Brutal 1984 murders of mother and her 15-month-old daughter explored in new true crime series

The brutal 1984 murders of a Mormon mother and her toddler who were killed by a relative will be featured in a new true crime series starring Daisy Edgar Jones.

Ron Lafferty, from Utah, claimed he had received a revelation from God to kill his sister-in-law Brenda and her 15-month-old daughter Erica because of her resistance to his fundamentalist belief in polygamy.

He and his brother Dan killed Brenda, who was beaten and strangled with a vacuum cleaner cord. She and her daughter died after their throats were slashed.

The case was made famous in non-fiction book Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer, which is now set to be made into a Hulu series by Dustin Lance Black featuring the Normal People actress as well as Andrew Garfield.

Speaking about the project to Deadline, Lance-Black said: ‘After so many years of work, I’m incredibly grateful to Imagine and FX for their patience with and commitment to bringing this story to screen.

‘Raised in the LDS faith, my hope is that this true-crime thriller might shed light on the horrific brutalities perpetrated in the name of God in our own backyards.’

The mainstream Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints disavowed polygamy more than a century ago, but some church offshoots still practice it and consider themselves ‘fundamentalist Mormons’.

Brenda married Allen Lafferty, the youngest of eight children, raised in a Utah family that belonged to the mainstream church. 

His older brothers Dan and Ron disapproved of the relationship. 

For years, Ron had followed the script for successful young church members: He served a church mission in Florida and then returned to Utah to get married, have children and get a job. 

He also served on voluntary councils for his congregation and the community.

But in 1982, Ron began spending more time with his brother Dan, who believed the mainstream church should have never abandoned polygamy. 

Ron eventually adopted his brother’s thinking and the two were excommunicated from the faith in 1983.

They joined a renegade polygamist cult called the ‘School of Prophets’ and Ron left behind his clean cut and well-groomed look for long hair and an unkept beard. His wife divorced him and moved with their children to Florida.

By 1984, the brothers had become enraged by the strong opposition to polygamy by Brenda.  She had agreed with the decision by Ron’s wife to leave him. 

Ron believed he had received a revelation from God to kill Brenda and her daughter and he showed the members of the School of Prophets a written ‘removal revelation’ that allegedly called for the killing of Brenda and her baby.

After other members of the School failed to honor Ron’s removal revelation, the brothers quit the School.

The pair then went to her apartment on July 24, 1984.  

According to a friend of the brothers who was waiting for them in a car outside the house, she screamed: ‘Don’t hurt my baby! Please don’t hurt my baby!’ 

At a 2001 trial for the crime, Chip Carnes, who was riding in the getaway car, testified that Ron said that he had killed Brenda, and that Ron had thanked his brother for ‘doing the baby.’ 

Ron and Dan left the back of the apartment covered in blood, a witness said.

Allen later discovered his wife lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen and their daughter propped up against her crib.    

After the murders, the police found the written ‘revelation’ concerning Brenda and Erica.  

Ron was found guilty by a jury in 1985 and sentenced to death. 

A federal appeals court in 1991 overturned his conviction because a trial judge used an incorrect legal standard to find Ron competent to stand trial. He was retried in 1996, found guilty by a jury and again sentenced to death.

Ron chose to be killed by firing squad decades ago instead of receiving a lethal injection – a choice given at the time to death row inmates. 

Utah later changed its law, allowing firing squad executions only as backups if lethal injection drugs were not available.

The last time a firing squad was used for an execution in the in the U.S. was in 2010 when Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed in Utah for the 1984 murder of an attorney during a failed courthouse escape.

Ron’s lawyers had argued that he suffered from mental illness and that his death sentence was out of line with the life sentence given to his brother Dan Lafferty.

Ron died of natural causes at the state prison in Salt Lake City in 2019. 

Daisy is set to portray Brenda in the series, while Andrew will play Pyre, an elder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). 

Based on the 2003 book of the same name by Jon Krakauer, it’s been adapted by Oscar-winning American screenwriter Lance Dustin Black and will be directed by British filmmaker David Mackenzie, whose credits include Hell Or High water.

The series set among the Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints in Utah follows Garfield’s devout detective as he investigates the brutal murder of a young Mormon woman, Brenda.

It leads him to encounter an esteemed Utah family who are characterized by their fundamentalist LDS faith and deep mistrust of the government.

The investigation causes Garfield’s character to begin to doubt his own beliefs and his church’s teachings as he learns more about the murderer.