Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey (2022) s01e02 Episode Script

1 My husband, who I was sealed to for time and all eternity, was dead.
I was sad that he had died, but also kind of relieved that I didn't have to be violated anymore.
And, at the same time, scared of what would happen to us.
All of his young wives.
And then, soon after, Warren Jeffs became the Prophet.
He called us all together and said, "Last night, seven of you women married me.
" "Would you seven please stand up?" Sure enough, on both sides of me, seven of my sister wives stood up.
And he said, "This is the next step for all of you.
" And then, over the next couple weeks, every single morning, you'd see Warren walk in, and more of my sister wives were suddenly walking behind him like ducks in a row, smiling because they were married to him the night before.
Warren started marrying his own mothers after Rulon died.
That was really messed up.
That was hard for people like me to swallow and A lot of people had a problem with that.
I mean, who marries your mom? We went to a Monday morning meeting, and Warren was there with his father's wives.
And he says, "Look what the Lord has blessed me with.
" And the whole mannerism and how he did it just sent a chill down my spine.
And I went to my husband about it.
I said, "Something's wrong.
" And he says, "Nothing our Prophet does is wrong.
" I was born for the road ♪ Only after a storm ♪ Can you feel the sun ♪ Ooh, I wanna feel More ♪ Ecstasy In the shadow of ecstasy ♪ In the shadow of ecstasy ♪ Ooh, I wanna feel More ♪ Uncle Warren's soldiers Marching us to war ♪ With the cross of Jesus Going on before ♪ Christ our loyal master Leads against the foe ♪ When Warren took control, ninety-nine percent of the people were going along with him.
There's very few that weren't.
We were all focused on Warren's word.
Whatever the Lord commands through His Prophet is right, even if it seems wrong to our traditions.
What was he going to say next? What was the Lord gonna tell us next? We believed that Warren was God on Earth and his words were that of God.
Your sacrifice will be what the Lord tells you to do through Fear drove the compliance.
The fear of getting left out, the fear of not being good enough, and the fear of being that one lone person that took a different course than everybody else.
It was a great driving force for the Warren Jeffs agenda.
And, after Warren became the Prophet at the end of 2002, that was the beginning of everyone becoming aware.
There were some things coming down.
Things started changing.
It was getting so strict and so straight-laced and so boring.
His motto was, "Work hard for the privilege of working harder.
" Fun became a sin word.
Quit using the word.
There was no zoo, there was no there was no more plays.
You couldn't have any videos.
Big one for me was, no guns.
You gotta turn in all your guns.
A lot of laws and rules were pretty much directed towards the women.
Before Warren, women dressed any way we wanted to dress as long as we were covered.
And then Warren started restricting the clothing, what you wore.
We were told, "Get rid of all your denim," and then after that, it was, "Get rid of all of your prints.
" And everybody had to look alike.
And then it was no color red.
I think one of the most sudden ones was like, the red.
For some reason, that was just a little bit shocking.
One day, Warren gets up and says, "Be done wearing red.
" Then the long underwear.
Clear to the wrist and to the bottom of your feet.
In other words, you are completely covered.
Oh, and hair.
Hair would take hours, but it was just something you did have to do.
It was out of the question to not have your hair immaculate and fit into the protocol.
No matter what shape your face may be, with these few illustrations, we'll explain to you how to create the perfect oval.
I mean, like, every hair in place.
We had to learn how to French braid our hair with four and five-strand braiding, ribbon braiding, plating, you know.
Underhand fish braids.
Warren decided all of that.
And we listened to Warren because we thought it was for our salvation.
And what is life for but to have salvation on the other side? I wasn't scared of death, I was scared of disobeying the Prophet.
Think about what I said because I would've rather died than disobey.
Because she truly believed that by obeying, then she would have life eternal even if she died in the process.
When I first started looking into the FLDS, I was a private investigator.
I was a bounty hunter.
Um, and uh I worked all kinds of criminal civil cases.
At the time, my knowledge of the FLDS was just about nonexistent.
I just knew that there were polygamists around.
And then, around 2004, I was looking through the morning paper and something caught my attention.
Warren Jeffs was kicking young boys out of the FLDS literally leaving them homeless.
You know, they were just trying to survive on the streets.
Hundreds of boys, aged 13 and above, have fled or been expelled from this society and at the demand of its fanatical prophet, Warren Jeffs.
When you're marrying all the young girls to older men, you have a surplus of boys, which had to be gotten rid of.
I couldn't believe that one man, one so-called "prophet," would have all this power.
And so I started digging into it, seeing what was going on.
Warren's house was right here.
I don't know if you can see that chimney, but it says "pray and obey" on it.
Without a doubt, Short Creek was the most lawless town in America.
The whole city was run by the FLDS.
They had their own fire department.
They had their own search and rescue.
All the police were picked and approved and appointed by Warren Jeffs, and they would do exactly what they were told.
And a lot of Warren's power came through the fact that he controlled all the property in Short Creek because nobody owned their own homes.
They were all owned by the church.
So Warren could kick people out of their homes and move somebody else in.
He could do anything he wanted and get away with it.
And he did.
Warren and I never agreed on anything.
I disliked his abusing his position.
I couldn't see how God could place any confidence in him.
And so, I just had to bite my tongue and pull back.
This is called a, uh Springfield.
This is a patent on a new bullet design that I made for practicing.
Looking back now, I think that because my dad had an education outside of the FLDS This is a camp stove I designed for backpackers.
and had more life experience than Warren, he was quite a threat to him.
Warren basically said that I was a loose cannon that they couldn't control, so they had to come up with something to do with me.
That was the start of the family being torn apart.
My dad was used as an example.
He was stripped of status in the church.
He was stripped of his family.
My mom and my siblings that were still there were removed from my dad's home at the hand of Warren.
There was nothing we could do to stop it.
What happened was, one day, myself, my siblings, and my mother were taken away, and we were driven to Fred Jessop's home.
He was the bishop of the community and very loyal to Warren.
Fred had over 20 wives and Mother had been told that she was gonna marry Fred.
She was going to be placed as his wife.
I was 13 and now I was the child of Fred Jessop.
He was my father.
I wasn't allowed to have any contact with my dad from that day forward.
I didn't know until after it was all done.
My world just collapsed.
I don't know how Myrna was able to hold on to me.
My dad was demoted to worse than dirt within the community and treated as such, but he still held on to the convictions of his faith.
He believed in his heart and his soul in the doctrine of the FLDS, and he was still trying to do everything he could to get back into the good graces of the priesthood.
Dear Father in heaven, in gratitude It was an interesting situation.
He's a very bright man, and he ran a very successful business called Hydrapak.
An engineering firm that made parts, including parts for the space shuttle.
Because Lloyd was so faithful in trying to stay in the church, he ended up losing his business to the church because they demanded that he turn it over.
Essentially, under Warren Jeffs, the FLDS would take over the businesses owned by its members, as well as the profits that those businesses generated.
That was a lot of money.
So, Warren had enormous resources through all the companies which the church controlled.
They have huge agricultural operations, manufacturing operations, construction of multi-level commercial buildings.
And a lot of the customers for these FLDS businesses are known names.
Walmart, Amazon.
And what gives the FLDS companies the edge is the fact that they have unlimited free labor through all the boys in the community.
If they were good workers, Warren Jeffs, he'd keep them around because, if you're a contractor, labor is half your costs.
That's their edge over legitimate businesses.
And so, the church businesses literally bring in millions of dollars a month.
I consider the FLDS the number one domestic human traffickers in the country.
They have boys being transported on work crews all over the United States.
And it's the same with girls too.
Young girls were like a commodity, owned by the church.
When I was growing up, there was a lot of people that saw me as a troublesome child because I was more or less into boys than anything.
And I enjoyed flaunting what I had when I had it.
Did you get any tattoos when you were still in? Nope.
They make you live in fear all the time.
When I was 12, maybe 13, I had a very large crush.
Joe Rohbock.
We google-eyed each other at church, which was a big no-no, but I just thought he was the cutest thing.
I knew first grade, right when I went to school, it was a bad thing to talk to the girls.
I was not supposed to talk to them.
Warren said, "If you cloud the channels of revelation from God to the Prophet, He won't be able to tell you who you're supposed to marry when the time's right.
" So, at some point, it kind of started making sense, but I still liked girls.
So, we were building my dad's house, there was a cute girl.
I don't know how long it was, but it probably took me a couple months before I had the guts to write a note and hand it to her.
This one Sunday, I was walking down the road and this truck pulled up.
It was Joe.
My heart is just it's going a million miles an hour.
And he handed a letter out to me.
It said, "You gotta stop looking at me during church.
" "My father found out and he's very upset.
" And then, in all caps, he wrote, "I love you.
" "Call me.
Joe.
" We weren't allowed cell phones, but we did have a landline.
So, I snuck the phone, went to my room.
We started talking almost every night.
We talked about everything.
What we would do if we ever got married, what we would name our kids.
We might not have even talked.
We just sat and listened to each other breathe.
There were times he would stay on the line until I fell asleep.
Very romantic, I'm not gonna lie.
I remember thinking, "I hope God'll forgive me.
" "Because I really like this girl.
She's really cute and she likes me, and it feels so cool and exhilarating.
" I don't want to talk ♪ About the things we've gone through ♪ My brother had this secret Walkman, and I had an ABBA CD.
So, I took it.
I was in your arms ♪ Thinking I belonged ♪ Every day after school, I hiked this hill to the very top, and walked over to where I was in front of Joe's house and I sat there for hours listening to "naughty" music, thinking about me and Joe.
The winner takes it all ♪ The winner takes it all ♪ So the ♪ I heard of people asking for people's hands and they were married.
They did get married to each other.
That hope kept driving us.
I prayed.
I prayed and prayed and prayed that God would tell Warren that we were supposed to be together.
The flags of our country are carried by Uncle Fred, a great pioneer of our community.
And then one day, I was asked to go into Uncle Fred's office, and he told me that the Prophet has called and my name was brought up and I was to be married.
But not to Joe.
I was 14.
I'm gonna take a break right here.
'Cause, uh Yeah.
I'm gonna cry so I'm taking a break.
There had historically been underage marriages in the FLDS, but they took off on steroids under Warren Jeffs.
The pattern seemed to be that with a girl that was a little bit independent, the idea was to get her married young and pregnant, and then she would be locked in.
I will never forget when my mother called me and said, "Becky, your sister Elissa is gonna get married.
" And I was like, "What?" How can that be? She's only 14.
For what reason would a 14-year-old girl be told to marry her first cousin no less? My cousin Allen Steed, I had grown up sort of knowing him, and I just grew a really intense dislike for him.
He had been mean and rude to me my entire life.
There was this feeling that I would get when I was around him.
My skin would crawl and I didn't feel safe in his presence.
And because of my stubborn side, I did a few things that most girls of the FLDS don't do and that is to speak against this impending marriage.
I was quite defiant, and I just, "I will not do this.
I cannot do this.
" "I cannot marry him.
" When I finally had the opportunity to sit across from Warren, it felt like for me that I was fighting for my very life.
I was crying and scared.
I was intimidated to be sitting in his presence.
And it was compounded with him asking me, "Are you questioning the Prophet's will?" "Do you believe that you know better than the Prophet?" He was immovable.
My pleas and my requests were ignored.
Dude.
You got your head stuck, didn't you? Why do you do this? Hold on, Betsy.
There you go.
Okay.
I didn't know until a couple days before I was married who I was marrying.
It was Haven, who is my second cousin.
I called Joe, and he was in Salt Lake at the time, and asked him if he would just come get me.
Let's leave together.
Let's Let's go find a life together and he says, "I'll be there.
" He says, "I'll I'll leave right now and I'll come pick you up.
" So I went in my room and I was gonna start packing my stuff.
About ten minutes later, he called me, and he says, "I can't do it.
" He says, "My heart took the priesthood and I have to remain here.
" I mean, it's really easy to see now but not then.
All we had was the life after the celestial kingdom.
If you didn't get there, you were done.
Every morning, Warren had a devotional morning class.
It started in first grade, so, six years old, I was listening to this stuff.
Every morning for an hour, it was drilled into us.
My eternal life was the most important thing to me If you didn't obtain absolute salvation, ultimately you would die and your very cells would just disperse into nothing.
Truly, I wanted to be considered worthy of salvation, but I just did not feel ready to get married.
I was in my mother's room with my mother and my sister, going to be married the next day, sitting there as they so lovingly crafted a handmade wedding dress for me.
But there was no joy, there was no excitement.
There was nothing but absolute devastation.
At the time also there was two other girls that were also told that they were going to be married, and one of them was Ruby.
She also didn't want to get married, and so, we bonded.
She was my crutch, I was hers.
I remember her hanging onto her mom just crying.
"Mom, please don't let me do this.
" "Please don't make me do this.
" On the day of the marriage ceremony, I was told that Ruby and I, we needed to load up into vehicles because it was time.
Honestly, I had no idea where we were going.
Um, we weren't told anything.
Felt like we were driving forever.
The FLDS, they know the law.
So, they were going to Caliente to do these weddings because it was on ground in Nevada where, if that's where the wedding happened, the law wouldn't be so extreme on the man for marrying underage girls and they could get away with it.
Ruby and I, we'd been told there would be absolutely no documentation.
No photographs or anything of that nature.
No marriage license.
There would be no proof the marriage actually happened.
I remember pulling up to this building and seeing the word "motel.
" And it felt ominous to me.
It almost looked abandoned.
You know, I tried putting on a brave face for, you know, everybody but, deep down, I was, I was a scared little girl.
There was a moment when we were getting ready, just Ruby and I, and she said, "You know, we could just run.
" I remember telling Elissa, you know, "Hey, there's a back door.
It's never too late.
" But we didn't dare.
She showed me the tiara that she was gonna put on her head.
I was trying to make her feel as beautiful as possible, you know.
They brought us into a hotel room.
It was just a hotel room that had been cleared out, and inside the room was Warren, as well as Allen's parents and my own mother.
I just started to sob and tears streaming down my face.
The front of my wedding dress just got more and more soaked.
And Warren was performing the marriages.
When you're sealed in this holy law, you give yourself unto God by giving yourself unto your husband.
You cannot escape the responsibility the Lord has placed upon you.
There came this point where I needed to say, "I do.
" And I was crying so hard and so distraught, I just could not formulate those words on my mouth.
Warren finally had my mother stand up next to me, and my mother just squeezed my hand, and I could feel all of the desperation in her being communicated through that.
And that was that last moment when I realized it wasn't just about me.
Not only was my salvation hanging in the balance, my mother's was as well.
I just finally said, "Okay.
" The best marriage counseling is, keep sweet, no matter what.
They came and said, "Haven and Ruby are next.
" We walk across the parking lot and walk in.
Whatever Warren said I just pretty much blanked it out.
I felt like I left my body, you know, saying, "I do.
" When I kissed Haven, I pictured Joe.
It is called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but to most people, the church's members are known simply as the polygamists of northern Arizona, and as Mike Watkiss tells us, there are now growing concerns for those children in this polygamist town.
Mike? When underage girls are allegedly dragged into these polygamist unions, well, there are powerful concerns about child abuse, statutory rape, even The FLDS consumed a great deal of my career because I don't like bullies.
I don't like tough guys who pick on people who can't fight back.
And Warren Jeffs is another bully who got himself a big platform and used God to justify it.
Because all of the marriages were arranged? Yeah, then you get married the same day.
I'm a cops-and-robbers reporter.
A lady down the street alleges Mr.
Jessop has a 16-year-old girl living here and is gonna make her his wife.
The mother's not very happy about this.
It's not true.
And in essence, this was really just a crime story.
A sex crime story.
Mike Watkiss, he is quite a character.
He would latch on to a story and just not let go of it.
I mean, when everybody else was ignoring it, Mike would show up, camera in hand.
Utah Constitution says polygamy is illegal, and I guess there's laws on the books in Arizona that say the same thing.
- Why don't people get arrested here? - You know, I'm I mean, we're in we believe in plural marriage.
So, for me, it was great, you know, for for what I was doing.
The more attention he could bring to it, the better.
Hi, is this the Jeffs residence? - This is.
- Is Mr.
Jeffs in? - He is.
- Can we - He says no comment.
- No comment? - No.
- I'd love to sit and talk to him about a variety of issues.
- Hi.
- They just called me and said, "There's a news crew on our property and we want them off.
" They want They want us off? I knew that, to sustain a polygamist community on the industrial level like down in Short Creek, you have to have almost like Stalinistic social architecture in place to make it work.
You need to have a flock of young women that the Prophet can dole out because the currency of the realm is a young bride.
And that's the monetary system.
That's the mortar that holds it together.
The man who can give the brides holds all the power because you don't go to heaven, sir, unless you get three wives, and I'm the only guy that can give them to you.
So, you know, it's a pretty ironclad lock they got on these people's psyche.
They can gussy it up with all kinds of theology, "God-ordained," you know, but where the rubber meets the road, it's men controlling women and their sexuality.
Warren, he really kept a pulse on me, and I didn't get away with anything, anything at all.
After Rulon Jeffs was dead, Warren said, "You need to pray that God will reveal to me who you belong to.
" I had already seen what married life was like with Rulon Jeffs.
If it was that horrible with him, what chance did any other of them have? The amount of pressure that was being put on my sister Rebecca by Warren to get remarried was very intense.
In our community, she was a very important person of influence, and she was used as an example of what a good priesthood woman should look like.
That meant perfect obedience.
As time went on, it became more and more apparent there was this plan that was starting to be put in place to break her.
To break her into submitting to marrying someone, someone of Warren's choice.
Warren called me in his office and said, "I'm giving you one week to be remarried.
" I begged him, "Please do not do this to me.
" And he said, "You know this is what God wants.
" And I said, "No, I do not" He pointed his finger at me and said, "I will break you.
" "You've had too much freedom for too long and I will train you to be a good wife.
" I felt like the world was caving in on me.
And I was so scared.
I could not imagine a scenario that I could realistically stomach.
And yet, at the same time, I believed that to leave was to seal your damnation.
This is something hard for people in mainstream society to understand.
Physically, somebody could probably figure out how to leave.
However, far more powerful than the physical restraints is the social and religious and mental restraints these folks have.
They've been born and raised in this group, they're not independent financially, and they're taught that the outside world is evil, so, they're afraid to leave.
And they know that if they're leaving, they're gonna be leaving their families, and that is really hard to do.
I remember sitting on my bed thinking, "I could leave.
" And in that moment, it was like this instant lift of, like, gasping for air.
And, you know, this God that can read your thoughts, I even covered my mouth, thinking, "I just thought that.
" I thought, "No, no, no, I can't leave.
" And I thought, "But maybe I could.
" And so I thought, "Okay, if I leave, where am I gonna go?" I didn't know you can make a phone call and maybe get help from a women's shelter.
I had no understanding that there was any support anywhere.
I called my brother, who had been kicked out.
He said, "Come here to Coos Bay, Oregon.
" "I can help you get there.
" So, I started making plans.
The way that the security worked on the property, Sunday mornings had the lightest security.
And so, Sunday morning was the day.
I'd written a letter to my mother and my sisters and I left it on my bed, and I walked right past some of my sister wives thinking that was the last time that I would be in that place.
Knowing I was on camera, knowing I couldn't just bolt and run, my heart was pounding in my head.
I got to the gate and I just, in my dress and everything, shimmied up the gate, pulled my dress over the top, and then shimmied back down and took off.
For her to make the decision to do the unthinkable, as a woman of our culture, to walk away, to leave, was an act of great courage and survival on her part.
But for those of us that were left behind, my mother, myself, and my younger sisters in particular, those of us that were super close to her, it was really painful.
I had lost my best friend.
I thought about taking Elissa, but I didn't even know how I was going to take care of myself.
It was really hard.
I was working in a restaurant, figuring out how to have a new life in the outside world.
It just felt like constantly being in a foreign land.
The only thing that was the same was my violin and my sewing machine and I had a lot of shame about that.
Here I am, 26, and I have no idea how to use makeup.
I have no idea what to wear.
I have no idea about the social references that people make, like Saturday Night Live and Friends.
I always felt like this constant dimwit.
And, honestly, it was incredibly lonely.
Five, six, seven, eight.
Those still in the FLDS, they were not allowed to talk to me.
The term they give you is an apostate.
You are an apostate.
I missed my family especially Elissa.
I knew that she was in a very bad situation, helpless, and stuck, and able to do nothing to get herself out of it.
It haunted me.
I was feeling so incredibly desperate.
Nothing had really prepared me for what happens after marriage.
Even though he was my husband, I was so repulsed by Allen.
So I told him, "I don't want you to touch me, I don't want to touch you.
" "I don't wanna sleep in the same bed as you," and I was very vocal with my resistance.
And then there was this pivotal night where he told me that this was his right and this was my duty, and he proceeded to have sex with me.
The worst part for me was, I didn't know what was happening to me.
These things that hurt and were scary and terrifying, and I didn't know what was going on.
I didn't have these words like "rape" and "violated.
" I Those weren't even a part of our vocabulary within the FLDS.
And so I just cried and asked him to please stop.
After it was all over and Allen had rolled over and gone to sleep, I pulled myself up out of bed and just went to the bathroom and cried and cried and sat there trying to trying to find God's will in all of it.
So I went to see Warren, and I proceeded to tell him what was happening in the bedroom because I truly believed in that moment that if he realized what was going on, he would validate that it wasn't supposed to.
He didn't do that.
And instead, he told me that I needed to go home and submit myself mind, body, and soul to my husband.
That he was my pathway to heaven.
It It was the biggest feeling of betrayal.
We had to consummate the marriage.
Me and Haven.
I didn't want to.
That was a pretty rough night.
I don't remember how I got my brother's number, but I called him.
He had left the church.
Told him that I was married and I I couldn't be there anymore.
"Please come get me.
" And he came and picked me up.
And I moved in with his family.
Everyone was in an uproar with gossip about why she had left, and what would happen because she'd left.
And there was fear and concern she was going to tell authorities that she was a child bride, that she had been forced into a marriage at a very young age.
I was I was in Salt Lake working, so I didn't hear all the rumor mill at the Creek, and then Warren called me and he said, "How quick can you get to the Creek?" "I have a special mission for you.
" "I need you to go find Ruby and I need you to bring her back.
" "Whatever it takes.
" You could tell they were scared crapless.
Warren had an urgency I'd never seen.
Why? Because Ruby was barely 15.
One day, my brother and his wife were going down to Quail Lake to swim and they asked me if I wanted to go.
I agreed.
Wearing this skimpy swimsuit that I was never allowed to wear.
I looked up.
There was probably a 30-foot cliff, and there was this gentleman standing at the edge of the cliff.
I just kept thinking, "Who is that? He looks so familiar.
" Then I finally realized it was actually Joe.
I found Ruby at Quail Lake.
I was like, "Hey, we can make this work.
" She's like, "No way.
I never want to be there again.
" So I called Warren, and I'm like, "Yeah, she ain't coming back.
" And he said, "Well, tell her if she comes back, she can marry you.
" So, in my brain, I'm thinking, "I'm gonna marry this girl.
" But in the back of my brain, I'm like, "He's a lying son of a bitch.
" "He ain't ever gonna marry me to her.
" Joe told me, "Warren said if I was to come and get you and bring you back that we would we could get married.
" And I thought about it.
I just, you know, "Yeah, absolutely.
" So, I agreed.
I went back with him.
Didn't see him after that for a long time.
I knew.
I mean, my gut, like I was sick to my stomach.
I knew it was wrong.
I'll never forgive myself.
Honestly.
I had betrayed her.
After he took me back, he was kicked out.
He was told never to come back.
And I was told that I needed to go back and be with my priested head and to submit myself to the will of the Lord.
And I believed it.
'Cause I needed a haircut.
That's how I went back.
Haircut? Yeah, we're giving her a new haircut.
I had six kids by the time I was 24 years old.
You want an orange? And none of those children were my choice.
But I love every single one of them.
Deep down, I think I'm still hurt and angry at my mom.
You're good, dude.
How could she let her 14-year-old girl get married? Grayson.
I have teenagers of my own and I can't even imagine letting one of them get married at 14.
I saw a sort of a human rights crisis in our own state, and law enforcement wasn't doing anything.
Politicians weren't doing anything.
It got to a point where I thought, "If the cops aren't gonna do anything, then we're going to go find the victims and document the crimes ourselves.
" - You were 16 when you got pregnant? - Uh-huh.
By Arizona law, that's a crime.
You know that? - I didn't know at the time.
- You know now? I know now.
Now that I left, I know.
Ruth Stubbs was this young woman.
At the age of 16, she was given to a 32-year-old certified police officer, Rodney Holm, a faithful follower of Warren Jeffs, who, at the time, had two wives.
It was the perfect case for those of us who were waiting for something to to to prove what we knew was there.
My name is Mike Watkiss.
I'm a reporter.
- I I know who you are, sir.
- Do ya? Apparently, you're married to three women and you have a teenage bride and perhaps impregnated this young woman.
That would be a statutory rape.
You're a law officer apparently violating the law.
Put that up on the air and suddenly, people seem interested in prosecuting Rod Holm.
Thank you, gentlemen.
They took him to court in St.
George, Utah Leave the girls that are underage alone.
- Don't marry underage girls.
- and uh, found him guilty.
The judge gave him a slap on the wrist, but the guilty verdict was important.
Why? Because Warren Jeffs, he realized that if they can go after a cop and get a conviction for an underage marriage that he would basically put together, it's only a matter of time before they come after him.
I wanna make absolutely clear, we're gonna go after the criminals and we're gonna go after the child abusers.
And that's a message which I've given personally to the citizens of Colorado City.
It's happening, and it's happening in a very significant way.
Thank you very much.
That changed everything because it sent Warren on the run.
He knew he was in trouble 'cause the heat was increasing here in Arizona and in Utah, and he needed safe places to go.
So he went down to Texas and bought himself a huge tract of land.
He wanted to go and hide from the outside world.
But, looking back now, running to Texas proved to be his worst career move of all time.