Jeffs witness says she never wanted union

ST. GEORGE — The star witness in the state's case against polygamist leader Warren Jeffs testified through tears on Friday that the first time she had sex with her 19-year-old husband, she "felt like a horrible person."

"I didn't understand why he had done what he had done," the now 21-year-old woman said of the night a few weeks after her marriage at 14 to her cousin. "In my mind, it was evil. I didn't know he had to do that sort of thing to have a baby. I lay there shocked. I felt dirty and used."

Jeffs, 51, is charged with two first-degree felony counts of rape as an accomplice for his role in conducting the marriage and counseling the girl, who grew up a member of the Fundamentalist LDS Church, which Jeffs leads. The trial is under way in 5th District Court.

The young woman said that while her new husband slept, she went to a bathroom and swallowed two bottles of over-the-counter pain reliever.

"I didn't want to go to my mother. I thought she would judge me; think I was evil, wrong," the woman testified. "I thought about what happened, and I wanted to die."

Later that night, she said, she threw up the medication. Within days, the couple traveled to Canada to visit family. During that trip, she was "offish" to her husband and tried to avoid even talking to him, she testified.

"I tried to be cordial to him. I knew people were watching me and if I didn't at least show how it should have been, I knew I would suffer the consequences," she said.

It was during that trip, after sharing some details of her unhappiness with a sister, that she decided to ask Jeffs to be "released" from the marriage.

"I told him (Jeffs) that I never wanted to be there (in the marriage) and I couldn't see my staying there and having a family with him," she testified. "I told him 'I'm sorry I failed,' because that's how I saw it."

Jeffs listened, she said, and then told her she was to return home and repent.

"He said I was not living up to my vows, that I wasn't submissive," she testified. "He told me I needed to go home and give myself mind, body and soul to my husband."

She testified that Jeffs dismissed her concerns, which left her extremely depressed.

"He had already put me in this situation, and he was the only one who could get me out, and he wouldn't," she said.