Was I In A Cult? - The LeBaron Polygamy Cult—P1: “Murder in the Name of God”

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

FOLLOW USFor more culty content —follow us on Instagram & TikTok → @wasiinacultSUPPORT THE SHOWIf you believe in what we’re doing (and want to help us keep shining light on the dark corners of control and charisma), please rate, review, and share the podcast. It helps more than you know.Want to go deeper down the rabbit hole?Join us on Patreon for ad-free episodes, bonus content, and our eternal gratitude for helping us keep these stories alive.HAVE A CULTY STORY?We’d love to hear from you — drop us a line at [e-mail] WITH PAMELA JONESYou can follow Pamela Jones — speaker, author, survivor, and all-around badass — here:Her Book: The Dirt Beneath Our DoorWebsiteLinkedInInstagramFacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. They rationed everything. They rationed my water. They probably would have rationed my air if they could figure that out. And they took away everything you can think of.

But in all of that, they could not take away my imagination. I can imagine anything. I can imagine I was a princess. But in my wildest imaginations, I could have never imagined the life that I live now. that I would be the person that I am today is like, I really cannot believe this is my life. Welcome to our show, everyone. Was I in a cult? I'm Liz Ayakuzzi. And I'm Tyler Meissum. Now, we've been doing the show for four years now, and we have heard a lot of cult stories.

A lot of cold stories. A book, too, amount of cold stories. Yes. It feels like I imagine how a surgeon feels after hundreds of operations. Like saving lives? Yes. Just every day? Yeah.

We're just speaking into a mic, Tyler. I imagine it's the same amount of education in time. Totally. Just saying, if anyone wants to swap, I'll put on the gloves. I don't know if you guys have met him, but this is the McDreamy of cult trauma podcasting. Only, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. I don't know what this is. You don't know who McDreamy is?

I don't, I have no idea what McSteamy McDreamy is. You seriously have no idea? No. Okay, what is the longest rule? running most popular medical show on television? MASH. My favorite show. I don't know how long it ran, but I've watched every episode of MASH probably 20 times.

Somebody throw Tyler a lifeline and rescue him from. I'll give you a clue. Bridgerton. Who is the person behind Bridgeton? I don't know. Okay. This is going from bad to worse. Gray's Anatomy.

Oh, yeah. I skip that. Come on. I'm not. Come on. There's a lot of TV in there, Liz. I can't watch all of it. That's why you are not a heart surgeon. No. That is amongst the reasons why I am not a heart surgeon. But I do like to believe maybe we do save lives here and there, Liz. I guess if one person listening to our show happens to spot a red flag before joining a cult, then descrub me. Time to go home. I don't know if. Shift is over. They use the word de-scrub.

Well, then remove thy gloves, nurse. Mama needs a mark. Her work is finished. I'm moving on. I'm calling it. Moving on. He's calling it. He's calling it.

Time of death, my shift, okay? Nope. Moving on. Today's guest. This joke is dead. Today's guest, guys, is absolutely amazing. She is incredible. It's sort of like an understatement.

I don't know how I was to describe her, except she blew me away. Yeah. Our pre-interview alone was like two hours, and then I learned everything that she'd been through. She basically turned it into 11 seasons of Grey's Anatomy. I would have kept going. Regardless, her interview was fantastic, and I dare say, and we've seen a lot of people come very far from where they were in a cult to where they are now. She is night and day from what she was raised as. It's a remarkable story, so remarkable that we just had to do three episodes on it.

And we don't do that. We've only done that once on this show with Hoyt Richards. Yeah. This is the only three-parter, and it's worthy of that story. I mean, I would have made it five parts if I could, Tyler. There were still more questions I had. You tried to do an entire, like, Ken Bernsey and 16-part documentary. I would have done it. But I made it three episodes.

I made it three episodes. Yeah. Her name is Pamela Jones. She's a survivor of one of the most dangerous polygamous cults in modern history. She has written a powerful memoir. It's called The Dirt Beneath Our Door. You will find that link in our show notes, and trust us, guys, you will want to read this book. Yep.

But for now, we're just going to shut up. We're going to let the lady do the talking for once in her life, right? Close them up. That's what us doctors say when the surgery is done. No, they don't. Cure it up. Probably not. All right.

Please welcome. The incomparable. The absolute. Badass, May all your daughters grow up to be like Pamela Jones. I'm Pamela Jones. I'm a mother of nine, a grandmother of 31, public speaker, entrepreneur. What else can I tell you? Cult survivor. What else? tick-butt woman? I don't know.

So my father, his father, his name is Thomas Henry Jones, lived in Arizona. The Mormons had more than one wife, which my grandpa did. And then the manifesto was delivered, I guess, to the Mormon Church, and they were no longer to have more than one wife. Okay, quick history lesson. In the late 1800s, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latin, Saturday Saints, better known as the Mormon Church, was really into plural marriage. I mean, polygamy wasn't just accepted. It was sacred. You weren't just collecting wives.

You were collecting celestial status points. The founder of the church, Joseph Smith, he himself had 37 wives. His successor, Brigham Young, he had more than 50, Liz. He was also a violent, racist misogynist. He was. He was. And there's a university named after him. figure. So yeah, polygamy was basically doctrine. In fact, I come from Mormon stock. My great, great grandfather, a man named Archibald Gardner, he had 11 wives. Which I'm assumed you've used as a justification for seeing multiple people. I'm keeping silent on that one. Non-committal. Let's just say it's in my genes. Okay. So anyway, by the late 1800s, the U.S. government had had enough of the bigamy and the polygamy. So they were... What's bigamy?

Bigamy is the same thing. It's polygamy. It's the same thing, but it sounds good together. So the U.S. government was imprisoning polygamous, Mormon polygamous. They were seizing church property. They were basically saying, you can have religion or wives, but not both. So in 1890, the church president Wilford Woodruff issued what was called the Manifesto. This is a divine press release that said, all right, God changed his mind. One wife per man, please. Moving on. Moving on. Nothing to see here. Sorry, it was a mistake. Forget that. Regardless, not everyone bought it. Many believed that the new revelation was just political spin, not divine correction.

So these people double down. It broke off, and they became what we now know as fundamentalist Mormons. These are people who insist that plural marriage is still God's true commandment, and there are hundreds, if not thousands of these groups throughout the United States and Mexico. So they excommunicated all the polygamous members of their church, and my grandpa was one of them. So he and his family hitched a horse and buggy and moved into Mexico back in 1919, I think it was, 1920. And they colonized down there with several Mormon families. And he had nine children, and my father was his baby from my grandfather's first wife. So my grandfather was very wealthy.

and my father worked with my grandpa. My dad was a hard worker, a rancher. But he left his father's group or his family after his dad died, and he got his inheritance and moved down with the laborans. They just moved down to the colony. Fast forward, he marries his wife. She's a Mormon as well.

They get sealed in the temple. And fast forward, my father hooked up with his first, second wife, who was 14, and they had a baby when she was 15. Then he marries my mom, who's 17 to shy of 18, and my dad's 41. I'm his daughter from the third wife. I'm the 11th child.

So just think about that. A 41-year-old man, he had his 11th child, and he went on to have another, what was it, a total of 57 children. And he was married 11 times, I believe. So my dad was 77 when he had his last child. We sat down and did the math as best we could, but he has over 1,000 family members and his family all living right now.

Okay, now keeping track of all the moving parts in this cult is very difficult, and it will be throughout the episode. I mean, the man had nearly a thousand descendants walking around. There's not a family tree. That's like a family forest fire. So by this point, yes, most of the cult was in Mexico, but others were still in the States. It's a lot, but we will do our best to keep all of the threads clear. So my mother was pregnant with me.

She lived in San Diego, California, and my dad would send his wives into Mexico to have their babies because it was cheaper. So she went into Mexico, and in the hospital, she gave birth to me, and then she came back to California. We were always moving everywhere, anywhere, going down to Mexico all the time. Even though I didn't really live there, dad had a house there. We were always staying at that house with whatever of his wives. At this point, he has, what, six, seven, eight wives, whatever he has. And some are in the colonies, summer in Los Molinos, Baja, California, Mexico, summer in Texas. When I was real little, I remember my dad, my mom, Mom Velma, Lerner,

rain, kind of all living in the same house and being happy and sleeping like in this big bed. It seemed like it was like a queen-sized bed and waking up in the morning and having breakfast with everybody. Mom Velma and Lorraine were her dad's first two wives before he married Pamela's mother. I literally think the hard drive at Ancestry.com is smoking as we speak because this family broke it. And really, it's just begun. My dad, I remember being close to him. I remember loving my daddy. And, I mean, I was always kind of shy, and he already had so many other girls and kids.

I'd wait my turn. Sometimes I wouldn't get a turn to be with him. But my mom was very into the fine arts, into poetry, and reading, and writing, and music. She was the best person to have read books to us because she could just illustrate the voices. And she was just amazing. And I went to jazz dance classes. And I can't even believe my mom took me to that. She did after school.

She took me to do that. So I got to do a little more fun things when I lived in the United States. It was a little bit different once I started going to school. Because I was the oldest daughter, for whatever reason, I ended up with the least amount of education because my mom needed me to help her raise the kids. When she was a teenager, right, like 16? To talk 10. Well, when I was six, my mother came in and told me she needed me to take care of.

of her children. She was waitressing, and obviously she had to support her family. And I think that just as a little girl in the way I remember it, I could sense that something was wrong. At the time, I just thought, okay, I'll be the mom. At this time, my dad's in it well into his 50s. And he wasn't financially providing for his family. In fact, I can say, I don't think my father ever provided for my mother in all the years she was married. So age of six, I took care of a five-year-old, a three-year-old, a two-year-old, and a one-year-old. And then I had the baby. She was three months old when my mom handed her to me, and she left.

I think you just do what you're told to do. It's like if you're thrown in the ocean, you kind of learn to swim. I had to carry the babies on my head, change diapers, make the powder milk bottle for the baby. As long as I kept them from going out in the street, and no one dying, I guess I'd done my job. No one took care of me and I took care of myself. When she was six, six, what six-year-old do you know could handle that? I mean, I don't know many 36-year-olds today that could handle that. Yeah, I mean, we do it, Liz, and probably don't do it that well.

We don't do it with that many of them. No, nor do I make powdered milk. Pamela, you're a saint. So I would, when it was getting close to the sun started to go down, I knew my mom. mom would be coming home. I'd fall asleep in the living room floor crying, waiting for her to come home. I was so scared. I'm not sure my mom was a great mom. She took care of me when she was home and all that she did. I'm not going to say she didn't. But how much could she do when she was spread so thin? To think that I was six and she had, what, four little kids younger than me and pregnant

with the next one? I mean, she was indoctrinated and she believed in it. They were going to go to heaven, and she was going to be a righteous wife, and she really would spend a lot of time sitting with my dad and talking about the Bibles and the teaching, and they were figuring out how they were going to save the whole world. So she was real good with a lot of that stuff. But back to the part where her father wasn't actually providing for their family. Which is quite atypical in these Mormon polygamous groups. Right. Typically, the husband is the provider. Women are expected to bear and raise the children, maintain the house, obey the husband, stay within the group's modesty, behavioral rules, and guidelines.

In most polygamous communities, paid employment for women outside the home is discouraged. I mean, sometimes it's outright forbidden. But not here, guys. My mom worked two jobs, so she made a living for sure. She made low income so the government would give her food stamps and food and clothing and stuff like that. My mom would pretend to not know the father of her children. So we had to show up in the systems and the schools and everything as that family. Like a mom that slept around, didn't know who the father of the kids were.

And I can say for myself registered under several different names that weren't my name. So then she'd go back and get more food and then get more food stamps and say, we're getting all this food and taking it into Mexico. I remember looking in the closet at our house sometimes. It would be so packed full of canned food. So I think that's what it was, is that mom was using that welfare to feed all of dad's kids that were in Mexico from the Hispanic families because he had several other kids. My dad was a very hard worker, but if you ask me what job he had, I have no idea. My dad was involved with the illegal activity.

Anytime I try to talk about that, my family is just all hush, hush, we don't talk about it. But, yeah, I do believe that, I think they say gun trafficking or whatever, selling, whatever he's doing with taking guns into Mexico. I started noticing that dad was having us with his other wives make several trips just across the border. Truck loads of stuff was going. I didn't know what it was, but they'd have several of us kids in the back of this camper. They'd make shift the bed in the camper in the back of the truck. And then we had a system where as soon as we got to the Mexican Authority,

We were to make the babies cry and make a bunch of noise and whatever it was so that they wouldn't bother to look around and see what we were taking across. So we'd just go across the border, drop it off at Uncle Rex's house, which I don't have an Uncle Rex, and he doesn't look like anybody I know. But that's where we would drop off truckloads of stuff. But it seems like we were constantly crossing that border and going into Mexico and taking things we shouldn't. My dad and some of these people would back up these trailers

and load all these hot water heaters and blow into Mexico and resell them. That's how they made a lot of their money, unfortunately. They were doing the little Robin Hood thing. Oh, Americans have insurance. You know, we're going over to feed the Lord's people. But yes, a lot of the members of the church did that. That's what they taught.

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my wife and I convinced her parents to finally replace the ancient mattress on their bed, the one that seemingly came from when people slept on hay and lice and had questionable life expectancy. So they splurged on a great mattress, and then they covered it with cheap sheets. It's like pouring ketchup on a Filet. You don't do that. So this year, there might just be a badass surprise under the tree. Why? Because Boland Branch is having their best sale of the year right now. 25% off sitewide. 25% off, guys, their signature sheets are made from the highest quality, 100% organic cotton. I love Boland Branch. I love every product that we have used. They're on my bed right now. They get softer with every wash, and they have the perfect balance of softness and breathability. Yeah, I mean, I love

our sheets and blankets from Boland Branch. I want everyone to feel what I feel nightly. I'm serious, y'all. Bolin Branch, it makes for better sleep. So give yourself and your loved ones the most extraordinary sleep with 25% off sitewide, plus free shipping and extended returns during Boland Branch's best sale of the year. 25% guys. Shop now at bolandbranch.com slash cult and use our code, cult, that's bowl and branch, B-O-L-L-A-N-D and branch.com slash cult. Code cult for 25% off. Exclusions apply. So remember how we mentioned that this cult was hard to track?

Well, that all goes back to the originators of this group, the leaders. I'll try to make it short and sweet. So there was five brothers who were excommunicated from the LDS Church that was in Utah back in 1950-some-od. And they left and fled into Mexico. And they formed a colony, and the colony is Colonia Lebaron, which is Colonna Le Barron. So these were the Le Barron brothers, exiled Mormons, who still believed in plural marriage long after the church said, one wife per household. And one of them, his name was Joel.

He received a revelation. He's the new Joseph Smith or the new prophet of this church. They named the Church of the Firstborn of the Fulness of Time. Which definitely does not sound like the name of a cult. No.

We've heard a few cult names. That's not cult name like, no. That's not cult-y at all. And as time would have it, one of the brothers became jealous and they started having lots of discussions and problems. His authority was taken from him.

His name was Ervil LeBaron. I'm not even sure what Ervil named his church, but he started his own church, and he started gathering a lot of members who loved implementing the civil law of God, and it just went from bad to worse. Then the members of his church all burnt their homes down, so no one could live in their lives.

homes and left the town. And as time would have it, he became the Mormon Manson. Erbil Liberian started the Blood Atonement. So the Blood Atonement is a ritual and belief that originated from Joseph Smith's time. Fringe doctrine, yes, but supposedly this did come from the mouths of Mormon prophets. Supposed prophets, okay? Yeah.

So basically, the idea of blood atonement is, some sins are so bad that Jesus dying on the cross wasn't enough. So the sinner has to atone by shedding their own blood. It first popped up in the 1840s when Mormon founder Joseph Smith was preaching about divine justice. Later, our favorite racist college namesake, Brigham Young, He took it further, saying some people could only be forgiven through their own execution, i.e. murdering them for their own good. Of course it's for their own good. So the mainstream church quietly buried the doctrine long ago. It was a bit too medieval, but fundamentalist offshoots like Ervils, well, they took it literally.

As a divine justification for killing people. And the name of God, amen. It was something that was taught to us our whole life, so the prophet is the one who decides who merits that atonement. As far as we knew, there's no one that really implemented the teaching until Erbil LeBaron decides his time to implement that he just was taking life however he was. He strangled people, he shot people, he buried some people alive, whatever all he did. The only ones he ever took out were people that wouldn't join his church.

They were all members of his brother's church, and then he murdered his brother, Joel LeBaron, the prophet. Yes, in 1972, Ervil LeBaron turned on his own brother, Joel, convinced that he, not Joel, was the one true prophet of God. And instead of settling it with like a push-up contest or some war, whatever it is that brothers do, he ordered one of his most loyal followers, which was nicknamed the Irvalites, to drive to Mexico and shoot Joel dead right outside of his home. So I was six when this happened. All I remember is Mom got a phone call.

The energy and the feeling was something horrible, right? I didn't know what it was. Mom gets this call. She takes us to Mexico. And we're wearing our Sunday best. I don't know what's happening. And we pull up at this home. And we go in, and there's this morning.

I cannot describe to you the worst morning ever in Spanish, which I didn't understand the language, and wailing and mourning of women and the smell of burnt tortillas. And I go in and there's this coffin on the kitchen table, and mom holds me up, and I'm trying to figure out where he's shot, because I know this guy has been killed. I don't know for sure who he is, and I'm trying to figure it out, and I'm told that he's the prophet.

So that's the first time I ever saw him, and my dad was there, and I went up and hugged him. But from that point forward, my dad was different because now we had this blood atonement that had been activated in Erbil, and now everybody was on the list, and it was no joke. He had taken his own brother out. He would take anybody out.

You know, as a kid, you just feel energies. You don't know what it is. Why is Mom acting this way? But everything was hush. Everything was hurried. They had people lined up everywhere with guns in their little jackets to protect everybody in case the herbalites came back to kill anybody. So I lived in fear of that man every day, every day.

And he was so evil. He was so dark. He ended up killing two of his own brothers. He actually murdered his own daughter when she was pregnant because she was rebellious. They never found her body. And he went on to murder. a couple of hundred different people. My father was on his list, and so was his wife and a lot of other members of the church.

The Mormon Manson moniker is apt, because like Manson, it wasn't Erville actually doing the killing. He used women and children to do these acts. He did a raid in Los Molinos. His goal was to kill his brother, and his brother happened to not. be in town when he sent out all these. I found out later there were 13 and 14-year-olds that were shooting these guns and throwing the Molotov cocktails on all these homes and catching them on fire. Then when the people came out to put the fires out, they opened fired and started shooting

them, and they ended up killing two of them. It's just mind-blowing because it's all in the name of God. It's all in the name of God. But isn't that the story? of humanity. So many wars, so much death, so much Spanish inquisitions, so much slavery, so much blood atoned, all in the name of God. So obviously when I was little, my dad was my hero, but as I got older, I started realizing that there was something very scary about him. My dad was an alcoholic.

It was a terrible mix. I remember now, I can't believe this. I was a little girl sitting in the backseat car, and I would see my dad bend forward. He's driving, come back up with those little bottles of alcohol, and he drank two or three of them straight. And he used a lot of fear and a lot of physical abuse throughout my life, so I feared him.

When I was real little, it was just the typical spankings, and then it got to where it was more abusive. And I don't understand it, but he would come up with these ideas like waterboarding or really violent ways of punishing his children. He would like take a two-by-four and be pounding a big huge nail in the end of the two nails, actually, and then bending the nails so they wouldn't puncture our skin when he beat us with them, but it would actually hurt us. And if my mom ever came to my rescue, she would get in trouble severely.

She was a victim to his anger as well. And I think it was to put fear in us more than is that he really wanted to extremely hurt us, though he did hurt us. He'd really describe hell to us a lot. In fact, I can tell you so much about hell because of all the stuff Dad told me when I was a child of all the details about the tools that they used to inflict punishment on the wicked and the gnashing of teeth and Satan and fire and blood and teeth. and I really never really heard about heaven except that the streets were paid with gold and very few people would go there. But I sure knew a lot about hell

and most of the time I was going there. Sounds like she knew a lot about hell because she was living it. We'll be right back. Ladies and gentlemen, a quick rundown of the greatest inventions of all time, the wheel, the printing press, the telephone, the combustible engine, the internet, and now, THC-infused beverages.

Finally, science is doing something useful. You heard him right. T-H-C-infused beverages. We both just had ours delivered to our door, two six-packs of souls out-of-office beverage. And what is that? You ask, well, it's a refreshing alcohol-free drink that's perfect for winding down on the couch or just hanging out with some friends. Same happy buzz, no hangover, no empty calories, no karaoke regrets, right, Tyler? Yeah, you know, I genuinely thought I could pull off like a virgin. Soul is a wellness brand that believes feeling good should be fun and easy. They specialize in delicious hemp-derived THC and CBD products designed to boost your mood and help you unwind. Their best-selling out-of-office gummies give you, you know, a mild, relaxing buzz just enough to take the

edge off, boost your mood, spark a little creativity, and they have five different strengths. So if you're a lightweight like me, you can get the low dose, or if you're crazy, you can up your Annie. It's your world. We're just living in it. So take advantage of Souls Black Friday, Cyber Monday deal right now, 40% off your entire order. That's a lot. 40% off, guys. Go to getsole.com. Use our code cult. That's getsole.com promo code cult for 40% off. off. Hey listeners, so it's that time of year again somehow, shockingly. And if your holiday shopping muscle is atrophied, well, you can start strengthening it again by buying gifts for yourself from quince, which is what I do. And let me tell you, it's working. By now, I'm sure

you've heard of quince. We talk all about it on the show a lot. We are obsessed with quince. But if you haven't tried yet, you're in for quite a treat. They deliver high quality, luxe items, but without the luxe price tag, because quince works directly. with ethical, top-tier factories, so you get the same high-end quality for about half the price. Right now, guys, they just dropped a bunch of new sweaters, and I have my eye on their oversized boyfriend cardigan, and I just got a bunch of slip dresses that are made from silk, silk slip dresses that are so good, I am still blown away by the price. So step into the holiday season with layers made to feel good, look polished, and last from Quince. Perfect for gifting

or keeping for yourself. Go to quince.com slash cult for free shipping on your orders and three 265-day returns. Guess what? Also, now available in Canada, too. That's quince.com, Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash cult to get free shipping, 365-day returns, quince.com slash cult. Fear was nothing new for Pamela. It comes with the territory of being raised in a cult. Now it wasn't just fear of sin or punishment. It was fear of bullets, fear of what happens once your father ends up on a hit list. He's traveling around, just trying to stay a step ahead of herbal LeBaron. And also at this point now, he's wanted for welfare fraud.

He would just show up out of the blue all of a sudden he was there. And then he'd leave. It's just like everywhere we went, everything was such a secret. And there would always be these Mexican ladies. at our house and then leaving and coming in different people. I don't know what they were doing, but as a little girl, it was really confusing. You know, you fear your dad, you fear the herbalites, you fear the government. You're just afraid of your own shadow almost.

Everything has become a big fear thing. And I didn't know that things were only going to get worse before they ever got better. So once I turned 11, I don't know the reasons why, but I speculate that the law was catching up with my family. We had been living in secret for so long that we were being found out one way or another, whether it was tax fraud, welfare fraud, whatever all it was. I don't know that we left like thieves in the night.

And mom just told me take what the bare necessity was, and we left everything else behind and moved into Mexico. And it was right after the Los Molinos raid. So we moved into one of the home. homes that had been vacant there. It's nighttime and it's dark. There's no lights, nothing. The darkest night you can imagine except for the headlights.

We get to this place, it's our new home. Mom goes inside, lights some kind of lamp. So it would be a kerosene lamp. We go inside and it's a two bedroom, living room, and dining room is one area and then a tiny little kitchen and then what would be a pantry. There's no furniture, nothing, but we're going to stand there. A lot of us stayed in our clothes because you didn't know where

anything was. And mom brings in a bucket because the kids need to go potty. We put it in the makeshift pantry that is now going to be the bathroom. And it's just this dark, dreary, scary, icky place. So in the day of a life, I'd get up early in the morning, dress the babies, whoever it was at the time, mom would go out and grind wheat that we'd grind in this stone grinder to make the mush in the morning. I was in charge of the baby, so he was ready to be potty trained, so I would put him in the wheelbarrow and wheelbarrow him out to an outhouse. It was the most foulest, disgusting thing I can think of. Oh, my gosh. And my biggest fear is that I would drop him down the hole. Tyler and I have both been through potty training our kids, and yeah, it's a literal shit show.

It's messy. It's gross. There are lots of tears. Yeah, and that's just the parents. But at no point was ever afraid my kid might actually die in the process. We'd feed the kids and then she'd take them to school. Everybody's in school except the two babies and myself. Fifth grade was the last grade I went to. That was my last education. When you guys later find out what Pamela did with her life, despite having such a limited education, you will be amazed. Oh, tease him, Liz.

make them listen to episode three. And then I would have to start cleaning, making beds, doing everything that had to do with the inside, and then making food. Mom had brought down truckloads of food, so we didn't go hungry at that time. We were so poor so that I would make flour, tortillas, beans, rice, and once in a while a potato, and that's what we had.

And then the flies would go land in the outhouse and then come land on your food. Then there was fleas, and I remember just one time sitting and counting 130 bites all over me from the fleas. And then there was lice, and I had to pick through the kids' hair. The kids, they got worms, they got ringworms, that got infantigo, they got severe diarrhea. But the church doesn't believe. The cult didn't believe in doctors, so we would never see a doctor. My dad, when he moved into Los Molinos, he took over the home.

that belonged to Berlin Liberon because Ervil had set out to murder him. So they left the town and left all their homes and my dad took over. So all the wives lived really close to each other. You know, there'd be a field in a house and then a little walking path in another house and then down the street another house.

We all lived within, I don't know, a block and a half of each other. So the belief is a man marries these women and then he has one big happy family in any of the fundamentalist groups throughout the United States, a lot of them live all in the same house. There's a sisterhood and sister-wives,

and there's actual a love for the other wife's children, and they have a community, and they all pretty much dress the same, and when one eats, they all eat. But it wasn't like that. It was like a bunch of women living monogamy, married to the same man. So with all the pain and suffering,

that plural marriage brought with it, Pamela and her family also had to contend with the ever-looming threat of the Mormon Manson. Evil Ervil. That's what I call him. Evil Ervil. That's a good name. It was just horrible nightmare of who this man was going to kill next. I mean, he had men, women, and children in his group, so he had women out there doing his killings. He had children doing his killing. So you didn't know who it could be. It could be anybody, someone that pretends to deliver mail or pretends to come and fix the wash machine that's broken and they take you out. In my story, I talk about this bell that when it rang out, we were supposed to run to the sand dunes because he was there to implement another raid. Once we moved down there, my dad, he went and took

these big tractors and dug these trenches around the whole colony. And there was only one way to drive a truck in and one way to drive a truck out. And they watched it and guarded it heavenly. So they never came back to raid again. So that was smart. Nothing says home security, like building a moat around the entire community. Next step, build a trebusier. What's a trebusier?

Okay. I don't know Grey's Anatomy. You don't know what a trebusier is. It's one of those big catapults. They'd build in the medieval times. They'd put a rock in it and fling it forward. That's a traebusier. It's also a font.

I don't know how it became a font. I wish my co-host was McSteamy. Where's McSteamy when you need him? Apparently he died in season 11. No, that was McDreamy. Oh, gosh. So during this time, now we've moved to Mexico. Mom can't work anymore.

And I have a half-brother who is 14 years old. Dad ships him off to the United States, and he starts drywalling. and he brings the money home once a month to my dad, like $1,500. And dad would divvy that up amongst all his wives per month. And my mom's share with 11 children was $300 a month. And that was for all of our food, our electricity, all the clothing, any medicine, anything we needed. And it was just never enough. And then I remember really clearly mom would ask him for help,

and he would take the insides of his pockets of his jeans inside out and say, where do you want me to get it from, Pam? Where do you want me to get it from? And dad felt justified because, like I said, she was so artistic and talented, and I feel like her kids had that, but she didn't know how to go out and make money like some of the other wives did.

My dad had his first wife, which was his favorite, because she was bringing in money. She had been working with the semi-loaded with the buyers and the money. going back and forth and doing whatever. She obviously lived in luxury while the rest of us really suffered extreme poverty.

Make the babies, make the money. Make the men happy. Make the food. Make the babies. Make the house clean. Hide the smuggling. Make the babies. I mean, it's no wonder

that Pamela's mother wasn't happy. And as loyal and subservient as she was, she wasn't always able to put on that brave fundamentalist, Mormon, make the babies. happy wife face. I do remember a couple of times in my teenage years waking up to the sound of crying and dad is telling my mom

that she's going to take the kids and give him to Mom Belma because she couldn't hold the house together. Then he would tell her, you know, I'm not coming around. But she kept having babies, so he came by and pick her up and they'd go. I don't know where they would go because I never asked. She had all those babies so he for sure was keeping her pregnant. but she never had nights because she couldn't do enough to keep him comfortable enough.

You know, he liked to watch the TV in the nights and watch the love boat or whatever was on the TV. And he loved food out of a refrigerator and we didn't have a refrigerator and he needed his alcohol. And mom couldn't purchase that. You know, you give her a house that has no partitions. So she hangs up bedspreads to make the bedrooms and he's too good to sleep in one of those divisioned out. of blankets with his wife and do the naughty or whatever he might have done, he just was too good for it all. My dad was very classy. He wore his Stetsons and his 501 jeans and pearl snapped shirts and smelled good and looked amazing and mom lived in a hot almost. And not to mention,

mom has run out of welfare food and now we're actually very hungry and we're really, really struggling. And it was hard. I mean, there's times I would take a corn on the cob filled corn, like what you give the pigs. And I would shut that and ball my head off because that's all we had to eat. It's probably hard to understand, like a lot of people go through hunger, but when you have a half-sister who's eating apple pie and you're home eating filled corn that you got it out of the animal's been, there's a feeling like something's wrong with you. I'm sorry, but I do not understand how you can let one of your families starve and the other eat caviar and steak. I just, I don't understand it, and I will never understand it.

As you can imagine, I had somewhat of a low self-esteem where I felt like I was ugly-duggling because I was so tall and I just did not match. I didn't belong. And then clothes never fit, shoes never fit. I was never dressed in style and I was always hungry. I just really felt like I didn't belong. I missed California. I missed what I called home, and I didn't belong in Mexico. I can't say that I

know personally, but I can only imagine how difficult being a 13-year-old girl is on many fronts. No idea what you're talking about. Good, because neither do why. I was a 13-year-old boy. It wasn't that bad. But I suspect it's very difficult.

But if you add that you're growing up in a confining cult and you're in Mexico and you're broke and you're starved and you're taking care of what 11 brothers and sisters since you age of six and you're living in the fear that you and your family well they could just be shot at any moment now that I can't imagine so I'm growing up you know getting the hormones I'm a young lady now I'm a tall girl as I mentioned and now I'm growing boobies the boob fairy stayed a little longer at my door so yeah you come around with that that little tire pump and stayed a little longer when he came to visit me.

But, hey, it worked. You know, when you become a young lady, so at the age of 12 or 13. And now I'm a groomable, and men are starting to come around and give me lots of attention. I'm getting asked to babysit for couples and then showing up, and the wife is not there, and just the husband, and you just know something's off. And my father is, like, becoming way more stricter, and I'm super. afraid of him. Yes, sir, no, sir, and get away from him as best I can. And now I'm growing, I'm developing, I'm getting bigger, and he's noticing me more, and now I felt like I can't get

away from him. Then I noticed that he just became even somewhat possessive and looked at me more like as an asset or something that he owned, which being his daughter, he owned me anyways, but there was something different in the way he handled me. Now he was starting to, want me to be a certain way so he could market me. And I become a commodity to trade. My dad is, like, parading me around in a way, like, oh, this is my daughter, oh, you know, my daughter. And I'm this tall, blondie.

Now a lot of the old men around, and they want his daughter. So they'd bribe him. They'd buy him this and fix him that. And then he would, like, all the men treated him so respectful because he had all these beautiful daughters. I think my dad enjoyed that as far as the recognition he had and the power he had

and at the end of the day I could choose my own husband I could say yes I would marry whoever it was but until I made that decision he would bring them around and scare off the ones he didn't like and these are cult members that are American citizens

that are his buddies a lot of them are 40 years older than me so they're starting to come around a lot They're bringing mom gifts and stuff, so I was really thankful for that because we had this big family. Mom had like 10 kids at this point. I knew that I was getting ready to be marketed and get married, and I knew that was coming, and I knew it would be by the time I was 15 within reason, you know. And the reason why I was accepting it is that I knew that I could at least get fed.

So that was the first thing I thought about. At least we won't go hungry. So I started thinking about marriage as something that would solve the issue of being hungry. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Hey everyone, it's Liz, and I want to talk about meandis, not my undies, meandies. I have to be honest, guys, I didn't really know meandi's stuff until they became a sponsor, but now I'm quite literally obsessed.

Their underwear is so soft, it's so soft. Like, I don't know what ultra-modal fabric is, but I don't know what ultra-modal fabric is, but I want everything I wear to be made out of it. And I have to be honest, I'm really not a big, like, let's all match in holiday pajamas person. But then I saw their prints and I was like, okay, this is actually really cute. Like, I'm getting the red plaid. It's cute. Shoot me.

And they're sustainably made, which is my favorite thing, my favorite part. I really appreciate that, especially when I'm buying stuff for people I care about. And if you've never experienced me andes, again, not my undies, me andes, well, now is the time to try because right now you can get up to 50% off um stocking presents check knock out all your holiday gifting needs today with meundies to get exclusive holiday deals up to 50% off go to meundies dot com slash cult enter our promo code cult that's meundies dot com slash cult promo code cult for up to 50% off We're back.

Okay, so Pamela, she's now of age, albeit very young. She's of age to be married off to one of the men in the community, but she definitely did not want to be married to one of the old creepy pervs. So enter David. David was six years older than me, and I had met him when I was really young, probably 13 or so. are seen them at one of the conferences. So the church would have a conference twice a year.

All the members from Chihuahua and all over wherever else would come down and have a three-day conference. I believe the Mormons still have conferences still. Colts love a conference. Oh, they love a conference. They just like, let's get them all together in the conference. Come conference. So this is the first conference I ever go to in Los Molinos

and we're all standing in a round circle and they're playing some game, and everybody's standing there, and I noticed David. So if I was 13, he would have been 19. So I noticed this tall, handsome, Latino guy. He's half Hispanic. So he was the son of one of the original five brothers.

His father is Alma, and I think he was the 10th child. And everybody loved the kid. He was actually a beautiful man. Thank goodness. Oh, thank goodness. He's handsome. Because if you keep listening, you'll find out there's not much else there to the man.

True that. But anyways, that was the first time I saw him. Then I didn't see him again until a year and a half later. So then he moves to town because his father lives there. I was cleaning the house for his father and one of the other wives. And he got his eye on me. Asked me to date him. I told him I couldn't.

And then he asked me again. And I said, if you can get my dad's permission, I'll date you. and I didn't think my dad would ever let me marry him or have anything to do with him because he's Mexican, so I didn't worry. I didn't even think that I had met my husband. But my dad told him, you can get to know her, but you can't touch her.

So we kind of started liking each other. He was really sweet, he was a lot of fun. Kind of got all excited because this little Hispanic man gave me all this time of day, and I was just Twitter-painted because he was a bad boy. He was a weed-smoking, long-haired, you know, wear his shirt and button, the silk satin shirt they wear. I mean, that's not the way God's people dress, but that sure was the way he dressed.

He'd be there flirting with me and giving me all his attention, and I felt like I was trying so hard to be good. And David had put his arm around the backside of my waist kind of idea, and one of my half-brother saw that. And, of course, the half-brother ratted Pamela out. I guess there's no honor among half siblings is there. So later that day, when she was home, I was 14 at the time.

My dad had this big truck that looked like a U-Haul vehicle. It was blue. We call it the tent truck. I see it coming down the road, and something in me had gut instinct knew he was coming from me. I didn't even know why. He pulls up on the side of me, and I see mom's in the vehicle with him,

and I can see something's wrong because he tells me in a stern voice to get in the truck. So I do. He doesn't say anything to me. drive a mile out of town to the salt flats and he turns his truck around and it's facing the town so you can watch anybody that pulls up. He tells me to get into the back of the truck. At this point, I know I'm going to get some horrible beating, but I still don't know why. So my mom gets into the back of the truck. She sits on the spare tire that's back there.

And I get in and then he tells me, so is it true that you let David hug you on Mother's Day? I told him, well, yeah, he put his arm around my waist, but that's all, Daddy. Then he says, well, I told you you couldn't touch each other, and you did, so you're going to get 15 strappings. So I said, okay, so he takes his belt off. He tells me to stretch my arms over the cap of the truck where the bed would be up. So it's a shoulder length, kind of stretch him out wide. He's used the full length of the belt, and he's strapped me over my back and my legs and my hindy.

It broke a couple of little places on my ribs I was really, really thin back then So with the bone and the flesh, there's just skinned there So the belt kind of just broke that open a little It wasn't extreme, it didn't scar me But at that point Something broke inside me And you kind of go to this place

You kind of leave your body You're not really there Something happened in there where I felt like I call it indignant And I caught a glimpse of my mom rolled up in her little ball sitting on the spare tire in the back, and she's pregnant with her 12th or 11th. Do the math.

Anyways, she looked broken to me more than what I was going through. I realized that my mom was thinking of divorcing, and dad was going to keep the kids, and I think she was showing her what would happen to me if she left. So she never left him. I believe that's what that was about, but for the little girl and me, you just don't know what to think.

You don't think like anything I would think of now. Looking back, I can see that I did have options. I was so brainwashed to stay there and to take the abuse, and I deserved it. I was a woman. I needed to shut up and be obedient. And obviously I did. But that was the last time my father ever hit me.

At that point, I decided I'm leaving as quick as I can, and I want to get away. And marriage was the only way out. marry a man to escape another one. For Pamela, that was the only option she thought she had at the time. Now, keep in mind that marriage was very important to members of fundamentalist Mormon groups. It's the only way that you can ultimately get into heaven. So Pamela is, yes, old enough for marriage, but she's also old enough to get a job.

Because again, this Mormon sect made its own set of rules. So I went to work for my uncle at a resort in Ensenada, and I'm so funny. I'm just a little girl, but obviously I looked a little older. And I'm working at the bar there and mixing drinks. To this day, I have no idea what I was mixing. So I would do it. And then I'm going in and cleaning the hotel. I started getting paid and making money, and I started tasting freedom.

And now I start to question whether I want to get married or not anymore. I really just wanted to get away I really didn't want to go play house and be a mom and have babies right away I want a freedom so I worked at the hotel until Christmas of that year of 1980 and then I had to go home

because it was Christmas time my uncle was taking me home then I had bought all these Christmas gifts for the kids and brought some money to my mom I was so happy I'd bought myself some shoes that fit a couple of cute outfits for myself and my plan was to go back after the first of the year.

But then when David comes around and asks me to marry him, I tell him, you know, I'm not ready. And it's so silly. I tell him, can you wait time, 16? Because I just turned 15, you know, a few months before that, and I want to experience his freedom.

And then he threatens, if I don't marry him, I can be his second wife. He'll marry someone else. And that scares me because I am not marrying a married man. So I tell him, okay, if you get my dad's permission,

then I'll marry you. I didn't think my dad would let me. I just really didn't think he would So I say that to him And sure enough My father gives us permission And tells David that he will have to finish Raising me, which was a

My dad should have never said that Because the kid took it literally Anyway, so we get engaged Little did I know It was going to be so much harder But at the time you don't know as a child No, you don't know But we do because we've heard

The rest of the story And you will too But not yet Because marrying David, well, it doesn't take Pamela out of the colds. What it does is it pulls her deeper in. Into a world of nasty sister wives, control, and babies, and more babies. And outhouses. And more babies.

And bullets. And some bullets. And a little bit of a peek under the hood of what it's like to share a husband with many other women. Or the freedom she briefly tasted at 15 now feels in poverty. possible. But somehow Pamela, well, she finds it. And her escape, holy moly, guys,

it's, it'll give you chills. Here's a little taste of what's coming next week. He had so many women. His job was just to make sure we were always pregnant. I was pregnant 17 times in 19 years. So I

evidently did it enough to get pregnant and he'd come and do the naughty every time it was your night. But it wasn't the full act. It was just enough to say I slept with her. A little kissing and then jump on and get the job done and go to sleep. I didn't know what was I going to compare it to. And just a little announcement, we have some new badasses to thank who have joined our Patreon,

people who are definitely not on our Ervil-lesk hit list. Yes. You're safe, Susan Smith, Alisa. Rockwell, Stephanie Shollies. Sholes. Stephanie Sholes. And Brendan. Just Brendan. Thanks, Brendan. Yep. Thank you, everyone for listening. Thank you, Pamela.

You're amazing. Yep. Was I an occult is hosted, produced, written, La La La La La La La La. Liz. Flies from the Outhouse. The surgeon. The surgeon. The surgeon. Iacuzzi. Dr. Liz Iacuzzi. And Tyler burned down the entire village, Meesum. Molotov cocktail, Meism. And Rob, who is our usual guy, he's taken a Hawaiian vacation this week. Hawaii? Are we paying him too much?

Get it, Rob. You deserve it. Yeah, you do. So today's episode was sound mixed by the original mixer. This is the guy who did it in season one for us, two hundred and twelve years ago when we started this podcast. Back when we were all polygamists. Right. It's Chandler.

Chandler. Chandler smuggled guns in the camper makes. Love you, Chandler. Oh, but Tyler, I won't. wanted to tell you this. Speaking of surgeons, the president of the Mormon church, the guy he just died. Yes, Liz. Because I did a deep dive on this. He died in September. And he was a surgeon. Oh. He was a cardiac surgeon. So you probably ran into him at surgeon conferences. At the conferences, I showed him how to work his way around a scalpel. Yeah, I'm sure you were very handy with

a scalpel. He needed a few tips. Guys, that's it. Don't forget to rate review. Tell your friends, just spread this cult. Yeah, help us out. Come on. Tell some people. When I was a Mormon missionary, we used to always go to members and try to get them to recruit their friends and talk to their coworkers. And I regret the hell out of it now because I'm sure people are like, God, I don't want to talk to my fucking boss about Mormonism. Regardless, I'm going to do it now and I'm going to ask you people.

Talk to your boss, your friends, strangers on the streets, knock on doors, and a little. little name tag. Tell people about was I in a cult? Love Bomb, you mean it. Thanks, guys. Thank you guys. I got to go scrub in. I got to go to my other job as a heart surgeon.

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