What Happened To Paul Douglas and Leizza Adams? Mormon Leaders Story

The daughter of Paul Douglas and Leizza Adams was is referred to by the name MJ. She was a young, tiny girl with black hair who was only five years old since her father began abusing her. 

The abuse was revealed while the father, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and an admitted pornography addict, was receiving counseling from his bishop. The same bishop was also the family physician of Paul and Leizza.

He stated what the church has come to refer to as the “help line” following church policy; however, MJ was not rescued by that call.

Bishop John Herrod was advised not to contact the police or child welfare authorities by attorneys for the church, also known as the Mormon church, who manned the helpline around the clock. It was according to church attorneys in Salt Lake City, who instead concealed the abuse. 

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After law enforcement in New Zealand found one of the videos, Adams was finally apprehended by Homeland Security agents in 2017 without the aid of the church. Before going to trial, Paul committed suicide while he was being held.

Nearly 12,000 pages of sealed documents from a separate West Virginia child sexual abuse lawsuit against the Mormon church were obtained by The Associated Press. The documents provide the most thorough look at the so-called help line Herrod called to date.

Families of the victims who brought the lawsuit claim that it demonstrates how church leaders can easily abuse a system to divert abuse complaints away from law enforcement and favor church attorneys who might bury the issue, leaving victims in danger.

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Following church policy, an Arizona bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon church, called the Mormon Abuse Help Line when he discovered a member of his ward was sexually abusing his five-year-old daughter. The abuser was none other than Paul Douglas.

After learning of the abuse during a counseling session the church views as a spiritual confession, the bishop later disclosed to law enforcement that he was legally obligated to keep the abuse a secret.

In a recorded interview with law enforcement, Herrod, the bishop, admitted to saying, “You absolutely can do nothing.”

For an additional year, Herrod counseled MJ Adams’ father, Paul, and enlisted the aid of Adams’ wife, Leizza Adams, hoping she would take some action to safeguard her kids. Surprisingly, she did not.

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After consulting with church officials, who maintain that the bishops were excused from reporting the abuse to police under the state’s alleged clergy-penitent privilege, Herrod later revealed the abuse to a second bishop, who also chose to keep it a secret.

With that, Adams continued sexually abusing MJ for up to seven more years and into her adolescence. Moreover, he also mistreated MJ’s newborn sister during that time. He frequently videotaped the sexual misconduct and uploaded it to the internet.

Now the news is out, and with his father’s death, MJ finally breathed fresh air without fear. Nancy Salminen now adopts her. Nancy is not a member of the Mormon church, but she is a special needs teacher and survivor of sexual abuse. She has a special affinity for MJ and others like her.

Over the last five years, Nancy has opened her place to 17 girls and boys who had been through any kind of violence and needed shelter. She keeps them in a modest, ranch-style home she bought out of foreclosure.

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