- I'm Kate Snow.
And this is "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
It was one woman's battle with a shadowy church,
where teenage girls were ordered to marry
a man old enough to be their grandfather.
- He was 85, and I was 19. I was horrified.
- A place where they had no voice and no choice.
- I finally just said, okay,
with tears streaming down my face.
- But Rebecca resisted,
defying the leader who ruled them all.
He said, you will be destroyed in the flesh.
- Instead, she got out,
and helped uncover the truth about this powerful prophet.
- This is a horrible thing to listen to.
- A sinister secret caught on tape.
- It will just rock you.
- For too long, he eluded the law.
Could she bring him down?
- I looked him square in the eyes
as if to say, we meet again.
**
- Hello. And welcome to "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
It is a story of defiance and danger.
A devout young woman raised in a polygamous religious sect,
risked everything to escape.
Doing so meant leaving her loved ones behind.
But the only thing stronger than those family ties--
the will to reclaim her life
and expose the ugly secrets
of a predator posing as a prophet.
Here's Keith Morrison with "Unbreakable."
**
- It's a long way home,
back to that place tucked away
beneath the towering red cliffs
that join Utah to Arizona.
The place she lived in that other lifetime.
- It's tough to be back.
Brings up a lot of things that are just still really raw.
- Then when she was known as Sister Becky,
and wore those colorful prairie dresses,
and piled up her long and braided hair,
and shared a husband with more than 60 other women.
It was here in this place they call Short Creek
or just The Creek. Here, where it happened.
- A lot of it is the same. And a lot of it has changed.
And I'm not the same person that I was either.
- Her name is Rebecca Musser.
She has come back to The Creek for the first time in years,
hoping to find family or friends she left behind.
Anyone, that is, who might actually speak to her--
given what she did, given what she caused.
**
Oh, yeah, she's the one.
You've heard perhaps about the strange religious leader,
his shocking crimes, his dramatic undoing.
Here is the incredible behind the headlines story.
The story of the woman in red
versus one of the FBI'S most notorious fugitives.
The unlikeliest soldier,
who went to war with a prophet and said--
- If that is holy, and that is divine,
and that is heaven, I will take hell.
- Short Creek is actually the two little towns
of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona.
The mountain that rises above them is called Canaan.
Here lived some 8,000 souls.
The core, the center of what they call "the work."
Most people know it as the FLDS,
Fundamentalist Church of Latter-day Saints.
Uh, no, not LDS.
Regular Mormons were considered apostates around here,
and doomed for eternity
for the perceived sin of having rejected
fundamentalist tenets like plural marriage, polygamy--
the life into which Becky Musser was born.
- We were taught, you should want to be a plural wife
because it was more holy.
You were fulfilling this higher law
by being a plural wife.
- Though, not just allowed-- required by God.
- Their measure of success is for the women
to marry a good faithful priesthood man,
where she brings forth as many children as she can.
Because the more children he has,
the larger of a kingdom he has.
- Not exactly mainstream belief
or even legal, for that matter.
But this is after all, America,
blessed with a constitution that quite pointedly,
shelters religious freedoms in all their stunning variety.
Becky's father, Lloyd Wall, a convert to the work,
was a college-educated engineer who lived in Salt Lake City
and designed equipment for the space shuttle.
In public, he was very successful.
But in private...
In private, Lloyd was fully aware as they all were
that polygamy was illegal.
So he did all he could to keep his huge
and growing family secret.
- My father had 25 children total.
Nine from his first wife,
14 from his second wife, and two from his third.
- Did you feel different from people around you?
- They told us that we were different
from the rest of the world. - Your parents did?
- Yes. And our parents taught us
that we needed to be more obedient
because we had this higher way of life.
And so they just created a tremendous gap
between us versus them,
and terrified us of the outside world.
- There was a reason for that primal fear
buried deep in the unforgotten and the DNA of the FLDS,
the raid.
It was July 26, 1953,
the Governor of Arizona ordered the arrest
of every single man in Short Creek.
And more than 250 children
with their mothers were carted away.
Some of those families weren't reunited for years.
Rebecca, like every FLDS child,
heard the story over and over again.
From the time she was old enough to listen
about the day they remembered as their most terrible
and about those awful things the outside world did,
when the policemen came.
And so they were watchful, wary of outsiders,
who lived around their crowded split level
here in the Salt Lake City suburbs.
- My dad's first wife
and her children lived in the top floor.
And my mother, the second wife, and her children
lived in the downstairs-- the bottom basement floor.
- How did the two wives get along?
- Not so good. - No.
- No. There was a tremendous amount of jealousy
from my father's first wife.
- Nevertheless, said Rebecca, she practiced the work,
and studied the holy books,
and put her trust and faith in the church
and its prophet, Rulon Jeffs.
To Rebecca, Uncle Rulon,
who ruled the church from his home here in Salt Lake,
was more than just a man.
By then he had 10 wives and over 50 children.
And as little Becky was taught to believe,
Rulon spoke directly with God.
- He was our connection to the Divine.
And so, yes, I did look up to him.
- So of course, Rebecca,
along with everyone else in the FLDS,
obeyed the prophet's every directive.
To obey was the key to salvation.
- Obedience is the only, only act that you can perform.
And anything otherwise is damnation.
- But as Rebecca entered her teens,
change was in the air.
Behind Uncle Rulon's gentle smile,
rules hardened, control tightened.
Not just for Rebecca, of course, for all of them.
This was her childhood friend, Andrew Chatwin.
- Rulon Jeffs started teaching,
you don't have a choice anymore.
You have to be perfectly obedient.
You were ordered to donate your time,
ordered to donate your car,
or make sacrifices that you normally wouldn't do
because it was hurting your family.
- It was like more autocratic, dictatorial?
- Yeah. Very dictatorial.
A lot of the members were going around
and putting everybody on the spot constantly.
They would say, well, are you for him or against him?
- Rebecca's father was very much for the prophet.
He enrolled his children, including Becky,
in Uncle Rulon's special FLDS school
called the Alta Academy.
And there the elements of an explosion
were mixed together.
All that remained was to light the fuse.
- Coming up, the Principal of Alta Academy,
Rulon's son, Warren Jeffs.
A man who carried out doctrine with discipline.
- He gave me one beating.
And it swelled up like a half inch
on the back of my legs.
I couldn't sit down very good for a week.
- When Dateline: Secrets Uncovered continues.
- It's torn down now.
But in 2013, this building was still standing.
The shell of its former self, mind you,
only the weeds for company.
Here on the fringe of Salt Lake City.
This is, or was, the Alta Academy,
once the most prestigious FLDS school.
Here, hundreds of children
as seen on their old yearbook photos,
were instilled in the teachings of tenets
of the FLDS faith, including Rebecca Musser
who was a student here for more than 10 years.
- So this was your classroom, fourth grade?
- Fourth grade through 12th grade
would meet here in this room.
And Mr. Jeffs would teach for morning class.
- Mr. Jeffs was Warren Jeffs, the Principal of Alta Academy,
and one of Rebecca's primary teachers.
Tall, slender...
Warren was one of Uncle Rulon's,
the prophet's, many sons.
- Warren was an authority in the school.
He was close to the prophet.
And Warren would talk to him every single day
and kind of be his father's messenger.
- This most private of private schools,
away from the prying eyes of the outside world,
taught the basics of reading, and writing, and arithmetic.
And that was when Rebecca also discovered
a natural musical talent.
She learned to play and love the violin.
She also listened carefully to Warren Jeffs' lessons
and strict obedience,
even if that did not always come so easily.
- What was called holy was this level of obedience,
this level of dedication. And I strove for that.
I didn't have boyfriends. And I didn't sneak out.
And I didn't drink beer.
- Warren Jeffs knew how to have fun though.
Or certainly, seemed to be enjoying himself
in this rare video shot at school.
- He was kind of goofy, a little bit of the nerdy.
- But he ran the place with an iron hand,
said Rebecca, developing and dictating
every aspect of the class curriculum
as if he had something bigger in mind.
- There was always a calculated part of him
about what his next best move was,
whether it was for power or for position.
But I never felt completely relaxed around him.
And I think that I'm not the only one.
- Very true, said Rebecca's fellow student,
Andrew Chatwin.
- He implemented a school rule that if you got three F's
or three late assignments, he would beat you
on the back of the legs with a yardstick.
- Including you? - He gave me one beating.
And it swelled up like a half inch on the back of my legs.
I couldn't sit down very good for a week.
- Principal Warren Jeffs pointedly excluded subjects
that conflicted with FLDS theology.
Like evolution, for example, didn't happen...
Or even men on the moon.
- That's one small step for man.
- That didn't happen either.
Which is how young Rebecca first ran afoul
of the prophet's son.
- I'd gone to kindergarten in first grade
at a public school.
And I remember so distinctly,
the day an astronaut came to visit our school.
And I was mesmerized.
And so then I go to Alta Academy.
And somehow, there was some discussion about astronauts.
I spout out that, "Yeah, they've been on the moon."
- And perhaps that moment was the beginning of it.
The first skirmish, oh, but not the last.
Rebecca's outburst earned her the first of many trips
down the hall to Warren Jeffs' office,
where he very strictly and sternly reprimanded me,
saying that there is no way that God would allow
any mortal man to walk on the moon.
It's only a trick. It didn't really happen.
And don't you ever bring this up again.
- By then the prophet Rulon Jeffs
had announced that the end times were upon them.
He'd also announced
that he would be the very last prophet.
He personally would welcome back to earth, Jesus Christ.
And in the meantime, while they waited,
he told them they would have to be
absolutely obedient to his every directive.
Trouble was, Rebecca was having more and more trouble
being absolutely obedient to her principal--
the prophet's powerful son, Warren Jeffs.
- I was always in trouble for being stubborn.
And so-- and I would ask the question, why?
That doesn't make sense to me. - Yeah.
- If God's a God of reason,
how come this doesn't make sense?
Where's the missing link?
- All the while, of course, Rebecca understood
that the church was planning her future for her.
She would bear many children.
She'd be given to a husband of the prophet's choosing
and share him with other wives, just how it was.
- For the women, they are owned--
body, mind, and soul in their marriage covenants.
It says, do you give yourself to your husband,
of your own free will and choice?
- They all said, yes.
The alternative after all was damnation.
Besides, as Becky developed into a smart, still faithful,
and very beautiful young woman,
her prospects were extremely good,
especially because of the particular person
who expressed his interest.
As everyone told her... - You'll be blessed.
You will have your salvation made sure.
- Because Rebecca's husband-to-be
was the prophet himself,
the by then, 85-year-old Rulon Jeffs.
- Sister Becky is set to marry the leader of the church.
To some in her community, it might sound like a blessing.
But for this young woman, it's nothing but a curse.
- I just remember walking in and feeling like,
just stand up and do your duty.
- Though Becky's grown up in the FLDS,
she has no idea what's in store.
- I was horrified.
- When Dateline: Secrets Uncovered continues.
- So this was my wedding dress.
- Wow. You made that, too?
There was no courtship.
No romantic proposal,
just a short ceremony to, of all people,
the prophet himself, Uncle Rulon Jeffs.
Rebecca was his 19th wife.
- In the FLDS world,
the age of the man doesn't matter.
It's his standing with the prophet--
how pure, how obedient, how honorable he is.
And in my case,
this faithful man was the prophet himself.
- Rebecca's father has told us,
he believed she wanted to marry the prophet,
that it was an honor for her.
But, oh, no, said Rebecca, her father was wrong.
It was more like a horror.
- I did not want to marry Rulon Jeffs.
- To an octogenarian, a man who was in his 80's
for heaven's sake.
- He was 85. And I was 19.
- They held the wedding in the living room
of Uncle Rulon's sprawling house
in Salt Lake City-- September 17, 1995.
- I just resigned myself to the fact that that was my fate
and just to surrender to it.
- This is my Prince Charming, this 85-year-old man?
- Aargh... My Prince Charming?
I just remember walking in and feeling like,
just stand up and do your duty.
- She wore the white wedding dress she sewed herself.
But she did not walk down the aisle.
No here comes the bride, for her.
Just a brief exchange of vows witnessed by her family
and Uncle Rulon's many other wives.
- He couldn't stand up.
He was leaning up against like a bench
and feeling what it felt like because his hand was real shaky.
Holding this old man's hand, I felt loss.
And why don't I feel like this is the right thing inside?
I was ashamed that I was not thrilled
to be marrying a man more than four times my age.
- And something else,
which was certainly no thrill at all,
because she was married to Uncle Rulon,
his children were now her children.
Which meant that the authority figure she had learned to fear,
the man who tormented her for years at school,
Warren Jeffs... was suddenly her son.
- After I married Rulon Jeffs, Warren was strangely nice.
But he could also be very stern
and make sure that you knew your place, your duty,
and what was required of you.
- And life as a married woman required serving the prophet
any way he wanted to be served.
They had a phrase for it, keeping sweet.
- To keep sweet means
that you are absolutely without question
obedient to what is being asked of you.
- No matter what that may be? - No matter what that may be,
with this sweet attitude.
There should be no anger, no resistance, no--
even we were told that asking the question why,
was wrong.
- So whatever Uncle Rulon wanted, he got.
And though he was 85, he still wanted sex.
- When I first married him,
it was two to three times a month.
- How can a man of 85 with 19 wives
perform the functions of a husband?
- He was old.
And even though he couldn't, he certainly did try.
It was horrifying.
I kept trying to say, this as a man of God,
and yet he's doing this to me.
And if he talks to God, then surely
God will give him the message that I'm terrified.
- But neither God nor anyone else
seemed to be paying attention.
So the next time the prophet called for her,
Rebecca did the unthinkable. She refused to see him.
- I said, no.
I am not ready to come and stay with you.
I was not going to go through that again.
And I was willing to take the consequences.
- That's a pretty big deal, to refuse--
- It was a huge deal.
- Word of Rebecca's refusal got to Warren Jeffs.
And again, she said she was called to his office.
The petty skirmishing was over now.
Now she knew, she was in very real jeopardy.
- He used scripture to tell me,
it is your duty to be a comfort to your husband,
especially my husband because he was the prophet.
That he received direct revelation from God.
And he said, don't you ever, ever, ever, ever
tell your husband no again.
If you do,
you will be destroyed in the flesh.
- Destroyed in the flesh?
Well, maybe not Rebecca, maybe someone else.
- Cataclysmic change comes to the Creek.
And Becky's little sister will also pay the price.
- And I finally just said, okay,
with tears streaming down my face.
- When Dateline: Secrets Uncovered continues.
e back to Dateline: Secrets Uncovered.
I'm Kate Snow.
19-year-old Becky Musser had fulfilled her duty,
marrying prophet Rulon Jeffs,
a man more than four times her age.
As her faith commanded,
she reluctantly shared her husband's bed,
until the day she simply refused.
Now, Becky's sister
was expected to marry against her will.
And an old foe with frightening new authority,
would stop at nothing to make that happen.
Back to Keith Morrison, with "Unbreakable."
- Rebecca Musser, wife number 19
to her prophet Rulon Jeffs
was not destroyed in the flesh.
No, despite the threatening noises
from Rulon's son, Warren,
Rebecca found other ways to keep her aging husband content.
And anyway, there was lots of help in that department.
As Rulon's predicted end times approached,
he married more and more young women
to ensure their salvation, he would tell them.
By the time he was 90, he had something like
60 wives and more than 60 children.
And then, then basic biology stepped in.
Three years into Rebecca's marriage,
the man they all believed was immortal,
would live to see the second coming of Christ,
suffered a very human fate.
- I was in the room when it happened.
He was sitting, talking.
And then all of a sudden, he was slumped over.
And he didn't wake up.
- They rushed Uncle Rulon to the nearest hospital.
A stroke, big one.
He survived, but only barely.
Frail, confused, he couldn't remember his wife's names--
called them all, "sweetie."
Then Warren Jeffs issued instructions.
No one was to know.
The severity of the prophet's condition
must be kept secret,
especially from the people of the FLDS.
- What he was telling the people was just
that the prophet was doing fine,
they-- only that he needed to have some rest.
- As if to prove it, the marriages continued.
Rulon was eventually married to 65 women,
most of them young.
The sign for the faithful, of a healthy prophet.
But an outsider was watching all this
with very different eyes.
A private investigator, who's made it his business
to track and write about the FLDS and its leaders.
A man named Sam Brower.
And what concerned Brower was not so much
the sick old prophet and his wives,
as it was the young man pulling the strings.
- When he saw his father starting to deteriorate,
he was able to kind of worm himself
into a position of authority.
And then when his father started having these strokes,
Warren just proclaimed himself his father's mouthpiece.
- First, came an order supposedly from the prophet,
passed on by his son Warren.
The prophet had a revelation.
Salt Lake City had become the wickedest city on Earth,
a city marked for destruction in the Second Coming of Christ.
But in the meantime,
the faithful were told to gather here,
here in Short Creek to await the end of times.
Most of them came.
Soon, Warren Jeffs' tactics, extremely effective,
said Rebecca, became apparent, to her at least.
He was gathering the church in a place
he could more easily control it himself.
And he was handing out political gifts
to its male pillars.
- It went from having
maybe two or three marriages a weekend,
to having, you know, five, six, seven even sometimes
eight marriages in a day.
- But they were getting younger,
and younger, and younger.
- Because they were running out of girls.
Warren was literally, like, appeasing the questions
with, you've been so faithful,
here is a new beautiful young bride for you.
This is your blessing.
- Here's a 16-year-old.
- And then all of the 16-year-olds get married.
And then there's 15-year-olds.
- One of those girls being pressured into marriage
was a happy little blonde named Elissa Wall,
Rebecca's little sister, who was just 14.
- When I found out that I was marrying Allen,
who was my first cousin,
I was already resistant to the marriage.
And I had, on multiple occasions,
expressed my desire to not get married.
- Allen was Allen Steed.
Elissa despised him, had known him all her life.
And besides, she knew nothing of marriage,
let alone sex or having babies.
- I had never been taught about anatomy.
I had never been taught about sex.
It wasn't even a term used in the FLDS.
- And so Rebecca intervened, tried to stop the marriage.
But...
- Warren told me, it's happening.
There was no choice for her except to do what she was told.
- And so in a seedy motel owned by the FLDS,
in the little out-of-the-way town of Caliente, Nevada,
the secret marriage took place,
Warren Jeffs presiding.
- I knew that this wasn't right.
And I took those last moments to be defiant.
I refused to just take my vows.
- They just waited for you to say the right words?
- They did.
I remember Warren asking Allen the vows.
And Allen saying, I do.
And him turning to me and asking me,
do I take Allen?
And I just stood there, my last defense.
- So what did he do?
- He asked my mother to stand up next to me.
She stood there and squeezed my hand.
And I finally just said, okay.
- Yeah.
- With tears streaming down my face.
- Elissa and her husband moved into
a house in the Creek.
Rebecca lived nearby in Uncle Rulon's giant house
and was aware of what was happening
to her little sister.
- Allen was very sexually abusive to me.
From day one, I was incredibly vocal about
how much I did not want him to touch me.
That I didn't want to have a family with him.
So to have the sexual relationship
with him was so devastating.
It was absolutely being raped.
- So did you go to either Rulon or Warren to complain?
- I went to Warren Jeffs multiple times
throughout my marriage with Allen,
begging him for a way out,
explaining to him what was going on.
And he ultimately, would reprimand me
and tell me to go home and give myself,
mind, body, and soul.
- It was your fault.
- It was. It was always my fault.
- Meanwhile, the millennium came and went.
The world did not end.
But something very unexpected did happen.
In 2002, Rulon Jeffs,
the seemingly immortal prophet,
the man who prophesied he'd be alive
for the return of Jesus, died.
He was 92.
- And then as it started to sink in,
I was scared.
- Because guess who was in charge now?
- Coming up...
after years of quiet clashes with Warren Jeffs,
things are about to explode.
- He pointed his finger at me.
He said, I will break you.
- It was huge, the funeral.
Like burying Short Creek's version of a pope,
only more so.
Because the Prophet Rulon dead at 92,
was supposed to be immortal,
and welcome the Second Coming of Christ.
- The shock, when he actually did die.
I remember thinking, no, that can't be.
That doesn't fit into what we've been told.
And if we had enough faith, then he would live that long.
And he would be made young again.
And so it was because of our lack of faith
that this man that was in his 90s, died.
And that was when Warren made his move.
- He just stepped into the vacancy and said,
that's it. It's me now.
- He did it very subtly,
but very aggressively.
Warren is a brilliant man.
He is diabolically genius.
- By the time Uncle Rulon died, said investigator Sam Brower,
his son Warren Jeffs was untouchable.
In short, he was officially declared prophet of the FLDS.
- He proceeded to kick any threats out of the church.
He held a meeting and immediately kicked out
21 men that were threats to his authority.
- Remember Andrew Chatwin, who said he suffered
a beating at the hands of headmaster Warren Jeffs?
He knew several men of the church, he said,
were getting the adult version.
- In some cases, a man would go to work in the morning
and come back that evening,
and all of this personal stuff
is put out on the front yard of the house.
And his wife has remarried...
- In one day?
- In one day, while he's gone to work.
No-no trial, no explaining yourself
because they made a decision.
- Rapidly, Short Creek changed, said Andrew Chatwin.
Paranoia wormed its way through the commune.
- Warren, he's not a stupid man.
And that's what's so dangerous about him.
It was sort of like he made sure that every single person
had just enough dirt on them to keep them
uncomfortable from speaking up. - Right, just-- right.
- And that is what allowed all of that to flourish.
- Rebecca was 26 by then.
A widow, and she believed, vulnerable.
- I no longer had a layer of protection
from the prophet. - Right.
- And Warren had absolute say.
So for me, it was scary.
- What were you afraid he was going to do?
- My biggest fear was that he was going to
force us to be remarried.
- To somebody? - To anybody, especially him.
- Sure enough, in Short Creek,
Warren Jeffs wasted little time arranging for weddings
for dozens of the prophet's widows.
- And then when he did start to marry those wives off,
it was like a locomotive that was out of control.
And I would see them walking behind Warren the next day,
and I would realize, yep, another one married him.
It was very, very troubling.
And it felt just like being sent to auction.
- Rebecca, perhaps the prettiest of all the prophet's wives,
but no friend of Warren, feared she would be next.
- I was very concerned about marrying Warren.
I had seen the way he had treated
his wives and his family.
And I knew that even the little freedoms
that I had would be taken.
- And then one day, Rebecca and a young man named Ben,
also a member of the FLDS,
were hiking in the hills above Short Creek.
Since Rulon's death, the two had grown close.
Trouble was someone saw them kissing,
and told Warren Jeffs.
And once again, she said,
she was called into his disapproving presence.
- And then he said, I detect the seeds of apostasy in you.
And that is in the FLDS culture,
by far, one of the worst acts.
That's next to murder.
- And then the new prophet issued the order,
the one Rebecca dreaded.
- You will be married one week from now.
And I begged him.
I said, please, don't do this to me.
And he said, you know that's what God wants.
And I said, no, I don't.
And he pointed his finger at me.
He said, I will break you.
- And maybe only now, in retrospect,
does the moment come into focus.
The years of animosity, of building tension
between Rebecca and Warren Jeffs
had just become a declaration of war.
- Coming up...
Rebecca takes a life-changing risk.
- When it sunk in, I thought, what have I done?
Oh, my gosh, what am I going to do?
- She had a week to decide, this prophet's widow,
marry Warren Jeffs, or some other man
of his choosing, or...
Or what?
Doubt and guilt played ping-pong in her head.
- Well, maybe they know better than I know.
Maybe it's just me that's wrong.
But then there's the other part of you
that says, hold on a minute,
there's something really wrong here.
- For days, the voices competed,
tick-tock, deadline coming.
And then something clicked.
- And it hit me, you could leave.
And I felt like this instant lift
off of my shoulders.
- But how could she leave?
Not like she could just stroll out of the place
in her prairie dress
and start a brand new life somewhere.
The FLDS was all she had ever known.
I so distinctly remember thinking,
if I leave, who will I become?
Because we were taught that you would
become evil, and wicked,
and a diseased whore in the streets.
- Rebecca had no escape plan, no survival strategy.
She did have a few brothers who had left the FLDS,
including one who lived in Coos Bay, Oregon.
- And he said, come live with me.
But that's Coos Bay, Oregon.
And I'm in Southern Utah. I had no idea.
I remember thinking, Oregon?
Oregon really?
So I had no idea how I was going to get there.
- And she had neither a car, nor money to speak of.
There was however, Ben, that young man
she was caught kissing on Canaan Mountain.
- Ben told me that he would help me get there.
And that was a sobering thing for him to do,
full realizing what it was like for him.
But he said, no, I'll help you.
- Ben had a truck.
They decided to leave in Ben's truck on Sunday morning,
the day before Warren Jeffs deadline.
They'd leave very early before dawn, before church.
Over the next few days, Rebecca gathered together
her belongings, her most precious possession,
her photographs, her violin.
She took them over to her sister and niece's home nearby.
She did not tell anyone what she was doing,
not even Elissa.
Then it was time.
A chilly Sunday morning, November 2002.
- I remember what it was like to shut the door
to my room, and feeling that click shut,
and knowing that on the other side of that door
was everything that I had ever known
in my entire life.
- She climbed over the wrought iron gate
of Uncle Rulon's mansion
and walked through the morning shadows to Ben,
waiting down the road in his truck.
- And I just kept thinking,
just walk, just walk, just walk.
And I remember, he opened the door
and he said, are you ready?
And I said, yeah.
So we got in and just got out of town
as quickly as we could.
- As dawn lit up the Utah desert,
Sister Becky was now just Rebecca.
- When it sunk in, I thought, what have I done?
Oh, my gosh, what am I going to do?
And looking at the clock thinking,
okay, if we turned around right now,
I could probably slip in
while everybody's in Sunday school.
And it would be just fine.
- You struggled with that a bit?
- Tremendously.
But then, you know what?
No way am I going back to that.
- They drove 22 straight hours to Oregon,
to a world she had been taught was evil.
- Going cold turkey from being an FLDS prophet's wife,
you know, my hair was almost down to my knees,
and, you know, only ever having worn long dresses,
everything fell for it.
- For the very first time in her life,
Rebecca cut her hair, learned to apply makeup.
She got a job as a waitress
but found that communicating with customers wasn't easy.
She didn't know slang words like cool and hip.
She took them literally.
- Even though I spoke the English language,
I had no idea what people were talking about.
So it was overwhelming.
- And she pined for her family.
- I was able to stay in touch covertly,
with some of my family members.
And Elissa was one of them.
- Life was not good for Elissa, then 17,
not at all.
- There was lots of abuse,
psychological, physical, mental, sexual abuse.
I think, watching Rebecca go
and finding out later on that she wasn't dead,
the lightning had not come down and struck her,
opened to my eyes.
- With newfound courage,
Elissa left Allen then fled the FLDS.
- I got the chance to go to Oregon,
where she was living at the time.
And my brother and her were there.
And I look back on that moment
as a very pivotal point in my experience
because it gave me a very clear understanding
that there was a possibility that I'd be okay.
- How was it to see them again?
- Seeing my family again after
the pain of them leaving,
interestingly enough, it was just joy.
There was no judgment.
There was no, how dare you?
I was so happy to see them again
and to realize that I loved them
no matter what the religion said, or Warren,
or my teachings told me.
- But back in the Creek,
things were not okay for Warren Jeffs.
Suddenly, he was facing lawsuits, two of them.
Attorney Rod Parker was hired by the FLDS,
though he no longer represents them.
- One was called the Lost Boys case.
The boys claimed they had been thrown out of the community.
And then the other one was a young man
who alleged that he had been sexually assaulted
by Warren as a boy.
- By 2004 when Elissa left the church and the Creek,
word was spreading,
mostly through the ex-members ejected by Warren Jeffs,
the things were getting worse.
That more and more marriages were being arranged
for pubescent girls,
almost as if Warren Jeffs was using them
as bargaining chips or rewards
for senior members of the Church.
A former FLDS member called Rebecca and said...
- You still have two younger sisters there.
The only way to stop what's going on
is to-to stop Warren.
And what can be done is to bring charges against him.
And it was hard for me to hear that
because it's like, yeah, I want Warren to stop.
But do I really want to be that person
to step into those shoes? - Yeah.
- But as she thought about those little girls,
sisters, cousins, innocents.
She knew leaving the FLDS to save herself
wasn't enough.
- Yeah, I thought,
I can't sit by and let this happen.
If there was a way that I could have stopped it
and I didn't, I don't know
if I could have lived with myself knowing that.
- So Rebecca and especially, her brother,
knowing Elissa had a strong case,
urged her to file charges against her husband Allen Steed
and Warren Jeffs to stop the abuse.
- I had known for a while that both Arizona and Utah
were searching for a witness.
And that they were hoping
that I would come forward. - Yeah.
- Ultimately, coming forward was a choice I made.
I realized whatever the pressure,
whatever the cost,
that I owed it to myself and the future of other girls
to speak my truth.
- And so you came forward?
- We came forward.
- So in 2006, Elissa, by then cut off from
family members still in the FLDS here in the Creek,
made her accusations official.
Warren Jeffs was charged with two counts of rape
as an accomplice.
Just one little problem.
The prophet had disappeared.
- Coming up, a spiritual leader missing.
Where on Earth could he be?
- He went to Disneyland,
he went to strip clubs and had a good old time.
- Welcome back to "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered".
I'm Kate Snow.
Rebecca Musser and her sister Elissa Wall
had both escaped a life of polygamy.
Now, they faced another challenge.
At Rebecca's urging,
Elissa filed charges against her husband, Allen Steed
and Prophet Warren Jeffs for the alleged abuse
she suffered while married.
Prosecutors were determined to expose
the religious leaders' seedy secrets.
But first, they'd have to find him.
Back to Keith Morrison, with "Unbreakable".
- Where was Warren Jeffs?
It was 2006.
Warren Jeffs was a wanted man accused
of arranging the illegal underage marriage
of Rebecca's sister Elissa,
and thus of sanctioning rape.
But Warren Jeffs had been underground
for more than two years by then
because this wasn't his only trouble.
Remember those two lawsuits the prophet was already facing?
Incentive, apparently, to take a very long trip,
even the FBI couldn't seem to find him.
- Today, Warren Steed Jeffs was placed
on the FBI'S 10 Most Wanted fugitive list.
- Mind you, private investigator Sam Brower
was hearing stories from his sources in the FLDS.
- He was traveling around the country,
going from state, to state, to state.
And just trying to stay hidden.
- On the road, it appeared, the prophet wasn't exactly
practicing what he preached.
He went to Disneyland, he went to Mardi Gras,
and went to the strip clubs, and had a good old time.
Warren also turned up here in West Texas,
very rural West Texas, where he was helping to oversee
the construction of a brand new community for the FLDS.
A place called
the Yearning for Zion Ranch or YFZ,
far away from the prying eyes of the wider world,
but in a state where the age of consent--
the age at which a person could marry was 14.
Here, they would build a shining white temple
for the church.
The project was to say the least, ambitious.
A whole town went up around the temple.
These were the most faithful FLDS followers.
And this little settlement literally,
their place to wait for Zion.
They farmed the land, raised the livestock,
built the big quality homes for their many children,
and schools, and machine shops, and factories--
a self-sufficient little world.
- There were no building codes in the county
where he was building.
They could just start building something.
Of course, in Warren's mind, it was God telling him
to go out there and do this-- to find places of refuge.
- Warren Jeffs oversaw construction
and settlement of the ranch,
but never spent long stretches of time here
or anywhere else--
one reason why he kept eluding law enforcement.
And then in August 2006,
on a lonely stretch of Interstate 15 near Las Vegas,
the Nevada State troopers spotted a red Cadillac Escalade
that appeared to have no license plates.
He flashed his light, pulled over the SUV.
The driver was a tall, thin man.
- His carotid artery was pulsating
on the right side of his neck.
I'd even at one point told him, is everything okay?
You seem nervous.
- The cop ran the tall man's license.
It was the prophet and fugitive Warren Jeffs.
- I'd like to announce the arrest of
FBI Top 10 Most Wanted fugitive Warren Steed Jeffs.
- Sam Brower heard right away about Warren Jeffs' arrest
and about what cops found in the Escalade.
All kinds of disguises; wigs, sunglasses,
cell phones, thousands of dollars in cash,
prepaid credit cards, and phone cards.
- Everything somebody on the run from the law would need.
- Including several computer drives-- several.
One in particular,
featured a rather odd recording of Warren Jeffs
having a mumbled conversation with a young girl.
- A few days later, Warren Jeffs appeared at a hearing
to extradite him back to Utah
to face charges in Elissa's case.
- Are you Warren Jeffs? - Yes.
- All right, Mr. Jeffs--
- When I found out that he was caught,
I was shocked.
Surely now, the rest of the FLDS people can see.
He's just a fake.
Everything that he was telling them
that was evil, and dark,
and wicked to do, he was out doing.
- For a moment at least, it seemed as if
the self-proclaimed prophet was having some doubt of his own.
This is a jailhouse meeting
with one of Warren Jeffs' brothers,
which just happened to be caught on camera.
- But his stunning revelation,
if that's what it was, didn't last.
When the outburst went public, he had an explanation.
- Warren made the statement that the devil appeared to him
as a pillar of light in his jail cell
and deceived him.
And that's why he was saying those things.
- And in spite of it all,
the vast majority of FLDS members
continued to believe in Warren Jeffs,
including Rebecca's own mother
who had no idea that her daughters
were actively working against her prophet.
- After he was caught, my mother called me.
And she asked me,
"Who has charges against our prophet?"
And I wasn't going to lie to her,
but I certainly wasn't going to tell her either.
And she said to me, "Well, honey,
I hope it's not you or any of my children
because I would rather see every single one of my children
laid in the grave before any one of you
stand up against our prophet.
- It was the fall of 2007, when Warren Jeffs went on trial
in St. George, Utah, facing two felony counts
of rape as an accomplice for arranging
the underage spiritual marriage of Elissa Wall.
And one of the key witnesses against him
was the woman he once called Mother Becky.
Shoe was on the other foot now.
- The last time that I had seen Warren before that trial,
was in his office when he said,
"I will break you." And he looked over at me.
And I looked him square in the eyes.
And it was as if we both nodded slightly,
as if to say, we meet again.
- Rebecca and her sister aim to bring down a prophet,
and the stakes could not be higher.
Coming up, why Warren Jeffs
stood to become even more powerful.
- If he was to walk away a free man,
it would prove to them that he really,
truly was God's disciple.
- When Dateline: Secrets Uncovered continues.
Warren Jeffs was about to make history.
For the first time ever, a prophet of the FLDS,
a man who spoke to God was going to go on trial.
And what made it all the more dramatic,
the case was a direct assault on
the prophet's religious practice.
Warren Jeffs was facing two felony counts
of rape as an accomplice of Elissa Wall,
Rebecca's sister.
- The most important thing to me was that the real truth
of what was happening, got out.
- Elissa prepared to testify
that Warren Jeffs ordered her to marry at 14,
and then ignored her pleas for help,
when she was sexually abused by her husband.
- Walking into the courtroom and seeing Warren there--
I remember looking at him, and our eyes locking
in an unbreakable death stare, and holding my ground,
facing him and not looking down.
But to hold his gaze was like the shackles breaking away.
- Arranged marriages, underage brides,
religious freedom-- all on trial.
But it was also the first time that someone inside the FLDS
would speak out publicly in a criminal case
against the prophet.
A grainy courtroom camera rolled
as the prosecution presented its case
against Warren Jeffs,
alleging he enticed 14-year-old Elissa into marriage
and insisted she obey her husband
and his sexual demands.
- But the defense team insisted that what happened
between Alyssa and her husband
was her husband's doing, not Warren Jeffs.
The prophet had only offered advice, they said,
on improving the marriage.
- Elissa, who was 21 by this time,
because she was a minor when the alleged crime happened,
the camera didn't show her face
when she told how she was taught
to always obey the prophet.
- But the prosecution needed more than Elissa's story.
They needed what Rebecca could tell them.
- They said, we can prove that your sister was raped.
But it's your testimony that links Warren to the crime.
Because you were in the prophet's family,
you were schooled by him, and you understand the training
and the culture of this.
- And so Rebecca came to court and saw Warren Jeffs
for the first time since she left Short Creek.
And before she spoke, before she took the oath,
she made a statement-- not in words, in what she wore.
- We were not allowed to wear the color red, growing up.
- And Warren had gone into extensive preaching
about how evil, and dark, and immoral the color red was.
So I thought, hmm, how could I send him a message
that he never broke me?
So I chose to wear the color red.
- Rebecca testified how Warren Jeffs created, condoned,
and encouraged a culture ripe for abuse.
- For two weeks, Warren Jeffs watched in silence
as the case played out before him.
And then the jury took up the question--
protection of girls versus
the prophet's idea of correct religious practice.
- I knew that if he was to walk away a free man,
it would just ingrain the people of the FLDS.
Because it would prove to them that he really,
truly was God's disciple.
It didn't take the jury long to reach a verdict.
- Mr. Jeffs, would you please stand--
- Warren Jeffs, in his charcoal gray suit,
stood up to hear the verdict, somber and silent as always.
- Count one that the defendant
is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt
of the crime charges of rape as an accomplice.
- Guilty on both felony counts.
The prophet was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Allen Steed had been charged with one count of rape
but denied the allegations.
Later, he pleaded to reduce charges
two third degree felonies
and was sentenced to 30 days in jail
along with three years probation.
- This has not been easy for us.
The easy thing would have been to do nothing.
But I have followed my heart, and I've spoken the truth.
- And Rebecca finally felt vindicated.
- I spoke. I testified.
He was found guilty.
And I wore red and it wasn't like
the world went into massive explosions
or earthquakes.
I was so relieved.
And I just thought, finally, it's over.
- It wasn't over though, was it? - No.
- In fact, it was just beginning
because a whole new and much more complicated case
was about to explode, deep in the heart of Texas.
And soon, Rebecca would find herself
smack in the middle of it.
- Coming up...
investigators discover a mind-boggling scene,
while Rebecca watches from afar, holding her breath.
- It felt like I was being ripped apart.
- When Dateline: Secrets Uncovered continues.
- The prophet was now in prison. It was spring 2008.
But even behind bars,
Warren Jeffs was still very much in power
and maintaining control over his flock,
especially the FLDS community,
which had recently sprung up in West Texas.
By this time, the 1800 acre, yearning for Zion Ranch
and its sparkling new temple were complete.
Local law enforcement
was keeping a close eye on the ranch,
curious about it but also concerned about
what was taking shape out there in the desert.
Nick Hanna was a Texas Ranger.
- The West Texas people are generally pretty friendly
and pretty welcoming individuals.
But they were certainly concerned because
you know, Texas has a history of having some incidents involving,
whether it be Waco or, you know, the Branch Davidians.
- As YFZ was under construction, the Texas legislature
changed the age at which a person could marry
with parental consent from 14 to 16.
Rebecca heard about the ranch too.
She wondered if any members of her family had moved there.
So she checked with the local sheriff
to see what he knew.
Nothing, it turned out.
But he did begin using Rebecca as a sort of interpreter.
- He would call me periodically a-and ask,
"Can you tell me about this?
"Or can you tell me what this means to them?
- Then on an early spring day in March 2008,
authorities in nearby San Angelo got a call from a woman
who said her name was Sarah Barlow--
claimed she lived at the ranch, and was being abused,
and held against her will by her husband.
- She was a young girl, and I think
at the time of the phone call, 16.
She had already given birth to a child.
And with her age, we're able to do the math
and recognize that that would have been
a sexual assault of a child.
- So what was the plan then? - To find Sarah Barlow.
- On April 3rd 2008, the Rangers,
child protective services in tow, arrived at the ranch.
- And the women were in prairie dresses essentially.
Most of the buildings were constructed
in, like, a log cabin type nature.
And so it almost seemed like you had gone back in time
to a period that America left long ago.
- Whether the Rangers knew it or not,
they had just confirmed the worst fears--
here and everywhere, of the FLDS faithful,
whose prophets had preached the warning for generations.
Ever since that, still vividly remembered
raid on the church in Short Creek,
way back in 1953.
The fact which some 1,500 miles away,
Rebecca knew very well.
- It was like two worlds crashing together
and having a major explosion inside of me.
It felt like I was being ripped apart.
- And almost immediately, it seemed to go wrong.
Instead of the 300 to 400 people the Rangers expected to find,
there were something like 700,
including more than 400 children and dozens of teenage girls.
Finding Sarah was like
looking for a needle in a haystack.
- It was a very confusing situation.
Most of these ladies dressed alike,
they sounded alike, their hair was fixed the same.
And there was only about four or five
very common names on the ranch. - Uh-huh.
- And so it was very difficult as you might imagine,
to differentiate, who belongs to who?
And who is who? - Then it got worse.
SWAT teams arrived, snipers,
even an armored personnel carrier.
And, well, terrified residents cowered.
The Rangers searched every house,
every classroom, meeting room, birthing center,
looking for the elusive Sarah. Nothing, except--
- We started seeing signs in plain view of other abuse.
We saw young girls with babies. And young girls--
or at least appeared to be young,
that were expecting.
And during these interviews, looking for Sarah,
evidence of other crimes became apparent pretty quickly.
So now that we see them, we're duty bound to act
on these instances of child abuse
or sexual abuse of young girls.
- Several of the girls interviewed by
Child Protective Services said they had been
spiritually united with adult men.
That no age was too young for this.
And it was the prophet who decided when
and whom they should marry.
The next day, 18 girls were determined
to have been abused, or at imminent risk of abuse,
and were removed from the ranch.
And then over the next two days, dozens more children--
some very young,
were forcibly removed from their parents
and taken to temporary housing.
- My two-year-old son was screaming,
"Mother don't let him take me. Don't let him take me.
I want to stay with you, mother. Mother, please hold me."
- And then four days after the raid began
a court order was issued
to take away all the remaining children
until a better assessment could be made
of what was going on inside the YFZ Ranch.
This time however, mothers but not fathers
were allowed to go with them.
- They had been predispositioned to believe that
anyone from the outside was evil.
And we had no desire to go onto the ranch
for any other reason other than the call.
You can't ignore a young girl's cries for help.
You've got to act.
- Some of the mothers and their children
who had been separated were reunited
at a makeshift shelter.
Eventually, all of them were transported to
an overburdened sports arena here in San Angelo.
And many FLDS members, young and old,
were required to line up and submit samples of their DNA.
And then scores of toddlers and children
were shipped off to foster homes around the state.
Some of them, hundreds of miles away,
to live with families whose culture they did not know.
For how long? They did not know.
This, said the state, was for their protection.
- This is not about members. This is about children,
who are at imminent risk of harm.
Children that we believe have been abused or neglected.
- The images set off a firestorm of controversy.
Former FLDS attorney Rod Parker--
- What the state did was--
i-in traumatizing that entire community
and all those children, that was wrong.
What Texas should have done is taken a more targeted approach,
not just sweep up everybody.
- We didn't particularly enjoy it either.
Nobody likes taking a child out of his environment,
even in the worst of circumstances.
But the law is the law.
And the courts spoke and said, "These kids are in danger.
And so we had to do what we had to do."
- Mind you, there was still no sign
of the mysterious Sarah Barlow, whose call had prompted the raid
and all that followed.
The Rangers did, however, find files of birth records.
But untangling the web of names and bloodlines was overwhelming,
if not impossible.
- You were essentially learning an entire network
or community of people.
- They needed somebody who could tell them
what it all meant, crack the code,
unravel the secrets.
An expert who knew it all, literally from the inside.
- And finally he said, "We are in over our head.
Can you please come down and help us?"
And so I did.
- And what she exposed
deep inside the Yearning for Zion Ranch,
was a very dark and carefully guarded secret
about a religion and its prophet, Warren Jeffs.
- Coming up, investigators make a strange discovery,
but only Rebecca can explain what it means.
- There was a part of me that hoped that no,
that can't be right.
- Welcome back.
As Warren Jeffs sat in prison, a convicted accomplice to rape,
his world was crumbling around him.
Texas Law Enforcement had raided
the sprawling religious compound he helped create,
uncovering signs of sexual abuse and other crimes.
Now, they were about to bring Rebecca Musser
to the ranch's temple, where she would be the key
to unlocking explosive church secrets.
Once again, here's Keith Morrison
with "Unbreakable."
**
- It sparkled in the Texas sun.
Its brilliant white spire, pointing to heaven
from the heart of the Yearning for Zion Ranch.
This first ever temple of the FLDS--
gleaming white limestone.
Every piece cut from the very land it sat on.
Every square inch of it fashioned by the people
of the ranch themselves. Every square inch sacred.
But now, the Texas Rangers were at the door looking,
they said, for the mysterious Sarah Barlow.
- We recognize the temple was a symbol to those folks.
And we didn't want to trample on their beliefs.
However, we had not found Sarah Barlow.
All right?
The search warrant dictated that we searched the premises.
And that includes any place
that she could be secreted or hid.
And obviously, she could be hid there.
- The temple's giant doors were fashioned in heavy oak
and were tightly secured.
- We asked them numerous times, please open the doors.
Please unlock the doors.
We don't want to kick the doors in.
And we don't want to use force to gain entry.
But any cooperation evidently,
wasn't a green light about Warren.
- Rebecca hadn't arrived yet, but she knew what was happening.
- I was terrified because I didn't know
what was in that temple.
I knew how they hold that temple as sacred.
And I was scared because
if there was going to be an incident,
it would have been over that temple.
- A decision was made.
The Rangers used a battering ram.
And at that very moment, said the members of the FLDS,
their temple was defiled.
It could never be a temple again.
- To me, it just signified that the period that it existed
in secrecy or cloaked for so many years,
was coming to an end.
- But Sergeant Hannah and the other investigators
entered the temple.
They marveled at its workmanship,
its elaborate design, its decor.
- I knew that they might perceive it as defiling it.
But I knew that we took great measures to respect things
and not to tear up anything that we didn't have to.
But whatever it took to make sure
that there wasn't a victim there,
is what we were going to do.
- There was no sign of Sarah or anyone else inside.
But as they climbed, they could see that each floor
seemed to have special significance.
As they rose, the colors of the walls, the floors,
the furniture changed--
each floor distinctively different.
- The third floor was white.
And it was brilliant white.
The drapes were white, the furniture white.
The tables were white. The chairs were white.
The carpet was white.
You almost needed shades when you walked up there.
And you really did almost get the sense like
if there is a room in heaven, I bet it looks like this.
- And on the same floor,
the Rangers discovered something very strange.
- Two beds-- and one bed was positioned
and situated like in a medical clinic.
- It was a Murphy bed that could be pulled down
from the wall, with several chairs surrounding it.
And then in an adjacent hallway,
they found the parts of another bed,
which had been disassembled.
Track marks on the rug suggested it had at some point
been moved in and out of the white room.
The Rangers put it back together.
And this is what it looked like,
complete with railings and a kneeling bench
at the foot of the bed.
- We needed somebody to help us,
give us some understanding of the culture we were entering
and the things we read that we didn't understand.
- So two days after their initial visit,
the Rangers took Rebecca inside the temple with them.
- When we got ready to go up to the top floor,
the Ranger told me-- he said, now,
if there's any reason that these beds--
they had talked about beds in the top floor.
If there's any reason other than what we might think
that they're there for, we need to know.
- The beds-- seeing them, said Rebecca,
sparked a rush of memories of hearing Uncle Rulon
and Warren Jeffs talking about sacred ordinances
to be performed in their, at the time, future temple.
- I remembered the horror that I felt in Rulon Jeff's home
as Warren was describing this ordinance
of a sexual nature,
where we would be taught the correct positions,
the correct way to conceive a child,
the laws of creation.
- The beds in the temple,
as far as Rebecca was concerned,
that was confirmation that Warren Jeffs wasn't just
teaching underage girls about sex ordinances.
He was actually performing them.
- Seeing that bed, seeing the chairs around it--
all of the things that Warren described,
there was a part of me that hoped that, no,
that can't be right.
But there was also another part of me that knew,
there it is.
There's everything that you were ever taught about it.
- But there was one more piece of evidence hidden at the ranch.
A voice sitting in a secret vault
that would shock even Rebecca.
- An audio recording reveals the darkest discovery of all.
- It will just rock you.
It's so horrible.
- When "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered" continues.
- April 2008,
the nation's eyes were glued on what was happening
in the desert of West Texas.
The Yearning for Zion Ranch was crawling with Texas Rangers,
looking for not only a teenage girl
who might be in danger,
but also evidence of other underage brides.
And there was one more place to look.
- There was a sister building to the temple,
and it was referred to as the Temple Annex.
Inside, there was a vault.
- This time, a battering ram wasn't enough.
- So we jackhammered through the wall,
to open the vault from the inside.
- Rebecca and the Rangers entered.
And immediately, they knew they had hit the mother lode.
- They had just tons-- I mean, 400 boxes of physical papers
plus all of the digital information.
And it was all of these records.
- We found church records, family records,
and probably the most important thing
was the priesthood records,
which were the dictations of Warren Jeffs.
His locations, his movements, his directions--
really, it was a road map to all the activities
of the FLDS community.
- Every dictation, every record,
every file had to be scrutinized page by page.
- Walking into there and going, oh, my goodness,
look at all this.
- Wes Hensley is an investigator
in the Texas Attorney General's office.
And box by box through literally millions of pages,
Hensley, and Hannah, and others
searched with the help of Rebecca.
- She was very important
about authenticating the documents for us.
She was able to give me their family background--
all the lineage.
- Rebecca knew it all
because she personally helped compile it.
- I was there. And I saw.
I heard. - Yeah.
- And I was involved with helping to gather this.
- Marriages, babies, bloodlines--
the whole intricate web.
But there was one thing Rebecca didn't know about,
Sarah Barlow, the mysterious young woman
whose call prompted the whole raid.
That's because there was no Sarah Barlow.
Two weeks after the raid, came a stunning surprise.
The calls that triggered the raid were a fraud, a fake.
The woman who made them from far away in Colorado,
had nothing to do with the FLDS.
Her attorney said she suffered
from multiple personality disorder.
After pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge
of filing a false report,
her case was eventually dismissed.
But Rod Parker, one of the attorneys
who represented the FLDS was furious about the actions
of the Texas Rangers.
- What they did is they described
a person who didn't exist and used it to justify
a complete search of the ranch.
- Families separated, children shipped away--
some not returned for almost two months.
A sacred temple defiled.
But neither the Rangers,
nor Rebecca had second thoughts about that.
Sarah Barlow may have been a fake, they said,
but what Warren Jeffs was doing here
with underage girls appeared to be very real
as seen in these pictures seized during the raid.
Do you carry around with you any sort of sadness, guilt?
Something about how much you had to do
to get that evidence against Warren Jeffs?
- No. - No regrets?
- No regrets. - No.
We didn't create those circumstances.
Warren Jeffs did. - He did.
- But he obviously, didn't see it as a crime.
He saw it as him doing his priestly duty.
- He understood that the outside world viewed it
as a crime, that society did.
Because even in the priesthood records,
there was a quote or comment that he made
that if the outside world knew what I was doing,
they would hang me from the highest tree.
- For the next several months, Hannah and Hensley
painstakingly picked through oceans of paperwork,
looking for anything to link Warren Jeffs
and other FLDS members to specific crimes.
But there was a clue that had been discovered
a few years earlier.
Remember when the prophet was arrested in 2006?
One of the things found and that Escalade
was a rather disturbing audio recording.
- This was Warren Jeffs
performing one of his sacred ordinances
with what sounded like a young girl.
Because he said her name on the tape,
it was a simple matter of matching her
to church records seized in the Texas raid.
It turned out she was just 12 years old.
The tone quiet, almost soothing,
belies the horror of what's really happening.
- This is a horrible thing to listen to.
It-it will just rock you.
It's so horrible.
- Eventually, the master copy of the recording was found,
buried in evidence discovered at the YFZ Ranch.
- It was exactly what Rebecca feared,
when she saw those beds in the temple.
- Not only had Warren been the perpetrator
and the predator on these young girls.
But he had in a very twisted sense,
taken the thought, the idea,
and called it holy.
- Warren Jeffs and nine other members of the FLDS
were indicted on a variety of sexual assault charges,
involving underage girls.
The prophet who had once been accountable to no one,
would again, have to answer in court-- this time,
facing life in prison.
And once again, the woman he once warned would be destroyed
in the flesh, would be the star witness against him.
And if the stakes weren't high enough,
they were about to go up.
In 2010, just before his Texas trial was to start,
back in Utah, the State Supreme Court overturned
his earlier conviction in the Elissa Wall case.
The justices cited improper jury instructions
by the trial judge-- ordered a new trial.
While prosecutors were deciding whether to retry the prophet,
he was extradited to Texas, where something dramatic
was about to happen on day one of the Warren Jeffs' trial.
- Rebecca takes the stand,
while Warren Jeffs makes a move that stuns the courtroom.
- It was just surreal.
- When "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered" continues.
* - San Angelo, Texas, cattle country
on the banks of the Concho River.
In the center of town, a stately old courthouse.
The stage for the 2011 trial of Prophet Warren Jeffs,
now facing charges for sexually assaulting two underage girls
alleged to be his spiritual wives.
- Mr. Jeffs, did you rape those two girls?
- This time, if convicted,
the prophet could face life in prison.
- We prepared ourselves diligently,
anticipating different arguments from the defense team.
- But there was no defense team per se
because right before the trial,
Warren Jeffs fired all his attorneys--
announced he'd represent himself.
In his opening argument, the prophet delivered
a 30-minute speech on religious persecution.
And then the prosecution presented its case--
all that evidence seized in the Texas raid.
And Rebecca Musser, again, dressed in red,
tried to make sense of it all for the jury.
The girls Warren Jeffs allegedly raped took the Fifth
instead of testifying against their husband and prophet.
- There were no victims sitting on that stand to say,
"This man did this to me."
And it was my testimony to authenticate the records,
to explain to the jury why these young girls were victims--
being forced to marry, being forced to have sex,
that that was normal.
- And then the prosecution played the audio
of Warren Jeffs and the 12-year-old girl
recovered at the YFZ Ranch-- all 21 minutes of it.
- I looked over, and I saw the emotional reactions
of the jurors.
And tears were streaming down someone's face.
- Finally, it was time for the prophet to deliver
his closing argument.
His last chance to make a compelling case for himself
and his holy ordinances.
He stood and faced the jury, but--
- He didn't utter a word for at least 38 minutes
and 50 seconds.
And at the conclusion of that period of time, he said,
um... - I'm at peace.
And I mean, I guess that was his argument.
But it was just surreal.
- It took the Texas jury barely half an hour
to reach a verdict-- guilty on all counts.
- It was like we had a great 1,000 pound weight
taken off your shoulders.
Our investigation was also on trial.
That going on to the ranch, the search warrant was on trial.
- I bless the State of Texas that somebody
finally stood up to this man.
And he's sitting in prison now for the rest of his life.
- Three months after Jeffs was handed that life sentence,
prosecutors in Utah decided they would not retry him
in the Elissa Wall case and dropped all charges.
A decision made with Elissa's consent.
Much has happened since we first brought you this story,
though official records are spotty at best.
Private investigator and FLDS expert Sam Brower
believes that most of the children taken from
the YFZ Ranch were eventually returned to the FLDS community,
including the 12-year-old from the audiotape.
The last time we spoke to Rebecca,
she told us the girl, now a young woman,
still considers herself a wife of the prophet,
and is thought to be living in an FLDS compound
somewhere in the US.
The State of Texas seized the YFZ Ranch and sold it.
This former religious commune was transformed into
a military and law enforcement training base,
of all things.
A few years later--
- We received a tip from the public,
of someone matching his description.
That information was absolutely instrumental.
- Warren's brother and second in command,
Lyle Jeffs was arrested
after slipping out of his ankle monitor,
while awaiting for trial on food stamp fraud.
He was convicted, sentenced to just under five years.
And Short Creek,
the Creek, once FLDS ground zero--
back in 2013, as we finished taping
and were preparing to leave, suddenly we were surrounded
by a whirling posse of teens on horseback,
responding to our greetings with blank stares.
- You want to call the sheriff now?
- These are children who'd been taken from their parents,
said Rebecca's old school friend, Andrew Chatwin.
They were just following church orders
to harass the media.
But that was then.
Now, said Andrew, the Creek is ground zero no more.
- The majority of the FLDS,
about 90% are not in Short Creek anymore.
- A series of court rulings wrested control
of the town away from the church and Warren Jeffs.
And the devout just left.
- They've been told not to cooperate with the courts.
And they would rather walk away from their homes
than to cooperate.
- So much change.
In 2017, Hildale elected the first non-FLDS mayor
in the town's 100-year history,
a woman. - How are you?
- Donna Jessup, she was an ex-FLDS member.
And she understands a lot
of how people think in this community.
- They welcome visitors now.
There's even a bar.
- What I've been telling people,
we're living in the aftermath of the Jeffs.
And now, we're here cleaning up and rebuilding.
- But the end of the story?
No, not at all.
Because though his flock has scattered,
Warren Jeffs, even in prison, is still the prophet,
issuing edicts to his faithful followers
now in neighboring Utah and beyond.
Sam Brower.
- They will do anything he says.
- They'll leave their families.
- They will leave their families.
They'll leave their children.
They'll turn daughters over to old lechers.
They'll do literally anything that they're called upon to do.
They see it as their path to salvation.
- And Rebecca Musser, to the FLDS faithful,
Rebecca is an apostate-- enemy of the work.
Does it hurt you knowing that many of them feel
quite negatively towards you now?
- I'm sad that some of them do.
But I could no longer stay.
It's not a glamorous part of getting freedom.
There's a cost to that.
- When we last spoke, Rebecca was working
in real estate and had two children.
But she was estranged from her own parents.
Her mother, she said, still wouldn't speak to her.
Her father too believed the teachings of the FLDS,
though he no longer believed Warren Jeffs was the prophet.
The woman once known as Sister Becky wrote a book
about her experiences.
She called it "The Witness Wore Red,"
and has helped counsel former FLDS members.
- The power of words means, breaking your silence.
To be silent is to be enslaved.
And there's this amazing thing called choice.
And that is freedom.
**
- And sometimes when she's playing her violin,
one of those classic hymns she learned
when practicing the work,
she thinks about her days in the FLDS,
thinks about that moment when Warren Jeffs
demanded her obedience.
The moment he threatened he would break her.
He didn't break you.
You broke him?
- I didn't set out to break him.
I think he broke himself.
But he most certainly did not break me.
**
- That's all for this edition
of "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
I'm Kate Snow.
Thank you for watching.