For our monthly segment on an infamous Utah Criminal, this month we decided to deep dive into the Lafferty Brothers, Dan and Ron.
The brothers grew up in Payson, Utah in a family of six boys and two girls. Their father (Watson Lafferty) was a stern disciplinarian, seething with quiet rage which he directed towards his wife and pets. After one particularly ugly spat with his wife he beat the family dog to death with a baseball bat.
Watson planted the seeds of paranoia, rebellion and fanaticism into his children. He thought his boys to distrust conventional medicine as well as the federal government. He also took his religious beliefs to the extreme.
Jumping forward to adulthood, Ron is excommunicated from the LDS church for wanting to marry his 14-year-old stepdaughter and begin the practice of polygamy. Ron’s wife not only refuses to allow the marriage, and practice in polygamy, but she leaves him. This set of circumstances opens a new rage in Ron. He channeled this newfound rage on three people. Chloe Low, a former LDS Relief Society President who helped his wife during the divorce; Richard Stow, the LDS Steak President who presided over his excommunication; and Brenda Wright Lafferty, the strong-willed wife of his youngest brother Allen.
In March 1984, Ron records a so-called message from god know as “The Removal Revelation”. He later shared it in is newly found School of the Prophet.
“Thus saith the Lord unto my servants the prophets,” Ron wrote. “It is my will and commandment that ye remove the following individuals in order that my work might go forward. For they have truly become obstacles in my path and I will not allow my work to be stopped. First thy brother’s wife Brenda and her baby, then Chloe Low and then Richard Stowe. And it is my will that they be removed in rapid succession.”
On the afternoon of July 24, 1984 Ron, 42, and Dan, 36, set out to fulfill the revelation. They first drove to Allen and Brenda’s duplex and in a gruesome act they wrapped a vacuum cord around Brenda’ s neck and slit her throat. They then slit the throat of her 15-month-old baby. The other two intended victims were not accessible so the brothers drove on to Wendover, Nevada and were arrested in an all you can eat buffet line.
Fast forward to August 13th 2019 A federal appeals court denied Ron Lafferty’s latest appeal putting him closer to the firing squad. Lafferty, now 78, can appeal the latest decision to the U.S. Supreme Court however it is highly unlikely that they will review his case. If they refuse it should only be a matter of months before his execution.
Music By: Folk Hogan; Bootleggers Dance