Trent Nelson and Jessica Schreifels December 8, 2024
This is the second in a two-part series about the rise and fall of Samuel Bateman, a self-proclaimed prophet who sexually abused girls he had taken as his wives. Read part one here.
Colorado City, Arizona • A woman in a navy blue dress stood red-faced and sobbing, her head in her hands. Another sat on the floor staring blankly into the distance, looking shocked and confused. Other women hugged each other for comfort.
The FBI had descended on the women’s homes hours earlier, taking the man they considered their prophet into custody. Agents were still at the two houses they shared, searching for evidence that Samuel Bateman and his followers had sexual contact with girls the leader had taken as his “wives.”
Stunned by Bateman’s arrest, the women had gathered at the home of Christine Marie and Tolga Katas, a couple who had befriended the group. As they talked, some of the women wondered aloud how the agents had known so many of their names — and concluded someone close to them had been talking to police.
Marie stayed silent. Worried about the safety of the women and the girls, she had secretly become an FBI informant in the months before the September 2022 raid. But now she worried about what they would think when they found out.
“I just knew that they would feel so hurt and betrayed,” she said in a recent interview. “But I had to betray them in order to save them.”
Julia Johnson, one of Bateman’s followers, also stayed quiet that day, tending to her 2-year-old son as other women speculated about the inside source. Johnson, the mother of some of Bateman’s wives, also eventually had gone to the FBI and reported what she knew — including describing times the group had engaged in sexual activity with the child brides.
With key evidence provided by Marie, Katas and Johnson, federal prosecutors later charged Bateman and 11 of his followers with dozens of felonies. In a plea agreement, Bateman acknowledged he had spiritually married 20 wives. His intent in marrying the 10 who were children, as young as 9 years old, “was to engage in sexual activity with minor girls,” he admitted.
Bateman is now awaiting sentencing on two felony counts. But his arrest was only part of Marie’s plans. She expected that with the 48-year-old behind bars, she could reason with his followers and soon convince them he was a predator, not a prophet. That’s not what happened.
‘Get him back’
Bateman’s followers called themselves Samuelites. In 2019, Bateman and the group had broken away from the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a sect traditionally based in the state border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona.
In the year before the raid, Marie and Katas had collected troves of videos and audio files of Bateman and his followers, who thought they were participating in a documentary by Katas about FLDS culture. The couple had secretly given the FBI recordings of Bateman describing sexual abuse.
As the wives gathered at Marie’s home after Bateman’s arrest, one came up to her and slipped her a USB drive. It held Bateman’s priesthood record, a sacred and secret journal that recounted all of his decisions and the group’s activities. The wife asked Marie to give it to Katas to hide it, Marie later testified.
But Katas quickly made a copy of the drive for the FBI before a man loyal to Bateman took it from him. The man told Marie he would bury it for safekeeping. In charging records, prosecutors repeatedly referenced the journal copy Katas had provided to agents.
Two FLDS women came to Marie’s house and set out food for the grieving Samuelites. They later recalled that some of Bateman’s wives responded by saying, “This isn’t a party.”
Esther Bistline remembers, “it was really hard to hear them talking about how, ‘We just need to get Father out of jail, get him back.’” She said she thought to herself, “No, he needs to stay there.”
After a few hours, Bateman called Katas from jail. A handful of Bateman’s wives, most holding infants, gathered around a car where the call was connected by Bluetooth and played over the stereo.
“We’re not doing anything wrong,” Bateman said calmly, “so it must have been just a simple misunderstanding. I should be out tomorrow, hopefully.”
But the next day, Arizona child welfare officials came to Colorado City and took custody of nine girls who Bateman had called his wives. Two had been at Marie’s house, and she remembers hearing screams as government workers took them away.
Some of the girls officials took were Johnson’s children. Bistline said Johnson “cried and cried and cried” about losing her young daughters, but said of going to the FBI: “I had to do it.”
Bateman called Katas again from jail, five days after his arrest, and described the accusations against him as a “big old honking lie.” He added: “I fully believe that I’m coming home soon.”
Katas knew that was unlikely. Marie felt Bateman’s followers were “all holding each other in bondage” and hoped that with him behind bars, they would “wake up.”
The FLDS community that the Samuelites grew up in had historically been closed off from the outside world. The girls “really think they love him, like, crazy in love,” Marie said after the raid. “... It’s not real love, but they don’t know. You know, they never had a boyfriend. They never dated.”
Marie hoped she could encourage the Samuelites to lean into their doubts about Bateman before the group found out that she was an FBI informant. Think about his prophecies that didn’t come true, she wanted to tell them. If they had more information, she thought, they could think freely for themselves.
But those conversations never happened.
The Arizona Department of Child Safety (DCS) was keeping the girls in foster homes, and had sent reports to their parents with specific details about why the children were taken. The documents outlined evidence the FBI had gathered — with enough context clues to alert the Samuelites that Marie was working with the government.
Katas recalled the moment in mid-November 2022 when he had just woken up to hear Marie yelling, “We’ve been outed! We’ve been outed by the DCS!”
‘They just shut me off’
Bateman’s followers were outraged.
Marie later described their reactions from the witness stand in an Arizona courtroom: “They felt betrayed, and so they shunned me of course. We got a couple threats. They behaved to me in a very scary manner.”
She was never able to show them the slideshow she had planned to use to convince them Bateman wasn’t a prophet or a good, religious man.
“They just shut me off,” Marie said, “and I became evil. They just demonized me.”
Katas added: “We start getting these letters, ‘You f—ing bastard,’ you know, that’s the worst thing ever. They start showing up at our house.”
Other records also revealed Johnson as a source. On the day a small earthquake shook the town in November 2022, Bateman’s wives sent Johnson a text later shared with The Tribune. It described a ritual done to condemn, and read: “Yesterday afternoon, we got together and washed our feet against Moroni [Johnson’s husband], Tolga, you and Christine. The epicenter of the earthquake was 1 mile from your house. We dare you to keep fighting.”
Marie said people in the community and online accused her of enabling the Samuelites and the sexual abuse — unaware that she was working with law enforcement. She couldn’t defend herself, she said, because at that point, the FBI had told her not to speak publicly.
‘Heavenly Father’s will’
Bateman’s adult wives had been able to slip cellphones to the girls as they were leaving Colorado City with child welfare workers. In recorded video calls from jail, Bateman started plotting with his older wives to get the girls out of their foster homes.
On Nov. 27, 2022, three of the adult wives simultaneously drove to each of the foster homes and all of the girls except for one ran into the vehicles. They drove through several states before law enforcement traced them on Dec. 1 to a rental in Spokane, Wash. The adult wives were arrested, and the girls returned to the child welfare system.
The kidnapping plot showed how far Bateman’s female followers would go to show their devotion to him.
Marie said she noticed his control over them when she first started getting close to the Samuelites. She wasn’t allowed to talk to any of the young girls alone, she recalled, and the girls weren’t allowed to take home teddy bears she bought for them.
The group would write down phrases over and over, she said, like an after-school punishment. “I have no will of my own,” they would write, or “I will be bold and strong in defending Father,” using their name for Bateman.
Growing up FLDS, the women had lived a rdisciplinedlife where the pioneer-era style and even the color of the homemade dresses they wore wweredictated by their faith leader. They listened to religious sermons and lessons — not pop music — in their headphones, and the town had little to offer to entertain them.
Some had been unable to marry or have children because FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs was in prison and had largely gone silent, no longer arranging marriages.
Bateman, who was often seen in town wearing a crisp white leather jacket, was offering them something different. After claiming to be the new prophet, he said marriages could resume and new babies were born.
He held out the promise of elaborate wealth, driving around in a motorcade of Bentleys and Range Rovers. He showered some of them with affection and attention, and gave them tiaras. “Who doesn’t want to be a princess?” Marie said.
But Bateman also was jealous and controlling, according to Johnson’s later description to federal prosecutors, and insisted they confess any behavior or thoughts he might consider a violation of his rules. She said he encouraged the admissions to be “as vulgar as possible,” according to an affidavit, and Bateman would then text or email the confessions to the other Samuelites.
And Bateman sexually abused nearly all of his child brides, often using religion to justify his behavior, according to court records. Federal prosecutors said Bateman used supposed “impressions of Heavenly Father’s will” to encourage his followers, including the young girls, to engage in sexual acts.
Raised to be ‘perfectly obedient’
Bateman and 11 of his adult followers were charged with federal crimes in May 2023. Bateman’s eventual plea deal hinged on his followers also pleading guilty, which most of his charged adult wives did. While acknowledging the women broke laws, defense attorneys for several of the wives wrote memos to the judge ahead of their sentencings to describe how they were raised.
The women were taught they needed to be “perfectly obedient” or risk losing their family, the lawyers explained. They thought their pathway to heaven, one attorney wrote, was through Bateman.
Josephine Bistline’s attorney wrote that Jeffs’ incarceration created “a vacuum of authority” that allowed Bateman to step in and take power. Other attorneys argued the women only intended to follow their religion and culture.
Raised FLDS, Leia Jo Bistline “was reared in a religion which practices rituals that are contrary to the laws of the United States,” her defense attorney wrote. “She acknowledges that her actions have caused harm to her younger ‘sister wives’ or sisters, however, she intended no harm.”
The attorney continued, “When she was ordered to bring others to defendant Bateman, she was not bringing them to him for her own sexual gratification but to fulfill Bateman’s deviant sexual desires. She believed she was fulfilling the laws and ordinances of her God. “
Leia Jo Bistline was sentenced to two years in prison.
When 49-year-old Leilani Barlow was in jail after her arrest, her attorney wrote, she believed God would save Bateman and his followers because they were “doing God’s will.”
“Being incarcerated and around people other than community members has allowed Ms. Barlow to understand that what was happening within her community was wrong,” her sentencing memorandum reads. “She started to doubt whether Samuel Bateman actually spoke for God.”
Most of those women were sentenced to federal prison for two to three years. But a judge sentenced one wife, Josephine Bistline, to 15 years in prison after the woman admitted that she not only participated in group sexual activity with minors, but also sexually abused one of the child “wives” separately, away from Bateman and the others.
At least one woman, according to prosecutors, has continued to follow Bateman — Brenda Barlow, who was sentenced to three years in federal prison. Prosecutors noted in court papers that she was “heavily involved in sexual activities with children” and tried to obstruct the FBI’s investigation.
“She married and dedicated herself to Bateman after he had already claimed a 9-year-old girl as a child bride,” prosecutors wrote, “and she remained committed to him as he continued to amass other child brides,” including her own family members.
On the witness stand
Two followers who are brothers, LaDell Bistline Jr. and Torrance Bistline, opted to go to trial. Testimony — including from all of the young girls who had been abused — stretched on for weeks.
Johnson took the witness stand early in the trial, in September. She arrived at the Arizona federal courthouse wearing a new, emerald green prairie-style dress, her hair pulled back.
“It’s a big day,” Johnson said while waiting outside the courtroom. “I just have to remember to breathe.”
Johnson and Marie, who accompanied her, looked out the windows from the fifth floor of the courthouse and waved down below to Katas, who was filming from the plaza.
Johnson testified over two days, giving quiet, short answers as she detailed to jurors how Bateman amassed a following and the group sexual activities that involved children. She told them she called the FBI in July 2022, saying she “knew we had been deceitfully dragged into something and we needed help.”
Johnson said she knew that the group had committed crimes that went against her faith.
“I was beginning to see I had wet noodle legs, and I had to strengthen my legs,” she testified. “Get up and go to the law because [this] was not sanctioned by God. The law had to handle it, and even handle me. Knowing these sins would be blasted to the world — even on the FLDS people, when it was just a group of us who got off the track and began to follow a wicked man.”
Johnson was not charged.
Marie testified the next day, feeling nervous and anxious but eager. “I waited for this day for so long,” she said.
Once on the witness stand, Marie said she felt like she got into a groove, walking the jury through the video and audio evidence that she and her filmmaker husband had recorded.
“And when I was done, it was such a massive relief,” she recalled. “Because I felt as if I finally had my brain back.”
The jury found the Bistline brothers guilty of all charges against them — eight felonies against LaDell Jr. and six against Torrance. In a news release after the verdict, federal prosecutors noted LaDell Jr. “delivered” two of his own children to Bateman to be his “wives,” and also participated in group sexual activity involving children.
Torrance, they said, financially supported Bateman’s group, sexually abused one of the child “wives” and later tried to destroy evidence and interfere with the police investigation. The brothers face up to life in prison at their expected sentencing later this month.
Advocating for life in prison for LaDell Jr., federal prosecutors argued he and “a small group of men in the FLDS community wanted new wives, so they created a child sex abuse ring to get what they wanted.”
With Jeffs in prison, “they devised a plan to install a new ‘prophet’ so they could claim new wives, become sexually active, and have children,” prosecutors argued. “The men chose Samuel Bateman to be the new ‘prophet,’ and they willingly subjected numerous underage girls to unspeakable sexual abuse in pursuit of their desires.”
Moving on
The Bistline brothers’ convictions didn’t bring Marie joy — but she felt like it was justice. She also had mixed feelings about the women who were sentenced to prison. “People,” she said, “can be both a victim and a perpetrator.”
“I just want those women to have the very best life,” she said, “and freedom to think for themselves and to move on.”
Now, Marie and the others are left waiting to learn what punishment Bateman will receive.
He originally faced 51 felonies, but in his April plea deal he pleaded guilty to just two charges: conspiracy to commit transportation of a minor for criminal sexual activity and conspiracy to commit kidnapping.
His sentencing is scheduled for Monday, but in a recent court filing, his attorney wrote that an expert found Bateman was “mentally ill” and “delusional.” It’s not certain whether the judge will go ahead with sentencing; but her decision on Bateman’s mental state will determine whether he is sent to traditional prison or is allowed to serve his term at a treatment center.
Some of the girls he abused are now teenagers and young women discovering what they want in their lives.
On an “empowerment night” arranged by Marie and Katas this summer, fashion designers and makeup artists they know volunteered to help the girls choose their outfits and have their makeup done. Instead of their traditional long, modest prairie dresses, the young women donned floral ballgowns and sheer pearl-dotted tops, while Katas took photos for them in a studio.
And some are interested in finding a romantic relationship. Katas remembers seeing one of the girls, now 18, recently bounding down the stairs in his home and telling him, “I can’t talk right now, I have a date!”
Seeing the freedom that she and some of the others have now, Katas feels the stress and the tears he and his wife cried while gathering evidence of their abuse don’t haunt him anymore. For him and Marie, this is the reward.
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)
