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AP Investigation: The Mormon Church Help Line and a Bisbee, Arizona Family

Investigative Report

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "AP Investigation: The Mormon Church Help Line and a Bisbee, Arizona Family." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://www.divinityatlas.com/abuse-inquiries/ap-lds-help-line-investigation.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). AP Investigation: The Mormon Church Help Line and a Bisbee, Arizona Family. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://www.divinityatlas.com/abuse-inquiries/ap-lds-help-line-investigation

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-ap-investigation-the-mormon-church-help,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {AP Investigation: The Mormon Church Help Line and a Bisbee, Arizona Family},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://www.divinityatlas.com/abuse-inquiries/ap-lds-help-line-investigation},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

An Associated Press investigation, published August 2022 and built from nearly 12,000 pages of sealed court records from a related Arizona civil lawsuit, documenting a Bisbee, Arizona family in which a father confessed to his Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints bishop in 2011 that he was abusing his young daughter. The bishop contacted the church's help line; the AP's investigation and the church's own public response give differing accounts of what followed, both recorded on this page. The abuse continued for roughly seven years and extended to a second child before the father was arrested by federal authorities in 2017 on separate charges and died in custody before trial. No individual involved is named here or in the article about this case: none was convicted of the abuse itself, and naming any family member risks identifying minor victims of the case.

Facts

Documented Findings

Accused Documented

1 1

Paul Douglas Adams, the Bisbee, Arizona father whose confessed abuse the help line call concerned; the AP investigation's central documented case.

Victim Estimate

2 1

AP's account follows one family: the father's own child, and a second child abused after the church help line told the bishop not to report to police. Not a broader estimate; this record documents two identified victims in one household.

Key Finding

AP's account: after the father's 2011 confession, church attorneys reached through the help line instructed the bishop not to report the abuse to police, citing clergy-penitent privilege; the abuse continued for about seven more years and extended to a second child. The church excommunicated the father in 2013, still without a report to law enforcement by church leadership at that point. 1

Key Finding

The church's own account: the help line exists to ensure local leaders comply with all legal reporting requirements, giving them access to expert direction on whether and how to report; help-line conversations address stopping the abuse, caring for the victim, and meeting reporting obligations even where clergy-penitent privilege applies. The church calls the AP's account "seriously mischaracterized" and "oversimplified and incomplete." 2

Inquiry Profile

Kind of Record

Investigative Report 1

Jurisdiction

United States (Bisbee, Arizona) 1

Commissioned By

The Associated Press, an investigative news report rather than a convened commission 1

Publication Year

2022 1

Period Covered, From

2011 to 2017 1

Learn More

Two Accounts of One Help Line Call

In August 2022, the Associated Press published an investigation by reporter Michael Rezendes, built from nearly 12,000 pages of sealed court records tied to a civil lawsuit in Arizona. At its center is a Bisbee, Arizona family: a father confessed to his Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints bishop in 2011 that he was abusing his young daughter, and the bishop, following church procedure, called the church's help line, a service that connects local leaders to advice on reporting obligations.

What the AP reports happened next, and what the church says happened next, do not agree. The AP's account, drawn from the sealed records, is that church attorneys reached through the help line instructed the bishop not to report the abuse to police, citing Arizona's clergy-penitent privilege. The abuse continued for roughly seven more years, the AP reports, and extended to a second child. The church excommunicated the father in 2013, an internal disciplinary step that did not, on the AP's account, come with a report to law enforcement.

The church's own public response, issued the same week the AP story ran, calls that account "seriously mischaracterized" and "oversimplified and incomplete." Its statement describes the help line's actual purpose as ensuring local leaders comply with every legal reporting requirement, giving volunteer bishops access to expert guidance on whether and how to report, and states that help-line conversations cover stopping the abuse, caring for the victim, and meeting reporting obligations, in the church's words, "even in cases when the law provides clergy-penitent privilege."

This atlas records both accounts as what they are: the AP's own documented investigation, and the church's own public response to it, neither smoothed into the other. The father was never tried for the abuse itself; he was arrested by the FBI in 2017 on separate charges after Interpol discovered child sexual abuse material linked to him, and died by suicide in jail before any trial. No one involved is named here, a deliberate choice explained in this file's own header.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Arizona

This source names Arizona directly: "of sealed court records from a related Arizona civil lawsuit, documenting a Bisbee, Arizona family in which a father confessed to his Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints bishop in 2011 that..."

Source Seven Years of Sex Abuse: How Mormon Officials Let It HappenMichael Rezendes