Profiles in Alleged LDS Church of Satan Members: Brian and Suzanne Kershisnik

The Bloodlines that Bind

Within the LDS Church of Satan, the bloodlines of members loop in on each other, twisting and turning throughout the generations. The relationships between the alleged members go back decades on a personal basis, and over a century on a familial basis. Brian Kershisnik was a struggling art student finding his way at BYU when he met Joe and Lee Udall Bennion during his first year ceramics class.

Kershisnik’s father had taken the family all over the world due to his career as a petroleum geologist, but Brian’s summers were spent in Rock Springs, Wyoming. He initially attended the University of Utah, but he left after being called as a missionary. When he returned, he went to BYU, where he met the Bennions. That summer, Brian Kershisnik worked in Joe Bennion’s pottery studio, but he had no talent working with ceramics. Lee Bennion took the aspiring young artist under her wing, and Brian Kershisnik began to paint. A gallery owner named Dolores Chase helped him put together his first exhibition.

Kershisnik’s paintings are characterized by a dreamy quality, two dimensional characters in a simplified pastiche of children’s scrawlings. Kershisnik’s paintings are not particularly technical or complicated, but rather crude and simple in their execution. As he progresses through his career, his pieces become somewhat sharper and more defined, but the simplicity that defined him as an early artist remains in place. The cliches of immigrants, Mother Eve, lovers, parents, mothers, and the like dominate in Kershisnik’s themes, but he rarely has anything new to say in his art.

On the rare occasions when Brian Kershisnik manages to be visually and artistically arresting, it is largely due to the ambiguity in his pieces. The piece below, entitled “Find Me,” shows five dead adults and four children. It is atypical of Kershisnik’s work, standing out for both its subject matter and its inconclusive position. Most of Kershisnik’s work is straightforward, the title leaving no doubt as to the subject matter of the painting.

There are occasional allusions in Kershisnik’s work that blatantly reference the terminology used by Rachel Hamblin and her sisters, as is the case with his painting entitled “three graces” from 2016.

Rachel Hamblin and her sisters were forced to perform in child pornography under the moniker “The Three Graces,” and Brian Kershisnik was accused of being one of the many CS artists and members who participated in those productions.¹ The fact that Kershisnik painted the piece two years after the charges against David Lee Hamblin were dismissed might be rightly interpreted as a mocking aside to Hamblin’s daughters.

The picture that emerges of Kershisnik from articles, interviews, and the Hamblin Victims Statements is of a man who regards his oeuvre as exceptional and exclusionary of all other things and people in his life. A 2002 article by Suzanne Kershisnik details her first encounter with a young Brian Kershisnik.

Suzanne noticed that even early on, Brian’s work was unmistakably his. There was no confusion about who the painter is when you look at one of Kershisnik’s works. This could be taken as either a comment on his originality or as an indictment against his style, given that virtually no one imitates his work. He is a demanding man, indifferent to others when their desires conflict with the immediacy of his needs or wants.

What Suzanne Kershisnik emits in her writing is the realisation that her life is owned by her husband, who gave his wife a painting as payment for catering his opening, only to then sell it to another buyer that same night. She writes of feeling physical pain, and analogizes the paintings she can’t have to her own children.

It is an unusual take on marriage, parenthood, and art, coloured by the reality that her husband’s will and needs trump everything else. Suzanne Kershisnik writes like a woman who is acutely aware of her lack of input, lack of autonomy, and lack of self. Her life is Brian Kershnisnik’s gallery opening in perpetuity, and she is merely the caterer whose payment can be retracted and given to someone else. She is a woman who owns nothing, whose possession of anything is fleeting and temporary at best. The paintings, the children, the marriage, all will slip through her fingers to buyers who have more money and can place higher bids.

The Kershisniks divorced in April 2012. Brian Kershisnik filed, having been carried through 24 years by a wife who admittedly viewed him as more than she wanted to carry in 2002. Suzanne Kershisnik openly wrote that her husband forced her to attend dinner parties with people she didn’t know and even disliked, leaving her to fend for herself as he dozed off after dinner in their homes.

The divorce decree is general and broad, listing the division of assets and property, setting forth standard visitation and custody with child support, and alimony payments. Most of the language is boilerplate, with no allegations of abuse or infidelity. The Kershisnik’s marriage dissolved the same year that Katie Hamblin walked into the Provo Police Department to accuse her father and mother of child rape. Hamblin and her sisters would go on to accuse dozens of individuals including Brian and Suzanne Kershisnik of child rape, child sodomy, and other crimes up to and including murder.

Were David Lee Hamblin and his wife the friends who Suzanne Kershisnik didn’t know, or were they the friends she disliked? Did she regard David and Roselle or Joe and Lee Bennion across the unconscious form of her sleeping husband after dinners? That question may well be answered by the genealogy of Suzanne Belle Kershisnik, maiden name Christensen.

The Christensen Connection

A little over two hours south of Salt Lake City, the town of Kanosh is crammed into an area of land under a mile in size. It was once populated by Pahvant Indians who had converted to the LDS, led by Chief Kanosh. Brigham Young instructed the settlers of nearby Petersburg to move to Kanosh, then just a campground for the Indians led by Chief Kanosh.

Today, Kanosh is a town of just under 500 residents. On December 6, 1987, it was the site of a wedding reception for Suzanne Belle Christensen and Brian Thomas Kershisnik. The couple had been married in the Salt Lake Temple, with an open house given on December 5, at the Provo home of Mark and Julie Magleby. The December 6th reception would take place at the home Suzanne’s parents.

Suzanne’s father Steven and her mother Ella had settled in Kanosh, raising Suzanne and four other daughters. Steven had earned his undergraduate degree in chemistry, and an MFA from Southern Utah University. He had been employed by the FBI, and he had also worked for Sunrise Engineering. His passion had been painting, much like his new son in law Brian.

In 1987, Brian Kershisnik was a newly minted graduate with a BFA from BYU. His wife had earned her undergraduate degree in English, while dabbling in stage productions of Shakespeare. The Kershisniks stayed in Provo, Utah for a little over a year, and then moved to Austin, Texas in 1989, where Brian pursued graduate studies at the University of Texas.

The Kershisniks had their son Noah in Texas, but returned to Kanosh in the Nineties after Brian obtained his graduate degree. Suzanne Kershisnik set up shop as an acting coach, while Brian set up a painting studio. Suzanne was the director of the Kanosh Acting Company, putting on Shakespearean productions with student actors ranging from 6 to 17 years of age.

Noah was followed by Elizabeth Eden in 1994, with their sister Leah rounding out the family in 1998. The Kershisnik children maintain active online presences across multiple social media platforms. Their content is unanimous in one respect: it rarely references their father, and frequently references their mother.

The Kershisnik Children, Instagram

Through their mother Suzanne, the Kershisnik children had a direct familial connection to David Okerlund Leavitt through a shared ancestor: Jeremiah Leavitt, the 5th great grandfather of Suzanne Christensen. Despite sharing a last name with Craig Christensen, Suzanne Christensen does not share common ancestors with Craig Christensen. The link is with the Leavitt family, and the allegations made against Suzanne Christensen and her ex-husband Brian place them squarely in proximity to both Leavitt and Joe and Lee Bennion.

Brian Kershisnik’s family originated in Wyoming, and they were primarily Catholic until his father David Thomas Kershishik joined the LDS. David Thomas Kershisnik married his wife Mary Ann Kovach on May 9, 1953 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They would later be sealed in the Provo Temple. Kershisnik’s connection to the LDS Church of Satan does not appear to stem from LDS bloodlines, but through his marriage to Suzanne Christensen and his friendship with Joe and Lee Bennion.

The Allegations
In her second victim statement, Rachel Hamblin recounts an event in 1994 or 1995 around the time of Brian Kershisnik’s birthday. Within the LDS Church of Satan, birthdays are significant because members are required to perform a Rebirth Ceremony in which they re-dedicate themselves to Satan. Kershisnik was born on July 6, 1962, so the event likely occurred in July of either 1994 or 1995.

According to Rachel Hamblin, she and her sisters were ordered by David and Roselle Hamblin to perform a “sexy” version of Happy Birthday. Hamblin and her sisters Eliza and Katherine led Brian Kershisnik to a chair, and they began to sing and dance around him, while rubbing on his chest. The Hamblin girls then began performing oral sex on Brian Kershisnik until he ejaculated, and they licked his ejaculate off of his penis and the floor at the command of their father.

Rachel Hamblin would have been 13 or 14 years old during the abuse, and her sister Eliza would have been 11 or 12 years of age. Katherine Hamblin would have been 8 or 9 years old. If the allegations are true, Brian Kershisnik committed sodomy on a child with at least two of the Hamblin daughters, and he would have committed either sodomy on a child or forcible sodomy on Rachel Hamblin.

His wife Suzanne is alleged to have received oral sex from Rachel Hamblin during the orgy that broke out in the Hamblin’s Spring City home. This would implicate Suzanne Kershisnik in either sodomy on a child or forcible sodomy. The incident described by Rachel Hamblin is corroborated in her sister Katie’s Victims Statement.

The Kershisniks are also accused of retaining the services of David Lee Hamblin to train their children to comply with ritual abuse within the LDS Church of Satan. In 1993, at their home in Kanosh, Utah, Brian and Suzanne Kershisnik allegedly hosted an “introductory demonstration” for their son Noah, who was two or three years of age. At first, David Hamblin explained the “opposite game" to Brian and Suzanne. The game consisted of alternating expressions of kindness and aggressive and terrifying behavior, and it was designed to confuse the young children within the CS who were subjected to the game.

According to Rachel, Noah became terrified as his father and David Hamblin alternated between smiling at him and screaming. Roselle and Suzanne copied their husband’s actions, and Noah Kershisnik was faced with a roomful of four adults breaking him down emotionally and psychologically. What occurred next was worse: Brian Kershisnik allegedly pinned his son down on the floor and made his son lick his penis.

David Hamblin was not finished: he ordered his daughter Rachel to strip naked and give everyone in the room, including Noah Kershisnik, oral sex. The adults were lying in a circle, similar to what Rachel and her sisters referred to as an eternal round, which would also consist of a chain in a Y shape made up of the bodies of CS participants. After varying ceremonies, Brian Kershisnik allegedly raped Rachel Hamblin. Noah Kershisnik was forced to kill a dog.²

Hamblin conducted multiple sessions with the Kershisniks at the Hamblin residences in Spring City and Provo, and Noah Kershisnik was forced to drink his father’s urine. David Hamblin instructed Brian and Suzanne that they needed to condition their son to accept the abuse, and he gave Noah a name for the part of Noah’s psyche that would be dissociated to accept the abuse.

For David Hamblin, this method had worked well with his daughters, as Rachel’s part was named Tabitha. At these sessions in Provo and Spring City, Brian Kershisnik and David Hamblin allegedly had anal sex, with Brian Kershisnik was sodomizing Rachel Hamblin. Rachel was also forced to perform oral sex on Suzanne Kershisnik, and Roselle told Suzanne that Rachel was her “treasure.”

The date of the initial training session clearly establishes sodomy on a child as the crime committed by Brian Kershisnik on both Noah Kershisnik and Rachel Hamblin. Both children were under 14 years of age at the time of the abuse. Additionally, Brian Kershisnik committed rape of a child by forcing Rachel Hamblin to engage in sexual intercourse with him during the initial demonstration in Kanosh.

Depending on the date of the follow up sessions, Brian and Suzanne Kershisnik committed multiple sex crimes against Rachel Hamblin, falling under either forcible sodomy or sodomy on a child. Katie Hamblin’s Victim Statement corroborates Rachel’s allegations about the training sessions at the Kanosh residence.

Much of Brian Kershisnik’s sexual anger and sadism was focused on Katherine Hamblin. In her Victim Statement, Katie Hamblin accused Brian Kershisnik of raping her 15 times, and characterized his sexual assaults as extremely violent. The rapes typically occurred at Bible Studies held at the Hamblin residence in Provo, and David Hamblin had an open door policy: any attendee could take any child or any other attendee to a bedroom or a couch and rape them. Katherine Hamblin gave date ranges between 1990 and 1992, which would have put her between 3 and 6 years of age during the rapes. If Hamblin is telling the truth, Brian Kershisnik committed rape of a child at least 15 separate times between 1990 and 1992.

Additionally, Katie Hamblin accused Kershisnik of violently anally raping her as well, which would mean that Brian Kershisnik committed sodomy on a child. Katie Hamblin named Brian Kershisnik as one of the main patrons of her parents’ child prostitution business, accusing him of raping her in Spring City and Provo. Katherine Hamblin also recounted meeting Brian Kershisnik in 2006, and receiving an invitation from him to apprentice with him in his art studio in Kanosh.

Eliza Hamblin’s Victim Statement recounts the murder of a hitchhiker, which is also described in the Victim Statements filled out by her sisters. Eliza’s statement names Brian and Suzanne Kershisnik as CS members who were present at the rape, torture, and murder of the hitchhiker at a campsite on the Utah-Arizona border. This would place the Kershisniks at the location of a murder, and would make them accomplices in that murder, if not outright participants.

Conclusion: The Present Day

Suzanne Christensen is still running a children’s theater company in Provo, one that operates and performs largely out of her home. For a few hundred dollars, parents can sign their children up to take weekly acting lessons and rehearsals in productions of Shakespeare’s plays. Her son Noah and her daughter Leah are actively involved. Suzanne has since remarried to Sam Payne, a former principal at Pioneer High School for the Performing Arts, and the current host of the Apple Seed: Tellers and Stories at BYU Radio. He is from Alpine, Utah.

Brian Kershisnik has remarried to a Marriage and Family Therapist named Faith, who runs Evolve Therapy. He is still painting, and his work is displayed in LDS buildings and the U.S. State Department.

Noah Kershisnik is an actor who works in various theater productions around Utah, as well in movies and television and commercials. He recently appeared on The Chosen. His sister Elizabeth Eden is a hairstylist in Provo. Noah Kershisnik is friends on social media with Zina Bennion, Joe and Lee Bennion, and various other individuals named in the Hamblin Victims Statements.

IRA located contact information for Suzanne, Noah, Eden, and Leah Kershisnik, and reached out for comment. As of the publication of this article, we had not received a reply. Suzanne Kershisnik is currently running a children's production of a Midsummer Night’s Dream at her home in Provo. The opening night performance was Friday, July 28th, 2023 at 7 p.m.

Suzanne Christensen's Facebook Photos

1. VS 4, pg. 43

2. In an interview with Southwest Art, Kershisnik recounts the death of his dog Mordecai, who he says was shot by a hunter while he was away. His other dog Iappo disappeared before Mordecai was shot.