A 21-year-old woman walked into a Brigham Young University police station early this month with a lurid tale of polygamy and sexual abuse that she said began 10 years ago when she was a child in Phoenix.
With her mother's blessing, she told police, her stepfather had forced her to become his third "spiritual wife" when she was 11 and controlled her with threats, beatings and his supposed visions from God until she ran away late last year. With her older brothers' help, she contacted police.
Thursday afternoon, Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley announced that the parents had been arrested in Utah and are awaiting extradition to Arizona.
Stanley Rimer, 71, and Janice Rimer, 52, are charged with child molestation and two counts of sexual conduct with a minor. Romley said more charges are pending.
"I'm not sure I understand how supposedly a loving relationship between a parent and a child results in such horrible actions," he said, "but we in law enforcement must stick up for that innocent child, and we're going to do it."
According to police, FBI reports and transcripts of interviews conducted by the Phoenix and Brigham Young University police departments, Stanley Rimer was married to a woman in Las Vegas when he took Janice as his second wife.
She and her four children moved in with him in west Phoenix. They later lived in Peoria.
According to police reports, in 1994 Rimer told the girl and her mother that he had a vision ordering him to take the girl, then 10, as his third wife. They married in an unofficial ceremony when she was 11. She told police he had sexual relations with her regularly over the next decade.
Ran away, tried suicide
Janice Rimer was occasionally present when her husband abused the girl, the reports state. At other times, she would take the other children out of the house.
The girl told investigators she attempted suicide and ran away when she was 17, but police later brought her home. She said Rimer then took her to Las Vegas, where they moved in with his first - and legal - wife, Helen Rimer.
She lived there until late December, when she phoned her older brother, a student at BYU in Provo, Utah, to come rescue her, reports state. He and her other brothers counseled her to contact police.
Utah authorities contacted the Arizona Attorney General's Office, which turned the investigation over to Phoenix police and the Maricopa County Attorney's Office. The Rimers were arrested Wednesday in different Utah towns.
'Conversations with God'
Phoenix detectives recorded telephone conversations between the girl and both parents. According to transcripts of those calls, neither parent would answer her direct questions about polygamy or sexual abuse, but Stanley Rimer talked at length about his conversations with God.
Romley said that Rimer was not associated with any polygamist sect, but considered himself a prophet.
"Why the family didn't come forward (earlier), I believe, is because of his teachings," Romley said.
He cautioned that the investigation was not aimed at the Mormon Church and pointed out that the church assisted police authorities.
"This is not a religion issue," he said, "it is protecting a child in our community."