For years, Tim Ballard portrayed the search for missing Haitian child Gardy Mardy as a driving force behind Operation Underground Railroad. This investigation examines how that story became intertwined with fundraising, religious ambitions, and Ballard’s broader vision for O.U.R.

Tim Ballard’s secret plan to monetize, Operation Underground Railroad. And to use his plan to proselytize prospective converts for the Mormon church.

Tim Ballard’s secret plan to monetize his child sex slave rescue nonprofit, Operation Underground Railroad. And to use his plan to proselytize prospective converts for the Mormon church. Ballard turned a decade-long search for a 3-year-old Haitian boy—Gardy Mardy— into a fundraising stratagem. While claiming he was closer and closer to finding the missing child, Ballard’s prospects of finding him were actually getting grew dimmer and dimmer. Haitian police even tortured a suspect fingered by Ballard.  The accused Haitian kidnapper, who had been a member of the Mardy family’s Mormon congregation, did not confess. 

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Editor’s Note: Lynn Packer is an award-winning investigative reporter, legal consultant and author of “Lying for the Lord: The Paul H. Dunn Stories“. Lynn graduated from Utah State University with a degree in broadcast journalism. He served in the United States Army from ’68 through ’70 in Vietnam, as a television news anchor and producer for the Armed Forces Vietnam Network (AFVN) Quang Tri detachment. He was awarded the Bronze Star. For 15 years Mr. Packer reported for KSL Television News in Salt Lake City. For ten years Lynn was an adjunct professor teaching journalism at Brigham Young University and the University of Dortmund.

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Resources & Further Reading

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