Samuel Bateman

It was a challenging environment for a photojournalist used to being welcomed.

On that day, you say, I would not have imagined the mountain of work, right? FLDS, Warren Jeffs, Samuel Bateman, not just FLDS, other polygamist groups.

So how did you go from that? People don't want you, you know, you're a stranger, you have no contacts in this insular community.

You show up and somehow you built trust and were able to do many reports over the years.

Yeah.

And you've been at all the events, pretty much.

In fact, you say in this little piece that you were there when they arrested, was it Samuel Bateman? In fact, you heard the loudspeaker from the police saying, come out.

Yeah, yeah.

Of course, that is the one with my mom in it.

But today, we are going to hear a whole new side of the story because Mikkel, while she did not appear in the series by choice, played a crucial role in the takedown of the predatory self-proclaimed prophet Samuel Bateman.

And in part one this week, she's going to tell us about growing up in the FLDS, what it was like falling asleep to Warren Jeff's voice every night, and how loser of the century Sam Bateman began claiming that he was the new prophet.

She'll tell us how becoming a secret Taylor Swift fan and realizing outsider music wasn't evil helped change her thinking, all the ways she resisted Sam and rebelled against him as he pressured her to marry him, and how she finally caved after she was sent away.

He's like, oh, no one can talk to him, but I can and you can through me.

Okay.

And explain how this happened because he was like, the thing that I think we find really fascinating about Samuel Bateman is that he was like, not like a high status guy in the FLDS.

He wasn't someone who was like destined to be the next prophet in anybody's eyes, right? No, the opposite.