it i'm stephanie cutter and this is cnn. this is "piers morgan live." welcome to our viewers around the united states and around the world. tonight, a mother's anguish. >> aaron is now in a place where he can no longer do harm to anyone. and for that, i am glad. to the families of the victims, i am so, so very sorry this has happened. my heart is broken. >> i'll talk to the spiritual adviser who has been by the side of the shooter's mother all day today. also, you heard rick warren tell me this last night. >> there's no way a gun should ever get in the hands of a mentally ill person. >> tonight i'll talk to a woman

whose life changed forever because of a disturbed young man with a gun. her 6-year-old daughter died in the massacre at sandy hook. she tells me what she went through -- what went through her mind when she heard about the navy yard shootings and how we can try and ensure it doesn't happen to other families. plus, escape from polygamy. a beautiful teenager forced to marry the 85-year-old head of a religious sect. how she broke free and her fears of the others she left behind. >> i knew there were other young girls who were still and are still being violated. he is still running that place from prison through phone calls. >> it's quite extraordinary interview. that's coming up on the show. we'll begin with our big story, the investigation of the navy yard shootings. here's what we now know, aaron alexis made mysterious etchings into the shotgun used in the attack. they read, better off this way and my elf weapon. tactical officers and police

were told by watch command to stand down, even though they were seconds away from the scene and might have stopped the shooting sooner. and the autopsy into aaron alexis is expected to be completed at any moment. meanwhile, the shooter's mother made a heartbreaking statement today. >> our son aaron alexis has murdered 12 people and wounded several others. his actions have had a profound and everlasting effect on the victims' families. i don't know why he did what he did and i'll never be able to ask him why. aaron is now in a place where he can no longer do harm to anyone. and for that, i am glad. to the families of the victims, i am so, so very sorry that this has happened. my heart is broken. >> here now is the clergyman by her side when she said that. bishop jerrold seabrooks joins me on the phone. thank you so much for joining me. it was a heartbreaking statement. obviously everyone's focus is on the relatives of those who were slaughtered in this massacre.

but as with all of these things, there are other victims too. not least this poor woman whose son committed the atrocity. you've been with her all day. how would you describe her feelings today? >> she's very, very depressed. she's very bothered. she's saddened. however, very strong woman and wanted to convey the message that, guess what, she's tremendously sorry about what happened to the victims. >> you spent a lot of time talking to her today. do you get a sense that she knew how disturbed and how depressed her son actually was? >> absolutely not. no. if you just would talk to her and talk to relatives, talk to friends, that's didn't display bizarre behavior.

he was a very jovial person, life of the party. so no, she didn't have an indication of any kind of problem with her son. >> despite what you just said, obviously, we do know that he was having some psychological problems this year. he'd been receiving treatment for this, he'd reported the fact that he was hearing voices, hearing microwave noises in his head and so on. we know there have been previous gun-related incidents. i mean, was all this completely new to his mother? >> yes, it was completely new because she resides in brooklyn. and he was in several locations. i don't know if that was made known to her. >> she was very moving in her statement but not emotional in a way that perhaps some may have been in that situation. has she been emotional with you today? >> yes, she was sobbing and she was weeping. she's very sad. very sad.

very, very depressed. >> what can you say to her? you're a man of great experience dealing with people who have been through awful things in their lives. this is particularly awful. she's lost a son and her son committed this awful massacre. >> right. >> what kind of advice can you give her from a spiritual sense? >> well, you let her know that god loves her that she's a victim also and she has the right to grieve. she's not at fault here. and i hope your viewers and listeners will understand that our children are adults and they're responsible to make prudent decisions and if they make poor choices, it's not the parents' fault. it's the child's fault. so her heart goes out to all of the victims and their families. but right now, she's a victim herself and she's grieving herself. isolated, suffers from insomnia and grieving. so all of us can just pray for

her and pray for the victims that god will help them to come to a speedy recovery. >> bishop, thank you very much indeed for joining me. >> thank you. as the horror of the shootings was unfolding, i sat down with pastor rick warren, his younger son matthew shot himself to death after a long struggle with mental illness. listen to what he told me last night. >> if you want to care about homeless, you've got to care about mentally ill people because most of them are probably mentally ill. they've got alcohol and drugs, they're masking, they're self-medicating their mental illness. if you want to care about soldiers coming back from overseas, you've got to care about mental illness because of the trauma and things like that. it affects a whole lot more areas than we realize. >> joining me now, a psychiatrist and medical director the l.a. county department of children of family services and psychologist javier amador joining me via skype. welcome to both of you.

dr. sophie, it's a very complex double story here. on the one hand, you have the mass shooter, on the other, you have a young man who took his life because of mental illness. the link is the mental illness, isn't it? >> yes, and the link is probably cored at anger. one is self-directed and suicide and another anger directed toward others outwardly. >> when you look at the shooter in the navy yard shooting, what we know about him, all the warning signs and red flags that should have been picked up. there's no doubt about that now, is this the classic build-up to somebody then committing something bad? obviously not on this scale, but something. >> absolutely. when you have the warning signs, even as late as august, this past couple months, couple weeks ago, someone hearing voices not in reality. whether they stay in that frame of mind ongoing or comes and goes, there are red flags they're going to act out because they're not thinking properly. yeah, it is going to connect those dots.

>> dr. amador, this guy passes a background check to buy the shotgun that he then commits the outrage with. with all the controversy over background checks, seems absolutely extraordinary that all this stuff that was in his background simply didn't show up at all. and cnn was able to find most of it within a few minutes. what is wrong with the way that the criminal and mentally ill fraternity of america are not picked up when they're buying these killing machines? >> you know the problem is that we are not identifying and treating him. had he been identified as mentally ill and in treatment that would've come up in a background check. so, you know, big -- a theme that you and i talk about often. you know, the gun control debate in congress is just stalled and nobody's moving forward. now we've got representative

barber of arizona, co-sponsoring a bill, the mental health first aid act, which is all about identifying people like aaron alexis and getting them into treatment. five weeks ago, the newport police department memorialized. i mean, they wrote down very clearly. i'm looking at the police report right here, symptoms of what could only be described most likely as schizophrenia, hallucinations. they reported it to the naval officer on duty that night. there was ample warning. so, you know, gun control is important. i'm going to get political for the first time on your program. and give an opinion. we know how to fix these -- we have to fix these problems. we get police officers who are trained to assess and deal with mentally ill people and identify the risk. the warning signs for someone like myself and for thousands of police officers, i know who our crisis intervention team, c.i.t. team, police officers in this country, the warning signs were abundantly clear. this was somebody who was at risk for violence.

not only to other people but to himself. >> there's no doubt to my mind. the whole issue of gun violence in america is very multifacetted and mental health is a crucial part of what has to be dealt with. i want to play a clip of kay warren talking about what happened to her son in terms of his psychological profile. >> he was so desperate to end the pain. that's the most important thing. that matthew was in such excruciating emotional and physical pain and he wanted the pain to stop. >> that was another clip. i want to play another clip with that. where she talks directly about the kind of problems he was enduring. >> borderline personality disorder is a pervasive attachment, if you will, to mood swings, suicide ideation, disregulation of emotions, a lot of difficulty in interpersonal relationships.

many times people who cut or burn themselves also have borderline personality. and it's pervasive meaning it's hard to deal with. but there is hope for it. it's a little known -- there are more people who have borderline personality disorder than schizophrenia. >> now, there are millions of people in america that suffer from some form of mental illness, some form of personality disorder. there are also, as we know, 300 million guns, you put the two together. i say to people, these countries britain, australia, japan, all have mental health issues, the violent video games. the problem in america is when you link the mental health problems with easy access to guns. as we saw rick warren's son was able to easily buy one on the internet and saw the naval yard shooter went to a gun store. >> right. i think we have to be clear about the fact that in both cases when you have a child that's now not a child after 18, that's an adult, you have no access to their mental health records.

those parents don't have the ability to say, no, you can't buy a gun. >> unlike the warrens in if navy yard shooting case, she had no idea about any of these problems. he was the life and soul. amador, is that a familiar thing that you hear when people get to adult age that they can mask these problems from even their closest family? >> absolutely. it's very common. because half of the people with the most serious illnesses, people who hear voices and have delusions like this man did don't understand they're ill and see other people react to them as looking a bit off if not, quote, crazy and so they learn not to talk about with certain people like family members. but let me say something, mentally ill people are not more violent, piers, than the general population. it is a smaller group of mentally ill people with serious psychotic illnesses like he apparently, obviously had who are untreated, who are not in treatment. we have the solutions in place.

we have the legislation currently being developed in place. this is nothing new. this has been going on for 20 years that we know how to intervene with people like this, especially when they encounter the law enforcement setting. i worked in the the loughner case. he had an encounter with law enforcement. he had an encounter with law enforcement. another lost opportunity to avert tragedy. james holmes, another opportunity to avert tragedy. we have the solutions. it's not as controversial as gun control. i'm sorry, but it's not. >> no, listen, i -- by the way, you don't have to tell me that. you haven't got to tell me. the gun control debate in unique in america. when the debate happened in other countries, like britain and australia when they brought in gun control, it was never political. so the issue with mental health is not political and it should be the bedrock how you try to deal with these things. i've got to leave it there, but i'm sure we'll discuss this, sadly, again.

it's a fascinating issue. when we come back, a woman who knows how tragic it can be when a disturbed person gets ahold of a gun. she lost a daughter in sandy hook. now she tells you what this country needs to do about mental health. and later, how a beautiful young woman risked everything to escape a forced marriage to an elder leader of a religious sect. you're comfortable here. it's where you email, shop, even bank. but are you too comfortable? these days crime can happen in a few keystrokes. american express can help protect you. with intelligent security that learns your spending patterns, and can alert you to an unusual charge instantly. so you can be a member of a more secure world. this is what membership is. this is what membership does.

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you know, i've said almost from the first moment that we learned that we're devastated but we're not destroyed. and when people ask that question how are you? there's no good answer.

and so i finally just settled on i'm terrible. but i'm okay. in other words, we're going to survive. >> kay warren talking about the loss of her son. he shot himself after struggling for years with mental illness. my next guest knows all too well when a disturbed person gets a gun. she lost her 6-year-old daughter in the sandy hook shooting. she's a mental health and wellness director of the sandy hook promise. thank you so much for joining me. my heart goes out to all the families sandy hook and aurora and all of the massacres, whenever there's another shooting because it must just bring back such awful memories for you. >> thank you for having me. absolutely. but i'd first like to express my condolences to the families of those that were lost this week. >> when you hear a different kind of story but no less tragic, the warrens talking to me about their son and how he'd found the gun on the internet and killed himself after years of depression and so on.

it just brings back, again, the focus to the lethal cocktail of mental instability and the ready availability of guns. what do you think about this? >> i'm here today as aiyana's mom, i'm also a licensed family therapist. it's a complicated question of mental health. i think there are two things we can be looking at. we can be looking at identification later when we already know there is a problem. but we can also start talking about prevention in the early years. when we talk about physical health in america, we talk about -- we focus on prevention. we tell people what they can do to be well. and we need to be doing that with mental illness as well. >> and what is your view of the whole gun debate? what do you think is the most practically realistic thing that can be achieved given the way the politicians have so far completely in my view shirked

any responsibility for this issue? >> i think it might behoove us as a nation to put aside bipartisan politics and petty disagreements and agree that no one else wants to be sitting in my shoes right now. i am the mom who has an empty place at her kitchen table. i am the mom who has a bed her daughter no longer sleeps in. no one wants to be that mom. >> that's absolutely true. it's -- when you hear the mother, i want to ask you this because i was thinking it when i was watching her interview. when you hear the mother of the shooter at the navy yard shooting talking in such a heartbroken way herself about what her son had done. obviously in your case, adam lanza's mother wasn't there to tell that kind of story because she was killed herself. are you able to feel any sympathy or empathy for people

in her position for the families of these shooters? >> of course. she's a victim herself. and it's time in america that we start looking at mental illness with compassion and helping people who need it. this was a family that needed help, an individual that needed help and didn't get it. and what better can come of this of this time in america than if we can get help to people who really need it? >> you grew up in a musical family. your husband was harry connick jr's sax player. this is ana and her brother playing the piano together. let's watch this. ♪ ♪ amen

>> it's so heartbreaking to see something like that. i don't know how you have the courage. i really don't. i don't know how any of the families from sandy hook have the courage to continue but you have. and one of the reasons was isaiah, your son who had to go back to school within a month of what happened to his sister. he was at sandy hook that day. he heard the shooting going off. how has he been coping and adjusting to life without his sister? and also to going back to school? >> i thank the teachers and the staff for saving his life and for making school a safe and a fun place. ty do live in a wonderful community, even though this happened. and the teachers that go to

school every day are all heroes and should be commended. >> would you feel any better if the school that your son was now at had armed guards outside it? >> you know, right now i feel better that he is laughing. i feel better that he is enjoying it. he tells me his favorite subject is lunch. so right now i'm happy he's having fun. >> that was my favorite subject. it's a very touching note that you wrote toward teachers across america. and clearly it's obvious why you were inspired to do that. but also, you were inspired by ana's own work. and we're looking here at a picture. a picture she drew of her puppy. and it's, again, heartbreaking but very inspiring too. she was a talented young girl. how would you like her to be remembered? >> my daughter loved food. she loved music and she loved god.

and that's why i'm standing here today. i believe that it's important for me to be doing something productive and to remember ana and how she lived and not only how she died. she was a child that was loved and incredibly cared for. >> president obama when he met with the sandy hook families promised he would take action, get things done to try and prevent another sandy hook happening. so far he's been unsuccessful in persuading congress to get things done. what is your message to him and indeed to the members of congress? >> my prayer for congress is to put bickering aside and let's stop arguing about the small things and let's get to it on the big things. no one else wants to be me right now. no one else wants to lose a brother, a mother, a child. we have a problem, let's get to work.

let's do it. >> nelba it's been a privilege to talk to you. thank you very much indeed. >> thank you for having me. still ahead, how a beautiful young woman broke free of an oppressive sect and marriage. her incredible story coming up. next the inside man who worked in a gun store in virginia, the same state where the gunman bought his weapon. morgan joins me live coming up. that's three new paper shredders. [ boris ] put 'em on my spark card. [ garth ] boris' small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase every day. great businesses deserve unlimited rewards. read back the chicken's testimony, please. "buk, buk, bukka!" [ male announcer ] get the spark business card from capital one and earn unlimited rewards. choose 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase every day. told you i'd get half. what's in your wallet? your financial advisor should focus on your long-term goals, not their short-term agenda.

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>> that's it, man. sold. all you need two forms of i.d. with same name or address or credit card or some money. you don't even have to ask for permission? >> no. >> oh, man, i'm giving you a punch. you all right. >> showing how easy it is to buy a weapon in america. a gun store in virginia. the very state where aaron alexis bought his gun. the question tonight about the issue morgan spurlock also director of "one direction." someone just tweeted me. they said america's rights to possess guns has given americans the right to be easily killed by somebody, which is, you know, one way of looking at it. >> sure. >> it's a really disheartening sense of groundhog day with the gun massacres and no desire, no strong enough desire by the politicians or the people of america to do anything constructive about it. >> yeah. i mean, the bigger question is since sandy hook, there have been about 20,000 gun deaths in

the united states. 60% of those are suicide so you've got 8,000 homicides that have happened since sandy hook. it takes something like this for us to have a conversation about it. and for me, i think the complacency, the apathy that we have towards this issue is kind of disturbing. >> yeah. we do have the conversation when these things happen. i've been on cnn for three years and it's the same conversation. i joined -- i was on there a week after gaby giffords, the same conversation there, after the sikh temple shooting, and in total over 17 mass shootings involving four or more people killed since the start of 2012. this is so exceptional for any of the other rich, so-called civilized countries of the world. it's ridiculous. but where do we get some kind of movement -- i want to try and stay calm about this debate. >> yeah. >> emotion doesn't seem to work. where do we try and get a meeting of minds to get things practically done so that poor woman who lost her daughter at

sandy hook can actually see that somebody is reacting to it? >> i mean, i think you have to have a mass movement of the people. the populous to say enough is enough, this has to change. you know, whether that's universal background checks or whether that is opening up data bases for mentally ill people so we know who we're selling these kinds of weapons to. something has to move forward so we're not making the same mistakes over and over and over again. >> but i remember after the aurora movie theater massacre when 70 people were shot. i think michael bloomberg came in and said what will it take? if it's not this, what will it take? and four months later, it was sandy hook. 20 kids blown to pieces. and even that, they couldn't even get background checks. >> that's right. >> they were more than happy to allow 40% of gun trades in america to simply have no check on them. and we saw you in that clip there from your extraordinary documentary. >> yeah. >> the ease with which people can get firearms and the lack of any checks that go on. >> and it's even -- it's even

simpler, you're just having guns sold from person to person, peer to peer where there's even less checks. you know, at least in the gun shops, or the one i worked in in the store here in virginia, you know, they do a very substantial background check on every single person that comes in. and if somebody doesn't pass, they don't get a gun. they don't -- they are forced out without one. but, you know, there's plenty of other places where you can buy one from your neighbor and nobody will know if you have a problem or not. >> but also, i've interviewed two parents whose son seven times had been voluntarily admitted to mental institutions. >> yes. >> and because he'd never been admitted involuntarily, in other words, ordered by court, he was able to go to walmart and buy an assault rifle. didn't show up on his background check. to me, that's not an effective background check and that only applies to 60% of the current gun sales. >> this is why the medical establishment needs to be working with the federal establishment to make the medical records be widely accessible.

you need to know if people are mentally unstable, they shouldn't have access to firearms, shouldn't be able to purchase a weapon that could kill themselves or hurt other people. >> why is it political, morgan? why if you're pro gun do you have to be a right winger? why if you're -- >> listen, i'm -- i'm -- >> you have to be a lib tart as they call did. why these ridiculous extremes when it comes to guns? >> i am -- i am somebody who i think most people would say is incredibly liberal. but i also very pro gun. i still like guns, i own guns, i think that you can own guns and not be a nut job. i think we have drawn a line in the sand in so many ways with this issue that we force it to be political. we force it into this idea because it's always about banning. everything's about we're going to ban them, we're going to take them away. you hear about the assault weapons bans, we're going to get rid of the ak-47s, but the majority of gun deaths in the united states are done with

revolvers, pistols, semi- automatic handguns. nobody ever talks about those. yet they cause the majority of the deaths in our country. >> all good point in times. you've also taken aim at america's waistlines with the new iphone app. >> that's the best transition i've ever heard. that was a fine transition. >> i was told you would send me an iphone app. to my joy, you sent me a whole iphone. so thank you very much indeed. >> i'm looking out for you. >> why are you sending me a waistline app? >> well, i'm concerned about your health. you do a lot of -- you spend a lot of time sitting around. i'm worried you don't get enough movement. i want to make sure you know what you're putting in your body. we've come up with this incredible app. it's called the supersize me what are you eating app? it tells you restaurants across the country, there's over 100 restaurants in here. there's a search tool so that if you know where you're going you can find something that's close by. so if you end up going to a place like -- say you end up going to a chuck e. cheese, but if you end up in one, you can

pick up the canadian bacon pineapple individual pizza for 542 calories, it tells you everything in there, slide it to feed and feed our fat clown in there and we keep track of all the calories you put in your body over the course of an entire day. it tells you the health ramifications, the problem you can have as a result of eating so many calories. >> can you press send on that immediately down to los angeles? >> can we do what? >> tell me, morgan, if you were a betting man, it's a bit like the guns issue, isn't it? do you really feel -- you've made documentaries about guns, made them about food, do you feel these actually have an affect on americans? or do people watch your documentaries feel horrified and then just carry on guzzling and buying more guns? >> no, i think it's both. i think there are people who watch things and sometimes it reinforces a belief. i think there's other times sometimes you do chip away at what people may have not thought about before. whether that's about what we put into our mouths and buy at a store. i think that, you know, these

types of shows, these types of movies do make a difference. and little by little, i think you can start to sway the tide. >> well, supersize me, what are we eating, the iphone app by morgan spurlock is available now. i'm for a big mac and large fries. morgan spurlock has been terrific as always to talk to you. >> good to see you, piers, cheers. coming up next, surviving polygamy, her harrowing escape. her life as a wife of a polygamist cult leader. my emotional interview coming up. it really is fascinating. [ male announcer ] the parking lot helps by letting us know who's coming. the carts keep everyone on the right track. the power tools introduce themselves. all the bits and bulbs keep themselves stocked. and the doors even handle the checkout so we can work on that thing that's stuck in the thing. [ female announcer ] today, cisco is connecting the internet of everything. so everyone goes home happy.

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tonight, a remarkable story of strength and courage from a woman who was forced to marry a polygamous sect leader. she was a teen when she became the 19th wife of 85-year-old jeffs the ruler of the flds. rebecca escaped the marriage, the abuse and the secret world of polygamy. she then testified against warren jeffs. a self-proclaimed prophet of the flds. rebecca is the author of a book. and she joins me now. rebecca, it's quite an extraordinary story. when you look back over what's happened to you, are you surprised that you've emerged so relatively normal as you appear in the interviews i've seen? >> relatively normal. i think that's relative, exactly. you know, i am so grateful for my journey. i think that everybody can look back over their life and realize, you know, it was tough, i went through some really hard

things, but i'm a better person for that. and i'm deeply grateful for, you know, where i am today. i realize it's kind of like being able to, oh, if you die and live again in the same lifetime only you remember the past. and it makes me that much more grateful and that much more open to opportunity, open to, you know, the grace of peace that i have now. so i'm very happy with where i'm at. >> you had this extraordinary existence inside. your father was a college-educated engineer. he didn't grow up in this world. he was aware that polygamy was illegal and yet he wanted to get involved and take his family inside there. your mother was your father's second wife. so you grew up as the secondary family in the basement of the home with your mother. obviously a very surreal existence in many ways. at what point did you yourself then become victim to the abuse? >> as long as i can remember, there was unrest in my father's home.

his first wife was extremely jealous of my mother. and i imagine it to be hard for any grown woman to grow up in the outside world, marry her high school sweetheart and have another woman later after you've had kids and a whole family, a woman 20 years your younger and then have her marry your husband. her jealous was extremely painful for all of us. and she was suffering in it, she made sure that my mother and her children suffered, as well. it was a tremendous amount of physical abuse, there was some sexual abuse in my father's home. and, you know, that was simply the world that we knew. >> when you were 19, you spent your entire life in this weird bubble. you were forced to marry the 85-year-old father, the prophet as he was known, warren jeffs' father. you were his 19th wife. what is your recollection of the moment that you heard that was what you were going to have to do? >> when i found out that i was going to be placed, there was

all of these years of everything i'd been taught how this was right, this was holy, this was good and yet inside of me there was a tremendous amount of disappointment, confusion, and overwhelm. i was scared. i was terrified of marrying this man. and yet, i could not say no because it would bring a tremendous amount of shame to my family. so there was tremendous amount of pressure on me to do my duty that i'd been raised my entire life to perform. >> in the end, he had 60 wives, you were one of them. you were number 19. what were these duties? i mean, even at his advanced age, did you have to perform sexual duties to him? was that part of it? >> yes, it was. in their marriage covenant, a woman vows to give herself to her husband and that refers to everything. her body, her mind and her soul. and they do require that, and they tell you that it's for god, it's in god's name.

>> how did that make you feel? i mean, this guy's 85 years old. and, in fact, died at the age of 92 and you had to just keep doing this. he's a revolting old man, he's a pedophile. everything about him is disgusting. you're a beautiful young woman who has been thrown into this. how did you feel emotional about that? >> i was overwhelmed. i was very angry, i was terrified and felt extremely violated. and that's the thing. i think there are so many women globally who experience this kind of violation. my story is witness to me but it also speaks to the 1 in 4 women who are sexually assaulted. and that's why it's important. i'm willing to have an honest conversation about this. it's not easy and it's not fun, but it's time to face the facts. it's time to have the reality brought forward of a society like the one i was growing up -- i grew up in but also globally. we can no longer turn a blind eye to this. we can't change what we don't know is going on.

>> how did warren jeffs and his father rule this compound? what was their style? what kind of men were they? >> they were interesting. because on the outside they seemed to be so kind. they would convey they cared about you and they would say god bless you. however, they were very calculated. warren picked up where his father left off and he was very cunning in how he managed the people. he looked for opportunity and would leverage every single thing he could to be able to put himself not only personally but socially as his father's mouthpiece and his father's right-hand man so he was in the very prime position at the time of his father's death to take over the ruling part of the flds people. >> what kind of relationship did you have with the other wives? >> fortunately for me, you know, i had actually 64 sister wives and i got along with them all. we were all thrown into a unique situation. it was hard, but, you know, i think that human beings have

this gift and this ability to adapt. we cared about each other. plus the fact i was not a threat. i did not go out of my way to try and have time with him. so there was a number of us that felt the same way. i was the most vocal. but i can honestly say, i dearly cared about my sister wives. oddly as it sounds, but, you know, i was not in love with my husband. i did not want to spend time with him. so i was more than happy to let someone else do that. >> probably understandable. i want to take a short break, rebecca, and come back and talk to you about the moment you made your flee for freedom and how you became the chief prosecution witness against warren jeffs and exposed has -- his horrendous regime. i think farmers care more about the land

than probably anyone else. we've had this farm for 30 years. we raise black and red angus cattle. we also produce natural gas. that's how we make our living and that's how we can pass the land and water back to future generations.

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he would tell me that under no circumstances do you ever, ever, ever tell your husband no. and he read to me part of section 25, where a wife's duty is to comfort her husband at his time of need. and if she did not, that she would be destroyed in the flesh.

>> dramatic moment in the trial against polygamist sect leader warren jeffs. she was the star witness prosecutor the prosecution. she was forced to marry jeffs' father and she escaped the sect. this testimony brought an end to the saga. let's go back to the moment you escaped. what was the tipping point for you and how did you get out of there? >> the tipping point for me was when rulan jeffs died, 56 of his 65 wives were between the age of 17 and 34 and warren jeffs was forcing us to be remarried. warren came down very hard on me and said, i will break you. you will be married in one week. and i begged him not. and he said, you know this is what god wants. even at the time that i left his office that night, leaving was not an option. i wrestled with that for two days wondering what am going to do. and finally it hit me, this aha moment that i could leave!

and i tried to make different plans in the most amazing chain of events i was able to get in touch with my brother who was living on the coast of oregon. but for me to get out, i couldn't tell anybody goodbye. i left a note on my bed. i was able to get past security guards, security cameras, climb over a fence in the middle of the night, and a friend drove me up to where my brother was living in oregon. and it was terrifying to walk away from every single thing that i had ever known into a world that i was trained to believe that it wasn't if, it was when they would hurt me. it was up to that point in time one of the most terrifying things i had ever faced or done. >> eventually, warren jeffs was caught and he was brought to justice, brought to trial. you were the chief prosecution witness as we heard earlier you gave this extraordinarily brave testimony. i want to play a clip now. this is what you said outside, after you gave evidence. >> whether the currency is god or greed, the trafficking of

women and children for sex, is a form of slavery. if it continues to happen in the flds, it continues to happen in our nation. but i am grateful for everyone who strives to give freedom of choice to each and every one who has been affected. >> so poised there, rebecca. what were you feeling? were you feeling a great sense of elation when warren jeffs was finally jailed for life? or what was going through your mind? >> it was a very emotional time for me. as you can imagine, it was very hard to face him in the courtroom. however, the sad reality is, he himself is imprisoned for life, but it's not over. there are still young girls right now in that group who are being violated today. and that's the thing. it's not just a matter of not just warren jeffs or the other men who are now in prison because of this. i think that it really speaks to

the fact that we can step up, but it takes everybody in every single society to look at the behavior that's going on. it doesn't matter what tradition says is okay or what tradition says is holy. we have the responsibility to look at that behavior and make our decisions based on that. so facing warren jeffs, it was strange. it was a storm of emotion going on. it was liberating, but i also knew it was a sad day. because i knew that it didn't end. i knew that there were other young girls who were still and are still being violated. he is still running that place from prison through phone calls. so it's not over. but i would like to think, and i definitely hope, that we've made a dent, that we've brought forward evidence that they can look at, that they can then look at the behavior and make that decision from. >> rebecca, what kind of a relationship do you have with your family? where's your mother? do you speak to her at all? what about your siblings? for you personally is there marriage on the cards going forward, a real marriage to somebody that you love, children perhaps?

>> i do have two young children. you know, to begin with in regards to my family, i have not spoken to my mother since 2006. she told me over a phone call that she would rather see all of her children dead and laid in the grave than to see any one of them stand up against their prophet. and as you can imagine, it did not sit well with her that i did testify. i have no contact with her. she's met one of my children when he was very young, but she hasn't met my other child. and as far as my siblings go, as you can imagine with a childhood like ours there's a tremendous amount of healing that needs to take place. and i honor each and every single one of us on that journey. i have siblings who are still in the flds, siblings who are out of the flds. and i am just so astounded at the resiliency of those they -- that i have seen come out and their journey to get another day and face it. because it's terrifying, it's hard to make a new life on every

single level. so we are moving forward and finding healing in our own way on our own journey. >> rebecca, it's been a great pleasure to talk to you. you're such a delightfully positive person in regard to -- given all you've been through. it's an inspiring thing. i wish you all the very best with your life in the future. you deserve a lot of happiness. >> thank you so much. >> rebecca musser's book "the witness wore red" that brought cult polygamistist warren jest -- jeffs to justice. it's an extraordinary read. it's out now. ♪

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that's all from us tonight. tomorrow night, billy ray cyrus. "ac 360" starts right now. good evening, everyone. an exclusive took at the devastating flooding. the rebuilding will take years. also ahead tonight, a 24-year-old man, bruised and bleeding tries to get help after his car crashes in the middle of the night. instead of help, he's shot dead by a police officer. we begin with chilling new details about the gun the shooter used in monday's massacre. the killer etched or carved two phrases into the shot gun. one saying, quote, my elf weapon. the other saying, quote, better off