Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [189]
“Did you learn that from Warren Jeffs?”
“Yes, I’ve learned this from Warren Jeffs and the supporting words of other church officials before him.”
The more I heard, the more I grew flushed and agitated, but it wasn’t until Jennie completely misconstrued my relationship with Allen that I was livid.
“After Allen and Elissa were married, do you remember seeing them together?”
“Yes.”
“How did Elissa respond to Allen?”
“She was nasty to him. Once, on a trip to St. George, he bought her two dozen roses and she was still being rude.”
I honestly didn’t remember the shopping trip to St. George that she was speaking of, or the roses. Still, I was thinking, “Well, of course I was, he was hurting me. Anybody who’s hurt lashes out.”
“Was there a camping trip?” the defense lawyer asked, referring to the trip on which I’d been put in charge of encouraging Lily.
“Yes, and they were both smiling the whole time.”
“They seemed very happy?”
“Yes, something had changed.”
“Was Elissa standoffish?”
“No. She showed me a negligee she had purchased. She was excited; it was cute. They seemed to be communicating well.” I looked back on that trip and found myself seething with anger at the way in which Jennie described it. I remembered how frustrated and uncomfortable I’d been the whole time, and I couldn’t believe that she would deny that. We both knew that I’d been put in a position to show everyone on the trip that negligee because Allen had presented it to me in front of them all. Still, I tried to calm my anger toward her, knowing that she was under pressure.
Jennie explained the unraveling of her marriage, emphasizing that Warren Jeffs had granted her a release from her husband, Jonathan, when it was clear that things were not going to improve. I was furious that she had been granted a release, especially when she described her meeting with Warren; she had used the same language I had to explain my problems with Allen. I wrote Brock a note saying: “Didn’t I use the same language? He didn’t give me a release!”
Her cross-examination was irritating as well. She described coming across a passage in an old sermon that stated that it was a woman’s job to invite her husband to have marital relations. At this point, her understanding of her own role changed.
“And would there be consequences if you refused him sexually?”
“There was none.”
“Were there times when you had refused and then it happened anyway?”
“Yes. But only if I consented first.”
“Were you aware there were husbands in the FLDS who would use force?”
“No. Force is against our religion.”
When the prosecution asked about our shared camping trip, they intended to prove that I had been keeping sweet that week despite my pain, as I’d always been taught to do.
“Have you ever heard of ‘keeping sweet’?” she was asked.
“I have heard that, yes, but it’s not a central doctrine.”
Of all her statements, this one shocked me the most. It was Rulon’s favorite saying and he’d used it on every occasion. It was even printed on his funeral program. “Keep sweet, no matter what. It’s a matter of life and death.”
“One principle is if you suffer inside, you keep sweet, smile, and appear happy, right?” the prosecutor asked.
“It could be if you chose to smile,” she answered.
“Warren Jeffs is the prophet?”
“I choose to see him as that, yes.”
“Have you ever heard of the song ‘We Love You, Uncle Warren’?”
“No, I’ve never heard that song.”
After she had finished her testimony, Jennie Pipkin stepped down and crossed the courtroom to return to her original seat. I felt so bad that my honest friendship with her had been used to try to discredit me.
Several more FLDS women and their husbands followed with accounts of happy marriages, Warren’s loving guidance, and inaccurate details of church teachings and expectations. The most painful testimony for me to bear was that of my dear friend Joanna.
She was an older sister of my friend Natalie, and after my marriage, she too had been placed for marriage. We had bonded over the similarity of our experiences. I was surprised