(NewsNation) — It’s so hard to wrap your mind around how Lori Vallow, a once-loving mother, could allegedly do the unthinkable. But people who knew her say they saw her change.

People once in Vallow’s circle say she was always religious, a devout Mormon, but that she then got sucked into Chad Daybell’s “doomsday cult” — where he taught followers about a “light” and “dark” rating system for people to specify whether they had a contract with God or Satan.

Someone who knew Vallow but only wishes to be identified as Jess explained it this way: “They don’t see the zombies as people. They see them the way someone would see a cockroach being controlled by a parasite.”

She added that “killing the kids, to them, is mercy. As disturbing as that is and hard as that is to wrap your mind around it, that is why someone who spent all these years being kind and loving could then do that.”

Jess is disgusted by the killings. She said this is what comes to mind when she thinks about Vallow now: “I think about hugging her. I think about the fact that a person who killed her children touched me. I think about how I want to rip my skin off every time I picture it.”

Cult experts say there is no way to profile the kind of person who can be manipulated into joining a cult. In fact, people who are smart and educated often fall prey, with the extreme beliefs often hard to erase.

“I don’t know that I would say I think she did the right thing,” said “Hidden True Crime” podcast host Lauren Matthias. “Maybe she does, but I don’t think she thinks she did the wrong thing. She is a believer of some very extreme beliefs, still to this day.”

Jess believes Vallow is still holding on to her “zombie” beliefs because she says it may be the only way Vallow can mentally cope with allegedly killing her own children.