On 27 June 1988, four murders took place across three different locations. All occurred in Texas at the same time: 4pm. The date, journalist Sally Denton would later note in her book The Colony: Faith and Blood in a Promised Land, marked 144 years since the killing of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. The four […]
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JOHN HYRUM KOYLE WAS BORN in Spanish Fork, Utah in 1864. Raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, his family was sent to settle the area around the Muddy River in southern Nevada. He eventually brought a farm and settled down in Leland, Utah. In 1886, he claimed he was receiving spiritual visions during his dreams. He
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Brian David Mitchell was a Mormon fundamentalist who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart in 2002. He held her captive for nine months, during which time he repeatedly raped her. Mitchell was eventually convicted of kidnapping and sexual assault and sentenced to life in prison. Mitchell was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1953. He was the
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Roch Thériault was a man with a mission: to save himself and his followers from the coming apocalypse. As a child, Thériault dropped out of school and started teaching himself the Old Testament. He was convinced that a war between good and evil was about to come, and that this would bring about the end of
The Iron Rod cult is a religious group that was founded in 1999 by Hyung Jin Moon, the son of the late Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church. The group is based in Newfoundland, Pennsylvania, and has a small following of a few hundred people. The Iron Rod cult is known for
Summum is a religion and philosophy that began in 1975 as a result of American citizen Claude “Corky” Nowell‘s claimed encounter with beings he described as “Summa Individuals”. According to Nowell, these beings presented him with concepts regarding the nature of creation, concepts that have always existed and are continually re-introduced to humankind by advanced beings who work along
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Aum Shinrikyo: A Deadly Cult Aum Shinrikyo is a Japanese doomsday cult that was founded in 1987 by Shoko Asahara. The group is responsible for a number of terrorist attacks, including the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack, which killed 12 people and injured over 5,000. Aum Shinrikyo’s beliefs are a mix of Hinduism, Buddhism, and
The Unification Church, commonly known as the Moonies, is a new religious movement founded in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon. The church has been controversial since its inception, and has been accused of being a cult. However, the church has also attracted a number of high-profile members, including former President Donald Trump and former Vice
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The Ghost Dance was a religious movement that originated among the Paiute people of Nevada in 1889. The movement spread rapidly to other Native American tribes in the western United States, and it had a significant impact on American Indian culture and history. The Ghost Dance was founded by Wovoka, a Paiute spiritual leader who
AJ Miller, also known as Solarus, is the founder of the AJ Miller Cult, a controversial religious group that has been accused of a number of abuses, including financial exploitation, physical and emotional abuse, and child abuse. Miller was born in 1966 in New York City. He began his spiritual journey at a young age,
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