One woman's harrowing tale of escaping the Texas polygamist sectBy CAROLYN JESSOP
DAILY MAIL, London April 12, 2008
Watching the TV this week I wept as pictures were broadcast from an isolated part of Texas. I saw 416 children - from infants to teenagers - and 133 women being taken into protective police custody.
They were driven away from a place they called "home" - a 1,700-acre desert compound run by the polygamist sect once controlled by their "prophet", Warren Jeffs.
Carolyn Jessop was hunted down like 'prey' after she escaped with her eight children.
The reason I was crying was simple - those images of women wearing ankle-length dresses and holding the hands of bright-eyed children brought back terrible memories. For I was once one of them.
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My grandmother told me stories about how her great-grandfather was one of the first men to introduce the principle of "celestial marriage".........
No one knows better than I do what the horrifying reality of life was like at the Yearning for Zion ranch near Eldorado, south of Dallas - I was born into the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (FLDS).
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Only I was lucky enough to escape. I came from six generations of polygamists who formed the 10,000-strong FLDS, as we called it......
"Prophet" Warren Jeffs, 51, currently in jail in Arizona.If you wish to read on, click here
© 2008 Associated Newspapers Ltd
