Leonard J. Arrington reports that Brigham Young received a rider at his office on the same day of the massacre. This letter asked Young's opinion on what to do with the Baker–Fancher party. When he learned what was contemplated by the members of the LDS Church in Parowan and Cedar City, he sent back a letter that the Baker–Fancher party be allowed to pass through the territory unmolested. Young's letter supposedly arrived two days too late, on September 13, 1857. However Jon Krakauer claims that Brigham Young and other Utah territory officials encouraged the massacre beforehand and sought to deny their roles afterward.