Investigation of FLDS Graveyard of Babies Born of Incest

[Cleopatra7]

I think most Fjers know that polygamous Mormon sects are hotbed of incest, since many of these communities were founded by a handful of families who have intermarried over the past century or so, but this article really shows the human impact of these practices:

https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/tiny-tombstones-inside-the-flds-graveyard-for-babies-born-from-incest?utm_source=broadlyfbusads

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The lot is unmarked and unremarkable. There is no sign. A scrappy white wooden fence runs the length of it along Canyon Street. It is bordered to the north by a well-maintained lot where there sits a stately red brick home with UEP (United Effort Plan, the church trust which is now controlled by the state of Utah in the aftermath of Jeffs' conviction) spelled out in white brick on its south-facing side. At the lot's northwest corner, a metal gate—the kind you might find on a cattle ranch—hangs open on its hinge. The baby cemetery is a mess of overgrown weeds and dry, cracked dirt, home to hundreds of infant and toddler-size graves, not all of them marked. Many of the souls interred here lived not longer than a day, some just two days, two weeks, or two years. Some feature more expensive-looking gravestones, and include, beyond names and dates, terms of endearment such as: "Sweet baby girl," "Our son," and "Heaven's very special child." Still more, rather cryptically, feature child-size palm and footprints.

There are baby graves year that date back as earlier as the 1950s, potentially even earlier: many are unmarked. The last infant grave marked in this cemetery is dated 2010; Warren issued an edict from prison banning sex in 2011, so few infants have been born since then (the few babies born each year are the product of institutionalized rape by cult-appointed seed bearers). There are also graves lacking any dates whatsoever. Some read simply, "Baby Keate," or "Baby Bateman," or "Baby Cooke," with holes where numeric date tiles might otherwise be placed.

The quick answer for why this polygamous community has buried so many of its children is inbreeding, according to community members. Almost everyone here is some variation of cousin, and, until Warren was locked up and decided to put a hold on all marriages, most men and women were paired together in order to preserve certain esteemed bloodlines. Sisters married the same man in polygamous celestial weddings; brothers from one family married sisters from another (meaning their kids are double cousins). And, because this cult is so tight-knit and averse to strangers, the gene pool is rather limited.

It's a very long article, but worth your time, because it shows how the FLDS victimizes people even in utero by passing on genes that are very often incompatible with life, yet many FLDS members think their bloodlines are super special and "pure." You see the same dynamic going on with the Kingston clan, which is even more closed and incestuous, as if such a thing can be imagined.

[Howl]

This is infinitely sad on so many levels. So much suffering in this community.  And Uncle Fred Jessop?  What the hell?  

@Cleopatra7, I know you followed the Malheur occupation and aftermath.  Did you catch the reference to Cane Beds, AZ -- LaVoy Finicum's hometown? 

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Just under eight miles southeast of Short Creek is an area called Cane Beds, Arizona. There lives Ross LeBaron Jr., a descendant of another polygamous sect (separate from the FLDS but quite similar in practice) called the Church of the Firstborn of the Fulness of Times. He shares a last name and a not-too-distant relation with the polygamous LeBaron group in Chihuahua, Mexico.  LeBaron Jr. has been accused by three of his own sons, who purport to have DNA evidence obtained by saliva samples, of fathering four children with his own biological daughter. A fifth child, they say, was fathered by their eldest brother Wayne LeBaron, (who was married to Dawna Black Bistline's cousin at the time of this child's allegedly incestuous conception). These men are living freely in the Cane Beds area. Ross LeBaron Jr. recently took to the Internet to express his support for the Bundy family in Oregon, as well as for LaVoy Finicum, the lone fatality in that ordeal.

and just because FJers can appreciate the crazy: 

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"Have you ever heard of the term The Turkey Baster?" Dawna asks me.  I tell her I'm not sure, given the context.

"There was a guy out here who was married to a couple of young girls, and he was going to get in trouble because he was having children with these young girls, so he said, 'Well, I never had sex with them—I used a turkey baster.'" Dawna says that, when people refer to what's going on over in the Cane Beds, they say it's probably another turkey baster situation. But Dawna disagrees: "I think it was actually, you know...." Sex.

"I didn't touch her; I just used a turkey baster," she mimics, rolling her eyes. "I'm like, Really? That's still gross." It's also still rape with a foreign object, I remind us both unnecessarily.

 

[Cleopatra7]

9 minutes ago, Howl said:

This is infinitely sad on so many levels. So much suffering in this community.  And Uncle Fred Jessop?  What the hell?  

@Cleopatra7, I know you followed the Malheur occupation and aftermath.  Did you catch the reference to Cane Beds, AZ -- LaVoy Finicum's hometown? 

and just because FJers can appreciate the crazy: 

 

Yes, I saw the Malheur occupation reference. I think the Bundy family probably straddles the line between mainstream LDS and fundamentalist Mormonism. That is, I don't think the family practices polygamy, but I think they have some ties, whether political, familial, or cultural to the fundie sects. With the upcoming trials, maybe we'll get some clarification on this.

[ksgranola1]

I feel a little light-headed after reading that.

[RosyDaisy]

What did I just read? Those poor suffering children. There is a special place in Hell for these men. I hope they burn there for all eternity!

[Mary C Doates]

@Cleopatra7Thanks for posting this article. Tragic and infuriating.

[Dandruff]

This is some sick shit.

I am not the Lord (last time I checked, anyway), however:

Commandment #11:  Thou shalt not molest thy sisters or daughters, nor violate them by any other means.

I believe He would approve.

[Kittikatz]

@Cleopatra7 thank-you for  posting. The article was informative and infuriating. I hope that these FLDS groups somehow reform, or better yet, implode or cease to exist completely. Too many people have been too badly hurt by this sect for it to continue.

[samira_catlover]

50 minutes ago, Dandruff said:

This is some sick shit.

I am not the Lord (last time I checked, anyway), however:

Commandment #11:  Thou shalt not molest thy sisters or daughters, nor violate them by any other means.

I believe He would approve.

Can I do a mod on that commandment: "Thou shalt not molest thy relatives of any gender, nor violate them, nor shalt thou take advantage of any helpless or needy person given into thy care."

[RosyDaisy]

I think it will be the inbreeding that will cause them to completely cease to exist.

[Lyle Lanley]

11 minutes ago, RosyDaisy said:

I think it will be the inbreeding that will cause them to completely cease to exist.

There will be no worthy men to rape, I mean, impregnate women left if Warren Jeffs is left in control at this rate. It's becoming clear he's promoting some sort of scorched earth policy in the FLDS. If he can't have it, he's going to raze it to the ground. 

[missegeno]

10 minutes ago, Lyle Lanley said:

There will be no worthy men to rape, I mean, impregnate women left if Warren Jeffs is left in control at this rate. It's becoming clear he's promoting some sort of scorched earth policy in the FLDS. If he can't have it, he's going to raze it to the ground. 

I was really surprised when he took this turn. He was controlling to begin with, but then it seemed like something clicked (maybe that he wasn't actually going to ever be let out of prison) and so he decided to burn the whole thing to the ground, bringing his most devout followers with him.

[Cleopatra7]

36 minutes ago, missegeno said:

I was really surprised when he took this turn. He was controlling to begin with, but then it seemed like something clicked (maybe that he wasn't actually going to ever be let out of prison) and so he decided to burn the whole thing to the ground, bringing his most devout followers with him.

I think he was always like this, but only decided to eliminate the community after his imprisonment. He raped boys and girls, his own nieces and nephews, when he was "counselor to the church leader" before his father, Rulon's death. Two of his children, a son and a daughter, have said he sexually abused them. Warren Jeffs is a psychopath, plain and simple, who enjoys playing with other people's lives.

[Toothfairy]

Disgusting. This cult needs to die. Seriously this is sick. 

[DaffyDill]

It's so sick and twisted. I saw a documentary about the FLDS, and Flora Jessop was in that baby cemetery - it was heartbreaking. She was visibly upset IIRC, and understandably so. Those little graves seem as though they're not tended at all, just forgotten, there in that dry, dusty sad little cemetery  

[FundieFarmer]

I second Toothfairy. I read some expose of this in one of the survivor books. Terrible the way she told it too. What a disaster.

[DaisyD]

I started typing out some of the ways they dealt with some of these babies, then decided it was too graphic. Let's just say that not all of the ones with obvious birth defects died from natural causes. It's so horrible. 

Yes, I think Warren decided that if he couldn't have it, no one could. 

[sawasdee]

I really think that Warren Jeffs has lost whatever tenuous hold he still had on sanity. He has issued some astoundingly odd edicts from prison - banning not just toys, but many foods, including chocolate, the internet, tv, - in effect, anything enjoyable. It's almost as though he is testing how far he can go before his followers refuse to obey.

If his brother Lyle, who carries word of Warren's decisions and enforces them, is imprisoned as a result of the conspiracy and fraud charges now outstanding against him, will the FLDS implode? Most of the leadership appears to be charged alongside Lyle - who would be left to run this craziness?

Please let them all be found guilty......

[Gellhorn]

Brr...

http://www.childbrides.org/taxes_PNT_forbidden_fruit.html

[samira_catlover]

OK, I looked at the cemetery pictures.

Have no bio-kids of my own (all my babies go MEOW and have four paws and fur), but is anyone else feeling a sadness at gravestones marked only with "BabyWhatever Surname", and date of death? 

My knowledge of FLDS and mainstream LDS stuff is really pretty limited, but i *thought* a Big Deal was in having kids to help allow spirit children in whatever realm(s) they believe in to get earthly bodies and work out their salvation. (Not Going There, being neither Mormon nor theologian.)

It seems so very sad that the stillborn children didn't even get given a first name!---again, my apologies to LDS-backgrounded readers, but if it's OK to baptize for the dead, is it horribly out-of-line to take a sadly-stillborn child and name her/him as "Sarah" or "Jacob" or "Abraham" or SOMETHING?

 

[NerdyHil]

1 hour ago, samira_catlover said:

OK, I looked at the cemetery pictures.

Have no bio-kids of my own (all my babies go MEOW and have four paws and fur), but is anyone else feeling a sadness at gravestones marked only with "BabyWhatever Surname", and date of death? 

My knowledge of FLDS and mainstream LDS stuff is really pretty limited, but i *thought* a Big Deal was in having kids to help allow spirit children in whatever realm(s) they believe in to get earthly bodies and work out their salvation. (Not Going There, being neither Mormon nor theologian.)

It seems so very sad that the stillborn children didn't even get given a first name!---again, my apologies to LDS-backgrounded readers, but if it's OK to baptize for the dead, is it horribly out-of-line to take a sadly-stillborn child and name her/him as "Sarah" or "Jacob" or "Abraham" or SOMETHING?

 

I was raised LDS (6th generation in the jello belt) and the mainstream Mormon thoughts on stillborn babies/children who die/ the severely mentally handicapped are that their spirits are so pure and that they've "proved" themselves in the pre-existence (heaven before life. I know, it's weird.)that they only need a physical body and then can chill out until they're resurrected. I'm not 100% sure if this is the ideas held in the FLDS, since I only have my obsession with creepy polygamy to go with. I hope that helped. 

[DaisyD]

I know that back in the day people would not name babies for a while (sometimes into toddlerhood) do as not to "waste" a favorite name. This was especially true before birth control, so they figured there'd be another baby along shortly. Since these people don't use birth control, and have similar infant mortality rates, I could see the practice making a comeback. It's all just really sad.

[season of life]

4 hours ago, DaffyDill said:

It's so sick and twisted. I saw a documentary about the FLDS, and Flora Jessop was in that baby cemetery - it was heartbreaking. She was visibly upset IIRC, and understandably so. Those little graves seem as though they're not tended at all, just forgotten, there in that dry, dusty sad little cemetery  

Do you recall the name of the documentary?

[missegeno]

I think he was always like this, but only decided to eliminate the community after his imprisonment. He raped boys and girls, his own nieces and nephews, when he was "counselor to the church leader" before his father, Rulon's death. Two of his children, a son and a daughter, have said he sexually abused them. Warren Jeffs is a psychopath, plain and simple, who enjoys playing with other people's lives.

Oh, absolutely. I've been following the reports and reading the memoirs since before they caught him. He was always a psychopath, but I don't think he was trying to implode it from the beginning, just trying to use it for all it was worth. Had the arrest never happened, I think he would have continued to bask in his followers' adoration and destroy lives behind closed doors for the rest of his life. Since he's been in prison, I sense a "if I can't have it, nobody can/kill it" approach. He's still destroying lives, but he's doing so in a way that looks more aimed at explosion than the self serving, hedonistic bent of his freedom days. Its still his usual power grab and not unexpected or out of line for him, but a different approach nonetheless. If he was still free, i think he would be doing more to maintain a population of children to rape and exploit (with numbers high enough to withstand the culling process). At least, that's how I see it. Others may think he was trying to implode it from the beginning, and that's a very reasonable belief as well. This is all i meant. I hope this explanation is clearer. :-)

[Gellhorn]

11 hours ago, RosyDaisy said:

I think it will be the inbreeding that will cause them to completely cease to exist.

It does appear to be coming and they are ignoring the warnings to change their ways.