My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 394 - Shut the House Down

Episode Date: September 21, 2023

On today's episode, Karen tells Georgia the story of "Mommy Doomsday," Lori Vallow Daybell.For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mike Williams set off on a hunting trip into the swamps of North Florida, where it was thought he met his fate by a group of hungry alligators, except that's not what happened. And after the uncovering of a secret love triangle, the truth would finally be revealed. Listen to over my dead body, gone hunting early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. 🎵 Hello! Hello!

And welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Heartstark. That's Karen Gilgareth. That was really high. I know. I thought I'd put a lot of enthusiasm behind it. Are you excited? Is this your day? I'm so excited. This is my day. Actually, I got a new mattress. So today, so this might be like the rest of my fucking life is changed day. It's day one of new life. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's what happens when you get old is like mattresses change your life and sneezing to your heart hurts your back. So here I am.

Is it one of those hospital mattresses that sits you up like you're in a full body cast? Is it one of those guys? I don't, I can't pull the trigger on those because it seems so ridiculous. That's like the right, but like, but you would if you could, like if I could try it for a couple nights, I would. And then you could fix like a small television up to kind of the ceiling, up near the top.

So you're always just, you know, your neck is always in a really good position upward. Can I tell you a secret about, a thing about me? That's like one of my things. Like I can't go barefoot in the house, but also I can't do titties in the bedroom. It depresses the shit out of me. Oh, that's very...

It's like a deep thing I can't do. I get it, that's very holistic of you. I'm sure it's much better for you not to have it in there. And it's not like I don't think people should have it. It's totally fine. It's like I can't have it. It'll like, make me sad, you know? It's the same thing with me when lamps are left on

and they're, so they're on in the daytime. Like when you wake up and you come downstairs and the lamp's been left on and it's like, it's dawn. Nobody shut the house down. That's bad, but shut the house down. Nobody locked down. Look and shut it down and you know bad, but shut the house down. Nobody locked down, and shut it down, and made sure the dog had water.

Nobody? OK, well. Nobody. I don't like that. That's a good one. I can absolutely feel that one in my bones, for sure. Like, I get it. Usually an exception, not a rule in our household,

but I think the first time it happened was when I had roommates in my 20s, and of course, it was in there completely unprocessed. I was like, right, don't enough. Like this is a weirdest reaction. And then I was like, I'm just like, I'm going to go walk around the block for a second. Just pure rage that someone didn't shut things. What else didn't get taken care of when you went to bed?

It's like this isn't right. And there's a lot of households where they're like, oh yeah, we used to do that sometimes because blah, blah, blah. You know, grandma needed a glass of water, whatever, where it'd be like completely fine for other people. But it's like, no. I do owe and Vince is out of town because if there's an intruder, I don't know. I want to give them light.

I don't know. You'll, you'll, you want to give them paws in the doorway to be like, oh, oh, is someone reading a book late into the night? It's 3.30 in the morning and that lights still on. That must be an awake household with a, you know, aggressive, scary dog. I'm not going to break into that house. So I'm going to skip that one.

Yep. Good plan. Yeah. Thank you. What's going on with you? What is going on with you? What is going on with me? You know, the huge, I think it's all the huge, but we were just complaining, Alejandra Aristotle and I, we were all just talking about how hot it was this weekend in Los Angeles and it was a humidity hot, which no one here understands or can deal with unless they're

transplant. Myself being a native California and I was just kind of like what I did not agree to walk into the shower. What's happened? Heavy air? Like who created heavy air? Heavy like weird post shower bathroom air, which people on the east coast were like, sure, that's summertime to us.

And we're just like, what? It's crazy. No, it's like a steam sure, that's summertime to us. And we're just like, what? It's crazy. It's like a steam shower, but outside of your shower. And it was like that all weekend long. It was wild. You have a Twitter thing to talk about? Oh, it's not really a thing, but it was really nice of Aaron, who's handled on, I guess, what we call X,

but really we shouldn't be talking about it all, is at EMAC D33, it's hard to offboard these things that we've been addicted to for years at a time. But it was very nice of Aaron to write to me and say perfect pronunciation of Cholm's ferd. Oh! I mean, the odds are so against that. And the fact that Aaron knew to celebrate

that tiny victory for me is really meant a lot. It's a win. It's a win. We got to take them anywhere we can. Because the odds of the fact that that was supposed to be a silent L and a silent fucking D or whatever, the tricks of the Trader. The tricks, the people who named our great nation,

play on us. I think that one was a British month. The tricks that the Brits play on us are wide and far reaching. Very true. So true. How about you? Anything to report? I mean not really. Like I'm halfway between two books and I'm you know listening to therapy podcasts nothing. Oh, you have a book? No, I have a podcast. Oh, well. But I think most people, this is one of those things,

and this is why I love TikTok so much, one of the many reasons. But the people on there are so ahead that they were talking about this podcast as if it's old news, and I'd never heard it before. And it is a podcast called Scamanda. Oh, yeah, it is huge, right? Oh, you'd already heard of it?

Let's take on the top lists everywhere. Oh, is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it?

What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it thing immediately. It is. So it's hosted by a, I'm assuming a British woman named Charlie Webster. And it's from Lionsgate Sound. And it is the story

of a woman who for years and years scammed people out of money claiming that she had cancer. claiming that she had cancer. Oh, and one of those. It seems simple on the face. What I find fascinating is just when people do stuff like that where it's like the real bold moves, right? We know it is probably odds are it's approaching some mental illness, right? Yeah.

There's some sort of feed you're getting off of people feeling bad for you, you talking about your illness all the time and blah, blah, blah. Well, it's munchausen. It's like a rich original munchausen, not by proxy, right? Yeah. Right. Exactly. They're not making someone else sick, but they're also not actually sick. They're not making themselves sick. And they know that.

Yeah. And they're fundraising for themselves. So the whole thing is a true scam in the most cynical sense of the word, but it is wild. I binged it so quickly. Wow, hilarious. Holy shit, okay, I'll get into it for sure.

Yeah, yeah. I'm just listening to spooky, like spooky books, like haunted house books. Oh yeah. Right now, there's this author named Riley Sager, who writes these like straight up haunted house books. The ones I'm listening to is called Home Before Dark. And it's like, you know, this single woman who's like parents wronged her. And so she's going back to the house she grew up. And that's like

basically the Amityville like story that her dad wrote about the house and she doesn't believe it's just like just like, she's like fuck around and finding outing right now in the book. You're like, she's gonna find out. We know. She's gonna. Yeah. I would hope in a book like that. Yeah. It's not like the ending is gonna be like,

and it wasn't haunted. It's like, and now I love my dad. Right. Right. All right. Well, should we get into it? Let's do it.

Okay, let's do it in exactly right corner. Shall we? Yeah. Hey, we have a podcast network called exactly right and here are some highlights. So our new and first true crime limited series, Infamous International, the Pink Panther Story is now available wherever you listen to your podcasts. So be sure to follow that show. Right now, episodes one and two

are up. You might have heard about the heist at the Waffy Mall, the pink panthers over the top theatrics and a bit of history behind their formative years in Serbia. It is very exciting series. We don't want you to miss a single episode of it. So go over now to the feed and listen to infamous international. Also this week on That's Messed Up and SVU podcast, Kara, and Lisa Cover, postgraduate psychopath, a gruesome episode from SVU's 20 Second Season. And on I saw what you did, Millian Daniel have curated an extremely

curly hair 1980s double feature. It's moon struck from 1987, starring Cher and Nicholas Cage and Crossing Delancie, one of my very favorite movies of all time from 1988 with Amy Irving, a lot of curly hair. I didn't know that about you. I think Moonstruck's one of my favorite movies of all time. So we're, that's a fucking special one. Moonstruck is one of the greatest movies. That's definitely in like a top five. I mean, they made some

good fucking movies at the end of the 80s. They did. Good ones. They did. And that brings us to the MFM store where you'll find an assortment of classic toxic masculinity, ruins the party. Again, merchandise because apparently they still haven't gotten the frickin' memo. And that's at my favorite murder.com. I want you to picture Steve Jobs tinkering with a computer in his garage.

Walt Disney drawing cartoons for his high school newspaper. Every big moment starts with a big dream, but what happens when that dream turns out to be an even bigger failure? Each week on Wondery's new podcast The Big Flop, host Misha Brown is joined by different comedians to chronicle some of the biggest failures and blunders in pop culture history. Each episode will have you thinking, why in the world did this get made? From box office flops like Cats the Movie, to Action Park, New Jersey's infamous theme park that had countless injuries, many lawsuits, and rides so wild it became known as Class Action Park, or Quibi, that short form video platform with an even shorter lifespan.

It's a story of a spectacular failure with lots of surprises along the way. Enjoy the big flop on the Wondering app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to the big flop early and add free on Wondering Plus. Get started with your free trial at Wondering.com slash plus. All right, I go first this week and I have been waiting to be able to cover this story and tell you about it. And it just recently kind of resolved. And this story is, well, first of all, everyone knows about it.

Anyone that listens to True Crime or pays attention to True Crime on a relatively regular basis has probably already listened to the Date Line podcast about this or watched the Date Line series on TV about it. But it's one of those True Crime stories that when it was breaking in the news, I kept going, what? How is this possible? What are you talking about? What do you mean? Like, every single little detail that would come out was more kind of frightening and chilling

and outrageous than the next. So one of the main reasons I wanted to cover it was just the simplicity of saying it all at one time. Because sometimes that's very satisfying where you're like, how did that happen? And it is kind of laid out in front of you. But again, like most of these stories, even when it's all laid out in front of you, you can, like most of these stories, even when it's all laid out

in front of you, you can't ever get to the truth of anything of like, but why? Totally. But why? So what's it going to be? I'm like, I'm on the edge of my seat right now. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, okay, I've teased you up. So it's autumn of 2019 in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and Kay and Larry Woodcock are very, very worried. They haven't been able to contact their seven-year-old grandson, JJ, or his adopted sister, Tiley, for quite some reason. Right? You know what it is. Yep. On top of that, their mother has been acting very erratically. So Larry and Kay decide to contact the police in Rexburg, Idaho, where the family lives to request a welfare check at their house. And when the police show up, JJ and Tiley aren't

there, but their mother is, and she is ready to go with explanations. She tells the officers that Tiley's away at school and that JJ is staying with a family friend named Melanie who lives in Arizona. So for a wellness check, that's kind of good news all as well in this household. Except when police reach out to confirm this story with Melanie, Melanie tells the police, JJ is not with her. So the police are concerned and officers return to that house the next day with a search warrant, but they're surprised to find now that no one is home. And when they start to investigate, they find that the children's is home. And when they start to investigate,

they find that the children's mother has just boarded a flight to Hawaii with her new husband, and JJ and Kylie are not with them. So as they try to piece this timeline of the children's whereabouts together, officers come up with an even more unsettling realization. And that is that no one has seen JJ or Tylee for two months.

So now Rexburg police formally announced that both JJ Valo and Tylee Ryan are missing and that their mother, Lori Valo Debel and her husband Chad Debel are the prime suspects in their disappearances. Fuck. This is the story of what date line termed Mommy Doomsday, Lori Valodebel.

Damn. It's bad. It's so bad. It's so bad. It's the kind of thing because of course we talk about this sometimes where it's like when a mother does any kind of harm to their child and how disturbing that is to people. And so those stories always get a ton of heat.

It's that kind of thing where it's like 89% that's a guess, whatever. But it's some crazy high percentage of people who commit homicide are men. But with the percentage left over of women who do it, they fill the cable channels. Yeah. Women who snap and women who murder and mothers who do this and that. And it's because they're children, it's just so disturbing. To their children. So it's like, it's one thing to be associated path and be greedy and be like, oh, I'm going

to rob you and kill you. And this also, there's other factors folded in that are kind of relevant for today and the things that we're seeing people go through today. So the sources used in today's research are a 2023 episode of the Dateline television show titled the Trial of Laurie Valade Bell, which is an unbelievable thing you have to watch it. And also journalist Nate Eaton, who wrote for the East Idaho news. Basically was the journalist that was reporting on this, so there's lots of articles that he wrote and the rest are in our show notes. So let's start at the beginning. 1973 in Loma Linda, California,

the Cox family are tight-knit Mormon family with five kids, and their daughter Lori is a bubbly charming and happy, go lucky, kid. When she's entertained, she's a high school cheerleader. And as she moves into adulthood, she becomes a competitor in regional beauty pageants. Eventually, she becomes a hairstylist, she moves to Texas. She remains devout to both her religion, and she also really loves having fun. She actually, at one point, becomes a contestant on Wheel of Fortune, and she wins $ loves having fun. She actually at one point becomes a contestant

on Wheel of Fortune and she wins $17,000. Holy shit. So her religious devotion doesn't mean that she's not up for a good time. But Lori's love life hasn't been as positive as she has tried to be. By the time she's 32 years old, she's been married in divorce three times.

Whoa. Yes, she has a son named Colby from her second marriage and she has a daughter named Tyley from her third marriage. By all accounts, Laurie's an excellent parent and loves being a mother. Laurie's third marriage is ending in a hostile divorce and that's when she meets her fourth husband, Charles Valo. Charles is a successful financial consultant,

a divorced father of two boys, and he becomes one of Lori's clients at the salon. The second they meet, sparks fly, they quickly fall in love in Marion February of 2006. And then Lori and Charles take their new blended family with their four kids, and they move to Arizona. Charles was raised Catholic, but at his new wife's urging, he joins the Mormon church and he becomes an enthusiastic member. So eight years go by and the vallos seem like a picture perfect family. And then in July of 2014, Laurie and Charles reach out to Charles sister K. Woodcock, who is from the top of the story, the first person. So that summer K. and her husband Larry found themselves at a very difficult crossroads. They

had been raising their autistic two-year-old grandson, JJ, by themselves, and they had been doing that since he was an infant. They adore him, but they realize because they're older, they might not be the best fit to raise him. And Kay would say, quote, that's when Charles called me and said, Hey, Laurie and I would love to adopt him. It was the easiest, hardest decision I've ever made." And quote, and then her husband, Larry agrees, saying he was our little boy, but we knew in the future, it would be the best for JJ."

And it does seem like the best choice for him. JJ thrives in the Vallow Household and he's absolutely adored by every one of the family members, especially his sister, Tiley. Larry says, quote, the family dynamic with those four children and with Charles and Laurie, it just simply came to a circle with JJ in the center of it. It worked really well. Tiley, she loved JJ, and there was no doubt about it. Every time I ever saw them together, he was drawn to her, and she was very protective of him.

She would hold him and kiss him. Tiley was an outstanding sister to JJ. Oh my God. And a quote. So, within a few years of JJ's coming to the family, things start to change. Laurie is now in her mid-40s. She's always been extremely religious, and she's held some beliefs that some might consider fringe.

But sometime around 2017, Laurie becomes seriously interested in religious doomsday prepping. So if you've never heard of that, basically a doomsday prepper as a person who is actively preparing for the end of the world, usually because of religious interpretation of the Bible that says like the end is nigh, therefore we all have to start getting ready. Right. So in October of 2018, Lori attends a religious doomsday focused conference in Utah with some of her friends. Girls trip. Can you imagine that's your girls trip? I mean, the biggest drag of a girls trip where it's like, yeah, you're just all sitting around a table at Apple

bees like who wants to get apps and talk about how we're not long for this world and hopefully the Lord picks us. Everyone in here is going to burn. Like, that's the mentality that never made sense to be being raised as Catholic, is essentially when you're in church, everyone that's not in church with you is going to burn. And I would just think about it. Yeah. And you're like celebrating that somehow. Like we want, we're winning. Yeah. Fuck everyone else, which doesn't sound like a, you know, Christian value of what I've heard of it. Well, the idea is it's not fuck everyone else, it's get out there and get some converts.

It's basically convince them this is real and true and then they will join us. Do it. And then they'll be okay. Right now, Karen Karen convinced me. Hey Georgia, if you want to come to Catholic Church with me, it's big and it's kind of echoey and this, it smells like incense. But do I get you a sit for a long, long time? Yep, but then you stand up, but then you sit and then you kneel and then you sit and

then you stand. Wait, is it all in a language I don't understand completely? No, no, no. Don't be crazy. That was in the 70s. There's no Latin masses anymore. Although my dad can tell you all about Latin mass because that's how he was raised. Oh, God. I mean, look, everybody gets to believe everything they want. But should they? Is the question.

But should they also think about who's telling you why you need to believe it and what their motivation could possibly be? Speaking of question your sources, my mom sent me a text the other day that said, from Fox News, COVID booster warning from Florida Surgeon General, who advises people not to get the new vaccine blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, check your source. When the CDC says that, I'll listen, but when the fucking Florida of all places, Surgeon General, hard pass. Well, you know, at the very end of that article,

my sister was just telling me about this. She goes, at the end of the article, another doctor comes in and goes, not only is this not true, it'd be dangerous if you went ahead with this story. And then, of course, Fox News did. Yeah, well, she said it to me and I said, no thanks. No friends.

No friends. She got upset. Yeah. Well, but at this point does she want to be upset? Because that's what it feels like to me. Yeah. She said I didn't realize that was news because she knows she can't share news with me.

She thought it was like health information. And this is going off the rails, but my point is check your fucking sources. I'm not getting my sources about COVID from Fox news and Florida, you know what I mean? At this point, you can't get your sources from and quote unquote enemy territory of people that have like completely thumbed their nose at a global pandemic, killed millions of people. Right. Sorry, that was a left turn. No, that's right.

All of this needs to be taken into consideration. Because no one, we all have beliefs and we all believe our beliefs are correct. We all do. That is the human condition. Beamently and we'll fight them. Even though it's like clear when they're not right, we won't let them go.

In my experience, as life goes on, if you can check yourself in some sort of way to go, do I believe this or do I just want to fight right now? It's a good question to ask. So I want to be right totally. You know, they didn't do this in date line. So I wish I wish we'd be a little more professional. No, there was no sidebar conversation.

About my mom. So I basically told you about the girls' weekend at the Doomsday focused conference. Outfit. So it's there that Lori meets 50-year-old author Chad Daybell. So Chad is a church sexton and an occasional grave digger who lives in Idaho with his wife Tammy. So this is Hobby? No, no, like he volunteers at the church to dig graves. Yeah, you have to, you know, it's probably part of the church situation. Sure. It's like you're inside doing the services and then everyone smile, you have to go out there and help out.

No, I feel defensive for him. And he's absolutely the bad guy, spoiler alert. Okay. So he lives in Idaho with his wife Tammy, and she is the mother of their five adult children. He's also a religious writer and a staple at these Doomsday Prepper conferences. He is a lifelong member of the LDS church, but he pushes the envelope when it comes

to mainstream Mormon beliefs. For example, in his many self-published books, Chad talks about the coming apocalypse and writes extensively about how multiple near-death experiences have given him divine powers. That's another thing I think we see a lot recurring, which is when regular people start to tell the people in their small circle of their already kind of fringe beliefs that they have started talking to God. Yeah. Red flag. Yeah, if we're going to go through.

So Lourian Chad are immediately drawn to one another. It's been described as an instant love at first sight type of connection. They wind up exchanging numbers, and once they get home to their families, they still talk to each other almost every single day. So as this relationship flourishes from afar with Lori still in Arizona, Chad and Idaho, the people around Lori noticed that she's becoming obsessive

about the idea of a doomsday of demons and about the spirit world. So Lori's family starts worrying that she's getting maybe sucked into a cult, because it's just odd and obsessive. Thanks to the later testimony of Lori's niece's ex-husband, a man named Brandon Boudreau, we know quite a bit about what exactly they were obsessed with.

So apparently Chad and Lori believed that there were, quote, light and dark spirits among us who can infiltrate human bodies. And if a person becomes too dark, they turn into what they call zombies, which is their shorthand for demonic possession. So to get rid of a zombie and free the possessed host, you have to kill the body of the afflicted person. Oh my God. I imagine if someone just started casually dropping that shit,

like someone you've known for a long time or in your family, it's just like, by the way. Yeah, that's scary. No one's prepared for that conversation. Right. You don't have anything in your back pocket to be like, hey, can I stop you on that? Right. Zombie theory and then present something else to maybe consider.

It's so wild that you're just, what could you say? They're already gone. Especially if it's someone that if they've really worked on this theory or this is something that's been happening kind of behind closed doors, then you're just like, sorry, what are you talking about a TV show? It's bewildering in and of itself. So, so Lori starts taking advantage of her husband Charles frequent business trips out of town while he's a way Lori hosts get together in her home where she and Chad share their beliefs with guests. So

there is a little bit of a culty vibe starting, which is our beliefs, it's not going to be that many people, we're all going to get together and we're going to talk about this and we're going to really give it some credence and some weight. The threat of demonic zombies, the end of the world and the fact that Lori and Chad are on a higher plane of divinity than everyone else, Chad claiming to be a Mormon prophet, Lori claiming to be a goddess., Laurie claiming to be a goddess. Okay, burning man over here. I mean, just imagine being invited to that

and being like, no, no, I wasn't in that. I, what? Yeah, I said what? You said what? I was tapperware. Hey, I just want to game night. I came for the cube Costco cheese platter. What's going on here?

What is happening? So obviously, Laurie and Charles, one solid marriage, is no longer doing well. The couple's friends notice them arguing a lot. Nothing Charles does seem to make Laurie happy. And Charles says that as their relationship gets worse, Laurie is becoming more and more hostile and threatening. And finally, she accuses Charles of being dark spirited and claims that he's been overtaken by a demon who, for whatever reason, is named Nick or Ned Schneider. How do you defend yourself from an accusation like that? You know what I mean?

Yeah, it's basically a person looking at you and going, something's wrong with me, and now I'm gonna yell it into your face. And so you have to like be accused of something while simultaneously being worried about a person. I, I, I, I, Charles actually texted some of his friends and wrote to them, quote, it's the freakyest thing I've ever experienced.

So yeah, very scary. So we don't know if Lori genuinely believes that her husband is being taken over by dark spirits or if she's just using that as an excuse to justify the extramarital affair that she's having, but it's clear that she is getting very close to Chad Daybell. She even tells one of her friends that she and Chad have quote, sealed themselves.

Now, in the Mormon church sealing yourself is a sacred binding of two people in the temple. You don't do it to yourselves, that's not like part of it. And they're definitely not allowed to be sealed if they are already married to other people. But Lori tells her friend that she and Chad have already been married in a past life. So this is all above board. Again, we'll bring back the Mormon faith does not believe in past lives. So there's stuff really happening here. So now Charles comes home from another business trip to discover that Laurie has locked him out of the house. He can tell no one's home. He has no idea where she is or where his kids are. He tries to call her. She doesn't answer.

He calls the police. They basically show up and let him inside of his own house. And that's when Charles decides he's had enough with this increasingly disturbing behavior. He tells an officer, quote, Laurie has lost her mind. She's threatened me. She said she was going to murder me. She thinks she's a resurrected being and a god, I'm as bewildered as you are and I don't know what to do." And quote scary. It's easy to assume that he got some like officers advice or something because Charles files a petition for an emergency mental evaluation for Laurie. And so the next day Laurie goes to the police department herself and then she gives her side of the story. She says Charles claims are

all baseless. She says she left the house and took the kids because she wants nothing to do with him. She claims Charles is retaliating against her out of spite because their marriage is falling apart. She voluntarily completes the mental evaluation, and she's ultimately deemed to have a quote, normal state of mind. So Charles files for divorce. He's just like, that I'm done either way. He leases an apartment.

He sets up regular visitation times with JJ, who's now seven years old, and he tries to move on with his life, but he's still freaked out by Lori's fanatical behavior, and eventually Charles Lawyer's encouraged him to get an order of protection against her during their divorce process. He also removes Lori from his life insurance plan,

which has a $1 million payout, and he changes that to his sister, Kay Woodcock, who is now the beneficiary. Lori has never informed about that change. So now it's July of 2019. It's basically about eight or nine months since Lori and Chad met at the conference. And out of the blue one afternoon,

Charles, two adult sons get a disturbing text from Lori. And here's what it says, quote, Hi boys, I have very sad news. Your dad passed away yesterday morning. I'm working on making arrangements and I'll keep you informed with what's going on. I'm still not sure how to handle things. Just want you to know that I love you

and so did your dad. What the fuck? She fucking texted them the day after. So they're of course stunned. Yeah, they're just like, you've got to be kidding me. That's how they find out their dad is dead. They try to call and text Lori. She never responds. Shit. They eventually learn the details of their father's death by googling it. Oh my god. And it turns out he was shot to death by Lori Vallow's brother brother Alex Cox. You have to listen, if you haven't listened

to Mommy Doomsday, the date line podcast, you absolutely have to listen to it. It's Keith Morrison is the host and narrator. So that's great in and of itself, but it's as thoroughly reported on all of these kind of detail parts. There's so much to it, like the details of this kind of falling apart, including Alex Cox and his involvement in his sister's life, which seems very codependent and very unhealthy. But basically, what we know is that Lorien Alex, they both tell police similar stories, they claim that on July 11, 2019, Charles swung by Laurie's house to pick up JJ S. Schedule to take him to school. And at some point during this, Alex, who was

staying at Laurie's house, which is something he didn't normally do, he says he confronted Charles for allegedly abusing Laurie. And just to be clear right up front, there is no proof or indication Charles was ever abusive towards Lori. Regardless, Alex says that a fight breaks out between the two of them. He claims Charles picks up a baseball bat and begins swinging it. So in response, Alex pulls out his gun and shoots Charles multiple times in self-defense. Oh my god. The family is at home.

JJ and Tilear at. The family is at home. JJ and Tilear at home, Laurie is at home. Once this happens, Laurie takes those kids and leaves the house. So this is clearly a horrifying and traumatic experience for everybody that was in that house when that happened. And should be said always that people respond to trauma in all different ways. So when Alex calls 911,

he seems weirdly calm and unfazed. Here, there's, it's just very regular. Laurie, on the other hand, is a beat. She leaves the scene to drop J.J. off at school. Yeah. She returned to the house with Tyley. And this is a scene that's caught on body cam that you can see in the date line TV special, which is in and of

itself an amazing and incredibly thorough thing. So they have body cam footage of her and she immediately says she's only lived in the house for three weeks and she makes a joke about how this event, the shooting death of her estranged husband by her own brother, will make her seem like a bad neighbor. Then she says, quote, I'm like, hey neighbor, sorry. Oh my God. So later we'll learn that just minutes after Charles was shot dead, Laurie took the kids through a burger king drive through to get breakfast.

And later that same day after Charles' body has been was dead, Laurie took the kids to a burger king drive through to get breakfast. And later that same day, after Charles' body has been taken away, Laurie throws a pool party at the house, a big one, with, quote, loud music and lots of people swimming. What the fuck? Yeah. Also, she never writes an obituary for Charles.

She never plans a funeral for Charles. She ships his ashes to his family. And they hold a memorial service of their own for him. Those poor people, my God. Horrifying. And then Lori refuses to let JJ attend his father's funeral. So Alex Cox has never criminally charged for Charles death. The investigators seem to accept the self-defense claim and that's it.

But of course over time, cracks will emerge in Lorean Alex's story for starters. Forensic experts will eventually question whether Charles ever held the bat that day as there is no physical evidence found to support that he touched it. Do you think that they had the pool party to like get rid of any physical evidence that could have been there? Or just, you mean like to cover everything up? Yeah. Or is it just crazy?

It could be that and it could be, you know, having absolutely no idea what's going on with her mentally. So it could be, you know, she's a sociopath and there's no feelings whatsoever. It could be that she has been pulled into this kind of cult thinking of like everything's about to end. Nothing matters. Some people are these zombies, you know, you have to protect yourself from them, fear, fear, fear. And then like the denial, you know, she's freaking out,

maybe inside. So she's like, party, we have to have a party and like, make it look fine. Yeah, yeah. And like, kind of fill the empty space with people and talking and noise. Totally. And then also, along with the other physical evidence,

the position of Charles gunshot wound suggests that the second shot was fired while he was already on the floor, which is in direct conflict with Alex's claim that he fired in self-defense while Charles was charging at him with a bat. So phone records eventually show Charles arrived at the house at 7.35 a.m. and Laurie took the kids and left by 7.49. So 14 minutes. Lori and the kids were in the house when Charles was killed, sometime between 735 and 749, but Alex didn't call 911 until 836 AM over 45 minutes later.

And even still, he tells the operator that Charles was shot just minutes ago. was shot just minutes ago. We also will eventually learn that just hours after Charles' death, Chad Daybell, who still lives in Idaho, calls a local Arizona funeral home and asks for a price quote on cremating a body. And he used his own name when he made that phone call. What the fuck?

It doesn't look great for like that there's some pre-planning going on or at least some discussion. Yeah. So days later when Lori learns that she's no longer the beneficiary of Charles million dollar life insurance plan, she texts Chad and tells him, quote, I talked to the insurance company, he changed it in March, so it was probably Ned before we got rid of him." End quote. So Lori actually uses the words got rid of him when talking about her now dead husband and the demon that they're accusing him of having.

So now it's just weeks after Charles death, communication between Lori and Charles grieving family just stops. Kay and Larry Woodcock are extremely suspicious of the claim that Alex Cox killed Charles and self-defense, and they can't help but notice that Lori seems to be cutting their phone calls with JJ Short. So they're trying to talk to him, make sure he's okay, and she's like rushing him off the phone.

Then a few weeks after that, Kay and Larry cannot reach their grandson at all. In early September 2019, less than two months after Charles' death, Laurie suddenly moves Tylee and JJ out of Arizona and into a townhouse in Rexburg, Idaho, close to Chad Daybell. He lives in nearby Salem with his wife Tammy. Laurie's brother Alex Koch also moves to Rexburg in the same housing complex as Laurie. Then on September 8th, shortly after the family makes the big move, Alex Laurie and the kids take a trip to Yellowstone National Park. Tile just days shy of her 17th birthday,

poses for a picture holding JJ, and that will be the last known photo of Tylie that's ever taken. And after this, essentially, Tylie disappears. So thanks to GPS and phone records, we now know a few crucial things about what happened next. Records show that the family is back in Rexburg on September 9th and that night Alex Cock was inside Laurie's townhouse between 242 a.m. and 849 a.m. and not long after that

around 9 a.m. Alex's phone pings at Chad Daybell's house. It's believed that Alex stays there until around noon. Coincidentally, at 11.53, that morning, Chad texts his wife Tammy saying, well, I've had an interesting morning, spotted a big raccoon along the fence. Heard and got my gun. He was still walking along, got close enough that one shot did the trick. He is now in our pet cemetery, fun times." End quote. Oh, that's bleak. So if Chad's wife Tammy did happen to notice a fresh grave

on their property, then that text from her husband would explain it and basically keep it off of her mind. Tammy is wholly unaware of her husband's affair. She doesn't even know who Lori or her children are. She would have no reason to doubt what her husband is telling her. Meanwhile, Tiley's 17th birthday comes and goes and she is nowhere to be found.

Her friends and family are incredibly concerned. But when anyone asks Lori where her daughter is, she just has all different explanations. She tells one friend, Tiley has enrolled in classes at BYU Idaho and she's away on campus, which doesn't really make sense because Tiley isn't quite college aged yet. But it does seem to work. I'm sure because it sounds like school and planning and kind of like, oh, she's off doing school stuff. Yeah. Around the same time as that, Laurie starts telling people in her

inner circle that J.J. is a zombie. Oh dear. One friend would later say, quote, Laurie was obsessed with talking about it to the point where she was saying, look how he's behaving, look how hyper he is here. She was planting ideas to show me that she believed he was a zombie. But to my mind, he looked like typical J.J. What the fuck do you do with that information of your the friend? It's so sinister, and I'm sure the average person,

if she's talking, that's a person in her inner circle, so she's just giving her the story that she wants to give her. That's a person who's already accepted that thinking, like that concept is okay with me. Now you're talking about it's your own child. Right. If this is your belief system, it's your belief system. Yeah. But where are the limits within that? Are there any? Yeah. Yeah. So then on September 22nd, at some point between 9 p.m. and midnight, Alex Cox is seen walking into Lori's house

with JJ, who's asleep in his arms. And this is the last time anyone sees JJ. So later police will look at Alex Cox's phone records from around this time and the data they find places Alex on Chad daybell's property at 9.59, the following morning, mere hours after JJ is last seen at Lori's house. So now it's late September 2019. It hasn't even been a year since Lori and Chad Daybell met at that conference. Yeah, yet in the past three months alone, Lori's husband

Charles has been shot dead by her brother and her two children, Tylie and JJ, are suddenly missing. And meanwhile, Chad is still married to his wife of nearly 30 years Tammy. Everything seems fine with them on the surface. Until Chad starts sharing a disturbing prophecy with his friends, he claims to have a vision that Tammy is going to die before her 50th birthday, and that's less than a year away. So on October 9, 2019, Tammy Debel has a frightening encounter with a strange man in a ski mask. As she's unloading groceries from her car,

he approaches her while holding what Tammy thinks is a paintball gun. She'll later post about the encounter on Facebook saying, he shot at me several times, although I didn't think it was loaded, I was about to smack him with my freezer meals when I decided to yell for Chad instead." So the daybells called 911, but at that point, the gunman is long gone.

It's now believed that this man was Alex Cox, and he was trying to shoot a real gun at Tammy, but it jammed. At the time, police write off this encounter as a prank, 10 days later, another 911 call is placed from the daybell residents. This time it's Chad, he tells the dispatcher Tammy has died in her sleep. Oh my god. So this is an absolute shock. Tammy Daybell is a school librarian. She is an avid runner. She's a sharp woman, she's only 49 years old, Chad immediately declines an autopsy and hastily schedules Tammy's funeral just three days later.

You can just decline an autopsy if a healthy person dies. I guess so if there's no suspicion, if there's no reason to be suspicious, but wouldn't you want to know what happened, wouldn't you want the full story? Definitely. So her funeral is so rushed that some of her own family members can't make it for the service, and she's immediately buried. Less than two weeks after that, Chad and Laurie

run off to Hawaii to get married. Less than two weeks after his wife dies in her sleep. In weeks. They take pictures of themselves smiling and white outfits wearing matching lace and dancing on a beach, horrifying. Back on the mainland, the woodcocks have called the police and requested the welfare check on JJ and Tiley. So this is where we're coming back around to where we started.

So the police have just publicly declared JJ and Tylee missing. And they find out that Lori and Chad have gone back to Hawaii after having been married there just weeks before. So they get married. I believe it was the end of September. And this is they were basically just there. It's like six or eight weeks later. So Rexburg detectives start turning up the heat on these newlyweds.

They want Lori to prove that her children are safe, and they tell her all she needs to do is bring Tilean and JJ by the police station and show them that they're okay. Lori doesn't do it. She doesn't show up. She ignores that request. And then around this time, yet another shocking death takes place. On December 12, 2019, just weeks after Laurie and Chad get married, Alex Cox is found dead. Oh, shit. There's tons of initial suspicion around his death. It's eventually determined that he died of natural causes, although it's reported that he did have

Narcan in his system when he died, which is the drug you take when you overdose on I think opioids. Okay. Yeah. So now the FBI has joined the Rexburg police in the search for Tilean J.J. And at the same time, K and Larry Woodcock have announced a $20,000 reward for the children's safe return. So pretty soon this case breaks in the news.

It's covered all over the world. Strangers from everywhere are anxiously waiting to hear what happened to Tylean J.J. and where their mother is. Like what the explanation possibly could be, like what is actually going on. I remember it being like this, like there's no way they can come up with a simple explanation. Like there's nothing here that's just like simple at this point. So what kind of fuckery is it going to be? Because it was clearly going to be some kind of fuckery going on.

It wasn't going to be anybody anybody's gonna come back and say, oh, it's this misunderstanding. Don't worry, you don't have to worry about us. There's impossible. Also, those two children and their faces being on the news every single night, it's like, I feel like I'll always know what they look like. Little angel faces.

But also just thought like, how can this be a question mark? Yeah. How can it just be a month's long question mark? It's lowly it breaks that they're in Hawaii and they're just kind of not answering questions which that's when you just go, my very cynical true crime follower side goes, this is the worst news of all.

Myself as like an anti was like, if my sister wasn't telling me where the fuck my nephews were and I hadn't seen them in months or heard about and then going on, I'd be fucking losing my mind and it just would be like what a horrible, horrible experience. Yeah, not that my sister would do that. She's a great fucking mom, but you know.

No, she's a badass and she's great. But no, it's just that, it's such an unimaginable position. It's just unimaginable, doesn't make sense. And the idea that the people who knew Laurie Valow and that talked to her, that were slowly listening to her, talk about the end of the world, were slowly listening to her, talk about all this other stuff. They must have been scared to death.

Yeah. Yeah. So on January 25th, with both children still missing, police finally tracked down Lori and Chad in Hawaii sitting poolside in their swimsuits. They serve them a court order requiring Lori to present both Tiley and JJ to authorities within five days. And on January 30th, which was five days later, that court ordered deadline rolls around, but Lori does not show up.

She's still in Hawaii. It was a court order for the mainland. Soon after that, Lori is arrested on multiple charges, including two counts of felony desertion of a child. She is held on $5 million bail. On February 29th, Chad, who can't pay that bail, winds up returning to Rexburg without his new wife. Things aren't looking great for him either,

because as detectives continue investigating the children's disappearances, they get a search warrant for Chad's property in Salem. And as everyone holds their breath and waits to see what the results of this search warrant are, we all find out that human remains are found buried in the yard at Chad Daybell's property. And then it's soon confirmed that these remains

do in fact belong to 16 year old, Tiley Ryan, and seven year old JJ Valow. Hi, baby. to 16-year-old, Tiley Ryan, and seven-year-old JJ Valo. So Chad Debel is promptly arrested and sent to jail. Meanwhile, the police are now taking a much closer look at Tammy Debel's mysterious death, thank God. They soon find incriminating texts between Laurie and Chad, including one message that describes Tammy as being, quote, possessed by a spirit.

A chilling parallel to the Nench Knighter text messages Lori sent about Charles ahead of his untimely death. So they exume Tammy daybell's body. An autopsy is finally performed. The pathologist concludes that Tammy daybell was in fact murdered. Her cause of death was exphyseation, and as detectives continue investigating, they learn that phone records, once again, place Alex Cox near the daybell's neighborhood

on the night that Tammy died. So the picture that's coming into focus is a nightmarish murder spree. Yeah. That's like a brother murder for higher spree. Yeah. Children. Children of loved ones. Yeah. Innocent fucking loved ones. Yeah. So by late May 2021, there are already a slew of charges brought against both Lori and Chad

Debel. And now new charges are introduced. Laurie and Chad are both charged with first degree murder for Tilean J.J.'s deaths. Chad is charged with first degree murder for Tammy's death and Laurie is charged with conspiracy to commit murder for Tammy's death. Both Laurie and Chad plead not guilty to all charges. The couple is tried separately and Laurie's case goes to all charges. The couple has tried separately, and Lori's case goes to court first. Her child begins this past April of 2023. Damn, so just like six, I can't count six months ago.

Something like that. Yeah, September. People may change like August, September. Yes, six months. Nice one. Thank you. So right off the bat, of course, it's a complete media circus.

Cameras are banned from the courtroom. But for some reason, audio recordings are permitted. So people are actually live streaming. Like anyone can audio record, essentially, I'm not sure. But they're basically it's being live streamed. And then citizen sleuths are just listening and trying to put together theories, unlike trying to piece this thing together, and just analyzing all of these wild details. Journalist Nate Eaton of the East Idaho News says, quote, there were people from everywhere, Australia, South Africa, all of the states.

You had to get a ticket, and those tickets were gone every day within one minute. It was like a Taylor Swift concert So now the Doomsday mom headlines start to dominate this case Prosecutors argue that Lori's trial is not just about religious zealotry though. It's also about money power and sex The jury learns that Lori continued to collect her kids' social security benefits after they were missing. And in addition to Lori trying to cash in on Charles' life insurance, it's revealed that just two days after Tammy Daybell passed away, Chad contacted her school district and asked about an insurance payout. Dateline reported that, quote, in all the history of the district, they had never had somebody come in so quick

to find out how to claim life insurance. See, I was wondering that when you said that, what is a normal amount of time? Because there is people who don't have money to cover the funeral or pay rent next month. Right. So they need the life insurance, but I guess it's all circumstantial evidence.

Well, I think it's also, imagine getting the real news of someone like your husband being dead. And then how quickly you would start doing that kind of business. Like how you'd even be able to think within a week or two's time. Like oftentimes that's other people, other family members.

And it would just kind of be like a different story and a different set up. I mean, who knows? Maybe some people sit down and they've completely repressed every feeling and they're like, I have to take care of business. But I think it's really saying something that they're like in the history of the school district no one's ever called that

I like to hear is like the details of like what really happens. So prosecutors say that Lori used her small cult-like group to exercise power over other people including her brother Alex Cox. They argue that Alex was all in on Lori and Chad's religious ideas and that he was essentially manipulated into doing anything even murder for his quote goddess sister. But because Alex is dead, we will never know his true motives or beliefs. It's all conjecture. So in Laurie's trial, prosecutors focus on the idea that Lori was infatuated with Chad Debel and wanted to get rid of any obstacle that might keep them apart, including her own

family members. There was so much damning testimony and evidence from wedding rings purchased while Tammy was still alive to Chad introducing Lori to his neighbors as a grieving mother weeks before her children were declared missing. I mean, just every detail is worse than the last. But the most disturbing heart wrenching revelations from the trial are all about Tiley and JJ police officers give testimony that's heartbreaking and horrific, describing how they found their remains. Everyone in the courtroom saw photos from the crime scene and JJ's autopsy because it's all evidence.

Which is really something to consider when people are being look-y-loose or people are like, oh no, I want to see how this all plays out. And it's like with something like that, I really wonder how many of those people were like, this was a terrible idea. Right. This is not anything I actually wanted to have to come face to face with the reality of it. Well, I also wonder about the jurors who are forced

to see that stuff. And like we don't offer any PTSD counseling post, like traumatic trials like that. It's just like, now go home and go on your way after seeing the fucking worst of the worst. Yeah, you know, yeah, that's right. So of course there's a big emotional reaction throughout the courtroom. Lori begins to cry. She asks to leave the judge denies her request.

And apparently you can hear Larry Woodcock weeping in the courtroom as like those things are shown. Oh Jesus. It's just horrifying for everybody. Finally, the prosecution rests its case and all eyes are now on Lori Valos' defense team. Most people expect her lawyers to argue something like there's no concrete proof that she herself, as opposed to Alex or Chad, carry out these killings. But to everyone's total shock, Lori's attorney stands up and simply says, quote, we do not believe the prosecution has proven this case and we rest our case.

Whoa. Nothing. No defense. That's it. Yeah. They don't amount to defense. Lori does not testify. They don't call witnesses. They don't present any evidence at all. What the fuck? And later during closing arguments, Lori's lawyer places all the blame on Chad Debel. And he says, quote, why can't people escape religious leaders? Why can't Lori escape and get back to her good mom life?

Is Lori a leader or a follower of Chad? So she so wants to be a leader, but she's not leading anyone. She's following Chad. She thinks Chad is following Jesus, but he is not. So why didn't they call anyone to testify about how enamored she was with him? And you know what I mean?

Because there wasn't anyone to fucking do that. Right, because that probably wouldn't have been the story. But still, what a bold move. No case. Our case is no case. I was shocked when I read that part. I was shocked. The jury deliberates for seven hours and then they come back with a verdict. Laurie Valo Debel is found guilty on both counts of first degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and a grand theft charge for taking her children's social security benefits.

She has sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. After the trial, Kay and Larry Woodcock's stand outside of the courtroom speaking to the media, Larry tells reporters, quote, J.J., I love you, tally, I love you, Tammy, I'm sorry for what happened to you. My heart hurts, my heart hurts for these three.

This is what this has all been about from the very get go. It started with two children missing and I stood up and I said where are the children? Where are the children? Poorable. So Lori Valow very recently appealed her convictions citing procedural issues that range from her trial jury selection selection process to the judges' declaration that Lori was mentally fit for trial. It's unclear what will become of her appeal. Meanwhile, authorities in Arizona have now indicted Lori on additional charges related to the murder of her third husband, Charles Valo. It's unclear when these will go to court. Chad Debel's trial is set for April of 2024. And that is the story that date line. And I think a bunch of other media outlets called Mommy Doomsday,

Lori Valo, and the tragic deaths of 16 year old, Tilly Ryan, seven year old JJ Valo, 49 year old Tammy Debel, and 62 year old Charles Valo. Wow. Great job covering that. Thank you. Yeah, I watched those day line episodes and it's rough. I mean, horrifying. Just evil fucking people.

Evil people and also just under this concept of like, okay, here's our belief system. Now, we're gonna go dig inside of that and go to like an even rarer belief system that have many less people that have a say in what we're doing and saying. And it's like, once your beliefs only include like 12 people in your living room, there's a problem.

And to happen so fast too, within only, I mean, less than a year, that should take 10 fucking years, you know, to like indoctrinate people and to slowly, it's like they were, they were primed and like wanting to have these beliefs because they happen so fast. Yes. It happened so fast and then they murdered so many people. But like close to them people. Yes. I mean, it hired like a higher to family member to murder them.

And just by percentages, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that Alex Cox also could have been murdered since he's the only person that would have known like the true details and and all the worst. Just going to say, why do you think they murdered Adelaide Cox? Because clearly they did. Right. So what was the reason behind that?

Like, was he like the children? It was too much. It seemed like he was involved with that part. So I don't know. But it's like, how are they saying he died of natural causes? Like, there's no way. It's just unprovable. It's all that stuff where it's like, how are they saying he died of natural causes? Like, there's no way. It's just unprovable. It's all that stuff where it's like, it doesn't mean

the truth has been found out. It's just that they're saying there are limits to what we can find out. Right, right, it's all alleged until it's not. So crazy. Just one of the craziest stories. It's almost unsatisfying, actually, to see it all on paper, because I thought it's like,

I thought there would like, I thought there would be an explanation of how they could do it or something. Well, you almost like want her to be brainwashed because it's an explanation that at least we can like try to understand, but it's such a short time and everything happened so quickly. It seemed like she was 100% on board with what was going on. I mean, just who knows? Goddamn, yeah.

It's been an hour and 12. My story's really long. Oh my God, really long. Should we do a two-barter? I think so. My story's so long. I didn't know the whole time I was like, cool. I don't know what to go.

You were like, bye. Yeah, well, I mean time I was like, cool. I don't know what to go. You were like, bye. Yeah, well, I mean, that was great. I was like on the edge of my pants the whole time. And wow, what a fucked up story. So bad. You think you want to know. I'm one of those people. I thought I wanted to know.

This is what it always happens. Then you know, and you're like, damn. But you don't know anything. It's like a cold case where it's like, I still don't understand humanity, and why and why and what's going on and how, all the things. How much is denial, how much is just a total lack of, I mean, yeah, humanity is the right word.

All right, well, I'll go next week. I have a long one. It's a good one. I think you're gonna like a perfection. I love it. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks for listening, everybody. Thanks for being here with us. We really appreciate when you join us on this little podcast. You guys are the best. Thank you. Say sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Bye bye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Aaaaah! This has been an exactly right production.

Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck. Our managing producer is Hanukau Critan. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Squilachi. Our researchers are Marin McCluchin and Ali Elkin. Email your hometowns to my favorite murder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my favorite murder and Twitter at my fave murder.

Goodbye. Listen, follow, leave us a review on Amazon Music, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, prime members, did you know that you can listen to my favorite murder early and add free on Amazon Music? Download the Amazon Music app today. You can support my favorite murder by filling out a survey at Wendery.com slash survey.