A new Netflix documentary focusing on the crimes of Warren Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), an extreme offshoot of the Mormon religion, is set to land on June 8.
The four-part documentary, Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey, tells of the harrowing accusations made against Jeffs, who is believed to have 78 wives, 24 of whom were underage at the time he wed them. Jeffs, 66, became leader of the cult in 2002, inheriting the title from his father Rulon.
Upon taking over the cult he immediately took the majority of his father’s 20 wives as his own. Part of the beliefs of this extreme sect of the Mormon religion held that the more wives and children you had, the closer you were to heaven.
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Jeffs was arrested for his crimes and is currently serving a life sentence. This is what happened to the cult leader.
Where is Warren Jeffs now?
Warren Jeffs is currently serving a life sentence after being found guilty of two counts of child sexual assault after a trial in Texas in 2011. The earliest the 66-year-old will be eligible for parole will be July 22, 2038, but Jeffs still leads the FLDS Church from behind bars despite briefly attempting to renounce himself as a prophet.
Jeffs has repeatedly gone on hunger strikes during his time in prison, which his doctors and attorneys have said is for spiritual reasons. A superior court judge ordered that the cult leader be force-fed in 2009, but Jeffs was hospitalised for excessive fasting in 2011 and placed in a medically induced coma.
How to watch Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey
Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey will be available to stream on Netflix from June 8 in the UK. The four-part documentary is directed by Peabody-winning filmmaker Rachel Dretzin (who co-directed the six-part Netflix series Who Killed Malcolm X? alongside Phil Bertelsen) and produced by Grace McNally, creator of Slay the Dragon, a 2019 documentary film about voting rights and gerrymandering in the US.
Director Rachel Dretzin said: "The first time I travelled to Short Creek, Utah, I had the same first impression as most. With their pleated hair, prairie dresses, and diffident, skittish manner, it was easy to see the young girls and women of the FLDS as odd, even alien creatures."
Dretzen added: "The stories they told - of the process of systematic coercion and mind-control exercised by the man they thought of as a religious prophet, Warren Jeffs - were far from alienating.
