Manipulated in the Name of God: A Self-Proclaimed Prophet Exposed

Ajouté : 2026-05-19

[00:00:06]Tonight's episode is a conversation about a religious sect that I first began covering 21 years ago when I first spoke with two teenage girls, Fawn Broadbent and Fawn Holm, who claimed to escape the powerful rule of a prophet who was leading a religious polygamous sect.

[00:00:29]You guys are torn. I mean, it's like part of you misses your family, but part of you says, "I don't ever want to go back there.

[00:00:38]>> I need to know if this is right. I need to know if this is worth all all the pain. I need to know if I'm really going to go to hell."

[00:00:46]>> Now, many have reported it as a cult, but you can decide that for yourself as you listen and learn more about what was going on. It's a group with a reported core belief that the more wives a man has, the closer he gets to salvation.

[00:01:02]The sect called the FLDS, short for fundamental Latter-day Saints, broke away from the mainstream Mormon church when polygamy was outlawed in the late 1800s.

[00:01:15]Now, the group would eventually settle in the neighboring two-state bordering communities of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hilldale, Utah, a place I've visited personally in my 20 plus years of coverage. Now, in the FLDS community, the prophet Warren Jeffs is who you are devoted to and obedient to doing everything he commands. Why? because it is believed that God communicates directly through him. Now I met the Fawns. They had run away from their homes in fear that they would be forced to become teenage wives to Warren Jeffs who was reported to have more than 80 wives with as many as 24 believed to be underage and that he was sexually abusing.

[00:02:05]Now Warren Jeffs dictated everything including no communication with the outside world and excommunicating young males who came to be called the lost boys.

[00:02:18]>> Sacred.

[00:02:18]>> Now he wanted to get rid of these young veriral males because he felt they were competition to the older men. Now, of course, Jeff's wanted people to stay off the internet because he didn't want them learning about the outside world, learning how things really worked, which would challenge his authority, of course. Now, he was eventually arrested and is currently serving life in prison for sexual assault against a child under 14 years old and a child under 17 years old. Now, over the last 20 years, I've been dedicated to covering FLDS, speaking with survivors who claimed abuse against Warren Jeffs himself, including traveling to Texas to help reunite families with loved ones during the historic FLDS Texas compound raid that ultimately led to Jeff's conviction.

[00:03:16]Now, tonight, we're going to speak with Dr. Christine Marie who along with her husband Tolga helped expose a man named Sam Baitman who claimed Warren Jeffs had died in prison and he was now the prophet. Baitman formed his own sect within the FLDS towns where his male followers not only gave their adult wives to him, but also their underage daughters as young as nine years old to become Baitman's wives and who he would sexually abuse.

[00:03:52]Christine and her husband would eventually earn the trust of the self-proclaimed prophet and his followers, spending one and a half years filming hundreds of hours of footage of them. Now, Christine and her husband would eventually begin secretly working with the FBI while continuing to be embedded within the sect.

[00:04:15]Samuel Baitman would eventually be arrested and sentenced to 50 years in prison for the crimes he committed against his underage wives.

[00:04:25]Now, many of his adult male and female followers were also held to justice.

[00:04:30]Christine, her husband, and their unbelievable footage are featured in the Netflix four-part documentary series, Trust Me, the False Prophet, which chronicles the rise and fall of Samuel Baitman and is streaming now on Netflix.

[00:04:49]Christine, thank you so much for joining me.

[00:04:51]>> Thank you. You actually have a PhD in psychology with emphasis in media psychology.

[00:04:57]And I found your doctoral dissertation really interesting. It was entitled the traumatic impact of media humiliation, misrepresentation and victim blaming on narrative identity and well-being.

[00:05:11]That's the first that I've seen that dealt with that real reality.

[00:05:17]and you won an outstanding dissertation award from the American Psychological Association, Division of Media Psychology and Technology for it. So, congratulations on that.

[00:05:29]>> Well, thank you. And I'm so impressed that you actually found it and read it.

[00:05:33]Nobody has ever done that.

[00:05:35]>> Well, it's very interesting. And uh you were also awarded the 2023 Harriet Tubman Peace Medallion for your work in promoting peace and justice, which we absolutely need more of. So, credit to you for your approach and all of your work in this. What got you interested in the FLDS?

[00:05:55]>> I had a story of my own where I was once lured into a fundamentalist type of cult, you know, a Mormon offshoot with my own false prophet. And the results were so traumatic in my life that I spent years studying what happened to my brain. I wanted to understand all the gnarly little details of how did my functioning brain get so derailed and where I was ended where I ended up believing something irrational and in that study I developed a heart for helping other people. I ended up moving from with my husband from Las Vegas to this community which they call Short Creek. I thought that I would be able to help the people who had left the FLDS understand what happened to them because that's the first step in healing getting that psycho education about how all of these things work. So that's how I ended up over here in this town which I'm still in trying to be helpful.

[00:07:04]>> You refer to it as Short Creek which is kind of a a term for the joint uh communities of the two towns. Uh, you're still there now?

[00:07:13]>> I am.

[00:07:14]>> And how do people treat you there now?

[00:07:17]Because there are some that still believe that Samuel Baitman is a prophet. Correct.

[00:07:24]>> True. And so there are two pe two types of people when it comes to how they treat me. A lot of people will see me in the store now and just give me a great big hug because they didn't know that this is how it went down and and what the atrocities were. So most of the town is very grateful and very kind. But then we have this subset of people who will see me in the store and not speak to me and you know they they have a a a campaign against me and I expected it but it doesn't make me feel good.

[00:08:04]>> Well, Dr. Christine, one of the things I noticed is that in your work with particularly these women, you projected a great degree of empathy with them and you seemed really torn that you felt like you were betraying them in one sense, but yet saving them from this psychopath in another sense.

[00:08:36]Take me through that.

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[00:10:03]>> Take me through that. How How did you resolve that in your mind?

[00:10:06]>> I had so much conflict over this because I loved them so much and I knew I would be adding to their suffering. Even though I knew it was the right thing, it took an emotional toll on me.

[00:10:20]I did believe that they needed to be away from him and that he was a predator who needed to never be on the streets again. So that was fine. But when it came to how they would feel, I sort of thought of it as the saying that friends don't let friends drive drunk.

[00:10:43]Even if your friend wants to take the car keys and you take them away and that friend is mad at you, you still have to take those car keys away because you're their friend. So knowing that what I was doing was ultimately freeing them was something I held on to.

[00:11:02]I also had to check myself into therapy over the conflict. It was unnatural for me to be playing a dual role. Now the dual role applied really only towards Sam. I mean I my love and care for his victims that was authentic then and it is authentic now. But when it came to Sam playing along like we were okay with what he was doing is one of the most difficult things I've ever done in my life. Well, clearly you were torn by that because you you had to act as though he was a big deal that he was that you were buying into his bull, so to speak, and you knew from your own experiences and from Warren Jeffs and the history and being able to have seen the rest of the world, which a lot of these young women didn't, what a con was going on.

[00:12:01]But yet you had to bite your tongue and go along. Some of the egotistical things that he was saying and doing. I don't know how you kept from throwing up in your mouth every time you talked to this guy.

[00:12:12]>> I know. When Toga and I would leave, we would go on drives to just process it all. Sometimes I would just scream at his narcissism. Other times we would we would say, "Can you believe the audacity?" or I mean for him to say that he wanted to govern North and South America and possibly England, it was bizarre beyond description.

[00:12:40]So it I mean when we would go on these drives we would just process and process like and we also revisited a lot how difficult it was to keep going especially me. I mean I I was in a way thrown back into the fire of something similar that I had survived myself. So the emotional toll was tough.

[00:13:08]>> I can just imagine and I want to ask you about that. But he had renderings of a building he wanted to construct to receive the Queen of England when she came to visit him. She's going to overfly New York City and come into Short Creek to visit the prophet Samuel, right? I mean, he he was actually serious in convincing his followers that this was on the agenda.

[00:13:33]This was a goal that was going to happen.

[00:13:36]>> He certainly did. In fact, he had all of the women and girls wear maroon dresses because he said maroon was the royal color. He bought them all crowns so they could feel like they were princesses because certainly Sam would one day be married to the queen and they would be princesses. He had a rendering made of this marble palace and this these are the carrots that he gave them to keep them going when things were tough. He was tough on them. He rebuked them, humiliated them, scolded them in front of each other constantly.

[00:14:18]They were walking on eggshells. He would meet out different consequences.

[00:14:24]And I believe that if he wouldn't have had these fictional fantasies that he was building for them, that they wouldn't have had anything to look forward to and might have been more likely to run away on their own. Do you think he started believing his own fantasies or do you think he knew this was just another tall tale that he was pedalling?

[00:14:48]>> I believe he was a con artist and he was a strategic con artist knowing what he was doing the entire time because he would find something that would work and he would play on that and do it again and and expand it and get more intense about it. It was all just a big facade.

[00:15:07]I mean, I could see that he was a con artist from the moment he came back to the Short Creek with a couple carloads of wives. Cult leaders have three goals: power, sex, and money. And he was no different. When once he started portraying himself at the as a prophet, sure enough, he had power over people.

[00:15:31]He had all the sex in the world that he wanted, even criminally. and he had money that he never had before. It was a good career for him. It was total It was a total con artist scheme.

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[00:16:22]Now, he convinced people that Warren Jeffs had died and that what they would see if they saw something in the media or if something leaked through to them that it was a mannequin in prison, that the prison officials had set up some kind of a mannequin that they would shoot from a distance and make it look like it was Warren Jeffs, but that he had died and was speaking to Samuel from the other side giving him the message that he was the prophet because Warren Jeffs had anointed him and was talking to him from the other side.

[00:17:00]>> Right? Because people had a pre-existing loyalty to the prophet that has been something ingrained in this culture for generations. The prophet is the one and only person who speaks to God directly.

[00:17:15]Sam became a parasite off that love and loyalty for Warren Jeffs. They hadn't heard from Warren Jeffs in years. So when Sam became like a mouthpiece or a messenger for Warren Jeffs through his new post-mortal existence, then these people, they were hungry. They were hungry to be led by a prophet. They wanted to know what God wanted for them.

[00:17:42]So he just came in and scooped up the goods where the vacuum and leadership existed.

[00:17:48]>> So just one day he's a he's a schmuck around town with no money, no job, no future. And the next day he just says, "Oh, I heard from Warren Jeffs who has died and anointed me and so I'm now top dog." He just just one day he just woke up and said, "That's what I'm going to start saying." And people believed it.

[00:18:15]>> Yep. You you summarized it perfectly, Phil. They believed it. They had reasons they believed it. I'm sure that they all had their moments getting on their knees praying about it, but their source of information wasn't based on real reality testing. It was based more on feelings and cultural experiences, maybe even coincidences that happened.

[00:18:46]But they each came up with their own reason that they believed that Sam Baitman was indeed who he said. Now keep in mind this was only a very very small sector of people who had been FLDS. He created an FLDS offshoot which we call the Samuelites. Most LDS thought he was bonkers and wanted nothing to do with him and obviously rejected his stories.

[00:19:14]In fact, interestingly, a number of FLDS women helped me in this case, in this situation.

[00:19:25]They would they did not want to interact with him directly themselves because they had girls, but they would help me and be supportive of me and my needs.

[00:19:34]even, you know, even my being emotional support for me or helping with different tasks and things that were needed for the victims, they would do that. So, I'm proud of the FLDS women, some of who went on the documentary because they wanted to take a stand and make it known that what Sam did is not what they were raised to believe in.

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[00:21:10]You had empathy for these women for a variety of reasons, but you said you had had a negative history before and that when you were swept up in this that you were completely a a zealot, devoted, obedient, afraid you were going to lose your soul if if you didn't follow the false prophet that had presented himself to you the way that Sam Baitman had presented himself to these girls.

[00:21:41]>> Yeah, that's true. In my experience, it my brain took a coincidence. I had the coincidence that led me to believe that my predator was a prophet. I didn't know he was a predator at the time is because I had a dream. And people from Mormonbased offshoots and mainstream Mormonism, they believe that dreams can be a source of revelation. Because I had a dream that matched the appearance of this man who became my cult leader, I thought, "This must be right. This must be a sign from God." And then he put me through tests. And each time I passed a test, another portion in my brain turned off its critical thinking. The more I invested in believing that this was the path, my path to eternal life, the more I ignored red flags. I saw red flags, but my brain figured out some kind of justification for it because I was in too deep. So when I saw the women and girls all sucked up into Sam's web, I felt like I knew the path that their brains had followed and that what I was seeing when I interacted with them was probably not who they really were. They were just in survival mode. I mean, look, these people, some of them lost their children.

[00:23:15]um they lost their reputation in the community. They lost their dignity. They lost uh personal items. They sacrificed so much to believe in Sam that it would be very hard for them even now to wake up and say all this was in vain. All this suffering, all this sacrifice was in vain. So I understand why people are why people are still holding on to something that has been proven with facts to be false.

[00:23:46]>> That's really the cognitive dissonance of it all. And you know to help people understand when I'm saying cognitive dissonance, we'll find ways to justify something that we're doing so we resolve the conflict. For example, you might work for a boss somewhere that is rude and abrasive and maybe even abusive.

[00:24:11]And you might convince yourself that it's a great job and that he or she is really brilliant and you're learning great things and and helping your career to justify why you put up with all of that.

[00:24:27]And you you have to justify in some way because if you don't, it's hard to explain to yourself why you're subjecting yourself to it. We see it a lot when people get into fraternities in college and they go through hazing and they go through all of the stuff to get in fraternity. They've got to convince themselves, this is the greatest organization in the world. Why else would I be putting up with all this and subjecting myself to it? So, they have to find a way to resolve it. And that's so much about what happens in these cultlike situations. You have to decide this must be this person must be the way to salvation. Why else would I be starving myself, working myself to the bone, living such an austere life if it wasn't for some greater good? They have to convince themselves and believe in it or there's no way they could ever justify it. Is that a fair statement?

[00:25:25]You described that very well. Like cognitive dissonance in my situation came in in a big way when in the beginning I would ask questions. I would see red flags and ask questions. I didn't just immediately jump in with both feet. So I did do a little bit of investigation.

[00:25:48]And when I saw he that he had answers for things. He always had some kind of workaround for everything that I doubted, it became so tiring on my brain that at a certain point I said, I know there's an answer. I know there's a justification. I'm just going to stop questioning and assume that if there's a problem, the problem is me and that he is the real deal. At that point, and I can remember that exact time, at that point, I stopped thinking for myself.

[00:26:21]And I said, "My only source of truth is to listen to him." And I assumed that this kind of thing happened to all of those who came believing that Sam was indeed a prophet. When you started this, did you envision bringing Samuel Baitman to justice or were you just there to support these young women and try to show them an alternative way of thinking?

[00:26:49]>> In the beginning, we did not know that Sam was committing these kinds of crimes. So, I was supporting them, I thought, by being an example, but also I wanted to keep my eye on things. Any time there's a few men and a whole lot of women, something is wrong. And I didn't know exactly what it was, but I did know that if I shunned them like the rest of the town, that that no one would be able to find out what was really going on.

[00:27:21]My hope was that they would learn to trust me enough and to start speaking to me and tell me what was really happening behind closed doors if there was h something happening and I had to play the long game. But it worked.

[00:27:39]>> You described him as the quote crulest bastard you ever met. Why do you say that? He humiliated the men in front of their wives and daughters in ways I can't speak about on TV. He destroyed the mothers psychologically and destroyed their reputations in front of their daughters so that their daughters would hate them.

[00:28:09]He took children and violated them in unthinkable ways.

[00:28:16]All the while portraying that this was what God wanted and this was their pathway to heaven.

[00:28:23]I mean he even took the money like labor trafficking from the men.

[00:28:32]It was he took everything that these and the women when the when the women and the girls worked the money went to him.

[00:28:40]So he exploited them in every way you can imagine. And the whole time is he building them up and putting them on a pedestal and saying how righteous you are. Maybe little drips of that here and there because that's how you create trauma bonds. You have to have moments of being lifted up. But for the most part, they lived on walking on eggshells. Their phones had trackers on them. They couldn't speak to people who didn't agree with him. So, he controlled every aspect of their lives. And if you study the 12 elements of coercive control, Sam had everyone on the checklist. How did he learn how to be so effective in gaining coercive control in being such a idol to these people? How do you think he got the psychological knowledge and wherewithal to take over their minds, their thinking, eliminate their critical control? That's a question I've asked myself, not just about him, but about other cult leaders and predators. And I think in Sam's case, he had a predatorial instinct.

[00:30:01]So, he would figure this will keep me safer from them speaking. What can I do to make sure that nobody finds out what I'm doing?

[00:30:12]How can I scare the living daylights out of these people so that they don't tell?

[00:30:17]So, I do think it was trial and error.

[00:30:19]And one way that he did that was he relied upon an archaic Mormon fundamentalist doctrine called blood atonement. Do you know about that?

[00:30:31]>> Yes. Uh-huh. So he was teaching that if people committed certain sins that they would merit to have their blood shed to to death so that they could then be with God because they committed some kind of sin so bad that there would be no other way for them to make it to heaven. So he was teaching this. So there was an underlying fear present in all of it that if they somehow made a mistake that he considered serious that they might lose their lives. And in one experience, I asked Sam, I said, "Who merits blood atonement?" And he looked at me straight in the eyes and he said, "Anyone who knowingly goes against the prophet."

[00:31:27]And I thought he was saying that as a threat to me as well. So it wasn't just an idol threat either. He was making plans to murder a couple of his male followers.

[00:31:42]So when the FBI finally came, it couldn't have come soon enough. We were on eggshells that there really might be some bloodshed if if something wasn't done soon.

[00:31:54]>> How much money was he gathering from all of these people, do you think? What kind of cash flow do you think he was generating?

[00:32:02]>> Tens of thousands. I mean, he had he had his followers buy him two Bentleys, and these Bentleys were like in the range of a half a million dollars each and then two Range Rovers. And the reason was because this the queen had a Bentley and her security was in Range Rovers. So, he was trying to mimic that. That alone was many, many thousands of dollars.

[00:32:36]Then he had a monthly payment. I think it was 10,000 a month. And anything he wanted was paid for. All he had to do was say that God wanted this for him.

[00:32:46]And bingo, there it was.

[00:32:48]>> And where were they getting the money?

[00:32:50]How were they generating this cash flow for him? He was able to recruit one man who had started a business and had hired you know his brothers and other people and that particular business was generating a lot of money and because he had him as a follower that person was prim uh primarily the financeier of his operation >> and you think he was giving him how much money a year >> I don't know per year I mean I I would just guess in cash maybe um a couple hundred thousand.

[00:33:27]>> So they were given money, they were given their wives, they were giving their daughters, their children, and then you you documented how he was having sex with these underage children.

[00:33:41]You eventually got to the point where they felt like, okay, now we have enough evidence to get a warrant. But along the way, he was having some of these men, he would have them have sex and watch. He would have group sex watching each other, but he never let your cameras in for that, >> of course. And we wouldn't have gone in for that. We were never a part of any.

[00:34:10]We never documented any sexual abuse. He didn't want us to know.

[00:34:15]But then he for some reason felt inspired to confess while we were driving around in one of his Bentleys.

[00:34:25]And that's when I took out my phone and I recorded him confessing what he had done to these women and children.

[00:34:36]>> I saw you pull that phone out when you did. Was it in your pink boot or your purse or where did you came up with the phone out of nowhere like it materialized?

[00:34:45]>> It was in my purse. But what I did is I was packed in the back seat. There were four of us in the back seat. So it was me, a child, and two young women all in the back seat. So I had my phone down by my, you know, on the floor. So I reached down like this very quietly like I was itching and grabbed it out of my phone.

[00:35:06]And then I kept it on the side of my hip and looked for a voice recorder and hit play. And I just prayed that it would work because he was saying serious stuff.

[00:35:18]>> Very smooth move, Dr. Christine.

[00:35:20]>> Thank you. Thank you.

[00:35:21]>> Very smooth move. And that proved to be really critical.

[00:35:25]>> Yeah, it did. It as soon as I did that, I left the car. I left the car early, earlier than Toga because psychologically I hit a wall and I couldn't listen to anymore. Even if he was going to confess more, I couldn't handle it. I had I I just hit a wall. So I said, "Hey, I have to go to work." You know, I had to pretend I was okay with this stuff. And when this was going on, I had this like internal panic attack and where my nervous system felt like like it was exploding. I didn't know how to respond. I wanted to beat him up. I wanted to drag the girls out of the car.

[00:36:13]I wanted to scream, but I knew that I had to keep my cool. And so I left the car and said, "Bye, Sam. Love you." Walked out of the car and before I stopped recording, I stated the date and who was in the car. And then I had stopped and I didn't even know if the recording worked, but it did. So I was in shock for a few minutes and then I called the police. the same police officer I had been working with and said I got the bombshell. The reason I thought it was the bombshell was because I had reported before this several times and I was told that they can't arrest based on hearsay. They have to have something real. So I knew that this was real. This was the predator admitting he was doing ritualistic sexual abuse and subject subjecting children to it. And I had the child who was involved sitting right next to me quietly weeping making it clear that she was indeed that victim. I mean they said they were the ones that participated in this. So, we have the victims and we have the confession and I thought we would get an immediate response like within days, but it didn't turn out that way.

[00:37:46]>> So, people understand, I I'll I'll put up and and show a list of pathological cult leader traits we've built from the research across time. They all seem to have a grandiose idea of who he is and what he can achieve. preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, or brilliance. They demand blind, unquestioned obedience. They clearly have a sense of entitlement.

[00:38:14]They're exploitive of others by asking for money for one thing. They ignore the needs of others, including biological, physical, emotional, or financial.

[00:38:24]They're living in comfort. They don't care if anybody else is cold and and sleeping on a floor. Anyone who criticize or questions is the enemy.

[00:38:34]Does not wish to know what the others think or desire. Have magical answers or solutions to problems. Tries to control what others do, read, view or think. And totally believe they are destined for greatness or will be martyed. And he checks every box. Would you agree?

[00:38:54]>> 100%.

[00:38:56]He believed I don't believe he believed he was a prophet, but I do believe that he thought he was destined for greatness. And he makes that very clear.

[00:39:08]He was drunk on power.

[00:39:12]He couldn't get enough. I mean, his goals were preposterous. I want people to understand and if they haven't seen this documentary, I I really highly recommend that you watch because it's really astounding that you were able to get the access that you did and you you get a sense of how narcissistic and power hungry this guy is and you artfully fed into his ego. I really love the part where he wanted you to videotape him hiking and running through the rocks and the woods. I I guess he thought he was moving like a superhero. He was actually running like Garfield the cat. I thought it was absurd the way he was putting on this show. And actually, you talk about not reading the room. I I I can't imagine people not rolling their eyes when they they look at this, but you guys played into it so well, but I I think people will understand that what you did was because you deeply cared for these girls so very much.

[00:40:34]>> We had to. When I say this was not easy, I I want to paint the picture of how often I paced around my kitchen table worrying. Worrying the internal conflict, how many days I cried, how it was the theme of my therapy is knowing they were going to be hurt, but yet knowing I had to do this. I was driven though by two things.

[00:41:10]One was my own experience. I didn't I did not want these girls stuck in this forever. And my particular predator was never even investigated. But the other thing was the girl sitting next to me.

[00:41:26]I I I have like my blood pressure is rising just thinking about it. She's so sweet. so kind, so special, so innocent. And to think that he would do that to this 13-year-old girl, it just kept my determination when I faltered sometimes. But I loved all the girls. All of these girls were remarkable young women. And so were the young women, the wives that he picked, they weren't um they weren't losers. I mean, they were incredible, talented, beautiful, smart women.

[00:42:12]All of these people were having their lives devastated by someone that they did not know was an impostor. So that drove me to not quit. You know, you talk about feeling like you were betraying these women, but and and you were you were deceiving them. You were telling them that you were doing one thing when you were actually feeding information to the authorities, the FBI, the police and all. And that was a deception. They wouldn't have given you access and and taken you in the way they did if they had known that in the beginning. But you had to keep coming back to the ultimate goal of knowing that eventually when they saw the light, they would thank you for what you did. It was an interim lie, a bridge lie to get them to the other side where there was truth that they would see.

[00:43:12]You had to know that even though you felt like you were betraying them at the time. Yeah, I knew it um intellectually, but I I my um it was also hard as well. But when we got the FBI involved, I mean, when the FBI got involved, everything took on a whole new life. It started the investigation was moving at the speed of light and I was working with Dawn the special agent in charge night and day and sometimes I would cry on her shoulder actually like I would call her even at 1:00 in the morning and she was there for me and she kept reminding me we're almost done hang in there one day they will thank you just hang in there and that is not something I expected from the FBI to be such a profound source of emotional support, but but she was >> coming full circle.

[00:44:19]He's now in prison. If things go as planned, he'll never take another breath of free air. These women that you were close to that did feel betrayed and sent you some very harsh sentiments afterwards, have they come around?

[00:44:36]>> Yes. All of the underage girls testified against Sam.

[00:44:41]So that means they walked away from all this and they have their lives and their freedom now. So I've heard, you know, beautiful thank yous from them. But the the young women and the older mothers who still believe in Sam, that's a different story. No, they I am still person non gratada and that's okay. I understand where they're coming from. I know that they have very negative feelings towards me, but I do not have negative feelings towards them.

[00:45:16]I still love and care about them. And if any of them hear this and want to just meet and have a talk, I feel like I could help them understand why I did what I did and that I still care about them.

[00:45:32]>> Why do you choose to live in that community still?

[00:45:36]>> That's a good question and people seem to be mystified by it. So, I'm kind of amused because I love it here. It's beautiful. The people are fantastic. I have good friends here.

[00:45:48]And there is still a work for me to do here. I'm in a unique position because I'm not what they call an apostate. So when you have, you know, people who are FLDS are one small sector of the town now and then people who are exldds um they wouldn't be able to communicate with each other because of shunning.

[00:46:15]But the shunning is getting less and I am an intermediary between people who are XFLDS and their FLDS family members.

[00:46:26]So I serve a unique role and I'm one of the um few people that those who are still FLDS can come to for support because they don't trust a lot of the other agencies.

[00:46:42]I have a nonprofit called voicesfordignity.org or and we we provide services to anybody but because we also provide services to the FLDS we are at least one source that can work on trauma reduction we I use an approach it's called a harm reduction approach where instead of attacking people who are different than me um I just want to meet them where they're at and understand them and meet their needs as they have them. And that approach that involves so much empathy is really how you can help people change their minds when they're ready. You can't change people's minds by um insulting them and attacking them or even by showing them what the facts are.

[00:47:35]You have to be a safe person that they can come to and then explore what it means to think for yourself. So, I still have a purpose here. That's why I'm still here.

[00:47:46]>> You still hope to bring some of those others to the light. I mean, to see the truth, I'm sure. Can you make a living in that town? I mean, you're a highly trained professional in a very sophisticated arena.

[00:48:01]Can you make a living where you are?

[00:48:03]>> In my 10 years of providing service to this community, I've never made one dollar.

[00:48:09]So, I don't do things because I want to make money. I want to help people and I have to rely on my husband who does music videos and productions and he basically supports me. However, now I'm branching out and I'm going to be doing some professional trainings and public speaking where I hope I can, you know, contribute to the family income. Well, you certainly have a story to tell. I can vouch for that for sure. And we've only scratched the surface. And I hope we can talk again and go into more detail about some of this because I I think if people hear what you have to say, what you've experienced personally and and the red flags that you can identify for those that are getting pulled in, you know, it's estimated that there are somewhere between 7,500 and 10,000 cults that are currently operative in the United States today as we sit here and speak that number being so high because of the internet. You know, there's so many people that are trying to run scams and pull people in. Uh you have frontline information and knowledge. So, I I hope you do continue to push your message out there and and educate people because you'll save a lot of people from getting pulled into this kind of thing in the future. And I hope we can talk again as well.

[00:49:43]>> I hope so, too. I'm so grateful you let me explore some of these topics and I hope people think about some of these things and and even examine their own relationships because remember this. If I have a final message, it would be this.

[00:49:59]People won't come to you for help if they think you're against them. You have to be kind. It's a message of kindness.

[00:50:07]That's how we change hearts and minds is being kind to everyone and putting ourselves in in their shoes and being an avenue that they can come to for safety.

[00:50:16]>> Well, Dr. Christine, I think you hit exactly the right note while you were there at a great cost to yourself. And God bless Toga for all of his work and contribution to this as well. So, please give him my best. And if you want more information about her organization, voices fordignity, go to voices fordignity.org. And if you haven't watched the four-part Netflix documentary series, Trust Me, the False Prophet, believe me, you need to. I watched all four parts of it, start to finish, and um it's compelling. Robin and I watched it together, and I know a lot about this. I've been to the community. I've dealt with these folks for over 20 years and I still found it revvely and compelling. So, I know that you will as well. It's streaming now on Netflix. So, doctor, thank you for your time and I look forward to when we talk again.

[00:51:13]>> Thank you.

[00:51:14]>> Thank you. So long. And don't forget, you can watch all new episodes of Dr. Phil on Envoy TV and Envoy Fast. Just go to envoy.com for more information.