MORMONS BAPTIZE NOTORIOUS KILLERS

By HELEN RADKEY, August 28, 2009

Mass murderers and serial killers are among the millions of deceased who have been posthumously baptized in temples owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). These names include the modern-day dictators and mass murderers—Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, and Mao Zedong. Other multiple murderers have been posthumously baptized in Mormon temples, like prolific serial killer, Ted Bundy.

Bundy, who was once a Mormon, is one of the most infamous serial killers in U.S. history. His primary occupation in life was the murder and mutilation of young women. He also engaged in necrophilia, which is a sexual attraction to corpses. Bundy destroyed many innocent lives—and his victims may have numbered over 100. Nevertheless, Ted Bundy was baptized by proxy on May 28, 2008 in the Jordan River Utah (LDS) Temple.

According to Mormon theology, Ted Bundy can now accept or reject his Mormon rebaptism to improve his status in the hereafter. On January 23, 1989, in an interview he gave just hours before his execution, recorded on video and titled Fatal Addiction, Bundy had difficulty coming to terms with his murderous history and impending execution. Bundy was a cold-blooded killer who expressed no feelings of remorse for his crimes.

While they were alive, serial killers, such as Ted Bundy, lived to destroy lives. Evidently, some Mormons think that after death and Mormon temple rituals—as if by some magical transformation—depraved killers, like Bundy, can potentially embrace and perpetually live in the presence of God. Otherwise, why perform “saving” rites for dead murderers?

LDS temple rituals are performed by living church members as proxies for the deceased. “Temple work” for the dead includes: baptism, confirmation, priesthood ordination (for males), initiatory and endowment ceremonies, sealing to spouse, and sealing of children to parents. Mormons believe these “ordinances” offer salvation to (non-LDS) deceased.

The LDS Church usually blames its errant membership and the high volume of temple submissions for the questionable names that are processed in LDS temples, which would include the names of “celebrity killers.” However, baptizing deceased murderers on a routine basis downplays the seriousness of murder, cheapens life, and creates the illusion that even the worst criminals can easily be absolved of the consequences of their crimes against humanity. Proxy rituals for such destructive individuals are entirely unwarranted.

Mormons may insist that God will be the final judge, but what fair-minded person would baptize Adolf Hitler or Ted Bundy, or, for that matter, any of the 9/11 hijackers who perpetrated a devastating, deadly assault on the United States, crashing airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, causing the deaths of thousands of people? Most of the names of the 19 Arab suicide terrorists, who were intent on destroying American symbols and inflicting mass casualties on 9/11, were submitted into the LDS temple system for temple work. This is not a reverential memorial to the victims who died in one of the most cataclysmic events in world history.

Conversely, and, ostensibly, with little or no regard for the murder victims, the names of many American-born killers have appeared in LDS temple files. In addition to Ted Bundy, here are five examples of other well-known U.S. killers of modern times, whose names have been taken from the lists of the posthumously baptized.

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer (1960-1994) was a depraved serial killer and sex offender from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who confessed to the murders of 17 men and boys from 1978-1991. Dahmer is infamous for the grisly way he killed his victims. His gruesome methods of murder included drugging, rape, torture, strangulation, bludgeoning, stabbing, mutilation, necrophilia, dismemberment, and cannibalism. Dahmer was arrested by police in 1991. At his trial in 1992, he was convicted and sentenced to fifteen consecutive life terms, for a total of 957 years in prison. On November 28, 1994, Dahmer was beaten to death in prison by a fellow inmate. It is not known if Mormons have performed proxy temple rituals on Jeffrey Dahmer’s behalf. He is listed in LDS temple files, but details of any LDS temple ordinances that may be attached to his entry are flagged as not available.

Edward Theodore Gein (1906-1984) was a deranged murderer and grave robber from Vernon County, Wisconsin. America has never seen his equal in the field of mental aberration, which included necrophilia, cannibalism, and death fetishism, along with murder and grave robbing. Gein’s crimes, which he committed around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, garnered widespread notoriety in the 1950s, after authorities discovered he had exhumed decaying bodies from local graveyards and decorated his home with parts of the corpses stolen from graves. While Gein was only convicted of two murders, the actual number is believed to be much higher. Gein was declared mentally incompetent and unfit to stand trial at the time of his arrest in 1957. He was committed to a state hospital for the rest of his life. In 1968, Gein’s doctors determined he was sane enough to stand trial. Gein was found guilty of first-degree murder, but was judged to be legally insane. He spent the rest of his life in a mental institution in Madison, Wisconsin, where he died of cancer-related causes on July 26, 1984, aged 78. Edward Theodore Gein was posthumously baptized on April 10, 2009 in the Palmyra New York (LDS) Temple. He was confirmed in the Medford Oregon (LDS) Temple on April 17, 2009. Additional proxy rites were performed for Gein in the Newport Beach California (LDS) Temple in May 2009. Ed Gein was known as “The Butcher of Plainfield.” He is listed by that name on notes attached to his LDS record that includes the details of his temple ordinances.

John Wayne Gacy (1942-1994) was a notorious serial killer from Chicago, Illinois, who had an insatiable lust for rape and murder. Gacy’s brutal methods of murder involved drugging, handcuffing, torture, sexual assault, stabbing, suffocation, and strangulation. He killed 33 boys and young men, the majority of whom he buried in a crawl space under the floor of his home. Gacy’s murder trial began in February 1980 in Chicago. In March 1980, the jury found him guilty of murdering 33 people between 1972 and his arrest in 1978. Gacy was convicted of all 33 deaths and sentenced to die. He was put to death by lethal injection on May 10, 1994, at Stateville Correctional Center, Illinois. Listed as John Gacy—John Wayne Gacy was posthumously baptized and confirmed a member of the LDS Church in the Twin Falls Idaho (LDS) Temple on September 26, 2008. An initiatory ritual was done on Gacy’s behalf in the same LDS temple on October 9, 2008, and an endowment ritual has been reserved for him. A duplicate LDS temple record for Gacy, listing him as John Wayne Gacy Jr., shows a baptism and confirmation are in progress, and initiatory and endowment rituals are on hold.

Arthur Gary Bishop (1951-1988) was an excommunicated Mormon from Hinckley, Utah, who was executed by lethal injection on June 10, 1988 at the Utah State Prison, for five counts of capital murder, five counts of aggravated kidnapping, and one count of sexually abusing a minor. Bishop was a child molester and child killer. He molested boys for many years without being caught. In 1983, Bishop confessed to the murders of five young boys for sexual motives. He led police to three skeletons near Cedar Fort, Utah, and two more corpses near Big Cottonwood Creek. On January 22, 2000, in the Billings Montana (LDS) Temple, Arthur Gary Bishop became a rebaptized Mormon by proxy. Other posthumous rituals were done for him in the same LDS temple in 2000, and 2001.

Timothy James McVeigh (1968-2001) was an anti-government activist and mass murderer from Pendleton, New York. In June 1997, McVeigh was convicted and sentenced to death by a Denver jury for the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which was largely demolished by the explosion of a homemade truck bomb. The bombing, which occurred on April 19, 1995, killed 168 people—including 19 children—and injured hundreds more. It was the deadliest act of terrorism on American soil, until the 9/11 attacks. McVeigh took pride in being the man responsible for the bombing. He showed no remorse for the 168 deaths, and he referred to the 19 children he murdered as “collateral damage.” McVeigh was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001, in a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. On September 26, 2008, Timothy McVeigh was posthumously baptized and confirmed in the Twin Falls Idaho (LDS) Temple. On October 9, 2008, in the same LDS temple, an initiatory rite was performed on his behalf, followed by an endowment ceremony the next day.

The LDS Church claims to be the one and only divinely mandated church on Earth—a wholesome, family-oriented religion. Yet, the ghoulish Mormon practice of baptizing mass murderers and psycho killers presents an ungodly and debased standard. When Mormons think they have the power to offer salvation to mass murderers and serial killers, essentially, they are attempting to assign redemption to a dark and unholy place.

© Copyright 2009, Helen Radkey—Permission is granted to reproduce, provided content is not changed and this copyright notice is included.