Halloween 2001, I ran away from something truly SCARY!!

My first official attempt to run away from polygamy was Halloween night 2001 at the age of 13 years-old. I can’t say there was one thing that sparked my desire, it was more of a build up! I was getting so sick of the abuse, and frustrations of how normal it was to see children being slapped, punished, and beat! I couldn’t walk around the halls at church without hearing a parent tucked away somewhere saying “1, 2, 3” followed by the sound of a slap or two, then a small pause to begin again until the child stopped crying. It hurt, it hurt my soul to hear this, to be around this and to do nothing. Sometimes I would find these moms and lash out saying “you want me to count to 3 and slap you across the face, then do it again because you’re crying that I hurt you? Stop slapping them and maybe they will stop crying!”

Then I would walk away and start crying because how overwhelmed I felt, I would start to think: Why didn’t I have the power to just take that kid with me and stop them from getting hurt? Why wasn’t there someone who could help? And why did so many adults walk by completely numb or ignoring the crying kid with the slapping parent nearby? What was so wrong with me??? Why couldn’t I just ignore it too? Why do I always have to get involved?

Something about my character, my soul… it hurts me down to my core to watch someone being hurt!! I would cry for that kid, I would cry for how overwhelmed I felt, I would cry because no one cared, and it was so normal for me to see kids, ages 1-years-old to 12-years-old get slapped! I would get angry with myself for getting involved, sometimes I took the slaps instead, or the person told my dearest #15 (father) abuser, who would find me, and make sure I was always physically punished for the long list of things I did wrong since I saw him last.

So needless to say, I hit my breaking point and could not take it anymore. I remember sitting in Order school in Mrs Marie Evans class (or Ms., she was a spiritual wife with a made up last name), and we had a pull-a-card system in school; green, yellow, orange, and red to correspond with your behavior at school, which was reported to your parents. So yes Daniel made a list of spankings for us. Anyways, this particular day, I was asked a question from another student, which I was responding to, to help her understand what the teacher was saying. Then Ms. Evans called me up to pull my card because I was talking. There was no protesting her or even explaining myself it would have just made things worse.

So after my card was pulled, I sat back down at my desk and started crying, feeling sorry for myself, having the same conversation with myself for the millionth time “why do I have to get involved, why do I have to help, I should have just ignored her, I should have just told her I don’t know either, I should…” I was looking at my paper and realized the word “ME” was written on it where my card was pulled, and I was thinking how ‘stupid’ I am. So I decided to write ‘stupid’ next to the ME! I felt so horrible, and soooo stupid, and seeing ‘ME stupid’ validated my feelings. I tell you this because this was happening at the time I was literally hanging on by a thread. I was done, I was done with life, I was done with everything, I was done, I knew that there was no future in the Order for me. I wanted to die. I prayed to die for months, I even started praying to both Satan and Heavenly Father telling them both, whoever got me out of here I would worship for the rest of my life.

I got in trouble again, for some reason as I always did, and Ms. Evans told me to bring my card/paper to her again. I completely forget about the ‘ME stupid’, but when she saw it, she sent me straight to the Principals office. I was so confused, and asked “why”? She showed me the paper, and I saw ‘ME stupid’, and I was still confused and told her ‘ya it says I’m stupid’, and she replied “no you are saying I am stupid!” I was still confused, because I knew the mental state I was in when I wrote that…. I must have looked confused because she pointed at the paper and spoke harshly, but slow…. “ME is Marie Evans, and next to it ….you.. wrote that I am stupid!” As the light bulb went on for me, I started to plead, “wait no, that was about me” BUT to the office she sent me. Going to the office meant that your parents were going to be called, BOTH of your parents. Heidi, I wasn’t worried about, BUT Daniel…. NOOOOOO!! I did the walk of shame, and literally shamed myself the whole way… wishing ‘why couldn’t I just stop breathing right here, right now!’

The principal being my father Daniels little brother and another numbered man in the polygamous group expelled me and called my parents? Daniel decided to have Heidi bring me to his office. I was so scared, and rightfully so. I did receive a physical punishment in the form of multiple slaps (I say it like this because so many people in the Order keep telling us, that they don’t get beat, they get punished when they behave badly. They say that we make it up that we got beat, and when we were “punished” we deserved it for our bad behavior, so I will use their language of “slaps”.) Daniel decided that during my expulsion, I would be his ‘personal secretary’ every day for the 60 days I was expelled. Literally, this was HELL, there was no way that I was going to escape his temper being his personal secretary daily. This had to have been early to mid-October, because I showed up for a few weeks before I actually ran away on Halloween.

Some days were not so bad, I got to hear stories about him, his youth, which he loved to tell stories about why he was so special, and how I get my special from him and his parents. I even got to see things about the order I probably wasn’t supposed to see. I saw some files they had on many people in the Order. I saw many of the files from my half-sister’s case. I saw the pictures of her bruises. I had questioned her story, but it became real to me at this time, I know it’s true. I had some of these bruises on my body from “physical punishments”. Why would I be sitting here with the same type of bruises, and not believe that he did this to her to?

I went about the rest of my day, even forgetting about the conversation I had on the bus, until SURPRISE, guess who walks in the door of our house just as we were getting ready for bed???? Did you guess Daniel…. Because you’re right, he walked in and sent the kids to bed, and told me to sit at the table for a chat. Again, we began another one of Daniels not-so-nice looooong chats…. He was telling me how wonderful the Order is, how I have been doing really good being his secretary, how the Order has a special place for me, how I will be getting married soon, how my future is full of so much happiness.

At this time, I was old enough, and had enough experiences with Daniel to know that him showing up like this was so out of character, I was trying to figure out what his motive was, and I still had not remembered my convo from the bus earlier that day. It was not until, after I was agreeing with Daniel, and smiling, and trying to play the game, like I had done so many times…. that he said, then why did you say “you wanted to leave the Order”. I knew I was caught, I knew she had told, and at this point I was trying to figure out my plan, weigh my options, what do I do?

I can see that his countenance is turning, he’s switching to “lose his temper Daniel”. I continue trying to say what he wants to hear, hoping to prevent myself from going to bed tonight with an aching body as I had done so many nights in my life. My bruises from the last time were finally gone…. Please “Stephanie, keep it together, tell him what he wants to hear and get yourself to bed…” I would make quick glances to my mom, I don’t know why? She never would intervene, but maybe I was checking to see if she was the same type of monster as him, maybe I wanted to know the look on her face?

The night escalated, I wasn’t so successful keeping my cool… Daniel was yelling “THAT’S FINE IF YOU WANT TO LEAVE, GO PACK YOUR STUFF UP RIGHT NOW AND I WILL DROP YOU OFF ON THE STREET WITH ALL THE ‘N’ (he used the word) and BUMS… IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?” by this time I was sobbing, “NO”, he continued to yell at me, and then of course here came the “stop crying” and now I was getting the “1, 2, 3,” slap! I don’t really know how long this went on for, but when I finally laid down safe in my bed in the dark, I thought, OK “that’s it!! I am leaving, I am running away!”

I had no idea how I would leave, where I would go, or even how I would get help. There was no one in the Order that I knew that I could trust. No one could protect me, because Daniel being #15 would always be over them in the Order. I remember being at his office the next day, being the secretary thinking my plan through. I knew I had to be so secret and TRUST NO ONE. I had family members who had left, an aunt, an uncle, half-sister with her case, even a brother from a different mom, and wondered, maybe one of them could help me. There was even other people from the Order who had left, so I thought maybe I would start looking them up in the phone book to find them. (There was no social media to make a secret account and find someone quickly, liked there is today. I think My Space existed, but I hadn’t a clue how to use it.)

I found the phone number to Tapestry Against Polygamy, I recognized the name, but I could not remember exactly from where. I called the number and a lady answered. I don’t remember exactly what I was saying, I was so scared and so happy at the same time, I was finally gonna get help. I remember telling the lady who I was, I remember she saying she was Rowena Erickson (the devil herself, as I was taught to believe in the Order) BUT I did not care, the Devil, the Lord, the Black person I was taught to disgust, I did not care who was gonna help me… I just wanted help. Ok, I did care a little, I wouldn’t let her come pick me up, but we did talk about people I had known from the inside that had left, and she now knew them on the outside. One name came up, it was a girl I lived near for many years at Washakie, and she ended up marrying one of my half-brother’s, then ran away from the Order. Rowena was going to get me in touch with this girl, I told her, the safest night to get away would be Halloween since I could be “out late trick-or-treating” and not get caught running away. The plan was made, and I just had to wait till Halloween.

At this age of 13 I was already in the preparation for marriage classes, I was in the 8th grade class at the Order school, which I was currently expelled from, I was working at Order businesses, which I was currently pulled from to work for Daniel, we dumpster-dived for food, we lived in a home that was dangerous for little kids, my future was pre-determined, and I was not happy!

I waited out the last few days till Halloween, and on that day, I was probably the happiest I had been in a long time. I love my family, I was going to miss them, I knew that, but I was at the end. I was wishing for death, so there really was no hope in staying! That night, I attended the family festivities, I trick-or-treated a little, and I couldn’t break away while trick-or-treating like I had hoped, BUT I had a ride coming… I needed to figure something out. So I pretended to not be feeling well and headed to bed early…. I went to my room, put my candy away – I don’t know why I bothered to do this, BUT when it came time to meet my ride… I JUMPED OUT MY SECOND STORY WINDOW AND RAN AS FAST AS I COULD to the black car 1 mile away that was WAITING FOR ME! I brought nothing, no change of clothes, NOTHING!

She picked me up, in a store parking lot and drove me to her grandma’s house. I got to speak with my half-brother who had left in recent years and he told me “just keep telling the truth!”. He said to tell them everything I can think of because there are so many things that we think are normal and OK, but they are actually not… They all told me because I was only 13 years old, we needed to contact the Department of Child Protective Services (DCFS), BUT for the next 24 hours I was SAFE with familiar people!

Of course this attempt to escape polygamy failed for me as the judge sent me back into a home in the Order by Thanksgiving. I will right more about this and combine my entire experience from 13 years old to 17 years old when I finally escaped polygamy. It is too much that cannot be summed up into a post like this. Furthermore, if you are interested in reading other escape stories you can click here to read the one’s being shared on our nonprofits page.

In the NEWS

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/872929/Kingston-teen-in-custody-after-fleeing.html

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/873085/Kingston-teen-to-stay-in-state-custody.html