Speaker 1: Novel. A listener note this episode contains violence and content
Speaker 1: that some listeners might find distressing. Previously, on deliver Us
Speaker 1: from Herbal Hebrew, the mantle fell on him and he
Speaker 1: did not sign up for it. Everybody was a crazy, little,
Speaker 1: freaking spartan extremist terrorist, not knowing anything else in the world.
Speaker 1: Shooting the guns is not the traumatic part. The traumatic
Speaker 1: part is that you're actually going to be faced with
Speaker 1: a major war and you might have to shoot people,
Speaker 1: so you can't have any kind of feelings. You can
Speaker 1: have any soft feelings. I just remember the gun pointing
Speaker 1: at me, seeing the gun, and he said, give me
Speaker 1: your money, and I emptied my or and put all
Speaker 1: the money in there, including my die pack, which he
Speaker 1: told me not to do. Heber felt he had screwed
Speaker 1: up so bad when he had the authority, he gave
Speaker 1: the authority to the next Brethren line Mo also called Aaron.
Speaker 1: He was the one that was like the moral compass
Speaker 1: for us, studying hard and praying and making sure we
Speaker 1: were well verse in our own doctrine. This is God's law.
Speaker 1: We have to do it, otherwise the whole world will
Speaker 1: go to hell like the Armageddon. Satan will win in
Speaker 1: the end if we don't do this. We're in Old Harbor, Washington,
Speaker 1: about ninety miles north of Seattle, on an island called
Speaker 1: Woodbey Island. We're specifically at a location called pam Cove.
Speaker 1: We have the wonderful water view these days. Steve Voteci
Speaker 1: lives way out in Washington State. On clear days, you
Speaker 1: can see the Olympic Mountains over there. You can see
Speaker 1: Commano Island over there. With a glass of wine on
Speaker 1: the deck. Here they watch the sunset just be bright red.
Speaker 1: It's it's a beautiful time. Looking around his home on
Speaker 1: the water's edge, I see his deck a picture window
Speaker 1: where you can spot orca is in the bay. Sometimes
Speaker 1: a great well bald headed eagles visit to feeding on
Speaker 1: clams and on the walls of his home, old family
Speaker 1: snapshots and mementos from his life. Uh, what do I have, hero,
Speaker 1: there's me. It's five years old. The atmosphere here feels peaceful, serene,
Speaker 1: that is until he shows me a picture from his
Speaker 1: past life back in the nineties. This is my jail
Speaker 1: mug shot to establish my credentials as an unsavory character. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's me, Steve. Even prison overalls, but he wasn't really
Speaker 1: a convict. He was an undercover cop. As you run
Speaker 1: into somebody, other investigators would take this out and show
Speaker 1: just to some people who were trying to target inside.
Speaker 1: If you're saying this guy, okay, I've got a love
Speaker 1: with you, it's quite hard to imagine any amount of
Speaker 1: undercover shape shifting could turn Steve into a convincing unsavory character.
Speaker 1: No offense to Steve, but his manner is well, I
Speaker 1: don't know, kind of cuddly. In fact, it's like his home, warm, welcoming.
Speaker 1: Occasionally you spot a little knowing twinkle in his eye,
Speaker 1: like the light catching on the pencove water. I think
Speaker 1: it was his demeanor rather than his disguises, that made
Speaker 1: Steve so good at his job. People opened up to him,
Speaker 1: wanted to talk like they just couldn't help themselves, which
Speaker 1: was a real asset in his role working investigations for
Speaker 1: the Organized Crime Bureau in Utah. And so you think, oh, Utah,
Speaker 1: j they can't much crime in Utah, But the polygamous
Speaker 1: met the definition of organized crime. What Steve is talking
Speaker 1: about here is that underground network of polygamous communities that
Speaker 1: I've mentioned in previous episodes, the ones that had shot
Speaker 1: up like weeds around the same time hervil LeBaron was
Speaker 1: also building his cult. They were the groups hervill coveted
Speaker 1: and wanted to consume, and who were frankly much more
Speaker 1: successful at quietly going about their work. I've spent much
Speaker 1: of my career reporting on these Mormon fundamentalist communities, their
Speaker 1: groups with their own hierarchies, rules, and rituals operating in
Speaker 1: the shadows, and by the eighties, some of these groups
Speaker 1: weren't just engaging in the crime of polygamy. Some were
Speaker 1: committing viole crimes. Part of Steve's job as a cop
Speaker 1: was to keep tabs on the various polygamust sex in Utah.
Speaker 1: He's not a Mormon himself, but it didn't seem to matter.
Speaker 1: People often seem to want to talk to Steve despite themselves.
Speaker 1: It was working this job in that Steve got a
Speaker 1: call from his bosses asking him to visit a polygamist,
Speaker 1: yet another self styled prophet. There were some threats made
Speaker 1: against Dan Jordan's and so I went out to his
Speaker 1: home to interview him. Dan Jordan's once hervil Le Baron's
Speaker 1: right hand man, the man who had killed Joel le
Speaker 1: Baron at rbl's orders and started off the whole spiral
Speaker 1: of the Colt. In his career investigating Mormon polygamus, Steve
Speaker 1: had heard all about the infamous and now deceased Hervil
Speaker 1: LeBaron from the perspective of most law enforcement. At this
Speaker 1: point in the mid eight d's, his cult had been
Speaker 1: shut down, Hervil was already becoming a kind of historical curiosity,
Speaker 1: and so here was an opportunity to go sort of
Speaker 1: interview one of the lieutenants of rural LeBaron and just
Speaker 1: see what the set up was. Daniel ben Jordan's was
Speaker 1: a short and stout man with a fleshy face, receding hairline,
Speaker 1: dark dead eyes. He was fifty six and eighty five,
Speaker 1: but he was the kind of man that had always
Speaker 1: looked kind of middle aged, even in his early twenties
Speaker 1: when he first arrived in colonial le Baron as one
Speaker 1: of those French but not actually French missionaries, the new
Speaker 1: blood whose appearance would energize the town. Back then, I've
Speaker 1: heard he was always at Hervil side, but by the
Speaker 1: time Irvill was arrested in nineteen seventy nine, though their
Speaker 1: families were bound by marriages. Dan had started a question
Speaker 1: and if Herville really did carry the mantle of the
Speaker 1: one mighty and Strong one. Cervill was safely locked up,
Speaker 1: that is, and when Herville was convicted their schism had
Speaker 1: grown into a full blown split. Dan incorporated his own
Speaker 1: church to Erville. He'd become a son of Perdition. His
Speaker 1: name entered into the Book of the New Covenant's hit list.
Speaker 1: Dan has been described to me as coming across as
Speaker 1: a joyless man, someone who, apart from Hervil back in
Speaker 1: the day, had few friends, a loner. But when Steve
Speaker 1: arrived to meet him that day, it wasn't just Dan's
Speaker 1: awkward demeanor that stood out on the surface. Everything seemed
Speaker 1: just like the polygamous community Steve had spent his career visiting,
Speaker 1: but the atmosphere felt off. I go into the charge
Speaker 1: hall and they're probably about five or six young ladies there,
Speaker 1: which we didn't do introductions, but I'm assuming that there
Speaker 1: were his various wives. There were a number of children
Speaker 1: there also, and it's just a little strange. I've been
Speaker 1: to other families, and I mean there might be kids
Speaker 1: in another room playing or something like that and laughing,
Speaker 1: and I just sat down with Dan Jordan's and interviewed
Speaker 1: in him and nobody's laughing, nobody's playing. It's just kind
Speaker 1: of a strange setup. I mean, you go into home
Speaker 1: and there's ten or fifteen children there, you'd expect there's
Speaker 1: some laughter, maybe see some toys, but no, none of
Speaker 1: that was there. And obviously everyone's been coached to not
Speaker 1: talk to me. Steve quickly realized that getting good information
Speaker 1: out of Dan was going to be difficult, but he
Speaker 1: assumed the death threats Dan had been getting were something
Speaker 1: to do with his history with Herville. I knew about
Speaker 1: his background, and then I'm in there and I it's
Speaker 1: like I'm dealing with a con man. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: asking questions and his answers are carefully weighed, and and
Speaker 1: he's presenting the attitude of oh, there's no problem. This
Speaker 1: is just some sort of normal setup. He's in control,
Speaker 1: and so nobody's gonna bump him off like everyone else
Speaker 1: in Herbal's colt, Dan Jordan's never talked to cops, not
Speaker 1: about anything he thought might be useful to them. Anyway.
Speaker 1: Four years had passed since VAL's death. Maybe he didn't
Speaker 1: feel like his name appearing in the Book of the
Speaker 1: New Covenant put him at risk anymore. My takeaway was
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like there was a threat, and he
Speaker 1: didn't really seem worried. So Dan wasn't worried, Steve wasn't worried.
Speaker 1: Dust your hands off and move on. I felt like
Speaker 1: I had made some connections, passed out my name, and
Speaker 1: part of the ideas that things go bad later on
Speaker 1: a least know somebody he could call um. But I
Speaker 1: mean he never called. You have to say, in hindsight,
Speaker 1: both Steve and Dan got it wrong that day, because
Speaker 1: the next call Steve would get about Dan Jordan's was
Speaker 1: to tell him he'd been shot to death from the
Speaker 1: teams at Novel and I Heart Radio. This is deliver
Speaker 1: Us from Herville, episode ten, the Book of Daniel. For
Speaker 1: a man who had spent decades on the run, Bennett,
Speaker 1: Colorado seemed like a nice, quiet place to settle down.
Speaker 1: Situated in eastern Colorado, It's about thirty miles from Denver,
Speaker 1: with the range of the Rocky Mountains jutting up into
Speaker 1: the sky if you look west to the east, the
Speaker 1: prairies and flat lands of the American Heartland. Dan Jordan
Speaker 1: there after Ervil's death in and set up another one
Speaker 1: of his appliance repair shops, which operated uneventfully for years.
Speaker 1: Dan might have thought he could put the whole Labaron
Speaker 1: saga behind him. Well, maybe not completely behind him, because
Speaker 1: after Irvil's death he had given shelter to Anime Marston
Speaker 1: Evil's fourth wife, and so he had a few of
Speaker 1: Herbal LeBaron's children living within his polygamous clan and for
Speaker 1: the Kingdom of God back in Mexico. This was a
Speaker 1: festering wound, their siblings living with someone marked for death
Speaker 1: by the Book of the New Covenant. What of our
Speaker 1: lifelong dreams was to get our siblings who were under
Speaker 1: Dan's spell. That's the way we saw it, get our siblings.
Speaker 1: Editor Gabriella LeBaron and the children and teens of the
Speaker 1: Kog deeply missed their siblings. I dreamed of them all
Speaker 1: the time that we would be reunited with him. So
Speaker 1: they were like our pride and joy in our love,
Speaker 1: and we were ready to die for them, and we
Speaker 1: were going to do whatever it took to bring him back,
Speaker 1: to rescue them from hell and to have them come
Speaker 1: and join us a much better hell. In eight seven
Speaker 1: Gabriella was eleven years old and together with her brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters, she had been scheming and we were going
Speaker 1: to go and infiltrate and somehow convinced them to leave
Speaker 1: and come back with us, so basically extricate them. This
Speaker 1: was early in seven, but over the coming months the
Speaker 1: Kog's plan to be permanently reunited with their Labarren siblings
Speaker 1: evolved into something darker, albeit with the same ultimate aim.
Speaker 1: It was actually Cynthia's idea, and she told Hebrew, and
Speaker 1: Hebrew was since it was his job to take everybody
Speaker 1: out and he had agreed to it, he had to
Speaker 1: take advantage of the opportunity he had. It was a
Speaker 1: summer's morning in August of eight seven that Dan Jordans
Speaker 1: opened his front door to find seven of hervill La
Speaker 1: Baron's children staring back at him. The group included labaronteenes
Speaker 1: carrying infants in their arms. Cynthia and the leader of
Speaker 1: the Kog, Aaron, Hebrew, Patricia and Gabriella stayed behind in Mexico.
Speaker 1: I really wanted to go. I wanted to be a
Speaker 1: part of the action so bad, and I wasn't allowed.
Speaker 1: Arriving on the Jordan's doorstep, Aaron told Dan a heartbreaking story.
Speaker 1: It went something like this. For several years, they've been
Speaker 1: living down in Mexico at the Lahoya Ranch, first under
Speaker 1: Arthur until he was killed. Now, he told Dan, Hebrew
Speaker 1: was in charge, and they've been surviving a sort of
Speaker 1: hellscape with gun battles and not enough to eat. If
Speaker 1: that wasn't bad enough, Hebrew only thought of himself. He'd
Speaker 1: abandoned them on the ranch and they were starving. They
Speaker 1: knew Dan Jordan lived in Colorado and didn't know where
Speaker 1: else to go. Aaron offered a deal in exchange for
Speaker 1: food and shelter. They'd worked for Dan in his appliance
Speaker 1: repair sweatshop. Dan Jordan's said, no, this is no, it's
Speaker 1: not gonna work. These kids are coming up to do something.
Speaker 1: I know how this all works. This is David Schwinderman.
Speaker 1: He's a former federal prosecutor. Jordan's killed a couple of
Speaker 1: people on Hervil's direction, and in fact, he killed Rubal's brother.
Speaker 1: And he said to his wife, he said, book, this
Speaker 1: is not gonna work. I know how this works. It's
Speaker 1: not gonna be good for me. But Dan's wife persuaded
Speaker 1: him to take in the Labaron orphans. After all, she said,
Speaker 1: they'd escaped the clutches of hervil's colt and we're now
Speaker 1: leading peaceful lives. What kind of leader would he be
Speaker 1: if he didn't offer them a safe haven. And besides,
Speaker 1: she reminded him this was some free sweatshop labor for
Speaker 1: his appliance business, and that swung it because now he's
Speaker 1: got more hands to do more work to bring it
Speaker 1: more revenue. That's fine with him, because he's all about
Speaker 1: the money. He agreed to take the kids in, although
Speaker 1: from this point onward he started carrying a loaded nine
Speaker 1: millimeter pistol in a shoulder holster just to be safe.
Speaker 1: Only took it off to bathe or visit the bathroom.
Speaker 1: And despite any suspicions, August, then September and the Jordan
Speaker 1: family past uneventfully, the new recruits kept their heads down.
Speaker 1: They're working in the family appliance business to bring it
Speaker 1: more revenue, to get along. Really well. Everything's going fine
Speaker 1: until that autumn, when the whole Jordan clan started getting
Speaker 1: ready for a big annual family trip each year. Dan
Speaker 1: closed up his repair shop for a few weeks to
Speaker 1: go deer hunting. With the family over in Utah. Dan
Speaker 1: didn't really want to take the new Labarn tines with them,
Speaker 1: but he didn't trust them enough to leave them behind either,
Speaker 1: so he decided to take some of them along. They
Speaker 1: left on October fifteenth in a caravan, carrying a half
Speaker 1: dozen of Dan's wives, fifteen of their children, and the
Speaker 1: four oldest of the seven Labarn kids. They drove about
Speaker 1: eight hours to the man Ti Lasoul National Forest in
Speaker 1: central Utah. Dan picked a campsite not too far from
Speaker 1: a dirt road. It was peaceful, surrounded by steep hillsides
Speaker 1: on three sides. They gave the campsite the feel of
Speaker 1: a sort of natural amphitheater. They set up The hunt
Speaker 1: hasn't really started yet. It's to start the next day.
Speaker 1: This is on October six. That Friday, the sound of
Speaker 1: gun shots were echoing throughout the forest as hunters prepared
Speaker 1: for the opening of hunting season. The Jordans were practicing
Speaker 1: firing their guns too. At about two pm, Dan left
Speaker 1: the family campsite and headed for an area they designated
Speaker 1: as the communal bathroom. It was partially shielded from view
Speaker 1: by trees. Dan goes off to do his business, drops
Speaker 1: his drawers is in the process, and two people walk
Speaker 1: up and she's him in the head in the chest
Speaker 1: of the nine millimeter weapon. Two shots echo through the forest.
Speaker 1: The people of the campsite just here, boom boom, and
Speaker 1: they don't think anything of it because it's hunting season,
Speaker 1: and they figure it's just somebody's discharged the weapon. But
Speaker 1: as time passes, where's Dan. Somebody goes out when Dan
Speaker 1: doesn't come back and discovers Dan's body with the bullet
Speaker 1: hole in the head and a bull on the chest.
Speaker 1: This was clearly no hunting accident. When the police arrive,
Speaker 1: they have a mystery on their hands. Someone had murdered Dan,
Speaker 1: but who turns out the killer wasn't anyone in Dan's
Speaker 1: hunting party. In fact, the culprits didn't come from inside
Speaker 1: the camp at all. Eyes had been watching Dan the
Speaker 1: whole time, predators stalking their prey, waiting for the perfect
Speaker 1: moment to pounce. That's coming up after the break. Two
Speaker 1: days after the killing of Dan Jordan's a call came
Speaker 1: into the State Police. It reached the desk of Steve Votechi.
Speaker 1: My partner and I were down there to Manti. We
Speaker 1: go to the crime scene that's out in the forest. Steve,
Speaker 1: that gentle investigator for the Organized Crime Bureau in Utah
Speaker 1: who had that strange interview with Dan, and now two
Speaker 1: years later, he gazed out his squad car window as
Speaker 1: his partner drove him to the crime scene. You drive there,
Speaker 1: and said, I drive, And then you didn't leave the
Speaker 1: paved road, and you drive about five miles on a
Speaker 1: turn of her dirt road, and then we're in this
Speaker 1: beautiful Champion spot. Votechie was there to investigate a murder,
Speaker 1: but in what I've come to learn is his style,
Speaker 1: he couldn't help but appreciate how picturesque the landscape was,
Speaker 1: with the leaves turning red and bright yellow, the autumn
Speaker 1: sun casting a golden light across the mountain. I'm looking
Speaker 1: at it and I'm thinking, yes, i s place to camp.
Speaker 1: And there was no one there when we got there,
Speaker 1: so we're just looking in this beautiful spot and walked around.
Speaker 1: There's a little river nearby and and it's really quite pleasant.
Speaker 1: We sort of mapped out where we thought a shooter
Speaker 1: might have hidden. It's sort of an open campground, and
Speaker 1: there was a clumpetraes nearby, and and that we sort
Speaker 1: of searched that very very carefully to see what was there.
Speaker 1: Steve's initial investigation at the crime scene came up with zilch,
Speaker 1: nothing to imply the killing was an inside job from
Speaker 1: anyone at the camp, and since everyone had been firing
Speaker 1: guns to practice for the hunting trip the next day,
Speaker 1: they all had gun residue on their hands. Everyone who
Speaker 1: had talked to the cops seemed to have an alibi.
Speaker 1: Steve was stumped, but he knew the LeBaron's history felt
Speaker 1: like there was more to this case that solving it
Speaker 1: was going to require more resources than just the local
Speaker 1: count the sheriff's office. So Steve decided to use the
Speaker 1: one thing from the crime scene that had made an
Speaker 1: impression on him, the beautiful location. It occurred in a
Speaker 1: national forest, and then since any possible shooters were out
Speaker 1: of state, it becomes obvious that this is an interstate
Speaker 1: Dealence interstate, they have the resources to do this. If
Speaker 1: you're in federal custody, they can take you anywhere in
Speaker 1: the United States, and so it was very useful the
Speaker 1: crime occurred on federal land. This enabled the investigation to
Speaker 1: operate across the US with additional resources like experienced prosecutors
Speaker 1: who knew how to get results in complex cases. That's
Speaker 1: how David Schwindermann got involved. They get ahold of the U. S.
Speaker 1: Attorney's office and they just said, Hey, Dave, are you
Speaker 1: guys interested in is It's going to require more than
Speaker 1: just our investigative resources to get this then, so how
Speaker 1: about it? Can the FBI help back and you get involved?
Speaker 1: So I got involved, and we began to put our
Speaker 1: files together, our case together, and that all started to
Speaker 1: come together. Then the investigation got a crucial new team member,
Speaker 1: Steve knew Dick Forbes. Now, Dick was a specialist of
Speaker 1: La Baron in history, so when the techy recognized the names,
Speaker 1: he immediately got ahold of Dick. Dick Forbes, you'll remember
Speaker 1: from earlier episodes, had played a key role in the
Speaker 1: hunt and apprehension of Hervia le Baron, And because no
Speaker 1: one knew more about the inner workings of the Colt
Speaker 1: than Dick, there was no one who saw them as
Speaker 1: a bigger threat. But what's more, Dick knew about the
Speaker 1: Book of the New Covenant. A brother of Hervil LeBaron
Speaker 1: in Utah had got ahold of a copy and alerted
Speaker 1: Dick after reading its distressing contents on vengeance and violent retribution.
Speaker 1: Soon now, Dick Forbes started to tell Steve vo Techie
Speaker 1: and David Schwinderman just what they were up against. This
Speaker 1: isn't just a random shooting. This is probably something to
Speaker 1: do with the family. You need to interview all these people,
Speaker 1: will get their photographs, will do whatever we need to do.
Speaker 1: Will do the investigation. This needs to be done very thoroughly.
Speaker 1: Dick Forbes, Steve Votechi, and David Swinderman would now become
Speaker 1: the foundation of a crack team formed not just to
Speaker 1: solve this cults murders, but to try and stop their
Speaker 1: future crimes. Working in unison with the FBI, they were
Speaker 1: about to give a fresh focus on the next generation
Speaker 1: of Herbal's cult, which Dick had learned from his Labaran sources,
Speaker 1: were now calling themselves the Kingdom of God the k
Speaker 1: o G. As this investigative team was coming together, the
Speaker 1: Jordan's family and the Labyrin teenagers who had joined them
Speaker 1: on the hunting trip had all left Utah. It was
Speaker 1: October eighteenth. The whole Jordan family the entourage was allowed
Speaker 1: to go back to Colorado, and Dan's body was released
Speaker 1: and they had the funeral in Colorado. But no sooner
Speaker 1: was Dan Jordan in the ground than the Kog tried
Speaker 1: to seize control of his clan after the funeral, and
Speaker 1: that's where this internal fight kind of starts. With Dan
Speaker 1: Jordan's dad, Aaron, the leader of the Kog, declares to
Speaker 1: the Jordan family that he is now their leader. He
Speaker 1: reveals himself as the one mighty and strong and tells
Speaker 1: them they had better fall in line, and the Jordan
Speaker 1: family eventually called the cops file a formal complaint against Aaron.
Speaker 1: This is all the night of Dan Jordan's funeral, with
Speaker 1: Aaron trying to assert his authority as a new patriarch
Speaker 1: over everybody. He is reported for domestic abuse by the
Speaker 1: family members to authorities in Denver. That's when Aaron's arrested.
Speaker 1: With Aaron behind bars, the local cops scoop up the
Speaker 1: other Kog members who had been staying with the Jordan's
Speaker 1: and they alert David Schwindermann and we then got involved
Speaker 1: and brought the kids back to Utah on material witness warrants.
Speaker 1: With these Kog kids on material witness warrants, the federal
Speaker 1: law enforcement team had access to talk to them. Steve
Speaker 1: Otechie started to ask them about the day of Dan's
Speaker 1: killing to see if his team could start to piece
Speaker 1: together the sequence of events right up to the murder.
Speaker 1: And I'm trying to come up with the diagram of
Speaker 1: of where all these people were and Dance shot nearer,
Speaker 1: where the trailers were camped, where the camper is, and
Speaker 1: some people were in the trailer they didn't hear anything,
Speaker 1: and other people were outside life sentient Aaron up on
Speaker 1: the road. Uh, nobody hears anything suspicious, sees anything suspicious.
Speaker 1: Steve starts to get the sense that these children are
Speaker 1: not being straight with them. It's obvious that maybe some
Speaker 1: statements have been rehearsed, and and I'm writing this all downs,
Speaker 1: you know, so that they can be checked later on
Speaker 1: in that and I'm just thinking, well, obviously somebody's not
Speaker 1: telling the truth. I just can't imagine that nobody heard
Speaker 1: any shooting. And it's always amazing that everybody seemed to
Speaker 1: be somewhere else and nobody knows what happened whatsoever. Getting
Speaker 1: to the bottom of lies was kind of Steve Votechi's forte.
Speaker 1: Having spent years under cover, years working in Utah's organized
Speaker 1: crime Investigations unit. He was experienced with uncooperative witnesses with deception,
Speaker 1: yet when it came to lying, he noticed that these
Speaker 1: LeBaron kids were good. They were pretty consistent in their stories.
Speaker 1: No one seemed phase that a murder had occurred. And
Speaker 1: my afterthought on that is, I mean, murder was sort
Speaker 1: of a of a natural thing with these folks, and
Speaker 1: I suppose teenagers live, but not quite so much about murder.
Speaker 1: Having made little headway from their initial interviews with the
Speaker 1: la Baron kids, the investigative team moved on to Aaron,
Speaker 1: that tall, studious leader of the Kog, sometimes called Mo.
Speaker 1: He was in police custody following the altercation with Gan
Speaker 1: Jordan's family members. After the funeral. He talks to me,
Speaker 1: but again he just lies to me the whole time.
Speaker 1: And my main thing is, Okay, I know he's up
Speaker 1: to something, but I don't know what it is. And
Speaker 1: we couldn't find anything to time to any of the murders,
Speaker 1: and we have to release him because we don't have
Speaker 1: anything to hold him on. Reluctantly, the investigative team had
Speaker 1: to move on from their questioning of all the kids.
Speaker 1: The children were released into foster homes across the Salt
Speaker 1: Lake area. But Aaron and Cynthia, the older teens, they
Speaker 1: were free to go wherever they pleased. Given the circumstances,
Speaker 1: none of the kids could have pulled the trigger. They
Speaker 1: were all at the campsite, so there was nobody that
Speaker 1: was traveling with them that had done anything as far
Speaker 1: as anybody could tell. With the Labaron kids now in
Speaker 1: foster homes and still not talking, and Aaron and Cynthia
Speaker 1: in the wind, by November of eight seven, the investigative
Speaker 1: team were making slow progress solving the Dan Jordan murder.
Speaker 1: In Dan Jordan's there was a whole lot of physical evidence.
Speaker 1: There was a body, there were rounds in the body.
Speaker 1: It was clearly cause of death was gunshot. Manner of
Speaker 1: death was homicide. So you caused manner of death. You've
Speaker 1: got a whole bunch of circumstance and context. But who
Speaker 1: pulled the trigger? No one was telling us that. Prosecutor
Speaker 1: David Schwinderman knew that without decent physical evidence, cops like Steve,
Speaker 1: a techie, would somehow need to get information from inside
Speaker 1: the colt. But Steve was beginning to doubt his ability
Speaker 1: to do that. We're kind of hoping that maybe somebody's
Speaker 1: gonna want to talk to us, and that doesn't hold true.
Speaker 1: I mean, here's the murder, and UH just can't come
Speaker 1: up with anything. That's very frustrating. My gut's telling me,
Speaker 1: you know, the investigations going nowhere, we don't have any evidence.
Speaker 1: Everybody's lying to us, just just snut bowing anywhere. Then
Speaker 1: two months later, a Sunday night, January, David Schwinderman's phone rings.
Speaker 1: I got a call from the Marshal's that said, hey,
Speaker 1: they're gone. One of the LeBaron children, Stephanie, Gabriella's sister,
Speaker 1: had slipped away from her foster family. He said, they
Speaker 1: haven't seen Stephanie today, and she was in the house
Speaker 1: yesterday and they thought she was asleep in the house
Speaker 1: and they went in to check she's not there. So
Speaker 1: the marshals started to call around to all the other
Speaker 1: places they had the kids. They were gone. All the
Speaker 1: Labarian children disappeared. How did they arrange their escape? I mean,
Speaker 1: are they calling each other up or you got it?
Speaker 1: They phone each other and constantly kept themselves apprized of
Speaker 1: what was going on in the families. Stephanie was told
Speaker 1: to round the kids up to arrange for the kids
Speaker 1: to meet, and there was no probably should have been,
Speaker 1: but there were no real restrictions on the kids getting together.
Speaker 1: So she got the kids together and Patrician Hebrew were
Speaker 1: there and they loaded him up in the vehicle. She
Speaker 1: took him back to Mexico and nobody saw him after that.
Speaker 1: The KOG kids had all escaped back to Mexico to
Speaker 1: meet up with the others. Investigators wouldn't learn who killed
Speaker 1: Dan Jordan for years, and by the time they did,
Speaker 1: it would be too late. That's coming up after the break.
Speaker 1: Around the same time as KOG members were returning from
Speaker 1: America to meet up with Gabriella LeBaron and her brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters, the cult were on the move. The adults
Speaker 1: were like, suddenly, there was this emergency. We got to go,
Speaker 1: we got to get out of here. They were leaving
Speaker 1: their Laya camp and traveling about three hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: miles south, further away from the border, deeper into Cartel
Speaker 1: controlled Sonora. Their destination was a town called Navajo. At
Speaker 1: this point, Gabriella was twelve years old. It's a small own,
Speaker 1: a typical little Mexico town that has a little square,
Speaker 1: one tiny little store to go and buy, like your
Speaker 1: gums or your coke or whatever, and a few houses
Speaker 1: and a few streets. It had a elementary school, you know,
Speaker 1: just maybe fifty homes with a hundred. There's a creek nearby,
Speaker 1: so we could walk to the creek or walk to
Speaker 1: the mountains. And everything was in walking distance. And then
Speaker 1: outside of this little town was mountains and in all directions.
Speaker 1: For the colt, this new home was known as b
Speaker 1: f A. Do you guys know what that stood for? Never?
Speaker 1: B f A stood for but fuck Africa, an acronym
Speaker 1: used by isolated American kids to mean the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1: Although Hebrew, pulled out of school early, had got this
Speaker 1: acronym wrong. It's usually referred to as bf E, the
Speaker 1: E standing for Egypt. Hebre being in the coal didn't
Speaker 1: know the difference, you know, Egypt or Africa. He's like
Speaker 1: it was out in the freaking Bundhi, so he's like,
Speaker 1: I don't freaking bf A, And it was just called
Speaker 1: b ff as there and forever Africa Egypt. For the nomadic,
Speaker 1: educationally deprived kids of the Kog, starved of normal childhood's aspirations,
Speaker 1: or any of the regular possibilities for adult lives. These
Speaker 1: weren't just far off exotic destinations. They were as tangible
Speaker 1: as say, living on the moon. Cult members only had
Speaker 1: two possible future destinations, outer darkness, that far off layer
Speaker 1: of hell, or life in the violent, oppressive Kingdom of God,
Speaker 1: the gateway to the highest levels of heaven. But for now,
Speaker 1: in the present, as night seven turned into nine, the
Speaker 1: thing that mattered about b f A wasn't its name.
Speaker 1: It was its location, off the grid, away from the
Speaker 1: growing team of law enforcement that were now on their trail.
Speaker 1: Going to b f A was a place that nobody
Speaker 1: would ever know. You know where we went. It was
Speaker 1: definitely a secret place, and the only person who knew
Speaker 1: where we went was the owner of the house, and
Speaker 1: he was deep in them off yes, so he wasn't
Speaker 1: going to talk to the police. According to Gabriella, everyone
Speaker 1: in Navajos seemed to have marijuana plantations. She remembers that
Speaker 1: if you lived there, you were an outlaw. The children
Speaker 1: of the Kingdom of God fit in perfectly. Gabriella loved it.
Speaker 1: I used to race horses. I would write it just
Speaker 1: with the rope around its nose. And I would race
Speaker 1: with the kids and the other kids in the street,
Speaker 1: and we'd go down this one straight street that went
Speaker 1: through the little town, and I always one, like way
Speaker 1: far ahead of everybody else. I grew up with boys,
Speaker 1: and I outdid them on everything in any kind of game,
Speaker 1: any kind of fight, any kind of raising, any kind
Speaker 1: of anything. And um, I didn't have this element of fear.
Speaker 1: It was kind of busted in me. So I just
Speaker 1: like a Tasmanian deviled, just nothing will hold back. Hebrew
Speaker 1: had kept up with a car stealing operation and the
Speaker 1: marijuana smuggling. We were making a lot of money for
Speaker 1: a period. Like selling cars was really luk ative for
Speaker 1: a while there. I remember seeing big giant wad to
Speaker 1: cash and then we would go to Navajoa to do
Speaker 1: our shopping and buy boxes of delicious, glorious food, like
Speaker 1: mangoes was my favorite thing in the world. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: It would buy big grates and mangoes, tortillas with hot
Speaker 1: trtias with butter on that, and I was like, oh
Speaker 1: so delicious. So it just kind of feel like a
Speaker 1: time of plenty then or suddenly you've got all this
Speaker 1: money and you're eating really good. Yeah, yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was really and we had fancy trunks all the time,
Speaker 1: and we would go drive around in the mud and
Speaker 1: big giant broncos. But this wasn't a period of healing
Speaker 1: for Gabriella. On the outside, she might have been some
Speaker 1: fearless Tasmanian devil who would beat boys and horse races
Speaker 1: and pack weed and hidden compartments. But inside everything was
Speaker 1: shut like in the basement. Any kind of suffering, any
Speaker 1: kind of feelings, any kind of anything was in the
Speaker 1: basement and sealed. I didn't feel anything for a long time.
Speaker 1: That's one of the reasons why I couldn't feel fear.
Speaker 1: I couldn't feel anything. That mean you also didn't feel happiness.
Speaker 1: I felt excitement. I could feel excitement, but this sense
Speaker 1: of like content, safety, happiness, what things are going okay?
Speaker 1: I had no concept of that whatsoever. The group consciousness
Speaker 1: was we were required to do certain things, so sure
Speaker 1: I could be excited about adventure, but we always had
Speaker 1: to study. There was this underlying You're here to do
Speaker 1: God's will. End of story. God's will learn from irvil
Speaker 1: LeBaron's Book of the New Covenant and it's call for
Speaker 1: vengeance on all his enemies, which meant down in Deepest
Speaker 1: Sonora with Dan Jordan's disposed of plannings were happening, and
Speaker 1: they were happening when we were in b f a
Speaker 1: further adventures back across the border in the US. As
Speaker 1: a kid, you sit there and you be quiet. On
Speaker 1: their knees. Together, the children of irvil LeBaron would face
Speaker 1: each other, heads bowed. We would pray and pray for hours,
Speaker 1: all of us together in a circle. We would kneel,
Speaker 1: we put our hands behind our backs, and different people
Speaker 1: would pray. And we had this thing we called a
Speaker 1: solemn assembly where each person in that circle would say
Speaker 1: their prayer and nobody could cut them short if they
Speaker 1: were long winded, if they're twenty long witted people that
Speaker 1: we would be there for hours and you just had
Speaker 1: to second up when you guys would do those prayers.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to imagine what would the prayers be like.
Speaker 1: They would be specifically about the killings. Yes, and they
Speaker 1: would say these long winded prayers and never freaking ended.
Speaker 1: In the spring of the plan the kog were praying
Speaker 1: for was their most audacious killing yet, a chilling, coordinated attack,
Speaker 1: an evolution of sorts in the sophistication and scale of brutality,
Speaker 1: not a one off like Jola Baron or a random
Speaker 1: series of executions like the massacre at Los Molinos with
Speaker 1: more targets than their semi aborted attempt at the double
Speaker 1: ruling Alred and Virlin Le Baron assassination. This next plan
Speaker 1: was something much grander. I was allowed it on one
Speaker 1: of the meetings and they were trying to decide location
Speaker 1: and when and where. I just know the feeling of
Speaker 1: the meeting. It was all like, of course, very ominous,
Speaker 1: and they were deciding which kids would go to the
Speaker 1: United States, and I wanted to go so bad, and
Speaker 1: they wouldn't let me. I was a girl, so I
Speaker 1: thought it was unfair. I trusted myself and they didn't
Speaker 1: trust me, and I didn't like that at all. A
Speaker 1: hit squad was being assembled. Some of their names you've
Speaker 1: already heard. Cynthia the Diva, Hebrew the failed Leader, Aaron,
Speaker 1: studious and tall, and their sister Patricia the cool one,
Speaker 1: and a kid called Richard LeBaron. All of them chosen
Speaker 1: to carry out the murders that would change everything and
Speaker 1: wake the prosecutors and cops from their slumbering investigation into
Speaker 1: the cult. You know, keep thinking who would do something
Speaker 1: like that? And I never could couldn't believe that somebody
Speaker 1: would actually target a little girl like that. That's coming
Speaker 1: up in episode eleven of deliver Us from Herville. Deliver
Speaker 1: Us from Herville is hosted by me jesse Hyde and
Speaker 1: written and reported by me Leona Hamid and David Waters.
Speaker 1: Production from Leona Hamid and David Waters. Sean Glenn and
Speaker 1: Max O'Brien are executive producers. Lena Chang and Megan Yinka
Speaker 1: are researchers. Marianna Gongora is our field producer. Fact checking
Speaker 1: by Donya Suleman and Sona Avakian. Production management from Sharie Houston,
Speaker 1: Frankie Taylor and Charlotte Wolf. Austin Mitchell is our creative
Speaker 1: director of production. Michae Lee Raw is our managing editor.
Speaker 1: Gavin Haynes is our head of Development. Willard Foxton is
Speaker 1: our creative director of Development. Sound design, mixing and scoring
Speaker 1: by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson. Music supervision by Nicholas
Speaker 1: Alexander 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 Norvelle and beth
Speaker 1: An Makaluso. Or In Rosenbaum, Shelby Shankman, and all the
Speaker 1: team at UTA. For more from Novel, visit novel dot
Speaker 1: audio