'Keep Sweet's Wallace Jeffs Teamed Up With The FBI To Sue The FLDS Church—And Won
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below."
The new Netflix documentary Keep Sweet details the terrifying story of life in the polygamist cult, FLDS, and the raid that brought down its leader, Warren Jeffs.
In the series, viewers are taken through what life was like in the church, along with the plural, arranged marriages and child rape that took place. It also covers how Jeffs was able to come to power and convinced thousands of people that he was "The Prophet."
A 2008 raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado, Texas, led to the arrest of Jeffs and several of his followers on child sexual assault and bigamy charges. Jeffs is now in jail, but several former members of the church are speaking out in the documentary, including his half-brother, Wallace Jeffs.
But who is Wallace Jeffs, exactly, and where is he now? Here’s what you need to know.
Who is Wallace Jeffs?
Wallace Jeffs is the half-brother of FLDS leader, Warren Jeffs. He’s the 30th child of former FLDS leader Rulon Jeffs and he was raised by Warren’s mom, who thought Warren was special.
“She was always trying to protect [Warren] and keep his reputation clean, so he would be revered by the people,” Wallace told Religion News Service. “He learned to manipulate because his mother taught him how. He believed he could do no wrong. A really classic case of narcissism.”
Warren left the FLDS in 2011 after he discovered his brother was marrying young girls and lost his two wives and 20 children in the process, according to the news service.
Wallace ended up working with the FBI to create a case against Warren and even sued the church for custody of his kids—and won.
How is Wallace Jeffs doing?
He’s been through some drama. Wallace told The Salt Lake Tribune that he thinks a 2011 car accident he suffered was orchestrated by FLDS leaders.
“It’s hard for me to prove it, but I hadn’t been drinking, I wasn’t speeding, and I wasn’t sleepy,” he said. “I had just barely gotten on the freeway when my brakes failed, and I slammed into a semi. My right foot was all the way down on the brakes when the paramedics found me, but the brakes weren’t working.”
“I have to assume that it was caused by the FLDS leadership, because they had told several people I was going to die,” he continued. “The accident happened about two months after I had filed the lawsuit to get my kids back. The Lord had revealed to Warren that the Lord was going to punish me by killing me.”
Wallace spent six weeks in a coma and woke up to find that FLDS had taken back his kids.
“It was the most helpless feeling I’d ever had,” he said. “Waking up from a coma to find out that the children were gone again, and there was absolutely nothing I could do physically to get them back, was devastating. One of the most frustrating things I’ve ever been through.”
Wallace has divorced his two wives and is now remarried to someone from the LDS church (aka the Mormon church).
“I’ve joined the LDS Church and have adopted her eight children, and so now I have a total of 28 children,” he said. “I was able to court her, which was really fun. Courting became a very interesting thing for me, because it’s forbidden in the FLDS—the prophet tells you who you’re going to marry.”
How did Wallace Jeffs make money?
Wallace wrote a book about his time in the FLDS called Destroying Their God: How I Fought My Half-Brother to Save My Children.
Other than that, he says that he’s just focused on raising his extended family.
You Might Also Like
