EPG was OJP's daughter. I imagine how embittered she must have been, learning that her father abandoned her to do exactly what he was warned not to do. Also, these entries are in cursive and took me a bit to really decipher.
EPG
11/21/1887
For so long I thought what I had seen was some kind of dream, or perhaps some trick of the mind. I was told that my father went mad after my mother was killed by a bear. Perhaps I had seen it or perhaps just heard it or perhaps I dreamed the whole thing up. Some sort of monster to explain the terrible death of my mother. I should have never told daddy about it. It was always my deepest regret. I thought he left because of me.
But seeing the journal. The testimony of my grandfather. The reason daddy even came to Salt Lake City in the first place. All of it connects to this beast that appears to be haunting my family. There is no doubt, my father was indeed the mormon madman. By the end of it, his writing is barely legible. I don’t think he had spoken to another person in a long time. I don’t care about this beast. I don’t care if it’s real or not. I just want my father to come home. I hear they are building a sanitarium in Salt Lake City.
The only one of its kind between California and Colorado. Maybe, if I find him, he can be put there and find peace.
I am signing my name in the book. My own blood covenant. Not to find The Beast, but to find my father.
Amanda's Note: Torn out to make the list
Arnold's Note: The torn page with the list of killings matches this part of the book. She had likely carried it with her to track the various murders and disappearances while keeping The Book of the Beast in a separate place.
EPG
06/3/1899
He died in just the way my grandmother told him not to. He went chasing the devil. Perhaps I too was chasing the devil by chasing him. I should have known he was dead. Perhaps I wanted to hold out hope that I could have a father instead of a ghost. I followed every story told about the Mormon Madman. He was excommunicated for apostasy and devil worship. I suspect the church didn’t want some crazy hermit
affecting city development and deterring new residents.
His skeleton was found by a mining crew. He wore leather animal skins and were unable to identify him as his skin had fallen off from decay. He still had his wedding ring and a locket with my mother’s name engraved in it. The miners found a message scratched on the wall not too far from his body. It read “1 in the first year, 2 in the second, 3 in the third, It continues to 10, then starts again.”
Strange last words. He really did go mad.
Amanda's Note: He figured out the cycle
EPG
12/24/1910
I know what my father was trying to tell me. I thought my quest was over but I couldn’t quite solve the riddle of his last words. I had given up. I have a daughter of my own and I’ll be damned if I do to her what my father did to me. Still, my mind would wander to that final riddle he left me. My macabre inheritance. If the beast is real, then it kills following a pattern. I’ve been watching the papers, collecting ones with murders or unexplained disappearances
- 1901 a man mutilated
- 1902 a husband and wife go missing
- 1903 child vanish. teenager decapitated. an old man dismembered
- 1904 4 victims
-1905 5 victims
-1906 6 victims
-1907 7 victims
-1908 8 victims
-1909 9 victims
-1910 10 victims
Amanda's Note: The cycle. Why has nobody done anything?
Arnold's Note: Edith was getting more and more freaked out, it seems. I would not say that she was actively hunting the beast, however, her quest to unravel her father's final riddle gave us the most important piece of information we have in fighting the Beast. The Cycle. The beast is most active in a 10th year. It will be easiest to track down in 2020.