The Guardian

Murder of three teens in Mexico led police to a fugitive US polygamist and his dark world

Orson Black was arrested after the bodies of three Americans were found near his Mexican ranch – then police and neighbors learned the truth about his life
Rancho el Negro in Ciudad Cuauhtémoc. Photograph: STR/AFP/Getty Images

Rancho El Negro is a five-hectare property amid rolling fields of corn and cotton at the foothills of a lonely mountain outside the town of Ciudad Cuauhtémoc in the north Mexican state of Chihuahua.

Neighbours – mostly members of the region’s German-speaking Mennonite community – referred to the farm as “The Company” and had little to do with its owner.

They knew he was called Black, and lived with several women and young children in a rough concrete house and a handful of RVs. There were stories that he

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Guardian

The Guardian8 min read
PinkPantheress: ‘I Don’t Think I’m Very Brandable. I Dress Weird. I’m Shy’
PinkPantheress no longer cares what people think of her. When she released her lo-fi breakout tracks Break it Off and Pain on TikTok in early 2021, aged just 19, she did so anonymously, partly out of fear of being judged. Now, almost three years late
The Guardian4 min read
‘Soul-shattering’ Prophet Song by Paul Lynch wins 2023 Booker prize
Irish author Paul Lynch has won the 2023 Booker prize for his fifth novel Prophet Song, set in an imagined Ireland that is descending into tyranny. It was described as a “soul-shattering and true” novel that “captures the social and political anxieti
The Guardian7 min read
Gwyneth Paltrow: Is Her Life A Work Of Performance Art?
Ripping to shreds Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop gift list has been a media preoccupation for years now, to the point that the website even titles it, “The ridiculous but awesome gift guide”. Still, even those not driven by well-documented animus towards Pal

Related