Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs

by Elissa Wall, Lisa Pulitzer

Overview

In this courageous memoir, Elissa Wall, the star witness against polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs, tells her inspirational story of how she emerged from the confines of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) and helped bring one of America's most notorious criminals to justice.

Detailing how Jeffs's influence over the church twisted its already rigid beliefs in dangerous new directions, Wall portrays the inescapable mind-set which forced her to wed her first cousin at age fourteen, pressured her to follow Jeffs's directives, and, once she married, encouraged her to submit to her husband in "mind, body, and soul." For over three years she suffered at the hands of her husband, until one snowy night when a chance encounter with a stranger set in motion a friendship that eventually gave her the strength to break free of the church and come forward against Jeffs, so that girls still inside might be spared her cruel fate.

More than a tale of survival and freedom, Stolen Innocence is the story of one heroic woman who stood up for what was right and reclaimed her life.

About the Author:
Elissa Wall currently resides with her husband and her two children

About the Author:
Lisa Pulitzer is a freelance writer. She lives on Long Island, New York

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061628030
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	03/20/2012
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	464
Sales rank:	184,266
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Elissa Wall is a former member of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) who was forced into marriage at age fourteen.

Renée Raudman is a multi-award-winning audiobook narrator and actor. A multiple Audie Award nominee, she has earned a number of AudioFile Earphones Awards, and her narration of Homer's Odyssey by Gwen Cooper was selected by Library Journal as one of the best audiobooks of 2009.

Read an Excerpt

Stolen Innocence
My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs

Chapter One

A New Mother

For us, it is the priesthood of God or nothing.
—Flds Parable

I can still smell the Dutch-oven roast on the table the night Dad announced we were getting a new mother. Even though there were already two mothers in our house, receiving a third was cause for celebration. I was nine years old and a little bit confused, but mostly I was excited because everyone else at the dinner table was acting so happy for our father.

It didn't seem at all unusual that we would have a third mother—or that our family would continue to grow. That was just a part of the only life I had ever known as a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), a group that broke away from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—more popularly known as the LDS Mormon Church—so that they could continue to practice plural marriage. Sure, our home already had two mothers and almost a dozen kids, but many of the children I knew had far more than that in their families. It seemed to make sense that we would get another mother. It was just that time.

Back then, I didn't really understand much about the FLDS, but I knew that we were different from the people living around us in our Salt Lake City suburb. For one thing, we weren't supposed to play with other kids in the neighborhood, and we usually kept the curtains in the house drawn to protect our privacy and the secret life we led. Unlike most of the neighborhoodkids, we didn't get on the yellow school buses and go to public schools. Instead, we went to a special place, Alta Academy—a huge, unassuming white brick house that had been converted into a school for members of the FLDS. We also dressed differently from everyone else, wearing long church undergarments that covered our entire body and stretched from the neck to the ankles and the wrists. On top of these, the girls and women wore frilly long pioneer-style dresses year-round, which made it hard to play in the backyard and even harder to stay comfortable in the summer heat. Whereas most kids would go out in shorts and a T-shirt, we didn't own either, and even if we did, we would not have been allowed to wear them.

At the time, I didn't really know why everything had to be so different; all I knew was that I had to "keep sweet" and not complain. We were God's chosen people—and when Judgment Day came, we would be the only ones allowed into heaven. Judgment Day was known to the FLDS people as the day the destruction of the Lord would sweep across the earth, bringing fire, storms, and death in its wake. The wicked would all be destroyed and when it seemed like none would survive, the Lord would lift the worthiest people—us—off the earth while the devastation passed beneath us. Then we would be set back down and would build Zion, a place without sadness or pain. We would reside there with God and enjoy a thousand years of peace.

My father, Douglas Wall, was an elder in the FLDS Church. For him, and indeed for our whole family, receiving a third wife was a major blessing and an important milestone on the long road to eternal salvation. The idea of having more than one wife had become an integral part of the Mormon religion after Joseph Smith founded it in 1830, but the Mormon Church officially abandoned the practice of polygamy in 1890, in part, so that Utah could gain statehood. Still, some of its members continued to practice in secret at the risk of being excommunicated. By 1935, some of the men who'd been expelled from the Mormon Church formed their own breakaway sect, first known as "The Work" and decades later as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They viewed plural marriage as a central tenet—and the only way to attain eternal salvation.

Members of the FLDS believe they are following the true Mormon religion as it was first envisioned by Joseph Smith. One of its central teachings is the idea of celestial marriage, in which a man must have a minimum of three wives to gain admittance to the highest of the three levels of heaven. That Dad was getting a third wife meant that he had begun to secure a place in the Celestial Kingdom for himself and his family.

Eleven of Dad's twenty-two children were still living at our home in Salt Lake City, Utah, when he broke the news that Saturday evening in October 1995. Many of my older siblings were married and had moved out to start lives of their own. My family lived on a quiet street in a suburb called Sugar House, about thirty blocks southeast of Temple Square, the headquarters of the Mormon Church, located in downtown Salt Lake City. Established in 1853, six years after Brigham Young guided the Mormon pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley, Sugar House was named for the sugar mill whose contruction had never been completed there. Still, the name stuck.

Our house was set back about twenty feet from the road, with views of the Wasatch Mountains in the distance. Large pine trees and shrubs in the front yard obstructed much of the view and made the house appear smaller than it really was, but Dad had always loved this location because it had a big backyard where the kids could play. More important, it afforded a degree of privacy, which was crucial, since we didn't want people to know too much about us. Because plural marriages were forbidden in Utah, our family, like all families in the FLDS, was concerned about the attention we could receive if the outside world knew what was going on inside our house.

Stolen Innocence
My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs. Copyright © by Elissa Wall. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Table of Contents

Prologue     1
Part 1
A New Mother     7
Growing Up and Keeping Sweet     30
Good Priesthood Children     59
In Light and Truth     74
The Rise of Warren     92
Out of Control     115
Reassignment     134
Preparing for Zion     157
A Revelation Is Made     170
The Celestial Law     190
The Word of the Prophet     209
Man and Wife     228
All Alone     250
Part 2
Survival Begins     279
The Destruction Is Upon Us     301
Death Comes to Short Creek     322
False Prophet     335
Refuge in Canada     351
Nowhere to Run     374
A Pair of Headlights     391
Promise Not to Tell     415
A Story Like Mine     433
Love at Last     460
Choosing My Future     478
Part 3
New Beginnings     499
Coming Forward     525
Captured     542
Facing Warren     552
The Trial Begins     576
The End Is in Sight     603
I Am Free     634
Epilogue     650
Author's Note     663
Acknowledgments     665

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"The juxtaposition of Raudman's narrative equanimity and the young girl's shocking experiences creates an arresting audio experience." —-AudioFile

Editorial Reviews

"Wall’s story couldn’t be more timely. Her descriptions of the polygamous sect’s rigidity are shocking, but what’s most fascinating is the immensely likeable author’s struggle to reconcile her longing for happiness with her terror of it’s consequences."

People Magazine

"The juxtaposition of Raudman's narrative equanimity and the young girl's shocking experiences creates an arresting audio experience." —-AudioFile

From the Publisher

Wall’s story couldn’t be more timely. Her descriptions of the polygamous sect’s rigidity are shocking, but what’s most fascinating is the immensely likeable author’s struggle to reconcile her longing for happiness with her terror of it’s consequences.

People