About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features for Nathanael Allred's baby. Dawna asks me. (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. 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. eu . Martha's husband was "Uncle" Fred Jessop, longtime Bishop to the FLDS people, who died in 2005 at 94, after being dragged from state to state by Warren Jeffs in what many ex-members believe was a transparent scheme of murder-by-stress: Dragging around a physically ailing, elderly man in need of constant medication is one way to kill a person without committing any outright murderous act, they say. As he talked to the woman who lived there, Luke Brown came out of the house, and his brother Scott soon joined him. In the months after the robbery, Stephen couldnt shake the feeling he was being watched. When he had finished, he walked toward Stephen, who was sitting on the tractor. 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. As the first of Paul Kingstons many wives, Patty enjoyed a privileged role in the Order including access to vast wealth. Their neighbors had no idea that the family were prominent members of the Kingston clan, the most powerful polygamist cult in America and one of the most dangerous. [W]e directly condemn in action and in words, racist, homophobic or hateful actions against any group or individual, Johnson wrote. David Lindley, Multi-Instrumentalist Who Shaped the Sound of Soft Rock, Dead at 78 "There are times when it has gotten kind of gross, like when they marry an uncle to a niece," she continues. Everyone in the Order knew that she controlled the purse strings for the operation but few were aware that she was sitting on a hidden stash of silver. Allison, a 17 year-old ex-Kingston member says not much has changed since Lu Anns day. 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 bucket of water and a vial of black food coloring. Concentrated in Salt Lake City, its 10,000 members control more. But in a 2News . FOX 13 . There are times when it has gotten kind of gross, like when they marry an uncle to a niece. The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) is a polygamous sect straddling the Utah and Arizona state lines; the twin towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, are known collectively as Short Creek (pronounced "crick"). He shares a last name and a not-too-distant relation with the polygamous LeBaron group in Chihuahua, Mexico. And then there are the more livable genetic conditions. As far as how you end up in heaven, thats up to God.. He orchestrated all unions within the cult, which was maintained with classic mind control techniques, corporal punishment, fasting and bizarre dietary practices. For fun he and other Order men would go to a park frequented by gay males, looking for victims. Still, he conceded that some Order members may have prejudiced beliefs because in our organization people have freedom of choice.. You had to be, like, a son of the prophet to know where it was.. The land had once been home to the Washakie Indians, and as children, Stephen and his 15 full brothers and sisters played among the wind-swept ruins of a Native American cemetery. I guess I just had too much soy, Snow smiled. Some would say that is because it takes generations for certain inbred recessive genetic traits to manifest. By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy & to receive electronic communications from Vice Media Group, which may include marketing promotions, advertisements and sponsored content. Spokesmen for both the U.S. State Department and for Picatinny Arsenal could neither verify nor deny Youngs claims. Another of the cults teachings was that soy can make you gay, an anti-government conspiracy theory popular in some right-wing circles. For Stephen and the other kids on the ranch, the highlight of each week came on Sundays, when they traveled the hour and a half south to Salt Lake for church. Dawna's eldest son is now dating a Centennial woman whom he recently found out is a distant cousin. Young also claimed Desert Tech had sold guns to Picatinny Arsenal, the research division of the U.S. military. But the more the deputy pressed, the more their stories didnt add up. 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. Terrified, he went out and bought a stash of guns to arm himself, just in case his family tried to gun him down. They did it, says Christian Kingston. The Kingstons operate in a self-contained universe, completely cut off from the outside world. The incest came to light after the girl tried to escape the arranged celestial marriage an illegal marriage, sans license. The clan kids from there would come to school not properly dressed for the cold, and they were always getting in fights. Through his brother LyleBishop of the FLDS and mouthpiece for his imprisoned brotherJeffs enacted a Judgment wherein FLDS members were asked a series of bizarre personal questions; their answers were judged, and the most righteous were welcomed into the United Order of FLDS elite. Sometimes his father read the Book of Mormon from the pulpit and talked about things regular Christians would recognize, like tithing or repentance. The Kingston clan is an endogamous (preaching unity between members of the same family) and polygamous sect formed by a split in the Mormon church - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Supposedly, LaDonna had a dream wherein it was revealed that anyone who left The Order would be tainted by black blood. In 2006, Warren Jeffs, then the president and prophet of the FLDS, was arrested and charged with accomplice rape, for just two of the underage marriages he had arranged. Then one of them exhaled slowly, his breath shuddering in the cold air. Utahs polygamous Kingston clan mixes incest and white supremacy with old-fashioned capitalism. It was all just innocent teenage stuff, recalls Ron, who has since left the clan. To her horror, all that remained was a ring of dust, marking the place where a chest of gold coins had once stood. We pass the house she grew up in with her mother, three eldest brothers, and father before he was kicked out of the cult. The Kingstons are a Mormon splinter group, founded in the 1930s by Mary's great-uncle Elden. Paul Kingston wore secondhand suits that hung off his slender shoulders, and he spoke in a flat, emotionless monotone. 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. Ethnic jokes and stereotypes were commonly repeated. Health Gap. presided, while Richauns father officiated the wedding, promising the bride that if she obeyed her husband, she would be guaranteed a spot in the Celestial Kingdom, the highest level of heaven. Its who I am., To keep the police from prying into the matter any further, the clan also hired a private investigator to track down the missing gold. But we paid it all back.. We figured it was ours anyway, says Stephen, explaining that the clan hadnt paid the boys for bagging coal. With the Orders leaders taking so many wives for themselves, the clans younger men were often unable to find anyone to marry. 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. As time passed, his dogma became even stranger. They had sped off in a Honda sedan. The letter asserts that one of the earliest members of the church was a Native American man and that the Co-op, as it is sometimes called, has been the victim of prejudice and harassment by Utahs majority religion (i.e., the LDS church) because of the formers progressive ideas. According to former Order members, they worked long shifts sorting coal and operating heavy machinery in unsafe conditions. 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. The deputy opened the trunk of the Honda, where he found two duffel bags stuffed with silver. He thinks about his mom, and wonders if she misses him. Two of her sisters married their first cousinsmen with whom they share the same grandfather; the sons of their father's second wife, who is their mother's full sister. Like other fundamentalists of that era, he believed the Mormon Church had lost its divine authority when it renounced polygamy in 1890, so he persuaded three other families to join him in establishing their own sect. "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.". In all likelihood, Stephen and his brothers had stolen the gold from Patty Kingston first and then the Brown boys, in an effort to emulate their cousins rebellious acts, had robbed their aunt weeks or even months later. In secret videotapes of Order church meetings aired on Escaping Polygamy, Pauls nephew Nick Young, speaking from a church lectern, identifies himself as a numbered man, number 72, to be precise. According to many of the individuals interviewed for this story, these children are seen as special angels sent from God to the FLDS community. You better check on your gold, Young told her. It was time. 17226 Horsetooth Canyon Dr, Houston, TX 77095. Future Planet. Others say they buried it out in the desert and are slowly cashing it out. I dont think theyre organized crime in that regard, but the racketeering statute defines it as any conspiracy or pattern of illegal activity done in concert with others. The Tuckers think this is all hogwash now, though they were programmed to believe it at the time. Or Aunt Martha did, or somebody did. From a young age, Snow worked for Order companies to help feed his siblings, a responsibility some Kingston men are known to shirk. It is bordered to the north by a well-maintained lot where there sits a stately red brick home with UEP (United Effort Plan, the church trust which is now controlled by the state of Utah in the aftermath of Jeffs' conviction) spelled out in white brick on its south-facing side. When it comes to racist Sunday school lessons, the polygamous Kingston clan could teach the Ku Klux Klan a thing or two. His father stood on the stage and called out the names of the men who were to receive one of the clans highest honors. No evidence directly linked him to the missing gold or silver, but his father was convinced he had played a part in the thefts. Two teenage boys had been spotted entering Rachel Youngs home. Incest is endemic in the clan, with uncles marrying much younger female relatives; in 2003, police showed up at an Order barbecue and arrested a clan member for marrying his underage cousin. If you messed with one of them, you were messing with them all., When Stephen was nine, an accident at Washakie set in motion a chain of events that would eventually prompt him to leave the cult. Thanks, it read. All Rights reserved. As for its anti-government views, allegations of fraud against government entities have long dogged the Kingstons. They threw away their possessions, donned matching blue overalls, and pitched canvas tents on a patch of land north of Salt Lake that would come to be known as the Home Place.. Nearby homes. His eldest died six years ago at 10 years old, he says, and another died in infancy, leaving behind two remaining brothers from a set of spontaneous identical triplets. The Kingstons teach that they are descended from Jesus Christ and these incestous marriages are intended to keep the bloodline pure, but instead have resulted in numerous Clan members being born with disabilties or birth defects, and it's not really that surprising to note that at one point during the second season of Escaping Polygamy, one of Im done with this shit.. It was all fun, Stephen recalls. LGBT people fare little better in the Kingston clan. The clan believed he had their treasure, and they were sending someone to kill him. He trained the women how to rip off the government, a scheme the Order called Bleeding the Beast. This is your fault, he thundered, glaring at them. Young declined to comment when asked if he practices polygamy. Snow also remembered being taught end-time prophecies, with a cleansing wherein the streets of Salt Lake City would run red with blood. Copyright 2023 Penske Business Media, LLC. According to church lore, The Order came into existence when founder Charles Elden Kingston saw Jesus in the mountains above the familys settlement in Bountiful, Utah, inspiring him to create the DCCS in 1935. Her parents and siblings eventually left as well. Desert Tech and its rifles have been featured on Fox News, Mythbusters, Daredevil and The Blacklist, among other TV shows. At Washakie, he forced clan children to decapitate cows with chain saws to toughen them up, and sometimes beat the children for some infraction of the Orders rules like forgetting to face the Home Place three times a day and pray. Theyd keep it in basements, in filing cabinets, in a big safe in one of Pauls offices, says Levi Kingston, a former clan member. It was Mothers Day in 2000, and Stephen and two of his brothers were speeding up a dirt road for dinner at an aunts house. He charged across the field and started brutally beating Stephens cousin. Mysterious cars followed his girlfriend, and he once came home to find that someone had rifled through his drawers. had some 80 children by 13 wives, but his favorite was Paul, an excellent student who made friends easily. A simple urine test will reveal whether there is an excess of fumaric acid in the urine, if the other, more external symptoms aren't obvious enough. 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 . Scott remembered that Ortell had an answer for that question. Once free of the cult, Lu Ann, Allison and other ex-Order members have had to unlearn the hatred that was drilled into their heads. He had yet to lose his hair, and thanks to his fanatical devotion to healthy food and alternative medicine, he had the ropy build of a well-toned athlete. It's the kids who are disproportionately handicapped as compared to the demographics of any other comparably small town. If the Order doesnt have it, the clan teaches, we dont need it., Editors picks Theyll do what they need to do to defend whats theirs.. "They were called the Second Warders and we were called the First Warders; we weren't supposed to hang out with kids from the Centennial group because they were wicked for having left," she says. It was a grimy, derelict-looking place. greatly increases, medical experts say. 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. Ross LeBaron Jr. recently took to the Internet to express his support for the Bundy family in Oregon, as well as for LaVoy Finicum, the lone fatality in that ordeal. Fishing it out of his jeans, hell recognize the number. 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.