Along a dusty rural road in northern Mexico on Monday, a Mormon family’s three-vehicle convoy was ambushed by a group of armed men spraying bullets through the morning sky. The victims of the shooting, nine in total and all U.S. citizens according to CBS, were members of the LeBaron family residing in a Mormon community in Chihuahua. The Mexican government suggests the brutal massacre, described as a kind of “twisted evil,” was a case of mistaken identity. But, as The Washington Post reports, family members believe it was actually a targeted attack carried out by local drug cartels.
As a manhunt for the murderers continues, many questions remain: Who was behind it? What was the motive? And why are there reports of a NXIVM connection in all this?
Here’s everything you need to know.
Nine members of the LeBaron family were killed by unknown gunman on Monday.
Who are the LeBarons?
The family lives as fundamentalist Mormons. According to The Daily Beast, they broke away from the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints in Utah after it banned polygamy. The LeBarons reportedly formed a religious sect called the Church of the Firstborn, and their practice of polygamy has now largely faded from the community.
Why were they in Mexico?
The family has a long history in Mexico dating back to the early 20th century. The Washington Post reports they were, “part of a decades-long migration of fundamentalist Mormons who settled in northern Mexico to practice their religion in relative isolation.”
Their Mormon community does have ties to NXIVM.
That’s according to The New York Post, which is reporting that the LeBaron family’s community is where ex-NXIVM leader Keith Raniere “recruited young women to work as nannies in an upstate New York compound run by the accused cult — suggesting at least in part that the jobs would get the girls away from their home region’s drug violence, according a man hired by Raniere to produce a documentary about the group.”
The Houston Chronicle reports that NXIVM’s ties to the Mormon community came up in May during NXIVM defector and documentary filmmaker Mark Vicente’s testimony. According to the outlet, Vicente’s testimony revealed how Raniere “created a ‘girls school’ for Mexican teenagers, many of whom were recruited from within the LeBaron community to live in the Albany area under the care of a ‘first-line slave’ for Raniere.”