Abuse is Rampant!

Young, underage girls are forced into marriage.   Women and children are beaten.   There is rape and incest.   Allegations of tax and welfare fraud exist.   Young boys are run out of town because they become the "competition", as there are never enough women to supply the demand for wives.  The prophet teaches racism.   There are rumors about a cache of weapons to be used to defend themselves, if necessary.  Young girls are taken back and forth across international borders to become "child brides."  People are evicted from their homes just because the men in control don't like their attitude.  Many children are denied a basic education and spend their days working at hard labor or tending to their siblings instead of going to school. It was found that the local school district was being "looted" for personal gain.  Then property and assets belonging to all citizens who are beneficiaries of the United Effort Plan Trust started "disappearing" in defiance of a court order not to liquidate assets of the Trust.  Life has become oppressive and many people live in fear and suspicion of their own relatives.  People are disappearing in the middle of the night and family members have no idea where they have gone. Below are some news articles describing the horrendous abuses that are prevalent.  These news articles are listed in chronological order.

Unmarked baby graves in the canyonlands attached to the FLDS polygamy cult headquartered on the Utah-Arizona border. Local residents call it "Babyland" and law enforcement's response to human rights activists questioning the graves has been that unmarked graves are not illegal. Suzan Mazur  -  Out of Bounds Magazine

Top court hears dispute dividing polygamist sect

By Matthew Brown The Associated Press Originally published October 10, 1997

SALT LAKE CITY - Feuding factions of a polygamist sect on the Utah-Arizona border took their dispute to the Utah Supreme Court on Thursday, arguing whether the religion's leaders can evict dissidents from their homes.   A 5th District judge ruled more than a year and a half ago that leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints must compensate dissenters if they want to boot them from their homes in the Short Creek Valley.   But leaders of the polygamist clan that operates a communal economy in the adjacent towns of Hildale and Colorado City, Ariz., appealed, saying the former followers knew the rules and the state can't dictate what a church teaches its members.   "Religious leaders spelling out the rules of conduct in their sermons should not have to look over their shoulders at what jurists may be thinking," argued attorney Raymond Scott Berry.  "The religious body deserves some protection."   The court took the matter under advisement, but not before telling Berry that his clients can't use the state's "legal machinery" to accomplish only their ends, and prevent others who may feel wronged by the church from doing the same.   "You claim a legal right to be upheld by the state, but you oppose the state looking to see if that legal right can be upheld," said Chief Justice Michael Zimmerman.   The longstanding dispute between the church's United Effort Plan Trust and 21 families who have left the group focuses on a primary tenet of the faith - that all property is held in common.     Read more

Time to end abuse, welfare fraud in polygamist clans

By Scott N. Howell Deseret Morning News Originally published February 6, 2000 Sen. Scott Howell, D-Granite, is the Minority Leader of the Utah Senate.

SALT LAKE CITY - The first time I was personally introduced to the horrors and injustice that polygamy creates, I felt stunned.   Immediately, I took it upon myself to take action against the serious abuses polygamy directs specifically toward women and children.   Not only does this issue harm its participants, it also affects all Utahns by tarnishing this state's otherwise wonderful image.   As we enter the new millennium, it is time to address these serious issues and wipe our slate clean.   Polygamy has been handled and clearly drafted, at least within the law books.  The Utah Constitution states "polygamous or plural marriages are forever prohibited."   The obvious lack of enforcement hurts our state on two separate levels.   First, the lifelong negative ramifications caused by abuse to both the women and children involved in polygamy are devastating.  The personal accounts of women courageous enough to leave such harmful relationships are appalling.  Common circumstances faced by female members include complete control over their private lives and thoughts, manipulation, pressure to participate in improper physical relations, threats and intimidation, guilt, gender discrimination and isolation.     Read more

Parents Heed 'Prophet,' Abandon Schools

Education: Enrollment dwindles and concerns rise for all students in two polygamist communities

By Julie Cart Salt Lake City Weekly Originally published October 10, 2000

HILDALE, Utah--This remote territory straddling the line between Utah and Arizona has long been an outlaw community where residents practice polygamy with impunity.   Now parents here have removed their children from school en masse at the behest of a 92-year-old religious "prophet" and may cause the public school system to crumble.   Three-quarters of the students in the region's schools did not return to their classrooms this fall, an exodus that has raised questions about how far parents can go in balancing their religious beliefs with the state's mandate to educate children.   "It breaks my heart to feel like some of these students are not getting the education they should get," said Max Tolman, the first-year principal at Phelps Elementary School in Hildale.     Read more

Seven brides for one brother: Plural marriage is rife in the western United States

By Suzan Mazur The Financial Times Ltd. Originally published October 28, 2000

When 17-year-old Lorraine Johnson set off for Canada from her home in Colorado City, Arizona, more than year ago, she had her father Ray's consent to marry into another polygamous group.  It meant her swapping her Mormon fundamentalist community on the Utah-Arizona border for the Bountiful commune in British Columbia's Creston Valley.   Her father won't say if she is married, but others inside the closed society, which straddles the Canada-Idaho border, confirm that Lorraine is now one of the common-law wives of the community's 44-year-old leader Winston Blackmore, who is believed to have 30 wives.   For most modern western women, it is hard to imagine how anyone could endure life as a multiple wife.   But for Lorraine and other's like her there may be little choice for girls raised in polygamist societies with no experience of any other way of life.  They may also become trapped in a cycle of poverty and dependence.   Utah state Senator Ron Allen says: "We have thousands of women pulled out of school at an early age, forced into marriages with older men, kept isolated from society, constantly impregnated, and often placed on public assistance with no financial means of their own.  They are forgotten citizens facing abuse and fear.  On top of it all, the victims are constantly taught that God is just pleased as punch about the whole deal.   It has to stop."     Read more

How did U.S. teen end up in polygamists' commune, mom asks

Mother fears girl secretly wed after getting over border

By Fabian Dawson Edmonton Journal Originally published November 2, 2000

The American mother of a teen bride has filed a report with the RCMP asking police to find out how her daughter ended up at a polygamous commune in the East Kootenays.   "I am concerned my daughter may have been married in secret and I want to know how she got across the border without parental consent," Lenore Holm said Wednesday.   Her daughter Nichole was 16 when she came across the border last May after Holm objected to her marriage to a 39-year-old Utah polygamist with 10 kids.   The report was compiled by a U.S. child advocate and ex-members of the polygamous group called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.   Reports are being prepared in about 30 other cases of underaged girls and teens that have been married off to polygamists in B.C., Utah and Arizona.     Read more

Runaway girl returned to polygamists

The Associated Press Originally published April 6, 2001

ST. GEORGE (AP) -- A 15-year-old girl who ran away from her polygamous family, saying they planned to force her into an arranged marriage, was returned to her family Thursday by Washington County authorities.  People who helped the girl run away said her family told her they had planned her marriage to Warren Jeffs, the No. 2 leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the son of its top leader, Rulon Jeffs.  The sect is based in the border communities of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah.   Activists and sympathetic family members contacted state and county officials to arrange protective custody.   "We had offered (to) the sheriff's department that we would provide shelter and were waiting to hear whether they were going to provide shelter, and we never heard from them, " Janina Chilton of the Utah Department of Human Services told KSL-TV.  "We just found out the girl had been released back to her family, so we will certainly start an investigation at this point."     Read more

Spotlight shines again on Colorado City

By Abbie Gripman Kingman Daily Miner Originally published Friday, July 27, 2001

The Mormon presence in Colorado City dates back to an apocryphal anecdote involving church prophet Brigham Young.   Legend has it that in the 1850s, Young was returning to Salt Lake City from a visit to the pioneer settlement of Pipe Springs, 20 miles east of present-day Colorado City.  Young instructed his buggy driver to stop at the top of Cedar Ridge and, as he looked down over the Short Creek area, declared, “This will someday be the head and not the tail of the church.  These will be the granaries of the Saints.”   When the church disavowed polygamy in 1890 and began to excommunicate those who would not give up the practice, a group of stalwarts settled in remote Short Creek (now Colorado City) and called themselves the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.   Colorado City’s remote location and the low profile kept by residents allowed the church to prosper.  Law enforcement authorities have tried three times, all without success, to wipe out the open practice of polygamy in Short Creek.  The last incident was the infamous 1953 Short Creek raid.  After the raid, the town’s name was changed to Short Creek in Arizona and Hildale in Utah, to avoid association with the event.   Since the traumatic raid, life in Colorado City has settled into a relatively quiet routine.  But recent events, both inside and outside the community, have raised the profile of the town and threatened the lifestyle of its residents.     Read more

'If you leave, you go to Hell'

Polygamy: One religion's custom is the rest of the world's joke

By Allen Abel National Post (Canada) Originally published February 23, 2002

"I want to be a god," the polygamist said as we sat on his long, curving sofa.   "If I have more wives, I can have more children," he told me, his voice rising, pounding the armrest with the fervour that is always least temperate in those who think themselves divine.   "I believe that I'm emulating the Man Upstairs," he said.   "God has sired billions of children with billions of wives in Heaven.  I'm practising exactly the same thing, right here on Earth.   "I WANT TO GET WITH GOD'S PROGRAM!"     Read more

Victims' pleas bring leniency in sex abuse case

Colorado City mayor's son escapes prison time after victims ask for mercy

The Spectrum Originally published April 20, 2002

COLORADO CITY -- Leniency pleas from his victims and others and the unique lifestyle of the primarily polygamous community of Colorado City figured prominently in the sentencing of a man who admitted improper sexual contact with five young female relatives.   Dan Barlow Jr., 51, escaped prison time and further county jail incarceration through a plea agreement that led to sentencing Friday in Mohave County Superior Court in Kingman. Judge Richard Weiss imposed a 120-day jail sentence but suspended all of that, granting credit for the 13 days Barlow had already spent in jail.   Barlow, son of 17-year Colorado City Mayor Dan Barlow Sr., must register as a sex offender and perform 500 hours of community service.   Weiss also placed Barlow on supervised probation for seven years.   Court records show that arresting deputy Sam Roundy said Barlow admitted initial allegations of improper sexual contact with the five girls.     Read more

'Word is out' Canada is a safe haven

Prosecutors fear any case would fail Charter of Rights test

By Stewart Bell National Post (Canada) Originally published July 12, 2002

VANCOUVER - Canada has a growing polygamy problem that is earning the country a reputation as a safe haven for men who want to keep several wives, an anti-polygamy lobby group charged yesterday.   The failure of authorities to take action against a polygamist colony near Creston, B.C., combined with increased immigration from countries where the practice is common are said to be fuelling the increase.   "The word is out there that B.C. is a safe place for polygamists," said Debbie Palmer of Eye on Polygamy, which hosted a public forum last night in Vancouver.  "There are many polygamous families coming to Canada looking for a safe haven."     Read more

20 wives say goodbye to husband and a way of life

Polygamy: One religion's custom is the rest of the world's joke

By Chris Ayres UK Times Originally published September 17, 2002

The lifestyle of America’s largest polygamist sect is in jeopardy after the death of its leader, a child rape case and economic hardship.   Rulon T. Jeffs, 93, president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, died last week leaving 19 or 20 widows, about 60 children and hundreds of grandchildren.  Five thousand followers attended his funeral and at least 33 of his sons were pallbearers.   The church, which has an estimated 10,000 members, will have to endure a lengthy succession battle.   The two main candidates are Fred Jessop, 92, a church bishop, and one of Mr Jeffs’s sons, Warren, 45.  But the complex process of deciding on a new prophet, understood by few, could take months, even years.     Read more

A Survivor of Polygamy - Don't Forget the Other Victims

By Janet E. Johanson MohaveCountyNews.com Originally published March 19, 2003

Don't Forget the Other Victims of Polygamy.   I am thrilled that Elizabeth Smart has returned to her family.  I know from personal experience the pain of having family members secreted away by fundamentalist Mormons who practice polygamy and other extremist beliefs.  In this flurry of attention to a bright, lovely, talented typical Morman girl, lets not forget about the thousands of other bright, lovely, talented girls in Hilldale, Utah; Colorado City, Arizona; Creston, B.C.; and, in numerous enclaves in the Salt Lake and Utah Valleys who are being taken from their families at young ages and being made to submit to older men who brainwash them in their perverted belief systems.  These girls have even less choice than Elizabeth had, because, in many cases, their own families sacrifice them to these men in order to further their own status within the polygamist cults.   I, too, sought, fought, prayed, and pled for the return of my 6 nephews and nieces: Wayne, Vonnie, Taylor, Julia, Janelle, and Deanne Thornton (Fischer) from 1987 to 1991.     Read more

Polygamists Probed

Arizona launches a probe into alleged improper spending by the Colorado City school district

By John Dougherty Phoenix New Times Originally published May 1, 2003

The spiritual leader of a fundamentalist Mormon sect along the Arizona-Utah border apparently fathered a child with a second underage girl he considers one of his many wives, according to Utah birth records obtained by New Times.   A Utah birth certificate shows that 47-year-old Warren Jeffs is the father of a baby girl delivered by Lori Steed, who was 17 years, 11 months, two days old at the time of conception, based on a full-term gestation.  The baby, Elizabeth Jeffs, was born in Hildale, Utah, on May 9, 2001.   The revelation about Jeffs comes at the same time as details surface about how Arizona and Utah law enforcement officials botched the arrest of fugitive polygamist Orson William Black, and subsequently allowed his wives and children -- including his alleged sexual-abuse victims -- to flee to a hideout in Mexico.     Read more

Young wives' ages come under scrutiny

States' officials are investigating possible fraud in Mormon group

By Jane Zhang The Spectrum Originally published May 29, 2003

COLORADO CITY, Ariz. -- As the populations of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, continue to grow -- fueled largely by a high birth rate among families who are members of a breakaway Mormon group that believes in polygamy -- the two towns are coming under more scrutiny from state officials.   Utah and Arizona prosecutors are taking a look at the ages of some of the younger wives and are investigating what they say is tax and welfare fraud in the two towns.  In Hildale, 66 percent of residents are on Medicaid.   In Colorado City, it's nearly 100 percent.     Read more

Jury convicts officer of illegal sex with underage wife

The Associated Press Originally published August 14, 2003

ST. GEORGE, Utah - A police officer accused of bigamy and illegal sex with a girl he took as a third wife when she was just 16 was convicted by a jury Thursday - a case that one official suggested would lead to more.   Jurors ruled that Rodney Holm, an officer in the polygamous border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., committed bigamy and also broke Utah law banning sexual relations involving 16- and 17-year-olds when their partner is 10 or more years older, unless the couple is legally married.   Holm, 37, who lives in Hildale, was accused of having sex with Ruth Stubbs when she was 16.  He was 32 when he allegedly took Stubbs as a "spiritual" wife, which is not a legally recognized union.     Read more

Polygamy meeting draws sides

Lots of talk, but few solutions

By Mark Shaffer The Arizona Republic Originally published August 23, 2003

St. George, Utah -- Carla Holm said she was one of the lucky ones when she ran away to Seattle from her polygamist household in Colorado City, Ariz., at age 15 in 1996.   Holm said she eventually was able to make it on her own.   She even earned a high school degree two years ago.   But more typical, Holm said, was the plight of her three teenage cousins.  They all fled their surroundings six months ago, couldn't make it elsewhere and were all forcibly married within a week upon their return.   Holm said Friday during the first polygamy summit of Arizona, Utah and Canadian law enforcement officials and elected leaders that more safe havens are needed to keep the teens who choose to leave off drugs and off the streets.   During a two-hour meeting behind closed doors, the officials discussed a wealth of subjects concerning Colorado City and neighboring Hildale, Utah, including child safety and sex abuse, potential legislation, penalties for bigamy, welfare and school district fraud and certification of police officers in the two communities.   "Maybe we can't make the border go away, but with (cooperation in) law enforcement we can make it more invisible," Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said after the meeting.   Goddard said he couldn't discuss details of the meeting but there were some "poignant questions raised about serving (Arizona) subpoenas in Utah."     Read more

'Foreigners in their own country'

By Mark Shaffer and Joseph A. Reaves The Arizona Republic Originally published September 28, 2003

They are the forgotten victims of polygamy, young men pushed out of towns like Colorado City as older men take on more wives.   Most have eight grades of education or less.  Many of them are victims of abuse and have severe emotional scars.  They have only rudimentary building skills and speak old-school English, straight out of the frontier 1800s.   "They're like foreigners in their own country," said Carolyn Jessop, a former Colorado City polygamist wife who fled earlier this year and moved to Salt Lake City.   Most of them bounce from low-end job to low-end job along 500 miles of the Interstate 15 corridor between Salt Lake City and Pahrump, Nev., west of Las Vegas.   They often live together, sometimes as many as 10 packed into one apartment.  According to Flora Jessop, a former polygamist wife now living in Phoenix, many of the young men end up in the jails of Utah and Nevada after being convicted of crimes.     Read more

Young males often forced to leave

Seen as a threat by older men, they are ill-prepared for the outside world, with minimal education.

The Arizona Republic tucsoncitizen.com Originally published Monday, September 29, 2003

They are the forgotten victims of polygamy, young men pushed out of towns such as Colorado City as older men take on more wives.   Most have eight grades of education or less. Many of them are victims of abuse and have severe emotional scars.  They have only rudimentary building skills and speak old-school English, straight out of the frontier 1800s.   Most of them bounce from low-end job to low-end job along 500 miles of the Interstate 15 corridor between Salt Lake City and Pahrump, Nev., west of Las Vegas.   "There's a percentage that eventually figures out how to make it," said James Black, a travel consultant in Park City, Utah, and former Colorado City resident.  "But there's a lot more who never figure it out."   When Black was young, he was one of the designated men who could rise to be a future prophet in Colorado City's polygamist society.   But as Black got older, he started asking tough questions.  For instance: Why should any man have multiple wives in modern-day America?  And why are teenage girls mere chattels for some men who are old enough to be their grandfathers?   That is when he says the church hierarchy ratcheted up the pressure on the 15-year-old Black to leave.  His secret love since the first grade "disappeared overnight" and was married to a polygamist in Canada.     Read more

In God's Name

After years of neglect, the law takes a hard look at Colorado City, Ariz., a sect-run town where old men marry teenage girls, TV is banned, and polygamy runs rampant

By Thomas Fields-Meyer and Oliver Jones in Colorado City People Magazine Originally published October 6, 2003

Pennie Peterson was 14 when she learned she was about to become the fifth wife of a 48-year-old man.  Frightened, she ran away from her family--which included her father, his three wives and Peterson's 38 brothers and sisters--and met friends by a roadside in Colorado City, Ariz.  "They took me to their house in Las Vegas," recalls Peterson, 34, nearly 20 years later.  "And I never went back."   Colorado City, a desert town some 50 miles north of the Grand Canyon, is a world of its own.  Just below the border of Utah, the community teems with children, yet there are no competitive sports leagues, no dances, not even a backyard pool.  Most kids are homeschooled.  Even quilting bees have been forbidden by town leaders for fear they might promote gossip.  Men and boys dress in a uniform of dark pants, striped shirts and suspenders; women and girls wear long-sleeved, ankle-length dresses, even in summer.  But what truly sets this place apart is the group that controls it, a radical Mormon offshoot called the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) that has more than 8,000 members and espouses polygamy--which is illegal in all 50 states.  One local historian estimates that plural marriages account for about half the city's unions.  Mayor Dan Barlow, 70, a polygamist, sees nothing too unusual about his town.   "We are just families," he says, "with a little bit of a different take on things."   Now, after decades of being ignored, that little difference could land town leaders in big trouble.  Last year Barlow's son Dan Jr. pleaded guilty to sexually abusing one of his daughters.     Read more

Nearly 50% Residents Late on Utility Bills Due to Rate Hike

KSL-TV Channel 5 Originally broadcast October 15, 2003

(Hilldale-AP) -- Residents in two Utah border towns are having trouble keeping up with their utility bills.   Almost half the residents of Hilldale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona are late in paying their electric bills.   Most residents have an average bill of two-hundred dollars.  The Twin City Power manager says that's probably the highest in the country and he'd rather work with residents than shut them off.   The electric hike went up July 1st, and that's having an effect on other utilities.   Water and sewer rates haven't increased, but officials say the number of late payments are up to 47 percent.   The two communities have larger than normal families and typically are one-income households - which also may contribute to the delinquent payments.

Three wives will guarantee you a place in paradise

The Taliban? No: welcome to the rebel Mormons

By Julian Coman Telegraph.co.uk Originally published October 19, 2003

As a polygamous husband is jailed and traumatised women start to speak out, a siege mentality grips a fundamentalist Mormon sect, reports Julian Coman from Hildale, Utah     High in the mountains above the most notorious polygamous community in America, two grim-faced men on horseback have come to meet - but not welcome - me.  "This is private property," said one.  "No pictures.  You have got to leave right now."   The men are blocking the way to a deep man-made cave.  Here, according to the few locals prepared to talk, the elders of an eccentric breakaway Mormon sect have prepared a last stand against further interference by Utah state authorities - stockpiling food and, some say, weapons, as if in readiness for a siege.   The godfearing polygamists of Hildale and neighbouring Colorado City, members of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) have good reason to be jumpy.     Read more

Road to Polygamy: Part 1

KXLY News 4 - Spokane, Washington & Northern Idaho Original broadcast November 5, 2003

A group of religious fundamentalists operating in both the United States and Canada is raising the eyebrows of law enforcement on both sides of the border.  Several agencies say they are trafficking young girls across the border to become child brides.   They're called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  They have no affiliation with the modern Mormon church, and believe a man must have more than one wife to reach the highest plains of heaven.  That means, young women are often trafficked back and forth from FLDS headquarters in the U.S. to a small community just across Idaho's border into Bountiful, British Columbia.     Read more

Road to Polygamy: Part 2

KXLY News 4 - Spokane, Washington & Northern Idaho Original broadcast November 5, 2003

A group of religious fundamentalists operating on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border are raising the eyebrows of law enforcement.  The group known as Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day's Saints claim they're being persecuted for their religion; others claim they're dangerous criminals.   For decades, FLDS members have lived in communities along the Utah/Arizona border and just across Idaho's border in Bountiful, British Columbia.  Polygamy is the corner-stone of their beliefs, as men believe they need more than one wife to reach the highest plains of heaven.  Former church members say young women are forced to marry in their teens, and that abuse and incest are common.   Now, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff is mounting a crusade to stop it.  He claims crimes go far beyond polygamy: to everything from welfare fraud to violence.  "We hear that children are being taught and forced to kill animals in a bloody manner, so they get used to killing," Shurtleff claims.  "That there are people that if the prophet tells them to kill, they will kill."     Read more

Mayor of polygamist community resigns amid apparent power struggle

The Associated Press Originally published January 13, 2004

COLORADO CITY, Ariz. (AP) --The mayor of a polygamist community straddling the Utah-Arizona line has resigned after apparently clashing with the leader of a renegade sect of the Mormon church that all but runs the town.   Dan Barlow, the only mayor in the 19-year history of Colorado City, submitted a one-sentence resignation letter Monday.   The town clerk said a new mayor will be selected by the Town Council.   Barlow and about 20 men were ousted Saturday from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a maverick sect of the Mormon church, The (St. George) Spectrum reported Tuesday.   In an apparent move to solidify his position as church leader, Warren Jeffs also stripped the men of their wives and children, and their right to live in the town about 100 miles northwest of Flagstaff, the newspaper reported.   Meanwhile, The Salt Lake Tribune reported that among those Jeffs excommunicated were four of his own brothers and Barlow's son, nephew and three brothers.     Read more

Teens flee polygamist towns

Girls, boys leave Colorado City, Utah's Hildale

By Mark Shaffer The Arizona Republic Originally published January 19, 2004

The anticipated exodus of teenage girls from the strife-torn, polygamist communities of Colorado City and Hildale, Utah, began in earnest this weekend as about 10 fanned out to towns in southern Utah seeking protection, anti-polygamy activists said Sunday.   The movement followed a ruling by a Maricopa County juvenile court judge late Friday that two 16-year-old teens from Colorado City, who had fled to the Valley last week, would be allowed to stay in foster homes rather than remain in state custody.   "We've got eight runners now, including two with children, and got a bunch more coming," said Flora Jessop of Phoenix, a former Colorado City resident who has been active in opposing multiple marriages since she escaped from the polygamist enclave as a teenager in the mid-1980s.   Bob Curran, director of the St. George, Utah, group Help the Child Brides, said "a number" of both teenaged girls and boys have left the towns in the past few days and many have made contact with Utah child-protection officials.   "We had one runaway yesterday, a 16-year-old girl, whose marriage already was all planned out and we got her to the child-protective people," Curran said.  "There are also a lot of young boys fleeing and they are reluctant to have contact with the state.   We are encouraging the kids to get out now amidst all this turmoil."     Read more

Colorado City-area runaways return home

By Jane Zhang The Spectrum Originally published Tuesday, January 20, 2004

ST. GEORGE -- The runaways ran again -- this time away from a St. George-area home back to the homes they tried to flee in the Colorado City-Hildale area.   No, the six youths didn't want the government's help to leave the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, even though law enforcement and children's services agencies have vowed to protect them against domestic abuse or the forced marriages of young girls to adult men.   Instead, they returned Sunday night after barely a day or two out of the polygamist enclave, which has been teeming with uncertainty since Jan. 10, when the prophet, Warren Jeffs, surprised many by ousting 21 men -- including then-Colorado City Mayor Dan Barlow and his three brothers -- from the FLDS church.     Read more

A cult of abuses

Colorado City females are property, to trade and 'assign'

Opinions The Arizona Republic Originally published January 22, 2004

Children kept out of school. Adolescent girls given as second and third wives to old men.  Teen boys banished.  Out-of-favor men expelled, and their wives and children assigned to those who please the ruling elite.   A backward, Third World nation?   No.   The USA.   The land of the Bill of Rights.  The home of the rule of law.   For more than 50 years, an enclave of lawbreakers and advocates of child sexual abuse has straddled the Arizona-Utah border, unrepentant and unchallenged.  Girls were property, boys were competition, women were chattel.  All were denied access to the justice system and the protection of the Constitution.     Read more

US polygamists' children flee amid church leadership crisis

Agence France-Presse Originally published January 23, 2004

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, (AFP) - Teenage daughters of polygamists from a fundamentalist offshoot of the US Mormon church are fleeing their families amid a sect leadership crisis, according to state officials.   Law enforcement and social services officials said several teenage girls had fled their families and the shadowy splinter sect of the Utah-based Mormon church over the past two weeks, apparently to avoid being married off to older men at a young age.   The flight began after the "prophet" of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) -- which is not recognized by the mainstream Mormon church -- excommunicated more than 20 male members of his sect on January 10 and threatened to take away their wives and children.   The expulsion by leader Warren Jeffs, outraged many leading citizens of the two small desert towns where sect members live -- Hilldale and Colorado City, which lie along the border between Arizona and Utah, sources said.   At least three young girls seized the opportunity of the crisis to leave their families, and -- despite calls by the fathers to have them returned -- authorities in Utah and Arizona have put the girls into protective care.   "Currently in state custody, there is one girl in Utah and two in Arizona," said Elaine Tyler, a volunteer for the group, Help the Child Brides, in nearby St. George, Utah.     Read more

Man to fight expulsion

Chatwin calls FLDS prophet 'Hitler-like dictator'

By Patrice St. Germain The Spectrum Originally published Saturday, January 24, 2004

COLORADO CITY -- Nine months ago, Ross Chatwin, then a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was told to repent.   On Jan. 14, James Zitting, a member within the church, was sent to deliver a message to Chatwin telling him to leave his home immediately.   But Chatwin, 35, has no plans of leaving his home, his wife and six children.  On Friday, Chatwin spoke to a group of media gathered on the front lawn of his modest home about standing up to Warren Jeffs, the self-proclaimed prophet of the church and the United Effort Plan, which owns the land on which his home is built.   Not only was there plenty of media to document the event, but also numerous sheriff's deputies from the Mohave County Sheriff's Office.  They formed a ring around the property.   Several remained on the lawn while others were strategically placed on the road in front of Chatwin's home and on the slope behind his home.   In a prepared speech, Chatwin asked for help in stopping Jeffs, a man he calls a Hitler-like dictator.     Read more

Ex-members of polygamy sect say 'evil dictator' rules from desert church

By Patrick O'Driscoll USA TODAY Originally published January 26, 2004

COLORADO CITY - Mormon outcasts fled here nearly 70 years ago to practice "plural marriage" in Utah's desert borderlands.   But a church feud, outside investigations and prosecutions have brought the glare of 21st-century publicity to the largest band of polygamists in America.   Earlier this month, Warren Jeffs, the "prophet" of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, excommunicated nearly two dozen men from the priesthood, ordering them to leave their church-owned homes and their families.   The secretive sect, known as the FLDS, is an offshoot of the original Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which settled Utah in the mid-1800s and is now one of the fastest-growing religions in the world.   On Friday, one of the ousted men challenged the leader's authority publicly.  He held a news conference in the middle of this tight-lipped community of about 10,000 people.  (The twin FLDS towns of Colorado City and Hildale, Utah, are indistinguishable from each other along an invisible state line.)  Ross Chatwin hosted reporters and photographers on the porch of the house where he and his family had been assigned to live.     Read more

Blasphemous Backlash

Ross Chatwin said no way to polygamy's holy man before the national press. Will others join him now?

By John Dougherty Phoenix New Times Originally published January 29, 2004

COLORADO CITY -- With his wife and six children clustered behind him on the front porch of his modest home, Ross Chatwin did what no resident of this isolated, fundamentalist Mormon town has ever done.   Chatwin, 35, publicly denounced the religious leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) before more than two dozen reporters from across the country.  It was the first news conference in the closed polygamous society's 70-year history and the first time so much press, including network television and the New York Times, had descended on the town in Mohave County.   Raised in a culture where absolute obedience to the FLDS is the church's first commandment, Chatwin ignored thinly veiled death threats circulating through town and harshly criticized the iron-fisted rule of Prophet Warren Jeffs, against whom Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff is pursuing charges.  Shurtleff maintains that Jeffs has cohabited with underage girls and has arranged the cohabitations of many other men in his congregation with girls younger than the age of legal consent.     Read more

The Man Behind the Curtain

By John Dougherty Phoenix New Times Originally published January 29, 2004

Fundamentalist Mormon cult leader Warren Jeffs has convinced thousands of polygamist followers that he receives direct revelations from God, visions that reveal the most intimate details of their personal lives.   But Jeffs' insights may be based far more on modern technology than any supranatural spiritual powers.   Warren Jeffs, the Prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, may have been secretly making audio and video recordings of confessions by church members.  Warren Jeffs made the recordings in the decade before assuming control of the church following the September 2002 death of his father and former prophet, Rulon Jeffs, according to allegations by a longtime member of the church who was excommunicated last November.   "He was secretly recording personal interviews with his father," says Richard Holm, a Colorado City town councilman and businessman who also provided transportation to Rulon Jeffs for many years.   Holm says Warren Jeffs has accumulated thousands of audio and video tapes that detail church members' transgressions, confessions and goals in life.  Holm says he has personally seen some of the recordings.     Read more

On polygamy, a crackdown and a bid for legitimacy

By Katharine Biele Christian Science Monitor Originally published January 30, 2004

(SALT LAKE CITY) America's often-isolated believers in polygamy are coming into the public eye - confronted by a new crackdown even as some civil rights advocates contend that plural marriage should be legitimized.   The most sensational of the recent incidents has come in the small, tight-lipped community of Colorado City, Ariz.  Recently, a power struggle has emerged within the polygamy-oriented sect that dominates the town.   Some men have been excommunicated and their wives and children been "reassigned" to other men.   The turmoil there - apparently a bid by the church leader to consolidate his control of the community - comes as America's estimated 100,000 polygamists are in the spotlight on other fronts: Early this week a member of the Kingstons, a large clan in Utah that has practiced bigamy, was sentenced to a one-year prison term for taking as his wife a 15-year-old cousin who was also his aunt. Authorities in Arizona and Utah, with an eye on Colorado City, are stepping up a years-long investigation into the sect there - so-called fundamentalist Mormons - including concerns about forced marriages involving underage girls. In Salt Lake City, a civil rights attorney brought a lawsuit Jan. 12 challenging Utah's ban on polygamy. The case, which is built partly on the precedent set when the US Supreme Court overturned Texas's ban on sodomy, involves a married couple who were denied a license for plural marriage. In all, the flurry of events could refocus attention on a practice that has quietly persisted for decades.   "We've all just turned a blind eye to what's going on," Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff says in an interview.  "It's an embarrassment."     Read more

Former polygamist church member receives threatening letter

The Associated Press Originally published February 5, 2004

Mohave County authorities are investigating a possible death threat against a former member of a polygamist church.   Ben Bistline, a former member and outspoken critic of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, received a letter Jan. 23 at his home near Colorado City, vowing revenge and predicting that God will order "the destroying angels to go forth, and they will kill off all the wicked."   The only hope for a person who disobeys is blood atonement, the letter said.   Bistline told the East Valley Tribune that the letter did not frighten him, but he turned it over to law enforcement anyway.   "If they were going to kill me, they would have just come over and killed me," he said. "It's just some kid."     Read more

Former Colo. City man alleges death threat

By Mark Hall Today's News-Herald Originally published February 5, 2004

Mohave County Sheriff's detectives are investigating what is believed to be a death threat aimed at a former church member in the largely polygamous community of Colorado City.   On Jan. 20 Ben Bistline, now a historian, received an anonymously typed letter, which, based upon interpretation, is a threat on his life.   "You stand for apostates and gentiles and you as your kind should take this letter as a warning ... If I were you I would be shaking in my shoes with fear for your life because the Lord's going to take your life.   You've brought down a scourge and condemnation upon yourself.  At this point there's no place you can hide that the prophet can't find," the letter warns.   About a year ago, Bistline and his family left the Colorado City for the nearby community of Cane Beds.  He said he believes the threat is related to a historical book he wrote about the community, which is set for release soon.   "I hope it is a hoax - I'm not running from it; I'm not totally at ease," Bistline said.   "The thing that is scary about the letter is the mentality of it."     Read more

Runaway Teenager Returned Home to Polygamist Community

The Associated Press Originally published February 8, 2004

ST. GEORGE, Utah (AP) -- A 17-year-old girl who ran away to St. George from the polygamist enclave of Colorado City, Ariz. after an alleged altercation with her father has been returned to her home, a newspaper has reported.   The unidentified teenager spent two weeks in Utah and Arizona state custody before being returned home Jan. 30, The (St. George) Spectrum reported.  The girl's return home came after 5th District Court Judge James Shumate dismissed a protective order she had obtained against her father, saying the St. George court did not have jurisdiction over an Arizona case.   Representatives from the Arizona Child Protective Services and Utah State Division of Child and Family Services said they found no evidence of abuse in their interviews with the teenager.   The girl, who left town on Jan. 17, spent 10 days living at a youth crisis center operated by Utah's Youth Corrections Facility before being turned over to Arizona custody Jan. 27.   Anti-polygamy activists were angered by the decision to return the teenager to her home.   Utah and Arizona's child protective services have failed to protect children fleeing abuse in their polygamist homes, said Flora Jessop, an anti-polygamy activist and former Colorado City resident.   "The kids are running from the predators of their own homes," Jessop was quoted in the newspaper's Saturday edition.   "They are being sent back to abuse."     Read more

Yes, Polygamy Is Everybody's Business

It's no 'private matter' when children are raped and intellectually starved in isolated settings.

By Naomi Schaefer Riley The Los Angeles Times Originally published February 9, 2004

In January, a lawsuit was filed in federal court to overturn Utah's 113-year-old ban on polygamy.  The action, which was prompted by the Supreme Court's decision to strike down Texas' anti-sodomy law last year, comes as no surprise.   Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia warned in his dissenting opinion in Lawrence vs. Texas that "if, as the court asserts, the promotion of majoritarian sexual morality is not even a legitimate state interest, none of the above-mentioned laws (against fornication, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality and obscenity) can survive rational-basis review."  Utah polygamist Tom Green -- who is appealing his convictions on bigamy on the ground that, like the men in Texas, what he does in his own home is no one else's business -- could not have agreed more.   But before we slide down the slippery slope of this kind of reasoning, we should consider an important distinction about polygamy -- its treatment of children.   The American West is dotted with polygamous communities, most of them "fundamentalist" Mormon sects, in rebellion against the church's renunciation of polygamy more than 100 years ago.  Polygamy's negative effects on children in these communities are well documented and truly shocking.  We know from firsthand accounts and court cases that child rape, incest, physical abuse, sexual abuse and child marriage are often realities.     Read more

Author of book about Colorado City reports threat to sheriff's office

By Linda Stelp Kingman Daily Miner Originally published Tuesday, February 10, 2004

The Mohave County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a threatening letter mailed to a Colorado City author who has published a book about the polygamous community.   Ben Bistline said he received the letter Jan. 21 and “turned it over to the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office right away.   They said they would investigate.”   Bistline, 68, who said he is 90 percent blind, wrote and self-published the 450-page book last year.   “The Polygamists: A History of Colorado City, Arizona” is currently sold through Agreka.com, a company in Scottsdale that publishes historic books.  In March, the book will be released through Amazon.com and be available at Barnes & Noble stores.   The author said he is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which no longer practices polygamy.   However, polygamy is widely practiced by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, an offshoot of the Salt Lake City-based Mormon Church.   Bistline said he lived in Colorado City up until a year ago, when he moved to Cane Beds two miles to the south.   “There has never been a correct history of Colorado City written,” he said.   The letter, a copy of which was received by the Miner, states in part, “The prophet says the only hope for a person who disobeys is blood atonement.  He hasn’t told anybody to kill anybody else.”     Read more

In land of no first kiss, prophet rules Taliban-style

Agence France-Presse Originally published February 18, 2004

COLORADO CITY, United States (AFP) - The world of Britney Spears and bare midriffs is kept at bay here by mountains and canyons -- and the prophet.   If local women venture onto the dusty streets at all, they sport ankle-length dresses, buttoned-up blouses and 1930s hairstyles with buns and pompadours.   And they always defer to men.   Men cast somber glances at strangers, derive their self worth from the number of wives they have and defer to the prophet.   His name is Warren Jeffs.   In the largest US community of open polygamists, the 48-year-old cleric is judge and jury, bank and police, and above all defender of the faith as head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.   There is no area of local life that does not bear his imprint.   "The prophet decides who marries whom and when," says Flora Jessop, a native of Colorado City who fled in 1986 after being forced to marry her cousin.   "A lot of times, you only have a couple of hours' notice," she recalls.  "They come in and say, 'Get ready to be married.  Here is your dress.'  And off you go."     Read more

Girls From Polygamous Homes Flee

Two girls placed in state foster care last month after fleeing from the polygamous community of Colorado City are on the run again.

The Associated Press KLS 1160 Newsradio Original broadcast February 18, 2004

Two girls placed in state foster care last month after fleeing from the polygamous community of Colorado City are on the run again.   The 16-year-olds left Sunday while on a weekend camping trip in west Phoenix.   Flora Jessop of Phoenix, a former Colorado City resident who left as a teenager in 1986, says the girls were scared they would be returned to their parents.   Jessop says that in letters they left behind the girls wrote that they feared being locked up or forced to marry much older men if they were sent home.   A Child Protective Services spokeswoman says police have been notified, and law enforcement officials statewide have orders to hold the girls if they find them.     Read more

FLDS towns in turmoil

Sect leader under fire as outside pressures build

By Nancy Perkins Deseret Morning News Originally published February 22, 2004

COLORADO CITY, Ariz. — Richard Holm's life — the one he knew here and the one he hoped for in the hereafter — came to a bitter end Nov. 11, 2003, when his church leader ordered him into repentance and out of his home.   Warren Jeffs, the reclusive leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, told Holm through an intermediary that not only did he no longer hold the priesthood in the polygamous church, his wives, now entitled to a "noble release," could ask for a different husband and his home would be reoccupied by a worthy member.   "We had a heaven in our home up until last November," Holm said last week, adding that such an announcement by the man FLDS members revere as their prophet is tantamount to a public execution.  "We were a happy family.   Those were wonderful times."   With his priesthood stripped, any chance of getting to the highest degree of heaven is gone, according to FLDS doctrine.  His access to his children now is also in doubt.   Holm, 51, is the latest among a growing list of men recently excommunicated by Jeffs, who is accused by some of being a dictator unnecessarily disrupting families and putting a community of about 6,000 that shuns attention into the public spotlight.     Read more

Author paints image of complex lifestyle in Colorado City

By Jane Zhang The Spectrum Originally published Wednesday, March 17, 2004

COLORADO CITY, Ariz. -- To Ben Bistline, the myth of Colorado City lies in three words: Money, power and sex.   Leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which controls most of the land and property in the area, preach that a man has to have at least three wives to go to heaven, he said.   But the men, most of them already giving up their money and belongings to the church, are not granted plural wives unless they are deemed to be "worthy" enough.   That is, Bistline said, they give the people in power enough money.   When schemes to gain money or power go awry, men are expelled, women and children "reassigned" and their houses and property repossessed by the church.   "Your first responsibility is to the leaders; Your family comes second," said Bistline, 68, a longtime Colorado City resident who believed in but never lived polygamy.     Read more

Escape From Colorado City

By Jana Bommersbach Feature Story Phoenix Magazine Originally published May 2004

They could be sisters, or certainly cousins, these two pretty redheads curled up on a sectional sofa in a North Phoenix "safe house."  Both of their names are Fawn, and together, they're known as "the two Fawns" - as though they're lost baby deer.  And in a sense, they are, these two runaways from the polygamist community of Colorado City, which straddles the Arizona-Utah border.   They say they ran and sought safety with strangers because they feared that their families would marry them off to old men against their will; that they'd be wife No. 3 or No. 5, and would spend the rest of their lives with the "sister wives" who take turns being bedded by the man of the house.  They feared that they'd be reduced to nothing but "breeding machines" - all in the name of a cult disguised as a religion.   These young girls say they know there must be more on the outside - that girls out here can get an education, can have a say in their own lives, can be spared from a culture where sex with a child is not only condoned, but encouraged.   They say they had to flee to survive.     Read more

'Deborah Norville Tonight' for May 25

Guests: Laurene Jessop, Flora Jessop, Ross Chatwin, Eddie Farnsworth, Mark Shurtleff

Deborah Norville MSNBC Originally broadcast Tuesday, May 25, 2004

DEBORAH NORVILLE, HOST: Escape from polygamy.  This woman was once a hostage of marriage, held captive, she says, by her polygamous husband.  And when she tried to break free, she was thrown into a mental hospital.   Tonight in her first television interview, Laurene Jessop recounts her dramatic escape from a notorious sect in Arizona and her relentless fight to regain custody of her children.   We‘ll also meet the woman who helped Laurene on the outside.  Now this ex-polygamist is on a mission to make sure other women and children don‘t suffer the same fate. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This type of lifestyle is geared toward the ownership of women and children. NORVILLE: Tonight, polygamy in America.  Just how widespread is it, and why is the law often powerless to stop it?  The facts may shock you. ANNOUNCER: From Studio 3-K in Rockefeller Center, Deborah Norville. NORVILLE: And good evening.   Tonight we begin with the story of one women, a story that she has never told before until now.   She lived in a community in Arizona, a polygamist community in which she was born and stayed for just about all of her life until she escaped.     Read more

Cults abusive to women, children

By Janet French Edmonton Journal Originally published June 12, 2004

Edmonton -- Cults where men have more than one wife subject their children to lives of abuse, a conference heard Friday.   "You can all but kill a child for disobeying," Utah journalist and researcher Andrea Moore Emmett said at the American Family Foundation Conference on cults in Edmonton.  The U.S. group educates and counsels people affected by cults around the world.   Moore Emmett said Canadian and American authorities do nothing to stop polygamist colonies from forcing children to work at slave labour, denying them schooling and abusing them physically, sexually and emotionally.   Canada's most notorious polygamist cult is the Bountiful, B.C., settlement of the Utah-based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.   Former Bountiful resident Debbie Palmer escaped the group in 1988 after she was forced to become the sixth wife of a man in his 50s when she was 15.   She told the conference the group's elders frequently marry off teenage daughters to older men who are sometimes their uncles.  The leaders justify their matchmaking and abuse by claiming the colony is protected by God, and the decisions are God's will, she said.     Read more

Arizona Man Says FLDS Prophet Stole His Family

The Eldorado Success Originally published June 17, 2004

Richard Holm, 51, of Colorado City, Arizona, an admitted polygamist, says he never expected to find himself fighting for custody of his children.  Much less, did he think the court battle would involve the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS).  As a faithful member of the church and loyal follower of its prophets, Holm says he was stunned to learn that he had been excommunicated by new FLDS Prophet Warren Jeffs.   Holm, a respected businessman and longtime member of the Colorado City, AZ City Council, said he thought life was about as good as it could get.  He and his two wives, Lorena and Alice, and their seven children owned and operated a Motel in the twin cities of Colorado City and Hildale.  Holm also provided transportation for the church’s former prophet, Rulon Jeffs.   Holm says that new prophet Warren Jeffs secretly recorded meetings his father had with church members.  Among those recordings are audio tapes of confessions that church members believed were meant only for the ears of their former prophet.   Holm says those tapes are now being used to blackmail and intimidate FLDS members into following the leadership of Warren Jeffs.   “He is a sinister man,” Holm said of Warren Jeffs.  “Only an evil man would tear apart a man’s family this way.”     Read more

Polygamists fight over childrens' future; mother's mental state questioned

By Mike Watkiss KTVK NewsChannel 3 - Phoenix Originally published Friday, July 23, 2004

At 46 years of age, and after what she calls a life of abuse, Laurene Jessop, a single mother of five, is facing the daunting task of picking up the pieces and starting her life over from scratch.   Jessop recently gathered up her three young daughters and went on the run, fleeing from the polygamist community of Colorado City.   "I was born and raised in Colorado City," Jessop said, explaining she has 56 brothers and sisters.   Earlier this year, Jessop escaped the community, landing in Phoenix, trying to flee her polygamist husband, who wants to take their children back with him to northern Arizona.   It's a story of a desperate mother and one that is becoming painfully familiar from those who have lived in the closed and secretive polygamist society.   But Jessop has been open about her past, saying that she was molested by her father, Jack Cooke, who served a five-year prison term for molesting his daughters.  But Jessop said that was just the beginning of the abuse.     Read more

FLDS leaders facing abuse suit

Nephew says he suffered sexual assaults as child

By Linda Thomson Deseret Morning News Originally published Friday, July 30, 2004

A 21-year-old man is suing the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, its leader Warren Steed Jeffs and Jeffs' brothers, Blaine Balmforth Jeffs and Leslie Balmforth Jeffs, alleging the three men sexually abused him as a child.   Brent Jeffs, who is a nephew of the three men, filed the civil suit in 3rd District Court Thursday seeking a jury trial and unspecified damages.   Also named in the suit is the United Effort Plan Trust (UEP Trust), which Brent Jeffs claims was created in 1942 as a charitable and business entity.   The FLDS Church is not affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.   Brent Jeffs in his lawsuit asked the court for a restraining order to keep the FLDS Church from destroying business records and for a restraining order or preliminary injunction to prevent the defendants from disposing of assets and appearing to be insolvent before the court can make a final judgment.   Jeffs, who lives in Bluffdale, alleges in his suit that during the 1980s when he was 5 and 6 years old, he was repeatedly sodomized by Warren Jeffs, who calls himself the church's prophet, and also by Blaine and Leslie Jeffs during Sunday church services.     Read more

The Price of Polygamy

Posted by lsaintcrow storyhunters.com Originally posted August 2, 2004

I've written a lot about Warren Jeffs lately.  The 'prophet' of the FLDS makes a good story, between his nutty ideas on women and his fanatical pursuit of money- and the security cameras on the cinderblock wall around his house.  (By the way, he's probably retreated to Texas to avoid the gathering storm.)   Yet there's something else about Warren Jeffs I haven't written about: the cost of his practice of 'casting out' members of his community.  A great many of these castaways are teenage boys, thrown out in some cases with only the shirts on their backs- and told to go out into a world they have been raised to fear.   "These are just a few of the boys who've been told to leave or left on their own," Steed said.  "Many had nowhere to go, no food to eat.  Some of them were kicked out with nothing more than the clothes on their backs and with the understanding they would be destroyed [by God]."   The boys have been exploited, victimized and discarded, deprived of basic educations and threatened with eternal damnation, Fischer said. (Salt Lake Tribune)   One was thrown out because he spoke to non-churchmembers and watched Charlie's Angels.   One wanted to go to public school after Jeffs handed down an edict barring any kind of schooling but homeschooling.     Read more

Lawsuit: FLDS Church Conspired to Excommunicate Males

The Associated Press Originally published August 27, 2004

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Six former members of a breakaway polygamous sect banished or excommunicated from the church filed a conspiracy lawsuit today against the church's prophet and one of his assistants, claiming a pattern of unlawful activity and conspiracy to get rid of surplus boys and men.   The plaintiffs, all so-called "lost boys" and former members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, based in Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Ariz., included in the court complaint portions of federal racketeering statutes sometimes used in organized crime prosecutions.   The plaintiffs claim that FLDS church president and prophet Warren Jeffs and Sam Barlow, a former Colorado City police chief and close associate of Jeffs, have engaged in assault, terroristic threats, unlawful dealing of property, theft by extortion, child kidnaping, official misconduct and theft of services.   According to the complaint filed in 3rd District Court, the church has engaged in "systematic excommunication" of adolescents and young men in order to reduce competition for wives.   FLDS attorney Rodney Parker, who has represented the FLDS in legal matters, said the lawsuit lacked merit.

Man Arrested for Kidnapping Former Wife and Her Infant

The Associated Press KSL-TV Channel 5 Originally published September 3, 2004

HILDALE, Utah (AP) -- A Washington City man is facing kidnapping charges after forcing his former wife in the polygamous border town of Hildale into his truck.   It happened August 30th.   Thomas Vaughn Barlow is accused of assaulting his former wife and forcing her and her infant into his semitrailer truck.   He was arrested by Hildale police and has been charged with first-degree felony child kidnapping, second-degree felony kidnapping and three misdemeanor counts of abuse and assault.   The 45-year-old is in a Washington County correctional facility on $34,000 bond.   Most of the residents in Hildale and neighboring Colorado City, Arizona are members of the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and practice polygamy.

More Media Attention for Colorado City

By Buster Johnson Mohave County Supervisor MohaveCountyNews.com Originally published September 21, 2004

Senator Linda Binder and I attended Yavapai College's Zaki Gordon Institute Shorts Film Festival in Phoenix.  Each year they have a wrap up premiere screening of their graduates' short films.  Seven films were premiered.  The topics all varied and had some very interesting content.   I was there mainly to view "Hidden in the Heartland".  A film by Dot Reidelbach.   This was a documentary film about the abuses in Colorado City.  "This story is told through the voices of polygamists still living in the town, women who have escaped, men who have been evicted and reporters who have extensive knowledge of the ongoing criminal activities."   The film was very well edited and flowed quite well.  The stories told were hard hitting and very personal.  The room was extremely quiet as the story was told and everyone present was riveted to the screen.  The film crew did an excellent job of telling the story in a twenty minute short.  The film won Best Director in the Documentary category and Audience Choice Award.   They are in the process of making a 90 minute film that will go into more depth.     Read more

Teen boys subtracted in polygamy math:

Sect leaders drive out young males to sustain their polygamous lifestyles

By Daphne Bramham Vancouver Sun Originally published Friday, November 12, 2004

To make polygamous math work, teenage boys are an expendable commodity.   In the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints -- a breakaway sect of the Mormon church -- members believe a man can only enter God's Kingdom if he has three or more wives.  So, at the very least, two out of every three boys born into FLDS are expelled from the sect-controlled towns like Bountiful, B.C. and the twin-city church headquarters of Colorado City, Ariz. and Hildale, Utah.   But lately, the number of disposable boys has been rising as the church's leaders indulge themselves.  The prophet Warren Jeffs is believed to have as many as 80 wives.   Other leaders -- including the excommunicated bishop of Bountiful, Winston Blackmore -- have 20 or 30.   The math is simple: The more wives the elders take, the more young men need to be eliminated from the community.     Read more

UNDERAGE GIRL ALLEGED TO BE WIFE OF FLDS LEADER WARREN JEFFS IS FOUND AND RETURNED TO PARENTS, BUT REFUSES TO SAY WHERE SHE HAS BEEN FOR PAST 15 MONTHS.

Jon Krakauer Press Release November 17, 2004

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 17-year-old Janetta Jessop, reported missing by her sister Suzanne Jessop Johnson on November 11, has been returned to the home of her parents in the polygamist stronghold of Hildale-Colorado City, according to Mohave County (Arizona) investigator Gary Engels.  The parents, Frank and Mary Anne Jessop, are loyal followers of self-proclaimed prophet Warren Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS).   Jeffs is married to some 70 women and girls, and demands absolute, unquestioning obedience from his estimated 10,000 followers.   The FLDS Church is presently based in Hildale-Colorado City, astride the Utah-Arizona border, although Jeffs is in the process of moving his center of operations (along with his most devoted followers) to a 1,671-acre ranch near the small town of Eldorado, Texas.   Jeffs has told church members that Hildale-Colorado city has been "desecrated."  Recently he started construction of a massive temple on the Eldorado property, to be modeled on the historic LDS temple built by Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, Illinois.   On November 5, 2004, Janetta Jessop phone her sister Suzanne from an undisclosed location.  "I could tell right away something was wrong." Suzanne explains.  "Her voice was trembling.  She was talking really quiet.  I asked her right off the bat if she was in trouble and needed help….  She started telling me, ‘I don’t want to be here right now.  I don’t want to be here right now…’   She kept repeating it over and over."     Read more

Hildale Company Fined for Child Labor Violation

By Kallee Nielson The Spectrum Originally published November 18, 2004

A Hildale excavating company was fined $6,000 after two boys, about 12 years old, were sighted on an excavation site.   One of the boys reportedly climbed into the cab of a road grader and started to move it on the site at SunRiver phase 15, according to the citation issued by the Utah Labor Commission’s Occupational Safety and Health Division.  Under state and federal law, children under the age of 18 are not allowed to work near excavation operations or operate heavy equipment.   The Spectrum was unable to reach a spokesperson at R & W Excavating.   According to an inspection report, the construction foreman told the inspector the children were the company owner's sons and it was a Saturday.     Read more

Preserving perversion

Until state gets tougher, polygamy and abuse will go on in Colorado City

Opinions The Arizona Republic Originally published December 16, 2004

Arizona needs a bang, not a whimper, to deal with the perverse sect of polygamous child abusers living in Colorado City.   The group's "prophet," Warren Jeffs, profits nicely indeed from sect members who reside on property his trust controls, and they do what he says, even if that includes handing over underage daughters as "spiritual" sex toys for old men.   A Utah judge ordered the reclusive Jeffs to answer a civil suit that charges he molested his nephew, Brent Jeffs.   According to the suit, a 5-year-old was told that being raped by his three uncles would make him a man.   Another pending lawsuit alleges that adolescent males were ousted from the community because they represented competition to the old men who need three wives, according to cult teaching, to attain the best seats in heaven.   Young brides are the best.   Stories about the abuse of underage girls are plentiful.   Polygamy is against the law.  But members of Profit Warren Jeffs' Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints receive generous state assistance based on illegally created "families."   The Department of Economic Security reports that in fiscal year 2003, $2.3 million in benefits went to Colorado City.     Read more

Polygamy backer is wrong

Opinion Deseret Morning News Originally published Wednesday, February 2, 2005

I am writing regarding the article "Leader passes out a polygamy primer" (Jan. 9).  While the coverage of Senator Ron Allen's distribution of the anti-polygamy book "God's Brothel" is informative, the most gripping parts of the article were the comments from Mary Batchelor, director of pro-polygamy Principle Voices of Harmony.  Central to her opinion is the view that the book "is no different than collecting stories of abuse from monogamous marriages and claiming that they represent the entire institution." Here I must strongly disagree with Ms. Batchelor.  Unlike the general monogamous population, polygamists are part of a religious system that preaches subordination and dehumanization of women.  A religious group with these kinds of extremely sexist teachings is bound to be abusive toward females, far more than the general population. Kim Burgess Salt Lake City

Polygamy is an 'insult' to populace

Letters The Spectrum Originally published Sunday, February 20, 2005

To the editor: To the male leaders and those who follow polygamy as a religion or otherwise, I feel it is an insult to the general male population.  The way the male leaders and their followers treat their wives, mothers, daughters and children, in dress and otherwise -- yet you see no alteration in the male ways or dress to distinguish them from the general public!   Our wives, mothers, daughters and children are our most treasured and loved family members and should be treated as such!   There have been several instances of mismanagement of their schools, so that only their way of life and teachings are permitted.  Should we stand for this?   Several months ago, many young males (boys) were turned out of their homes -- was it so the young girls could be married to older males?  Was it so that the general public had to take over their care and responsibilities, and save them these expenses and care?   Are our elected officials, in their capacity as responsible members of their profession, neglecting to serve as elected?   Can't more be done to correct these injustices and others, especially in Southern Utah and Northern Arizona, or is their lawyer too smart for those representing us? Errol G. Brown Kanab

FLDS member shares concerns

By Mike Weland Kootenai Valley Press Originally published February 25, 2005

FLDS member shares concerns:  After reading an anonymous letter regarding life inside the FLDS, another member, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of speaking out, sent a long response, rebutting much of what the initial writer said and casting serious doubts as to the legitimacy of FLDS "prophet" Warren Jeffs and his teachings and casts an insider's look at the allegations against the FLDS, which has compounds in Arizona, Utah, Texas, Colorado and in Bountiful, British Columbia.   In addition, corrections in the chronology of one significant event in the history of the church, the death of former "prophet" Rulon Jeffs, Warren's father, was corrected; instead of 1998 as earlier reported, it turns out the elder Jeffs actually suffered a stroke in 1998, and did not succumb until 2002, when Warren usurped the top spot and allegedly took control of a long-established trust owned by all members of the sect, a trust that owns their homes, their businesses, their very means of living.   While the response is long, it is presented here with only slight modification.  The identity of the member is being withheld over strong concerns of reprisal from church leaders, who forbade members of the sect to speak to the media.     Read more

The noose tightens

Lawsuits bring polygamist leader closer to justice

Opinions The Arizona Republic Originally published February 25, 2005

Incrementally - and without any great demonstration of courage on the part of law enforcement - the noose is closing around the neck of Arizona's most notorious polygamist.   Of course, Warren Jeffs is likely hidden away in his cult's new digs in Texas.  And the slight tug on the rope came from a court motion that's part of a lawsuit against Jeffs, not from a bold law enforcement effort.   Nevertheless, it is progress against the cult that likes to go by the respectable sounding name of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  It is not associated with mainstream Mormons, who reject polygamy.   With colonies in Colorado City, Ariz., Hildale, Utah, Bountiful, British Columbia and a 1,691-acre compound in western Texas, Jeffs' cult is under investigation for welfare fraud, financial irregularities and child and sexual abuse.   Two lawsuits against Jeffs give an indication of what life is like under his rule.  One was filed by his nephew, who accuses Jeffs of sexually abusing him as a child and dubbing it "God's work."   The other involves a group of young men who allege they were banished from the community because their youth gave them a competitive edge over the old men who claim young girls for their harems.   The girls, some as young as 13, are reportedly forced into plural marriages in a cult where women are viewed as property.   Warren Jeffs reassigned wives and children to new families as discipline.  He also banished men and threw families out of their homes.   That's where the latest glimmer of good news about this cult can be found.     Read more

Meeting focuses on issues within polygamous towns

By Rachel Olsen The Spectrum Originally published March 4, 2005

ST. GEORGE - In a public meeting Thursday, authorities and residents attempted to educate one another about a wide range of viewpoints on topics like welfare fraud, child abuse and domestic violence in polygamous communities.   Moderator Cliff Donovan quickly pointed out in the meeting that abuse exists in every society and subculture.  However, organizers attempted to devote the two hours Thursday to a discussion about abuses in the specific culture, in the effort to make progress within the typically closed communities.   Meeting participants had a variety of sentiments regarding the benefit of the meeting - from calling the meeting a start to saying it was all a lot of lip service on the part of government officials.  The meeting included mentions of specific abuse cases and defenses of the principle of polygamy.   "I'm always glad to be in a diverse group (of opinions)," said Ann Wright, a member of a Centennial Park group that practices polygamy.   Although Wright said she and those with her looked at issues of polygamy from a religious standpoint, they too did not want underage marriages or the abuse of families and children.   "(Government) did as much as they could in a meeting like this.   It can be hard in a group of strong feelings," Wright said.     Read more

Polygamous prophet may move flock from Ariz.- Utah border

By Travis Reed The Arizona Republic Originally published March 5, 2005

HILDALE, Utah - No one in this secluded polygamous town along the Arizona border is necessarily sure what it'll look like a month from now.  They don't know where they'll live, who will live with them or whether they'll be torn from their families and neighbors and uprooted two states away.   At least, if they do know, they're not saying.  And neither is the man who will make that decision for them - the reclusive prophet of the polygamous Fundamental Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter Day Saints, who is reportedly building a new, heavily fortified compound in Texas where he and his closest supporters will live.   "I'm not in a position where I would know much about it.  So I don't know that I could really comment one way or the other," said church member David Zitting, who is also Hildale's mayor.  "I just can't say what's going to happen."   Observers of the FLDS church, however, are convinced church prophet Warren Jeffs - who has a reported 50-70 wives - is culling his flock and preparing the most devout followers for the move to Texas to avoid prosecution in Utah on allegations of forced child marriages, sexual abuse, welfare fraud and tax evasion.  Authorities say the claims haven't produced criminal charges because they can't get anyone to talk to them in this distrustful enclave.   "Warren's going to pick out the most devout followers of him, and then move them (to Texas.)   He's got to keep (the cities) going, because they're his slaves," said Sam Brower, a detective hired by former church members who's investigated the sect for two years.     Read more

Polygamy meeting doesn’t do much

Opinion The Spectrum Originally published March 20, 2005

To the editor: I attended the town hall meeting recently at the Holiday Inn concerning problems in the polygamous communities of Hildale and Colorado City. I didn’t feel like the meeting accomplished a great deal. While some of the major violations of the law were mentioned by the respective attorneys general, I believe that some very important issues are either being ignored or have not come to the attention of those responsible for the welfare of our children. These issues are the violation of child labor laws, failure to educate their children and totally insulating the children from the world of ideas. I believe the most egregious child abuse going on in the polygamist communities is the shielding of their children from ideas. What a terrible shame to keep children from having the opportunity to learn enough to be able to have a choice and exercise their God-given free agency. While all parents have the right to teach their children the values they consider right and proper, parents don’t have the moral right to keep their children in ignorance of the rest of the world. Laws or no laws against polygamy, the adherents to this lifestyle would have to isolate themselves from the rest of society. If the polygamists were to live among the rest of us, within two generations they would disintegrate as a movement. I challenge the polygamist to expose their children to a broad education and then accept the choices that the children would make. Roger Clawson St. George

Talk of Racism Emerges From FLDS Texas Polygamist Compound

KUTV 2 News Headlines Originally broadcast April 5, 2005

The FLDS compound built by polygamist leader Warren Jeffs and his followers continues to grow in Eldorado, Texas.  Now Jeffs reportedly plans to dedicate a huge temple on the site and is predicting the end of the world.   Meantime, evidence that Jeffs is preaching racism has surfaced in the Texas media as the people of Eldorado continue to wonder about their new polygamist neighbors.   An Eldorado, Texas newspaper has obtained an audio CD that it says shows FLDS leader Warren Jeffs preaching racism to his sect.   Jeffs and his followers are building a huge compound in Eldorado, including the first FLDS temple.  Jeffs has selected certain followers from the Hildale and Colorado City polygamist community to join him at the Texas compound.  Many of his followers have been banished from the cult and remain in the southern Utah and Arizona community.   Jeffs reportedly plans to dedicate the temple in Texas on Wednesday and has also reportedly preached that end of the world would occur on April 6th.   The Eldorado Success says it was handed a CD that contains racist sermons and lessons from Warren Jeffs referring to African Americans.   Here's a portion of that CD.   Purported voice of Warren Jeffs:   "You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth or rude and filthy, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind."  "So I give this lesson on the black race that you can understand its full effect as far as we are able to comprehend.  And that we must beware, if we are for the prophet, for priesthood, we will come out of the world and leave off their dress, their music, their styles, their fashions, the way they think - what they do, because you can trace back and see a connection with immoral filthy people."     Read more

Secret Tapes of FLDS Leader Warren Jeffs

As Texas authorities this week keep a close eye on the FLDS Church's new compound in Eldorado. KSL Newsradio has obtained secret recordings of the most elusive polygamist leader in Utah.

By Ben Winslow KLS NewsRadio 1160 Originally broadcast April 5, 2005

ELDORADO, TEXAS-(KSL News) -- Secret recordings capture the voice of elusive polygamist leader Warren Jeffs.   The tapes obtained by KSL Newsradio and the Eldorado Success Newspaper paper run for hours, and cover Jeffs' preaching about everything from blacks to teenage girls and marriage.   Jeffs says, "You should be praying that you will be given to a husband who will prove faithful to the end.  It is true you don't these things into your own hands, and date and seek out a husband.   But the actions you must take is self-preparation."   Jeffs also speaks to women already married.   "The woman, if she is not careful will be overbearing and always ask permission for what she wants.  And ladies, build up your husbands by being submissive."   Jeffs is openly racist in his preaching saying the black race was allowed on Noah's Arc.     Read more

Tapes Reveal Some of Polygamist Leader's Teachings

John Hollenhorst Reporting KSL-TV Channel 5 Originally broadcast April 5, 2004

All seems quiet near a polygamist compound in Texas where a Utah-based polygamist group awaits a self-proclaimed Doomsday.  Their prophet has reportedly predicted the world will end tomorrow.  And tonight, we'll hear that prophet's own voice and words, giving us some insight into his teachings.   We first told you in February about the Texas Prophecy of Warren Jeffs.  At that time Jeffs' followers were working in a frenzy to build a huge temple, apparently hoping to complete it by tomorrow, April 6th.  In recent days, we've been told that a number of Jeffs’ followers have traveled to the Texas compound from their homes on the Utah-Arizona border.   But who is Warren Jeffs?  And what are his teachings?  John Hollenhorst reports on secretly made recordings of his teachings.   Jeffs took control of the Fundamentalist LDS Church several years ago from his home in Hildale, Utah.  Since then he's dropped out of sight while starting new compounds in Colorado and Texas.  Critics say Jeffs has become increasingly fanatical, and tries more and more to control his followers' lives.   In the border community of Hildale Utah and Colorado City Arizona, Warren Jeffs' word is law, for those who choose to obey.  In secretly made tapes of his sermons obtained by KSL Newsradio, Jeffs makes it clear that righteous girls don't choose their husband.  They're told to submissively accept the husband they're assigned to.     Read more

Tempest in Texas

Racist cult 'prophet' Warren Jeffs is on the move, and a tiny West Texas town fears another Waco

Intelligence Report By Susy Buchanan Southern Poverty Law Center Originally published April 27, 2005

ELDORADO, Texas -- This is a town of 1,951 residents, 13 churches, three restaurants, and a motel that fills with hunters during deer season.  The town paper, the Eldorado Success, covers high school football, wedding anniversaries and city council meetings — typical small-town stories in what was once a typical west Texas town.   All that changed on March 24, 2004, when the biggest story to ever hit Eldorado debuted on the paper's front page: "Corporate Retreat or Prophet's Refuge?" the headline read.  The Success sold 200 copies in a single day, causing a near-traffic jam outside the paper's office, says editor Randy Mankin.   The story Mankin broke concerned the true identity of Eldorado's new neighbors.   In November 2003, David Allen Steed had purchased a 1,691-acre ranch just outside of town, telling locals it would be used as a hunting retreat for business clients from Las Vegas.   But Mankin discovered that Steed was actually an agent for a breakaway Mormon sect known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) and based in an Arizona-Utah border community long known as Short Creek (encompassing the twin cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.).   He began researching the FLDS, and what he would learn would astonish him: stories of "blood atonement," child brides, rabid racism, multiple wives, and a secretive, religious dictator.   The more he learned, the more apparent it became that the folks at the ranch had no interest in hunting at all.     Read more

In His Own Words

FLDS 'prophet' Warren Jeffs offers up some harsh opinions on blacks, women, gays, violence and the end of the world

Intelligence Report Southern Poverty Law Center Originally published April 27, 2005

On Blacks

"The black race is the people through which the devil has always been able to bring evil unto the earth."   "[Cain was] cursed with a black skin and he is the father of the Negro people.  He has great power, can appear and disappear.  He is used by the devil, as a mortal man, to do great evils."   "Today you can see a black man with a white woman, et cetera.  A great evil has happened on this land because the devil knows that if all the people have Negro blood, there will be nobody worthy to have the priesthood."   "If you marry a person who has connections with a Negro, you would become cursed."   "I was watching a documentary one day and on came these people talking about a certain black man. ... And then it showed the modern rock group, the Beatles.  ... And so the manager of the group called in this Negro, homosexual, on drugs, and the Negro taught them how to do it.  And what happened then, it went world wide... .  So when you enjoy the [rock] beat ... you are enjoying the spirit of the black race and that's what I emphasize to the students.  And it is to rock the soul and lead the person to immorality, corruption, to forget their prayers, to forget God.  And thus the whole world has partaken of the spirit of the Negro race, accepting their ways."     Read more and hear Warren's comments

Cult busters

Legislature provides new tool to rescue Colorado City school district

Opinions The Arizona Republic Originally published May 24, 2005

This is a good-news editorial.   But it can't be full of happy talk because the core issue remains deeply disturbing, illegal and so tightly entrenched that victims defend it.   The good news nibbles around the edges of the polygamous cult that festers in Colorado City and in Hildale, Utah.   Known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, this group has nothing to do with the mainstream Mormon Church or any other legitimate religion.   This is a cult, and it uses the trappings of religion to exercise complete control over its followers.   This editorial can't praise law officers who rode in on fast horses and conquered a cult that assigns young girls as multiple wives of old men while driving young men away from the community.   That di