After I got Sam's confession,
I gave the audio to the local police department.
I say, "I got a bombshell."
"I have evidence. I have proof. I have the proof you've been waiting for."
It was not adultery. It was obedience.
And I expected, maybe, you know, within three days I would get a call back.
You know, "Yep, this is it. We're gonna go arrest him."
But it took a while for the police to get back to us.
So we kept filming.
Here we are in the Bentley with the man with the plan.
Wow, what an interior. I love it. The white jacket and the tan.
I would ask questions to try to get more information.
So, I'm sorry that I'm not educated in this.
That's all right.
But it was revealed to you, what to do to save them?
All I know is I was sitting in one of our meetings one morning,
and I was like, "Holy shit."
And I said, "I will obey."
'Cause the Lord told me to… to do this thing.
So do you think that
the reason you had to witness it
was so that you would hurt?
It is pain.
They're my sweethearts. There's nothing on the earth more precious to me
than the virtue
of women in general and my own wives.
I think he wanted somebody to say, "Wow. You must be the new Messiah,
that you would hurt like Jesus."
-I… -Did you cry?
I couldn't even cry. I didn't even… I… I was so shocked, I didn't cry. I don't…
I don't think.
Yeah, I did, sorry. I did cry.
But watch,
you'll… you'll find out that God made me a prophet,
and you'll find out that people will come back.
-They'll come begging… me for forgiveness. -Yeah.
Do you see more wives joining the family?
Probably.
Yeah. Yeah.
When Christine recorded Sam talking about the sexual abuse,
I knew that it had her really worried and worked up in her feelings
about what was going on there.
She was worried about the girls.
Thank you so much, Christine, for everything also.
We love you and God bless you.
Eventually, I heard back from the police,
who said that wasn't enough evidence.
Christine had told me about the recording.
In that recording,
Sam talks about adult men having sex with young women.
Um, I don't remember exact wording, obviously. I…
I haven't listened to it since I listened to it the first time.
It's not something I like to… to burden myself with
as… as we go through these cases
because there is a lot of information that comes
that… that hurts a gentle heart.
We had a tape.
We had Christine Marie,
who could testify that she created the tape.
-Do you feel unclean? -No.
There was not wickedness.
Based on this single tape,
I didn't have enough for a warrant.
What was missing was the finer elements.
There was more evidence needed
before we could start
knocking at the hornet's nest, if you will.
What we know
and what we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt
are two very different things.
-Hey, darlin'. -Hello.
I talked to the investigator to find out what they thought
after listening to the evidence.
-Yes? -But nope.
Oh my gosh.
Even though the tape was strong, Sam could deny it.
Wow.
In the meantime,
he's just the cruelest bastard I've ever met.
Yeah.
I was worried for my mom.
At the time,
my mom was at risk of going to a darker and darker place
because of her firsthand experience following someone like Sam Bateman.
Never judge. 'Cause I've been there.
I lost everything.
I was scammed, and I was, like, uh, almost not here anymore.
I lost everything to being, uh… to not understanding
who is… who to trust and who not to trust.
Predators have just always been drawn to her
'cause she really sees the best in people.
She sees the best in people to a fault.
Ugh, scary.
I was worried for her, but I also knew that she was the only one
who could actually get him put in jail.
And to do that,
she would have to go even deeper.
I don't know. Is that how it's supposed to be?
Underneath the collar?
Like, if we put it under the collar, then it's not seen.
-Okay, so do you want me to start? -Yeah. Yeah.
Okay, once upon a time…
…many, many moons ago…
While we were filming,
I was trying to get to know the girls more
and to understand the women in Sam's group.
One person at a time?
Okay, start with your name.
We call her Mother Anna.
I changed her name, and she didn't even get mad at me.
Ah.
How did you go to Samuel?
In 2019.
I was 22, and nobody was gettin' married, you know.
-Our people weren't havin' children. -Yeah.
But then my parents started having children again.
So I felt like it was the right thing to do.
Yeah, I can understand that.
Okay, Mother Shiny, we're ready to hear some stuff.
To just have the impression and go to a man
was completely against our traditions.
And yet, in my mind, I wanted to do it because I wanted a baby so dang bad.
And Samuel's name, it came into my mind.
It said, "You belong to him." This thing in the back of my mind.
-He did? Oh… -No, in the back of my mind.
-It was a still, small voice. -A still, small voice.
-But it shook you to the very center. -Yeah, it was very clear.
"You are a part
of the greatest events in history."
I know it's gonna sound weird, but the spirit of God tells me to tell you
that there was a power that linked everything through the whole universe.
I don't know why the Lord opened my eyes to see,
but I did.
This is… This is real. It's a real thing.
Am I wrong?
-No. -No.
I… I'm not wrong.
I knew they were putting on a show,
but I didn't know exactly what was going on behind the scenes.
Hello, Christine.
Um, some of the girls were saying that you wanted to hear more testimonies.
Is that true or…?
You bet it is.
It's so inspiring to hear them, and I think it serves you well.
I was not permitted to be alone with the underage girls.
How are you?
But Sam started sending his wives over to my house
because he wanted us to film these storytelling testimony sessions
for the documentary.
Yay!
He wanted to capture how much his girls love him.
Let's do it.
Do you guys want to, um, eat… eat while she's talking?
Just… Just don't burp.
-Are these your wedding rings? -Yeah.
-Do you have one? -Yeah.
That's what happens when you're married to the best man in the world.
I wanna hear your thoughts
about how you came to know you were to be his wife.
I knew that the Heavenly Father wanted me to come be a part of his family.
This is where I wanna be, so that's why I'm here.
I know that, like, he is my only connection to Heavenly Father.
I cannot get to Heavenly Father without him.
I have to have him.
It's pretty powerful.
-Your eternal life is in his hands? -Mm-hmm.
Had you already told your mother and father?
My father knew about it when he called me.
How did you find out?
She came and told me.
There is one man on this earth I trust, and that is Samuel Bateman.
Samuel has come to wake us up to where…
where we're headed if we don't obey.
We're gonna head now.
Tell Samuel it was very successful.
See you.
Does it seem to you that all those ladies love him?
They don't love him.
I mean, it's like… Ugh!
-I mean, that… -Remember, when you're undercover…
you have to put your… you have to compartmentalize.
I mean, those girls trust you.
More important that he's trusting you. You know what I mean?
That's… You gotta keep that going.
What do you think about the mothers of these girls?
The older ones have some problems, but they deal with it, you know?
Looking at all the girls there that were Julia's…
Yeah.
All of a sudden, she has an empty nest
because Samuel has taken all her daughters.
That's fucked up.
All of those children,
Julia thought she was gonna continue raising.
She didn't expect to lose **** at age ten.
-You know? -Yeah.
My heart really breaks for her.
-For Julia, yeah. -Yeah.
This is such a fictional world.
People didn't just jump into the situation
with just open arms.
My husband, Moroni, and I had been married for over 25 years.
And we didn't have any communication with the prophet Warren Jeffs
for many years.
Not having church leadership just right there to counsel with,
it was hard.
So I would ask questions to Moroni.
Nothin' worth… worth anything in this life is easy.
Women are taught to submit to the men.
And as the father, he was the ruling power over our family.
And so when Moroni started following Sam,
that made me make that change too.
And so, many of my sister-wives and all of my daughters went to Sam.
Some people do those fancy braids, but I never learned how to do 'em.
I did question the things we were doin'.
But I said, well, maybe there's something I'm not comprehending or understanding,
and if I'll just hang on, I can better understand it.
Because I felt like he wouldn't
ask me to do something that would be harmful to myself
or destructive to our family.
So keep this very, very confidential.
It became clear that if I wanted real information,
I would have to talk to somebody who was not under Sam's control.
We have things to talk about.
Moroni had a son named Warren Levi, who did not support Sam.
He was very worried about his mother and his sisters
and agreed to secretly meet with me.
Starting in 2019,
Sam married seven of my sisters ranging in age from 20-ish
down to nine years old.
Married is just a phrase to say that
Sam currently can do whatever he pleases…
-Right. -…with the girls.
Did you ever see Sam kiss the underage girls?
Yes.
Oh my goodness.
There was none of 'em that went easy to get married to Sam. Not one of 'em.
Every one of 'em referred to him as the devil.
I remember Sam came to me, and he's like,
"The Lord has told me that your little sister belongs to me."
But I was like, "She's nine years old. She's not ready for this mentally."
But we've been taught to respect our fathers.
Don't question.
The girls trust Moroni,
and Moroni is owned by Sam Bateman.
There you go.
I knew the parallel between every one of the prophets
and… President Samuel R. Bateman.
That's powerful stuff.
I started spending a lot of time with Sam's male followers.
Especially Moroni.
I'm learning from you.
I wanted to understand why he's convinced that Sam is speaking for God.
How do you know Samuel is the true prophet of God?
I knew he had a position before Heavenly Father that was above me.
I… I could tell.
All of a sudden, Sam felt this and that and whatever?
Oh, Tolga, this thing is so deep.
Oh.
About eight months before Sam named himself the prophet,
Moroni started doing his own thinking.
It's a time no one was supposed to be
getting married, having babies.
But Moroni started taking new wives
and having children without the blessings of Warren Jeffs.
He was shunned by the town.
He didn't know, would he ever be FLDS again?
I mean, that was his culture,
his lifelong investment.
He felt like he had really sinned against God.
We're in a hell of a fix.
We say we know the spirit of God,
but I've dabbled.
We're gonna get the shit whipped out of us.
Moroni, he thinks, "I'm going to hell."
"Life is over."
But Sam, who now represents himself as speaking for Warren Jeffs,
starts embracing Moroni.
He's offering a path to salvation, basically.
Sam was putting him and his family up on a pedestal.
Hi, son.
-I'm trying to hide, yeah. -I know, but you gotta catch me first.
Ahh!
Moroni's like, "I have a second chance."
At that point, Sam becomes God to Moroni.
No man chose Samuel Rappylee Bateman.
God hath done it.
Sam had no reservations now
about commanding that people obey him.
Moroni would take his money,
give everything to Sam,
and then Sam wanted more and more and more.
Like Moroni's wives and daughters.
-Yeah… -Is that still recording?
Yeah, sorry.
We actually are borrowing someone's car
so nobody can recognize our car.
Oh, good.
Come, and there's a house with a white fence all the way around it.
Okay.
We'll just sit here quietly.
I was looking to talk to somebody that was on the inside
who had talked to the girls one-on-one.
Hey, I'm in the black car. Come on out.
You're putting your beams in somebody's bedroom.
There was an FLDS lady
who was related to all of the people who followed Sam
in one way or another.
She was really concerned about what was going on.
He has 'em so flippin' mixed up, it's not funny.
There are children being sexually molested.
It just doesn't make sense.
Why does a girl have to get ruined before she can get help?
He is a predator.
Using everything that they've been taught
and turning it.
Yep.
When he goes and digs into the scriptures, and he tries to manipulate things
and twist them to capture their purity.
And they don't realize.
I just, like…
Inside I really am grateful, but like…
…like, there's all this selfishness.
That's why you have to exert that positive energy, and it goes away.
Exert it, fervently.
-Okay? -Okay.
-And then just cheer up, babe. -Okay.
Thanks.
Naomi, who we call "Nomz,"
was always next to Sam.
She only thinks what he's planted in there.
She doesn't even have
a mind of her own anymore.
She had been harassed to no end,
and she finally got to the point where she was exhausted,
and she gave in.
Oh boy.
Nomz's aunt said,
"I really don't know
how this is gonna end up."
She's seen the battle that Nomz has mentally fought.
It'll last forever.
I don't mind that.
My niece Naomi married Sam.
It was really heartbreaking to my sister.
Nomz, she was under a lot of pressure
to go be part of Sam's family.
-You're wife number…? -I'm 13.
-You're 13. Okay. -Wife number 13.
Okay.
It was Ladell Jr.
who brought her into the Sam Bateman group.
What's your relation to Ladell?
-He's my cousin. -Oh, he's your cousin.
Yeah, and he was also, like, my caretaker for ten years.
Since Nomz was very young,
Lud took care of her family.
She really idolized Lud.
And when he started to get in cahoots with Sam,
he wanted Nomz to be
a part of Sam's thing.
Her mom tried really hard to talk her out of it.
But Nomz respected and loved Lud.
He's like, "I feel impressed that you should come out and listen to Samuel."
Father Samuel, he said,
"Heavenly Father impressed me to tell you that you belong in my family."
And like, I went, like, stone-cold.
Like, "No way. There goes my whole life. There goes everything."
I mean…
Ladell would talk to her, and he would send her texts.
It took a very long time to convince her.
It wasn't till, like, November that I actually got married.
But once I had committed, like, submitted myself to it
was when Heavenly Father gave me the courage and the strength.
She'd been coerced and kind of manipulated into it.
I mean, I was like, this has to be right.
If it's not right, what is?
I would like to know.
I've lived my entire life not knowing what the right thing is,
and I wanna know what is right.
So,
Naomi, did you make the right decision?
I did.
The only thing I regret is that I didn't go sooner.
-Really? Wow. -That's the only thing I regret in life.
We groomed our girls for this.
We're not teaching them to question authority.
We're not teaching them to be critical thinkers.
We're teaching 'em strict obedience.
What do you think represents you guys really well?
Class. Probably.
I don't know. What you think?
-Yeah. -When do you do class next?
-We can do it right now. -Let's do it.
Sam did a lot of trainings.
Hours and hours and hours of class.
And they became more bizarre by the minute.
Good.
Anyway, I was just explaining
that, uh, goals…
Goals are so important.
So write down your goals. We actually have--
I don't have mine with me, but we have goal cards.
Pull out your goal cards, would ya?
-I'd love to hear some of your goals. -Yes.
My goals are to be the most influential person on Earth.
Mm-hmm.
And to… govern North and South America and probably England.
Okay.
And to bring the Queen of England to my home.
And I believe that that's part of my mission.
But she's not gonna come to this chicken coop.
She just ain't.
Wow.
Get the house, would you? Real quick.
This is what I've drawn up here.
"Coming soon!"
One of the most beautiful homes I've ever seen, and I know it'll happen.
-That's beautiful. Did you get that? -I got it.
That was weird.
He's building this fantasy world
with all these followers.
These are things we're envisioning as time goes on.
Things that we… Some of 'em, we already have.
Oh!
And then he also started putting things on YouTube.
Hi. Samuel Bateman here.
I want to make a channel where I can help other people take a step up.
All the extremely rich people say is, "Find a mentor."
He was following these self-help gurus,
and he would regurgitate what he learned.
"Your word is your bond" is really how you should think.
When you make that commitment or say something, make sure you do it.
I've been talking every day in our classes.
Don't think negative thoughts. Don't think that something's gonna go wrong.
It literally will draw it to you.
Yeah, for sure.
Everything he said and did,
I had to act like everything's okay. We're cool with it.
Surround yourself with great people.
That's why I like to be around you guys.
Feelings are mutual.
I'm so grateful for what Christine does.
She… She just loves people.
She was going over there a lot.
There were people who thought
that Christine was there supporting him and helping him.
Precious.
Truly a daughter of the king.
There were a lot of people accusing her of empowering him.
Are you serious?
I couldn't defend myself.
I couldn't come out with the fact that I was playing a role
because my plan, it was working.
This is recording, and this is recording.
They started being a little more loose with the things they would say.
Okay, whoever has the mic.
Forgive me for asking,
but how did you get a crash course in the birds and the bees
between the time you got married?
He ended up telling me. I was innocent as heck.
So Samuel himself taught you?
How old are you?
Fifteen.
There's no such thing as an underage marriage in the priesthood.
The Lord can tell,
and why would he hold the 15-year-old back from the blessings, if she's ready?
They were talking openly about the sexual activity
that Sam was doing with the underage girls.
He had made it seem
so sacred and…
Mm-hmm.
…like, celestial. I don't know how else to put it.
And he said it brings such an increase, like, of the spirit of God.
That resulted in another call to the police.
Christine is telling the local police, "This is human trafficking."
The local police said, "Just give us everything you have. We'll look at it."
They went through it for months. Nothing happens.
-We are flying very close to the sun. -Yeah.
We get no guidance at all.
And I wish
that I could discuss what our strategy is
with somebody in law enforcement,
and I mean, we're sitting around shooting from the hip,
and I… I feel so alone.
God, those girls.
I'd be filming something,
and there's always two or three girls in the back, completely destroyed.
You could just see them crying.
The law wants you to basically get in bed with them
and film it before the guy's arrested.
I mean, what kind of fucking shit is that?
It was like Sam felt like he had
all authority to do whatever he wanted.
I think he felt like that he was unstoppable.
I don't know, do you feel forced to be here or anything?
No.
No? Are you lying?
No.
How do you know that I'm not just deceiving you?
Sam was very clever
because he married some of the mothers of the child brides.
So when Child and Family Services interviewed them,
he could say, "The mothers are here too."
Did you know that the CPS has been here, and they didn't find anything?
Of course not.
We're not doing wrong.
I've covered virtually every significant
and not-so-significant bad guy in this story.
I don't know a single individual
that has set off more flares, waved more red flags
than Samuel Bateman.
I became acquainted with Christine and Tolga,
and I knew what they were doing,
but they're not cops.
If that's what law enforcement needs to bust a case,
getting a documentary crew inside,
and they still don't act with any sense of urgency…
This is Sergeant David Wilkinson
with the Colorado City Marshal's Office.
Please leave me a detailed voice message. Thank you.
There were so many things that I didn't know.
I didn't know how to proceed.
And I was incredibly scared
of what was really happening in Sam's house.
What is going on when we're not there?
What abuse could be stopped?
I called Sergeant Wilkinson a number of times.
Hello, Christine.
Christine Marie kept feeding us information that she gathered,
and so I was working desperately to follow up
on each of the pieces of information
to make sure that we established
and could support everything we presented to a prosecutor.
And as some would say, tie it up in a pretty little bow.
Again, this is still a work in progress.
And I let him know
I thought the FBI should be involved.
He said the FBI requires, you know, multi-state criminal activity.
And I said, "Well, we have it."
We went to Colorado.
-You did? -We went to Lincoln, Nebraska.
-Nebraska? Why Nebraska? -It was just where Moroni was inspired.
Oh, Moroni. Yeah. Got it.
There's Lincoln, Nebraska. There's Monument, Colorado.
There's Utah and Arizona.
It was interstate human trafficking.
And eventually,
my pestering did have a positive effect.
Hello, Christine.
Hi.
Sergeant Wilkinson called me and said, "I have some news you're gonna like."
"We're going to have a meeting,
and we would like you to do a presentation
on what you know about the Sam Bateman group."
So are you okay with 2:30 to the FBI field office?
Yes.
You're gonna be meeting with a Dawn Martin out of Flagstaff.
I want to video journal where we're going right now.
Tolga and I are on the way to talk to the FBI.
It's complicated because, like, two hours ago,
many of these girls were at my house.
If they know that I am the one turning stuff in,
then they will never trust an outsider again.
Well, this is what you do, baby. You're trying to stop child rape.
-This is no joke. -I have to speak up. There's not a choice.
That's what I'm saying. So you don't have a choice.
When we went to the FBI office,
I spoke to FBI agent Dawn Martin.
By the time this case was presented to me,
I had been with the Bureau 18 years.
I had spent the previous ten years working child sex crimes.
This case was brought to us by local law enforcement.
They told me about Christine and Tolga,
who had lived in the community for several years
and had provided these video recordings.
My understanding is some of the agencies had incriminating videos
as early as November of '21.
I don't know why it took 'em so long to come to the FBI.
Christine had spent evidently many, many months
trying to get somebody to listen and to do something.
The first recording that I heard was related
to a November incident in a Bentley.
There could not be anything worse than another man screwing my girls.
When somebody brags about having young girls
involved in sex acts with other men,
how can you not investigate that?
Okay, it's rolling. Go ahead.
There were 23 wives,
nine of which were minor children.
I realized that it needed to be taken care of
and taken care of in a more expeditious manner.
I just remember
feeling like finally somebody is sharing this burden with me.
Hide that. Hop in.
We try not to divulge names of sources or confidential informants,
but I will say that Christine was in a unique position to provide information.
Well, I'm going to spend a lot more time over there.
-That is my goal. -Yeah.
When you start an investigation,
you do a little bit of a background check,
and I didn't have any concerns working so closely with them
because they were providing video evidence as raw footage.
It was definitely an unusual set of circumstances.
Not very often do you have somebody
willing to and wanting to be recorded all of the time.
Especially talking about some of the heinous crimes he was committing.
But it is very difficult to prosecute a case
without someone to testify
that they were the victim of a crime.
We did not have that.
I always feel inspired when I come here.
Christine was putting her all into this.
Him and them.
She was there every day.
-I'm a billionaire. -You are? Already?
Put a price on one girl.
I'm the richest man on Earth
because Heavenly Father blessed me with these girls.
I started to drop hints
a little more directly.
Can I make a comment right here?
Okay, so there's a book called The Gift of Fear,
and I actually would recommend you all read it
because it's how to stay safe from predators.
I asked that because of my own personal story
because there were actual things
to help you really spot people who have bad intentions.
If somebody ignores when you say no,
um, that is a red flag.
That's what I'm saying. Be bold and blunt.
If you say no, you mean it.
It's very good for you guys to be aware of this.
Somehow we've got to step up out of this immorality.
And if there's some way that I could be used as an instrument to help step up.
Lift your mind to a loftier spirit.
-There's something better out there… -Yeah.
…than just lusting after women.
I was hoping that one of the women would think for themselves.
And then I started to notice Julia coming over to my house
with her little toddler, visiting the animals.
I was happy about that because usually
people who followed Sam didn't come over alone.
Well, she came over more than once.
I even saw her one time raking leaves in my yard.
I realized she was coming up with reasons to come over here.
Bingo.
That's when it hit me.
Julia has something to tell me.
I mean, I had been dreaming of the moment
that somebody would come to me.
I sensed that Christine
was making herself available.
I did wonder if she was the one I could go to
and ask for this help.
And then I caught myself, and I'm like, "There's no way, you cannot say this."
I said,
"I want you to know that anything you tell me,
I am not gonna tell Sam."
She starts to tell me some things.
She was really general.
She let me know
there was a lot of suffering going on.
But she didn't come out and say anything negative about Sam.
I thought, "I know exactly what to do."
I decided it was time that I tell her my story.
We went in on her kitchen table,
and she got out a file box.
So look at this.
And she started to tell me a story.
She started to tell how her mind was led,
deceitfully, little by little,
by a false prophet
to do things
that she'd have never done ever.
I too had been deceived.
I believed that I was the wife of a prophet.
My false prophet told me,
"Obedience is everything."
"Obedience is the key to eternal life."
He told me I needed to go through tests.
It started in small steps.
I had to sell things that were very precious to me.
I complied.
I had already sacrificed my business.
And then
he told me I had to
be separated from my children.
Then I had to go
live among the poor and needy
and be abased before men.
I believed that there would be,
eventually, a divine payoff.
And that meant I had to do what he said or risk my soul.
I was basically sex trafficked.
One of his directions was
that he wanted proof that I was being sexually exploited.
So…
somebody, a man,
took a picture of me.
Little by little,
with each test and each rebuke,
I got more confused.
I couldn't even recognize myself.
He said I had to go through tests first
to be worthy of being a prophet's wife.
This whole underlined part right here.
Does that remind you of Samuel?
Yeah.
A lot of it does.
It's just disgusting.
And I just broke down.
And I started to just say…
"…We are in deep trouble with sexual sins
under this…
false idea of religion."
And I knew that to get help,
I needed to reveal to this woman
the sickening things I've done
and been a part of. I've done