Speaker 1: Novel. A listener note this episode contains violence and content
Speaker 1: that some listeners might find distressing, including references to child abuse.
Speaker 1: If you drive down Mexico's Highway to you pass through
Speaker 1: a wide open desert, roll the windows down. You smell
Speaker 1: the sage, the soil, see the pink wildflowers, the Sierra
Speaker 1: Madre mountains looming in the distance. My name is Jesse Hyde,
Speaker 1: and I'm a journalist. The first time I drove down
Speaker 1: the stretch of highway, I was working on a story
Speaker 1: and editor had asked me to check out something about
Speaker 1: a massacre thought to be carried out by a Mexican
Speaker 1: drug cartel. They had opened fire on women and children
Speaker 1: from a town near here. When I arrived in that town,
Speaker 1: I expected to find it under siege. It's people living
Speaker 1: in fear. But instead I found something more interesting than
Speaker 1: that crime I had originally been sent to cover, and
Speaker 1: something more complicated both for me and the town. And
Speaker 1: so now I've come back. Yeah, come and say hi
Speaker 1: to Jesse to try to understand more about this strange,
Speaker 1: fascinating place. Welcome to Colonial Colonial Labaron. That's the name
Speaker 1: of the town. It's August. When I arrived back here,
Speaker 1: and they're holding something called the Friendship Fair. I can't
Speaker 1: say it in Spanish, it sounds stupid when you say
Speaker 1: in English. There's a rodeo, a big dance, and the
Speaker 1: demolition derby, which not gonna lie. I've been looking forward
Speaker 1: to for weeks since i first started planning this trip.
Speaker 1: There's this huge crowd of cheering spectators sitting on haybells
Speaker 1: around a deep dirt pit under all the choking dust.
Speaker 1: Cars are smashing each other up. It's glorious. Did they
Speaker 1: already start? The point of this friendship Fair isn't just fun.
Speaker 1: It's to build rust because this is cartel country, which
Speaker 1: means Narco's control almost every town around here, so building
Speaker 1: goodwill with the neighbors can literally keep you alive. But
Speaker 1: the Friendship Fair is also a big family reunion. People
Speaker 1: who grew up here but have since left They return
Speaker 1: come home and for a week or so they're reunited
Speaker 1: with cousins and aunts, uncle's, moms and Dat's standing in
Speaker 1: the middle of these crowds, everyone's saying hi, hugging, laughing, reconnecting.
Speaker 1: You feel this energy, this happiness, but something more than that.
Speaker 1: It's a feeling of belonging. You know that feeling when
Speaker 1: you're safe, when you feel like your home. Yeah, have
Speaker 1: you ever heard of the Little Baron's? Yeah, I figured
Speaker 1: you guys are le Baron. Walk through the town and
Speaker 1: you hear that name over and over. My name is
Speaker 1: Marto LeBaron. My name is Josiah Liberton Leberon. Like, yes,
Speaker 1: I am le Baron. Is almost like a race, you
Speaker 1: know what. I Almost everyone who lives in this town
Speaker 1: is related in some way to its founding LeBaron family.
Speaker 1: But believe me when I say that's actually far from
Speaker 1: the most extraordinary thing about this place. Because in this
Speaker 1: town a religion was born from the same roots as
Speaker 1: my own Mormon upbringing. But this religion quickly mutated, became
Speaker 1: a murderous cult, then a deadly organized crime family as
Speaker 1: ruthless as any I've heard of, Yet for so many years,
Speaker 1: their identities were hidden from view. How did this happen,
Speaker 1: this descent into terror which spun out from colonial LeBaron
Speaker 1: through Mexico and across the border into America. I had
Speaker 1: to find out, and in doing so I met a
Speaker 1: group of extraordinary people, former cult followers, cops, victims, journalists, prosecutors,
Speaker 1: and survivors, people who somehow lived through it all. This
Speaker 1: podcast is their story. Thirteen episodes and a collection of
Speaker 1: lives all linked together, a tale of resistance. Many of
Speaker 1: the people speaking about it for the first time, how
Speaker 1: they were pulled into this incredible saga, how they survived,
Speaker 1: and how it could still be playing out today. We
Speaker 1: have survived something horrific in which you're both the victim
Speaker 1: and the criminal. Narcotics trafficking, gun running, murder, We're talking
Speaker 1: about murder, multiple homicide. Key to this, but nothing like this.
Speaker 1: Please is not enough on this. We are in a fight.
Speaker 1: They were shooting cows by house. The gun was pointing
Speaker 1: at me day, the kids and heights. They are killing
Speaker 1: people out there. These guys want to dominate the world.
Speaker 1: The guy's handed us our guns and send us all away.
Speaker 1: Need to go kill all these people the ways God's
Speaker 1: can curse us forever. Where did you share chess? I
Speaker 1: don't know. I so now finally coming to a point
Speaker 1: where we can speak about this so people know what
Speaker 1: really happened in the cold. We can say the truth here.
Speaker 1: It is from the teams at Novel and I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: You're listening to deliver us from Herbale and I'm Jesse Hyde.
Speaker 1: This is Episode one, the One Mighty and Strong. The
Speaker 1: myth of a promised land or a new world. It's
Speaker 1: a fixation for the devoutly religious. But the settlement of
Speaker 1: colonial le Baron hardly looked like an Eden. When the
Speaker 1: LeBaron clan first arrived in the parched Mexican desert in
Speaker 1: nineteen there were just a few sheds in the barren,
Speaker 1: little dobie houses with little dobe rooms and plastic on
Speaker 1: the windows. These homes were scattered across a vast expanse
Speaker 1: of desert. Residents washed close by hand, had no electricity
Speaker 1: kerosene lamps to light up the town. At night. You
Speaker 1: slept on the floors, floors with blankets. I'm sitting with
Speaker 1: someone who has lived here from near the beginning. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everybody knows who I am. I just want to tell
Speaker 1: you that I'm Larie Stubbs, and I love my life
Speaker 1: here and I love experiences. I've been through, even the
Speaker 1: difficult ones, because I did learn a lot. Larie Stubbs
Speaker 1: is a sort of guardian of the town, or at
Speaker 1: least its story. She knows it better than anyone. I
Speaker 1: like Larive the minute I meet her. She's a kind
Speaker 1: of regal looking woman with alert blue eyes and a
Speaker 1: rollicking sense of humor just below the surface. But I
Speaker 1: can tell she views me with a slight suspicion. It's
Speaker 1: taken a lot of people vouching for me to get
Speaker 1: her to agree to this meeting. She probably wouldn't meet
Speaker 1: with me at all if not for one thing. We're
Speaker 1: both Mormon, well kind of. It's complicated. I grew up Mormon,
Speaker 1: no longer practice or believe, and Larive practices a kind
Speaker 1: of pure primitive version of Mormonism. But we have enough
Speaker 1: of a shared background that, despite being a couple gen
Speaker 1: narrations apart, there is a sort of common language between us,
Speaker 1: a common experience, and I hope some sort of trust. Anyway,
Speaker 1: when Loiev arrived, she was fifteen, and as harsh as
Speaker 1: life back then sounds to me, Larive didn't seem to
Speaker 1: mind the work and the scrubbing clothes and all the
Speaker 1: hardships that people talk way too much about. It wasn't
Speaker 1: that hard. You grew up with me a good attitude, work,
Speaker 1: good spirit. We never were lazy, and we weren't complainers,
Speaker 1: so that I suffered be that I would lie to
Speaker 1: say I did. It was fun for you. For us,
Speaker 1: it was like totally accepted. And then as years passed,
Speaker 1: the town started to resemble well, an actual town. The
Speaker 1: adobe huts now alongside neat houses. My dad found a
Speaker 1: four room house and fixed enough that we could stand
Speaker 1: up and eat in the kitchen because we didn't fit
Speaker 1: sitting down, we're too many. And little by little they
Speaker 1: put electricity in the town, and little by little the
Speaker 1: roads got graveled and no, no more mud. And that's
Speaker 1: just how that town started and how it is now.
Speaker 1: This was the beginning of Colonial LeBaron as it exists today.
Speaker 1: Big barns on the edge of town, a church at
Speaker 1: its center, and homes that become more grand up in
Speaker 1: the hills that surround the town. And I'll tell you
Speaker 1: one thing about our people. Everybody in our people know
Speaker 1: how to build their top of the line builders and
Speaker 1: everybody's workers. Around this time in Colonial le Baron, I'm
Speaker 1: talking about the late fifties. Here, the settlement was run
Speaker 1: by a man named Joel LeBaron. The mantle of leadership
Speaker 1: had been passed down from his father. Joel had a
Speaker 1: lot of brothers and some of them were regarded as
Speaker 1: a bit well out there. To give you an example,
Speaker 1: bowl one brother started building spaceships to take people to Jesus.
Speaker 1: Another called himself the elephant Strangler or the bull catcher,
Speaker 1: or the Lion of Judah. He'd even roar like a lion.
Speaker 1: The Lebarons were Mormon fundamentalists, which basically means they accept
Speaker 1: a lot of the teachings of the regular Mormon faith,
Speaker 1: things like Joseph Smith being the prophet who saw God
Speaker 1: in Jesus in the Spring of eighteen. But they had
Speaker 1: their own ideas too. For instance, Joel, this guy now
Speaker 1: in charge of colonial LeBaron, he had declared himself to
Speaker 1: be something called the One Mighty and Strong. This mighty
Speaker 1: and Strong is a figure predicted in an obscure early
Speaker 1: Mormon prophecy, essentially a man who would rise up after
Speaker 1: the church had lost its way and set it in order.
Speaker 1: Joel claimed that he was this person angels had appeared
Speaker 1: to him, and that might sound strange, but angels talking
Speaker 1: to Mormons is a pretty mainstream idea in the faith,
Speaker 1: at least it was in the beginning. It was introduced
Speaker 1: by Joseph Smith, and what he taught is that God
Speaker 1: could talk to anyone. This idea was powerful, radical, revolutionary,
Speaker 1: and dangerous, because if God could talk to anyone, who
Speaker 1: knows what he might say. According to the Lebarons, one
Speaker 1: of the first things God said to them was that
Speaker 1: they should build the next Kingdom of God on earth,
Speaker 1: and eventually all God's chosen people would flock to it.
Speaker 1: When they arrived, they would see the town of the Labarons,
Speaker 1: dreams brought to life through their hard work. They'd see
Speaker 1: neatly hode rows of chili and beans, the herds of
Speaker 1: cattle and sheep, deep orderly canals of water flowing to
Speaker 1: verdant pasture, kids cleaning wheat, picking watermelon, a communal kitchen,
Speaker 1: and then at night, townspeople gathering under the moonlight to
Speaker 1: sing old Mormon hymns before kneeling in a circle to
Speaker 1: pray and thank God for all their blessings. A communal society,
Speaker 1: everyone engaged together in a grand, righteous project, the way
Speaker 1: God intended, all led by the One Mighty and Strong Joel.
Speaker 1: Joel had a younger brother named Herbol and his kids.
Speaker 1: Growing up in Mexico. They had done everything together. Tied
Speaker 1: tin cans, two dogs, tails, snuck into crowds to ride cows,
Speaker 1: hunted deer and wild pigs in the mountains, and during
Speaker 1: flooding season they would ride waves down the river. They
Speaker 1: were wild, unruly boys, but best friends, and as they
Speaker 1: grew up, in some ways they became opposites because where
Speaker 1: Joel was quiet and hung back, Hervill could be loud
Speaker 1: and brash. Physically, they were both tall. Joel was about
Speaker 1: six ft two and really broad shouldered, and in this
Speaker 1: remote part of Mexico, he couldn't find clothes that fit,
Speaker 1: so Joel's pants were always six inches too short, his
Speaker 1: sleeves ended a little below his elbow. Hervil was even taller,
Speaker 1: six ft four, and in pictures I've seen of him
Speaker 1: during this period he looked well. Some might describe it
Speaker 1: as old Hollywood handsome, I think James Cagney or Gary Cooper,
Speaker 1: with that classic square jawline, Roman nos and piercing blue eyes.
Speaker 1: But where Joel and Hervil's differences were most pronounced was
Speaker 1: in their approach to religion. Because after Joel inherited the
Speaker 1: title the One Mighty and Strong from their father, it
Speaker 1: turned out his approach to faith was well, surprisingly chill
Speaker 1: for a fundamentalist. They didn't even make him go to church.
Speaker 1: If they didn't want to go, you leave him alone.
Speaker 1: They're doing the best they can. They live under difficult circumstances,
Speaker 1: and he was that way with all of us. Joel
Speaker 1: didn't say a lot, and so some people in the
Speaker 1: surrounding towns they thought he was slow, But that was
Speaker 1: just his way. He was the type of guy who
Speaker 1: listened more than he talked. Joel was just tender and
Speaker 1: kind and polite, and you could listen to him or
Speaker 1: not listen to him. He didn't push people around, and
Speaker 1: he wasn't narrow minded, and he wasn't fanatic, and he
Speaker 1: didn't butt into your business. All I can tell you
Speaker 1: is a humble top of the line. Later, Hervil's approached
Speaker 1: to religion, well, it was a bit fanatical and a
Speaker 1: little bit um. Talked too long always, and talked too much,
Speaker 1: and of course we had our little opinions. But let
Speaker 1: me tell you something, because I'm a real good witness
Speaker 1: of it. He wanted to tell Joel what to do,
Speaker 1: because he wanted Joel to do everything more perfect and
Speaker 1: more professional and more all these things. And Joel wasn't
Speaker 1: like that. Joel had no pretenses initially. Despite those differences,
Speaker 1: these two brothers, Joel and Herbal, they ran the town
Speaker 1: together almost a partnership, Joel in charge but relying on
Speaker 1: Hervil's assistance to build utopia, after all, a communal society
Speaker 1: where everyone works for the common good that takes a
Speaker 1: lot of organizing, but a small price to pay to
Speaker 1: create God's Kingdom, or, as the Labeyons called it, Zion.
Speaker 1: I believe Zion is a place where people can have
Speaker 1: their respect and live in peace and have their rights.
Speaker 1: And I do know that it's referred to as a
Speaker 1: church subject, but I believe that it's a lot more
Speaker 1: than that. Anybody can be in that society that's willing
Speaker 1: to be respectful and honorable. And as a journalist who
Speaker 1: often writes about religion, this term Zion comes up a lot.
Speaker 1: It's not just the utopia the la Barons were building
Speaker 1: out here in the Mexican desert. It is something at
Speaker 1: the center of a lot of faiths, the promise of
Speaker 1: this big coming together of people to live in peace.
Speaker 1: As a Mormon, the idea was part of my upbringing,
Speaker 1: and even though I'm no longer practicing that faith, I
Speaker 1: can still understand on a really visceral level, just how
Speaker 1: exciting it would be to think that Zion isn't some
Speaker 1: far off hope, but it's here now. The Gathering is
Speaker 1: about to happen. Listening to Larive and others in colonial
Speaker 1: LeBaron speak about this early period of the town, you
Speaker 1: can still sense it just how exciting this all was. Plus,
Speaker 1: new people were now arriving in the desert, the town growing,
Speaker 1: this big coming together. Joel literally called it the Gathering.
Speaker 1: He had bought a printing press and a big barrel
Speaker 1: of ink, and he and hervill were using it to
Speaker 1: publish pamphlets to get the word out. They often made
Speaker 1: trips to the States to spread this message. The Gathering
Speaker 1: was happening, something once prophesied now actually coming true in
Speaker 1: the Chihuahua desert. There was one crucial reason for this
Speaker 1: feeling of anticipation, the arrival of a very specific group
Speaker 1: of outsiders into the town. They came just before dawn
Speaker 1: on a chilly morning in October. A villager who had
Speaker 1: gone outside to light a fire under hawashtub noticed them
Speaker 1: two strangers standing by the tub warming Themsel was by
Speaker 1: the fire, and over the coming days many more arrived.
Speaker 1: The French missionary showed up, so we knew him. Like
Speaker 1: when they got here, they're all excited, talking, visiting Joel,
Speaker 1: visiting everybody. They were so excited, you don't even know.
Speaker 1: The French Missionaries was the name given to this group
Speaker 1: of outsiders, but they weren't French at all. They were Americans,
Speaker 1: mostly from California and Utah. They had heard about Colonial
Speaker 1: le Baron while serving as Mormon missionaries in France a
Speaker 1: year earlier, and they too had become convinced Colonial Abaron
Speaker 1: was the next kingdom of God on Earth. This was
Speaker 1: a pivotal moment in the history of the town. The
Speaker 1: first group of disciples of this scion who weren't in
Speaker 1: some way related to the Labarons or local converts. In
Speaker 1: in fact, they had no prior connection to fundamentalism whatsoever.
Speaker 1: And of of course, educated in college students, we were the
Speaker 1: young punks, you see. And it was a big deal.
Speaker 1: One French missionary named Dan Jordan's would go on to
Speaker 1: become a particularly big deal in Colonial le Baron. In fact,
Speaker 1: his actions would change the lives of the people here forever.
Speaker 1: That's coming up after the break. There's a certain time
Speaker 1: in the Chihuahua desert, when the pale light of day
Speaker 1: suddenly becomes something else. Shadows slowly appear. They're just hints
Speaker 1: at first, clinging to the edges of buildings, but before
Speaker 1: you've really noticed them, they've grown into these long, arching fingers,
Speaker 1: all pointing in one direction, toward the dark night that's
Speaker 1: about to arrive. Around this time, the warm desert air
Speaker 1: carries this feeling, almost like a chill that's coming in
Speaker 1: the desert where I grew up. Sometimes I would dread
Speaker 1: the night because it seemed to take me away from
Speaker 1: the safety and security around me. When I closed my
Speaker 1: eyes and try to go back to colonial LeBaron at
Speaker 1: this point in its history, the nineteen fifties giving way
Speaker 1: to the nineteen sixties. Joel in charge, hervil at his side.
Speaker 1: That's the time of day I picture it to be
Speaker 1: for these people, these dreamers who had traveled here in
Speaker 1: the white light of hope with ideals of love and salvation.
Speaker 1: But um had started to notice those first lingering signs
Speaker 1: of darkness that would cast shadows across the land. Around
Speaker 1: the same time as Larie's family arrived in the Mexican desert,
Speaker 1: a teenage girl named Stephanie Spencer moved with her family
Speaker 1: to Colonial LeBaron. Joel and Herbyl were Stephanie's uncles on
Speaker 1: her mom's side. I remember my uncle Joel preaching to
Speaker 1: my mother and my mother lying there on the couch
Speaker 1: while she was pregnant with her feet up, trying to
Speaker 1: keep from having a miscarriage. In the end, they joined
Speaker 1: Joel's cult, and I was eleven years old when I
Speaker 1: got baptized into it cult. That's how Stephanie Spencer came
Speaker 1: to understand Joel and Ervil's church when her family joined
Speaker 1: in the fifties. Right from the start, Stephanie could see
Speaker 1: life in Colonial LeBaron was going to be tough. This
Speaker 1: bright kid who loved books and school suddenly transported to
Speaker 1: this desert town. My parents had sprained that we were
Speaker 1: going to zi In. I was all prepared to see
Speaker 1: a beautiful, wonderful place, and it was like falling into
Speaker 1: an abyss. It was really hot, windy. The wind was
Speaker 1: often blowing, but it cools off at night. We didn't
Speaker 1: have any air condition. We didn't have much of anything.
Speaker 1: The mud hut maybe had one or two windows, and
Speaker 1: they were covered with wax paper. They couldn't afford glass
Speaker 1: for window planes. I mean, these people were extremely poor.
Speaker 1: All the water was gotten from wells they dug, and
Speaker 1: I spent my years they're drawing up pills of water
Speaker 1: and hauling them to the house for everything from bathing
Speaker 1: and washing clothes to cooking. The cognitive dissonance stayed in
Speaker 1: my mind. It kept telling me, Oh, this is heaven,
Speaker 1: but in my heart I felt it was hell on.
Speaker 1: Stephanie did her best to settle into town life, despite
Speaker 1: their being hardly any other kids her age, and as
Speaker 1: other families arrived, fellow Mormons from Utah and Arizona and Idaho.
Speaker 1: That excitement you heard Larivee Stubbs describe the anticipation spreading
Speaker 1: across the town, Well, Stephanie noticed it, too, noticed the
Speaker 1: community's feeling that something momentous was happening here in colonial LeBaron.
Speaker 1: She was interested in one new arrival, in particular, this
Speaker 1: tall and dashing guy by the name of Bill Tucker.
Speaker 1: He had grown up in Los Angeles and had gone
Speaker 1: to college. He was one of the French missionaries that
Speaker 1: had arrived in October of how a certain cosmopolitan sophistication,
Speaker 1: kind of the opposite of everything Stephanie saw around her.
Speaker 1: And then one day he invited Stephanie out on a date,
Speaker 1: a picnic. I was sixteen, I was love sick. I
Speaker 1: was in my lovely yellow heels and Sunday best clothes.
Speaker 1: Was just what your will on a picnic, And back
Speaker 1: in those days, this was a chance for Stephanie to escape,
Speaker 1: even if it was just for one afternoon. But despite
Speaker 1: her obvious excitement, Stephanie's parents at the very last minute
Speaker 1: forbid her from going, just as this guy, Bill Tucker,
Speaker 1: had arrived in his Cadillac to pick her up. Devastated,
Speaker 1: Stephanie fled the house. I couldn't stand to live there anymore.
Speaker 1: But there was no way to run away. There was
Speaker 1: absolutely no way. There was no transportation, was just a
Speaker 1: little tiny town in this Mesquite desert. She hit out
Speaker 1: in an old, broken down station wagon in their backyard,
Speaker 1: tucked herself under the steering well, sat there for nine hours.
Speaker 1: The whole settlement turned out to look for her. At dusk,
Speaker 1: Stephanie's dad came in the backyard to milk the cow,
Speaker 1: and for some reason he looked inside the car and
Speaker 1: saw Stephanie hiding there. He just opened that card or
Speaker 1: he drugged me out of there. He grabbed me by
Speaker 1: the hair of the head. He started kicking me. He
Speaker 1: picked up a two by four and he beat me
Speaker 1: until he'd have enough, And he said to me that
Speaker 1: ought to fix you, you in your pretty face. I'm
Speaker 1: sick and tired of all these men that keep coming
Speaker 1: to me and asking for your hand in marriage, all
Speaker 1: because you just smile at them all the time, your
Speaker 1: damned smile. You're making me lose all my friends because
Speaker 1: I have to tell them that they can't court you.
Speaker 1: What happened to Stephanie that day was the first glimpse
Speaker 1: at a dark undercurrent of violence in the Labyrian community,
Speaker 1: and she was seeing some other signs too, perhaps before
Speaker 1: anyone else. Around the same time Stephanie's father beat her,
Speaker 1: she headed out of her house on another escape, this
Speaker 1: time not a physical departure, but a mental one. I
Speaker 1: wanted to read so badly, because we weren't supposed to
Speaker 1: be reading anything at all, especially the women, unless it
Speaker 1: was the scriptures. And all I ever found was such
Speaker 1: violence in the scriptures. So self confessed bookworm, Stephanie searched
Speaker 1: her neighbor's houses for new reading material. She wasn't going
Speaker 1: to be picky anything to put her mind anywhere but here,
Speaker 1: and she started her search with a small dwelling on
Speaker 1: the edge of her family's plot. It belonged to Herville LeBaron.
Speaker 1: I found a chance to go into Arvill's little met
Speaker 1: adobe with a door on it and one little window
Speaker 1: covered by wax paper, and I wanted to look through
Speaker 1: his books. There was no lock on the door. Actually,
Speaker 1: nobody had locks on their doors when they lived down there.
Speaker 1: That's not trusting they were. And I had a slight
Speaker 1: guilt feeling that, oh God, what if he comes by?
Speaker 1: But I knew he almost never did. I didn't stand
Speaker 1: there too long, and I kept any on any noises
Speaker 1: creeping around In the half light, Stephanie started to get
Speaker 1: her bearings. He had a little caught literally made out
Speaker 1: of wood, with maybe a cow hide or something on it,
Speaker 1: and that's where he would lie with a cow hide
Speaker 1: pillow he had made to raise his head upwards lean
Speaker 1: his back against their Next Hervil's bed was a collection
Speaker 1: of books. Stephanie might have expected the small library to
Speaker 1: contain religious tracts, but the books were on something entirely different.
Speaker 1: I came across the pocket size book of the Mafia.
Speaker 1: There were different sections in it, and the one section
Speaker 1: I remember best because it really caught my eye, was
Speaker 1: the section for how to get rid of people and
Speaker 1: make it look like it was an accident, how to
Speaker 1: kill so that nobody could ever pin the murder on you.
Speaker 1: He had that underline in his really penciling, and I
Speaker 1: know it was his underlying because his pencil was there
Speaker 1: and he had underlined it well and good this area.
Speaker 1: What did you feel in that moment, Well, it's stuck
Speaker 1: in my mind. This is interesting. And whenever you don't
Speaker 1: have answers for things, you just leave it there till
Speaker 1: gradually gain information. It was many years later, twenty thirty
Speaker 1: forty years later, before it all kicked in. From the
Speaker 1: vantage point of a teenager in nineteen sixties Colonial Baron,
Speaker 1: all Stephanie could see an Herville was an extremely devout man,
Speaker 1: a man using any means necessary to draw people into
Speaker 1: the church, sometimes by persuasion and sometimes by sheer endurance.
Speaker 1: If you want to convert somebody to something, this is
Speaker 1: how the mind works. You talk loud and hard and
Speaker 1: fast and soft and smooth as velvet, which Ervil was
Speaker 1: good at changing to she wanted to further nesmerize you.
Speaker 1: You do that for hours, you keep talking a steady
Speaker 1: stream to where they can't even take a toilet break.
Speaker 1: After six hours, get a drink of water. Let alone,
Speaker 1: let alone, get some sleep. Stephanie remembers Hervill would sometimes
Speaker 1: preach to the people of colonial a Baron in sermons
Speaker 1: that could go on all night, literally, And if you
Speaker 1: do this long enough, their brain will suddenly snap and
Speaker 1: they'll see a vision. They'll see what they think in
Speaker 1: their mind is God, or that this is telling them
Speaker 1: the truth. And this relentless approach was proving successful. Herville
Speaker 1: was pulling in the followers, gaining his own loyalists. And
Speaker 1: once they believe they've been converted to the truth, their
Speaker 1: family of memories and friends and church leaders, nobody can
Speaker 1: convince them. It's like pulling teeth to get them to
Speaker 1: come back to the the reality. Throughout the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: Joel continued to leave more leadership responsibilities to Irville, and
Speaker 1: he may have felt he had to because his schedule
Speaker 1: was getting busier. His fledgling church was now establishing outposts
Speaker 1: in other parts of Mexico, and Joel was often gone
Speaker 1: from town for weeks months even trying to set these up.
Speaker 1: And in his absence, some strange things had started to happen.
Speaker 1: There was the death of someone called Morrow gautierres He
Speaker 1: was close to Joel, and one day he was gunned
Speaker 1: down near a bar in a neighboring town. Then, not
Speaker 1: long after, another member of Joel's church met a similar fate,
Speaker 1: John Booch Ride, shot to death outside of town. Butchright
Speaker 1: had a reputation for running his mouth off against turbul
Speaker 1: Residents wondered who were the faceless attackers behind these murders.
Speaker 1: Why was this happening on the edge of Zion. No
Speaker 1: one seemed to have any answers. And then Herville was
Speaker 1: you could say, promoted by Joel, or at least given
Speaker 1: a new grand sounding title. He was the Patriarch and
Speaker 1: second Grand Head of the Church of the Firstborn of
Speaker 1: the Fullness of Times, and he took this role seriously.
Speaker 1: He began to transform the town through his distinct style
Speaker 1: of leadership. He instituted a strict militaristic order. Kids were
Speaker 1: required to assemble in front of the schoolhouse at seven
Speaker 1: in the morning and then marched to their classes in
Speaker 1: a tight formation. He also started this secret cabal called
Speaker 1: the United Women of Zion with nighttime meetings. He used
Speaker 1: the women basically as spies. Now it wasn't just Stephanie
Speaker 1: who was seeing shadows creep across colonial le Baron. Larive
Speaker 1: was too. Irva wanted you to dress eyes, and he
Speaker 1: wanted people to get up and pushing you a little bit,
Speaker 1: and even me, you're coming, Well, you don't need to
Speaker 1: say it that way. No, go in the other room
Speaker 1: and just think, well, I can say it however I want.
Speaker 1: It seemed like the more control Irville gained, the more
Speaker 1: power he wanted. He became very greedy, top more doctrine,
Speaker 1: a little bit like fundamentalists how to live their religion.
Speaker 1: He became imposing and fanatic. I want to quickly back
Speaker 1: up here and give some context to what Lariva is
Speaker 1: saying about hervil and his control of women. In fact,
Speaker 1: this is a really important aspect of this whole podcast.
Speaker 1: The la Barons and their followers were, and many still are,
Speaker 1: polygamous plural marriage, one man, multiple wives. This was once
Speaker 1: a defining feature of the Mormon Church, but under pressure
Speaker 1: from the US federal government, the church banned the practice
Speaker 1: in eighteen nine went from preaching plural marriage to excommunicating
Speaker 1: anyone who lived it. This was essentially the beginning of
Speaker 1: the Mormon fundamentalist movement, because there were some men and
Speaker 1: women who were not going to stop practicing polygamy, and
Speaker 1: so polygamy is one of the main reasons why the
Speaker 1: Labarons set up their town in Mexico in the first place.
Speaker 1: Two Mormon fundamentalists, like the Labarons, polygamy was serious business,
Speaker 1: a commandment of God, and as they saw it, the
Speaker 1: Church had simply sold out for mainstream acceptance. So the
Speaker 1: Labarons moved to Mexico to keep living polygamy and to
Speaker 1: avoid prosecution in the US. These idealistic dreamers were in
Speaker 1: a way also refugees, and as men took more wives
Speaker 1: and those wives had more children, the population quickly multiplied,
Speaker 1: with men sitting atop a vast family structure. And so
Speaker 1: what Herville understood intuitively was that controlling women was the
Speaker 1: key to controlling these vast structures. It was the key
Speaker 1: to power. Herville started to barter women, he'd marry off daughters,
Speaker 1: arranged marriages to those most loyal to him, and colonial
Speaker 1: le Baron became a community where child marriage was normalized.
Speaker 1: Irville himself went on to groom girls as young as twelve.
Speaker 1: His youngest wife was sixteen. Irville wanted to marry Larive,
Speaker 1: and the fact that she wouldn't go along with it
Speaker 1: seemed to make him want her even more. One time
Speaker 1: he put his hand on my knee and I picked
Speaker 1: it up and like, don't be touching me unless I
Speaker 1: tell you you can. Let's playing the piano, and he
Speaker 1: put his hand on my hand and I slapped him,
Speaker 1: and I said, don't you ever touch me without permission.
Speaker 1: As the sixties progressed, everyone could see a role was changing.
Speaker 1: The man who once used baling wire for shoelaces and
Speaker 1: a rope to hold up his pants was now wearing
Speaker 1: tailored suits and driving around in a gold and Paula.
Speaker 1: The townspeople jokingly called it the Golden Calf. He seemed
Speaker 1: to be spending the church's cash on himself. He would
Speaker 1: con his brothers older and younger, to do all the
Speaker 1: dirt work while he sat there and told him how
Speaker 1: to dig the well, how to make the cheese, and
Speaker 1: Stephanie Spencer remembers how he'd stand apart from towns focus
Speaker 1: they worked like he was too good to get his
Speaker 1: hands dirty. He would be talking the scriptures and reading
Speaker 1: from the scriptures and discussing the scriptures with them while
Speaker 1: they worked. And why they let him get away with it,
Speaker 1: I don't know. He also seemed to be splitting from reality.
Speaker 1: He'd swipe it imaginary flies, go to three days without sleeping.
Speaker 1: He'd write and preach until he collapsed with exhaustion, and
Speaker 1: people would see him kind of shambling around town. He
Speaker 1: walked with his shoulders down and leaning forward, But part
Speaker 1: of that was he was in his mind thinking and
Speaker 1: probably hearing voices and so on, and to concentrate better,
Speaker 1: he would be leaning forward and often looking down on
Speaker 1: the ground watch a step while his mind was up there,
Speaker 1: so at least he wouldn't trip on all those rocks
Speaker 1: and the dirt paths of Colonia LeBaron. Stephanie Spencer was
Speaker 1: now living under her uncle Hervil's tyranny to someone who
Speaker 1: would lash out unpredictably and scold her and the other townsfolk.
Speaker 1: We weren't getting off our butts and doing what he
Speaker 1: and Joel were telling them to do. And if the
Speaker 1: women didn't get behind him and his work and consider
Speaker 1: their children as not their children, but the children of
Speaker 1: the work. And therefore the work of God wasn't getting
Speaker 1: off the ground. It was us to blame. While she
Speaker 1: did finally manage to leave the tyranny of her family home,
Speaker 1: Stephanie remained stuck in Colonial a Baron. She had become
Speaker 1: the third wife of Bill Tucker, that guy from Los
Speaker 1: Angeles who had picked her up in his cadillac for
Speaker 1: a picnic, Well tried to. When Stephanie married him in
Speaker 1: sixty two. She was sixteen and he was twenty six.
Speaker 1: And then one day he just up and left her.
Speaker 1: He'd become disillusioned with Herville Joel two, so he'd fled
Speaker 1: town less, Stephanie behind. Now Irvill wanted to know where
Speaker 1: he was. I was warned that he was going to
Speaker 1: come up to my little yellow house on the hill
Speaker 1: talk with me. And Rvil did show up at my house,
Speaker 1: and this guy was in a rage. It was showing
Speaker 1: in his eyes. He was livid. He was furious. How
Speaker 1: dare Bill? He looked me directly in the eyes with
Speaker 1: these blazing angry and murder in his eyes. You could
Speaker 1: say crazy. It was a crazy look. He was crazed.
Speaker 1: It scared me, and when I look back on it now,
Speaker 1: I think, well, I'm lucky he didn't kill me. When
Speaker 1: Stephanie says murder in his eyes, she's not exaggerating. Because
Speaker 1: Hervil had started to add his own little flourishes to
Speaker 1: Choll's religion, and one of them was something he called
Speaker 1: civil law. Sounds quite simple, has a mundane, bureaucratic ring
Speaker 1: to it, but civil law is the death penalty, and
Speaker 1: Ervill wanted to use it for anyone not falling in line.
Speaker 1: Bill knew that he would be killed because one of
Speaker 1: the dictims of that cult was that if you ever left,
Speaker 1: you would be killed. There were no ends of some
Speaker 1: butts about it. None of this is what Joel, the
Speaker 1: Chill fundamentalist who didn't even care if people went to church,
Speaker 1: wanted to create. In his eyes, the civil law. The
Speaker 1: death penalty was all wrong, terribly wrong. Joel's confidence told
Speaker 1: him he had to do something because Hervil's speeches in
Speaker 1: public had become increasingly blood soaked. He was saying that
Speaker 1: colonial le Baron would be the gathering place for the
Speaker 1: Lord's army before a final showdown, and then Herville said
Speaker 1: something even more shocking. The civil law or the death
Speaker 1: penalty could apply to anyone, even Joel. I was in
Speaker 1: the meeting the first day. I left the class. An
Speaker 1: Earl's tried to stop me, but I I was upset,
Speaker 1: and I ran across the street over to Magdalena's house.
Speaker 1: Magdalene was one of Joel's seven wives. And instead of
Speaker 1: Joel's there and they said, he said he was. And
Speaker 1: I went in there and I said, I just want
Speaker 1: you to know that today in church, Rvill was preaching
Speaker 1: the civil law, as was her style. Larive told her
Speaker 1: prophet straight up she was worried. He should be worried too, Joel.
Speaker 1: I don't like this talking about the law force, Joel said.
Speaker 1: We're not talking about the law force. We're talking about
Speaker 1: the law of liberty. The law of liberty, Joel said,
Speaker 1: people were free to make their own choices in their
Speaker 1: relationship with God. Ervill was planning on preaching again later
Speaker 1: that day, and so Joel decided to attend. When he
Speaker 1: got there, Hervil took the podium again and began to
Speaker 1: make his case for civil law death penalties. The law force.
Speaker 1: Joel comes to the second class, and this is exactly
Speaker 1: what he said. Some people call it a law of force,
Speaker 1: and I would like to call it a law of liberty.
Speaker 1: All right there, Boil and Madagon walk out. Not long
Speaker 1: after this confrontation, there was another major standoff between the
Speaker 1: two brothers. Herville stood before the congregation arguing for the
Speaker 1: death penalty and was again rebuked by Joel. Herville came
Speaker 1: right back at him, retorted that his vision was the
Speaker 1: only vision, and that and this is a quote, blood
Speaker 1: will run to solve our problems. Everyone was in shock,
Speaker 1: and then Dan Jordan's stood up. Dan Jordan's, that French
Speaker 1: missionary now operating side by side with Herville. He had
Speaker 1: Hervil's back and announced the shock congregation, we will break
Speaker 1: the dry wood in this church into old pieces and
Speaker 1: burn it more after the break. I have one sister
Speaker 1: and five brothers, and like Joel and Herville, we were
Speaker 1: raised far from the nearest town out in the desert,
Speaker 1: and we mostly just had each other, especially when we
Speaker 1: were little. We caught bull frogs in the river behind
Speaker 1: our house. We shot each other with bb guns. We
Speaker 1: raced our horses up by the canal, and I kept
Speaker 1: thinking of this when I thought about what happened with
Speaker 1: Joel and Hervill. How no matter what kind of warnings
Speaker 1: Joel got. He always gave his brother the benefit of
Speaker 1: the doubt. It was almost like he thought or knew
Speaker 1: the things he was hearing just had to be wrong. Me.
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's the thing with brothers. You feel
Speaker 1: like you know them better than anyone because you do,
Speaker 1: and I guess sometimes you don't. In nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: things had reached a breaking point in colonial A Baron
Speaker 1: Herville seemed completely out of control. Larive told Joel everyone
Speaker 1: in town could see it. He had to act. People
Speaker 1: thought that Joel should take away his authority, his office.
Speaker 1: And I went to Joel and I said, Joel, people
Speaker 1: are complaining because Rvil's saying way too much stuff, and
Speaker 1: why don't you do something about it? You're the leader.
Speaker 1: In November of nineteen Joel finally made a decision. They
Speaker 1: released Dan, Jordan's and IRV of all the authority. They
Speaker 1: had Herville put his head in his hands, and he
Speaker 1: wept to leave. He actually seemed relieved, but this wasn't
Speaker 1: some return to peace between the brothers. After this, the
Speaker 1: threats against Joel didn't just resume. They built to a crescendo,
Speaker 1: kick up more all the time, and Nervill did say things,
Speaker 1: and I would go tell Joel and he said, Larry,
Speaker 1: don't talk about him and don't be rude to him.
Speaker 1: And you know why, I believe that. Joel said that
Speaker 1: he already had premonitions that he might do what he did,
Speaker 1: and he was broken hearted about it. He couldn't figure
Speaker 1: out how to get Rvil to pull back, calm down,
Speaker 1: and be willing to work with him. In one Joel
Speaker 1: kicked Hervill out of his church, excommunicated him. So the
Speaker 1: following year, Hervill set up his own own and he
Speaker 1: called it the Church of the Lamb of God, and
Speaker 1: he started publishing his own pamphlets. The texts were both
Speaker 1: pitches to new followers and threats to anyone who resisted.
Speaker 1: Now they were rivals, he Enjoel. The shadows were getting
Speaker 1: longer over colonial a Baron. We're on Mexico's Highway one,
Speaker 1: which wines right down the coast, kind of the Serpentine Road.
Speaker 1: We are outside of Encinata. There are palm trees in
Speaker 1: the median. There's some graffiti on the walls, and it
Speaker 1: just sort of looks like a quaint little seaside town.
Speaker 1: It's like seven five am, and there seemed to be
Speaker 1: just kind of this little cloud or pall of dust
Speaker 1: hanging over the whole city. All right, it looks like
Speaker 1: we're pulling up. There are bars on the windows of
Speaker 1: a cement building with a paint peeling off. Okay, this
Speaker 1: is the house. I'm with one of Joel's sons, Adrian.
Speaker 1: Back in August two, his dad was an Incinata, Mexico.
Speaker 1: He was on his way to an outpost of his
Speaker 1: church on the Baja Peninsula, over a thousand kilometers to
Speaker 1: the west of Colonial Barn. Joel may have felt safe
Speaker 1: in this coastal town, but he wasn't. Arriving in Incinata,
Speaker 1: Joel stopped by a little house where one of his
Speaker 1: followers lived. He planned to just pick up a car key. Today,
Speaker 1: the house sits next to an open sewer running parallel
Speaker 1: to a busy road that leads up to a bridge
Speaker 1: where we're standing. You just imagine that that bridge wasn't there.
Speaker 1: It was kind of dirt road fifty years ago. So
Speaker 1: the building Adrian and I have pulled up in front
Speaker 1: of is a single frame box house. It's made of
Speaker 1: cinder block. It's white. The paint is chipping there's an
Speaker 1: iron gate out front. Very very simple, maybe two three
Speaker 1: rooms with the wood roof, shingle roof. The way the
Speaker 1: little houses is the same. Then it just to be
Speaker 1: that they didn't reminder of these when Adrian's dad got
Speaker 1: here on August two, the key to the car he
Speaker 1: was picking up wasn't here. Then these two men appeared.
Speaker 1: They were Hervil's followers. They came out of the house
Speaker 1: that we're standing in front of Joe Way. They'd both
Speaker 1: once belonged to his church. One told Joel that he'd
Speaker 1: go pick up the car keys, he'd be right back.
Speaker 1: The other invited Joel inside this house to discuss their
Speaker 1: religious differences. Joel followed the men inside. After about twenty minutes,
Speaker 1: he saw another Herville follower. It was Dan Jordan's. Dan
Speaker 1: approached the house, walked inside. We know these details because
Speaker 1: another one of Joel's sons, his name is Ivan, was
Speaker 1: in a car outside waiting. He watched the scene unfold.
Speaker 1: Dan Jordon came in and then Ivan, my brother says
Speaker 1: that he heard noise. Says then discussions and then all
Speaker 1: of the sudden some shots. Yeah, they kill him. If
Speaker 1: the actual killing of my that in rural cold blood.
Speaker 1: Joel le Baron was dead. They kill him right here
Speaker 1: on the twentie Fagas of Things seventy two salmost fifty years.
Speaker 1: Up until this point, Hervil's threats towards his brother had
Speaker 1: just been words. But now, in ordering Joel's death, there
Speaker 1: would be no turning back. The murder of Joel was
Speaker 1: a line in the sand, and there could be no
Speaker 1: doubt that darkness had arrived in Colonial le Baron the
Speaker 1: legacy of the unfolding events would scar everyone who experienced them.
Speaker 1: For Stephanie Spencer, she would go on to escape Colonial
Speaker 1: le Baron, but she's lived her life trying to make
Speaker 1: sense of what she endured. Adrian LeBaron, he was just
Speaker 1: a child when this all happened, but these events became
Speaker 1: a defining moment. The murdered man was not just his father,
Speaker 1: he was his prophet. Adrian has dedicated his life to
Speaker 1: keeping his father's dream alive, and so have the people
Speaker 1: of Colonial LeBaron, who remained committed to building that utopia
Speaker 1: Joe LeBaron envisioned. But for those who would go on
Speaker 1: to follow Ervio LeBaron, what happened in that small house
Speaker 1: in Ensnata was more than just the killing of a
Speaker 1: rival prophet. It was a killing in Ervil's name. And
Speaker 1: from this point Erville must have known he could order
Speaker 1: further attacks. If he could order the killing of his
Speaker 1: own brother, why not those outside the family who wouldn't
Speaker 1: fall in line, Not just individuals. Next on his hit
Speaker 1: list was a whole town. Yeah, my brother went and
Speaker 1: looked through the window, he went towards the window and
Speaker 1: at the moment he opened the curtain and Luke he
Speaker 1: got shot in the head. And then a mot of
Speaker 1: bomb was thrown through the same window by the same week,
Speaker 1: A Man That's Coming Up an episode two deliver Us
Speaker 1: from Herville is hosted by me jesse Hyde and written
Speaker 1: and reported by me Leona Hamad and David Waters. Production
Speaker 1: from Leona Hamid and David Waters. Sean Glenn and Max
Speaker 1: O'Brien are executive producers. Lena Chang and Megan Oyinka are researchers.
Speaker 1: Marianna Gongora is our field producer, fact checking by Donya
Speaker 1: Suleman and Sona Avakian. Production management from Sharie Houston, Frankie
Speaker 1: Taylor and Charlotte Wolf. Austin Mitchell is our creative director
Speaker 1: of production. Michae Lee Row is our managing editor. Gavin
Speaker 1: Haynes is our head of Development. Willard Foxton is our
Speaker 1: creative director of Development. Sound design, mixing and scoring by
Speaker 1: Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson. Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander
Speaker 1: and David Waters. Our music is composed by Julian Lynch.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Scott Anderson, Scott Carrier, Del van Ada,
Speaker 1: Pippa Smith, Saskia Edwards, Matt O'Mara, Katrina Norville and beth
Speaker 1: Ann Macaluso or In Rosenbaum, Shelby Shankman and all the team.
Speaker 1: A U T A. For more from novel, visit novel
Speaker 1: dot Audio