He told her he believed one did not need to practice polygamy to reach heaven. She also is a star of "Escaping Polygamy." Nor are youths from polygamous sects the only teens who marry in Utah. ", "United by fundamentalist Mormon beliefs, one polygamous group helps another by bringing truckloads of food", "Young Brides Stir New Outcry on Utah Polygamy", "Shurtleff: Child bride polygamous marriages appear to have stopped", "Polygamists are urged to make public statement", "No longer performing child-bride marriages? 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. Now, former members say, girls who will be plural wives meaning they have only a spiritual marriage to their husband are left alone until they are 18 so laws about sex with a minor wont apply. She does not favor a change in the marriage age. Everyone in the Order knew that she controlled the purse strings for the operation but few were aware that she was sitting on a hidden stash of silver. When he noticed that the boys had stopped working, he became enraged. That wasnt the only reason Jessica liked him. I love the Order. While all that is happening, the potential bride is supposed to have been praying about whom to marry. Its hard to leave when thats all youve known, says one former member, who was forced to marry her cousin when she was 15. Jessica as well as Snow, DeRieux and Hansen all favor raising the legal marriage age in Utah and other states to 18. Its who I am., To keep the police from prying into the matter any further, the clan also hired a private investigator to track down the missing gold. The ones they dont think they have to worry about, they dont push them as hard.. Chuck Lepper, vice president for student affairs and enrollment management, said that no review is planned at this time. Paul already had two wives, but he and Richaun were married in a secret ceremony at her parents house. Paul Vallas and wife Sharon have been together 38 years. When they arrived in Grand Junction, all three couples filled out the papers for a marriage license. They had sped off in a Honda sedan. The family believed that discipline would rein in the boys and that hard labor would make the girls more supplicant to their husbands back in the city. But within the Order, where drinking soda pop was against the rules, it was a pretty big deal.. In its place, someone had left a note. According to people who have left the Order, the cult exploits its 2,000 members as virtual slave labor and hides profits from tax collectors. Theyre trying to paint a picture, Markey said, give the judge and, frankly, the defendants, when they see the complaint, give them the context, which is to the effect, We know what's up. Youre just supposed to get married as young as you can, said the now-26-year-old. It felt like it was us against the world. His older brother Richard, a burly diesel mechanic, taught him how to fix cars. Carolyn Yvonne Kingston was born in 1938 in Elmo, Utah, to Charles Elden Kingston, and his first wife Ethel Gustafson, so she was the daughter of the first prophet of the Kingston Clan. When youre three years old, they start training you what to say if people talk to you, recalls Jeremy Tucker, a 32-year-old former member of the cult, who now works in construction. She grew up in Woods Cross and hated The Order all her life, she said in a recent interview. 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. Stoddard was the president of the Latter Day Church of Christ, the Kingston Groups incorporated religious organization. The theft of the silver bars from Rachel Youngs basement, they concluded, had been a copycat crime. That includes the fraud within Washakie Renewable Energy as well as what the plaintiffs allege was a separate scheme by sect members to bilk a U.S. Department of Agriculture program to provide free lunches to child and adult day cares. Jessica Kingston didnt want to be a polygamist. Over 75 years, the Kingstons have amassed a fortune worth an estimated $300 million, but the operation skirts the edges of the law. This article related to the Latter Day Saint movement is a stub. Later that afternoon, in another house across town belonging to the Order, a woman named Patty Kingston opened her closet to discover that a chest of gold coins worth as much as $5 million had vanished. Romero has said her concern is for all girls, not just those in polygamous sects. took great pains to never show his wealth and taught his followers to do the same. And it would be several years after that before he stole from his father for the first time. He didnt have anyone to help him process what had just happened., Taking advantage of his status as a son of the prophet, Stephen began bending the rules even further. "A review of wedding certificates shows how the teen marriages are sanctioned at the highest levels of the Kingston Group. Attorneys for the Nelsons and Michaels also did not return messages seeking comments. This didnt belong to you anyway., As big as the heist was, it attracted almost no attention in Salt Lake. 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. 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. Then one of them exhaled slowly, his breath shuddering in the cold air. Directories Newly added. In response to questions from the newspaper, Kent Johnson, a spokesman for the Davis County Cooperative Society, sent an email saying marriages should occur within the age of legal consent and not be coerced. He had yet to lose his hair, and thanks to his fanatical devotion to healthy food and alternative medicine, he had the ropy build of a well-toned athlete. Luke and Scott often visited the home of one of their aunts, Rachel Young. Paul Elden Kingston (1959- ): Known as the "Watchman on the Wall" who claims to hear from God regularly, Paul is the son of John Ortell. Pulling up, he noticed the getaway car parked in front of the house. He served one day in jail. Most of the time, said Shanell DeRieux, a former Kingston Group member now seen on Escaping Polygamy, the girls only choice is to have babies because thats how we build The Order by population.. With the Orders leaders taking so many wives for themselves, the clans younger men were often unable to find anyone to marry. Each time turning up no significant violations or nothing at all. A nationwide debate is underway about teens, especially girls, marrying. 210 King Sobhuza II: King of Swaziland (now Eswatini), lived 1899-1982, is thought to have had 70 wives. Short and chubby, the Brown boys looked up to the Knight brothers. 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. ", "Girls in polygamous Kingston Group continue to marry as young as 15, records show, sometimes leaving Utah to marry cousins", "Inside 'The Order,' One Mormon Cult's Secret Empire", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paul_Elden_Kingston&oldid=1136713473, This page was last edited on 31 January 2023, at 19:29. Then one night, a clan member called and told him that the Order planned to kill him. Create Biography 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. Within a year, Paul Kingston would take a fourth wife. One day, not long after the gold disappeared, Knight got an anonymous phone call. DeRieux says she was still high school age when her father told her she needed to pray about whom to marry, get married and build The Order. Her father also started calling her mother and prodded her to pressure DeRieux to get married. Because of the clans distrust of banks, the Order had cash hidden all over the place, a poorly kept secret within the family. The plaintiffs argue a plan to defraud such well-known student aid benefits as Pell Grants and the Ford and Perkins loans began in 2004 or 2005. 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. [10][11]. Current members dispute those characterizations. Viewers Can Watch Prince Harry Talk to a Trauma Expert for $33.09 The deputy opened the trunk of the Honda, where he found two duffel bags stuffed with silver. They are paid not in cash but in scrip, an arcane form of credit used by the Mormon pioneers that can only be redeemed at company stores. 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. 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. 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. Former members of the sect say there may be dozens or even hundreds more marriage certificates at county clerk offices across the West. It was just the best choice, some say, among their bad options. Tennessee Ex-Cop Sues After Becoming Porn Meme, Claims She Was 'Groomed' for Sex With Coworkers Paul passed away on month day 1973, at age 92 at death place, Oregon. A husband and wife died while on a fishing trip after falling through thin ice in the region. He asked him if he was being obedient, then excused himself to talk to Stephens mother. His face was crushed, Stephen says now, matter-of-factly, his eyes going blank for a moment. After the lawsuit was filed, attorneys representing the U.S. government asked a judge to seal the case, according to entries that can still be found on a webpage maintained by DocketBird.com, a commercial site that collects and sells court records. It empowered Stephen before that, no one had ever stood up to Daniel Kingston or any of them, says a former member. But the more the deputy pressed, the more their stories didnt add up. One of the Orders leaders did jail time for severely beating his own daughter after she fled an arranged marriage to his brother. (Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Salt Lake Community College Redwood Road campus is pictured Thursday, Dec. 12, 2019. Known variously as "Brother Paul," "the leader," and "the man on the watchtower" by Order members, this unremarkable, balding middle-aged man reportedly has 27 wives and over 300 children. Paul Kingston, they said, has 17 wives and nearly 50 children. 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