6: The Betrayal

So doing jump? Are you nervous? Martin? Normal? What? What are we doing here? Nothing's happening. I understand that they're affiliated with the Church of the Lamb of God. Is that correct? I have been affiliated with what was called the Church of the Lamba. I guess you wouldn't know how they got back to get into the car in the first place with him, and he just turned me and said, didn't marry or pay for this is your last chance. They felt that they were putting somebody up

and Ma Sree, the Lord wants this done. Nan upstairs says, we just got to keep rid of Brillin. It's just ruling the people and leave them the straight. We ended up behind the doctor Joflson. The vehicles were waiting there. The guys handed us outguns and gave us encouraging words and send us all away. Every city police tonight say they have no lead. Jepps on who the two women were who entered the office of polegamous leader of ruling all read yesterday and shot him dead? Where did you

shoot him, Chessad, I can't time at all. How did you feel when you pulled the trigger? And she said glibly. If you want to know that, you'll have to read the book. Honestly, it was like losing him all over again. Close your eyes and imagine you're in a cave chained. All you can see is a blank wall. There's a fire burning outside the cave, and from time to time you can see shadows passing in front of the fire, flickering shadows. You and the other people in the cave

give names to these shadows. They form your perception of reality. They are your reality. Then one day suddenly you break free, leave the cave, see the fire outside making its projections. But the fire hurts your eyes, and even if someone were to tell you the fire is projecting the objects onto the cave wall, you wouldn't believe it, so you run back into the cave to the comfort of your reality. If you've ever taken a philosophy class, you probably know

the story. It's Plato's allegory of the cave, a fundamental understanding that in some sense applies to all of us, whether we are religious or not, the understanding that our reality is formed by our perceptions. As a journalist who often writes about faith, Plato's Cave comes to mind a lot, especially when I talk to people who have left fundamentalist religions, be because they often grew up removed from the world at large, grew up in a religion that taught the

world outside is dangerous to be mistrusted. There was always just a sense of fear, or always so much fear. This is one of those conversations with Gabriella, who was raised in a fundamentalist Mormon cultum I was about five years old, four or five years old, terrified of the outside world. I'm playing this because Gabriella's previous feelings about the world outside of her cult are indicative of many

people who leave fundamentalist religions. When she first saw the fire outside the cave, she didn't want to face it like most people, she ran back inside the cave. I was I wasn't going along with idol. Why not because I honestly believed in it and the truth was to pain full to face. And so I prayed and I asked God to show me what to do. And I remember I was like, look, God, I'm here, I don't know what to do. You're not telling me what to do. I'm ready. I was so ready. We never got answers. Okay,

so this is a problem with us. In Plato's allegory, that prisoner breaks free, then returns to the cave, but then someone, some mystery person, drags them back outside for a second time. It takes a minute, but their eyes do eventually adjust to the light and they can begin to see things as they are. I was really asking myself, if God is real, if what we were believing is real, then why didn't all of these miracles that are supposed to happen. How come none of them ever happened. They

realize the outside world is better than the cave. They've chained themselves to a wall from most of their life in this tightly controlled space, when there was so much more to see to experience that the reality in the cave was a distortion. It was like, your idea of reality is clashing with actual reality. I was like, okay, in that case, I don't know anything. I don't know anything. Of course, not all stories take the same course. Not

all fundamentalists have the same experience breaking free. But in Plato's allegory, the person goes back to the cave a third time, this time to try to convince people to come with them, to share in what they've seen, but nobody listens. In their minds, the person venturing outside the cave has been blinded by looking at the fire. They are now a danger, and in Plato's allegory, the cave dwellers decided to kill them. If you're not religious, you may think this all doesn't apply to you. But this

isn't just about former fundamentalists like Gabriella. Because most of us are tribal in some way, and if we leave that tribe, be it our family, community, even a political affiliation. Maybe it's hardwired into us. We know it's risky. It goes back to our earliest ancestors. You leave the tribe, you're dead. Maybe your old tribe sees you as a threat and tries to eliminate you. You betrayed them, after all, if I told you that your reality was a lie,

you'd push back right. Please were closing in on Herville and his followers, but so far the Church of the Lamb of God had stayed one step ahead. As far as tribes go, they seemed united, loyal, this mafia style clan with an unbreakable code. They knew the cost of speaking up, of leaving the tribe. It was death. But light was starting to stream into the cave. A few had ventured outside enough to wonder if the shadows they were seeing on the wall were real or the mad

ravings of a psychotic prophet. Herville must have known that if any of them broke free long enough to see the outside world, they would leave reject that tight, cloistered, suffocating existence he'd created of stomach rumbling, poverty, and sadistic murder of their own kin. The whole thing would collapse.

But the thing about Plato's legory is to fulfill it, someone from Hervil's group needed to be the first to break free, and they did, Like Judas when he gave away Jesus with a kiss on the cheek from the Team's at novel and I Heart Radio. This is deliver us from Herville. I'm Jesse Hyde chapter six. The betrayal of all the murders carried out by Herville and his followers in the years up to perhaps the hardest to

stomach is the killing of his daughter, Rebecca. Maybe killing his own brother Joel should have indicated nothing was off limits. Yet the killing of Rebecca LeBaron in April of nineteen s who was three months pregnant at the time, show just how far his followers were willing to go. But Rebecca's murder has another significance. Her death was the catalyst for an insider to betray Hervil. Rebecca LeBaron was the seventh child of Delfina Salito LeBaron, Irville's first wife. He

married her back in nineteen fifty. Rebecca's killing in April seventy seven was kind of an open secret in the colt, but no one told her mother, Delfina. That is until June of seven, when a child in the colt let

it slip. The secret was out. Delfina flipped, initially just figuratively, raging against the members of the cult, but this instinctive reaction now put Delphina's life at risk, because the same cult members who saw Rebecca as a loose cannon now saw Delphina as a threat and someone who had to be silenced too. Delphina must have realized this because not long after her outburst of grief and rage, she tried

to flee to Mexico to escape the colt. And while this was all happening, word of Delphina's flight from Rvil's colt had reached the cops. She called her sister in San Diego, and that sister called Dick Forbes. This is Larive's Stubbs, whose family helped settle Colonial LeBaron back in episode one. Ever since Mervil's followers had killed her prophet Joel LeBaron, she and her husband had been leading the resistance to Evil's colt. She dedicated every spare minute trying

to track him down and bring him to justice. And so, now hearing Delfina was leaving the colt, it was Larive down in Colonial LeBaron that the detective Dick Forbes called to help bring Delfina in, hoping she could be persuaded by Larive to testify against the Colt Delfina, which was herbl's wife. Dick Forbes told us that he needed to take her to Salt Lake and what would it take. But hearing all this, Larive's concern was for Delfina. She knew her life was now in danger from hervil's assassins.

They were already on the plane to go get rid of her because they want her talking. They thought there's a potential she would get killed before she could testifies it. Of course, you think they weren't after her The minute she left, Dick Forbes told Larive they needed to act fast. Delfina was on a bus traveling through Texas en route to Mexico. The bus was going to be making a stop in the border city of El Paso. It's about two hundred miles from Colonial a baron a four hour

drive on a good day. Could Larive get there before Hervil's killers. And he says, she's going to be there at three o'clock in the morning. And I had to get up in my house down here, drive Dale Passo and be in that bus stop at three o'clock. And the law was on its way to that El Paso bus stop too, So we're the ones that met her in al Passo, and it was clear ful of FBI

and CIA and whatever you get it. So they all converged just in time, and we've interceded, picked her up, had guys there from Salt Lake that night at three o'clock in the morning. They flew in next morning. She says, well, I'll go if Luria will go with me. So there I was stuck for three weeks, and I was pretty upset because I had little kids and I needed to

be home. But I went Larive put her life in Mexico on hold and traveled up to Utah because for her, stopping herbal had become a single minded mission to stop the killing. We did go after him with a law and we worked with Mormon FBI, c I, a UM and with everybody. Oh, I just wanted to know me did it day and night, damn night. When the reef talks about Mormon law enforcement agencies, she's referring to Dick

Forbes and other officials. Not only were they from Mormon backgrounds, but they had taken to heart the advice of journalist

Del van Ada. Remember it was Dale back in episode four who had told police to learn and respect the intricacies of Mormon doctrine, and that had allowed police to build trust a little by little, trust at all those guys because I watched him, and I watched him in law enforcement rely on you guys for information for everything, because they had all the records on the barrens, you know, but they didn't know the difference of those who were

against Cervill and those who were for it. Tips and then you would let them know we didn't hear tips. We helped him everything they needed, and we knew all the families. This was a big thing for Larive agreeing to work with cops. Think about it from her position as one of those refugees in Mexico leaving the US as a team because the cops were rounding up and arresting Polygamus. She'd been told never to trust the U

S authorities. If it was me, even the risk of becoming a target of Herville would have made me think twice. I wasn't terrified because I believed more in getting him behind bars that he can't keep killing. And everybody been worried about me and for the cops, Larive's intervention was crucial because getting Delphina safely in custody was one thing, but now they needed her to talk to them too, and Larive was able to help them do that. Why

was Delphina such a key witness. She's his first wife and all his kids are hers, and you had to be careful even with her. You couldn't just push and shove. But she ended up telling everything. What Larive means by everything here is well the killing of Joel, the killing of Ruling all Read, the killing of Bob Simons, and invest and on and on the killing of Rebecca, her daughter. She was the first cult member to give them this inside information that said Delfina hadn't actually witnessed any of

these murderers firsthand. She just heard about them through the family grapevine. For prosecutors to get convictions, the cops were going to need more. You see, nobody has all the information. I don't know what you know about law work, but everybody has a little piece and that little piece and that little piece and that little piece. And this is

where Delphina's son came in, a kid named Isaac. Isaac, just fourteen years old in nineteen seventy seven, had actually been at the April twenty meeting that year the emergency military meeting. The meeting when Herville ordered the killing of Roulin Alread and Rlin le Baron and told the colt how he wanted it done. Isaac was a witness. Delphina told this to the cops, and she was also able

to tell them where Isaac was currently living. On July n seventy seven, the police swooped in for Isaac, descending on an unremarkable looking single story suburban home in Dallas. Here the cult had a safe house. Now in police custody, At first, Isaac was terrified refused to say anything to the cops, but over time they gained his trust too, and two weeks later in August, he started to talk. It was really a key break in the case, and basically at that point and we were on our way.

This is David Yoakum, the lead Utah prosecutor. He'd been trying to bring Ruling Alread's killers to justice from the very beginning. I said, I attended the scene at the day of the killing. I had actually been out there where they were wheeling run Alread out of his office on a gurney, and my good friend and detective on the case and informed me they had no idea at the time who was responsible or why I was killed.

When he first started on the case, Yoakum thought he'd found his key break in an evidence hall near the crime scene, two men were looking through a large dumpster outside of their store and found a grocery sack full of things that looked strange to them. It had included a gun box which had a serial number attached to it, and since the murder had just occurred down the street, they turned over these things to the Murray Place department.

Some of this evidence had sent the investigators in the All Red murder on a bit of a wild goose chase. They traced the serial number on the box through the FBI and found out the box had been purchased in Denver, Colorado. It had been purchased by a cult member who had no further involvement in the killing, and before the cops had insider information from the colt, they thought the gun

box link meant they had their shooter. Then they found out she had an airtight alibi, so they were right back to squa are one and David Yoakum was starting to fill the heat because what he was learning about herville and his cult. From the investigation was telling him just how serious stopping this all was because of the power that he held over a group of individuals and the authority he claimed, and that he could actually command

people on his name to murder other people. I felt that it was so significant, and saying this was significant is saying something for Yoakum, who had seen some heavy ship in his career. In fact, just a few years before this case, he had been the first to successfully prosecute serial killer Ted Bundy. You know, Ted Bundy was responsible for a lot of murders, but it wasn't like he had a whole group of people that he commanded

to kill. He was his sole killer, which is bad enough, But here Herville had the control over people that he could order them to kill members of his own group. He actually had his own daughter murdered, which is pretty damn scary. But a very evil person that was worse than I think a serial killer. So yeah, from August seventy seven onwards, when Isaac started giving cops and prosecutors witnessed demons from the secret meetings of the cult where

killings were being ordered. Significant probably doesn't cover it. It was a huge break in the case. He started giving information. We call it the twentieth Conservation meeting or Herville conducted a medium as group and talked about selecting two women to come to Utah to kill a false prophet. This is an emergency military meeting April where the all Red

and Virlin murder plans were announced. This young man had a very good memory of that and started giving us name teams of individuals that were present and who's who. This included a name for the killer of Dr Roulin Alrett. Rina Channath Yoakum felt they were ready to make arrests. That's coming up after the break. By the summer of fractures and fissures had begun to appear in Evil's once ultra tight knit church of the Lamb of God. Paranoia and fear or in some cases, ego had set in.

Lloyd and Don Sullivan, for example, had seen their roles greatly diminished. Lloyd had once held a roll near the top of Hervil's mafia like clan. Hearing Rena Channath's testimony years later revealed how he was the instigator for that raid on Los Molinos, carried out the hit on Robert Simons, and had been an advocate for Rebecca's murder too, Yet a series of botched hits meant he had now lost favor. The disillusionment went both ways. After the ruling ordered killing

in May seven, Herville fled south of the border. He had left Lloyd in the US to clean up the mess. This had effectively left Lloyd in charge of the Colts American operations. Lloyd started to spend more and more time with Rena, one of Evil's handpicked assassin's and at one time one of his favorite wives. We were getting familiar

with each other. Tell me how wonderful it was playing on my motion, and he was telling me how wrong it was things had to turn out with durable, how much he how desirable I was, and how that it was that I was so unhappy with the woman it couldn't be right. This is Rena in that interview for her book with the writer Dean Shapiro years later. Here she's recalling how after Rulin Alred's murder, Lloyd Sullivan had

suddenly started having his own revelations from God. Lloyd's decided he was a prophet that needed to write, and so he was writing, and I was typing for him. Just like for Herville. Rena was once again typing out the revelations of a self proclaimed prophet. But that wasn't the only role Lloyd had in mind for her. We were driving along in the truck and he had this revelation. But he said, oh my goodness, I just saw you and you were wearing this long, beautiful white dress. And

he goes, of course, I'm waiting dress. That means you're supposed to marry me. This was all very confusing for Rena. Maybe God was in fact revealing to her that she should marry Lloyd, even though God had previously told her she should marry Herville. So she set off to Mexico, where Rvill was now hiding out, to tell Hervill she was through with him. Hervill's answer, absolutely not. He told me that Lloyd was worthless to me, and I was

just cried on tears. Rena had hoped to break the news to Irville and be back in the US within a week, but now that she had revealed her true intentions, there was no way Irvill was letting her out of his sight. She was his prisoner, now locked away typing out more insane pamphlets, more unhinged and violent revelations. Their life ever since the Los Milino's raid had been nomadic to stay head of enemies real and imagined chasing them.

And it continued traveling, Hi du running, driving, you know, stuck down there, next call in Healing Lenny, same old ship. But for Lloyd Sullivan back in the US, Rena's absence had done nothing to halt his split from Hervil. He'd already tried to steal Irvil's wife. He'd already called himself the real prophet. Now it was time to go all the way. In August of ninety seven, he penned an open letter to the Church of the Lamb of God. Why wasn't Herville over here in the US fighting the

good fight? He asked? Why was he hiding out in Mexico. Then he dropped a bomb. He called Merville a son of perdition, that sinner who could only be atoned by death. This was a call to war, and there were only two ways it could go. Either Ervill would take out Lloyd, or Lloyd would have to find a way of getting

to Irville. In the meantime, prosecutors against Irville had continued to build their case and on September nineteen seventy seven, Yoakum's team filed charges for murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy

to commit murder against all of Rville's inner circle. Roughly two weeks later, homes and businesses controlled by the cult were raided by one of the largest joint law enforcement operations in the history of the American West, a massive sting operation over one police officers from Utah, Texas, Colorado, and Oklahoma. They were assisted by agents from the FBI and the Secret Service. The raid wasn't a total success.

Many of the colts, including Herville and Rena, remained at large, but they did manage to catch at least one big fish. This is an interviews conducted in the County Attorney's office in Salt Lake City present County Attorney Investigator Dick Forbes. Interview will be conducted by National CITYPD. The cops had caught Lloyd Sullivan. I'd like to start out the interview by getting just a little bit of background. I understand that you're affiliated with are were affiliated with the Church

of the Lamb of God? Is that correct? I have been affiliated with what was called the Church of the Lama. What was your position in the church at that time, you're At that time, I was studying with herbal two to the Commandments of the Lord. He teaches very very well, better than any man I've ever heard, and I was learning under him under his tutorship. At this point, Lloyd was already looking for ways to eliminate hervil as arrival, and now he realized the police could help him do it.

So Lloyd started talking to the cops. He gave them the inside line on many of the cults murders, from the killing of Joel, the raid on Los Molinos, and other killings like the murder of Rvil's daughter Rebecca. Having a knowledge and being intimate with people in that group where most of them prone to follow out commandments without question, yes, of that magnitude. Yes, let's say that the Lord you do this no hesitation. Have you heard her will give

other people similar commandments? Yes, He's given him to me. And did you have that same feeling about it that it was in fact God's commandment? I did. What would happen if you failed to carry out that type of commandment? Dead or who whoever was commanded and refused? Was there any question about that in your mind? That if you refused to carry out a commandment that you would be killed. Never with Lloyd Sullivan giving them information, Forbes and Yoakum

now had a network of informants. Together with people in colonial LeBaron like Larife Stubbs, their intelligence on the Church of the Lamb of God was growing, how they operated, how they thought, who was currently in favor, but also crucially the location of the remaining fugitive cult members who had so far eluded arrest. In the early morning hours of October thirty one, in a rural part of Mexico, not far from Mexico City, Federals closed in on an

apartment complex. Inside We're Rina chinaf hervil A Baron, some of Hervill's other wives, Dan Jordan's, his right hand man, and other remaining members of L's inner circle, all hiding out together. Rena had been typing yet another pamphlet till late into the night and had fallen asleep on a blanket on the floor of one of the bedrooms. At

one in the morning, without warning, Federals crashed through the door. Yeah, they had automatic Shane Gainst pointed at us, and there must have been five or six of them and I can't remember if they weren't wearing army fatigues or anything when we're wearing street clos Then they came roaring into the bedroom. This is Rena in that interview with writer Dean Shapiro. At this point in the fall of seventy eight, Rena had already had one child with Herville. Rena was

now three months pregnant with their second child. I said, well, can I put some clothes on or something here? And the guy said, well, okay, and let us go in the bathroom. We have to stand with the door open, And so I got some clothes on and they took me out and handcuffed me, hands behind my back, and they put me in this van outside and left me

there all night. Sitting in the van, her hands cuffed and her feet tied, Rena looked for Irville, expecting to see him being led away in handcuffs too, but instead, as she looked out into the darkness, she saw the Federali's leading out Dan Jordan's. They brought Dan Jordan out and put him in the van. They looked at him and it was picture and for some reason they decided

that he wasserble middle of Kitty a lot. The cops had in fact questioned Herble that night, but he had played innocent, said he was just some minor follower of the Church of the Lamb of God, and the Federals didn't recognize him. It was when they'd found Dan Jordan's that they thought they had their main man. So they thought they were arresting hercles, so they thought they had and Dan and Garvey with him. Cops blindfolded both Rena and Dan and took them to a prison in the

Mexican capital. And when we got to Mexico City, I laughed at the sergeant like face and they were trying to interview You had it right and new dressed, and you didn't even know what's new. Comes goes to prue. I felt, it just goes through that we're right and theyre wrong, because God, so you should escape. After Mexico City, the cops eventually handed Rena over to American law enforcement.

They put us in the back of a car and they poled us to the ordered like two days, all day and all night, and we drove and over the gop you're fighting trap. They took us to the boarder in the rito. I tried to picture Arena there standing at the border, a river running free in front of her, about to cross from one life of captivity to another, free of herville, something she had dreamed of since he started to pursue her when she was just twelve years old.

She had at times prayed God would strike her by lightning to end this nightmare, and now, miraculously, as she walked across the bridge leading from Mexico to Laredo, Texas, God had answered her prayers. Rena was free from the lambs of God, but headed to jail. The FBI today rested a key suspect in the nineteen seventy seven religious assassination of Polygamust patriarch ruling Alread. Agents arrested twenty year old Na Nath at the International Bridge in Laredo, Texas.

Janath has charged with first degree murder and conspiracy to murder in the Alred case. Authorities have described the killing as a religious assassination ordered by the fanatic irvil LeBaron, the leader of a rival Polygamust cult. Ten people have been charged in the case. Most of the gang had now been caught, Detectives were now interrogating them, building a case for trial. LeBaron himself and one of his sons

remain at large. The FBI said Shannav would appear at a federal removal hearing in Texas Monday and then be returned to Utah or prosecution. And surely it was just a matter of time before they caught Hervil himself, and when they did, the killing would stop. That was the hope anyway more. After the break m the trial of Rina China and other accomplished members of the Church of the Lamb of God began in a Salt Lake City

corep room on Tuesday, March six. N David Yoakum, the man tasked with prosecuting the colt, he feared the trial was going to play out as an internal face off between cult members. There was a battle are between the group and blaming one another. You know which group of people were responsible here Roulin Alred's daughter Dorothy took her place in the courtroom. There was a great deal of angry energy emanating from Herville's people who attended the trial.

There were just a lot of angry energy. Rena and the others had refused any kind of plea deal. As she told the writer of her memoir of years later at this point she was all in on a not guilty verdict. I think when they when it was mentioned to me, I said, no, you wanted now, we did this in God's name and we got darn or get us out of this. If you've ever sat in a courtroom during a trial, it can be surprising how mundane the proceedings are. Even murder trials are sometimes boring once

the legal arguments are underway. This is why little things can make a big difference. Little things that cut through to make an impression on jurors, sometimes as much as facts, things that give them positive feelings about those called to speak. And the problem for prosecutor David Yoakum was that not many of his witnesses in the trial were likely to cut through in a particularly positive way. They weren't exactly

sympathy addic, especially Don Sullivan. People were on trial. We're pointing their fingers at Don Sullivan, and then you know they were the supposed ringladers the whole thing, and that Rena had nothing to do with it. Don Sullivan, who had come across with his dad Lloyd, to cooperate with the cops. He had earlier pleaded guilty to conspiracy and agreed to testify in exchange for immunity from further prosecution. So this was a self confessed conspirator to murder two jurors.

He probably seemed like a psychopath. On top of that, he'd been indoctrinated to live for years. So again not exactly a credible witness. And Rena's defense team we're saying Don was the one responsible. This was the internal face off between cult members. Yoakum was concerned about, and that kind of he said. She said reasonable doubt wasn't the

only issue. The prosecution based all the publicity surrounding hervill Le baron, the local TV news coverage, the articles in newspapers and magazines, well, it had created a picture of the cult that was terrifying. In January nine nine, for example, the National Enquirer had run a front page with Hervill's mugshot blaming him and his cult for the assassination of JFK. He had that kind of notoriety now, and that freak

jurors out. There was a failing that during the case that some of the jurors were actually concerned for their health and welfare because they were afraid that if they bought back a guilty verdict that Hervil group and Nervil's being out free, running around and still having a following, that they may be harmed if they found any member

of the group guilty. The Mormon manson who could control killers with his mind, he seemed capable of anything, which is why to this day Yoakum is both grateful and inspired at the courage of people like Hervil's son Isaac agreeing to take the witness stand, and Yoakum had impartial witnesses too, like the woman who had sold Rena a

disguise shortly before the killing of Roulin Alread. She remembered selling it to Rena, remembered her, well, that was kind of an ominous feeling to have somebody come up there and say you've been in this store, and that she'd never forget that face, and she remembered how happy and I wasn't it It's just kind of shone or something like that is beautiful. But other witnesses were less helpful to the prosecution, like one who was at the crime scene but couldn't pick Rena out of a photo lineup.

They had that composite picture that that guy in the waiting room was hypnotized, and he gave it in posit and it looked more like dog full of him than my attorney had fun with that. This is the thing, this is who you said. It was under hypnosis and doesn't look anything like my client, if anything, looks like a man, and that's what they were stressing that it could have been a man dressed up and most likely

could have been the States witness. Perhaps witnesses like this one explain why David Yocum felt like he needed to close his argument with some kind of grand flourish, or perhaps that was always going to be his style. My closing arguments always were quite strong. I was accused many many times unethical conduct, and in cases I'd go right up to the wall, I'd say, and but not stepping over the line, and that I just pushed my cases

to the brink either way. David Yoakum strode towards the judge and slammed a copy of the Bible onto the table in front of him. Both jury members and even the defendant were a little taken aback. I remember Yokum picking up that Bible and slamming back down on the judges bench on the table in front of the judges bench, where yeah, it's and I thought that was kind of shocked. And I don't imagine everybody else. I can only imagine what everybody else felt where he did that, and he's

very coffee David Yoakum wasn't worried about shocking people. That was the point, so the jury would wake up to the threat posed by Hervil's colt bring them to justice. And he felt the cops and prosecutors had made their case. Now it was up to the jury to find Rina Chanof and her accomplices guilty of killing. Ruling alread. Even though we didn't have a saw eyewitness testimony that she was on the pole the trigger, I was pretty confident

that we had sufficient evidence to convict Rena. The pretty felt that we had a good case. Just four hours later, the jury of six women and two men were filing back into the core room with a verdict, and I said, the verdict was in. When I went back to the courtroom, my attorney were there and he was concerned because normally when the jury reached that quickly it's Rena sat alongside her lawyer, a guy named John McConnell, and I was leaving John's hats a herd. I could hardly I imagine

blood was stop. That was not so chuit, waiting too well for that. And uh, we all sat there and saying they whoever it is, added to the data and takes to the judge. And judge raised the verdict, and then he looked up and he said, now I'll have no outbursts from the crowd. Not tolerated any outburst or something like that. And then when they began reading the verdicts, gradually I let off on his hand, let off, squeezing on his hands. Not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, not

guilty on whatever, twenty three accounts. Just eighteen days after the trial had begun, not only was Rena cleared of all charges, but all remaining lambs of God being held for the murder of Rule and all read were cleared of charges in relation to his murder too. Rena was free. Well, we hugged all the way around, and I don't know what the crowd reaction went. I don't I was too involved. Rena sent back to Sell to gather up her personal

belongings and say goodbye to the friend she's made. She's then processed out to meet family members who are waiting outside. I remember walking out from this underground tunnel and there were cameras there. Chriss was waiting when I couldn't believe. Actually, I was just in the days. I think I was in a day most of the time. Like I just remember, I was in the car and I was looking up at the mountains, looking around at the lights, and here's the world. I've been walked up this along and there's

a beautiful mountains. They're in folt Lang snow on on the top of them. It was it was fresh air. Rena is free to put her whole past behind her, or to go and write a book about it and tour the US cable news networks for the next decade. Either way, when it came to the colt, she was out, leaving behind her the stunned cops and prosecutors like Yoakum. I didn't cry or anything, but I was really disappointed all of the prosecution team. Where we're disappointed in the verdict.

What would it take to get a conviction against hervil Le Baron? Was God really on his side protecting him? Well, No, I knew one thing that would make me pill less artist to apprehend and capture and try rble, which, of course we got that chance. That's coming up in the next episode of deliver Us from Hervill. Deliver Us from Herville is hosted by me jesse Hyde and written and reported by me Leona Hamad and David Waters. Production from Leona Hamid and David Waters. Sean Glenn and maxwe'brien are

executive producers. Lena 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. Michae 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 Chris O'Shaughnessy,

Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters. Our music is composed by Julian Lynch. Special thanks to Scott Anderson, Scott Carrier, delvan Ada, Pippa Smith, Saskia Edwards, Matt O'Mara, Katrina Norvelle and beth An Makaluso, or In Rosenbaum, Shelby Shankman and all the team at UTA. For more from Novel, visit novel dot Audio eight