The Witness Wore Red: The 19th Wife Who Brought Polygamous Cult Leaders to Justice

by Musser, Rebecca

“I’m just surprised; that’s all.” Victoria clearly didn’t know how to express her feelings about the marriage. What could she say? I stuffed my own emotions inside, but Cole was bursting with anger. He and Victoria were very close in age, and she had always been kind to him, too. He was appalled that Orrin could just come in and get away with this. Our parents tried to soothe him, saying if the Prophet took it up with the Lord, then it must be right. The wedding was to take place just two days later. Orrin was granting her no time.

  Still furious, Cole was refusing to attend the ceremony.

  “Will you please come to my wedding?” Victoria begged. “It will not be the same without you.” All Cole could do was to pound on the wall. “I know,” she added. “It’s hard for me, too.”

  He turned and looked at her. “Then don’t do it.”

  “I have to.”

  Defeated, Cole showed up to the event but sat far in the back and refused to shake Orrin’s hand. Within a short period of time, a sadly ironic pattern appeared. Sheila treated Victoria with great cruelty—exactly like Irene had always treated Mom. She and Orrin mocked Victoria, and Irene had to endure watching abuse being inflicted on her own darling daughter. I couldn’t stand to watch what was happening, and in spite of my very strong faith, I began to question how the Prophet could have not only allowed but helped to create Victoria’s situation.

  I remembered a recording of Warren teaching a Home Economics class. He told the girls they didn’t want a “sniveling” little boy who would let them rule over him like the Gentiles. Instead he preached:

  … to lead you, to be the example to you, whom you can look up to. What an advantage you have over anything the world could ever offer! And the strength of your marriage will be that the Lord appointed it through His Prophet.

  Had the Lord really appointed it? Or had Orrin’s wheedling exasperated the Prophet into giving in to him? I prayed that, indeed, the Lord had directed the match and, because of that, Victoria would eventually be happy and be given the gifts needed to get into Heaven. If I were in her shoes, my thoughts of killing Orrin would surely keep me from getting there.

  Very soon it was time for me to take up my job as a teacher at Alta Academy. I showed up for my first day a little nervous. There was no formal teacher training. The biggest prerequisite was having the recommendations of my father, Mr. Jeffs, and the Prophet. I was simply handed the teacher textbooks, along with a schedule of what subjects I needed to cover, and off I went to my classroom. Luckily I began as a team teacher, and after having helped so many younger siblings with their studies and homework, I found the skills actually came naturally to me.

  At Alta, I kept up with my meticulous notes during Morning Classes and conferences. Mr. Jeffs had noticed those skills through my years of Home Economics, and he now asked me to bring in my many notebooks. My notes were copied and compiled in the spring of 1994. The result was the major foundation for the book of our Prophets, In Light and Truth: Raising Children in the Family Order of Heaven. It would come out four years later copyrighted in Rulon’s name. I didn’t receive any recognition for it, nor did I expect it. Women were not to stand out in any way, and I worked hard to blend in so I would have no reason to be singled out for any reprimands.

  Every year in the spring we gathered in Short Creek for April Conference to listen to the Prophet and the rest of the patriarchal authorities of the church give counsel as to how to behave on an individual basis, as families, and as a church. My siblings and I loved gathering with all of our friends and relatives and other members. Just as we could at Alta Academy, here we could openly walk the red-dirt streets and gather in large crowds, unabashed in our prairie dresses and long sleeves. At April Conference the following spring, there was a huge change in how we were taught to address one another. Following in the footsteps of the strict Jeffs family, we were no longer allowed to call our parents “Mom” and “Dad” and were ordered to immediately begin addressing them formally as “Mother” and “Father.” Aunt Irene now had to be strictly referred to as “Mother Irene.” Other persons of respect, like FLDS Priesthood holders, teachers, and our principal, would be called “Uncle” or “Aunt.” It was all very hard to get used to, but to not do what the Prophet had asked would be immoral, so we got into the habit quickly.

  As the school year wound to a close, Mr. Jeffs—now “Uncle Warren”—kept an increasingly vigilant eye on me. He had an entourage of wives and teachers who were supposed to “check in” and wait for him for hours in the hall outside his office. Groups of women camped out in the corridor every day, just waiting for a sliver of his time. I thought it was absolutely ridiculous, and when it was supposed to be my turn, I spent time preparing for my class or teaching instead. This refusal to “check in” did not go unnoticed. One day Uncle Warren called me into his office to admonish me. While I nodded in agreement just to please him, he could tell I wasn’t thrilled with the idea. Even at that moment I was anxious to get back to my classroom. He sat and stared at me with his piercing eyes.

  “Speaking of checking in, Becky,” he said, his voice deliberately slow, “I think you need to check in with Father.” My mouth open in shock and horror, I looked at Warren as he picked up the phone and dialed my father. To “check in with Father” meant I had to check in with the Prophet for marriage! My father had been told to turn in his eligible daughters to be wed, but except for Christine, he had put it off several times. Warren was my principal and a Priesthood leader, and I was not to say no to him. It was a blatant show of force between Uncle Warren and my father—and once again Warren was winning. Fumbling, I mumbled some things into the phone to my father. He was not happy.

  “Do you realize what you have done?” my father asked sharply when I arrived home later. Tears filled my eyes.

  “Uncle Warren picked up the phone and dialed it. What was I to do? I’m only eighteen, Dad! I don’t want to get married yet!” He hadn’t noticed that I didn’t use the term “Father” in my distress. He just stared at me, disgusted.

  “Looks like you don’t have any choice.” I watched him walk away, my heart heavy with despair.

  Two days later, on a Saturday morning, Savannah, Brittany, and I set off in silence with our father to see Uncle Rulon. All through the previous day and night, my head had been swimming. This was supposed to be a day that the girls in the church rejoiced over. To be turned in to the Prophet for marriage—all our work, our training, our habits, behaviors, and character sculpting all to become the very best bride we could be. I hadn’t expected this for at least three or four more years, so now I struggled to remember the “right” things I was supposed to do. I could hear Uncle Warren’s words as he repeatedly taught us in Home Economics about keeping our hearts open for his father’s revelations.

  “President Jeffs reads your heart when you present yourself to him,” he would repeat. “For those who have been praying fervently that the Lord’s will is done in their life, it’s easy for the Prophet to receive the impression about whom that girl belongs to. It’s your heart or the spirit you keep that is all important. Stay open and pure.”

  I was praying to keep that channel open, but all the way to Uncle Rulon’s estate, I was near tears. I tried very hard to keep calm, even as we were greeted at the door by several of Uncle Rulon’s wives, who seemed to be eagerly anticipating our arrival. It made me even more anxious.

  One at a time, our father turned us over to the Prophet. My older sisters went first. When it was my turn, I was led down a hall and into a very large office with multiple chairs and cubicle dividers.

  Uncle Rulon sat behind a large and ornate desk. I was struck again by his authoritative stance, although today he seemed to be making a greater effort to be kind, jovial, and friendly to set me at ease. After several preliminary questions, however, he got down to business.

  “I need to ask you a very serious question. Do you have anyone in mind to marry?” He looked at me with his dark eyes, and my heart felt like it would leap out of my che
st. We were not ever supposed to carry a thought of a man in our hearts, because that channel would become cloudy and the Prophet would not know who we were to marry.

  “The only person… that ever crossed my mind… was you,” I said, stammering. I saw his eyes sparkle, and that instant I realized he had taken that comment in precisely the opposite way I had intended! We were only supposed to think of the Prophet, as he was the mouthpiece of God. “I mean, I ummm, I haven’t allowed myself think of anyone else.” That wasn’t right, either!

  “Please,” I said, pleading, “I just want to marry the man Heavenly Father feels I am to marry.” I looked in his eyes, and I could tell he didn’t understand. I hung my head in defeat. I had given my Prophet the wrong idea. Nothing I could say without being offensive was going to change his mind. I wanted to scream, I don’t want you! But my mouth was sealed shut by all of the admonitions, sermons, and stories I had ever been told about honoring my elders, and especially the Prophet.

  “I will take it up with the Lord,” he said simply, and all I could do was bow my head and get out of there as quickly as I could.

  I found out later that it wouldn’t have mattered if I had mentioned another man or not. My fate had already been decided. Unbeknownst to me, the Prophet had been watching me throughout high school. Even if I had another man in my heart, I would never have been given to marry him. I belonged to the Prophet.

  Over the course of the next few weeks, I discovered that my sister Savannah was being given to Uncle Warren’s brother Seth Jeffs. My sister Brittany was being given to our uncle Jason Blackmore, and she would be moving up to British Columbia to live with him as his fourth wife. I shuddered a little at that one, even though it wasn’t surprising. Uncle Jason was in his fifties and, like Uncle Winston, did not treat his wives with much respect.

  “Who will you be marrying, Becky?” they both cried.

  “I… I don’t know,” I stammered. Uncle Rulon had never actually said the words, only that he would take it up with the Lord, and I had prayed and prayed that the Lord would give me someone younger, worthy of the Priesthood, and a good and righteous man. If the Prophet was our connection to God, and God knew my heart, then surely he would have the last say.

  Savannah, now twenty-three, married Seth Jeffs on June 6, 1995, in Uncle Rulon’s living room. Just eleven days later, Brittany, aged twenty-two, married Jason Blackmore in the same house. Brittany had gotten into some trouble not long before for having kissed a boy, and she was quickly married off to an “appropriate Priesthood man” for it. I prayed for her to be happy. After the ceremony, Aunt Aubrey, Jason’s wife from Canada, hugged me.

  “We all thought you would marry Jason,” she murmured. I had never loved Jason except as an uncle, but I would have given anything to be in Savannah’s or Brittany’s shoes instead of my own. They both seemed relatively happy.

  After the ceremony, which Uncle Rulon officiated, the family stood in formation for the greeting line, which had been a tradition for over a century at every wedding. I stood behind Cole, who was very restless. “Can’t this line move any faster?”

  We finally made it up to the line to greet everyone—first my father and mother, then Brittany and Uncle Jason, whom we congratulated, and then Uncle Rulon. When I shook Uncle Rulon’s hand, he seized mine and squeezed it three distinct times. My heart sank in fear and despair. Our Prophet had a tradition. If he squeezed your hand three times, each squeeze stood for a word in a message: “I-LOVE-YOU.” It also meant that you had the honor and privilege of becoming his next bride. I knew those behind me were watching for my reaction, so I kept moving to hide my face, which had become inflamed with panic, fear, and embarrassment.

  My mother had seen this interaction, and if my father hadn’t, she would surely tell him. As the celebration wound down, Dad said I could go home with Cole and Timothy. My brothers had been ahead of me in line, so they didn’t know what had transpired, and I didn’t tell them, hoping against hope that it was just a figment of my imagination. We drove around for a while, and by the time we got home, everyone had gone to bed except Dad, who was sitting in the living room with just a small lamp on. His eyes lit up when he saw me.

  “There you are, Sis,” he chuckled. “Next in line for marriage, and next in line for the Prophet, no less!”

  I burst into tears. “Please, Father—I’m not ready! I’m not ready!”

  “Holding the hand of the Prophet, you will make it,” he said, trying to sound reassuring.

  “Dad—”

  He wouldn’t listen to anything I had to say. I turned away and rushed into my mother’s room, not caring if she was awake or asleep.

  “I can’t marry the Prophet!” I cried. “I can’t!” I paced back and forth, unable to calm down. She sat up in bed, her nightclothes and blankets wrapped around her.

  “I choked, Mother! I didn’t know what to tell him, and they say to keep that channel open, so I told the truth that he’s the only man that ever crossed my mind, but that’s because he played the role of Prophet in deciphering who I am to marry! I don’t want to marry him, Mother! I’m sorry, but he’s old!”

  “Your sister is married to him, and she’s not struggling with his age,” she reminded me gently.

  “But I’m not Christine!” I burst out. “Oooh! I am going to go do something so bad that I won’t be good enough for him to marry me!”

  “Becky!” my mother scolded. “Just what do you think you would do?”

  “I don’t know. But I will do something.” In my mind, “so bad” meant wearing lipstick, or cutting my hair. Surely our Prophet wouldn’t want a wife who cut her hair!

  I woke up the next day wracked with pain. My head felt thick and my eyes were nearly swollen shut from crying. Everyone could tell I was unhappy, and within the hour, my father asked me to go for a ride. He took me out to McDonald’s on 33rd South, a very rare treat. I could easily count on one hand the number of times I’d ever tasted fast food, so normally I would have relished the fries and the shake, but I saw my father’s ulterior motives lurking.

  “You notice how happy Christine is at the Prophet’s home, Sis?” he said, his eyes overly merry. “It’s because she is making the best of it. The same with Ora and Naomi. They’re blissfully happy.” I wasn’t sure I would call it “blissful,” but they did seem happy. Mom’s sister Bonnie was now known as Ora. Rulon took the name everyone had always called her away from her because Bonnie meant “beautiful,” and he wanted to humble her. He felt she should go by her real name “Ora Bernice.” Was that bliss?

  Naomi Jessop was a newer, younger bride like Christine, and the daughter of my uncle Merrill Jessop. She, too, seemed happy, I had to agree. But there were others…

  My father seemed to read my thoughts. “Not everyone is so happy, though, are they? You don’t want to turn out like Ellen, do you? She has a sour countenance, and you can see it on her face.” He paused thoughtfully for a moment, and then burst forth with a new idea. “You know, you could make it your goal to cheer Ellen up!”

  I started to protest when he interjected firmly. “Remember, your salvation is assured now, Sis! Your salvation is assured.”

  Upon my mother’s urging, my father talked to Uncle Rulon the next day. Of course he would not think to refuse his Prophet’s wishes. Desperate for his family’s salvation and political standing, he merely asked for more time. I was allowed to go to Canada for the summer and work with my aunts on my wedding dress. By this time I was an accomplished seamstress and could have sewn a dress in a matter of days, but I was incredibly grateful for the few extra weeks.

  I was just eighteen and would be married shortly after I turned nineteen… to a man more than four times my age.

  I traveled up to Canada with the newlyweds Jason and Brittany, and Amelia joined us later. My aunts could tell I was not very excited to get married, but I did my best to hide it. One day, though, my rebellious streak came out in full force.

  Uncle Rulon made a special trip to Brit
ish Columbia in July for his third-quarter visit and to check on his bride-to-be, ensuring my preparations to come back and marry him. Christine and I were requested to play for him like we had many times before, but this time I was looking for one last vestige of freedom before being forced to marry. My sister Amelia and I had made darling sailor outfits for Spring Conference. They were electric blue, a much more vibrant shade than we were generally allowed. And they were striped with sassy, striking, inch-wide panels of blue and white all over, including the ruffles. We dubbed them our jailbird dresses.

  Donning our matching outfits, we defiantly made our way out into the celebration. Amelia was also showing some signs of rebellion, although hers was directed at Uncle Jason; he had just married our sister Brittany, and now he wanted to wed Amelia, too. She was being a little cheeky with the boys to make him mad, but I was crossing a definite line. Rulon Timpson Jeffs did not like stripes on women, and everybody knew it.

  It irritated me that Uncle Rulon utilized his position to make his preferences suddenly seem like they were what God wanted from us. Though Uncle Roy, who had reinstituted prairie dresses as the appropriate style for women, had also done this, he had at least liked vibrant colors and fabrics. Uncle Rulon quickly intimated that such vibrancy bespoke a proud and arrogant woman. He also outlawed wearing the solid and bold color red. A little bit of pinstripe on a man’s shirt or on a checkered long dress was acceptable. What started out as “the Prophet’s preferences” eventually became “God’s law.” Nowhere was this more clearly marked than in the Prophet’s household. Most of his wives dressed the same and even piled their hair up high, as a crown. I did not want to carry my very long, thick locks above my head and suffer from headaches like many of his wives. God’s law or not, I would find a way to express my individuality.

  With great defiance, I deliberately hung back to wait until the last possible moment to surprise him publicly with my dress. Uncle Rulon hadn’t noticed me yet, but people nearby were starting to stare and whisper. Suddenly Christine saw me from across the large lawn where the celebration was being held. Within seconds, her face showed abject horror. She turned to Brittany and I could hear her high-pitched and frantic whisper as they practically galloped across the lawn toward us.