Chad Daybell’s Prison Letters: A Rebranding Playbook from Death Row

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Introduction

Yet instead of retreating into the reality of his crimes and their consequences, Chad has chosen to write letters — warm, nostalgic, spiritually-charged letters. He’s publishing them on a website his daughter manages: www.lettersfromchad.com.

On the surface, these letters read like family memoirs, filled with old stories about faith, publishing ventures, ducks on the farm, and near-death experiences. But under the surface, they reveal something far more troubling: a deliberate attempt to rebrand himself and rewrite history.

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The Psychology of the Letters

From a psychological perspective, Chad Daybell’s letters are deeply disturbing. In my opinion, they are not apologies and they certainly are not confessions, nor acts of contrition. Instead, they’re carefully constructed performances designed to do three things:

1. Humanize Daybell by anchoring in family memories, faith, and ordinary routines.
2. Sanitize his legacy by minimizing culpability, omitting key details, and reframing his crimes.
3. Rebrand his identity as something closer to “misunderstood prophet” than convicted killer.

This is a tactic we’ve seen across history. Think Adolf Hitler. A coined phrase The Big Lie in Mein Kampf, describing how a falsehood repeated often enough could eventually become accepted as truth. Propagandists from Goebbels to present-day political figures have weaponized that same strategy and Chad Daybell’s letters fall squarely into this category. They are not private reflections; they are public propaganda. And in my opinion, they’re offensive to the victims, to their families, and to the truth itself .

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What’s Missing Speaks Louder

If you really want to understand these letters, don’t just focus on what Chad says. Pay attention to what he doesn’t say.

• Omissions about Lori Vallow: Lori was not just a romantic partner, she was a co-defendant convicted of conspiring with Chad. Yet she is nearly absent from his narrative. That silence isn’t grief — it’s calculated.
• Omissions about the murders: Chad recounts fainting spells, spiritual experiences, and concerts with Tammy, but when it comes to the critical moments of her death and the burial of Tylee and JJ on his property, he punts. He promises “more in future letters.” That’s not grief. That’s narrative leverage.
• Omissions about accountability: These letters contain no explicit ownership of guilt. Instead, we see denial: “I never considered harming her.” Absolutes like that are rhetorical shields, not confessions.

This silence is as manipulative as the stories he tells. It’s the deliberate withholding of truth to control the narrative.

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Why I Call Them Out

I want to be very clear here: my purpose in analyzing these letters is not to amplify Chad Daybell’s voice. He does not deserve a platform.

Instead, my purpose is to expose the manipulation. At Profiling Evil, I break down his letters line by line to show the psychological playbook: narcissism, gaslighting, denial, and impression management. I want readers and viewers to see how predators twist words, how they omit facts, and how they try to manipulate sympathy.

I encourage you to focus on what’s unsaid as much as what is written. The gaps in Chad’s story often speak louder than the lines he shares.

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A Dangerous Rebranding

What makes these letters especially harmful is their potential impact on victims’ families. Imagine losing your loved one, sitting through years of investigation and trial, and finally hearing a jury’s guilty verdict. And then, the man convicted of that crime starts writing himself back into public sympathy with stories about ducks, bookstores, and “gentle neighbor” reputations.

It’s retraumatizing and it’s highly offensive. Equally important is that it’s dangerous because it shifts attention away from victims and back onto the perpetrator.

Daybell is mounting what looks like a staged campaign — drip-feeding his story in installments, much like a serialized novel. That’s not the behavior of a repentant man. That’s the behavior of someone who still wants control.

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This is exactly why I value history and documentation. And that’s where my partnership with Newspapers.com comes in.

Newspapers.com is an extraordinary tool for truth seekers. With millions of digitized pages from local and national papers, it allows us to step back into real-time reporting and see how stories were covered as they unfolded.

For example, I pulled up the earliest coverage out of Rexburg when Tylee and JJ first went missing. I then compared it with the national headlines after the children’s remains were discovered on Chad Daybell’s property. And then I traced how the narrative evolved in real time, rather than through hindsight or rebranding.

That’s powerful. And it’s why I use Newspapers.com constantly in my investigations, research, and writing. For the Profiling Evil family, I’ve arranged a 20% discount. You can try it out using Newspapers.com/ProfilingEvil. Cancel anytime, but once you start digging into those archives, I suspect you’ll find it indispensable.

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Thank you for staying balanced in your own investigative and decision-making process. It’s easy to be swayed by emotional storytelling and that’s exactly why manipulative letters like these work. But the facts remain… That Chad Daybell was convicted of three murders. That the jury weighed the evidence and sentenced him to death, and that no amount of nostalgic rebranding changes that.

I invite you to dig deeper on my Profiling Evil YouTube Channel, where I’ve created a dedicated Daybell Playlist as well as the Cults Among Us Playlist.

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Announcement: Gardens of Evil

Finally, I’m thrilled to announce the launch of my new podcast: Gardens of Evil. This series will explore how seemingly ordinary spaces and communities can conceal extraordinary darkness. The first episode drops October 16th, and you can hear the trailer and subscribe for updates right here. I hope you’ll join me there as we continue to peel back layers of deception and expose the truth behind criminal behavior.

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Final Word

Chad Daybell can write all the letters he wants, but the forensic facts, the courtroom verdicts, and the grief of victims’ families remain untouched. Our job is to keep the spotlight where it belongs — not on a convicted killer trying to rebrand himself, but on truth, accountability, and justice.