Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon
Stories podcast. We're getting the band back
together with one substitution. It's March 9th, 2025 and we are
here to talk about the new Lori Valo interview on Dateline with
Keith Morrison. The interview was called The
Disturbing Case of Lori Valo. And joining us on this Sunday
morning is the band sans Mindy. So we've got Lauren Mathias.
Hey, Lauren. Hey.
Lauren, of course you are joining us from Hidden True
Crime YouTube channel and podcast.
How you feeling this Sunday morning?
Hanging in there, how are you? Good.
Thanks for joining us on Last Minute Notice.
Absolutely. We also have Megan Connor,
cousin of Lori Valo from Third verse slash Midlife Revolution.
Hey, Megan. Hey, how's it going Did?
You did you have a, what's it called, a daylight savings
nightmare this morning? I did.
I had an A nightmare early this morning that I woke up too late
to get ready for the episode and then I woke up and it was an
hour later and and the dream came true.
Well, glad you could join us. And and Mindy, you've changed.
That was a joke, Herardo. No, Mindy, we always joke.
We're getting the band back together.
Do we have official band name yet?
I don't know. So many nominations.
There were some good ones. There were some good ones.
Yeah. Keep them coming.
I like them so much. I don't want to pick one because
I just want to keep reading all the suggestions.
They're so, so clever all. Right, viewers and listeners, if
you want to name the band, we're still taking votes, but Mindy is
is on a family vacation. But but we're, you know, we are
never disappointed to have Gerardo Samano with us.
Gerardo, you're in the true crime and you're in the legal
stuff and you've been following this case from the beginning.
Is that right? Yeah, that's right.
I was actually, I, I've said this before, but I was actually
in Rexburg, living in Rexburg when, when all of these events
were happening. Yeah, yeah.
So it's going to be fun. So thanks for joining us.
Yeah. All right.
So, yeah, this this interview dropped for me.
It was Sunday night. Was it 7:00 PM Utah time?
Is that right? Yes, I believe that.
And it's. Friday night, yeah.
Friday night. What did I say last night?
Friday night. You said Sunday.
OK Dang my brain. So Friday night 2 hour interview
dropped. I was super excited to hear you
know what it was going to be about Megan, since you since you
are literally Lori Vallow's cousin, you grew up with her,
you knew her. Why don't why don't we have you
start by just telling us your reactions sort of when you heard
that this is going to happen and what you were hoping for and
anything you want to say leading up to actually watching it that
all right. Sure, yeah.
And before I do that, we would like to ask everybody to please
like this episode. Please subscribe to this
channel. And while you're at it, please
subscribe to hidden True Crime YouTube channel and Midlife
Revolution or Third verse YouTube channel as well.
It turns out that comments and likes really help us grow our
channels. So please do that everyone.
And and with that, and of course, if you want to provide
those of you who are joining us on the live stream, we're always
grateful for our monthly donors. There are bread and butter.
So thank you monthly donors for your donations.
If you're on the live chat and you want to make sure we see and
read your comment or question, super chats are the best way to
do that. OK, over to you, Megan.
OK. So yeah, I was, I was actually
at Thrive in Saint George when I found out that this interview
was going to happen. I believe that it was Saturday
morning of last week and I was actually with Maven Krusha.
Kay Easton, who is Kay and Larry Woodcock's daughter, sent me a
text and it was a post from her channel that she she was posting
about the interview happening. And I think I had a little bit
of a frustrated outburst. I'm always frustrated and angry
and upset when Lori is grabbing more attention and more
spotlight. So I think my initial reaction
was really, you know, why Dateline, why do we have to give
her more of a platform? You know, but very quickly, of
course, I understand, you know, Dateline probably has wanted to
interview her for a long time. I know she's wanted to go on
Dateline for a long time. And, you know, they are taking
advantage of an opportunity just ahead of her trial, which I
think is, you know, of course it's an advantageous time for
them to do it. So I understand.
I was grateful in retrospect for the way it was treated.
We can talk about that later. But just initially, my reaction
was anger and frustration, followed by understanding for
Dateline and also at least a hope that we would get a little
bit of a glimpse into where Lori's head is at now, which I
think we did. And, you know, then just sort of
formulating over time what I thought she might talk about.
And I think it became pretty obvious to me, as it probably
did to most everyone, that she wanted to put out this
narrative. The same one that she told Colby
on the phone call that Colby recorded with her, where she
blames everything on Ty Lee. And I think she commented on
this in the interview that she doesn't really know exactly
what's being said about her and what's really out there in the
press and the media. So she probably doesn't know
that everybody has heard that phone call, or at least everyone
following the case has heard Colby's thoughts on it, has
heard my thoughts on it, has heard crushes, thoughts on it,
has heard hidden true crimes thoughts on it.
You know, we've all kind of already commented on that
narrative. So didn't expect there to be a
whole lot of new information all there was a little bit.
So yeah, those were just my my initial thoughts.
I was grateful to be able to listen to the interview with my
channel members, with my little community that I've grown over
there at third verse and to have just supportive people around me
to, to help me get through that 'cause otherwise it would have
been pretty difficult. So I was grateful for that.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks.
You know, we always have to check ourselves because there is
such a fascination with this. It is such an interesting story.
It's a national story. And but, but we're talking about
real people. We're talking about the death of
two children. We're talking about so many
family members impacted by this. And Megan, you're closer to,
you're closer to all of that than than any of us here for
sure. So that's why we're so grateful
to have you on. But thank you.
Yeah, thank you. It's, it's always, it's always
tough, you know, being pretty much the only family member
speaking publicly with the lens of having left Mormonism.
So I think seeing the family and being out of the family too kind
of distance from everyone, seeing the family for what it
is, seeing the religion for what it is and, and speaking openly
about it. It's a lonely place sometimes,
and it certainly is not something I ever thought I was
going to have to deal with, but I'm trying to make the best of
it by talking about how we can have healthier families and
healthier religions and healthier relationships.
Yeah, well, thank you. Julie wants me to mention that
this is the two thousandth Mormon Stories podcast episode.
So it's kind of a fun anniversary of sorts.
So Lauren and and Megan and Gerardo, I couldn't think of of
three people that that I'd rather have on for our two
thousandth episode. I am honored.
That is a really, really big deal.
So congratulations to Mormon Stories.
And yeah, I I am flattered. Yeah.
And again, thanks to everyone joining us.
So Lauren, that you, you were saying before we started today
that that this is probably, you'll probably know more about
this case than any case you ever cover.
Before we dive into actually our reactions to this episode, do
you want to share your thoughts and feelings once you found out
this was going to happen and watched the trailers and
everything? I'd love to hear your insights.
Yeah, yeah. I was privileged to learn that
this was happening quite a while ago, months ago.
Oh yeah. You were interviewed.
You were interviewed for it. Well, I was interviewed.
I also was in. I was talking to the producer.
I knew the very day it was happening.
I knew the moment it was happening.
I knew before Keith went in and I knew after and I actually knew
the sound bite about Dancing with the Stars.
We got the inside info from Shane Bishop.
He is the producer of All of the Day Bell Datelines.
So he was keeping us posted. And you know, it's a fast.
It was a fascinating sort of behind the scenes process that
we learned what's going on. And then and then, yes, they
came out and they actually interviewed us for a different
episode. But while we were with Keith, he
asked us questions because I can genuinely say that Keith, Keith
had a lot of questions after interviewing Lori.
I think the reactions we saw with Keith Morrison there were
real. They were unscripted.
Like he was very frustrated in that interview and it was a
difficult interview. I I can only imagine.
I think he did. A great job.
So, you know, I was definitely really interested in seeing what
I've been hearing about for months.
And I was surprised. I thought I went in not knowing,
you know, I just thought, OK, I know some of these sound bites.
I know some of the things she said.
We've seen her crazy sentencing speech.
We've seen now her interview with her son Colby that he did
on his Star Wars podcast. But I was still really taken
aback. My, my, I was very surprised at
the amount of anger I saw from her.
And I know that sounds so funny 'cause you're like, I'm sure
some people are looking at me going like, what did you expect?
But I did not expect, John, you use the word contempt.
I did not expect that. Just contempt and just absolute
anger. Just, you know, coming from her
so strongly. I don't think we've, I haven't
seen that before. I've seen manipulation.
I've seen a mad woman. I've seen some crazy beliefs.
I've seen denial. I've seen a personality
disorder. This was new to me, this
contempt, this anger. Just Keith.
Keith. What do you think?
Keith? Why do you want to know?
Keith, just. She kept repeating his name over
and over again in a very contemptuous way.
Megan, you're smiling. Why are you smiling?
Just because that tactic. With Lori, right?
I did, yeah, for a short. Time.
Have you seen that side of her or was that a new side of her
none of us have seen? Well, I mean, the manipulative
side, obviously, yes, I've seen that.
I think that the contemptuous side, yes, absolutely.
The difference is that this was very much more in your face than
I think I've ever seen her. When she was younger, she kept
these things much more covert, much more under the surface, but
they were always there. And the thing that I'm smiling
about is that tactic of constantly using Keith's name.
You know she had a way of trying to make you feel special and put
you down at the same time. Wow, that's powerful.
All right, Lauren, I didn't mean to steal the mic.
I just, I was curious if Megan had seen that just in her
personal interactions. But keep.
No, I I was listening to Megan for the very same reason I want
to know. And I thought that was really
interesting what Megan just said about praising someone.
And I'm putting them down at the same time with the Keith.
Keith, Keith. Yeah, yeah, that's that's an
interesting way to to say it. I also think that, I mean,
clearly she chose Keith Morrison to do this interview, right?
I mean, we haven't heard from Lori for five years on ATV
interview. I should say we've heard from
her, but not in a, in a, you know, national television
interview. She clearly hand picked chose
Keith, right. You know, I think there's part
of that too. She knows that she knew who
Keith was. She knows that Keith is famous.
I think she loved being in front of someone who.
Yeah, the fame and then just talking to him, you know.
Yeah. That's so patronizing.
Right. Keith.
Hey.
Keith. Keith.
Yeah. Yeah.
So that's interesting. Keith Keith referred to the
ethics of, of interviewing her. I think, you know, can you talk
to us about the, the journalistic, you know, you are
a, a journalist, Lauren, can you tell us about some of the ethics
that Keith was, was mentioning and he's struggling with when
deciding whether or not to give her a platform?
You know, on the one hand, she's a murderer, likely, you know,
convicted murderer. She's clearly trying to
manipulate. And so on the one hand, you
could say it's a, it's unethical to give her a platform.
But on the other hand, I, I think I heard him say people
want to know. Do you want to talk us through
how a journalist might balance the ethics of even doing an
interview like this? Absolutely, yeah.
I think it's fair for a lot of people to be upset watching this
interview, giving a woman who is convicted of murdering her own
children, you know, and Tammy Dabell a platform.
I actually completely understand that.
And I cannot imagine being someone like Megan that's like
personally connected to this story or many of the other
surviving victims that you know, I know and become close to.
Like, I'm sure it would feel really bad too.
I don't want to discount that when I just go into my
journalist brain. I, I am of the belief that there
is something to learn from everyone.
I mean, hidden true crime and why we cover crime is and the
criminals behind the crime and we delve into their pasts and we
delve into their histories and a lot that actually rubs people
the wrong way. Sometimes they're like, how
could you do that? And I'm like, you can't, you
can't cover crime without understanding the criminal.
And, and you don't really make a difference if we just some
people up as they're evil. We don't want to hear from them,
you know, just banish them away and let's move on with our
lives. We're not really learning what
happened or what's going on inside of their brains and their
minds and what could have possibly created this crime.
And so I think it's really, really important to interview
everyone. And, and we've also gotten the
same criticism on hidden true crime.
I want to say like, you know, for example, I've, I've
interviewed many people without pushing back on them that maybe
held Chad Dabell's beliefs or the prepping beliefs.
I'll, I'll say this, Braxton Southwick, that Megan, that's
your cousin, also Lori Vallow's cousin.
I got a lot of pushback on the interview because I just
listened to him and he talked about a worldview that maybe
offended some people or frightened some people, or maybe
what that felt was similar to Lori Vallow's.
And I just let him talk and I listened.
And I think that it is really important to actually learn and
and see things. A lot of people are like, can't
you see? That was so upsetting.
He was doing this and this and this and I want to say exactly
so. So you so you caught something
then and you learned something from this interview without me
having to push back. You, you came out with your
thoughts and your opinions on this as you just listened that
you don't necessarily need someone to, you know, fight back
with the person or to point out or get the aha moments or
whatever. Just I think though, that it is
so important to listen. And I know the Mormon Stories
does that too. You listen to everyone.
And I, you know, Ron Meldrum, you guys interviewed him and he
actually is, he knew Chad de Bell and he, he sort of kind of
goes into this crowd. And I remember, I think you got
a lot of pushback for that too, John.
And I remember thanking you for the interview because I am a big
believer that there is something to learn from everyone if we're
just willing to listen, good or bad.
And I think Lori Valo is no exception, especially because
her crimes are unfathomable. And so I think we should be
paying attention, trying to figure out what the hell went
wrong. Love it Perardo, let me give you
a chance to give your thoughts leading up to actually watching
the interview if there's anything you wanted to add.
Yeah, well, I think I echo everyone's feelings.
You know, I have great respect for Keith Morrison.
I think he overall did a great job given the, you know, the
circumstances, given how frustrating it can be to deal
with a person like Lori with a, you know, some clear
narcissistic tendencies. I, I, I, I think I, I parse a
little bit from, from the rest of the panel maybe in, in this
that I do believe that the interview could have gone a lot
different and maybe better have a better response from Lori.
If someone with a deep understanding of Mormonism and
cold mind control would have done the interview.
I have been thinking, you know, in ways that I would have
approached it. And I have some ideas that I can
talk about throughout the interview and we can discuss and
speculate how Lori might have responded differently.
But that that is one thing I did want to mention.
I think about that every every true crime, or I mean, except
hidden true crime, of course. But like when, when national
reporters don't have an in depth knowledge of Mormonism on so
many of these cases, whether it's Tim Ballard, whether it's
Ruby, Frankie and Jodi Hildebrand or this case or so
many others, there's so much I think that gets missed.
So we'll dig into that for sure. Yeah, let me just share a couple
comments. So unexcited, says virtual hug
of support for Megan. But there's a little love for
Megan. You, you, you called it hate
watching. Is that right?
Megan? Did I hear you right?
I did. I did.
And I, I definitely got some pushback even from my partner.
He was like, I don't think I've ever heard that word before.
I was like, yes, and I hate to watch it, but I'm going to watch
it. Yeah, a more let me see a more
of a lessee describe the interview as a microcosm of her
tactics. What do you guys think?
Did did did the interview show us the real Lori Valo, Maybe
even in a way we hadn't fully seen before?
Yes, absolutely. You want to go first.
No, I think absolutely. And I think that Keith showed us
that. So, so well done, Keith
Morrison. I think again, it goes to that
contempt that I saw that anger. Like I said, we've all heard her
say crazy things. We've all seen her manipulate.
We've all seen her act in despicable ways.
But I have never seen an anger that I think is murderous.
In other words, that's full of hate, right?
And Colby said that too in the episode.
What she, his own mother did to my sister Tylie was hate.
And we, we saw, I saw. How she could just hate?
There was not, there was not a loving mother in this interview.
Kind of this weird almost I I would there's a Mormon passive
aggressiveness that I'm familiar with.
It may not be uniquely Mormon, but it was hate with like this
twisted dark smile. She was always smiling with
everything hateful. You never saw like rage in her
face. It was always this like plastic
sticky sweet smile when she was pulling the knife out.
I, I do think it's important to consider one point and the point
of the circumstances. I think this is a we what we saw
is a lorry or someone who is responding questions that are
coming from a person, you know, from a person who's who, who
she's seeing as antagonistic to her religious beliefs.
Lori, someone who is has deeply rooted religious beliefs and
she's being confronted by an unbeliever and she knows that
she's never going to be able to convince Keith or his followers
about her, her religious beliefs.
So and so she sees him as kind of lesser.
And it reminds me, I mean, even though like it, it, it, it could
be like a big stretch. Obviously Mormon missionaries
are not always this way. I, I did see a little bit of or
or could relate to when I was a Mormon missionary and I
interacted with people who were clearly antagonistic to
Mormonism. And you know, some of, of the
response of being kind of snarky and snappy.
Even even if you read, you go back and read how Joseph Smith
sometimes interacted with people who were antagonistic to to
Mormon Mormon's beliefs. It it was it's kind of somewhat
similar responses. Yeah, yeah.
So I mean, from her perspective, it's fair to say she was seeing
Keith as antagonistic. He's basically, I mean, I saw it
as him just sharing the evidence of what, because he was careful
in the interview. Whenever he would make an
allegation to her or just relate the evidence, he would show the
receipts, right? But then she would say, well, I
can tell you've been manipulated, Keith.
I can tell you're just sharing the party line.
Keith Were you there, Keith Where was it?
Keith? How do you know?
Keith And then and then he would show the little video clips,
right? And I think he substantiated his
questions with evidence. What?
What did you think, Megan? Yeah, I I think that we did see
the real lorry here. I think we saw, but as you said,
initially, this was a lesson in manipulation tactics.
We saw her employing all of these different tactics
throughout the interview, throughout the clips that we saw
of her and everything is masked with a smile.
And, and that really is the ultimate manipulation because we
as empathic people, we tend to mirror the people that we're
talking to because it's a way of bonding and relating with them.
And when a manipulator smiles at you, it's because they want that
bond. They want you to smile too.
So even though they're saying something disturbing or
problematic or demeaning, they're going to still smile at
you because they want you to believe that they're actually
being nice when they're not. And Laurie sort of has this,
people have commented on this sort of half smile, the little
smirk that she does. She's always done that.
I think it's more pronounced now that she maybe has had some what
we call filler migration. But yeah, that little side, that
side smile that she does is sort of like 1/2 smirk where she kind
of knows better than you. She's smarter than you.
She's always done that. Let let me ask about that.
One of the things that I think Mindy behind the scenes and I
both noticed there seems something off maybe audibly and
potentially I'm not sure visually, just in terms of we,
well, we weren't sure and we don't, we don't think it's
appropriate pretty much ever to comment on people's appearance
from sort of the standpoint of just being tacky or critical.
So I just want to be clear about that.
But I think Mindy and I wondered whether she had had a stroke
because we almost heard some slurring a different voice sound
than we were used to. But then it also I, I don't know
if it looked there seems something visually different and
none of us could really put a pinpoint on it.
So I'm not asking from like an aging standpoint or like even a
beauty standpoint. Did any of y'all wonder whether
there was something off with her health that was being manifested
either in her appearance or her her voice?
I, I thought of a few things and, and I, and I, I understand
what you're saying. There was like a side speak.
And so you're not bringing up the ageism, but I will because
it's fair game, because she also, I just want to point out,
Lori claimed that she is an exalted being who had stopped
aging. So fair game to say she's
certainly aging. So I'll, I'll say that you're
wrong, Lori. You're not exalted.
You're aging like the rest of us.
A few thoughts. I did a members only live about
it and there was some interesting comments from people
because I did bring up sort of like the side speaking dysplasia
was one of them that can be caused.
It's a side effect of antipsychotic medications.
I actually thought that was a really intriguing possibility.
I know that Colby, her own son, brought up that it's just a lack
of Botox behind bars, but I don't know if that would do it.
Someone else said nerve damage from possible previous Botox
other people brought or I had an idea of possibly, you know, when
we age, teeth can move. It could simply be just some
stronger muscles on one side or a jaw that's not even.
But I think I was most intrigued by this idea of, because I have
seen that before, the sort of side effect of of antipsychotic
medications or other medications, which doesn't mean
that she's psychotic either. There are many reasons to take
that medication. But it was certainly interesting
to see and I don't think we have seen that another video.
So I do agree that she looked different beyond her natural
ageing process behind bars. Megan Herhardt, Anything I want
to add? Yeah, I mean, a lot of people
have have commented or suggested that it might be Bell's Palsy,
which if I understand correctly, is a temporary condition, you
know, drooping of the face and things like that.
I think the the thing that stood out to me is that in in her
recent hearings where she asked the judge if she could represent
herself, the judge granted her that.
But he did put her through a series of questions.
And one of the questions that he asked as if she was taking any
medication if she said no. Now, of course, we know Lori
lies about things, but I think she's been pretty
straightforward with this judge so far, mainly just because she
wants to get him on her side. So I don't discount that she
could be taking antipsychotics or other medications that be
caught could be causing side effects like this.
You know, we can, we can speculate.
It could be, you know, Botox, nerve damage, Bell's palsy.
I don't think necessarily she's had a stroke, but it's possible,
right? We just, these are things that
we're not going to get a definitive answer on.
But I think the most likely scenario is either she is on
some kind of medication that is causing a little bit of a slur
in her speech or, you know, she's just aging.
And I will say too, though, part of her tactic when she talks is
that sometimes she will not be as concise with her speech.
I noticed this in the body Cam footage when they when they
visited her apartment looking for JJ and also in her phone
call with Colby when she was talking about, you know, Ty Lee
hates Melanie Gibb. Everybody knows this.
She hates Melanie Gibb. She does that sort of thing,
talking under her breath and slurring her words together a
little bit as part of the way of manipulating people to not
really pay close attention to some of the things she's saying.
We've got a this is great. We've got a comment from a
medical aesthetician. Alexandra Lovin writes.
I don't think it's filler migration, for what it's worth,
but I think not getting Botox or filler for six years, this is
just what she looks like without upkeep.
Thanks, Alexandra Lovin for that feedback.
I want to thank those who are supporting us.
Thanks. Dive urgent.
Chantelle Buchla, sorry if I didn't pronounce that right.
She says been listening to all these Laurie, Chad and Ruby
podcast recently. You are also wonderful and
informative. Love listening and sharing your
channel. Thank you Chantelle, thanks for
the feedback. Also clarity says just a little
thank you because your work and all of your perspectives are so
important. Thank you as well to
Troublemaker Baker for your support and destiny.
And then finally, couple more comments.
Beth writes, I think Lori is laying groundwork to blame Ty
Lee for Charles's death. Alex isn't here to contradict
her and she has no shame. So let's go.
Thank you Beth Cote for that. Let's just go ahead and hit that
right on. I I had not watched Colby's
YouTube stuff until Megan you linked to it right before.
But I was certainly shocked. And this, this was probably one
of the two big reveals for those who don't follow this closely,
was that she literally seemed to be implicating to Keith that Ty
Lee tell me if I've got this right, y'all, that Ty Lee was
assigned to put JJ to bed, that she must have like put a pillow
on his head, according to Lori, or mouth, you know, hand over
his mouth to keep him behaving or quiet, which then would have
killed him. And again, these are horrible
accusations unless they're true and real.
That Tylie killed JJ while putting him to bed and then was
so distraught at having killed him that she took her own life.
Shocking, horrific allegations. Obviously it's, it seems like
her only possible defense to the evidence that's out there.
Maybe Megan will have you respond, then Lauren, then
Gerardo. What did y'all think of these
accusations? Yeah, so, I mean, obviously this
is super disturbing to have Lori try to blame everything on her
own daughter who she who she participated in the killing of.
The first time that I heard that on the phone call on Colby's
channel, of course, I was really upset by that.
It it made me so angry. And at the end of the day, I
mean, this is Lori. She's never going to take
responsible for, take responsibility for anything that
she does. She's going to try to blame, you
know, anyone else that she can't.
I think this is the narrative that she's come up with that she
feels like she can stick with, that absolves her conscious of
having conscience, of actually having to think about what she
really has done. And I think she believes that
it's plausible enough that it might get her, you know, it
might keep her from getting convicted or blamed for
everything. It's it's super disturbing.
It's hard for me to even really think about how how she could
get there in her mind. It's obviously crazy.
But yes, that that's her narrative that she says that Ty
Lee went to put JJ to bed. Maybe she held him down too hard
trying to keep him quiet. And that Lori came in and found
both of them already passed away.
And then she left and allowed someone else to take care of
them after that. So obviously, the evidence
clearly goes completely, 100% against all of this because JJ
was obviously alive after Ty, after the last time that Tyler
was seen. So there's no way that, I mean,
this can be easily disproven. But I think in Lori's mind, she
just really believes that she's going to get away with all of
this. She really believes that she's
not going to be held accountable.
She really believes that she did nothing wrong and she just wants
to insert that plausible deniability of what happened to
their bodies by just saying I wasn't there, someone else took
care of it. Lauren, what what are your
additional thoughts if you want to tell people anything else we
should know about the evidence for why just the evidence alone
would contradict Laurie's account.
But also want to just hear the thoughts on how horrific it
would be for a mom to who who potentially committed a murder
to blame that murder on her dead daughter, you know?
Yeah, it's it's despicable and evil on all sorts of levels.
Yeah, the evidence absolutely contradicts this.
First off, Ty Lee was killed first weeks before JJ, so
already complete contradiction. So you see, do we know that?
Do we know that? We know that.
We absolutely know that that is factual.
That is evidence. Kylie was last seen in
Yellowstone National Park. It was the last photo and then
she disappears. But we see from satellite
footage of that evening, a, there is no burn pit in Chad
Dabel's yard. And then the next morning there
is a burn pit that was shown in trial.
We know that she was burned in Chad Dabel's yard that evening
that she went missing in Yellowstone National Park.
We know. We know a lot that is, that is
facts. Those are facts that were shown
in both Chad Davis trial and Laurie's trial and in FOIA
documents too. So already we know that Ty Lee
was murdered weeks before JJ. Yeah, I think there's several
pieces of evidence that can date the burial of of Ty Lee weeks
before. So it like you mentioned the
satellite image, there's also the text messages about the
raccoon and and all that, right, that kind of.
Exactly. Thank you.
Thank you, Gerardo. The the raccoon text is an
important one. Chad de Bell texts his wife
Tammy, who's still alive at that moment and says, well, I have
had quite the morning. There was a raccoon that entered
the yard and I shot the raccoon and I buried the raccoon in the
the in in the pet cemetery. And then he early writes, I got
rid of all of the limbs before the storm comes in and I and I
wanted to know that many absolutely believe that he was
talking literally because that's how Chad Dabel talks that and
and Ty Lee was dismembered and he got rid of her limbs in the
burn pit. So, so right, Gerardo.
So much evidence pointing to we know for a fact that Ty.
Lee was the Alex being like tracking his cell phone to the
area where the where the burial happened.
Also the date corresponds to all of that.
So so there are several pieces, right?
Is that? Yeah, yeah.
And and I, I just wanna throw out, I love having Gerardo as a
band member. Exactly.
Gerardo. Yes, yes.
Wait, is he an? Official band member or is he an
alternate band member? Like it's a serious deal to add
someone to the band so. And does Minnie get a vote like
or or? Unofficial.
Unofficial for now. OK.
All right. We'll sustain him next week.
No, we're just teasing Laura. What do you think about a mom
shamelessly blaming her daughter for a murder that she committed?
Yeah, Well, so, so, so evidence points to factually, this is
just preposterous. It's just wrong.
It's just false and wrong. I also want to point out
something that I know that not everyone understands, but this
alibi of Laurie, let's call it an alibi, that is what it is,
has not changed. And not everyone knows that back
right before her trial in 2023, she she wrote out her alibi with
her attorneys help her defense team.
And it was very discreet. And people didn't really
understand or like, look at the fine print because you you know,
it's sort of that less is more like they didn't tell the whole
story. Because I think her defense knew
better than to go with this alibi of Lori's, that Ty Lee,
her own daughter, the victim of a horrendous crime, was
responsible. But she rode in this alibi, and
I was trying to pull it up. I have it here.
But she stated that she walked into Alex Cox's apartment or
townhouse in Rexburg and found both JJ and Tylie deceased, and
that Melanie Gibb and David Warwick were in town at that
time attending the firm Expo, Rod Meldrum's event.
And they were recording a fireside.
And this just sort of happened. Then once she came out with more
specific details after her trial, after her conviction,
after her sentencing on on her son Colby's channel doing an
interview specifically stating no Ty Lee killed JJ and then Ty
Lee killed herself, that we hadn't heard.
So I did reach out to her defense team and asked them.
I said, has this always been her story or has this changed and
developed? And the answer from from my
defense source was no, this is what she has always stated and
always said something her defense made sure didn't come
out in court. So, so we know that her story
hasn't changed and it's, it's absolutely shocking, appalling,
disgusting. I mean, I'm literally, I'm doing
this with my hand, probably making a noise with the thing.
And I'm doing it ironically on this book, The Sociopath Next
Door. I mean, please, yeah, please.
Well, I want to, I just, it's just, I mean, it's so beyond
human comprehension that there's only one way to explain it in my
mind, and that's through understanding sociopaths and
psychopaths where they will literally blame anyone,
including the victim. And, and then I just want to say
this about Tylie too. What came out in trial about
Tylie's death is so horrendous. I, I won't get into the details
here. I, I can't even, sometimes I
feel physically ill. But Tylie's death was, was not,
was really, really, really bad. It was disgusting.
It was horrendous. What happened to Tylie?
I believe that she was a victim of torture during her death.
I'll just say that I I think she was tortured by at least two
people. It was really bad.
And so to then imply that she did this is so despicable.
Like it's, it's so bad. And I and I just, I feel so
sorry for Colby and the other victims who have to then.
Here, Colby, let's talk about Colby, who has to then hear his
mother. He is mourning his entire
family. His entire family is just gone.
And then to blame his innocent little sister after everything
she went through is I can't it's, it's so horrible.
No, at the at the end of the interview, he was I, I think I
remember him sobbing and it was like he was trying to entertain
whether or not it was true. And then he concludes, I can't
believe that, but he was really trying to even process it and
consider it, but then trying to think that a sister could do
that. I would I Did either of you see
Colby's response and do you want to share what that was?
I wish we could have him on at some point.
Maybe. Megan, did you see his response?
I. Did Yeah, I, I, I watched his,
his interview with Lori, his recorded phone call with Lori on
his channel. And it was heartbreaking.
It was heartbreaking to watch him have to go through that.
I could definitely see the anger in his face when Lori started
describing that version of events and him recounting that
to her, just confirming that this is what she was saying.
And then after the phone call, you know, hangs up and, and
Colby comes on and he and he's crying, you know, he's
devastated. He was, this was sort of his
last chance to connect with his mom and to see if the real Lori
was still in there somewhere. And she's not.
And I was, I was in awe of him being able to keep his composure
while he was actually on the phone with her because I was
infuriated. I was enraged.
I can't imagine how he must have felt.
He must have felt that, you know, times 10.
But for him to be able to keep his composure and get done what
he set out to do, which was to see exactly her explanation.
He wanted to hear it from her exactly what she was the
narrative that she was putting out there of what happened to
the kids. And he got that done.
And then he was able to tell her, no, you can't be in my
life. No, you can't be in my kids
lives after this, your explanation, your, your 0
remorse. No, you can't have any contact
with me after this. And then just to see him, you
know, breaking down, I don't, I don't think he believes it for a
second that that's what Ty Lee did.
And he even said that on the phone call.
There's no way that Ty Lee did this.
He he said that on the sorry, on the interview after talking
about the phone call. There's no way that Ty Lee did
this. And I think that the emotional
reaction, the tears that we're seeing from him is a settling
in, like the finality of that relationship coming to an end
and the the acceptance that he's never going to have a mom.
Yeah. Did did any of you see Colby's
reaction to the Dateline episode?
I started to watch it last night.
I just got to the part but but not much.
I got to the part where he was mocking the 31 lives that Chad
and his mother had had and then said, oh, who were you?
Who's the Family Guy? The Griffith Griffin?
Peter Griffin. Peter Griffin, he said.
Oh, what were you, Peter Griffin, in the past life?
And then we had to go to dinner. But but that alone, I was proud
of of that response. You know, if you don't laugh,
you cry sometimes. So I don't know his.
I have not watched it. He it's about an hour on his
channel, the Star Wars Podcast for Colby Ryan.
It's on YouTube. So I jumped on, saw him at least
have a bit of a sense of humor mocking both his mother and Chad
Daybell. That made me happy.
And I did not see the rest of it.
But yeah, so. So Colby just sort of implied
that Chad was probably Peter Griffin in another life.
So. Tiger Lily says Colby is going
to cut up clips to respond to and do a better reaction show.
OK, so that may be forthcoming. Go ahead, Erarda.
I have a question for everyone. Something that I thought was
really interesting was it was clear that she's still deeply in
love with Chad. She sees him as Lori.
Yeah, Lori is. And I wanted to ask if we know
whether Lori is aware that Chad basically threw her under the
bus during his defense at his criminal trial?
Yes, people have, I have my sources and, and I've seen some
things people have tried to tell her while she's been behind bars
and her response, I've, I've seen her responses.
Her response has been that people don't understand court.
It's a lot of he says she said. A lot of, you know, the legalese
and, and the legal procedures, people don't really understand.
It's not what you think and she in denial.
What? She's in denial, basically.
Well, I think everything's in denial.
I think she really does believe that they are together.
I mean, he didn't even wear a, a wedding ring during the trial
where she does. I mean, it might be a makeshift
wedding ring, you know, with elastic hair ties.
But she makes sure to show that she is married.
She wants to be called Lori Daybell.
He is distancing himself from her.
But when people have tried to say that, you know, she is, he
is throwing her under the bus, she thinks it's the attorneys.
She thinks it's all just sort of procedure.
You brought up denial. I think her entire world view is
denial, and I think she really believes it.
And we're going to get into that.
We talk about how she's lying and she's making things up and
she's blaming Ty Lee and she has these beliefs that are just
insane. I think she believes it all, and
I think she believes it all because of denial.
Like, she can't. I mean, she's been diagnosed
with delusional disorder. And I think that comes from this
sort of denial. You become delusional when you
refuse to see reality. And so she she is not listening
to people and she is the one that knows everything.
She is all knowing, all understanding.
All of us are just, you know, peasants and poppers who just
don't get it. So she pretty much schools
people who bring up to her that chat is throwing her under the
bus. We don't understand.
She understands, and I'm sure we'll understand more when she's
on Dancing With the Stars. Well, that was that was dark.
OK, so, yeah, let's jump to that.
So I'll just say some of the things that were disturbing for
me. She's claiming that she gets
visits from Jesus. That, that Jesus, you know,
well, well, she claims that during I guess Ty Lee's birth
that she died in childbirth. Kind of this, you know, Co
opting the near death experience sort of situation that she was
caught up to talk to Jesus. That she found out that Ty Lee
was going to have lots of medical complications before Ty
Lee was even born and that she was able to visit with Ty Lee as
a spirit child. It's almost like this dark
Saturday's warrior. It's like a dark, murderous
Saturday's warrior reframe where she's talking to Ty Lee in the
pre existence before she's born. Ty Lee says I know I'm going to
come to Earth. I know my life is going to be
short. I mean, presumably I'm not.
I'm going to die by suicide at 16 after I murdered my brother.
Like I wonder if Ty Lee saw that in the pre existence.
I don't know if Lori totally thought that through because on
the one hand, why would Ty Lee agree to come to the earth
knowing that she would die early, but then at the same time
later when she actually dies it's by suicide after you have
to murdered her or killed maybe unintentionally her brother.
But anyway that that Ty Lee agreed to an early death before
she even came to this earth again that Laurie and Jesus are
besties. She joked that she was Jesus's
favorite, that she wants to have a bumper sticker that says Jesus
loves everyone but I'm his favorite or something like that.
But also that she's got a, you know, she's best friends with
Tammy Dabell, the the murdered wife of of her lover.
And, and also that that Jesus has shown her that she and Chad
are going to be exonerated and that that they're going to be
set free. So, you know, there's this
question of does she really believe that Jesus is visiting
her, that she's hanging out with Tammy in the jail cell?
Is the spirit that that she's seen visions of the future?
Lauren, you, you said you wanted to make sure and cover this.
So I'm going to give you first go.
But then Gerardo and Megan, I want to hear, does she really
believe these spiritual visitations, Lauren?
I think she absolutely believes them.
I do think that it is caused by denial and her refusal to ever
be wrong and she couldn't handle the truth.
It's defense mechanism. By explaining this, I'm not
excusing her. It's despicable and, you know,
psychotic. She, I think, really does
believe it. And I just want to say how
appalling it is to say to that. She is friends with Tammy
Daybell. She is the mistress that had
Tammy Daybell murdered. And to say that she is friends
with her is so offensive, just so offensive.
I can't even imagine, you know, how Tammy's family feels hearing
that. But I am in the camp of yes,
Lori Valo believes everything she is spouting.
Wow. I'm just starting right now.
YouTube has the feature of polls, and so I just kicked off
a YouTube poll to ask our audience whether they believe
that Lori believes that these visions are real.
So I'm going to ask you all on YouTube to go ahead and vote and
then we'll share your we'll share the reactions.
And we also love to see your comments about that.
Anytime you like an episode, subscribe to the channel or
comment. It's going to help this get
disseminated more widely. So Lawrence voting yes.
Gerardo, you're a you're a Mormon stories, you know, heavy
participant. What do you think?
Do you think she really believes it or she just making it all up?
Yeah, well, I, I think I agree with Lauren.
I believe, I think she truly believes everything.
She, you know, I think, like I mean, said she could have been
experiencing delusional disorder where she, you know, becomes
more entrenched in that believe that she that she lost touch
with the reality. But the, the problem is that we,
we know that a lot of these beliefs are highly strategic,
manipulative, and also they seem to be pretty self aware.
And I, I think that's just that there is not totally fully
delusional that there's definitely, we can see that
there's a lack of remorse and extreme self importance and, and
she has an ability to lie without hesitation.
I I think, you know, that that correlates a lot more with a
narcissistic personality disorder.
But but yeah, I mean, I think she she believes her lies and
she believes that that you know her theology.
I mean, and, and I want to get you in with this Megan too, but
it is I'm thinking about my Mormon experience.
Like I, I, you know, heard about Morani's challenge that if you
pray about the Book of Mormon, God will give you an answer.
So I read the Book of Mormon and I prayed about it and I didn't
get an answer. And I didn't lie to people that
I got an answer. I just said, well, I didn't get
an answer. So what if she really does
believe it? Then she would have had to have
had those experiences where, I mean, unless you all believe
that Jesus really did appear to her and that Tammy really does
hang out with her. Let's just assume we all don't
believe that Jesus and Tammy and Laurie are all having a gabfest
in her prison cell. So given that we don't think
that's likely, then then what your theory, Lauren or Gerardo
would be that she literally is having these dreams or visions
that Jesus is appearing to her. Tammy's appearing to her that
that she hung out with with Ty Lee as a near death experience.
And then she really had those experiences and believes that
she had those experiences. And that's hard to believe that
she really believes she had those experiences versus just it
seems like make her making it up is the easiest answer.
Megan, we haven't given you a chance to to respond, but then I
want to hear people respond to that.
And right now, by the way, the vote 481 out of the there's 3500
people on this live stream. So far, 485 of you have voted
and 67% of you say that she really believes she had the
visions. And 33% of you who voted think
she's lying. All right, Megan, let's get you
in here. Well, I mean, let's start off by
saying that Lori is a pathological liar.
She's lied about obviously so many things.
And I think this interview really brings that out because
in the face of Keith Morrison giving Lori actual receipts,
where one example is where Keith Morrison talks about Charles
being possessed by a demon named Ned Schneider.
And Lori says, did you hear him say that?
And he said, well, yeah, I see the I saw the body Cam footage,
you know, I I heard him say those words.
Even in the face of that, you know, very telling evidence,
Lori still wants to delude anyone who will believe her into
into accepting her narrative of events or believing something
different. So we know that she's a
pathological liar, but also there's a phenomenon where you
can delude yourself. You can convince yourself that
something is true when it's not true.
So I think she has deluded herself that she has seen Jesus.
I think she's deluded herself that Chad actually is a prophet.
I think she's deluded herself that she has a special mission
to gather the 144,000. I think she's deluded herself
that she and Chad have done nothing wrong and will be
exonerated because they're on this special mission from God.
So I think 1 can convince oneself of things that are not
true. And I think that's what she has
done in this case. There is also, I just want to go
back real quickly to people saying, is she deeply in love
with Chad? And they're still communicating.
They, you know, Keith alleged in one of his, you sort of unpacked
recap of the interview afterwards that they're writing
letters to each other. So they're communicating, but
Lori's not capable of love in the way that that most normal
people would define love as in an, an, an attachment to
someone, a security with them and a desire for their happiness
and their well-being. Lori's not capable of that kind
of a connection. So when people talk about, you
know, she still loves Chad. She's still wearing the wedding
ring. Well, she's still wearing her
little, you know, hair tie around her finger to let people
know she is still very much de Belle.
She wants to be De Belle because that gives her an elevated
status to be married to a prophet or somebody she believes
is a God who was the Holy Ghost in a past life.
So she is always going to do and say the things that are going to
elevate her status above everyone else and that are going
to try to manipulate people into believing that she is this
glorified being who has a special mission.
That's always what she's going to do.
All of that being said, there are always these little moments
that I see just after she tells Keith one of her lies, she sort
of looks down and her face falls a little bit.
The mask slips just a little bit.
So I do think that the real Lori is still in there somewhere.
And I think that the real Lori knows that she's lying, that
she's manipulating, but this is what she has to do given the
circumstances of where she is right now in her life.
Yeah. And any other comments on the
topic? There's, there's also a middle
ground here. I, I think you, you're putting
it in John, whether you know, does Lori believe she's
literally meeting Jesus and talking to him and being friends
with, with, with Tammy and Ty Lee, or is she, you know, is she
lying to everybody and not doesn't really believe it?
I think there is a middle ground where she could believe this is
happening. You know, she's talking to
Jesus, but not in the, in the sense that we imagine she's
believing she's, she's talking to Jesus.
An example of this I think is the, the, the portal theology
that Chad label came up with where, you know, they believe
that they, they, the certain people, especially him and Lori,
could use spiritual portals to communicate with the, with the
spirit world. And Lori claimed that she had a
portal in her closet at her home in Rexburg where she can kind of
spiritual spiritually connect with Chad.
And I think this, this shows way, way before the murders that
they are people that are willing to believe these things because
they might feel some kind of impression or feeling that this
thing is working. Not in the, in the sense that,
you know, you and I, my my believe is actually working.
I don't know if that if that makes sense.
But you know, think about how Mormon prophets today when they
talk about communicating with Jesus and receiving revelation.
Most Mormons, a lot of Mormons couldn't, would interpret that
as like. Oh, they're actually talking to
Jesus when in reality that's not what's on Mormon prophets minds
today. Does that make sense?
Yeah, Lauren, any final comments you want to make?
Yeah, yeah, I don't, you know, yes, so many things.
First off, I want to correct one of something I said.
I said that she was psychotic. I meant psychopathic.
It is, I think, psychopathic to say that didn't happen.
That's not true that, you know, with evidence right in front of
your face. That's what psychopaths do.
And and no, she didn't really have visions, but it's sort of
like when we were talking about Kevin Franke and the
documentary, like he wanted to believe that he was seeing
things flying across the room. He wanted to believe, he said,
I'm an engineer and I can't explain it.
He wanted to believe it. He wanted that smudge on the
window to be a handprint from a demon.
So when you want something, you're going to believe it.
And there was this moment in the Frankie documentary too, where
Kevin says what was in front of my face looking at it, you know,
my, my abused children, the photos of my children absolutely
abused and tortured wasn't what it was in my brain and wasn't
and wasn't the reality in my brain what I was looking at.
And he couldn't compute it. He couldn't he like refused.
So this idea, I always say, people always say that seeing is
believing and it's not true. Believing is actually seeing the
way we believe is the way we will see.
If you want to believe something, then it's incredible
what a mind can do. It's actually frightening too.
And I think that you have to look at let's let's call it what
it is. It's terrorism.
I mean, this was a murder spree across states.
It's terrorism in the name of beliefs.
And terrorism comes from extreme religious beliefs, extremism
that people believe that, that they will die for that, you
know, call it what it is. And so I, I think we need to
address this, that that the minds are an incredible thing.
And if you want to believe something and seeing isn't
necessarily believing, believing is seen even with evidence right
in front of your face. And I think to me, that's been
the most frightening thing as a journalist looking at this world
and looking how we're computing information and receiving
information, you know, and, and watching how politicians deny
what's really going on in this world when we, you know,
evidence says it ourselves like, no, this really happened.
And people just believe what they want to believe.
And so Lori Valo, I think, is a representative of sort of this
world that we live in where if you want to believe something,
you can believe it. And I, and I say this 'cause I
think we all need to kind of check ourselves and start
believing evidence a little bit more, but you know, it's not,
we've seen this time and time again with history.
We, we believe what we want to believe and maybe we shouldn't.
And then I, and then I just want to say with Gerardo bringing up
the portals and John, you bringing up the near death
experience in childbirth and me bringing up the aging backwards.
These are also the books that Lori Vallow is reading.
All, all of those things are found in The Visions of Glory by
John Pontius and Tom Harrison that that Lori Valla was reading
poolside when she was confronted by Hawaii police.
This is a worldview that she is believing.
So yes, she is creating and manipulating things in her brain
to have excuses as as we point out, like, oh, this is going to
really work in my favor if it's my daughter's fault.
And and this is this is good. And so she's manipulative and
she's lying, but you know, this is also a worldview and, and her
perception is this greater worldview that I think is really
sort of important to point out and, and address.
Yeah, think about when members of the LDS Church, you know,
stand up at once a month in sacrament meeting and they they
say, I know the church is true. You know, I think everyone
outside of Mormonism would know that that phrase doesn't
necessarily mean they have an actual knowledge in the
empirical sense. What it often means is they feel
something deeply, you know, they want it to be true.
They have had an emotional experience and that they that
they interpret as confirming it's true.
And I, I see somewhat a similarity here with when
Laurie's talking about these things that to us sound Gracie,
you know, like talking to Jesus. Like, you know, if we could
really put ourselves in her head, I don't think she would
see it the same way we're imagining she's talking to
Jesus. Love it.
Let me just thank all the people that are that have liked this
episode and subscribed thanks to all the Super chats.
We're going to get to all the Super chats.
I may save them either for different parts of the episode
or a little bit towards the end because I don't want to disrupt
the flow of the conversation just to show a bunch of super
chats, but just know they're going to come.
I did a second poll. So the so the first poll, I
closed it after 739 votes. So by the way, somebody said I'm
yelling. I'll try not to yell into the
microphone. It's hard.
After 739 votes, the final tally is 66% believe that Lori
actually believes her visions, 33% do not believe that.
I've now put up a new poll and the new poll is, does Chad
actually believe he and Laurie will be saved by Jesus?
And also, you know, in all these visions and, and divine
intervention and all this and weirdly, tell me if y'all think
this is weird, it's the exact opposite with our audience. 64%
of you do not believe that Chad believes that they will be
saved, saved by Jesus or the Jesus is behind all of this.
And 36, only 35% of you think Chad is a true believer.
Does does that surprise any of our panelists that that our
viewers have the exact opposite view of Chad?
Let's hear it. Mika, do you go first?
No, it doesn't surprise me because I I agree.
I don't think Chad believes it. I just the look on his face and
his body express his body language, his demeanor, his
expression during his trial and especially during his
sentencing. I I believe that he had some
forgive the expression come to Jesus moments there where he's
he's facing the reality of the death penalty.
Lori's not. And so for him, I think maybe
this is a lot more real for him. The reality that, you know, of
what they actually did, the reality that, you know, he was
making this all up. He was delusional.
I think he did a lot of this stuff to, to get Lori's
attention. He changed his his tune a little
bit when Julie Rose started to get recognition for having a
near death experience. Then all of a sudden, oh, his
was a near death experience too. And then you know.
His. Books that were fiction before
suddenly became real because he knew that that gives him, again,
some elevated status within the church community and within the
prepper community of, you know, having these visions.
I think he knows more than Lori does, that he has manufactured a
lot of this and that he did it in order to get closer to Lori
and to, you know, the whole money, power sex thing.
I think that Chad has a recognition of his own delusion
and that it did exist. I don't think he's deluded
anymore. I think he has a recognition of
his guilt. So I, yeah, I agree.
I agree with the viewers. I don't think Chad believes it
the way that Lori does. Ferrardo and Lauren Ferrardo.
I agree. I agree with me.
OK, OK. And Lauren, yeah, yeah, I, I
think when it comes to Chad, because this has been a
discussion I've been having with my husband for five years, like
where just so you know, where my husband, he's a criminal
psychologist. He's he believes that Chad does
believe it, but he he believes that I sort of like Megan said
that he's convinced himself of it through sort of like as
things have progressed, like he was very manipulative and, you
know, BS ING his way through this and then was just like,
wow, like this is real. I'm believing this.
Like, look at me, I'm the man, look at this, you know, woman
I'm with. I think for me, the question
with Chad's belief is where do his beliefs end and begin?
Because we know or I believe that he believes in Mormonism.
I believe that he believes in his political worldview.
I believe that he believes in dark and light.
I believe that I think he believes some people are taken
by evil spirits. Right.
When I hear and go to attend his trial and I see him manipulating
Lori with text as she writes and he says, Oh, yeah, you can
control the elements, babe. And, you know, you're the
greatest of all things and Jesus loves you most, babe, and you're
a goddess. Like, I don't know if he
believes that. Like, is he just be asking this
woman? Do, you know, sleep with her
maybe? So I think for me, the question
with Chad is where did his beliefs end and where do they
begin? And I do believe that he has
some very extreme religious beliefs.
I believe that when he was giving that speech, the day he
met Lori Vallow and he's talking about the second coming and how
people are going to actually travel to Ivan's, where Jodi
Hildebrand is. And he mentions that, you know,
Ivan's is going to be a place and they're going to travel up
and then they're going to there's going to be this Mecca
in Rexburg. And that's why he's there.
And he moved his whole family there.
And he did, he moved his entire family there.
Like I think that's a belief. I think he believes these
extreme beliefs too. Then he he meets this hot blonde
girl who's by his words, you know, hot and loaded.
At that point does he start manipulating?
And no, he's not a prophet. Or is he convincing he himself
he is too? For me, the eternal question is
where do his extreme beliefs begin and where do they end?
All right. Let let me now go to asking you
all. You know, Keith, basically the
first, I'd say 3/4 of the two hours was him just retelling the
entire story. There were a couple points that
really stuck out to me, but I'm curious, Lauren and Megan and
Gerardo, were there any points of the retelling that were
particularly new or interesting to any of you before I I bring
out the ones that I want to bring out in terms of just the
evidence shown, the video shown, Laurie's reaction, anything
y'all want to highlight or should I just start mentioning
some? Yeah, go ahead.
Mentioned. OK, so, so the video, the video
portion, let let's see where they show Chad.
It is that Lori bringing in the spare tire from the from the
automobile and then the chair from the automobile.
And and then they kind of walk out and I guess it makes a
reference to Chad touching Lori in a special way.
Sorry. Yeah.
And then, you know, they're basically insinuating that
they're prepping the car for an assassination attempt.
Had y'all seen that footage before and was that surprising
to you at all? Yeah, we've seen that before.
And this was this was brought out actually during Laurie's
trial where there, you know, she Googled how to remove or Alex
Googled how to remove the backseat of a Jeep.
And then they show this footage of them coming into the storage
unit. You know, Chad is is helping her
bring the tire in and then bring the back seat in.
And then Alex is seeing the next day taking the tire out, taking
the back seat back out to put it back in the Jeep.
So we we've seen that one before.
I don't think I noticed Chad padding her on the butt, though.
I don't think I noticed that one before.
My favorite part of that footage, yes, we have seen it
before, but this this always, I always enjoy pointing this out
that when Chad is removing the attire and as you say, John
touching Lori in a special way as he's removing the tire to to
you know, he is rolling it. Chad has to roll it.
And then when Alex is putting it back, he actually carries the
tire. And that's just a little detail
that I, I love to point out too, that, you know, Chad can't even
lift the tire that Alex can. So once again, not a God, not a
prophet, can't even lift a tire. But yeah.
I always find that really funny too, Lauren, and thanks for
pointing that out because, yeah, you know, if he, if he was
really a God, don't you think he'd have, you know, some
special strength at least where he could, you know, lift a car
tire? Right.
Well, Peter Griffiths, it goes to the Peter, Peter Griffith.
You know, like, what in the world did she see in him?
He couldn't even lift the tire. Like people who can't wrap our
brains around what she saw in Chad.
And it's just one other like little subtle thing like her
brother can lift the tire and Chad can't.
Like what? What's he good for if you can't
even lift a Jeep tire? Sorry.
He's a little bit schlubby, I have to admit that.
OK, maybe the most confrontational part of the
whole episode was when Keith just flat on asks her, you know,
were you there with them, you know, when they died?
And she's like, which place? Which place?
You don't know Keith. You don't even know what you're
talking about. And he, like, got serious.
And he he basically said, did you watch your children die?
And then she says that's a terrible question, but then
what's that? A sad question.
Here I thought that was an interesting just adjective she
used. So yeah, sad question.
And then she and then she ended up saying no.
What? What did y'all think to that
exchange? Lauren, let's have you go first
since you you jumped in. Yeah, I actually thought that
was a really poignant moment because she is so full of
contempt and anger. And so for her to use the word
sad actually struck me when she said that's a sad question that
almost felt like, oh, did we just see Lori, like, use a bit
of emotion? You know, did we just see a
crack in that mask where like, she can't go there because
that's sad? And it took me back to a day at
her trial again. I attended every day of her
trial, and there was very, very little emotion from Lori.
She flirted with her attorney. She smiled, she laughed.
She very flippant and that was something that everybody in at
her trial noticed. But there was this one day in
trial and it was the day they were going to show her
children's autopsies. And all of a sudden we come back
from recess and nothing's happening.
Nothing's happening. And Lori's not showing up.
And she finally, finally comes out very angry and distraught
and upset. And her attorneys have to argue
that Lori feels like she shouldn't have to be in the
courtroom when the autopsies of her children are shown.
And everyone sort of gasped. Like, like, you know, it's just
like, if, if this person can't get more despicable, she just
did it right? Like, you're going to force this
jury and all of us to look at these autopsies of your
children. You are here because of these
autopsies of your children. Like, it is just, it is just
horrendous what has happened to your children.
And you think that you shouldn't have to look at them when all of
us are going to have to see them?
And this jury, these innocent people here deciding your fate,
are going to have to look at them like it was just this
moment of just like, how dare she?
And then the judge ruled, of course, that she had to be
there. And through the rest of that day
in trial, she sort of patted and looked sad and wouldn't look at
the screen and look down. And although we were all upset
and I was upset, I then watched Chad Debell's trial where he
just watched the autopsies with no issues, checked him out,
looked at his deceased wife. I we were sitting, a group of us
were sitting behind Chad Daybell as he scrolled pictures of Tammy
dead without making an emotion. And after seeing that, I was
like, Oh, my gosh, like, now, like the whole Lori thing
doesn't seem so bad that she didn't want to see autopsy
photos of her children. And so for this moment of her
saying, oh, that's a sad question.
I just wonder if that was just like a slip of like, of just
like, yeah, like, that makes her sad.
And that's where her denial comes from.
And now I'm going full circle. She is an absolute denial
because she cannot handle the truth.
And then of course, that moment of, oh, that's a sad question.
She jumped back to being super angry and defiant.
So it was just this sliver of a moment I thought, is that where
her denial is coming from? She just can't go there.
Gerardo, did you want to add something?
I, I think I, I agree with Lauren, that's a really good
assessment as to how she decides, you know, where, where
the how, how her emotions can drive her worldview and, and,
and then come up with ways to justify this horrific events.
Megan, anything you want to add about that, that exchange?
Yeah, yeah, I agree with Lauren's assessment as well.
I just want to point out though, that you know, everything that
we heard from from Lori, her responses to Keiths questions,
it's all part of that delusional manipulation.
She's answering questions with questions.
She's trying to obfuscate by, you know, re asking, you know,
in what place were you there? In what place?
Where do you think it happened? Keith?
What are you saying, Keith? You know, just trying to steer
everything back to her giving the narrative that she wants
again, Keith saying like she had an agenda.
It was to put forward this story.
And that's where she keeps trying to steer it back to.
Just trying to take back the interview from Keith to say, you
know, I'm trying to tell you the truth and you don't want to
listen. You know, stop asking me these
questions so that I can tell you my truth, you know, but we do
see sort of a change in her demeanor when she says that's a
really sad question. I don't necessarily think that
she's feeling any sadness at that moment.
I think she's just calling attention to the fact that it's
a bold question. It's a really direct question
and it's a really hard question for her to answer because she.
Can't answer it without letting something slip, right?
So she doesn't ever answer that direct question that Keith asks
her. What she says is I was not
there. She doesn't say.
He asks her, did you watch your children die?
She doesn't say no, that's very telling.
She just says, I was not there. And that could mean anything to
Lori. It could mean her spirit wasn't
there, her mind wasn't there. It could mean that, you know,
she participated but maybe left the room at some point.
It, it could mean anything. And that's, I think what I've
learned with Lori, is that what whatever she tells you has a
different definition in her mind than it does to the rest of the
world. Yeah, exactly.
Really quickly, because this is such a dark story, I want to
just take a second to share something really positive and
something really happy. So basically some of you may
remember that I interviewed Anna Schreyer recently on Mormon
Stories podcast. She grew up in Utah as a member
of the Assembly of God Church and, you know, as a Pentecostal.
And she did an interview and she talked about how eventually she
moved back east and worked for a church that had her gut her
house because they'd promised to help her renovate her house.
And then when she lost her faith in her church, it left her house
gutted with no one to help her renovate it.
And I just wanted to share with you all something super happy
and inspirational. This photo right now is a photo
of Bishop, former Mormon Bishop Nathan Hinckley.
He is literally at Anna Schreyer's house right now, and
they're renovating Anna Schreyer's house as just a
service project. Y'all will know that Nathan
Hinckley runs a new YouTube channel called The Bishop's
Interview. It's got over 2000 subscribers.
And Nathan's working really hard to, you know, to build a channel
of his own. But I just think it's really,
really inspiring in a time that's so dark to just see an
example of people out of the goodness of their heart trying
to make a positive difference in the world.
So thank you, Nathan. Love you.
And thanks to everyone who's helping Bishop Nathan.
And we'll have hopefully y'all again back on Mormon Stories to
kind of share that inspiring story.
Anyway, I just had to share that.
I've also started another poll asking our viewers and listeners
if they think Keith did an overall good job with the
interview so far with 250 votes, 82% say they think Keith did a
good job with the interview, 18% say no to that.
Let me just ask you all Keith was interviewed by some other
journalists just about what the interview was like for him.
And what I, what I heard him say was that she had this narrative
that she wanted to tell and he spent most of the, I don't know,
hour and a half, two hours that he had just trying to corral her
and that she wasn't very cooperative in the interview.
And, and then there's even the point of the interview where she
says it's going to take me hours and hours and hours to tell you
this full story. Maybe we need a lot more, you
know, maybe we don't, we need a lot more time.
We, we need a lot more of these episodes.
And of course, the prison system isn't going to let her do
infinite interviews. But also that almost speaks to
this idea that she just wants as much fame and as much attention
as she can get out of this. What do you all think about in
Lauren? I'll have you go first because
you are amongst us, the actual journalist.
What do you guys think about Keith?
Was he nervous? Was he aggressive?
Was he annoyed? Was he effective?
And I'll have each of you take a stab at that question while are
we'll ask our viewers and listeners to please vote, please
comment and also please like this episode and subscribe not
only this channel, but the hidden true crime and third
verse midlife revolution as well.
Go ahead, Lauren. It would be a very difficult
interview to do and it's sort of hard to assess because we
actually didn't see that much of the 90 minute interview.
I think actually, I think actually that might be
everyone's biggest disappointment.
It was a bit of mine too, that like, you know, we wanted to see
all 90 minutes understanding why they couldn't, they had a story
to tell, you know, so, but they showed us some really important
parts and some important sound bites.
I, I think that this is probably an interview.
This is the type of interview where he probably did need about
four hours there. There are those interviews where
sometimes you can't even get to the meet if someone's really
defensive and on their own tangent.
You can't really get to the meet of the interview for about an
hour and a half because you just have to like give them a safe
space to talk and let them share what they want before you can
kind of really delve in. I imagine that the time crunch
wasn't helpful. I think he probably did the best
he could. I appreciated how he was just
trying to ask this question about her being there when her
kids died and she just wouldn't let him ask it.
And you can tell you finally got frustrated.
He's like, that's not what I'm asking, Just hear me out.
It would be a very difficult interview to do and I can't
imagine the pressure that he had to do it within 90 minutes into.
From what I saw he did, he did a great job.
I want to ask all of you this, Lauren, is there a question,
like one question you would want to make sure you didn't leave
there without asking her that he didn't ask.
And if if you need a time to think about that, I want to give
Ferrardo and Megan a chance to answer as well.
Yeah. I think I, I definitely want to
think about that. OK, question.
That's, that's a good question, yeah.
We'll come back. Corrado and Megan.
Who do y'all do? Y'all think you did a good job?
No. Do you have?
Do you wish you could have done something better?
Is there a question you would want him to ask?
Go ahead, Megan. I think Keith did an excellent
job and and you have to consider what what he has to work with
over here. If you haven't listened to the
phone call between Colby and Lori, it's basically the same
set of circumstances where Colby was trying to ask her some very
specific questions and she would not answer them.
She was, you know, taking this roundabout route where he asks
her a question and then 20 minutes later she still has not
answered it because she is jumping around.
She's telling different narratives.
She's trying to over explain in some places, she's trying to
avoid answering the actual question that's being asked and
manipulate. So Keith even said in the couple
of interviews that he did with other people that it was really
frustrating. She was very combative.
It was really difficult for him to get her to answer anything
that he was asking because she had this alternate, you know,
agenda that she was trying to get done.
So I think he did a really excellent job.
And for people, anybody who's saying that, that Lori
manipulated him, I don't think that's true.
Keith is incredibly smart. He's dealt with people like this
before. I think he knew what he was
doing. He was well prepared for the
interview and he's just dealing with somebody who's got a bag of
cats in their head. So of course it's going to, you
know, come across as difficult. And I think the reason we didn't
see more footage of Lori talking is because it was like this
meandering, nonsensical narrative that would have been
too crazy for people to to understand.
And that's why I said, if you've listened to the phone call
between Colby and Lori, it's the same type of thing.
It's really hard to decipher. I do an episode on my channel
where I break down every little manipulation and every lie that
she does during that interview. So I understand Keith, you know,
handling things the way that he did, and I thought that he
handled it really well. And then there's one other thing
that that people keep saying, you know, about, you know, Keith
giving her a platform and everything.
Well, actually, I think they did a good job of only giving the
the few little snippets of information that were even
useful for us to hear and not allowing Lori to take the
narrative away, instead telling that part of the story through
Colby's eyes. And I really appreciated that
they did that. Can I can I say a couple other
things? Please learn.
Megan. Yeah, that was.
I agree with Megan. I didn't know that people
thought that. They thought maybe Keith was
manipulated. Absolutely not.
Yeah. Keith is a smart man.
And I also agree with Megan where she says that they ended
up not giving her platform. And I actually said that, too,
You know, did I want for, like, selfish reasons, to see 90
minutes of Lori Valo talking to Keith Morrison?
Yeah. But in the end, yeah, I'm sure
that Lori is very upset that she didn't get those 90 minutes in.
There was one thing that I didn't like that Keith did.
There was a moment where Lori said, I thought we were friends,
Keith. I thought we were friends.
Like, she's clearly pushing him and putting the questions back
on him, right? Like he's asking them questions
and she's sort of twisting and asking the questions back.
And then he goes, yeah, we're friends.
Or I can't remember what he says, but he kind of implies her
friends that disappointed me. Like, I don't, I think he should
have put the question back on her.
Like, well, do you think we're friends?
I mean, I don't know. He doesn't have to necessarily
say we're not friends. Back off, you know, but I don't
think he should have said like, yeah, we're friends because
that's that's not true. And I think he could have gotten
more control of the interview if you just put that question back
on her. Well, do you think we're
friends? You know, what are we thinking?
I think that would have been a good moment.
I didn't appreciate that he kind of claimed that he was friends
with her. I agree with that somewhat,
although I do think what's interesting is that narcissistic
people are actually really easy to manipulate.
If you give them what they want, then they're going to continue,
you know, exposing themselves and exposing their manipulation.
So maybe Keith was doing that just in an effort to say, sure,
Lori, we're friends. You can tell me anything, you
know. But I do agree, I think I think
it would have been interesting to have him put that back on her
and say, well, what do you think?
Do you think we're friends? I think that would have been a
little sneakier. But also also I want to address
people saying that they're disappointed in Keith for saying
that they that he actually liked Lori at the end of this
interview. I want to say that I think what
Keith was trying to express there.
And again, now I'm putting words in someone else's mouth or
interpreting, you know, interpreting what they're
saying. But I think he had a respect for
her like a boxer has a respect for a sparring partner.
I think he appreciated that. She does have an intellect.
People like to say that Lori's dumb.
She's not dumb. She's not book smart, right?
She's not super educated, but she certainly is not dumb.
She has the intelligence of knowing how to manipulate
people. It's a certain type of
intelligence. She knows how to read people.
She knows how to say what people want to hear in a certain way.
She knows how to turn the conversation in a certain way.
She knows how to, you know, answer a question without
actually answering it. That's a certain type of
intelligence. So I think that's all Keith was
saying was that, you know, after meeting her and talking with
her, that he had a certain level of, you know, not not like as in
I enjoy spending time with her, but I liked that she had some
intelligence. She had some intellect.
And there's something there was something there for him to work
with, not necessarily that like he he likes or enjoys or thinks
she's a good person. I, I agree with understanding
how you like someone. I think that's actually really
important thing to point out because I've actually said
myself, I was like, you know, Flora was in my ward.
I probably would have been friends with her, friends with
her and her sister Summer, and really like them.
Chad Daybell. Never, never.
Absolutely not. There would have been no
redeeming quality about Chad Daybell that attracted to me to
want to be his friend whatsoever.
Lori. Yeah, I think we probably would
have done lunch, you know, maybe, you know, gone on a girls
trip one week and I've been like, OK, like I I can see right
people liking her. So I think you're right with
that. Yeah.
And I want to point out again
that I I don't think that Keith should have said that they
weren't friends. I understand the narcissistic
ego. I just think it would have
gotten a more interesting response out of saying, well, do
you think we're friends? Maybe, maybe that's I I just
want to know like how she saw it, you know, so.
Corona, let's get you in here. Anything you would have asked?
Do you think you did a good job overall?
Yeah, I think, I mean, how, again, how I started this
episode was agreeing with everyone that I think he's super
talented. He's did a generally really good
job. I think I feel kind of strongly
that the thing that was missing there is a deep understanding
of, of Mormonism and a deep of understanding of how to talk to
people who have deeply rooted, you know, religious beliefs,
especially those kinds of beliefs.
What would you have asked her? I could think of some things I
would have asked her, but what would you have asked her in
terms of her Mormonism, her beliefs, doctrine, theology,
history, that sort of thing? I think more than more than what
I would have asked versus what he didn't ask, I think I would
have, you know, my opinion is that I probably would have
framed the interview differently.
So, for example, instead of coming here to try to corner
her, I would come to her and say, look, we're trying to, we
want to tell your story. But the people that are watching
this know what the media has said so far about the facts.
You know, they under they, they know what the court already
determined. They know what the jury said.
They've seen the evidence. So I want you to give your
version of the facts based on that, that evidence instead of
Keith coming here saying, you know, but the facts are that
those are not the facts, you know, kind of saying these are
the facts that people know or you know, the, the, the evidence
that people know about. Let's talk and I want to ask you
about how you would you would explain it so people can
understand your point of view. And I could have opened a little
bit more of not so much of A barrier, like I'm here to, you
know, tell you my version of things.
It could have maybe avoided her ranting about a lot of things
and not really answering the questions if it would have been
approached as like, look, this is a a moment, a time for you to
redeem yourself, to tell your version of the story and to
explain your religious beliefs to people.
So I see, I see. I'm going to bring up some of
the facts, not because I want to corner you, but because I want
to, I, I want the viewers, you know, and, and.
Hear your beliefs. Yeah, exactly.
Got it? All right, let me ask you all
some. Let me share with you all some
of the parts that were either concerning or curious or
troubling to me. So one was this vision that they
painted of Alex, Lori's brother, taking JJ outside the the night
he was murdered and then bringing him back, quote,
asleep. Do we know anything about that?
Do we have theories about whether he would have harmed JJ
while he took him out and brought him back after he'd
already passed away or whether whatever violence may have
happened, presumably by Alex would have happened after he
brought him back his sleep. But just that whole idea of Alex
being with him, taking him in and out as if he's asleep, was
really chilling to me. What do we know about that?
Or do we know anything? Yeah, No, I think there was a
time when Minnie speculated whether or not JJ was already
passed at this moment, was he really asleep or was he dead?
I think that the early on in the case that was people wondered
because we we knew that story from David Warwick, that that
was the last time he and Melanie Gibbs saw JJ.
But as evidence has sort of come out since then in trial, in
testimony, including David Warwick and Melanie Gibb being
up in the middle of the night at 2, how JJ was found, that he
struggled. Clearly it seems as if JJ died
most likely in the middle of the night, and that he really was
carried up asleep at that moment and then something horrendous
happened hours later. OK, got it.
And, and, and I'll I'll point out too that this is also why
people wonder perhaps if Lori was around when JJ died, because
the last known place people saw him was being laid asleep in
Lori's bedroom. So I think that's where people
really wonder if she was there. Got it.
And y'all jump in if I don't have to ask you each to comment
on everything. Please just jump in if you've
got anything else you want to add.
I was disturbed when Lori was talking about her daughter's
death. Like life is like college, you
know, You go to college and then you come home from college and
life's that way too. Tylie came down to this earth,
but then she went back to heaven.
And that's kind of what life's all about.
You come and you go. It felt a little bit flippant to
me. Did did any of y'all?
That was really triggering to me just because I've always had a
problem with the way a lot of members of the church or, or, or
the church, the Mormon church encourages people to see death
or, for example, funerals, you know, like, and all the OR most
of the Mormon funerals I've gone, they're mostly about, you
know, talking about how it doesn't really matter because
we're going to see this person again.
We know that we're sealed to them.
So like there, there's not a lot of grieving, there's not a lot
of actually thoughtfulness about what what has happened.
And a lot of that sadness seems to be, you know, if, if people
sometimes show sadness and their Mormon, they can feel guilt for,
you know, maybe they're don't really believe they're going to
see this person again. And and that Lori talking about
life and death in that way kind of reminded me of that.
Especially when it's her own child.
Like I, I think all of us have experienced death of a loved 1
and in some way or another. Even my parents who are 90 who
are believing Mormons when asked them about their own death,
they're like I don't want to die.
So like, who talks about some of their closest loved ones as if
like, Oh yeah, they come to go. That's just kind of what happens
in life. It's it was very dark and
chilling to me. So any other any other comments
there? Should I go on?
Yeah, I just, I agree. I mean, I think Gerardo's, you
know, spot on as, you know, being being raised Mormon and
believing so heavily in an afterlife that is supposed to be
so exponentially better than this life.
It's something that we look forward to as sort of our reward
for enduring the trials of this life.
And I think that's where it, it is a little bit it, it's easier
to be dismissive of the death experience and to, you know,
sort of not see it as something tragic, but to see it as
victorious. That being said, to have Lori
talk about the death of her daughter, which she caused,
which we can say cuz she's been convicted of it now is
incredibly disrespectful. It's horrible, it's horrific.
I don't have enough words to say how evil and and disgusting that
is. Yeah, Amen.
OK, the next part that that was kind of disturbing to me was,
was Tammy. And I've already kind of
mentioned this, but Tammy's saying sorry, Laurie's saying
Tammy loves me and I love her and we're going to be together
for eternities. Like I was trying to put myself
in the shoes of Tammy's children, of Tammy's loved ones
and just how chilling and dark it would be for them to hear the
woman who likely contributed to the murder of their sister,
daughter, mom, etcetera, say we're besties and she visits me
all the time and we're we're besties for the eternities.
Super dark to me. Again, jump in.
Or I can just keep reading reading these off.
You know, I wasn't saying fortunately, I don't know if
it's Tammy's children that will be most upset by that because I
think they want to believe that they're the mother did die from
natural causes. I don't, I can't speak for all
of them, but I I can speak that. I know that some still believe
that. And so to think that, I mean,
I'm not saying it doesn't upset them, but sometimes I'm upset
that, you know, these. I think that it might not upset
all of them, but who it does upset is Tammy, the Douglas
family, the extended family of Tammy, you know, her, Tammy's
mother, who passed away between Laurie's trial and Chad's trial.
And that family cannot imagine her.
Her aunt Vicki Hoban, who I am close to Tam, is so angry that
she would ever, ever utter such things about her niece.
Yeah, I can't imagine that, right.
It's just, again, it's just twisting the knife.
It's just like, why? So it, it is very upsetting.
It's as upsetting as you, you think that it is.
And then I want to point out, as far as what I think she is
actually saying, I think she is implying my personal belief that
there's some polygamy involved. I do believe that Lori might
think they're going to be sister wives one day, so.
Yeah, I agree with that, Lauren. And I also think that Lori
talking about Tammy being a friend, you know, of course it's
disgusting and horrible. I think it's another way for
Lori to deflect attention away from herself.
You know, if people believe that Tammy and Lori are friends, then
Lori couldn't possibly have anything to do with Tammy's
death. I think that's just part of that
as well. I also want to point this out
because we forget sometimes about Julie Rowe and how big of
a piece she played in this before, but how close she was to
Chad Daybell and to Tammy. But she too said the same thing
and it's despicable. After the investigation had
started to the deaths of Tammy Daybell and the missing
children, Julie Rowe got on her live and said, I know that the
kids are OK because I've seen them.
And I know that Tammy is just fine and having a great reunion
because she visits me. She's an Angel.
Tammy de Bell just adores me. She comes and visits me.
She told me she's OK. She's totally chill.
And you know, now here in the Celestial Kingdom and she's
she's so OK. I mean, this, this idea is just
gross. I just want to point out the
like, what happened to people speaking for dead people,
especially when there's an investigation going on.
They might have been murdered and and she was murdered.
Like, I just, I don't know. It's like when a dead person
can't speak for themselves and we're speaking for them.
It's just, it's just wild. But a lot of people try to speak
for Tammy Dabell, who weren't her family after she died, to
claim that she wasn't murdered. She was OK.
And that's just this whole other aspect of this story that's just
sort of like. Yeah, there's a there's a mutual
friend we have Lauren, whose son died a few years back.
And I was at the wake or the Shiva or the, you know, funeral.
And I would watch people come up and say, your son visited me
and, and he wanted, you know, me to let you know that he's OK and
you don't need to worry and grieve about him.
And I'm just thinking, on the one hand, I guess that's sweet
and nice. On the other hand, if a son can
visit anyone after he's died, shouldn't he visit the parents
and not have random people from the funeral come up and say your
son is sending you love? Exactly.
And also don't tell me about my dead relative.
Actually, I would like to know that my, my dead relative is
maybe sad and they're missing me and maybe they're not.
OK. I, I just, yeah, just don't even
go there. Don't.
Don't even tell me what my deceased loved one is saying.
Yeah. Yeah.
And then Julie Rowe had to go back and recant, supposedly what
she saw because she said that she saw the kids safe.
She described, you know, a beautiful room with palm trees.
And I think she was trying to imply that she saw them in
Hawaii. And then, of course, she had to
later come back and say, well, you know, I wasn't exactly sure
of exactly where they were, but that's what I saw.
And it could have been this other thing, too.
So, you know, let's not put any stock by what Julie Rowe
predicted. Yeah, so the next the next part
that was kind of just mind blowing to me was when Keith
calls her out for purchasing the wedding bands before Tammy's
death. And her reaction was, get your
facts straight, Keith. You know, the rings were
originally bought, you know, for Alex and Zulema and then we use
them later. But you don't know what you're
talking about, Keith. I don't, I don't mean to be
repetitive there, but that was it's just if there if there,
there were so many moments where they were just absolutely
busted. And that's that's one of them.
But it it does just speak to that just willingness to just
say anything. And it does call into question
her sincerity about claiming to be visited by angels because
there's just no way those rings were intended for Alex and
Zulema. She's making that up, right?
The ring size for for Chad I doubt is any similar to like
Alex ring size. That's a good point.
Just yeah. Chad has very, very dainty
hands, as we saw in his trial. And Alex's hands were not dainty
for sure. And and that that was a moment,
I think where we saw Lori's mask slip a little bit because she
does get angry and combative and defensive when she's called out
on this lie. You know that he's got the
facts. He's yes, we have the Amazon
history, we have the dates. We know that you received the
rings. There's nothing that
manipulative people hate more than being confronted with an
absolute truth. And so of course, you know, I
think she had this story ready made probably, although I I
wouldn't put it past her to be able to kind of like make this
up on the fly. But I do think this probably was
already in her mind. This this dumb story about, oh,
that was for Alex and Zulema. Never mind the fact that they
didn't even tell Alex and Zulema to marry each other until much,
much later on. So, you know, obviously it's not
a real thing. She totally made it up.
But you know, this is, this is what liars and manipulators do.
Yeah, she, she has. She had a similar reaction on
one of her calls with Melanie Gibb, when Melanie kind of
catches her on a lie or says it confronts her about lying and
she kind of storms and and and basically hangs up.
I don't remember exactly the context, but I do remember the
reaction. Do you want to talk about it?
Yeah. So, you know, Melanie calls Chad
and Lori and and confronts them and says, you know, why did you
tell the police that JJ was with me?
You know, that was that was really, it makes me look really
weird. It makes me look, you know, like
I did something wrong. And, you know, then Melanie goes
on to basically call Lori a Cora whore.
And then Lori says, are you trying to rest the scriptures?
Are you trying to tell me, you know, what what to do or tell me
that I'm the one who's manipulating or lying or
whatever really calls her out? And yeah, they end up angry with
each other. But what is so interesting to me
about that phone call is that the entire time you can tell
Lori's getting upset and angry, but the whole time both of them
are saying, love you so much, I love you so much.
Yeah, I love you. And I just, I love you and I
just want you to be right. And I just want things to be
good between us, you know? I don't want you to be mad at
me. I'm not mad at you.
I love you. And it's it's super triggering
because this is what happens in my family all the time.
It's like I'm going to call you out for doing something wrong.
And you know, I'm not trying to offend you or upset you because
I love you so much, but I just want you to know that I think
this thing about you, it's just this is it.
It's just one of those tactics of like we, we don't know how to
handle conflict. We don't know how to to talk to
each other in a way that holds someone accountable for their
behavior. And that's why Lori and Alex got
away with what they got away with for their entire lives,
because nobody ever had a conversation with them where
they held them accountable for their actions, for their words,
for their lies, for their manipulation, for anything that
they did. Our family doesn't know how to
have those conversations in a real and respectful way.
They don't know how to communicate about conflict.
And so you're going to see this sort of covering up of like, I'm
going to tell you this thing, but I'm going to say that I love
you so that you won't be offended and upset because there
is nothing scarier then abandonment then having somebody
not like you or not think well of you or not see you in a good
light. And so that's the most
threatening thing. And that's that's the thing that
we're going to try to cover up and and try to make sure doesn't
ever happen is that there's no rupture of our relationship.
And you still think I'm a good person at the end of every
conversation? Can we go here, Here.
Megan, Megan, I, I agree with you.
I want to just quickly go back to the the ring thing.
The rings are important too, because I, I wish the Dateline,
yeah, the rings that they purchased on Amazon, because I
wish Dayline had brought this up too, that Lori and Chad didn't
just Lori didn't just buy the ring, she kept returning them
for different sizes too. We learned that like they were
returned and resized like, you know, she she didn't, you know,
keep trying these on Alex's finger and dilemma's fingers.
So they were resizing when I think in particular, actually,
it was Chad's ring. I had to keep getting smaller.
So once again, you can't roll a tire and his his ring finger
just kept getting smaller and smaller and and you know what
they say. So it was clearly Chad's ring,
as I just want to point out. We just keep wanting to hate on
Chad. It's the likable you.
Know I I think it's OK to hate on convicted killers just going
to put that out there for. Sure, absolutely, absolutely.
I put a new poll up. First of all, we've got 4400
people on this live stream, which is great.
Great. We're really grateful for this
audience. You know, please, I'm just going
to keep asking. Please subscribe to the channel
Mormon Stories along with Hidden True Crime and of second third
verse or midlife revolution. Please like this episode and
please comment on it because that's really going to help us
get these stories out and grow our respective channels.
I put a new poll up and I don't know if you all have seen this
yet, but the poll basically is asking if if Chad and Lori had
been Catholic or Presbyterian or Lutheran, you know, do you think
this murders, these murders would have happened?
In other words, you know, did these murders happen?
Is the Mormonism aspect crucial to the story overall and, and to
the, to the murders? So I'm, I'm not going to have us
answer that because I'm going to come to that in just a second,
but I definitely want to hear the audience's feedback.
As of now, 400 and 500 people have voted. 73% are saying no,
the murders would not have happened basically if Laurie and
Chad had been like a basically Protestant Christians.
In other words, it's the Mormon doctrine and theology and
culture that were important tipping points to these people
that clearly had issues actually becoming murders.
So I'm going to let the audience opine in the chats and with the
poll before we as a panel discussed that.
But I just wanted to put that out there as a teaser.
Let me go to a couple more things that were disturbing to
me. It was clearly disturbing when
the investigator shows up and sees Alex and Chad unloading a
pickup truck. And, you know, he notices that
Alex was nervous and he asks Chad for Laurie's number.
And Chad says he doesn't know Lori's number because because
the investigators looking for Lori's children, that was deeply
troubling. And it makes me feel like they
certainly got the verdict right with convicting a Chad of
murder. There was also the, the evidence
that when when once Lori and Chad know that that the
investigators are looking for the children that Chad calls
Melanie and tells her not to pick up and that Lori calls
Melanie and says that she told the investigators that JJ was
with her and that Melanie felt betrayed.
But I, I was curious if y'all had reactions to those pieces of
evidence. I know y'all know the story way
better than me, but that stuff was just like guilty, guilty,
guilty, guilty. Anything y'all want to add to
that? If not, I can just jump on, move
it to the next point, anything. Well, I just think that was, I
think that was a telling moment. You know, the the detectives
relating that they, they already knew that Lori and Chad were
married. They already knew that Lori and
Alex were super, super close as brother and sister.
And yet when they ask Alex for the phone number, he says he
doesn't have it. And Chad says, I don't know Lori
very well. You know, if that was me as an
investigator, I would have been like, you know, that's, that's a
super big red flag right there. You know, that that might have
been a moment where where I would have said, OK, everybody's
lying to me at this point, you know.
So I think that was, that was obviously super telling.
And then, yeah, to have, I hated seeing Melanie Gibb, by the way.
I, I, it's very difficult for me to listen to her talk because I
think she knows way, way more than she is ever going to be
willing to say publicly. I think that she has a lot more
information that could help, It could help us understand better
what happened to the children and exactly when and those those
kinds of things. So I, I, it's hard for me to
listen to her talk about the things that she will talk about
because I have other things that I would, I would love for her to
say everything that she knows. However, I will just say I'm
grateful for what she has told us.
I'm grateful that she did finally come forward and tell
the police, hey, I lied to you. I didn't really have JJ.
But yeah, that was definitely another very telling time of,
you know, of them finding out that that Chad called and said,
hey, don't, don't tell people, don't tell the police J JS with
you, don't tell him that we lied to you or whatever, whatever it
was that they exactly said anyway.
Let me let me let's follow up on that cause a lot of comments are
coming in one comment in particular and I'm going to put
this up as a poll. Valerie says I will always feel
Melanie Gibb may have saved the kids had she spoken up sooner.
She knew being declared dark was a death sentence.
A lot of other people are saying Melanie was complicit.
You know, is that what, what do y'all think?
Is Melanie potentially to blame? Culpable.
Nel Nel Nelp says Melanie is culpable.
I mean, isn't there more people than Melanie like that were
around the circle like Suleima or what's what's the niece?
Laurie's niece Laura, And you're muted.
Yeah, but there were only two people inside Laurie's townhome
when JJ was murdered. Two people who were texting
Laurie and Chad in the middle of the night at 2:00 AM and then
claiming later that they just had a bad nightmare.
Two people who knew J had been declared a zombie that night,
knew something horrendous was happening, even tried to open
Laurie door at 2:00 AM but found it locked.
I will not be able to get over that.
And I will never believe their story of just being asleep and
waking up because David Warwick, you know, this middle-aged man
had a nightmare and needed a blessing from Chad.
And it was so intense. Their need was so intense that
they were, you know, wiggling Lori's door at 2:00 AM and
texting them both. They knew exactly what was
happening. And they have, you know, they've
been protected to tell their story.
And I I will never, ever. Be okay with the many people and
I'm sorry to Gerardo, I'm sorry to like cut you off this stuff.
Like clearly that was like all emotion on my part to cut you
off Gerardo. I'm I'm sorry because like I get
so angry. But but going back to what you
were saying before I cut you off, Gerardo, and you can start
again, is yes, there were many people dilemma, many, many
people involved that did nothing.
But Melanie Gibb even had Charles coming to her crying.
She shared this on a recorded phone call with Sherry Doddle,
and she said, yeah, Charles came to me crying, you know, not
knowing what to do. And I said I didn't know what to
tell him. You know, he said help me, help
me, but I didn't know. And then Sherry Donnell says,
well, did Lori kill Charles Valo?
And she said, well, yeah, but, you know, for self-defense
reasons. But but but yeah.
And then Zulema going back to Gerardo, what you're saying
Zulema saying that it was a Nephi and Laban ending to
Charles's death. So many, so many people knew
that carried this belief system and did nothing.
And I'll let you finish now. Gerardo.
Sorry. That was like pure like, are we?
Saying Melanie, are we saying Melanie probably knew the kids
were going to die and did nothing?
Oh, we that's. What I'm saying?
Go, go ahead, Lori. What?
No, that that's what I just said.
And I, I will boldly state that is that.
We said is our opinions, These are our opinions.
These are our opinion. This is my opinion.
This is my opinion and my speculation.
Looking at all of the evidence sitting in both trials, watching
all of Melanie Gibbs full police interviews that she gave that
they're on YouTube, watching her testimony, knowing her alibi,
seeing the inside of this town home on video, knowing that it
wasn't big, knowing that they were there, listening to the
podcast they gave that night. It is absolute speculation.
I wasn't there, but it is speculation with a lot of
evidence that I have heard over the years.
I do believe she knew the children were in danger.
That's so dark. I agree.
I, I totally agree. I, I think, I think all of the,
the people who called themselves the seven gatherers or whatever,
you know, all of the people who were in that inner circle who
were doing castings on Charles. That's the part of this part of
Laurie's trial, of this trial that I want to, I want to know
all the information about how much they knew when they knew it
just prior to Charles's death and then after Charles's death
as well. Their behavior, the way that
they acted and interacted with each other, what communication
went back and forth. Because I absolutely believe
that they knew that when Chad some said someone was dark, it,
it meant death, especially, especially after Charles.
And so anybody who was doing a casting for the kids or who
heard Laurie or Chad refer to either one of the children as
dark, I think they absolutely knew what was going to happen
and they did nothing and they said nothing.
And I wish that they would all be held accountable.
But as I always have to point out on my channel is that law
enforcement, prosecutors, they're always going to look at
likelihood of conviction and they've already got convictions
in these three murders, you know, And so they're probably
not going to take a look at Zulema and both of the Melanie's
for prosecution for those reasons, which is infuriating.
But it, you know, it is my opinion as well that they
absolutely knew. They absolutely could have done
something. They could have said something,
they could have spoken up and they chose not to.
And I think the reason they chose not to is because that
would have meant losing their status in this little cult and
losing face and possibly confronting the fact that
they're believing in stuff that's not real.
And they have to deal with the fact that they've been duped and
they've been manipulated and they've been lied to.
And while that is a difficult thing to admit, what's the
alternative? The alternative is that people
die. Yeah.
Period. Absolutely.
Well, that's that's just dark and it's kind of unthinkable.
The people can get in this kind of fantasy mindset where they're
doing the Lord's work and they're aware that children are
going to die and they just choose not to do anything.
I just can't even imagine it. I put out the poll.
We're doing a lot of polls today.
I put out the bold poll. Did Melanie Gibb know the
children would be murdered and opted to do nothing?
So far, 300 people have voted and 86% say yes.
They believe that Melanie Gibb knew the children would be
murdered and opted to do nothing, which is just kind of
sickening and mind blowing. Do we know you?
Received any kind of immunity to testify or no, we don't know.
I don't know. For I don't think we know for
sure. I think there's been speculation
that both Dilemma and Melanie were offered some kind of
immunity, but I don't know. Lauren, do you, do you know
anything? I think it came out in trial
that, yeah, she was offered. Oh wow.
That Zulema was or Melanie, or both.
Melanie, possibly Zulema too. OK, actually let me take that
back on Zulema. I, I don't know.
I don't know. My my memory is not good enough
to say. If anybody knows in comments, I
probably knew one time and I'm trying to blink.
So, so the next part and and I think no one's ever going to be
able to dissuade me of my opinion here.
I'm waiting, I'm waiting for the part and again, I the the facts
of this case come and go for me because I just haven't been able
to internalize them, fortunately, unfortunately as
much as y'all have. But I was waiting for the point
where Alex dies and somebody is blamed and even arrested for
Alex's murder. And instead what the narrative
said in this in this show was that Alex just randomly Laurie's
brother, I should say, who is likely the murder of several
people. Alex collapses and dies and I'm
thinking surely Zulama was going to be convicted for Alex's death
and instead they just say Alex died of natural causes, likely
blood clots. And I'm just going to say in my
mind there is a 0% chance that Alex dies of natural causes.
It's it has to be that he was poisoned under lawyer and or
Chad's direction to get the witness, you know murderer
witness out of the way and yet the show just wanted me to
believe that he just randomly magically died of blood clots.
Do do y'all have opinions about this?
Am I crazy or are there legitimate suspicions that he
was murdered and they just didn't want to say it or what?
Help me out here y'all. Legitimate suspicions, even as
much as the prosecution bringing it up in trial.
We heard a really a fascinating piece of evidence at Chad
Dabell's trial this last year where we can call him the Ian,
Ian Pawlowski tapes and Ian who married Melanie the the niece of
Lori Valo. So Melanie isn't somebody else
that I think has, you know, been speculated that she should have
also been charged or arrested. That's also been speculated.
So she she was she was the ex-wife of Brandon Boudreau.
So Ian Pawlowski marries Melanie and then Ian Pawlowski is like,
wait a minute, what did I just marry into?
Freaks out after Brandon, after the attempted murder of Brandon,
goes to police, suggests that he is afraid children are in
danger. Melanie Gibb then goes to
police. They all start talking at the
same time. I wonder why because they all
know. So within one day, Melanie
Polowski, Ian Polowski and Melanie Gibb are all talking to
police. Like once one person snitches,
they all snitch. So they all start going to
police. And Ian Polowski, like allegedly
terrified about what he's just gotten himself into, says FBI.
You know what? I will start secretly recording
my new wife and all of her friends and Chad and he does
that and we heard some of those recordings at the trial and one
of them is the day after Alex Cox dies.
And there to me it sounds like an absolute cover up.
Chad is on the phone and everybody's talking and
everybody's saying like, you know, just get did do you have
his belongings? Did you get this or you got this
like and then Melanie Polaski said something like, well, I
don't want Brandon to know that Alex just died because it's
going to give him some ammo and let's just keep this on the DLI
mean. That was the moment where I
thought if there was any doubt in my mind, which there was some
doubt, weird coincidences happened.
Hearing that recording a trial erased all that doubt.
Yeah, I just asked ChatGPT, which, you know, take it for
whatever it's worth, is ChatGPT if a pulmonary embolism can be
made to look natural? And the answer according to this
is yes. And it could be nearly
undetectable in an autopsy. There's several ways a person
could be convertly induced into developing a pulmonary embolism,
which was what was determined to be the cause of Alex Cox's
death. And he says possible external
induction, like administering a pro coagulant drug or substance
and certain drugs or toxin can increase blood clot clot
clotting. And basically, you know, it
gives several options, but it basically says that all of these
would be would be nearly undetectable in an autopsy.
So when we know that there was some talk about, you know, Chad
saying before Alex died, get kind of getting getting him
prepared or trying to convince him that he was that his time on
this earth had or where it was coming to an end.
Wasn't it some type of patriarchal blessing, priesthood
blessing kind of thing? Yeah.
You will.
You will never ever be able to convince me that Alex's death
was natural. Not, not ever.
You know, one day after Tammy's body was exhumed, immediately
after this patriarchal blessing that Chad gave him that
basically told him that he'd done his work well and that it
was OK for him to move on to the next life or to the next
mission, was the implication. It was a bilateral pulmonary
embolism, meaning in both lungs. And OK, I will say yes.
You know, in the family there is somewhat of a history of blood
clots, Laurie and and Alex's. You know, my grandmother Novell
died of a brain aneurysm. So there was some speculation in
the family about that. However, again, Gerardo is
correct, there are lots and lots of ways that a pulmonary
embolism could be caused that would be undetectable.
And just to just to silence everybody who's speculating in
the chat, yes, Alex had an autopsy.
Yes, it was ruled natural causes due to bilateral pulmonary
embolism. Yes, his body was cremated, but
they did reserve blood and tissue samples in case they
needed to test something in the future.
But you can't just do, and yes, a tox panel was done, but you
can't just do a tox screening for everything.
You know, like there's a general panel that they do that's
standard for autopsies. But if you want to look for a
specific toxin or a specific drug or a specific poison, you
have to specify that you want that specific thing to be
tested. And they can't just test for
everything. So yes, 100% there's a
possibility that someone could have introduced some kind of
toxin into his food or his bloodstream, or he could have
done it himself that would have caused him to have pulmonary
embolism and then it would be undetectable.
So the timing of it is way too suspicious.
You know, for people saying he was young and healthy, he was
51. He was an over the road trucker.
So that's kind of what you know, some other people have said
that, you know, when you're an over the road trucker, you can
get DVT, which can cause blood clots and things like that.
OK, fine, fine, fine. But he was a killer who was
directly responsible for the deaths of several people
directly involved. And then, you know, he was
saying to Zulima, I think I might be their fall guy.
And then a day later, he's dead. So that to me is just there's
too many things in there that it that it's not a coincidence
anymore. All right, that's good, because
I felt like I was losing touch with reality for a second.
We all do. Whenever we look at the case,
you know, it's just like, what? What kind of a world am I living
in where this kind of stuff is possible?
Yeah, so and y'all jump in anytime if you got something
else you want to say. So when when they show, when
they got to the point about them sitting by the pool, obviously I
was hoping that they were going to mention the Visions of Glory
book that was under Laurie's knee.
There was no mention of the visions of Glory book.
I can totally understand that a secular national news story is
going to have to keep the story focused.
And then maybe that's the detail that they did a rat, a rabbit
hole they didn't want to go down.
But but Lauren, you're, you're raising your finger.
Jump in, Lauren. Keith did ask me a lot of
questions about Visions of Glory.
Oh wow. We did talk and I read from the
book and we he did talk about putting it in.
I did hear before they didn't have a room, but I do think that
they were planning on it originally.
OK, well, that's good to know because that's, you know, I
don't think we ever want to do an episode without calling out
the fact that the one you know, the the one through line.
Well, there are a couple through lines through the Tim Ballard
story, the Ruby Frankie and Joe, you know, story and the Chad and
Lori Dabel story. I guess one through line is Jodi
Hildebrandt, but another through line is the Visions of Glory
book and Tom Harrison. And until that book gets stamped
out and killed and denounced and burned and Tom Harrison is
punished. Not that we want anyone to be
punished per SE, but I think we all will continue agreeing that
maybe our band should be called Visions of Glory.
Because until that book goes away, we're going to keep seeing
true crime things happening. And a lot of this stuff comes
from that book, that awful book that we know Tom Harrison is is
behind. Any disagreement or comments on
that? Or should I keep going?
Got a couple more things. I think we've done 8 hours on
the book, but I'm, I'm just always going to, I'm always
going to call it out because it is harmful.
It is tied to all these other people who have done horrible,
atrocious things. And there are still people out
there who think it's a great book.
There are a couple of YouTube channels out there right now
where they read the book and talk about it.
And, you know, I think I have addressed this somewhere, but I
don't remember where. So forgive me if I'm repeating
myself. But I think one of the reasons
why Mormons especially like that book is because it validates
some of their beliefs. And it makes them feel a little
bit better about believing the way that they do about the end
times and about, you know, the life after this one.
So I think people who like it are biased to like it because it
confirms the things that they believe.
But there's so much harmful in it.
And again, it glorifies justifiable homicide, just like
the Book of Mormon does. I just think visions of glory
needs to go away forever. Yeah.
And for those who don't know, it's sort of this apocalyptic
Mormon Christian fan fiction end of times scenario from a Mormon
perspective where calamity comes to the earth and people who
store up food and weapons and ammunition are saved.
And they all culminated in Salt Lake City and Jesus and Joseph
Smith come to the temple that's in Rubbles or the visitor
center. And it's just, it's just a
millennial Mormon slash Christian apocalypse porn
wrapped into a book that unfortunately just a lot of
people believe so. I'm seeing a comment by Rose
here, and she says nothing is harmful in the book.
What about the part I read to Keith Morrissey where it says
that in the in the last days we get to act as God and kill
people if we see that they're dark.
That's kind of like, you know, not the greatest.
And of course, go ahead. What a ridiculous position Rose
has. I don't Rose.
I'd like to be respectful to my viewers and listeners.
Rose says. Nothing is harmful in the book.
OK, let me just say the quote then.
OK, let me just say the quote from the end of the book that
says as they were going around gathering people, they would
come up against these groups that would want to fight them
and would want to combat them. And they could tell whether or
not those groups of people were righteous.
They could tell whether or not those groups of people were
going to repent or not. So here you have someone who's
not God, who's not Jesus, judging the hearts and the
intents of other people. And if that was not bad enough,
what they say is that we could tell if they were past feeling,
if they were not going to repent.
And if they were not going to repent, we were free to deliver
them from mortality. In other words, we were free to
kill them if we believed they were never going to repent and
their death would be a blessing to them because then they
couldn't rack up any more sin on their divine Ledger.
If that's not harmful, explain to me how it makes me angry.
We just, we just, we lit up Megan.
Megan's on fire. We got it.
We got caffeinated Megan here. You have, you have angry Megan.
You have Megan who has listened to people try to defend and
justify this book that literally says it's OK to kill people.
My family members are dead because of that book.
Tell me how that's OK. It's not.
Yeah. Thank you, Megan.
Thank you. All right, well, I'll, I'll jump
now to, for me, one of the most bothersome parts of the whole
interview. I think it was when an
investigator was being interviewed towards the end and
he said this crime was about money, sex and power and the
religion was only tangential. Y'all probably knew that I was
going to not like that. I'm going to just highlight
really quickly the Mormon teachings that I think.
Some of the Mormon teachings that I think contributed to to
these murders, the belief that Mormons are special, that
they're special above all other people on the world, and that
individuals can be so special that they're favorites of God
chosen to usher in the second coming, like that is very
Mormon. It comes from Isaiah.
It comes from the Doctrine and Covenants, the whole one mighty
and strong stuff, and just the whole Mormon Christian
exceptionalism stuff. I think that contributes to to
Chad and Laurie's delusions. I think the belief in Mormonism
that your thoughts and feelings are the Holy Ghost.
That comes right out of the Book of Mormon when Nephi is told to
chop Laban's head off because he gets the thought or the feeling
that he should. This idea that the Holy Ghost
speaks to you through your thoughts and your feelings is
absolutely a recipe for for crime and murder because we all
have a dangerous or disturbing thoughts.
As someone who has a PhD in psychology who studied OCD, we
have horrendous all of us have horrendous thoughts that come
into our brain or horrendous feelings that come into our mind
at one point or another. And if at any point we're under
the delusion that those might be God or or divine angels speaking
to us, horrible things can happen just by that alone.
The idea that our bodies can be possessed by evil spirits, which
then led to the zombie derivation doctrine was clearly
behind this. If there wasn't the belief that
evil spirits are among us and that they can possess bodies,
which is a very Mormon and a very Christian teaching, which
is also very much reinforced in the Visions of Glory book, by
the way. But Jesus himself teaches it in
the New Testament. It's in the doctrinal covenants,
it's in the Mormon temple ceremony.
Joseph Smith taught it himself. Without the teaching of of
demonic and spirit possession, these murders very well might
not have happened. The idea that death is no big
deal, that we should celebrate death because we get to go to a
better place in the afterlife, that comes straight from Joseph
Smith and it dismisses the the value of life if the next life
is more precious. I was a 15 year old thinking,
wait, let's let me get this straight.
If we murder babies before they come to this earth, according to
Joseph Smith, they all go immediately to the celestial
Kingdom. But if we let all those babies
mature to adulthood and then they sin and then they don't go
to the celestial Kingdom, the most charitable thing we can do
with babies is murder them to guarantee they're, you know, and
I thought that is a faithful orthodox believing Mormon 14 or
15 year old. So the, the idea that death has
no sting is absolutely a Mormon and a Christian doctrine.
And I think it leads to these helps contribute to these types
of crimes and murders. The idea that we all lived as
spirits before we came here and and that there might be multiple
mortal probations that that we could live on the earth multiple
times. And the idea that there's
polygamy. Those are all mortal teachings.
Sorry, those are all very Mormon teachings.
Joseph Smith not only taught polygamy, he practiced it.
Mormon apostles, prophets and revelators have taught about,
you know, probations and about eternal progression.
Again, without the teachings of polygamy, without the teachings
of of spirit, you know, eternal progression, Laurie and Chad
wouldn't have been able to have these deluded beliefs that maybe
they knew each other in formal in former lives and that maybe
they were meant to be together with Tammy in some sort of
celestial, you know, throuple those.
Those teachings wouldn't have been possible without Joseph
Smith's teachings of polygamy and eternal progression and and
spirit persistence in the plan of salvation.
The idea that any of us could have spiritual powers to speak
with the dead, to know the future, to know God's will.
Just that teaching of spiritual power or that we can get visits
from God or Jesus gives people too much power to then be able
to prey on other vulnerable people like Chad clearly likely
did with Laurie and others saying I speak with God, I, I
have special powers. I'm the one mighty and strong.
I have spiritual gifts. You need to listen to me.
This very well might not have happened if there weren't the
belief about spiritual gifts and, and, and basically
religions that denounce evidence, that denounce reality
and that instead prop up supernatural spiritual
worldviews predisposes religious believers to devalue and dismiss
evidence and instead to have conspiratorial mindsets that
that are not rooted in evidence and rooted in reality, but are
instead rooted in spiritual psychological fantasy.
Those are at play here. And then finally, it's very
Mormon to believe, even though the doctrine, even though the
articles of faith says we believe in honoring, obeying and
sustaining the law. The Mormon church has a long
history of disobeying the law and believing that prophet
Sears. Revelators in the church are
above the law. And whether that's the secret
polygamy that was going on the post manifesto polygamy, this
idea of bleeding the beast. There's a long history of lying
for the Lord. Gerardo, were you going to jump
in and say something? The SEC violations.
Yeah, the, the, the SEC violations the Ensign Peak
hiding, hiding our wealth from from the members and from the
world, masking and deceiving the IRS and the SEC with its
finances. The Mormon church has a long
history of, of deceiving and lying and breaking the law,
thinking that God's ways and the prophets ways are higher and the
war's ways are higher than man's ways.
And if that's all true, then why wouldn't members believe that
they can also violate, deceive, break the law and lie for the
Lord when they get these thoughts and these impressions
that come into their brain? So in all of these ways and in
many, many more, I do not think these murders happen with
schlubby Chad Daybell. And you know, we want to say
vixen Lori Valo, like otherwise they're just pedestrian kind of
loser people that are broken and and fraudulent and and
marginalized and discredited. It's the it's the secret
ingredient of super dangerous and I would add deadly
theological, spiritual and religious beliefs that make that
turn this series of events from just silly prepper apocalyptic
Larping to the death of at least four if not more 456 people.
That's my view. It it seems like over 70% of you
voted that that these murders would not have happened without
the Mormon component. That's my rant.
Sorry I went on that rant. Who wants to jump in and and
disagree with me or agree with me or share your own
perspectives? I get one rant.
Can I have one rant per episode? I love your rants, John.
I, I will just say that, that lots of people have asked me,
you know, does Lori get here without Chad?
Does Chad get here without Lori? And I, I, I think the answer to
that is I, I, it's hard to say, of course, right.
You know, I think Lori had always talked about the next
life being better. She, you know, Colby detailed
the story where where she talked about driving all three of them
off a Cliff and Kylie saying, yeah, go ahead and do it, mom,
because she was young enough where she didn't really
understand the the implications of that.
So does Lori get here without Chad?
I think it's really possible, yes.
I can't answer whether Chad gets there without Lori, but I don't
think either one of them gets there without the beliefs that
you just described, John. So I'm just going to agree with
you in that way. Lauren and Gerardo, anything you
want to add? Yeah, I'll go ahead, unless you
want to go first, Gerardo. You can go you can.
Go ahead, Lauren. I I hear you, John.
I think it's so funny because I was actually making a list of
very specific LDS beliefs, but you did a much more thorough
list than I did. So.
So I concur with what you state are the concerning beliefs.
I also want to take it further though, and this is an
interesting part for me because I'm going to get those that are
XLDS thinking I'm an apologist and those that are of any other
Christian and denomination, they're going to be offended by
this. But I want to broaden this.
I am actually not going to be an apologist for the LDS church
because I don't think anyone should ever be an apologist when
children are being murdered. And I actually concur with what
you said, John, but here's my butt.
I I don't think I could not say that this goes further than LDS
beliefs. I want to read to you guys some
headlines. This is Thursday May 12th, 2022.
Mother accused of killing her children in West Hills, CA
believe they were possessed by demons.
Beautiful woman blonde looks just like Laurie accused of
killing her three young children inside her West Hills, CA home
believing they were possessed by demons.
Her teenage son helped her do it.
We have Matthew Coleman, the serf teacher, serf teacher who
killed both of his children by taking them across the border,
San Diego serf teacher to cross the border to Mexico, killing
them both because they had serpent DNA.
And we have a young girl. This was when we covered
heartbreaking, heartbreaking. Claudia Hernandez murdered her
child along Arlie what's her name.
She was three years old along with her father and brother in a
hours long exorcism inside of the church that the family owned
and tortured her and forcibly grabbed her neck, torso, back,
smothering her repeatedly tried to pry open her mouth to remove
the demon and killed her. So my point being is, and I
brought up terrorism and extreme beliefs.
If if we pinpoint extreme beliefs to one religion, we're
not doing justice to extreme beliefs in general.
And thus I am, I am broadening the criticism.
I am not excusing it because it is not OK to see this happening
over and over and over again, but extreme beliefs are
dangerous and they seem to be more prominent these days with
conspiracy theories online and not seen evidence for what it
is. And it is in the Bible that
children are possessed and you know it is in it is in Q Anon
beliefs that demon serpent DNA exists there extreme beliefs are
happening. And if we don't look at evidence
and I just I just feel like it's a broader conversation to
discuss and Christianity is susceptible.
Any religion is susceptible to extreme beliefs.
And when you start to believe in magical thinking, anything crime
can and does happen over and over and over again.
And that's why I'm broadening, broadening this conversation
because it's not OK. And religions are susceptible to
this. And I'm not discounting the
specific LDS theology, John, that you brought up, but I do
want to say there is theology in many sects of Christianity and
they should not be discounted. Absolutely.
Amen. And there could be new age woo,
you know, new age weirdness that that can lead to apocalyptic
things. Non Christian traditions can
also have it. Secular people can have
dangerous views. So it's not like I'm even anti
religion. I think we all just want to see
religions clean up their act, get rid of the harm, and then
just keep doing good. I think we all have that
motivation. I don't think any of us consider
ourselves anti Mormon or anti Christian.
I just think we want to see less harm being done.
I know just like this JJ Smith don't lump Jesus Christ into
this mess. No, I am He removed serpent, He
removed Jesus Christ and I have identified as a Christian myself
and other episodes. He did exorcisms on people and
he removed evil spirits. And if we can't look at this in
a broader area, if you are putting your blinders on and
deciding that it is only one thing to blame, you know, then
you're not you're doing a disservice to this issue as a
whole. I just, I hope that all of us
are humble enough to look at our own belief system here and to
see how maybe we can step back and realize that any belief
system can can be very dangerous.
It can also be beautiful. Christ also taught love one
another and to not judge. He also did exorcisms.
So I just think we need to be honest with what we believe and
how in the wrong hands, beliefs can be extreme and very
dangerous. Yeah.
And I'll just yeah, that that's, I mean, that's so powerful.
And you, you are Christian, Lauren.
So it's not like you're hating on Christ.
And by the way, for those who haven't thought about this a
little bit, you can still believe Jesus.
Jesus was divine. But maybe just whoever wrote the
Bible got that story about Jesus casting the pigs out of the
casting the evil spirits out of the man, and then the evil
spirits going to the pig pigs and then the pigs run off the
Cliff. Like you can still believe Jesus
was divine and just say hey maybe whoever wrote the Bible
got that story wrong. Maybe they interpreted it wrong?
Yeah, it's interpretation. It's interpretation.
And, and trust me, the, the, the LDS faith that I was raised in
never talked about harming children or casting, you know,
you know, demons and children. I know.
And I'm, I'm talking for myself, not others in the LDS faces.
So let me clarify. Like that was my interpretation
growing up. That doesn't mean others didn't
weren't taught those beliefs, but any as you point out, it's
all interpretation and you just we just have to understand that
extreme beliefs start in a magical belief system and it it
it might be interpretation. And if it's interpretation, are
you interpreting it wrong? If it's interpretation, should
we like process this together and talk about this and and
explain how like 1 belief that might be beautiful to you and
make your life better to be really damaging to somebody
else? Like that's a conversation to be
had. Yeah, we have to be able to have
it. I agree.
And I just want to add to, you
know, to what you're saying, Lauren too, that, you know, I, I
totally agree with what you're saying.
And thank you for the challenge for all of us to examine our
beliefs and to see where they might be harmful to someone
else. I guarantee you every single one
of us has a belief right now, whether it's religious or
otherwise, that's harmful or damaging to someone else.
The other thing I want to point out is that religion and
particularly high demand religion is dangerous in the
hands of mentally ill people. And so I will just say people
with personality disorders, people with narcissistic
tendencies, people with traits of narcissism, all of those
people are going to have an element of extremism to any
religion that they come to. And so, you know, that's one of
the reasons I'm so passionate about educating people about
narcissism and manipulation and control, coercive control
tactics, because in the hands of the wrong people, you know,
religion and other high demand systems can become really
problematic for for people with these types of traits.
So we need to all be aware of what the traits are and how to
defend against them. And we all need to be aware of
our own traits that tend to narcissism.
We all have jealousy, spite, anger, all of these things that
that made Laurie and Chad what they are.
We all have elements of that in ourselves.
And if we don't confront those traits and address them and
learn how to be healthier and to interact in healthier ways with
people, we're all in danger of harming someone.
Absolutely. Thank you and sorry, I just keep
going back. I think this is maybe just like,
I just want to say this too. You know, there was somebody it
was pointed out in the chat and and I'm going to read it.
Rose. I think we called Rose out
earlier, but I actually have compassion for this comment.
Rose, she says is, is Lauren LDS?
Is she not going to stand up for our faith?
And so, so I want to say something to you.
I, I think I, I, I, I might be the only one that still remains
LDS with my, my membership here. Not that I want to really talk
too much about my personal beliefs.
It's something I steer clear of. I just always make it known sort
of when covering this case because I feel it's only fair to
be journalistic and honest. The LDS faith that I grew up in
could never have fathomed this case, and if you want to know
why I have been, you can call it obsessed with this case for 5
1/2 years. It's because when I opened the
first AP article that I read, that was The Wire.
It came down that they're missing children.
I saw a Deseret book author. And a beautiful blonde woman who
looked like all of my friends mom's growing up and, and they
were like, we're looking for these two and they're missing
children. I thought, what in the world and
I, I couldn't. That was December 2019.
And I at that moment realized I have to figure this out and I
have to understand it because there is no way that this is
happening in the faith that I know that I love, that gave me
comfort as a child, that made me feel like Jesus Christ loved me
and that, you know, my family was going to be together forever
and taught to be kind and we're all brothers and sisters.
Like this is foreign to me. And so for the past five and a
half years, I have been trying to understand this to the point
where we're here today. And I have, I have been a true
journalist and I have discovered all of those things you just
stated, John, that are my beliefs that I grew up with that
like maybe I didn't process that.
I refuse to see that I had blinders on.
And I have found some deep humility in the way that I was
raised versus other people versus what my faith really did
and does teach. And I have opened myself to
understanding how certain beliefs that I maybe thought
were beautiful can actually be really, really harmful.
And that's been really valuable for me.
And I would hope that anyone here with any belief they have,
whether you are evangelical or Mormon or ex Mormon, that like
we have enough humility when people are starting to be harmed
over and over and over again that we take a look at how even
if it, it would never affect us. And even if the book Visions of
Glory inspired you. Because I, I think it has
inspired people and they didn't read that one, you know, I
think, and even if the Book of Mormon has inspired you, you
know, Laban and Lemuel and that story is in there too.
It's problematic. Bible has a lot of problematic
stories. Like even if you think, no,
it's, you know, it's the other, it's the other person's problem.
It's the Mormons who aren't Christian.
It's, you know, this crazy offshoot of Mormonism.
It's Christianity. I mean, it's so easy to say that
it's not our belief. And I would just hope that if
children are being murdered over and over again, and I read you a
lot of headlines from a lot of different faiths, that maybe we
just sit back and eat some humble pie and process how
extreme beliefs happen and how maybe we can not be part of the
problem but help it. Love it.
Hey, man, lots of love coming in the in the comments for you
Lauren and for you Megan Perardo.
You can't get away without sharing your views on on the
Mormon Christian angle here. So give it to us.
Yeah. Well, I, I mean, there's very
little extra that I could say other than just agree with
everybody here that, you know, definitely Mormonism play a, a,
a key role in, in all of this. And, and the teachings and, and,
you know, Laurie and Chad's theology could not have been
possible if Mormonism wasn't there.
And, you know, it, Mormonism was a kind of have this perfect
recipe with the with the perfect key elements to sustain a more,
you know, crazy narrative or advanced theology that that that
Chad created and that Lori believed in it and that others
believed in, you know, like Slema and Alex and Melanie, they
all believed in it and they all were raised in mainstream LDS.
So there was, there was something there that that
brought this to happen. You know, and I, I, I agree with
with Lauren that there are these type of cases in, in a lot of
other religions as well. It is kind of interesting that
Mormonism keeps breeding this type of people.
You know, we have Ruby, Frankie, Jodi, Hildebrand and and others.
You know, we, we, we don't go by a few months without seeing a
headline of a Mormon healing their spouse and, and, and those
sort of cases. So.
And Gerardo, if I could just add, I, I've had many clients
come to me and tell me that, you know, either they received
revelation that their spouse was going to die or their spouse
received revelation that they were going to die.
For some reason, it's very, very common in Mormonism her spouses
to re receive revelation that the other is going to die and
often times to have insurance policies accordingly.
I just want to say it happens a lot.
Not to mention all these deaths of wives of Mormon dentists.
You know what I mean, orthodontist.
But go ahead, Gerardo. I just want to throw it in
there. Yeah.
Well, that, that that's, that's all.
That's all I I I'd wanted to add.
OK, Yeah. What one, one piece that that I
think was alluded to that I would add to my rant is the
belief that the the response to the behavior that is coming from
allegedly demonic possession isn't taking them to the ER or
to the behavioral health unit or to the psychiatrist.
It's priesthood blessings. Like we know that Jodi
Hildebrand, when she claims she was having demonic possessions,
they didn't take her to the UNI up at the University of Utah to
admit her to the psych ward. What did they do?
They called the Mormon Bishop and the Mormon Bishop tried to
heal her and he couldn't. We know that they were calling
Brad. What's I always forget his name.
What's the Young Men's presidency member?
Brad Wilcox. They were calling Brad Wilcox.
They were calling Jeremy Yagi, a general authority for the Mormon
Church. They were having Kevin Frankie
perform priesthood blessings. If you or your loved one is
experiencing demonic possession, take them to the ER.
Take them to the behavioral health unit at your local
hospital. Do not call your ministering
elders. Do not call your home teachers.
Don't call your Bishop. Don't call grandpa.
Don't call the patriarch. Take them to the ER.
You can save a life that way. Those children of Ruby Frankie's
may not have been tortured if Jodi Hildebrand had been taken
to the UNI at the University of Utah.
And these children and these adults may not have died if, if
Zulema or Melanie or whoever, once they heard Chad or or Lori
talking about spirits and possessions and light and dark
and zombies, if they just hadn't been turned into the police or
taken to the loony bin, to the mental health units.
I think we've made the point. OK, to close out this interview,
there are a couple other dark or weird things that I noted. 1 11
was just just this revelation that for both the deaths of JJ
and Ty Lee, the investigators felt like they were two person
jobs. Was that that probably wasn't
news to any of you. Is that correct?
That that for everyone on the panel was pretty obvious that
both of those murders were likely to be and probably I
don't know about Tammy, but but did you all agree that both the
JJ and the Ty Lee murders were likely two people jobs?
Yes, and, and they said that about Tammy as well.
And my Uncle Rex pointed out that Alex was pretty incompetent
unless he had help, you know. And so he was alone in the, in
the attempted shooting of Brandon Boudreaux.
He was alone in the, in the initial attempted shooting of
Tammy. And he messed both of those up
at any time. He had help.
He was successful. Well, that's a good point.
Anything you want to add to that, Lauren?
No, Yeah, but what? Megan said.
I'm getting called up for using the term looney bin.
It's just a little bit of rhetoric.
Of course. I mean, like I said, the
behavioral health unit of your local hospital or a
psychiatrist. I was doing a little bit of
rhetoric. Quack House.
Yeah, whatever. Yeah, there you go.
What about the part where Lori says to Keith, when I, when I,
when I'm proven to be right, I'm going to tell you I told you so.
So there was sort of this hubris that she had.
Maybe we've already made enough points about Laurie, but but
there's that just moment where she's like, someday when you see
that I'm right, Jesus is going to save me and Chad, and then
I'm going to say I told you so, Keith, that that was just a
little bit over the top for me. Maybe we've already made that
point enough. Yeah, I mean, I sorry, I don't
want to interrupt you. Oh, please, Megan.
No, I just, I just want to say yeah, I mean, yeah, we, we've,
we've made the top, we've made the point.
So. Sorry, yeah.
And then and then maybe really disturbing was the end when
there's this joke about dancing and, and Keith says you're very
good at dancing, I think to Lori.
And Lori basically says, when I'm exonerated, when all this is
over, maybe I'll go on Dancing with the Stars.
Like we're talking about deaths of her own children, of people
close to of her own former husband, of other people to make
jokes about going on Dancing with the Stars was just so dark.
It was such a powerful way to end the interview.
It also it also made me wonder if he has she has been following
or or or heard about these other tribe of Froster figures, you
know, like Anna Delvy, who have gone out of jail and going
Dancing with the Stars. But that's just something.
I wonder when she said that. Yeah.
Yeah, it's just another, it's it's another testament to me
that she really believes that people love her and that she
really believes that she's going to be exonerated, get out of
prison someday and be a celebrity and everyone's going
to worship her. Yeah.
Lauren, any other final comments regarding any of that?
No, no. Concur.
Something that we didn't touch, touch John, was the idea.
What when she denies the doctrine of light and dark and
zombies, didn't that happen? When she's asking, she says no
other than not. We don't.
We don't believe that or that didn't happen.
Chad didn't rate light or dark. I did notice that, I just
chalked that up to her lying and denying all the facts.
Lauren, Lauren and Megan. Did y'all have any other
reactions to that? It was interesting.
If anything, I think it shows a little bit of even more
deception with her because she did once mention, oh, she
mentioned in Colby's interview with him, too, that she's like,
I've never mentioned zombies. That's not my thing.
And if you look back at her texts, she'll refer to them as
Z's. I'm like, oh, was she really
trying to avoid responsibility here?
Like, she knew what that meant and she wasn't texting it
because she certainly believed in it.
We've had witnesses testifying like Melanie Gibbs that she
actually absolutely called, you know, called Tylie a zombie and
that Melanie Gibb was there when Chad de Bell called Lori to say,
hey, by the way, Chad is or excuse me, Charles Ballow is Ned
Schneider, you know, in other words, zombie, you know, so I
think it's kind of fascinating thing, like is she just trying
to like avoid that word? And then the light and dark
scale that was taught to her, I think by Chad.
We have emails from Chad and it says, per your request, Lori,
here's your here's your whole family history.
And then he labels each person light or dark, complete with
decimal points. And it starts with like, this is
what you requested. So if she's not openly preaching
it, she certainly believes it. But I have wondered like is she
trying to avoid talking about light and dark and zombies to
kind of claim that she doesn't believe this?
It an interesting idea. There's also the, I mean, this
would be speculative, of course, and maybe a little bit
conspiratorial, but it did remind me a little bit of when
the LDS Church on their website says we don't believe that
people are going to have their own planets, you know, kind of
things. Or like the idea that when
you're talking to other people about your theology, you have to
talk to them about the milk before the meat.
Because if you, you know, talk about this terms like that,
there might Mr. they, they're not going to understand it
because they, they're not spiritual enough.
Or it'll make the OR it'll make the church look bad, right?
Yeah, so there's this kind of denial, even though they
actually believe that that more that there might become gods and
and, and create their own planets.
Yeah. All right, Well, really quickly,
what can we see, Lori? Lori's going to be representing
herself in this trial coming up. Lauren and Megan, I imagine
y'all will be covering it closely.
We'd love to have you back at important points.
We of course want to remind everyone to please subscribe to
Hidden True Crime YouTube channel.
Please subscribe to third verse slash Midlife Revolution Megan
Connor YouTube channel. They're both important channels.
Please support their good work. Lauren and Megan, will you all
be covering, I imagine, Laurie's trial and is there anything you
want to say about the prospects knowing that she's going to be
representing herself? Yeah, I'm glad you're bringing
up the trial. I think that a lot of people are
very fascinated for stuff I want to say because Lori is
representing herself, and that's certainly intriguing.
I'm just with everyone else, like, this is going to be quite
the show, like, what is going to happen.
But I also think this is also, this is about justice for
Charles Valo. And some people say, well, it
doesn't matter because she's behind bars forever.
I mean, justice is a theological, you know, this
justice isn't necessarily like, oh, she's behind bars forever.
What's this going to do? Is she going to be punished
more? Justice isn't about punishment.
Justice is about the belief in like acknowledging that what
happened to Charles, you know, isn't, isn't OK and for her to
be being held responsible whether she's already through
serving 3 consecutive life sentences or not.
And Charles Vallo sounded the alarm.
And if people had listened to him, he, you know, no JJ and
Kylie would still be alive. And Kate Woodcock, that is
Charles Vallo's sister. She has stated, you know, he was
the first one murdered. But she has stated that Charles
would have wanted it this way. He would have said, you know,
make sure that Ty Lee and JJ and the children and Tammy get just
his first, worry about me later. And that that's would have been
what Charles would have said and who he was.
And he, this trial is important for justice for Charles.
And I also think that we might see some really different
evidence in this trial. The evidence that has come out
already of Chandler, AZ and Gilbert, AZ is much different
than what the the evidence is in Idaho.
You have text messages between the Cox families, Summer and
Janice and Lori all discussing and seemingly possibly what did
they know? What did they not know?
It's going to be very interesting.
And of course, with Lori representing herself, I'm very
intrigued. I haven't seen her get angry in
court yet, but seeing how angry she got towards Keith Morrison,
asking all of the questions we want to know, I wonder how long
it's going to be before she loses it in in court.
So yeah, I plan to be there. I'm actually also heading to
Arizona for a hearing this week, and so I'll be seeing you there,
Megan and everyone else covering the trial.
Rebecca Lovelace, our friend is asking when?
When is the trial? Hey Rebecca, we love having you
with us. Lauren, Megan, when is the trial
again? So Lori has a status conference
on Tuesday and then jury selection is scheduled to begin
on the 31st of March. The prosecution has said jury
selection should take two weeks, but possibly 3, just 'cause they
don't know how Lori is going to behave during that, not really
knowing the process and the rules.
And then the prosecution has said they probably will take
about two weeks to present their case, but we don't have an
estimate yet from Lori on how long she thinks she will take.
So yes, the fact she's representing herself is
interesting and she has been respectful of the judge and the
process so far. She's filed several motions, all
of which have been denied so far.
I think Tuesday we're going to hear about the judge.
The judge is going to rule on the motion about whether or not
to allow court TV to have cameras in the courtroom and to
live stream the child. So we'll hear about that on
Tuesday and, and then we'll hear the judges actually has denied
all of Lori's motion so far to dismiss the case.
And so we'll just, we'll have to wait and see.
I, I agree with you, Lauren. She's, she has been even
tempered so far. But knowing how she responded to
Keith's questions, I think it's pretty likely that she could get
activated enough that the judge is going to say sorry, you're
going to have to be reassigned counsel, and you're not going to
be allowed to represent yourself anymore, depending on how she
goes. Yeah.
Does she want Court TV to be there?
She does not. She's very angry with Court TV.
She says that Court TV has been exploiting her and her husband
for a 24/7 commercial and that Court TV is taking advantage of
people and, you know, exploiting them for the tragedies that
happened in their lives. And now we know a little bit
more insight on what she means by that.
She basically is asserting that it's been a tragedy, that she's
lost so many people in her life and that the media likes to
twist it and turn it into crime. Interesting.
Well, I promised all our super chatters that I would go through
their questions or comments and share them.
Hopefully I'll do it really fast.
I want to remind everyone, please like this episode, we've
got still 4600 people joined. Please like this episode, please
comment on it. Please subscribe to Mormon
Stories podcast. Please share this, it will
really help get the word out. I think only, I think only 2000
people have liked the episode and there's over almost 5000
people watching. Yeah, so please, please take the
time really quick to like this episode.
We've Gerardo's been doing some analytics and he can show that
likes and comments are what drive the success of an episode
really quickly. Lauren and Megan and Gerardo
you've already given us 3 hours if y'all want or need to drop
off I will let I will let you do that now unless you want to stay
on and respond to a few of these super chats.
Lauren, Lauren, do you need to run or are you going to stick
around? I'll stick around for a bit.
I might. I might sneak out for a little
restroom break, but I'll just. OK.
Yeah. But I won't.
Yeah. Me and you're OK?
I'm the same I may I may have to sneak out for a restroom break
but I'll I'll stick around. Right.
Are you all right? Yeah.
OK. We're going to do these super
chats, hopefully really quick because we really appreciate the
donations that make all this possible.
So Destiny Salazar says Keith's body language was telling.
Seemed like he couldn't wait to leap out of his seat.
And I'm going to ask you guys as panelists, just jump in if
you've got responses or I'll just jump on to the next to the
next episode. Troublemaker Baker says these
are great observations for Megan.
Also, I think Troublemaker Baker is also Broken Baker on YouTube.
I'm told that I'm told that he trouble Broken Baker when he
finished his own episode about this stuff, he pointed people in
our direction. And if that's true.
Troublemaker Baker is actually a moderator on my channel and it's
AP and she actually does have a channel as well, but it is
Troublemaker Baker. Got it.
OK, well, thanks to Troublemaker Baker for her support.
We really appreciate it. And also thank you to Broken
Baker for their support. Really quickly, I told you all
that Nathan Hinckley was doing a service project and fixing up
the home of Anna Schreyer. The the The Assemblies of God
slash. What's the term?
Pentecostal. Pentecostal Yeah.
Story that we had. This is a photo of the chimney
before Nathan's work, and I believe his son's helping him
out, maybe his wife. This is them working on it.
And while we've been doing this episode, this is them finishing
the job and then this is them outside.
This is Nathan and I'm assuming family members along with Anna
Schreyer there in the middle. Again, we're sharing this just
as a way to share some light and some happiness in an otherwise
dark episode. Want to thank Nathan.
He's got a channel called The Bishops Interview on YouTube.
And we want to thank Nathan and his family for bringing a little
light into the world. So thanks.
Thanks again for that, everyone. All right, we'll go back to the
comments. Miss Mojo Rising says, do you
feel she resented blamed Ty Lee and JJ for holding her back, AKA
Laurie didn't want didn't want to be an actor.
I'm not exactly sure I understand other than Megan.
It looks like Miss Mojo Rising is just feeling like Lori wanted
more out of her life and that maybe Tylee and JJ were getting
in the way. What do you think about that
theory? Yeah, so she, she did want to be
a model. She she actually did some
modeling in her late teenage years, you know, had a portfolio
and and all of that. I don't know about her wanting
to be an actor, but it wouldn't surprise me if she wanted to be
famous. And I, and I do think that there
is an element in the relationship between her and
Tylee where she was threatened by Ty Lee's beauty, she was
threatened by Ty Lee's intelligence.
And there is this Jungian concept of the devouring mother,
the mother who refuses to allow their child to grow or to or to
learn or to have their own dreams or their own life.
And so the mother sort of hobbles their child's ambition
and their self worth and their self belief so that the child
doesn't outshine the mother. And I think that's probably a
lot of what happened in Lori and Ty Lee's relationship.
Yeah, that makes sense. And it's tragic and sad.
I mean, I guess another another thing is like religions
sometimes really push people and I'd say women to have kids that
maybe they wouldn't otherwise have or want to have.
You know, maybe, maybe, maybe we shouldn't push people to have
kids as much as as we do. Maybe some people shouldn't have
kids, you know? Some people should never be
mothers, that's absolutely true. Yeah.
And I think especially if if there are people who don't want
to be mothers, they shouldn't be socially pressured to be
mothers. Yeah, yeah, that's a really good
point. All right, let's see.
Troublemaker Baker says. Colby's response to the Dateline
interview is really interesting. He's a remarkable young man.
I totally love that comment, S Moore says.
Oh, his live last night on his live last night, Colby mentioned
how Lori blamed Ty Lee even before she was born that they
had a contentious relationship. So that's wow.
Colby mentioned how Lori blamed Ty Lee before she was born, that
they had a contentious relationship.
I don't even know what to make of that.
I think they're basically referring to the fact that, you
know, the whole time that Lori was pregnant with Tylee, she
would talk about what a struggle it was and how hard it was.
And so she blamed Tylee for lots of things throughout Tylee's
life and that they and that they had a problematic relationship.
All right, Missy Ann, thank you for the Super chat.
Same to you LLCDLCD writes never MO from Berlin Berlin Germany.
Big fan of you guys. I love how you discuss these
painful topics. I learned so much even though
this is far away from me culturally.
I imagine, Lauren, that your channel Hidden True Climb Crime
is overwhelmingly non LDS or never LDS.
Have you ever done a poll to find out what percentage of your
audience is either Mormon or ex Mormon?
Or do you even know? I don't know, but when it comes
to the day Bell case, there's certainly a lot more LDS
listeners than not and LDS and wonderful, you know, people, I
think with the same questions that I had, right.
I think this is certainly a case that makes many of us wonder WTF
and we're trying to understand it.
And yeah, when we cover this case, you know, and when I say
LDS, I want to say maybe I should say more ex Mormon,
active Mormon, both both sides of the spectrum for for good
reasons and great conversation because of it when it when it
comes to this case in particular.
How about you, Megan? How about your channel?
You know, I, I honestly don't know.
I suspect that it's probably I. I suspect that not many LDS
people watch my channel just because I do offer a lot of
criticism about the culture of the church and about the harmful
doctrines of the church. I I do offer you know my opinion
as an ex Mormon. So I doubt that many Mormons
want to tune into my channel, but I wouldn't be surprised.
I guess I just don't know for sure.
I'm doing a poll right now just to see if our current audience,
how much of it's LDS, former LDS, or never Gerardo, you'll
find this interesting as of 233 votes and I don't know how many
is statistically significant, you know, with the sample size
of 4400, but 78% are saying they've never been LDS.
That's, that's 3/4 of our current audience. 5% identify as
LDS of the current audience and about 20% are former LDS.
So. I wonder what the poll would be
like if you asked Mormon instead of LDS.
Interesting. Because that's a spectrum.
Yeah, well, I think LDS, former LDS are, are never LDS that I
think that captures pretty much everyone.
But I see what you're saying. OK, we'll keep voting.
Let's see if those numbers change.
Amor of Alessi says Gerardo is sage now.
What do you think, Lauren and Megan, what vote do you give
Gerardo as, like, a alternate panel?
I mean, we're never going to give up on Mindy.
Mindy's not going anywhere. Gerardo, I'm sorry to tell you,
Mindy's not going anywhere. But what's our vote for Gerardo
as a rotating substitute or panelist?
Do we want to? Do we want to raise our right
hands? All in favor of Gerardo as a
panelist? All in favor.
Well, I do have to say if if this is an audition for the
band, Gerardo showed up to the audition without a binder, which
is OK because, you know, that's Mindy's thing.
I do. I love, I love Gerardo's
insights and input. And you know, from the very
beginning, Gerardo, you've had some great insights on this case
and I really appreciate your perspective.
Thank. You.
Gerardo Gerardo knows the case. He knows the case.
So. I was just kidding.
All right. Beautiful.
Gerardo. Yeah, we agree.
Gerardo, you're amazing, Tracy says.
Do you think Chad believes? I think we already answered
that. Is that right?
Thanks for the Super chat. Susan Groom writes she told
herself these things so many times.
She believes all these visions and revelations.
That's Susan voting that. That Laurie believes her own
delusions or lies. Care 4 JCYT says she can't be a
bad person. So Kylie did it.
That's speaking to the sort of narcissism idea that narcissists
just don't take responsibility. They have to find someone to
blame. Again, y'all jump in at any
point. I'm just going through these.
Sally Osling says she's met her grandchildren in the spirit
world. Did y'all hear that one?
I didn't know that. Wait, what was that?
Oh yeah, my brain just called, she told.
Colby, she told Colby that she knew about her grandchild being
born and that she. Oh, right.
Yeah. You know, she is sort of similar
to, you know, talking to Tammy Daybell and, you know, knowing
what Tylie wanted and that she was happy.
You know, it's just like the same old.
So yeah, she she had relationships with her
grandchildren, too. Yeah, she told Colby that she
that she held her grandbaby and loved her and that the grandbaby
loved Lori. And I think that was sort of a a
dig to say Colby, you know, let me have a relationship with her.
I already know her. I knew her in the, you know, in
the pre existence. Yeah.
Gerardo, you say you got to run,
so no worries. We really appreciate you
spending 3 1/2 hours with us on a Sunday.
Yeah. Thanks everybody.
It was great. Yeah, thanks.
Gerardo, Mark. Wants to be home but I promised
our super chatters I would finish reading these so I'm
going to read them all. Take care Gerardo, have a great
day. You too.
Bye bye. So Missy Ann says Colby said
after his reaction that he thinks something is visiting her
but not Jesus. I believe you can invite
possession by things Lori did, like castings.
So that's Missy Ann and maybe Colby believing that she's
getting deceptive demonic visitors that she believes are
Jesus but really are satanic visitors.
And and Joseph Smith's own revelations and Doctrine and
covenants allow for deceptive spirits to visit you and even
gives you like a handshake test where if you're being visited by
an angelic visitor, you should shake.
This is literally in Mormon canonized scripture in 2025.
Joseph Smith says you should extend your hand.
If they shake your hand and you can feel a hand there, then
they're a resurrected being. So they're a real positive, good
resurrected Angel. If you stick out your hand and
they refuse to shake it, they're a good Angel that hasn't been
resurrected yet. So you should trust them because
they don't try and shake your hand, but they just haven't been
resurrected. If they go to shake your hand,
but you can't feel a hand there, then you know that they're a
demon. And that's the test according to
Joseph Smith. And I don't, I don't mean to
mock anyone's sacred religious beliefs, but like, that's Mormon
doctrine. Did you know that, Lauren?
Did you know that was in the Doctrine and Covenants?
I I have. I've heard that.
I think I've learned that from you in Mormon stories.
Yeah. Another maybe somewhere else.
Yeah, I think I've heard it, yes.
Any any thoughts? Do we think that Colby believes
that his mom is being visited by by demons?
By deceptive spirits. No, I don't think he believes
that he is he is Christian, but in recorded phone calls between
Laurie and him that they've even played in court.
No, he, he, he rebukes her for, you know, even kind of
suggesting that that she's getting visits from angels.
OK, All right, Nikki Peaches writes.
What do you all think of the use of temple images during the
episode? Do you think the Mormon church
will put out a statement basically trying to distance
itself? And thank you, Nikki Peaches for
the for the donation. No, I I think they've been
silent on this case up to this point.
I don't think they they probably don't see any reason to jump in
now and say anything at this point.
Is it unfair, Lauren to as the resident Mormon and I say that
just tongue in cheek. Is it is it fair that they
temple images are included? Do you think that's smearing the
church? I mean, wasn't Laurie a temple
worker up until the very end? Yeah, she was.
I mean, no, I don't, I don't think it's bad.
I mean, I have a lot of beliefs in what the church should do PR
wise. And I'm I'm and I'm when I think
that I think of like what would help them and it's making the
temple a lot more public and open.
So I don't think that's AI, don't think it's smearing the
church to have pictures of temples and inside the temple a
lot was a lot was happening in the temple.
So. Yeah, I went ahead and closed
the poll, but 74% of our audience today has never been
Mormon. Something like something like
20% or former Mormon and 7% are active.
LDSI love it. I love our active believing LDS
listeners. I love your feedback.
I love that you're listening. I hope you always feel respected
on Mormon Stories podcast. A Connors says.
Excellent discussion. Thanks for the Super chat.
A Connors Valahouk says you look at how Charles Manson was able
to brainwash his followers into killing innocent people and
children without even being there themselves.
So that's Vala just basically saying brainwashing is a thing
and you don't need to be there to be able to influence people
to murder. And I think that's objectively
true. So that's just The Dark World
that we live in. Jump in Megan or Lauren, if
you've got anything to add there.
Miss Mojo Rising says I would like to see all the cutting room
floor of the of the interview with Keith.
Do you think it's just rambling, Lauren and Megan, or do you
think there's good stuff? I mean, obviously I want to see
the full Lauren Matthias and Doctor John parts of the
interview. That's the stuff that I'm most
interested in because they're superstars.
But do you think other than that amazing portion, do you think
the rest was rambling or? And they would have included all
of it if it was good. Or no, I, I think it's probably
fascinating to many of us, but I understand too.
Like they Dateline is a storytelling platform.
They have a story to tell. They can't just play 90 minutes
of Lori Valo and you know, I, I or 90 minutes, I wish they
could. It would be nice if they figured
out a way to put more of it on their website for us to all
watch and learn from. But yeah.
And when I say learn from, I don't mean we're going to learn
life lessons from Lori. I mean, learn what in the world
could possibly, you know, she was thinking.
Yeah, I thought it was interesting when Keith pointed
out that that she was giving parenting advice and she was
talking about her parenting style.
But I think Keith also mentioned.
Using love and logic. Parenting logic.
Like Margie read that book. I'm like, what are you trying to
be like the perfect Mormon mom role model here?
Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt Megan.
No, that's OK. I think, I think she is, I think
she's trying to to still put out that narrative that she's a
great parent. But Keith did mention in one of
the post interview interviews that he will be going on the
Dateline podcast this Wednesday and he will talk more about some
of the other questions that he asked and and some of the other
things that Lori said. So maybe we'll get some audio.
OK, all right, I'll have to check that out, Dog Mom writes
In my own personal opinion. I thought Lori sounded very much
so like a Scientologist, not so much LDS.
Wow, that's a hot take, Dog Mom. And I'm not going to say that's
an invalid comment. Does that resonate with y'all
that she sounds more Scientologist than Mormon?
You know, I don't know enough about Scientology to know
whether that's really accurate, other than the fact that, you
know, Scientology teaches that we have some kind of alien being
inside of us that needs to be let out.
I I don't know. I I see things I think that Lori
Vallow's extremism you want. My personal belief comes from
multiple places, her Mormonism, but also some of her political
beliefs and some other kind of really strong extreme beliefs.
And I think that there's a little bit of a hybrid thing
going on with Lori and Chad that isn't addressed probably enough
in my opinion. I think that Lisa Tilly does a
good job of that in her book addressing it.
But yeah, the I think there's certainly a lot more to this
belief system. I'll just say then, LDS or
Christian beliefs. All right, OK, let's see.
The next comment is from Lisa. She was wearing the ring in
jail. I think that's Lisa.
Just either she noticed it or she's she's surprised about it.
But I guess, I guess there's talking they're talking about
the makeshift ring. Is that, is that what we're
talking about there, Lauren? She's wearing a ponytail holder
on her ring finger. And you know, they reminded us,
Melanie Gibb reminded us in the interview, the Dateline
interview, that there's no divorce for exalted beings.
So she and Chad are going to be together for the next, you know
how many forevers? That's that's fascinating.
It's still hard to believe that she really believes that her and
Chad are going to be whisked away by Jesus before the death
sentence. And I wonder if will will Chad
will face the death penalty. Is that right?
That's right. And if he does, I wonder if
Keith will go back and interview her at that point and see what
she has to say. I hope not.
Who cares what she has to say after that?
Yeah, that's fair, Jane Francis says.
The LDS Church is way past the time they should have condemned
visions of glory. I think everybody on this panel
would agree, correct? Yep, and they still can condemn
visions of glory. It's never too late to condemn
visions of glory. It's never too late to tell
faithful, believing LDS members they should not be going to
fringe conferences that are not supported by the official
church. It's never too late for the
church to come out and say these people took our beliefs and
twisted them and went too far. It's never too late for them to
say anything that would prevent the harm of more people.
Love it. Amen.
Thanks to Lauren Sinkinen for her super chat.
Jane Francis also writes Or possibly afraid of being
declared dark themselves. And next on the murder list.
I don't know what she's referring to there.
Do y'all know? It was too long ago, sorry.
OK, All right. Well, thanks Jane Francis for
the support. I don't know this comment
either. Artie Woodruff is saying dual
poll on Alex Murphy's. Retweet.
I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.
OK, sorry. I don't know what that is.
We have a vote from some nobody, but the band name needs to be
Visions of Glory. Is that too triggering y'all?
Yeah, I'm no, no, thank you. I thought that was hilarious.
It's funny. It's funny, but I don't think
we're going to stick with that one.
I think we should, maybe we should be, you know, based on
the interview, on the Dateline interview.
Maybe we should call ourselves Jesus's favorite.
I don't know, I kind of like Visions of Glory because it
gives some different SEO to, I mean, maybe helps it though.
I don't know, like, you know, redirects people.
Yeah, it redirects people. You know, like, wait a minute.
I love it. I love it.
OK, Lisa says total respect for Lauren's work and her candor,
and I think that also goes for Doctor John.
Lauren, y'all are doing great work.
Thank you. Can I, I'm going to say
something. I can tell a lot of people in
chat. I mean, this is like same old,
this is actually like for the past five years talking about
what I believe or how they don't think that they can believe what
I they can't believe what I believe or that I believe this
or that I don't believe this. Reddit's got like whole threads
on this. You're like an apologist that
you're, you're here. To I can tell you guys this,
nobody knows what I believe or. What?
You don't believe, right? Nobody.
Doesn't love it. Ron doesn't know.
Megan doesn't. No, just kidding.
Love it, Lauren. Yeah, but but go ahead,
everyone. Yeah, keep.
Speculating Lauren, you have such a good attitude about the
the haters and the critics. You'd you're having fun with
them. You're not getting offended or
hurt. Is that just journalist thick
skin or is that just your personality?
Probably a mix of both. OK.
Yeah, and everybody in the chat is saying now it was Visions of
Gory was the band name vote, not Visions of.
Glory. Glory.
I misread it. That's dark.
We'll have to be like a Scream death metal band if we're going
to call it Visions of Gory. Maybe we should call it
Delusions of Glory. OK, all right, all right, Emily,
Christina says, I just want to point out that people with
mental illness are much more likely to be victims of crime
than perpetrators. Chad and Lori are narcissists
and use religion to justify their actions.
Emily, that's a great point. I think it's mathematically
factual. So thanks for sharing that,
Emily. Thank you to see Peace for the
Super chat. Also, Raven Dahl writes just
because she does not want court TV at her trial is not a, I'll
say not a reason that judge should allow them to film the
trial. So I think she's saying it's not
necessarily true that the judge should allow them to fill the
trial just because she doesn't want it filmed.
Megan, as someone close to this, would you prefer it not be
filmed or would you prefer it be filmed?
You know, I I fight with myself about it because I stand by my
statement that I wish, you know, there would be no more
journalists and no more cameras in the courtroom because that's
exactly what Lori wants, right? And, and I'm just going to point
out to Lori wants to be in control of the narrative more
than anything else. And so she wants specifically
for court TV, not to be the ones to have cameras in the in the
courtroom, but I guarantee you she wants cameras there.
She wants, she loves the attention.
She, she wants to be filmed and photographed.
You know, I, it makes it easier for people like me who can't
physically be there for the entire trial if there are
cameras in the courtroom. So I'm for it.
I think it's a matter of public interest.
And I also think that it's, it's important for as we're doing
now, to speak up about Laurie and her beliefs so that more
people are aware and don't get duped and manipulated.
So that's that's just my personal take.
Lauren, I know you've spoken to this a little bit already today.
Anything you want to add? Yeah, no, I, I hope that there
are cameras in the courtroom. There were not cameras for her
last trial. There was audio only in the fact
that Lori tries to say that doesn't happen, that doesn't
happen, that didn't happen. I would love for people to see
the evidence first hand and to know the truth of this.
So, so I, I hope that there are cameras and that's why I think
I'm going to attempt to go to this status hearing.
Actually, there's been a lot going on in my life.
So like I have a flight tomorrow I am debating.
So I am still trying to decide if I am going or not, but I
might be there. And that's one reason I will be
there if I go is I think, I think it's going to be really
interesting to find out if they are going to have cameras in the
courtroom. And I absolutely hope they do
all. Right.
And for a writes, do you think the belief that Mormonism is the
one true church is dangerous? Other Christian religions are
not so extreme and exclusionary. Well, as the host of Mormon
stories, I would say yes, it's dangerous, you know, but not
just because it can lead to murder.
Obviously most Mormons don't murder and most Mormons are on
average really just nice, kind, smart, thoughtful people.
But I think it leads to pride. I think it leads to judgment.
I think it leads to hubris. And I think it, it deteriorates
faith because if, if it's an all or nothing, one exclusive true
church or false, then when the church makes big errors like
covering up pedophilia, covering up sex abuse, cut, you know,
covering up financial fraud, then the members are like, OK,
it was all or nothing. God's church wouldn't work this
way. So I quit.
Whereas if it's just like, hey, we're all doing our best, we're
going to make mistakes. I think allegiance to the church
can bend but not break. Whereas if it's so absolute, it
it has a tendency to break and, and most, most ex Mormons end up
being atheists or agnostics and don't join any church.
I think that these absolutist truth claims are fatal.
The belief overall, which some might say is a good thing,
others may not, but me, get me, get in Lauren.
Anything you want to add about the one true Church claim?
I I want to say if you think your church, whatever your
church is, is the one true church.
If you think your one belief is the only belief, political,
religious. If you think your guy is the
only true guy. If you think your person is
literally, If you think. If you.
If you believe the Bible is the only true book on this earth, I
don't care whether it's Mormonism or Catholicism or your
political belief in a politician.
If you think you know, to quote Christ, I am the way, the truth
and the life, and no man cometh unto the Father of me.
If you think your way is the only way, take a look at
yourself. And I noticed in that comment
that they said that like, do you think it's problematic that
Mormons do this because Christians, other Christians
don't where you know, Christ said in the Bible, I'm the way,
the truth and life. If you think Christian, if you
think Christianity is the only way and that Christ is the only
way that saves, that's a belief system of one truth.
If if you can't broaden yourself to think that maybe there's more
out there, I hope that you might consider that.
Amen. All right.
I think Megan already addressed this.
I think Keith also addressed it. Cynthia asks any evidence that
Lori is smart at all? I feel like she was elevated
based on pretty privilege and manipulation learned by the LDS.
Megan, you would know best. Is Lori smart?
I think, I think her level of intelligence has more with more
to do with how she is able to get what she wants.
So she's smart enough to, you know, thus far or at least prior
to her arrest to, to manipulate people to get what she wants.
So that level of intelligence, yes.
Anything you want to add? I mean, Keith.
Keith thought she was intelligent.
Anything else you want to add to that, Lauren?
No, I, I think, yeah. All right, Chantelle Buchlis
says we the band, should interview Melanie and that we'll
get the truth. Is Melanie Gibb doing
interviews? Well, she appeared on the
Dateline interview, so yeah, she was.
Can we get her? That was that was an old
interview. That was it.
Yeah. That was an old interview she
did for Dateline years and years ago.
You could, yeah. Yeah.
Thank you for that. Yeah, same clothes, same set.
Do you think she'd do it or is she just trying to disappear?
I think she's certainly trying to lay low.
OK. Yeah, she'll probably be called,
don't you think Lauren for to testify in this case.
Yeah, I think a lot of these people can't speak either.
And so she will most likely be a witness once again in Charles in
in the murder trial for Charles Fallow.
Yeah. All right, three more super
chats unless more come in. So Saipuakivicalpias sounds
sounds Greek. My ex also received revelation
of my death. See, it's not just us and we
planned accordingly. Funeral prep, bucket list trips,
upping life insurance, three times.
Boob job. Why would you get a boob job if
you know you're going to die coercive repenting to prepare me
to meet my maker that I mean we there's you could look at that
as being funny, but also you could also look at that as being
sad and tragic. Regardless, I'm really grateful
for that share and for the Super chat Y'all.
Why? Why would boob boob job come
into hearing that you're going to die soon?
Making the most out of life means different things to
different people. OK, OK.
All right. No shade.
Any reactions to that?
It's just OK, I'll keep going. Sylvia Kranz says never MO here.
Thank you for your work. Love all your channels.
And then finally, this may be the last super chat for the day.
Lauren Peterson says you can't be assigned a lawyer if you've
already waived your right to counsel.
Pro bono trials are called slow guilty pleas for a reason.
I don't even know what Lauren's saying.
There I agree, but well, so, so we were talking about I, I made
the comment that if Laurie went too far off base that the judge
could remove her, her right to represent herself.
And that is actually true in the state of Arizona because I
researched it. If Lori goes too far outside the
scope or if she starts pontificating or testifying or
she's not following the court's rules, the judge has the right
to revoke her right to to represent herself.
And she absolutely will be resigned.
Rias she has right now, she has advisory counsel to attorneys
that are helping her prepare her pleas and motions.
And so those attorneys could be assigned to her or reassigned to
her as as representing her if she goes too far off the deep
end. All right.
Oh, here we go. Look, look, John looks like
garbage compared to just six years ago.
Thank you, Huggy Bear. I appreciate.
That let's see a picture of you Huggy Bear you now and you six
years ago, hey. Lauren and Megan, you're you're
not the only ones that get comments about your appearance
sometimes. Right.
I know that I'm actually over here laughing because I'm like,
that's like, really refreshing. I'm like, yeah.
For you that. Was funny.
Someone's not looking at our looks.
I'm still picking on our looks. You look like crap.
I think you look great, John. Thank you.
I just had to share that. All right, well, they didn't
even do a super chat. OK, so thank you again.
Megan, your channel is Midlife Revolution or Third verse or
even Megan Connor. You can find that on YouTube.
Please subscribe and like her channel.
Megan, anything you want to say before we wrap up?
You know, you asked a while back if there is anything that any
one of us would ask Lori if we had the opportunity to interview
her. And I think I, you know, I used
to want to interview her because I wanted to kind of know what
was going on in her brain. And, and now that we've have
this interview, I don't need to, because I, I do see what she,
you know, where her head is at. But I think if I had the
opportunity to ask her even one question, I think what I would
ask her is when are the times in your life that you feel
genuinely guilty about something that you did that was wrong?
And I would love to hear her answer on that because I think
people who have narcissistic tendencies, people who have a
lack of empathy and an inability to take responsibility for their
own actions, that's a really tough question for them to
answer because it forces them to remove their mask, at least for
themselves, and be introspective and examine their own behavior
and say, when is the time that I really felt guilty about
something that I did? When did I do something wrong?
When did I do something that really harmed another person?
You know, they really don't have the ability to do that.
And, and so I think that that would at least be telling from
the standpoint of, you know, she would have to be introspective.
All of that being said, I have no wish to talk to Lori at all.
I think that the real Lori was gone a long time ago.
I think that she is buried under her delusion.
And I don't think she'll ever come out again.
So I don't really have a desire to engage with her in any way.
Sharita Hall is saying don't, Megan, she will hurt you if she
can. She can't hurt me.
I'm bully proof. That's good, Heather, Ruth says.
How dare John look different six years later like the rest of us?
Thanks, Heather. I'm not offended at all, by the
way. I'm really not.
You look great, John. I know.
I hope you I, I want to say I was, I was teasing you, but you
look great. And then people are like calling
me out. They're like Lauren has a filter
and I'm like, yeah, I do. I have a skin filter on and I
have Botox and I need the gun and aging is beautiful.
All the above. But you look great, John.
I love it that we're owning and just having fun.
And Kelly J says I love you guys.
Laugh at trolls instead of getting mad.
Yeah. Thank you.
OK, so Megan, you're amazing. You're you're, I'm so proud to
have you as part of the band. I'm so honored to call you as a
friend. Thank you so much for joining us
today. We love you.
Thank you so much. I'm happy to be here.
I I'm so grateful to have this wonderful band to unpack all of
this with. It really does help me heal.
It helps me process. And I'm grateful for your
supportive viewers and, and Lauren, your hidden gems are
wonderful and have been so supportive of me and my channel.
And John, you've been a wonderful friend and mentor And
I, I owe a lot of my channel success to both of the two of
you. So I'm, I'm always grateful to
have conversations with you. Hey, Congrats on the 10,000
number. Thank you.
It's almost up to 11 now. It's.
Amazing. Yeah.
Lauren, what are your final comments or words?
We're so happy you were able to join us today.
And also Doctor John's always welcome as a as a member of the
band. He could be our Yoko Ono.
Tell Doctor John he could be our Yoko Ono.
No, then he'll take Lauren away. John says hello.
You know, we always have a hard time jumping on these things
together because, you know, the idea is great to have, you know,
Co hosts his spouses. You know, you do it with Margie.
But we do have a young child and you know, he's been out there
all day, you know, taking, you know, parenting.
So we're always having to, you know, do a switch.
But I think we're actually just, you know, going to we're going
to go on Patreon to talk about this, our thoughts.
I'm going to dig into the psychology of Lori later with my
husband John because he's a criminal psychologist for those
that know or don't know, and he has some thoughts about this
Dateline episode. We haven't gone public on our
channel this week, but we'll be doing a Patreon episode of
patreon.com/and Do Crime if you guys want to check that out.
We're going to record later today.
Oh cool, so you'll release it around when approximately?
I think we're going to release it tonight.
So our Patreon episodes, we do audio only and we just, it's
like behind the scenes, non edited.
We just like turn our phone recorder on.
So we're like sitting at the table talking.
It just that feels easier that I have some personal stuff going
on in my life. And so a lot of people have been
asking us my thoughts. We were going to go live last
night. I, I opted not to.
So what we're going to do is just do a very kind of simple
behind the scenes episode where I ask John all my questions and
to see what he thinks from a criminal psychologist point of
view, what he thinks about Lori's thoughts.
So that's, we're going to do it. We'll do something later on
YouTube. But you know, we're taking a
break right now. But I'm glad I could come on
here. This was this was great.
This was needed. And you know, just so you know,
John, I've been thinking about like what question I would ask
Lori Valo this entire episode since you you pitched that
question to me. I'm trying to like think of
something super profound. And, you know, honestly, you got
me. Like, I think I would probably
just like shoot the breeze with her and talk about makeup and
chapstick in her life and you know, what she thinks about
politics and the way of the world.
I mean, I don't know. I mean, I guess politics is
pretty heavy, but I think what I'm just most interested in.
I don't want to hear what she has to say.
I guess I don't want any more of her excuses.
I've heard them all. Like it's exhausting.
I think I remain intrigued by her with just how she is as a
person, like, you know, and, and maybe little slips or maybe
tells, you know, slips of the mask or little tells that I
might get from just shooting the breeze with her and and being
her friend, which sounds appalling and kind of
contradictory since I said I am so mad that Keith said that he
was her friend. And I'm like sitting here saying
like, I'd like to know what that would be like.
I get it. I get it hypocritical, but I I
think that's, you know, that's probably what I would want to
ask her. And honestly, and hopefully, you
know, Shane Bishop, the producer from Dateline is listening or
Keith Morrison, but I've always been more interested in what
Chad Dabel has to say. So, you know, I don't know how
easy it is to get to death row, but I I am waiting and I hope
someone snags that interview. I love it.
All right, well, Lauren, again, just like with Megan, we're just
so thrilled to have you as a part of our channel.
We wish. And your channel, you're about
to pass Mormon Stories in subscribers, which, by the way,
I'm thrilled about. So y'all are I'm.
Not. Y'all are kicking butt.
Y'all are totally kicking booty and we're not.
That's true. That's when I do surpass you in
subscribers, I will let you know.
I promise I'll be like John Boom.
But that's not happening anytime soon, so it's not.
True. Oh, well, in my mind it's true.
How's that? Really quickly?
Thanks to Sherry Williams for last minute couple super chats
and then Maria writes. Can you repeat the other
channels please? Yes, hidden true crime on
YouTube and there's also a podcast called hidden true
crime. That's Lauren and doctor John.
And then Megan's is has three names, either Megan Connor or
third verse or midlife Revolution, revolution, right?
Did I get all that right? Yep, you did.
I'm I'm shocked that you remember them all.
It's it's kind of crazy. All right, well y'all are the
best. Thanks to all our viewers and
listeners. Thanks to Maven and Julia that
were able to jump on last minute on a Sunday.
Maven for moderating, Julia for doing time codes and show notes
and shorts. Thanks to Gerardo.
Again thanks to Brooklyn that does our editing and some of our
post production along with Julia.
Thanks to Margie and our respective partners for letting
us. I don't know if if everyone
wants their partners to be named, but for letting us come
in on a Sunday. Thanks all our donors.
Mormon stories that make all this possible.
We couldn't do this without our monthly donors.
We we do pay Megan and Lauren and Mindy and Gerardo for
appearing and it's the Super chats.
But mostly it's just the monthly donations, Mormon Stories of the
Oba Stories Foundation that makes all this possible.
So thanks to all the donors. If you want to become a, if you
want to support this content, we lose donors every month.
We can't do without our donors. So if you want to see this
content continue, we need people to step up, replace the people
who cancel and back out and become monthly donors.
Just go to mormonstories.org, click on the donate button,
become a monthly donor. And that's how you keep this
content going. You can also help us by liking
this episode right now by subscribing to this channel,
Mormon Stories podcast, and our respective channels by
commenting and by sharing. That's all super helpful as
well. Thanks again to all our
commenters. We really appreciate it.
Be good to each other, be kind to each other.
And we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon
Stories Podcast. Hidden True Crime and Midlife
Revolution. Take care, everybody.
Thanks everyone.