Another of the murders under this dispensation, which Judge Cradlebaugh mentioned as "peculiarly and shockingly prominent," was that of the Aikin party, in the spring of 1857. This party, consisting of six men, started east from San Francisco in May, 1857, and, falling in with a Mormon train, joined them for protection against the Indians. "When they got to a safer neighborhood, the Californians pushed on ahead. Arriving in Kayesville, twenty-five miles north of Salt Lake City, they were at once arrested as federal spies, and their animals (they had an outfit worth in all, about $25,000) were put into the public corral. When their Mormon fellow-travellers arrived, they scouted the idea that the men even knew of an impending "war," and the party were told that they would be sent out of the territory. But before they started, a council, held at the call of a Bishop in Salt Lake City, decided on their death.
Four of the party were attacked in camp by their escort while asleep; two were killed at once, and two who escaped temporarily were shot while, as they supposed, being escorted back to Salt Lake City. The two others were attacked by O. P. Rockwell and some associates near the city; one was killed outright, and the other escaped, wounded, and was shot the next day while under the escort of "Bill" Hickman, and, according to the latter, by Young's order. *
* Brigham's "Destroying Angel," p. 128
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,42026,42210#msg-42210--------------
Also here:
http://exmormon.org/d6/drupal/bloodatn"And if the Gentiles wish to see a few tricks, we have 'Mormons' that can perform them. We have the meanest devils on the earth in our midst, and we intend to keep them, for we have use for them; and if the Devil does not look sharp, we will cheat him out of them at the last, for they will reform and go to heaven with us." (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 6, page 176)
Orrin Porter Rockwell was certainly one of Brigham Young's "meanest devils." Rockwell, who had served as a bodyguard for Joseph Smith, did not hesitate to shed blood.... Bill Hickman was another ruthless man who killed many people. In his book Brigham's Destroying Angel, Hickman confessed that he had committed murders for the church.
In 1858, an extremely grotesque double murder was committed. Henry Jones and his mother were both put to death. These murders were obviously the direct result of Brigham Young's doctrine of "blood atonement." Two months before Henry Jones was actually murdered, he was viciously attacked. Hosea Stout, a very dedicated Mormon defender, wrote the following regarding the first attack on Jones:
"Saturday 27 Feb 1858. This evening several persons disguised as Indians entered Henry Jones' house and dragged him out of bed with a whore and castrated him by a square & close amputation." (On the Mormon Frontier; The Diary of Hosea Stout, Vol. 2, page 653)
One would think that this would have ended the vendetta against Jones. Unfortunately, this was not the case. On April 19, 1859, the newspaper Valley Tan printed an affidavit by Nathaniel Case which contained a statement implicating a bishop and other Mormons who lived in Payson:
"Nathaniel Case being sworn, says: that he has resided in the Territory of Utah since the year 1850; lived with Bishop Hancock (Charles Hancock) in the town of Payson, at the time Henry Jones and his mother were murdered... The night prior to the murder a secret council meeting was held in the upper room of Bishop Hancock's house; saw Charles Hancock, George W. Hancock, Daniel Rawson, James Bracken, George Patten and Price Nelson go into that meeting that night.... About 8 o'clock in the evening of the murder the company gathered at Bishop Hancock's... They said they were going to guard a corral where Henry Jones was going to come that night and steal horses; they had guns.
"I had a good mini rifle and Bishop Hancock wanted to borrow it; I refused to lend it to him. The above persons all went away together... Next morning I heard that Henry Jones and his mother had been killed. I wnet [sic] down to the dug-out where they lived... The old woman was laying on the ground in the dugout on a little straw, in the clothes in which she was killed. She had a bullet hole through her head... In about 15 or 20 minutes Henry Jones was brought there and laid by her side; they then threw some old bed clothes over them and an old feather bed and then pulled the dug-out on top of them....
"The next Sunday after the murder, in a church meeting in Payson, Charles Hancock, the bishop, said, as to the killing of Jones and his mother he cared nothing about it, and it would have been done in daylight if circumstances would have permitted it.-This was said from the stand; there were 150 or 200 persons present. He gave no reason for killing them. And further saith not. Nathaniel Case.
"Sworn to and signed before me this 9th day of April, 1859.
John Cradlebaugh, Judge 2nd Judicial District."
Those who murdered Henry Jones and his mother may have remembered President Brigham Young's sermon which was delivered just two years prior to these murders: "Suppose you found your brother in bed with your wife, and put a javelin through both of them, you would be justified, and they would atone for their sins, and be received into the kingdom of God. I would at once do so in such a case; under such circumstances. I have no wife whom I love so well that I would not put a javelin through her heart, and I would do it with clean hands." (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 3, page 247)
In his book, The Mormon hierarchy: Extensions of Power, Vol. 2, pages 241-261, Dr. Quinn presented compelling evidence showing that "blood atonement" was endorsed by church leaders and actually practiced by the Mormon people. Quinn gave the names of a number of violent men who served as "enforcers" for Brigham Young. In addition Quinn wrote:
"During this period Brigham Young and other Mormon leaders also repeatedly preached about specific sins for which it was necessary to shed the blood of men and women. Blood-atonement sins included adultery, apostasy, 'covenant breaking,' counterfeiting, 'many men who left this Church,' murder, not being 'heartily on the Lord's side,' profaning 'the name of the Lord,' sexual intercourse between a 'white' person and an African-American, stealing, and telling lies....
"Some LDS historians have claimed that blood-atonement sermons were simply Brigham Young's use of 'rhetorical devices designed to frighten wayward individuals into conformity with Latter-day Saint principles' and to bluff anti-Mormons. Writers often describe these sermons as limited to the religious enthusiasm and frenzy of the Utah Reformation up to 1857. The first problem with such explanations is that official LDS sources show that as early as 1843 Joseph Smith and his counselor Sidney Rigdon advocated decapitation or throat-cutting as punishment for various crimes and sins.
"Moreover, a decade before Utah's reformation, Brigham Young's private instructions show that he fully expected his trusted associates to kill various persons for violating religious obligations. The LDS church's official history still quotes Young's words to 'the brethren' in February 1846: 'I should be perfectly willing to see thieves have their throats cut.' The following December he instructed bishops, 'when a man is found to be a thief, he will be a thief no longer, cut his throat, & thro' him in the River,' and Young did not instruct them to ask his permission. A week later the church president explained to a Winter Quarters meeting that cutting off the heads of repeated sinners 'is the law of God & it shall be executed...' A rephrase of Young's words later appeared in Hosea Stout's reference to a specific sinner, 'to cut him off-behind the ears-according to the law of God in such cases.'...
"When informed that a black Mormon in Massachusetts had married a white woman, Brigham Young told the apostles in December 1847 that he would have both of them killed 'if they were far away from the Gentiles.'"(The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power, Vol. 2, pages 246-247)