The Weird and The Wacky Meet

Where YouBetIAm comes to write….

Insight Into Religious Killers

On a hot summer day in 1984, Brenda Lafferty and her fifteen- month-old daughter, Erica, were brutally slain by Brenda’s brothers-in-law, Ron and Dan Lafferty.  This vicious crime shocked and saddened a small Utah community, and 20 years later people are still trying to figure out why this tragedy occurred.

                 In his book, Under the Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer explores the issues surrounding the killings.  He focuses on the Lafferty brothers’ involvement in polygamous fundamentalist offshoots of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) and how it relates to the crime. While both brothers freely admit to committing the crime, they claim it was divinely ordained.

                 Krakauer has done his research.  He has obviously spent many hours searching through the history of polygamy and of the Mormon Church itself, and this is reflected in his writing.  If anything, the book is too informative about this history.  Krakauer is not being malicious in his digging; his goal seems to be thoroughness and understanding.  He wants to comprehend why someone could become extreme enough to kill a baby for God.

                 In this search for understanding, Krakauer spent hours talking with Dan Lafferty, who to this day says that he does not regret the murders.  Lafferty is currently serving a life sentence at the Utah State Penitentiary.  After the initial interview, Lafferty wrote several letters to Krakauer, which the latter uses to dive right into the mind of the felon.  Krakauer does this without ever losing his shock and disgust over the crime.  At no point do we feel bad for Dan Lafferty, but we do get a disturbing look inside his thought processes.  Ron Lafferty refused to comment for the book.

                 Krakauer also spent time exploring the illegal polygamist communities in Southern Utah, Canada, and Mexico.  Polygamy has been illegal in Utah and banned by the Mormon church for over 100 years, but it is still something that people associate with both.  In southern Utah, several polygamist communities have popped up.  These, unfortunately, are hotbeds of domestic violence, incest, pedophilia, and welfare fraud.  They are also very xenophobic, so going in to interview members is no small feat.  Krakauer, however, manages to find some people willing to talk to him, despite the risks.

                 The writing is nothing short of excellent.  The text flows and the book is very hard to put down, despite its difficult subject matter.  The only flaw, really, is that the book is too well researched.  There is almost too much information.  However, Krakauer manages to draw the reader in, easily switching between writing about the history of polygamy and what actually happened to the Laffertys in 1984, while keeping up a rapid pace.

He concludes that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints pushes its more extremist members towards polygamy by not acknowledging its polygamous past.  Today, the church tries to put as much distance as it can between itself and polygamy, to the point that even endorsing it has been sufficient cause for excommunication.  However, these polygamist communities arose as colonies sent out by the Mormons to preserve their way of life when they accepted monogamy as a pre-condition to join the United States as a state.  The abuses endemic to these communities, including the events that led to the murder, are a direct consequence of the church’s ugly past. 

Does he prove his point? The Mormon church says no.  However, this reviewer has her own opinions on the matter, and after you read the book, hopefully you will too.

 

Rating:  5

 

Copyright 2003

A Story of Violent Faith

By Amanda Evans

Original Publishing Date: 11/06/03