A Cry from the Dust

Forensic artist Gwen Marcey is recruited to reconstruct images from skeletal remains found at the site of the 1857 Mountain Meadows massacre in southern Utah. A controversial subject for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the killing of 150 members of a wagon train heading to California was committed by a militant Mormon group calling itself the Avenging Angels. Gwen's challenge is to re-create the faces of the discovered remains; her findings shake the church to its foundations, especially when one of the images resembles Joseph Smith, the church's founder, whose place of burial remains a mystery. At a special opening of the center to commemorate the victims, Gwen is harassed by violent protesters, one of whom is later found dead, the victim of a ritualized murder known as blood atonement. A second murder and a photograph of a Joseph Smith look-alike put Gwen's life in even more danger.