A Utah mom is accused of kidnapping her 5-year-old daughter for over a year in the middle of a divorce — taking the girl to a cult that touts bitcoin as a cure for over-controlling government.
Kimberly Dell Davidson-Drolet spent 14 months planning the disturbing Jan. 23 2023 abduction of her daughter, ripping her from her Utah home and bringing her to a cult “compound” in Missouri led by Paul Dean, according to Utah federal court filings.
Dean, 54, is a white Christian who dubbed himself “Man Found Standing” and founded two Native American churches in the Show Me State, according to an opinion piece in the Springfield Daily Citizen.
Davidson-Drolet, 53, had been in the middle of a divorce and custody case from husband Laurence Drolet in January 2023 before she and her daughter vanished, according to the court papers unsealed last week. The mom also sold her car, withdrew all the money from her bank account and left her cell phone behind at her Utah home in order to remain untraceable until June 27, the filings said.
The day of the kidnapping, the mom packed her things in boxes and duffle bags and put them in her relative Jaxson Davidson’s truck. Davidson’ then drove Davidson-Drolet and the girl to stay in a home provided to them by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints-“type cult,” the filings alleged.
While the girl was not named in court papers, the Daily Mail identified her as Gracyn Drolet.
Taking the daughter out of state without permission violated Davidson-Drolet’s custody agreement with Laurence and a court order, the court papers allege.
The mother continued to evade authorities for over a year by only using pre-paid burner phones — which she regularly swapped out — sending letters to her other children through her sister Kristine Merrill, and getting housing and support through the cult, the court documents allege.
The mom even had the girl go by a different name, the court papers said. A GoFundMe page set up to help find the daughter said she might go by the name Peppa.
This, all while law enforcement had been looking for the girl since Feb. 2, 2023 and while an arrest warrant had been issued against Davidson-Drolet on Dec. 20, 2023.
In text messages to Dallas Davidson — another relative who would send Davidson-Drolet new phone cards — the mother said “she felt safe in Missouri because, ‘they don’t participate in extradition,’” the indictment alleged.
She also told Dallas she and Paul Dean had been talking about plans to flee to Thailand, the indictment claimed.
Davidson-Drolet is charged with kidnapping and conspiracy alongside her sister Merrill and her relatives Jaxson and Dallas.
Federal prosecutors plan to ask that Davidson-Drolet be kept behind bars since she is allegedly a risk to her daughter and has proven that she’s a flight risk, according to papers seeking her detention.
“The defendant went to great lengths to avoid apprehension and formed an elaborate plan to take the child out of Utah through the use of various family members,” the detention papers claimed.
And the feds wrote in filings that she “holds Sovereign Citizen beliefs that propose the federal and state courts have no jurisdiction over them.”
Dean said in a 2017 podcast that he believes bitcoin is the solution for the federal government “robbing us, stealing our value from us … through inflation,” according to a report by Law & Crime, since bitcoin, “isn’t controlled by governments.”
There is “no reasonable condition that could be placed on her to ensure that she would appear in the district of Utah” and she is a “threat to the victim child as she has proven that she places her needs over the child’s needs,” the detention papers claimed.
Davidson-Drolet no longer has custody over her children, the court papers claim. It was not immediately clear where Gracyn is now.
Dean founded two churches called the Spirit of Truth Native American Church and the New Haven Native American Church and said in an “introductory video” on YouTube page “Man Found Standing” that he is a “natural practitioner and principle medicine chief of the New Haven Native American Church,” Law & Crime reported.
In his videos he talks about sweat lodges, healing rituals and using the psychedelic drug peyote as a sacrament, the Daily Citizen piece said.
It was not immediately known who the defense attorneys were for the four defendants.
