After dropping out of high school, Wesson joined the U.S. Army, serving from 1966 to 1968 as an ambulance driver, which included a deployment in the Vietnam War.

[6][7] Shortly after leaving the military, Wesson moved in with an older woman, Rosemary Solorio, and her eight children in San Jose, California.

[7][9] One of Elizabeth's younger sisters left her own seven children with them, claiming that her drug problem made her unable to care for them.

Wesson never held a steady job; he lived off welfare and forced his working adult children to give him all their earnings.

He homeschooled the children and taught them from his own handwritten Bible that focused on Jesus Christ being a vampire.

Wesson's school "curriculum" involved teaching girls oral sex as young as 8 or 9.

[7] Their domestic responsibilities included washing Wesson's dreads and scratching his armpits and head.

[18] In the aftermath, police discovered nine bodies, including two of Wesson's daughters and a total of seven of their children, in a bedroom filled with antique coffins.

[18] At Wesson's trial, the prosecutor was Chief Deputy District Attorney Lisa Gamoian.