Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives
fifty years have not been for polygamy, but (with one famous exception) for the crimes which continue to surround polygamy: sexual assault, battering, welfare fraud, and racketeering (C.G. Wallace, Associated Press, July 16, 2001). Violence toward girls and women is common, but escaping it is uncommon.
Many polygamist women are forbidden to use birth control; their husbands keep a chart of their fertile days in order to impregnate them more easily. The ideal among many polygamy sects is for every woman to have one baby per year until her childbearing years are over, thus insuring her husband’s place in “Highest Heaven.” And more welfare income.
When a girl does escape one of the polygamy compounds, county law officers usually return her to the compound. In April of 2001, a 15-year-old girl ran away from her polygamous family, telling authorities that her parents were about to force her into a marriage with the much-married Warren Jeffs, the No. 2 leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (son of the then No. 1 leader, Rulon Jeffs). Despite her pleas, the sheriff’s department returned her to the compound, releasing a statement to the media that since the girl was a minor, her parents had the right to decide how she would live (Associated Press, April 10, 2001).
In 1998, John Daniel Kingston, of Salt Lake City, Utah, was arrested for beating his 16-year-old daughter for resisting his order to become the 15th wife of Daniel Ortell Kingston, her uncle (Associated Press, June 3, 1998). The girl, who had been beaten more than twenty times, suffered a broken nose and deep bruises on her face and buttocks. After being confined to a desert “re-education camp” for recalcitrant women and children, she eventually submitted to the sham marriage. She finally escaped by staggering several miles through the desert to a gas station, where she was helped by concerned customers. Her father and uncle are now serving prison terms for incest and felony child abuse, but not for polygamy.
BIRTH DEFECTS ASSOCIATED WITH POLYGAMY : Because of their tight-knit and secluded compounds, the pool of possible mates among the various polygamy clans remains small. This frequently leads to incestuous plural marriages. Sometimes, though, that incest is purposeful. The Kingston clan (cited above) was founded by Charles Elden Kingston, who—after experimenting with breeding dairy cattle—set up a similar breeding program for his own numerous children. To this day, members of the Kingstons are allowed to breed only with blood relatives. In an article written by Greg Burton, printed in the
Salt Lake Tribune
, April 25, 1999, Connie Rugg, one of John Ortell Kingston’s estimated 65 children, said, “All my life my family told me I had to marry a Kingston. I could choose, but it had to be a brother, uncle, or cousin.”
Many Kingston children are born with serious birth defects directly traceable to the sect’s breeding program. According to that same article by Greg Burton, one Kingston girl was born with two vaginas and two uteruses but no vaginal or bowel opening. Congenital blindness and dwarfism are common among the Kingstons, as are microcephaly, spina bifida, Downs syndrome, kidney disease, and abnormal leg and arm joints. These children and their mothers (who are designated
unwed
mothers by both Arizona and Utah social service agencies) receive considerable medical care and welfare, all paid for by the U.S. taxpayer.
Under Utah law, it is a felony for close relatives to have sex, but this law—as is the law against polygamy—is rarely prosecuted, and then only when considerable physical force has been used upon an unwilling girl. Daniel Ortell Kingston’s prosecution for incest is one of the few on record.
WEALTH AND POLYGAMY : Although the women in most polygamy sects are not allowed to inherit or own property, and thus live in dire personal poverty, the leaders of these sects are often quite wealthy. Reporter Lou Kilzer, in an article in the
Denver Rocky Mountain News
, August 14, 2000, connected the Kingston sect’s holdings to organized crime. The Kingston business empire includes casino gaming equipment such as slot machines and video poker (bought from Mafia-controlled companies in New Jersey), coal mines, accounting firms, finance companies, pawnshops, bail bond firms, poker parlors, and huge cattle ranches (one 160,000-acre ranch in Nevada formerly belonged to actor James Stewart).
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