Polygamist leader apologizes to LDS Church
 
By Brent Hunsaker
ABC 4
Winston and a wife

According to Winston Blackmore, who has a relatively small but growing group of disaffected members of the FLDS Church, Warren Jeffs is a rather un-prophetic prophet.

He remembers a string of predictions about the end of the world that did not come true. Blackmore says, "April of '99, the world was going to come to an end again. By mid-99 it was going to come to an end. By the fall of '99 it was going to come to an end. And surely, by the millennial change the world was going to come to an end."

Blackmore says Warren Jeffs is controlling. "He was recording people's conversations. He was so interested in their private life and intruding in their private life that he wanted to know every detail."

Blackmore says Jeffs tears apart families. "It was so shocking, and so disgusting and so repulsive."

With views like that, it's little wonder that as Warren took control of the more than 8,000 FLDS polygamists, Winston was out.

Winston now is the informal leader of a group of people who also found Warren's ways too extreme. Roughly half of the FLDS colony in Bountiful, British Columbia, Canada now aligns itself with Winston Blackmore.

So wheres Warren Jeffs? Winston Blackmore says he's been in Canada hidden by those who remain loyal to him. "They have late meetings and early meetings and we're sure that when they do that, they're protecting the fact that he has come into the community."

He's confident there will eventually be someone who will turn in Jeffs to authorities. It just wont be him. "Catching that guy isn't going to stop what he's doing. Not only that, it would just intensify our problem. Now, you catch him and that will be good."

Their "problem" is that there's already a target on Winston Blackmore put there by the "Warrenites". He can ill afford to be seen as a Judas by turning in Warren.

On another subject, Blackmore says his little band hasn't yet come up with a name to call themselves. So, with apologies to leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who take objection to the term, for now they just call themselves "fundamental Mormons".

Blackmore said, "I want to say this so sincerely, I have no interest in embarrassing the LDS Church. As a longtime bishop of our people, I am embarrassed for us that we have not done as good a job as they have in putting the message (out), taking care of families and doing all the good missionary work that they do. So, I apologize [to the] LDS Church that we believe in the fundamentals of our faith and I don't know what else to call us."

brent@abc4.tv
 
ABC4.com
Originally broadcast May 18, 2006
 
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