Melanie Gibb, a former friend of Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell, spoke about her experience testifying at Chad Daybell’s preliminary hearing this week.
Gibb had a close friendship with Vallow during the time Vallow’s children Tylee Ryan and JJ Vallow disappeared in fall of 2019. Gibb is believed to have been one of the last people to see 7-year-old JJ alive, during a September visit to Vallow’s townhouse in Rexburg, Idaho.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Gibb and her boyfriend David Warwick both testified at Daybell’s preliminary hearing in Fremont County about the visit to Vallow’s home, and Gibb additionally shared an audio recording of her phone call with Daybell and Vallow in December 2019, shortly after Daybell and Vallow both asked Gibb to lie to police and say JJ was with her, when he was not.
In her testimony, Gibb revealed for the first time that she did initially lie to a police officer in Gilbert, Arizona, claiming to JJ had recently been with her there, when neither Gibb or the little boy were in the state. Gibb reportedly eventually told police in Gilbert and Rexburg the truth.
On Friday, Gibb spoke to EastIdahoNews.com reporter Nate Eaton about some of the questions the reporter has apparently fielded from readers. In the video interview, which can be viewed at this link, Eaton asked Gibb why she didn’t intervene after Vallow purportedly began talking about her children being possessed by zombies.
“Chad and Lori never talked about killing anyone. They would always talk about praying and hoping spirits (of zombies) would leave the bodies,” Gibb explains. “She was also predicting dates about things that were going to happen and they just never happened. It seemed like there was a prediction every month or every week, and they didn’t happen. I didn’t get a sense that any of the things she said would happen so I didn’t take a lot of it too seriously.”
Gibb also said in the interview that she was grateful for the opportunity to present testimony, while Eaton revealed that Gibb had previously shared the audio recording of her December phone call with EastIdahoNews.com, and that the news outlet agreed, at her request, to decline publishing the phone recording ahead of Daybell’s preliminary hearing.
“I knew after many people heard that, they would understand Chad and Lori and my relationship with them a little bit better,” Gibb said about the phone call played in court.
“I’m really grateful that got to come out. I knew it would help so I was happy to share it.”
Gibb also said she believes that both Daybell and Vallow, who have not been charged with murder, will remain in jail for life.
“I hope that they can realize this is pure evil. There’s nothing good. The whole goal for them was to be together and they’re not,” Gibb said.
“All the things that they thought were going to happen, their predicted revelations – can they not see that nothing happened the way they thought it would happen?…At some point, you’re going to have to come to the realization that you can’t live in this pretend bubble. It has to pop eventually because they’re not going to come out of jail. They’re going to be there the rest of their lives.”
Read more:
Charges dropped against ‘Cult Mom’ Lori Vallow
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