Carolyn Jessop (born January 1, 1968) is an American author and former Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints member who wrote Escape, an autobiographical account of her upbringing in the polygamist sect and later flight from that community. She is the cousin, by marriage, of Flora Jessop, another former FLDS member and advocate for abused children. Carolyn Jessop now lives in the Salt Lake City area with her children.
Autobiography
Escape
On April 21, 2003, when Jessop was 35, she left her husband's family and the FLDS church, fleeing to a safehouse in Salt Lake City. Subsequently, she sued for custody of her children, and in 2003 became "the first woman ever granted full custody of her children in a contested suit involving the FLDS."
In 2007, she co-authored her book Escape with Laura Palmer, which chronicled her life in the FLDS organization, her adulthood and disillusionment, and her eventual flight. It was published by the Broadway division of Random House. She followed its publication with a book tour. In 2008, actress Katherine Heigl announced she had contracted to produce and star in a feature film based on the memoir.
Jessop was born Carolyn Blackmore and raised by her parents in Hildale, Utah, with her older sister and younger siblings. She is a sixth-generation descendant of a polygamous family, all of whom were faithful members of the FLDS church. She is a relative of Winston Blackmore, leader of a Canadian polygamous group and also a relative of his American-born Uncle John Horne Blackmore, first leader of what became the Social Credit Party of Canada. Her father became a polygamist when he married his wife's niece when Carolyn was a child. Jessop describes her relationship to her parents as emotionally distant, with her father dominating her mother, and her mother taking out her anger on the children with such regularity that the children soon devised a strategy to get their beatings "out of the way" in the mornings.
The autobiography describes a year-long stint in Salt Lake City, Utah, which gave her a taste of the world outside her religious community. She spent most of her childhood in Colorado City, Arizona.
As Jessop relates, a rift in her religious community at about the time she completed middle school led to the leaders pulling children out of the local high school. She graduated from high school at the age of 17. Jessop intended to attend college and then go to medical school to study pediatric medicine; instead, she was forced into an arranged marriage to Merril Jessop at age 18. Merril Jessop was 32 years her senior and already had three wives and more than 30 children, several of them older than his new wife. Once married, Carolyn Jessop did get to attend college, but her husband decided that she would study elementary education, not medicine. Just months into the marriage, the FLDS's new leader, Rulon Jeffs, gave Merril two new wives.
Carolyn Jessop stated in her book that she endured regular unwanted sexual relations with Jessop in exchange for better emotional treatment. Jessop had eight children with her husband, the last four after she was warned against further pregnancies by her doctors. The final pregnancy was life-threatening and required an emergency hysterectomy, during which time, Jessop maintains that, her husband and his family regarded her condition with disinterest. Jessop contends that the resulting freedom from pregnancy helped her escape from her abusive marriage and volatile home situation.
Triumph: Life After the Cult, a Survivor's Lessons
On May 4, 2010, Jessop released Triumph: Life After the Cult, a Survivor's Lesson, the autobiographical sequel to Escape. Triumph details Jessop's unique insights and inside information regarding the Texas FLDS Raid and its aftermath, as well as Jessop's struggle to come to terms with her oldest daughter's return to the cult. Jessop also reveals the various sources of strength and resources on which she has drawn as she overcame the obstacles to achieving success after a lifetime of trauma living inside a cult. Triumph concludes with Jessop's victorious court battle to win back child support for the years since her escape, as well as lifetime support for her severely disabled son, Harrison.
