His big smile at her when he looks at her in the intro. Love them. Also love how as they are each talking they look and pay attention to each other. So genuine!
My heart breaks for Sam. We know he's doing good work, even if he can't knock down the physical doors, he is knocking down barriers for his community. Thank you.
LONG POST INCOMING! 25:40 Even more interesting thing to note about that midwife--her name is Sally Wayman Jeffs (later Sally Nielsen, she was married to Warren's brother LeRoy, the same man Alicia Rohbock from the doc was married too and there's a photo of them together with their daughters in this episode iirc; after LeRoy got kicked out, while Alicia was given to Isaac, Sally was given to Wendell Nielsen--a man who was already married to Sally's oldest daughter Merilyn). Not only did Sally deliver babies of underage girls--THREE of her daughters were married underage. Her daughter Janet married Ernest Jessop when she was 15 (he was 26) and then when he was kicked out, was married, still at 15, to Raymond Jessop, age 32. At the time of the raid, she had a two-year old daughter named Zionna. Pamela was next--she was two months shy of 16 when she married 20-year-old Jackson Jessop (slightly smaller age gap, I guess). At the time of the raid, they had a two-year-old son named Matthew, and she gave birth to a second son, Jonathan, while in state custody. The youngest of the trio, LeAnn, was married to Leroy Jessop when she was, you guessed it, 15 years old. At the time of the raid, she had a 1-year-old daughter named Sally, after her snake of a mother. Sally and her kids were profiled in The New York Times. The article is called Children of God, from July 2008, and if you look up "Too Young to Wed flds" there's a photoset done for the article of Sally at a dining table with some of her children and grandchildren (you can see LeAnn standing in the background, Zionna and Matthew at the end of the table, and Pamela holding baby Jonathan; and Janet turned away from the camera slightly because allegedly she was hiding a baby bump; Sally's youngest kids, Saroya, Leesa and Shaun are also present). This woman went on national television and LIED about not having any knowledge of underage marriages and then turned right around and allowed her family to be photographed and profiled in an article that any child with basic subtraction skills could figure out revealed that her 3 daughters were all married underage. I should also mention, all four of the men Sally's daughters married were brothers, sons of Merril Jessop, and therefore the sister of the 12 year old from the tape with Warren. Merrianne and LeAnn were married during the infamous July 27, 2008 triple wedding ceremony at YFZ. Janet's husband Raymond was also married to Warren's daughter Teresa in the same ceremony. All the girls were underage.
Just dug this up, Warren recorded this in his priesthood records about Janet's labor struggles and directly names Sally, her mother. “All through the afternoon and evening I was in contact with R17, having the report as I called there that Janet Jessop, Raymond Jessop’s wife, was struggling. She had been in labor for three days. Sally Nielsen, Wendell’s wife, has been appointed of the Lord to be the midwife to help deliver the babies. She is a woman that the Lord has blessed with a natural gift to work with expecting mothers, but she has taken on a doubt and fear against herself. In my conversation in the afternoon with Brother Wendell, Sally had feared and turned to Doctor Lloyd Barlow to make the decisions. I detected that. The Lord showed me this is one reason they were having such difficulty, because they didn’t turn to the Lord, they turned to the doctor. But the doctor had turned to the Lord, and that was a blessing. So all through Friday, I was yearning unto the Lord, even offering myself as an atonement for her to be blessed and deliver the child. I knew that the girl being sixteen years old, if she went to the hospital, they could put Raymond Jessop in jeopardy of prosecution as the government is looking for any reason to come against us there. I last called at 11:30 p.m. and told them I was praying for them. The Lord assured me that she would bring forth a little girl, but He would give them experience.” “Uncle Merril made note that Sister Janet, wife of Brother Ray had been in labor for two to three days and was having a very difficult time. The Prophet had Uncle Wendell, Uncle Merril, and Brother Ray join in a prayer circle for her. The Prophet…told those attending that, because of her age and the associated government pressures against the Prophet and those who abide the laws of God, going to the hospital was not an option…Sister Sally W. Nielsen, Dr. Lloyd, and nurse Sarah Jessop were attending.”
My grandpa was a liaison for this case with CPS. One of the biggest problems too was there were so many kids that didn’t have documentation of even existing that they didn’t even know what to do. They were straddling a weird line of policy and procedure and what’s best for the kids. They definitely knew something was off but another big issue was a lack of funding to initiate further investigation. All around a sad situation but the media played a huge role and created a dangerous narrative that put a lot of CPS workers in an unsafe positions. I hope they can figure out better ways to investigate and navigate these situations safely.
I still can’t believe Oprah gave them such a huge platform to spread their lies. They interviewed Elisa before the raid and knew the type of treatment she endured! For them to take the side of the FLDS without any question was awful. They even interviewed the midwife to many of the underaged girls and took her lies of “never seeing an underaged marriage” as fact! 😡 they could have at least brought in Elisa to check if the people they were talking too were actually telling the truth! While I don’t agree with how they took every child off the compound, they did have evidence that children were being abused! I don’t know what they could have done differently in the case because there was a risk to every child on that compound with Warren Jeffs as their leader.
I felt sad for Naomi in the other documentary, until she talked about how she would "tell on" her family members and she never "meant to get anyone thrown out", but she knew that was happening. Yes, she was brainwashed into believing in a "prophet". That's sad. She also was manipulative and conniving to get into a power position, not caring who she hurt along the way. Gross.
I found it interesting that the mom in the documentary hadn’t seen her children since they were taken to Zion. Then when the police took custody of the kids the bio mom was called, I think the only reason some of them got their own children back was because of the raid.
The sad thing was, Alicia had been separated from her children even longer than that. She was part of a lawsuit filed against Warren and said this: "On September 27, 2003, Alicia gave birth to her daughter R.R. in Short Creek. Then in February of 2005, LeRoy Jeffs returned from a long absence with orders from Defendant Jeffs, who was now the Prophet, instructing her that the Prophet did not consider her qualified to be a mother and that she had to give R.R. away. LeRoy then took R.R. against Alicia’s will and, without further explanation as to where R.R. was going or why, disappeared. Alicia, sickened and distressed over the loss of R.R. and her disqualification to be a mother, was ordered to move to Mesquite, Nevada. At the time, she was nearly 6 months pregnant with her second daughter, R.R." It went to say that after LeRoy got kicked out, she was reassigned to his brother Seth and while her oldest daughter was moved into the house, Alicia wasn't allowed any contact with her. And after Seth came back from his own reprimand, he separated Alicia from her younger daughter too. I just feel so bad for her.
@@piratesswoop725 that makes me sick. In THAT culture a women’s only worth is being a mother and caregiver. To imagine that these women grow up dreaming of the day they will become a mother and then even if they’re married to someone terrible most of them are glad for children. Then to have your only purpose and happiness just ripped away from you without any explanation and without knowing if your children are safe or who they’re with, it’s absolutely cruel!
I recently read Rebecca Wall Musser's book "The Witness Wore Red" and she talked about how Warren and Roulon talked about the idea of having the "heavenly sessions" room in the temple. It has a little more in depth background info in her book.
I believe you're correct. That 12 year old was also her sister. She refuses to deal with any guilt and trauma that she has regarding r@pe and underage marriage. She's ready to and has confronted herself about the easier less traumatic things she's done and admitted to it. Such as aiding and abetting warren. However she refuses to talk and shuts down whenever she's confronted with anything to do with Warren's heavenly sessions or underage marriages.
Given how much you’ve been able to learn since leaving about how unique each individual’s experience in the FLDS is, I think it would be really interesting to hear Sam’s reflections on what shaped his experience and how much that might have differed even from another boy his age at that time: how his dad’s position may have impacted what happened to and in his household, how keeping households somewhat separate insulated those with privileges from knowing what a hard time others were having and vice versa, etc.
Yay! 2 days early! Can’t wait for Eskel’s episode. I referred Amanda and him to Mormon Stories after your episode on there. Such an interesting wormhole. Have you ever been in contact with Doris Hanson from Polygamy What Love is This? She is doing good work. It would be cool to see you on her show or for you to interview her!
We will look her up and try to reach out! Thank you for the great recommendations. The interview with Eskel was awesome, and we can't wait to share it next week. =)
25:47 re: the midwife having delivered babies to underage brides, after claiming on Larry King (? or Anderson Cooper I don’t remember) that she hadn’t seen underage girls being married. Rebecca Musser said in her book that one of the women whose baby had been delivered by that midwife was actually the midwife’s OWN DAUGHTER - and in fact was there on that panel being interviewed alongside her mother.
I agree with you that law enforcement and CPS had NO idea what they were getting in to. Given that it was a closed society I’m sure they bumbled around for a while stepping all over cultural norms they did not understand. Unfortunately, I’m sure it caused pain, but ultimately they got the information they needed. THANK YOU for another thoughtful conversation.
The YFZ raid is largely considered a failure of epic proportions, just like the original Short Creek raid - just because it was largely abandoned out of fear, doesn't make it a win.. The fact that the warrant alone was executed thanks to a false call immediately set up any charges to be thrown out, due to a violation of Fourth Amendment Rights. Were there some wins? Yup. But the way it was handled, and the way those women and children were warehoused only caused a further doubling down. That's not 'unfortunate', that's crappy planning and execution (law enforcement didn't even give those who'd lived in the community and left the time of day on best practices until it was too late), and no matter how we feel about the FLDS, they have the exact right to the same Constitutional protection that anyone else on US soil does, by LAW.
They knew exactly what they were getting into. They already raided Short Creek and removed over 260 children in 1953 and arrested their parents. They kept those kids in state custody for over two years. CPS and the state knew well of this previous raid and what would be involved. They didn’t go in blind. What they didn’t anticipate was the public backlash by MSM and social media. That’s what overwhelmed them, not the actions of the raid.
Here is my take on the Naomi situation. You know how when you lie about something enough it starts to feel like it's the truth? I believe that with all the trauma Naomi experienced and all the traumatizing things she had to witness, she learned to believe the story instead of what she actually witnessed. This is a pretty common coping mechanism, and I think she uses that at least where it relates to her own feelings of culpability. The girl Warren r*ped on the tape was her little sister. We all feel an intrinsic need to protect our siblings and Naomi was forced to witness Warren SA'ing her baby sister. Even though we all know that Naomi really had no power in that situation and couldn't have stopped the event even if she tried to, the guilt she feels about it must be extreme! I'm not sure I could face the truth if I was in her position. Put that together with years of repressed trauma, it's no wonder that Naomi has coping mechanisms that keep her from admitting what really happened.
@Treble Trouble I apologize that my statement made it sound like I viewed Naomi as 100% victim. As I said she was and is very culpable for what she did, but I do stand by the fact that she was brainwashed and from her interview, I do not believe she has completely deconstructed. She did not come across as a woman who has eliminated her past beliefs. Of course you could just believe she is such a good liar, but tbh I don't have enough emotional space to look at someone so unrelated to my life with that much suspicion. She could have just kept quiet as she has til now, so why speak at all if she is that concerned about legal troubles or lying. My comment was based on my experience and my opinions tho. When I was in an abusive relationship, I did things that I would never have done if I wasn't under the undue influence of someone who I thought loved me and who had physical and psychological power over me. I feel deep shame over some of the things that I did and ask myself constantly why I wasn't strong enough to do the right thing during that time. If you never had to experience that type of situation, I am honestly, grateful. No one should face that type of abuse.. I never did anything close to the crimes and immoral things that Naomi did, but I do empathize with her. I truly believe that, for me, being a good person means that I do my best to empathize with everyone, even murderers. I think its a mark of emotional growth and maturity to be able to view people as multifaceted beings who I can empathize with for the trauma they faced AND hold them accountable for the things they have done wrong. Black and white thinking is quickest way to allow hate into your life. I hesitate to get into the hidden misogyny in your response, but I am going to mention it in case you aren't aware of how your response comes across. It almost sounds like you are treating Naomi like Eve tricking Adam into original sin, which almost sounds like you hold her more accountable for the abuse than Warren. Examples: she was cheating on Rulon, she helped Warren get power, she wore gentile clothes, she spoke about sex with her sister wife. Idk what was normal conversation between flds wives and I understand that those things were scandalous in that culture, but Warren and his other handlers also wore regular clothes so I'm not sure why that bothers you so much about Naomi. Also, how do any of us know if she cheated on Rulon? Because one of her sister wives said so? Why is she to be believed if she is making money off gossip? I personally don't care she makes her money that way but the hypocrisy is deafening🤭. Idk if you are currently in a high demand, patriarchal group, then it may be scandalous to you, but if you aren't currently in that type of group, then it might be worth exploring why you feel so much disgust for Naomi, but can speak of abusers like Warren and Rulon without that same disgust. And finally, even if Naomi is some psychopath, born evil (which I do not believe happens) and was the catalyst behind the whole awful situation, it is not my place to be judge and jury over her. I am not Christian, but Jesus was right about one thing, don't judge others lest ye be judged. No one is perfect. Should she face legal repercussions, it isn't for me to decide. I imagine if they could have charged her, they would have. On a legal note, I doubt they could convict her because of the level on undue influence a cult leader has even in his favorite wife, so why force her sister to relive that trauma if the state knows they would not likely win the case?
@@starrynyte158 great response and I believe you're right about Naomi. Warren Jeffs was absolutely the mastermind behind all of this and he used his power and wealth to achieve it. Long before Naomi came around he was working his way up the ladder and fine tuning his techniques of abuse, deception, and manipulation. One of the striking things Naomi talked about was when Warren Jeffs showed her the pornography. What's striking is that Rachel Jeffs ( warren daughter) talks about her sexual abuse at the hands of warren and how he would show her pornography and then later have her engage in what she saw. It's just very striking for many reasons.
It must be so difficult for Sam waiting for his family to hopefully reach out. Your advocacy is incredible, and would be reaching out to so many people. If just one person leaves because of you guys, then its all been worth all of the effort that you put into your channel.
Rebecca Musser was involved in the investigation on the ranch. In her book she explains that the YFZ was supposedly only about 200 people in total, and the officers came in with a search warrant only to do a welfare check on the girl who was supposedly being abused and her baby. When they got the runaround and all those teenage girls being hidden despite clearly being on the ranch from the children’s school notes and the entire van full of pregnant teens, that’s when CPS called for all the children on the ranch to be placed in state custody. The mothers legally left voluntarily to be with their children, though it’s entirely possible they felt they had no choice. The calls turned out to be from a woman who’d attended the same rehab facility as a former FLDS member, hence why she knew all the lingo. By the time Texas law enforcement had traced the call, they’d already found too much evidence of destruction of evidence like overheated shredders, organized crime, human trafficking, and the FLDS-issued marriage certificates for plural wives that their search warrants were upheld, and they’d already searched the temple, since the “cold, dark place” that “Sarah Barlow-Jessop” reported to be held was believed to potentially be the temple basement.
Thank you! I always thought that Flora Jessup was the one who called. That was because she’s a badassed advocate for the women and found out her sisters were there.
@@herminadepagan3407 Flora actually received some of the calls from “Sarah” during the investigation and advocated that the Eldorado police investigate. The callers identity was confirmed as a woman named Rozita Swinton, who had previously been arrested for similar reports.
@@jillcombs9749 there were 12 FLDS leaders charged with various crimes related to the CSA and polygamy on the ranch, most of whom plead “no contest” to their charges, and were found subsequently guilty by juries. You can find the information if you do enough googling. The media was calling them the “dirty dozen”.
SO GLAD I found your page after watching this documentary on Netflix. I am so curious about FLDS and want to know every little detail I find it so fascinating 😅 Does anyone know where you can watch Preaching Evil in the UK?
There was pretty much culture shock on both sides, and as CPS, in a situation like this, you must assume you are being lied to. The safety of kids is the primary goal, and that was thwarted by the church at every point as a result of their prior conditioning.
Naomi was heavily involved with Warren and training his underage wives, according to people like Sam Brower and other investigators who had access to and read Warren's priesthood records when Naomi was his scribe. I imagine she is denying all knowledge and deflecting either because she doesn't want to face jail time for the same, because she could very well be accomplice to sexual assault or worse, or because she is still in love with Warren and wants to protect him on some level. Many people have described Naomi as slippery, and manipulative. To me, I think she should serve time for even being present at these events, so should the other adults who witnessed the horrors. Addition: In Prophet's Prey by Sam Brower, he says the Priesthood records said that Naomi was specifically charged with preparation of these young wives to be "heavenly comfort wives", the term Warren used for sexual partners.
I agree, Naomie is definitely an accomplice. Merrianne wasn't even the only sister she "trained" either--her youngest full sister, Ida, married Warren at 13, and she was present at the marriage of Veda Keate, another of Warren's underage wives.
@@GrowingUpinPolygamy I'm pretty sure Prey and Obey also has the answer as to who made the false report to they police and why she did it. That book is good overall and I highly recommend it.
The woman was someone who had a history of pretending to be younger than she was. There were claims she was in contact with former FLDS members & made the call using information they gave her.
Thanks so much for your incredible insight & for sharing your stories. As a child I can't imagine how tense, bizarre, scary & mind blowing all this was. I am so thankful you got to break free & I will keep my prayers as well as the rest of your family that God will touch their hearts & realize the truth so you can all be together. God bless you 🙏❤
Thank you both for your vulnerability in each and every video. While I'm a former Christian from Wisconsin, I imagine that these videos are reaching exactly who they need to reach.
The last episode, listening to those recordings, it was sickening. It made me feel physically ill. If it doesn't do that to you, I have to ask you how. Also I kind of think that a non insignificant amount of the flds people believe that underage marriage and r*pe are ok because "God"/Warren says it is. I'm also certain some of those children were told it was a blessing to be so close to the prophet, and they were groomed from an incredibly young age to believe it was ok and ignore the that fact that it felt wrong.
M- It is absolutely sickening what was done. The children were definitely groomed to ignore that it felt wrong and that is what we meant when we said that they believed r*pe was ok because Warren said so. It isn't that they feel that r*pe is ok, it is that they have been groomed to believe that what was happening wasn't r*pe at all.
I have no judgement on the good people of this community that “bought into” cringy things they didn’t even know about. The harsh judgement is reserved for the leader/leaders who used a religion to prey upon the weak and faithful. So well done Sam and Melissa♥️
Love this series and your insight on everything. Yall have such soothing voices I often replay your videos when I cant sleep. NOT calling you boring :)
Sam, I’m so sorry that your family is following Warren. That’s heartbreaking 💔. I will continue to pray for all of you. Hopefully your story will have a happy ending.
Hi Sam & Melissa! I recently came across your channel and I enjoy your content very much. Thank you for Sam for being so open about your experience. I watched the Keep sweet documentary literally just last week and I'm still in shock of the awful things these innocent People were involved in. Thank you 🌸 from California.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the Tom Green situation/family, who were not FLDS I don't think, but did practice polygamy. There was a YT version of the story a couple years ago and I'm curious if Sam and Melissa had ever heard of the situation and/or had thoughts on it.
You said They knew about underage marriages..., but didn't know about all this disgusting SEX part..., Hello marriage comes with sex..., at 12 , 14 yrs old ...., so messed up...., These people excluding children and teens are just as sick....
If they’ve been told law enforcement is evil, and they’d already been traumatized by the people they were told to consider good and holy, I can only imagine what fears were in the minds of those kids. They must have assumed that they were about to be subjected to something *exponentially worse* than whatever hurtful thing they’d already been through. After all, kids who are raised to trust police officers still find it terrifying to be removed from their parents, so the fear multiplier effect of growing up FLDS must have been horrible for them. I wonder what might have been different if they had treated the mothers as victims, too, and taken clear care to keep mothers and children together. In other words, pulled them out while treating them better than Warren Jeffs had. Maybe not a lot, and I understand that the authorities didn’t have enough information about how powerless the women were in that system so they had to look at the moms as potential abusers, too, but I still can’t help but wonder.
I found your channel through Profiling Evil, the podcast. I grew up in Southern Utah also and always knew the Creek was not full of evil people. My heart breaks for the evil that was visited on the victims there. Thank you for giving us such an honest perspective without the bitterness some have. 🙏
It must be so shocking and sad for you to see these documentaries and learn all the horrible things that were going on when you were in the FLDS community. It must be so hard to know that a large part of your family is still part of it. Thank you so much for making the videos. I have learned so much and think that both of you are so amazing!!
Thank you for bringing up the the Naomi difference! I watched the other one first and was shocked when I watched this episode. It sounded like she knew a lot more than what she said in the first documentary. It’s all just so sad.
I’ve always been interested in hearing peoples stories about leaving cults. But I really liked hearing Melissa’s take on things. I grew up in the LDS church and haven’t fully left it. I’ve really been deep into my Apache culture right now so the church has kinda been put to the side. But hearing Melissa say things that I have been thinking and feeling is really comforting to me. It’s weird that I never thought I had things in common with cult survivors, but I do have a little bit of cross over.
Hey Sam, hey Melissa, I wanted to touch on something that Melissa mentioned about the child’s perspective and worldview during the raid and how the state of Texas couldn’t have provided the type of support and services needed at that time. It made me think of Dr. Bruce Perry and Maia’s book The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog. Dr. Perry is a leader in the field of developmental trauma and Maia co-wrote a book with Brett Jeffs I believe about growing up in the FLDS. Heartbreaking story and one of amazing resilience and hope, like many of the stories. One of the chapters in Dr. Perry’s book is about him being on the scene during the Waco siege and working the children that were taken. It was a part of how he learned about the long term impact and many varied responses to childhood trauma. The books is phenomenal but even that chapter alone will help anyone understand the level of fear that children and families go through when these raids occur, even when they are necessary. It also helps you understand the psychology and neuroscience of trauma if you’re interested in anything like that Great episode as usual! Hope y’all are doing well!
Hello, that was heartbreaking to watch but an eye opener. Bless you both. Are yous able to watch the GLORIAVALE documentary from NEW ZEALAND and what yous think of it. Not polygramist(they say) but very similar in ways and people who have left there have said evil things happened.
Are you guys experiencing some push back from the FLDS community? Or even from the gentile community for the information that you are sharing? There are a lot of negative people who troll the internet. Please don't allow this to sour your experience on sharing with us. God bless you both for everything you are doing to assist others who want to leave that community.
31:00 the person who made that initial call was Rozita Swinton she’s a Black women so I highly doubt she was in the church, however she worked for an insurance company and may have had contact with a church member or heard rumors due to her location being so near to some of the “lands of hiding” or secure houses, maybe she went out and appraised land value or assessed damages after a fire. That’s my theory after reading Rachel Jeff’s book- I know the author/PI Sam Brower has his theories on the matter, but I’ll try to add in a link of an article written in 2010 about her.
She kind of did--it was a woman in Colorado named Rozita Swinton. She had a history of making these kinds of calls and I think it was determined she suffered from a mental illness. Hoax or not though, it definitely broke this whole thing wide open and I'm glad it happened.
Off topic I know,but I think when you talked about how people came to understand once they were away from the group that Jeffs was a false prophet.This reminds me of those involved in the Trump cult.
Repost: Hi Sam & Melissa! I found your channel a week ago and am hooked! Would you consider making reaction videos to Prophet’s Prey on Showtime, A&E’s Cults & Extreme Beliefs show? There is a current FLDS member and an ex FLDS member that participated in A&E show. A&E also has another documentary: Warren Jeffs-Prophet of Evil. Thank you for creating this channel!
The A&E Prophet of Evil documentary also has more interviews with former FLDS members including Warren’s daughter Rachel Jeffs and Elissa Wall. Might also be a good addition to the list.
Really enjoyed this one! 39:39 I think the issue with Naomi is two fold and you got part of it. She wants to avoid prosecution. From the justice system and possibly herself. Keep in mind that the 12 year old was her sister. I believe that she is still working through alot of trauma including guilt for everything she's done. In Preaching Evil she was openly willing to admit to alot of wrongs with herself, warren and the church but she refused to acknowledge anything regarding the heavenly sessions. It seems she's still heavily in denial about her role in those and the trauma surrounding it.
Have you all seen his daughter’s interview with Megyn Kelly, she stated he was abusing her as a child into teen years as well. Maybe you all can interview her.
This documentary destroyed me. Being such a specific case, it was hard/still is hard to hit them legally. So sad to think of all these people, their parents, their grandparents being bought up to believe these lies, to know no different. Definitely screams conditioning, lack of free will and imprisonment. Baffles me that he’s still able to make contact from behind bars, so dangerous
I’m curious why the state is allowing Warren to continue to speak to his followers? It seems like he should lose that privilege considering the severity of his sentence.
The documentary touched on the social infrastructure he put in place, buying land, owning the houses of the compound, controlling what was taught in school, the agriculture, the sheriff's and politicians that were in his pocket, etc... Can you speak on the entire system he put in place to protect his evil fortress.
I keep thinking of new questions as I watch your video. 😄 I’m curious if you guys have read any of the books that have been written by ex-FLDS members? Especially Elissa Wall’s book.
I want to learn more about this Naomi person. If she was his favourite wife, maybe she was also getting pleasure in the same sick things as he was. Either that, or she was fully brainwashed. Maybe both
Hey there! Just commenting on this as I listen to you talk about the recordings. Notice on the Keep Sweet pray and obey documentary when it starts the recording and has the transcript of the words. It shows the date of the recording. When he talks about laying your robes down or whatever the exact quote is the date of that transcript is December of a different year than the transcript of Merrianne's blessing. They put two totally different trainings on there and made it come across as the same one. Look into it and look at those dates. Notice date of the transcript when he talks about taking off the robes and then look into the date Merrianne was given the blessing. You'll find they are two different times.... You can also tell his voice is different. One training he wasn't sick the other he was as Naomi said. Again, not trying to justify any wrong done but just notice that for yourselves before you say Naomi isn't telling the truth.
I barely remember Warren Jeffs in the news at all back then. But I do have very strong memories of the raid on the YFZ Ranch and the media frenzy that followed in the wake of the children being removed. I grew up in an ultra conservative Evangelical church (I hesitate to call it a cult, but definitely edging there) that was equally anti-polygamy and anti-"liberal government overreach." And it was just a very strange limbo that the adults in my life (I was also in my senior year of high school) kept vacillating in. It's really surreal now thinking back after watching the documentary and these reaction videos that I so distinctly remember the children being removed and the interviews on the Today show and everywhere else with the mothers and the eventual "win" to have the children given back but absolutely ZERO memory of Warren Jeffs's arrest so soon afterwards for raping *children*.
I remember the women gave the same answer to the under age bride question. They all said "not that I have seen". I wondered if that was a way to lie because they didn't actually see the marriage? I don't know, just a thought
Maybe it's their method of denial, in the sense that they did not witness the weddings and so they did not see it. They noticed and they knew, but they did not see. My guess is it's a play on lexical semantics, but what do I know...
How many generations back does your family, Sam, go in the FLDS? I know Mormons are huge on genealogy so I imagine you know about your lineage? Was your family in it from the beginning?
The flds top leadership and their wives were able to hide their evil heavenly sessions, under the guise of sacredness. It proves that it’s possible that there are activities in the other lds temples still unknown to the non-“elect” of the average faithful member. We know there are secret second anointing ceremonies, promising celestial glory to whole families which is unknown to most members. What else?
I can see the excited girl in her white dress and veil committing at the age of 7 or 8. First communion bride of God. I could see myself believing (sad but true).
@Treble Trouble Ty , I was thinking it was AUB. I like the short series really shows their good & bad emotions. The wives really do struggle & they speak up.
Naomi Jeffs may be saying it didn't happen because it was traumatic for her as well and she can't cope with what she was involved with yet. I'm guessing she's going to need a lot of therapy.
So talking about the part where he says he lied he wasn't the prophet and they say no you are ... I forget where its from Amanda rae says it on her channel "Its easier to fool someone , then to convince them they've been fooled ."
Please PLEASE PLEASE react to HBO's Big Love!!! The dude lead is a Lost Boy that's all grown up. He went back to practicing polygamy as an adult, though he lives in the salt lake suburbs with his three wives - not at the ranch. His first wife was mainstream LDS with him and they never planned to get into polygamy when they got married. His second wife is the flds-equivalent leader's daughter and she's fulllllly still into it all. Watching her (Chloe sevigny) be an FLDS wife in the suburbs and have exactly 0 time for the nonsense bullshit of the other wives is the BEST. The third wife (Ginnifer Goodwin) is very young. She was just the family babysitter but the lead dude (Bill) cheated on his wives with her and fell in love with her before they ended up bringing her into the family. She's overwhelmed and has no background in any form of Mormonism, - she just loved Bill. The fundamentalist cult isn't explicitly flds, but it's directly based on them. The leader of it is definitely Rulon and his weaselly little son (Warren) is always along with him. It's -- ugh!! -- Just great. I'm not explaining it well. It's a dramedy about secret polygamists and the first three seasons are like, top 10 all-time favorite TV for me. I'm absolutely desperate to hear takes on it from former LDS people, let alone a former FLDS guy! His mother still lives at "Juniper Creek" and he's locked in a sort of organized crime-style power stuggle with the Juniper Creek leader throughout, so they spend a lot of the time on the show dealing directly with the fundamentalists. Bonus points: I think at least the first three seasons are based on Sam's era of living in short creek. Pre-all the Warren stuff. Set at the end of Rulon's era.
Oh ps also, I think Melissa would have some really interesting views on the show too, having married a former FLDS guy and been LDS. Just wanted to make that clear if it wasn't in my original post haha
I asked the same question after watching why didn’t Naomi admit to it. I was wondering if she was still trying to protect him. I didn’t even think she could possibly trying to save herself.
I was optimistic it would end with the prison walls collapsing and Warren Jeffs emerging from a cloud of smoke through said walls, It didn't happen, quite the Anti climax, oh well hopefully folks will pray harder, it was a great series and really enjoyed you're description of the show, I will learn to keep my expectations low in future, If the walls did collapse I guess I would have seen that on the news, after Ukraine obviously.
Being in Northern California at the time of Warren Jeffs' arrest (I turned 18 in 1992), I had no idea how big of an ordeal it really was that he was arrested. When I had heard it on the news, I really thought that it was a "small time" polygamy group, like Charles Manson's group was actually pretty small (I know- Charles Manson and Warren Jeffs are no comparison to each other- different kinds of cults.) When it wound up on news showing an aerial view when children were being separated from the mothers and mothers taken into custody while kids went into CPS custody, I was amazed at how many there were! Never did hear much more than that while it was happening.
A question I’ve always had is: In a closed community like this, where they’re not allowed to associate with outside people and there are no new people coming into the community, isn’t there a lot of incest? How can they continue to have so many children and marry them within the church without marrying within the same genetic lines?
I can imagine that the things naomi witnessed and assisted with in those sessions are very traumatising to her and her denying them happening isn't her purposefully lying but her brain protecting her from the trauma. she could just be purposefully denying things to protect herself from persecution
I have a question I'm not sure if you will have the answer to, or any ability to even find out, but since so many are still following him and he is still sending his prophecies and rules etc even though he is in prison, are underage marriages still happening? Are there still arranged marriages that he is facilitating? Do people still get kicked out of the community and their wives and children assigned to other families etc? What does all of that look like now?
I know I'm super late, but regarding the confusion over the recordings, I think there are two. There's one in which Jeffs instructs a group of girls on how to pleasure him, and then another of the supposed "blessing" of the 12-year-old girl. _Keep Sweet, Pray & Obey_ just spliced one right after the other, giving the impression the two separate recordings are actually one long one. TO BE PERFECTLY CLEAR, I still completely think the "blessing" was a rape and that the jury got it right! But it's important to be aware of how documentaries use editing to skew viewers' perception - because although the intention was good here, that might not always be the case. (Also, it explains the discrepancy between this documentary and _Preaching Evil_ lol)
I love how in the intro after Melissa says “and we have 2 beautiful babies together” and Sam always replies “Yesss we do!!” Lol so cute love u guys
(Melissa) Aww thank you so much! =)
His big smile at her when he looks at her in the intro. Love them. Also love how as they are each talking they look and pay attention to each other. So genuine!
They are adorable!
I always skip that part out of annoyed jealousy lol they're so lucky
@@TheBeatlesRoooockme too. Me too
My heart breaks for Sam. We know he's doing good work, even if he can't knock down the physical doors, he is knocking down barriers for his community. Thank you.
LONG POST INCOMING!
25:40 Even more interesting thing to note about that midwife--her name is Sally Wayman Jeffs (later Sally Nielsen, she was married to Warren's brother LeRoy, the same man Alicia Rohbock from the doc was married too and there's a photo of them together with their daughters in this episode iirc; after LeRoy got kicked out, while Alicia was given to Isaac, Sally was given to Wendell Nielsen--a man who was already married to Sally's oldest daughter Merilyn).
Not only did Sally deliver babies of underage girls--THREE of her daughters were married underage. Her daughter Janet married Ernest Jessop when she was 15 (he was 26) and then when he was kicked out, was married, still at 15, to Raymond Jessop, age 32. At the time of the raid, she had a two-year old daughter named Zionna. Pamela was next--she was two months shy of 16 when she married 20-year-old Jackson Jessop (slightly smaller age gap, I guess). At the time of the raid, they had a two-year-old son named Matthew, and she gave birth to a second son, Jonathan, while in state custody. The youngest of the trio, LeAnn, was married to Leroy Jessop when she was, you guessed it, 15 years old. At the time of the raid, she had a 1-year-old daughter named Sally, after her snake of a mother.
Sally and her kids were profiled in The New York Times. The article is called Children of God, from July 2008, and if you look up "Too Young to Wed flds" there's a photoset done for the article of Sally at a dining table with some of her children and grandchildren (you can see LeAnn standing in the background, Zionna and Matthew at the end of the table, and Pamela holding baby Jonathan; and Janet turned away from the camera slightly because allegedly she was hiding a baby bump; Sally's youngest kids, Saroya, Leesa and Shaun are also present). This woman went on national television and LIED about not having any knowledge of underage marriages and then turned right around and allowed her family to be photographed and profiled in an article that any child with basic subtraction skills could figure out revealed that her 3 daughters were all married underage.
I should also mention, all four of the men Sally's daughters married were brothers, sons of Merril Jessop, and therefore the sister of the 12 year old from the tape with Warren. Merrianne and LeAnn were married during the infamous July 27, 2008 triple wedding ceremony at YFZ. Janet's husband Raymond was also married to Warren's daughter Teresa in the same ceremony. All the girls were underage.
Just dug this up, Warren recorded this in his priesthood records about Janet's labor struggles and directly names Sally, her mother.
“All through the afternoon and evening I was in contact with R17, having the report as I called there that Janet Jessop, Raymond Jessop’s wife, was struggling. She had been in labor for three days. Sally Nielsen, Wendell’s wife, has been appointed of the Lord to be the midwife to help deliver the babies. She is a woman that the Lord has blessed with a natural gift to work with expecting mothers, but she has taken on a doubt and fear against herself. In my conversation in the afternoon with Brother Wendell, Sally had feared and turned to Doctor Lloyd Barlow to make the decisions. I detected that. The Lord showed me this is one reason they were having such difficulty, because they didn’t turn to the Lord, they turned to the doctor. But the doctor had turned to the Lord, and that was a blessing. So all through Friday, I was yearning unto the Lord, even offering myself as an atonement for her to be blessed and deliver the child. I knew that the girl being sixteen years old, if she went to the hospital, they could put Raymond Jessop in jeopardy of prosecution as the government is looking for any reason to come against us there. I last called at 11:30 p.m. and told them I was praying for them. The Lord assured me that she would bring forth a little girl, but He would give them experience.”
“Uncle Merril made note that Sister Janet, wife of Brother Ray had been in labor for two to three days and was having a very difficult time. The Prophet had Uncle Wendell, Uncle Merril, and Brother Ray join in a prayer circle for her. The Prophet…told those attending that, because of her age and the associated government pressures against the Prophet and those who abide the laws of God, going to the hospital was not an option…Sister Sally W. Nielsen, Dr. Lloyd, and nurse Sarah Jessop were attending.”
Wow! Thank you so much for sharing so much insight!
May God bless Elisa and everyone who leaves FLDS.
My grandpa was a liaison for this case with CPS. One of the biggest problems too was there were so many kids that didn’t have documentation of even existing that they didn’t even know what to do. They were straddling a weird line of policy and procedure and what’s best for the kids. They definitely knew something was off but another big issue was a lack of funding to initiate further investigation. All around a sad situation but the media played a huge role and created a dangerous narrative that put a lot of CPS workers in an unsafe positions. I hope they can figure out better ways to investigate and navigate these situations safely.
I still can’t believe Oprah gave them such a huge platform to spread their lies. They interviewed Elisa before the raid and knew the type of treatment she endured! For them to take the side of the FLDS without any question was awful. They even interviewed the midwife to many of the underaged girls and took her lies of “never seeing an underaged marriage” as fact! 😡 they could have at least brought in Elisa to check if the people they were talking too were actually telling the truth! While I don’t agree with how they took every child off the compound, they did have evidence that children were being abused! I don’t know what they could have done differently in the case because there was a risk to every child on that compound with Warren Jeffs as their leader.
I felt sad for Naomi in the other documentary, until she talked about how she would "tell on" her family members and she never "meant to get anyone thrown out", but she knew that was happening. Yes, she was brainwashed into believing in a "prophet". That's sad. She also was manipulative and conniving to get into a power position, not caring who she hurt along the way. Gross.
Not to mention her comments about - well, she was mature and wanted to be married. Yeah, no.
I found it interesting that the mom in the documentary hadn’t seen her children since they were taken to Zion. Then when the police took custody of the kids the bio mom was called, I think the only reason some of them got their own children back was because of the raid.
The sad thing was, Alicia had been separated from her children even longer than that. She was part of a lawsuit filed against Warren and said this:
"On September 27, 2003, Alicia gave birth to her daughter R.R. in Short Creek. Then in February of 2005, LeRoy Jeffs returned from a long absence with orders from Defendant Jeffs, who was now the Prophet, instructing her that the Prophet did not consider her qualified to be a mother and that she had to give R.R. away. LeRoy then took R.R. against
Alicia’s will and, without further explanation as to where R.R. was going or why, disappeared. Alicia, sickened and distressed over the loss of R.R. and her disqualification to be a mother, was ordered to move to Mesquite, Nevada. At the time, she was nearly 6 months pregnant with her second daughter, R.R."
It went to say that after LeRoy got kicked out, she was reassigned to his brother Seth and while her oldest daughter was moved into the house, Alicia wasn't allowed any contact with her. And after Seth came back from his own reprimand, he separated Alicia from her younger daughter too. I just feel so bad for her.
@@piratesswoop725 that makes me sick. In THAT culture a women’s only worth is being a mother and caregiver. To imagine that these women grow up dreaming of the day they will become a mother and then even if they’re married to someone terrible most of them are glad for children. Then to have your only purpose and happiness just ripped away from you without any explanation and without knowing if your children are safe or who they’re with, it’s absolutely cruel!
i love the way you two listen to each other, it’s refreshing
Thank you
I recently read Rebecca Wall Musser's book "The Witness Wore Red" and she talked about how Warren and Roulon talked about the idea of having the "heavenly sessions" room in the temple. It has a little more in depth background info in her book.
I wonder if Naomi is refusing to admit what happened because that means having to accept her role in it.
I believe you're correct. That 12 year old was also her sister. She refuses to deal with any guilt and trauma that she has regarding r@pe and underage marriage.
She's ready to and has confronted herself about the easier less traumatic things she's done and admitted to it. Such as aiding and abetting warren. However she refuses to talk and shuts down whenever she's confronted with anything to do with Warren's heavenly sessions or underage marriages.
Given how much you’ve been able to learn since leaving about how unique each individual’s experience in the FLDS is, I think it would be really interesting to hear Sam’s reflections on what shaped his experience and how much that might have differed even from another boy his age at that time: how his dad’s position may have impacted what happened to and in his household, how keeping households somewhat separate insulated those with privileges from knowing what a hard time others were having and vice versa, etc.
Yay! 2 days early!
Can’t wait for Eskel’s episode. I referred Amanda and him to Mormon Stories after your episode on there.
Such an interesting wormhole.
Have you ever been in contact with Doris Hanson from Polygamy What Love is This? She is doing good work. It would be cool to see you on her show or for you to interview her!
We will look her up and try to reach out! Thank you for the great recommendations. The interview with Eskel was awesome, and we can't wait to share it next week. =)
25:47 re: the midwife having delivered babies to underage brides, after claiming on Larry King (? or Anderson Cooper I don’t remember) that she hadn’t seen underage girls being married.
Rebecca Musser said in her book that one of the women whose baby had been delivered by that midwife was actually the midwife’s OWN DAUGHTER - and in fact was there on that panel being interviewed alongside her mother.
I agree with you that law enforcement and CPS had NO idea what they were getting in to. Given that it was a closed society I’m sure they bumbled around for a while stepping all over cultural norms they did not understand. Unfortunately, I’m sure it caused pain, but ultimately they got the information they needed. THANK YOU for another thoughtful conversation.
The YFZ raid is largely considered a failure of epic proportions, just like the original Short Creek raid - just because it was largely abandoned out of fear, doesn't make it a win.. The fact that the warrant alone was executed thanks to a false call immediately set up any charges to be thrown out, due to a violation of Fourth Amendment Rights. Were there some wins? Yup. But the way it was handled, and the way those women and children were warehoused only caused a further doubling down. That's not 'unfortunate', that's crappy planning and execution (law enforcement didn't even give those who'd lived in the community and left the time of day on best practices until it was too late), and no matter how we feel about the FLDS, they have the exact right to the same Constitutional protection that anyone else on US soil does, by LAW.
They knew exactly what they were getting into. They already raided Short Creek and removed over 260 children in 1953 and arrested their parents. They kept those kids in state custody for over two years. CPS and the state knew well of this previous raid and what would be involved. They didn’t go in blind. What they didn’t anticipate was the public backlash by MSM and social media. That’s what overwhelmed them, not the actions of the raid.
@@pansprayers pedophiles shouldn’t have any rights when children can be saved instead!
@@fehyndana7725exactly! Religious beliefs do not override the safety of the children
Here is my take on the Naomi situation. You know how when you lie about something enough it starts to feel like it's the truth? I believe that with all the trauma Naomi experienced and all the traumatizing things she had to witness, she learned to believe the story instead of what she actually witnessed. This is a pretty common coping mechanism, and I think she uses that at least where it relates to her own feelings of culpability. The girl Warren r*ped on the tape was her little sister. We all feel an intrinsic need to protect our siblings and Naomi was forced to witness Warren SA'ing her baby sister. Even though we all know that Naomi really had no power in that situation and couldn't have stopped the event even if she tried to, the guilt she feels about it must be extreme! I'm not sure I could face the truth if I was in her position. Put that together with years of repressed trauma, it's no wonder that Naomi has coping mechanisms that keep her from admitting what really happened.
@Treble Trouble I apologize that my statement made it sound like I viewed Naomi as 100% victim. As I said she was and is very culpable for what she did, but I do stand by the fact that she was brainwashed and from her interview, I do not believe she has completely deconstructed. She did not come across as a woman who has eliminated her past beliefs. Of course you could just believe she is such a good liar, but tbh I don't have enough emotional space to look at someone so unrelated to my life with that much suspicion. She could have just kept quiet as she has til now, so why speak at all if she is that concerned about legal troubles or lying.
My comment was based on my experience and my opinions tho. When I was in an abusive relationship, I did things that I would never have done if I wasn't under the undue influence of someone who I thought loved me and who had physical and psychological power over me. I feel deep shame over some of the things that I did and ask myself constantly why I wasn't strong enough to do the right thing during that time. If you never had to experience that type of situation, I am honestly, grateful. No one should face that type of abuse.. I never did anything close to the crimes and immoral things that Naomi did, but I do empathize with her. I truly believe that, for me, being a good person means that I do my best to empathize with everyone, even murderers. I think its a mark of emotional growth and maturity to be able to view people as multifaceted beings who I can empathize with for the trauma they faced AND hold them accountable for the things they have done wrong. Black and white thinking is quickest way to allow hate into your life.
I hesitate to get into the hidden misogyny in your response, but I am going to mention it in case you aren't aware of how your response comes across. It almost sounds like you are treating Naomi like Eve tricking Adam into original sin, which almost sounds like you hold her more accountable for the abuse than Warren. Examples: she was cheating on Rulon, she helped Warren get power, she wore gentile clothes, she spoke about sex with her sister wife. Idk what was normal conversation between flds wives and I understand that those things were scandalous in that culture, but Warren and his other handlers also wore regular clothes so I'm not sure why that bothers you so much about Naomi. Also, how do any of us know if she cheated on Rulon? Because one of her sister wives said so? Why is she to be believed if she is making money off gossip? I personally don't care she makes her money that way but the hypocrisy is deafening🤭. Idk if you are currently in a high demand, patriarchal group, then it may be scandalous to you, but if you aren't currently in that type of group, then it might be worth exploring why you feel so much disgust for Naomi, but can speak of abusers like Warren and Rulon without that same disgust.
And finally, even if Naomi is some psychopath, born evil (which I do not believe happens) and was the catalyst behind the whole awful situation, it is not my place to be judge and jury over her. I am not Christian, but Jesus was right about one thing, don't judge others lest ye be judged. No one is perfect. Should she face legal repercussions, it isn't for me to decide. I imagine if they could have charged her, they would have. On a legal note, I doubt they could convict her because of the level on undue influence a cult leader has even in his favorite wife, so why force her sister to relive that trauma if the state knows they would not likely win the case?
@@starrynyte158 great response and I believe you're right about Naomi.
Warren Jeffs was absolutely the mastermind behind all of this and he used his power and wealth to achieve it.
Long before Naomi came around he was working his way up the ladder and fine tuning his techniques of abuse, deception, and manipulation.
One of the striking things Naomi talked about was when Warren Jeffs showed her the pornography. What's striking is that Rachel Jeffs ( warren daughter) talks about her sexual abuse at the hands of warren and how he would show her pornography and then later have her engage in what she saw. It's just very striking for many reasons.
I am guessing Naomi won't admit what happened in the temple because she is afraid charges could be pressed against her
It must be so difficult for Sam waiting for his family to hopefully reach out. Your advocacy is incredible, and would be reaching out to so many people. If just one person leaves because of you guys, then its all been worth all of the effort that you put into your channel.
Rebecca Musser was involved in the investigation on the ranch. In her book she explains that the YFZ was supposedly only about 200 people in total, and the officers came in with a search warrant only to do a welfare check on the girl who was supposedly being abused and her baby. When they got the runaround and all those teenage girls being hidden despite clearly being on the ranch from the children’s school notes and the entire van full of pregnant teens, that’s when CPS called for all the children on the ranch to be placed in state custody. The mothers legally left voluntarily to be with their children, though it’s entirely possible they felt they had no choice.
The calls turned out to be from a woman who’d attended the same rehab facility as a former FLDS member, hence why she knew all the lingo. By the time Texas law enforcement had traced the call, they’d already found too much evidence of destruction of evidence like overheated shredders, organized crime, human trafficking, and the FLDS-issued marriage certificates for plural wives that their search warrants were upheld, and they’d already searched the temple, since the “cold, dark place” that “Sarah Barlow-Jessop” reported to be held was believed to potentially be the temple basement.
So interesting. Thank you so much for sharing!
Thank you! I always thought that Flora Jessup was the one who called. That was because she’s a badassed advocate for the women and found out her sisters were there.
@@herminadepagan3407 Flora actually received some of the calls from “Sarah” during the investigation and advocated that the Eldorado police investigate. The callers identity was confirmed as a woman named Rozita Swinton, who had previously been arrested for similar reports.
Has Warren Jeffs been the only one found culpable of the multiple crimes, or have other adults been convicted for abuse, trafficking, etc?
@@jillcombs9749 there were 12 FLDS leaders charged with various crimes related to the CSA and polygamy on the ranch, most of whom plead “no contest” to their charges, and were found subsequently guilty by juries. You can find the information if you do enough googling. The media was calling them the “dirty dozen”.
SO GLAD I found your page after watching this documentary on Netflix. I am so curious about FLDS and want to know every little detail I find it so fascinating 😅
Does anyone know where you can watch Preaching Evil in the UK?
There was pretty much culture shock on both sides, and as CPS, in a situation like this, you must assume you are being lied to. The safety of kids is the primary goal, and that was thwarted by the church at every point as a result of their prior conditioning.
What happened to her family as she testified in court.
Warren is No man of God. I believe there will be a special place in the pits of hell for him.
Watching the 4th episode was hard and so sickening.
Amen.
Naomi was heavily involved with Warren and training his underage wives, according to people like Sam Brower and other investigators who had access to and read Warren's priesthood records when Naomi was his scribe. I imagine she is denying all knowledge and deflecting either because she doesn't want to face jail time for the same, because she could very well be accomplice to sexual assault or worse, or because she is still in love with Warren and wants to protect him on some level. Many people have described Naomi as slippery, and manipulative. To me, I think she should serve time for even being present at these events, so should the other adults who witnessed the horrors.
Addition: In Prophet's Prey by Sam Brower, he says the Priesthood records said that Naomi was specifically charged with preparation of these young wives to be "heavenly comfort wives", the term Warren used for sexual partners.
I agree, Naomie is definitely an accomplice. Merrianne wasn't even the only sister she "trained" either--her youngest full sister, Ida, married Warren at 13, and she was present at the marriage of Veda Keate, another of Warren's underage wives.
Thanks!
@@GrowingUpinPolygamy I'm pretty sure Prey and Obey also has the answer as to who made the false report to they police and why she did it. That book is good overall and I highly recommend it.
I love these 2 videos per week!!
Thank you for doing this series and for being so honest, candid and fair with your commentary
The woman was someone who had a history of pretending to be younger than she was. There were claims she was in contact with former FLDS members & made the call using information they gave her.
Thanks so much for your incredible insight & for sharing your stories. As a child I can't imagine how tense, bizarre, scary & mind blowing all this was. I am so thankful you got to break free & I will keep my prayers as well as the rest of your family that God will touch their hearts & realize the truth so you can all be together. God bless you 🙏❤
Thank you both for your vulnerability in each and every video. While I'm a former Christian from Wisconsin, I imagine that these videos are reaching exactly who they need to reach.
Thank you so much.
The last episode, listening to those recordings, it was sickening. It made me feel physically ill. If it doesn't do that to you, I have to ask you how. Also I kind of think that a non insignificant amount of the flds people believe that underage marriage and r*pe are ok because "God"/Warren says it is. I'm also certain some of those children were told it was a blessing to be so close to the prophet, and they were groomed from an incredibly young age to believe it was ok and ignore the that fact that it felt wrong.
M- It is absolutely sickening what was done. The children were definitely groomed to ignore that it felt wrong and that is what we meant when we said that they believed r*pe was ok because Warren said so. It isn't that they feel that r*pe is ok, it is that they have been groomed to believe that what was happening wasn't r*pe at all.
@@GrowingUpinPolygamy My heart hurts for these women and children. 💔❤️🩹 the men too God bless the men!
I have no judgement on the good people of this community that “bought into” cringy things they didn’t even know about. The harsh judgement is reserved for the leader/leaders who used a religion to prey upon the weak and faithful. So well done Sam and Melissa♥️
Love this series and your insight on everything. Yall have such soothing voices I often replay your videos when I cant sleep. NOT calling you boring :)
Sam, I’m so sorry that your family is following Warren. That’s heartbreaking 💔. I will continue to pray for all of you. Hopefully your story will have a happy ending.
Thank you for all the info that you are giving us. It is very interesting.
Our pleasure!
You two are awesome
Wooo wooo. Just got home from my immunotherapy treatment. I’m exhausted so I’m so happy to lay here and watch!
I’ve binged watched all your videos!! Love your videos (:
Thank you so much!
Hi Sam & Melissa! I recently came across your channel and I enjoy your content very much. Thank you for Sam for being so open about your experience. I watched the Keep sweet documentary literally just last week and I'm still in shock of the awful things these innocent People were involved in. Thank you 🌸 from California.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the Tom Green situation/family, who were not FLDS I don't think, but did practice polygamy. There was a YT version of the story a couple years ago and I'm curious if Sam and Melissa had ever heard of the situation and/or had thoughts on it.
After he got out of jail him and his 3 remaining wives joined the Kingston group/The Order....he died of Covid and his wives were remarried.
You said They knew about underage marriages..., but didn't know about all this disgusting SEX part..., Hello marriage comes with sex..., at 12 , 14 yrs old ...., so messed up...., These people excluding children and teens are just as sick....
If they’ve been told law enforcement is evil, and they’d already been traumatized by the people they were told to consider good and holy, I can only imagine what fears were in the minds of those kids. They must have assumed that they were about to be subjected to something *exponentially worse* than whatever hurtful thing they’d already been through. After all, kids who are raised to trust police officers still find it terrifying to be removed from their parents, so the fear multiplier effect of growing up FLDS must have been horrible for them.
I wonder what might have been different if they had treated the mothers as victims, too, and taken clear care to keep mothers and children together. In other words, pulled them out while treating them better than Warren Jeffs had. Maybe not a lot, and I understand that the authorities didn’t have enough information about how powerless the women were in that system so they had to look at the moms as potential abusers, too, but I still can’t help but wonder.
I found your channel through Profiling Evil, the podcast. I grew up in Southern Utah also and always knew the Creek was not full of evil people. My heart breaks for the evil that was visited on the victims there. Thank you for giving us such an honest perspective without the bitterness some have. 🙏
It must be so shocking and sad for you to see these documentaries and learn all the horrible things that were going on when you were in the FLDS community. It must be so hard to know that a large part of your family is still part of it. Thank you so much for making the videos. I have learned so much and think that both of you are so amazing!!
Thank you for bringing up the the Naomi difference! I watched the other one first and was shocked when I watched this episode. It sounded like she knew a lot more than what she said in the first documentary. It’s all just so sad.
I’ve always been interested in hearing peoples stories about leaving cults.
But I really liked hearing Melissa’s take on things. I grew up in the LDS church and haven’t fully left it. I’ve really been deep into my Apache culture right now so the church has kinda been put to the side.
But hearing Melissa say things that I have been thinking and feeling is really comforting to me. It’s weird that I never thought I had things in common with cult survivors, but I do have a little bit of cross over.
Dear God that I can't believe in, let Warrn Jeffs rot in jail. 😡
I have enjoyed your chat sending love 💓 to you guys from Glasgow Scotland
I can not even imagine the Trauma these children sustained ! I hope they get the therapy, and much needed help they will need to press forward.
I was about to comment, then you said it! Naomi doesn't want to go to prison also!
Hey Sam, hey Melissa, I wanted to touch on something that Melissa mentioned about the child’s perspective and worldview during the raid and how the state of Texas couldn’t have provided the type of support and services needed at that time.
It made me think of Dr. Bruce Perry and Maia’s book The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog. Dr. Perry is a leader in the field of developmental trauma and Maia co-wrote a book with Brett Jeffs I believe about growing up in the FLDS. Heartbreaking story and one of amazing resilience and hope, like many of the stories.
One of the chapters in Dr. Perry’s book is about him being on the scene during the Waco siege and working the children that were taken. It was a part of how he learned about the long term impact and many varied responses to childhood trauma. The books is phenomenal but even that chapter alone will help anyone understand the level of fear that children and families go through when these raids occur, even when they are necessary. It also helps you understand the psychology and neuroscience of trauma if you’re interested in anything like that
Great episode as usual! Hope y’all are doing well!
Thank you for doing this work and sharing your personal experiences. It can be so fulfilling and equally as taxing so thank you both
Hello, that was heartbreaking to watch but an eye opener.
Bless you both.
Are yous able to watch the GLORIAVALE documentary from NEW ZEALAND and what yous think of it. Not polygramist(they say) but very similar in ways and people who have left there have said evil things happened.
Are you guys experiencing some push back from the FLDS community? Or even from the gentile community for the information that you are sharing? There are a lot of negative people who troll the internet. Please don't allow this to sour your experience on sharing with us. God bless you both for everything you are doing to assist others who want to leave that community.
31:00 the person who made that initial call was Rozita Swinton she’s a Black women so I highly doubt she was in the church, however she worked for an insurance company and may have had contact with a church member or heard rumors due to her location being so near to some of the “lands of hiding” or secure houses, maybe she went out and appraised land value or assessed damages after a fire. That’s my theory after reading Rachel Jeff’s book- I know the author/PI Sam Brower has his theories on the matter, but I’ll try to add in a link of an article written in 2010 about her.
The mystery girl who called is a hero. I wonder if she'll ever come forward.
She kind of did--it was a woman in Colorado named Rozita Swinton. She had a history of making these kinds of calls and I think it was determined she suffered from a mental illness.
Hoax or not though, it definitely broke this whole thing wide open and I'm glad it happened.
She saved others!
Off topic I know,but I think when you talked about how people came to understand once they were away from the group that Jeffs was a false prophet.This reminds me of those involved in the Trump cult.
Repost: Hi Sam & Melissa! I found your channel a week ago and am hooked! Would you consider making reaction videos to Prophet’s Prey on Showtime, A&E’s Cults & Extreme Beliefs show? There is a current FLDS member and an ex FLDS member that participated in A&E show. A&E also has another documentary: Warren Jeffs-Prophet of Evil. Thank you for creating this channel!
Yes, I would love for them to watch Prophet's Prey! They play a much more damning version of the audio, it was super difficult to listen to.
We will put both of those on the list! =)
The A&E Prophet of Evil documentary also has more interviews with former FLDS members including Warren’s daughter Rachel Jeffs and Elissa Wall. Might also be a good addition to the list.
I had a testimony of Prophet Godon B. Hinkley. I never accepted the one after him, I don't even know who's Prophet now.
Really enjoyed this one!
39:39 I think the issue with Naomi is two fold and you got part of it. She wants to avoid prosecution. From the justice system and possibly herself. Keep in mind that the 12 year old was her sister. I believe that she is still working through alot of trauma including guilt for everything she's done.
In Preaching Evil she was openly willing to admit to alot of wrongs with herself, warren and the church but she refused to acknowledge anything regarding the heavenly sessions. It seems she's still heavily in denial about her role in those and the trauma surrounding it.
Have you all seen his daughter’s interview with Megyn Kelly, she stated he was abusing her as a child into teen years as well. Maybe you all can interview her.
There’s so much missing from the documentaries about the legal side & why the children were returned.
I just wanted to say thank you for sharing your story so much with us. I look forward to washing baby bottles with you two again in the future.
You two are very balanced individuals. Love you.
Was Sam in any of the picture or videos shown in the documentary?
M- No he was not.
@@GrowingUpinPolygamy thank you for answering my question.
Thank you two for doing this! It must have been hard for Sam to watch it. By the way, love the beard Sam!
I like your channel. Melissa, I can relate to you. But I joined the mainstream LDS church at age 17 and 1/2.
This documentary destroyed me. Being such a specific case, it was hard/still is hard to hit them legally. So sad to think of all these people, their parents, their grandparents being bought up to believe these lies, to know no different. Definitely screams conditioning, lack of free will and imprisonment. Baffles me that he’s still able to make contact from behind bars, so dangerous
I’m curious why the state is allowing Warren to continue to speak to his followers? It seems like he should lose that privilege considering the severity of his sentence.
Amen! Or recorded.
Nice mic setup 🙏🏾 very good audio
Thanks!
The documentary touched on the social infrastructure he put in place, buying land, owning the houses of the compound, controlling what was taught in school, the agriculture, the sheriff's and politicians that were in his pocket, etc... Can you speak on the entire system he put in place to protect his evil fortress.
I keep thinking of new questions as I watch your video. 😄
I’m curious if you guys have read any of the books that have been written by ex-FLDS members? Especially Elissa Wall’s book.
You’re awesome, Sam! What a good dude you are lol. Thanks, Sam & Melissa! Xo
She doesn't want to be held responsible for her part.
Once I start making money, I gotta support you guys. You truly are doing the Good Work.❤️🔥💀🌈
I was actually at the summer camp they were planning to house the children at until law enforcement backed down from that idea. It was crazy!
I want to learn more about this Naomi person. If she was his favourite wife, maybe she was also getting pleasure in the same sick things as he was. Either that, or she was fully brainwashed. Maybe both
Hey there! Just commenting on this as I listen to you talk about the recordings. Notice on the Keep Sweet pray and obey documentary when it starts the recording and has the transcript of the words. It shows the date of the recording. When he talks about laying your robes down or whatever the exact quote is the date of that transcript is December of a different year than the transcript of Merrianne's blessing. They put two totally different trainings on there and made it come across as the same one. Look into it and look at those dates. Notice date of the transcript when he talks about taking off the robes and then look into the date Merrianne was given the blessing. You'll find they are two different times.... You can also tell his voice is different. One training he wasn't sick the other he was as Naomi said. Again, not trying to justify any wrong done but just notice that for yourselves before you say Naomi isn't telling the truth.
I love watching you Melissa! Even though I don't know you I look up to you!
(Melissa) Thank you so much! You just made my whole day!
I am a mother to a 3 yr old son, Luke. You are a awesome wonderful mother to look up to!
I barely remember Warren Jeffs in the news at all back then. But I do have very strong memories of the raid on the YFZ Ranch and the media frenzy that followed in the wake of the children being removed. I grew up in an ultra conservative Evangelical church (I hesitate to call it a cult, but definitely edging there) that was equally anti-polygamy and anti-"liberal government overreach." And it was just a very strange limbo that the adults in my life (I was also in my senior year of high school) kept vacillating in. It's really surreal now thinking back after watching the documentary and these reaction videos that I so distinctly remember the children being removed and the interviews on the Today show and everywhere else with the mothers and the eventual "win" to have the children given back but absolutely ZERO memory of Warren Jeffs's arrest so soon afterwards for raping *children*.
I’ve met Ms wall. Wonderful woman
QUESTION....As of today is an LDS Temple wedding legal or do the couple have to also have a civil court marriage....
I think she is probably ashamed she allowed little girls to be abused. Just a thought
Of course it was terrifying for the children at the ranch....I imagine how being separated from families by Warren
I remember the women gave the same answer to the under age bride question. They all said "not that I have seen". I wondered if that was a way to lie because they didn't actually see the marriage? I don't know, just a thought
Maybe it's their method of denial, in the sense that they did not witness the weddings and so they did not see it. They noticed and they knew, but they did not see. My guess is it's a play on lexical semantics, but what do I know...
How many generations back does your family, Sam, go in the FLDS? I know Mormons are huge on genealogy so I imagine you know about your lineage? Was your family in it from the beginning?
The flds top leadership and their wives were able to hide their evil heavenly sessions, under the guise of sacredness. It proves that it’s possible that there are activities in the other lds temples still unknown to the non-“elect” of the average faithful member. We know there are secret second anointing ceremonies, promising celestial glory to whole families which is unknown to most members. What else?
This is exactly what I thought of when I learned about the FLDS temple sessions.
I can see the excited girl in her white dress and veil committing at the age of 7 or 8. First communion bride of God. I could see myself believing (sad but true).
There is a 4 part series called “three wives one husband” I am watching it on SBS demand (Australia). I don’t know if it is anywhere else.
@Treble Trouble Ty , I was thinking it was AUB. I like the short series really shows their good & bad emotions. The wives really do struggle & they speak up.
Naomi Jeffs may be saying it didn't happen because it was traumatic for her as well and she can't cope with what she was involved with yet. I'm guessing she's going to need a lot of therapy.
I saw on the internet that Naomi Jeffs passed away with 7 children in a flash flood.
So talking about the part where he says he lied he wasn't the prophet and they say no you are ...
I forget where its from Amanda rae says it on her channel
"Its easier to fool someone , then to convince them they've been fooled ."
I am curious if Sam is related to anyone that was shown in the different documentaries you watched. If so would he be willing to tell us who?
Please PLEASE PLEASE react to HBO's Big Love!!!
The dude lead is a Lost Boy that's all grown up. He went back to practicing polygamy as an adult, though he lives in the salt lake suburbs with his three wives - not at the ranch. His first wife was mainstream LDS with him and they never planned to get into polygamy when they got married. His second wife is the flds-equivalent leader's daughter and she's fulllllly still into it all. Watching her (Chloe sevigny) be an FLDS wife in the suburbs and have exactly 0 time for the nonsense bullshit of the other wives is the BEST. The third wife (Ginnifer Goodwin) is very young. She was just the family babysitter but the lead dude (Bill) cheated on his wives with her and fell in love with her before they ended up bringing her into the family. She's overwhelmed and has no background in any form of Mormonism, - she just loved Bill. The fundamentalist cult isn't explicitly flds, but it's directly based on them. The leader of it is definitely Rulon and his weaselly little son (Warren) is always along with him.
It's -- ugh!! -- Just great. I'm not explaining it well. It's a dramedy about secret polygamists and the first three seasons are like, top 10 all-time favorite TV for me. I'm absolutely desperate to hear takes on it from former LDS people, let alone a former FLDS guy! His mother still lives at "Juniper Creek" and he's locked in a sort of organized crime-style power stuggle with the Juniper Creek leader throughout, so they spend a lot of the time on the show dealing directly with the fundamentalists.
Bonus points: I think at least the first three seasons are based on Sam's era of living in short creek. Pre-all the Warren stuff. Set at the end of Rulon's era.
Definitely a top tv show. I just finished all 5 seasons recently for probably the 4th time.
Worth a watch!
Oh ps also, I think Melissa would have some really interesting views on the show too, having married a former FLDS guy and been LDS. Just wanted to make that clear if it wasn't in my original post haha
He should put a stereo in his family’s yard playing that audio tape.
I asked the same question after watching why didn’t Naomi admit to it. I was wondering if she was still trying to protect him. I didn’t even think she could possibly trying to save herself.
I was optimistic it would end with the prison walls collapsing and Warren Jeffs emerging from a cloud of smoke through said walls, It didn't happen, quite the Anti climax, oh well hopefully folks will pray harder, it was a great series and really enjoyed you're description of the show, I will learn to keep my expectations low in future, If the walls did collapse I guess I would have seen that on the news, after Ukraine obviously.
Being in Northern California at the time of Warren Jeffs' arrest (I turned 18 in 1992), I had no idea how big of an ordeal it really was that he was arrested. When I had heard it on the news, I really thought that it was a "small time" polygamy group, like Charles Manson's group was actually pretty small (I know- Charles Manson and Warren Jeffs are no comparison to each other- different kinds of cults.) When it wound up on news showing an aerial view when children were being separated from the mothers and mothers taken into custody while kids went into CPS custody, I was amazed at how many there were! Never did hear much more than that while it was happening.
A question I’ve always had is: In a closed community like this, where they’re not allowed to associate with outside people and there are no new people coming into the community, isn’t there a lot of incest? How can they continue to have so many children and marry them within the church without marrying within the same genetic lines?
I can imagine that the things naomi witnessed and assisted with in those sessions are very traumatising to her and her denying them happening isn't her purposefully lying but her brain protecting her from the trauma. she could just be purposefully denying things to protect herself from persecution
I have a question I'm not sure if you will have the answer to, or any ability to even find out, but since so many are still following him and he is still sending his prophecies and rules etc even though he is in prison, are underage marriages still happening? Are there still arranged marriages that he is facilitating? Do people still get kicked out of the community and their wives and children assigned to other families etc? What does all of that look like now?
I know I'm super late, but regarding the confusion over the recordings, I think there are two. There's one in which Jeffs instructs a group of girls on how to pleasure him, and then another of the supposed "blessing" of the 12-year-old girl. _Keep Sweet, Pray & Obey_ just spliced one right after the other, giving the impression the two separate recordings are actually one long one.
TO BE PERFECTLY CLEAR, I still completely think the "blessing" was a rape and that the jury got it right! But it's important to be aware of how documentaries use editing to skew viewers' perception - because although the intention was good here, that might not always be the case. (Also, it explains the discrepancy between this documentary and _Preaching Evil_ lol)
I am listening and wondering what this little 12 year old girl is doing now. Is she okay? Still a follower?
Thanks!
Thank you so much Diane!