The Alleged Crimes of Joseph Wood Bennion and Lee Patricia Udall Bennion, Pt. IV
The Alleged Crimes of Joseph Wood Bennion and Lee Patricia Udall Bennion, Pt. IV
VS 3 pp. 1 through 150
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.
Katherine Hamblin is the third of David Lee Hamblin’s daughters, and she was sealed to Joseph Wood Bennion in a CS sealing. She references being forced to submit to rape, sodomy, and being forced forced to ingest urine and feces as well as engage in bestiality. Hamblin alleges that she and her sisters were tortured, which is corroborated by the brutally graphic details within her sisters’ victims statements.
As one reads through the various Hamblin Victims Statements and police reports, the most striking detail is the lack of any contradiction within those statements and reports. The sisters do not contradict each other over eight separate victims statements, spanning hundreds of pages. They describe a daily existence of mental, physical, and sexual abuse by their parents and the other alleged adult members of the Church of Satan, including Joseph Wood and Lee Patricia Udall Bennion. Lee Bennion is David Lee Hamblin’s fourth cousin, and her children are his fourth cousins once removed.
This detail is relevant due to the fact that the Hamblin sisters allege that the CS was a multigenerational group, with members intermarrying among CS to keep their bloodlines pure and spiritually powerful. Lee Bennion married Joseph Wood Bennion; her sister Sara married into the family of Hamblin’s in-laws Clyde and Nola de Jong Sullivan when she took Noel Clyde Sullivan as her husband. This made Sara Udall Sullivan the sister in law of David Lee Hamblin’s wife Roselle Anderson, in addition to her status as his fourth cousin.
Time and time again, the allegations made by Katherine Hamblin and her sisters are corroborated by various records. The Hamblin sisters maintain that they were kept home from school, frequently truant or tardy, and the record in their parents’ divorce corroborates that as true. The sisters also allege that their parents attended peyote ceremonies and forced them to ingest peyote, a fact that is corroborated by the court’s findings in their parents’ custody order. The sisters claim that their parents sexually abused them, and the court in their custody hearing found by clear and convincing evidence that David Lee Hamblin had sexually abused Rachel and Eliza Hamblin, while acknowledging that it did not examine the veracity of the allegations pertaining to Katherine and Miriam. This allegations was also proven when David Hamblin was recorded apologizing to his daughter for raping her on a phone call.
In fact, there isn’t a single bit of substantive evidence to disprove any of the allegations made by Rachel, Eliza, and Katherine Hamblin against their parents and the other alleged members of the Church of Satan. Joseph Wood Bennion and his wife Lee Patricia Udall Bennion have resorted to filing for an ex parte temporary restraining order against me, with the clear goal of stopping me from writing about these allegations. In fact, the Bennions, by and through their counsel and son in law Caleb Proulx, cite every single article I have written since responding to their Verified Petition to request a hearing and a dismissal of the restraining order as a violation of that order. Their position is that merely writing articles about the allegations within the Hamblin Victims Statements constitutes stalking.
They are seeking to have me jailed for 30 days and fined up to $1,000. If they are successful, I will have served more time for writing about David Lee Hamblin and his alleged accomplices’ criminal conduct than Hamblin has served for the actual conduct, even with a recorded apology to his daughter for raping her. This is emblematic of the legal process in Utah with regards to sexual abuse, given that a mere 393 perpetrators of alleged rape or child rape were convicted out of 13,212 reported instances of rape or child rape between 2012 and 2022. That’s a 3% conviction rate.
The Bennions have every reason to believe that they will get away with their alleged misdeeds, because they are numbered in the 13,212 individuals reported for rape and child rape between 2012 and 2022, due to the fact that the Hamblin sisters reported them to the Provo Police Department in 2012.
They are also seeking to use the legal process of adjudicating that stalking inunction as a means of fishing for information about my sources, any victims I have contacted, and those I work with. This is barred by Rule 509 of the Utah Rules of Evidence, which protects journalists from being forced to disclose confidential sources and information. The Bennions believe that they can use a spurious stalking injunction to uncover confidential information about their accusers, the people I work with, all while threatening me with jail time and fines after submitting a misleading and in parts outright false Verified Petition to Judge Marvin Bagley of Manti’s Sixth District Court in Manti to obtain an Ex Parte Temporary Civil Stalking Injunction.
This is the reality journalists face in Utah, but it pales in comparison to the intimidation such efforts must impose on victims who want to report their rapists. That is likely what the lawfare mounted by Joseph Wood Bennion and his wife Lee Patricia Udall Bennion is aimed at accomplishing: sending a message to victims that if they talk, write, or communicate about the sexual abuse they suffered and the abusers who violated them, they can be subjected to spurious legal proceedings as well. Additionally, the Bennions clearly hope to characterize investigative journalism as stalking for the purposes of intimidating any media outlet or journalist into avoiding further inquiry into the allegations against them.
Their efforts have not yielded the desired effect. I have published multiple pieces since being served with their spurious injunction, and I will continue to publish my findings and coverage the Hamblin Victims Statements as they pertain to Joe and Lee Bennion. Whether or not I am jailed or fined, I will continue this fight.
To wit, this piece deals with the third victim statement, written by Katherine Helena Winters Hamblin.
VS 3, pg 6
Confession
Lee Bennion’s Art Studio
People Involved: Rosie and David, Paul Larsen, Joe and Lee Bennion, James Mooney, the Stake President Johansen and other men 1 didn't know very well.
Sometime between 1996-1997
One experience with this torture was when they used the oxen yolk and whip on me. I had been disobedient to the church/council because I had hid one night that I was supposed to participate in a ceremony where they killed someone. The following week I was given punishments that were carried out by some council members who included Paul Larsen, Joe Bennion, James Mooney, the Stake President Johansen and other men I didn't know very well. They were all wearing dark robes and masks. This was a disciplinary council with a few different people there who needed to repent. They started off with a chant and everyone had to bow to them. Redacted was there as well as few other people like Lee and the other wives of these men. Redacted were there and others I didn't know, who were confessing. They made me do a few different things. They told me this was all for my good so I would be "worthy" In Satan's eyes and accepted by him. They also told me that I ran from a ceremony that would have allowed me to become more worthy and reprimanded me. I had to hold my hand up and say that I was a sinner and had done wrong by distancing myself from Satan—and then explain how I was not obedient and what I did. Then they had "the punisher/' Joe Bennion, come forward and after he undressed me, he put a rope around my neck and yanked me down to the floor. He then whipped me and beat me. He then put the wooden oxen yolk of Redacted on my neck and said that no one could help me with my burden except me. He forced me to quickly crawl around the room, without the yolk touching the ground on the side that there was no person (it had a half circle for two people. I had to hold it with hand and only crawl with the other one-my knuckles were soon bleeding. He also lit a candle and poured the wax all over my chest and vagina area. He turned me over and poured it into my butt-crack. He then raped me in my anus which was really more painful because it stung my skin. Then I had to suck on every council member's penis under their robe, unless they wanted something else. Redacted and President Johansen anally raped me after I sucked on their penis. I was bleeding a little. James Mooney, Paul Larsen and one other guy raped me in my vagina after they made me suck on their penises. A method to communicate in public of Redacted and this group is that they would speak about their church and their feelings in public with opposites. Redacted would remind and threaten us when we said something about Satan by smiling angrily and saying "Redacted, remember, it's opposite day!" Basically it was a code they could speak in and still communicate what they wanted to in public. They would talk about someone doing really well, and being so loyal when they were really meaning the opposite about that person. They also would call Satan "Jesus Christ" in public. In fact any title for Christ was meant to mean Satan. Examples of this include titles such as: "the first-born", "Lord," "Savior," "our Master," "the Son of God," "God," "the great spirit," "the Spirit," etc.
Katherine Hamblin was born in 1986, which would put her age at the time of the events described above at 10 or 11 years old. This means that Katherine would qualify as a child under Utah’s criminal sexual abuse statutes, because she was under 14 years of age. Joseph Wood Bennion’s alleged acts fit under Aggravated Sexual Abuse of a Child, Utah Criminal Code 76-5-404.1, because he used forced, duress, violence, intimidation, coercion, menace, and the threat of harm in the course of committing Sodomy on a Child, a violation of 76-5-403.1. Joe Bennion was clearly in a position of special trust over Katherine Hamblin, in that he was a religious leader holding a calling in the LDS ward where Katherine Hamblin and her parents attended church, but under 76-5-404.1(a)(iv)(W), he falls under the catch all of an adult in a position of authority that enabled him to exercise undue influence over Katherine Hamblin. He caused bodily injury and severe psychological injury to Katherine Hamblin, fulfilling the element of 76-5-404.3(2)(b).
David Lee Hamblin and Stake President George Wilford Johansen, who died in 2016, were also guilty allegedly committing Aggravated Sexual Abuse of a Child under Utah Criminal Code 76-5-404.1. Hamblin was Katherine’s parent, and George Johansen was her Stake President.
James Mooney and Paul Larsen allegedly committed Sodomy on a Child, a violation of Utah Criminal Code 76-5-403.1, as well as Rape of a Child, a violation of 76-5-402.1. Roselle Hamblin, Lee Bennion, Ann Fluckiger Larsen, and Barbara Ann Graff Johansen were allegedly present during the abuse, as Katherine Hamblin alleges that the wives of the men she accuses were present. They would be accessories to the abuse under Utah Criminal Code 76-2-202.
For the residents of Spring City, Utah, who were not part of the CS, the activities of the CS members would have been masked by the “opposites” method:
A method to communicate in public of Redacted and this group is that they would speak about their church and their feelings in public with opposites. Redacted would remind and threaten us when we said something about Satan by smiling angrily and saying "Redacted, remember, it's opposite day!" Basically it was a code they could speak in and still communicate what they wanted to in public. They would talk about someone doing really well, and being so loyal when they were really meaning the opposite about that person. They also would call Satan "Jesus Christ" in public. In fact any title for Christ was meant to mean Satan. Examples of this include titles such as: "the first-born", "Lord," "Savior," "our Master," "the Son of God," "God," "the great spirit," "the Spirit," etc.
VS 3, pg. 25
Angela Fenton, or “CJ”
1997
Provo
People Involved: David Hamblin, Conrad Gottfredson, Angela Fenton, James Mooney, and Joe Bennion
There are no specific allegations against Joe Bennion in this experience, other than the general allegation that he participated in Angela Fenton’s abuse.
VS 3, pg. 26
Scalping
1996-1998
Provo
People Involved: David and Roselle Hamblin, James and Linda Mooney, Joe and Lee Bennion, Alyssa Wolfe, Lynne Whitesides, and Conrad Gottfredson. Craig and Susan “Suki” Christensen are named in the other occurrences section, along with Steven and Jeanie Hamblin. Robert Hamblin’s home in Spring City is also referenced, as he was Katherine’s paternal grandfather or “Papa.”
Katherine Hamblin was between seven and ten years of age during these instances of abuse. She alleges that she was raped by Joe Bennion and James Mooney, which would constitute Rape of a Child, but for the aggravating circumstance of David Lee Hamblin’s use of a knife and his threat to scalp his daughter. This escalates the crime to Aggravated Sexual Abuse of a Child, for Bennion, Mooney, and Hamblin, as well as Roselle Hamblin, who handed him the knife after placing it in front of Katherine Hamblin’s face to threaten her.
Nikki Christensen is now Nikki Dicou, the daughter of Craig and Susan Christensen who is married to Natalie Dicou. She was formerly the Executive Director of the Utah Brewers Guild. She is named as one of the individuals involved in a card games of “Go Fish” and “Old Maid” where children were forced to take off their clothes, and the child who lost all of their clothes had to endure a sexual punishment.
As such, Nicole Dicou is either a witness who could corroborate Katherine Hamblin’s allegations or she is a participant in the abuse whose culpability would be determined by the context of that participation.
VS 3, pg. 40
Experience #41
Summer 1991 or 1992
Spring City, Utah
People involved: Joe Bennion and David Hamblin
The events described constitute Sodomy on a Child, a violation of Utah Criminal Code 76-5-403.1, as well as Aggravated Sexual Abuse of a Child, Utah Criminal Code 76-5-404.1 where David Hamblin is concerned. Katherine Hamblin would have been between five and seven years of age during the abuse.
VS 3, pg. 40
Experience #42
1992-1993
Joe and Lee Bennion’s former home, 390 N 100 E St, Spring City, Utah
Joe and Lee Bennion, their children Louisa, Zina, and Adah Lee, Roselle and David Hamblin, and other adults.
Several times we watched porn at Joe's house. I remember watching a "Fabio" movie in Joe and Lee's house with all the adults hanging out in their family room. They told all the kids to stay and that we were going to watch a movie together. Redacted and I ran into the piano room to play but we got yelled at to stop playing the piano. Later they called us in to watch, so we brought our trolls that we were playing with. People were laughing and joking a lot throughout the movie.
Katherine Hamblin’s Victim Statement corroborates that of her sister Rachel, in that both sisters allege they were forced to watch a softcore porn movie starring Fabio. Rachel Hamblin describes one of the viewings of the movie as being attended by Paul and Ann Larsen and their children. The children would watch the video multiple times over the years.
This does not necessarily constitute pornography for the purposes of Dealing in material harmful to a minor, Utah Criminal Code 76-10-1206, in that it depends on whether or not a softcore porn movie depicting a rape would be harmful to minors. That is a subjective determination to be made by the courts. Since neither Victims Statement alleges that the adults committed sexual abuse during the course of showing the children the movie, there is no basis for charging the Bennions, the Larsens, or the Hamblins with Aggravated Sexual Abuse of a Child, which does allow for an actor be charged with the offense if the actor showed or displayed pornography during the course of rape of a child, object rape of a child, sodomy on a child, or an attempt to commit those offenses.
VS 3, pg. 43
Experience 46
Spring and Fall 1995
Lee Bennion’s Art Studio
People involved: Joe and Lee Bennion, Roselle and David Hamblin, Randall Lake and boyfriend, Paul and Ann Larsen.
One late summer evening, just before entering Redacted grade (I remember we were getting ready to move back to Provo for a while), Redacted took us over to the Bennion's house around dinnertime. It was a "special" evening as Redacted had put our hair in curlers during the day to make us look pretty for the evening ceremony. We often slept with curlers in our hair at night, and sometimes would wear them all through the day so Redacted wouldn't need to do our hair again for the ceremonies. She took our curls out and told us to not put any underwear on under our clothes. I obeyed, and put on my clothes. When we got to the Bennion's house it was hot inside and the people there were Redacted, the Bennions, and the Larsens and Randall Lake and his male friend. I played with Redacted until Redacted got me. The adults were talking and laughing until late. Rosie gathered Redacted, Redacted and I into the TV/Family room to wait. Redacted sat on David's lap while he loudly laughed with all the adults in the other room.
As it got dark and after the parents had all finished eating, Redacted called us from the dining room and we walked out the kitchen door facing north-east to head to Lee Bennion's studio. I was feeling sick and told Redacted over and over that I was tired and I wanted to go to bed at home and not in Lee's studio. I kept complaining, and Rosie kept telling me to be quiet, when Joe said I wouldn't be going to bed "for a while" at which point all the adults started laughing. As we walked in the cold grass I saw that the lights were on in Lee's studio, and she was out there, putting up the rest of the coverings over the windows. We all stepped on the porch and went into the studio. Lee had pushed her 2 easels out of the way to the side of the wall. There was a large space made, and everyone stood on the wood floor in a circle. There were blankets all over the floor in the circle. Lee finished lighting the candles in the room. Joe welcomed everyone and then lead them in a prayer. Everyone held hands, and I was holding hands with Rosie and Redacted. Lee began a chant, it was a sentence repeated over and over again. Rosie tried to get me to start singing too. I didn't want to sing it—it was a "prayer" to Lucifer. They talked about how he was the "son of the morning" and now of the night too. They pleaded for his power to overcome them. I got so scared I started to cry quietly. Redacted squeezed and shook my hand to stop. Then she started moving her head in circles with her eyes closed as she continued to chant. Everyone else did too. They got louder and started shaking as they raised their hands into the air and said things like they would serve and honor Satan, and they kept saying how they would kill for him, or whatever he asked of them. They got louder and faster and louder and faster and then Rosie pushed me towards Joe and Joe and Lee started taking off my clothes. Joe grabbed me and then Lee and back and forth. He took off his clothes and then they raped me. The Larsens raped Redacted too. Redacted was passed around to everyone and many people touched her vagina or made them suck on their genitals. It became an orgy where everyone was moaning and making animal sounding noises. Lee told me to lie down and she moved the blanket out from where I was about to lie down to below my body where she then lay on the blanket. She started licking/sucking on my vagina and then Joe would grab her vagina while she did that to me and started swearing. As I was lying down he would go back and forth to me and to her, putting his penis in my mouth and then putting his fingers in Lee's vagina. I heard people laughing and yelling and all sorts of sounds. David came over for a while and grabbed Joe's penis then when he left to do stuff with Randall Lake and his friend, Joe put his penis in my mouth and he ejaculated and yelled at me to swallow it. I didn't and it came out on the sides of my mouth onto the floor and Rosie yelled at me and told me to lick it up and apologize to Joe. I wanted to throw up, but I did what they told me to. When I apologized to Joe he laughed and put his fingers in my vagina and yanked really hard and pulled my naked body on the wood floor towards him and said "It doesn't feel so good does it?" I was crying. When they were done with me I stood up and found toilet paper in the back of Lee's studio where she kept it in the iron bathtub and then I tried to wipe out my mouth out and wipe the blood off my vagina. Redacted came over too and we sat in the side room (on the north-east end of the art studio) until we could go home. We waited about an hour until everyone got up and then Redacted told us to put on our clothes and we were going home. Rosie told me to go to bed and to not make a single noise that would wake her up. I snuck to the downstairs bathroom and brushed the sticky seamen out of my hair and brushed my teeth. Redacted and Redacted came down too and did the same.
In this occurrence, Katherine Hamblin was between eight and nine years of age, and the acts alleged constitute Sodomy on a Child, and both Joe and Lee Bennion are guilty of that offense if the allegations are true. The Bennions also committed Rape of a Child as well.
Conclusion
As yet, Joe and Lee Bennion have yet to deny the allegations against them in any sworn filing. Instead, they have resorted to representing writing about those allegations in the course of investigative journalism, as well as the investigative efforts to corroborate or debunk those allegations, as stalking. I will be appearing via Webex on Wednesday at 2 p.m. MST before Judge Marvin Bagley to argue for the dismissal of the temporary injunction and other relief. The public may attend in person. Welcome to the show.
