mormon fundamentalism

"A shocking massacre in 2019 sparks a probing investigation into the strange, violent history of a polygamist Mormon outpost in Mexico. A harmless, unassuming caravan of women and children was ambushed by masked gunmen in northern Mexico on November 4, 2019. In a massacre that produced international headlines, nine people were killed and five others gravely injured. The victims were members of the La Mora and LeBaron communities--fundamentalist Mormons whose forebears broke from the LDS Church and settled in Mexico when polygamy was outlawed. In The Colony, the best-selling investigative journalist Sally Denton picks up where initial reporting on the killings left off, and in the process tells the violent history of the LeBaron clan and their homestead, from the first polygamist emigration to Mexico in the 1880s to the LeBarons' internal blood feud in the 1970s to the family's recent alliance with the NXIVM sex cult. Drawing on sources within Colonia LeBaron itself, Denton creates a mesmerizing work of investigative journalism in the tradition of Under the Banner of Heaven and Going Clear"--Provided by the publisher.

At age eighteen, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger: a man thirty-two years older than she was. Merril Jessop already had three wives. As a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FCLD), Carolyn had no choice but to obey. Over the next fifteen years, Carolyn had eight children and withstood her husband's psychological abuse and the watchful eyes of his other wives, who were locked into a constant battle for supremacy. Miserable for years, Carolyn wanted out, but she knew if she got caught her children would be taken away from her. In 2003, Carolyn finally chose freedom over fear and fled with her eight children. She had $20 to her name. She successfully escaped, survived, and became the first woman ever granted full custody of her children in a contested suit involving the FCLD. In 2006, her reports to the Utah attorney general on church abuses joined others and formed a crucial part of the case that led to leader Warren Jeffs' arrest, conviction and sentence to prison.

Presents an account of the 1984 murder of Brenda Lafferty and her fifteen-month-old daughter Erica by Mormon Fundamentalists Ron and Dan Lafferty, brothers to the victims' husband and father who claim they were acting on an order directly from God, and provides insights into Mormon Fundamentalists and other extremist belief systems.

The author provides an account of her experiences as a member of a fundamentalist Mormon sect and the sixth wife, at age fifteen, of one of the group's leaders, providing insights into why people choose to be part of polygamist families, and why she decided to break from the group.

Carolyn Jessop recounts her involvement in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which forced her to become the fourth wife of a fifty-year-old man before she managed to escape and expose the group and its practices, leading to the arrest of their notorious leader, Warren Jeffs.

The author, nephew of Warren Jeffs, the imprisoned leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, provides an inside account of what it was like to grow up in the prophet's compound, and shares his personal story of the challenges he faced after being expelled from the sect and forced out into a world he knew nothing about.

Presents an account of the 1984 murder of Brenda Lafferty and her fifteen-month-old daughter Erica by Mormon Fundamentalists Ron and Dan Lafferty, brothers to the victims' husband and father who claim they were acting on an order directly from God, and provides insights into Mormon Fundamentalists and other extremist belief systems.