WEBVTT - 2: The Massacre in Los Molinos 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:15.320 Novel. A listener note this episode contains violence and content 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:24.480 that some listeners might find distressing. Previously on deliver Us 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:29.240 from Herbal, Welcome to Colonia Labert. Well, yeah, come and 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:34.760 say hi to Jesse's. We were going to Zion, a 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:38.080 place for Jesus to return. I was all prepared to 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:40.840 see a beautiful, wonderful place. We wanted to tell Joel 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:42.920 what to do, because he wanted Joel to do everything 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:46.199 more perfect and more professional, and Joel wasn't like that. 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:49.280 One of the dictims of that cult was if you 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:52.640 ever left, you would be killed. Non's if some butts 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:55.840 about it. My brother says that he heard noises and 0:00:55.960 --> 0:01:02.800 discussions and then all of the sudden, some shots they 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:06.640 killed him. The actual killing of my dad and brutal, 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:11.360 cold blah. They kill him right here. On the twentie 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:31.640 Fagasteen seventy two August nineteen seventy two, the Mormon fundamentalists 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:34.640 of Colonial LeBaron are gathered at an airstrip in the 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:38.360 desert of Chihuahua. The sky is lit up by bright moonlight. 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:43.200 They're waiting for the body of their fallen prophet, Joel LeBaron, 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:48.160 the One Mighty and strong murdered in an ambush in 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:51.400 a town on the Baja coast of Mexico by disciples 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:56.920 of his brother Herbal Murder. We're talking about murder. Naoma 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:59.520 Stubbs was in the crowd that night at the airport. 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:03.880 Joel died when I was nine years old, and I 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:07.440 actually drove in the back of a truck when they 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:10.680 brought his casket to The gusts are on this airport, 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:15.600 and I remember watching as they landed to bring his 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:20.720 casket home just before midnight. Huge floodlights flick on as 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:27.200 the plane descends lands and the doors open. Naoma presses 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:29.600 close with the rest of the crowd to see their 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:35.800 profits body. A pickup then backs up to the plane. 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:40.200 Joel's casket is lifted into the truck bed for his 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:45.480 final short trip back to Colonial a Baron. I remember 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:49.520 all the men discussing what has to be done to 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:52.760 be able to take care of his body and bring 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:58.720 him home. Within days of bearing Joel, the focus of 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:02.880 the people of Colonial Aaron turned to Irville and his accomplices. 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:10.239 Thanks to Joel's son Ivan identifying the killers, they had 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:14.040 no doubts these were the people responsible for the death 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:17.640 of Joel. He was our prophet and we all looked 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:20.960 up to him and admired. Plus on top of that, 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:25.800 now they could murder any of us. Because if Erville 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:30.360 could have his own brother killed, the one mighty and strong, 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:35.760 surely no one was safe. He started threatening that he 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:38.000 was in a murder people if they didn't do what 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:42.680 he said. It was very terrorizing, that terror. It was 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:46.840 part of Herbal's plan to intimidate people so they'd fall 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:50.600 in line behind him, so they joined his cult. We 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:55.000 were always threatened. Nailma's mom, Larivee Stobs. I'm just gonna 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:58.000 tell you this. Hervill thought that if he got rid 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:01.600 of Joel, that he could just move in and take 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:07.160 leadership with Joel's people. Well it didn't work, that's the problem. 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:09.840 So the stage was set in Herbal's mind. At least 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:23.920 it was him against the world. From the Team's at 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:27.800 Novel and I Heart Radio. I'm Jesse Hyde and this 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:39.280 is deliver Us from Hervial Episode two, the Massacre and 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:48.159 Los Milinos. It was four when the phone calls started, 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:53.120 calls threatening the townsfolk of colonial LeBaron. I remember always 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:56.040 being fearful of him because as we were growing up 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.440 after he had murdered Joel. It was always the fear 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:02.279 of the I'm coming an attack in our town. There 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:06.000 was a phone and they would send messages and say 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:10.240 they're threatening this or they're threatening that. Up until now, 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:14.000 the years since Joel Slang had largely been quiet, and 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:16.719 one big reason for that was Hervill had been in 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:21.560 prison following Joel's killing in seventy two. He had slipped 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:24.400 across the US border with Dan Jordan's who had killed 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:28.320 Joel and some other followers, and they cut a swath 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:32.719 across the American South, stayed in cheap motel rooms from 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:38.400 Texas to Tennessee, planning, scheming, never in one place for 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:43.040 more than a few days. But then, after several months 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:47.200 on the run, Herval did something really strange. He turned 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:53.200 himself in. It was a gamble, a huge gamble. Back then, 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:57.159 under Mexican law, a prosecutor only had seventy two hours 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:00.560 to gather evidence, and if they couldn't find enough for trial, 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.440 well then he was a freeman. So this sudden move 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:08.479 might give him an upper hand. But the gambit failed. 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:11.800 He was charged with the murder and sentenced to twelve 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:16.359 years in prison in Mexico. That could and should have 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:19.680 been the end of it. But fourteen months later, the 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:23.800 appeals court reversed the conviction and Herville was released from prison, 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:28.240 an act of God, more likely a bribe to the 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:31.880 right official by a member of his cults. Once released 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:35.240 from prison in Mexico, he traveled north, back into the 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.360 US where he could put those fourteen months of brooding 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:42.920 and scheming into action. He told his followers of a 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:48.680 coming war, and back in colonial le Baron, those menacing 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:53.040 phone calls had started. He tried to scare people into 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:57.280 life and death like that, and people were scared so 0:06:57.480 --> 0:06:59.920 that you had to be careful. Yeah, you did. Local 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:04.279 is like larive Stubs were spurred into action. The town 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:07.880 erected a watch tower on a hill. One resident even 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:11.680 put a siren on his roof. They were taking the 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:17.000 threats of violence from Herbyl's cult seriously. Naoma remembers armed 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:22.400 townsfolk patrolling the streets looking for anything suspicious. They would 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:26.480 shoot gunshots. So if you would hear those gunshots, you 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:31.160 knew that, Okay, everybody needs to take cover because we're 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:38.960 under threat. And that would happen all the time. Those nights. 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:41.920 We would put our sleeping bags in the weeds and 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:45.280 sleep in the ditches because we had threats on our town. 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:50.120 You would literally gather up the younger kids, leave the 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:53.160 house and then go to a ditch. Yeah, we had 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:55.960 a ditch in front of our house. Always had weeds 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:59.400 in it because of the water. And I would always 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:02.840 grow of sleeping, bagging, go jumping the ditch because the 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:06.560 fear was our roof was made out of wood, and 0:08:06.600 --> 0:08:09.840 if he would throw a gas bomb on it, well, 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:12.240 our home would be in fire and you're going to 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:15.480 run out and he would kill us. So if you 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:18.920 were in the ditch and you're being quiet and there's weeds, 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:22.720 don't never know. They wouldn't go in the ditches? In 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:26.840 my mind, how long would you stay in the dish? 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:29.920 Like all night? I remember one night being there all 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:33.080 night long and waking up there in the morning time. 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:38.880 How often do you remember it happening? I remember, I 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:42.400 don't know. I probably went to the ditches nine twelve times. 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:50.200 For Naoma. This thing, she feared, this thing. She seemed 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:53.760 to almost see residents being drawn out of their homes 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:56.920 by bombs and fire, only to be gunned down as 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:00.800 they fled. A lot of people I talked to reporting 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:05.360 the story told me a vivid premonitions like this, And 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:08.240 if this sounds a bit crazy, I get it, I 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:13.720 really do. But here's an important thing to understand. Mormonism 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:18.199 is a religion of dreams and visions and prophecies of 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:21.480 magic in a way of the veil between heaven and 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:27.960 Earth being very thin. All Mormons believe that, whether they're 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:33.440 fundamentalists or someone like my parents. But here's the really 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:40.520 crazy thing. This vision of violence seen by Naoma, it 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:56.640 turned out to be right more after the break. I 0:09:56.679 --> 0:09:59.920 grew up in a very devout Mormon family. We were 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:04.200 not fundamentalist. We were part of the mainstream church. As 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:06.520 a kid, I thought a lot about what I read 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:09.439 in scripture, and I think, like a lot of kids 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:14.520 raised in devoutly religious homes, be a Catholic, Muslim, evangelical, 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:19.160 I thought a lot about sin, and to be honest, 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:24.760 I feared it. I feared the judgment of God. Looking back, 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:29.040 I've got to admit it probably wasn't healthy how often 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:35.319 I felt guilty. Mormonism teaches that you can be forgiven 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:39.520 of pretty much any sin unless you denied the Holy Ghost. 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:45.840 Then you become something called a son of perdition. Growing up, 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.240 I didn't know exactly what that meant. I just knew 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:52.160 I didn't want to be one, because a son of 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:56.040 perdition gets sent to a unique kind of hell, a 0:10:56.120 --> 0:11:00.400 place Mormons call outer darkness, And I'll be honest, it 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:05.040 terrified me. I pictured like space and some little star 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:12.199 off all by itself, cold, alone, forever, no path to redemption. 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:18.400 It freaked me out. I say all of this because 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:21.439 when I tried to picture Herville, especially after he killed 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:25.240 his brother, when I try to think of him washing 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:28.680 the metaphorical blood from his hands, I can't help but 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:32.400 think of him as a son of perdition in his 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:37.680 own sort of outer darkness. Because Herville had crossed what 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:43.120 for me at least is an unimaginable line ordering the 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:47.720 slaying of his own brother, and as I see it, 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:51.120 it was a demarcation point from which he would never return. 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:59.480 He was cast out from colonial a baron, eden zion home, 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:03.040 whatever you want to call it, and the rest of 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:06.959 his days would be spent in restless wandering, like Kine 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:09.959 after he killed his brother Abel in the Book of Genesis. 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:15.000 But if Herville felt a weight a darkness for killing 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:19.000 Joel if he felt even a semblance of that guilt 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:22.800 and shame I knew as a kid, he didn't show it. 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:28.679 The continued threats to Colonial LeBaron demonstrate that he simply 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:33.679 pressed on wandering through the darkness. And it was darkness 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:37.720 that was now spreading out from Colonial LeBaron and headed 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:57.880 across Mexico, falling across the Baja Coast. We're on Highway 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:01.360 of one in Mexico, which starts at the border right 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:06.840 after San Diego, and we have been driving in total 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:10.960 from the border were about three hours. And the highway 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:15.559 when you first get outside of Tijuana, it's just stunningly beautiful, 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:22.400 just hugs the ocean. There are hotels right on the beach, 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:27.880 then these little Mexican towns, and then the first kind 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:31.319 of big town you come to is Rosarita, and then 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:34.600 an hour so after that in Sonata. But we are 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:42.160 driving toward a town called Los Molina's. If in Colonial 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:44.960 Labaron Joel had yearned to create the next kingdom of 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:49.719 God on Earth, you might say Los Molinos was heaven spillover. 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:53.240 It was one of the major outposts of Colonial l 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.840 Abaron where Joel and Irville had attracted converts as their 0:13:56.920 --> 0:14:02.160 church numbers started to swell. Los Milinos, which means the 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:05.760 Windmills in Spanish, is about an hour's drive from where 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:09.280 Joel was killed. As you pass down the highway, the 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:14.360 beauty of the landscape is unrelenting, the light that haze 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:17.439 from the ocean. You pass vineyards where you can stop 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:21.560 to drink delicious samples and eat local cheese, and then 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:25.000 the town appears across this vast flat plane of land. 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.720 It's a little more barren and dry than the countryside 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:32.320 you've passed through. In the distance the shore of the 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:35.600 Sea of Cortez, and to the north, a steep hillside 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:42.400 overlooks Los Milinos. Back when Joel was still alive in 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:45.960 the sixties, both he and Herville saw huge potential in 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:49.280 the town. I've got to be honest, sometimes, when you're 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:52.920 in colonial LeBaron, out in the harsh desert, it's sort 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:55.760 of hard to understand why the LeBaron's thoughts such an 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:59.800 inhospitable place would be the best location for Zion. But 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.160 what you see when you pass along this coastline road 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:07.560 towards Los Milinos, well, it's much easier to imagine how 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:11.320 the LeBaron saw its promise for Joel and the people 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:14.840 who ran his church after his death. The opportunity they 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:20.400 saw was for another communal utopia like Colonial LeBaron, but 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:25.080 Erville's vision for the town was different. He focused in 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:29.520 on the nine miles of surrounding beachfront property. What Erville 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:34.440 imagined was a luxury resort kind of his own Mara Lago. 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:38.720 He even lined up investors in the States. He flew 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:41.800 them down on a private plane for a tour, and 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:45.600 in typical RVIL grandiose fashion, he called it the Baja 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:49.120 Yacht Club. I don't know, maybe he thought that was 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:52.160 an easier cell than the next Kingdom of God on Earth. 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:57.400 Even before Joel's murder, Los Milinos townsfolk had mixed loyalties 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:01.840 between Joel's church and hervil. One. Los Milinos local I met, 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:05.920 for instance, Joe Castillo. He was firmly behind Joel and 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:12.440 saw him as his prophet. Our prophet said that Los 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:15.400 Molinos was a suitable place to come and lift our people. 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:20.240 Joe Castillo was one of Joel's earliest converts, so he 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:24.200 moved from Central Mexico to Colonial le Baron, then onto 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:30.480 Los Milinos. When the keep and when I came here, 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:33.080 I saw that it was a much better place for 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:36.400 me in regards to the economy, because we had better salaries, 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:40.520 and it was also a better place to develop. That 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.160 is why we have been here since nineteen sixty six 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:48.360 until now. They say. But Hervill was popular in town too, 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:52.800 when he made the long trips across Mexico to visit Mama. 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:58.160 I remember my mom saying that Ervil really liked Bence 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:02.560 and Salta. My mom all aways gave him food. This 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:06.080 is another Lost Millinos resident Delhi. She grew up here 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:08.399 and when Herville came to town, he would stay in 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:13.440 her parents home. It was a house where they gather 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:16.960 to study, to talk, to talk more than anything with 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:21.520 my dad. But I remember that my mom used to 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:24.879 happily tell me that my dad like Herbal, but he 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:28.760 arrived with stuff for my mom. Hervil gifted in machine 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:36.439 and Yes, considering the mixed loyalties between Joel and Hervill, 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:40.080 it's easy to understand that when Herville had his brother killed, 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:43.760 it sent Los Milinos into a state of somewhere between 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:50.239 panic and confusion. The majority of the town continued to 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:54.200 follow Joel's church, the Church of the Firstborn, which by 0:17:54.280 --> 0:18:00.359 nine seventy four was led by a man called Verlin Barnon. 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:04.240 Le Baron is as the youngest brother to joln Irville, 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:08.600 and he was seven years the younger than yo Joel. 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:11.000 A Baron's son Adrian, took me to the spot in 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:15.760 Los Milinos where Verlin lived today. It's a small, tumble 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:20.320 down one story home, a rusting gate, rusting chain link fence. 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:24.840 And the reason we're standing up here because when they 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:28.479 startled about Molinos, he brought his family here. He helped 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:31.840 a lot to build this down little Molinos. He had 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:36.320 en office here. Verlin he didn't have the Hollywood looks 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:38.760 of his brother Herville, and he wasn't like his brother 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:41.639 Joel either, really like he never made any kind of 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:45.080 claim of revelation to be the one mighty and strong, 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:49.600 that person who was chosen to unite the whole Mormon church. 0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:53.560 There was no seeing angels or hearing God's voice for Verlin. 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:57.000 In fact, you could say he wasn't ambitious for power 0:18:57.080 --> 0:19:00.639 at all. Yet after Joel's death, he was running the 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:05.240 community Herville had sought to control. This sent Herval into 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:09.840 a rage, and no sooner had Rlin inherited the leadership 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:13.240 of Joel's church. His presence at Los Milinos had put 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:19.000 the whole community squarely in Hervil's crosshairs. Hervill's fourteen months 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:21.840 in prison might have given the town some respite, but 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:25.719 then in nineteen seventy four he was released, and just 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:29.320 like in colonial LeBaron, the town started to receive ultimatums 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:38.280 to fall in line under Hervil. Things didn't stop there, 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:41.480 because in nineteen seventy four, everyone who didn't want to 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:47.160 follow where we started receiving threats. He quoted a passage 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:54.120 in the Bible that talks about destruction. Los Milinos residents 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:59.000 like Joe Castillo started to receive handwritten violent threats delivered 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:03.560 by his own, well supporting neighbors. But then, just as 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:07.400 it seemed inevitable that these threats would turn into actual violence, 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:14.960 a strange thing happened. In late nineteen Quietly, without any announcement, 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:18.720 those families who had joined Hervil's church, the Church of 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:23.239 the Lamb of God, started leaving Los Molinos. They just 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:27.840 quietly packed up their homes and left. The community breathed 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:36.120 a collective sigh of relief. We never believed that they 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:39.480 were capable of attacking us. They left and we were 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:47.240 having a normal life. But in they threw an attack. 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:57.919 The attack. It's December seventy four and the moon is 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:01.600 bright overhead. It's one of the coldest nights of the year. 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:05.919 The town then looked much like it does today. Mostly 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:10.879 single story houses, small yards, the occasional garden, all in 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:14.400 a grid system with a church in the center. Basic 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:17.760 not unlike a suburb and a small American town. Although 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:21.600 the roads are unpaved, the majority of the few hundred 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:25.640 villagers that night have turned in. They're huddled around stoves 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:31.680 to keep warm. We're already in bed. Just before nine pm, 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:35.359 two vehicles approached the town, flick off their headlights as 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:40.560 they enter. The first is a brown GMC pickup stolen 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:44.600 from the United States. In the back of the truck 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:50.040 are three of Herville's most trusted lieutenants. Close behind in 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:54.080 a dark green Fiat driven by another follower, a teenager 0:21:54.200 --> 0:21:57.399 who will become central to the whole Hervil story. Her 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:02.200 name is Rna chinof Tonight. She's a sixteen year old onlooker. 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:08.919 In a few months she'll become Hervil's thirteen wife. The 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:12.080 cars passed by a house shared by four families, including 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:16.600 Joel Aguilar, a local clam fisherman, another one of Joel's 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:20.280 early converts. He lives with his parents and two of 0:22:20.320 --> 0:22:28.800 his married brothers. He looked through the window that pointed 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:32.119 north and said that Virhinias bets Hells was on fire. 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:38.719 The tallest structure in Los Milinos was this three story building. 0:22:39.600 --> 0:22:43.640 Everyone called it the tower House, and Joel Aguilar saw 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:47.360 that it was ablaze. Joe Castillo saw the fire too, 0:22:47.880 --> 0:22:50.280 and like there are other neighbors who saw the tower 0:22:50.280 --> 0:22:54.080 House burning that night, his first thought was, how can 0:22:54.119 --> 0:23:00.280 I help you in the moment, it's like that meant 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:04.480 I thought it was an accidental fire. I didn't see 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:06.960 anything evil on it. Who were just there with a 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:11.080 trust of putting the fire out, thinking it's okay. Things happened, 0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:20.440 Fires happened, But the tower House fire was no accident. 0:23:22.760 --> 0:23:27.080 It had been caused by a Molotov cocktail, and shooters 0:23:27.160 --> 0:23:30.679 were now hiding in the shadows about twenty yards away, 0:23:31.440 --> 0:23:36.720 their targets standing before them perfectly silhouetted against the burning house. 0:23:43.240 --> 0:23:58.640 More after the break, the first fire in Los Milinos 0:23:58.760 --> 0:24:00.920 that night was under control role in a little more 0:24:00.960 --> 0:24:04.399 than ten minutes, neighbors had worked together to get the 0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:08.240 tower House blaze under control, like Joe Castillo and his 0:24:08.320 --> 0:24:11.679 brother Fernando, who had climbed to an upper floor of 0:24:11.720 --> 0:24:15.440 the burning house and from there had successfully fought back 0:24:15.520 --> 0:24:24.520 the flames. But the fire was a trap. On the 0:24:24.520 --> 0:24:27.439 second floor. When my brother was he suddenly felt a 0:24:27.480 --> 0:24:30.520 bullet and told me I have been shot, but I don't. 0:24:31.320 --> 0:24:33.919 Irville had ordered the fire just to lure out his 0:24:33.960 --> 0:24:38.120 brother Verlin. Once again, Irvill was trying to kill one 0:24:38.119 --> 0:24:41.960 of his brothers, and the way he planned it as 0:24:42.080 --> 0:24:45.000 leader of the community, Verlin surely would come out to 0:24:45.119 --> 0:24:49.200 join his neighbors in tackling the blaze. The shooters, who 0:24:49.200 --> 0:24:52.400 were now firing from the shadows, would execute Verlin as 0:24:52.400 --> 0:24:56.760 he came running to help. But so far Verlin hadn't 0:24:56.800 --> 0:25:00.119 shown up, and as the blaze subsided, the shoot as 0:25:00.160 --> 0:25:03.000 were now at risk of being spotted by men like 0:25:03.080 --> 0:25:06.600 Joel and Fernando Castillo on the upper floors of the 0:25:06.680 --> 0:25:10.679 tower House. Before they could lose the element of surprise, 0:25:11.160 --> 0:25:19.960 they opened fire. But that's when I realized how dangerous 0:25:19.960 --> 0:25:22.960 this was, so I grabbed my brother and jumped from 0:25:22.960 --> 0:25:26.879 the second floor into a pile of sand. Joe Castillo's 0:25:26.920 --> 0:25:31.679 brother landed on the floor bleeding. So I pulled my 0:25:31.720 --> 0:25:35.480 brother close. He could still walk a little, and as 0:25:35.560 --> 0:25:38.960 I took him, I told him stay here. At that instant, 0:25:39.080 --> 0:25:42.480 I got shut in my hand and my mano. Now 0:25:42.720 --> 0:25:46.200 both men had been wounded. Joe Castillo moved his brother 0:25:46.240 --> 0:25:49.520 to a sheltered spot as he tried to process exactly 0:25:49.600 --> 0:25:54.200 what was going on. He told him, good, you stay here, 0:25:54.240 --> 0:25:59.920 because something is happening. It started to dawn on Joel 0:26:00.000 --> 0:26:04.800 Castillo that this was a trap. But who were these 0:26:04.840 --> 0:26:08.880 attackers he now saw coming from the shadows, their faces 0:26:08.920 --> 0:26:16.000 seemingly distorted, partially obscured by some kind of cloth like mask. Then, 0:26:16.040 --> 0:26:19.359 as shooters moved away from the shadows, the townsfolks started 0:26:19.400 --> 0:26:26.600 to make out facial features, some were alarmingly familiar. Los 0:26:26.680 --> 0:26:30.000 Milano's resident Deli can remember her sister's shocked as she 0:26:30.160 --> 0:26:35.440 realized she recognized an attacker. And she looked at him 0:26:35.600 --> 0:26:38.200 and so it was her friend, the friend that almost 0:26:38.240 --> 0:26:41.560 became her boyfriend. This was someone she had been to 0:26:41.560 --> 0:26:46.800 school with, sat with him in class. She saw his eyes. 0:26:47.160 --> 0:26:50.159 He was completely covert, and she saw his eyes and 0:26:50.240 --> 0:26:53.960 recognized him, and he turned and saw her and ran away. 0:26:55.359 --> 0:26:59.760 Other townsfolk were coming to the same awful realization. Not 0:27:00.040 --> 0:27:03.560 only were they under attack, but the assailants were the 0:27:03.680 --> 0:27:10.399 children of their former neighbors. Most of the attackings were kids. 0:27:11.160 --> 0:27:13.840 Joelah Baron's son Adrian, took me to the place where 0:27:13.840 --> 0:27:17.080 this all happened. And the kids that Adrian is talking about, 0:27:17.320 --> 0:27:22.480 they were teenagers from the town. It's amazing how children 0:27:22.480 --> 0:27:25.760 are not turtem fourteen, fifteen, sixty and eighteen year old 0:27:26.040 --> 0:27:29.560 can be swam to the opposite side so easy doing 0:27:29.640 --> 0:27:34.560 the attack. They're in a thank your spot of life, 0:27:34.800 --> 0:27:37.840 so you see, convinced of something else. And those are 0:27:37.880 --> 0:27:46.200 the people that Irvil somehow brainwashed. It was powerful. As 0:27:46.240 --> 0:27:50.159 the teenagers attacking Los Milinos realized Berlin wasn't going to 0:27:50.200 --> 0:27:52.880 come out to fight the fire, they switched to their 0:27:52.880 --> 0:27:56.880 next phase of the assault, basically an all out attack. 0:28:00.520 --> 0:28:05.560 These teenagers started firing randomly at the panicking crowd. One 0:28:05.600 --> 0:28:09.560 attacker moved towards a wounded sixteen year old boy, a 0:28:09.640 --> 0:28:13.800 boy named Maronai Mendez. Marona I was on the ground 0:28:14.440 --> 0:28:20.040 moaning and crying, and this attacker stood over Maronai and 0:28:20.119 --> 0:28:25.359 shot him in the chest. Now the attackers left the 0:28:25.400 --> 0:28:32.520 burning tower house and headed towards Verlin's home. Joe Castillo, 0:28:32.600 --> 0:28:34.679 who had been shot in the hand, had made it 0:28:34.720 --> 0:28:37.320 back to his house. From there, he could see that 0:28:37.359 --> 0:28:41.280 the attackers had split into two groups, one moving through 0:28:41.280 --> 0:28:45.920 the town on foot, the other by car, both sets 0:28:46.120 --> 0:28:52.560 randomly firing into residence homes. They were shooting house by house, 0:28:52.640 --> 0:28:56.360 and so I panicked. I didn't even tell my wife 0:28:56.360 --> 0:28:58.560 I was hurt, but I did tell her it was 0:28:58.800 --> 0:29:01.160 you know what, going look for a place to hide 0:29:01.640 --> 0:29:04.360 up there with the trees. Are go over there and 0:29:04.440 --> 0:29:10.160 hide because we are being attacked by as people. The 0:29:10.200 --> 0:29:14.600 teenagers weren't just randomly firing at people. They were now 0:29:14.720 --> 0:29:18.840 also throwing these handmade bombs at the houses. They'd shoot 0:29:18.840 --> 0:29:22.600 at the people fleeing their burning buildings. One group of 0:29:22.640 --> 0:29:31.160 attackers arrived at clam Fisherman Joe Aguilar's Houseman went and 0:29:31.200 --> 0:29:34.080 looked through the window. He went towards the window and 0:29:34.120 --> 0:29:36.600 at the moment he opened the curtain and look, he 0:29:36.720 --> 0:29:44.600 got shot. He got shot in the head. And then 0:29:44.800 --> 0:29:47.479 a molot of bomb was thrown through the same window, 0:29:47.520 --> 0:29:52.680 but the same weekd men. That bomb was made out 0:29:52.720 --> 0:29:55.560 of petrollum base and I had a week inside a bottle. 0:29:55.800 --> 0:29:58.760 And the moment the bullet and the bomb were at 0:29:58.840 --> 0:30:01.880 the same time, the bullet hit him in his head 0:30:03.400 --> 0:30:06.800 and the bomb lit and fell on him, setting his 0:30:06.920 --> 0:30:17.520 body on fire. And to say, my brother. Then as 0:30:17.560 --> 0:30:20.160 I wake up, he fell to the floor with a 0:30:20.240 --> 0:30:26.040 bullet in his head while being on fire, and my 0:30:26.120 --> 0:30:28.600 dad then took a bedsheet and tried to put out 0:30:28.600 --> 0:30:31.880 my brother's body. We then woke up and my mom 0:30:31.920 --> 0:30:34.800 tried to hug it, but he had a lot of 0:30:34.840 --> 0:30:38.840