Speaker 1: Novel. A listener notes this episode contains violence and content
Speaker 1: that some listeners might find distressing. Previously, on Deliver Us
Speaker 1: from Hervial, Hervill thought that he could just move in
Speaker 1: and take leadership. Well, it didn't work. That's the problem.
Speaker 1: They thought they were going to go out and save
Speaker 1: the world. Herbal was their leader. There's really gonna be
Speaker 1: no stopping him. Anyone who opposed him deserved to die,
Speaker 1: including a daughter. So I called my mother and she said, honey,
Speaker 1: your daddy's been shot. He said from the beginning, the
Speaker 1: only way you're going to get Herville is to break
Speaker 1: someone substantial in his group. The FBI today arrested a
Speaker 1: key suspect in the nineteen seventy seven religious assassination of
Speaker 1: Polygamus patriarch Ruling all Read. Agents arrested twenty year old
Speaker 1: Greenish and Off at the International Bridge in Laredo, Texas.
Speaker 1: Even though we didn't have solid eyewitness testimony that she
Speaker 1: was doing the pole the trigger, I was pretty confident
Speaker 1: that we had sufficient evidence to convict. Judge raise the verdict,
Speaker 1: not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty. Back in
Speaker 1: seventy six, the leader of the Church of the Lamb
Speaker 1: of God sent a letter to Jimmy Carter, A battle
Speaker 1: is raging, he would write, a battle of the most important,
Speaker 1: decisive nature the world has ever known. The Geneva Peace
Speaker 1: Convention and the British Parliament would get similar letters from
Speaker 1: herbal two. As God's prophet on earth, he wanted, well
Speaker 1: actually demanded, world domination. Ervil had always aimed high, absurdly
Speaker 1: delusionally high, but by this point in Irvil's mind, there
Speaker 1: was plenty of evidence to back up his delusions his
Speaker 1: belief that God was on his side, because even a
Speaker 1: few years after that letter to the President, there still
Speaker 1: hadn't been a single conviction in the United States against
Speaker 1: any of rvil A Baron's active cult members for their
Speaker 1: murderous activities. But despite this, in Salt Lake City, the
Speaker 1: cops like Detective Dick Forbes and prosecutors like David Yoakum,
Speaker 1: they weren't going to just give up and stop. After all,
Speaker 1: Ervil seemed to actually believe he spoke for God and
Speaker 1: God wanted him to commit these killings. But many of
Speaker 1: the people hunting rvil A Baron saw this as a
Speaker 1: holy crusade too. Most belonged to the Mormon church or
Speaker 1: had been raised in it. They were trying to clean
Speaker 1: up their own house. This applied to del van Ada,
Speaker 1: the investigative reporter falling Herbal's trail. You heard an episode
Speaker 1: four and Dick Forbes too. The Salt Lake City detective
Speaker 1: Dell was swapping information with Plus From the mid seventies.
Speaker 1: There was a certain prosecutor in California who also had
Speaker 1: the colt in his crosshairs. It was it was I
Speaker 1: knew we're in the right spot when I saw the
Speaker 1: format come back. This is Gary Rumble. For decades he
Speaker 1: worked as a prosecutor in San Diego. Mormon, like me,
Speaker 1: went to b y U, except got kicked out. Gary
Speaker 1: isn't your typical Mormon. He's always been a little rough
Speaker 1: around the edges. He comes from Stockton, California. Even today,
Speaker 1: you tell someone you're from Stockton, people might assume you
Speaker 1: know how to scrap. If you pulled up at a
Speaker 1: stop sign, you look over at the other car and
Speaker 1: there was another teenager there, and you looked at that
Speaker 1: guy for more and about five seconds you were going
Speaker 1: to be in a fight in the street before the
Speaker 1: light changed. So Gary learned how to fight. I took
Speaker 1: taekwon do. I went about three or four times a week.
Speaker 1: But then I got hired as a marshal at my
Speaker 1: twenty one birthday and started carrying a gun, and I
Speaker 1: immediately dropped out of taekwon do because fists are fast,
Speaker 1: but bullets are faster. Gary's being slightly tongue in cheek
Speaker 1: here but only slightly in person, he manages to be
Speaker 1: simultaneously both warm and humorous and yet unflinching antagonistic, and
Speaker 1: these pugilistic parts of his personality well, he carried that
Speaker 1: into his job at the San Diego County District Attorney's Office.
Speaker 1: Here for nearly forty years, Gary fought cases in court,
Speaker 1: sometimes quite literally. We would go to war and in
Speaker 1: the courtroom like we were going to a sporting event
Speaker 1: every day. I've tried crips, I've tried the Hell's angels,
Speaker 1: I've tried all kinds of murderers, and I just have
Speaker 1: a good time. I kind of treat it like a sport.
Speaker 1: My style was to be extremely aggressive, almost physically aggressive
Speaker 1: in court, but I always smile at the crook. And
Speaker 1: what makes these stories all the more amusing to me
Speaker 1: is the fact that Gary's not a big guy. He
Speaker 1: might be my size ten, thin frame. But as well
Speaker 1: as that take kwon do, he was a wrestler in college.
Speaker 1: He has that wily style of fighting and he'd use
Speaker 1: that in the courtroom too well. Coming from a tough town,
Speaker 1: I knew I couldn't out mad dog the crooks, and
Speaker 1: I genuinely disliked the violet crooks. So what I did
Speaker 1: was I smiled at him, and when I was given
Speaker 1: my closing statement, if it was a violent crook, I
Speaker 1: love that if I could get him to attack me.
Speaker 1: I'd been to attack three times in the courtroom in
Speaker 1: front of the jury, and it's just it's wonderful because
Speaker 1: the jury gets to see what these people are like
Speaker 1: on the streets. It wasn't just gang members. Gary used
Speaker 1: this tactic for the cold blooded killers too, and I
Speaker 1: had one murderer that had just about cut a guide
Speaker 1: of pieces and was throwing parts of him around the room.
Speaker 1: It was a horrific case. It attacked me incidentally during
Speaker 1: the trial, and he refused to come in for sentencing because,
Speaker 1: as he told the judge, I don't want to come
Speaker 1: in there because you're gonna sentence me to life. And
Speaker 1: Mr Rymple's gonna smile at me, and I don't want
Speaker 1: to see him smile. The Labaron case, though, this was different.
Speaker 1: These weren't crips or contract killers. These were religious zealots
Speaker 1: from a branch of Gary's own faith, and what they
Speaker 1: wanted was beyond reason. Unlike anything Gary had encountered. These
Speaker 1: guys wanted to dominate the world. You see this thing
Speaker 1: about this particular cult that stands out. These people are
Speaker 1: extremely clean cut. You can see a dirtbag dope dealer
Speaker 1: coming at you down the street. These guys could walk
Speaker 1: up next to you in the supermarket pushing the cart,
Speaker 1: more clean cut than I've ever been, shoot me twice
Speaker 1: behind the ear, walk outside, get arrested, asking if they've
Speaker 1: ever done anything wrong, and they say no, They passed
Speaker 1: a polograph. The murder Gary was trying to prosecute was
Speaker 1: a Dean vest that giant of a man who left
Speaker 1: the army after strangling his sergeant, then did a stint
Speaker 1: in prison and joined Merville's colt. It was Geary's job
Speaker 1: to try and get a conviction against one of herbal
Speaker 1: Le Baron's assassin wives, Vonda White. She was somewhat nondescript,
Speaker 1: humble looking, straight hair, sort of an older waif, thin,
Speaker 1: hollow cheeked, blinking eyes, non threatening looking. In other words,
Speaker 1: when Gary Remple would eventually face Vonda in court, she
Speaker 1: wasn't going to try to mad dog anyone. And for Gary,
Speaker 1: the stakes could not have been higher. So far, every
Speaker 1: prosecutor who had taken a cult member to trial had
Speaker 1: gone in confident with eyewitnesses, fingerprints, and other circumstantial evidence.
Speaker 1: And yet somehow every time Hervil's posse had been acquitted.
Speaker 1: And so the prosecutors and cops trying to take this
Speaker 1: murderous cult down really needed this one to stick. They
Speaker 1: needed to stop the killings. With one conviction. They were
Speaker 1: sure the dominoes would start to fall and they could
Speaker 1: finally bring down Herville. But in their way were fugitive suspects,
Speaker 1: watertight alibis, plus the fact that one of their previous
Speaker 1: star witnesses from inside the Colt was about to die.
Speaker 1: From the teams at Novel and I Heart Radio, this
Speaker 1: is deliver Us from Herville. I'm Jesse Hyde. This is
Speaker 1: episode seven, Herville Comes Home. Throughout this series, I've tried
Speaker 1: to draw a clear line between mainstream Mormonism and it's
Speaker 1: fun to mentalist branches. Partly for accuracy, mainstream Mormons haven't
Speaker 1: practiced polygamy in over one years, and the faith is
Speaker 1: trust me, anything but violent, and partly because I don't
Speaker 1: want to lump people I love in with a group
Speaker 1: like herbal abeyance. Many of my friends and family are
Speaker 1: still devout believers. That said, it also wouldn't be fair
Speaker 1: or accurate to not trace the roots of some of
Speaker 1: these beliefs to their source. For many Mormons, these are
Speaker 1: uncomfortable truths things maybe they don't want to look at.
Speaker 1: One of the most controversial doctrines and Mormonism, for example,
Speaker 1: is called blood atonement. Mainstream Mormons rarely utter these words.
Speaker 1: If you do, things can get weird because blood atonement
Speaker 1: is the belief that some sins are so awful you
Speaker 1: can't be forgiven and less sure blood is spilt. Without
Speaker 1: blood atonement, you become a son of perdition, gets sent
Speaker 1: to Hell, that unique kind of Mormon held known as
Speaker 1: outer darkness. Your blood is spilt to save you from
Speaker 1: that terrifying fate. Nowadays, not many mainstream Mormons have even
Speaker 1: heard of blood atonement. I never had growing up, or
Speaker 1: in fact, until I first started studying Mormon fundamentalism. And
Speaker 1: the doctrine is disputed, but some fundamentalists do believe it.
Speaker 1: And that is what happened to the giant Dean Vest.
Speaker 1: Saturday in June was yet another sunny and cloudless day
Speaker 1: in National City, a working class suburbs south of San Diego,
Speaker 1: not too far from the border with Mexico. This is
Speaker 1: where dean Vest lived with a few of Hervil's followers.
Speaker 1: It was common for cult members to share houses like
Speaker 1: this together. Unremarkable on the outside, here they could live
Speaker 1: inconspicuously with a bunch of their kids. Herville periodically visiting.
Speaker 1: Dean Vest shared this house with a few of Herbal's wives,
Speaker 1: a woman called Lynda Johnson and her kids, and Vonda
Speaker 1: White and her kids too. And this Saturday, Vonda had
Speaker 1: told Vest she was going to cook him a special meal.
Speaker 1: When Vest arrived at their home that day, Vonda told
Speaker 1: him the mill was ready. She told him to wash up.
Speaker 1: She was dressed in pants top in a apron as
Speaker 1: he bent over the sink to wash up, because he
Speaker 1: had to do some serious bending, because this guy was
Speaker 1: seven ft tall in his stockings. As he bent over,
Speaker 1: she sneaked up behind him and gave him one in
Speaker 1: the back, which pierced his lungs. When prosecutor Gary Remple
Speaker 1: first started on the case, he used the evidence at
Speaker 1: the crime scene to try to build a narrative. He
Speaker 1: spun around, spewing blood from his mouth in a circle, staggered,
Speaker 1: and collapsed on the floor. Were upon according to protocol,
Speaker 1: she gave him one behind the ear. By this time,
Speaker 1: Herville's colt had killed so many people they'd established a
Speaker 1: methodology one behind the ear just to make sure they
Speaker 1: were dead. As the shots were fired. Across the street
Speaker 1: was an off duty police officer who won the launder
Speaker 1: mat there. He was there emptying the boxes, collecting some money.
Speaker 1: Here's a couple of shots. Looks immediately in the direction
Speaker 1: from which they came. He was able to scan both
Speaker 1: the front door and the back area of the house
Speaker 1: and saw that nobody ever left. This was great for
Speaker 1: us because that puts Vonda the only person in the house.
Speaker 1: Shortly after arriving on the scene, the cops had suspected
Speaker 1: Vonda might have been responsible, and so they brought her
Speaker 1: in for questioning. June nine, the time of seventeen forty hours.
Speaker 1: Interviewing officer is Detective E. T. Dece National City Police Department,
Speaker 1: and her name please? And where you strict? All right,
Speaker 1: Mrs why, I'm going to read you your rights now
Speaker 1: as guaranteed in the Constitution. I wish you would listen
Speaker 1: to the rights as I reading. Listening into this police
Speaker 1: interrogation with Vonda, you kind of get a sense of
Speaker 1: what Gary Rample was up against well, accused of this
Speaker 1: although there was no evidence supporting this. The way she
Speaker 1: could lie so convincingly to police so on dramatically, honestly,
Speaker 1: it's pretty impressive. First of all, about the Colts previous murders,
Speaker 1: which she blamed on Joel and Verlin. LeBaron's church said,
Speaker 1: it was all the actions of the followers of the
Speaker 1: Chill fundamentalists back in colonial LeBaron and members of their
Speaker 1: church have gone directly to our people and have threatened
Speaker 1: them with violence. And then when it came to the
Speaker 1: Deanvest murder itself, referring to the occurrences of this plate,
Speaker 1: can you tell me what happened in your own words
Speaker 1: leading up to the time which police officers arrived. Yes,
Speaker 1: I was at stairs with my children, and I've heard
Speaker 1: his succession of shots. Okay, when you say subcession, is
Speaker 1: that more than one? Can you give me an exact
Speaker 1: count of shots? No, I know I heard more than mine.
Speaker 1: That I was writing them them. Okay, where were you at?
Speaker 1: I was in the upstairs band I okay? And we
Speaker 1: were the children, all right. I had my little one
Speaker 1: with me and the other children or in bedroom reading.
Speaker 1: Because everything you told me regarding the sense of participation,
Speaker 1: and since it had been a truth point, yes, even
Speaker 1: if the cops did feel she was lying, what came
Speaker 1: out during this interrogation was troubling. Vonda had an alibi
Speaker 1: when the police arrived. She said she'd been upstairs reading
Speaker 1: a naptime story and talking on the phone to Lynda
Speaker 1: Johnson when she hears some shots that Lynda Johnson would
Speaker 1: have heard too, because Lynda Johnson was her alibi, and
Speaker 1: she came downstairs and found the horrible scene. Linda Johnson,
Speaker 1: another of Rvil's wives. Lynda Johnson, was a very nice,
Speaker 1: stout woman who just did whatever Hervil asked and she
Speaker 1: was ill treated by him and uh just used as
Speaker 1: a servant. Basically, this servant was an expert forger able
Speaker 1: to give members of the cult multiple identities, and because
Speaker 1: the cult was operating in a period before electronic records
Speaker 1: across multiple state and national boundaries. Her skills caused all
Speaker 1: sorts of problems for law enforcement. But Linda and her
Speaker 1: alibi weren't the only issue cops faced when it came
Speaker 1: to solving the Dean Vest murder. There weren't any clean
Speaker 1: prints on the murder weapon, for one. Also, they couldn't
Speaker 1: figure out the motive just what had happened between Vanda
Speaker 1: and the huge Dean Vest. You can hear that here
Speaker 1: in their initial questioning with Vonda trying to work out
Speaker 1: the motive. They were both known members of Hervil's cult.
Speaker 1: Why would she kill Dean? Have you recently ran the past?
Speaker 1: And any disagree with Mr h The police have blanked
Speaker 1: out Dean's name in the recordings here as anyone living
Speaker 1: in the house at a discool Mr we random charms.
Speaker 1: Gary stuck with it. I was able to defuse the alibi. First,
Speaker 1: he dug into Linda's background, found some welfare fraud and
Speaker 1: used the threat of charges against Linda Johnson to spook
Speaker 1: her into cooperating if she had testified in the trial.
Speaker 1: I could have easily impeached her, and so she chose
Speaker 1: to stay in Denver and I never saw her again.
Speaker 1: Vonda's alibi was gone, but Vonda was still in the wind,
Speaker 1: and Gary still didn't have a motive. The years passed
Speaker 1: see and into February of seventy eight, but then Lloyd
Speaker 1: Sullivan was arrested. Flipped the former Herville foot soldier now
Speaker 1: with his axe to grind against Hervil. And once he
Speaker 1: started giving information to the cops, he didn't just right
Speaker 1: out Herville for the killing of Ruben Alred. I'm going
Speaker 1: to show you a photograph. I recognize this photo. I
Speaker 1: recognize this as a lady who calls herself Vonda White,
Speaker 1: gene Wal a number of other aliases. Yes, I do
Speaker 1: recognize that this is Lloyd Sullivan from that interview with
Speaker 1: cops on March where he's about to lay out for them.
Speaker 1: Just why Vonda White shot Deean vest and herbal mmle
Speaker 1: Baron told me he had turned trader to the Kingdom
Speaker 1: of God. Excuse man must die, He must die because
Speaker 1: he was a trader of the Kingdom in what period
Speaker 1: of time with this must have been in the early
Speaker 1: part of and the next thing. I know Bonda White,
Speaker 1: he had had a commandment from herbal the killing. So
Speaker 1: sometime later, I suppose you wanted to get it up
Speaker 1: her chest. I don't know if she trusted Nick quite
Speaker 1: well and indicated several times she thought quite well of me,
Speaker 1: And it seemed like we were standing in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: and I can recall and vividly standing there and she
Speaker 1: told me that she did indeed kill. That broke the
Speaker 1: case wide open. Prosecutor Gary Remple couldn't believe his luck.
Speaker 1: Sullivan told the story how Vonda White had killed Dean
Speaker 1: vest She had intercepted a phone call or happened to
Speaker 1: pick up an extension where he was arranging to meet
Speaker 1: with the FBI in Seattle, where his wife had moved.
Speaker 1: He was defecting to the FBI, and he was going
Speaker 1: to bring along a trunk full of automatic weapons, sniper rifles,
Speaker 1: and explosives. What's more, Lloyd agreed to say all this
Speaker 1: in court to take the stand. So Lloyd was instrumental
Speaker 1: in Lloyd Lloyd was my principal witness. Then more good news.
Speaker 1: In March seventy eight, not long after Lloyd's testimony, there
Speaker 1: was another break in the case. Vonda was apprehended, but
Speaker 1: it seems the good news couldn't last, and as the
Speaker 1: case moved to trial, Lloyd got spooked. By now he
Speaker 1: was effectively living in a witness protection program. He genuinely
Speaker 1: feared for his life, and then he had his location
Speaker 1: revealed by local newspaper in the Utah town where he
Speaker 1: was hiding out. He was under an assumed name in
Speaker 1: a small town in the suburb area of Salt Lake City.
Speaker 1: They even published a picture of him, and Lloyd knew
Speaker 1: better than anyone just how dangerous this was. After all,
Speaker 1: he'd helped plan many of the cults killings. He was
Speaker 1: getting extremely paranoid. He was sure he'd be recognized in
Speaker 1: that town and killed. Also, he had a drinking problem,
Speaker 1: I should tell you that, so he wasn't in the
Speaker 1: best of health. A drunk paranoid not exactly a good
Speaker 1: mix for a man in hiding, and Lloyd was becoming
Speaker 1: increasingly convinced that some of Hervill's killers were around each
Speaker 1: corner waiting for him. He needed a new identity, something
Speaker 1: to help him avoid detection. In May of seventy eight,
Speaker 1: he called his handlers in the police and told them
Speaker 1: begged them to help. So he's in a phone booth
Speaker 1: prior to cell phones, calling the Salt Lake Police Department
Speaker 1: where his connections were, And as that occurred, a car
Speaker 1: drove by and backfired, mistaking it for a shot. He
Speaker 1: died of a heart attack. Gary Remple's star witness, was
Speaker 1: head killed, not by Herville, but by a backfiring car.
Speaker 1: And that wasn't the only bump in the road that's
Speaker 1: coming up after the break. It was the summer of
Speaker 1: and the heat was on for Gary Remple, that prosecutor
Speaker 1: who liked to stare down gang members and killers. As
Speaker 1: the trial of Vonda White got underway, even he felt
Speaker 1: an unnerving tension in the air, not just the usual
Speaker 1: pressure on the cops and prosecutors for a conviction or
Speaker 1: even a conviction against the coult With Herville still at large,
Speaker 1: there was a real risk to life to everyone involved
Speaker 1: in these court cases. Rvill Le Baron had taken his
Speaker 1: belief in what he called the law of force and
Speaker 1: morphed it into this blood atonement, a theology which wasn't
Speaker 1: simply based on vengeance, but rather that a killing could
Speaker 1: be a form of compassion. For her defense in court,
Speaker 1: Erville's group had pulled their tithing and hired Vonda an
Speaker 1: expensive team of private defense attorneys. We'd have these arguments
Speaker 1: and they'd be a sidebar. They'd get quite animated. And
Speaker 1: during one of these arguments, halfway through the case, things
Speaker 1: were getting pretty heavy and suddenly the lights went out
Speaker 1: in the courtroom. At least one or two jur screamed.
Speaker 1: I had grabbed one of the guys that was slouching
Speaker 1: and put him in front of me with my back
Speaker 1: to the wall the courtroom. I had my back to
Speaker 1: the wall, a defense attorney in front of me, and
Speaker 1: I was pulling out my derringer. When the lights came
Speaker 1: back on one of these guys slouching against the wall
Speaker 1: had inadvertently turned off the lights. Gary's eyes light up
Speaker 1: telling me this tale. He has this mischievous panache when
Speaker 1: he's telling all his best stories. But the fact that
Speaker 1: he grabbed someone else for cover, I think that shows
Speaker 1: just how scared everyone actually was. A Hervill's colt at
Speaker 1: this point in the late seventies of their reach, would
Speaker 1: they really hit a courtroom mid trial? Gary clearly thought
Speaker 1: they might. And if Gary had sensed he had reason
Speaker 1: to fear for his own life and just trying to
Speaker 1: prosecute this cult. He was right. The Colt had put
Speaker 1: a hit out on Arry. In fact, during his investigation
Speaker 1: into Rvil, a baron, the man himself had sent three
Speaker 1: of his most efficient assassins, his right hand man, Dan
Speaker 1: Jordan's Marchin and Eddie Marston, to Gary's home to kill him.
Speaker 1: About eleven o'clock one night, I was awakened by a
Speaker 1: phone call from the San Diego Police Department that the
Speaker 1: FBI had just contacted them. FBI told him they'd wire
Speaker 1: tap Rville, and the word came out. Rvill had ordered
Speaker 1: three guys to come up and kill me, to drive
Speaker 1: up from en Sonata to my house and kill me.
Speaker 1: They had my address en sonatas about two hours from
Speaker 1: where I lived. There. In the time it took the
Speaker 1: FBI to get this information from their wire tap relay
Speaker 1: it to the cops who related it to Gary, precious
Speaker 1: time had been lost. Rvil's hit team had a two
Speaker 1: hour drive to their target. So all I had was
Speaker 1: a snub nose thirty eight and I was on a
Speaker 1: cul de sac, and I didn't know if they were
Speaker 1: coming up the cul de sac, so like I couldn't
Speaker 1: leave the area. So I ran across the street to
Speaker 1: the neighbor and I borrowed his German shepherd, big Dog,
Speaker 1: and uh, I brought him to guard the front door. Well,
Speaker 1: that German shepherd started whining. He could sense my attention.
Speaker 1: I was high amps and he started whining and crying
Speaker 1: by the front door, and I thought, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: a liability if he defecates on the floor while I'm
Speaker 1: trying to shoot it out with these guys. So I
Speaker 1: took him back to the neighbor and I stood there
Speaker 1: for my thirty eight opened that the cops got there
Speaker 1: before the crooks, and uh, sure enough the cops made it.
Speaker 1: Then there's a bunch of cars. The hit team assigned
Speaker 1: to Gary must have seen those lights and aborted the mission.
Speaker 1: Then along about then a couple of day investigators showed up.
Speaker 1: And the byproducts of this whole episode was I had
Speaker 1: to move out of my house. I lived under a
Speaker 1: phony name in a hotel for a while until all
Speaker 1: this was over. Trying a member of hervill Abaron's colt
Speaker 1: had nearly cost Gary his life, and then another setback.
Speaker 1: In July of seventy eight, the judge in the case
Speaker 1: suddenly declared a mistrial. He didn't like my style because
Speaker 1: it conflicted with his style, is what I think. We
Speaker 1: were kind of going back and forth in time, and
Speaker 1: I'm having a good old day in court as far
Speaker 1: as I was concerned, and so we had a little argument,
Speaker 1: and his cure for my misbehavior was to declare a mistrial.
Speaker 1: But maybe set back is the wrong word, because Gary,
Speaker 1: that kid from Stockton, was ready for another round. Gary
Speaker 1: got some more insider information on the Colt. It turns
Speaker 1: out round one with Gary and Court his punches had
Speaker 1: done some damage. After that mistrial, I went out to
Speaker 1: a restaurant for lunch with the three defense attorneys and
Speaker 1: they admitted to me they're running through the cult's money.
Speaker 1: You know. The side effect of this whole case was
Speaker 1: that I broke the bank. Gary smelled blood in the water.
Speaker 1: When the second trial came, I was really pumped up
Speaker 1: because I knew they were suffering and I was only
Speaker 1: going to get stronger. I wasn't gonna get weaker. On
Speaker 1: the first of May nine, just a few months after
Speaker 1: the acquittal of Riena Chinath, the second trial against Vonda
Speaker 1: White began and the court we're using similar tactics from
Speaker 1: those that had freed Rena and her accomplices. They blame
Speaker 1: the killing on one of the witnesses for the prosecution,
Speaker 1: Don Sullivan, Gary had seen that move coming a mile away.
Speaker 1: I found out that at the time Dean Vest was
Speaker 1: murdered by Vonda White, Don Sullivan was in another state
Speaker 1: standing at the window of a teller making a bank deposit.
Speaker 1: I got that teller, and when I put him on
Speaker 1: the stand, they were done for. He had the receipt
Speaker 1: and there was a signature that we matched the handwriting
Speaker 1: on of down, proving irrevocably through an independent witness that
Speaker 1: he was standing at the teller's window, and the teller
Speaker 1: besides remembered him. The case was basically over at that point.
Speaker 1: Shortly thereafter went the jury after just two hours of deliberation.
Speaker 1: Just two hours, that's all it took. After all these
Speaker 1: years of unaccounted for slayings by Herbal's colts, Herville promised
Speaker 1: these people that if they took these callings, they could
Speaker 1: never be convicted of a crime because they hadn't really
Speaker 1: committed a crime in their hearts. And more importantly, it
Speaker 1: showed that they could be convicted of murder, and they
Speaker 1: couldn't get away with it. For the first time, one
Speaker 1: of Hervil's assassin's had been convicted, and it was like
Speaker 1: a spell had been broken. Vanda sentencing would take place
Speaker 1: in mid June of seventy nine, and by then another
Speaker 1: arrest would have taken place, this time over the border
Speaker 1: in Mexico. Prosecutor David Yoakum, who had failed to get
Speaker 1: a conviction against Rena and the other cult members, was
Speaker 1: about to get another shot, this time at Erville himself.
Speaker 1: He had grown pretty free up till that time, even
Speaker 1: as a fugitive from a murder case in Utah, probably
Speaker 1: bought his way out of every problem he had down there.
Speaker 1: But Erville's time living as a fugitive in Mexico was
Speaker 1: about to be up. He had caused some problems down
Speaker 1: there and members of his group and assaulted Mexican nationals.
Speaker 1: Mexican law enforcement received a tip about Rvil's exact whereabouts.
Speaker 1: They just got fed up with him and notified the
Speaker 1: US authorities that he had been apprehended and was on
Speaker 1: his way. In the past, he had managed to get
Speaker 1: out of prison and walk away, but this time he'd
Speaker 1: been driven straight to the border, met the federal authorities
Speaker 1: there and our investigators, and that tip the Mexican cops
Speaker 1: received about Hervil's exact whereabouts. It had come from Larive Stubbs,
Speaker 1: still tracking Herbal's whereabouts all these years later from down
Speaker 1: in Colonial LeBaron. We hadn't figured out to take him
Speaker 1: right to the border handcuffed, and they did. The guys
Speaker 1: took off their foot cuffs and their handcuffs and told
Speaker 1: them to get out and walk, and he did, and
Speaker 1: they said, and if you try to run, we'll shoot
Speaker 1: your feet. They stood right there and they walked across
Speaker 1: the border, and we had like thirty officials they're waiting
Speaker 1: for him. Herville LeBaron had been arrested. That's coming up
Speaker 1: after the break m. The city of Laredo sits on
Speaker 1: the northern bank of the Rio Grand one ft in
Speaker 1: Texas one in the Mexican state of tom Alippus on
Speaker 1: the southern bank of the river. This is where Rena
Speaker 1: was handed over to U S authorities, and now the
Speaker 1: same fate met Hervill le Baron. But when Herville crossed
Speaker 1: over into the arms of US law enforcement in June
Speaker 1: of the image had to be a letdown to all
Speaker 1: those who had been reading about this so called Mormon manson.
Speaker 1: The guy didn't look scary or impressive. Even his lawyer
Speaker 1: was a little taken aback when he saw him the
Speaker 1: first images of grand fatherly figure sitting in a jail jumpsuit.
Speaker 1: Public defender Bruce Lubeck was one of three lawyers assigned
Speaker 1: to Herville to try and make his case in the
Speaker 1: upcoming trial. My first impression was, they've got the wrong
Speaker 1: guy here. This isn't Irva LeBaron, the evil looking, dynamic
Speaker 1: figure that controls young people and multiple wives and has
Speaker 1: killed people. This is a kindly looking, gentle, meek looking
Speaker 1: old man who looks beaten down and tired, and didn't
Speaker 1: seem to be dynamic. He seemed very low key, And
Speaker 1: I said, you know how, I don't know how he
Speaker 1: could get anybody to do anything, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Why would anyone follow him? Irvill was charged with first
Speaker 1: degree murder for Dr Rulin already and first degree conspiracy
Speaker 1: to murder Virlin LeBaron for that botched assassination attempt. The
Speaker 1: group had planned for Dr Alred's funeral. The lawyers hoped
Speaker 1: Irvill would give them something they could use as a
Speaker 1: compelling defense. It seemed Hervil felt this was something they
Speaker 1: didn't need to worry about. It was in God's hands,
Speaker 1: and God had always protected him. He felt that somehow
Speaker 1: his truth was going to prevail and that I I
Speaker 1: was one who was going to help that come about.
Speaker 1: And I said to myself, I'm a lowly public defender
Speaker 1: in a small city in Utah, and I doubt that
Speaker 1: I'm a world changer. I knew I wasn't. And I
Speaker 1: told him that, and he said, oh no, no, don't
Speaker 1: sell yourself short. There's miracles going to come out of this.
Speaker 1: And he believed it. But as Hervil laid out his
Speaker 1: beliefs and justifications to his lawyers, it was hard for
Speaker 1: them to keep up. We'd go into a small room
Speaker 1: of metal walls, no windows, metal door that they locked
Speaker 1: from the outside, and they'd say knock when you're done.
Speaker 1: Then he would start on his preaching, often in one
Speaker 1: way or another. And I regret to say this and
Speaker 1: it but it's in retrospect, it was part of it.
Speaker 1: I can remember I've got my legal pad there and
Speaker 1: I'm holding my pen and taking notes, you know, and
Speaker 1: he's talking and and I would drop my pencil and
Speaker 1: it would wake me up, and I just kind of
Speaker 1: fell asleep a couple times. He never said, oh am
Speaker 1: I boring you? Sorry. He was always very kinous. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a hard time of day to stay awake, isn't
Speaker 1: it can be? You know he was. He never got
Speaker 1: upset at that, but I know I fell asleep. Mhm.
Speaker 1: The trial of Herbal a Baron began on Wednesday, May
Speaker 1: the fourteenth. A new decade had arrived in the hunt
Speaker 1: against Herville and his colt, with the optimism that the
Speaker 1: saga was approaching its end. On that Wednesday, Prosecutor David
Speaker 1: Yoakum stood across the courtroom from Herville in the dot
Speaker 1: He looked very um pale. I would say he looked weak.
Speaker 1: He said quietly, and behaved himself. He was never a problem.
Speaker 1: He never got out of hand, but a lot of
Speaker 1: the witnesses said that he tried to stare him down,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the witnesses felt his spirit or
Speaker 1: his feelings or emotions felt really they were being threatened
Speaker 1: or indirectly through him in the courtroom. After previous failures,
Speaker 1: Yoakum wasn't taking any chances this time. He brought in
Speaker 1: the big guns to testify. I testified against him in
Speaker 1: his trial, which was tough. Larie Stubbs, who had known
Speaker 1: Herville since the early days of colonial LeBaron, was anxious
Speaker 1: for her chance to face herbal down. I've never done
Speaker 1: anything like that in my life, and I was really upset.
Speaker 1: They had to work with me for three and a
Speaker 1: half days to get me to have the confidence to
Speaker 1: go in there and just say only what I needed
Speaker 1: to say. I don't have any qualms, but it was
Speaker 1: a day good testimony. Herville was going to make the
Speaker 1: fundamentalists the Alreads pay their tithing and if they didn't,
Speaker 1: he would just have to start getting rid of him.
Speaker 1: And that's the statement I made, and I of course
Speaker 1: said it exactly proper in court. And when I left,
Speaker 1: I was shaken beyond because they're all sitting right there
Speaker 1: trying to eye me down, because he told his lawyers,
Speaker 1: if I can make eye contact with her, I can
Speaker 1: break her down. So my lawyers warned me not to
Speaker 1: look at him, not once, because he sat like closer
Speaker 1: than that chair, and I'm sitting right here. I think
Speaker 1: that he did believe if I can make eye contact,
Speaker 1: I can mix her up, like mesmerize you because he
Speaker 1: did do that to lot of people and he didn't
Speaker 1: know how. But I wasn't one of them. I wasn't
Speaker 1: scared of that. I wasn't scared of Hervill because I
Speaker 1: knew how to dodge him. I had already proved hundred times.
Speaker 1: He was probably more scared of me than I was
Speaker 1: at him in the end. Next up on the stand
Speaker 1: for the prosecution was Erville's teenage son, Isaac, the one
Speaker 1: who had been at the April seventy seven meeting when
Speaker 1: Herville ordered the ruling already killing. He was the most
Speaker 1: emotional and I think most believable witness The prosecution had
Speaker 1: certainly much believable in the defense witnesses. They're all allied
Speaker 1: through their teeth. But Isaac had to come forward reluctantly
Speaker 1: because he had been threatened all of his life. In
Speaker 1: a short time he had lived that he was never
Speaker 1: to talk to the police, never to give information about it,
Speaker 1: the group, or his father or anyone else. So it
Speaker 1: was very hard for him, as young man too to
Speaker 1: come forward and speak on behalf of the prosecution at trial.
Speaker 1: So when he got on the stand, there was a
Speaker 1: lot of tension in the courtroom. Prosecutor David Yoachum asked
Speaker 1: what did Isaac think would happen to him if the
Speaker 1: Colt caught up with him after this court appearance. He
Speaker 1: basically said, if he should ever be caught by a
Speaker 1: member of the group or he faced them directly, that
Speaker 1: he had probably killed. So he was always under the
Speaker 1: impression that he had the death penalty assessed against him,
Speaker 1: and when he testified to that, it was to me
Speaker 1: very believable. Rvil had his witnesses too, people like Rville's
Speaker 1: right hand man, Dan Jordan's, filed into the courtroom as
Speaker 1: family and cult members called out the prosecution witnesses as liars.
Speaker 1: It was they who were the violent ones, as defectors
Speaker 1: from his church. Rville was a peace loving preacher being framed,
Speaker 1: they said, and end the defense and prosecution rested their case.
Speaker 1: It seems kind of strange, given how long the build
Speaker 1: up to this day had been, that the trial lasted
Speaker 1: just fourteen days. Which side of the Colt would jury
Speaker 1: members believe like Plato's cave. Was it going to be
Speaker 1: the ones who remained in the cave or those whose
Speaker 1: eyes had gotten used to the light outside of Herb's colts.
Speaker 1: The answer didn't take long. Just three hours later, the
Speaker 1: jury returned to court with a verdict. Hervill's lawyer, Bruce Lubeck,
Speaker 1: looked on the jury files back in and the judge says,
Speaker 1: I understand the jury has arrived at a verdict. The
Speaker 1: fourth person sents and and says, yes, that's true, and
Speaker 1: he says, handed to the bailiff. The bailiff takes the form,
Speaker 1: hands it to the judge. The judge lex over it
Speaker 1: and so he knows before anybody, and then hands it
Speaker 1: to the his clerk and says, the clerk will read
Speaker 1: the verdict. Has the defendants stand and we stand with him?
Speaker 1: And then the clear Creets says, the State of Utah
Speaker 1: versserve labart in case number one two three, As to
Speaker 1: count one, we the jury, Dooley and paneled an above
Speaker 1: entitle matter find the defendant Hervil LeBaron guilty of conspiracy
Speaker 1: to commit murder of first degree felony. And then the
Speaker 1: judge says to the jury, so say you one and all.
Speaker 1: Irville had been found guilty of conspiring to kill Virlin
Speaker 1: LeBaron and guilty of first degree murder for the death
Speaker 1: of Dr Alred Well. Of course, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of weeping and part of his that followed him. Cult
Speaker 1: members in court were outraged. This was not in God's plan.
Speaker 1: This judge said, no, no, I'll have no outburs and
Speaker 1: he would bang his gavel. Nobody bangs the gavel anymore,
Speaker 1: but he did all the time. He wore it out.
Speaker 1: But how no outburst or I'll clear the courtroom. And
Speaker 1: he was very aggressive. Judge Herville remained strangely calm. Even
Speaker 1: Rvill's lawyer was surprised by his reaction. There's certainly no
Speaker 1: outburst from him, nothing from him. And he said, okay, now,
Speaker 1: well now we'll get to work on this and we'll
Speaker 1: get this straightened out. So thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate
Speaker 1: everything you've done for me. Why wasn't Rvil more upset
Speaker 1: at a verdict that would likely mean he would spend
Speaker 1: the rest of his life behind bars. Surely this was
Speaker 1: the end for him, for his cult, for the Church
Speaker 1: of the Lamb of God. Clearly Irvil didn't think so.
Speaker 1: I did then and even more fully now believe he
Speaker 1: believed he simply had a role to play. There's this sculpture.
Speaker 1: This is that there should be one mighty and strong
Speaker 1: and regardless of what he faced in this life, and
Speaker 1: he believed it. I believe he believed it, and the
Speaker 1: rest of us were just playing in air, and he
Speaker 1: had the word of God and no one else did.
Speaker 1: Hervill was eventually transferred to a Utah prison, but there
Speaker 1: this attitude of acceptance, just biding his time remained. I
Speaker 1: went to see him in the prison that more as
Speaker 1: a hand holding effort. Uh. He was never what I
Speaker 1: considered depressed or suicidal, or there was optimism. Somehow things
Speaker 1: would prevail, right would prevail, his view of things would triumph,
Speaker 1: and uh he would come off the victor somehow. Even
Speaker 1: at that my last meetings, he was he was going
Speaker 1: to prevail. Hervill started preaching to fellow inmates, trying to
Speaker 1: recruit them. But while he sat in prison, the members
Speaker 1: of his cult on the outside, more of them had
Speaker 1: started to leave the cave and see the fire burning outside,
Speaker 1: just like in Plato's cave. They were coming to perceive
Speaker 1: reality in the same way as those on the outside.
Speaker 1: All started saying things in his doctrine and things and
Speaker 1: he had done, and things he had said that just
Speaker 1: you know, we just couldn't ignore them anymore. This is
Speaker 1: Rena Channath during her interview with the writer Dean Shapiro
Speaker 1: for her book years later. He was doing things that
Speaker 1: weren't since that that made no sense. He was saying
Speaker 1: things that didn't make any sense. Free from Herville's grasp
Speaker 1: from the late seventies, Rena had started to build a
Speaker 1: life away from the cult. Was this the last time
Speaker 1: you saw him? I didn't going to see him. I
Speaker 1: didn't see him. I hadn't seen since Mexico, So you
Speaker 1: never did see him again? I just I couldn't. Rena
Speaker 1: wasn't the only one who was splitting away from the
Speaker 1: cult at this point. Lots of other members were moving
Speaker 1: on to some like her brother's Mark, Dwayne, and Victor
Speaker 1: were trying and succeeding to build lives outside the cult.
Speaker 1: For Herville, these defections were the worst kind of betrayal,
Speaker 1: and from his cell he directed his rage at them.
Speaker 1: Into the pen. He had nothing but time to write,
Speaker 1: and from his early days in colonial le Baron, he
Speaker 1: could go days writing, sometimes without sleep. Prison officers peered
Speaker 1: into a cell, wondering what was he writing in there?
Speaker 1: Locked away, his followers leaving him, It didn't seem to matter.
Speaker 1: The insignificant ramblings of a madman. Then one day in August,
Speaker 1: they peered into his cell and saw something else, Herville
Speaker 1: dead on the floor. Detective speculating about the precise cause
Speaker 1: of death would tell the press. Maybe he took an
Speaker 1: overdose of drugs, his throat was damaged, maybe he suffocated
Speaker 1: after striking himself in the neck. But the Utah Medical
Speaker 1: Examiner's office concluded it was a heart attack. And it
Speaker 1: almost seemed like no one really cared about the actual cause.
Speaker 1: The important thing was it was finally over. Rvil A Baron,
Speaker 1: the cult, the misery, the crime, the murders. It was finished.
Speaker 1: At least that's what it seemed to the people of
Speaker 1: colonial le Baron, to the mainstream Mormon Church, scandalized and
Speaker 1: embarrassed by this rogue, bastard child souling their good name
Speaker 1: to the former cult members. Finally, blessedly it was all over.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't. In some ways, Irville's death was just
Speaker 1: the beginning of something far more monstrous, organized, and ruthless
Speaker 1: than anything that had come before. I was nine years old.
Speaker 1: I had made a vow that I would give my
Speaker 1: life just by being in the cold, just by being
Speaker 1: born into it, and when a person had to die,
Speaker 1: it was so that that person could be saved, so
Speaker 1: we didn't see it as an evil that's coming up
Speaker 1: in episode eight of deliver Us from Herville. Deliver Us
Speaker 1: from Herville is hosted by me jesse Hyde and written
Speaker 1: and reported by me Leona Hamid and David Waters. Production
Speaker 1: from Leona Hamid and David Waters. Sean Glenn and Max
Speaker 1: O'Brien 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. Michae Lee Row is our managing editor.
Speaker 1: Austin Mitchell is our creative director of production. Gavin Haynes
Speaker 1: is our head of Development. Willard Foxton is our creative
Speaker 1: director of Development. Mix scoring and sound designed by Eli Block.
Speaker 1: Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters. Our music
Speaker 1: is composed by Julian Lynch. Special thanks to Scott Anderson,
Speaker 1: Scott Carrier, del van Ada, Pippa Smith, Saskia Edwards Matt O'Mara,
Speaker 1: Katrina Norville and beth Ann Macaluso, Oran Rosenbaum, Shelby Shankman,
Speaker 1: and all the team at U t A. For more
Speaker 1: from Novel, visit novel dot Audio