WEBVTT - 8: The Reign of Arthur 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:15.920 Novel. A listener note this episode contains violence, including sexual violence, 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:24.400 and references to child abuse. Previously, on deliver Us from Herbal, 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:29.440 Hervil thought that if he got rid of Joel, that 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:33.840 he could just move in and take leadership with Joel's people. Well, 0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:36.040 it didn't work. They were going to go out and 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:40.000 save the world. Herbal was their leader. And as they 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:44.599 went along, I started to thinking, started dragon and then 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:50.560 it caught on fire. She said, honey, here daddy's spent shot. 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:54.640 Then I said, is a dad and she said, yes, 0:00:54.800 --> 0:01:00.440 he d Herville promised these people that if they took 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:04.160 these callings, they could never be convicted of a crime 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:08.000 because they hadn't really committed a crime in their hearts. 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:13.120 We all sat there and Judge raised the verdict of 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:17.680 not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty. Vonda White 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:22.640 killed Dean vest because he was defecting to the FBI. 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:25.319 As he bent over the sink to wash up, she 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:28.280 sneaked up behind him and gave him one in the back, 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:33.200 which pierced his lungs. Okay, where were you at the time. 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:36.480 I was in the up stairs fantony. If not children, 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:40.840 and I've heard a succession in shots. Lloyd was my 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:44.759 principal witness. I recognize this as a lady who called 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:48.560 herself Vonda White, and she told me that she did 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:53.000 in the kill. The word came out to drive up 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:55.040 from Innsinaud in my house and kill me. They had 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:59.960 my address. Herbal was basically become her son and ungird 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:03.880 in Mexico. They just got fed up with him and 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:08.919 notified the US authorities that had been apprehended. We had 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:11.760 it figured out to take him right to the border, handcuffed, 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:17.400 and they did. Grandfatherly figure sitting in a jail jumpsuit, 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:20.000 and then the clerk creates the state of Utah ver 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:22.920 reserved labart in case number one too three as to 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:25.120 count one, we the jury Dooli and pandel An above 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:28.120 and title matter find the defendant, herb lebart And guilty 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:32.359 of conspiracy to commit murderer, first degree felony. With such 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:36.560 an unstable group founded on such erroneous principles, you never 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:40.640 really know what to expect. By the time hervill had died, 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:52.720 I knew it really wasn't over. Point of the Mountain 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:56.080 is what locals call the Utah State Prison. It's a 0:02:56.120 --> 0:03:00.760 sprawling complex of drab, brown concrete buildings rounded by high 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:04.359 fences and razor wire, about twenty miles south of Salt 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:08.840 Lake City on the Interstate Hervilla. Barons spent two years 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:14.679 here before his death. In In that time, he alternated 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:20.200 between two distinct states, a bone deep depression that seemed 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:23.919 to send him spiraling into a trance. He tried to 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:26.960 end his life, shoving his own head down the toilet, 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:30.320 hoping to drown. When that didn't work, he asked the 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:35.560 warden to execute him, and then a delusional mania that 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:39.640 one day the walls would simply tumble down, the way 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:42.800 they had in the Bible at Jericho and he'd be free. 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:50.640 When these delusions set in, he wrote and wrote for 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:57.960 days at a time. So I guess start with talking 0:03:57.960 --> 0:03:59.640 about or looking at here and how you got it. 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:02.560 I'm in a kitchen in San Diego. In front of 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:07.600 me is a large three ring binder divided by yellow stickers. Okay, well, 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:10.040 this is the Book of the New Covenant. It's a 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:15.600 manifesto of irvill Le Baron, who is the third member 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:18.960 of the Holy Trinity according to him, and also he's 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:23.560 incidentally the great grand Patriarch of Israel and the mouthpiece 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:28.920 of God. And this is Gary Remple, the scrapper from Stockton, 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:32.039 prosecutor for the District Attorney's Office you heard in the 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:35.320 previous episode, the one who liked to mad dog, the 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.599 gang bangers and killers he faced in court. He was 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:41.680 the first to secure a conviction against a member of 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:46.479 the LeBaron Coult the American Eagle, the Ceiling of the 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:50.040 hundred and forty thousand. Gary is describing the cover of 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:55.159 this book, hervill LeBaron's final Opus, written at Point of 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:59.680 the Mountain. It spans around five hundred pages. It's called 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:02.520 the Book of the New Covenant, or the b n 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:05.719 C as it would become known among his followers. It's 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:11.440 like hundreds of pages of self congratulating rhetoric that you 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:14.200 can hardly bear to look through. The book to the 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:20.200 uninitiated is kind of hard to follow, rambling, disjointed, but 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:23.160 if you've heard the first seven episodes of this podcast, 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:26.560 you'll recognize a lot of the names. Some of it's 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:31.680 an airing of past grievances, complaints about the scoundrels like 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:36.640 myself and the other wicked people like Joela Baron, who 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:40.080 had been murdered on Hervil's orders in seventy two, the 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:46.720 killing that started this all okay, page seventy uh now 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:50.800 to falsely accuse this humble and unassuming man Hervil of 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:53.720 the murder of a black hearted skunk and demon, a 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:58.040 veritable devil in the flesh, a snake of the first magnitude, 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:01.480 a dark and holy benighted traitor to me, and an 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:05.760 apostate of renown, and a terrible liar and conspirator and 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:10.200 murder of renown, even one rotten drug peddler and sneak 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:14.800 and adulter and hypocrite and dogmatic and willful deceiver of men, 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:19.359 women and children. He's basically talking about his own brother. 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:23.120 There are love letters to wives like Vonda White, who 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:25.960 Gary Remple put in prison for the murder of Dean Vests, 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:29.760 and Rina Channath, who evil sent to kill Dr Rulin Alread. 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:35.000 I myself killed that old rattlesnake and monster, doctor ruland 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:38.919 c Alread of royal polygamaust fame. That's Eervil's confession right 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:41.760 in the middle of this book. And I, therefore, your 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:43.839 Lord and your God will take all the blame and 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:47.600 responsibility for the untimely demise At one point the book 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:52.520 lurches from the personal to the political. Rville, it turns out, 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:56.320 is a Republican, and he offers advice to Ronald Reagan 0:06:56.839 --> 0:07:01.320 and sympathy to his favorite politician. It talks to Richard Nixon, 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:05.160 dearly beloved Mr Nixon, since your retirement from the presidency 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:07.000 of the United States, I have been a deep mourning 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:10.240 because of the cynical way that you've been treated. I 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:12.600 love you greatly because of the great marvelous things that 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:14.600 you have done on behalf of America and of the 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:18.160 free world. And referring to himself as the Commander in 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:22.440 chief of the armed forces of all mankind, Herville sets 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:25.840 out his own Cold War era foreign policy. As soon 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:28.960 as Russia makes the slightest move to take any more power, 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:32.080 put a stop to the communist power on all North 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:34.720 and South America, according to the laws of my kingdom. 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:36.800 And if you need my help, I will give it 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:39.240 to you without any restraint, Saith the Lord God of 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:42.360 America and of Israel, and of Australia, and of Canada 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:44.640 and of all the English. As Gary and I leaf 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:47.160 through the pages of the Book of the New Covenant, 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:50.360 you can hear it in our voices. It's hard not 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:57.280 to laugh. The language, the range, it's well, I don't know, 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:03.600 the musing. I mean, it's just wonderful writing, consistently crazy 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:08.560 all the way through. But honestly, listening back to this 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:12.320 tape today, I kind of feel embarrassed hearing us laugh, 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:18.480 because I've since learned what this book means. It's legacy. 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:22.000 The book itself should never have seen the light of day, 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:25.960 But in early as Herville sat confined in his cell, 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:29.800 a copy was taken out of the prison, ironically by 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:33.120 a follower, Mark Schinath, who was actually about to leave 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:37.480 Herville's cult. Mark wasn't taken in by the book, but 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:40.040 for some reason he decided to show it to other 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:44.360 cult members. And those cult members they took the book 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:50.640 and made copies. They did not see self congratulating rhetoric. 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:57.600 They saw scripture, prophecy, a kind of manifesto. And they 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:01.839 did not see complaints and rants. They saw a hit list. 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:06.880 Gary Remple was named in that list, so were others 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:11.080 from law enforcement, like Dick Forbes, the man most responsible 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:15.440 for Herbal's imprisonment, and many others fifty people in all, 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:20.000 and not just law enforcement. Many of the names were 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:24.720 Herbal's former followers, people who, while Irvill was in prison, 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:28.800 had decided to walk away from the colt, and when 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:31.440 the book fell in the hands of those still loyal 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:39.040 to Irvill, those followers decided they needed to act. The Opus, 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:42.920 in their eyes, was a binding covenant with God, and 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:45.160 the fifty or so named in it had to be 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:49.040 atoned to be saved from hell, and the only way 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:53.400 to do that was to kill them through blood atonement, 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:58.559 that act of spilling blood and taking lives to save 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:06.160 sinners from any ernity in Mormon hell outer darkness. Before 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.400 he died, Herbal summoned his most loyal sons to point 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:12.840 at the mountain. In a ritual common and Mormonism, he 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:17.440 laid his hands on their heads. He ordained his oldest son, Arthur, 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:21.760 as the new patriarch of the cult. Six other sons 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:26.880 from four different mothers were ordained as high priests, and 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:29.760 each made a solemn vow to their father. If he 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:32.160 were to fall, they would carry on the work he 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:36.120 had started. They would cleanse the world of God's enemies. 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:40.880 These sons would fulfill the Book of the New Covenant 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:51.600 from the team's at novel and I Heart Radio. This 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:56.960 is deliver Us from Herbal. I'm Jesse Hyde. Episode eight, 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:11.040 The Reign of Arthur. I was wondering if you drink 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:13.560 coffee or if you didn't drink coffee, since you're a 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:19.600 since you're what do you call yourself? I'm in the 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.680 home of Gabriella a Baron. You heard her voice in 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:27.080 episode six, I described her as a former fundamentalist. If 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:30.160 you're not harm anymore, do you start drinking coffee? Or yeah, 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:33.720 I drink coffee. We're in her apartment in Austin, Texas, 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:38.760 surrounded by her paintings, abstract art she constructs by patiently 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:43.319 adding and removing layers of paint. Each takes months to complete. 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:49.199 It's a therapeutic process. Gabriella isn't just any former fundamentalist. 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:54.880 All right, Oh we're on now, okay, um, So I'm 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:58.480 Gabriella le Baron and my father is Irvilla a Baron. 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:01.840 This will be the first time she has ever shared 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:04.960 her story of her life in the LeBaron cult publicly. 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:08.720 I'm not here with Gabriella because I want to understand 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:12.920 her father, Irville. I'm here because I want to understand 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:16.880 what happened after he died. Why the story doesn't end 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:20.679 with his death, How the reign of terror his cult 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:25.520 unleashed continued for decades, How it somehow got even worse, 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:29.480 and what has become of that cycle of violence today. 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:35.079 Gabriella was born in nineteen seventy six, the same year 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:39.000 as me. Her mother, Teresa, was the child of indigenous 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:42.960 Mexicans who had moved to colonial LeBaron when Teresa was 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:49.120 just a child. Herville had thirteen wives, and one of 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:53.600 those wives is tere Srius and that's my mom. She 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:56.720 had four daughters, and I am the youngest of those four. 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:03.200 I was told that my mother loved my father, and 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:05.440 I believe he loved her too, and that's what was 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:10.120 told to us. It may sound obvious that a husband 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:13.679 and wife would love each other, but in my reporting experience, 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:17.080 it's often not the case in polygamous relationships. She was 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:20.160 on his side no matter what, and it caused me 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:22.560 to also worship my dad as soon as I was. 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:26.680 For Gabriella, her father was an almost mythical figure, like 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:30.520 children naturally worship their parents, but my experience with my 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:33.120 dad was taken to a holy level because he actually 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:37.800 was the representation of God on earth. As soon as 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:40.160 I was four years old, they were telling us these 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:43.800 stories that he was a great prophet and that he 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:48.480 was sent on earth to do some big, powerful, important 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:53.360 work that was gonna basically save humanity in the last days. 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:56.640 The world is coming to an end. Armageddon is honest 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:59.400 way you're going to see it in your lifetime. Your 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:03.320 father was sent to earth and he is he is 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:07.239 like the reincarnation of Jesus basically. Okay, so he represents 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:12.760 God on earth and you are so lucky to be 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:18.839 this great person's daughter. Right from the beginning, Gabriella had 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:24.160 to live with paradox cognitive dissonance because that great person 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:29.440 who everyone around her revered was completely absent from her life. 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:32.200 When did you first start to realize that that you 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:35.240 didn't matter to him? I always felt sad because we 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:37.560 would read all the letters that he wrote about all 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:39.480 his kids, and he never mentioned me in any one 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:41.240 of them, and I always waited for my name to 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:44.280 come up, and it never never did. For him, I 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:49.000 basically didn't exist. I didn't matter. Gabriella has jet black hair, 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:51.960 just like her mother. She always had her hair short 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:58.840 and she's dark skinned. Her parents are Indigenous, her father 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:03.760 is mixed race. She was very quiet, one of those 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:07.520 long suffering types. For a time in the late seventies, 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:11.480 Gabriella lived with her mom in Denver, Colorado, but not 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:14.600 with her father, who at this point was a fugitive 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:18.680 from the law. Gabriella lived under the supervision of a 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:24.000 different patriarch, Evil's right hand man, Dan Jordan's. Her mom 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:28.240 worked at Dan's appliance business. She was kind of the 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:33.240 little slave of the family, and she had no concept 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:37.200 of any kind of personal rights or space or ownership 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:41.960 of anything. In episode one, when I visited Colonial LeBaron, 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:46.680 I talked about the feeling of safety, of belonging, how 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:50.600 that was the entire point of the town. Building a utopia, 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:54.760 a zion. That's what Irvill and Joel had started out 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:58.840 trying to build. But by the time Gabriella came along 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:03.440 in seventy six, the ripples emanating outwards from Joel's murder 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:07.200 and the massacre at Los Melinos meant the children and 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:12.080 Hervil's cult had none of those feelings of hope or security. 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:19.200 Gabriela's existence was shadowed by a terrible, unrelenting dread so 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:23.200 talk about, um, you know, your early childhood, your your 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:26.480 earliest memories. If there's kind of like an image that 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:29.400 pops into your mind when you think back to your 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:33.040 early years. Oh god, it's terrible. Um hiding in the 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:36.400 closet because we're getting rated, and I think we were 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:41.080 in Denver. I vaguely remember that in the years before 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:45.080 her dad's arrest in seventy nine, cops would regularly arrive 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:48.760 unannounced at cold houses in raids to search the property 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:51.800 for any signs of him or other cult members. They 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:56.840 were hunting down And I was hugging my niece in 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:59.920 a really old style, small closet and on a pile 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:02.120 of blankets, must have been like four or five blankets, 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:05.240 and I was hiding behind the clothes, and I was 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:10.360 freaking terrified because we were being raided. All of Herbal's 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:14.680 followers scattered all over the United States experienced this feeling 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:18.639 of being constantly hunted by the law, and they knew 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:20.680 what to do when they got that knock on the door. 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:24.000 Never never, never speak to the police, no matter what 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:26.919 you die, first before you speak to the police. The 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:31.320 police were like the Boogeyman. It was just like you 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:33.760 know there's a robber outside. You know somebody's gonna break 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:36.080 into your house and hurt you, steal your stuff. That's 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:37.919 what normal people are afraid of. I was afraid of 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:44.399 a policeman being outside and looking inside in order to 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:47.040 try and avoid the eyes of the law. Each time 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:51.760 cult members settled somewhere new, they transformed themselves. And all 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:54.280 those times that we moved around in the States, we 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:57.080 changed our names every single time, so I got really 0:17:57.119 --> 0:18:00.000 good at adopting a new personality. It was five years 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:02.160 old or four years old, and I had a new name, 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:04.320 and they told me what my new name was, and 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:06.879 that's who I was, and I just melted into it. 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:11.400 Like other cult members, Gabrielle's childhood was spent moving from 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:14.840 city to city. The children were instructed to never speak 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:18.760 to strangers, to never leave the house, to never raise 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:22.560 the blinds. The adults went out and worked to earn 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:27.080 money for the colt, usually by repairing appliances. We were 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:30.840 left at home alone, and I think the oldest child 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:34.359 was about eight years old, and there must have been 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:37.320 about ten of us. The kids tried their best to 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:41.960 entertain themselves, but with no TV or radio, they had 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:45.679 to get creative. They would often break the rules and 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:48.800 venture into the backyard. I used to play in the 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:51.399 grass a lot. I used to love to try to 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:54.520 catch grasshoppers. It was one of my favorite things to do. 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:57.479 And they had a sprinkler on and then we were 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:00.920 out in the running in the sprinkler and jumping over 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:04.560 it and trying to catch grasshoppers. That was so much fun. 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:07.560 And I caught a little one, a tiny, little black grasshopper. 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:09.520 I put it in a jar with a bunch of grass. 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:14.440 I called it Blackie. And air Supply was playing a lot. 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:17.639 And then there was this one song that goes here, 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:21.719 I'm the one that you la la la la and forever. 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.960 I called that one the grasshopper song. And years later 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:28.399 I'd be like, oh, the grasshopper song and stolen moments 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:33.399 of childhood innocence. Across long board summers, the children of 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:38.120 herbal LeBaron would play together, and sometimes rays of light 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:43.919 broke through the darkness of cold life. We were all 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:47.600 in this house across the street, an empty house, a 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:52.480 vacant house, but they had a full swimming pool, so 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:55.920 we would run across the street. The pavement was so 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:58.320 hot our feet were always burning. So we'd run across 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:01.119 the street and go through the side gate to their backyard, 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:04.160 to nobody's backyard, and go and swim in their pool. 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:06.399 And we'd swim for hours and then come back up. 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:08.800 And then we do that every single day, and these 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:11.439 like whole little herd of kids running across the street 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:15.000 to swim in these people's empty house backyard swimming pool. 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:19.959 And then one day somebody moved in. It was terrible. 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:24.719 So two of the oldest kids decided to go and 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:27.639 ask for mission if we could swim. So one was 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:29.159 a boy when I was a girl. And they go 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:30.840 and they knock on the door and they're like, can 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:34.120 we swim in your pool? And it was a nice 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:37.800 looking young couple, and they said yes, of course, And 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:40.159 then they turned around. My siblings turned around to us 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:42.680 and said they said yes. And so all they heard 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:46.520 of kids come running across the street and swim for 0:20:46.680 --> 0:20:52.000 hours and these people So that was the last time 0:20:52.040 --> 0:21:02.240 we ever swim there. Oh god, mh. I mentioned earlier 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:05.320 that Gabrielle and I are the same age. Maybe that's 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:09.800 why when she tells these stories catching grasshoppers, listening to 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:13.520 air supply, it takes me right back to my childhood. 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:17.840 I feel that ache of nostalgia for the innocence of 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:21.120 encountering the world for the first time before it lets 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:26.080 us down, betrays us. And then I think about Gabriella 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:30.680 when the fear subsided for just a moment. How rare 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:35.280 and precious that time must have been. Moments of feeling safe. 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:41.560 For polygamus children sired by a man with countless other kids, 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:47.120 often the only place that really feels like home is mom. 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:52.400 Yet even in childhood, Gabriella could sense her mother was unraveling. 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:56.520 I was very conscious of how much my mother was suffering. 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:00.840 I was very careful to not ask anything of her. Basically, 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:02.240 you want to hold your breath all the time, because 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:07.280 even breathing might be too much. Her mother's descent left 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:13.240 Gabriella bereft, and I remember she was in her bedroom 0:22:13.320 --> 0:22:16.800 on bed with the fever, and she was saying all 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:21.479 kinds of random nonsense, like schizophonic things, and we were 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:22.840 just I was just sitting at the end of Bitch 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:25.840 watching her and worrying about her and knowing that she 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:29.680 was out of it. She lost it completely. My mom 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:32.239 wasn't aware enough to be able to defend me. And 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:36.320 she had no rights even over her own children. Gabriella 0:22:36.359 --> 0:22:41.000 had no rights either. She belonged to the cult. Would 0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:44.160 you guys call yourselves the family? What did you guy? 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:47.280 Because there's no way you called thisselves the cold? Oh? No, 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:50.000 Coult wasn't even a word reknew of. There was no cult. 0:22:50.040 --> 0:22:53.240 We were the Koug if anything. Yeah, we called ourselves. 0:22:54.520 --> 0:22:57.400 Kg is the nickname for our cult, the Kingdom of God. 0:22:57.920 --> 0:23:15.920 We were God's Kingdom, the Kingdom of God, or the Kog, 0:23:16.240 --> 0:23:19.080 as it was known to its members. This is what 0:23:19.119 --> 0:23:23.280 the cult started by Herville was now named. In just 0:23:23.359 --> 0:23:26.200 a few years, some of the younger members wouldn't even 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:29.320 remember what the name Church of the Lamb of God 0:23:29.400 --> 0:23:35.800 referred to. Long live the Kog. It was them versus 0:23:35.800 --> 0:23:39.880 the outside world, who they called the gentiles, the infidels, 0:23:40.320 --> 0:23:45.600 the enemy. That meant no friends outside the colt. Talking 0:23:45.640 --> 0:23:49.800 to someone who didn't belong to the Kog was strictly forbidden. 0:23:50.880 --> 0:23:52.320 When I was nine years old, I had made a 0:23:52.359 --> 0:23:54.840 vow that I would give my life so nobody there 0:23:54.880 --> 0:23:58.080 had a life to hold onto. Our lives, all of 0:23:58.080 --> 0:24:01.359 our lives before fit already just by being in the 0:24:01.400 --> 0:24:05.399 cult just by being born into it. You know, our family, 0:24:06.400 --> 0:24:09.679 our well being, our money, where we're going to live, 0:24:09.720 --> 0:24:13.040 how are we going to live ultimately? Our lives. And 0:24:13.400 --> 0:24:16.040 when a person had to die, it was so that 0:24:16.200 --> 0:24:20.560 person could be saved ultimately, so we didn't see it 0:24:20.640 --> 0:24:24.480 is an evil, I think it wasn't death, wasn't terror. 0:24:25.640 --> 0:24:28.639 You're going to be somewhere so much better, you know, 0:24:28.680 --> 0:24:31.320 And if you don't do this, you probably could go 0:24:31.440 --> 0:24:33.960 to hell forever in all eternity, which is the worst 0:24:34.000 --> 0:24:37.199 possible thing that could happen to anybody. And when we 0:24:37.280 --> 0:24:40.120 really really believe that so much so that we were 0:24:40.200 --> 0:24:42.479 ready to give our lives for it, and we couldn't 0:24:42.480 --> 0:24:44.800 have emotional attachment to each other because we would have 0:24:44.840 --> 0:24:47.560 to let go of one another. We wouldn't know when 0:24:47.760 --> 0:24:50.240 we would have to let go of our sister brother. 0:24:51.560 --> 0:24:53.760 This was the law as laid out in the bulk 0:24:53.800 --> 0:24:57.800 of the New Covenant, the law that would survive Evil's death, 0:24:57.880 --> 0:25:02.480 in a law now in the hands of his eldest son, Arthur. 0:25:03.359 --> 0:25:06.440 He was the son charged with leading the next generation. 0:25:08.200 --> 0:25:25.280 That's after the break in the days after herbl LeBaron's 0:25:25.359 --> 0:25:30.960 death late August, most of his wives and children living 0:25:30.960 --> 0:25:35.000 in the US suddenly headed south. Hours later, a group 0:25:35.000 --> 0:25:38.920 of the cult kids, teens, and a few adults across 0:25:39.000 --> 0:25:44.679 the border into Mexico. Gabriella was five years old in 0:25:44.720 --> 0:25:48.800 August one as she arrived in a remote corner of Sonora, 0:25:49.600 --> 0:25:53.520 a vast and wild Mexican state which sits in the 0:25:53.600 --> 0:25:57.679 upper northwest corner of the country. Her destination was about 0:25:57.720 --> 0:26:01.359 eighty miles from the US border with r Zona. I 0:26:01.400 --> 0:26:03.720 remember the night we showed up. It was like one 0:26:03.720 --> 0:26:07.080 o'clock in the morning. It was a pitch dark, like 0:26:07.280 --> 0:26:10.679 I can't even see my hand. There was no town. 0:26:11.640 --> 0:26:17.000 In fact, there were no lights at all. Darkness was 0:26:17.080 --> 0:26:19.280 so thick. I had never experienced that kind of darkness 0:26:19.320 --> 0:26:22.440 ever in my life. He was so quiet and so 0:26:22.480 --> 0:26:26.560 spooky and so scary and if people like be careful 0:26:26.600 --> 0:26:29.359 because our sakes, and spiders and scorpions and all these 0:26:29.440 --> 0:26:34.280 dangerous things. By the first light of day in Sonora, 0:26:34.359 --> 0:26:38.320 Gabriella began to make out adobe ruins and an endless 0:26:38.359 --> 0:26:42.719 expanse of mesquite brush and cactus, not all that different 0:26:42.760 --> 0:26:46.679 from colonial LeBaron at its inception. This was to be 0:26:46.760 --> 0:26:50.520 their new home. The ranch called Lahoya, or camp as 0:26:50.560 --> 0:26:54.080 they called it. Gabriella had been told her mother would 0:26:54.119 --> 0:26:57.280 be there in Mexico waiting. They believed it was okay 0:26:57.280 --> 0:26:59.840 to tell children lies in order to get them stopped crying. 0:27:00.760 --> 0:27:03.399 So I got there and she wasn't there, and that 0:27:03.520 --> 0:27:12.200 was like a huge caving disappointment. Before his death, Merville 0:27:12.240 --> 0:27:15.560 had passed his favorite son, Arthur, the mantle of the 0:27:15.600 --> 0:27:20.440 one mighty and Strong. So when Hervill died, Arthur immediately 0:27:20.480 --> 0:27:24.480