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Sunday, April 25, 1999
For nearly a year, The Salt Lake Tribune periodically has been spotlighting abuses in the outlawed but open practice of polygamy in Utah. In today's report, News Editor Dawn House and reporters Greg Burton and Ray Rivera focus on incest within the Kingston family, one of a half dozen polygamous clans in the state. Additionally, the team peeks into the Kingston's burgeoning business portfolio, a secret blending of religion, entrepreneurial spirit and company-store mentality.
If polygamy is considered Utah's funny little practice that no one wants to talk about, then incest is the hidden secret no one wants to believe. Incest is practiced openly as a religious tenet among most Kingston family leaders, although it is illegal under Utah law. The Tribune found that enforcement officials and prosecutors routinely ignore crimes within closed polygamous societies.
From a coal mine in Carbon County to a Davis County dairy farm, from downtown Salt Lake City offices to court files to health records, from courteous but dismissive conversations with current family members to alarming stories from those who fled abuse and incest, The Tribune team spent more than a year on today's presentation.
Polygamy as a lifestyle presents a dilemma for The Tribune: The Constitution guarantees a right to religious practices and there is a national expectation of privacy in the bedroom between consenting adults. But too often, plural marriages provide a cover for inherently harmful abuses, especially for those under the age of consent. It is for these children that we continue to report this story.
Jay Shelledy/Editor
The Salt Lake Tribune -- When Incest Becomes a Religious Tenet
Sunday, April 25, 1999
When Incest Becomes a Religious Tenet
Practice sets 1,000-member Kingston clan apart from other Utah polygamous groups
BY GREG BURTON @1999, THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
On a dilapidated dairy farm at the end of Redwood Road in Woods Cross, the late John Ortell Kingston, would-be Utah dairy king and self-anointed leader of one of the largest polygamous clans in America, fancied himself a geneticist.
In breeding stock, he looked for high milk production. At home, the desired traits were his own.
"My father experimented inbreeding with his cattle and then he turned to his children," says Connie Rugg, one of John Ortell's estimated 65 children and one of a handful of Kingston relatives who have fled the clan. Faced with the forced marriage to an uncle, Rugg left the Kingstons.
"All my life, my family told me I had to marry a Kingston," says Rugg. "I could choose, but it had to be a brother, uncle or cousin."
While the clan shares many of the beliefs of other polygamous groups in Utah, incest, for many of the Kingston leaders, is their indelible difference.
Incest draws members inward. Fear of exposure fosters a culture of distrust, some of which is directed at members who work in Kingston-owned businesses, live in Kingston-owned homes and worship in Kingston churches.
Many Kingstons -- even those who share preferred lineage from John Ortell and LaDonna Peterson, the second of his 13 wives -- live in run-down shacks at a coal yard, above warehouses near the dairy farm and in ramshackle apartment buildings and trailers.
If female, they are married off to the few, powerful prominent males: incest is the fate of many teen-age girls. If male, some of these same "worker bees" marry only once.
"My father manipulated and controlled people," Rugg says. "He wanted to control his children and grandchildren through genetics. He believed he had superior bloodlines."
Kingston clan leaders declined requests, including letters by registered mail, to comment on this story.
The church sprang from the ideas of John Ortell Kingston's father and was founded by his brother, Charles Elden Kingston, in 1935. John Ortell Kingston was the first Kingston to experiment with incest, marrying and bearing children with two half-sisters and two nieces, according to numerous ex-members of the clan.
Ex-members' claims of incest are bolstered by court records claiming John Ortell "failed either to support or acknowledge" three children by his niece, (Susan) Mary Gustafson. In an effort to recoup $15,679 in welfare, the Utah Department of Social Services filed an order declaring John Ortell the father of three of Gustafson's children.
John and Charles' brother, Merlin Barnum Kingston, married and had children with four nieces and a half-sister, say ex-members, including one of his own daughters. At least six of Merlin's incestuously conceived children in turn married half-siblings, couplings that subsequently produced children with various deformities, says Rowenna Erickson, an ex-member who left her polygamous husband.
"It makes you sick; it turns your stomach," she says. "And yet nobody wants to do anything about it. Nobody, from the police to [Utah] Gov. [Mike] Leavitt, cares that these children are abused from conception to marriage."
Today, six sons and two daughters of John Ortell and LaDonna have married at least 20 half-sisters, nieces and first cousins, giving birth to a family tree that twists and tangles, and, at times, withers with children born of genetic deficiencies.
A seventh son, Hyrum Dalton Kingston, is a polygamist but has not married incestuously, according to ex-members.
Although it is a felony under Utah law for close relatives to have sex, only one Kingston -- John and LaDonna's fifth son, David Ortell -- has been criminally charged with incest.
Last year, a 16-year-old daughter of John Daniel Kingston was forced to marry her uncle, David Ortell Kingston, criminal charges allege. In a secret church ceremony conducted on the 15th day of the month, the girl became her uncle's 15th wife. He later gave the girl a ring with 15 diamonds, she testified.
He sent her to live in a coal yard with other polygamous wives and their many children in South Salt Lake, visiting her rarely and usually only to have sex, she testified.
In May, the girl said she was belt-whipped by her father inside a Kingston-owned barn in Box Elder County for fleeing the marriage, and was abandoned in the home of another of John Daniel's wives. The girl's father and mother, Susan Nelson (one of John Daniel's many wives) are half-sister and brother. They purportedly have 10 children, the girl told police.
Her subsequent recounting of the ordeal is the centerpiece of a pending trial on sex abuse and incest against her uncle, David. Her father pleaded no contest April 21 to third-degree felony child abuse and faces zero to five years in prison at his June sentencing.
Salt Lake County prosecutors' initial charge of incest against David Ortell Kingston was kindled by the victim's story of manipulation and molestation.
The clan's other numerous incestuous couplings among consenting adults, though, present a troubling scenario for law enforcement: these are crimes of a sexual nature committed in private in a closed society.
Farm Roots of Incest: Marriages in the Kingston clan must be sanctioned by Paul Kingston, current head of the church, although ex-members say Paul's brothers, Daniel, David and Jesse, exert influence over who marries whom.
The same right of marriage approval was wielded by John Ortell Kingston, who began the incestuous lineage. While building his polygamous empire, John Ortell raised pigeons and Holsteins, prized black-and-white milk cows.
"I know people who bought livestock from them because they had quality animals," says a federal investigator. "Usually the women did the milking. When an inspector would show up they'd disappear and pretty soon two men would show up."
Today, the Kingston dairy is a shamble of littered fields, slouching homes and a gray-brown barn where a few cows still roam.
It was here, on the flat hay fields that stretch from the edge of Woods Cross to the crusty shores of the Great Salt Lake, that John Ortell Kingston studied the genetics of in-line breeding.
"It would have been unusual if he wasn't using artificial insemination in his herd, and by virtue of that, was probably using semen from some bulls that had been inbred," says Dennis Green, a professor of beef cattle genetics at Colorado State University.
"My guess is this man had used some of these inbreeding practices in his herd so he was probably in the camp that believed superior genetics could be propagated in a particular line," Green says. "The downside is that if you don't start with good genetics, and if there is baggage in the genes of the individual, inbreeding will uncover that baggage. When you pair up those undesirable genes, something strange will pop out."
Among the polygamous Kingstons, a number of children have been born with birth defects, among them one born with two vaginas and two uteruses but no vaginal or bowel opening. Outwardly, she appeared to have no sex organs. The girl, born to John Ortell and Isabell Johnson, was not the product of an incestuous marriage. Family members attribute the defects to the advanced ages of the mother and father -- he was 64, she was 45.
"My mother should not have produced another baby," says Rugg, also Isabell and John Ortell's daughter and the baby's full sister. "Her body tried to miscarry many, many times."
The baby, delivered at Johnson's home in 1983, was taken to Primary Children's Medical Center. Blood tests showed the infant and 25 other children from numerous women were fathered by the same man, leading to one of the largest welfare fraud-settlements in Utah history.
John Ortell Kingston paid the $200,000 settlement, but denied paternity. The settlement was reached after prosecutors obtained a judge's order to sample John Ortell's DNA to compare with the 26 children's.
Now 16, Rugg's sister was married to and subsequently left one of her half-brother's sons.
Another of Rugg's full sisters, Andrea Johnson, died in 1992 of complications of pre-eclampsia, a condition of pregnancy that was not treated until after the young girl, swollen with toxic fluid, was rushed to the emergency unit at University Hospital. The baby survived, but has cerebral palsy.
On Johnson's death certificate, attending physician James B. Burns wrote 15-year-old Andrea must have exhibited signs of hypertension "at least two weeks" before her death.
Rugg says the group feared taking Andrea to the hospital because members did not want to explain the child's troubling paternity.
Andrea's son, now 7, lives with his father, Jason Kingston -- Andrea's half-brother -- and Rosalind, his niece.
Genetics of Incest: Pre-eclampsia is a condition that can be traced genetically from one generation to the next and is prevalent among some Kingstons, Rugg says.
Several Kingston offspring of incestuous couplings also have been born without fingernails, a disease that could be linked to a number of genetically caused abnormalities, although an exact diagnosis is impossible without closer study of medical records. Since most Kingston children are born in homes under the scrutiny of trusted and secretive family midwives or clan leaders, documentation of medical abnormalities is rare, but not unprecedented.
In 1996, the now 31-year-old Kingston mother of two slow-growing children sought explanations at Primary Children's Medical Center. Initially, she tried to conceal her marital relationship.
"I didn't dare talk about it," she says. Eventually, she admitted she had married her half-brother and given birth to three children.
Two years later, a pair of geneticists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md., flew to Utah where they hoped to stage a seminar for Kingston family members about the dangers of incest and birth defects, and, presumably, gain permission to study the clan.
Two minor members of the clan attended the NIH seminar, conducted in a Woods Cross hotel room -- not far from the Kingston dairy. Disappointed more family members did not attend, the scientists left.
"I tried to get people to come, but nobody would listen," says the mother, who left the group and her marriage after her sons were diagnosed with dwarfism. She says her parents, Merlin Barnum Kingston (John Ortell's brother) and Joyce Fransden, were uncle and niece. And her ex-husband's parents, Merlin and Carolyn Kingston, were uncle and niece.
"I knew I would have to marry my [half-] brother ever since I was 12," says the woman. The couple had lived together since the age of 7, when the mother of the woman's half-brother died.
The rate at which Kingstons marry each other is "frightening," she says. "It's a bomb that's going to explode."
Her half-brother is still married to another half-sister (whose parents also were half-sister and brother) and are still members of the Kingston's order.
Other possible genetic traits include: microcephaly, a malformation of the skull in which the infant has a small head (ex-members say two children with microcephaly have died and eight others are institutionalized); blindness; spina bifida; Down syndrome; kidney disease and abnormal leg and arm joints.
While none of these can positively be linked to incest without DNA testing, geneticists say most of the conditions are exacerbated by incest.
Some genes linked to conditions like microcephaly and dwarfism are "autosomal recessive," and are found among the 22-linked pairs of chromosomes that do not include the X and Y sex chromosomes, says Lynn Jorde of the University of Utah's Eccles Human Genetics Institute, a leading genetics research center.
"You don't want to jump to the conclusion and say all of these are the result of inbreeding," he says. "But just on general principles, the offspring of uncle-niece, or half-siblings have an elevated level of genetic disease. There is no doubt about that at all. So when you see all of these diseases occurring in the children, it's possible some are the result of inbreeding."
Of all the arguments against incest, says Jorde, the likelihood that genetic abnormalities will be passed to succeeding generations is the most persuasive.
"We do know there are biological hazards. A fourth to half of father-daughter and brother-sister offspring have mental or physical deficiencies. It gets pretty bleak when it gets that close."
Global Incest: Worldwide, mating among first cousins is somewhat common and sometimes encouraged. First-cousin mating doubles the chances that genetic abnormalities will be passed along. Roughly 3 to 4 percent of children from couples who aren't relatives are born with genetic defects. The rate of genetic birth defects for first cousins is 6 to 8 percent.
Stillbirths and infant deaths also are much more likely when blood relatives mate. A Norwegian study published in the April issue of the American Journal of Public Health found the risk of stillbirths and infant deaths was at least 70 percent greater when parents were first cousins rather than unrelated.
Yet in many countries, the study noted, more than one-fourth of parents are related by blood. Those countries include Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait.
Including Utah, 37 states outlaw first-cousin marriage. The 1996 Utah Legislature approved first-cousin marriages, only after age 65, or age 55 if the couple cannot conceive children.
It is possible that positive genetic traits could be passed along through human inbreeding. That apparently was John Ortell Kingston's intent, although most studies of first-cousin mating show their offspring test lower on IQ exams, Jorde says.
There is too little empirical data of uncle-niece, half-brother/half-sister mating to draw firm conclusions about the IQ, survival rates, birth defects or longevity of their offspring, he says.
"So often when you have an uncle-niece, or half-brother-sister, you have a situation where abuse is going on," Jorde says. "And when you talk about the public interest, you have to consider who pays for the consequences. If these couples are . . . mating in a way that increases genetic diseases, that the public ends up supporting, it becomes a matter of public interest."
The Kingstons are among a small number of family groups in the world who marry closer than first cousins on a regular basis.
"Incest as a policy or routine practice is rare," says Melvin Williams, a professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan and a leading expert in the study of kinship systems.
Many cultures, he says, marry outside the family in order to attract the wealth of a neighboring family or to promote alliances among warring factions.
While not discounting the prevalence of genetic anomalies, Williams says modern society's aversion to incest is, to a large extent, arbitrary and prudish. A brother's aversion to courting his sister has more to do with romance than social stigma.
"It's hard to fantasize about someone if you grew up watching them go to the bathroom," Williams says. "Living with them makes them unattractive as living partners. Humans also have decided not to [commit incest] in order to distinguish themselves from other animals. Humans put a grave prohibition on incest."
Social ostracism, he adds, is not necessarily a good thing.
Of the Kingstons, Williams says: "There is not much you can do about them. The notoriety will just make them zoo specimens. People are always trying to find people who are inferior and brand them as such."
Still, if children are caught up in an abusive or incestuous situation, Williams would encourage policing. "Children should not be victims of such programs."
A Secretive Refrain: On Bountiful's bench, in a wooded and fenced complex that overlooks the Great Salt Lake, Mary Gustafson, John Ortell's niece and third wife, lives with some of her children, one who is legally blind, and grandchildren.
One recent morning she defended her complicity in arranging her daughters' marriages to their half-brothers, sons of John Ortell and LaDonna.
"Those boys are the most moral, upstanding and wonderful people I know," she said, clutching a grandchild to her thin hip. "Most of what you print is lies, lies, lies."
From the porch of Gustafson's home, there is a view of fields where cattle and ponies graze, and the remnants of the Kingston dairy.
John Ortell, who died in 1987, never met the grandchild Gustafson was holding. Or two more that scampered around her feet as she talked, pleasantly but guardedly, about the Kingston clan.
When asked, a little boy and girl at the home acknowledged who their mother is.
Then, as generations of polygamous Kingston children have been taught, they demurred to questions about their father. Naming a father could expose the truth, unveil secrets of paternity and subject the clan to further scrutiny from those who don't approve of incest.
"We don't have a dad," the little boy said. Then he scooted away, smiling, aboard a plastic toy car, his feet smacking the sidewalk.
The Salt Lake Tribune -- Inbreeding key to doctrine of keeping bloodline
pure
Sunday, April 25, 1999
Inbreeding key to doctrine of keeping bloodline pure Church Makes Incest Doctrinal
BY RAY RIVERA @1999, THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
Brides in polygamous marriages often refer to each other as sister wives.
In the Kingston clan, the term is more literal.
Marrying your half-sister, niece or first cousin is common practice among select leaders of the Latter Day Church of Christ, the most affluent of the half-dozen polygamous orders spread throughout Utah.
Many of the estimated 1,000 to 1,500 Kingston clan members know and fear the dangers of incest -- knowledge of birth defects is widespread among the group. But the lure of heaven is more powerful.
And one key to getting in God's good grace, say former church members, is to give a daughter to one of the seven sons of the late clan patriarch John Ortell Kingston and the second and most powerful of his several wives, LaDonna Peterson -- even if you are related to him.
Former members say this practice perpetuates and purifies a bloodline clan members consider regal.
"What they believe is that every once in a while there would be a birth defect," says Elaine Jenkins, who left the group two years ago. "But for the ones that didn't come out wrong, the results would be worth it."
The Kingstons were formed in 1935 by Charles Elden Kingston, John Ortell's brother, who after fasting and praying in a cave near Bountiful claimed divine inspiration to form a new polygamous order. John Ortell took over after his brother died of cancer in 1948.
Today, the clan shares many of the beliefs of other polygamous groups in the West. They take the practices of plural marriage from Mormon founder Joseph Smith and cooperative economics from Smith's successor as church leader, Brigham Young.
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon Church, prohibits incest and banned the practice of polygamy in 1890. It excommunicates anyone found to adhere to the 19th-century practice.)
And like other groups, the clan stores wheat, seeds and other goods in anticipation of doomsday.
But incest is a new twist.
Among the religious underpinnings the Kingstons use to defend their practice is the parable of the tame olive tree taken from the Book of Mormon, sacred scriptures to the Mormon Church and many offshoot groups.
Jacob, Chapter 5 of the Book of Mormon tells of the Lord of the vineyard and his attempts to save his tame olive tree by planting good branches in the "nethermost part" of the vineyard and grafting wild branches to the decaying tame tree.
But when the wild branches take root and bear evil fruit, the master reverses the pattern.
"Let us take of the branches of these which I have planted in the nethermost parts of my vineyard, and let us graft them into the tree from whence they came," he tells his servant. "And let us pluck from the tree those branches whose fruit is most bitter . . .
"And the tree became like unto one body; and the fruits were equal; and the lord of the vineyard had preserved unto himself the natural fruit, which was most precious unto him from the beginning."
Mormon scholars interpret the allegory as a tale of the scattering and gathering of the tribes of Israel (the tame branches), says Stan Johnson, associate professor of ancient scripture at Mormon-owned Brigham Young University in Provo. The chapter is one of the major doctrines of the Mormon religion, Johnson says.
But former Kingston members say the clan has adapted more literal translations of verses like: "And the branches of the natural tree will I graft again into the natural tree."
A daughter of Merlin Kingston, John Ortell's brother, recalls her father explaining why she could not marry an outsider.
"He sat me on his knee and talked about grafting branches to the olive tree," says the 31-year-old, who married her half-brother and had two children diagnosed with dwarfism. She also was the child of her father's incestuous marriage to his niece. The woman asked not to be identified because she no longer associates herself with the Kingstons.
"They teach you at home that [incest] is right, that your blood is special and you're going to have wonderful kids."
Johnson, who has been teaching religion for 25 years, says he has never heard of anyone defending incest with the olive-tree allegory. "The thing about parables is you could apply them to almost anything if you want," he says. "You could use them to prove the moon is made of cheese."
Like circles in a pond, former members say, the closer you are to the inner ring depends upon the pureness of your Kingston blood.
It is the order's own caste system, and former members say it extends to the group's self-contained economy. Purer blood means a more prestigious job in one of the order's numerous businesses, though all members share an austere lifestyle required by their beliefs: driving old cars, living in dilapidated houses and sometimes salvaging food from supermarket Dumpsters.
Former members say it was LaDonna, who died in 1997, who ordained that her and John Ortell's progeny was superior, even above Ortell's other children from other wives.
"She was very domineering; everyone knew she controlled things," says Jenkins, who has two lawsuits pending against the clan over ownership of her home and the death of her husband, who died in an accident in a clan-owned coal mine in Emery County. "She got what she wanted."
What LaDonna wanted most, apparently, was to see her seven sons revered above all others, and to have their choice of the prettiest brides. She was known to stand up in church meetings and proclaim: "My sons are winners."
Today, with the exception of son Hyrum, her boys are the clan's most prolific practicers of polygamy -- and incest.
First among them is Paul Kingston, 39, the spiritual leader of the order. His calm temperament, industriousness, and business savvy made him the chosen one to succeed his father as church leader ahead of three older brothers, former members say.
Unlike other members who refrain from contact with outsiders, Paul was student body president of South High School in Salt Lake City, dated outside the order, was a member of Boys State and lettered in swimming and cross-country. He went on to earn an MBA and law degree from the University of Utah.
Paul's ascension to the head of the order after his father's 1987 death came with some dissension from supporters of his uncle, Merlin Barnum Kingston. Merlin is listed as the official church president in corporate filings but has little power within the group, says his daughter and other former members who know him.
By 1990, Paul had married 13 wives, among them two half-sisters (fathered by John Ortell Kingston) and a cousin. Former members say he has as many as 30 wives.
As the order's spiritual head, Paul dictates who should marry whom. Though he never explains the origin of his inspiration, members believe it comes to him from God, says former member Rowenna Erickson.
Rochelle Atwood, 24, recalls Paul refusing to approve her marriage to a less-prominent clan member -- one with no blood ties to a Kingston.
"Paul said he wanted me to marry his brother, David," she said. "That was his direction."
Paul also often acts as midwife, delivering many of the clan's children, as do two of his older brothers and their father before them. Although another woman has trained for it, the group seldom uses her.
The late patriarch's oldest son is Joseph Kingston, 48, who plays little role in the church, say former members. He counts among his five wives two of his father's widows, one of whom is his full-blood aunt.
Next is John Daniel Kingston, 43, who pleaded no contest this week to charges of beating his 16-year-old daughter for fleeing an arranged polygamous marriage to his brother, David. The case brought nationwide scrutiny to Utah's numerous polygamous sects. John Daniel is awaiting sentencing and David faces a trial on charges of incest in June.
Considered Paul's right-hand man, John Daniel was overlooked for the church's leadership position because of his temper, former members believe. John Daniel is believed to have up to 24 wives, among them three half-sisters and a cousin.
The daughter who accused him of beating her told police she was the product of John Daniel's incestuous coupling with his half-sister Susan Nelson, who was the daughter of John Ortell Kingston and Mary Gustafson. John Daniel and Susan had nine other children, the teen told police.
Little is known of brothers Hyrum, 41, and Jesse, 31. Hyrum is believed to have the fewest wives among the brothers. Of his three known brides, none are related to him. Of Jesse's six known wives, there are three half-sisters and two nieces, including a civil wedding in Elko, Nev., to his half-sister Janice Vesta Johnson.
The middle sibling is David Kingston, 33, a bookish accountant who was purportedly married to 15 women at last count. Among his brides are one half-sister and three nieces, including the 16-year-old who ran away and reported him to police.
The youngest sibling is Jason Kingston, 24, who married his niece in a civil ceremony in Elko, Nev., according to court documents. His first wife, Andrea Johnson, who also was his half-sister, died in 1992. Jason is said to have five wives now.
California: Sierra Dunes Casino in Lake Elsinore
Idaho: Crop farm in Tetonia
Utah:
Box Elder County: Washakie Salers Ranch and 12,000 acres of land, Market value $2.5 million.
Carbon and Emery Counties: 16,500 acres including the mining town of Hiawatha. Market value $21 million. Co-Op Mine (yearly taxable revenue $1 million.
Davis County: 46 parcels of property; dairy, homes, offices and lots. Market value $6.7 million.
Tooele County: 22,000 acres. Market value $500,000.
Utah County: Two commercial parcels. Market value $195,000.
Weber County: Commercial property. Market value $591,000.
140 parcels of property, including commercial buildings, offices, homes and lots. Market value $41 million. Clan operated business include:
AAA Security (alarm installation), Salt Lake City
A1 Disposal (garbage pickup), Salt Lake City
Advanced Copy, Taylorsville
American Digital Service, Salt Lake City
Best Distributing Amusement Games, West Valley City
East Side Market, Salt Lake City
Ensign Shoe Company, Salt Lake City
Family Stores - True Value Hardware, Taylorsville
Fidelity Funding, South Salt Lake
Fountain of Youth spas, Murray
Four Corners Precision manufacturing, Salt Lake City
Little Red School House Montessori, Salt Lake City
Mountain Coin vending machines, Murray
Spiking Tourist Lodge motel, Salt Lake City
Sierra Wholesale (carpeting, furniture), South Salt Lake
Spiffy Ice & Cold Storage, South Salt Lake
Sportsman's Bail Bond Specialists, West Jordan
Sportsman's Pawnshop, Murray
Star Distribution company, South Salt Lake
Standard Restaurant Equipment, South Salt Lake
Studio West salon and photography, West Valley City
Union Gap clothing store, South Salt Lake
Valley Coal Co., South Salt Lake
Page Modified April 26, 1999