For the first couple of hours Ron stood his ground and refused to believe what Dan and his other four brothers were doing was in any way right. He tried to plead with Mark, Watson, Tim and Allen, telling them that Dan was brain washing them with ideas that would ruin them forever, but every word that came out of Ron’s mouth was countered with an even better example backing such acts from Dan.
In the book Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer, Dan Lafferty is quoted as saying:
Ron wasn’t at that meeting too awfully long, before he stopped trying to convince us that we were wrong. ‘What you guys are doing is right,’ Ron admitted. ‘It’s everyone else that is wrong. ‘Suddenly, Ron Lafferty’s views had changed dramatically. Dan had managed to brain wash his brother just as he had done to the other four.
From the moment that Ron returned home he decided it was time to bring his new found ideology into action, and this meant that his loving wife Dianna would also have to make the necessary changes to her life as well.
Ron Lafferty had been under financial pressure and he was relieved now that he had learnt from his brother’s teachings that material goals no longer mattered as a Fundamentalist missionary.
Dianna was shocked with the swift and dramatic change in her husband’s personality. She had sent him out to convert his brothers back to the LDS church and he had returned, in a matter of hours, as a Mormon fundamentalist. Over the weeks that followed Diana tried her hardest to talk sense into her ever changing husband, but it was impossible. He was a convert of the highest measure. Whereas before Dianna and Ron had had an extremely equal and caring relationship, one that many people around them were in envy of, he was now a strict alpha male who believed that a woman’s job was to abide by the demanding rules set out for her in The Peace Maker. In Under the Banner of Heaven, Penelope Weiss, a friend of Dianna’s, remarks:
He expected her to be his slave. And it was such a complete reversal from the way he’d been. Before Dan brainwashed him, Ron had treated Dianna like a queen. He was just one of the nicest men I’ve ever known. But when this happened, he became one of the meanest men I’ve ever known.
Dianna soon gave up trying to talk her husband round and surrendered to doing as he said to keep her life as pain free as possible.
A SPANNER IN THE WORKS
Dianna Lafferty had been conditioned into being a Mormon fundamentalist wife and she was not gong to complain when her husband decided it was time to take other wives. Dan, Mark, Watson and Tim had also managed to subdue their wives from their initial anger and were now living by the rules set out in The Peace Maker.
Allen’s wife, Brenda, was a different matter, she had been angry from the moment Allen had discussed his new found views with her.
Brenda Wright Lafferty was a young, ambitious and extremely intelligent woman. She had started dating Allen after meeting him at an LDS student congregation and by April 1982 at just 21 she had married him. It was only a few months into their marriage that things had started to change. Allen did not like the thought of Brenda being a career woman, she had a degree in Broadcasting which she wished to pursue, but Allen wanted her to be a house wife, to cater for his every need. She knew she had made a mistake in marrying Allen but she was pregnant with her first child so believed she had to stay.
After giving birth to a baby girl, named Erica, Brenda was convinced that she would be able to bring Allen round and back to the person he once was, she truly believed that she could do this and she was determined to see the bad days through.
Even though Brenda believed that she could talk sense into Allen, she believed that her brother-in-law, Ron Lafferty, was so deeply involved in fundamentalism that he was never going to be converted back to his old faith. Brenda believed that because Ron had tried to hold back from Dan’s teachings, the moment that he succumbed to them he did so 100 per cent.
Dianna Lafferty was good friends with Brenda and went to her to talk about her new found anguishes as Ron’s wife. Brenda told Dianna that she felt that unlike Allen, Ron was never going to change and urged her to escape whilst she still could and file for divorce. It was the hardest thing Dianna was ever to do but after much deliberation she took her sister-in-law’s advice, packed her bags and moved herself and her six children to Florida.
REVELATIONS FROM GOD
From the moment that Dianna left Ron his world fell apart, he was excommunicated from his LDS church and was shunned by many people who had once loved and respected him. Ron became an angry man, he felt cheated and lonely, he lost his job and was left with nothing apart from his family and his religion. He poured himself into this and soon started to have visions from God.
Dan Lafferty was so proud of his brother and they would have long discussions regarding the prophecies that Ron had received.
One of Ron’s prophecies in particular was important to Dan as God had described Dan being akin to Nephi. According to the Mormon faith, Nephi was a great prophet and son of Lehi in The First Book of Mormon.
Dan was extremely proud that he had been spoken about by God in this way and was suddenly in awe of Ron.
The Lafferty brothers started to make their discussions open to others with similar views and it was during one of the seminars that they met Robert Crossfield. Robert was a Canadian who claimed to be a prophet. He told the Laffertys that he had received a message from God ordering him to teach the six brothers how to receive revelations and how to ‘organize themselves into the School of Prophets’.
All the brothers, except Allen, started to have revelations but it was Ron’s revelations that were the most intense and bloodthirsty. God spoke to him about removing certain people from the Earth that were getting in the way of the cause and it was one prophecy in particular that would change the family’s life forever. Ron had a revelation of removal that stated:
Thus saith the Lord unto my servants the prophets. It is my will and commandment that ye remove the following individuals in order that my work might go forward. For they have truly become obstacles in my path and I will not allow my work to be stopped. First thy brother's wife Brenda and her baby, then Chloe Low, and then Richard Stowe. And it is my will that they be removed in rapid succession and that an example be made of them in order that others might see the fate of those who fight against the true saints of God. And it is my will that this matter be taken care of as soon as possible and I will prepare a way for my instrument to be delivered and instruction be given unto my servant Todd. And it is my will that he show great care in his duties for I have raised him up and prepared him for this important work and is he not like unto my servant Porter Rockwell. And great blessings await him if he will do my will, for I am the Lord thy God and have control over all things. Be still and know that I am with thee. Even so Amen.
When Ron discussed this revelation at The School of Prophets it was only Dan and Watson who were in agreement to carry out the order. The School disbanded due to the disagreement but Dan and Ron continued believing in what they had to do.