Leif M. Wright - Deadly Vows: The True Story of a Zealous Preacher, A Polygamous Union and a Savage Murder

deadly vows

Copyright 2014 by Leif M. Wright

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever, including electronic, mechanical or any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher.

Requests for permission should be addressed to:

New Horizon Press

P. O. Box 669

Far Hills, NJ 07931

Leif M. Wright

Deadly Vows: The True Story of a Zealous Preacher,

a Polygamous Union and a Savage Murder

Cover design: Charley Nasta

Interior design: Scribe Inc.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013935928

ISBN 13: 978-0-88282-455-0

New Horizon Press

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AUTHORS NOTE

T his book is based on the authors experiences and reflects his perception of the past, present and future. The personalities, events, actions and conversations portrayed within this story have been taken from interviews, research, court documents, letters, personal papers, press accounts and the memories of some participants.

In an effort to safeguard the privacy of certain individuals, some names and identifying characteristics have been altered. Some characters may be composites. Events involving the characters happened as described. Only minor details may have been changed.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

O n January 9, 2004, a lone camper hiking around the desert near his campsite stumbled upon a strange rock structure resting on the baked earth.

In his many travels through the area, hed never seen a rock formation quite like the one underneath the palo verde tree about three hundred feet north of the nearest unnamed dirt road. The area was just north of the Barry Goldwater Air Force Base, and that was just north of the Mexican border. Theres nothing in the vicinity except scrubby desert but the hiker loved the area and spent lots of time exploring it. Buried under the palo verde tree lay a mystery. A mystery that looked very much like a tomb.

And he also had never smelled that scent before. He had smelled plenty of dead animals in his day, but this?

You could smell...a different smell from an animal, he said. Anyway, the tomb, he said, was too big to have an animal like a dog buried there.

The next day, the hikers son, a federal ranger with the Bureau of Land Management, went out to the area his father described and began gently moving the stones to see what lay underneath.

I found a partial portion of a head and a torso, the ranger said. It just became apparent it wasnt an animal.

Investigators were horrified when they found the decayed remains. Was it a man or woman, old or young? The story the bones told was violent, graphic and desperately depraved. The body, which was almost completely decomposed except for the bones, a little flesh on the legs and ten-inch dreadlocks still clinging to the skull, was laying on its left side in a loosely fetal position beneath the rocks that had entombed it. The badly decayed body was brought back to the medical examiners office for autopsy.

Dr. Laura Fulginiti is the forensic anthropologist in Phoenix, Arizona, who examined the body. The first thing she did with the remains is the same thing she does anytime someone brings in skeletal remains: she laid the body out carefully, putting each piece as close to its anatomical position as she could. Some answers came quickly. Fulginiti determined the victim was young, female and African-American; it became apparent rather quickly that some pieces were missing and her skull and ribs were practically screaming that something terrible had happened to the poor woman. It was clear from her bones, especially her hip bones, that she had given birth at least once.

But Fulginitis discoveries soon became more alarming. The bone where the chest connected to the clavicle and to which the first rib attached had been completely severed just a centimeter above the sternum. The aorta, the largest artery in the body ascending from the heart, lies directly beneath that bone. The end result of such a wound would be massive and fatal bleeding. The left side of that same bone, which is where most people assume the heart sits, had deep cuts, as if someone had jammed a knife between the womans first and second ribs, beneath which her vital organs sat vulnerable to the blade.

Her sternum, which was just below that bone and the bone to which the rest of the ribs attached, wasnt completely there, but what was there bore signs of trauma, with scratches and cuts all over it. Several of the multiple stab wounds alone were enough to be fatal, Fulginiti said.

Many of the ribs recovered from the womans left side were rife with signs of being stabbed through, including two that were completely severed by the knife. Whoever had killed this woman had wanted to make damn sure she was dead. In fact, her hyoid bone, which sits in the neck just below the chin, directly above the adams apple, and helps control the tongue and larynx, had been damaged by what appeared to be a saw blade as if someone had tried to cut the young womans head off.

Whoever had stabbed this poor woman to death had been aiming to kill. The injuries were all to the left side and center of the chest, where the heart is located. And whoever had done it was trying very hard to make sure the woman was good and dead.

But that kind of trauma wasnt really unusual in homicides. It certainly wasnt something the forensics investigators hadnt seen before. Killing was a brutal, nasty business, and the damage it left behind was almost always stark and compelling.

The most stunning thing is the back of the sternum is sliced off, Fulginiti said. Thats the most startling thing. The sternum is thick, but not so heavy. When the knife went in, it must have caught, and (the killer) pulled down on it so hard that (the killer) literally sliced the back half of the sternum off of the front half.

That wound, Fulginiti said, is the most striking aspect of what happened.

I have never seen that before, she said. And I never expect to see it again.