Dateline NBC · · Transcript & summary by WhipScribe
It is the behind-the-scenes account of how Dateline finally got Brandon Boudreaux on camera and what his side adds to a case viewers thought they already knew.
Tap a chapter to open that moment in the transcript; the link to it is copied for you.
“I think that they were selling exclusivity, right?” Brittany Morris · at 10:22 — open in the transcript →
“It was just he would not cede an inch to her, which made it even more satisfying to watch.” Keith Morrison · at 24:56 — open in the transcript →
Keith Morrison hands this Talking Dateline to two producers, Shane Bishop and Brittany Morris, to unpack their eighth report on the Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell case. Its subject is Brandon Boudreaux, who married Vallow's niece Melanie in 2008 and lived near Lori and Charles Vallow in Phoenix. Bishop had been asking him for an interview since early 2020. Boudreaux agreed only once the criminal trials were over and his book, Unthinkable, was out. Both producers describe a warm, steady man who kept part of his grief private.
A large part of the conversation tries to explain how a comfortable family fell into the Daybell belief system. Morris went back through the Idaho trial testimony and found witnesses saying the labels of who was dark came from Daybell and were passed on by Vallow. The producers argue the small group meetings sold exclusivity and purpose, and that Melanie, who lost her mother young, treated her aunt as a surrogate parent. Her 2020 interview with the team still strikes them as one of the strangest they have recorded.
The danger to Boudreaux is laid out through money and dates. The shot fired at his car came a day after the family home sale closed, while Melanie still stood to collect his life insurance. Vallow later cross-examined him at her Arizona trial, and he gave her no ground. Melanie has never been charged, so any case depends on Gilbert police and Maricopa County prosecutors. Listener questions close the hour, covering the shared custody arrangement, Vallow's pending appeals and the family who stood by Boudreaux.
Dateline producer Shane Bishop first met Brandon Boudreaux on his parents' porch in early 2020 and kept asking him for an interview for about six and a half years. Boudreaux said yes once the criminal trials appeared to be over and after he wrote a book, Unthinkable, which he sent to Bishop a few months before the report.
Brittany Morris re-listened to testimony from the Idaho trials and found witnesses, including Melanie Gibb, saying Lori Vallow got her information from Chad Daybell, such as who had been identified as dark, and then relayed it to everyone else. The producers' view, echoing law enforcement, is that neither would have gone so far without the other: Daybell supplied the content and Vallow was the persuasive, inviting messenger.
Brittany Morris explained that the shot fired at Brandon Boudreaux came within months of Melanie asking for a divorce, and one day after the sale of their family home was finalized on October 1. Because the divorce was not yet final, Melanie was still the beneficiary of more than $100,000 in life insurance and stood to gain all of his assets if he died.
Lori Vallow represented herself at her Arizona trial for attempting to kill Brandon Boudreaux, so she questioned him directly. Brittany Morris saw a measured but pointed witness who would not accept her framing, and read it as Boudreaux reclaiming the narrative. Keith Morrison, who has interviewed Vallow at length in jail, said Boudreaux refused to give her any ground, which is how you avoid getting caught up in her spin.
Brittany Morris said prosecutors identified Melanie as an active member of Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell's conspiracy, but she has never been charged. The Gilbert Police Department has an active investigation, and any charge requires sending the case to Maricopa County prosecutors for review. Maricopa County already returned a Gilbert police case against Chad Daybell as not strong enough to take to court.
Shane Bishop explained that after Brandon Boudreaux won temporary sole custody, Melanie asked for reconsideration and a custody evaluator recommended a 50-50 split. Boudreaux first wanted to fight it, but he and his wife Jenny were told by people who had been through it that the judge would likely follow the recommendation, so he set his anger aside for the children. Brittany Morris added that the deal was reached by both parties, their lawyers, a mediator and a judge.
Brittany Morris said Lori Vallow has ongoing appeals in both Arizona and Idaho, and the Idaho Supreme Court was set to hear her case on November 2nd. Morris saw no reason to expect Vallow to attend that hearing, but said Vallow keeps litigating, so whether she returns to a courtroom, including if Melanie is ever charged, remains open.
When Brandon Boudreaux arrived in Rexburg, JJ's grandparents Kay and Larry Woodcock were there, and Larry had vertigo and trouble standing. Someone had to identify JJ's body, so Boudreaux told Larry to stay and went himself. The producers saw it as a snap act of kindness that showed his character, and said it was one of the moments that made him emotional in the interview.
Our own transcript of the public episode, with a timestamp about every 90 seconds. Tap a timestamp or the link button on a paragraph to copy a link that opens this page there.
0:00Terry Cottle died by suicide, but his heart lived on, transplanted into Sonny Graham. Years later, Sonny died the exact same way. Same heart, same fate. But that wasn't the strangest connection between them. Sonny also married Terry's widow. Hosted by Karen Kilgareff, this is Heart, an Apple original podcast produced by Plan B and Blanchard House. New episodes are available Mondays and Apple TV subscribers get special early access to the entire season. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts. Granger knows if you're a procurement manager at an industrial manufacturing facility, you're balancing inventory and budget while sourcing critical supplies across the operation. Too much inventory? Cost climb.
0:41Too little? Production slows. Granger's $2 billion in on-hand inventory helps you get what you need when you need it, so you can help keep budgets balanced and lines moving. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, clickgrainger.com, or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done. Hello, everybody. I'm Keith Morrison, and this is Talking Dateline. This is a very unusual Talking Dateline. Normally, you would be having a couple of correspondents talking to each other about their experiences covering a story. But this time, I have what I consider to be the distinct honor to speak to a couple of our really very awesome producers. Shane Bishop, a man I've been doing business with on Dateline for, gosh, how many years,
1:31Shane? Just about 30 years now, right? Right. And Brittany Morris, not as long, but it's been terrific as well. Thanks, Keith. So this time I get a chance to talk to the two of you about a story we have covered, and you have done most of the coverage, most of the work, for quite a number of years. This may be a final chapter, may not be a final chapter. We'll see. But this is a story of Brandon Boudreaux. Brandon Boudreaux was a kind of a quasi-relative of a woman you know well. Perhaps you know her as Mommy Doomsday, but he knew her as Aunt Lolo, Lori Vallow, the infamous woman behind a number of murders, including her own children. If you haven't listened to the episode yet, you should go right now and do so, and then
2:18come on back and listen to my interview with Shane and Brittany. And later, we'll get your questions also from social media. This has been quite a saga. How many episodes, remind me, have we done on the Lori Vallow saga? I should say the Lori Vallow-Chad Daybell saga. This was number eight. And I think every time for the last, what, two years, Brittany, when we finished a screening of these pieces, our boss has asked, is that it? And I think maybe now it is, but it hasn't been before. This is a very complicated tale, a tale that began years ago when we heard about some missing children and we made a sojourn to Hawaii to track down Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell. And then we heard increasingly strange things about
3:05what they were up to, what they believed, the idea that somehow Chad and Lori were gods who were going to lead the faithful to the end times and meet Jesus Christ. Lori Vallow was a goddess in her view, and so she believed that she had a responsibility to do whatever Chad decided. And he began to declare her children dark, and then that they are zombies, and eventually they disappear. And when they're finally found, they've been buried in Chad Daybell's backyard. And along the way, a man named Brandon Boudreau, who was married to the niece of Lori Vallow, is told that his wife is leaving him. And then one day, Brandon Boudreau is in his car, and he hears a pop, and there's a shot that was obviously aimed at him, almost killed him.
3:58We now have to find out what happened to him, who took a shot at him, and he has to keep himself safe, he and his children. And it becomes the adventure story of Brandon Boudreau trying to survive, trying to keep his children safe in the face of what he considered to be terrible danger. Why has it been so long since between the events that he describes and our story now? Well, I first met Brandon on his parents' porch in early 2020, and I've been knocking on his door and standing on his porch and sitting him down for about six and a half years, asking him to talk to you. And now, for the first time, he has done that simply because, A, all the criminal trials are over, seemingly, and B, he wrote a book called unthinkable so he sent me
4:47that book a few months ago and my first reaction was i don't want to do any more stories on laurie vallow and then we talked about it and decided that he had kind of an insider view that we hadn't heard yet and he it's a fascinating story uh and and a harrowing one. I mean, and he told it so calmly and like so maturely. I was quite taken with his attitude and his demeanor. Brittany, what did you make of Brandon Boudreau when you met him? So I don't think I'll ever forget that when I first met Brandon in person. We were in California. Jenny and Brandon are getting out of their car. And I imagine Brandon's going to be somber, right? Like he's mentally preparing himself. And he throws his arms wide open and is just like walking down the street with this gigantic smile on his face.
5:39It was the warmest invitation that I've ever gotten from someone. And that's exactly how he interacted with us from that day on. He's exactly the same guy now that I met six and a half years ago on his parents' porch. He has always been kind, welcoming. I just can't say enough good things about him. I think we were all just incredibly impressed with him as a human being. Yeah, so taken. So, Shane, talk about Brandon's connection with Lori Vallum and Chad Debo. He told us what his attitude toward them was at the beginning and the strange things that happened. But the initial couple of years in their orbit, what were those like for him, as you recall? Brandon married Lori Vallum's niece, Melanie, in 2008.
6:26Melanie was very close to Lori, her aunt, because Melanie's mom, Stacy, had died when she was young. So Lori was kind of a surrogate mom. They often lived around each other. And then after Brandon and Melanie married in 2008, they moved down to Phoenix at some point where Lori lived. Lori was married to her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, and had been for a dozen years or so. And Brandon and Charles were both salesmen. Both quite successful, too. Very successful. They plotted businesses together. They played with their kids together. And they just really bonded. They really with their kids together. And they just really, they bonded. They really felt a kinship. And I think that's why all this was so mind-blowing to Brandon. One day, Melanie came to him and said, God told me you're gay, and I'm leaving you.
7:15And from there, things kind of snowballed. Take us through what happened there, Shane. So Melanie and Brandon had been married for more than 10 years. They had four kids. And Melanie had been attending some meetings during evenings, it turns out, with Lori and with a small group of people who also followed this small-time author and would-be prophet named Chad Daybell, who made all of these people, I think, feel very special, which was the allure. You know, he told Lori that they had been married in previous lives. And Melanie came home one time. We didn't put this in our story, but she came home from one of these meetings and she asked Brandon, in the Bible, did Jesus have a niece? So I think, you know, Chad knew which buttons to push with her melanie
8:07felt very special and suddenly you know i think you wrote the line she spoke as if endowed with some divine authority uh in telling brandon that that he was gay and so she spoke for god basically well this whole religious thing that occurred the catalyst for it does appear to have been Chad Debo. A lot of people wonder, was it Lori Vallow who made all this happen, or was it Chad? So as part of this process, I went back and I listened to a lot of the testimony from Lori's and Chad's Idaho trials. people that testified, Melanie Gibb, Zulaina Pestanis, names that we've heard in other Dateline reports, all said that Lori was getting this information from Chad, right? Like when someone was identified as dark, that was information directly given to Lori from Chad.
8:56And then Lori relayed that to everyone else. And so it does make you wonder, right? Like, was this really all Chad and Chad's influence over Lori? And Lori is a really effective communicator and a very inviting person and someone that people will rally behind, sort of like this tag team effort. But the information itself, it appears, according first place, to become so quickly engaged with each other and to go so far down that tunnel of extreme thinking? unhappy in his marriage at some level and needed some more attention and she needed to be made special and he took care of that for her and you know they fed off each other and then putting the two of them together a number of law enforcement people have said you know because you and i've
9:55asked this question for years right was chad driving the bus or was laurie driving the bus and it's really a situation where it was it was not for one, the other might not have happened. They just came together. And I guess the big mystery for me is still who believed this stuff? I mean, it's just a bunch of nonsense, right? But clearly they were able to sell it to some people. And people like Alex who were willing to commit murder for them. I think that they were selling exclusivity, right? Like, and community. When we think about those really small group meetings that Melanie was going to with her aunt and others, it really was this like very tight-knit group of people that made you feel exclusive
10:40and a part of something so much bigger than yourself. But it gave them purpose. It gave them intention. It gave them something to go to and look forward to every day. And I know that you covered this, Shane, but that's something that Brandon talked about in regard to Melanie and that she grew up without a mother, right? And he felt like there was that hole there, that she needed to fill some hole that a mother could have been for her. Yeah, that's certainly true. When we talked to Melanie, it was 2020, just as the pandemic was crashing down on all of us. She was still a true believer at that point, I think. Or was she? I was never very sure exactly where she was at that point. I think the two most bizarre interviews I've ever witnessed at Dateline were Melanie's and Lori's.
11:30I mean, you've sat in front of a lot of people, and I think we both had the sense that something wasn't right there. And it was three months before the kids' bodies were found. So she was still claiming to have hope that the kids were alive and that she trusted Lori. We asked her lawyers for comment on this story and they chose not to respond. So we're left to wonder. Then you add in the videos we have of her showing up in Brendan's parents' house, of her trying to find the kids at the friend's house, of situations with Alex sitting out in the car that seemed very threatening, which now she's saying weren't threatening at all. So you really don't know where you are when you're talking to her.
12:19I've always wondered why they were trying so hard to find the kids. I mean, was it just a standard divorce thing? They're my kids. You know, I deserve time with them too. Or was there something more to it? That's why in retrospect, Brandon was so terrified and understandably so. And yet, also, Melanie could say, no, no, no, nothing like that in mind at all. But again, back to that relationship between Chad and Lori, I find it so fascinating in that he wasn't Mr. America, if I can put it that way. And yet she was so smitten with him so immediately. This is one I keep going over and over and over. It's strange, isn't it? Because, you know, she had, I mean, by most measures, she had everything anyone could ever want.
13:03True. You know, Charles was clearly hardworking. He converted to LDS for her. He was serious about it. He came from a good family. He seemed to take care of her. I mean, I'm not sure she had a care in the world when she was married to Charles. Didn't seem to. And Charles would do anything for her. And I can't help but see the parallels again to Brandon's story. And we obviously talk about this in our report. Melanie had everything that you think you could ever want from life. A beautiful home, a beautiful family, a successful husband who's present, and a healthy relationship with that person. And yet it took a few words, some words to completely upend that. Right. Fascinating case. When we come back, we have an extra clip with my interview with Brandon.
13:59And we will listen to that. Rosetta Stone just came out with Rosetta Stone Sapphire, their biggest launch in over a decade. One new feature in Rosetta Stone Sapphire is chat missions, which turns conversation practice into a game. With chat missions, you're put in interactive scenarios and given three objectives. A mission to accomplish, like asking how much something costs, ordering a cold brew coffee, or getting a Wi-Fi password. Along the way, you get real-time corrections and feedback to help you sound more natural and confident. It's a supportive way to build confidence before putting your language skills to use in real life. If you want to take your language skills to the next level, don't wait to try Rosetta Stone Sapphire.
14:44Digline listeners can get 20% off their Rosetta Stone Sapphire subscription when they sign up today. This gets you access to Rosetta Stone Sapphire in 25 languages. There's nothing quite like having pieces in your closet you love and know you can count on for any occasion, except, maybe, giving someone else that same feeling. This holiday season, find those pieces at Quince. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, premium stretch denim. And when it comes to gifting, Quince has a lot more than clothing. Think leather bags, hotel-quality bedding, chef-grade cookware, five-star luggage. Basically, plenty of ways to find something special for everyone on your list.
15:32Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. Remember to note Dateline in the post-purchase survey. Brought to you by the Capital One Saver card. With Saver, you earn unlimited 3% cash back on dining, entertainment, and grocery stores. That's unlimited cash back on ordering takeout from home or unlimited cash back on tickets to concerts and games. So grab a bite, grab a seat, and earn unlimited 3% cash back with a Saver Card. Capital One. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com for details. There's that very sad and telling moment when Tylee is being interviewed by the police
16:28after Charles is shot, her stepfather with whom she's been for most of her life. And she sits there very passively and suggests that her mother's story is accurate, that he came at her with a baseball bat, which nobody believes for a moment. I wondered what must have been going on in her mind during that interview with the police. I guess we can only guess now. Brandon had a pretty close relationship with those kids, didn't he? Yeah. Brandon's children were best friends with JJ and Tylee. We saw many photos of them together doing things, and they played together multiple times a week at the park because they lived so close to each other. And it was a huge part of JJ's life. And so when Brandon took a
17:14break from Charles and Lori at the request of Melanie, we saw text messages that Brandon never got that were along the lines of like, JJ misses his best friend. JJ misses his cousins. JJ would love to play with his cousins. So there was that relationship there. And then Brandon also baptized Tylee. And that was a decision that Tylee made. Tylee asked Brandon, will you baptize me? But he also talked about a lot of vacations that they took together. That was incredibly hard to hear uh what he lost um and what is and what his children lost when they lost their cousins how did he take the news of their death i got the feeling that he was pretty sure they were gone by the time it was confirmed in june of 2020 but still i mean how do you prepare yourself for something like that? I mean,
18:06I don't know how many times we heard this or even said this, like, they wouldn't do that to the kids, would they? I mean, you know, they wouldn't, right? One of the things he got emotional about during the interview with us was when he talked about having to go and identify the body, JJ's body. Why did he do it? He did it because when he showed up in Rexburg, JJ's grandparents, Kay and Larry Woodcock, were there. And Larry had vertigo, and he was having trouble standing up. And they needed somebody to go identify JJ's body. And so Brandon just said, Larry, you stay here. I'll go do it. And it was just kind of a snap decision he made to be kind to Larry, which I think just is another thing that tells you who he really is.
18:52He does. Yeah, that's his character. He talked about going to visit where JJ and Tyler were buried in Chad Daybill's backyard. It's a heartbreaking piece of that interview. Let's listen to that from Brandon Boudreaux. He took a trip, and I got some things for those kids that were things that are memories I have of them and went to where they were found and you put them out and Wait a minute. You went out to Chaz's property? What things did you Yeah. JJ was the cutest uh little guy and he charles traveled a lot for work and so like he associated a suitcase with dad and therefore it was kind of like a he had this phase where he was just obsessed with suitcases like he had like 20 30 suitcases i'm not even really like so many many. Disney ones, everything you can think of, right?
19:46But he would take these suitcases everywhere with him because he'd see Dad with a suitcase, so, you know, he wanted a suitcase. Sure. So I went and got him a suitcase and I dropped it off for him over there at his fence, you know? I didn't want him to be without his suitcase. Hmm. And Tylee was in that phase where she liked to go get a Baja Blast from Taco Bell. Taco Bell was one of the spots she'd go. She had health problems, so she couldn't always eat it. She kind of had to have a strict diet on certain things. But I knew that was one of her guilty pleasure spots, and so I went and just got her order from Taco Bell and chopped it up for her. Just something to leave. How is he grappling with the loss of those kids?
20:41I think he's worked through it all as well as he can, six and a half years. You know, multiple trials, having to testify at those trials. We got some sense of his pain on TV, but he also didn't let us all the way in. He's not that guy. Yeah, I think he's saving a bit of it for himself, and I respect that because i i don't think you can never truly understand what it because at the crux of this was his concern for his kids right he's like are my kids all right there was something in him that said no they're not and i need to run and he was so. And then at the end of it all, he ended up losing two children very close to him and his own children. That's got to be such a heavy weight to carry, right?
21:34It was quite a saga. He drops his kids at school one day, comes home, and he feels a pop. And there's a bullet hole, you know, an inch or two from his head. And he looks across, and he sees what appears to be a Jeep that belonged to Lori Vallow with Alex Cox driving it. And he realizes he has been a target of an attempted murder. He has to go on the run, and that's when it all begins. But it was the timing of the shooting that helped him understand why it may have happened when it happened. Can you tell me about that? The shooting happened within months of that conversation Brandon had with Melanie and they started the process of the divorce. And that meant selling this really beautiful home
22:23that they had built and chosen to be their forever home. The sale of the home had been finalized literally the day before, October 1. The home has been sold. Checks are being cut. It is official. That next day, Brandon is shot at. And it's worth noting, too, that at that same time, Melanie is still the person that would be paid out over $100,000 in life insurance if Brandon were to pass, right? Because they're not officially divorced. They're in the process of it. So she's still the person that would stand to gain every single asset that Brandon has if he were to die. Brandon has come face to face with Lori in the courtroom several times. He testified at both Lori and Chad's trials. And then last year, Lori represented herself at the Arizona trial, her Arizona trial, for attempting to kill Brandon.
23:24That meant she got to cross-examine Brandon in the courtroom. And it was intense. What was your impression of the conversation in the courtroom between Lori Vallow and Brandon Boudreau? Brandon obviously came prepared and tried to be as measured as he could. But also, this is my interpretation, I felt like a little bit of sassiness, right? Like you get those questions where she's like, we've known each other for a long time. And his response is, I mean, it depends on how you define a long time, right? Like the way in which he chose to respond to Lori, for lack of a better way to describe it, felt like a clapback of sorts. And so I imagine for Brandon, and I don't want to speak for him here,
24:06that it felt good to be able to speak to her directly and say, your interpretation of events is not mine. And here's what I have to say to you. Something along the lines of like, I get to reclaim this narrative. I get the last word. And it's going to be a voice of reason. Which given the fact that I've had that long conversation with Lori Vallow in jail, I could only respect Brandon all the more for the way he was able to respond to her, because that's how you have to do it in a courtroom if you didn't want to get caught up in her BS, which she's very good at spinning. I will say that. I thought he was just messing with her. I really enjoyed it because she could have said it was 10 minutes to one and he would have said, no, it was more like, you know, 1250.
24:57It was just he would not cede an inch to her, which made it even more satisfying to watch. And the question of Melanie and the crime which Lori was convicted of, the prosecutors identified Melanie as an active member in Lori and Chad's conspiracy. We're left wondering what that means exactly or whether we'll ever see any more legal action. We know there's an active investigation in the Gilbert Police Department, and we know that there's a process, right? So for there to be any charges leveled against Melanie at this point, the police department has to submit that case to the prosecutors here in Maricopa County for review. And if they choose, right, if they choose that there's enough there, then they press charges and we see what plays out. It's worth noting that the Gilbert Police
25:52Department did submit charges against Chad and Maricopa County returned that case to Gilbert PD and said, there's not enough there for us to proceed, right? We don't have enough there to take it to court. There's always that possibility, right? That Gilbert PD does continue to investigate, that they submit again. And Maricopa County says that there's not enough there. Tell me about his life now, Brittany. He is a busy dad of six now. So when he married Jenny, he got two bonus children. Jenny had two children of her own. And so they built this brand new family, six children here in the Valley. And they are all so busy. One kid is a rock climber. Another is a singer and a football player. And they are constantly on the go, right? Like Brandon
26:38is a football coach. And on Friday night, when the report aired, he texted me and was like, I'm so sorry. I am not watching tonight. I have a Halloween event with one kid and a sport event with another kid. And at some point, Jenny and I will find time and we'll sit down and we'll watch it very thoughtfully. And we're just really thankful. But his life really does revolve around these kids and they are all growing up. And he is supporting, encouraging, is directly involved in all of them. That's good to know. When we come back, we'll answer some of your questions from social media. An extraordinary holiday starts at Perigold, the destination for luxury home. Elevate the season with unique heirloom quality decor and gifts, hosting essentials and more from Design's best brands.
27:35Their largest ever selection has something for every celebration and style. Shop in-store and online at perigold.com. Perigold. Luxury lives here. Navigating the healthcare system is a full-time job. Unanswered questions, endless paperwork, denied claims, confusion, and runarounds. Wouldn't you rather give that job to someone else? Solace Health takes that work off your plate. Solace advocates work for you and are covered by insurance nationwide. Your advocate is your personal care coordinator, doctor decoder, medical pathfinder, and coverage defender. They will explain the jargon, tests and treatments, find you doctors, make appointments, fight the denials, and break through the system. Solace handles everything from paperwork to bills
28:23so you can focus on your health. Go to solacehealth.com slash dateline to see if you qualify. Thank you. or legal advice. The mighty dollar. Once had a whole menu named after it. No more. But $1 a day lets you add progressive renter's insurance to your auto insurance. Something your younger self would roll their eyes at, but your current adulting self appreciates. Learn more at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Average premium costs based on Progressive home data from 2025. Product and prices may vary by state. And we're back. So, we have some questions to answer here. Number one, let's take a listen to a voicemail from Caitlin. Hi, my name is Caitlin. I just finished watching Keith Morrison's episode, Linesided.
29:28It was a really crazy episode. I was just dumbfounded that a judge would give Melanie any kind of unsupervised custody of her children. It's just crazy that with the past cases that have happened with things like this and people having unsupervised visitation with children, is there any reason why someone would be able to have custody, even just partial custody of children after being involved in something like Melanie. I know she wasn't convicted, but it still just was crazy to me. Thanks. Love watching Dateline. Bye. This curious situation where Brandon and Melanie share the children, the four children, 50-50. Did it surprise you that this arrangement eventually was made? That blew my mind. I mean, I'm a divorced dad. I've been through all this,
30:25but to have to deliver your kids to somebody who you think really helped plot your murder, how do you find it in yourself to do that? I mean, that all came about because Melanie, after his temporary sole custody award or whatever, Melanie asked for a reconsideration, and a custody evaluator came back and said i recommend 50 50 and brandon's first instinct was to fight it but he and jenny talked about it and and they talked to some other people and those people who had been through this said yeah you're probably not going to win the judge is probably going to go with that that recommendation so somehow he found it within himself once again to just put aside his animus and whatever you want to call it, take it from the team or whatever, do what's best for your kids.
31:12They seem to have been at the center of his thinking all along. I mean, it's really very simple. She's never been charged with anything. She's never been convicted of anything. And it kind of all ends there as crazy as everyone thinks that is. Yeah. And just a reminder to our viewers, right, that this was an agreement that was made not by a judge in isolation, but it was Melanie and her lawyers, Brandon and lawyers, a mediator and a judge all coming to this conclusion together. So I think there's a lot there that rightfully so we don't understand because it's it's not our custody agreement. Right. Right. So from Deb Walker, this was such an unusual situation. I still have questions about it. There's more to be uncovered.
31:54I hope the police will continue to work on this case. Lori likely knows the whole story. Could we possibly see Lori in the courtroom again if Melanie is ever charged? It's a really interesting question, Deb. And I think, one, anything is possible, especially in regard to this series of cases. It's worth noting that Lori has ongoing appeals in both the state of Arizona and the state of Idaho. And next week on November 2nd, the Idaho Supreme Court is going to hear her case. We don't have any reason to believe that she'll be present for that hearing, but Lori continues to litigate. So whether or not we might see her in a courtroom is to be determined. Yeah, I guess so. Then we get story number nine. At Julie Kilday says the Brandon family, mom and sisters went to the East Coast with him to care for the kids and support him.
32:51It was so touching. What a great family. Well, they are a great family and everybody should be so lucky. I mean, we had members of his family, a brother who's a dentist in Tucson who was ready to come on, too. And I kind of had to say, you know, we can only fit so many Boudreaux's in the story. His mom and dad would have been great too, but they were on a mission, a church mission up in Montreal. So they weren't available. I've rarely had a story where I was booking people and all I really had to say to people was, well, we're doing this for Brandon. He's got a book out. And everybody was like instant yes. Tell me where to be. Yeah. And we'll put in one final comment. It was from Tina Williams.
33:29This is why I love Dateline. They take a story we thought we knew everything about and weave another story about all the other lives involved and affected by very sick people. Well, there is that. All right. And we're very happy to have been able to tell this story. Surprised, frankly, that we were able to tell story number eight about the Lori Chad saga, but it's a tale that keeps on giving. So that's it for Talking Dateline this week. And remember, if you have any questions about our stories, you can DM us your audio or video on our socials at at Dateline NBC or leave us a voicemail at 212-413-5252 for a chance to be featured right here. If you're in the mood for something spooky, by the way,
34:16don't forget to check out a whole new Morrison Mysteries. The podcast this time, the mystery story is Edgar Allan Poe. And so we begin with the story of a man who committed the perfect murder until he encountered the one thing he couldn't fend off, his own conscience. This is the Telltale Heart. To get ad-free listening for all our podcasts, subscribe to Dateline Premium. And you can watch the video version of Talking Dateline on YouTube and the NBC News app. So we'll see you Fridays on Dateline on NBC. Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand. It starts with our approach. Every Mazda comes standard with proactive safety features, so you're more aware of what's around you,
35:15more focused on the road ahead, and ready before problems ever start. Mazda. More of what matters most to you. Go to MazdaUSA.com to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse or promote any product.