The ‘Mormon Manson’ and His Family’s Mexican Massacre
He’s been called the “Mormon Manson,” but polygamist Ervil LeBaron and his Mexican-based family managed to make Charlie and his gang look almost tame by comparison. A 6’8” white supremacist and religious fundamentalist who loved to seduce underage girls, LeBaron trained women to kill for him and ordered hits on rival polygamists and “apostates” from his church. And kill they did: Members of LeBaron’s family were responsible for as many as 50 murders, as well as bank robbery, car theft, drug dealing, and selling guns to drug traffickers.
Ervil was eventually arrested for his crimes and extradited to the U.S., where he died in prison in 1981. But his wives, children, and spiritual followers continued their murderous rampage well into the ’90s. As one LeBaron family member put it, “Everyone is an infidel if they don’t believe what you believe.”
Outwardly, however, the LeBarons appeared to be just a wealthy farming clan with bizarre sexual practices who had made an “I won’t bother you if you don’t bother me” pact with El Chapo and the notorious Sinaloa cartel, which had drug smuggling routes near the Mormon colony. But, says Sally Denton, author of The Colony: Faith and Blood In A Promised Land, “I think it’s naive for the public to believe they were just friendly neighbors, saying hello at sicario checkpoints. I don’t believe you don’t live with some of the most violent people in the world without having accommodations. I think they were helping with guns.”