How a Texas Preacher With an Ivy League Ph.D. Stole $24 Million

Linda Provence has lived in the same neat brick ranch house in Bedford, Texas, just outside Fort Worth, for more than 50 years. On the wood-paneled walls of her living room hang black-and-white photos of her mother and father, who abandoned her as an infant, and of a company of Texas Rangers, circa 1887, in wide-brimmed hats with long guns. It’s said that Fort Worth is where the West begins, and these images—like the lasso hung decoratively over the couch and the bucking bronco sculpture on the mantle—speak to the ethos of self-reliance that’s especially cherished in this part of ...