They were looking for God and all they did was find this … monster …
Summary: The FBI investigates a polygamist cult after a woman goes missing.
Original air date: January 5, 2007 (US)
Written by: Julie Herbert
Directed by: Julie Herbert
Opening numbers:
100,000: Polygamists
37: States
11: Religions
1: Bloodline
Family Concepts (character development):
- First use of “Amita Vision”
- Alan and Millie have dinner together
- Charlie and Amita take a road trip to a math conference at Stanford.
- Colby: Oh man, FBI sedans are not made for this! [off-roading]
Fourteen year old Josephine Kirtland is found unconscious along a road beaten and bloody. When Don and Colby arrive at the scene they are met by Rachel Willons with the CBI, she informs them that one of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted, an Abner Stone, is the one who beat her. Stone is the head of the Apostolic Saints, a polygamist cult operating is several states; Willons has been tracking him for the last twelve years.
Josephine is able to tell Rachel and Colby some of what happened to her most importantly that she ran away from a trailer parked somewhere in the desert. Charlie is able to narrow down where Don should look for the trailer and Colby leads a team to it’s location. The trailer has been booby trapped, but the FBI does find an interesting chart or map that might explain why Stone is back in the States where he is wanted. Charlie and Amita decide to help Don with the case instead of continuing on to a math conference at Stanford they were driving to.
Rachel meets Josephine’s mother Emmanueline and finds the woman is still a follower of Stone and that she gave her daughter to Stone as a way to save the girl’s soul. Josephine is outraged when she discovers this and leaves the hospital with her boyfriend Lee. When they return to Josephine’s house to pack her belongings, they discover Emmanueline is gone and there are signs of a struggle. Josephine is convinced Stone took her mother, but she doesn’t know why.
Charlie and Amita try to work out what the chart or map is the FBI found at the trailer. They are working in the garage where Dr Finch finds them as she is leaving a dinner she had with Alan. She points out the map looks like a cattle breeders chart. Charlie and Amita realize what they are looking at is actually a genealogy of the cult’s members; the chart shows a lot of inbreeding among the cult’s families and they also note that Stone is one of the most inbred members. They hypothesize that Stone is looking for a female member of the cult who is not as inbred that he can marry as he has not been able to father many children. Charlie thinks Stone is now looking for one of Josephine’s sisters and are shocked when they figure out that Emmaueline is not only Josephine’s mother, but also a sister.
Tracking Stone through a series of podcasts, Charlie points to a location where he had originated a podcast in the past as a possible location where Stone might be hiding now. Colby and Rachel go out to the site only to be ambushed by Stone and a group of his followers. Don tries to negotiate with Stone, but when shots are fired inside the building he decides to move in. Before they can get too close, Stone comes out with Emmaueline to surrender. Colby notes however there is a flame inside the building and a propane tank just before the building blows up; Stone blew up the rest of his followers before leaving the building.