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

by Musser, Rebecca

  Warren’s words continued to follow me as I stumbled into the corridor. I barely made it into my own room, blinded by tears. Christine came in, crying and apologizing for any part she might have played, but I did not feel her words or her tears. After she left, I glanced at the heavy oak door I had once been so glad to have, and realized it was holding me prisoner. I wished I had never kissed Ben, nor disgraced him or his family.

  As I flung myself onto the bed, I wished desperately that I had just done it—just flung myself off the sheer face of El Capitan. Now I had one week to choose a husband. In absolute agony, I felt as if I were already falling to my death.

  Over the next few days, I felt like the walking dead. All roads seemed to lead to a hopeless future. One night, just four days before I was to be married, I went into my bathroom to get ready for bed, glancing into the mirror. My eyes were sunken and colorless, surrounded by graying, sallow skin. Months of fasting had played havoc on my body, but it was my spirit that felt broken. It reminded me of a critical question I had asked Warren when I was in high school.

  “If God knew who was going to make it and who wasn’t,” I asked naïvely, “why would he send all of us here, including those who wouldn’t?”

  He looked at me curiously, and then replied in his usual authoritative manner. “So you can prove it to yourself.”

  After all the years of striving, I was tired. Dear God, if this is Heaven, then give me hell!

  Suddenly I had a vision. It felt like déjà vu, because I had dreamed snippets a few times over the last six months. In a split second, I saw with great vividness another bathroom countertop—only this one wasn’t grayish-green Formica; it was bright turquoise. I didn’t recognize it at all. I was alone in that bathroom, and yet I was not alone. I didn’t see anyone else in the mirror or beside me—but somehow I knew I was not alone.

  In a flash it was gone, but the feeling remained. No longer lonely, I lay upon my bed. Trying to look at my options with less fear, I kept coming up against a door I didn’t dare to open. If I did, I would have to rely on the kindness of the outside world. That thought petrified me, nearly as much as marrying again. I couldn’t begin to think of how to live among murderers, rapists, thieves—the wicked, corrupt, ignorant, and unkind people of this world.

  Wicked… unkind… Was that really my experience? Memories flooded my mind: neighbors after our house fire… my violin teacher, Mrs. Guertler… Brian Lewis and Peter Prier…

  A memory I had carefully tucked away whirled into my consciousness. Walking into the Sears department store in St. George as a young bride, searching for vacuum parts. Briefly separated from my sister-wives, I strode alone into the appliances section, where I was unexpectedly mesmerized by a vast sea of televisions, which displayed the most striking black woman on every screen. It was sacrilegious to watch, but the woman was captivating. Even as cloistered from the world as I had been, I recognized the face of Oprah Winfrey. Interviewing a woman who had become a foster mother to a whole neighborhood of cast-off children—transients, runaways, children of addicts, and so on—Oprah was celebrating her generous heart, and even gifted her with items that would serve her hodgepodge family. I was floored.

  Those two beautiful women completely refuted everything I had ever been taught about the outside world—especially about black people! Warren said blacks were from the seed of Cain, and he used words like “uncouth, wild and ignorant, immoral, and filthy,” saying they were cursed, loved Satan, loved evil, and that not one soul was clean, pure, or righteous. He had been wrong. At the time, I had to put that knowledge on the shelf with so many other things that did not mesh with our teachings. Now I took a long, hard look at all the things that Warren had said were absolutely true that I knew were not. I pulled that nugget of wisdom regarding Oprah and the lovely people I had met in the outside world off the shelf and tucked it into my heart, where it belonged.

  If I was going to leave, I would have to take a chance on the kindness of strangers, and that outside world, whatever it held for me. Once again I thought of Warren, but this time I felt a fire ignite in my belly. My spirit was not broken! I would not allow myself to be broken.

  In the predawn hours of Sunday morning, I put a note on my bed for Christine, my mom, and my sisters. Taking an exit to avoid the cameras and any of the men on security patrol, I pushed the heavy oak door quietly behind me until I heard the latch click shut. My heart pounding, I walked as casually as I could, as if I was out for a stroll on the grounds. I made my way around the side of the massive Jeffs mansion, then turned abruptly toward the fence. The gates were locked, as I knew they would be. I looked back toward the Jeffses’ property. Most of the lights were still off. I couldn’t see anybody looking, but even if they had been, it was now or never.

  Long skirts and all, I scaled the tall fence that protected the Jeffs family from “outsiders and wicked apostates.”

  In doing so, I became one of them.

  CHAPTER 14

  Escape

  Right before dawn, avoiding security cameras and the prying eyes of any early risers, I slipped over the Jeffses’ six-foot-high, wrought-iron gate. The spikes at the top were tricky to manage in my long skirt, yet nothing compared to the half-mile walk I had to trek to meet Ben, fighting my urge to bolt back to my sister-wives, whom I was having great difficulty leaving. I finally reached the back side of ALCO, an FLDS-member-run business.

  Ben was nowhere in sight.

  He couldn’t do it, I thought numbly. He had accidentally slept in that morning, causing me to pace my room for hours until I had finally heard from him and was able to leave the property, trusting he would be here. Without Ben, all was lost. I had no escape route and no time for a new plan. Between the horror stories I knew from the inside and the police in Warren’s pocket, I could not win on my own.

  Just then, Ben rounded the corner in his brother’s shimmery gold truck, loaded with a minitrailer from his previous employer, Reliance Lighting. My heart flooded with relief.

  “I’m sorry for being late,” he whispered, as he opened the door for me to hop in, his eyes filled with remorse at the fear he knew he’d put me through for the second time that morning. “How are you?”

  “Scared to death!” I replied, trembling in both relief and fear. “Let’s get out of here!”

  My heart continued to pump wildly as we passed our neighbors’ homes on the way to Highway 59, which would draw us toward Las Vegas. The cover of darkness was lifting, and so was my determination. If Ben hadn’t been driving, I doubt I would have had the courage to continue. We stayed on the main highway bordering Utah, Arizona, and Nevada so as to draw no attention to ourselves, not stopping for fuel until we made it past the farthest outskirts of Vegas.

  In the silence of the growing light, I stole furtive glances at Ben, whom I barely knew. I had just left everything and nearly everyone I’d ever known, and so had he. I tried to fathom why in the world he would do this for me.

  The last few days had been the most tumultuous of my entire life, bar none. Secretly, I had called an aunt who lived in St. George. She had left the FLDS over “one-man rule” years prior, but it was too dangerous for her to take me in. Deflated, I had known that anywhere I went for asylum, my host and I would face spiritual, mental, and perhaps even physical danger. How could I do that to anyone? After my vision in the bathroom, I had no longer felt alone, but it had been unclear as to whom I could seek help from. I had gone to bed that night, only to be awakened by the ringing of the phone in my room.

  “Is this Rebecca Wall?” The male voice on the line had sounded vaguely familiar, yet I couldn’t place it.

  “Who is this?” I had whispered, no longer groggy. It was not appropriate for any male to call me at two a.m. I was already in enough trouble!

  “It’s Cole, your brother.”

  “No way!” I had cried. No one had seen or heard from Cole for five years. Cautiously, I had lowered my voice back to a whisper. “It can’t be. Tell me something onl
y Cole would know.” There had been just a slight hesitation.

  “Do you remember at our old house, when we started that fire that almost burned down the shed…?”

  “Yes!” I had squealed, slapping my hand over my mouth. It had to be Cole. We had never told a single soul about that close call. “How did you get my number?”

  “You sent it with a gift you made for me.” I was amazed, as I had sent that gift years before on a wing and a prayer, not knowing if the last address anyone had was accurate. In all that time, miraculously I had never switched rooms and had kept the same phone number despite Rulon amassing forty-six wives after me. Most of the wives had frequent room changes and had changed numbers accordingly.

  “Becky,” Cole had said urgently, “I’ve been keeping an eye on what’s going on down there. Don’t get remarried!”

  I then told Cole I was being forced to marry almost immediately. I shared that I had already decided to leave but was unsure how, as it seemed unsafe for anyone to shelter me.

  “You can’t stay anywhere near Short Creek,” he had said. “They’ll get you.” With a sudden urgency in his voice he had cried, “Come to Oregon!”

  During that call, Oregon had sounded foreign and so far away. Even now, the thought of it frightened me. But knowing the history of our people, I realized it was likely the only way to escape the clutches of Warren for good. So now I was on my way to my brother’s apartment in Coos Bay, by the sea. Cole had talked to me for several hours, describing everything he’d been through since he was kicked out from our home and the FLDS. He hadn’t always lived in Oregon, but described how he had become so ill his doctors believed he wouldn’t live. He had dragged his body to his car, and drove and drove until he reached the sea. Although my brother had begun to heal his body, he was still very weak, and I heard that frailty in his voice.

  Cole had promised he would come to get me before Monday but had been so ill he couldn’t keep his promise. My adrenaline was on high for two days waiting for his call, wondering if he had been caught or hospitalized in his weakened state. He had finally phoned in the night to tell me he was sending friends for me, but they couldn’t arrive until it was too late. By that time, in my sheer desperation, I had called Ben and confided the whole story to him over the phone.

  “Let me help you,” Ben had begged. “Let me help get you out of there.”

  “I can’t let you do that.” I didn’t want that, either. It was one thing for my brother to help me escape, but both Ben’s and my reputations would be ruined beyond repair if we escaped together.

  “My days are numbered, anyway—” he began.

  “Because of me!” I had cried.

  “I’m the one that kissed you, remember?”

  That was when Ben had given me details of Warren’s confrontation with him. Warren had asked him the same dirty, degrading questions he had asked me. When Ben answered honestly, Warren had told him he detected the seeds of apostasy in him, too. We both knew those were Warren’s code words for “expect major consequences.”

  “You see,” Ben had added to me, “I’m on my way out, anyway. I can’t stay here any longer. Let me help you.”

  I hadn’t known what to say. Ben had already scandalized himself and his family, but he would place himself in very real danger if he had the audacity to turn against Warren and escape with the Prophet’s wife. How could I let him do that? I didn’t know, but I had to keep planning on leaving. It was the only thing keeping my will alive. For the next two days, I attended every meal and class so it wouldn’t occur to Warren that anything was different. As Monday had approached with no word from Cole, I had felt even less sure but began packing anyway. It had been agonizing, deciding what to include besides my violin. I knew nothing about Oregon, except Cole had described it as cold and blustery in November.

  Carefully, I had selected only a few favorite long dresses from the closet, so that it would still look full. I couldn’t leave all my photos and scrapbooks behind, as my family and friends were too precious. Neither could I leave my sewing machine, nor the boxes of material in my closet. Besides music lessons, I had felt that sewing would be my only way to make a living on the outside. That thought still terrified me.

  Making sure my room looked as if everything was still intact, I’d had to sneak the most important items out without being seen, then hide them somewhere off the Jeffses’ estate. Though not a liar or a thief, I’d had to steal my own belongings away to claim my very life. I borrowed one of the estate’s minivans to smuggle my items off the premises and into Elissa’s shed.

  The secrecy had been killing me, but I couldn’t tell a soul. Elissa was miserable, and Ally and Sherrie were not safe. Every night I’d been suffering from nightmares about what Warren would do with them in his lust for power and bartering of young brides. I longed to take them with me, but Cole had warned that taking any of them, including Elissa, would be considered kidnapping because they were underage. We would have the police and the FLDS looking for us. Brokenhearted, I understood, but I would never forget the look on her face when she had surprised Ben and me just the day before as we loaded his truck at her shed. Tearfully she begged me to stay. Would she ever forgive me for leaving?

  Now as Ben and I raced to Oregon, I tried to concentrate on the road, but all I could think of was Elissa and the people I had left behind. I had worked for so many years to be an example to my family and my community, and the thought made me want to stop and go back. Driving through the desolate landscape skimming the north end of the Mojave National Preserve, about a hundred miles south of Death Valley, I balked, thinking if I returned now no one would have to know.

  Finally the knowledge of my destiny under Warren Jeffs flooded my being and brought reason. As much as I wanted to, I could not go back. I glanced at my watch, realizing at this time our entire community would be in Sunday School. I thought how unfair it would be for my dear friend Samantha to have to learn of my leaving from another source. Since I had cleared all of the messages from my pager and left it in my room in Hildale, I used Ben’s phone to text her: “Good-bye. I love you.”

  I found out later that Samantha got up from Sunday School and immediately tried calling my room three times, with no answer. She then called Christine, who was absent from church that day, and asked her to check on me. I couldn’t blame her. Anyone with that kind of information who didn’t report it would be under harsh scrutiny, and Samantha had a standing in the community and a husband to protect. When Christine couldn’t get me to answer the door, Nephi and Isaac found a key to unlock my room, where they found my letter of explanation.

  Warren was adamant in the order he issued to the community: find us before nightfall, “to save that girl’s soul before she commits adultery.” All of Warren’s brothers and several members of the God Squad were sent on a massive manhunt for us, scouring Colorado City, St. George, Cedar City, and the surrounding environs. He used the threat of adultery to get the men to move quickly, as a woman’s virtue was prized among the FLDS. However, Warren was also very concerned about something else, though I wouldn’t understand that until much later. As the former Prophet’s widow, I knew far too much about the inner working of the Jeffs family and the true undertakings of the FLDS. I was a dangerous liability to the new Prophet.

  Within an hour of my text to Samantha, Ben’s phone started ringing—first his dad, then his mom. He ignored both calls. Next, Nephi’s number showed up on caller ID as we were getting gas in a small town in California. Though the calls unnerved us, as we got farther away we were able to distract ourselves with the beautiful change in scenery. There were lush fields of grapevines, even this late in the season, but we didn’t stop. We flew across the road as if the devil himself was chasing us. It was already getting dark when Ben’s brother Scott called.

  “Dude!” he cried to Ben, who finally answered his phone. “This is huge, what you’ve done. Everyone’s calling me—Mom, Dad, Uncle Nephi, and Uncle Warren—and crowds of people are comin
g out here!” Scott had finally gotten tired of the hordes of searchers and screwed shut the door of the shack he’d been sharing with Ben.

  Both Ben and Scott were very young, and I felt bad that he was having to face the brutal buffetings of family members and strong-armed church leaders because of me. The manhunt had become more intense, and it was a good thing Ben had left no evidence, because they scoured all the areas he had been. Had they found the MapQuest map on the computer’s history or a printout in the garbage can, we would have been stalked down and brought back. I knew how it worked. They would have separated us right away, then manipulated us, telling me things like “Ben doesn’t really want to be with you,” and saying the same to him about me. They would have finally forced me into a marriage designed to break the rebellion out of me, while Ben would have been tossed to the wolves to join the thousands of “spiritually dead” lost boys.

  Ben grew more and more nervous. He didn’t let me hear all the voice mails being left, or the awful things they were saying about both of us. However, I could tell by his face that certain ones were getting to him. He shared the message from my mother and sisters. Mom’s teary message demanding that Ben bring me back immediately broke my heart.

  “Remember the Golden Windows, Becky,” she sobbed.

  Ally, now eight, was not as sensitive. “You can go to hell, Ben! You can go to hell for what you’ve done!” she screamed.

  Ben turned the ringer off, and I cried quietly, not knowing if my mother would ever speak to me again. I knew that she secretly stayed in touch with my brothers to check on them, and I hoped she would be able to forgive me enough to do the same with me. I finally succumbed to exhaustion as darkness engulfed us. A while later, Ben stopped and gently woke me.

  “The ocean is over there, Becky,” he said. I noticed he didn’t call me Grandmother Becky or Mother Becky.

  “Really?”