Prophet's Prey by Sam Brower Page B

of the bathtub and Warren and a few more of his uncles, all grown men, took turns raping their nephew. Brent described the pain as being almost unbearable.
    Warren would be keyed up tight in his lust and babble continuously that it was part of the boy’s secret initiation into the priesthood. He warned that if Brent ever told anyone about their “sacred rite of passage,” the boy and his entire family would be plunged into hellfire. Decades later, Brent was still struggling to come to grips with the brutality he had endured, but he did not flinch in reconstructing the horrific events.
    One of the most painful experiences for victims of abuse is to summon the courage to tell of that abuse, anticipating that a backlash is certain. Sure enough, when Brent told his story, he was demonized by his former friends and family members and called a liar. Defense attorneys for the church used every trick in the book to try to discredit him, but he was no longer a little kid who could be led around by the hand and coerced. He was a grown man who was determined to tell the truth.
    It was a disquieting story, to say the least. This wasn’t my first case dealing with child abuse, but as the father of three children, I always find it tough to hear those stories, and I have spent many sleepless nights trying to put them out of my mind. My task, though, was to nail down information for possible litigation, so to substantiate the facts I made another trip to the academy, this time with Brandon, who brought along their other brother, David, for moral support.
    There is no such thing as a “typical” victim of child abuse, and Brandon was a good illustration. At twenty years old, he stood six feet four and was solid muscle, a soldier home on leave from the U.S. Army prior to being deployed to the Middle East. But that hard toughness began to evaporate the moment we entered the building and he led me step by step toward that evil bathroom. As he described the horrors he had endured behind that door, tears tracked down his cheeks and his voice shook. Before my eyes, this soldier was reliving those scenes from his childhood, tormented by the memories of what he had endured at the hands of his trusted teacher and uncle. His chilling descriptions were almost identical to those of Brent, but with a few differences, which convinced me that their stories were unscripted.
    Finally, it was too much for Brandon. He staggered, sobbing openly, and David grabbed him in a bear hug. Both were crying. Then David looked solemnly at me and admitted, for the very first time, “It happened to me, too.”
    Visions of my own children raced through my mind, as well as intense rage for a monster that could do something so unspeakable to any child, much less a family member. I turned away from the scene to avoid losing control of my own emotions. All four boys had been raped as small children by their pedophile uncle: Warren Steed Jeffs. I promised David I would keep his secret and I did until after his untimely death only a year later. Now, two of Warren’s nephews had succumbed to the lifetime of torment inflicted on them by the hideous headmaster of the Alta Academy. To my way of thinking, Warren inflicted a slow and tortuous death on Clayne and David just as sure as if he had plunged a knife into their chests.
    The shy and awkward principal’s extreme fear of girls had not improved as he matured. The situation was finally addressed through someone else’s intervention, and it was remarkably similar to the experience of Uncle Roy when he had been a young and single future leader of the FLDS. Warren chronicled what happened.
    â€œWhen I was eleven, I thought I would never get married. At seventeen, I was sure of it. I got up to twenty-three … and I thought, ‘Oh, well.’ Then father walked down to my bedroom. Knock, knock, knock. He said, ‘Uncle Roy wants you to get married.’ ”
    His brother, Lyle,