Speaker 1: Novel. A listener note this episode contains violence, including sexual violence,
Speaker 1: and references to child abuse. Previously, on deliver Us from Herbal,
Speaker 1: Hervil thought that if he got rid of Joel, that
Speaker 1: he could just move in and take leadership with Joel's people. Well,
Speaker 1: it didn't work. They were going to go out and
Speaker 1: save the world. Herbal was their leader. And as they
Speaker 1: went along, I started to thinking, started dragon and then
Speaker 1: it caught on fire. She said, honey, here daddy's spent shot.
Speaker 1: Then I said, is a dad and she said, yes,
Speaker 1: he d Herville promised these people that if they took
Speaker 1: these callings, they could never be convicted of a crime
Speaker 1: because they hadn't really committed a crime in their hearts.
Speaker 1: We all sat there and Judge raised the verdict of
Speaker 1: not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty. Vonda White
Speaker 1: killed Dean vest because he was defecting to the FBI.
Speaker 1: As he bent over the sink to wash up, she
Speaker 1: sneaked up behind him and gave him one in the back,
Speaker 1: which pierced his lungs. Okay, where were you at the time.
Speaker 1: I was in the up stairs fantony. If not children,
Speaker 1: and I've heard a succession in shots. Lloyd was my
Speaker 1: principal witness. I recognize this as a lady who called
Speaker 1: herself Vonda White, and she told me that she did
Speaker 1: in the kill. The word came out to drive up
Speaker 1: from Innsinaud in my house and kill me. They had
Speaker 1: my address. Herbal was basically become her son and ungird
Speaker 1: in Mexico. They just got fed up with him and
Speaker 1: notified the US authorities that had been apprehended. We had
Speaker 1: it figured out to take him right to the border, handcuffed,
Speaker 1: and they did. Grandfatherly figure sitting in a jail jumpsuit,
Speaker 1: and then the clerk creates the state of Utah ver
Speaker 1: reserved labart in case number one too three as to
Speaker 1: count one, we the jury Dooli and pandel An above
Speaker 1: and title matter find the defendant, herb lebart And guilty
Speaker 1: of conspiracy to commit murderer, first degree felony. With such
Speaker 1: an unstable group founded on such erroneous principles, you never
Speaker 1: really know what to expect. By the time hervill had died,
Speaker 1: I knew it really wasn't over. Point of the Mountain
Speaker 1: is what locals call the Utah State Prison. It's a
Speaker 1: sprawling complex of drab, brown concrete buildings rounded by high
Speaker 1: fences and razor wire, about twenty miles south of Salt
Speaker 1: Lake City on the Interstate Hervilla. Barons spent two years
Speaker 1: here before his death. In In that time, he alternated
Speaker 1: between two distinct states, a bone deep depression that seemed
Speaker 1: to send him spiraling into a trance. He tried to
Speaker 1: end his life, shoving his own head down the toilet,
Speaker 1: hoping to drown. When that didn't work, he asked the
Speaker 1: warden to execute him, and then a delusional mania that
Speaker 1: one day the walls would simply tumble down, the way
Speaker 1: they had in the Bible at Jericho and he'd be free.
Speaker 1: When these delusions set in, he wrote and wrote for
Speaker 1: days at a time. So I guess start with talking
Speaker 1: about or looking at here and how you got it.
Speaker 1: I'm in a kitchen in San Diego. In front of
Speaker 1: me is a large three ring binder divided by yellow stickers. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: this is the Book of the New Covenant. It's a
Speaker 1: manifesto of irvill Le Baron, who is the third member
Speaker 1: of the Holy Trinity according to him, and also he's
Speaker 1: incidentally the great grand Patriarch of Israel and the mouthpiece
Speaker 1: of God. And this is Gary Remple, the scrapper from Stockton,
Speaker 1: prosecutor for the District Attorney's Office you heard in the
Speaker 1: previous episode, the one who liked to mad dog, the
Speaker 1: gang bangers and killers he faced in court. He was
Speaker 1: the first to secure a conviction against a member of
Speaker 1: the LeBaron Coult the American Eagle, the Ceiling of the
Speaker 1: hundred and forty thousand. Gary is describing the cover of
Speaker 1: this book, hervill LeBaron's final Opus, written at Point of
Speaker 1: the Mountain. It spans around five hundred pages. It's called
Speaker 1: the Book of the New Covenant, or the b n
Speaker 1: C as it would become known among his followers. It's
Speaker 1: like hundreds of pages of self congratulating rhetoric that you
Speaker 1: can hardly bear to look through. The book to the
Speaker 1: uninitiated is kind of hard to follow, rambling, disjointed, but
Speaker 1: if you've heard the first seven episodes of this podcast,
Speaker 1: you'll recognize a lot of the names. Some of it's
Speaker 1: an airing of past grievances, complaints about the scoundrels like
Speaker 1: myself and the other wicked people like Joela Baron, who
Speaker 1: had been murdered on Hervil's orders in seventy two, the
Speaker 1: killing that started this all okay, page seventy uh now
Speaker 1: to falsely accuse this humble and unassuming man Hervil of
Speaker 1: the murder of a black hearted skunk and demon, a
Speaker 1: veritable devil in the flesh, a snake of the first magnitude,
Speaker 1: a dark and holy benighted traitor to me, and an
Speaker 1: apostate of renown, and a terrible liar and conspirator and
Speaker 1: murder of renown, even one rotten drug peddler and sneak
Speaker 1: and adulter and hypocrite and dogmatic and willful deceiver of men,
Speaker 1: women and children. He's basically talking about his own brother.
Speaker 1: There are love letters to wives like Vonda White, who
Speaker 1: Gary Remple put in prison for the murder of Dean Vests,
Speaker 1: and Rina Channath, who evil sent to kill Dr Rulin Alread.
Speaker 1: I myself killed that old rattlesnake and monster, doctor ruland
Speaker 1: c Alread of royal polygamaust fame. That's Eervil's confession right
Speaker 1: in the middle of this book. And I, therefore, your
Speaker 1: Lord and your God will take all the blame and
Speaker 1: responsibility for the untimely demise At one point the book
Speaker 1: lurches from the personal to the political. Rville, it turns out,
Speaker 1: is a Republican, and he offers advice to Ronald Reagan
Speaker 1: and sympathy to his favorite politician. It talks to Richard Nixon,
Speaker 1: dearly beloved Mr Nixon, since your retirement from the presidency
Speaker 1: of the United States, I have been a deep mourning
Speaker 1: because of the cynical way that you've been treated. I
Speaker 1: love you greatly because of the great marvelous things that
Speaker 1: you have done on behalf of America and of the
Speaker 1: free world. And referring to himself as the Commander in
Speaker 1: chief of the armed forces of all mankind, Herville sets
Speaker 1: out his own Cold War era foreign policy. As soon
Speaker 1: as Russia makes the slightest move to take any more power,
Speaker 1: put a stop to the communist power on all North
Speaker 1: and South America, according to the laws of my kingdom.
Speaker 1: And if you need my help, I will give it
Speaker 1: to you without any restraint, Saith the Lord God of
Speaker 1: America and of Israel, and of Australia, and of Canada
Speaker 1: and of all the English. As Gary and I leaf
Speaker 1: through the pages of the Book of the New Covenant,
Speaker 1: you can hear it in our voices. It's hard not
Speaker 1: to laugh. The language, the range, it's well, I don't know,
Speaker 1: the musing. I mean, it's just wonderful writing, consistently crazy
Speaker 1: all the way through. But honestly, listening back to this
Speaker 1: tape today, I kind of feel embarrassed hearing us laugh,
Speaker 1: because I've since learned what this book means. It's legacy.
Speaker 1: The book itself should never have seen the light of day,
Speaker 1: But in early as Herville sat confined in his cell,
Speaker 1: a copy was taken out of the prison, ironically by
Speaker 1: a follower, Mark Schinath, who was actually about to leave
Speaker 1: Herville's cult. Mark wasn't taken in by the book, but
Speaker 1: for some reason he decided to show it to other
Speaker 1: cult members. And those cult members they took the book
Speaker 1: and made copies. They did not see self congratulating rhetoric.
Speaker 1: They saw scripture, prophecy, a kind of manifesto. And they
Speaker 1: did not see complaints and rants. They saw a hit list.
Speaker 1: Gary Remple was named in that list, so were others
Speaker 1: from law enforcement, like Dick Forbes, the man most responsible
Speaker 1: for Herbal's imprisonment, and many others fifty people in all,
Speaker 1: and not just law enforcement. Many of the names were
Speaker 1: Herbal's former followers, people who, while Irvill was in prison,
Speaker 1: had decided to walk away from the colt, and when
Speaker 1: the book fell in the hands of those still loyal
Speaker 1: to Irvill, those followers decided they needed to act. The Opus,
Speaker 1: in their eyes, was a binding covenant with God, and
Speaker 1: the fifty or so named in it had to be
Speaker 1: atoned to be saved from hell, and the only way
Speaker 1: to do that was to kill them through blood atonement,
Speaker 1: that act of spilling blood and taking lives to save
Speaker 1: sinners from any ernity in Mormon hell outer darkness. Before
Speaker 1: he died, Herbal summoned his most loyal sons to point
Speaker 1: at the mountain. In a ritual common and Mormonism, he
Speaker 1: laid his hands on their heads. He ordained his oldest son, Arthur,
Speaker 1: as the new patriarch of the cult. Six other sons
Speaker 1: from four different mothers were ordained as high priests, and
Speaker 1: each made a solemn vow to their father. If he
Speaker 1: were to fall, they would carry on the work he
Speaker 1: had started. They would cleanse the world of God's enemies.
Speaker 1: These sons would fulfill the Book of the New Covenant
Speaker 1: from the team's at novel and I Heart Radio. This
Speaker 1: is deliver Us from Herbal. I'm Jesse Hyde. Episode eight,
Speaker 1: The Reign of Arthur. I was wondering if you drink
Speaker 1: coffee or if you didn't drink coffee, since you're a
Speaker 1: since you're what do you call yourself? I'm in the
Speaker 1: home of Gabriella a Baron. You heard her voice in
Speaker 1: episode six, I described her as a former fundamentalist. If
Speaker 1: you're not harm anymore, do you start drinking coffee? Or yeah,
Speaker 1: I drink coffee. We're in her apartment in Austin, Texas,
Speaker 1: surrounded by her paintings, abstract art she constructs by patiently
Speaker 1: adding and removing layers of paint. Each takes months to complete.
Speaker 1: It's a therapeutic process. Gabriella isn't just any former fundamentalist.
Speaker 1: All right, Oh we're on now, okay, um, So I'm
Speaker 1: Gabriella le Baron and my father is Irvilla a Baron.
Speaker 1: This will be the first time she has ever shared
Speaker 1: her story of her life in the LeBaron cult publicly.
Speaker 1: I'm not here with Gabriella because I want to understand
Speaker 1: her father, Irville. I'm here because I want to understand
Speaker 1: what happened after he died. Why the story doesn't end
Speaker 1: with his death, How the reign of terror his cult
Speaker 1: unleashed continued for decades, How it somehow got even worse,
Speaker 1: and what has become of that cycle of violence today.
Speaker 1: Gabriella was born in nineteen seventy six, the same year
Speaker 1: as me. Her mother, Teresa, was the child of indigenous
Speaker 1: Mexicans who had moved to colonial LeBaron when Teresa was
Speaker 1: just a child. Herville had thirteen wives, and one of
Speaker 1: those wives is tere Srius and that's my mom. She
Speaker 1: had four daughters, and I am the youngest of those four.
Speaker 1: I was told that my mother loved my father, and
Speaker 1: I believe he loved her too, and that's what was
Speaker 1: told to us. It may sound obvious that a husband
Speaker 1: and wife would love each other, but in my reporting experience,
Speaker 1: it's often not the case in polygamous relationships. She was
Speaker 1: on his side no matter what, and it caused me
Speaker 1: to also worship my dad as soon as I was.
Speaker 1: For Gabriella, her father was an almost mythical figure, like
Speaker 1: children naturally worship their parents, but my experience with my
Speaker 1: dad was taken to a holy level because he actually
Speaker 1: was the representation of God on earth. As soon as
Speaker 1: I was four years old, they were telling us these
Speaker 1: stories that he was a great prophet and that he
Speaker 1: was sent on earth to do some big, powerful, important
Speaker 1: work that was gonna basically save humanity in the last days.
Speaker 1: The world is coming to an end. Armageddon is honest
Speaker 1: way you're going to see it in your lifetime. Your
Speaker 1: father was sent to earth and he is he is
Speaker 1: like the reincarnation of Jesus basically. Okay, so he represents
Speaker 1: God on earth and you are so lucky to be
Speaker 1: this great person's daughter. Right from the beginning, Gabriella had
Speaker 1: to live with paradox cognitive dissonance because that great person
Speaker 1: who everyone around her revered was completely absent from her life.
Speaker 1: When did you first start to realize that that you
Speaker 1: didn't matter to him? I always felt sad because we
Speaker 1: would read all the letters that he wrote about all
Speaker 1: his kids, and he never mentioned me in any one
Speaker 1: of them, and I always waited for my name to
Speaker 1: come up, and it never never did. For him, I
Speaker 1: basically didn't exist. I didn't matter. Gabriella has jet black hair,
Speaker 1: just like her mother. She always had her hair short
Speaker 1: and she's dark skinned. Her parents are Indigenous, her father
Speaker 1: is mixed race. She was very quiet, one of those
Speaker 1: long suffering types. For a time in the late seventies,
Speaker 1: Gabriella lived with her mom in Denver, Colorado, but not
Speaker 1: with her father, who at this point was a fugitive
Speaker 1: from the law. Gabriella lived under the supervision of a
Speaker 1: different patriarch, Evil's right hand man, Dan Jordan's. Her mom
Speaker 1: worked at Dan's appliance business. She was kind of the
Speaker 1: little slave of the family, and she had no concept
Speaker 1: of any kind of personal rights or space or ownership
Speaker 1: of anything. In episode one, when I visited Colonial LeBaron,
Speaker 1: I talked about the feeling of safety, of belonging, how
Speaker 1: that was the entire point of the town. Building a utopia,
Speaker 1: a zion. That's what Irvill and Joel had started out
Speaker 1: trying to build. But by the time Gabriella came along
Speaker 1: in seventy six, the ripples emanating outwards from Joel's murder
Speaker 1: and the massacre at Los Melinos meant the children and
Speaker 1: Hervil's cult had none of those feelings of hope or security.
Speaker 1: Gabriela's existence was shadowed by a terrible, unrelenting dread so
Speaker 1: talk about, um, you know, your early childhood, your your
Speaker 1: earliest memories. If there's kind of like an image that
Speaker 1: pops into your mind when you think back to your
Speaker 1: early years. Oh god, it's terrible. Um hiding in the
Speaker 1: closet because we're getting rated, and I think we were
Speaker 1: in Denver. I vaguely remember that in the years before
Speaker 1: her dad's arrest in seventy nine, cops would regularly arrive
Speaker 1: unannounced at cold houses in raids to search the property
Speaker 1: for any signs of him or other cult members. They
Speaker 1: were hunting down And I was hugging my niece in
Speaker 1: a really old style, small closet and on a pile
Speaker 1: of blankets, must have been like four or five blankets,
Speaker 1: and I was hiding behind the clothes, and I was
Speaker 1: freaking terrified because we were being raided. All of Herbal's
Speaker 1: followers scattered all over the United States experienced this feeling
Speaker 1: of being constantly hunted by the law, and they knew
Speaker 1: what to do when they got that knock on the door.
Speaker 1: Never never, never speak to the police, no matter what
Speaker 1: you die, first before you speak to the police. The
Speaker 1: police were like the Boogeyman. It was just like you
Speaker 1: know there's a robber outside. You know somebody's gonna break
Speaker 1: into your house and hurt you, steal your stuff. That's
Speaker 1: what normal people are afraid of. I was afraid of
Speaker 1: a policeman being outside and looking inside in order to
Speaker 1: try and avoid the eyes of the law. Each time
Speaker 1: cult members settled somewhere new, they transformed themselves. And all
Speaker 1: those times that we moved around in the States, we
Speaker 1: changed our names every single time, so I got really
Speaker 1: good at adopting a new personality. It was five years
Speaker 1: old or four years old, and I had a new name,
Speaker 1: and they told me what my new name was, and
Speaker 1: that's who I was, and I just melted into it.
Speaker 1: Like other cult members, Gabrielle's childhood was spent moving from
Speaker 1: city to city. The children were instructed to never speak
Speaker 1: to strangers, to never leave the house, to never raise
Speaker 1: the blinds. The adults went out and worked to earn
Speaker 1: money for the colt, usually by repairing appliances. We were
Speaker 1: left at home alone, and I think the oldest child
Speaker 1: was about eight years old, and there must have been
Speaker 1: about ten of us. The kids tried their best to
Speaker 1: entertain themselves, but with no TV or radio, they had
Speaker 1: to get creative. They would often break the rules and
Speaker 1: venture into the backyard. I used to play in the
Speaker 1: grass a lot. I used to love to try to
Speaker 1: catch grasshoppers. It was one of my favorite things to do.
Speaker 1: And they had a sprinkler on and then we were
Speaker 1: out in the running in the sprinkler and jumping over
Speaker 1: it and trying to catch grasshoppers. That was so much fun.
Speaker 1: And I caught a little one, a tiny, little black grasshopper.
Speaker 1: I put it in a jar with a bunch of grass.
Speaker 1: I called it Blackie. And air Supply was playing a lot.
Speaker 1: And then there was this one song that goes here,
Speaker 1: I'm the one that you la la la la and forever.
Speaker 1: I called that one the grasshopper song. And years later
Speaker 1: I'd be like, oh, the grasshopper song and stolen moments
Speaker 1: of childhood innocence. Across long board summers, the children of
Speaker 1: herbal LeBaron would play together, and sometimes rays of light
Speaker 1: broke through the darkness of cold life. We were all
Speaker 1: in this house across the street, an empty house, a
Speaker 1: vacant house, but they had a full swimming pool, so
Speaker 1: we would run across the street. The pavement was so
Speaker 1: hot our feet were always burning. So we'd run across
Speaker 1: the street and go through the side gate to their backyard,
Speaker 1: to nobody's backyard, and go and swim in their pool.
Speaker 1: And we'd swim for hours and then come back up.
Speaker 1: And then we do that every single day, and these
Speaker 1: like whole little herd of kids running across the street
Speaker 1: to swim in these people's empty house backyard swimming pool.
Speaker 1: And then one day somebody moved in. It was terrible.
Speaker 1: So two of the oldest kids decided to go and
Speaker 1: ask for mission if we could swim. So one was
Speaker 1: a boy when I was a girl. And they go
Speaker 1: and they knock on the door and they're like, can
Speaker 1: we swim in your pool? And it was a nice
Speaker 1: looking young couple, and they said yes, of course, And
Speaker 1: then they turned around. My siblings turned around to us
Speaker 1: and said they said yes. And so all they heard
Speaker 1: of kids come running across the street and swim for
Speaker 1: hours and these people So that was the last time
Speaker 1: we ever swim there. Oh god, mh. I mentioned earlier
Speaker 1: that Gabrielle and I are the same age. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: why when she tells these stories catching grasshoppers, listening to
Speaker 1: air supply, it takes me right back to my childhood.
Speaker 1: I feel that ache of nostalgia for the innocence of
Speaker 1: encountering the world for the first time before it lets
Speaker 1: us down, betrays us. And then I think about Gabriella
Speaker 1: when the fear subsided for just a moment. How rare
Speaker 1: and precious that time must have been. Moments of feeling safe.
Speaker 1: For polygamus children sired by a man with countless other kids,
Speaker 1: often the only place that really feels like home is mom.
Speaker 1: Yet even in childhood, Gabriella could sense her mother was unraveling.
Speaker 1: I was very conscious of how much my mother was suffering.
Speaker 1: I was very careful to not ask anything of her. Basically,
Speaker 1: you want to hold your breath all the time, because
Speaker 1: even breathing might be too much. Her mother's descent left
Speaker 1: Gabriella bereft, and I remember she was in her bedroom
Speaker 1: on bed with the fever, and she was saying all
Speaker 1: kinds of random nonsense, like schizophonic things, and we were
Speaker 1: just I was just sitting at the end of Bitch
Speaker 1: watching her and worrying about her and knowing that she
Speaker 1: was out of it. She lost it completely. My mom
Speaker 1: wasn't aware enough to be able to defend me. And
Speaker 1: she had no rights even over her own children. Gabriella
Speaker 1: had no rights either. She belonged to the cult. Would
Speaker 1: you guys call yourselves the family? What did you guy?
Speaker 1: Because there's no way you called thisselves the cold? Oh? No,
Speaker 1: Coult wasn't even a word reknew of. There was no cult.
Speaker 1: We were the Koug if anything. Yeah, we called ourselves.
Speaker 1: Kg is the nickname for our cult, the Kingdom of God.
Speaker 1: We were God's Kingdom, the Kingdom of God, or the Kog,
Speaker 1: as it was known to its members. This is what
Speaker 1: the cult started by Herville was now named. In just
Speaker 1: a few years, some of the younger members wouldn't even
Speaker 1: remember what the name Church of the Lamb of God
Speaker 1: referred to. Long live the Kog. It was them versus
Speaker 1: the outside world, who they called the gentiles, the infidels,
Speaker 1: the enemy. That meant no friends outside the colt. Talking
Speaker 1: to someone who didn't belong to the Kog was strictly forbidden.
Speaker 1: When I was nine years old, I had made a
Speaker 1: vow that I would give my life so nobody there
Speaker 1: had a life to hold onto. Our lives, all of
Speaker 1: our lives before fit already just by being in the
Speaker 1: cult just by being born into it. You know, our family,
Speaker 1: our well being, our money, where we're going to live,
Speaker 1: how are we going to live ultimately? Our lives. And
Speaker 1: when a person had to die, it was so that
Speaker 1: person could be saved ultimately, so we didn't see it
Speaker 1: is an evil, I think it wasn't death, wasn't terror.
Speaker 1: You're going to be somewhere so much better, you know,
Speaker 1: And if you don't do this, you probably could go
Speaker 1: to hell forever in all eternity, which is the worst
Speaker 1: possible thing that could happen to anybody. And when we
Speaker 1: really really believe that so much so that we were
Speaker 1: ready to give our lives for it, and we couldn't
Speaker 1: have emotional attachment to each other because we would have
Speaker 1: to let go of one another. We wouldn't know when
Speaker 1: we would have to let go of our sister brother.
Speaker 1: This was the law as laid out in the bulk
Speaker 1: of the New Covenant, the law that would survive Evil's death,
Speaker 1: in a law now in the hands of his eldest son, Arthur.
Speaker 1: He was the son charged with leading the next generation.
Speaker 1: That's after the break in the days after herbl LeBaron's
Speaker 1: death late August, most of his wives and children living
Speaker 1: in the US suddenly headed south. Hours later, a group
Speaker 1: of the cult kids, teens, and a few adults across
Speaker 1: the border into Mexico. Gabriella was five years old in
Speaker 1: August one as she arrived in a remote corner of Sonora,
Speaker 1: a vast and wild Mexican state which sits in the
Speaker 1: upper northwest corner of the country. Her destination was about
Speaker 1: eighty miles from the US border with r Zona. I
Speaker 1: remember the night we showed up. It was like one
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning. It was a pitch dark, like
Speaker 1: I can't even see my hand. There was no town.
Speaker 1: In fact, there were no lights at all. Darkness was
Speaker 1: so thick. I had never experienced that kind of darkness
Speaker 1: ever in my life. He was so quiet and so
Speaker 1: spooky and so scary and if people like be careful
Speaker 1: because our sakes, and spiders and scorpions and all these
Speaker 1: dangerous things. By the first light of day in Sonora,
Speaker 1: Gabriella began to make out adobe ruins and an endless
Speaker 1: expanse of mesquite brush and cactus, not all that different
Speaker 1: from colonial LeBaron at its inception. This was to be
Speaker 1: their new home. The ranch called Lahoya, or camp as
Speaker 1: they called it. Gabriella had been told her mother would
Speaker 1: be there in Mexico waiting. They believed it was okay
Speaker 1: to tell children lies in order to get them stopped crying.
Speaker 1: So I got there and she wasn't there, and that
Speaker 1: was like a huge caving disappointment. Before his death, Merville
Speaker 1: had passed his favorite son, Arthur, the mantle of the
Speaker 1: one mighty and Strong. So when Hervill died, Arthur immediately
Speaker 1: had leadership of the colt. For Arthur, this was a
Speaker 1: heavy responsibility, but he shielded the kids from the weight
Speaker 1: of the crown he now carried. He ran around, played
Speaker 1: games with us. He promised us all kinds of cool playgrounds.
Speaker 1: He promised us the world. Gabriella remembers Arthur as tall
Speaker 1: and handsome, with wavy hair, and he's always wearing some
Speaker 1: button down plaid shirt full of bright energy. He had
Speaker 1: a lot of energy for me, so when he looked
Speaker 1: at me, I could see the light in his eyes
Speaker 1: in this smile and the love that he had for me.
Speaker 1: He would pick me up in his arms and be
Speaker 1: like Mike going to hit the un He would me
Speaker 1: this big hug every time he came home from work,
Speaker 1: and it was just as a child, I didn't get
Speaker 1: that attention from anybody, not my father, not my uncle's
Speaker 1: not There was no male figure that gave me that
Speaker 1: kind of love or attention. Arthur was the only one.
Speaker 1: So for him, I existed and I mattered, and of
Speaker 1: course I ate that up. That was actually the only
Speaker 1: really pure adult male relationship I had. He was loved.
Speaker 1: We loved him to death, and we would definitely go
Speaker 1: to the ends of the world for him and with him.
Speaker 1: Irville had tried to build utopia in colonial A Baron
Speaker 1: and then Los Molinos. He had failed spectacularly, but now
Speaker 1: his son Arthur would try again. Here in Sonora. We
Speaker 1: were inspired to do great things. He wanted to build
Speaker 1: the ranch into some fabulous you know, treat these great
Speaker 1: playgrounds and make sure the kids had a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: He wanted to His idea of the Kingdom of God
Speaker 1: was making a really fabulous place for us, and um
Speaker 1: there was there was so exhilarating to think about and
Speaker 1: to see the Kingdom of God as a giant playground.
Speaker 1: If that didn't seem like the promise of Heaven to
Speaker 1: a five year old, what would without many adults around,
Speaker 1: the kids ran wild. They swam in the rough hewn
Speaker 1: concrete pool that collected water for irrigation, and ran down
Speaker 1: to the ocean, which was just a few miles away.
Speaker 1: We were way off the grid, but we had music
Speaker 1: on cassette tapes Sweet Caroline, no Diamond, Yeah, so we
Speaker 1: had no Diamond, barber Strass and air supply Survivor Europe.
Speaker 1: So then we started listening to Antonio, which I loved
Speaker 1: because it was all about horses. And when I was
Speaker 1: five years old, I loved horses and I wanted to
Speaker 1: be a horse. I wanted to run like horse like
Speaker 1: so bad. Yet, just like in colonial abeyance or early
Speaker 1: days in Lahoya, the undercurrents of darkness and danger were
Speaker 1: never far away. Caborca, the nearest town to the ranch,
Speaker 1: belonged to the Mexican mafia. It had been a hideout
Speaker 1: for drug and gun smugglers for a long time, and
Speaker 1: they gave the colt safe haven to live there. Why
Speaker 1: would the Mexican mafia give safe haven to a bunch
Speaker 1: of Mormon fundamentalists, Well because by this point in Arthur
Speaker 1: worked for them. In fact, pretty much the entire cult did.
Speaker 1: While Irville and Dan Jordans had mostly funded their version
Speaker 1: of the cult by entirely unexciting and unglamorous trades like
Speaker 1: fixing up busted washing machines. The second generation of the COLT,
Speaker 1: the Kog, they were more inventive. We have contacts at
Speaker 1: the border, at the customers the other Onuana, and so
Speaker 1: we funneled cars to the mafia and sold them. The
Speaker 1: COLT would steal them to order for the drug cartels.
Speaker 1: They paid are just prices for them. They're really paid
Speaker 1: in cash too. Aside from these new contacts, the ranch
Speaker 1: had some other regular visitors, a group of men who
Speaker 1: were supposed to bring money down from the US to
Speaker 1: support the Colt there. These visitors included two brothers, Raoul
Speaker 1: and Gama Leo, known as the Rio's brothers, Gabriella's uncles
Speaker 1: on her mother's side, and also a man named Leo Evaneck.
Speaker 1: Leo Evanick was short and chubby, with a thin mustache
Speaker 1: and graying hair. He sometimes wore horn rimmed glasses and
Speaker 1: tried to look like an upstanding businessman, but he had
Speaker 1: once been a drug smuggler. He'd been arrested off the
Speaker 1: coast of San Diego with half a ton of marijuana
Speaker 1: hidden in a boat. He was thrown in jail and
Speaker 1: insnota Mexico, which is where he met irvill Le Baron,
Speaker 1: and by the time he was released in n he
Speaker 1: had converted to Evil's colt. Whenever Leo and this group
Speaker 1: of men arrived at Lahoya, Gabriella and the other children
Speaker 1: knew what to do hide. It was just a given
Speaker 1: that the men would take advantage of the girls. The
Speaker 1: men could do whatever they wanted. So we were in
Speaker 1: a situation where there were a lot of predators and
Speaker 1: there were no adults to protect the kids. The only
Speaker 1: adults were the predators, and some of the kids were
Speaker 1: like abused more than others, but everybody basically was affused.
Speaker 1: There were mothers in the camp, and you'd think they'd
Speaker 1: protect their children, but as Gabriella describes it, they were
Speaker 1: mostly out of it, or like Gabriella's own mother, trying
Speaker 1: to hold on to their last shreds of sanity, in
Speaker 1: no position to help, and as far as Leo and
Speaker 1: the Rio's brothers saw it, Hervil had already given them away.
Speaker 1: They were promised this girl and that girl and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. So they were like, Okay, she's mine, so
Speaker 1: I have rights, you know, starting now. But Gabriella learned
Speaker 1: something previous victims of the cold had realized. There was
Speaker 1: no escape. We knew, like we'd sense the injustice, but
Speaker 1: we couldn't do anything about it. So you go back
Speaker 1: and remember that dislike God, It's terrific. And then mothers
Speaker 1: getting killed. One of the mothers who was down. If
Speaker 1: they tried to run away, they never they had a
Speaker 1: plan to run away and to sneak off, and one
Speaker 1: of the little kids would snitch the mother Gabriella is
Speaker 1: talking about. Here is Laurena Shannath, sister to Rena, Mark, Joyne, Victor,
Speaker 1: and Glenn, the first in that whole family to leave
Speaker 1: the US for Mexico to marry hervill Le Baron by two.
Speaker 1: The year following Hervil's death, Lorna had decided she wanted
Speaker 1: out from Lahoya, out from the colt. One of the
Speaker 1: kids in the colt had found out about her plans
Speaker 1: for escaping their group, and that child had snitched on
Speaker 1: her to one of the older teens. So on her
Speaker 1: way out she was ambushed and killed. It's like nobody
Speaker 1: could run away like anybody that tried to escape couldn't escape.
Speaker 1: And um, we were indoctrinated that this was good, and we,
Speaker 1: in our prayers prayed for the killing of the bad
Speaker 1: people of the SPC. We were trained, heavily trained, kind
Speaker 1: of like in a Spartanesque style s o p Son
Speaker 1: of Perdition Kog the Kingdom of God, little kids born
Speaker 1: into terror and abuse, raised up to fulfill the prophecies
Speaker 1: contained in the Book of the New Covenant. And what
Speaker 1: Gabriella would soon realize is that no one, not even Arthur,
Speaker 1: her dearest protector, was safe. That's coming up after the break.
Speaker 1: When Herville summoned his most loyal sons to point of
Speaker 1: the Mountain prison in he wanted to clear up any
Speaker 1: confusion about the future of his dynasty. He wanted to
Speaker 1: establish a clear line of succession to Arthur. As an
Speaker 1: attentive student of organized crime, he'd foreseen an oncoming power
Speaker 1: vacuum while he was behind bars, and he knew some
Speaker 1: cult members and wives were trying to quietly slip away.
Speaker 1: Maybe naming a successor would stop at all breaking apart.
Speaker 1: But he was too late. The cracks were already there,
Speaker 1: and after his death in eighty one, they continued to widen.
Speaker 1: What was once called the Church of the Lamb of
Speaker 1: God disintegrated by three there were four distinct pieces factions.
Speaker 1: It's like a mafia, right, so if you the mafia
Speaker 1: breaks apart, one team goes against the other team, and
Speaker 1: so that's what happened. So the danger was really high
Speaker 1: now everybody was going to try to kill each other.
Speaker 1: The first faction were mostly Chinats, that original family Hervil
Speaker 1: had built his empire are upon Mark and Dwayne and
Speaker 1: Vic and Rena Vic the money man, Mark and Dwayne
Speaker 1: Colt assassin's and Rena, a once favored wife an assassin
Speaker 1: who had ignored Herville's letters from prison. They'd all left
Speaker 1: for Texas, along with another seasoned Hervil killer, Eddie Marston.
Speaker 1: The second faction of this mafia split was led by
Speaker 1: Dan Jordan's He had turned on Hervil and was starting
Speaker 1: his own operation in Denver. What's more, Dan had given
Speaker 1: refuge to one of Herville's wives, Anime Marston, after his death,
Speaker 1: and so he had a bunch of the Labaran kids
Speaker 1: living with him. So in the eyes of the ko G,
Speaker 1: he was a threat to both those kids, their siblings
Speaker 1: and their operation at Lahoya, and by eighty three there
Speaker 1: was a third and final mafia faction that rivaled Arthur's Kog,
Speaker 1: and this group was the most immediate threat to the Coult.
Speaker 1: They were led by Leo Evanick. Unlike the other factions,
Speaker 1: Leo had stayed loyal to Hervil, visiting him at Point
Speaker 1: of the Mountain at least a dozen times, and like
Speaker 1: Rvill's sons, he seemed to believe in the Book of
Speaker 1: the New Covenant. Leo also accepted that Arthur now carried
Speaker 1: the mantle of the One Mighty and Strong, as with
Speaker 1: Joel and Hervill. At the beginning of this podcast, Leo
Speaker 1: and Arthur initially made a good team. Arthur didn't say much,
Speaker 1: but he had the followers, an army of half brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters and little kids who would give their lives
Speaker 1: for him. Leo, unlike Arthur, understood Rvill's intricate theology and
Speaker 1: shared Hervill's ability to hold forth on doctrine for hours.
Speaker 1: From their base in Mexico, Arthur and Leo started drafting letters,
Speaker 1: just as Hervill would have done, threatening those other mafia
Speaker 1: families who had broken from their late prophet. But over
Speaker 1: time Arthur and Leo began to clash over money, wives,
Speaker 1: matters of theology. It all seems so familiar. We started
Speaker 1: to get the sense of being more afraid because now
Speaker 1: this internal civil war was going on between our team,
Speaker 1: Leo Evnick and my uncle's. They threatened to kill the
Speaker 1: adults and to condapt the children. By the spring of
Speaker 1: night three, the Kyog camp at Lahoya was split, those
Speaker 1: who backed Leo and those who backed Arthur. And in
Speaker 1: the middle were the children, the next generation of soldiers, devotees,
Speaker 1: drug smugglers, car thieves, believers and assassins. The religious ideal
Speaker 1: in our time and these in this cult, and this
Speaker 1: is what all the adults believed in, even when they
Speaker 1: were broke up. Art Kill the adults, get up the children,
Speaker 1: because the children are the future. So the children were
Speaker 1: the price gold. In the spring of eight three, a
Speaker 1: group from the colt had set off from Lahoya to
Speaker 1: make a trip to get groceries in Caborca, that nearby
Speaker 1: mafia controlled town. While they were on the road, they
Speaker 1: started getting shot. It so the guys came out and
Speaker 1: they were like hiding and running and hiding, and one
Speaker 1: of them got shot. Peers through the lake. They recognized
Speaker 1: the shooters as Leo's men, the Rio's brothers, Gamaliel. I
Speaker 1: don't know who else was there, but they're about five
Speaker 1: other men. The Kog realized they were now at war
Speaker 1: with Leo's faction, and it was extremely so scary. It's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, it's so scary. Not long after that ambush,
Speaker 1: early one morning, before most of the children and mothers
Speaker 1: of the camp had woken up, Leo, Raoul Rios and
Speaker 1: other gunmen were spotted again. This time they were approaching
Speaker 1: the Kog's camp camp. They were dressed in soldiers uniforms
Speaker 1: and carried guns. We were just waking up, you know,
Speaker 1: wiping her eyes still. One of the kids came running
Speaker 1: fast as he could and suddenly like Leon, really fucking run.
Speaker 1: I had one shoe on, one shoe off. I couldn't
Speaker 1: untied the knot of my shoes. I can put it on.
Speaker 1: I have to fix this knot so I can put
Speaker 1: my shoe on, so I can go. And I was
Speaker 1: trying to fix the knock oh, and everybody had gone
Speaker 1: without me. And then one of them was like gabre
Speaker 1: like comet of know. It's like, oh god, chimp out
Speaker 1: the window just take your shoe with you. Oh God,
Speaker 1: get me out of here fast. So we jumped through
Speaker 1: the window and we ran to the cactus heell. The
Speaker 1: cactus hill is where the children of the camp had
Speaker 1: been trained to run for safety if they came under fire.
Speaker 1: It was a sort of briar patch with a chola cactus.
Speaker 1: Choya is the meanest cactus that you could ever imagine.
Speaker 1: There's a little tiny needles. It's a ball with needles,
Speaker 1: and they just they stick in you so hard you
Speaker 1: have to have pliers to pull them out really hard.
Speaker 1: And we ran into it, some people barefoot, some people
Speaker 1: choose on and I ran with my shoot. And there
Speaker 1: are tiny little empty spaces. The tiny little trails could
Speaker 1: have been rabbit trails or something where you could put
Speaker 1: your foot and try to avoid the cactus. And then
Speaker 1: it would be like cactus arms everywhere, So you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to like move around and then find one little
Speaker 1: like three by three little space where you can just
Speaker 1: stop and hide. The children and the rest of the
Speaker 1: kog hid in the cactus fields, holding their breath as
Speaker 1: the gunmen passed by, and then they heard them moving
Speaker 1: away from where they hid. Eventually there was silence. The
Speaker 1: attack was over. No casualties on that occasion, but after
Speaker 1: that the redoubled their vigilance against attack. The kids of
Speaker 1: the camp would stay up all night on watch duty.
Speaker 1: We'd take turns guarding, keeping watch with binoculars, because you
Speaker 1: could see when there's somebody coming. You could see so
Speaker 1: far out and it's flat and everything is really flat,
Speaker 1: so if there's a car coming, you could see the
Speaker 1: headlights moving around right miles and miles and miles away,
Speaker 1: so there would be somebody watching for headlights, if the
Speaker 1: dogs bark, and these kinds of things would start to
Speaker 1: happen before the attack happened. That summer, there were three
Speaker 1: attacks on the camp by Leo's men. Eventually, Gabriella's mother
Speaker 1: persuaded Arthur to send her to Dallas to live with her.
Speaker 1: But even in Dallas, Gabriella didn't feel safe. If somebody
Speaker 1: knocks on the door, it could be your uncle role
Speaker 1: so do not answer. You need to go to the
Speaker 1: back room and call the shop. Now. We will come
Speaker 1: here as fast as we can. And so we lived
Speaker 1: with this terror that we home alone and some evil
Speaker 1: people might show up. And they were really evil and
Speaker 1: they had chosen the devil's side, and they were dangerous now,
Speaker 1: and they could kidnap you and take you away and
Speaker 1: you'll never see us again. It was completely terrifying. Gabriella
Speaker 1: was back to hiding in closets. Now it was her
Speaker 1: own family members causing the panic and terror. She sat
Speaker 1: with her sister Jenny, hiding, sitting as silently as she
Speaker 1: could for hours, and then would hear sounds, footsteps, something rattling,
Speaker 1: fucking scared. And then if we forgot to close occur
Speaker 1: in during the daytime, when the night came, we're like,
Speaker 1: somebody could be out the window looking inside. Oh God,
Speaker 1: and we couldn't move because we couldn't be in the
Speaker 1: sight of that window. So we would just stay in
Speaker 1: that one little crack of the house until the adult
Speaker 1: came home. At the end of the war between Arthur
Speaker 1: and Leo came to a head. On the morning of
Speaker 1: December nineteen, Arthur returned to Lahya mac Ago after a
Speaker 1: trip to Dallas. Arthur actually had this premonition that it
Speaker 1: was going to happen. He told his wife that he
Speaker 1: knew he was gonna die in a few days, and
Speaker 1: he went down to the ranch and remember the ranches
Speaker 1: of really big clearing and there are these two big trees.
Speaker 1: When Arthur arrived, Leo and the Rio's brothers were waiting
Speaker 1: for him, and I think they assaulted him. Under those trees.
Speaker 1: Near the trees was a new airstream trailer Arthur had
Speaker 1: stolen and smuggled across the border. All the kids were
Speaker 1: in there, so one of one of the moms or
Speaker 1: one of the adults were there. They closed all the
Speaker 1: curtains and didn't and locked the kids inside because they
Speaker 1: knew what was going to happen. The kids would have
Speaker 1: gone out to fight for Arthur, but they were allowed
Speaker 1: to go out um and Arthur was They beat him
Speaker 1: and he was yelling for help, and they shot him
Speaker 1: and they loaded in the back of the pickup truck
Speaker 1: and buried his body at the side of the road
Speaker 1: under a few inches of sand. And Gabriella was in
Speaker 1: Dallas during the killing. An older sister broke the news.
Speaker 1: You were in the car, and she just said, I
Speaker 1: have to tell you the Arthur's been killed. And I froze,
Speaker 1: like my whole body went like cold, white, frozen. Don't
Speaker 1: tell anybody that you know that was it. I had
Speaker 1: to walk around pretending like I didn't know something that
Speaker 1: just my favorite person in the world was just killed.
Speaker 1: You can't feel emotions, You can't more than anybody that's gone.
Speaker 1: And you have to be ready to do the killing
Speaker 1: yourself if it's required you So like you wait five
Speaker 1: six seven years old, you're already being taught this. Gabriella
Speaker 1: was now seven seven years old. It's hard to comprehend
Speaker 1: all she had seen and experienced in so few years,
Speaker 1: and now her only protector in the world was gone.
Speaker 1: And then shortly after that, my mother had a mental breakdown,
Speaker 1: and so she left. Where did she go? She was
Speaker 1: picked up by the police on the streets, and then
Speaker 1: she was put in a mental hospital. That was it,
Speaker 1: and I never saw her. In Gabriella's short life so far,
Speaker 1: fear had never been far away. In brief moments, like
Speaker 1: a montage in a movie, she had felt happiness, safety,
Speaker 1: holding a grasshopper, being carried on Arthur's back, running across
Speaker 1: the asphalt on a hot summer day to jump in
Speaker 1: a neighbor swimming pool. But her constant companions were always
Speaker 1: waiting for her terror and dread. Now they were almost
Speaker 1: becoming a part of her, I stopped talking to people.
Speaker 1: I mean I could talk, but if you asked me
Speaker 1: a question, I wouldn't answer. I just like go stone cold.
Speaker 1: I didn't have the ability to move my vescle listen answer.
Speaker 1: And it frustrated all the adults because they were like,
Speaker 1: we just it's okay, you're not in trouble. I couldn't
Speaker 1: physically talk, but I don't remember anything else. I don't
Speaker 1: remember feeling anything, and feel sadness, I'm feel anything, just
Speaker 1: kind of freeze up. And he moved around like furniture
Speaker 1: wherever you're supposed to go. With her mother gone, Gabriella
Speaker 1: went back to LaToya. Arriving at that camp in Sonora,
Speaker 1: she joined up with cult members who are now under
Speaker 1: new leadership. Once Arthur had been killed, they'd immediately turned
Speaker 1: the Book of the New Covenant for direction to them.
Speaker 1: It's spelled out exactly what should happen. If Arthur was
Speaker 1: cut down, the one mighty and Strong would pass on
Speaker 1: to the next male heir. So Hebrew the mantle fell
Speaker 1: on him, and he did not sign up for it.
Speaker 1: Arthur's half brother, a teenager named William Hebrew LeBaron, he
Speaker 1: had inherited Hervil's good looks in his height, but not
Speaker 1: his interest in theology. See, Hebrew didn't study. He was
Speaker 1: not one of those kind of guys. He was more
Speaker 1: of a party like a rock star type of guy.
Speaker 1: He was much more interested in helping the family develop
Speaker 1: their ties with the Mexican mafioso's cars, drugs, whatever they
Speaker 1: were into, he was into. Hebrew liked to party, he drank,
Speaker 1: He did coke and marijuana. He seemed like he was
Speaker 1: about to escalate the cults activities into uncharted new hedonistic territory.
Speaker 1: But the thing is in the cult, is it? A
Speaker 1: Christian can't do that? But how do you tell that
Speaker 1: to the one mining and stronge That's coming up in
Speaker 1: the next episode 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 Taylor,
Speaker 1: and Charlotte Wolf Austin Mitchell is our creative director of Production.
Speaker 1: Micha Lee Raw is our managing at a R. Gavin
Speaker 1: Haynes is our Head of Development. Willard Foxton is our
Speaker 1: creative director of Development. Mix scoring and sound design by
Speaker 1: Eli Block Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters.
Speaker 1: Our music is composed by Julian Lynch. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Scott Anderson, Scott Carrier, Del van Ada, Pippa Smith, Saskia Edwards,
Speaker 1: Matt O'Mara, Katrina Norvelle and beth An Makaluso, or In Rosenbaum,
Speaker 1: Shelby Shankman and all the team at U t A.
Speaker 1: For more from Novel, visit novel dot Audio