Posted on June 30, 2005

Death for US Family-Killer Father Marcus Wesson

BBC News, June 30, 2005

A man who ran his family like a cult has been sentenced to death in the US for killing nine of his children, many of whom he had fathered through incest.

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The jury also found him guilty of 14 counts of raping and molesting seven of his daughters and nieces.

Wesson fathered children with at least four women. Two of them were his daughters.

His trial heard how he exercised a tyrannical control over his family, forbidding the women from contact with the outside world and presenting himself as a divinely-inspired preacher.

He told his family they needed to have “babies for the Lord”.

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It took investigators hours to establish the exact number of dead because the bodies were piled up and entangled in a pile of clothing.

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