[Matt] I'm out here, trying to
shed some light on the Kingstons
on their prejudices
and the allegations of incest that I've heard.
Through the bloodline?
[Woman] He literally had no reserve for life.
Any birth defect we get
will be worth the perfect babies that we get.
The bloodline has to be pure
and gay is not okay in their minds.
I was pariah to the entire Order community.
This is your time to tell me and everybody else
what it is you want to see done.
Go arrest the people who are breaking the law.
[Matt] My name's Matt Browning,
and retired law enforcement out of Arizona.
I was on both the Joint Terrorist Task Force
and the Fugitive Task Force with the FBI.
But, most importantly, I'm a husband and a father,
and I was born and raised a member
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
A few years ago, my wife, Tawni, and I
were contacted by women who wanted help
leaving the polygamist groups.
Since then, we've been contacted numerous times
by people asking for help.
Some of these groups have a history
of incest and child abuse,
and are thriving right here in the United State.
People need to know about this and that's why we do what we d.
We're in Utah, investigating one group
who has a specific belief
that spurs all their criminal activity.
The Kingstons, the Davis County Coop,
or The Order,
is located is Salt Lake City, Utah,
and the surrounding cities within.
[Chris] They practice polygamy.
They've been doing it for as long as they've been around.
And they keep to themselves.
They do their very best
to not draw attention to themselves.
[Matt] When they originally started
during the Great Depression,
they had a cooperative society
where everything was brought into a storehouse
and then divvied out.
Started out as a great idea,
a great belief,
that just got twisted as time went on.
Ortell Kingston was a second prophet of The Order.
[music]
It's hard to find out what's going on
in these closed societies.
And what I'm trying to do is find out
what is going on about this Holy Bloodline
and the reason for it.
The idea of a holy bloodline
is truly unique to the Kingstons
and their theology.
One of the ways that the Kingstons
have been able to keep this bloodline pure
was by not allowing a lot of outsiders into their group.
Members of the group have allowed a lot of interbreeding,
close relatives.
Paul Kingston is Ortell's son
who's been the leader or the man on the watchtower
for The Order since 1987.
The Kingstons will always defend their practice of incest.
They claim that, because they're a small organization,
a small church,
then there is going to be crossover
in marriages and in blood.
We speak to people who leave The Order.
They tell stories about kids being born
with genetic defects that they attribute to inbreeding.
And you can see
that for congenital malformation like a cleft lip,
for disabilities of different kinds,
genetic disease, early death,
there's about a doubling of overall genetic damage
in these inbred populations
compared to outbred populations.
Incest within The Order is illegal.
The birth defects alone is creating a hopeless future
for these kids.
I think that's why law enforcement
needs to get involved.
[Mark] Members of the Kingston family
who would talk to us,
they said incest was a big part,
another marry within this holy blood
of the Kingston family.
So we got quite aggressive
as far as getting search warrants issued
and so forth.
It is a felony.
And it is more than just the practice
of polygamy with these guys.
I know that there is at least one
conviction of incest with The Order.
And I've been told by some survivors
of other times
where incest has occurred but was never prosecuted.
[music]
We're on our way to meet a person
who's born and raised Kingston.
He claims to have information
regarding incest within The Order
and I wanna see what kind of information he can provide.
He's really careful about showing who he is.
So he doesn't wanna be seen.
I believe that Kingston sources wanna hide their identity
out of nothing but fear.
Hey, man.
I'm good, man. Thanks for meeting me.
Why are you doing what you're doing?
You can just walk away.
You showing your face,
what's the most that they could do to you?
I need to ask you about the rumors
that there's still incest going on within The Order.
Uh-huh. Sure.
Through the bloodline?
How many of these incestual relationships
do you know about?
We're talking half-sisters?
All for this pure bloodline?
Have you seen, I don't know how to say it,
the ramifications of this incest going on?
Like birth defects and...
Give me an example.
No.
All right.
Compared to The Order 10 to 15 years ago,
has anything changed?
How are they doing that?
So they have an actual geneticist
with The Order?
What the Kingstons are doing
is they're not going to outside sources to do this.
They're keeping it within their own organization
and having members become geneticists.
Okay.
So they put her blood and everything in one database
and then they match it up with some other guy,
even the adults?
What are they looking for?
They want to get blood from A and blood from B,
and put them together, and see
what mutations may or may not happen.
And the least mutations that they can get
is the people that they will pair up together.
But, most importantly, you're taking
a young girl, stripping her of her choice,
and you are making yourself God
to create what you want,
not what she wants.
Decisions are made for them with the geneticist.
What happens with all these birth defects?
Jeez, man.
So not only are they taking
blood tests, DNA, whatever you wanna call it,
from the younger kids,
but even the adults, so the brothers' DNA
or their kids' DNA,
people who are already married DNA?
Then they're matching their results
with these younger girls' results?
It's like what you said,
they're trying to avoid birth defects.
This is wrong, man. It's just wrong.
Wow.
So your goal is what?
It's just, it's mind-blowing for anybody to hear.
So I got a lot of digging into this
and we'll be in contact, I'll call you.
All right. Thanks.
Talking to the Kingston source,
we discussed the members, the incest,
and we got into birth defects because of the incest.
Lu Ann Cooper is a Kingston.
Her father is Ortell Kingston.
Her half-brothers are Daniel and Paul Kingston.
Her first husband is Jeremy Kingston
who happens to be her nephew and first cousin.
Lu Ann, by far, is the most knowledgeable
when it comes to the practice
of the Holy Bloodline with The Order
who is willing to talk to us.
My name is Lu Ann Cooper.
I am from the Kingston polygamist group.
I am an advocate for people that want relief
from the abuses of polygamy.
My father, Ortell Kingston, was the leader.
He died when I was seven.
He believed that he wanted to keep our bloodline pure.
And so we marry the family into the family
to keep the bloodline pure.
[Brian] Ortell had a belief
that they were of the blood of Jesus Christ, literally,
and he raised cattle
and knew about conserving the bloodline.
[Lu Ann] The Order had a farm in Woods Cross
and my father, John Ortell,
was breeding the cows on that farm
and got the idea that if you could breed the perfect cow
from the same bloodline,
then why couldn't he do that with his bloodline
and breed his own kids to keep his bloodline pure?
He attempted to apply those same principles
to human genetics.
So you had a lot of closely related individuals
sometimes marrying each other.
[Lu Ann] Babies are disposable.
In fact, Ortell Kingston, when he decided
to start inbreeding to keep the bloodline pure,
he said, "Any birth defect we get
will be worth the pure-bred,
the perfect babies that we get."
He literally had no reserve for life
and he raised Paul Kingston,
Daniel, and all of those boys.
[Matt] The amount of birth defects
that come from incest,
the amount of damage and traumas
that it has caused on this child,
this baby, who has zero choice
in what he or she is doing.
And that's because some sick and twisted people
want their bloodline to be pure.
It's sad. It's just sad.
[Lu Ann] They don't believe in birth control.
Married women are told to have a baby every year
to help The Order grow.
Part of our role of building the Kingdom of God
is to have a baby every year.
So whenever a baby is born
that doesn't make it, they keep it quiet.
If one of my daughters would have been born stillborn,
I would've had to pretend like it never happened.
Lu Ann hooked me up with a co-founder
of Hope After Polygamy, Julie Adkison.
What's good about Lu Ann hooking us up with Julie
is that we can see both sides of the spectrum.
Lu Ann was pretty much on the royal line
with her bloodline
while Julie was on the outskirts
and was actually pushed out because of her bloodline.
[Xavier] So bloodlines become really important
because they give you authority.
It tells people in your bloodline
that, "Because we are descendants, for example,
of Christ,
we have certain attributes compared to other people.
We're better than other people."
So it gives you authority
and it also reinforces the sequestering,
the bubble, that's created.
[Matt] Even though Julie's been out a long time,
she has the same worries and fears
that everybody I've ever talked to has left The Order has.
Because of that fear that she has,
she's requested that we don't show her house.
So, for her safety, we're just gonna meet with her outside.
-Hey. -[Julie] Hi.
Jump in.
It's a lot warmer in her than it is outside.
[Julie giggling]
-How you been? -[Julie] Good. How are you?
Good, good, good.
My name's Julie and I grew up in The Order.
I grew up very different
than a lot of Order members.
I had parents who protected me from a lot
of what was going on in The Order.
The Kingstons believe that they are the chosen,
or God's chosen, on this Earth.
Part of that is the belief
of being white and delightsome
makes you pure.
Growing up as a kid,
we knew that when dark-skin people died,
they were going to hell.
So that's the extent of that
which breeds incredible racism.
"We're better than you because we're white.
We're better than you because our bloodline is pure.
It goes all the way back to Jesus.
We can do what we want
because we're God's chosen."
Egh, makes me sick.
Most have no idea this kind of stuff is going on.
They heard about it here and there,
but they didn't think it was real,
no clue the extent of what things are.
And a lot of my reason behind talking to reporters,
telling my story,
is awareness.
Were you guys a popular family?
We were a part of the outer circle
because of my bloodline.
What's wrong with your bloodline?
It wasn't pure.
My grandmother, she married an outsider.
He wasn't a part of The Order.
He didn't have roots there.
He wasn't part of that genetic line
that they are trying to recreate.
And they had kids together.
And so, every child she had with this man
had tainted blood.
So how is his blood tainted?
There is a rumor in The Order,
Ladonna was Ortell's wife.
She is also Paul and Daniel's mom.
She was the main woman in charge.
She claims to have had a dream
that anyone who marries an outsider
will marry a black man.
The Order believed, because my grandmother
had children with him,
then their children will be tainted by that black blood.
-Is he a white guy? -Yes.
[Julie] That relationship with my grandfather
who was an outside man
didn't work out.
My grandmother, she ended up coming back to The Order
and married my step-grandpa
who was in The Order and had more children with him.
And so, when my grandma came back,
that put my mom and her sisters
who were born in that first marriage
in that tainted bloodline.
[Matt] So how was your life, growing up
with that hung over your head?
[Julie] Because of our bloodline
and the rumor that we were black,
we were outcast.
Members don't really get kicked out of the order
because The Order is also a business.
And members run the businesses.
And so, anytime somebody is "less than"
or outer circle, or have done something bad,
you're just sent to the businesses
that no one else wants to work at.
When I was young, growing up in The Order,
I was one of the families sent to live at the mine.
I started working about six years old.
I would cut piles of clothes into grease rags
for the people who worked in the shop.
It wasn't an option to say no.
You were just told you're going to work here
and you said, "Okay."
The government, they think that it's just this "family"
that's living their beliefs,
and what harm can they do?
Live and let live.
But they are doing harm.
The leaders of the Kingston group,
if they're not stopped,
I think that they're just going to continue to grow.
And they've already become so much more powerful
than anyone realizes.
[Matt] People within The Order believe
that they are direct bloodline to who?
Christ.
You know what's sad is it's so engrained in you
that you don't even realize that's your frame of mind.
You don't even realize those are your thoughts.
You can't continue all these practices,
and then have someone run and ask for help.
You have to instill that belief
that the outside world is bad,
that the outside world will hurt you.
Most of the members are victims of the leaders.
I was maybe 17 or 18.
So one of the boys, men,
went to ask for permission to marry me.
The response to him was
he can't marry me
because of our tainted bloodline.
I knew my grandpa wasn't an Order member
and so that did give me less pure blood.
One of my biggest things is with that black rumor.
What would it matter if it were true?
Why is it such a big deal?
Why am I getting these looks from you?
And even talking about it with all of you,
it's just like, "But that shouldn't matter."
I think they were okay with me being a second wife.
I didn't wanna be a second wife. I wanted to be a first wife.
When I found out
that they were actually putting stock into that rumor
and making decisions about my life
based off of that rumor,
it was a big opening
to start to look at things
and ask why.
I was 18 at this time
and at that point in my life, I'd forgotten
that you can do that.
You can ask why.
And just the way it clicked for me,
like, "Yeah, I can. I can do that."
I left in 1999.
Going to college and gaining an education
helped me gain the confidence
I needed after leaving The Order
to know that I would be fine.
Lu Ann and I started Hope After Polygamy.
I wanted to start something ever since I left The Order.
I knew a scholarship foundation
was the direction I wanted to go.
I wanted to give others leaving polygamy
the stepping stone.
I think an education helped me grow more
after leaving than most things,
most other things, did.
My whole family left two years after I left.
The one thing that we have
to start this whole ball rolling
is incest is a felony.
This is your time to tell me and everybody else
what it is you want to see done.
Go arrest the people who are breaking the law.
Why don't they do that?
I couldn't have said it better myself.
Now, who else can I talk to
that wants to spread the word around about this group?
It's just figuring out how to get him
-to take those steps. -It's not a problem.
-Sure. -All right.
-[Julie] Thank you. -So I'll see you.
-[Julie] Yeah, you too. -Be in touch.
-Yep, for sure. -All right, cool.
All righty, we'll be in touch.
So talking to Julie, she connected us
with Joshua Kingston.
He went on the run with his sisters
because of the DNA search warrants in 2006
on high-ranking members within the Kingston group
to try to prove incest.
Joshua Kingston went on the run with his family
because they were trying
to protect and preserve the Holy Bloodline.
If law enforcement found out
that incest was, in fact,
being practiced within the Kingstons,
then people could've gone to jail.
That would've disrupted the whole pure bloodline.
The true bloodline theory is not a victimless crime.
Joshua Kingston went on the run with his family
because of the DNA search warrants in 2006
on high-ranking members within the Kingston group
that were trying to prove incest.
There were some search warrants drawn up in 2006
to go out and get some DNA samples
from children within The Order and men within The Order
with the belief that there was far more sex abuse
that had already been prosecuted,
far more incest that had already been prosecuted.
[music]
[Mark] We were concerned about the incest,
so, ultimately, we had our investigators,
there were several working on it,
put together multiple search warrant affidavits
to take DNA.
That's the only way you can really prove the incest.
[Matt] The plan was to go into the church
and get women and children's swabs in their mouth
for DNA on a search warrant.
What Shurtleff's concern was,
"Well, we can't do this with kids."
Safety concerns are through the roof in that situation,
so that was never gonna happen.
[Mark] It did not sit well with me.
I didn't think that was the...
Come in and frighten these people
with guns and badges, and barring the doors.
It didn't feel right as a way to serve it.
And so I said, "No, we're not gonna do that."
And we did talk to an attorney.
And he was, "Oh, so grateful. Thank you.
That would've been horrible. Thank you so much.
Yes, we'll cooperate."
And he thanked us and then they disappeared into the wind.
All the fathers
and many of the wives and children went into hiding,
and we unfortunately could not serve those search warrants.
They expired.
[Matt] We're on our way to meet Joshua Kingston.
He has the courage to come out and step up,
and say what his life was like
and what really happened in The Order,
specifically, is this whole DNA thing.
Josh is the only person
that I have personally ever talked to
that knows anything about going on the run
because of the Holy Bloodline.
Everybody else is afraid to admit that they did it.
Hey.
How's it going?
[Matt] Ooh, it's cold.
I wanna shake your hand. Thank you.
So tell me, first of all,
why do you wanna talk to me?
I think it's important that the public knows
what's going on with The Order.
My name is Joshua Kingston.
I'm a former member of the Kingston clan.
We call it The Order.
My father is Rodger Kingston.
His father was Charles Kingston.
I am the seventh-born from my dad.
Currently, he has 26 children.
[Matt] Paul and Daniel are married to your sisters.
And both Paul Kingston and Daniel Kingston
are both high-up guys in The order.
Paul's the leader. Daniel's his brother.
So his number-one guy.
Your story is just crazy,
the whole bloodline, the whole incest,
all of that.
Yeah, everything...
[Matt] And you know all about that.
Everything involved is pretty crazy.
[Matt] So when did you find out
that you were different from everybody else?
I've pretty much known since I was 11, 12.
I learned at a very young age in The Order
that I was attracted to men.
I had never heard about gays in The Order.
I was watching Little House on the Prairie one day
and I was attracted to Charles Ingalls.
That's how I learned what gay was.
And I felt different. I felt strange.
The bloodline has to be pure and gay is not okay
in their minds.
When did you tell your family that you're gay?
I just made friends and told them,
and then my family found out about it.
How'd that go?
Not good.
I was a pariah to the entire Order community.
I got along with my sisters really well.
And I felt like I could be a little bit more myself,
slightly feminine, if that felt natural to me.
I could be myself around them,
but, no, I do not believe
that they would ever understand
if I came out of the closet to them.
I go to church. Nobody talks to me.
Even my aunts and uncles, when they do talk to me,
they wouldn't look me in the eye.
At what age we talking?
-Probably 16 when they learned. -[Matt] Sixteen.
As long as I didn't act on it,
you're allowed to stick around.
And so they didn't feel it necessary
to kick me out because I was labor.
There were years that I was praying to God,
"Make me a heterosexual
so I can marry multiple wives, tie into my family,"
and that answer from God never came.
I felt like there was absolutely zero chance
that anybody would try to relate to me
regarding my sexuality
because I had not heard of gays in the community.
So it very much was my isolation.
So as time goes on, you hear
that the AG's office is coming after you guys
or something like that
with this whole DNA, search warrants, and...
Yeah, I was around for that.
For me, it was my sisters went into hiding.
A major turning point in my life
was about 2006.
I was around 18 years old.
Why would your sisters go into hiding?
Paul and Daniel are both married to my sisters
to avoid DNA warrants from being carried out.
[Matt] Okay, and what are Paul and Daniel to your sisters
besides they're husband and wife?
Cousins.
[Matt] All right, so first cousins?
-Yes. -Yeah, first cousins
which would, by law, is incest in Utah, correct?
[Joshua] Illegal.
[Matt] So, you just, all of a sudden,
your sisters are gone and it's like
you start questioning,
"Where'd my sisters go?" or anything?
Yeah, they just vanished into thin air.
So it was a little bit unnerving for me.
And so they just showed up one day.
-Your sisters just showed up? -[Joshua] Yeah.
They were allowed to come see us just for the day.
This is after months of not seeing them.
Okay.
And had a few hours with them.
And then they said, "We have to go back into hiding."
And at that point, I was so miserable
in The Order, gay,
I had the decision, I either need to leave.
In my mind, I either need to leave
so that I can be happy
or stay and be miserable in turmoil.
So I prayed to God for a third option.
And I saw that opportunity
in returning with them into hiding.
Daniel was against it at first,
but he eventually came around.
I think Daniel finally came around to the idea
that leaving three women alone is not safe,
so he came around to the idea
of me going to help out.
So we climbed into a van
and headed out.
[Matt] So you went with them. Where were they at?
Where were they hiding at?
Colorado.
Tell me, basically, how everything worked.
Did you get sent away?
Did Paul and Daniel send you guys money?
No, he wasn't supporting his wives, financially.
He did give them the opportunity to provide for themselves
which was nice.
-Oh, what a sweetheart. -[Joshua] Yeah.
"Here, you wanna live. Go get a job."
-[Joshua] Yeah. -That's what it was.
The Order already had an operation here
winterizing foreclosed homes.
And so they would have the same company
bid the jobs in Colorado, pass them to the wives,
and the wives would go out
and make a living for themselves
under pseudonym names.
How were they living?
When I showed up, they were living in a town home,
three wives to a town home with all of their children.
Who else had to leave because of the DNA, do you know?
Twenty-seven individuals including the children.
-In one town home. -[Joshua] Mm-hmm.
I remember my sister telling me
they had arrived in Colorado
and she was extremely upset.
She was crying.
She told me her children were on the floor,
playing with little cutouts of paper animals
because they had been forced to leave their toys at home.
I remember her telling me
that she was ashamed
that her children were able to find light
and hope in that situation
and she wasn't able to bring that out of herself.
It was upsetting
to learn that these children had been uprooted
and they weren't able
to associate with their family anymore.
[Matt] How long did you stay there?
I was in Colorado with them for a year.
Did Daniel ever show up?
[Joshua] Both Daniel and Paul would show up
the impregnate the wives and then they'd leave.
My sisters would talk about that experience
and they'd cry.
But it's what we had to do.
God expected it of them, Paul expected it of them.
So it keeps the bloodline pure.
[Matt] Dude, you're blowing my mind here.
So Daniel and Paul would show up,
have sex with the girls to get them pregnant,
and then they'd leave?
Exactly. Yeah.
Dude, does Paul...
Do these guys ever take responsibility for anything?
[Joshua] No. Nope.
They will uproot their own children's lives
if it means protecting their own assets.
I started to feel like I was trapped there.
So I felt like I needed to get away from this situation
just as much as I needed to get away from The Order.
I didn't want to run the risk of them
convincing me to stay,
so I didn't let them know or say goodbye to any of them.
It was stressful.
I felt like I would be abandoning all of these kids.
I felt like I would be abandoning my sisters.
So it was difficult to leave.
But for my own health and sanity, I had to do it.
So it was only a matter of how and when.
And that opportunity did come
when I learned Daniel needed me to drive
the wives' van back to Utah in order to register it.
And so I saw that as my opportunity.
"I'm going to drive this van to Utah
and I'm going to stay in Utah."
And that's what I did.
I really didn't know when I would see them again.
But it didn't necessarily matter
because, even though I was going back to Utah,
I wouldn't be able to go back into The Order regardless.
So I just made up my mind
that I was cutting ties and going to live my life.
It was an empowering moment.
Huge weight off my chest.
I didn't necessarily have anywhere to go immediately
when I got back to Utah.
My brother allowed me to stay with him.
I got a job at a diner.
From there, it was a few years of couch-surfing
on friends' couches
until I could afford my own place.
[Matt] Why don't you just get out of here?
[Joshua] Why don't I get out of Utah?
Yeah, what keeps you here?
I prefer to be close to my family
in case any one of them wants to reach out.
If anything changes and they want a relationship with me,
I wanna be close to them.
[Matt] Wow.
It would be amazing if my family
met my husband
and if I was able to interact with them,
and if my husband could be a part of that family.
And things like that, that's never going to happen.
And so, you think now, if, say, the AG,
the county attorney,
any law enforcement, were to come in
with warrants to get DNA from people,
the incest will probably still show up?
They're never gonna give that up.
-I appreciate it, man. -[Joshua] No problem.
It was nice talking to you. It was great to meet you.
[Joshua] Good to meet you too.
Please stay in contact
and we'll see what we can do.
[Joshua] Will do.
[Matt] Within The Order,
they're taught, because of their pure bloodline,
"We are greater than them,
therefore we are God's chosen people
and only we will live with God again."
How people gain control
is they say, "You're superior over everybody else,
but in order to stay that way,
you have to do these things.
But if you don't do these things,
then you're gonna be pushed out."
So the pure bloodline, in my opinion,
is strictly for control purposes
that the Kingstons are using
to bring in power
for the leadership and only the leadership,
not worrying at all about the women and children
who suffer daily
because of this pure bloodline belief.
And unless we, as society,
step in to correct it,
to protect the children,
then it's just going to continue.