For a polygamous sect, homes have gone and 'apostates' have come

Hildale • Brielle Decker pulled a latch hidden underneath a shelf on the back wall. Suddenly, the shelves slid and opened a doorway to a secret room.

The room, in the basement of a house that once belonged to Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints President Warren Jeffs, is about 6 by 12 feet. A fluorescent light fixture on the ceiling shined a yellowish glow on shelves and an old, open safe about the size of a dorm room refrigerator.

"We think this is where they kept the priesthood records," Decker said.

Now the house, and any secrets it can still reveal, belong to Decker, who says she used to be Jeffs' 65th plural wife.

In November, Decker obtained Jeffs' former home and two other residences sitting on the same parcel via the United Effort Plan. It is a land trust once controlled by the polygamous FLDS. In the past 2½ years, the "UEP," as everyone here calls it, has remade Hildale.

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