Witnesses dive into ‘unorthodox’ beliefs behind Daybell murder trial

BOISE, Idaho (ABC4) — Lori Vallow Daybell’s niece was one of two witnesses who took the stand in Chad Daybell’s murder trial and discussed the religious beliefs of “zombies,” “light and dark,” and “Cain’s translated followers.”

Prosecutors called Lori’s niece, Melani Pawlowski, and her husband, Ian Pawlowski, to the stand Monday, May 6, and asked them about religious themes and audio that was secretly recorded around the time of the disappearance of Lori’s children, JJ and Tylee.

BACKGROUND INFO: A complete timeline for the Daybell, Vallow murders

The bodies of Joshua “JJ” Vallow and Tylee Rayn were found the following year in Chad Daybell’s yard in Idaho.

Both witnesses testified that Melani Pawlowski viewed Lori and Chad as parental figures, with Ian Pawlowski asking them for their blessing on their marriage and Melani calling Chad “dad.”

When Melani Pawlowski asked Lori directly about the whereabouts of JJ, Melani said Lori told her he was with a nanny. When asked about Tylee, she said Lori gave “a few different answers” but a common one was that she was with a friend from college at BYU.

Possession and “zombies”

Melani Pawlowski spoke on a few of the religious teachings she said Lori had taught her in 2018 and 2019, adding that she thought they originated from Chad. She said Chad believed he was to help organize the “Church of the Firstborn” and said their mission was to help with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

“Chad was said to have a gift to spiritually discern and he could see light and dark, or if a person had good intentions, but that he could see through and have that gift,” Melani Pawlowski said.

Melani Pawlowski testified that Chad used a “pendant or necklace” he could use to “get an answer to something he wanted to know,” however, he didn’t always need it.

She continued to explain that they would perform “castings” on people — such as Lori’s husband at the time Charles Vallow — to cast out a dark spirit. Melani said Lori later introduced the term “zombie” to describe someone who was possessed.

“There was some type of darkness that you couldn’t cast out, and so … the Lord in his due time would have to take, that person would pass away because this darkness was too much,” she said. “They would pass away because they couldn’t have this darkness inside them, or that it overtook them.”

Prosecutors asked her if Charles, Tylee, and JJ were labeled as “dark,” which Melani confirmed. Prosecutors asked if they were still alive, and she responded, “No.”

Chad Daybell’s defense attorney confirmed with Melani Pawlowski that most of her communication with Chad was through Lori, and she also heard the term “zombie” through Lori. He also asked questions in a nod toward the idea that “light and dark” and “castings” were not entirely foreign to mainstream LDS beliefs.

However, Ian Pawlowski took the stand detailing how he first found their teachings to be “unorthodox” when Chad gave him a blessing over a Zoom call.

“It was unorthodox based on the LDS beliefs that I held at the time. They talked about shielding you with light, removing dark weapons from me, the fact that it did not occur in person,” he said.

Secret recordings

Ian Pawlowski said he became concerned on Nov. 30, 2019 — the night he got married to Melani — when Melani Pawlowski shared more information with him and expressed her fear that JJ and Tylee might be in danger. He said this made him worried about the safety of his own children and his ex-wife, which prompted him to speak with police.

In December of 2019, he said he went to police and they asked him to secretly record any conversations he was a part of with Lori and Chad.

Prosecutors played portions of the recordings, one of which recorded Lori and Chad asking Melani and Ian Pawlowski to move from Rexburg for a time after local police began questioning them about Tylee and JJ.

Melani Pawlowski testified that Lori and Chad had labeled Detectives Hermosillo and Hope — who have both previously testified during the trial — as “dark.”

In the recording, Lori can be heard saying, “We had no idea the police were infiltrated with such dark people in Rexburg itself, proper.”

Then a male voice, which Ian Pawlowski identified as Chad said, “It makes sense in retrospect, but you don’t think that immediately that little Rexburg would be planted with Cain’s translated followers, but that makes sense.”

Ian Pawlowski explained on the stand that “Cain’s translated followers” referred to the belief that Cain from the bible had his own 12 dark, immortal disciples.

Following the discussion of Melani and Ian Pawlowski leaving Rexburg due to the “dark” police officers, Chad offered a blessing that mentioned “portals” and “cords.”

Ian Pawlowski clarified that portals referred to a belief that “upon reaching a certain ability or level of spiritual worthiness and strength you could open up a portal and step through it and land anywhere you saw fit.” He said cords were anchors “that tie you to a negative force or a positive force.”

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