The Colony: Faith and Blood in a Promised Land
- ISBN-10
- 1631498088
- ISBN-13
- 9781631498084
- Series
- The Colony
- Category
- True Crime
- Pages
- 268
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2022-06-28
- Publisher
- Liveright Publishing
- Author
- Sally Denton
Description
A Publishers Weekly Summer Reads Selection “The Colony is one of the most gripping and disturbing true stories I’ve ever come across.” —Douglas Preston An investigation into the November, 2019 killings of nine women and children in Northern Mexico—an event that drew international attention—The Colony examines the strange, little-understood world of a polygamist Mormon outpost. On the morning of November 4, 2019, an unassuming caravan of women and children was ambushed by masked gunmen on a desolate stretch of road in northern Mexico controlled by the Sinaloa drug cartel. Firing semi-automatic weapons, the attackers killed nine people and gravely injured five more. The victims were members of the LeBaron and La Mora communities—fundamentalist Mormons whose forebears broke from the LDS Church and settled in Mexico when their religion outlawed polygamy in the late nineteenth century. The massacre produced international headlines for weeks, and prompted President Donald Trump to threaten to send in the US Army. In The Colony, bestselling investigative journalist Sally Denton picks up where the initial, incomplete reporting on the attacks ended, and delves into the complex story of the LeBaron clan. Their homestead—Colonia LeBaron—is a portal into the past, a place that offers a glimpse of life within a polygamous community on an arid and dangerous frontier in the mid-1800s, though with smartphones and machine guns. Rooting her narrative in written sources as well as interviews with anonymous women from LeBaron itself, Denton unfolds an epic, disturbing tale that spans the first polygamist emigrations to Mexico through the LeBarons’ internal blood feud in the 1970s—started by Ervil LeBaron, known as the “Mormon Manson”—and up to the family’s recent alliance with the NXIVM sex cult, whose now-imprisoned leader, Keith Raniere, may have based his practices on the society he witnessed in Colonia LeBaron. The LeBarons’ tense but peaceful interactions with Sinaloa deteriorated in the years leading up to the ambush. LeBaron patriarchs believed they were deliberately targeted by the cartel. Others suspected that local farmers had carried out the attacks in response to the LeBarons’ seizure of water rights for their massive pecan orchards. As Denton approaches answers to who committed the murders, and why, The Colony transforms into something more than a crime story. A descendant of polygamist Mormons herself, Denton explores what drove so many women over generations to join or remain in a community based on male supremacy and female servitude. Then and now, these women of Zion found themselves in an isolated desert, navigating the often-mysterious complications of plural marriage—and supported, Denton shows, only by one another. A mesmerizing feat of investigative journalism, The Colony doubles as an unforgettable account of sisterhood that can flourish in polygamist communities, against the odds.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2010-05-11
- 432 pages
- Ebook
- Simon and Schuster
Similar books
-
The Enforcer: A Life Fighting Crime
By Graeme PearsonWe arrived to find the shop owner had three trusted staff who had worked with him for a number of years. The four staff dispensed loans from behind a ...
-
Silent Death: The Killing of Julie Ramage
By Karen KissaneAt 12.10 pm, Juliedropped by Warren's office and said, 'I didn't have any breakfast and I'm ... Warren wason the phone;she said briefly, 'No worries.
-
Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South
By Karen L. CoxThere, Charles became the rector of St. James Church in Port Gibson, a small town about halfway between Natchez and Vicksburg. Why he left after serving Christ Church for nearly three decades is a mystery, though his marriage to a ...
-
Texas Lawmen, 1835-1899: The Good and the Bad
By Clifford R. Caldwell, Ron DeLordA 04 - Cherry Wesley 34-W: 18 11, D. 19 - Christian, James Ineligible 22, D, 14 - Clark. Alvin A. On File 21, A, 13 - Clark. David Ineligible 26. A 12 - Clark. William A. 59–E: 25 19, D, 16 - Clendennen, Robert Ned 45–W: 24 09, D 09 ll.
-
Poisoned Vows
By Clifford L. LinedeckerThere was no sign in the house of the $10,000 Clark had withdrawn from the credit union the previous day or of his billfold with the $500 to $600 pocket money he usually carried around with him. Two rings he wore were still on his ...
-
Smooth Operator: The True Story of Seductive Serial Killer Glen Rogers
By Clifford L. LinedeckerRogers spent the night at the Clark County Detention Center, and was released the next afternoon. ... The white 1979 Mercury was owned by Russell E. Wright of Hamilton and still carried the Ohio license tags when the officers spotted it ...
-
Monster
By Allan HallIncluding exclusive photographs and previously unseen evidence, this is a truly heart-stopping record of one of the most elaborate and disturbing cases of abuse in modern times.
-
Missy's Murder: Passion, Betrayal, and Murder in Southern California
By Karen KingsburyThree years later, a surprise witness exposed the murderers as Missy’s two best friends—one of whom was Karen. New York Times–bestselling author Karen Kingsbury delivers a story full of twists, turns, betrayals, and confessions.
-
Deep Deception: The relentless investigation to bring George Gibney, Derry O’Rourke, Ger Doyle and other abusers to justice
By Justine McCarthyLinda Jones of Howard House, a child abuse therapy centre in north London, has described organised networks as working 'in cells, like terrorist cells. No paedophile who is linked knows of more than one other, so they'll use a child, ...
-
Buckinghamshire Murders
By Dr Jonathan OatesHatto had earlier worked for Mr Plummer of Gray's, near Henley. The farmhouse was a modern brick building and was located on the site of the ancient Abbey Farm, having been rebuilt for John Pocock (now deceased) some years previously.