Woman Tells How She Escaped Polygamy
 
KUTV News Channel 2
 
A polygamous wife Tuesday told how she had to escape two months ago with her children from Colorado City.

The woman believes people from the polygamous community are still trying to lure her children back into the polygamous religion and lifestyle.

Rod Decker has more.

Carolyn Jessop is a schoolteacher, an educated woman. She said the Colorado City community is growing more restrictive and she feared her daughters might be pushed into polygamous marriages.

Jessop says she worked as a schoolteacher, but her husband took her paychecks.

"I was required to sign that over to my husband and ask him for everything," she said.

Jessop says she was the fourth of seven wives of 67-year-old Merril Jessop. They've been married 17 years and had eight children but she's wanted out for a long time.

"The marriage has been abusive from the beginning," she said.

Carolyn Jessop says the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is taking measures to increase control over membership.

"They've taken the children that are FLDS out of the public schools now," she said.

Jessop says that in this polygamous Colorado City community on the Utah-Arizona border, she was controlled financially, she didn't have a car with a license and she had to arrange for her brothers to help her escape with her children.

"I called my brothers and they drove all night to come and pick us up," she said.

Jessop says her husband wants to get her children back to Colorado City and polygamy and her children are frightened by prophecies from the polygamous religion.

Part of the indoctrination is that the world is coming to an end. If they are in the big wicked city they'll be destroyed. There is a lot of fear and a lot of anxiety.
 
KUTV.com
Originally broadcast June 24, 2003
 
Back