Then, moving quickly, the boy at the door let himself in and got to work. No one would accept the guilty by association view in any other culture that has been adopted by the public for ours. Viewers Can Watch Prince Harry Talk to a Trauma Expert for $33.09 If I had done it, the Order probably would have killed me. She favors raising the legal marriage age to 18. Hansen, 50, in a recent interview, said she told her daughter that wanting to leave home was the wrong reason to get married. While the sect is headquartered in Utah, members will travel to Colorado to wed because cousin marriages are legal there. 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 . The groom was 21. Some former sect members, including two stars of the television show Escaping Polygamy," say girls are pressured to marry at the age most kids are learning to drive and reading Wuthering Heights.. Members who have left in recent years say that changed after some of Paul Kingstons brothers were convicted of crimes related to child abuse, sex with a minor or incest. Her husband knew she didnt want him to have a plural spouse, she said, but his father told him he needed to have one. Dating or romance among young people before marriage is forbidden in the Kingston Group, but the sect does hold dances. Its hard to leave when thats all youve known, says one former member, who was forced to marry her cousin when she was 15. Finding one wasnt difficult. He was angry and confused, says a former member of the cult. Jessica Kingston said within a year of getting married, her husband started looking for a plural wife. Shortly after that meeting, the complaint continues, Mrs. He charged across the field and started brutally beating Stephens cousin. Paul lived in 1935, at address, Washington. [10][11]. Thanks for your understanding. For, nearly 75 years after they were born, Peter and Paul Kingston are as inseparable now as they were inside their mother's womb. This is an indication that an experienced qui tam firm looked at the facts, Markey said, and realized it was a case that was worth pursuing.. Its his father, the prophet, calling to coax his wayward son back into the fold. Jacob's dad, John Kingston, husband of at least 14 wives and father to some 120 children, was imprisoned in 1998 after pleading no contest to charges that he beat his 16-year-old daughter . He died on 6-4-1998 at the Beckley Veterans Administration. 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. 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, offered such statistics to counter the stereotype, Nicole Mafi, one of Paul Kingstons daughters. Fishing it out of his jeans, hell recognize the number. This is your fault, he thundered, glaring at them. She wasnt allowed to leave the house until she decided whom to marry. 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. When Paul turned 21, he married Richaun Dye. Youd show up for a welfare call, or a domestic-abuse call, and it was just real run-down.. By 18 she was pregnant with her first child and ended up having four children in four years. He even had charts showing who were the higher families in the sect so his daughters knew where to look for a mate. 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. You could be such an asset to the Order., Trending 12 Paul J. WILFONG was born on 4-13-1912 in Marlinton. The two most recent of those marriages, according to wedding certificates, occurred in April. But Jessica knew the longer she waited to wed, the more likely she would have to become a polygamist and the more likely her husband would be far older than she was. . That daughter was born with a form of heart disease and had long acted responsibly in caring for it, Hansen said. Paul Valls's wife is Sharon Vallas. If the case succeeds, the whistleblowers can collect perhaps millions of dollars from the damages or fines paid by the defendants. His followers erected a crude stone cross nearby in his honor, covered with inscriptions of the letter K (for Kingdom or Kingston). (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. Mysterious cars followed his girlfriend, and he once came home to find that someone had rifled through his drawers. Did the Utah Legislature do enough to save the Great Salt Lake? While all that is happening, the potential bride is supposed to have been praying about whom to marry. Nor are youths from polygamous sects the only teens who marry in Utah. It was a total spur of the moment thing, Brown says. Members who have left in recent years say that changed after some of Paul Kingston's brothers were convicted of. 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. (Courtesy photo) Paul E. Kingston, seen here in this undated photo. 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. 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. (Paul W. Kingston, (Ph.D. Columbia University, 1980) is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Virginia. A lawsuit alleges leaders of a Utah polygamous sect bilked federal student aid programs by instructing teenagers to omit their fathers and other sources of income when applying for benefits. 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The Salt Lake Tribune, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) public charity and contributions are tax She received no sex education or premarital counseling. John Daniel Kingston, who according to court testimony once had 14 wives, was on hand in 2011, when his sons held an open house at the Washakie production plant in Plymouth near Interstate 15 and . J.O. Not desiring to be a plural wife doesnt necessarily mean she hoped to leave the Davis County Cooperative Society, also known as the Kingston Group. One day, for laughs, he and his half brother Ron Tucker stole some napalm from an Order army-supply store, drew lines of it in the street and lit it on fire as cars drove by. The pressure became so intense DeRieux stopped going to dances. Come back, his dad will say. To her horror, all that remained was a ring of dust, marking the place where a chest of gold coins had once stood. [9], Records show he signed as a witness on 4 lawful teenage marriages over a 20 year period. All rights reserved. That cousin is also a defendant in the lawsuit. 03/01/2023 9:00 a.m. Police divers cut a path through the ice to reach the victims. In an analysis written in 2015, a University of Maryland sociologist found that nationwide 37 percent of people who marry before age 20 divorce in the first 10 years. Pulling up, he noticed the getaway car parked in front of the house. This article appears in the June 23, 2011 issue of Rolling Stone. (Paul Kingston and other leaders of the family ignored repeated requests for comment for this story. 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. Like other teenagers who leave fundamentalist Mormon communities, Stephen was not prepared to enter the world at large. Incest is endemic in the clan, with uncles marrying much younger female relatives; in 2003, police showed up at an Order barbecue and arrested a clan member for marrying his underage cousin. While his dad was running the order from Salt Lake City, Stephen grew up on a cattle ranch called Washakie, near the Idaho border. 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. Kingston's death came 3 weeks after his legal wife, Luana Joan Kingston, died of breast cancer, according to her obituary. The now-20-year-old said she and her husband have started a family of their own. A few days later, the groom-to-be picked up Jessica and took her to Murray Park. The third plaintiff is Michelle Michaels, who the complaint says left the sect in 2017 rather than become a spiritual wife to a cousin who has nine wives. For the marriages performed in Utah, Bill W. Stoddard signed as the officiant until his death in March. He lived on month day 1940, at address, Washington. If God gives him direction on whom to marry, he goes to his dad. She didnt want to be in that house anymore; it reminded her of my brother. To test her devotion, Stephens father began calling her in the middle of the night and telling her to move the family to a new location. DeRieux did marry the next year at age 18 to a cousin who was 19. But Jessicas No. Paul passed away on month day 1973, at age 92 at death place, Oregon. Four of those appear to be couples from polygamous groups. To hide the scope of his organization, J.O. Earlier in its history, the Kingston Group had plural wives under age 18. 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?. Paul Kingston is one of eight men named as defendants in the lawsuit. Messages sent to Paul and David Kingston as well as representatives of the Latter Day Church of Christ, the Kingston Groups religious organization, and other named defendants in the lawsuit were not returned. 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. Jeanne Markey, a partner at the Philadelphia law firm of Cohen Milstein and co-chair of a group there that handles cases of whistleblowers reporting fraud against the government, reviewed the complaint at the request of The Tribune. In the months after the robbery, Stephen couldnt shake the feeling he was being watched. Brothers John Daniel Kingston, the father of the girl now in state custody, is said to have 20 wives; the mother of the "M.N." is half sister. 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. While the Order preached strict abstinence to its children, forbidding even incidental contact between the sexes, there seemed to be no rules after marriage especially for the clans leaders. They were finally getting even. If you were more obedient, this wouldnt have happened., After that, everything changed, Stephen says. (Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Bryan and Mary Nelson of South Jordan were informants for the federal government as they build a criminal case against Washakie Renewable Energy and their owners, Jacob and Isaiah Kingston. One of them approached the front door while the other kept a lookout. Paul J. Kingston Sr., 93, of North Huntingdon, died Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021. Murdaugh is accused of fatally shooting his son, Paul, 22, with a shotgun and his wife, Maggie, 52, with a rifle near the dog kennels at the family's hunting estate known as Moselle. It wasnt like we thought about it a lot. If that child comes to her at age 16 wanting to marry, she said, she will have questions. 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. Its all political, Jessica said. 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. 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. For this article we will focus on forced child labor in the context of modern day slavery that takes place in the Kingston polygamous group. Duringa 2020 trialfor a California businessman accused of carrying out a nearly $500 million biodiesel fraud scheme with a member of the Kingston Group, attorneys for the businessman called the Kingstons an incestuous polygamous group that is always scheming to defraud the US government in what the group calls bleeding the beast., A spokesman for the group, Kent Johnson, called those allegations categorically false.. deductible, Report a missed paper by [email protected] calling801-237-2900, For e-edition questions or comments, contact customer support801-237-2900or [email protected]. He had arranged for a banner to be placed over a bridge there. Stephens father seemed to marry a new girl every year, each one younger and prettier than the last. To deaden his feelings of isolation, he started smoking a lot of pot and sitting around the house all day listening to country music. No recordings or photos were allowed during the ceremony. 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. We figured it was ours anyway, says Stephen, explaining that the clan hadnt paid the boys for bagging coal. Others say they buried it out in the desert and are slowly cashing it out. We dont expect any of the claims to prevail in a court of law.. The young women ranged from about age 18 to 22. Many consider Kingston the top man in the group. They should refrain from this decision until they can be well informed to make a mature and thoughtful decision before entering into marriage.. 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