Anti-polygamy activists fed "misinformation" to the public and the media when they said a 17-year-old Colorado City girl was missing from her home and forced to become a child bride, a Mohave County investigator said Tuesday night.
"Things got out of hand," said Gary Engels, an attorney with the Mohave County Attorney's Office assigned to the Arizona Strip polygamous town of Colorado City.
Engels was referring to several press releases issued by Jon Krakauer, who wrote "Under the Banner of Heaven," a book critical of polygamy and its participants.
"He was just writing what other people told him. He trusted his sources, and they were wrong," Engels said.
One of Krakauer's sources was Janetta Jessop's older sister, Suzanne Johnson, who filed a missing persons report with the Washington County Sheriff's Department last week.
Johnson, who is estranged from her family, said she feared her younger sister had been married off to Warren Jeffs, the 48-year-old leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Most residents of Colorado City and the neighboring Utah town of Hildale, Washington County, are members of the FLDS church and practice polygamy.
On Tuesday, Engels and a representative with Arizona Child Protective Services arrived at the Jessop house to try and determine if the girl was a victim or being abused.
Janetta Jessop was at home, a fact that had been verified by Washington County deputies a day earlier when they went to Colorado City on a welfare check.
"She said she's fine. She looks like a typical 17-year-old girl from Colorado City," Washington County Sheriff Kirk Smith said. "There were no red flags to our guys. Her parents were receptive and cooperative."
But an interview with the girl, to be conducted away from her home, was necessary in order to determine whether any abuse had occurred, Smith and Engels said.
Jessop was taken from her home to the Children's Justice Center in St. George for an interview Tuesday afternoon. She was released to her mother that same day, Engels said.
"The whole reason for doing the interview was to find out if she was a spiritual bride to Warren Jeffs. She was asked that question and she said 'no,' " Smith said.