Ervil LeBaron

Ervil Morrell LeBaron (February 22, 1925 – August 15, 1981) was the leader of a polygamous Mormon fundamentalist group who ordered the killings of many of his opponents, both within his own sect and in rival polygamous groups, using the religious doctrine of blood atonement to justify the murders. He was sentenced to life in prison for orchestrating the murder of an opponent, and died there in 1981.

He had at least 13 wives in a plural marriage, several of whom he married while they were still underage, and several of whom were involved in the murders.

After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) officially abandoned the practice of polygamy in 1890 (Other sources say 1940 in Salt Lake City, UT), some polygamous Mormons, who were later excommunicated from the LDS Church, moved south to Mexico to continue the practice without the interference of U.S. law enforcement. One of these Mormons, Alma Dayer LeBaron, Sr., moved his family, which included his two wives and eight children, to northern Mexico in 1924. There, they started a farm called "Colonia LeBaron" in Galeana, Chihuahua.

When Alma died in 1951, he passed the leadership of the community on to his son Joel LeBaron, who eventually incorporated the community as the Church of the Firstborn of the Fulness of Times in Salt Lake City, Utah. Ervil LeBaron, Joel's younger brother, was his second in command during the early years of the church's existence. The group ultimately numbered around thirty families who lived in both Utah and a community called "Los Molinos" on the Baja California Peninsula.

In 1972, the LeBaron sect suffered a schism when Ervil fell out with Joel and started the Church of the First Born of the Lamb of God in San Diego, California. Later that year, Ervil ordered Joel's murder in Mexico. Leadership of the Baja California church passed to the youngest LeBaron brother, Verlan, whom Ervil tried to have killed over the next decade.

In 1974, Ervil was tried and convicted in Mexico for Joel's murder. His conviction was overturned on a technicality; some have alleged this resulted from a bribe. Ervil's followers subsequently raided Los Molinos to kill Verlan; Verlan was in Nicaragua, but the town was destroyed and two men were killed.

Ervil LeBaron's attention was also focused on rival polygamous leaders. In April 1975, he ordered the killing of Bob Simons, a polygamist who sought to minister to Native Americans. In 1977, LeBaron ordered the killing of Rulon C. Allred, leader of the Apostolic United Brethren, another Mormon fundamentalist sect. Ervil LeBaron's 13th wife, Rena Chynoweth, carried out the murder with Ervil's stepdaughter, Ramona Marston. Although Chynoweth was tried and acquitted for Allred's murder, she confessed in her memoir, The Blood Covenant (1990). She also described her experiences in LeBaron's group, which she characterized as using mind control and fear to control its followers.

Ervil LeBaron also ordered the murders of members of his own family and those of his supporters. His 10th wife, Vonda White, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Dean Grover Vest, one of LeBaron's henchmen, who had attempted to leave the church. Vonda White is also said to have killed Noemi Zarate Chynoweth, the plural wife of Ervil's father-in-law through his wife, Lorna Chynoweth. Noemi had been critical of Ervil LeBaron's practices and snubbed him at her wedding to Bud Chynoweth. According to witnesses, Thelma Chynoweth (Bud Chynoweth's first wife, who was Lorna's mother and Noemi's sister-wife) helped kill Noemi. Ervil LeBaron has also been linked to the death of his own 17-year-old daughter Rebecca, who was pregnant with her second child and hoped to leave the group; it is alleged that his stepson Eddie Marston and brother-in-law Duane Chynoweth strangled her in April 1977.