The State - News from May 28, 1987

Santa Cruz County sheriff’s investigators said they suspect foul play in the mysterious disappearance of Leo P. Evoniuk of Carmel, head of The Millenial Church of Jesus Christ, a sect that accepts polygamy, who was engaged in a bitter dispute with other polygamous religious communities. Evoniuk was reported missing on May 21 by family members who said they found blood and bullet casings at a location where he had gone to meet business associates. Last year, police said, Evoniuk was involved in written threats made to polygamist communities in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz. He denied involvement, but said he believed in polygamy and that his church existed to “proclaim peace and save people and not to destroy them.”