REXBURG — From The Keepers, and Making a Murderer, to Dr. Death, and Dirty John — audiences have a morbid fascination with true crime stories. These stories continue to remain evergreen over time, however with each one they’ve grown to be stranger than fiction.
The University of Law, of the UK, has suggested that people are drawn to these types of stories because it gives us insights into our culture, and allow people to view the dark side of humanity from a safe distance.
I had the chance to speak with Sharee Yorgesen a Washington native who, in recent months has moved to Rexburg, Idaho. She has been following the Chad and Lori Vallow-Daybell case since news first broke back in 2019.
Of true crime stories Yorgesen says, “I think people want to know that their intuitions are correct. They want to have a feeling about something and then be right about it. That leads us to investigate something.”
She says she latched onto the case after hearing Dr. John Matthias and his wife Lauren Matthias deconstruct Chad Daybell’s prophecies on their podcast Hidden True Crime. She heard Dr. John Matthias state that if we understand why we do what we do, then we understand ourselves better.
“I’ve been wanting to understand myself better after this Chad and Lori case … He had read Chad’s biography,” Yorgesen says. “The more he talked about Chad Daybell the more I felt I was married to the same man, and what I was going through at the time it was also playing out in Chad’s life.”
54-year-old Chad Daybell is accused of first-degree murder of his first wife, Tammy Daybell, and the children of his second wife Lori Vallow-Daybell.
Lori Vallow-Daybell and Chad Daybellare known for being a part of what the public has called a Doomsday Cult. Lori was convicted of killing her children, 16-year-old Tylee, and 7-year-old JJ, over claims they were zombies. She was also convicted of conspiring to kill Tammy Daybell. She will spend the rest of her life in prison without the possibility of parole.
For Yorgesen, she feels a kinship with Tammy as she states she was feeling like she was big spiritually manipulated by her husband. She said just like Tammy, her husband kept having dreams that she would die.
“That’s what Tammy was going through,” Yorgesen says. “We are taught as LDS (Latter-day Saints) to counsel with our spouses. I was listening to my husband’s counsel, and because of a dream he had I was supposed to die pretty soon, and so I didn’t feel like he wanted to be married to me anymore and it was reciprocated … I was really drawn to this case to understand more about what I was going through too.”
Yorgesen said for herself, she decided to receive her own revelation from God, and that divorce was best in her scenario. She says that would have also been an option for Chad and Lori, had they take the conventional route, instead of murder.
After becoming more invested in the case, Yorgesen went to speculate in person at Vallow-Daybell’s hearings in Boise at the Ada County Courthouse. Yorgesen says on May 12, her birthday, and the day of the verdict in Boise, it was the best gift to hear her guilty verdict. From the Ada County Courthouse to the Fremont County Courthouse Yorgesen camped out the night of July 31st, before Vallow-Daybell’s sentencing.
“It was important to me to be in the court room,” Yorgesen says. “It was a unique experience, I’ll never forget the feeling of anticipation as we hoped that the jury would see what the rest who had been following the case or so long could see, and we wanted justice for Tylee and JJ and Tammy, and Charles… It was good to talk with people through the night and it was a form of healing I think for all of us.”
Now Vallow-Daybell is set to be extradited to Arizona where she is charged with conspiring to kill her late husband, Charles Vallow who was killed in 2019 after he was shot in an altercation with Vallow Daybell’s brother Alex Cox.
Continuing in crime junkie fashion, Yorgesen says she and others will continue to follow the Vallow-Daybell Cases.
“The people that spent the night in front of the courthouse, the night before she was sentenced, will definitely be paying attention to it. I did that, and I know I’m going to be paying attention to any article that comes out, or anything that comes about Chad and Lori. I want to see justice for Tammy,” Yorgesen says.