Five weeks ago, the reclusive Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was thrust into the national spotlight.

The state of Texas reportedly received a call for help from an FLDS teenager who claimed she was being abused.

The call resulted in authorities seizing over 400 children in less than a week.

Channel 3 Eyewitness News reporter Nate Eaton recently met with a former member of the FLDS church. He wanted to know if she believes the allegations of abuse are really happening within her former faith.

Some of Carolyn's relatives live in Eastern Idaho.

Kristine Larsen, Relatives are FLDS: “Growing up we had visited Colorado City several times.”

Richard Larsen, Relatives are FLDS: “My mother’s one sister and two brothers joined into polygamy in the 1940’s and 50’s”

Richard Larsen’s immediate family never practiced polygamy but they had several aunts, uncles, and cousins who did.

Years ago, two of Richard’s cousins married Merril Jessop…the first counselor to Warren Jeffs and the man in charge of the FLDS compound in El Dorado, Texas.

One of Jessop’s other wives was Carolyn Jessop. She was born into polygamy and raised FLDS.

Carolyn Jessop, Former FLDS Member: “I had 8 kids in 15 years. We all believed that our only way to God was through plural marriage.”

Nate Eaton: “How old were you when you got married?”

Jessop: “I was 18.”

Eaton: “Did you choose your spouse?”

Jessop: “No, no, nobody does. It’s not acceptable to choose your spouse.”

The man who did choose her spouse was LeRoy Johnson…the prophet of the church at the time and the only person who could decide who was to marry who.

There was no flirting, dating, not even talking to people of the opposite sex.

One night, Carolyn’s father told her the prophet wanted her to marry Merril Jessop.

Jessop: “Merrill was 50 at the time. I was 18 so he was 32 years older than me. I had seen him, I knew of him, I was in the same room but to actually meet him the two of us talk no that had never happened.”

Two days later, Johnson married the couple. Jessop already had three other wives…and three months after Carolyn’s wedding he married two more women.

Carolyn was instantly thrown into a house with jealous wives, a husband she didn’t love, and dozens of children…whom Carolyn says Jessop constantly abused.

If it wasn’t emotional, it was physical…like a water torture practice.

Jessop" “It’s where you take an infant and you spank them violently and then you hold them face up under a tap of running water. And the cycle is repeated and repeated and repeated until the baby is so out of breath and exhausted that it’s not able to fight any more.”

Carolyn says the abuse was bad but believed she was living God’s will. It wasn’t until Warren Jeffs started to gain more control of the religion that she started to question her beliefs.

Jessop: “Warren one day decided that dogs were no longer to be allowed among the people of God and in one day he had all the dogs taken from the community or killed.”

Jeffs also started talking about a center-place where righteous FLDS members would gather and be isolated from the rest of the world.

Jessop: “I saw that as compounds.”

Around this time, Carolyn’s son was diagnosed with cancer. She knew if they moved to a compound, she would never be able to get him treatment.

She knew she had to leave. But that would be nearly impossible.

Jessop: “If you’re going to try a crazy stunt like this in the FLDS failure is not an option.”

(Story Continues in Part II)