Answer Them Nothing: Bringing Down the Polygamous Empire of Warren Jeffs

by Debra Weyermann

Overview

The compelling story of the struggle by law enforcement and activists to dismantle the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) is finally told. In 1953, when police raided the Short Creek compound of the FLDS, it soon became a political and publicity nightmare eventually costing the governor of Arizona his job. Thus began 50 years of skittish public officials turning a blind eye to heinous offenses such as child abandonment, kidnapping, statutory rape, and incest, as well as massive tax and welfare fraud. Warren Jeffs became the new FLDS prophet and president in 2002, and anti-FLDS activists watched in horror as he used his boundless authority and the resources of a tax-supported community to devastate thousands of lives on cruel whims. This exposé presents a detailed, chilling account of how a hostile, destructive group can manipulate the U.S. judicial system. It is a mesmerizing journey into one of the United States's darkest corners, a story that stretches over three states and deep into the history of the powerful Mormon Church.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780913705391
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	04/01/2018
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 16.80(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Debra Weyermann was an award-winning journalist who wrote for numerous publications, including the Arizona Daily Star, the Denver Post, Harper’s, and the Santa Barbara News-Press.

Table of Contents

Map ix

Note on Sources xi

Prologue: The Raid 1

1 Ruth Crosses the Rubicon 9

2 Section 132 38

3 Bill Walker and the First Case 65

4 Judge Shumate 79

5 The New Sheriff 92

6 Dan Fischer and the Lost Boys 106

7 Roger Hoole and the Lost Boys Lawsuit 122

8 Short Creek 128

9 Warren Jeffs 142

10 Texas at Bat 161

11 Arizona at Bat, Again 172

12 Answer Them Nothing 183

13 The Whip Comes Down 188

14 The End Begins 197

15 Fun on the Run 208

16 Cops and Taxes 219

17 Satan's Accountant 226

18 Nailed 236

19 Conviction 245

20 Texas Pulls the Plug 254

21 The Courts 268

22 Emergency Wars 276

23 Utah Fades 289

24 Arizona Rising 305

25 Three Strikes in Texas 317

26 The Lives of Others 325

27 The Light 333

28 End Game 343

Epilogue: Ruth Across the Rubicon 360

Acknowledgments 363

Bibliography 365

Index 372

Editorial Reviews

"Weyermann's well-researched muckracking is colorful and gripping . . . a disturbing account of how a religious quasi-dictatorship can flourish on American soil."  —Publishers Weekly


"The book is undeniably unsettling—the author doesn't pull any punches in her descriptions of the FLDS' illegal acts—but it's also definitely worth reading as a reminder of the horrors that can go on in our own backyards." —Booklist


"A worthy read . . . Weyermann writes crisply." —Phoenix New Times


"Weyermann's powerful exposé on the FLDS' origins, its subsequent rise to power and how it held court over the U.S. political system is essential reading as the struggle for justice continues today. A masterful exploration of one of America's most shameful secrets." —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Pedophilia, fraud, and litigation stoke this cogent if overstuffed exposé of a lurid down-home theocracy. Journalist Weyermann probes the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a polygamist Mormon sect entrenched in the Short Creek area straddling the Utah-Arizona border. Under all-powerful Prophet Warren Jeffs, it's a fertility-cult run amok: unwilling pubescent girls are married off to lecherous church elders (Jeffs is charged with raping child-brides as young as 12); children are beaten, and adolescent boys abandoned; husbands are suddenly exiled and their wives and children given to other men; local government and police, run by the faithful, stonewall outsiders and intimidate dissidents while siphoning public funds into church leaders' pockets. It's a snake pit of bizarre theology, brainwashing, and harem rivalries clad in gingham and overalls, and Weyermann's well-researched muckraking is colorful and gripping. Unfortunately, her reporting on the coalition of runaway wives, pro-bono lawyers, and state prosecutors who challenged the Jeffs regime in recent years rambles between melodrama—"some women... find the yawning jaws of hell preferable to their situation in FLDS"—and eye-glazing court battles over FLDS real estate. Still, Weyermann presents a disturbing account of how a religious quasi-dictatorship can flourish on American soil. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

Award-winning journalist Weyermann (The Gang They Couldn't Catch: The Story of America's Greatest Modern-Day Bank Robbers—And How They Got Away With It, 1993) throws open the curtains on the deplorable actions of Warren Jeffs and his polygamous sect.

The Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) has been portrayed as a persecuted religion with women and children forcefully handled by armed soldiers as the government ran roughshod over their rights to religious freedom. There is another side to the story, writes the author, who tells it through the brave voices of the lawyers, police and brutalized FLDS victims who have all fought to bring down this powerful offshoot of the Mormon church. FLDS established its own prophets and continued to practice polygamy—requiring men to take at least three wives if they wanted to achieve salvation—long after their Mormon brethren abolished it. Mathematically, however, this posed a problem of too many men and not enough women, leading to the systemic rape of young girls through forced marriage to significantly older men and the expulsion of possible rivals, teen-aged "lost boys." All this was brought to a maniacal pitch by Jeffs, who, after declaring himself prophet, siphoned off taxpayer dollars from lobbyists who kowtowed to the powerful FLDS lobby. Weyermann's powerful exposé on the FLDS' origins, it's subsequent rise to power and how it held court over the U.S. political system is essential reading as the struggle for justice continues today.

A masterful exploration of one of America's most shameful secrets.

Kirkus Reviews