Cultish: Interview w/ Warren Jeffs' 65th Wife

are you Warren Jeffs all right mr. Jeff you're being held as a fugitive and our two fugitive holds from for you one from Utah one from Arizona I'm gonna explain to you very quickly what your rights are in regards to being a fugitive from justice okay what would you like to do you want to waive your rights in regards extradition and go back as quickly as they can have video Victor come pick tab all right all right welcome back ladies and gentlemen to cultish entering the king of the Colts my name is Jeremiah Roberts I am one of the co-hosts here I am here with Andrew super so the thinner the Super Sleuth of the show how are you man I'm doing well man thank you I hope you're doing well well so as always I say I'm super psyched for that super excited for this episode particularly because I am of the opinion that there are four horsemen of the last 100 years as far as notorious co-leaders go hmm Jim Jones Charles Manson David Koresh and Warren Jeffs hmm those are the people when you think of cult that's what comes to mind when you play when you win the every probably twice a year Time Life magazine or one those magazines you'll see on the grocery shelf they'll have some magazine about Colts and usually as those four yeah that you see it's actually one of our logos on cultish I think on the banner cover for our Facebook page we have those four cult leaders so this is um we are here with Brielle Decker how are you I'm good and so we are here today really to be flies in the wall you are you grew up in the FLDS and you were we talked a little bit on the phone you were married to Warren Jeffs at the age of 18 and you were wife number 65 yeah okay I'm gonna be a fly on the wall go ahead floors yours okay so my parents when they when they were 18 they went through the line in our churches then they believe that God the leader there's one man that holds the keys of the priesthood that is the leader of the church and after church we would want everybody in the whole congregation would walk through and shake his hand and when my father went through this is a story they told me when he went through they pulled him aside and then my mother they pulled her aside and then they told them they were gonna get married and they had only heard of each other they had never met Wow and so my point is is that appointed marriage is a big deal in the FLDS which is the group that I was raised in and that Warren Jeffs now leads from prison so I was a product of a point of marriage and I remember going to school in Alta Academy where Warren Jeffs was the principal he started being he started that I mean he was 17 when they asked him to be the principal of that school and he was the only principal ever about to academy I when I started in first grade his first wife was my teacher and later she yeah anyway I don't want to give away everything back she so I remember going to class every morning we had to be there by 8 o'clock in the morning and we listened to church doctrine orange ass interpretations because he was the principal one and one of the things that he taught us very in detail was that we had a choice we all have a choice at the wedding we can say yes or no and I remember really unquestioning but I didn't dare tell anybody that I questioned I just silently in my mind I just remember thinking if they've never heard of each other how do they know if they should say yes or no and then I had when I was six years old so it was shortly before I I think it was during this first year first when I was in first grade pretty like that was it was around six and seven my oldest brother and my oldest sister got married in an arranged marriage mm-hmm and my oldest brother had a wife that I had was severely diagnosed with mental illness that she wouldn't take care of and it had really bad consequences for the children later and so many things and as I grew up from 7 to 8 years old I remember questioning even more you know if it's not choice because you never heard of each other then it must be trust but I don't really trust these guys because I don't see any reason why my brother should have gone through that hmm and I remember thinking that in my mind I might I don't really trust them because they say that you know you we can there's always an excuse of not being good enough we need to atone for her sins somehow but I didn't think that applied to my brother like he deserved that as if he was his first wife he always didn't really feel like he had hope of qualifying for more because he couldn't even perfect what he had and you have to have at least three in the FLDS to be able to make it into the highest degree of glory in the celestial kingdom but you have to qualify it's like a quat and and it was almost impossible especially for the boys because they were they were competition I believe but they never say that but they usually said they were priesthood barish so they had every right to have a hardier they were the ones that made the rules in the house and the ladies were like just supposed to keep sweet everybody supposed to keep sweet but the ladies for sure had to keep sweet because they didn't get to make any decisions so who appointed these marriages like the leader the leader leader had full say but when I was really young I don't really know what age then I think I was a year old when ruling Jeffs Warren Jeffs father became the leader and and so I don't member when that happened but um and then he had a stroke like when I was really young so all I remember of reelin Jess was that he was handicapped kind of mhm and Warren Jeffs was the spokesman and the one that made made things happen through him kind of you know we used his name and stuff he was speaking on his behalf yeah he spoke a lot on its behalf and took care of him and and he actually taught us in our school in the in the kitty had in-depth training on history which was church history we never had world history in our schools and in this church history lesson he went over how the the more the regular LDS Church split how the split happened and he described it as how so there was three leaders that were Joseph Smith was to start the first one Brigham Young was a next and then John Taylor and those are still leaders of the LDS mainstream Church and then he claimed that there was a secret meeting that John Taylor had called the eight-hour meeting that he set apart eight people to carry on polygamy no matter what and then he passed away without telling everybody about the meeting and so there was less the in the path light before him the next leader Brigham Young was after John Smith he was the the highest in the highest position appointed position in the church at the time so he kind of got the authority I need this I Warren just described it he said Wofford Woodruff was in that position and so everybody voted him in the church members decided to vote him in and he said that that was all done wrong because God chooses who the leader really is whose heart is right and so that's kind of how he also usurped authority to become the leader he's because he said God chose you don't get any say in it God just decides and and then you either follow or you don't Wow that kind of minds me of like the arranged marriages you're talking about like he says you have a choice but really you don't because if you don't choose what the Prophet says now you're disobeying God right in a sense yeah right that the whole the whole time it was it was like what we were allowed to hear was only what the church allowed us to hear and they taught us that if we heard news or media or anything from a different source it was tainted with lies and you know the devil will tell hundred truths to slip in one lie so we couldn't have television after like I was 9 years old than that got outlawed we couldn't have any movies of any kind we couldn't have wooden they call it Gentile he would always call this as like the Gentile media or Gentile this Gentile that or apostate he didn't want people hearing think outside sources at all he he got he had already out he had already told us that music wasn't okay before I was I don't even remember when that happened I think years before I was born and then because I don't ever remember listening to outside music like unless somebody was just like breaking the rules like I knew they were breaking the rules when I heard the beat and you know different things yeah and then television was a lot and I was about 9 and then Internet was outlawed when I we called out lot when I was in Warren Jeffs family and there was something else I can't remember the other thing it will come to me but yeah all of those things so books books too he got to where they all had to be handmade they couldn't have pictures from that weren't taken by you and Wow stuff like that so and the music was all made by the church too like we we had music it was just piano they couldn't have a drum or anything in it I've actually listened to some of Warren Jeffs him singing with the piano so I kind of know just a little bit yeah yeah I wish I heard that I know yeah I think it was one of the video just sent me but yeah it's definitely there's definitely I can only imagine what it must be like and again I'm a movie connoisseur but there's an in light Shyamalan movie that came out it was at back in 2004 the village and the whole aspect is there's this and you haven't seen it by now I'm sorry spoiler you should have seen it okay but yeah it's you see these people in the whole movie you think you're living in the 1800s and what you find out it was actually this isolated community and even above the where where they were there it's a no-fly zone so there are no planes flying over so people literally thought they lived in the 1800s and it wasn't until you find at the end of the movie no it's not the case they're living in the modern day there's this whole whatever the agenda was by yeah I just real quickly I just remember as much as I can remember seeing the news when this happened you go back in the story about just seeing people that looked at it who are dressed and they look like something out like a set-piece out of little house in the Prairie a pioneer yeah it's and you using the language outlaw and I love it too I grew up loving westerns too and that's definitely like you know 1800s western language but I loved it but anyways go ahead yeah our languages is a lot different like even the interpretations that the Bible has and like Grace in the Mormon Church means mercy and grace in the Bible is not mercy at all it's so I've learned some of the different interpretations of the same word that's just and just to get intensified to a major extreme and Warren Jeffs group yeah that not everybody is like aware of but yeah they are they're so extreme in every way so like anyway okay going the street rogue open so anyway I went to school I learned about like constant indoctrination like every day every day and one of the things he taught us was about when our turn came for our arranged marriage we could never date we could never even they would separate the girls and boys in like fourth grade if we even thought about then we had to confess it we were taught to confess or tattle on people if they told you know if you they told you instead of the leader and it was like a punishable sin that you could actually be sent away lose your family and everything forever oh wow yeah it was like really one of the is like almost like there's a verse in the in the Doctrine and Covenants I think that talks about I don't know if it's in the Bible but it talks about if you even think of thought about somebody else hmm that isn't good you know write it then it's somehow a punishment anyway so they applied everything to the extreme yeah and even children like if because I eight years old in the even in the Mormon Church they believe that you get baptized at eight years old and and in their interpretation of baptism it's not the same as Christianity their interpretation of baptism is that once they are baptized then Jesus stops at toning for them and they have to earn it after that and I didn't know that until after I was baptized of course like my parents sent me down and tell me okay now you get to earn that you know and I would have never done it you know I really understood but I was young too right so that was a big deal eight years old so once you turn day and you were baptized and Jesus stops atoning for you if you do something that isn't right or any in any way then there's consequences and they say you should start teaching your children really young so that by the time they're eight they have some idea what the consequences are yeah what are they so like if it's a simple thing like I mean if it's just like they stole something or something then it would be like maybe you sit on the chair you know for fifteen minutes or you know they always have consequences if it's something like like I have even heard of eight-year-olds being dropped off on the side of the road Wow so do these consequences is as opposed to put them in favor with God like it's a form of atonement for doing something wrong in a sense it's it's it's to teach them that it's it's better to be good than it is to be bad okay so they say that if you don't understand there's a doctrine of covenants quote that says if you don't understand the scriptures by the time you're 8 years old which is really young yeah then the sin goes on the head of the parent so that's why the parents are so determined to baptize their kids so they don't want to carry that weight wow that's heavy that's too heavy you're old yeah that's too heavy it's impossible so I want to hear something like take take me back to your childhood like was there ever a time where the modern world like just got thrown into your to your world like say like there's a car driving through your town with the windows rolled down and there's like music blasting that you've never heard before like is there anything like that that happened like where did you grow up I grew up in Salt Lake yes I was born around the world was all around okay we just had pine trees we had it almost an acre lot and we had pine trees all around the border and that was we always saw people and stuff in my world but I did notice like later when Warren Jeffs got really strict the children didn't have that luxury and when the raid happened in Texas there was seven year olds I had never seen somebody with a different color skin like they didn't even know they existed and they were really traumatized yeah they're taught that their their their bad essentially people have yeah different color skin he would hide things from him you know like they had never been outside of the walls of the city so of his little compound things so they they were they actually thought they're gorillas like wow yeah it was pretty sad but when it came to your educate well especially with your upbringing a lot of times cult members will especially growing up you're isolated from the outside world but then as far as I care education goes and learning skillsets whatever they are for actually I deal with the world a lot of times that's tonight as well because typically you might be doing some sort of like labor or work or things like that there's a lot of times where that's effective people for example grew up in Scientology where they're going through the Scientology learning courses and they're part of maybe there's a lot of times they're part their parents are part of the Sea Org and so they're in some sub school and unless something happens or a lot of them have left they end up just being sort of thrown into this world that they're just not prepared for it's all they've ever known is this as far as education goes maybe you could talk about that generally and then like talk about yourself you know as a girl growing up in the FLDS what was that like yeah so they tried to scare us away from the truth now I know that I know that when I was being raised in there and all I could hear was what they had to say but now that I know the difference I have experienced the difference I I know that they had a lot of tools and tactics to blindside us to do what they want us to do instead of what was logical or what might actually be better they so an example of that is like one of my sister wives had a really sad story one day she was talking about how she grew up in a wrench you know with her just her brother her sisters her family was the only people there she met you know she knew the church she was in the church her whole life she knew you know she knew people but she didn't daily interact with people other than her family so it's like a really Prairie starett like and then she marries Warren Jeffs later and he she had a hard time because he corrected her father and she gets up one day and he told her to tell us this story about how he called she was having a hard time with it for like a month she wouldn't talk to him when he called her and so he punished her and what he did is he called the caretaker the person who was watching the household buying the groceries and everything she was struggling he had a house and hiding that she was living in he had the caretaker go and buy some clothes that were like Gentile clothes and told her to like put him on wear him and he drove her all the way to Vegas and it was the middle of the night like 10 o'clock at night she said they gave her one little phone and told her to walk down the street in the middle of the dark in Vegas and watch he said I want a Warren Jeffs told her I want you to because he talked to her on the phone he's like I want you to stare at all of the graffiti and all the stuff and just see what you will be like if you don't stay faithful to the church oh my goodness he's terrifying her put any putting hidden she's telling us the story so it's putting all of us into like this contrast shock he's vicariously speaking to you through her there's a tremendous experience that he put her through yeah Wow and and she was you know that was life threatening in Vegas like in the middle of the dark you know all alone and so she walked down the street and she kept crying she said she was crying and crying and then he would call every once in a while and she would shake is it over is it over and he's like no and you just hang up and you know it was really cool like and in the end he didn't let it be over for like a whole nother day you know like he sent her to a hotel and told her to watch TV you know and just it was just so it's not how the world is at all and so the the way that they portray it is not not accurate there's a lot of good people in this world there's you know I know that now but they do tell you it's a scary dangerous bad place and another thing about the Bible they don't explain so much detail about how love verses works is and that's a really big deal because if you really knew the Bible there's so many solutions all right but they don't they hide it all from you and they they know that they're hiding it from you hmm so and they get to study like they have leaders who but pointed to to study what's really going on out in the world yeah yes if like that just so they can protect themselves and you know keeping a sound check but not everybody is allowed to do that so yeah they know yeah of course it's like there's like three different options if you're someone claiming to be a prophet it's either that you're mentally disturbed thinking that you're talking to God or that you're talking to maybe a spirit that's an evil spirit could be deceiving you or the third option is that you know that you're not a prophet you know and you're doing these things to control and manipulate people when you get pleasure from it like that's it well he terrifying yeah he he was he did like to it seemed like he liked taking hope away from people really slowly and painfully and there's so many people that suffer from that you know yeah it just is it's devastating the trauma that you know like he would find out what you liked and then just like use it against you mm-hmm another thing too because you talked about being put on the outside of the road and Ian we talked on the phone maybe he just know this is this is more a different vantage point but this is something that was a prominent story that came up with Warren Jeffs is that there were boys who continually tissue can from my insane would continue to show up in Salt Lake or in other places in Utah because they had been kicked out yeah those from my understanding Jeff saw them as they get older as competition and he didn't like that and so a lot of them I would get just kicked out because they violated some rule for a particular reason there's always vague an arbitrary it was just this is how it is on the Prophet you've sinned you're now a Gentile you're you're out and these people are illiterate and like with barely any education at all yeah so like like I was telling you how the boys had the rules that were high stricter it was really easy to make him so strict that they couldn't do it mm-hmm I mean that happened so much people don't even realize as often it happened and and it started to get to be parents especially later when Warren Jeffs became the leader and he and he would he didn't like teaching parents because they have the option to leave mm-hmm he wanted to and he's a pedophile - so he likes children and also their traps him in till they're 18 like he he had the parents sign away their rights to the church for the children saying everything belongs to God sign this paper it's legal and it's not legal but the parents don't always know that and so they signed their children over to the church and then he calls them up and tells them you aren't worthy of your kids you need to go and repent to go to a house far away and send me money and and they do it because they just want to someday see their kids again yeah as far as the theology want to just get your thoughts on something because this is going to go in a couple different avenues at least what I'm gonna try and do is that polygamy initially that was something that was started by Joseph and then Brigham really kind of brought that to the forefront and then it wasn't until we're they're good where the Mormon Church was threatened to be exiled into Utah when they had then had a revelation to get rid of polygamy but section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants has never been removed from the LDS scriptures it's still part of the Canon so I've always seen there's this conflict between what's being said and even the argument that sub sects of the current Mormon Church could make the argument against them that they're the ones who have a pasta size and that were the ones who need to restore it would people in the FLDS they believe in polygamy that was a central aspect of their doctrine or of the gospel of Jesus Christ but would they also talk about the current Mormon Church that they were an apostate or what were your what's your perspective on that from their vantage point so actually Warren Jeffs I only know where in jest interpretations really because like I said he ruled his father and then he he was the one that became the leader next but he and he actually compiled all the books of all the leaders in the FLDS so even if somebody else said he chose if it got to be put in the book so yeah so what I would say about Warren Jeffs interpretation of the LDS Church is his father actually was a convert from the Mormon Church but he said when because they're really racist when when the Mormon Church updated their doctrine and got away with racism then that was when they apostatized hmm so Spencer W Kimball who got the revelation yeah that's when Rulon Jeff's left that wasn't just father right no ruling had already been a convert for years okay I don't know any became a convert but I think it was before that okay and so yeah he he was very like I don't know any of the the the group's branches off of the LDS Church that aren't racist like all of them are pretty much have their twist on on a fence sitters yeah it's crazy but you know I don't really like I have some ideas on on what I because of what I went through but it's kind of far-fetched and I I'm gonna put it in my book because yeah because I need the sequencing mm-hmm to be able to explain some of the concepts and stuff like there are certain things that if you saw how the indoctrination got so intense it's easier to understand for sure but so in my story when when I went to school and I I was just constantly being a doctrine aide with what they want me to hear and then um I I remember being told about when our turn came to be married there would be like three different routes the leader would go to be able to decide who your partner was and one of them was he would just tell you your partner so-and-so like what happened to my parents or you know he told us this and is like if you listen he had a whole book on polygamy called the enlightened truth that he wrote Jeff's dead Warren Jeffs yeah and there was another route that if if you he would like ask you if you had an impression from God yourself of who you were supposed to marry and then and then you had if you lie then there's a consequence so and then and then the other route was that the last route was if you if he says you need to go away and pray and figure out and come back to me and asked me who if you think so-and-so is supposed to be your partner and then I'll tell you yes or no and all of them he has the ultimate say right so as a child I remember I would I would like get premonitions I don't know if you guys know much you know I don't know who believed innocence but I know that's what it's called when when I would dream I would dream that the room was lit darkly lit and that Warren Jeffs what turned to me and he'd say do you have an impression of who you're supposed to marry and I remember waking up every time at that point like I just wake up out of a dead sleep hmm even as a little girl and and I got teased my entire life because in a situation where you're not you don't have any choice like you're not dating it's a different kind of tease it's like you know everybody's looking at the leader to decide what he might you know who he's you know what he's acting like yeah and so my whole life I was teased about marrying Warren Jeffs and I was terrified of that mm-hmm I I didn't want to marry Warren Jeffs because I didn't have this status I didn't have the life experiences that would help me advance in his family higher would there be different as many wives as he had there would be certain wives that would obviously of favor or the other I mean I think Rachel Jeff's talked about this in her book yeah that within that whole community there was very difficult if even if you were sort of the favorite because all the otherwise there'd be jealousy and there'd be a lot of competition that would be the case yes but with me I wasn't the favorite and I knew I never would be I would be more of a servant and that didn't sound very exciting to me so I was more terrified I remember as a teenager I had a best friend who who was like the favorite family and I went she was talking one day about Warren Jeffs and and I said I get teased all the time about Mary and Warren Jeffs and she says if I did I would love that and I remember looking at it like you would like I wouldn't love that and then I realized the difference she was in the favorite family she probably would be advanced Wow in my situation I knew I would be more of a servant like like that society in a sense yeah we all had rules yeah it was even harder in his family now that I look back and I I no emotion and stuff now I had to keep sweeten about her went in there and I could never express anything I could never do anything like this but now that I recognize I remember feeling I just didn't identify it at the time mm-hmm and I didn't struggle as hard as most of them because I didn't love orange S&L I was kind of like you know you guys can have him and I went overboard with that and that's what made him ultimately really mad is that I would just give him away he can't do that every single time I live in the doctrine to the tea you know love one another and he he thought I was playing hard to get and and the reality is I didn't really ever bond you know I never I never wanted to yeah so his family like in his in it with polygamy he had a favorite wife for sure and I was all the time with him she was a secretary and she did most of all of his work and so he's basically a monogamist even though he had I I've heard the number from somebody who has the Texas Records is like 79 ultimately when he got caught I don't know if he's had some spiritually sealed since you know that happens sometimes yeah but so he basically was monogamist and he did he did have like his power trip stuff and you know his things that he would decide he wanted to do but most of us didn't have any say I remember after I I went to Texas and I got introduced to do some of this stuff that he was doing and I well actually I got introduced the very first training I got after I married him was a really shocking training and and it was the whole time so when I went into the ceremony to get married it happened exactly like my premonitions except for I didn't wake up you know I was already there I actually went into shock but it felt like a trap because he's the one that groomed me basically he was my principal he was my you know just question real quick just this totally adding on to what you're saying with the LDF with the FLDS believing in polygamy and that's being one of their primary examples it wasn't until Warren Jeffs took over that he introduced underage marriage crap well you obviously had a passion to an extreme right he took it to a really strong extreme the highest extreme that you could possibly take and that's what he did with everything but I guess my question would be with him when he was the principal he really worked his way to be in power he had planned this for a long time so in the same way that he was playing his cards to get to the top and it take Rulon Jeff's place being in the being going back to the beginning of the pod - when you talked about being in class and he talked about you can either say yes or no those sort of conversations that would be grooming yes conditioning you for this time to where you are now yes okay yeah and so I I get into the room and it's identical like my dreams like it was a warning you know and I I had a friend who who at 14 just all of a sudden she was a really good girl like she was loved by her family really I mean as far as I knew I went over to her house a lot she's my age and at 14 she just upped and left and she said she felt like she was gonna marry Warren Jeffs she was scared too she don't want to and so I remember my family like laughing about that and just playing these games like she was never getting you know she just had that in her brain you know and I remember thinking well I need to find out if this is true but I don't really want to but I didn't in my brain I it was like part of the grooming - my family participated in that grooming as well it to a great degree I had all my sister and brother so I'm number 11 of 14 all my sisters and brothers had a cedar chest when they turned 18 full of hope chest stuff dishes and stuff for when they had this arranged marriage they would all of a sudden have to be like a household and I didn't have him in a cedar chest so I believe that my mother was planning for me to be a plural wife which I wouldn't need that so it played a lot into my story as well is the grooming even it was like grooming from Warren Jeffs down like they were watching him and and I was in a really tight spot I couldn't I didn't know how to fight him you know I I can't fight somebody who's that high in the church and so it's just Lee you know that would be the ultimate thing and I wasn't ready for that leave all my family and everything so at 18 when I go into the room it's exactly like my premonitions were or whatever those dreams and he asked me who are who who is that has God given you an impression of who you're supposed to marry and I remember thinking if I say no he's gonna give me a punishment because that would be like because he groomed me yeah if I say yes then you know that isn't what I really want but I had to choose between either never getting married probably or just submitting and I didn't know enough about it I probably would have not done it if I would have known more hmm but I just said I wondered if I was supposed to go on the family with my sister who was in his family already and he piped up right then and said you have such a strong testimony of God yes and he approved of it and he had the ultimate say but still I you know I went into shock that night I remember him sending me home that night with my father because I wasn't responding after he sent everybody out of the room he wanted me to just be y'all like we're taught her whole life to resist boys and everything about him and then overnight it just supposed to be so married and like that you know I I didn't even know how to mm-hmm so you know he got mad and he sent me home and I thought it was a blessing you know I didn't register that I was a punishment until like four months later you know I was just like oh this is great you know I come home and anyway um that was the night of your that was the night of our wedding okay yeah well I think it just goes to show like how distorted that world was we're even growing up in the FLDS the night of your wedding and hid you being sent away you're totally you're so oblivious to the fact we're in the real world that would be like wait what happened like what's wrong here you know usually that's very different usually in the real world as far as like a wedding night goes but but yeah but here this happens and you get kicked out and you're totally oblivious the fact that you were being punished it just shows you to go how left is right and uh everything's upside-down yeah they they literally went in the opposite direction of all the studies that are out here they did the opposite thing so the very first training I was getting to this the very first training he gave me after two weeks or it was actually so the very that day he told me to go and show up at this meeting that was gonna be in the morning that usually only the men went to our family the only the men went to it was a work project meeting for donations and stuff he said I want you there and so I went and then he walked down the aisles and he like passed out corrections to leaders and it was devastating in my mind I remember thinking you know I married you yesterday why would you like if you just did this without recommending I want you to do this like it would have been different but this is not right like we're taught our whole lives in our household really stressed emphasized on persuasion through love which is a doctrine and covenants quote but that wasn't happening what is passing out corrections meaning like what was what does that entail it's like a note that talks about the Uni lose your family you're kicked out like you need to go repent depending on who you are some people like those are strong ones strong Corrections he said there are master deceivers and he wanted everybody to know about it so that we wouldn't be deceived and it was just really eye-opening to me that he would he would just like slam things in my face like that the day after I'm married to him so he was verbally passing out corrections not like notes handed to people I don't know I don't know for sure but I think he did he walked down the aisles and he gave him something what do people's faces do when they start reading they're they're sitting next to their wives and they're like gifts to each other and and now they're just like taken away you know like I took that gift back you know I I could only see the backs of them cuz I was a little bit further back in the room but I'm you know it was devastating to everybody and then the net and then he told me like when he when I was going to Texas he told me to listen to his training special training that I had to covenant that would never tell anybody and I one of the things that you talked about about like the outside world and how we treated em and stuff and we could tell lies to them all day to protect the real meaningful thing so I've just kind of reversed that I don't tell lies but I can say what I need to now and and tell the truth to the outside so so I can just got questions so this is your story and it's fascinating to hear but then there's also the broader general story that the public knows about Warren Jeffs and and primarily when he became a on the FBI's top ten most wanted list and so just looking at the timeline it was in round it said September 2002 is when Warren Jeffs took over roughly and then it was roughly around 2005 is when the issues with law enforcement I were really getting heavily involved as primarily instead I can July 2004 and nephew of Warren Jeffs thousand lawsuits against him accusing jeff of sexually abusing him and so that took place so along this whole timeline when event she became into the public eye and became a big thing and at the very beginning of the podcast we played and when he was having his first court appearance after being arrested so at this time like where are you right now along comes general timeline I was married on january 9th of 2003 okay Wow so this was literally just months after yeah it was and that's why I was 18 - yeah probably I think yeah he knew for a lot longer than that mm-hmm but he had to wait until they became he'd hurt you know and so like he sits me down in this meeting and he starts talking about this story about how he was running from the law and I remember catching that the night of our wedding like he was talking to my father and he said something about and that's when it hit me he's running for the law but I should have known that probably before that my father my mother wasn't invited to the wedding my father was told to take me on a drive so I wasn't even wearing my wedding dress or anything and then go ahead I'm just the spirit a wedding can't be legal ever because polygamy isn't legal in America and so I sit down to this training and he starts talking about when he took his children his minors that were under 8 years old away from his house that was a target house in cars in Hilda Utah that was where he had been living before he became the leader and in this story he talks about how God revealed that not one of the biological mothers actually had those kids were worthy to continue to go with their kids until maybe they qualified later so he talked about like he had like 30 mothers that had kids at least 30 and all in one day 30 mothers just lost their kids and he took him away to another place and they had to qualify but mothers that didn't have kids could be put over those children right but I didn't make any sense to me that was a red flag to me and I and I kind of wanted to wit be the witness from the inside I really wanted to to know more about those kids I have a passion for children and I always have and I I was really concerned when I heard that I remember thinking that's really weird you know like foster children foster care is set up solely to reunite parents at all cost and 30 mothers in one night God gave him those children and now he's just saying they're all not worthy is too extreme it's just way too and then later I experienced living in that house with all of those mothers and saw them crying and sobbing and praying and they weren't the kind of mothers that weren't trying what what is R equal efficacious to get your children's back even in entail like just one dream is that they are now take in the steps this is what like sickens me about this is like marriage is supposed to be like a shadow of the unity that we have with Christ you know in there taking a marriage ceremony that we have with two becoming one flesh but now like taking that throwing it into the dirt not even having a ceremony but having it with all these people that literally become a means to the end for just the Prophet or the person instead of actually being in a relationship a loving caring relationship like Jesus has with his bride the body the church to sanctify and to make conform them more to His image instead it's to tear them down put them into the dirt and just use them as a means to the end it's yeah and there's no self care talk at all it's all he had a motto of work hard for the privilege of working harder Warren Jeffs motto is work hard for the privilege of working harder and it doesn't teach any self-care so if you like he teaches work work work give it give give everything and then when you can't anymore then you get punished and you start with your kids let's take what means probably the most to you in your life since we don't really even have a relationship as husband and wife but you have this child now who's part of you literally born but now we're gonna take that I'm just gonna take that away from you I'm gonna pull you into the dirt that's what it reminds me the first thing that comes to mind is the story in Bethlehem Jesus was born in Bethlehem and Herod had all the firstborn children killed killed because and there's this wailing heard throughout and in the same way just losing having a child and essentially kidnapped from you there is an aspect of severance that's similar like thirty at the same time I mean I've been I've been in the emergency room seeing someone who just lost their child like who and just seeing the grief right there I can only imagine what that would be like times thirty and also not only that there's there's they have distort a doctrine their hold view of God like who do they cry out to when their messengers the Prophet who just took their child yeah yeah so he tells a story in his own words like I don't have the exact scripture with me because it's he'll eat doctrine yeah but in these compounds that he set up in Texas and you know only have people that he could handpick and call and bring to those places he he had this doctrine about one of his wives he told this story when she passed away of cancer he talks about how the day that he took the children away from the property and her children were among them and she knew she had cancer and she was like so crying and everything cuz she didn't know she ever see him again and he just told her if you don't accept this you're gonna turn away from the priesthood and so she just like submitted and she did see him again but she missed like months in between and she could have had if he hadn't done that to her you know Wow it's yeah it's it's and there's so many stories I knew another lady who tried so hard harder than anybody I saw in his family she's always praying always not socializing because that was a sin she's always doing all kinds of things to be more loyal and more obedient well her story later was that she was commanded that if she even had a thought about her biological father who had been kicked out since then that was a sin because he was a bad person and so that was ultimately what got her kicked out how do you fall a commandment like that don't talk about your biological father as soon as you say that you're gonna think about the biological father it's like don't think about the elephant in the room partner in DNA you know it's like it yeah it's just horrible the things that he has done to tear away people's hope you know like he made the standards so impossible for the ones you know he didn't want and so during this time you get married to Warren Jeffs you get sent away you're you unknowingly play hard to get and here you are and this is sort of the time frame we had talked the phone and you had said that you were keeping yourselves at distance and you can see you can shed light into this because you weren't worthy or were you trying to get yourself worthy enough to be there but that's the way you kind of kept distant at that when I woke up from the shock mm-hmm I started to pick up clues and started to realize what he really wanted mm-hmm but it wasn't for like several months that I really figured out what he was asking for because I didn't have any training on it okay like my you know it was it's really common actually for people in that religion to to just be over overlooked like because they have so many kids they have you know the mothers have all these huge families and to remember when and how you know everything they need to tell each one sometimes just doesn't happen and because we can only have specific things that we can utilize you know like we don't have all the books we don't have all the internet we don't have all the TV so it's really easy to be like not fully educated in like marital things and you know so I had to just pick up clues that was basically even how when I when I when weren't just sent people later after he got caught and he was furious with me because he could never consummate our marriage he sent people to hurt like really torture me psychologically and part of that was he used cult doctors and they would drug me with prescription drugs that he commended to give me or they would lose their family and part of that was I had no internet so I couldn't look up any of the diagnosis an example of some of the extremes I couldn't look up any of the symptoms of what I had all I could do is listen to the doctors and say I don't have that like what are the symptoms okay I you know one of the symptoms of bipolar is that if you deny that you by boy that's the first almost like denial is an image so accuses something miles automatically an admission of guilt yeah so I had to like really like to fight for my life and fight for survival and stuff I really had to study clues and that was what I did when I started to listen to Warren Jeffs and hear about some of the stuff that he had gone on in Texas and among the elite groups that he was collecting um he ultimately set up these houses and hiding like I was telling you about that lady who was in a house and hiding with a caretaker he set those up for people that were called to be among the elite and were struggling so we set up this middle ground because he didn't want them to associate with people that were never called he didn't want the knowledge to be too broad and keep him separated I wanted to keep him separated so I set up this middle ground for the ones that were struggling and I after I got introduced to what he really liked some of the stuff he was doing I actually asked him if I could go to a house in hiding like I was like I needed more time and I had to fight for it like I had to play really naive and you know and I was kind of but at the same time I was like trying to figure it out because I was out of the shot now and I was just like trying to sort through all this download of constant information and I was like I just really need more time yeah and and I was in the meeting when he walked in the room and he told some of the ladies you can't have more time you need to go pray harder you you know you know you know what you need to do and you know he was just like telling certain ones that they couldn't have that opportunity to go to this house in hiding and to me that's really devastating because they were in a compound that they as far as I knew was clear out in the distance you know and they had a gate around it with a guard tower and they were driving around every fifteen minutes they don't have a if he's telling him they can't leave that's you know that's one of the steps so when it what I did when I when he gave me the opportunity to leave cuz he bought into what I was saying because he didn't know me very well so I go to these houses and hiding and I told him as soon as I got there I said I'm not gonna pray to ensure that I don't get called to be among the holy elite people when I am NOT ready and so I used his own doctrine against him that was part of it telling him you know I'm not gonna I'm not gonna pray you know and I don't really know how you can stop yeah praise all the time but I told it I went around the whole house and I told I'm not praying he sends me to this godly Lee place when he doesn't send people who are praying every single day there's something wrong and so he couldn't take me back and I stayed there for two years and I just read and I wrote him letters and you know I I just stayed there and telling our car so during this time you already had like red flags in your head about what's going on so you're trying to learn as much as you can so you can be a source of information to people on the outside in the future like did you think that this was kind of all coming to an end I didn't fully have it all puzzle together but I did figure it out before the two years was over okay and I was determined to figure it out okay so let's do this we've gone for a little about an hour here and we still have a lot to unravel and we're kind of getting the two different cliffhangers because on one end in the public record this is the point where Oren just becomes a fugitive and I mean and in your own world you're using Warren Jeffs language to keep it at arm's distance because you're just trying to figure things out by yourself some time but eventually these two timelines collide yes and so what we'll do is we'll we will wrap things up here we're gonna continue any part too and just so you know just so for all you know you drove down today from Colorado City and you live there now right yeah okay so we really appreciate you being in here in studio today and I really appreciate that and this is I'm just we are flies in the wall here and it's just worry it's just wow and it's just this is one of those amazing this is one of the most infamous I would say stories that of people there from there with as far as Colts in the United States in the last 100 years and for you to kind of give this cheer your story along this timeline that a lot of people are familiar with it maybe not so many people are as familiar with this is roughly about 15 or somewhat years later definitely really appreciate you coming on today so we'll wrap things up here and there will be a part two to this as we unravel more of your of what happened and also a lot more about the FLDS where things went with yourself and with Warren Jeffs and all that sort of stuff so all that being said we'll wrap things up here as always programs like this cannot continue without your support so we want to offer for you guys to be part of the cultish crew ladies and gentlemen screws cultish crew so you can go to the cultish show com go to the donate tab you can either donate one time more monthly so you can allow programs like this content like this to be o to continue and have conversations like these so if you really was blessed by this program please prayerfully consider doing that so all that being said we will talk to you guys next time on cultist where we enter into the kingdom of the Colts talk to guests in

Channel: Apologia Studios

Views: 265,688

Rating: 4.8323669 out of 5

Keywords: jeff durbin, apologia studios, apologia church, Briell Decker, warren jeffs documentary, warren jeffs movie, polygamy documentary, warren jeffs trial, warren jeffs court, mormon documentary, flds interview, cultish, jeremiah roberts, andrew soncrant, jeff durbin mormon, mormon vs pastor, jeff durbin debate, mormon general conference, temple ceremony hidden video

Id: dJAK-832rdc

Length: 59min 10sec (3550 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 19 2020