| Young bride tried suicide, Jeffs trial told | |
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By Dennis Wagner The Arizona Republic | |
ST. GEORGE, Utah - The woman who alleges that polygamous-church leader Warren Jeffs coerced her into an underage wedding with an adult cousin testified Friday that she attempted suicide minutes after her wedding was consummated. "My whole entire body was sobbing and just shaking because I was so scared," said the woman, describing her reaction to sexual intercourse with the cousin she was forced too wed. "It hurt. . . . I felt like a horrible person. I didn't know why he had done what he just did. And I felt evil." The woman, now 21, is being identified only as Jane Doe because the trial of Jeffs involves charges of rape. She testified that after submitting herself to sex with her new husband at Jeffs' direction, she went into the bathroom and found bottles of ibuprofen and Tylenol. "I took both bottles," she said. "The only thing I wanted to do was die. Just die." Doe said she vomited minutes later. The testimony was similar to what Doe had recounted during a preliminary hearing last year in relating her experience in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Jeffs, 51-year-old prophet of the sect, is charged with two counts of rape as an accomplice because, prosecutors say, he coerced the teenager against her will. His attorneys did not have an opportunity to challenge Doe's account on Friday but are expected to challenge her during cross-examination Monday. Doe wept throughout the questioning by prosecutor Craig Barlow. She became so distraught at one point that Judge James Shumate granted a recess. Jeffs remained expressionless. The session was attended by Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who, along with Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, has spearheaded a campaign against crime in the FLDS community. About a dozen church members also listened quietly during testimony. Horrified about marriage Although polygamy through "celestial marriage" is revered in the FLDS faith, Doe said, she was horrified in April 2001, when her stepfather, Bishop Fred Jessop, announced that she was to be wed. She was 14. "I was shocked. . . . I said, 'I don't know if this would be right for me.' " Upon learning that the arranged mate was a 19-year-old relative whom she disliked, Doe said she vehemently resisted. "I immediately stood up and walked out of the room," she said. "I would not do it. I would not marry my first cousin." Over the next few days, Doe testified, she pleaded with her mother and stepfather, then appealed to the late Rulon Jeffs, the defendant's father and then leader of the FLDS sect. "I didn't want to get married," Doe said. "I felt I was too young. I didn't want to defy him, but I was asking for at least two years. . . . I was crying. "He patted my head and said, 'Follow your heart, sweetie. Follow your heart.' " Doe said she was elated and told Warren Jeffs what the prophet had advised. But Jeffs answered, "Your heart is in the wrong place" and insisted that the wedding go forward. Terrified and in despair, Doe said she became like a robot, doing as she was told. She told of weeping all night before the wedding while family members worked on a bridal gown. "I didn't have other options," she said, because she would be shunned and her soul would be lost if she disobeyed. "I felt betrayed by the people I trusted most. . . . I felt like I was getting ready for death." On April 23, 2001, Doe said, she, the bridegroom and two other couples were loaded into a van and driven to a motel near Caliente, Nev. Jeffs presided over rite Doe said that Warren Jeffs presided over the ceremony and that she barely recalls the event except for when he instructed her to make a vow. "The room was completely silent. I did not say anything. I could not agree to this," she recalled. "Finally, he had my mother take my hand. He asked me to say, 'I do,' and I remember my mother just squoze my hand, and I finally said, 'OK.' " Doe said she ran off seconds later. "I locked myself in the bathroom and crumpled on the floor, I was so overwhelmed. And I just started to sob." The wedding couples returned to a reception in Hildale, Utah, that evening. Doe said she did not even know how babies were made at the time, but her husband began pressing for sex during a honeymoon and after. "He was beginning to touch me on my private parts. . . . I asked him, 'Why are you touching me? And please stop,' " Doe said. "(He said) 'This is what married people did. . . . 'Don't you ever want to have babies?' I said, 'Not with you.' " Doe said she finally relented because she could not defy FLDS teachings and leaders, both of which insist that a woman must submit herself "in mind, body and soul" to her spouse. "He was my priestly head husband. He was my patriarch," she said. "For me to question that, I was not keeping sweet." "Keeping sweet" is an FLDS expression that refers to being nice, loving and obedient. Doe testified that she finally left her husband in 2004, and has since filed a suit against Jeffs and a church trust "to give young girls the option and protection that I did not have." Reach the reporter at dennis.wagner@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8874. | |
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azcentral.com Originally published September 15, 2007 | |
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