Fear and Loathing in Utah

Wall's legal challenge was an astonishing act of courage by a young woman who defied the man thought to be God's prophet on earth, says Sara Hammon, a woman who fled a polygamist colony when she was 14 to avoid a similar fate. Hundreds of underage girls have been damaged by the doctrine of celestial "placement marriage" over the last century, says Hammon, one of 75 children of the founder of her former group. "But she is the first one who had the courage to speak up against it, the first one to take the prophet on in a court of law."

In 2005, Arizona investigators circumvented a shortage of women willing to testify by doing the math based on birth certificates and charging Jeffs and seven men from the group with sex crimes relating to underage marriages. (Some of the men were sent to jail.) Jeffs disappeared in June of that year and spent 15 months as a fugitive, sharing a place on the FBI's Most Wanted list with Osama bin Laden. The year before, his nephew had accused him and other church leaders of child abuse and sodomy. The nephew and others who sued Jeffs won a partial settlement of their case. Jeffs and the FLDS leadership were also accused of fleecing their flock, prompting Utah authorities to take control of a legal trust valued at more than $100 million that holds title to all the sect's homes and other property in the twin cities of Hildale and Colorado City, Arizona. "Our Prophet and the celestial law, the principle of revelation, are under attack," Jeffs told his followers in 2002, according to the prosecution.

The mainstream Mormon church rejected polygamy in 1890, amid Utah's bid for statehood. The fundamentalists who settled along the Utah-Arizona border continued with the tradition, though it cast them on the other side of the law. The land at the base of a stunning red cliff was an ideal place for their settlement, because they could dart across the state line to avoid the authorities. Today FLDS couples are often seen in St. George shopping for their large families at Costco, the women wearing their distinctive ankle-length pioneer dresses, hair always coiffed into a long braid, the men in dark suits.

Some St. George residents taunt them as "dirty plygs" or resent them for what the fundamentalists call "bleeding the beast": tax evasion and welfare fraud. Others respect them for being hardworking and honest laborers. Many in Utah have a live-and-let-live attitude toward polygamy, even some of Jeffs's fiercest detractors. But Deborah Ann Morris, 41, who describes herself as a devout member of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, says, "Polygamy is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. Because of their distorted beliefs, they are not living righteously." Elaine Tyler, president of the HOPE Organization, one of several advocacy groups that help young victims of polygamy who turn up in St. George, orphaned or on the run, says, "They're like little lost sheep." Tyler thought she'd never see Jeffs convicted. "I don't care if they practice polygamy. If they're consenting adults, that's their choice," she says. "Just don't go marrying off those little girls."

Jeffs assumed the mantle of prophet leader from his dying father. Even before he officially took over in 2002 he had consolidated his power over the FLDS sect in a series of purges. He banned the color red, sports and dogs. Some members smuggled their pets to animal shelters; the rest of the animals were shot. He encouraged his followers to build high fences around their homes. He confiscated all literature from the outside, even children's books, and banned outside television programs. Most shockingly, Jeffs started "reassigning" the wives and children of purged men to others in the community. Richard Holm, 54, lost his two wives and young children in just that way when Jeffs forced him from the group. "He didn't give a reason. He just said repent from afar," Holm said after emerging from the courtroom. "He abused and hurt a lot of people."

Now it is unclear what effect the criminal case might have on Jeffs and the FLDS community. With their Utah-Arizona border towns under siege, some followers have already moved to a new compound and temple at Yearning for Zion Ranch near El Dorado, Texas, as well as other colonies in South Dakota, Colorado and Canada. Those who remain in their desert homeland, where sandstorms frequently pummel their twin towns of sprawling unfinished homes, trailers and warehouses, refuse to comment. One woman in an ankle-length purple pioneer dress looked straight through a visitor as if she were invisible, ignored a question, climbed into the double cab of a diesel pickup in the grocery store parking lot, and drove away. Others politely declined to comment.