Children are the apple of every parent’s eye, however, there are some parents out there who see their children as being a simple means to an end. Perhaps these parents see their children as being a way for them to carry out dirty deeds without the parents ever having to get their hands dirty. This is the story of Eddie Sexton and the dirty deeds he made his children do on his behalf.

Get to know Eddie Sexton

Eddie Sexton or otherwise known as Eddie Lee Sexton is a proper-born and bred American who was born in Logan, West Virginia. His family did not seem to come from much as news reports state that he came from a family of coal miners.

One would think that having a father who was a part-time Baptist preacher would put a person on the path of righteousness. However, this was not the case for Eddie Sexton. Eddie Sexton seemed to be a troubled young man and the troubles that plagued him as a teenager only resulted in him becoming a messed up father.

The first sign of trouble for Eddie Sexton was in the year of 1963. It was this year that he committed his first crime which was a crime of armed robbery. It was also this year when Eddie Sexton knocked up his 15-year-old girlfriend who later became his wife.

As for Eddie’s first crime, he was sentenced to 5 years for armed robbery but as a result of this crime, he lost his first wife who quickly divorced him after she had given birth to his son.

All was not lost in love for Eddie Sexton because shortly after, it seemed like he had finally found him happily after. He married Estella May. The couple settled down in Stark County, Ohio, and had twelve children together. Of these twelve children, one is the main focus of this story which you will read more about through the article.

People who knew Eddie Sexton often regarded Eddie as being a charming man, but then again these people also stated that Eddie’s charming persona was only a first impression. Those who knew him stated that he was a fraud and a con artist.

The issue that pins Eddie Sexton as a fraud is three incidents of fires that occurred in the 1980s. It was during this time that Eddie had intentionally set fires on three separate occasions to his own house to carry out insurance fraud.

The fires were not the only case of fraud that Eddie Sexton had carried out in other to claim insurance. In between the three incidents of fires, he had also put out false claims of items being stolen, when in reality it seemed like it was him, who carried out the charade of a burglary.

When it came to a career, Eddie Sexton did not have a stable career. To make a living, he took up jobs as a painter and a handyman. He had also taken up a position as a Christian preacher who was not devoted to any single church, but rather to his own beliefs.

The cult of Eddie Sexton

As mentioned earlier, Eddie Sexton had taken up a position as an independent Christian preacher. Eddie’s preaching was different than other preachers who preached about fundamentals that are directly related to the bible.

According to a neighbor, Eddie Sexton seemed to not necessarily believe in the religion of Christianity but rather was a worshipper of both the devil and god. This gave people the impression that he was preaching because he was running a cult with his wife and their twelve children.

Now you might be wondering how can a preacher like Eddie Sexton run a cult. To answer this, let’s first answer what is a cult. A cult refers to a group of people who have religious beliefs that are described as being sinister or weird.

In terms of Eddie Sexton’s cult, one can say it was a cult forged on the principles of sexual abuse. It seemed that he had loved to preach about sex, and would always put an emphasis on sex.

The true nature of this so-called cult run by Eddie Sexton slowly came to light when the truth about how he treated his children was revealed. As mentioned earlier, he had twelve children with his wife Estella May.

Eddie Sexton indoctrinated his twelve children into his weird sex cult in a way that was not normal. There are harrowing reports that his children were repeatedly sexually abused, and treated to play fantasies according to what their parents wanted.

When the truth about Eddie Sexton came out, his children claimed that both of their parents had sexually abused them. There are reports that Eddie Sexton had hosted fake wedding ceremonies for his daughters as a ruse before raping them.

Eddie Sexton’s children had also come out to report that as a result of years of sexual and physical abuse by their parents, the children had also begun to react abusively to one another. The male children began sexually abusing the female children and vice versa.

What made this a cult was the limitations and restrictions he and his wife had placed on their children. Sure, the children had attended public school but they did not live normal lives compared to other kids in their school.

Most kids who attend public school tend to have a lot of friends or are involved in school activities but this was not the case with Eddie Sexton’s twelve children. According to the children, they were only allowed to have one friend each and they were never allowed to call their friends over or go to their friend’s houses.

Another thing that made this a cult was the way Eddie Sexton had convinced his children that he was someone sent from god. According to his children, their father often made them believe that he was capable of conjuring spirits and had the skills for telepathy.

Eddie: I made my children become murderers

If running a strange cult was not horrific enough, Eddie Sexton took it one step further by using his children to carry out dirty deeds such as murder.

The first incident was the incident in which he got his daughter Pixie pregnant. Instead of accepting the child as his own, Eddie forced Pixie to find a boyfriend to pin the blame on.

Pixie being under her dad’s spell did what she was told and met Joel Good who would later become her husband and later become the victim of Eddie Sexton’s possessive cult behavior. 

This was just the first of many incidents that involved Pixie. After Pixie had given birth, her child had fallen ill however Eddie Sexton refused to let Pixie take her child to a doctor. According to claims made by Pixie, she had stated that she was forced to smother her child because Eddie Sexton did not want people to hear her child crying.

At this time, he and his children had been living in a campsite because they were fleeing from authorities who were looking to charge Eddie with crimes.

Unknown to Eddie Sexton, Pixie had lied to her husband and told her husband that their child died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. However, Joel did not believe this and did further study in a local library.

When Eddie Sexton found out about this, he was furious. This is where he once again forced his children to carry out his dirty deeds. Eddie had concocted a plan of robbing a fellow acquaintance at the campsite.

In this scheme, once again Pixie was the center of attention. Eddie Sexton was planning on using Pixie to seduce this acquaintance so that they could kill the man and rob him fully by draining his bank account. But this acquaintance knew something was off and quickly parted ways with the family.

Having failed at his plans to rob someone, Eddie Sexton immediately turned his attention back to his son-in-law. Furious at Joel, Eddie had convinced his son Willie to carry out the murder of Joel.

How Willie carried out the murder was at the behest of Eddie Sexton. Each detail of the murder was carefully crafted and instructions were carefully laid out by Eddie. He just didn’t want to get his own hands dirty, so he let his son do the dirty work instead.

The conviction of Eddie Sexton

Where to begin describing how justice finally came for Eddie Sexton? It is difficult to pinpoint only one crime on this treacherous man, and what reports claim to be the most dysfunctional family in America.
The first charge against him came in 1979 when authorities had already begun suspecting that this family was being sexually abusive towards their children. However, at the time they did not have enough evidence to convict Eddie Sexton of these supposed charges.

Then in 1992, one of his children informed someone that her father had raped her. At this point, six of the twelve children were deemed minors. This prompted the authorities to investigate any further rape incidents.

When authorities investigated Eddie Sexton, what they found was that of these six minors three had reported that their father was very good to them, while the other three had told the authorities that they were physically abused.

The three who had reported being abused were removed, and Eddie tried to save himself by recording a confessional video denying claims and tried to pin the blame on his older brother stating that his older brother was colluding with the authorities because they held a grudge against him.

This videotape that Eddie Sexton had recorded was mailed to the president whom at that time was Bill Clinton. However, Eddie was not off the hook. Of the three children who were taken from him, one named Lana was put into foster care.

During Lana Sexton’s time in foster care, Lana confessed that Eddie Sexton and his wife had repeatedly abused their children. At this time, he was on the run.

The final nail in the coffin for Eddie Sexton came when as a result of a national arrest warrant, Eddie was finally arrested in Florida on the 14th of January 1994 shortly after he had ordered his son to murder Joel Good.

The investigation took years, and multiple interviews before the truth finally was revealed. On the 2nd of November, after much deliberation Eddie Sexton was finally sentenced to death for all the horrific crimes had committed throughout his life.

Although Eddie Sexton was sentenced to death, his life did not end at the hands of execution instead before his sentence could be carried out, he died of natural causes while in prison.

Also Read: Arthur Bomar: Murderer executed on Death Row