Triumph: Life After the Cult--A Survivor's Lessons
In 2008 when Texas state authorities raided a remote ranch and took into custody 167 children of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it dredged up awful memories for Jessop. She had escaped the Mormon polygamist sect and a 17-year marriage to one of its leaders. Because of her experience and best-selling book, Escape (2007), which chronicled her life with the FLDS, the state of Texas called on her as a consultant. She offers a keen analysis of how the situation was handled; worries about a repeat of the fatal raid of the Branch Davidian compound in 1993; the posturing of FLDS representatives; the use of her own daughter, who at 18 returned to the sect; and the legal and political wrangling in the largest custody battle in U.S. history—what went right and what went wrong—before the children were eventually returned to their parents. In later chapters of the book, she focuses on her own transformation and the hope that other FLDS families might also be able to escape. --Vanessa Bush