SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (WKRC) – A woman is accused of kidnapping her five-year-old daughter during a divorce and then hiding the young girl in a cult compound several states away.
According to court documents, 53-year-old Kimberly Dell Davidson-Drolet disappeared with her daughter in January 2023 in the middle of a divorce custody battle with her husband, Laurence Drolet. Later investigations revealed that Drolet had been planning to kidnap her daughter for 14 months, according to the documents.
In addition to kidnapping her daughter, court records also state that Davidson-Drolet sold her car, withdrew all the money from her bank account and left her cell phone in the Utah home where she kidnapped her child.
According to court documents, she sent the money to her sister, Kristine Merrill, over the course of a month. Merrill later told police that she destroyed her sister’s phone and allegedly gave it to her nephew and Davidson-Drolet’s son, 23-year-old Dallas Davidson. Authorities also reported in court documents that Merrill was present at the time of the kidnapping and helped the mother leave Utah.
Court records show that Davidson-Drolet evaded police by using a series of disposable cell phones, communicating with her family and receiving support from the cult.
Davidson-Drolet packed her belongings into duffel bags, loaded them into the truck of her 30-year-old son, Jaxson Davidson, and drove from Utah to Missouri, three states away, court documents say.
Aside from the fact that the kidnapping was illegal, taking the daughter out of state violated the custody agreement between Davidson-Drolet and her husband, court records show.
After more than a year of searching, authorities found the five-year-old on a “compound run by religious cult leader Paul Dean, the founder of an FLDS-like cult,” according to court documents.
Remarkably, 54-year-old Paul Dean is not the founder of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to which the authorities refer, but of an alleged sect based on the beliefs of this religion, which in turn is based on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or the Mormon Church.
Dean is a white Christian who founded two Native American churches in Missouri and called himself “Man Found Standing.” According to a video on his YouTube channel “Man Found Standing,” Dean is “a naturopath and chief medical officer of the New Haven Native American Church.”
According to Law & Crime, Dean stated in a 2017 podcast that he believes Bitcoin will stop the federal government from “robbing us, stealing our value… through inflation” because it is not controlled by a government.
Court documents say Davidson-Drolet made plans with Dean to escape to Thailand.
Davidson-Drolet was charged with kidnapping and conspiracy. Her sister and sons were also charged.
