Towns once run by Warren Jeffs' polygamous sect emerge from court supervision transformed

Описание: (30 Jan 2026)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Colorado City, Arizona – 5 December 2025

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1. Drone video of Colorado City Arizona
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Isaac Wyler, resident:
“They worked for the church. They were church appointed, every one of them was church appointed.”
3. Panning shot of towns
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Isaac Wyler, resident:
“The cops were all chosen by the police department. And then if they didn't, if they did something that didn't show that they were 100% loyal to them, they just laid them off, fired them, got rid of them.”
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5. Drone video of town

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hildale, Utah – 4 December 2025
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Donia Jessop, Hildale Mayor:
“Warren had taken the word my out of the vocabulary. And so it wasn't my house, my car, my food. It was the prophet's house, the prophet car, the prophet's food”
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7. Drone video of town
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Donia Jessop, Hildale Mayor:
“Things just took a dramatic turn from the loving community that we had been raised in and brought up in.”
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9. Drone video of mountain
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Donia Jessop, Hildale Mayor:
“For the first time we own our own land. Before, it was all owned by the UEP, the United Effort Plan, which was the church.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Colorado City, Arizona – 6 December 2025
11. House behind a large wall

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hildale, Utah – 5 December 2025
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Willie Jessop, former church spokesperson:
“It's not like it's all on a spreadsheet where you can say everything was positive and everything else was negative. It's a tradeoff.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Colorado City, Arizona – 6 December 2025
13. UEP sign

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hildale, Utah – 5 December 2025
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Willie Jessop, former church spokesperson:
“The community went from like a 99% community-driven and occupied by a religious unity. Today, complete opposite. So there's a huge amount of religious diversity.
15. Large wall
16. SOUNDBITE (English) Willie Jessop, former church spokesperson:
“Which is very healthy on some hands, but also that opens the door for things like crime and drugs and things that the community had never seen or knew anything about. It was kind of blindsided with some of those, Issues.”


ASSOCIATED PRESS
Colorado City, Arizona – 5 December 2025
17. Police truck

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hildale, Utah – 5 December 2025
18. SOUNDBITE (English) Willie Jessop, former church spokesperson:
“I don't think 15l years ago. You could have just drove into town and felt comfortable calling somebody and just go out and have a conversation with them. Today, I don't think anybody would think that was abnormal. But 15 years ago, that wasn't standard.”
19. Home with smashed out windows
20. SOUNDBITE (English) Willie Jessop, former church spokesperson:
“And you know, we call it life after Jeff's and frankly, it's a great life.

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hildale, Utah – 4 December 2025
21. Various holiday scenes
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hildale, Utah – 5 December 2025
22. Various basketball
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Colorado City, Arizona – 5 December 2025
23. Various Colorado city


ASSOCIATED PRESS
Colorado City, Arizona – 15 September 2015


ASSOCIATED PRESS
Colorado City, Arizona – 26 September 2015
STORYLINE:
The prairie dresses, walled compounds and distrust of outsiders that were once hallmarks of two towns on the Arizona-Utah border are mostly gone.



It wasn't easy.

A dark turn






A court-ordered overhaul




‘Like a normal town’







“Like a normal town,” he said.



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