Transcript of Ep 2: Hawaii

Previously on Deceived.

We got this press release and it was weird.

49-year-old Tammy Daybell was found deceased in her home October 19th. Within weeks of Tammy Daybell's death, her surviving husband, Chad Daybell, had married Lori Vallow, who is the mother of the missing children.

Our intern Eric calls me and he's like, you're not gonna believe this. Lori Vallow's 4th husband, Charles Vallow, was shot and killed by Lori's brother.

I got in a fight with my brother-in-law and I shot him and self-defended.

So, the grandparents come to Rexburg to hold a news conference.

About the missing children, JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan.

And one day, we get a tip from an anonymous person who says they're in Hawaii, and here's their GPS coordinate. From KSL Podcasts, I'm Nate Eaton. This is Deceived, episode 2, Hawaii. So, it's January 2020, and I'm working on this story about 2 missing kids in eastern Idaho. At the center of the police investigation are 2 people: the kids' mother, Lori Vallow, and her new husband, Chad Daybell. And I just received a tip that they might be in Hawaii. At the same time, I'm cramming like a college kid before finals, trying to learn everything I can about these 2 people. And that's when someone sends me a podcast episode. It's from a show I've never heard of called Feel the Fire.

Welcome to the Feel the Fire podcast with your lovely hosts, Melanie Gibb and Lori Vallow.

And it turns out it's hosted by Lori Vallow and one of her friends. The podcast was released by a prepper group called Preparing a People. Now, this group is not associated with the Latter-day Saint Church, but all of its members are LDS. They held conferences where they talk about things like food storage and how to prepare physically and spiritually for anything that might happen, be it a disaster or the Second Coming of Christ. And on the episode of Lori's podcast I was sent, her guest was Chad Daybell. Chad was a writer. He'd authored about 25 books, mainly fiction set in the time just before the Second Coming.

So we're here with Chad Daybell, and he is on our Feel the Fire podcast today. And we really want to talk to Chad about his experiences with Jesus.

That's Lori talking there.

That's what we're here to do, is to testify of Jesus and who he is and who he is to us. So, Chad, hi.

Hello, glad to be on the podcast with you.

The episode was released on September 16th, 2019, right around the time Lori's kids had gone missing. And on the podcast, Chad and Lori act like they don't know each other well, even though they would get married just a month and a half later.

Why don't you start with, like, your first experience with Jesus and kind of who he is to you?

Okay, I grew up Chad described meeting Jesus twice. The first time, he said, he was a young man during a low point on his LDS mission.

I served in New Jersey, Spanish-speaking, and there's a lot of ghetto situations, a lot of violence around me, and I got a little depressed, and I felt I needed to pray and get a confirmation that I was really doing the right thing, giving up college for a couple years. And so I went into our bathroom and said a prayer. And I did see— I believe absolutely that I saw a vision of Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father as they appear. They were comforting me and gave me encouragement to move forward.

And Chad claimed to have seen Jesus a second time during a near-death experience.

I was down in San Diego, California, and I went out on a rocky ledge and was hit by a huge wave that knocked me down. It actually knocked me out of my body, and I found myself standing talking to my grandpa who had died many years before. And what he did was show me some scenes of future events, and I've never really said it Publicly, I guess, but part of those scenes showed me in the future with the Savior, talking with him.

You might think a podcast called Feel the Fire interviewing a prophet with apocalyptic visions would be serious and grim. And Chad did briefly mention the end times.

You know, the economy had crashed, war had come to America. Much of the world was in chaos.

But consistent with LDS teaching, Chad emphasized that the Second Coming would be a time of joy for those with Jesus. He just radiates happiness.

There's a joy in his eyes that you rarely see in anyone else on this earth. And a smile and a laugh that kind of erupts from his chest, you know? It's not just a giggle or anything. It's a full-hearted laugh.

From Lori and her co-hosts' reactions, you can tell that Chad's message resonated with them. What struck me as unusual about the visions Chad was describing was his supposedly close relationship to Jesus.

What I was shown is that my family will be able to help him and he'll be appreciative of us.

And Lori seemed almost giddy about Chad's proximity to Jesus.

You were like his friend? You were like talking with him? You were working with him?

Yeah, it was— It wasn't a situation where we were, like, bowing down to him. He's certainly still above us in every way, but essentially treated us as friends.

Several times, Chad returned to this idea in a low-key, modest way that his personal connection to Jesus was special.

I don't know why he kind of singled me out a couple of times and as if we knew each other pretty well. And he would joke a little bit with me.

Was that like telepathy, spirit to spirit, or was that more like talking to you and like joking, like friend to friend?

It was verbal. It seems like he was commenting about one of my granddaughters who seemed really shy, and he just kind of whispered to me something like, she's sure a cute girl and doesn't need to be that shy.

I won't make you listen to the whole episode. Chad rambles on about his supposed visions for quite some time, but I want to give you a sense of the lighthearted banter of the podcast.

Everybody was eventually able to at least embrace him or shake his hand. He'd usually just kind of do a bro hug with them there.

Dude to dude. That's funny. Because he's a real person. Like, he lived a real life and He relates to us more than we think he does, because we think of him as a heavenly being and not like us.

Right, untouchable, very serious is what we portray him sometimes, and that's just not accurate. And I think what we need to remember is we're here on earth to become like him, and he's setting the example that we can be ourselves and and laugh and enjoy life. There's laughter in heaven all the time. They're very happy there.

That's amazing, and that he is like ahead of us in eternity but had gone through all the things that we're going through now, so he perfectly understands how hard this life is, the mortal life. Thank you for your testimony.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Thanks for having me on.

I want everybody to feel the fire, the heavenly fire, that you can be encompassed in his love.

Aside from Chad's prominent connection to Jesus, his visions didn't seem especially revolutionary or, frankly, that interesting. And nothing about it seemed particularly dark. Nothing betrayed the sort of religious fanaticism that could lead someone to hurt a child. But what we didn't know then was the conversations taking place once the microphones turned off. Because Chad and Lori were self-aware enough not to share their real views on that podcast. For one, Chad left out the fact that in his visions of his family helping Jesus, his wife was not Tammy Daybell. It was Lori. But Chad was teaching much darker doctrines as well, and he and Lori knew what they were saying and doing behind closed doors would shock and disturb. They knew that the rest of us, living in what they called the telestial world, Weren't ready to hear Chad's full doctrine. So it's January 2020, and I just finished listening to Laurie's podcast when our intern Eric tells me we've gotten a tip that was a set of GPS coordinates pointing to a spot on the island of Kauai in Hawaii. And it said, They're here. We're like, hmm, if that's true, we should go to Hawaii and find them.

It's a huge if, because if you're wrong, you've wasted a lot of time and money. But what we did is I then went to my police sources and said, we know they're in Hawaii, we want to go talk to them. And the police said, can you please hold off a little bit? They did not confirm or deny if they were there. They simply said, please hold, which made me think, okay, we're on to something. You definitely don't want to mess up an investigation involving 2 missing children and a bunch of dead spouses. But you do also have a duty and responsibility to report the news. And finally, it was a Thursday. I was about to speak at a Rotary Club. When I got a call that said, you should prepare to go to Hawaii tomorrow and don't tell anyone. We still didn't know what was gonna happen. All they told us is, get to Hawaii if you want to. Our intern's name is Eric, and he turned out to be really great at finding stories and digging stuff up. I told him, we're going to Hawaii tomorrow. You can tell your wife and that's it.

We were sitting in the newsroom and got that phone call of, hey, we're going, and it was get on the plane the next day. My name is Eric Grossarth, and I was a reporter at eastidahonews.com. I was still kind of the intern. I was new, and it was definitely exciting. Like, oh wow, we may actually find some answers to all these questions that people are asking. Where'd the kids go? What happened? And who are these people? So it was, let's, let's go find some answers to that. We didn't really know what we would find out when we were there.

Well, we went to Hawaii in January and we landed and it was hot and humid. So it was quite a drastic change. We get there at midnight Saturday. Sunday, we get a call that nothing's happening today, but lay low. They were really concerned that Chad and Lori would get tipped off that media was on the island covering them. We don't want them to flee to Mexico or somewhere else. So I figure, well, we're here on the island, let's go around and try to do some reporting. We have a day. So we go to shoot video and our camera is broken. It broke on the flight.

We're a small newsroom, we didn't fly very often, so the camera got put in a suitcase and we get there and it's busted pretty bad.

So we're on the island of Kauai, there's not a Best Buy. There was a Costco and a Walmart. So we went to Walmart. They have the little tiny consumer camcorders. And then Costco had a nice camera, but they don't work with our mic. So we're debating, do we fly to the Big Island to go to Best Buy? What do we do?

End up finding a little film school for youth.

We, we go to the shop and we wait, like Hawaii time. He's just taking his time because he's normally closed on Sunday. We wait for like 2 hours. So he comes in and he's got a camera and it works with our mic.

He was nice enough to, even though we'd broken a really nice camera, to rent us his for a couple days.

So we get the camera and we're in the shopping center and I'm like, let's go try it out and interview a few people. Just MOSs is what we call them, man on the street interviews. So I had pictures of JJ and Tylee. So I walked up to people and I said, have you seen these kids? Have you ever seen these children?

Um, I have not, no.

Have you even heard about this case?

I have not.

I had a picture of Chad and Lori. Chad and Lori Daybell, names ring a bell? No, sorry. No worries, that's all we wanted to ask. Thank you very much. That looks good. What is it, baklava? Lemon chicken. Oh, lemon chicken. Shows you how much I know. Thanks, guys. No one knew. We did about 3 interviews, 10 minutes. We go and get in the car and I get a call from a source and he says, Uh, we're gonna have to move things up to today. I'm like, okay, what do you mean? Like tonight? He's like, like right now. So he says, um, I'll call you back. We see a black SUV cut in front of us followed by 2 Kauai police officers. And I'm like, well, let's just follow those cops just to see. I mean, it might not be anything. I'm driving, so Eric, the intern, is shooting from inside the car.

We're in the car figuring out this new camera, driving down the road, and that's when they pulled into this resort.

This source calls back and says, I know where to tell you to go. And I said, is it the Kauai Beach Resort? And he goes, how did you know? I said, we're here. He's like, whoa, I'm not even there. Stay there. Don't get too close to the scene and be careful.

It was a parking lot of a resort hotel. Palm trees and waterfalls, and then all these police cars around this one car.

So we're rolling the whole time. They just pulled them over. We are here. There's, there's 5 marked cars.

Like I said, I hadn't used the camera before, and— I need my—

What do you need? Get it. They're in the car. You get them. I'll take the camera.

That was pretty nerve-wracking, right? Like— I got it. You don't know what they were gonna do, right? I remember I get out of the car with the camera and I'm kind of behind the hood a little bit.

Don't get up close, just stand here.

We're right in the middle of all of this happening.

Chad and Lori have just been pulled over here at a resort. Stop alert.

And I was like, oh wait, that's— that's them.

And I see Lori Vallow and I'm like, holy cow, that's the woman at the center of this huge case right there in front of me. She was much thinner than I thought. She had long blonde hair, big sunglasses. It looked like she'd been at a yoga class or something. She was surrounded by the cops, and her arms were crossed, and she looked mad. Just like annoyed. Not that my kids are missing and we're at the center of this nationwide manhunt. And then I see Chad, and that was alarming because he looked nothing like the picture the police had released. In the photo, he had it like a short haircut like me, kind of buzzed cut, chubby, collared shirt, big grin. The man standing in front of me had long kind of styled hair. He'd lost weight, a lot of it. His face was more chiseled. He was in beach shorts and a t-shirt and sandals, and he was tan. They put Chad in one police car and Lori in another, and I'll never forget Chad, like, reaches up to the window. He's in the back seat, and he, like, touches the window like he was longing for her.

Like he wanted to touch her. He wanted to be with her, and they were separated. It was so weird. And so we still don't know what's going on. Are they being arrested? What's happening?

And that's when we see some familiar faces from Rexburg of these Detective standing off to the side.

Officer comes over and says they were giving them an order from the judge that they had to produce the kids within 5 days in Idaho. They were gonna do that at their house and knock on the door, but Chad and Lori left that townhome and were headed south on the island toward the airport. So the detectives became worried that they were going to take off. So they said, we got to move this thing up now. They did tell me that Chad was friendly. Lori looked at them and had snakes coming out of her eyes. They said, we are going to seize the car. And I said— So what happens once they're done here? You're going to take their car and then you're letting them go? And he said, yeah, we're not arresting them at this point. I said, so if they don't have a car, how are they going to get out of here? Because they weren't staying there. And he goes, that's up to them. And I said, so if they don't have a car, when you guys are done, I can go up and talk to them and they won't have any place to go.

He's like, you could. I'm like, interesting. So we're standing by. We're good, Eric? I've got our intern Eric ready to go. Lori has just gotten out of a police car. She is right now, uh, back at her SUV. Chad is still in a police car. We're told that they're going to seize that car. You can see the tow truck has just shown up here. And in just a minute, we're going to try to talk to Lori and Chad, see what they have to say. I didn't know what I was gonna say. I hadn't planned anything out. I didn't know what was gonna happen. I was hoping they were gonna stop and sit down and talk with me. They load the car onto a tow truck. Here goes Chad. Chad's about to get out of the car. Chad's about to get out of the car. They're cutting him loose. Come with me, Eric. Come with me. Get up here. Get up here. Get up here. And I walk right up. Lori, Nate Eaton with East Idaho News. Can you tell me where your kids are? I'm in the parking lot of the Kauai Beach Resort Hotel, walking up to Chad and Lori.

Chad's wearing a blue t-shirt and shorts. Lori's got on athletic clothes and sunglasses. She's holding a Ziploc bag with cash, and they're both looking down at a court order police had just given her. Lori, Nate Eaton with East Idaho News. Can you tell me where your kids are? Lori immediately starts walking away without looking back. Where are your kids? No comment. No comment? They've been missing for 4 months. You have nothing to say? And after a beat— You're over here in Hawaii? Chad catches up and slides his hand into hers.

I'm walking backwards and the camera's bouncing up and down.

Where are your children? Just tell us where they are.

I think in the moment it was a, am I gonna get punched in the face? Because you're right next to him.

Chad, Where are Lori's kids? What happened to Tammy, Chad? Why have you guys been in Hawaii for so long? Listen, just tell people what's happening. There's people around the country praying for your children, praying for you guys. Why don't you give us answers?

That's great.

That's great. That's great that they're praying for you, praying for your kids. What, you have nothing to say? Did you do something to your children? Are your children still alive? That's a simple question. I've got 3 kids of my own. I can tell you every minute where my kids are at. Where are your children? Do you believe that you were instructed by God or others to do something for your children? You have 5 days to get your children in front of a judge in Rexburg. Then what? Chad, you guys have a lot to say on your podcast. You don't have anything to say now? Tammy's family is very worried. Lori, uh, Kay came out. Kay and Larry, they're offering a $20,000 reward for your children? And you're over here on the beach? This is your chance to tell your story. Nothing you want to say? Lori, you have a lot of cash there in your— in your baggie. Were you planning to take off?

There was this little side service door and they ducked into there and that was it. And then we were like, oh wow, we gotta get this up and get a story.

Chad and Lori darted into this resort and they still have not come out. Now, police have not said what they are searching for in that SUV or in their home, but one thing that was not found is Lori's children. JJ and Tylee are still missing. Tomorrow we will have much more from Hawaii. For now, I'm Nate Eaton reporting for eastidahonews.com.

This blew up on social media. Because it showed the kids weren't with them, but they were obviously here in Hawaii of all places. Like, it was a complete shock to people. It became the talk of the island, I think, that day. Because minutes before all of this unfolded, right, Nate's asking people in the shopping mall and they hadn't heard of anything. And by the end of that day, right, you're getting tips from people that are on the island. Like, oh, hey, you're those guys from Idaho.

As a reporter, I admit it felt good to have landed the story and put the spotlight on Lori and Chad. But as a father, I was starting to fear the worst, and I was dreading the call I was about to make. The missing boy's grandparents, Larry and Kay Woodcock, had seen the video, and they wanted to know if I could give them any updates on the investigation. Okay. They served Lori with a notice from a judge that she has 5 days to get the children in front of a judge in Rexburg or she could be arrested.

Okay, good.

That's JJ's grandmother, Kay.

So they were— they were going to the resort when they got them?

No, they were on their way. I don't know where they were going, but it is near the airport. The resort is near the airport, and the police just Yeah, that's Lori's favorite resort to go in Hawaii.

Oh, okay.

We understood that she had stayed there before.

Absolutely. Oh, I stayed there with them before, so they just went, got a room, you know. Yeah.

Oh, I imagine when they went in that side room, they just stayed for the night. Yeah, because Eric just got back from the house. So the cops went up and searched their house up in Princeville. Chad and Lori were not there.

Yeah, I guarantee their bags are there at the hotel.

No, maybe not. Maybe not. They got cash and—

They did have a lot of cash. Kay, what did you think of her reaction to the questions?

Cold-hearted, evil bitch.

And I'm being nice.

Yeah, just—

I just— she's scared to death, I can promise you that. I can tell you that. And whenever y'all brought up the reward, I know where her brain was going, and that just infuriated her to no end, I can tell you that much. Hmm.

Well, it sounds like things are moving though. I mean, a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much. I mean, I didn't want to put you on the spot, but—

We spent 2 more days trying to track them down again in Hawaii, then had to fly back home. All we could do was wait as the deadline approached for Lori to return to Idaho and prove her 2 kids, 7-year-old JJ Vallow and 17-year-old Tylee Ryan, were alive and safe.

That was kind of that next big day, and people are in town and hoping to see, okay, maybe they are gonna show up. And there was a specific time deadline.

Lori needed to present her kids by 5 PM.

There was a buzz in town of people kind of waiting around. Are they going to show up?

There was a line of cars like it was a parade. And people saying, is she here? Did she bring the kids? So at 5 o'clock, the grandmother, Kay, held the news conference. It was packed. All the Salt Lake media, Idaho, national news, everybody was there. Kay, what's your thoughts right now? You've had a long day with police. It's after 5:00, and we're hearing Lori has not come to Rexburg.

Right. Lori hasn't come to Rexburg. The kids haven't been delivered. It's 5:00. I'd love to know where those kids are. And I— I think all of America wants to know where they are, and that all this is just beyond crazy. That— how do you not produce your child? And how do you not have them for 4 months? What kind of mother does that? The only word that is coming to my mind right now is a monster. And as much as I loved Lori, she, she was my sister-in-law and I loved her. And she was a great mother as far as I knew and as far as I saw for years. And all this is just— it's just been very disheartening. And I just can't— I don't know. I have so many questions. Questions that— y'all, I'm sorry, I just can't. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. I don't know how to react to this because I had my hopes up, and Larry, we both had our hopes up a lot today for hopefully being able to see our grandson. And, and so now I'm quite disappointed.

Are you feeling less optimistic about the outcome?

I'm a lot less optimistic at this moment.

Um, I—

everybody asks Larry and I, how are we getting through all this the last few months? And it's because we stay optimistic, because we just aren't accepting that the worst-case scenario. We're not accepting it. And And I don't think we ever will until we know 100%. I'm lost, y'all. Y'all have to excuse me on this. I'm, I'm tired and I'm kind of upset right now. So, um, anybody—

Can the police tell you if Chad or Lori are still in Hawaii?

Do they know where they are?

I was informed that that they are still there, probably sunning on the beach somewhere while we're sitting here wondering where the kids are.

They never had come back to Idaho. They were still at the townhome that they had the search warrant served on and had been doing whatever they were doing the last several months. And so then Lori was arrested.

Kauai police arrested Lori, and she was charged with 2 felony counts of desertion and non-support of dependent children. They only charged Lori because even though she had recently gotten married to Chad, she was still the sole legal guardian of the children.

So she was arrested, then extradited by authorities back to Rexburg.

My name is Jessica Marley. I'm the patrol captain for the Idaho Falls Police Department.

This is the first time Jessica Marley has spoken publicly about extraditing Lori to Idaho. And it was an unusual situation for local law enforcement.

We, as the city police department, have never transported prisoners out of state.

Usually when inmates are transported across state lines, it's in the back of a van. So how do you get an inmate across the Pacific?

Well, there were funny things that I didn't even realize, like carrying a firearm on an airplane. There was a class that I had to take, you know, don't shoot a hole in the airplane, things like that.

Very good advice. Right? Yeah.

So I prepared in that way. They gave me a little basic training on how they hide the handcuffs, what the prisoner wears, where to seat them, how that works on an airplane. And then there were other things like, how are we going to keep her away from media?

How do we go through security at an airport? There was a few things like that.

And so we flew over, went into the jail in Kauai, and met her and explained that I would be with her the entire time. When you have prisoners in custody like that, you can't let them out of your sight. So it doesn't matter where she went, if she used the restroom, I had to be right there with her. not even closing the stall. You know, I have to keep my eyes on her at all times. And so it was a long 24 hours.

And did you have ideas in your mind of, I want to kind of befriend her to see if she'll talk, or I'm just going to be straight to business? Where was your mind before you took that flight?

So we were very, um, well instructed. You know, her attorney had said, you do not ask her any questions, which, which is fair. You know, that's how the legal system And so I had it in my mind I was definitely not going to ask her any questions, but just be personable and friendly. If she said anything, then, you know, I would definitely pass that information along. And that's how I am with all of kind of interrogations or meeting with suspects, things like that. I try to be very personable, let them know that, you know, I'm just a person like they are.

And so That's essentially my mindset.

Captain Marley and a few other deputies drove Lori to the airport, where they did their best to blend in with passengers returning home from their vacations in Hawaii. They all wore civilian clothes, including Lori.

The other deputies brought a sweatshirt for her to wear so that you can handcuff her and then hide it in the sweatshirt.

They'd set up in advance a TSA screening in a private part of the airport.

Because you can't go into a secure area without that. So they did a separate screening of all of us and, um, Then we waited in holding until we were to board the plane, but we had to board the plane normally. You know, you scan your boarding pass.

They got onto the plane bound for Seattle and sat with Lori in the very last row.

It's the safest. It keeps them out of the way. It's closest to the flight attendant in case there's any issues.

But despite their best efforts to keep a low profile, Lori was already too infamous in Hawaii to go unnoticed.

There were several people that videoed and walked back towards the back of the plane, pretended to go to the bathroom, were walking back and forth until the flight attendant's like, please take your seat.

Really? And what did Lori think of that attention?

She seemed to love it. Yeah, she seemed to love it. She would make eye contact, smile at them.

Wow. Did she mention at all about the media coverage?

She did.

She blamed all of the media coverage on you, actually. She said Nate from East Idaho News and was very that they get angry.

So she had watched the video or was following it at least? She must have, yeah. What was she like with you?

She was— I hesitate to say this, but normal. If you didn't know that she had any of the involvement that she did, you would have thought that she's just your normal everyday kind of house mom. And she talked just like that.

She chatted with you? Yes. About what?

About her Um, involvement in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She talked about her involvement in the Primary program and what they did on the island of Kauai and how they interacted and fit in there and her children. What I also found was really interesting, and I made note, like a mental note of this, is that she never talked about them in the past tense. She talked about both children a lot and never mentioned them in past tense.

Do you remember, did she talk about Chad?

Um, she did talk about Chad and saying he's the most kind, wonderful person that she's ever met in her entire life. Something to that effect and how much she loved him.

Did she sleep at all? She did. Were you able to sleep? No.

I probably could have because there were 2 other deputies there, but I just wasn't comfortable. Just didn't feel right when you're sitting with somebody who may have committed a murder.

So it was top secret when she was coming and how they were going to get her here, mainly for security purposes. But somebody I— who I don't know sent me a Facebook message on a late Friday night with her flight itinerary. And this was about 5 days before her flight. But all we knew was she was going to Boise. And the night before she got here, I'm like, well, they must be driving her from Boise to Rexburg. And I talked to a source, and the source said, think outside the box. So we pull up flights scheduled to come into Rexburg, which is a tiny airport. You have to have a private plane to fly in there. And sure enough, the state plane that's owned by the state of Idaho, like the governor uses, is scheduled to depart Boise to Rexburg the next afternoon at like 4 o'clock, which lines up with the flight time from Boise. So all the media is here waiting for Lori to arrive, and they're all at the courthouse, at the jail. We go to the little airport, no one's there except some guys that were like tinkering on their planes.

We're like, is there a way to like track planes from Boise to Rexburg? Like, yeah, pull out this app. And they're like, oh look, there's a plane on the way now. So we're there, cameras rolling. We are at the Rexburg airport, and apparently Lori Daybell is on a They're like, it's 3 minutes out, it's 2 minutes out, 1 minute out. We look up, plane circles, planes come down, plane comes and lands. We're right on the tarmac because it's a tiny airport. They open the door and there's Lori. And the first thing I said was, welcome back, Lori. Welcome back, Lori. Where are your kids?

That's another time when she said that it was Nate's fault. You know, she blamed all of the media coverage on you. But before we got out of the plane, she asked that I get her lipstick out of her purse.

She wanted her lipstick? Yes. Interesting. They escorted her down into a sheriff's vehicle, and I went right up to the window, and I'm like, Lori, I know you can hear me. Where are your kids? Where are your kids? JJ and Tylee deserve your answers, Lori. And I later— one of the people that was driving her, I said, did she hear me? They're like, oh yeah, we heard everything. She just smiled. So you guys drive to the jail. What was the goodbye like?

Um, she thanked me. She literally thanked me and was like, you are the nicest police officer I've ever met in my life. That's the last time I saw her.

The strange smiles, the lipstick, the over-the-top affability. We were starting to see for the first time an aspect of Lori's personality that would come up again and again in this case. Lori was able to superficially charm and present herself as a normal, likable person. Her charm had worked on me. When I first heard the podcast she recorded with Chad, it seemed harmless enough. But as I listened back, there were signs of her obsession with fame and physical appearance. Lori asked about Chad's supposed vision of Jesus almost as if it were an encounter with a celebrity.

Can you Can you also describe for us, like, what he looks like? I always want to hear it.

Okay, every time I've seen him, it's been in a glorified form. He did have longer hair, it was almost to his shoulders, it wasn't a buzz cut or anything. And let's say he had blue eyes, definitely radiant, but they were so powerful and piercing that, you know, they were almost crystal clear in some cases, it seems. But blue seemed to be the standard color. Mm-hmm. I remember his hands. They did have the marks from the cross as a symbol of his sacrifice for us. I felt he was encouraging us to just be like him. He is the Savior of the world and is a perfect man. But he doesn't want us to feel lower than him. He serves and wants to be the servant of all.

I love that. But to be clear, his eyes are crystal blue, is that correct? Is that what you're talking about?

Yeah, crystal blue is the best description, I suppose.

That's what the people want to hear. They want to know. Yeah, it's a big debate at my house because of all the different portraits. It's a big debate at my house, and they may not have been Blue when he was on the earth. Is that what you're saying? This is in his resurrected state? Right.

Yeah, his— I was seeing him in his resurrected state, and that's what I saw.

When Captain Jessica Marley transported Lori on the plane, she said that Lori initially seemed like a normal, chatty mom.

Just laughing, friendly.

But when she looks back now, she says there was something that just felt off about Lori.

I think that a long enough career in law enforcement, you realize that people aren't what they seem to be. There's a lot more behind closed doors than you ever thought was possible. There's a lot going on in her head, mental illness, I'm sure.

But to some degree, it's just some eerie manipulation. I've sat through several interrogations or interviews with murderers, but there's something psychopathic about Lori that is really hard to pinpoint. There wasn't an anger, which I've seen in a lot of murderers. It was just— it was just a little scarier.

Would you want to talk to Lori today?

Oh, absolutely. I would talk to her.

What would you say?

I would just say, tell me what— tell me the stories, you know, tell me the stories of your life. I would have her start from the beginning to the end because that's where you get the best information. I wouldn't ask her a lot of questions other than, tell me more, tell me about that, tell me about growing up. I would really want to get into why this, you know, what went wrong in her brain.

My sweet, lovely, Lola, things are going to work out, not just because he says so, but because I know so. It's a marvelous plan.

That's next time on Deceived: The Daybell Story. Deceived is researched and written by Ben Kiebrick and hosted by me, Nate Eaton. Production and sound design by Ben Kebrik. Pre-production help by Jenny Ament. Deceived is a production of KSL Podcasts. The executive producer is Cheryl Worsley. Special thanks to Dave Cauley, Amy Donaldson, Kellyanne Halverson, Aaron Mason, Ryan Meeks, and Andrea Smarden for their notes.