CHAD Daybell and “cult mom” Lori Vallow reportedly believed a “big earthquake would hide the disappearance of her zombie kids.”
The bodies of JJ, 8, and Tylee, 17, were both found in Daybell’s backyard in Idaho last week – nine months after they disappeared.
Charlene Campbell, who attended Avow, the same church as Daybell, told DailyMail.com that Daybell and Vallow were “convinced” of revelations the husband had.
The couple have been accused by family as being in a “doomsday cult.”
“Chad and Lori were so convinced of his revelations, they believed there was going to be a massive earthquake and it was going to wipe out Salt Lake City,” Campbell told the Daily Mail.
“It is a predicted earthquake but they believed they knew the date. According to my friend [in Avow], she understood that he truly believed those children were [zombies],” Campbell added.
Campbell said Daybell “convinced Lori” of the belief that the children were possessed by evil spirits.
“And then they destroyed the children,” Campbell said.
“They were convinced they would not have to deal with the consequences because the fallout of that earthquake would be so monumental, all the way into Idaho.
“It would be such a huge distraction, no one would know that they buried the kids,” she said.
Vallow’s own friend, Melanie Gibb, previously spoke of Lori’s alleged thoughts about the earthquake in an interview with East Idaho News.
“She believed there was going to be an earthquake that was going to hit so large in Utah by the end of 2019 that (people) wouldn’t notice anything in her personal life going on,” Gibb told East Idaho News.
“(She said), ‘So when Chad and I get married someday, nobody will notice we’re married because of the earthquake and different destruction going on.’”
Vallow would speak about how the world would end in 2020, Gibb said.
The friend of the “cult mom” added that Vallow also believed Jesus Christ would return to earth.
Gibb also told East Idaho News how Vallow thought JJ was a zombie.
Suzanne Freeman, 54, met Daybell when she was looking for publisher for her book about a near-death experience with an ectopic pregnancy in 1999.
Freeman told the Daily Mail he became increasingly involved with the church and “extreme prepping” for doomsday events.
She said she thinks that Daybell will always believe that God told him to do what he did.
“I think he’ll believe God told him to do it for the rest of his life,” Freeman told the Daily Mail.
“He believes God told him to do this so he will never deny that.
She added: “He believes that these visions were real. He can’t deny the visions. He will never believe they could have been demonic.”
Vallow was arrested in Hawaii in February on charges of desertion and nonsupport of her kids, after she failed to produce them in front of police.
She also faces charges for obstructing an investigation, contempt of court and soliciting a crime.
Daybell was arrested last Tuesday when JJ and Tylee’s bodies were found in Salem, Idaho on his property.
Rexburg Police Department confirmed the remains are the kids’ on Saturday.
Daybell faces charges for concealment and destruction of evidence – and entered a plea of “not guilty,” court records show.
No charges have been brought against Vallow in connection with the bodies.
It recently emerged that Daybell previously worked as a gravedigger.
In 2001, he published a book about his experiences, called One Foot in the Grave: The Strange But True Adventures of a Cemetery Sexton.
Daybell said in the book that taking “care of graves” and “helping widows and grieving family members deal with trauma” was “rewarding.”
One expert thinks Daybell’s books may help give investigators a look at the couple’s motivations.
“(Agents) can look into the psychology of people like this,” Chris Bertram, a retired deputy chief of police with the Unified Police Department and current professor specializing in criminal profiling told Fox 13.
Although Daybell’s books are branded “fiction,” he said in his autobiography he doesn’t “fictionalize any of the events portrayed.”
“My torn veil allows information to be downloaded into my brain from the other side,” Daybell wrote.
“The scenes I am shown are real events that will happen.”
His books described an invasion of the US from Russian and Chinese forces, with help from the United Nations, Fox 13 reported.
Alexcia Law, a close friend of Tylee’s, previously told KUTV that Vallow “would talk about the end of the world and the second coming all the time.”
“And she would joke about it; she’d be like, ‘let’s go off a cliff.’
“She’s like, ‘the world is going to end, let’s just die all together.’ And talk about running all of us off of a cliff together,” Law said.
Law said she saw Vallow like a second mom.
Several people close to the couple have mysteriously died – including Lori’s ex-husband, Charles Vallow, and her brother, Alex Cox.
Charles was shot by Cox in an incidence that he claimed was self-defense.
Cox died of an apparent blood clot in his lung in December.
Daybell’s former wife, Tammy Daybell, died in her sleep just weeks before Vallow and Chad were married.
Her cause of death in her obituary was said to be of natural causes – but authorities exhumed her body and are currently doing an investigation.
