13: Chasing Ghosts

including a daughter. Herbal was their leader. They thought they were going to go out and save the world. I don't know what you know about law work, but nobody has all the information. Everybody has a little piece, and that little piece of that little piece of that little piece. The only way you're going to get Erville is to break someone substantial in his group. The jury files back in and the judge says Hervil LeBaron guilty of conspiracy

to commit murder of first degree felony. I think by the time Irville had died, I knew it really wasn't over. Because with such an unstable group founded on such erroneous principles, you never really know what to expect. I'm Gabriella LeBaron, and my father is irvill Aber. This is the book of the New Covenant. It's a manifesto of hervill le Baron. Coult wasn't even a word we knew of. There was no quote. We were the KG if anything. Yeah, we

called ourselves we were God's Kingdom. I mean, murder was sort of a of a natural thing with these folks Hebrew. He gave the authority to the next Brethren line, so called Aaron. We would do those kind of heavy loaded prayers in support of the four o'clock murders happening in the States. It was just surreal. It's like no can at least happen. It was so shocking. Who did it and why? This is God's law. We have to do it otherwise the whole world will go to hell like Armageddon.

The investigation is going nowhere. We don't have any evidence. Everybody's lying to us. There's a hard core of these kids that were raised in this environment and are practiced killers. All the adults were in jail now and we need to carry on continuing the murder spree. I understand what

it's like to live in a terrorist organization. I understand how mothers who strapped bombs to their children feel in the trail is kind of cold for the murders in Texas, and all of a sudden, Dick Forbes gets this phone call. They're willing to tell us everything and they want some protection. This interview is just done called chilling. Richard was straightforward as a witness. I'm he tell you anything. Jenny was only killed because she was old enough to be a witness.

How did he feel about killing an eight year old? What did he tell you that he had to do it? He was ordered to. We actually had physical evidence that we could use. We had a story that's stuck together, and we had people that were in the family willing to testify. The first trial of the four o'clock murders

began on January eleven. William Hebrew le Baron, Patricia le Baron, and Douglas Lee Barlow shuffled into the United States District Court in Houston, Texas, less than a year after Cynthia le Baron had made that fateful phone call to detect of Dick Forbes to tell him she was ready to turn on the Kingdom of God. As the trial began, you might expect the cops and prosecutors to have felt some sense of trepidation. After all, this colt had a

history of getting away with killing people. Who knows how this trial might play out, But to be honest, that would be injecting false drama into the proceedings because Hebrew and the two other KOG members on trial weren't going to dispute their involvement in the killings, which kind of gave Hebrew's defense lawyer, Tom Berg, an impossible task. I was a public defender. It would lose most of our cases. But you do the best you can. You try to

get creative. You try to come up with a theory that is credible that allows you to stand up in front of a jury with a straight face and tell a story that's the story that your client wants presented, because you're telling his story, not yours, and then the jury decides. I was willing to fight the case to try and win it, even if the odds were against us. Hebrew and the others had given very specific instructions to

their legal team. They wanted the trial, they wanted the form, they wanted the chance to have their side of the story told. And I think he'd realized that he was in jail and he would always be in jail. What was the justification that he shared with you for the killings? They believed that they were entitled to this revenge, And of course throughout you've got this issue of blood atonement, which for them was the core of their worldview and

religious belief. These are people not only had they personally offended them, but they had offended the religion and the only way their souls could be saved was through the shedding of blood. So yeah, like I said, not in easy argument for a public defender to put in front of a Texas jury. But Hebrew and the others felt God was on their side. He fully believed that he

was right and what he did. And it's twisted logic for us, but this is how they were raised from small and so it made sense to them and it was internally consistent for them to believe this way and to justify everything they did along those lines. Was there any remorse for any of the crimes he committed. Yeah, that the little girl had come with her father that day was for them not a tragic circumstance, but just

a circumstance. I couldn't find a commonality that I tried to find with clients, whether it's some kind of connection that I can use. They truly did believe in this really warped worldview, that this was mandated by God. How unusual is that for you to not be able to find any sort of commonality or affection for a client. That's rare. That's rare because I can usually at this stage in my career finds something and everybody, And why do you think with them? You couldn't because they were

so locked into that worldview. It's not like something you could reason with. Perhaps the most dramatic moment in the trial came when Cynthia, the defendants sister, took the stand. It was a closed court the day she came in, so no one from the audience could intimidate her. By this point, Cynthia was living in a witness protection program for her safety. She broke down in tears as she

testified against her brother and sister. And then on January Tom made his closing statement and he urged the jury to remember that the accused killers truly believed that they were carrying out vengeance in the name of God. It was a very hard argument, and the jury'sall right through it. You know, they we're out for days and days, but it was the only argument that we had after a hunt lasting so many years. The jury returned after just a few hours. They found Hebrew, Patricia, and Doug guilty

of nine federal charges. No one was surprised with the verdict, and none of them showed any particular emotion. I think we all knew what was coming. The jury had no doubts they were responsible for the killings. There was a strong impulse amongst them to convict because of how horrible the facts were. And then the judge imposed a sentence, and in this case, we already knew what the sentence was going to be based on everything that had gone before.

It was life, life without parole. At a separate hearing, in the fall of Richard LeBaron was also sentenced for his role in the four o'clock killings. In return for his confession, prosecutors asked the judge for leniency, and the judge gave it. Richard received five years in prison. That left just two members from the KOG leadership at large, Aaron and Tarsa LeBaron, two of the colds most Devout members from the teams at Novel and I Heart Radio.

This is the final episode of deliver Us from Hervill episode thirteen, Chasing Ghosts. The crossing between the Mexican border and Laredo, Texas has a special place in the history of the Cult of Rbal LeBaron. It's where Erville's former wife and cult assassin, Rina Channath entered US police custody in nineteen seventy seven, and two years later, it's where

Irville crossed to his final destination, prison and death. Decades later, in Detective Dick Forbes and federal prosecutor and Jenny Task Force veteran David Schwinderman had arranged with border guards at Laredo to allow Cynthia LeBaron and her sister Jessica into the US to help them bring down the Kingdom of God and now in nineteen it's where Aaron le Baron, leader of the KOG the Final One, Mighty and Strong, crossed in handcuffs. Getting eron this far had not been easy.

The Jenny Task Force faced two major obstacles. First, they had to find Aaron, then they had to get him into America. The first part, surprisingly wasn't that hard. Mexican cops located Aeron pretty quickly after the conviction of his siblings, but you know, they weren't about anything give him up

to us until they got some concessions. David Schwinderman learned that the Mexican cops had swooped up Aaron le Baron in but the local authorities wanted an exchange eron for some of their citizens currently being held in the US awaiting execution in Texas. Seems fair enough to me, but Texas, being well Texas, the authorities weren't going to permit that. So there was a standoff, one that eventually went all

the way to the top. U s Attorney General Janet Reno and Miss Rino then begins to negotiate on our behalf with the Mexican authorities to get Aaron transferred to Texas for prosecution. In Texas, no one ever gave up anybody on death row in Texas. To get Aaron back, the federal government had to give assurances to Mexico that Aaron would not be executed for his crimes. Miss Reno convinced him to send him up to the bridge and

walk him across. Aaron crossed that bridge in Laredo and was taken to jail, a family ritual now as familiar to the law barons as the placing of hands on heads to make someone the next mighty and star on. As all this was happening with Aaron, his sister, Gabriella LeBaron, was now no longer a child or a teenager. Even she turned twenty and was still living in Mexico. The teenagers she had once idolized were now adults too, and

locked up. Her other siblings wanted nothing to do with our father's religion, but still she was keeping the faith. Somehow her siblings would find their way back and we would go back to normal and go back to establishing the cult. Normal. For Gabriella, this wasn't teaching English and Monterey Mexico wearing high heels. Normal, wasn't dating people raised outside the colt. Normal was military training and gun running, packing trucks with marijuana, and stealing cars to finance missions

to kill God's enemies. By the summer of news reached her of Aaron's impending trial. It took place on June twelfth in the same Houston courtroom where their siblings had been convicted years before. I was like, he's in jail, but he's not going to be convicted because God is going to save him, get him out. Gabriella was convinced Aaron would somehow be cleared and he'd return with her to Mexico. But he got convicted. I was like, oh God, Aaron got forty five years for his part in planning

the four o'clock killings. Gabriella traveled to Phoenix to visit Aaron in prison. He wasn't just an older half brother to her. He was still God's profit on Earth, the person who knew their Father's opus, the Book of the New Covenant like no other, the One Mighty and Strong. Gabriella needed Aaron to reassure her about God's plan and what was next for the Kingdom of God. And then I went to visit him. He was like, I've been atheists for a long time. The One Mighty and Strong

was an atheist. That's when I really lost my north Star. Everything fell out of orbit, you know, it really like that was very collapsing. So I lost my leader. I didn't know what to do. It's like, I'm ready to go back and build the colt, build a KG, but where do I go? I'm alone? Where do I go? Where do I talk to? What do I do? So I prayed and I asked God to show me what to do. We never got answers. Okay, so this is

a problem with this. Gabriella had a familiar feeling, like the one she had staring into those flames in Monterrey as her possessions burned in front of her in that gesture to a God who was sighed went. And yet even now in Gabriella still believed God was watching over her, that all the killing had been for a reason to build God's kingdom on earth. She hadn't lost faith. I remember just having this really strong conclusion in my head.

I was like, look, God, if you want me to go and build the cold, build a COUCHI wasn't the cold, it was the couch. I'm going to do it. I'm ready. I was so ready. Just tell me and I'll go. But meanwhile, I'm here, I don't know what to do. You're not telling me what to do. So I'm just gonna do whatever I want to do. And if I do anything wrong, You'll have to forgive me. I know that you always forgive the minute you're ready for me to go back, just tell me what I need to do,

where I need to do, etcetera. But until then, like starting now, I'm breaking free. I'm doing whatever I want settled. Okay, how is off the hook? And yet there was a reason Gabriella kept hope that maybe the Kog was still alive. There was still one highly influential member of the cult

out there in the world. Tarsa Jackie. Tarsa le Baron is the second oldest child of Irvil le Baron and Laura Chanas Laurna you might remember, came from that backbone family of Hervil's empire, the Channaths, daughter to Thelma, sister to Victor, Mark, Dwayne, Rena, and Glenn, who I talked to an episode three. The Kog had murdered Laura when she tried to leave the cold back in eighty two,

Gabriella told me. At the time of that killing, most of the children in Lahoya went and camped at the beach for a few days to be away from the horror show they knew was about to unfold. Ten years later, when most of the Kog was rounded up in Arizona after the four o'clock murders, Tarsa disappeared. She was wanted for conspiracy to commit murder, witness tampering, and two racketeering charges, but by the two thousand's she was still a fugitive

on the run from the law. With Tarsa at large, detectives like Dick Forbes and prosecutors like David Schwinderman couldn't be sure the bloody legacy of hervill La Baron was really over. What if somehow the kog was still alive carrying out the killings of the Book of the New Covenant. Law enforcement believed Tarsa was actually the colts mastermind, Tarsa and Jacqueline was the one that was pushing all the buttons. That's Houston homicide detective John Burmeister and Utah prosecutor David

Swinderman had a similar view. Tarsa, who is the matriarch instantially, the one that is the protector and preserver of the Book of the New Covenant, drilling into these kids that these things have to be done, and so they carry out this mission. Gabriella also attested to Tarsa's devotion to the Book of the New Covenants and the theology of the cult. But she said that just because Tarsa was devout didn't mean she ran the Kog. As prosecutors and

police believed Jackie was a hardcore extremist. She was definitely a person that kept everything to the tea um. Whether she could initiate and say we have to start doing this as coming strictly from her, I believe that's a little far fetched, because she's not that kind of personality. And she got whipped so hard so many times. She was just strictly slave labor and you had to submit, and she submitted willingly because she believed that she had

to obey the authority. It's perspectives like this on Kog members from Gabriella that have changed how I've seen this whole saga. Rather than seeing the cult members as these powerful assassins with near superhuman powers of evasion, a picture emerges from Gabriella of the scared children they had once been reacting to the routine killing all around them, carried out by their own family making decisions by committee, with no single person steering the ship. Not Hebrew, not Aaron,

and certainly not Tarsa. When I ran this perspective by law enforcement. Well, it's not that they flat out disagreed. In fact, many concurred that the kids who grew up in the cult had been products of their environment and a warped theology. But they also pointed out to me that the kog are well documented liars and manipulators. And they asked me, how do you know that what you're

being told is true? It's hard to say. If you look at the cult collectively, I can see it, yeah, But to be fair, you could easily say the same about cops collectively too. And anyway, when it comes to which version of Tarsa is most accurate, someone pushing all the button or a reluctant and passive cult member, maybe the answer lies with the next group of law enforcement officials to encounter Jackie Tarsa LeBaron. My name is Ted Imperado.

I'm an assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of Texas located in Houston. My name is Rick Haynes. I'm an assistant United States attorney, been a federal prosecutor for nineteen years. And all you wanted to know how old I am, I'm sixty two. Rick and Ted are prosecutors kind of a double act. We've known each other since ninety three and then we came up together in the State d A's office. We always tried cases together. They were introduced to Tarsa in two thousand ten when

an unusual case was thrown their way. The criminal chief came to us and said, hey, um, we've tried to get some other prosecutors to work this case, but nobody's wants to work it. Um. I think there was concerned with the case because of its history. This history goes way back, and I think the prosecutors, the two that turned it down, were familiar with the case and we're a little bit concerned for their safety. The case all centered on a fugitive who had suddenly been found after

twenty years on the run. The fugitive daughter of a polygamous sect leader is in custody tonight. Jacquelin Tarsa le Baron faces charges in a nineteen quadruple killing. One of the victims, an eight year old girl. It is Rick and Ted took the case and they learned more about Tarsa Tarsa LeBaron. It was her name is Jackie, but everyone referred to as Tarsa for over a decade she'd

lived in hiding in Honduras. But then in two thousand and ten she had lived in Honduras long enough that she could apply for public assistance welfare if you will, And it was during the point that she was registering for that that they did a records check and found she had this warrant out. The last fugitive of the Kog had been found. She was then extradited and now was going to face those charges relating to the four

o'clock murders that had sent her siblings to prison. She was described to us by various members of the family when we interviewed them as being kind of a driving force in terms of keeping alive her father's point of view and the contents of the Book of the New Covenant. But then they got to meet Tarsa in person and the reality of this quote unquote driving force that confronted them. She looked like a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. She was scared of her own shadow.

She was not the Jacqueline Tarsa le Baron that we deal with when we talk about what happened in and in the years prior. So that's the person that we met. That's not the person that we learned about and read about as we investigated the case, and Rick and Ted were in for a few more surprises. It was just so unusual. It was unusual when it happened, and it didn't stop being unusual on the day that she was sentenced. That's coming up after the break. On June six, two eleven,

Jackie LeBaron reached a plea agreement with prosecutors. Her sentencing hearing began in September two eleven. As prosecutors Rick and Ted entered a courtroom packed with press and members the public, there was one person seated there. They were surprised to see Cynthia LeBaron. Cynthia, you'll remember, had grown up in the Kingdom of God, but had turned on her brothers and sisters in ninety two because she feared they're going

to kill her. Cynthia has testified against family members Hebrew, serving a life sentence because of her multiple life sentences, so is Patricia. Cynthia had broken down in tears at Hebrew, Patricia and Doug Barlow's trial as she gave damning evidence against them, and in ninety three she had entered a witness Protection program. Now she was in court again, seeing another sibling cult members sentenced on the back of her evidence. Yet Cynthia is still, I believe, a love part of

the family. Um. They're very close knit, they support each other, They're extremely loyal to each other. Cynthia had switched sides again and was now sitting back amongst the Labaron clan. I think, oddly enough, this whole investigation into Jacqueline Tarsa kind of brought them back together, and they kind of got to convince each other that they weren't going to

kill each other. The family were back together, the ones that weren't in prison anyway, surviving children and former wives of hervil LeBaron, but they weren't there as cult members. They were there to support Tarsa before her sentence was handed down. This group included Rhenichinov, who at this point had taken in some of the orphan kids from the kog to help them build a life outside the colt.

It was September eight, two eleven, when the judge handed down his sentence and Rick and ted we're in for their final surprise. Tarsa was sentenced to three years in prison. What was the atmosphere like during the sentencing. What do you remember about that moment? I was pissed off Rick. Rick spoke to the judge during the sentencing. Rick made our recommendation. The judge disagreed with our recommendation, and then Rick and he got it had a debate about that.

Rick thought she should have been given more time, and he told the judge that straight up. But as both he and Ted pointed out to me, in hindsight, there wasn't much more the judge could have done. The benchmark in sentencing had been set by the punishment handed down to Richard LeBaron back in October. Richard, who had killed an eight year old child and by this point in two thousand eleven had been out of prison for years.

The judge actually went very low. He gave him five years five years in prison for killing a little girl and her father, and that that gives me heartburn to this day. Jackie walked free from jail on December two thousand twelve, released early for good behavior. In the eyes of the law, former KOGI members like Jackie and Richard le Baron are no longer a threat to society, no longer following that path set out by their father, Hervial LeBaron.

We are at a cemetery in Houston. It's a very large, beautiful cemetery with tall oak trees, pine trees, and the headstones are really large and some of them are quite ornate. And we are currently near the grave of hervill LeBaron. We're trying to find it. If you visit the grave of hervill Lbaron today, there is no shrine, no flowers. Even with a map at the cemetery. It took me and my producer David a long time to find it, but eventually, oh ah, there it is beloved father, herbal

m le Baron February August. On the day we visited, it was covered with leaves and branches, so simple headstone set into the grass. It doesn't look like anyone who's been here in a while. All around his grave there are these other graves that are clearly well tended to. There's one about ten ft away with like a hedge around it and fresh flowers. And then there is Herbal LeBaron, who in life thought he was the most important man alive, and yet no one cares. His grave is entirely ignored.

Coming here, I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't this. Maybe it was all the time I had spent pursuing this story and hearing about the devastation Herbal caused. It felt so alive to me. But here was the grave of a man who seemed like he had been forgotten. No pilgrim's burning candles, no one to even sweep aside the leaves and branches covering his name. Kind of anticlimactic, But I also thought sort of appropriate. Better that there's not a shrine to him or a religion that lives on.

But then I discovered a place where Herville's memory is being kept alive online Facebook. More precisely, a shrine of sorts under a pay age headed quote a memorial page in honor of Hervil m. Le Baron, a man whose name was smeared by narcissists. To be clear, it's not like this is a huge online fan club. This page only has seven accounts listed as friends. The last active post was October two, thou twenty one, but it's still a little unsettling to scroll through to see the posts.

The general theme being Merville was a scapegoat, others were really to blame. There are some spooky looking photos of him and his prime. They've been doctored in a way that almost makes him look like Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe. But it's not really the content that is the most

shocking or the reason why even mention it. It's the fact that I recognize some of the names of the seven Followers account ounce that seemed to belong to Lynda Johnson, a former wife the one time Kyog matriarch and expert Forger, and some of Herville's kids from the Kyog, including Patricia who murdered her baby and sat in the car waiting while Richard le Baron murdered Dwayne Shannath and his daughter Jenny.

And Cynthia LeBaron, the daughter of Herville who turned on everyone with her testimony and essentially brought the Kog down. And it's the account under Cynthia's name that is the most active on the page. As I scroll through the posts, I can't help but wonder is this story really over?

And I'm not the only one asking this question. If there was one person I wanted to interview more than any other making this podcast, it was Dick Forbes, the detective most responsible for bringing the Colt down, but it seemed like I had missed my chance. In episode four, when journalist del Van Adda told me about first looking into the Colt with Dick back in the nineteen seventies, he told me as much. There was one great detective named Dick Forbes who has died. Um, I'm pretty sure

he died. Dale isn't often wrong, but he was in this instance. It turns out Dick is alive. I tracked down various addresses, but it seemed Dick moved regularly, and those I interviewed who were still in touch with him weren't about to give me his address. Because he does not think the cult of hervill LeBaron are done blood atoning their enemies. He told me as much on the phone in a conversation that was mostly off the record.

And he's not the only one. David Schwinderman now lives about a half hour drive from Salt Lake City, where he worked as a federal prosecutor in the U. S. Attorney's Office, and he's still haunted by the Colt too. Literally, it does affect you and should wake up in the night kind of screaming sometimes, even though it's been decades and he's gone to work on cases involving war crimes, and David believes he's actually dodged a few bullets himself. Even since the Colt were put behind bars a few

years after we put them in prison. The family members that were in federal prison, we're using code in magazines to recruit a bike gang or members of a bicycle gang to kill me and prosecutors in the federal cases in Texas. David tells me that prison staff were able to uncover these messages before an attempt on his life could be made. But that wasn't the only incident. There was another one that well, it seemed like a kind of signature kg lure, a trap the m O for

the Colts. At one point, my wife was called and told that there was some money at a bank in Park City that someone had left for our kids are two boys. The teller said, whoever had left the money said Dave's wife would need it. It almost sounded like a threat. Dave's wife Bobby called him, and it was kind of odd. Bobby called me and said, this is really strange. What's going on? So I called the marshals and said, look, this looks very much like one of

the lures that the family uses. We've had this other situation occur where we know that they were threatening to kill us, and there was an odd car that followed my son at home once from school, following him right up to the house. So we got a hold of the marshals, and the marshals immediately got the kids out of school. They did a full investigation, never were able to figure out who had left the money at money about two d I think to this day, David thinks

it was a trap. So I asked Gabriella about all this, about whether the members of the Kyog ruling committee that she grew up with we're still a potential threat, and she told me what those former members of the Kog we're doing today. Doug is extreme Buddhist, and Hebrew is extreme Christian born Christian, and Trish is into social justice and mos and atheists and you know, and um, the cults is just something crazy that happened to all of us.

So like they're not dangerous. There might be a little bit whatever crazy in their ideas, but not dangerous, like the cults is, look some crazy. We all are on the same page about that. Let me just repeat that in case you missed it. Doug Barlow, the stepson of Herville and Kyog Assassin. He's in jail for life. He's a Buddhist. Hebrew, perhaps the most cold blooded killer of the entire cult, is a born again Christian. He's written

a long and detailed apology for his crimes. Patricia, who once did Jane Fonda workouts the Mexican desert and accompanied Richard LeBaron to Jenny and Jayne's murder, is a social justice warrior and the former One Mighty and Strong Aaron who Gabriella calls Moe. He's still in prison and he's still an atheist. Gabriella stays in touch with them. I asked her about Hebrew. Hebrew doesn't have any bitterness to

anybody right now. He just completely let it all go. Yeah, he's born again Christian and all he does has been six hours of and his cell praying for everybody in the world and the whole family and forgiving anybody that's ever done any wrong to him. And every time he calls and I talked to him, he always just talks about how he's praying and how he's okay, and how he's fine, And it's like Jel is perfectly fine. It doesn't care, you know. As long as I have a

place to sit quiet, I'm good. So his turnaround is pretty impressive. Tarsa, Richard, and Cynthia. They're out of prison. Some live in the Austin area, not too far from Gabriella. I asked Gabriella to reach out to them to see if they might want to speak to me, but they declined. But then she tells me something remarkable about the family. So I never cut them out of my life. I just quit sharing with them, but we would still show up two parties and stuff, and they would ask me

how I'm doing. But I didn't share my deep dark struggles or anything with him. But now how we are now is that we all care about each other, and everyone's come to their own conclusions about reality and life, and you know, and some people think the other people are crazy, but we all love each other and we have fun times during holidays. Normally we play games and

drink alcohol. And sometimes there are times that we could all set up a bunch of different card tables and everyone's playing spades in drinking tones of alcohol into the wee hours of the morning. In other words, they appear to be a regular family, like millions of others. But when it comes to whether this cold is still a threat, that picture of the kog members today kind of only

answers half my question. Because the individuals who are responsible for carrying out Evil's doctrine as the Kingdom of God might be done with it. But what's to stop future generations from picking up the murderous ideology of Hervil Labaron? And perhaps that's where the reality your lies that's coming up after the break. As a journalist, I've been to some dangerous places in my career, but I would never

knowingly put myself in danger. I'm not the sort of journalist who enters war zones in a flat jacket and helmet. And yet at times reporting the story, especially near the end, I've wondered if there is danger and even telling it, if the cult of hervill LeBaron could be revived by a new generation of fanatics who might seek out retribution against people who show their profit Herville in an unfavorable light,

another generation the cult reborn. It's a dark thought in a story already full of darkness, a story or where to be honest sometimes the darkness has been unrelenting, But this story has light on the horizon too if you look towards it. Like I said at the beginning of this podcast, this is a story of resistance and making it.

I've met members of the mainstream Mormon faith and fundamentalist Mormons who took great personal risk to take down the hervil Le Baron Colt and to rescue the children still in it. And then there's Gabriella. Of all the people I interviewed making this podcast, the person I met who affected me more than any other, her resistance to the darkness of her beginnings into her journey from the last woman standing in the Kog to the woman I met recently.

The story of Gabriella's path after the Kog could be should be a thirteen part podcast in and of itself. There was a period while living in Austin that she went to college parties, worked at a strip club, and became a dancer, pursued a career in music. There was a period where, in the early two thousand's, inspired by je ga Vera, she hitchhiked her way down to southern Mexico and joined the Zapatistas, and then with the passing of time, Gabriella had the strength to turn and face

her trauma. Nothing is ever going to work out for you unless you get to the bottom of your own personal pain and all this trauma you experienced, everything that you experienced, all that is going to get in the way of you if you don't heal it. You have to go heal all of that and then you can get back to work. Her recovery, she tells me, has been slow. At first. It was moment to moment filled

with grief and rage, burning rage. But I had the tools, so I would channel all this rage in my meditations and I would write about it. I would write my rage out, and I would visualize fire, a ball of fire, and my rage was became a ball of fire, and all of my rage was going to be absorbed in that fire. Was there a moment in time where you could feel that shift, like a particular moment where you felt happiness for the first time, or safety or peace. Yes,

I was about twenty seven years old. I had my own little house, duplex, rickety thing in East Austin when it was still the artist zone, before the big hype happened. I was painting a lot, and I remember experiencing safety and peace and be like, I've never had this feeling ever before in my life. And I I felt like there was one crack of light that came through a very dark sky that I had only known the dark

sky in my whole life. So I had have moments of being exhilarated by music or by something, but just without all of exhilaration, put all that aside, just as things are right now. You have coffee, you're on your porch, you're in this beautiful safe zone. Everything is okay for this moment, for no reason whatsoever, it's just okay. And I actually remember that moment and I painted a painting on that moment, and I called that painting Daylight at

Last Today. Gabriella is a graduate of Cornell University the Ivy League School in Ithaca, New York. She works for the State of Texas in the Attorney General's Office, and maybe it's her career in the justice system that has played a role in her agreeing to talk to me, because now that she feels able to share her story, she hopes it will open up some important conversations for others on how to heal wounds in fractured communities where

hatred and violence had done seemingly irreparable damage. If we decide we want to move forward, to walk away from the darkness and into the light, I feel like, personally, for myself, and I can speak for some of my siblings as well, we have survived something horrific in which

we were both the victim and the criminal. Now I feel like I have a lot to say to the world about how to care for people who are coming out of extremely traumatic situations, how to care for the children of let's say, terrorist groups, or what if you have of the family of a terrorist group, an environment in a whole world system where there's little to nothing in terms of support or understanding on how to help you get out of that. Instead there are lots of

labels and judgment and discrimination. And suddenly it's like, having come through this and having fought so hard, that's the kind of conversation we need to have. It's like we need to talk about our story out loud so people know what happens to people when you don't know any

other reality except whatever you grew up in. If we don't understand how to care for the human being starting from the children, no matter where they come from, no matter what their background, and no matter what they've done. Today in Colonial LeBaron, the Mexican desert town where this podcast first started, Irvil LeBaron is mostly a forgotten man. No one says his name. His brother, Joel's dream, how ever, lives on. Colonial LeBaron has become the type of place

he imagined, and then some. If you stand on the hill that overlooks the town, the desert floor is covered with vast orchards of pecan trees. The town has become wealthy. They're even building a new exclusive gated community in the hills with a planned golf course. His brother Joel's presence is everywhere. Inside every home I entered, I saw a large portrait of him. His followers now number in the thousands.

They don't call themselves Mormons or even members of the Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times, the church he started with his brother Herbal. They call themselves Joel's people. This chill fundamentalist vision of a church built around liberty rather than force has not only survived, it's flourished. It might not yet be utopia, but Colonial LeBaron is a town made up of Catholics and polygamus and mainstream Mormons and atheists. What they're united around is their history.

Religion has in many ways faded to the background. Gabriella hasn't yet visited Colonial LeBaron, and she's not yet sure if she ever will. People from my side of the family have gone down to Colonial LeBaron and they've had a great time. They stayed up talking all night long,

telling stories. They were embraced. They call us her lights. Actually, I just recently begin talking to one cousin who's from Colonial a Baron, who's a descendant of Joel, and um, we're just like hey, you know, And I was like, I'm sorry, what happened to Grandpa? Best I can do? And he's like, yeah, that's over. You know, it's not your fault, yep, it is, you know, it's not my fault. The last time I visited Colonial LeBaron, I met up

with Naoma Stops. She's the person who told me that story in episode two about gathering up her younger siblings at night and hiding in ditches when she feared Merville's people were coming to attack the town. Anyway, I asked about the dynamic between Joel and the people now called hervil Lights. Like Gabriella and her siblings. A lot of Derville's kids have came to Le Baron, and I think they're coming to seek comfort. I had a very hard time at the beginning to think that how could they

and that was your father murdered our prophet. How could you have the gall almost to come and want to be a part of our people. It's like I almost felt that it was wrong. But I've learned over the years that as children, they're not at fault. It's not their fault that they're parents murdered other members of your family. So I've learned to have compassion and forgiveness and help them to integrate so that they don't carry more pain forward, because they're just as much victims as we are. And

at this point they're fully integrated into the community. Yeah, fully integrated, And most people the way you are about it, like forgiving or um. I think the majority, I would say, I think there's a lot of the older generations that have more memory than I do as a child, that they were almost adults. Then I think they have a harder time with it by far. I asked Naoma's mom,

Larife Stubs, about this too. I wanted to know how someone who was here from the beginning fills someone who knew Joel and Hervill intimately saw how Zion be in. I saw how for a time it fell apart with the two warring brothers. I asked Larive if she has forgiven hervil and as followers for what they did. I think that it's nice to forgive people, but certain things

it's a little bit hard to forgive. But the other side of it is it's none of your business because they actually have as much right to live here as we do. And they're married among this people and mind your business, and I do, and I'm probably one of the ones that has the hardest time keeping my much shut and not talking about it. There's nothing to talk about, but what good is going on? We definitely have prospered. Are people aren't poor anymore, and they all love each

other and all the kids. They work out there, they come home and their whole life has to be with all their friends and everybody's somebody's a friend too, because let me tell you something, our people are kids. They feel free here and we do believe in forgiveness and faith and how you forgive, you'll be forgiven. Very sky get up here. That night at Colonial a Baron's Annual

Friendship Fair, there was a large dance, a carnival. I saw people laughing, hugging, and I felt this energy, this happiness, this piece you know that feeling when you feel like your home. Deliver Us from Herville is hosted by me jesse Hyde and written and reported by me Leona Hamid and David Waters. Production from Leona Hamid and David Waters. Sean Glenn and maxw O'Brien are executive producers. Lena Chang and Megan Oyinka are researchers. Marianna Gongora is our field producer.

Fact checking by Donya Suleman and Sona Avakian. Production management from Sharie Houston, Frankie Taylor and Charlotte Wolfe. Austin Mitchell is our creative director of production. Micha Lee Raw is our managing editor. Gavin Haynes is our head of development. Willard Foxton is our creative director of Development. Sound design, mixing and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters. Music supervision by Nicholas l Xander and David Waters. Our music

is composed by Julian Lynch. Special thanks to Scott Anderson, Scott Carrier, Del van Ada, Pippa Smith, Saskia Edwards, Matt O'Mara, Katrina Norville and Beth and Makluso or In Rosenbaum, Shelby Shankman and all the team at U t A. For more from novel, visit novel dot Audio