LaRae Wright

LaRae Wright was a schoolteacher and the mother of Brenda Wright Lafferty, whose marriage to Allen Lafferty brought her into conflict with his increasingly controlling expectations and his brothers’ religious extremism. LaRae’s place in the account is that of a parent watching a daughter’s independence narrow, urging another woman to leave a dangerous marriage, and finally receiving Brenda’s plea to come home. The story’s painful reversal is that Brenda did not make that return: after asking for refuge, she called again to say that she and Allen had resolved their difficulties.

Family and Background

LaRae raised seven children with her husband, Jim Wright, an agronomist. Brenda was the second oldest. Born in Logan, Utah, Brenda moved with her family to Ithaca, New York, when she was one year old, as Jim pursued a doctorate at Cornell University. The family missed the open country of the Rocky Mountain West, though Ithaca also placed them near Palmyra, a significant site in the history of their faith. After completing his degree, Jim moved the family west again, to Twin Falls, Idaho, where Brenda spent what her sister later remembered as a happy and active childhood.

LaRae’s account of her daughter’s early promise is reinforced by the details of Brenda’s education and ambitions. Brenda graduated from high school with honors, enrolled at the University of Idaho, and was elected president of her sorority before deciding that this was not the life she wanted. She returned to Twin Falls, attended the College of Southern Idaho, and later transferred to Brigham Young University. There she studied communications and worked on a television newsmagazine program. Her family understood her as capable and self-directed, and Brenda wanted a career in broadcast journalism.

Brenda’s Marriage and Changing Prospects

Brenda met Allen Lafferty while attending a young adult ward in Provo. He was not a student, but had begun attending the congregation; they became a couple and married in the Salt Lake City Temple on April 22, 1982, when Brenda was twenty-one. Her sister described the family’s initial affection for Allen and the attraction Brenda felt toward him. At first, his family appeared to them to be a respected, close-knit Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints family.

Marriage, however, changed the practical shape of Brenda’s future. Allen did not want her to work in broadcasting, so she put that ambition aside and took a lower-profile job at a store to obtain insurance and help support the family. He then pressed her to give up that work as well, expecting her to depend on him. LaRae later learned that Brenda had been offered a teaching position in Brigham Young University’s communications department, but Allen would not allow her to accept it. Brenda became a housewife, and, according to her mother’s account of Brenda’s journals, began to feel within about two months of the marriage that she had made a mistake. By then she was pregnant with Erica Lafferty.

The family’s concern grew as the conduct around Brenda became more troubling. Her sister recalled that Allen would not let Brenda take the sick baby to a doctor. LaRae also saw the Lafferty family’s religious extremism emerge as a serious concern. These developments form the background to her later insistence that Dianna Lafferty leave Ron Lafferty: LaRae’s daughter had already experienced the costs of a marriage in which Allen’s demands curtailed her work and independence, while Ron’s conduct toward Dianna was growing more extreme.

Support for Dianna Lafferty

Dianna Lafferty lived near Allen and Brenda in Utah County and turned to Brenda for help as her marriage deteriorated. Ron had been excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had lost his job, and was becoming increasingly abusive and insistent on taking plural wives. Brenda believed Allen might still be changed, but believed Ron would not abandon his extreme ideas. She urged Dianna to divorce him, for Dianna’s sake and for the sake of her children.

Leaving was daunting for Dianna, who had six children, no college degree, no employment history, and little confidence that she could support herself. Brenda’s encouragement helped her act: with help from Brenda, close friends, and members of her Highland ward, Dianna began divorce proceedings. The divorce was finalized in autumn 1983. Around Thanksgiving she moved with the children to Florida, putting distance between herself and the Lafferty family. LaRae’s evidence places Brenda in the role of a friend who could recognize the danger and press for a decisive break, even while Brenda’s own marriage remained unresolved.

The Call Home and Its Reversal

About two months after a late-night meeting between Brenda and her sister, LaRae received a Sunday morning telephone call from Brenda. Brenda was panicked and asked whether she could come home. LaRae and her family welcomed the possibility; later that day, however, when LaRae called back, Brenda said that she and Allen had worked things out. She did not come to Idaho.

That reversal leaves a sharp distinction between the refuge Brenda’s family was prepared to provide and the decision Brenda made in that moment. Her sister later explained that the family had not known the full extent of what was happening in the marriage. Brenda had not told them about the violence or the School of the Prophets, and they learned more by reading her journals after her death. Betty Wright McEntire believed that if Jim had understood the situation, he would have taken Brenda and Erica back to Idaho. The family’s willingness to receive her was real; its ability to act was constrained by what Brenda had not disclosed and by her return to Allen.

Narrative Role

LaRae’s testimony connects the household history of Brenda Wright Lafferty to the wider pattern of control surrounding the Lafferty brothers. The family first saw Allen as charming and familiar, then gradually recognized troubling religious fanaticism and restrictions on Brenda’s choices. LaRae’s account is especially significant because it preserves two different forms of maternal response: she and Jim supported Brenda’s education and abilities, while LaRae also describes the later moment when her daughter asked to come home and then withdrew the request.

Her story does not present a simple divide between knowing and indifference. LaRae’s family offered help, but did not know everything Brenda was enduring; Brenda, in turn, continued to hope that her marriage could be made to work. The contrast with Brenda’s clear advice to Dianna—to leave Ron for her own sake and her children’s—makes Brenda’s own hesitation more consequential, not less. Through LaRae’s recollections, the account shows how a family can recognize danger in another household before it fully understands the danger within its own.