From Deseret News archives:
Jeffs' taped sermons may play key role
Their titles read like a collection of Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Warren Jeffs' "Greatest Hits," sermons and lectures by the self-proclaimed prophet dating back to the 1990s. Beswick has spent years collecting the tapes, which he says he made available for Washington County prosecutors to use in Jeffs' trial.
"Everything's contained in these tapes," Beswick said Thursday.
Audio recordings of Jeffs' sermons and lectures are expected to figure into the prosecution's case. At the opening of his trial Thursday, prosecutors played a portion of one lecture Jeffs presented to girls concerning marriage.
Elaine Tyler also handed over about 100 tapes of Jeffs' sermons to prosecutors. The director of the nonprofit HOPE Organization, which helps women and children leaving the FLDS enclaves of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., said she gave them to law enforcement authorities looking into Jeffs and the FLDS Church.
"We gave them willingly," she said Thursday night. "It's evidence. It's out of the mouth of Warren."
Washington County prosecutors have filed motions in court, asking a judge to allow them to use during the trial numerous statements made by Jeffs. Defense attorneys have objected, seeking to limit many statements.
The defense may also introduce some sermons and lectures, showing Jeffs counseled followers as any religious leader would.
On tapes obtained by the Deseret Morning News, Jeffs speaks in a monotone. On one tape made in 1997, he recounts the history of "celestial" or plural marriage. He recounts the history of polygamy, beginning with Joseph Smith, the founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The FLDS Church is a breakaway sect with no ties to the LDS Church.
On the tape, Jeffs speaks of Smith's martyrdom and earlier raids on Short Creek, now the polygamous communities of Hildale and Colorado City. In many, he urges students to "keep sweet" in their thoughts and deeds.
Last year, the Deseret Morning News published excerpts of recorded lectures given by Jeffs when he was principal of the Alta Academy, a now-defunct FLDS school at the base of Little Cottonwood Canyon. The topic was preparing for marriage.
"I hope you understand that very often a girl is given to her husband after her own likeness," he told a home economics class of seventh and eighth grade girls in 1998. "You should be praying that you will be prepared and that you will be given to a husband who will prove faithful to the end."
During another part of the lecture, Jeffs urged the girls not to date.
"As our prophet says, the best thing is to leave it to the Lord. For a girl's emotions and feelings can be led by the wrong things if she's not careful," he said on tape. "After all, who knows the spirit of revelation better, you or the prophet?"
E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com
