‘Cult mom’ Lori Vallow asked her soon-to-be husband Chad Daybell to determine whether her two children had ‘light or dark spirits’ nearly a year before they went missing, a newly uncovered e-mail reveals. 

On October 30 2018, Daybell e-mailed Vallow in response to her request for ‘family history documents’. He attached a rubric on light and dark spirits, and then graded her relatives accordingly.  

Vallow, a Doomsday author, wrote in his message to Vallow: ‘Current numbers on Earth at this time of each estate level. These totals represent the ‘light’ spirits. The ‘dark’ has equal parts. 

He designated Vallow’s 17-year-old Tylee as a ‘4.1 dark spirit’, while her seven-year-old son Joshua ‘JJ’ was determined to be ‘a light spirit, level 4.2.’

Daybell’s e-mail was sent less than 11 months before Tylee and JJ disappeared. Neither of the children have been seen since September 2019. 

The bombshell e-mail was uncovered and published by FOX 10 reporter Justin Lum.  

Former friend, Julie Rowe, told FOX 10 Daybel  has a ‘gift’ for identifying whether people have light or dark spirits. 

‘The thing is when you have some of these gifts, it gets real tricky because you’re not living in one dimension, you’re living in multiple dimensions, and Chad’s had two near-death experiences, so his veil is kind of open,’ she explained.  

It’s unclear how long Vallow and Daybell were communicating before he sent her the October 2018 email. At the time, both of them were married to other people. 

Vallow and Daybell only tied the knot in November of last year – two months after Tylee and Joshua were last seen.  

Vallow is currently being held in an Idaho prison after being charged with two felony counts of desertion and nonsupport of dependent children.  On Friday, a judge denied a request from Vallow to have her bond lowered from $1million to between $100,000 and $250,000.  

Earlier this week , Vallow’s niece has revealed that she never once saw her aunt’s two children since moving next door to the family in Idaho and never questioned their whereabouts. 

Melanie Pawlowski and her second husband, Ian, sat down with Dateline presenter Keith Morrison to talk about the twisted case, with the couple urging the public to reserve judgment. 

Vallow, 42, faces charges of child neglect and desertion in connection to the disappearance of her daughter, 17-year-old Tylee Ryan, and her seven-year-old son, Joshua ‘JJ’ Vallow, who have not been seen of heard from since September 2019. 

‘Eventually, everything will be exposed and then we’ll know, but until then I can’t make any judgement on things,’ Melani said in a brief preview video promoting the full two-hour episode of NBC’s Dateline airing at 9pm ET/8pm CT on Friday.  

Ian Pawlowski added: ‘We’re waiting to see, you know, Lori’s gonna have her day in court. She’s gonna present her defense. And we are hoping there is some reason behind it.’

Both spouses expressed hope that ‘the truth will be revealed’ and that Vallow will have a ‘story to tell’ in court. 

During the interview, Melanie also revealed that since moving next door to Vallow in Rexburg, Idaho, last November, she never once saw either one of her children. 

‘I’d ask Lori [where the kids were],’ she recounted. ‘I wasn’t close with Tylee in her teenage years. She was very independent, so if Lori said she was with friends, I just believed her.’

The program also features an interview with Vallow’s eldest son, Colby Ryan, who issued yet another plea for his mother to reveal the location of his siblings.  

Ryan has repeatedly called for his mother to cooperate with police searching for the children.  

‘It hurts so much – and on top of that we have a million questions,’ he told Morrison. ‘You can’t call your own mom, can’t go to her house and see your siblings – you’re just out in the cold.’

Ryan described attending the January 30 court hearing in Madison County, Idaho, where Vallow had been ordered to produce the children after police tracked her down in Hawaii. 

Lori never turned up at the hearing, prompting her arrest three weeks later. 

‘We were so confused, like how do you not produce the kids?’ Ryan said. ‘That’s the whole reason you’re in jail right now.’ 

Authorities began searching for JJ and Tylee in late November after Lori and her new husband, doomsday author Chad Daybell, fled their home in Idaho when police started to ask questions about the children.  

When officers first went to Vallow’s home in Idaho on November 26, she told them that JJ was visiting relatives in Arizona – which investigators say was a lie.  

Officers returned the following day and found that Lori and Chad had fled from the home.  

The couple were named persons of interest in the children’s disappearance in mid-December.  

Rexburg police have accused Vallow of repeatedly lying about where JJ and Tylee are and refusing to cooperate with investigators conducting a multi-state search. 

They’ve said they ‘strongly believe that Joshua and Tylee’s lives are in danger’ and that Lori knows what happened to the kids.  

Authorities tracked Lori and Chad down in the Kauai town of Princeville on January 25 and served the mother with a court order requiring her to physically produce the children to authorities in Idaho within five days. 

After she failed to do so, Lori was arrested on charges of child abandonment and desertion on February 20.  

She was later extradited back to Idaho, where she remains behind bars at Madison County Jail in lieu of $1million bond.  

The case captured nationwide attention with the revelations that police are also investigating four mysterious deaths linked to Lori and Chad, as well as family members’ claims that the couple are members of a dangerous doomsday cult.

The first death is that of Lori’s third husband, Joseph Ryan, who died of an apparent heart attack in 2018. 

Last month, reports emerged that the FBI was looking into Ryan’s death aged 59 as part of the search for Tylee, his daughter, and JJ. 

The second death was that of Lori’s fourth husband, Charles Vallow, who was shot dead by her brother, Alex Cox, in Arizona on July 11. 

Charles and Lori had gotten into an argument when the father came to pick up JJ at the mother’s home in Chandler. 

Lori’s brother intervened and fatally shot Charles. 

Police initially determined that he acted in self defense – but the case was reopened amid the multi-state search for JJ and Tylee, who had moved to Idaho, where Chad lived, with their mother in August.   

The third mysterious death was Tammy Daybell – Chad’s previous wife – who was found dead at the couple’s home in Salem, Idaho, on October 19.  

An obituary stated that Tammy passed away in her sleep and her cause of death was ruled as natural after Chad reportedly declined an autopsy. 

Investigators reopened the case after learning that JJ and Tylee were missing, as their mother had married Chad just two weeks after Tammy died. They believe the two cases could be linked.

Tammy’s body was exhumed on December 11 and the autopsy results have not yet been released. 

The Idaho Attorney General’s Office recently took over the investigation into Tammy’s death, which names Lori and Chad as suspects.  

On December 12, Lori’s brother, Alex Cox, was found dead in Gilbert, Arizona. 

The 51-year-old’s death is now under investigation as police wait for an autopsy to determine the cause.      

An additional untimely death close to Lori was unearthed this week: her older sister Stacey Lynne Cox Cope. 

Stacey died aged 31 in 1998. The cause is unclear and there is no suggestion Lori was involved in her death. 

Stacey’s daughter, Melani Pawlowski, has emerged as one of the key figures in the case surrounding Lori, following reports that she joined her aunt’s doomsday cult.  

Melani’s estranged husband, Brandon Boudreaux, accused her of attempting to kill him in a drive-by shooting last fall and claims that she knows where the missing children are but won’t cooperate with authorities. 

Melani has denied those claims, including in an interview with Dateline airing on Friday.   

‘Melani essentially appeared to want to present that all is fine,’ Morrison told the East Idaho News of the interview. ‘She acted like: “I don’t know of any problems whatsoever. We were all just doing our own thing and anything that seemed suspicious was merely a coincidence.” 

‘She’s a sweet, very attractive young woman who looks at you with big eyes and says it’s absolutely the truth. The viewers can look at it and see what they think.’

Morrison seeks to explain how Melani fits into the doomsday cult allegations surrounding Chad and Lori.  

Previous reports claimed that Melani thought Brandon had been possessed by a demon, and that Lori and Chad had told her they thought JJ and Tylee were ‘zombies’.  

‘There are all these people who surround Chad and Lori who appear to be part of this group,’ Morrison said. 

‘When you hear people talk seriously about evil spirits inhabiting their spouses or members of their family, or people becoming zombies and needing to be eliminated, you’re getting into some serious stuff. 

‘And those are the kinds of materials we have found ourselves dealing with over this period of time.’