How prophet of extreme Mormon cult who had 20 wives - some aged just 10 - is now spreading evil from prison, as woman who bravely exposed him reveals new threat Netflix doc missed and 'sister brides' still under his thrall

By CLARA GASPAR, ASSOCIATE FEATURES EDITOR and TOM LEONARD, US CORRESPONDENT Published: 00:16, 21 April 2026 | Updated: 00:16, 21 April 2026 It had just gone 8am on a mild September morning when FBI agents swooped on an unassuming green bungalow in Short Creek, Utah – a small desert community of 5,000 people on the Arizona border. Naomi Bistline, then 24, was in the shower when mayhem erupted. Through the walls came the bark of officers, amplified by megaphones, ordering everyone outside with their hands up. Downstairs, her housemates – more than a dozen women and girls, some as young as nine – braced themselves for confrontation. ‘Where’s my pepper spray? I need an AR-15[gun],’ shouted one. ‘If they try to come in, they die and we die,’ vowed another. What none of them knew was that they had a traitor in their midst – someone who had spent two years gaining their trust and helping orchestrate this raid. Nor did the women realise they were not villains but victims of one of America’s most disturbing cult leaders. It would later emerge that Samuel Rappylee Bateman had a harem of polygamous ‘wives’, many underage, whose every movement he controlled. As officers led the women from the bungalow, Bateman was arrested on suspicion of child sex trafficking, destroying evidence and kidnapping. ‘Prophet’ Samuel Rappylee Bateman founded a breakaway Mormon sect, which some called the Samuelites, and in a few short months he went from having one wife to having dozens Christine Marie and and her husband, Turkish videographer Tolga Katas, spent years bravely infiltrating Bateman’s depraved world to expose the staggering scale of his abuse This extraordinary story and the investigation that exposed him have been charted in a new four-part Netflix documentary, Trust Me: The False Prophet, now No 1 on the streamer. And at its heart are the unlikely figures of Christine Marie – a former Ms. Michigan, escape artist and ventriloquist – and her husband, Turkish videographer Tolga Katas. Today, Christine recounts how they spent years bravely infiltrating Bateman’s depraved world, exposing not just the staggering scale of the abuse he perpetrated, but the terrifying level of power he exerted over his followers. Indeed, Christine reveals that the disturbing saga is far from over. Although Bateman was sentenced to 50 years in jail, he is continuing to wreck lives and influence victims from behind bars. Christine had been through her own bitter experience of this world, as the Netflix film recounts. A former Mormon she, too, had fallen victim to trafficking by a ‘false prophet’, who forced her into sexual acts with other men. After escaping, she studied cult psychology, earned a doctorate and determined to put her experience to good use. Convinced that those in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) – a Mormon offshoot that continued to practise polygamy after it was banned for the wider church in 1890 – ‘needed to be rescued’, she went to live in Short Creek. This ten-square-mile enclave, backed by red rock cliffs, had a troubled reputation. It was founded in the 1930s by fundamentalists determined to practise polygamous marriage beyond the reach of outsiders, before coming under the control of the notorious Rulon Jeffs – the ‘voice of God on Earth’ who was known as ‘The Prophet’. When Warren Jeffs took over the FLDS after his father’s death, he orchestrated a system of so-called ‘spiritual marriages’ in which underage girls were assigned to older men After his death in 2002, his son Warren took over, tightening control with harsher rules and isolation. Music and television were deemed sinful. Jeffs orchestrated a system of so-called ‘spiritual marriages’ in which underage girls were assigned to older men. That dark empire finally collapsed in 2011, when Warren Jeffs was convicted in Texas of child sexual assault and sentenced to life in prison. Yet, ‘martyred’ in this way, Jeffs found that his power grew stronger. Even from prison, he continued to direct his followers, issuing strict new orders: no more marriages, no sexual relations. If he wasn’t having intimate contact, neither could anyone else. Short Creek fell into paralysis. Jeffs, his mind deteriorating, stopped speaking altogether. Then, in 2016, the state took control of Short Creek from the FLDS, and began evicting residents. It was into this fractured community that Christine and Tolga arrived – and began filming for a documentary about Short Creek. Christine opened Short Creek Cottage, a small shop selling handmade goods by women from the FLDS community, a way for them to make a modest living. At first, the locals were wary. But as months passed, their suspicion was softened by Christine’s kindness and residents – especially women – began to appear in front of Tolga’s camera, sharing their stories about the upheaval Short Creek was facing. ‘I gained their trust’, Christine says in the documentary. It was then that Samuel Bateman emerged. Christine remembers him as a red-faced businessman with little status in his community. Bateman’s most devoted wife, the hauntingly beautiful but hopelessly deluded Naomi ‘Nomz’ Bistline, was just 17 when ‘prophet’ took her as his bride Bateman took to wearing an Elvis-style white leather jacket  ‘He and his wife were getting a divorce and he was a broken man,’ she recalls. ‘People thought of Sam Bateman as kind of a shlub[loser].’ Suddenly, in 2019, Bateman, then in his late 40s, found himself a new wife – young and beautiful. It was shocking in a community in which new marriages had been forbidden by Warren Jeffs. In a few short months, Bateman went from one wife to more than a dozen. In 2021, he pulled up outside Short Creek Cottage, a trailer hitched to the back of his car. Inside were 19 women and children – his wives – with several babies in tow. Shunned by the FLDS for defying the Prophet’s teachings, Bateman decided to start anew, founding a breakaway sect, which some called the Samuelites. Christine’s curiosity was soon replaced by alarm. Invited to dinner at Bateman’s home, Christine found herself face-to-face with girls as young as ten. With the local police saying there was insufficient evidence to go on, Christine and Tolga resolved to mount their own investigation to infiltrate Bateman’s paedophilic world under the guise of filming a documentary. What they uncovered was chilling. Bateman was falsely telling followers that Warren Jeffs had died in prison and that he had been chosen as the next Prophet. ‘I can feel it,’ Bateman would declare. ‘The spirit. It’s a gift.’ He won over three respected local businessmen – Moroni Johnson, Ladell Bistline Jr., and Torrance Bistline – who became devoted members of his new sect. Desperate for salvation, they surrendered utterly to his authority. That loyalty was soon tested when Bateman demanded they hand over their daughters and spouses to be his wives. ‘What he chooses to do with them is his business’, Johnson tells the documentary. They also poured huge sums of money into Bateman’s coffers. He splurged on two Bentleys and two Range Rovers, strutting around town with the number plates ‘ASK FTHR’. Local police officer Sergeant David Wilkinson is recorded by Christine and Tolga telling them there was insufficient evidence to investigate Bateman His ego ever-growing, Bateman invited Christine and Tolga to film at his home more frequently. The footage they recorded is stomach-churning. It shows a sweaty Bateman – who had taken to wearing an Elvis-style white leather jacket – reclining on a sofa, with his wives wearing 19th-century-style prairie dresses, fawning over him, stroking his chest, giggling at his every word and addressing him as ‘King’, ‘Master’ and ‘Father’. For legal reasons, the vast majority of these women are yet to be identified. The women who are named include Bateman’s most devoted wife – the hauntingly beautiful but hopelessly deluded Naomi ‘Nomz’ Bistline, cousin of Ladell Bistline Jr – and Moretta Rose Johnson, daughter of Moroni, who was just 17 when Bateman took her as his bride. Bateman would woo them with ludicrous fantasies – claiming he hoped one day to ‘become the most influential person on Earth’, to ‘govern North and South America and probably England’ and to bring Elizabeth II to his home and marry her, drawing up plans to build a giant White House-style palace in Short Creek. During the moments Christine could steal alone with the girls, she gently probed to see whether they were happy. ‘What more could a girl ask for but just to belong somewhere?’ replied one.  They were unquestionably enamoured of Bateman. Things grew more disturbing. Bateman revealed to Christine that he had received a divine ‘impression’ to offer up three of his wives, one of them just 13 to have sex with Johnson, Bistline and Bistline Jr. He claimed God had demanded he watch it happen. Christine recorded his every word on her phone – and handed the audio to police, who said it was still not enough for a warrant. Meanwhile, the girls were opening up to Christine. One revealed how Bateman had taught them how to have sex at the age of 15. ‘He made it seem so sacred and celestial’, she says adoringly. But it was when the girls let slip that Bateman had transported them between cities in Colorado, Nebraska, Utah and Arizona that Christine realised this could amount to ‘inter-state human trafficking’ and that the case could be taken from the hapless local police to the FBI. Julia, mother of several of Bateman’s young wives, began to confide in Christine too. She revealed how Bateman’s behaviour shifted when Tolga’s cameras weren’t rolling – attacking the girls with ‘vulgar language’, forcing women to work when pregnant, and – ludicrously – making them write lines when they disobeyed as if they were at school. Julia, right, mother of several of the young wives, told Christine that Bateman would force women to work when pregnant, and made them write lines when they disobeyed She described the depths of Bateman’s depravity, describing how he would engage in group sex with his adult and underage wives – forcing the others to watch. As FBI agent Dawn Martin tells the Netflix series: ‘He wanted to have people watching him have sex. He wanted other people to be having sex while he was having sex. He would have the fathers having sex with other women, with their daughters in the room. Sometimes he would have people watching by video. The goal was to teach the younger girls how to please Sam Bateman.’ The FBI were slowly building their case – but they needed more information. In August 2022, they finally got their break. Bateman was pulled over by local police on a highway outside Flagstaff, Arizona, towing a trailer filled with his wives. A driver behind had spotted small fingers poking through a crack in the trailer door and raised the alarm. Inside, officers found several women and girls. Bateman was taken into custody. His followers quickly rallied to his side, pooling money to post the $150,000 bail. But his release didn’t put an end to things. On the drive home from the police station with Christine and Tolga – who were still pretending to be his allies – Bateman casually discussed how to destroy incriminating evidence on his phone. That recorded conversation was finally enough for the FBI to issue a warrant for his arrest. Working with authorities, Officer Martin and Christine developed a plan. Tolga handed over footage showing the inside of Bateman’s compound, allowing agents to familiarise themselves with its layout before launching a raid. A secret recording with Bateman in which he talked about how to destroy incriminating evidence on his phone was enough for FBI agent Dawn Martin to issue a warrant for his arrest The wives consoling each other after Bateman was arrested on suspicion of child sex trafficking, destroying evidence and kidnapping It came the following month. Bateman and his wives were taken into custody, and nine children were placed into state protection. But the story didn’t end there. Within weeks, eight of the children vanished from foster care – found later, hundreds of miles away in Washington state, inside a vehicle driven by one of Bateman’s adult wives. Bateman would later admit to orchestrating the kidnapping plot. Investigators uncovered the full horror: Bateman had 20 wives, many underage, and, according to his own family, planned to marry his own teenage daughter. Prosecutors said he ‘treated his child brides like chattels’ and controlled every aspect of their lives. In December 2024, Bateman, then 48, was sentenced to 50 years in prison for conspiracy to transport a minor for sexual activity and conspiracy to commit kidnapping. And yet, as she tells the Daily Mail, Christine and Tolga consider their work far from done. They still live in Colorado City, the town on the Arizona side of the FLDS heartland of Short Creek, alongside the 20 or so people – including around nine wives – who remain loyal to Bateman. What do they now do when they see the woman they previously branded as a ‘Judas bound for Hell’ and who even received death threats for helping the FBI? ‘They ignore me,’ she says. Today, Nomz is at college studying psychology (because she wants to understand what happened to her) and also working with music producer Tolga to achieve her ambition of becoming a pop singer. ‘She’s taking singing lessons and he’s got a couple of songs already done with her,’ Christine tells the Daily Mail. Nomz has a new boyfriend – another FLDS apostate, Wendell Jeffson. He is one of 50 children of Warren Jeffs, having left the religion aged 14 after his father was put in prison. He is now a life insurance broker and model. Moretta ‘has started a new family and a new life’, says her mother, Julia. ‘She is strong and independent and supporting herself and has a relationship with all of her daughters again,’ says Christine. Some of her former ‘sister wives’, however, are still in thrall to Bateman even as he rots in prison. Christine tells the Daily Mail she continues to ‘dream’ of getting all the women away from his grasp. Christine and Tolga want to raise $100,000 for the survivors of Bateman’s cult through their charity, Voices For Dignity. Women raised in polygamist sects are usually kept so detached from modern life that they struggle to cope with the most basic challenges such as finding a job or a home outside. Yet Bateman is still able to communicate with them from prison by phone and she admits that she fears he could start issuing despotic ‘edicts’, just as Warren Jeffs had done. Not that she knows what they’re doing any more. ‘They’re very secretive now, much more so, and they don’t let me know anything,’ she says. ‘While they have been able to have some physical freedom now that he’s behind bars, they still need to break free in a psychological sense…from the deception and coercion that he has used’, she says. ‘In a couple of years, I am hoping that some of the people who are still walking the path with Sam Bateman will start to question and find themselves able to separate from whatever trauma bonds they might have with him.’ No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? 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