by Robert Scott
“Justin even once declared, ‘Satan got a bad rap.’”
Taylor’s role as a prophet was also taking on one more unforeseen and incredible aspect. Dawn recalled, “Taylor believed that the Latter-Day Saints had gone astray. It was twisted. He didn’t agree with some of their principles anymore. I would think and pray about what Taylor said and then decide. Justin didn’t say what he felt.”
According to Dawn, there was a scheme Taylor called Brazil, where Brazilian orphans would be adopted by them. The children would be brought back to the United States and molded into assassins who only followed orders from Taylor. They would be sent on a mission to kidnap the Twelve Apostles of the LDS Church, its president and his two counselors. These men would be forced to contact the media and say that the United States government was behind the kidnapping. Chaos would be created across the United States, especially in Utah. In the midst of the chaos, Taylor would be seen as a unifying force in the Mormon Church. He would be appointed by the kidnapped president of the church, on television, to become the new president of the Mormon faith. Taylor as president, and his counselors, Justin and Dawn, would form the new hierarchy and choose twelve new apostles. The old apostles would be killed, as well as the old president and his two counselors. Such things had to be done, Taylor insisted, to save the world.
Brazil, however, was for the future. Children of Thunder project was to take place within weeks. Taylor relied a lot on Dawn because of her organizational skills. He didn’t believe that Justin had what it took in that capacity. Taylor would constantly test both Dawn and Justin to see if they would follow his orders, no matter how outrageous. Dawn said, “Justin didn’t challenge Taylor on any of his plans. Once war was declared on Satan, Justin was on board.”
It was determined as time went on that the dogs wouldn’t work as a means of disposing human body parts. Taylor, Dawn and Justin had bought soup bones and meat from a deli and tried feeding it to the dogs, but they just wouldn’t eat enough. Blackie and Taser were released at an unknown location near Bay Point, never to be seen again. Jake, however, was retained. Taylor had a hard time giving up his plan to feed some human flesh to the Rottweiler.
Taylor allowed very few visitors to the Saddlewood residence during the inception of Children of Thunder. One of those allowed to come there was Debra McClanahan. She said later, “Taylor allowed me there, but he didn’t fully trust me. I had to complete four things before Taylor said that he would trust me. The first three things were to take all three levels of Harmony. He would tell me what the fourth was later.”
Taylor did open up to her, however, about some of his ideas. He asked her if a great man could become a prophet.
“President Hinckley is a prophet,” she responded.
Taylor said, “He’s just a man, after all.”
Debra recalled, “Taylor never said to me that he was a prophet, and I didn’t think that he was. But I was led to believe that the others thought he might be a prophet. Dawn certainly believed it.
“I did think that Taylor was a seer and a revelator. Someone who has foresight and can see into the bigger picture. He was being spoken to by Spirit. He would just listen as if in a trance. You couldn’t talk when he was in such a state. After the Spirit spoke, he’d point directly at Dawn and say, ‘Get this.’ He wanted to point out how important it was.”
To get closer to Taylor, Debra McClanahan took the first two levels of Harmony in July 2000. The third level was scheduled for September 2000. Taylor let her in on a variation of the schemes he was planning. According to Debra, one scheme was that Taylor would select three young, beautiful, underage girls and take them on a cruise, one by one. Each cruise would be at least five days in duration. He’d teach them everything they needed to know about sex and how to please a man. He’d set them up in an apartment and have a caretaker watch over them and cater to their needs.
In a variation of the plan Dean Witter, the girls would start to work in a sandwich shop and deliver sandwiches and lunch items to stockbrokers at Dean Witter. The girls would come on to young men in the company and take them back to the apartment. They would supply the men with Viagra and ecstasy and have sex with them.
Once they gained the men’s trust, they would “pull sheets.” In effect, they were going to take photos of blue sheets spread all over a bed, so that they could blackmail the brokers. The stocks would fall; the girls would threaten the stockbrokers with blackmail. The girls would also get attorneys to threaten Dean Witter with lawsuits of up to $50 million. Taylor estimated that Dean Witter would settle for $20 million, and he and the girls would accept. The girls would get some money, the lawyer would get some money and Taylor would take the lion’s share. He’d even give a million dollars apiece to the stockbrokers, who had been blackmailed, so they wouldn’t commit suicide.
Of all of this, Debra said, “Oh, wow!” She also added later, “I thought it was just wild talk.”
Debra came up with a wild idea of her own, however. She told Taylor she would meet someone who made adult films and ask $2,000 for being in a movie. She thought she could make $6,000 to $8,000 a week by this means.
Taylor had an unexpected reply, though, especially for someone who had pushed Keri Furman into dancing nude and posing for Playboy. He told Debra, “If you think that’s what you want to do, okay. But is that what you want to be known for?”
Debra discussed the adult-film idea with Justin. He was more enthused about it than Taylor. Justin told her he’d like to film a man and a woman having sex on the hood of a car during rush hour. Justin didn’t say he wanted to be in the movie, but he definitely wanted to film it. He told Debra, “It would be fun.”
Debra related that one time after “intimacy” with Taylor, he put a folder on the bed. It contained a photo of women in lingerie and a questionnaire. She saw that it contained two pages of true and false questions. The questions contained such things as:
There is no difference between right and wrong? T F
There is no such thing as good and evil? T F
Stealing is wrong? T F It depends
Breaking the law is wrong? T F It depends
Murder is wrong? T F It depends
Taylor asked her if she had any problems with the questionnaire. She told him that she didn’t.
Taylor and Dawn wouldn’t let Debra McClanahan in on everything that was happening with Children of Thunder. Debra said of Saddlewood, “They’d often speak to each other in code in my presence.”
Just how touchy Taylor could be, Debra found out one evening at Saddlewood while they were all playing a game of Risk. Dawn got up from the table and it was Debra’s turn. Justin took two cards that he neglected to take during his turn and Taylor told him, “You can’t take two cards. If you do, I’m not playing anymore.”
Justin took his two cards and that was it as far as Taylor was concerned. He got up from the table and refused to play anymore.
There is evidence, though sketchy at best, that Taylor, Dawn and Selina went out on a personal water-craft at Lake Berryessa, and a receipt from that area seems to prove that they did. According to Dawn, “Taylor’s thoughts were that Selina should have some fun before she was killed.”
Taylor wanted a safe kept over at Debra McClanahan’s apartment. Debra said, “Dawn had a portable clothes washer and wanted to sell it, but I didn’t have enough money at the time to buy it. Dawn told me I could have the washer if a safe was stored in my apartment.”
“But you have to leave it in the front room,” Dawn said.
Debra replied, “No, we can leave it in my daughter’s room.
“I didn’t feel good about having that safe in my house. Taylor and Dawn brought it over with the washing machine. Eventually I put the safe in my bedroom in the walk-in closet.”
Debra became aware at some point that Taylor was storing drugs in the safe. These were the drugs he sold at raves. One day Dawn was getting into the safe and Debra’s daughter found a small package of drugs that was left ou
t. Debra was incensed about this, since her daughter could have found the drugs and unwittingly swallowed them. She told Dawn and was very angry. Dawn said that it would never happen again.
Justin knew about the contents of the safe as well. On two occasions, he got the safe, pulled some things out of it and returned it to Debra’s closet.
Interestingly enough, Taylor told Debra McClanahan about Brazil, even though he didn’t trust her in some other areas. According to her, he said, “It’s important to get a plan into action with a board of twelve directors. [He] would set it up as an orphanage of these Brazilian children and all of them would have to go through Harmony. They would all have to owe allegiance to [him]. Justin and Dawn would be below [him] in the hierarchy. And [I] would work for Justin.”
As Children of Thunder moved along, Taylor was becoming more and more manic. He used a lot of meth during this time and talked, on and on, at great length. He also had a short fuse. Once while playing canasta at Saddlewood, Debra discarded a queen, and Dawn said in an offhand remark, “I knew she was going to do that.”
Taylor shouted at her, “That’s a lie! No you didn’t!”
Obviously there was to be only one seer and prophet at Saddlewood Court.
Another time Debra McClanahan was lying on a bed next to Taylor watching a videotape on philosophy. She spoke up during the video and he became very angry because it interrupted his train of thought. He rewound the tape and made her watch the whole thing again from the beginning.
Debra said later, “He would often get upset and angry. He would get up and walk out of a room if you didn’t see things his way. He’d say we didn’t ‘get it.’”
Unexpectedly, Mike Henderson, Justin’s old housemate, was allowed to come to Saddlewood Court by Taylor during the days leading up to the Days of Thunder. Henderson arrived about seven-thirty one evening and had a meal of calzones with Taylor, Justin and Dawn. Henderson said that Taylor was dressed up at the time in a shiny dark outfit and Dawn was dressed up like a gypsy. Only Justin wore regular clothes.
Dawn told Henderson that she was a practicing witch and Taylor said he was a warlock. Then Taylor tried to impress him with a mind-reading trick. Henderson was not terribly impressed, but said later of it, “Hey, whatever floats your boat.”
Taylor wrote in a journal that he was starting a coven. He was inspired to do it so “that the weak may become strong.” He said he would advertise it in a newspaper. It was to be open to all and would honor darkness and light. In a prophetic line, he wrote, “All those who are afraid, let them run now.”
He said the coven would not be about money—it would be about mastering fear. The coven would be filled with ritual, the ritual of darkness and light. There would be a meeting in the daytime and one at night, to honor darkness and light. Then in a side note, he wrote, “Keri is the Lamb, I am What Is.” [Taylor still kept in touch with Keri by phone.]
In another note, he wrote about Spirit and nature. He said that free agency was not a gift from God, but a law of the universe, adding that mankind was all sparks from the same fire. He stressed that no one was a victim of God, and no one was a victim of their mortal nature. He spoke of forces that constantly tugged on us to and fro, and the most difficult thing was to “go the other way.” The farther one went in one direction, the stronger polar force in the opposite direction. He said that so many people wandered around sideways and wondered why they felt so dead. As for him, he said that he got to move Now on his Father’s straight and narrow.
The chart he drew on the next page was anything but straight and narrow. It was a circle called the Medicine Circle. To the east was water and trust and faith. To the south, fire, wisdom, clarity and sight. To the west was earth and strength. And to the north was wind and the straight and narrow.
One thing was a constant in the house on Saddlewood, a need for more and more money to implement Taylor’s grandiose plans. Taylor told Justin to take out another loan, and Justin dutifully complied. On July 21, 2000, Justin went in to a Washington Mutual Savings branch in Concord and applied for a $5,000 loan. A loan specialist there, Steve Trahain, looked at Justin’s credit report and noted that Justin already had a debt of nearly $30,000 in various loans and credit card debts. Trahain turned down Justin’s application for yet another loan.
Taylor tried his luck at getting money from Jeanette Carter. He phoned her in Bay Point and said that he was onto a hot stock deal. If she would let him invest $5,000, he told her he would double her money in two weeks. Carter could hear Justin’s voice in the background saying, “Yes, he’d double it for you.”
According to Dawn Godman, much later, if Jeanette Carter had given Taylor the $5,000, the Children of Thunder would have been called off. Just how long Children of Thunder would have been called off, however, is anybody’s guess. Five thousand dollars was a drop in the bucket when Taylor kept saying it would take at least a million dollars to implement his largest schemes.
Jeanette Carter declined to give Taylor the money, but she did allow him to come out to her five-acre property and fire his pistol. This was probably the 9mm Beretta that Justin had purchased for him. Taylor told Carter, “I have big plans.”
Next door to the Children of Thunder on Saddlewood Court, Kaye Shaman was getting fed up with the dog’s noise. It seemed to be a vicious dog that would jump at the fence when anybody was around. One day the dog got loose from the yard and was roaming the sidewalk. Shaman became so upset, she phoned Tom Cheng, who knew her through his previous tenants.
Shaman’s phone call alerted Cheng to the fact that there were three people living in the rental home on Saddlewood, rather than just one. And they had a dog to boot, which was not part of the contract. Cheng drove by the residence one evening to investigate, but it was getting late and he didn’t knock on the door or look into the backyard. At the time, he had no idea that he was on the Eve of the Children of Thunder.
Taylor, Dawn and Justin got into their premission mode. Taylor had originally picked a target day of Saturday, because most people on his list would be home, but he later changed this to a Sunday. Dawn said of the final plans, “It was Taylor’s call to make. It would be based on old records of stock portfolios and areas that would be safest for us. Based on whether people had a close neighbor or lived close to a freeway. Whether they had a normal routine.
“Taylor wanted the targets to be elderly people, people who’d already lived a long life. He planned to use enough Rohypnol on them so they would just stop breathing.”
Just in case, though, both Taylor and Justin would carry briefcases with pistols, tasers, handcuffs, leg irons and a small blowtorch. The plan was set for the following afternoon of Sunday, July 30, 2000. Taylor’s former client Bob White, of Walnut Creek, was on the top of the list due to his having the largest portfolio, and also the fact that he lived alone.
CHAPTER 6
Days of Thunder
On the morning of July 30, 2000, all three members of Children of Thunder sat in a circle in the home on Saddlewood and prayed. Then they declared war on Satan to the Universe.
In the afternoon, Dawn Godman showed up at Debra McClanahan’s apartment on Ryan Road in Concord. It was a hot day and Debra and her daughter were out by the pool, along with several other people. One of those persons was Alexandra Price, who had known Debra and her daughter for eight months. She saw them at least once a week around the pool area. Price was sitting with Debra and the kids at the pool when a blond heavyset young woman showed up. The arrival of this blonde stuck in Price’s mind because someone in the pool said the word “fuck,” and Debra explained to her young daughter in very graphic and sexual terms what the word meant. Price was taken aback by this.
Price noticed that the blond woman wore a bright large dress that was almost like a mumu. The woman talked with Debra for a short while and then borrowed some keys from Debra. As she turned to go, the blonde said to Debra, “I love you.”
Price may not have known what was going on, but Dawn
Godman certainly did. She told McClanahan at one point, “You’re not going to see Taylor. You’re to buy four adult tickets for X-Men at the movie theater in Pittsburg.”
If McClanahan’s car broke down on the way there, she was to take a cab to the movie theater. She was to see the 8:00 P.M. show. After that, she was to buy four meals at a restaurant and keep the receipt. All of this was to be an alibi for Taylor, Justin and Dawn.
Dawn went into Debra’s apartment and left a $100 bill for the tickets and dinners. Debra surmised it was because Taylor was going to make a drug deal, and she needed to create an alibi for him. She had no idea it was for something much more heinous than that and would include murder.
Later that evening, Debra McClanahan did take her daughter to the movie theater in Pittsburg, and bought four adult tickets rather than just an adult ticket and a child’s ticket. They watched X-Men, as instructed, and then went to Denny’s restaurant in Antioch after the movie. Debra bought four meals in all and kept the receipts.
Even as she did it, she related later, “I was wondering what was going on. What have I done? I knew I was creating an alibi. But I didn’t know why.”
Miles away in Concord, the Day of Thunder was in progress.
Around 1:00 P.M., Dawn bought some handcuffs and leg irons at Not Too Naughty, an adult bookstore in Pleasant Hill. Melissa Mahan, the store clerk, thought it was somewhat strange that Dawn bought a pair of handcuffs that didn’t have a key. Once a person had their hands cuffed, it would be almost impossible to extricate them.
At 4:36 P.M., Mike Walla was working at his store, Cork and Bottle, when a large blond woman walked in and bought a $50 bottle of wine and a $15 bottle of wine, along with two cigars. These weren’t for Dawn, Taylor and Justin. They were a stage prop for Taylor’s scheme that he planned to use at Bob White’s house.
Back at Saddlewood Court, Taylor went over the flowchart with Dawn and Justin of what was to occur later that evening. On the top of the list of potential victims was Bob White. The trio discussed the idea that they would kill up to five people at Bob White’s house if they had to. Then they made sure that the guns and knives were ready for use. Taylor talked of contingency plans in case something went wrong.
