Kenyon Blackmore—Bernard Brady

Kenyon Blackmore—Bernard Brady was a partnership that joined a financial venture to a religious network in Utah County. In the early 1980s, the two men sold shares in tax-sheltered financial trusts and invested in the Dream Mine; through Blackmore, Brady also met the Prophet Onias and entered the School of the Prophets. The relationship ended under the pressure of a federal fraud case and the investigation into the murders of Brenda Lafferty and Erica Lafferty, with Brady sent to prison and Blackmore fleeing to Mexico.

Business Partnership and the Dream Mine

In the early 1980s, Blackmore moved his family to Salem, Utah, where he partnered with Bernard Brady, described as an affable Mormon. Blackmore converted Brady to Mormon Fundamentalism. Together, they began selling shares in tax-sheltered financial trusts, while also investing in the Dream Mine, a legendary mine set into the mountainside above Salem. The partnership appeared to prosper: millions of dollars flowed into their business account, and each man bought a lavish home below the mine.

The business brought the two men into a period of apparent affluence, but the later federal case recast its scale and character. In 1983, a federal grand jury indicted Blackmore, Brady, and nineteen other partners on multiple fraud counts. Prosecutors alleged that the group had taken more than $32 million from 3,800 investors. The United States Attorney who prosecuted the case described the scheme as a classic Ponzi scheme. The indictment thus placed the two men within a much larger alleged operation, rather than identifying their partnership as a separate enterprise.

From Business Associates to Religious Intermediaries

Blackmore’s relationship with Brady also provided a route into Onias’s religious circle. Blackmore had known Onias for years, first meeting him in Canada when Blackmore was a schoolteacher in Bountiful. When Onias moved to Utah County to establish a City of Refuge below the Dream Mine and launch the School of the Prophets, Blackmore introduced him to Brady. Brady, flattered by the invitation, then recruited five brothers from a Utah County family: Tim Lafferty, Watson Lafferty, Mark Lafferty, Dan Lafferty, and Ron Lafferty.

This sequence made the partnership consequential beyond finance. Blackmore connected Brady to a religious leader and an organization, and Brady in turn brought the Lafferty brothers into the school. The account identifies this chain of introductions but does not establish that the business partnership itself directed the school’s activities. Its importance lies in the overlap: the same association that centered on investment also helped link a circle of men later brought into public view through the Lafferty murders.

Fraud Allegations and Diverging Outcomes

On July 24, 1984, Brenda Lafferty and Erica Lafferty were murdered in American Fork, Utah. Police immediately considered Blackmore and Brady prime suspects, along with others associated in any way with the School of the Prophets. That scrutiny followed the 1983 indictment, which had already made both men subjects of a major fraud prosecution. The book places these events in proximity, but the indictment and the murder investigation were distinct matters: the former concerned alleged financial fraud, while the latter concerned the killings and the men’s connection to the school.

The partners’ responses to the fraud indictment diverged. Brady was arrested, tried, and eventually sent to federal prison for six years. Blackmore, after learning of the indictments, chose to hide rather than surrender to police. He went directly to Mexico, where Gwendolyn Stubbs LeBaron and Lavina Stubbs were waiting to shelter him in Colonia LeBaron. The account gives no equivalent role to Brady in Blackmore’s flight, and it does not describe the two men acting together after the indictment.

Significance of the Relationship

The partnership’s trajectory runs from prosperity to prosecution, but its significance also rests on the networks it joined. The investment venture brought in millions and placed Blackmore and Brady among a larger group accused of defrauding thousands of investors. Their association with Onias’s school, meanwhile, linked Brady to the Lafferty brothers before the murders made the school a focus of police attention. These connections explain why the two men appear together in both the account of the financial case and the account of the murder investigation, without making the allegations in one case proof of responsibility in the other.

Their different outcomes sharpen the contrast between a shared business association and separate courses of action under pressure. Brady was arrested and imprisoned; Blackmore went into hiding in Mexico. The evidence supports a close partnership in the financial ventures and a consequential introduction into Onias’s circle, but it does not describe a later joint strategy or show that the two men remained allies after the indictment. Their relationship is therefore defined both by what it connected and by the point at which their paths split.