What the Daybell kids are saying is self-evidently and laughably untrue, but that doesn't mean they're lying. If the last few years have taught us anything, it's that many of us are perfectly capable of believing an absurdity. In practice, we believe what we want to believe, and when information contradicts what we believe, we ignore it and go searching for different information. So while I find some of what the Daybell kids said unconvincing (pretty much everything involving the racoon sounded like a fabrication to me), I wouldn't be surprised in the least if they believed their own ludicrous stories.
And let me be clear: the stories are ludicrous. Nothing about them holds up. The kids' description of the discovery of their mother's death completely contradicts what CD wrote about it for AVOW: the "slight smile" indicative of a peaceful "slip[ping] away" has been replaced by a loud thud, mass confusion, and totally disorienting trauma. The kids' contention that, while burying a racoon in the previously unknown second pet cemetery, their dad failed to notice AxC burying two kids in the original pet cemetery beggars belief. And the idea that LV framed CD and then married him is simply bizarre.
But if millions of people with no personal stake in the issue can believe the COVID-19 vaccination implants a microchip in your arm or makes you magnetic, then there's nothing terribly surprising about some kids believing their almost certainly guilty father is innocent. The only thing that did seem surprising to me was they appear to show so little loyalty toward, or concern for, their mother.
If the facts are what we all assume they are, then these kids are taking the side of their murdering father over that of their murdered mother. My question is less why are they doing this than why do they want to do this? Why would they not want to go all in on finding out what happened to their beloved mother?
In the end, though, I think this is a false paradox. The Daybell kids' passionate defense of their father is inextricably linked to their seeming lack of concern for their mother. In short, the likely truth of what happened to their mother would be indescribably and unimaginably awful to them . . . and unwavering belief in their father's innocence is the only thing that insulates them from having to face it.
