SERIALously - 143: Chad Daybell | EXPLOSIVE Week 2 Trial Recap: Damning Police Video + Melanie Gibb's Text Messages with Prosecutor

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

Week 2 of the Chad Daybell Trial has been well underway this week, and one thing that’s been made clear is that this is a much different trial than Lori Vallow’s. Not only do we have an actual defense, but we’re also seeing some new police body cam, and new information in addition to the things that we already know. Additionally, many people have expressed some doubts about how the prosecution was doing in this case. 

Changing a light bulb should be simple. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Uh-oh, that's not supposed to happen. Quickly submitting and tracking a claim on the Bel Air Direct app actually is simple. Bel Air Direct. Insurance simplified. Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialistly. Hey hey hey, welcome back to an all new special edition of Serialously with me, Annie Elise. If you know what it is, you know what it is. We are talking all things week two of the Chad Daybell Trial today.

And as I mentioned in my last episode where we did week one recap, we do have a member of our team in the courtroom right now. So Lindsay is there, she's the correspondent, she's giving us the full breakdown, she's sitting across from Chad day in, day out, bless her heart for looking at his stupid ass face all day, but she's really breaking down for us everything that's going on in court.

And all of the high level takeaways, what we need to know, since I know we don't all have 40 hours that we can just watch of court footage every week. So as I mentioned, week two of the Chad Dayball trial has been well underway. And one thing that's been made clear is that this is a much different trial than Lori Valo's guys. Not only do we have an actual defense, but we're also seeing some new police body cam and new information in addition to the things that we already know.

Additionally, many people have expressed some doubts about how the prosecution was doing in this case. And so much so that they're saying as much as a lot of people don't like John Pryor, the defense attorney, he's doing a really good job. So in this episode, we're going to talk about all of it. All the new information, what's been going down at the courthouse, Chad's reactions in court, and what I think of the trial so far. And of course, we're gonna be talking to Lindsey, our courthouse correspondent and Tender Life team member

who has been there every step of the way. Lindsey, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for sitting in that courtroom every single day. I have so many questions for you and I'm really interested in everything that you have to share with us. So thank you for joining. Hello, thank you so much for having me.

This week has been so crazy and I can't wait to get into everything with you because there's a lot. So hit me with your questions. So the state came in super hot at the start of the week, right? I feel like when they brought that dash cam footage of Chad Daybell talking to his daughter once he was taken in custody after JJ's body was found on his property. It was kind of wild to see. Now can you tell us what they said on the video and what Chad's reactions were during

this? So as soon as the video starts you hear Emma, Chad's daughter, say, oh my gosh, you know, I'm so excited that let me come over to you. I just didn't want you to be alone." And she's crying and Chad's looking at her. He doesn't really have much of a response, but then he immediately starts going into payment for cars, here's this, here's this account, here's this card, here's this password to this, here's this bank login, just all of these financial things. And that's kind of what's going on in the beginning. What's also interesting that you hear is Emma saying, you know, I'll move into the house.

And then she says, you know, I've actually been thinking where I was going to move for a while. The spirit was telling me I was going to move and I just didn't understand it yet. But now I do understand it. She's crying. She's like, we'll be okay, dad, we'll be okay. He's listening. He's not really saying that much in response to her, but when he does, he adds a little like chuckle to the end of it. This is unbelievable because what person in their right

mind starts financially planning to pay the mortgage and all of these things and laughing at the same time when they have only been detained and not actually arrested. But I've had a lot of success with mom stuff just saying, will you help me? My mom died. mom stuff just saying, will you help me?

My mom died. I'm pretty sure. Will you help me? My dad's in jail. It should be paid through July 1st. This convo is so, so cringe and awkward. There are dead children and they're talking finances. Sorry, all the neighbors are going to be talking but you just... They don't care. We're okay, Dad.

Well, hey. We're okay. You raised us so we're independent now. With your wallet. Glad you got that. We're not Colby. We're not Colby? What the heck is that supposed to mean? Yeah, Emma's saying, we're not Colby.

You've raised us, Dad, which I don't... not only do I think that's a diss to Colby, but it's also a diss to Tammy. Tammy raised them too. It's, it felt really weird and just bizarre. But the most bizarre part is when Emma says she knows that the police have found human remains and that according to the probable cause affidavit, they've located one body and they believe there's another. And she even says, you know, when I asked the lieutenant,

how long is the search going to go on? You know, are you just going to keep searching until forever until you find it? And then the lieutenant says, well, no, not forever, but if we're interfering with you guys, we can put you up at a hotel. And she even brings up that she told somebody that it's probably dog bones because they buried several dogs out there before. And he said, you know, respectfully, I think I know the difference between dog bones and human remains, which at this point they had recovered JJ.

So she doesn't even know what she's talking about. But still, she doesn't really react to that information at all. I know this isn't a dog Emma. It was a 7 year old child who was duct taped and had two plastic bags over his head and I asked where was it and he said over by the pond under that tree that it

was in the ground and had boards over it. And I can see in your face that surprised you that honestly Emma's reaction to everything was so weird and I just can't stop thinking about the fact that not once did she say hello. Why would there be human remains in our backyard? It kind of shows in me to my in my opinion, at least like how truly brainwashed she is by her father. But I don't know. What do you think? It's like it goes in one ear out the other. It's really really interesting and I wonder what kind of psychology is at play here. I don't even know.

It's it's really remarkable. And even putting Emma's reaction aside for a second, Chad's not like what the hell? There's human remains? He's not saying anything like that. One thing the prosecution said, they paused the call and he asked the detective, you know, have you told Chad like what he's being charged with anything like that? And the detective says no. And in the video Chad is acting like he's just gone forever. It sounds like you're not gonna be out. Yeah, I'm not coming back. So it definitely leads you to believe, OK, if you don't even know really what happened, you're not charged with anything, but you automatically think you're just never coming back. Now, is that because he thought the end of the world was going to happen in July?

I don't know. Another interesting thing we heard in this call, too, is he's like, oh, you know, you can set up a tellmate. And Emma says, well I actually already have an account that I've been talking to Lori on, which is really interesting. So Emma, we know that she already told people in her family that her dad remarried a family friend who has helped them heal a lot from their mother's death. We know that Emma is talking to Lori while she's in jail. And then, you know, now we know that she's going to testify for Chad and says,

this is all a setup. It's all Lori's fault. This never would have happened to their family had Lori Vallow not come along. And it just makes me wonder, like, when did this turn? When did she, when did the ideas turn that, no, no, no, this is bad. This is all Lori's fault and not my dad's. Certainly you would think that would have to be taken on some jail calls, right? Some recording, so I wonder if we'll hear that later in the trial. Another thing that Chad tells Emma to do is that he normally puts $30 a week on

Lori's account for commissary and so that she'll need to be continuing to do that. So it's just kind of interesting if he is truly framed, has no idea, and thinks it must be Lori, why are we putting money on her books for commissary? You know what I mean? So it just feels like definitely something had to change there. And it makes me curious of like the inner workings of like how exactly this all played out. And what's also so crazy is that during all of this in court, you know, this would be the one moment you would think that Chad would have some emotion.

You know, this is obviously probably hard for him to watch. You know, his daughter's crying. You know, she's very, very upset, but no. He was stone cold faced, did not elicit one tear, nothing. Now with how damning this video was, what did you think about John Pryor's cross examination with Detective Wheeler?

Did people think that he cleaned it up? Through his questions, it's almost like he created so much confusion and so much, you know, it was like, what's going on? This is, you know, he's asking this, he's asking this. And he's asking the detective a lot of questions that he's kind of forcing him to concede. No, we didn't do this. No, we didn't do that. And it was almost like a strategy to make the jury kind of forget

what they had just watched because now, you know, we're talking about all of this other stuff that, I mean, it made me forget a little bit. Okay, so the next witness was one of the detectives who wrote the warrant to have Tammy exhumed. The jury also got to see pictures of Tammy once she was exhumed. So what was that like in court for Vicki, Tammy's aunt who was in the courtroom? The pictures that were shown in court

were of the entire exhumation process. So you can see a picture of the big backhoe right before it's about to start digging. Next you can see that picture of the big backhoe right before it's about to start digging. Next you can see that the casket is enclosed in a concrete rectangle for preservation purposes and then you can see them open it. You can see that it hasn't been tampered with. You can see that there's roses, some flowers that were placed on her casket that were still there. And then you do see when they open the casket and Tammy is laying there. In court while this was going on, I did glance over at Vicki and she was very, very upset,

very emotional. Kay and Larry both had their hands on her shoulder or her back area comforting her through this. You know, they went through this the first time with JJ and Tylee in this case already, but back also in Laurie's, so it was really sweet to see them, you know, comforting her as she goes through this unbearable process of having to see her loved one in that condition and after she's been laid to rest, but now because she was allegedly murdered having to see her again, I'm sure it's just absolutely devastating to have to do that with any family member, but especially under these circumstances. Ugh, I can't even imagine. Now let's talk about the cross-examination on this because this is what has had a lot of people feeling like the prosecution may have dropped the ball. You looked at some medical records and said she has anemia and she's on

Prozac but you didn't look at any death certificate. No. Did you read Brenda Dye's report? No, I did not. Did you read officer Greenell's report? Yes, I did. Okay, so when you took the consideration of why you dug up Tammy Daybell, and by the way, just before we get there, Tammy Daybell's children were never notified that you were digging their mother out of the ground, were you? No, there was not. So her home family were never advised that you're digging their mother out of the ground without letting them know in any shape, form or opportunity to respond, is that right? Yes.

I'd like you to look at the cause of death. You see my arrow down there? Yes. Okay. And the cause of death, they list two things on the cause of death for Tammy Daybell's death. And would you read those out loud what those two are?

Cardiac event and pulmonary Ademia, okay heart issues, right? Yes, and you saw that in the medical history of of Tammy Daybell her father had a history of heart disease, right? Yes, so you didn't take that into consideration when you decided to dig Tammy up out of the ground, right? No, I've never seen this before. You never looked at it. No, you never talked to anybody about what was, uh, what the death certificate said before you decided to have her dug up, right?

Correct. And you went in front of a judge and you put on testimony to justify digging her up out of the ground and you didn't even as once look at the certificate of death, did you? No. Are you aware that Chad Dable is not implicated in the murder of Charles Vallow? Yes. Okay.

Not involved, right? Not to my knowledge, no. And in the shooting and attempted murder of Brandon Boudreau, right? Because he knew those people and he's not implicated in those other murder and attempted murder by Alex Cox, Chad's not implicated. How does that give you a right to dig up Tammy Daybell? With all the association and all the deaths around it. Oh, so because she went to Hobby Lobby with him Because she went to a restaurant and because you surveilled them and obviously they were having a relationship, right? Yes, and that's the other information you use to dig her out of the ground, right? Yes during the cross-examination

one of the first things he asked is a Detective did you let the Daybell children know that you were about to dig up their mother? He really kept focusing on that, especially with the inflection in his voice, really wanting to get a reaction out of the jurors because just the way he was saying it was a very crude, crude way to talk about somebody being exhumed. But then he also went into all this medical questions, like, you know, did you look at her death certificate before you did this? Well, no.

Did you know this about her medical history? Did you know this? Did you know this? And whether some of the stuff in the medical history is true or not, this detective kept saying no, no, no. There were crickets from the prosecution table. This just happened. And it really did seem like John Pryor was really going after this detective. And I think it was an effective cross-examination for the defense for sure because it was like, okay, what are you doing? You know, like, this guy isn't a medical examiner. Why are you letting him ask all these questions?

It just looked really bad. I know. When I was watching, I was literally wondering like hello Where did the prosecution go? Why is nobody objecting? This guy isn't a medical examiner. It was absolutely maddening It's so frustrating too because as annoying as John Pryor is he's actually doing a really really good job Did you happen to see what Larry and Kay thought about it? Yeah, I actually did talk to some of the family members afterwards and they echoed the same sentiments. They were like, what the hell is going on? What is this? What is this? One thing they also brought up was with

the testimony in the morning with the body cam, you know, when they were talking about, oh you know, Chad was looking over this way to the left of this property or Chad was at Emma's house before he was arrested, or Chad was in his driveway. All of these things, Kaye Woodcock said, you know, I've been out of that property multiple times. I know it very well, unfortunately. And with the way that they were describing the property and where everything is, she was saying, you know, even I was confused. So for the jury, like she kind of was wishing that the prosecution had laid it out more clearly because there was no demonstrative being shown of like, okay, well here's where Emma's house is in

relation to this. This is where the police car was then. This is where Chad was. None of that. So it was very much everyone was kind of frustrated with the prosecution. Everyone in the courtroom was, the family was. It just it did not look good. For sure. I hope that the jury is able to pay attention and know what's going on because the presentation of the case from the prosecution has been a little bit confusing even to me and I feel like I know the case inside and out. Last time Kay went first and talked about how she came to figure out that something really was wrong and that JJ was missing. And this time we started off with a Jeep registered to Charles Vallow.

Yeah that's definitely been the general consensus with everyone that I've talked to in the courtroom that what the heck's going on? You know this is very confusing for a jury to figure out in general. I mean, we talk about this case all the time, but for them not knowing anything, yeah, it's very confusing. We also heard from an FBI agent that went through all of Chad's Google searches. So can you tell us about that, Lindsey? There was a witness named Nicole Heidemann. She works for the FBI, and she was the one that tracked all of the Google searches. So she searched Chad's Gmail from August 2018 to January of 2020.

So August of 2018 is when Lori and Chad first meet. January of 2020 is kind of when everything starts getting really, really crazy and bad. So it was interesting because in January, it showed Chad googling Ned Snyder. That was one of the names. Another one of the names was Ned Schneider. He googled Ned Schneider, 1996, death, Louisiana, looking for all of these different things and it goes to show that when Lori ended up calling Charles, Ned Schneider, she obviously got that from Chad. He had googled it much, much before. And during this, Chad's looking at the screen, looking at the exhibit that shows all of his

Google searches and when. He's not really having much of a reaction, but he definitely looks like he's paying attention. There were searches of Chad trying to figure out if his star sign is compatible with Lori's, if his is compatible with Tammyammys in March of 2019. He had googled malachite eBay jewelry on May 5th, 2019. He had googled so many damning things. Yes, Lindsey Blake did such a good job with that witness. She lays everything out very clearly for the jury, and it's really what the prosecution

needed to clean up after Monday. I mean, that's my opinion. how did the cross-exam go now during the cross-examination when John Pryor was asking this FBI agent questions He's like, how do we know that it was Chad? Actually, do we know that or is this just his account was this could you tell what devices was searched on? Was this searched on a computer or a phone? The agent didn't know she said we didn look. And then a lot of the searches, John Pryor said, you know, well, Chad was having an affair. So maybe one of the searches of when you surprise someone with accusations, that could be Tammy confronting him. One thing he also says

is, you know, Lori is the one that searched for children's life insurance policies, not Chad, right? And he didn't. And basically he drove the point home of, look Chad didn't search how to kill two children. Lori had a greater motive to murder her children and he even went as far to say that Ty Lee might have told some of her friends what had happened the day that Charles was shot and killed and that that could be a reason that Lori wanted her dead specifically. So there was another detective too that brought in some text messages of Chad's,

brought up the horribly embarrassing Harry Potter text. It is so cringe. This is a message from Chad to Laurie on 7 26 2019 at 8 13 p.m. Tonight I figured out who I feel like. I'm a grown-up version of Harry Potter who has to live with the Dudleys in his little space under the stairs. Every few weeks I get to escape and have an amazing adventures with my goddess lover but then I have to return to my place under the stairs feeling trapped but I sense permanent freedom is coming. So during this witness, they actually played the phone calls that Chad made to funeral homes asking about the cost of cremation and lies and says that, oh, you know, my uncle

died, I'm his nephew, my name is Chad Daybell. And then she's like, oh, can you spell that? And he immediately changes his tune and says it's Chad Dabal, D-A-B-A-L. He says, I live in Iowa. And he even goes as far to say that the victim is his uncle whose name is John Dabal, D-A-B-A-L. And then the lady asks for a middle name and he says, The lady asks for a middle name and he says Myron. Just matter of fact, John Myron DeBalle. And during this, Chad looks like he wants to die. In my opinion, he looks like he's looking down.

He's not wanting to be in the room. He's definitely embarrassed. After lunch, the prosecution went into Chad Daybell's patriarchal blessing that he gave Alex right before Alex died. And he plays the whole thing. And now you'll begin into your terrestrial phase of this existence. That you'll be a powerful servant as a prophet. The day you make it, you'll share your own experiences of overcoming adversity. Now during this, Chad was looking

down the whole time, and I talked to some people who are LDS or are former LDS, and they told me that if there are any Mormons on the jury, this unauthorized blessing would make them very uncomfortable, almost feeling very insulted because of how sacred this is. And the fact that Chad's not qualified to be doing this, the prosecution also pointed out that when this patriarchal blessing was and how Alex did die shortly after this, and one of the things Chad says in there, he says, you will know when it's time to move to the other side. So when Pryor started his cross-examination he says so we just heard that patriarchal blessing you know

I don't know how long that was it was it was long kind of making a joke. Chad smiled. Okay so now I want to jump straight to Melanie Gibb because this was crazy. Melanie testified starting on Thursday and she's also testifying Friday morning. So what was it like seeing Melanie in person? I would have to imagine that that would be like a trip, right? Oh my gosh, so seeing Melanie Gibb in court was insane. Okay, and you also saw something weird happen in the hallway with Melanie. Can you tell us about that? Yes, so I was in the hallway and Melanie Gibb, she was coming back from the bathroom and there was somebody behind her kind of like gaining momentum on her.

Almost looked like they were trying to catch up to her a little bit, but I didn't know who it was. It was just some guy. So I see them walk by and then less than 60 seconds later I see John Pryor and the same guy walking the opposite direction, and I hear this guy tell John Pryor, she wouldn't take it, she wouldn't take it. And in this guy's hands is a stack of papers. So it looked to me like he was trying to serve her with a subpoena, probably because John Pryor would like to call her as a witness for the defense, and Melanie completely ignored it.

It seems like she does not want to have anything to do with testifying again, in general probably, but especially not for John Pryor. I mean, if that's what that was about, I don't blame Melanie for not wanting to be subpoenaed, but also I have some questions for Melanie Gibb, but we'll get into that in a minute. So first, what did she tell the jury?

So Melanie is a star witness for the prosecution because she knows so much and she was there. And so she really starts to go into some of the crazier aspects of everything. At some point, did Chad or Lori talk to you about the concept of light and dark? Yes. Do you recall who talked to you about the concept of light and dark? Yes. Do you recall who talked to you about that? Lori shared it with me. Did she tell you where she got that information from? She got it from Chad. So if someone was light, they had made contracts with Jesus Christ before they came here. And if they were dark, they had made contracts and promises with Satan. And it was a different scale level of how dark, darker if they were dark, they had made contracts and promises with Satan. And

it was a different scale level of how dark or light they were. LS. And was there some kind of a rating system or a system to easily identify if someone was light or dark or what level they were? LS. She would ask him and he would somehow find out and he would find out, you know, how many times they've been on this planet or any other planets, I guess. And he would just find that out by asking questions the way he did. And then she would share it with us. And when and the he you're referring to is that Chad? Yes. At some point, did Lori also share with you that she believes she had a mission here on earth?

Yes, she felt that it was her mission to gather women to the hundred and forty four thousand and that she would be the leader of it. At some point she she thought she was going to lead that. Do you know where Lori got the idea or the belief that she was meant to be one of the leaders or help gather? I think she got it from herself. Did she ever tell you if she talked to Chad about that? She did.

And again, when Lori would tell you these things, she would explain she received the information from Chad. Yes. Do you recall ever talking to Lori about whether or not she 100% believed everything? Yes. What did she tell you? Once or twice she mentioned to me that if she said this, if Chad's a Satan, he sure is a good one.

Yeah, when she said if Chad is Satan, he's a really good one, I mean, mic drop, I don't know what to say about that. It gave me the creeps. I just wish so badly that we could get video of Lori's reaction to finding out that Chad flipped on her. Honestly, I mean, that would be a huge aha moment. And then they played the infamous phone call

that Melanie recorded with Chad and Lori, where she confronts Lori, says, you know, you've been deceived. That's what you think is me, Coralmore? Are you kidding me right now? I think both of you have similarities. It's in the scriptures. It's in the scriptures and the scriptures are very powerful. Yes they are. I live by the scriptures as you know. I know but we can rest the scriptures for our own vainglory. Should I rest the scriptures?

We can, we can do that. And I feel that you have to see our belief systems. Do I rest the scriptures? Is that what you're accusing me of at this point? I feel that you have. How, why do you feel that way? I need an explanation on this. Because if you look, like the scripture just appeared. The scripture is every single day, you know? Why don't we read them? And my conscience is clear. I feel very understanding what's really going on, Lori.

And I believe that you have been very deceived by Satan. I believe that he has tricked you. And I just, I don't believe that what you're doing is correct. I just don't, I mean, Tammy dies and then your husband died and then he's missing. It just doesn't sound like God's plan to me. Just sounds, it gives me a gut feeling. Like in my gut gut it feels weird. It doesn't feel right. I don't have

peace about it. I never have felt 100% peace about it. I always felt like a little weird in my stomach about all these things. During this entire phone call that was being played, Chad was burning a hole through Melanie. He was just staring at her. It was actually kind of weird how much he was staring at her during this. I don't know if that was supposed to be an intimidation tactic. I don't know. Just by Melanie Gibbs answers, I don't know if she was scared of Chad or what it was, but it just seemed like some of the answers that I believe I may have heard either in previous interviews or when

she's testified in the past, it seemed like she knew the answer too, but this time she kind of left it more open ended. Like, oh I don't recall, or I think it was Lori, or I think, I don't know, it just seemed very odd, and I can't exactly put my finger on what that is yet, but maybe it's that. Now there was one part when the prosecution asked Melanie Gibb, so what did you see? What was Lori and Chad's behavior like? She says they were very affectionate with each other, they were hugging, Lori gave him a kiss on the cheek, and they would, she said they even danced, which I... I can't with that at all. And I looked at Chad and he's shaking his head like, no we weren't. Now next the prosecution goes into the weekend

that Melanie Gibb came to Laurie's town home with David Warwick, who was her boyfriend at the time, but is now her husband. And during this weekend is actually when the prosecution or investigators believe that JJ was killed. So this was a very important weekend, right? And so Melanie is just kind of describing, you know, I saw JJ then I saw Alex take him, but I you know, I didn't see JJ again. And

the prosecution just kind of leaves it at that. Now the cross examination is where everything started to erupt. But you also did a an interview on TV with somebody. But we do know who you spoke to at that point, correct? Right, correct. Who was that? Nate Eaton. OK, oh, that's right.

I forgot about Mr. Eaton. You also spoke with Keith. Yes. Who was that? He is one of the interviewers for Dateline. And that was Keith Morrison from Dateline? I think that was his name. Okay, so during the process of preparing for this case, you had an occasion at or around the time of the initial preliminary hearing to engage in discussions with

Mr. Wood about your testimony. Do you recall that? Yes. Okay, and that was started in about May of 2020, you recall that? It could have been, I can't recall the date. Would it help to refresh your recollection if I showed you all 340 of those text messages? No, I mean, I know we communicated it and you got what you got. At any time during that communication with Mr.

Wood, did you suggest to him that you needed to protect either a person or an organization as part of whether or not you were going to testify or what you were going to testify to? No. You don't remember that? No, I didn't. No, what I'm saying is no, I didn't. My intent was not to protect anything other than to share what I knew.

So if I were to show you a text message that suggests something contrary to that, would that refresh your recollection? I don't recall it, so I could carry it their way. Okay. And in this particular instance, isn't it true that when you were communicating with Mr. Wood, you mentioned to him that you and Mr. Morrison want to make sure the church is protected, right? Well, I think in my feeling what it meant to me was that when we talked about these

things that we would share that this was not the teachings of the church. So that's what I meant by that. It wasn't that what you were trying to do is you were going to testify. It wasn't that you were trying to testify in a court of law or in talking with Mr. Morrison and not disclose too much about some of the secrets of the LDS faith. Is that what you're telling me? No.

You were trying to protect some of the secrets of the LDS faith from being exposed? No, I'm sorry. I guess it's the way you're phrasing it. What were people saying about all of that? Now, not only is it a big deal that she was exchanging text messages with Rob Wood, over 300 of them, but that she's the witness who was at Lori's house the weekend that JJ was murdered? And so that specific witness is the one texting? It's very weird, very, you know, not common.

Of course the prosecution is saying, oh, you know, we talk to witnesses all the time and I think they do, but I don't know if they text them. I'm not really sure about that. The Keith Morrison dropping, you know, are you trying to protect the church? Okay the Keith Morrison thing was crazy. So the Keith Morrison text was shocking. I don't know if he's LDS but the fact that she had worded it like that to Rob Wood, the prosecutor, who is also LDS, like that to Rob Wood, the prosecutor, who is also LDS, that we just want to make sure we protect the church was odd. And another thing I found out at the trial

is that apparently when this case was kind of unfolding and as new information was coming out, all of this, somebody told me that at the time, Rob Wood was a bishop, which from my understanding is a very high up person in a congregation or in a ward. I mean, it is absolutely blowing my mind. All of it. Rob Wood being a bishop in the church, like what are you even talking about? It kind of makes it all the more puzzling a little bit, and I'm just really curious of, you know, what else was that?

It does seem odd. But I cannot wait for the rest of cross-examination because yeah, I have more questions. I want to know. I want to know more about what happened, when, because as much as I'm so glad that Melanie is there for the prosecution, it just, it blows my mind how she doesn't remember anything. because sometimes I do feel like Melanie should know so much more It bothers me how she doesn't remember doesn't recall Don't you think that you would remember a weekend like that if you later figured out that a child was murdered that weekend and that you Were possibly in the townhome when it happened

I feel like if that were me I would be racking my brain trying to think of anything that happened that weekend. It's a little odd that she's just so aloof about the whole situation. Even down to oh I don't remember the names of the people, the women that were in the car with Lori and I when we drove to St. George for that conference she met Chad at. How do you not remember? I don't know and maybe maybe I'm being judgmental. I'm certainly not meaning to be, but I just that would be cemented in my brain, especially after this case is blown up.

I don't know how you could forget that, but you know, that's what she says. Okay, so after court on Thursday, there was a hearing outside the presence of the jury because of a motion that was filed right before the trial started. Can you tell us about that? Oh my gosh, yes.

So Thursday, court ended early. It ended at 315 because at 330 there was going to be a hearing on something outside the presence of the jury. So this was in regards to that motion to intervene that was filed. We didn't know much about it. So it was filed by a man, an attorney named Terry Ratliff. Now the judge was infuriated. I have never seen Judge Boyce this angry

and he almost doesn't even act like that ever. It was unbelievable, he was blasting him. He was so angry, I mean everyone in the courtroom, we were all locking eyes with each other like, Oh my god. This is so awkward. And then of course like the secondhand embarrassment, because Judge Boyce, he was going hard. He was, no mercy was shown. And he wasn't messing around. And honestly, Judge Boyce is not a judge that you can mess with, like at all.

He's not like some other judges, like what he says goes. So at the end, when he was like, no, you may not, you may not, when he's like, judge if I may, judge if I may, he's like, no, you may not, this is done. I know, the judge was furious. What was it like in the courtroom when all of that was going down? During this, not only is the courtroom freaking out

and just looking at each other like, oh my God, what is happening, so is John Pryor. He's looking around like, just totally distancing himself from this, like, ugh, ugh, ugh. Like, he looks disgusted too. Like, I don't even know why this guy would do this. Like, he looks like, it's one of those situations

where it's so awkward that everyone in the room needs to make eye contact with somebody to like make sure we're thinking the same thing. It was like John Pryor was doing that too. And when Judge Boyce left for a little bit during that, John Pryor ran over to the prosecution and was like, I have never seen him that mad. And they were all kind of like, oh my God,

like, yeah, this is crazy. Because I can't express enough how bizarre this was like truly truly truly. That is so so weird. I feel like out of all of the trials we've covered and talked about I've never really seen anything like that especially in such a high profile of a trial like this but I mean I guess you can't help what happens. So is there anything else you want to share with us that went down in trial or any of your interactions with people? What's going on over there? What's the vibe like? What does it feel like? I can only imagine how tense it must be every single day in the courtroom. It is very serious. It's the court is very strict. Like actually the entire courthouse is very, very,

very strict on just about everything. So you're minding your P's and Q's and you are not doing one thing that could be even perceived as adversarial or weird or I don't even know how to say that. It's like you just want to like blend in. I don't want any attention. Like just nothing. You don't want any of that. But it's been really interesting talking to people afterwards, seeing like, okay, what do they think? What did this person think? All of these different things.

Because most of us are coming to the same conclusions. And I do want to say, obviously, I really can't tell for sure, but it does seem like some of the jurors, maybe, I wouldn't say like John Pryor, but I see them nodding with him when he's making his points, or I'll see them kind of smile when he says stupid stuff like, oh, you know, I'm so old, you might have to give me a minute to plug this in. They like it. It's really, I don't know, it's, he's doing a good job at what he can do, for sure. And I definitely think that towards the end of the week the prosecution majorly made up for

Monday because Monday was not good not good at all. I will say I've also talked to so many people that have educated me a lot about the LDS and really one thing you and I have talked about a lot is like okay how could Chad possibly have a following? He sounds like a loser. He speaks so monotone and he's actually like painful to listen to his like voices cringy. What is this? I actually learned that men in the LDS faith are looked at as strong or leaders by coming off meek, mild, gentle, soft spoken.

And if you think about it, it actually goes back to Warren Jeffs, which it's very, very similar if you think about it like that. Oh, and then this is just a little bit of tea. It's not really related to the case, but I thought it was funny during that phone call, you know, when Melanie is like, Oh honey, we all know about your natural desires. Well, honey, you we all know about your natural desires. Well honey you got a lot of natural desires we don't know that. One of the jurors actually laughed during that part. It really is kind of a mic drop moment.

It was funny seeing that one juror laugh a little bit. One thing I did want to add and this is kind of random but because of where I was sitting I could see this really well that during after the mid afternoon break we were all back in there waiting for court to start waiting for the judge to come in and I saw John prior walk over and He had two books in his hand one was super thick like almost looked like a Bible or something And then the other one was very thin but from where I was sitting from where I was sitting I could see that the title of the bigger one was called No Unhallowed Hand, which I looked into that and apparently that is a book that is published

by the LDS church. It's like a church book. And the other one was Feel the Fire by Melanie Gibb. And what's interesting is when, so I see John give these books to Chad and on the bigger one, the unhallowed hand one, it looked like there's maybe a bookmark in there or something. I really couldn't tell for sure because, I mean, yeah, it was close but it was still a little bit hard to see. But anyway, Chad opens the book and it seems like it must have been to a certain page, which is why I thought there was a bookmark.

But on this page is an orange sticky note, no idea what it says, no clue. But I just thought it was really, really interesting. And I wonder what they're trying to do with this. Are they trying to say, oh, this is all LDS, this is normal, you know, nothing to see here, I don't know. All right, well, thank you so much, Lindsay, for giving us all of that information. It is so helpful having you there and really just getting

this firsthand account from you. So I really appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah of course. Thank you so much for having me and any other questions I'm happy to answer. All right guys thank you so so much for listening to another special edition of Serialistly. We are gonna be here with you every step of the way during this trial. Full trial recaps week to week, every single Friday. So make sure you don't miss it. Hit the follow button on this podcast

so that you see when all of those episodes get released and we will be right here with you as we pray and hope that these kids and that his wife Tammy and all of these people get the justice that they so badly deserve. All right guys, thanks again and until the next one, please stay safe and I will be back on the mic with you first thing Monday morning with an all new deep dive case. Alright, bye guys. you