Wyoming State Law Library

Now in its second edition, Betty Webb's Desert Wives is a startling, real look into the polygamous communities of Northern Arizona. When private detective Lena Jones helps thirteen-year-old Rebecca escape from Purity, a polygamy compound hidden in a desolate area straddling the Utah/Arizona border, she uncovers more than she bargained for. Rebecca's mother has now been arrested for the murder of Prophet Solomon Royal, Rebecca's intended

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It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. A rich account of her family's polygamous history is revealed, including how both she and her mother became plural wives. Yet soon after Ann Eliza's story begins, a second narrative unfolds - a tale of murder involving...

At 18, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger, 32 years her senior, who already had three wives. Arranged plural marriages were part of her heritage in the radical offshoot of the Mormon Church that had settled along the Arizona-Utah border. Over the next fifteen years, Carolyn had eight children and withstood her husband's psychological abuse and the watchful eyes of his other wives. Her every move was dictated...

The compelling story of the struggle by law enforcement and activists to dismantle the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) is finally told. In 1953, when police raided the Short Creek compound of the FLDS, it soon became a political and publicity nightmare eventually costing the governor of Arizona his job. Thus began 50 years of skittish public officials turning a blind eye to heinous offenses such as child abandonment,...

"My father had more than fifty children." So begins the haunting memoir of Anna LeBaron, daughter of the notorious polygamist and murderer Ervil LeBaron. With her father wanted by the FBI for killing anyone who tried to leave his cult - a radical branch of Mormonism - Anna and her siblings were constantly on the run with the other sister-wives. Often starving and always desperate, the children lived in terror. Even though there were dozens of them...

A gripping account of Rebecca Musser's struggle to escape the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints led by Rulon Jeffs and his son, Warren, and her subsequent decision to take the witness stand against the new prophet of the FLDS in order to protect her little sisters and other young girls from being forced to marry at shockingly young ages.

On election night, new state senator Bill Henrickson shook Utah to its core by announcing he was a polygamist. Now, instead of being embraced for their honesty, the Henrickson family is engulfed by hostility from neighbors, Home Plus employees, casino partners, students at their kids' schools and even fellow polygamists hoping to keep their personal lives private. Meanwhile, at Juniper Creek, Alby Grant returns from a self-imposed desert exile with...

"Lark has good things coming: a career as a board-game designer and a whirlwind romance with a handsome investor. Trip is so compassionate and supportive, he's almost too good to be true. Jessica has always been cautious, but she can't resist Jonathan. The brilliant TED-talking visionary has big plans for his inspiring medical start-up. Now Jessica is invited to be part of the team--and to partner with the founder outside the office. Holly has settled...

Three spirited wives in nineteenth-century Utah. One husband. A compelling novel of family, sisterhood, and survival by the Washington Post bestselling author of One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow. 1856. Three women-once strangers-come together in unpredictable Utah Territory. Hopeful, desperate, and willful, they'll allow nothing on earth or in Heaven to stand in their way. Following the call of their newfound Mormon faith, Tamar Loader and...