Found Deceased ID - Joshua Vallow, 7, & Tylee Ryan, 16, Rexburg, Sept 2019 *Arrests* #52

[Love Never Fails]

The initial MSM that announced the letter also included the following response from a church spokesperson:

“A letter from the First Presidency, dated August 4, 2020, was sent to local lay leaders worldwide, reminding them of the Church’s long-standing policy of seeking advice from Church legal counsel before becoming involved in criminal or civil proceedings related to members of their congregation,” the statement reads. “This policy is intended to help leaders in their ministerial role to all those they serve, by not appearing to take sides in legal proceedings and to avoid implicating the Church in legal proceedings to which it is not a party. This policy is included in the General Handbook and similar notices have been sent in recent years to reinforce this policy.”

According to the above, the instruction is not new and there are indications it was sent to all the churches, even in Canada. While the timing is of course interesting, it is a major case and they may have just taken the opportunity to remind their members to consult with LDS lawyers to ensure they have representation in the event they are subpoenaed.

Whatever the intent of the Handbook, IMO, I do not believe any religious freedom under the constitution would ever supercede law.

Hi SillyBilly,

When the church sent out this letter, regardless of the way they prefaced it or followed it up, they (the LDS church) inserted themselves into the case. IMO that is wrong.

They can rule their members, not by telling them to break the law of the land per se, but by “directing” them to seek counsel first of those in authority in the church, in other words through fear, intimidation and embarrassment if a member is found going straight to LE without consulting the church.

We, the people, have every right to express opinion against an organization that would compel their members to go to their leaders of the church before answering a subpoena or testifying.

The church inserted itself just as this case is being turned over for trial. Coincidence? No.

 

[Diddian]

Thanks for posting. For some reason, I had thought that his was a submission to the courts. Now I see it is a PR move.

Such a comprehensive analysis of all the possibly imagined ways a person might be compromised or conflicted or poorly served by the letter’s instruction.

Just imagine if Means had applied that SAME comprehensive analysis to consider all the ways in which his own current client may have been compromised or conflicted or poorly served by her own attorney having at one time served as attorney to her fellow conspirator in this case. Means cannot unhear or unsee or unconsider anything he may have heard, seen, or considered when he was once serving as that fellow conspirator’s counsel.

So, at least to THIS outside observer, LV(D)’s defense has suffered, unless she gained the advice of a separate attorney in waiving any potential conflict of interest involving Means.

 

[887sMtreme]

<snipped for focus>
What I keep finding odd is that these fringe groups seem to be quite common within LDS membership, but I can't understand why. I know groups branch off from other denominations too, but not at such a high rate it appears.
JMOO

The LDS Church was founded on visions and to this day has a certain reverence for personal revelation as a means for individuals and the Church itself to grow and prosper. It must be difficult for Church leadership to prevent its membership from carrying this aspect of Mormon sensibility to unhealthy extremes, without damaging its own foundations.

 

[Redvines86]

I think the video referred to Tammy's murder. It was speculated that even if Chad decided to divorce, it would have taken years because Chad and Tammy had a temple marriage, and Chad was in a hurry.

You can get married to someone else while waiting for the temple divorce to go through, as you are divorced legally. Most temple divorces are quite quick nowadays anyway. The temple divorce wouldn't be the issue. The issue is they wouldn't have had Tammy's life insurance policy the one they were living off of in Hawaii

 

[wnk]

<snip>
What I keep finding odd is that these fringe groups seem to be quite common within LDS membership, but I can't understand why. I know groups branch off from other denominations too, but not at such a high rate it appears.
JMOO

There are doctrines within the LDS faith that (IMO) make it far more susceptible to "fringe groups" than mainstream Christianity, but I think that discussion might go too far off-topic for this thread. I can send you a private message if you're interested in that discussion.

 

[Redvines86]

The initial MSM that announced the letter also included the following response from a church spokesperson:

“A letter from the First Presidency, dated August 4, 2020, was sent to local lay leaders worldwide, reminding them of the Church’s long-standing policy of seeking advice from Church legal counsel before becoming involved in criminal or civil proceedings related to members of their congregation,” the statement reads. “This policy is intended to help leaders in their ministerial role to all those they serve, by not appearing to take sides in legal proceedings and to avoid implicating the Church in legal proceedings to which it is not a party. This policy is included in the General Handbook and similar notices have been sent in recent years to reinforce this policy.”

According to the above, the instruction is not new and there are indications it was sent to all the churches, even in Canada. While the timing is of course interesting, it is a major case and they may have just taken the opportunity to remind their members to consult with LDS lawyers to ensure they have representation in the event they are subpoenaed.

Whatever the intent of the Handbook, IMO, I do not believe any religious freedom under the constitution would ever supercede law.

Thank you for clearing this up SillyBilly, I agree 100%. MOO

 

[Redvines86]

Hi SillyBilly,

When the church sent out this letter, regardless of the way they prefaced it or followed it up, they (the LDS church) inserted themselves into the case. IMO that is wrong.

They can rule their members, not by telling them to break the law of the land per se, but by “directing” them to seek counsel first of those in authority in the church, in other words through fear, intimidation and embarrassment if a member is found going straight to LE without consulting the church.

We, the people, have every right to express opinion against an organization that would compel their members to go to their leaders of the church before answering a subpoena or testifying.

The church inserted itself just as this case is being turned over for trial. Coincidence? No.

I don't see how they inserted themselves in the case? This information is in the general handbook. It's pretty basic info. I don't see where you're picking up the fear, intimidation, and embarrassment? I've been involved in some legal cases and worked with the church, and none of that was going on in any way. MOO

 

[DI_Isokawa]

The initial MSM that announced the letter also included the following response from a church spokesperson:

“A letter from the First Presidency, dated August 4, 2020, was sent to local lay leaders worldwide, reminding them of the Church’s long-standing policy of seeking advice from Church legal counsel before becoming involved in criminal or civil proceedings related to members of their congregation,” the statement reads. “This policy is intended to help leaders in their ministerial role to all those they serve, by not appearing to take sides in legal proceedings and to avoid implicating the Church in legal proceedings to which it is not a party. This policy is included in the General Handbook and similar notices have been sent in recent years to reinforce this policy.”

According to the above, the instruction is not new and there are indications it was sent to all the churches, even in Canada. While the timing is of course interesting, it is a major case and they may have just taken the opportunity to remind their members to consult with LDS lawyers to ensure they have representation in the event they are subpoenaed.

Whatever the intent of the Handbook, IMO, I do not believe any religious freedom under the constitution would ever supercede law.

The letter was poorly written. The authors pulled two paragraphs out of a general policy document instead of including the complete directive. The general policy statement is itself ambiguous. It can be interpreted as a straightforward caution to leaders not to imply you are representing the church or as a broad inhibition against involvement in a personal capacity in any legal activity involving a fellow member. It also does not specify what sanctions, if any, are to be applied to those who violate the policy. Given those inadequacies I find it impossible to contribute anything meaninful. <modsnip: Removed snarky comment>

38. Church Policies and Guidelines

 

[Forever Young]

Love, Lust, & The LDS: Could the Daybell's motive for murder be in their Mormon Beliefs?

I took a little flack for advancing this same notion, I think it was day before yesterday? This is not the first time I've wondered if other media outlets peruse this forum for ideas to discuss, but glad to see not everyone thought it was totally off the wall.

 

[LDS social scientist]

I know that not everyone will agree with what I say here, but:

I am fairly certain that speculation that the letter issued by the LDS church applies to all members is misguided. Instead, the letter very clearly applies only to church leaders and then only to leaders whose possible testimony in legal matters stems from situations that arise through carrying out their leadership activities (or at least involve people who are directly under their pastoral care). The key phrase in the letter is "... leaders should not involve themselves in civil or criminal cases regarding members in their units, quorums, or organizations without first ..."

This letter is NOT a general statement about how church members should respond to requests for legal testimony. If it was, legal activity would be impossible (and would have been impossible for many years) in Utah and other Mormon-dominant areas (a situation that is clearly not the case).

So if a bishop (or member of the ward council that the bishop leads), for example, learns legally important information about a member of his ward (a geographically defined ecclesiastical unit) through his leadership activities within the ward, the church is asking that he contact church lawyers. But if another bishop learned of legally important information that had nothing to do with the exercising of leadership within his own ward (something that applied to a member of a different ward, for example), the request to contact church lawyers would not apply.

I can understand why others might interpret the letter differently (the phrase "members" was used in the preface to the reminder of the policy). But the policy itself applies quite clearly, MOO, to only leaders who are who are about to become involved with legal issues involving someone from within their own "flock."

Within this context, I think some of the questions raised here about whether the church is prioritizing its own reputation above the discovery of truth, or whether a church should be allowed to possibly curtail testimony in this manner, are valid. But the instructions of the letter apply to a relatively small group of people with clearly defined (and mostly geographically limited) pastoral duties. They would certainly not apply to most of the LDS people who could provide evidence in the CD/LVD trials.

 

[Nikynoo]

The original post by @nhmemorymaker mentioned miracles that have helped uncover this case. I was suggesting that if the U-Haul reservation hadn't happened we don't know if LE would have filed the search warrant June 5th. The search might not have happened on June 9th. Who knows what could have happened at that point?

ETA: But again, this incident isn't report on MSM and shouldn't be relied upon until it can be verified later.

Apologies, I still cannot see the correlation between prebooking a Uhaul and the filing of the warrant. Thank you for your reply though. Your posts are much appreciated.

 

[salberg7]

Charles was murdered in July. Covid hit in March. Covid has become the excuse for everything. Police had months to get it right.

Taking that one step further, it AC and LV did frame CD, this actually leads me to the question of what did LV need from CD? Had she already worked out how to get rid of Chad?

I so agree with this post. I started to think along those lines yesterday- the Black Widow doesn’t change her spots. She got away with it twice so far, third time not a problem, in Lori’s mind. She was a user. This reinforces why I think Chad will flip on Lori.
We’ll see.
There are many many people in jail today that were manipulated by their lovers to commit murder for love and still swear their conspirator is innocent. People see what they want. Chad might just be brainwashed by lust.
I am NOT saying Chad is innocent. I just think he got in over his head. The hunter becomes the hunted.

 

[LDS social scientist]

The letter was poorly written. The authors pulled two paragraphs out of a general policy document instead of including the complete directive. The general policy statement is itself ambiguous. It can be interpreted as a straightforward caution to leaders not to imply you are representing the church or as a broad inhibition against involvement in a personal capacity in any legal activity involving a fellow member. It also does not specify what sanctions, if any, are to be applied to those who violate the policy. Given those inadequacies I find it impossible to contribute anything meaninful. I would suggest that those who are motivated to contribute read and argue from the complete statement of policy:

38. Church Policies and Guidelines

Thanks for the link. I don't think the policy is as ambiguous as you say, as I argued above. But I agree that it's important to go to the policy itself.

 

[Sulamith]

Deleted

 

[Tortoise]

Apologes, I still cannot see the correlation between prebooking a Uhaul and the filing of the warrant. Thank you for your reply though. Your posts are much appreciated.

Perhaps moving evidence, knowingly or not. All the moving boxes had to be searched.

moo

 

[wenwe4]

So you don’t think they tested each of the folks in the house for gun powder residue? We don’t know that. I’m sure all three had to go down to the police station after the initial encounter to give a statement. Lori’s (lack of) response to her not yet divorced husband being killed by her brother would be suspect to me. Those LE were not ignoring anything or anyone’s actions/statements in that case.
Although Lori could have shot CV, I don’t think that’s the case. I believe she set it all up for AC, took the kids and split taking CV’s freaking rental car. Who does that? She had access to Charles’ personal info in that car as well. Her job was to scrub the scene/car clean.

What saddens me is poor Tylee - that she had to adapt to her mother’s craziness of constantly moving and was so scared hearing an argument outside her BR door that she came out with a bat. Her mother didn’t protect her because her mother was too involved in making sure the scene was set for CV’s murder. Lori only saw $ signs with regards to Tylee (JR’s life insurance money). Every one in Lori’s life was just a tool to use when she needed them.

BBM
IIRC when LVD first walked into the interview room she said something about 'thanks for letting me use the bathroom first' - did anyone else catch that? When I heard it I first thought "well there went all the gun powder residue".

 

[LDS social scientist]

The LDS Church was founded on visions and to this day has a certain reverence for personal revelation as a means for individuals and the Church itself to grow and prosper. It must be difficult for Church leadership to prevent its membership from carrying this aspect of Mormon sensibility to unhealthy extremes, without damaging its own foundations.

Yes, I agree. The desire for additional (and perhaps rather unorthodox) revelation and the possibility of schisms is kind of baked into the system of Mormonism.

 

[Nikynoo]

Perhaps moving evidence, knowingly or not. All the moving boxes had to be searched.

moo

Did LE search inside the house also, or just outside? IIRC, LE searched inside the house in January.

 

[Boxer]

I think the video referred to Tammy's murder. It was speculated that even if Chad decided to divorce, it would have taken years because Chad and Tammy had a temple marriage, and Chad was in a hurry.

In a hurry and divorce means no life insurance.

 

[SleuthD-o-doubleg]

Rexburg update: MM has been at the women’s detention center this week M-F. Plans for a memorial are getting submitted to the committee over parks. Then we just wait for approval or they can come back with any other questions or tweak things. Hoping it doesn’t get denied. The person I spoke with seemed excited about the ideas.