'FLDS leader Warren Jeffs hospitalized in Texas'

FLDS leader Warren Jeffs hospitalized in Texas




Ben Winslow, Reporter Fox 13 News

10:41 p.m. CDT, August 29, 2011
SALT LAKE CITY—

Texas prison officials confirmed to Fox 13 that Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Warren Jeffs has been hospitalized in "critical, but stable" condition.

"Jeffs has not been eating/taking in fluids as he should. He indicated he was not on a hunger strike but fasting," said Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark in an e-mail to Fox 13. "The inmate also has other medical conditions that have risen to the level of needing hospitalization."

Prison officials said they could not elaborate on Jeffs' medical problems. The FLDS leader was hospitalized in Tyler, Texas on Sunday. Jeffs was reportedly in a medically-induced coma, but prison officials would not comment on it.

Here in Utah, ex-members of the FLDS Church reacted with a mixture of anger and resignation about news of Jeffs' physical condition. Some feared that if he were to die, he would become a martyr.

"I think that's what he's trying to do, is become a martyr in their eyes and further exalt himself as far as they're concerned. Not necessarily with a bang, but this is precisely what he wants and this is how he wants it to end," said Sherie Jeffs, who is Jeffs' sister-in-law.

Two of Jeffs' children testified against their uncle in Texas that they had been sexually abused as children by the FLDS leader. She said Texas officials should force feed Warren Jeffs, if necessary, to keep him alive.

"I think he needs to stay alive and be able to ponder in that cell for many many years what he's done to people's lives, and children's lives, how many families he's destroyed," she told Fox 13.

Holden Barlow, who said he was cast out of the FLDS Church at age 16 for being what Warren Jeffs deemed "too worldly," said the polygamist leader's legacy will be because of "the bad things he's done." He said that several of his sisters are still married to Warren Jeffs and his mother is a devout member.

"It's going to help them realize that Warren Jeffs is not a god," Barlow said. "He's actually a person. He's a human being. He can die."

The leader of Utah's largest polygamous church was convicted by a jury earlier this month in San Angelo, Texas, on child sex assault charges. He had sex with a pair of underage girls he took as plural "wives." He is currently serving a life, plus 20-year sentence in Palestine, Texas.

This is not the first time the FLDS leader has gone on a self-imposed "fast" while incarcerated. Jeffs was hospitalized while in jail in both Utah and Arizona.