Associated Press – April 7, 2008
SAN ANGELO, Texas – Authorities struggled Monday to persuade children to give them any information about the goings-on inside a breakaway Mormon compound in west Texas built by a jailed polygamist leader.
Investigating a report of an underage marriage, child welfare and law enforcement authorities were searching for a fourth day for any children and documents at the nearly 1,700-acre (688-hectare) compound built by Warren Jeffs in Eldorado.
Authorities moved more than 220 women and children Sunday from Eldorado to a historic fort-turned-museum in San Angelo, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north. Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said investigators wanted all the children and women to stay in one location as caseworkers continue interviews.
But with large extended families in the group making identifications difficult and children afraid of outsiders, information was hard to obtain.
“When children live in a pretty secluded environment and they’re as sheltered as these children, it’s very difficult to get them to talk to you and to open up. If you can get them to a neutral place, they’re a lot more prone to answer you truthfully,” said Debra Brown, who is with a local child advocacy group that is representing the children in legal proceedings.
So far, only 18 children have been legally put in state custody, but Meisner said more court action was likely Monday. Brown said with a backlog of cases in the Texas foster care system, placing all the children will be difficult.
State troopers armed with a search warrant raided the ranch on Friday to look for evidence of a marriage between 50-year-old Dale Barlow and a teen who called authorities a week ago. The girl allegedly had a baby at 15; under Texas law, girls younger than 16 cannot marry, even with parental approval.
Authorities were still not sure Monday whether the girl was among those taken from the compound.
Midday Sunday, dozens of women and children, mostly girls, were seen boarding buses on their way to San Angelo. The women wore long pastel dresses and many carried bedding; several had infants.
Prosecutor Allison Palmer said other law enforcement agencies “know where (Barlow) is and have talked to him, but our investigators have not.”
Barlow’s probation officer, Bill Loader, told The Salt Lake Tribune that he was in Arizona. A call to Loader by The Associated Press was not returned Sunday.
Barlow was sentenced to jail last year after pleading no contest to conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor. He was ordered to register as a sex offender for three years while he is on probation.
The search warrant instructed officers to look for marriage records or other evidence linking the teen to the man and the baby. The warrant authorized the seizure of computer drives, CDs, DVDs or photos.
The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, headed by Jeffs after his father’s death in 2002, broke away from the Mormon church after the latter disavowed polygamy more than a century ago.
Jeffs is jailed in Kingman, Arizona, where he awaits trial for four counts each of incest and sexual conduct with a minor stemming from two arranged marriages between teenage girls and their older male relatives.
In November, he was sentenced to two consecutive sentences of five years to life in prison in Utah for being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old girl who wed her cousin in an arranged marriage in 2001.
Associated Press video journalist Rich Matthews contributed to this report.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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posted April 7, 2008 at 6:48 pm
If you haven’t read Carolyn Jessops book, ESCAPE, you don’t understand the importance of all the children and women taken from this Sect’s Compound in Texas. All adult America should read it, if something isn’t done we are all enablers of this cruel way of living for women, children and babies. It is sick.
Carolyn was on Anderson Coopers a few nights ago and her girls are all still in therapy after four and a half years.
posted April 7, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Henrietta, I too saw her on Anderson Cooper. She also mentioned that the girls, women, children are taught to greatly fear the outside community in general…and, especially authorities such as the police, child welfare, etc.
It is truly a sad situation. It seems that there are other “prophets” with other compounds….doing much the same as Warren Jeffs.
I know I am sounding like nnmns here….but, it is truly ashame what is done in the name of religion. Whether it is the FLDS, the situation Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, etc….or evangelists such as John Hagee, Ron Parsley, Ted Haggard, I could go on…but, there is a limit of characters and unfortunately at least 30 other names come to mind.
Peace!
posted April 7, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Associated Press is now saying that it is now over 400 women and children that were removed.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080407/ap_on_re_us/polygamist_retreat
posted April 7, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Nnmns makes good examples of bad religion, and that’s good.
One more important blight on our religion is the children in Oregon and Wisconsin, and who knows where else that have lost their lives needlessly by parents using “only” prayer to cure their babies.
JohnQ have you read Carolyn Jessops book?
posted April 7, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Henrietta-
No, I have not…..I have heard her interviewed a couple of times and I have no doubt the book is compelling.
Peace!
posted April 7, 2008 at 7:54 pm
I think it will be a long time before any of the children will say anything to the authorties, as they are so indoctrinated by the cult claiming to be a religion! I can’t imagine what those children are going through, and have gone through. Right now I don’t think they realize that being away from the compound is good for them. All this will take time. They will have to learn to trust “outsiders”. That will be hard. As to the “leader”? Cut off the reproductive parts and put him in jail …forever would be good.
It is frightning to think there are more groups out there, taking advantage of the women and children, who look to the men as their “saviours”. Boy! Do they need to get over that concept!
Hentietta, I think I saw Carolyn Jessop on Oprah. If it was her, (or someone else who has escaped the Fundamentalist cult) she said she knew she had to leave when her first child, a daughter, turned 14, as she knew they’d marry her off to some older man.
posted April 7, 2008 at 10:00 pm
The book Carolyn Jessop wrote is more than compelling. Please people if you don’t want to buy it, get it from the library. There were times I had to put down the book and walk away to give my sensibilities a rest. It’s that unbelievable that people could live this way. Carolyn was taught as well as all of them that anyone out of their compound were evil and bad and would hurt them. It will take patience and many psychologists to straighten out these many children. There are huge familes that have broken away and moved to N.D., CA and elsewhere now. Like the virus spreading according to Jessop.
posted April 7, 2008 at 10:04 pm
I’m glad they cleaned out this nest of horrors and wish they’d done it sooner. And if there are others they should be cleaned out sooner rather than later.
posted April 8, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Very interesting that ALL of the things that RRR people post that gay marriage will “lead to” – namely, polygamous marriages, incestuous marriages, underage marriages – are ALREADY happening in America. Nevermind that these cases are tantamount to rape, child abuse and mind control. And it seems to escape being mentioned that these things are sanctioned by what amounts to a “church”!!!
Apparently there are similar compounds in Utah, Texas, Arizona, and Colorado.
posted April 8, 2008 at 5:37 pm
If this article was about abortion, or all things related we would have an outpouring of posts from pro-life people. This polygamous compound with the over five hundred babies, children, and mothers doesn’t seem to be affecting them. These babies are here, with little souls, being abused; where is the indignation? Did you watch Carolyn Jessop describe what they do to babies of mothers who didn’t obey the husbands, one of them would hold the baby under the water faucet, while the baby screamed in terror and chocked sometimes up to an hr.
posted April 8, 2008 at 10:25 pm
I should have included that the babies weren’t even terrorists, as in waterboarding.
posted April 9, 2008 at 9:45 am
I almost jumped out of my seat when I heard Carolyn Jessop describe the ‘waterboarding’ of an infant on the Today Show on Monday.
The state of Texas government made exactly the right call on this one. This has nothing to do with freedom of religion. Freedom to practice one’s faith does not include freedom to brutalize, terrorize, sexually abuse, enslave, commit incest and rape against young children and women.
Did anyone note from the most recent news stories that there were many more girl children than boy children in this compound. That’s probably because, per Jon Krakauer’s book, “Under the Banner of Heaven,” the older males drive the young ones away, so that they don’t have to face the competition for 13 and 14 year old girls. The, haha, alpha males are in charge.
posted April 9, 2008 at 1:39 pm
That was me posting above at 9:45 a.m.
Seriously, I find it astonishing that not one of the regular bloggers on Beliefnet has seen fit to comment on this story. Are Beliefnet bloggers afraid that they will seem intolerant if they criticize the practice of child rape and marriage, incest, violence and terror against women and children, abandonment of teenage boys, and virtual enslavement?