Carolyn Jessop's story is a portrait of courage
 
Viewpoints
The Arizona Republic
 
Carolyn Jessop took my breath away.

I've been a reporter, news producer and author for 30 years. I've listened to a lot of stories since I started out as a freelance radio reporter in Saigon in 1972.

But only twice in interviews do I remember trying not to exhale because I knew what I was hearing was that extraordinary.

When I was a senior producer for CNN three years ago, I flew out to Salt Lake City to do a piece on the "Lost Boys" of the FLDS, the hundreds of teenagers who'd been kicked out of the cult and told never to return to their families.

As I was leaving New York, the executive producer of the broadcast I worked for, NewsNight with Aaron Brown, said, "See if you can find some women to talk to who fled polygamy."

Not easy. But I lucked out. Utah's attorney general, Mark Shurtleff, knew about Carolyn Jessop. He said that she had a story to tell and that he'd see if she might be willing to be interviewed. She was. (Later I would learn that when Shurtleff first met with Carolyn to learn more about the FLDS under Warren Jeffs, Shurtleff had scheduled a half-hour meeting but wound up listening for 2½ hours.)

But because my interview with Carolyn came together at the last minute, I had no time to do a pre-interview. I was just grateful I had someone willing to sit down in front of a camera.

Carolyn came to the hotel with Brian, the man in her life. He sat to one side as she began to tell the story of how she escaped.

I listened as she told me how she awakened her eight children in the middle of the night on the pretext that her handicapped son was sick and needed to go to the doctor. She described taking him off his feeding tube and removing him from oxygen.

The other wives heard her up and about and called their husband, Merril Jessop, one of the most powerful men in the FLDS. Carolyn heard herself paged on the intercom. She knew she was down to minutes.

The children were strapped into their car seats. But one daughter was missing.

Carolyn had a split-second decision to make: Does she run back to find Betty and put all her children at risk, or does she take off now?

I could feel her terror in the marrow of my bones. Through my peripheral vision, I could see tears streaming down Brian's face.

How could a woman be so desperate? So unprotected? Why, when she was 18, was she forced to become the fourth wife of a 50 year-old man? How could women and children be systematically abused for years in an extremist cult that has been declared a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center? Why didn't authorities intervene sooner?

Carolyn wanted to write a book to expose the evil and violence that were perpetrated in the name of religion.

We wrote Escape together, and I can say without any reservations that this is one of the finest, most courageous and heroic women I know.

I think the FLDS is an engine of evil. My hope is that the raid on the Texas compound will be the beginning of its end.

Laura Palmer was an independent producer for ABC's "Nightline" for seven years, reported for ABC and later NBC, was a senior producer for CNN news. She is co-author of "Escape."
 
azcentral.com
Originally published Sunday, May 11, 2008
 
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