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

by Musser, Rebecca

“I am at peace,” murmured Warren, and sat down, looking at the floor again.

  The jurors deliberated for three hours and forty-five minutes, starting Thursday afternoon. They wanted to listen to the audio recordings again, and asked for the transcript of my testimony. Upon their return, the jury declared that they found Warren Jeffs guilty of sexual assault of a child for Veda Keate, and guilty of aggravated sexual assault for Merrianne Jessop.

  Now that the guilt-innocence phase was over, it was time for the jury to decide Warren’s sentence. During what is called the punishment phase of a trial in Texas, the prosecution did not hold back in order to weight his sentence sufficiently. I testified about my personal dealings with Warren, after which the jury also heard the traumatic sexual abuse experiences of Warren’s nephew Brent and his niece Jerusha at his very hands. The jury showed emotion more openly at their agonizingly painful personal testimony.

  When I went in for closing arguments, I was impressed that Eric Nichols and his team had stacked an eye-opening array of evidence against Warren, citing all of his “bad acts”: Warren had married 24 child brides who ranged in age from twelve to seventeen, married a total of 78 women illegally, arranged 67 marriages between older men and child brides—many of them his own daughters; facilitated 500 bigamous marriages, and personally destroyed 300 families by reassigning wives and children. In addition to stealing, he had created refuges to hide women from law enforcement, evaded state and federal law enforcement, and participated in at least six additional acts of sexual misconduct.

  I felt like the prosecution had brazenly scattered their feathers, and there was no need to gather them up. Only Texas had the guts to spread them out for everyone to see, and call it what it was. If there was any doubt that Warren was not only in his right mind, but knew full well what he had been doing, Eric quoted Warren from his own record of January 2004:

  There is a girl… the Lord wants me to take. She is thirteen. Oh, I just want the Lord’s will… If the world knew what I was doing they would hang me from the highest tree.

  The jury went out for deliberation on August 9, 2011. It took only thirty minutes for them to return with Warren’s sentence: life plus twenty years.

  The courtroom went silent. I felt numb for a moment, lit only by a spark of hope that Warren would never get out to terrorize his people again.

  There were not the expected cheers of jubilation or pats on the back. Reporters did rush out to report the verdict to the world, but it seemed to me that as I connected with the others involved, we did not search out one another’s smiles, but instead our eyes and our very souls.

  The men and women of Texas who had sacrificed so much to help FLDS children and bring Warren to justice hugged one another softly or shook hands. Most then simply stepped outside into the hall to call their spouses and families and to weep that it was finally over.

  Wes had once told me, “If you’ve done it, it ain’t braggin’.” I noticed after Warren’s trial was over, Wes didn’t brag. No one did, not even Brooks, who certainly had the right to feel vindicated after the hell he went through with the media and with public outcry. He did repeatedly remind reporters that they had had most of these details since 2008. Still, I saw more tears than triumph.

  Speaking publicly for the first time, I gave a statement to the press, while secretly praying my people would hear it, too. Clothed in a red dress, I spoke a little of my background, that I had been testifying against the atrocities of Warren Jeffs since 2006, and that I was deeply grateful to the men and women of Texas.

  … What I have witnessed here… is not the persecution of a church, but… the prosecution of one man, Warren Steed Jeffs.… However, it does not bring back the victims’ innocence or their childhood, nor does it assist the many who are still in bondage. Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.… this case is now public record, and the truth is in your hands.…

  I stand before you wearing red, as a symbol of freedom in choice, and triumph over tyranny. My greatest desire is for every man, woman, and child to understand their God-given human right to own themselves, and to claim their power to choose…

  God bless Texas!

  I meant it.

  CHAPTER 36

  The New Millennium

  After Warren’s trial ended, the Texas prosecution turned its focus to the final three indicted FLDS leaders: LeRoy Steed, Uncle Merrill, and Uncle Wendell. On November 1, 2011, LeRoy Johnson Steed was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading no contest to two counts of bigamy and one count of child sexual assault. LeRoy Steed’s plea came during Uncle Merrill’s trial. By this time, I had no qualms about testifying against my uncle, despite his age and health. Merrill had given eleven of his own daughters and two granddaughters to Warren, and participated in sixteen underage marriages in Texas alone. Frederick Merrill Jessop was convicted of conducting an unlawful marriage ceremony involving his twelve-year-old daughter and given the maximum sentence for conducting a ceremony prohibited by law: ten years plus a $10,000 fine.

  While I was home preparing for Uncle Wendell’s trial, Warren had begun sending out hundreds of bizarre revelations—large, multipage documents—to courthouses across the United States. Texas Rangers warned me that Warren had included me in his last set of revelations:

  115. Let also all who are of prosecution way first examine lives of false witness who is adulterer way of living; also betrayed own eternal order of former living herself; Becky Wall; of evil intent; open lying as her way, with aim to only destroy family way of Eternal Union Order; herself a full way immoral adultery way.

  116. Let such never be trusted.

  117. All such are called apostates.

  118. Let such be of the way of fear. Amen.

  The rangers and my family were very concerned, as Warren still had thousands of loyal followers, but I didn’t have time or energy to dwell on it.

  I found Uncle Wendell’s upcoming trial more difficult, as no sexual assault was involved; rather, he was being tried for bigamy with his adult wives. I hadn’t resolved all of my complicated feelings toward polygamy. As the product of polygamy, I struggled with the inherent inequality of the practice as well as the severe abuse that polygamy seemed to spawn across many different cultures, not just in the FLDS. Wendell Nielsen was found guilty on three counts of bigamy. He was to serve ten years for each concurrently and pay $30,000 in fines.

  As soon as Wendell’s trial came to a close, I felt a tremendous burden lift from my shoulders, as I knew that my time in courtrooms was over. Still, I felt a very real sadness as Wendell was led away in handcuffs, one I’d felt with every sentence handed down. While the FLDS might not claim me, they were still my roots, my people. I knew that my people saw any investigation as persecution, rather than holding men accountable for their crimes.

  How had we fallen so far?

  The FLDS inner circle had become, as Texas called it, “an organized crime unit in the name of God.” It was an apt description of the violent downward spiral of our community, and the sobering lessons it held for all of humanity. What started with Rulon and the implementation of one-man rule became a dangerous catalyst for total corruption in the hands of his son. And Warren would not relinquish his suffocating grip on the blindly obedient.

  From his cell, Warren continued to control every aspect of the lives of his people. With great precision, he kept their focus strictly on his release, using doomsday prophecies to lead them in their mass confusion and fear. In the months following his sentence, Warren first focused his people on building an enormous conference center on the YFZ. He explained through his leaders that this was where the saints would gather during the destructions. Like the temple, the huge building going up at such a dramatic pace sparked intense interest from the public, as well as speculation about a three-story statue crafted to go inside the conference center, a bronzed image of Warren standing tall with scriptures in one hand and his other resting gently on the shoulder
of a very young FLDS girl.

  Diana and I, along with hundreds of our friends and family who were now out of the church, became very concerned about the new, stringent orders for Warren’s faithful. Piece by piece, we discovered that in order for them to be lifted up at the end of 2011—of course the real, true apocalypse this time, according to Warren—each one had to be strictly interviewed, declare their utter loyalty to him as their Prophet, and be rebaptized into Warren’s church.

  More than one young female who participated in interviews with Priesthood leaders never came home. Utah’s attorney general, Mark Shurtleff, received calls from concerned ousted family members who recognized the deeply disturbing pattern of disappearances. Shurtleff announced he would look into it, yet not one arrest or public statement ever came of it. The girls have not resurfaced; they could be in houses of hiding still spread across the nation. Or they could be in Mancos, Colorado, or near Pringle, South Dakota, where Warren’s faithful have built a smaller compound similar to that of the YFZ; the Texas property has been largely deserted.

  Most of those ousted were hurt, confused, and lost, as they didn’t know what they had done to be cast out. Utah’s child and adult welfare services became overwhelmed with the numbers of uneducated youth ending up in their system, and nonprofits like Holding Out HELP found themselves trying to help unprecedented numbers of people. Vans of reputable volunteers roamed the streets at night, picking up children as young as five who had nowhere to go.

  To make matters worse, that December, Warren disbanded all marriages among the FLDS. In a clandestine phone call where he preached to his people in the chapel in Short Creek, he forbade his people to have sex until the walls of the prison fell and he was freed to reseal their marriages. Husbands were to be “caretakers” only and were not to bed their wives. Any children conceived during this edict would be considered Sons of Perdition. On New Year’s Eve, the faithful gathered in deep and fervent prayer throughout the United States and Canada. When they were not lifted up and gathered, and the walls of the prison still held him, Warren blamed the people for their unworthiness. Someone snuck a poster bearing the Prophet’s photos and his insinuations circulating among the people to a reporter from the Salt Lake Tribune:

  Where is the faith to set me free? How much longer will it take to have a clean prepared people that will obey Father’s commandments? I have been in prison for ___ days. What are you doing about it?

  That poster made me sick inside, but not as sick as when I learned what Warren now dictated. In May 2012, he reinstituted the ability to have sex and create children. However, his people were required to apply for permission, as the act itself was considered a Priesthood ordinance. What floored me was that Warren designated just fifteen “worthy” Priesthood holders from the whole community to sire all FLDS babies: any woman who wanted a child could go only to one of these fifteen men. As an added horror, husbands were supposed to participate in this “holy” Priesthood ordinance by being a witness to their wives being bedded by a worthier man. Diana and I and others speculated on this with the hope that this twisted edict would force people to reconsider their commitment to Warren. Somewhere around two hundred people did get up and walk out of church at that announcement, but the rest stayed, more frightened and obedient than ever.

  As far as criminal prosecution, in November 2012 the Texas attorney general’s office moved to seize the mostly deserted YFZ ranch. According to the attorney general’s website, sect leaders used laundered money to purchase the property “in a failed attempt to establish a remote outpost where they could insulate themselves from criminal prosecution for sexually assaulting children,” making the property contraband.

  In the meantime, Nick Hanna, Wes Hensley, and other officers served up a banquet of evidence involving sexual assault and organized crime that could have easily put dozens of leaders in prison and set a precedent of accountability to the law in at least two countries. The Texas Rangers and the attorney general’s office were severely disappointed to see that Utah, Arizona, and Canada primarily sat idle with the information, even as the statute of limitations was quickly running out. Not every state was willing to risk tens of millions of dollars or their reputations to bring justice.

  It was thought that law enforcement might actually be taking a different tack. In June 2012, using evidence collected by local rancher Isaac Wyler and others, the Justice Department brought a civil rights lawsuit against the towns of Colorado City and Hildale in order to address the lawlessness running rampant in Short Creek, which still boasted a police force and local leadership fiercely dedicated to the jailed Prophet. Federal marshals were brought in to bring order and accountability to the community and to preserve the rights of those who had left the sect. This lent hope to Isaac and others that significant changes might finally take place.

  As 2012 wound to a close, family and friends watching Short Creek were greatly concerned. Warren began prophesying doomsday again, this time to coincide with the Mayan calendar. Stores closed and the Prophet ordered that all males, young and old, be circumcised. He proscribed several dietary restrictions and instructed members to pack specific-colored backpacks and be ready to head out at a moment’s notice—to where? No one seemed to know. Warren placed his brother Lyle back in power, though he’d been excommunicated and former members of the FLDS suspected him of taking money from the church for personal use. This showed how much power Warren still retained from behind bars—that he could pluck a deceitful leader out, replace him, and just as easily place him back in as the second-to-ultimate authority without the slightest hesitation.

  When the world did not end that Sunday, December 23, Warren said it would be a few days more. Twenty thirteen came, and yet his followers remained steadfast. As of June 2013, it remained to be seen what Warren would do to keep his adherents under his supreme control.

  Outsiders have repeatedly asked why the people stay loyal to Warren Jeffs. The only answer is that the indoctrination has been deceptively strong, and Warren remains exceptionally skilled at wielding the salvation stick. These are his core group of obedient souls, who have never drawn the line in the sand. Therefore, he can keep crossing no-longer-existent boundaries.

  As I learned more about choice, and looked over the extensive evidence in all of the cases I had testified in, I realized that what was happening in the FLDS was human trafficking—both for labor and for sex. In mainstream society, money and lust are the currency. In the FLDS, salvation and position are the currency, but the forced acts of labor and sex are the same—the very definition of slavery. And whether greed or God is the currency, it is not right to own another’s free agency.

  The good news is that those who have been cast out have begun to discover that they can choose a life of happiness outside the FLDS. It takes great resiliency to leave, and then survive, and then thrive, like many of my siblings have shown. What people may not realize is that it involves a long and tedious journey requiring compassion and forgiveness and openness—beginning with the self. Still, it is possible. And there is great joy on the other side of freedom.

  As for those who are still in, we have received disparate reports about their well-being and their whereabouts. I’ve had to accept that wherever Mom, Christine, Savannah, Brittany, Sherrie, and Ally are, whatever their married status or standing in the community, they, indeed, might be exactly where they want to be—and I have had to find it within me to honor that.

  In the process of writing this book, my coauthor and I interviewed my father, Donald Wall, and discovered that his version of certain events doesn’t match my own. He feels that he conveyed to me that I had the right to say no to marrying the Prophet, and he was surprised by my memories of the beatings he, Irene, and Maggie delivered to me and my siblings. My father said he didn’t recall the severity of his beating of Zach, nor of Irene’s thrashing that put Cole in the hospital. In fact he said that he hadn’t been around enough to know if we were beaten by his first and third wives. Though his r
emembrance of events differs greatly from mine, I still respect his great intellect and I hope that he will find enlightenment and happiness in his own life.

  Whatever the case, the FLDS world is shifting, albeit slowly. But change is change, and it is our hope that the scales can be tipped in favor of happiness—away from guilt, shame, and slavery.

  Epilogue

  Several months after Warren’s trial, I was asked to give a motivational speech. As I stood on a stage in Coronado, California, dressed in red, I spoke with the same passion, compassion, and fire that I had used in the courtroom. Trembling, I had written the words “LOVE” and “GENSHAI” across my palm again. It was not easy.

  I had become a passionate advocate for the rights and dignity of victims of human trafficking and sexual slavery, and I had been asked to speak on that topic. Human trafficking continues to be the second-largest crime in the entire world, next only to drug trafficking. It is rarely talked about because of the shame surrounding it. I knew that shame, because I was once owned, too.

  “Slavery is no longer legal anywhere in the world,” I told the audience, “and yet it is more prevalent today than at any other time in human history! An estimated twelve to twenty-seven million people in the world today are slaves, and more than half of those are being sexually trafficked. It’s not just overseas; it’s in our backyards. Ninety U.S. cities are documented as actively engaging in sexual slavery. Law alone will not abolish slavery. I have testified over twenty times to save women and children from the same fate that I suffered, and yet girls are being violated this very minute where I come from.… Individually, we must not accept slavery into one little section of any part of our hearts, our minds, or our community…”

  As I finished, I reminded them that I was just one person.

  “I am asking you, as one more person… to do what you can do.” I wanted them to realize their very real opportunity and ability to change the world.