Cult Insanity - A Memoir of Polygamy, Prophets, and Blood Atonement

"My name is Flora Jessop. I've been called apostate, vigilante, and crazy bitch, and maybe I am. But some people call me a hero, and I'd like to think they're right too. If I am a hero, maybe it's because every time I can play a part in saving a child or a woman from a life of servitude and degradation, I'm saving a little piece of me, too.

I was one of twenty-eight children born to my dad and his three wives. Indoctrinated to believe that the outside world was evil, and that I resided among the righteous, I was destined to marry a man chosen for me by the Prophet. I would then live in harmony with my sister-wives, bear many children, and obey and serve my future husband in this life and throughout eternity. But my innocence didn't last long. While still a child, I understood that the church of the righteous was nothing but a church of lies.

When I was eight years old my father sexually molested me for the first time, raping me when I was twelve. I tried to kill myself. Beaten, molested, taunted, and abused by family members alleging they only wanted to save my soul became a daily routine, I ran from this abuse more than once in my early teens--even attempting to cross the desert on foot. My family hunted me down. I thought government agencies would provide me safety if I reported my father. Instead, police and social services colluded with the FLDS to return me to my family and I ended up back inside polygamy, right where I started."

Though Sophia (Kristyn Decker,) wasn?t entirely aware of it until she began writing this book, she had always been on her way out of polygamy. It started with baby steps?from early years of neglect, molestation, and abuse?to giant steps, after marrying at seventeen and then eight years later encouraging her husband to take another wife?and further onward. To avoid feelings of anger, jealousy, and pain, Sophie graciously kept a sweet smile plastered across her face and became a numb but ?righteous? workaholic.

During many tumultuous years as a polygamist wife, mother, leader, teacher, and passionate person, most of her questions and concerns were never fully answered. Her heart struggled with what were deemed God?s commandments and his myriad of puzzle pieces that never quite seemed to fit. Her flight from polygamy truly began to soar when a friend rescued her from years of self-loathing and suicidal depression. Propelling her onward was Sophie?s plight to get her sixteen-year-old daughter off the streets and off drugs. As her daughter began receiving court-appointed therapeutic help, Sophie began to discover herself?a woman she now loves and honors.

After five decades of anguish and lies?of watching herself and others fail a commandment fraught with impossible rules and threats of heaven or hell, Sophie chose heaven.

This is her story.

Please visit her website, fiftyyearsinpolygamy.com

"A remarkable man on many levels, Sam Brower is the real deal.
Readers are apt to find his firsthand account of bringing Warren Jeffs
to justice both extremely disturbing and absolutely riveting."-Jon
Krakauer, from the foreword

From the private investigator who cracked open the case that led to
the arrest of Warren Jeffs, the maniacal prophet of the polygamous
Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), comes the
page-turning, horrifying story of how a rogue sect used sex, money, and
power disguised under a facade of religion to further criminal
activities and a madman's vision.

Despite considerable press coverage and a lengthy trial, the full
story has remained largely untold. Only one man can reveal the whole,
astounding truth: Sam Brower, the private investigator who devoted years
of his life to breaking open the secret practices of the FLDS and
bringing Warren Jeffs and his inner circle to justice. In Prophet's Prey,
Brower implicates Jeffs in his own words, bringing to light the
contents of Jeffs's personal priesthood journal, discovered in a hidden
underground vault, and revealing to readers the shocking inside world of
FLDS members, whose trust he earned and who showed him the staggering
truth of their lives.

Prophet's Prey offers the gripping, behind-the-scenes account of a bizarre world from the only man who knows the full story.

For eighteen years I was a prisoner. I was an object for someone to use and abuse.

For eighteen years I was not allowed to speak my own name. I became a mother and was forced to be a sister. For eighteen years I survived an impossible situation.

On August 26, 2009, I took my name back. My name is Jaycee Lee Dugard. I don’t think of myself as a victim. I survived.

A Stolen Life is my story—in my own words, in my own way, exactly as I remember it.

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The pine cone is a symbol that represents the seed of a new beginning for me. To help facilitate new beginnings, with the support of animal-assisted therapy, the J A Y C Foundation provides support and services for the timely treatment of families recovering from abduction and the aftermath of traumatic experiences—families like my own who need to learn how to heal. In addition, the J A Y C Foundation hopes to facilitate awareness in schools about the important need to care for one another.

Our motto is “Just Ask Yourself to . . . Care!”

A portion of my proceeds from this memoir will be donated to The J A Y C Foundation Inc.