Carolyn Jessop; Laura Palmer (38 page)

I also learned about how Warren had bugged the meetinghouse of a rival FLDS bishop in Canada. None of us felt comfortable with any of this, but we were not going to bring it up with our husbands because it could get us in trouble if word got around that we were questioning Warren.

Someone else talked about a woman we all knew who was caught having an affair with a young boy after her husband was given a new wife. Because of the affair, she was told that she had committed a sin unto death. Despite the fact her husband had been taken from her, she was still considered his property and he would rule her destiny in the afterlife. Because of her adultery, she was condemned to be a servant to him and his wives in heaven for all eternity.

Warren banished her to her uncle’s home, where she lived, in effect, under house arrest. She was not allowed to be a mother to her children and could only see them on short, supervised visits if her husband gave his approval. There could never be forgiveness for her in this life. She was condemned to die the second death and her soul would be destroyed forever.

But women didn’t have to commit adultery to be severed from their families. Another woman we heard about was taken in to see Warren by her husband, who felt she was unhappy in his family and he didn’t know how to help her. He complained that she was pulling away from him.

Warren condemned her for being rebellious and removed her from her husband. The husband wept uncontrollably; this was not what he wanted to have happen. She was forced to move out of her husband’s home and into a small apartment in the community as an example of what could happen to a woman who wasn’t “keeping sweet.”

When we talked about this at the coffee party we all felt that she should have taken her children and left the community. But women risked so much in standing up for themselves. If Diane had stood up to Warren, her husband never would have allowed her back into his home. He loved her and hated losing her, but he loved the prophet even more. It is hard for someone on the outside to fathom, but men would have died for Warren Jeffs. Jeffs was also cagey; he’d often hint at the possibility of eventual forgiveness if they did what he wanted them to do.

What was most unsettling was that families could be torn apart for no reason—or reasons Warren would never reveal. We knew that he could turn on any of us the way he did with the others. A man who wanted to get rid of a wife could now march into Warren’s office and know that even with the flimsiest complaint or accusation he would be likely to get a fresh start with someone else.

Cathleen and I were still having our morning coffee together when an episode with a Canadian bishop came up. Cathleen was critical of those in Canada who were defying Warren Jeffs and refusing to follow the newly ordained bishop. I could not believe her unquestioning support for Jeffs.

“Cathleen, Warren can’t upset the leadership in Canada just because he is in a bad mood one day and think there will be no consequences.” She looked at me in disbelief. Cathleen still thought that Warren Jeffs was a god despite what he had done to her. She got up and left. We never had coffee again and she rarely spoke to me.

Ordaining a new Canadian bishop was one of the rare instances when an action backfired on Warren Jeffs. Uncle Rulon was so incapacitated that he had no real power anymore. It had all been ceded to Warren—except that the old man had a few tricks up his sleeve. We saw this play out in Warren’s feud with the Canadian bishop of the FLDS, who had always been close to him.

Warren saw him as becoming a threat to his own power and tried excommunicating him from the FLDS church. The bishop had thirty wives and more than a hundred children. He told his family what had happened and said they could leave if they liked, but everyone chose to stay.

Warren felt the bishop was in total defiance and appointed the bishop’s half brother as his successor. The half brother refused to take the position. Warren bullied him until he finally relented and came to be ordained.

The story that circulated around the community was that when it came time to ordain him, Uncle Rulon, who was so demented he didn’t even recognize the man, put his hands on the man’s head and did far more than make him a bishop. He made him a high priest, apostle, patriarch, first counselor, and finally bishop. Then he topped it off by giving him the keys to the priesthood and, in his final blessing, making him the prophet of God.

This made him more powerful than Warren, which of course Warren could not stand. He told the new bishop to forget about everything he’d been ordained to beyond bishop. The new bishop told Warren he was a complete fraud.

One day I was on the phone talking to someone about Harrison’s physical therapy when Merrilyn came into the kitchen crying. I asked Cathleen if she knew what the problem was.

“Warren has sent her back to Merril because Uncle Rulon never wants to see her again. She’s Merril’s problem now.”

Merrilyn and I were both thirty-four. For nine years, she’d been married to a man sixty years her senior. I hadn’t wanted to marry Merril, but I cherished my eight children. Merrilyn had no children. My sweet, innocent classmate, who had once tried to charm our teacher at the pencil sharpener, had been forced to spend the best years of her life in an old man’s harem. Now she was cast out.

Merril banished her to his motel in Caliente. After several weeks of cleaning rooms, she decided to leave her father and her religion and fight for the life she’d never had.

Merrilyn found a ride into St. George and hooked up with the party circuit. The following week she went to Cedar and tried to get her own apartment. A boy who was still in the FLDS was helping her try to get settled. After three days, Merrilyn had a job.

But then Merril came and required that she come home. The next day he took her to see Warren Jeffs.

I was looking out the window when they came home. Merril looked disgusted. Merrilyn was crying and walked straight to the garden. I went out on the back deck of our house and watched her. She was sitting on a stump in the garden and sobbing. After a few minutes, her sister Paula arrived. Paula had been married off to Uncle Rulon, too. She must have snuck out of his house to come to see Merrilyn. She threw her arms around Merrilyn, who was in tears, and held her close.

The next day I heard Tammy talking to someone on the phone about Merrilyn’s punishment. The boy who had tried to help Merrilyn in Cedar had been excommunicated. Tammy said that Warren had told Merrilyn she would spend the rest of her life as a slave. She would never be allowed to have children or anything of value in life. The devil would be waiting for her as soon as she died and would instantly destroy her.

Warren told her the only way she could be spared from this fate was by the blessing of blood atonement. If the priesthood granted her this blessing, she might be able to remain as a servant to Uncle Rulon through all eternity.

Blood atonement meant Merrilyn’s throat would be cut from ear to ear.

Warren had begun preaching about blood atonement. In his sermons he said that Jesus Christ died on the cross in atonement for the sins we commit unknowingly. The sins a person commits
knowingly
can only be redeemed through blood atonement, but it is not a sacrament an individual can choose for herself. It can only be mandated by the priesthood.

In all my years in the FLDS I’d never heard a prophet preach blood atonement. I was well aware that Warren Jeffs was taking the community in new directions. I’d never thought murder would be one of them.

Several months later I learned that Warren had spoken to Merrilyn and warned her that if she didn’t change her ways, she would have to pay with blood atonement.

Three weeks after Merrilyn was kicked out of Uncle Rulon’s home, the old prophet finally died, on September 8, 2002. He was ninety-four years old and had more than sixty wives and more than seventy children.

Warren proclaimed himself prophet almost immediately and married his father’s wives. Now he was in absolute control over all our lives.

No one vocally challenged his right to succeed his father as prophet. There were no other apostles in the FLDS, and Warren had been effectively running the community for nearly six years before Uncle Rulon died. He had managed to quell any dissenters or competitors within our ranks. Nevertheless, word circulated throughout the community that Warren had a hit list of over a hundred men he intended to kick out to ensure that any opposition to him was eliminated.

At Uncle Rulon’s funeral, I heard Warren Jeffs preach that the prayers of the community had been answered. We had been ordered to pray for the last year that the invalid prophet would be lifted up and renewed—which we thought meant in
this
life. Now Warren was saying that our prayers had been answered; he’d been renewed, but after bodily death. Warren also preached that the faithful among us could count on the same thing.

This was frightening. We were going to be the next to die? I was always listening for something that pointed in the direction of a mass suicide. Warren was crazy enough to try something like that—and I knew many in our community who believed it would be a privilege to die for Warren Jeffs.

In the weeks following his father’s death, Warren began preaching that Uncle Rulon was God and that he had come to usher in a thousand years of peace. Warren began making subtle suggestions that, as the prophet’s son, he was Jesus Christ.

His words were frightening enough, but the blind obedience of people I had known all my life was even more disturbing. They had lost any capacity to think for themselves.

Warren went crazy making prophecies. No one in the community was allowed to have any access to outside information, so he even began predicting the weather. I still had access to a computer because of the small Internet business I’d started. I’d often go online to see how closely Jeffs’ forecasts matched what I found online. They were identical.

Warren also began preaching about how the armies of the world were gathering in the Middle East and that World War III had already begun. I still had a radio in my bedroom and would listen to it when I knew I would not be caught. Radio was strictly forbidden. I heard about the war in Iraq and knew enough about what was happening in the Middle East to know that Warren Jeffs was lying.

Warren continued to preach about how it was time for God’s chosen to have a temple to do the work God had planned for us. This frightened me because we had always been taught that we would not begin building a temple until after God had cleared the wicked from the earth and we were living in the thousand years of peace. Warren’s temple talk scared me. We’d been taught that every blessing we needed for our salvation could be done without a temple—except for blood atonement. I feared where Warren Jeffs might be leading us.

Merrilyn was sequestered at the motel in Caliente. Her half brother Truman, the little boy who had been left behind at the gas station on our bizarre honeymoon trip to San Diego, was assigned to watch over her. As far as I know, Merrilyn never tried to escape again.

Loretta, who’d been the first of Merril’s daughters to marry Rulon, returned to Merril’s house. She had refused to marry Warren Jeffs and was sent home until she was ready to repent. The rest of the family—with one exception—condemned Loretta for her disobedience just as surely as they condemned Merrilyn for her adultery. Oddly enough, it was Ruth who took Loretta’s side and told me that she felt Loretta was a victim. This was strange—many of Ruth’s daughters had been married off to Warren, and she’d always been a true believer. I felt disgusted by the cruel way Loretta was condemned but knew to keep my mouth shut.

Audrey and I still talked almost every day. She’d come over on the pretext of checking on Harrison. Both Audrey and her husband were concerned about the vitriol and extremism coming from Warren Jeffs. I avoided going to church, but Audrey went regularly and filled me in on what Warren was preaching. He kept mentioning the “Center Place” and how he would be sending people to Zion. But the catch was that there could be several Zions. Anywhere the prophet sent us was considered Zion.

I told Audrey that I thought Warren was planning to separate us in remote areas like concentration camps. He needed to be in absolute control and couldn’t risk letting us live freely in the community. Once we were split up we’d never be able to escape because we’d undoubtedly be separated from our children.

I knew I had to get out fast. But I couldn’t run the risk of fleeing when Merril was at home. I had to wait until he was out of town and all my children were home. Arthur worked on construction jobs and was often out of town. I needed a window of opportunity, and the second I got that window, I’d jump.

My mother beat me to it. She’d become so infuriated with Warren Jeffs that she told my father she was leaving with her two youngest children. She was upset not only with Jeffs but also with the community of believers who were blindly supporting him. Mother felt they were completely ungodly.

I was not surprised that she decided to leave. I knew that for several years she’d hoped life would change, but she only saw it deteriorate.

Mother had become my defender. She’d been shocked when Warren condemned me after I reported Merril’s abuse. She’d told my father that if he didn’t get me out of my marriage, she’d leave him.

I think my mother finally realized how betrayed she’d been by her religion. She knew my father didn’t love her. She’d buried one daughter and felt like she’d lost two others who fled the FLDS. She saw me lost to a life of abuse and degradation. How could any religion that created so much harm be of God? It was an obvious question that few asked.

Mother had been so proud of our faith and culture. Seeing what it had become made leaving the only option. My father did not try to stop her. Unlike almost every other man in the FLDS, he felt that my mother had the right to choose how she wanted to live her life. He told her to pack what she wanted to take with her and he’d have a truck come by early one morning and move her out.

My mother and my two siblings, Jennifer, sixteen, and Winston, nine, left on April 19, 2003. She walked away from the only life she’d ever known for fifty years. Once she was out of the community she filed for a divorce and ended her thirty-eight-year marriage.