By now most people have probably heard the story of the polygamous prophet Warren Steed Jeffs. Jeffs' indictment on rape charges--his inclusion on the F.B.I.'s Most Wanted List--his high-profile capture, prosecution and convict--all have helped drag the 52-year-old sect leader and his polygamous underworld into the white-hot spot light of international media attention.
But the truth is long before most reporters could find Colorado City on a map and even longer before a courageous young woman named Elissa Wall got on a witness stand in a St. George, Utah court room and told the story that would send Warren Jeffs to prison, a handful of gutsy woman like Flora Jessop--renegades and heroes--had been waging dangerous revolutionary war for more than a decade--a battle fought in behalf of polygamy's women and children.

It's amusing how many people now want to take credit for the fall of Warren Jeffs. It's a seductive story. Everybody wants to be seen as the hero.
I've seen elected officials, law officers, local reporters and big time network correspondents lie through their teeth about this story and about their contributions to it. In fact the ABC network still has a posting on one of its websites that states star-correspondent John Quinones was present for this history-making midnight run to rescue two young girls.
I was there and I can tell you Mr. Quinones was not. It is examples like this that make me understand why so many people hate and distrust the media. A lot of reporters are lying self-serving bastards.
But Flora Jessop--well she's the real McCoy--one of the original warriors and genuine heroes. In fact, in many ways, Flora Jessop and a childhood friend of hers from Colorado City--a woman named named Pennie Petersen--are truly Arizona's Founding Mothers of this hard-fought, human rights revolution. A campaign that had to overcame more than a half century of institutionalized neglect and indifference on the part of Utah and Arizona officials before a man like Warren Jeffs could finally be brought to justice.
There are people who might dispute that claim--but I would argue that they are people who either don't really know the story or are lying to cover their own asses.

Flora was pacing around the parking lot of a Denny's restaurant with a cell phone pressed to her ear when we finally caught up with her.
It was chilly in Flagstaff. Flora was wearing levis, cowboy boots, and a black leather jackets.
In the boots, Flora probably stood about 5'6" and weighed in at all of about 80 pounds, but the truth is she could probably kick most men's butts.
And if she couldn't beat them she could always shot them with one of the many guns she always seems to have strapped somewhere on her person.

"We're in Flag....on our way up right now!"....Flora said....cell phone cupped in one hand, cigarette dangling between the fingers of the other.
The two young woman we were racing northward to find were a pair of 16-year-olds named Fawn Holm and Fawn Broadbent--two best friends who shared the same first name and a similar life story.
Both girls were running from homes in Colorado City where both of their families were faithful followers of polygamous prophet Warren Steed Jeffs .
Just a few months earlier Jeffs had officially become the all-powerful prophet in the twin border towns of Hildale Utah and Colorado City Arizona following the death of his father, the community's long time prophet Rulon Jeffs. Rulon died in the fall of 2003 at the age of 92. More than 5000 people attended his funeral.
In his father's final years, Warren Jeffs had already assumed much of the community's control. It was Warren Jeffs who ordered all of the FLDS faithful to pull their children out of the town's public schools in 1999.
And now with his father gone, Warren was in complete control and one of his first official acts--the excommunication of nearly 20 of the most influential and well-respected men in the polygamous community--men who clearly threatened Warren's machismo.
Like a sudden massacre, Warren Jeffs had in essence executed the men--literally banishing them from the community--ordering them to leave the homes that many had lived in their entire lives and in some cases built with their own hands.
But even more shocking, the banishment also meant that the multiple wives of these polygamous men and their many children were then literally given away by Warren Jeffs--offered to other men who were deemed by the prophet to be more faithful and righteous.
Entire families were literally marched down the town's dirt streets the from one house to another--where women suddenly became another man's wives and the children were suddenly forced to call a new man 'father."
A bloodletting like that--even in a secretive and remote place like Colorado City--was impossible to keep quiet. I had first heard of purge a day or two earlier.
"Families are getting ripped apart"....Flora said as she dropped the cell phone from her ear and began to fill me in on the story.
"If someone displeases him, their families get taken away....the wives and children are given to another man."....more to come....mw