Jeff asked the first question.
JEFF SCHMIDT: Can you tell the court why you’re here today? Why you agreed to testify in this case?
CAROLYN JESSOP: I agreed to testify in this case because I was involved with the FLDS for thirty-five years. I was able, or I feel like I was able, when I left the group, to protect my children. It took a lot. But most of them, I believe, are in a safe place now. However, I was also involved with around twenty children, eight of them being mine, during the course of my marriage. And just because I was not in a position to legally protect all twenty, does not mean that I don’t have some pretty strong emotions and protective feelings toward the children I left behind.
Jeff asked more questions about my involvement with Merril and Barbara and then about abuses I had seen in the family. I described several, including one that happened at Sunday school in 1988, when my son Arthur was about six months old.
“I was nursing him,” I said, “and so I wanted to be able to dart to the kitchen quickly if he began to fuss during Sunday school. I was standing between the living room and the kitchen, and I noticed Barbara, who was sitting at the front of the Sunday school room with her baby. At the time, Barbara Joy Jessop was probably a year, around a year in age. She wanted to—it appeared to me that she wanted to sit on her mother’s lap. Barbara was trying to get Barbie to sit on this little chair in front of her.
“But when Barbie started fussing, her mother went into the kitchen and got a broom and took her daughter out onto the deck. It was chilling to witness. I could see—through the glass windows—I could see her hitting Barbie with the broom. She was holding her hand with one arm and then hitting her with the broom with the other arm. And then she took Barbie into the kitchen to get her to stop crying.
“The beating quieted Barbie for about ten minutes, but then she started fussing again. Barbara took her out on the deck again and beat her with the broom. Then she took her into the kitchen to try to calm her down. Sunday school was almost over.”
But the beating continued, as I told the court. “And I don’t know what Barbie did the third time. I didn’t see it. I just saw Barbara get up, take Barbie. And this time Barbie collapsed on the floor. She refused to walk. Her mother took her arm and dragged her out of the room, out on the deck, and once again began hitting her with the broom.
“And the picture that I remember in my mind is we all stood to sing the final song or closing song of Sunday school. We were singing ‘When There’s Love at Home.’ And I remember seeing the broom hitting Barbie and her little feet flying off the floor—off the ground.”
When the questioning continued, Jeff asked me if there was ever a time when Barbara would have medically neglected my children. I told the court about an incident with my son Andrew. I was on a trip with Merril and Tammy, one of his other wives, when I learned that Andrew, who was about a year, had fallen from his high chair and had broken his arm. I told Merril he had to go to the emergency room. Here is what I said in testimony:
Merril called Barbara and told her to take him to the hospital. She told Merril that when I got home, I could take care of it. We were planning on being gone for two more days. I immediately told Merril, “We have to go home now.” Merril refused and told me that I didn’t need to worry about it, he was in good hands and being taken care of, and that there was nothing to be concerned about, and that my concern should—needed to be whether or not I was in harmony with my husband.
I became sick. I began vomiting, had a severe headache. Merril had to pull the car over every ten minutes, sometimes every five. It became an annoyance. Then he agreed that we should go get something to eat. I told him I did not want to eat. I wanted to go home. Merril at that point picked up his phone, called home, and told Ruth [another of his wives] to take Andrew to the hospital.
Ruth took Andrew to the hospital, and we did return that night, but very, very late. The doctor had been unable to set his arm because it was still too swollen.
By the time the swelling went down, I took him back. The arm had come out of place again. The doctor had to mold the arm into place and then put a cast on it, which was excruciatingly painful for my son.
I was also asked to describe an incident with my disabled son, Harrison. Merril wanted me to go on another trip, but I was terrified of leaving Harrison in Barbara’s care. Merril insisted I had nothing to worry about. Before I left, I made sure that Audrey, Merril’s daughter, who had medical training, would check on Harrison every two hours. I was asked to tell the court about Harrison’s needs at the time.
CAROLYN JESSOP: He was on a pulse oximeter. He needed oxygen. He was on a feeding pump, where I could only put so much high-calorie formula into his stomach during a period of time or he would begin to vomit. He was very critical.
JEFF SCHMIDT: Go ahead with your story.
CAROLYN JESSOP: I came back the next day. Harrison was at Audrey’s house. I went over to Audrey’s to pick Harrison up. And Audrey was very angry about the condition she had found Harrison in when she had gone to check on him.
Jeff asked me to tell the court what had happened to Harrison under Barbara’s watch.
“He was screaming,” I said. “He was covered with feces. The feeding tube had come—was—it was not connected. Formula was all over. His bedding was saturated with formula, and his pulse oximeter was off.”
During my cross-examination, Barbara’s lawyer asked me several questions about my profits from Escape. The book had been on the New York Times best-seller list for two weeks after it was released in October 2007. The public firestorm over the raid put the book back on the list for an additional ten weeks. But that hadn’t made me wealthy.
I spent almost a year writing Escape and then several months promoting it after it was published. When the advance is subtracted from the royalties, what I earned amounted to a decent salary for an equivalent full-time job. I had no other income during those years since Merril never paid a dime in child support. If he ever had, I might not have written Escape. Writing from home was one way I could work and still be a full-time mom, especially to my handicapped son Harrison. But Barbara’s attorney pressed on.
GONZALO RIOS: Would it be safe to say you made a lot of money from your book, is that correct?
CAROLYN JESSOP: It would be safe to say I have made some.
GONZALO RIOS: And it would certainly be in your best interest to show up here today to testify and continue this crusade of—of doing the publicity deal, correct?
I told the court that I had not even notified my publicist at Doubleday that I was testifying in the trial and that I preferred not to speak publicly about it. It was painful to be accused of testifying only because I wanted to make money on my book. He asked me if I was being paid to testify, and I said I was not.
He also questioned me about the fact that I had cared for Barbara when she was very ill. The assumption was that I wouldn’t have done that if we weren’t close. We weren’t close, but I had always tried to be decent to her. Nothing really changed after she was diagnosed with a nonmalignant brain tumor.
He made a point about Merril’s paying for my education, which was true. He did let me go to college and paid the tuition. But I didn’t feel guilty about that. My tuition was less than $1,200 a year for three years. I turned over my teacher’s salary to Merril for years. If we ever did the math, he would come out way ahead.
I think Barbara was angered by my ability to answer questions and remain calm. She had not been as successful in maintaining her composure. When Jeff was asking me questions about her abusive behavior, she had almost looked proud, as if I were complimenting her strength. She later told reporters that she had been a strict mother. I think Barbara saw abuse as power and validation of her strength as a righteous mother.
The next morning Brian and I awoke to a newspaper story quoting Willie Jessop to the effect that Betty was going to take the stand and testify about me. I hated the fact that she was being so crudely manipulated by the FLDS.
br /> I called Jeff. He said he hadn’t been informed that Betty was going to be put on the stand but that I should be in court just in case.
Our two police escorts came by the hotel to take us to court. They turned out to be fantastic. Their spirited humor was an enormous boost to my morale at a time when I really, really needed it. I was feeling discouraged. The state might be winning its case—which was good news—but that meant that the FLDS might sink to more desperate tactics in court. I couldn’t protect my daughter from being cannon fodder for the FLDS, and I hated that. Being unable to protect your child is the most helpless feeling a mother can have.
In the end Barbara’s attorney didn’t put Betty on the stand. That was a smart strategy: if she had testified, then I would have been cross-examined about what Betty had alleged. My testimony had been damaging to their case because I had firsthand knowledge of many instances of abuse.
I saw Betty once but only from behind. She was about twenty feet away from me, and it would have been so easy and natural to run up and throw my arms around her. I couldn’t because it would have made her angry. But my heart ran to her anyway, even if my feet stayed fixed.
Judge Walther’s verdict was a split decision. She ruled that Barbara’s eleven-year-old son could remain in her custody, but that the state would take custody of her daughter, the twelve-year-old bride. The girl went into foster care for about nine months and reportedly did very well. But then for reasons that are unclear, she was given to a permanent guardian, Naomi Carlisle, a member of the FLDS who lives on the YFZ Ranch. For all intents and purposes, that handed her directly back to Barbara and Merril.
When Barbara learned she was going to lose custody of her daughter, she did something shocking: she asked if she could substitute someone else’s daughter for her own so she would not have to relinquish custody of the daughter at the center of the trial! Barbara proposed swapping a random child who belonged to another FLDS mother whom the state had never suspected of being sexually abused.
Barbara’s request came in a meeting with CPS after the verdict. It was indicative of the arbitrary power Barbara still felt she had. One of the CASA workers who described this incident to me said Barbara was told, “This isn’t about us wanting your child or that we want a child from you. This is about protecting your daughter from you.”
I don’t think there was any way that Barbara could have known how ugly her child-swap offer—which was immediately rejected—would appear to those who had been working for weeks with the 439 children from the YFZ Ranch. I wasn’t shocked because I knew how readily the FLDS trades people around. We were all objects, movable, disposable, and replaceable. When a marriage is being arranged, it is not at all uncommon for one girl to get swapped for another if someone more powerful wants to protect his daughter. I learned after my marriage that Merril had intended to marry my sister as part of a business deal but had mixed up our names and asked for me instead.
Shortly after I returned to Salt Lake City, the Tribune published an article on August 23, 2008, in its online polygamy blog by Brooke Adams: “Barbara, Carolyn, and their two daughters.”
There was a picture of Barbara and Betty, my daughter. The point of the blog was that I had testified in a trial that would sever Barbara from her daughter while my daughter, nineteen-year-old Betty, had returned to the FLDS. The reporter saw these as two parallel stories. Adams wrote, “Barbara is Betty’s other mother, the one to whom she has returned.”
Barbara told Adams that her memory of our past differed from my own and that she preferred “to remember the Carolyn I once knew.” She said, “I’ve never known her as anything less than a friend. I don’t have bad memories of her, I really don’t.”
The blog mentioned a photograph in which all of Merril’s wives wore identical dresses, as if that meant anything at all. There were many times when we had to dress alike and sing to each other. In one photo we have our hands on our hearts because we are pledging our allegiance to Merril.
A lot of the blog entry was nonsense. Betty returned to her father. Period. She adored Merril. None of my children ever liked Barbara. They feared her cruelty.
I never wanted to see Barbara’s daughter taken from her because my daughter chose to return to her father. I want to see FLDS children protected and have the freedom to make choices as Betty did—at eighteen. I am disappointed by Betty’s choice, but it was absolutely her right to make it. Forcing a twelve-year-old girl to marry, on the other hand, is an outrage and a crime.
But I never expected that the last time I’d ever see Barbara was that day in a Texas courtroom. I was finishing up the dinner dishes and getting Harrison’s medications ready when the phone call came on December 8, 2009, at about eight o’clock. Barbara was dead.
She’d complained of being tired in the early evening and went to rest. She died soon after from an apparent seizure or stroke. Barbara had a seizure disorder but when I knew her, she wasn’t consistent in taking the medication that would have kept her stable. She was fifty-six when she died and had fourteen children with Merril. I was stunned by the news. I’d always assumed Merril would die first because he’s much older and has serious heart problems. Part of me feels relieved, deeply relieved, that the anger, viciousness, and cruelty that were such a part of her would never hurt anyone again.
My children and I have all moved on in so many ways, yet this news was still a bombshell. Betty called us several times wondering if she would see any of her siblings at Barbara’s funeral, which was held five days after she died in Colorado City. None of my children had any interest in attending. Merril called and tried to talk Arthur into going but he explained that he was in the middle of finals at college.
I wonder what will happen now in Merril’s family. Barbara was the center of gravity. I think the family will spin into its own version of nuclear war. She was Merril’s enforcer; now that era is over. They were married almost forty years and I think he will be lost without her in many ways. Her death is a seismic shift in his world.
I will never rejoice in the death of another person, not even Barbara. I hope she is now at peace.
Cut and Run
After the hearing about my stepdaughter was held, CPS quietly began dropping or “nonsuiting” FLDS cases. As the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) explained in its final report on the FLDS raid, “DFPS nonsuits a case when CPS staff believes the parents of family members have taken appropriate action to protect the children from future abuse or neglect.” By the time the DFPS issued that final report on December 22, 2008, 96 percent of the children removed from the ranch, it said, were “now determined to be safe in their households to the point that there is not a need for court oversight.”
Most observers didn’t realize that some key lawyers were opposed to nonsuiting cases so rapidly. Jeff Schmidt, the CPS attorney prosecuting the case against Barbara, felt that FLDS children weren’t being adequately protected because the cases were being resolved too quickly. He refused to drop cases involving children he believed were still at risk or who had been injured. He protested as vociferously as he could, and when he would not back down, CPS took him off the cases and transferred him.
Jeff told me he was unable to sleep at night because so many cases were being dropped. Everyone at CASA wholeheartedly supported Jeff and Charles Childress, the lead attorney for CPS. “They were really fighting for these kids,” Debra Brown told me. “They knew what they were doing, saw the problems immediately, and were just shut down.”
After the Texas Supreme Court ruling came down, Childress was asked to represent CPS while the cases were being litigated. An expert in family law and legal issues impacting children, Childress was on the faculty at the University of Texas Law School. His background is impressive, his reputation impeccable.
Childress began work on July 23, 2008, about two months after the Supreme Court issued its ruling. His first task was to get the cases legally organized in a way that would allow him and his team to deal with
each family situation on its own merits. He also, as he explained to me, began reviewing with the local staff the huge amount of documentary evidence removed from the YFZ Ranch. It struck him from the outset that the number of adolescent boys on the ranch (25) was out of balance with the number of adolescent girls (45). The documents he studied indicated that 37 men who’d been living at the ranch the year before had had 132 wives and 332 children. Records of the “spiritual marriages” performed at the ranch showed that most of the women and young girls came from within the thirteen-to-eighteen age group. For the senior FLDS men who claimed adolescent girls as their “spiritual wives,” the presence of large numbers of adolescent boys would obviously have been a threat. The solution was to cast out these boys.
In fact, the FLDS routinely kicks adolescent boys out of the cult by the dozens. These naïve and unworldly young men are simply dumped on highways and told never to return because they have been rejected by God. It’s a matter of numbers. In a polygamous culture where older men marry many young girls, boys are expendable. Over the years, the boys who’ve been expelled from the FLDS—severed from everything they have ever known and lacking the skills necessary to adapt to the outside world—have become known as the “lost boys.” (The names of at least one thousand “lost boys” have been collected by the Diversity Foundation, one of the few nonprofits trying to help them.)
“I have been involved in this field for too long to be outraged by much,” Childress told me. “The way I see it, most of these parents loved their daughters as much as, or perhaps more than, the average parent. They probably genuinely believed they were guaranteeing celestial glory to these girls by ‘sealing’ them to the prophet or other senior men in the cult. They also no doubt believed that the boys who were cast out had to be in order to protect the prospects of the rest to get to glory.” Childress came up with an interesting analogy: “What comes to mind is the story of the Inca mummies that were given to the priests by their parents to be sacrificed to the sun god. By all accounts, these children were subjected to a hard march into the mountains, but otherwise showed no signs of abuse. I suspect they were loved by their parents in much the same way these FLDS children are.”