Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Slaves give their life and their wealth to cult gurus
launch her refuge, helping more women like her. There are still an estimated 10,000 members of the church in the Short Creek area. Briell’s father, brother and sister are still members. And there are fears Jeffs still runs the cult from his cell. Members of the FLDS are cut off from society and live in huge compounds.
It was behind closed doors that Jeffs was able to abuse kids – and where sex training camps were held.
Women must wear staid prairie dresses with their hair in buns – they are groomed from birth to serve the church and its male members. Men are encouraged to take at least three wives. Experts claim the practice has led to widespread marital rape and rampant underage pregnancy.
Jeffs fled his HQ as the net closed in on his twisted world of abuse and oppression. He became one of the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted Fugitives – alongside such targets as Osama bin Laden.
Now 64, he is serving a life sentence in the tough Louis C Powledge prison in Palestine, Texas. He was apprehended in 2006 and faces dying behind bars after being found guilty in 2011 of child sexual abuse in which he made a 15-year-old girl pregnant and assaulted a child bride aged 12. Asked what she would say to Jeffs now, Briell replies: “I’d simply ask, ‘Why?’ Why, when he had so much power, did he not use it for good? Power corrupts. It certainly corrupted Warren Jeffs. If I hadn’t left, I’d hate to think where I would be now.”
Each day, each fellow survivor she helps, is a good day for Briell. She has found love with a man named Steven and they are now happily married.
And while Jeffs languishes in jail, Briell is determined not to let her experience scar her for ever.
She says: “My trauma held me back for so long but I’ve been getting stronger ever since I managed to escape.”
MURDERED
The Manson Family cult was led by Charles Manson in California in the 1960s and early 1970s. Members took hallucinogenic drugs and believed Manson, who died in 2017 aged 83, was the manifestation of Jesus.
The cult made headlines after pregnant actress Sharon Tate was among five murdered in 1969.
In India, “rich man’s guru” Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh founded the Rajneesh Movement, advocating free sex.
He had 90 Rolls-Royces and members – dressed in orange – gave their wealth to him. Rajneesh, 58, once ran a commune in Oregon, US, and died in 1990.
Providence was founded by Jung Myung Seok in 1980 in South Korea and spread to a string of Asian countries, as well as Australia and New Zealand.
His church teaches sin was caused by Eve sleeping with Satan. This sin could be undone, the church claimed, by having sex with Jung as a purification rite. Women were presented to him as sex gifts. Jung, 75, served 10 years for sex crimes.