The Alleged Crimes of Joseph Wood Bennion and Lee Patricia Udall Bennion, Pt. V

Victim Statement 3, pp. 43 through 111

Author’s Note: Readers, go to Das Cafe in Spring City, have a meal and donate to David Lee Hamblin’s victim Tobias Schroeder. His family members run Das Cafe, and they have suffered greatly during the two years that the Hamblin case has unfolded. If you want to support victims, go have a good meal and donate to Tobias Schroeder’s expenses, which are substantial as he has taken off of work multiple times over two years to attend hearings in Hamblin’s criminal case.

That’s Das Cafe in Spring City at 33 N Main St, Spring City, UT 84662, open Tuesday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Fight evil: eat at Das Cafe!

Let the Schroeder family know they have support in their community. If you’re not in Utah, you can call Das Cafe to learn how the family would prefer to receive your donations. Stand with victims. Support Das Cafe and Tobias Schroeder.

DO NOT CONFRONT OR HARASS CHURCH OF SATAN MEMBERS DISCLAIMER:

Yet again, I remind you, my readers-or, as the Bennion’s attorney and son-in-law Caleb Proulx terms you, my acolytes-not to directly harass or confront any alleged member of the LDS Church of Satan. Do not indirectly contact or harass any alleged member of the LDS Church of Satan. Doing so could be construed as stalking, and stalking is illegal. Do not commit two or more acts directed at any specific individual who is alleged to be a member of the LDS Church of Satan, such as following, monitoring, observing, photographing, surveilling, threatening, or communicating to or about an individual, or interfering with an individual’s property, or approaching or confronting an individual, appearing at their workplace or contacting their employer or coworker, appearing at their residence or contacting their neighbor, entering property owned leased, or occupied by the individual, or sending material by any means to the individual or for the purpose of obtaining or disseminating information about or communicating with the individual to a member of the individual’s family or household, employer, coworker, friend, or associate of the individual, placing an object or delivering an object to property owned, leased, or occupied by an individual, or to the individual’s place of employment with the intent that the object be delivered to the individual, or using a computer, the Internet, text messaging, or any other electronic means to commit an act that is a part of the course of conduct…UNLESS you have a legitimate business purpose for doing so, such as investigative journalism or satirical content. DO NOT DO ANY OF THESE THINGS WITHOUT A LEGITIMATE BUSINESS PURPOSE.

Joseph Wood Bennion and his wife Lee Patricia Udall Bennion are alleged members of the Church of Satan (CS), a group of Latter Day Saints operating within their Church who purportedly worship Lucifer. CS members seek to restore Lucifer to his place as heir to the throne of Heavenly Father, which they believe Jesus Christ usurped. In the course of glorifying or worshiping Lucifer, the members of the CS allegedly engage in various criminal acts, including the physical, sexual, and mental abuse of children and adults.

This included Bestiality, Rape of a Child, Sodomy on a Child, Object Rape of a Child, Aggravated Sexual Abuse of a Child, Murder, Forcible Sodomy, Object Rape, Rape, Aggravated Sexual Assault, and other crimes. The members allegedly utilized their businesses and private residences in the course of an organized criminal enterprise, specifically:

1. Joseph Wood Bennion utilizing his pottery kiln at Horseshoe Mountain Pottery to dispose of the bodies of murder victims;

2. David Lee Hamblin utilizing his private residences in Provo, Utah, and Spring City, Utah to traffic children for sexual exploitation and murder, as well as his in home office as a clinical psychologist to abuse his patients-which included children;

3. Joseph Wood Bennion and Lee Patricia Udall Bennion utilizing their private residence in Spring City, Utah for the purposes of ritual rape, torture, and the abuse of minor and adult victims in the course of the CS’s unlawful activities;

4. crossing state lines into Arizona, Colorado, New York, Vermont, Florida, California, and international boundaries into Mexico;

5. which rendered the CS an organized criminal interstate enterprise subject to federal jurisdiction as well as the jurisdiction of those other states in which the CS operated.

By charging his victims and their insurers for treatment as a clinical psychologist, when that treatment extended to the sexual abuse of his patients, which he characterized as therapeutic, David Lee Hamblin committed insurance fraud. Hamblin also allegedly ran a child prostitution and child pornography distribution business in concert with his clinical psychology practice, whereby patients paid to rape his children.

The members of the CS allegedly trafficked children and individuals between the ages of 14 and 18 years of age across state lines for sexual exploitation, as was alleged by witnesses in Gordon Bowen’s divorces proceedings. The members of the CS also allegedly trafficked children and individuals for the purposes of sexual exploitation within the state of Utah. Through bribery, which he admitted in a documentary interview with documentarian Amy Herdy, former Utah County Attorney David Okerlund Leavitt obtained Allisandra Florence Fishinghawk, a young Native American girl, in an illegal adoption that violated the clear stipulation of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA).

Leavitt allegedly bribed former Northern Cheyenne Tribal Chief Lawrence Jace Killsback with both $30,000 in cash and the promise of leveraging Leavitt’s government contacts in Ukraine to export buffalo from the tribal reservation in Montana to the Ukraine in order to obtain Killsback’s intervention with Tribal Social Services, which led to the illegal delivery of Allisandra Fishinghawk into Leavitt’s custody. By transporting Fishinghawk across state lines, David Leavitt committed child trafficking. Leavitt also allegedly bribed Allisandra’s mother Tonah Fishinghawk, a drug addict and convicted criminal, in order to compel her to abandon her child on the reservation.

The crimes of the CS are multitudinous, stretching over at least five separate decades. There is reason to believe that those crimes continue into the present day, as members of the CS allegedly conduct sweat lodges involving the use of a Schedule I controlled substance, peyote, which they allegedly provide to children in attendance at their lodges. The CS allegedly forces children to ingest peyote during Indian religious ceremonies, and this forced ingestion of peyote is accompanied by ritualized sexual abuse.

This series is focused on the alleged crimes of Joseph Wood Bennion and Lee Patricia Udall Bennion, a husband and wife in Spring City, Utah, who allegedly operated with the CS council formed by David Lee Hamblin in Spring City during the Nineties. Bennion referred Tobias Schroeder, a young victim of sexual abuse, to David Lee Hamblin as a clinical psychologist by recommending Hamblin to Schroeder’s father. Additionally, Schroeder’s older sibling Anja allegedly attended sweat lodges conducted by Bennion and other CS members, where she was possibly abused. Anja Schroeder and her brother Gilbert Schroeder both committed suicide.

There are multiple major actors in the Hamblin Victims Statements written by Rachel, Eliza, and Katherine Hamblin in the 2012 criminal case against their father David Lee Hamblin. Even with a recorded apology to his daughter for raping her, David Lee Hamblin evaded conviction when the Utah County Attorney dropped the charges against him in 2014 with the excuse that they could not locate discovery documents and turn those documents over to the defense. The multiple major actors are as follows:

1. David and Roselle Hamblin

2. Joseph Wood and Lee Patricia Bennion

3. Paul and Ann Fluckiger Larsen

4. Gordon Stewart Bowen

5. David and Chelom Leavitt

6. Richard Lloyd Anderson and Carma de Jong Anderson

7. Craig and Susan “Suki” Christensen

8. Timothy Nathan and Kristin “Krii” Tuttle, aka Maarah Grayye

9. Clyde Everett Sullivan and Nola de Jong Sullivan

10. Dean Van Wagenen and Belle Felice de Jong Van Wagenen

11. Nelson and Julie Aidukaitis

12. Nathan Anderson and his wife Linda Colquitt Anderson

13. Gerrit Anderson

14. Steven and Jeanie Hamblin

15. Carol and Clyde Dangerfield

Nearly all of the major actors are related via blood or marriage or both, corroborating the Hamblin sisters’ claims that the CS is a multigenerational group built around certain “royal” bloodlines. Their lineages stretch back to the founding of the Church, and overlap with the lineages of other families implicated in ritual abuse.

This post, as part of the series focused on the Bennions, will focus on the third Hamblin Victim Statement, which was written by Katherine Helena Winters Hamblin, David Lee Hamblin’s third daughter. Katherine is now a film producer working out of New York City and London, and she was or is married to a man named Weston Baxter.

Hamblin and her sisters have all left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. So have the Bennions’ daughters Louisa, Zina, and Adah Lee. Zina Bennion is a self-identified witch and tarot reader. Many of the children of CS members identify as LGBTQIA, which is significant for reasons I have covered previously.

VS 3, pg. 44

Experience 47

1996-1998

Endowment House Spring City

People involved: Joe and Lee Bennion, Roselle and David Hamblin, Randall Lake, friends of the Hamblins and Bennions and Randall Lake, as well as Kevin and Khalil Kelly.

There are many times that Randall Lake participated in, and sometimes hosted ceremonies, and when I saw him on other occasions abusing Redacted. For example, he hosted several ceremonies in the old Spring City endowment house, which he owns. One of the ceremonies was a celebration for either somebody's "rebirth," or for something he or someone in their group of friends had accomplished. But everyone was celebrating, drinking, eating lots of food and then they started the ceremony. This time it was done downstairs, although several other ceremonies had been upstairs—there were just too many people. Everyone sat in a half-circle facing the people performing the drama part of the endowment. Randall Lake loved to play Satan, which he did. Redacted played "Eve" this time and was severely beaten. When the ceremony turned into an orgy, I was vaginally raped by two of Randall Lake's male friends from Salt Lake. Rosie stuck her finger In my vagina, and then Lee sucked on my vagina.

Katherine Hamblin was under 14 years of age during the events described, and therefore the acts she describes fall under Rape of a Child and Sodomy on Child.

VS 3, pg. 47 and pg. 49

Throughout the Nineties

Hamblin Spring City Residence, various other locations

People involved: David and Roselle Hamblin, Steve Hamblin, Joseph Wood Bennion, David Okerlund Leavitt, Brian Kershisnik, Ann Gregorson, Randall Lake, and others

“Clients" or "Suitors"

We often talked about clients in our home. Rosie would tell us to dress up and walk through the hallway of where David's clients sat waiting for their appointment. We were told to sometimes walk through in just our towel if they were trying to get someone to pay for our (Redacted's and my) services. Throughout our lives there were many people who would come to the house and pay for child sex. In fact, many of the "appointments" David and Rosie would make for David, were really for us. There was a separator between the hallway and the west side of the house in the Provo house. The east side of the house had a bathroom and three bedrooms, all of which were often used for prostitution—including Redacted's room at times. The west side had the kitchen, TV room, and basement that had several places where we were abused. The bedrooms that were used were usually the office, the bedroom just west of Redacted's bedroom with the bathroom across the hallway from it that was called the "client bathroom" and the bedroom downstairs with the maroon carpet. The maroon carpet bedroom had a bathroom next to it so it made things very easy for cleaning up after prostitution. As mentioned, on some occasions Rosie and David's bedroom be used, or another place. Clients would often get to decide which location they wanted. The downstairs was the most private and had a lot of space in the room with usually only a bed, and a bed table, although sometimes there was a dresser or a desk in there. The doors between these two sections of the house were not usually supposed to be opened during the day when clients were coming in and out. If there was a client that came to abuse one or more of us, whoever wasn't involved was kept in the opposite side of the house (this would usually be Rosie and Redacted). Rosie was very systematic about this, and would keep records and books of all this-but often in the name of David's psychology records. Sometimes she would show us who was in the book to come. She also would ask them to bring doctors papers that proved they had no STDs. If any of us contracted anything, we were not able to make them money.

Many people came to the Provo house, the Spring City house, and the Provo condo for child sex. In fact, even after the "separation," Rosie would have "dates" with men that would come to our house, but they were actually clients—and usually for Redacted. We were her largest asset, and many, many men wanted to marry her because of us. She wanted financial security, and even though she was at her heaviest (300+ pounds) and in her mid-late forties, she told me she felt she could get almost any man in these groups to marry her because of us.

We were often kept home from school. Weekends were our most busy times when clients would be in and out all day. In spring city, we were supposed to use the beday in Redacted's room before and after sexual acts in order to maintain cleanliness when we didn't have time to shower (because of the number of clients we had). We were given creams and other things to soothe us and other things to help us heal so that we could be ready for the next person. These people were allowed to do whatever they wanted to us, and physical violence was often included in their sexual abuse. Although clients would have to pay a lot extra if they left any kind of mark, bruise, black eye, fat lip, eye infection or anything on us, mostly because it would stop any further clients from coming (depending on the problem). Rosie would sometimes lie to clients after they left and say to them that we had an infection, bruise, or whatever (from their appointment) and make them pay more. Many adults would just pay extra from the beginning in case they left marks because they usually did.

Rosie would also try to get clients for herself, but didn't have as many. For an older man, and sometimes women, that she thought she could seduce, she would try to get money from them, and leave the ones that were only after child abuse for appointments with us. There were also a lot of people who were interested in Redacted, and they would pay for sex with Redacted, or even to watch David and/or Rosie abuse us, and then the clients would sometimes join in. Clients would also pay for these live performances for them and their friends, and it would often become an orgy when that happened. Live performances from the pornography videos David and Rosie would make were really popular, as well as the animal (often cat/kitten) and the baby Redacted orgy they would make us do. A lot of people liked to see violence, torture, or us looking afraid and screaming while we were abused. David and Rosie would put these kinds of performances on for friends too—especially if they were trying to get something from them. Redacted Steve often called Rosie and Redacted "the hen and all her chicks," since we lived in what he and Joe Bennion called "the hen house." He, David Leavitt, and Joe Bennion would all jokingly call Rosie "Madam" to talk about her as running a prostitute house.

Katherine Hamblin alleges that Joseph Wood Bennion regularly patronized her parents’ child prostitution business, at least weekly during the time she was between 5 and 12 years of age in Provo and Spring City.¹ This would comprise 52 separate counts of Rape of a Child, as well as related criminal counts, each year for eight years. In short, Joseph Wood Bennion would have committed at least 416 separate instances of Rape of a Child in the context of the child prostitution business alone, raping a girl as young as five years old and no older than twelve during that time. The scale of Joseph Wood Bennion’s alleged abuse of Katherine Hamblin would be staggering by itself, but he also abused her sisters Rachel and Eliza over the years as well. He allegedly abused all three sisters within the context of child prostitution and outside of it. If the allegations are true, Bennion would be guilty of thousands of criminal acts involving the rape, sodomy, object rape, trafficking, child prostitution, aggravated sexual abuse and assault, of Rachel, Eliza, and Katherine Hamblin.

In addition, Bennion was allegedly betrothed and sealed to Katherine Hamblin, who would have been under ten years of age during the betrothal.

The Hamblins used gifts, such as animals and toys and clothes, as a reward and as incentives for compliance with the ritual abuse. Katherine Hamlin alleges that certain clients of David Hamblin’s therapy practice were given an open door policy, and he would bill those clients for therapy when in fact they were raping his daughters.

Katherine Hamblin described specific references Joe Bennion made to his wife’s breasts, references that could have been corroborative if the police had ever interviewed witnesses or investigated the allegations against Joe Bennion.

The allegations against Joe Bennion are myriad, and encompass his sexuality, which is that of a bisexual man. Bennion would come over to the Hamblin residence in Spring City for the purpose of having sex with David Lee Hamblin as well as Roselle Hamblin and the Hamblin sisters. The bisexuality of CS adults is a pattern within the Victims Statements that is significant. David Lee Hamblin engaged in sexual contact with his brother in law Craig Christensen, Joe Bennion, and Randall Lake, as well as other CS men. The women of the CS routinely engaged in lesbian sexual orgies on Church women’s retreats according to the Victims Statements, as well as same-sex sexual abuse.

David Hamblin operated a therapy practice in which he purported to be able to help homosexual Latter Day Saint men overcome their homosexuality. This was allegedly the basis of his interaction with bishop and stake president Conrad Gottfredson, LDS High Council Punisher Gordon Bowen, and Hamblin’s victim Brett Bluth.

Joe Bennion served as the Punisher for the local Spring City CS group, according to Katherine Hamblin and her sisters. In that capacity, he meted and doled out discipline for CS members, and undertook tasks to protect the CS from exposure. The portion of Bennion’s activities that spread to the present day were the sweat lodges he ran, and multiple sources have confirmed that Joe Bennion continues to conduct sweat lodges with peyote even to the present day.

The lesbianism of Lee Bennion plays directly into the abuse of Katherine Hamblin and other victims, and her willing participation in the rape of Katie Hamblin by Joe Bennion is clearly described. Katherine Hamblin would have been between six and nine years of age during the abuse described above. Joe and Lee Bennion allegedly committed Rape of a Child and Sodomy on a Child.

Conclusion

The patterns of criminal conduct described by Katherine Hamblin are corroborative of her sisters’ victims statements. Over hundreds of pages in eight separate victims statements, the Hamblin sisters do not contradict each other. They provide no details that can be debunked or disproven. Moreover, Joseph Wood Bennion and Lee Patricia Udall Bennion have yet to publicly address the allegations or to deny those allegations in any sworn affidavit or filing.

Part VI will be posted tomorrow after my hearing at 2 p.m before Judge Bagley in Manti’s Sixth District Court.

1. On page 88 of her Victims Statement, Katherine Hamblin alleges that her mother Roselle would go to Joe Bennion’s studio and take items at any time as compensation for child prostitution services.