Witness recounts 'complete despair,' betrayal in testimony against polygamist leader Jeffs
 
By Nancy Perkins
Deseret Morning News
 
ST. GEORGE — The star witness in the state's case against polygamist-sect leader Warren Jeffs testified on Friday she felt "complete despair" the night before her arranged marriage at age 14 to a first cousin. "I was completely emotional," the now 21-year-old woman testified. "I felt betrayed by the people I trusted most."

Among those trusted people was Jeffs, who was then the first counselor to the Fundamentalist LDS Church's prophet, Rulon Jeffs, Warren Jeffs' father.

"Warren completely overlooked the fact that it was something that I did not want to do or was willing to do," she testified.

Jeffs conducted the wedding at a Nevada motel in April 2001, with the girl's mother and other family members in attendance. Jeffs married two other couples that day, including another 14-year-old bride.

Members of the FLDS Church practice the concept of placement marriages, which are arranged by the sect's prophet after he receives a revelation naming the couple.

Couples often do not know each other or are not told which person they are going to marry until a few days before the wedding.

The woman testified she was shocked to learn she was expected to marry her 19-year-old first cousin, a boy she knew and didn't like.

"I told my mother I didn't want to marry him. I was crying quite a bit," she testified. She told the same thing to her stepfather, she said, and sought an appointment with the faith's prophet, Rulon Jeffs.

"I knelt down next to Rulon Jeffs and told him I was too young, I was asking to wait at least two years, or to at least find someone else other than my first cousin," she testified. "He said to me, 'Follow your heart, sweetheart,' and I was so relieved. It was as if someone finally listened to me, was giving me a chance."

Following that meeting, she testified, Warren Jeffs spoke to his father and then returned to tell her that her heart was "in the wrong place."

"Warren Jeffs is second-in-command in my mind and he was telling me something completely different," she said.

Within a few days, the girl's mother and sisters helped her make a white wedding dress.

"I felt scared, emotional, trapped," she testified. "They had told me if I refused, I would very likely never have the opportunity to be married, would no longer be welcome in my father's house, no longer be deemed worthy."

At one point in her testimony, the woman broke down sobbing, which led the judge to call a 10-minute recess. Several photographs of the young bride before her wedding and afterward with her new husband were displayed on a large screen.

"My life revolved around that wedding ceremony. It's what we live for, prepare for in that society," she testified. "It's everything a woman could achieve."

But her union to a cousin she couldn't bear to be near left her "horrified," she testified. Following the ceremony, Warren Jeffs placed the bride and groom's hands together and with his hand on theirs told the couple to "go forth and multiply the earth with good priesthood children."

"After it was over, I locked myself in a bathroom and sobbed," she testified. "I couldn't believe I had just got married."

That night the couple were congratulated and taken to their bedroom, which had been decorated with a new bed, treats, signs and flowers. The woman testified she pulled a nightgown over her other clothes and pretended to sleep.

Her new husband didn't touch her that night, she said, but that changed when they left for their honeymoon with the other newly married couples.

"He was beginning to touch me on my private parts, under my clothes, advancing toward sexual activity," she testified. "I was extremely uncomfortable and asked him to stop."

Later, when the couple returned home, the touching continued, she testified, and at one point her husband exposed himself to her in public.

"He traumatized me," she testified, although she did not tell her mother, whose bedroom was next to hers. She testified she knew nothing about sexual reproduction or of male anatomy at the time.

The woman's testimony is scheduled to continue this afternoon following a lunch break.

E-mail: nperkins@desnews.com
 
deseretnews.com
Originally published September 14, 2007
 
Back