A Revelation From God: The Real Killers of Under the Banner of Heaven

0:00 [Music] A man sat down in the spring of 1984 with a yellow legal pad. And he said every word he wrote on that legal pad came straight from God. And when he put the pin down, there were four names on that page. One of those was his very own sister-in-law. She was a young mom who'd made it very clear that she did not believe, as he claimed to be, that he was a prophet. To get on that page, we have to start in a barber's chair in Paisen, Utah. [Music] [Music] Paisen is a little town south of Provo, and that's where Watson Lafferty raised his family.

1:12 Watson was a barber. He was also a chiropractor, which it sounds kind of crazy being both of those things at the same time. But imagine walking in, you need a little haircut, a little trim, a little off the top, and he's like, "Oh, would you also like your back cracked?" It's a pretty efficient Saturday, to be honest. Anyway, the man with the adjustment table did not trust modern medicine. Imagine that. And when one of his daughters had a ruptured appendix, he held off on getting her to the hospital. And oh, by the way, he beat his wife and he beat his kids. And during a fight, he killed the family dog with a baseball bat in front of his kids. When one of the boys accidentally shot himself with a arrow, from like a bow and arrow, on a Sunday, Watson decided that that kid had broken the Sabbath.

1:58 So, as punishment, he wasn't allowed to seek medical attention until the next day. And nobody in the house was allowed to get him help. Watson's faith got dangerous the minute any of his kids got hurt. And I was a pretty reckless kid myself. I would have lasted about a week in that house. Watson had eight kids, mostly boys, and the oldest was named Ron. He was the popular athletic one. And when he was 17, he finally stood up to his father physically. And then decades later, Ron still called Watson an excellent role model. And if you grew up learning to read your dad's mood before you could even read a book, you kind of understand how someone can carry both of those things at the same time.

2:38 Ron had a little brother. His name was Dan. He came along four years later. The two of them were best friends. Both of them also quick-tempered. And each one would have walked through a wall for the other. Brenda Wright grew up in Twin Falls, Idaho, the second of seven kids. Her mom was a schoolteacher. Her dad was an agronomist, which is a crop scientist. And he earned his doctorate at Cornell. She was a former beauty queen. And at the University of Idaho, her sorority sisters elected her president. She then transferred to BYU to study communications. And pretty soon she was anchoring a news magazine show on KBYU, the PBS station on campus.

3:19 Which means if you were flipping through this channels back then in Provo, there's a really good chance that you would land on Brenda looking every bit to professional. She met Alan Laferdy at a BYU student congregation. Alan was the youngest brother. They got married. And then along came a baby girl named Erica. And every family has somebody at the dinner table who says the uncomfortable thing out loud. And in mind, it's usually me because I feel like if I don't say the funny thing or the weird thing, I'll die. I have to get it out. But in the Laferdy family, that person was Brenda. And she had a college degree with a whole lot of confidence. And she spoke her mind around the Laferdy men, whatever she felt like it.

3:59 And that went exactly how you would imagine it would go. She did not believe that her brothers-in-law were prophets as they claimed to be. So she told them so. Dan's slide into Mormon fundamentalism started with a sandwich shop. When the business hit a licensing problem, Dan got mad at the government and went looking for backup in the Book of Mormon. Pretty soon, he quit paying taxes and he decided that traffic laws didn't apply to him either. He also refused to buy baby food. Dan would chew up his kid's food himself and spit it into their mouths. He would baby bird it to them, disgusting. But Dan decided a plural marriage was still God's law.

4:41 And his church excommunicated him over it. Ron, meanwhile, worked construction and sat on the Highland City Council. He'd met his wife Diana on his mission trip in Florida. They had six kids together. Then Dan got into his ear. Ron grew his hair and his beard out long like a Bible prophet would look. Like imagine a Bible prophet in your mind. That's how he was trying to grow his hair. And this in the early 80s Utah County, where a clean shave was basically a part of the church uniform. So he walked around looking like he was right off the set of duck dynasty. Diana refused to live in polygamy and she left him. Ron believed Brenda had encouraged her to go. A relief society leader named Chloe Lowe helped Diana through the divorce.

5:25 And Ron's church excommunicated him with his stake president Richard Stowe on the council that made the call. Ron told his youngest brother that Brenda had better stop talking to his ex-wife. And that was a big warning. Ron was devastated and the hurt curdled into rage. He moved into a rundown house in Oram. The brothers called the farm and spent his days writing what he believed was scripture. The brothers found their people in a fundamental splinter group called the school of the prophets. Dan's daughter was seven at the time and years later she said the meetings in the house felt very hush hush and just weird. Allen was drifting toward the group with his brothers and Brenda put a stop to it.

6:09 Ron of course was furious and his mind Brenda had already caused him his wife and now she was trying to take away his baby brother. Not long after that in March of 1984 Ron sat down with a yellow legal pad and wrote out a revelation he said came straight from God. And it ordered the brothers to remove four people and the list started with the brothers wife Brenda and her baby. Chloe Lowe came next. Richard Stowe was last. Ron told people the baby had to go to because she would grow up to be just like her mother. And that's a pretty monstrous thing to say about your own family no less a baby. When the brothers refused to back off Ron's revelation the group threw him out about four months before the murders.

6:54 You've got a secret fringe group meeting in your living room and they kick you out because you're too extreme. I think you might be the problem. In Utah July 24th is Pioneer Day a state holiday with parades and rodeos and for a lot of families it's a day that you spend outside in a lawn chair waiting on the fireworks to start. That day the brothers drove to Brenda and Allen's apartment in American fork with two drifters who'd been traveling with them. Allen was at work Brenda was home with Erica. One of the drifters stayed in the car in the driveway. He told the jury later that he could hear Ron inside calling Brenda names and then he heard her being beaten.

7:35 He heard Brenda screaming begging them not to hurt the baby and he heard Erica crying for her mom. Then it all went quiet. Ron beat Brenda and strangled her with the cord from the vacuum cleaner. Dan has always said that he's the one who cut both of their throats. Brenda was 24 years old. Erica was 15 months. Minutes later the brothers walked back out to the car covered in blood. They drove to Chloe Lowe's house next. She wasn't home. Richard Stowe was supposed to be next and depending on whose account you trust they either took a wrong turn or that same drifter talked Ron into waiting another day. I have no idea which one it's true. But they then pointed their car toward Nevada.

8:19 Allen came home and found his wife on the floor and his daughter near the crib. And all of this why? For what reason? The brothers stayed on the run for two weeks. Police finally arrested them at the circus circus casino in Reno where they were standing in line for the buffet. The man whose war with the government started over a sandwich shop. The man who wouldn't buy his kids a single jar of baby food got caught while he was waiting on the all you can eat buffet. The brothers confessed pretty fast. Dan acted as his own lawyer and he told the jurors not to be afraid to give him the death penalty. And then they couldn't agree on it which is why he only got life in prison. Ron's case got a little stranger. In the county jail Ron jumped his little brother and kept swinging until his hands hurt.

9:05 And after the jail split him up he announced a new revelation saying Dan would let Ron kill him. And Dan prayed about it and agreed. Ron tried to take his own life in jail at the end of that year and he stopped breathing for about 15 minutes before paramedics brought him back. A jury sentenced him to death in 1985. A federal court tossed that verdict in 1991 over how his competency was decided. A second jury sentenced him to death in 1996 and Ron chose the firing squad. Because why not? He died of natural causes in prison in November 2019. He was 78 years old.

9:45 Dan is still serving life. And that's the last reporting on any of this case that I could find. He called his maximum security unit his monastery. And he once told a reporter he expects the prison walls to crumble someday so he can walk out as the prophet Elijah and announce the second coming of Christ. In case you're wondering about his mental state. Both of the other names on that yellow legal pad were lined up to testify against Ron in 1996. Brenda sister Sharon spent decades in court rooms across from Ron. And she asked Utah lawmakers to end the death penalty. Saying she wished she'd spent those years instead just mourning her sister.

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