12: SICKENING! 9 Year Old Wives, Polygamy, His NEW Creepy “Revelations” | FLDS Mega Cult

Inside a secluded desert community, new “prophecies” are being whispered, children are disappearing, and a fractured religious empire is tightening its grip once again. Warren Jeffs may be behind bars, and Samuel Bateman has now been sentenced to decades in federal prison, yet their influence continues to ripple through the group they left behind. In this episode, we break down everything you need to know about the FLDS, from the origins of Jeffs’ power to Bateman’s rise and arrest, all the way through the latest revelations, missing-children cases, and the loyal inner circle still carrying out their commands.. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow the show for weekly deep dives into the darkest true crime cases! To watch the video version of this episode, head over to youtube.com/@annieelise. . Holding Out HELP website: https://holdingouthelp.org/.🔎Join Our True Crime Club & Get Exclusive Content & Perks..🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to both of my weekly true crime series 10 to Life & Serialously with Annie Elise wherever you get your podcasts on the Annie Elise Channel!🍎 Apple Podcasts | Where you can also unlock access to 100+ and growing extra exclusive deep dives.💚 Spotify🔴 YouTube🎙️ All Other Platforms.📸 Follow Annie on Socials Instagram: @_annieeliseTikTok: @_annieeliseSubstack: @annieeliseFacebook: @10toLife.👗 Shop Annie’s Must-Haves! ShopMY: bit.ly/AnnieElise_ShopMy Amazon: bit.ly/AnnieElise_Amazon.🫵🏻 Get Involved or Recommend a CaseAbout Annie: www.annieelise.comFor Business Inquiries: [email protected].📚 Episode Sources 12 News | ABC7 | AP News | AZCentral | Courthouse News | Justice.gov | New York Times | Salt Lake Tribune | Toronto Sun | Tucson Sentinel | People••••••••••••••••••🚨Disclaimers1️⃣ Some links may be affiliate links, they do not cost you anything, but I make a small percentage from the sale. Thank you so much for watching and supporting me. 2️⃣ Sources used to collect this information include various public news sites, interviews, court documents, FB groups dedicated to the case, and various news channel segments. When quoting statements made by others, they are strictly alleged until confirmed otherwise. Please remember my videos are my independent opinion and to always do your own research. 3️⃣ The views and opinions expressed in this video are personal and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Assumptions made in the analysis are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the creator(s). These views are subject to change, revision, and rethinking at any time and are not to be held in perpetuity. We make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, correctness, suitability, or validity of any information on this video and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. It is the reader’s responsibility to verify their own facts.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Time for a quick break to talk about McDonald's. It's the tangiest time of the year. For a limited time, head to McDonald's and get a McRib sandwich. Make it a meal by adding a medium fries and a soft drink like an ice cold Diet Dr. Pepper. So grab a McRib sandwich and embrace the tang. Save time by ordering ahead on the app. At participating McDonald's for a limited time. Dr. Pepper is a registered trademark of Dr. Pepper, 7-Up Inc.

• 0:24Speaker 01

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• 1:22Annie Elise?

  Imagine growing up in a community where every part of your life, who you marry, where you live, how you raise your children, is dictated by one man. A man who claims to speak directly for God. A man whose word is law, even from inside a prison cell. For members of the FLDS, that has been their reality for decades. Under Warren Jeffs, this group became one of the most extreme and tightly controlled religious organizations in the entire country. Families were separated, young girls were married off, and entire communities operated in complete obedience to a prophet who truly abused his power at every single turn.

• 2:05Annie Elise?

  And even after Warren was sentenced to life in prison, the Control did not stop. A splinter group formed under a man named Samuel Bateman, a self-appointed leader who took Warren's teachings even further, collecting wives, transporting children across state lines as federal agents closed in. And when we first covered this case back in 2023, we focused on the behavior, the arrests, the criminal network that Samuel built. But since then, even more information has come out, new plea deals, new confessions, new revelations that Warren continues to send from behind bars.

• 2:45Annie Elise?

  And most disturbing of all, a growing pattern of children from former FLDS families disappearing. Disappearances that many believe are directly connected to Warren's latest prophecies. So today, we are reopening this case, the history, the crimes, the leaders who built this system, and the alarming developments that are still unfolding inside the FLDS community right now. And as a reminder, for these reopened episodes, what we're doing is we're pulling our back catalog, where we've already done the deep dive into this case, and then we're adding the updates along the way. So you might hear a different audio here and there due to equipment changing over the years, or it might not feel as seamless.

• 3:29Annie Elise?

  But I just wanted to explain that for these special reopened episodes, that's what we're doing. We're just revisiting these older cases that we've covered and bringing you the news, the updates, and the fresh perspectives. And I've got to say, this case, it is so complex and so wild. And I was like itching to revisit it because there are so many updates. And I've always been fascinated with cults. I have never kept that a secret. The FLDS is one that will not only continue to fascinate me, but haunt me, especially because of all of the new information that we have learned through our firsthand interviews with people from the community. So we have got a lot to go over today. Buckle up. It is going to be a wild one.

• 4:14Annie Elise?

  I'm Annie Elise. This is 10 to Life, and let's jump right in.

• 4:29Annie Elise?

  Nestled in a remote desert region near the border of Arizona and Utah is a peculiar community that is referred to as Short Creek. Two cities, Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona, are surrounded by the beautiful red rock canyons of the Colorado Plateau, practically cutting it off from the rest of civilization. And for the people who live there, that seems to be the point in all of it. You can see the women living there wearing pastel antique-style dresses, prairie-style if you will, their hair in elaborate vintage updos, and the men are in long-sleeved shirts and pants, and everyone seems very overdressed

• 5:11Annie Elise?

  for the type of weather in that area. The children trailing behind are like mini versions of the adults, and it looks like you've stumbled onto the set of Little House on the Prairie, or maybe even The Twilight Zone. However, this is not a Hollywood set. It is the very secretive religious group called the FLDS, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It's basically a religious sect of the fundamentalist Mormon denominations whose members practice polygamy. And just in case you aren't familiar with polygamy, polygamy is the practice of marrying multiple spouses. Usually, in most cases, it's when a man is married to multiple women at once, which you've probably

• 5:52Annie Elise?

  heard of the show Sister Wives. It's the same kind of concept. However, in rare cases, there are some families where the women are married to multiple men as well. And TLC did a show on this called Brother Husbands, I believe it was called, and it's pretty wild, just look it up. But the FLDS emerged in the early 20th century, when its founding members were excommunicated from the Church of Latter-day Saints. Now, the LDS Church is not to be confused with the FLDS Church, two separate things, largely because of their refusal to abandon the practice of plural marriage after it was denounced by the Church in 1904. Polygamy is in fact illegal in the United States, and it is not a protection

• 6:34Annie Elise?

  American right. However, it is almost never prosecuted because it is so hard to prove. And officials do not necessarily want to disrupt family units, which personally I don't agree with because a lot of the time in these family units, quote unquote, there is grooming happening, there is, you know, assaults happening and it just can get really, really dark and ugly. The FLDS are taught that they are the one and only true people of God on earth and that being part of the FLDS means that you have the highest degree of salvation. They are taught that God's picture of earth is for a man to have multiple wives. And in order to reach the highest degree of the celestial kingdom,

• 7:17Annie Elise?

  you must have at least three wives. If you did reach this top tier, then in the afterlife, you would basically become a god yourself. But one thing that was never taught is what women would become, other than just a wife. So you guys know that with these reopened episodes, whenever we can, I love talking with experts who actually work inside these worlds, people who can take us deeper than the headlines and really help us understand what's truly going on. And for this episode, we were lucky enough to speak with Tanya Tool, one of the leading advocates in this country for former members of polygamist and fundamentalist religious groups. She's been featured in countless documentaries, news reports, investigative specials,

• 8:01Annie Elise?

  and she has spent years working directly with former FLDS members and their families. Now, Tanya is the founder of Holding Out Help, an organization that supports people leaving polygamy, which, if you don't know, it is a massive and incredibly dangerous undertaking. And we're going to get into all of that later on in this episode. But first, here's Tanya explaining her organization in her own words.

• 8:26Speaker 04

  I think the most important thing is the word Holding Out Help. The word help is all capitals and it stands for helping, encouraging and loving polygamists, which was the first words that the family that found us typed into a computer to see if anyone was out here that really cared about their community and could give them services. Is to provide those from a polygamous culture, the care, support and resources to become independent and self sufficient. There's nearly 60,000 fundamentalists, also known as polygamists, living in the western United States, Canada and Mexico, with the majority right here and around Utah, but starting to spread out all throughout our nation.

• 9:04Speaker 04

  We have three locations. We have our main hub that provides mental health care services, case management, tutoring. We also do life skills classes in different types of social groups. And then we have two independent living facilities, one for women and then another home for women with children.

• 9:23Annie Elise?

  You'll hear more from Tanya as we continue throughout this episode. But early on, I really wanted her to break down what life is like inside these groups, what that life actually looks like. Because from the outside, people might think fundamentalist or polygamy, it's that it's just a religious choice or it's a different lifestyle. But from Tanya's perspective, working directly with people coming out of these communities, it is something very different.

• 9:50Speaker 04

  What people need to understand is this is a religion for a majority of the people that live within the FLDF community. They're devout, they're sincere, they're just trying to make their way to heaven. It's when the leaders who essentially in the FLDF, everyone knows is correct, right? It's a very patriarchal society and so you must do what the men tell you to do within that culture. They also are insular, so they're going to keep all their activities, their church activities, their social groups, their, you know, relationships all within that community and not cross over into mainstream culture. The church will usually own all the assets. Education is a super low priority. Child labor and sexual exploitation is fairly normal.

• 10:34Speaker 04

  And they really firmly believe that one man on this earth has the ability to either send them to heaven or condemn them to a life without God. They often refer that to the sons and daughters of tradition.

• 10:48Annie Elise?

  So in order to get a good grasp over what kind of religious community or cult this Maybe I'll let you decide on that. We're going to go back in time a little bit, and I'm going to give you a very short condensed history of how the FLDS church became what it is today. Because I believe you need to know where it's been, to where it was going, to where it is now, in order to not only understand it fully, but also to see how completely effed up it is. In my opinion, in my opinion. So Rulon Jeffs was an American polygamist and a religious leader who served as the president of the FLDS from 1986 until his death in 2002. Rulon was born in Salt Lake City, Utah on December 6th, 1909.

• 11:31Annie Elise?

  He was not introduced to the teachings of Mormon fundamentalism until September 25th, 1938, when his father presented him with a copy of Joseph W. Musser's Truth Magazine. Rulon embraced Musser's fundamentalist teachings immediately, almost. And in 1940, he secretly took a plural wife, which resulted in his first wife, Zola Brown divorcing him, saying, uh-uh, I ain't doing this, I'm out. Now, court records stated that the Mormon couple had been fighting over something that she dreaded, his desire to marry another wife and join the ranks of the polygamists. Rulon had told her that he had taken a trip to the mountains and had a vision of the woman that God wanted him to marry. It was a girl who worked in a store in Provo, Utah.

• 12:16Annie Elise?

  Now, of course, Zola was not for this by any means. And he responded by telling her that if she did not embrace polygamy and accept this other wife, that things would never be the same between them. And she's like, okay, that's fine. So she ended up filing for divorce due to his persistence in taking on this plural wife. And two weeks after the divorce, Rulon was excommunicated from the LDS church. And this was on April 14th, 1941.

• 12:45Speaker 00

  Time for a quick break to talk about McDonald's. It's the tangiest time of the year. For a limited time, head to McDonald's and get a McRib sandwich. Make it a meal by adding a medium fries and a soft drink like an ice cold Diet Dr. Pepper. So grab a McRib sandwich and embrace the tang. Save time by ordering ahead on the app at Partis- McDonald's for a limited time. Dr. Pepper is a registered trademark of Dr. Pepper, 7-Up Inc.

• 13:09Speaker 05

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• 13:33Annie Elise?

  And I just have to say, before we continue, this is something that always fascinates me and really actually kind of angers me when we're talking about religious beliefs and cults and things like that, is when people jump to the fact that they saw a vision. No, I was on top of a mountain and I saw a vision from God of this person that he wants me to marry, who coincidentally usually happens to be some like beautiful, young, bombshell, sometimes underage, beautiful girl. And it's like, oh, that's who God just picked for you to marry, even though you're already married? Give me a break. It's not a vision, bro. It is your mm, mm, mm, mm, thinking and running your brain. Now, look, it has been almost three years since I first shared those opinions. And I'm just going to say, I still feel the exact same way.

• 14:17Annie Elise?

  The whole, you know, I had a vision from God. He told me to marry this very specific, very young woman. I mean, it is so cliche. It is like the roadmap blueprint for all cult leaders. And it still drives me insane. I mean, you guys are all going to tell me that you have to marry these young girls and that you have to have multiple wives, that God is telling all of you to do that? Give me a break. It is like a predator's playbook. I could go on and on. It just infuriates me, but I will try to, you know, keep my composure and we're going to move this along. So in the spring of 1945, Rulon, who had been working in northern Idaho since 1943, returned to Salt Lake City, where he was ordained a high priest apostle.

• 14:58Annie Elise?

  And after the death of the former FLDS leader Leroy Johnson, Rulon took leadership of the group. This was in 1986 and he became the self-proclaimed prophet. I hate the word prophet too. It's like a trigger word for me. So the prophet is basically a representation of God on earth. Followers were taught that their prophet knows all of their thoughts, all of their dreams, their wishes, everything. Nothing is private, nothing is secretive. The prophet knows everything. So he's the one who decides who gets married, who marries who, and what man is deserving of adding wives into his family. This was called the placement principle. There was no dating, no courting, and in most cases, these people who were placed in these arranged marriages didn't

• 15:41Annie Elise?

  even know each other, or worse, they were related to each other. When a father of a young girl felt as if their daughter was old enough to marry, or be married off, I should say, the father would present them to the prophet in hopes that they would be married. Now, one of these girls was Rebecca Musser, who was pretty much a voice for those who have escaped the grasps of the FLDS church. Rebecca was married off to Roulan when she was 19 years old, and he was 85 years old. Gross. In an interview, Rebecca described feeling completely brainwashed during her time in the FLDS, and she shared what daily life looks like for those still inside. Take a listen.

• 16:23Speaker 06

  They are taught from birth what to wear, who they are, where they fit in society, how to behave, how to talk, how to think. Every choice for them is do what you're told, or you will be eternally damned. I remember being told that this group, this very small group of people, were the only righteous ones, and God would destroy the entire rest of the world. When Roulan Jeffs died, and Warren, his son, was forcing his father's young wives to be remarried, that was it. I figured if that was heaven, I would take hell. I could not bring myself to go into another situation where I was being forced into sexual violation in the name of God.

• 17:08Annie Elise?

  The followers of the FLDS under Roulan were told that he would never die, and that he would one day be made young again. So when Roulan's health began to seriously decline, you could imagine what kind of confusion this brought to his followers, his believers, his faithful servants, if you will. Roulan Jeffs led this organization until his death in 2002. He died at the age of 92, and according to documents, it's believed that he had approximately 65 wives and 62 children.

• 17:39Annie Elise?

  I mean, guys, talk about overkill. One of those 62 children was a son named Warren Jeffs, who was born nearly two months prematurely in 1955. Now, I'm sure even if you don't know all of the inner workings of the FLDS, you probably are familiar with the name Warren Jeffs. And every time I hear his voice, it sends a shiver down my spine or up my spine. I don't know what the correct phrase is for that. But like the creepiest voice, you'll hear a little bit of it later, but like,

• 18:10Annie Elise?

  I can't. Okay. So anyways, now his mother Marilyn always pushed Warren to be close with his father, Rulon. She thought that he was so special because of his circumstances of surviving, being premature. She stated that previous prophets had visited her in a dream and told her that Warren was going to be a very special person. So this made Warren grow up to have this holier-than-thou type complex and personality. And he wasn't liked by many people growing up. He was awkward, weird, and kind of nerdy, if I'm being honest. But he had this proud way of being able to read people, to pick up on what was important to them and to use that to manipulate and control them. Almost kind of like a brainwashing technique where you know exactly the right things to pull out of somebody to,

• 18:55Annie Elise?

  um, you know, to play on their emotions, to play on their inner thoughts and what they desire to where they then believe that you truly are smarter than you actually are. As Warren grew older, his father gave him more responsibility in the church. And as soon as Warren recognized that he had this power, he took full advantage of it and practiced it vigorously. He had this saying, and it was, "Perfect obedience is led by a hair", meaning that a hair is so thin and that perfect obedience could be led by it, and you would not break it. But that if there was any resistance, then it would break the hair. So from there, Warren's influence led to the purging of all things that did not support the FLDS beliefs. Any book that was not approved by Warren himself

• 19:39Annie Elise?

  was banned from the libraries. In science textbooks as well, anything having to do with the solar system or reproduction was removed and actually literally cut. Out of the books. Warren also created a curriculum specifically for the girls of the FLDS that he would teach in the schools. He taught from a book called Purity in the New and Everlasting Covenant of Marriage, which basically taught to have nothing in your brain except to do the prophet's will and to even have thoughts of boys in any capacity that could cloud that channel, that you were only supposed to think of the prophet. It's only the prophet, it's always the prophet, nothing else but the prophet. So as Warren's father's health was declining, this is when he really began to grow closer to Rulon

• 20:23Annie Elise?

  and started slowly taking over. His teachings became even scarier. He began to teach more about God's wrath and basically told the people of the church that they were going to be destroyed and cleansed off of the face of the earth if they did not live according to the FLDS and to submit to all of the prophet's teachings, because it was directly from God Himself. It was all fear-based to get these people to conform to His ways. In 2002, the Olympics were set to be hosted in Salt Lake City. So Warren began to preach about how the world is going to be destroyed during the Olympics and that they needed to get everybody down from Salt Lake City to the Short Creek community as soon as they possibly could. And people listened. People sold their homes and gave up their businesses

• 21:08Annie Elise?

  because they believed that the end of the world was coming. And almost immediately, the Short Creek community grew from around 2,000 people to around 10,000 people. Warren needed to get everyone into one place so that he could essentially control them easier. So everybody waited and waited and waited and waited for something to happen, which of course, it never came. Allah Y2K, when everybody thought the year 2000 was gonna like, the whole world was going to like disintegrate or something and that computers were the devil. I remember that. I was like, uh, hi, now it's like January 2nd, nothing's happened. So, nothing came. And Warren had no explanation for this. He told the people that it was just a test and that God had granted them a little more time

• 21:51Annie Elise?

  and the time was granted so that they could become more righteous, meaning that they needed to be more perfect and more obedient. And speaking of these revelations, later in the episode, we're going to get to one of the most unsettling and honestly downright terrifying revelations that Warren has ever issued. And it's one that is still unfolding right now, which I'll just say this, I hope more than anything that this one fails too. Because if it doesn't, it could lead to one of the most devastating outcomes that this community has ever seen. But again, we are going to get to that in just a little bit here. I don't want to get ahead of myself. In 2002, after Rulon died, Warren's fully took over. And everybody was very confused

• 22:35Annie Elise?

  by the death, because they were always taught that he would never die, that he was going to become young again. They were taught that he was supposed to be the last prophet, the one to bring them into the millennium. So people were scared. They didn't know what was supposed to happen now. And what were his 65 wives now supposed to do? And all of his children? So many people just waited for him to literally sit up and come alive again and be renewed again. In the many weeks after Rulon's funeral, Warren was speaking as though his father was renewed, and that his father had just assumed his body now, like reincarnated into Warren's body. And slowly over time, and with much manipulation, people began to believe that Warren was the next prophet of God. Warren even helped

• 23:17Annie Elise?

  himself to his late father's many wives. Yes, he married many of his mothers that helped raise him. Just creepy and gross, ugh. There were many horrible, horrible things that Warren Jeffs did during his reign. He manipulated his loyal followers, beliefs, and turned it all into money, power, and sex. Even preaching that whatever the Lord commands through his prophet is right, even if it seems wrong to our traditions. So things began to change even more. Rules were becoming more stricter, work was becoming much more harsh, no movies or television was ever allowed, and everyone had to sign their property over to the church, and everybody had to turn in all of their guns. But most of the laws and rules were

• 24:00Annie Elise?

  directed only toward the women. Before Warren, women could dress however they pleased, as long as they were covered and not dressed super exposed. But now they weren't allowed to wear any denim, any pants, or anything red. Then he implemented that they all had to wear long undergarments from the wrist to the bottom of their feet, almost like a full catsuit, if you will. And I'm sure you have seen certain examples of this on certain television shows or news networks when there are raids happening of these communities where the women are, you know, in these huge overly blue-sawned peasant dresses all the way down to their ankle, their long sleeves, they have the braid in their hair, they're covered literally head to toe, very similar to that.

• 24:44Annie Elise?

  Now Warren first came on to investigators radar after discovering that hundreds of teenage young boys were being kicked out of the FLDS community, leaving them homeless. These boys were called the lost boys. When you are marrying all of these young girls off to these older men, there of course is a surplus of boys that, what are you gonna do with them? You gotta get rid of them. They're not gonna marry the young girls because these young girls are getting married to these like decrepit old men who are wearing like geriatric shoes and stuff like that. What are you gonna do with these like young studs? Nothing. You gotta purge them, right? Because they're stepping on your territory, they're threatening all your weird marriages because clearly a young girl is going to prefer a hot young guy versus an 89-year-old

• 25:28Annie Elise?

  man with like spots and no hair and wrinkles and like who can't even move. But I'm not trying to be like ageism here, guys, I'm just like keeping it real. So they had to get rid of all these young guys because they were a threat, obviously. This all happened and you had the lost boys who were essentially homeless. And we also wanted to ask Tanya, because honestly, at first, I was just curious whether she works with boys and young men who flee the community too, or if her work is mainly with women and children. But when I asked her, the answer she gave and what she shared about what these boys and young men in this community are going through today, it was far more heartbreaking than I ever expected.

• 26:06Speaker 04

  Years and years ago, the term lost boys were these boys from the age of 13 to 21 that were literally dumped, a lot of them in the middle of the desert with no money, no identification, no education, good luck.

• 26:19Speaker 04

  You were booted out and they wanted to keep these wives for the older, more powerful men, older men in these communities. And that, we, we definitely have served, we help anybody from this culture, men, women, children, whole families. Um, and we've definitely served some of the lost boys from the past. These days, what is happening, instead of kicking them out, they are putting them in what is called repentance homes. So if you've done something wrong, and, and let me explain what wrong means, you looked at some of them the opposite sex, or you got caught listening to succulent music, minor things like that, then you would be sent off into repentance home, which is homes in the middle of rural areas where they're not going to be spotted, and that is where a lot of the abuse occurs.

• 27:02Speaker 04

  So, for example, um, years ago, I, somebody rang my doorbell at 3:00 a.m. in the morning, and we know what we do is fairly dangerous. Um, it was very odd, and so my husband, who's not scared of anything, gets his rifle out and pointing it at the door, and I'm off to the side, and I'm looking out there, I'm like, babe, it's a little boy. And he looked like he was maybe around 10 years old, and there was a man at the bottom on my stairs. And I said, I, there's a man at the bottom, he's showing me that he's safe, do I open it or do I not? And he said, open the door. And it was a boy who actually was older than that, but he was so malnourished that he

• 27:43Speaker 04

  looked like he was only 10 years old, and he had traveled, um, from a couple other states over, uh, and I don't know how they found my personal home, have no idea, and was dumped off. And he told me his name, I had been communicating with this boy over a burner phone, we dump burner phones when people call and need help, so we know we can talk on a secure line. And, and I remember thinking, out of his age, I've got to call law enforcement. So we called law enforcement and... They breached the repentance home within probably eighteen hours of the report coming in. Uh, they transported my boy because of jurisdictional ear issues back to the state from which he came.

• 28:24Speaker 04

  And I remember the attorney we work with and myself, we fled down to the state and knocked on every attorney's door. We need help. They found nine boys, I think, in this repentance home. And the, when they breached the door in the kitchen, there was no food. There were no refrigerators. There were no freezers. They went upstairs to the caretaker's room. That's what they call the, the guy who is over all these kids. And they breached that room that was locked and they found all the refrigerators and freezers lined up against the back lock with padlocks on them. All those boys got sent back to the F L D S community. Because they didn't want to pay for the cost it was going to take to take care of these kids.

• 29:07Speaker 04

  Who were all then sent back into the repentance homes where further abuse happened. Hit over the head by two by fours, five gallon buckets of water poured over their heads while they lay on their back. Starvation, um, one kid was sent out into a shed with thirty degree below zero weather with a thin blanket on his back. He had to figure out how to survive for a day and a half out there by himself. The type of trauma and the type of abuse, you do not dare go up against your community because you know these ramifications are so intense. So these were technically, they were technically lost boys, but they weren't dumped out in our world. Instead, they were being used for slave labor to bring back money for the actual community. So they could continue to grow their criminal enterprise.

• 29:51Speaker 04

  There's repentance homes all over the United States. I mean, we've done rescues primarily in the Western United States is where we get these kids. And it's usually one kid brave enough to step foot off of that property and to go ask for help. Or to actually call, call law enforcement and then our agency will get the call and we will work out the details on how we're going to get the kids to safety.

• 30:13Annie Elise?

  When Tanya talked about how it's usually one child who is brave enough to step off the property and go get help. I really couldn't help but think about Jordan Turpin from the Turpin family case, which if you're not familiar with that story. It is devastating, but.

• 30:30Annie Elise?

  If you are familiar, you know exactly where I'm going with it. Because it's always that one child who finds the courage to do something unthinkably scary, to really risk everything, just to save themselves and their siblings, or their relatives, or their friends. And it's heartbreaking that they have to do that at all, no less that it's a child, because no child should ever be put in that position, where they feel like they have to be the one to escape, they have to be the one to go look for help to save the others. I mean, it's just devastating. But anyway, as far as Warren goes, Warren went on to have many, many, many, many more women. He had a total of eighty-seven wives, with the youngest one being twelve years old.

• 31:12Annie Elise?

  Mary Ann Jessup is known as the youngest wife of Warren Jeffs. On July 27, 2006, twelve-year-old Mary Ann was escorted to the temple by her parents. She hadn't even had her first menstrual cycle yet. There, she was sealed, for time and all eternity, to Warren Jeffs. During the wedding ceremony, they were expected to consummate the marriage, where Warren truly assaulted Mary Ann, while many of his other wives watched. Warren has approximately sixty children. Rachel Jeffs was known to be the favorite child of Warren, but she was the favorite for all of the wrong reasons. In 2004, Brent Jeffs, Warren's nephew, filed a lawsuit against his uncle for repeatedly assaulting him in a,

• 31:57Annie Elise?

  with objects, if you get what I'm saying, in the 1980s. Brent stated that he kept the situation a secret for so long because of the amount of shame and guilt that he felt. But after so many years of nightmares, he could no longer keep it inside, and he needed to do something about it. When he told his family about that abuse, he was shocked to hear that his brothers said the same thing happened to them as well. In June of 2005, Warren was charged in Arizona with assault on a minor and conspiracy to commit sexual misconduct, again, of a minor. In July, the Arizona Attorney General's Office released wanted posters, rewarding $10,000, seeking information leading to the arrest of Warren Jeffs.

• 32:41Annie Elise?

  In April of 2006, a warrant for Warren's arrest was issued in Utah for felony charges for accomplice of R A P E of a teenage girl between the ages of 14 and 18 years old. At this point, due to the multiple charges being filed in multiple states, the FBI got involved and they put this false prophet wannabe on their FBI 10 most wanted list and offered a $60,000 reward, which was soon raised to $100,000. However, Warren continued to arrange his child bride marriages up until his arrest in 2006. On August 26th, he was pulled over in Nevada due to an improperly displayed temporary

• 33:23Annie Elise?

  license plate where he was arrested and taken into custody on his warrants. Warren was extradited back to Utah and in January of 2007, he tried to take his own life through hanging, but was found in time and survived. His trial lasted two weeks and included testimony from many of his victims and former F L D S members. The defense, of course, argued that this was a case of religious persecution and claimed that Warren was being judged for his belief and practice of polygamy, which, yeah dude, that's exactly what you're being judged for because polygamy is illegal and you're marrying children and you're sexual with these children and attacking and assaulting these children. Like, I can't, I can't with the, I can't with the religious card always being played

• 34:06Annie Elise?

  to try to get the sympathy or the defense. I hate it. I hate it. So Warren Jeffs was of course found guilty, no surprise, and in September of 2007, he was sentenced to 10 years to life in prison. Warren was also scheduled to be tried in Arizona. He had entered a not guilty plea on February 27th, 2008, to the sex charges stemming from the arranged marriages of three teenage girls to older men. On June 9th, 2010, a state judge dismissed all charges with prejudice. The Arizona victims no longer wanted to testify and Warren had already spent almost two years in jail awaiting trial, more time than he would have received had he been convicted. So combined with the pending charges against Warren in Texas, they

• 34:51Annie Elise?

  Included that it would be impractical and unnecessary to try him in Arizona. But as all of this was happening, the FLDS community hadn't shut down, not by a stretch. The FLDS organization purchased a 1,700 acre ranch in El Dorado, Texas. On the property, they built a temple, a 29,000 square foot home for Warren, a meeting house and other homes on this land. An estimated 500 to 700 people moved there from the Short Creek community. This property was named the Yearning for Zion Ranch, also known as the YZR. In March of 2008, a domestic hotline received a call from a female at the YZR

• 35:33Annie Elise?

  who claimed that she was 16 years old and was the victim of sexual and physical assault. The call turned out to be fraudulent, but it triggered a heavy response from law enforcement involving assault weapons, helicopters and armored vehicles. Due to evidence that was seized in the raid, six FLDS members were found guilty on various sex crime charges against young girls ages 14 through 16. After the raid in 2008, Warren Jeffs was indicted in Texas on a felony sex charge regarding a child. And this charge was for his own sexual conduct with his 12-year-old wife. Utah chose to drop the charges against him so that he could be extradited to Texas to stand trial there,

• 36:16Annie Elise?

  probably because they knew that Texas doesn't really play. That's just my opinion. During the 2011 trial, the jury heard testimony from a psychologist who treated 22 former members of the FLDS church cult, whatever you believe it to be. Two former FLDS members testified that Warren had RAPED them when they were less than eight years old. The court also heard testimony that he wanted younger and younger wives. And of his over 70 now wives, 24 of them were under the age of 18. And I just want to say, this is all of the documented accounts that we know of. Imagine what this monster has done that is not documented and that nobody has seen. This is only the stuff that is black and white.

• 37:01Annie Elise?

  White documented. That is scary, scary stuff. On August 9th, 2011, Warren was convicted in Texas of the two counts against the child and sentenced to life in prison. He will be eligible for parole on July 22nd, 2038. However, Warren still runs this cult from behind prison walls, the best that he can. But from 2006 on, there was no real guidance in Short Creek. There were no new marriages, and in 2010, Warren told them from prison that they should all be practicing abstinence, even the ones who are married. Because, you know, if he's not getting any, then neither is anybody else, I suppose. I guess that must be the mentality. No new marriages, no more having sex.

• 37:45Annie Elise?

  Even if you're married, don't have sex, which, let's just be honest, a lot of married people don't have sex as it is. I know I'm gonna get canceled for saying that probably, but it's true. Um, okay, so anyways, so he tells everybody, like, you need to practice abstinence, no more marriages, no more canoodling, nothing. And for the most part, everyone obeyed. They listened to him, even though he was in prison, giving these directives. After 2010, Warren began to communicate outside of the prison less, which brought on a sort of emptiness to the people of Short Creek in that community. And now this brings us to Samuel Bateman, the man who was more than eager to fill this void and to step into his place.

• 38:24Annie Elise?

  Forty-six-year-old Samuel Bateman was raised in the FLDs faith in that Short Creek community. He came from an extremely unpopular family in the community, and to be honest, this guy grew up to be the biggest loser of them all. Honestly, just a sorry piece of crap with, like, small man syndrome. Honestly, honestly, and you're gonna, you're gonna see why in a second. In 1999, something happened in Samuel's life that would change his personality and really dictate his future path from here on out. A group of young people from Short Creek were heading to another polygamist community in northern Canada known as Bountiful British Columbia. Four men in their late teens and early twenties, one of these men being Samuel, were escorting two teenage girls to this location.

• 39:09Annie Elise?

  Fourteen-year-old Victoria Cook and 15-year-old Jamie Cook. These girls were both sisters who had been caught acting out and sneaking out of their houses to meet with boys, which, as we know in the FLDS community, is extremely forbidden. The then-prophet, Rulon Jeffs, had been meeting with their parents and it was his decision to send Jamie and her sister to a man named Winston Blackmore. This person was the leader of the community up north. And by the way, this guy had over 150 children and 27 wives, also many of whom were underage. It was Rulon's opinion that spending time with Winston would set the Cook sisters straight and remind them of the proper way to honor God.

• 39:52Annie Elise?

  He also thought that they would make good wives for some of the men up there. So as they were driving through the night through Montana, the driver either fell asleep or hit black ice, unclear. But all Victoria remembers is being abruptly woken up when the suburban they were in rolled. All of the passengers were ejected from the vehicle, and Victoria remembered seeing Samuel lying nearby, wailing and moaning in pain. Everyone was airlifted to a nearby hospital, and out of all of the passengers, Samuel and Victoria were the most injured. Samuel reportedly suffered from a brain injury, and those that knew him reported that this is when a flip just kind of switched in him. He was apparently never the same again, and his personality totally changed.

• 40:36Annie Elise?

  He became even more strict and devout in his religious beliefs. Samuel struggled throughout his life. He made excuses for himself constantly. He never really valued up to anything at all. He was honestly just kind of like a total loser. In 2019, Samuel was financially struggling as well, because he apparently was not good at his job as an insurance salesman, and he wasn't making any money. He and a group of other FLDS members traveled to Nebraska to find work. And while in Nebraska, something came up about how no one has had any direct instructions from Warren Jeffs since 2010. It's been nine years now. So they started questioning things and theorizing off of each other. So they all decided to pray directly to the Heavenly Father, hoping for some answers

• 41:21Annie Elise?

  as to what was to come next and what to do next. Samuel came back and he informed the others that he had received a vision, another vision, another vision on a mountaintop. And this vision that he says he had was that Warren Jeffs had not been in touch with them because he had died while he was in prison. Samuel also added that he had gotten instructions from the Heavenly Father that he was supposed to be the new prophet. Which by the way, Warren Jeffs is most definitely not dead. He is very much alive and he's actually even denounced Samuel as a prophet. But keep in mind that a lot of these people don't have access to the internet. They don't have the resources to be able to look up this information themselves and validate it. So they pretty much just believed anyone who says that they've had a vision from Heavenly

• 42:05Annie Elise?

  Father because who are they to question God? The other members were convinced and they followed Samuel back to the Short Greek community in 2021, where he basically just assumed power. And like I said, no one is going to question God in this community, so they all just took to it. Samuel immediately became obsessed with accumulating money and material things, even though he didn't have a job. He also became obsessed with getting wives. He made all of his male followers go out to work and give him a percentage of their earnings while also giving them some of their wives and even their daughters, this like exchange of sorts. A former follower of this fake prophet named Morani Johnson told the Daily Mail how the

• 42:48Annie Elise?

  46-year-old took advantage of the deep-seated fundamentalist Mormon faith and controlled him with a toxic mix of physical, mental, and even sexual targeted assaults. So devoted to his faith, Morani allowed Samuel to marry several of his wives and most of his daughters. He also funded his lavish lifestyle, which included two homes in Colorado City and multiple Bentleys, the car, like money, money, money. He took part in the most humiliating rituals that were demanded by Samuel as well. On one occasion, he was even made to have sex with one of his wives in front of their daughter in order to show them, the daughters, how to please Samuel. Sick, sick, sick.

• 43:36Speaker 00

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• 44:24Annie Elise?

  In May of 2020, the wife of Marani claimed that Samuel came into their home and took several of their daughters, including the youngest, who was just nine years old. This wife also believes that Samuel R A P E'd her nine-year-old daughter because the older daughters communicated to her that the younger daughter had been wetting the bed. They also stated that by her wetting the bed, it disgusted and enraged Samuel, especially when the urine would get on him while they were sleeping. Which, why you sleeping in the same bed as a nine-year-old? You creep, creep, creep. It was said that Marani was in anguish and extreme stress about having to give his youngest daughter to Samuel. But despite that, he still remained an obedient follower.

• 45:07Annie Elise?

  He made a statement later saying, "We were taught perfect obedience procedures, perfect faith. If there is a supreme being, wouldn't you want to meet him? He," meaning Samuel, "prayed on our devotion to scripture." And just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, Samuel even laid claim to his own teenage daughter, bribing her with $50, two large bags of Doritos, and a promise of riding on an airplane if she would agree to be his wife. His daughter. So now it's like, you're getting in your own bloodline, you want your daughter to be your wife? It is sick. It is, I need a new word for sick. I need a new word for sick. It is like...

• 45:50Annie Elise?

  Horrifying, humiliating, disgusting, nerve grinding, gut wrenching, you name it. Now, this all was way too much for Lydia, his first wife. She told him that their daughter would never be his wife. She then took their daughter and left, eventually filing for divorce and negotiating a custody agreement that banned Samuel from ever having any contact with his daughter again. I mean, hero status right here. Now, I had to ask Tanya whether she had heard of Lydia and what she thought about her situation, because from everything I've researched and from what Tanya told us, this is incredibly rare for a woman in this community to stand her ground and say, "No, absolutely not. This is not happening." It's almost unheard of. And what Tanya had to say about it?

• 46:34Annie Elise?

  It was incredibly powerful.

• 46:36Speaker 04

  You know, I don't personally know Lydia. I know the Samuel Bateman case. Um, I will tell you, the strength and courage it took for Lydia to do what she did, I hope to meet her someday. She's so courageous and fearless to stand up to their so-called prophet or leader. She either had to believe that he wasn't the leader or had a normal relationship with her child, which many do not have. They're told they're, they're God's children and they're often taken away. They don't have a normal attachment pattern that we do to our children out here. So Lydia must have known at some level that Samuel was not a true prophet

• 47:17Speaker 04

  for her to stand up and to say, "Not with my daughter." And the message that she sent to that community, um, was loud and clear that she probably doesn't believe what they were teaching. And the message, more importantly, that she sent to that daughter of, "I'm your mother and I'm here to love and to protect you," which is so uncommon, no fault of their own, that Lydia is truly a hero to me.

• 47:43Annie Elise?

  And she mentioned that part about many children in the FLDS community not having the same kind of parent-child relationship or attachment that a lot of us grew up with. So I asked her to explain a little more about what that actually looks like.

• 47:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, um, you know, I think an easy way to say this is that... You know, children are born into God's kingdom, not into a specific family group. And so it is not uncommon in order for the FLDS to keep control is to shift families around. So children are often taken from parents and shifted over to other families or other caretakers. Um, they're told not to attach too closely because oftentimes they are removed from the family unit. You have to understand, these women are told to have as many children as possible in order to populate the next planet after Earth. So their husband's going to get a planet and they've got to have the members to populate that planet

• 48:44Speaker 04

  and to keep it running, so to speak. And so where we have, you know, normal attachment patterns where our kids are kind of our world and, uh, in, and these groups, it's not as common as you would see.

• 48:57Annie Elise?

  But Samuel Bateman's reign, although aggressive and swift in as far as how quickly it came on, it didn't last long, not long at all, because he's an actual idiot. On August 28th, 2022, Samuel Bateman was pulled over in Flagstaff, Arizona, after a patrol officer noticed small fingers and small hands sticking out of a wooden horse trailer that was being pulled by a truck. Authorities reported that inside this unventilated trailer, they found three girls, ages 11 to 14, who were using a bucket as a toilet. Now, if you're watching this episode on YouTube, you're about to see the terrible conditions that Samuel had these girls in. But even if you're just listening, this quick news clip that I'm about to play

• 49:42Annie Elise?

  will give you a more clear picture of the moment that they found Samuel and these girls.

• 49:47Speaker 07

  Body camera video shows the moments authorities pulled over this truck and trailer in Flagstaff. The reason why? Saw fingers poking out of the trailer. With guns drawn, they opened the doors. See the hands? Finding three young girls.

• 50:01Speaker 04

  How old are you? What are you, 14? How old are you? 11? How old are you? 12?

• 50:07Speaker 07

  Also inside the trailer, a couch, camping chairs, and a makeshift toilet. When they tried questioning the girls, this woman in the maroon dress stepped in. Then one of the officers noticed.

• 50:18Speaker 04

  A 14-year-old, she had a ring on her finger, on her ring finger. They've all kind of like hidden.

• 50:24Speaker 07

  I mean, they're, we, we, we know what's going on here. Police say the person driving the truck is this man, Samuel Bateman. Court documents claim Bateman is a self-proclaimed prophet, part of the polygamist group with the FLDS. Investigators say Bateman has dozens of followers and more than 20 wives, many of them underage. He's also accused of sexually abusing multiple girls, trafficking them across state lines. As you can see, it's a pretty serious deal here, sir. Police tried to question him about the trailer. How many other people in the truck? But Bateman refuses to answer. How many other people are in the truck? When another officer tries. Explain to me what's going on. Hold down. Bateman was eventually arrested. Put your hands behind your back. Put your hands behind your back.

• 51:10Annie Elise?

  Samuel was taken into custody, arrested and booked into the Kokonino County Jail. He was charged with three counts of child endangerment, but was released from state custody when one of his followers, Torrance Bistline, posted his $150,000 bail using a business check from a company called Veloci Rapper, which is a company founded by the Bistline family, where they build self-propelled wrapping cable machines for wind and solar farms. And the Bistline family are huge followers of Samuel, no surprise. And Samuel is also married to one of the Bistline daughters, Naomi. So when Samuel was in jail, he managed to get instructions to his followers that they should go ahead and delete electronic evidence off of their cell phones,

• 51:52Annie Elise?

  specifically whatever communications they had within the app called Signal. Signal is an app that promises end-to-end encrypted instant messaging, where users can communicate with one another with the promise of privacy and security. Nobody outside of the conversation can read what's being said, not even the developers of the app, not the police, not even the government. After Samuel was bailed out of jail and he returned to his followers, he allegedly continued to get rid of this evidence and started securing passports for some of his wives. But in the early morning hours of September 13th, 2022, dozens of armed FBI agents raided the Short Creek community yet again. Specifically, They raided two homes that were affiliated with Samuel Bateman,

• 52:37Annie Elise?

  as well as the business address for that velociraptor city. Velociraptor, it's not the dinosaur, it's Velociraptor, sorry guys. Um, which we know was obviously also affiliated with Samuel. But I guess a velociraptor, like a predator, it kind of works, it works, whatever. So they went into the two houses, a greenhouse where he lived with his wives, and a blue house that was about two blocks away from the greenhouse, where Maroni Johnson lived with two other brothers named Torrance and Ladall Bisline. At the greenhouse where he lived, there was a white trailer that had been converted into a sewing room for all of his wives. When you enter this green home in the foyer or the prayer room in this instance, you will see a big picture. In the framed picture is a 40-bedroom, multimillion-dollar compound

• 53:22Annie Elise?

  with words that say "coming soon", kind of like a vision board. They were basically vision boards framed in this room that consisted of photos of private jets, mansions, ATVs, Bentleys, Range Rovers, all these physical things that Samuel was going to pretty much will into existence. In other words, steal enough money from his followers to be able to build this compound and purchase all of these materialistic things. Next to the vision boards, you'll see this picture of Warren Jeffs himself. On the photo, it says "he is free", because you know, these people are all still convinced that he's dead, that he is no longer alive and that Samuel is their new prophet. The blue house was a bit bigger, and it had bunk beds for all of the women to sleep in.

• 54:06Annie Elise?

  There's also photos of Warren Jeffs and previous FLDS leaders. At the warehouse, they seized hard drives, computers, his birth certificate, handwritten notes, journals, several cell phones, and even two adult toys. Gross. Samuel Bateman was taken back into custody again, and the Arizona Child Protective Services removed nine underage girls from the Short Creek community. Those nine girls were interviewed and placed into group homes pending dependency proceedings. A dependency proceeding is basically where they're going to determine whether these girls' parents or guardians are fit enough to take care of them or not. The nine underage girls- Were taken into custody and given initial interviews.

• 54:47Annie Elise?

  During these interviews, none of them disclosed any sort of assaults or anything like that on the part of Samuel Bateman. But one girl did say that she was present and partially nude during one of his infamous sex group gatherings. The word starts with an "O." I don't know if I can say it on YouTube, so I'm not going to say it, but you know where I'm going, like a group sex activity. The agents ended up scheduling additional interviews with five of the nine girls who stated that they had once slept in the same bed as Samuel, or they had written in their journals about kissing and touching him. According to the FBI, the girls refused to participate or cooperate fully in the interview, and the federal agents claimed that they believed that some of the older girls were influencing the younger girls not to talk.

• 55:31Annie Elise?

  And we definitely know that the three wives, Naomi, Donna, and Moretta, were definitely influencing these underage girls, their sister wives, not to talk to authorities. So the nine girls were separated from each other, and they were kept with their siblings and placed in different group homes around Arizona. During the time in those homes, one of the girls did disclose that she had, in fact, been assaulted by Samuel. Then, on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, eight of the nine girls vanished from the homes that they were placed in, and their electronics that were left behind had suggested that the girls were still in contact with the three older wives, Naomi, Donna, and Moretta, using that Signal app, the encrypted app that nobody can see what the messages are.

• 56:14Annie Elise?

  So at around 8:30 PM, the night that the girls left the group home, Samuel Bateman made a video call from jail to his adult wives. This video call was recorded because he was in jail, of course, and I feel like anyone in jail would know that they are being recorded. But apparently, Samuel Bateman has the IQ of like a roach and had no idea. In this video, it shows two adult wives sitting in the car. One is driving and one is in the passenger seat. The one in the passenger seat was the one holding the phone. The wife in the passenger seat informed Samuel that they had two of the minor wives with them and used code names E1 and E2.

• 56:52Annie Elise?

  At around 7:30 a.m. the next morning, he made another call, recorded video call from jail to one of his adult wives. In this video, it looked like they were in a hotel room of some sort. And Samuel asked why W2, which is another code name for the girl who decided not to run away from DCFS custody, he asked why she was not with them. Now, court records show that the girl referred to as W2 was between the ages of 11 and 12 years old. And Samuel Bateman took her in as a new wife in May of 2020, which made her around nine or 10 years old when she was forced to marry Samuel, who was in his 40s. The wife informed Samuel that W2 was the only wife who had not left with them,

• 57:35Annie Elise?

  but that they tried to get her to leave. So during this call, the camera panned from the two adult wives to the eight underage girls. Samuel then asked the question, "Are you in our state?" Which one of the adult wives replied, "No, the mothers are in Arizona and heading to New Mexico with the babies." The FBI eventually learned that a credit card, which belonged to the cousin of one of the wives, had been used to rent an Airbnb. So on November 28th, an emergency disclosure request was made to the Airbnb company, and the request was basically asking for the address of the house, that the credit card number was used to book the house and any other houses booked with that same credit card or the cousin's name. By November 30th,

• 58:16Annie Elise?

  Airbnb provided law enforcement with an address in Spokane, Washington. This house was reserved from November 29th to December 2nd. So on December 1st, a sergeant with the Spokane County Sheriff's Department knocked on the door to the Airbnb, but nobody answered. His backup witnessed the occupants of the house attempting to leave in a vehicle with the driver identified as Moretta, one of Samuel's wives. The police pulled over the vehicle and all eight of Samuel Bateman's underage wives were in the car and recovered. The three wives, Naomi, Donae, and Moretta, were all arrested and charged of kidnapping and impeding a foreseeable prosecution. Naomi Bissline is actually relieved that she is away from it all, and stated that she doesn't want any contact with anybody involved in

• 59:01Annie Elise?

  The FLDS. Her lawyer put out a statement saying this. She's beginning to understand how victimized she was. She's realizing that she has loving family members, independent of the cult, that are out there to support her. And she was, for the most part, cut off from all of that. As of October of 2023, Naomi was still behind bars awaiting her next federal court appearance. She had been charged with obstruction of justice and kidnapping. And this was tied to deleting evidence at Samuel's direction and also for helping move underage girls across state lines. Over the following year, she remained part of this larger federal prosecution against Samuel's inner circle.

• 59:42Annie Elise?

  And then, on December 3rd, 2024, Naomi was formally sentenced in federal court in Phoenix. Her conviction centered on obstructing an official proceeding and helping transport minors. So essentially, carrying out Samuel's orders to hide evidence and move his underage wives, if you can even call them that, as the FBI was closing in. And as of mid-2025, Naomi is still in federal custody, serving her sentence. The exact term wasn't publicly listed in the reporting that we reviewed, but the charges that she pled to mean that she will remain incarcerated for a very significant period. The lawyer for Danae echoed what Naomi's lawyer said about victimization and added,

• 1:00:25Annie Elise?

  "She has been catapulted into a world foreign to her, and her incarceration is compounding the trauma that she's already endured in her young life." Danae is experiencing unimaginable agony, being separated from her child. This is also the first time she has been separated from her mother, sister, and other close family members. By late 2023, Danae had been indicted for conspiracy to commit kidnapping and tampering with an official proceeding. Then, in August of 2024, she entered a plea agreement in federal court, pleading guilty to obstruction and admitting that she deleted messages for Samuel and helped conceal evidence. In exchange, prosecutors dropped the much more serious kidnapping charges.

• 1:01:07Annie Elise?

  She also admitted her role in the kidnapping plot itself, helping pick up some of the girls. transporting them out of Arizona and reconnecting them with Samuel's adult wives while they all tried to hide. At sentencing, the judge took several factors into account, including the 20 months that she had already spent awaiting resolution, her history of trauma herself and coercion within the sect, and the fact that she has a young daughter with a very rare terminal medical condition. So instead of more prison time, she received time served, six months of house arrest, three years of probation, mandatory life skills and GED programming, as well as a ban of all contact with Samuel,

• 1:01:47Annie Elise?

  the victims, or any active polygamist sect. As of now, she remains under court-supervised release, but not incarceration. By late 2023, Moretta had been charged with kidnapping, conspiracy, transporting minors, and tampering. All this tied to helping Samuel hide and move these underage girls. Then, on February 6, 2025, she became one of the latest followers to formally plead guilty. She admitted that she played a direct role in removing the girls from Arizona state custody and then relocating them as part of the sex plan to keep the children away from investigators.

• 1:02:27Annie Elise?

  Her plea really did mark another major step in this case, shifting her from an indicted accomplice to a convicted co-conspirator. Her exact sentencing details weren't fully listed in the available reporting, but as of mid-2025, she is officially a convicted participant in the not only kidnapping scheme, but also trafficking scheme. Now, before we get into more of what's happening inside FLDS today, things that we haven't talked about in any of our previous episodes and honestly, some of the most alarming behavior that we've seen from this group in years, here is a clear look at how the prosecutions around Samuel have unfolded since we last covered this case.

• 1:03:08Annie Elise?

  In early 2024, several of Samuel's close followers appeared in federal court, and they entered not guilty pleas to an extensive list of charges. Prosecutors laid out just how large Samuel's operation really was. I mean, more than- 20 wives, including 10 minors, and a coordinated network designed to hide abuse victims and destroy evidence as the investigators closed in. But as the trial approached, things began to shift. More and more of Samuel's wives started flipping, admitting that they had helped hide his abuse. Those plea deals marked a major turning point in this case. And then came another development. One of Samuel's male followers, Morani Johnson, who we mentioned earlier in this episode,

• 1:03:50Annie Elise?

  he confessed to transporting four underage girls across state lines, and also admitted that he allowed Samuel to take some of his own daughters as, quote, "spiritual brides." Not long after that, Samuel himself entered a guilty plea. He admitted to taking underage girls as wives and orchestrating group sex acts involving minors. He also admitted to transporting girls across multiple states and conspiring to kidnap them from state custody. Prosecutors recommended between 20 and 50 years, though one of the charges he pled to carried a potential life sentence, so I don't know why they didn't include life in there, but what do I know? I'm not a prosecutor. But something unusual did happen with Samuel's plea.

• 1:04:33Annie Elise?

  It was tied directly to his followers, meaning that in order for Samuel's deal to go through, all of the charged followers also had to plead guilty. And by the deadline, almost all of them had. The only exception at that point was Naomi. But by the end of 2024, Samuel was formally sentenced to 50 years in federal prison, essentially a life sentence. And survivors delivered very powerful and very emotional statements in court, just describing what they endured inside his offshoot sect. That same day, additional reporting confirmed the full scope of what went on and the behavior and how it all worked out. The transporting of the minors across four states, the recordings of the sex acts,

• 1:05:17Annie Elise?

  the so-called atonement ceremonies, and also Samuel's claim that Warren Jeffs had died and he was now the new prophet. I mean, it was the most complete picture that the public had seen of the crimes inside his inner circle. And finally, in May of 2025, one of the most heartbreaking pieces of this entire case finally came to a close. Morani Johnson, the father who gave his two daughters to Samuel Bateman, was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison. Two of his daughters testified at his sentencing, speaking directly to the years of trauma that he allowed them to go through and the system that he helped uphold.

• 1:05:58Annie Elise?

  Okay, so now that we have gone through all of that, we really need to talk about what many people consider one of the most disturbing and urgent parts of this entire story. Something that is not past tense and something that absolutely does not seem to be slowing down either, and that is the growing number of children of former FLDS members who are now disappearing. Because despite some of the early claims from law enforcement, there is nothing spontaneous about these disappearances. These are coordinated. These are deliberate events, the kind that have mothers, advocates, and experts sounding the alarm, fearing that this may be part of something much bigger, something that, from everything that we're hearing, is being directed by Warren Jeffs himself, all from behind bars.

• 1:06:43Annie Elise?

  My name is Lorraine Jessup. I haven't seen my kids since February 4th of 2023. My name is Sarah Johnson. My son Salom has been missing since March of 2021. My name is Miranda Johnson, and I haven't seen or heard from my son since October 29th, 2022. My name is Elizabeth Roundy. I have not seen my daughter Elentra since January 1st, 2023. Lorraine, Sarah, Miranda, and Elizabeth, the women you all just heard from, are all former FLDS members. Some escaped, some were cast out, but all of them have been cut off from the community since resisting its control. And each one is now living every parent's worst nightmare, searching for a child that

• 1:07:28Annie Elise?

  the FLDS insists on pulling back in. And for Elizabeth, the situation is especially devastating. You heard her say that she hasn't seen her daughter since January 2023, but in June of 2021... Two more of her children, Rochelle and Allen, ages 14 and 16, also vanished. An Amber Alert was issued out of Idaho. A multi-state search was launched, then scaled back after investigators received credible information that FLDS members were actively hiding the teens and moving them between safe houses. And Elizabeth believes that their older sister, now 18 years old, may have been involved in taking them. But as of today, all three children are still missing.

• 1:08:12Annie Elise?

  Lorraine remembers the exact moment she woke up and realized all three of her children were gone, which, listen to her tell us about that heartbreaking moment in this clip.

• 1:08:21Speaker 06

  I checked on them at midnight, and my daughter was awake. And I thought, that's odd. I'll just sleep with one ear open. At 5:00 in the morning, I awoke to a cold house because the front door was wide open, and the kids were gone. It was horrifying. It was cold outside. They didn't take any of their things with them, besides what they had on. It's really scary when you don't know where your children are. I immediately called the police and said, my kids have disappeared. Either someone took it upon themselves, or were told by church authorities to gather up these children.

• 1:09:00Annie Elise?

  Sarah, whose son has been missing since March of 2021, says that he's been in contact with FLDS members who have warned him that his salvation depended on returning. So one day, he quietly slipped out of the house, leaving everything behind, and he never came home. She hasn't heard a single confirmed word from him ever since. Miranda believes that her son Denver was heavily influenced by messages coming from inside the FLDS. She says that he was coached on how to disappear, where to go, and exactly who to reach out to. He vanished overnight, and she's convinced that he was pulled right back into the FLDS hiding network. So what is really happening here?

• 1:09:43Annie Elise?

  Why are these children disappearing or being taken? Where are they going? According to these mothers and many others with ties to the FLDS. community, these disappearances are directly connected to a revelation that Warren issued from prison back in August of 2022. And get this, in that revelation, Warren instructed his followers to quote, "consecrate and return their children to the church by any means necessary." Also, "to prepare them for the end of times." He went on to say that the children are needed to help, quote, "build Zion so that they can die and become pure and translated beings." Now, I will say, anytime somebody is talking about becoming a pure person, or an enlightened

• 1:10:28Annie Elise?

  being, or whatever, you know, the buzzword is going to be for these cult members, it worries me. And it also goes back to the playbook a little bit. Having these prophecies of them all coming together, you know, unified together to become better beings and prepare for the end of times. It's giving Lori Vallow Chad Daybell. It's also giving David Koresh. It's also giving Jonestown. It's just, it never, ever is a good sign. And it's not just me that thinks that. Former FLDS members insist, this is not symbolic. It's a direct, actionable mandate. And it also aligns with years of teachings that followers must, you know, gather the children

• 1:11:10Annie Elise?

  of apostates so that they can be purified, which an apostate in the FLDS community, by the way, is one of the harshest labels that you can get. It means that you're no longer obeying Warren Jeffs. And the consequence is severe. You're cut off from your family, your support system, and the entire community.

• 1:11:29Speaker 00

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• 1:12:28Annie Elise?

  Experts on FLDS warn that what we're seeing here looks eerily similar to the early stages of other destructive cult movements. The same kinds of dynamics that led to mass tragedies like Heaven's Gate, where dozens in a coordinated mass un-aliving attempt took place. Jonestown, where more than 900 followers were killed under Jim Jones' control. And of course, with all of this coming up to the surface, I had to ask Tanya her thoughts on all of this. And here's what she had to say about it.

• 1:12:59Speaker 04

  Yes, I'm very aware of the revelation. We did a couple of press conferences regarding this revelation and the concerns that we have because they're essentially saying, gather up all the followers and you have to be devout, re-consecrated back to the church. And if you do, the world will be destroyed and you will be able to become a translated being, but you must die first and then you'll be risen like Jesus Christ in two and a half, three days. So think about it as a child, right? And you're learning this revelation. You're terrified, like the end of the world is coming. And so you better do what you're told. And around that time, we were preparing some of these mothers with missing kids to do a press conference and I was in a room of about 25 people. Some brand new out, some that had been out for a while.

• 1:13:44Speaker 04

  And I remember asking this profound question and I said, all right, you guys, at the end of this five and a half years, how many of you would have drank the Kool-Aid if you were still in? I'm not kidding you, every single person raised their hand. And I said, okay, all right. So how many of you would have fed the Kool-Aid to your children? Every single hand in that room raised. And I just weep thinking, we are getting ready for a mass suicide if we don't stop this madness. Um, and so it's very, very concerning. And that is why there's so many moms coming out and the children are going missing and they have such a plight to get their kids because they're terrified the FLDs are going to kill them at the end of the day.

• 1:14:28Annie Elise?

  And if that wasn't disturbing and heartbreaking enough, listen to what Warren Jeff's own brother, Wallace Kenton, said about these revelations. I want to make this very clear. If the law officials, BI, whoever, doesn't stop Warren, thousands will die. Sorry. Now, remember, the revelation that Warren issued was a five and a half year prophecy, and it had been released in August of 2022, which means if followers continue treating it as a countdown, we are only about two years away, which that is very terrifying to think about. And it's something that I certainly am going to keep watching very

• 1:15:11Annie Elise?

  closely. As more information comes out, especially about these missing children, I will certainly keep you updated. But before we wrap up today's episode, I asked Tanya what people can actually do to help, because I know a lot of you who are listening are probably, if you're like me, feeling helpless, angry, scared for all of these kids, or all of the above. So I wanted her to share what meaningful help actually looks like. And here's what she had to say.

• 1:15:37Speaker 04

  I would say definitely stay informed on this topic. Pay attention to your surroundings. Support organizations like us doing the good work. There's another one called Hope After Polygamy that does a lot of our clients' educational scholarships. I would say one of the biggest things is advocate for a better system. Contact Washington DC. Contact your state representative. Say, why are we allowing this in our backyard? Um, I think

• 1:16:04Speaker 04

  One of the most important things is you don't have to be part of the rescue. If somebody lands in front of you that is from the culture, just showing up, listening, and being kind to them says more than anything else you could ever do in that person's life. Most people that land on our doorstep is because they came across somebody in society that was kind to them and they started thinking, wow, what I was taught could possibly be a lie. Maybe outsiders will help me. Maybe they will show up. It's collectively the small, steady actions that create the real change and help ensure that no child or adult goes unseen ever again.

• 1:16:45Annie Elise?

  This entire group, this cult, whatever you want to call it, that whatever this is, from Warren Jeffs to Samuel Bateman, to the missing children, to the women and the families fighting every single day to undo the damage that's been done here. It's one of the most complex and deeply unsettling cases that we have ever covered. We have a convicted prophet still issuing revelations from behind bars with loyal followers, people who hang on his every word, still have his photo in their homes, listen to everything he has to say, and believe truly in their heart and soul that he is talking with God. You also have mothers whose kids were taken right out from underneath them. You have survivors trying to rebuild their lives after years of isolation and control,

• 1:17:30Annie Elise?

  and a community that is still grappling with the fallout of an extremist belief system that refuses to die out. And yet, the people who have escaped and the advocates who stand beside them, they are some of the strongest and most resilient individuals out there. People like Tanya, who are doing the work every single day to protect these families, to track these missing kids, and to help piece together a safe path forward. So as new updates continue to come out, especially about these disappearing children, we are going to stay on it. We will keep following the cases, the hearings, the revelations, and the families affected by all of this, because these kids deserve help and these mothers deserve answers. And these survivors?

• 1:18:13Annie Elise?

  They deserve a future that is free from fear. So, thank you all so much for listening to today's episode. And as always, thank you for being a part of this conversation. The conversation that brings attention to cases that desperately need it. Before you go, if you're watching this on YouTube, don't forget to hit the subscribe button. And if you're listening to this on your podcast app, make sure you are following the podcast so you do not miss future episodes. Thanks so much, guys, and I'm Annie Elise. As always, stay safe. Bye.

• 1:18:47Speaker 00

  Time for a quick break to talk about McDonald's. It's the tangiest time of the year. For a limited time, head to McDonald's and get a McRib sandwich. Make it a meal by adding a medium fries and a soft drink like an ice cold Diet Dr. Pepper. So, grab a McRib sandwich and embrace the tang. Save time by ordering ahead on the app. Participate at McDonald's for a limited time. Dr. Pepper is a registered trademark of Dr. Pepper, 7-Up, Inc.

• 1:19:12Speaker 06

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