When police raided the Short Creek compound of the Fundamental Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 1953, it soon became a political
and publicity nightmare and eventually cost the governor of Arizona his
job. From that point on, skittish public officials allowed the
polygamist sect to practice its tenants unmolested for the next 50 years
and turned a blind eye to child abandonment, kidnapping, statutory rape,
incest, and massive tax and welfare fraud.
But then Warren Jeffs, a new FLDS prophet, escalated the sect's crimes
to near madness. Activists watched in horror as he used his limitless
authority and the resources of a tax-supported community--in essence, a
feudal empire on the Utah/Arizona border--to devastate thousands of
lives on cruel whims, marrying girls as young as 11 to 60-year-old men
and driving off teenage "lost boys" who Jeffs felt threatened his
authority.
Answer Them Nothing is the chilling story of the victims, activists,
prosecutors, judges, cops, and attorneys who in 2001 began the struggle
to dismantle the FLDS empire and bring Jeffs and his henchmen to
justice. It is a mesmerizing journey into one of America's darkest
corners, a story that stretches over three states and deep into history
of the powerful Mormon Church.
