Escape

Erin Moriarty Reports On A Daring Escape From The FLDS And The Fallout That Followed

(CBS)  Laura Chapman flew more than 800 miles to learn what had become of Sarah, one of two teens she helped escape a life of polygamy nine years ago.

"If you didn't help Sarah and Kathy what was the life they were going to have?" Moriarty asks.

"They'd have a life of poverty. They would have a life of childbearing. They would lose their soul," Laura says.

Instead, Sarah today is a college graduate, working as a counselor for troubled teens, with her eye on law school.

Speaking of her graduation, Sarah tells Moriarty, "I was really excited. Because one of the things I never thought I'd be able to do is graduate, and now I've graduated, not once but twice once."

But getting to that point wasn't easy: at age 16 she entered high school for the first time after being forced to drop out in eighth grade.

"She was kind of like a foreign exchange student in high school," Laura remarks.

And it was a lonely time: Kathy, Sarah's best friend and fellow runaway, suddenly gave up after just a few months and went home. "She said 'We can't be friends anymore, can we?' I said 'Have a nice life, Kat, I love you,'" Sarah remembers.

Sarah was cut off completely from everything and everyone she had known.

"What was the hardest part? What did you miss the most though?" Moriarty asks.

"My siblings. I had basically raised them for most of my life. It would be like a mom walking away from her kids," Sarah says.

Sarah-like all who leave-was shunned. But the worst punishment was imposed on those who stayed. "Retaliation's always on the family. Always. I just didn't know that it would be as extreme as it was," Sarah says.

Warren Jeffs, who was assuming control over the FLDS at the time Sarah ran away, retaliated, she says, by reassigning her mother to another man.

[gaye5]

I have read taht they are saying that these children shouldnt have been taken from their families that no crime has been committed...
WHAT ROT, polygamy is a crime and some of these men had many wives, shove them all in jail and leave them there, they have massively broken the law, yet I dont hear anyone saying that they have broken the law by having more than one wife..everyone just seems to be concerned that the children are getting got at, and it is obvious that they have so that is crime number two, stick them in jail and throw away the keys.. Pedophilia under the guise of marrying them young..

[cyberus-2009]

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Sarah says her mother was reassigned to "Uncle Fred" - Fred Jessop, a FLDS church bishop then living more than 200 miles away in Hilldale, Utah
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As far as I am concerned the *reassignment* of wives completely removes any claim of this being based on religion and makes it a *** ring run by a few perverts. Even if someone points to various parts of the bible supporting multiple wives nowhere does it say you get to swap them around like party favors.

[darnedsocks]

THIS IS SO SICK! LAWS SHOULD BE IN PLACE TO PROTECT CHILDREN "BEFORE" THEY ARE ABUSED!

"So when Laura got a call begging her to help Sarah and Kathy, she couldn''t refuse. "The girls said they had one week before their marriages would be performed. Sarah''s mother was making her wedding dress," Laura remembers.

Because one of the grooms was said to be in his 40s, Laura first tried to get Utah children''s services to intervene. "I was like, ''If 16-year-old girls are facing an arranged marriage in polygamy, can you help them?'' He said %u2018Not until they''ve had unwanted *** with an older man,''" she remembers. "

[rowdywicca]

What is the use of a CPS that says, ''We can''t do anything until you are forced into having *** with a man you don''t want to?'' Isn''t someone telling you that their right of choice is being subverted enough? Especially a 16 year old girl being forced into marriage with a 40 year old pervert?

What kind of sick law do wew have in this country that will allow this to happen to a young female?

[mommakat64]

These women and children live a religious "third world". No wonder the kids that make it out sometimes fall into drugs and *** and street life...until they can get their feet under them again. And Michael Savage just thinks this is such persecution...WHAT? The kids in foster care will get into drugs and ***...yeah, because they''ve been filled with such self-destructive lies, Michael. All they really need is to get out, be taught and believe that they ARE NOT tools of the self-aggrandizing men in their CULT. Michael, you are wrong, but you won''t listen to accounts of statutory rape and wife-swapping...sadly.

[gal50]

Every time a victim''s story comes out, it is far worse than what we could imagine. The forced marriages, the underage marriages, the abandonment of the boys, the reassignment of the families, the lack of education, the isolation of those who leave are all woven into a single story. Just as we start to think the reason people stay in the FLDS is brainwashing, we get hit with another reality which is that people stay because they don''t want to force those they love to suffer punishment.

It does sound like Nazi Germany. In the United States we have all of this freedom and yet there is a group that is severely controlled and denied many of these freedoms. I sure hope the federal government can step in and help.

And to Utah CPS, you should be able to take custody of girls when there is an intent to victimize them through a criminal act. Either you are misinformed or your laws are out of whack and need to be strengthened.