Makelle Bistline, a 24-year-old former member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), has shared her experiences growing up in the polygamous community of Colorado City, which straddles the Arizona-Utah border. The FLDS, a Mormon offshoot that continued to practice polygamy after it was banned by the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1890, has been widely regarded as a cult by many former members.

Bistline grew up in a large family with 27 siblings and three mothers. Until three years ago, she lived under the dominion of a man with 22 wives, including some as young as nine years old. She revealed that her mother is also married to the same man. Colorado City, often referred to as America’s polygamy capital, has been under FLDS influence for nearly a century. The community was founded in the 1930s and later came under the control of Rulon Jeffs, who was regarded as the "voice of God on Earth." After his death in 2002, his son Warren Jeffs took leadership, imposing even stricter rules on members, including banning music, television, and internet access, forbidding social contact with outsiders, and enforcing home education for children.

Women in the FLDS are required to wear modest, long-sleeved, ankle-length prairie dresses and pinned-up hair, with their primary roles centered around marriage and childbearing. Men deemed unworthy of leading families were reportedly sent away without explanation, with families forbidden from contacting them. Bistline’s father was among those sent away when she was a child.

Warren Jeffs’ leadership ended after his conviction on two counts of child sexual assault in 2011, a case that revealed 24 of his 78 wives were under 17 at the time. Jeffs received a life sentence but continued to exert influence from prison by prohibiting "spiritual marriages." Around 2019, Warren Jeffs ceased communication, creating a leadership void within the community.

Into this void stepped Samuel Bateman, a former FLDS follower who later received a 50-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to child sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit kidnapping. Around that time, Bateman arrived in Colorado City with a trailer carrying 19 wives and several children. He falsely claimed Warren Jeffs had died and declared himself the new prophet, though the FLDS rejected him.

Bateman then established a breakaway sect described by Bistline as a "cult within a cult." He secured the support of three prominent local businessmen, who gave up their daughters and spouses to form polygamous marriages within the new sect. All three men have since been imprisoned. One, Moroni Johnson, was found to have given four daughters—two underage—to the sect.

Polygamy remains illegal across all 50 US states, yet an estimated 30,000 people live in multiple-marriage families in the Arizona-Utah area. Bistline was introduced to Bateman at the age of 17 after he courted her family, including her mother, who continues to support Bateman’s leadership. Despite efforts to bring her into the sect, Bistline resisted, troubled by the revelation that some wives were as young as nine. She recounted attempts by her brother to convince her to accept child marriage as a requirement for salvation, which she refused.

For 18 months, Bistline struggled to break free from the influence of the FLDS and the breakaway group, highlighting the ongoing challenges faced by those trying to leave polygamous sects entrenched in the region.