Talking Dateline: Blindsided

Hello everybody, I'm Keith Morrison and this is a talking date line. This is a very unusual talking date line, normally you would be having a couple of correspondence talking to each other about their experience as covering a story, but this time I have what I consider to be the distinct honor to speak to a couple of our really very awesome producers. Shane Bishop, a man I've been doing business with on date line for gosh, how many years Shane, just about 30 years now, right? Great. And Brittany Morris, not as long, but it's been terrific as well, so thanks Keith. This time I get a chance to talk to the two of you about the story we have covered and you have done most of the coverage, most of the work for quite a number of years. This may be a final chapter, may not be a final chapter, we'll see. But this is a story of Brandon Boudreau. Brandon Boudreau was kind of a quasi-relative of a woman you know well, perhaps you know her as mommy Doomsday, but he knew her as Aunt Lolo, Laurie Valo, the infamous woman behind a number of murders, including her own children. If you haven't listened to the episode yet, you should go right now and do so, and then come on back and listen to my interview with Shane and Brittany. And later we'll get your questions also from social media. This has been quite a saga. How many episodes remind me of we done on the Laurie Valo saga? I should say the Laurie Valo Jett, Chad Daybell saga. This is number eight, and I think every time for the last two years, Brittany, when we finished the screening of these pieces, our boss has asked, is that it? Yeah. I think maybe now it is, but it hasn't been before. This is a very complicated tale. A tale that began years ago when we heard about some missing children and we made a soldier into Hawaii to track down Laurie Valo and Chad Daybell, and then we heard increasingly strange things about what they're up to, what they believed, the idea that somehow Chad and Laurie were gods who were going to leave the faithful to the end times and meet Jesus Christ. And then Valo was a goddess in her view. And so she believed that she had a responsibility to do whatever Chad decided. And he began to declare her children dark and then that they are zombies and eventually they disappear. And when they're finally found they've been buried in Chad Daybell's backyard and along the way a man named Brandon Boudreau, who was married to the niece of Laurie Valo, is told that his wife is leaving him and then what they Brandon Boudreau is in his car and he hears a pop and there's a shot that was obviously aimed at him, almost killed him. We now have to find out what happened to him who took a shot at him and he has to keep himself safe. He and his children. And it becomes the adventure story of Brandon Boudreau trying to survive, trying to keep his children safe in the face of what he considered to be terrible danger. Why has it been so long since between the events that he describes and our story now? Well, I first met Brandon on his parents' porch in early 2020 and I've been knocking on his door and standing on his porch and sitting him down for about six and a half years asking him to talk to you. And now for the first time he has done that simply because all the criminal trials are over seemingly. And B, he wrote a book called Unthinkable. So he sent me that book a few months ago and my first reaction was, I don't want to do any more stories on Laurie Valo and then we talked about it and decided that he had kind of an insider view that we hadn't heard yet. And he did. It's a fascinating story and a harrowing one. I mean, and he told it so calmly and like, so maturely, it was quite taken. With his attitude and his demeanor, Brittany, what did you make of Brandon Boudreaux when you met him? So I don't think I'll ever forget that when I first met Brandon in person, we were in California. Jenny and Brandon are getting out of their car and I imagine Brandon's going to be summer, right? Like he's mentally preparing himself and he throws his arms wide open and is just like walking down the street with his gigantic smile on his face. It was the warmest invitation that I've ever gotten from someone and that's exactly how he interacted with us from that day on. He's exactly the same guy now that I met six and a half years ago on his parents' porch. He has always been kind, welcoming. I just can't say enough good things about him. I think we were all just incredibly impressed with him as a human being. So taken. So Shane, talk about Brandon's connection with Laurie Valumichad Debo. He told us what his attitude toward them was at the beginning and the strange things that happened. But the initial couple of years in their orbit, what was those like for him as you recall? Brandon married Laurie Valumich in 2008. Melanie was very close to Laurie her aunt because Melanie's mom, Stacey, had died when she was young. So Laurie was kind of a surrogate mom. They often lived around each other. And then after Brandon and Melanie married in 2008, they moved down to Phoenix at some point where Laurie lived. Laurie was married to her fourth husband, Charles Valow, and had been for a dozen years or so. And Brandon and Charles were both salesmen and just really successful too. Very successful. They plotted businesses together. They played with their kids together. And they just really, they bond it. They really felt a kinship. And I think that's why all this was so mind-blowing to Brandon. One day Melanie came to him and said, "God told me you're gay and I'm leaving you." And from there things kind of snowballed. Take us through what happened there, Shane. So Melanie and Brandon had been married for more than 10 years. They had four kids. And Melanie had been attending some meetings during evenings. It turns out with Laurie and with a small group of people who also followed this small time author and would-be-profit named Chad Debel, who made all of these people, I think, feel very special, which was the allure. You know, he told Laurie that they had been married in previous lives and Melanie came home one time. We didn't put this in our story, but she came home from one of these meetings and she asked Brandon in the Bible, "Did Jesus have a niece?" So I think Chad knew which buttons to push with her. Melanie felt very special and suddenly, you know, I think you wrote the line. She spoke as if endowed with some divine authority in telling Brandon that he was gay. And so she spoke for God, basically. Well, this whole religious thing that occurred, the catalyst for it does appear to have been Chad Debel. And a lot of people wonder, "Was it Laurie Valo who made all this happen?" Or was it Chad? So as part of this process, I went back and I listened to a lot of the testimony from Laurie's and Chad's Idaho trials. And a lot of the people that testified Melanie Gibb, Zueena, Pestana, names that we've heard in other date line reports all said that Laurie was getting this information from Chad, right? Like, when someone was identified as dark, that was information directly given to Laurie from Chad and then Laurie relayed that to everyone else. And so it does make you wonder, right? Was this really all Chad and Chad's influence over Laurie and Laurie is a really effective communicator and a very inviting person and someone that people will rally behind, sort of like this tag team effort, but the information itself that appears according to testimony to have come from Chad itself. But what would possess them both to come together in the first place to become so quickly engaged with each other and to go so far down that tunnel of extreme, extreme thinking? I think they're both narcissists and they were meeting their needs. He was clearly unhappy in his marriage at some level and needed some more attention. And she needed to be made special. And he took care of that for her and they fed off each other and then putting the two of them together a number of law enforcement people have said, you know, because you and I have asked this question for years, right? Was Chad driving the bus or was Laurie driving the bus? And it's really a situation where it was if not for one, the other might not have happened. They just came together and I guess the big mystery for me is still who believed this stuff. I mean, it's just a bunch of nonsense, right? But clearly they were able to sell it to some people and, you know, people like Alex who were willing to commit murder for them. I think that they were selling exclusivity, right, like, and community. It, when we think about the really small group meetings that Melanie was going to with her aunt and others, it really was this like very tight-knit group of people that made you feel exclusive and a part of something so much bigger than yourself. And it gave them purpose, it gave them intention, it gave them something to go to and look forward to every day. And I know that you covered this shame, but that's something that Brandon talked about in regard to Melanie and that she grew up without a mother, right? And there he felt like there was that hole there. she needed to fill some hole that a mother could have, have been for her. - Yeah, that's certainly true. And when we talked to Melanie, it was 2020, just as the pandemic was crashing down on all of us. She was still a true believer at that point, I think. Or was she? I was never very sure exactly where she was at that point. I think the two most bizarre interviews I've ever witnessed at Dateline were Melanie's and Lori's. - I mean, you've sat in front of a lot of people and I think we both had the sense that something wasn't right there. And it was three months before the kids' bodies were found. So she was still claiming to have hoped that the kids were alive and that she trusted Lori. We asked her lawyers for comment on this story and they chose not to respond, so we're left to wonder. - Then you add in the videos we have of her showing up in Brendan's parents' house of her trying to find the kids at the friend's house, of situations with Alex sitting at the car that seemed very threatening, which now she's saying weren't threatening at all. So you don't know where you are when you're talking to her. - I've always wondered why they were trying so hard to find the kids. I mean, was it just a standard divorce thing? They're my kids, you know, I deserve time with them too. Or was there something more to it? - That's why in retrospect Brandon was so terrified and understandably so and yet also Melanie could say, "No, no, no, nothing like that in mind at all." But again, back to that relationship between Chad and Lori. I find it so fascinating and that he wasn't Mr. America if I could put it that way. And yet she was so, spending with him so immediately. - This is one I keep going over and over and over. (laughing) - It's strange isn't it? Because, you know, she had, I mean, by most measures, she had everything anyone could ever want. - True. - You know, Charles was clearly hardworking. He'd converted to LDS for her. He was serious about it. He came from a good family. He seemed to take care of her. I mean, I'm not sure if she had a care in the world when she was married to Charles. - Didn't seem to. - And Charles would do anything for her. - And I can't help but see the parallels again to Brandon's story. And we obviously talk about this in our report. Melanie had everything that you think you could ever want from life, a beautiful home, a beautiful family, a successful husband who's present and a healthy relationship with that person. And yet, it took a few words, some words, to completely upend that. - Right. Fascinating case. When we come back, we have an extra clip with my interview with Brandon. And we will listen to that. (upbeat music) - There's a very sad and telling moment when Tiley is being interviewed by the police. After Charles is shot, her stepfather, with whom she's been for most of her life. And she sits there very passively and suggests that her mother's story is accurate that he came at her with a baseball bat, which nobody believes for a moment. I wondered what must have been going on in her mind during that interview with the police. I guess we can only guess now. Brandon had a pretty close relationship with those kids, didn't he? - Yeah. Brandon's children were best friends with JJ and Tiley. We saw many photos of them together doing things and they played together multiple times a week at the park because they lived so close to each other. And it was a huge part of JJ's life. And so when Brandon took a break from Charles and Lori at the request of Melanie, we saw text messages that Brandon never got that were along the lines of like, JJ misses his best friend. JJ misses his cousins. JJ would love to play with his cousins. So there was that relationship there and then Brandon also baptized Tiley. And that was a decision that Tiley made. Tiley asked Brandon, will you baptize me? But he also talked about a lot of vacations that they took together. That was incredibly hard to hear what he lost and what his children lost when they lost their cousins. - How did he take the news of their death? I got the feeling that he was pretty sure they were gone by the time it was confirmed in June of 2020. But still, I mean, how do you prepare yourself for something like that? I mean, I don't know how many times we heard this or even said this, like they wouldn't do that to the kids, would they? I mean, you know, they wouldn't, right? - One of the things you got emotional about during the interview with us was when he talked about having to go and identify the body, JJ's body. - Why did he do it? - He did it because when he showed up in Rexburg, JJ's grandparents, K and Larry Woodcock were there. And Larry had vertigo and he was having trouble standing up and they needed somebody to go identify the JJ's body. And so Brandon just said, Larry, you stay here. I'll go do it. And which is kind of a snap decision he made to be kind to Larry, which I think just is another thing that tells you who he really is. - He does, yeah. - Yeah, that's his character. - He talked about going to visit where JJ and Tyler were buried and Chad Debel's backyard. It's a heartbreaking piece of that interview. Let's listen to that from Brandon Woodrow. - He took a trip and I got some things for those kids that were things that are memories I have of them and went to where they were found and put them out. And man, you went out to Chad's property. What things did you. - Yeah, JJ was the cutest little guy and he Charles traveled a lot for work. And so he associated a suitcase with dad and therefore it was kind of like a, he had this phase where he was just obsessed with suitcases like he had like 20, 30 suitcases. I'm not even going to use that, or like so many. And Disney was everything you can think of, right? And so he would take the suitcases everywhere with them 'cause he'd see dad with his suitcase. So, you know, he wanted a suitcase. - Sure. - So, I would go in the suitcase and I dropped out for him over there at his fence. You know, I wanted to be with him without a suitcase. And Tyler was choosing the phase where she liked to go hit, get a ball of glass from Taco Bell. Taco Bell was one of the spots she'd go. She had health problems so she couldn't always eat it. She kind of had to have like a strict diet on certain things. And, but I knew that was one of her guilty pleasure spots. And so I went and she got her ordered from Taco Bell. Chopped up for him. Just something to leave. - How was he grappling with the loss of those kids? - I think he's worked through it all, as well as he can, six and a half years. You know, multiple trials, having to testify at those trials. We got some sense of his pain on TV, but he also didn't let us all the way in. He's not a guy, he's not that guy. - Yeah, I think he's saving a bit of it for himself. And I respect that because I don't think you can never truly understand what it is. Because at the crux of this was, he's concerned for his kids, right? He's like, are my kids all right? There was something in him that said, no, they're not. And I need to run. And he was so right. And then at the end of it all, he ended up losing two children very close to him and his own children. That's gotta be such a heavy weight to carry, right? - It was quite a saga. He drops his kids to school one day, comes home, and he feels a pop, and there's a bullet hole, you know, an inch or two from his head. And he looks across and he sees what appears to be a Jeep to belong to Laurie Valor with Alex Cox driving it. And he realizes he has been a target of an attempted murder. He has to go in the run, and that's what it all begins. But it was the timing of the shooting that helped him understand why it may have happened when it happened. Can you tell me about that? - The shooting happened within months of that conversation Brandon had with Melanie and they started the process of the divorce, and that meant selling this really beautiful home that they had built and chosen to be their forever home. The sale of the home had been finalized literally the day before October 1, the home has been sold, checks are being cut, it is official. That next day Brandon is shot at. And it's worth noting too that at that same time, Melanie is still the person that would be paid out over a hundred thousand dollars in life insurance if Brandon were to pass, right? Because they're not officially divorced, they're in the process of it. So she's still the person that would stand to gain every single asset that Brandon has if he were to die. - Brandon has come face to face with Laurie in the courtroom several times. He testified at both Laurie and Chad's trials. And then last year, Laurie represented herself at the Arizona trial. Her Arizona trial for attempting to kill Brandon. That meant she got to cross-examine Brandon in the courtroom. And it was intense. What was your impression of the conversation in the courtroom between Laurie Vallow and Brandon Boudreau? Brandon obviously came prepared and tried to be as measured as he could. But also, this is my interpretation. I felt like a little bit of sassy-ness, right? Like you get those questions where she's like, we've known each other for a long time. And his response is, I mean, it depends on how you define a long time, right? Like the way in which he chose to respond to Laurie, for lack of a better way to describe it, felt like a clapback of sorts. And so I imagine for Brandon, and I don't want to speak for him here, that it felt good to be able to speak to her directly and say, your interpretation of events is not mine, and here's what I have to say to you. Something along the lines of, like, I get to reclaim this narrative. I get the last word. And it's going to be a voice of reason. Which given the fact that I've had that long conversation with Laurie Vallow in jail. I could only respect Brandon all the more for the way he was able to respond to her, because that's how you have to do it in a courtroom. If you didn't want to get caught up in her BS, she's very good at spinning, I will say that. I thought he was just messing with her. I really enjoyed it, because she could have said it was 10 minutes to one, and he would have said, "Nah, I was more like, you know, 1250." You know, it was just, he was just making, he would not see it an inch to her, which made it even more satisfying to watch. And the question of Melanie and the crime, which Laurie was convicted of, the prosecutor's identified Melanie as an active member in Laurie and Chad's conspiracy. We were left wondering what that means exactly, or whether we'll ever see any more legal action. We know there's an active investigation in the Gilbert Police Department, and we know that there's a process, right? So for there to be any charges leveled against Melanie at this point, the Police Department has to submit that case to the prosecutors here in Maricopa County for review. And if they choose, right? If they choose that there's enough there, then they press charges, and we see what plays out. It's worth noting that the Gilbert Police Department did submit charges against Chad, and Maricopa County returned that case to Gilbert PD and said, "There's not enough there for us to proceed," right? We don't have enough there to take it to court. There's always that possibility, right? That Gilbert PD does continue to investigate that they submit again, and Maricopa County says that there's not enough there. Tell me about his life now, Brittany. He is a busy dad of six now. So when he married Jenny, he got two bonus children. And Jenny had two children of her own. And so they built this brand new family, six children here in the valley, and they are all so busy. One kid is a rock climber. Another is a singer and a football player. And they are constantly on the go, right? Like Brandon is a football coach. And on Friday night, when the report aired, he texted me and was like, "I'm so sorry I am not watching tonight. I have a Halloween event with one kid and a sport event with another kid. And at some point, Jenny and I will find time and we'll sit down and we'll watch it very thoughtfully." And we're just really thankful. But his life really does revolve around these kids and they are all growing up. And he is supporting, encouraging, is directly involved in all of them. That's good to know. When we come back, we'll answer some of your questions from social media. And we're back. So we have some questions to answer here. Number one, let's take a listen to a voicemail from Kaitlyn. Hi, my name is Kaitlyn. I just finished watching Keith Morrison's episode "Mine Sided." It was a really crazy episode. I was just dumbfounded that a judge would give Melanie any kind of unsupervised custody of her children. It's just crazy that with the past cases that have happened with things that like this and people having unsupervised visitation with children, is there any reason why someone would be able to have custody even just partial custody of children after being involved in something like Melanie? I know she wasn't convicted, but it's still just, it was crazy to me. Thanks for watching "Beeline." Bye. This curious situation where Brandon and Melanie share the children, the four children, 50/50. Did it surprise you that this arrangement eventually was made? That blew my mind. I mean, I'm a divorced dad. I've been through all this, but to have to deliver your kids to somebody who you think really helped plot your murder, how do you find it in yourself to do that? I mean, that all came about because Melanie, after his temporary sole custody award or whatever. Melanie asked for a reconsideration and a custody evaluator came back and said, "I recommend 50/50." Brandon's first instinct was to fight it, but he and Jenny talked about it and then they talked to some other people and those people who had been through this said, "Yeah, you're probably not going to win." The judge is probably going to go with that recommendation. Somehow we found it within himself, once again, to just put his side, his animus, and whatever you want to call it, take it for the team or whatever. Do what's best for your kids. They seem to have been at the center of his thinking all along. I mean, it's really very simple. She's never been charged with anything. She's never been convicted of anything, and it kind of all ends there. It's crazy as everyone thinks that is. Yeah, and just a reminder too, to our viewers, right, that this was an agreement that was made not by a judge in isolation, but it was Melanie and her lawyers, Brandon and lawyers, a mediator, and a judge all coming to this conclusion together. So I think there's a lot there that rightfully so, we don't understand because it's not our custody agreement. Right. Right. So from Deb Walker, this was such an unusual situation. I still have questions about it. There's more to be uncovered. I hope the police will continue to work on this case. Laurie Blakely knows the whole story. Could we possibly see Laurie in the courtroom again if Melanie is ever charged? It's a really interesting question, Deb. And I think one anything is possible, especially in regard to this series of cases. It's worth noting that Laurie has ongoing appeals in both the state of Arizona and the state of Idaho. And next week on November 2nd, the Idaho Supreme Court is going to cure her case. We don't we don't have any reason to believe that she'll be present for that hearing, but Laurie continues to litigate. So whether or not we might see her in a courtroom is to be determined. Yeah, I guess so. Then we get story number nine. At Julie Kilday says the Brandon family, mom and sisters went to the east coast with him to care for the kids and support him. It was so touching what a great family. Well, they are great family and everybody should be so lucky. I mean, we had members of his family, a brother who's a dentist in Tucson who was ready to come on to and I kind of had to say, you know, we can only fit so many budros in the story. His mom and dad would have been great too, but they were on a mission, a church mission up in Montreal. So they weren't available. I've rarely had a story where I was booking people. And all I really had to say to people was, well, we're doing this for Brandon. He's got a book out and everybody was just like instant. Yes. Tell me where to be. Yeah. And we'll put in one final comment with some Tina Williams. This is why I love date line. They take a story. We thought we knew everything about and we've another story about all the other lives involved and affected by very sick people. Well, there is that. All right. And we're very happy to have been able to tell the story. Surprised, frankly, that we were able to tell story number eight about the Lori Chad Sega, but it's a tale that keeps on giving. So that's it for talking date line this week. And remember, if you have any questions about our stories, you can DM us your audio or video on our socials at at date line NBC or leave us a voicemail at 212 4135252 for a chance to be featured right here. If you're in the mood for something spooky, by the way, don't forget to check out the whole new Morrison mysteries. The podcast this time, the mystery story is Edgar Allan Poe. And so we begin with a story of a man who committed the perfect murder until he encountered the one thing he couldn't send off his own conscience. This is The Telltale Heart. To get ad-free listening for all our podcast, subscribe to date line premium. And you can watch the video version of talking date line on YouTube and the NBC News app. So we'll see you Friday's on date line on NBC.