Kriti Mehrotra
With Hulu’s ‘Daughters of the Cult’ exploring the tale of polygamous fundamentalist group leader Ervil LeBaron through the eyes of those who were there, we honestly get a docuseries unlike any other. After all, it comprises not just exclusive interviews but also archival footage to really shine a light upon the way a single man affected hundreds and hundreds of lives over at least two generations. Amongst them is actually that of his own son, Hyrum LeBaron — the one to have unwittingly opened the door for the Mexican Federales at the age of 6 while they were on the hunt for Ervil.
Who is Hyrum LeBaron?
Although born to self-proclaimed prophet Ervil LeBaron and one of his 14 wives, Anna Mae Marston, back in the early 1970s before being raised within the sect itself, Hyrum admittedly never believed. He thus often questioned why he was taught to live in awe of his father as God’s true prophet or why he and his siblings were considered “celestial children” yet still treated horrifically, leading to trouble. “We were trained to obey and demanded to obey,” he candidly said in the aforementioned original before adding, “I got beaten a lot because I didn’t;” he didn’t conform to the doctrine at all.
However, Hyrum didn’t rebel either — he merely challenged a lot of the church’s methods while sticking with family considering he was a young boy and the siblings were a tight-knit group. He’s one of over 50 (half plus full combined), yet he spent his early years just traversing along US-Mexico with only 20 alongside three sister wives, unaware they were actually on the run from the law. That’s because several members of their Church of the First Born of the Lamb of God, including Ervil himself, were wanted by the FBI on charges of murder, conspiracy, as well as much more.
It hence comes as no surprise the LeBarons constantly moved from one place to another in the middle of the night or had their residences raided, only for one of them to genuinely impact Hyrum. He was 6 in 1978 when he heard loud banging on the front door of the Mexico home they’d been living in for roughly half a year, just for him to mistakenly open it in his groggy evening state. It was the Federales, and they rushed in: “All the children were herded into a back room,” he revealed in the production. “Eventually, they gathered up the adults and it was pure chaos. I saw them interrogating Rena [Chynoweth]. They had a light on her, asking her questions.”
Hyrum continued, “I remember they were mad, animated, and like, ‘ahh.’ At one point, they backhanded her. I mean hard, to where she fell back, obviously in pain.” He later added, “This was the first time I had been in a house when it was raided… the memory of me opening that door just haunted me for years and years. In my child brain, I extrapolated I was responsible. This one’s a tough one [to recall because they were pretty brutal].” Nevertheless, the truth is people captured here on that fateful day soon attained freedom, including Ervil’s right-hand man, Daniel “Dan” Jordan, who was particularly brutal to the LeBaron kids plus frequently had them as forced labor in his appliance store in Denver, Colorado.
Hyrum LeBaron is Still Thriving Today
Since Hyrum never deviated from his family, he seemingly spent most of his adolescence in Denver as Dan had managed to lure his mother back with claims of him being Prophet following Ervil’s death in prison in 1981. Therefore, it wasn’t until shortly after this so-called leader was reportedly assassinated at the hands of Ervil’s named successor turned cult hitman William Heber LeBaron in 1987 that the then-16-year-old got out of their establishment for good. He then eventually contacted those of his siblings who’d already previously deviated, only for them to reconnect and gladly help him adjust to the real world in the ways that mattered in the long run.
Coming to Hyrum’s current standing, it appears as if the early 50-something-year-old atheist is a proud Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Platoon Sergeant based out of Caret, Virginia, at the moment. From what we can tell, he’d actually joined the army as an EOD Technician back in 2008, following which he has gradually risen up the ranks and even earned a Management degree from the American Military University. We should mention he ostensibly also serves as a Tactical as well as Technical Exploitation Course Instructor for newcomers in the military these days.
Read More: Where is Celia LeBaron Now?
