[music]
I've been investigating these missing children for months now.
And I believe the FLDS Church is hiding these kids.
[Rachel] If Warren gives a revelation it's God speaking,
we cannot question it.
The next morning they were gone.
There were many of those men and women
that would've preferred death to what Warren was doing.
I was asked to help find some missing kids.
These people have no right to my children.
[Matt] I think they are going to hit the place.
My name is Matt Browning.
I'm retired law enforcement out of Arizona.
I was on both the Joint Terrorist Task Force
and the Fugitive Task Force, with the FBI.
But most importantly, I'm a husband and a father.
And I was born and raised a member
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
A few years ago, my wife Tawni and I were
contacted by women who wanted help leaving polygamous groups.
Since then we been contacted numerous times
by people asking for help.
Some of these groups have a history of incest
and child abuse.
And are thriving right here in the United States.
People need to know about this.
And that's why we do what we do.
[music]
[Matt] How old is your daughter? The one that's missing.
The parents of these missing kids are all prior
or current members of the FLDS Church.
I've been investigating these missing children for months now,
and one thing I have found is that the FLDS Church
are masters at hiding.
And I believe the FLDS Church is hiding these kids.
[music]
What I found is that I think the reason why these kids
are moved around is it comes from the revelations that
came directly from Warren Jeffs out to the people
of the FLDS Church.
[music]
[Faith] The only way that we could get anything from God,
any-any messages or anything from God
was through Warren Jeffs.
If Warren gives a revelation that everyone is like,
"Well, it's the god, it's God speaking,
we cannot question it."
[music]
[Man] Warren Jeffs is serving a life sentence in a Texas prison
for child sex assault related to underage marriages.
[Nate] He's been incarcerated since 2006.
And he was getting 300 pieces of mail a day.
He still has people who believe in him.
And still hold him up to be the prophet.
[Matt] So Warren Jeffs has been in prison for 17 years.
And during that time he continued to run his church
through his son, Helaman and revelations were put out.
Warren has chosen Helaman to be his voice on the
outside of prison.
And part of the revelations is to bring the kids into one place
and to teach them and to bring them up in the religion.
[Man] He reasserted control over his polygamist church
with an edict last year calling for members
to return to the fold.
[Matt] Kids going missing from the FLDS church
are both boys and girls.
You can't have businesses if you don't have workers.
And the workers are the young boys.
The girls that are going missing,
because I think they're being married off
to this person or that person.
And we're back to creating babies for the FLDS Church.
[music]
Lorriane was put in contact with me a couple months ago
when three of her kids went missing from her home.
[music]
Okay, well, help me understand this then, because I,
I just don't--I wanna help Lorraine get her kids back.
I really do.
I think we just need to help her get her message out
and story out and then we go from there.
[music]
[knocking on door]
-Hey, Lorraine. -[Lorraine] Hello. Come in.
-How are you? -[Lorraine] Good.
-Nice to finally meet you. -[Lorraine] You too.
[Matt] What's going on?
[sighs] Do you want me to start at the beginning?
Okay.
As of today, my children have been missing
for almost two months.
My name is Lorraine Jessop.
I was raised in the FLDS.
I was married in 1999 to Lindsay Barlow,
a 32-year-old man, and I was 18 years old.
I was his second wife.
And he took two other wives after that.
I don't really feel like I had a friendship with him.
I was just one of the wives.
I had six children.
I enjoyed being a mother.
[music]
My husband was a very influential person
within the FLDS community, and worked very closely with
the bishop and the prophet, Warren Jeffs.
[music]
From the moment he was told to leave,
He gathered his things and left.
[music]
We had no idea the reason why he left
or how long he would be gone.
I think that he was sent away because he knew too much.
My husband worked so closely with the bishop
and was a part of so much of the secret undertakings.
But I don't even know what he was doing.
[music]
After he left,
he was diagnosed with leukemia and passed away.
[music]
It was--it was heartbreaking.
My two younger children, I don't think really remember
their father much at all because they were so young
when he was sent away.
After he left, we were given a caretaker.
A caretaker is a priested man appointed to take care of the
family's needs and be aware of what's happening.
I did have a lot of turmoil within the home
with the other ladies because so much of what
I did was--if it wasn't just in line with
what the sister wives wanted, then it was a problem.
Also, never really having any income of my own.
It created a stress for me to where...
I felt like I needed to get a job.
[music]
When I got this job, I found out that
everybody out there wasn't the big bad wolf.
There were people who treated me much more kindly
than even those in my own family.
And it really opened my eyes to see that I was a person too,
that could be respected and allowed to have space
to learn and make mistakes and grow.
That's when I met my boyfriend.
He was not in the FLDS.
And he's a very cheerful, decent person.
I knew I had to get out when I met my boyfriend
because I had done things with my boyfriend
that I knew were not accepted with the FLDS.
And I'd been taught all my life that, that was a terrible
thing to do, just the guilt of that was eating me alive.
It had been, what? Nine years since my husband was sent away?
Did you think you were gonna kicked out?
Eventually, yes, if they found out.
I felt like I was going to hell.
I literally felt like I was not worthy to live
at that point in my life.
I didn't feel like I was even a worthy parent for my children
because of how brainwashed I was.
Two and a half years ago, I left the FLDS.
[music]
It was hard to leave my children,
but in my mind, that's what I had to do.
Take it this way, if you were going to hell
would you want to take your children with you?
[Matt] When you grow up in an organization
that you're taught fear since the day you were born,
you fear God, you fear man, you fear the outside world.
You fear everything that is not FLDS.
I can understand why a lot of these parents leave
and leave their kids in the church.
It's a safer place. There's no outside influences.
It was hard to leave my children.
[music]
They were sad.
I was sad, but...
To all of us, that's just what had to happen.
[Matt] So where did you leave your kids?
So I left them there with the family under
the care of a specific mother. She's the sister wife.
[music]
I was relieved when I got out.
Just the weight of being there where I knew I was not welcome
was just overwhelming.
My only regret is that I didn't take my children with me
when I left the FLDS.
I requested to have my children every other weekend
for the weekend.
But the sister wife that I had left my children with
wouldn't do it.
When I realized it had gotten to a point where the sister wife
that I left the children with, would not bring them to visit,
that was very concerning to me.
That combined with the revelations that
-Helaman had given. -[Matt] Right.
[music]
[Lorraine] I was especially concerned for my 13-year-old
daughter because there's been a history of underaged marriages
and I didn't want her to be married off at a young age
and not be able to make any choices of her own in life.
And I told her I've got to know that they're safe.
I've got to know where they are.
But the mother that I left the children with
would not bring them to come visit.
[music]
I was able to get the children back and took them to my home.
They cried all the way.
They felt like they had been taken captive.
They're with their mom.
I tried to explain that, but they said,
"You're not our mother anymore."
Oh, yes.
Just to give you an idea,
when my kids were with me they were praying for my death.
-Because you're an apostate. -Yes.
Out loud in front of me.
Geez.
That isn't what my children really wanted.
That's just an insight into
what's been put into their minds.
[music]
They picked up a bag that somebody had left for them
in the bushes that had locking doorknobs
and a portable
phone power charger.
I just know that there were people trying to help them
to run away.
Tell me the last time that you saw your kids.
When was that?
[Lorraine] Oh. So that was February 4th at midnight, 2023.
[Matt] Okay.
So you had just gotten the kids back?
Mm-hmm.
And they'd only been there for two weeks?
Mm-hmm.
I had gotten up in the night to check on my children,
and they were in their beds.
I went back to bed, went to sleep.
The next morning at 5:00 in the morning, they were gone.
My front door was wide open. The house was cold.
There were no footprints.
Nothing to show me where they had gone,
who had taken them.
It was just terrifying.
-What do you do? -I called the police.
I said, "My children have been kidnapped."
And they said,
"Well, do you think that they're with the FLDS family?"
And I said, "Yes, but they could be anywhere."
The officer said that he felt like they were okay
if they were with the family, which was very upsetting to me.
I said, "Who is to say that they're safe?
How do we know they're not somewhere freezing in a ditch?"
They told me they did not have probable cause
to search the home.
They did put them on the missing persons list in Iron County.
But that was pretty much the extent of the help
I got at that point.
Have you heard from them at all since February 4th?
I haven't.
Okay. What does that do to you as a mother?
Well, if I let it, it would kill me.
What's your gut? What's your gut telling you?
You're the mom. What's your gut say?
I think they're with FLDS people somewhere.
It could be somebody they're related to.
It could be somebody they're unrelated to.
I believe that there's a lot going on here,
not just with your kids, but with a lot of kids
that are going up missing because of Warren's prophecies.
Do you believe that?
I believe that.
[music]
These people have no right to my children.
I want to see these children grow up with the freedom
to choose who and what they want to be,
free from the guilt of living life,
having fun,
having a true friendship with their companions
when they're grown,
not living in constant fear.
That's all it takes.
You and me, a lot of other people,
that's all it takes.
I am here to help. I'm here to do what I can.
So let's stay in contact and let's find your kids.
Okay?
[music]
I think Lorraine's story is heartbreaking.
[music]
We have just another person saying that this has to stop.
As far as her kids go, you know,
I'm trying to track them down and figure out where they're at.
[Man] Polygamist leader, Warren Jeffs who is in prison
on child sex assault charges related to underage marriages.
Fox 13 News reported in August that Jeffs was
reasserting control over the Fundamentalist LDS Church.
And families were being split up again.
I heard about the FLDS migration to North Dakota
from Helaman's sister, Rachel.
So some people within the FLDS are headed up to North Dakota.
Do you think it's possible that some of these kids that are
reported missing could be going up there too?
[Brandon] Maybe or just with different families.
Or just in hiding. I mean, there's just been always
been always lots of hiding places.
[Matt] My next step is to get out to North Dakota
and track down some of these compounds
where these missing kids could possibly be.
[music]
[Matt] Just got a call from the source.
And what he said is, this house out here confirmed.
They've been building a lot of barns in the last year.
They brought in 40 Conex boxes.
And were building within the house, and that house is huge.
So they believe that there's a lot of girls that are being
moved in and out of there, so we go out there
and take a look and see what we can find.
[music]
What's up, man?
How are you?
You look like somebody I know.
Listen, you're not because he's not from here.
You look familiar, though. It's not you.
Nah, man. I think I'm lost.
Huh?
Who am I?
What am I doing?
I was asked to help find some missing kids.
That were taken--
By members of the FLDS Church.
If I were to ask you guys,
"Can I go in and look for some missing kids?"
Would you let me?
[music]
[Matt] Hey, what's up?
I'm looking for some kids that were taken outta Cedar.
Where is Helaman? I want to talk to Helaman.
I appreciate you telling me that.
All right, dude. It's good talking to you.
You know what? I can't believe anything
anybody says about Helaman. Forget what Warren said.
Forget what Helaman says. Forget what a revelation says.
Well, who does?
Who does?
From who?
From Warren?
Warren is sitting in a jail for, and he was prosecuted for rape.
You know what? It's good meeting you guys.
Warren Jeffs has been in jail for 17 years.
They believe that Warren is still a prophet,
and they'll do whatever Warren tells 'em to do.
That's where this whole FLDS religion has gotten to.
And they believe that-- that everything that Helaman's
been saying is directly from Warren.
[music]
[Dowayne] Matt Browning. How you doing?
[Matt] D, what happened?
[Matt] Out of the blue, D called me all in a panic
and excited at the same time saying,
"Hey, are you in North Dakota? They found my daughter."
[music]
They're there now?
But they do have your daughter?
[Man] Heber Jeffs is charged with kidnapping,
accused of denying the girl's parents access to her.
[music]
[Matt] Heber Jeffs waived his rights, um,
which means that Utah has 10 days to get him back to Utah.
Then he's gonna go through the court proceedings there,
um, no bond.
So he's sitting in here until he gets back to Utah.
Then coming outside, a lady walked behind us
and took a picture of the license plates.
I talked to her. She's with Homeland Security.
They're looking for any information that
we might possibly have. And, you know, as as I left,
she said, uh, "We're on the same team here."
[music]
[Matt] I'm headed out to meet D Barlow, whose daughter was
recently recovered from North Dakota
after being with Heber Jeffs.
Heber is Tammy's uncle.
Heber pled guilty to third degree custodial interference.
In exchange, prosecutors dismissed
the first degree felony kidnapping charges
that Heber originally had against him.
[music]
He's actually the only person so far that has been able to get
law enforcement to do anything.
He's got some good information that he wants to share,
so we'll see what he has to say.
[music]
-Hey D. -Hey.
Thanks for meeting with me, man. I appreciate it.
-Taking time out your schedule. -You too. Great to meet you.
Yeah. I'm glad we're here. You left the church how long ago?
I'm 11 years out of this.
And it's been how long since you saw your daughter?
I held her when she was eight months old.
[music]
There is never a day that goes by
that I don't wake up seeing that girl.
Explain the situation where you haven't seen
your daughter in nine years.
[music]
I was born and raised in the fundamentalist Mormon community.
It was well known as Short Creek.
It was a very thriving, fundamentalist Mormon community.
It had a very strong work ethic, had a very strong
community ethic, and in many, many ways
idealistic to live in.
[music]
Rulon had, in fact, got to know the people quite well.
And I think, he truly loved the people.
We just had an idealistic, happy life there.
[music]
Warren came down, began to be involved in the community,
began to be close attendant to his father,
and at that point he began to be integrated inside the leadership
and the decision making of the community.
We knew Warren Jeffs, limitedly.
We saw him with respect
because of the respect we had for his dad,
but we didn't really know Warren Jeffs at all.
[music]
When Rulon Jeffs passed away, it was very transitional
in our lives to have Warren step in
and begin to take the leadership of the people.
[Dowayne] When Warren became our holy prophet,
it didn't take more than about 14, 15 months
before Warren began to send men away from the FLDS.
Anybody that had sway or influence of the people,
he got rid of them.
[music]
It was on open display to the people,
you don't be obedient to me,
then the hatchet will come down.
So there was always that constant fear.
And every father felt it. I actually call it
Warren's reign of terror
that he could go in and break your home and family up.
There were many of those men and women
that would've preferred death to what Warren was doing.
[music]
He took the people into Texas that he felt most loyal
and most devout to him.
And segregated the two communities between Texas
and Colorado City and Hildale.
And you can call it blind loyalty, blind belief,
whatever it is.
Blind Faith. Blind faith.
And as a person that was in that setting,
it is hard to separate it from,
I mean, all the prior experiences that were good
and honorable, it's hard to make a dividing line.
And I know it because I got brothers and sisters.
I got a mother that's in this.
They don't know how to make the dividing line between Warren
and what was really good before.
[music]
We're told, "Don't be on the internet,
don't look at the news, don't read the media, don't anything."
Unfortunately, members of the Jeffs' family knew that
there were issues with Warren.
And they were concerned about it, but had kept quiet about it.
[music]
What did you do when you said,
"You know what? Uh-uh, I ain't doing this no more."
[Dowayne] When law enforcement officers were looking for
information on Warren,
eventually it led to the raid from the state of Texas
on the compound in Texas.
There's a ton of exposing that happened when Texas raided.
Many of the things that were in Texas, we did not know about.
So that was a big surprise to us in Colorado City and Hilldale.
My gut was sick.
I realized what we were involved in down there in Texas.
We weren't being honest to the people.
And people were devout giving financially
and prayers, and faith,
and all those things and still did not know
the truth of what existed there.
That was a time that I didn't see a safety zone for my family.
[music]
We migrated to Omaha, Nebraska.
And began a process of completely cutting off
our communications just to get away from the FLDS.
[music]
When they sent her away, they told her it would be
a very short moment, if she left the baby
with her brother and her sister-in-law.
And so she left that baby.
I was begging the mother to go get our baby.
We cannot leave her there.
I have the correspondence between her and I
begging her not to leave that child there.
[music]
In the FLDS I had no decision rights on it at all
and was subject to whatever the church was telling us to do.
[music]
She was able to establish a co-share relationship
with her brother and her sister-in-law
that were taking care of Tammy.
And there was a lot more interaction.
But in that time period,
I have been prevented from being able to see her.
And it's not an easy experience to just turn your head
and look away.
And yet I knew the day would come that I'd one day
be able to stand in defense of this daughter of mine.
And try to bring her to a safety point.
In July of 2022, I got a very early morning text.
And the text simply said this,
"Dowayne, do you know that your daughter is an orphan
inside the FLDS?"
[music]
[Dowayne] I got an early morning text from a friend that said,
"I don't know if you're aware of this,
but your daughter is an orphan inside the FLDS."
They said to me, "Warren sent the word to send
the lady that'd been caring for our daughter away."
And when they sent her away,
she did, in fact, become an orphan inside the FLDS.
It's a knock you in the heart feeling.
Well, yeah.
Thousand things you think about.
I have no confidence in the FLDS leadership
because when it comes to young girls
is that they have trafficked these girls.
[music]
And her mother felt like she could go to her brother,
who is Heber Jeffs,
and that he would give our daughter to her.
But when she asked for that child to be returned,
he said to her, "You'll never see this girl again.
Write your letters of confession to Warren and to Helamen,
and we'll see where it goes." He gave her no reasons.
He only refused to give our daughter to her.
It really, really ripped me up
because all had been communicated to me
was that Heber took her and left with her.
And that he was-- he cut off all communications
and was not talking to Tammy's mother.
Tamara was in danger.
She was being sent and being hid.
So I immediately acted.
We went to a court and asked a judge to look at this.
The St. George judge gave plenty of opportunity to Heber Jeffs,
her brother, Tammy's uncle,
time to respond and come identify himself into this.
And so the judge could hear whatever there is.
He refused to appear before that judge and act.
Ultimately, this judge issued an order that says,
"This child is taken without permission. It is a kidnapping."
And so when the arrest warrant was formulated
and then put out on the BOLO, that was a big moment.
The arrest warrant clearly stated
that Heber was acting under the direction of Warren and Helaman.
Court records show that a no-bail warrant has been issued
for Heber Jeffs by a judge out of Paiute County.
Tammy's father says, "If anyone sees them, call police."
[Dowayne] To be able to see that law enforcement was taking
action on something that they had kind of stood back away from
because of the dichotomy that was in inside the FLDS
and these exiled families, that was a huge moment.
[music]
Heber Jeffs came up on the BOLO under a utility application
in North Dakota.
And on those utility applications,
it gave addresses where he had recently applied for gas.
[Man] Heber Jeffs is charged with kidnapping.
Accused of denying the girl's parents access to her.
[music]
I received a Saturday morning text
from a federal law enforcement in North Dakota. And said,
"Heber Jeffs just arrested.
"Your daughter is in custody.
She is safe, but she is shaken."
There's a million emotions that surge through your whole body.
Our family is now 100 percent out of the FLDS.
It was just one of those great big moments
that still wraps my heart today.
To know that Tammy is safe with her mom,
it's a huge reward.
My opportunity to connect with my daughter,
is yet to come to me.
And I know there's wisdom involved in giving her some time
with her mom to let her detox because she definitely
was under some heavy indoctrination.
Coming out of that kind of indoctrination is not easy.
And especially for a child.
[music]
[Man] Heber Jeffs was sentenced to serve up
to five years in prison, but given probation for his role
in the disappearance of a 10-year-old girl
he was caring for.
[Matt] What about other kids?
What do those parents need to do?
'Cause you're the one who's actually done it.
They need to go legally identify that those are their children.
This is a process that takes patience.
It takes nerves, it takes steel.
It takes a little bit of just enduring the process
-because it has to be there. -[Matt] Right.
And you know what? You saved your daughter.
-You've done it, man. -I'm doing it... still.
You are.
-Thanks for talking. -You bet.
[Matt] In this FLDS missing children's situation,
I think it's bigger than what we think.
The scary part is, is that with every day that goes by,
they're getting closer to being married off to some old man.
That's just the girls. Every day that goes by,
here's these young boys that are being shipped off away
from family to work, not to put money in their own pockets,
but to build up this so-called kingdom of heaven
in North Dakota.
The more people who know about the missing kids is more eyes
to find the kids. And that's our hope here.
[music]