It was Oct. 19, 2019. Melanie Gibb was in Arizona when she received a text message from a friend that Tammy Daybell had died.
She was startled but, then again, her friend, Lori Vallow, and Tammy's husband, Chad Daybell, had told her weeks earlier that Tammy would die.
"I didn’t know how they did it, but I knew it was part of the plan that she was supposed to pass away," Gibb tells EastIdahoNews.com. "Other people knew she was supposed to pass away because Chad had this information for quite a while."
Gibb called Lori and asked if she had heard about Tammy's death. Lori said she had not and acted surprised, but this was the same woman who had told Gibb for months that she and Chad were supposed to be together. It was only natural that after Tammy's death, Chad and Lori would get married.
"Their whole goal was to get together because they expressed to me many times that Tammy would be OK with this as she passed on," Gibb says. "(They said) she may not remember it now, but she had a mission to fulfill on the other side, so they both felt that was where she was supposed to go."
Lori and Chad married in a private ceremony on a Hawaiian beach on Nov. 5 - less than three weeks after Tammy's death. Unbeknownst to Gibb, Tammy's children, Joshua "JJ" Vallow and Tylee Ryan, were missing and hadn't been seen since September.
Gibb explained in part two of our series what Lori and Chad asked her to do when they returned to Rexburg, and police showed up at their door looking for the kids. Gibb refused to lie to officers but wanted to believe her friends. Finally, after a few days of soul-searching, she called Chad's phone and demanded answers. Lori answered.
"I think the first question I said is, 'Why haven’t you told us where the kids are?'" Gibb says. "(Lori responded), 'Well, for your safety, we cannot tell you.' That was alarming to me. What safety? Why am I in danger? I didn’t feel like I was in danger."
Gibb demanded to know why Lori had told the police that JJ and Tylee were with her. Lori admitted to lying but said it was for the safety of JJ. She refused to give Gibb any concrete answers on what was happening with the children and why she and Chad were not cooperating with law enforcement.
"It was a long conversation. I said, 'I’m concerned for you. I’m concerned for your salvation. This is darkness,'" Gibb recalls. "It was very uncomfortable talking to her. It was a disturbing conversation. I continued to tell her that I was concerned for them. And I am, and I was."
Gibb told Chad and Lori they were evil, and she did not have a testimony of the doctrine and teachings they had shared with her.
They hung up the phone and since that day, Gibb has not spoken to Chad or Lori again.
Watch and read the entire story on EastIdahoNews.com.