ABC News: Blood Atonement: Survivors of Sect Ritual

ABC News: Blood Atonement: Survivors of Sect Ritual


Two Polygamist Sect Survivors Tell Their Stories
"When I Thought of My Dad, I Thought of Him Being God"
by JEN PEREIRA, KIRAN KHALID and EMILY YACUS
July 7, 2008

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There's been a lot in the news recently about polygamist groups, but what is it really like for the children who grow up in them? Amber Dawn Lee and Estephania LeBaron are two women who spent their childhoods in two very different -- and very troubled groups -- and later escaped.
Two women discuss growing up in secret societies.

The women shared with "Good Morning America" what it is like to live in and to survive the secret society of a renegade polygamist sect.

"The children were all taught that if we were ever to talk about what happened sexually inside the group, that we will go straight to hell," Lee said of her time spent inside the Zion Society.

After she was abandoned by her mother, Lee was adopted and her new parents joined the Zion Society, a group led by a retired landscaper and excommunicated Mormon named Arvin Shreeve.

"I always had a feeling that something wasn't right. That it wasn't normal," said Lee.
Related
Sect Members: Brainwashed or Faithful?
Children of Polygamy: Life on the Outside
WATCH: Mother Escapes Polygamist Cult

Shreeve divided the women into groups called Sister Councils in which it was their job to sew lingerie to sell to local strippers. But first they had to model the lingerie. Shreeve reportedly even hired strippers to train his wives for the sect's fashion shows.

Lee, who as part of a Sister Council learned to sew at a young age, said that she "hoped that I could stand out somehow to Arvin, and that he'll notice that I'm here too."

Lee also said that the children suffered repeated physical and sexual abuse. "A 15-year-old girl would be instructed to teach the 9-year old girl how to sexually satisfy a man or woman," she said.

"Arvin sort of came out of nowhere. There are a lot of independent polygamists," according to senior reporter Mike Watkiss at KTVK in Phoenix. "That's what they call themselves, and they're just guys who basically put their hands up and say, 'I'm a prophet.'"

Estephania LeBaron said she knew about the horrors from a different sect. She is the daughter of polygamist Ervil LeBaron, founder of the Church of the Lamb of God.

"When I thought of my dad, I thought of him being God," she told "GMA." "I just had a huge feeling of awe." She also feared that if she deviated from her father's sect, she "might not get into heaven."