Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - She's Gonna Save The World From Zombies - The Lori Vallow story

Episode Date: February 4, 2025

This is the story of Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell

So the apocalypse is coming and the world is going to end, right? And this woman believes she can save us all by unaliving all the zombies? Now her name is Lori, and Lori's a normal housewife living in Arizona. And one day she discovers a series of novels. And these novels are all about the coming apocalypse and how to survive the end of the world. And Lori is very religious and she's reading these books and she really connects with them. And as she becomes more and more obsessed with the books, she starts spending less and less time with her kids.

And eventually, she decides to travel from Arizona to Utah to a convention where the author of these novels is going to speak, because she wants to meet him. So the author is this guy, Chad Daybell. And Laurie gets to meet Chad Daybell, and she's all excited, and she tells him how much his books have changed her life. And these two really hit it off. And they start flirting a little,

and Chad Daybell tells her they've been married, in previous lifetimes, which I gotta say that is one hell of a pickup line. So eventually the convention ends and they go their separate ways. But Lori and Chad decide to stay in touch and they chat often. And he has her as a guest on his podcast, long distance. And they, of course, often talk about how to prepare your soul for the upcoming apocalypse. Now, because of the popularity of his beliefs, Chad Daybell does have a bit of a religious following.

His beliefs are sort of an extreme denomination of Mormonism, which, some people describe as a doomsday cult. And the more Lori interacts with Chad Daybell and the more she buys into his doomsday teachings, the more her personality starts to change. And she starts saying crazy things to her friends and family. Like that she's a divine goddess, that she has supernatural powers, that she's been reincarnated many, many times, that she is one of only 144,000 people who will actually be saved when the world ends. But most important, Certainly, she starts talking about zombies. And not your walking dead, eat your brains type zombies.

She and Chad Daybell believe that zombies are a normal person whose soul has been possessed by an evil demon. That's what they refer to as a zombie. And they think there are zombies all around them, hidden in plain sight. Now, Lori actually has a husband, who we'll just call husband. And at this point in her life, husband is seeing all these changes in her, and he's starting to get worried. because she's been referring to herself as a goddess and talking about zombies and all kinds of crazy shit. But then, one day, everything changes for husband. Because Lori comes to him and she tells him that she no longer cares about him.

And then after that, she just disappears. She steals his truck and she withdraws $35,000 from their joint bank account. And she just bounces. And then two months go by. And she's still gone. And no one knows where she is. But, as you could have guessed, everyone suspects that she went to Idaho where Chad Daybell lives to be with him. So after two months of being gone, one day she suddenly returns.

And of course, she and husband immediately start getting into arguments about all this. And she starts insisting that he is possessed by an evil demon. An evil demon named Ned Schneider. Which, I got to say, that's not a very demonic sounding name for an evil demon, Ned Schneider. But, okay. And then she tells husband that. her God has put her on some kind of holy mission and that if husband gets in the way of her holy mission she will have to unalive him and husband is like okay what the fuck and he goes and he files for divorce

and then Lori's like okay fine and she takes their two kids and she goes to live with her brother her brother is this guy Alex and Alex is a total religious nut job too so Lori tells Alex that husband is actually a zombie and that he's possessed by an evil demon named Ned Schneider. And Alex is like, say no more, I'll take care of him. About five months later, husband comes over to the house that Lori's renting to pick up their son. And while he's there, he and Lori, they start fighting. And Lori's brother Alex is there. And so Alex gets involved in this fight. And at one point, Alex gets so mad, he goes into his bedroom and he gets his pew-pue. And he comes out and he starts threatening husband with it. And then suddenly, out of nowhere,

Blam! Alex shoots husband twice in the chest. And unfortunately, husband, he doesn't make it. And Alex ends up telling police that it was self-defense, and there are no charges brought against him. Then, about a month after that, Lori takes her two kids and her brother Alex, and they all move from Arizona all the way to Idaho. Because, of course, that's where Chad Daybell lives. And now that husband is gone, she can be closer to him. About a week later, after moving to Idaho, Lori and Alex take her two kids on a little trip to Yellowstone National Park. Now, there's not a lot known about what actually happened there that day, but that day is the last day that Lori's daughter is seen alive.

Because Lori and Alex, they come back from Yellowstone without her, and no one knows what happened to her. Then, two weeks later, Lori's son goes missing. And again, we don't know much about why. Because one day he's just gone, and no one knows. knows what happened to him. Now suspiciously neither Lori nor her brother Alex report this to the police. And when other relatives and family members call to talk to the kids, Lori just makes up excuses like, oh, they're out with their friends, or, oh, he's taking a nap right now. And everyone

believes her. I mean, at this point, they have no reason to suspect that Lori might have done something to unalive her own kids. Until, about a month later, Chad Daybell, his wife, because yes, he's also married to someone, Chad Daybell's wife suddenly dies. She dies out of nowhere from cardiac arrest. But the whole thing is sudden and therefore very suspicious. And what's even more suspicious is that Chad Daybell doesn't allow them to perform an autopsy on her. Now, stay with me here because it gets a little complicated.

The youngest son, the one who went missing, his name is JJ. And JJ is actually adopted. Now, his biological grandmother, she talks to him like, like on the phone often enough. And at this point, it's been about six weeks since she could get him on the phone last. And every time she calls, Lori keeps making excuses. Like, oh, JJ can't talk right now. He's out playing with the other kids.

So at this point, grandmother's getting worried. And she thinks something weird is going on. So she calls police, and she asks them to go to a welfare check. So police, they go over to Lori and Chad Daybell's apartment. And of course, JJ isn't there. And that is when police discover that not only is, JJ not there, but both kids are missing. And Lori's brother Alex happens to be there. And Alex, he tells police, uh, JJ's not here. He's staying with his grandmother right now. But remember,

it was grandmother who reported JJ missing. So police are like, yeah, that's bull's shit. And this is definitely suspicious. And they start really investigating Lori and Chad. And about a week later, Lori and Chad move from Idaho to Hawaii. And once they're in Hawaii, they get married. And it's only been like two weeks since Chad's wife died of alleged cardiac arrest and he's already getting remarried. And so all this is coming across is super weird. And this whole time, Lori's family is hitting her up like, hey, where are your kids? We haven't spoken to them in forever. And Lori's still making excuses like, oh, they're fine. They're off playing something. And of course, police are also harassing them too. Like, ma'am, where the hell are your kids? And Lori's like, oh no,

they're staying with my friend. And the friend is like, like, Like, uh, her kids aren't with me. What the hell? So then, boom, police officially declare Lori and Chad as persons of interest. And they launch a nationwide search for these missing kids. And of course, no one can find them. Meanwhile, police are like, you know, maybe these missing kids are somehow related to Chad's former wife's sudden death from cardiac arrest.

So they go and they dig up Chad's former wife's body to see if she actually died from cardiac arrest. And they autopsy her and guess what they find. No, she didn't die from cardiac arrest. She was actually asphyxiated, meaning someone suffocated her. So police, they contact Lori, and they're like, all right, lady, we're tired of your excuses. You have five days to physically produce your missing kids or you're under arrest. And of course, Lori doesn't produce them, she can't. And three weeks later, bam, they arrest Lori and they charge her with abandonment.

Here's her mugshot. And while Lori's in jail, police get a warrant, and they search Chad Daybell's backyard at his previous house, back in Idaho. And they start digging around in that yard, and there, buried, they find the remains of both of Lori's kids. And sadly, it is theorized that Lori and Chad beat and strangled them to death. Apparently, Lori and Chad thought her two kids had become zombies, and that the only way to save their souls was to get rid of them before the apocalypse happens. So then, of course, ca-pow! Police arrest Chad. Here's his mugshot. And they charge him and Lori both with first-degree murder for unaliving the kids. They also charge Chad with unaliving his wife, and they charge

Lori with conspiring to unalive her former husband. Then they go to trial and she's found guilty for everything, and he is also found guilty for everything. And Lori is sentenced to life in prison while Chad is sentenced to death. While Lori's brother Alex, who was also involved in all this, he didn't get charged with anything, because he died from blood clots before any of them got arrested, which is very suspicious timing. Oh, and also, uh, the apocalypse? Never happened.