A Legacy of Polygamy
In the early 20th century, the FLDS broke away from the Mormon Church (also known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or LDS) in a dispute over polygamy. Fundamentalists believed LDS founder Joseph Smith intended to create a society modeled on a literal interpretation of biblical events, in which figures such as Abraham had multiple wives.
The LDS Church publicly denounced plural marriage in 1890 and eventually excommunicated followers who didn't abide by those rules. They sought to further distance themselves from the polygamous FLDS via online video interviews, clarifying that the two groups were not related.
FLDS membership has been estimated at approximately 10,000, though a realistic count is impossible to achieve because of the group's insular nature. Many remain in a remote rural area known as Short Creek, a ranching community comprising the sister towns of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, where FLDS members began settling during the Great Depression.
Grooming Young Girls in the FLDS
Jeffs became leader of the FLDS in 2002, following the death of his father, Rulon T. Jeffs, who had taken the title of "prophet" declined by his immediate predecessor.
Rulon Jeffs, known to followers as “Uncle Rulon,” had risen to the FLDS leadership position in the mid-1980s. When Warren was 18, his father named him principal of the Alta Academy, a school for FLDS children. The highly visible role was a chance for the teen to begin exerting control over the docile girls who would become his victims.
Rulon and Warren introduced to their young followers to the phrase "keep sweet." Loosely interpreted, it served as a directive to have a smile on your face. But for abuse victims, it had a potentially more sinister message: if they kept smiling, they wouldn’t have trouble from their abusers.
Rulon had the phrase inscribed on the soles of his shoes. When Rulon died in 2002, Warren inherited his father's pulpit. His father's widows, rumored to number 20, became his wives. Warren began to wear the shoes, too.
By the time the group's widespread abuse was exposed, Warren had 78 wives, many of them girls no more than 12 or 13 years old.
In the Prophet of Evil, Rachel Jeffs, one of Warren's oldest daughters, recalled sneaking away to read an entry her father had written in a journal: "He said, 'The Lord wants me to take these wives at a young age to teach and train them and guide them through boy troubles.' And then he wrote: ‘I will just be their boy trouble.'"
Warren Jeffs on the Run
Over a period of decades, Warren controlled his constituency with threats of an impending apocalypse.
The first notable challenge to his authority came in 2003, when Rod Holm, a police officer in the community, was convicted of bigamy and two counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor—in this case, his third wife, Ruth Stubbs, whom he "married" when she was 16.
"As soon as Rod Holm got sentenced, I think Warren rightfully predicted: 'If they can come after a polygamous cop because of a marriage I arranged, it's only a matter of time before they come after me,'" Mike Watkiss, a longtime investigative reporter for Phoenix-based KTVK, said in the documentary.
Warren fled, he told his flock, so he could see the world's "true evils" firsthand. That "research" took him to Disneyland, Florida's beaches and Mardi Gras. The church used rented "safe homes" to move both church leaders and girls around the country.
In 2005, while Warren was on the run, Arizona authorities indicted him on felony charges of arranging a marriage between a 16-year-old girl and a married man, along with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. A year later, he was charged in Utah as an accomplice to rape for arranging a marriage between then-14-year-old Elissa Wall and her cousin.
Warren was placed on the FBI's "Most Wanted" list in May 2006. He was captured three months later during a routine traffic stop outside Las Vegas. Police found a cache of cell phones, various wigs and disguises and $55,000 in cash on him during the stop.
The Texas Supreme Court ultimately decided the children were removed from the ranch illegally, and they were returned. But materials seized during the raid provided the basis for the two assault cases that finally put Warren in prison.
Shortly after the top court's ruling, he was indicted on bigamy and sexual assault charges by a Texas grand jury.
When the case went to trial in 2011, Warren represented himself. That August, he was convicted on two counts of felony sexual assault, and on August 9, 2011, received a life sentence plus 20 years.
Is Warren Jeffs Alive?
Warren is imprisoned at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Louis C. Powledge Unit, near Palestine, Texas. According to the TDCJ, his earliest parole eligibility date is July 22, 2038.
In 2017, a woman sued the FLDS leader and a community trust belonging to the FLDS for damages, alleging he had abused her when she was a child. Two years later, Warren's lawyers declared him unfit to give a deposition in the case because he had suffered a "mental breakdown."
His lawyer Zachary Shields said he didn't want the woman's attorneys to "waste time" traveling to interview his client until the man's state of mind could be legally established. In 2020, the woman, identified as R.H., dropped charges against a land trust on the Utah-Arizona line and an FLDS bishop included in the 2017 suit. Shields did not respond to A&E Crime + Investigation's request for comment.
Prior to his first conviction, Warren tried to hang himself in a Utah jail in 2007, He also fell ill during fasts in 2009 and 2011. To save his life in the latter instance, doctors put Warren into a medically induced coma.
In 2012, Warren published a book titled Jesus Christ Message to All Nations, in which he—self-identifying as "a mouthpiece for God"—warns the world how they're treating him. "Let all beware how they treat my servant Warren Jeffs and my Priesthood and Church, for I shall bring full power to recompense to every person what they have chosen."
According to Prophet of Evil, the FLDS has lost hundreds of members and control of the Short Creek sister cities since Warren went to prison. Those who remain have been convinced by Warren that he sits in a cell to atone for their sins.
"We have evidence he continues to direct day-to-day operations of the church, including things like excommunicating individuals and directing what women should be placed with what caretakers," Sean Keveney, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, told the Warren Jeffs: Prophet of Evil filmmakers.
Prison officials have said they suspected Warren's brothers used hidden recording devices, disguised as watches and pens, to capture their weekly meetings with him. They also said the leader wrote coded letters, which were picked up by wives who helped to decipher them.
Many of those closest to Warren have continued to expose the leader's secrets, while also moving on with life outside of the FLDS. James Jeffs, one of Warren's nephews, became a local star athlete after escaping the community. Several women, including both Wall and Rachel Jeffs, wrote books about their experiences in the compound.
Warren's son, Roy Jeffs, who was interviewed in the documentary, died by suicide in 2019. At the time of Roy's death, Rachel alleged her father was still in full control of the FLDS from prison.
In February 2019, there were allegations that Warren was overseeing—from his cell—followers in South Dakota's Black Hills, on a compound led by another brother, Seth. At the same time, Samuel Bateman—a self-proclaimed prophet—started amassing followers and ran an FLDS offshoot. Bateman married his followers' daughters and sexually assaulted his child brides, who were as young as 9.
According to investigators, Bateman also gave a child victim to one of his adult male followers to be sexually abused, and livestreamed a child sexual abuse to his followers. In December 2024, Bateman was sentenced to 50 years in prison, followed by lifetime supervised release, after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit transportation of a minor for criminal sexual activity and conspiracy to commit kidnapping.
Meanwhile, the question of polygamy and its legitimacy lives on in Utah. In May 2020, a new state law decriminalized polygamy in certain cases, making it an infraction similar to a traffic summons instead of a felony punishable by imprisonment.
