BishopAccountability.org
	Authorities Remove Children from Polygamists' West Texas Compound By Michelle Roberts Houston Chronicle April 4, 2008 http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5675566.html ELDORADO, Texas — Child welfare officials Friday took custody of 18 girls who lived at a secretive West Texas religious retreat built by polygamist leader Warren Jeffs following an abuse complaint to state authorities. A total of 52 girls, ages 6 months to 17 years, were bused away on Friday to be interviewed, but only 18 were immediately taken into state custody, said Texas Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner. No arrests had been made. Meisner said CPS was looking for foster homes for the girls, most of whom have rarely been outside the insular world of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They were temporarily being housed at a local civic center, she said. "We're dealing with children that aren't accustomed to the outside world so we're trying to be very sensitive to their needs," said Meisner. Authorities had interviewed about half the girls since arriving at the remote compound with law enforcement on Thursday evening, she said. Interviews were expected to continue over the weekend. The investigation began with a call alleging physical abuse of a 16-year-old girl living there, Meisner said. On Friday afternoon, Department of Public Safety officials began executing a search warrant at the compound. The warrant is for records dealing with the birth of children to a 16-year-old and any records listing a marriage between Dale Barlow, 50, and the girl, according to the San Angelo Standard-Times, which cited court records released late Friday in Tom Green County. Prosecutors in Tom Green, a larger county north of Eldorado, were handling the case. An arrest warrant was issued, but the individual DPS is looking for had not been located by Friday evening, said spokeswoman Tela Mange. She said she could not reveal whose name was on the warrant. "We have been working very closely with the adults at the ranch and they have been assisting us in our search," she said. The ranch covers roughly 1,700 acres and has multiple buildings. It is north of this two stop-light town, down a narrow paved road. Authorities blocked access to the compound's gate, keeping onlookers miles outside the area. Only the compound's 80-foot-tall, gleaming white temple is visible on the wind-swept desert horizon. DPS officials said they did not know how many people lived at the retreat, but local officials in 2006 put the number at about 150, as members of the reclusive church moved from a community on the Arizona-Utah line. The congregation, known as FLDS, and has been led by Jeffs since his father's death in 2002. It is one of several groups that split from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in Salt Lake City, decades after it renounced polygamy in 1890. In November, Jeffs 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. In Arizona, Jeffs is charged as an accomplice with four counts each of incest and sexual conduct with a minor stemming from two arranged marriages between teenage girls and their older male relatives. He is jailed in Kingman, Ariz., awaiting trial. The group's retreat, about 160 miles northwest of San Antonio, is located on a former exotic game ranch. The group bought the property in 2004 for $700,000 and began an ambitious construction program anchored by the temple. Eldorado, a livestock and mohair center, is home to about 1,800 of the 2,800 residents of the Edwards Plateau county.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.