I never went through more than one file at a time. It was too big a risk if I was caught. And I always brought something of Harrison’s with me—such as the dishes I used to feed him that I might be returning to the kitchen—so it would look like I was up because of him.
I’d take a flashlight and would lock myself in Merril’s office. But I attempted this only when I knew Merril would be away for two nights, because once I took anything, I had to copy it the next day, then sneak it back into Merril’s office the following night. But I found a treasure trove of documentation.
There were tax returns in which he claimed my children as deductions and a letter to the attorney general’s office explaining that he couldn’t pay his medical bills from his heart attack due to his large family. Then he listed all his underage children. I made about eight trips over two months collecting all the documentation I might possibly need.
Once I submitted the documentation, all of my children received benefits. Merril knew about this but not how I made it happen. I dutifully turned over the $700 a month I was receiving to him. Little did he know how masterfully I’d outsmarted him.
But on my first day of freedom, I called Social Security and told them I had a new address so the money would come directly to me and not to Merril.
I also applied for state benefits in Utah, but that was slow going. It took several months, and there was one goof-up after another. Even though the state acknowledged that Harrison’s situation was critical, there was nothing to do to speed up the process, which was agonizingly slow.
Harrison and I went for a walk at sunrise every morning after his bath. I pulled him in the wagon down to the reservoir. That black truck was still perched on the hill like a menacing shadow. I felt like I was trapped between a world of freedom and a world of slavery. The truck remained there for several weeks.
A few days later when Dan Fisher returned from a business trip he asked to meet with me. There was a problem. Merril was in hiding and the police had not been able to serve him with the order of protection. In truth, he said, I didn’t have much protection until Merril was actually served. The police wanted me to lure him into a trap.
In the three weeks since my escape I had tried to face every fear head-on. This felt like the ultimate challenge. I didn’t think I could do it. The thought of seeing Merril again made me shut down.
Dan said that since Merril was still hounding Arthur about seeing me, we had an easy way to make this happen. He urged me to set this in motion. I trusted Dan and finally agreed.
We talked it through. The key was that I could only meet Merril in a public place. There would be undercover cops there, so I’d have some protection. But that didn’t make me feel safe. I had lived under Merril’s tyranny for seventeen years and had seen how hard he had come down on wives who disobeyed him.
I had embarrassed him in the eyes of the entire community. Now everyone knew he did not have his family under control. Trained to be terrified of him for seventeen years, I found it excruciating to stand up to him, let alone trap him. But I knew Merril was a coward at heart. What I feared most was what he would try to do to me after our confrontation—not what he might do or say during it.
Other women had fled the FLDS, but I was unaware of any who had made it out with all their children, nor did I know any who were ever granted full custody in court. No one had ever fled from a man as powerful within the FLDS as Merril Jessop. In taking on Merril, I knew I was taking on the cult.
Most women who fled would willingly leave all their children behind, or just take the smaller ones and leave the older ones at home with the understanding that if they were allowed to take half their children, they wouldn’t fight for the rest. I did know of one woman who got all of her children out, but when the FLDS came after her, she sent all of them back and relinquished custody. Another woman escaped with all of her children and won temporary custody. But then she died suddenly from a brain aneurysm in the grocery store and all of her children were sent back. We were told her death was sent from God as punishment.
I had made it further than any woman I’d ever known. If meeting with Merril was the next price I had to pay for our freedom, so be it.
I told Arthur I would meet his father in the produce section of Smith’s the next morning. Arthur made all the arrangements and came with me. When we walked into the store, I was approached by one of the undercover police. He told me not to worry, I’d be safe.
Arthur lit into me. “What are you doing? You set a trap for my father!”
“Arthur, your father gave me no other option.”
“I am not going to let you do this to my father,” he said as he headed toward the entrance of the market to warn Merril.
Every nerve in my body was electrified.
When Merril walked into the store he met Arthur and the police. He was served with the protection order. Merril insisted he be allowed to speak. The police agreed under the condition that they be close by.
Merril kept his voice low. His eyes were on fire.
“What you have done is inexcusable,” he said. “You’ll never get away with this. If you know what’s best for you, you’ll stop right now.”
I knew better than to argue with him. I let him rant.
He insisted that the custody case I filed in Utah would be thrown out of court or transferred to Arizona. “You’ll never win because the children don’t want to be with you. They all want to be with me. You have yourself in a position where you’ll never see your children again.”
I felt calm in the face of his wrath. I knew that more than anything else, he wanted to feel my fear. I would not give him that pleasure.
“Merril, I think a judge will look at this whole case and not just your side.”
This made him even angrier.
“Carolyn, your very existence is on the line with the course you are pursuing.”
“I would rather be dead than live one more day like I did for the last seventeen years.”
I could see him stiffen. He attacked me for trapping him. “It’s not very smart of you to play these games. I came here thinking you had enough character not to do something like this.”
I didn’t care how long he went on. The police were watching his tirade and finally told Merril he had had enough time.
“She’s blown this all out of proportion. There’s no reason for an order of protection,” he said.
“You can make that case in court in two weeks,” the officer said. “If it’s not necessary, it will be removed.”
Merril lashed at me again. “See what you’ve done! We can’t talk to each other for two more weeks!”
I had no intention of ever speaking to him again. But I was concerned that he might succeed in getting the case transferred to Arizona.
Two weeks later Merril and I faced off again in a Salt Lake City courtroom. Merril had retained Rodney Parker, an attorney who had made his fortune defending the FLDS in court. Parker acted as though this was all a big joke, and maybe to him it was.
But I think I caught him off guard when he looked at me for the first time. I didn’t look like some wack job. Women who fled the FLDS were always portrayed as totally insane and under the influence of the devil, and while Parker could tell I was scared, he also realized I wasn’t crazy.
The judge read the complaint. I think she felt like the circus had just rolled into her courtroom and was unfurling its tents.
Rodney Parker argued that Arizona should have jurisdiction over this case. The judge corrected him and said that Arizona could release it to Utah and she would request that. Parker did not seem prepared for this. He started arguing about the order of protection.
My attorney made a motion to speak with the judge. He told her Merril had threatened me by saying my “existence was on the line” in front of three police officers standing nearby. Parker looked stricken and turned to Merril and started talking. He hated being unprepared in court, but Merril had obviously not been completely forthcoming with h
im.
A few days later I learned that my case would be heard in Utah. A big win.
Dan Fisher helped me get my children into public schools. (Bryson was too young and Betty and Arthur weren’t emotionally ready.) We both thought that even if it was only for a few weeks, connecting with other children and wearing normal clothes would help normalize them. It also would help me gauge where they were academically and what grade would be appropriate for them come fall.
Betty and Arthur refused to give up their FLDS clothing. Betty was incensed that her siblings were going to dress in worldly ways and go to worldly schools. She interfered whenever possible. She was angry, argumentative, and mean to me. I finally asked my younger sister Karen to let her stay at her house. I couldn’t handle the stress or problems Betty was creating for the rest of us. Karen was ten years younger than I and my full sister. She was in an arranged marriage but she and her husband both fled.
I felt that I was finally standing on solid ground—until my attorney told me that Merril should be allowed to have visiting rights with my children. I didn’t like the idea, but Doug told me that Merril had rights as their father and if I kept him away, it could work against me in court. That might have been true in a more normal case, but in reality, Merril was a danger to my children. I should have pushed harder.
Doug White had been recommended by a group called Tapestry Against Polygamy. He had represented women pro bono in polygamy cases, but the stakes had not been nearly as high as in mine. Most of the women he’d worked with were from smaller polygamist communities that were afraid of the law. Often when these women fled, that was it. No one came after them. Those who ended up in court often found that the men didn’t show up. Most of the cases he won, he won by default. But he had never handled a case like mine.
I later learned that White’s view was that a man should always be allowed to see his children, no matter what he’s done. If I’d known that at the time, I would have found another attorney.
Arrangements were made for Merril to see the children for an hour in a nearby park. My brother-in-law Robert agreed to supervise the visitation.
By now it had been six weeks since we’d escaped. One might think that since he was fighting so hard for custody, he might have spent some time with the children. But that was not the case. Merril never cared about our children. He cared about making an example out of me so other women didn’t make a break for freedom the way I had.
Merril arrived at the park with Barbara. She pranced around the picnic table, seemingly delighted. Merril shouted at Robert for the entire hour, attacking him for his role in helping me settle into my new life. “If you knew what was good for you, you’d send her back right away and stop participating in this nonsense,” Merril said.
I was pushing Harrison in his stroller and walking around the perimeter of the park with my sister Annette. “Barbara is thinking of all the ways she can punish you when she gets you back in her clutches,” Annette said.
“She should save herself the time,” I replied. “I’m never going to be under that bitch’s power again.”
Barbara was watching us walk around the park. I think she finally realized that she had no power over me anymore. “She can’t stand it that you’re so happy right now and she can’t hurt your children,” Annette said.
I realized she was right. Barbara couldn’t hurt my children or me—not that day, not ever.
When Merril said goodbye to the children he told them to “stay faithful.”
He didn’t kiss or hug them, but he never had.
Several days later one of Dan’s friends drove into his yard and saw several of my children playing. He stopped the car and asked ten-year-old Patrick how he was doing. Patrick’s face lit up in a big smile. “We’re living in hell!” he replied automatically. His words said one thing, his smile another. Patrick, like my other kids, was having the time of his life. Leenie kept a cupboard full of cookies and snack foods. Her freezer was loaded with ice cream. The day we first arrived she said my children were welcome to help themselves anytime they were hungry. She also told them when they came over for a snack that they could give her a hug.
This was a gift Leenie gave both to my children and to me. I had to learn how to hug my children again after we escaped. In Merril Jessop’s family, it was against the family laws to hug and kiss our children, so nobody did it. When Arthur was a baby, I hugged and kissed him constantly. But his older brothers and sisters taunted him about this until he started to cry. My hugging and kissing him was causing him so much pain, I stopped. When Betty was a small child, she would never allow me to hug or kiss her because she knew her other siblings would mock her.
It’s hard to explain how routine an abnormal life can become. But over time, I simply stopped hugging and kissing my children. Of all my eight children, I probably held Harrison the most because when he was in a spasm it was one of the few things that helped. I held my children when I nursed them and felt the miracle of that bond, but once they became toddlers, our physical contact stopped. For a time that broke my heart, but then so much of life crushed down on top of me that this one loss got buried under the rubble and I never gave it much thought until Leenie told me how important it was to show affection to my children. Holding them again helped reconnect me to life in a tender way.
Dan and Leenie invited us to join them for a week in San Diego, where they had a beach house. My children had never seen the ocean and were excited at the thought. Betty refused to come with us because we were being so wicked and because we told her that she couldn’t wear her FLDS clothing on the beach. So she stayed behind, but it was okay because she was actually doing better at Karen’s house. It seemed to be a relief for her not to feel responsible for keeping all of her brothers and sisters in line with FLDS doctrine.
Dan arranged to have some of his family and friends who were coming on the trip take turns driving my family. That made it much easier on me. He even had someone to help me with Harrison. Dan’s continual kindness to me was miraculous. When we got to San Diego we had two rooms in a hotel that was down the beach from Dan’s home. The kitchenette was stocked with food, so I wouldn’t have to shop. One of the rooms had a sliding glass door that opened directly onto the beach.
The moment we awakened, we put on our swimsuits and my kids raced through the soft sand to splash and play at the water’s edge.
Merrilee and Bryson ran up and down the beach chasing sea gulls. They were still at that wondrous age when they believed that if they just ran a little faster they could wrap their arms around a big bird.
Bryson was almost two. He couldn’t talk a lot, but one of the words he said very well was ducks.
He toddled up and down the beach on his chubby legs, waving his arms and shouting, “Ducks, ducks, ducks.”
Merrilee was busy building princess sand castles. She was just about to turn six and princesses were her new discovery. The week we escaped she watched a Cinderella video for the first time. Merrilee watched it so many times that the tape finally broke. Everything in her life now revolved around being a princess.
Patrick and Andrew used their imaginations to build forts out of sand and play games on the beach. They were still scared of the water because in the FLDS you are not allowed to go near it. None of my children knew how to swim, so they’d only wade up to their knees.
I spent three relaxing days with my children on the beach and at the hotel. At night I’d go up to Dan and Leenie’s beach house to be with the adults. It was wonderful to be able to drink wine, laugh, eat, and talk. I hadn’t socialized like that before. Dan and Leenie brought a lot of their married children along on the trip, so their beach house was happy, noisy, and fun. Arthur, who was fifteen, and LuAnne, who was eleven, spent most of their time there with the older children. These were the most carefree days of childhood they’d ever had.
I had never known this kind of happiness was possible.
I Meet the Attorney General
Shortly after we
returned from San Diego, Merrilee turned six and we had a princess birthday party for her. It was the first party she had ever had in her life.
Even though birthday celebrations were practically taboo in the FLDS, over the years I’d given my children small presents on the sly. When my older children—Arthur, Betty, and LuAnne—were young, I was able to get away with making them a birthday cake. But none of my kids had ever had a genuine birthday party that celebrated their being who they are. As the cult became more extremist, anything that even hinted at making someone feel special on his or her birthday became strictly off-limits. Even compliments were banned. Warren Jeffs taught that it was unacceptable to acknowledge compliments. A person had to rebuff the praise or say something like, “It’s all because of my priesthood head.”
Dan’s wife, Leenie, had the same birthday as Merrilee, so the celebration was even more of a bash because it was for both of them. Their house was decorated with balloons and streamers. There were tables full of food and piles of presents. Jolene had found a princess gown among her children’s Halloween costumes. Merrilee was ecstatic. This was unimaginable joy for her, and for my other children, too.
We all sang “Happy Birthday” before the candles were lit. One side of the white cake with pink frosting had candles for Leenie, the other for Merrilee.
My daughter was radiant and opened her presents in amazement. My children had never been in toy stores. The younger ones had been so stripped of worldly things such as dolls and stuffed animals that these presents were unbelievable not only because of what they were but also because Merrilee knew they were for her.
This was an unforgettable moment for me. My daughter was happy. Every adult in that room cherished her. I had never been able to experience what would be an ordinary joy to most families: a six-year-old’s birthday party with family and friends. Laughter, singing, and silliness washed over me like a stream of love. I could simply enjoy watching my dear little girl get to be a fairy-tale princess. I was free to be happy. I could do things for and with my children that I’d never been allowed to do before in their lives.