Los Molinos was a polygamist settlement on the Baja Peninsula established by Joel LeBaron. Its place in the book’s history is defined by the violent break between Joel and his younger brother Ervil: in 1972, Joel was killed there by a member of Ervil’s group, and that killing preceded a broader campaign of violence attributed to Ervil.

Settlement on the Baja Peninsula

Joel established Los Molinos eight years before his death, making it the setting of a community he had founded. By November 1969, he was the elder brother and nominal presiding prophet of the sect; that month, he expelled Ervil for insubordination. The conflict that later reached Los Molinos was therefore also a struggle over religious leadership within the brothers’ group.

Joel LeBaron’s murder

After his expulsion, Ervil claimed to receive a revelation that Joel had become an obstacle to God’s work and needed to be removed. On August 20, 1972, in Los Molinos, a member of the group loyal to Ervil shot Joel in the throat and head, killing him. The attack brought the brothers’ rupture to the settlement Joel had founded.

Place in the LeBaron conflict

Joel’s killing at Los Molinos marked the start of the murderous campaign Ervil presented as divinely inspired. The book reports that the violence resulted in at least five additional deaths through 1975 and left more than fifteen people wounded. Los Molinos thus enters the narrative not simply as a settlement, but as the location where a dispute over authority became lethal and opened onto further violence.