Ten years have passed since Vickie Singer predicted the violence was just beginning as the smell of explosives lingered in a bomb-shaken church near her home in Marion, Summit County.
The bomb had been set by Addam Swapp, the polygamist husband of Singer's two daughters."We are going into battle. This is serious. The talking is over with," Singer said. "Yes, there will be death, killing."
Singer, Swapp, his two wives and his brother Jonathan, as well as Swapp's six children and Singer's four other children, were all together in the family compound.
The episode followed bitter disputes over water rights and came as the extended Singer family was about to mark the ninth anniversary of the death of Vickie Singer's polygamist husband, John Singer, who was shot in a battle with police after a protracted feud with the law. A metal pole left in the ground outside the bombed LDS church bore nine feathers and a note with John Singer's death date - Jan. 18, 1979 - attached.
Predictions in the family that a violent confrontation would bring about John Singer's resurrection and divine intervention on the family's behalf would not pan out during a 13-day siege that followed the bombing, but the grim prediction about death and killing would be realized when state Corrections Lt. Fred House was killed in an exchange of gunfire between the family and officers the day the standoff crumbled.
Swapp was seriously wounded by police in the shooting but recovered.
Federal agents wouldn't know at the time that variations of their siege on the Singer clan's two acres of homes and farm buildings would be repeated in similar, deadly standoffs: in Idaho at the Ruby Ridge home of separatist Randy Weaver in 1992 and in 1993 at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.
The Marion standoff incident and others that followed helped deepen a stain on the reputation of federal law enforcement agencies that they have yet to shake.
Vickie Singer and the Swapp family still claim House was killed by friendly fire from another of the officers surrounding the Singer compound - not by Vickie Singer's wheelchair-bound son, Timothy, who recently completed a federal prison sentence and is now serving a state sentence in a federal prison in Phoenix. Pinning the blame on Timothy was part of a police conspiracy, they say.
Addam Swapp's Tuesday appearance in a Salt Lake federal courtroom is the most recent reminder that issues of a decade ago remain unresolved. He and his family are hoping to see federal convictions overturned on a jurisdictional issue.
Gary House, Fred House's brother, said he doesn't put any credibility in the "friendly fire" claim and that it just shows how the Singers and Swapps have avoided taking responsibility for what happened.
"The Swapp-Singers - more than 100 rounds were fired from their home. Only three rounds were fired from law enforcement. Fred was killed by a .30-caliber carbine bullet. No officers up there had a .30-caliber."
Fred House, a canine-handling officer, "was killed with his gun in his holster. He was brought up there to end this without anybody losing their life, and they didn't want to end this with a non-lethal method."
The threats of violence and the violent nature of the bombing that preceded the standoff has "kind of been lost" over the years. The Singers and Swapps "pushed that in the background because they didn't want people to think they were crazy, (but) they wanted blood," Gary House said.
Fred House's widow, Ann, calls the claim her husband was hit by another officer's bullet a myth the Singers and Swapps have created to cloud the realities of that day. "Over time I think the realities are forgotten," she said. "We forget that ballistics (tests) revealed the bullet came from Timothy's rifle."
She said the "grieving and healing process is very long and complicated for victims of a violent act like this" but thanks people who have offered their support, "especially in the town of Marion. They've been very caring."
Ann House filed a civil lawsuit against the manufacturers of the body armor her husband was wearing when he was fatally shot. The suit has languished in court for years but is scheduled to go to trial Aug. 3 in 3rd District Court, said Charles Sampson, her attorney.
Charlotte Singer Swapp, Addam Swapp's second wife, declined an invitation for an interview on behalf of herself, mother Vickie Singer and other family members still living in Marion.
John T. Nielsen, the state's public safety director during the 1988 siege, said the episode is etched in the state's history. "I can go very few places in the state where I am not recognized as a principal in that affair." He returned to private practice at the end of 1988.
Nielsen said the county, state and federal law enforcement agencies that comprised the army of about 100 officers at the scene coordinated their efforts well and that, in hindsight, the outcome could have been much worse.
"Although we lost a very good person, I think the resolution was as good as we could have hoped for. It would obviously have been better if we had not lost a life. The tactical decision we made and the fact Fred House was killed has been very hard for me for the past 10 years. I've felt a sense of personal responsibility for that."
Some in the law enforcement community were frustrated the standoff wasn't brought to an end faster, Nielsen said, agreeing there could be merits to issuing a quick ultimatum and not allowing a standoff to drag on in some cases.
"It was our view, and I think it was the right view, that we wanted to wait as long as we could to see if there was going to be a peaceful resolution."
Officers closed in and confronted the family "only when it was obvious that would never happen," Nielsen said.
Later confrontations between federal agents and separatists groups at Ruby Ridge and Waco prompted Nielsen to write to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, "indicating that we had cut our teeth on this kind of thing and if we could be of assistance I would like to be," he said. But the offer was not accepted. "I think I got a form letter back and that was it."
There was also criticism about the number of officers surrounding the Singer property during the siege. "One thing people don't realize is the people in surrounding communities were scared to death of these people. I had many people call me and beg me not to withdraw or to lessen our presence there, that they were very frightened of what might happen."
Fairview residents Ramon and Harriet Swapp, Addam's parents, cared for all of the Singer and Swapp children, in addition to six children of their own, when the siege ended and all of the adults in the compound were taken into custody. They said it was community paranoia about the Singers that fueled trouble both 10 and 20 years ago.
John and Vickie Singer pulled their children out of public schools and were later accused of child neglect when observers said their home schooling was deficient. Officers posing as newspaper reporters botched an attempt to serve a warrant on John Singer. Officers identifying themselves as officers later shot and killed him while the armed man was retrieving mail from his mailbox.
"They all hold bad grudges of some sort," Harriet Swapp said. "The things that happened to the Singers at that point were very extreme.
"If someone's living in your neighborhood and you didn't like the way they are living, or whatever, so what? Isn't that their right? But see, they didn't feel that way up there. When they wouldn't send their children to school that was a catalyst" to more trouble.
The violent end to John Singer's life and a jail sentence Vickie Singer served immediately after left Vickie Singer without a sense of closure in her husband's death, Harriet Swapp said, adding that problems with the community have persisted over the years. "I think the pain she had was the reason, was the catalyst of why they blew up the church."
In 1988, Vickie Singer also blamed the LDS Church for her husband's death, claiming school, police and court officials took their orders to prosecute John Singer from the church.
Addam Swapp sent letters to the governor and other officials shortly before the bombing that contained threatening religious overtones and repeated the claim the LDS Church was to blame for the family's persecution.
But Swapp's parents now say the bombing was more of a political statement.
"There wasn't even a quest to get even at that time. It was misunderstood. It was a statement to blow up the church." Harriet Swapp said. "All of them were kind of pushed into a corner. There was no answers."
Harriet Swapp said she and her husband were in "complete shock" when they heard about the bombing and went to Marion to offer to negotiate. "The FBI investigator said no, that wouldn't be a good idea. . . . We just wanted in to talk to our children."
Harriet Swapp said the Singer children who had been in the compound during the siege "all said their grandfather would come back and they were going to fly. I think they just thought they would get celestial help. I think they thought in their mind that was what was going to happen."
Asked whether any valuable lessons were learned from the experience, she said, "No," calling the standoff the "guinea pig for Waco and Ruby Ridge."
The government prosecuted the case in federal court saying the bombing at the church affected interstate commerce through the collection of tithing funds, which cross state lines in bank transfers.
Addam Swapp has completed about 10 years of his 17-year federal sentence. He then faces one-to-15 years on the state manslaughter charges. Swapp is being held in the Salt Lake County Jail while legal action continues on his appeals in U.S. District Court through January.
Both Addam Swapp and Vickie Singer are attacking their convictions on grounds that the federal government had no right to intervene in the case through the interstate commerce clause. They say they should not have been prosecuted in federal court, which has much more restrictive sentencing guidelines than state court.
Singer and Swapp further contend that they had a right to defend themselves during the siege of their compound because federal agents were acting without legal authority.
Although the issue was raised and rejected during their trials in 1988, it has been reprised because of a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limited federal intervention through the interstate com-merce clause. The court held that the federal government must show a "substantial affect" on interstate commerce before getting involved in what otherwise would be a local crime.
"Addam has researched this for years while he's been in jail and he's become an expert, but he started from square one so its taken him all this time to put it together," Ramon Swapp said.
The government "is maintaining the (bombed church building) is used in interstate commerce, to collect tithes and other things. It's obvious the building was blown up, but did that interfere or affect or reduce the money that was collected? I'm sure if you examined the records you'd find that people didn't stop paying their tithing," Ramon Swapp said.
U.S. Attorney David J. Schwendiman, who prosecuted the Singer-Swapp clan, is confident that the federal convictions will be upheld. He said federal jurisdiction under the commerce clause is used sparingly and only where appropriate under the law.
Ramon and Harriet Swapp said they are upbeat about the prospects of the appeal and hopeful its success would make time served apply to Addam Swapp's one-to-15-year state manslaughter sentence and see him released from prison soon. More heinous crimes are punished with lighter sentences, they say.
Addam Swapp and wife Charlotte would leave Marion when he gets out of prison, his mother said. There would be no more trouble. Addam Swapp's wife Heidi has started another family since her husband went to prison and wouldn't be joining Addam and Charlotte Swapp, the senior Swapps speculated.
"He'll never go up there again. When he gets out, they'll never live there, or anywhere near there," Harriet Swapp said.
Summit County Sheriff Fred Eley was a deputy when John Singer was killed, and he has been the sheriff since before the church bombing. He remembers fights over water, trespassing accusations and "a few confrontations we'd had with Addam" before the 1988 standoff. But since then, he said, "We haven't had any problems and none of the neighbors have."