On June 27, 1988, a series of coordinated murders took place. First, three siblings — William Heber, Cynthia, and Natasha LeBaron — shot and killed Mark Chynoweth in Houston. Also in Houston, siblings Patricia and Richard LeBaron killed Duane Chynoweth and his 8-year-old daughter, Jenny. In Irving, Edward Marston was shot and killed by Douglas Barlow. What unfolded afterward was a complicated saga that included the 2010-2011 arrest and sentencing of another sibling, Jacqueline LeBaron, on a conspiracy charge.
The above-mentioned LeBarons were descendants of Ervil LeBaron, the leader of the fundamentalist Mormon cult the Church of the First Born of the Lamb of God, which he started after feuding with his brother, Joel, about who should lead the church founded by Joel and two other LeBaron brothers. Ervil was convicted of Joel’s murder in 1974, but the conviction was soon overturned. He was released, and began ordering the killings of other Mormon sect leaders, including Bob Simons in 1975 and Rulon Allred in 1977. In 1979, Ervil was arrested and convicted again. He died in prison in 1981.
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After his death, his followers (who mostly consisted of his 50-plus children) continued to follow the instructions recorded in his prison-penned “Book of the New Covenant,” which ordered the murders of the Chynoweth family and Edward Marston. It’s unclear how many killings there have been, although estimates suggest it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 30. Six more members were indicted in 1992, and in 2019, nine more were killed by a drug cartel in Mexico in an apparently unrelated attack.
If you or someone you know is dealing with spiritual abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.
