Violating a much more serious taboo led to Jeffs’ downfall. Jeffs arranged the marriage of many young girls in Short Creek to older members of the church, adding several of them to his own harem. Ruby Jessop was 14 in 2001 when she learned that Jeffs had arranged for her to marry her 20-year-old second cousin. Jeffs and other church leaders drove her and another 14-year-old bride, Elissa Wall, to a motel in Caliente, Nevada, to get married. A year later, Jessop tried to run away, but was brought back. By the time she was 24, she and her husband had six kids together, and Jessop has said none of those pregnan- cies were her choice. In December 2012, she left in the middle of the night and moved to Phoenix, filing for divorce that same month. Wall left much earlier, fleeing the church as a 17-year-old after being repeat- edly forced to have sex with her husband. She’d soon become a key witness in the effort to bring Jeffs to justice for his crimes. In 2005, an Arizona grand jury indicted Jeffs, who’d fathered children with at least two underage girls he’d taken as wives, for sexual conduct with a minor. The next year, Utah authorities charged Jeffs with being an accomplice to rape. Charges in Texas, for the rape of two minors, would follow in 2008. In 2005, with authorities closing in on him, Jeffs went on the run. He landed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, sharing prominent placement with Osama Bin Laden. In 2006, a Nevada state trooper arrested Jeffs after a traffic stop, and he hasn’t enjoyed a free day since. Utah convicted Jeffs on two felony charges in 2007, though the Utah Supreme Court later ordered a new trial after finding that the judge gave improper instructions to the jury. The Arizona charges were dismissed with prejudice — witnesses shirked at testifying, and Jeffs had already been in prison longer than his likely sentence would have required — but Jeffs was extra- dited to Texas, where he’d begun to bring his “elite” followers years earlier. In 2011, Texas prosecutors convicted Jeffs on two counts of sexual assault of a child, for the rape of 12- and 15-year-old “wives.” A judge sentenced him to life in a Texas prison. Despite that, he will be eligible for parole in 2038. ‘MEASLES IS PREVENTABLE’ Ashley Garcia sits at a wooden picnic table outside Short Creek Cottage in Colorado City, located off the main drag of Central Street. Inside the small pink building is a boutique where both FLDS and ex-FLDS women sell crafts and homemade goods. Garcia is the executive director of Voices for Dignity, an organization in town that provides support to FLDS women and other community members. It also runs the boutique. Unlike most residents, Garcia isn’t FLDS or even ex-FLDS. She first moved to the area eight years ago when the right- wing Dream City Church in Phoenix trans- ferred her to work at the satellite Short Creek Dream Center, which is now housed in Jeffs’ old home. She returned south after a short stint, but moved back a year ago, drawn by a love of helping others and the beautiful mountain landscapes. Another thing also pulled at Garcia, the same thing that has made Short Creek vulnerable to measles: the area’s affinity for homeopathic and natural medicine, and its skepticism of established medical science. As much as Short Creek tries to outgrow Warren Jeffs, its resistance to traditional medicine — a trait that has become more mainstream across the country in light of Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s. science-averse Make America Healthy Again movement — has drawn new people to it. “I was an herbalist before I moved here, so I thought I was special, until I moved here,” Garcia says. “I know nothing, abso- lutely nothing in comparison.” Garcia doesn’t believe in antibiotics and prefers homeopaths to treat illnesses. She waited to vaccinate her children, doing her own research, picking and choosing which immunizations to give her kids, and spacing out their shots. Her oldest son, Ryler, didn’t get his MMR shots until he was about 7 years old, she says. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that kids receive their first measles dose when they are between 12 and 15 months old. In Short Creek, many share Garcia’s beliefs about health care. Amid the measles outbreak, Facebook commenters have questioned whether measles is actually that bad and have invited sick families over to their homes. Others in the community hold to the belief that vaccines are “proven to increase disabilities,” says Ream, the Colorado City mayor. Ream counts himself among those who share that perspective. But like so many people in Short Creek, his views are nuanced: While he, too, waited until his kids were older to get them vaccinated, he steadfastly believes in the value of vaccines. “Just like anywhere, there are anti-vaxxers who will have none of it,” Ream says. That includes his own daughter, the mother of his three grandchildren, with whom he hasn’t discussed measles because “it wouldn’t be productive.” Clinics like Hometown Wellness, where Garcia seeks care, have to adapt their offer- ings to the local mood. Garcia says the clinic dispenses a “really great mix” of natural medicine and pharmaceuticals, which makes residents more comfortable procuring treatment there. In the clinic’s waiting room, a glass case contains a host of natural options, including mushroom dietary supplements and super beet chew- ables. A sign from the Mohave County Department of Public Health reading “measles is preventable” hangs in the entrance hallway. Patients cannot get vaccinated for measles at Hometown Wellness, though. The clinic stopped purchasing and providing doses of the MMR vaccine because so few patients asked to get them. The vaccines kept expiring, forcing the clinic to throw them out. Like many in Short Creek, Garcia isn’t worried about the measles outbreak. A stomach virus that hit the community around the same time was “worse,” she says. “It was awful,” she says of the stomach bug. “I feel like everybody had it.” A POST-WARREN JEFFS WORLD Donia Jessop left Short Creek in 2012 and swore she’d never go back. When Jessop and her family left the church, Warren Jeffs was in prison but still very much running things in Short Creek. His brother and conduit, Lyle Jeffs, inter- viewed every community member to decide if they were worthy of joining Warren’s elite followers. Every member of the family had to be deemed worthy, other- wise “your whole family will be taken away from you and scattered,” Jessop says. In Jessop’s family, only her 9-year-old daughter was found to be “clean and pure.” Instead of following the imprisoned prophet’s command, Jessop’s entire family left the church and Short Creek. “The thing that Warren Jeffs did is he ripped our foundation out from under us,” Jessop says. “Our families, our very identities.” During this turbulent period, many left the church for similar reasons. Keate became a single mother and fought in court to get custody of several of her chil- dren, who had been placed with other FLDS families. Ruby Jessop did the same. Ream moved away and bought a home in Las Vegas. At Jeffs’ direction, Decker was imprisoned in her brother’s trailer until she jimmied open a window and escaped. Meanwhile, those who stayed with the church began to be evicted from their homes. After Jeffs’ arrest, an accountant appointed by the state of Utah took control of the church’s trust, which owned nearly all of the property in town. To stay in their homes, FLDS families had to sign an occu- pancy agreement and pay $100 a month to cover the unpaid property taxes. It was meant to be a temporary measure to avoid displacement while the state untangled issues with the trust, but Jeffs told his followers to not sign or pay anything. From 2005 to 2015, the trust ordered evictions on roughly 200 homes. According to the podcast series “Unfinished Short Creek,” between 2,000 and 3,000 FLDS members may have been displaced. Many FLDS families moved elsewhere, some as close as Cedar City an hour north, some as far as Mexico or Canada. There was now abundant real estate in Short Creek. Former FLDS members moved in and bought UEP homes for cheap. Just as they had left, slowly, apos- tates trickled back into Short Creek. Three years after Donia Jessop’s family left for Santa Clara, Utah, her husband told her the mountains were calling him. He wanted to go back. Jessop initially resisted, but she eventually realized the only thing holding her back was her own stubborn- ness. Returning was an opportunity to “rebuild the place I love, rebuild the home that I lived in,” she says. But the An FBI wanted poster for FLDS leader Warren Jeffs. (Handout by Federal Bureau of Investigation via Getty Images) Briell Decker, formerly the 65th wife of FLDS “prophet” Warren Jeffs. (Morgan Fischer) Uncontained from p 17 >> p 20
