Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [174]
Less than a month later, in December 2006, I gave birth to my daughter, Emily. I had been out of the FLDS for a little more than a year, and even though I’d shaken free of most of the mental shackles, it was still hurtful to hear that followers of the priesthood were being told to pray that I be destroyed in the flesh during childbirth. I took comfort in my faith that God was watching over me, and had once again blessed me with a beautiful baby.
I did my best to savor the sweet beginnings of my daughter’s life in the middle of this strenuous legal process. The defense filed a motion to drop the charges, making a fairly persuasive argument that Warren Jeffs was simply a religious leader doing his job. But word came in late January that Judge Shumate had found sufficient evidence to bind Warren with two counts of rape as an accomplice, and ordered that Warren remain in jail without bail pending trial. Fittingly, he was housed in a facility called Purgatory Flats.
If I harbored any lingering doubts about going forward with the trial, they were washed away when Lamont and I were invited to view a startling confession that Warren made on January 25, 2007, which had been caught on videotape in Purgatory. A split screen popped up, with Warren in his jail-issued green-and-white striped jumpsuit on the right and his brother Nephi on the left—each on the phone on either side of the Plexiglas barrier. The two men looked eerily similar, with the same thick glasses and mousy brown hair parted to the side.
In the beginning of their visit, Warren instructed his brother to have someone deliver a blessing to a sick girl in the community and sent a message of support and love to his followers. Since his incarceration, he’d been phoning in from the jail and had lots of privileges afforded him. The previous day, the jail had even recorded several phone calls in which Warren admitted to having lost the priesthood thirty-one years earlier for being “immoral” with a sister and a daughter.
Despite this grim disclosure, he seemed in good spirits when the meeting with Nephi commenced. The video was grainy, and it was strange to watch Warren in so private a moment. Half an hour in, it appeared the conversation was over and Warren went to hang up the jailhouse visiting phone, but then he had something further to say. Both men picked up their phones, and for nearly six full minutes Warren said nothing, while his brother waited patiently. Warren stared blankly and seemed to listen intently, almost as though he was receiving a revelation from God.
Warren broke the silence by instructing his brother to take dictation, and Nephi compliantly pulled out his notepad.
“I’m not the prophet,” Warren began.
The words blew me away, and I turned to look at Lamont. We both sat riveted as the man we’d long been told was God on earth delivered a message neither of us ever could have predicted.
“I never was the prophet, and I have been deceived by the powers of evil, and brother William T. Jessop has been the prophet since Father’s passing, since the passing of my father.”
He continued, “I have been the most wicked man in this dispensation in the eyes of God. And taking charge of my father’s family when the Lord his God told him not to because he could not hear him, could not hear his voice, because I did not hold priesthood. I direct my former family to look to Brother William T. Jessop, and I will not be calling today or ever again.
“Write this down also,” Warren directed Nephi, who sat hunched over the small overhang he was using as a desk. “As far as I possibly can be, I am sorry from the bottom of my heart.”
In response to this stunning announcement, Nephi remained silent, seeming unmoved, as he followed Warren’s directions. “And write this,” Warren continued. “The Lord God of Heaven came to my prison cell two days ago, to test and detect me. And