Mormons, however, take care to denounce the FLDS "polygs" as having absolutely no relation to their Latter Day Saints. The teenagers sitting in the driveway on South Bonner Circle that afternoon in 2009 knew the operation well. Obsessed with the purity of their bloodline and empowered by a sense of entitlement on par with the divine right of kings, the Kingstons have made incest the cornerstone of a self-serving theology that loathes non whites, fosters homophobia and abhors government authority. Asked about these legends, Kingston spokesman Kent Johnson, explained via email that on occasion Order families have asked to spread the ashes of a child lost before or after birth at the Holy Spot. She talked about how you cant associate with black people or anybody of a different race., Based on available evidence, including the accounts of numerous former Order members, the SPLC has designated The Order as a hate group under the category of `general hate.'. Copyright 2023 Penske Business Media, LLC. Two are nieces. Because of the clans distrust of banks, the Order had cash hidden all over the place, a poorly kept secret within the family. Stephen didnt know what the law said he only knew that the people he loved were being abused and exploited by his own father. He was. In the months after the robbery, Stephen couldnt shake the feeling he was being watched. Modern interpretations of this passage vary, but The Order apparently takes quite literally this idea of blackness being a sign of iniquity. The roof sagged, the carpet was worn, and the place reeked of cheap cologne. "Well, needless to say, we had a lot of, uh. . After the boys were taken into custody, one of their first calls was to Stephen. Elden continued the tradition. Pulling up, he noticed the getaway car parked in front of the house. To hide the scope of his organization, J.O. Luke and Scott often visited the home of one of their aunts, Rachel Young. According to historian Brian Hales Modern Polygamy and Mormon Fundamentalism: The Generations After the Manifesto, Brother Elden, as he was also known, had five wives and 17 children. During a recent interview with the Intelligence Report, Jessica Kingston, a former member of the secretive, Salt Lake City-based cult and a star of the A&E reality series "Escaping Polygamy," remembered, when she was 12, her Sunday school teacher coming into class with a . A lawyer and an accountant by trade, Stephens father hardly looked like the sort of man who could command the unquestioned loyalty of thousands of followers. 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Before the call ended, Young insisted that he didnt admit to any kind of incest or anything. When Intelligence Report inquired if Young thought there was anything wrong with first cousins getting married, Young opined that such issues were between the individuals involved and God. She didnt want to be in that house anymore; it reminded her of my brother. To test her devotion, Stephens father began calling her in the middle of the night and telling her to move the family to a new location. Desert Tech and its rifles have been featured on Fox News, Mythbusters, Daredevil and The Blacklist, among other TV shows. Hanging up the phone, she rushed to her closet. Terrified, he went out and bought a stash of guns to arm himself, just in case his family tried to gun him down. The familys dedication to the principle of polygamy already had been established by Kingstons father, who had three wives. Its hard to leave when thats all youve known, says one former member, who was forced to marry her cousin when she was 15. They maintain a secretive but powerful presence in Utah's Salt Lake Valley, and their estimated 7,500. He was angry and confused, says a former member of the cult. More recently, the Kingston-owned Washakie Renewable Energy (WRE) agreed to pay a $3 million fine after it was sued by the federal government for raking in tax credits for biofuels it never produced. It was also around then that Stephen, at the age of 14, began to see the clan for what it really was. Or leave. . Which brings us back to the baby cemetery. Girls, many of them teen brides, answer phones at the Orders law office, bag groceries at its supermarket or tend to the clans many children. Dawna's younger sister has a little boy with two clubfeet. At the lot's northwest corner, a metal gatethe kind you might find on a cattle ranchhangs open on its hinge. I think it scared them.. That sister, too, dealt with a lot of respiratory problems with her kids, "because of the relation," Dawna explains. As lore has it, Elden was the one mighty and strong predicted by Scripture, who holding the scepter of power in his hand would set in order the House of God. With thick white hair, a lantern jaw and a commanding presence, he had no problem attracting followers. Women Who Escaped a Polygamist Mormon Cult Share Their Story, the corner of Canyon Street and Jessop Avenue, to express his support for the Bundy family in Oregon, an article published by the ABC news network, the fundamentalist church of jesus christ of latter day saints. Snow began dating men when he was 22. Those twoand a fifth boyalso suffer from the condition that all of this family's sons were born with: x-linked hydrocephalus. One day, not long after the gold disappeared, Knight got an anonymous phone call. It didnt take long for them to break down and confess that they had robbed their aunt. Like other teenagers who leave fundamentalist Mormon communities, Stephen was not prepared to enter the world at large. "My father and her grandmother were full brother and sister," she explains, recognizing the bloom of confusion on my face. One afternoon, as Stephen and his cousin were taking a break from fixing a tractor that had broken down in a hayfield, Daniel Kingston pulled up. ", "They took their lives," Ron says. Sisters married the same man in polygamous celestial weddings; brothers from one family married sisters from another (meaning their kids are double cousins). I could tell she loved him, and it seemed like he loved her too. Within a year, Paul Kingston would take a fourth wife. (Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Jessica Kingston was wed at age 16 in what she says was a marriage she felt pressured into by her parents and others in a polygamous sect. J.O. Those in the Order, Kingston preached, are responsible for building a master race, which is why all marriages are arranged within the original four families that started the cult. It was all just innocent teenage stuff, recalls Ron, who has since left the clan. The clan, known privately as the Order, runs what prosecutors believe is one of the largest organized-crime operations in Utah, overseeing its far-flung empire from a string of secret locations and backrooms. As for its anti-government views, allegations of fraud against government entities have long dogged the Kingstons. They are paid not in cash but in scrip, an arcane form of credit used by the Mormon pioneers that can only be redeemed at company stores. The baby cemetery is a mess of overgrown weeds and dry, cracked dirt, home to hundreds of infant and toddler-size graves, not all of them marked. Another group of kids called the Lost Boys, who were kicked out of the polygamist cult the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, ended up on the streets of Las Vegas and Phoenix, some turning tricks for drugs like meth and heroin. Its a quiet, haunting place, with massive hayfields that stretch to the horizon. And another one of her sisters married one of my half-brothers, but we have the same blood and genetics because our moms are full sisters." . Daniels ultimatum: Stay in The Order, date no one, and have no contact with family. According to former members of the Order, decades of inbreeding have resulted in rampant birth defects throughout the family. As time passed, his dogma became even stranger. Wed sleep on the chicken coop in the summer and shoot raccoons. Ron Tucker went so far as to call his former brethren white supremacists, and ten times more racist than your run-of-the-mill skinhead. But it is likely that Kingston could recognize some of himself in Stephen. I felt for his pulse, but he was already gone., That night, Paul Kingston arrived at the ranch. Still, he conceded that some Order members may have prejudiced beliefs because in our organization people have freedom of choice.. But The Order saves most of its bile for blacks and other non whites. According to church lore, Charles "Elden" Kingston founded The Order after seeing Jesus in a cave. They're given the utmost attention and care because the FLDS faithful believe everything in this life is a test before entering the celestial kingdom, and caring well for all of Heavenly Father's children is part of that test. We're sitting in Ron's large kitchen, eating a meal of homemade tomato sauce and sweet Italian sausage that his wife Geria retired marriage and family therapist originally from Hurleyville, NY, who he met six years ago on Zoosk!has prepared in a slowcooker. He charged across the field and started brutally beating Stephens cousin. It was a grimy, derelict-looking place. On weekends, he was sent out to work at the Orders coal mine with other teenagers. We would cause harm, he confessed. Kingston Polygamy Order Birth Defects Glutenous Kalvin asphalts lentissimo. The Order stays as far away as possible from police, and this was like inviting them in your front door., With its vast wealth suddenly exposed to public view, the clan moved quickly to hush up the scandal. Paul Kingston wore secondhand suits that hung off his slender shoulders, and he spoke in a flat, emotionless monotone. eu . A fifth child, they say, was fathered by their eldest brother Wayne LeBaron, (who was married to Dawna Black Bistline's cousin at the time of this child's allegedly incestuous conception). Kingston taught his followers that they are the literal descendants of Jesus and one of his wives, who had come down to Earth to found a race of chosen people. Dawna asks me. 3 bd 2 ba 1.6k sqft. Over the years, state law enforcement and the courts have sporadically addressed the incest in the Kingston ranks. Paul would rather have the wealth and the money than the isolation and the conflict, he said. On the surface, the operation is legit: From Salt Lake, the Order controls some 100 businesses spread out over the Western states, from a casino in California to a cattle ranch in Nevada to a factory that makes lifelike dolls in Utah. Paul already had two wives, but he and Richaun were married in a secret ceremony at her parents house. It's not really talked about; I don't think [people here] even research to see how related they are. Black blood was the worst thing you can have, Jessica said, particularly since the Kingstons consider themselves to be the whitest of the white, descended directly from Jesus Christ and King David, the Middle Eastern origins of both men notwithstanding. One is a first cousin. The theft of the silver bars from Rachel Youngs basement, they concluded, had been a copycat crime. Ron Kingston says The Orders leadership has too much to lose for something like that to happen. Then one night, a clan member called and told him that the Order planned to kill him. You better check on your gold, Young told her. Ron says the cults justification for its racism goes back to early Mormon teachings about a war in heaven between the forces of Satan and those of Jesus. "It wasn't until I left the FLDS and moved away from the community that I realized I'd been to an unusually high number of funerals growing up in the Creek," says Alyssa Bistline over a crackling phone connection. He kept his office on a side street in central Salt Lake. The FLDS split off from the mainline Mormon (LDS) church in 1890 after the church denounced the principal of plural marriage. Julie left the cult at age 19. The knowledge that one's children are likely to be born with conditions like this one does not prevent FLDS couples from becoming pregnant; instead, they see it as a responsibility and blessing to have many children. He became particularly obsessed with a plant called comfrey, which he believed would protect his clan from the nuclear war that would usher in the apocalypse. I wonder aloud. and last updated 1:46 PM, Feb 24, 2021. They also knew that much of the clans wealth was stashed inside the unassuming suburban house on the corner. While the Order preached strict abstinence to its children, forbidding even incidental contact between the sexes, there seemed to be no rules after marriage especially for the clans leaders. "And my oldest daughter, she's 18 and she's dated a couple of my cousins, which makes them her second cousins, and we're like, Eww, that's gross.". Mark Shurtleff, the Utah attorney general, has spent years investigating the clan, gathering birth certificates and genealogical data, and has come to believe that the cult is guilty of a long list of crimes, including child labor, tax evasion, welfare fraud, polygamy and the sanctioning of underage marriages to blood relatives. Family Tree. He didnt have anyone to help him process what had just happened., Taking advantage of his status as a son of the prophet, Stephen began bending the rules even further. His arms are sunburned and his hands calloused from long days moving the irrigation pipes that water the fields. And then there are the more livable genetic conditions. He was usually off visiting one of his 30 or so wives, or checking on one of the clans many businesses, or in a backroom getting his muscles rubbed in preparation for one of his painful, 40-day fasts, a purification ritual that he endured in order to get closer to God. Like polygamy, incest is a third-degree felony in Utah, and as with polygamy, convictions are rare. Well, my sister had a little baby with a cleft lip; it was her first child and it had a cleft lip and cleft palate, because they were both Jessops, and Jessops are carriers of that gene. The well-kept yellow house sat on the corner of a tidy cul-de-sac called South Bonner Circle surrounded by a black wrought-iron fence. Given such incidents, could Order members be a threat to law enforcement? Instead, he had walked away from the family three years earlier to make a life of his own. Mary Nelson, 23, tells "Whistleblower" host Alex Ferrer about how she escaped the Kingston clan, also known as The Order, with the help of her boyfriend Bryan. NBA 'Investigating,' Team Suspends Ja Morant After Allegedly Flashing Gun on Social Media So far, however, despite Shurtleffs efforts, the insular and highly secretive nature of the Order has prevented him from finding sufficient evidence to bring a case strong enough to dismantle the clan. Allison, a 17 year-old ex-Kingston member says not much has changed since Lu Anns day. Stephens father seemed to marry a new girl every year, each one younger and prettier than the last. Seated on a couch, sipping lemonade in his home in a Salt Lake City suburb, he resembles Paul Kingston quite a bit. Matt Browning seems less sure. Carolyn Yvonne Kingston was born in 1938 in Elmo, Utah, to Charles Elden Kingston, and his first wife Ethel Gustafson, so she was the daughter of the first prophet of the Kingston Clan.