I was scared to death when I left. From a clan ranch in Nevada, Stephen called his brother Ben, who had left the Order a few years before. Like Stephen, the boys were considered troublemakers by the Order and like Stephen, they knew a lot about how the clan handled its money. (Photo courtesy Shanell DeRieux) John Daniel Kingston, front center, kneels in front of three of his daughters as they hold their wedding certificates July 3, 2008, in Grand Junction, Colo. Shanell DeRieux, second row left, was 18; the other two girls were 16. While much of the focus of any polygamous group is on plural marriages that happen outside the law, records and interviews with current and former first wives in the Kington Group lend insight into how legal marriages are facilitated. 180+ Jonathan Jacob Meijer View Site Google Maps When people hear organized crime, they think of mobsters. Jessica Kingston wore a white dress. All of their children who survived the Great Famine emigrated. Knight was born in Salt Lake City, the sixth child of third-generation polygamists. All the families belong to the Davis County Cooperative Society. Three of Kingston's 14 wives also are in the photo. The Salt Lake Tribune, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) public charity and contributions are tax It was February in Salt Lake, cold and gray, and in the foothills above the city, a low fog hung over the mountains. Come and get me, Stephen said. Shanell DeRieux was married at 18 to a husband in the Kingston Group. Brother Ron Tucker, he would intone, come and get your number. According to the Orders interpretation of the Book of Revelations, only 144,000 numbered men will be allowed to rule in heaven under God. Johnson did not provide the raw data to support those statistics. Theyll do what they need to do to defend whats theirs.. DeRieux said she and her husband were not allowed to live together or consummate their marriage until they had a religious ceremony the following month. He went days at a time without eating, convinced it helped provoke visions, and believed that by the laying on of hands he could heal his followers from sickness and disease. The Kingston Group is believed to have a few thousand members, mostly in Utah and Idaho. Its hard to leave when thats all youve known, says one former member, who was forced to marry her cousin when she was 15. One baby deemed to have too many deformities was allegedly put in a shoe box and left to die. Theyd keep it in basements, in filing cabinets, in a big safe in one of Pauls offices, says Levi Kingston, a former clan member. Then one of them exhaled slowly, his breath shuddering in the cold air. His arms are sunburned and his hands calloused from long days moving the irrigation pipes that water the fields. Send us a tip using our anonymous form. A recent estimate is that he has 34 wives and more than 500 children, as several of his wives have had as many as 16 children each! Former members of the sect say there may be dozens or even hundreds more marriage certificates at county clerk offices across the West. Five of the women suing alleged they were coerced into marriage as minors and raped by their husbands. We want to hear it. Youd show up for a welfare call, or a domestic-abuse call, and it was just real run-down.. 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. Thats your Uncle Paul, she said. The group has drawn legal attention before. In Utah, Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, plans a bill that would raise the minimum marriage age to 18. She says marriages can be used in The Order to gain or maintain favor among the parents of the brides and grooms. We dont expect any of the claims to prevail in a court of law.. He bragged that he had worn the same black shirt every day for a year. She, in turn, wrote a letter to the judge on their behalf, and the case was settled without a trial. Paul Kingston is one of eight men named as defendants in the lawsuit. (Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Salt Lake Community College Redwood Road campus is pictured Thursday, Dec. 12, 2019. Consumed with guilt over his brothers death, Stephen lashed out. If you would like the full family tree and I feel your request is legitimate I will email it to you. Kingston taught his followers that they are the literal descendants of Jesus and one of his wives, who had come down to Earth to found a race of chosen people. Paul E. Kingston, considered the top man, signed as a witness for four of the marriages that The Tribune found outside Utah. If the father believes his son received true direction from God, the son is sent to Paul Kingston or one of the people he designates to consider marriages. And it would be several years after that before he stole from his father for the first time. Jessica was given the list of suitors. Do you think if I took $5 million in gold, Id be working out here?. DeRieux says the other two girls were her half-sisters, both age 16. Dating or romance among young people before marriage is forbidden in the Kingston Group, but the sect does hold dances. Their divorce was finalized in July 2012 a little more than three years after they married. 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. If they are money-laundering or making money in support of polygamy and incest, then they probably meet the statute.. We've received your submission. 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. 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. Paul Vallas and wife Sharon have been together 38 years. A body of research suggests the teenage brain is not developed enough to make the kind of long-term decision needed for marriage. Only the inner circle knew the hoard even existed, says Christian Kingston, a former Order member. Some children are born blind, others with missing fingernails or undersize heads. Jessica said her husband was on a group text that went around listing girls or women who had not yet married with jokes about how old the females were getting. She was instructed, the complaint adds, to deposit the excess funds at a South Salt Lake office building, where the sects bank is located. Inseparable: Twins Peter (left) and Paul have lived. Paul Valls's wife is Sharon Vallas. When they arrived in Grand Junction, all three couples filled out the papers for a marriage license. COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) Jurors in Alex Murdaugh's murder trial will get to see for themselves the rural hunting estate where his wife and son were killed, following in the footsteps of . For the marriages performed in Utah, Bill W. Stoddard signed as the officiant until his death in March. DeRieux did marry the next year at age 18 to a cousin who was 19. After the chest of gold was stolen, suspicion among the clans leadership immediately fell on a group of rebellious teenagers who had left the cult a few years before. Girls who agree to become plural wives tend to be more devout and usually live in homes without their husband, thus receiving less scrutiny. He then severed her index finger, cleaned off the three bones, and carried them with him the rest of his life, believing that the totem kept her spirit with him. But the more the deputy pressed, the more their stories didnt add up. 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. At first, the two boys denied any involvement in the break-in at Youngs house. Paul, a grandson of the group's founder, has 27 wives and more than 300 children, Mary said. Once the couples signed the certificates and turned them back in to the Mesa County clerk, they were legally married. The DCCS is a financial cooperative established by his uncle Elden Kingston in 1935. For more than a decade, the group has publicly spoken out against child-bride marriages and the DCCS has a policy encouraging its members to marry within the legal age of consent. Kingston clan into a multimillion-dollar business empire while allowing many of his purported 13 wives and dozens of children to survive on government assistance. Shortly after that meeting, the complaint continues, Mrs. He has held several high-level positions in government and education and worked as a consultant, so he likely has earned a significant income over the years. Girls, many of them teen brides, answer phones at the Orders law office, bag groceries at its supermarket or tend to the clans many children. Order girls are taught from birth that their primary purposes in life are to be obedient, a submissive wife, and to bear as many children as possible, the suit states. If you knew where to look and the Knight boys did it was easy to find. In his teens, Stephen and five of his half brothers stole $4,000 from their father. The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time Jessica said, strictly speaking, she and the other teen brides she knows chose to get married, but added: Its not much of a choice when theyre groomed to do that.. If God gives him direction on whom to marry, he goes to his dad. So it means being a first [wife]. ", "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? Suddenly, Stephens brother David lost control of the truck and it rolled over, killing David instantly. Still stunned at the sudden loss of their brother, Stephen and his siblings were numb with grief. He mandated that children should drink tea brewed from the herb every morning, and that Order members should feed it to their cows. It was Mothers Day in 2000, and Stephen and two of his brothers were speeding up a dirt road for dinner at an aunts house. ), Related sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. Directories Newly added. They had sped off in a Honda sedan. 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. The family gathered in the living room. They would trek into state welfare offices, their kids in tow, claiming that they had no idea who the father of their children was, or that he was a truck driver who had left them destitute. Older teenagers were crammed five and six to a room, sleeping on the floors of trailers. I think it scared them.. She was definitely the pick of the litter, and thats why Paul got her, Ron recalls. 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. In the past, we have worked closely with DWS, DOE and financial aid counselors at local colleges and universities to ensure proper training and that all applications adhere to every guideline. Paul Elden Kingston is an accountant and attorney who has served as the Trustee-in-Trust of the Davis County Cooperative Society (DCCS), a Mormon fundamentalist denomination, [2] since 1987. We strongly encourage all members to strictly adhere to every legal guideline when operating their businesses including day cares and when applying for all need-based assistance, including financial aid for students. Paul passed away on month day 1973, at age 92 at death place, Oregon. I could tell she loved him, and it seemed like he loved her too. Within a year, Paul Kingston would take a fourth wife. On February 26th, 2009, the Salt Lake County Sheriffs Office got a call of suspicious activity in the foothills above the city. In Salt Lake County, for example, there were 45 marriages in which the bride or groom was 17 or younger, according to data from the county clerks office from Feb. 1, 2016, to April 10, 2018. Her top choice the one whom she felt God told her to marry was a man five years older than she and to whom she was related on both sides of her family tree. Attorneys for the Nelsons and Michaels also did not return messages seeking comments. deductible, Report a missed paper by emailingsubscribe@sltrib.comor calling801-237-2900, For e-edition questions or comments, contact customer support801-237-2900or emailsubscribe@sltrib.com. presided, while Richauns father officiated the wedding, promising the bride that if she obeyed her husband, she would be guaranteed a spot in the Celestial Kingdom, the highest level of heaven. [10][11]. If you were more obedient, this wouldnt have happened., After that, everything changed, Stephen says. She grew up in Woods Cross and hated The Order all her life, she said in a recent interview. While the Kingston Group, founded in 1935, is not affilated with the FLDS, members practice a fundamentalist version of Mormonism that involves polygamy. Paul Kingston wore secondhand suits that hung off his slender shoulders, and he spoke in a flat, emotionless monotone. In 2006, it was estimated that Paul Kingston had up to 27 wives (including three half-sisters of his), [5] some . Had Snow been a better behaved, more devout member of the Kingston Group, Hansen said, there may not have been a push to have her legally marry at 16. They teach the girls its their choice, Hansen said, but [say], Heres the selection.. The bride was 16. 1 choice [of whom to marry] in The Order, Jessica Kingston said. The clan believed he had their treasure, and they were sending someone to kill him. He asked him if he was being obedient, then excused himself to talk to Stephens mother. He became particularly obsessed with a plant called comfrey, which he believed would protect his clan from the nuclear war that would usher in the apocalypse. Girls who reach their mid- and late teens can start to feel the pressure to wed. Jessica Kingston said when word gets out that a boy or young man has asked a girls father for permission to marry her, friends and family are walking up to that girl asking, Did you pray about him?. . Finding one wasnt difficult. He even had charts showing who were the higher families in the sect so his daughters knew where to look for a mate. (Paul W. Kingston, (Ph.D. Columbia University, 1980) is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Virginia. When he noticed that the boys had stopped working, he became enraged. In qui tam cases, the federal government can either join the plaintiffs in recouping losses and pursuing damages and fines, or let the plaintiffs prosecute the lawsuit on their own. . In all likelihood, Stephen and his brothers had stolen the gold from Patty Kingston first and then the Brown boys, in an effort to emulate their cousins rebellious acts, had robbed their aunt weeks or even months later. I felt for his pulse, but he was already gone., That night, Paul Kingston arrived at the ranch. Hanging up the phone, she rushed to her closet. 12 Paul J. WILFONG was born on 4-13-1912 in Marlinton. 1 choice was not her fathers. 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. Paul Kingston, the top man within the Davis County Cooperative Society, also known as the Kingston Group or The Order, is accused of overseeing what the lawsuit calls a scheme. According to former members of the Order, decades of inbreeding have resulted in rampant birth defects throughout the family. One of the Orders leaders did jail time for severely beating his own daughter after she fled an arranged marriage to his brother. According to Montana court documents, the couple had an argument at their apartment and DeRieuxs then-husband threw her down a flight of stairs. They seemed happy, Ron says. He directed some of his own children the plaintiffs estimate he has 27 wives and more than 300 offspring to seek more financial aid than they would have otherwise been entitled to, the suit cites one of his daughters as saying, and when the assistance exceeded what the student needed to attend college, the sect kept the proceeds. Men rise in prominence by being obedient and pure of blood and by having large families that can produce a lot of money and workers for the group, the suit continues. They threw away their possessions, donned matching blue overalls, and pitched canvas tents on a patch of land north of Salt Lake that would come to be known as the Home Place.. Paul Elden Kingston is an accountant and attorney who has served as the Trustee-in-Trust of the Davis County Cooperative Society (DCCS), a Mormon fundamentalist denomination,[2] since 1987. At a minimum, the statement said, two employees review every student file flagged for verification to ensure quality assurance in our processes.. Paul Kingston and his wife, Mary Kelly, were natives of Moinies (Meenies) townland, Drimoleague, Co. Cork, Ireland. Wed sleep on the chicken coop in the summer and shoot raccoons. Stephen calmly waited until his uncle got close, and then he reached behind the seat and pulled out a shotgun, leveling it at his uncle. 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