A brave woman who managed to escape her father’s polygamous religious cult at just 13 has told of the “mind-blowing” way he encouraged his followers to commit murder.
Anna LeBaron, 48, has revealed her dad Ervil – who had 13 wives and more than 50 children – told followers he was “God’s prophet.” She said the power he had over his “disciples” was absolute.
“He used fear to manipulate and control people,” she told BBC.
“We were absolutely afraid of not doing what we were told. And we didn’t have a voice.”
Anna was born in Mexico in a cult hideout. She was separated from her mom, Ervil’s fourth wife Anna-Mae Marston, at any early age and shoved in a dirty safe house with other sect kids.
“We were taught that we were being persecuted because we were God’s chosen people and that the world outside didn’t understand us,” she said.
“He used fear to manipulate and control people,” she told BBC.
“We were absolutely afraid of not doing what we were told. And we didn’t have a voice.”
Anna was born in Mexico in a cult hideout. She was separated from her mom, Ervil’s fourth wife Anna-Mae Marston, at any early age and shoved in a dirty safe house with other sect kids.
“We were taught that we were being persecuted because we were God’s chosen people and that the world outside didn’t understand us,” she said.
Ervil was wanted by the FBI and the Mexican police for a number of murders.
He rarely got involved in the violence himself but ordered his followers to kill anyone who challenged his position.
His disciples believed he was receiving instructions directly from God, having inherited the mantle of prophet from his father Alma Dayer LeBaron.
Anna said: “When you are so convinced that someone is right, that you are willing to do anything – and even if you disagree, if you are so afraid to voice that disagreement and you just go and do it – that’s the ultimate control.
“And he had that. People did what he said. To their own detriment.”
Ervil had initially obeyed his older brother Joel until the pair fell out and he set up his own rival sect. In 1972, he ordered the murder of Joel in Mexico.
Ervil used the long-abandoned Mormon doctrine of “blood atonement”, which sanctions the killing of sinners to cleanse them of evil.
He managed to evade justice until 1974 when he was tried and convicted in Mexico for Joel’s murder.
He was later jailed for life for orchestrating the murder of Rulon C. Allred, the leader of a polygamous sect in Utah who had rejected Ervil’s demands for money and recognition.
Ervil died in Utah State Prison in 1981, after suffering a seizure. But his reign of terror was far from over.
Anna was living in Houston when Dan Jordan, Ervil’s chief henchman, arrived and ordered her and her mother to return to Denver with him.
Her mom obeyed but 13-year-old Anna rebelled realizing this might be the best chance she would get to take control of her life.
She managed to escape with the help of former cult members, Lilian and Mark.
But they didn’t know that Ervil had drawn up a hit list of 50 people he regarded as traitors in prison – The Book of the New Covenants – and that Mark’s name was on it.
He refused to go into hiding and was shot at 4 p.m. on June 27, 1988.
At almost exactly the same time, Mark’s brother Duane was shot dead, along with his eight-year-old daughter Jennifer.
Two hundred miles away in Irving, Texas, another of Ervil’s former disciples, Eddie Marston – Anna’s half-brother – was shot within five minutes of the first three killings.
The Four O’Clock murders, as they became known, shocked America.
The murders took place on the 144th anniversary of the death of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon church.
In 1997, Anna’s half-brother Aaron LeBaron, was sentenced to 45 years in prison for the killings. Four other cult members were also jailed.
Anna has recalled the traumas of her childhood in a new memoir, “The Polygamist’s Daughter.”
She is trying to move on with her life and has attended college, married her childhood sweetheart David and started a family.
“I have five grown children and if me telling my story was to put me in any danger, or anybody that I loved and cared about, I would never have done this at all,” she said.
“I believe that is 100% in the past and there is no danger at all for me.”
She hopes that the book’s publication will help to “redeem the LeBaron name,” which remains one of the most infamous in American criminal history.