David Lee Hamblin’s attorney Michael J. Petro has filed a Motion to Compel Discovery and a Motion to Compel Preservation of Discovery, dated October 13, 2023. This was five days before the October 18, 2023 hearing in Manti before Judge Mandy Larsen and eighteen days before Hamblin’s next scheduled appearance before Judge Roger Griffin.
Petro notes that his motion is “a proffer of some evidence distilled from hundreds of pages of documents.” Petro also tips his hand as to the defense’s strategy, which “will require going back to the very beginning of the allegations against him: 1999.” As such, Petro wants the State to turn over all unredacted evidence involving Rachel, Eliza, Katie, Miriam, and Roselle Hamblin. The issue with that request is obvious: the present cases do not involve Rachel, Eliza, Katie, or Miriam Hamblin.
Instead, they involve an adult male who was between four and six years of age when David Lee Hamblin was his therapist. The male saw Hamblin at his home in Spring City for therapy sessions, and alleges that Hamblin touched his genitals under his clothing during six separate counseling sessions and made him masturbate Hamblin. The other case involves Emily Sheets, a woman who lived in Hamblin’s neighborhood in Provo with her family, and whose parents David and Deborah Sheets were allegedly part of Hamblin’s LDS Church of Satan group in Provo. Emily Sheets alleges that David Lee Hamblin forced her to provide oral sex to him, and raped her in a sleeping bag. She also alleges that Hamblin forced her to perform oral sex on his wife Roselle Stevenson.
Neither of these cases has anything to do with the 2012 to 2014 case against David Lee Hamblin, but his attorneys are determined to connect the two current cases to the allegations made by Rachel, Eliza, and Katie Hamblin against their father. As such, Michael Petro sets out the following timeline.
1999-2003: Initial allegations slowly emerge from EH and RH after divorce filed and custody dispute arises. Prosecutors do not believe allegations are credible. No charges filed.
-June 1999-Roselle contacted DCFS to allege emotional, sexual, and physical abuse against all four of her daughters. Between June 9-19th, 1999, all four children are interviewed and none disclose sexual abuse.
This is not uncommon in child sexual abuse cases, as it can take a great deal of time to build rapport with minor victims, or even adult victims of child sexual abuse.
July 3, 1999-all four daughters are interviewed again, with no disclosure of sexual abuse.
The Victims Statements detail two fall 1999 meetings with Gordon Bowen at his Salt Lake City home, whereby the Hamblin girl were delivered up as a gift to Bowen in order to dissuade him from punishing their parents too severely. In Rachel Hamblin’s Victim Statement #2, the CS High Council Excommunication Hearing for her father David Lee Hamblin takes place after the visits to Bowen’s home.
This would mean that the CS coordinated disclosures after July 3, 1999, and before the CS High Council coordinated those disclosures, the Hamblin girls were ordered to maintain silence. Roselle Hamblin’s attempts at going to the Provo Police Department were likely a charade as she attempted to exculpate herself from responsibility by making it seem as if she were reporting the abuse.
April 23, 2000-Rachel Hamblin is interviewed and describes having therapy with Hugh Allred and then recalling incidents of sodomy between her father and all of her sisters.
In her Victims Statements, Rachel Hamblin explicitly alleges that Hugh Allred was selected because he was a member of the CS, and that her disclosures were stage managed by her elders in the CS. Those elders told Rachel and her sisters what they could and could not divulge in terms of abuse. Moreover, the use of hypnosis would be a strategic gambit, because memories recovered under hypnosis would be inadmissible in court. By employing hypnosis and forcing Rachel Hamblin to disclose a connection between hypnotherapy and her memories, Roselle and David Lee Hamblin, along with the rest of their group, would be discrediting Rachel Hamblin and her story.
David Lee Hamblin himself attempted to convince his therapy patients that they had divulged childhood SRA under hypnosis, even though his patients unanimously disputed being hypnotized or divulging SRA allegations. Hamblin would have known that the second his therapy patients mentioned hypnosis, police and prosecutors would have likely dismissed any allegations they were making. That is likely why David Hamblin employed the tactic.
May 1, 2000-DCFS declines to reinvestigate.
June 2, 2000-Provo police receive another DCFS referral from Rosie Hamblin reporting Defendant had sexually abused RH, EH, KH, and MH.
June 28, 2000-RH and EH disclose years of sexual abuse by David Hamblin but their stories change repeatedly. RH and EH voluntarily testified at the custody trial, while KH and MH did not testify at the trial.
Again, this is consistent with what Rachel, Eliza, and Katie Hamblin allege in their 2012-2014 Victim Statements against David Lee Hamblin. The rollout of their allegations was strictly controlled, the parameters of those allegations were strictly dictated to them, and the entire proceeding around the divorce and custody trial was stage managed by the CS and its alleged gatekeepers within the family courts.
December 2, 2002-18 months later, prosecutors decline to bring charges stemming from the allegations from Rachel Hamblin and Eliza Hamblin.
Petro cites a variety of reasons for this decision by the prosecutors, including the fact that the children didn’t disclose abuse at the beginning, and disclose purportedly only came after therapy with Hugh Allred, who used hypnosis. There is an alleged lack of corroboration by the other sisters or the mother, and the stories allegedly change. Rachel Hamblin allegedly states that she doesn’t know if her memories are true or not. Eliza Hamblin’s physical exam allegedly shows a normal vaginal and anal examination, with no evidence of trauma according to Petro’s version of the discovery.
Again, the sisters alleged that the purpose of the 1999-2003 divorce and custody trial was to ensure that there would be no criminal case against their father David Lee Hamblin. The CS High Council explicitly stated that while abuse allegations would be permitted, the girls would be tightly managed in their disclosures and there would be no criminal charges against their father. That’s exactly what happened.
Rachel, Eliza, and Katie Hamblin were within the control of their parents and grandparents, all of whom were alleged members of the CS. Their disclosures were not their own, but merely the statements they were authorized and instructed to give while under severe duress, including the threat of being turned over to the alleged CS Punisher Gordon Bowen, for torture and murder.
IRA has spoken to a source who alleged that Gordon Bowen was outed in his divorce as a Satanist and a murderer based on the testimony of individuals in that divorce. There are multiple sources who allege that individuals within the divorce spoke to them during and afterwards to allege that Bowen’s Satanism and his violent activities, up to and including murder, were attested to in those proceedings. IRA has abstained from publishing those claims to this point because they are all secondhand, but the simple reality that multiple sources are telling the same story is significant enough to warrant publishing the claims, albeit with the caveat that the claims come from secondhand sources. When asked for a comment, Bowen’s ex-wife Barbara Timothy has repeatedly cited the non-disclosure agreement she signed as part of her divorce settlement and she has refused to comment on Gordon Bowen.
In this context, and against the backdrop of what is known about Gordon Bowen’s own 2003 excommunication from the COJCLDS, the alleged inconsistencies in Rachel and Eliza Hamblin’s stories from 1999-2003 have a plausible explanation: they were not speaking freely, or even telling the story of what actually happened. They were telling the CS vetted story that would keep them from harm while accomplishing the CS’s goal of gutting David Lee Hamblin’s credibility, should he choose to speak against the CS and its members.
What Petro does not disclose in his motion after 2002 is the fact that the court in David Lee Hamblin’s custody trial found by clear and convincing evidence that he sexually abused Rachel and Eliza Hamblin. Instead, Michael Petro skips forward to 2012 to 2014 from 2002, omitting any mention of the court’s findings that David Lee Hamblin molested his daughters.
One would expect Ryan Peters to hand Michael Petro his head in court on this fact, because Michael Petro is clearly trying to mislead Judge Roger Griffin as to what occurred from 1999 to 2003. On either October 18, 2023 or October 31, 2023, we will get to see what Ryan Peters and his fellow prosecutors do with regards to this point.
Michael Petro notes that the State motioned to dismiss all charges without prejudice on March 25, 2014 “due to trouble getting discovery to defense counsel,” including Provo City Police Report #9906053, the June 10, 1999 Report referencing forcible sexual abuse of a child and child abuse, as well as Roselle’s claims that Hamblin had provided peyote to her and two of her daughters; the DCFS Records and reports for 2000 involving the daughters and Roselle and David Hamblin; a copy of any letters from John Allan of the UCAO declining to prosecute David Lee Hamblin; and all therapy records and notes made a result of treatment of Katie Hamblin by Hugh Allred or any other therapist who treated Katie Hamblin.
It is notable that Petro omits any reference to the taped phone call between David Lee Hamblin and his daughter in which Hamblin apologizes to his daughter for raping her. Again, one would expect Ryan Peters to be able to destroy Petro for this selective omission in court hearings, but we shall have to wait and see what Ryan Peters does.
In the context of Rachel, Eliza, and Katie Hamblin’s allegations, the actions of the Utah County Attorneys Office fits with the narrative offered by the Hamblin girls: that law enforcement and prosecutors were not seriously interested in prosecuting allegations of ritual abuse against CS members, a point made obvious by the failure of the UCAO to secure a conviction against David Lee Hamblin even though they had a taped apology from him to his daughter for raping her. The fact that UCAO delayed a year in turning over the requested records before filing a motion to dismiss without prejudice is a further damning indication of their unwillingness to seriously fight for a conviction. UCAO did the job of the defendant’s counsel in getting the charges dismissed and ensuring that the grounds for dismissal existed.
Hugh Allred died in 2013, which meant that it should have been relatively easy for UCAO or Provo Police to have secured the records in 2012, when the case began, or during 2013 before Allred died. The issue with that is that a source recently confirmed that Allred requested that his patient records with respect to the Hamblins be destroyed while he was dying in the hospital. That request was apparently carried out. There is no innocent explanation for why a therapist would seek to destroy his own patient records, and the timing is suspicious if for no other reason than the overlap with the Hamblin criminal case. The source strenuously denied that Allred was a member of the CS, and further claimed that Hamblin’s defense attorney had shown up to Allred’s office seeking the records.
Petro wraps up by claiming that criminal investigators sough to enlist Roselle Stevenson in eliciting a claim of abuse from Emily Sheets against David Lee Hamblin. Petro alleges that on January 6, 2022, Roselle Stevenson had a conversation about her ex-husband with Emily at a funeral, and three days later, Roselle sent Emily Sheets an email encouraging her to report David Hamblin for abuse. By May 15, 2022, Roselle Stevenson texted investigators that she had texted Emily Sheets on May 14, 2022.
On May 18, 2022, Utah County investigators told Roselle Stevenson to tell Emily Sheets that they were talking to Roselle and “need[ed] to talk to other victims.” At this point, Petro explicitly alleges that the investigators gave Roselle “a specific “assignment” to reach out to ES” and urge her to disclose the abuse because “[David Hamblin] needs to be held accountable for what he did to her…so we would very much like to speak with her about what happened.” The goal was apparently to link Emily Sheets’ abuse allegations with those of Katie Hamblin in order to have a stronger case.
Two weeks later, on June 2, 2022, Petro alleges that Emily Sheets met with Utah County Sheriffs Office detectives and accused David Hamblin of abusing her. By September 29, 2022, UCSO had reinterviewed Rachel and Eliza Hamblin and listed them as witnesses in Emily Sheets’ allegations. No mention of Katie Hamblin is made.
Petro cites recorded conversations from May 30, 2023 in which investigators purportedly admit that they do not believe parts of the allegations against David Hamblin, and that they are currently doing Zoom meetings with all of the girls. The investigators also allegedly state that the girls “stand by their 2012 victim statements “to a degree.” Miriam Hamblin is allegedly not disclosing abuse, which is inconsistent with what sources have told IRA, because sources who knew Miriam Hamblin in her twenties explicitly allege that she revealed allegations of abuse against her parents and grandparents, as well as David and Chelom Leavitt.
Petro accuses the prosecution of “withholding relevant discovery as a deliberate strategy to get through a preliminary hearing.” The State has allegedly claimed privileged communications in its privilege log in order to avoid turning over some of the requested items to the defense.
Conclusion
Much of what Michael Petro raises can be rebutted with the clear statements of the Hamblin girls in their victims statements from 2012 to 2014. The Hamblin children allege that their 1999 to 2003 disclosures were tightly controlled by the adults in their CS group, with threats of torture and murder used to keep them under control. As such, the inconsistencies in those 1999 to 2003 disclosures can be explained. Their parents and grandparents were seeking to roll out a controlled disclosure in which the girls deliberately managed inconsistencies could be held up later to discredit their allegations against the wider group.
The problem for Petro and those seeking to file the Hamblin allegations away under the Satanic panic is simple: there are dozens of victims who corroborate the allegations against David Hamblin, David Leavitt, and Joe Bennion. Those victims are watching the proceedings in Utah County intently, and whether or not they come forward with their stories and their evidence will hinge on how Ryan Peters and Sheriff Mike Smith proceed. The credibility of law enforcement and the UCAO was decimated in 2014 when the case against Hamblin was dropped even though there was a taped apology by David Hamblin to his daughter for raping her.
It is not the victims who require rehabilitation here. It is the men and women of the prosecution and the wider law enforcement apparatus in Utah County, whose failure to convict David Lee Hamblin in 2014 likely enabled Hamblin to pick up scores of additional victims. The revelation of recorded conversations by investigators undermining the allegations they are currently prosecuting does nothing to bolster their credibility. If Petro’s revelations are accurate at all with respect to these matters, the investigators should be held to an account by Sheriff Mike Smith.
IRA will continue to report on additional developments in the Hamblin case, including the upcoming hearings in Manti and American Fork.
IRA can be reached at 1830goel@gmail.com or @Goel1830 on Telegram for tips. If you want to support IRA, you can donate here with any amount you see fit to contribute.
As always, if you wish to support my campaign to become a social media influencer and get free Polar Seltzer-or if you just want to share content that I generate in the form of videos-I need you to all decamp over to Rumble and follow my channel Investigations in Ritual Abuse, as well as 1830GOEL. Over at Instagram, I’m @1830goel and at TikTok I’m also @1830goel. Also, please subscribe to Investigations in Ritual Abuse on Facebook. I also have a Youtube channel now, although for how long is anyone’s guess. Google loves the pedos, or, as they call them, Minor Attracted Persons.
I sat through all of the court proceedings for DLH’s 2012-2014 case. I saw his daughters show up and hold their heads high even they were scared out of their minds. They have suffered so so much. It’s time for perps to be held accountable. It’s time for anyone who has suffered (and justice living people who haven’t been victimized) to stand in solidarity with Hamblin’s victims. It’s time for us to put an end to this. I’m ready. 💪