Briell Decker, who became the 65th wife of US cult leader Warren Jeffs at age 18, has described her harrowing escape from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) and her efforts to help others flee the polygamous sect. Decker, now 24, climbed out of a window in a trailer home in Short Creek, the twin towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, to escape her brother and his wife, who were enforcing the cult's rules.
Six years after her escape, Decker has turned the $1.2m mansion where she once lived with Jeffs into a refuge for women fleeing the FLDS. Jeffs, 62, is serving a life sentence for sexually assaulting two girls aged 12 and 14, whom he called his 'spiritual wives'. He has married around 80 women and children, though the state does not recognise these unions. Decker says she was 'terrified' on her wedding day and that Jeffs subjected her to 'bad trainings', a euphemism for sexual acts he claimed were ordained by God.
The FLDS, which split from the Mormon church in 1930 to continue practising polygamy, has ruled Short Creek for three generations. But change is coming: last November, Hildale elected its first female, non-FLDS mayor; a new police chief with no ties to the community was sworn in after a jury found the previous force guilty of religious discrimination; and the town has opened its first bar. Decker's refuge, opened last year, is helping more women escape the cult.
