Prophet's Prey by Sam Brower Read Free Book Online

from a field with the dawn; something was very wrong down there. I reminded myself not to let emotion get ahead of professionalism. My primary concern was still to keep the Chatwins in their place; it was no longer their house, but the lower floor of a duplex, a basement apartment. But sooner or later, I understood that whatever I uncovered was going to end up in a court of law. I would dot every i and cross every t to make the case watertight.
    A few days later, I paid another visit to Short Creek, once again prepared to be greeted by the reception committee. Sure enough, as soon as I got into town, the plyg-rigs emerged out of nowhere and were on me. This time, when they closed in and started to buzz around like big mosquitoes, I let them force me to the side of the street, at which point I suddenly stopped, threw open my door, and jumped out. In my hands was a 35-millimeter still camera with a long black lens, and I brought it up and started snapping pictures of license plates and startled faces, bounding toward them like a determined Hollywood paparazzi after a starlet. I yelled, “Hey, get out and come on over here and talk to me!” Click-click-click. “Come on, guys. Let’s talk!”
    There was a long moment of hesitation. They had not been instructed about anything like this and just sat there, dumbfounded, in their trucks with the big engines idling as they realized the game had changed. Then they hit their gas pedals and scattered like chickens. I lowered the camera and allowed myself a chuckle as I began to realize how scared they were to be photographed. I could almost envision them speeding over to some place like the friendly Vermillion Cliffs Café, and trying to figure out what had happened over a cup of coffee. The guy had a camera! He took our pictures! Like most bullies, they were mostly about posturing, and if you faced up to them, they didn’t know how to react. My camera was scarier to them than a gun. Eventually, I grew used to their antics; after all, when you go to the circus, you expect to see clowns.
    I took some groceries over to Ross and Lori and their kids. They no longer had any source of income, and they were living like refugees trapped in a town that treated them as if they had the plague. No work, no money, no food, so I would try to help when I could. My dad had taught me that when you help others, you are really helping yourself, and it gave my spirits a boost to see the family hang tough while the FLDS tried to crush them.
    In return, the Chatwins became my guides into the tangled lore and skewed history of the FLDS. Through them, I began to meet other FLDS dissidents, the apostates, who had heard about the private investigator who was standing up to the cops and the thugs. As I developed additional sources, all paths eventually led to one person. The border towns were completely under the thumb of FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs. I listened carefully, but I wasn’t there yet. I had never even seen Jeffs in person. My job was to find ways to help Joan Dudley fight the eviction, and to help the Chatwins keep their home.
    In long conversations with the Chatwins and my growing circle of apostate sources, I found an unexpected nugget of legal leverage, a precedent that had been decided less than a year earlier, in May 2003. After three years of litigation, the case, United Effort Trust v. Milton Holm , had ended with a half-a-loaf victory for both sides. The court ruled that the UEP did rightfully own the property, but also that Holm had made substantial improvements to it over the years and the UEP would be “unjustly enriched” by taking it without proper compensation for the work and money Holm had put into the 3,600-square-foot house. The FLDS refused to pay a cent, so Milton Holm was granted a “life estate” in the property, which meant his family could continue living there for the rest of his life. When he died, the family could be legally