paul kingston wives

Incest is endemic in the clan, with uncles marrying much younger female relatives; in 2003, police showed up at an Order barbecue and arrested a clan member for marrying his underage cousin. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. According to people who have left the Order, the cult exploits its 2,000 members as virtual slave labor and hides profits from tax collectors. In the meantime, the police were closing in on the missing silver. Over the next several years, Stephen bounced from the suburbs of Salt Lake to the clans ranch in Nevada. If I had done it, the Order probably would have killed me. There, stacked on the concrete floor, were crates filled with bars of silver. Members who have left in recent years say that changed after some of Paul Kingston's brothers were convicted of. You could be such an asset to the Order., Trending Not every Kingston Group follower marries as a juvenile. Did the Utah Legislature do enough to save the Great Salt Lake? They also knew that much of the clans wealth was stashed inside the unassuming suburban house on the corner. As he grew older, Stephen turned out to be as rebellious as his own father had been. In response to questions from the newspaper, Kent Johnson, a spokesman for the Davis County Cooperative Society, sent an email saying marriages should occur within the age of legal consent and not be coerced. Mafi recalls Paul Kingston telling the children who attended that meeting that The Order was going to be trying out something new, the lawsuit says. But lots of people in the sect are already descended from that family, Hansen said; thats why there are so many cousin marriages in the Kingston Group. No recordings or photos were allowed during the ceremony. They belonged to the Order and had toiled in the cult for years. According to former members of the Order, decades of inbreeding have resulted in rampant birth defects throughout the family. To cope with the disorientation and loneliness of leaving one world for another, many turn to drugs. At a minimum, the statement said, two employees review every student file flagged for verification to ensure quality assurance in our processes.. Short and chubby, the Brown boys looked up to the Knight brothers. They believe were Gods chosen people, Snow said of the Kingston Group followers, so you should start having kids as soon as possible.. The plans fizzled because her mother didnt believe DeRieux had received direction from God to marry the man. DeRieux says she was still high school age when her father told her she needed to pray about whom to marry, get married and build The Order. Her father also started calling her mother and prodded her to pressure DeRieux to get married. Thanks, it read. The group sought to maintain Pure Kingston Blood by arranging marriages between cousins and other close relatives, and shunning relationships that werent between white people, the lawsuit alleges. He had arranged for a banner to be placed over a bridge there. For that, she would have to be legally married to him. The clan, known privately as the Order, runs what prosecutors believe is one of the largest organized-crime operations in Utah, overseeing its far-flung empire from a string of secret locations and backrooms. Stephens father seemed to marry a new girl every year, each one younger and prettier than the last. If you ever do that again, he said, Ill blow your head off., It was an astonishing moment in the history of the clan. The couples wedding certificate says Stoddard officiated the ceremony April 26, 2008, in West Valley City. Paul Kingston wore secondhand suits that hung off his slender shoulders, and he spoke in a flat, emotionless monotone. Girls are told they will need to pray to God so he might show them who their No. She wasnt allowed to leave the house until she decided whom to marry. Im done with this shit.. That cousin is also a defendant in the lawsuit. When he noticed that the boys had stopped working, he became enraged. All I like to do is work on cars and hang out with friends and ride my ponies, he wrote one night on his MySpace page. ", "United by fundamentalist Mormon beliefs, one polygamous group helps another by bringing truckloads of food", "Young Brides Stir New Outcry on Utah Polygamy", "Shurtleff: Child bride polygamous marriages appear to have stopped", "Polygamists are urged to make public statement", "No longer performing child-bride marriages? He also shared his brothers fascination with herbs and natural medicine. Instead, he had walked away from the family three years earlier to make a life of his own. The groom wore a suit. When Rachel Young, a stern and humorless woman, got home, she discovered that several crates of silver in her basement had been pried open whoever had robbed the place had clearly been in a hurry and had left with only a small fraction of her silver. Mysterious cars followed his girlfriend, and he once came home to find that someone had rifled through his drawers. Come and get me, Stephen said. They threw away their possessions, donned matching blue overalls, and pitched canvas tents on a patch of land north of Salt Lake that would come to be known as the Home Place.. No evidence directly linked him to the missing gold or silver, but his father was convinced he had played a part in the thefts. It alleges sex trafficking, sexual battery and child abuse, and seeks a jury trial and unspecified damages. (Like most kids in the clan, Stephen wasnt told who his father was until he was old enough to be trusted to lie to protect the Order.) Boys as young as 14 labored in the workshop. Paul Eldon Kingston, the leader of Utah's polygamous Kingston Group, also known is the order, is named as a defendant in a bombshell lawsuit alleging sex trafficking. (Photo courtesy of Kollene Snow) Kollene Snow, 16, poses in her dress before her 2009 marriage in West Valley City. Jessica said her husband was on a group text that went around listing girls or women who had not yet married with jokes about how old the females were getting. The deputy opened the trunk of the Honda, where he found two duffel bags stuffed with silver. He then severed her index finger, cleaned off the three bones, and carried them with him the rest of his life, believing that the totem kept her spirit with him. Depending on ones view, members of the Kingston Group either take care to follow marriage laws, or work to circumvent them. Regardless, all those applying should do so legally.. As he grew older, Stephen turned out to be as rebellious as his own father had been as a boy. Many children begin working before 10 . Complete statement from Davis County Cooperative Society: For decades, the DCCS has encouraged its members to be well-educated, well-informed, independent thinkers. Not desiring to be a plural wife doesnt necessarily mean she hoped to leave the Davis County Cooperative Society, also known as the Kingston Group. He directed some of his own children the plaintiffs estimate he has 27 wives and more than 300 offspring to seek more financial aid than they would have otherwise been entitled to, the suit cites one of his daughters as saying, and when the assistance exceeded what the student needed to attend college, the sect kept the proceeds. She favors raising the legal marriage age to 18. By 18 she was pregnant with her first child and ended up having four children in four years. Very little is publicly known about her or their marriage but Paul shared a heartfelt Facebook about . But because they were the sons of the prophet, they got away with it., Stephen vehemently denies that he or his brothers had anything to do with the heist. If that father says yes, the groom talks to the girl. When he had finished, he walked toward Stephen, who was sitting on the tractor. The lawsuit says Mafi received an aid package that exceeded her tuition. Within a year, Paul Kingston would take a fourth wife. It was all fun, Stephen recalls. Former members of the sect say there may be dozens or even hundreds more marriage certificates at county clerk offices across the West. To deaden his feelings of isolation, he started smoking a lot of pot and sitting around the house all day listening to country music. (Paul Kingston and other leaders of the family ignored repeated requests for comment for this story. The father preferred another who had inquired about marrying Jessica. Former members estimate Paul has 30 wives and more than 50 children. . The DCCS is a financial cooperative established by his uncle Elden Kingston in 1935. He even had charts showing who were the higher families in the sect so his daughters knew where to look for a mate. The clan kids from there would come to school not properly dressed for the cold, and they were always getting in fights. We were taught to be polite, but to never make friends with outsiders. The clan avoids hospitals, believing government-backed doctors might inject them with a mysterious disease or demand birth records exposing the Orders lifestyle. We strongly encourage all members to strictly adhere to every legal guideline when operating their businesses including day cares and when applying for all need-based assistance, including financial aid for students. Paul Kingston succeeded his father John Ortell Kingston as the leader of the Kingston Clan on his father's death in 1987. The clan believed he had their treasure, and they were sending someone to kill him. There are thousands of members in the group. But he hopes that one day his family will be able to forgive him for leaving them behind. Paul Elden Kingston is an accountant and attorney who has served as the Trustee-in-Trust of the Davis County Cooperative Society (DCCS), a Mormon fundamentalist denomination, [2] since 1987. Donate to the newsroom now. The lawsuit describes crimes and issues within the Kingston Group that have no direct relationship to the student aid applications. Jacob's dad, John Kingston, husband of at least 14 wives and father to some 120 children, was imprisoned in 1998 after pleading no contest to charges that he beat his 16-year-old daughter . Youd show up for a welfare call, or a domestic-abuse call, and it was just real run-down.. It was also around then that Stephen, at the age of 14, began to see the clan for what it really was. She and her husband had four children with whom they share custody. Noticing Stephen, he put the barbells down and came over to the boy. Paul Valls's wife is Sharon Vallas. Later that afternoon, in another house across town belonging to the Order, a woman named Patty Kingston opened her closet to discover that a chest of gold coins worth as much as $5 million had vanished. Paul Vallas' Net Worth In 2023 Explored. Then, moving quickly, the boy at the door let himself in and got to work. J.O. For, nearly 75 years after they were born, Peter and Paul Kingston are as inseparable now as they were inside their mother's womb. When they arrived in Grand Junction, all three couples filled out the papers for a marriage license. Create Biography By the time the teenagers sped away, they had made off with more than $80,000 in silver. In the kitchen, he opened a closet and popped a hatch in the floor that led down to a dark, musty basement. It passed a bill adding forced marriage into the states definition of sexual abuse. The lawsuit does not allege any wrongdoing by SLCC. What he told me was, Hansen said, Get her married so we dont have to take care of her anymore.. Known variously as "Brother Paul," "the leader," and "the man on the watchtower" by Order members, this unremarkable, balding middle-aged man reportedly has 27 wives and over 300 children. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. He was usually off visiting one of his 30 or so wives, or checking on one of the clans many businesses, or in a backroom getting his muscles rubbed in preparation for one of his painful, 40-day fasts, a purification ritual that he endured in order to get closer to God. Kingston taught his followers that they are the literal descendants of Jesus and one of his wives, who had come down to Earth to found a race of chosen people. [9], Records show he signed as a witness on 4 lawful teenage marriages over a 20 year period. Log In Once logged in, you can add biography in the database. Attorneys for the Nelsons and Michaels also did not return messages seeking comments. Those families have intermarried to the extent that half brothers and sisters are now marrying one another, as well as uncles. The couples divorce became final in 2011. Kiki Kannibal: The Girl Who Played With Fire. They would trek into state welfare offices, their kids in tow, claiming that they had no idea who the father of their children was, or that he was a truck driver who had left them destitute. Everyone in the Order knew that she controlled the purse strings for the operation but few were aware that she was sitting on a hidden stash of silver. Markey said the plaintiffs are making the case to a judge that the Kingston Group is a cult and criminal enterprise rather than a religion. Do you think if I took $5 million in gold, Id be working out here?. Members are primarily born into the. But age alone wont determine her answer. The Salt Lake Tribune, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) public charity and contributions are tax It was just the best choice, some say, among their bad options. Knight was born in Salt Lake City, the sixth child of third-generation polygamists. Johnson said neither he nor any other representatives of the cooperative society were aware of the lawsuit until contacted by The Salt Lake Tribune recently for comment. DeRieuxs marriage effectively ended in June 2010. His life was in danger, the voice on the other end warned. The lawsuit was filed May 24 in Salt Lake Citys federal court by Mary and Bryan Nelson. If you messed with one of them, you were messing with them all., When Stephen was nine, an accident at Washakie set in motion a chain of events that would eventually prompt him to leave the cult. Those two unions happened in Colorado, where its legal to marry your cousin. Mary Nelson grew up in the sect and names her father, David Kingston, as a defendant. Comparable graduation rates have been attained by our bachelors and advanced degree students when compared to the state of Utah and the U.S., despite an uphill battle of active discrimination against our students. All rights reserved. Hansen said some men try to use their children to improve their status in the sect. Its his father, the prophet, calling to coax his wayward son back into the fold. Managed by: Paul, a grandson of the group's founder, has 27 wives and more than 300 children, Mary said. A week later, the two were profiled on the CBS program Whistleblower for their work in exposing fraud at Washakie Renewable Energy, the biofuel company operated by two of Mary Nelsons first cousins. Others say they buried it out in the desert and are slowly cashing it out. She was definitely the pick of the litter, and thats why Paul got her, Ron recalls. Money, sex and power. He said the college has controls to ensure compliance with federal aid guidelines. Its hard to leave when thats all youve known, says one former member, who was forced to marry her cousin when she was 15. Its unclear how much if any investigating has happened in the almost seven months since the lawsuit was filed. We really know what your game is.. Jessica saw the list. Mrs. Mafi had another meeting with Paul Kingston during which he made sure that she had completed her [applications] and told her that she could only attend college if her grades were sufficient to qualify for financial aid.. Jessica as well as Snow, DeRieux and Hansen all favor raising the legal marriage age in Utah and other states to 18. Her top choice the one whom she felt God told her to marry was a man five years older than she and to whom she was related on both sides of her family tree. One afternoon, as Stephen and his cousin were taking a break from fixing a tractor that had broken down in a hayfield, Daniel Kingston pulled up. J.O. Fishing it out of his jeans, hell recognize the number. Nevertheless, waves of audits of State taxes, Federal taxes, corporate taxes, DWS, SNAP, WIC and regulatory compliance in day cares among other things, have been levied against individuals and corporations with known or suspected ties to the DCCS. The deputy heard the Brown boys knew who stole the gold but suddenly, without explanation, they and everyone in the clan clammed up. DeRieux was photographed in Layton, Wednesday, July 11, 2018. Paul Kingston is one of eight men named as defendants in the lawsuit. The "9" represents his status as a "numbered man" in the Davis County Cooperative Society, also known as the Kingston Group. Some former sect members, including two stars of the television show Escaping Polygamy," say girls are pressured to marry at the age most kids are learning to drive and reading Wuthering Heights.. When a girl doesnt want to be a polygamist, that information is shared among boys and men in the sect. Matt Gaetz Called Out for Citing Chinese Propaganda in Hearing COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) Jurors in Alex Murdaugh's murder trial will get to see for themselves the rural hunting estate where his wife and son were killed, following in the footsteps of . Paul was upset any of this had been reported at all, says a former member close to the boys. Mafi followed Paul Kingstons instructions, the lawsuit states, and never again saw those funds.. That daughter was born with a form of heart disease and had long acted responsibly in caring for it, Hansen said. By the time he was 30, he would have more than 10. Women and girls, after theyre married, submit to their husbands and men answer to higher-ranked men, the suit alleges. In 2006 it was estimated that Paul Kingston had up to 40 wives (including two half-sisters of his), some of whom have up . In an analysis written in 2015, a University of Maryland sociologist found that nationwide 37 percent of people who marry before age 20 divorce in the first 10 years. Their grooms were 22. The groom was 21. Jessica suspects her dad was pushing her toward another man. The relations are distant enough they wouldnt encounter any of Utahs prohibitions on marriage between siblings, first cousins or aunts/nephews and uncles/nieces. The Salt Lake Tribune, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) public charity and contributions are tax She and her husband had moved to Billings, Mont., to work for a coal mine. deductible, Report a missed paper by emailingsubscribe@sltrib.comor calling801-237-2900, For e-edition questions or comments, contact customer support801-237-2900or emailsubscribe@sltrib.com. His face was crushed, Stephen says now, matter-of-factly, his eyes going blank for a moment. He also had dozens of children a brood that would eventually grow to around 300 and he had a hard time telling them apart. A body of research suggests the teenage brain is not developed enough to make the kind of long-term decision needed for marriage. Whether she gives her blessing, she said, will depend on the answers to those questions. One day, for laughs, he and his half brother Ron Tucker stole some napalm from an Order army-supply store, drew lines of it in the street and lit it on fire as cars drove by. He inherited the top leadership position in 1987. John Daniel Kingston, who according to court testimony once had 14 wives, was on hand in 2011, when his sons held an open house at the Washakie production plant in Plymouth near Interstate 15 and . Her first child and ended up having four children in four years life was in danger the. Sltrib.Comor calling801-237-2900, for e-edition questions or comments, contact customer support801-237-2900or emailsubscribe @.! Believe DeRieux had received direction from God to marry prophet, calling to coax wayward. 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