Ex-FLDS members plead for help in finding missing children, getting them to safety

Written by Jeff Richards
April 19, 2023

CEDAR CITY — Several ex-members of The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints spoke at a news conference in Cedar City on Monday, asking for help to be reunited with their children and other loved ones who remain under the custody and control of the church and its followers.

Ex-FLDS member Mirinda Johnson speaks to individual reporters following a news conference in front of 5th District Courthouse, Cedar City, Utah, April 17, 2023 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News/Cedar City News

“Everybody needs to be aware of really how dangerous this really is,” Alicia Burnham said of FLDS leaders who are doing “whatever it takes” to retain custody of the children. 

At least 17 children are known to have gone missing; although six of them have been found successfully, the other 11 remain unaccounted for, said Tonia Tewell, who organized the event. Tewell is the executive director of Holding Out HELP, a nonprofit organization that assists individuals and families who choose to leave the FLDS church and other polygamous communities.

Sam Brower, a private investigator in Cedar City who has been heavily involved with helping the cause for the past several years, commended the ex-FLDS speakers for their courage.

“It is so taboo for anybody within the FLDS to step up and speak, like these mothers have, and talk about what’s going on,” he said. “It’s just unheard of.

“So when you hear and see this happening, that is, I mean, it’s nothing short of a miracle. And it’s nothing short of demonstrating their tenacity and courage, and the fact that they really mean business on this.”

Private attorney Roger Hoole, another advocate, summed up the situation thusly:

We’re getting into a situation where you’ve got one parent versus another parent, both with equal constitutional religious rights. But one parent is instructed by the church not to have any contact with the other parent, and not to allow the children to have any contact with the non-FLDS parent. That’s the dilemma we’ve got there. And the law has a way to solve that problem. There are rules in place for the protection of children.

Hoole also distributed copies of a 10-page document containing a revelation by FLDS president Warren Jeffs, who is serving a life sentence in a Texas prison but still is considered by his followers to be the church’s top leader and prophet.

Charlene Jeffs, ex-wife of FLDS leader Lyle Jeffs, speaks during a news conference in front of 5th District Courthouse, Cedar City, Utah, April 17, 2023 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News/Cedar City News

The revelation, which is presented like a chapter of a book of scripture, is dated Aug. 10, 2022. It proclaims that the second coming of Jesus Christ is less than five and a half years away and tells faithful church members to prepare for that event.

“They will prepare themselves and their children to either be translated or celestial resurrected,” it states in verse 59, apparently referring to an instantaneous change from one’s mortal state to that of an immortal being. 

Verse 92 elaborates on this idea by stating, “Because translated people must die. This is called in the scripture ‘twinkling of the eye.’”

The doomsday implications of that message are alarming to many ex-FLDS members and advocates, more than one of whom used the term “red flag.”

Charlene Jeffs, an ex-wife of Warren Jeffs’ brother Lyle, said at the news conference that she has seven adult children who are still within the FLDS community.

“To know that there’s a timeframe on them being celestialized, it scares the living crap out of me,” she said. “Because I will lose my kids. I have nine grandkids in there. And it is scary. It is real. And we really need to have the state of Utah and these other states wake up and realize that this is a problem and we shouldn’t sweep it under the carpet any longer.

“We’re done. We are speaking out. We are fighting for our kids and we’re fighting for other people’s kids that are going through this same kind of crap.”

Charlene Jeffs said she believes the church has strayed from the true teachings of Jesus Christ.

“When they shut mothers out or their apostate dads out, they are not following the greatest commandment that God has given, and that is to love one another,” she said.

Georgia Cooke, who said she was 12 when she and other family members left the FLDS church, said that she believed at the time that she’d be dead within a year as well as condemned to eternal damnation.

“I was willing to do anything that I was told out there,” she said. “So these threats are very real.”

Cooke said children within the FLDS community are simply obeying as they’ve always been commanded to do.

“They’re just doing what they’re told,” she said. “And if they don’t do what they’re told, they lose everything. They lose their family, they lose food, they get abused. They need help.”

Ex-FLDS member Lorraine Jessop speaks about her missing children Nathan, Summer and Benjamin Barlow, whom she hasn’t seen since Feb. 4, 2023, after a news conference in front of 5th District Courthouse, Cedar City, Utah, April 17, 2023 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News/Cedar City News

Another speaker was Lydia Black, an ex-FLDS mother who described herself as an “apostate,” generally defined as one who renounces a religious or political belief or principle.

She also spoke of losing contact with her children.

“I have three adult children who have been cut off from me as soon as they turned 18,” she said. “Their dad says that if  they have anything to do with me, then they’ll lose their religion and he’ll have nothing to do with them.”

After the news conference, numerous participants remained and answered reporters’ questions individually.  

Cedar City resident Lorraine Jessop sat on the grass and displayed photos of her three children whom she hasn’t seen in more than two and a half months. Jessop said her children Nathan Barlow, 16, Summer Barlow, 13, and Benjamin Barlow, 12, were taken from her home in the middle of the night on Feb. 4. Jessop said the children’s father is deceased and that she is being denied rightful custody.

Cedar City Police flyer asking for public’s help in finding siblings Nathan, Summer and Benjamin Barlow, who have been missing since Feb. 4, 2023 | Photo courtesy of Cedar City Police, St. George News/Cedar City News

Mirinda Johnson, another mother who has lost contact with her children, told reporters, “It’s not good for my kids or anyone to see this type of behavior swept under the rug. So I say again, this trend will continue to grow unless it is taken more seriously. The people who have our children have found a loophole, to simply just deny … they have our children or know where they are.”

Johnson also said she hoped her message would somehow find its way to her teenage sons.

“I know when you see this, you will be encouraged to mock and laugh at me,” she told reporters in response to what she’d like to say to her boys. “Regardless, I’m just grateful for a way to hopefully get a message to you. Maybe you will feel anger towards me and I’m sorry for that. But I am not the victim here.

“You, all the children, all the missing children, are the ones unfairly and cruelly caught up in this debacle. And you need peace. You do not need nor do you deserve to be a fugitive and live your life in fear. I want to encourage you to seek the help that you need. Ask the questions and find the answers because the answers are out there, and I hope you will someday recognize the sheer amount of courage that it takes for myself and these other moms to speak up in this way today.”

Cedar City News also spoke at length with members of the Jeff and Erna Black family, who are one of the fortunate few families now completely intact after having been separated. Five of the Black children, ranging from their mid-teens to mid-20s, spoke during the news conference.

In the summer of 2017, after the children had been held in the custody of FLDS caretakers for approximately two years, the Blacks’ oldest daughter Aarona was able to drive some of her siblings away from where they were being harbored and back to their parents. Aarona and two other siblings were then able to rejoin the rest of the family a couple years later.

Aarona’s sister Leandra brought to the news conference several handwritten journals that she’d kept during the time they were separated from their parents, wherein she documented the physical and mental abuse that she and her siblings had suffered at the hands of their caretakers.

Jeff Black said that while he, his wife and children are still processing the shared trauma, they are much happier now that everyone is together. He said their hope is that by sharing their story, they can help inspire others in similar situations.

Leandra Black said that she now wants to be a source of support for anyone who wants to listen or who “feels like they just want to walk away.”

For more information about Holding Out HELP and its mission, visit its website.

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Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2023, all rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeff Richards, a native of Salt Lake City with family roots in Panguitch, lived in Moab for 20 years before joining St. George News in 2017. Jeff is a longtime journalist and secondary school teacher. He and his wife Penny are the parents of five daughters. They also have three young grandsons. Jeff and his family enjoy swimming, camping, sightseeing, reading, and taking pictures.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @stgnews@moabjeff@stgnewssports

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