Chad Daybell has been arrested and charged with willfully destroying, concealing or altering evidence after the remains of his wife's two children were found on his Rexburg, Idaho property, police said.
A petition to remove Chad Daybell's books from Amazon.com has garnered more than 9,800 signatures after the author was charged with willfully destroying, concealing or altering evidence following the discovery of the remains of his wife's two children on his Idaho property.
The Change.org petition was started by a Utah man after the bodies of Joshua "JJ" Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 17, were found in the yard of Chad's home in Rexburg on June 9. The petition asks that "Amazon erase all mentions of Chad Daybell's works from their website."
Amazon.com currently has multiple titles by Chad, who is both an author and publisher, for sale. Chad's writing focuses on the end of the world, near-death experiences and communicating with people "on the other side of the veil," according to his website. His books also discuss his belief in past lives. People who once believed in Chad's ideas, such as his former friend Melanie Gibb, have since called them "dangerous doctrine."
Amazon.com did not respond to Inside Edition Digital's request for comment about the petition.
Family members said JJ and Tylee's mother, Lori Vallow Daybell, began to change after reading Chad's books.
Lori started "to read some books published by [Chad] Daybell and listen to other podcasts and things like that," JJ's biological grandfather, Larry Woodcock, previously told Inside Edition Digital. "But up until that point, Lori was the quintessential mom: extremely athletic, loving, caring. You could not ask for a better mom. And then it all just went to hell in a hand basket, and Lori changed."
In a Facebook post, JJ's biological grandmother, Kay Woodcock, wrote Lori was a "wonderful, loving, attentive mother" until "things started changing over the past 18+ months when Lori began spending all her time with a new religious group."
Daybell's books focus on what he believes he has seen and been told in the "spirit world," according to his website. Those include visions of an apocalyptic United States before the second coming of Jesus Christ, which Chad wrote about in a series of books he called Times of Turmoil.
Lori's friends and family say she became obsessed with the end of the world after reading Chad's books. Her former sister-in-law, Annie Cushing, told KSL-TV Lori's beliefs disturbed her.
"It’s like she wanted me to be afraid of the end times,” Cushing told KSL-TV. "There was one time where she was talking about it and she says, 'Sometimes, I think it would be better just to get put my kids in a car and go off the side of a cliff.'"
A document written by Lori's niece's husband, Ian Pawlowski, also describes Lori's alleged belief in the existence of "zombies," "teleportation" and people who have been "possessed by a demon." Chad and Lori's former friend, Melanie Gibb, told police Lori believed JJ and Tylee had become "zombies" and that it was her and Chad's mission to "rid the world of 'zombies,'" according to an affidavit of probable cause written by Lt. Ron Ball of the Rexburg Police Department.
The couple also believed that while a zombie's "dark spirit" is inhabiting a person's body, "the person’s true spirit goes into 'limbo' and is stuck there until the host body is physically killed," according to the affidavit, and this was a belief Lori had learned from Chad.
Lori has been charged with two counts of felony desertion of her children and remains in jail on $1 million bond. Chad faces felony charges of willfully destroying, concealing or altering evidence and also remains in jail on $1 million bond. Both Chad and Lori have pleaded not guilty and the couple denies all allegations of wrongdoing. Neither of their attorneys, Mark Means or John Prior, responded to Inside Edition Digital's requests for comment.
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