This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
While hundreds, maybe thousands, of Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints members have left the faith in the last decade, one subgroup remains rather elusive: the wives of Warren Jeffs.
Texas records indicated that Jeffs, the church president who is serving a prison sentence in that state, married 81 times to women and girls. One of the few to speak is Brielle Decker.
Decker has given interviews in recent years. The latest is with the podcast "Year of Polygamy."
Here are a few highlights — if that's the word — from Decker.
• Decker grew up in Sandy and attended the FLDS' Alta Academy, where Jeffs was headmaster. She moved to Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., as a teenager.
• Her sister was married to Jeffs' father, Rulon Jeffs, then she married Warren Jeffs after his father died.
• At age 18, her father "turned her in." He wrote a letter to church leaders, recommending her for marriage. The father received a phone call in reply the same day.
• It wasn't a happy occasion. Decker's mother screamed "no" when she heard. Siblings told her that marrying into the Jeffs family was like going to a funeral.
• Decker never had sex education and worried about her lack of knowledge when she was on her way to marry Warren Jeffs.
• Eventually she wound up in a "House of Hiding," where the FLDS stash people they don't want law enforcement to find. She quit going to some of the spiritual trainings Warren Jeffs would lead over the telephone.
• To move her among the houses of hiding, Decker said, her caretakers gave her a pill that made her sleepy.
• One caretaker threatened to kill her.
Click here to listen to the podcast.
Twitter: @natecarlisle