Fred Jessop, a longtime bishop for a polygamous community on the Arizona border who was stripped of his powers in a reported leadership struggle, has died of congestive heart failure. He was 94.
The circumstances of Jessop's final years remained in dispute on Thursday — mysteries that could go to his grave.
Jessop was known as "Uncle Fred" to many who adored him in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which occupies the twin towns of Hildale and Colorado City astride the Utah-Arizona border.
Jessop was exiled 15 months ago because he threatened the authority of Warren Jeffs, who had taken over as presiding bishop of the church, said Flora Jessop, a distant relative who renounced the church and is an antipolygamy activist living in Phoenix. She suspects Fred Jessop had been held against his will in an undisclosed location since January 2004.
"It does a disservice to him to say that he had been kicked out of the church. He was not. He simply wasn't the bishop any more," church attorney Rod Parker retorted Thursday.
Parker disputed that Jessop ever was missing. He couldn't say where he'd been or if he had been banished or ever was considered a threat to Warren Jeff's authority.
On Thursday, Jessop's body was at Spilsbury Mortuary in Hurricane. A memorial service and burial was tentatively scheduled for Sunday in Colorado City. Jessop died Tuesday at a Lone Tree, Colo., hospital.