Associated Press
San Angelo, Texas – Using cotton swabs and cameras, lab technicians began taking DNA samples Monday from hundreds of children and mothers – wearing long, pioneer-style dresses – in hopes of sorting out the tangled family relationships within the West Texas polygamist sect.
A judge ordered last week that the genetic material be taken to help determine which children belong to which parents.
Authorities need to figure that out before they begin custody hearings to determine which children may have been abused and need to be permanently removed from the sect compound in Eldorado, and which ones can be safely returned to the fold.
State social workers have complained that over the past few weeks, sect members have offered different names and ages. Also, the children refer to all of their fathers’ wives as their “mothers,” and all men in the community as “uncles.”
The testing went on behind closed doors at the crowded coliseum where the children seized in the raid earlier this month on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints compound are staying.
The collecting of DNA is likely to take 10 technicians most of the week, and it will be a month or more before the results are available, said Janiece Rolfe, a spokeswoman for the Texas attorney general’s office.
Rod Parker, an FLDS attorney, acknowledged that family names within the sect can be confusing, but said: “No one is trying to deceive anyone. … It’s not sinister.” Instead, he said that because many of the sect’s marriages are not legal, adults and their children may legally have one name but use another within the community.
The April 3 nighttime raid on the 1,700-acre compound probably frightened the children, said Ken Driggs, who has studied the sect extensively. “If somebody had taken the time to approach them in a way that was respectful, they probably would have gotten the information they needed,” Driggs said.
The children will be placed in group homes or other quarters until individual custody hearings can be completed by early June. Officials said they will try to keep siblings together when possible, though some polygamous families may have dozens of siblings.
The testing will involve 437 children and possibly hundreds of adults. State authorities revised their count of the children from 416 as they developed better lists and discovered that not all the female members who claimed to be adults were over 18.
The testing will be more far complicated than that of the typical custody or support case.
In a typical custody case, “maternity is already established,” Rolfe said, but in this case, researchers will have to determine the identity of both parents.
Each person who submits to a test will be photographed, and the inside of his or her cheek will be swabbed to remove cells for analysis.
The DNA sampling is an enormous undertaking for a state that typically tests only 1,000 children a year.
Some of the adults have ordered by the state of Texas to submit to testing. Others are being asked to do so voluntarily. But how many will do that is unclear.
Parker said he is afraid authorities secretly intend to use the DNA to build criminal cases. But state Child Protective services spokesman Greg Cunningham said: “We’re not involved in the criminal investigation. That’s not our objective.”
Authorities believe the sect forces underage girls into marriages with older men. No one has been arrested, but a warrant has been issued for member Dale Barlow, a convicted sex offender who has said he has not been to the Texas site in years.
Attorneys for the children and the adults have complained that they haven’t had enough access to their clients at the coliseum. Texas District Judge Barbara Walther ordered Monday that the women and children in the be allowed to use newly installed phone lines to contact their attorneys.
The judge also asked the attorneys to look for a Mormon volunteer to help watch over twice-daily prayers after attorneys for the women who remain with young children at the coliseum complained they weren’t given enough freedom to hold their usual prayer service. CPS has said it has no intention of infringing on their religious rights but wants to be sure the women aren’t conspiring to tamper with witnesses in the custody case.
“The way our clients pray is sacred to them, but it becomes less sacred when they feel people from the department are monitoring them,” said Andrea Sloan, a lawyer for some of the women.
Walther suggested that volunteers from the mainline Mormon church – of which FLDS is a renegade sect – might be able to provide monitoring without undermining the sacredness of the services.
The attorneys for the mothers and children agreed to look for someone at a local stake who would be willing to help.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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posted April 22, 2008 at 6:27 pm
I don’t understand how abuse of children would not turn into a criminal case. Can anyone explain this?
posted April 22, 2008 at 7:11 pm
This is going to take a lot of time and the results of the DNA tests may be just as confusing as things are now! With the “intermarriage” within this group, those kids are probably all related to each other. They probably share DNA with the other 437 kids…and all the adults.
posted April 22, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Pagansister did you see Dr. Phil today? He had his show devoted to the neice of Warren Jeffs. She was there and talked about all of it. They had pictures of her visiting on the ranch with one of her younger sisters, she was so happy to see her sister, and the sister played her part but real emotion was missing. She asked her sister if she had children taken away, and the sister said I’m a caretaker. I guess that means she hasn’t any children. The young woman was taken away from the Flds when she was a child by her mother. She was the first to leave this cult. The reason there are more kids than they thought is because many were posing as older wives, but they were underage. The children left on buses 100, I believe today for many other cities in Texas for care.
posted April 22, 2008 at 8:02 pm
No, Henrietta, I’ve been out most of the day. The more I hear of all this, the worse it gets.
posted April 23, 2008 at 12:01 am
I get the feeling that is someone were to enter the room and shout, “Who’s Your Daddy?!”, most of the folks would simply shuffle their feet and stare at the carpet.
Even after the sort out the DNA Sudoku of this problem, what happens next? Will parents be compelled to raise their biological children somewhere else? What if there is – as I suspect – a tangled web of parenting? It is one thing to collect information – it is much harder to decide how to use what has been learned. The folks who make THAT set of decisions are the ones that have the hardest work.
posted April 23, 2008 at 9:39 am
There needs to be a long, thorough investigaton of all the abusive practices of the group. Henrietta, I heard on the news about the underage mothers who were masquerading as older wives. Once they had been separated from their FLDS keepers for a while, and felt safe enough, they admitted being underage.
Flora Jessop was interviewed on CNN yesterday afternoon. She mentioned a case of a 72 year old man impregnating a 12 year old girl. He’s old enough to be her great-grandfather.
Does anyone have further information about the story about the baby being “waterboarded”? I heard the story (Carolyn Jessop repeated it on the news, but it wasn’t in her book) but haven’t heard much about it since, so I’m wondering about its origin?
posted April 23, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Alicia, I tried finding the story in “Escape”, and didn’t find it. Since there are several ex-members with interviews on many shows it could be one of those women that had it happen in their families. I haven’t had enough time to go through every page of Carolyn’s book, but will when I can. I found a shocker I forgot about in the chapter: Patricks Abuse. The favorite wife Barbara of Merrill J. sent four yr. old Patrick to get his mother for prayer service, and Carolyn was sick and she couldn’t get up. The child was beaten by Barbara and kicked in his stomach so hard he couldn’t breathe. The terrified child was made to sit through the prayer service in pain crying and after ran to his mother. He told her another brother (some other womans child) was beating on him, because Barbara said he wasn’t to tell Carolyn or Merrill. This “sweet” wife barbara weighed 200lbs.
In another chapter called: Cathleen Comes Home,
Barbara gets into form again when Merrill Jessop called prayers, he did this mostly when the wives and children had gone to bed and were asleep. Cathleen, another wife, had a two yr. old son who cried when he was awakened and it bothered his father Merrill, so he told 200 lb. Barbara to take Wendell into the other room and discipline him. When Barbara beat a baby she would typically spank him until he was blue in the face from screaming, beating him again when the hysterical child continued to scream. Eventually the baby would collapse from exhaustion when he was too weak to cry.
So for the people who are worried that these children are missing their homes they need to understand these children are living a nightmare, probably most of them. You must read these ex-members ladies and mens stories before you judge that they need sympathy.
posted April 23, 2008 at 6:13 pm
I, too found many parts of “Escape” horrific, Henrietta. For me, the stories about how Merrill and Barbara were going out and eating steak dinners while letting the rest of their family, all the wives and children, live on tomato sandwiches burned me up more than I can say.
And the story about Merrill’s wanting to deny permission to Carolyn to have her sick child taken to intensive care!!! I believed her when she said she thought Merrill wanted his son to die in order to punish her or because his son was “flawed” and might reflect badly on him. What a rare b*stard Merrill Jessop must be.
posted April 23, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Yes, Alicia wasn’t that sick? She said he told her Harrison was sick because of her not obeying her Priesthood, meaning him. And that it wouldn’t help if she took him for tests, because God was punishing her for not being obedient to him. She took him to her parents home and they helped her, but had to hide that they were, from others. The hospital found he had neuroblastoma on his spine! This is the leader of the city in Texas, pitiful.
posted April 24, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Last night on Nancy Grace show a man said that they weren’t using red around the children because he thought red stood for the devil. He’s wrong when Warren Jeffs was tightening everyones holiness up he made everyone give up all the red clothes they wore, red decorations, anything that had red in it. Probably even had to pull up red flower plants. He said they will feel burning in their throats when the time comes to leave this earth, and start getting ready for it. Well red was one of the first things. It stands for Jesus Christ he said and nothing else. Carolyn Jessop wrote this in her book. Also, Children were seen as property, and physical violence toward them was not only permissible but a way of life. It was preached at church that if you didn’t put the fear of God into children from the time of their birth, they would grow up and leave the work of God. Abuse was necessary to save a child’s soul. Somemore incite into the peaceful homes of FLDS families. I think the children’s only shock will be not having to run from a strap or a wooden spoon trying to hit them.
posted April 25, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Hi, Henrietta, and Happy Friday, everyone.
I also heard that as many of 25 of the young mothers turned out to be underaged children, so the number of children who have been removed from the FLDS custody has now grown. I wonder if the State of Texas Attorney General’s Office is going to prosecute the men who were married to underaged girls? It seems to me that doing so would strengthen the state’s case that the children should not be returned to the FLDS ranch.
posted April 25, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Hi! Alicia, read that. Also that 40 more adult women chose to go to some shelter instead of back to the Ranch. So that makes 46 now that didn’t go back. This will be interesting further on in the trial coming up.
Have a great weekend!
posted April 27, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Alicia I read in someones comments from TX that the FLDS has a Crematory on their Ranch. Have you read that anywhere? This could bring up all kinds of imaginings, couldn’t it?