WEBVTT - 5: Rena’s Confession 0:00:04.720 --> 0:00:15.480 Ye novel. A listener note this episode contains violence, including 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:25.000 sexual violence and references to child abuse. Previously on deliver 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:28.960 Us from Hervil. Hervil thought that if he got rid 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:31.600 of Joel, he could just move in and take leadership 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:37.360 with Joel's people. Well, it didn't work, that's the problem. 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:40.479 He told me about a group of Polygamus that were 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:42.960 in town to kill someone. And then he told me 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:46.680 about Ervil LeBaron, Glorious city police and I'd say they 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:49.520 have no lead gept on who the two women were 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:52.040 who headed the office of Polygamus, leader of ruling all 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:54.760 of it yesterday and shot him dead. That anyone who 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:58.560 opposed him deserved to die, including a daughter. And it 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:00.720 was just a question how many people he could order 0:01:00.840 --> 0:01:04.240 be killed. There's really gonna be no stopping him. Salt, 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:06.720 Like polygamous leader Robert Simon Kis who had been seen 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:10.039 earlier with Pervil, LeBaron disappeared, leaving us home with one 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:14.400 of LeBaron's followers. We are in a fight against evil. 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:17.760 Add to that incident, a man named Dean Best was murdered. 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:20.520 Best event a follower of Herbal LeBaron. In that case, 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:25.800 like the Simon's disappearance remains unsolved, they said from the beginning. 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.840 The only way you're going to get Herville is to 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:42.800 break someone substantial in his group. It's October in New Orleans, 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:46.639 the best time of the year, when the thick, muggy 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:51.800 air of summer finally lifts. People go outside, sit on 0:01:51.880 --> 0:02:00.000 porches and stoops blues and barbecue in the air freedom. 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:03.560 But not here in the confines of this airless room 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:06.640 off the freeway, not far from the airport, where two 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:11.000 people sit across from each other outside the bird's chirp 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:13.680 every once in a while, the horn of a train 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:18.680 and approaching siren. Inside the room, an interrogation is about 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:29.640 to begin. A tape recorder clicks one. Okay, we're rolling 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:38.799 against My name is I was born. I don't go 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:43.400 through the crackle and warp of the tape. The voice 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:49.240 of herbal LeBaron's thirteen and most infamous wife, Rina China Rena, 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:51.840 who at the age of just nineteen killed Dr. Ruland 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:57.520 Alread in a suburban Salt Lake office, and now, unknown 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:00.840 to the interrogator sitting across from her, She's about to 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:04.120 admit her role in that killing for the first time, 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:09.520 but she'll confess to much more than that. Her confession 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:13.680 will last days. As she talks and talks, the inner 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:18.880 workings of hervil Abarren's church, cult, mafia, whatever you want 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:23.040 to call it, will emerge. A veil lifted, two killings 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:28.560 carried out by the Lambs of God, Los Molinos, ruling Alread, 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:37.080 and other disappearances so far unsolved in Mexico, California, and Utah. 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.720 You've got the best information of anybody that's done anything 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:42.680 or it's going to do anything on it since so 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:45.760 as the tape recorder runs and runs, the cassettes will 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:49.400 pile up. I've listened to all of what's left of them, 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:53.320 and it's the only insider account of that era that survived. 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:59.680 A story from inside Herbal Labarrens group, groomed since childhood 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:03.600 for a role as both assassin and wife opposite Rena, 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:07.920 her interrogator, unaware of just what his questioning would reveal. 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:12.520 So I guess we would want to be as accurate 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:14.120 as we can, as you know, even know it may 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:17.120 be painfullets these are things that have got to be said. 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:32.039 He was about to hear it all from the team's 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:36.040 at novel and I heart radio. This is deliver us 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:51.360 from Herbal I'm jesse High, chapter five, The Confession. When 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:54.680 journalists del Van Adda and detective Dick Forbes teamed up 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:58.480 together in May of nine seven, they started out thinking 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.039 they were trying to solve the murder of polygamous leader 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:05.680 Roulin Alread, but it didn't take long before their investigation 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:09.839 revealed a string of other crimes. The massacre at Los 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:14.440 Melinos in nineteventy four, the disappearance of arrival of Herville, 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:18.360 a self proclaimed prophet Robert Simons in April of seventy five, 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:22.200 and then the murder of cult members that giant of 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:26.400 a man, Dean vest in June. Finally, there was the 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:30.839 disappearance of Hervill's own daughter, Rebecca in April of seventy seven. 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:37.520 Rena's interrogator would question her about all of this. Let's 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:42.239 start with right on the Los Molinos on December nineteen 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:44.240 seventy four, in the events that led up to that. 0:05:46.160 --> 0:05:55.159 But I don't remember. I have to think that Rena 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:57.839 was just sixteen at the time of this assault on 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:01.360 the Mexican town. She wasn't in on the cults planning 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:05.200 for the ambush, although she does remember being around other 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:09.839 cult members who were the sullivan who getting jumpy. You're nervous, 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:12.279 you want to know what you know, what? What are 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:19.520 we doing here? Here? No thing's happening, and had come 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:24.240 up with sister. The Sullivan's she's referring to here are 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:29.599 Lloyd and Don Sullivan, the River people from Indiana. Lloyd 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:33.360 with his coke bottle glasses and his son Dawn, who 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:36.440 followed him like a shadow. It turns out they were 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:40.840 getting impatient with life in the cult. None of Herville's 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:46.880 prophecies had been fulfilled. They wanted action. But Rena doesn't 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:49.320 know why the group chose that town for the attack. 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:53.840 The nation said the whole rate to make it. M 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:57.599 Rena's interrogator turns to the events of the night of 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:02.279 the attack. Why was she there? I don't know why 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:04.479 I was there, accept the girl than know what else 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:06.440 to do with you against I was trying to figure 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:12.280 out some land keeping the under he's controlling. What did 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:14.840 she see happen? We do really ben't do anything. We 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:20.720 surf there and we watched the fire from a vantage 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:23.400 point at the edge of town. Rena watched the violence 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:27.200 play out from that first fire, the attempt to draw 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:30.760 out Evil's brother Verlin. I don't remember how long the 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:35.480 fire burned, maybe fifteen twenty minutes, but at longer, but 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:42.080 there was more than one fire. Wasn't to the ambush 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:44.040 of the villagers who rushed to put out the fire 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:48.400 as the massacre began, not until the shootings starting. And 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:51.040 see that a shot of people that garted to put 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:55.160 the tower fire. And then when they finished shooting there, 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:58.360 then the truck they were darting and went through town 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:02.320 just went down one streak through firelams of the houses 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:05.560 along that stream, and they headed towards verds house. They 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:10.280 meaning hope, what was Mark? Dwayne and Ed and Don? 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:14.239 And we're in a stolen forward here Rena is talking 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:18.000 about the shooters, which included her brothers Mark and Joyne. 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:21.840 The group had guns and Molotov cocktails in the truck 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:25.640 as they headed to Virdlin LeBaron's house. And then they 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:30.720 drove through Pale and the others fired and through fireloms 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:34.040 and in are you all? What was the shots and 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:39.280 most people or something like that? Many of these details 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:42.440 I've heard before from the victims families who were there 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:46.640 that night. But what comes to light in Rena's version 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:50.720 of events is that some of the cult members seemed 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:57.520 to be enjoying themselves. Rena says her brothers Mark and Dwayne, 0:08:57.679 --> 0:08:59.640 who had just been living in the town before the 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:03.800 attack act, were a little reluctant. They were the ones 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:07.959 that were doing the shooting and the firebombing. No, h 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:13.520 Dwayne was I guess they didn't shoot some but Dwayne 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:17.800 was the driver and Mark they gave Mark. I'm kind 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:23.560 of her shotgun that was didn't shoot, a shotgun that 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:28.160 didn't shoot. It seems like Rena is suggesting her brothers 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:32.240 weren't as involved as the others, like maybe she's trying 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:36.280 to protect them. In fact, you can hear Rena trying 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.840 to justify the actions of all of those taking part 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:43.280 in the raid that night. They were simply carrying out 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:48.680 orders from God. The Lord wants this done. Nan upstairs says, 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:51.400 we just got to get rid of Berlin, and it's 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:56.360 just ruin the people and leave them the strain, and 0:09:56.400 --> 0:10:00.560 it's just the most important thing. We illuminate his first 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:03.560 and if he tried to stand up to her and sing, 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:06.080 well that's stupid, then he getting at at you. Weren't 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:10.640 all indignant how dare you questioned the lord, and so 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:13.600 we just I don't know you did what he said? 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:18.480 Mm hmm, standing up and God, did you see it 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:21.480 that way at the time, just saying how in retrospective 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:24.120 at the time, I mean, did you have serious questions 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:30.480 about doing it at the time? No, I guess I didn't. Um, 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:37.280 I guess I didn't. I don't know. I don't know. 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:42.280 I guess I was trying to do what I thought 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:46.800 was try. I guess I thought that, well, the Lord 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:51.679 wants it done, I guess I'd better do it. This 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:56.520 was Herbal's go to justification. It all boils down to 0:10:56.600 --> 0:11:02.840 an elegantly simple but brutal theology. Do this because the 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:06.520 Lord wants it done. And if the Lord wants it 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:10.120 and you are the one in the way, well you 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:13.960 know what that makes you, don't You a son of perdition? 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:23.600 And you've seen what happens to them. M Long after 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:27.240 the raid in Los Milinos, this mantra would continue and 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:32.520 all kinds of terror would rain down. After establishing Rena 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:36.560 wasn't a participant in the Los Milinos massacre, Rena's interrogator 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:39.079 moves on to other violent crimes linked to the Colt. 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:43.280 First up is the disappearance of that rival prophet to herbal, 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:47.720 Robert or Bob Simons. Here's the cops talking about his 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:52.079 disappearance in to journalist Lynn Packer on a local TV 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:55.920 station cass L in Salt Lake City. Our information is 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:59.240 that he was last seeing what the disciple of the 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:03.199 Church of the Land him of God. Neither this disciple 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:08.400 or Mr Simon's has been seen since, and we suspect 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:11.240 that he is no longer living. Do you think they 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:17.160 may have assassinated him? Oh, there is that possibility. Robert Simons, 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:19.880 the guy who disappeared, was white, but believed he was 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:23.680 a prophet to Native Americans, lived up in Grantsville, Utah, 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:28.720 where the salt flats begin, which Simons have finishing. Started 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:33.040 to him at that time that I don't ever remember 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:36.640 him anything about him before Lloyd came in showing his wall. 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:42.120 His disappearance happened in seventy five when Rena was living 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:46.720 in the US with other cult members in such tight quarters, 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:50.439 sometimes with three wives to a house. Rena heard things 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:55.920 and saw things things she wasn't supposed to see. You 0:12:56.000 --> 0:13:01.280 were there and may save he did. Rena tells how 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:03.360 it was Lloyd Sullivan, who had gone out for a 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:06.600 game of pool with Robert Simons, but only one of 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:11.160 them had come back, Lloyd with Bob's wallet. Did you 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:14.280 know that that he had murded somebody? That's what you 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:16.760 know that was, That's why he had the guy's wallet. 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:19.920 I understood, Benna. Don't know who this guy was or 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:22.800 why he had to be killed. Never heard of him before. 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:28.240 Mike los Molino's Rena wasn't involved in committing a crime herself, 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:32.280 but she's revealing here that the Coult definitely were involved. 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:37.040 Rena's testimony puts the Robert Simon's murder at April of nineteen. 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:41.520 That same year, there was another suspected killing by the 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:46.560 Colt Dean vest shot to death in June in the 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:50.000 house he shared with other cult members. There is no 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:54.520 suggestion Rena was involved with Dean's murder, but her interrogator 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:57.240 still wants to know what she knew about it. Dean 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:00.160 was this big hug of a man, because he was 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:03.960 soaked cool and everything he the out passed. It's one 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:08.880 guy and he's like a big tenny there. According to Rena, 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:12.600 Dean was falling in love with her and so let's stay. 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:22.200 I felt simultant spirit. He's very touched. Dean stood at 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:26.040 six ft eight two d and sixty pounds, and he 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:30.120 actually wanted to appear even taller, so he put two 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:33.160 inch soles in his shoes and added an elevated heel 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:37.880 to a size sixteen cowboy boots. He joined Herbal's colt 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:40.840 following a stint in prison, which followed a stint in 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:44.240 the army where he had murdered his own sergeant. He 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:46.880 picked the man up, held him up to a long 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:50.400 I don't know what I can remember. How's bogus knit 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:55.520 ike Bok's man literally killed him with his bare hands. 0:14:56.040 --> 0:15:00.120 His justification, according to Rena, was his sergeant refused in 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:04.960 permission to attend his mother's funeral anyway. Rena tells how 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:07.560 she got to know Dean in the early seventies as 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:11.440 he was becoming some sort of military strategist for Herville 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:15.760 and bodyguard. But by seventy Dean had moved to Southern 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:20.360 California National City, just outside San Diego, and the rumor 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:24.040 was he planned to defect. I don't know how I 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:28.560 found out or how I came to know. I might 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:31.960 have been there when Ville ordered it. I probably was. 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:36.880 Herville had spoken to his followers, told them Dean knew 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:41.800 too much. But I don't know if I if I 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.840 protested or if I I don't think I did. I 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:52.920 don't remember. He was turning, and he was a threat, 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:56.520 and he could place everybody in places and if he 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:01.400 and if he did that came to God couldn't go forward. 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:06.480 Dean was in God's way, a son of perdition, and 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:10.320 he had to go. This time, Herville dispatched a wife 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:14.680 for the mission, Vonda White. She was living in National 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:17.960 City in a house with other Lambs of God, including Dean, 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:22.640 so she was selected to carry out the killing. I 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:25.000 was probably there when it was reported to l that 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:29.720 it was done or or whatever. I was probably, you know, 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:34.200 right there, and your attitude was basically you know that 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:36.720 it was just something that had to be done. It's done. 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:42.280 Spike of feelings that you would have foreign greens, No, 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:45.840 I remember now. I felt guilty because I felt like 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:50.200 it was my fault that he was defecting, because I 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:55.920 let him fall in love with me and messed up things. 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:58.880 So you know, that was another thing to add to 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:07.000 my this spare. But yet I don't know you you well, 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:09.520 you have been close to Vanda. Apparently you know this 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:15.119 didn't change any feelings towards her. She had done She 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:19.720 did what she was ordered to do. She did what 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:23.040 she was ordered to do. What I think. You can 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:26.600 hear something pretty chilling in this part of the interrogation, 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:31.200 as the birds chirp away freely outside the room. As 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:34.520 you listen to her voice through the static, you can 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:38.760 hear a sort of detachment as she tells the story 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:42.840 of her sister wife killing the man she'd come to love, 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:47.720 a man she'd let fall in love with her. It 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:53.600 sounds like she's splitting off and disassociating, but as she 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:59.040 felt bad now, worse was to come more after the break. 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:24.159 There's this picture of Rena as a kid reporting this story. 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:27.640 I've been thinking about it a lot. It's black and white. 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:32.320 Back in East Layton, Utah, outside their three bedroom house 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:36.320 in the shadow of the snowy Wassatch Mountains with her 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:41.280 parents budd In, Thelma, and brothers Glenn, Vic, Dwayne, and Mark. 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:45.240 Back when Mark dreamed of starting a band like the Monkeys, 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:49.160 and the family took trips to Yellowstone, had the camper 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:54.000 and the boat. Rena's about two in the picture, so 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:57.840 it's nine. No Ley's on the trees yet, so I'm 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:02.440 guessing it's early spring. And there's Glenn, who I talked 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:05.200 to you back in episode three, now an old man 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:11.840 but here in his twenties, shirt off, head down, working 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:16.879 on a car. He's got that James Dean vibe. And 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:21.280 then off to the side, standing on the lawn there's Thelma, 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:25.640 Rena's mom. I swear she looks just like lucill Ball, 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:33.000 hands clasped, pressed white blouse, khakis, her white tenny's tied neatly, 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:38.359 a really big smile on her face. And this is 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:43.399 what stops me. I look at that old photograph and 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:47.000 what would unfold, and it's like one of those painful 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:52.919 pictures from your own past where you wish, somehow, somehow 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:56.960 you could rewind to that point and then write an 0:19:57.119 --> 0:20:07.000 entirely different script before you press play. Rena was a 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:11.600 child who loved music, played the accordion, who wrote in 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:15.919 her diary most days, who got a report card detailing 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:20.639 her grades. I've got a daughter about that age, and 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:23.280 I think about how much I want her to determine 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:26.960 her own future, and how Rena should have had that too, 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:31.560 but because of choice as others made, that would never 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:35.440 be available to her. And now, all these years later, 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:40.440 Rena sits here, trapped in this airless New Orleans interrogation room, 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:43.120 about to be asked about her relationship with the man 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:46.840 who ripped her family's life apart, the leader of the 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:53.720 Church of the Lamb of God, hervil A Baron. Oh. Now, 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:56.280 of course, have been after me for years to marry him, 0:20:57.440 --> 0:20:59.320 and I got some us can't saying well, what are 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:01.520 you gonna marry me? Or don't you think it's about time? 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:04.359 I think it's time now, or something like that. He 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:07.560 always says stuffing like that, and I just get mad 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:11.320 and off. That was our little routine through this, Reugie. 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:15.520 You know, thretty more time here, more than this been 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:18.840 going nonsince you were about twelve when you first leach 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:24.479 do with it. Twelve years old, that's when Rville started 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:27.760 grooming her, a man who was already married to her sister. 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:33.680 Rena tells her interrogator how five years later, in February, 0:21:34.000 --> 0:21:36.920 she got word that Erville wanted to see her. He 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:39.000 summoned her to where he was hiding out at that 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:44.720 point in Yuma, Arizona, Rena arrived to find Herville in 0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:47.880 his hotel room with Dan Jordan's his right hand man. 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:51.280 So he went through that number, turned at me and 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:58.359 looked at me as he's old milk cow eyes and said, 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:05.359 it's about when you got married. And I did my number, 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:09.120 My did my performance. I got mad and stop talk. 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:13.560 Dan and Herville went into a bedroom and talked in 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:19.679 hushed tones. Dan came out and ordered Rena outside, and 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:23.280 then Dan sat with Rena inside a station wagon and 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:26.280 he just turned him and he said, did you marry 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:30.879 Ervil day? Or this is your last chance? You were 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:34.840 go to him and it was just like just like that, 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:37.080 except he was looking right at me and his eyes 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:40.920 didn't blink, and the chill up. And now, my fine, 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:47.119 I know. I said in an earlier episode that Erville 0:22:47.240 --> 0:22:50.160 was old Hollywood handsome in his day, but by this 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:54.040 time in Herville was fifty and he'd gone to seed 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:58.520 with twelve wives already, his breath wreaked of onions and 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:04.000 steale coffee. Nothing about him would be anything other than repulsive. 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:09.080 Yet to Arena, he had always been presented as God's prophet, 0:23:09.880 --> 0:23:12.600 and it didn't matter if it made sense or if 0:23:12.640 --> 0:23:16.200 she was in love with him. Rena had always been 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:20.880 raised to do God's will. And I tried to picture 0:23:21.000 --> 0:23:25.359 Arena at this moment in her life, sitting there wearing 0:23:25.400 --> 0:23:28.480 bell bottom blue jeans and a red, white and blue 0:23:28.480 --> 0:23:33.439 tshirt emblazoned with an American flag. She knew she had 0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:38.359 run out of time. She had to marry Herville or 0:23:39.040 --> 0:23:41.640 she would be killed. A lot of things went on 0:23:42.480 --> 0:23:45.200 went through my mind, like, you know, should I er, why, 0:23:45.840 --> 0:23:48.320 You're fine, I'll just leave? But then where would I go? 0:23:49.040 --> 0:23:56.760 And nowhere to go? Nowhere to run too? And I 0:23:56.760 --> 0:24:00.040 don't know. It's just going through all this despair. I 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:02.719 wish and God would just strike me with lightning or something. 0:24:05.240 --> 0:24:11.399 This pressure might all sound remarkable, sick, twisted, and it is. 0:24:12.160 --> 0:24:16.880 It's all those things, except for women raised in Mormon 0:24:17.000 --> 0:24:22.400 fundamentalist communities. It's not that unusual. I've interviewed a lot 0:24:22.480 --> 0:24:27.199 of polygamus, many of whom were asked forced really to 0:24:27.320 --> 0:24:31.800 marry much older men. Men they didn't love, men that 0:24:31.920 --> 0:24:36.640 in some cases they loathed. And I got out in car, 0:24:36.920 --> 0:24:40.280 after crying quite a while, over to the pool and 0:24:40.320 --> 0:24:44.159 wash my arms off, watched my face flashed water on 0:24:44.280 --> 0:24:47.280 my face from the pool, it was cold, cried some more. 0:24:47.720 --> 0:24:50.040 I thought I'd stopped it, and then they started praying 0:24:50.040 --> 0:24:53.840 and say please or don't let this happen me. Um. 0:24:54.040 --> 0:24:57.840 Then I just I just decided that God must want 0:24:57.840 --> 0:25:01.359 me to marry him. So I'm went into the hotel 0:25:01.440 --> 0:25:05.720 room and they vested been. I guess they were talking 0:25:06.400 --> 0:25:11.600 strategy or I'm always him and I I walked up 0:25:11.640 --> 0:25:14.920 to Hertle when I said, you can marry you had 0:25:14.960 --> 0:25:20.760 to ask him, and his face kind of clumped. He 0:25:20.920 --> 0:25:25.840 hugged me and I cried, they're in this dingy motel room. 0:25:25.880 --> 0:25:30.439 In humor, Rina Channath and Irvill la Baron were married 0:25:30.480 --> 0:25:35.160 by Dan Jordan's. Her brother Mark stood as a witness. 0:25:36.040 --> 0:25:38.920 Then he went to Jack in the Box, right yeah, 0:25:38.920 --> 0:25:42.320 and I ordered an in rings. That's all. That's all 0:25:42.520 --> 0:25:46.639 and the reading and then Herville fell asleep back at 0:25:46.680 --> 0:25:53.480 the hotel. So much for a honeymoon, but Herville and 0:25:53.520 --> 0:25:58.000 Rena their lives were now linked more closely than ever. 0:26:07.680 --> 0:26:11.640 After marrying Herville, a new picture emerges. From Rina's answers 0:26:11.680 --> 0:26:17.439 to her interrogator's questions, The story becomes weirdly domestic. It 0:26:17.480 --> 0:26:19.520 was a pretty nice house. I think it was a 0:26:19.600 --> 0:26:23.960 three bedroom too car attached to DJE. We didn't have 0:26:24.000 --> 0:26:28.280 any furniture to speaking like some fucked up sitcom about 0:26:28.280 --> 0:26:31.040 the life of a death could. Then I discovered behind 0:26:31.040 --> 0:26:33.280 this store that there is a whole bunch of cheese 0:26:33.280 --> 0:26:35.080 and stuff in the dumpster had a little bit of 0:26:35.080 --> 0:26:37.879 mold on it, So we started going out back and 0:26:38.000 --> 0:26:41.040 getting stuff from the dumpster. These men and their multiple 0:26:41.119 --> 0:26:45.840 wives I'll share these mundane, unfurnished apartments going out to 0:26:45.880 --> 0:26:49.080 work in normal jobs were starting these doomed to fill 0:26:49.240 --> 0:26:52.359 get rich quick schemes. One time and everybody's supposed to 0:26:52.400 --> 0:26:55.920 move to babas and get into the mush walk business, 0:26:57.000 --> 0:27:00.440 except none of it is funny. Myself at that time 0:27:01.000 --> 0:27:06.920 emotionally flip flopping between trying to be why settle down 0:27:06.920 --> 0:27:11.920 and be where everybody expecting you to be, and fighting 0:27:12.040 --> 0:27:14.000 with the fact that I was trying to get along 0:27:14.000 --> 0:27:18.800 with a man I couldn't stand, and dealing with feelings 0:27:18.840 --> 0:27:23.240 of being trapped, and then feeling guilty because I felt 0:27:23.240 --> 0:27:27.440 that way, because I should be feeling happy and glad 0:27:27.480 --> 0:27:34.120 that I'm doing God's will. Hervil wanted Rena to get pregnant, 0:27:34.680 --> 0:27:38.440 and Rena was willing to submit to God's will like always, 0:27:39.160 --> 0:27:42.399 but sex with Herville was something to endure, and I 0:27:42.440 --> 0:27:44.919 think a lot of times I imagined I just had 0:27:44.960 --> 0:27:47.840 to pretend I wasn't there, or that, you know, trying 0:27:47.840 --> 0:27:49.680 to pretend it with somebody else, or hold my breath. 0:27:49.720 --> 0:27:52.840 I didn't have to smell his breath. Hervill would call 0:27:52.960 --> 0:27:55.520 his wives out by name when he wanted to have sex. 0:27:56.400 --> 0:27:59.000 We're having a meeting in the living of the house 0:27:59.080 --> 0:28:02.919 I was living right in the middle of Maybe he 0:28:03.000 --> 0:28:05.720 looks across at me. He gets up, walks over and 0:28:05.760 --> 0:28:08.920 takes my hat and says goodbye everybody. It starts leading 0:28:08.920 --> 0:28:13.920 me into the bedroom. And I was so embarrassed. Oh, 0:28:13.960 --> 0:28:17.600 I thought, I mean, look, wait a minute, or we're 0:28:17.600 --> 0:28:20.000 in the middle of a meeting here, you know, come, 0:28:20.320 --> 0:28:22.600 what do you think you're doing? And he was like 0:28:22.640 --> 0:28:24.600 he did it like he was He kind of pranced 0:28:24.600 --> 0:28:28.520 across the living room floor like this rooster. This was 0:28:28.560 --> 0:28:32.800 the grim reality of life and Hervill's promised kingdom of God. 0:28:32.920 --> 0:28:37.920 In the mid seventies, it was bleak. He would lock 0:28:38.040 --> 0:28:41.920 himself in the bedroom that he and I shared, and 0:28:43.280 --> 0:28:45.640 I would write and write and right, and you drink coffee, 0:28:46.280 --> 0:28:49.400 and drink coffee wouldn't be their shade because he was 0:28:49.440 --> 0:28:55.720 all writing, like twenty hours a day, and he smelled 0:28:55.720 --> 0:28:58.840 like coffee. I mean he's pores. He just he sweated 0:28:58.880 --> 0:29:04.800 coffee that he drank it really strong. Black and Herville 0:29:04.840 --> 0:29:08.640 of Colonial le Baron, the mad prophet king, the Ervil, 0:29:08.680 --> 0:29:12.840 who would write until he collapsed. Herval would write, um, 0:29:13.280 --> 0:29:18.560 we triple space, and he ryan the margins, just feel 0:29:18.640 --> 0:29:21.800 up the margins, and sometimes he has so much more 0:29:21.840 --> 0:29:25.080 than he had to add to this institu soon that 0:29:25.400 --> 0:29:27.960