Investigative Journalist Scott Anderson, Author of The 4 O’clock Murders

Scott Anderson’s “The 4 O’clock Murders,” published in 1993, is a must-read for those interested in a documentary of America’s most bizarre but now apparently defunct crime family. The Doc chronicles the history of this extremist cult initiated in the late 1960s by the sociopathic serial killer, Ervil LeBaron. (He was my uncle, no less.)

The cult was largely made up of Uncle Ervil’s fourteen wives and about sixty children, plus a few other staunch followers and their wives and children. He called his cult organization the “Church of the Lamb of God.” But it was, in reality, anything but lamb-like. Ervil LeBaron’s cult was a fundamentalist Mormon, mafioso, syndicated crime family cloaked under the guise of religion.

Anderson’s text is the most up-to-date book on this cult. Thanks to his dedicated and daring work, we have an amazing wealth of information and insight to further our research, awareness, and understanding of “Evil Ervil,” and his avenging angels.

I’ve been told the “Ervilites” no longer exist. But that’s not to say another extremist cult of “avenging angel’s” couldn’t/hasn’t arisen from its ashes to take up where the “Ervilites” left off. You are with me in hoping that isn’t the case/never happens.

Recently, I read Scott Anderson’s “The 4 O’clock Murders,” only to have my hair raise when I realized how little I had known about this horrific, dangerous, devious band of outlaws.

I’m not proud to say most of them were my relatives. And that it was all spawned by my charismatic and brilliant, but lunatic Uncle Ervil and his treacherous teachings — that included hearing God regularly tell him to “Kill those sons of bitches!”

But maniacal Mormon-Manson “ErVile” couldn’t have succeeded in his reign of terror without the dastardly group of miscreant, autistic-like, demented people who followed his megalomaniac, malevolent religious philosophy.

The majority of Uncle Joel LeBaron’s Church of the Firstborn followers couldn’t stomach his brother Ervil LeBaron’s violent, threatening, far-fetched Philosophy of life. Nor did they want anything to do with his domineering, devious, deceptive ways.

Ervil’s overbearing, self-centered, presumptuous, pseudo-authoritative sense-of-entitlement was hard for most to take — not to mention his nonstop talk, wayward religious doctrines, bad manners, and bad breath.

Uncle Ervil’s priestcraft and manipulations drove some of peaceful Uncle Joel’s followers into frenzied frustration, rebellion, and disillusionment — such that they left Joel’s cult Uncle Ervil had a large role in helping Joel build.

In other words, most of Uncle Joel LeBaron’s followers (myself included) wouldn’t leave Joel’s sect to join the violent renegade, retrograde cult Ervil LeBaron started. (Ervil initiated it after Joel excommunicated him from the “Church of the First Born,” a Mormon-offshoot cult.)

Therefore, you have to wonder about the adults who did choose to follow Uncle Ervil, hook, line, and sinker/stinker (Pun intended) — and even to murder for him!

 In 1967, at age twenty-one, I escaped Uncle Joel LeBaron’s cult — just as Uncle Ervil, his right-hand man and brother, was beginning to preach his own violent, subversive civil-law and blood-atonement doctrine, along with all its mafioso underpinnings.

A few years after I fled “The Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times,” Uncle Joel, as I mentioned above, finally disfellowshipped his brother Ervil from his “church,” due to, among other things, Ervil’s insurrection, insubordination, self-aggrandizement, and blood-atonement philosophy.

You must read the following books: “The 4 O’Clock Murders,” “Prophet of Blood,” and recently-deceased Irene LeBaron/Spencer’s book, “Cult Insanity,“ to know what I’m talking about — if you aren’t already familiar with the LeBaron-Madmen story.

I wish there were an update of this bloody LeBaron Documentary, “The Four O’clock Murders.” Written over twenty-five years ago, much has taken place among the Ervilites, LeBarons, and Joel’s cult since Scott Anderson went out on a limb, putting his life on the line, to chronicle and publish this incredulous history of a vengeful crime family that makes Manson and his “family” seem tame in comparison.

 I’m grateful Anderson scribed this well-written Doc. Without his honesty and dedication, the world would never have known the extent to which this bloody, Satanic, ill-begotten cult was willing to go — although we do have the earlier and equally well-written and researched documentary, “The Prophet of Blood,“ penned and published in 1981 by Ben Bradlee, Jr. and Dale Van Atta.

These Documentaries may not always be right-on-the-button. But they’re close enough to “Who’s got the button?” The Authors did well, given the difficulty involved in obtaining information. Even ex-cult members usually don’t talk — especially to outsiders. If bits of Info were circumspect, blame the cult members they interviewed!

That said, “The Prophet of Blood,” is a recommended read. It contains historical data not in “The 4 O’clock Murders.”

Scott Anderson’s Documentary published twelve years later, chronicles updated history of the bloody and loony legacy spawned by the maniacal “prophet,” Ervil LeBaron. It’s a pathetic legacy of a “Prophet out for Profit” … out of his mind.