Malignant trauma and the invisibility of ritual abuse, Origins of Neo-Nazi and White Supremacist Terms, Neighbors of polygamist cult issue - FLDS

 -  Malignant trauma and the invisibility of ritual abuse

-   Origins of Neo-Nazi and White Supremacist Terms and Symbols - A Glossary

-  Neighbors of polygamist cult issue warning to Minnesota - FLDS

  

 

Malignant trauma and the invisibility of ritual abuse

Michael Salter

Salter, M. (2019) Malignant trauma and the invisibility of ritual abuse,
Attachment: New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis, 13(1), forthcoming.

 

Introduction
This paper draws on psychoanalytic understandings of malignant trauma to explain the invisibility of ritual abuse. Ritual abuse refers to the misuse of rituals in the organized sexual abuse of children (Salter, 2012). Ritual abuse is typically practiced in extended family networks and criminal groups that participate in the production and circulation of child exploitation material (CEM).

 

Despite claims that ritual abuse is a hoax or a product of false memories, cases of ritual abuse have been substantiated in child sexual assault prosecutions since the 1980s, including major cases in Canada (Steed, 1995), Belgium and England (Kelly, 1998), the United States (Ellzey, 2007) and Wales (Morris, 2011). Invisibility is a consistent theme in the lives of victims and survivors of ritual abuse. While there is now a considerable literature on the therapeutic treatment of ritually abused children and adults (e.g. Badouk Epstein, Schwartz, & Wingfield Schwartz, 2011; Miller, 2012; Schwartz, 2013), ritual abuse is largely unrecognized outside of the trauma and dissociation field as a distinct form of exploitation. International efforts to develop a coordinated response to the ritual abuse of children in the 1990s in countries such as Australia, the UK and USA were halted or reversed in the face of a media-driven backlash (Salter, 2017).

 

The invisibility of ritual abuse remains as a doubled trauma for survivors, who endure the effects of past or current abuse amidst the denial of that abuse (Matthew & Barron, 2015), and a vicarious trauma risk for therapists, who treat a profoundly vulnerable and needy client group against a backdrop of professional uncertainty and skepticism (Scott, 1998). This paper uses qualitative data from interviews with ritual abuse survivors and mental health practitioners to argue that the trauma of ritual abuse and its invisibility are co-constitutive. Cultural and familial environments shaped by an infantile dread of human vulnerability are the primary conditions of possibility for ritual abuse, as this dread prompts enactments of traumatized cruelty within contexts with scant capacity to acknowledge or address this form of violence. The mechanisms for the reproduction of ritual abuse are thus submerged within psychosocial structures of normalization, exploitation and dissociation.

 

The article begins with an explanation of malignant trauma and its applicability to ritual abuse, before examining the social and psychological processes within which ritual abuse victimization is rendered undetectable. The article discusses the enforced disappearance of ritual abuse from public policy and how the provision of care to ritual abuse survivors has become contingent on its denial and erasure. The article closes by reflecting on the role of therapists and others in interrupting the malignancy of ritual abuse, and the possibilities of crafting cultural resources and moral frameworks to transform the dread at the core of ritual abuse....

 

Conclusion
Theories of malignant trauma offers solutions to the gordian knot of ritual abuse, and the specific dilemmas and paradoxes that it poses: How could parents commit such atrocities on their own children? Why would paedophile rings engage in bizarre ritualistic behavior? And how could networks of child torture flourish amidst the surveillance of the contemporary state? This article illuminates the psychosocial structures within which ritual abuse is concealed and reproduced, in which the intergenerational transmission of ritual abuse is secured through projective cruelty in the embodied resolution of autistic-contiguous anxiety. While the ritual and religious dimensions of ritual abuse channels the vitality of the autistic-contiguous mode into atrocity, it remains concealed within the collective dread of perpetrators, victims and bystanders.

 

This study of ritual abuse provides further evidence for the critical importance of addressing the mechanisms and contexts within which familial sexual violence is intergenerationally transmitted. Gentile (2017) observed the focus of psychoanalytic scholarship on trans-generational trauma on the Holocaust and other forms of mass genocide. Despite the existence of “only a handful of articles that describe sexual violence through the lens of trans-generational trauma”, she notes that the majority of cases she observes in clinical work involve “generations of domestic violence, sexual violence and profound neglect” (p 170). With between 10% and one third of therapists reporting contact with survivors of organised and ritual abuse (Salter & Richters, 2012), identifying and treating familial cultures of sexual violence is vital to the disruption of malignant trauma.

This article argues that ritual abuse survivors are victims of a persistent failure of cultural memory, in which the evacuative responses of perpetrators to dread are reproduced by bystanders and larger systems and processes. The invisibility of ritual abuse is guaranteed by social structures and systems that deny the possibility of the ritualised violation of children, and that refuse to attribute reparative meaning to the struggles of survivors to speak and be heard. In such a context, the malevolent expulsion of dread is multiply determined at the intra-psychic, interpersonal and collective level, of which the dissociation and reenactment of ritual abuse is the inevitable result. The framework of malignant trauma points towards the intersection of forces that are at work in the disappearance and invisibility of evils such as ritual abuse; forces that are grounded in human subjectivity and relationality, and thus present in us all. Indeed, Alford (2016) argues that trauma is irreducibly social and psychological, in which the risks, impacts and understandings of violence and loss are mediated by cultural and political processes.

 

The solution is to craft symbolic resources at the individual and collective level that attribute significance to tragedy, loss and vulnerability as inevitable features of human existence, rather than as embarrassing and avoidable contingencies. The experience of ritual abuse survivors suggests that conceptualisations of abuse and trauma capable of withstanding evacuative impulses may also prompt renewed ethical commitments to the disruption of evil. At the individual and social level, it would seem that the symbolization of dread is intimately involved with moral growth and the containment of malignant trauma.
https://www.academia.edu/38306864/Malignant_trauma_and_the_invisibility_of_ritual_abuse

Origins of Neo-Nazi and White Supremacist Terms and Symbols - A Glossary
The eruption of neo-Nazism and White Supremacy on display in Charlottesville in August 2017 and at other rallies across the country has exposed the public to symbols, terms, and ideology drawn directly from Nazi Germany and Holocaust-era fascist movements. Some of those who carried torches and swastika flags in Charlottesville weren’t afraid to openly call themselves Nazis.

 

The leaders of today’s Neo-Nazi and White Supremacist organizations are not Adolf Hitler, and America is not Germany, but, in order to understand their agenda, it is vital to understand the history of these code words, symbols, and ideologies. See more resources for confronting hate below....

 

Nazi Racial Ideology

Hitler was obsessed with race long before becoming Chancellor of Germany. His speeches and writings spread his belief that the world was engaged in an endless racial struggle. White Nordic people topped the racial hierarchy; Slavs, Blacks, and Arabs were lower, and Jews, who were believed to be an existential threat to the “Aryan Master race,” were at the very bottom. When the Nazis came to power, these beliefs became government ideology and were spread publicly in posters, radio, movies, classrooms and newspapers. They also served as a basis for a campaign to reorder German society, first through the exclusion of Jews from public life, then the murder of disabled Germans as well as Slavs and, ultimately, the effort to exterminate European Jewry....
https://www.ushmm.org/confront-antisemitism/origins-of-neo-nazi-and-white-supremacist-terms-and-symbols 

Neighbors of polygamist cult issue warning to Minnesota
A recent land purchase by FLDS church leader sparks fear that religious compound could be planned for northern Minnesota.

Author: AJ Lagoe, Steve Eckert February 7, 2019 GRAND MARAIS, Minn....

 

Child sex abuse

The FLDS split with Mormonism in 1890 when the mainstream church renounced polygamy. For more than a hundred years it was centralized around the remote community made up of the twin cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona and had an estimated 10,000 members....

 

The group was made infamous in the mid-2000s when their self-proclaimed prophet Warren Jeffs landed on the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted List when he fled after being indicted for child sex abuse.

 

Jeffs was sentenced in 2011 to life in prison plus 20 years after being convicted of sexual assault involving two girls, ages 12 and 15, he took as wives. He is said to still be leading the group from behind bars.

FBI records made public in criminal cases against Jeffs show he instructed his followers to set up what they call “houses of hiding” and “lands of refuge” across the country.

 

One of those “lands of refuge” is the South Dakota compound next door to the Von Rumps.

Karl says the population of the compound is hard to pin down. “At one time I was sure there was over 300,” he told KARE 11. But he believes recently the numbers have dwindled....

 

The Brother

Seth Steed Jeffs is also no stranger to legal troubles.

He was convicted in 2006 of harboring or concealing his brother Warren who was at the time on the run from the child sex abuse charges.

In 2016, Seth Jeffs also pleaded guilty to food-stamp fraud as part of a federal investigation into the practice of collecting benefits in the name of children but diverting them to the church. He was sentenced to probation.

After that, he dropped off the radar.

 

Utah attorney Alan Mortensen has been searching the country for Seth Jeffs since 2017, trying to serve him with a lawsuit alleging that he was involved in the ritualistic rape of a young girl.

“We’ve been looking for him for over a year now,” the lawyer told KARE 11. “We could never locate him.”

Mortensen has filed a civil lawsuit in Utah accusing Seth Jeffs and other FLDS leaders of participating in “religious sexual rituals with underage girls” involving Seth’s brother Warren.

 

Mortensen’s client is a young woman identified in court papers as “R. H.” She claims that as part of a FLDS ritual she was sexually abused “on a regular basis, between five and six times a week, from the age of 8 years-old” until she turned 12. When she turned 14, she says she was forced to become a “scribe” documenting the abuse of other young girls in the sect.

 

The lawsuit claims that in his role as a “Priesthood Leader” Seth Jeffs witnessed the abuse by his brother and  helped arrange the rituals.  “He allowed it to happen and he witnessed it happening over and over and over to a young girl,” Mortensen told KARE 11....
https://www.kare11.com/article/news/investigations/neighbors-of-polygamist-cult-issue-warning-to-minnesota/89-d5383c46-4e95-41e9-be42-6e6aa03e6631

 

 

Ex-Jehovah’s Witness abuse survivor, Woman who escaped a polygamous cult - Warren Jeffs Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

 

- Ex-Jehovah’s Witness, abuse survivor launches nonprofit

A woman who said she was repeatedly sexually assaulted throughout her childhood by a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Fortuna

 

 

- The woman who escaped a polygamous cult – and turned its HQ into a refuge

Briell Decker was 18 when she became the 65th wife of US cult leader Warren Jeffs.

 

Ex-Jehovah’s Witness, abuse survivor launches nonprofit
By Shomik Mukherjee October 11, 2018

 

A woman who said she was repeatedly sexually assaulted throughout her childhood by a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Fortuna, an experience she recounted in a televised documentary in May, has now launched a nonprofit organization to help fellow survivors of sexual abuse.

 

Romy Maple has registered SAFE 707 — which stands for Sexual Assault Fighters Elite — as an official nonprofit. She hopes to become a certified life coach in order to aid fellow survivors, especially those who have left behind religious organizations and are at risk, she said, of simply joining another one upon leaving.

 

“Once you leave a cult, you might walk away but you’re still not free,” she said. Leaving everything behind often leaves individuals without spiritual independence, she said, which further leads some to give into the same type of emotional blackmail elsewhere.

 

In May, Maple appeared prominently in an A&E documentary series, “Cults and Extreme Belief,” hosted by journalist Elizabeth Vargas.

 

A&E stated it contacted Jehovah’s Witnesses, which declined to comment on the allegations, but provided producers a copy of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ position on child protection.

 

“Jehovah’s Witnesses abhor child abuse and view it as a crime. We recognize that the authorities are responsible for addressing such crimes,” the policy states. “The elders do not shield any perpetrator of child abuse from the authorities.”....

 

Shortly after the documentary episode focusing on Jehovah’s Witnesses aired on A&E, Maple shared her story with the Times-Standard.

 

She said she was drugged and raped for much of her childhood by an individual who, like her, was a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation in Fortuna. At the age of 11, she said, she tried alerting elders in the congregation to the repeated abuse, but all ignored her. For years afterward, she said, she struggled with suicidal thoughts and feelings of loneliness.

 

The alleged incidents happened far longer ago than the statute of limitations for rape. A few weeks ago, Maple said, she confronted her alleged abuser, offering him forgiveness and asking for an apology. She said she didn’t receive one.

Maple currently lives in Fortuna. The town still carries a culture of silence, she said. She often drives by the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, she said, and wonders if children in there are still being abused....

 

Maple will soon embark on a days-long retreat, which she hopes will further help in her healing. Her ultimate goal, she said, is to help those who are in danger of “cult-hopping.”

 

“If you don’t have the training or education, you’re going to fall back into the same type of vibration,” she said. “That’s what you’re primed for.”....

https://www.times-standard.com/2018/10/11/ets-l-maple-1011/

 

The woman who escaped a polygamous cult – and turned its HQ into a refuge

Briell Decker was 18 when she became the 65th wife of US cult leader Warren Jeffs. Can she help heal the town his FLDS sect ruled for generations?
Alex Hannaford Sat 13 Oct 2018

 

Briell Decker carefully removed the screws from the corners of the window and began pounding on the glass until it started to come loose. Hearing the noise, her sister-in-law, who had been in the lounge area of their trailer home, came in and took the screwdriver away. But it was too late: Decker had already unscrewed one side of the pane; as soon as she was alone again, she opened the window, climbed out into the street and ran away. She was escaping her brother, his wife, and the fundamentalist Mormon cult they all belonged to. Decker had been forced to marry its leader, Warren Jeffs, aged 18.

 

Six years later, Decker sits on the back porch of the $1.2m mansion where she once lived with Jeffs. “I knew I wasn’t going to give up, whether I made it out or not,” she says of her escape. “Nothing was going to stop me.”

 

Everything has changed since then. Jeffs is seven years into a life sentence for sexual assault. Decker has made a life for herself, and recently remarried. The town in which she lives has started to open itself up to people outside the cult for the first time in 90 years, and to welcome back excommunicated members.

For three generations, the twin cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona – collectively known as Short Creek – have been home to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as FLDS, a religious sect that split from the Mormon church in 1930; its members wanted to continue to practise polygamy. The church teaches that having multiple wives (each of whom is assigned to a man) is ordained by God. Women wear long-sleeved prairie dresses that stretch down to the ankles, and pin their hair in a bun.

 

Now the walls around Short Creek’s houses, real and figurative, are coming down. Decker has turned the 44-room mansion where Jeffs and his wives lived into a refuge for other women fleeing the same church. “Even though it was his house, it feels good,” she says.

 

Jeffs, a tall, slim man with dark eyes, has been president and prophet of FLDS since 2002, continuing to run the cult from his prison cell. Soon after he assumed the leadership, he began splitting families apart, taking young girls as his own brides, and excommunicating members, mainly young men, from the church. He banned socialising, as well as contact with the outside world. In 2011, he began a life sentence for sexually assaulting two girls aged 12 and 14, whom he described as his “spiritual wives”. Jeffs, now 62, has wed around 80 women and children over the years, though the state doesn’t recognise these marriages. Decker was wife number 65.

 

 

It has taken a long time for change to come to Short Creek, as the community starts to reckon with its leader’s legacy. There are still about 10,000 active members of the church in the region, most of them in Short Creek. But there are signs that others have moved on: last November, Hildale elected its first ever female, non-FLDS, mayor. A few months ago, a new police chief – an outsider with no ties to the community – was sworn in after a jury ruled that the previous force, made up entirely of church members, was guilty of religious discrimination.....

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/13/woman-escaped-cult-hq-flds-refuge

 

Member of 'Cult-like' Church Sentenced, Lawsuit filed in Ooltewah sexual assault claims, Investigating Hope: The complaint, Ex-Scientologists tell disturbing stories about David Miscavige

- Member of 'Cult-like' Church Sentenced.
- Lawsuit filed in Ooltewah sexual assault claims Hamilton County Schools covered up abuse
- Investigating Hope: The complaint
- Ex-Scientologists tell disturbing stories about David Miscavige, the 'pope of Scientology,' on A&E series December 21, 2016

Member of 'Cult-like' Church Sentenced.
Owen Sound | by Kevin Bernard Tuesday, December 20, 2016

No jail time for man convicted of assault in connection with a Chatsworth Area Church.

Two men have now been convicted and sentenced in connection with an investigation into a "cult" like church in Chatsworth.

61 year old Judson King of Oakville plead guilty last Friday (Dec. 16th) to 3 counts of assault and was sentenced to a 12 month conditional sentence (no jail time),  3 years probation, a 10 year weapons ban and he must submit a DNA sample....

King, and his younger brother Fred were arrested in April of 2014 following a 16 month OPP probe into allegations of physical and sexual assault by 7 victims, involving a leader of the Church of Jesus Christ restored.

57 year old Fred King who was known as the "Prophet", plead guilty earlier this year to 9 counts of assault and was sentenced in September to 18 months in jail, and 2 years probation....


The OPP investigation started, after an Owen Sound woman went public with her allegations of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of "cult" leaders.

Carol Christie wrote her story in a book, "Property: The True Story of a Polygamous Church Wife",  which was released in mid-2013.

The former church member alleged abuse and polygamy at a compound on Concession 2 south of Owen Sound, near Chatsworth.

She told Bayshore Broadcasting news how she spent nearly 40 years in what essentially was a CULT and she suffered physical and emotional abuse at the hands of the Prophet.
http://www.bayshorebroadcasting.ca/news_item.php?NewsID=89811  



Lawsuit filed in Ooltewah sexual assault claims Hamilton County Schools covered up abuse
December 17th, 2016 by Kendi A. Rainwater
A second federal lawsuit filed in connection with the Ooltewah High School rape case claims Hamilton County Schools and some of its employees allowed a culture of bullying and sexual assault to fester at the school, leaving students unprotected.

The lawsuit was filed Friday by the family of an Ooltewah High School basketball player who was sexually assaulted by older players during the team's trip to Gatlinburg, Tenn., nearly a year ago.

Before the trip, the victim referred to as "Roe" in court papers endured months of harassment and beatings by teammates, which was a ritual on the team, according to the lawsuit.

"OHS has lionized sports and athletes to the point of protecting athletes who engage in misconduct," the lawsuit states.

For years coaches and administrators ignored the abuse or covered it up, enabling the older players to attack four freshmen with pool cues during the Gatlinburg trip, the lawsuit claims.

One boy was injured so severely he had to undergo emergency surgery. That boy filed a federal lawsuit in September against the school board and former Ooltewah High School employees.....
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2016/dec/17/lawsuit-filed-ooltewah-sexual-assault-claims/403490/


Investigating Hope: The complaint
By Ryan Santistevan | December 1, 2016

Investigating Hope: The Series

This article is one in a series of investigative pieces about a complaint filed with ASU regarding accusations against on-campus ministry Hope Church.

Four categories of conduct violations, six categories of unhealthy practices, eight categories of emotional and psychological abuse, 44 indicators of religious cult­ activity, 14 contributors and 123 pages — this makes up a complaint submitted to ASU detailing the alleged damage inflicted by on-campus ministry Hope Church.

However, before things went sour, each author on the complaint was united by one thing: The welcoming embrace of a church that sought to offer them a home and a family.

The complaint has also been turned into a blog, called Hope Church ASU Cult Investigation, run by a former member of Hope Church.

Multiple former Hope Church members said the organization makes students uncomfortable, creates unhealthy relational dynamics and provides an emotionally and psychologically damaging environment for its members. Members said the church uses “brainwashing” techniques and provides a distorted interpretation of Biblical doctrine to advance the interests of the church.

In the complaint, the term "cult" was used 34 times.

Dr. Felix Salomon of the Phoenix Institute of Psychotherapy said a cult can be defined in many ways, but he defines it as a closed, totalistic subgroup or subculture that demands complete allegiance and the giving up of individuality and autonomy on the account of its members.

Kolton Nelder is one of the 14 former members who wrote a testimony in the collaborative complaint. He and other members said they faced constant pressure to follow the direction of Hope Church leadership without question. Not going with the flow was frowned upon....
http://www.statepress.com/article/2016/12/spcampus-asu-hope-christian-church-religious-cult-controversy-1-complaint 


Ex-Scientologists tell disturbing stories about David Miscavige, the 'pope of Scientology,' on A&E series December 21, 2016

Actress Leah Remini left the Church of Scientology in 2013 - after 35 years as a devout member - and ever since, she has been on a crusade to expose the controversial organization's secrets. On "Scientology and the Aftermath," her new series on A&E, Remini seeks to "delve deep into shocking stories of abuse, heartbreak and harassment experienced by those who have left the church and spoken publicly about their experiences."

Tuesday night's episode had a theme: Disturbing stories about the organization's leader David Miscavige, whom ex-members refer to as "the pope of Scientology," as well as the "undisputed dictator."....

Remini also interviewed people about Miscavige's alleged physical abuse against his staff, including Jeff Hawkins, who was the Scientology "marketing guru" for years. He joined because as a self-proclaimed hippie in the late 1960s, he liked the idea of Scientology's anti-war stance and spiritual component, particularly the strong belief about the afterlife.

So Hawkins signed a billion year contract and started working closely with Miscavige. Then, he says, Miscavige assaulted him several times. During one incident, he explains, Miscavige once started making fun of him in a room full of people; and when Hawkins asked him not to, Miscavige took that as a sign of disrespect and started hitting him in the face.

Hawkins says that he, as well as everyone in the room at the time, was too afraid to fight back. Initially, he thought the bad times would pass; but when he realized Miscavige would be running Scientology for a very long time, he left the church.

In response, the church disputes many of Hawkins's statements and says he is an "obsessed anti-Scientologist" who was expelled for "unsavory personal conduct," and has a long record of malfeasance, and that he fabricated stories about violence from a staff member....
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/ct-scientology-david-miscavige-pope-of-scientology-20161221-story.html 


Child and Ritual Abuse Research  https://ritualabuse.us

Neil Brick : S.M.A.R.T.'s Ritual Abuse Pages
https://ritualabuse.us/smart/neil-brick/

Neil Brick (@Neil_Brick) · Twitter
https://twitter.com/Neil_Brick

Tony Alamo victims awarded $525 million, Murder brings more calls for national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women, Loretta Saunders' roommates charged with 1st-degree murder

Tony Alamo victims awarded $525 million; L.A. properties may be sold  By Paresh Dave March 1, 2014

Seven women who alleged they were sexually abused as children by former Christian ministry tycoon Tony Alamo were awarded $525 million by an Arkansas judge this week after an Alamo church failed to respond to a lawsuit.

Collecting the largest judgment in Arkansas history, according to one of the plaintiffs' attorneys, will likely require some help from a Los Angeles court, though. Texas attorney David Carter said he would "soon" file paperwork asking that a court here sell at least two Santa Clarita Valley properties connected to Alamo's operation....

Alamo, 79, has been serving a 175-year prison sentence in Tucson after being convicted in 2009 on 10 counts of sex trafficking minors. Attorney Rogers is appealing the conviction on the grounds that a previous lawyer botched the case.

During the 1960s, Alamo and his wife, Susan, founded a Christian organization in Los Angeles. They bused school dropouts and drug users into their shelters and provided food and anti-Catholic, anti-government religious lectures. The street preaching became a multimillion-dollar empire through a television show, events and merchandise cheaply manufactured by their adherents.

After years of evading arrest, Alamo served four years in prison during the 1990s for not paying about $10 million in federal taxes. His ultimate downfall came in 2008.

Authorities raided his Arkansas headquarters after allegations of child abuse, child pornography and polygamy. Alamo has said puberty signified an age of consent and that a godly man could take multiple wives.

The Arkansas lawsuit names Alamo, Twenty First Century Holiness Tabernacle Church and Jeanne Estate Apartments as defendants. The $525-million default judgment in actual and punitive damages was ordered against the church....

The Alamos...used the threat of hell to keep a tight rein on their Christian community, holding power over matters large and small, from approving clothes to selecting jobs and marriage partners. They built dorms, classrooms and play areas to keep children hooked, lawsuits have alleged....
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-tony-alamo-arkansas-victims-20140228,0,2016670.story

Loretta Saunders remembered at vigil on Parliament Hill
Murder brings more calls for national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women
The Canadian Press
Published: March 5, 2014

OTTAWA — It took the disappearance of a cousin to bring Holly Jarrett and her estranged mother together after a year of silence....

Saunders was an honours student at Saint Mary’s University when she disappeared. Two people have been charged with first-degree murder in her death.

One of them, 25-year-old Blake Leggette, appeared recently in a provincial court. The other, Leggette’s 28-year-old girlfriend, Victoria Henneberry, did not appear in court and was instead represented by her lawyer.

In a cruel irony, Saunders was writing a thesis on murdered and missing aboriginal women before she died.

Cheryl Maloney of the Nova Scotia Native Women’s Association, who spoke at the vigil, said she grappled with the question of who, if anyone, should finish Saunders’ work before coming to a realization.

“Maybe it wasn’t up to one person to finish Loretta’s thesis,” she said. “Maybe it was up to all of us as Canadians.”

Maloney and others at the vigil called on the Conservative government to hold a national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women.

But while the Conservatives renewed funding to combat violence against aboriginal women and girls in their recent budget, they have so far resisted calls for a formal inquiry.

It is estimated there are hundreds of cases of missing and murdered aboriginal women dating back to the 1960s.

A United Nations human rights investigator called that statistic disturbing last year during a fact-finding visit to Canada in which he also urged the Conservative government to hold an inquiry....
http://o.canada.com/news/loretta-saunders-remembered-at-vigil-on-parliament-hill/

Loretta Saunders' roommates charged with 1st-degree murder
Blake Leggette and Victoria Henneberry accused in Halifax student's death
CBC News Posted: Feb 27, 2014
Police have laid first-degree murder charges against the roommates of Loretta Saunders, a Halifax student whose body was found nearly two weeks after she was reported missing.

Victoria Henneberry, 28, and Blake Leggette, 25, who had been facing charges of being in possession of a stolen vehicle, were charged Thursday in the slaying of the 26-year-old Saint Mary's University student....

Yalcin Surkultay, who dated Saunders for 2½ years, told CBC News that when he last saw his girlfriend, she told him she was going to try to collect rent money from her roommates....
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/loretta-saunders-roommates-charged-with-1st-degree-murder-1.2554052

A Utah Law Prohibiting Polygamy Is Weakened

A Utah Law Prohibiting Polygamy Is Weakened 
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: December 14, 2013

A federal judge has struck down parts of Utah’s anti-polygamy law as unconstitutional in a case brought by a polygamous star of a reality television series. Months after the Supreme Court bolstered rights of same-sex couples, the Utah case could open a new frontier in the nation’s recognition of once-prohibited relationships.

Judge Clark Waddoups of United States District Court in Utah ruled late Friday that part of the state’s law prohibiting “cohabitation” — the language used in the law to restrict polygamous relationships — violates the First Amendment guarantee of free exercise of religion, as well as constitutional due process. He left standing the state’s ability to prohibit multiple marriages “in the literal sense” of having two or more valid marriage licenses.

Judge Waddoups, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, wrote a 91-page decision that reflects — and reflects upon — the nation’s changing attitude toward government regulation of personal affairs and unpopular groups. The Supreme Court supported the power of states to restrict polygamy in an 1879 decision, Reynolds v. United States.

Judge Waddoups made clear that the Brown case was not an easy one for him, writing, “The proper outcome of this issue has weighed heavily on the court for many months.” He noted the shifts in the way the Constitution has been interpreted over the past century to increase protection for groups and individuals spurned by the majority....
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/us/a-utah-law-prohibiting-polygamy-is-weakened.html

Powell's story:cruelty, abuse at early age, Father dragged deeper in Powell saga

articles:
- Powell's story: cruelty, abuse from an early age
- Father-in-law dragged deeper into Powell saga
- Charlie and Braden Powell: Family, Teachers Remember Powell Boys At Tacoma Funeral

Powell's story: cruelty, abuse from an early age - A look at the divorce file of Josh Powell's parents shows extreme discord between the parents over everything from religion to pornography. And both parents had concerns about Josh. The Salt Lake Tribune; and The Associated Press February 10, 2012

Long before Josh Powell killed himself and his sons, the pages of his parents' divorce file portrayed him as a seriously troubled teen who attempted suicide, killed pet gerbils, once threatened his mother with a butcher knife and early on adopted his father's allegedly disparaging view of women.

As an adult, Powell appears to have repeated in his own marriage to Susan Cox Powell some of the same emotionally abusive behavior he witnessed growing up, according to a story in The Salt Lake Tribune....

Court files show the divorce of Steve and Terrica Powell involved not only serious conflicts over parenting and religion, but allegations of mental unfitness, pornography, polygamy and even witchcraft, The Tribune reported.

A tug of war ensued over the children, who at the time ranged in age from 18 to 7. Josh, the second-oldest child, was 16.

In 1992 court filings, Steve claimed his wife, who studied herbs and natural healing, had mixed a New Age mysticism with Mormon beliefs in a way that amounted to practicing "witch craft and devil worship."

Terrica responded that Steve's interest in pornography, which he shared with their sons, had corrupted him, the newspaper said, quoting court files....

In the divorce case, Terrica told the court her husband's parenting was offensive.

He subjected Josh in particular to overly harsh discipline, she said.

"For years, he pointedly attacked Josh very frequently, nearly every day for a time," she wrote.

Steve acknowledged Josh was a challenge.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2017479417_powell11m.html



Father-in-law dragged deeper into Powell saga
Feb 10, 2012 By GENE JOHNSON and MIKE BAKER
Associated Press

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - In a folder on his work computer labeled "Personal Pics," Steve Powell maintained a peculiar collection of photos: 55 depicting his daughter-in-law Susan but few if any showing his son.

Thousands of images and emails on his Washington state government-issued laptop provide a small glimpse into his increasingly scrutinized world. Authorities said this week that he is a person of interest in her 2009 disappearance in Utah.

The files, obtained by The Associated Press as part of a public records request, portray Steve Powell as a meticulous worker who gathered photos by the thousands and had his life upended by the constant inquiries that ensued after Susan vanished.

He is now in jail on voyeurism and child pornography charges - and on suicide watch.

Powell's son and Susan's husband, Josh, killed himself and the couple's two young sons in a gas-fueled inferno Sunday that a prosecutor considers an admission that he killed his wife....

Until this week, authorities have only publicly discussed Steve Powell in relation to the charges he now faces. But a warrant and emails indicate that he has been dragged deeply into the Utah investigation surrounding his son, and police say they want to interview him to see if he knows anything about his daughter-in-law's disappearance....

Steve Powell said last year that he had a flirtatious and somewhat sexual relationship with Susan Powell. Her parents said she thought he was a creep and moved to Utah in part to get away from him.

In a search of Steve Powell's Washington state home last year, authorities found explicit images on his computers and images of people being photographed without their knowledge. Among them were pictures of Susan Powell.

Those findings led to the voyeurism and child porn charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty. The state took custody of Josh Powell's boys and turned them over to Susan's parents, Chuck and Judy Cox.
http://ap.worldnow.com/story/16909661/father-in-law-dragged-deeper-into-powell-saga




Charlie and Braden Powell: Family, Teachers Remember Powell Boys At Tacoma Funeral By RACHEL LA CORTE 02/12/12

TACOMA, Wash. -- More than a thousand people mourned the deaths of Charlie and Braden Powell at a public funeral Saturday, nearly a week after the young boys' father killed them and himself in a gas-fueled blaze....

The boys' father, Josh Powell, was in the middle of a custody battle with Cox when he torched his rental home in Graham last Sunday.

Josh Powell was a person of interest in his wife's disappearance in Utah two years ago, and prosecutors consider the fire an admission that he killed her.

Cox gained custody of the children more than five months ago after police arrested Josh Powell's father, Steve, on voyeurism and child pornography charges.

The kids were arriving for a supervised visit when Josh Powell blocked a social worker from entering the home. He then attacked the boys with a hatchet and torched the house, authorities said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/12/charlie-and-braden-powell-funeral_n_1271692.html

child abuse, clergy abuse and ritual abuse newsletter

forwarded with permission

The November child abuse, clergy abuse and ritual abuse newsletter is online at: http://ritualabuse.us/2011/10/issue-101-november-2011/

This issue contains information on Casey Anthony, West Memphis Three, Anthony Sowell, ICC Vatican Prosecution, Pope, Vatican, Clergy Abuse, North Carolina Eugenics Board Victims, Severe Punishment/Abuse, Polygamy, Jaycee Dugard, A Nation Betrayed - Carol Rutz, Ritual Abuse Conference Transcripts and Websites, U.S. medical experiments - Guatemala 1940s, Child Abuse Economic Connection

Is Sister Wives Hiding The Disturbing Truth About Polygamy?

Is 'Sister Wives' Hiding The Disturbing Truth About Polygamy?
9/7/11 - Sam Brower

Despite the recent well-publicized and deeply disturbing child molestation trial of self-proclaimed polygamist prophet Warren Jeffs, TV reality show polygamist Kody Brown and his trendy wives and family seem to be everywhere these days. Their TV show, "Sister Wives," is a big hit....

For more than seven years, as a private investigator I have been investigating and researching similar polygamous societies, but mainly the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) and its outlaw prophet, Warren Jeffs, who is now serving a sentence of life plus twenty years in a Texas prison....

I can only hope and pray that the depravity of child abuse and the degradation of women and children to the status of chattel will never be thought of in such a callous manner as simply- unconventional yet relatable.

In my world, unconventional doesn't mean four mommies showing up for back-to-school night; the FLDS do not send their kids to public schools. If they're lucky, the children may receive the equivalent of an eighth grade education before being sent out to work on a construction job, or to become mothers themselves.

Admittance into the bride pool can begin within a few weeks after a child's twelfth birthday. "Mother" is the person who raises and nurtures you as a "daughter in Zion" over the course of those short formative years. She then takes you by the hand and places it in the hand of a man decades older, in an arranged "spiritual sexual union," alongside that man's several or many other "sister wives."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-brower/sister-wives-_b_952693.html

Facing life for sex abuse, the monster church leader with 24 child ‘wives’

Facing life for sex abuse, the monster church leader with 24 child ‘wives’ who he told would find ‘favour with god’

Jury took only three hours to find polygamist leader guilty
Court had heard tape of him having sex with 12-year-old girl
Leader claimed he was victim of ‘religious persecution’

By Tom Leonard In New York
6th August 2011

The leader of a polygamist Mormon sect has been found guilty of sexually abusing girls aged 12 and 15 among his two dozen child ‘wives’.

Warren Jeffs, 55, faces a possible life sentence.

The self-proclaimed prophet and head of the shadowy Fundamentalist Church of Jesus of Latter Day Saints told females in his 10,000-strong flock they would find favour with God if they pleased him sexually.

He defended himself and spent much of his trial in west Texas angrily claiming he was being religiously persecuted.

Prosecutors said they will present evidence to his sentencing hearing that he had 78 so-called ‘spiritual wives’ – 24 of them under 17 – in addition to his legal one.

They said they would also show how Jeffs either witnessed or performed more than 500 unlawful polygamous marriages, as well as 67 others involving under-age girls.

Jurors were given DNA evidence showing that Jeffs had fathered a child by the 15-year-old.

And prosecutors reduced some jurors to tears when they played an audio tape of Jeffs, breathing heavily and panting as he had sex with the 12-year-old…..

The FLDS, which has at least 10,000 members, is a radical offshoot of mainstream Mormonism and believes polygamy brings exaltation in heaven. They see Jeffs as God’s spokesman on earth…..

Seven other leaders of the sect, which broke away from the official Mormon church over its insistence that polygamy brings exaltation in heaven, have already been convicted of similar offences.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2023066/Warren-Jeffs-trial-guilty-sexually-abusing-children-followers-spiritual-marriages.html

Warren Jeffs, Polygamist Leader, Convicted In Child Sexual Assault Case

Warren Jeffs, Polygamist Leader, Convicted In Child Sexual Assault Case
8/4/11

SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) — A Texas jury convicted polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs of child sexual assault Thursday in a case stemming from two young followers he took as brides in what his church calls "spiritual marriages."

The 55-year-old head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints stood stone-faced as the verdict was read.

Jeffs, who acted as his own attorney, faces up to life in prison. The jury went immediately into sentencing proceedings. They had deliberated on a verdict for more than three hours.

Prosecutors used DNA evidence to show Jeffs fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl and played an audio recording of what they said was him sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl. They also played audio recordings in which Jeffs was heard instructing young women on how to please him sexually.

Jeffs has claimed he was the victim of religious persecution. The FLDS, which has at least 10,000 members nationwide, is a radical offshoot of mainstream Mormonism. The church believes polygamy brings exaltation in heaven and that Jeffs is God's spokesman on earth.

Police had raided the group's remote West Texas ranch in April 2008, finding women dressed in frontier-style dresses and hairdos from the 19th century as well as seeing underage girls who were clearly pregnant. The call to an abuse hotline that spurred the raid turned out to be a hoax, and more than 400 children who had been placed in protective custody were eventually returned to their families.

But authorities brought charges against several men from the group, with Jeffs by far the highest-profile defendant.....
Jeffs represented himself after firing seven attorneys in the six months leading to the trial. He broke his courtroom silence with an objection marked by a nearly hourlong speech defending polygamy, and twice threatened the judge and the court with warnings of punishment from God.

....Eleven other FLDS men were charged with crimes including sexual assault and bigamy. All seven of those who have been prosecuted were convicted, receiving prison sentences of between six and 75 years.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/04/warren-jeffs-polygamist-leader-convicted_n_918915.html

Jeffs Case: Polygamist Leader Fires Lawyers, 10 yr old Killed For Taking Popsicle

Warren Jeffs Case: Polygamist Leader Fires Lawyers, Represents Himself In Bizarre First Day Of Child Sex Assault Trial 7/29/11

SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) -- Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs broke his silence Friday, delivering before jurors a 55-minute sermon defending plural marriage as ordered by God and protected by the U.S. Constitution.

Jeffs, 55, is accused of sexually assaulting two underage girls and could face life in prison if convicted. He fired his high-powered defense team on Thursday and has been representing himself, but he made no opening statement and spent hours sitting alone at the defense table staring into space in silence while prosecutors made their case.

That changed, however, as FBI agent John Broadway testified about seizing eight desktop computers and 120 boxes and large folders of documents from the sect's West Texas compound in April 2008. Broadway was about to describe a list of names and birthdates for those living at the compound when Jeffs suddenly cried "I object!"

"There is sacred trust given to religious leadership not to be touched by government agencies," he said.

Jeffs is ecclesiastical head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, an offshoot of mainstream Mormonism that believes polygamy brings exaltation in heaven. The church's 10,000 members see Jeffs as a prophet who speaks for God on Earth....

"We cannot surrender these principles based on the laws of man trying to convince us that our religion is not necessary in practice," he said, referring to freedom of religion as guaranteed by the First Amendment. Jeffs later added, "this must stop in a land of freedom if all others are to receive a similar guarantee against their freedom of religion being trampled."

Jeffs said his church has practiced polygamy for five generations and believes it is the will of God, who is a higher power than courts, state legislatures and the U.S. Congress. Jeffs is scheduled to be tried for bigamy in October....

When Jeffs finished, lead prosecutor Eric Nichols rose and said the Supreme Court has found since the 1890s that religious freedom does not extend to polygamy....

Jeffs and 11 other FLDS men were charged with crimes including sexual assault and bigamy.

All seven sect members prosecuted so far have been convicted. They received prison terms of between six and 75 years.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/29/warren-jeffs-case-polygamist-leader-fires-lawyers_n_913008.html



article describes severe and graphic abuse







Ame Deal, Arizona 10-Year-Old, Killed By Family For Taking Popsicle: Police
7/29/11

The family of a 10-year-old found dead in a trunk outside an Arizona home initially claimed the child died while playing hide-and-seek. But investigators now believe Ame Deal suffocated after her family locked her in the box because she took a popsicle from the freezer without permission.

Phoenix police claim Deal's grandmother, aunt and two cousins regularly subjected the child to horrific treatment, ultimately culminating in her July 12 death.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/29/ame-deal-killed-over-popsicle_n_913646.html

Texas Town Braces For Polygamist Leader Warren Jeffs' Trial

Texas Town Braces For Polygamist Leader Warren Jeffs' Trial

(WATCH) WILL WEISSERT 07/25/11 SAN ANGELO, Texas

The first hint of polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs' defense strategy came Monday when his attorney said his right to freedom of religion was trampled by Texas prosecutors, who claim he sexually assaulted two underage girls after manipulating them into "spiritual marriages."

Jury selection began Monday in the case of the 55-year-old ecclesiastical head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, an offshoot of mainstream Mormonism that believes polygamy brings exaltation in heaven. The church's 10,000 members see Jeffs as a prophet who speaks for God on Earth....

Jeffs is accused of sexual assaulting two girls, one younger than 17 and one younger than 14. The charges against him include aggravated sexual assault of a child, which is punishable by up to 99 years to life in prison.

He faces a separate trial for bigamy in October.

The charges stem from an April 2008 police raid on a church compound known as Yearning For Zion outside the town of Eldorado, about 45 miles south of the West Texas oil and gas town of San Angelo. Authorities who believed girls were being forced into polygamous marriages removed more than 400 children living at the compound, and TV images of women wearing frontier-style dresses and 19th century hairdos were shown across the country.

The original call to a Texas domestic abuse hotline that sparked the raid turned out to be a hoax. Most of the children seized from the compound have since been returned to their families, but the evidence collected proved enough to charge Jeffs and 11 other church men with crimes including sexual assault and bigamy.

Seven church members have been convicted and received prison sentences of between 6 and 75 years.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/25/warren-jeffs-polygamist-trial_n_908442.html

DOJ report says child porn on the rise, hearing for FLDS sect leader Warren Jeffs

DOJ report says child porn on the rise (AP) – 8/2/10 WASHINGTON — The spread of child pornography, fueled by technology and the Internet, is outpacing efforts to combat it, the Justice Department said Monday in a report to Congress that promises more arrests, prosecutions and better coordination among federal, state and local authorities. Attorney General Eric Holder said the distribution of child pornography, the number of images being shared online and violence against child victims all have increased. "Tragically, the only place we've seen a decrease is in the age of victims," Holder said in a speech at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va.

The report, ordered by Congress in legislation approved two years ago, concedes that the market for child pornography continues to grow rapidly and determining its size is impossible. "The number of offenders accessing the images and videos and the quantity of images and videos being traded is unknown," the report said....The increased attention to fighting child pornography already has led to record numbers of prosecutions and tips. More than 8,600 people have been prosecuted at the federal level since October 2006. State and local authorities focused on the use of the Internet in child sexual exploitation reported that documented complaints of online enticement of children more than tripled from 2004 to 2008 and complaints of child prostitution rose more than 10 times.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ikJwimhJLziWOIbrB1d8IYltbW-gD9HBH0FG0

Utah judge orders Aug. 18 hearing for FLDS sect leader Warren Jeffs July 28, 2010 SALT LAKE CITY - A Southern Utah judge has set an Aug. 18 date for a hearing on a request that polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs be granted a speedy trial. Jeffs was charged in 5th District Court in 2006 with two counts of felony rape as an accomplice. A jury convicted him of both counts the following year. But the Utah Supreme Court reversed the convictions Tuesday and sent the case back for a new trial. Within hours, Jeffs' defense attorneys, Wally Bugden and Tara Isaacson, filed a motion seeking a "speedy trial before a jury of his peers." Court papers also say Jeffs "has been incarcerated for many months."

At a news conference Tuesday, Bugden said he planned to seek bail for Jeffs, 54, the ecclesiastical head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Southern Utah-based church practices polygamy in marriages arranged by FLDS Church leaders. On Wednesday, Judge James Shumate, who presided over the 2007 trial, ordered a hearing on a retrial. Deputy Washington County Attorney Brian Filter has said officials haven't decided how they'll proceed in the case. Prosecutors first plan to meet with the victim and law enforcement and conduct a legal analysis of the high court's ruling, Filter said. http://www.standard.net/topics/courts/2010/07/28/utah-judge-orders-aug-18-hearing-flds-sect-leader-warren-jeffs

Satanists jailed, abuse/heart disease, Jeffs new trial, cult sex abuse, trauma

describes crimes - Russian Satanists jailed for gruesome ritual murders From: NewsCore July 27, 2010 A GANG of six Russians Satanists have been handed jail sentences of up to 20 years for ritually killing and then dismembering four teenagers in a forest.

The six - all teenagers at the time - reportedly also ate the body parts of their victims in a wooded area outside the city of Yaroslavl, about 320 kilometres northeast of Moscow.
The group was found guilty of "murdering four people with the aim of carrying out an initiation ritual into a sect and of desecrating the bodies of the dead," the Yaroslavl regional court said in a statement. The group, four of whom were under 18 at the time, killed the four teenagers in June 2008, prosecutors said....The accused were found guilty of murder, while four were also found guilty of desecrating the victims' bodies. The longest sentence of 20 years went to the man named as the group's leader, Nikolai Ogolobnyak.
http://www.news.com.au/world/russian-satanists-jailed-for-gruesome-ritual-murders/story-e6frfkyi-1225897258373


Link Between Childhood Physical Abuse and Heart Disease
ScienceDaily (July 23, 2010) — Childhood physical abuse is associated with significantly elevated rates of heart disease in adulthood, according to new findings by University of Toronto researchers, published in this month's issue of the journal Child Abuse & Neglect. "Individuals who reported they had been physically abused as children had 45 per cent higher odds of heart disease than their peers who had not been abused, despite the fact we had adjusted for most of the known risk factors for heart disease," says Professor Esme Fuller-Thomson, who holds the Sandra Rotman Chair at U of T's Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work and Department of Family and Community Medicine.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100722102043.htm


Utah court reverses polygamist leader convictions
By JENNIFER DOBNER, Associated Press Writer Jennifer Dobner, Jul 27, 2010 SALT LAKE CITY – The Utah Supreme Court on Tuesday reversed the convictions of polygamist leader Warren Jeffs and ordered a new trial, saying a jury received incorrect instructions before considering his role in the 2001 nuptials of a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin. Jeffs, 54, was convicted in 2007 of two counts of first-degree felony rape as an accomplice. He is serving two consecutive terms of five years to life in the Utah State Prison....Jeffs is head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The sect, whose estimated 10,000 members live mostly on the Utah-Arizona state line, practices polygamy in marriages arranged by church leaders. Some marriages have involved underage girls to older men.

Jeffs performed the religious marriage of Elissa Wall and Allen Steed in a Caliente, Nev., motel and later counseled Wall to be obedient and give her "mind, body and soul" to her husband in an effort to make an unhappy marriage work.

During the trial and later in her book, "Stolen Innocence," Wall said she objected to the marriage and was forced into sexual relations with her husband....In its ruling Tuesday, the court agreed with defense attorneys who argued that jurors should not have been told to decide whether Wall's marital relations were consensual based on Jeffs' actions and his role as her religious leader. That essentially equates Jeffs with Steed — the person who allegedly has had nonconsensual sex. Justices said prosecutors were wrong to make that leap.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100727/ap_on_re_us/us_polygamist_leader_appeal


Michael Lyons may have raped dozens more women
Police fear dozens more women around the world have been raped by cult leader Michael Lyons. 26 Jul 2010 Officers said many victims were too scared to come forward after falling into the clutches of his intimidating group. They said Lyons, known in spiritualist circles as Mohan Singh, was a calculating criminal masquerading as a healer.

Lyons was jailed for 10 years yesterday after being convicted of raping one woman and assaulting another. However police say many more women around the world may also have been victims....Detective Sergeant Nicholas Giles, who pursued Lyons, said officers liaised with colleagues at the FBI as the net closed around their suspect. He said Lyons travelled widely between London, Paris, Miami and New York, spending only a few months in each place. Internet campaigners claim to have drawn up a list of 20 potential victims in New York alone. Mr Giles said the complex and unusual case created many difficulties, including persuading the jury how dangerous Lyons was. He said: ''This is all about control, brainwashing, a cult. It is not someone with a mask jumping out of a bush. It is very hard to prove. ''We had to bring family members, people who have lost people to the cult, from America.''
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7911698/Michael-Lyons-may-have-raped-dozens-more-women.html



Confessions of a Trauma Therapist A Memoir of Healing and Transformation Mary K. Armstrong TO HER SURPRISE, dismay, and eventually relief, Mary Armstrong, a therapist with over thirty years of experience helping people heal from childhood trauma, uncovered her own history of child sexual abuse at the hands of her grandfather and father. As she tells her harrowing but heroic tale, she casts light as never before on the issue of repressed memories and the invisible wounds left by childhood trauma. ISBN 978-1-926645-19-3 www.bpsbooks.com
http://www.bpsbooks.com/confessions-of-a-trauma-therapist-mary-k-armstrong/
Author's website http://www.marykarmstrong.com/

No sect members on polygamist sex case jury

No sect members on polygamist sex case jury By TERRI LANGFORD Houston Chronicle Oct. 28, 2009 ELDORADO - The issue of polygamy and how it pertains to a child sexual assault case is expected to be a contentious issue when opening statements in the first criminal trial involving a West Texas religious sect begin today....Raymond Merril Jessop, 38, is the first of 12 men from the FLDS to stand trial following a raid of the breakaway Mormon sect's ranch in Eldorado in 2008, when Texas Rangers and other law enforcement officers descended upon the Yearning for Zion Ranch after child welfare workers found several underage girls there who were pregnant or already were mothers....Evidence seized from the ranch in 2008 includes a journal dictated to followers from now jailed prophet, Warren Jeffs. That dictation indicates the group kept one of Jessop's eight spiritual wives, a 16-year-old girl, from going to the hospital after she appeared to be struggling through labor for three days. Jessop is also charged with bigamy. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6689679.html

from http://ritualabuse.us

Ex-Polygamy Cult Member Shares Tale Of Sex, Control

describes crimes
Charisse Yu 8/09 Amber Dawn Lee, a former polygamy cult member involved with a group where women were forced to model and sew lingerie, is now sharing her past....After joining several different groups, Lee said her foster parents settled in Ogden, Utah. They joined the Zion Society, a group led by Arvin Shreeve. Tucked in a small community in Ogden, Utah, a handful of homes housed Shreeve's followers....The self-proclaimed prophet controlled everything from the women's diets to their finances. ....Lee also described disturbing instances of physical and sexual abuse that happened within the group. "The children were all taught that if we were ever to talk about what happened sexually inside the group that we will go straight to hell," said Lee. According to Lee, followers would have to give up their children. In addition, she said, the children were told they were not blood-related, therefore making it easier for sexual relationships to occur. "A 15-year-old girl would be instructed to teach the nine-year-old girl how to sexually satisfy a man or a woman," Lee said. "All of the women would have sex with each other as well because they said that one man couldn't satisfy 30 wives and that they were suppose to help satisfy each other."....A former member's statement to police eventually led to the arrest of Arvin Shreeve. Shreeve, two men and several women were arrested and convicted on child molestation charges. Shreeve is serving time on two counts of sodomy on a child -- a first-degree felony punishable by five years to life -- and two counts of sexual abuse of a child -- a second-degree felony punishable by one to 15 years. http://www.10news.com/news/16644341/detail.html

Ritual abuse journal articles, Polygamy Survivor Carolyn Jessop

from http://ritualabuse.us

Journal of Child and Youth Care - ISSN 0840-982X - SPECIAL ISSUE 1990 - CONTENTS
A Case of Multiple Life-Threatening Illnesses Related to Early Ritual Abuse
Rennet Wong and Jock McKeen
Ritual Child Abuse: A Survey of Symptoms and Allegations
Pamela S. Hudson
Satanic Ritual Abuse: A Cause of Multiple Personality Disorder
George A. Fraser
Differentiating Between Ritual Assault and Sexual Abuse
Louise M. Edwards
The Choice - Gerry Fewster http://www.cyc-net.org/Journals/jcycSpecial1990.html


Polygamy Survivor Carolyn Jessop By Andrea Sachs 10/24/07 Polygamy was the norm in Carolyn Jessop's life. After all, her own father had three wives by the time she was in fourth grade. Her family was part of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), a radical offshoot of the Mormon Church. But Jessop's own experience in the cult was so disturbing that she ran away with her eight children four years ago. Last month, the FLDS was in the news when its leader, Warren Jeffs, was found guilty of being an accessory to rape for forcing a 14-year-old girl in the group to marry her 19-year-old cousin. Jessop, 38, tells her extraordinary story in a riveting new book, Escape (Broadway). TIME's Andrea Sachs spoke with Jessop from her home in a suburb of Salt Lake City.

TIME: You were 18 when you were told you were going to be the fourth wife of Merril Jessop, a 50-year-old leader of the FLDS. How did you feel?

Carolyn Jessop: I was shocked. I was devastated. I really wasn't expecting that I'd be getting married. I didn't want to get married. I really had my heart set on going to college. The biggest concern I had with it was that once you're married, your husband really does own you....

You describe physical abuse and beatings. How widespread was that?

It was a big part of the culture. Dominance and control. It was all to maintain the work of God. If it was done in the name of God, then you didn't question it. It was just a fundamental part of life. I think that in the community people did have their limits when it came to physical violence of what was okay and what was not okay. And so there were cases of extreme violence in families and people viewed that as not being okay. But a man was believed to have the spirit of God and he could get divine revelation from God that pertained to his family. If he had a revelation that in order to get a wife in line physical violence [was required], then he was within his right to use whatever means he needed to have control of his family. Mostly it pertained to children. It was frowned upon for a man to beat his wife, but they did it all the time. http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1675126,00.html