Mountain Meadows Massacre — What did Brigham Young know and when did he know it? | Episode 286

The infamous and inexcusable Mountain Meadows Massacre lives on as the bloodiest stain on the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The 2008 book “Massacre at Mountain Meadows” offered modern readers the most complete look to date at the atrocity, when, on Sept. 11, 1857, Mormon settlers deceived a wagon train of emigrants on their way to California through southern Utah and then slaughtered about a hundred men, women and children. Now comes the eagerly anticipated follow-up volume, titled “Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath.” On this week’s show, co-authors Richard E. Turley and Barbara Jones Brown explain how church leaders in southern Utah tried to cover up the crime, how investigations were thwarted, and how justice was delayed and denied. (In then end, only one perpetrator, John D. Lee, was executed.) They also explore a key Watergate-like question: What did church prophet-president Brigham Young know and when did he know it?