Brenda Lafferty and Dianna Lafferty

Brenda Lafferty and Dianna Lafferty are linked by a moment of practical solidarity: as Dianna’s marriage to Ron Lafferty deteriorated, Brenda urged her to leave and helped her act on a decision that felt nearly impossible. Their relationship brought Brenda into direct opposition with the Lafferty brothers’ growing fundamentalism. The support she offered Dianna became, in Ron’s eyes, a reason to target her; Brenda was eventually murdered alongside her infant daughter, Erica Lafferty.

The crisis in Dianna’s marriage

As Ron grew more controlling and extreme, Dianna initially tried to preserve the marriage. She stayed up late attempting to reason with him and sometimes went along with his demands in hopes of changing his behavior. But Ron increasingly embraced plural marriage, which Dianna found deeply troubling. When he said he intended to marry off their teenage daughters as plural wives, she reached a breaking point and sought help from friends, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints leaders, and Brenda.

Brenda’s intervention was not an abstract objection to Ron’s beliefs. She urged Dianna to divorce him for the sake of Dianna and her children. By then, Brenda believed Ron was too far gone to abandon his increasingly extreme ideas. She still hoped she might change her own husband, Allen Lafferty, but saw less possibility of persuading Ron to change. That distinction shaped the support she gave: she continued to hope for Allen while telling Dianna that leaving Ron was necessary.

Brenda’s resistance and support

Brenda had already resisted the demands that Dan Lafferty’s fundamentalist beliefs brought into the brothers’ marriages. She opposed Allen adopting those demands and encouraged the other wives to stand up for themselves and think independently. The brothers blamed her for keeping their family apart. Her willingness to resist made her a conspicuous presence in a family where submission was being treated as a religious obligation.

For Dianna, leaving Ron meant confronting serious practical obstacles. She had six children, no college degree, no work history, and no marketable skills; she doubted her ability even to type. Although she knew Brenda’s advice was right, separation seemed difficult to manage. Brenda’s support, alongside that of close friends and members of the Highland congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, helped Dianna find the resolve to begin divorce proceedings. Their relationship thus mattered not only as emotional counsel but as part of the support network that made departure possible.

Separation and its aftermath

The divorce was finalized in autumn 1983. Around Thanksgiving, Dianna took the children and moved to Florida, placing distance between them and the Lafferty brothers. Ron had had opportunities to anticipate the separation, but his wife and children’s departure still struck him as a severe loss. In his account of the breakdown, he assigned responsibility to three people: Richard Stowe, Chloe Low, and Brenda. Brenda’s advocacy for Dianna therefore became one of the grievances through which Ron interpreted the divorce.

The difference between Brenda’s understanding of her actions and Ron’s interpretation is central to the relationship’s tragic course. Brenda had tried to help Dianna protect herself and her children. Ron instead treated that help as interference that had contributed to his family’s departure. His resentment fixed on Brenda in particular, whom he considered instrumental in persuading Dianna to leave. The support that helped Dianna escape thus became, in Ron’s thinking, grounds for retaliation.

From accusation to violence

In a revelation Ron wrote, Brenda and her baby were named first among people he said should be removed, followed by Chloe Low and Richard Stowe. Ron and Dan concluded that those identified were wicked and that the revelation should be acted upon. The religious language converted people who had helped Dianna into supposed obstacles to divine work, recasting personal opposition as a commandment. This was not a disagreement Brenda could resolve by explaining her intentions: the brothers’ interpretation had made her assistance itself evidence against her.

When Dan entered Brenda’s apartment, she recognized that something consequential was happening and apologized for having influenced Ron’s wife. Dan then restrained her. Brenda and Erica were killed. The episode gives the relationship its devastating ending: Brenda’s efforts had helped Dianna leave, but Ron’s retaliatory account of that assistance placed Brenda and her child in the path of the brothers’ violence.

Significance

Brenda and Dianna’s connection shows how mutual support could create a route out of a controlling marriage while also provoking hostility from those who treated a wife’s departure as defiance. Dianna’s decision depended on more than a private change of heart; she drew on Brenda, friends, and members of her religious congregation to overcome the material and personal barriers to leaving. Brenda’s role was consequently both intimate and consequential.

The relationship also exposes the stark conflict between two forms of obligation. Brenda understood helping Dianna as an act of care; Ron interpreted it as betrayal of his authority and family. His interpretation did not merely distort the past separation: it helped turn a woman’s assistance to another woman into a target for violence. Brenda’s support remains the defining fact of their relationship, even as the consequences imposed by Ron and Dan overwhelmed the choice that had made that support possible.