Idaho mother’s ex-best friend reveals new details in missing children case

But as police revealed the wider circumstances of the case, which include several suspicious deaths and Doomsday cult accusations, Gibb said she began to fear for her own safety.

"When you realize that the people that you know and are close to and love have been involved in something that has to do with kidnapping, and people dying, you start to think 'oh my gosh, are they going to come after me?' " she told the news outlet, according to CBS affiliate KUTV in Salt Lake City. "Everything closes in and you start to think about your own safety and start to think about what really happened and could this really be true?"

New friendships

Gibb revealed that she is the person who introduced Vallow to her fifth and current husband, Chad Daybell. All three are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“A few years back,” Gibb said she heard Daybell give a talk at one of the church’s religious conferences in Ogden, Utah, after which Gibb introduced herself.

Then, in October 2018, Gibb met Vallow while teaching an evening class at a Mormon church in Gilbert, Arizona. Gibb said Vallow approached and introduced herself after the class ,and the two immediately hit it off.

Lori Vallow meets Chad Daybell

After a few weeks, Gibb and Vallow attended another religious conference in St. George, Utah, where Daybell was selling novels he had written about the apocalypse.

That’s when Vallow met Daybell, and Gibb said the two quickly connected on some of his teachings, including reincarnation, which do not align with the beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

During their first conversation, Gibb said, Daybell convinced Vallow that they had met in a previous life and had been married multiple times.

At the time, Daybell was still married to his previous wife, Tammy Daybell, with whom he shared five children; and Vallow was also still married to her previous husband, Charles Vallow.

Both former spouses are now dead, and police are investigating at least one as a potential homicide, according to reports.

Doomsday teachings

After their meeting, Daybell and Vallow exchanged numbers and later purchased phones as a way to secretly communicate with each other.

Gibb noted that Daybell was willing to only share his doomsday teachings privately but never to larger groups nor in any official capacity.

Initially Gibb said she didn’t think Vallow took Daybell’s beliefs seriously, but as their relationship developed Vallow found herself embracing more of his concepts.

Gibb said Vallow and Daybell began claiming they were among 144,000 people chosen to prepare for the second coming of Jesus Christ, which is cited in the Book of Revelations in the Bible.

She said Daybell was also claiming that he could create spiritual portals that could transcend time and space, and that he and Vallow had already lived multiple previous lifetimes where they also knew each other. Gibb also said Daybell and Vallow believed in zombies and “dark spirits.”

Gibb said Vallow and Daybell believed they had been “commissioned” to rid the world of zombies.

Fourth marriage unravels

Around this same time, Vallow’s fourth marriage was falling apart.

Charles Vallow filed for a protection order against Lori after she allegedly began making threats to kill him.

He had also discovered that she had tried to change the passwords to his accounts, according to reports.

After this, reports say Vallow had Lori’s name removed from his $1 million life insurance policy, which ultimately went to his sister.

Vallow also confided to family members that Lori was cheating and claiming to be a god, according to The Arizona Republic, and was in the process of filing for divorce when he was killed, according to news reports.

Lori’s brother Alex Cox claimed self-defense in the July 2019 shooting death of Vallow, who was Joshua’s adoptive father.

Cox was never arrested or charged in Charles Vallow’s death, and Arizona authorities are continuing to investigate.

After the shooting, Gibb said her relationship with Lori began to fade. She packed up the kids and moved to Rexburg, Idaho, to be closer to Daybell.

By September 2019, the children were gone.

The death of Tammy Daybell

Vallow then married Daybell two weeks after his previous wife of 30 years died in her sleep Oct. 19, police said.

Tammy Daybell’s body was exhumed from the Springville Evergreen Cemetery in Utah in December, and officials are still awaiting the results of toxicology tests.

Neither Daybell, 51, nor Vallow, 46, has been formally charged in her death, although prosecutors are considering possible conspiracy, attempted murder and murder counts, according to East Idaho News.

Raising even more suspicions, Amazon shopping records unearthed in March show a wedding ring was purchased a little more than two weeks before Tammy died, and that Chad Daybell also shopped online for wedding dresses the day after her passing.

Gibb also alleged that Vallow had once confided to her that Tammy Daybell would die, according to details of the interview.

In December, Lori’s brother Alex Cox also died of unknown causes, according to reports.

Eloped to Hawaii

The couple fled Idaho in November as police were preparing to carry out a search warrant and a welfare check on the children. Police later tracked Vallow and Daybell to Hawaii, where reports show they enjoyed a private beach wedding. There were no signs the children were ever with them.

Vallow was next arrested in February after ignoring a court order to present the children in front of an Idaho judge.

Extradited back to Idaho in March, Vallow pleaded not guilty, but she has refused to cooperate with authorities. She remains jailed after a judge recently refused to lower the $1 million bond.