Carolyn Jessop, the former wife of known polygamist Merrill Jessop, spoke on NBC's Today Show in regards to the recent raid of a polygamist compound in Texas.
Jessop, an author of a polygamist memoir "Escape", told Today Show correspondent Matt Lauer that the compound breeds a mentality that keeps women trapped.
Merrill Jessop oversees the ranch and is a presiding elder in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), the sect in charge of the compound in Eldorado, Texas.
The FLDS sect was founded Warren Jeffs, who is serving two consecutive sentences of five years to life for being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old wed to her cousin in Utah. Jeffs awaits trial on other charges in Arizona.
Carolyn Jessop also said that the sect practices “a form of pedophilia hiding behind a religion as a protection. There’s just a desire to control and manipulate and torture people, and religion is just used as the cover.” She left the sect in 2004 before they move to Eldorado.
Child welfare officials said Tuesday they had completed removing 416 children from the ranch and have won custody of all the children. Another 136 women left on their own.
The 16-year-old girl whose phone call triggered the massive raid told officials that her husband beat and raped her, according to court documents released Tuesday.
This is the first Texas investigation with the FLDS. However, prosecutors in Utah and Arizona have been investigated sect members in recent years.
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