At long last, a Blackmore has been convicted of a crime.
To refresh your memory, the Blackmores are, quite literally, the “fathers” of the community of Bountiful, an idyllic patch of farmland in B.C.’s Kootenay region, close to the U.S. border. Winston Blackmore alone is father to 147 children, by 27 wives.
Most of the 130 or so students who attend the school in Bountiful are Winston’s children or grandchildren. The B.C. government turns a blind eye to his polygamy, providing $637,000 a year in school funding.
On February 3, Justice Paul Pearlman found Winston’s older brother, Brandon Blackmore, guilty. But not of polygamy. Rather, of child trafficking. In what seems to be have been a common practice, various Blackmores took underage children from their community across the border into the U.S. to become child brides for Warren Jeffs, head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Jeffs, now serving a life sentence in the U.S. for child sexual assault, instructed Brandon Blackmore and his wife at the time, Gail Blackmore, to bring their 13-year-old daughter to him.
They were “married” on July 3, 2004. Six days later, 49-year-old Jeffs recorded for posterity his consummation of the marriage.
Yes – sex with a 13-year-old.