in the car, disposing of the knives and clothes on the way. They were arrested at Chip’s brother’s house on July 30, 1984.
The next day Dan and Ron realized that they were now on the run and they headed towards Reno. They had a female friend there who worked in a casino called Circus Circus, and had let them sleep on her floor a few months previously. Dan told Ron that they were sure to be met with arrest if they went to her as he had written about her in his diaries, which were now more than likely in the hands of the police.
Ron did not say anything so they kept walking into the Casino and whilst queueing in the restaurant for a coffee they were surrounded by FBI agents. On August 17, 1984 Ronald Watson Lafferty and Daniel Lafferty were arrested for the aggravated murders of Brenda and Erica Lafferty.
BROTHERS ON TRIAL
In 1985 the two brothers stood trial. Ron’s lawyer tried to plead insanity in the hope of getting him convicted of manslaughter instead of first degree murder. Ron was found guilty on two charges of first degree murder and was sentenced to death. Dan Lafferty, was charged on two counts of first degree murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Dan, to this day, states that he was responsible for both murders, but Ron was sentenced to death for killing Brenda and for being the mastermind behind the plot.
If Ron Lafferty had not gone to his brothers’ meeting to try and talk them out of fundamentalism maybe a lot of people’s lives could have turned out different. Or was it Ron’s fate to end up as he did?
The nightmare of that day in July 1984 has not been an easy one to try and get over as re-trials have occurred as recently as 2003. Ron’s defence have made a number of attempts to remove him from death row but each time they have been quashed. He refuses to talk to anyone about the events that happened that year.
Dan Lafferty on the other hand has given many interviews describing the events leading up to and on that frightful day. He still believes that he and his brother were led by God to commit the murders and believes that he will not die in prison. Instead the prison walls will crumble around him and he will emerge as the biblical prophet Elijah, announcing the second coming of Christ. In an interview he gave to the Deseret News in 2002, Dan Lafferty said:
The Ku Klux Klan
“Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Radical Republican Party?” “Did you belong to the Federal Army during the late war, and fight against the South during the existence of the sa me?” “Are you opposed to negro equality, both social and political?” “Are you in favour of a white man’s government in this country?”
These were the questions drawn up by the KuKlux Klan in 1868 to recruit people to its organisation.
When the black population of America emerged victorious from their struggle for liberation from slavery after the American Civil War, they met with a new enemy – a secret, terrorist, white-supremacist organization known as the Ku Klux Klan, who believed in the innate inferiority of the black man and therefore felt that they neither deserved, nor were welcome to, the same rights and privileges as the white man. The freedom of these slaves signified a humiliating economic and social defeat, adding salt to the wounds left by the military defeat they had already suffered. Resentment and loathing bubbled over and a campaign of terror and violence was unleashed on the southern states of America.
THE END OF THE CIVIL WAR
On March 3, 1865, the Freeman’s Bureau was set up by Congress. This had as its objective the protection of freed slaves, and sought to weaken the traditional white power structure of the rebel states. They found new work for the former slaves, and provided them with better health and educational opportunities. In total, they spent 17 million dollars on improved welfare, schools and hospitals. President Andrew Johnson however, who claimed that these black slaves should be in ‘subordination’ and declared that he would live and die with these beliefs, sought to crush the capabilities of the Freeman’s Bureau. He rejected Congress’s pursuit of more powers for them, and also opposed the Civil Rights Bill which they proposed. This bill would have increased protection of the black people, and prevented unfair restrictions of their rights.
One year later however, in 1866, the number of Radical Republicans, who fought not only for the abolition of slavery but also supported complete equality for freed slaves, in Congress increased. This led to the passing of the Reconstruction Act which separated the south into districts, and allowed the freed black slaves to vote in the elections for leadership of them.
Against the backdrop of devastated towns and cities, ruined plantations and farms, and a destitute population now controlled by an occupation army, the perceived rise of the slaves was the breaking point for the white Southerners. The stage was set for the explosive arrival of the Ku Klux Klan.
The Ku Klux Klan tore across the war-ravaged South on a mission to intimidate and destroy the Reconstruction governments from the Carolinas to Arkansas. Their main targets were the blacks, and their main goal was to stop them from voting, holding office, or exercising their new, undeserved rights in any way. Also targeted however, were immigrants, and any white people who were standing up for, or sympathetic to, black rights.
The KKK frightened their targets by burning crosses within view of the victim’s home. If this had no effect, then they would attack – torturing, beating, and murdering. They justified this as an essential course of action in the name of white supremacy and to protect and keep the white race pure. The Klansmen dressed in white robes with pointed hoods which covered their faces, supposedly symbolising the ghosts of dead soldiers who had returned to avenge their defeat.
THE ORIGINS OF THE KU KLUX KLAN
A group of former Confederate army members established the original group in 1865, in Pulaski, Tennessee. Originally set up as more of a social club, there was nothing sinister about the first few gatherings of what the young men eventually decided to call the ‘Ku Klux Klan’. They chose the name from the Greek word ‘kuklos’ meaning ‘circle’, and the English word ‘clan’. They also decided to keep it a secret society, to make it more exciting. They gave the ranks of the society ridiculous names – Grand Cyclops, Grand Turk etc. – just to amuse themselves.
Any new members (or ‘Ghouls’ as they were called within the Klan) whom the group managed to recruit, were subjected to an initiation ceremony. This was a farcical procedure, involving the entrant being blindfolded, sworn in with silly oaths, and finally ‘crowned’. The members all went out on horseback, dressed in sheets, with masks covering their faces. These were the very silly, and innocent beginnings of something which was to become deadly serious.
EXPANSION OF THE KU KLUX KLAN
The group began to grow, and attracted more members from adjacent neighbourhoods. The cloaked excursions became more frequent and more sinister. They would arrive at the homes of black people late at night, and give them dark warnings of more visits if they did not keep a low profile. The blacks, with their new-found freedom, ignored these warnings, and soon the threats turned into actual violence. Although the blacks were the main target of these attacks, the Klan also turned on anyone who supported black rights, Northerners who had come south, or southern unionists.
In 1867, all members of the ever-increasing Ku Klux Klan were asked to send representatives to a convention, presided over by ‘Grand Wizard’ General Nathan Bedford Forrest (a brilliant general in the Civil War), held in Nashville. The main objective of the convention was to discuss the Klan’s response to, and encourage the opposition of, the Reconstruction effort to integrate the blacks and allow them voting rights. By now, the KKK had thousands of members all eager to further the cause and uphold white supremacy.
However, many new recruits felt uneasy about the group’s activities, as did the long-standing members who were seeing the changes within the structure of the Klan. They were unhappy about the higher level of brutality, and felt that the balance had shifted since the Klan’s beginnings. They were all fully supportive of the Klan’s cause
