Escape

by Carolyn Jessop

  Merril went ballistic. He insisted that if Betty wasn’t living with me she should be with him. I made it clear that Betty’s move was only temporary and that she just needed some time and space of her own.

  Patrick and Andrew did well in counseling and told me they wanted to take karate. I thought that was a fine idea and found a six-week program nearby. I asked for and received a reduction in tuition from $20 a child to just $10 for the whole six weeks, because I was still strapped for cash. My job with Paul had ended and I had not figured out something else.

  Hill Dalde, the karate instructor, was a fourth-degree black belt. On their first day he told me that Patrick and Andrew were going to be his top students. I thought he meant for the six-week class. He meant long-term: he saw great potential in both my boys.

  We found a way to continue karate—another godsend. Patrick and Andrew made great progress, moving up four belts in their first year. It was one area in their lives where they had total mastery of their bodies and their environment. Hill developed a mentoring relationship with my boys and would take them to the movies as they reached new goals.

  Patrick and Andrew had never had such a positive role model in their lives. Brian had met my children, but we were taking it very, very slow with respect to introducing him into our lives.

  After the first year of karate, Hill agreed to teach Betty, LuAnne, and the little princess herself, Merrilee. Betty did very well because she’s very disciplined. LuAnne is athletic, and although she’s not as motivated as the boys, she’s done fine. Merrilee is determined and persistent, which serves her well in karate. She’s also a natural athlete and has been steadily moving up with her belts.

  Despite all the help I’d been given, I still had trouble asking for it when I needed it. I was so used to doing what I was told and never asking for help. Dan Fisher thought his foundation was paying my rent when I left the battered women’s shelter and was upset when he found out that hadn’t happened. He could not believe how much I’d struggled without asking for more help.

  As my children felt safer and more secure, I began to hear more stories about Merril and Barbara’s abuse. One of my daughters told me about being molested by her half brother. Patrick told me about the night Barbara beat him so hard, he thought he was going to die. He was even afraid after he told me what happened because he didn’t want his half brothers to hate him for telling. It was one abuse story after another.

  The kids continued to unload stories for about a year. It was painful for me to listen, but I knew that their mental health depended on my ability to hear and validate what they’d endured.

  After two and a half years of waiting, the Section 8 housing voucher came through in November 2005. I went on an orientation to learn the details, and when it was over I sat in my car and cried. I was only going to have to pay $70 a month for rent. For the first time in my life, I had breathing room. No longer would all my money have to go to housing expenses. Knowing I’d have $500 left over after I paid my utilities and other expenses felt like an unbelievable windfall.

  By Christmas, I learned that Merril had moved his entire family into Warren Jeffs’ compound in Texas. At that point he had fourteen wives and about forty children who were still young enough to be living at home. The one person who was left behind was his wife Faunita, who was put in a mental institution in Flagstaff, Arizona. She was told she was unworthy to participate in the kingdom of God.

  In the spring of 2005, the state of Utah seized the assets of the FLDS, which were worth $110 million. The assets—all in real estate—were part of a trust called the United Effort Plan, or UEP. It has been set up by the FLDS as a charitable trust. The UEP owned all the homes in the community.

  Warren Jeffs used the trust to his advantage by putting assets in the names of his cronies, who would then sell them and give Jeffs the money. Since there was never really any oversight until the state went after it, the UEP was like a personal ATM for Warren Jeffs.

  Jeffs, who had been in hiding for more than a year, did not try to defend himself when Utah went to court to gain control of the UEP trust. He knew if he showed up, he would be arrested on the state and federal charges that had been leveled against him.

  Once the court gave control of the trust to the state of Utah, legally Warren Jeffs was cut off at the knees. Utah, Arizona, and the FBI were all pursuing him, and his assets were unavailable to him.

  But thousands of brainwashed believers still clung to him as their prophet and leader. This was further proof of what many had grown up believing: that evil outsiders were always poised to attack and persecute those who were doing God’s work.

  So Jeffs still exerted power. He ordered his followers to withhold the state tax they would normally pay on their houses that were owned by the U.E.P. This is a substantial amount of money, about a million dollars a year. None of Jeffs’ followers paid taxes. The administrator of the trust responded by going after Warren’s brother Lyle with an eviction notice. After he was forced to pay his taxes, others in the FLDS did, too.

  Rumors circulated in the community that Jeffs now had the ability to be transported directly by God from place to place. He would show up in the twinkling of an eye and disappear just as magically. Jeffs’ fanatical believers were convinced that this was why the authorities had so far been unsuccessful in capturing him. Jeffs fed into their perverse worldview by sending back stranger and stranger communications. He took full credit for the tsunami off Thailand that had killed hundreds of thousands in December 2004 and said that more disasters would befall those who were trying to stop the work of God.

  Warren’s response to what seemed like the beginning of the end for him was to marry and marry and marry again. The rumor was that he was up to 180 wives. He was marrying younger and younger girls—one of whom was my former second-grade student Jennet Jessop, who was fourteen at the time.

  What was also disturbing was the number of people who disappeared. Entire families would be moved out of the community during the night. To this day, no one knows where they are. Winston Blackmore and his first wife, Jane, lost their daughter, who disappeared with her husband.

  Since Brent Jeffs filed his civil suit in 2004, over a hundred young boys and girls were interviewed by the Utah attorney general’s office about their allegations of sexual and physical abuse by Warren Jeffs.

  The media became more aware of Warren Jeffs as the hunt for him continued. Stories were written about the men who’d been excommunicated and the hundreds of “lost boys” whom Warren Jeffs had arbitrarily banished from the FLDS.

  Johnny Jessop, one of the “lost boys” Dan Fisher has been supporting, can’t find his mother, Sue, and has filed a lawsuit against Jeffs to reveal her whereabouts. There have also been rumors that children were being taken from their mothers and sent to the FLDS compound in Texas—which is called the YFZ Ranch, which stands for “Yearning for Zion.” These were children who belonged to men Warren had kicked out of the cult. We heard that they were being sent away to be raised the way Warren wanted them to be raised.

  I began to see that we’d made it out just in time. But I was sickened by what I heard about people who had been part of my life.

  When Faunita was eventually released from the mental institution in Flagstaff, she hitched a ride from someone and returned to Colorado City and stood alone on the doorstep of our old home. She tried to open the door, but it was locked. When Merril moved to Texas, he gave the house to Nathan, Faunita’s son. But since Faunita had been excommunicated, Nathan’s family wouldn’t let her in. Faunita stood in the rain while her grandchildren stared out the windows at her. Ruth and Merril’s son Wallace finally came and picked her up. Wallace told her she couldn’t stay in the community, drove her to a motel in Hurricane, and left her there.

  In the end, one of Faunita’s grandsons, Merril III, who had been kicked out of the FLDS and was a “lost boy,” came and rescued her. He rented her a little place and bought her groceries. But he was a teenager trying to su
rvive on construction jobs and not making very much. With little education, he could barely survive himself.

  Faunita was also a diabetic, so her health was perilous. One day she was found wandering, delirious, in Wal-Mart. After forty years of living with Merril’s abuse, Faunita was badly damaged and very sick. A few women who had been on the other side of the religious split that divided the FLDS started helping her buy groceries. Her situation was particularly heartbreaking to me.

  But a year later, quite unexpectedly, Faunita, her daughter, Audrey, and son-in-law, Merlin, dropped in to see me. I was as delighted as I was stunned. I never expected that anyone from Merril’s family would want to see me again.

  Faunita looked happier than I had ever seen her. She hugged me and laughed joyfully. She said she wanted to apologize for not helping me more when Harrison was so sick. Faunita was close to tears when she told me how sad she felt for me then. But she said she was too sick herself to reach out to me.

  I never expected Faunita to make such a turnaround. Even though she is alone much of the time now, she is removed from the constant cruelty and abuse she endured for decades as one of Merril’s wives.

  Brian moved back to Utah in the spring of 2005. He wanted to be closer to his two teenage boys, and to me. One of the things I love about Brian is that he is a devoted father. His sons anchor his life.

  Some of Brian’s friends chided him about dating a little Mormon schoolteacher with eight kids. He told them I was the most amazing woman he had ever met, and he introduced me with pride when we went to parties. It felt surreal—happily so—to be dating a man who was a corporate executive. But most of all, I welcomed being included, for the first time in my life, in a world where ideas, culture, and education were respected.

  Once the UEP trust was in the hands of the state of Utah, an advisory board was created to suggest how its assets could be best utilized to benefit those still in the community and requesting help. Thirty people applied for the board and six were chosen. I was one of them. This was more than an honor for me, it was a vindication. After years of trying to protect myself from the evils of the FLDS, I was now aligned with those who were going to fight to undo the damage it had done to children and families. Even though Warren Jeffs was in hiding, his power was gradually being shut down.

  Arthur turned eighteen on December 20, 2005. Merril ordered him to leave everything he had and return to the FLDS. Arthur refused and told his father the religion had turned into something weird. Merril denied that it had, but Arthur held his ground. His life was going in another direction now. Merril was outraged. No son of his had ever stood up to him before.

  Arthur graduated from West Jordan High School on June 6, 2006. It was one of the proudest days of my life. Arthur had been on the honor roll for three years. During his senior year he was taking a full load of classes, including the ones he needed to make up for the year he had missed. He was also taking flying lessons and working part-time for my brother.

  At an awards dinner before commencement, Arthur was the recipient of a special award and a $500 scholarship given to a student who has overcome adversity. The principal didn’t list everything that Arthur had endured, but what he highlighted was enough to make the audience applaud. Two days later he received another $500 scholarship to the college of his choice from the Chamber of Commerce.

  When graduation day came and Arthur walked across the stage to receive his diploma, I leaped to my feet the moment his name was called, and clapped and cheered for my son. My heart was exploding with happiness.

  End Game

  Early in May 2006, Warren Jeffs’ name was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. He was charged as an accomplice to rape in Utah, on two counts of having sexual contact with minors in Arizona, and for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. The FBI felt that national publicity might help to bring him in, and a reward of $100,000 was offered for his capture. “I have a corner of my state that is worse than [under] the Taliban,” said Utah’s attorney general, Mark Shurtleff, after Warren Jeffs became one of the Ten Most Wanted.

  Warren, who had been in hiding now for two years, had long preached that he would be taken like Christ and crucified. But the end, when it came, on August 28, 2006, was far less dramatic. The car that he was traveling in was pulled over on a routine traffic stop because it lacked adequate registration. Inside were wigs, dozens of cell phones, and $50,000 in cash.

  Warren Steed Jeffs, fifty, was under arrest.

  My beautiful stepdaughter Naomi, one of Ruth’s daughters, was with him. She was taken into custody that night with Warren and his younger brother Isaac, but charges were not filed against the two of them.

  I was stunned, thrilled, overwhelmed, and surprised that he was caught so soon after he went on the Ten Most Wanted list. The fact that he was caught driving a red car—a color he had banned—amused me. Warren had always been a complete hypocrite. He forced the community to live under rules he ignored.

  I had just gotten home from taking my children to school when the news broke. The phone didn’t stop ringing. I talked all day to friends and family. We were so glad he was finally behind bars. When I saw him on television for the first time, my heart began racing and it felt hard to breathe. I hadn’t realized how much of a hold he had on me and how even just the sight of him could send fear streaming through my body again. It was hard to think that such a meek-looking man could impose so much terror on so many. Seeing him walk into a court in custody was an unbelievable milestone for me.

  While there was tremendous relief that Warren was finally in jail, there was still a mountain of questions. Who was going to take over the FLDS now that Warren was behind bars? What was going to happen to the families that had been split apart on Warren’s orders? Would men be free to return to their wives? Could the “lost boys” come home? Would people realize how betrayed they had been and insist on justice and change? Was this the beginning of the end for the FLDS?

  Warren’s arrest was not the end of his power. After his capture he was still seen as the prophet, albeit a persecuted one. The message he sent out was that God wanted him to be captured. For FLDS members living with almost no exposure to the outside world, this was believable. They were not going to abandon their loyalty to him overnight because he was in the hands of the wicked. The word around the FLDS was that the authorities didn’t have anything on him and it was just a matter of time until they would be forced to let him go. He always found a way to stoke the fires of his fanaticism for a community of his brainwashed believers whose faith in him continues. They believe he is being poisoned in prison.

  It’s hard to know what to believe about Warren Jeffs. He apparently confessed to his brother Nephi Jeffs that he was the most evil of men and had worked his way up through the FLDS only because he wanted power. Jeffs said he hadn’t upheld the priesthood since he was twenty. He asked his brother to convey his “confession” to the community. Then he changed his mind and told him not to.

  Somehow after his capture he sent word back to his followers to close all the private religious schools. Children were to stay at home and out of school. This is still in effect today.

  Jeffs’ mental competency was an issue initially, but a judge found him competent to stand trial. A trial is expected to begin in the fall of 2007 on the state charges in Utah against Warren Jeffs for being an accomplice to rape. There are other charges against Jeffs in Utah and Arizona. He faces federal charges for evading prosecution. I was told that he has been placed on a suicide watch and is wearing paper clothes.

  Warren Jeffs is both a problem and the symptom of a problem. The FLDS has created a lot of Warrens, men who are intoxicated with their own power, believing they need at least three wives to get into heaven and wanting to dominate women and children. Generation after generation of believers have been conditioned to equate obedience with salvation. People who have never been taught or allowed to think for themselves don’t suddenly change. Change is too frightening. Unlike other cult membe
rs who have lived a prior life outside and know other values, the FLDS is the only life Jeffs’ followers have ever known.

  There are currently no government programs in place to help the “lost boys” who have been kicked out of the cult. Dan Fisher still does what he can, but these boys need massive support, education, and training. One of the lawsuits against Jeffs has been filed on behalf of the “lost boys.” The hope is that a financial settlement against Jeffs can be used to set up a foundation to provide them the continual help and support they need to successfully adjust to their new lives.

  There’s now a federally funded Safe Passage program in place to help women trying to extricate themselves from polygamy. But it meets only a few of their needs, and much more comprehensive assistance is needed. Its funding runs out sometime in 2007, and if its grant is not renewed, it will cease to exist.

  Utah and Arizona officials have talked about trying to make a determined effort to put law enforcement officers in Colorado City and Hildale who have no ties to the FLDS. The problem is that the police there don’t want to leave and will claim they are being discriminated against because of their religion. But I believe there is proof that some of the officers were funneling money to Warren when he was a fugitive, and that might cast their claims of discrimination in a different light. Until this situation is resolved, it’s still frightening and risky for a woman who wants to leave because she cannot trust local law enforcement officials to help.

  I often get updates on Merril’s family. Ruth had a nervous breakdown in Texas and was sent back to Colorado City to repent. Tammy also made it out of Texas thanks to her son, Parley. The child Tammy had been so desperate to conceive was sent to work on construction crews as a twelve-year-old and forbidden to see his mother once she went to Texas to live. He was not allowed to go to school and had no money to live. He started to steal from his older half-brothers and got into trouble with the law.