Marcus Wesson devised a plan nearly a decade ago for his children to kill themselves if authorities came to retrieve the clan, according to a detective testifying at a preliminary hearing on charges Wesson murdered nine of his kids.
Wesson maintained strict control over his many children and would inflict "week-long spankings" if they broke his rules, which included not talking to men outside of the family, Fresno homicide detective Carlos Leal testified one of Wesson's adult daughters told him.
The 20-year-old girl said the family was forced to study the King James Bible twice a day and listen to Wesson preach, Leal said, adding that she claimed Wesson began molesting her and her sisters when they were as young as 5.
In 1995, Leal said, Wesson began talking to his family about a plan to commit mass suicide if there was a threat the children would be taken away.
"He would ask them, 'If the time came, would they be ready to die for the Lord?'" Leal said.
Leal said the girl told him that if authorities came to break up the family, "the older ones would kill the children and would commit suicide."
Another detective, Richard Byrd, testified that an adult niece of Wesson's, with whom the man also had a child, told of an even more gruesome plan.
Wesson called the girls "his soldiers," Byrd said, adding when it was time to commit suicide, the niece said Wesson would order them to "go out and kill the rest of the family members that were no longer in his house."
The woman's mother sent her to live with Wesson when she was 7-years-old, where she was molested and forced, along with the other female children, to wear long dresses and cover her head with a veil, Byrd said.
"She said Mr. Wesson had told her that women aren't supposed to show their heads to God, only men can," Byrd said, adding Wesson claimed to be Jesus Christ.
Wesson was obsessed with David Koresh, leader of the Branch Davidian cult that got into a deadly 1993 confrontation with federal agents outside Waco, Texas. He wanted to create a similar following within his own family, Byrd said.
Wesson, 57, has pleaded innocent to charges he murdered a 25-year-old woman and eight of his children ranging in age from 1 to 17. Police said the woman, who was Wesson's daughter, also was the mother of one of the slain children.
He is being held in lieu of $9 million bail. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.
Before yesterday's preliminary hearing, Wesson pleaded innocent to 33 additional charges of sexual abuse dating to 1988.
The new accusations include multiple charges of continuous sexual abuse and forcible rape against females who lived with him, but the documents do not specify whether they were family members. Five of the six victims were under 14 when the attacks occurred.
Public defender Pete Jones asked to postpone the hearing, claiming his office had not received all of the new evidence and could not "put on any kind of meaningful defense."
Judge Lawrence Jones ordered the hearing to continue.
Fresno police have not disclosed a motive for the murders, but said Wesson engaged in incest and polygamy. Officers were called to the scene March 12 when several of the children's mothers were unable to take their children away from him.
When Wesson emerged from the house with blood on his clothes, he was arrested. The victims were found piled one on top of another, entangled in bloody clothes.
There have been questions as to whether police were on scene before or after the victims were killed.
Police testified that two family members outside the home claimed to have heard several gunshots while authorities were on the scene. Other relatives claim to have seen some of the victims alive inside the home after police arrived.