Het begon toen ik 14 was

by Elissa Wall

Elissa Wall groeide op in een gemeenschap van de Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (flds). In deze mormoonse sekte is polygamie de norm; een man zou pas in de hemel kunnen komen als hij minimaal drie vrouwen heeft. Op veertienjarige leeftijd werd Elissa gedwongen te trouwen met haar vijf jaar oudere neef. Het huwelijk veranderde al snel in een nachtmerrie van vernedering en seksueel misbruik.
Elissa wist te ontsnappen en in 2005 klaagde zij sekteleider Warren Jeffs aan wegens verkrachting en misbruik van minderjarige meisjes. De veroordeling van Jeffs in 2007 was wereldnieuws. In haar onthullende, schokkende memoires vertelt Elissa Wall voor het eerst haar persoonlijke verhaal.

432 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 26, 2013

About the author

Elissa Wall detailing her childhood in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) and subsequent later life outside of the church. It was first published by William Morrow and Company in 2008.

Wall was born into a polygamous family in Salt Lake City and grew up attending the FLDS-run Alta Academy. She describes her living situation as tense; familial relations were further complicated when her mother was reassigned to marry another man in Hildale, Utah.

FLDS leaders orchestrated a marriage between Wall, then 14, and her 19-year-old cousin, Allen Steed, an arrangement she claims to have vehemently opposed. During their four-year marriage, Steed allegedly abused her sexually and psychologically, and Wall eventually began an affair with Lamont Barlow, a 25-year-old former member of the FLDS. Barlow later persuaded her to leave the church and to press charges against Steed and Warren Jeffs, the FLDS "prophet" who performed the wedding ceremony.

Stolen Innocence sold well, reaching number six on the New York Times bestseller list.