Willie Jessop: Purported Frontman at Texas Polygamy Compound

EL DORADO, Texas, April 18, 2008— -- Deep in the vast mesquite-covered scrubland of west Texas lies the spiritual center of a secretive polygamous sect.

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints arrived quietly nearly five years ago and from nothing, built a virtual instant city whose gleaming white temple quickly became its centerpiece, and today, the center of controversy.

This week, with allegations of child abuse swirling around their compound, sect members reluctantly opened their gates for the first time to outsiders, to protest their innocence and to reveal a glimpse of their pain.

"It literally breaks my heart," said one woman who identified herself as Nancy. "My children are everything to me. Help us get our children back."

The polygamists say the call that triggered the police raid was a hoax and that now authorities are on a witch hunt.

With Warren Jeffs still in jail doing time for rape as an accomplice in the forced marriage of an underage girl, another man has reportedly assumed Jeffs' authority. Four years ago, he was part of an attack on an ABC camera crew in the fundamentalist church community of Colorado City, Ariz., Jeffs' home base.

His name is Willie Jessop, he's a former body guard to the "prophet" and said to be one of the most powerful men in the Texas compound today.

"You know it seems like whenever they're in trouble they call in Big Willie to just kind of run the show," said Sam Brower, a private detective who has spent the past five years tracking Warren Jeffs' flock across several western states. Brower says he has no doubt that sexual abuse is happening in the compound.

"I mean that is part of their lifestyle, part of their culture," he said. "Warren Jeffs brought that over."