There's a long history of people proclaiming themselves to be a prophet, identifying themselves

as the one true voice of God, speaking on God's behalf and giving orders that are meant

to carry out God's will.

Most of those people are using the claim as a ruse to get others to do their bidding,

usually hand over their money or agree to engage in a sexual relationship

with the self-proclaimed profit.

For the LeBaron family, their history of mental illness meant they might have actually

believed they were speaking for God, but that didn't mean their actions were harmless.

The patriarchs of the family believed in polygamy, which heavily victimizes

women, especially underage girls. For Ervil LeBaron, though, it wasn't enough to declare himself

the husband of multiple women and girls as young as 13. He wanted power. He wanted the entire

world to follow his rule, commanding his followers to kill anyone who opposed him.

Something they did, even after his death.

This is Monsters.

This is Monsters. Though this story is about Erv-Labar, and it starts long before his birth.

Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon religion, did not include polygamy when he first

claimed to have seen the book of Mormon inside of a hat.

Joseph Smith made polygamy a sacred commandment in 1843 and told his followers that they

needed to multiply and replenish the earth.

It wasn't a popular command, even within the religion itself, but there were enough people

who did believe in the practice that, when polygamy was banned by the church in 1890, they left and started

their own versions of the Mormon religion. Those various sects would be known as fundamentalist

...