United States: doomsday-splinter leaders imprisoned for 'marrying' each other's small daughters
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Core record
Evidence status
Convicted
Authority role
leaders of the 'Knights of the Crystal Blade', a doomsday splinter of Latter-day Saint tradition
Organization
Knights of the Crystal Blade
Archive classification
This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.
Doctrinal coercion in its purest form: children assigned as wives by revelation, in a sect whose entire authority was the two men's claimed prophetic standing.
- Prophecy or divine command
- Religious marriage or family control
Evidence structure
Proceedings
2018-06-14 · guilty pleas and sentences
Sixth District Court, Sanpete County; Fifth District Court, Cedar City, Utah. John Coltharp and Samuel Shaffer, leaders of the 'Knights of the Crystal Blade' splinter sect, each 'married' the other's daughter — girls of seven and eight — under the group's revelation claims. Coltharp pleaded guilty in June 2018 to child sodomy and child bigamy and Shaffer to child rape and child abuse; both were sentenced to twenty-six years to life. It was the first prosecution under Utah's child-bigamy statute.
Documented coercion mechanisms
- revelation claims used to designate children as 'wives'
- child bigamy prosecuted under Utah's statute for the first time
Cited record
Sources
- national newspaper court reporting plea report Deseret News: Coltharp's guilty plea.
Court report of the plea.
- national broadcaster court reporting sentencing report Fox 13: Shaffer's sentencing.
Corroborating sentencing report.
Source provenance
Source access and integrity log
This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.
- Source and tier basis
- https://www.deseret.com/2018/6/14/20646959/leader-of-purported-doomsday-cult-pleads-guilty-to-child-sodomy-and-child-bigamy/ Corpus classification: national-newspaper-court-reporting; evidentiary role: plea-report. SHA-256 e77f2200b0e3b980a7bd04840c3a0957e25c29dcaa8622ed84d6aea23884deaa
- Retrieval
- 2026-07-20 · Preserved
- Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
- Source and tier basis
- https://www.fox13now.com/2018/08/08/utah-doomsday-cult-leader-sentenced Corpus classification: national-broadcaster-court-reporting; evidentiary role: sentencing-report. SHA-256 b7268570ddf54c6fbc644e0dd3763c5e06886a1834e3287913031fb113028fbd
- Retrieval
- 2026-07-20 · Preserved
- Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
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Related record
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