Slaughter of the Innocents

In Timberlake, Utah, a hooded figure murders two girls. The victims' mothers recall seeing an old woman wearing a black dress at the roadside, who appears to pick something up and place it into a basket before the killings.

Five years after the Timberlake killings, Stephen Broderick, a Cleveland FBI agent, and his gifted 10-year-old son Jesse become involved in a new case that mirrors the Utah murders. Jesse eagerly engages with his father's work and notices striking similarities between the new crime and the earlier killings.

Broderick travels to Draper Penitentiary to meet Bobby Martel, the man sentenced for the Provo Canyon massacre. Roxanne Lemar joins him, but the warden refuses to delay the execution, and Martel dies before the new tests could exonerate him.

Broderick and Jesse travel back to Timberlake to pursue the case and gather clues. Jesse finds sage at the night scene and, using his father's notes, suspects the killer is pretending to be God by leaving ritualistic marks.

The killer murders a general store owner, shouting an unsettling line, and steals two taxidermied birds. A computer program links this attack to the earlier crimes, tying together the killer's pattern and motive.

Investigators assemble a detailed profile of the killer: the figure is 6'2" tall, about 205 pounds, right-handed, blood type B, and has not visited a dentist in a long time due to bite marks on a victim. They also note the killer uses a pre-1968 Volkswagen van.

A young girl is abducted at a gas station, prompting Broderick to return to Utah. Police uncover a foul odor from a house where sage hangs from the ceiling, and a man, woman, and little girl in black robes are found alongside a ritualistically murdered boy.

Broderick investigates the Moab religious sect and follows clues connecting the cult to the murders. The robes and sage usage appear tied to the killer's attempt to mask smells and tie the crimes to a ritualistic identity.

The killer visits a public library, drawing attention from staff who note a man fitting the description had been there. They find books including Mother Less Child and references to a 1930s mystic named Sarah Proctor who stored corpses, hinting at a macabre influence behind the crimes.

Jesse uncovers an old police report about two giraffes stolen from the Salt Lake City Zoo and uses his father's credit card to book a flight to Salt Lake City to pursue leads further.

Broderick and Roxanne track down Robert Vale, the former Moab sect leader who has become a Neo-Nazi. A confrontation ensues and Vale is killed, removing a key antagonist from the case.

Jesse visits the Salt Lake City Zoo, pressures an employee into admitting knowledge of the giraffe theft, and discovers a locker labeled Mordecai Booth. A crumpled Bible page and other notes tie Booth to the crimes.

Jesse cross-checks the imagery from the Bible passage with locations near Booth's PO box and identifies a closed uranium mine near Castle Rock. He rents a dirt bike and travels there to pursue the next clues.

Inside the mine, Jesse finds displays of tortured bodies and a life-sized ark covered with corpses and taxidermied animals. Booth captures Jesse and releases the ark toward a cliff as rain begins to fall; Broderick arrives, wounds Booth, and frees the trapped children.

The ark crashes off the cliff when Broderick climbs aboard to rescue the children, and Booth is killed. Roxanne arrives to assist, and in the aftermath Broderick buys a cemetery plot for Bobby Martel.