Thomas Arthur Greene began his epic, married life in 1970 and had a total of 10 wives, according to a law enforcement investigation that was made available to reporters. Over time, some of the spiritual marriages, as they are often called, broke up.In 2000, he was 52 years old, chubby, wearing thick-rimmed glasses, with sparse hair and a red beard that was already turning gray.
At the time, he was living with five wives, Linda Koontz, Shirley Bigley, Kari Green, Hannah Bjorkman and LeeAnn Bigley. By then many readers and viewers around the world had heard Green’s story. He allowed reporters to visit his “home” camp in the desert near the Nevada border.He has also appeared on “The Jerry Springer Show,” “Dateline,” and numerous other programs, promoting polygamy and claiming it as his constitutional right. In fact, all these appearances were the beginning of the end for him. He attracted the attention of David Leavitt, the district attorney in Utah, who accused Mr. Green of polygamy.
He became the first man in more than 50 years to be prosecuted in Utah for having multiple wives.Polygamous beginnings.Thomas Green was born on June 9, 1948, and grew up in a family that had an affiliation with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The first members of this faith, commonly known as the Mormon Church, practiced polygamy back in the 1800s at the behest of its founder Joseph Smith.But the church abandoned polygamy in 1890 and today condemns the practice. Utah outlawed polygamy and today expels all those who practice it. Green has developed a relationship with polygamous religious leader Ross Wesley LeBaron.
By 1984, Green had begun courting Beth Cook as his first monogamous wife. This prompted Green’s first legal wife, Linda Penman, with whom Green had three children, to file for divorce.
Greene’s wives came from various polygamous sects and some from monogamous families. Although Green’s beliefs were rooted in so-called fundamental Mormonism, he considered himself an independent polygamist – not affiliated with a particular church.
Green and his no small family lived in a trailer park in Sandy, Utah, until they were evicted in 1995. For $30,000, Green bought 15 acres of land in Utah’s Western Desert, where he placed a dozen mobile homes and named the place Greenhaven.When she asked him to marry her, he was already married to one of her sisters and her 15-year-old daughter. He also later married her other daughter, who was 14 years old.
Tom Green, who spent six years in Utah State Prison after being convicted of polygamy and child rape, died Feb. 28, 2021. He was 72 years old. He remained on Utah’s sex offender registry for the rest of his life.