My 4-year-old comes to me and says she has to find out her No. But the constant fear has subsided. Incest is endemic in the clan, with uncles marrying much younger female relatives; in 2003, police showed up at an Order barbecue and arrested a clan member for marrying his underage cousin. The memorial was held in Maxwell Park in Hildale, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2015. Yet its teen marriages in the Kingston Group that spurred the Utah Legislature to act this year. Then one night, a clan member called and told him that the Order planned to kill him. No one would accept the guilty by association view in any other culture that has been adopted by the public for ours. One day, not long after the gold disappeared, Knight got an anonymous phone call. Instead, she volunteered for extra shifts at the Kingston Group-run coal mine near Huntington, where she worked as a dispatcher. This is nothing more than a continued attempt in a long history to keep DCCS members from accessing education and services every other U.S. citizen is legally entitled to. Another brother, Ben, showed him how to mend fences. 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. Very little is publicly known about her or their marriage but Paul shared a heartfelt Facebook about . I strongly believe they are an organized-crime family, Shurtleff says. J.O. When he had finished, he walked toward Stephen, who was sitting on the tractor. 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. One is a first cousin. To go to Colorado, DeRieux said, she and her fianc drove to Price, where they jumped into a 15-passenger van carrying their parents, the other two sets of brides and grooms and their parents. The now-20-year-old said she and her husband have started a family of their own. Like other fundamentalists of that era, he believed the Mormon Church had lost its divine authority when it renounced polygamy in 1890, so he persuaded three other families to join him in establishing their own sect. One day, for laughs, he and his half brother Ron Tucker stole some napalm from an Order army-supply store, drew lines of it in the street and lit it on fire as cars drove by. Do you think if I took $5 million in gold, Id be working out here?. One of the Orders leaders did jail time for severely beating his own daughter after she fled an arranged marriage to his brother. Boys are taught that the prophet demands absolute loyalty and that they should be prepared to defend the clan. He thinks about his mom, and wonders if she misses him. Former members estimate Paul has 30 wives and more than 50 children. He also preached a bizarre extrapolation of the Book of Mormon called the White Horse Prophecy, a dreaded prediction of a cataclysmic time when the black race will rise up and attempt to destroy the white man, only to be thwarted by Native Americans riding to the rescue. Log In Once logged in, you can add biography in the database. If they are money-laundering or making money in support of polygamy and incest, then they probably meet the statute.. He served one day in jail. Theyll do what they need to do to defend whats theirs.. Back then, Paul Kingston stood around five feet ten and weighed close to 200 pounds. Short and chubby, the Brown boys looked up to the Knight brothers. When he was three, his mother led him into a building controlled by the clan and pointed out an intense man lifting weights in the gym. While some despised Ben for his apostasy and refused to speak with him, Stephen had remained in touch with his brother. In summer, the kids swam in the reservoir as their mother, Richaun, watched, the boys doing back flips off the rope swing into the water; at night, as the sun set behind the mountains, they all sat together to watch the clans buffalo herd grazing in the pastures. Snow said she was forced to fast, pray and read the Bible. Jessicas father relented during the meeting and gave his approval for his daughter to marry her No. From Hansens perspective, the entire Kingston Group marriage process is like being told you can have anything to eat as long as it comes from a certain table. That cousin is also a defendant in the lawsuit. Others say they buried it out in the desert and are slowly cashing it out. LDS Church wants to light up a temple in a place that prides itself on dark skies, For husband-and-wife team, this new restaurant is the culmination of a decadeslong dream, plural marriages that happen outside the law, two stars of the television show Escaping Polygamy,", Shanell DeRieux, a former Kingston Group member, stigmas that often come with being associated, Kent Johnson, a spokesman for the Davis County Cooperative Society. (Courtesy photo) Paul E. Kingston, seen here in this undated photo. If Paul Kingston or the designee signs off, the groom next goes to the girls father. Paul was upset any of this had been reported at all, says a former member close to the boys. She said the lawsuit is well plead and noted there have been previous successful qui tam cases in student aid programs. Instead, he had walked away from the family three years earlier to make a life of his own. They sat there for a moment, warming their hands against the sputtering heater. Former Order members remain convinced the Knights stole the gold. They both have the same high cheekbones, the same pale skin, the same wide-set eyes. John Gustafson, a representative of the Davis County Cooperative Society, an affiliate of the Kingston Group, disputed the lawsuits claims. I think it scared them.. When he noticed that the boys had stopped working, he became enraged. While much of the focus of any polygamous group is on plural marriages that happen outside the law, records and interviews with current and former first wives in the Kington Group lend insight into how legal marriages are facilitated. Tennessee Ex-Cop Sues After Becoming Porn Meme, Claims She Was 'Groomed' for Sex With Coworkers Complete statement from Davis County Cooperative Society: For decades, the DCCS has encouraged its members to be well-educated, well-informed, independent thinkers. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. But 16- and 17-year-olds in Utah need only the consent of a parent to wed. Idaho, Colorado and Nevada, where the The Tribune also found Kingston Group marriages, have similar age and parental-consent requirements. Like other teenagers who leave fundamentalist Mormon communities, Stephen was not prepared to enter the world at large. Her father, John Daniel Kingston, has 14 wives. He told the children they would all be applying for financial aid, enrolling at SLCC and majoring in business administration, the lawsuit cites Mafi as saying. 180+ Jonathan Jacob Meijer View Site Google Maps Within the clan, the pieces started to add up. When Rachel Young, a stern and humorless woman, got home, she discovered that several crates of silver in her basement had been pried open whoever had robbed the place had clearly been in a hurry and had left with only a small fraction of her silver. If the case succeeds, the whistleblowers can collect perhaps millions of dollars from the damages or fines paid by the defendants. The roof sagged, the carpet was worn, and the place reeked of cheap cologne. The Tribune also found three marriages in Missouri, where, until a new law raising the marriage age takes effect Aug. 28, 15-year-olds can marry with a parents permission. The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time It was also around then that Stephen, at the age of 14, began to see the clan for what it really was. He died on 6-4-1998 at the Beckley Veterans Administration. Its all political, Jessica said. Not desiring to be a plural wife doesnt necessarily mean she hoped to leave the Davis County Cooperative Society, also known as the Kingston Group. Theyd keep it in basements, in filing cabinets, in a big safe in one of Pauls offices, says Levi Kingston, a former clan member. The two most recent of those marriages, according to wedding certificates, occurred in April. Jessica saw the list. Sometimes he parked his immaculately buffed burgundy Ford Thunderbird on the curb, but it was rare to see the man himself. Mark Shurtleff, the Utah attorney general, has spent years investigating the clan, gathering birth certificates and genealogical data, and has come to believe that the cult is guilty of a long list of crimes, including child labor, tax evasion, welfare fraud, polygamy and the sanctioning of underage marriages to blood relatives. Polygamy is a legacy of the early teachings of the mainstream church, which abandoned the practice in 1890 and now strictly prohibits it. Many consider Kingston the top man in the group. They should refrain from this decision until they can be well informed to make a mature and thoughtful decision before entering into marriage.. All rights reserved. View Site Rates of college attendance that meet or exceed the Utah average have been a point of pride in the Kingston Group, whose members have offered such statistics to counter the stereotype of children from polygamy, especially girls, being uneducated with no opportunity for self-improvement. DeRieux said she and her husband were not allowed to live together or consummate their marriage until they had a religious ceremony the following month. If you were more obedient, this wouldnt have happened., After that, everything changed, Stephen says. The third plaintiff is Michelle Michaels, who the complaint says left the sect in 2017 rather than become a spiritual wife to a cousin who has nine wives. Stephen hangs up and drives home in silence. (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. By 18 she was pregnant with her first child and ended up having four children in four years. Another group of kids called the Lost Boys, who were kicked out of the polygamist cult the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, ended up on the streets of Las Vegas and Phoenix, some turning tricks for drugs like meth and heroin. He bragged that he had worn the same black shirt every day for a year. Did the Utah Legislature do enough to save the Great Salt Lake? He no longer believed in the Order, but he knew that leaving would mean being shunned by his own family, and because he had been forbidden from making friends outside the clan, there would be few people in the world he could turn to. No record of the case is available at the court clerks office. Order girls are taught from birth that their primary purposes in life are to be obedient, a submissive wife, and to bear as many children as possible, the suit states. 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. But lots of people in the sect are already descended from that family, Hansen said; thats why there are so many cousin marriages in the Kingston Group. Mafis mother is Paul Kingstons fifth wife, yet when filling out the aid forms, the woman advising her told Mafi not to submit anything about her father, according to the lawsuit. Its hard to leave when thats all youve known, says one former member, who was forced to marry her cousin when she was 15. The groom was 21. Two of Hansen's daughters legally married when they were under the age of 18 to young men in the Kingston Group. Members of a powerful polygamous group in Utah claim they were forced into underage marriages with their relatives to keep their blood pure, were raped by their husbands and had to perform child labor, according to a bombshell lawsuit. In his opening statement and in his cross examination of Kingston, the attorney also spent much time dwelling on the practice of polygamy in the Kingston family sect, saying that sect leader Paul . It was Mothers Day in 2000, and Stephen and two of his brothers were speeding up a dirt road for dinner at an aunts house. Stoddard was the president of the Latter Day Church of Christ, the Kingston Groups incorporated religious organization. That wasnt the only reason Jessica liked him. They had 4 children: John Hozlette Kingston and 3 other children. Situated at the base of a rugged mountain range, the Orders spread sat in a pristine valley of glistening hayfields and open pasture. Girls are told they will need to pray to God so he might show them who their No. Not every Kingston Group follower marries as a juvenile. 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. The other seven are brothers or sons of Paul Kingston. Their grooms averaged 20 years and 18 days. Had Snow been a better behaved, more devout member of the Kingston Group, Hansen said, there may not have been a push to have her legally marry at 16. Two teenage boys had been spotted entering Rachel Youngs home. His life was in danger, the voice on the other end warned. Those cousins and two others have since pleaded guilty to crimes that include fraud, conspiracy, money laundering and witness tampering in a plot to pocket federal energy tax credits. To hide the scope of his organization, J.O. John Daniel Kingston, who according to court testimony once had 14 wives, was on hand in 2011, when his sons held an open house at the Washakie production plant in Plymouth near Interstate 15 and . While the sect is headquartered in Utah, members will travel to Colorado to wed because cousin marriages are legal there. Girls, many of them teen brides, answer phones at the Orders law office, bag groceries at its supermarket or tend to the clans many children. I felt for his pulse, but he was already gone., That night, Paul Kingston arrived at the ranch. Pulling up, he noticed the getaway car parked in front of the house. This story has been shared 116,307 times. Inseparable: Twins Peter (left) and Paul have lived. He said the college has controls to ensure compliance with federal aid guidelines. September 1, 2018. Hansen said some men try to use their children to improve their status in the sect. Unlike other girls in the Order, Richaun was refined she didnt wear hand-me-downs, and at clan dances, a long line of boys waited to dance with her. This is your fault, he thundered, glaring at them. [9], He is believed to have practiced polygamy in the past, potentially accruing as many as 40 wives and fathering up to 300 Children. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. Jessica Kingston didnt want to be a polygamist. Mrs. Jeanne Markey, a partner at the Philadelphia law firm of Cohen Milstein and co-chair of a group there that handles cases of whistleblowers reporting fraud against the government, reviewed the complaint at the request of The Tribune. As he grew older, Stephen turned out to be as rebellious as his own father had been. Kent Johnson, a spokesman for the Davis County Cooperative Society (DCCS), which also is named as a defendant, said members are strongly encouraged to strictly adhere to every legal guideline when applying for financial aid. Shanell DeRieux was married at 18 to a husband in the Kingston Group. Three weeks after Snow married a 21-year-old man in Davis County, Hansens 17-year-old daughter legally married a 24-year-old man in Salt Lake County. If they kill me, they kill me, he says. For, nearly 75 years after they were born, Peter and Paul Kingston are as inseparable now as they were inside their mother's womb. She also felt a religious call to wed and saw herself as mature enough to undertake such a commitment. In the meantime, the police were closing in on the missing silver. A week later, the two were profiled on the CBS program Whistleblower for their work in exposing fraud at Washakie Renewable Energy, the biofuel company operated by two of Mary Nelsons first cousins. LDS Church wants to light up a temple in a place that prides itself on dark skies, For husband-and-wife team, this new restaurant is the culmination of a decadeslong dream, offered such statistics to counter the stereotype, Nicole Mafi, one of Paul Kingstons daughters. They were the type of kids you didnt mess with, says Robert Owen, a former member of the clan. It begins with the potential groom. 'I am the daughter of his fifth. And then, when the men get mad at each other, they wont let the [other] mans sons come forward to marry one of their daughters. 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. Marriage preparation can accelerate at puberty. So when her husband pushed for that daughter to marry, too, Hansen thought she was mature enough. Messages sent to Paul and David Kingston as well as representatives of the Latter Day Church of Christ, the Kingston Groups religious organization, and other named defendants in the lawsuit were not returned. Were fucked, they told their cousin. But it is likely that Kingston could recognize some of himself in Stephen. No one has been criminally charged. A Tale of Two Chads: More Drama From Nineties Band Live. Children born into the clan make up much of the labor force. But we paid it all back.. The theft of the silver bars from Rachel Youngs basement, they concluded, had been a copycat crime. In the months after the robbery, Stephen couldnt shake the feeling he was being watched. Jessica Kingston wore a white dress. Money, sex and power. One afternoon, as Stephen and his cousin were taking a break from fixing a tractor that had broken down in a hayfield, Daniel Kingston pulled up. Kingston's death came 3 weeks after his legal wife, Luana Joan Kingston, died of breast cancer, according to her obituary. In the past, we have worked closely with DWS, DOE and financial aid counselors at local colleges and universities to ensure proper training and that all applications adhere to every guideline. I am in love with old cars and horses. The 100 Best Albums of 2022. He even had charts showing who were the higher families in the sect so his daughters knew where to look for a mate. I honestly didnt even know there was any gold until they accused me of taking it, he says. The groups, whose members believe polygamy brings exaltation in heaven, are offshoots of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. According to Montana court documents, the couple had an argument at their apartment and DeRieuxs then-husband threw her down a flight of stairs. Eventually, there was a meeting between Jessica Kingston, her parents and Paul Kingston. The group sought to maintain Pure Kingston Blood by arranging marriages between cousins and other close relatives, and shunning relationships that werent between white people, the lawsuit alleges. It would be several more years before Stephen learned that Paul Kingston was his father, and that his mother was just one of his dads many wives. Former sect members testified in favor of the measure, but its unclear whether the pressures faced by teens in the Kingston Group constitute forced marriage. DeRieux says the other two girls were her half-sisters, both age 16. They had sped off in a Honda sedan. Paul Vallas and wife Sharon have been together 38 years. It was a wild place, says Scott Cosgrove, a former detective with the Box Elder County Sheriffs Office, who remembers the ranch as a broken-down spread, guarded by a feral pack of boys who patrolled the fence line from the back of a pickup armed with shotguns. The ones they dont think they have to worry about, they dont push them as hard.. Over the last four years, these audits have occurred for DCCS members at a rate 9.5 times higher than the average population. Luke and Scott often visited the home of one of their aunts, Rachel Young. It was a grimy, derelict-looking place. He became obsessed with homeopathic treatments and herbal remedies, teaching followers that through proper diet they could live to the age of a tree. When lightning struck a tree at the Home Place, he taught his followers that the tree had divine powers and was a gateway to heaven. [9], Records show he signed as a witness on 4 lawful teenage marriages over a 20 year period. Paul Elden Kingston is an accountant and attorney who has served as the Trustee-in-Trust of the Davis County Cooperative Society (DCCS), a Mormon fundamentalist denomination, [2] since 1987. 1:03. The families of 19-year-old Stephen Smith who was rumored to be . Besides, the mother said, the girl needed her husbands health insurance to treat her condition. Come and get me, Stephen said. deductible, Report a missed paper by emailingsubscribe@sltrib.comor calling801-237-2900, For e-edition questions or comments, contact customer support801-237-2900or emailsubscribe@sltrib.com. Three of his wives are his half-sisters. We dont expect any of the claims to prevail in a court of law.. Those two unions happened in Colorado, where its legal to marry your cousin. Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. In 2006, it was estimated that Paul Kingston had up to 27 wives (including three half-sisters of his), [5] some . Kingston succeeded his father John Ortell Kingston as the leader of the Kingston Clan on his father's death in 1987. The Salt Lake Tribune, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) public charity and contributions are tax Her husband, John Daniel Kingston, told his children to marry up, she said, meaning marry into a well-regarded family in the Kingston Group. A body of research suggests the teenage brain is not developed enough to make the kind of long-term decision needed for marriage. Home. She said her father didnt think the suitor was a good student. She is the fifth of her mothers 12 children. At 17, she agreed to marry a man in his early 20s. Later the Order reportedly bought slot machines from mob-controlled companies. Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune Send us a tip using our anonymous form. A sheriffs deputy traced the license plate of the Honda to a run-down house in a working-class suburb south of the city. Noticing Stephen, he put the barbells down and came over to the boy. At Washakie, he forced clan children to decapitate cows with chain saws to toughen them up, and sometimes beat the children for some infraction of the Orders rules like forgetting to face the Home Place three times a day and pray. You had to be, like, a son of the prophet to know where it was.. By the time he was 30, he would have more than 10. On February 26th, 2009, the Salt Lake County Sheriffs Office got a call of suspicious activity in the foothills above the city. 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. A short, blustery man with a hair-trigger temper, Daniel Kingston had reportedly once kidnapped two boys at gunpoint and led them out to the Great Salt Lake (the charges were later dropped). Investigators have said 52-year-old Maggie Murdaugh was shot four or five times with a rifle, while 22-year-old Paul Murdaugh was killed by two shotgun blasts near kennels on the family's . They would trek into state welfare offices, their kids in tow, claiming that they had no idea who the father of their children was, or that he was a truck driver who had left them destitute. He mandated that children should drink tea brewed from the herb every morning, and that Order members should feed it to their cows. My mom was never the same. It alleges sex trafficking, sexual battery and child abuse, and seeks a jury trial and unspecified damages. Brothers John Daniel Kingston, the father of the girl now in state custody, is said to have 20 wives; the mother of the "M.N." is half sister. He had arranged for a banner to be placed over a bridge there. Every now and then, as hes driving around the ranch, his phone will ring. Many of these men are also given stewardship of the Orders business holdings sent out to run the clans coal mine or ranches, or to oversee one of its many storefronts. Intermarriage of close. Jessica said her husband was on a group text that went around listing girls or women who had not yet married with jokes about how old the females were getting. To her horror, all that remained was a ring of dust, marking the place where a chest of gold coins had once stood. The boys also bought cigarettes wholesale through a small clan-owned market run by their older brother and sold them at school. In Utah, Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, plans a bill that would raise the minimum marriage age to 18. Colbert Reimagines Disney Park as 'De-Wokeified' DeSantis World, Sex, Drugs, and the Biggest Cybercrime of All Time, I could boil down what theyre about in three words, says a member who broke with the Order. When Elden died in 1948, leadership of the Order fell to Stephens grandfather, J.O., a short, miserly man with bony shoulders and thinning hair. A review of wedding certificates shows how the teen marriages are sanctioned at the highest levels of the Kingston Group. The deputy heard the Brown boys knew who stole the gold but suddenly, without explanation, they and everyone in the clan clammed up. Jessica was given the list of suitors. 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. The Brown boys, charged with felony counts of burglary, wrote a letter to their aunt apologizing for stealing the silver in her house. The "9" represents his status as a "numbered man" in the Davis County Cooperative Society, also known as the Kingston Group. The accusers also claim that the group arranged child marriages so that girls would become pregnant and beholden to their husbands and the religious sect. Its his father, the prophet, calling to coax his wayward son back into the fold. Stephen moved in with his brother. 1 choice. Survivors include his wife, Debra Meeks Kingston, his father, Paul James Kingston, III of McKeesport, PA, children, Brandon E. Kingston & wife Janna of Vidalia, CA, Kevin Ely of Tyler, Jessica Ely of Paris, Phillip Briley of Oklahoma City, OK and Justin Briley & wife Cynthia of Paris, thirteen grandchildren along with two sisters and one brother. In its place, someone had left a note. Child trafficking is the illegal movement of children, typically for the purposes of forced labor or sexual exploitation (Erase Child Trafficking). Paul Valls's wife is Sharon Vallas. As he talked to the woman who lived there, Luke Brown came out of the house, and his brother Scott soon joined him. I dont think theyre organized crime in that regard, but the racketeering statute defines it as any conspiracy or pattern of illegal activity done in concert with others. It wasnt like we thought about it a lot. Boys are taught they will need to receive revelation from God on whom to marry. He snapped the padlock on the first crate and began stuffing the silver ingots into duffel bags, lugging them back out to the waiting Honda.