Updates and Insights: Texas Child Welfare Case

The bizarre story behind the removal of more than 400 children from a polygamist Mormon sect continues to develop.

WASHINGTON (Catholic Online) - It has been almost two weeks since authorities raided a Texas Ranch inhabited by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and removed 416 children. The story continues to develop as details are made available.

According to an affidavit from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, an intake report was received on March 29, 2008 at 11:32 pm concerning a teenage girl living at YFZ Ranch near Eldorado, Texas. The girl had called a local family violence shelter several times that day concerning her living situation at the ranch.

The girl reported that she was 16 and was married to a 49-year-old man. The man had other wives and that she was wife number seven. She also stated that she had been beaten and abused regularly by this man since she had arrived at the ranch. More recently, the abuse took place while one of the other women held her infant. The latest beating took place on Easter Sunday and resulting in her being hospitalized. She was pregnant at the time.

The affidavit also stated that the man she describe in the phone call had been previously indicted on charges of sexual misconduct with a minor and conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor in Mohave County, Arizona.

At the end of the conversation, the teenager began to cry and stated she didn't want to get in trouble. She asked authorities to forget everything she had just reported.

The phone calls resulted in the actions taken by Child Protective Services on behalf of this child and more than 400 others, all from families belonging to the FLDS sect living at the ranch.

On Saturday, April 12, Texas Rangers met with Dale Barlow, the man who had been accused of abusing the 16-year-old girl at the YFZ Ranch. According to the a spokesperson from the Texas Department of Public Safety no arrests have yet to be made in the case.

While Texas Child Protective Services are convinced the call was genuine, attorneys for the FLDS claim this was all a part of a ruse and that authorities were duped. In an interview with The Arizona Republic attorney Michael Piccarreta stated, "I smelled a rat from the beginning. I think the Texas authorities need to make a careful analysis of whether they have been part of a ruse."

As pieces of the FLDS puzzle continue to fall into place, the families at the YFZ Ranch in Texas who had been moved there from the Utah-Arizona area were selected because of their fierce loyalty to the imprisoned leader of the sect, Warren Jeffs.

The ranch, with somewhere between 1400 and 1700 acres, was considered a "holy shrine" by the group. It was only to be populated by the most committed, whom Jeffs called the "elect" or "heart's core." The adults were chosen for loyalty and the children were seen as those least tainted by the world.

This relocation, begun several years ago, was reportedly due to higher pressure being placed on the group, particularly by Arizona authorities. Attorney General Terry Goddard has been investigating the FLDS since 2004.

"This was Warren Jeffs' all-star cast," he stated in an interview with the Associated Press, "They had the strongest sense of obedience."

The 1700 acre ranch housed the sect's only temple. The 80-foot-tall limestone structure forms an imposing structure in the Texas countryside. When authorities raided the ranch looking for the abused girl, residents of the compound linked arms and formed a human chain around the building. The fear by FLDS members was that these intruders could have desecrated the temple.

The problems of the FLDS have also hindered the efforts of groups that consider themselves pro-polygamy. Mary Batchelor, director of Principle Voices, told the Washington Post that her group has worked closely with authorities in both Utah and Arizona to develop a "safety network" to educate polygamists on child and sexual abuse and called for the communities to forbid underage marriages, allowing only legal adults to marry.

"We've made a lot of headway with other groups who pledged to marry as adults and who took public pledges to discourage underage marriages," Batchelor told the Post. "The FLDS was the only group that was not willing to agree to that.

"Our biggest fear was that we would have another raid," she continued. "Our hope and all our work we've done was to avoid that. Now there is hurt and dismay."

Catholic Online will continue to follow this developing story.

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