Prophet's Prey by Sam Brower Read Free Book Online Page A

evicted.
    That was definitely something to pass along to the lawyer, Joan Dudley. It was a recent legal decision that applied to the Chatwin case. But there was more to the story than just property rights. As Ross related what had happened in his calm voice, it left me reeling in disbelief. The property title dispute faded almost to an afterthought as I was swept up in the tragic saga of the Holm family. What had happened was so unbelievable that I couldn’t just take Ross’s word for it. It took some time for me to piece the facts together with a lot of background work and interviews with other people. Incredibly, Ross had been right all along. It was all too true.
    The story involved child abuse, rape, kidnapping, extortion, smuggling minors across international borders for sexual purposes, and the astonishing fact that law enforcement agencies all the way up to the state level, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had known what was going on and had looked the other way.
    Four years earlier, on a warm summer morning in 2000, Lenore and Milton Holm, a couple with thirteen children, were summoned to the office of Warren Jeffs for a surprise interview. That alone had set them on edge out of fear that he was going to accuse them of doing something wrong, and they had no idea where they had strayed from being loyal. Instead, the lanky Warren informed them that they were to surrender their fifteen-year-old daughter Nicole to be a wife for Wynn Jessop, who was twenty-three years older, married, and had children.
    The wedding was already scheduled for the following day, when Nicole would turn sixteen. The parents, who had not been alerted in advance, were taken by surprise by the instruction but were relieved that they were not being punished for some unknown transgression. They automatically agreed to the decision, just as they had been trained to do.
    As they went home, terrible memories flooded back to Lenore Holm of her own forced first marriage. She recalled her first wedding night, to the man to whom she had been assigned before she married Milton, as nothing less than a brutal assault. She couldn’t bear the thought of the same thing happening to her own little girl, and by the time she and Milton arrived back home, they had changed their minds. They solemnly revoked their consent.
    Warren was furious. Within ten minutes, he called up Milton and told him that he had “lost priesthood” for allowing his wife to run the family, that they were no longer members of the church, and that they should immediately leave their residence.
    Shortly afterward, the Holms began receiving visits from more cordial church leaders who urged them to trust the will of the prophet and yield their daughter in marriage. When they still refused, all pretense of cordiality was dropped and the visits from FLDS leaders became threatening, promising that dire judgments of God would befall the family if they did not (illegally) place their teenaged daughter into servitude. Within minutes of their final decision, the Holms were served with an eviction notice drawn up by the FLDS’s favorite lawyer, Rod Parker of the law firm of Snow, Christensen and Martineau in Salt Lake City, ordering them to immediately vacate their six-bedroom, three-bath house.
    Friends and neighbors they had known all their lives ceased speaking to them. The city turned off their utilities and their trash was no longer picked up. The community that had been their whole lives only the week before, now seemed determined to crush them.
    But that wasn’t the worst of it. Suddenly, Nicole, the pretty little daughter and targeted bride, disappeared as if she had been part of a magic show. Poof, and she was gone without a trace. A distraught Lenore pleaded with the local law, Chief Marshal Sam Roundy, to find her daughter, and he agreed to take a look. Weeks went by before Roundy reported back that he had spoken with Nicole,