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Hulu's Under the Banner will explore the criminal cases of Ron and Dan Lafferty, and how they murdered their sister-in-law Brenda and her infant child.
The first two episodes of Under the Banner of Heaven, starring Andrew Garfield as Detective Jeb Pyre, will premiere on FX on Thursday, April 28. Throughout the series, Pyre (a member of the church himself) will investigate the real-life murders of Lafferty and her child while dealing with his own faith crisis.
Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Brenda, and Sam Worthington plays her brother-in-law and murderer, Ron. Under the Banner of Heaven, like many other series, veers between reality and Hollywood.
On July 24, 1984, Brenda Lafferty was found dead by her husband on the floor of her home with her throat slit after being suffocated by a vacuum cord. Brenda Lafferty's 15-month-old daughter, Erica, was discovered in her cot with identical death wounds in the neighboring nursery.
When news of the murder of Brenda Lafferty and her infant child broke in 1984, it put the Mormon community in an awkward position. The crimes were committed by two men, Ron and Dan Lafferty. Ron claimed that God told him to kill Brenda and her child.
This disturbing, yet engrossing, story has made its way to television nearly forty years later.
Where are Ron and Dan Lafferty now?
After Ron and Dan Lafferty were arrested in Nevada for Brenda's murder in 1984, both were convicted of the crime. The trial of Dan Lafferty took place in January 1985, and the murderer chose to represent himself in court.
Dan, who initially claimed responsibility for both deaths, was found guilty of two charges of first-degree murder and a number of other felonies, and he was sentenced to two life sentences in prison. Dan Lafferty is still alive and serving his term in Utah's state prison.
Before his own hearing in April 1985, Ron Lafferty tried to commit suicide in jail, an attempt which resulted in physical and mental injuries that landed him in Utah State Hospital. He was found competent to stand trial after several months and was convicted and sentenced to death.
Ron attempted multiple appeals after 1985, with his competency being "restored" in 1996, when he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death once more. Ron then spent another 20 years on death row, awaiting execution, before passing away from natural causes in 2019.
