The Hamblin Victims’ Statements contain the blueprint for identifying, surveilling, and stopping the LDS Church of Satan membership. One has only to read the doctrinal portion of the Victims’ Statements to identify key areas of opportunity in identifying the LDS Church of Satan’s weaknesses. Each year, members of the LDS Church of Satan have to reaffirm their commitment to Satan via ordinances. If the statements are true, then the membership conducts their ordinances within their personal residences and in select rural areas on camping trips. This would mean that the members could theoretically be surveilled in a manner that would document their activities. Such surveillance would also have the likely effect of preventing those ordinances from going forward, if the members were aware of the fact that they were being watched.
There is an emerging contingent of LDS rank and file members who are interested in rooting out the activities of groups such as the CS from the mainstream LDS church. This article is directed at those members.
As a prerequisite, the following is necessary to stipulate in explicit terms:
Safety comes first. Never attempt to directly contact or harass any alleged member of the CS. Do not invite confrontation. Your role is simply documenting the activities of the alleged members, especially if those activities reach a criminal threshold.
Do not talk with anyone outside of those you know firsthand about your activities. If the Victims’ Statements are true, the LDS CS has members throughout the LDS, and throughout communities in Utah, Colorado, Florida, Arizona, and New York. There is an excellent possibility that LDS CS councils exist in California and Pennsylvania as well, given the movements of alleged CS members over the years.
Do not gossip. The goal of this article and the methods it presents is to accrue documentary evidence of the CS and its activities, not to provide fodder for gossip among wards, stakes, and the wider community. Ideally, documentation will be compiled with the goal of turning it over to the authorities. The goal is to put the members of the CS in prison for their crimes, and to interfere with and break their ability to continue operating for the foreseeable future.
Be professional, be polite, and be focused on Heavenly Father’s purpose in all matters. Follow the law. Do not break the law in your activities. The ends do not justify the means. Heavenly Father provides us with laws and rules to guide our behavior in order to enable us to avoid lapsing into the same moral relativism as those who serve the enemy. Do not lose sight of your morality and ethics in the pursuit of justice.
There are many ways to identify, document, and disrupt the activities of groups such as the LDS Church of Satan. First, the members of such groups have documented addresses, they operate in known wards and stakes as members of the LDS, and they have LLCs, partnerships, trusts, and other entities that can be traced to them. Second, human activity leaves a trace. Many of the members of the LDS CS have an ample online presence that can be mined for information. The benefit of this information is that one does not have to directly confront or engage alleged members of the LDS CS, because the information is available to anyone with a computer and time. Third, human intelligence is available. You know the alleged victims, the family members of alleged CS members, and those who may have information. Many of you reading this have personal relationships and an existing rapport with the people who are involved. Finally, you have the advantage of being in the right in opposing the activities of such groups. These groups thrive on secrecy, and they wither under a spotlight. Their sole method to dissuade scrutiny is intimidation and bluster.
The truth is that these groups target victims who have no recourse. Children within the group and outside of the group are targeted because they are under the authority of CS members, or because they are from related factions such as polygamous communities. Many of those children do not officially exist, given the fact that polygamists routinely avoid birth certificates and any documentary means of recording a live birth. As such, they can traffic children to groups like the CS. Native American children, adopted children, foster children, and other such minors can be trafficked as well.
Members of the CS are targeted, because their participation in illegal activities makes them vulnerable to blackmail or extortion. They are compromised, and therefore less likely to come forward with information. Those affiliated with the CS, through friendship or family connections, are also vulnerable. There are individuals who may not have joined the CS, but who participated in criminal activities fostered by the CS such as child sexual abuse and prostitution, the purchase and distribution of child pornography, and other illegal and illicit activities.
For individuals who have no such exposure to the CS and its activities, the threats of such a group hold no power. If the individuals within the LDS who seek to root out the CS’s activities have lived morally correct lives, avoiding illicit or illegal activity and structuring their lives around following Heavenly Father’s plan, then a group such as the CS will have no direct power over the individual that can be leveraged to dissuade that member from working to expose the CS. There should be no doubt: members in groups like the CS will target immediate and extended family members who are compromised in order to bludgeon the righteous into quiet acquiescence, in order to deter them from working to expose the CS.
This will not be an easy task, and it will not be a short term effort. This will take years. It will require vast investments of time, energy, and money to accomplish the goal of rooting out the CS and other related groups from entrenched positions within the LDS, and within the political and legal establishments of local and state government. In some cases, it will require agonizing choices as the opponents of the CS find themselves confronting family members and close friends who are criminally culpable. You will face an entrenched enemy whose members are embedded in the political, legal, business, and media establishments of your communities. Many of the members of groups such as the CS are legacies, heirs to a generational heritage within the CS. Their family lineages stretch back to the earliest days of the LDS.
As such, they will have great influence and a network of associations that span throughout your communities and your church. Some of these members will inevitably have financial connections to your businesses and your interests. Their families and friends will fight hard against any effort to bring them to culpability, either because they cannot bring themselves to believe that their friend or family member is involved with the CS, or because they are also involved with the CS. The fallout will be painful and brutal. Healing an infection is never an easy or pleasant task.
For those interested in defending their church, their community, and their moral tenets, it is necessary to confront the cancer of groups like the CS. It is not enough to simply confront the CS; one has to win. Too often, those who choose to fight battles for morality content themselves with principled losses. Self-martyrdom should not be your goal. Your goal should be to identify, expose, and destroy those who participate in such activities. Your goal should be to win, and to view losing as a non-option. This will necessarily mean thinking logically rather than emotionally, and proceeding to rationally develop and refine your tactics for maximum efficiency.
When you read the Victims’ Statements from the Hamblin case in 2012-2014, it is all too easy to get lost in the lurid details of sexual orgies, human sacrifice, and cannibalism. Focus on what you can use to identify patterns of behavior, geographical locations of activity, and the participants in such activity. Think about how that information can translate into preventative measures. Think about how that information can lead to other information, which can further your cause.
Every bit of data leads to new data.
Practical Strategy #1: Birthdays
One of the great advantages LDS members have is that of a church culture that encourages documenting family histories. Every LDS member is a potential amateur or even professional level genealogist, owing to the need for genealogical work to perform temple ordinances. As such, you already have the skill set to identify CS members’ family connection and birthdays, both of which are critically important in the context of CS ordinances. Why is this important? VS 2 from the Hamblin 2012-2014 case tells us exactly why a birthday is relevant within the CS:
In the Church〔CS), you must re-commit yourself yearly to Lucifer in a very serious ceremony. It was usually sometime around our birthday and a very traumatic event. You are challenged to make a great sacrifice to him. Redacted, especially Redacted (the Paterfamilias), would assign us something they said was “inspired” (often killing a pet or human). If we did not follow through, huge punishments awaited us. The elders made a big deal about having a "happy" birthday - "happy" meaning we were obedient in the ceremony and not tortured for our resistance. As a "reward” for adults, friends would hold these parties for each other and honor the important person with a ceremony and special sexual favors of their choice. Redacted hosted many at Redacted home in Provo and at "the House,” as they and their friends called it (Redacted house in Spring City) and we attended others.
The above excerpt from Rachel Jones’s Victim Statement tells us that CS members have to re-dedicate themselves to Lucifer on an annual basis. This involves a sacrifice, either of an animal or a human. Jones alleges that in 1984, at the Hamblin’s Tucson apartment, she was forced to kill one baby and participate in the killing of a second baby. Rachel was born in September 1980, which means that the Rebirth Ceremony would have taken place around that time in 1984.
Jones also details a 1993-1994 Re-Birth ceremony in Spring City at the Hamblin home. This ceremony took place outside, and consisted of the sacrifice of a boy brought to the group by James Harmston. Her account alleges that the CS procured its sacrificial victims from the following groups:
The groups, as I was told, would often get infants or children "in trade" with other polygamist groups, off Indian reservations, and other ways. Sometimes they got adults, too.
What we know from Jones’s statement is the likely timeframe of a CS ordinance-around the birthday-and the means through which sacrificial victims are procured: via trade with polygamist groups and Indian reservations, among other sources. If one knows that Lee Bennion’s birthday is in May, then one can look out for activities around the Bennion residence around May each year. The Re-Birth ceremony involves the immediate family and its friends within local and extended CS councils, so there will likely be a crowd.
Practical Strategy #2: Locations
The next question to answer would be the addresses where such a ceremony would take place. Joseph and Lee Bennion own several properties in Spring City:
The extended Bennion family owns properties throughout Sanpete County, as a simple records search will show.
Any of these locations represent a potential site for CS ordinances involving Joseph and Lee Bennion. As the Victims Statements indicate, CS members engage in almost daily ceremonies or ordinances at the residences of CS members. Joseph Wood Bennion’s birthday is in September, which would provide another timeframe in which CS ordinances would take place.
Simply perusing social media reveals that Joe Bennion has a familial connection to the Bennion Ranch, where cattle are raised by Elizabeth and Alan Mitchell in Vernon, Utah 84080. The ranch provides a rural location with vast acreage in Tooele County, as Utah Parcels shows. As such, it would be an ideal location for CS ordinances to take place, as it would make surveillance difficult to outsiders.
Practical Strategy #3: Activities/Behavior Patterns
Social media mining also reveals that the Bennion family engages in regular rafting trips along the Grand Canyon. Such trips provide seclusion, as well as ample opportunities to conduct CS ordinances in privacy. Joseph, Lee, and Louisa Bennion are the primary participants in such trips, and Joseph and Louisa Bennion work for Tour West when they guide rafting tours.
Practical Strategy #4: Wading Through Information to Sift Out Clues
Within the data freely offered on social media, there are clues to be gleaned. There are over 400 pages worth of posts on Joe Bennion’s Instagram account alone, and one has to sift through those posts patiently, like a prospector sifting water and detritus to locate gold.
In investigative research, the details matter. When you read the Victims’ Statements and the police reports from the 2012-2014 Hamblin case, the lurid details are often a detour. Sex, cannibalism, and murder overpower all of the minutiae that very often point to contextual clues which can be used to stop a group like the CS, or at the very least inhibit their ability to function.
The simplest way to exert pressure on CS members is for them to be aware that they are under scrutiny. When individuals are under pressure, they make mistakes. The press conference called by Utah County Attorney David Leavitt was a prime example of this principle: Leavitt was handed a 153 page victim’s statement by a journalist, in which he and his wife were accused of membership in the CS and participation in child rape and murder. Leavitt was also notified that the Utah County Sheriff’s Office was looking into allegation of ritual abuse, which spurred him to preemptively assume that the sheriff was looking into him.
As it turned out, the current case was focused on David Lee Hamblin, not David Leavitt. Because Leavitt called a press conference to deny his involvement in the case, which did not actually involve allegations against him, he wound up torpedoing his ability to run interference on the allegations. The case was transferred to the Juab County Attorney’s Office for prosecution. David Leavitt lost his re-election campaign for Utah County Attorney, and he also lost the ability to obstruct investigations and prosecutions on behalf of the CS.
The simplest pressure led David Leavitt to self-destruct. That type of pressure will likely evoke a similar reaction in other alleged CS members. Moreover, it will make it difficult for those members to conduct their ordinances and activities without outside scrutiny.
Conclusion
Investigative research is not particularly hard. What is hard is sifting through information, depersonalizing that information, and drawing logical conclusions from evidence. Sensationalism is the enemy of the researcher. There is always a temptation to place the allegations of ritual abuse into a larger, grand context. Groups such as the CS are not dismantled on a grand scale. They are taken apart brick by brick at the lowest levels, and then at progressively higher levels. Patience and discipline are required.
The essence of the CS story is that members engage in criminal conduct that gives rise to civil and criminal liability. Those who take it upon themselves to investigate the group should stay within the basic facts. Those facts that point to criminal conduct are the key to unraveling the CS. Child rape, child pornography, murder, and trafficking are felonies. Crossing state lines to perpetuate such criminal conduct makes the CS an interstate organization, providing a jurisdictional hook for federal involvement that could potentially negate the ability of local and state authorities to obstruct an investigation into the CS.
Moreover, the activities of the CS give rise to civil liability, as their behavior constitutes a harm to their victims. This civil liability can be used to exert financial pressure on the alleged members of the CS, causing them to expend resources defending themselves from litigation centered on their alleged abuse of minor children and adults. Successful litigation will likely bankrupt the members who lose a civil lawsuit. It will also serve as an effective deterrent to other members going forward, because it will establish that the members of the CS are not invincible or beyond consequences for their actions.
Publicly available information exists on every single alleged CS member, their families, and their associates. That information will be the key to dismantling the CS and rooting out the truth about their activities. Do not infer anything beyond what the explicit facts outline when researching this group: the temptation to do so is great, as many individuals latch on to mass movements like Q, Tavistock, and other rabbit holes. There is plenty of information about the CS within the Victims’ Statements filled out by Rachel Jones, Eliza Bradford, and Katherine Baxter. That information will logically lead to other incriminating information. There is no need to reach for anything beyond the immediate.
Simply following the data trails will take us where we need to go, and it will allow us to take the CS apart member by member. Stick with the facts, because the facts will be the ultimate undoing of the CS and its membership.
Great practical suggestions here
It is heartbreaking when you see people you know involved in this. Ugh! Instagram killed me last night.