Polygamist's daughter on most wanted list,Jacqueline LeBaron
Polygamist's daughter placed on 'most wanted' list Saturday, August 12, 2006; Posted: 8:29 p.m. EDT (00:29 GMT) Jacqueline Tarsa LeBaron, fugitive daughter of a Utah polygamist, is on an FBI "most wanted" list. SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (AP) -- Houston's FBI office has placed the fugitive daughter of a deceased Utah polygamist on the agency's "most wanted" list after getting a tip about the woman from a relative in prison. Jacqueline Tarsa LeBaron is wanted in connection with four 1988 murders in Houston and Irving, Texas, according to a wanted poster on the agency's Web site. She's been a fugitive since 1992. A telephone message left by The Associated Press with the Houston FBI office was not returned Saturday. LeBaron is a daughter of Ervil LeBaron, the former leader of the Church of the Lamb of God, a polygamist sect with enclaves in Mexico. The elder LeBaron ordered the executions of rival polygamists in the 1970s, investigators have said. In 1972 he was convicted in Utah of ordering family members to kill his brother, who was said to have disobeyed church laws. Ervil LeBaron died in the Utah state prison in 1981. Before his death, he reportedly wrote a "bible" which included a commandment to kill disobedient church members. It was also rumored that he left behind a "hit list" and that some of his 54 children were carrying out his commands. Jacqueline LeBaron is one of six LeBaron family members charged with the June 1988 murders of three men who chose to leave the sect and the 8-year-old daughter of one victim. Each was shot in the head with a shotgun. In 1995, three of the accused killers were convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Another was convicted of ordering the deaths and was sentenced to 45 years in prison. The youngest, who was 16 at the time of the murders, pleaded guilty to killing the child and served five years in prison. Houston FBI special agent Todd Burns said there is renewed interest in Jacqueline LeBaron because a half brother who claims to have had a religious conversion in prison came forward with new information. "He said they had an agreement to meet in Mexico. At one time they talked about meeting there before they got arrested and that never took place," Burns said. "He claims to not know anything about her whereabouts or whether she's living." Authorities believe Jacqueline LeBaron, who has worked as an English teacher, is in Mexico, where she was born and where the family had several polygamist colonies http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/08/12/polygamy.fbi.ap/index.html

Estephania LeBaron: Polygamy, hit list part of father’s legacy July 13, 2008 - 11:35PM By BRUCE LEE SMITH/Valley Morning Star Estephania LeBaron -actress, overachiever, survivor of the bloody Le Baron family wars - has finally found some peace, in the Rio Grande Valley. "Over the past month, since I've been here, I finally learned to relax," she said. Estephania was in the Valley to make "The Red Queen," a movie being filmed by students at the University of Texas-Pan American. Her son was traveling in Europe with Estephania's brother and his family. Away from her career as a model and actress in Los Angeles, Estephania had nothing to do when off the set. There were no errands to run, no acting classes to attend. It was quite a change from the way she grew up, constantly on the run as a member of the notorious polygamist sect Church of the Lamb of God. Estephania is a daughter of Ervil LeBaron, who led the sect. The record suggests it was more a crime family than a religious group. Estephania said the sect used drug dealing, car theft and murder to keep Ervil's mad dream alive. One of Estephania's half-sisters, Jacqueline Tarsa LeBaron, is still on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list with a $20,000 reward on her head. Ervil, who had 13 wives and 53 children, once wrote a "bible" for church members that preached that anyone caught breaking his commandments would be sentenced to death. Estephania's father claimed to be Joseph Smith's true and rightful priesthood successor and therefore Mormonism's true and rightful leader. "As far as we were concerned my father was the Holy Ghost here on Earth," she said. "We believed he was God." Estephania said his ultimate goal was to eventually overthrow the Mormon Church itself and take control of it. "In the current Mormon church, polygamists are considered outcasts," she said. Members of the Church of the Lamb of God believed the only way a man could get to heaven was to have multiple wives. And Estephania said she was taught that the only way a woman could get to heaven was to be married to a man with more than one wife. Her journey begins Estephania was born in 1972 in Ensenada, Mexico. "That same year, my father had two people killed that I know of," she said. Committed by one of his wives, Estephania said they were the first in a long string of slayings that would spread out across the United States and northern Mexico. Ervil believed in "blood atonement" - those who displeased or dared to leave the cult would be killed, Estephania said. In 1977, police said Ervil LeBaron ordered the killing of rival polygamist leader Rulon Allred. "He would always order someone else to do the killing," Estephania said. Ervil demanded that other polygamists tithe to him. Allred refused to pay. Eventually, Ervil Le Baron was convicted and sentenced to prison, where he died of a heart attack in 1981. Estephania said he left behind a "hit list." According to authorities, over the next several years, a series of murders and suspicious deaths involving about 30 former church members were carried out. Estephania estimated that the number of victims might really be as high as 50. Life on the run For her, this meant a life on the run, never in one place for very long. She remembers her mother bundling her up in the middle of the night to move once again. "Sometimes we would go to sleep in one place and wake up in another," she said. In Denver, the family owned a used appliance store. "It was basically a sweat shop," Estephania said. Teresa, Estephania's mother, was the family's mechanical expert, able to get even the worst of refrigerators running again. The children cleaned and repainted the repaired units. Estephania said the children worked 60 to 70 hours a week. They were not even allowed to talk unless it was work-related. "If you did you had to repent for it," she said. Teresa worked even harder. "We wouldn't see her for days at a time. She would grab a nap at the shop and just come home to change clothes," Estephania said. In a chilling online autobiography, Estephania's half-brother William Heber LeBaron tells how the family threatened to kill him because the then-11-year-old had been caught smoking a cigarette. The threat was not taken lightly. "People were getting killed all of the time," Estephania said. By 1983, the cult had broken up into four distinct factions: one based in Denver; one in Houston; another in Monterey, Calif.; and Estephania's, which was based on a ranch named La Jolla in Sonora, Mexico. Teresa was sent to Dallas to work in the cult's used appliance store. "Everybody was constantly struggling for power," Estephania said. "There were always shootouts on the ranch because we were in the middle of nowhere." Before he died, Ervil had named his son Arthur as his successor. But Dan Jordan, the cult's second- in-command, had a "vision" that he was supposed to lead the cult. Arthur ended up with five bullets in the back, Estephania said. This left her and 20 other underage children on the ranch. "We were pretty much on our own," she said. At one point they ate raw acorns to survive. The only adults were the occasional family members who came to the ranch to hide out. With no electricity on the ranch, Estephania said they lived in trailers that had been stolen in Arizona. "Of course we didn't use the word ‘stolen,' " she said. "We said God provided it." The family also operated a car theft ring, selling the stolen vehicles in Mexico, Estephania said. Anybody outside of the family was considered a "gentile" and anything they had could be stolen because the family was doing God's work, Estephania said. "My father said it was OK because they would get it back two-fold in heaven - so my brothers did a lot of car stealing," she said. It was the same rationale when the family later went into the drug business, Estephania said. Since their appliance store in Dallas was suffering, marijuana smuggling was deemed to be more profitable, she said. Even as part of such a tight-knit crew, Estephania had a subservient role. She was brought up to believe that because of her brown skin she was cursed by God. "Out of all of his children, my dad only had two girls with dark skin and I was one of them," she said. "It didn't feel good." Married at 13 At 13, she was ordered to marry one of her half- brothers. "I didn't really know him," she said. "We hadn't grown up together." To Estephania, this was her big break, a chance to help the family by helping her brother get to heaven. "It was also my chance to get to heaven," she said. "Before that I was afraid I was going to hell." But her husband soon fell out of favor with the family and was sent away. At 14, she was married to another half-brother. Things fell apart as more and more family members ended up dead or arrested. William was arrested after robbing a Dallas bank. At one point, Estephania found herself with six underage half-brothers and sisters in Monterrey, Mexico, where she earned money by teaching English. The 4 o'clock murders But the cult's most notorious mark was about to be made while Estephania and her sibling brood scratched out a living in Monterrey. On June 27, 1988, at approximately 4 p.m., four murders were carried out simultaneously in Houston and Irving, Texas. All of the victims were killed by shotgun blasts to the head, including an 8-year-old girl who had witnessed her father's slaying. "We were told that anyone over five years old who witnessed a killing also had to be killed," Estephania said. Five members of the LeBaron clan were arrested in the murders - only Jacqueline avoided capture. In 1992, federal prosecutors in Houston charged six people with a laundry list of crimes including murder, conspiracy and racketeering. William is currently serving four consecutive life sentences for killing the father and child. Her fugitive sister, Jacqueline, is believed to be living in Mexico where she has made a living teaching English to wealthy Mexican families. On the run since 1992, she is considered armed and dangerous. A fresh start But in 1996, Estephania's nightmare began to end. One of her brothers had broken free of the family and was living in Phoenix. Working with a therapist, he helped Estephania come to the United Sates and begin to lead a normal life. "We were questioned by the FBI but they figured out that we had just been kids and not really involved in anything," she said. It wasn't easy for Estephania to make the changes. "I felt so confused," she said. She ended up marrying a man she had only known for 30 days. The marriage produced A.J., her son, but they have since split up. Estephania admits going a little wild when she first broke free of the cult. "I wanted to test God to see if he would stop me from doing anything bad," she said. Unlike many people who would turn to drugs or alcohol in such a situation, Estephania was instead driven to succeed. "I had been taught to always strive to make this heaven on Earth, to work harder and harder and harder," she said. "It made me such a workaholic. It's very hard for me to relax." She spent money on her family and classes to make up for the education she missed during years on the run. "Because of the way I was raised, I don't really get any pop culture references," she said. "I could understand all of that if I spent my life with my nose in a book, but I have to live my life. "I have a son to raise." While living in Austin, Estephania got into modeling and acting. Her biggest credit to date is playing Jim Bowie's wife in the 2004 version of "The Alamo." More films are still waiting for release including an action/horror film in which she battles zombies. As for her family, she has contact with a few members. Some refuse to speak to her; others some contact but still live in hiding. But the past month has taught her a valuable lesson on how life should be led, on how it's OK to relax occasionally. "I really liked it," she said. It has inspired her to make a change. "I'm thinking about moving back to Austin and getting a real job," she said. "I'll act when I can and lead a normal life. "That would be really nice." http://www.valleymorningstar.com/news/estephania_30589___article.html/one_ervil.html