Extreme religious views about children emerge in both Daybell, 8 Passengers cases

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Two cases with ties to Utah have gained worldwide attention for egregious crimes against children. In both cases, mothers had a view of their children that was seen as demonic in some way.

Lori Vallow Daybell and Ruby Franke are two mothers who were both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

RELATED: Lori Vallow Daybell sentenced to life in prison for murder of two children, husband’s late wife

“They went from being ordinary to having extreme views and committing terrible criminal acts,” said USU Professor of Religious Studies and History Patrick Mason.

Public Defender and Content Creator Natalie Wittingham-Burrell has a YouTube channel.

RELATED: Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt get consecutive prison sentences for aggravated child abuse

She said a major similarity between both women was their belief that “children have the ability to be overtaken by demons due to past life activities, or that children’s behavior is somehow seen as demonic.”

In Franke’s diary she wrote: “I will not feed a demon.” She called her children “sinful” and “manipulative.”

Franke told her husband in a recorded prison phone call: “It’s very difficult for adults to understand that children can be full of evil and what it takes to fight it.”

While testifying in court, Vallow Daybell’s former girlfriend Melanie Gibb told jurors that Vallow Daybell would call some people “possessed” or “zombies.”

She testified that Vallow Daybell told her people who were light had signed contracts with “the Redeemer” – and people who were dark: had signed contracts with “Satan.”

Wittingham-Burrell felt that both women were talking about the need to “get rid of this evil.”

“They all developed this way of removing the demons from the children,” Wittingham-Burrell said. “At Daybell it was these séances where they did this kind of spirit work to remove the spirits from the children; it wasn’t hands on. With Franke it was physical trials to remove the demons from the children, essentially torture of the children to remove these perceived demons from them.

Professor Mason said this is not part of the LDS faith. “In both cases we also saw that they were importing ideas from other places,” he said.

Through it all, Wittingham-Burrell felt that both women were isolating their children from the communities they were in.

Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell moved her children to Rexburg, Idaho. When investigators interviewed Ruby Franke’s husband, Kevin Franke, he said he had been kicked out. Franke and her youngest children also stayed at Hildebrandt’s home in Ivins, Utah.

Investigators asked Kevin Franke, “You haven’t seen your kids in over a year, you said?”

“That’s right,” Kevin Franke replied.

Wittingham-Burrell said the argument could be made that many similarities between Franke and Vallow Daybell seem to be found in a book called “Visions of Glory.”

The cover of the book reads: ‘One man’s astonishing account of the last days.’

“They believe they have to prepare for the end of the world. That there are only going to be so many people that are going to essentially survive the apocalypse,” Wittingham-Burrell said. “Chad Daybell said Rexburg: Idaho will be the place people have to go to survive the end of the world. . . With Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt, in Ruby Franke’s writing, she talks about the urgency with which Hildebrandt says they need to get away from the rest of the world, with what is to come. . . There is talk of moving abroad. They move away and isolate themselves, and then the most vulnerable among them are harmed.”

Licensed psychologist and content creator Patrice Berry covered social media cases involving children and/or trauma.

“I think they heard a message that was then used as a weapon against children,” she said. “There’s a lot of power-and-control dynamics. . . They seem to think they have a unique calling. In both cases, in my opinion, their own needs, their own desires somewhat clouded their judgment, and they turned against their children. . . What they believed God was telling them could be what they wanted.”

Berry also noted the physical characteristics that Vallow Daybell and Ruby Franke might have benefited from.

“In both cases they were also traditionally beautiful,” Berry said. “You can’t judge someone based on what he looks like. Someone can look great and be guilty of harmful behavior.”