Cult mom Lori Vallow’s friend confirmed reporting from February that Vallow and her husband Chad Daybell asked her to tell police missing son JJ Vallow was with her — and that it was Daybell who made the phone call.
“It was two days before Thanksgiving,” Melanie Gibb told East Idaho News’s Nate Eaton in an exclusive interview. “‘Melanie, It’s Chad. When the police call, don’t pick up the phone.'”
Gibb said she thought JJ was safe, even though Vallow had once told her she thought the 7-year-old boy was a “zombie” — just as Vallow’s niece, Melani Boudreaux Pawlowski, reportedly told her husband Ian in court documents East Idaho News obtained in March.
See more reporting on the Daybell-Vallow case on CrimeOnline.
When Daybell called, though, “everything changed.” When he told her JJ wasn’t where she thought he was, “my heart dropped deeper. I just knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know,” Gibb said. “I didn’t understand.”
Daybell said that police were “over at Lori’s house checking on JJ,” adding that “she’s going to tell them JJ is with you.”
“I can’t even describe how I felt,” she said. “They put me in a very awkward position.”
Eaton released excerpts of his interview with Gibb, who has been in hiding for five months as police investigate the disappearance of JJ and Vallow’s daughter, 17-year-old Tylee Ryan. Neither have been seen since last September, two months after Vallow’s brother shot her husband to death, claiming self-defence, and shortly before Chad Daybell’s wife died mysteriously. Two weeks after Tammy Daybell’s death, Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow married, as CrimeOnline previously reported.
“She on occasion said to me if Chad is satan, [he] sure is a good one,” Gibb said.
What Chad Daybell told Melanie Gibb 2 days before Thanksgiving
Here's part of my interview with Melanie Gibb. I had 11 pages of questions – and we got through all of them! We covered so much that we are breaking the story into 3 parts. Part 1 will be posted on EastIdahoNews.com at 8 a.m. MST Tues. Part 2 will be posted Wed. and part 3 on Thurs. Each part is 30-45 minutes. Anyone anywhere will be able to watch.
Posted by Nate Eaton – Reporter on Saturday, May 23, 2020
Daybell is a doomsday author, and Vallow apparently accepted his teachings. Gibb disagreed.
“His teachings are dangerous,” she said. ” … These doctrines are dangerous. They lead to people dying.”
On the day he called to ask her to lie to police, Gibb said, Daybell “was very nervous.”
“He was very scared,” she said. “He did not sound himself. Very unsure, very quivery almost.”<
Gibb said the months-long saga of Daybell, Vallow, and the missing children has left her “confused.”
“When you believe your friends are good people, you can’t believe they would do something like that.”
Melanie Gibb breaks her silence
She’s been in hiding for 5 months and likely knows more about Lori and Chad Daybell than anyone else.
Posted by Nate Eaton – Reporter on Friday, May 22, 2020
Vallow and Daybell fled to Hawaii when police began investigating the children’s disappearance. After Vallow violated a court order to produce the children to prove they were alive and safe, she was arrested and extradited to Idaho, where she awaits trial on child desertion charges. The children have still not been located.
Eaton said the his full interview with Gibb will be posted on EastIdahoNews.com in three parts: Part 1 at 8 a.m. MST on Tuesday, Part 2 at 8 a.m. MST on Wednesday, and Part 3 at 8 a.m. Thursday.
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[Featured image: Clockwise from top left: Joshua “JJ” Vallow, Tylee Ryan, Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell/Rexburg Police]
