Women return to Texas polygamist ranch
SAN ANGELO, Texas (CNN) — A group of women from a polygamist sect’s Texas ranch returned to the compound Monday after authorities separated them from the 400-plus children now in state custody.
Rhonda Jeffs, mother of two of the children and a spokeswoman for the other women, said mothers of children 5 and older were told they could not remain with the children but could go back to the ranch or to a women’s shelter.
The number of women who chose to return was not immediately known, but it appeared to be fewer than the 130 who had accompanied the children taken after an April 4 raid on the compound.
We wanted to come home, Jeffs said. Where else would we want to go? They didn’t even let us say goodbye to our children.
Mothers who had children under age 5 were allowed to stay, Jeffs and Texas Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said.
She said state officials made the decision after consulting with lawyers, health officials and child-welfare officials.
They reached a consensus that this was in the best interests of the children, Meisner said.
Earlier in the day, CNN reporters were given rare access to the compound, owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints — a rogue Mormon sect.
A woman from the ranch told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that the mothers feel persecuted after having no choice about leaving their children.
The state of Texas has confiscated our children on an allegation that has no foundation, said Kathleen, who asked that her last name be withheld. We want the children back.
This nation is so prejudiced against us — they have a false image of what we are, she added.
Meanwhile, authorities moved the children from a crowded shelter at the Fort Concho historic site Monday afternoon in a caravan of 19 buses.
They were taken to a larger facility at the San Angelo Coliseum, Assistant Police Chief Kevin Holloway said.
Some of the children’s mothers complained to Gov. Rick Perry that the children were getting sick in the crowded fort, The Associated Press reported. About 20 children had a mild case of chicken pox, Dr. Sandra Guerra-Cantu with the state Health Department told AP.
In West Texas, dozens of lawyers squeezed into a courtroom Monday as a judge started to sort out how to handle the custody battles of the 416 children taken from the sect’s ranch.
Since each child must have representation in court, an overflow crowd packed the Tom Green County courthouse as Judge Barbara Walther tried to marshal attorneys from across the state for the case.
A custody hearing for the children is set for Thursday.
Police raided the 1,900-acre Yearning for Zion, or YFZ, ranch in Eldorado after receiving a report of sexual abuse.
Authorities announced April 7 they had taken custody of the children in the raid, which lasted nearly a week. Watch a sect leader’s attorney say the tipster made false accusations
The case, which was moved from an Eldorado courthouse to a larger facility in nearby San Angelo, probably represents the largest family law case in the history of Texas, said attorney Tom Vick, a director of the State Bar of Texas.
It’s probably the largest family law case in the country if you look at it as one big problem, said Vick, the former chairman of the Texas Bar’s family law section.
Walther and the lawyers who gathered in her courtroom split up the 400-plus children into several categories, including teenage mothers, boys and girls of different age groups, and children with special needs. But because of confusion about birth records, authorities suspect 20 to 30 of the people seized may be adults.
Several of the children have given investigators differing stories about who their parents are, attorneys told Walther.
Fearing that members of the sect remaining on the ranch would try to influence their testimony, the judge Sunday ordered mobile phones confiscated from the 100-plus mothers who accompanied children to the shelter.
Vick said he expected some of the children to be reluctant to open up to lawyers.
Given the background these kids have had and the culture they’ve been raised in, they would be afraid, he said. So it’s not surprising, and certainly they have only one experience, and they do want to go home. That’s not unusual at all.
Though there have been only 123 cases filed thus far by the state’s Child Protective Services Division, about 416 children — most of them girls — are included in the custody battles.
That number is fluid, however, Vick said. Since the raid, another child has been born, one turned 18, and a woman from the compound reportedly was in labor Sunday, he said.
There are also logistical concerns outside the courtroom, Vick said. See how events have unfolded since the raid
San Angelo, about 40 miles north of Eldorado, has a population of almost 90,000, but it will be pressed to accommodate the interested parties — attorneys, journalists, church members, activists — who are converging there.
Volunteers have opened up their homes for other attorneys. A local Episcopal church is arranging dinner for the attorneys Wednesday night, Vick said.
It is a logistical nightmare, but it is working out well, he said.
On March 31, police received a call from a 16-year-old named Sarah, who said she had been choked and forced to have sex with her spiritual husband, Dale Barlow, 50. She said she had an 8-month-old child with Barlow.
Barlow, who met with authorities over the weekend and was not arrested, is a member of a rogue branch of the Mormon church that runs the Texas ranch. He is serving three years of probation after pleading no contest last year to charges of conspiracy to have sex with a minor.
Barlow’s attorney said he had not been to Texas in more than three decades. Watch an interview with Barlow’s attorney
The ranch was run by Warren Steed Jeffs, the imprisoned founder of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which bought the ranch four years ago. See a map of towns where Jeffs’ followers congregate
found here.
