ERVIL'S FOLLOWERS MURDER ROUTINELY IN 20 YEARS, 18 EX-ASSOCIATES HAVE BEEN SLAIN OR REPORTED MISSING

Murder is nothing new to one-time followers of the late polygamist and self-proclaimed prophet Ervil LeBaron - a man who routinely used murder as a tool of religious persuasion.

Counting the four murders in Texas on Monday of people whose families had once been intimately tied to LeBaron, at least 18 one-time followers of LeBaron have been killed or have mysteriously disappeared in the past 20 years.LeBaron's followers have been blamed for the murder of at least five additional outsiders, including three self-proclaimed prophets who were rivals of LeBaron.

Lawmen say they expect even more killing in the future. To understand why, the following is a list of murders and disappearances of LeBaron followers:

MAURO GUTTIEREZ, Jan. 1, 1966 - The first case of violence befalling an associate of LeBaron occurred when Guttierez, a missionary for a church then headed by Joel LeBaron with assistance by his brother Ervil, was shot 15 times by ambushers outside a bar in Babicora, Mexico.

Time magazine reported that residents said the shooting likely resulted from local contempt of Guttierez's polygamist lifestyle.

However, Bill Tucker, an official at that time of the LeBarons' Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times, was quoted as saying hired assassins shot Guttierez because he was too successful in converting local residents to the LeBarons' church.

JOHN BUTCHEREIT, October 1966 - The 60-year-old member of the LeBarons' church was shot to death at his shack on the outskirts of Colonia LeBaron, Mexico. He had openly criticized both Joel and Ervil LeBaron and had reportedly been contemptuous of native Mexicans in the area.

The murder was never officially solved, and several theories surfaced about it at the time. One was that the fiance of a Mexican secretary that Butchereit had just hired had become jealous and shot him. Others say the fiance shot him out of spite after Butchereit refused to let him borrow his car.

JOEL LEBARON, Aug. 20, 1972 - After a bitter religious split with his brother Ervil, Joel was shot to death in Ensenada, Mexico. His then-14-year-old son Ivan later testified that he saw Daniel Ben Jordan and Gamaliel Rios, followers of Ervil, flee from the house after the shooting.

Ivan said he was outside and heard someone yell, "Kill him!" Two shots were fired, one hitting Joel in the throat and the other in the brain. The two assailants then ran from the house, but Jordan slowed down when he saw a crowd gathering and coolly strode to his nearby station wagon and drove away, according to the book "Prophet of Blood," by Ben Bradlee Jr. and Dale Van Atta.