Posted on 05/16/2008 8:32:53 AM PDT by MizSterious
May 16, 2008 —
The recent raid on Warren Jeffs' Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado, Texas, which resulted in the removal of more than 400 children from their homes, has thrust allegations of widespread child abuse at the polygamous sect into the national spotlight.
But one of the darkest secrets of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints unfolds at a seedy roadside motel in the remote Nevada desert, where underage girls --some as young as 14 --are allegedly forced through hasty and secret wedding ceremonies.
Elissa Wall says she was one such 14-year-old who was taken to the motel and plunged into wedlock with no choice but to accept and obey the command of Jeffs.
Sam Brower, a private detective who has spent five years investigating Jeffs and his sect for a number of former members, says the weddings are done "covertly, real cloak-and-dagger like."
Wall, now 21, told ABC News' John Quinones that, "I was trapped. I felt like I had nowhere to turn. I did not want to go through with this marriage. I felt, honestly, what it was like to die."
Watch the story tonight on "20/20" at 10 ET
Wall has documented her terrible ordeal in a new memoir called "Stolen Innocence."
In it, she described in detail growing up in the sect that she says betrayed her faith. She says her wedding was the culmination of a traumatic experience that began when church leaders removed her, her mom and sisters from their family and reassigned them to. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
“Oh BTW, I didn’t tell you I’ve spent the night at the hot springs resort in Caliente, NV.”
I worked in Caliente a couple times, little railroad/mining town with a creek through it. Didn’t know there was a hot springs there.
FLDS kind of stands out from the field by 10,000 gigaleaps to the Sun.
That some of the anti-FLDS crowd also show up (in your estimation) trashing LDS, is irrelevant. I'd guess several of them are RLDS, and they got Smith's body too! Physical possession of the prophet or the hairs of his beard should lend authenticity doncha' think?
(Just pulling your leg).
My money is on this particular bunch getting successfully subverted by COTFB some time between Ervil LeBaron's attack and the mid-1980s.
Probably some ill conceived idea of bringing in "new blood" did this to them.
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