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Under the Banner of Heaven, a horror story

Several months ago I read a book more disturbing than anything I have ever read before. Ever. It was scarier than any movie I have ever seen and made my stomach contract into a tiny, terrified little blob. I lost sleep for weeks. What horror author could cause such a reaction? That’s the kicker, he’s not a horror author. Jon Krakauer is usually an extreme adventure writer, but in this case it was a historical non-fiction/crime drama that kept me up nights. I’m sure you’ve heard of Under the Banner of Heaven, yes? Krakauer’s book delves into radical religious zealots, polygamy (both historic and contemporary), extreme fundamentalism, and particularly, a set of ex-Mormon brothers who went on a killing spree in the early 1980′s. Is this book ringing a bell?

Krakauer weaves several different stories together throughout his novel. There are historic chapters about the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the 1800′s, the beliefs of the Mormons, their leaders, and their migration west across the plains to the Salt Lake Valley. The second component of Krakauer’s book revolves around the beliefs and practices of past and current polygamist sects in North America. The third part tells the story of Ron and Dan Lafferty, two brothers who formed their own church so they could practice religion as they wished which included receiving direct revelations from God and resurrecting polygamy and Zionist activities. All of which was fine until they started killing people who opposed them.

You’re probably asking yourself how a true-crime-drama novel where I already knew the ending, justice has taken her course and the bad guys are rotting in jail, would keep me up at night? Those convicted murderers, the Lafferty brothers, lived—and killed—just a few miles from my childhood home. It is extremely disconcerting to read about such gruesome murders taking place on the quiet streets of your hometown. This story is personal to me. Even though the killings, trial and eventual incarceration of the Lafferty’s was almost 30 years ago, it is still stop-your-heart chilling to see the details printed in black and white.

I have started this post a dozen times, and have edited large chunks of ranty-ness out on at least that many occasions. This is a difficult topic to discuss without getting too political, too religious, or too defensive. There are many aspects of Krakauer’s book that paint a people and organization that I respect in a very unflattering light. Krakauer is a self-proclaimed atheist, he does not just think Mormons–mainstream or fundamental–are radical and unjustified in their doctrine and beliefs, he thinks any kind of organized religion is a crock. In my opinion his writing on religious faith is biased, his coverage of LDS church doctrine and principles is not complete, has errors, and is terribly one-sided for non-fiction or investigative journalism. If you are looking for a serious or complete work on LDS church history, this is not it. If you are looking for information on the beliefs of the Mormons, this is not it. However, I am not here to talk about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I am not here to discuss historical or modern-day polygamy practices (although, you should remember that the LDS church banned polygamy in 1890 and—and this is important—anyone found practicing polygamy is excommunicated from the church, despite the impression HBO or TLC shows would lead you to believe.). I certainly will not be discussing the current presidential political debate or the definition of marriage. Alright, so if I’m not talking about the Mormons, and if I’m not talking about the polygamist clans of Colorado City (or Salt Lake City, for that matter), or politics, what on earth would garner such a lengthy post? That’s right, the Lafferty brothers.

Ron and Dan Lafferty, along with their three brothers, decided to break away from the LDS Church to found their own fundamentalist sect. One of the basic tenets of their new faith, along with Zionist activities and “end of the world” propaganda, was that polygamy was ordained of God. They all wanted more women to sleep with and they wanted their current wives to play along. Except for their youngest sister-in-law, Brenda, the wives agreed to the new arrangement. Brenda was a college student in her early twenties, and she vehemently opposed the Lafferty’s new lifestyle and refused to support it or their new-found faith. Time went by and the brothers became more entrenched in their fundamentalist sect, recruiting more followers, breeding strange ideas and spouting off stranger doctrine and prophesy. Ron’s wife left him, and with the help and support of a friend, Chloe Low, she moved with their children to Florida. They continued on. A local LDS Church authority, Richard Stowe, agreed to meet with Ron and Dan multiple times to discuss their views and ideas. Eventually, acting according to church policy, he recommended that the Lafferty brothers be excommunicated due to their apostate activities. The brothers continued on in their radical practices, getting more extreme in their doctrine. In 1983, it was “revealed” to them that those who had opposed their burgeoning, polygamist faith were to be eliminated. Ron Lafferty believed that God had given him a license to kill, Dan was in complete agreement on this divine instruction:

It is my will and commandment that ye remove the following individuals in order that My work might go forward…First thy brother’s wife Brenda and her baby, then Chloe Low, then Richard Stowe. And it is My will that they be removed in rapid succession. (pg. 190)

This is where I was stopped dead in my tracks. You see, Richard Stowe is my great-uncle, he lived less than 3 miles from us and I remember going to family parties at his house. This man is my family. And here I am, reading a best-selling, true story, buy-it-in-any-bookstore novel with his name on a death list. Do you know how terrifying it is to read a family name on a death list? Even typing it out gives me the shakes again. I know how this ends, I know that the Lafferty’s got lost trying to find my uncle’s house (which baffles and amazes me as he lived at the intersection of the two busiest roads in town). I know that my uncle and his family were physically unharmed; I know that the Lafferty’s ended up in jail. I KNOW all of that. But still, seeing his name in black and white made my heart catch in my throat and my stomach turn. Thinking about it now still gives me a queasy feeling in my gut.

I wish that was the end of my horror. It wasn’t. When Krakauer was interviewing Lafferty for the book, he also had quite a few chats with Lafferty’s cell mate, Mark Hoffman. It seems that Krakauer included Hoffman’s story as a tangential anecdote about how the Lafferty’s were not the only fundamentalist radicals to ravage Utah County in the 1980’s. However, to me, it made the book even more personal.

Mark Hoffman was a forger and a con-artist. He would go to the rare book and archive rooms of libraries and remove the blank pages out of the front and back of old volumes. He had developed a type of ink that could withstand carbon dating, so when he forged letters on these old pages any testing of the document would yield the exact results he was looking for. Brilliant, really (in a sick, twisted, fraudulent way). In 1985 his plot began to unravel and he was desperate not to be outed as a fraud. One of Hoffman’s clients, a wealthy collector of old documents named Steven Christensen, was becoming particularly suspicious of Hoffman’s claims and the content of these papers. Hoffman decided that this man must be eliminated, so he pieced together a bomb and used it to kill Christensen. To make this murder seem like a business deal gone bad instead of somehow connected to his collecting hobby, Hoffman also disguised a pipe bomb in a delivery box and placed it on the driveway of Christensen’s former employer. When the employer’s wife, Kathy Sheets, picked up the box it exploded and killed her instantly. The third business partner Hoffman planned to murder was Tom Moore. Now, Tom was my two-doors down neighbor, he and his family are one of the kindest, most wonderful I’ve ever met. Did you catch that? A cold-blooded murderer’s next target lived on my street! I played with his kids! As soon as the news broke that in addition to Steve Christensen, Kathy Sheets was also dead, a concerned neighbor handed Tom the keys to his motor home and told him to disappear. The Moore family packed up and left immediately. The very next morning Hoffman was on his way to my neighborhood to plant a bomb at the Moore’s home when the thing accidentally exploded in his car, severely injuring him and alerting the police. Hoffman was arrested, tried and is spending the rest of his life in prison.

Okay, so let’s recap:

• Ron and Dan Lafferty had my great-uncle on the short list of people to kill in July 1983. After brutally murdering their sister-in-law Brenda and her 15-month old daughter Erica, the Lafferty’s got lost on the way to the Stowe home and decided to flee to Nevada instead of continuing their killing spree.
• Two years later Mark Hoffman had already killed two people and was on his way to my street to kill my next-door neighbor when his homemade bomb prematurely exploded.
• In the early 1980’s my very small hometown had a population of maybe 2,000. What was supposed to be a safe-haven for family and community and God-fearing people was the scene for two major murder-sprees within a few years of each other.
• Today, Mark Hoffman and Dan Lafferty share a prison cell 20 miles south of Salt Lake City.

And now you know why I lost so much sleep, even writing this post gives me the heebie-jeebies. I expect nightmares tonight.

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