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Nightmare in Logan Canyon--Scare still haunting teens

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Nightmare in Logan Canyon--Scare still haunting teens

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Legend-tripping teenagers trespassing at St. Anne's retreat in Logan Canyon get a real scare after being ambushed by security guards.
Nightmare in Logan Canyon - Scare still haunting teens
Youngsters tell of gunshots, death threats and now therapy
By Phil Jensen
Staff writer

If carloads of teen-agers sneaked into legendary St. Anne’s in Logan Canyon last weekend for a good Halloween scare, it worked.

They couldn’t have imagined in their wildest dreams that what happened there, in the unsettling October darkness, would be a real nightmare. It is a nightmare, a number of Cache County’s boys and girls say, that still wakes them in the warm security of their homes.

When 6 boys and 2 girls were on the floor of the lodge in the old St. Anne’s Retreat at 5 a.m. Friday, their hands cuffed behind them, ropes around their necks and a burly man with a shotgun leaned down and reportedly told his two partners, “I want some blood tonight, boys,” they thought their lives were over.

Interviews with the youths who say they were tortured and their parents reveal a gruesome script like Hollywood’s “Friday the 13th.”

A 17-year old Logan girl who is a member of her high school drill team was one of the eight youths on the floor. She said she went to St. Anne’s for the same reasons that a generation before her had visited the local haunted house.

“I honestly thought it was the end because you don’t say that unless you’re psychotic,” the girl said about the man’s comments.

Her friend and drill team companion said she thought for a time that her life could end at sweet 16.

“When they took our pictures I got really scared,” she said. She said the only thought that came to her was that the three men with shotguns, knives, pistols and clubs wanted before and after pictures.

“Sit up straight or I will slit your throats,” the burly man reportedly said before flashing the shutter.

The burly man is believed to be John Jeppson, who one of the owners said was allowed to stay at the retreat in exchange for tending the property.

Some of the kids began to cry when the burly man with short, graying hair and wearing jeans and suspenders reportedly wiggled his 10-gauge shotgun with a flashlight strapped to the barrel and talked about kids who never made it back from St. Anne’s.

He could kill them and hide their bodies under the building. He said he had done it before, according to some of the youths. “You know how many people I’ve killed in this canyon? You want to know where those bones under here came from?

The ropes, the youngsters were told, were linked to a fuse that, if they moved, would ignite and decapitate them.

The burly man would leave the room from time to time and the teen-agers told the other two watchmen that they only came to St. Anne’s to get scared and asked if they would let them go. They were told that the burly man was in charge.

“They seemed like they were afraid of him,” one of the girls said.

The 17-year-old girls did not have a jacket and sat shivering. A boy asked the burly man if he could give her his coat and the man reportedly said, “Don’t be a hero,” He kept his coat.

Three of the eight youths were Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese and they said that got the attention of the burly man, who kept talking about his life “fighting for my country” in Vietnam.

When they walked through what they said was a partially open gate with no visible “no trespassing” signs, they were ordered to hit the ground.

“Freeze m…., or I’ll blow your f… head off. I’ll slit your f… throats,” said the man, according to the youths.

He allegedly put a gun to the head of one of the Asians, who was now on his knees, called him a “gook” and threatened to blow his head off. Witnesses heard a shot. It was apparently into the ground.

The teen-agers said the burly man talked of Vietnam and patriotism inside the lodge and told them, “You all look like Vietnamese to me. You mean nothing to me.”

When sheriff’s deputies arrived, the man started rambling to them about this being like troops in Vietnam and “about police powers in the war.”

A 17-year-old girl from Smithfield was among 30 or so teenagers who, not knowing what happened earlier that day, tiptoed onto the grounds of St. Anne’s late Friday night. Before she was brought to her knees in an empty pool with the others, handcuffed and tied neck-to-neck with rope, she was allegedly fondled.

Her father said today the family is arranging therapy for his daughter through the LDS Church.

Source

Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections and Archives, FOLK COLL 32

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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of the USU Libraries Special Collections and Archives, phone (435) 797-2663.

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Utah State University Folklore in the news collection, 1973-2012, FOLK COLL 32
http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv04849
St. Anne's Retreat

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http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p16944coll20/id/20
SCAFOLK032Bx003Fd07Item0011.pdf

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Nightmare in Logan Canyon - Scare still haunting teens
Youngsters tell of gunshots, death threats and now therapy
By Phil Jensen
Staff writer

If carloads of teen-agers sneaked into legendary St. Anne’s in Logan Canyon last weekend for a good Halloween scare, it worked.

They couldn’t have imagined in their wildest dreams that what happened there, in the unsettling October darkness, would be a real nightmare. It is a nightmare, a number of Cache County’s boys and girls say, that still wakes them in the warm security of their homes.

When 6 boys and 2 girls were on the floor of the lodge in the old St. Anne’s Retreat at 5 a.m. Friday, their hands cuffed behind them, ropes around their necks and a burly man with a shotgun leaned down and reportedly told his two partners, “I want some blood tonight, boys,” they thought their lives were over.

Interviews with the youths who say they were tortured and their parents reveal a gruesome script like Hollywood’s “Friday the 13th.”

A 17-year old Logan girl who is a member of her high school drill team was one of the eight youths on the floor. She said she went to St. Anne’s for the same reasons that a generation before her had visited the local haunted house.

“I honestly thought it was the end because you don’t say that unless you’re psychotic,” the girl said about the man’s comments.

Her friend and drill team companion said she thought for a time that her life could end at sweet 16.

“When they took our pictures I got really scared,” she said. She said the only thought that came to her was that the three men with shotguns, knives, pistols and clubs wanted before and after pictures.

“Sit up straight or I will slit your throats,” the burly man reportedly said before flashing the shutter.

The burly man is believed to be John Jeppson, who one of the owners said was allowed to stay at the retreat in exchange for tending the property.

Some of the kids began to cry when the burly man with short, graying hair and wearing jeans and suspenders reportedly wiggled his 10-gauge shotgun with a flashlight strapped to the barrel and talked about kids who never made it back from St. Anne’s.

He could kill them and hide their bodies under the building. He said he had done it before, according to some of the youths. “You know how many people I’ve killed in this canyon? You want to know where those bones under here came from?

The ropes, the youngsters were told, were linked to a fuse that, if they moved, would ignite and decapitate them.

The burly man would leave the room from time to time and the teen-agers told the other two watchmen that they only came to St. Anne’s to get scared and asked if they would let them go. They were told that the burly man was in charge.

“They seemed like they were afraid of him,” one of the girls said.

The 17-year-old girls did not have a jacket and sat shivering. A boy asked the burly man if he could give her his coat and the man reportedly said, “Don’t be a hero,” He kept his coat.

Three of the eight youths were Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese and they said that got the attention of the burly man, who kept talking about his life “fighting for my country” in Vietnam.

When they walked through what they said was a partially open gate with no visible “no trespassing” signs, they were ordered to hit the ground.

“Freeze m…., or I’ll blow your f… head off. I’ll slit your f… throats,” said the man, according to the youths.

He allegedly put a gun to the head of one of the Asians, who was now on his knees, called him a “gook” and threatened to blow his head off. Witnesses heard a shot. It was apparently into the ground.

The teen-agers said the burly man talked of Vietnam and patriotism inside the lodge and told them, “You all look like Vietnamese to me. You mean nothing to me.”

When sheriff’s deputies arrived, the man started rambling to them about this being like troops in Vietnam and “about police powers in the war.”

A 17-year-old girl from Smithfield was among 30 or so teenagers who, not knowing what happened earlier that day, tiptoed onto the grounds of St. Anne’s late Friday night. Before she was brought to her knees in an empty pool with the others, handcuffed and tied neck-to-neck with rope, she was allegedly fondled.

Her father said today the family is arranging therapy for his daughter through the LDS Church.

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