My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 369 - Blizzard Hotline

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

On today’s episode, Karen covers the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre and Georgia tells the story of the murder of Nicole van den Hurk.For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is actually happening is a podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who live them. In a special five-part series called Point Blank, this is actually happening sheds a light on the forgotten spree killings of Rancho Tejama. So this is actually happening wherever you get your podcasts. Hello. And welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hardstark.

That's Karen Kylgith. It's a brand new week. Are you ready for this? Can you even handle the excitement? Can you believe it's snowing in Los Angeles? Hell has frozen over officially and finally. LA is hell? I'm stoked.

I love the fucking this rainy weather. I know everyone hates it. I love rainy days. It's the best. So into it. I got a cat on my lap. I got wets on, what word does one need in life? It's a cup of soup, you know, an excuse to cancel.

It's all those things that LA doesn't normally, we have to really, we have to really work on our lies to cancel here, whereas when like a nice storm front moves in, it's like bye, we've got, we can't be a part of the best goodbye. No one's leaving the house if they don't have to trust. I actually had exciting news. I had a little bit of a flood at the, basically in my garage door, there was a drain that wasn't draining. So there was like two feet of water, like I was actually bailing with a bucket in my

driveway. It's a catastrophe. It's suddenly like you're living in the Midwest somewhere and actually dealing with the weather. Real weather. Yes. I was like, this is nuts. Do you know what I can't handle and like, I just can't even imagine, but it's like scraping

your window, your car windows in the morning. What is that like? Also, if you're scraping your windows for ice, that probably means that somebody had to shovel the driveway. That's right. That's right. We've never, I've never experienced that. I hear it from Vince all the time and I never want to experience that.

I mean, cause you're already kind of bummed that you have to go to work. Right. And then suddenly the weather is like, yeah, well let's make this 10 times harder for you. Let's make you sweat before you go to work in the morning. How about that? Say you're a receptionist. So you have to wear like a presentable outfit, your front facing, your client facing. So you go shovel snow or like do all that shit.

And then what? Do you wear big snow boots and like a big coat so nothing gets on your outfit? You must, right? If you're an outfit based, say retailer. Yeah. Let me, let us know in the, on the comments, what, what? On the blizzard board. Tell us the worst part about blizzards.

Call into the blizzard hotline and let us know what weather is like because my one experience with, you know, there was an inch of water in my garage and I was just, I felt bewildered alone. It was horrifying. Did you feel a little like outdoorsy to a little like, I got, I could get things done on my own. You know what? Yes.

That's how I started. I tried to bail water for like 15 minutes and then I was like, this isn't going anywhere and it's starting to rain. So this is sad and like, it almost seems like some sort of a ASOPs fable about like bailing water in the rain. But then I said to my, of course, was talking to my sister on the phone and was like, there's a great, but nothing's draining. Maybe I should try to like unscrew the grate and take it up and see, and my sister goes,

stop pretending you can solve this and call someone who, and I was like, oh yeah. There's people. There's people out there. There's people out there to do that for you. Amen to them. Let the professionals come and take care of actual problems. That's what you're supposed to do. What else is going on with you?

I just have this Alejandra, our producer Alejandra pulled this message off of social media for me. So I told the story. It was a Tennessee Marion County John Doe story of the murder of Donald Boardman and the investigator for that case is a man named Larry Davis who worked in the DA's office. This message said, hello, I'm Larry Davis's daughter. Thank you so much for featuring him and his case on your podcast. He has devoted his entire life to solving cases like these, and you don't know how special

it is to see his work recognized. My only edit, he didn't stay with the DA's office for his entire career. In the late 80s, he went to work for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation as a special agent specializing in death investigation. He spent 25 years with the TBI until his mandatory retirement at 60, at which time he went back to the DA's office for the remainder of his career. And he retired from there last year. We appreciate this so much.

And that's from Katie D. Skelly, also known as Larry Davis's daughter. Cool. That's lovely. I love that. I'm very excited to hear about Stevens Weekend trip to New York and the On Air Fest where we had a little, I don't know, an installment. We had the pod loft was recreated for us. Like perfectly.

Beautifully. Yes. Because there was ever proof for the matrix, it was that moment, we're stepping into this simulation. This immersive experience where George's apartment was perfectly recreated down to the great Erin Lee Browner, social media manager, really knocked it out of the park, just setting it all up. And it was such a wonderful experience this weekend.

It looks so cool. We had the puzzle, our puzzle laid out, all the fan art on the walls, it was, and that's all been in storage because we haven't had an office in so long because of COVID, obviously. So it was so cool to like bring that out, dust it off and like look at how much beautiful fan art we have. And then of course, Stevens there in person, where's there to meet and greet people like here, it's me and the pod loft. It was just a fun hang.

We were all kind of just watching the Nick Terry videos and it was really just really cool to hear so many murdering us tell their stories, you know, people going back to school for this, you know, my family related to this story, all that kind of stuff. It was just really sweet and everyone was really nice and it was very on air fest was just so great. They just really made it such a cool, fun experience getting back out there. I love it. That's so great.

Thank you to everyone who came out and showed up and maybe made friends and had fun. So cool. Yeah. Love it. And thanks for going, Steven. Oh man, it was the best. Thank you so much. Being our ambassador.

Steven repped. Steven repped in a serious way. Yeah. New York City, where it was warmer than Los Angeles. Oh my God. So cool. Yeah. Let's talk about some business.

Let's do exactly right corner where we tell you about our network, exactly right media and the things going on in the world of exactly right media. Oh, well, let's see. This season seven finale of 10 fold more wicked with Kate Winkler Dawson is happening this week. She'll be back with season eight soon. That will be called the morphine murderous. That's a little teaser for season eight of 10 fold more wicked.

Hell yeah. And then, oh my God, amazing comedian Wyatt Sinek, who you may know from The Daily Show or his many standup specials, is Michelle Bouteau and Jordan Carlos' guest on Adelting this week. He is such a gem. I'm so excited to listen to that. And then over on Do You Need A Ride, Kristen Caron. Are joined by Jimmy Pardo, the greatest standup comic of all time.

Also the host of the hilarious podcast, Never Not Funny. One of the original podcasts that we discuss on our podcast about how his podcast was one of the OGs. Yeah. Did the word podcast even exist in the back then? He started in 2006. That's wild. 10 years before us.

That's so wild. And then a tried and true merch classic is available now in the MFM store. Go check out all of the, this is terrible, keep going items that your little heart desires. I know the mug is really popular. So get yours now while they're still in stock at myfavoritmurder.com. Jill Evans has it all. A big house, fast car and a great career as a decorated police sergeant in Wales. But when it comes to love, she can never seem to get things right.

And after multiple failed engagements, Jill's starting to think it's never going to happen for her. That is until she connects online with a charming, handsome, successful man named Dean Jenkins. From the outside, there may be some red flags, but Jill doesn't care. He is the one. And just six months in, Jill finds out she is pregnant and they make plans to spend the rest of their lives together. But the night after Halloween, Jill receives a shocking text that will change everything.

And what she reads threatens to take away her dreams of happiness, her career, and maybe even her freedom. Wondering a novel's new podcast, Stolen Hearts, tells the intricate love story of Jill and Dean and how opposites really do attract. Will Stolen Hearts on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts? And hey, Prime members, you can binge the entire series ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Goodbye.

So I think I go first this week. Yeah, cool. And I have a true crime story for you. All right. And it's not good. Uh-oh. Pretty upsetting, actually. And this was suggested to me by the host of I Said No Gifts, Bridger Weininger.

Love him. Right? And Bridger grew up in Utah, and Bridger was raised as Mormon. And he's the person that suggested this story to me. So thank you, Bridger. It's pretty unbelievable. I'd never heard it. And just as a kind of a warning, there's a lot of horrible violence in this, obviously,

as it is in every episode. And racism against Native Americans, there's the antiquated term Indians that people referred to Native Americans as back then, all of the usual stuff like that. So just that's something going in to be made aware of. OK, so the main sources that Marin used for the story today are the book Blood of the Prophets by Will Bagley, the book Massacre at Mountain Meadows by Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley, Jr., and Glenn M. Leonard, the famous trials website run by law professor Douglas O. Linder, and a 2003 New York Times article titled The Great Utah Mystery by David

Howard Bain. And then you can find the rest of those sources in our show notes. So this is the story of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. So I'm going to set the scene. It's the early 19th century in the United States. Very dangerous time in our history, but really, when hasn't been compared to really any other time? Right.

Across this nation, violence is pervasive, crime rates are high. In many places, militias made up of ordinary citizens act as de facto law enforcement. You know, it's the Wild West, right? Yeah. And ironically, this is also an extremely religious time in the United States. It's the era of the second, they call it the second great awakening, when many Americans feel newly enthusiastic about Protestantism and are going to church in droves. And all of this is the backdrop for the birth of Mormonism.

And so in 1830, the Church of Latter-day Saints, and from here on out, I'll call it just the LDS or the LDS Church in this story, it's officially established in New York State by a charismatic 24-year-old named Joseph Smith. Before long, thousands of people have joined this church. Can you imagine believing a 24-year-old about what they have to say about religion? About anything. Oh my God. About anything.

I saw the greatest TikTok, and it was about how when you're like in your early 20s, they call that phase of everyone's life is when you're loud and wrong. And it made me laugh so hard. And it's so true. It is so fucking true, personally and with everyone else. It's so true. Yes. And it's just the phase you go through where you're finally, you're an adult, you think

you're confident, you finally kind of know who you are and you want to start telling people what's what. And you're not usually right about that. So sorry. They're all so furious right now, can you imagine? Our listeners who are all 24. How fucking dare you when you can't even get the name of a state right? So almost immediately, there are Americans who do not like Mormonism, because that's

what Americans do. They don't like other people all the time. In some cases, people are worried Mormons will move into their area, buy up all the land, open competing businesses, and quote, take over the local government. But a lot of the outrage is about the certain ideals within the LDS church, as Dr. Douglas O. Linder writes on his website, Famous Trials, Mormonism today has quote, gone mainstream and abandoned its most controversial practices. But back in the 1800s, the LDS church endorses polygamy, theocracy, and its leaders preach

that all other Christian denominations are illegitimate. So as a result, many non-Mormons consider the LDS church to be a blasphemous and sinful cult. So it's church v. church. Got it. My God's better than your God. Right. It's the standard story.

Yeah. So by the mid 1830s, groups have formed around the United States who are aggressively anti-Mormon. In 1832, an Ohio mob kidnaps Joseph Smith and another church leader named Sidney Rigdon and tires and feathers them. I should not be laughing when I say that. I was laughing at the name Sidney Rigdon, which is a difficult name to say, although kind of fun. Sidney Rigdon.

Tart and feathered. Tart and feathered with Joseph Smith. And actually, Joseph Smith is left with lifelong injuries because of this attack. Yeah. That doesn't seem fun. It's horrifying. Then in Jackson County, Missouri, where church leaders are hoping to establish LDS headquarters, they face more resistance and persecution.

Non-Mormons living in the county do not want the church moving in, and they even go so far as to write a formal manifesto saying that they are, quote, determined to rid our society of Mormons, peaceable if we can, forcibly if we must, end quote. This is how people are doing business in this era. And so they do use force. Some Mormons have their homes burned down. Some of their crops are destroyed, they're harassed, they're assaulted. In some cases, they're killed.

But Joseph Smith is not a pacifist. Neither are the LDS church leaders. So like Sidney Rigdon, who preaches, quote, we take God and all the holy angels to witness this day that the mob that comes to disturb us, it shall be between us and them a war of extermination, for we will follow them till the last drop of their blood is spilled, or else they will have to terminate us, end quote. And God said, that's fine. And Jesus was like, hey guys, real quick, when I was here, this is not what I was doing

at all, at all, not my jam. Yeah, not a fan of manifestos, everyone. Jesus said, Jesus, hey guys, Jesus was like, that was more my dad's thing of writing stuff down and being really enraged. I was about peace and stuff, helping. Okay, so nearly 8,000 Mormons are pushed out of the area and into nearby Illinois, where they establish a city called Nauvoo, which sounds like it's from, I just blanked on the name.

Avatar? Thank you. Wow, we are in sync. Thank you. Holy shit. How did I know that? You know what, I just let it sit there, so you could come and pick it up, I appreciate it.

Thank you. So finally, things are peaceful in Nauvoo, James Cameron's Nauvoo, and the community begins to grow, and it's reported that at the time, this city is nearly the size of Chicago. Wow. But it only takes a few years for the LDS church to once again fall out of favor with its neighbors, and the rift hits a peak in 1844, when now 38-year-old Joseph Smith and his brother are murdered by a local mob.

Oh, fuck. Yes. So of course, the death of Smith, who the Mormon religion believes to be a prophet, I told the story of him establishing that religion, remember, he finds the golden glasses buried beneath the tree. So he's a prophet. So this, of course, shakes the LDS church to its core, and to add to that grief, the people responsible for the murder are cleared of any wrongdoing in court and set free.

So after Joseph Smith's murder, a high-ranking church official named Brigham Young takes over, and Young has been described as confounding, paradoxical, and depending on the source, either a quote, a scoundrel or a hero. So what's certain is that Young clearly has a vision for the church. He wants to bring it out to an area that's currently at the time owned by Mexico called the Salt Lake Valley, what is now modern-day Utah. And at the time, the valley is known as a fertile area with lots of farming opportunities, and it's also surrounded by mountains.

And both of these things are a huge draw for Young, who thinks most of the church's problems will be solved if they can just get away from American society and settle somewhere and just be self-sufficient and just get to be kind of separate and away from everybody. Write their manifestos, marry a bunch of women, multiple wives, yell at the sky, whatever they feel like doing privately. In 1846, the LDS church begins its long trek to the Utah territory. Of course, this move doesn't solve all the church's problems. By the 1850s, Mormonism is in a slump.

Reagan Young is said to have felt a growing sense of, quote, spiritual lethargy within the church. And some of this is because of the external issues life in the Utah territory is grueling at the best of times, but in the mid-1850s, there's rough weather and a long drought, which almost leads to famine. So the day-to-day in Utah is so tough that some Mormons leave the area and the church along with it. But what's stressing the LDS out the most is the US government.

It's recently claimed the Utah territory from Mexico. So by the mid-1850s, there's genuine and reasonable fear that President Buchanan will declare war on the LDS church, send troops into Mormon communities, and seize control of the territory. So up until this point, Brigham Young has been working on a relationship with the US government. They govern the Utah territory like a theocracy, acting as both, quote, king and priest. But now as the US continues to expand westward and the national anti-LDS sentiment is simmering to a boil, Brigham Young's dreams of Mormon utopia feel like they're slipping away.

So with Mormon enthusiasm low and pressures from the US government high, Brigham Young sees that something has to change. And this begins the origin story for the Mormon Reformation. So basically to stoke enthusiasm within the church, Brigham Young and other LDS leaders take on a more emotional, violent, and fiery and brimstone tone. Young preaches that, quote, there are sins that men commit for which they cannot receive forgiveness in the world or in that which is to come. And if they had opened their eyes to see their true condition, they would be perfectly willing

to have their blood spilt upon the ground that the smoke thereof might ascend to heaven as an offering for their sins. Casual. Just low key, hang out, kind of like a youth group vibe, essentially, and this is the thing that always gets me, is that Young is basically starting to change God's word, where generalized Christianity is like, you can be forgiven for your sins. That's what Jesus died for. That's the belief system.

And this guy's like, you know what? That's not true. Yeah. I'm from New Jersey, and I say this is not the case. I made up this part, so you have to believe it. Yeah, exactly. Go with me on this. So essentially with this message, Young is saying some people are so irredeemable they

deserve to die, uplifting on a Sunday. So obviously, we're moving into religious extremism here, but this type of us and them rhetoric works on humans, as we've seen for the past seven years. And it absolutely reinvigorates Mormonism. The Reformation reignites people's interest, passion, and faith, but it comes at a cost. It's said during that period that Utah Territory has gangs of young Mormons who start using these intimidation tactics against their fellow church members that they consider, quote, of weak faith.

So of course, it all gets very extreme, and then it's like some people deserve to die, and if you're not giving your most to the church, we've heard this story a million times. The New York Times reports that some defectors from the church are tracked down and killed. And along with this, this feelings of ill will that Mormons in Utah have toward non-Mormon Americans begins to grow. And then in the middle of this fiery Reformation period, LDS church leaders learn that a 50-year-old apostle, as they refer to them, named Parley P. Pratt. And Parley P. Pratt, right, it just gets better.

Parley P. Pratt is Mitt Romney's great-great-grandfather. What? Yes. Oh, boy. Legendary. Parley is murdered. So it turns out in 1857, Pratt is serving as a missionary in Arkansas where he takes his 12th wife.

Jesus. The problem is, she's already legally married to someone else, and her husband shoots Pratt to death, and he's not Mormon, and after this murder, he is not convicted. So it's much like Joseph Smith's murder. So even though Pratt's death is more about revenge for adultery than religious persecution, the LDS leaders spin this murder to say Pratt died a religious martyr and was killed because of his faith. So now the already inflamed Mormons become even more fearful and more filled with rage.

The LDS prepares for a full-on war. In August of 1857, Brigham Young calls on Utah's Mormon communities to create militias of their own to protect against a possible invasion by the U.S. Army. The church beefs up its alliance with the local Paiute tribe, who, like the LDS, wants to preserve and protect their territory, and then Young tells Mormons to quote, not sell a single kernel of grain to any non-Mormon. So this is the 19th century frontier era. Lots of Americans are moving westward in search of land and gold, and most of them are not

Mormon. So for these immigrants, not being able to buy necessities as they pass through the very large territory of Utah is a matter of life and death. And then for good measure, Brigham Young declares the Utah territory independent of the United States, which is essentially flipping the bird to President Buchanan. So things are starting to really royal up. It's a very us versus them out in this territory. Meanwhile, in 1857, there's a bunch of different immigrant groups that are heading west along

multiple routes, but we're going to focus on one specific wagon train made up of around 40 wagons carrying somewhere between 120 and 140 people. And these are basically well-to-do families with lots of children, and they're hauling a lot of money, a collective $50,000 in currency, which is worth nearly $2 million today. Oh my God. Along with that, hundreds of heads of cattle and all their household valuables. And they're all heading to the Los Angeles area from Arkansas. And that's an important detail because Arkansas is where Parley P. Pratt was very recently

murdered. Right. So in July of 1857, the Arkansas immigrants wagon train pulls into Fort Bridger in modern day Wyoming. So from here, they're going to cut through Utah by way of the Salt Lake Valley. And these Arkansas immigrants are likely on the defensive out here because Mormons have their reputation for not liking outsiders, and to be fair, outsiders don't like Mormons. The vibes are bad, but the immigrants are probably not that concerned because for years

people have taken this route from the East to Southern California and have found themselves pleasantly surprised with how nice the Mormons they meet are. In fact, multiple men in this specific wagon train have made this same journey before without incident. At the absolute worst, the travelers might expect to overpay at Mormon outposts for food, water, or other supplies. What no one in this wagon train realizes is that 1857 is not like before. They have no idea that Brigham Young and other church leaders have been giving these fiery

sermons that Mormons are preparing for war or that Parley P. Pratt has been murdered. All that they know is that things feel extremely off when they reach the Utah territory. According to the New York Times, members of this wagon train are, quote, shocked by the hostile reception that they receive in Salt Lake City. The families can't purchase food or other supplies, and so with no other choice, the wagon train has to move on deeper into the southern part of the Utah territory, presumably wanting to get out of the area as soon as possible. So it's important to note that this group is not the only one moving through Utah at

this time, but none of the other immigrant wagon trains are a magnet for Mormon fury quite like these Arkansas families are, because the Mormons in Utah have heard that this wagon train is filled with people from Arkansas, and then rumors start swirling that Parley P. Pratt's killers are traveling with this group. And then the gossip elevates, and some people start claiming that the Arkansas immigrants are carrying the gun that was used to murder Joseph Smith. People will talk. Yeah, that, I mean, doesn't that sound like absolute grapevine style gossip?

Yeah. Also, they're saying that these people are poisoning the springs that provide local people with drinking water, so it's just worst case scenario. None of that, by the way, is ever proven to be true. There's no reputable reports that the people in the Arkansas wagon train are violent, destructive, or confrontational. And as Will Bagley points out in the book, Blood of the Prophets, quote, would men with families act so recklessly and provoke people who were known to be intolerant of outsiders?

So just kind of that, none of these ideas really makes sense, but it is the perfect thing to stoke the fires of us versus them. And many people in the Utah's Mormon communities believe these rumors. They fit into the narrative of impending violence and unwavering persecution that's not only been preached to them, but that has actually happened to them. They're not pulling it out of nowhere. So meanwhile, as the Arkansas wagon train presses on, their awful reputation begins to proceed them.

Eventually, the wagon train rolls into Cedar City, which is another Mormon settlement that sits in the southwest corner of modern-day Utah. In the 1850s, Cedar City is known for having an extremely religious population, and some of the local church leaders there are described as zealots by other Mormons. Shit. Yeah. That's when you know it's true, right? So they're heading right into basically the eye of the storm.

So these LDS leaders in and around Cedar City are blinded by rage. It's unclear how many people are involved here, but multiple authority figures in southern Utah's LDS church, militia, and local government gather to discuss the Arkansas wagon train. In this meeting, the district's top militia leader tells them all to calm down. It's too late for that, though. The group decides that they're going to set a date and a location for an attack on the Arkansas wagon train. So it'll take place just south of the Mountain Meadows Trail where the road dips into a canyon.

This is the idea that Brigham Young and the other leaders have been preaching that some people are so irredeemable they deserve to die. So it's kind of been normalized, this idea of make them pay with their lives. This is where details start to get vague. It's thought that some people want to pause this plan until Brigham Young weighs in on it. The touch with him, of course, is a slow process back then. It takes six days to send messages from where they are in southern Utah up to Salt Lake City,

where Young is. Still, a message is sent that details the situation, although it's described as less than forthcoming. So meanwhile, it's said that a man named John D. Lee, who's a senior member of the local militia, meets with the Paiute officials, who the LDS have been courting to be allies for a while. Lee requests that the Paiutes join the Mormons to help carry out this attack, and one version of the story goes that after some convincing, the Paiutes agree.

But there are historians who believe the Paiutes were never involved in the scheme whatsoever. And of course, we know historically, it's very rare that anyone ever goes and asks Native American leaders what they say happened. So we are always just getting the white historians' version of everything. What we know for sure is that the Arkansas immigrants are completely oblivious to the fact that they're being stalked as they move through the southern Utah territory. On the night of September 5th, they set up camp along the Mountain Meadows Trail. The location that's been selected for this attack is actually still days away.

It's not this where they've stopped. Right now, the group is setting up for the night in a remote area. It's quiet. It's peaceful. There's plenty of grass for their cattle to eat. There's a bubbling spring nearby. The group doesn't even position their wagons in a defensive circle. That's how relaxed they are.

They're just haphazardly grouped around in clumps while the cattle roam freely. So by most accounts, John D. Lee is staked out in the nearby hills watching the immigrants, whether he's accompanied by Paiute men or by local Mormon militia men who've painted their faces to look like Paiutes, is still disputed by historians. But what happens in the early morning hours of September 6th is also not completely clear, but what we know for sure is that the militia group that's hiding in the hills attacks the Arkansas immigrants days ahead of schedule and, according to some LDS sources, before Brigham Young is able to weigh in on the situation.

It seems possible, but it's not confirmed, that Lee might have sensed an opportunity after seeing how unguarded the immigrants were in their resting spot and just decided now is the time to strike. This attack quickly turns into a battle that lasts on and off for four days. It turns out that the Arkansas immigrants are tough, they're heavily armed, and they put up a hell of a fight. After the initial ambush, they move their wagons into a circular formation, and they dig a trench where the women and children hide while the men fire into the hills.

But as successful as they are in fending off the attackers, they're basically trapped. It's really hot outside, this spring that's nearby is close enough so that the immigrants can all hear it, but it isn't within reach, and any time someone tries to run out to it to get to it in this standoff, they get shot at. The wagon train becomes desperate, they're stuck in this stalemate with their attackers, and they're afraid they're going to die of thirst or of exhaustion. So eventually they string a white piece of cloth to a makeshift pole and they wave it over the wagons.

So at this point, the immigrants have only seen men with darker skin attacking them. They're completely unaware that white Mormons are behind the attack, and they're left to assume that their attackers are the local Native Americans. So meanwhile, the word of the attack has made it back to Cedar City, and the church leaders of course are freaking out because this was not the plan. Basically most of the immigrants are still alive. If that's how it ends up, then the Cedar City LDS leaders have a new worry that they basically notice that some of these attackers are actually white, that they are not Native American,

and if that's the case, they could piece together that the Mormon church is involved. The Mormons are already panicked that the U.S. Army is going to swoop in at any moment to attack them. So they know if word gets out that they are attacking wagon trains, a military invasion is basically guaranteed. So according to the book Massacre at Mountain Meadows, quote, the conspirators saw just two chilling options. They could lift the siege and let the immigrants carry the word of the attack to California,

which they feared would unleash aggression on the southern Mormon settlements, or they could leave no immigrants alive who are old enough to, quote, tell tales. So on September 11th, around 60 Mormon militiamen head to the grassy area where the Arkansas immigrants are pinned down, they're carrying a white flag, John D. Lee approaches the wagon train and their own white flag is still waving in the breeze. Lee tells them he's a local Indian agent and has arranged a deal with the Paiutes to allow safe passage of the wagon train. So he's basically just supporting this idea that, oh no, the Paiutes are the ones attacking

you. I'm here to broker a deal with you. So of course the immigrants hear him out because they feel like this is their only way out of there. So Lee tells them there are stipulations. The group has to hand over their weapons, their wagons, and their remaining cattle. Then he tells the immigrants how the militia plans to safely bring them back on the trail. The males in the group will need to separate from the women and children.

Then the men and boys will head the group as they march. They'll be joined side by side by an armed member of the Mormon militia. And meanwhile, the women and children will make up the center of the group. And then the wagons, which carry some of the very small children and the wounded group members from the shooting, they'll bring up the rear. So of course the families are uneasy about all of this. They have no reason to trust Lee, but they're also thirsty, hungry. Some of them are injured, they're exhausted.

They don't see a way out of this situation, so they comply. And at first everything unfolds as promised. They march forward along the path, but just a short distance down the trail, a militia leader calls out orders saying, halt, do your duty. Then the Mormon men pick up their weapons, turn toward the immigrant men and boys, and shoot them point blank. Holy shit. Seconds later, women and children in the center of the group see what they believe are dozens

of Paiute men running towards them from nearby hiding spots. And in the span of four minutes, these men brutally murder all of the women and older children in the group. Oh my God. They're shot by bullets and arrows, they're clubbed, many have their throats slit. In the end, 120 men, women and children are murdered. 120. Holy shit.

120. The deceased are then undressed, their valuables are stolen off their bodies, and their corpses are left, quote, to be picked apart by the wolves and the buzzards. So incredibly 17 people survive this massacre and they're all children under six years old. Oh my God. And they're saved because of their quote, innocent blood. Wow. Yeah.

So a man named John Calvin Miller, who was six years old during the massacre, later testifies that he watched his mother get killed beside him and said, quote, he pulled arrows from her back while she lay dying. A woman named Sarah Frances Baker, who's just three years old at the time, remember sitting on her father, George's lap at the time of the attack. He was one of the wounded who had been loaded into the wagons. And she says, quote, even when you're that young, you don't forget the horror of having your father gasp for breath and grow limp while you have your arms around his neck.

Another survivor named Rebecca Dunlop, who's six years old during the massacre, remembers hiding in a sage bush as she saw her oldest sisters and mother killed in front of her. She eventually leaves her hiding spot to find her infant sister, Sarah, who's wailing in their dead mother's arms. Oh my God. Rebecca and Sarah, like other small children who are spared, are quickly rounded up by militia members and then adopted into local Mormon families. Some are even forced to live with the men who participated in the killings of their

family members. Oh my God. So the most trustworthy testimony we have of this massacre comes from these survivors. But because of their young ages, a lot of the details are murky. But one interesting consistency between their accounts is that the attackers wore makeup. According to Blood of the Prophets, a girl named Martha Elizabeth Baker describes the attackers as, quote, disguised as Indians. They went to the creek and washed paint from their faces.

Another survivor named Christopher Carson Fancher says that, quote, my father was killed by Indians, but when they washed their faces, they were white men. This suggests that at the very least, the orchestrators of this attack used their so-called allies, the Paiutes, to conceal Mormon involvement and blame them for the massacre. And that's exactly what happens. The LDS church immediately throws the Paiutes under the bus, but these claims fall apart as, quote, Mormons in the southern communities began openly sporting clothing, jewelry, and other possessions of the massacre victims, appropriating their wagons and carriages and

corralling their branded livestock. So they gave themselves away. Before long, the church is forced to change its tune. But instead of accepting any direct responsibility, Brigham Young and other LDS leaders place all of the blame on John D. Lee. They insist that he went rogue and conspired with the Paiutes without any authorization from other higher-ups in the church. And though many details around what John D. Lee did are not clear, the idea that he was

acting alone is patently not true. At the very least, other LDS church leaders in southern Utah were involved. Regardless, 64-year-old John D. Lee is ultimately sentenced to death for his role in the massacre, and he's executed by firing squad while sitting on top of his own coffin, set up in the field where the killings took place. Damn. Yeah. A few other Mormon men are prosecuted, but Lee is the only person who's ever convicted

for a crime related to this mass murder. And as word of the Mount Meadows massacre spreads across the United States, no one buys the church's story. People immediately assume that there's been a cover-up. Just as the Cedar City church leaders feared, a brand new wave of strong anti-Mormon sentiment sweeps the country, and it's so intense that the United States does almost declare war on the Latter-day Saints. But just in time, the Civil War starts, and the federal government turns its attention

toward the South. The only bright spot in all of this is that within about a year of the massacre, the U.S. Army manages to locate all of the surviving immigrant children and reunite them with their family members back east. Oh, good. I thought you were going to say they grew up and never knew. Oh, my God. No, yeah.

So understandably, the LDS church is very quiet about the Mount Meadows massacre for the next century, but things start to change in the 80s. This part of the story really surprised me. Around then, descendants of both the victims and militiamen come together to process what happened in 1857. This opens the door for more direct involvement from the LDS church itself. In 1998, the church's then president visits the site of the massacre and says, quote, we owe the dead respect, that land is sacred ground.

And over the next two decades, the church works with descendants to dedicate more memorials to the victims. It isn't until 2007, 150 years after the massacre, that the church finally issues an apology. In a public ceremony, an LDS leader is brought to tears as he tells a crowd that, quote, what was done here long ago by members of our church represents a terrible and inexcusable departure from Christian teaching and conduct. We cannot change what happened, but we can remember and honor those who were killed here. As we listen to a story like this, Christianity has a bloody history.

Catholicism has a horribly bloody history. You have, there are very few examples of church leaders standing up and being like, what we did was wrong. It has to change. Taking responsibility. Yep. Yeah. Acknowledging it.

Yeah. Yeah. That same year, in 2007, the church opens its archives to three researchers. They're Richard Turley, a noted LDS historian, as well as Brigham Young University scholars Ronald Walker and Glenn Leonard. Over a period of five years, they pour through journals, official church documents, diaries and letters, some of which have never been seen by any other researcher up till that point.

And the culmination of their work is the 2008 book Massacre at Mountain Meadows. Wow. Yeah. It confirms previous reporting of the massacre, such as Will Bagley's important book, Blood of the Prophets. But as NPR once noted, it also, quote, raises difficult questions for Mormons and others who may cling to earlier LDS church versions of this incident now dismissed as cover-ups. And some of those questions linger to this day.

The biggest one is, what role, if any, did Brigham Young himself play in the lead-up to the massacre or in its subsequent cover-up? And if he wasn't directly involved in the scheming, in the planning, did his fiery rhetoric contribute to the bloodshed? I mean, yeah, I mean, right? Let's go from A to B. Let's say yes. And let's say that this is, you know, this is that thing of like words matter and leaders

have a lot of power over the people that believe in them. When you get out there and start saying shit and riling people up, it works a lot of the time. And this is something, obviously, that we have been seeing in the past seven years to a disturbing level. Like, in a way that I think most of us aren't really ready for, where it's like, we now have Nazis, fucking Nazis are back. As horrible as this story is, it serves as a reminder that it's always good to question

authority, especially when God or religion is being leveraged to justify harming others. Historian Richard Turley, author of the book Massacre at Mountain Meadows, told NBR in an interview, quote, these people who carried out the massacre were in many ways ordinary individuals who got caught up in emotion, caught up in the circumstances of their times and began to make decisions that led to committing an atrocity. And what was disturbing about that was the realization that the difference between ordinary people like us and these people who committed atrocity was really a short distance. And that is the story of the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre.

Wow. That's intense. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Ugh. So many people. Killed. Yeah.

Yeah. Horrifying. Great job. Great job. Great story. Mm-hmm. Great suggestion. Okay.

So this case does deal with sexual assault, no graphic descriptions. There are some references to sexual assault and rape just as a warning, a trigger warning out there. Today, I'm going to tell you the story of the murder of Nicole Vanderhert and the misleading confession of her stepbrother. So my sources today are several unattributed articles from the Dutch newspaper The NL Times a series of articles by Karen Beenan for E.D., another Dutch newspaper, an article from NOS News, also a Dutch paper, and a very comprehensive chronicle overview also from E.D. and the

rest can be found on our show notes. I'm going to tell you about the victim. Nicole Vanderhert is born on July 4th, 1980 in Germany. She's the only child of a single mother named Angelica. Angelica eventually meets a Dutchman named Ad Vanderhert and marries him, and he adopts Nicole as his own, and the little family moves to the Netherlands. But in 1989, Angelica and Ad divorce. Angelica has pretty severe mental health issues, and so in court, Ad argues that she's not

fit to take care of a child. There's pretty minimal information out there on what these mental health issues are, but under Dutch law, Ad would have had it been required to prove that Angelica was, quote, unfit or unable to fulfill the duty of caring for or raising the child. So apparently he's able to do this because the judge agrees that Angelica cannot raise Nicole, and Ad ends up getting full custody, which is obviously a pretty unusual scenario. So Nicole's raised by her stepfather, and then he remarries, and she lives in a home with several step-siblings.

It seems like they have a quiet life together as a family, but sadly, Nicole's birth mother Angelica tragically takes her own life in April of 1995. So not much information is available on how this impacts Nicole, but we can imagine it's a really challenging time. And later that same year, Nicole is spending time with her grandmother, staying at her house in the Netherlands. Nicole's 15 years old at this point, and by all accounts, she's very independent, well-adjusted, popular.

She has long, blonde, wavy hair and blue-green eyes. She has a boyfriend. She's well-liked. She's a part-time job at a bakery, and on the morning of October 6, 1995, she heads up on her bike to work, but she never arrives. Someone from the bakery calls her family to see where Nicole might be, and once it's established, she's missing the family alert authorities. Investigators find her abandoned bike partially submerged in a nearby river.

They find it almost immediately, but they find no sign of Nicole. About two weeks later, on October 19, her backpack is discovered near a canal, not too far from where her bike had been found. And by this point, Nicole's case is getting a lot of attention locally. I think this is a rare thing to happen in the Netherlands. It's a pretty safe place. Over 300 tips have been called in, and investigators pursue every lead, but they're all dead ends. We start to wonder if she ran away, and just when they begin to think that that could be

a possibility, on November 22, someone is walking through the woods, not too far from where Nicole would have been biking, and they discover her body. She's been beaten and stabbed to death. She's also been sexually assaulted. Her injuries are extensive. During the autopsy, it's discovered that Nicole's jaw is broken in two places. Her ribs are broken, and she has defensive wounds on her fingers and hands. And it's clear that she fought her attacker as hard as she could.

Nicole's funeral takes place on November 28, 1995. Close to 1,000 people attend, but even though Nicole and her brutal murder have captured the attention of so many people, leads are already drying up. Police will get a solid tip, and it goes nowhere. They make regular appeals to the public for help, a popular Dutch magazine even offers a reward for information on Nicole's murder. By January of 1996, the number of detectives assigned to Nicole's case begins to dwindle, and it's now only four people who are tasked with managing incoming tips, so it's growing

cold. Eventually, in the summer of 1996, Nicole's stepfather, Ad, and her stepbrother, Andy, are arrested in connection with the murder. By this point, the investigation is taking a huge toll on the family. It seems that Ad and Andy are maybe pointing the finger at each other at various points in the investigation. There's all sorts of rumors flying around about the family, but eventually, both men are cleared.

Then, nothing happens for a very long time. The last real investigative attempt is back in 2004, and nothing new turns up. The case is considered by authorities to be a dead end. Okay. So, cut to 2011, so they've been waiting since 2004 for any movement on this case. Now we're in 2011, Nicole's stepbrother, Andy, who had been arrested earlier, is living in Ipswich, England. He spends a lot of time on social media where he shares a lot about his life with his friends

and followers. And then on March 8th, 2011, his followers are shocked to read a post on his Facebook that says, quote, I will be arrested today for the murder of my sister. I confessed and will get in contact soon. What? So, he confesses to it. And then immediately posts on Facebook about it? Well, I think he first goes to Facebook, posts it, and then goes in to the police station.

Oh, oh, like this is, okay. Wow. Yeah. Andy's confession comes out of nowhere, he's arrested that same day by British police and will soon be extradited to the Netherlands. Then once he is in Dutch police custody, he suddenly retracts his confession. And of course, everyone's totally confused by this, the police, his family in the press, the entire community that was touched by this crime is totally confused.

Andy was already cleared as a suspect in this murder back in the late 90s, so why confess now only to retract it days later? Yeah. Right. Well, it turns out that Andy has been watching his sister Nicole's case languish for years and years. It gets colder and colder. And Andy can't stand it any longer.

He figures that he has to take extreme action to force the investigation forward and hopefully get some peace by falsely confessing his hope. It turns out is that his sister's body will finally be exhumed and DNA tested after having never, no DNA had ever been collected in 1995. Oh, that kills me. That is so sad. Didn't do it? He was like, I'm going to falsely confess.

So people fucking pay attention to this again. Oh my God. Isn't that wild? That is so sad. And so it's beautiful, but it's like, it's such a reflection of that frustration of like, can't it just be the people whose job it is to figure it out as opposed to family members like jumping on a mine essentially? Totally.

Because it could have gone completely wrong and he could have been absolutely put in prison for the rest of his life for this. His move, which does run the risk of him being in prison for the crime, it pays off. He's released just five days after his arrest due to lack of evidence and in the wake of his stunt, a new investigative team is placed on the case over 15 years after Nicole's murder. Wow. In September, 2011, her body is exhumed and within a week of her exhumation, police announced

they have found new DNA evidence. They received more than 20 new leads from the police and miraculously, Andy's gamble turns out to be totally worth it. And after his false confession, Nicole's case returns to the public eye. Wow. So DNA and hair follicle evidence is collected from Nicole's body and clothing. So when a forensic investigator tests these samples, two distinct genetic profiles emerge. One is from Nicole's boyfriend at the time, and the other is from an unknown male.

And there was a mysterious third DNA profile, but it's incomplete. The boyfriend had been ruled out. He was cleared initially. So it's definitely not him. But this unknown male DNA sample ends up belonging to a 46-year-old man. This man is a convicted rapist who is known for attacking female bicyclists at Knife Point. Oh my God. Sitting right fucking there, man.

Because of Dutch privacy laws, his full name is redacted in the press, which is pretty wild. He's only known as Jo Stigie. He's arrested for the murder and rape of Nicole van der Herk on January 14th, 2014. When Jo Stigie is arrested, Andy makes a public statement to the Dutch media that says, quote, Of course, I hope that this is finally the end, that my sister finds the rest she deserves, and that can send out a clear message to anyone who thinks they can act as a monster and get away with it.

Regarding the fact that Andy himself has been arrested not just once, but now twice for the crime, he responds that, quote, that in the end, if this is the guy, who am I to complain about missing a few days out of my life? Oh, I know. So from the moment he's arrested, Jo Stigie denies ever having met Nicole, but when he's confronted with the hard evidence of his DNA found on her dead body, he suggests that maybe they had consensual sex in the days leading up to her disappearance, but he'd forgotten about it, blah, blah, bullshit.

Given his history of rape convictions, investigators and prosecutors obviously find this highly unlikely. Investigators discover that Jo Stigie had an argument with his girlfriend just a few hours before Nicole disappeared on her bike. This adds to the possible motive and prosecutors feel confident going into the court hearings in April of 2014 that they've got him. Unfortunately, these hearings don't go as planned. So that third DNA sample that they find that was partial, it wasn't a complete profile.

So forensic investigators conclude that this could just be a highly degraded sample of one of the other two profiles, or it could mean that there was a third person there who left DNA on the body before or during her murder. This third DNA profile casts enough doubt in the eyes of the court that the prosecution drops the murder charge against Jo Stigie in July 2014. He's now just being charged with manslaughter and rape. The trial begins in November, 2015. It drags on for years.

There are witnesses who say that Jo Stigie confessed to them while spending time in a mental hospital. Forensic experts argue about interpretations of the DNA evidence. The trial stops and starts and drags on until November 21, 2016 Jo Stigie is found guilty of rape but acquitted of manslaughter. He's only sentenced to five years in prison. Apparently the court believed there was a possibility that someone else could have killed her and she'd been raped by Jo Stigie and that third DNA sample created enough reasonable doubt, which it could have been his DNA sample that was just too degraded.

But it's like you have to have that proof to convict someone of murder. Nicole's family, who've already been through so much, are devastated by this short sentence and the acquittal on manslaughter charges. When the verdict and sentencing are read, Nicole's stepmother openly sobs in court and starts screaming at the judges. Almost immediately an appeal is filed and in 2018, after the appeal case, Jo Stigie is finally found guilty of rape and manslaughter. It seems that this time the court did not find that third DNA sample had any real value

as evidence. But he still only gets 12 years in prison. The maximum sentence for manslaughter in the Netherlands at the time was 15 years and he's already served approximately three years. So he gets 12 more. According to the official government website, however, the maximum sentence for manslaughter in the Netherlands is raised from 15 to 25 years in 2021. So that's some good news.

Nicole's family never really gets a chance to recover from this horrific ordeal, both the murder and the lengthy and painful legal proceedings. Andy Vanderhoek tragically takes his own life in August of 2021. Oh no. I know. But he's remembered as a hero and is universally considered to be the reason this case has been solved. And that is the tragic story of Nicole Vanderhoek and how one brother put his freedom on the

line to find his sister's killer. Wow. That is incredible and it's so sad. It's so devastating. That's, yeah. Wow. It's like this positive thing happened, but it's amidst so much devastation. Right.

Yeah. And not that it matters, but it's too bad he doesn't or couldn't understand or will never understand what an incredibly noble thing that people would see that and know that and just be like, you made the sacrifice of your own personal freedom to find your sister's killer. Yeah. You're a fucking hero. You did it.

Yeah. Wow. Incredible. This was a rough one episode. This has been, you know, this has been what they call a true crime podcast. That's what it's been. That's so true. That is so true.

Yeah. Thanks for listening, you guys. You are the wind beneath our wings as always. Georgia wrote that herself before we got on. So she's really talented lyricist. Thank you. It's always been a saying of mine. Yeah.

This is that thing. You throw stuff like that all the time. Really? You're the one beneath my wings. That's what friends are for. Oh, I always say that. What's the one about calling your friend on the phone? I just called to say I love you.

Oh, yes. I said that all the time whenever I answered the phone. We are family. I'm always saying that. Constantly. Also jump by the point of sisters. And I love going to the YMCA and I'm always talking about that. You know the one that I like the best that you made up, it's stay sexy.

Oh, and don't get murdered. Goodbye. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton. Our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris.

Our researchers are Marin McClashen and Sarah Blair Jenkins. Email your hometowns and fucking hurrays to myfavoritmurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavoritmurder. Goodbye. Goodbye. Listen, follow, leave us a review on Amazon Music, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Prime members, did you know that you can listen to my favorite murder early and

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