Becky and Roy Jeffs recently left the 10,000-member Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints; two of Jeffs’ other children have done the same.
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The siblings are only two of the four children of Jeffs that left the enclaves of FLDS located in Colorado City, Utah and Hildale, Ariz. Today, Lyle Jeffs is the leader of the church and runs daily sect business while Warren Jeffs dictates command from his prison cell. They said they were abused as children.
“It is the husband’s responsibility to hold the hands of their wives while the seed bearer “spreads his seed”. Sam Brower maintains the no-contact rule between FLDS husbands and wives was so stringent that the couples were not even permitted to share a hug or shake hands.
Warren Jeffs shown with an alleged child bride in a court evidence filing.
Bower also claimed Warren Jeffs had withheld all relationships between husbands and wives.
It was Jeff’s sister-in-law Charlene Jeffs, who first deemed the FLDS church leaders allowed to have sex with compound women, as seed bearers.
Charlene Jeffs – who is the estranged wife of Lyle Jeffs, Warren Jeffs’ brother – filed for child custody earlier this year. Charlene detailed what she said occurred at the Yearning for Zion Ranch in a petition about the “ceremonial rape” a child custody proceeding earlier this year. He has approximately 60 children by approximately 78 wives.
“It’s ritualistic procreation”, he said, adding that the rapes were “performed on a ritualistic bed-slash-altar”.
Tony Gutierrez/AP Police swarmed the church’s Texas compound in 2008 and removed almost 500 children in the raid.
Warren Jeffs was imprisoned in 2011 for aggravated sexual assault of two teenage girls.
The mainstream Mormon church renounced polygamy over 100 years ago, however a few breakaway sects like FLDS continue the practice.
In the document, “seed bearers” are defined as “elect” men of a “worthy blood line chosen by the Priesthood to impregnate” women.
They left as adults to make a life of their own away from the polygamous Mormon sect that sexually abused them as kids.
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Both Roy and Becky believe that their father assaulted numerous children in the church, although they are not totally sure of the numbers.
