Carolyn Jessop; Laura Palmer (47 page)

Arthur graduated from West Jordan High School on June 6, 2006. It was one of the proudest days of my life. Arthur had been on the honor roll for three years. During his senior year he was taking a full load of classes, including the ones he needed to make up for the year he had missed. He was also taking flying lessons and working part-time for my brother.

At an awards dinner before commencement, Arthur was the recipient of a special award and a $500 scholarship given to a student who has overcome adversity. The principal didn’t list everything that Arthur had endured, but what he highlighted was enough to make the audience applaud. Two days later he received another $500 scholarship to the college of his choice from the Chamber of Commerce.

When graduation day came and Arthur walked across the stage to receive his diploma, I leaped to my feet the moment his name was called, and clapped and cheered for my son. My heart was exploding with happiness.

End Game

E
arly in May 2006, Warren Jeffs’ name was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. He was charged as an accomplice to rape in Utah, on two counts of having sexual contact with minors in Arizona, and for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. The FBI felt that national publicity might help to bring him in, and a reward of $100,000 was offered for his capture. “I have a corner of my state that is worse than [under] the Taliban,” said Utah’s attorney general, Mark Shurtleff, after Warren Jeffs became one of the Ten Most Wanted.

Warren, who had been in hiding now for two years, had long preached that he would be taken like Christ and crucified. But the end, when it came, on August 28, 2006, was far less dramatic. The car that he was traveling in was pulled over on a routine traffic stop because it lacked adequate registration. Inside were wigs, dozens of cell phones, and $50,000 in cash.

Warren Steed Jeffs, fifty, was under arrest.

My beautiful stepdaughter Naomi, one of Ruth’s daughters, was with him. She was taken into custody that night with Warren and his younger brother Isaac, but charges were not filed against the two of them.

I was stunned, thrilled, overwhelmed, and surprised that he was caught so soon after he went on the Ten Most Wanted list. The fact that he was caught driving a red car—a color he had banned—amused me. Warren had always been a complete hypocrite. He forced the community to live under rules he ignored.

I had just gotten home from taking my children to school when the news broke. The phone didn’t stop ringing. I talked all day to friends and family. We were so glad he was finally behind bars. When I saw him on television for the first time, my heart began racing and it felt hard to breathe. I hadn’t realized how much of a hold he had on me and how even just the sight of him could send fear streaming through my body again. It was hard to think that such a meek-looking man could impose so much terror on so many. Seeing him walk into a court in custody was an unbelievable milestone for me.

While there was tremendous relief that Warren was finally in jail, there was still a mountain of questions. Who was going to take over the FLDS now that Warren was behind bars? What was going to happen to the families that had been split apart on Warren’s orders? Would men be free to return to their wives? Could the “lost boys” come home? Would people realize how betrayed they had been and insist on justice and change? Was this the beginning of the end for the FLDS?

Warren’s arrest was not the end of his power. After his capture he was still seen as the prophet, albeit a persecuted one. The message he sent out was that God wanted him to be captured. For FLDS members living with almost no exposure to the outside world, this was believable. They were not going to abandon their loyalty to him overnight because he was in the hands of the wicked. The word around the FLDS was that the authorities didn’t have anything on him and it was just a matter of time until they would be forced to let him go. He always found a way to stoke the fires of his fanaticism for a community of his brainwashed believers whose faith in him continues. They believe he is being poisoned in prison.

It’s hard to know what to believe about Warren Jeffs. He apparently confessed to his brother Nephi Jeffs that he was the most evil of men and had worked his way up through the FLDS only because he wanted power. Jeffs said he hadn’t upheld the priesthood since he was twenty. He asked his brother to convey his “confession” to the community. Then he changed his mind and told him not to.

Somehow after his capture he sent word back to his followers to close all the private religious schools. Children were to stay at home and out of school. This is still in effect today.

Jeffs’ mental competency was an issue initially, but a judge found him competent to stand trial. A trial is expected to begin in the fall of 2007 on the state charges in Utah against Warren Jeffs for being an accomplice to rape. There are other charges against Jeffs in Utah and Arizona. He faces federal charges for evading prosecution. I was told that he has been placed on a suicide watch and is wearing paper clothes.

Warren Jeffs is both a problem and the symptom of a problem. The FLDS has created a lot of Warrens, men who are intoxicated with their own power, believing they need at least three wives to get into heaven and wanting to dominate women and children. Generation after generation of believers have been conditioned to equate obedience with salvation. People who have never been taught or allowed to think for themselves don’t suddenly change. Change is too frightening. Unlike other cult members who have lived a prior life outside and know other values, the FLDS is the only life Jeffs’ followers have ever known.

There are currently no government programs in place to help the “lost boys” who have been kicked out of the cult. Dan Fisher still does what he can, but these boys need massive support, education, and training. One of the lawsuits against Jeffs has been filed on behalf of the “lost boys.” The hope is that a financial settlement against Jeffs can be used to set up a foundation to provide them the continual help and support they need to successfully adjust to their new lives.

There’s now a federally funded Safe Passage program in place to help women trying to extricate themselves from polygamy. But it meets only a few of their needs, and much more comprehensive assistance is needed. Its funding runs out sometime in 2007, and if its grant is not renewed, it will cease to exist.

Utah and Arizona officials have talked about trying to make a determined effort to put law enforcement officers in Colorado City and Hildale who have no ties to the FLDS. The problem is that the police there don’t want to leave and will claim they are being discriminated against because of their religion. But I believe there is proof that some of the officers were funneling money to Warren when he was a fugitive, and that might cast their claims of discrimination in a different light. Until this situation is resolved, it’s still frightening and risky for a woman who wants to leave because she cannot trust local law enforcement officials to help.

I often get updates on Merril’s family. Ruth had a nervous breakdown in Texas and was sent back to Colorado City to repent. Tammy also made it out of Texas thanks to her son, Parley. The child Tammy had been so desperate to conceive was sent to work on construction crews as a twelve-year-old and forbidden to see his mother once she went to Texas to live. He was not allowed to go to school and had no money to live. He started to steal from his older half-brothers and got into trouble with the law.

Here the system worked. Once he was arrested as a juvenile, counseling sessions indicated that his problem was simple: Parley missed his mother. A judge told Tammy she could leave Texas and take care of her son or lose custody of him. Tammy decided to be a mother and last I heard she and Parley were doing well.

Betty graduated from high school with honors and turned eighteen on July 2, 2007, and says she plans to return to the FLDS. Two days after her birthday, on the Fourth of July, Betty left our home after an anguished goodbye. She hugged all her siblings and told them she loved them. But when she came to me, she put her arms around me and sobbed and sobbed. She thanked me for all I had done for her and said she loved me. I told Betty I loved her, too, and would always welcome her home. My heart was breaking in ways I could not have imagined and was not able to explain. I knew this day might come, and when it did it was shattering in its devastation.

All of my children were terribly upset that Betty was leaving us. They all told her that they couldn’t understand why on the day that celebrates America winning its freedom she was relinquishing hers.

I sensed in Betty a deep conflict about returning to the FLDS. Her decision means she will no longer have access to us, and I think that will be awful for her. When she left, she promised to call, but none of us have been able to reach her by phone since her departure.

I wonder if Betty—stubborn, independent, and quite capable of thinking for herself—will be able to stay in the FLDS. One of the reasons I stayed as long as I did in the FLDS is that I had nothing to compare it to. I had no sense of what it meant to be free and have the power to make my own decisions about life. Betty has friends who love her, and she’s become a passionate defender of those she perceives as underdogs. This kind of outspokenness will never be permitted when she is back in the cult.

Nor do I think Betty can appreciate how the tide might turn against her. I’m sure she will be seen as contaminated by worldly ways and her worldly education. I have great fears about her return to a culture of abuse and degradation. I don’t think she will do well there. If she decides to leave, I will always welcome her back. Betty and I have had our struggles, but she’s my daughter and I will always love and protect her.

Arthur has his pilot’s license and is a full-time college student at Salt Lake Community College. He’s the first of Merril Jessop’s sons ever to go to college. His dream is to become a commercial airline pilot.

LuAnne has her green belt in karate and is just finishing her sophomore year in high school. She’s poised and beautiful and determined to go to college.

Patrick and Andrew are still passionate about karate and now have earned their brown belts. Arthur is a real role model to them. They both want to go to college. At a recent highly competitive karate tournament, both boys won medals.

Merrilee has finally decided there might be more to life than becoming a princess. She’s a Girl Scout and devoted to her karate lessons like the rest of her siblings. She dreams of becoming a veterinarian.

Harrison, who’s almost eight, still works with Lee and is on the verge of walking.

Bryson is starting kindergarten in the fall. He’s bright, with a happy and well-balanced personality. His teacher says he is always smiling at school and has great social skills. Bryson is very athletic and eager to play soccer. Bryson was a year old when we fled and the only child I’ve been able to parent one-on-one in a nonpolygamist environment.

I am never far from terrible reminders of the awful world we escaped. On April 7, 2007, eighteen-year-old Parley Dutson, one of the “lost boys” who was kicked out of the FLDS two years before, allegedly put a gun to the head of his fifteen-year-old girlfriend, Kara Hopkins, at a party, pulled the trigger, and then sexually assaulted her. He’s been charged with murder. Police say drugs were involved. Desperate people do desperate things. His cry for help was a gunshot blast. It shouldn’t have to come to that.

Two weeks later marked the fourth anniversary of my family’s escape on April 22, 2003. Brian had taken me out to dinner the night before. I never could have imagined when I fled in a panic with my children that four years later I’d be dining in a fine restaurant with the love of my life.

We celebrated as a family the next day—except for Betty, who said she had too much homework to do. We went to see a movie,
Meet the Robertsons,
and had dinner at a Chinese restaurant. It was the most ordinary of evenings. But not to me. My children and I now know what it means to be safe. Freedom is extraordinary, and love a miracle.

PUBLISHED BY BROADWAY BOOKS

Copyright ©
2007
by Visionary Classics, LLC

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jessop, Carolyn, 1968–

Escape / Carolyn Jessop with Laura Palmer.—1st ed.

p.    cm.

1. Jessop, Carolyn, 1968– 2. Mormon women—Utah—Biography. 3. Polygamy—Religious aspects—Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 4. Marriage—Religious aspects—Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 5. Mormon fundamentalism. I. Palmer, Laura. II. Title.

BX8695.J47A3 2007

289.3092—dc22

[B]

2007023172

eISBN: 978-0-7679-2847-2

v1.0