The nine women and children killed by drug cartel gunmen in northern Mexico on Monday lived in a remote farming community where residents are descendants of former church members who fled U.S. prosecution of polygamy in the late 19th century.. This has led some scholars to view it as a sham trial. Evidence as to whether or not Young ordered the attack on the migrant column is conflicted. Without Mormon witnesses, the prosecuting attorney could present little credible testimony, and he dismissed all the key evidence, leading the jury to acquit all five men. In 1857, at the time of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, Brigham Young, was serving as President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and as Governor of Utah Territory.He was replaced as governor the following year by Alfred Cumming. Victorian Murders by Jan Bondeson is published by Amberley and costs £14.99. On Oct. 30, 1838, a mob from Livingston County attacked a Mormon settlement in Caldwell County, brutally killing at least 17 and injuring nearly as many. Smith, Rigdon, and several other Danite leaders were arrested, and spent the next few months in jail awaiting trial on treason and murder charges. Religion and gunfire—it worked for the Boondock Saints, but one man, Porter Rockwell, made this combination a reality during the 1800s. Most of the other murder … 12 Stories circulated among Latter-day Saints regarding the purported fates of those involved in the murders. The event occurred after increasing animosity and friction between Mormon and non-Mormon residents of the area. Mountain Meadows Massacre, (September 1857), in U.S. history, slaughter of a band of Arkansas emigrants passing through Utah on their way to California.Angered by the U.S. government’s decision to send troops into the Utah territory, Mormons there were further incensed in 1857 when a band of emigrants set up camp 40 miles (64 km) from Cedar City. The murders of three people at a Hi-Fi shop in Ogden left Utahns shocked and horrified in April, 1974. They bound their victims, forced them to drink drain cleaner, then shot each in the head. After Smith's murder, the Mormons regrouped and under the leadership of Brigham Young, selected as Smith's successor as prophet and president, undertook the "great trek" westward to the Utah Territory, where they established a virtual Mormon kingdom, centered in Great Salt Lake City, which they called the State of Deseret. Early church members practiced polygamy in the 1800s at the instruction of founder Joseph Smith, but the church disavowed it in 1890. On the other extreme, some papers, such as the Jonesborough Whig, thoroughly supported the actions of the mob, praising the murders as a victory: "Some of the public Journals of the country, we are sorry to see, regret the death of that blasphemous wretch Joe Smith, the Mormon Prophet. To see citations to the critical sources for these claims, click here. The Danites comprised most of the 400 or so Mormon men who surrendered along with Smith and Rigdon to state militia forces at Far West. Joseph Hancock was found guilty of second degree murder in 1890. Pierre Dale Selby and William Andrews, U.S. Airmen working at Hill Air Force Base, took five people inside the shop hostage. 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