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Ruby Franke & Jodi Hildebrandt, Part 8
61 Plays24 days ago
For being a part of this series, we actually aren't talking about Ruby too much. Instead, we introduced some high-profile folks that come out of the LDS church. Why are we talking about Tim Ballard, and Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell? Well, we're laying some groundwork for next week, but we'll see some striking patterns of behavior and language from these people. What links them all?
Check out our YouTube channel, Fixate Today: Grey Matters
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Transcript
Introduction and Focus
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Fixate Today Gone Tomorrow. I'm Nikki and I'm here with my Aunt Joy. We are two neurodivergent ladies who obsess about various topics. Joy is autistic and I have ADHD and we are letting our hyperfixations fly.
00:00:15
Speaker
Today we are fixating on Ruby Frankie.
00:00:30
Speaker
Kinda. yeah Kinda. Not really. relates. This is part of our Ruby and Jodi series, I should say. But we're not actually talking about Ruby today.
00:00:41
Speaker
We are going to be talking about two separate topics that relate, but we won't see the link until the next episode.
Religious Connections
00:00:48
Speaker
Today we're going to talk about Tim Ballard and Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell.
00:00:54
Speaker
We are This is all coming back to Ruby. Because they all believe the same things. These like big deal, bad Mormon people.
00:01:06
Speaker
Let me jump in. The sources I used are Devil in the Family, The Fall of Ruby Frankie, Law and Crime Network, Hidden True Crime, Mormon Stories, the Salt Lake City Tribune, Mother Jones, Time Magazine, and the books Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer, My Story by Elizabeth Smart, and The House of My Mother by Sherry Franke, and Wikipedia.
00:01:31
Speaker
All right, so we are going to jump in doing a kind of big overview of Tim Ballard and then of Lori and Chad.
Tim Ballard's Work and Critiques
00:01:40
Speaker
Because Lori and Chad are on our list of potential topics that we wanted to do like a deep dive on eventually.
00:01:46
Speaker
so i didn't go too deep, but I wanted to hit some of like the key points that link back to Ruby. So and Tim, Tim Ballard is kind of it ah like its own little, it's different from the other two, I think.
00:02:01
Speaker
Yes. And well, maybe it's just because it's an individual. Okay. So Tim Ballard, just like super quick overview, has done a lot of work in anti-child trafficking realm. Yeah.
00:02:15
Speaker
And um so it seems to me, and honestly, even when we started feeling you talking about this, I was a little bit almost defensive of Tim Ballard. I thought, well, okay, there's been these problems and these issues, but underneath, he's, you know, started a really important movement or brought attention to and an important movement, which he has, but I guess there was more bad guy in there than I thought.
00:02:40
Speaker
Yeah, and I think... his priority became what he could do to kind of get more fame and money than like actually helping children.
00:02:52
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, in the beginning, I do believe meant it in good faith at some point. I hope. Yeah. I would like to believe that, especially since the trafficking, child trafficking, something I'm really passionate about, actually especially since we've been working on these cases.
00:03:09
Speaker
It's amazing how much, child trafficking comes up. So anyways, I guess, yeah. I mean, I, I, I want to hope to say he was a good guy in the beginning, but I, I, Nikki convinced me and then I did more research and I'm like, Oh, okay. I was going to say, I don't even think I convinced you. I think you read my outline.
00:03:29
Speaker
Yeah. was like, okay. And I did my own research. into this Yes. Let's get into this guy. So Tim Ballard is the founder and CEO of an organization called Operation Underground Railroad, which bills itself to be an anti-sex trafficking organization.
00:03:48
Speaker
Now, not a lot of us outside of the Mormon world knew who Tim Ballard was until 2023, when a movie called Sound of Freedom starring Jim Caviezel was released. There is this is supposed to be a movie about Tim Ballard's, I guess, life. And there's like a specific mission he was on that this movie is about.
00:04:09
Speaker
I'm not a big Jim Caviezel head, so I'm not super interested in watching it. Basically, after the movie was released, a lot of sources came forward saying that there are a ton of exaggerations and flat out lies in the movie.
00:04:24
Speaker
A lot of things to make Tim Ballard look more like an action hero than guy trying to help children. And yeah. I think what the Mormon church does a lot is they like think that the exaggerations of things spinning things certain way makes them look better when really it's like, that can't possibly be true. Well, and that's what I was going to ask.
00:04:49
Speaker
Do you know, like how well respected within the LDS church do you think Tim Ballard was? Or was he just a gentleman who was part of the church and who had this other passion for helping trafficked kids. And then as, as he got more fame, more.
00:05:10
Speaker
and fame feels like a weird word. know. I'm not, I'm not sure what the word is. ah Yeah. Recognition. As he like yeah became more recognized as an advocate that then the, you know, the church seized onto that a little bit more. Yes. To make, put them in a good light.
00:05:26
Speaker
That's what i was kind of wondering. Yeah. Yeah, they kind of feed into each other. So he I mean, he's an LDS member through and through. He attended Brigham Young University.
00:05:37
Speaker
um He and his wife have a ton of kids, as good Mormons do. So he's like he's he's very devout in his beliefs. And I think as his kind of star started rising,
00:05:51
Speaker
the Mormon church really was like, yeah, that's our look at this LDS guy doing great things. So I think it really, I think they, they compounded on one another.
00:06:02
Speaker
and You know, I like how you use the word like superhero because he does have that. He's a very handsome man. He's well-spoken. Like he's got the bluest eyes at don I've ever seen. So he does. he He definitely has that look, that LDS like perfection, look of perfection. You know, he Yeah. It's an easy person to. and And maybe that's why I gave him more benefit of the doubt. He looks like he's a good guy. he seems he's spoken. He's confident. And he plays a character well.
00:06:33
Speaker
Yeah, would say. Yeah, I think so as well. um So like I said, he attended Brigham Young University for college. Before college, he did a two year admissions trip in Chile.
00:06:46
Speaker
And in college, he met his wife, Catherine. Tim has a bachelor's in Spanish and political science, which is perfect for someone going to South America and Latin American countries to save people.
00:07:03
Speaker
um And he has a master's degree in international politics from Middlebury College. He and Catherine got married after college and they have nine children together. Yikes.
00:07:14
Speaker
ah God bless anybody who has that many kids that can do it. I don't know. After watching all the or talking about all these ah LDS stories, I'm like, now nine's not really sounding like ah that much. yeah After the Duggars. i was going to say after the Duggars. It's like nine.
00:07:27
Speaker
What's going on? So Tim founded Operation Underground Railroad in 2013. Basically what the goal of Operation Underground Railroad was for Tim and his crew to to go into countries where they have found evidence that um innocent women and children were being sex trafficked and rescuing them and shutting down these like brothels and things like that.
00:07:55
Speaker
That is what OUR kind of billed itself as doing. But it was a nonprofit, correct? And it was yeah not necessarily linked to any government agencies.
00:08:06
Speaker
At first. Okay. Nor to the church at first, right? Like it was just a separate- nonprofit that he started in the beginning. Yeah. As far as I know, um i do know that there are I'm pretty sure that a lot of the donors are of course like higher ranking LDS members of the time and things like that. right And in that case, it's almost like if your highest rank or if your biggest donors are yep high ranking members of anywhere, you're going to kind of do things that please them.
00:08:43
Speaker
Right, right. So there's an uninferred link. Yes, right. So throughout the tenure of the organization, Ballard claimed that the organization rescued thousands of victims.
00:08:56
Speaker
During Donald Trump's first administration as president, he invited Tim Ballard to a White House anti-trafficking advisory board. And the Utah Attorney General, Sean Reyes, is a close friend of Ballard and a major investor in Operation Underground Railroad.
00:09:16
Speaker
And the reason I bring these two men up together is because Reyes has QAnon ties. gosh. So it's all, I know. Yeah.
00:09:28
Speaker
Well, do i mean, okay, so the organization claims they rescued thousands. I'm assuming they at least rescued some, right? Like, and that's where I'm kind of having a hard time understanding how good or how bad this guy was yeah i mean look as we go through we'll kind of see even i'm sure there were people that he he helped certainly there's a lot of things after helping people that that did or didn't happen there you know yeah so but it was such a it was legitimate in the beginning correct and i mean we can't
00:10:08
Speaker
know for sure what's true and what's not true right because things have been so exaggerated. So that's kind of the hard part, like both ways. And what's unfortunate that is that even if he helped one person that's should be celebrated. And now everything is, is tainted. I feel like yeah that one person can come forward and be like, well, he helped me though. And it's like, yeah, but then there's a lot of damage and, and,
00:10:34
Speaker
I wish that one person he possibly helped could be the story, but now it's this. Yeah. And I do know that part of the controversy has been, ah you know, at least one person. I don't know if there's multiple who did come forward and not to say he,
00:10:53
Speaker
He took more credit than yeah than he deserved in their in their case, like in their instances. but Yeah. And i so I feel like if the organization helped people, the kind of what he chose to do was take all the credit for that.
00:11:10
Speaker
Yeah. When it was probably, you know, ah multifaceted groups working together or it was not him doing it. It was someone else doing like jumping out of the helicopter or whatever.
00:11:22
Speaker
Yeah, you're right. He took the the high profile. Yeah. Wins got attributed to him. Yeah. Or he had no problem taking those. and And that means I don't know what is true and what's not in what they report.
00:11:36
Speaker
You know? Yeah. Ballard testified before the U.S. Congress House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Global Human Rights, where he gave recommendations for procedures for rescuing children.
00:11:49
Speaker
And he established partnerships between government and non-government agencies. He also testified to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the Mexican border and the border wall.
00:12:02
Speaker
OUR was featured in the 2016 documentary called The Abolitionists, which apparently showed the first operations undertaken by the organization.
00:12:12
Speaker
Very shortly after the documentary, Ballard and OUR were criticized for broadcasting raids without consideration of victims and their privacy. So we're already starting to put her toe in the water of like the organization over the victim. Well, and also we also have have him testifying about these partnerships and ah means of rescuing, but he, he's never been formally educated or trained right in his, in the methodology. Right.
00:12:46
Speaker
Yeah. Before, you know, before I'm going to forget, I know I mentioned this in my sources, but a lot, almost all of my information for for Tim Ballard is from the Mormon Stories podcast. They did hours of episodes on Tim Ballard that like, if you want a deep dive, go there. Yeah. Yes.
00:13:06
Speaker
And Vice, Vice did a lot of reporting. um That actually brought a lot of this yeah um corruption to to to light. But yeah, I just, that that's when i when I, you know, think through that, i'm like, well, he's not really an expert. I mean, this is just a i mean ah guy who jumped in. No.
00:13:22
Speaker
I
Impact of Pandemic and Legal Troubles
00:13:23
Speaker
guess had a passion. But yeah, when he's testifying and helping to train others, that is questionable as to what Yeah.
00:13:33
Speaker
I'd want to see some credentials besides a BA in Spanish. And nice blue eyes. yes Yes. In 2018, there was another documentary entitled Operation Toussaint.
00:13:47
Speaker
I'm so sorry. But it's about an operation in Haiti. ah Now, I suspect with these documentaries, they are probably produced by... Ballard and OUR or possibly the Mormon church itself.
00:14:00
Speaker
And I think it's, I, my understanding is documentary is probably a loose term for like fundraising video. um I know at least one of his children was adopted from Haiti.
00:14:13
Speaker
I know he had two adopted children. Okay. From his missions. I'm not sure, but I do know at least one of them was from that Haiti mission. Okay. Yeah. I had no idea really about the kids. So that's interesting. In 2019, Ballard was appointed to the white house public private partnership advisory council to end human trafficking.
00:14:37
Speaker
And this or this advisory council ended in 2020 after some sort of legislation passed that kind of made the group not necessary. Hmm. October, 2020, um,
00:14:49
Speaker
Things start to turn a little bit. The attorney's office of Davis County, Utah, began an investigation about complaints of illegal fundraising efforts for Operation Underground Railroad.
00:15:03
Speaker
Ultimately, no charges were filed, but questions started to be asked more openly. Because that's the thing. It is difficult if you believe this man is doing good to be the person that's like, well, I have questions about these kids you're saving and how you're doing it.
00:15:23
Speaker
i Yeah, exactly. And I think that's what a lot of the ah Vice articles, they got a lot of pushback for that reason. Yeah. This is a hero. how can you How can you question a hero for what they're doing.
00:15:37
Speaker
Yeah. And that was a lot of, um I don't know if you listened to some of the Mormon stories episodes, but they do basically their podcasts are their Facebook lives.
00:15:48
Speaker
And then they do the audio and podcast form. them So they're doing Facebook lives, talking about him and the host sometimes read comments. And it was all that. It was like, how are you questioning this man?
00:15:59
Speaker
And the host, John had to be like, are you listening? kept telling you why. Yeah, I think that that's, I think there's a good point to that. But I also think, and I i just think this whole 2020, I mean, obviously, I know COVID is obviously a big change, but there seem to be, there just seem to be kind of a ah change and especially with trafficking. Yeah, right around that 2020 time, something seemed to change to, and I mean, I guess it could be
00:16:30
Speaker
politics and our president and and COVID all put together. But it just, as we research, like Micah, there's a lot of different things at 2020. Yeah, I agree.
00:16:40
Speaker
And I mean, could it be even something as simple as COVID shut down so much that there just weren't as many eyes on on things that opened some doors that were able to be exploited?
00:16:54
Speaker
Yeah. or people had to get creative and find new ways to, I don't know, can continue on with certain activities. um Like, you know, for instance, drug trafficking and, you know, with your borders closed, you have to find new ways of, of how you're going to go about that.
00:17:13
Speaker
And I don't know if that could have it. and I mean, cause child trafficking, I guess that does make sense if he's working internationally about this time. Yeah. Yeah. The international, he would be able to travel. That's something.
00:17:25
Speaker
So there would be more time to have eyes on it. Yeah, right. He's got to he's got to do. But also, it's a thing of like, it's a thing of like, he has to keep his name in the news when you're not able to travel. So get appointed to all of these, you know, committees and things like that.
00:17:43
Speaker
And I don't think he, like, I think almost all of his work was international, wasn't? I don't remember. yeah Ever remember really him working domestically a whole lot on any of these.
00:17:54
Speaker
Yeah. Yes, absolutely. There was such a focus on international, took a lot of spotlight off of more local things. Okay. So 2023, Ballard was removed as CEO and forced out of OUR.
00:18:09
Speaker
As you mentioned, Vice did a lot of reporting on this. And according to a Vice report, an anonymous letter was sent to employees and donors saying, of allegations made by employees of allegations of alleged sexual misconduct.
00:18:26
Speaker
In the letter, was expressed a pattern of grooming and manipulation of women affiliated with OUR. To be clear, this was not these allegations were not of him having inappropriate relationships with the actual children he was claiming no to. No, no. It's...
00:18:45
Speaker
Yeah, to be very clear, the allegations that Vice reported were allegations from women in the OUR organization. So the same week that this Vice report came out, the LDS Church formerly denounced Tim Ballard.
00:19:01
Speaker
The LDS Church leader, M. Russell Ballard, no relation. it just makes it super confusing for all of us, said that Tim Ballard used his name for personal gain.
00:19:14
Speaker
And his behavior was, quote, morally unacceptable. Just a little bit more on that, his connection with the other Ballard, Russell ball Ballard.
00:19:24
Speaker
m M. Russell. M. Russell. So I think he would name drop him. and And I think that became quite an issue. And at one point, I believe he even made the insinuation that M. Russell approved of the tactics that Tim Ballard was using, which were tactics of misconduct, sexual misconduct.
00:19:51
Speaker
And I think that that is definitely where the line got absolutely drawn with this man's authority and being brought into this. So I did, there was a statement put out and let me just write, but once it became clear, Tim Ballard had betrayed their friendship through the unauthorized use of president Ballard's name for Tim Ballard's personal advantage.
00:20:13
Speaker
and actively regarded as morally unacceptable. President Ballard withdrew his association. According to the statement, President Ballard never authorized his name or the name of the church to be used for Tim's personal or financial interests.
00:20:30
Speaker
All right. So I think that's probably a question of the LDS church trying to save its own butt type of thing, too. Of being like, yo, we're not associated with this guy. We see that pattern over and over again.
00:20:44
Speaker
Kettle gets hot. The fish has jumped out. I don't know how that saying goes. They're like, nope. Nope. Not us. Not us He may have been a member of the LDS Church when and and we really supported him when he was doing great things.
00:20:54
Speaker
But we're out. Yep. So Ballard said the let's be clear. Tim Ballard said the allegations were an attack on him and Operation Underground Railroad designed to enable trafficking.
00:21:08
Speaker
In response, several employees and contractors released a statement affirming the allegations, and this led to OUR launching yeah its own internal investigation.
00:21:20
Speaker
Ballard's books were removed from Shadow Mountain Publishing, which is an LDS publishing company, and on October 9, 2023, lawsuit filed by women, a lawsuit was filed by five women who claimed to have been coerced into sexual acts during sting operations.
00:21:40
Speaker
So basically, and we'll get into it with the next lawsuit a little bit more. Basically, what he would do is tell women that he's on a sting operation with, like, we have to act like we're a married couple. We have to be holding hands. i You have to let me kiss you. You have to do all these things. And it just kept happening.
00:21:57
Speaker
escalating more and more and more until more ah inappropriate behavior was occurring. Well, and as I understand it, um a lot of these were like, not just the women, but but other volunteers were asked, like, are you willing to do things that will kind of be out of your comfort zone. Yeah.
00:22:14
Speaker
And that wasn't necessarily a question meant to be asked like this. It could have just been, do you remember of the LDS church? What if you have to go into a bar, like in, right. In trying to ah ah do one of these raids and you're forced to have a drink of alcohol or, I mean, I think that what became as a simple question then,
00:22:38
Speaker
He took advantage of and and got blown up into being a lot more than it necessarily was meant to in the beginning. Yeah. that I mean, I think that's exactly right. ah Two days after that first lawsuit, a married couple filed a lawsuit against Ballard claiming sexual assault and grooming.
00:22:56
Speaker
The wife had been um approached by Ballard to do something called a couple's ruse to pose undercover. Yeah. The wife had never done undercover work, but Ballard specifically requested her to be the his fake spouse for this.
00:23:13
Speaker
About a week later, the governor of Utah called for a criminal investigation. and January 2024...
00:23:23
Speaker
Another accuser filed and additional criminal complaints. So we've gone from civil court to criminal court. This accuser claimed straight sexual assault.
00:23:34
Speaker
Not grooming. now it was He sexually assaulted her. Well, and we also have to ask ourselves, you just pointed out that in the first case, the woman had no never done undercover work.
00:23:46
Speaker
yeah I mean, just from personal safety right point of view, I mean, now we're jumping into being in a foreign country, putting somebody in that position, not only yourself, you know, beyond what Tim Ballard did to her, just putting her in this position amazing.
00:24:05
Speaker
Unsafe. Seems just scary. It seems like that is a step too far. Yeah. Too far too quickly. Absolutely. And it's like, well, if you don't do this, it's going to ruin our... A kid could die. A kid could be hurt.
00:24:18
Speaker
A woman can be kidnapped. hu And that's a tremendous amount of pressure to be put under when you've never done this. Right. So, interestingly, this criminal complaint...
00:24:29
Speaker
um fell under the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000, which Tim Ballard utilized in you know the things he did claiming to save people.
00:24:43
Speaker
As of September 2023, Ballard and his family are no longer in good standing as members of the LDS Church. Not positive what that means. they I don't think they've been denounced from the church, but...
00:24:57
Speaker
They can't like do things like go to temple, go to the temple and things like that. i don't, that kind of the levels of the Mormon church confused me about what like different membership levels are allowed to do and not.
00:25:10
Speaker
So I want to lay out some of the things that OUR has been criticized for doing. They've been criticized for using funds for elaborate stunts and paying higher ups in the organization, very high salaries not establishing victim aftercare to reintegrate victims into society.
00:25:28
Speaker
Which I find that interesting because um I have seen him in interviews, and that was one major point that he would bring bring up was that they were one of the only agencies that did do appropriate aftercare.
00:25:41
Speaker
Yeah, i I read a couple things from different people who who were helped by him, who was like, he was like, They did the show of of doing the big rescue, but then I was left to figure out how to be a person again and how to be back in society after this horrible thing.
00:25:56
Speaker
Well, especially, yeah, if we're also talking internationally. I didn't even think about that. Yeah. So aftercare, you would have to have something set up um in that home country for that.
00:26:09
Speaker
Which I don't think he did. I think i think the rescue, I'm doing air quotes, but we're on the podcast. Right. resulted in being brought to the U.S. where somebody who's never lived here is just dropped into a foreign country, kind of been left to figure it out.
00:26:26
Speaker
That's my understanding. occur to me whether, yeah, they were brought to the U.S. or whether they were just left in their own country. And yeah, because I was to say, if they were at the point of needing to be rescued within their home country, I would assume they're people who have no family they're destitute or would have a hard time reintegrating. Yeah.
00:26:47
Speaker
OUR has been criticized for increasing the risk of true cases of abuse in children as most abuse happens to kids who know they're abusers.
00:26:57
Speaker
While we know certainly that trafficking happens, even child trafficking for the most part happens family structures. Like I'm actually doing video research for a video for YouTube right now.
00:27:11
Speaker
about um intimate partner and familial tracking. That makes up the biggest percentage. I can't remember it off the top my head, but it makes up the biggest percentage of child trafficking is through familial trafficking.
00:27:24
Speaker
And we also have ah have had a rise in the last few years of trafficking through immigration. yeah And so so I think we just can't look upon trafficking.
00:27:37
Speaker
There's so many different variables, so many different ways to exploit children. um mean And to think it's only done in one way, I think it does a disservice to all of the others.
00:27:48
Speaker
and And Tim Ballard knows the only way to end it. Yeah. And he, I mean, he was very good at sensationalizing it and bringing attention to yeah the cases he was involved with, thereby people actually in the U.S. not looking at the problems maybe we had here internally as much and And seeing trafficking as something that was happening in outside world, foreign countries, poverty-stricken countries, and not realizing that that's what's happening here also. Ours looks different.
00:28:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, it's such a horrific thing. I actually literally just wrote this in, you guys will hear this on YouTube. I just wrote it in the script I'm writing for that video. This is so horrific. The idea of child sex trafficking by ah family member is so horrific that it is easier for our simple brains to think it's not true, to not believe it because it's so It's just, it's it's so out of the realm of acceptability, of okay, of anything that we can understand.
00:28:56
Speaker
It's easier for us to just say, that can't happen. That's not happening here. That's happening in like yeah far, far away. There's nothing like that happening here.
00:29:08
Speaker
It's too horrific. I think that's an amazing point. And honestly, even even as we're talking about this now, especially as we've been working through like with the Michael Miller case, and we learned we started to learn a lot about different human trafficking, drug trafficking, child trafficking.
00:29:25
Speaker
And for some reason, whenever, before getting into this too much, whenever you hear the word trafficking, it It feels like something that's foreign. It feels like ah when as soon as that word's used, it seems like it's something that um doesn't impact us.
00:29:42
Speaker
And now that I think about that as part of the reason, yeah, organizations such as Operation Underground Railroad, of road ah yeah i don't know, that that's just what now I'm thinking about it. and like that i can see how it made a huge difference. And yeah, it was almost like seeing back in my day,
00:30:01
Speaker
When they would show, you know, children and Ethiopia and they were starving and you'd watch these videos. Like Sally Struthers. Yeah. and And it was, you felt for them for sure.
00:30:13
Speaker
But it was this, you feel for them, but it's not like, it's not here. It's and that's not, you know, nobody's starving here in our country, you know, or that kind of thing where, I don't know. I feel like it's sort of that same where it it does a real huge disservice to the children in our country.
00:30:31
Speaker
I hope that's changing a bit, but yeah. Well, I hope so. But if we think back to our ah original series about Ruby and Jodi and our talks about Adam Steed and the work he did to kind of bring out the sex abuse scandals with the Boy Scouts,
00:30:53
Speaker
it's the same thing, right? It's like, yeah he and and the difference, he exposed... He exposed that and there was a lot of LDS men abusing children.
00:31:05
Speaker
Yeah. So when Tim Ballard says abuse is happening far, far away, it makes it so people in Utah aren't looking at their leaders, aren't looking at the people around their kids.
00:31:20
Speaker
When we know this is a problem, it takes a lot of focus away. Yeah. Human nature makes it easier to see the problems of others. rather than see it within ourselves.
00:31:30
Speaker
yeah I don't think until actually fairly recently have we really focused on child trafficking within the US. Yeah, I agree. And I don't think we've been, just since we've started the podcast and YouTube channel, we've been, ah almost every case we've looked into has some aspect of of the child trafficking or so so sex trafficking. And hi I mean, I have learned so much.
00:31:56
Speaker
Yeah. In that year and a half. Yeah. I mean, even more than that, like any sort of trafficking. Yeah, you're right. Like beyond human trafficking, even like there's been some element of trafficking in almost everything we've talked about. Not to get off subject now, but yeah, like it's all interconnected. I mean, because then we talk drug trafficking, human trafficking, yeah gun trafficking.
00:32:22
Speaker
And yeah, maybe we should just maybe refuse should change our title to trafficking. of all But yeah, but it's been almost every case and yeah and it's all and it all becomes interrelated in some kind.
00:32:35
Speaker
All that to say, i can see how this gregarious character who may have started out with good intentions, but then received notoriety and honors that built him up to the point where he abused it and was doing was doing his deeds in order to get the accolades. Yeah.
00:32:55
Speaker
Yeah. The other things the organization has been criticized for is causing attention, money, and resources to be redirected, as we just kind of talked about. They also were accused of inflating numbers of people they've rescued.
00:33:08
Speaker
And this is kind of the next thing we're going to get into. They are criticized for taking advantage of people's true emotional investments in protecting kids. Because, gosh, you say we need to go save these kids from being abused. You're like, yes, we do. Yeah.
00:33:23
Speaker
okay So in that vein, let's talk about OUR's elaborate fundraising events that basically were to make Tim Ballard and Sean Reyes super spy Mission Impossible guys.
00:33:39
Speaker
h So if you remember, Sean Reyes is in the, I can't remember now. I think he's the attorney general of Utah. He's something in Utah. I mentioned it earlier. Can't remember. ADHD.
00:33:49
Speaker
Adderall's wearing off. So these huge fundraising events. Tim was always the star and Sean Reyes is his devoted sidekick. They would kind of like explain what they did.
00:34:00
Speaker
They would say trafficking is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world. I should say sex trafficking and child trafficking is what they said. Truly, I think it's drug trafficking, but. You know, whatever.
00:34:12
Speaker
They said that i the majority of the trafficking was with young girls for sex. And about this point, Tim would get really emotional and start crying about but all the experiences he's had interacting with these girls, you know, tugging at heartstrings and doing some fear mongering.
00:34:30
Speaker
um And basically they laid out what they did. Yeah, this must have also, I mean, taken away. There is labor trafficking is ah yeah huge in actually right now in the U.S. and it Many young men, young boys are used there. So I also think that maybe the attention by all the attention he was putting forth just on the sex trafficking, I think we could lose sight of the fact that that there's a lot more, even with children going on in in our country.
00:34:59
Speaker
Yeah. Well, and it's also the the kind of Mormon ideal of the structure of the household is the men and the boys don't need protection. They are protected inherently because they are men.
00:35:11
Speaker
And women and girls need protecting. And it's these women and girls who need these Mormon men to save them. Great point. So basically what OUR did, he would he would recount this at these events, is that someone from OUR acts as the decoy.
00:35:29
Speaker
so it's somebody who goes into the brothel pretending to be a customer and rescues the children from this terrible these terrible brothels. Often he would say things like these operations can't be done by the home country, whatever Latin American country he's in. They don't have the resources. They're not...
00:35:49
Speaker
They don't have the brain power. They don't have the manpower, which is like, yikes, racist and not correct. Most of these countries have some infrastructure set up to deal with trafficking. We're not in third world countries where like there's no running water.
00:36:08
Speaker
Like Latin American countries have infrastructure. And I've actually seen him when he's talking about certain certain rescues where when things went wrong, the blame was on the local law enforcement.
00:36:23
Speaker
You know, he got everything set up. Everything was in place. Yeah, like they got in his way. Right. Yep. um So Ballard at these fundraising events would get celebrities and politicians to endorse him.
00:36:35
Speaker
um I will say that most of the politicians were Utah Mormon Republicans. He worked with Glenn Beck a lot. Yeah, he did. And he would even auction off an opportunity to join the team on what they call a jump.
00:36:49
Speaker
This is when they actually jump out of a helicopter and like, ah Big like war army scary guy movie, zipline out of a helicopter and into a brothel and rescue bunch children.
00:37:02
Speaker
That's what a jump was. And they would auction off opportunities to bring the highest bidder to go with them on these rescue missions. Oh, that's crazy. So you're bringing someone who has no idea.
00:37:14
Speaker
No training, no expertise. No idea what they're getting into. But money. But money go hang out with them while they're saving a child from the worst thing that could possibly ever happen. It's disgusting.
00:37:25
Speaker
So also at these events, and this is the last thing we're going to talk about with was Tim Ballard, and then I'll explain what we're doing. Because you're like, why are we talking about this with Ruby? He would use Mormon religiosity to compel his donors.
00:37:40
Speaker
He would say that what he does with OUR is a calling from God. And he used public prayer as part of the pitch to, again, tug at the heartstrings of these donors.
00:37:51
Speaker
So that's an overview of Tim Ballard. right. So we're going to talk about Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell quick. But I think I want to do a quick like explanation of why we're veering off of Ruby and Jodi so much.
00:38:05
Speaker
Next episode, we are going to get into what links these heat like these big, well-known cases together. And it's it's fundamentalist Mormon ideologies and books.
00:38:22
Speaker
All of these, like Ruby and Jodi, especially Jodi Hildebrandt, and I think Jodi pulled Ruby into it, and and Kevin, Tim Ballard and Laurie and Chad, um believed in this big picture thing about near-death experiences and how having a near-death experience made you unwell more spiritual almost and more aware and closer to God and give you visions and stuff like that.
00:38:51
Speaker
So that's where we're headed. i just I think it's important to have an idea of like who we're talking about. And the next episode, we're going to get into that stuff. So I just I figured maybe I should give a brief explanation of why I'm talking about these people.
00:39:05
Speaker
Yeah. So the I mean, the doctrine is related to the prepping end of the world. Yep. near death experiences that all kind of gets wrapped up in this doctrine and as a part of the LDS church though, that gets corrupted that gets. Yeah.
00:39:21
Speaker
Yeah. I think that's right. All right. So let's go on to again, another like really far up look at Lori Vallow and Chad
Doomsday Beliefs and Murders
00:39:32
Speaker
Daybell.
00:39:32
Speaker
This couple is linked to a series of killings in 2019 and the media called them part of a doomsday cult. 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, who was Lori's daughter, and J.J. Vallow, who was her son, disappeared on September 9th and 23rd of 2019, respectively.
00:39:55
Speaker
Remains were found in Rexburg, Idaho, on June 9th, 2020, on Chad Daybell's property. The discovery of the bodies led to an investigation into other deaths around the couple.
00:40:07
Speaker
And at the time, this was a national story looking for the children. The children were missing for a long time. This was huge. Again, this was 2020. hu And it was COVID. So like that it was all we were talking about. like It was all – everybody was glued to this. It was the worst possible time for these two.
00:40:25
Speaker
was COVID when no one had anything else to do. The children were missing for weeks or their whereabouts. I mean, months. No, months. September to June.
00:40:37
Speaker
Yeah. and Okay. So Chad and Lori were LDS church members, but had deviated from mainstream Mormonism. Chad was an apocalyptic author. That word's really hard to say, so forgive me for like going real slow.
00:40:52
Speaker
Chad claimed to have had near-death experiences that allowed him to have visions that and that have allowed him to live multiple lives. So we're just laying the groundwork here. I've not read these books, but um I've heard they were not the most well-written publications, um and that he was not truly like an overly successful, I don't even, maybe it would be a stretch to even call him a successful author.
00:41:23
Speaker
um Obviously, he it was very, very niche. Yeah. But, yeah. I will also say, since I wrote these notes, um one of my favorite podcasts, the last podcast on the left, did a series on them.
00:41:36
Speaker
And I may accidentally pull things in from what they said, because like I said, my notes are written and then I listened to their series. But I think one of the hosts read some of the books and were like, I couldn't, it nothing made sense.
00:41:50
Speaker
And this was a host that like, reads the Scientology books for fun. Yeah, I've heard that too. So-
00:41:57
Speaker
so However, Chad didn't discuss these near-death experiences until he began publishing another author named Julie Rowe. Julie Rowe is an author and a self-proclaimed clairvoyant who claimed to have a near-death experience in 2004.
00:42:17
Speaker
And through this, she started having visions of end-time events. Now, here's one of the links directly I want to go back to Ruby and Kevin is in the docuseries. Kevin talked about there was a time it was like an earthquake warning in Utah.
00:42:35
Speaker
COVID was happening. All of these like they thought it was the end times. So this is a thing. This is a Mormon thing, the end times. So Julie Rowe in 2015 said her predictions would mean the world would end around that September of the, ah during a lunar eclipse.
00:42:53
Speaker
The LDS church, like this got so big, the LDS church had to respond with a call to be calm. They said they did not support this view and they did not support her work.
00:43:03
Speaker
Julie was a popular author and speaker in LDS extremist groups and And she kind of brought about the idea of the Mormon prepper, um believed the apocalypse was coming and people must work to prepare for Christ's second coming.
00:43:20
Speaker
And she predicted a foreign invasion of the U.S., economic collapse, plagues, all the normal end times stuff. And April 2019, she was excommunicated from the LDS church.
00:43:33
Speaker
So the LDS church, I mean, the prepping mentality, the journaling mentality, that's always been part of their doctrine. But I think what these people do is and exploit those portions.
00:43:46
Speaker
And then everything gets kind of wrapped up with this end of the world, prepping mentality, the chosen ones, and the Yeah, they're the ones who are going to. it and And that happens. And I mean, it perhaps had happens with all of it like Jodi and Ruby.
00:44:02
Speaker
It's exactly what's happening with Chad and Lori. Well, and and Tim Ballard said God chose him for a lot of things, you know, like i was going to say, yeah, I was trying to make the connection with Tim Ballard. A little bit different, a little bit different there, but. But it's still it's still there. God chose him to do this.
00:44:18
Speaker
um So Julie Rowe, in 2020, it was revealed that Chad Daba was her former publisher. This was after, i believe, the remains of the children were found. And at first she defended him.
00:44:31
Speaker
um She claimed that she believed in his innocence, but later would claim that he sexually assaulted her in 2018. she's and she's a lot um petty yeah Petty side note. Have you ever seen her? She's just there's just something that gives me she just seems very wackadoo. It's a little unsettling.
00:44:48
Speaker
Yeah, there's just something. else Yeah, I mean, yeah. So from all of these things that he learned from Julie, Chad ended up prophesying that the world would end July 2020.
00:45:03
Speaker
and I mean, really, Chad just wanted to be famous in the Mormon world. He wanted to be considered one of the prophets to lead the chosen people through the second coming of Jesus.
00:45:15
Speaker
He wanted to be followed. Because Chad was an extremely plain, there was very unremarkable man. I would go so far as to call him a mashed potato face.
00:45:27
Speaker
I was like, I'm not sure how to say it, but. And listen. She's a terrible person, but Lori Vallow is hot. Yeah. And, you know, he should have just been happy that he got her and they should have just gone to Hawaii and never talked to anybody again.
00:45:46
Speaker
And yeah, and I believe he bragged, I don't know, to others that he found himself a hot, rich woman, which right there, you should know. yeah This if it's too good to be true. Red flag.
00:45:58
Speaker
Yeah. So Lori followed his beliefs. She knew of Chad first. And ultimately, through his work and the book we're going to talk about next week, she thought she herself would play a role in ushering in the end of the world.
00:46:13
Speaker
So in her mind, he was a bit of the celebrity. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When she met him, yeah, she was taken with his buzz. would say with them, chad is the Jodi and Laurie is the Ruby. Uh-huh.
00:46:27
Speaker
You know, they both have the things inside of them. To be bad. As Sherry said, Ruby, Jodi isn't the one to blame for Ruby. Ruby is to blame for Ruby. But the combination of the two was catastrophic.
00:46:40
Speaker
Yeah. it's yeah almost um Almost identical. Yeah. So Lori believed that her family was interfering with her mission of ushering in the end of the world.
00:46:51
Speaker
Yep. And she was reading this book we're talking about next week called Visions of Glory when she was arrested. Now, previously, Lori had three three children of her own, and then she had two stepchildren. I believe so.
00:47:08
Speaker
Yeah, she was always known as being ah good mother, like, yeah at least outwardly, yeah was thought upon. Yeah, very positively. I think her youngest, JJ, was adopted.
00:47:22
Speaker
But yet she had a lot of... In her past, she had, I think, Chad was her fifth husband? I think so, too. Yeah. At least... two of her ex-husbands had kind of died under mysterious circumstances.
00:47:39
Speaker
So. Yeah. Her past wasn't squeaky clean. What's her oldest? Colby. Colby. Yeah. Colby Ryan has a YouTube channel now and he has a podcast, I believe.
00:47:51
Speaker
And I can't remember what it's called. It's something with Star Wars. Scar Wars? Something that. Wars. Scar Wars. Yeah. And it's actually, so A bit of a side tangent. he um after Lori was arrested, he got arrested for, i think, domestic abuse against his wife.
Family Dynamics and Legal Issues
00:48:10
Speaker
Something like that happened that that he was arrested for something he did with his wife. Could have even been like marital rape. It could have been something like that. I can't remember exactly, but he did something really horrible and... she they've you know he he went to prison he did or he went to jail i don't remember exactly he served some time and i think he got treatment for alcoholism and ultimately it was like this man has been so traumatized by what his mother has done like he just the worst decision he could have possibly made i think he's gotten a ton of help he and his wife are still together have had
00:48:44
Speaker
I think they have two kids. Like they've got a lot of help. ah huh And he seems like he's in this like amazing, like reflective, good person. Happy might be a stretch, but he's happy with his life place.
00:49:00
Speaker
That he's able to be like incredibly reflective and accountable still for those those behaviors he did at that horrible time in his life. ah But I super recommend his YouTube channel.
00:49:13
Speaker
um There was one video that I listened. He did a phone call with Lori and she let him record it. And they just I think he took the call while they were recording.
00:49:24
Speaker
And yeah she is still all in. and at the end of the call, he basically said, you're never allowed to see my kids. I still love you, but you did all these horrible things. You can't admit it.
00:49:37
Speaker
And you're, we don't have relationship full stop. Yeah. But it was hard. I mean, he, it's happening in real time. He's sobbing at the end. it was just. oh Yeah. And I think, yeah, he, after lots of therapy and he views his channel as,
00:49:52
Speaker
That's another form of therapy working through and processing the things that have happened to him as well as helping, you know, his community of viewers to, as they process yeah their own traumas.
00:50:06
Speaker
So I would recommend checking. So back to Lori. Lori's brother, Alex Cox, was the one to do the actual murders as far as we know. i think at this point it's even believed that he murdered the kids.
00:50:20
Speaker
He was kind of like a henchman. He would do anything Lori said. But he was also a believer in Chad. It's a very interesting relationship that I don't think has ever been fully defined. It's a weird dynamic. I don't feel like anyone fully understands the relationship that the two had. Yeah. Yeah.
00:50:35
Speaker
So Alex himself married another Mormon prepper. it was ah an arranged marriage by Chad. And Alex died November 2024.
00:50:46
Speaker
um His death was ruled a pulmonary embolism. There's a number of rumors, ah suicide. However, if it was suicide, it would the the rumor is it was ah that he received a blessing from Chad over the phone right before if he took his own life to release him.
00:51:03
Speaker
So there's several deaths, unexplained deaths, that surround this whole thing. um One, as I mentioned, was Lori Vallow. Her ex-husband had died under suspicious circumstances. Then her current, I guess, husband, um who was JJ's father, died...
00:51:24
Speaker
via the hand of Alex under the guise of it being a... Self-defense. Self-defense. yeah And then, so then, yes, Lori's two children, Tylee and JJ, passed away.
00:51:39
Speaker
And then Chad's wife mysteriously passed away also during this time frame. And at this point, yeah, it's kind of thought that Alex had something to do with all of them.
00:51:51
Speaker
Right. um And the other suspicious rumor about his death was Chad declared him to also be a zombie, as Tylee and JJ were referred and as some of Ruby's children were referred to And Chad, I'm sorry, and Alex's wife from the arranged marriage did something to him under Chad's guidance.
00:52:19
Speaker
So that's another rumor about Alex's death. I don't know if it's being investigated. I think I heard somewhere that there was talks of investigating his wife, but I don't know. Zulema? Yeah, that's her name.
00:52:30
Speaker
Before Alex passed away, it was claimed that he did say, I think I'm going to be the fall guy for all of this. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. i don't know. I feel like Alex wasn't super bright.
00:52:42
Speaker
And it's like, yeah, you did it. Yeah. yeah so fall guy for the murder like i know he was saying like they wouldn't be blamed for it but it's like yeah you're the fall guy you did it And it just, he's just was a unique character. I think he was a past standup comedian.
00:53:03
Speaker
Well, I am going to, I do want to do a YouTube short about their other brother who now I'm blanking on his name, but I feel like it's Adam. Adam before all of this was involved in a like radio show giveaway gone wrong where someone died. Oh, and I didn't realize the cut, the connection.
00:53:26
Speaker
I heard this story on my all-time favorite podcast that is no longer making new episodes, but you could list everything. All the old ones called Let's Go to Court. Okay. And it was when I listened to the last podcast on the left say like, oh yeah, this guy was involved in this other thing where someone died. I was like, that's not the same.
00:53:48
Speaker
And I looked into I was like, oh my gosh. can't. Another brother is linked to a death. It's nothing like crazy nefarious, like right nothing like this, nothing like it was zombie thing. It was just like a radio giveaway gone wrong.
00:54:05
Speaker
Oh, that's crazy. I hadn't heard that. Wow. And Adam's like solid rock of the family. He was like the normal one who saw what how this craziness going on and tried to bring it to the family's attention and was shunned.
00:54:20
Speaker
But yeah. And so he has a history as like a shock jock. Yeah. I forgot that term. It's a good term. Adam Cox, the shock jock.
00:54:34
Speaker
All right. Let's get dark again. Barry Cox, Laurie's father. All right. Back to Barry. So Barry is a character. He wrote a book that the IRS should be abolished.
00:54:47
Speaker
He's this kind of extreme guy. He filed a lawsuit against the government saying that the IRS is unconstitutional and shockingly was convicted of tax evasion. Really?
00:54:59
Speaker
And had to pay hundreds hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes to the IRS. He's also got in trouble for practicing law without a law license. Which I'm just connecting now. current i think, I don't know if it's still going on. I've made the conscious decision not to watch it because I won't be able to stop watching it. But Lori Vallow is defending herself right now in the trial of ah Charles Vallow's murder.
00:55:27
Speaker
And I just think that's an interesting. I have allowed myself to watch it. and it's crazy. It's crazy. But it's just interesting. Her dad practiced law without a law license and now she's defending herself. It's just...
00:55:39
Speaker
There's a lot of similarities. They have a confidence about them. It seems like that that family, they have a yeah confidence about them that is a maybe they should not have. Because honestly, when she you see her trying to defend herself.
00:55:53
Speaker
Right. And you can see where she's going with it, but it's it's like she kind of doesn't have the brains to back it up. And so you feel sorry for her in a weird way. i My favorite thing, though that I've seen is when...
00:56:06
Speaker
She asks a question. my The best was the woman that Charles Vallow went on like a couple dates with that she was cross-examining and she was on it. This woman's my hero.
00:56:17
Speaker
But she would ask her a question. This woman would respond and Lori would say something like, oh, that's interesting. And then the judge would have to, or that there'd be an objection. They'd be like, you can't say anything after the answer.
00:56:31
Speaker
Stop doing it. Yeah. I thought the best part was actually questioning that same that same witness and you know what her question was along the lines of, so you spent your entire day talking about me and the witness said, don't flatter yourself.
00:56:47
Speaker
Yes, it was so good. We're way off on a tangent now, sorry. I know, but other part of the tangent, I'm going back to Adam Cox and I think it's got to be so devastating that he had to do this. She she questioned him and- That's just.
00:57:05
Speaker
Oh, yeah. He's like the surviving person besides really Colby, thank God Colby didn't have to be questioned. But it's just like like a weird brother sister dynamic, like a strange dynamic instead of like a lawyer asking questions. Yeah.
00:57:23
Speaker
And I, it's yeah because I, I still think the family, although would not completely estranged, i I still don't think, I think ever since then, ever since he stood up and said, Hey, something's, something's going wrong with with this situation.
00:57:41
Speaker
i still don't think he's ever had the relationship with his family that he had before. And I believe he did have a close relationship with them before. Yeah. So it was a very strange dynamic to watch. Yeah, her, she would call him Mr. Cox.
00:57:53
Speaker
Yeah. Well, and then she was like, when was the last time we saw each other? And he's like at this family gathering. And she'd be like, did I bring my green chili enchiladas? And he was like, I don't know. And she's like, did always bring my green chili enchiladas to family events?
00:58:09
Speaker
My favorite. What are you talking about? The better part, I don't know if you saw this, but then Colby talked about it and he's like, she just opened a bunch of cans. There was nothing.
00:58:22
Speaker
I didn't see that. Like, i think he was, she used canned chicken. Oh, that makes it even better. right. So bring things down again. Barry Cox was an incredibly dominant person.
00:58:36
Speaker
Overbearing man. had very extreme beliefs. And just in general, this family was not a typical family. Barry Cox and would have his family join him in attending conferences called Preparing the People, which were Mormon prepper conferences.
00:58:54
Speaker
Ultimately, the Preparing the People conference was part of when Chad and Lori met. So Barry, this was years before, but eventually that it's that same conference um that linked Lori and Chad.
00:59:09
Speaker
When Cox's siblings were children, Barry would read many near-death experience books to them. Like picture books about near-death experiences? I don't know.
00:59:20
Speaker
Oh, I didn't realize that. i That there's like many. I don't know. It's terrifying. So during a contentious custody battle between Barry's former son-in-law during a divorce from his daughter, this isn't Lori. I don't believe this is another daughter.
00:59:39
Speaker
He attacked his former son-in-law. And see in the midst of the attack, he started quoting scripture to the son-in-law. About how he's terrible for, I don't know, he's he's awful and and he shouldn't have his kids and all these things like that.
00:59:57
Speaker
Until the son-in-law reminded him that Barry had been arrested for solicitation of prostitution. Oh my gosh. Our human ended. That was little side tangent.
01:00:08
Speaker
But that is the the the weird family structure that Laurie comes out of. And Alex. So let's get back into the timeline of Tylee and JJ's disappearance. Late November 2019, the police questioned Lori about JJ's whereabouts.
01:00:26
Speaker
At the time, she and Chad had fled their home and went to Hawaii. And at this time, police learned that Tylee was also missing and the couple would not cooperate with authorities.
01:00:38
Speaker
Investigators learned of the suspicious deaths of Charles Vallow, who's Lori's husband, Tammy Daybell, who was Chad's wife, and the attempted murder of Brandon Bordeaux, who is Lori's niece's estranged husband.
01:00:57
Speaker
Okay, hold on. It's Boudreaux. Thank you. Bordeaux would be a fine French wine. Brandon.
01:01:07
Speaker
The attempted murder of Brandon B. Well, Lori's niece, Melanie, was divorcing her husband, Brandon. um She had left him and their kids.
01:01:19
Speaker
Someone one shot at Brandon at his house, I believe, from a green Jeep. that was registered to Charles' name, and that it was known that Tylee drove.
01:01:31
Speaker
The... shot missed by inches, and Brandon basically went into hiding. i think he and the kids went anywhere they could that his estranged wife and the rest of the family couldn't find him.
01:01:43
Speaker
There was a life insurance policy in Melanie's name, but the policy would only be honored if they were married. So it mattered that he was murdered before they got divorced.
01:01:55
Speaker
Speculation is it was probably Alex doing the grunt work of this, let's say. Yeah, in retrospect, that is what it Yeah. So now we have in this mix, right? We have Lori, Chad.
01:02:07
Speaker
We've got the two missing children of Lori's. We have Lori's ex-husband, Charles, who was killed by her brother in, quote, self-defense. yeah um We have this niece of Lori's who is niece
Motivations and Manipulations
01:02:23
Speaker
by a different family member, not by either of the brothers um in the mix.
01:02:27
Speaker
And then her husband, Brandon, who is... been shot at but is alive. Yeah, but they sure tried. So that's where we are right now. So it's kind of like one side are two different sides of the... Yeah, yeah. Good and the bad.
01:02:43
Speaker
So we also have Tammy Daybell, who is Chad's deceased wife. Her death was first it deemed natural as all of these things started coming out with the kids and Charles and these weird deaths.
01:03:00
Speaker
Tammy's body was exhumed, and she showed that she died of asphyxia. So somebody strangled her. However, two weeks after Tammy's death, Chad and Lori got married.
01:03:14
Speaker
And didn't seem to even try to hide it. Nope. I was just going to say, like... Very upfront and proud. Very proud. Yep. February 20th, 2020, Lori was arrested for desertion and non-support of her children.
01:03:29
Speaker
I think that was a thing of like, we have to arrest her for something. Like she needs to be held or she will flee. She had fled. I think she was in. Yeah, she was. She had fled. Yes, that is fair.
01:03:40
Speaker
um June 9th, 2020, Tylee and JJ's remains were discovered on Chad's property. And Chad was arrested for destruction of or concealment of evidence.
01:03:53
Speaker
May 25th, 2021, both Chad and Lori were charged with first degree murders of Tammy, Tylee, and JJ. I just have to talk about this. So Chad buried the remains on his property.
01:04:09
Speaker
Alex buried the remains on Chad's property. Okay, I guess somebody buried the remains yeah on Chad's property. but the The assumption or the the belief is it was Alex.
01:04:21
Speaker
Just, I don't know. Picture this. um just i have a hard time thinking that this is that either of them think that they can get away with doing this. I don't know. i mean, this because because it's like the property is not like a rolling, like a ranch. It's like two acres. It's like his backyard, essentially.
01:04:43
Speaker
So you're thinking logically. They're thinking the end of the world is yeah happening July 2020. It doesn't matter. i guess that's true. Yeah. Because I'm thinking, how could they have ever thought this plan could play out?
01:04:57
Speaker
But ah good point. They are... it they are They are otherworldly beings who are ushering in the end of the world. It doesn't matter where any of the remains were buried because they will transcend that all.
01:05:14
Speaker
And then through this year, like Chad just wants his hot, rich wife. Yep. They're all treating him as being godlike. and I know. It's wild. He just wants to see her in a bikini.
01:05:27
Speaker
Yep. The logical motive and then the kind of otherworldly motive. Let's do let's do those separate. The logistical motive is that the people that they killed were obstacles to their new married life together that needed to be removed.
01:05:43
Speaker
They were attempting to get life insurance and the kids social security benefits. I think Tylee got benefits because her father died and JJ got benefits because he was autistic and needed extra care and extra help. And he got social security benefits for that.
01:06:04
Speaker
And that was the motive was they wanted to be together and have money. Yeah. And once, once Lori's Charles ah died or what, Once he was gone, then yes, JJ got even both Lori and JJ would be able to collect benefits, social security benefits.
01:06:21
Speaker
Yep. And then there is the, the, another little side tangent, except I didn't do a deep dive because I know we're going to talk about this in the future, but I just want one of my favorite parts of the story is that Charles Vallow changed his life insurance right before he died.
01:06:38
Speaker
And she was fully expecting to get a million dollars. And then it went to his sister, I believe. everything's backfiring. Now I think yeah huge part of their motive. I think that is absolutely part of their motive. They need like for the world ends, they need money and they want to be together.
01:06:56
Speaker
I also think um part of their motive and I don't know how much either of them truly believe. I do think Lori truly believes Chad. I don't know. Chad is the Jody. I don't know what he truly believes that they,
01:07:10
Speaker
removing these obstacles is part of the guys of or is part of the plan to usher in the end of the world and she's kind of over her role as a mom and yeah wife also i mean i feel like i feel like there was a there was a bit of of you know of that in there too yeah she's charles the love had or the passion had died down for charles Tylee was always, you know, portrayed as a difficult teenager, JJ as a challenging yeah child with autism. So there was... It does sound like JJ's autism was... was He had more needs than than others. He was at a different point in the spectrum, of course.
01:07:53
Speaker
So that would be challenging for anybody. Tylee, and I think we talked a little bit about this when talking about Sherry Frankie. Tylee was a teenager who was starting to read the room and starting to not agree with the things that were being said.
01:08:10
Speaker
i think if Ruby hadn't been stopped, Sherry wouldn't be here the way Tylee's not here. Yeah. I think that, I don't think Tylee was difficult. I think she was a teenager who wasn't buying into it.
01:08:26
Speaker
Yeah. And I think that she and Colby were becoming a little bit closer. And i think Colby also was starting to realize, okay, something's off. And yeah she needed to take care of Tylee away from the influence.
01:08:42
Speaker
So the happily married couple were tried separately. Lori was found guilty on May 2023 on all charges. on all charges And July 21st, 2023, she was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
01:08:59
Speaker
Chad was found guilty on May 30th, 2023, of all charges. And he was sentenced on June 1st, 2023, to death. Since then, Lori has been extradited to Arizona.
01:09:12
Speaker
Where, went back when I wrote these notes, it didn't happen yet, but she is, i think, on trial for the murder of Charles Vallow and the shooting of Brandon, name I can't say. Boudreaux.
01:09:24
Speaker
Thank you. She's defending herself, as we said. And I haven't looked at updates from it because, like I said, I think it was... Law and Crime Network were playing it like gavel to gavel. And I just wouldn't have been able to function as a human being watching it. So I made the choice to not.
01:09:43
Speaker
I think the prosecution has rested. And I think the defense doesn't have a whole lot of, lot of bulk to their case. So, um, It is thought that they would. Gotcha. Closing statements would be coming in the next few business days.
01:09:55
Speaker
Yeah. Good to know. Maybe I'll watch those. So other deaths do need to be scrutinized around the couple. um One specifically is. Lori's third husband, Joseph Anthony Ryan, Jr.
01:10:09
Speaker
Joseph adopted Lori's son, Colby, and Colby claimed to have been sexually abused by Joseph. would ah Colby has made this claim, I believe, himself. um However, Lori did claim that Tylee was being abused by Charles.
01:10:27
Speaker
And that was one of the reasons she had to get him away. So I don't, I don't know. It's, it's just a weird thing of like, her a kid from a previous relationship being abused by the new stepdad.
01:10:41
Speaker
But it does sound like Joseph was like, was not great. Yeah, I got the feeling he was not a great guy and that there was some substance to the abuse. But I mean, I think Colby doesn't speak about it very often. Yeah.
01:10:54
Speaker
and And it could truly be what happened with Colby resulted in her getting ah ah getting away from this man. And so maybe she's like, well, it worked that time.
01:11:04
Speaker
We're going to say it happened to Tylee, too. you know So previously, though, Alex, brother Alex, was charged because he tased joseph ryan oh i didn't know that like a taser yeah that relationship of laurie and alex is so so strange yeah but yeah so um apparently in defense of laurie and colby um there was an altercation with Alex and he tased Joseph. And then, yeah, he was like sent to prison for that.
01:11:39
Speaker
I do think Joseph was not a good, good man. So basically the tragic backstory that Lori learned to use is that she was married to a man who was abusing her children and she needed to murder that man. So he'd stop coming after her and her children.
01:11:55
Speaker
She started like sharing this backstory around the time she met Chad. So there is a Book of Mormon story that kind of leads credence to this.
01:12:07
Speaker
Today, the LDS church officially denounces this story because this story has been used as justification in murders related to LDS members.
01:12:19
Speaker
It is the story of Nephi and Laban. And basically in the story, Nephi had to kill Laban in order for God's plan to continue forward.
01:12:31
Speaker
So if you think about the context of Lori's husband's dying and she moves on to the next thing, these men had to die for her to continue going forward with God's plan.
01:12:48
Speaker
And if the first time her husband Joseph died after and allegation of perhaps sexually abusing her child, we're going to use that story again.
01:13:00
Speaker
For this with Tylee and Charles. And we're going to keep moving God's plan forward. And social security check to boot. Yep. That's just an added perk.
01:13:10
Speaker
So Laurie and Chad believed they were ushering in the end of days. Some of the things they believed. so Some of them were kind of like wackadoo things. They believed in reincarnation. Which is not an LDS doctrine.
01:13:22
Speaker
But a lot of these fundamentalist believers believed. ah believe in reincarnation, Lori and Chad were allegedly married in past lives. So they were sealed in the church despite their marriages to other people.
01:13:36
Speaker
They claimed that they were related to Joseph Smith and um they believed that the past lives were quote, multiple probations on earth, which are requirements for a person to reach exaltation.
01:13:53
Speaker
What that means basically is for a person to be like perfectly holy and good and person who can usher in the second coming. So they also believed that there were light people and dark people.
01:14:09
Speaker
Basically, Chad had a scoring system for good and evil. Dark meant they were possessed by evil spirits. And there were ceremonies called castings meant to cast out evil spirits.
01:14:24
Speaker
If we remember, there were some exorcisms that Kevin Frankie attempted to perform on Jodi. keep Just a thing to remember. They believed that people who were possessed or dark became zombies who had no hope in being saved and had to be killed.
01:14:43
Speaker
Killing them was the way to relieve them from the pain of being stuck in the body they were in. When their souls could not be redeemed. The humane thing to do was to kill them. And coincidentally, people who were deemed dark just happened to be the people who would get between his relationship with Lori. Yeah. It's real weird.
01:15:04
Speaker
So Alex's wife, can you say her name again? Zulema. Yes. Um, I'm not going to try her last name either. Uh, So Zulema and Lori with five other women would do these castings together.
01:15:19
Speaker
I want to know so much more about that. They also believed in vibrations, which are people who had enough vibrations could possess special powers.
01:15:30
Speaker
I'm so confused. I'm doing my best, guys. oh These vibrations could be translated, which meant God changing a mortal human to immortal. It's this language, this manipulation of language and in all these cases, right?
01:15:46
Speaker
Yeah. So they also believed in teleportation through portals and that Chad could create portals. And I think part of how he could create portals was like all of these near-death experiences he had.
01:16:00
Speaker
gave him these powers. couple things. How many near-death experiences can a person have, really? And what i like what I truly think is like so many of these people are like, I got a paper cut.
01:16:13
Speaker
It could have been infected. I could have died from sepsis. That's a near-death experience. but Right. I mean, and I wish I could remember. i mean, I did at one time remember what all of his near-death experiences where I remember was like diving off a cliff and hitting his head on the rock okay it probably hurt yeah probably not great I think Lori almost Lori claimed to have almost died in one of her childbirths no I think she did die she died for a little bit no she did die she died and was you're right yes for just a moment
01:16:49
Speaker
and I forgot. And here's where I'm trying to, maybe hear here have the logic thing. So is Chad at what point, mean, Chad's writing these books. He's calling them fiction.
01:17:01
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Is he believing their fiction and then suddenly gets an opportunity to abuse his status? Is he really believing this stuff?
01:17:12
Speaker
i That's what I don't know. I don't understand. Well, it's the question of Jodi Hildebrandt, too, right? Like, did she believe she for what she was saying? Or did she find a way to abuse people and make money?
01:17:24
Speaker
I think it's the same question with Chad. Because it seems like Chad has done everything he can to distance himself from Lori now that they're in prison.
01:17:36
Speaker
Like she still says they're married. And his children were never harmed. His children were never touched or harmed. Right. I don't know the answer. And it's the same with Jodi. I don't know the answer. I think Lori and Ruby were all in before they met.
01:17:54
Speaker
Mm-hmm. They're Jodie and Chad. And then once they met them, they were like, we were all in before. Right. Now we are like next level. Like I said before, Chad claimed the world would end July 2020.
01:18:08
Speaker
He said that angels guided him in the choices he made and the things he did. Lori claimed to have direct communication with God and Jesus, which she still claims. She believes herself to be a, quote, exalted goddess.
01:18:23
Speaker
that she's a visionary, she's a prophetess. She and Chad would leave lead the 144,000 LDS people. And because of this, because of the things she has had to do for the second coming, because God told her she needed to do these things, she can't be held responsible for her actions on earth.
01:18:46
Speaker
was just because God told her to. And amazing, all of these chosen people, Lori, Ruby, Jodi, and Chad, but these four are all in jail. And that's what they have
Teaser for Next Episode
01:18:57
Speaker
in common.
01:18:57
Speaker
These chosen people now are all. In prison. and But what I'll say is that the believers in this stuff, like, I think it was, didn't Chad Frankie say in the docuseries, when he was still brainwashed, he he said, like, he believed his mother and Jodi would, like,
01:19:17
Speaker
Knock the walls down of the jail and come out and the world would end. Like there are still believers in all of these people. Yeah, no, I, I agree. and i mean, even Colby's spoken um up until a point. Yeah, he was very defensive of his mother and yeah.
01:19:35
Speaker
Yeah. So that is, we're going to wrap that there. Our next episode is when we are going to look at the crossover of Vallow Daybell, Ballard, and Frankie Hildebrandt and what connects them all.
01:19:51
Speaker
Because a lot of these beliefs overlap for- All of these people. And i think the Mormon church needs to be doing more to prevent yeah this, these people who claim to be Mormons from using that name as their religion.
01:20:09
Speaker
They don't seem to be interested. They seem to be more interested in in distancing themselves from the individuals instead of denouncing the works that incur that that inspired them, let's say.
01:20:20
Speaker
Yeah, bit of a long episode, but we'll figure out what we're doing. And we will see you guys next week. All right. Talk to y'all later.
01:20:40
Speaker
you