These stories are from survivors alleging ritual abuse. Survivor names and situations have been changed to protect their identity. If you would like to submit your story, please email us at info@relentlesshopeforyou.org.

WARNING: CONTENT IS GRAPHIC. This may be triggering.

Leslie

Leslie is a 42 year old woman who was exploited by church members in Ogden. Community and ward leaders demanded access to Leslie, subjecting her to sexual molestation, rape, sodomy and sadistic ceremonies.  She was tortured and forced to participate in the rituals, which were held in private homes, church meeting houses, and in the mountains. The children were drugged and then the adults would have their way, passing the kids around. Some were tied to trees where they were brutalized with objects including cattle prods.

The earliest memories of her abuse started before 4 years old.  The children were expected to do sexual things to the leaders. Children were forced to beat and rape one another.  This was a tactic to break attachments and ensure compliance.  They would use brother against sister; the oldest against the youngest.  When Leslie was five years old, the leader performed a mock crucifixion on her.  She was “nailed” to a wooden cross and left in isolation for days.  Leslie was raped, filmed and trafficked all over the area.  As with other victims, she was experimented upon, buried alive, forced to eat body parts, and witnessed the mutilation of humans and animals throughout her childhood . Leslie said the rituals stopped in her early teens when she had aged out.  Since she was no longer a child, the men weren’t interested in her anymore.  They all like them young.  

Della
Della grew up in polygamy and this is her story.

I was born a slave, sold as a slave and bred as a slave in the United States of America. My life is not unique. There are literally thousands of us.  In the name of freedom of religion, our only choice was to obey or be destroyed.  Blind obedience was required to save us from eternal damnation, and if we didn’t comply, then our only redemption was Blood Atonement (to be killed) to save our evil souls.  Murders, thefts, child molest and other crimes flourished among our “holy people”.  The constitutional rights of the victims remain nonexistent while American courts uphold the rights of the perpetrators as long as their breaches of the law and their taking away the constitutional rights of others is done in the name of freedom of religion.

When the public hears women advocating polygamy, they appear to be entirely unaware that they are witnessing an increasing national epidemic of the Stockholm syndrome. Even a woman in a concentration camp won’t testify against the guards while the guards still have her children and she can’t hope to escape their control. The truth in the purpose of polygamy lies in the facts of the money trail.  My stepfather wanted plural wives.  A leader of a polygamy sect had him converted. He didn’t have a plural wife, so he chose to take me. I resisted so he violently beat me, cut me with a knife making superficial wounds on my face, arms and legs, because I wouldn’t stop fighting. He hit me so hard he permanently destroyed part of my left eyebrow and damaged the nerves on the right side of my face. The knife wounds left several scares. He justified his actions because I was no relation to him. 

My father sold me to the son of one of his friends who served time in prison with my father. I had just turned 15. My future husband and his father came and took me as soon as my father got paid. They took me to the prophet (Rulon Jeffs ) who told me I had my free agency. I could live plural marriage as God commanded or I could refuse, but if I refused, the only way I could be saved in God’s eternal heaven was to pay for rejecting the gospel through Blood Atonement, my blood. (a ritualistic throat cutting murder, my murder, to redeem my evil soul and save me in eternity), Then he asked me which one I chose. I had no choice. I said nothing, so the illegal time and all eternity marriage proceeded and I became the property of a stranger.

I grew two and a half inches taller after I got married, a sin for which I was never forgiven. I had nine pregnancies and six living births, all except one, by the time I was 23. My husband didn’t believe in wasting money on doctors so he was opposed to medical care during child birth. My infant and I both nearly died because I had an advanced case of Toxemia. We are alive today because my brother and my Mom got medical care for me while my husband was away.

My husband was sexually inappropriate with our daughters. I went to the police to get help and they informed that they couldn’t do anything about a crime until after it happened and until it could be proven.  I had no way to protect my children My husband tried to get me to help him adopt out (sell) our two youngest daughters.  When I wouldn’t obey him, he brought me to one of his friends, who with the help of my husband, raped me.

Della eventually escaped out of her polygamy sect and found freedom.  Since then Della has advocated for victims all across the country.

Anne Johnson Davis

In 1995, Anne Johnson Davis states she was abused after a report was released by the Utah Attorney General’s office that downplayed the existence of ritual abuse. As evidence, Davis provided a photo showing herself as a child with bruises, and also claimed her siblings corroborated her story. In addition, Davis provided a confession by her mother and stepfather regarding the abuse to detectives in the Attorney General’s Office. Her parents also confessed to two investigators from the office, as well as to the leaders of the church they attended. In her book, Davis states that her parents denied the abuse, but were excommunicated by their church and sold their home to pay for her therapy.

This is an excerpt from Anne’s book:

“The truth is they do wear black robes, they do abuse children, they do kill animals…It exists, and to say otherwise is to deny the facts in front of them. Our society used to deny the existence of incest, too, because we didn’t want to believe it…I was sexually abused in every way you can conceive. I was tortured and had the bottoms of my feet cut. I was made to believe I was killing a baby, and they forced me to kill dogs and cats…I was bathed in a tub of blood and forced to look at myself in a mirror. I was tied up and hung upside down and spun. I was suffocated and electrocuted to the point of being bowed and paralyzed. Sometimes they forced me and my siblings to hurt one another. They would tell me, ‘now you’re one of us. If you tell anybody, they won’t believe you and they’ll put you in a mental hospital.’ And they threatened to torture me until I was dead.” (from Anne’s book “Hell Minus One”). 

Becca

Becca is 26 years old but she remembers her abuse vividly as flash-backs are a common occurrence.  Becca was abused since the age of four until she was 15 in and around Pocatello, ID.  Becca’s uncle introduced her to sex trafficking.  As with all victims, Becca was told if she told anyone, her and her family would be killed.  Becca was pimped out in various places including the Pocatello Idaho Temple as well as various churches and in private businesses. Becca was forced to perform oral sex on the gentleman in the room. Some men were state legislatures, judges, police, and doctors — any sick pervert who wanted it from a small child and as always in robes with masks on. She witnessed other children being raped, sodomized, tortured and killed. At times the men would move their rituals outdoors to cemeteries.  There, children would be buried alive and then dug up right before it would be too late.  This was the “resurrection ritual”.  At other times children would be held under water until they drowned and then they would be revived.  The doctors in attendance knew exactly how long the children could be held underwater without dying. The men believed that during the time the child’s life hung in the balance, that the spirits of dead prophets could jump into their bodies. 

This went on for almost 10 years in Becca’s case.  She and other children would be chained up or caged.  Each child was given drugs.  The drugs would made them pliable and forget what happened.  Then after the ceremony, the children would have to dispose of the dead bodies and clean up the blood that got all over the floors, walls and altar.  This type of abuse goes on week after week, all over the US in churches and temples.  Satan’s thirst for blood is never quenched.  

Corey

Corey was only 17 when he told his story.  He had only been out for 3 years so the memories were still fresh in his mind. His father was his trafficker and took him many places for “adventures.”  It’s hard enough having to attend the ceremonies and endure the punishment, but it was even harder to go home with a father who was the lead Satanist in the group.  He couldn’t sleep at night, he was anxious, and understandably paranoid.

Corey was being groomed to take over when his father stepped down. After all he was in a blood line family.  He was gang raped, tortured, experimented upon, and forced to watch while his father killed children in the most brutal of ways.  He was taken all over Arizona to participate in rituals including churches, caves, temples, corporate buildings, and private homes. The video camera was always on filming the activities that took place. Of course Corey knew these videos would be posted on the dark web for creepy perps to watch in the safety of their basements after their wife and children had gone to bed. This is what caused his paranoia.  He was always concerned that some person would recognize him out in the public.

Corey wore clothes to hide his scars which were all over his body, so even in the heat of summer he would wear hoodies and long pants.  When he turned 18, he was planning to cover some of them with tattoos.  Corey was exceptionally smart, so if he had decided to follow in his father’s footsteps, he would have been most ingenious and particularly cruel.  But Corey had one thing he would have to overcome — he loved children.  So much so that he would risk his own life to visit those who were kept in cages.  Corey would go to a warehouse where children were kept hidden away.  Dozens of kids were left naked and cold on the concrete ground surrounded by large, steel bars meant for animals. They were given pig slop to eat which was thrown on the floor.  The children ranged in age from 11 months to 12 years old. What happened after that, Corey didn’t know.  When asked how the children had gotten there, Corey guessed that they were a result of ritual rapes or prophet sperm insemination.

When Corey turned 14, he was finally able to tell a judge that he didn’t want to stay with his father anymore.  The custody chain was broken and he was finally free.  Now that Corey is out of his dad’s life and safe with his new family, he is focusing on his healing.

Monica

Monica is a 37 year old woman who was abused from the time she was born until her late 20s. Monica grew up in affluent family in California.  Her parents were high in the the church.  The mother had been a Relief Society President and an author. Her father was a mission president. Monica can remember being taken in the middle of the night to meeting houses for rituals.  She was always disrobed along with the other kids.  There were usually 12 children, sometimes more and sometimes less.  Candles would be placed around the room.  The men would be waiting in robes, the color depended on the holiday.  If it was a high satanic holiday that required a blood sacrifice, their robes were red.  Sometimes the robes were black, white, purple or brown.  On other occasions, the men and women would be dressed in costumes.

Monica remembers being drugged and placed on a rolling altar. While the participants were chanting, the leader would invite demonic spirits into the room. Monica remembers dark shadows coming near her. She could feel people touching her as they walked around the altar.  Men would take turns raping her while the women sodomized her with objects or their fingers.  Even though she was only 8 years old, she was embarrassed to admit she orgasmed at times.  It wasn’t her fault, it was simply her body reacting to the stimulation that was forced on her.

During a particular ceremony, Monica witnessed a homeless man being tortured.  He was hung upside down where the members proceeded to beat him with bats and swords until he bled out.  They then took his body down and placed it on a table where they began to cut him from his chest to his pubic bone.  With great delight the leader started removing his organs and began passing them around to the others.  One of the members forced Monica to eat his liver.  She didn’t want to but she had no choice.  If she didn’t they said she would be next to die.  She took a bite and then another and when she began to get sick, Monica threw it up.  The member pushed her face into the vomit and told her to lick it until it was gone.

When the night was over, members took the remains of the homeless man and put them in a garbage bag.  Monica overheard one of them say they were taking it to the garbage dump.  Other times bodies that hadn’t been mutilated where taken by doctors. What the doctor did, Monica didn’t exactly know but it had to do with experimentation and necrophilia.  As Monica got older, she was accessed by her handler to attend rituals well into her adulthood.  Because she had dissociative identity disorder, he was easily able to get her to go with him with just a few words as she had been programmed to do.  It wasn’t until she met a wonderful counselor that she was able to break free from the bondage, however, it took 10 years of therapy and work to get there.