Ep . 137 | Inside the TWISTED Polygamist Cult of Samuel Bateman

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  In some faiths, one man speaks to people on God's behalf, not just as a guide, but as the final word. He says what is true and he says what you can and can't do. For one community on the Utah and Arizona line, however, that man was gone and had been for some time. Nobody had taken his place, but the silence wouldn't stay empty for long. This is the story of Samuel Bateman. Crime, conspiracy, cults, serial killers, and murder, all things that I love to consume, and I know you do too, you sick, twisted, beautiful, intellectually-minded freak. And today, we are talking about a pretty infamous cult that I feel like nobody knows

• 1:44Speaker 04

  about, because it happened after another infamous cult that I have already gone into. So without further ado, let's unbuckle our seatbelts, go Mach 5 down the highway, slam the brakes, and bust through the windshield into this cult together.

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  That's 60, 6-0, percent off your first order, plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com/cccM. Thank you so much to Smalls for sponsoring the video and supporting the channel, and let's get back to it. All right, so I know I have gone over what Mormonism is in past videos. We have talked about Warren Jeffs. I've gone over Mormonism over in this video and another video, I believe, but I'm gonna do a quick recap, and then a quick recap on Warren Jeffs, because this is all very relevant to the case we're looking into today. So in 1823, in Western New York, a young man named Joseph Smith said an angel came to him, and the angel's name was Moroni.

• 4:19Speaker 04

  And he spoke of golden plates buried in a hill close by with ancient writings engraved on them. And Smith said the angel gave further instruction, and that four years later, he dug them up and translated them into English. And they became the Book of Mormon, published in 1830, and it tells of an Israelite family who crossed to America centuries before Christ, taught by the same sort of prophets found in the Old Testament, the Bible. Now, Smith founded his church that same year, and it is known today as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The nickname Mormon is taken from the book, but the church would rather people didn't use it, especially now.

• 5:04Speaker 04

  They actually just recently came out with saying, like, "Don't call us Mormons." So I'm just saying this all for history's sake, I don't want to offend anybody. Now, there were many revival preachers in America at the time, but Smith claimed something none of them did. Through him, he said, "God had restored the true church and reaffirmed the faith that other denominations had strayed from." And today, the church runs out of Salt Lake City, Utah, and membership is nearly 18 million, and its members have rules against alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea, and the faith puts its weight on family life, respect for authority, and sending its young people out as missionaries.

• 5:45Speaker 04

  And obviously, that's a general recap, there's obviously a lot more to being in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but that is just generalizing. If you want to learn more, I have a video about it right there, go look at that over there. Now, one belief called continuing revelation is of great importance, and the church teaches that God is still calling prophets to this day. This is important for this case. Now, Joseph Smith took his authority directly from God, and every president of the church since has held that same authority to receive revelation and steer the faith. Basically, they could just like change the rules whenever God tells them to.

• 6:27Speaker 04

  So accordingly, members formally uphold the president, and the quorum of the 12 apostles alongside him as prophets, seers, and revelators. And as the church's fourth president, Wilford Woodruff, asserted, quote, "The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as president of this church to lead you astray", unquote. So the office is not just for show, the man holding it can change what the whole church practices, basically, on God's own authority, though. It's not His, it's God, all right? And this is not a hypothetical scenario either, because it has happened over plural marriage, for example.

• 7:09Speaker 04

  In 1831, for example, Smith prayed over an Old Testament practice, one man married to more than one woman. And from this, he said he received divine instruction to reinstate it as a religious principle, and he practiced it himself, but the public only learned of it under his successor, Brigham Young, who had already taken the church west to Utah by then. And then, the federal government spent decades trying to stamp the practice out completely, and by 1890, it was seizing church property. And consequently, Woodruff began to see that the temples and their practices within them were at risk at this point. So in September of 1890, he issued the document known ever since as "The Manifesto",

• 7:54Speaker 04

  and the church would submit to the laws of the United States, and it was not teaching plural marriage, nor allowing anyone to take part. So in 1904, President Joseph F. Smith went further, and anybody who performed a plural marriage or entered into one would now be excommunicated, basically kicked out of the church. And some of those thrown out afterwards gathered into movements of their own, and they are the people sometimes called fundamentalists. This is what we're getting into, this is what the case is about. And in fact, more than 150 separate groups have split away over the church's history, and some of them behind a new prophet, and some of them to hold on to polygamy.

• 8:39Speaker 04

  Now, since then, there has been confusion about the word Mormon, because it is a nickname for Latter-day Saints, but it often gets mistakenly given to polygamous groups that have nothing to do with the church at all, so I want to make that clear. And the church has been very pointed about that in public. As President Gordon B. Hinckley at the October 1998 General Conference stated, quote, "I wish to state categorically that this church has nothing whatever to do with those practicing polygamy. They are not members of this church. Most of them have never been members. If any of our members are found to be practicing plural marriage, they are excommunicated, the most serious penalty the church can impose," unquote.

• 9:21Speaker 04

  So the people who were cast out didn't think they had done anything wrong, because to them, the manifesto had never been a revelation, remember, it was kind of just a law that was passed. It wasn't God's word, allegedly. And as Willie Jessup, who would later speak for the fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...

• 9:43Speaker 04

  It's a mouthful, I'm gonna call it the FLDS, told National Geographic, quote, "The LDS issued that manifesto for political purposes, then later claimed it was revelation," unquote. And instead, their own authority came from an older revelation, one they said God had given a church president named John Taylor in 1886, handing a chosen few men the right to keep performing plural marriage forever. How convenient. But anyway, they settled in Short Creek, a scrap of desert country straddling the Utah and Arizona line. Now, polygamous families started arriving in like the 1920s and 30s, drawn to the isolation of the geography.

• 10:26Speaker 04

  The Grand Canyon was between them and the rest of Arizona, and the nearest lawman 100 miles off in Kingman, and a state line running near the settlement to step across if trouble came. So in 1935, the mainstream church gave them the option, renounce plural marriage, or be cast out. And almost all of them refused. They got too used to the life, you know? And then, in 1953, Arizona police and the National Guard drove into Short Creek, carrying out the biggest mass arrest of polygamists in the history of the country. And the town held around 400 people, and 263 of the children were taken into state custody. However, photographs of them being pulled away from their parents turned the country

• 11:11Speaker 04

  against the raid, and the polygamists went underground and stayed there. So the group took its formal name in 1986, when a tax accountant named Roulan Jeffs incorporated it as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known ever since by its initials, the FLDS. And at the start of the 21st century, it had around 10,000 members, some 6,000 of them in Short Creek, the largest FLDS community there was. Now, an FLDS woman's dress was pastel, long sleeved, and cut to the ankle, so it covered the white religious garments underneath, and the color denoted the wives of the same husband. And red and black were forbidden outright,

• 11:54Speaker 04

  red because Christ would return wearing it, and black because it belonged to Satan. Now, nearly all the children were homeschooled, often by one of the wives, while another ran the kitchen and a third did the sewing. And despite their tradition and rules, however, most adults carried cellphones and drove late-model SUVs. So, there's that. Now, an FLDS woman's job, above all else, was to bear children and keep bearing them, bear down, bear them children. Double-digit children, even 16 and more, were pretty ordinary, and the family she built was meant to stay together for eternity. Carolyn Jessup, a former plural wife, described it, quote, "I was completely unprepared, because I had absolutely no life skills.

• 12:39Speaker 04

  Most women in the FLDS don't even know how to balance a checkbook, let alone apply for a job, so contemplating how you're going to navigate in the outside world is extremely daunting," unquote. And that was by design. It's the occult territory! But until Roulan Jeffs, the FLDS had been run pretty loosely, with a group of high priests guiding it. But he ended that and instituted the "one-man-rule" policy. And when Roulan died in 2002, the office passed to his son, Warren, who this video is about up here. And by then, there was almost no limit on that rule. And among Warren's first moves was outlawing swimming,

• 13:22Speaker 04

  television, popular music, and even Christmas. He was the isolation king. And additionally, there were to be no toys, no games, and no pets in the house. Salvation, at its highest level, was reserved to men with at least three wives. And Jeffs himself, the prophet, of course, decided who married whom. And he could change that, too, if he wanted to. If a husband was judged to have strayed, his wives and his children could be reassigned to another man. It could be reassigned to Jeffs, conveniently enough. And in January of 2004, for instance, Warren Jeffs ordered 21 men expelled, and their families handed over, and the community just went along with it,

• 14:06Speaker 04

  because that's just what they knew. And all of that authority rested on a trust called the United Effort Plan. The pioneers and patriarchs of Short Creek set it up in 1942 to provide for the wants and needs of the community. But what it grew into was ownership of the town. The parks, the streets, cemeteries, the schools, the meeting houses, the farms, and the houses people lived in. So the members essentially didn't even own their own homes. The trust did. And the prophet, Warren Jeffs, piece of shit sicko, ran the trust. And therefore, being thrown out of the faith meant losing the roof over your head with it, and just anything else.

• 14:48Speaker 04

  Like, you would just be thrown out with no life skills, basically, and no money. So, it was not really an option. I mean, it was an option, but it didn't look that great. Now, eventually, a Utah court took the trust off the FLDS leadership in 2005 and handed it to a manager answerable to the court instead of the prophet Warren Jeffs. And the assets came out to about $110 million. And of all the groups that broke away, the FLDS became the biggest and best-known, and some of the others settled within a few miles of Short Creek. Now, the man running the biggest of them was Warren Jeffs. So by the time the outside world understood what was really happening inside the FLDS,

• 15:33Speaker 04

  Warren Jeffs had 78 wives, many of them just 12 or 13 years old. And he kept his own priesthood records. And in 2005, he wrote, quote, "If the world knew what I was doing, they would hang me from the highest tree," unquote. Sounds like a godly man to me. Just kidding. And he spent years as a fugitive, and months on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list, before police pulled him over outside Las Vegas in August of 2006, and a Texas jury convicted him on August 4, 2011. Spoilers, sorry. If you, just go watch the Warren Jeffs video, because it is absolutely insane if you haven't seen it. But the two counts were sexual assault of a child under 17,

• 16:17Speaker 04

  and aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14. And DNA proved he had fathered a child with only a 15-year-old girl, and prosecutors played the jury a recording they said was him assaulting a 12-year-old. Just absolute filth of this earth. And he got the maximum on both counts. Life in prison for the 12-year-old, and 20 years for the 15-year-old, and one sentence to be served after the other. And he is still serving his sentences at the Polledge Unit near Palestine, Texas. And he first becomes eligible for parole on July 22, 2038. However, prison did not end his hold on the church, and every week, his brothers visited, and officials suspected

• 17:00Speaker 04

  the watches and pens they carried were recording devices. And meanwhile, he sent letters out in code, collected by wives who knew how to read them. And Sean Keviny, a Justice Department attorney, said, quote, "We have evidence he continues to direct day-to-day operations of the church, including things like excommunicating individuals and directing what women should be placed with what caretakers," unquote. Now, the followers who stayed were told by Jeffs that he was sitting in that cell to atone for their sins. Guy can't have any sort of accountability. And hundreds of others, however, did not stay, and practicing FLDS members are now thought to be only a small share of the people living in Hildale and Colorado City.

• 17:44Speaker 04

  Now, federal prosecutors said the church had been running both towns as an extension of itself, with anyone outside the faith refused building permits, water hookups, even police protection. So in 2017, a court put both towns under supervision and pulled the church out, and their governments, and their shared police department. And since only the prophet could arrange a marriage, none had been arranged since Jeff's arrest in 2006. Then, by the end of 2011, word had come down that couples were to stop living as husband and wife, because Jeffs had declared every existing marriage just void. So a husband and wife could share a house, but nothing more, until he came out of prison and resealed them to each other, again, himself.

• 18:29Speaker 04

  So by 2019, no marriage had been performed in 13 years, and families were growing frustrated with a prophet who could not answer them. And into that silence walked a man from Colorado City named Samuel Bateman. And that brings us to our subject of today's video. So Bateman was born in Colorado City around 1976. No exact date of birth has been made public, though, and very little is known about his childhood. But his father's name was Deloy Bateman, who was raised inside the household of Leroy S. Johnson, the prophet who led the FLDS before Roulan Jeffs. Johnson sent him to college, which was uncommon for anybody out of Colorado City.

• 19:13Speaker 04

  And he came back and taught science at the town's public school. And by 2003, he had been in the district for 20 years on a salary of around $33,000. Now, most days, he would start before dawn. He would get five of his teenage children out of bed at 2:00 in the morning, and an hour later, they were at school. And in his laboratory, ahead of a dozen classes he would teach that day. But the town didn't want what he was teaching. And John Doherty, who spent months reporting on Colorado City, wrote that most people there Not believe in evolution or dinosaurs, or that America had sent men to the moon. So, education past the eighth grade was widely thought just completely unnecessary, particularly for girls who were often coerced into marriages with older men by the age of

• 19:57Speaker 04

  sixteen, which is so fucking wrong. And then, the church came for Deloy's children, and its leaders tried to take four of the children he had by his second wife, and Deloy would not make them the property of the church. And he challenged Rulon Jeffs over the custody of them, and for that, he was branded an apostate. So, he left the FLDS, and fourteen of his seventeen children went with him, and his three eldest stayed behind, and the eldest of those was Samuel. So, around that same time, Samuel's beliefs in the church was getting stronger. Years later, Deloy said, quote, "My own kids were taught that I'm the son of Lucifer. Can you imagine? They can never see me again.

• 20:42Speaker 04

  What's the difference between that and death? I lost a good share of my family to that man. I'd like to see them sometime," unquote. So Samuel's mother is not named in any account of his life, that I could find at least, and what schooling he himself received is also not available that I could find. But what I could find is that he showed no early signs of violence or cruelty. And Wendell Jeffson, a son of Warren Jeffs who left the FLDS himself, remembers Bateman from those years. Quote, "You know when you have a group of friends, and you have that one person, and they really want to join the group of friends. That's how he was toward my brothers, trying to get into the circle of the Jeffs family," unquote.

• 21:27Speaker 04

  So he just, he craved that, that, that notoriety, that popularity, that power already, at a pretty young age. So for most of his adult life, Samuel worked ordinary jobs. He was a machinist, then a realtor, and for a while, a motivational speaker. And inside the church, there is no record of him holding an office, a council seat, or any position of trust. And a Salt Lake City Tribune photographer caught him in November of 2007 on his way out of St. George Courthouse, where Warren Jeffs was being tried. But he appeared to be there only as one of the faithful. Now, whatever contact he had with Jeffs himself is not documented anywhere, and the only account of it comes from Bateman years later.

• 22:09Speaker 04

  And he said Jeffs told him to invoke the, quote, "Spirit of God on these people," unquote. Now, nobody else has ever confirmed it. A lot of these guys are full of shit, you'll come to know. And he would be married to one woman, and they had a daughter and at least two sons. And the daughter was the youngest of the children. And by 2019, he was struggling pretty badly financially. And Esther Bistline, an FLDS member who knew him, remembered him talking, quote, "About the fact that he had no money," unquote. And that year, ahead of a day trip to a Utah ghost town, he sent a text message saying, quote, "If where we are going tomorrow requires pecuniary additions, I am apologetic in saying

• 22:50Speaker 04

  that I am in the middle of some dire straits in my financial world," unquote. So on the 13th of February that year, he told his wife and his daughter that the two of them belonged to him, and that he intended to marry the daughter. Yeah. I hate this man. And she, at this point, was fourteen years old. And around the same time, on a drive back from Canada, he asked her whether she had been praying over the man she would marry. And he gave her fifty dollars and two bags of Doritos, and promised her an airplane ride. And he told her that, quote, "If his feelings were right, he would make her have a child," unquote.

• 23:35Speaker 04

  And then he told her not to talk to her mother about it. Now, her mother, however, refused to agree to any part, and her lawyer, Charles Seifer, filed with the court, quote, "Thereafter, there were multiple incidents of violence between the Burnham and Bateman, in which the father acted angrily to Burnham's refusal to approve his plan to have sexual marital relations with their daughter," unquote. So on February 25th, a court granted her an order of protection, and Bateman was barred from contacting either of them. But that didn't stop him from trying anyway. And Seifer said he may have used his sons to reach his daughter, and asked a family friend to write to her on his behalf.

• 24:17Speaker 04

  Now, the letters, according to the filing, argued that her father's incestuous desires were inspired by the divine, and in line with what the family believed. Also, witnesses saw him talking to the girl after a horse-riding trip at a ranch outside Colorado City. And her mother found footprints around the property, and thought he had been watching the girl. And then, in April, she found her daughter with a mobile phone she believed Bateman had given her, so that he could keep talking to her. Now, the marriage was dissolved that year, and the court ordered him to pay one thousand two hundred and seventy-one dollars and fifty cents a month in child support. Still, he was never thrown out of the FLDS, though he did eventually choose to leave it.

• 25:02Speaker 04

  And by the end of 2019, then, he had no wife, no daughter, and no money, and no standing in the church he was raised in. Let's take a quick pause for me to make a confession, okay? I am a salty-sweet person. Kettle corn, salted chocolate, that flaky salt on top of a ooey-gooey brownie, oh my god, my mouth is watering. I carry sweets in my purse like people carry around hot sauce or gum. So when Kachava came out with their new salted caramel flavor, I was in immediately. It's a plant-based, whole-body shake. Two scoops, and you've also got protein, fiber, greens, and a lot more in one deliciously simple shake.

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• 26:28Speaker 04

  So in early 2019, Bateman started spending his time with a man named Maroni Johnson. Johnson had grown up in Short Creek, too. He and his wife Julia married in 1995, and in 2001, Julia's sister joined the marriage as a second wife. Now, there were eight children from Julia and Maroni's relationship. And the two men began teaching something the FLDS had never allowed. A woman, they said, could pray and receive revelation about her own marriage without needing the prophet to guide her. And Julia later said, quote, "This was not well-received by the FLDS," unquote. "No, she didn't fully support this new doctrine.

• 27:11Speaker 04

  It was received very well by people who had been waiting thirteen years for permission to marry." I remember Warren Jeffs said, "Nobody can marry in the FLDS until I get out of jail." But that's still, you know, oh gosh, it's, it's too soon. But, like, fifteen years out, or not even, but it's still like twelve years out, which is crazy. But Julia noted, as others felt, quote, "We wanted children and sex. I wanted a baby. It was a common sentiment," unquote. So that year, Maroni started taking more wives, but Julia still didn't accept unions that Jeffs had not approved. Quote-unquote, "It was a devastation," she would say. Quote, "We were leaving the church and not being obedient," unquote.

• 27:54Speaker 04

  And then, Bateman went further than doctrine. And he told the families that the reason nobody had heard from Warren Jeffs was that Jeffs was dead, or translated, which in the faith means taken from mortal life into an immortal one without dying. So Samuel Bateman was the prophet now, he would say, and Jeffs would be heard only through him. So having claimed that, he began asking for things. He wanted their money. He wanted them to testify in a religious context about him, and of course, he wanted more new wives. So later in 2019, the Johnsons moved from Short Creek to Nebraska for work, and Bateman followed them out there.

• 28:36Speaker 04

  And other FLDS families moved to Nebraska, too, and Bateman started marrying. And by the end of 2020, thirteen women and girls had been married to him. Meanwhile, Bateman's recruiting campaign for more wives and followers spread through Arizona, Nebraska, Utah, and Colorado, and the people around him began calling themselves Samuelites. Jesus. So in 2020, the FLDS leadership responded to and reprimanded Bateman with a revelation of their own. The revelation confirmed that Jeff was, in fact, alive in prison and was the only prophet. And it called Bateman and his followers, quote-unquote, "Gross and wicked men."

• 29:17Speaker 04

  And the revelation read, quote, "Father yet lives, and is the mortal keyholder prophet on this world," unquote. I feel like I'm just reading like a big D and D thing or something, a really fucked-up D and D thing, but anyway. Now Esther Bistline watched the split happen from inside Short Creek. And she remembered the families who followed Bateman communicating or visiting people in Short Creek and looking at the FLDS, quote-unquote- "Like we're weird for still writing to Jeff's in his cell." Quote-unquote, "Why would you do that?" She remembered them saying, "He's not even there." Listen, I'm gonna settle this. You're both fucking weird, okay? Both fucking weird and gross and I hate it all. But I'm gonna still read, I digress. So of Bateman's teaching, she said, quote,

• 30:02Speaker 04

  "There were so many things about it that just didn't line up with our FLDS beliefs." Unquote. And in 2021, Bateman brought some of his people back to Short Creek. And he now drove a Mercedes. And he had more than a dozen wives and could fill two SUVs with them. And he would tow a flatbed trailer through the red dirt roads with his wives sitting on it in two rows, singing. And one woman who watched him do it said he was showing them off, quote, "Like they were his prize horses." Unquote. Now, whether Bateman truly believed he was a prophet is a question these years don't fully settle. I'm gonna safely say he's just a full of shit, piece of shit. But that's my opinion.

• 30:46Speaker 04

  But several of the people who followed him came to one answer. They later said that he had been taking advantage of the fact that Jeff's was not there. And another answer is simply that he was doing what the world he was raised in had taught him a man could do, which was to say God had spoken to him and wait to be obeyed. Now regardless, what we can see is just how much Bateman's life had changed in a very short period of time. It only took two years before he had been homeless and broke and familyless. Now, life seemed to be looking up for him and had multiple wives and a Mercedes, multiple cars and a house and it's just crazy. Now, Bateman had amassed about 50 followers.

• 31:31Speaker 04

  He had taken at least 20 wives for himself, with 10 of them being under the age of 18. And of the 10, most were younger than 15. Again, fucking monster. Disgusting, waste of oxygen, literally just a Warren Jeffs 2.0. And most of the wives came out of just two families in the group of his followers. And his male followers paid for him. And they handed over their own wives and their own daughters to be married to him. Julia watched it happen to her family twice. In Nebraska in 2019, he took her oldest adult daughter as a wife. There was no ceremony and the young woman was never asked in front of witnesses whether

• 32:15Speaker 04

  she agreed to it even. Julia said she thought it was wrong and the other followers shunned her for even saying that. And then Bateman and Julia's oldest pressured another one of the daughters to also marry him. And Julia said that her second daughter told her she didn't want to and wanted to wait. And she said she could see it turning into something forced. But still, Bateman ignored that and married her anyway because he could. And the youngest girl he showed off as his wife had been born in 2011. That meant she was only nine years old in late 2020 when Bateman pulled up outside a house in Colorado City with a car full of women and girls and introduced all of them as his wives.

• 32:59Speaker 04

  Now, around that time, a couple named Christine Marie and Tolga Katas were being led inside the group. She ran a charity that worked with people in Short Creek while he was a filmmaker and Bateman let him bring a camera along. What they saw included a confession of the occasion the group called "The Atonement." Bateman allowed three grown men in the group to sleep with three of his wives, all while he stayed and watched. And the youngest of the three girls was 13. God had told him to give up, quote, "The most precious thing he has." Unquote, he would say, which was, according to him, his girls' virtue.

• 33:43Speaker 04

  And he told the girls they had given it up for the Lord and that God would repair their bodies afterwards. So in November of 2021, in the back of his own Bentley, he explained the occasion to Marie while she recorded him. And he called the three men he had ordered to do it, quote-unquote, "Wicked bastards." And he also said, quote, "I've never had more confidence in doing his will. It's all out of love." Unquote. Now, on a second recording, he went through it again and said that watching had cost him a great deal personally. So in Colorado City, the group had two houses. The followers lived in the large one, known to them as the Blue House.

• 34:24Speaker 04

  And Bateman kept its top floor for himself and his wives and nobody else was allowed up there. He lived with his wives in the smaller one, the Green House, and it was crowded. And Katas would describe, quote, "There are 24 ladies in him sitting there and every day there would be two girls in the back crying. And the next day, it's another two girls." Unquote. Bateman also spent time in a small warehouse the group had. Torrance Bistline handled the money for the group. He was a very successful businessman and he bought Bateman his fancy cars and covered his legal costs. Meanwhile, Liddell Bistline Jr. supplied girls for the group, his own daughters amongst them.

• 35:05Speaker 04

  And among the women Bateman had married were Naomi Bistline, Donae Barlow, and Moreta Rose Johnson. Now, Moreta was under 18 when he took her as a wife and she had a child seven months after her 18th birthday. Now, Bateman traveled frequently, going back and forth to Nebraska, where a portion of his followers lived, and abroad for conferences to Canada and Mexico. And it would later be alleged that between May of 2020 and November of 2021, he and others moved minors across Nebraska, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona for sex. And inside the group, he ran a system of confession and punishment.

• 35:46Speaker 04

  Followers had to confess anything they had done wrong out loud and he passed those confessions around. And the penalties ran from being put in a timeout to being shamed in front of everybody to sexual activity. And he told them each one had come from the Lord, of course. And he said God wanted his followers to take part in sexual acts, the children included. So when Arizona child welfare workers started coming around, he tightened things up, fearful of what might happen. He put security cameras up and he asked Julia Johnson whether she had been talking to the police. And he gave code names to his wives. And the group set up places to hide out in the desert.

• 36:28Speaker 04

  And he also moved his messages onto Signal, an encrypted app that keeps them off the phone company's records. And he would turn the families in on each other, too. When Julia's teenage daughter got pregnant, he cut Julia completely off from her daughters. And she was still living in the Blue House and she was ordered to keep clear of the Green House where her daughters were located. And her own daughters were even messaging her with obscenities. And then Julia noticed the long religious underwear the wives had always worn had been swapped with lingerie. And the adult women in the group weren't only victims of the abuse itself. Julia admitted that she had been present when Bateman engaged in sexual activity with

• 37:11Speaker 04

  other followers, including the underage ones. And she described going numb as the girls he married got younger, even her own daughters. And similarly, when welfare workers asked to speak to two of the girls alone in 2021, the girls' mothers refused and said there was nothing wrong going on. Equal monsters in this, in this story, the mothers, like it is, it's unbelievable and unfathomable. I just, it's disgusting. Now, in day-to-day life, Bateman continued to assert his divine influence to his followers. He told them he had, quote, "Impressions of Heavenly Father's will." Unquote.

• 37:55Speaker 04

  And he used the impressions to get his wives and his followers to submit to him and they called him Father. And the influence also spread to the children. And in February of 2021, Katas filmed a talent show at the Blue House. 13 women and girls sat around Bateman and a few men sat on the edges of the room. Two of the girls picked up guitars and Katas asked them how old they were. And one of them said, "We're both 10." And then two of them sang for Bateman. The song was about loving Father. Girls in the group kept journals and several had written about sleeping with Bateman, kissing him, and touching him. All right, before we get back to the case, why are guys the hardest people to shop for?

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• 39:24Speaker 04

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• 40:08Speaker 04

  49% off. Plus, qualifying orders can score holiday extras, like gift bags and classic cuff beanies while supplies last. And after you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. And please let them know that I sent you. All right. Thank you so much to Ridge for sponsoring this video and supporting the channel. And let's get back to it. So in Short Creek, a number of residents had called law enforcement about Bateman. Sergeant David Wilkinson of the Hildale and Colorado City Police Department said, quote, "Reports were coming from a lot of different directions," unquote. And the first of those calls on record came in November of 2020. And on the 23rd, a woman phoned the Colorado City Marshal's office to say that Bateman had married the granddaughter of a friend

• 40:50Speaker 04

  of hers, a minor. However, someone close to Bateman assured the marshal's office that, quote, "The stories were just rumors," unquote. And when officers had a conversation with the girl herself, she denied having any relationship with him. Because obviously, he had groomed her at this point, and that's all she knew what to say. And a second call came one day later, this time from the actual grandmother, naming another girl that Bateman had taken as a wife. And that granddaughter had been born in 2011. And she added that his own daughter, who was born in 2005, might be one of his wives, too. She also called the Iron County Sheriff's Office and said her grandchildren were being kidnapped. Deputies

• 41:33Speaker 04

  looked into that as well, stopping Bateman and interviewing those with him. And every parent they asked said the children were fine with him, but they detained him anyway. And after one of the mothers, whose daughters were nine and 11 years old, said she was going to marry him, they let him go. And in December of 2020, his daughter was interviewed by local investigators. And she handed them a document of her own, which was called a Journal of Events. And in it, she had recorded the dates her father brought each new wife to meet her, the young girls among them, who were called Mother. In Arizona's Child Welfare Agency, the Department of Child Safety had tried to visit the group several times

• 42:16Speaker 04

  as well. And in May of 2021, two of the girls had parents who would not talk to the caseworkers at all, while denying anything improper was going on. The caseworkers asked to speak with some of the girls alone as well, but the mothers would not let them be interviewed in that way. How the fuck is this happening? Parents lie. Adults lie. They should be able to... The law should be able to take those children away to talk to... It's just... The justice system failed these children. And it's abhorrent. So back in 2015, a flash flood killed 13 women and children in the two towns, which initially brought Christine

• 42:58Speaker 04

  Marie in to help. She had been raised Mormon and had studied cults for years. And her own former husband had claimed to be a prophet, and the marriage had been abusive. And in 2016, she and her husband, Tolga Katas, left Las Vegas for a small stucco rental in Hildale. And there, she started a charity called Voices for Dignity, which served anyone who came to the door, whether they were staying in polygamy or leaving it. And she handed out school supplies and food. And for FLDS members uneasy about using the internet, she went online and found housing information for them. Now, her own estimate of the number of people she helped in Short Creek ran to about 2,000. And of that number, a few dozen

• 43:39Speaker 04

  at most ever left polygamy. Now, Bateman had come into their lives in 2017, two years before he claimed to be anybody. In fact, her charity was one of the things that had helped hold him up in 2019, while the divorce with his first wife was going through. And for some years, Katas had been at work on a film about how FLDS people actually lived. And Bateman heard about it in 2021. And to Katas, he looked desperate to get in on it. And what Bateman wanted was YouTube videos of himself. And neither of them was willing to hand him a platform. But still, Marie decided they should film him anyway, because she thought, quote, "They'll get used to it and we'll catch them with some evidence,"

• 44:22Speaker 04

  unquote. So throughout 2021, they filmed Bateman, his family, and his followers day after day. And the recording Marie made in the back of the Bentley that November was the first thing she took to the police. And she called police as soon as she got home and said, quote, "I got the bombshell you've been waiting for." She had spoken to Wilkinson about Bateman multiple times. Wilkinson said, quote, "There were allegations, but we did not have any witnesses coming forward and giving details of specific crimes that were occurring," unquote. Because what the department had lacked was somebody describing a specific crime. And Bateman had now described one himself, in the recording at least. However,

• 45:04Speaker 04

  Wilkinson felt the small department did not have the resources this case needed. And so in the summer of 2022, the FBI was asked to take it over. Finally. And that same summer, Marie listened to Bateman belittle Maroni Johnson, and it left her frightened for his safety as well as her own. And she hoped that she might feel more protected by making things official. Quote, "I kept saying, I want to be official." Marie was signed up as an official FBI informant. And agents told Katas to send in whatever footage he judged useful. And Katas said, quote, "Every day, there was so much evidence that was being turned in. It was terabytes of stuff," unquote. Now, the two of them doubled their

• 45:47Speaker 04

  time inside the group from 20 hours a week to essentially the equivalent of a full-time job. And Katas even lost income by turning away paying film jobs. Marie said, quote, "The more Sam's followers loved me, the more I went home and cried," unquote. Meanwhile, Juliet Johnson had begun turning up in Marie's yard, where her small son could play with the animals. Marie kept her animals as a way to steady herself and the people who came to her. So on a Friday in July of 2022, Julia said out loud to Marie that she was afraid of what Bateman might do. Marie said she told her, quote, "Following Samuel to hell

• 46:27Speaker 04

  is not doing right," unquote. And Julia answered, quote, "It isn't. And Uncle Warren says a woman does not have to follow a man to hell," unquote. And Marie then told her about the prophet in her own past and said, quote, "You're going to save your children. All of this is to save your children," unquote. And Julia said afterwards that this was the moment that was the turning point for her. And she told the FBI everything. She had already said to her husband, quote, "We're following a false prophet, and he's leading us right to hell. And I'm not going to go there anymore," unquote. Now, Warren, Levi, Maroni, and Julia's son met with Marie and Katas in secret as well. And he said, quote,

• 47:09Speaker 04

  "Starting in 2019, Sam married seven of my sisters, ranging in age from 20-ish down to nine years old. Every one of them referred to him as the devil," unquote. And around that time, Marie learned what Bateman had been teaching about people who crossed him. And certain unworthy people had to die in order to be saved, he taught. And their blood had to be spilled to do it. And the teaching was called blood atonement. And it framed the killing as a kindness. And Marie asked him who qualified for it. And Bateman said, quote, "People who intentionally go against the prophet," unquote, aka himself. And

• 47:49Speaker 04

  Marie described the situation, quote, "That would include me. We were on pins and needles," unquote. So on the 28th of August 2022, at a gas station on Highway 89 at Silver Saddle Road, a Department of Public Safety motorist assistant reported an enclosed trailer with people inside, children among them. And a trooper found him a few miles on, out on Interstate 40. And the trooper saw what the department later described as, quote, "Children's small fingers moving in the gap of the rear trailer door," unquote. Bateman eventually pulled over. His SUV carried two women, plus two girls younger than 15, and a box

• 48:30Speaker 04

  of ammunition sat in the SUV's center console. Three more girls were shut in the towed trailer, aged 11, 12, and 14. And the trailer had no air vents, and it It was August in northern Arizona, one of the hottest places in the United States of America. And their toilet was a bucket with a trash bag in it and a toilet seat on top. And there was a couch and camper chairs back there, none of it fixed down, and no seat belts. And then, the rear doors were also not properly latched. The women and girls told the trooper they were on the way to Phoenix or Tucson. But specifically, they were headed to Scottsdale to a seminar on real estate run by a motivational speaker Grant Cardone.

• 49:15Speaker 04

  And the girls had been on the phone with Bateman for nearly the whole drive. Detectives tried to speak with the whole group, but only the oldest woman said anything. And Bateman was booked into Coconino County Jail, charged with child abuse on three counts. And from the jail, he started making calls. He got several of his wives on the line and the young girls among them and told them to delete Signal. Remember the app that blocks any sort of phone companies from seeing what is being said? Quote-unquote, "The whole thing, delete every message right now." And he also demanded that every woman and girl obtain a passport. And his wives tried to delete his account and deleted their own. And a search warrant came through two days later.

• 49:57Speaker 04

  And then, on the 1st of September, his family put up $150,000 in bond and he walked out. Why are bonds a thing? I will never understand. So Christine Marie rode along the back of the vehicle that got him from jail, phone in hand, recording. And he got in beside two of his wives and asked, quote, "What I was wondering, is there a way to factory reset a phone?" unquote. Marie said, quote, "I sent it to the FBI before we even got out of the car." unquote. And his followers, meanwhile, were collecting a paper shredder for his wives' journals. And five days after that, a federal grand jury indicted him.

• 50:38Speaker 04

  And the three counts were tampering, destroying records in an official proceeding, and destroying records in a federal investigation. And not one of those counts was about the children, though, which is baffling. And federal authorities wanted to know whether children had been taken from one state to another for sexual activity, but what they could prove that week was the evidence destruction because he had ordered it on a recorded jail phone. And the following Tuesday, the 13th of September, the FBI would go in. And a week or so earlier, Kattas had told Bateman that people might be watching the property and offered to fly a drone over it for him. In reality, though, he was diagramming the house and its entrances for the FBI.

• 51:22Speaker 04

  And Bateman said, quote, "That is so smart. This is why God sent you to me. You're so smart." unquote. So the morning of that raid, Kattas arranged to meet Bateman at the warehouse, saying he wanted to film an interview. And Marie was dropped at the greenhouse. And Bateman showed up to the warehouse with three of his wives. And then, the FBI made their move. Kattas said, quote, "There were like 25 people who were in there in a second." unquote. And agents pinned Kattas to a wall the same way they pinned Bateman, so nobody in the room would know. And agents went to the greenhouse next and called the women outside with their hands up. And Marie was inside, recording and walking each of them out through the front room. Quote, "I felt as if I was walking them to freedom." unquote.

• 52:07Speaker 04

  Now, agents confiscated electronic devices from three properties. And the devices showed the group still talking on Signal, which had never actually been deleted. And the next day, the 14th, the Arizona Department of Child Safety took nine girls into custody. And on the 15th, in federal magistrate court of Flagstaff, Bateman pleaded not guilty. And his lawyer, Adam Zickerman, said he was no danger to the community. However, Judge Camille Bibles ordered him held as the case progressed through the courts. "We love to see it." And she noted, "He was a pilot and a survivalist with followers and overseas contacts who could raise money for him on short notice." Again, clapping for this judge.

• 52:50Speaker 04

  And she also said the position the young girls were in concerned her. Quote, "Courts have a tremendous interest in protecting people who can't protect themselves." unquote. So on the day of the raid, his family and followers gathered around to listen to him call from police custody. Naomi Bistline, Donna Barlow, and Moretta Rose Johnson continued forward with operations for him in his absence. So the nine girls that were taken into custody were split between group homes, with sisters kept together. The FBI believed they kept talking to one another in a shared Signal thread. And forensic interviews were carried out with the girls at the Children Welfare Agency. But not one of them described being abused by Bateman. Because at this point, I mean, they're completely brainwashed.

• 53:35Speaker 04

  Though, one said she had been present and partially nude at one of the group's sexual encounters. So agents went back to five of the girls whose journals had been taken in September, but those five would not fully take part in questioning. And the FBI believed the older girls had told the younger ones to stay quiet about Bateman. And the girl said, quote-unquote, "I can't talk to you." So on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, the 27th of November, eight of the nine left their group homes, and one girl stayed behind. Bistline, Barlow, and Johnson collected the other eight and drove them to California and then to Washington. Johnson, at one time, had been one of the younger girls herself, taken as a wife under

• 54:19Speaker 04

  18 and had since turned 18. But Bateman was in a federal cell by then. And that night, he video-called one of his adult wives and the call was recorded. And the video showed two women driving, and they told him they had two of the girls with them, using code names E1 and E2. And a later call showed two of the childwives sitting behind them. And he called again the next morning and asked why W2 was not with them. And that was the girl still in Arizona custody. And his wife told him, "They tried." And Bateman said to, "Get that girl, because it puts pressure on him when they are scattered." unquote. And then the camera panned off the two women and on to the eight girls.

• 55:03Speaker 04

  Johnson told him in another call, quote, "We are helping you." unquote. But a credit card gave them away. It had paid for an Airbnb in Spokane, Washington, booked from Tuesday through Friday. So on the 1st of December, four days after the girls left, Spokane County Sheriff's deputies found Johnson and all eight of them there. She was arrested, walking out of the rental with the girls. And the nine went back into state custody. And this time, nobody was told where so as to keep them safe. And a 22-page complaint charged Bistline, Barlow, and Johnson with kidnapping and with obstructing a federal prosecution. And two weeks later, a grand jury indicted the three of them on four counts each, adding conspiracy to both charges.

• 55:47Speaker 04

  And kidnapping alone carried punishment up to life in prison. And until then, Bateman had only been charged with tampering and destruction of evidence. But that December, however, Bistline, Barlow, and Johnson were folded into his case. And kidnapping and conspiracy counts landed on all of them, including Bateman. So the first superseding indictment took Bateman from three counts to seven. And then, in May of 2023, a second superseding indictment charged him with producing child pornography. And it described him traveling between Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and Nebraska and having sex with the girls regularly, which they had been looking to prove for some time. And it also brought in seven more of Bateman's followers and the sex charges with them.

• 56:30Speaker 04

  So by January of 2024, a third superseding indictment had taken the case to 59 counts, 52 of them against Bateman himself. 18 counts were for enticing minors into sexual activity through interstate commerce, and 12 for transporting them to engage in sexual activity. Now ultimately, the kidnapping was what finally opened the case the government had not been able to build in September. So Bateman took a plea deal in April of 2024, admitting to two counts out of the more than 50 felonies he faced. One was conspiracy to commit kidnapping, and the other, a conspiracy to move a minor between states for criminal sexual activity.

• 57:11Speaker 04

  And he acknowledged he had taken 20 wives, including the 10 underage girls, in "spiritual marriage," he would say, and admitted his purpose had been to engage in sexual activity with minor girls. Now prosecutor Dimitri Sampson wrote that the deal existed to keep his victims off the witness stand and because he had taken responsibility for his actions. But still, they ended up on the stand anyway, describing the abuse at the trials of two of Bateman's male followers. And sentencing was on December 9th, 2024, in a federal courtroom in Phoenix. Before Judge Bernavik, Bateman was in a jail jumpsuit, his wrists in shackles, and Marie and Kattas were in the room.

• 57:52Speaker 04

  And Sampson put photographs of the 10 underage girls up on screen and named each one of them. The courtroom looked at their young, smiling faces. The youngest had been nine. "Bateman was not a man of God or a prophet," Sampson argued, "but a man running a ring that sexually abused children and coerced them into marriage." Because he and two of the men following him had seen the vacuum Jeff's left, and made him profit for the purpose of obtaining, quote, "new wives, sexual activity, and more children." unquote. And Sampson wrote in a sentencing memo, quote, "These men were not victims of the FLDS teachings. They created their own ideology to serve their selfish interests, and they elevated

• 58:36Speaker 04

  the defendant as their new leader to accomplish their goals." unquote. And without a few brave People who went to the police, the men, quote, "fully intended to grow this conspiracy," unquote. Parents of the abused girls were in the courtroom, but they were there for Bateman rather than for their own daughters. And Sampson said, quote, "These girls have become the adults in the room, and they are the role models for others, that their parents should be for them," unquote. Bateman's attorney, Brian Russo, asked for 20 years served at a treatment center, and he cited a psychiatrist the defense had hired, who called Bateman, quote, unquote, "mentally ill and delusional." And that psychiatrist's opinion, as Russo put it, was that Bateman's, quote, "upbringing

• 59:21Speaker 04

  in a certain lifestyle was an indoctrination that normalized certain behavior that is otherwise criminal conduct," unquote. Then the girls spoke, and one of them had been 14 in 2021, when Bateman chose her as a wife. And her mother was one of his followers and handed her over like a piece of meat. And within weeks, he began having relations with her. She said to him, quote, "I wasn't old enough to consent, and you know it," unquote. And she had brought a list, written on lined paper and red ink, of everything she had done since his arrest. She is in high school. She got her driver's license. She wears the clothes she wants and dyed her hair, and she performed in a school play.

• 1:00:04Speaker 04

  And she said, quote, "Now you can see I never needed you, and I hope you get everything you deserve, which is absolutely nothing," unquote. And another, who was 17 by then, said she was speaking for the child she had been, who felt like a, quote, "slave," unquote, and had no voice. She spoke for the nine other girls, too, who suffered, quote, "at the hands of the man sitting in the defendant's chair today. You hurt me deeply. What you did was evil. It was wicked and shameful. You left wounds that will never heal in my life," unquote. And then she turned and looked at him. And a third had been nine in 2020, when he took her as a wife and began abusing her.

• 1:00:46Speaker 04

  She said, quote, "As a child, I had no understanding of what was happening to me. I was too young. My innocence was stolen. Despite what you think, I am no longer a little puppy running to your every command. I am a proud young woman, continuing to grow older and stronger every day," unquote. Given his chance to speak, Bateman shook his head and said nothing. Now, Bernavik was not moved by the psychiatrist, and she said, quote, "You are the one who manipulated the rules of this religion. You are the one that made yourself into a prophet, so to speak, and used that to victimize these women and girls, who, as the government points out, are now survivors," unquote. And she sentenced him to 50 years plus supervision for life.

• 1:01:30Speaker 04

  Now, outside the courthouse, Marie and Kitas held each other, and Marie said, quote, "Justice was served. I'm proud of the FLDS women that were strong enough to take a stand against abuse, and I'm proud of every one of those girls that spoke up," unquote. And Liddell J. Bistline Jr., who had handed Bateman two of his own daughters at nine and 11, was convicted at trial and sentenced to life in prison. And Torrance Bistline, who had paid for the cars and raped one of the teenage wives, got 35 years. The sentencing guidelines had called for him to receive around 11 years, but Sampson called that wildly inappropriate, and the judge agreed. Bernavik told him, quote, "You were not isolated like some of the other defendants.

• 1:02:15Speaker 04

  There has been no showing of remorse," unquote. Josephine Bistline, two of whose daughters were among the victims, got 15 years. And Leilani Barlow, who buried her underage daughter to Bateman, got six years. And Danae Barlow, who deleted the messages and drove the girls out of Arizona, got time served, six months of house arrest and three years of probation, less than the government had asked for, which is bullshit. And Naomi Bistline and Moretta Rose Johnson each got time served and three years of probation. So Bateman is currently still serving the 50 years and the supervision after it lasts the rest of his life. And exactly where he is being held, however, is not clear.

• 1:02:57Speaker 04

  St. George News reported he was in federal custody at Florence, Arizona, but the Bureau of Prisons listed him in March of 2026 as not in its custody, which can mean he's being transferred or located at a county or private facility. And meanwhile, the three felony charges from the initial traffic stop arrest, in which Bateman was towing that trailer, sat unresolved for nearly four years. And the case finally reached a Coconino County jury in June of 2026, and Bateman represented himself, and he told the jury, quote, "I have a clean slate, a very clean slate, so please keep that in mind. I am not a child abuser," unquote, just lying through his disgusting teeth. And they took just half an hour to bring back a unanimous verdict convicting him on

• 1:03:42Speaker 04

  all three counts. And then on August 25th, 2026, Judge Joshua Steinleage sentenced him to another 24 years to be served after the federal 50. And Steinleage cited the insane danger the girls had been in, along with other factors. Bateman, still representing himself, did not ask for leniency, quote, "I love these dear people with all my heart, and I had no intention in the entire world to harm them," unquote. And one of the girls from the trailer, 14 at the time, told the court that when she was 12, he had taken advantage of her sexually. She said she had needed therapy for, quote, "things that should have never happened to me as a child," unquote.

• 1:04:24Speaker 04

  And in a statement afterwards, the county attorney, Ammon Barker, said, quote, "Today's sentence is about accountability for the harm done to these young victims. It also ensures that Mr. Bateman will never again be in a position to harm a child," unquote. And to a number of his followers and adult wives, he is still the prophet. He has allowed many calls a day from prison, and he makes them. And Rachel Dretson, who directed a Netflix series about the case called Trust Me: The False Prophet, said prison had strengthened his hold rather than broken it, and that his followers considered him to have been martyred. And Marie said, quote, "That communication with him is like an IV of indoctrination. It's like they're getting fed certainty right into their veins, their belief that he is

• 1:05:09Speaker 04

  talking to God," unquote. And of the adult wives, only Naomi Bistline and Moretta Rose Johnson testified against him. Bistline still lives in Short Creek and passes his followers in the street from time to time, and all nine of the underage girls, however, have left, thankfully, and they were taken out of the community and placed in foster care. And every one of them testified. Short Creek is not what it was now. The court supervision that pulled the church out of the town's governments and their police department was lifted in the summer of 2025, nearly two years earlier than expected. And those still practicing the faith are now thought to be a small minority in the towns. The compound The Faithful Built for Warren Jeffs is a rental property now, and behind

• 1:05:54Speaker 04

  its walls, he had kept a vineyard, and a hairdresser from St. George bought the land, taught himself wine making, and built a tasting room on it. And Hilldale's mayor is Danya Jessup, a former FLDS member and the first woman to run the town, and she says many of the 10-foot concrete walls around the old compounds have been torn down. Marie is actually still there, living in the same small town as the women who have not left him, quote, "Those women deserve a life of freedom. They deserve to find true love. They deserve to know what reality is. You can't be free if you're living in a world of fiction," unquote. And that is the case of Sammy "Bull" Bateman. It's a very, a very tough case to look into.

• 1:06:38Speaker 04

  You guys did suggest it, so please let me know what other cases you would like me to deep dive into. Let me know what you guys think down in the comments, and until then, I will see your beautiful face, and please, please, stay safe out there. All right. Bye.

• 1:06:54Speaker 05

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• 1:07:23Speaker 00

  This holiday, all plans, even unlimited, are just $15 a month. A holiday deal this good obviously deserves an enormously expensive holiday song, like All I Want... Right. Okay, we can't afford that. You know what? Forget the music budget. We're gonna stick with whatever's in the public domain. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only. Greater than 50GB may slow when network is busy. See terms.