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My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs
William Morrow
June 2008
On Sale: June 1, 2008
448 pages
ISBN: 0061628018
EAN: 9780061628016
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
In September 2007, a packed courtroom in St. George, Utah,
sat hushed
as Elissa Wall, the star witness against polygamous sect
leader Warren
Jeffs, gave captivating testimony of how Jeffs forced her to
marry her
first cousin at age fourteen. This harrowing and vivid
account proved
to be the most compelling evidence against Jeffs, showing
the harsh
realities of this closed community and the lengths to which
Jeffs went
in order to control the sect's women. Now, in this
courageous
memoir, Elissa Wall tells the incredible and inspirational
story of how
she emerged from the confines of the Fundamentalist Church
of Latter
Day Saints (FLDS) and helped bring one of America's most
notorious
criminals to justice. Offering a child's perspective on life
in the
FLDS, Wall discusses her tumultuous youth, explaining how
her family's
turbulent past intersected with her strong will and
identified her as a
girl who needed to be controlled through marriage. Detailing
how Warren
Jeffs's influence over the church twisted its already rigid
beliefs in
dangerous new directions, Wall portrays the inescapable
mind-set and
unrelenting pressure that forced her to wed despite her repeated
protests that she was too young. Once she was
married, Wall's
childhood shattered as she was obligated to follow Jeffs's
directives
and submit to her husband in "mind, body, and soul." With
little money
and no knowledge of the outside world, she was trapped and
forced to
endure the pain and abuse of her loveless relationship, which
eventually pushed her to spend nights sleeping in her truck
rather than
face the tormentor in her bed. Yet even in those
bleak times,
she retained a sliver of hope that one day she would find a
way out,
and one snowy night that came in the form of a rugged
stranger named
Lamont Barlow. Their chance encounter set in motion a
friendship and
eventual romance that gave her the strength she needed to
break free
from her past and sever the chains of the church.
But though she was out of the FLDS, Wall would still have to
face Jeffs—this time in court. In Stolen Innocence,
she delves into the difficult months on the outside that led
her to
come forward against him, working with prosecutors on one of the
biggest criminal cases in Utah's history, so that other
girls still
inside the church might be spared her cruel fate.
More than a tale of survival and freedom, Stolen
Innocence is the story of one heroic woman who stood up
for what was right and reclaimed her life.
Comments
1 comment posted.
Re: Stolen Innocence
Thank you for having the courage to share your story with us. I imagine that it can be very difficult to deviate from what you are taught as a child and teenager. What my parents, family and church taught me from my birth are still very important to me, but it is much less restrictive than what you must have experienced. May God protect and keep you as you now travel a different path. I'll try to find your book.
(Sigrun Schulz 12:24pm July 29, 2011)
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