As there was no telegraph, there was no way possible Brigham Young in Great Salt Lake City could have communicated any orders or directives to the people in Cedar City concerning the Fancher Train. From the time the train arrived in Cedar and then out to Mountain Meadows, it was impossible for a rider to travel to Salt Lake and back with any instructions. As much as people would like Brigham Young to have been in on the plot, it simply does not fit the facts.

Furthermore, with the US Army on the march towards Salt Lake City in 1857, the idea of killing a wagon train full of people hardly fits Brigham Young's pragmatic thinking. It would obviously be an excaberation of an already volatile situation and provide the US government plenty of basis for retaliation. There would be no strategic rationale for such a move and flies in the face of Brigham Young's edict that no harm should occur to Army personnel.

John D. Lee was certainly not the only guilty party in the massacre however, and was without doubt, the scapegoat. There was such a veil of secrecy placed over the tragedy by those involved that it was impossible to ferret out all involved, and Lee wasn't talking. He got what he deserved and the rest of the perpetrators have since been accountable to God.