This basketball star’s uncle ran a polygamist cult. He hopes to help bring his small Utah town into a more modern world.
James Jeffs goes to his room, framed by a Zion sign, at his family’s home. Many people still loyal to the FLDS hang Zion placards over their homes. HILDALE, Utah — His last name for years had evoked memories of backward evil, but the boy known as Slim knew he represented progress as he was introduced during warmups of a Utah state playoff game in February.
He ran off the floor and into a cafeteria, where his team was getting dressed in a makeshift locker room.Water Canyon center James Jeffs, rear at right, and teammates stretch before a game against Monticello in February. Warren Jeffs assumed the prophecy from his deceased father, Rulon Jeffs, in 2002, taking over as ruler of the FLDS. But few could have imagined he would one day end up on the FBI’s Most Wanted list alongside Osama bin Laden and a long list of other high-profile criminals, while on the run from authorities. While his father held to polygamist standards that fell more outside of the mainstream each year, Warren Jeffs turned the denomination into something sinister.
Dale quickly said his goodbyes, including to young James, and he told one of his oldest daughters to hold onto a flip phone he was paying for. She would be punished by the church if it was discovered she was still communicating with her father, but it would prove to be their way out.In February 2013, seven months after Dale Jeffs and his two wives were exiled, they hatched a plan to get their kids back.
By that point, with Warren Jeffs in prison and losing power, especially on the roughly 85 percent of land he once controlled with his church-backed trust, Hildale was beginning to open a bit to the outside world. A string of high-profile lawsuits were filed, and a federal judge ruled that Short Creek “had engaged in a decades-long ... practice of police misconduct and housing discrimination.
Dale still lives with his two wives, he says, and 12 of his children live with him in a 24-room, rose-colored home near the high school in Hildale. He is no longer a member of the FLDS, and although the family has remained together, he says they no longer attend church services on Sunday. He voted for the first time in his life in 2017. He’s focused on supporting the new lives of his children. He has watched James go to the movies and include him on homework assignments.
“You just realize how he had deceived everybody so severely. It hurts to see him hurt people,” Dale said. “That’s where you have the hurt, where you see he’s deceived so many people, and broke up so many families.” There are no public signs of Warren Jeffs in Short Creek, although his presence can still be felt. He is considered a martyr to the dwindling FLDS members in the community — some estimate the church still has thousands of total members — and in Short Creek, many hang signs decorated with the word “Zion” above their front doors; the message means “the pure in heart” and for some is a signal for apostates, or outsiders, to stay away.
James has grown close to Garrett, a former Oklahoma State guard who commutes 45 minutes from nearby St. George to teach and coach at the school, and a group of teammates he mostly didn’t know despite living in the same area when he was younger. When he started high school, he was introverted and painfully shy around outsiders, a product of his time spent in the church, where he learned at an early age to follow orders and do what he was told.
James Jeffs listens to his coach during halftime before winning the school's first state playoff game. He is hoping to become the first player from his high school to play college sports. Water Canyon needed two vehicles to haul players to the state tournament, stopping at Wendy’s to eat and checking into a Motel 6 before the game. Outside the hotel, James blared Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” on the radio of his coach’s rental car.
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