CHAPTER 25
Although Warren Jeffs had finally allowed Steven Chatwin and his family to escape from the battleground home of his apostate brother, Ross Chatwin, I suspected that the church still wasn’t ready to give in.
Ross had the building, but the court had said nothing about the utilities that served it, and the FLDS was always alert for an opening. The utilities were cut off, an intentionally cruel move since it was still bitterly cold in Short Creek. He had been heating the lower floor with a propane gas burner, but when Ross went to the city to change the water, gas, and electricity for the upper floor into his own name in March 2005, he was refused.
The Chatwins went without utilities for nearly a month before the Hildale City Council agreed to take up the matter in an emergency session. I drove down for the meeting and listened as Ross made a reasoned plea before the council members, all of whom were prominent FLDS members who detested him. I scribbled my name on a list of speakers to comment.
I was not happy to hear them belittle Ross and his family as “squatters” on church land. They spoke in a self-righteous tone, even as they were depriving a couple with six young children of water, heat, and electricity in harsh weather. The council’s hypocrisy was highlighted when the cell phone of Richard Allred, the Colorado City mayor, suddenly chirped out its custom ring tone, the familiar Mormon hymn “Love At Home.” When my turn came to speak, I let them have it, lecturing them about religious persecution, civil rights violations, and the law.
Chief Marshal Roundy, one of his deputies, and the ever-present enforcer Willie Jessop were staring daggers and closed in on me, but I ignored them, stood my ground, and said my piece.
The previous day I had been out target shooting with my regular sidearm, and it wasn’t until I arrived at the meeting that I realized I had left it at home to be cleaned. That was a careless mistake; I had learned that when dealing with the FLDS thugs, especially on their turf, it was prudent to be prepared for anything. The only weapon I had with me was my six-pound Desert Eagle .44 Magnum, which I had also taken to target practice the day before, and I had tucked that huge hog-leg pistol beneath my jacket. It was uncomfortable and hard to hide. The Short Creek god squad got close but ended up hanging back, perhaps recognizing the distinctive imprint of the huge pistol.
The council’s rubber-stamp decision on behalf of the church was never in doubt. They voted unanimously to deny the utility hookups, just as Warren instructed.
The situation was tense. As I left, the three goons were huddled together on the sidewalk in front of the council chambers, bragging about how they were going to “take me down.” Big Willie followed me out to the parking area and gave me his best death glare as I got into my car. He reminded me of a playground bully who had suddenly come face-to-face with someone who wasn’t afraid of him. His juvenile tactics usually worked with the church members he was assigned to strong-arm but seemed comical to me.
I decided that there was still one more thing that I could try to do to help the Chatwins with their problem. Later that day I telephoned every media contact I had, and the reporters deluged the city offices and Mayor David Zitting with questions about why the church had terminated the needed city-run services to a desperate family of eight in their own home. With the court order in place, outside law enforcement agencies becoming curious, and the media breathing down his neck, Warren decided not to continue that particular fight. The utilities were turned back on before sunset.
It was a minor victory for us, but it felt good to put still another one in the win column.
Leroy Jeffs did not last another month as the patriarch of the church. Warren heard that some FLDS people were turning to his more approachable brother for counsel because they did not know how to access the prophet. A dream soon followed in which God revealed to Warren that Leroy was no longer worthy of priesthood. Warren telephoned his brother the very next morning and stripped him of his title, wives, children, and home, although Leroy was allowed to continue working as an accountant for the prophet and in the businesses of David Allred, the purchaser of the FLDS refuge lands.
Warren’s thoughts were raging. He had a mountain of things to think about and decisions to make, and his word alone mattered. His thrashing dreams grew wilder. They could be about something as simple as detecting a lack of faith in an errant member, a routine piece of church business, or a decision to forbid FLDS kids from eating “gentile candy.” But he also had apocalyptic visions, such as fleeing to Europe and leading “invading armies” back to America. After telling his scribe that they were about to face the greatest destruction that has ever been on this land or on the face of the earth,” he would then easily slide right back to planning a landscape of roses and shade trees for the Texas compound, and the type of crown molding needed around the temple walls.
According to Naomi, just before dawn on Monday, April 11, 2005, Warren uttered an emphatic, “Wow. Whatever you say. Yes, sir.” The Lord had just told him to collect a “pure, innocent girl” to add to his fold. A little later, he identified her as Brenda Fischer, the eldest daughter of Wayne Fischer, and, as Naomi recorded, the prophet asked and answered in his sleep, “How old is she? She is twelve.”
Warren dispatched another of his brothers, Seth Jeffs, his most trusted courier, to Short Creek to fetch Wayne and his preteen daughter to Texas, along with some $200,000 in fresh greenbacks. Wayne Fischer apparently was less than enthusiastic that his child had been chosen at such a tender age, and he and his little girl had to endure Seth playing recordings of Warren’s hypnotic “trainings” throughout the long drive to Texas. Warren kept in touch with Seth by telephone and told him to take an even longer route, so that Wayne and his daughter would have more time to listen to the mind-numbing lectures and read booklets of selected sermons. Warren required that both child and father sign agreements to keep the sacred nature of their journey secret.
“It is just marvelous,” Warren told his scribe. “The Lord is choosing young girls who can be worked with and easily taught.”
He personally drove the Fischers around the ranch for ninety minutes on Saturday afternoon, and he spent time alone with Wayne until the man finally gave in and wept his approval for his little girl to be handed over. The prophet married twelve-year-old Brenda at nine o’clock that night, only a few days after picking her out in a dream. The incident, recorded by Naomi in the journal in its troubling entirety, wiped out any doubt that FLDS men only married women who were consenting adults. It was child rape, over and over. And it took place across interstate boundaries in violation of the U.S. White Slave Traffic Act (the Mann Act) of 1910. I was starting to wonder why the Feds had made such a dismal showing on cases like this that were so obviously a slam dunk. I knew that they were aware of human trafficking within the FLDS, and yet, after showing interest, they would fade away, accomplishing nothing.
On April 13, I was in the Texas state capitol in Austin along with Jon Krakauer and others to testify before a legislative committee in support of a bill to raise the legal age of marriage, which at the time was only fourteen. That had been one reason the FLDS had zeroed in on Eldorado in the first place.
“By God, this is Texas and we do not tolerate child abuse in this state! Child abusers go to prison for a long time here,” an old legislator barked at me, apparently thinking I had some sort of control over such matters. I was not the one he should have been attacking, but he was showing the right spirit.
Utah attorney general Mark Shurtleff also appeared as a witness, and he admitted that law enforcement in his state had dragged their feet in the prosecution of polygamists who had taken child brides. He pleaded with the Texas legislators not to make the same mistakes that had been made in Utah.
The Texas legislators not only raised the age of consent in their state to seventeen, but also strengthened penalties for child abuse and bigamy in the commission of other crimes. That squarely put the polygamists at the YFZ Ranch on notice that marrying a child could mean a long prison term. In the years to come, that legislation would pay huge dividends in the prosecution of FLDS members, including the prophet Warren Jeffs himself.