All language subtitles for Daughters.of.the.Cult.S01E03.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH

The Mexican authorities

conduct this raid
to get Ervil.

They find Rena Chynoweth and,
weirdly enough, Daniel Jordan.

They're arrested.

They have Rena Chynoweth
in a prison cell.

And apparently,
Rena is taunting them.

- By the time
the Mexican authorities

realize their mistake,

they go back, and of course,
Ervil's long gone.

It's just a stunning failure
for law enforcement.

If you believe in the
One Mighty and Strong idea,

well, Ervil seems to be
the living embodiment of it.

Ervil is a dangerous,
unhinged prophet.

He's been connected
to at least nine murders.

But Ervil wasn't
gonna stop there.

He was capable
of killing anyone.

- Ervil is as dangerous
as any man alive

and won't stop until he wipes
out all rival polygamists.

- Everyone's on edge

because Ervil
is still out there.

- They caught Dan
in that apartment

because Dan was
pretending to be Ervil.

Yes.

They thought he was Ervil.
- I was there too.

And I was there, and--
Yes.

- So what do you remember
about it?

- I remember sleeping,
and somebody comes

and starts pounding
on the door really hard.

And I woke up
in the middle of the night

and walked over to the door
and opened it.

And, uh, I remember them,
like, hitting people.

This is my first time
I had been in a--in a house

when it was raided.

Gotta be about six years old.

And that memory of me
opening that door...

Just haunted me
for just years and years.

In my child brain,
I extrapolated

that I was responsible.

This one's a tough one.

- Besides opening the door,

what do you
remember about that?

- I remember
they were pretty brutal.

The--I guess
they were Federales.

- They were
ransacking the house

and taking whatever they
wanted of our belongings.

It was very frightening
for a nine-year-old child--

and Hyrum is six---

to watch these events unfold
right in front of our eyes.

Very violent things
were happening around me.

They did whatever they wanted,
and they knew they could.

After Rena and Dan are
arrested, the Federales left.

The apartment was ransacked.

The next thing we know,
Hyrum and I

are being whisked out the door

with another member
of the cult.

We had no idea
where we were going.

We just drove
for a long, long time.

We get to this
little tiny apartment.

The door opens.

And it's Ramona.

And after so long of being

just mistreated
the way we were

and finding her,
and her embracing me,

she was such a safe haven.

We had no idea
that Ramona was also wanted

for the murder of Rulon Allred,
along with Rena.

- Allred, leader of a group
of thousands of polygamists

in Utah and surrounding states,

was killed
in a hail of gunfire.

Ramona Marston
jumped bail and disappeared,

accused of murder and
conspiracy to commit murder.

- Ramona never talked
about Rena or my father.

The last I heard about Rena

was when she had been
arrested in the raid.

- The Feds want Rena Chynoweth

extradited to the United States
immediately.

They wanna lock her up.

So the Mexican authorities
take her straight to Laredo

to get her across the border.

- They get Rena to the border.

And then just like
you see in the movies...

The FBI agents are waiting for
her there on the other side.

- The FBI today
arrested a key suspect,

20-year-old Rena Chynoweth
at the International Bridge

in Laredo, Texas.

Chynoweth is charged
with first-degree murder

and conspiracy to murder
in the Allred case.

Authorities have
described the killing

as a religious assassination

ordered by the fanatic
Ervil LeBaron,

the leader
of a rival polygamist cult.

More and more people
are looking for Ervil.

They start putting up
wanted posters.

He has to go
further into hiding.

And he's running for his life.

- I did not realize
that Rena was on trial

for the murder of Rulon Allred.

At the time, I lived with
Mark and Lillian in Mexico.

Lillian was our
older half-sister,

and Mark was Rena's brother.

Mark and Lillian were devoted

and very much in love
with each other.

Their love story
was a very sweet, tender one.

Mark was one of the very
few men in our lives

who set a really good example
of treating your wife

with respect and treating
young teenage girls

not as potential wives,
but as young girls

that needed to be brought up.

- Police suspect Mark Chynoweth

for being the triggerman
for the cult.

Mark was involved
in multiple murders

and the Los Molinos raid,

where Ervil's followers
killed two people

and shot many others.

- This is nothing
Mark would have ever done

if it would have been
of his own free will.

It was purely brainwashing
and indoctrination

and fear and the power
that was held over him.

Mark and Lillian were true
believers of Ervil LeBaron.

Whatever our father asked,

Mark and Lillian obeyed.

They were there to establish
the Kingdom of God on Earth.

Shortly after the raid,

Mark and Lillian began
packing up their things.

And we were
going to move again.

And Lillian seemed upset
and distressed about having--

not knowing where she's going.

Eventually,
we arrived to the U.S. border.

I didn't know
what was going on with her,

but she was not happy
with what was happening.

Mark got out of the car.

He told the Border Patrol
who he was...

And that he was wanted
for questioning

for the murder of Rulon Allred.

And so they took him
into custody.

He's in handcuffs.

Before I could really even
register what was happening...

Mark put on a bright smile

and was waving with the hands
in handcuffs behind him

to make sure that
we didn't get the impression

that anything bad
was happening.

So I was very, very confused.

He was turning himself in

so that he could testify
on Rena's behalf.

He was such a true,
strong believer

that he was willing
to turn himself in

because he knew
God would prevail.

- Murder case investigators say

is the longest-running,
most expensive in Utah history

began nearly two years ago
with the shooting death

of polygamist leader
Dr. Rulon Allred.

The investigation led
to rival polygamist

cult leader Ervil LeBaron.

LeBaron is still a fugitive,

but some of his followers
have been captured

and will stand trial.

Police believe
on his orders,

Rena Chynoweth,
his 20-year-old wife,

and Ramona Marston, his
stepdaughter, killed Allred,

aided by Rena's brothers,
Mark and Victor Chynoweth,

and Ramona's brother,
Eddie Marston.

- After my father's murder
and funeral,

we began hearing reports
that some of Ervil's followers

had been arrested.

But I want them to get Ervil.

Just moments ago,
a woman who's said to be

one of the 13 wives
of Ervil LeBaron

was bound over for trial in
the murder of Dr. Rulon Allred.

During the trial
for Rulon Allred,

people feared Ervil,
feared what he was capable of.

- Some of the police involved,
some of the investigators,

prosecutors
had received threats.

There was FBI coverage,
security.

It was a very tense scene.

Assistant County
Attorney David Yocom

says he doesn't rule out
the possibility of violence.

- There will be, uh,
guards on the door,

and, uh, the court
has ordered that, uh,

there be close security
in the trial.

The leader was still out there.

We feared that Ervil
ordered them

to kill any number
of our witnesses.

Ervil's executions
had been very bold,

and so it had everyone asking
if he would be bold enough

to attack the courtroom.

Even though Ervil
isn't on trial,

his presence
is looming everywhere.

- During the trial, I was
living with Ramona in Mexico.

Ramona never mentioned anything

about the trial
that was happening.

- I was already back
in the U.S.

It was always explained to me

that God would look out
for them,

that they would surely
be found innocent,

and that we could expect them
to come home.

Although
four people were on trial,

everyone was focused
on the triggerwoman, Rena.

The jury was made up
of mostly women.

Rena's lawyers knew this.

Rena was a young,
pregnant plural wife

victimized by this bad guy.

- Rena got on the stand
and said she had never heard

of Dr. Allred before.

She didn't know anything about
the murder until afterward.

- It was hard to figure out
what role she had played in it.

- But I knew she was
the cold-blooded killer.

Difficult to cross-examine
someone like that.

You just want to tear into 'em
and rip 'em apart.

But you can't.
You can't do that.

- People in Ervil's group
are paying attention

to how this is
being reported on TV.

New threats start coming in.

One juror
had told the bailiff

that he was frightened.

He had thought people
were following him,

which, to me, meant this juror

was being intimidated
indirectly.

It's up to the jury in what
they call a penalty phase

of the case
to determine the penalty,

and there's only two choices.

One, death,
which is a possibility,

as well as the other one,
life imprisonment.

- The jury deliberates
for only four hours.

They come out.

And before they
read the verdict...

The judge tells the courtroom,
"I will have no outbursts."

And they find Rena Chynoweth...

Not guilty.

Rena, Mark Chynoweth,
Victor Chynoweth,

and Eddie Marston
were all acquitted.

- The jury couldn't convict
Rena for several reasons.

First, no witnesses
could positively ID her.

And second,
Rena appeared to be a victim

under Ervil's control.

But there were other theories
as well, like intimidation.

- How did they all get off?

I had no idea
how that could have happened.

This cult was a
big threat to a lot of people,

and it only takes
one juror to acquit.

- I really don't remember
Rulon Allred's trial.

But I remember
when it was done,

they came back and said
that Rena had been acquitted.

And that was, like,
a huge relief.

We gave all the credit
to God for that.

The result of Rena's trial

isn't just the heartache
of Rulon Allred's family

and their injustice.
It has ripple effects.

Once Rena was acquitted,
Ramona Marston

was never convicted
for the crime.

And then there's Dan Jordan
down in Mexico.

Jordan was held
in jail in Ensenada, Mexico.

- I don't believe I'll have
any statement

to make at this time.

I do thank you for coming.

Uh, thank you
for your attention.

- Dan is let off as well.

Mr. Jordan,
are you surprised?

- I won't have any comments
to make at this time.

Thank you very much.

Another
one of Ervil's followers

gets off the hook.

Justice is undone.

Ervil gets away with it again.

- After Rena
was acquitted in 1979,

we all returned to Colorado.

I was so happy to be reunited
with Celia...

- Yeah!
- My mom, my family, um.

But Dan Jordan also returned
to Colorado at that time.

My father, Ervil, was, uh,
hiding out in Mexico,

so Dan Jordan was the one
who was in charge.

So we're working
in the appliance store.

And Dan comes in one day.

He has this big announcement.

Dan is like, "If you guys will
work hard all summer long,

"at the end of the summer,
each of you

will get $50
to buy new school clothes."

- There were times when,
20 children in a home,

they were given food money
of $20 a week.

So $50 for us was a lot
of money in our minds.

- I mean,
it was astronomical.

And so guess what we did?

We did. We worked so hard.

We worked really hard.

All summer long.

Six days a week, 12 hour days.

And we're gonna get our $50.

The Saturday before school
is supposed to start,

I'm like, uh, where is the $50?

Like, we're supposed to be
able to, like, go shopping.

And then it's like, oh, no,

there's not enough money
for that.

And that was that.

Inside, I'm going,

"Uh, no.
Uh, I earned that money.

You said you would
give it to me."

And then in walks
Dan's daughters.

And they have on new clothes.

And I just could not
believe my eyes...

that we were the ones
who worked

our asses off all summer long.

This was the moment
when there was a little bit

of a shift inside of me.

There was no amount
of suppressing the emotion

and the...
The anger.

And this began
to fester inside,

and there was no
making it go away.

Ervil's still
on the 10 Most Wanted list.

They know he's probably
spending most of his time

down in Mexico.

- Ervil was down in this small

little rural town
called Atlixco, Mexico.

Law enforcement
is hundreds of miles away.

But locals know he's there.

And so now this idea
that this little cult

has moved to this
remote village

starts to worry people.

And you have to remember
that just a year before,

the Jonestown Massacre
had happened.

900 people
from the People's Temple,

this sort of religious group,
commit mass suicide.

Mexican law enforcement
start thinking,

"Is Ervil LeBaron's group
gonna do the same thing?"

They don't want another
Jonestown on their hands.

So they decide
to do something about it.

- Probably the Mexican
authorities has just

reached a point where
they were fed up with him.

He had--he'd probably made
a lot of local enemies.

They raid where Ervil
was living, beat him up.

Supposedly,
he had resisted arrest

when the Federales
came in on him.

And they send Ervil across,
dumped him across the border,

same bridge that Rena Chynoweth
walked across at Laredo...

And handed him over
to American authorities.

- Finally,
after almost a decade

of murder, death, and terror,

Ervil LeBaron is arrested.

Ervil LeBaron, polygamist,

religious cult leader,

self-proclaimed prophet
of God.

Finally, yesterday, he was
arrested in Mexico City

and today walked across the
International Bridge at Laredo

and turned over
to American authorities.

He's claimed he has the right
to kill anyone he wishes

upon orders from God.

He's expected
to be returned to Utah

to stand trial for murder.

- American law enforcement
people are waiting for him.

They wanna try
to get Ervil to talk.

And Ervil being Ervil,
says, "Yeah, I'll talk to you."

And Ervil LeBaron talks
for the next five hours.

Here's a guy who claims
to be the prophet,

all need to bow down to him.

At one point, he claims
he's the legitimate

president of the United States.

So in a lot of ways,
it seems quite crazy.

And yet when the police
start to push

towards the murder
of Rulon Allred,

he's smart enough
to know to not touch it.

Ervil will not say anything
incriminating.

We were shocked
when Ervil got arrested.

Because we--we were like,
what happened?

Did--did God fall down
on the job?

It's like we never thought
things like that would happen

because we were so faithful.

- We were not told
what was going on.

But sometimes we learn things
through family prayers

and church prayers
and stuff like that.

Sometimes in those prayers,
you would--

there was a common theme
of like, oh,

help Ervil to get out
of jail soon, and...

So I was like,
oh, I know he's in jail

because I heard it
in the prayers,

we're asking for him
to get out of jail.

I remember
seeing a picture of him

from his arrest
in Ensenada, Mexico.

His arms are behind
his back in handcuffs,

and he was being flown from
one Mexican state to another.

It was the only picture
I ever had of my father.

- In 1980,
the trial for Ervil LeBaron

begins in Salt Lake City.

Ervil ends up
with a public defender.

When I first realized

I was going to see
Ervil LeBaron,

I was very, uh, uncertain
about what he was like.

I remember someone saying
he had these deep-set eyes

that looked evil.

I said, well, Evil Ervil,
that fits.

Back in those days,
we would meet person to person,

uh, just across the table,
uh, no guards in there.

And when he came in,
he had, uh, scriptures,

and he had an armful
of notebooks and pencils.

And his hair was disheveled.

- Here you have Ervil LeBaron

being defended
by a public defender.

He's still confident
in the midst of all of this.

He really thought that
he was the prophet of God

and that God would protect him.

- We knew going in
that there was no indication

that Mr. LeBaron
was actually present

at the death of Rulon Allred.

And so we sort of
felt the state would have

a hard time convincing people
that he put others up to it.

- This time around,
I had the man

that everybody feared.

I was at the trial.

And I remember Ervil
picking up--me up

in the audience with his eyes.

- Oh.

- And we stared at each other
for two minutes.

I just felt
this kind of radiant--

Like a laser.

Radiant,
crazy hate in that stare.

They called him
Mormon Manson

'cause Manson was commonly
perceived, of course,

as a monster and a madman.

So we tried to present,
this isn't such a person.

And we did that with just
a very few witnesses.

We tried to humanize him
as best we could

without him testifying
in front of the jury.

I called
40-something witnesses,

including one key witness,

and that was Isaac LeBaron.

- Isaac LeBaron,
one of Ervil's children,

the prosecution's star witness

who had been
in the planning sessions

for the Allred murder and had
been raised in the cult.

He had come in to testify
against his father.

But he was scared.

- What he was afraid of
is the fact

that people that
went against Ervil

would be considered traitors.

And the punishment
for traitors was death.

- There are real
courageous heroes,

like Isaac LeBaron,

who stood
against his own father.

He spoke quietly and directly,

and he would sometimes look
at his dad and then look down.

Even if you know your parent
is evil, it's still your dad.

His own father
had abused him mentally,

physically for years.

I can't even believe
what Isaac had to go through

to be courageous and to speak
the truth that day.

- Isaac's testimony was--
was important for the state,

and it was a surprise
to Ervil that his son Isaac

would testify against him.

This guy
who killed my father

needed to be found guilty.

He should be held accountable,
and he should be dealt with.

- When the jury came back
in three hours...

I immediately felt, well,

this may be
one of those good cases.

After a decade
of getting away with murder...

Ervil LeBaron is found guilty

of first-degree murder

and conspiracy to commit
murder against Rulon Allred.

- Good.
That's what should happen.

I felt relieved that Ervil
had been found guilty

and would face
those consequences.

How glad we all were that
this chapter of our lives

could be partly closed.

- Ervil is sentenced
to life in prison.

- We were told
he went to trial,

that everything would be fine
because God would protect him.

And so when he
was found guilty,

I thought it was just Satan
basically trying us.

When
Ervil is put behind bars,

there's a collective sigh
of relief around the country.

Finally, they got this guy
who has scared everyone

for almost a decade.

But people don't
realize that putting

a man like this in prison
doesn't stop his following.

When he's in prison,

his revelations
take a new form.

They get darker and more
extreme and more deadly.

Every time I saw him, almost,

he would want yellow pads
and pencils constantly.

Just--just gross
of pads and pencils.

And he would have
four or five of them

completely full of writing.

And he would say, well,
this is what

I've been working on
since I saw you Tuesday.

The jailers would say, yeah,
he'll stay up all night

and just be bent over
his table writing.

The whole night,
literally the whole night.

- He's still being visited
by some of his wives,

some of his followers.

Kind of among his followers,
most notably, uh,

Mark Chynoweth
comes to see him often.

And Mark Chynoweth
and the wives

are taking Ervil's writings,

kind of sneaking them
out of prison.

- And when
you read his writings,

you would understand that
these are not the writings

of a man who is
in his right mind.

- We didn't know that
our father was mentally ill

for all his whole life.

It wasn't until our father
had been in prison

and we began to notice--
or the adults began to notice

that his revelations
and his orders

were becoming more
and more bizarre.

And more and more violent.

- His writings, Ervil had
ordered his followers

to come bust him out
of maximum security prison

with guns a-blazing.

And all of the adults
who knew about this

knew it was a suicide mission.

- It's almost like
the--the kind of spell

has been broken for a lot
of people in the cult.

Sanity starts
to kind of seep in.

But what
they didn't realize was,

some of his followers weren't
pulling away from the cult.

- Our father's mental illness
and all those--

all those revelations
that he was writing

in his prison cell,

it fractured
the whole organization,

which was already terrible
and violent,

but it made it
even more violent.

- He lost complete control.
Yeah, that makes sense.

- And then everyone else
wouldn't come

and bust him out of prison.

That's what he had ordered them
to do, and they wouldn't.

But the other difference, too,
is that a lot of these adults

had also gone to trial
and been in court

and gone to jail for stuff,

and some of them
were acquitted, of course.

So I think that going to jail,
having convictions,

and people experiencing
the consequences

of what they were doing, like,
was like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

- That probably didn't hurt.
- No. That did not.

- No? You don't think?
You don't think?

- Anna, it was
the tone of the output.

It was the tone
of his revelations.

It was the tone of his letters.

It was the tone of his demands
that they knew

he was no longer
in his right mind.

That's when Dan
and everybody said,

ooh, we can't
follow all of that.

- Dan, the reason
he wouldn't follow Ervil

is 'cause he could tell
by the letters

that he was writing
and stuff, that he was crazy.

He had men--Mom--even Mom
wouldn't follow him.

- But here's the thing,
these revelations that

they're saying was crazy,
when Ervil was having

those revelations before,
they didn't seem crazy to Dan.

Right.

They were actually
carrying them out.

- But that was
a long time ago.

- I'm just trying
to establish that--

That they became
very much more incoherent.

I agree.

- Most of the adults

could sense the difference.

So they continued to follow it.
- You are absolutely right.

You are right.

Dan Jordan and Mark Chynoweth
refused

to carry out
my father's orders.

Ervil called down vengeance
from on high

on anyone who wouldn't
obey his orders.

And that caused him
to see them as the ones

that needed to be taken out,
those ones that needed to be

blood atoned because they were
not following his orders.

It was Sunday morning.

I had gotten ready for church.

I pick up the receiver,
but before I can say hello...

I realize that my mom had
already answered the phone.

And I hear Dan Jordan
on the phone

giving my mom the news

that Ervil
had been found dead...

In his prison cell.

I was shocked.

I couldn't believe it.

I could hear my mom
could not believe

that Ervil LeBaron was dead.

She fully expected him
to get out of prison,

not die in prison.

He was God's prophet.

God's prophet wasn't gonna die.

I just had memories
of my dad when I was little

of us running to him
when he came to visit,

jiggling us down his back
like he's a big slide,

and when he used
to have that warm,

comforting relationship
with us.

And I just thought to myself,
that will never happen again.

I think I always had
that hope in my heart

that I would have a
relationship with my father.

But looking back now,
I realized I was more crying

for the father I never had.

This is the
maximum security cell

Ervil LeBaron
lived and died in.

There was no evidence
of foul play or suicide.

Everything seemed to point
to natural causes.

The daughter of the man
he was convicted of killing

said his death
alone in a jail cell

was a fitting end.

- As if the story doesn't have
enough wild twists and turns,

how Ervil died
is still a little disputed.

The official cause of death
by the coroner is heart attack.

But there are some other things
going around at the time.

My immediate reaction was,

there's foul play involved.
Someone had this done.

I didn't know who.
I didn't know why.

I didn't know how.

I have no evidence
that that's true.

But he did not seem
suicidal to me.

He was what, 56 or something?
He wasn't very old.

That's unusual to have a heart
attack at that age, I thought.

With Ervil's death in 1981,

Ervil has now passed
from the scene.

But what they're
kind of forgetting,

or maybe don't know,
is that Ervil's writings,

which Ervil wrote in prison,
that's out there.

- All these documents
eventually did

make their way
out of the prison,

and then they were
compiled into a book

that is referred to as
The Book of the New Covenant.

- A lot of
insane-sounding rants, uh,

with a lot of violence
included in them

and a lot of death threats.

Before his death in prison,

Ervil wanted to get revenge
against anyone

who had turned against him.

And so Ervil uses this to say,

"These people should be
destroyed."

This list includes
enemies of Ervil,

followers of Ervil,
friends and family of Ervil.

And it becomes, essentially,
a hit list for all his enemies.

- Over 50 people,
Ervil had marked for death.

The open question was,
was somebody gonna

take that list
and start acting on it?

The Book of the New Covenant

was something that
was only embraced

and believed in by a handful
of Ervil's followers.

There were a group
of Ervil's teenage children

that had been born
and raised to believe

he was a prophet,
who remained loyal to him,

even while he was in prison.

They were isolated,
alone in Mexico,

and it got into their hands,

and they continued
to follow it.

This group became known as the
KOG, or the Kingdom of God.

They'd been taught
horrible things,

abused and neglected
and brainwashed

their entire lives from birth.

They believed
that what Ervil had written

was exactly what
they needed to follow

in order to usher in the
Kingdom of God here on Earth.

This was an incredibly
fearful time.

It became
even more dangerous

to belong to our cult.

These are teenagers with guns.

This list
is a ticking time bomb,

ready to explode
chaos and pain.

It's almost as if Ervil's voice

is coming
from beyond the grave.

- It's not a matter of if
the killings are gonna go on,

but just simply when.