Prophet's Prey (11 page)
Authors: Sam Brower
It was a typical FLDS schism, dissidents within dissidents. Blackmore remained in the Bountiful area as the minister of his own congregation and provided a safe haven for people who had run-ins with Warren. One of their few alternatives was to get to Canada and seek solace from Uncle Wink.
Warren Jeffs would always remain angry with the continuing influence of Blackmore, regarding it as a poison. An “uprising of bad feelings started in Canada and [it was] filtering through the people,” he would repeatedly state. Blackmore no longer presented a true threat as a political rival, but that did not mean he was not dangerous in other significant ways; in contrast with Warren's maniacal hatred of the law, Winston Blackmore chose to cooperate smoothly with a number of law enforcement agencies, including the FBI.
CHAPTER 15
Fifteen months would pass between the time that Warren Jeffs took over the FLDS and the time I first set foot into his private world with my initial visit to Short Creek to meet Ross Chatwin. That interval seemed to close fast.
Over the years I would spend investigating him and his church, I became fascinated by his strange behavior, particularly during that transformational period after his father's strokes. I am not a psychologist, so I pulled out my old college texts and talked to some professionals to satisfy my curiosity about how this man, once he obtained unlimited authority and power within his religion, had changed from a quiet behind-the-scenes manipulator into a runaway, destructive locomotive.
Warren Jeffs possessed all the outward signs and symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder, but narcissism was the lesser of deeper and more frightening emotional problems. I have dealt with many sociopathic criminals over the course of my career, and I can say that Warren was a sociopath too. He is unable to emotionally bond with people, and with his own feelings paramount, he feels none of the pain he inflicts on others.
His feigned love for God and his fellow man were a means to an end, something that he fabricated to gain the trust of his victims and maintain his guise as a man of God. The pain and struggles of other people seemed to bring him great pleasure, and watching his gullible followers willingly suffer at his command gave him a short-lived rush. I would never cease being amazed at the depths of his depravity.
As the FLDS case expanded before me over time, and evidence mounted concerning the behavior of Warren Jeffs, I began to view him as an evil sexual predator who took satisfaction at exercising power not only over children, but anyone under his control.
To the narcissistic sociopath, a sexual experience is not about sex; it's about having complete control over his victims. They satisfy their sick compulsions by preying on vulnerable victims who they feel can most easily be manipulated and are least likely to expose their crimes.
Warren needed the FLDS even more than the rebel religion needed a leader. His specialized psychosis was dependent on a unique religious hook that just would not work in the general population. In the outside world, he would never have been able to convince anyone to take him seriously. But with the FLDS predilection for blind religious obedience and submission to authority, he had the willing, captive audience that he needed, like a scientist needs lab rats. They believed everything he said and would do whatever he wanted.
Add to that volatile mixture another insidious mental illness for which there is a treatment, but no cure: schizophrenia. It was well known within the FLDS community that some members of the Steed family, the line from Warren's mother, had suffered from the disease. It was not uncommon for voices, which Warren would claim were heavenly beings, to interrupt sermons or meetings. It is highly probable that Warren had picked up the family trait. As the boy grew up, he appeared to be constantly teetering on the brink of either genius or insanity. When he became a man of great power, he also became increasingly irrational. Out of this brew of compounded mental illnesses grew a bizarre phenomenon that Warren termed “heavenly sessions,” in which he claimed to commune directly with God, and also with his dead fatherâsometimes being transformed into a heavenly being himself!
Many members of the flock also would come to believe that Uncle Warren could actually undergo a transformation that allowed him to literally walk and talk with God in the flesh, and then resume his mortal form.
These sessions could strike at any time, whether he was resting in bed or just reaching for a doorknob. He would collapse into a trance-like fit of quivering and mumbling and regularly miss scheduled meetings, or excuse himself from other people because he could feel a heavenly session coming on. It might pass like a gentle rain shower, or he might go storming on for hours, apparently sound asleep but contorting like a dervish.
When he awakened from a trance, Warren would pass along what he had learned from the Lord in his usual droning, unemotional voice. The recipients of the edicts would therefore receive very bad news in the belief that it was a wrathful God, and not their kind and loving Uncle Warren, who was dispensing it. Instructions revealed to him by the Almighty during these sessions were nonnegotiable.
I spent much of the early summer of 2004 trying to break through the FLDS code of silence, their strong self-imposed shield of secrecy that kept the rest of the world at bay. I had to throw a very wide net and not rely just upon the apostates in Short Creek, because I didn't want to take the chance that their viewpoint might color my conclusions.
Through my independent sources, cops and law enforcement personnel in Utah and Arizona, I was able to find people in outlying communities, so I drove out to see them, looking for insights into the FLDS culture. Even out in the boondocks, the men would suddenly develop amnesia when I approached. Some may have taken young brides themselves, or have been part of some questionable FLDS business scheme in the past, but the main problem was that they believed their salvation would be in jeopardy if they communicated with me, and they were petrified of Warren Jeffs. Most were curious about who I was and what I was doing but did not want to take the chance of having anything to do with me.
I also started talking with merchants and contractors who hired FLDS members, and even they knew little about the people with whom they did business. The church guys would bring their own lunches, stay to themselves, and appoint one member of their group to communicate with the outsiders. Medical personnel, car dealers, and home builders all told me similar stories of the icy separation they felt when dealing with the FLDS. It was even hard to gain the trust of many apostates, and I would have to win them over one at a time through keeping my word and following through on my promises.
I was searching for people who might be potential witnesses and might be willing to travel with me up to Salt Lake City to meet with Joanne Suder, where we arranged a hotel suite in which to conduct interviews and secure affidavits about what they had experienced and knew. It took a lot of persuasion, because they were frightened about who could potentially read their statement, if they had done something wrong themselves, if a family member might chastise them, and how their leaders would react. I discovered that there were very few Ross Chatwins around, people willing to speak their minds.
It was during that process that I first met the firebrand dissident Flora Jessop, who was more than willing to talk. Flora drove the FLDS crazy, but not without reason. As they say in the army, she had earned her stripes. She had two mothers and twenty-seven siblings when she tried to escape the religious web at the age of only thirteen. She was caught, and an apathetic judge sent her back to the family, which kept her a virtual prisoner for the next three years.
Not only had Flora personally been persecuted and brutalized by the FLDS theocracy into which she had been born, but her sister Ruby had endured a similar ordeal. Ruby was “sealed” at the age of fourteen to her older stepbrother Haven Barlow; she was raped by him and almost bled to death before being taken to a hospital emergency room. When Ruby later tried to run away, she also was caught and eventually returned by the Utah Child Protective Services to her so-called husband, the very perpetrator she had originally accused of the horrible rape. Knowing what had happened to Ruby pushed Flora to make the decision to become a child-abuse activist.
Flora finally broke away from her family for good at the age of sixteen, choosing a rough life in the gentile world over spending one more minute under the thumb of the FLDS. Eventually, she got her life back in order, and today says she is not a victim, but a survivor. Flora never forgot her experiences within the intolerant church, and she remains outraged by the sense of apathy that is so often displayed by the authorities in Utah and Arizona dealing with the “plygs.”
Detested by many in her family as well as the FLDS leadership, she did not care what they thought. She would take on anyone, anytime, to help a child in need. As a private investigator, I was happy to have her open up to me about her experiences. Her zeal might sometimes lead FLDS apologists to brand her as an over-the-top activist, but Flora had a deep well of knowledge of what the FLDS is capable of doing. In our meetings, she kept worrying that something had happened to Uncle Fred, the former bishop of Short Creek, who was missing. Flora thought that Warren had probably kidnapped and killed him, a conclusion that seemed a bit edgy at the time but would prove in the future to be eerily close to the truth.
The idea that lightning-rod personalities such as Flora Jessop were talking to a high-powered legal team in Salt Lake City was unsettling to the FLDS church leaders, as it should have been. As we listened to those stories, we understood that we were dealing not just with child abuse, but with downright atrocities.
Any evidence or indications of crimes that we might discover during the interviews were reported to the proper authorities, and I was working to raise the awareness of the officials and authorities involved. Politicians and law enforcement agencies are busy people and would occasionally need to be jolted into probing the ongoing atrocities within the FLDS and its hierarchy, so briefing various lawyers became another regular aspect of my job.
Alongside the Lost Boys matter, we were also tightening up the Brent Jeffs case, a civil court action in which Warren would be accused of rape and sodomy of a child. We had no powers of arrest, but we hoped that law enforcement would step forward to file and prosecute those charges; but none did. Warren was never charged with those crimes, despite the incredible testimony that would have been available from the victims. Nevertheless, both of our civil cases were strong, and we worked to make them even stronger.
Also on our docket was trying to do something about the corruption within the church-controlled legal structure in Short Creek. To that end, we hoped to expand our targets to include members of the town's crooked justice systemâa difficult task because judges and police have a built-in immunity.
In all, it was an ambitious undertaking, and the outcome was uncertain. But our clients were dedicated to the task of trying to rectify some of the wrongs that continued to take a toll on their family and friends, and so was I.
I returned to Short Creek with another subpoena in hand. Uncle Fred Jessop had been replaced as the bishop of Short Creek by William E. Timpson. It took a while to figure out, because the name game is kept intentionally muddy in the FLDS as one more obstacle to be faced by anyone trying to figure out the culture. Timpson was his last name by birth, but his mother had been reassigned to a new husband, none other than Uncle Fred Jessop, when Will was already an adult with a family of his own. Not only was Will given that new last name, one of the most common in town, but the surname also was bestowed upon his own numerous children. As a result, Will (Timpson) Jessop became routinely confused by outsiders with the notorious FLDS spokesman, Willie Jessop.
By becoming the bishop, Will also had inherited the position of registered agent for the church's legal entity, which meant that I could now subpoena him. His legal address that was listed with the Utah Department of Commerce was 1065 North Hildale Avenue, which I knew was within the town's health clinic compound. That meant that serving the subpoena was not going to be easy. Following my earlier visits, the compound, which occupied about two full blocks, had become a securely fenced and guarded area.
Because of rugged, mountainous terrain, it was nearly impossible to approach the property from the rear. In front, Hildale Avenue dead-ended directly in front of the clinic's two big gates attached to a sturdy fence whose hollow vinyl shell had metal bars hidden within. Between the gates was a concrete barrier with an intercom and cameras. Behind that was a guard shack. I felt it would be foolish to try and gain entry on my own, because what would have been a routine process service anywhere else in the United States could turn into an actual physical battle in Short Creek. Any such perceived challenge to priesthood authority is treated as if you just sucker-punched one of their kids.
I decided to call for some assistance from another Cedar City private investigator, my old friend Jeff Lennert. There was no use asking for help from the Short Creek cops, who not only would warn anyone I might be looking for, but probably would actively try to stop me from serving the subpoena. Instead, I notified Washington County deputy sheriff Matt Fischer about what I was going to do, so he could be on patrol in the vicinity in case of trouble.
Jeff and I observed the clinic from a distance and noted there seemed to be a strict protocol for vehicles entering and leaving the grounds, whether for medical care or for an appointment with the bishop. When a car approached, the guard would view it first through the cameras stationed at the gate and along the perimeter. Once the car was cleared for entrance, the sixteen-foot-long motorized gate would slowly open just enough to allow the visitor to drive inside. Then the car would stop to prevent any other vehicles from coming in behind it, while the gate hummed back into place and shut tight. Getting out was just the reverse. This was extremely tight security for a health clinic that accepted federal funding and was supposed to be open to the public. But any security can be penetrated.
The chance came when Jeff and I saw a car getting ready to come out. When the gate opened, Jeff quickly drove up and stopped. I jumped out of the passenger's side and ducked through the opening gate, as Jeff called Deputy Fischer to alert him that the service was in progress. Before anyone emerged from the guard shack to try and stop me, I made a beeline for the front door of the clinic, surprising a young receptionist wearing a blue pastel dress with a white medical smock over it. The name tag identified her as another one of the Barlows.