Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [178]
Her demeanor was cold and her exterior impeccable. She never had a strand of hair out of place, and her eyes reminded me of a villain from an old Superman movie who could shoot deadly laser beams at her enemies with a simple glance.
After the opening statements, I was called to the stand as the first witness in the trial. I was nervous, but I just worked to put one foot in front of the other as I walked toward the witness stand to be sworn in. I tried to prevent my voice from wavering as I promised to tell the truth, so help me God. It was ironic that I had to make that oath to God. I’d been telling God the truth for years; now it was time to share it with others.
I looked out into the packed courtroom and locked eyes with my husband. He was my anchor, the one true witness to my tumultuous parting from the FLDS. As I gave my testimony, Lamont would sit quietly stunned, learning for the first time about many of the most intimate and upsetting details of my previous marriage. While he’d long known that I had been abused, I had always tried to keep certain parts of my story buried. I hadn’t wanted my connection with Lamont to be soiled or tarnished by the devastating details of that marriage.
Memories flooded my mind as the prosecuting attorney, Craig Barlow, rattled off his first few questions. Though I was not as comfortable with him as I was with Brock, I knew Craig to be a caring and gentle man, with teddy bear features and a calm, even tone. He had joined the legal team at Brock’s request some months earlier. Craig was actually from the Utah Attorney General’s Office in Salt Lake City, but his successful prosecution of an earlier case involving similar legal theories made him a valuable resource to the prosecution. Ironically, this Craig Barlow is a distant relative of Lamont’s, but his family line was never a part of the FLDS Church. I found amusement in the fact that Warren was being confronted by members of the two family surnames he’d long detested: Wall and Barlow.
Craig crafted his questions to make me feel safe and secure. He spoke in an easy, conversational tone that allowed me to push some of my pain and anger to the background and answer clearly. He asked about the context in which I knew Warren Jeffs. I explained that he had been my principal and teacher at Alta Academy, later the first counseler and mouthpiece to our prophet, and ultimately the prophet himself. I knew that to the jury, much of this seemed strange, and in truth, much of it is. But somehow I found encouragement in the faces of these strangers. They were there to listen and I was there to tell the truth.
When my eyes fell on Warren Jeffs, I felt uneasy. While I’d seen him at the preliminary hearing, I couldn’t get past the discomfort of being in the same room with him again after all of this time. His face had long been etched in my mind, one of many mental symbols of the pain I’d left behind. There had been so many times when I had gone to Uncle Warren seeking comfort and found nothing but scorn, punishment, or abandonment. Now his expression was just as I had expected it would be—stoic and unchanging. This person who had once represented God on earth to me had transformed himself into something totally different. As I spoke, I noticed that he was furiously scribbling notes on a pad of paper. I wondered why he was doing this, but then realized that he was not strong enough to cover up how uncomfortable he was hearing the details of what he had done. It seemed his only option was to bury himself in an activity.
Craig asked me in what context Warren Jeffs had taught me over the years. It was hard to articulate how a set of beliefs can consume your entire mind and everything you understand to be true. How could his words and the words of those before him have permeated my existence so absolutely? I explained