Law&Crime Sidebar - 5 Creepy Similarities of Ruby Franke and Lori Vallow Daybell

Episode Date: April 27, 2024

Extreme religious beliefs were at the center of criminal cases for Ruby Franke in Utah and Lori Vallow Daybell in Idaho. Vallow Daybell was convicted of murdering her two children, as well as her new husband’s first wife. Franke entered a guilty plea to multiple counts of aggravated child abuse. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber analyzes the similarities between the women’s backgrounds, beliefs, and crimes.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’ve used Incognito mode in Google’s Chrome browser, find out if you have a claim in a few clicks by visiting https://incognitoclaims.com/sidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. views shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Two women from two different states are both behind bars for causing irreparable harm to their own children. And that is leading some to wonder if the women's ideologies led to their downfalls. We are doing a deep dive of how the cases of Ruby Frankie and Lori Valladebel intersect. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Hey, everybody, this is a law and crime legal alert. Google incognito tracked users browsing data without their knowledge, and Mass Tort Alliance, one of our legal sponsors, is helping

users file for compensation due to Google misleading the privacy of their incognito browser. So if you've used Google Incognito any time since 2016, you can start your claim in less than 10 questions at incognito claims.com slash sidebar. Sometimes when we cover stories here on Sidebar, some of the themes and the details, they start to blend together, unfortunately. You start to see these similarities and these different yet equally disqualification. disturbing cases. And recently, we kind of noticed something in two big cases that we have been actively covering here on Sidebar, that there are these similarities between Ruby Frankie

and Lori Vallow Daybell. And that's what we want to explore. As you likely know, Ruby Frankie pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse in Utah, and she was sentenced to spend, I guess, at least the next several years behind bars. We'll talk about that in a second. but police discovered that Ruby and her business partner, Jody Hildebrandt, were abusing Ruby's two youngest kids. She is six in total. And this all came to light when Ruby's 12-year-old son managed to escape Jody's place, go to a neighbor, called 911, he and his sister were found by police. They were emaciated. They were found with wounds that indicated they had been severely abused.

Both Ruby and Jody were arrested, charged. They entered guilty pleas to four counts of aggravated child abuse. They were each sentenced to an indeterminate number of years in prison. This was back in February. And that's because the judge under Utah law can't set the actual prison sentence for this. It's really up to the Board of Partons and Paroles that will determine when these women get released. But our experts and our analysis would indicate that they could spend at least several years, perhaps four years in prison with a maximum of 30 years.

Well, not long after that, Utah officials released a massive amount of. of documentation of the abuse, photos, videos, even an actual journal talking about the abuse. And according to the journal entries, seemingly written by Ruby, Ruby believed that her children were evil and they were possessed by demons and that Jody said the only way to save them was to do these awful things to them, like denying them food or a bed, making them stand outside in the sun for hours, pushing this nine-year-old girl into a cat. this. Fortunately, these children were rescued, and it is our understanding that they are in the custody of child protective services while their father, Kevin, Ruby's estranged husband, is

actively trying and fighting to get custody of them back. But Lori Valo Daibel's children, they weren't so lucky. Now, she was convicted in Idaho of last year for her role in the murders of her seven-year-old son, J.J. Valo, and 16-year-old daughter, Tiley Ryan, as well as Chad's deceased wife Tammy Daybell. Prosecutors say that Lori and Chad were having an affair when they decided to kill Tammy and the kids, and several reasons have been given, including money from life insurance and social security payouts, the opportunity to live freely as a couple. But the most interesting reason is that Lori and Chad believe they were higher beings

who had been together in a past life and that people who potentially stood in their way were dark or zombies. The couple allegedly believe that the victims had been replaced by something evil. Well, after she was convicted of murder and conspiracy charges, the judge sentenced Lori Vallow-Daybel to prison for each of the charges to be served consecutively. The trial for Chad Daybell currently underway right now. He's facing similar counts. We've been covering it here on Sidebar.

Now, as far as we know, there has never been any confirmed connection between Ruby Frankie, Lori Vallo, Jody Hildebrandt, or Chad Daybell. But Jody and Chad, they did seem to run in the same circles on the conference circuit. While Chad sold books, he was an author of religious-themed novels like Days of Fury and the Great Gathering, Jody was a motivational speaker. But the similarities in these cases have people talking, and that's what we want to do. We want to dig a little bit into that. Now, much of the comparison comes back to, of course, religion.

That Chad, Lori, Ruby, Jody, they were all seemingly members of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Saints, the Mormon Church, but they all veered off the traditional path to a more extreme belief system. And let me be clear about that. What these defendants did or accused of doing is in no way a reflection on the actual teachings and beliefs of the church. These were radical offshoot beliefs. In fact, both Ruby and Lori have been accused of essentially joining a cult. In his books, Chad talks about near-death experiences and visions. He and Lori. believe that they were ordained by God and needed to spread their message in order to save people. But they also believe that some people were beyond saving, that if they had been

taken over by a dark spirit, they needed to be cleansed. Lori's friend, Melanie Gibb, was pulled into this delusion. She recently testified about the couple's beliefs during Chad's murder trial. At some point, did she talk to you more about what it meant if the evil spirit came in, like where the actual person went? So when a dark spirit would take over, the the original spirit of the person would go into the spirit world. And that's what she originally told you. That's right. And did she tell you she received that information from Chad?

Yes. Was there a way to do something to help that person? She would try to do like a casting out of an evil spirit and try to convince the evil spirit to leave. Can you tell me a little bit about what would happen at the casting? So Lori and a few of her friends would stand in a circle and then feel like they had the power and authority to cast out the evil spirit by trying to use words, I guess, like an energy work to be able to convince them to leave and hoping that the evil spirit would leave.

Did you participate in the castings for Charles? Yes. At any point, did Lori tell you whether or not the casting was successful? Yes. And what did she share with you? She would say that Ned had left and then shortly after she would say somebody else got in another entity. Do you know who told her that information or where she got it from? Yes, she got it from Chad. And did she tell you that? Yes. At some point, did you learn what would happen to the body if the casting was actually successful? She would say that the body was supposed to die if the evil spirit left.

When they mentioned Charles, by the way, they mean Lori's husband before Chad, Charles Vallow. He was shot and killed by Alex Cox, Lori's brother, allegedly in self-defense, although she has now been charged with conspiracy to commit the murder of Charles Vallow out in Arizona. She faces that charge. Alex himself later died from a blood clot. Chad's defense team is pointing to Alex as being the real killer of J.J. and Tiley. meantime jody hildebrandt was creating connections a therapy company that offered mental health support group therapy online courses a lot more jody was a licensed therapist but her license was taken away after her rest utah legislators are actually now calling for more oversight for those with these professional licenses ruby was listed on the connections website as a mental fitness trainer she and her husband kevin became more and more involved with the company and ruby started appearing in jody's videos which focused on what the the women called distortion. If you're living in distortion, then you can't see the truth.

Now, Kevin spoke a lot about this with police. This was after the kids were rescued and Jody and Ruby were behind bars. He claimed that at Jody's insistence, he had left the family home and his six children, reportedly to work on his own issues that he had to resolve before he could go back. He says he hadn't seen any of them in more than a year. Told police that the more time Ruby spent with Jody, the weirder things got. When after a conference, a Connections conference down in St. George, all the, like, the inner circle, all the people who were being trained as, you know, mental fitness coaches and stuff. So that was Ruby and a bunch of other people and their spouses.

We went out to like a dinner afterwards, and that's where Jody really really opened up. to the women in a private conversation that she believed she was being tormented and haunted by shadow figures every night and that was spooky it was weird and I hated it and I became the resident exorcist that was the title I came up with myself I thought it was kind of funny but it was my job to like go and give her blessings whenever she started like going to a trance and go into possession which started to be a lot and Ruby would go up and check on her it started like four every four hours at night and then it moved every two hours a night and

it moved every hour at night and then at some point Ruby said you know what I'm just going to start sleeping in there. And if I need you, I'll come down and get you. I'm like, that's kind of weird, but okay. And that was that. She's, they started sleeping in the same bed. Just going back, you said that she was having, like, these visions. Like, what's, did we ever privy enough to understand

or were we told what those visions were? A couple of them. What were the two that they, should we tell you about? should tell you about so like one of them she would was walking along the beach with Jesus and Jesus challenged her to go to walk on the water and it was a whole lesson on walking on the water another she would walk with heavenly father and heavenly mother and she learned about she had a pet lion in heaven named Charles I don't know why I never forgot that name.

But it was like this massive lion and she got to ride the lion and learned that, you know, all about who she was and this pet lion and all there was another one where there was a lot of satanic ones where

when she would go into possession mode, she would talk in like different voices. It was really creepy but the voices would say she's ours we're not letting go she is satan's bride she's mine i'm going to marry her wild stuff so there seems to be a connection no pun intended between what ruby and jody believed and what chad and lorry believe at least that's what it seems to me in order for their children's souls to be saved and given the opportunity

to enter into a blissful life or afterlife, all this evil had to be removed, apparently by any means necessary. At least that's an interpretation of the evidence presented at these trials and in these cases. Now, another aspect that's comparable between the cases is how these two pairs were spreading the message. You see, Chad attended Brigham Young University in Utah,

BYU, and he spent a good portion of his life working as a sexton, a caregiver for cemeteries. He started publishing books about his cemetery experiences and then transitioned to books for a religious audience. He and Tammy met at BYU. They get married in 1990. They lived in Utah until 2015 when they moved to Idaho. It was reported that Chad founded a book company in 2004,

which gave Chad a way to get out his message about the end of days and the apocalypse, which he seemingly believed was imminent. Lori and Chad appeared on multiple podcasts together, Lori, Melanie Gibb. They also had their own podcast called Feel the Fire. In fact, there was an episode from 2019 that was titled Feel the Fire, Chad Daybell, sharing Jesus love.

During Lori's trial, pieces of that podcast were played for the court. We came here to fight this war. And what I know directly from Jesus Christ, an angel from our high go have come to minister to me. Okay. The time is now that this war is on and it has started. what Jason gave us about a timeline is accurate, true, and correct. These things will start happening in the next two years and things are going to change and we need to be ready for that change.

And how we do that, we simplify ourselves. We turn our lives completely over to Christ and we let him build a warrior from women. Now, in terms of Jody Hildebrand, Jody's connections business also had a podcast as well as a presence on social media with photos and videos off life advice, trances, visions, out-of-body experiences. These seem to be common in the worlds of Lori and Ruby. And they also seem that they were both helped along in their journey by a sort of mentor figure, right? Lori had Chad.

Lori and Chad, they met at this religious conference and she reportedly saw him as a sort of doomsday authority and profit. Ruby, she seems to be pulled into all of this into Jody's world by Jody, through connection. and started to buy into what Jody was selling. Both Ruby and Lori, they were also accused of using their children for profit. Long before this horrific abuse was uncovered, Ruby rose to fame on YouTube with her channel called Eight Passengers. She chronicled her life with Kevin and the six children, offering parenting advice and more

to her millions of followers. There were accusations from some viewers that her methods of punishment were too harsh, like making her son sleep on a beanbag chair for months after he lost the privilege of having a bed. She stopped posting and the channel was eventually shut down. That's when it seems she became more heavily involved in Connections. But she said in a Connections video once that she made millions of dollars off of her YouTube channel. I have been full time. You wonder where I've been on my vlogs?

You wonder why I left YouTube to save my kids. No amount of money. And I'm telling you, I was making millions. And I left it because my kids were being hurt. hurt. With entitlement, they were being hurt. With people's advice and they didn't have a mother up the front saying, I don't care what the world's opinion is. This is the truth and this is where I stand. Many have accused Ruby of exploiting her children for money and fame. Meantime, Lori's financial scheme was more direct. She wanted to reap the benefits of social security payouts for

her children. Again, that was a big motivation for her to kill. Now, finally, I want to talk about the women's sentencing hearings. So while we know Lori will spend the rest of her life in prison, Utah does not give a specific amount of time. A defendant has to serve during sentencing for these specific crimes. Instead, there's a range. And then, as I mentioned, it's up to the board and of pardons and paroles to decide when they should be released.

Well, during her sentencing hearing, Lori was given the opportunity to speak. And not only was she not really remorseful, but she continued to insist, at least in my view that this seemingly was the best thing for J.J. and Tiley? I have had many communications with Jesus Christ, the savior of this world, and our heavenly parents. I've had many angelic visitors have come and communicated with me and even manifested themselves to me. Because of these communications, I know for a fact that my children are happy and busy in the spirit world. Because of my communications with my friend Tammy Daybell, I know that she is also very happy and extremely busy. I have always mourned the loss of my loved ones, and I have lost many in this mortal world.

However, I know more than most people. I know where they are now and what they're doing. I know how wonderful heaven is, and I'm homesick for it every single day. I know where, We all lived in heaven before we were born on earth, and we were all adult spirits in the heavenly realm. We chose to come to earth as mortals. Heaven is more wonderful than you can possibly imagine. I do not fear death, but I look forward to it. So warped there, so disturbing the year. And while Jody Hildebrand didn't go that far during her own sentencing,

she also didn't really seem to regret her actions. I sincerely love these children. I desire for them to heal physically and emotionally. One of the reasons I did not go to trial is that I did not want them to emotionally the experience which would have been detrimental to them. My hope and prayer is that they will heal and move forward to have beautiful lives. I am willing to submit to what the state feels would be an appropriate amount of time served to make restribution. Ruby, on the other hand, in my view, did seem remorseful, but she pointed the finger at Jody as the main culprit.

And we know from Jody's jailhouse phone calls that she believed that she was being railroaded by saying things like Satan was after her and how you can't parent kids anymore. But Ruby's jailhouse phone calls indicate something else. they indicate that after she had spent some time away from Jody Hildebrand, she started to realize that she had been essentially brainwashed. For the past four years, I've chosen to follow counsel and guidance that has led me into a dark delusion. My distorted version of reality went largely unchecked as I would isolate from anyone who challenged me. I was led to believe that this world was an evil place, filled with cops who control hospitals that injure, government agencies that brainwash, church leaders who lie in lust, husbands who refuse to

protect, and children who need abused. My choice to believe and behave this paranoia culminated into criminal activity, for which I stand before you today ready to take accountability. It is certainly a cautionary tale of how moving toward more extreme efforts to save souls can be a slippery slope into abuse and even murder. And of course, as prosecutors have alleged, there is a lot more at stake than just the religious component. There was the idea of lust. There was the idea of being together.

And of course, there was the financial component. But as I mentioned, Chad's trial now underway in Idaho. And unlike his wife, he faces the death penalty if he's convicted. We will, of course, be following things very closely here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us, everybody. As always, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time.

Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.