Lafferty Brothers—Brenda and Erica Lafferty

Ron Lafferty and Dan Lafferty’s relationship with Brenda Lafferty and Erica Lafferty joined an intimate family connection to a deadly religious rationale. Brenda Lafferty was the wife of the brothers’ brother, Allen Lafferty, and Erica Lafferty was their infant niece. In Ron Lafferty’s purported revelation, they were named first among people to be “removed”; on July 24, 1984, Ron Lafferty and Dan Lafferty killed them, claiming religious command as their justification. The brothers later disagreed over who killed Brenda Lafferty, but the account presents the murders as a joint act for which both were responsible.

Family Relationship and Religious Authority

Brenda Lafferty’s place in the family was explicit in the revelation Ron Lafferty recorded: she was identified as his brother’s wife, and her baby was named with her. The command placed them at the head of a list that also included Chloe Low and Richard Stowe, and called for the targets to be removed in rapid succession. It framed the killings not as a private family dispute but as a divinely ordered step to clear obstacles to religious work.

Ron Lafferty shared the revelation with Dan Lafferty before presenting it to the School of the Prophets. The brothers concluded that the named people must be wicked and therefore deserved to be killed. That interpretation transformed family proximity into no protection for Brenda Lafferty and Erica Lafferty: the revelation’s religious authority displaced ordinary obligations to kin and to the people it condemned.

The command was not accepted by everyone around them. Bernard Brady read it and rejected it as wrong, but neither he nor Ron Lafferty raised it with the other members at the meeting. The brothers, by contrast, decided that it was valid and should be acted upon. Their shared decision gave the revelation practical force even without collective agreement from the school.

The Murders and the Intended Plan

On July 24, 1984, Ron Lafferty drove Dan Lafferty, Chip Carnes, and Ricky Knapp to the home of Allen Lafferty and Brenda Lafferty in American Fork, Utah. Dan Lafferty forced his way into the apartment and subdued Brenda Lafferty; Ron Lafferty joined him. Dan Lafferty later described killing Erica Lafferty, who was in her crib. The evidence establishes that both women were killed, while the brothers’ differing accounts leave disputed which of them killed Brenda Lafferty.

The killings were meant to begin, not conclude, the plan. The brothers intended next to go to Chloe Low’s home and then to the residence of Richard Stowe, president of the Highland LDS Stake. They believed completing the command would clear the way for a City of Refuge beside the Dream Mine, a project they associated with preparation for the Last Days. When they reached Chloe Low’s home, the family was away for the Pioneer Day holiday. The planned attack on Richard Stowe did not occur: Ricky Knapp missed the turn, and the men continued toward Salt Lake City.

Conflicting Accounts and Shared Responsibility

The brothers’ later descriptions differ over who killed Brenda Lafferty. Dan Lafferty said that he killed both Brenda Lafferty and Erica Lafferty. Chip Carnes’s account of what was said during the drive west instead attributed Brenda Lafferty’s death to Ron Lafferty and Erica Lafferty’s to Dan Lafferty. Dan Lafferty disputed Carnes’s account of Ron Lafferty’s role in Brenda Lafferty’s killing, while acknowledging the essential point that he had killed Erica Lafferty.

The disagreement matters to the reconstruction of each brother’s actions, but it does not undo their shared participation. Ron Lafferty and Dan Lafferty acted together on the removal revelation, entered the apartment, and left with Brenda Lafferty and Erica Lafferty dead. The account therefore distinguishes the contested question of who wielded the knife from the broader responsibility the brothers shared for the murders.

Consequences and Significance

After the killings, Ron Lafferty, Dan Lafferty, Chip Carnes, and Ricky Knapp drove toward Nevada. During the journey, Dan Lafferty described the murders to Knapp and Carnes, though their later testimony diverged over who had told the story and what it said about Ron Lafferty’s actions. The group’s flight carried the family crime into a wider criminal and legal aftermath, while the brothers’ explanation continued to cast the murders as obedience to revelation.

Dan Lafferty later interpreted the deaths through an apocalyptic belief in a coming harvest of the wicked, placing Brenda Lafferty and Erica Lafferty among the people he claimed had been killed in anticipation of that future. That interpretation exposes the central rupture in the relationship: the brothers recast a sister-in-law and a baby niece as religious obstacles. The family bond remained a factual link, but in their reasoning it became subordinate to a purported command that authorized their deaths.