12-year-old girls delivered for marriage
 Parents transported girls from Bountiful, smuggled them into U.S. to wed prophet Warren Jeffs
 
By Daphne Bramham
Vancouver Sun
 
Parents and religious leaders from Bountiful, B.C., bundled up and transported nine underage girls -two who were only 12 years old -to the United States to marry older men, including one who was an accused pedophile and fugitive.

The information is contained in an affidavit filed Thursday in B.C. Supreme Court.

The document says two 17-year-old girls were taken to the United States in 2004 by James Oler, Bountiful's bishop of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, to marry two Americans.

Oler was listed as a witness to the March 2 marriages, as well as to another involving a 16-year-old Bountiful girl who gave birth to a child in Canada when she was 17.

According to the court documents, there was another marriage that day -of a 13-yearold Bountiful girl who had been taken to the U.S. by her parents. She was married to FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs, who at the time was a fugitive trying to escape prosecution on child sex charges.

Lawyers for the B.C. Attorney-General's Ministry also say Oler was a witness when Jeffs presided over the marriage of a 16-year-old American girl to a Bountiful man the same day.

(In 2008, Oler was charged with one count of polygamy. That charge was stayed after a B.C. Supreme Court justice ruled it had been improperly laid.)

This new information is in addition to what was filed last week about two 12-year-olds who married Jeffs in 2005 when he was 50.

Chief Justice Robert Bauman will hear arguments today about whether to admit the information as part of the evidence in the constitutional reference case to determine the validity of Canada's polygamy law.

All of the information comes from diary dictations made by Jeffs that were seized in 2008 by Texas authorities after they raided the FLDS's Yearning for Zion ranch.

But the most shocking are the details of how two fathers participated in a 2005 scheme to sneak their own 12-year-old daughters to the United States to marry Jeffs - who was intent on increasing a harem that already included 57 wives.

The sordid musings in Jeffs' diaries reveal that MacRae and Spencer Blackmore -father and son -along with Spencer's wife, took the two girls to a hiding place in the U.S. and used untraceable cellphones in a plot to deliver the girls to Jeffs, who was "yearning" and intent upon "sealing" the girls to him.

They did it willingly in early December, just a few days after the prophet's 50th birthday, at a time when RCMP were investigating the residents of Bountiful on allegations of child abuse, sexual exploitation, trafficking of underage girls and women for the purposes of religious marriages and illegal immigration, and within days of the attorneys-general of B.C. and Utah agreeing to share more information about the FLDS.

Yet details of how three Canadian parents delivered the two 12-year-olds -a niece and grand-niece of former bishop Winston Blackmore -into Jeffs's hands didn't come to the attention of RCMP or the B.C. Attorney-General's Ministry until earlier this month.

Jeffs' dictated diaries, which are posted on the Internet, provide details of how the parents helped him gain possession of the 12-year-olds.

It started at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 25, when Jeffs phoned MacRae Blackmore. He is Winston's older brother, who decided to stick with the FLDS after Winston was excommunicated.

"He bore a strong testimony of me being the Prophet," Jeffs dictated. "And he wanted to stand with us. I then told him that he would be called to receive greater training and he must become a man who can keep the Lord's confidence and not always express his own opinions; and he needed to take on a heavenly hush and what I was about to say to him he had to keep quiet, even from his family.

"I told him his daughter ... would be called to the redemption of Zion mission [the Yearning for Zion ranch in Texas]. I told him that part of her call to the redemption of Zion mission would be to get married, which he accepted.

"I asked the Lord silently if I should name to him who she will be married to, and I simply said ... 'She will be sealed in the same place that your [other] daughter ... is sealed, namely me,' and he thrilled at that."

Jeffs then called MacRae's son, Spencer Blackmore. He also professed his faith in Jeffs, who then informed Spencer that he wanted his 12-year-old daughter as well.

"He supported it wholeheartedly. I told him that sometime within the next week or two I would send him to go get his daughter and perhaps others. Mack [MacRae] Blackmore told me his daughter is around 13 years old and ... [Spencer's daughter] is 12 years old ...

"I had been seeking for several days that the Lord would touch these men's hearts to receive this and to prepare the girls to receive this and have the gift and privilege to get close quickly."

In early December, Jeffs gave Spencer his instructions: Take the girls, his wife and MacRae Blackmore to a private home in Short Creek -formally known as Hildale, Utah, which straddles the border with Colorado City, Ariz.

"Keep the two girls in hiding there and [do] not let them out and about among the people."

Dictating as he was driven between Memphis and Cincinnati on Sunday, Dec. 11, Jeffs said: "The Lord revealed how to transport those two girls from Canada to R17 [code for one of Jeffs's hiding spots] and be protected, having John Wayman drive them away from Short Creek at midnight and then Spencer Blackmore drive his father, Mack Blackmore and Spencer's wife ... back to Canada ...

"Spencer Blackmore, when I talked to him was very willing to do exactly as directed." The following day, Jeffs left a message for Spencer Blackmore's wife.

"I told Spencer's wife that his daughter was on this mission to be married and that Spencer would tell her before he left Canada who his daughter was to be sealed to. I then told Spencer to go ahead and tell her if he feels like she can keep that confidence. And she will need to keep quiet for their sakes and her daughter's sake."

He also had another message for Spencer. He told him to "destroy the two tracphones, the prepay phones, before he crossed the Canadian border ... [and] be at R17 by the weekend, by Friday.

"He [Spencer] hasn't seen his family in many months. This will encourage them all. He seeks to be perfectly obedient."

Five days later on Friday, Dec. 16 the girls met Jeffs at about 5 p.m.

"They got acquainted with me," he said. "I told them they would be sealed to me and to be ready by 8 p.m."

He went on to say, "The Lord showed me that we still did not have a quorum of wives ready. I am yearning. He will forgive these ladies and work with them ..."

After presiding over two other marriages that he had arranged, Jeffs said, "I then called in these two young ladies with [three of his other wives] present. I explained to all that these girls were to be sealed to me to protect them ... and that I had their father's permission and the Lord's direction."

Jeffs's trusted lieutenant Wendell Nielsen performed the marriage ceremony.

"There was first sealed [MacRae's daughter] to Warren Steed Jeffs and then [Spencer's daughter] to Warren Steed Jeffs. We felt a powerful spirit of peace and more especially the second one, the younger one received that burning witness of burning peace."

Jeffs had some other business to attend to after the ceremonies.

But later, he says: "I met with my two new ladies and [another wife] again, got some pictures for the archives. They are very sweet young girls.

"I have several others."

dbramham@vancouversun.com
 
VancouverSun.com
Originally published February 25, 2011
 
Back