Authors: Elissa Wall
The defense battled on. “Isn’t it true that Warren asked you and Allen if you were trying for children?”
“Yes.” I could feel her trying to break me, trying to make me lose my credibility. I continued, “This was a long time ago for me…and it was a horrible time.”
“I’m going to show you a copy of that transcript. Page 204, lines 17 through 18 and 19 through 20. He never told you to have intercourse with Allen.”
“We didn’t use the words ‘sexual intercourse’ in our society. He wouldn’t tell me something we didn’t say.”
“He told you to pray, spend time together, and love your husband.”
I nodded in response.
Shifting her questions to my sisters, she asked about my conversations with Teressa in the days before my wedding.
“You talked at length with your sister Teressa about getting married?”
“Yes.”
“She also told you that you didn’t have to do it.”
“Women didn’t have that kind of power,” I replied.
With that, she took her place at the defense table and I was asked to stand down for the day. When I returned to my original seat and looked around, an uncomfortable feeling grew inside me. I had laid bare my story and my feelings for the lawyers, the judge, the jury, Warren—everyone knew what I had been through. It was liberating but I was also self-conscious. I had shared some of my darkest secrets with total strangers, yet none of them really knew who I was. There were members of the press there, and I had not spoken with them up to that point. I worried what they thought about me. But I resolved to keep my silence.
The following morning I was brought back to the stand for further interrogation by the defense.
“Isn’t it true you never told your mother you were raped?” Tara Isaacson asked in her cutting tone.
“Yes,” I said, doing my best to hold her gaze.
“One person in your life at the time was the mother of Allen Steed.”
“I saw her from time to time.”
“You said she was ‘an angel.’”
My pulse raced. Were they trying to insinuate that I could have spoken to Mrs. Steed about my situation with Allen? “She was an angel,” I confirmed. “But that still didn’t mean I could have looked to her for help.”
“Did you tell her what was going on with Allen?”
“She could see.”
“You didn’t tell your friends, either.”
“No one could tell anyone they’re being raped.”
“Your father, Douglas Wall, is someone you could have told.”
“Well, for starters,” I retorted, “I had no phone number to reach him.”
“You also had brothers who had left the church before your marriage.”
“Yes, I did,” I declared, “but I believed in the prophet.”
“Did you agree to the marriage prior to the ceremony?”
I cleared my throat softly, frustrated by her continued insinuations that I had consented to the marriage. After facing off against her in the past, I’d promised myself that I would go toe to toe with her and stay strong no matter how hard she pushed me. I stared straight into her eyes as I firmly said, “As much as someone could agree to something against their will.”
“So, Warren Jeffs was a teacher, principal, not the prophet?”
“Not at that time.”
“So, you left the FLDS Church at the end of 2004, right?”
“Yes.”
“Did you take those books and teachings with you when you left?”
“Yes.”
“Since you left, who has played those tapes for you?”
“After I didn’t listen to them,” I responded.
The defense then took me on a complicated tangent, accusing me of wrongdoing by having my personal attorneys join me during the preceding meetings with the state. I made it clear that my lawyers Roger and Greg Hoole were in the court today, and had been by my side, supporting and protecting my rights throughout my entire legal journey.
After an examination of the many love notes that Allen had written me during the marriage, I was asked to stand down. I could feel the fury rising inside me as she tried to create a smokescreen by having me read these letters. I wanted to scream out that no letter from Allen, no matter how seemingly romantic or thoughtful, could undo the act of rape. I realized at that moment that the facts of this case were glaring: I was fourteen, forced into a marriage, and forced to have sex against my will. And they were using any shred of evidence they could to cover that up and muddy the water.
Uncle Warren has done nothing wrong.
—
ALLEN STEED
W
ith my testimony completed, the State of Utah called my sister Teressa Wall Blackmore. She looked lovely with her soft blond hair cut in a stylish chin-length bob. It was immediately clear to the jury from her appearance that, like me, she was no longer confined by the rigid restrictions of the lifestyle we were born into.
“How are you familiar with the FLDS?” the state began its questioning.
“I was a part of it,” my sister replied matter-of-factly. Just like at the preliminary hearing, her answers remained short and succinct.
“When did you leave?”
“A year and a half ago.”
“Do you know Warren Jeffs?”
Teressa’s eyes narrowed slightly as she replied that she indeed knew him, as a principal at Alta Academy, a counselor, a speaker in church meetings, and eventually as our prophet. She went on to explain that one of the central concepts of the FLDS faith was obedience. “We were raised our whole lives to be obedient no matter what. We were to ‘keep sweet’ and not ask any questions.”
After describing her stint at Alta Academy from first through tenth grade, she explained how she, like so many other FLDS girls, including myself, had to leave school to get married. She described Warren Jeffs’s role at Alta Academy not only as principal but as a teacher, especially to the high school students. “Warren taught all of the children in devotional and priesthood history,” she went on. “He taught us to keep sweet.”
“How did you take that teaching?”
“It was frustrating because inside I had questions and I couldn’t ask. Deep down I didn’t have this testimony, but I had to pretend I did.”
Because she had already been sent to Canada, Teressa had not been present for the latter half of my childhood or our drastic and sudden move to Fred Jessop’s. However, she did share her own distressing tale with the jury, explaining how she had been shipped off to Canada and pressured to marry at a young age.
Moving forward to the spring of 2001, Teressa described the initial tearful phone call she received from me while in Canada.
“Did you become aware of Elissa Wall’s impending marriage?”
“She called me crying. I was very upset. But I was in Canada and there was nothing I could do. Even if I had been there, though, I couldn’t have done anything.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her she didn’t have to do it.”
“So she had options?” the prosecutor asked.
“To me, her option was to leave.”
“Did you have any specific ideas of how she could leave?”
“Not really.”
The state moved to my wedding, and Teressa recalled the countless phone calls between us during those tumultuous weeks. Even then I knew that she could do nothing to stop what was happening to me, but her comfort over the phone had been a true lifeline to me in those early days of my fated marriage. “I talked to her the day after her wedding,” my sister told the court.
“What was her emotional state?”
“She was sobbing…sad, hopeless, depressed.” Teressa shook her head slightly, remembering the desperation in my voice. She then went on to describe my visit with Allen to Canada.
“Did you talk about Elissa’s relationship with Allen that week?”
“Yes, we did. He was touching her, doing things that she didn’t want him to. In the FLDS we didn’t know what sex is before marriage. We didn’t use those words.”
“How did Elissa behave around Allen Steed?”
“She hated to be near him. They were with us for four or five days, maybe a week. She was terrified of him, and standoffish.”
“Did you go to Hildale in the winter of 2002?”
“Yes.”
“Was there a change in Elissa’s demeanor?”
“Only that it was worse than before. She was depressed and tired. She just wanted to sleep all of the time. She couldn’t function. She was just a terrified little girl. I wanted her to come back to Canada and help me with my new baby.” Teressa went on to detail the roller-coaster ride that our request for my trip had been, from asking Allen to the frustrating meeting with Warren. “And then Allen finally said if it was okay with Warren, then, fine, she can go. And we packed up and left within ten minutes.”
“Why did you go this route instead of just leaving?”
“Roy would have gotten his family taken away,” she explained. “You have to get permission for a trip or…anything you wanted to do. Everything went through Warren.”
Not surprisingly, the defense had no questions for Teressa. She stood down from the witness stand, with Kassandra up next.
“Can you please describe the members of your family?”
Kassandra stifled a sweet, glittery laugh. “All of them?” she asked incredulously. “My father is Douglas Wall and my mother is Sharon Steed Wall. I have fourteen siblings from my mother. Elissa Wall is my younger sister by ten years.”
As Kassandra spoke of our father, I took comfort in knowing that both my sisters and I had Dad’s support. Although he hadn’t come to the courthouse to be there for us in person, he’d been phoning me to offer private words of encouragement. He and Mother Audrey had treated my sisters and me to dinner on the eve of the trial, and would continue to share meals with us and two of my brothers, Brad and Caleb, in the coming days. I was heartened to see my brothers in the gallery offering their support. I was also grateful to Mother Audrey. Over time, I’d come to appreciate her dearly and had begun to understand so much more about our family life. It meant a lot to me to have at least one of my mothers still in my life.
“Have you lived in Salt Lake City your entire life?” Wally Bugden asked Kassandra.
“I moved when I was married at nineteen to Colorado City. Now I live in Idaho.”
“Did you grow up in the FLDS Church?”
“Yes.” Kassandra continued in her soft, bubbly voice. She was asked about Alta Academy and how she knew Warren Jeffs. Her story was somewhat different from mine and Teressa’s, as she had been able to finish high school at Alta Academy. She then went on to teach fifth grade in the fall of 1994. As my sister opened the discussion of her time as a teacher at Alta, I shot back to that classroom in my mind.
“It was considered honorable,” Kassandra explained of teaching. “Warren Jeffs was principal there. He would go to Father [Rulon] for the final decisions on everything.”
“How long did you work as a teacher there?”
“Through September of 1995. Then I was married to Warren’s father, Rulon Jeffs.”
Kassandra’s testimony delved deeper into the structure at Alta Academy, describing some of the facets I had only heard about and to which I had never been subjected, since my time there ended so much earlier than hers.
“Did the students at Alta Academy receive instruction from Warren Jeffs?” the state’s attorney asked.
“Yes. He was the primary teacher. He taught devotional. He taught us math, chemistry, geography, history, and priesthood history. There were religious teachings every day. Every subject was based around priesthood history—stories of Christ and Joseph Smith.”
“What materials were used?”
“Everything had to be approved by Warren Jeffs. We used the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and other discourses or lectures from prophets of the past. Priesthood history was taught every day. As years went on they removed world history and replaced it with doctrine only. Warren rewrote the entire curriculum based around priesthood stories. For instance, in a second-grade reading lesson, a Bible story would be used to teach the reading skills.”
“How much of the teaching was based around Warren Jeffs?”
“At first not much. But later, quite a bit.”
Kassandra corroborated what Teressa and I had said about viewing boys “as snakes” and explained why the school eventually closed as “Doomsday” neared.
“Who had the power to discipline?”
“Warren Jeffs.”
“What was taught to girls about sex?”
“Nothing. Intimacy would be taught to a girl by her husband or parents. At nineteen I had no clue what that was.”
“When did you find out?”
“Rulon Jeffs told me after I was married.”
“Was the word
sex
ever used?”
“No.”
“What if any term was used?”
“A…‘marriage relationship.’ There was no real term.”
It felt good to hear her words, validating what I’d said. While I’d always known that Kassandra’s experience supported my own, watching her help the case against Warren gave me confidence. I could almost feel the facts sliding into place.
“Are you familiar with the concept of a placement marriage?” the state continued.
“Yes. Girls were to keep bars up our entire lives. Never to let a man touch us or to go on a date. If you were clean and pure, God would tell the prophet. We put our lives in his hands. There was no other way to have a relationship; we couldn’t make those choices.”
Her answers were delivered flawlessly. I sat captivated as she described how people came to be married and what marriage in the FLDS was actually like.
“What was the role of women in a marriage?”
“The greatest thing a woman could become was a mother in Zion, to raise good children that would be loyal to the prophet and never question their priesthood head. After a woman was placed, she would give herself totally to her husband, ‘body, boots, and britches.’ If there was a conflict, you would pray to God to inspire the prophet to solve it, but you could never confront your husband.”
When the attorney asked Kassandra for a description of the term “keep sweet,” she responded, “Even when it hurts, you were to act happy. Even if you’re uncomfortable. That was how you conquered the evil inside of you.”