| Teen who escaped goes back to polygamy | |
|
By Daphne Bramham Vancouver Sun | |
Two years earlier, when she was 14, Fawn Broadbent's name was entered in the Joy Book, the list of girls waiting for the prophet to have a revelation about who they will marry. Fawn Broadbent wanted no part of that, nor did Fawn Holm. "I wanted to leave because I wanted freedom," Holm told me in August. "I didn't feel like I was normal and I wanted to be normal . . . "I thought I would go to hell if I left. But I'd rather go to hell than stay there. In FLDS, the man is everything. You don't bargain. You don't question." To escape Jeffs's harsh dictates, Holm said, she and a bunch of other kids -- boys and girls -- used to sneak out every night, have beer parties and do drugs up in the desert mountains. Carl Holm, Fawn Holm's oldest brother, and his wife Joni eventually got custody of both girls after court battles with Arizona child protection services and the girls' families. Carl left Colorado City more than 20 years ago. His wife was raised in the mainstream Mormon church. It was only after she fell in love with Carl that she had any idea that the rumours about polygamist communities were true. The Holms began the long process of socializing the girls into mainstream culture by setting strict rules and high expectations -- a stark contrast to what Fawn Holm had been doing in Colorado City. "Here they had had to do chores, go to school, obey curfew," Joni Holm said this week. "There were too many rules for her [Fawn Holm]. There were always rules in my house and she doesn't want to be accountable . . . "The only thing that I could have done to get her to stay was to give her free rein and I couldn't allow that. I am a hard person, very structured and I've been that way with all my kids, so I couldn't give her special privileges." Yet while Fawn Holm rebelled, she also seemed to be excelling. In two years, both girls went from having a Grade 4 level education to being in Grade 12 this year. Holm's marks so far this year are six As and two Bs. Joni and Carl were stunned when they found Fawn's note last Sunday: I can't change. Sorry. I feel so alienated since I became smarter because it makes things make sense. This is one of the stupidest choices I have ever made. But I can't do it . . . It's me the idiot that can't ever change and the best way to deal with a major problem is to leave it in my mind . . . The most thing that scares me is not being where I belong and fit in and it's not here. I'm really, truly sorry. Really. PS I will be fine, if you really care any more. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't. Fawn Holm backtracked to polygamy the way she'd come. She called her favourite brother, Brigham, in Hurricane and asked him to come and get her. Brigham follows Blackmore and he took Fawn to stay with their 20-year-old cousin, Ada, another avid follower of Blackmore. Ada was assigned by Blackmore two years ago as the second wife to 48-year-old Doug Cooke. Since then, Joni said, Cooke has constantly asked Ada to convince Fawn to be his girlfriend. And both Ada and Brigham have tried to convince Fawn that Blackmore is a kinder, gentler leader than Jeffs. Fawn Broadbent was stunned by her friend's decision. "I thought she was against him [Blackmore]," she said in an interview this week. "I feel hurt, anger, frustration. I don't understand why she did it. I have a lot of different emotions that I'm trying to sort out." Seven years ago, Broadbent's sister Catherine was assigned to marry Blackmore "for time and all eternity" when she was 16 and he was 41. Fawn was at the ceremony in Salt Lake City and later spent six weeks in Bountiful. with her sister. "He [Blackmore] is not as scary as Warren Jeffs, but I believe he could very well do some of the same things as Warren Jeffs has done," Broadbent said this week. Catherine left Blackmore after he was excommunicated. She returned to Colorado City with their child and was reassigned to another man. Fawn couldn't recall whether Catherine is Alvin Barlow's fifth or sixth wife. Joni Holm really doesn't know what made Fawn go back to polygamy. But she says part of it is that Blackmore claims he'll allow his followers more freedom and choices than Jeffs allowed. "Fawn never got over believing that men should have all that power. She always put Winston on a pedestal. But she wasn't watching Winston doing the marriages. What she saw was Winston holding picnics and dances. She doesn't realize that he is allowing them [his followers] to make choices and that they don't have free choice." Fawn Broadbent doesn't believe Blackmore's claims either. She foresees a bleak future for her friend -- "I don't think she'll finish school or go to college. She'll end up having children for the rest of her life." Yet it's not just young girls like Fawn Holm who seem eager to believe Blackmore. While she struggled with her personal demons and the Holms struggled to help her and get help for her, Blackmore was having private meetings with Utah Attorney-General Mark Shurtleff and his staff, providing information about Jeffs. Blackmore also continued to illegally transport girls back and forth across the Canada-U.S. border, perform illegal plural marriages and practise polygamy. He even publicly admitted to having taken a number of under-age girls as plural wives. He got himself into financial trouble. Just this week, HSBC instructed its lawyer to ask for a court-ordered sale of some of his B.C. property to cover the $1.4 million he owes. But Blackmore will be in court before that. He'll be in a Utah courtroom Monday. But what's so surreal is that he won't be facing any charges. Instead he'll likely be rewarded with a seat on the UEP trust and access to more money and more power. dbramham@png.canwest.com | |
|
canada.com Originally published November 4, 2005 | |
| Back | |
| For more information email: | |
