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

by Musser, Rebecca

  I’d barely had time to breathe during the past six months. Lehi’s plea deals meant two glorious months of respite before Natalia’s next surgery, which would be relatively minor in comparison. That was good, because I wasn’t sure that Natalia, Kyle, or I could take much more. I decided to bring Kyle with me for the next trial so we could spend time together. I wished the worst of the trials was over, too, but it was the exact opposite.

  In June I had to testify against Abram Harker Jeffs, Warren’s brother and my “son,” who was a few years my senior. Abe was convicted of sexual assault of a fifteen-year-old and bigamy. In his fervor to please the Prophet, he’d performed Warren’s dirty work, such as pulling a barely weaned infant from an “unworthy” mother in Short Creek to bring the babe to a “worthier” woman at the YFZ. The jury sentenced him to seventeen years and a $10,000 fine for sexual assault of a child, which was much lighter than Roy’s seventy-five-year sentence. His lawyer breathed an audible sigh of relief upon hearing the verdict.

  Every single defense up to this point rested heavily on declaring evidence from the raid inadmissible. The search warrant was scrutinized every which way from Sunday, but Walther upheld it, as did other local judges.

  Upon our return home, my sister Amelia offered up her house to my brother Jordan and me to rent. Finally, a place to call our own! For an entire year, I had felt like I was always in someone’s way. Now, life felt like it was looking up.

  In true fashion of the roller coaster called my life, I got a call at the end of July 2010 from a very upset Elissa. Warren’s verdicts in Utah had been overturned due to faulty jury charges. It would have been so easy to get angry and give up! It seemed Warren could get away with everything. Loyal FLDS members would triumphantly proclaim that God had overcome the proud and wicked, that this was somehow a sign of Warren’s innocence.

  I reminded myself that my sisters and I had testified truthfully and we could walk away knowing that our contribution had been powerful, despite the eventual outcome. Warren wouldn’t be let go—at least not immediately. Between charges in Arizona and those in Texas, he was sure to be behind bars for quite some time.

  As if the trials and surgeries were not enough, at the end of August I was forced into a grueling deposition regarding Warren’s legal issues in Arizona. They were fishing for more information about Texas, since Warren’s and Uncle Wendell’s trials were around the corner. I showed up in red, my power words on my hand. I was questioned by Jim Bradshaw, one of the most callous defense attorneys I had ever faced. Piccarreta had prepared me for this, and while Bradshaw didn’t know it, his behavior prepared me to be a stronger, more confident witness in Texas courtrooms.

  In the most miraculous development, Ben and I started getting along again. We had both realized that Kyle’s and Natalia’s well-being far outweighed any differences between us. I watched him step up in accountability and in his relationships with our children in ways he never had before. I think he saw positive changes in me, too. Although we moved forward with divorce proceedings, we were able to become great friends again and focused on being great partners in raising our children. Ben could never understand my commitment to the trials, but he began working with my schedule instead of against it, for which I am still grateful.

  In October I prepared for Keith Dutson Jr.’s trial. It would be tough. I had adored him and his family, but it was obvious that like Abram, Keith had changed and let his desire to please the Prophet supersede his decency. He’d been twenty to his victim’s fifteen, which wasn’t as shocking as some of the older leaders’ age differences. However, his domineering behavior reared its ugly head when his wives did not submit to him sexually.

  The defense ridiculed me and questioned my morals at every trial, but Keith’s lawyer, Stephanie Goodman, was particularly disparaging, insinuating that my greeting hugs to Deputy George Arispe and some Texas Rangers constituted adultery.

  “Miss Musser, isn’t it true that it was your inappropriate relationship with law enforcement that caused your divorce?” I had to breathe and deliberately look at the words on my hand before Eric sprang from his seat and objected rigorously to her smear tactic. The jury was instructed to ignore her comment.

  In closing arguments, Eric boldly informed jurors that FLDS ways were simply too ingrained in Keith to ignore.

  “We’re not talking in the abstract about what someone believes,” Eric said. “We’re talking about what this man believes… It’s not just that the seed was planted… It sprouted.”

  The jury found Keith guilty of sexual assault of a child. He was sentenced to six years and a fine of $10,000 for sexual assault of a child. Eric’s poignant statement rang true in my ears. The Keith I once knew no longer existed. He had changed in a culture that now worshipped and honored criminal behaviors modeled by their Prophet—behaviors Keith had aspired to. In fact, one could argue that given that culture, the only difference between a Keith Dutson Jr. and a Merrill Jessop or even a Warren Jeffs was… time.

  Warren’s appearance in Texas was fast approaching. In February 2011, Warren excommunicated unprecedented thousands of followers, including my father, who e-mailed me in the midst of his great sadness. Warren had even excommunicated his most vocal follower, Willie Jessop. Had the tables been turned on the man who used to harass and bully others in the name of the Prophet?

  Warren’s lawyers fought hard to avoid extradition, but he was forced to return to Texas accompanied by Nick and Wes. Warren knew he was in trouble: the bad acts prosecutors continued to amass against him were breathtaking.

  Through their law enforcement connections, Wes and Nick had been keeping an eye on Warren. They told me he had been busy during his long incarceration. Besides his self-imposed fasts and suicidal tendencies, there was a long period where he masturbated deliberately in front of surveillance cameras as many as fifteen times a day. I speculated at that time he was going for an insanity plea. Lately, however, he had been busy writing harsh revelations from God. Having survived beyond his humble “I’m not the Prophet” stage, he had fully claimed the mantle of church leader again. As the FLDS Prophet, he sent a “Warning to the Nations” in a revelation for President Barack Obama, signed by several hundred followers, demanding his release. It was full of thinly veiled and outright threats. Warren was getting desperate to hide the extent of his depravity from the world—especially from his own people.

  After all these years, Warren still seemed to have control over my schedule, and I was sick of it. Within six months, he fired seven lawyers to delay trial. As shrewd as Judge Walther was in allowing Warren his rights, she was growing tired of his antics, too. Despite a childhood disease that left her limping, her legs in braces, Walther was a force to be reckoned with, and he knew it. Warren sought to have her recused several times over. It didn’t work. I found it quite fitting that Warren was facing a powerful woman who would not back down from him.

  The days leading up to Warren’s trial were like a three-ring circus. He retained two new high-powered attorneys, but after the jury was selected and seated, he pulled another desperate move and invoked the right to represent himself.

  Walther was very careful to advise against it, but he wouldn’t listen. The no-nonsense judge was far more accommodating than she would normally be, not giving Warren any viable excuse to have her recused or to file a successful appeal.

  Eric Nichols called me after a few days of whipping through witness after witness, telling me to be prepared to get there quickly. The trial that had taken three years to happen was proceeding at lightning speed. I flew into San Angelo right away and was escorted to a very large but secluded game ranch. From all indications, by what I was hearing from the courthouse, first it seemed like I might testify immediately, since Warren was making no objections and no comments on his own behalf.

  The prosecution was an hour into Friday’s case before Warren stirred at all, when, I was told, he suddenly rose from his chair during the prosecution’s announcements of his very young
wives’ and children’s birthdates from the YFZ records.

  For nearly an hour, Warren apparently preached on the background of polygamy and the Lord’s sanctioning of it. He argued that the FLDS way of life should be protected under religious freedom, before ending with an “Amen.” This type of diatribe was not normally allowed in Walther’s orderly courtroom, but she let him ramble since he’d given no opening statement.

  From that moment, the court watched Warren curiously. He apparently objected when he shouldn’t have, and kept eerily silent when he should have spoken. By early Monday morning, the courtroom was packed when I arrived under guard. I still didn’t know if I would testify that day or not, but before court began for the morning I stepped into the gallery briefly. Warren had less than a handful of supporters, including his brother Lyle, who was supplying him with supporting documents. Under order, Lyle and other loyalists left the courtroom anytime “sacred records” regarding the Priesthood or the temple were revealed. This time Willie Jessop remained with his arms folded across his burly chest and a look of disgust upon his face. Reporters, authors, and artists kept furious pens to paper. I saw many others who had come, feeling a personal stake in what was taking place with the YFZ, like Bitsy Stone, who had opened her home to social workers from outside the region during the raid and custody battle; and Carmen Dusek, who had helped put the children’s legal team together and at one point had represented young Merrianne. Nick Hanna’s wife and other law enforcement spouses came to see the man who had kept their loved ones from home for so long. Curious friends and neighbors whose churches had helped to feed and clothe the disenfranchised FLDS members during the raid joined trial fanatics who had traveled halfway across the country to be part of the next most exciting case since Casey Anthony’s trial.

  Hours into the day, my security informed me that Warren had attempted again to have the judge recused. That was not shocking, but I was appalled at what Warren had written in his motion. First, reminding everyone that he was the “holy and noble authority on earth,” he demanded, “Let Barbara Walthers [sic] be of a humbling to know I have sent a crippling disease upon her which shall take her life soon.” I was infuriated that he would use the judge’s childhood disease as his own crutch! If any of his people were disobedient enough to watch the news, he was counting on them to glorify her leg braces as the crippling God was sending for not setting him free. Warren was not crazy—but rather diabolically brilliant and dangerous.

  Another member of my security detail observed the courtroom for a while and reported to me that Judge Walther sounded like she was talking to a two-year-old. “Mr. Jeffs, please take your seat.” “Please sit down, Mr. Jeffs.” “Mr. Jeffs, you must confine your comments to the appropriate times.” Warren had slowed the process down yet again, and I went back out to the ranch until the following Monday, when I’d finally be facing Warren Jeffs once again in the courtroom.

  CHAPTER 35

  Prosecution vs. Persecution: God Bless Texas

  From a small cement patio on the secluded ranch, I looked out on the very hot, very vast Texas desert, which was experiencing its worst drought in a century. Though it was very early, the horizon was already wavy due to the extreme heat wave, yet it was stunningly serene. I forced myself to think of dinosaurs, astronauts, and women voting. I thought of horses, four-wheelers, and one clandestine kiss. That led to thoughts of my two beautiful children, to whom I would return when this was all over, and the freedoms they had that were denied the people under Warren. I rose from my chair with songs and stories and feathers, beliefs and lessons, ringing in my head.

  I entered the courtroom on the afternoon of Monday, August 1, 2011, dressed in a bright red blouse and black pencil skirt, my words etched in pen upon my left palm. For the very first time since I left the FLDS, I would have to confront my old teacher, principal, “son,” and one-time leader. To say I felt rocked to the core was a gross understatement. Since I had first learned that Warren was representing himself, I’d been secretly terrified. Despite my now-vast experience on the stand, I would have much rather confronted Warren’s nastiest lawyer than face him in person.

  My heart beating wildly, I walked up the aisle of the tightly packed courtroom toward the judge, the jury, the prosecution, and the accused. I stepped up onto the witness stand and gave my oath, that I would tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.

  As I turned to sit, I looked over at the prosecution, the Texas Rangers and attorney general’s officers, the security for the proceedings, and those attending Warren’s trial. I gasped almost audibly. There before me was a veritable sea of red: red ties, red dresses, red flowers in red hair. Nearly everyone was wearing some type of red. I glanced at Wes and Nick, who both wore wide Texas grins and red ties.

  Once I looked at Warren, my heart stopped pounding and my body ceased trembling. Fire filled me again as I thought of all of those little girls.

  Eric questioned me for hours regarding church teachings and trainings, and especially church documents and their importance in the FLDS. I identified several types of records and a Book of Remembrance, which represented the Book of the Lamb of God in Heaven. During my testimony, Warren objected often, standing up when I talked about the Priesthood, about Celestial Marriage, and about what he himself had told me was my duty to my husband in the bedroom. But he never once met my eyes.

  This was my chance to give his preteen and teenaged victims a voice. The prosecution had already established DNA evidence in both cases that showed with 99.9 percent certainty that Warren was the father of those underage girls’ children, but now it was necessary to establish the girls as real people, with emotions, flesh, and blood, for the jury.

  Eric asked me if I knew Veda Keate. I explained that I did, as I used to chat with her and her sister Patricia often. I identified Veda in several pictures, along with her father, Alan, and his wife Nora, Warren’s younger sister.

  “When was the last time you saw Veda?”

  “At Rulon’s funeral.”

  Eric showed more pictures, some of which I had seen once or twice. There was a picture of my sister-wife Ora next to Veda. They held a portrait photo of Warren Jeffs between them, indicating their shared husband. Then Eric showed two more photos, of Veda, very pregnant and holding a picture of Warren.

  After establishing that information on Veda Keate, Eric moved on to the youngest documented victim of Warren Jeffs.

  “Did you know Merrianne Jessop?” he asked me.

  “Yes. She was my cousin and the sister of many of my sister-wives. She would come to our house to play.”

  “Would Warren interact with Veda and Merrianne?”

  “Yes. Warren would walk through the center of our home. He would go out of his way to greet them, get down on their level. He was the principal of their school. He would always ask, ‘Are you keeping sweet? Are you being obedient?’ ”

  Eric showed the jury pictures of the little pixie Merrianne, who still looked like a young child even at twelve. In the next few photos, she wore a lavender dress and had rosy cheeks and braided red hair as Warren held her in his arms and kissed her.

  I was done that day, but the trial was far from over. Eric continued to lay down evidence after evidence of Warren’s motives, of his behaviors, and of his documented sexual assault. The next day, against another torrent of objections, Eric played an audio recording I had verified in which Warren was taking Veda on a car ride with other wives for training to be “a good wife.” The next tape, almost an hour long, was of Warren going into vivid detail of training his youngest wives in a quorum of twelve. I sat upstairs, knowing what the jurors and galley were listening to, as Warren graphically told the girls how to shower, shave their pubic hair, and dress in white robes before they came to him. Then he said, “You have to know how to excite sexually and be excited. You have to be able to assist each other,” as well as, “Each one who touches me and assists each other will have my holy gift.”

 
; On Wednesday morning, Eric played for the jury the recording of little Merrianne in the temple, the one that would haunt me forever. My security told me that jurors who previously had shown no emotion were visibly shaken. One woman held her hand over her face, and another let a tear slip down her cheek. In the gallery, men and women alike were silently crying.

  If the importance of the trainings had been lost on anyone, Warren’s journal entry in 2004 summed it up. “These young girls have been given to me to be taught and trained how to come into the presence of God and help redeem Zion from their youngest years before they go through teenage doubting and fears and boy troubles.” The narcissistic Warren went on to write, “I will just be their boy trouble and guide them right, the Lord helping me.”

  For his defense, Warren tried to convince the jury that the FLDS deserved freedom from religious persecution, and even compared his struggle to the 1960s civil rights movement.

  I was allowed back into the courtroom during closing arguments, where I witnessed Eric’s inspiring and impassioned plea for justice for Veda and Merrianne. Finally, it was Warren’s turn to give his closing statement. I watched closely as he stood silently, staring at the ground for nearly every minute of his thirty-minute allotment. The judge let the clock run as the whole room sat in hushed silence.

  At the twenty-minute mark, Warren did something that made my blood turn cold. I watched as he looked up at the jurors, silently staring at each one of them in the eyes. It reminded me of the time he would look out at his father’s wives or his congregation, and take inventory. I glanced at the jurors, relieved to see them take it in stride. I recognized a fire in them as they stared back, not lowering their eyes, not cowing to his manipulations.