I think the problem is that much of the world and certainly much of the media look at this story as if it were some sort of snap-shot in time--a nano-second in history--beginning with that ill-fated raid in early April.
And it's in this very limited time frame that Texas officials set for themselves the task of trying to understand, analyze and investigate the FLDS culture--attempting to answer the pertinent questions: Does the FLDS Church practice underage marriages? Are young girls routinely deprived of any meaningful opportunities and education and then forced as teenagers to marry older, already married men? Are a large percentage of the young boys driven out of the community at adolescence in order to reduce competition for the highly-prized young brides? Are the large families routinely subsidized by tax dollars? Do the religious rights of the polygamous men come at the expense of the women and children's human rights? Do the FLDS people chronically and consistently lie to the outside world in order to cover-up the wrong-doings within?
In the days immediately following the raid, the world, the media and a lot of Texas judges debated these issues as if the jury was still out--as if there was some question or doubt.
My problem is that I know the story too well. I'm way beyond using words like "allegedly" and "reportedly". I don't see this as a snap shot in time but instead as a perverse, panoramic history.
For me these are not generic allegations or abstract innuendos. They are real life stories about real life people--stories that I have thoroughly documented and reported repeatedly for well over a decade.
The FLDS Church is in West Texas because of a story I broke--the story of a extraordinary young woman named Ruth Stubbs who at the age of 16 was forced by Warren Jeffs to marry a 32-year-old polygamous cop who already had two wives and twenty children. After her "celestial" marriage, Ruth was immediately impregnated by the cop. But after three unhappy years, at the tender age of 19, Ruth Stubbs summoned the courage to ran from Colorado City with her then two young children with a third child on the way.
Ruth and her kids ended up in Phoenix where she told her story to me. I put it on television. The public reacted with outrage. Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff heard about the story and put a a gutsy prosecutor named Kris Knowlton on the case. She took the polygamous cop husband, a guy named Rodney Holm, to court on charges of bigamy and having sex with an underage girl. In a precedent setting case, Rod Holm was convicted and sent jail.
At that moment Warren Jeffs saw the proverbial writing on the wall. I would argue it was the one time the so-called Prophet was actually prophetic. He knew that if a polygamous police officer could get thrown in jail it was only a matter of time before they came after him--especially with smart-asses like me dogging him at every turn. After all he's the guy who arranges absolutely every single marriages in the community. He has also taken dozens of underage girls as brides himself.
With Rod Holm in the slammer, a suddenly nervous "Uncle Warren" began sending his minions out to canvas the country and start buying up compounds. Jeffs and his flock weren't going to give up forced underage marriages. It's who they are. It's what they do.
Of course Warren Jeffs wasn't able to enjoy his Texas Taj Mahal for very long. Another brave young woman saw to that. Her name is Elissa Wall. At 14 Elissa was forced by Mr. Jeffs to marry her 19-year-old first cousin. She pleaded with Jeffs not to push her into the incestuous union--tearfully explaining to him that her heart was telling her that this was not for her. To which Jeffs cruelly told her "your heart is in the wrong place!" When Elissa told of her victimization in a Utah court room last year, Warren Jeffs was sent to prison.
The stories of Ruth Stubbs and Elissa Wall are not some nebulous allegations. They are significant parts of a well-documented history. But of course to understand the history you first have to know it. And it was pretty clear following the raid that most of the reporters and pundits who were suddenly all over television shooting their mouths off didn't know jack.
And just as there is a long and painful history of woman and girls being abused and exploited in the FLDS culture (Ruth Stubbs, Elissa Wall, Flora Jessop, Caroline Jessop, Pennie Petersen, Laurine Jessop, Candi Shapley and Shari Beth Taylor are certainly not the only examples) there are many other corrupt layers to this sordid saga.
Few people outside Utah and Arizona know that over the last couple of years the two states have been forced to de-certify almost all of the police officers in Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona after it was demonstrated in public hearings before administrative law judges that the cops, all followers of Warren Jeffs, were guilty of malfeasance and had violated their oaths of office. Bottomline: it was determined that they were a lot more loyal to Prophet Warren Jeffs than they were to the law of the land and the United States Constitution.
There is also the little matter of the Colorado City School District. A couple of years ago, Arizona lawmakers were forced to pass emergency legislation granting state education officials authority to take control of bankrupted school districts--this after Warren Jeffs ordered all his followers back in 1999 to pull their children out of the community's public schools. (It's a lot easier to control and indoctrinate at home and in private schools.) And while all FLDS children suddenly stopped attending the district, Warren Jeffs followers continued to occupy every one of the district's positions of authority from superintendent on down.
And guess what--it did not take these pillars of integrity very long to steer the district right on to the rocks. When state officials finally stepped-in the tiny rural school district was about two million dollars in debt and arguably the most corrupt district in the country. And where did the money go?--into the pockets of Jeffs and his followers. Most of the people watching the events unfold in Texas probably know nothing about these other significant components of the FLDS story. But they should.

My biggest beef, however, with what happened in Texas is with the lawyers. I'm used to Jeffs' henchmen lying to my face. They have been doing it for years. But the b.s. Jeffs' lawyers were slinging in the old Lone Star State made me want to puke--especially the sanctimonious, hypocritical nonsense being pitched by the prophet's long time consigliere, Salt Lake Attorney Rod Parker.
In Texas, Parker whined to any camera he could find about families being torn apart--about children being ripped from their parents. This from a guy who has done more damage to the FLDS people than the Texas Rangers could ever dream of--a guy who has made millions of dollars representing child abusers like polygamous cop Rodney Holm( a case that by-the-way Parker lost miserably)--a guy who has been Warren Jeffs legal hatchet man for years--separating children from parents who have been ex-communicated by Warren Jeffs--a guy who once dragged a mother of 14 children into court and tried to have her and her kids evicted from their Colorado City home and thrown out on the streets because the woman(Lenore Holm) had the audacity to stand up to Mr. Jeffs and say that she did not want her 16-year-old daughter placed into a polygamous marriage with a 38-year-old man who already had a wife and ten children(another case that by-the-way Parker lost miserably.)
It was with both disgust and amusement that I watched as Parker became the ring-leader and gate-keeper in West Texas as the polygamous publicity machine kicked into high gear in the days following the raid. I'm very proud to say that I'm the one reporter in this country that Parker and his flunkies barred at the gates of the Texas compound. While those lawyers were busy ushering in hordes of network reporters, producers from Oprah, and every other character with a camera or a pencil and a piece of paper--I got the official 86!
Don't get me wrong--I can understand why they didn't want me there. I would have messed up their well-produced "poor us" party--their "persecution" parade....to come....mw

The thing is, today I am moved to take time to blog because I'm working on a story that blows my mind.

People sometimes ask me what's the weirdest story I've ever cover. It's a hard question to answer. There have been so many.
Like the one about the mid-west family that figured out a pretty effective way to perform a "do-it-yourself mummification" in the basement of their home.
It's the story of mom and her kids who were so grief stricken over the death of their husband and father that they just couldn't bear the thought of being separated from dear old dad.
So what did they do?
Well they decided to lie their deceased father out on some sort of lawn chair down in the basement of their home. The subterranean chamber had a concrete floor with a drain at the center of it. And it proved to be the perfect place to plop old pop.
Because--according to cops--over the next several months all of the fluids in the man's body sort of drained out of his rear end and ran right down through the hole in the floor.
Police also told me they believed the mummification process must have taken quite a while to complete--leaving one to only imagine the rich bouquet that must have permeated the house during the hot and muggy months of a mid-west summer.
But finally success!--the corpse was transformed into something that to my eye looked very mummy-like--picture if you will a skeleton that has been shrink-wrapped in its own skin--a thick layer of yellowish beef jerky.
How do I know? Well one of the local cops was gracious enough to flash me a picture that was never released to the public--an image that is forever seared into my twisted memory.

Indeed the flamboyant Joe Conforte had made millions as the owner and operator of Nevada's most notorious whore house, the Mustang Ranch--at the time the oldest and largest legal brothel in America.

And now Joe was making his yearly pilgramage back to the place of his birth--to share his good fortune with his old friends and old-world family members--and more importantly to stroke his annual check to the local Sicilian priest--for as I learned on that very memorable trip, pimp-master Joe Conforte took great pride in being the number one benefactor of the Augusta's Catholic church.

http://www.snowplayaz.com/

It was a Sunday morning in early 2004. I was sipping coffee and reading the newspaper--all set for a quiet day at home.
Then the phone rings.
"...two girls...running.....they're at a safe house...I'm going to go pick 'em up....leaving right away....you want to go?"
Flora Jessop is sort of like a force of nature and I could tell by her voice that a storm was brewing.

So much for the quiet Sunday!

My first move: I call my good buddy, 3TV's legendary cameraman Mike Hernandez, to see if the big man was up for this little impromptu trip and the next thing I know the two of us are flying northbound up the I-17 from Phoenix to Flagstaff--headed for a rendezvous with Flora.