Warren Steed Jeffs has police concerned about violence as the F.B.I. posting put up before the capture said Mr. Jeffs, 50 years old, was considered armed and dangerous, and may have traveled with loyal and armed bodyguards.
 |
| Warren Steed Jeffs: Carotid Artery Pulsating During Arrest |
But once he had been found out by a Nevada State Trooper he was so nervous the officer said he could see his carotid artery pulsating when he was asking him questions.
"I noticed Warren was extremely nervous. He was sitting in that right side back seat and wouldn't make eye contact with me," Trooper Eddie Dutchover said.
"But his carotid artery was pumping."
He was traveling only with one of his wives and his brother.
***
ABC reports that the officer, Eddie Dutchover, said to "Good Morning America" that Jeffs was sitting alone in the back seat when he approached the vehicle.
He immediately became suspicious of Jeffs' demeanor.
"When I went up to the passenger's side of the vehicle, I noticed immediately he was eating a salad and didn't make any eye contact. That made me real suspicious," Dutchover said.
In fact, Dutchover said, he wondered whether Jeffs might be in trouble because he seemed so nervous.
"I said, 'Is everything OK?'" Dutchover said. "You seem to be a little nervous. In fact, you're making me a little nervous."
***
Jeffs one of the FBI's most wanted fugitives and is a self-proclaimed prophet from Colorado City, Ariz. He is the leader of a polygamous community that had basically been run like a theocracy, in which thousands of followers ignored the rule of civil law for years.
CNN reports that inside the Escalade, investigators found "at least $54,000 in cash," 15 cell phones, four portable radios, a duffel bag "containing numerous unopened envelopes suspected of containing additional cash," three wigs, several pairs of sunglasses, four laptops, a GPS device, a police scanner and gift cards worth about $10,000, said John Lewis, FBI special agent-in-charge in Phoenix.
Also found in the car was "material identified as being associated with a prophet, and there was also material in the car that the officers viewed that suggested one of the occupants could well have been Warren Jeffs," he added.
***
Earlier reports details that Jeffs has been accused of repeatedly raping his nephew, Brent Jeffs, who was then 5 years old, in Utah. Now 23, Brent Jeffs filed a lawsuit in 2004, saying his uncle is believed to have molested other children.
Moreover, Jeffs was charged in April with rape in Washington County, Utah for allegedly encouraging a man to have sex with his underage wife without her consent.
“We want to try to make sure that the rule of law exists in Colorado City,” the Arizona attorney general, Terry Goddard, said at a news conference in Phoenix.
--Josh Hart writes from Las Vegas