| Writer Rose Beecham Goes Undercover in a Polygamous Cult | |||||
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By Jane Chen AfterEllen | |||||
The FLDS is the largest and most notorious of the Mormon polygamist cults. Although polygamy was banned from mainstream Mormon religion in 1890, cults such as the FLDS continue to thrive on American soil. Warren Jeffs, the leader of the FLDS, was a fugitive wanted by the FBI, and was taken into custody on August 28, 2006. In Grave Silence, which won a 2006 Golden Crown Literary Society award, Beecham introduces us to Montezuma County Sheriff's detective Jude Devine, a former FBI agent who is investigating the grisly murder of a local teenage girl. The case takes her deep into the secretive world of a polygamist cult. Complicating matters is her burgeoning attraction to the local forensic pathologist, Dr. Mercy Westmoreland. For the first time in print, Rose Beecham spoke with AfterEllen.com about her experience infiltrating the FLDS and how it influenced the writing of Grave Silence. AfterEllen.com: What made you originally interested in the subject of Mormon fundamentalism? Rose Beecham: I blame it on the Fates. In 1999, I was on a road and hiking trip in Utah with a friend. We had taken a couple of wrong turns and were hopelessly lost and we casually said to each other, "Oh well. Let's just go where this road takes us and find a place to stay." We ended up in [the] Hilldale-Colorado City [area], and it was like we'd beamed onto the set of Shy People meets The Stepford Wives. The women were all in pioneer clothes and had the same really strange hairdo, and the men obviously wanted to blow our heads off. The moment we hit town we were followed everywhere, and after about 10 minutes our car was stopped and we were politely told to leave. The description I give in Grave Silence of Jude Devine and Tulley arriving in town was based on the journal notes I wrote of this experience. AE: Which came first, the idea for Grave Silence or your decision to go undercover? RB: The idea for Grave Silence came the day I first saw the twin towns of Hilldale [and] Colorado City. I knew I had the makings of a book. It became obvious very early on in my research that I would need to find a way to get inside that community if I wanted to make my novel authentic. AE: How did you manage to infiltrate a group that is notoriously secretive? RB: It took a long time. I made a series of useful contacts through Mormon friends, one of whom had connections to "lost boys" [teenage boys who had been expelled from their fundamentalist Mormon communities]. Eventually I began communicating with a woman who'd escaped the FLDS some years ago. This woman arranged for me to meet some relatives of hers to whom I was introduced as the widow of a Mormon man I'd met when he was a missionary, and who later decided to live the principle, marrying two other women. My story was that I had two teenage daughters I photographed two beautiful young cousins for this and the Heavenly Father had revealed to me that I needed to seek a husband who lived the principle more zealously, so that my daughters would have the advantage of marrying into a more traditional polygamist community. Members of the family I'd been introduced to agreed to help me in this aim and drove me to the home of relatives of theirs in Hilldale-Colorado City. Before I did this, I spent about 18 months preparing myself, helped by various contacts I'd made. I learned Mormon vernacular, which is quite unique, customs, prayers, acceptable female demeanor and dress habits. I grew my hair long and dyed it, put on weight and accustomed myself to the clothing FLDS women wear. AE: How long were you undercover? RB: Over two weeks. It felt like an eternity. AE: What did you spend your time doing in the time that you were with them? RB: I became a participant in the household. I was taken under the wing of the head wife and carried out household chores and child-minding. It was a chaotic and depressing environment: numerous sister-wives and children, low standard of living not remotely like we see on HBO's Big Love and a high level of psychological and physical abuse, at least by our standards. They simply see it as normality. I volunteered to run errands with various sister-wives so that I could explore the town. I read scriptures and presented myself as shy and quiet; that way I could contain my exposure somewhat. I asked questions very carefully so that it seemed I was just trying to learn what would be expected of me in this new environment once I settled with my daughters. I was inspected and "interviewed" by a couple of powerful men in the community, and then introduced to several men willing to become my husband. Usually a husband is simply assigned, but in my case they made quite a thing out of how I would have a choice. It was really my daughters they were interested in, and these prospective husbands all indicated that they would also marry my oldest daughter if the prophet agreed. It is not unusual for a woman and her daughter or sister to have the same husband or for a man to "marry" his stepdaughter, half-sister, cousin or even his own daughter. I think I was given kid-glove treatment because they didn't want to scare me off and lose two young marriageable girls. Young girls are the sought-after commodity in that community and are often sealed to men 4060 years older than they are. AE: As an outsider, how were you treated? RB: The people I stayed with were hospitable and tried to make a good impression. The FLDS community does not welcome outsiders; they are extremely secretive and paranoid they have a great deal to hide. But I was brought in by people who were trusted, and it would have curried favor with the prophet had my host family been able to bring two new young girls into the community. AE: Were you or the people who helped you ever in direct danger? RB: If my cover had been blown I am quite certain I would have ended up decomposing in a shallow grave somewhere on the Arizona strip, and that is not an exaggeration. I went in without a cell phone or anything that would identify me. I used a false name and took with me false identification documents. Where I live, these circulate because there is a market for them among Mexican illegal immigrants. I was terrified all the time and paranoid that I would somehow give myself away. The last thing my trainer told me before I set off was: "Remember, you know nothing but scripture." Reminding myself of that helped me keep my ideas and opinions to myself. Until very recently, I said nothing at all about how I researched this book, and I still cannot disclose specific details that could identify the people who helped me, because there would be direct consequences for them. Lately, I have felt I can be more open about what I did because the FLDS "prophet" read: dictator Warren Jeffs, is now a fugitive on the FBI Ten Most Wanted list, and there is general confusion and disarray in the community. [ed. note: Jeffs was recently captured.] I think they have more to worry about than [they did during] my infiltration some time ago. Silence and complicity have enabled this Taliban-like community to flourish on American soil, and I will not be a party to that. AE: What were some of the things you witnessed that made their way into Grave Silence? RB: Virtually every detail of life among the FLDS presented in Grave Silence is as I witnessed it. Actually, I understated many elements because I thought readers would find it all so hard to believe. Everything is true, from the little wall plaques emblazoned with "Keep Sweet, No Matter What," to the hoarding of weapons, to the instructions about food stamps on the walls of the supermarket and the shelves of lubricant gels, to the prayers by the head of the house, the reassignment of wives and children as punishment to keep men in line, the lack of education and contact with the outside world, and the systematic brutality and oppression. The conventional wisdom in this community is that you can stop babies and small children from crying if you hit them hard enough or hold their heads under water and they like their children to be silent. I saw children of 18 months and under punished this way routinely. Many of the young children I encountered seemed to be deeply traumatized, some almost catatonic, and there was a desperation about most of the women I encountered, a kind of numb unhappiness punctuated by rages these usually directed at children or junior sister-wives. The roundup and murder of every dog in the town was a real event. The banishment of young boys is true, and Uncle Warren's Sons of Helaman aka the God Squad are real these thugs are the prophet's enforcers who go around terrorizing people. The approach to childbirth is exactly as I wrote it; they don't use doctors. I was involved in delivering a baby in filthy conditions the woman was ill and should have been in the hospital. Had I reacted to any of this with the shock and horror I felt, I would have given myself away. I think the memory that haunts me most to this day is that of the baby graveyard those pathetic little earth mounds in a desert wasteland. I don't think there is any question that most of the children in these graves, many unmarked, were murdered by their parents. I included the graveyard among Detective Jude Devine's most upsetting recollections in Grave Silence. AE: Has there been any backlash from the FLDS or Mormon church since the publication of Grave Silence? RB: Not as far as I am aware. So far the book has flown under their radar, thanks, I suspect, to the fact that it is a lesbian detective story. I'm sure, as time goes by, I will see the usual "reviews" in Amazon insisting it's all inaccurate which I guess would mean the FBI have it wrong, too. The FLDS is finally getting some media attention. Anderson Cooper did a couple of programs on them very recently and a new documentary film, Banking on Heaven, has been released. AE: Has anyone from Hilldale-Colorado City tried to follow up with you since you left? RB: Yes, the people I stayed with contacted the family who brought me into Colorado City, wondering when I would be arriving with my daughters. I had sent word to these folks that I had decided not to proceed after all, God having shown me another path. AE: What comes next in the Jude Devine series, and when will it come out? RB: Sleep of Reason will be published in September 2006. This mystery, about the murder of a toddler, also kicks off the story of a lesbian domestic terrorist. This plot will be concluded in Place of Exile, the third Jude Devine mystery, due out in 2007. | |||||
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AfterEllen.com Originally published September 13, 2006 | |||||
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