ANDERSON COOPER 360 DEGREES

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He helped polygamist leader Warren Jeffs when Jeffs was on the lam. Now he's suing him. And he's trying to get his family back from the church that he says took them away. Up next: When polygamist leader Warren Jeffs went to jail, he left his wives in good hands. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Special foods, special clothing, just almost like princesses. I'm going to say queens and princesses. (LAUGHTER) (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: Now the young man who helped watch over those polygamist princesses says the church is keeping his wife and son from him. His fight to get his family back -- coming up next. COOPER: We've been following this guy's case for some time now. Warren Jeffs, polygamist sect leader, self-proclaimed prophet of God, and now prisoner awaiting trial. Tonight, the strange saga of Warren Jeffs turns even darker. We're going to tell you the story from a young man who was driven out of the church. And what he says Jeffs took from him, is frankly hard to believe. CNN's Gary Tuchman reports. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Twenty-two-year-old Wendell Musser has a construction business in western Idaho. Keeping busy helps him cope with the mystery involving the two loves of his life: his wife, Vivian, and his toddler son, Levi. WENDELL MUSSER, FORMER FLDS CHURCH MEMBER: I missed his first birthday. He just started walking when I got excommunicated. TUCHMAN: Excommunicated from the church run by polygamist leader Warren Jeffs. And as a punishment, Musser says Vivian and Levi were taken from him. And nobody will tell him where they are. (on camera) Have you searched for them? MUSSER: Yes, I've searched everywhere for them, where we've lived in Colorado and Utah and Arizona. I've talked to her father, my father, families. TUCHMAN: Who are still in the church? MUSSER: Yes. TUCHMAN: And they won't talk to you? MUSSER: No one will talk to me. Yes. TUCHMAN (voice-over): Warren Jeffs is now in jail, awaiting trial. He's accused of arranging marriages of young girls to men. He's pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. But for those still devoted for the church, devotion to Jeffs, who they believe is a prophet, often takes precedence over one's own flesh and blood. (on camera) Do the officials in the church know where she is? MUSSER: Yes, they do. TUCHMAN: And what do they tell you when you say you want to be brought back to your wife? MUSSER: They tell me to walk away. To -- that they're not mine, that they've been placed to another man. TUCHMAN (voice-over): Musser says he has 45 brothers and sisters and three mothers. And he had a special relationship with Warren Jeffs. MUSSER: He is my uncle, my real uncle. My mother is his sister. TUCHMAN: In the winter of 2005, he received a phone call from the so-called prophet, who Musser estimates has around 180 wives. MUSSER: He said I qualified for a mission and to be a caretaker for his family. TUCHMAN: Jeffs asked Musser to move to a rural area of Colorado, and take care of some of his wives while he was on the run. Musser told his prophet protecting the wives was a privilege. MUSSER: They had high needs: special foods, special clothing. Just almost like princesses, I'm going to say. Queens and princesses. TUCHMAN (on camera): Wendell Musser says he moved three times with the same eight or nine of Warren Jeffs' wives, most recently to this house in the isolated Colorado mountain community of Westcliffe. He says Jeffs spent time here but presumably spent more time at other secret locations with other wives. So, in essence, Musser was the leader of this polygamist household. Last spring, around the same time that Jeffs reached the pinnacle of infamy by appearing on the FBI's ten most wanted list, Musser's world came crashing down. (voice-over) He was arrested for DWI. After spending two days in jail, he went back to the mountain home. (on camera) You got to the house. And your family was gone? MUSSER: They were gone, yes. TUCHMAN (voice-over): So were all of Jeffs' wives. Wendell Musser had been stripped of his position as the caretaker and stripped of his family. (on camera) This is the ultimate punishment in this church, isn't it? GREG HOOLE, MUSSER'S LAWYER: Absolutely. Banishment. TUCHMAN (voice-over): So Musser's lawyer, Greg Hoole, has filed a most unusual lawsuit: a request for a judge to order Warren Jeffs to reveal where Vivian and Levi are. MUSSER: I still think of her every day. And I like to think that she thinks about me. She can't help that; look at our little boy. And I mean, we had so much together. TUCHMAN: Musser has talked with the police about Jeffs, including about how Jeffs' wives didn't know how to act when he would make his occasional visits to the picturesque hideaway. MUSSER: We would have the room set up in a way where he could sit in front of us and talk to us. TUCHMAN (on camera): What would he talk to you about? MUSSER: He would read his revelations. And it was like a meeting. TUCHMAN (voice-over): Church officials would not comment to CNN about the lawsuit. Musser says that now, for the first time in his life, he can be responsible for himself, but his heart aches for his little son. And he's adamant that he will wait as long as it takes to find out if Vivian wants him as much as he wants her. MUSSER: I think that she would think that's very honorable and that I really do love her a lot to be waiting for her like I am and looking for her. Reporter: Gary Tuchman, CNN, Payette, Idaho. (END VIDEOTAPE) COOPER: Gary called Wendell's father today to ask him about his son and his grandson. He said, "No comment, thank you," and then hung up the phone. Up next, the investigator who's working Wendell's case. An award winning investigative reporter, Mike Watkiss, who has been following the FLDS and Warren Jeffs for years. Also tonight, "Keeping Them Honest". A deadly problem in what the government is or isn't doing about it. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) COOPER (voice-over): A toddler nearly died. Others did from tainted spinach. Lawmakers promised action. That was last year. What about now? MICHAEL ARMSTRONG, FATHER OF E. COLI VICTIM: I was pretty angered. Especially after I found out this is a known problem. They came back and said, "The spinach is fine. You can eat it." It's back on the shelf. What did they do differently? What did they change to make it safe? COOPER: That's what we wanted to know. 360 M.D. Sanjay Gupta is keeping them honest. Also tonight, a sicko attacks inside a church. But wait until you see the victim go Old Testament on him. Details and your chance to nail a pervert, when 360 continues. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TUCHMAN: Have you searched for them? MUSSER: Yes, I've searched everywhere for them, where we've lived in Colorado and Utah and Arizona. I've talked to her father, my father, our families. TUCHMAN: Who are still in the church? MUSSER: Yes. TUCHMAN: And they won't talk to you? MUSSER: No one will talk to me, yes. (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: Hard to imagine. Once again, that's Wendell Musser, talking with 360's Gary Tuchman about his search for his wife and children. He claims jailed polygamist Warren Jeffs took them away from him. Now he's asking a judge to force Jeffs to reveal where they are. For more on the case and on polygamy in America, Mike Watkiss joins us. He's a reporter for KTVK in Phoenix. And Gary Engels is an investigator for Mohave County, Arizona's, attorney's office. Gentlemen, appreciate both of you being with us. Gary, you interviewed Wendell Musser. You've been working this case. What's the latest? Hey, Gary, this is Anderson. Can you hear me? GARY ENGELS, INVESTIGATOR, MOJAVE COUNTY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE: Now, I can, yes. COOPER: OK. Great. You've been working this case. You've been trying to follow up on leads. What's the latest on Wendell Musser's case? ENGELS: Well, you know, as a missing persons report, there's not a lot we can do other than enter it on a computer and make contact with individuals who we think might know where they are. And that's been done by the Mohave County Sheriff's Department. Both Wendell Musser's father and Vivian's father have been contacted, and they've not been willing to cooperate. COOPER: And I guess without cooperation, there's not much you can do? ENGELS: There's not much we can do, other than keep them listed on the computer. And if they're ever contacted by any law enforcement agencies, we'll be contacted. COOPER: Mike, what's going on in the Jeffs trial right now? MIKE WATKISS, KTVK REPORTER: Well, it's basically at a stand still. He has some very top-notch lawyers who are basically lawyering this thing to death. They're objecting to everything, entering what are called interlocutory appeals. Basically, they're appealing much of the trial before there's been a trial. Trial was set to start at the end of last month. With all of the lawyering now going on -- and this is pig heaven for defense lawyers, because you basically have a client with unlimited resources. They're being paid by the hour. And they're good lawyers. And they are lawyering this from top to bottom. So we don't even have a trial date. They're looking at change of venue. They're looking at his mental health. So many issues now on the table. And the trial, nowhere in sight. COOPER: Mike, last month, I understand Jeffs stood up, asked the judge if he could read a statement. The judge denied a statement to be read. But a local news photographer zoomed in on it. I've got a picture of the statement. And it read, "I've not been a prophet. And I am not a prophet." Any sense of what that means? WATKISS: Well, I was about three feet away from Mr. Jeffs when he made that sort of abrupt jump in court. Very end of trial. And tried to address the judge. And again, we did get a look at what was on that document. Apparently, telling the judge he's not a prophet. I think it's all very interesting, and it may have impact on his followers. But I think from a prosecutorial point of view, it doesn't matter a bit. What Mr. Jeffs is saying today has really no bearing on the way he was conducting himself when these alleged crimes -- he was obviously holding himself up to be the prophet, putting this young woman, this 14-year-old young woman, into a marriage with her cousin that she didn't want. That's the basis of the Utah trial. So the bottom line is, what he's saying now, I don't think it impacts the prosecutors a bit. They say he's guilty of the crimes. He was acting as the prophet at that time. And he did this to this young woman. That's what they want to go in and prove to a jury. COOPER: Gary, since the trial is under way, have you seen any changes in the FDLS community? ENGELS: Well, I've seen a little bit of change. Some of the people that live up here that are no longer FLDS members tell me that some of the individuals around here that snubbed them before have been more friendly to them. But I have not seen a lot of change. And I don't think we'll see much change in this community for many years. It will be real slow. COOPER: But they still consider Jeffs the prophet? ENGELS: I think that there are the die-hards that will always consider him the prophet. There are those that are probably questioning it right now. COOPER: Mike, you were telling me before about Gary as an investigator. This case has only gotten this far because of the work of reporters like yourself, but also law enforcement like Gary. WATKISS: I've been covering this story long enough to know who the good guys and the bad guys are in terms of the officials in both Utah and Arizona. Most of them have been cowards. They have let this go unchecked for many years. Gary Engels, about three years ago, stepped up and does something that nobody else has done. After much of the reportage and the activists sort of drew attention to this, the Mohave County attorney, a guy named Matt Smith, real gutsy guy, hired Gary Engels to go in and be basically the one outside law officer in that community. He has been instrumental at putting the case against Jeffs together. Also, putting together cases against several of his followers down in Kingman, Arizona. Gary Engels is a cop who has gone where nobody else has gone. COOPER: Gary, appreciate what you've done and being on the program. Mike Watkiss, it's always good to talk to you. We'll continue to follow it. Thanks very much. WATKISS: Thanks, Anderson. COOPER: Let's get your thoughts on Warren Jeffs, polygamy and the case you've heard about tonight. Just send us an e-mail by logging onto our blog at CNN.com/360blog. Again, that's CNN.com/360blog.

CNN.com Originally broadcast May 17, 2007

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