In 1982, the LDS Church excommunicated Dan for trying to take his 14-year-old stepdaughter as a second wife. Dan told his brothers they were the true leaders of God's church, and they believed him — letting their beards and hair grow long like Biblical prophets. The six boys were now spending more time with their brothers — railing against the LDS Church and the U.S. government — than they were with their own wives and children.

When Ron's wife refused to practice polygamy and left him, he began a steady descent into madness. He spent his days and nights in an old Orem home the brothers called "the farm," writing what he believed would one day be read as scripture.

His anguish at his wife's departure morphed into rage, and he channelled it at three people: Chloe Low, a former LDS Relief Society president who had supported his wife during the divorce; Richard Stowe, the Highland LDS Stake president who had presided over his excommunication; and Brenda Wright Lafferty, the strong-willed wife of his youngest brother Allen.

Brenda was different than the rest of the women his brothers had married. A former beauty queen and a college graduate, she had a confidence that allowed her to speak up when others were quiet. She didn't believe Ron or Dan were prophets, and she let them know it. When Brenda stopped Allen from joining a group called School of the Prophets with his brothers, Ron's fury grew. First she had driven away his wife, now she was splitting up the brothers.

In March 1984, Ron recorded on a yellow legal pad what would come to be known as "the removal revelation." He later shared it with the School of the Prophets, to the alarm of its members.

"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. In a battered green station wagon, they drove to Allen and Brenda's American Fork duplex, carrying with them a sawed-off shotgun, a .30-30 Winchester, a .270 deer rifle and two pearl-handled knives. They would use only the knives.

A madman's monastery

Today, Dan Lafferty spends his days in the maximum security wing of the Utah State Prison. His skin is pale, almost translucent, which is to be expected of a man who has spent the past 19 years in prison. Small pink bags sag beneath his sunken eyes.