Later that summer — several months after Ron Lafferty had scribbled his divine message onto a yellow legal pad — he and his brother Dan crept toward Brenda and their brother Allan’s apartment. As the brothers worked to break into their sister-in-law’s apartment, two men waited in a nearby car ready to help them flee the crime scene. The brothers gained entrance, and then attacked Brenda before strangling her with a vacuum cleaner cord. They then cut her throat, per A&E. After killing Brenda, they turned their attention toward their young niece and murdered her as well.

One of the getaway drivers would later testify at the brothers’ trial that Ron Lafferty admitted to killing Brenda Lafferty as they sped away from the apartment, celebrating his heinous act while banging a bloody knife on his knee. Allen Lafferty discovered the bodies of his wife and daughter and knew exactly who committed the crime. According to All That’s Interesting, both Laffertys were arrested in Reno, Nevada after spending about one month on the run after the murder. They had planned to kill others, including a woman named Chloe Low, who Ron also thought had helped his wife leave, and a man named Richard Stowe, who was responsible for their excommunications from the church. Fortunately, neither one were harmed by the Rafferty’s before their arrests, per Newsweek.