Cult Insanity

by Irene Spencer

  Verlan assured the accuser that the LeBarons were not implicated in either death. Unfortunately Verlan’s words came too late. Rumors spread throughout the fundamentalist groups, and many came to believe that my in-laws were responsible for the deaths of the two men.

  LeBarons have been accused—often with good reason—over the years of many radical crimes, but they were definitely not responsible in these cases.

  ERVIL’S INABILITY TO SUPPORT his ever-expanding family didn’t even faze him. When he put the problem before the Lord he received good news. He claimed that the Lord informed him that his presence as a leader and missionary was of far more importance than the mundane task of taking care of his family. He was to deal strictly in spiritual things. His monetary needs were to be supplied by a few unsuspecting men. The impression he received clearly designated four new followers. The Spirit whispered to Ervil, “None of them have the balls to enter into plural marriage, so they deserve to step up and support you and your faithful wives.”

  Realizing that the four God had pointed out were slackers, Ervil knew they would need some enticement to come through each month with their funds. So, by virtue of his authority, he promised one of his teenage daughters to each duped devotee.

  On different occasions, all four men confided in me that they’d been favored and called by God to fulfill the patriarch’s needs. When I was made privy to Ervil’s unscrupulous tactics, I accosted him.

  As was his manner, he grasped my upper arm tightly, hoping his words of wisdom would sink in as he laughed, blatantly sharing his scheme with me. “Don’t worry about my daughters. I wouldn’t allow them to marry any of these men.”

  “Then why did you lie to them?” I yelled, disgusted. “They’re all thinking they’ll be rewarded by having a plural wife.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Aw, c’mon, Irene. You know everyone needs hope. That’s all I was trying to do. The Bible says with faith all things are possible. I’m just doing my best to shape up a few misfits, hoping that at some future date God will refine them enough so that they can still be used in his kingdom.”

  EARLY IN MARCH 1966, Linda and Tom Liddiard arrived after dark in Colonia LeBaron. Pregnant with her fifth child, Linda waited in the car for Tom’s return. He knocked on Marilyn Tucker’s door, inquiring about a place for his family to sleep. Linda’s four tired children moved around in the seats, wanting to get out of the car after driving from Salt Lake City.

  Out of the darkness appeared a plain, masculine-looking woman. She approached the car suspiciously, armed with a pistol in her hip holster, making sure Linda saw it. Uneasy, Linda slowly rolled down her window, and the aggressor asked, “Who are you?”

  “I’m Linda Liddiard from Utah. Who are you?”

  “I’m Linda Johnson, one of Ervil’s wives. He sent me over here to check you out.” After giving Linda a once-over and looking in the backseat at the children, she left, saying, “We’re just being cautious.”

  Linda was relieved when Tom returned to the car, having secured a place to spend the night.

  Immediately after we met, Linda Liddiard and I became best friends and confidantes.

  BILL TUCKER, WHOM VERLAN DUBBED as the most brilliant man he’d ever met, became disillusioned. After much fear and unrest and deep soul-searching, Bill quietly gave up his beliefs in Joel and left the colony. Before that, he had convinced Hector Spencer, an LDS Mormon bishop, to join the LeBarons and move to their colony. Hector was jubilant realizing that he had been taught the fullness of the gospel. Bill convinced him that the LeBarons had the truth and that Joel stood as God to his people. Therefore, Hector sacrificed everything to join the saints.

  After Hector’s relocation, he decided to visit Bill. He walked the three blocks to where Bill lived, anxious to communicate with his mentor. On the road, he encountered another member. After brief salutations, Hector shared his joy and commitment, expressing his anticipation in seeing Bill, the eloquent man who had converted him.

  The other member shook his head sadly. “Haven’t you heard? Bill left the church.”

  Hector was crestfallen. He felt as though someone had punched out his lights. “Are you sure? I can’t believe it. Bill just converted me and now you say he’s gone?”

  “That’s right . . .”

  Bill sent for his families after he found work and settled in California. Shortly after, he was hospitalized with appendicitis. In spite of excellent care, he died a few days later of peritonitis. When the cult learned of his death, rumors ran rampant throughout the church. Everyone sadly shared the tragic news with one another, but . . . everyone seemed to believe that God had taken Bill’s life because he had given up the truth.

  Within a few short years, every one of the French missionaries left the Church of the Firstborn. Only Dan Jordan clung to the LeBarons’ priesthood claims, but he’d switched his loyalty from Joel to following Ervil, becoming Ervil’s right-hand man in Ervil’s newly founded Church of the Lambs of God.

  When the French missionaries separated themselves from the LeBaron group, I was devastated. Not only were they my friends, but I held them in high esteem. They had attended college and seemed to be self-confident and empowered. It was because of their proselyting that the Church of the Firstborn grew in numbers. Bill Tucker and Bruce Wakeham had tact and finesse, qualities that Ervil and Dan lacked; they had influenced many convents.

  ERVIL’S NEW DRESS CODE was strict. Ladies were required to wear sleeves to their wrists if possible, and their elbows had to be covered at all times.

  My very first altercation over the new code was with Alma. As we approached each other on the gravel road, my voice rang out. “How’s Brother Alma doing this afternoon?” To my amazement he didn’t acknowledge me.

  Instead, he stopped directly in front of me, staring me down. “You know better than to have your elbows showing. How many times have you been told that you must keep them covered?”

  I couldn’t believe this “sin” was even worth mentioning. It actually struck me funny. I laughed as I challenged him. “What’s the big deal about me keeping them covered?”

  “Well,” he said, hoping to educate me, “you may not know it, but a woman’s elbow actually turns a man on.”

  “What the hell’s your problem?” I said disgustedly, wanting to give him shock therapy to prove my point. I immediately bent my arm, deliberately showing my enticing elbow as I shoved it toward his face. He dodged, pulling away from me. Again, I taunted him. “Does this turn you on, Alma?” He backed farther away, as my sexy elbow danced mockingly in his face. “Tell me . . . does it?”

  Alma wouldn’t answer. I’m certain my words punctured his authority and his pride. As I walked away I offered a parting shot: “You make me sick.”

  After my squabble with Alma over my tantalizing elbow, he sent a church elder named Vance to convince me of the error of my ways. Vance followed Alma’s instructions to the letter. Although at times he admitted Alma was a little odd, he upheld his authority without question.

  Surprised to see Vance, I welcomed him inside. His serious countenance gave me a hint that something was amiss. He spoke firmly as he apologized for having to be the one to chastise me. “Alma asked me to see if I could reason with you.” He hesitated, wondering, I’m sure, if I’d rebel against him also. “Irene, you must try to understand Alma. As the bishop, his job is to enforce the rules among our people. He doesn’t like rules any more than you do, but due to the wickedness among us, we need to be strict. Look at it this way. What if you were invited to a birthday party, and the only requirement to attend was to comply with their rules and wear a pink bow in your hair? Wouldn’t you conform in order to go?”

  “No, Vance,” I said, trying not to laugh. “I would stay home from the party.”

  “C’mon, Irene, don’t be so obstinate! What would it hurt for you to wear the pink bow in order to associate with your friends?”

  “Sorry, Vance. I just wouldn’t associate with someone who would impose som
ething so ridiculous.”

  He bristled at my impudence. “Boy, you are defiant! Well,” he said as he rose to his feet, preparing to leave, “I’ll tell you one thing for sure. If you were my wife, I’d force you to wear the pink bow in your hair.” He turned and opened the door.

  “Vance,” I said, knowing I had one over on him, “if I were your wife . . . I would . . . shave . . . my . . . head!”

  The next day, my best friend, Linda Liddiard, and I had a hearty laugh when I told her about the ridiculous incident. “Girl, you are downright spunky!” she said. “It’s about time somebody protested those crazy rules.”

  Laughing, I interrupted her, “I can see Alma now, meeting me in the road with his demands, shaking his finger, pointing at my head. ‘Where is your pink bow?’ ” I giggled. “Imagine him stomping his foot as usual, yelling at me. I can hear him now.” By now my sides ached from laughing so hard. “Can’t you see him demanding one final time that I show him my pink bow? I’d put my hands on my hips—just to annoy him—and say, ‘Alma, I just happen to be wearing the bow in my hair.’ He’d sputter as he yelled, ‘You’re lying. It’s not in your hair; I don’t see your bow.’ Then I’d flash him”—I pointed to my crotch—“and run away, saying, ‘I’m just obeying your orders.’ ”

  Linda was laughing so hard she could barely talk. She gasped for breath and said, “And then you’d tell him, ‘You never said in which hair!’ ”

  I’LL NEVER FORGET THE DAY Vonda White arrived in Colonia LeBaron. She was a Mormon from Stockton, California. She stood out because of her shapely frame and her short, dark hair. When she was converted to the priesthood of the LeBarons, she quietly left her husband and fled to Mexico with their two children. The next time I saw Ervil, he told me to keep quiet and not tell anyone that Vonda was in the colony. He informed me she had been married to a Vietnamese, a heathen who had never understood the gospel. Vonda was afraid her husband would try to find her and take away the children. So, Vonda hid out in an undisclosed home with a promise from Ervil that he would protect her.

  A couple of weeks later, I saw a distraught Asian man, about thirty, sadly walking through the streets of the colony, crying and asking every person he encountered if they had seen his wife, Vonda. When she realized he would not leave until he found her, she decided to confront him. I saw them together talking, but I was told later that he had left, dejected, and without his children.

  Ervil first used Vonda as a pawn. He’d converted a navy man from California who already had a wife and a couple of children. Ervil felt this man needed stability in the new church and a reason to stay in Zion.

  To my surprise, Ervil accompanied Vonda and her future husband to my house, where I witnessed Ervil perform their marriage ceremony. He sealed Vonda to the newcomer for time and all eternity.

  Ervil felt confident that the man would follow in his footsteps and gather many wives. He also felt certain that this man would cough up money every month to help him support his numerous wives and children.

  I never did learn the particulars, but that marriage soon failed. When Ervil heard of the breakup, he immediately received a revelation that Vonda was to be his tenth wife. She acquiesced without hesitation, feeling special that she was found worthy to enter Ervil’s harem.

  She later joined Linda Johnson in San Diego, where the two lived on welfare until Linda found an accounting job. Vonda tended Linda’s and her children while Linda worked to support them.

  Vonda idolized Ervil, considering him a genius and her savior. She was loyal to Ervil’s every whim. Not only was she willing to die for him, but eventually he would convince her to kill for him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  One Friday evening, Nephi dropped by the Big Brown House in Ensenada, Baja California, where I was caring for twenty-six of Verlan’s children while Charlotte and Lucy worked in the States to help support the family. Verlan had built the Big Brown House to accommodate his growing family. Nephi had driven eleven hours from Las Vegas and was thoroughly worn out, but he was determined to still drive the remaining three hours to Los Molinos, the Baja California colony where we would later move.

  He was going down to get a friend, Herman Roper, and his family, then return to Vegas by Monday in time for work.

  One of Nephi’s wives, Dalila, was traveling with him. She was nine months pregnant and completely exhausted from the long trip. She was holding her one-year-old daughter, Maria, who clung to her.

  Nephi wanted me to accompany them to Los Molinos in case Dalila suddenly went into labor, but I just couldn’t leave with all my pressing responsibilities. When they insisted I let my twelve-year-old daughter, Donna, go along to help them with little Maria. But an internal and insistent foreboding seemed to warn me, don’t let Donna go. I usually gave in, doing almost everyone a favor no matter how burdened down I was. But my feeling was so strong that I refused, knowing I couldn’t spare her anyway. They said good-bye, promising they’d drop by on their way back to visit a little longer before going back to Vegas.

  Monday morning, I was outside washing clothes in our rundown Maytag. The wringer was broken, so I was sopping wet all down my front from wringing out clothes by hand. I looked up to see a friend’s car flying over the dirt road west of our house, trailing dust as it entered our yard and screeched to a halt. It was DeWayne Hafen and I just knew he had bad news. I hurried up to him just as he jumped out of his car in the driveway.

  “Is it Verlan?” I asked. “Is Verlan dead?”

  “No, but come quick. I need you! There’s been an accident. It happened last night. It’s Nephi and the Ropers!”

  My heart dropped. I thanked God that I had listened to my heart and not allowed my precious Donna to accompany them to Los Molinos as Nephi had requested. I quickly slipped into clean and dry clothes and grabbed a hairbrush to do my hair on the way. I left Donna and Charlotte’s oldest daughter, Rhea, in charge of the other twenty-four kids until I returned.

  DeWayne said he didn’t know a thing about the details other than that little George Roper was in the hospital. Nephi’s other wife, Oralia, had called DeWayne from Las Vegas, asking him to pick me up. He had driven down from San Diego to Ensenada just to have me go with him to find out what had happened because I spoke Spanish. We decided to go to the mortuary first, thinking we might get more information there than at the hospital.

  I told Mr. Gonzalez, the undertaker, why I was there. He led us down a dimly lit hall, where we walked between stacked coffins of various colors and sizes, into a smelly, dank room. I was shocked when he flipped on the light. There, on the cold cement slabs, lay several uncovered naked bodies.

  I saw little George first. The undertaker informed us that his body had just arrived from the hospital. I could see that he had been operated on from the stitches in the gash that went across his forehead and all the way behind his left ear.

  Dalila’s face was unrecognizable. The only way I knew it was she was by her dark skin, long black hair, and the incision on her abdomen where they’d taken her baby trying to save it. Sadly, the operation had failed, and the baby lay lifeless on the cold slab beside her.

  To our utter dismay we realized that the next table held more of our friends. Rhoda Roper, who was fifteen, and her mother, Cora, were both badly disfigured. As I identified them, Mr. Gonzalez tore wide strips of adhesive tape from the roll, placed the tape on their upper arms, and wrote their names there.

  We were completely devastated. Five dead! I turned to Mr. Gonzalez. “Can you imagine? Five of our people killed!”

  “I’m sorry to tell you this, Señora, but there are two other bodies that may be your friends also.”

  He led us to a large cement sink that was partially filled with water. There in the water was a half-submerged, slumped-over corpse. Mr. Gonzalez pulled back the corpse’s head by the hair as both DeWayne and I took a quick glance. We grimaced, but we were relieved to see it was a total stranger.

  He then led us into still another room. There,
beside stacked caskets, lay a corpse on a stretcher covered with a gray blanket. He unhooked the belt that held the body in place, and pulled back the corner of the blanket to give us a view. For the first time, I started to cry. There lay my friend Nephi. He had a gash in his forehead, and his caved-in chest bore the marks of the steering wheel that had snuffed out his life on impact.

  DeWayne put his arm around my shoulders, comforting me, as I said, “Let’s get out of here. This is too much for me.”

  I knew I had to gain my composure. I’d have to call down to Sonora, Mexico, to tell Nephi’s father, then call Salt Lake City to notify his mother and two sisters.

  I asked Mr. Gonzalez why they hadn’t dressed the bodies. “Oh, you have to bring clothes for all of them. We don’t furnish that.”

  I promised to return as soon as possible. I wanted to make sure that they were all dressed before relatives arrived to see their naked bodies.

  I took Verlan’s only other suit, a white shirt, and his shorts to the morgue for Nephi to be dressed in. I used my children’s clothes for little George and the newborn baby. But having no money other than my weekly allowance, I had to ask for clothes from two other families in our group for the women to be buried in.

  We learned that nine people had been crowded into the small car traveling at high speed when they slammed into a stalled flatbed truck, loaded with produce, that had no taillights or even reflectors on it.

  At the hospital we found Herman Roper, a graying man in his fifties, who was still in a coma. His black-and-blue face was swollen beyond recognition. I felt relieved that he was still unconscious. I dreaded for him to wake up and find out his wife and two children were dead. His two younger daughters, Bevalyn and Theo, miraculously had survived, as had Dalila’s little daughter Maria.

  Later, I took Herman’s daughter Yavona, who had arrived from Utah, to the hospital with me, where she saw her father for the first time since the accident. The nurses told us he’d come out of his coma, and we tiptoed into his room dreading to tell him about his family. I didn’t have the heart to break such devastating news to him, so I had prepared Yavona to relay the information.