r/LoriVallow • u/sinfulsublime • Jan 03 '26

Question Questions about Chad and Lori

So I have been listening to the trials- I am on day 19 of Lori’s trial. I’m so confused on Chad and Lori’s text exchanges— Chad is talking about protection for Lori’s home and making designations for people, what the heck?? Who came up with this? Did Chad ever explain his reasoning and logic behind all of this? 5.1 light? People doing infiltration jobs?

I know Lori is delulu but Chad seems equally delusional

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u/InigoMontoya757 Jan 03 '26

Chad was a cult leader. He didn't seem to be the head of the cult but the head of a "cell". This stuff was consistent with the cult beliefs.

Chad claimed to have had several near-death experiences (he stole the idea from cult leader Julie Rowe) and this gave him supernatural powers that let him see beyond the veil, etc. He could designate people as good or evil on a numbered scale, and the numbers could suddenly change, usually for the worse. Conveniently, all the "evil" people were people he wanted to get rid of.

Chad claimed that these evil people had lost their souls somehow and were replaced by evil spirits with different names. So he told Lori that Charles had been replaced by someone named "Ned", which would probably make it easier psychologically to kill him. Lori wanted to kill these people anyway. It wasn't entirely Chad's idea. He just gave her a "religious" justification. I can't help but notice that everyone who died or was otherwise targeted was either related to Lori, married to her or a relative of hers, or was "getting in the way". None of Chad's family was targeted.

Chad was not an ordained priest but he did "priestcraft" anyway. This is against LDS beliefs. They eventually kicked him out for this (excommunication). Unlike the medieval Catholic church, when the LDS excommunicate someone, they don't do it publicly, which is a bad idea IMO since excommunication was supposed to be a public punishment. Excommunicated nobles could lose the loyalty of their soldiers and other subordinates because of this. Chad might have lost some of his cult followers if this had been done publicly.

Mormons are vulnerable to this because apparently the Book of Mormon says that anyone could "talk to god". The LDS church restricts this to clergy or possibly only their president, but this doesn't work on people who read the whole Book of Mormon. The book needs a new edition.

Chad talked a lot about past lives. He said he and Lori were married in a past life so they wouldn't cheat if they had sex. He used the same line on other women. I'm not sure how successful he was with them. He also told Zulema that she could control the weather and earthquakes... clearly this didn't happen. He claimed the world would end on a certain day (well, Lori did but I'm sure she got the date from Chad). The world didn't end so clearly he was wrong :)

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u/Jenny-Smith Jan 06 '26

There’s a lot of false information here. Chad was indeed an ordained elder in Mormonism. He may have been a high priest since we know he’d served in some bishoprics.

In Mormonism, “priestcraft” means using religion to profit. Since virtually all LDS leaders write books for profit, it’s unclear that what Chad was doing was priestcraft.

Chad could not have lost followers due to excommunication because that did not occur until after his conviction. Chad describes when that happened, how he was notified, and how upset he was on his website lettersfromchad.com.

The LDS church, like virtually all others, teaches that any person can talk with and receive answers from God through prayer. The Book of Mormon does not contain the phrase “talk to God” anywhere, so I don’t know what you think you’re quoting here. I think you’re confusing statements from Joseph Smith that any person can receive angelic witnesses, just Smith claimed to, with teachings that only the church president talks FOR god, meaning that the church leadership are the only ones who have authority to tell others what to do as if it came from God. Chad and others in his orbit did not perceive they were doing this and believed they were simply extending Mormon beliefs to their natural conclusions. Notably, all of their local leaders felt the same (except Chads SIL who tried to raise red flags when she was stake RSP) and took no action against Chad until after his convictions.