By Anton Antonowicz
Mirror (United Kingdom)
April 10, 2008
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/2008/04/10/horror-of-the-child-sex-cult-89520-20378179/
Hundreds of children bred for sex Girls of 10 forced to wed older men
Some had never seen outside world It was a series of tormented phonecalls from a terrified teenage girl which finally brought the horror to an end.
The 16-year-old had broken her silence to report a distressing catalogue of unimaginable abuse.
Her voice hushed and barely audible, she told a local family violence refuge how her 50-year-old husband beat and raped her.
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| Warren Jeffs Photo by Reuters |
He had hit her in the chest, broken her ribs, choked and sexually assaulted her. And he had allowed her no contact with the outside world.
Weeping, the girl told the horrified operator she was pregnant, and that she was just one of her husband's seven wives. She said she had already given birth to one of his children when she was just 15.
The girl never gave her name during the tearful phonecalls made on a borrowed mobile, but police gleaned enough clues to identify the compound where she was being held.
When they raided the remote Texas ranch last Thursday, what they discovered stunned even the most hardened detectives.
The teen caller was just one of hundreds of young girls who had apparently been bred for a child sex cult.
According to court documents, girls born into the cult were married to much older men as soon as they reached puberty. And boys were groomed to perpetuate the cycle.
State officials removed all 416 children from the 1,700 acre compound in Eldorado, Texas, which is five miles away from the nearest main road. They have been taken into care. A number of the girls are reportedly pregnant. It is thought that a further 136 women left of their own accord.
For many of the victims, as they were escorted by police on to buses, it was their first taste of the modern world outside the cult following years spent in total isolation.
The startled women and girls were all dressed in ankle-length pioneer dresses, their long hair identically braided.
Court papers stated: "Investigators determined there is a widespread pattern and practice of the Yearn For Zion Ranch in which young, minor female residents are conditioned to expect and accept sexual activity with adult men at the ranch, upon being spiritually married to them."
"I would wait for the footsteps outside my door, knowing that my father was coming to sleep with me," said one girl.
Some of the girls forced into marriage are believed to be as young as 10.
The group is part of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a 10,000-member sect which broke away from the Mormon Church in the 30s.
Their self-styled prophet, Warren Jeffs, was jailed last year for acting as an accomplice in the rape of a 14-year-old who was forced to marry her 19-year-old cousin.
Jeffs, 51, who succeeded his father as the church's chief in 2002, was rumoured to have had 80 wives and 250 children.
He is awaiting another trial in Arizona on child sex charges.
An unknown number of men were being held at the Texas ranch last night while authorities completed the search of the cult's gleaming 80ft-high temple, a cheese-making plant, a cement plant, a school, a doctor's office and several housing units.
So far, neither the youngster who made the phone call nor her husband have been identified, although an arrest warrant has been issued for 50-year-old church member Dale Barlow, who is believed to be in Arizona.
Investigators said some of the children were unwilling or unable to provide the names of their biological parents.
Children in the sect were allegedly deprived of food and forced to sit in closed cupboards as a form of discipline.
They knew nothing of the world beyond the locked iron gates of the compound.
There was no access to televisions, newspapers or magazines.
Neither the children nor their mothers knew how to use crayons given to them by social workers after they were rescued.
They were physically sick after their first meal on the outside because their stomachs couldn't handle processed food or rich sauces.
"They are like aliens - or we are like aliens to them," said Helen Pfluger, a volunteer at a local Baptist church who helped to care for the children.
"It was like talking to people from 1870."
The pioneer-style dresses, worn over long handstitched underwear all yearround are part of the cult's strict dress code. The women spent their days tilling the fields and quilting and are thought to have stood by as the men preyed on the younger girls.
Authorities investigating the Eldorado compound have described FLDS members as co-operative, but the house-by-house search of the temple, factories and living quarters has met opposition.
On Monday, 41-year-old Leroy Johnson Steed was arrested on charges of tampering with evidence - just a day after 19-year-old Levi Barlow Jeffs was arrested on misdemeanour charges of interfering with the duties of a public servant, said Department of Public Safety spokesman Tom Vinger.
He declined to give details on the arrests, or how Levi Barlow Jeffs might be related to the FLDS leader.
The raid marks the start of what is sure to be a long and complex investigation.
Meanwhile, the bewildered victims face an uncertain and daunting period of readjustment away from the clutches of the cult.
But had it not been for that one courageous teenager who made those phonecalls, hundreds of innocent children could still be suffering now.
SECTS MANIACS
In 1997, 39 members of the Californian Heaven's Gate cult killed themselves believing a spaceship was coming to pick them up. Some of the men had been voluntarily castrated.
David Koresh died along with over 70 of his Branch Davidian followers when the FBI stormed their compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993. Koresh physically and sexually abused children in the cult.
He had beaten, choked her and raped her
It was like talking to people who lived in1870
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