FEAR AND DEATH IN A MORMON TOWN IN MEXICO

COLONIA LEBARON, Mexico -- When a 16-year-old boy was kidnapped from
this fundamentalist Mormon community in early May, ransom was set at
$1 million. The town chose not to pay.

Instead, led by the boy's older brother, members of the community
traveled to the state capital, Chihuahua, to demand that the
government catch the kidnappers. Nobody knows exactly why, but seven
days later, the boy was freed.

Soon, from other towns scattered in the valleys that stretch under
the purple-rimmed mountains of the Sierra Madre, farmers facing
extortion and intimidation began pleading with the crusading brother,
Benjamin LeBaron -- a great-grandson of the Mormon community's
founder -- for help.

He tried, forming a group to help towns put pressure on the
authorities. And then he was dead.

On July 7 at 1 a.m., four S.U.V.'s rumbled to the home he shared with
his wife and five children. Armed men pried open the front door. Luis
Widmar, his brother-in-law who lived nearby, burst in to try to help.
But the gunmen took both men away. Their bodies were found later that
day with a note accusing them of providing information leading to the
arrests of gang members in a nearby town.

Two and a half years after the Mexican government started its war
against drug cartels, the crackdown has, in some places, only made
life more dangerous. Here in the northern state of Chihuahua, the
threats, kidnappings and violence did not begin until last year,
about the same time the government sent troops to Ciudad Juarez,
which is a four-hour drive from Colonia LeBaron.

"The extortion began about a year ago," said one Colonia LeBaron
resident who left Mexico after Mr. LeBaron and Mr. Widmar were
killed, and asked not to be identified out of fear for his life. "We
think the narcos' money is drying up and they are resorting to
whatever they have to do." People here say they believe that the
military presence on the border has pushed gangs into the countryside.

The local police chief was killed in November. Armed men followed the
mayor's children and his wife as they went to school.

The town treasurer of another small Chihuahua town, Namiquipa, was
killed last year. The police chief and a top commander have been
missing since October. The mayor, who had been receiving death
threats since last year, was killed July 14.

The drug war remains intense in Ciudad Juarez, where there have been
more than 1,000 killings this year. Drug cartels are continuing their
brazen displays of violence against Mexican authorities. A few days
after Mr. LeBaron and Mr. Widmar's funeral, 12 off-duty federal
police officers in the western state of Michoacan were kidnapped,
tortured and killed, their bodies dumped in a pile on a highway.

The government piled more troops into Michoacan, and on Thursday, the
federal police announced the arrests of four men in the case. Ten
municipal police officers were detained after the killings as
authorities investigated whether they protected the killers.

Looking back, the signs of how great the risk Benjamin LeBaron and
his group, SOS Chihuahua, were running seem obvious.

"People began to call us," said the man who left the country. "They
figured we could pressure the government on their behalf. We started
to handle kidnapping and extortion cases.

"Then we felt we were going to begin to get into a dangerous
situation. We were afraid that the family would be killed. But Benji
said, 'I feel their pain. I can't let them down.' "

SOS Chihuahua had a manifesto that urged citizens to overcome fears
of organized crime and to give tips to the authorities.

"Everybody is scared to give information to the government," said one
resident who worked with Mr. LeBaron. The call to start cooperating
must have hit a nerve with the criminals, he said, and the group was
"a threat to their impunity."

The family asked for protection, and about a dozen state police
officers in mid-May began training a community police force. Soldiers
and state police made rounds through LeBaron and the nearby town of
Galeana, where Mr. LeBaron lived. But there were few illusions.

"Any criminologist will tell you that when they want to get somebody,
there is nothing that can be done," said a state police investigator
who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak
publicly. "You cannot put a police officer in front of every house."
Still, Colonia LeBaron had its own special history, and its people
thought they had the wherewithal to stand up to fear.

The town was settled in the 1940s by Alma Dayer LeBaron, who had come
to Chihuahua with other Mormon settlers but was excommunicated after
he took a second wife. Polygamy is fading now, but many adults have
dozens of siblings, and much of the town is related by marriage.
Benjamin LeBaron was one of his father's 51 children.

The people here favor English over Spanish and worship in a
sand-colored, wooden church decorated with framed quotes from George
Washington and Benjamin Franklin.

They have dual citizenship, and many work for years in the United
States to earn money to buy land and build houses here. The village
is surrounded by chile fields and pecan orchards.

But there is also a dark side. Benjamin LeBaron's grandfather Joel,
the son of Alma Dayer LeBaron and revered by many in the community as
a prophet, was killed in 1972 by followers of his brother, Ervil, at
a settlement the brothers had set up in Baja California. Ervil
LeBaron's cult continued its killing spree in the United States for
more than 15 years.

Those who worked to help set up SOS Chihuahua do not know how they
will carry it on. The town is terrified. There are no children
playing on the lawns or riding their bikes along the gravel streets.
The crunch of a coming truck provokes an anxious glance, but it's
just a neighbor.

"They had a cause, they stood up for it, they were killed for it," a
relative said. "And he's a martyr, as far as I'm concerned."