Slaughter of the Innocents

In Timberlake, Utah, two girls are murdered by a hooded figure, setting a grim pattern that will haunt a family for years. Five years later, the case resurfaces in the form of a troubling connection that fascinates a gifted FBI agent, Stephen Broderick. He is based in Cleveland, and the investigation is personal for him because his 10-year-old son, Jesse, has a remarkable talent for noticing details others miss. Jesse starts to see parallels between the old Utah killings and a fresh set of assaults, clues that seem to point to a single, chilling method.

In both episodes, the victims’ mothers report a sighting of an elderly woman in a black dress, appearing on the roadside and silently placing something into a basket. This eerie pattern becomes the cornerstone of the father-and-son team’s hunt. When Broderick travels to Draper Penitentiary to consult with the man condemned for the Provo Canyon massacre— Bobby Martel—the scene broadens beyond a local mystery. He is greeted by [Roxanne Lemar], an FBI agent who helps push the investigation forward. Although footprints place Martel near the crime scenes, authorities want to recheck a pubic hair found on a victim using a modern test that wasn’t available at the time. The warden, [Warden Bates], refuses to delay the execution, and Martel dies before the new tests could be completed, leaving the question of innocence unsettled.

Back in Timberlake, Broderick begins to suspect a disturbing possibility: Martel may have come to watch as the girls were targeted, a grim hint that the killer’s presence is both voyeuristic and ritualistic. He and Jesse return to the town, where Jesse discovers sage at the site tied to the old woman’s sighting. As Jesse pieces together details about the killer’s signature, he learns that one of the victim’s ribs was taken and that sandal prints exist, suggesting a disturbing, almost hedonistic attempt to imitate a higher power. The killer then murders the owner of a general store, shouting a chilling line while stealing two taxidermied birds.

Using a computer program, Jesse connects the general store assault to the earlier crimes, expanding the profile of the perpetrator. The pair visit the crime scene and compile new data to refine their growing picture: the killer stands about 6 feet 2 inches tall, weighs roughly 205 pounds, is right-handed, has no known arrest record, and belongs to blood type B. He also appears to be neglectful of dental care and drives a pre-1968 Volkswagen van. The clues hint that this man is methodical, cold, and obsessed with ritualistic symbolism.

A new twist arrives when a young girl is abducted at a gas station. The emergency pulls Broderick back to Utah, while Jesse returns home. The Utah authorities discover a house emitting a foul odor, and [Officer Olmon] discovers sage hanging from the ceiling, with a scene of a man, a woman, and a little girl in black robes, along with a ritualistically murdered boy. Broderick investigates the house of the cultists linked to a Moab religious sect, and the killer subsequently visits a public library to gaze at books on Flemish paintings. A tip from the library helps confirm that a man matching the killer’s description has been there recently, and fingerprints from the earlier crimes begin to match as well.

Among the volumes checked out by the suspect is a book called Mother Less Child, a title that broadens the case in unsettling ways, and a reference to a 1930s mystic named Sarah Proctor who stored corpses and masked odors with sage—an echo of the killer’s own ritualistic behavior. [Jesse] notices another clue in an old police report about the Salt Lake City Zoo, where two giraffes were stolen. He arranges travel to Salt Lake City using his father’s card, while Broderick and Roxanne close in on the former Moab sect leader, a figure who has transformed into a Neo-Nazi and becomes a dangerous antagonist. The confrontation turns deadly, and Vale is killed, forcing Jesse to take decisive action of his own.

Jesse’s quick thinking leads to a breakthrough: at the zoo, he uses personal information about a staff member to coax the truth about the giraffes’ disappearance. Inside the perpetrator’s locker, the clue-laden name Mordecai Booth surfaces, and a bible-page fragment ties him to the crimes. Cross-checking the imagery with locations near Booth’s PO box locates a closed uranium mine near Castle Rock. The hunt accelerates as Jesse rents a dirt bike and speeds toward the mine, while Broderick hacks into Jesse’s computer to retrieve the coordinates.

Inside the mine, a chilling display unfolds: tortured figures and a life-size ark loaded with the dead and taxidermied animals. Booth captures Jesse and binds him to the ark, where his gruesome ark-building experiment nears completion as he prays for rain. Kristi, a survivor who remains alive, is near the peril, and Booth’s cryptic ritual reaches a fever pitch. Broderick arrives, wounds Booth, and frees the children just as the ark tears toward a cliff. The ark collapses, Booth is killed, and Roxanne arrives to help seal the fate of the killer.

In the aftermath, Broderick honors the memory of Bobby Martel by purchasing a cemetery plot, a somber conclusion that underscores the long road from a pair of brutal murders to a father’s resolve and a child’s insight. The story fuses investigative tenacity with a family’s resilience, weaving together forensics, cryptic symbolism, and a perilous chase that stretches from small-town streets to a hidden mine and a climactic, high-stakes rescue.