[ul]
[/ul] Rather than resurrect this old thread, I’ll start a new one.
I have CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 on, and polygamist Warren Jeffs has been placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.
I’ve been following Jeffs (his case, I mean) for years and I can only see it ending in a hail of bullets with casualties on both sides. How this utterly uncharismatic uneducated man of seemingly only moderate intelligence wields such power is a mystery, but he does. Followers have brought their 13/14 year old daughters to him in his place of exile to allow him to seal the girls to himself and consummate the “marriage” (or in vulgar parlance, they bring their adolescent daughters to a 48 year old man hiding from the law for him to fuck then drive home like the good little Kool Aid drinkers they are).
He’s known to have at least a dozen grown sons who serve as his bodyguards and he’s related through blood, marriage or both to most of the thousands of families in Colorado City/Hildale. He beat out dozens of brothers and half-brothers to succeed his father Rulon a few years ago (here’s Papa Rulon and two of his wives- I can’t tell for sure, but I’m guessing there’s an age difference) and his eulogy for his father included an hour long “Don’t even think about touching one of my father’s younger wives… they’re mine and I’ll decide who gets one”, whereupon he started using them like frequent flyer miles to reward his faithful followers.
If I were Jeffs I’d actually be less afraid of the FBI than one of the Lost Boys finding me. The FBI, especially after Waco, may show restraint, but many of these young men seriously want him dead for what he’s done to their families (which include everything from turning the families against their excommunicated sons, giving their mothers and sisters around to elders like they were souvenir rosaries [some women have been given to as many as five consecutive men in marriage- he’ll wed them to A, A pisses him off so he gives them to B, B’s 90 years old and dies so he gives them to C who refuses to give Jeffs his 14 year old daughter so she’s off to D, etc.], demanding sex from their sisters (who he sometimes marries, has sex with, then immediately divorces and remarries to one of his followers), and then there are rumors and charges filed of Jeffs sodomizing some of the boys [including two of his nephews, which isn’t a huge distinction as he has more than 30 brothers]). The boys who were expelled have often turned to drug dealing, prostitution, theft, etc., many have become hardcore addicts and none had the slightest preparation for living outside a compound. (Some for example had no idea that the word “nigger” was insulting until they told a black person “You’re the first n____ I’ve met” and were surprised at the reaction; some had never seen a television set or movie before and none have what we would consider an even inner-city middle school worth education- they’re schooled in a private “academy” principled by Jeffs himself where white supremacy, Satan’s influence on America and the Mormon Church (though referred to as “Fundamentalist Mormons” they in fact detest the mainstream Mormon Church as a satanically corrupted abomination, probably disliking it more than they do most other religions) and yadda yadda, with math or science of course being taught by people educated in the same school.
Anyway, no real point to this ramble other than I think it’s fascinating, and I don’t care how high the bounty on his head goes- anybody is a fool who attempts to capture him. The man probably has as much firepower as Koresh.
PS- For the inevitable TV movie version, I wonder if they already have William Fitchner on contract to play Jeffs. If not there’s always Gary Grubbs (one of those “you may not know the name but you’ll know the actor” guys).
You know, I’d always wondered how this cult took care of the male/female ratio, since they need lots more girls than boys. It’s hard to believe that Jeffs has this power to dump kids that he feels are superflous.
What’s insane is that most polygamous cults (like Short Creek, the town that became Colorado City/Hildale, before the 1953 raid [where the elders and their wives and children and the town’s only bachelor, etc., were all seated on the schoolyard under a lunar eclipse singing My Country Tis of Thee when the raid [which they’d been tipped off about] happened) you had a couple of men with more than 3 or 4 wives (I believe the leader, Barlow, had 6, most of them old like him], a few men with 3 or 4 wives, several more with 2 wives, and then a good many with only 1 wife who’d not been “blessed” or “called” to practice the Principle yet. That still created a problem, but considering that many of the men who had 3 or more wives had 1 or 2 middle aged widows among the herd [often the mother of one or more of their younger wives] who were platonic marriages and that many men who wanted no part of it left the village, it more or less averaged out.
Under Old Rulon Jeffs (Warren’s father) it really started getting out of control (he had it’s believed about 60 wives) and under Warren Jeffs it’s simply gotten insane. Now the average polygamist in the city has 3 or more wives, while some of the deacons have a dozen or more and the inner circle (mostly Jeffs’ most favored brothers and in-laws) may have twice that or more, Jeffs’ half-brother and lieutenant has about 40 wives and Jeffs himself about 80. When a dozen men are married to more than 300 women, that leaves almost 200 men either jerkin the gerkin (which will get them expelled if they’re found out) or looking to leave.
It’s not known how many children Jeffs has but the conservative estimates tend to be around 40 and the liberal well over 100. It is known that he approved the marriage of one of his 13 year old daughters to a man in his 50s, which I believe is one of the charges against him. I’m positive one of the charges against him has to do with an apostate wife who bore her second child to him when she was 16 and he was in his mid-40s.
And then there’s the Kingston Family a smaller cult but nevertheless very rich and with a little twist all their own. The Kingstons believe that their blood will be the blood from which the Messiah comes and it must be kept pure as possible, so uncle-niece, half-sibling and in one case full sibling marriage is practiced. One of the many times they’ve been in trouble with the law was when the cult’s leader whipped (literally- with a whip) his 15 year old daughter for running away from her husband. The daughter’s mother was the leader’s half-sister (as well as several forms of cousin). The daughter’s husband was her father’s half-brother and her mother’s full brother. She was his 10th to 15th wife (somewhere in there) and had been promised to him since she was a toddler. They are intermarried with the Jeffs, Allreds, LeBarons and other surnames that are leaders of various polygamist sects. (I know waaaaay too much about this stuff.)
Thanks for the capsulization, Sampiro. I’ve read articles here & there about Jeffs, but this gives me a good handle on things.
I’ll be back as soon as I scrub my skin raw with bleach & Comet. :eek:
VCNJ~