#WINSTON BLACKMORE YOUNG TRIAL#
Much of the evidence in the trial came from marriage and personal records seized by law enforcement at a church compound in Texas in 2008. "There was nothing contrived or rehearsed in her answers. "She was a careful witness," Donegan said. Justice Sheri Ann Donegan praised Jane Blackmore as a highly credible and reliable witness. More: Polygamous community welcomes thousands of exiles amid renewed July 4 festivitiesĪt the 12-day trial for Blackmore and Oler earlier this year, witnesses included mainstream Mormon experts, law enforcement officials who worked on the investigation and Jane Blackmore, a former wife of Winston Blackmore who left the Canadian community in 2003. government until the faith's leadership officially renounced it four decades later. Polygamy remained a point of contention between the church and the U.S. The faith's leader at the time, Brigham Young, is considered responsible for institutionalizing polygamy among members a few years after arriving in Utah, noting it had previously been practiced quietly by the church's founder. Monday's convictions, coincidentally, were announced on the anniversary of the 1847 arrival of Mormon pioneers in the Salt Lake Valley, celebrated in Utah as a state holiday. The Mormon church, officially known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and headquartered in Salt Lake City, denies any connection to the offshoot fundamentalist group, although the two faiths share a religious heritage from the founding years prior to the polygamy dispute. Jeffs continues to lead the bulk of the FLDS congregations from a Texas prison, where he is serving a life sentence for sexually assaulting underage girls he considered brides.
Church prophet Warren Jeffs ousted Blackmore and appointed Oler to replace him, but more than half the Canadian branch members at the time chose to retain Blackmore as their leader in defiance of the decision, creating two distinct congregations.īlackmore changed the name of his congregation in 2015, but has still retained ties with the FLDS community and had a public presence at that year's Fourth of July celebration in Colorado City – the first such celebration since Jeffs did away with the festivities more than a decade earlier.
The FLDS church is headquartered in Hildale and Colorado City, the twin cities nestled in a remote stretch of the Utah-Arizona state line between the Grand Canyon and Zion National Park.īlackmore was the lead bishop of the Canadian branch of the FLDS church until a schism in 2002. Blackmore and Oler are members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints community, a faith that has continued to practice polygamy since its forerunners broke away from the "mainstream" Mormon church because of the parent church's decision to abandon polygamous practices during the 1800s.
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