Viswa Vanapalli
The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints saw a significant shakeup in leadership when Warren Jeffs took over in 2002 after his father’s death. However, in the years that followed, authorities discovered that he was taking child brides and sexually assaulting them, as touched upon in Netflix’s ‘Trust Me: The False Prophet.’ On the other hand, Peacock’s ‘Preaching Evil: A Wife on the Run With Warren Jeffs’ focuses on the religious sect’s history and recent developments, with Warren’s eventual conviction being a part of it.
Warren Jeffs Continues to Hold the Title of Leader and Prophet Within the FLDS Sect
By May 2006, the FBI had placed Warren Jeffs on its Most Wanted list after he was indicted for performing the marriage of an underage girl. He was arrested just months later during a traffic stop in Nevada. While Warren began what turned out to be a lengthy prison stint, the question of who would lead the FLDS had become critical. Initially, his brother, Lyle Jeffs, took over the day-to-day activities, making him the de facto leader.
At that point, Warren enforced his rules through his brother, communicating with him through calls and letters from within the 4 walls of a prison. Lyle was then named the bishop of Short Creek, the area straddling Arizona and Utah, where the FLDS members had settled a long time ago. During that time, Lyle enforced many rigid rules that included banning certain foods, sex between spouses, and secular media. The members were forbidden from viewing any evidence collected by the authorities against Warren.
However, by 2016, even Lyle went on the run after authorities believed he and the leadership were part of a food stamp scam that amounted to about $12 million. He was arrested in June 2017 and later sentenced to almost five years in federal prison. Before that, it was reported that Lyle and Warren had a falling out, and the former was removed as the bishop of Short Creek, being replaced by another sibling, Nephi. Warren still had control while in prison and ordered the followers to renew their commitment to the FLDS.
While Nephi was the new bishop, he still received instructions from Warren. The authorities stated there was evidence that Warren, who still remains the prophet, runs the day-to-day operations from behind bars. He continued to handle things like exiling members and deciding which caretaker the women would be placed with. The authorities further suspected that Warren’s brothers used secret devices to record their weekly meetings with him. Earlier, Warren had also made conference calls from prison to preach. There were times when other individuals, like Sam Bateman, tried to declare themselves the Prophet and Warren’s successor, but it never panned out. So today, for all intents and purposes, Warren remains the beloved leader of the FLDS Church.
The FLDS Church Remains a Strong Sect
Recent reports have estimated that around 6,000 to 10,000 members are still a part of FLDS. However, an exact figure is difficult to obtain since the community has remained cut off from the outside world. Many members still believe that Warren is serving time in prison as a way to atone for their sins. As per the show, since procreation was banned in 2011, it seems that there have been no children since then. Some FLDS members remain in Short Creek, Texas, South Dakota, British Columbia, and Mexico.
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