pontificate he liked to bring up current events and when he did bring up current events religion was always involved which means that religion was sort of fit into even non-religious things at the house. They were very LDS or, you know, the Church of Jesus Christ, Lauderday Saints. You mentioned that you and Lori were drinking, and there's no judgment there.

A lot of younger kids drink, whether they're LDS or not LDS. But when it comes to Lori, it's really interesting because she's so religious. she's so I don't even know if I want to say faithful because she's also a criminal behind bars but she's so in she's so enmeshed with her with her religious ideology my husband has almost said it's like her identity Zulama brought up that Lori was always sort of changing the rules though that the rules didn't apply to her in the LDS faiths. alcohol is not involved and sex before marriage is not involved and there's this it's a it's what many you know call a high demand religion and again while teenagers rebel and that's expected with lorry

it's sort of this contradiction does that you know what I mean like there's this odd there's this I don't know how to explain there's this odd you know blinder factor Is that true? Did the rules not apply to her? Oh, yeah, absolutely. You'll see that with, I mean, we saw that with Barry, right? He wrote this huge long brief against the government for, you know, trying to dismantle the IRS and then publish that into a book later.

And so definitely you have Barry who thinks that he's about the law. I mean, he didn't. He went to prison for this and then wrote the book after. Talk about, you know. Well, I don't know if that's true. from what I understand, and I haven't read the book, from what I understand, the book is actually just an expansion of his legal brief that he wrote. I don't think there's much more added to it than that. But yes, he served time in prison for tax evasion. And he also practiced law without a law license.

And, you know, he was an estate planner, but he was not an attorney. So he wasn't allowed to say he was an estate planner, but he did. You know, I mean, there's this whole dynamic from Barry that he's above the law. He's better than everyone else. And I will tell you the most pervasive thing that runs throughout the cult of Cox is this concept of the lower 95. We heard this all the time from Barry, where he would say it basically meant he would make an offhanded comment about somebody doing something stupid. And he would say, well, that's the lower 95.

And what he meant was that 95% of the population are stupid, arrogant, lazy, ugly. and the other 5% are the successful ones and the smart ones and the beautiful people. And he absolutely considered himself and his family to be in that top 5%. And that theme came up all the time. It was what drove all of their thoughts and opinions that they were more beautiful than everyone else. They were more successful than everyone else. They were smarter than everyone else. And we even felt that, you know, we felt from my family system,

we felt less than or treated less than, you know. And it also went to this whole obsession with outward appearances, you know, and just the beauty aspect of everything. You know, it was like you always got complimented on what you looked like before anybody said anything else. You know, you would walk into the, in the door in the Cox household, they would say, oh, my gosh, you're looking so beautiful. Your hair is so wonderful. was like this fake, very sugary sweet sort of, I just love your outfit. Oh my gosh, you're looking so wonderful and your children are so beautiful. It was not like, how are things going? Are you okay? You know, it was never any of that kind of conversation. And that's what I think,

yeah, and that's what I think explains this disconnect that you see in Laurie's behavior where she wants to appear super religious, but in reality she's not. And I remember being super shocked one of those first times we went to visit, we would go to church with the Cox's. And we'd go to sacrament meeting. And then after sacrament meeting was over, Lori and Alex and Adam wanted to load us up in the car and go to Del Taco. And I was shocked because you don't do that. Like you go to all three hours of church, you don't ever go anywhere on Sunday. You don't go to fast food restaurants.

You don't spend money. You know, you keep the Sabbath Day holy. You go home and study the scriptures or you watch a dizzy move. or something, you know, family appropriate. But I was on board. I was like, yeah, we'd love to go to Del Taco instead of going to Sunday school. That's way more fun. And then they would come back for the third hour, so nobody knew they were gone.

You know, so it's like this little nudge nudge, nudge, wink, wink, like we're living the commandments, but we're really not. And that was pervasive throughout the entire existence of this family culture. It was like, we have to appear on the outside as though everything. is perfect, but on the inside we know it's not and we don't talk about it. So maybe the rules are good for the lower 95. Exactly. But for us, we're above.

We're above that. We're above that. I remember one time Barry got up in sacrament meeting to bear his testimony. And Barry and Janice were temple workers in the San Antonio Temple, which is one of the reasons that I got totally turned off to going to the temple because I was thinking if these people are temple workers, how holy of a place is it really? But I remember very getting up and bearing his testimony

and he was working at the desk in the temple. So he was looking, scanning people's recommends as they came in. And his comment in front of the entire congregation was, you know, I'm watching the temple. This is the temple. So it's not like, it's not church. For everyone that isn't LDS here does know the temple is different than church. You go to church each Sunday to worship Sunday school or Del Taco.

You know, if you're hanging out with your Cox cousins. And the temple is a place where you can choose to go. It's voluntary for different ordinances, for the dead, for yourself. And so Barry was. when Barry is working in the temple, it means he's volunteering and being there to help. So go ahead. Yeah, I just want to say. And you have to be called to be a temple worker. You have to be recommended by your bishop and your state president. And it's not just a, you know, just anybody could be a temple worker. It really, you have to go through a process to be a temple worker.

And so those of us who are in the faith would say, you know, if you're a temple worker, that must mean that you're really living the gospel and you're really doing everything right. And You're an example because you're officiating in ceremonies in the temple. And so when you go to the temple, you dress up just like you would if you're going to church, but it's a weekday thing. It's closed on Sunday, right? So Barry was giving this testimony in front of the congregation in church on Sunday, and he was talking about being at the desk and taking recommends from people who are coming into the temple.

And he said, I'm watching these people come in and they're not attractive. and they're not dressed well. These are not a list celebrities. These are not people that I would, you know, go up to on the street and want to talk to or want to be with. But I know they have a temple recommend. So they must be good people. These must be, you know, the kind of people that we want to hang out with and aspire to be, even though they're not very good looking and they're not very attractive and they're not dressed very well.

And I just remember I was in the foyer in the lobby and was listening to this over the loudspeakers. And I could not believe what I was hearing. And I actually just had to leave the church, like leave the building. Yeah, leave that temple foyer or whatever. Yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't stand to listen to that anymore because, I mean, here we are in a church who bears the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we are supposed to be loving and accepting of everybody. we're supposed to, as the scriptures say, we're not supposed to look on the outward appearance

because God looks at our hearts. And here you have somebody who is a quote unquote pillar in the community, very well respected in the church community. He's a temple worker. So he's set up there as an example. And you've got him in a congregation of people talking about how ugly these people are coming into the temple. You know, it just was, it was one of those moments

where I just, I had to, I had to just excuse myself because I couldn't believe what I was hearing. And it was upsetting. Well, the lack of awareness is stunning to me too for him to, he's not even just saying this to you or his family at the dinner table. He's saying this to everyone here. Like they all think the same thing that he thinks that this makes complete sense. Yeah, he's introducing the concept of the lower 95 to the greater church population, basically and saying that he's in that 5%. And you guys are the rest of you are the lower 95.

But you're here in church. So maybe you're good people anyway. Wow. Was there was there any, oh, you left. I'd say, were you looking at any reaction

or people just kind of doing their own thing. Yeah. We were in a different space than you were listening to your uncle. Yeah, for sure. And maybe, maybe it was, you know,

I like to call fasted testimony meeting open mic Sunday because literally anybody can get up and say anything that they want. And I've heard some incredibly shocking and horrifying things during those meetings. This is a once a month meeting at the church. It's a worship service. So once a month in the LDS church, any member can get up during the main meeting with the congregation and share their thoughts. And yes, open mic Sunday is a good way to put it. You never know. Yeah, and there's a lot of guidance, obviously, from the church that tells us we're supposed to focus on the Savior and focus on our testimony of the scriptures and those kinds of things.

But that's for a lot of people, they just can't help themselves, and it turns into an oversharing. Yeah, it's an opportunity. So, so anyway, I just wanted to share that. So going back to that, have you seen Barry or anyone bear their testimony then in the Cox family on the Sundays or? That was a rare Sunday and the thing was that they weren't in my ward, but they were in the same building that we met in. So the reason why I was there at that time is because I think we were in our third hour

and they were in their first hour. And so I was, you know, walking the hallways with one of my kids and happened to hear that he was out there bearing his testimony. So that's the only time I've ever heard. I think one of them bear their testimony in public. But we were over at their house for conference, every conference, because they had a big screen TV. So we would go over there and take food and sit there for conference.

And then, of course, the discussion afterwards was always, you know, what did we think of that? And, you know, Barry never missed an opportunity to share that, share his opinions about the talks with us. Everyone's talks. Yeah. Wow. Probably in a judgmental fashion then. Very much so. I mean, there's nothing that came out of any of that but judgment. It was like this is it. The judgment was that was.

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Protect yourself now atora.com slash remove. The constant thing was judging people and their actions and everything. I mean, that was just all we ever talked about. I've heard from several sources, and you might not know this. You know, you're a cousin, you're sharing what you know, but I have heard from several sources, even a friend of Lori's who's dated that Lori told her about her parents cheating on one another. Do you know anything about that or is that more so not discussed or talked about? I mean, there are so many things like that are that there are a lot of family rumors. And that was one of them, you know, neither confirmed nor deny.

But generally speaking, I think almost every rumor that I've heard about the family has. turned out to be true. So I wouldn't be surprised. I don't have any first-hand knowledge of that, but I wouldn't be surprised. We haven't mentioned Alex yet. He was, well, Stacey was the oldest. I want to ask you about Stacey too. Did you spend any time with Stacey and or Alex? Stacey was the oldest of the cousins in the family. So she, to me, was always, like I always looked up to her. She was beautiful and she was really smart and she was very kind. And so I, I loved spending time with her, although I didn't get to spend a lot of time with her. The couple of times where we went that she was in charge, she just was, she always had a basket

of laundry on her hip. She was always taking care of the household, folding towels, you know, doing everything that needed to be done. She was really, you know, in charge of all of that. And she was just very sweet and loving. What's one financial lesson you learned the hard way? I'll go first. It's not too late to start saving. Today's episode is sponsored by Acorns.

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Right now, my listeners can get $50 off. of GLP1 weight loss treatments at Effecti.com with code hidden true crime at checkout. That's Effecti.com, EFFF-E-C-T-Y dot com, and use code Hidden True Crime to get $50 off your first month of GLP-1 weight loss treatment, no hassles, no memberships, and no hidden fees. Get started today. Alex was, you know, of course everybody knows he was the comedian. And he couldn't not joke about things. You know, there was no, there was nothing that was off limits for joking.

And oftentimes that was a way of talking about a lot of these family secrets was that Alex would make a joke about it. And that was the way that we heard a lot of these family rumors is that, you know, we'd all be sitting around and Alex would make some joke and we would sort of look at each other and go, is that real? Is that true? But if he was joking about it, it probably was, you know. He had a car accident when he was 17 and the Cox is always self-insured, meaning like they just kept money on deposit and didn't carry car insurance.

And I don't know what the rules are in California. I know in Texas you can self-insure in California. I don't know if that's a legal thing or not a legal thing. I think we always assumed it was illegal that you had to carry car insurance. But we just, you know, we kind of assumed that that was not on the up and up. But when Alex had that car accident, apparently he totaled his truck and just walked away. Didn't file a police report, didn't get any sort of medical help or anything, just walked away and left the truck and left somebody else to take care of it, which I feel like is pretty metaphorical for, you know, a lot of things that happened. But in my opinion, I think there were some comments by the older generation, my parents and aunts and uncles that that was a traumatic brain injury for Alex.

And it wouldn't surprise me if that had a huge impact on his behavior for the rest of his life. He never seemed to be able to keep a job. He was never in a very long relationship. He just didn't. He sort of drifted around. He lived with my parents for a little while. stayed on their couch. I think they told him he could stay for a month and he ended up staying three or four. He just was, he was all over the place. You're not the first to imply this.

Somebody else has also, well, a couple other people have mentioned a car accident of possible traumatic brain injuries. That's, that's interesting. I did not know about the car insurance, though, that, yeah, and the metaphor, the metaphor that you brought up, car wrecked and you walk away and let everyone else clean up the mess. Just walk away. Somebody else will take care of it. It sounds like there was a lot of, you've clearly talked about the lower 95,

but feeling special, feeling better than others. And, you know, my husband, John and I have talked about this a lot, that Lori needed to feel special, that this is one reason she was led to this group. you know, that wanted to feel special. Do you feel like that was sort of something that was pushed in their family? Oh, 100%. Definitely.

I remember Adam talking about the need to get attention. And he would talk about like Lori's getting dressed up to go out and she'll get lots of attention. You know, and it was like, oh, you'll get lots of attention dressed like that. Or, oh, you won't get as much attention as she will if you're not dressed that. That way, you know, it was, that was a big focus was how much attention you were going to get, you know. I remember Adam saying at one point, too, he's like, well, obviously I like attention too, because I'm a radio host, you know. But I think that was looking back on it now and thinking about the family dynamics, it's like

when you have a dad that is the way very is and, you know, he sort of lords over the whole family, gaining acceptance from the ruler of the family system is a big deal. Like you really want that person's approval. And so I feel like looking for approval and specialness and all of that. It's like you knew that if you were special and attractive and smart, that you would be in various good graces. And so I can see where seeking for that could become a, a lifelong pursuit for a daughter who feels unseen, unheard by her dad.

There were a couple of things you shared in our phone call that were compelling, but I don't know if you even want to mention something like you want to just keep Barry off the table completely. Yeah. I mean, there's there's no reason to keep Barry off the table. I mean, why should he not be exposed for who he is in this? It has a huge impact on who Lori was and is and her upbringing. And I will say, you know, of course.

We know Barry served time in prison for tax evasion. And we know that he has been under investigation for sexual abuse allegations. There are family stories that he keeps child pornography on his computer. He always has been a very touchy-feely kind of a person. And I never felt comfortable with, you know, the way he would hug and massage and touch. rub and so I stayed away from that as much as I possibly could and and kept my kids away from it as much as I possibly could. But, you know, he would constantly make comments about people's bodies and about Lori. He said he would talk about her breasts and he would say, well, she just has a couple

of fried eggs, unfortunately, and then later paid for her to have breast implants so that she could do her pageant. You know, so there's obviously some blurred lines there and some, you know, inappropriate relationship dynamics or relational dynamics between Barry and Lori. All of that goes back to the family stuff that I at the time could just never really wrap my brain around, didn't understand how inappropriate it was until I got out of it. And as you said, there are no charges against Barry for any sexual abuse that we know of, but he has been investigated. Yes.

Okay. When I brought up Stacy and Alex, these are two children now, the oldest Cox children who are no longer alive. This family has experienced a lot of tragedy. This family has experienced a great amount of loss. And then there was a little girl named Laura, a baby who also lost her life, I believe, due to a heart defect before Lori was lost. born. Lolly. Lolly. Oh, that's Lolly. Okay, Laura was Lolly. That's interesting because there is,

in court, they've brought up two ICloud accounts, and one of them is Lorry for style, and the other is Lally time. Yeah. Okay, so Laura is Lolly. So with Stacey, Stacey is Melanie Udra Polowski's mother. She died, it looks like, from diabetes is the cause of death, although my husband and I have read a lot of divorce documents where she was, Stacey was getting divorced from Stephen Cope, Melanie Boudro Pulaski's dad, Steve Cope. and the things that, you know, Barry did, Barry assaulted Steve, Barry would write, right, he would pontificate,

he would write very long letters to the court about this. There was a custody battle with Melanie, and in the end it is very tragic because Stacey did pass away, and it seemed like I'm talking from what my husband and I haven't covered, not you, but it seems like Stacey did suffer in her last, years with whether depression or an eating disorder or some mental illness or family secrets, I don't know. But it is a tragic, hard thing to read, and it sounds like she was a wonderful person who lost her life early and suffered with a lot of illness. Can you tell me a little bit

about her death and the experience, you know, just what happened or what you might remember? Well, I will say that Stacey was sickly a lot after Melanie was born, and I didn't have a whole lot of contact with her or beyond having type 1 diabetes. We didn't know. None of our family really knew exactly what her health problems were. And there was a lot of very vagueness about what the diagnosis might be and what treatments she was undergoing. I do remember hearing at one point that Barry was administering morphine to her. And at the time, I didn't really understand the fact that that's a pretty

serious drug to be giving somebody. They have to be in a lot of pain. I didn't know that at the time. And so I thought that was odd, but I couldn't imagine what illness there would be that was associated with that. Stacey did move in with her parents while they were living here in San Antonio. and seemed to be pretty sickly a lot of the time. Although I did see her from time to time, she did come to family events, and she seemed to be physically fine to me. I had no idea what she might have been going through emotionally

because I hadn't dealt with any of my own emotions at that point. So I was still very much in this dissociative state of everything's fine. So I can't really speak to what she may have been going through at that point, but I was there when Stacy died. And all I can tell you is the circumstances were incredibly suspicious to me at the time, even still being involved in the family system. And I don't want to go into a huge amount of detail, but I will just say that I think in light of everything that's happened, we even have to go back and look at Lolly's death

and say what were the circumstances there. And we have to go back and look at everything that happened around Stacy's death. The whole family was in Hawaii. She went into D.K.A. She was in a coma and nobody came home. Nobody came home from Hawaii. Nobody came home from Hawaii. It was just me and Alex there and my parents dealing with getting Stacy into hospice care.

So we knew she was going to die. she was in hospice care. And I'm thinking to myself, if it's my own child, no matter where I am in the world, if somebody tells me that they're dying, I'm going to drop everything and get on a plane and be there. And it was days and days and days before they came home. And they ultimately didn't get here before she died.

So I have to look at all of the circumstances surrounding her death and out of respect for her daughter who's still living and for her ex-husband who you know, clearly loved her at least at one point. I won't go into those details right now, but I will just say that in light of everything that's happened, I've had to reexamine my entire life with them and my entire relationship with them and look at all of the dynamics and think, you know, how did this happen? I don't want you to go into any details you don't want to go into. But in order to help maybe people understand why you were there, you know, to make people

understand that you really were there. Yeah. Did you kind of explain the circumstances of just that event, that moment and how you were there? Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. So Alex lived in San Antonio at the time too and occasionally he and I would hang out for, you know, for dinner or a movie or whatever. And he came over to my house one night and we were watching a movie and he just sort of stopped in the middle of the movie and told me that he'd been concerned about Stacey, was worried about her and would it be okay if the two of us went and checked on her? And so I went with him to Barry and Janice's house and we found Stacey in the master bedroom in bed and she was not responsive. So we called the paramedics and they came and tried to revive her

and were not able to get her revived. So they took her to the hospital and that's where we learned that she was in DCA, which is diabetic ketoacidosis, super high blood sugar. And given the amount of time that she had been experiencing those symptoms, they did not expect her to recover. So my parents came to the hospital and we tried to get as much information as we could and realized that the rest of the Cox family was in Hawaii. And so we took care of making sure that she got what she needed and that she was transferred to hospice care. We were able to get in touch with Steve and he was able to bring Melanie to say goodbye to Stacey before she died. They got there in time and she died just a few hours after Melanie said goodbye. And the family of the rest of the family remained

in Hawaii. Yeah. Thank you. I won't I won't ask you anymore, but thank you for explaining just why you were there and what happened. Thank you. Yeah. And so you were close to Alex too then. You know, these are people that have also passed away in your life, you know. You were close to Alex, who hung out. Any thoughts about his death? Or would you rather not discuss? that. I'm fine to discuss it. Honestly, the timing of it is just, was, you know, shocking to me that they exhumed Tammy's body and he was dead a day later. I know what the official cause of death is, but you will never be able to convince me that it was just natural causes. And, you know, that and the fact that, of course, he was immediately cremated as well. We initially, by the way,

were told that Stacy was going to be buried at a cemetery here and we didn't find out my family didn't find out until years later that she had been cremated um yeah and let's talk about that too i mean it is unusual for it's not it's not unheard of it happens but it's uh not as common for those of the lDS faith to cremate is that correct right for that's my understanding um so that feels very odd. And I remember there being, there was some discussion about the cemetery, the burial plot, the cost of it. I saw the headstone that was being made up or at least a picture of it. So, you know, we all thought they were like, well, we're not going to bury her right away after the service. There are also, I'm just remembering now, there was also a lot

of talk about the cause of death, Stacey's cause of death. I remember Janice telling us that they had found alcohol in her system or that her blood alcohol level was high. And I didn't know at the time if there were any ramifications for diabetes and all of that. But I remember thinking that was so odd because I really didn't think that Stacey drank at all. I didn't think there was any alcohol in the house other than cooking wine or something like that. So I remember that feeling really strange to me. And so there were all of these whisperings going around about whether or not she had killed herself or tried to hurt herself. And I actually had a dream the night before her funeral service. And I just saw her face and she said to me, I didn't do anything to hurt myself.

and that was it. And I sang at her funeral and then I was asked to give the closing prayer. And I had shared this dream with Janice and Barry. I've shared it with my dad. And there still seem to be this pervasive thing. Like you can always tell in a Mormon funeral for those who've never been to one.

The plan of salvation is discussed a lot. in other words, like where we came from, why we're here and where we're going, and that's meant to be really comforting to the family. But when there's any hint or talk of suicide, the feeling is very different when the sort of plan of salvation talk is given at a funeral. And I could tell that there was just this pervasive feeling that people involved thought that she had hurt herself somehow. And so I stood up to give the closing prayer, and I just said, I want you to know that I had a dream where Stacey appeared and told me that she didn't do anything to hurt herself. And then I said the closing prayer and that was it.

I know that in the context of all of these dreams and visions and everything, that probably sounds like you're just as kooky as the rest of them. But at the time, it brought me a lot of comfort because I didn't think that Stacey, knowing what I know. know now about mental health, this is not a statement anybody can make, really. But at the time, I thought, Stacey would never hurt herself. I don't think she would ever hurt herself. I remember being like very just disturbed by all of the circumstances and not knowing how to make sense of it. And also feeling really helpless because in this family culture, we can't talk about those things. We can't discuss what really happened. We can't discuss how people really felt about it. it was not safe for me to ask, how was she in the days and weeks leading up to this?

Like, what was she feeling? What was she talking about? You know, what did the family talk about? And things that I've heard from other family members since then, you know, and knowing that Barry and Janice would just tell her, like, maybe it's just your time to go. And maybe you were just were not meant to live that long. You know, those kinds of things, just wrapping that up all together, I think it was my subconscious's way of trying to make sense of it, you know, of trying to make it okay and make it safe because the other explanation felt very unsafe to me. Something didn't feel right.

Something didn't fit. Yeah. Let me say one thing real quick about Alex's death. Please. I remember hearing that he had passed away. I listened to the 911 recording, which I found super disturbing. But it had sort of these echoes of when Charles was killed and Alex claims not to know how to do CPR. And then when Alex died and the kid calling in said he didn't know how to do CPR or couldn't.

or wouldn't or something like that. Yeah, anxiety and couldn't do it. Yeah. I'll do that. Let me know when he's flat on his back and we're going to give you instructions, okay? Okay. I don't think I could do that, man.

I know this is difficult, but you're only helping him, okay? I know. The paramedic... What is your name? I have anxiety and depression. Okay, what's your name? I can't. What is your name?

My name's Joseph. I had these echoes of the two things, you know. And afterwards, I remember having this struggle of like, is there going to be a family funeral? Am I going to be expected to attend? How do I even feel about that, you know, showing up for somebody that I believe has done horrible things? And when you say horrible things,

you mean that he was part of Tiley and JJ and Tammy's demise or something else? Well, I personally did not ever feel that Charles being killed was self-defense. So I believed that he and Lori had planned that, allegedly, innocent, until proven guilty, all of that. But the circumstances are incredibly suspicious, of course. Gotcha. You know, he, Alex bought a gun a few days prior. He had no reason to be staying with Lori. But, you know, it's self-defense is a justifiable homicide.

you know, I feel like a lot of a lot of the things that have been done between Lori and Alex and Chad or like justification for whatever it is that they wanted to do or to accomplish or to have or to be, they found some way to justify it. And so this was just this was a way of getting that done. I also know Lori to be somebody who is incredibly ambitious and who would do anything to get what she wanted, including. manipulating people, including throwing other people under the bus, letting other people take the fall for her or whatever. So while all of these circumstances are incredibly disturbing, unfortunately, they're not surprising. So believing that Alex had participated in, you know, in Charles's death, we didn't know yet what had happened to the kids. but then certainly, you know, Brandon had been shot at. That was suspected to be Alex.

You know, all signs were pointing to him, you know, having a hand in all of these things. And we didn't get contacted about any kind of a funeral or memorial service. And then Janice's later comment was that she only invited people who didn't believe he was a murderer. So it was a very small group of people. I was like, that should tell you something. Right. I saw a slideshow for his funeral that was on YouTube for a moment. I think it was taken down or made private of his life.

And there's pictures of him with his nieces and nephews. But JJ and Tiley don't appear in the slideshow. I'd be curious, your thoughts, as someone who understands this family system, is that an avoidant thing? Is that an unspoken thing? And I know you probably haven't even seen this slide show. show, but it's long. It shows his life. It was allegedly in memorial for him from his funeral. I believe it was posted by summer. It was unlisted, so she didn't realize that somebody found it and

long. So then it was made private. So I don't think she meant it to ever be seen by strangers like me. Yeah. But it was, you know, a typical thing at a funeral where it goes through his life, childhood going up. And again, as he got older, it showed him as an uncle. It showed him as an uncle. with his nieces and nephews, but it never showed JJ and it never showed Tiley. Any thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, it would make sense that they would want to avoid any appearance of him appearing with J.J. and Tiley in case it could be used against them later or something like that. So that would make sense to me.

I find it interesting that there was a slideshow done and a memorial done and all of that. and like 95% of the family was not included. I believe it was just Barry and Janice and summer. And maybe Adam, I don't know if Adam went or not. But it is certainly telling that again, we're keeping the family secrets. Like we're not going to get together and have a memorial service

and talk about, speculate about what may or may not have happened. We're not going to tell anybody that we're having a service. We're not going to tell anybody we're cremating him. you know, it's just pretty typical for the family system, unfortunately. Okay. And again, not being here to even watch their daughter's trial. That's sort of around this, kind of the same thing. Let's not even go or address this sort of, or is it sort of the similar of,

we're going to stay in Hawaii while our daughter is dying, Stacy, I'm referring to. Yeah, yeah, that avoidant behavior, it's, You know, I can't comment on why exactly they're not there at the trial, but I can imagine, I mean, I cannot imagine Janice and Barry showing up to be vilified in public. Okay. I can't imagine them having the courage to stand by their daughter, guilty or innocent, either one, but just to physically be present for her. Yeah, to support her by being present.

by being present and just by saying you're our daughter and we love you. You know, a lot of people have questions at Lori now, and you've made it clear that you haven't talked for many years. You definitely haven't talked to her since this all happened. A lot of people wonder, how could this, it comes down to opinion, but it is a popular opinion that Lori was the more attractive one, that Chad seemed like a bit of a dud, if she loved money, if she was materialistic, if she was so beautiful.

Chad was somebody that lived a more simple life. He was in Rexburg. He didn't have money. He wasn't gregarious like Charles was. We've heard that he simply just wasn't Lori's type from some people that are friends with Lori. What is it that you might think that Lori saw in Chad? I think she absolutely saw an opportunity for her to, it's no secret that she and Charles were already having problems before.

you know, before she met Chad, although the timing of, you know, when she started reading the books and all that kind of stuff, we don't know exactly when she started becoming enamored of his writings in relation to when she and Charles really started having problems. And maybe someone out there does know better than I do, because like you said, I haven't had a lot of contact with her in recent years. But, you know, I think she absolutely saw an opportunity. for her to attach herself to someone that she believed had spiritual power. And I think she, there's sort of this concept of the black and white thinking, the right and wrong thinking is something that developmentally that kids go through in their early

teenage years, you know, those kind of middle school years where the rules are super important and justice is super important and fairness is super important. And I wouldn't be surprised if she'd had, you know, some traumatic experiences at that time in her life that sort of left her mentally stuck there. And that overdeveloped sense of right and wrong of black and white certainly is fueled by the doctrine of the Mormon church. And I think that she really, like we've talked about, she really wanted to be good. She wanted to appear to be good, but she also wanted what she wanted. And I think for her, it's, you know, appearances were super important. Her own attractiveness was super important for other people to perceive her as attractive and beautiful and special important.

Those were really, really important things to her. Money was really, really important to her. And, you know, the power that she had over family members and other people in her life to sort of manipulate them into doing the things. that she wanted so that she could get what she wanted. And I think she saw an opportunity to latch on to some of these more extreme spiritual beliefs. Because when you're in a church system that talks about heavenly visitations and personal revelation, you know, Joseph Smith was just a regular kid when he said that he saw God. And I think that there's a lot of danger in that because then you have other people who are just regular people who know that all they have to do in order to

seem more important is to say they've had a vision of some kind, you know, or to have some kind of heavenly visitation or to have some kind of revelation that nobody else has. And I think that Lori latched onto that. And I also think that Chad told her exactly what she wanted to hear. Yeah. You know, she was a goddess. She was married to Marona. I in a past life, you know, and you notice it's never like, oh, you were a scullery made in a past life, you know, it's always like you were Cleopatra, you know, you are somebody incredibly important. And here's where I see a little bit of a parallel between Chad and Joseph Smith. If you really want followers to be very incredibly loyal to you, you give them a little bit of power

and a little bit of responsibility in your organization. And then they'll do anything to keep that power and to keep that responsibility. So, you know, you have Chad telling people you're incredibly important in this work and telling Lori you're going to be instrumental in bringing to pass the gathering or whatever it is, you know, that sort of stuff would just eat. Lori would have just eaten that right up, you know. she was not only special important but she was the one who was in charge of the gathering and and chat is over here claiming to be the holy ghost in a past life he's literally saying that he was a

god you know a member of the godhead and so of course lorry would want to be attached to somebody with that kind of power if she really believed that you know right right yeah it's even he's not even saying he's a prophet he's a member of the godhead you're right it's just have you heard the patriarchal blessing that Chad gave your cousin Alex? I did, yeah. Do you want to talk about that or would you rather not? It was triggering for me so I can't imagine you listening to such a thing. I honestly, I have to say, I've only listened to it one time. I listened to it on two times speed because I couldn't stand to just listen to the whole thing, just, you know, just on regular speed. I just wanted to get it over with. I was like, I want to hear this, but I also don't want to

absorb it. The thing that stood out to me was Chad talking about the church with the firstborn. Clearly, he's making plans to have his own church, you know, and to have his own sort of structure, whether that's inside or outside, you know, the Mormon church, I don't, I couldn't say. But he's clearly lining things up to, you know, to make things bigger than they are right now, you know, and to be in charge of a larger organization. I will also say, that for Chad to tell Alex that his sins are forgiven, right? Isn't that, wasn't that part of it? Yes.

Correct me if I'm wrong because I don't think I really retained all of it because it was very triggering for me too. Right. And Dulema stated that when Chad blessed Alex and said your sins are forgiven, that Alex wept. Yeah. And I mean, you have to look at Alex who has been. excommunicated twice.

So you have to look at this from a standpoint of, again, I think he really wanted to be righteous. I think he wanted to, but I don't think he knew how to. I think the unhealed parts of him would not, just he didn't know how to control a lot of the unheeled parts of him. So I'll just put it that way. But I think he wanted to be righteous. Otherwise, why would you get rebaptized? you know, after you've been excommunicated.

I agree. Why would you even try? You know, I think he really wanted to be acceptable, and I think he wanted to be righteous. And so for anybody to tell him that his sins are forgiven him after he's been excommunicated twice, you know, that's a big deal. If you add on top of that his role in Charles's death, and now we know probably his role in the children's death too.

you know, of course you would, of course you would want to hear that, you know, that your sins were forgiven you. And it's an indication to me that Alex really believed that Chad was a prophet of some kind. He really believed that Chad had some kind of authority because otherwise, you know, why would he, why would he have been emotional about Chad saying your sins are forgiven if he didn't really believe it? So that's the other thing that I took away from that is I think. Alex really must have believed that Chad was who he said he was. Yeah. You knew Alex.

You hung out with him to kind of acknowledge, yeah, he really believed and to also realize what he might have done. Does that make you see him differently? Or is it more so just processing what you did experience in a new way? Yeah, it's processing what I experienced in a new way. because what I knew of Alex is that he didn't really have much of a conscience. He didn't really seem to be concerned with hurting people's feelings ever, certainly. While Stacy was in a coma, he was using her credit card to buy golf clubs and other non-essential items, you know.

And he didn't see. Did he talk to you about that, by the way? Did you ask him about that? Yeah, we had a conversation about it. And his comment was, well, I don't think she's going to mind. And it was a joke, you know, like she's in a coma. How is she going to ever, she's not going to care that I used her credit card and I think she would understand. And I was thinking to myself, okay, if you were struggling financially and you needed

some help buying groceries or paying rent or something, that would be one thing, but you're off buying golf class, you know, and decor for your apartment. So I was like, it's morally reprehensible. And that's why I say I don't think he had a conscience because I think he just didn't care. when Barry was having his tax issues, he would put a lot of assets in Alex's name, and he put the San Antonio house in Alex's name. And without Janice and Barry's knowledge or permission, he went and got the finance, the house refinanced and took the cash and kept it for himself. So he doesn't, obviously, not somebody with, you know, any sort of a conscience for that kind of a thing. but it does make me, you know, hearing him get emotional about having his sense forgiven, it does make me reframe that and say, I think he really wanted to be good and acceptable

and to do the right things and just wasn't capable of it. Lori, let's go back to the beginning of this interview when you said, when I asked you why you did this interview and you explained that it's hard for you to hear when people say, oh, Lori just was sort of manipulated by Chad and, you know, and, you know, and Lori is, you know, not to blame at all that, you know, this was all Chad. And my husband and I have talked about this a lot, you know, and we've, we've explained that this was Chad's belief system, but that Lori, Lori is who Lori is. and you even mentioned her kind of controlling the family or is there anything else you want to say

about that specifically like what who is lorry who is your cousin Lori well um after that incident where she kicked me out of the apartment somebody asked me you know did you guys make up did you you know you obviously she was a bridesmaid in my wedding um and so they were like you know obviously you guys were friendly at some point. But that's the whole thing. We never, we never did make up. We never did talk about it because we don't, we don't talk about things like that in our family system. It was just like, well, she showed up next in my life the next time she did. And we hung out together because we're family. And we didn't bring it up because we didn't want to have an unpleasant conversation and disturb, you know, the family meal and all of that kind of stuff.

And, you know, I got married very young. I was 20. And most of my friends from high school and everything were back in Connecticut. And so I was trying to think, like, who would I even have as my bridesmaid? So it was my sister, and it was Lori in summer. And, you know, they were living in Austin at the time. So I said, you know, I'd love to have you guys as my bridesmaids, and my color is purple. And so if you can try to find a dress.

And they were there. My sister was here. And so they couldn't go shopping together. So Lori just made a unilateral decision that she didn't. she didn't want a purple dress. And so she bought blue dresses for all three of them. And so- Wait, you wanted a purple dress and they just said no?

Yeah. I mean, Lori was the drive. Yeah, Lori just made the decision that was not going to be purple. No. So she bought these three dresses and, you know, she called me and told me, well, we did the best we could to find a dress that was as close to purple as we could get.

So this is what we came up with. And, you know, and then they showed up the day before the wedding and these were clearly blue dresses. I've seen the picture. So now I'm going back to look at it one more time now. I'm looking at the picture. And it was also... They are very blue.

They are royal blue. And it was also shockingly immodest to me because they were, they had these little jackets, but they were, you know, like spaghetti straps. And, you know, that was not garment-worthy clothing, you know, temple garments for those who are not of the faith, you know, you can't show your shoulders, you know, and you can't, and a collar like comes up to here. So you can't have any neckline that's plunging or whatever. And my poor sister was, you know, 14 at the time.

And, you know, that she was going to be subjected to wear this immodest dress, you know. I felt really bad about it. But I was like, well, what do we do at this point? It's the day before the wedding, you know. So. My color's blue now. Royal blue. Well, it was odd because, you know,

there were all of these decorations that had purple in them and all this stuff. And yeah, it's non-matching, you know, bridesmaidsmaid's dresses. But that's just the way, like, she just made a decision and she just did it. She didn't talk to anybody about it until afterwards, you know. And then she and I kept in touch because then when she did get pregnant with Colby, my oldest daughter and Colby are pretty close in age. And so there were several occasions where we took the kids to, like the photo studio at Target and got pictures of the two of them taking together as they were

growing up, you know. So there were some fun memories like that. But it was also, you know, she was working in Austin. She was a hairdresser. So I'd go get my hair done by her all the time. And even now, whenever I go to a salon, I think about like what Lori would say. And anytime I'm doing my hair, I'm like, you know, I remember her giving me a haircut one time and styling my hair. And then she said, she gave me the brush and the hair dryer and she said, okay, now you do it. And I was like, okay, why am I doing it? And she's like, well, I just want to see if you're coordinated enough to be able to do this hairstyle. You know, so it's like always this belief of superiority, you know.

I think the last time I was trying to think in advance of this, like when was the last time we really did talk? But I think the last time that we saw each other was for Charles's baptism. Prior to that, she was still living when she was still with Joe, I went to her house that she lived with Joe when Tiley was probably two or maybe three by this time. And I remember that she had done highlights in Tiley's hair. And I was like, at three, is that, is that safe? Someone else has mentioned that too, yeah. But I remember going to her house and she had a little studio set up there where she was going to do hair.

And I remember them talking about wanting to build a bigger house. But Lori said Joe had told her they couldn't build a bigger house until they had a million dollars in the bank. And so that's what they were working towards. And, you know, it was always this conversation about money and all this stuff. I was not at all surprised to hear about Alex assaulting Joe. because that was very much a macho emmo of Alex's of like taking care of his little sister, beating up anybody that broke up with her or that was mean to her. Even in high school, he talked about that.

So I wasn't surprised. He was sort of Lori's protector in that sense. Yeah, but no, it wasn't like Alex is Lori's protector and no one else's. That was just Alex's personality. Like I think he threatened to beat up Steve Cope too when, when Melanie and Steve were going through their divorce situation. And he was much younger at that time. So that dynamic didn't surprise me.

It didn't surprise me to hear much later that he had served time in prison for that because that wouldn't have been something that the family talked about. You know, so that was kind of the time when I really lost touch with Lori was after she was with Charles and she'd been through that whole custody mess. I don't know what else to call it. Now having been through my own divorce and watching friends go through divorces, I can't imagine how Joe must have felt

and what he must have gone through, having his kids ripped away from him and I just can't imagine how hard that must have been for him. But yeah, that was, I mean, like I say, it's horrible, but it's not surprising given just the way that I know Lori and who she is and the family dynamic. And I think you can't ignore the overlap of the rigidity of the Mormon faith and the rigidity of the family system.

I think our family system is a microcosm of the church culture. You have a patriarchy. You have a lot of manipulation and control. You have shame. You have, you know, behaviors being controlled, information is being controlled. No one member of the family has the entire story. So it's sort of like bifurcated and spread out so that nobody knows the whole story.

We all just have these little pieces. And it's not until we talk to each other that the pieces all come together, but we so very rarely talk to each other, especially about the uncomfortable things, that the chances of any one of us putting it all together is pretty slim. And I think that's on purpose. know, Janice and Barry do not want, like, they don't want people to put this together and to understand that the family system contributed to what Lori's state of mine is and what her

motivations are. Yeah, I think that they'll fight that at all cost. Yeah, and I think they might be really surprised to see this interview with you. I remember, for example, with Stacy, there was a social media post floating around where Melanie Boudreau-Palowski, that would be Stacey's daughter, was visiting the grave of her mother. I think Summer wrote it, but the whole post was remembering her mother and then defending her cause of death, like that she didn't have an eating disorder and that she just simply died of diabetes. And my thought when reading that was, you know, I understand wanting to defend your mother's cause of death, I guess, to an extent.

But who cares in the end if there was some mental illness or in Steve Cope's custody battle documents, whatever the cause of death is, Stacey struggled in her last years. clearly she's not with us here today. And I just have always thought that was a really interesting tribute to a mother that I felt like the most important thing to do was not to share the life Stacey led as, I mean, you just gave her such a beautiful tribute. She was loving. She was kind. She was sweet.

She was beautiful. And it wasn't to state that it was more so to defend the way she died and how she didn't die. That seems what's most important to this family. And to me, that's a metaphor. Yeah. I was controlling this narrative, this family narrative, rather than just remembering Stacey for who she was and the beautiful sister and mother, everyone misses like you did today to just simply say, this didn't happen and this is the way it happened. And it just shows, I think, where some priorities are.

Yes. And it's also very telling of this pervasive feeling in the family system that, The truth is threatening. The truth is not valuable, especially if it's threatening. And the truth of Stacy's cause of death is threatening to our perception of our family. It's threatening to our behavior around surrounding her death, like what each of us did and said at that time,

it's threatening to what may still be going on in the family. family. And it's just, it's a dynamic where the truth is unacceptable if it threatens our family system. And I think that the truth now being known about the Cox family has to a certain degree caused the family system to fall apart. And I think that's probably the worst nightmare of unheeled people is to lose control. And I think that's probably the worst nightmare of unheeled people is to lose control. And I think that's been the pervasive thing throughout this is that Lori wants to have control, Barry wants to have control, and there's this inability to come to terms with the fact that we can't control other people and we can't control our circumstances.

And if there is a truth that's out there that threatens my ability to function, I personally would rather know the truth than to believe a lie or to base my life on a lie. Right. It seems clear to me from following this case closely for three years that this was Chad's belief system, that Lori was ripe for it and that she had some really extreme beliefs before meeting Chad. I won't deny that, but that it was Chad's belief system. But I also see what you see, that Lori didn't all of a sudden, Lori wasn't all of a sudden this, you know, homecoming queen who all of a sudden got placed with the wrong cult leader and did

things completely against her will. What role do you think Lori played in all of this? Well, I will say that if you take Chad out of the equation, I think that Lori would have gotten to this point without Chad. You do. Because she had kind of an obsession with death in the afterlife anyway. She had talked about many times how much easier it would be for us to raise our kids during the millennium when Christ is on the earth. You know, the Mormon belief is that when Christ comes again, that he's going to be. a rule on the earth for a thousand years and there will be no sin and she used to talk about like

oh if we could just raise our kids during that time that would be so much easier and you know why can't we just all die now and do that instead you know and she she would tell this to you yeah i mean offhanded comments you know um i've heard the the famous coming driving this one tylie and jj were young because i know you mentioned seeing meeting colby when he was young and entirely when she was young. Yeah, this was when they were young. Yeah. So years ago.

Yeah. Long before Chad ever came into the picture. So I think that because of her inability to control circumstances and to handle, you know, life and being a mom and all of that kind of stuff, I think she would have gotten there eventually. But this was just also maybe just put an express train on it, you know, meeting Chad and him having these extreme beliefs and this rating system. And I really do think there has to be on some level that Lori believed that Charles, she had convinced herself that Charles was really a zombie and not himself. And she really believed that her kids were zombies and not themselves.

I think she would have had to get to that point mentally in order to have something to do with their deaths. But again, it's speculation. I'm basing all of this on what I know of her prior to her meeting chat. And I never talked with her after that point. But I will say that I've heard the audio of her sort of giving her testimony, talking about seeing Jesus Christ. And all of that, again, not surprising to hear. And very much in line with the self-importance that was so pervasive throughout all of my time knowing her and her needing to feel superior. I've heard people talk about her comment about driving herself and her kids off a cliff, you know.

And that was, I've heard her say stuff like that before. you know, I couldn't tell you exactly the circumstances or the wording of it, but that was, yeah, I've heard her say that. I've heard her say things like that before. And all of this, you know, prior to all of this while her kids were still relatively young. And I think part of the reason why we lost contact is because I was going through my own coercive control situation in my marriage and going through some really hard times. and we weren't living in close proximity anymore. So it wasn't really practical for us to be together that often. And then when Barry and Janice left San Antonio, that sort of killed it and didn't talk to any of them after that point.

You brought up sexual abuse that you experienced as a child. And I would love for you to share your book and let us know where we can, Perhaps order your book if we want to hear more of your story. Yeah, I mean, it's really, the book is really a, it's a memoir, but also a survival guide, and it's also about identifying and leaving abusive systems. So it ties into everything that we're talking about today. I have some social media posts that I've started to make about these topics, and you can actually download the first chapter of my book for free at 3rd.

third dash verse.com. Okay. And we'll have a link to that for everyone in the description of this video as well as in the comments. We'll pin that. Thank you for sharing that. I think that, you know,

one thing that Dr. John and I want to be at Hidden True Crime and want to do a Hidden True Crime is to allow a safe space for everyone to share and to be able to learn and to learn from survivors and to be able to, we're always grateful when, survivors have the ability to share their stories. It's not that's not always possible for some. You know, some are in a place where they can't. Others, it's just too overwhelming for them. And it is so brave when survivors share their stories and how it can help others. So thank you.

Yeah, I think that what I wanted and needed when I was going through my healing was to know that there was, there were other people who had survived because for a long time, I felt like I'm never going to survive this. felt like there's no way out. I felt like there's no way that I can overcome all of this, you know, trauma that I've experienced in my life. And I thought, you know, it's layer after layer after layer and it felt so impossible to dig through all of it. So the reason that I wrote about it is because I wanted other people who were similarly affected by traumatic situations to know that no matter how much there is to dig through that it's possible to do it. And it's possible to actually have a healthy, happy life on the other side because the statistics are very much not in favor

of survivors of especially early childhood sexual trauma. There's a lot of addiction, a lot of mental illness, and a lot of suicidality, unfortunately. So I just want, I want people to have hope that it's possible to actually have, to actually be happy after overcoming those things. Thank you. What do you hope for your, your cousin, Lori, moving forward. I mean, clearly, she's behind bars. We don't know what the conviction holds, and I'm not asking you to make a judgment necessarily

on her crimes. As her cousin, as someone who knows her, what are your hopes for her after trial, wherever it is that she is, what do you hope for her? I really, I've actually had a lot of time to think about this because I was contacted by the mitigation specialist for the defense team asking about the, death penalty and how I felt about that. And I honestly have a lot of mixed feelings about the

death penalty being taken off the table, which I won't go into, but I will say that my wide-eyed idealistic hope is that after everything is finished and I hope that Lori gets convicted and I will tell you the reason why is because I hope that she's going to be held accountable for her role in this whatever that comes out to be because I believe that the lack of accountability in this family system for all this time is what has led to this. My idealistic hope is that she will be able to gain some introspection and thereby gain healing. I know that's probably way too much to hope for and to ask for. But I have to believe that it's possible.

She's still my cousin. We still share DNA. It's still part of my family history and my family story. And it's heartbreaking to be in a position where you have to confront the fact that people that you are related to or capable of this kind of thing because then you have to confront that possibility in yourself too. And that's a hard thing to look at. But going back to what I was saying about the accountability, when Charles was killed and there was this rip in the family where some of us believed that it was not self-defense and some and some did or some wanted to. I believe that

that was such an incredibly pivotal point because if even one person had held Lori and Alex accountable at that point, those kids might still be alive. If Barry and Janice had been willing to confront the fact that the possibility that this could have been a setup, if they had not done what they did in the aftermath of Charles' death to try and make sure that Alex was not held accountable, those kids might still be alive. And I really, really applaud Adam for being the one person in the family system to come forward and say, this is not right. These circumstances, are not, this was not self-defense. This is not right.

And I applaud him for being willing to put himself out there to go against the family system, and he was ostracized, and he was vilified, and he'd lost a lot that day when he stood up to the family. And I think he's incredibly brave for doing that. I just wish that there had not been a series of errors allowed Alex to walk free that day. I wish that they that the law enforcement had come to that realization sooner because I think I think if they if they had that a lot of this probably could

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