Connections: Ties Between Alleged Church of Satan Members and the LDS Hierarchy

Over the course of a year and four months, IRA has documented multiple connections between the LDS Church of Satan group outlined by David Lee Hamblin’s daughters and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints leadership.  Those connections are the topic of this article.  

Gerrit Walter Gong-in addition to being a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, Gong is the son of Jean Char Gong, the “sister by affection” of Carma Rose, Belle, and Nola de Jong, whose father Gerrit de Jong, Jr. was allegedly a CS member.  Carma Rose de Jong married Richard Lloyd Anderson, a BYU professor and expert on LDS history and doctrine.  Their daughter Roselle Anderson married David Lee Hamblin, and their granddaughters Rachel, Eliza, and Katherine Hamblin alleged that both sides of their family were part of a multi-generational satanic cult operating within the COJCLDS.  That cult referred to itself as the Church of Satan, or the Group.   Members held callings throughout the Church, and clustered in the Edgemont Stakes as well as the Sharon East Stakes.  

Gerrit Gong’s mother Jean Char Gong lived with Gerrit de Jong and Carma Rose de Jong during her time at BYU. She traveled abroad with the de Jongs.  Her initial encounter with the de Jong family was likely  with Nola de Jong, whose husband Clyde Sullivan was pursuing his doctorate at UC-Berkeley during Jean Char’s time in the Bay Area.  Jean Char’s father sent her to California for medical treatment, relying on a friend from Eastman Kodak to board his daughter.  Her father was opposed to her membership in the COJCLDS, and hoped that sending her to California would distance her from the Church.  It was Nola de Jong who invited Jean Char to live with the de Jong family in Provo during her studies at BYU.  

Jean Char’s boarders, the Allendorf family, helped her locate a California ward so that she could attend church services.   The ward was in Burlingame, California, and met in the Burlingame Masonic Temple.  The connection between Jean Char and the LDS would provide the foundation for a future apostle, Gerrit Walter Gong.   

Despite the fact that advertising executive Gordon S. Bowen has been excommunicated since 2003 due to his documented sexual immorality, which included thousands of phone calls to gay escort services that were exposed during his divorce, Gerrit W. Gong continues to maintain an ongoing association with Gordon Bowen.  Bowen is named in the Hamblin Victims Statements as the Punisher for the CS High Council in Salt Lake City.   The Church regularly consults with Gordon Bowen on matters related to branding and marketing, despite Bowen’s failure to make penance for his sins and obtain rebaptism.  

Gerrit W. Gong is one of four Apostles who allegedly maintain an ongoing friendship or association with Gordon Bowen.   Sources indicate that Gong regularly visits Bowen’s home and plays pickleball.  Bowen allegedly molested and abused his stepsons with ex-wife Barbara Timothy, as well as his biological children with Timothy.   The Hamblin sisters have accused Bowen of raping them on two occasions, as well as ritualized murder and torture.   They allege that Bowen is the Punisher for the High Council, and carries out discipline on wayward CS members up to and including murder.   

It is unclear why any official within the COJCLDS would affiliate with an excommunicated individual such as Gordon Bowen, or why they would involve an accused pedophile and murderer in the branding and marketing efforts of the Church.  Bowen purportedly received millions from the Church to produce a film about Jesus Christ, which was shelved after a screening for Church leaders at his home.  

Paul Rytting-Rytting is the Director of Risk Management for the COJCLDS, and the brother in law of harpist and music instructor Lyssa Rytting.  Lyssa Rytting appears in the Hamblin Victims Statements as the harp teacher of the Hamblin sisters.   The Hamblin sisters allege that the CS places an especial emphasis on the harp as an instrument with connections to Lucifer.   

In his capacity as the Director of Risk Management for the Church, Rytting oversaw a settlement for allegations against an Idaho dentist who raped his own daughter.   The Hamblin Victims Statements outline the presence of CS Gatekeepers throughout the Church and the political, legal, and psychiatric establishments in Utah and the United States.   

Gary A. Stevenson-Stevenson is one of the four Quorum members who maintained a relationship with Gordon Bowen after his excommunication and divorce.   Stevenson has been publicly confronted on at least one occasion about the allegations against Gordon Bowen by a Church member, and informed that Bowen is likely a pedophile, murderer, and satanist.  The member became aware of the allegations against Bowen before the Hamblin case exploded into public view in 2022.  His source was an individual with personal knowledge of the allegations of impropriety against Bowen, and an individual who had previously warned the Church about Bowen’s proven behavior involving male escorts, gay pornography, and the allegations of sexual abuse involving Bowen’s own children.   

M. Russell Ballard-Ballard was another of the four Quorum members who allegedly maintained close ties and involvement with Gordon Bowen over the years.  It was Ballard who was allegedly responsible for appointing Bowen to oversee the Church’s film project on Jesus Christ, a production that ended with a disastrous screening at Bowen’s home in Salt Lake.   Ballard repeatedly dismissed multiple warnings about Bowen’s behavior and failure to reform.  Sources indicate that Ballard viewed Gordon Bowen as a prodigal son, and refused to sever ties with Bowen even though Bowen’s violations of Church doctrine and covenants continued throughout the years.   

Boyd K. Packer-during his time at Bonneville Communications, Gordon Bowen cultivated a relationship with Apostle Boyd K. Packer, which Bowen allegedly leveraged to remove his rivals in the Church’s Media Office, including Heber C. Wolsey and John Kinnear.   Bowen would be terminated from Bonneville due to his abuse of expense accounts and an abortive attempt to get his boss fired.   

Marcos A. Aidukaitis-Aidukaitis is a General Authority and the brother of Nelson Aidukaitis, the son in law of alleged CS members Dean and Belle Van Wagenen.  Nelson Aidukaitis is named in the Hamblin Victims Statements as a member of the Church of Satan and a participant in the abuse of the Hamblin sisters.  His mother in law, Belle Felice de Jong Van Wagenen, is the daughter of Gerrit de Jong, Jr. and the grandaunt of the Hamblin sisters.   Nelson Aidukaitis served in a variety of callings within the Pleasant View 4^th Ward within the Provo Utah Edgemont South Stake, including as a bishop and stake executive secretary.  He and his wife Julie Van Wagenen served in a mission presidency starting in 2003.  The third Aidukaitis brother, Ricardo, served as Stake President in the Rio de Janiero Brazil Niteroi Stake.

Lincoln Kevin Kelly- Kelly is allegedly a member of the LDS Church of Satan and the Hamblin group, with ties to Hamblin that date back to the Eighties when the Hamblins and Kellys were both living in New York.   Kelly worked under Gordon Bowen at Bonneville, and left Bonneville with Bowen after Bowen was fired to decamp to Ogily-Mather.  Kelly and his wife Khaliel filled out affidavits detailing Bowen’s immoral conduct, and Khaliel Kelly warned Barbara Timothy that Bowen was a homosexual before Timothy married Bowen.   Kelly served as a stake president in the BYU 21^st Single Student Stake in 2005.  

John Bunting-Bunting is a former stake president for the Provo Edgemont Stake and alleged member of the Church of Satan who is named by the Hamblin sisters as one of their abusers.  Bunting succeeded Lowell James Robison, whose  tenure as a stake president was cut short when two male relatives accused him a second time of sexual abuse.  Robison had previously been accused in the Nineties, when the victims went to General Authority Earl C. Tingey to report Robison’s abuse.  Despite this, Robison was allowed to serve out his full term as the Mission President for the Mexico Leon mission from 1995 to 1998.   Following that, Robison was called to serve as stake president in Edgemont, until the victims came forward again to allege that he had committed abuse.   

Robison would be accused a third time in 2018 of abusing missionaries, and he committed suicide two months later.   

Bunting succeeded him, even though the Hamblin sisters alleged that he had been a member of the LDS Church of Satan with a seat on the Provo CS High Council.  In that capacity, Bunting oversaw the excommunication of their father David Lee Hamblin from the CS in 1999, and at the close of that ceremony, the sisters were raped by their grandfather Richard Lloyd Anderson and other members of the CS who were present at the hearing, including John Bunting.   Bunting served until September 20, 2015.   

Paul Larsen and Ann Fluckiger Larsen-  LDS filmmaker who produced Spirituality for the Uninsured and Chasing A Good Day to Die.  Larsen is named as a child rapist by the Hamblin sisters, a CS member, and a participant in the production of child pornography films starring the Hamblin sisters as The Three Graces.   In the film Chasing A Good Day To Die, Larsen presents the peyote fueled sweat lodge ceremonies of James Warren Flaming Eagle Mooney’s Oklevueha Native American Church as a means of healing from trauma.  Alleged CS member Joseph Wood Bennion appears at 16:02 in the film speaking on his experiences in the ceremonies.  

Bennion went on to conduct his own sweat lodges incorporating peyote, even though he was a Latter Day Saint with current callings in his ward in Spring City.   There is no indication that Bennion faced formal discipline for his embrace of peyote or apostate Native American religious teachings, which he did openly.   Witnesses have confirmed that the sweat lodges Bennion conducted involved teenagers, and they have alleged that the participants in those sweat lodges were naked.  

Larsen’s brother in law Michael T. Nelson, former president of the San Bernardino Mission, is now the Second Counselor of the Young Men General Presidency as of April 1, 2023.   He was named by Connie Fielding as the stake president who drove her to Midway, Utah, and had her involuntarily committed when she raised allegations of sexual abuse against her ex-husband.   Larsen was elevated to the Second Counselor position when Elder Ahmad S. Corbitt was called to be a General Authority Seventy.   

The President of the Young Men General Presidency, Steven J. Lund, worked for NuSkin, the MLM founded by Blake and Nedra Roney along with Sandie Tillotson.  The Roney family purchased dozens of properties throughout the neighborhoods named in the Hamblin Victims Statements, and Nedra Roney had at least two adopted children who were connected to sexual abuse allegations.  Her adopted son River allegedly sexually assaulted a sibling, and her adopted daughter Summer McKell accused Nedra Roney’s husband, Summer’s stepfather, of sexually abusing her on multiple occasions.   

Robert Clark McKell eventually pleaded guilty to four counts of misdemeanor sexual battery in connection with the abuse allegations his stepdaughter made.   Before he entered his plea agreement, McKell and his wife Nedra Roney mounted a public relations blitz alleging that the allegations made by their adopted daughter were false.  They hired an Oregon company, US Observer, to mail newsletters to thousands of Provo residents accusing his stepdaughter of lying in a blatant attempt to contaminate the jury pool.   

McKell and Roney also shuffled their developmentally delayed and disabled stepdaughter around multiple residences owned by their relatives in an effort to prevent the victim from talking to a victims advocate, and allegedly locked the girl in basement without any means of communicating.   Nedra Roney was eventually arrested and charged with felonies related to her activities, and the attorney who represented Roney, Michael Petro, was fired by Roney for borrowing money from her husband Robert Clark McKell.  Roney alleged that Petro had borrowed the money after promising that he could make her charges disappear, only to offer Roney a deal which would have barred her from testifying on her husband’s behalf during his criminal trial for abusing her adopted daughter, while forcing her to plead guilty to a felony.  

Roney and McKell then fired Petro.  Michael Petro worked for disgraced Utah County Attorney David Leavitt’s nonprofit in the Ukraine, and he was the defense attorney for David Lee Hamblin in his current criminal cases.   Nedra Roney had previously been convicted for illegally obtaining prescription drugs. Her co-founder at Nu Skin, Sandie Tillotson, was accused by the male stripper she had married of being involved in drug trafficking and money laundering.

Britton Roney was the bishop of CS matriarch Carma Rose de Jong Anderson’s ward, and he spoke at her funeral, which was presided over by none other than Gerrit Walter Gong. NuSkin executive Gary Garrett’s daughter Allison Roney married into the Roney family, and like the Hamblin daughters, she was a harpist who studied under Lyssa Rytting, the sister in law of LDS Risk Management Director Paul Rytting. Like the Hamblin sister, Allison Roney had connections to the Mitton family as well through the harp and Julie Mitton Staples, whose name shows up time and time again in allegations made by additional victims outside of the Hamblin Victims Statements.

Conclusion

Investigations in Ritual Abuse continues to map out the connections between the named individuals in the Hamblin Victims Statements and the LDS hierarchy, as well as the families within Provo and Utah whose money, power, and status have afforded them the ability to suppress similar abuse allegations over the years. If you have any tips about the individuals named in this article or any of our other articles, direct them to 1830goel@gmail.com.