Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [183]
“I’d like to get back to what Warren said to you that day, that your heart was in the wrong place.”
“Yes.”
“On Friday you said that Warren Jeffs said that to you.”
“That is correct.”
She whipped out a document and placed it in front of me. “Read lines six through eight of what you said to the cops.”
Cautiously, I did what I was told. A part of me wanted to leap out of that chair and shake this woman, to explain to her that these were difficult pieces of my heart and my memory to access. It was like opening a Pandora’s box for me, with everything flooding out. Not only was I forced to face these painful details, I was also being asked to give lengthy accounts of my lifetime of experiences. No matter how jumbled they might have been when I first presented them, I always tried to tell the truth the best way I could at the time. Any inconsistency was due to nerves alone. I knew inside that I was not nearly the only victim of a sex crime to get confused about details in a preliminary police report.
The defense battled on. “Isn’t it true that Warren asked you and Allen if you were trying for children?”
“Yes.” I could feel her trying to break me, trying to make me lose my credibility. I continued, “This was a long time ago for me…and it was a horrible time.”
“I’m going to show you a copy of that transcript. Page 204, lines 17 through 18 and 19 through 20. He never told you to have intercourse with Allen.”
“We didn’t use the words ‘sexual intercourse’ in our society. He wouldn’t tell me something we didn’t say.”
“He told you to pray, spend time together, and love your husband.”
I nodded in response.
Shifting her questions to my sisters, she asked about my conversations with Teressa in the days before my wedding.
“You talked at length with your sister Teressa about getting married?”
“Yes.”
“She also told you that you didn’t have to do it.”
“Women didn’t have that kind of power,” I replied.
With that, she took her place at the defense table and I was asked to stand down for the day. When I returned to my original seat and looked around, an uncomfortable feeling grew inside me. I had laid bare my story and my feelings for the lawyers, the judge, the jury, Warren—everyone knew what I had been through. It was liberating but I was also self-conscious. I had shared some of my darkest secrets with total strangers, yet none of them really knew who I was. There were members of the press there, and I had not spoken with them up to that point. I worried what they thought about me. But I resolved to keep my silence.
The following morning I was brought back to the stand for further interrogation by the defense.
“Isn’t it true you never told your mother you were raped?” Tara Isaacson asked in her cutting tone.
“Yes,” I said, doing my best to hold her gaze.
“One person in your life at the time was the mother of Allen Steed.”
“I saw her from time to time.”
“You said she was ‘an angel.’”
My pulse raced. Were they trying to insinuate that I could have spoken to Mrs. Steed about my situation with Allen? “She was an angel,” I confirmed. “But that still didn’t mean I could have looked to her for help.”
“Did you tell her what was going on with Allen?”
“She could see.”
“You didn’t tell your friends, either.”
“No one could tell anyone they’re being raped.”
“Your father, Douglas Wall, is someone you could have told.”
“Well, for starters,” I retorted, “I had no phone number to reach him.”
“You also had brothers who had left the church before your marriage.”
“Yes, I did,” I declared, “but I believed in the prophet.”
“Did you agree to the marriage prior to the ceremony?”
I cleared my throat softly, frustrated by her continued insinuations that I had consented to the marriage. After facing off against her in the past, I’d promised myself that I would go toe to toe with her and stay strong no matter how hard she pushed me. I stared straight into her eyes as I firmly said, “As much as someone could agree to something against their will.”
“So, Warren Jeffs was a teacher, principal, not the prophet?”
“Not at that time.”
“So,