FLDS escapee says South Dakotans should be worried
 Flora Jessop says South Dakotans have reason to be worried about the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) compound discovered recently in Custer County.
 
By Norma Najacht
Custer County Chronicle
 
Jessop should know. Born into the Hildale, Utah, compound, she escaped from the FLDS when she was 16 years old. Jessop said she wasn't surprised when she learned of the South Dakota compound because the FLDS has been spreading out in preparation for taking over the North American continent. The FLDS believes that the second coming of Christ will cleanse the earth and FLDS members will be the only ones left for a place in Heaven, she said.

"It's fascinating to watch," Jessop said. "Before they start building a compound, they court law enforcement, portraying an image that they are harmless."

However, Warren Jeffs, FLDS prophet, is not on the FBI's Most Wanted List because it's all hype, she added. "It's very disturbing," she said. "In fact, one of Jeffs' idols is Hitler. "They're very racist."

They are so racist, the Southern Poverty Law Center categorizes them as the most rabid hate group in the nation, she said. Jessop said Jeffs' followers take an oath to die and kill for him and are taught law enforcement is enemy number one. "One day they will go to war with law enforcement and the streets will run red with the blood of the enemy," she said. "We were taught that from the time we could walk."

She said the compounds aren't like homes in that they are fortified, built with thick walls and stocked with food, clothing and other survival items.

"They are very much armed. They have many, many weapons," she said. "The possibility for violence is there." As for Jeffs, "We're talking about David Koresh, Jim Jones and 9-11 all wrapped up in one nice little package," Jessop said. "These guys are very dangerous."

Because of the image they portrayed in Arizona and Utah and the way they courted law enforcement, and because of the way law enforcement there protected them, South Dakota, Texas, Nevada and Colorado now have a problem, she said. The incest is unbelievable in the FLDS, she added, because Jeffs believes women are a commodity and are required to have as many children as they can.

In fact, she said she was raped by her own father. When the abuse got so bad that she was willing to trade heaven for hell, she left.

One of her sisters recently gave birth to a child with no arms and no legs. She said South Dakotans can expect to foot the bill for their health care issues, as well as welfare.

"Most people can't afford to take care of four children," she said. "My mother had 17 and the average woman has 14-17 children. Think of the growth!"

Jessop also suggested that South Dakota residents look into the birth defects of the FLDS. "Arizona funds $8 million a year because of birth defects," she said. "Taxpayers from your state are going to have to support the large medical bills that are going to be coming out of this compound."

Jessop's grandfather was the patriarch for both the Barlow and Jessop lines. "He was a carrier of Fumarase Deficiency. There were only 13 cases worldwide until recently. Now there are 20 just in Colorado City, Utah.

"But that's not all," she continued. "Tourette's Syndrome, Down's Syndrome, lymphodema, hair lip, cleft palate, children born with split organs or their organs outside their bodies are just rampant because of the incest."

The FLDS has implemented a breeding program for blonde and red haired children, she said, because they don't tan and that would prove that there is no Negro blood in a person's lineage.

Jessop fought hard for her freedom from the FLDS. After turning to the Department of Child and Family Services in Utah for protection, she was sent back to the polygynous compound where she was severely punished for running away. For the next three years, she was kept in seclusion, held hostage by her uncle Fred Jessop, and kept even from her mother and siblings until her escape in 1986.

Escape wasn't easy for Jessop. "In order to get out, you have to run and, as a female, they hunt you down," she said. If you're caught, they abuse you even worse.

Jessop says she was lucky because her maternal grandmother married into the group.

"Before she died, she taught me that I had worth as an individual. It didn't matter who owned me," she said. "Her strength gave me the strength to fight back."

An incident when she was very young also left an indelible impression.

"We were taught to do unto others as we wanted others to do unto us," she said. "But when I was 8 years old, an old man who had broken down on the highway stopped to ask for help. They stuck a double-barreled shotgun in his face and told him he had 10 minutes to get out of town. I didn't see why they couldn't help him."

It was at that point that she started questioning the group's teachings.

Jessop, who now lives in Phoenix with her husband and two children, is executive director of Child Protection Project and has been involved in offering aid to approximately 400 others who have managed to achieve freedom from the FLDS. She has been directly involved in the rescue of nine women and children.

"Every child deserves freedom," she said. Freedom of going to sleep without fear. Freedom of education. Freedom from abuse. Free to be ... a child."

While the young girls suffer sexual abuse, evidence suggests that the some of the young boys also suffer.

A Hildale construction firm, Paragon Contractors, has been fined $10,395 for using boys, including a 12-year-old, to do roofing work, according to the Salt Lake Tribune in its March 23 edition.

The firm also failed to pay the boys, according to the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division.

Paragon, owned by Brian Jessop, was fined for employing two boys, ages 12 and 13, to work on residential home construction jobs in 2005.

The department said those boys and a 15-year-old boy were found working on a roof in violation of a law that sets the minimum age at 18 for such hazardous work. Additionally, the 15-year-old was seen operating a table saw in violation of youth employment regulations.

Paragon was ordered to pay the boys $3,296 in back wages, but the firm is appealing the penalty.
 
custercountynews.com
Originally published March 30, 2006
 
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