More than 400 children - most of them girls - were freed from a polygamist compound over the past few days. I sure hope the men who held these children and young women - and abused them will pay the price and find out what it’s like to be imprisoned against their will and to be considered no more than some person’s property. It’s simply another case of men using “religion” to justify and protect their sexual and social deviancies.
Sphere: Related ContentMore Than 400 Kids Taken From Ranch
The dayslong raid on the sprawling compound built by now-jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs was sparked by a 16-year-old girl’s call to authorities that she was being abused and that girls as young as 14 and 15 were being forced into marriages with much older men.
Dressed in home-sewn, ankle-length dresses with their hair pinned up in braids, some 133 women left the Yearning for Zion Ranch of their own volition along with the children.
State troopers were holding an unknown number of men in the compound until investigators finished executing a house-to-house search of the 1,700-acre property, which includes a medical facility, numerous large housing units and an 80-foot white limestone temple that rises discordantly out of the brown scrub.
“In my opinion, this is the largest endeavor we’ve ever been involved in in the state of Texas,” said Children’s Protective Services spokesman Marleigh Meisner, who said she was also involved in the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco.
The members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints spent their days raising numerous children, tilling small gardens and doing chores. But at least one former resident says life was not some idyllic replica of 19th-century life.
“Once you go into the compound, you don’t ever leave it,” said Carolyn Jessop, one of the wives of the alleged leader of the Eldorado complex. Jessop left with her eight children before the sect moved to Texas.
Jessop said the community emphasized self-sufficiency because they believed the apocalypse was near.
The women were not allowed to wear red  the color Jeffs said belonged to Jesus  and were not allowed to cut their hair. They were also kept isolated from the outside world.
They “were born into this,” said Jessop, 40. “They have no concept of mainstream society, and their mothers were born into and have no concept of mainstream culture. Their grandmothers were born into it.”
Meisner said each child will get an advocate and an attorney but predicted that if they end up permanently separated from their families, the sheltered children would have a tough acclimation to modern life.
Tela Mange, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Public Safety, said the criminal investigation was still under way, and that charges would be filed if investigators determined children were abused.
Still uncertain is the location of the girl whose call initiated the raid. She allegedly had a child at 15, and authorities were looking for documents, family photos or even a family Bible with lists of marriages and children to demonstrate the girl was married to Dale Barlow, 50.
Under Texas law, girls younger than 16 cannot marry, even with parental approval.
The church members were being held at Fort Concho, a 150-year-old fort built to protect frontier settlements, to be interviewed about the 16-year-old girl and whether, in fact, the teenager was among them.
DPS troopers arrested one man on a charge of interfering with the duties of a public servant during the search warrant, but it was not Barlow, Mange said.
“For the most part, residents at the ranch have been cooperative. However, because of some of the diplomatic efforts in regards to the residents, the process of serving the search warrants is taking longer than usual,” said DPS spokesman Tom Vinger, who declined to elaborate. “The annex is extremely large and the temple is massive.”
Barlow’s probation officer, Bill Loader, told The Salt Lake Tribune that he was in Arizona. Phone messages seeking comment from Loader and Barlow were not immediately returned Monday.
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 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.
The group is concentrated along the Arizona-Utah line but several enclaves have been built elsewhere, including in Texas. Several years ago it paid $700,000 for the Eldorado property, a former exotic animal ranch, and began building the compound as authorities in Arizona and Utah began increasingly scrutinizing the group.
The compound sits down a narrow paved road and behind a hill that shields it almost entirely from view in Eldorado, a town of fewer than 2,000 surrounded by sheep ranches nearly 200 miles northwest of San Antonio. Only the 80-foot-high white temple can be seen on the horizon.
Jeffs is jailed in Kingman, Ariz., 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.
The investigation prompted by the girl’s call last week was the first in Texas involving the sect.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Freed? It is sad to see such a characterization. This simply fuels the animosity of those who, like Timothy McVeigh, bomb us innocent American citizens because our Government blew up the Waco compound and pursued this kind of oppressive policy. It is ridiculous to attack this way of life the way many of us do. Polygamy was the law of the land in Utah until 1888. Using force to control who marries who is ridiculous. Why is it okay to be gay and have kids from a marriage, yet polygamy is illegal? This is an obsession of an obsessed and sex crazed society. The anlaysis of this situation is disgusting. Pygmies have been polyamorous for hundreds of years - what are we going to do? Be reasonable? or trigger more crazy responses? Please tell your friends to advocate for a more reasonable policy towards people who are “not like us.”
TMS: This is about protecting children who aren’t able to choose whether or not to be “like us.” It has to do with women who are forced to be nothing more than baby-making machines to provide fodder to feed the sexual deviancy of these men. The only people who “choose” to be “not like us” are the men. Quit trying to protect these sickos.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Thank you, Texas, for dealing with FLDS situation that Arizona turned a blind eye to for decades! Even Senator McCain from Arizona did nothing about this abuse of women and children all the years he has lived in Arizona. There was a “raid†on the Arizona sect 55 years ago, but nothing changed and the sect went back to their polygamy when the dust settled because the women had no other way of life. The state of Arizona even certified police officers who were members of the sect. These women and children have many generations of this abuse in their history and they have no education, no income, no support. The books in the libraries were destroyed. Once Arizona started to finally come down on the Jeffs family, the sect started the move to Texas. There are also followers in Utah and Canada. These men get their income from state welfare when these women apply for aid, and from the “family†business of running video arcades. These men stop at nothing. Here in Arizona, the marriages between relatives have resulted in many children with birth defects and the resulting need for even more public services to care for these children with neurological deficits. Don’t back down, Texas.
April 8th, 2008 at 9:36 am
THESE WOMEN & BABIES ARE BEING ABUSED! IF THIS WAS A GROUP A BLACKS, THE POLICE WOULD BE ALL OVER THIS AND THE COMMENTS ON THIS BOARD WOULD BE JUST THE OPPOSITE! LETS SEE JOHN MCCAIN EXPLAIN THIS ONE.
I CANT WAIT TILL OBAMA WINS SO HE CAN COME DOWN HARD ON THE RACIST. THESE PEOPLE ARE A CULT! AND WHERE THE HELL IS MITT ROMNEY AND GLEN BECK? THEY HAVE ALL DAY TO TALK NEGATIVE ABOUT OBAMA AND KILL WHITE KIDS IN THIS WAR BUT IT WILL BE A BLACK GUY WHO HELP SAVE THIS AS WELL.
April 8th, 2008 at 9:38 am
As a former resident of Utah and former member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS), I can attest to the sick brainwashing occurring in these communities. These poor individuals are brainwashed beginning at birth that the FLDS is the only true church and the only means to eternal life in heaven with their family. The women and children are no different than those born into black slavery. The men holding the believed almighty power of the church priesthood are equivalent to the ruthless Plantation Masters which must be honored and obeyed.
These communities need to be uncloaked and abolished; the enslaved women and children residents rescued and deprogrammed from that demented belief structure. The easy part will be to disband the communities; the hard part is the re-programming the belief system that has been drilled into them that altering from that life style will lead to never attaining the highest level of God’s kingdom.
Why this madness has been allowed to continue for the past century. America was founded on the premise of the freedom of religion, but what is happening in in Hildale Utah, Eldorado Texas, Colorado City Arizona, is illegal. Polygamy, underage marriages, sex with minors, and rape, are all illegal in this country! Please don’t stop with Eldorado, end it all together so the victims can all heal together.
April 8th, 2008 at 9:49 am
THIS MAY BE WORST THAN SLAVERY! THIS CULT IS RACIST, AND THESE POOR WOMAN AND CHILDREN ARE BEING ABUSED! I LIVED IN UTAH AND WHERE IS THE LDS CHURCH ON THIS ISSUE? WHERE IS GLEN BECK? MITT ROMNEY? THE LDS CHURCH IS ALWAYS DOING MISSIONS WELL DO A MISSION AND HELP THESE PEOPLE!
April 8th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
B Black you are a racist idiot. I am so sick and tired of black people bringing race into EVERYTHING. This has nothing to do with how pitiful and put down YOU are, for once the spotlight is on someone else. That’s why you feel the need to bring your race into it, so that you can again be the center of attention. As you can see, there are even white people in this country who are slaves. Maybe they should get a public apology, or maybe even reparations…
April 8th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Freed? I haven’t gotten the impression they were all slaves or were held against their will. I guess that makes such a wide sweeping search warrant ok. It’s a good thing none of the people there have any constitutional rights. Sounds to me like a bunch of narrow minded people who are sheep following the lead that whatever the government does is ok. It’s time to get rid of these different people. The Amish and Menonites should go next.
April 8th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Can anyone confirm how these compounds support this many people. Is the local county social services office sending out welfare checks to all these women and children? Don’t just assume it is true. They would have to appear in person to apply for benefits and there are periodic recertifications done in person. If they never leave the compound, they can’t be filing for public assistance. So where do they get their money?
April 8th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Remember folks two things, one that the USA was founded on religious freedom. The founding fathers thought that it was so important that they put it in our constitution.Although I personally don’t believe as they do, I do believe that they have that right to believe whatever they want.And we have Americans dieing right now, this very moment trying to make another part of the world just like us.Second remember your history, there was another country in 1938 that decided that Gypsies didn’t believe as the rest of the country believed, and Jews, and Homosexuals. so they KILLED as many of them as they could until WE THE USA stopped them. There where no deaths this time, like there was in WACO, and RUBY RIDGE, but I’m afraid that I see A PATTERN developing.Again I personally don’t believe as these people do,or as Waco or Ruby Ridge, but I do believe that the CONSTITUTION GIVES US THE RIGHT TO BELIEVE IN AND WORSHIP WHATEVER GOD WE SEE FIT TO WORSHIP. What would happen if the government decided that BAPTISTS didn’t fit the mainstream religious pattern or the Pentecostals,or maybe the Roman Catholics. Where Dear reader does it end? In A Furnace perhaps? Or an Arena? I hope you take a moment to think about what you read in the newspaper or see on the news and bounce it off what has gone before. Remember you may not Believe as I do and I may not Believe as you do, but we can all get along in a civil society.
TMS: So if my religion tells me it’s okay to abuse children, that’s my right. What about the children’s and women’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? This polygamist compound was raided because of 16-year old made a call for help. How about her right to have someone come and save her after she made her plight known? A person’s freedom of religion ends when it infringes on another’s person’s rights. And we’re not in Iraq trying to make them “just like us.” We are there to help the people become strong enough to decide for themselves what kind of government they want. Before that they were ruled by a dictator who got off on killing anybody he didn’t like.
April 8th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
TMS “And we’re not in Iraq trying to make them “just like us.†We are there to help the people become strong enough to decide for themselves what kind of government they want. Before that they were ruled by a dictator who got off on killing anybody he didn’t like.”
You mean like Bautista in Cuba? and The Shah of Iran? and Marcos in the Phillipines? All dictators that we backed. No, we are in Iraq because W wanted to invade since they threatened his daddy and Cheney wanted to get richer.
TMS: Your disdain and cynicism is unattractive, to say the least.
April 9th, 2008 at 6:17 am
This is not a community who really worships God or teaches His word…it’s a community all about men ruling women and sex! Thank goodness they got all those children out and they now have a better chance of a really free life!
April 11th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Freed, my ass!
Those young women have been taken prisoner by the state. When you free people, you ask them if they want to go.
TMS: I didn’t realize your ass was freed, too. Of course the children and women were freed. They certainly have more freedom than they did on that ranch. Use a little common sense instead of acting like a idiot.