It was a camper who stumbled on the place, deep in the Arizona desert, on the

parched earth a few miles north of the Mexican border. A pile of rocks under a

paloverdi tree, a Karen of some sort, a monument.

What was it? Did it signify something or some person so far from the

prying eyes of urban America? Under those stones was a terrible puzzle, a mystery

perhaps without solution. Who were the believed what was in there? Perhaps the

place to start is far from that secret in the desert where the ocean meets San

Diego is a hamlet called Kensington, a slice of small town life in the

shadow of the big city. Modest Spanish-style homes, trimmed front lawns, palm

line streets, middle America by the sea. The place where joy risker lived with

her husband and two little boys. Sheila Goff lived there too also with her

husband a little boy. They were as different as chalk and cheese. Quiet generous

Sheila outgoing effervescent joy. It was a fine arrangement. They shared the

child care, the housework, the cooking, and they also shared the husband.

Sean Goff, handsome, engaging, persuasive, and deeply religious. Sean is a former

evangelical minister and that's how he met joy risker than just 16. He was her

youth pastor, married, yes, to Sheila, but by then he'd become interested in

Christian polygamy which claimed to be based on the patriarchs of the old

testament and in the summer of 1997, three years after they met, he married joy.

Not legally of course, but it was biblically sound. How did she explain it

to you? Just like that. Yeah, that you know she had met someone and she was all

in love with them and she told me that he was her youth pastor and that her mom

...