Law&Crime Sidebar - Top 5 Most Shocking Motives for Murder

Episode Date: January 2, 2024

From killing a teacher because of a bad grade to strangling a family member over an internet connection, we’ve seen some really strange rationale for heinous crimes. The Law&Crime Netwo...rk’s Jesse Weber analyzes five murder cases with unbelievable motives and defendants who couldn’t escape justice.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Go to greenchef.com/60sidebar and use code 60sidebar to get 60% off, plus 20% off your next two months! HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo 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.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 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
Starting point is 00:00:35 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. There is only one person who had the motive, you had the means, We had the opportunity to commit these crimes. The defendant, Lori, Ballo, Daybell used money, power, and sex for the promise of those things to get what she wanted. This was a big, big problem.
Starting point is 00:01:15 And she made it the defendant's problem to solve. From killing a teacher because of a bad grade to murdering children for money and freedom, to strangling a family member to death over an internet connection, these are some of the most shocking motives from recent cases and the defendants who couldn't escape justice. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber.
Starting point is 00:01:42 How many times have I said motive? It's not an element of a crime, right? I always explain how prosecutors don't need to prove why somebody committed a crime, their motivation. I say that, but remember, it does help tell the story for prosecutors, doesn't it? It does help sell it to a jury. And after covering so many different trials, there are some motives that really do stand out to you more than others for all the wrong reasons.
Starting point is 00:02:10 So here's a collection of some shocking motives from recent cases laid out by prosecutors. And as you'll see, these killers did not get away Scott-free. So let's start with the first person that I thought of when we came up with this topic, Alec Murdoch, the disgraced South Carolina lawyer who went to trial for shooting to death his son Paul and wife Maggie on their family property back in June of 2021. And this was a very interesting case. There were no eyewitnesses. There was no murder weapon.
Starting point is 00:02:39 The forensics were arguably not entirely helpful for the prosecution. What was helpful was the prosecution's smoking gun. A key piece of evidence that changed the course of. this whole trial. This was a recording taken off of Paul's phone, minutes before the shootings happen, where you can hear Murdoch's voice. Quit, Cash. Come. Quit. That's okay. Come in. Come in. Come, gosh. Hey, he's got a bird in his mouth. Baba. Hang, Baba. It's a guinea. This is a chicken. Come here, my father.
Starting point is 00:03:22 Come here, gosh. Come here, Bob. Cash. Quit. That proves he was there at the dog kennels of the property where Maggie and Paul were killed. The crime scene minutes before this happened. And this comes after Murdoch denied for so long, including to police, that he was there. But to sell the idea that he brutally killed his family in cold blood, and that's a tough pill to swallow.
Starting point is 00:03:45 I know I needed to know the why. And I think the jury needed to know the why. Well, the motive gets very complex. So prosecutors argued that Alec Murdoch was stealing from his clients and his law firm. He was also facing a civil lawsuit in regards to a girl who was killed in a boat accident allegedly caused by his son Paul a couple years back. And as part of that civil suit, he would have to disclose his finances. And so he was about to be exposed for his financial misdeeds.
Starting point is 00:04:13 And the prosecution argued that as a way to buy himself more time to keep himself from getting caught, to gain sympathy, to distract away from all of these financial issues, he killed his family. There is only one person who had the motive, who had the means, who had the opportunity to commit these crimes, and also whose guilty conduct after these crimes betrays him. This defendant was the one person who was left. living a lie. The defendant is the person on which a storm was descending, and the defendant is a person where his own storm would actually mean consequences for Maggie and Paul. The evidence that you've heard shows that the defendant became so addicted and so dependent on a velocity of money
Starting point is 00:05:08 that the millions of dollars in legal fees that he was receiving was not enough. And so we started to steal. Gathering storm in Alex's life. We talked about the family legacy, you heard of how important that was to him and how important that was to this family and how it was in danger because of the boat case. The criminal charges as well as the civil charges. That legacy was in danger. And it was threatening also to expose him for who he really was, which would totally destroy his part of that legacy.
Starting point is 00:05:44 Lose his career, lose his bar license. face consequences like he's never seen. And on June 7th, 2021, as all these pressures were mounting, the defendant killed Maggie and Paul. Now, to illustrate that, and I know it's a wild motive, but to illustrate that, the judge allowed evidence of Murdoch's financial crimes to be presented at trial. And there were three key witnesses I want to bring up. So the first is Jeannie Secondger. She was the CFO of Murdox law firm, and she explains that she questioned that she questioned.
Starting point is 00:06:19 questioned Murdoch about missing money on the very day that Paul and Maggie were killed. I told him, I said, I have reason to believe that you received the fairest money directly to you and you need to prove to me that you did not. And he assured me again that the money was in there. I told him I still needed to see the ledgers or proof that it was. After the murders happened, was anybody at all concerned about getting the proof for those missing fees? after those murders happened at that point in time. We weren't because we were concerned about L.A. That is big.
Starting point is 00:06:57 The questions into what he was doing stopped once his family was killed. So if you believe the prosecution's motive that he committed murder to stop the investigation into his finances and tried to prevent himself from being exposed, did it not work in a way? I mean, listen to Murdoch's former paralegal Annette Griswold. Did the law firm community rally to the aid of the defendant? They did.
Starting point is 00:07:25 Was that the primary focus on everybody's mind in the aftermath? Absolutely. Were you at all concerned about finding out what happened to these fares fees after that happened? What fairs fees? What fairs fees? Yeah, what ferris fees. Hmm, no one looking into this missing money? The prosecution doubled down on the.
Starting point is 00:07:45 that by calling in Mark Tinsley. He's the lawyer for the family of Mallory Beach. This was the girl in that boat crash who was killed. I mentioned earlier. Again, Paul was the alleged driver of that boat. Now, Tinsley was responsible for the lawsuit against Murda. Well, what happened after the murders? Did that have any effect, that tragedy of their deaths, did that have any effect on your assessment of the boat case and how everything fit together if things were how they initially appeared? It would have affected, I mean, yes, it did, and it would have
Starting point is 00:08:20 ended the case. It would have ended the case against who? Against Alex Marne. And explain that to the jury. Why? What had changed after this terrible tragedy? Well, when you have a civil case, if you, nice people get good
Starting point is 00:08:37 verdicts, okay, just generally speaking. Yes, sir. Nice people get good verdicts. You really have to motivate a jury to want to help somebody in a civil case. And so if you compare, say, Attila the Hun with some sweet grandmother, who gets a better result? It's the sweet grandmother. If Ehrlich is the victim of a vigilante, nobody's going to hold him accountable.
Starting point is 00:09:05 It doesn't make any difference what he did or how clearly what he did contributed. The case would be over against Ehrlich. So if Murdoch really was a victim and his family had been massacred, that lawsuit would be basically over. Now, does the motive to kill his family make sense? It's a crazy motive, but when you put it all together, I don't know for me, it seemed like the only logical explanation for why he would have done this. And also, this is a guy that also hired someone to shoot him so that his son could collect life insurance policy money. Yeah, that was another part of the case, that Murdoch hired his distant cousin to shoot him to kill him,
Starting point is 00:09:40 shot him in the side of the road, which he allegedly did do, although Murdoch didn't die. The goal was that his surviving son Buster would get $10 million if he ended up dying. Crazy situation. I mean, if he's capable of coming up with a plan like that, is it outside the realm of possibility that he hatched this one too? In the end, the jury convicted Alec Murdoch for the murders of Paul and Maggie. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole. And in terms of all those financial crimes, well, he didn't escape justice there.
Starting point is 00:10:09 Murdoch pled guilty to those charges, was sentenced to 27 years in prison to be served concurrently, meaning at the same time as the life in prison sentences. And everybody, so with the new year upon us, how many of us are thinking, this is the year. This is the year. I'm going to eat healthier. I'm going to eat cleaner. While with Green Chef, the number one meal kit for eating well, you can actually do it. You can actually reach your eating goals and do it seamlessly.
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Starting point is 00:11:33 Willard, Chated Miller, and Jeremy Goodall. These were the two 16-year-old friends who murdered 66-year-old Spanish teacher, Naheemagraber, out in Iowa in 2021. They beat her with a baseball bat. Her body was found under a tarp, a wheelbarrow, and railroad ties at a park. Now, why would these teenagers do this? Because of a bad grade she gave Miller. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:11:59 Apparently, he was worried that the bad grade would keep him from participating in a study abroad program. He was part of Jeremy Goodale's police interrogation where he says that Miller recruited him for the murder. He kind of pulled me aside and said, would you help me if I killed this spirit? Mm-hmm. Would you help me if I kill this greater? Go to his words. Okay.
Starting point is 00:12:49 And what would be your response. Um, I had paused for a moment to look that in, and I said, sure. Now, to give you a little bit more perspective on this decision to kill, the court heard at one point the testimony of forensic psychologist, Dr. Mark Huntingham, who discussed issues with teen maturity, brain development, or judgment? So, yeah, you could break this down as we think about less capable of mature judgments into being less capable to exercise self-regulation,
Starting point is 00:13:21 which means that they're less able to resist their social and emotional impulses. So Chaden Miller has a very temporary problem of failing Spanish. that he is attempting to address and there's an immediate reward that would come from not failing Spanish after all with the neglect of the profound cost of this for himself for Ms. Graber for Jeremy for the community as a whole and so it's this it's a calculus that neglects that extraordinary cost and so that they have less ability to foresee and take into account the consequences of their behavior or to take into account the perspectives of someone else, to appreciate that person's personhood. The planning of this was the planning for how to carry it out. That's what the planning was for. And once that tragic act had been carried out, it's like now they're improvising about now what do we do? Jeremy's proceeding in this offense out of loyalty to a friend and to maintain that
Starting point is 00:14:41 friend's approval and be seen positively in Chaden's eyes. So that small social reward for this enormous cost. Yeah, so both Miller and Goodell, they ended up pleading guilty to murder. Not surprising when you consider the evidence in this case. First, there were apparently messages on the Snapchat social media platform where Goodale implicated himself and Miller in the killing of Nohima. Then you have the police interviews where they said incriminating things. For example, Miller said he knew what happened to Nahima, but he didn't kill her. He said the real killers, a bunch of mass kids forced him to move her body.
Starting point is 00:15:21 I don't think that helped him too much. And then Goodale agreed to be a prosecution witness and testify against Miller should he go to trial. So in the end, Miller was sentenced to life in prison with a mandatory minimum of 30. 45 years to be served before being eligible for parole. And Goodale was sentenced to life in prison with an eligibility of parole after 25 years. Just a horrible, senseless killing. But I do want to leave you with this.
Starting point is 00:15:46 This was Judge Sean Showers. Listen to what he said to Miller before he officially sentenced him to life in prison. I believe that you're currently a threat to community. Certainly your failure to appreciate the consequences played a role in your teacher's death. While this particular case also shows that planning that went into the murder, it does also show your impulsivity.
Starting point is 00:16:17 I was troubled when I read that you reported you believe you have a higher IQ than most of the staff at the South Iowa Attention Service Agency. This sort of arrogance is sometimes a reflection of youth other times it's just your personality, and the arrogance is troubling to me, and I find on the record that arrogance is not primarily due to the age, but to an intellectual superiority mindset. Okay, moving on, you want to talk about a convoluted plot.
Starting point is 00:16:55 Well, wait until you hear about the case of Charlie Aedelson. So Aedleson, a Miami dentist, was charged in connection with the 2014 murder of Florida State University law professor Dan Markell. Prosecutors alleged that he orchestrated the assassination through his ex-girlfriend Catherine Magbanawa, who then proceeded to recruit the father of her children, Siegfriedo Garcia, who then hired his associate Luis Rivera. Garcia and Rivera, they did in fact carry out the murder shooting Dan in the driveway of his Tallahassee home.
Starting point is 00:17:25 Investigators believe that Charlie was the one who orchestrated the killing, facilitating the payment of $100,000 to be shared by Magdalen. Banoa Garcia and Rivera. Surveillance footage, bank accounts, secretly recorded conversations by police, they all led to the arrests of these co-conspirators. Rivera pled guilty back in 2016 to second-degree murder. Not first. He cooperated with prosecutors. He received a 19-year prison sentence to run concurrently with a federal sentence on an unrelated case. Garcia, whom Rivera claimed was the actual shooter, was convicted of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison, and McBanowat was convicted of first-degree murder, conspiracy, and
Starting point is 00:18:04 solicitation in a retrial, and she, too, was sentenced to life in prison. With all that in mind, the question, of course, is why on earth would Charlie Aedelson want to kill Dan Markell, right? Well, it centers around the fact that Aidelson was Dan's former brother-in-law. Yeah, Dan was married at one point to Charlie's sister, Wendy Aedelson. They had kids together, but they divorced, and they were in the middle of this bitter custody dispute. Here's the prosecutor explaining more of this in Charlie's trial. A review of Wendy Adelson's emails revealed that her mother, Donna Adelson, hated Dan Markell and was desperate to find a way for Wendy and her children,
Starting point is 00:18:48 who were Donna Adelson's grandchildren, to be able to move to Miami. Donna Adelson even suggested offering Dan Markell a $1 million bribe. to allow the relocation, and even said that this defendant, Charlie Adelson, would pay a third of that million-dollar bribe to Dan Markell to make that happen. The evidence in this case will show that Donna Adelson's closest confidant was her son, the defendant. She and the defendant talked multiple times a day, every day. He was the person with whom she would constantly vent and close. complain to about Wendy's situation.
Starting point is 00:19:34 The defendant was also the person that Donna Aylson relied on to solve her problems. And this was a big, big problem for Donna Ailsen. And she made it the defendant's problem to solve. Shortly before the murder, in fact, Dan Markell, the victim, filed with the court and basically asked the court, he alleged that Donna Adelson was disparaging him to his children by saying bad things about him. And he asked the court to enter an order preventing Donna Adelson from having unsupervised contact with her grandchildren. This motion was still pending in court when Dan Markell was killed.
Starting point is 00:20:23 The murder of Dan Markell ensured that an adverse ruling on his motion would never be a problem for the Adelson's. And just about 48 hours after the shooting, Wendy Adelson and the little boys relocated to Miami, shortly thereafter, moved into a home within walking distance of the Adelson's Miami home. So Dan Markell was a thorn in the side of the Adelson family, causing his six. sister and his mom, all these problems, and he decided to take care of business by outsourcing the murder. And prosecutors presented evidence like suspicious remarks from Adelson. Quote, it was always his joke. He said, I looked into hiring a hitman and it was cheaper to get you this TV. Is that what he said? That was a joke that he made, yes. And hiring the hitman, that was to kill Dan Markell, right? That was the joke. That was the joke that he made in poor taste,
Starting point is 00:21:21 yes. Did Ms. Edelson make some statements to you about her brother Charlie? She did. And what were those statements? She asked to speak to me confidentially and a very serious ton of voice told me that Charlie had investigated all possible options to take care of the problem of Danny Markell, including hiring a hitman, which would cost about $15,000. And there was testimony of co-conspirators like Catherine McBanua and Luis Rivera. Who came up with the idea to kill Dan Markell? Charlie. He got in the car with me, and he asked me a question.
Starting point is 00:22:02 What was the question? Do you know anybody that can harm someone? And did you know anybody that could harm someone? Yes, ma'am, I did. Who was that? Sigfrido. And who was to get the money once the job was done? Katie.
Starting point is 00:22:16 All right, and did she get the money? Yes, ma'am. Do you know where she got the money from? You know where she got the money from. Yeah, there are people. Who are the people? The dentist. I called them the dentist at that time.
Starting point is 00:22:29 The dentist? Like Wendy and her brother. And then there were secret recordings by law enforcement, including when they conducted a sting operation. They had an undercover officer pose as an associate of Rivera's to muscle money out of the Aedelson's. The idea was that this would get Aedelson and Magbanwa to slip up and say something incriminating. He's like, okay, do the white thing. Do you do the way thing. Do you the white thing.
Starting point is 00:22:55 You sound like a fucking cop at fishing. That's where he was investigated or someone's playing me. In fact, Charlie was caught on tape saying things like, quote, if they had evidence, we would have already gone to the airport, seemingly thinking that it could be the police behind this blackmail incident. And he also seems to suggest either that they pay off the blackmailer or kill him. That was another recording. And despite Adelson's attempt to.
Starting point is 00:23:18 defend himself by saying he was the victim of an extortion plot with the hands of the real killers, killers who would do to him what they did to Dan. And so he had no choice but to pay the money and keep Dan's murder a secret. That was his defense. He lost. The jury convicted him of first-degree murder, conspiracy, solicitation, and at the time of this recording, he faces a sentence of life in prison. By the way, right after Charlie's trial, his mom, Donna Adelson, was arrested for her alleged role in the murder of Dan Markell. all right you want to talk about just a ludicrous motive to kill let's get into the case of kevon wotkins that of making georgia prosecutors say back in february of 2018 when he was 16 years old he strangled to death his 19 year old sister alexis i mean he put her in a chokehold for about 15 minutes in fact a deputy testified that when law enforcement arrived on the scene wotkins was still holding his sister their 13 year old brother had to call 911 saying that wotkins was also threatening to beat up their mother who was trying to get her son off of her daughter.
Starting point is 00:24:22 Alexis later died at the hospital. So now the motive of all things. Why would he do this? It was over, of all things, Wi-Fi. Yeah. Apparently, Watkins comes home from school to play video games and decides to change the Wi-Fi password in the home. He didn't want his family sharing the Internet with him because it interrupted his connection.
Starting point is 00:24:43 So Alexis unplugs the router, takes the video game system into a room. Watkins confronts her, they get into a fight, and he ends up killing her. Unbelievable. Over Wi-Fi. Now Watkins opted for a bench trial, meaning a judge would decide the case, and the judge ended up convicting him of murder, not voluntary manslaughter, which is defense that suggested as an option. Judge Verda Colvin said, quote, in those 10 minutes, she had to have stopped moving.
Starting point is 00:25:10 Perhaps that wasn't noticed by the defendant because he was still angry. Judge Colvin also expressed sympathy that those around, Watkins let him down, quote, in this household, chaos was empowered. In this household, the ability to ignore and follow corrective discipline was empowered. Watkins was sentenced to life in prison. He appealed, arguing he should have only been found guilty of manslaughter, but the Supreme Court of Georgia disagreed and upheld his conviction. Now, how could I talk about shocking motives to kill without talking about the case of
Starting point is 00:25:42 Lori Valo Daybell out of Idaho? So Lori and her husband Chad Daybell were criminally charged in the deaths of Lori's children, 7-year-old J.J. Valo and 16-year-old Tiley Ryan, and also Chad's deceased wife, 49-year-old Tammy. While the bodies of her children were found buried on Chad's property, Tammy, it was initially believed, died in her sleep from natural causes, but a further investigation revealed that she had been murdered, died by asphyxiation at the hands of another. By the way, the evidence suggests that Lori's brother, Alex Cox, he was the person who helped carry out the actual killings of the kids.
Starting point is 00:26:18 Alex, though, is dead, died from a blood clot. But Lori and Chad were each hit with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder charges, among other charges. Now the motive, right? Why on earth would a mother kill her own children? Why would she be involved in a conspiracy to commit the murder of Tammy? Well, prosecutors argued that Lori did this for several reasons. One was to live a life full and free
Starting point is 00:26:42 with Chad. He was having an affair with Lori. Two, for financial gain. In other words, obtained the proceeds of social security and life insurance benefits from the deaths of these victims. And three, this is the big one, that she and Chad felt justified through their extreme religious beliefs, that these were dark spirits, that it was good versus evil, that the kids were possessed. And we really saw this in the first trial in this case, the trial of Lori Valladaybilt. Here's Prosecutor Lindsay Blake. The defendant, Lori, Vallow, Daybell used money, power, and sex, or the promise of those things to get what she wanted. It didn't matter what obstacle she had to remove to get what she wanted.
Starting point is 00:27:32 Tiley Ryan was a vibrant young woman, 17 years old, a whole life ahead of her. She was just about to enter into adulthood and make her own way in the world. Who knows what she would have become? Tiley had money. Lori wanted it. Joshua Jackson Vallow, lovingly known by friends and family as JJ, was a seven-year-old, vibrant, happy-go-lucky little boy. He had most of his childhood and his whole life ahead of him. He took a lot of time and effort.
Starting point is 00:28:09 and energy to care for. That time, effort, and energy took away from the defendant doing what she wanted to do. And from the defendant being with Chad Daybell and devoting her time and attention to him. Not only that, JJ also was entitled to Social Security benefits. The defendant didn't want to have to take care of JJ anymore.
Starting point is 00:28:33 She wanted the money. JJ's gone. Tamara Douglas Daybell, known by friends and family as Tammy. The defendant wanted Chad all to herself. Chad was the beneficiary of a life insurance policy for Tammy. Lori wanted those things. Tammy's gone. The defendant and Chad decide that they share purported religious beliefs,
Starting point is 00:29:01 and that they share beliefs that the two of them had been here had been married before in a prior probation, what they began to tell others is that they were essentially meant to be together. They'd been married in prior lives, prior probations. Not only that, but they both said that they had been prior figures from or persons from the Bible or other religious references.
Starting point is 00:29:26 Just wild stuff. By the way, another major plot point that was highlighted in the prosecution's case was that two weeks, two weeks after Tammy Daybell died, and the kids were already missing, by the way, Lori and Chad go to Hawaii and get married. All these pictures of them happy and dancing, pretty sick to think about.
Starting point is 00:29:49 So if the motive is to live a child-free life, collect their money, and live happily ever after, it sure looks that way. Now, one of the ways that prosecutors showed Lori's involvement in her justification for what happened was through recorded phone calls. I mean, Lori's son, Colby Ryan, calls her in jail when the kids' bodies are found, pleading with her for answers.
Starting point is 00:30:11 Listen to what she says. So you can judge me, Kobe, call them up. Go ahead and judge me. The whole world has. The whole world has judged me. They don't know. You don't know what I've been through, and you may even give a crap what they've been through. Nobody does.
Starting point is 00:30:29 Except for me, I am the one that knows. I am the one that was in the hospital of Tiley for hundreds of days watching her suffer. I am the one that was there doing everything with JJ every day. I was the one who did it all these years. You did it all to throw it in the garbage. You don't know what happened. Pure blasphemy. That's funny?
Starting point is 00:30:59 Yeah, she was laughing. You heard that right. talking about her dead kids and she's laughing. It sure sounds like someone who has this warped justification, right? Talking about problems with Tiley, you don't know what happened, as if there's some other explanation. And focusing in on that religious motivation to kill, text messages were read aloud in this case. And this is former special agent Douglas Hart.
Starting point is 00:31:22 And there were messages from Lori to Chad. You're going to hear how there was this belief that people around them were possessed by evil spirits or demons. Again, is that perhaps a justification for them to die? I included this mainly because of the last text in this string, which indicates that Lori Vallow and Melanie Boudreau believe their children to be demons. Line 1394 from Lori Vallow to Chad Daybell. She is asleep. She put a bunch of holes in the walls and doors.
Starting point is 00:31:58 Definitely had demons helping. her, probably a thousand. We are both so tired of taking care of demons. We are weary. Please ask the Lord to take them. What significance did that have from an investigative point of view? The significance is the designation of these children as being demons, being possessed by some dark entity, and in light of what happened with JJ and Tiley, it is relevant. to the investigation in its totality. Kind of predicting what would happen, right? And adding to that, this is the testimony of Zulema Pestanis,
Starting point is 00:32:40 the widow of Alex Cox, Lori's brother. She testified about what Lori thought of Tammy. And also, let's highlight that someone had tried to shoot Tammy on a prior occasion. That's right. Someone tried seemingly to kill her, and it's believed the evidence suggests that that was Alex Cox who shot at her. Lori told me that Tammy had been possessed by a demon, and that it was no longer her, kind of like the same thing that she had said about Charles, and that she needed my help
Starting point is 00:33:19 casting out from her. Okay. And did you guys do a casting on Tammy? Yes. Now, this is the night that Tammy was shot at. Correct. Okay. And so while she's on the phone, she appears angry and scary angry. Did you hear anything she said? Yes, she was using some very derogatory terms such as idiot, moron,
Starting point is 00:33:49 and just being very, very angry with whoever she was. on the phone with. After she got off the phone, what did she say to you? She said, idiot can't do anything right by himself. So again, the idea is she had to get rid of Tammy so she can have Chad all to herself, using religion as the justification. By the way, remember when we said money was a motivation too? Here's forensic accountant Michael Douglas talking about Lori receiving certain payments after the
Starting point is 00:34:22 deaths of her kids. And you have mentioned this, but what date were Chad and Lori married? November 5th of 19. And can you tell me how many payments were received into Lori Ballow's compass account on behalf of Tiley Riley Ryan after her death? Four. And what was the amount of the Social Security payment for each month that was received for Tiley Ryan?
Starting point is 00:34:44 So in October, October through December of 19th, she received 1,859 a month in January. January of 20, she received 1888. And what's the total amount of those payments? The total being $7,465. Okay. And how many monthly payments were there for JJ? Four. And what was the Social Security payment for each month that was received for JJ Valo?
Starting point is 00:35:15 October through December of 19. It was 1951 a month. and January of 20, it was 1982. And what was the total amount of those payments? The 78.35. So all the money going into her account from her kids after they're dead. And then after Tammy dies,
Starting point is 00:35:43 Chad was the beneficiary of his wife's life insurance policy and he starts spending more money, interestingly enough. And by the way, Lori was also hit with grand theft charges too. Chad was hit with insurance fraud. Well, in the end, the jury convicted Lori of all charges, including murder. She was sentenced to three life sentences without the possibility of parole. And most recently, Lori made her initial court appearance in Arizona,
Starting point is 00:36:07 where she pled not guilty to conspiracy to commit murder charges in connection with the death of her deceased husband, Charles Valo, who was actually shot by her brother Alex Cox at one point in time. Yeah, for anybody who doesn't know this case, it's quite the saga. And as for Chad Daybell, at the time of this recording, he's awaiting his criminal trial in Idaho, where the death penalty, if he's convicted, could be on the table.
Starting point is 00:36:29 All right, everybody there you have it. Some wild motives and plans, but as you saw, no one was able to escape justice. That's all we have for you here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. We always appreciate it. Please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts.
Starting point is 00:36:46 I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

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