by Sam Brower
It was not hard to find him. A sign on the building directly across the street from the police station read: SAM’S OFFICE. His big Chevy Suburban was parked outside, indicating he was present, so I went in. The whole building seemed to start breathing in and out as I told him I was serving him. The obese man’s face reddened in outrage, as if he were about to explode. Barlow did not want to touch the subpoena, but I didn’t care. He had been legally served, and he knew it, so I laid it on his desk and walked out.
I served several more subpoenas over the next few days, but the one that I was most looking forward to delivering was the one bearing the name of Warren Steed Jeffs. I parked about a block away from the ten-foot-high wall that surrounded his compound and settled down to watch.
The enclave, which consists of several homes, is modern and well kept, and is in stark contrast to the poverty that surrounds it. Covering an entire city block, it looks more like a walled gated community than the FLDS command center. Several entrances in the wall allow access, and swiveling, motorized cameras scan all visitors. The big rolling electric gates opened only for approved vehicles.
About five o’clock, as the work day ended, traffic picked up outside the compound, and I watched a steady stream of vehicles make brief stops on the street. The driver would jump out of the car and thrust one or more envelopes into a metal mail slot built into the wall, then dash away so the next in line could make their deposits. Sources explained to me later that it happened nearly every day, as people tried to get their tithing money, donations, and letters of repentance to the prophet in a timely manner.
I got out of my car and walked up to the big pedestrian gate set into the thick wall and rang the bell. Nothing. I had counted more than twenty other cameras around the compound, with additional tiny cameras the size of lipstick cases covering specific areas like porches and under the eaves of the buildings. One big motorized camera had been placed right over the west entrance. I buzzed the intercom and heard the hum of the camera moving to focus its big eye on me.
A young female voice from the intercom asked if she could help me. I said I had some documents for Warren Jeffs. She went silent, so I waited a few minutes and buzzed again. The same voice asked the same question. I repeated my answer. She replied that he wasn’t there.
I kept talking, trying to coax her into sending someone out to talk to me in person. In Utah, it is legal to serve a subpoena on any occupant over the age of fourteen at the address in question. The receptionist, however, just said “thank you,” then cut me off. After that, she would not even answer the intercom. I smiled up at the camera, then left, going on to my next stop.
At the time, the Jeffs compound was one of the only places in town with such tight security, but that quickly changed after my first subpoena blitz. Within two weeks, new fences with security cameras and NO TRESPASSING signs began to appear everywhere. Before, I had been able to drive directly up to the health clinic and park in a space reserved for the bishop of Short Creek, Uncle Fred Jessop, when I tried to serve a subpoena on him. Now, the clinic was completely surrounded with a reinforced vinyl security fence, and a guard shack perched at the newly installed gates.
On an early March morning in 2004, a fifteen-passenger white van wheeled up to the courthouse in Kingman, Arizona, the Mohave County seat. The doors opened and out spilled a small army of FLDS church leaders who would represent the church’s attempt to evict Ross Chatwin. Only three or four of them had been called as witnesses, some of whom I recognized because I had dropped subpoenas on them. So the others had shown up either for moral support or, more likely, to make certain everybody else said and did the right things. They were cocky. They were arrogant and disrespectful. They were the FLDS, on a mission from the prophet.
Joan Dudley was unimpressed by this gang, and she hardly looked up from her papers as they bumbled into the courtroom, bringing along their own security team of church goons. They took seats in the row in front of me, talking loudly, and that gave me a chance to both look them over and listen to their comments. Occasionally, to gauge their response and learn more about them, I would make a calculated comment to someone nearby. Judging from the sharp looks thrown my way, the tactic apparently worked. Soon, the goons were up and quietly badgering the court bailiffs to find out who I was.
The combativeness of the day came to a head when Dudley called Willie Jessop to the stand. I had heard a lot about this guy and was eager to see if the rumors were true. Jessop was a longtime FLDS bully who had wormed himself into a useful position with some of the church leaders who felt that his bulk and willingness to do as he was told could work to their advantage. His role was always an unofficial one that the leaders could deny, if necessary. It was Willie who later shoved a camera at me as I left my doctor’s office before open-heart surgery. He had a flair for the theatrical, and when his name was called he swaggered to the witness chair to face the detested black woman lawyer.
She worked him over for a while and he dodged the questions, stalled, and gave evasive answers, trying to insinuate that he—not she—was in control. Joan tuned him up like she was winding a clock. “Are you a bodyguard for the church?” she asked, raising her eyebrows slightly.
He responded that it depended on what she meant by the word “bodyguard.”
She asked if he was a bodyguard for Fred Jessop—the “Uncle Fred” who held the rank of second counselor to Warren Jeffs and was the bishop of the town. Uncle Fred had mysteriously vanished, and I had been unable to subpoena him at the health clinic. She received the same non-answer from Willie.
For the third time, Dudley tried the same question, and Willie admitted that on occasion he sometimes “accompanied” Uncle Fred.
“Were you a bodyguard for Rulon Jeffs, the former prophet?” Willie belatedly recognized that this line of questioning was painting him to be a longtime church enforcer. He dodged. She followed. “Are you Warren Jeffs’s bodyguard?”
Willie fell back to saying that depended on the definition of the word “bodyguard.”
But Joan had laid the groundwork, and she sprung the trap. Want a definition of bodyguard? Okay. She wagged a finger at him as if she were a schoolteacher with a particularly dense child and barked, “Do you guard Warren Jeffs’s body?”
He refused to respond, so she asked Judge James Chavez to order him to do so. Once more, Willie began a wavering ramble about the proper definition, and Joan pounced: “Do you guard Warren Jeffs’s body?” He still would not answer directly, so the judge ordered him to do so, and Willie arrogantly replied, “No comment.”
Judge Chavez exploded. “Who do you think you are? You’re not outside talking to the media.” He reminded Willie that he was under oath in a court of law and that he would definitely answer the question or suffer the consequences.
I watched with great satisfaction as the top FLDS enforcer was forced to give in to a black woman and a Hispanic judge. Getting Willie Jessop to admit in court to having been the bodyguard for the most important men in the hierarchy would prove to be a valuable tool that would be used against him in the coming years.
When the hearing was finished, the FLDS had failed in its effort to evict Ross Chatwin and his family. It was a good day in court, and it took Ross a step closer to obtaining a “life estate” of his own.
Up to that point, I had never even met Willie, but his name was always popping up because the apostates of Short Creek seemed to be scared of him, and also of his smaller half-brother, Dee. The two men are muscle for the church and are not shy about yearning to be God’s avengers. They live for the day they are called upon to protect the prophet and priesthood.
Willie is a large man, about six foot five and weighing probably around three hundred pounds, with brown hair that he sweeps back Elvis-style.
A man named Richard Jessop Ream, who would become one of my clients in another case, later provided me with a deeper look into Willie’s disturbed psyche. In an affidavit, Ream described the time that he and some friends we
re chatting with some local girls at the post office in Short Creek, unconcerned by the fact that the girls were considered off-limits by the church leadership. Big Willie drove up and glowered. “Leave the priesthood girls alone,” he snapped.
When Ream replied that he would talk with whomever he chose, Willie closed the conversation with the threat: “If I have to use guns to straighten you little bastards out, I am going to do just that, and Uncle Warren is going to back me up.”
Ream took that seriously. He had visited Jessop’s home on West Field Avenue in Hildale and knew the man owned the hardware to make good on his threat. Ream described the place as a mini-fortress, with all the windows blacked out because Willie was convinced that law enforcement had him under surveillance and that government intrusion was imminent. The basement reeked of gun oil and shelves sagged along two walls beneath the weight of cases of ammunition, reloading equipment, and gun supplies. The other two walls and some tables were laden with assault weapons, pistols, rifles, and shotguns, including a huge Barrett .50-caliber sniper rifle, which can kill up to a mile away, and nearly every kind of small arms weapon imaginable.
Ream’s affidavit stated, “I asked Mr. Jessop if it concerned him that he was in possession of illegal assault rifles.” At the time, those were banned. Willie laughed and replied that “what the law didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.” He was ready to use deadly force if the prophet commanded it.
As if not to be outdone, Willie’s brother Dee Jessop has openly stated that he would willingly cut the throats of his wives if the prophet gave the order. I have no doubt that both are serious. Together, they have a tendency to more than double the trouble, becoming exponentially meaner. They are formidable and unpredictable.
I have heard Willie brag to his admirers within my earshot about almost having had to “take [me] down.” The fact is that Willie rarely comes closer than twenty feet of me and, aside from our recent encounter in the parking lot of my doctor’s office, we have never had anything resembling a real conversation, but not for my lack of trying. He is invariably parked, lurking somewhere nearby, when trouble arises within the FLDS or if I have some business in the Crick. When I attempt to communicate with him, I get no response. He drives a high-dollar Mercedes-Benz SUV that is decked out with the latest police radios and scanners and even a satellite dish on the roof. I have tried walking up and tapping on the window of his vehicle and motioning for him to step outside and talk. He responds by locking all the doors and staring straight ahead.
One of the more interesting aspects of my entire investigation has been watching Big Willie evolve from being just a convenient thug for Warren Jeffs to becoming an affluent businessman and the slick spokesman for the entire FLDS religion. He is always welcome on national television shows, where he is acknowledged as the face of the cult. He is among the best I have seen at being able to lie like a thief and get away with it.
His rise to power says a lot about how the FLDS operates by instilling fear. I always make sure my guard is up when Big Willie is around. While working my way through college, one of my many jobs was training police dogs. Willie reminded me of what we called in that business a “fear-biter.” When you are not looking, such an animal sneaks up from behind, yaps a few times, nips at your heels, and then slinks away. It just is not prudent to show your back to a “fear-biter” like Willie. I consider both Willie and his brother, Dee, to be very dangerous men.
CHAPTER 6
P.I.
The work in Short Creek brought up some personal and professional considerations for me. The private detective business is just that, a business, and I had to earn a living. I could not just drop everything, and my paying clients elsewhere, to constantly run down to that crazy town. I could only work for so long on a dollar. But likewise, I also could not—would not—give up on my investigation. I had stumbled into an unbelievable place and an entire culture that should not exist in this country, and many of the people I was meeting were fighting for their very survival.
My research and paperwork files were stacking higher with each visit, progress had been made to get a safe haven for the Chatwins, and it was time for me to take a breather. But I knew that I wasn’t finished with the FLDS.
I seemed uniquely qualified to investigate the group. Not only was I a well-educated and trained professional in the law enforcement field, but there was something else just as important in this matter: I was a Mormon. I knew my religion, its traditions, its history, and its texts well, so I could cut through the blather of the FLDS when they tried to wrap their criminal activity with a sacred cloth of piety. Add to that the interesting fact that my great-grandfather served prison time in the late nineteenth century for being a polygamist. My grandmother was the youngest daughter of his youngest wife. When I had heard those stories as a kid, they seemed as outdated as other quirky tales from back in the age of the covered wagon. Now it seemed that I should have paid a little more attention to my mother’s family history.
My mom had made sure that her four raucous sons regularly attended church, and at the age of sixteen, I was ordained to the position of a priest in the Mormon Church in the small Southern California town of Banning, a place that was so quiet and normal that it was like “Leave It to Beaverville.” As a priest, I was able to participate in the duty of blessing the sacrament, something that I took very seriously.
Then one Sunday as I knelt to say the prayer, a woman in the congregation hurried up to our bishop and whispered something. He abruptly stopped the service and announced that a matter needed to be addressed. I was led away from the sacrament table, and everyone in the church stared as if I were some kind of freak during that long trip up the aisle. I had no idea what was happening. I thought my dad had been in an accident or something equally as horrible.
In his office, the bishop said he had just been informed that I had been seen being arrested in front of the church on the previous Wednesday night. “She is sure it was you, and that a highway patrolman took you away in handcuffs,” he said. “If that is the case, then I can’t allow you to bless the sacrament. You have to be worthy, so we’ll need to get someone to take your place.”
I was embarrassed and angry as I explained that the patrolman was Darrell Crossman, the leader of my Explorer Scout troop, and that he had offered me a ride in his cruiser. The bishop should not have interrupted the church meeting to confront me, but he had bought into the busybody’s accusation. Now, he apologized. “Come on, we’ll take you back up on the stand and everyone will see that you haven’t done anything wrong,” he said. As I walked with him back toward the altar, my mind was churning with emotion. I could not continue as if nothing had happened. Why would I want to have anything to do with a church that would humiliate me? I walked out, and I did not set foot in another Mormon church for twenty-six years.
I grew up as a Southern California kid bent on enjoying life.
My dad told me that everything I wanted to know had been written down in a book somewhere, awakening my curiosity and probably giving me a bit of an edge growing up during a very tumultuous period. During the summer when I was eight, I read Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey; plowed through the library’s shelves of biography, autobiography, and history; and then turned to the thirty-two volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Still, I was swept up in the counter-culture madness that was California in the 1960s, and I tumbled from gifted pupil to troubled youth. Out of school, out of church, and out of luck at eighteen years old, I drifted from coast to coast, always looking for the next party as I earned a living in the building trades. My motorcycle was my best friend. It had a special sheath in which I kept a pair of crutches, which I needed from having been in so many accidents. But the worst mishap came in 1979, when I was a passenger in a pickup truck that slammed into a huge rock on a mountain road. The collision broke my neck and jaw and a lot of other bones, leaving me in a body cast with steel plates in my head and face holding me together and a future of reconstructive
surgeries. The doctors expected me to die. I spent several weeks in traction while undergoing multiple reconstructive surgeries and five months in a “halo,” a medieval-looking metal band that encircled my head, with bolts tightened into my skull with a torque wrench to keep my head immobile. My neck was broken at the C2 vertebra, an injury commonly referred to as a “hangman’s break.” The purpose of the halo was to make it possible for me to move around, instead of being immobilized in a special bed that kept me in traction. The problem was, I had been in bed so long that my muscles atrophied to the point of uselessness and I had to learn to walk all over again. It took two long years to finally get my legs back under me and start feeling whole again.
That close call allowed me to believe I had been given a second chance with life, a rare opportunity to start anew, and I decided to change course. I started to really grow up, got married, and settled down to start a family. But when our kids were born, my wife and I began to realize that Southern California probably wasn’t the best place to raise them. For a variety of reasons, none of them having to do with religion, we decided to move to Utah. I still had no religious affiliation, and my wife knew little about Mormons.
But when my partner in a construction business in Riverside, California, learned of our decision to relocate to Utah, he was bewildered and concerned. “Be careful,” he warned. “The place is full of polygamists.”
“Well, we have Crips and Bloods out here, Gene,” I said. “The cops just found the body of an eight-year-old girl who had been brutalized and tossed alongside the freeway just a few blocks from my home—and you think I should be afraid of a few polygamists?” I was sick of hearing remarks about polygamists and Utah. Polygamy hadn’t been practiced for more than a hundred years out there—or so I thought.