Speaker 1: Ye novel. A listener note this episode contains violence and
Speaker 1: content that some listeners might find distressing, including references to
Speaker 1: child abuse. Previously on deliver Us from Hervill, welcome to
Speaker 1: Colonia Lavaria. Well, yeah, come and say hi to Jessee.
Speaker 1: We were going to Zion to prepare a place for
Speaker 1: Jesus to return. Hervil thought that if he got rid
Speaker 1: of Joel, he could just move in and take leadership
Speaker 1: with Joel's people. Anyone who opposed him deserved to die,
Speaker 1: including a daughter. Herbal was their leader. They thought they
Speaker 1: were going to go out and save the world. I
Speaker 1: don't know what you know about law work, but nobody
Speaker 1: has all the information. Everybody has a little piece, and
Speaker 1: that little piece of that little piece of that little piece.
Speaker 1: The only way you're going to get Erville is to
Speaker 1: break someone substantial in his group. The jury files back
Speaker 1: in and the judge says Hervil LeBaron guilty of conspiracy
Speaker 1: to commit murder of first degree felony. I think by
Speaker 1: the time Irville had died, I knew it really wasn't over.
Speaker 1: Because with such an unstable group founded on such erroneous principles,
Speaker 1: you never really know what to expect. I'm Gabriella LeBaron,
Speaker 1: and my father is irvill Aber. This is the book
Speaker 1: of the New Covenant. It's a manifesto of hervill le Baron.
Speaker 1: Coult wasn't even a word we knew of. There was
Speaker 1: no quote. We were the KG if anything. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: called ourselves we were God's Kingdom. I mean, murder was
Speaker 1: sort of a of a natural thing with these folks Hebrew.
Speaker 1: He gave the authority to the next Brethren line, so
Speaker 1: called Aaron. We would do those kind of heavy loaded
Speaker 1: prayers in support of the four o'clock murders happening in
Speaker 1: the States. It was just surreal. It's like no can
Speaker 1: at least happen. It was so shocking. Who did it
Speaker 1: and why? This is God's law. We have to do
Speaker 1: it otherwise the whole world will go to hell like Armageddon.
Speaker 1: The investigation is going nowhere. We don't have any evidence.
Speaker 1: Everybody's lying to us. There's a hard core of these
Speaker 1: kids that were raised in this environment and are practiced killers.
Speaker 1: All the adults were in jail now and we need
Speaker 1: to carry on continuing the murder spree. I understand what
Speaker 1: it's like to live in a terrorist organization. I understand
Speaker 1: how mothers who strapped bombs to their children feel in
Speaker 1: the trail is kind of cold for the murders in Texas,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, Dick Forbes gets this phone call.
Speaker 1: They're willing to tell us everything and they want some protection.
Speaker 1: This interview is just done called chilling. Richard was straightforward
Speaker 1: as a witness. I'm he tell you anything. Jenny was
Speaker 1: only killed because she was old enough to be a witness.
Speaker 1: How did he feel about killing an eight year old?
Speaker 1: What did he tell you that he had to do it?
Speaker 1: He was ordered to. We actually had physical evidence that
Speaker 1: we could use. We had a story that's stuck together,
Speaker 1: and we had people that were in the family willing
Speaker 1: to testify. The first trial of the four o'clock murders
Speaker 1: began on January eleven. William Hebrew le Baron, Patricia le Baron,
Speaker 1: and Douglas Lee Barlow shuffled into the United States District
Speaker 1: Court in Houston, Texas, less than a year after Cynthia
Speaker 1: le Baron had made that fateful phone call to detect
Speaker 1: of Dick Forbes to tell him she was ready to
Speaker 1: turn on the Kingdom of God. As the trial began,
Speaker 1: you might expect the cops and prosecutors to have felt
Speaker 1: some sense of trepidation. After all, this colt had a
Speaker 1: history of getting away with killing people. Who knows how
Speaker 1: this trial might play out, But to be honest, that
Speaker 1: would be injecting false drama into the proceedings because Hebrew
Speaker 1: and the two other KOG members on trial weren't going
Speaker 1: to dispute their involvement in the killings, which kind of
Speaker 1: gave Hebrew's defense lawyer, Tom Berg, an impossible task. I
Speaker 1: was a public defender. It would lose most of our cases.
Speaker 1: But you do the best you can. You try to
Speaker 1: get creative. You try to come up with a theory
Speaker 1: that is credible that allows you to stand up in
Speaker 1: front of a jury with a straight face and tell
Speaker 1: a story that's the story that your client wants presented,
Speaker 1: because you're telling his story, not yours, and then the
Speaker 1: jury decides. I was willing to fight the case to
Speaker 1: try and win it, even if the odds were against us.
Speaker 1: Hebrew and the others had given very specific instructions to
Speaker 1: their legal team. They wanted the trial, they wanted the form,
Speaker 1: they wanted the chance to have their side of the
Speaker 1: story told. And I think he'd realized that he was
Speaker 1: in jail and he would always be in jail. What
Speaker 1: was the justification that he shared with you for the killings?
Speaker 1: They believed that they were entitled to this revenge, And
Speaker 1: of course throughout you've got this issue of blood atonement,
Speaker 1: which for them was the core of their worldview and
Speaker 1: religious belief. These are people not only had they personally
Speaker 1: offended them, but they had offended the religion and the
Speaker 1: only way their souls could be saved was through the
Speaker 1: shedding of blood. So yeah, like I said, not in
Speaker 1: easy argument for a public defender to put in front
Speaker 1: of a Texas jury. But Hebrew and the others felt
Speaker 1: God was on their side. He fully believed that he
Speaker 1: was right and what he did. And it's twisted logic
Speaker 1: for us, but this is how they were raised from
Speaker 1: small and so it made sense to them and it
Speaker 1: was internally consistent for them to believe this way and
Speaker 1: to justify everything they did along those lines. Was there
Speaker 1: any remorse for any of the crimes he committed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that the little girl had come with her father that
Speaker 1: day was for them not a tragic circumstance, but just
Speaker 1: a circumstance. I couldn't find a commonality that I tried
Speaker 1: to find with clients, whether it's some kind of connection
Speaker 1: that I can use. They truly did believe in this
Speaker 1: really warped worldview, that this was mandated by God. How
Speaker 1: unusual is that for you to not be able to
Speaker 1: find any sort of commonality or affection for a client.
Speaker 1: That's rare. That's rare because I can usually at this
Speaker 1: stage in my career finds something and everybody, And why
Speaker 1: do you think with them? You couldn't because they were
Speaker 1: so locked into that worldview. It's not like something you
Speaker 1: could reason with. Perhaps the most dramatic moment in the
Speaker 1: trial came when Cynthia, the defendants sister, took the stand.
Speaker 1: It was a closed court the day she came in,
Speaker 1: so no one from the audience could intimidate her. By
Speaker 1: this point, Cynthia was living in a witness protection program
Speaker 1: for her safety. She broke down in tears as she
Speaker 1: testified against her brother and sister. And then on January
Speaker 1: Tom made his closing statement and he urged the jury
Speaker 1: to remember that the accused killers truly believed that they
Speaker 1: were carrying out vengeance in the name of God. It
Speaker 1: was a very hard argument, and the jury'sall right through it.
Speaker 1: You know, they we're out for days and days, but
Speaker 1: it was the only argument that we had after a
Speaker 1: hunt lasting so many years. The jury returned after just
Speaker 1: a few hours. They found Hebrew, Patricia, and Doug guilty
Speaker 1: of nine federal charges. No one was surprised with the verdict,
Speaker 1: and none of them showed any particular emotion. I think
Speaker 1: we all knew what was coming. The jury had no
Speaker 1: doubts they were responsible for the killings. There was a
Speaker 1: strong impulse amongst them to convict because of how horrible
Speaker 1: the facts were. And then the judge imposed a sentence,
Speaker 1: and in this case, we already knew what the sentence
Speaker 1: was going to be based on everything that had gone before.
Speaker 1: It was life, life without parole. At a separate hearing,
Speaker 1: in the fall of Richard LeBaron was also sentenced for
Speaker 1: his role in the four o'clock killings. In return for
Speaker 1: his confession, prosecutors asked the judge for leniency, and the
Speaker 1: judge gave it. Richard received five years in prison. That
Speaker 1: left just two members from the KOG leadership at large,
Speaker 1: Aaron and Tarsa LeBaron, two of the colds most Devout
Speaker 1: members from the teams at Novel and I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: This is the final episode of deliver Us from Hervill
Speaker 1: episode thirteen, Chasing Ghosts. The crossing between the Mexican border
Speaker 1: and Laredo, Texas has a special place in the history
Speaker 1: of the Cult of Rbal LeBaron. It's where Erville's former
Speaker 1: wife and cult assassin, Rina Channath entered US police custody
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy seven, and two years later, it's where
Speaker 1: Irville crossed to his final destination, prison and death. Decades later,
Speaker 1: in Detective Dick Forbes and federal prosecutor and Jenny Task
Speaker 1: Force veteran David Schwinderman had arranged with border guards at
Speaker 1: Laredo to allow Cynthia LeBaron and her sister Jessica into
Speaker 1: the US to help them bring down the Kingdom of
Speaker 1: God and now in nineteen it's where Aaron le Baron,
Speaker 1: leader of the KOG the Final One, Mighty and Strong,
Speaker 1: crossed in handcuffs. Getting eron this far had not been easy.
Speaker 1: The Jenny Task Force faced two major obstacles. First, they
Speaker 1: had to find Aaron, then they had to get him
Speaker 1: into America. The first part, surprisingly wasn't that hard. Mexican
Speaker 1: cops located Aeron pretty quickly after the conviction of his siblings,
Speaker 1: but you know, they weren't about anything give him up
Speaker 1: to us until they got some concessions. David Schwinderman learned
Speaker 1: that the Mexican cops had swooped up Aaron le Baron
Speaker 1: in but the local authorities wanted an exchange eron for
Speaker 1: some of their citizens currently being held in the US
Speaker 1: awaiting execution in Texas. Seems fair enough to me, but Texas,
Speaker 1: being well Texas, the authorities weren't going to permit that.
Speaker 1: So there was a standoff, one that eventually went all
Speaker 1: the way to the top. U s Attorney General Janet
Speaker 1: Reno and Miss Rino then begins to negotiate on our
Speaker 1: behalf with the Mexican authorities to get Aaron transferred to
Speaker 1: Texas for prosecution. In Texas, no one ever gave up
Speaker 1: anybody on death row in Texas. To get Aaron back,
Speaker 1: the federal government had to give assurances to Mexico that
Speaker 1: Aaron would not be executed for his crimes. Miss Reno
Speaker 1: convinced him to send him up to the bridge and
Speaker 1: walk him across. Aaron crossed that bridge in Laredo and
Speaker 1: was taken to jail, a family ritual now as familiar
Speaker 1: to the law barons as the placing of hands on
Speaker 1: heads to make someone the next mighty and star on.
Speaker 1: As all this was happening with Aaron, his sister, Gabriella LeBaron,
Speaker 1: was now no longer a child or a teenager. Even
Speaker 1: she turned twenty and was still living in Mexico. The
Speaker 1: teenagers she had once idolized were now adults too, and
Speaker 1: locked up. Her other siblings wanted nothing to do with
Speaker 1: our father's religion, but still she was keeping the faith.
Speaker 1: Somehow her siblings would find their way back and we
Speaker 1: would go back to normal and go back to establishing
Speaker 1: the cult. Normal. For Gabriella, this wasn't teaching English and
Speaker 1: Monterey Mexico wearing high heels. Normal, wasn't dating people raised
Speaker 1: outside the colt. Normal was military training and gun running,
Speaker 1: packing trucks with marijuana, and stealing cars to finance missions
Speaker 1: to kill God's enemies. By the summer of news reached
Speaker 1: her of Aaron's impending trial. It took place on June
Speaker 1: twelfth in the same Houston courtroom where their siblings had
Speaker 1: been convicted years before. I was like, he's in jail,
Speaker 1: but he's not going to be convicted because God is
Speaker 1: going to save him, get him out. Gabriella was convinced
Speaker 1: Aaron would somehow be cleared and he'd return with her
Speaker 1: to Mexico. But he got convicted. I was like, oh God,
Speaker 1: Aaron got forty five years for his part in planning
Speaker 1: the four o'clock killings. Gabriella traveled to Phoenix to visit
Speaker 1: Aaron in prison. He wasn't just an older half brother
Speaker 1: to her. He was still God's profit on Earth, the
Speaker 1: person who knew their Father's opus, the Book of the
Speaker 1: New Covenant like no other, the One Mighty and Strong.
Speaker 1: Gabriella needed Aaron to reassure her about God's plan and
Speaker 1: what was next for the Kingdom of God. And then
Speaker 1: I went to visit him. He was like, I've been
Speaker 1: atheists for a long time. The One Mighty and Strong
Speaker 1: was an atheist. That's when I really lost my north Star.
Speaker 1: Everything fell out of orbit, you know, it really like
Speaker 1: that was very collapsing. So I lost my leader. I
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do. It's like, I'm ready to
Speaker 1: go back and build the colt, build a KG, but
Speaker 1: where do I go? I'm alone? Where do I go?
Speaker 1: Where do I talk to? What do I do? So
Speaker 1: I prayed and I asked God to show me what
Speaker 1: to do. We never got answers. Okay, so this is
Speaker 1: a problem with this. Gabriella had a familiar feeling, like
Speaker 1: the one she had staring into those flames in Monterrey
Speaker 1: as her possessions burned in front of her in that
Speaker 1: gesture to a God who was sighed went. And yet
Speaker 1: even now in Gabriella still believed God was watching over her,
Speaker 1: that all the killing had been for a reason to
Speaker 1: build God's kingdom on earth. She hadn't lost faith. I
Speaker 1: remember just having this really strong conclusion in my head.
Speaker 1: I was like, look, God, if you want me to
Speaker 1: go and build the cold, build a COUCHI wasn't the cold,
Speaker 1: it was the couch. I'm going to do it. I'm ready.
Speaker 1: I was so ready. Just tell me and I'll go.
Speaker 1: But meanwhile, I'm here, I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1: You're not telling me what to do. So I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna do whatever I want to do. And if I
Speaker 1: do anything wrong, You'll have to forgive me. I know
Speaker 1: that you always forgive the minute you're ready for me
Speaker 1: to go back, just tell me what I need to do,
Speaker 1: where I need to do, etcetera. But until then, like
Speaker 1: starting now, I'm breaking free. I'm doing whatever I want settled. Okay,
Speaker 1: how is off the hook? And yet there was a
Speaker 1: reason Gabriella kept hope that maybe the Kog was still alive.
Speaker 1: There was still one highly influential member of the cult
Speaker 1: out there in the world. Tarsa Jackie. Tarsa le Baron
Speaker 1: is the second oldest child of Irvil le Baron and
Speaker 1: Laura Chanas Laurna you might remember, came from that backbone
Speaker 1: family of Hervil's empire, the Channaths, daughter to Thelma, sister
Speaker 1: to Victor, Mark, Dwayne, Rena, and Glenn, who I talked
Speaker 1: to an episode three. The Kog had murdered Laura when
Speaker 1: she tried to leave the cold back in eighty two,
Speaker 1: Gabriella told me. At the time of that killing, most
Speaker 1: of the children in Lahoya went and camped at the
Speaker 1: beach for a few days to be away from the
Speaker 1: horror show they knew was about to unfold. Ten years later,
Speaker 1: when most of the Kog was rounded up in Arizona
Speaker 1: after the four o'clock murders, Tarsa disappeared. She was wanted
Speaker 1: for conspiracy to commit murder, witness tampering, and two racketeering charges,
Speaker 1: but by the two thousand's she was still a fugitive
Speaker 1: on the run from the law. With Tarsa at large,
Speaker 1: detectives like Dick Forbes and prosecutors like David Schwinderman couldn't
Speaker 1: be sure the bloody legacy of hervill La Baron was
Speaker 1: really over. What if somehow the kog was still alive
Speaker 1: carrying out the killings of the Book of the New Covenant.
Speaker 1: Law enforcement believed Tarsa was actually the colts mastermind, Tarsa
Speaker 1: and Jacqueline was the one that was pushing all the buttons.
Speaker 1: That's Houston homicide detective John Burmeister and Utah prosecutor David
Speaker 1: Swinderman had a similar view. Tarsa, who is the matriarch instantially,
Speaker 1: the one that is the protector and preserver of the
Speaker 1: Book of the New Covenant, drilling into these kids that
Speaker 1: these things have to be done, and so they carry
Speaker 1: out this mission. Gabriella also attested to Tarsa's devotion to
Speaker 1: the Book of the New Covenants and the theology of
Speaker 1: the cult. But she said that just because Tarsa was
Speaker 1: devout didn't mean she ran the Kog. As prosecutors and
Speaker 1: police believed Jackie was a hardcore extremist. She was definitely
Speaker 1: a person that kept everything to the tea um. Whether
Speaker 1: she could initiate and say we have to start doing
Speaker 1: this as coming strictly from her, I believe that's a
Speaker 1: little far fetched, because she's not that kind of personality.
Speaker 1: And she got whipped so hard so many times. She
Speaker 1: was just strictly slave labor and you had to submit,
Speaker 1: and she submitted willingly because she believed that she had
Speaker 1: to obey the authority. It's perspectives like this on Kog
Speaker 1: members from Gabriella that have changed how I've seen this
Speaker 1: whole saga. Rather than seeing the cult members as these
Speaker 1: powerful assassins with near superhuman powers of evasion, a picture
Speaker 1: emerges from Gabriella of the scared children they had once
Speaker 1: been reacting to the routine killing all around them, carried
Speaker 1: out by their own family making decisions by committee, with
Speaker 1: no single person steering the ship. Not Hebrew, not Aaron,
Speaker 1: and certainly not Tarsa. When I ran this perspective by
Speaker 1: law enforcement. Well, it's not that they flat out disagreed.
Speaker 1: In fact, many concurred that the kids who grew up
Speaker 1: in the cult had been products of their environment and
Speaker 1: a warped theology. But they also pointed out to me
Speaker 1: that the kog are well documented liars and manipulators. And
Speaker 1: they asked me, how do you know that what you're
Speaker 1: being told is true? It's hard to say. If you
Speaker 1: look at the cult collectively, I can see it, yeah,
Speaker 1: But to be fair, you could easily say the same
Speaker 1: about cops collectively too. And anyway, when it comes to
Speaker 1: which version of Tarsa is most accurate, someone pushing all
Speaker 1: the button or a reluctant and passive cult member, maybe
Speaker 1: the answer lies with the next group of law enforcement
Speaker 1: officials to encounter Jackie Tarsa LeBaron. My name is Ted Imperado.
Speaker 1: I'm an assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District
Speaker 1: of Texas located in Houston. My name is Rick Haynes.
Speaker 1: I'm an assistant United States attorney, been a federal prosecutor
Speaker 1: for nineteen years. And all you wanted to know how
Speaker 1: old I am, I'm sixty two. Rick and Ted are
Speaker 1: prosecutors kind of a double act. We've known each other
Speaker 1: since ninety three and then we came up together in
Speaker 1: the State d A's office. We always tried cases together.
Speaker 1: They were introduced to Tarsa in two thousand ten when
Speaker 1: an unusual case was thrown their way. The criminal chief
Speaker 1: came to us and said, hey, um, we've tried to
Speaker 1: get some other prosecutors to work this case, but nobody's
Speaker 1: wants to work it. Um. I think there was concerned
Speaker 1: with the case because of its history. This history goes
Speaker 1: way back, and I think the prosecutors, the two that
Speaker 1: turned it down, were familiar with the case and we're
Speaker 1: a little bit concerned for their safety. The case all
Speaker 1: centered on a fugitive who had suddenly been found after
Speaker 1: twenty years on the run. The fugitive daughter of a
Speaker 1: polygamous sect leader is in custody tonight. Jacquelin Tarsa le
Speaker 1: Baron faces charges in a nineteen quadruple killing. One of
Speaker 1: the victims, an eight year old girl. It is Rick
Speaker 1: and Ted took the case and they learned more about
Speaker 1: Tarsa Tarsa LeBaron. It was her name is Jackie, but
Speaker 1: everyone referred to as Tarsa for over a decade she'd
Speaker 1: lived in hiding in Honduras. But then in two thousand
Speaker 1: and ten she had lived in Honduras long enough that
Speaker 1: she could apply for public assistance welfare if you will,
Speaker 1: And it was during the point that she was registering
Speaker 1: for that that they did a records check and found
Speaker 1: she had this warrant out. The last fugitive of the
Speaker 1: Kog had been found. She was then extradited and now
Speaker 1: was going to face those charges relating to the four
Speaker 1: o'clock murders that had sent her siblings to prison. She
Speaker 1: was described to us by various members of the family
Speaker 1: when we interviewed them as being kind of a driving
Speaker 1: force in terms of keeping alive her father's point of
Speaker 1: view and the contents of the Book of the New Covenant.
Speaker 1: But then they got to meet Tarsa in person and
Speaker 1: the reality of this quote unquote driving force that confronted them.
Speaker 1: She looked like a long tailed cat in a room
Speaker 1: full of rocking chairs. She was scared of her own shadow.
Speaker 1: She was not the Jacqueline Tarsa le Baron that we
Speaker 1: deal with when we talk about what happened in and
Speaker 1: in the years prior. So that's the person that we met.
Speaker 1: That's not the person that we learned about and read
Speaker 1: about as we investigated the case, and Rick and Ted
Speaker 1: were in for a few more surprises. It was just
Speaker 1: so unusual. It was unusual when it happened, and it
Speaker 1: didn't stop being unusual on the day that she was sentenced.
Speaker 1: That's coming up after the break. On June six, two eleven,
Speaker 1: Jackie LeBaron reached a plea agreement with prosecutors. Her sentencing
Speaker 1: hearing began in September two eleven. As prosecutors Rick and
Speaker 1: Ted entered a courtroom packed with press and members the public,
Speaker 1: there was one person seated there. They were surprised to
Speaker 1: see Cynthia LeBaron. Cynthia, you'll remember, had grown up in
Speaker 1: the Kingdom of God, but had turned on her brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters in ninety two because she feared they're going
Speaker 1: to kill her. Cynthia has testified against family members Hebrew,
Speaker 1: serving a life sentence because of her multiple life sentences,
Speaker 1: so is Patricia. Cynthia had broken down in tears at Hebrew,
Speaker 1: Patricia and Doug Barlow's trial as she gave damning evidence
Speaker 1: against them, and in ninety three she had entered a
Speaker 1: witness Protection program. Now she was in court again, seeing
Speaker 1: another sibling cult members sentenced on the back of her evidence.
Speaker 1: Yet Cynthia is still, I believe, a love part of
Speaker 1: the family. Um. They're very close knit, they support each other,
Speaker 1: They're extremely loyal to each other. Cynthia had switched sides
Speaker 1: again and was now sitting back amongst the Labaron clan.
Speaker 1: I think, oddly enough, this whole investigation into Jacqueline Tarsa
Speaker 1: kind of brought them back together, and they kind of
Speaker 1: got to convince each other that they weren't going to
Speaker 1: kill each other. The family were back together, the ones
Speaker 1: that weren't in prison anyway, surviving children and former wives
Speaker 1: of hervil LeBaron, but they weren't there as cult members.
Speaker 1: They were there to support Tarsa before her sentence was
Speaker 1: handed down. This group included Rhenichinov, who at this point
Speaker 1: had taken in some of the orphan kids from the
Speaker 1: kog to help them build a life outside the colt.
Speaker 1: It was September eight, two eleven, when the judge handed
Speaker 1: down his sentence and Rick and ted we're in for
Speaker 1: their final surprise. Tarsa was sentenced to three years in prison.
Speaker 1: What was the atmosphere like during the sentencing. What do
Speaker 1: you remember about that moment? I was pissed off Rick.
Speaker 1: Rick spoke to the judge during the sentencing. Rick made
Speaker 1: our recommendation. The judge disagreed with our recommendation, and then
Speaker 1: Rick and he got it had a debate about that.
Speaker 1: Rick thought she should have been given more time, and
Speaker 1: he told the judge that straight up. But as both
Speaker 1: he and Ted pointed out to me, in hindsight, there
Speaker 1: wasn't much more the judge could have done. The benchmark
Speaker 1: in sentencing had been set by the punishment handed down
Speaker 1: to Richard LeBaron back in October. Richard, who had killed
Speaker 1: an eight year old child and by this point in
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven had been out of prison for years.
Speaker 1: The judge actually went very low. He gave him five
Speaker 1: years five years in prison for killing a little girl
Speaker 1: and her father, and that that gives me heartburn to
Speaker 1: this day. Jackie walked free from jail on December two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve, released early for good behavior. In the eyes
Speaker 1: of the law, former KOGI members like Jackie and Richard
Speaker 1: le Baron are no longer a threat to society, no
Speaker 1: longer following that path set out by their father, Hervial LeBaron.
Speaker 1: We are at a cemetery in Houston. It's a very large,
Speaker 1: beautiful cemetery with tall oak trees, pine trees, and the
Speaker 1: headstones are really large and some of them are quite ornate.
Speaker 1: And we are currently near the grave of hervill LeBaron.
Speaker 1: We're trying to find it. If you visit the grave
Speaker 1: of hervill Lbaron today, there is no shrine, no flowers.
Speaker 1: Even with a map at the cemetery. It took me
Speaker 1: and my producer David a long time to find it,
Speaker 1: but eventually, oh ah, there it is beloved father, herbal
Speaker 1: m le Baron February August. On the day we visited,
Speaker 1: it was covered with leaves and branches, so simple headstone
Speaker 1: set into the grass. It doesn't look like anyone who's
Speaker 1: been here in a while. All around his grave there
Speaker 1: are these other graves that are clearly well tended to.
Speaker 1: There's one about ten ft away with like a hedge
Speaker 1: around it and fresh flowers. And then there is Herbal LeBaron,
Speaker 1: who in life thought he was the most important man alive,
Speaker 1: and yet no one cares. His grave is entirely ignored.
Speaker 1: Coming here, I don't know what I expected, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't this. Maybe it was all the time I had
Speaker 1: spent pursuing this story and hearing about the devastation Herbal caused.
Speaker 1: It felt so alive to me. But here was the
Speaker 1: grave of a man who seemed like he had been forgotten.
Speaker 1: No pilgrim's burning candles, no one to even sweep aside
Speaker 1: the leaves and branches covering his name. Kind of anticlimactic,
Speaker 1: But I also thought sort of appropriate. Better that there's
Speaker 1: not a shrine to him or a religion that lives on.
Speaker 1: But then I discovered a place where Herville's memory is
Speaker 1: being kept alive online Facebook. More precisely, a shrine of
Speaker 1: sorts under a pay age headed quote a memorial page
Speaker 1: in honor of Hervil m. Le Baron, a man whose
Speaker 1: name was smeared by narcissists. To be clear, it's not
Speaker 1: like this is a huge online fan club. This page
Speaker 1: only has seven accounts listed as friends. The last active
Speaker 1: post was October two, thou twenty one, but it's still
Speaker 1: a little unsettling to scroll through to see the posts.
Speaker 1: The general theme being Merville was a scapegoat, others were
Speaker 1: really to blame. There are some spooky looking photos of
Speaker 1: him and his prime. They've been doctored in a way
Speaker 1: that almost makes him look like Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe.
Speaker 1: But it's not really the content that is the most
Speaker 1: shocking or the reason why even mention it. It's the
Speaker 1: fact that I recognize some of the names of the
Speaker 1: seven Followers account ounce that seemed to belong to Lynda Johnson,
Speaker 1: a former wife the one time Kyog matriarch and expert Forger,
Speaker 1: and some of Herville's kids from the Kyog, including Patricia
Speaker 1: who murdered her baby and sat in the car waiting
Speaker 1: while Richard le Baron murdered Dwayne Shannath and his daughter Jenny.
Speaker 1: And Cynthia LeBaron, the daughter of Herville who turned on
Speaker 1: everyone with her testimony and essentially brought the Kog down.
Speaker 1: And it's the account under Cynthia's name that is the
Speaker 1: most active on the page. As I scroll through the posts,
Speaker 1: I can't help but wonder is this story really over?
Speaker 1: And I'm not the only one asking this question. If
Speaker 1: there was one person I wanted to interview more than
Speaker 1: any other making this podcast, it was Dick Forbes, the
Speaker 1: detective most responsible for bringing the Colt down, but it
Speaker 1: seemed like I had missed my chance. In episode four,
Speaker 1: when journalist del Van Adda told me about first looking
Speaker 1: into the Colt with Dick back in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: he told me as much. There was one great detective
Speaker 1: named Dick Forbes who has died. Um, I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: he died. Dale isn't often wrong, but he was in
Speaker 1: this instance. It turns out Dick is alive. I tracked
Speaker 1: down various addresses, but it seemed Dick moved regularly, and
Speaker 1: those I interviewed who were still in touch with him
Speaker 1: weren't about to give me his address. Because he does
Speaker 1: not think the cult of hervill LeBaron are done blood
Speaker 1: atoning their enemies. He told me as much on the
Speaker 1: phone in a conversation that was mostly off the record.
Speaker 1: And he's not the only one. David Schwinderman now lives
Speaker 1: about a half hour drive from Salt Lake City, where
Speaker 1: he worked as a federal prosecutor in the U. S.
Speaker 1: Attorney's Office, and he's still haunted by the Colt too. Literally,
Speaker 1: it does affect you and should wake up in the
Speaker 1: night kind of screaming sometimes, even though it's been decades
Speaker 1: and he's gone to work on cases involving war crimes,
Speaker 1: and David believes he's actually dodged a few bullets himself.
Speaker 1: Even since the Colt were put behind bars a few
Speaker 1: years after we put them in prison. The family members
Speaker 1: that were in federal prison, we're using code in magazines
Speaker 1: to recruit a bike gang or members of a bicycle
Speaker 1: gang to kill me and prosecutors in the federal cases
Speaker 1: in Texas. David tells me that prison staff were able
Speaker 1: to uncover these messages before an attempt on his life
Speaker 1: could be made. But that wasn't the only incident. There
Speaker 1: was another one that well, it seemed like a kind
Speaker 1: of signature kg lure, a trap the m O for
Speaker 1: the Colts. At one point, my wife was called and
Speaker 1: told that there was some money at a bank in
Speaker 1: Park City that someone had left for our kids are
Speaker 1: two boys. The teller said, whoever had left the money
Speaker 1: said Dave's wife would need it. It almost sounded like
Speaker 1: a threat. Dave's wife Bobby called him, and it was
Speaker 1: kind of odd. Bobby called me and said, this is
Speaker 1: really strange. What's going on? So I called the marshals
Speaker 1: and said, look, this looks very much like one of
Speaker 1: the lures that the family uses. We've had this other
Speaker 1: situation occur where we know that they were threatening to
Speaker 1: kill us, and there was an odd car that followed
Speaker 1: my son at home once from school, following him right
Speaker 1: up to the house. So we got a hold of
Speaker 1: the marshals, and the marshals immediately got the kids out
Speaker 1: of school. They did a full investigation, never were able
Speaker 1: to figure out who had left the money at money
Speaker 1: about two d I think to this day, David thinks
Speaker 1: it was a trap. So I asked Gabriella about all this,
Speaker 1: about whether the members of the Kyog ruling committee that
Speaker 1: she grew up with we're still a potential threat, and
Speaker 1: she told me what those former members of the Kog
Speaker 1: we're doing today. Doug is extreme Buddhist, and Hebrew is
Speaker 1: extreme Christian born Christian, and Trish is into social justice
Speaker 1: and mos and atheists and you know, and um, the
Speaker 1: cults is just something crazy that happened to all of us.
Speaker 1: So like they're not dangerous. There might be a little
Speaker 1: bit whatever crazy in their ideas, but not dangerous, like
Speaker 1: the cults is, look some crazy. We all are on
Speaker 1: the same page about that. Let me just repeat that
Speaker 1: in case you missed it. Doug Barlow, the stepson of
Speaker 1: Herville and Kyog Assassin. He's in jail for life. He's
Speaker 1: a Buddhist. Hebrew, perhaps the most cold blooded killer of
Speaker 1: the entire cult, is a born again Christian. He's written
Speaker 1: a long and detailed apology for his crimes. Patricia, who
Speaker 1: once did Jane Fonda workouts the Mexican desert and accompanied
Speaker 1: Richard LeBaron to Jenny and Jayne's murder, is a social
Speaker 1: justice warrior and the former One Mighty and Strong Aaron
Speaker 1: who Gabriella calls Moe. He's still in prison and he's
Speaker 1: still an atheist. Gabriella stays in touch with them. I
Speaker 1: asked her about Hebrew. Hebrew doesn't have any bitterness to
Speaker 1: anybody right now. He just completely let it all go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's born again Christian and all he does has been
Speaker 1: six hours of and his cell praying for everybody in
Speaker 1: the world and the whole family and forgiving anybody that's
Speaker 1: ever done any wrong to him. And every time he
Speaker 1: calls and I talked to him, he always just talks
Speaker 1: about how he's praying and how he's okay, and how
Speaker 1: he's fine, And it's like Jel is perfectly fine. It
Speaker 1: doesn't care, you know. As long as I have a
Speaker 1: place to sit quiet, I'm good. So his turnaround is
Speaker 1: pretty impressive. Tarsa, Richard, and Cynthia. They're out of prison.
Speaker 1: Some live in the Austin area, not too far from Gabriella.
Speaker 1: I asked Gabriella to reach out to them to see
Speaker 1: if they might want to speak to me, but they declined.
Speaker 1: But then she tells me something remarkable about the family.
Speaker 1: So I never cut them out of my life. I
Speaker 1: just quit sharing with them, but we would still show
Speaker 1: up two parties and stuff, and they would ask me
Speaker 1: how I'm doing. But I didn't share my deep dark
Speaker 1: struggles or anything with him. But now how we are
Speaker 1: now is that we all care about each other, and
Speaker 1: everyone's come to their own conclusions about reality and life,
Speaker 1: and you know, and some people think the other people
Speaker 1: are crazy, but we all love each other and we
Speaker 1: have fun times during holidays. Normally we play games and
Speaker 1: drink alcohol. And sometimes there are times that we could
Speaker 1: all set up a bunch of different card tables and
Speaker 1: everyone's playing spades in drinking tones of alcohol into the
Speaker 1: wee hours of the morning. In other words, they appear
Speaker 1: to be a regular family, like millions of others. But
Speaker 1: when it comes to whether this cold is still a threat,
Speaker 1: that picture of the kog members today kind of only
Speaker 1: answers half my question. Because the individuals who are responsible
Speaker 1: for carrying out Evil's doctrine as the Kingdom of God
Speaker 1: might be done with it. But what's to stop future
Speaker 1: generations from picking up the murderous ideology of Hervil Labaron?
Speaker 1: And perhaps that's where the reality your lies that's coming
Speaker 1: up after the break. As a journalist, I've been to
Speaker 1: some dangerous places in my career, but I would never
Speaker 1: knowingly put myself in danger. I'm not the sort of
Speaker 1: journalist who enters war zones in a flat jacket and helmet.
Speaker 1: And yet at times reporting the story, especially near the end,
Speaker 1: I've wondered if there is danger and even telling it,
Speaker 1: if the cult of hervill LeBaron could be revived by
Speaker 1: a new generation of fanatics who might seek out retribution
Speaker 1: against people who show their profit Herville in an unfavorable light,
Speaker 1: another generation the cult reborn. It's a dark thought in
Speaker 1: a story already full of darkness, a story or where
Speaker 1: to be honest sometimes the darkness has been unrelenting, But
Speaker 1: this story has light on the horizon too if you
Speaker 1: look towards it. Like I said at the beginning of
Speaker 1: this podcast, this is a story of resistance and making it.
Speaker 1: I've met members of the mainstream Mormon faith and fundamentalist
Speaker 1: Mormons who took great personal risk to take down the
Speaker 1: hervil Le Baron Colt and to rescue the children still
Speaker 1: in it. And then there's Gabriella. Of all the people
Speaker 1: I interviewed making this podcast, the person I met who
Speaker 1: affected me more than any other, her resistance to the
Speaker 1: darkness of her beginnings into her journey from the last
Speaker 1: woman standing in the Kog to the woman I met recently.
Speaker 1: The story of Gabriella's path after the Kog could be
Speaker 1: should be a thirteen part podcast in and of itself.
Speaker 1: There was a period while living in Austin that she
Speaker 1: went to college parties, worked at a strip club, and
Speaker 1: became a dancer, pursued a career in music. There was
Speaker 1: a period where, in the early two thousand's, inspired by
Speaker 1: je ga Vera, she hitchhiked her way down to southern
Speaker 1: Mexico and joined the Zapatistas, and then with the passing
Speaker 1: of time, Gabriella had the strength to turn and face
Speaker 1: her trauma. Nothing is ever going to work out for
Speaker 1: you unless you get to the bottom of your own
Speaker 1: personal pain and all this trauma you experienced, everything that
Speaker 1: you experienced, all that is going to get in the
Speaker 1: way of you if you don't heal it. You have
Speaker 1: to go heal all of that and then you can
Speaker 1: get back to work. Her recovery, she tells me, has
Speaker 1: been slow. At first. It was moment to moment filled
Speaker 1: with grief and rage, burning rage. But I had the tools,
Speaker 1: so I would channel all this rage in my meditations
Speaker 1: and I would write about it. I would write my
Speaker 1: rage out, and I would visualize fire, a ball of fire,
Speaker 1: and my rage was became a ball of fire, and
Speaker 1: all of my rage was going to be absorbed in
Speaker 1: that fire. Was there a moment in time where you
Speaker 1: could feel that shift, like a particular moment where you
Speaker 1: felt happiness for the first time, or safety or peace. Yes,
Speaker 1: I was about twenty seven years old. I had my
Speaker 1: own little house, duplex, rickety thing in East Austin when
Speaker 1: it was still the artist zone, before the big hype happened.
Speaker 1: I was painting a lot, and I remember experiencing safety
Speaker 1: and peace and be like, I've never had this feeling
Speaker 1: ever before in my life. And I I felt like
Speaker 1: there was one crack of light that came through a
Speaker 1: very dark sky that I had only known the dark
Speaker 1: sky in my whole life. So I had have moments
Speaker 1: of being exhilarated by music or by something, but just
Speaker 1: without all of exhilaration, put all that aside, just as
Speaker 1: things are right now. You have coffee, you're on your porch,
Speaker 1: you're in this beautiful safe zone. Everything is okay for
Speaker 1: this moment, for no reason whatsoever, it's just okay. And
Speaker 1: I actually remember that moment and I painted a painting
Speaker 1: on that moment, and I called that painting Daylight at
Speaker 1: Last Today. Gabriella is a graduate of Cornell University the
Speaker 1: Ivy League School in Ithaca, New York. She works for
Speaker 1: the State of Texas in the Attorney General's Office, and
Speaker 1: maybe it's her career in the justice system that has
Speaker 1: played a role in her agreeing to talk to me,
Speaker 1: because now that she feels able to share her story,
Speaker 1: she hopes it will open up some important conversations for
Speaker 1: others on how to heal wounds in fractured communities where
Speaker 1: hatred and violence had done seemingly irreparable damage. If we
Speaker 1: decide we want to move forward, to walk away from
Speaker 1: the darkness and into the light, I feel like, personally,
Speaker 1: for myself, and I can speak for some of my
Speaker 1: siblings as well, we have survived something horrific in which
Speaker 1: we were both the victim and the criminal. Now I
Speaker 1: feel like I have a lot to say to the
Speaker 1: world about how to care for people who are coming
Speaker 1: out of extremely traumatic situations, how to care for the
Speaker 1: children of let's say, terrorist groups, or what if you
Speaker 1: have of the family of a terrorist group, an environment
Speaker 1: in a whole world system where there's little to nothing
Speaker 1: in terms of support or understanding on how to help
Speaker 1: you get out of that. Instead there are lots of
Speaker 1: labels and judgment and discrimination. And suddenly it's like, having
Speaker 1: come through this and having fought so hard, that's the
Speaker 1: kind of conversation we need to have. It's like we
Speaker 1: need to talk about our story out loud so people
Speaker 1: know what happens to people when you don't know any
Speaker 1: other reality except whatever you grew up in. If we
Speaker 1: don't understand how to care for the human being starting
Speaker 1: from the children, no matter where they come from, no
Speaker 1: matter what their background, and no matter what they've done.
Speaker 1: Today in Colonial LeBaron, the Mexican desert town where this
Speaker 1: podcast first started, Irvil LeBaron is mostly a forgotten man.
Speaker 1: No one says his name. His brother, Joel's dream, how ever,
Speaker 1: lives on. Colonial LeBaron has become the type of place
Speaker 1: he imagined, and then some. If you stand on the
Speaker 1: hill that overlooks the town, the desert floor is covered
Speaker 1: with vast orchards of pecan trees. The town has become wealthy.
Speaker 1: They're even building a new exclusive gated community in the
Speaker 1: hills with a planned golf course. His brother Joel's presence
Speaker 1: is everywhere. Inside every home I entered, I saw a
Speaker 1: large portrait of him. His followers now number in the thousands.
Speaker 1: They don't call themselves Mormons or even members of the
Speaker 1: Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times, the
Speaker 1: church he started with his brother Herbal. They call themselves
Speaker 1: Joel's people. This chill fundamentalist vision of a church built
Speaker 1: around liberty rather than force has not only survived, it's flourished.
Speaker 1: It might not yet be utopia, but Colonial LeBaron is
Speaker 1: a town made up of Catholics and polygamus and mainstream
Speaker 1: Mormons and atheists. What they're united around is their history.
Speaker 1: Religion has in many ways faded to the background. Gabriella
Speaker 1: hasn't yet visited Colonial LeBaron, and she's not yet sure
Speaker 1: if she ever will. People from my side of the
Speaker 1: family have gone down to Colonial LeBaron and they've had
Speaker 1: a great time. They stayed up talking all night long,
Speaker 1: telling stories. They were embraced. They call us her lights. Actually,
Speaker 1: I just recently begin talking to one cousin who's from
Speaker 1: Colonial a Baron, who's a descendant of Joel, and um,
Speaker 1: we're just like hey, you know, And I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, what happened to Grandpa? Best I can do?
Speaker 1: And he's like, yeah, that's over. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: your fault, yep, it is, you know, it's not my fault.
Speaker 1: The last time I visited Colonial LeBaron, I met up
Speaker 1: with Naoma Stops. She's the person who told me that
Speaker 1: story in episode two about gathering up her younger siblings
Speaker 1: at night and hiding in ditches when she feared Merville's
Speaker 1: people were coming to attack the town. Anyway, I asked
Speaker 1: about the dynamic between Joel and the people now called
Speaker 1: hervil Lights. Like Gabriella and her siblings. A lot of
Speaker 1: Derville's kids have came to Le Baron, and I think
Speaker 1: they're coming to seek comfort. I had a very hard
Speaker 1: time at the beginning to think that how could they
Speaker 1: and that was your father murdered our prophet. How could
Speaker 1: you have the gall almost to come and want to
Speaker 1: be a part of our people. It's like I almost
Speaker 1: felt that it was wrong. But I've learned over the
Speaker 1: years that as children, they're not at fault. It's not
Speaker 1: their fault that they're parents murdered other members of your family.
Speaker 1: So I've learned to have compassion and forgiveness and help
Speaker 1: them to integrate so that they don't carry more pain forward,
Speaker 1: because they're just as much victims as we are. And
Speaker 1: at this point they're fully integrated into the community. Yeah,
Speaker 1: fully integrated, And most people the way you are about it,
Speaker 1: like forgiving or um. I think the majority, I would say,
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of the older generations that
Speaker 1: have more memory than I do as a child, that
Speaker 1: they were almost adults. Then I think they have a
Speaker 1: harder time with it by far. I asked Naoma's mom,
Speaker 1: Larife Stubs, about this too. I wanted to know how
Speaker 1: someone who was here from the beginning fills someone who
Speaker 1: knew Joel and Hervill intimately saw how Zion be in.
Speaker 1: I saw how for a time it fell apart with
Speaker 1: the two warring brothers. I asked Larive if she has
Speaker 1: forgiven hervil and as followers for what they did. I
Speaker 1: think that it's nice to forgive people, but certain things
Speaker 1: it's a little bit hard to forgive. But the other
Speaker 1: side of it is it's none of your business because
Speaker 1: they actually have as much right to live here as
Speaker 1: we do. And they're married among this people and mind
Speaker 1: your business, and I do, and I'm probably one of
Speaker 1: the ones that has the hardest time keeping my much
Speaker 1: shut and not talking about it. There's nothing to talk about,
Speaker 1: but what good is going on? We definitely have prospered.
Speaker 1: Are people aren't poor anymore, and they all love each
Speaker 1: other and all the kids. They work out there, they
Speaker 1: come home and their whole life has to be with
Speaker 1: all their friends and everybody's somebody's a friend too, because
Speaker 1: let me tell you something, our people are kids. They
Speaker 1: feel free here and we do believe in forgiveness and
Speaker 1: faith and how you forgive, you'll be forgiven. Very sky
Speaker 1: get up here. That night at Colonial a Baron's Annual
Speaker 1: Friendship Fair, there was a large dance, a carnival. I
Speaker 1: saw people laughing, hugging, and I felt this energy, this happiness,
Speaker 1: this piece you know that feeling when you feel like
Speaker 1: your home. Deliver Us from Herville is hosted by me
Speaker 1: jesse Hyde and written and reported by me Leona Hamid
Speaker 1: and David Waters. Production from Leona Hamid and David Waters.
Speaker 1: Sean Glenn and maxw O'Brien are executive producers. Lena Chang
Speaker 1: and Megan Oyinka are researchers. Marianna Gongora is our field producer.
Speaker 1: Fact checking by Donya Suleman and Sona Avakian. Production management
Speaker 1: from Sharie Houston, Frankie Taylor and Charlotte Wolfe. Austin Mitchell
Speaker 1: is our creative director of production. Micha Lee Raw is
Speaker 1: our managing editor. Gavin Haynes is our head of development.
Speaker 1: Willard Foxton is our creative director of Development. Sound design,
Speaker 1: mixing and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters. Music
Speaker 1: supervision by Nicholas l Xander 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 and Makluso or In Rosenbaum, Shelby
Speaker 1: Shankman and all the team at U t A. For
Speaker 1: more from novel, visit novel dot Audio