Kingston is a member of the Order, the largest Mormon polygamist clan in the U.S. When this got around to his dad, his father packed up Snows belongings and left them in the room of a hotel owned by The Order. The familys dedication to the principle of polygamy already had been established by Kingstons father, who had three wives. 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. It was a grimy, derelict-looking place. 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 . Ron Tucker went so far as to call his former brethren white supremacists, and ten times more racist than your run-of-the-mill skinhead. Former Order members tell of babies being born nearly every week in the church. I love the Order. The FLDS started out as a few fringe families in the late 1890s; as more seeking to follow the principal of plural marriage moved to the polygamous towns in the early-to-mid 20th century, the gene pool grew, but by the 90s, under the stricter control of prophet Rulon Jeffs (Warren's father), they were tightening up and selectively marrying and breeding in a sort of misfired eugenics experiment that ultimately yielded its own genetic disorder: fumarase deficiency (FD), otherwise known as Polygamist Down's. I think it scared them.. But within the Order, where drinking soda pop was against the rules, it was a pretty big deal.. His face was crushed, Stephen says now, matter-of-factly, his eyes going blank for a moment. I could see that the leaders of The Order really did believe we had black ancestors, Ron explained, with Christy next to him, and his adult daughters Emily and Julie nearby. The polygamous town facing genetic disaster - BBC Future. The most common birth defects for children born of close cousins, anywhere, are: harelip, cleft palate, clubfoot, and certain forms of heart valve conditions. "You have to either accept" the responsibility of caring for so many children with major healthcare needs "or let it destroy you," says this man, whose wife recently suffered a stroke. Advance Copy and Printing: Since 2017-$62,450. Young told Intelligence Report that his company has sold weapons, with the approval of the U.S. State Department, to governments in Europe and the Middle East, Saudi Arabia being one. These days Stephen works on a cattle ranch near the Idaho border, just down the road from where he grew up. But he hopes that one day his family will be able to forgive him for leaving them behind. The Intelligence Report is the SPLC's award-winning magazine. The adult residents of Short Creek todayboth those still in the FLDS and those who have left the cultare mostly able-bodied, seemingly healthy individuals. This is all compounded by the split between the FLDS and an offshoot group of polygamists that moved to nearby Centennial Park following a disagreement over how the community should be governed, and by whom). Then, moving quickly, the boy at the door let himself in and got to work. Nearby homes. My mom was never the same. The battle took place in the spiritual pre-existence that Mormons believe all souls come from. The roof sagged, the carpet was worn, and the place reeked of cheap cologne. . They maintain a secretive but powerful presence in Utah's Salt Lake Valley, and their estimated 7,500. He was usually off visiting one of his 30 or so wives, or checking on one of the clans many businesses, or in a backroom getting his muscles rubbed in preparation for one of his painful, 40-day fasts, a purification ritual that he endured in order to get closer to God. 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. Jonathan Turner, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Riverside, hypothesized exactly that, in an article published by the ABC news network in 2008. Some would say that is because it takes generations for certain inbred recessive genetic traits to manifest. "There are times when it has gotten kind of gross, like when they marry an uncle to a niece," she continues. The FLDS believe they are practicing the one true religion as Prophet Joseph Smith intended it to be. And the graveyard grew exponentially.". "I'm like, Really? The issue is available now on newsstands and in the digital archive. WREs influence earned special scrutiny in February 2016 after the IRS, the EPA and other government agencies raided owner Jacob Kingstons house as well as The Orders bank and other locations, carting away bankers box after bankers box of records. 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. I am in love with old cars and horses. But Dawna disagrees: "I think it was actually, you know." The fact that most of the people in the Kingston clan were born into the lifestyle is very key to group think because this is all they know, and some may never question the beliefs even when they age because it has been their whole world all their life. (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. The son of the clans prophet, Knight, then 18, had once seemed destined for a leadership role within the Order. According to historian Brian Hales Modern Polygamy and Mormon Fundamentalism: The Generations After the Manifesto, Brother Elden, as he was also known, had five wives and 17 children. Ive lived a good life. Sometimes, lying in bed at night, he thinks of his brother who died not far from here, and the rest of his siblings who remain in the Order. Blacks were the less valiant people in heaven who sat on the sidelines while others took sides, according to The Order. If you knew where to look and the Knight boys did it was easy to find. In his teens, Stephen and five of his half brothers stole $4,000 from their father. NBA 'Investigating,' Team Suspends Ja Morant After Allegedly Flashing Gun on Social Media To deaden his feelings of isolation, he started smoking a lot of pot and sitting around the house all day listening to country music. Paul was upset any of this had been reported at all, says a former member close to the boys. In the polygamist cult of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, cousins were encouraged to marry in order to preserve certain bloodlines. Fumarase deficiency (FD) is an autosomal metabolic recessive disorder, meaning it is necessary for an individual with the condition to receive the mutant allele from both parents. Still stunned at the sudden loss of their brother, Stephen and his siblings were numb with grief. What were taught is to love our neighbor, that all people, all races no matter who they are deserve to be loved, he explained. There are also accounts of dead babies being buried at the Holy Spot, a tree-shrouded patch of land across the street from a grade school in Bountiful, just north of Salt Lake City. It empowered Stephen before that, no one had ever stood up to Daniel Kingston or any of them, says a former member. No evidence directly linked him to the missing gold or silver, but his father was convinced he had played a part in the thefts. Concentrated in Salt Lake City, its 10,000 members control more. Just under eight miles southeast of Short Creek is an area called Cane Beds, Arizona. His followers erected a crude stone cross nearby in his honor, covered with inscriptions of the letter K (for Kingdom or Kingston). When Stephen was a boy, the clan would gather for the New Year in a warehouse in the city for its annual ritual: the numbering of the men. They also knew that much of the clans wealth was stashed inside the unassuming suburban house on the corner. But by 2006, Dr. Theodore Tarby, of Arizona, had discovered at least 20 more children living with the condition in Short Creek, all within just blocks of each other. 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. His most bizarre beliefs, though, concerned the occult. 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. She also had a child with a clubfoot, and I think probably half of her children had respiratory problems when they were babies, because they were so related.". Theyre basically the Utah Mafioso of the white power world, Browning told Intelligence Report. Okay, I have one legal wife, he said. Wed sleep on the chicken coop in the summer and shoot raccoons. As he grew older, Stephen turned out to be as rebellious as his own father had been as a boy. The Order stays as far away as possible from police, and this was like inviting them in your front door., With its vast wealth suddenly exposed to public view, the clan moved quickly to hush up the scandal. Stephen didnt know what the law said he only knew that the people he loved were being abused and exploited by his own father. Many of the souls interred here lived not longer than a day, some just two days, two weeks, or two years. He mandated that children should drink tea brewed from the herb every morning, and that Order members should feed it to their cows. Two teenage boys had been spotted entering Rachel Youngs home. Stephen calmly waited until his uncle got close, and then he reached behind the seat and pulled out a shotgun, leveling it at his uncle. It's the kids who are disproportionately handicapped as compared to the demographics of any other comparably small town. And another one of her sisters married one of my half-brothers, but we have the same blood and genetics because our moms are full sisters." Spokesmen for both the U.S. State Department and for Picatinny Arsenal could neither verify nor deny Youngs claims. Accounts of clan babies being born with congenital defects and other problems abound, including dwarfism, albinism and children born minus fingernails or without genitals. When one of his favorite wives died, he missed her so much that he dug her up from her grave. By the time he was 30, he would have more than 10. Premier Catering: Since 2017- $1,180,000. Future Planet. The grift was exposed decades later, in the 1980s, when the clan paid a $350,000 settlement for swindling the government through welfare fraud. Snow also remembered being taught end-time prophecies, with a cleansing wherein the streets of Salt Lake City would run red with blood. Paul would rather have the wealth and the money than the isolation and the conflict, he said. Those who did not make it into the UO were separated from their families, placed in patchwork homes of other UO "orphans," and told to repent. When it comes to racist Sunday school lessons, the polygamous Kingston clan could teach the Ku Klux Klan a thing or two. If gay men stay in the closet, they are allowed to remain in the cult as worker bees.. But the constant fear has subsided. She explained that they weren't supposed to know who their dad was, only her . Kiki Kannibal: The Girl Who Played With Fire. According to experts and former Jeffs followers, the cause of the birth defect is clear: Intermarriage among close relatives is producing children who have two copies of a recessive gene for a debilitating condition called Fumarase Deficiency. 3 bd 2 ba 1.6k sqft. Allison, a 17 year-old ex-Kingston member says not much has changed since Lu Anns day. If they are money-laundering or making money in support of polygamy and incest, then they probably meet the statute.. The two groups split when Dawna was growing up. UFC 285 Live Stream: How to Watch Jones vs. Gane Online From a young age, Snow worked for Order companies to help feed his siblings, a responsibility some Kingston men are known to shirk. They are paid not in cash but in scrip, an arcane form of credit used by the Mormon pioneers that can only be redeemed at company stores. Is it a requirement to gain the highest levels of heaven? Boys as young as 14 labored in the workshop. After the chest of gold was stolen, suspicion among the clans leadership immediately fell on a group of rebellious teenagers who had left the cult a few years before. Black people supposedly suffered from multiple scriptural curses, from the mark of Cain and Noahs curse on Ham in the Old Testament to the racist tenets of early Mormonism that have since been renounced or abandoned by the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the LDS or Mormon church. A rare neurological disorder characterized by water on the brain, muscular stiffness, adducted thumbs and aphasia, x-linked hydrocephalus is expressed only in men and carried by women. These specialty firearms can cost anywhere from $2,500 to $8,000 each. Another of the cults teachings was that soy can make you gay, an anti-government conspiracy theory popular in some right-wing circles. Those in the Order, Kingston preached, are responsible for building a master race, which is why all marriages are arranged within the original four families that started the cult. If the Order doesnt have it, the clan teaches, we dont need it., Editors picks 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 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. eu . Two are nieces. Copyright 2023 Penske Business Media, LLC. Her parents and siblings eventually left as well. The Kingstons operate in a self-contained universe, completely cut off from the outside world. Thats what happened with Ron Tuckers family. According to former members of the Order, decades of inbreeding have resulted in rampant birth defects throughout the family. Read more: Women Who Escaped a Polygamist Mormon Cult Share Their Story. 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.. But because they were the sons of the prophet, they got away with it., Stephen vehemently denies that he or his brothers had anything to do with the heist. Knight was born in Salt Lake City, the sixth child of third-generation polygamists. The clan avoids hospitals, believing government-backed doctors might inject them with a mysterious disease or demand birth records exposing the Order's lifestyle. Fumarase deficiency, however sensationalized, is not the only genetic disorder found here. One man, who asks to remain nameless to protect his and his family's privacy, describes a lifetime of round-the-clock care and too-frequent hospital visits for his five sons. The teacher added a drop of dye to the water, and the children watched as the blackness slowly spread. Stephens father seemed to marry a new girl every year, each one younger and prettier than the last. The 100 Best Albums of 2022. 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. (Like most kids in the clan, Stephen wasnt told who his father was until he was old enough to be trusted to lie to protect the Order.) Because of the clans distrust of banks, the Order had cash hidden all over the place, a poorly kept secret within the family. It's also still rape with a foreign object, I remind us both unnecessarily. David Lindley, Multi-Instrumentalist Who Shaped the Sound of Soft Rock, Dead at 78 The boys were sentenced to two years of probation and taken back into the Order. They were the type of kids you didnt mess with, says Robert Owen, a former member of the clan. Her younger sister Emily thought it was a joke, too, until one day another Order kid told her, We cant play with you because the Tuckers are n------.. She called her sister-in-law Patty Kingston, who lived across town. All I like to do is work on cars and hang out with friends and ride my ponies, he wrote one night on his MySpace page. Situated at the base of a rugged mountain range, the Orders spread sat in a pristine valley of glistening hayfields and open pasture. Their father rarely came by, and because the nearest town was 18 miles away, the kids forged a fierce bond among themselves. Over the years, state law enforcement and the courts have sporadically addressed the incest in the Kingston ranks. The son of Pauls sister Rachel herself a daughter of Ortell and LaDonna Kingston Young was the only current member of the Kingston clan, out of the many contacted for this story, who consented to a live, on-the-record interview. Ron Rohbock, 64, who was kicked out of the FLDS in 2002 after serving on church security for decades at Warren and Rulon Jeffs' side, has a different answer. We were taught to be polite, but to never make friends with outsiders. The clan avoids hospitals, believing government-backed doctors might inject them with a mysterious disease or demand birth records exposing the Orders lifestyle. As a favored son of the prophet, Paul had the freedom to disregard the strict discipline his father imposed on other members of the Order. Kingston taught his followers that they are the literal descendants of Jesus and one of his wives, who had come down to Earth to found a race of chosen people. Authorities call it an organized crime group. 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.