May 25, 2022 • 46 mins
We hear the astonishing confessions of one of Ervil LeBaron’s most influential cult members, who was groomed from childhood as both his wife and assassin. Over the course of an interrogation that lasts days, we listen in as the inner workings of this cult and organised crime family are revealed, murder-by-murder. As her interrogator continues to push, a strangely intimate picture of cult life emerges and builds to a startling conclusion.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Ye novel. A listener note this episode contains violence, including
sexual violence and references to child abuse. Previously on deliver
(00:25):
Us from Hervil. Hervil thought that if he got rid
of Joel, he could just move in and take leadership
with Joel's people. Well, it didn't work, that's the problem.
He told me about a group of Polygamus that were
in town to kill someone. And then he told me
about Ervil LeBaron, Glorious city police and I'd say they
(00:46):
have no lead gept on who the two women were
who headed the office of Polygamus, leader of ruling all
of it yesterday and shot him dead. That anyone who
opposed him deserved to die, including a daughter. And it
was just a question how many people he could order
be killed. There's really gonna be no stopping him. Salt,
Like polygamous leader Robert Simon Kis who had been seen
(01:06):
earlier with Pervil, LeBaron disappeared, leaving us home with one
of LeBaron's followers. We are in a fight against evil.
Add to that incident, a man named Dean Best was murdered.
Best event a follower of Herbal LeBaron. In that case,
like the Simon's disappearance remains unsolved, they said from the beginning.
The only way you're going to get Herville is to
(01:30):
break someone substantial in his group. It's October in New Orleans,
the best time of the year, when the thick, muggy
air of summer finally lifts. People go outside, sit on
(01:51):
porches and stoops blues and barbecue in the air freedom.
But not here in the confines of this airless room
off the freeway, not far from the airport, where two
people sit across from each other outside the bird's chirp
(02:12):
every once in a while, the horn of a train
and approaching siren. Inside the room, an interrogation is about
to begin. A tape recorder clicks one. Okay, we're rolling
against My name is I was born. I don't go
(02:40):
through the crackle and warp of the tape. The voice
of herbal LeBaron's thirteen and most infamous wife, Rina China Rena,
who at the age of just nineteen killed Dr. Ruland
Alread in a suburban Salt Lake office, and now, unknown
to the interrogator sitting across from her, She's about to
(03:00):
admit her role in that killing for the first time,
but she'll confess to much more than that. Her confession
will last days. As she talks and talks, the inner
workings of hervil Abarren's church, cult, mafia, whatever you want
to call it, will emerge. A veil lifted, two killings
(03:23):
carried out by the Lambs of God, Los Molinos, ruling Alread,
and other disappearances so far unsolved in Mexico, California, and Utah.
You've got the best information of anybody that's done anything
or it's going to do anything on it since so
as the tape recorder runs and runs, the cassettes will
(03:45):
pile up. I've listened to all of what's left of them,
and it's the only insider account of that era that survived.
A story from inside Herbal Labarrens group, groomed since childhood
for a role as both assassin and wife opposite Rena,
her interrogator, unaware of just what his questioning would reveal.
(04:09):
So I guess we would want to be as accurate
as we can, as you know, even know it may
be painfullets these are things that have got to be said.
He was about to hear it all from the team's
(04:32):
at novel and I heart radio. This is deliver us
from Herbal I'm jesse High, chapter five, The Confession. When
journalists del Van Adda and detective Dick Forbes teamed up
(04:54):
together in May of nine seven, they started out thinking
they were trying to solve the murder of polygamous leader
Roulin Alread, but it didn't take long before their investigation
revealed a string of other crimes. The massacre at Los
Melinos in nineteventy four, the disappearance of arrival of Herville,
a self proclaimed prophet Robert Simons in April of seventy five,
(05:19):
and then the murder of cult members that giant of
a man, Dean vest in June. Finally, there was the
disappearance of Hervill's own daughter, Rebecca in April of seventy seven.
Rena's interrogator would question her about all of this. Let's
start with right on the Los Molinos on December nineteen
(05:42):
seventy four, in the events that led up to that.
But I don't remember. I have to think that Rena
was just sixteen at the time of this assault on
the Mexican town. She wasn't in on the cults planning
for the ambush, although she does remember being around other
(06:05):
cult members who were the sullivan who getting jumpy. You're nervous,
you want to know what you know, what? What are
we doing here? Here? No thing's happening, and had come
up with sister. The Sullivan's she's referring to here are
Lloyd and Don Sullivan, the River people from Indiana. Lloyd
(06:29):
with his coke bottle glasses and his son Dawn, who
followed him like a shadow. It turns out they were
getting impatient with life in the cult. None of Herville's
prophecies had been fulfilled. They wanted action. But Rena doesn't
know why the group chose that town for the attack.
(06:50):
The nation said the whole rate to make it. M
Rena's interrogator turns to the events of the night of
the attack. Why was she there? I don't know why
I was there, accept the girl than know what else
to do with you against I was trying to figure
out some land keeping the under he's controlling. What did
(07:12):
she see happen? We do really ben't do anything. We
surf there and we watched the fire from a vantage
point at the edge of town. Rena watched the violence
play out from that first fire, the attempt to draw
out Evil's brother Verlin. I don't remember how long the
fire burned, maybe fifteen twenty minutes, but at longer, but
(07:35):
there was more than one fire. Wasn't to the ambush
of the villagers who rushed to put out the fire
as the massacre began, not until the shootings starting. And
see that a shot of people that garted to put
the tower fire. And then when they finished shooting there,
then the truck they were darting and went through town
(07:58):
just went down one streak through firelams of the houses
along that stream, and they headed towards verds house. They
meaning hope, what was Mark? Dwayne and Ed and Don?
And we're in a stolen forward here Rena is talking
about the shooters, which included her brothers Mark and Joyne.
The group had guns and Molotov cocktails in the truck
(08:21):
as they headed to Virdlin LeBaron's house. And then they
drove through Pale and the others fired and through fireloms
and in are you all? What was the shots and
most people or something like that? Many of these details
I've heard before from the victims families who were there
(08:42):
that night. But what comes to light in Rena's version
of events is that some of the cult members seemed
to be enjoying themselves. Rena says her brothers Mark and Dwayne,
who had just been living in the town before the
attack act, were a little reluctant. They were the ones
(09:03):
that were doing the shooting and the firebombing. No, h
Dwayne was I guess they didn't shoot some but Dwayne
was the driver and Mark they gave Mark. I'm kind
of her shotgun that was didn't shoot, a shotgun that
didn't shoot. It seems like Rena is suggesting her brothers
(09:28):
weren't as involved as the others, like maybe she's trying
to protect them. In fact, you can hear Rena trying
to justify the actions of all of those taking part
in the raid that night. They were simply carrying out
orders from God. The Lord wants this done. Nan upstairs says,
(09:48):
we just got to get rid of Berlin, and it's
just ruin the people and leave them the strain, and
it's just the most important thing. We illuminate his first
and if he tried to stand up to her and sing,
well that's stupid, then he getting at at you. Weren't
all indignant how dare you questioned the lord, and so
(10:10):
we just I don't know you did what he said?
Mm hmm, standing up and God, did you see it
that way at the time, just saying how in retrospective
at the time, I mean, did you have serious questions
about doing it at the time? No, I guess I didn't. Um,
(10:33):
I guess I didn't. I don't know. I don't know.
I guess I was trying to do what I thought
was try. I guess I thought that, well, the Lord
wants it done, I guess I'd better do it. This
was Herbal's go to justification. It all boils down to
(10:56):
an elegantly simple but brutal theology. Do this because the
Lord wants it done. And if the Lord wants it
and you are the one in the way, well you
know what that makes you, don't You a son of perdition?
And you've seen what happens to them. M Long after
(11:23):
the raid in Los Milinos, this mantra would continue and
all kinds of terror would rain down. After establishing Rena
wasn't a participant in the Los Milinos massacre, Rena's interrogator
moves on to other violent crimes linked to the Colt.
First up is the disappearance of that rival prophet to herbal,
(11:43):
Robert or Bob Simons. Here's the cops talking about his
disappearance in to journalist Lynn Packer on a local TV
station cass L in Salt Lake City. Our information is
that he was last seeing what the disciple of the
Church of the Land him of God. Neither this disciple
or Mr Simon's has been seen since, and we suspect
(12:08):
that he is no longer living. Do you think they
may have assassinated him? Oh, there is that possibility. Robert Simons,
the guy who disappeared, was white, but believed he was
a prophet to Native Americans, lived up in Grantsville, Utah,
where the salt flats begin, which Simons have finishing. Started
(12:28):
to him at that time that I don't ever remember
him anything about him before Lloyd came in showing his wall.
His disappearance happened in seventy five when Rena was living
in the US with other cult members in such tight quarters,
sometimes with three wives to a house. Rena heard things
(12:51):
and saw things things she wasn't supposed to see. You
were there and may save he did. Rena tells how
it was Lloyd Sullivan, who had gone out for a
game of pool with Robert Simons, but only one of
them had come back, Lloyd with Bob's wallet. Did you
know that that he had murded somebody? That's what you
(13:14):
know that was, That's why he had the guy's wallet.
I understood, Benna. Don't know who this guy was or
why he had to be killed. Never heard of him before.
Mike los Molino's Rena wasn't involved in committing a crime herself,
but she's revealing here that the Coult definitely were involved.
Rena's testimony puts the Robert Simon's murder at April of nineteen.
(13:38):
That same year, there was another suspected killing by the
Colt Dean vest shot to death in June in the
house he shared with other cult members. There is no
suggestion Rena was involved with Dean's murder, but her interrogator
still wants to know what she knew about it. Dean
was this big hug of a man, because he was
(14:00):
soaked cool and everything he the out passed. It's one
guy and he's like a big tenny there. According to Rena,
Dean was falling in love with her and so let's stay.
I felt simultant spirit. He's very touched. Dean stood at
(14:22):
six ft eight two d and sixty pounds, and he
actually wanted to appear even taller, so he put two
inch soles in his shoes and added an elevated heel
to a size sixteen cowboy boots. He joined Herbal's colt
following a stint in prison, which followed a stint in
the army where he had murdered his own sergeant. He
(14:44):
picked the man up, held him up to a long
I don't know what I can remember. How's bogus knit
ike Bok's man literally killed him with his bare hands.
His justification, according to Rena, was his sergeant refused in
permission to attend his mother's funeral anyway. Rena tells how
(15:05):
she got to know Dean in the early seventies as
he was becoming some sort of military strategist for Herville
and bodyguard. But by seventy Dean had moved to Southern
California National City, just outside San Diego, and the rumor
was he planned to defect. I don't know how I
found out or how I came to know. I might
(15:28):
have been there when Ville ordered it. I probably was.
Herville had spoken to his followers, told them Dean knew
too much. But I don't know if I if I
protested or if I I don't think I did. I
don't remember. He was turning, and he was a threat,
(15:53):
and he could place everybody in places and if he
and if he did that came to God couldn't go forward.
Dean was in God's way, a son of perdition, and
he had to go. This time, Herville dispatched a wife
for the mission, Vonda White. She was living in National
(16:14):
City in a house with other Lambs of God, including Dean,
so she was selected to carry out the killing. I
was probably there when it was reported to l that
it was done or or whatever. I was probably, you know,
right there, and your attitude was basically you know that
it was just something that had to be done. It's done.
(16:38):
Spike of feelings that you would have foreign greens, No,
I remember now. I felt guilty because I felt like
it was my fault that he was defecting, because I
let him fall in love with me and messed up things.
So you know, that was another thing to add to
(16:59):
my this spare. But yet I don't know you you well,
you have been close to Vanda. Apparently you know this
didn't change any feelings towards her. She had done She
did what she was ordered to do. She did what
(17:19):
she was ordered to do. What I think. You can
hear something pretty chilling in this part of the interrogation,
as the birds chirp away freely outside the room. As
you listen to her voice through the static, you can
hear a sort of detachment as she tells the story
of her sister wife killing the man she'd come to love,
(17:44):
a man she'd let fall in love with her. It
sounds like she's splitting off and disassociating, but as she
felt bad now, worse was to come more after the break.
(18:19):
There's this picture of Rena as a kid reporting this story.
I've been thinking about it a lot. It's black and white.
Back in East Layton, Utah, outside their three bedroom house
in the shadow of the snowy Wassatch Mountains with her
parents budd In, Thelma, and brothers Glenn, Vic, Dwayne, and Mark.
(18:42):
Back when Mark dreamed of starting a band like the Monkeys,
and the family took trips to Yellowstone, had the camper
and the boat. Rena's about two in the picture, so
it's nine. No Ley's on the trees yet, so I'm
guessing it's early spring. And there's Glenn, who I talked
to you back in episode three, now an old man
(19:06):
but here in his twenties, shirt off, head down, working
on a car. He's got that James Dean vibe. And
then off to the side, standing on the lawn there's Thelma,
Rena's mom. I swear she looks just like lucill Ball,
(19:26):
hands clasped, pressed white blouse, khakis, her white tenny's tied neatly,
a really big smile on her face. And this is
what stops me. I look at that old photograph and
what would unfold, and it's like one of those painful
(19:47):
pictures from your own past where you wish, somehow, somehow
you could rewind to that point and then write an
entirely different script before you press play. Rena was a
child who loved music, played the accordion, who wrote in
(20:11):
her diary most days, who got a report card detailing
her grades. I've got a daughter about that age, and
I think about how much I want her to determine
her own future, and how Rena should have had that too,
but because of choice as others made, that would never
be available to her. And now, all these years later,
(20:35):
Rena sits here, trapped in this airless New Orleans interrogation room,
about to be asked about her relationship with the man
who ripped her family's life apart, the leader of the
Church of the Lamb of God, hervil A Baron. Oh. Now,
of course, have been after me for years to marry him,
(20:57):
and I got some us can't saying well, what are
you gonna marry me? Or don't you think it's about time?
I think it's time now, or something like that. He
always says stuffing like that, and I just get mad
and off. That was our little routine through this, Reugie.
You know, thretty more time here, more than this been
going nonsince you were about twelve when you first leach
(21:18):
do with it. Twelve years old, that's when Rville started
grooming her, a man who was already married to her sister.
Rena tells her interrogator how five years later, in February,
she got word that Erville wanted to see her. He
summoned her to where he was hiding out at that
(21:39):
point in Yuma, Arizona, Rena arrived to find Herville in
his hotel room with Dan Jordan's his right hand man.
So he went through that number, turned at me and
looked at me as he's old milk cow eyes and said,
it's about when you got married. And I did my number,
(22:05):
My did my performance. I got mad and stop talk.
Dan and Herville went into a bedroom and talked in
hushed tones. Dan came out and ordered Rena outside, and
then Dan sat with Rena inside a station wagon and
he just turned him and he said, did you marry
(22:26):
Ervil day? Or this is your last chance? You were
go to him and it was just like just like that,
except he was looking right at me and his eyes
didn't blink, and the chill up. And now, my fine,
I know. I said in an earlier episode that Erville
(22:47):
was old Hollywood handsome in his day, but by this
time in Herville was fifty and he'd gone to seed
with twelve wives already, his breath wreaked of onions and
steale coffee. Nothing about him would be anything other than repulsive.
Yet to Arena, he had always been presented as God's prophet,
(23:09):
and it didn't matter if it made sense or if
she was in love with him. Rena had always been
raised to do God's will. And I tried to picture
Arena at this moment in her life, sitting there wearing
bell bottom blue jeans and a red, white and blue
tshirt emblazoned with an American flag. She knew she had
(23:33):
run out of time. She had to marry Herville or
she would be killed. A lot of things went on
went through my mind, like, you know, should I er, why,
You're fine, I'll just leave? But then where would I go?
And nowhere to go? Nowhere to run too? And I
(23:56):
don't know. It's just going through all this despair. I
wish and God would just strike me with lightning or something.
This pressure might all sound remarkable, sick, twisted, and it is.
It's all those things, except for women raised in Mormon
(24:17):
fundamentalist communities. It's not that unusual. I've interviewed a lot
of polygamus, many of whom were asked forced really to
marry much older men. Men they didn't love, men that
in some cases they loathed. And I got out in car,
after crying quite a while, over to the pool and
(24:40):
wash my arms off, watched my face flashed water on
my face from the pool, it was cold, cried some more.
I thought I'd stopped it, and then they started praying
and say please or don't let this happen me. Um.
Then I just I just decided that God must want
me to marry him. So I'm went into the hotel
(25:01):
room and they vested been. I guess they were talking
strategy or I'm always him and I I walked up
to Hertle when I said, you can marry you had
to ask him, and his face kind of clumped. He
hugged me and I cried, they're in this dingy motel room.
(25:25):
In humor, Rina Channath and Irvill la Baron were married
by Dan Jordan's. Her brother Mark stood as a witness.
Then he went to Jack in the Box, right yeah,
and I ordered an in rings. That's all. That's all
and the reading and then Herville fell asleep back at
(25:46):
the hotel. So much for a honeymoon, but Herville and
Rena their lives were now linked more closely than ever.
(26:07):
After marrying Herville, a new picture emerges. From Rina's answers
to her interrogator's questions, The story becomes weirdly domestic. It
was a pretty nice house. I think it was a
three bedroom too car attached to DJE. We didn't have
any furniture to speaking like some fucked up sitcom about
(26:28):
the life of a death could. Then I discovered behind
this store that there is a whole bunch of cheese
and stuff in the dumpster had a little bit of
mold on it, So we started going out back and
getting stuff from the dumpster. These men and their multiple
wives I'll share these mundane, unfurnished apartments going out to
work in normal jobs were starting these doomed to fill
(26:49):
get rich quick schemes. One time and everybody's supposed to
move to babas and get into the mush walk business,
except none of it is funny. Myself at that time
emotionally flip flopping between trying to be why settle down
and be where everybody expecting you to be, and fighting
(27:12):
with the fact that I was trying to get along
with a man I couldn't stand, and dealing with feelings
of being trapped, and then feeling guilty because I felt
that way, because I should be feeling happy and glad
that I'm doing God's will. Hervil wanted Rena to get pregnant,
(27:34):
and Rena was willing to submit to God's will like always,
but sex with Herville was something to endure, and I
think a lot of times I imagined I just had
to pretend I wasn't there, or that, you know, trying
to pretend it with somebody else, or hold my breath.
I didn't have to smell his breath. Hervill would call
his wives out by name when he wanted to have sex.
(27:56):
We're having a meeting in the living of the house
I was living right in the middle of Maybe he
looks across at me. He gets up, walks over and
takes my hat and says goodbye everybody. It starts leading
me into the bedroom. And I was so embarrassed. Oh,
I thought, I mean, look, wait a minute, or we're
(28:17):
in the middle of a meeting here, you know, come,
what do you think you're doing? And he was like
he did it like he was He kind of pranced
across the living room floor like this rooster. This was
the grim reality of life and Hervill's promised kingdom of God.
In the mid seventies, it was bleak. He would lock
(28:38):
himself in the bedroom that he and I shared, and
I would write and write and right, and you drink coffee,
and drink coffee wouldn't be their shade because he was
all writing, like twenty hours a day, and he smelled
like coffee. I mean he's pores. He just he sweated
(28:58):
coffee that he drank it really strong. Black and Herville
of Colonial le Baron, the mad prophet king, the Ervil,
who would write until he collapsed. Herval would write, um,
we triple space, and he ryan the margins, just feel
up the margins, and sometimes he has so much more
(29:21):
than he had to add to this institu soon that
he'd have to turn the page over. And then you
have to follow all these arrows. He could aly direction
where he'd add the stem. I closed my eyes and
I can see it, Rena. They're flipping over pages, trying
(29:42):
to make sense of Hervil's scribblings. In the margins. The
arrow is pointing here and there, trying to decipher in
the scriptures and the threats. But when it came to
the intention of Herville's verbal orders, there was less ambigue.
(30:03):
That's coming up after the break. By April of nineteen
seventy seven, Evil's daughter, Rebecca LeBaron had married into the
same family as her father. She was now the second
(30:25):
wife of Rena's brother, Victor Moneyman shin Off. Rebecca or Becky,
as the cold called her, shared her father's propensity for visions,
but no one called Becky a prophet. I guess she
was Schizzo. She'd stelights and she'd hear a voice of syd.
(30:46):
In Rena's testimony, you hear how the group saw Becky's
mental health issues as a direct threat to the colts.
Really weird. She went out and got caught shop lifting
and ran off the math to the police. Here we
were trying to be incominito. It just felt that she
(31:08):
was a threat. Especially threatened were cult members who felt
like she knew things that could land them in prison
for murder. But surely, as Herville's own daughter, she was
safe from the colts. They kept harping, harping on Hervill
about getting rid of Pick, and he didn't want to. Now,
(31:29):
the way I remembered is that Don was the limit,
kept pressuring and pushing to do something about her. Don
and Lloyd, Lloyd Sullivan and his shadow son Dawn. Again.
Lloyd is revealed in Rena's testimony to be the catalyst
behind escalating violence. But now joined by others, ratcheting up
(31:51):
the pressure for more violence from the colts. Herville was
in the bedroom and Don and Adverse like danning at
the living room door, and they were saying, we've got
to do something about Becky. I mean, this is it's bad,
really bad. And Lloyd was talking with them, and then
(32:13):
he'd go in the room and he talked to woman.
He'd come back out and it was like, you know,
it was carrying messages back and forth. And for some
reason I was there and maybe not meaning to stand
there and listen, I became it was asking my opinion
it wasn't a meeting. Well, I came out and nodded
(32:33):
his head. The order had been given, according to Rena.
The assignment this time, perhaps the most disturbing of them all,
would go to Rena's brother Dwayne and his friend Eddie Marston.
Both were veterans of the Los Molino's raid. I'm going
to warn you here, as gnarly as this whole series
(32:56):
has been, this next bit of tape is very graphic
and disturbing. It was difficult for me to listen to
still is. I guess you wouldn't know how they got
back to get into the car in the first place
with him. I told her they were taking her somewhere.
I don't know from what I understand. Wayne was driving
(33:16):
and it was in the back seat, and he, I
don't know if this needs to be mentioned, but he said,
when I can't do it, this is too hard. I
guess she was really you know, she was fighting, and
he was arm's for getting tired. He said, I can't
do this, and Dwayne reached back and held one side
of the rope. The two men strangled Rebecca LeBaron. Together.
(33:38):
They took her into a forest of some kind and
buried her in an unmarked grave. Was it the next
day that she had heard that she had been taken
care of her week later? I wouldn't ask. I don't
remember asking. It wasn't you know, I'm not a kind
of person that she was going to be done in eventually. Well,
(34:02):
I figured when they left, when they got the okay them,
they were gone for a few days. As hard as
listening to Rena describe all this is, it's almost as
hard to hear her rationalize the actions. They felt that
they were putting somebody opping ma sory and it it
(34:25):
was necessary for military security reason and it had to
be done. It wasn't something they did out of hate,
because they enjoyed killing. So I didn't say anything. I
didn't ask questions. Rena didn't need to ask questions. The
message was clear. If Herval's own daughter wasn't safe, no
(34:48):
one was. It was later spring of and Rena tells
her interrogator about this next stage of her life inside
Hervil LeBaron's colt. She was invited to attend a meeting
in Dallas. This was to be Irville's infamous military emergency
(35:10):
meeting where he would announce the colts most ambitious attack.
I guess that's when he had decided he had to
hit Ruin already, it was time for Rena to step
out from the background, to take center stage, from witness
to participant. And it would be a way to get
(35:32):
Vernon the other false profit too to his funeral. That
was the main idea, But he Verrlin LeBaron the target
they'd missed at Los Melinos. The ruling alread hit was
going to be another attempt on his life. Listening to
these tapes of Rena talk about her involvement in Rvil's colt,
(35:53):
one thing that jumps out is how candid she is
when it comes to the killing of Rulin alread and
just been salutinely terrified. I was shaking, shaking really bad.
Pu has things in the head of what us us
to do that day. The next shocking bit of Rena's
confession is how she was selected for the killing. He said, Uh,
(36:14):
now I need nominations or two women, who do you
think we should see in hervill selected Rena. I just
remember being really surprised. And then I'm going on to say,
what an honor was to be picked to undertake this
great nostion. It'll assure your ticket into the celestial kingdom.
(36:35):
The celestial kingdom, that's Mormons speak for the highest level
of heaven. You'll be blessed beyond your wildest dreams. Rena
tells her interrogator how on the morning of the killing,
the reality of what she was about to do finally
set in Um and Don came overnight and pretty long
(36:58):
around me. Okay, it's gonna be all right, thanks, I'll
go fine. God will be with you and you then
will be okay. Don Sullivan, he was leading the hit
on Verlin. The Lord was with them, he reminded Rena.
We ended up behind the doctor's officer and the vehicles
(37:19):
were waiting there. The guys handed us our guns and
gave us encouraging words and send us all away. Rena
disguised in a blue park and Wig entered the office
of Dr. Alred locked in and it was the reception area,
(37:39):
seats around on two walls along the way, and I
just sat down and I'm gonna run. Peered into the
glass cubic glory where the office was the reception area,
and then the door was time standing that went back
(38:02):
to the rooms. And yeah, as I looked through the door,
the doctor was coming out of I want to get
family rooms. And he was the way and described to
me tall slender, m raight hair, nice nice command. And
(38:31):
he came towards me and then turned to his right,
which would have been left towards like a little laugh
area or something. I heard it was a sinkers pumpy
kind of behind the door where I was standing. I
had it in the pocket of Parker. It was m Parker. Um,
(38:53):
I think you just nodded at They were now just
three ft away. Yeah, I dude, what I was supposed
to do? And where did you show him? Chest. I
guess all a little hard to hear here. The interrogator
(39:16):
asked how many bullets she fired. I am, Rena says
she emptied the gun and the doctor went down. He said,
oh my god, and his nurse gratch being and I
just kind of shook her off to head out the door,
(39:37):
and then got outside, and I didn't know whether he
was standing on And we walked around the side of
the building to the back, got in the truck and
drove it to where we were supposed to meet the guys,
and gave them our wigs and the guns and jackets,
(40:02):
and and we shit fine and stout in the car
and the net. Hearing Rena confess to the killing of
Rulin Alread, it's a difficult listen, like really difficult, hard
to grasp. The details in this confession certainly all fit.
(40:25):
They corroborate what Rulin's daughter, Dorothy Alread told me back
in episode three. But what I mean by hard to
grasp is how Rena, despite this full and frank confession,
has never served a single day in prison for this crime.
Because this tape and all these recordings you've heard in
this episode weren't made for the purposes of a police interrogation.
(40:54):
Her interrogator is a man named Dean Shapiro. He's a
writer and he's sitting with Rena in New Orleans, many
years after the Alread killing, collaborating with her on a book.
They'll call that book, Blood Covenant, a memoir or kind
of a tell all account of her life with hervill
Le Baron. I had heard on the news that her
(41:18):
plan was to release the book admitting that she killed
my father. This is Dorothy Solomon Alread, doctor Rulin Alread's daughter.
Years after her father's murder. She would hear about the
details of Rena's book in television promos. Whoever the reporter
(41:38):
was was asking her, well, how did you feel when
you pulled the trigger? And she said glibly, if you
want to know that, you'll have to read the book.
And I didn't want to believe it. It was set
for release on the thirteenth anniversary of my father's death.
(42:00):
Real bad timing, I think, really insensitive and I was
just a knife in my gut. I just like, how
do I live with this? Rena will go on to
appear on TV chat shows across the country to promote
(42:21):
the book. A movie will even be made based on it. Honestly,
it was like losing him all over again. In some ways,
it was worse because she'd made a mockery of our
systems of justice. She had made a mockery of my
father's life. She had sent the message that the death
(42:42):
of a polygamus was not really murder. We've reached out
to Rena for comment on numerous occasions making this podcast,
but she's yet to get back to us. Rena continues
to live out her life in freedom. How was this possible,
this escape from punishment from the law. Simple answer, It's
(43:03):
called double jeopardy, the clause in the fifth Amendment of
the U s Constitution that states no person shall be
subject for the same offense to be twice put in
jeopardy of life or limb. In other words, a person
cannot be prosecuted twice for the same offense. Rena, a
(43:24):
year after she had killed Roulin Alread in nineteen seventy seven,
would be arrested along with other members of herbl's cult.
She'd be put on trial. Rena wasn't the one snitching
to the cops, but someone did. And the date is March.
(43:47):
This is an interview. It's conducted in the County Attorney's
office in Salt Lake City. I understand that care affiliated
with the Church of the Lamb of God. That correct,
I have been affiliated with what was called the Church
of Land. That was Lloyd Sullivan, the man Rena named
(44:13):
as the instigator of both the Los Milinos attack and
the murder of Becky le Baron. But he wasn't the
only one talking to the cops. From late n a
number of cult members had decided to turn on Herville,
the dominoes falling as the police desperately tried to bring
down Herville's colt. That's coming up in the next episode
(44:37):
of deliver Us from Rvill. Deliver Us from Herville is
(44:59):
hosted by me jesse Hyde and written and reported by
me Leona Hamid and David Waters. Production from Leona Hamid
and David Waters. Sean Glenn and Max O'Brien are executive producers.
Lena Chang and Megan Oyinka are researchers. Marianna Gongora is
our field producer. Fact checking by Donya Suleman and Sona Avakian.
(45:24):
Production management from Sharie Houston, Frankie Taylor and Charlotte Wolf
Austin Mitchell is our creative director of Production. Michae Lee
Row is our managing editor. Gavin Haynes is our head
of Development. Willard Foxton is our creative director of Development.
Sound design, mixing and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson.
(45:47):
Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters. Our music
is composed by Julian Lynch. Special thanks to Scott Anderson,
Scott Carrier, Del van Ada, Pippa smith sas Skip Edwards,
Matt O'Mara, Katrina Norvelle and Beth and Macheluso, or In Rosenbaum,
Shelby Shankman and all the team at U t A.
(46:10):
For more from novel, visit novel dot Audio
Ye novel. A listener note this episode contains violence, including
sexual violence and references to child abuse. Previously on deliver
(00:25):
Us from Hervil. Hervil thought that if he got rid
of Joel, he could just move in and take leadership
with Joel's people. Well, it didn't work, that's the problem.
He told me about a group of Polygamus that were
in town to kill someone. And then he told me
about Ervil LeBaron, Glorious city police and I'd say they
(00:46):
have no lead gept on who the two women were
who headed the office of Polygamus, leader of ruling all
of it yesterday and shot him dead. That anyone who
opposed him deserved to die, including a daughter. And it
was just a question how many people he could order
be killed. There's really gonna be no stopping him. Salt,
Like polygamous leader Robert Simon Kis who had been seen
(01:06):
earlier with Pervil, LeBaron disappeared, leaving us home with one
of LeBaron's followers. We are in a fight against evil.
Add to that incident, a man named Dean Best was murdered.
Best event a follower of Herbal LeBaron. In that case,
like the Simon's disappearance remains unsolved, they said from the beginning.
The only way you're going to get Herville is to
(01:30):
break someone substantial in his group. It's October in New Orleans,
the best time of the year, when the thick, muggy
air of summer finally lifts. People go outside, sit on
(01:51):
porches and stoops blues and barbecue in the air freedom.
But not here in the confines of this airless room
off the freeway, not far from the airport, where two
people sit across from each other outside the bird's chirp
(02:12):
every once in a while, the horn of a train
and approaching siren. Inside the room, an interrogation is about
to begin. A tape recorder clicks one. Okay, we're rolling
against My name is I was born. I don't go
(02:40):
through the crackle and warp of the tape. The voice
of herbal LeBaron's thirteen and most infamous wife, Rina China Rena,
who at the age of just nineteen killed Dr. Ruland
Alread in a suburban Salt Lake office, and now, unknown
to the interrogator sitting across from her, She's about to
(03:00):
admit her role in that killing for the first time,
but she'll confess to much more than that. Her confession
will last days. As she talks and talks, the inner
workings of hervil Abarren's church, cult, mafia, whatever you want
to call it, will emerge. A veil lifted, two killings
(03:23):
carried out by the Lambs of God, Los Molinos, ruling Alread,
and other disappearances so far unsolved in Mexico, California, and Utah.
You've got the best information of anybody that's done anything
or it's going to do anything on it since so
as the tape recorder runs and runs, the cassettes will
(03:45):
pile up. I've listened to all of what's left of them,
and it's the only insider account of that era that survived.
A story from inside Herbal Labarrens group, groomed since childhood
for a role as both assassin and wife opposite Rena,
her interrogator, unaware of just what his questioning would reveal.
(04:09):
So I guess we would want to be as accurate
as we can, as you know, even know it may
be painfullets these are things that have got to be said.
He was about to hear it all from the team's
(04:32):
at novel and I heart radio. This is deliver us
from Herbal I'm jesse High, chapter five, The Confession. When
journalists del Van Adda and detective Dick Forbes teamed up
(04:54):
together in May of nine seven, they started out thinking
they were trying to solve the murder of polygamous leader
Roulin Alread, but it didn't take long before their investigation
revealed a string of other crimes. The massacre at Los
Melinos in nineteventy four, the disappearance of arrival of Herville,
a self proclaimed prophet Robert Simons in April of seventy five,
(05:19):
and then the murder of cult members that giant of
a man, Dean vest in June. Finally, there was the
disappearance of Hervill's own daughter, Rebecca in April of seventy seven.
Rena's interrogator would question her about all of this. Let's
start with right on the Los Molinos on December nineteen
(05:42):
seventy four, in the events that led up to that.
But I don't remember. I have to think that Rena
was just sixteen at the time of this assault on
the Mexican town. She wasn't in on the cults planning
for the ambush, although she does remember being around other
(06:05):
cult members who were the sullivan who getting jumpy. You're nervous,
you want to know what you know, what? What are
we doing here? Here? No thing's happening, and had come
up with sister. The Sullivan's she's referring to here are
Lloyd and Don Sullivan, the River people from Indiana. Lloyd
(06:29):
with his coke bottle glasses and his son Dawn, who
followed him like a shadow. It turns out they were
getting impatient with life in the cult. None of Herville's
prophecies had been fulfilled. They wanted action. But Rena doesn't
know why the group chose that town for the attack.
(06:50):
The nation said the whole rate to make it. M
Rena's interrogator turns to the events of the night of
the attack. Why was she there? I don't know why
I was there, accept the girl than know what else
to do with you against I was trying to figure
out some land keeping the under he's controlling. What did
(07:12):
she see happen? We do really ben't do anything. We
surf there and we watched the fire from a vantage
point at the edge of town. Rena watched the violence
play out from that first fire, the attempt to draw
out Evil's brother Verlin. I don't remember how long the
fire burned, maybe fifteen twenty minutes, but at longer, but
(07:35):
there was more than one fire. Wasn't to the ambush
of the villagers who rushed to put out the fire
as the massacre began, not until the shootings starting. And
see that a shot of people that garted to put
the tower fire. And then when they finished shooting there,
then the truck they were darting and went through town
(07:58):
just went down one streak through firelams of the houses
along that stream, and they headed towards verds house. They
meaning hope, what was Mark? Dwayne and Ed and Don?
And we're in a stolen forward here Rena is talking
about the shooters, which included her brothers Mark and Joyne.
The group had guns and Molotov cocktails in the truck
(08:21):
as they headed to Virdlin LeBaron's house. And then they
drove through Pale and the others fired and through fireloms
and in are you all? What was the shots and
most people or something like that? Many of these details
I've heard before from the victims families who were there
(08:42):
that night. But what comes to light in Rena's version
of events is that some of the cult members seemed
to be enjoying themselves. Rena says her brothers Mark and Dwayne,
who had just been living in the town before the
attack act, were a little reluctant. They were the ones
(09:03):
that were doing the shooting and the firebombing. No, h
Dwayne was I guess they didn't shoot some but Dwayne
was the driver and Mark they gave Mark. I'm kind
of her shotgun that was didn't shoot, a shotgun that
didn't shoot. It seems like Rena is suggesting her brothers
(09:28):
weren't as involved as the others, like maybe she's trying
to protect them. In fact, you can hear Rena trying
to justify the actions of all of those taking part
in the raid that night. They were simply carrying out
orders from God. The Lord wants this done. Nan upstairs says,
(09:48):
we just got to get rid of Berlin, and it's
just ruin the people and leave them the strain, and
it's just the most important thing. We illuminate his first
and if he tried to stand up to her and sing,
well that's stupid, then he getting at at you. Weren't
all indignant how dare you questioned the lord, and so
(10:10):
we just I don't know you did what he said?
Mm hmm, standing up and God, did you see it
that way at the time, just saying how in retrospective
at the time, I mean, did you have serious questions
about doing it at the time? No, I guess I didn't. Um,
(10:33):
I guess I didn't. I don't know. I don't know.
I guess I was trying to do what I thought
was try. I guess I thought that, well, the Lord
wants it done, I guess I'd better do it. This
was Herbal's go to justification. It all boils down to
(10:56):
an elegantly simple but brutal theology. Do this because the
Lord wants it done. And if the Lord wants it
and you are the one in the way, well you
know what that makes you, don't You a son of perdition?
And you've seen what happens to them. M Long after
(11:23):
the raid in Los Milinos, this mantra would continue and
all kinds of terror would rain down. After establishing Rena
wasn't a participant in the Los Milinos massacre, Rena's interrogator
moves on to other violent crimes linked to the Colt.
First up is the disappearance of that rival prophet to herbal,
(11:43):
Robert or Bob Simons. Here's the cops talking about his
disappearance in to journalist Lynn Packer on a local TV
station cass L in Salt Lake City. Our information is
that he was last seeing what the disciple of the
Church of the Land him of God. Neither this disciple
or Mr Simon's has been seen since, and we suspect
(12:08):
that he is no longer living. Do you think they
may have assassinated him? Oh, there is that possibility. Robert Simons,
the guy who disappeared, was white, but believed he was
a prophet to Native Americans, lived up in Grantsville, Utah,
where the salt flats begin, which Simons have finishing. Started
(12:28):
to him at that time that I don't ever remember
him anything about him before Lloyd came in showing his wall.
His disappearance happened in seventy five when Rena was living
in the US with other cult members in such tight quarters,
sometimes with three wives to a house. Rena heard things
(12:51):
and saw things things she wasn't supposed to see. You
were there and may save he did. Rena tells how
it was Lloyd Sullivan, who had gone out for a
game of pool with Robert Simons, but only one of
them had come back, Lloyd with Bob's wallet. Did you
know that that he had murded somebody? That's what you
(13:14):
know that was, That's why he had the guy's wallet.
I understood, Benna. Don't know who this guy was or
why he had to be killed. Never heard of him before.
Mike los Molino's Rena wasn't involved in committing a crime herself,
but she's revealing here that the Coult definitely were involved.
Rena's testimony puts the Robert Simon's murder at April of nineteen.
(13:38):
That same year, there was another suspected killing by the
Colt Dean vest shot to death in June in the
house he shared with other cult members. There is no
suggestion Rena was involved with Dean's murder, but her interrogator
still wants to know what she knew about it. Dean
was this big hug of a man, because he was
(14:00):
soaked cool and everything he the out passed. It's one
guy and he's like a big tenny there. According to Rena,
Dean was falling in love with her and so let's stay.
I felt simultant spirit. He's very touched. Dean stood at
(14:22):
six ft eight two d and sixty pounds, and he
actually wanted to appear even taller, so he put two
inch soles in his shoes and added an elevated heel
to a size sixteen cowboy boots. He joined Herbal's colt
following a stint in prison, which followed a stint in
the army where he had murdered his own sergeant. He
(14:44):
picked the man up, held him up to a long
I don't know what I can remember. How's bogus knit
ike Bok's man literally killed him with his bare hands.
His justification, according to Rena, was his sergeant refused in
permission to attend his mother's funeral anyway. Rena tells how
(15:05):
she got to know Dean in the early seventies as
he was becoming some sort of military strategist for Herville
and bodyguard. But by seventy Dean had moved to Southern
California National City, just outside San Diego, and the rumor
was he planned to defect. I don't know how I
found out or how I came to know. I might
(15:28):
have been there when Ville ordered it. I probably was.
Herville had spoken to his followers, told them Dean knew
too much. But I don't know if I if I
protested or if I I don't think I did. I
don't remember. He was turning, and he was a threat,
(15:53):
and he could place everybody in places and if he
and if he did that came to God couldn't go forward.
Dean was in God's way, a son of perdition, and
he had to go. This time, Herville dispatched a wife
for the mission, Vonda White. She was living in National
(16:14):
City in a house with other Lambs of God, including Dean,
so she was selected to carry out the killing. I
was probably there when it was reported to l that
it was done or or whatever. I was probably, you know,
right there, and your attitude was basically you know that
it was just something that had to be done. It's done.
(16:38):
Spike of feelings that you would have foreign greens, No,
I remember now. I felt guilty because I felt like
it was my fault that he was defecting, because I
let him fall in love with me and messed up things.
So you know, that was another thing to add to
(16:59):
my this spare. But yet I don't know you you well,
you have been close to Vanda. Apparently you know this
didn't change any feelings towards her. She had done She
did what she was ordered to do. She did what
(17:19):
she was ordered to do. What I think. You can
hear something pretty chilling in this part of the interrogation,
as the birds chirp away freely outside the room. As
you listen to her voice through the static, you can
hear a sort of detachment as she tells the story
of her sister wife killing the man she'd come to love,
(17:44):
a man she'd let fall in love with her. It
sounds like she's splitting off and disassociating, but as she
felt bad now, worse was to come more after the break.
(18:19):
There's this picture of Rena as a kid reporting this story.
I've been thinking about it a lot. It's black and white.
Back in East Layton, Utah, outside their three bedroom house
in the shadow of the snowy Wassatch Mountains with her
parents budd In, Thelma, and brothers Glenn, Vic, Dwayne, and Mark.
(18:42):
Back when Mark dreamed of starting a band like the Monkeys,
and the family took trips to Yellowstone, had the camper
and the boat. Rena's about two in the picture, so
it's nine. No Ley's on the trees yet, so I'm
guessing it's early spring. And there's Glenn, who I talked
to you back in episode three, now an old man
(19:06):
but here in his twenties, shirt off, head down, working
on a car. He's got that James Dean vibe. And
then off to the side, standing on the lawn there's Thelma,
Rena's mom. I swear she looks just like lucill Ball,
(19:26):
hands clasped, pressed white blouse, khakis, her white tenny's tied neatly,
a really big smile on her face. And this is
what stops me. I look at that old photograph and
what would unfold, and it's like one of those painful
(19:47):
pictures from your own past where you wish, somehow, somehow
you could rewind to that point and then write an
entirely different script before you press play. Rena was a
child who loved music, played the accordion, who wrote in
(20:11):
her diary most days, who got a report card detailing
her grades. I've got a daughter about that age, and
I think about how much I want her to determine
her own future, and how Rena should have had that too,
but because of choice as others made, that would never
be available to her. And now, all these years later,
(20:35):
Rena sits here, trapped in this airless New Orleans interrogation room,
about to be asked about her relationship with the man
who ripped her family's life apart, the leader of the
Church of the Lamb of God, hervil A Baron. Oh. Now,
of course, have been after me for years to marry him,
(20:57):
and I got some us can't saying well, what are
you gonna marry me? Or don't you think it's about time?
I think it's time now, or something like that. He
always says stuffing like that, and I just get mad
and off. That was our little routine through this, Reugie.
You know, thretty more time here, more than this been
going nonsince you were about twelve when you first leach
(21:18):
do with it. Twelve years old, that's when Rville started
grooming her, a man who was already married to her sister.
Rena tells her interrogator how five years later, in February,
she got word that Erville wanted to see her. He
summoned her to where he was hiding out at that
(21:39):
point in Yuma, Arizona, Rena arrived to find Herville in
his hotel room with Dan Jordan's his right hand man.
So he went through that number, turned at me and
looked at me as he's old milk cow eyes and said,
it's about when you got married. And I did my number,
(22:05):
My did my performance. I got mad and stop talk.
Dan and Herville went into a bedroom and talked in
hushed tones. Dan came out and ordered Rena outside, and
then Dan sat with Rena inside a station wagon and
he just turned him and he said, did you marry
(22:26):
Ervil day? Or this is your last chance? You were
go to him and it was just like just like that,
except he was looking right at me and his eyes
didn't blink, and the chill up. And now, my fine,
I know. I said in an earlier episode that Erville
(22:47):
was old Hollywood handsome in his day, but by this
time in Herville was fifty and he'd gone to seed
with twelve wives already, his breath wreaked of onions and
steale coffee. Nothing about him would be anything other than repulsive.
Yet to Arena, he had always been presented as God's prophet,
(23:09):
and it didn't matter if it made sense or if
she was in love with him. Rena had always been
raised to do God's will. And I tried to picture
Arena at this moment in her life, sitting there wearing
bell bottom blue jeans and a red, white and blue
tshirt emblazoned with an American flag. She knew she had
(23:33):
run out of time. She had to marry Herville or
she would be killed. A lot of things went on
went through my mind, like, you know, should I er, why,
You're fine, I'll just leave? But then where would I go?
And nowhere to go? Nowhere to run too? And I
(23:56):
don't know. It's just going through all this despair. I
wish and God would just strike me with lightning or something.
This pressure might all sound remarkable, sick, twisted, and it is.
It's all those things, except for women raised in Mormon
(24:17):
fundamentalist communities. It's not that unusual. I've interviewed a lot
of polygamus, many of whom were asked forced really to
marry much older men. Men they didn't love, men that
in some cases they loathed. And I got out in car,
after crying quite a while, over to the pool and
(24:40):
wash my arms off, watched my face flashed water on
my face from the pool, it was cold, cried some more.
I thought I'd stopped it, and then they started praying
and say please or don't let this happen me. Um.
Then I just I just decided that God must want
me to marry him. So I'm went into the hotel
(25:01):
room and they vested been. I guess they were talking
strategy or I'm always him and I I walked up
to Hertle when I said, you can marry you had
to ask him, and his face kind of clumped. He
hugged me and I cried, they're in this dingy motel room.
(25:25):
In humor, Rina Channath and Irvill la Baron were married
by Dan Jordan's. Her brother Mark stood as a witness.
Then he went to Jack in the Box, right yeah,
and I ordered an in rings. That's all. That's all
and the reading and then Herville fell asleep back at
(25:46):
the hotel. So much for a honeymoon, but Herville and
Rena their lives were now linked more closely than ever.
(26:07):
After marrying Herville, a new picture emerges. From Rina's answers
to her interrogator's questions, The story becomes weirdly domestic. It
was a pretty nice house. I think it was a
three bedroom too car attached to DJE. We didn't have
any furniture to speaking like some fucked up sitcom about
(26:28):
the life of a death could. Then I discovered behind
this store that there is a whole bunch of cheese
and stuff in the dumpster had a little bit of
mold on it, So we started going out back and
getting stuff from the dumpster. These men and their multiple
wives I'll share these mundane, unfurnished apartments going out to
work in normal jobs were starting these doomed to fill
(26:49):
get rich quick schemes. One time and everybody's supposed to
move to babas and get into the mush walk business,
except none of it is funny. Myself at that time
emotionally flip flopping between trying to be why settle down
and be where everybody expecting you to be, and fighting
(27:12):
with the fact that I was trying to get along
with a man I couldn't stand, and dealing with feelings
of being trapped, and then feeling guilty because I felt
that way, because I should be feeling happy and glad
that I'm doing God's will. Hervil wanted Rena to get pregnant,
(27:34):
and Rena was willing to submit to God's will like always,
but sex with Herville was something to endure, and I
think a lot of times I imagined I just had
to pretend I wasn't there, or that, you know, trying
to pretend it with somebody else, or hold my breath.
I didn't have to smell his breath. Hervill would call
his wives out by name when he wanted to have sex.
(27:56):
We're having a meeting in the living of the house
I was living right in the middle of Maybe he
looks across at me. He gets up, walks over and
takes my hat and says goodbye everybody. It starts leading
me into the bedroom. And I was so embarrassed. Oh,
I thought, I mean, look, wait a minute, or we're
(28:17):
in the middle of a meeting here, you know, come,
what do you think you're doing? And he was like
he did it like he was He kind of pranced
across the living room floor like this rooster. This was
the grim reality of life and Hervill's promised kingdom of God.
In the mid seventies, it was bleak. He would lock
(28:38):
himself in the bedroom that he and I shared, and
I would write and write and right, and you drink coffee,
and drink coffee wouldn't be their shade because he was
all writing, like twenty hours a day, and he smelled
like coffee. I mean he's pores. He just he sweated
(28:58):
coffee that he drank it really strong. Black and Herville
of Colonial le Baron, the mad prophet king, the Ervil,
who would write until he collapsed. Herval would write, um,
we triple space, and he ryan the margins, just feel
up the margins, and sometimes he has so much more
(29:21):
than he had to add to this institu soon that
he'd have to turn the page over. And then you
have to follow all these arrows. He could aly direction
where he'd add the stem. I closed my eyes and
I can see it, Rena. They're flipping over pages, trying
(29:42):
to make sense of Hervil's scribblings. In the margins. The
arrow is pointing here and there, trying to decipher in
the scriptures and the threats. But when it came to
the intention of Herville's verbal orders, there was less ambigue.
(30:03):
That's coming up after the break. By April of nineteen
seventy seven, Evil's daughter, Rebecca LeBaron had married into the
same family as her father. She was now the second
(30:25):
wife of Rena's brother, Victor Moneyman shin Off. Rebecca or Becky,
as the cold called her, shared her father's propensity for visions,
but no one called Becky a prophet. I guess she
was Schizzo. She'd stelights and she'd hear a voice of syd.
(30:46):
In Rena's testimony, you hear how the group saw Becky's
mental health issues as a direct threat to the colts.
Really weird. She went out and got caught shop lifting
and ran off the math to the police. Here we
were trying to be incominito. It just felt that she
(31:08):
was a threat. Especially threatened were cult members who felt
like she knew things that could land them in prison
for murder. But surely, as Herville's own daughter, she was
safe from the colts. They kept harping, harping on Hervill
about getting rid of Pick, and he didn't want to. Now,
(31:29):
the way I remembered is that Don was the limit,
kept pressuring and pushing to do something about her. Don
and Lloyd, Lloyd Sullivan and his shadow son Dawn. Again.
Lloyd is revealed in Rena's testimony to be the catalyst
behind escalating violence. But now joined by others, ratcheting up
(31:51):
the pressure for more violence from the colts. Herville was
in the bedroom and Don and Adverse like danning at
the living room door, and they were saying, we've got
to do something about Becky. I mean, this is it's bad,
really bad. And Lloyd was talking with them, and then
(32:13):
he'd go in the room and he talked to woman.
He'd come back out and it was like, you know,
it was carrying messages back and forth. And for some
reason I was there and maybe not meaning to stand
there and listen, I became it was asking my opinion
it wasn't a meeting. Well, I came out and nodded
(32:33):
his head. The order had been given, according to Rena.
The assignment this time, perhaps the most disturbing of them all,
would go to Rena's brother Dwayne and his friend Eddie Marston.
Both were veterans of the Los Molino's raid. I'm going
to warn you here, as gnarly as this whole series
(32:56):
has been, this next bit of tape is very graphic
and disturbing. It was difficult for me to listen to
still is. I guess you wouldn't know how they got
back to get into the car in the first place
with him. I told her they were taking her somewhere.
I don't know from what I understand. Wayne was driving
(33:16):
and it was in the back seat, and he, I
don't know if this needs to be mentioned, but he said,
when I can't do it, this is too hard. I
guess she was really you know, she was fighting, and
he was arm's for getting tired. He said, I can't
do this, and Dwayne reached back and held one side
of the rope. The two men strangled Rebecca LeBaron. Together.
(33:38):
They took her into a forest of some kind and
buried her in an unmarked grave. Was it the next
day that she had heard that she had been taken
care of her week later? I wouldn't ask. I don't
remember asking. It wasn't you know, I'm not a kind
of person that she was going to be done in eventually. Well,
(34:02):
I figured when they left, when they got the okay them,
they were gone for a few days. As hard as
listening to Rena describe all this is, it's almost as
hard to hear her rationalize the actions. They felt that
they were putting somebody opping ma sory and it it
(34:25):
was necessary for military security reason and it had to
be done. It wasn't something they did out of hate,
because they enjoyed killing. So I didn't say anything. I
didn't ask questions. Rena didn't need to ask questions. The
message was clear. If Herval's own daughter wasn't safe, no
(34:48):
one was. It was later spring of and Rena tells
her interrogator about this next stage of her life inside
Hervil LeBaron's colt. She was invited to attend a meeting
in Dallas. This was to be Irville's infamous military emergency
(35:10):
meeting where he would announce the colts most ambitious attack.
I guess that's when he had decided he had to
hit Ruin already, it was time for Rena to step
out from the background, to take center stage, from witness
to participant. And it would be a way to get
(35:32):
Vernon the other false profit too to his funeral. That
was the main idea, But he Verrlin LeBaron the target
they'd missed at Los Melinos. The ruling alread hit was
going to be another attempt on his life. Listening to
these tapes of Rena talk about her involvement in Rvil's colt,
(35:53):
one thing that jumps out is how candid she is
when it comes to the killing of Rulin alread and
just been salutinely terrified. I was shaking, shaking really bad.
Pu has things in the head of what us us
to do that day. The next shocking bit of Rena's
confession is how she was selected for the killing. He said, Uh,
(36:14):
now I need nominations or two women, who do you
think we should see in hervill selected Rena. I just
remember being really surprised. And then I'm going on to say,
what an honor was to be picked to undertake this
great nostion. It'll assure your ticket into the celestial kingdom.
(36:35):
The celestial kingdom, that's Mormons speak for the highest level
of heaven. You'll be blessed beyond your wildest dreams. Rena
tells her interrogator how on the morning of the killing,
the reality of what she was about to do finally
set in Um and Don came overnight and pretty long
(36:58):
around me. Okay, it's gonna be all right, thanks, I'll
go fine. God will be with you and you then
will be okay. Don Sullivan, he was leading the hit
on Verlin. The Lord was with them, he reminded Rena.
We ended up behind the doctor's officer and the vehicles
(37:19):
were waiting there. The guys handed us our guns and
gave us encouraging words and send us all away. Rena
disguised in a blue park and Wig entered the office
of Dr. Alred locked in and it was the reception area,
(37:39):
seats around on two walls along the way, and I
just sat down and I'm gonna run. Peered into the
glass cubic glory where the office was the reception area,
and then the door was time standing that went back
(38:02):
to the rooms. And yeah, as I looked through the door,
the doctor was coming out of I want to get
family rooms. And he was the way and described to
me tall slender, m raight hair, nice nice command. And
(38:31):
he came towards me and then turned to his right,
which would have been left towards like a little laugh
area or something. I heard it was a sinkers pumpy
kind of behind the door where I was standing. I
had it in the pocket of Parker. It was m Parker. Um,
(38:53):
I think you just nodded at They were now just
three ft away. Yeah, I dude, what I was supposed
to do? And where did you show him? Chest. I
guess all a little hard to hear here. The interrogator
(39:16):
asked how many bullets she fired. I am, Rena says
she emptied the gun and the doctor went down. He said,
oh my god, and his nurse gratch being and I
just kind of shook her off to head out the door,
(39:37):
and then got outside, and I didn't know whether he
was standing on And we walked around the side of
the building to the back, got in the truck and
drove it to where we were supposed to meet the guys,
and gave them our wigs and the guns and jackets,
(40:02):
and and we shit fine and stout in the car
and the net. Hearing Rena confess to the killing of
Rulin Alread, it's a difficult listen, like really difficult, hard
to grasp. The details in this confession certainly all fit.
(40:25):
They corroborate what Rulin's daughter, Dorothy Alread told me back
in episode three. But what I mean by hard to
grasp is how Rena, despite this full and frank confession,
has never served a single day in prison for this crime.
Because this tape and all these recordings you've heard in
this episode weren't made for the purposes of a police interrogation.
(40:54):
Her interrogator is a man named Dean Shapiro. He's a
writer and he's sitting with Rena in New Orleans, many
years after the Alread killing, collaborating with her on a book.
They'll call that book, Blood Covenant, a memoir or kind
of a tell all account of her life with hervill
Le Baron. I had heard on the news that her
(41:18):
plan was to release the book admitting that she killed
my father. This is Dorothy Solomon Alread, doctor Rulin Alread's daughter.
Years after her father's murder. She would hear about the
details of Rena's book in television promos. Whoever the reporter
(41:38):
was was asking her, well, how did you feel when
you pulled the trigger? And she said glibly, if you
want to know that, you'll have to read the book.
And I didn't want to believe it. It was set
for release on the thirteenth anniversary of my father's death.
(42:00):
Real bad timing, I think, really insensitive and I was
just a knife in my gut. I just like, how
do I live with this? Rena will go on to
appear on TV chat shows across the country to promote
(42:21):
the book. A movie will even be made based on it. Honestly,
it was like losing him all over again. In some ways,
it was worse because she'd made a mockery of our
systems of justice. She had made a mockery of my
father's life. She had sent the message that the death
(42:42):
of a polygamus was not really murder. We've reached out
to Rena for comment on numerous occasions making this podcast,
but she's yet to get back to us. Rena continues
to live out her life in freedom. How was this possible,
this escape from punishment from the law. Simple answer, It's
(43:03):
called double jeopardy, the clause in the fifth Amendment of
the U s Constitution that states no person shall be
subject for the same offense to be twice put in
jeopardy of life or limb. In other words, a person
cannot be prosecuted twice for the same offense. Rena, a
(43:24):
year after she had killed Roulin Alread in nineteen seventy seven,
would be arrested along with other members of herbl's cult.
She'd be put on trial. Rena wasn't the one snitching
to the cops, but someone did. And the date is March.
(43:47):
This is an interview. It's conducted in the County Attorney's
office in Salt Lake City. I understand that care affiliated
with the Church of the Lamb of God. That correct,
I have been affiliated with what was called the Church
of Land. That was Lloyd Sullivan, the man Rena named
(44:13):
as the instigator of both the Los Milinos attack and
the murder of Becky le Baron. But he wasn't the
only one talking to the cops. From late n a
number of cult members had decided to turn on Herville,
the dominoes falling as the police desperately tried to bring
down Herville's colt. That's coming up in the next episode
(44:37):
of deliver Us from Rvill. Deliver Us from Herville is
(44:59):
hosted by me jesse Hyde and written and reported by
me Leona Hamid and David Waters. Production from Leona Hamid
and David Waters. Sean Glenn and Max O'Brien are executive producers.
Lena Chang and Megan Oyinka are researchers. Marianna Gongora is
our field producer. Fact checking by Donya Suleman and Sona Avakian.
(45:24):
Production management from Sharie Houston, Frankie Taylor and Charlotte Wolf
Austin Mitchell is our creative director of Production. Michae Lee
Row is our managing editor. Gavin Haynes is our head
of Development. Willard Foxton is our creative director of Development.
Sound design, mixing and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson.
(45:47):
Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters. Our music
is composed by Julian Lynch. Special thanks to Scott Anderson,
Scott Carrier, Del van Ada, Pippa smith sas Skip Edwards,
Matt O'Mara, Katrina Norvelle and Beth and Macheluso, or In Rosenbaum,
Shelby Shankman and all the team at U t A.
(46:10):
For more from novel, visit novel dot Audio
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