Here is an additional thought on the arguably dead subject of the mental gymnastics of denial and/or deception that Gibb engaged in.
Weekend of Sept. 22 and 23rd with all that occurred and has been much discussed: (Unlikely Tylee story, unlikely zombie story, unlikely "forgetting" context of text from Lori to Melanie regarding putting JJ "back" down in the evening while in same apt. allegedly, unlikely that no one suggested school as a place JJ could be or should be, unlikely that Melanie does not have a clear memory of JJ being carried into the apt., unlikely that adults contact adults over nightmares or even "visions" or other meta-earth sourced communications that don't require immediate action in the middle of the night, unlikely that the subject of several phone conversations after that bizarre morning were forgotten. Yet, memory is clear that the neither Lori nor Chad explicitly indicated physically causing the deaths of the bodies allegedly taken over by zombies.)
That weekend in September, Melanie claims she believed that Tylee was at BYU. Maybe she was callously indifferent to the truth at the time. By January a few months later, she was to report that Lori's non-verbals indicated Tylee was dead.
Melanie claims a week or so later, Lori falsely told her that JJ was with Kay, giving a lot of detail as to how JJ was passed off, etc. Let's assume Melanie believed this, and still didn't concern herself with Tylee since Melanie was not concerned about her.
Then, 8 weeks farther along, Tammy's dead and Chad and Lori are married. Police from 2 dept. and Chad and Lori all contact her, and the welfare check attempt is in full swing and Melanie knows something horrible went down.
This is what I think. Melanie would be searching for an acceptable way to string together the known information. I would think at that point, her mind would return to Tylee, no matter how much distain she had for that smart and loving little girl. I would think that Melanie would theorize that the children are together if she believed Tylee to be alive.
I would think that either 1) Melanie would have indeed already known/strongly suspected that Tylee was dead somewhere and did not tell the police this when the welfare check on JJ was going south, or 2) Would have assumed that Tylee was hiding JJ somewhere and did not tell the police this.
Yuck, yuck and yuck. I sincerely have some sympathy for what Melanie has gone through. But I am underwhelmed by her self-awareness and deeply disturbed by her actions and words. She is going to be a dreadful prosecution witness.
MOO.