In January, a Utah man murdered his wife, mother-in-law and five children, before killing himself. The tragedy has surfaced a conversation among Mormon women about power and safety in the LDS church. (OnPointRadio)
MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: In a span of just four days this month, three different men in three states shot to death their entire families. On January 7th in High Point, North Carolina, officers discovered four bodies in a home. Police Captain Matt Truitt said a 45-year-old man killed his wife and three children, ages 18, 16 and ten. And then he killed himself.
Three family murder suicides in just four days. Men gunning down their entire families. So the deadly threat of domestic violence is as real and as widespread as ever. And it touches every community in this country. This is On Point. I'm Meghna Chakrabarti. And today we are going to take some time to focus on the tragedy in Enoch, Utah, specifically because it surfaced a difficult conversation within that community itself, specifically within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
CONLEY: Yeah, well, because of my work, I do hear from a lot of women in the Mormon community, and when I started writing and talking about this atrocity, I had the privilege to hear from many, many women from Enoch and the surrounding community. Many of them are women who still attend the LDS Church. They described a close-knit community that has always been conservative but has become increasingly conservative with the strain of conservatism that a lot of people call Trumpism.
CHAKRABARTI: That's exactly why we wanted to start the show this way, because it's never just sort of one thing that happens to one community at one time and we can find reason ABCD and say, Well, it'll only happen over there. We wanted to acknowledge that right at the top.
So a bishop, which is kind of like, you know, a priest or a reverend within the LDS church, that role can only be fulfilled by a man. And there's a hierarchical structure that, you know, goes from the bishop all the way up through other layers of authority and leadership, all the way to the top, to the president of the LDS Church, the prophet. Those are all men. Women can hold what LDS people call callings within the church. It's a volunteer only organization.
But my concern particularly is that bishops receive very little or too little training in how to deal with allegations of domestic violence or of sexual assault or child abuse. I think that things are, I hope, anyway, moving in a more positive direction in the church. But in the past, the essential answer from members of the church has been, well, that could never happen here.
KELLY: I think that depends on the particular family. And in this particular example, one of the things that is significant is that the daughter was coming forward and talking about strangulation. We all know in the criminal justice system, we all know that strangulation is a red flag for future homicide. And so when those kinds of statements are being made, we need to pay attention.
And I was able to see how even with the best-intentioned bishop, that power structure was ultimately harmful, not just to the women and children in the ward, but to the men. Two men deserve to be in an organization where women are equally empowered. I keep thinking about how we're talking about ... the bishops don't know how to solve these problems.
A bishop in the Mormon world is not just trying to preserve a marriage for this life, but potentially a marriage, sealing a family, sealing for eternity and for generations to come. CHAKRABARTI: So, Donna Kelly, I'd love to hear from you about how the structure of the LDS church, the priesthood, which is not like the priesthood of the Catholic Church, let's say. ... What happens when we're crossing over from, you know, internal sort of church community issues to things that cross over into the legal system?
KELLY: So that is a very discouraging thing for us in the legal system. I have a rough estimate of cases that I've handled, and over the 32 years and probably about 3,000 victims that I've worked with. And it was not unusual to see bishops speak for perpetrators, to have them come into court or to have them write letters of support and so forth, try to seek the release of a defendant, for example, or try to influence the sentencing of the defendant.
KELLY: Yes, that's correct, sadly so. And once I was on the Sex Crimes Task Force in Utah County for a number of years, and we had church lawyers come and speak to the group, and they said, well, of course, that's what we do. We're in the business of saving souls. And so we are concerned about his soul being saved. But what they discount is the damage that they do to victims.CHAKRABARTI: Donna ...
Families can be together forever through Heavenly Father's plan. I always want to be with my own family, and the Lord has shown me how I can. CHAKRABARTI: In that same speech, Hinckley talked about domestic abuse, and he called it disgusting and tragic. RIESS: Yes. And I'm glad you played that excerpt from President Hinckley. I think that was very important. And for a prophet, Hinckley was the president of the church. Mormons regard as a prophet, to say that woman walked side by side to her husband is important. What we don't get there is an equally strong statement to women saying the equivalent of, If you are being abused, you have rights. You need to stand up. You can tell everyone what's going on.
KELLY: It's really hard to get around to the mind and figure out what the intentions of a perpetrator are. But one of the things that perpetrators want to do is sort of preserve their power and their image and their influence. And that may have been this person's idea of doing that. I don't know. I can't say, but I know that things become much more violent and much more dangerous for a woman when she tries to leave a violent relationship.
And I remember one reporter from Al Jazeera was like, wait, that's it? The Internet is breaking because you, like, politely stood in a line. But that was the case. It was nothing short of revolutionary for Mormon women to confront the hierarchy in that way and be told to leave but refused to go.
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