The Witness Wore Red: The 19th Wife Who Brought Polygamous Cult Leaders to Justice

by Musser, Rebecca

  I would soon get to see many of my siblings when everyone came down to the annual April Conference. Short Creek swarmed with the excitement of friends and family arriving. Christine and I tried to spend one-on-one time with visiting siblings, and we were both very troubled by the stories they shared with us.

  As was the custom, I had sewn a special dress for church: a pastel brocade fabric for the bodice and yards of soft, chiffon polyester. I had noticed that new trends among the community often followed my new dress patterns. This dress was by far one of my most elegant, and I was secretly proud of my new creation.

  I met my mother and sisters in the side hall just a few minutes before church was to start. My sister Allyson, who was then about four years old, looked up at me with big, shining eyes. I hugged her with all the love I had for her, and I invited her to sit with me in the section reserved for the Prophet’s wives. This was a big honor, to be in front of thousands of people being seated in the meeting hall. Ally hadn’t been feeling that well, but she brightened and nodded her head.

  My sister and I took a deep breath and gracefully walked across the front of the church crowd to our seats. I had never liked being a part of the processional of the Prophet’s family, but it had become a necessary part of my life. We sat down and Ally was jabbering happily away when suddenly she stopped midsentence. I watched her face turn a sickly shade of green, and a helpless look came into her eyes.

  “Becky, I don’t feel so good!” Abruptly she leaned over and started vomiting in my lap, right before Conference was about to start! She continued to heave repeatedly, and I looked down, wondering what to do. My sister-wives scrambled around for tissues, but despite this and the number of layers I was wearing, my lap became wet. Knowing that a line of ladies would soon be suffering from the smell, I gathered the corners of my skirt in one hand, took Ally by the other and stood up just as the crowd was being directed to sing the opening hymn. We had just stepped out of the door of the main meeting hall when Ally turned and looked at me, happiness in her eyes.

  “Becky!” she cried loudly. “I feel sooo much better!” I couldn’t help but giggle and smile at her as we went back to the Prophet’s home and my room, where we both showered and changed. It was much more fun for us to listen to church, which was always broadcast over speakers into everyone’s rooms on the Jeffses’ property anyway. I would miss seeing friends and family, but I was also grateful not to have to face the forced formality of sitting in line after the service, greeting each visitor who stood in line for hours just to shake the Prophet’s hand.

  Therefore, two weeks later I was delighted to be engaged with my people in a serving way that I loved. The cast presented our Pride of Avonlea operetta. My eyes shone with love and appreciation for what each performer had brought to the stage, and I loved looking out at the people and seeing the absolute joy upon their faces. In the FLDS, our lives were filled with so much work, damnation, and end-of-the-world destruction; it was delightful to have something to celebrate. Sherrie and Ally were able to come, and I saw firsthand how the operetta brought hope and joy to many of us, young and old alike.

  After the operetta, life returned to an almost monotonous routine. During Rulon’s visits to Short Creek, the chief of police and a local deputy took him out daily for lunch and provided him with an official escort as he met with the city officials—all FLDS Priesthood leaders, of course. Other FLDS visitors would come from outlying areas to meet with the Prophet and discuss matters of business and marriage plans for their daughters.

  A few days after the operetta, news came from Canada. After gut-wrenching pressure and backbreaking work, our sister Amelia had finally caved. In order to get our mother, the Prophet, and Warren off her back and to survive the imminent end of the world, she had agreed to be placed in marriage. On May 31, 1998, Amelia was given to Collin Blackmore, Jason’s son and our cousin through marriage.

  I was happy to be allowed to go to Canada for the wedding, but when I arrived, I was shaken. Amelia had always been a spunky, free spirit, but I saw a surrender and deadness in her eyes and her soul. I pushed away my feelings and sought to find the bright side. Like my mother and Christine, I had become proficient at the skill of sticking my head in the sand, because our very survival depended on it.

  During that visit, I became acquainted with several of Winston Blackmore’s wives, some of whom I had met when I was in Canada as a young girl. One day when I was on duty, I had to be in the same room with Warren, Rulon, and Bishop Blackmore, who joked with the other two men.

  “I have to marry off a particularly rebellious young filly,” he declared. “Getting her pregnant will settle her right down.”

  I had not much liked Winston, but that flippant comment turned me sour. Through the years I had heard him say similar comments about women and realized he had likely made that exact same comment about my sister Amelia regarding her forced marriage to our cousin Collin. He couldn’t care less about any woman; his desire was to control. That thought burned within me, but I had to hold my tongue and show absolutely no emotion.

  I did enjoy meeting one of Winston’s younger wives, a wonderful character by the name of Alicia Lane Blackmore. Using humor, she could get away with saying things no one else could. For example, when we were introducing ourselves she said it was so much easier going by numbers instead of names. “That’s all we are anyway,” she laughed. A few evenings later, when all the men were in Priesthood meeting and Cecilia and I were walking the property, I heard a high voice from across the grounds.

  “Hey, Number Nineteen!” Alicia called. “How are you? It’s Number Ten!” Cecilia was astonished, but I was nearly rolling on the grass, clutching my stomach in laughter. It felt so good to hear someone tell it like it was. And it felt so good to laugh.

  Upon our return to Hildale, it was my turn to be on duty with Rulon again. As much as I tried, I was never off the hook from having to sleep with him, even with operetta practices or visiting Canada. I was required to do my time, and I had been ordered by Rulon to schedule my undertakings around my shifts with him. Still, the outside activities, as well as my rebaptism, had raised my spirits. I felt like I had a new beginning with my husband. I had been washed clean, I had more confidence in myself, and while I didn’t look forward to marital relations, I did wish to show my respect for him.

  Rulon, however, thought my newfound confidence meant that it was time to further my education in the bedroom. He made sure I knew who was in charge. He’d been known to preach, “The greatest freedom you can enjoy is in obedience.” That night he forced me to do unspeakable acts, pulling at my head and my hair to make sure I did it “just right.” When I didn’t, he made sure I knew that, too.

  “Ora knows how to do it just right,” he said, moaning.

  Then let Ora do this to you and leave me alone!

  I was bitterly angry, and after he came I spent nearly an hour in the bathroom, silently crying. When I emerged, he was asleep. I climbed into the opposite side of the bed and continued to weep quietly. Every time I had opened myself to Rulon, showed him vulnerabilities, told him what Sterling had done to me, he still forced me to do things I didn’t want to do. I had always followed the church’s teachings. Why would God punish me in this way? I finally decided that I did not like God. Nor could I trust Him.

  When my tears finally subsided, they were replaced by a fire in the pit of my stomach. I remembered a lesson that Warren had taught in family class to his father’s wives.

  Now that you are married to our Prophet, or any wife to her husband, the keys of Elijah transplanted that branch, namely you, and now you are connected to a man that is the source of life, literally—the source of life to you. As you reach out in your faith, having it so available, so right around you, the Spirit of God will flow into you.… There begins to grow a love, such a love that will make you one with him. A wife can say to her husband, “I love you.”

  I could not say “I love you” to Rulon. I had loved him as a grandfathe
r figure, as my Prophet and Priesthood Head, but I had reached out in my faith and how he repaid my trust seemed unconscionable. In my position, I could not help but see that so many women were treated in like manner or worse by their husbands.

  At times when I was on duty with Rulon, I would catch wind of the Prophet’s business as it concerned a young girl unhappy in her marriage. As he was acutely hard of hearing and kept the volume up loud on the telephone, I couldn’t help but overhear most of his conversations. It was at these times I realized I was not the only one in my community struggling with issues of violation.

  I had a cousin whose mother had been taken from her unworthy husband and been remarried to a man named Phillip. As was the custom, the woman and her children were “given” to that new man as a whole package. Phillip, who held high standing in the FLDS, began raping my cousin, his new stepdaughter, but no one knew. Once she got older, Phillip approached the Prophet. Perhaps Phillip was scared of her belonging to another man—or of her exposing his molestations.

  “This girl belongs to me,” he told Rulon, who without thought gave the sixteen-year-old in marriage to her stepfather—a man more than twice her age. In the meantime, she developed schizophrenia (considered an evil spirit among the FLDS, not the result of trauma). Her illness worsened dramatically after she discovered she was pregnant and her due date approached. I think she was subconsciously afraid that her child would be molested, too. In her worsening terror, she would run away in the family’s minivan. I overheard several telephone conversations in which Rulon would always send a brother or other Priesthood Head to bring her back to her husband.

  One day when I was on duty, Mother Norene, an older sister-wife of mine who had one of the most compassionate hearts in the whole community, came in to beseech the Prophet.

  “She took the family’s minivan again,” Norene explained, referring to my cousin. “With no money, and no gas. She is stranded in Cedar City, and is begging for your help. She would like to come back into the fold, but she is terrified of going back to her husband.”

  “Tell her God wants her to go home and obey her husband!” he said harshly. With a pitiful look in her eye, Mother Norene left, resigned to share that message. It was not until later that Rulon and the community discovered that Phillip had been sexually molesting my cousin for years and that he had carried abusive behaviors into their marriage.

  Rulon was furious. “He lied to me! He lied to us all!”

  I stared at him, dumbfounded. As the all-knowing Prophet, shouldn’t he have been aware of this before he forced her to marry Phillip? Even though I had seen suggestions and requests greatly influence the Prophet’s behavior, it was daily ingrained in us that he was the mouth of God—the one and only man blessed with total, omniscient gifts of the Spirit. It shocked me that he had not seen what was happening. He was supposed to know everything about everyone! The thought was disturbing to me. What else did he not know? I couldn’t let that thought take seed, however, or the rest of my world would violently crash down around me. Once again, I knew I had to remove all doubts from my mind or I would end up like my cousin.

  Therefore, I was grateful for the distraction of the upcoming Pioneer Day theme parade, and I threw myself into working with the families and the children. I lived for the hours away from home and the presence of precious, innocent youth that I could love and serve with all my heart.

  I also went for rides on our neighbor’s horse, Miss Tree, and borrowed four-wheelers as often as I could. On rare occasions I would meet my younger friend Samantha, and we’d secretly spirit away in one of the fleet of minivans at Rulon Jeffs’s home. She loved music as much as I did, and we would speed too fast down a deserted back desert highway, singing at the top of our lungs to the wicked and forbidden music of the A-Teens rendition of ABBA’s “Super Trouper.” At other times, I climbed the water tower or even El Capitan, the steep rock face that towered over the Creek. Those moments away had kept me sane when I had to face being on duty again.

  Soon enough, I received my call from Rulon, to the phone in my room. “Mother Becky, it is your turn to be on duty. Come and stay with me tonight.”

  “No.”

  There was silence for several long seconds. Finally he spoke, his voice sharp. “What do you mean?”

  “No,” I repeated firmly, “I am not ready to stay with you again. I will not be on duty tonight.” Let him withhold affections from me like he had Mother Julia! He’d been unable to have children long before our marriage. He was certainly not withholding anything from me that I wanted or needed.

  A few days later Warren came down to visit on church business. He called me into his office. I knew a good tongue-lashing was coming, but I was not prepared for what was to follow. Rulon’s son looked at me with the most menace I had ever seen in his eyes.

  “You don’t ever, ever, ever, ever, ever tell your husband no,” Warren said spitefully. “Especially you, because your husband is the Prophet. Your husband would never do anything to hurt you.”

  He paused, to make sure I was really listening. “I repeat, do not say no again, Mother Becky. If you do, you will be destroyed in the flesh.”

  CHAPTER 9

  The Sweet Promise of Destruction

  For the rest of the month, spooked by Warren’s words, I looked for any Priesthood-approved reason to be away from home. I performed with hundreds of FLDS members in the Pioneer Day parade on the 24th of July. I also signed up for an EMT class with Christine. Warren admonished me for the amount of time I spent away from home, but as long as Rulon approved of each activity, he couldn’t stop me. I went back to enduring my duty in the bedroom, though our shifts were lightened as Rulon now had fourteen young wives to please him in the bedroom. We were now on twelve-hour shifts instead, but I was never allowed any escape from duty.

  I played the good wife when I had to, so I could leave whenever possible. And every day I prayed to the God I did not like or trust that he would somehow have mercy on my soul.

  Then in August 1998, when Rulon was visiting Short Creek and my sister-wives and I were gathered together for family class, Rulon suddenly slumped over. We helped Nephi carry him to his bed, and the paramedics were called. As we watched, Rulon began spouting absurdities, and it was apparent he recognized only Mother Ruth. We were stunned. Nephi later announced over the intercom that Rulon had suffered a severe stroke and was receiving treatment at the hospital in St. George. We certainly could not all visit for fear of attracting attention. Through Nephi, Warren ordered all of us to stay home from church and to refrain from entertaining visitors. He wanted us on call 24/7 for anything he or his father needed.

  In the meantime, Warren immediately flew to St. George. Upon leaving the hospital he warned Rulon’s wives, “Do not reveal his condition to the people.” At that point Warren instructed every member of Rulon’s family to fast and to pray for his recovery. Although we were used to fasting once a month for twenty-four hours to pray for a specific need for the Priesthood, this was an extended fast from food; we were allowed only to sip water, mint tea, or apple juice. In addition, no one was allowed to leave the property or even talk on the phone, except to tell the people the Prophet was getting some rest. Essentially, we were under house arrest, and the people were left in the dark about the whole thing.

  Helen and I were going to miss our on-duty night with Rulon, so Nephi arranged for us to drive down to the hospital for his EKG test. As soon as the test was finished, Warren told us to leave, as Rulon was not making good progress. It was disturbing to see my husband in that kind of condition, and I couldn’t help but feel guilty for all of the angry thoughts I had harbored toward him.

  Our eighty-nine-year-old Seer and Revelator had prophesized to us that he would live for 150 years and be present to give the keys of the kingdom to Christ himself. In tender moments, perhaps feeling embarrassed that he could no longer sire children in a society that so revered it, he had told his younger wives that he would be renewed like Peleg in Genesi
s, Chronicles, and the Doctrine and Covenants. He said that he would father three hundred children for us. This hospitalization felt unreal. So many stories of the miraculous healings of Prophets were pounded into our heads daily that we genuinely believed that Rulon Jeffs would be the next Prophet to experience life-saving and life-giving miracles. Not a single one of us expressed any doubt. Not only was it unsafe to do so, but we codependently bolstered one another in our blind obedience. We sang songs about keeping “sweet,” never complaining, never questioning, and sacrificing our feelings to do what was right.

  Later Rulon was released into his son’s custody and immediately flown back to Salt Lake, where his son could monitor his progress. Warren also took over most of the daily duties while the Prophet was ill. To the people, Warren announced that while Rulon had suffered a stroke, he was in great health and simply needed rest, which was not true. Word spread quickly and the people were very concerned about the Prophet’s health. Some of the men in the hierarchy were concerned about Warren’s leadership, but not one person dared to openly confront him. A dark sense of foreboding came over the house. My sister-wives and I continued fasting but began to grow frail as the days turned into weeks.

  The next time it was my turn to be on duty with Rulon, I was alarmed at how severely the stroke had ravaged his body. Our sister-wife Mary had been watching over him almost nonstop. The Prophet was hooked up to several wires and indicators—all monitored by Mary, a registered nurse. My EMT classes enabled me to help by writing accurate medical notes for her.

  When I went into an adjoining room to record medication intake, I heard voices coming from the side door near the garage where entitled individuals would come to visit the Prophet without enduring the formalities of the front room, as most visitors did. The Barlow brothers, several of the prominent community leaders who were descended from the earlier Prophet John Y. Barlow, had arrived for their regular monthly meeting with the Prophet.