The FBI said it is pursuing new leads in the decades-old manhunt for a fugitive member of the LeBaron polygamous sect who was recently added to the agency's Most Wanted list.
Jacqueline Tarsa LeBaron was recently placed on the list by FBI agents in Houston, where she is charged with playing a role in masterminding a series of closely timed assassinations in Texas.
The fresh leads were generated after a Deseret Morning News story last Saturday publicized LeBaron's addition to the Most Wanted list.
"A couple of them appear that they might have some substance to them," Special Agent Shauna Dunlap said Tuesday from the FBI's office in Houston. "They are certainly worth following up on and looking into."
But a relative of Tarsa LeBaron, who has since left the polygamous family, called the fugitive a "victim."
"She didn't have a chance, the way she was raised," Susan Ryan Schmidt said. "Especially having a father like Ervil."
Federal prosecutors said that on June 27, 1988, four people were killed in separate attacks in Houston and Irving, Texas. The slayings all took place at approximately 4 p.m. The killers were carrying out a "hit list" drafted by LeBaron's father, Ervil.
Ervil LeBaron was a polygamous leader with 13 wives and 54 children. He attempted to unite fundamentalist Mormon polygamous sects under one umbrella and was ultimately convicted of ordering the murder of a rival polygamous leader, Rulon Allred.
LeBaron died in prison in 1981. A scripture he wrote made its way into the hands of his children, containing what some authorities believe was a "hit list." It ordered blood atonement for those who left his church or crossed him. Over the next several years, a series of killings and suspicious deaths shook Utah's polygamous communities and those close to the LeBarons.
In 1992, six members of the LeBaron clan were indicted by a federal grand jury on charges including murder, conspiracy to obstruct religious beliefs and racketeering for the "four o'clock murders." Five members were captured and convicted. Jacqueline Tarsa LeBaron remains at large.
Schmidt said she was raised in the LeBaron group and at 14 was being courted by Ervil LeBaron's brother, Verlan. She said she was summoned to see Ervil and told he wanted to marry her. "He said, 'I just want you to know the Lord wants you in my family,' " she said Monday from her home in Idaho. "I was shocked and repelled. I was not in the least bit attracted to Ervil." -->
Schmidt said that when Ervil LeBaron said he wanted to take her as a plural wife in secret, she rebelled. A year later, she became Verlan LeBaron's sixth wife at age 15.
"I was so lonely as a wife," she said. After Ervil had another family member killed, Verlan went into hiding.
"The rest of the time I was married to him, he was in hiding," Schmidt said. "A young plural wife with no husband and a house full of children."
Becoming disillusioned with her religion and her marriage, Schmidt said she packed her five children up and went to stay with her brother in 1975, ending her marriage to Verlan LeBaron. She went back to school and later remarried.
Over the years, she said she was horrified by the murders and suspicious deaths that took place in the LeBaron group. In 1981, her ex-husband Verlan LeBaron died in a car accident in Mexico. Schmidt said that some members of her family remain convinced it was murder.
Schmidt has recently authored a book about her life in the LeBaron group, titling it, "His Favorite Wife." She doesn't know what to make of the addition of the girl she knew as "Tarsa" on the FBI's Most Wanted list.
"I didn't expect to hear the LeBaron name in the headlines again," she said. "I'm mystified by Tarsa."
Schmidt described her as an "intense girl," but insists the fugitive is a victim.
"All of Ervil's kids who were pulled into this were victims," she said. "Their birth, their circumstances, their father. That doesn't excuse the fact that they committed murder. Anyone with a brain has to know that it's wrong, that it's horrible, there's no excuse for that."
On its Web site, www.fbi.gov, the FBI said that Jacqueline Tarsa LeBaron was last believed to be in Mexico. She used to teach English to wealthy Mexican families and may be doing that again. LeBaron has 15 aliases, is known to wear disguises and is considered armed, dangerous and an escape risk.
E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com