![]() ![]() One young woman had come to Canada with her sister from the “mother community” of Short Creek on the Utah-Arizona border knowing that she was to marry Winston.īut after the ceremony, FLDS prophet Rulon Jeffs asked whether her sister was with her. She testified that she was present for three of Blackmore’s marriages including the day that he married two sisters. I’m sorry I believe in a God that wouldn’t ask you to do something that was impossibleĪs a plural wife, sister-wife and midwife, Jane has a unique perspective on the fundamentalist Mormon community known as Bountiful, which she left in 2003. James Oler, 53, who is also being tried on one count of polygamy, has had five wives. Winston Blackmore, 60, is alleged to now have had 24 wives and he’s said to have 145 children. “But he was unhappy with my confrontation.” “I thought that was not a bad idea,” Jane said tartly during her testimony. Winston insisted that he would lose his position as bishop if he didn’t accept all the wives being assigned to him by the prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. ![]() Norma Jean Blackmore, who is Blackmore's first wife and Oler's sister, is expected to testify on Tuesday.When her husband told her he was doing God’s work, Jane said she replied: “I’m sorry I believe in a God that wouldn’t ask you to do something that was impossible.” THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh ![]() The trial is being heard by a judge alone and is expected to last at least two weeks. The criminal trial has been more than 25 years in the making, with RCMP first investigating allegations that residents of the isolated, religious community were practising plural or "celestial'' marriage in the early 1990s. The court also heard last week from a Texas Ranger involved in seizing hundreds of boxes of documents from a ranch owned by the FLDS in 2008.ĭozens of marriage and birth certificates have been entered into evidence at the trial. The polygamy trial began a week ago, hearing from an expert on the history of the Mormon church, who explained how the Utah-based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints broke away from mainstream Mormonism at the turn of the 20th century.īoth Blackmore and Oler served as bishops for the Bountiful congregation of the so-called FLDS. I've never denied that," he is heard saying in the video. ![]() Many people would be jealous of a family like his, Blackmore tells the officer. The footage presented by the prosecution shows Blackmore expressing fears about incriminating himself because his lawyer isn't present, but he does not deny practising polygamy. Supreme Court trial in Cranbrook, a police officer asks Blackmore about a television appearance where the religious leader admits he married one of his wives when she was 15 years old.īlackmore responds by saying the girl's parents lied to him, telling him she was 16. where residents are known for practising a faith that condones plural marriage.īlackmore is accused of marrying 24 women. James Oler, a former leader in Bountiful, is also on trial and is accused of having four wives. Winston Blackmore is the head of a religious group in Bountiful, a community in southeastern B.C. The trial of a British Columbia religious leader charged with polygamy heard Monday that the accused told police he didn't know a teenage girl's true age when he married her. ![]()
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