Prophet's Prey (21 page)

Warren decided to travel up from Texas to see Fred. At the hospital, he stood beside the dying man, who had a respirator down his throat. The doctors gave no hope without the surgery, which would have been performed at still another hospital and was dangerous in any case for a patient in such poor health and at such an advanced age. Warren decided that his vision about the car was a sign from God to let Fred go. He coldly did not express any remorse for making the stricken man, who had been a loyal friend and follower for many years, travel hundreds of miles before allowing him to receive medical care.

Once Uncle Fred passed away, the journal showed that Warren left in a hurry, because the Lord had shown him that if he stayed in Denver, he “would be accused of killing the old man” and that “as soon as [the] word [got] out, [he would] have the news media and also [his] enemies trying to trace the family.”

Next came the charade of a funeral. Fred had served his terrestrial usefulness to Warren, but he could continue to be a means of validating Warren's power. Will Timpson, now Will Jessop, who had replaced Fred as the bishop, lied to hospital administrators by saying that he was Fred's actual son and had authority to take possession of the body. He was allowed to haul the corpse away in the rear of an SUV to a hidden location. Colorado authorities considered filing criminal charges for illegally taking possession of a dead body and falsifying records, but they eventually gave up when jurisdictional problems cropped up because the Utah border had been crossed. Warren held some private moments with some of Fred's family at a secret hideaway, where he also decided details of the funeral and burial details to take place in Short Creek.

The outlaw prophet then returned to the safety of Texas until the night before the funeral, when he jumped over to New Mexico; and a day later he and First Counselor Wendell Nielsen checked into an Albuquerque motel, which was as close as they would come to the funeral of their dear friend and Second Counselor Frederick Meade Jessop in Short Creek. They did not show up personally, nor did the program contain their names.

Even before the services started, the paranoid weirdness of the FLDS was on full display.

The central hall at the LeRoy S. Johnson Meeting House overflowed with the faithful on the balmy afternoon of Sunday, March 20, 2005. Technicians rigged transmissions to side rooms, to Albuquerque, into private homes, to Mancos, to the ranch in Texas, and all the way to Canada.

Apostates who had known Uncle Fred for many years filtered up to the meeting house, but the bullies were ready. MacRae Oler, a cocky young Canadian, was at the door to point out familiar faces from north of the Forty-ninth Parallel, and those visitors were physically denied entrance. Big Willie Jessop wrenched the arm of one of Fred's relatives behind his back and shoved him out the door. Chief Marshal Sam Roundy blocked others in what Winston Blackmore later derisively described as special “keep sweet” moments.

After the song “Dear Uncle Fred We Love you,” Wendell Nielsen came on the speakerphone hookup and delivered an eleven-minute tribute from the motel in New Mexico. Then, like the voice of a disembodied god, the unmistakable drone of Warren Jeffs drifted in. For the first time in more than a year, his Short Creek followers were hearing his actual voice and not a recording. He spoke for thirty minutes.

In months to come, Jeffs would invoke the memory of the popular Uncle Fred to strengthen his hold, although his power was already complete. He was finally rid of the last real threat to his authority. Warren later would appoint an even stronger henchman, Merril Jessop, to fill the vacancy left by the departed Uncle Fred in the First Presidency. Adding up the tally later, it seems that the price Merril paid to become so influential was the placement of at least eleven daughters and two granddaughters, some of whom were only underage children, to join Warren's long list of “heavenly comfort wives.”

The only other truly important position in the FLDS church was that of patriarch, to which Warren had appointed one of his own brothers, Leroy Jeffs. Warren began looking at him with suspicion.

CHAPTER 25

Twelve Years Old

Although Warren Jeffs had finally allowed Steven Chatwin and his family to escape from the battleground home of his apostate brother, Ross Chatwin, I suspected that the church still wasn't ready to give in.

Ross had the building, but the court had said nothing about the utilities that served it, and the FLDS was always alert for an opening. The utilities were cut off, an intentionally cruel move since it was still bitterly cold in Short Creek. He had been heating the lower floor with a propane gas burner, but when Ross went to the city to change the water, gas, and electricity for the upper floor into his own name in March 2005, he was refused.

The Chatwins went without utilities for nearly a month before the Hildale City Council agreed to take up the matter in an emergency session. I drove down for the meeting and listened as Ross made a reasoned plea before the council members, all of whom were prominent FLDS members who detested him. I scribbled my name on a list of speakers to comment.

I was not happy to hear them belittle Ross and his family as “squatters” on church land. They spoke in a self-righteous tone, even as they were depriving a couple with six young children of water, heat, and electricity in harsh weather. The council's hypocrisy was highlighted when the cell phone of Richard Allred, the Colorado City mayor, suddenly chirped out its custom ring tone, the familiar Mormon hymn “Love At Home.” When my turn came to speak, I let them have it, lecturing them about religious persecution, civil rights violations, and the law.

Chief Marshal Roundy, one of his deputies, and the ever-present enforcer Willie Jessop were staring daggers and closed in on me, but I ignored them, stood my ground, and said my piece.

The previous day I had been out target shooting with my regular sidearm, and it wasn't until I arrived at the meeting that I realized I had left it at home to be cleaned. That was a careless mistake; I had learned that when dealing with the FLDS thugs, especially on their turf, it was prudent to be prepared for anything. The only weapon I had with me was my six-pound Desert Eagle .44 Magnum, which I had also taken to target practice the day before, and I had tucked that huge hog-leg pistol beneath my jacket. It was uncomfortable and hard to hide. The Short Creek god squad got close but ended up hanging back, perhaps recognizing the distinctive imprint of the huge pistol.

The council's rubber-stamp decision on behalf of the church was never in doubt. They voted unanimously to deny the utility hookups, just as Warren instructed.

The situation was tense. As I left, the three goons were huddled together on the sidewalk in front of the council chambers, bragging about how they were going to “take me down.” Big Willie followed me out to the parking area and gave me his best death glare as I got into my car. He reminded me of a playground bully who had suddenly come face-to-face with someone who wasn't afraid of him. His juvenile tactics usually worked with the church members he was assigned to strong-arm but seemed comical to me.

I decided that there was still one more thing that I could try to do to help the Chatwins with their problem. Later that day I telephoned every media contact I had, and the reporters deluged the city offices and Mayor David Zitting with questions about why the church had terminated the needed city-run services to a desperate family of eight in their own home. With the court order in place, outside law enforcement agencies becoming curious, and the media breathing down his neck, Warren decided not to continue that particular fight. The utilities were turned back on before sunset.

It was a minor victory for us, but it felt good to put still another one in the win column.

Leroy Jeffs did not last another month as the patriarch of the church. Warren heard that some FLDS people were turning to his more approachable brother for counsel because they did not know how to access the prophet. A dream soon followed in which God revealed to Warren that Leroy was no longer worthy of priesthood. Warren telephoned his brother the very next morning and stripped him of his title, wives, children, and home, although Leroy was allowed to continue working as an accountant for the prophet and in the businesses of David Allred, the purchaser of the FLDS refuge lands.

Warren's thoughts were raging. He had a mountain of things to think about and decisions to make, and his word alone mattered. His thrashing dreams grew wilder. They could be about something as simple as detecting a lack of faith in an errant member, a routine piece of church business, or a decision to forbid FLDS kids from eating “gentile candy.” But he also had apocalyptic visions, such as fleeing to Europe and leading “invading armies” back to America. After telling his scribe that they were about to face the greatest destruction that has ever been on this land or on the face of the earth,” he would then easily slide right back to planning a landscape of roses and shade trees for the Texas compound, and the type of crown molding needed around the temple walls.

According to Naomi, just before dawn on Monday, April 11, 2005, Warren uttered an emphatic, “Wow. Whatever you say. Yes, sir.” The Lord had just told him to collect a “pure, innocent girl” to add to his fold. A little later, he identified her as Brenda Fischer, the eldest daughter of Wayne Fischer, and, as Naomi recorded, the prophet asked and answered in his sleep, “How old is she? She is twelve.”

Warren dispatched another of his brothers, Seth Jeffs, his most trusted courier, to Short Creek to fetch Wayne and his preteen daughter to Texas, along with some $200,000 in fresh greenbacks. Wayne Fischer apparently was less than enthusiastic that his child had been chosen at such a tender age, and he and his little girl had to endure Seth playing recordings of Warren's hypnotic “trainings” throughout the long drive to Texas. Warren kept in touch with Seth by telephone and told him to take an even longer route, so that Wayne and his daughter would have more time to listen to the mind-numbing lectures and read booklets of selected sermons. Warren required that both child and father sign agreements to keep the sacred nature of their journey secret.

“It is just marvelous,” Warren told his scribe. “The Lord is choosing young girls who can be worked with and easily taught.”

He personally drove the Fischers around the ranch for ninety minutes on Saturday afternoon, and he spent time alone with Wayne until the man finally gave in and wept his approval for his little girl to be handed over. The prophet married twelve-year-old Brenda at nine o'clock that night, only a few days after picking her out in a dream. The incident, recorded by Naomi in the journal in its troubling entirety, wiped out any doubt that FLDS men only married women who were consenting adults. It was child rape, over and over. And it took place across interstate boundaries in violation of the U.S. White Slave Traffic Act (the Mann Act) of 1910. I was starting to wonder why the Feds had made such a dismal showing on cases like this that were so obviously a slam dunk. I knew that they were aware of human trafficking within the FLDS, and yet, after showing interest, they would fade away, accomplishing nothing.

On April 13, I was in the Texas state capitol in Austin along with Jon Krakauer and others to testify before a legislative committee in support of a bill to raise the legal age of marriage, which at the time was only fourteen. That had been one reason the FLDS had zeroed in on Eldorado in the first place.

“By God, this is Texas and we do not tolerate child abuse in this state! Child abusers go to prison for a long time here,” an old legislator barked at me, apparently thinking I had some sort of control over such matters. I was not the one he should have been attacking, but he was showing the right spirit.

Utah attorney general Mark Shurtleff also appeared as a witness, and he admitted that law enforcement in his state had dragged their feet in the prosecution of polygamists who had taken child brides. He pleaded with the Texas legislators not to make the same mistakes that had been made in Utah.

The Texas legislators not only raised the age of consent in their state to seventeen, but also strengthened penalties for child abuse and bigamy in the commission of other crimes. That squarely put the polygamists at the YFZ Ranch on notice that marrying a child could mean a long prison term. In the years to come, that legislation would pay huge dividends in the prosecution of FLDS members, including the prophet Warren Jeffs himself.

CHAPTER 26

Grand Jury

We hoped that the deep hatred Candi Shapley felt for her abusive ex-husband Randy Barlow would propel her forward to the witness stand despite some misgivings. Trust was key to getting her there. Although we kept everything very hush-hush to prevent her family and the church from finding out, no secret can hold indefinitely, so Candi was put on the fast track to lock in her testimony.

She was so fragile and unaccustomed to dealing with the outside world that she was having a problem responding to the brusque law-enforcement manner of Gary Engels. I altered my approach. While Gary pushed the case to the next level criminally in Arizona, I used a softer tone, sitting quietly for long spells while she showed me photographs of her wedding day and gradually opened up, revealing more details.

Finally, Gary had enough evidence to take to his boss, Matt Smith, the aggressive Mohave County prosecutor, who launched the procedure for a grand jury appearance in Kingman. Once again, the state lines got in the way.

Candi kept her focus, and by early June 2005, only about eight weeks after our initial conversation on April 2, everything was in place. I met with Candi and her sister Tammy to talk them through the process and provide a realistic understanding of what to expect. I knew it was going to be tough on Candi, and I wanted to minimize any surprises.

Since Candi had already been booted out of the FLDS, she had nothing to lose on that front, but she still had great concerns. One of her questions was, “Am I going to have to testify against Warren?” I knew that she might balk at that possibility, because it exposed her to being castigated by almost everyone she knew as a traitor who was trying to bring down the prophet. I replied honestly that she might have to do that at some point, and that plenty of people would be around to help when that time came. For now, I said, concentrate on Randy.

Candi had another major worry. One of her twin daughters had been born with serious birth defects and required virtually constant care, a challenge for anybody. There was a last-minute delay when her child was rushed to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake for emergency treatment, and her testimony was postponed until the baby was stable. Finally, she and Tammy were comfortable to go, boarding a small plane sent to Salt Lake City by the Mohave County sheriff's office. Neither had been on an airplane before, and they were as excited as if it were an amusement-park ride.

They flew across the border from Utah and into Arizona, and on June 8 in Kingman, Candi Shapley delivered her testimony before the grand jury in a firm voice and without hesitation, not only responding to the questions, but expanding on her answers. She was articulate and accurate and knew exactly what she was doing, and was so convincing that the grand jury not only hit Barlow on charges of rape and unlawful sexual conduct, but also indicted Warren Jeffs on two sixth-degree felony counts of sexual conduct with a minor and one charge of conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor.

Candi had come through. The prophet was now wanted not only on the civil charges, but on criminal charges that could mean several years in prison.

I slept a lot easier that night. This had been the game-changer I had sought for so long. It held out hope that in the future, other girls finding themselves in a similar predicament might understand that some sort of recourse was available. I was proud of Candi.

The secrecy of a grand jury room is supposed to be inviolable. Even I did not know what had been said in that proceeding. I was counting on that secrecy and had been working with Gary Engels and Jon Krakauer to alert the various arms of law enforcement that an indictment and an arrest warrant might be coming down. Now the law would really be looking for Jeffs; it would no longer be a figment of his imagination.

The grand jury had met on Wednesday, June 8, the indictments were handed down on Thursday, June 9, and the results were leaked almost immediately. By Friday, June 10, I was swamped by media calls. I couldn't believe it. I asked Gary what had happened. At that point, he was pretty cavalier about it, saying that prosecutor Matt Smith had decided to go ahead and break the news. “That was a huge mistake,” I told my old friend. Our goal of keeping the police informed and ready in case Warren started to move collapsed.

I hung up and tried to contact Candi. Her phone went straight to voice mail, as if it was shut off or she was out of range. I spent the next day contacting her friends in the refugee subculture, but no one had heard from her. She was gone. It had only taken the FLDS a matter of hours to connect the dots and figure out who had testified against the prophet. Gary and I spent the next week trying to locate her but were unable to find a thing. Our star witness was in the wind and I was worried sick.

Gary Engels was so devastated by her disappearance that he considered resigning. I was sweating bullets, because that was the last thing I wanted. A veteran cop, Gary was a fine investigator and a good friend, and without him, we would never have had Candi testifying in the first place. We had been through way too much together to let something like this leak get in the way of our friendship, and besides, it wasn't his fault. So we did what we had always done and got back to work.

A couple weeks later, as I was leaving my office to go home, fumbling for my car keys, my cell phone rang. It was Candi, and she sounded like a changed woman. I listened to her with deep disappointment. The church had gotten to her. She explained that she had gone away on a camping trip with her father, Bill Shapley. Out there in the wilderness, Bill had helped her “understand” what was happening, and why Uncle Warren was forced to do the things that he was doing—because the government was wrongfully accusing him of crimes and wanted to lock him up and maybe even kill him. She would not testify against him in a trial. She had changed her mind about Randy, too, because he had a wife and kids, and she did not want to hurt them. As the familiar robotic words came out of her mouth, it was all I could do to keep from snapping, “Candi, have you lost your mind?” But that would have gotten us nowhere. She also felt betrayed by Gary and Matt.

I had to keep the thin line of communication open, to try to reestablish the trust, because she was too important to lose. Any diatribe on my part would just push her away, so I held my temper and we spoke for a while about other topics to settle the waters.

I did ask her to consider the fact that her father previously had been kicked out of the church by Warren but had suddenly been readmitted, and his family reinstated, after she came forward as a witness. She knew how rare that was. She brushed it off; her father was a good and humble man who had successfully completed the repentance process. I didn't buy that for a minute, but she badly wanted to believe it, and I just had to let it go. After hanging up, I knew that it would be another long tightrope walk to get her back on a witness stand.

I could imagine what she was going through. She was a nineteen-year-old single mom trying to raise twins, one of whom was severely handicapped. She had run from a violent forced marriage, only to have to deal with the harsh realities of the real world. Her parents had abandoned her, but like most abused and neglected kids, she still loved her family. The camping trip was probably her first real communication with her father since he had been ordered not to be a part of her life, and her mother also had suddenly shown up to help care for the children. Although nothing but a ploy on the part of the church, the fact that her family was back in her life was a godsend to Candi in her weak emotional state. It was the closest she had been to them since being ostracized with the scarlet letter of an adulteress.

It came as no surprise to learn that behind the scenes, Warren had made some pretty shrewd counter-moves upon finding out that Candi was cooperating with authorities. He decided that her father, Bill Shapley, had repented enough to return to the FLDS and that four of his wives could be resealed to him. Shapley jumped at the opportunity; Warren had reached Bill, and Bill had now reached Candi.

But the prophet dug his heels in about another wife, Esther, who was Candi's mother. She was out of the family, and would stay out, although she wanted above all things to be back in. She was not allowed to go back to her former husband and was only given a meager “widow's stipend” and allowed to share a trailer with other so-called widows. That desire provided more leverage for Warren to control her, and his fate might depend upon the ability of Bill and Esther Shapley to control their rebellious daughter.

Watching the Arizona situation closely was a potential witness of equal importance in Utah, Elissa Wall. While I had been focusing on Candi, Elissa had established some friendly, but loose, communication with our attorney Roger Hoole. After Candi's name was leaked to the press and the FLDS hit back hard, the pregnant Elissa recoiled. She wanted no part of a similar experience, so Roger simply kept the lines of communication open with Elissa and her boyfriend, Lamont Barlow.

It turned out that the Mohave County prosecutor's office wasn't the only one to leak the news of Jeffs's indictment. On his own, Sheriff David Doran had gone to the YFZ Ranch at 4:45 on the afternoon of June 10 to meet with Merril Jessop. He thought there was a possibility that Warren was there, and he told the bishop about the grand jury's decision, requesting that the prophet surrender peacefully. Merril shrugged and again lied that he had no idea where Warren was—hadn't seen him for months. Jeffs, meanwhile, was lurking nearby behind the walls of R-17, monitoring the situation and waiting for Jessop to finish hustling the sheriff and report back. So Doran had unwittingly beaten Mohave County in leaking the information, and not to the press, but straight to the people we most wanted to stay in the dark.

When Jessop delivered the news of the indictment, the prophet panicked. I have seen this kind of reaction numerous times, when people learn that charges have been filed against them but have no idea of the details. Their thoughts go to their darkest secrets. If Warren followed this pattern, his thoughts would have been about a life of fraud, ritualistic sexual abuse of little girls, using young boys as slave labor, raping children of both sexes, robbing men of their possessions, and reassigning wives.

Who had sold him out? Was it his brother Leroy, whom he had disgraced, misused, and expelled? My clients had told me that Leroy had witnessed Warren's sexual assaults back at the academy but may not have participated. Had Leroy gone to the government as revenge for being thrown out of the church?

Or perhaps “Mother Mary” had finally turned traitor. The sister of Warren's “bitter enemy,” apostate Dan Fischer, and a registered nurse, Mary had tended Uncle Rulon, her husband, around the clock during the last months of his life. She had seen the fear in Rulon's eyes as he realized he was about to die. Warren would tell the faithful that “Father's” last words were, “Oh, my God.”

Mary knew differently. I interviewed one of the medical staff who was present and another of Rulon's wives, and they both confirmed that in his last moment, Rulon actually had looked into the eyes of his maniacal son and said, “Oh my God—what have I done?” Warren had decided to take Mary, his stepmother, as one of his first brides after the death of the old man. She appeared to be so disoriented by what was unfolding around her that she stood up and proclaimed Warren to be the dead prophet's choice for the job. Still, he did not trust her, because she knew too much. Whenever Warren felt his enemies might be closing in, Mother Mary would be moved to a new secret location to keep her in the shadows.

Leroy and Mother Mary were the goblins he feared most, but the irrational Warren Jeffs had been lashing out in all directions. He was certain that traitors existed even among his closest friends, so everyone was on thin ice. His most stalwart goon, Willie Jessop, was pointedly asked if he was “riding both sides of the fence.” Moneyman David Allred was under suspicion for making business deals without the prophet's approval. God warned Warren that some of his wives were falling away, and his own children were told to straighten up or be dispatched to “where the disobedient people are.” He was ready to kick out anybody.

For the next three days, the YFZ Ranch was in a frenzy. Instead of building, they were destroying potential evidence. Letters, financial records, family photo albums, and computer disks were trashed. According to the Priesthood Record Warren's brother Lyle provided him with some details of the grand jury episode—his version of the episode, that is. Lyle said that the attorney general of Utah, Mark Shurtleff, had swooped down on Candi Shapley in Salt Lake City, “confronted her, handcuffed her, and carted her off to the airport.” Lyle reported that the main question the grand jury asked was, “Did Warren Jeffs perform this marriage ceremony, and she said, Yes.”

It was all an ambitious lie, because Lyle had no knowledge of how we had dealt so gently with Candi, nor did he know what was said within the grand jury room. Shurtleff had never seen or spoken with her. Lyle made up the tale to please his brother.

It was up to Warren to explain to the anxious temple workers that danger was knocking at the gates. He had them gather for a circle prayer that was of such significance that even Uncle Fred was invited to participate from beyond the grave. But Warren chickened out at the last minute; before he was to speak, he smiled at Merril Jessop and whispered, “God wants us to leave right now.”

With that, the paranoid prophet grabbed Naomi, his first counselor Wendell Nielsen, and his brother and driver Isaac, and they all took off for Austin, Texas, and beyond that, to points unknown. His special hand-chosen temple workers were left in his dust, bewildered and abandoned.