Four Tied to Violent Polygamist Sect Shot to Death in Ambushes

Four people who broke away from a violent polygamist sect were shot to death almost simultaneously in a series of carefully calculated ambushes in Houston and the Dallas suburb of Irving, police said today.

All of the victims had broken away from the followers of the late Ervil Lebaron, the head of the violent Mormon polygamist sect known as the Church of the Lamb of God. Two of the men who were killed were once charged along with Lebaron in the murder of a rival polygamist leader.

“I can’t say for sure, dead certain, that (the four killings are) related,” Irving police investigator Charles Cheek said. “But hell, I’ve never been to Milwaukee, but I’m sure it’s there.”

One of Monday’s victims, Mark Chynoweth, had told the Houston Chronicle recently that anyone who broke from the group was on a hit list and that he was at its top.

Authorities have linked at least 12 homicides to the feud that developed when the core of the Lebaron family moved to Sonora, Mexico, the Houston Post said.

Chynoweth’s body was discovered about 4 p.m. at Reliance Appliances in Houston, where he worked, police spokesman Dan Turner said.

His niece, Jenny, 10, and brother, Duane, 31, were lured to a vacant house, where they were told to deliver a washing machine, and were killed there about 10 minutes after Mark Chynoweth’s body was found, said Turner.

“Witnesses said they saw the driver of the suspect’s vehicle get out of his truck and talk with the appliance deliveryman. There was a brief conversation and that man was shot several times in the head by the suspect,” Turner said. “Then the suspect shot the girl in the head.”

The fourth victim, Ed Marston, 32, of the Dallas suburb of Irving, was ambushed at a vacant house in Irving where he had been told he could pick up some appliances at about 4 p.m., police said.