![]() Brandon S Blackmore, Millie's half-brother, had also been called to make the 16-hour drive from Bountiful, though he traveled separately from his father and half-sister. It wasn't the only marriage ceremony that took place in Short Creek that day. "And there Mildred Marlene Blackmore, age 13, was sealed to Warren Steed Jeffs for time and all eternity." The entry also notes that Brandon J Blackmore witnessed the wedding. "I sat down with Brandon Blackmore and his wife and his daughter, gave a training on the redemption of Zion in brief, in summary, and this girl was called on a mission, and they received it joyfully," the entry reads. A journal entry dated March 1, 2004, dictated by Jeffs to one of his wives and later seized by US authorities in Texas, describes what happened next: In 2004, Jeffs sent word to the girl's father, Brandon J Blackmore, that he wanted to marry Millie as well, and asked that the teenager be brought to Colorado City from her home in Bountiful, BC. By that point, Jeffs-who took control of the FLDS church after the death of his father, Rulon Jeffs, in 2002-was already accumulating wives, including one of Millie's sisters, Annie Mae Blackmore. Though the current charges against the Canadian polygamists weren't filed until 2014, the case actually begins more than a decade earlier, in Short Creek. Although he would not provide details about the investigation, Jacklin told VICE that the RCMP is working with law enforcement in the US, and that he and his partner may travel to Utah again "within the next couple of months." In an interview, RCMP sergeant Terry Jacklin, a Mountie in southeastern British Columbia who has been on the trail of the Canadian FLDS polygamists since 2011, confirmed that his agency continues to investigate the sect's marriages, and that more criminal charges may be filed against FLDS members in Canada. And law enforcement in both the US and Canada are monitoring the border for signs of human trafficking or other crimes committed by members of the sect, according to interviews and documents obtained by VICE. But recent interviews conducted by VICE revealed that Canadian law enforcement have continued to question FLDS defectors in the US and Canada in an attempt to learn more about how the sect's bride pipeline worked and whether there is evidence to charge anyone else with a crime.Īs recently as last fall, investigators with the RCMP had traveled to the US to speak with relatives and former associates of Jeffs. Since his arrest, Jeffs has halted all marriages among the FLDS, and it is not clear if his followers have continued the cross-border transport of child brides. The cases against the four Canadian FLDS members are still pending. In 2014, at the same time charges were filed against Millie's parents, Canadian authorities also charged two former FLDS bishops from British Columbia, Winston Blackmore and Jim Oler, with polygamy. The prosecutions are believed to be the first time parents have been held criminally responsible for the 1,100-mile child-bride pipeline that FLDS members ran for decades between the Canadian polygamist enclave in Bountiful, British Columbia, and the sect's headquarters in the twin towns of Colorado City, Arizona and Hildale, Utah, collectively known as Short Creek. In 2014-the year after the Mounties asked Brandon to listen to the recording- the couple was charged with one count each of removing a child from Canada for the purposes of sex. ![]() The RCMP wanted confirmation of Millie's voice as part of a case they were building against Millie's parents, Brandon J Blackmore and his wife, Emily Gail Crossfield Blackmore, whom Canadian authorities claim took their pre-teen daughter across the border to marry Jeffs in Colorado City in 2004. Brandon declined to elaborate further on what else he heard on the recording, the existence of which has not been previously reported. He said the investigators told him the tape was made sometime around 2004 or 2005 at a motel in New Mexico. "He was asking her how it felt and a bunch of weird things," Brandon told VICE in a recent interview. Though her name was never said aloud, Brandon could tell by the voice that the woman Jeffs was having sex with was his half-sister. They wanted to know if he heard Millie on the tape. Jeffs was in prison, serving a life sentence on multiple counts of child rape, and two investigators from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) had asked Brandon to listen to a recording of the FLDS leader having sex. ![]()
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