With their trial just weeks away, Lemuel and Julia Redd are looking to clear up what they say are misconceptions about the highly publicized case in which they are accused of kidnapping their daughter to keep her from getting married.

• IN A CASE THAT HAS CAUGHT national attention, the Redds are accused of kidnapping their daughter to prevent her from getting married. Their daughter, Julianna Myers, has testified that on Aug. 4, 2006, the day before her wedding was scheduled, her parents took her to Grand Junction, Colo., against her will, after ostensibly picking her up to go shopping for wedding clothes.

The Redds characterize the August 2006 incident as family matter that should not be the domain of the courts. The ride they took with their daughter to Colorado wasn't a kidnapping, they said, but rather a last-ditch attempt to speak frankly with her about her upcoming wedding and discuss a litany of concerns they had about her fiance, Perry.

Julianna has said that her parents only agreed to return her to Provo on the condition that she didn't contact her fiance. She did, they got married and now have a child.

The Redds have pleaded not guilty to the kidnapping charges.

Rhome Zabriskie, Julia's attorney, said the kidnapping charges never should have been filed. The FBI even screened the case, he said, but declined to prosecute on kidnapping charges.

"It's a family matter that should've been resolved as such, maybe with some involvement from ecclesiastical leaders. But this case has no place in the courtroom," Zabriskie said.

Julianna referred all questions about the case to her attorney, Randy Kester.

Kester said the trip was a kidnapping planned days in advance, including reservations for the hotel room. That the Redds got their daughter in the car by saying they were taking her to buy temple garments made it all the more hurtful and deceitful for Julianna, he said.

If someone else had done to Julianna what her parents did, Kester said, they would be in prison by now.

"So you get a free pass because you're a parentfi" he asked. "This was a violent, well-planned-out, well-thought-out kidnapping."

Disputing the version of events presented by prosecutors and Julianna and Perry Myers, the Redds say they just wanted one last chance to talk to Julianna about concerns, which began before she got engaged to Perry.

From the moment they met Perry, a classmate of Julianna's at Brigham Young University, Lemuel and Julia said they felt he kept himself intentionally distant from the family. When they first met him at a family dinner outing in Provo, Perry made little effort to speak with them or get to know them, the Redds said.

Once the couple got engaged after dating for about two months, the Redds said that pattern extended to Julianna as well, at her fiance's urging. The family had always been close, Julia said, but Julianna started growing distant after the engagement.

"We've always been an affectionate family. All of a sudden it was as though I was an object. I was not even her mother," Julia said.

That distance, they feel, was urged and reinforced by Perry. While they were making their now-infamous drive to Colorado, Lemuel said he asked Julianna if she was willing to get married without her parents in attendance.

"She said, 'It doesn't matter if you're there or not,'" Lemuel said. Julia said she had made similar statements weeks earlier about friends, teachers and others from back home in Monticello with whom Julianna had always been close.

Julia said it seemed like everything about the relationship and the wedding were based solely on what Perry wanted. Instead of the Redds' hometown of Monticello, the couple planned to wed at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints temple in Salt Lake City. The engagement rings were simple gold bands instead of the diamond ring the Redds felt was more appropriate.

Despite a number of arguments about the engagement, Julia said she offered to help with the wedding. The offers to pay for invitations, photographers, the wedding dinner and other things were rebuffed, Julia said, with each offer being met with the same response by Julianna -- "Perry's family's doing it."

"(It was) like Perry said, 'This is the bride I want,' and they bought it for him," Lemuel said.

When Julianna finally accepted one of her parents' offers -- to buy furniture for the couple's new apartment -- Julia said her daughter called back a day or two later, saying Perry wanted them to simply deposit the money for furniture into his bank account.

"At that point, we started to raise our eyebrows," Julia said.

In addition to the feeling of being shut out, the Redds felt that Perry was becoming extremely controlling over Julianna, urging her to keep her distance from family and friends, dictating how she should appear and keeping close tabs on her with constant phone calls whenever the two were apart.

"Julianna started ... saying things like, 'He told me I couldn't wear makeup. He told me I couldn't have friends anymore. He'd be jealous, I couldn't talk to any boys.' If she and her sisters went out, he called her a half a dozen times, wanting to know where she was, what she was doing, when she would be done," Julia said.

So the day before the wedding, the Redds decided to have one last talk with their daughter.

"I guess it was one last desperate attempt to have her take a good, long, hard look at what she was doing. Is this really the kind of man that you want to spend a lifetime with, that's taking away your freedomsfi" Julia said.

Julianna thought they were going to get temple apparel, Lemuel said. But once they were on the road, Lemuel and Julia asked Julianna about her and Perry's plans for the future. When they got as far as Crescent Junction, where the turnoff to Monticello is, Julia said they asked Julianna if she wanted to continue to Grand Junction, where the family often took shopping trips, or if she wanted to go home to Monticello.

"I can't remember if she answered or not," Lemuel said. Julianna testified at the preliminary hearing that she ignored the question.

In Grand Junction, the family went shopping, ate dinner and checked into a hotel for the night. The Redds' attorneys frequently point out that Julianna did not attempt to seek help in Grand Junction, despite numerous opportunities. At the Redds' preliminary hearing, Julianna testified that she didn't seek help because she was scared. She attempted to call Perry from the phone in their hotel room, she testified, but was unable to place a collect call to his cell phone.

Had Julianna asked during the trip to turn around and go back to Provo, "we probably would have," Julia said. But Julianna never asked, she said.

The Redds said it was not their intention to make Julianna miss her wedding, but knew she would if they went to Grand Junction. They may have been able to make it back to Salt Lake City in time had they left early enough the next morning, they said, but Julianna did not insist on leaving early and acquiesced when her parents suggested taking a longer route back.

Lemuel and Julia were hesitant to discuss a stop the three made in Salina, where Julianna has said her parents used physical force to hold her against her will. But the Redds did describe a scene where Julianna knelt in the grass to pray, and returned to the car saying, "I have this gut feeling to follow my father," Julia said.

Julianna and Perry were married several days after the alleged kidnapping. They have remained happily married since then, Kester said, and had a daughter earlier this year.

The Redds had ample time to raise their concerns with Julianna, Kester said, concerns he believes were baseless. Kester feels issues such as the engagement ring and the location of the wedding were blown out of proportion by the Redds.

"(Julia's) definition of abusive is Perry and Julianna went out by themselves, as adults, and picked out gold bands. Mom's definition is because he didn't buy her a great big diamond, that's abuse. And because they planned their wedding dinner up on the BYU campus instead of mom and dad's backyard, that's disrespectful and that's abuse. And because they wanted to get married in the Salt Lake temple instead of the Monticello temple, then, you know, Perry's a bad guy and he's brainwashing her -- none of which is true," Kester said.

Kester also pointed out that Perry called Lemuel to ask for his daughter's hand in marriage. Lemuel said he felt that was something that should've been done in person.

Deputy Utah County attorney Curtis Larson, who is prosecuting the case, claims that Julia has a long history of breaking up weddings that she disapproved of. In court documents, Larson alleged that Julia visited another daughter's fiance at work in 1999 and called him the "son of the devil." The fiance dropped out of the wedding. In 1975, Larson alleged in court documents, Julia tried to create doubts and fears in her sister's fiance, and interfered two years earlier in a relationship of her brother's. Zabriskie has called the allegations baseless and irrelevant.

The Redds' kidnapping trial in Provo's 4th District Court is scheduled to begin on Dec. 3. Attorneys for both sides have submitted a flurry of motions over the past week, several of which are seeking clarification on what kinds of evidence and arguments can be used during the trial.

• Jeremy Duda can be reached at 344-2561 or jduda@heraldextra.com.