Tom Evans, Author of the book "Money, Power, and Sex: The Lori Vallow Daybell Trial" Juror 18, sat down with me for a vulnerable conversation about the ongoing impact the Daybell trials have had on him, his future, and his dreams for his family.

We talk in-depth about the process, his feelings during and after the trial, and his new project: working on a book after attending the entirety of the Chad Daybell Trial.

Tom Evans is donating the proceeds of his books to Hope House : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geN_tayh08k&t=82s

Find Tom's first book here: https://www.amazon.com/Money-Power-Sex-Vallow-Daybell-Number/dp/1958727318

All Things Tom Evans Here: https://www.tomevansauthor.com/

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About the Host:

Megan Conner is the mother of 6 spectacular humans and a breaker of generational trauma cycles. She has spent the last 10 years overcoming the effects of child SA and other abusive relationships and cycles. She is the author of I Walked Through Fire to Get Here, which was written to give support and hope to other survivors. Megan is passionate about helping people make small changes that make their lives better every day.

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Hello, beautiful humans,

and welcome to The Midlife Revolution.

I'm your host, Megan Conner.

And today I have a really

exciting guest that I am

very happy decided to join me.

Tom Evans, who is juror number eighteen,

author of the book Money, Power and Sex,

The Lori Vallow Daybell Trial.

How are you doing today, Tom?

I'm doing great.

How are you?

I'm great.

Thanks for coming on.

I really appreciate the

opportunity to talk with you.

Yeah, it's always nice talking to you.

Yeah.

So I have read your book.

I have it right here, actually.

Everybody should go out and buy it.

You can see it's well worn.

I've kind of been through it,

gone back and forth a lot.

And I have to say,

I think my favorite part,

and this is going to seem kind of weird,

I think my favorite part is

chapter eleven,

where you talk about the

history of some of the

different groups in Utah,

the Mountain Meadows Massacre,

Porter Rockwell, some of that history.

I found that part really interesting.

I'm glad that you included that.

I'm glad to hear you say that.

I get conflicting feedback on that.

Some people love that and

some people hate that I'm

talking about it.

Yeah, yeah.

Well,

I know that it's a problematic part

of Mormon history.

It's a part of Mormon

history that not a lot of

people want to talk about.

And I think I feel the same

way about that as I do

about everything that we

talk about related to this case,

that having the truth and

talking about the truth is

the only way to really heal from it.

So that's why I'm really

glad you included it.

We need to be able to talk about it.

We need to be able to ask questions.

So hope for the best.

Yeah.

No,

I want to go all the way back to the

very beginning before you

knew who Lori Vallow was.

Okay.

And you got called for jury selection.

I'm sure you never imagined that you

would be involved in a, you know,

weeks long trial when you first went in.

Um, tell us about that first day you,

you went,

you first went in and what were

some of your thoughts as

the process started to unfold?

Oh, man.

I was really confused.

I didn't really know what was happening.

I didn't know what case I

was called in for.

There were a lot of people.

I just thought there were a

lot of jurors for other cases.

There was a room full of hundreds of us,

and they were only calling

certain groups in at a time.

I think there was a couple

thousand or more called in.

But as time went on, I figured it out.

And then when we finally got

called into court,

she was sitting there and I

knew who she was.

I didn't know much about the case,

but I knew that much.

Yeah.

So during jury selection,

when they were asking

questions about your

fitness for the selection process,

what kind of questions

stand out to you as things

that you look back on now and say, oh,

that's why they asked me that?

Yeah.

Mostly they were asking

about what we knew and I

didn't know anything.

You know,

I knew the kids had been killed

Not really.

It was pretty straightforward.

What we knew,

it wasn't a death penalty case.

They didn't have to ask us

about how we felt about that.

Like they did in dad's trial.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I didn't get to watch jury selection.

And in Chad's trial,

we did get to watch jury selection.

And I'm just remembering

John Pryor talking about

all the glitters is not

gold and sort of being dramatic that way.

So they didn't have any of

those kinds of odd

questions for your trial?

No, I don't remember anything like that.

The defense attorneys in

Lori's trial were a little

bit different than John Pryor.

They had a different approach.

They were more straightforward.

They weren't

They weren't trying to

ingratiate themselves to

the jury or anything like Mr. Pryor was.

Yeah, so that's, I guess,

the difference between the

two is that I think John

Pryor was sort of a performer.

He tried to be really charismatic.

And so you're saying

Laurie's attorneys were not

like that at all.

No, and he tried.

He really tried to connect to the jury,

but, you know, he failed at that.

Yeah, yeah.

So you didn't know anything

about the case other than

that the children had been

found deceased.

And you didn't get any clues

during jury selection about

what the case was going to be.

And so it wasn't until you

walked into the courtroom and saw Lori.

Yeah.

That's when I, as I remember, I mean,

there must have been,

I think there were questionnaires,

and I don't really remember

everything that was on the

questionnaires.

And I can't say for sure

that it was that moment

when I knew that's what the case was.

It's such a blur looking back on all that.

Things happened in a way so slow,

like there was a lot of

sitting around and waiting

for anything to happen.

But in another way,

they happened so fast that

I wasn't really...

I guess I had other things

going on in my life,

but I wasn't focusing on

what I was there for until

I actually did realize.

Yeah.

So what was that moment?

When did you finally realize

what you were going to be

getting yourself into?

Well,

when I realized for sure is when I

walked in the courtroom and

she was sitting there.

And if I had known before,

it hadn't really sunk in.

But when I walked in that courtroom,

I can't forget that part of it.

I walked in that courtroom

and she was sitting there

and the weight of the whole

thing hit me right at that moment.

And it's really,

it was a bizarre moment in my life.

I'll never forget.

I just felt a darkness and a heaviness.

It's hard to describe.

Yeah.

So it's one thing to

know that the children died,

it's another thing to have

that realization come to

you that you're going to be

a finder of fact in this

case where children have been killed.

To be confronted with that.

And I'm not sure if the

heaviness was due to the

responsibility that I was

going to have if I were

selected or something more than that.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So when you walked into the

courtroom that first day

and she was sitting there,

was that the day of opening statements?

No, that was during jury selection.

That was when we went into

the courtroom to get

questioned by the judge the first time.

I didn't realize that she

was there for jury selection.

That's interesting.

I noticed her and I noticed

Ray Hermosillo and I had no

idea who he was at the time.

Yeah.

But, you know, he's a noticeable guy.

He was sitting there.

Yeah.

And he was there every day of the trial.

So.

Yeah.

So then Judge Boyce questioned you.

Yeah.

And what was that like?

It was really straightforward.

It was, you know,

what do you know about the case?

Is this going to be a hardship for you?

Mostly his questions were about hardship,

I think.

Yeah.

We were brought in in groups

of like forty or so people

and they would just go down

the line questioning each

of us whether or not it was a hardship.

And I didn't realize it at the time,

but the judge actually

selects the jurors up to a

point and then it's handed

over to the attorneys.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because the judge does have

to excuse people who for

whom it is going to be a hardship.

You know,

if you're a single mom and you're

the sole breadwinner,

getting paid six dollars a

day isn't going to cut it

for a six week trial.

Yeah.

And there was one

interesting one in Chad's trial.

because I sat there and I

watched the whole jury selection thing.

That was really cool for me

to be on the other side

watching that and hearing

some of the reasons people

gave for hardships.

There was one lady who said

she wouldn't be able to

make lunch for her husband.

And everybody kind of got a

chuckle about that at first.

But as she went on and

talked about it and was questioned more,

I came to realize, you know,

this actually is a hardship

for this lady.

This is a really important thing for her.

If she can't make lunch for her husband,

she's not going to be able

to focus on this trial.

So hardship is different for everybody.

Yeah, that's so true.

And thank you for saying that.

Cause I do remember,

I do remember that lady.

I remembered lots of people

commenting on that.

And it's,

it's really interesting of you to say,

you know,

as she went on talking that you

realized it really was a

hardship for her because on paper,

anybody seeing that on paper would go, no,

that's ridiculous.

You can't get dismissed for that.

You know?

And I also,

one of the reasons I wanted to

talk to you too is because

I think there's this

sort of stigma misperception

that you're not getting

judged by a jury of your peers.

You're getting judged by a

jury of people who couldn't

get out of jury duty.

You know,

we hear those snarky comments all

of the time.

Can you talk about a little

bit about your feelings

about now that you've

served on this massive case?

Um,

how do you feel now about jury service?

Would you,

would you try to get out of jury

duty again or would you serve?

Um,

I would try to get out of it

and then I would serve.

That's kind of how that goes, I think,

for most people.

But I think the jurors on

both trials were top notch.

They were good people.

They took it seriously.

They put the work in.

It's a lot of work.

It's the time you have to

sit there and listen to

everything and try to pay attention.

It takes a lot.

It takes a toll on you.

And I really think in both trials,

everybody was right on it

and doing everything they

could to understand,

try to make sense of it all

and come to the right conclusions.

Yeah, that's so great.

I really appreciated going

to Chad's trial.

I was only there for one day,

but I appreciated how...

just involved the jurors seemed to be.

They were paying rapt attention.

Many of them were taking notes.

And I really appreciated that.

And I can't tell you how

much I appreciate the

service of the jury in both

of these cases,

because I recognize what a

huge toll it is and has

been for all of you.

And so much is resting on that.

And I'm just so grateful for

all of the people who served

for their intelligence and

for their willingness to be

totally engaged.

It's just,

words can't even describe my

gratitude for that.

So.

Mine too.

I mean, I really,

it was driven home to me.

I hadn't really thought

about it a whole lot,

but how important the jury system is.

And Judge Boyce told me,

I hadn't really thought about this either,

but he told me once that

we're the only country that

has a jury and does it this way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I didn't really realize that,

but that is an important thing.

And, you know,

we have to have a lot of

faith in our jurors to be

able to come up with the right decisions.

Yeah, we do.

And that's what's hard, I think,

is because especially now

our country is so divided

and in so many ways,

people have kind of

polarized themselves into

an us and them mentality in

a lot of ways.

And I think that the jury

system reminds us that

we're all the same.

We all have loved ones that we care about,

and we all just want to live happy,

peaceful lives.

And regardless what our

religious beliefs are,

political beliefs are,

at the end of the day,

we're human beings and

we're in this together.

And serving on a jury,

I think you were all from

different walks of life and

different backgrounds and everything,

but then you had to come

together as finders of fact

to reach a conclusion and

to be united in that.

Yeah, that was really,

it's one of the silver

linings to this whole thing

is the people that I met

and I've gotten to know.

I have my jury family now, you know,

there's three or four of us

that were great friends and

we spent a lot of time together.

Yeah, that's amazing.

Yeah.

So rewinding again, just a little bit,

as the judge was asking you questions,

were you thinking to

yourself that you hope they

didn't pick you?

Oh, yeah, definitely.

I had, you know, I had my old,

it was spring and I had a

lot of things planned,

a lot of work to do and fun,

fun things to go do.

And I had that next two

months planned already and, you know,

having to serve on the jury

was going to change all that.

Yeah.

Do you mind sharing with us what, what,

what were those plans for two months?

Oh, it's when I do most of my work,

we have some houses that,

that we maintain.

And, you know, so I have fences,

houses to paint, stuff like that.

And then we usually go to

Alaska in the summertime.

So we're looking forward to that.

Had to put that off a little bit.

Yeah.

And then even when the trial ended,

I was so involved with it at that point.

I didn't want to just let it go.

I wanted to go to the

sentencing and I had a lot

of people I wanted to talk to.

Yeah.

You did finally get to go to

Alaska though.

Yes.

Yep.

It wasn't until just recently, right?

We went, where did we go?

It was after the sentencing, late August.

I think it was right after the sentencing.

Yeah.

So you got delayed a little bit,

but I'm glad you did get to go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the other thing that I

want to talk about just a

little bit is kind of your

day-to-day in the process.

I know that you were not

allowed to talk to the

other jurors about the case

while the trial was going on.

Right.

I'm so curious about how

hard that must have been

because you would go out to

your lunch break after we

had just heard some either

really heavy testimony or

like the day that the

autopsy pictures were shown

or there was a bombshell

that dropped and then lunch break.

So how did you handle that?

It wasn't really hard.

uh, not to talk about the case.

Like I know for me,

I had a lot of questions.

I was so behind the curve

the whole time it seemed like,

and I think everybody

must've felt the same way.

There was so much to try to absorb.

Yeah.

That wasn't hard,

but the emotional side of it,

I think was hard.

You know, when,

when something really tough

happened and then we would

go to lunch or whatever, have a break, um,

you know,

some people would break down or,

you know,

and we couldn't really talk much

about it.

We could console each other and that,

but couldn't talk about the case.

And that was really going to

Chad's trial was such a

different experience for me.

And I got to ask all the

questions I wanted and talk to everybody.

And that felt good.

Yeah.

You can decompress a little bit.

What was it like going home at the end of,

at the end of the day,

you also couldn't talk to

your wife about it really.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

It was hard.

Um,

We'd have to take the vans

to our parking lot and then, you know,

get in the car and go home.

So it was a little bit of a

process just getting home.

But my wife was great.

She was following the trial

during the day.

So she would know what I had

been through and she was

always ready with a hug and

we would go for a hike or whatever.

And, you know,

she knew if it had been a

particularly hard day.

She was always there.

Yeah, that's wonderful.

It was hard not to be able

to talk about it.

Yeah.

You know,

we both understood the

responsibility and the

weight of the thing.

So we didn't have any

problem with doing that.

Yeah.

So did you do any kind of

journaling or anything to

try and get some of those

thoughts out of your head

at the end of the day,

since you couldn't talk about it?

I should have, you know,

I had my notes that I was

taking during the trial and

I had all my doodles and

sketches and it was interesting to me.

And I,

didn't realize that I

wouldn't be able to take that home.

They,

they confiscated all of that when it

was over and shredded them.

Oh, wow.

So did you,

could you take your notes home

at the end of the day or

did you have to leave those?

Okay.

Yeah, I had to leave them in there.

Okay.

So walk us through this process.

Cause this is curious too.

You had to go and park at a

parking lot that was not

near the courthouse.

And then you would go,

can you walk us through how

all that worked?

Yeah, that was really kind of weird.

They said that they would

let us know the day before

where we were to meet and

we would drive to that location and park.

And then they put us in vans and our two,

the bailiff,

Ken and Steve would be our drivers.

So it was a different

parking lot every day?

No, that's what they said,

but it didn't turn out to be that.

We changed it a couple times.

We would go park in a parking lot,

they would pick us up,

and we would be driven into

the basement of the courthouse.

And then there were armed

guards the whole time.

In the beginning,

I didn't know if they were

doing that because they

thought we might be in danger.

I think it was mostly

because of the media.

They were worried about the

media getting to us.

At the time, I wasn't sure.

Yeah,

I'm sure that would have caused a

problem if you had to go

through a media gauntlet

and somebody fired out a

question that was something

you hadn't encountered yet

or some piece of evidence

that you didn't know about.

That could have biased you for sure.

So I'm glad they did that.

They did it for that reason.

And they didn't want to have

to sequester us.

And I'm really appreciative of that.

Yeah.

If there had been a problem.

That would have been pretty awful.

Yeah.

Because when you're sequestered,

you can't watch TV or anything like that.

And they only have like

approved books that you can read.

And so that would have been hard.

Well,

and as much as I loved the people I

was serving with, you know,

it was enough spending

eight hours or whatever it was a day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Spending the nights and everything else,

too.

Yeah, I totally get that.

Yeah.

So,

so then you would go through that

security process.

You would go and listen to testimony.

You got a couple of breaks during the day.

Did they bring food in for

you for lunchtime every day?

Yeah,

they would bring food in from a local

restaurant every day for lunch.

So that was nice.

A lot of snacks.

It wasn't the healthiest

period of my life.

Well, I was going to ask,

how was the food?

Was it from good places?

Did you get to choose?

Well, we kind of got to choose,

but everybody had a different opinion.

So then I decided to go with them.

Mostly it was fairly healthy.

And at one point, um,

I mentioned to one of the bailiffs that,

you know, there's no healthy snacks here.

It's all chips and stuff like that.

And I was eating it all

because it's there.

And you're so miserable and bored.

And after that,

they started bringing in

fruit and things like that.

Yeah, that's really good.

I'm curious if the process

of choosing food and what to eat,

did it ever make you think, oh,

that person is going to be

a problem when we deliberate?

Yeah.

There was a little bit of that.

Maybe there might have been one or two.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's interesting.

I won't tell you more about that.

Yeah,

you can tell a lot about a person by

how malleable they are over

choosing restaurants and food choices,

I think.

Or un-malleable.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or unmalleable.

That's right.

Okay.

So, I mean,

it's pretty obvious to everybody,

you know,

what was hard about the trial

and things like that.

And you wrote your book and

you did a really thorough

job of explaining, you know,

the whole trial and the process.

So I really recommend

everybody buy your book and

read it because it's

fascinating to go through that.

or is there anything

you didn't put in your book or something

that you've thought about

since then about the

experience itself that you want to share?

Yeah.

Not really.

I mean,

I think I pretty well covered that

part of it in the book.

The second book is more

about new conclusions that I've come to,

new ideas, more information that I have.

Yeah,

that's going to be really interesting

to see how your perception

of the case evolved now

having seen Chad's trial,

because there was

information in Chad's trial

that wasn't available

during Lori's trial.

And so I'm curious about that.

Something really strange to

me kind of happened.

And I realized that the

whole time I sat on that jury,

And the whole time I was

writing my first book,

I was lying to myself.

I was not allowing myself to

understand the brutality

and the horror of all of this.

And sitting through Chad's trial,

it came to me.

It just kind of came over me

what I was doing, what my brain was doing,

I guess.

Yeah.

And I started to realize when they...

when they started talking about, you know,

how Tylee was murdered and

there was a little bit more

information there than we had before.

And I started to realize that I was,

you know,

I was trying to make myself

believe that maybe she had

been dragged or, you know,

that the kids really maybe

didn't know what was

happening to them or whatever.

And that's not really the case.

Yeah, to be honest with you,

it was the same for me too.

After Lori's trial,

I think I was doing the same thing.

I wanted to believe that just like you,

that the kids had been

drugged and that they

weren't present in their

body or their mind when the

worst was happening.

But I think you're right at Chad's trial.

It also forced me to think

about how brutal it was and

how horrific it

it was and you know that

it's it's interesting that

we as human beings we do

that a lot we dissociate a

little bit from

the reality of things in

order to protect ourselves

from having to face the

difficult emotions that

come up when we realize what reality is.

And that's actually a

process I've been going

through my whole life, you know?

So I recognize it when it's happening now,

but it doesn't make it any easier,

you know?

You don't even know it's

happening to you when you're, well,

you're doing it to yourself,

but you don't realize it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's so interesting.

Thank you for saying that.

Now I'm going to have to get

my train of thought back

because that knocked it off.

Yeah, sorry about that.

No, it's okay.

This is so good.

It's so good for me to hear

that somebody else is

having the same experience

and going through the same

process of trying to

understand the case and

process the emotions of it.

And even now, like so many years later,

I just don't think there's

ever going to be a time when

when it's not emotional for me,

but I think that's how it should be,

you know?

Yeah.

I think you're right.

I realized that, you know,

I sat through a whole trial

and I wrote a whole book and, you know,

I was not being honest with

myself that whole time.

And, you know, I,

I think at some point what

you're going through,

you have to allow that to

happen and let it in.

Yeah.

Deal with it.

Absolutely.

It is.

we can't really

heal from from emotions

that we can't name and we can't express,

you know.

And so the reality of what

happened to those kids and

the brutality of it,

it's it's not just grief.

There's a component to it

that is different, I think,

than anything else.

For me,

there's this rage and anger about

it that the very people who

are supposed to care for

those children were capable of that.

That's the hardest thing to understand.

And the most horrific part

of this whole thing is

allowing yourself to

realize that that's the truth.

These people...

The ones who, you know,

that's all you want to do

for your children is

protect them from everything bad.

And they did everything bad and horrible.

And the things that Chad

said leading up to it,

make the kids scream and

all that kind of stuff.

You know, when I heard that the first time,

I guess I didn't really hear it.

I didn't allow that.

And now I have.

Yeah.

And for me, too,

when I first heard those texts,

I sort of made this

assumption that it was metaphorical,

you know,

that they were sort of playing

in this fantasy land and

that it that it wasn't real.

But we found out later that it was real.

That is what they intended.

So as I'm sitting through Chad's trial,

I'm sitting, you know,

ten or fifteen feet away

from him every single day

just watching him.

I don't know,

something about him seemed to

change in my mind as I was

realizing these things.

I first saw just some boring

guy sitting there that was arrogant and,

you know, putting us all through this.

And by the time that trial was over,

I was looking at a monster,

just an absolute monster.

Yeah,

I'm glad that I was able to go to

trial for at least one day.

I think that was really

important to my healing process,

seeing Chad in person.

And I'm also grateful that I

wasn't there very much longer than that.

I think I probably could

have gone for a few more days,

but I don't think it would

have been healthy for me to

go every day and sit there every day.

Yeah, the

people do that.

I mean, know, I mean,

I'm separated from it.

It's not my family.

It's not people that I was close to.

Yeah.

It's, you know,

a lot of the people I've

gotten close to like you and some others.

And so I feel more, but still it's,

it's not like when it's your own family.

Yeah.

I,

and I have so much admiration for Kay

and Larry and for their ability to,

to go and be there every single day.

They've been there.

for everything from day one on this case.

And I know that they will be

until the very end of the

last thing that gets done on this case.

And I have so much admiration for them.

And if I were in their position,

I probably would do the same thing.

but given that I do have a

little bit of distance from it,

I have sort of this luxury

of being able to be

involved in it without

feeling like I need to be

there every day in order to

resolve my feelings about it.

So everybody has a purpose, right?

That's their purpose.

You have your purpose and

you're doing your thing,

which is also extremely important.

Thank you.

I keep thinking to myself,

like there's going to be a

point when I don't need to

talk about this stuff anymore.

But the more that I talk about it,

the more I think we have to

keep talking about it.

Because it's not just this case,

unfortunately.

And it's not just these children,

unfortunately.

there are more people

out there like this.

And I think the more that

people

have their attention called

to manipulative behavior

and harmful behavior,

I think the more aware

people are of it and the

more possible that we can

hopefully prevent more

tragedies in the future.

That's what keeps driving me.

I mean,

there are other things and other reasons.

I have my personal reasons,

like I want to find answers

to a lot of the questions.

But what really drives me,

if I'm not quite feeling motivated,

what really drives me is that exactly.

I know there's other things going on.

There's other people.

A lot of these crazy beliefs

are still out there.

People still have them.

I've gotten to meet some of

the people that still have them.

They showed up at trial and

they've come to book

signings and stuff like that.

Yeah.

So they're still out there

and it's dangerous.

And that's been my fear this

whole time is that from the

very moment that I heard

the patriarchal blessing

that Chad gave where he

mentioned the Church of the Firstborn,

it dawned on me and I

realized that there's a

group of people out there

that are maybe the next

circle out from Chad's inner circle

that do still believe these things.

And just like you,

I've done some digging into that,

and I've found, unfortunately,

a lot of groups and a lot of people.

And it's scary to think that

there are more people out there.

Of course, we realize that's the concept,

and none of us want to

believe that any of them

are going to turn murderous.

But the scary thing is that

we don't know for sure.

Well, and a lot of it's harmless.

Some of it even actually makes sense,

like being prepared for

whatever disaster could

happen kind of makes a

little bit of sense up to a point.

These people take it all too far.

And some of the ideas can be twisted.

They can be taken to a place

further than they were meant to be taken.

And they can be very harmful.

Yeah,

there are two things that scare me

about these groups.

One is that they believe

that the end of the world

is going to happen at any moment.

And that tends to make people desperate.

And the second one is that

they believe they're fully

convinced that they're

right and that everyone

else just doesn't know.

That's terrifying.

that's terrifying to me

because it puts someone in a mindset of,

well,

I know better than this person does.

And so for their own good, I can do X, Y,

and Z. That's,

those are the two ideas

that really terrify me.

Yeah, I agree.

And their, I don't their ability to,

Manipulate and abuse people.

And they think that they're OK to do that,

that they're right to do that.

Yeah.

Especially children.

Right.

Right.

That they can convince

someone else to do anything

that they want because

they're a person in power.

Right.

and just the, yeah,

the manipulation of it.

these people are,

a lot of them are families and they're,

you know,

they're moms and dads and

they're bringing their kids

into these situations and

raising their kids with the

idea that this person knows

everything and the harmful

ideas that get passed on because of that.

listening to Garth and Emma testify.

and realizing how much

they've been influenced by their father.

That's really, really a scary thing.

It is to me too.

I think about Emma's

children you know, she,

she's a teacher as well,

or she was at least.

It's scary to me that

these ideas are going to get perpetuated.

There's just,

there's no getting around that.

You can't kill an idea, you know.

It's handed down.

it doesn't

end with Chad and Laurie being in prison.

I think that's the other

thing that's scary.

I know that there are

actually somebody contacted me last week,

somebody who regularly

texts with Laurie in prison.

She's got her iPad and everything.

And she's still she's still preaching.

She's still gathering followers.

She's, you know, too.

I think, you know,

even though he's probably a

lot more isolated and

everything being on death row,

but but I'm sure they're

still influencing people.

And that's to me,

that's another scary part of this.

Yeah.

I hate to think that that's true,

but you're probably right.

the ripple effects of that,

if they're influencing

people in jail who are

eventually going to be

freed because they're not

serving a life sentence or they're,

you know, they have more limited time.

It's just, it's scary to think about,

which is why I come back to

the conclusion that we have

to keep talking about it.

Yeah, we really do.

That's interesting though,

that somebody is talking to her.

I've tried, she won't respond to me.

yeah it's more than one

somebody there there's a

whole group of people that

that text with her and the

person that contacted me

said that she learned early

on from other people that

were talking to her if you

try to talk about the case

or if you try to talk about

the kids she'll stop

talking to you but if if

all you want to talk about

is religion spirituality

and your ideas then she'll

keep talking to you yeah

that makes sense which is

scary in it in and of itself

Yeah.

There's so many people that

won't talk to me.

I wish, I wish they would, you know,

Chad and Lori, obviously, you know,

I understand why they don't

want to talk to me,

but I wish Emma and Garth

and a lot of the other

people that are close to all of this,

some of the people in the inner circle.

Yeah.

I know they all have reasons

and they have things to hide or, you know,

they want,

they want to put themselves at risk.

Yeah,

or they kind of want to just distance

themselves from this, you know,

and sort of put things behind them.

And I understand that, too.

That's not really fair, though,

I don't think.

I think they need to open up

and talk a little bit.

I think they could help a

lot of people if they did,

including themselves.

If they remain in their echo chamber,

then their lives are never

going to change.

You're always going to be

part of this nightmare.

It's kind of this

interesting paradox where

it's like talking about it

can free you from it.

Talking about it can get you

out of the loop that you're stuck in.

If you don't talk about it,

you're always going to be

stuck in the same place.

And that's to anybody who's

experienced any kind of trauma.

And I'm not looking to put

anybody on the spot or

sensationalize anything or whatever.

I just want to have a conversation.

And it would be so good for them.

And one of the interesting things,

Larry was asked,

can you forgive these people?

And he struggled with his answer to that.

And I think the reason he

struggled was because none

of those people have asked

for forgiveness.

None of those people have,

not one of them have gone,

have done anything.

They haven't said they're sorry.

for their part in it.

Um,

I'm testifying in court and then they

just disappear.

They're not willing to speak to anybody.

I think they need to ask for

forgiveness or if they

don't feel like they did

anything they need to be forgiven for,

they need to at least be

open to having a conversation and,

you know,

open up and let's talk about it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Forgiveness is,

is an interesting concept

and I've had to really, um,

ponder my feelings about it

during this whole process.

I think forgiveness is an

entirely religious concept.

I don't think that

necessarily outside of

religion that forgiveness, for me anyway,

is part of the conversation.

And if we're talking about

the religious concept, when I was Mormon,

forgiveness to me,

I felt like it was not

something that was up to me to give.

know forgiveness is between

you and god and me

forgiving somebody just

meant that i didn't harbor

them any ill will and that

i didn't hold on to any

feelings of animosity for

that person so that freed

me from the toxicity of

those feelings right and

now that i'm not mormon

anymore and i'm free to

think other things and have

other ideas

It's such a complicated

thing because forgiveness

to a lot of people implies

that everything's good between you.

You know,

if you say something to offend me

and I forgive you,

that means we're all good

and we can continue on with

our relationship.

So if that's if that's the concept,

then no,

I don't have any forgiveness for

any any of the people who

put played any part in this.

We're never going to be good.

We're never going to have a

relationship again.

Do I harbor them any ill will?

I honestly have to say I do.

I think what they did was

horrible and I think it's unforgivable.

And I wrestled a lot when

Chad was sentenced to death because,

and I'm really interested

on your feelings about this too.

I thought that the death

penalty was what I wanted

and what was right.

And I

once it happened,

the only thing that I felt

was just heaviness and emptiness.

I thought that I was going

to feel the same relief

that I felt when Lori was sentenced.

When she was sentenced,

I felt a lot of relief and

a lot of peace about it.

And when Chad was sentenced,

I didn't have that same feeling.

And I think the conclusion

that I came to ultimately

was that killing somebody

doesn't change anything.

You know, it just takes another life.

And while I don't think that

he deserves to have a life

like the rest of us do,

I think prison does that to

a certain degree.

Now that you and I are talking.

about the fact that you

can't kill an idea and that

they're still gaining followers.

I'm thinking maybe death is

the best thing.

It's just a complicated things.

I'm curious about your

feelings about it that you didn't have to,

I know you've said you're

glad you didn't have to

decide death in Laurie's case.

And how are you feeling now?

Well, I think for one thing,

having Chad isolated,

totally isolated from everybody else,

I think is good.

My main goal, death or life,

I don't really care that much.

And I think Lori should be too.

I don't think she should be

able to communicate with anybody.

Right.

I think that's unfortunate

that that's happened.

But as far as the death penalty goes,

I just wanted to see as

much justice as I could see.

As I sat there watching him, I wanted,

yeah, give him six sentences of death.

I'm good with that.

I have mixed feelings about

the death penalty.

Mostly I'm pro-death penalty.

I think it's better for everybody,

even the perpetrators.

I think it's better for them

to have to come to terms

and deal with it before

they get put to death with

what they did than sitting

there for their whole lives.

But the death, it's so broken.

Our system is broken.

You can't sit there for

probably forty years if he

ever does get put to death.

That just doesn't make any sense to me.

If we're going to have a death penalty,

let's make it work.

If we're not going to have it,

let's not have it.

I'm okay.

And I appreciate the fail

safes that have been put in place.

so that we don't execute

people wrongfully.

I don't think there are enough of them.

And at the same time,

I think it just extends

everybody's grief.

You know,

I really don't believe in closure

because I don't think there

is such a thing as full

closure on anything.

And so for that reason,

I don't think the death

penalty brings closure,

but I wrestle so much with

the idea that people who

get sentenced to death

still get to hold up the

justice system and cost

taxpayers money and the

families still have to be

involved in appeals and all

of that kind of stuff.

It's not a good system either way.

It's such a complicated issue.

The whole system is complicated.

The whole idea is complicated.

Everything about it.

We're going to wrestle with

this in our country back

and forth probably forever.

I don't know if we'll ever

resolve it and come to a

conclusion that we can all live with.

We're never going to all agree,

which is the best way to go.

Yeah, that's true.

I think everybody has,

we've all had to make

compromises in order to

kind of put in place what

is the best way we can

cobble it together for right now.

I definitely think changes need to be made,

but I also know change is

slow and all of that.

So it's tough.

Yeah.

Personally, you know,

if I could just have my own way,

I like the idea of the firing squad.

I think it's more efficient.

I think it works better.

I think it's simpler.

I think it's cheaper if we

could just do it in a logical way.

I think we're so far beyond that.

We're never going to go back

to make it anywhere near that simple.

Yeah, that's so true.

Well, to sort of wrap things up,

your life has literally

changed because of this case.

What, what has stayed the same for you?

Oh, wasn't the question I was expecting.

My family, um,

I have a great family that's

super supportive.

My friends, same with that.

Pretty much everything else

in my life has changed.

The hobbies that I had,

the things I used to spend my day doing,

I'm not doing anymore.

I'm sitting in front of my

computer writing, researching,

talking to people.

It's been a really good challenge for me.

And it has been good for me.

That's the interesting thing

about all this, my own personal journey.

There's bad and good, right?

I've taken both the bad and the good.

And there's been a lot of it

on both sides.

There's been a lot of things that,

you know,

I still struggle emotionally

with a lot of what I was confronted with.

You know,

I have bad dreams sometimes and

stuff like that.

But with that comes a lot of good,

and I think that's life, right?

So I'm kind of embracing it,

doing the best I can with it.

And getting to,

I think the best part of it

has been getting to know people like you,

getting to meet a lot of

really good people.

The family,

I'm so impressed with the family.

It's just, if you...

Somebody needs to write

about this aspect of it and

just about this aspect of it.

If you look at all the

family and everything

they're doing and have done

and are going to do and how

strong and resilient and

fierce the family is, it's just amazing.

And I just, I can't say enough.

Yeah, that's been a bright spot for me too,

meeting people like you,

getting to know some of the

family members and going to

the memorial was amazing.

so healing for me to be able

to see a lot of those

people in person and,

and to see so many people

come together to honor the kids.

That was a wonderful moment.

So there have been some good things.

Yeah.

And how people who could

hide from each other or

hate each other are together.

Yeah.

They all have the same goal and, you know,

nothing else matters to these people.

There's no,

They're not concerned about

the color of your skin or

your gender or any of these

things that we concern

ourselves with so much nowadays.

And it's just really

refreshing how if you want

to be a member of this circle of people,

what you're bringing to the

table is what's important.

Yeah.

I agree with that.

So is there a hobby that you

miss that you wish you

could pick back up again?

I've got my sixty nine Chevy

pickup sitting out in the garage.

That's one thing.

You know, I work on that all the time.

Yeah.

Boring it.

Yeah.

Open to hand it off to my grandkids.

I have plenty of time for

that because they're young.

Yeah.

But yeah, that my yard,

I have a huge yard.

It's an acre and it's a

little rough right now.

It's not quite in this shape.

It usually is in.