From a small cement patio on the secluded ranch, I looked out on the very hot, very vast Texas desert, which was experiencing its worst drought in a century. Though it was very early, the horizon was already wavy due to the extreme heat wave, yet it was stunningly serene. I forced myself to think of dinosaurs, astronauts, and women voting. I thought of horses, four-wheelers, and one clandestine kiss. That led to thoughts of my two beautiful children, to whom I would return when this was all over, and the freedoms they had that were denied the people under Warren. I rose from my chair with songs and stories and feathers, beliefs and lessons, ringing in my head.
I entered the courtroom on the afternoon of Monday, August 1, 2011, dressed in a bright red blouse and black pencil skirt, my words etched in pen upon my left palm. For the very first time since I left the FLDS, I would have to confront my old teacher, principal, “son,” and one-time leader. To say I felt rocked to the core was a gross understatement. Since I had first learned that Warren was representing himself, I’d been secretly terrified. Despite my now-vast experience on the stand, I would have much rather confronted Warren’s nastiest lawyer than face him in person.
My heart beating wildly, I walked up the aisle of the tightly packed courtroom toward the judge, the jury, the prosecution, and the accused. I stepped up onto the witness stand and gave my oath, that I would tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.
As I turned to sit, I looked over at the prosecution, the Texas Rangers and attorney general’s officers, the security for the proceedings, and those attending Warren’s trial. I gasped almost audibly. There before me was a veritable sea of red: red ties, red dresses, red flowers in red hair. Nearly everyone was wearing some type of red. I glanced at Wes and Nick, who both wore wide Texas grins and red ties.
Once I looked at Warren, my heart stopped pounding and my body ceased trembling. Fire filled me again as I thought of all of those little girls.
Eric questioned me for hours regarding church teachings and trainings, and especially church documents and their importance in the FLDS. I identified several types of records and a Book of Remembrance, which represented the Book of the Lamb of God in Heaven. During my testimony, Warren objected often, standing up when I talked about the Priesthood, about Celestial Marriage, and about what he himself had told me was my duty to my husband in the bedroom. But he never once met my eyes.
This was my chance to give his preteen and teenaged victims a voice. The prosecution had already established DNA evidence in both cases that showed with 99.9 percent certainty that Warren was the father of those underage girls’ children, but now it was necessary to establish the girls as real people, with emotions, flesh, and blood, for the jury.
Eric asked me if I knew Veda Keate. I explained that I did, as I used to chat with her and her sister Patricia often. I identified Veda in several pictures, along with her father, Alan, and his wife Nora, Warren’s younger sister.
“When was the last time you saw Veda?”
“At Rulon’s funeral.”
Eric showed more pictures, some of which I had seen once or twice. There was a picture of my sister-wife Ora next to Veda. They held a portrait photo of Warren Jeffs between them, indicating their shared husband. Then Eric showed two more photos, of Veda, very pregnant and holding a picture of Warren.
After establishing that information on Veda Keate, Eric moved on to the youngest documented victim of Warren Jeffs.
“Did you know Merrianne Jessop?” he asked me.
“Yes. She was my cousin and the sister of many of my sister-wives. She would come to our house to play.”
“Would Warren interact with Veda and Merrianne?”
“Yes. Warren would walk through the center of our home. He would go out of his way to greet them, get down on their level. He was the principal of their school. He would always ask, ‘Are you keeping sweet? Are you being obedient?’ ”
Eric showed the jury pictures of the little pixie Merrianne, who still looked like a young child even at twelve. In the next few photos, she wore a lavender dress and had rosy cheeks and braided red hair as Warren held her in his arms and kissed her.
I was done that day, but the trial was far from over. Eric continued to lay down evidence after evidence of Warren’s motives, of his behaviors, and of his documented sexual assault. The next day, against another torrent of objections, Eric played an audio recording I had verified in which Warren was taking Veda on a car ride with other wives for training to be “a good wife.” The next tape, almost an hour long, was of Warren going into vivid detail of training his youngest wives in a quorum of twelve. I sat upstairs, knowing what the jurors and galley were listening to, as Warren graphically told the girls how to shower, shave their pubic hair, and dress in white robes before they came to him. Then he said, “You have to know how to excite sexually and be excited. You have to be able to assist each other,” as well as, “Each one who touches me and assists each other will have my holy gift.”
On Wednesday morning, Eric played for the jury the recording of little Merrianne in the temple, the one that would haunt me forever. My security told me that jurors who previously had shown no emotion were visibly shaken. One woman held her hand over her face, and another let a tear slip down her cheek. In the gallery, men and women alike were silently crying.
If the importance of the trainings had been lost on anyone, Warren’s journal entry in 2004 summed it up. “These young girls have been given to me to be taught and trained how to come into the presence of God and help redeem Zion from their youngest years before they go through teenage doubting and fears and boy troubles.” The narcissistic Warren went on to write, “I will just be their boy trouble and guide them right, the Lord helping me.”
For his defense, Warren tried to convince the jury that the FLDS deserved freedom from religious persecution, and even compared his struggle to the 1960s civil rights movement.
I was allowed back into the courtroom during closing arguments, where I witnessed Eric’s inspiring and impassioned plea for justice for Veda and Merrianne. Finally, it was Warren’s turn to give his closing statement. I watched closely as he stood silently, staring at the ground for nearly every minute of his thirty-minute allotment. The judge let the clock run as the whole room sat in hushed silence.
At the twenty-minute mark, Warren did something that made my blood turn cold. I watched as he looked up at the jurors, silently staring at each one of them in the eyes. It reminded me of the time he would look out at his father’s wives or his congregation, and take inventory. I glanced at the jurors, relieved to see them take it in stride. I recognized a fire in them as they stared back, not lowering their eyes, not cowing to his manipulations.
“I am at peace,” murmured Warren, and sat down, looking at the floor again.
The jurors deliberated for three hours and forty-five minutes, starting Thursday afternoon. They wanted to listen to the audio recordings again, and asked for the transcript of my testimony. Upon their return, the jury declared that they found Warren Jeffs guilty of sexual assault of a child for Veda Keate, and guilty of aggravated sexual assault for Merrianne Jessop.
Now that the guilt-innocence phase was over, it was time for the jury to decide Warren’s sentence. During what is called the punishment phase of a trial in Texas, the prosecution did not hold back in order to weight his sentence sufficiently. I testified about my personal dealings with Warren, after which the jury also heard the traumatic sexual abuse experiences of Warren’s nephew Brent and his niece Jerusha at his very hands. The jury showed emotion more openly at their agonizingly painful personal testimony.
When I went in for closing arguments, I was impressed that Eric Nichols and his team had stacked an eye-opening array of evidence against Warren, citing all of his “bad acts”: Warren had married 24 child brides who ranged in age from twelve to seventeen, married a total of 78 women illegally, arranged 67 marriages between older men and child brides—many of them his own daughters; facilitated 500 bigamous marriages, and personally destroyed 300 families by reassigning wives and children. In addition to stealing, he had created refuges to hide women from law enforcement, evaded state and federal law enforcement, and participated in at least six additional acts of sexual misconduct.
I felt like the prosecution had brazenly scattered their feathers, and there was no need to gather them up. Only Texas had the guts to spread them out for everyone to see, and call it what it was. If there was any doubt that Warren was not only in his right mind, but knew full well what he had been doing, Eric quoted Warren from his own record of January 2004:
There is a girl… the Lord wants me to take. She is thirteen. Oh, I just want the Lord’s will… If the world knew what I was doing they would hang me from the highest tree.
The jury went out for deliberation on August 9, 2011. It took only thirty minutes for them to return with Warren’s sentence: life plus twenty years.
The courtroom went silent. I felt numb for a moment, lit only by a spark of hope that Warren would never get out to terrorize his people again.
There were not the expected cheers of jubilation or pats on the back. Reporters did rush out to report the verdict to the world, but it seemed to me that as I connected with the others involved, we did not search out one another’s smiles, but instead our eyes and our very souls.
The men and women of Texas who had sacrificed so much to help FLDS children and bring Warren to justice hugged one another softly or shook hands. Most then simply stepped outside into the hall to call their spouses and families and to weep that it was finally over.
Wes had once told me, “If you’ve done it, it ain’t braggin’.” I noticed after Warren’s trial was over, Wes didn’t brag. No one did, not even Brooks, who certainly had the right to feel vindicated after the hell he went through with the media and with public outcry. He did repeatedly remind reporters that they had had most of these details since 2008. Still, I saw more tears than triumph.
Speaking publicly for the first time, I gave a statement to the press, while secretly praying my people would hear it, too. Clothed in a red dress, I spoke a little of my background, that I had been testifying against the atrocities of Warren Jeffs since 2006, and that I was deeply grateful to the men and women of Texas.
… What I have witnessed here… is not the persecution of a church, but… the prosecution of one man, Warren Steed Jeffs.… However, it does not bring back the victims’ innocence or their childhood, nor does it assist the many who are still in bondage. Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.… this case is now public record, and the truth is in your hands.…
I stand before you wearing red, as a symbol of freedom in choice, and triumph over tyranny. My greatest desire is for every man, woman, and child to understand their God-given human right to own themselves, and to claim their power to choose…
God bless Texas!
I meant it.