Aaron Mahnke

They never found the perpetrator, and no arrests were ever made for the crime.

Oddly enough, the cross's fiery end is one of the least weird parts of its story.

You see, it had been the subject of local speculation and urban legends for years, and the truth may actually be stranger than fiction.

Standing at 20 feet high and 13 feet wide, Kay's Cross was a mammoth of a monument.

No one actually knows for sure when it was built, because it stood on privately owned farmland that was closed off to the public.

It could have been there for decades, or even a century.

No one really knew.

But of course, there were plenty of theories.

And the most widely accepted theory was that it was built by a cult.

Back in 1935, you see, an extremist sect broke off from the Church of Latter-day Saints to form their own denomination.

This group called themselves the Latter-day Church of Christ, or the Davis County Cooperative Society.

But since those are both a mouthful for sure, they are more commonly known as the Co-op.

Now, the co-op quickly became a controversial organization, and they adopted many of the hallmark telltales of a cult.

They strove to provide for themselves and be as self-sufficient as possible, cutting themselves off from the rest of society.

They remained separate from the secular world for decades, too, and leaving the group was discouraged.

There's evidence that if you wanted out, then you had to physically run away, and if escapees were caught, then they were punished violently.

One of the fundamental beliefs of the co-op was that of polygamy.

Men were expected to take several wives.

But the group was so small that eventually they started dabbling in incest.

They also forced underage girls into polygamous marriages with much older men and encouraged them to have as many children as possible.