Speaker 1: Yeah novel. A listener note this episode contains violence and
Speaker 1: content that some listeners might find distressing, including references to
Speaker 1: child abuse. Previously on Deliver Us from Hervill. I think
Speaker 1: by the time Hervill had died, I knew it really
Speaker 1: wasn't over, because with such an unstable group founded on
Speaker 1: such erroneous principles, you never really know what to expect.
Speaker 1: I'm Gabrielle Little Baron and my father is irvil LeBaron.
Speaker 1: This is the book of the New Covenant. It's a
Speaker 1: manifesto of irvil LeBaron. We had to be prepared to
Speaker 1: kill the people we loved the most. That was the
Speaker 1: only way to save their souls. They would be thankful
Speaker 1: to us in the end, because otherwise they would go
Speaker 1: to Hell forever of our cowardice. Murder was sort of
Speaker 1: a natural thing with these faults. Dan goes off to
Speaker 1: do his business, drops his drawers, and two people walk
Speaker 1: up and shoot in their head in the chest with
Speaker 1: the nine millimeter weapon. Here's a murder, and UH just
Speaker 1: can't come up with anything. That's very frustrating. My name
Speaker 1: is Lucy. I was married to doing Shinas. He said
Speaker 1: to me that you know, past is past, when something
Speaker 1: very serious is going on, we would do those kind
Speaker 1: of heavy loaded prayers. So that was the spirit that
Speaker 1: we were in in b f A in support of
Speaker 1: the four o'clock murders happening in the States. I never
Speaker 1: could believe that somebody would actually target a little girl
Speaker 1: like that. To me, it was just surreal. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be true. How can this happen? Who
Speaker 1: did it and why? We got kind of a description,
Speaker 1: you know, it was a guy in a suit with
Speaker 1: a beard, which really didn't tell us a whole lot.
Speaker 1: I understand what it's like to live in a terrorist organization.
Speaker 1: I understand how mothers who strapped bombs to their children feel.
Speaker 1: You know, it's the most horrific thing you can imagine.
Speaker 1: The choreographed killings of Eddie Marston, Mark Chinov, Dwayne Nath
Speaker 1: and his eight year old daughter Jenny quickly made national
Speaker 1: news in the summer, and it didn't take police long
Speaker 1: to figure out they were all connected. In fact, Detective
Speaker 1: John Burmeister hadn't even returned from Rena Street, the crime
Speaker 1: scene of Dwayne and Jenny's murder. By the time we
Speaker 1: got back. Everybody knew that this was something that was
Speaker 1: caused by a riff found the medalist woman. That was
Speaker 1: already going on in the office. By the time we
Speaker 1: got back, a cop investigating the killing of Eddie Marston
Speaker 1: had seen the name irvil LeBaron in Eddie's case file
Speaker 1: and the details of a detective named Dick Forbes. He
Speaker 1: gave the detective a call, and Dick started telling him
Speaker 1: what he knew, which obviously was quite a lot. Dick
Speaker 1: also told the investigating cops they need to brush up
Speaker 1: on their religious history. I think everybody involved in Investigator
Speaker 1: picked up books and started reading upon it. And the
Speaker 1: actual early history of the moment was that was a
Speaker 1: pretty bloody, violent stuff. The cops weren't just learning about
Speaker 1: early Mormonism and the doctrine of blood atonement. They were
Speaker 1: learning about rvil Lbaron's cult, the murder of his brother Joel,
Speaker 1: the massacre at Los Molinos, the killing of Rulin Alread,
Speaker 1: and all the others, so many crimes, so many of
Speaker 1: them still open cases. Detective Burmeister realized their investigation in
Speaker 1: Texas was actually part of a much larger story, an
Speaker 1: incredibly bloody and dark one, a hunt that had begun
Speaker 1: in the seventies and was about to enter a completely
Speaker 1: new level of intensity, primarily because of the murder. Detective
Speaker 1: Burmeister had just caught one of the victims, Jenny Channath,
Speaker 1: the kid unconnected to the cult. Her death had created
Speaker 1: the Jenny Task Force. Detective Burmeister was now joining cops
Speaker 1: like Steve Otechie and prosecutors like David Schwinderman ramping up
Speaker 1: a federal investigation that started in the wake of Dan
Speaker 1: Jordan's killing that's still unsolved, murder on the Hunting Trip
Speaker 1: in The Jenny Task for was an investigation that would
Speaker 1: reach out across America law enforcement agencies, sharing resources and
Speaker 1: intelligence to track this new generation of the hervill La
Speaker 1: Baron Coult the Kingdom of God k o G. Just
Speaker 1: a few days after the four o'clock murders in July,
Speaker 1: the Jenny Task Force met up. We all got together
Speaker 1: in Salt Lake, Salt Lake City, Utah. It made sense
Speaker 1: to do in Salt Lake because that was kind of
Speaker 1: the heart of all of it, the headquarters of the
Speaker 1: Mormon Church and the spiritual home to most Mormon fundamentalists,
Speaker 1: including the Labarns. It was also the home of Dave Swenderman,
Speaker 1: the federal prosecutor in the U. S. Attorney's Office who
Speaker 1: had been involved in the Labarren case ever since Dan
Speaker 1: Jordan was murdered. Swendeman told the team assembled in Utah
Speaker 1: some chilling details from his case files how this latest
Speaker 1: generation of the Colt was carrying out vengeance Rville had
Speaker 1: ordered before his death in a book called the Book
Speaker 1: of the New Covenant, a scripture for the family, something
Speaker 1: that dictates to them how life should be. If you
Speaker 1: know how to read it and you have somebody in
Speaker 1: the family helping you interpret the book, you can find
Speaker 1: the hit list in the book who's to die, Who's
Speaker 1: not to die, Which meant even with these latest tragedies
Speaker 1: in Houston and Dallas, the cult wasn't done. There's a
Speaker 1: hard core of these kids, they're a little bit older
Speaker 1: that are converted really into full on believers. They know
Speaker 1: nothing else. They were raised in this environment and our
Speaker 1: practiced killers. They know how to assimilar disassemble firearms, their
Speaker 1: practiced liars, their practice forgers. They're extraordinarily good at evading
Speaker 1: police detection. I mean, they're killing anybody that was a
Speaker 1: potential threat, and they were doing away with them, each other,
Speaker 1: family and they weren't ever being held to account. Dave
Speaker 1: set two goals for the task force. Number one, stop
Speaker 1: the killings, Arrest and prosecute the Kog's assassin's Number two,
Speaker 1: break the cycle. Find and locate as many of Hervilabarans
Speaker 1: children as possible, get them into stable homes. To stop
Speaker 1: the spread of the colts twisted dogma of blood atonement
Speaker 1: passing through future generations. Dave knew that for many of
Speaker 1: the assembled cops this case would be different than any
Speaker 1: they had worked or likely would ever work again, in
Speaker 1: its scale and its intricacy, the mix of crime and
Speaker 1: religious doctrine. I said, I know this is complicated, but
Speaker 1: it is complicated. It's hugely complicated lives and this hugely
Speaker 1: complicated family that lived by crime, existing on the edge
Speaker 1: and just about every way you can think of, but
Speaker 1: also doing a lot of it so they could prosecute
Speaker 1: these murders. David told all this to the assembled team,
Speaker 1: including John Burmeister and the other Texas cops. These are
Speaker 1: hardcore Houston homicide detectives who had not seen something like this,
Speaker 1: and it really struck him. It shook them to the bone.
Speaker 1: We then started looking at everything. Detective Burmeister and the
Speaker 1: team got to work. We've studied up on what happened
Speaker 1: in other places and what the motives to Opper and
Speaker 1: was how they did it, and they put a lot
Speaker 1: of thought into what they were doing with these latest
Speaker 1: Texas killings. There was evidence to process, potential new clues
Speaker 1: and possible witnesses. In fact, one had already come forward
Speaker 1: a witness to the immediate aftermath of the murder of
Speaker 1: Dwayne and Little Jenny, someone who was pretty sure they
Speaker 1: had seen the assassins. As they drove away. They told
Speaker 1: Detective Burmeister what they'd seen. There was one person in
Speaker 1: the car other than the person that got back into it,
Speaker 1: so there were two people president the scene and the shooter.
Speaker 1: I was wearing a suit, a dark suit, and I
Speaker 1: had a beard. That's about it. Beard, short hair, dark suit,
Speaker 1: Just a general outline. It wasn't much, but it was
Speaker 1: a start, and the next leads for the Jenny Task
Speaker 1: Force weren't far behind from the team's at Novel and
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. This is deliver Us from Herbal episode twelve.
Speaker 1: The Tide turns. Shortly after midnight on July, Detectives John
Speaker 1: Burmeister and Dick Forbes. We're sitting in a conference room
Speaker 1: at a police station in Phoenix, Arizona, and they were
Speaker 1: feeling pretty good. The investigation into hervill Abarn's colt hadn't
Speaker 1: had many lucky breaks since it began in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: but these two experienced lawmen couldn't dispute that they had one,
Speaker 1: now more than one. In fact, in front of them
Speaker 1: on the table were several piles of bagged evidence and
Speaker 1: some mug shots suspects they were increasingly convinced were involved
Speaker 1: in the four o'clock murders. Crucially, these were suspects who
Speaker 1: were at this very moment in custody in the same
Speaker 1: police station where they now sat, albeit for crimes unconnected
Speaker 1: to the four o'clock murders. It had all begun less
Speaker 1: than two weeks before. On the first of July, a
Speaker 1: police officer was cruising along Black can And Road in Phoenix.
Speaker 1: He pulled into a parking lot of a place called
Speaker 1: the King's Inn Hotel, right off the interstate, a popular
Speaker 1: spot with car thieves. They're in the lot, a seven
Speaker 1: black Chevy Silverado pickup with Texas plates sat shining in
Speaker 1: the Arizona sun. Something about it caught the cops attention,
Speaker 1: and when he radioed in the license plate BINGO the
Speaker 1: truck had been stolen in Texas just days before. The
Speaker 1: cops approached. The clerk at the King's in front desk.
Speaker 1: Had he seen any guests that stuck out him recently
Speaker 1: long shot and a cheap motel, but the cop was
Speaker 1: in luck. Some guests had caught the clerk's eye. The
Speaker 1: motel operator was kind of suspicious because you've got all
Speaker 1: these kids that are about the same age, But it
Speaker 1: was just something wrong about this group of kids that
Speaker 1: all come together. They were all well, clean cut, well
Speaker 1: mannered in this rundown part of town that was noticeable.
Speaker 1: The clerk said. The driver of the Chevy Silverado had
Speaker 1: rented two rooms. Six people were staying with her at
Speaker 1: the hotel. When cops raided the hotel rooms, they found
Speaker 1: two spiral notebooks, a list of names, a chordless drill,
Speaker 1: ignition switches, and black silicone, the tools of car thieves,
Speaker 1: plus some other stuff, a bunch of evidence that nobody
Speaker 1: knew made any difference or sense to anybody at the time.
Speaker 1: Sensing they might have stumbled upon an international carjacking ring,
Speaker 1: they bagged a lot. The local cops thought they were
Speaker 1: about to make a big headline generating bust, but when
Speaker 1: they swooped up the guests in the King's In hotel
Speaker 1: and charged them, they had no idea what they'd really
Speaker 1: just stumbled upon. Just days after the four o'clock murders,
Speaker 1: most of the assassins caught on their way home to Mexico.
Speaker 1: The cops might have never known all this if it
Speaker 1: wasn't for the fake ideas the gang we're using. Up
Speaker 1: until now, fake aliases had been one of the colt's
Speaker 1: main tools in successfully avoiding detection by law enforcement. In
Speaker 1: episode eight, Gabriella told me about how the cult created
Speaker 1: new versions of themselves whenever they moved to a new place.
Speaker 1: They were able to create official looking documents to match
Speaker 1: these imagined new personas, mainly thanks to that cult member
Speaker 1: called Linda Johnson. Linda was a master Forarder. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: was good to bar certificates take her five minutes to make.
Speaker 1: In the seventies and eighties, cops didn't have access to
Speaker 1: nationwide linked computer systems or DNA databases, so whenever a
Speaker 1: cult member was arrested, their fresh identity made it look
Speaker 1: like a first offense. Hardest parts about track in this family.
Speaker 1: They all these birth certificates and different names. They have
Speaker 1: the aliases at the Kazoo, and once a cult member
Speaker 1: had posted bail under a fake name, they had simply
Speaker 1: skipped down before they had been linked to other lives
Speaker 1: and crimes. It's what Hebrew had done following the disastrous
Speaker 1: bank robbery back in six But in the summer of Phoenix,
Speaker 1: the Kog's assassin's mistake had been to reuse their aliases
Speaker 1: because the Jenny Task Force had checked all the hotels
Speaker 1: in Texas and found some familiar names. When you go
Speaker 1: into hotel, you check in with your driving a classes
Speaker 1: member name, and then we started figuring out who was
Speaker 1: here and used by two different names that they used,
Speaker 1: but the hotels matching them up with the drivers that
Speaker 1: they were using, and those same fake aliases were being
Speaker 1: used here in Phoenix, Arizona. So once the Jenny Task
Speaker 1: Force knew that they had their suspects, those mug shots
Speaker 1: they were now sitting in front of in the Phoenix
Speaker 1: police station, and then there was the bagged evidence in
Speaker 1: front of them, part of that King's Inn hotel room hall.
Speaker 1: I have the police report from that initial bust, and
Speaker 1: it lists these items as a false beard, a false mustache,
Speaker 1: empty shoulder holsters, tourists, thirty eight revolver speedloaders, street guides, maps,
Speaker 1: a list of Texas police scanner frequencies. And then amazingly,
Speaker 1: they found some newspapers that the kids had collected after
Speaker 1: they had committed the murders in Texas and brought with them.
Speaker 1: As soon as they committed the murders, they went and
Speaker 1: bought all the newspapers and went to the hook Telling
Speaker 1: Texas and read about what they've done, and then they
Speaker 1: packed up and came to Arizona. For Detective Burnmeister, this
Speaker 1: evidence Hall definitely brought into question some of the hyperbole
Speaker 1: he'd heard from the other cops on this group being
Speaker 1: sophisticated and methodical assassins. Some of the stuff that they did,
Speaker 1: you know, having all that stuff in the car, it's dumb,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean that's and keeping the suits is dumb,
Speaker 1: and keeping the beards it's dumb. And actually they didn't
Speaker 1: do a very good job at disposing of the weapons either.
Speaker 1: The evidence seemed like a gold mine that could crack
Speaker 1: the whole investigation wide open. When the cops left that
Speaker 1: Phoenix conference room to go and talk to their suspects,
Speaker 1: they must have felt like the dominoes were about to fall,
Speaker 1: but in the coming weeks they'd crash against a familiar barrier,
Speaker 1: the same barriers every cop looking into the herbal La
Speaker 1: Baron Colt had faced. No one would talk, thanks to
Speaker 1: the hall from the King's Inn, the beards and wigs,
Speaker 1: and newspapers documenting the crime. They had evidence connecting the
Speaker 1: Labarrens to the four o'clock murder, but they still didn't
Speaker 1: know exactly what had happened that day, who did which hit,
Speaker 1: and crucially who had killed Jenny. Everyone in custody remained
Speaker 1: impenetrable a lifetime of training never to talk to cops.
Speaker 1: At one point, the cops thought they were making headway
Speaker 1: with Cynthia. They showed her grizzly photos of Jenny taken
Speaker 1: at the crime scene. Cynthia was visibly shaken, but still
Speaker 1: she wouldn't say a word. For Utah based investigator Steve Votechi,
Speaker 1: these interviews were just as frustrating as the ones he'd
Speaker 1: done with the Labaron kids following Dan Jordan's murder back
Speaker 1: in and just like back then, the cops on the
Speaker 1: Jenny Task Force started feeling the heat. We could get
Speaker 1: intense with each other and you know, just rant and
Speaker 1: rave or whatever, but when it came time to talk
Speaker 1: to a suspect, it had to be cool and calm,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't going to be possible to intimidate any
Speaker 1: of them into confessing because they've been intimidated by experts
Speaker 1: in their family for years, and so it could get
Speaker 1: pretty intense. Months passed became eighty nine. What had seemed
Speaker 1: like exciting new evidence that could bring the whole cult down,
Speaker 1: well that feeling had given way to something else, a feeling.
Speaker 1: Homicide detectives like John Burmeister knew all too well a
Speaker 1: case going cold. All we had was just indirect evidence.
Speaker 1: Even though those physical events, we couldn't tie it to
Speaker 1: the murder, Even though we had beavers and suits and
Speaker 1: all that. They had no idea who had them all.
Speaker 1: But at least their suspects and custody were going nowhere.
Speaker 1: Because while the Jenny Task Force had been failing to
Speaker 1: make progress, the Phoenix p D had moved forward with
Speaker 1: their car theft investigation. They didn't need the Kogs cooperation
Speaker 1: to bring charges on that they had airtight evidence. In
Speaker 1: August of more than a year after the four o'clock murders,
Speaker 1: five members of the Kyog pled guilty to auto theft charges.
Speaker 1: Hebrew and Doug Barlow were sentenced to ten years in prison,
Speaker 1: Cynthia and Tarsa to five years, and Richard, who was
Speaker 1: seventeen but was tried as an adult, was given three
Speaker 1: and a half years. Those working the Jenny Task Force
Speaker 1: were relieved. Some of the Kog leadership will be hind bars,
Speaker 1: but they didn't have all their suspects Aaron, Natasha and Patricia,
Speaker 1: for example. They were all large. On top of that,
Speaker 1: the car theft sentences would in all likelihood be significantly
Speaker 1: reduced for good time. Ten years could be five, five
Speaker 1: could be just a few years, and then they'd all
Speaker 1: be out and back in Mexico planning more murders. And
Speaker 1: this went against that central aim of Operation Jenny, to
Speaker 1: break the cycle of violence, to stop future generations from
Speaker 1: becoming caught up in this fanatical dogma of killing in
Speaker 1: the name of God. They wanted to pull the children
Speaker 1: growing up in the colt away from it, the kids
Speaker 1: who had yet to become killers, kids like Gabriella le Baron,
Speaker 1: who as the eighties turned to the nineties, was far
Speaker 1: from splitting from the Colt's ideology. In fact, she was
Speaker 1: becoming more and more extreme. That's coming up after the break.
Speaker 1: When news of the four o'clock murders reached Gabriella LeBaron
Speaker 1: and the rest of the kog at their remote Mexican
Speaker 1: hideout b f A, the cult members were conflicted. On
Speaker 1: one hand, there was a muted rejoicing that God's will
Speaker 1: had been fulfilled. Dwayne and Markina and Eddie Marston had
Speaker 1: marked themselves for death by betraying God's kingdom on Earth.
Speaker 1: They were sons of perdition and as such they had
Speaker 1: to be blood a tone to be saved from an
Speaker 1: eternal health. It was a form of mercy to kill them.
Speaker 1: But Jenny, the eight year old girl, she was innocent
Speaker 1: killing her cast a Paul over the camp. Then word
Speaker 1: reached the b f A of the arrest in Phoenix,
Speaker 1: and as the months passed it became clear that Hebrew, Doug, Richard,
Speaker 1: and Cynthia weren't returning anytime soon. We split into two
Speaker 1: different groups. I mean, we didn't split ideologically. Some kids
Speaker 1: went to the States to work and send us money,
Speaker 1: and then others were sent to Monterey, Mexico without Hebrew
Speaker 1: and co stealing cars and packing weed for the Mexican mafia.
Speaker 1: The kog needed new sources of cash badly to feed,
Speaker 1: house and clothe the Kingdom of God, so they went legit.
Speaker 1: We were getting out of the mafia trade, and we're
Speaker 1: going to go back into selling washers and tryers. Gabriella
Speaker 1: was just thirteen years old in n without Hebrew and
Speaker 1: some of the others around to provide muscle and protection.
Speaker 1: Working for the cartels had become too much of a risk.
Speaker 1: The mafia trade became too dangerous and crazy, right, you know,
Speaker 1: Like we had to get out of there, so why
Speaker 1: don't we try something else. They left b f A
Speaker 1: and the mafia town of Navajo and moved to Monterey,
Speaker 1: which today is one of the wealthiest cities in Mexico,
Speaker 1: has a reputation for being safe, orderly where you might
Speaker 1: go if you want to become legit. But my experience
Speaker 1: in Mexico is money ran dry. We had no more
Speaker 1: money to eat, and we kind of went hungry for
Speaker 1: a while. We were literally just on beans, nothing else,
Speaker 1: not even soul and once in a while you can
Speaker 1: have a tortilla, have a tritia. Gabriella and the other
Speaker 1: older kids decided they needed to get jobs. Gabriella spook
Speaker 1: fluent Spanish and English, so the eighteen year old cult
Speaker 1: member became an English teacher. I put makeup on in
Speaker 1: high hills and it was terrible. Also ashamed. I was
Speaker 1: a tough person, not this one in makeup and heels. Well,
Speaker 1: I had to do it. Other siblings in Monterrey also
Speaker 1: started teaching, and for really the first time in their lives,
Speaker 1: found they were interacting with the world outside their cult
Speaker 1: in a meaningful way. And then they became exposed. They
Speaker 1: found these older, wiser adults, really good hearted people who
Speaker 1: kind of took them under their wing and just started
Speaker 1: teaching them about the world and offering care and guidance
Speaker 1: and helping them to see. And then a few years
Speaker 1: later they were just like, Okay, we're done with this.
Speaker 1: All of this is bullshit, So fuck the KG, all
Speaker 1: the hunger, all the terror, all the killing, and now
Speaker 1: they were just done with it all. Gabriella was incredulous.
Speaker 1: I wasn't on board. I was not going to let
Speaker 1: everyone off that easy. She convinced some of her siblings
Speaker 1: to not give up on God on their father's wishes.
Speaker 1: She reminded them that the hardships of the cult were
Speaker 1: a test. What they needed to do was doubled down
Speaker 1: on their worship, try harder to reach God. So that's
Speaker 1: what we did, and we all went on something called strike.
Speaker 1: This was the beginning of something Gabriella's family calls the
Speaker 1: strike period, as in strike against the outside world. We
Speaker 1: thought that God was cursing us for not for not
Speaker 1: being good enough, for becoming too worldly. If you have
Speaker 1: a job in the world, or if you have friends
Speaker 1: that are outside of the cult, you mingle in any
Speaker 1: way with anybody outside of the cold, or flirt with
Speaker 1: boys or anything. We're the wrong kind of shoes and
Speaker 1: makeup and start being social. All that is worldly and bad,
Speaker 1: and God will curse you. But the thing with us
Speaker 1: is that God didn't only curse us. Okay, God curse
Speaker 1: the whole world. It's like in the Bible, one person
Speaker 1: does something bad and they destroy the whole freaking city.
Speaker 1: Gabriella quit her teaching job. We needed to go on
Speaker 1: some missions. We need to do ourselves, even though all
Speaker 1: the adults were in jail now and we need to
Speaker 1: carry on continuing the murder spree. Basically, so we did
Speaker 1: our solemn assemblies. We fasted for a week, fraid twice
Speaker 1: a day, did two solemn assemblies a day, which like
Speaker 1: each one is two or three hours long, so it's
Speaker 1: like all day long your prayers. It's terrible. M This
Speaker 1: strike was a rejection against what they deemed as corrupt
Speaker 1: Western or American outside influences. The United States was definitely
Speaker 1: the big evil country. We all decided to know that
Speaker 1: all that is evil, all these things that everyone else
Speaker 1: is doing their normal lives of people are living, all
Speaker 1: that is bad. Every part of it is bad, So
Speaker 1: don't even think of it. You can't talk to anybody,
Speaker 1: you can't have friends. And there was a point that
Speaker 1: we couldn't even study outside world books, so you know,
Speaker 1: kind of like think of some extremist community saying all
Speaker 1: everything Western is bad, right, so burn it all. Gabriella
Speaker 1: and a few of her siblings rejected anything that represented
Speaker 1: the corruption of the world. One day, Gabriella and these
Speaker 1: siblings gathered up as many of these corrupting possessions as
Speaker 1: they could find, and dumped them in a big heap
Speaker 1: in the backyard, douse them in gas, and then we
Speaker 1: burned it all in the big bonfire. Literally birth it
Speaker 1: all in a big bonfire. Literally burnt it all in
Speaker 1: the big weldfire, all of our shoes, anything that was worldly.
Speaker 1: The whole idea here was to somehow like purify yourselves,
Speaker 1: get back in the graces of God. Yes, basically, and
Speaker 1: God needed to bless us, send us some sort of
Speaker 1: answer because we didn't have any answers. There was no
Speaker 1: communication from heaven. So we did the very best we could.
Speaker 1: We got rid of everything that was worldly. They were
Speaker 1: offering a sacrifice to God in the form of fire,
Speaker 1: a burnt offering similar to those mentioned in the Bible.
Speaker 1: Maybe by showing God they wanted nothing to do with
Speaker 1: the world at large, he would give them some kind
Speaker 1: of sign. No answer came right, and no answer ever came.
Speaker 1: I think of teenage Gabriella staring into the flames of
Speaker 1: that Monterey fire, trying to make sense of the deafening
Speaker 1: silence from her God, the God she had obeyed so
Speaker 1: faithfully since birth, the God she and her family had
Speaker 1: given so much for, had taken so much from others
Speaker 1: for a God who still would not even acknowledge their existence.
Speaker 1: And I wonder, did it feel similar to the way
Speaker 1: I felt when I prayed, back when I believed, before
Speaker 1: my doubts had risen to the surface. Faced with such confusion,
Speaker 1: you reach down within yourself resolve, you'll try harder to
Speaker 1: find a way to reach God. But maybe now it's
Speaker 1: me who's reaching to try to compare my own experiences
Speaker 1: with the extremities that Gabriella and her siblings had known
Speaker 1: since birth. Shortly after Gabriella quit her teaching job and
Speaker 1: went on strike against the outside world, she was presented
Speaker 1: with more earthly practical concerns. We ran out of money,
Speaker 1: we ran out of food, We got kicked out of
Speaker 1: the house, and then we went to live in a
Speaker 1: shed on some pig ranch farm. So we lived in
Speaker 1: this shed and there were these big giant rats everywhere
Speaker 1: and roaches, and since we didn't have money or food,
Speaker 1: we had to beg for food. I had to go
Speaker 1: to the Medicago like the open market and take whatever
Speaker 1: rotten food that people were getting rid of, and being
Speaker 1: that home and cut off the wrong parts. No me,
Speaker 1: of course, just fruits and vegetables, and that's what we
Speaker 1: would eat. Living among the rats and ruin, Gabriella must
Speaker 1: have felt like the Kingdom of God had hit rock bottom,
Speaker 1: but it would turn out that there was further to go.
Speaker 1: It was now and across the border. The members of
Speaker 1: the Jenny Task Force were unaware of the cracks now
Speaker 1: splitting the kog in Mexico. Dave Schwinderman, the federal prosecutor
Speaker 1: in the U. S. Attorney's Office in Utah, had made
Speaker 1: little progress in either the four o'clock murders or the
Speaker 1: Sandpete County killing of Dan Jordan's, but there had been
Speaker 1: some success in the second goal of the Jenny Task Force,
Speaker 1: finding stable homes for children born in the colt In.
Speaker 1: Cops had raided appliance repair shops the kog Ran in
Speaker 1: Atlanta and Chicago. While the adults they arrested awaited trial
Speaker 1: on various charges, the kids working in the repair shops
Speaker 1: were put in foster care. We got material witness warrants
Speaker 1: for all of the kids, and then we brought them
Speaker 1: all to Salt Lake and then put them before the
Speaker 1: grand jury and did our interviews with them, spent lots
Speaker 1: of time with them. But as usual. These La Baron
Speaker 1: kids wouldn't talk. When they did talk, they told us lives,
Speaker 1: and we knew their lives, so it wasn't worth pursuing it.
Speaker 1: And the hopes that getting them in stable homes would
Speaker 1: break the spell of Hervil LeBaron's dogma didn't last long.
Speaker 1: No sooner had the children of the Koji even put
Speaker 1: in foster homes, that the Colts leadership tracked them down
Speaker 1: and helped them flee and then just disappear, Go back,
Speaker 1: go back to Mexico. Dave Schwindermann was facing the most
Speaker 1: difficult case of his career. These are encapsulated communities, difficult
Speaker 1: to penetrate to investigate for crime, even more difficult to
Speaker 1: penetrate for any kind of social service or whatever else
Speaker 1: they might need. They kept to themselves and kept things
Speaker 1: very tightly controlled, and things for the Jenny Task Force
Speaker 1: got worse because in the early nine nineties, the KOG
Speaker 1: members convicted in the Phoenix auto theft case started to
Speaker 1: be released from prison. Richard LeBaron got out, and then
Speaker 1: Cynthia LeBaron got out, Just as the cops had feared,
Speaker 1: the COLT was regrouping. So how much of your time
Speaker 1: and attention during that period was still focused on this case,
Speaker 1: And did you feel like the trail had kind of
Speaker 1: gone cold or what were you and Dick and others
Speaker 1: doing keeping the records together, keeping people from getting rid
Speaker 1: of cleaning files out, actually having to bring files into
Speaker 1: my office and just stack them in my office so
Speaker 1: that people didn't go through and perjam talked a lot.
Speaker 1: We made sure that we kept in Dutch all the time,
Speaker 1: looking for anybody popping up because we felt there might
Speaker 1: be more murders. At some point, I got the family
Speaker 1: recognized as a domestic terrorist case, which it was, but
Speaker 1: it was hard to convince people at the time that
Speaker 1: this was domestic terrorism, even though they ain't killed thirty people.
Speaker 1: And we just kept it going, kind of not really
Speaker 1: expecting or looking for a break. And all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: Dick Forbes gets this phone call from Cynthia LeBaron. It
Speaker 1: was the Jenny Task Force received a jolt from the blue.
Speaker 1: Dick calls me on the phone and says, Hey, I
Speaker 1: just got this phone call. I know it's from Cynthia Bricu.
Speaker 1: I recognized her voice. She says that she and Jessica,
Speaker 1: her sister. I want to turn themselves in. They're willing
Speaker 1: to tell us everything, and they want some protection. Cynthia
Speaker 1: was calling Dick from Monterey, Mexico. Cynthia told Dick things
Speaker 1: had happened in Mexico that made her and her sister
Speaker 1: fear for their lives. After leaving prison, Cynthia had done
Speaker 1: exactly what police feared she would do. She'd headed straight
Speaker 1: to Mexico to rejoin the Kog, but something had changed
Speaker 1: for Cynthia. Upon returning. She had found a boyfriend outside
Speaker 1: the Colt, which was against the rules and infraction punishable
Speaker 1: by death, and that's why Cynthia said she was calling
Speaker 1: Dick Forbes. She wanted out. She was ready to tell
Speaker 1: all in exchange for protection. But the cops had mixed feelings.
Speaker 1: On one hand, this was the sort of break they've
Speaker 1: been chasing for decades. On the other, considering the modus
Speaker 1: operandi of the Colt, they couldn't help but worry that
Speaker 1: this was a trap, because what they say to him
Speaker 1: on the phone is we only trust you, and Schwindman
Speaker 1: only you too. We'll meet you in Texas. It was
Speaker 1: always in the back of your mind, you know, is
Speaker 1: this a lure? He had to wonder. After all, this
Speaker 1: is what the cult of Herbal le Baron were known for,
Speaker 1: luring their prey out into the open. It had happened
Speaker 1: to Joe le Baron lured into that house in en Sonata,
Speaker 1: the villagers lured out of their homes by fire and
Speaker 1: Los Melinos. There was that botched attempt to kill Verlin
Speaker 1: at Rulin al Red's funeral. It had even been the
Speaker 1: way Dwayne and Jenny Channath had been lured out to
Speaker 1: Rena Street a call about a washing machine that needed
Speaker 1: picking up. When this call came in there, that's what
Speaker 1: we thought our turn. They're working to Laura on us.
Speaker 1: Do we actually take them at their word that they
Speaker 1: want to talk to us? Were we're smart enough to
Speaker 1: avoid being killed? But after such little progress, how could
Speaker 1: the cops turn down this opportunity to get inside the
Speaker 1: workings of the colt? How do we do this? Do
Speaker 1: we follow up? That's coming up? After the break in
Speaker 1: their offer to the Jenny Task Force, Cynthia and Jessica
Speaker 1: le Baron had been clear they were willing to spill
Speaker 1: all the cult secrets and they wanted protection in return.
Speaker 1: But crucially, they were only prepared to deal with two
Speaker 1: members of the Jenny Task Force. They made this demand
Speaker 1: during that first phone call to Dick Forbes, who passed
Speaker 1: on the message to David schwindermann, the lead prosecutor on
Speaker 1: the Jenny Task Force. They're willing to tell us everything
Speaker 1: and they want some protection. But here's the catch, it's
Speaker 1: only you and me. They'll trust Dick Forbes because he
Speaker 1: knew the case like no other, and David Schwinderman because
Speaker 1: as the federal prosecutor he had the most reach for
Speaker 1: accessing things like the Witness Protection Program. But even though
Speaker 1: the Jenny Task Force had now agreed to risk meeting
Speaker 1: Cynthia and Jessica, when it came to this demand for
Speaker 1: it to just be Dick and Dave at the meat,
Speaker 1: Swinderman wasn't going to take the risk. A said, well, look,
Speaker 1: I'm willing to go with you. We'll go down there.
Speaker 1: We'll do this, but honestly, Dick, you gotta get ahold
Speaker 1: of Burmeister and you guys that are working it from
Speaker 1: the Eastern homicide side that were part of this group,
Speaker 1: and we gotta go down there together. Having met John Burmeister,
Speaker 1: I can understand Swinderman's instinct to bring him along too.
Speaker 1: Definitely the kind of guy you want to bring to
Speaker 1: a fight, and Burmeister was ready. Turns out he's been
Speaker 1: waiting for something like this to go down. I had
Speaker 1: a feeling that sooner or later they'd go overboard with
Speaker 1: their family problems and that somebody would come forward because
Speaker 1: they were either scared, or they're just tired, or a
Speaker 1: little that way. The plan was to meet Cynthia and
Speaker 1: Jessica in Laredo, Texas. That's sitting on the Mexican border
Speaker 1: where Herville had crossed into the US in handcuffs years before.
Speaker 1: I get the FBI involved, I get Customs involved so
Speaker 1: that they could come across the bridge at Nuevo Laredo
Speaker 1: without being interfered with. And we're to meet them at
Speaker 1: a certain time on a certain day. The location for
Speaker 1: the meeting was agreed the Howard Johnson a motel downtown.
Speaker 1: A few days later, it was on. We fly to Laredo, Texas,
Speaker 1: we go to the Holiday Inn and we set up
Speaker 1: and then there's this gonna tell where we're supposed to
Speaker 1: meet these kids at seven o'clock at night. We've got
Speaker 1: police back up as well, because we weren't sure how
Speaker 1: this was going to turn out. So they kind of
Speaker 1: clear out one board of the motel and we go
Speaker 1: around and the cops go to the door and knock
Speaker 1: on the door, the detectives, and there's no answer, you know,
Speaker 1: nobody comes to the door. And so immediately they grabbed
Speaker 1: me by the back of the shirt and pull me
Speaker 1: around the corner to get me out of the line
Speaker 1: of fire. And they all take positions in the shrubs
Speaker 1: and everything else with aim on this door because they
Speaker 1: figure it's a lower you know, we've been sucked into
Speaker 1: this trap. And while this is all going on at
Speaker 1: the Howard Johnson's, across the parking lot, there's this group
Speaker 1: that starts to gather at the windows. And in that
Speaker 1: group that's gathered at the windows as Cynthia and Jessica
Speaker 1: and their two Mexican boyfriends watching this whole thing developed
Speaker 1: and on the parking lot. In other words, it hadn't
Speaker 1: been a trap. There had been some kind of mix up,
Speaker 1: and once the confusion had lifted in two separate hotel rooms,
Speaker 1: Forbes and Swinderman began their first of a series of
Speaker 1: interrogations of Cynthia and Jessica LeBaron and we go all night.
Speaker 1: This interview is just Stone called chilling. Over the course
Speaker 1: of that night and in further interviews over the coming days,
Speaker 1: Swinderman and the others on the Jenny task Force listened
Speaker 1: in astonishment as the veil of secrecy that had long
Speaker 1: shrouded the Kingdom of God began to lift. And no
Speaker 1: sooner had they started sharing information with the cops than
Speaker 1: more colt informants began to surface. That normally happens once
Speaker 1: somebody turns it, it's not a domino effect before all
Speaker 1: they all do. And basically that's what happened. That's what
Speaker 1: happened with the other kids. You know. Danny was the
Speaker 1: next one that came across. Danny le Baron, a kid
Speaker 1: just sixteen years old at the time, he decided he'd
Speaker 1: had enough of the Kog. He called and said that
Speaker 1: he was concerned about himself and Richard. Richard le Baron
Speaker 1: was seventeen years old at the time of the four
Speaker 1: o'clock murders. Gabriella described him as fun and laid back,
Speaker 1: turned everything into a joke, well maybe not everything, because
Speaker 1: word was now out in the Kog that Richard and
Speaker 1: Danny were next in line for blood Atonement and all
Speaker 1: the other family members loved him. Richard was the hero,
Speaker 1: so he was a big influence on the rest of him.
Speaker 1: When Richard eventually sat down with Burmeister, he was ready.
Speaker 1: Richard was straightforward as a witness. I didn't tell you
Speaker 1: anything he was that's gonna get him. I don't want
Speaker 1: nothing else to do with this. I'm gonna be a
Speaker 1: son of perdition and I have a different lifestyle. Richard
Speaker 1: didn't hold back any details. He was a straight shooter.
Speaker 1: You can tell that from the get go. This guy
Speaker 1: is not gonna lie to him, and he's gonna tell
Speaker 1: me everything that he knows about everything. Richard's confession was
Speaker 1: perhaps the most significant so far. During the questioning, he
Speaker 1: told me what happened, He said to you, I killed
Speaker 1: I'm the one who killed Dwayne and Jenny. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: got pretty emotional that he he broke down and cried.
Speaker 1: I had to consider that he was a kid when
Speaker 1: it happened, you know, and it's not like he was
Speaker 1: full grown man. But it did bother me that I
Speaker 1: was talking the guy to killed a little girl. How
Speaker 1: did he feel about killing an eight year old? What
Speaker 1: did he tell you? He had to do it. He
Speaker 1: was ordered to absolutely he ever morse for it. Oh absolutely,
Speaker 1: I'm sure he still does. By the time the cops
Speaker 1: were done, they had a timeline for the four o'clock murders.
Speaker 1: Beat by beat. Doug Barlow had killed Eddie Marston, shooting
Speaker 1: him as he went to collect the washer dryer. Hebrew
Speaker 1: Le Baron had killed marching Off while he sat in
Speaker 1: his office chair, with Cynthia and Natasha waiting in the
Speaker 1: car outside. And Richard had shot and killed Dwayne and
Speaker 1: Jenny while Patricia sat waiting in the Chevy Silverado that
Speaker 1: had come barreling down Rena Street, trapping the two victims.
Speaker 1: Jenny was only killed because she was old enough to
Speaker 1: be a witness. In fact, Patricia had to send Richard
Speaker 1: back up the driveway to kill her. Patricia it told Richard,
Speaker 1: she's old enough, she can be a witness. You gotta
Speaker 1: go kill her. But the cops weren't done with the
Speaker 1: confession they had so far from Cynthia, Danny, Jessica, and Richard. Next,
Speaker 1: they moved on to members of the Colt who were
Speaker 1: still incarcerated, the ones still serving time for those grand
Speaker 1: theft auto charges in Arizona, Dave Schwindermann and John Burmeister
Speaker 1: went to see Patricia in jail and Phoenix. It was
Speaker 1: a slow process with her. I talked to her for
Speaker 1: hours and hours and hours, and I told her upfront
Speaker 1: that you tell me whatever you want to. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to pressure you to talk about in Houston case
Speaker 1: unless you decide that you want to do it. I
Speaker 1: could tell that she was pressing me for information just
Speaker 1: as much as I was trying to press her for information,
Speaker 1: because she didn't know what was going on with the
Speaker 1: rest of the family. She'd been in isolation ever since
Speaker 1: the inditements came out. And we got to the point
Speaker 1: we said, well, you know, Richard told us everything, told
Speaker 1: us what you did, what he did, what everybody did.
Speaker 1: He said, I've got his confession. And if I really
Speaker 1: she said, well you got Richard, I'm pretty sure you
Speaker 1: know everything that happened. I might a slow go Richard trout.
Speaker 1: Richard's route meant full disclosure. And this wasn't just the
Speaker 1: corroboration of the testimony of her siblings. She told them
Speaker 1: things that were even more shocking. And I want to
Speaker 1: warn you here that this next piece of tape is
Speaker 1: about as distressing as a story as I've heard, it's
Speaker 1: one minute forty seconds long, so skip ahead if you
Speaker 1: don't want to hear it. Patricia had a baby, a
Speaker 1: little boy, as I recalled by Hebrew, her brother, and
Speaker 1: the baby was sickly and was crying all the time.
Speaker 1: Hebrew told her to do something about the child. You know,
Speaker 1: child is screaming too much. Just do something with the child.
Speaker 1: And Patricia tried, but she couldn't make the child go quiet.
Speaker 1: She said, we need to take the child to a doctor.
Speaker 1: Of course, taking somebody to the doctor would have given
Speaker 1: away a lot of what the family was about. They
Speaker 1: needed to keep to themselves and keep by themselves, so
Speaker 1: going to a hospital was not something that anybody really
Speaker 1: wanted to do. But Patricia eventually prevailed on Hebrew to
Speaker 1: take the child to a hospital. So Hebrew loaded Patricia, himself,
Speaker 1: and the baby into the pickup truck and they began
Speaker 1: to drive towards their man ceo. Patricia's holding the baby
Speaker 1: and the baby's crying. They get part way to aara
Speaker 1: massio in the middle of nowhere, Hebrew pulls the truck over.
Speaker 1: He said, give me the baby. She says no. Hebrew
Speaker 1: said give me the baby and get out of the truck.
Speaker 1: I had no choice. I gave him the baby. The
Speaker 1: baby's crying. I walk away from the truck and the
Speaker 1: baby stops crying. I go back to the truck and
Speaker 1: the baby's blue, and he says here. We then drive
Speaker 1: into air massile. We drive through the entrance to the
Speaker 1: emergency room at the hospital arms CEO and he tells
Speaker 1: me to throw the baby out, so I do, and
Speaker 1: they drive off. It was the only time I saw
Speaker 1: her show any emotion, and with this tiny tear that
Speaker 1: trickled down her face. At the end of that conversation,
Speaker 1: we had to get out of the room. After years
Speaker 1: of desperately trying to get the colt to talk, they
Speaker 1: had finally heard enough. I can only imagine how it
Speaker 1: must have felt to hear all these confessions. Dave schwinderman
Speaker 1: Like myself, being someone raised as a Mormon, You're hearing
Speaker 1: this bizarre tail that is so close to what you
Speaker 1: were raised and believed in everything else, but it's flipped
Speaker 1: on its head. It's a one eight. I mean to
Speaker 1: commit these murders. That's their mission. And of course Schwindermann
Speaker 1: was hearing information on cases he'd been working on for years,
Speaker 1: not just the four o'clock murders, like the open investigation
Speaker 1: into Dan Jordan's murder. Patricia described for us that Patricia
Speaker 1: and Hebrew drove up from Mexico and we're told where
Speaker 1: the campsite was by the kids. They knew when they
Speaker 1: were going to be there. They knew where the campsite was,
Speaker 1: and according to Patricia, she and Hebrew waited down on
Speaker 1: the road until they could see what was going on.
Speaker 1: And then Hebrew went up into the place where Dan
Speaker 1: was doing his stuff and shot him. And you remember
Speaker 1: Leo Evanick, that I who killed Gabriella's big brother, Arthur Leo,
Speaker 1: who had tried to still the kids with the Rio's brothers. Well,
Speaker 1: it turns out after he was driven off, Hebrew shot
Speaker 1: him ten times, shot him running away. Patricia drove, but
Speaker 1: Hebrew shot him. They took his body, put it in
Speaker 1: Leo's vehicle and drove the vehicle off and buried Leo somewhere.
Speaker 1: But despite all these confessions, all these new deaths and
Speaker 1: leads from the cult members who are now talking, the
Speaker 1: decision was made that, apart from the four o'clock murders,
Speaker 1: none of these crimes would move forward to trial. The
Speaker 1: cops were going all in on a conviction for the
Speaker 1: Texas shootings. He went with the Texas murders because we
Speaker 1: had better evidence. We actually had physical evidence that we
Speaker 1: could use, We had a story that's stuck together, and
Speaker 1: we had people that were in the family that were
Speaker 1: welling to testify, and so the Jenny Task Force was
Speaker 1: finally ready to move forward with charges, but Richard le
Speaker 1: Baron was singled out. We made a plea arrangement with
Speaker 1: Richard and used him as a witness in the trial. Cynthia, Jessica,
Speaker 1: and Danny were now in the Federal witness Protection program,
Speaker 1: providing testimonies that would keep them out of prison two.
Speaker 1: But for the rest of the Kog suspects, everybody got
Speaker 1: died in Patricia was already in jail, Eber was already
Speaker 1: in jail, Barlow was already in jail, and Phoenix they
Speaker 1: weren't much of a problem. That left Tarson Aaron the
Speaker 1: last two members of the Kog leadership still at large.
Speaker 1: But surely it was just a matter of time before
Speaker 1: those two loose ends would be tied up and finally
Speaker 1: the killing would end once and for all. That was
Speaker 1: just around the next corner, right right. I remember just
Speaker 1: having this really strong conclusion in my head. I was like, look, God,
Speaker 1: if you want me to go and build the chi,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do it. I'm ready. I was so ready.
Speaker 1: Just tell me and I'll go. That's coming up on
Speaker 1: the final episode of deliver Us from Herbal. Deliver Us
Speaker 1: from Herville is hosted by me jesse Hyde and written
Speaker 1: and reported by me Leona Hamad and David Waters. Production
Speaker 1: from Leona Hamid and David Waters. Sean Glenn and maxwe'brien
Speaker 1: are executive producers. Lena Chang and Megan Oyinka are researchers.
Speaker 1: Marianna Gongora is our field producer. Fact checking by Donya
Speaker 1: Suleman and Sona Avakian. Production management from Sharie Houston, Frankie
Speaker 1: Taylor and Charlotte Wolfe. Austin Mitchell is our creative director
Speaker 1: of production. Michae Lee Row is our managing editor. Gavin
Speaker 1: Haynes is our head of development. Willard Foxton is our
Speaker 1: creative director of development. Sound design, mixing and scoring by
Speaker 1: Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson. Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander
Speaker 1: and David Waters. Our music is composed by Julian Lynch.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Scott Anderson, Scott Carrier del van Ada,
Speaker 1: Pippa Smith, Saskia Edwards, Matt O'Mara, Katrina Norvelle and beth
Speaker 1: Ann Macaluso or In Rosenbaum, Shelby Shankman and all the
Speaker 1: team at U t A. For more from novel, visit
Speaker 1: novel dot audio