Delving into the mind and psychological background of polygamy leader Warren Jeffs, “Warren Jeffs: Prophet of Evil." Source: A&E
The ex-child bride who helped take down Warren Jeffs has revealed that she suffered several miscarriages and a still birth after she was forced to marry her 19-year-old first cousin when she was just 14.
Elissa Wall, now 31, was awarded US$16million (NZ$21.8m) in damages against Mormon cult leader Jeffs, last September, after she was the star witness in the trial that ultimately put him away.
A judge noted that as the leader of the isolated sect of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) Jeffs had control over every aspect of his followers' lives. He was responsible for arranging for Wall, then 14, to marry her first cousin Allen Steed, then 19, over her objections.
Elissa Wall pictured being forcibly kissed by her 19-year-old first cousin Allen Steed after they were made to marry. Photo / ABC Images
Now, as part of a new documentary for A&E, named Warren Jeffs: Prophet of Evil, Wall has opened up about her abusive childhood growing up in the Utah-based cult which had an estimated 15,000 followers at one time, according to the Daily Mail. Wall, who was born into the FLDS church in Utah, described growing up in the isolated and secretive community.
"We led a very secret lifestyle," she told Fox News. "We didn't interact with the outside world. We didn't go to public school. We were educated, cultivated and bred to be products of the church and the religion."
She said that church members were fed lies about non-believers, who were described as "evil disciples of the devil" but she questioned these claims early on.
Jeffs, who was referred to as "Uncle Warren" growing up, was a huge presence in her life and Wall said that children of the cult would grow up listening to tapes of Jeffs again and again to learn the history of the church.
Warren Jeffs, leader of polygamist Mormon sect Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, arranged marriages with underage brides. Photo / Getty Images
"It became the backdrop of our childhood," she said.
In 2001, Jeffs made the decision that Wall's childhood was over.
Aged just 14, and despite her tearful pleas, she was married to Steed.
She says the abuse began almost immediately.
"Mentally, it was immediate," she said. "I was now the property of my cousin. And no matter how resistant I was to him, his job was to get me into submission as quickly as possible… Then the sexual abuse came later as he started to force himself on me and force that my role as a wife was to be at his beck and call and to have his children.
"And when I became resistant to that, then the physical abuse started to take over. And I think the frustration of my cousin, his frustration of being judged for not being a good man because his wife wasn't submissive and she wasn't good — that all compounded the problem."
Wall suffered several miscarriages and a still-birth during the almost four-year-long forced marriage. All the while, she says that the abuse continued. Her pleas to Jeffs to intervene resulted only in her being told off for not being submissive enough.
Just some of Warren Jeffs' estimated 78 brides. Photo / Supplied
"I really think at the time it was about submission," Wall told Fox News about the illegal marriage. "I could have become a really big problem for the community and for Warren. I was a little more outspoken than the average girl. But I really think it was about pounding me into submission… I was just the next player he wanted to eliminate and to quickly get control over."
Steed would later plead guilty to solemnisations of a prohibited marriage and pleaded no contest to unlawful sexual activity with a minor.
He received just 30 days in jail and three years of probation.
When she left she was forced to leave her entire family behind - the hardest part of which was abandoning her two younger sisters. But she said that, at the time, there was a "giant canyon between us."
She said that the reason she first came forward to testify, wasn't to take down Jeffs, but to save her sisters.
Elissa Wall says that the abuse began immediately after she was married. Photo / NBC
In 2006, Jeffs - who had been on the run for four months - was finally arrested and charged with facilitating polygamous marriages involving underage girls.
At his trial the following years, Wall met the man who forced her to marry her adult cousin, and locked eyes with him in court.
She added that she "felt this overwhelming power that consumed my very soul and I refused to drop eyes."
"That was my stand. If I can keep contact with him, I can prove to myself that he didn't control me… I was liberating myself from his control. I was beginning to free myself from the anger I had towards him."
After facing him in court, Wall has been able to get on with her own life.
She has been able to reconnect with her beloved sisters, although she has not been able to reach her mother - who was born and raised in the church.
Wall is a single mother a son, 13, and an 11-year-old daughter in Utah, and has also founded a kids' clothing company.
Elissa Wall was forced to marry her first cousin at age 14. Photo / NBC
In September, Third District Judge Keith Kelly awarded Wall US$12m (NZ$16.3m) in punitive damages and $4m (NZ$5.5m) in damages in the lawsuit she filed in 2005 against Jeffs.
"The judgment handed down by the Court is a big step forward in the fight for a strong and unmovable statement to the world that no one, especially children, can be sexual[ly] exploited and abused in the name of religion," Wall said in a news release said, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.
When the events occurred, Wall filed the case under the pseudonym "MJ". Her attorney Alan Mortensen said that the ruling now allows for her to collect the money from either Jeffs, who is serving a life sentence in prison, or the church.
Mortensen added that they may pursue FLDS assets in several states along with Mexico and Canada.
"It's so the church feels the pain of what their doctrine has been as to the rape of young girls," Mortensen told the Salt Lake Tribune.
Elissa Wall now has two children and runs a childrens' clothing company. Photo / Facebook
Neither Jeffs nor the church defended himself or itself in the lawsuit.
In the ruling, the judge noted that Jeffs controlled FLDS and key aspects of Wall's life when he arranged for her to marry Allen Steed, then 19, over her objections.
Wall testified during Jeffs' trial in St. George that she has trust issues and other problematic effects from the relationship.
During this trial he was charged with rape as an accomplice, and was convicted by a jury. But the Utah Supreme Court overturned the conviction.
Jeffs has been behind bars since 2006 after he was sentenced to life plus 20 years in a Texas prison when he was convicted of several sexual abuse charges with two girls he married as plural wives.
In 2016, Wall was awarded US$2.75m (NZ$3.75) in cash and property from the United Effort Plan, which is the trust that holds much of the property in Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona for the traditional home of the FLDS.
Wall sued the trust now controlled by the state to hold leaders accountable for abuses such as underage marriage, her lawyer said.
Former child bride and polyamory cult victim Elissa Wall has been awarded a $21.8 million payout but vows there is more work to do to bring down cult. Photo / A&E
The new governing board of the trust said in a statement they appreciated that she spoke out publicly against Jeffs.
Under that agreement, Wall received US$1.5m (NZ$2m) in cash, said property trust lawyer Jeffrey Shields.
She also received a house in Hildale and a 40-acre piece of property in Colorado City with a total value of $1.25m (NZ$1.7m).
"She's done enough for this community, I think she's entitled to a residence," Shields said.
The trust holds nearly all the land, homes and businesses in the home base of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints along the Utah-Arizona border.
Estimated to be worth about US$110m (NZ$150m), it was built to fulfill a belief in holding property communally.
