Evil Changed Me: Lauren Matthias on True Crime Journalism and Her Mormon Faith—Pt. 2 | Episode 2041
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.6 • 5.2K Ratings
🗓️ 16 July 2025
⏱️ 132 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this intimate follow-up episode, journalist Lauren continues her powerful story—this time focusing on her path from reporter to advocate, wife, and co-founder of Hidden True Crime. Lauren shares the deeply personal journey that brought her to John Matthias, their relationship, marriage, and parenting as a mixed-faith couple—all while navigating the high-stakes world of reporting on religious extremism and the Lori Vallow Daybell case.
She reflects on pivotal moments in Mormonism, including the excommunication of progressive voices, the Church’s stance on same-sex marriage, and the Ordain Women movement. As her career unfolds, Lauren breaks major stories from inside Mormon and FLDS communities, reporting from Hildale, Utah, and uncovering secrets in St. George.
Her life is upended again by the Daybell case, which becomes the catalyst for launching Hidden True Crime. Balancing her professional calling with profound personal loss—her brother’s accident and coma—Lauren makes the gut-wrenching decision to attend Lori Vallow Daybell’s trial anyway.
This episode is a moving reflection on belief, justice, trauma, love, and the power of storytelling to make sense of chaos.
From breaking the Daybell story to building a platform
A deeply personal account of faith, loss, and love
Includes exclusive insight into Chad Daybell’s patriarchal blessing and courtroom revelations
___________________
Mormon Stories Thanks Our Generous Donors!
Help us continue to deliver quality content by becoming a donor today:
Our Platforms:
Contact us:
[email protected]
PO Box 171085, Salt Lake City, UT 84117
Social Media:
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, |
| 0:03.3 | John DeLinn. It is July 2nd, 2025, and we're here for part two of an epic traditional long-form Mormon stories |
| 0:12.3 | interview with the Lauren Matthias co-host of Hidden True Crime Podcast. How are you feeling, Lauren? |
| 0:23.2 | Good. Got through part 1, feeling good. |
| 0:30.1 | It's like a marathon. We're also here with my guest co-host for today, a face and a name that will be familiar to those of you who have been following the Mormon stories in the past few years. Mindy Caldwell. |
| 0:34.7 | Hey, Mindy. Hi there. Thanks for joining us. Thanks, John. Happy to be here with you and Lauren. |
| 0:39.3 | And for those who didn't catch part one of our interview with Lauren, pause this episode, |
| 0:44.3 | stop it, go back and watch it. It's about four hours. It's worth every minute. |
| 0:48.9 | But we talked about so many good things. Of course, for those joining us for the first time, |
| 0:55.1 | Lauren and her husband, |
| 1:01.7 | Dr. John Matthias, they co-host a super popular True Crime YouTube channel and podcast called Hidden True Crime. And also, you know, Lauren and John are consulted nationwide, worldwide, |
| 1:08.8 | as experts on not only true crime, but they're definitely |
| 1:13.5 | sub-specialists in true crime connected to Mormonism. |
| 1:18.7 | And it turns out, it seems like there's a higher percentage of Mormon true crime. |
| 1:23.4 | Maybe Mormonism punches above its weight in true crime stories. I don't know. Is that |
| 1:30.4 | possible? Mormons create content for our podcast. So, so Lauren and Dr. John know a lot about the |
| 1:39.5 | Lori DeBell and Chad, Laurie Valo Chad Daybell case. They've covered Jody Hildebrand and Ruby Frankie and just so many Mormon and non-Mormon |
| 1:48.9 | related true crime stories. |
| 1:50.5 | But we're thrilled to have you back. |
| 1:52.2 | In part one, we talked about Lawrence Childhood, her upbringing in various parts of Salt |
| 1:57.9 | Lake City, her always feeling like she wanted to contribute, possibly |
| 2:05.3 | as a journalist in her life, but as life progressed, things happened that she didn't plan, |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 13 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dr. John Dehlin, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Dr. John Dehlin and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.