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Speaker 1: two Crime Conversations. We've handpicked some of the most chilling
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Speaker 1: women who have been incarcerated sharing the journeys that led
Speaker 1: them to that place. And that's just the beginning. We
Speaker 1: first brought you the story of Valo day Bell Doomsday
Speaker 1: murders in twenty twenty two. As you'll hear, in November
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, police conducted a welfare check on seven year
Speaker 1: old JJ Valow. He hadn't been seen since September, and
Speaker 1: police will come to realize that neither had his teenage sister.
Speaker 1: Their parents led a Mormon religious group, which police would
Speaker 1: discover to be a very sinister cult. Here's our original conversation.
Speaker 2: Take a listen.
Speaker 1: This episode deals with pedophilia and child abuse. Listener discretion
Speaker 1: is advised. It's a Tuesday in November twenty nineteen, and
Speaker 1: the autumn days in Rexburg, Idaho are getting cooler as
Speaker 1: winter fast approaches. Police are on the doorstep of five
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty five Pioneer Road, conducting a welfare check
Speaker 1: on seven year old JJ Vallo. JJ's grandparents haven't spoken
Speaker 1: to him for months, and they're getting really worried. His mum,
Speaker 1: Laurie Vallo, answers the door bye, thank you.
Speaker 2: So yeah, this is a big mess. I just liked
Speaker 2: to the guy already asked you. He was just saying
Speaker 2: that you wanted to do a well chair day. So
Speaker 2: Jaj we Arizona. Who's he worked in Arizona. He's with
Speaker 2: one of my friends in Arizona.
Speaker 1: But JJ isn't in Arizona. He's not with one of
Speaker 1: Laurie's friends. And his big sister, Tylie is missing too.
Speaker 1: Neither child has been seen since around September, when the
Speaker 1: family first moved from Arizona to Idaho, a few months
Speaker 1: after the shooting death of Lourie's fourth husband, police have
Speaker 1: stumbled on a web of lies that are about to unravel. Affairs,
Speaker 1: mysterious deaths, a doomsday cult, and at the center of
Speaker 1: it all two missing children and a mother who isn't
Speaker 1: trying to find them.
Speaker 2: Where are your kids? Your comment? They've been missing for
Speaker 2: four months. You have nothing to say. Just tell us
Speaker 2: where they are.
Speaker 1: I'm Jimmy Bath and this is True Crime Conversations Amma
Speaker 1: mea podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking
Speaker 1: to the people who know the most about them. In
Speaker 1: today's episode, I'm speaking with journalist and author Leah Sattilly.
Speaker 1: Her book When the Moon Turns to Blood examines the
Speaker 1: trail of mysterious deaths surrounding Lori Valo and her husband,
Speaker 1: doomsday novelist Chad Daybell. A reminder before we get into
Speaker 1: the episode. While the couple are facing charges, they are
Speaker 1: yet to stand trial for their alleged crimes. Leah, can
Speaker 1: you give us a bit of an overview as to
Speaker 1: who Lourie Valo was before all of this went down?
Speaker 1: What was her family makeup, did she have a career,
Speaker 1: what was her story?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. I think it was actually
Speaker 2: a little bit hard to find when I was doing
Speaker 2: the reporting for this book. She was somebody that wasn't
Speaker 2: super online. She didn't have a high profile career or anything.
Speaker 2: But what is known about her is that most of
Speaker 2: her time she spent just being a stay at home mom.
Speaker 2: For a time, she did work as a hairdresser in Texas,
Speaker 2: which is probably why her hair always looks so amazing
Speaker 2: even in jail. But for most of the time, she
Speaker 2: was just concentrating on being a mother. You know, it's
Speaker 2: a big part of the LDS faith that the Mormon church,
Speaker 2: you know, to be in a mother means to be
Speaker 2: a nurturer and a childcare provider. And that's a lot
Speaker 2: of what she did and her life really was when
Speaker 2: she wasn't working as a hairdresser anymore. It was raising
Speaker 2: her children. It was going to church, teaching Sunday school,
Speaker 2: and participating in church activities.
Speaker 1: And she'd had quite a few husbands as well. She
Speaker 1: was onto her fulls by the time this story kind
Speaker 1: of really picks up.
Speaker 2: Yes, So my understanding is that she married her high
Speaker 2: school sweetheart. It was something that was her first marriage.
Speaker 2: She sort of took off. Her family didn't even know
Speaker 2: that she was getting married. That was a very brief marriage.
Speaker 2: Her second marriage equally brief, but she did get pregnant
Speaker 2: and that was the father of her first son, Colby,
Speaker 2: who is alive. And that marriage I don't even think
Speaker 2: last of the year. Then she got a little bit
Speaker 2: more into more serious relationships. So she was married to
Speaker 2: Joseph Ryan for quite some time, who is the father
Speaker 2: of Tyleie Ryan. And when that marriage fell apart, she
Speaker 2: married Charles Vaalo, her fourth husband and the father of
Speaker 2: JJ Vaalo. They adopted JJ together.
Speaker 1: Can you set the scene a little bit about who
Speaker 1: JJ and Tylie were? Who were they as children?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's a really good question. I spent so
Speaker 2: much of the book trying to understand who these children
Speaker 2: were beyond their photographs, because that's really what everybody knows
Speaker 2: about them. There are these two kids, they're in these photos,
Speaker 2: and that's kind of it. Tylie Ryan seemed by all
Speaker 2: accounts to be this very precocious, very intelligent child. She
Speaker 2: went to an art based school. At one point she
Speaker 2: was into dancing, you know, real sarcastic, quick humor. Like
Speaker 2: kids at school couldn't even really bully her because she
Speaker 2: would just like come right back at them, just kind
Speaker 2: of like a really tough kid with a great sense
Speaker 2: of humor and a good head on her shoulders. Also
Speaker 2: really into church, you know, doing things that you know
Speaker 2: any girl would do. She was really into Hamilton. She
Speaker 2: you know, crushed on different celebrities with her girlfriends and
Speaker 2: went to Disneyland and did all of those things. And
Speaker 2: she completed her ged so she didn't finish high school,
Speaker 2: but she did a certificate to kind of do the
Speaker 2: equivalent of that, and was trying to figure out what
Speaker 2: she was going to do next in her life. And
Speaker 2: then her little brother was JJ Vallo. So it's a
Speaker 2: real complicated family web here. I'll see if I can
Speaker 2: explain it easily. So Laurie was married to Charles Valo.
Speaker 2: Charles Valo's sister is a woman named Kay Woodcock who
Speaker 2: is a real big figure in this story. Kay Woodcock
Speaker 2: has her own son, and her son had a little
Speaker 2: boy who's JJ. He had a different name when he
Speaker 2: was born for a variety of reasons I don't think
Speaker 2: we can really get into. He couldn't care for the child,
Speaker 2: and Kay Woodcock said to her brother, Charles, you know,
Speaker 2: are you and Laurie maybe in a position that you
Speaker 2: could adopt this little boy if they wanted to kind
Speaker 2: of keep him in the family, and they said yes.
Speaker 2: So Laurie and Charles adopted JJ when he was two
Speaker 2: years old. They gave him a new name. He was
Speaker 2: born Canaan and they named him Joshua. And he was
Speaker 2: on autism spectrum, so he had really kind of high
Speaker 2: needs that required a lot of their energy, a lot
Speaker 2: of their time, and a lot of their understanding. They
Speaker 2: sent JJ to a special school that was you know,
Speaker 2: catered to kids on the spectrum, and he had a
Speaker 2: lot of success there. He had his own guide dog
Speaker 2: named Bailey, and seemed by all accounts to be a
Speaker 2: really happy kid. And he remaintained a really close relationship
Speaker 2: with his grandparents, Kay Woodcock and Larry Woodcock.
Speaker 1: So Charles who is the adopted father of JJ. So
Speaker 1: Laurie and Charles were together, you know, for more than
Speaker 1: a decade of marriage before things started to turn sah there.
Speaker 1: What did start happening because Laurie started to get involved
Speaker 1: in some teachings around that time.
Speaker 2: When they met, you know, there was a big age
Speaker 2: difference between them, Like I think that they would joke
Speaker 2: that he was kind of like a sugar daddy a
Speaker 2: little bit, and she was kind of this hot, you
Speaker 2: know wife, and they thought that was real funny and
Speaker 2: they're a beautiful couple, and you know, yeah, like you said,
Speaker 2: about a decade into their relationship, Laurie started to entertain
Speaker 2: ideas really at the fringes of the Mormon faith, things
Speaker 2: that are not acceptable to talk about in church. And
Speaker 2: you know, Charles converted to Mormonism for Laurie, so he
Speaker 2: was also a real active member in the church. She
Speaker 2: continued to go to her local ward every Sunday and
Speaker 2: teach Sunday School, but on the side, she was becoming
Speaker 2: a part of these groups that would sort of you know,
Speaker 2: read into scripture and really kind of fringy extremist ways,
Speaker 2: sort of looking for radical teachings within the Book of Mormon,
Speaker 2: entertaining things like energy work and near death experiences. And
Speaker 2: also she started attending conferences on the sort of survivalist
Speaker 2: prepper circuit within the inter Mountain West, so like Utah, Arizona,
Speaker 2: and really kind of sinking deeply into this culture that
Speaker 2: the mainstream LDS church has long been like no, no, no,
Speaker 2: this is not what we teach, this is not who
Speaker 2: we are. This is not Mormonism. But even so, there's
Speaker 2: like what I found in my reporting, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of people who want to like level up their faith.
Speaker 2: That's kind of what they'll say. They're like seeking something more.
Speaker 2: They're not satisfied with, you know, just being a normal Mormon.
Speaker 2: They want something that's going to make them feel a
Speaker 2: little closer to their faith. And so what I found
Speaker 2: was that I thought she was maybe a part of
Speaker 2: like a fringe minority, and you know, that's the is
Speaker 2: the case, but it's a lot bigger than I thought.
Speaker 2: These conferences and these groups of people that kind of
Speaker 2: entertain this stuff.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to go into Chad in Daytail later,
Speaker 1: but he's already kind of on the picture now because
Speaker 1: he is a big influence in all of this stuff
Speaker 1: that she's kind of sinking into.
Speaker 2: Exactly she met Chad on that prepper circuit. He was
Speaker 2: in Your Death Experience author had kind of like a
Speaker 2: small cachet I think, like of celebrity within that circuit,
Speaker 2: and that's where they met. That's how they came together.
Speaker 1: Am I right in saying that one of the issues
Speaker 1: between Charles and Laurie's relationship is that he is accusing
Speaker 1: her of having an affair, she's accusing him of having
Speaker 1: an affair. There's all this kind of it gets a
Speaker 1: bit messy.
Speaker 2: It did. It got very messy. I think that one
Speaker 2: thing that I had to understand in doing my reporting
Speaker 2: was that, you know, Charles was no angel, and that
Speaker 2: in no way means that he should not be alive.
Speaker 2: But there's no excuse for him being killed. But he
Speaker 2: definitely started to have a sense that something was going
Speaker 2: on with Laurie. You know, she had said to him, look,
Speaker 2: I can kill you with my powers. I'm a goddess.
Speaker 2: Like she started to really be out and proud about
Speaker 2: the things that she was believing, and Charles was like,
Speaker 2: what is going on with you? And he tried really
Speaker 2: to ring the alarm kind of at church with her friends,
Speaker 2: with her family, and kind of got shut down at
Speaker 2: every point. Now, she also accused him of cheating on her.
Speaker 2: She had said something to Kay Woodcock about that he
Speaker 2: was paying prostitutes, and she'd found some kind of credit
Speaker 2: card receipts and stuff. You know, it was clear that
Speaker 2: their marriage was really falling apart. At one point, Laurie
Speaker 2: disappeared for two months and went to Hawaii and left JJ.
Speaker 2: You know, with Charles, he had no idea where she was,
Speaker 2: and he filed for divorce. When she came back, he
Speaker 2: revoked that filing for divorce because he said, I think
Speaker 2: we can make it work, but of course it didn't work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I want to take us to July eleven,
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, emergency service is a cold to Laurie's house.
Speaker 1: Laurie and Charles's house, what was happening.
Speaker 2: So what happened was Charles had started getting more aggressive
Speaker 2: with Laurie, saying, I'm going to expose you. I'm going
Speaker 2: to expose you and your boyfriend, Chad Dabel. I'm going
Speaker 2: to tell all these faithful people that you're around that
Speaker 2: you're not really living by the way the church says,
Speaker 2: that you're doing all this crazy stuff. You know. They
Speaker 2: were kind of threatening each other, and she got word
Speaker 2: that Charles had started speaking to her brother, to her sisters,
Speaker 2: to her parents, and he was going to try and
Speaker 2: stage an intervention with her brother where they would record
Speaker 2: her talking about what she believed and then they would
Speaker 2: show it to somebody in the church in hopes of
Speaker 2: maybe getting her excommunicated or or doing something that would
Speaker 2: really kind of wake her up out of this kind
Speaker 2: of trance that she was in with these beliefs. So
Speaker 2: knowing that, Rie called her brother Alex, who at this
Speaker 2: point is known as somebody that you know has always
Speaker 2: kind of been like a guardian, and she thought of
Speaker 2: Alex as her guardian angel, and she said, come over,
Speaker 2: I need you to be here. So that morning, Charles
Speaker 2: came over to pick up JJ. He said he was
Speaker 2: going to bring him to school. A confrontation ensued, and
Speaker 2: Alex went to his room that he was staying in
Speaker 2: and got the gun that he brought with him and
Speaker 2: shot Charles. He said it was in self defense. Now
Speaker 2: we know that investigators found two bullets, one of which
Speaker 2: was in a wall, but the other one was directly
Speaker 2: into the floor, which suggested to them that he shot
Speaker 2: Charles like you know a mobster would in a movie,
Speaker 2: Like he shot him as he was laying on the ground.
Speaker 2: So that shot, based on and many other pieces of evidence,
Speaker 2: started to suggest to them that this was a murder.
Speaker 2: It was not an act of self defense.
Speaker 1: What struck me was the behavior of Alex off to
Speaker 1: that incident. Police camera footage of him on the footpath
Speaker 1: outside and he's he's just shot someone and he appears fine.
Speaker 1: And then there's this other element where Laurie just takes
Speaker 1: JJ to school, like everything just feels so normal.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad that you've seen that footage because it
Speaker 2: is so striking. I mean, first, you're right, Alex, you know,
Speaker 2: he comes outside, he says, I shot my brother in law.
Speaker 2: You know, he came out with he hit me in
Speaker 2: the head with a baseball that I shot him in
Speaker 2: self defense. Charles Vella at once was a college baseball player,
Speaker 2: and he was a very you know, very muscular strong man,
Speaker 2: and I imagine that if he'd hit somebody in the
Speaker 2: head with a baseball bat that he would be very hurt.
Speaker 2: And Alex had this just teeny tiny trickle of blood
Speaker 2: on the back of his head, like maybe he'd fallen
Speaker 2: down or something. So that was clearly a line that
Speaker 2: he was feeding the police, but they bought it. And
Speaker 2: the thing that struck me was that, you know, one
Speaker 2: of the police officers was sort of realizing what was happening,
Speaker 2: that you know, there was a dead body inside, and
Speaker 2: he tells Alex, hang on, you know, and need just
Speaker 2: sit here on the curb and he goes to kind
Speaker 2: of get his colleagues and rope it off. So it's
Speaker 2: a murder scene, and Alex has the nerve to be like, hey,
Speaker 2: can I get some water? Like it just it just
Speaker 2: was like, you know, we talked so much about the
Speaker 2: differences in the way law enforcement treats people of color
Speaker 2: and white people in America, and this was just one
Speaker 2: of those glaring examples where you're like, this person just
Speaker 2: shot someone and they're just like acting like they're some
Speaker 2: kind of victim.
Speaker 1: And he was asking about the weather and stuff.
Speaker 2: It's bizarre. It's really bizarre. And then yeah, Laurie, so
Speaker 2: after Charles was shot, you know, she got in the
Speaker 2: car with JJ, went to Burger King to get him
Speaker 2: some chicken fries and a sprite for breakfast, took him
Speaker 2: to school, went to a pharmacy and bought some flip
Speaker 2: flops for her and Kyle to wear, which you know,
Speaker 2: I don't think has ever been answered, but it makes
Speaker 2: me wonder why, you know, did they leave I think
Speaker 2: they may have left the house without shoes on. But
Speaker 2: then part of me is like, did they walk through
Speaker 2: blood that they didn't want? You know, that's a speculation
Speaker 2: on my part, but yeah, she kind of went about
Speaker 2: her mourning and then came back and pulled up to
Speaker 2: the house and the police, you know, told her, your
Speaker 2: husband has been shot by your brother, and she's like
Speaker 2: laughing and being like, wow, what an impression to make
Speaker 2: on my new neighbors. Ha ha ha. It was very
Speaker 2: it was very odd. It was very odd. And what's
Speaker 2: amazing is that the police really bought what Alex and
Speaker 2: Laurie told them. It took over a year for them
Speaker 2: to release some of the evidence where they're like, hang on,
Speaker 2: this was definitely not an act of self defense.
Speaker 1: Had Alex done anything this before? You mentioned that he
Speaker 1: was kind of like the family protecta. Was there any
Speaker 1: other incidents.
Speaker 2: They had a really strange relationship. There is one incident
Speaker 2: of note that is, you know, for people who followed
Speaker 2: this story, I think it's critical to know that when
Speaker 2: Laurie was married to her third husband, Joseph Ryan, they
Speaker 2: had a very very messy divorce and it was so
Speaker 2: messy because she accused Joseph Ryan of molesting Tylee and
Speaker 2: her older brother Colby, and that was in and out
Speaker 2: of court. I mean, it went to trial, which is
Speaker 2: very rare that something like that would happen. And to
Speaker 2: this day, the mental health professionals that worked on that case,
Speaker 2: that interviewed the kids that testified in the trial, they
Speaker 2: told Dateline that they still think that there's nothing that happened,
Speaker 2: that it was all a complete fabrication of Flori. But regardless,
Speaker 2: this was sort of the circumstances. She was telling everyone
Speaker 2: that her husband had molested her children and it was
Speaker 2: a big deal. So at one point Joseph Ryan had
Speaker 2: the ability to see his daughter again, but it had
Speaker 2: to be at a facility where someone could like monitor.
Speaker 2: It was like, you know, as they were kind of
Speaker 2: working towards a normalcy again, he started seeing her there
Speaker 2: and it was kind of like, so everybody was like
Speaker 2: a neutral party sort of place. Well, he sees Tylee
Speaker 2: and then he leaves and he's going out to his
Speaker 2: car and there's a guy standing by his car and
Speaker 2: it's Alex and he says, you know, I need to
Speaker 2: talk to you, and Joseph Frian's like, we don't need
Speaker 2: to talk. And Alex gets out of taser and tases him,
Speaker 2: and you know, Joseph Ryan gets tased, he falls down,
Speaker 2: he gets up, he runs away. Alex continues to tase him,
Speaker 2: Joseph Ryan falls down again, fractures his wrist. You know,
Speaker 2: the police get called, and in the end, Alex Cox
Speaker 2: ends up going to jail for several months for this
Speaker 2: assault that he thought Josephryan was a child molester and
Speaker 2: he deserved that. So later Tyler Ryan would tell her father,
Speaker 2: Joseph Ryan, that she saw it happen. So there's a
Speaker 2: lot of speculation of whether or not Laurie and him
Speaker 2: were in on this together, and that, you know, Tylee
Speaker 2: was there.
Speaker 1: What happens next, because not long after the shooting, Laurie
Speaker 1: and the kids' lifetown they do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're there in Arizona for a couple more actually, no,
Speaker 2: probably only about a month and a half before they
Speaker 2: decide to move very randomly to Rexburg, Idaho. It's a
Speaker 2: few states away. You know. Laurie lives in the Phoenix
Speaker 2: area in Arizona's a very urban, suburban place, and she
Speaker 2: decides to go to this very small town in rural
Speaker 2: southern Idaho and she pulls JJ out of school, She
Speaker 2: gets rid of his service dog, returns it to the
Speaker 2: place that you know train service dogs, and says, we
Speaker 2: aren't going to need the dog anymore. So they moved
Speaker 2: to Rexburg, Idaho, and she tells no one, No one
Speaker 2: knows that she moved. So they get to Rexburg in
Speaker 2: early September of twenty nineteen, and pretty quickly, you know,
Speaker 2: if you go to the area, everybody goes to Yellowstone
Speaker 2: National Park. That's like the thing that you do in
Speaker 2: the family. Like a family, they go to Yellowstone National Park. Lurie, Tylee, JJ,
Speaker 2: and Alex Cox, Laurie's brother, and that is the last
Speaker 2: time that Tyler Ryan has ever seen is in photos
Speaker 2: from that trip to Yellowstone. Now, the whole reason that
Speaker 2: we can surmise that Laurie moved to Rexburg was that
Speaker 2: Chad Dabel lived there. This was somebody that she was
Speaker 2: arranging to see. You know, while she was still married
Speaker 2: to Charles, they were meeting, they were going to conferences
Speaker 2: and seeing each other. She had a separate cell phone
Speaker 2: that she would talk to for Chad Dabel. She very
Speaker 2: clearly she was having an affair. But with Charles out
Speaker 2: of the picture, she moves north to Rexburg, goes to Yellowstone.
Speaker 2: Tyleye's never seen, but she has JJ for a few
Speaker 2: more weeks and then JJ is last seen in late
Speaker 2: September twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: Does anyone notice that they'd gone? I guess they're in
Speaker 1: this new town where no one knows them.
Speaker 2: I think the person who noticed the most that they
Speaker 2: had moved from Arizona was Charles Valla's sister, Kay Woodcock.
Speaker 2: Now she lived in a totally different state, but she
Speaker 2: had really regular contact with JJ, with her grandson, and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden that just stopped. After Charles died.
Speaker 2: You know, they had a funeral for him, and Laurie
Speaker 2: refused to go. I mean, she didn't go to the funeral.
Speaker 2: She said she didn't want JJ to go to his funeral.
Speaker 2: She stopped answering Kate's calls, and then they just moved.
Speaker 2: And this could come out in the trial that maybe
Speaker 2: some of Laurie's friends that she was involved with knew,
Speaker 2: but for the most part, really nobody knew. Nobody really
Speaker 2: and her family knew. Her own son, Colby, her oldest son,
Speaker 2: did not initially know that his mom and his siblings
Speaker 2: moved to Idaho. He had no idea, So it was
Speaker 2: a very very random thing.
Speaker 1: You're listening to true crime Conversations with me, Jemma buff
Speaker 1: I'm speaking with investigative journalists. Leah satilly about Lourie Vallo
Speaker 1: and her husband Chad day Bell. I want to set
Speaker 1: up Chad Dabell a little bit more because he already
Speaker 1: had a family in rex Book, didn't he.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was married to a woman named Tammy. They
Speaker 2: had been married for twenty nine years, you know, since
Speaker 2: they were quite young. They had five children, several that
Speaker 2: were grown, several that still lived at home. But yeah,
Speaker 2: by whole accounts, a very happy life together. They ran
Speaker 2: his book publishing company called Spring Creek Books that published
Speaker 2: lots of different authors, but also published all of his books.
Speaker 2: And then Tammy also worked as a librarian at a
Speaker 2: local elementary school, very popular among kids, you know, very
Speaker 2: known for her love of books and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: But yeah, he had a whole life. He had moved
Speaker 2: his family from Utah a few years earlier, and that
Speaker 2: was also seen in the Dabel family as very odd,
Speaker 2: Like what you're moving to Rexburg, Idaho? Why you know,
Speaker 2: it's less far than Lori's move. But Davell started to
Speaker 2: write in his books about his belief that, you know,
Speaker 2: the Promised Land, the sort of like place where the
Speaker 2: chosen people would be saved in the End Times was Rexburg, Idaho,
Speaker 2: And you have to wonder if that's the reason why
Speaker 2: he moved there and why he encouraged Laurie and other
Speaker 2: people to move there.
Speaker 1: Not long after Laurie comes to Rexburg, something happens to Tammy.
Speaker 2: Right, So in October twenty nineteen, she is coming home
Speaker 2: from a meeting of the Relief Society. This is the
Speaker 2: LDS Women's organization. And my understanding is that she was
Speaker 2: going and prepping like freezer meals, so a bunch of
Speaker 2: meals for the week where you could just pop it
Speaker 2: in the freezer and get it out when you get
Speaker 2: home from work and dinner's on the table. So she
Speaker 2: had just gotten home, she'd just pulled in the driveway
Speaker 2: of the day Bell House, gets out of her car
Speaker 2: and there's a guy in all black with a mask
Speaker 2: standing there and he starts shooting at her with a gun.
Speaker 2: And her initial thought was to scream, but then later
Speaker 2: she thought, well, maybe it was a paintball gun. I
Speaker 2: don't think that it was. I think that it was
Speaker 2: a real gun. And I think the conclusion that almost
Speaker 2: everyone has made is that that was Alex Cox. And
Speaker 2: she screamed she called for Chad and then what we'll
Speaker 2: call Alex ran away, and she posted on Facebook and
Speaker 2: just said, hey, neighbors, just so you know this, like
Speaker 2: random guy came and shot at me with a paintball
Speaker 2: gun and I don't know what to do with that,
Speaker 2: but just letting you know. And it was a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks later, you know, things normalized, She went back
Speaker 2: to work. You know, everything is going the way it
Speaker 2: would go. And then one night, all of a sudden.
Speaker 2: There's a bunch of different conflicting stories here, but the
Speaker 2: way her son tells it, the oldest Dave Bell child,
Speaker 2: is that all of a sudden, he heard the thump
Speaker 2: in the bedroom and Chad said, you got to come
Speaker 2: in here, and his mother was half on the bed
Speaker 2: and half off the bed, and it looked like she
Speaker 2: was dead. Now, Chad has given several different accounts of this.
Speaker 2: He has said that she's given that account. He's also
Speaker 2: given an account that he woke up in the morning
Speaker 2: and Tammy had died sometime in her sleep. You have
Speaker 2: to remember this is a woman in her forties. By
Speaker 2: all accounts, she was really fit, she was running. She
Speaker 2: had just visited her face family back in Utah, and
Speaker 2: they were talking about how she had taken like a
Speaker 2: clogging class, like Hi Cardio kind of things, like she
Speaker 2: was real active and you know, had a real busy
Speaker 2: life and everything, and then all of a sudden, she
Speaker 2: just died. And I think, you know, among the shocking
Speaker 2: things of what happened around Tammy Dabel's death was she died.
Speaker 2: And Idaho has this really unique thing where the coroner
Speaker 2: came and asked, do you want me to do an
Speaker 2: autopsy and the family said no. You know, a private
Speaker 2: investigator I interviewed for the book said, well, that's a
Speaker 2: really good way to cover up a murder. It's unique
Speaker 2: and that's not how it is in most states. Idaho
Speaker 2: has some pretty unique laws. So they didn't do an autopsy.
Speaker 2: They shift her over to Utah, where she warn't to
Speaker 2: be buried. She was buried in a graveyard that Chad
Speaker 2: Dabel once worked at as a grave digger. And that
Speaker 2: was that. It seemed like that was the end of
Speaker 2: Tammy's story.
Speaker 1: And he's my math correct. He bought. Two weeks later,
Speaker 1: Laurie and Chad get married.
Speaker 2: Yes, they do. Two weeks later. In my book, I
Speaker 2: talk about how Chad's brother, Brad told me that at
Speaker 2: Tammy's funeral, Chad pulled him aside and said, Hey, I'm
Speaker 2: going to be getting married. And Brad was like, what
Speaker 2: are you talking about. You're getting married, like your wife
Speaker 2: just died. And he's like, well, you gotta, you know,
Speaker 2: wait for a while. And he's like, I can't wait.
Speaker 2: I need to get married now, and he said, don't
Speaker 2: tell anyone. Don't tell anybody. So his brother was like,
Speaker 2: what the heck is going on? And truly, two weeks later,
Speaker 2: he and Laurie Valla were married on a beach in Hawaii,
Speaker 2: so his second marriage, her fifth marriage, and there was
Speaker 2: no one there. It was just the two of them.
Speaker 2: They wore matching white clothing and purple flower lays around
Speaker 2: their neck and these green malachite stone rings that they
Speaker 2: had ordered off Amazon. And that was that. They went
Speaker 2: home home to Rexburg. Laurie did not move into the
Speaker 2: day Bell house. She stayed in her townhouse and Chad
Speaker 2: Daybell his children, I got remarried, and they were all
Speaker 2: very shocked by that news that who is this woman?
Speaker 2: Our mother just sided You're telling us you just got married.
Speaker 2: What is going on?
Speaker 1: And something to remind listeners about at this point, is
Speaker 1: that JJ and Tylie are missing this whole time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and no one knows. I mean, if the timeline
Speaker 2: that everyone has determined is correct, the last time Tylie
Speaker 2: was seen in early September. The last time JJ was
Speaker 2: seen was late September, and you're right by November when
Speaker 2: they are remarried, it has been over a month, almost
Speaker 2: two months since anyone has seen Tylie and over a
Speaker 2: month since anyone has seen JJ. And that's when Kay
Speaker 2: Woodcock kind of comes into the equation because she calls
Speaker 2: the police in Rexburg, Idaho, after getting into Charles Vella's
Speaker 2: Amazon account and seeing that Laurie was using his Amazon
Speaker 2: account to shift packages to, of all places, Rexburg, Idaho.
Speaker 2: And she's like, oh my god, Laurie moved. She moved
Speaker 2: to Idaho to this town. So she called the police
Speaker 2: in Rexburg, Idaho and said, I haven't seen my grandson
Speaker 2: since August when we were on a video call, and
Speaker 2: can you go to this address and check. So they
Speaker 2: went to the door, knocked on it and asked where
Speaker 2: the kids were. And that's kind of where everything goes insane.
Speaker 1: Well, that's, you know, what you would call a welfare chick,
Speaker 1: and I've listened to that and when you know the background,
Speaker 1: Laurie's lying. She lies to authorities.
Speaker 2: She's so good at lying. Did you notice that, like
Speaker 2: she she's so seamless. Oh no, don't worry about it.
Speaker 2: This is all a big misunderstanding. JJ's just with my
Speaker 2: friends back in Arizona. He's with my friend Melanie. She
Speaker 2: has an autistic child too. You know, it seemed like
Speaker 2: a believable story, And the detective said, okay, you know,
Speaker 2: we'll give you the benefit of doubt. Just have your
Speaker 2: friend give us a call and this will all be
Speaker 2: taking that. We just need to get eyes on the kid. Well,
Speaker 2: twenty four hours later, they hadn't. They hadn't heard from Laurie,
Speaker 2: they hadn't heard from her friend. The police in Arizona
Speaker 2: hadn't seen JJ, and so they went back to Laurie's
Speaker 2: house with a warrant to search the property and whoof
Speaker 2: she was gone. They didn't know where she went. She
Speaker 2: had disappeared.
Speaker 1: What else happened in that phone call? Because there was
Speaker 1: the lie about JJ bang with a friend, which the
Speaker 1: friend pops up and says not true. That She also
Speaker 1: says something about where Tyler might be, and then she
Speaker 1: says that Chad is her brother's friend or something along
Speaker 1: those lines.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, right. So when the police went to her door,
Speaker 2: you're right. They initially talked to Alex and Chad Davielle
Speaker 2: and they said, you know, have you seen this little
Speaker 2: boy JJ. And Alex said, oh, no, he's with his grandparents.
Speaker 2: He's with his grandma Kay Woodcock. And they said, well,
Speaker 2: that's not true. She's the one that called us, so
Speaker 2: immediately got caught in a lie. They asked both Chad
Speaker 2: Alex for Laurie's phone number, and they both said that
Speaker 2: they didn't have it. So the police left and they
Speaker 2: came back, and then Laurie was home and she, you know, said, uh, yeah,
Speaker 2: JJ's with my friend Melanie gibb down in Arizona. And
Speaker 2: they asked, you know, who were those guys. Well, that
Speaker 2: was my brother and my brother's friend. And they said, well,
Speaker 2: what's your brother's friend's name, Chad? He's a writer, they said,
Speaker 2: you know, asked what his last name was, and you
Speaker 2: hear the click. You hear it start to click for
Speaker 2: one of the detectives. She says, his name is Chad
Speaker 2: Babel and he says Daveill, didn't his wife just die?
Speaker 2: And she's like, I don't know. I think so, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of pleas dumb, you know, when you know what's
Speaker 2: going on. Her and Chatter are already married at that point,
Speaker 2: and Chad's you know, they're both faking it. They know
Speaker 2: that they are very close to getting caught in something,
Speaker 2: and they're trying to sort of weave this elaborate lie
Speaker 2: about how they all know each other and what their
Speaker 2: relation is.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned that after this check they go poof.
Speaker 1: I say, they go to Hawaii. What are they doing there?
Speaker 2: It seems like they're on a honeymoon. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: interesting because in December twenty nineteen, that's when the authorities
Speaker 2: in Roxburg said, you know, we've got two missing children
Speaker 2: on our hands, and they did an amber alert. They
Speaker 2: you know, did a press conference and said, you know,
Speaker 2: keep an eye out for these two people, Chad Dabo
Speaker 2: and Marivello. We have no idea where they are. And
Speaker 2: that's when people started to speculate that it had something
Speaker 2: to do with her religious beliefs, that their disappearance might
Speaker 2: have had something with their fringe Mormon beliefs. So that's
Speaker 2: kind of when I started paying attention because I'm thinking,
Speaker 2: are they survivalists? Like, are they in some kind of
Speaker 2: bunker somewhere with a bunch of guns and a bunch
Speaker 2: of canned food waiting out the apocalypse. What is just
Speaker 2: so crazy about that is that they were the exact opposite.
Speaker 2: They were in this fancy condo that they had rented
Speaker 2: in Hawaii that overlooked a golf course. And finally it
Speaker 2: took months to track them down there. But when the
Speaker 2: FBI and authorities in Hawaii and Idaho went and arrested them,
Speaker 2: it was February and there was no evidence that JJ
Speaker 2: and Tyley had ever been there.
Speaker 1: There are a few things that happened before that that
Speaker 1: I want to touch on. One Alex passes away right watch.
Speaker 2: How good question? I mean, it's the number of bodies.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've been a reporter for almost twenty years
Speaker 2: and I have never written this story where there are
Speaker 2: just so many dead people. So in December of twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: a lot of things happen. Please say the kids are missing,
Speaker 2: keep an eye out for them. Tammy Dabell is exhumed
Speaker 2: by authorities in Utah because at that point, people are like,
Speaker 2: hang on, this woman just died. People are getting really suspicious,
Speaker 2: and in Idaho you don't have to say what a
Speaker 2: cause of death is. But she was buried in Utah
Speaker 2: and there are totally different laws. They exhumed her body,
Speaker 2: did a bunch of tests, and put her back in
Speaker 2: the ground, really before anybody knew it. The very next day,
Speaker 2: Lori Vella's brother Alex, drops dead and it's a very
Speaker 2: very odd thing. So he is in Arizona at that point.
Speaker 2: He is in the bathroom of his new wife, who
Speaker 2: he had been married to for two weeks, and was
Speaker 2: also somebody that I would say was a follower of
Speaker 2: Chad and Laurie, a woman that was kind of on
Speaker 2: board with all their weird interpretations of Warmon scripture, you know,
Speaker 2: talking about all these kind of wild ideologies that they had,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, I mean, you've probably heard
Speaker 2: the nine to one one call. This woman's son called
Speaker 2: the ambulance and said, you know, this man is on
Speaker 2: my mother's bathroom floor and he's vomiting and there's all
Speaker 2: kinds of phone coming out of his mouth. He's barely breathing,
Speaker 2: and he just died. So it's interesting because nobody really knows.
Speaker 2: I mean, the medical examiner there said he died of
Speaker 2: natural but it was literally moments after he had been
Speaker 2: exchanging text messages with Chad Dabell. It was the day
Speaker 2: after Tammy was found. So it's yeah, it seems very odd, right,
Speaker 2: The timing is very strange.
Speaker 1: There's so many twists and turns in this story, yeah,
Speaker 1: which I think is why everyone is so fascinated by it.
Speaker 2: Right, saying that's what's Upian was like, what the heck
Speaker 2: is going on? Here? Here's another dead body, here's another
Speaker 2: dead body. What is the deal with these people?
Speaker 1: So back to a few months later when police do
Speaker 1: actually catch up with Laurie and Chad, but JJ's parents
Speaker 1: get a judge to order for Laurie to produce the kids.
Speaker 1: And that's how this kind of arrest situation comes about,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You know when they found her in Hawaii, you know,
Speaker 2: really all she had to say was like, here's where
Speaker 2: JJ is. It's all good, But she wouldn't say anything.
Speaker 2: So they extradited her back, you know, from Hawaii to Idaho,
Speaker 2: put her on a plane and handcuffed in jail, and
Speaker 2: you know, she had many, many months to say something
Speaker 2: but said nothing. No one had any idea where these children.
Speaker 1: Were, so she just happily sat in prison just yeah,
Speaker 1: zipped didn't say it would yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, and it's I haven't been inside the jail
Speaker 2: where she was, like, I've been outside of it, and
Speaker 2: it is this teeny tiny little jail like there is
Speaker 2: so few people they can fit there. You know. It
Speaker 2: was this tiny jail cell where she could go outside
Speaker 2: into this little tiny yard like for a couple hours
Speaker 2: or an hour every day, and that was it. I mean,
Speaker 2: it was like, you know, she wasn't even seen trial yet,
Speaker 2: but she was already sort of being subjected to like
Speaker 2: a torturous lifestyle that you would think somebody that is
Speaker 2: like would say, okay, you know, let me just tell
Speaker 2: you what happened, But she didn't. She just sat in
Speaker 2: her jail cell and read Mormon scripture and cleaned and
Speaker 2: that was it. Like, I mean, she didn't break I
Speaker 2: guess from what she.
Speaker 1: Believed was Chad arrested at this point when they got
Speaker 1: expired back No, so he was just living his life
Speaker 1: in Rexburg.
Speaker 2: He was living his life in Rexburg. He was back
Speaker 2: home at his house, you know, living with his kids, posting,
Speaker 2: you know, on another Voice of Warning, which is like
Speaker 2: a big website that he was a part of, just
Speaker 2: kind of doing his thing. But his new wife was
Speaker 2: in jail. You have to imagine that they were talking
Speaker 2: on the phone, you know, that he could call her
Speaker 2: and that kind of thing. But she was extradited in February,
Speaker 2: so that's four months that he was back in Rixburg
Speaker 2: just sort of living his life.
Speaker 1: So it's at that four months post arrest point. It's
Speaker 1: June twenty twenty that police converge on Chad's property in Rexburg.
Speaker 2: What do they find? So they showed up in the
Speaker 2: morning and said, we have a warrant to search the property. Chad,
Speaker 2: you need to stay on the property. And he went
Speaker 2: and sat out in the driveway. So if you go
Speaker 2: to the Dabo house, you know, you could sit in
Speaker 2: the driveway and be able to see the backyard. And so,
Speaker 2: you know, local police and the FBI descended on the backyard.
Speaker 2: You know, they had dogs with them that were sort
Speaker 2: of sniffing the ground and they honed in on two
Speaker 2: areas of the yard. So you know, this is a
Speaker 2: really rural place, so it's just sort of this massive
Speaker 2: field and they had a pet cemetery where they had
Speaker 2: buried some you know, passed away dogs and cats. And
Speaker 2: then there was also like a fire pit area where
Speaker 2: they could have like bonfires and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: So the dogs really concentrated on those two spots. And
Speaker 2: in the pet cemetery area they unearthed the body of
Speaker 2: JJ Vaalow. He was you know, duct taped, his hands
Speaker 2: were duct taped together, he had duct tape over his face,
Speaker 2: he had you know, it was really it was really horrible.
Speaker 2: He was in his pajamas. But then in the fire
Speaker 2: pit area they excavated body parts that they then had
Speaker 2: to test and it proved to be the remains of
Speaker 2: Tyler Ryan. Really really grizzly scene. I mean, in both
Speaker 2: cases both are grizzly, but what Tylee's body was just unrecognizable.
Speaker 2: So that was when Chad Dabel decided to you know,
Speaker 2: he's sitting in his car, he turns his car on
Speaker 2: speeds out of the driveway. The cops had this place,
Speaker 2: you know, there were so many of them there. He
Speaker 2: didn't make it very far. They pulled him over and
Speaker 2: they arrested him, and that was his last gasp of freedom.
Speaker 2: He's been in jail ever since.
Speaker 1: How did the police know to go to that backyard
Speaker 1: in the first place.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a great question. I think that there's
Speaker 2: a lot of different things that'll probably come out in
Speaker 2: the trial. But the one thing that we do know
Speaker 2: was they started really doing a lot of forensic testing
Speaker 2: on the cell phones of Alex Cox and Laurie and
Speaker 2: you know, all the people are around them, but specifically
Speaker 2: Alex Cox's phone hanged to a cell tower on the
Speaker 2: day that Tyler Ryan was last seen after they went
Speaker 2: to Yellowstone, and on last day that JJ had ever
Speaker 2: been seen, so that I think gave them a lot of,
Speaker 2: you know, clues. He also sort of remained in these
Speaker 2: two areas for quite some time, so you know, by
Speaker 2: the power of modern technology, they were able to like
Speaker 2: really be able to be specific about where they were looking.
Speaker 2: And so that is at least one piece of evidence.
Speaker 2: I think that allowed them to know where to look.
Speaker 1: So the kids' bodies were found in June of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty and Chad and Laurie went charged until May the
Speaker 1: following year. What happened in that time frame was that
Speaker 1: just polace building evidence.
Speaker 2: So I think so, I think so, I think I
Speaker 2: think at that point everyone realized there are so many
Speaker 2: moving parts here. So you've got the bodies of JJ
Speaker 2: and Tylie. You've got the body of Tammy Daybill in
Speaker 2: a totally different state, totally different jurisdiction. You've got the
Speaker 2: body now of Charles Valow down in Arizona, not really
Speaker 2: looking like a self defense case anymore. And then you've
Speaker 2: got the body of Alex Cox. How did he die?
Speaker 2: You know, you get these multiple jurisdictions. What I've found
Speaker 2: over the years, it is like very difficult for those
Speaker 2: to talk to each other and kind of combine evidence.
Speaker 2: So my understanding is that police in Rexburg started then
Speaker 2: going down to Arizona. They started doing interviews, They started
Speaker 2: trying to get people around Chad and Laurie to talk
Speaker 2: to them about what they knew. And I don't know
Speaker 2: when that started. And that's another thing to your previous question.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if some of those friends started to
Speaker 2: share information that also led to finding JJ and Tylee.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, it took about a year for
Speaker 2: really any charges of weight because for a while, the
Speaker 2: only charge that Laurie was facing was just failing to
Speaker 2: produce her kids. It was like a misdemeanor, So it
Speaker 2: was something that you know, it's serious, but it wasn't
Speaker 2: like we're not talking prison time at that point. So yeah,
Speaker 2: it took about a year and then the hammer dropped
Speaker 2: and it was like conspiracy to murder, first degree murder.
Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden, we're talking about our
Speaker 2: prosecutors in Idaho going to make this a death penalty case,
Speaker 2: and they did.
Speaker 1: Can you take us through the charges one by one?
Speaker 1: Who is being accused of what?
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm gonna try and get this right. So Chad
Speaker 2: and Lourie are both facing charges of first degree murder
Speaker 2: and conspiracy to commit murder in the deaths of Tylie
Speaker 2: Ryan and JJ Vallo and Tammy Dabell. Laurie is potentially
Speaker 2: also facing charges in Arizona for the death of Charles Valo,
Speaker 2: but Arizona has sort of said we're gonna let Idaho
Speaker 2: do their thing and get through with that before we
Speaker 2: bring her here. There are also several charges involving I
Speaker 2: don't know exactly what the term is, but Laurie was
Speaker 2: using or is accused of using, like Tylee's debit card
Speaker 2: and things like that. So there are some kind of
Speaker 2: like financial you know things around ty Lee as well,
Speaker 2: so you know there's they're very serious charge. I mean,
Speaker 2: you cannot just call for the death penalty for anything
Speaker 2: but conspiracy to commit murder and first murder certainly.
Speaker 1: Or that Chad plays not guilty immediately. But Laurie's case
Speaker 1: was put on hold for a while. Why was that it.
Speaker 2: Was put on hold because pretty quickly after the ward's
Speaker 2: death penalties started getting tossed around, all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: Laurie was deemed to be incompetent. So what that meant
Speaker 2: was was that she didn't understand the charges that were
Speaker 2: against her, and she wasn't mentally competent to assist in
Speaker 2: her defense. So obviously, like a lawyer needs their client
Speaker 2: to be able to tell them, you know what happened,
Speaker 2: you know, to be able to defend them appropriately. So
Speaker 2: this is something that happens sometimes with death penalty cases.
Speaker 2: This is why, like death penalty cases can take a
Speaker 2: really long time to go to trial because oftentimes you
Speaker 2: will see somebody all of a sudden they're mentally incompetent,
Speaker 2: they get taken out of the jail, they get put
Speaker 2: in a mental health facility, or they can be restored
Speaker 2: to competence, see, so they can understand how to assist
Speaker 2: in their defense. So she was in a mental health facility,
Speaker 2: you know, in a completely different place in Idaho for
Speaker 2: a number of months trying to be restored to competency.
Speaker 1: And that ends up happening.
Speaker 2: It does. She's daemed fit eventually, I mean it took
Speaker 2: a while, but she was deemed fit and then they
Speaker 2: finally were able to officially charge her of what she
Speaker 2: also pleaded not guilty.
Speaker 1: When are we expecting these trials to play out?
Speaker 2: So right now they're scheduled for January twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: So that's a long time. I mean that's almost three
Speaker 2: years from when they were found in Hawaii. You know,
Speaker 2: it could still get moved, but I think that right
Speaker 2: now there is a very very aggressive effort to see
Speaker 2: justice for what happened and to really solve what happened
Speaker 2: with Tammy and what happened, you know, what is known
Speaker 2: by the police and by the prosecutors in Rexperts. So
Speaker 2: it will happen in January twenty twenty three. Part of
Speaker 2: the delay has been that they need to move the
Speaker 2: trial from the rural community where Laurie and Chad are
Speaker 2: both housed in jail and where they see charges to Boise, Idaho,
Speaker 2: which is I want to say, five hours away, and
Speaker 2: it's a much more you know, a larger city, and
Speaker 2: they think that they can get a much more unbiased
Speaker 2: jury pool there. So they're trying, you know, you get
Speaker 2: the right to a fair trial, and the judge has
Speaker 2: just basically said, you know, I don't think that they
Speaker 2: can get a fair trial here because everybody knows the case.
Speaker 1: Have Chad and Laurie said anything since being charged?
Speaker 2: No, nothing, A notable amount of nothing. I mean I've
Speaker 2: covered other federal trials, not death penalty trials, but other
Speaker 2: federal trials where the people in jail will use the
Speaker 2: media and say I want to do an interview. I
Speaker 2: want to talk about what I know this is. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm not guilty, and that it has just been utter
Speaker 2: silence the only time anything has happened that felt and
Speaker 2: I put like a heavy emphasis on it felt like
Speaker 2: it was coming from Chad. Was a while back, as
Speaker 2: Chad has sat in jail, his children did a big
Speaker 2: TV interview with a news program here where they said
Speaker 2: they all sat down with the reporter and they said,
Speaker 2: our father is not guilty. This is a conspiracy. Somebody
Speaker 2: did something to him, and you know, they really couldn't
Speaker 2: answer for how dead bodies ended up in their backyard.
Speaker 2: I mean, it doesn't look good, but it did really
Speaker 2: feel like maybe one last gasp of Chad trying to
Speaker 2: control the narrative in jail and get his children to
Speaker 2: speak for him. That's my theory. I don't know if
Speaker 2: that's actually true.
Speaker 1: What about Tylee and JJ? For the people left behind
Speaker 1: that did love them. The grandparents of JJ and Laurie
Speaker 1: had another son. Were they given a proper goodbye?
Speaker 2: No? I mean I think that Laurie has communicated with
Speaker 2: her eldest son, Colby, who has been utterly destroyed by this.
Speaker 2: I mean he was very close to his siblings and
Speaker 2: didn't know that his family had moved. I mean, he
Speaker 2: was grown up and out of the house and sort
Speaker 2: of psued doing his own relationship and marriage, and you
Speaker 2: know that all of a sudden, his mom vanishes, then
Speaker 2: she's on TV. Then his brother and sister are gone,
Speaker 2: and his head was spinning. I think just as much
Speaker 2: as anybody, he has been really vocal about how much
Speaker 2: it is just really destroyed him and He's really a
Speaker 2: very religious person and has tried to sort of seek
Speaker 2: healing through his spirituality for how he feels about his mother.
Speaker 2: Kay and Larry Woodcock, I mean, JJ was their grandson.
Speaker 2: I don't know that they considered Tylye to be their
Speaker 2: grandchild too. And I think Tyley is unique in that
Speaker 2: account because initially, you know, people didn't even really talk
Speaker 2: about When the police went to Laurie's door, they were
Speaker 2: asking about JJ. They weren't asking about Tylee. I don't
Speaker 2: think anybody knew that she was missing. It was almost
Speaker 2: like she was a little bit of an island on
Speaker 2: her own. But Kay and Larry have been consistently, you know,
Speaker 2: they live across the country, and they have been consistently
Speaker 2: at all the court hearings that are major. You know,
Speaker 2: they show up there, they sit there, they watch Laurie,
Speaker 2: watch Chad, and they give press conferences and it's heartbreaking
Speaker 2: to watch. You know. In the last press conference I
Speaker 2: saw that they gave, Larry said, you know, we know
Speaker 2: that justice is going to be served, Like we have
Speaker 2: no doubt in our minds. The evidence is just it's
Speaker 2: very stacked against them.
Speaker 1: How are you feeling ahead of the trial because you
Speaker 1: have dug into every corner of this story, do you
Speaker 1: still have a lot of unanswered questions that you're hyping
Speaker 1: come out?
Speaker 2: Yes? I think I really want to know what the
Speaker 2: prosecutors in Idaho and the detectives know about Tyler Ryan's
Speaker 2: last days, about JJ's last days. That tripped Yellowstone is
Speaker 2: very strange. I mean, they were taking family photos, you know,
Speaker 2: they were taking photos of her, and then that night
Speaker 2: is the night that they think that she was killed.
Speaker 2: It's very strange to me. I want to know what happened.
Speaker 2: I want to know more about Laurie and Chad's supposed
Speaker 2: control of Alex Cox. I don't know. I think that
Speaker 2: they're going to say that everything. They're going to blame
Speaker 2: everything on Alex, who's dead and can't speak for himself.
Speaker 2: I want to know more about that. And I really
Speaker 2: I think the thing that anybody who's watched this case
Speaker 2: wants more than anything is how the heck did Tammy
Speaker 2: Davell die? Because the medical examiner in Utah has not
Speaker 2: said what they found when they exumed her and they
Speaker 2: did an autopsy, whatever happened there is under lock and key.
Speaker 2: They have not said what it is. So I think
Speaker 2: that's going to be the big reveal as if they
Speaker 2: found something.
Speaker 1: Lea Settilli knew everything there is to know about this case.
Speaker 1: What an absolute joy it was for her to Lindu's
Speaker 1: her knowledge in this complicated and horrifying story. When we
Speaker 1: wrapped up our interview about Lauri and Chad's alleged crimes,
Speaker 1: there were a few more questions I wanted to ask
Speaker 1: about the couple's cult like beliefs that were the backdrop
Speaker 1: of this case.
Speaker 2: They believed that they were so pure that the law
Speaker 2: didn't even apply to them, that they could really do
Speaker 2: what they wanted because they were God's chosen warriors. They
Speaker 2: were the ones that were recruiting the people to survive
Speaker 2: the end of the world, so that gave them free
Speaker 2: rein to do what they wanted.
Speaker 1: That episode is available now exclusively for Mamma Mia subscribers.
Speaker 1: You'll find a link to that in our show notes.
Speaker 1: True Crime Conversations is a mmamea podcast hosted by me
Speaker 1: Jemma Bath and my executive producer is Geamoylan. If you
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