Authorities Still Removing Women, Kids From Sect’s Texas Compound
ELDORADO, Texas _ The number of women and children removed from a polygamous compound in West Texas climbed to 219 Sunday as authorities spent the day busing them about 45 miles to San Angelo.
State Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said investigators are continuing to search for more children at the YFZ Ranch about 4 miles north of Eldorado, a West Texas town of about 2,000.
“I do not believe we have found all of them,” Meisner said. “We are continuing to try and find them.”
Meisner said District Judge Barbara Walther has instructed CPS caseworkers to remove every child from the 1,691-acre YFZ (Yearn For Zion) Ranch.
The massive investigation started March 31 when Child Protective Services received a call from a 16-year-old girl at the ranch who reported she had been sexually and physically abused.
Authorities issued search warrants for the compound to obtain any records involving Dale Barlow, 50, the girl, her baby and her marriage to Barlow. On Saturday, Barlow’s probation officer told the Salt Lake Tribune that Barlow didn’t know the girl and has been in Colorado City, Ariz.
Meisner said Sunday that investigators still do not know if the girl has been removed from the compound or is still on the ranch.
Authorities closed access to the ranch late Thursday and began removing children and women from the compound. They were initially housed in Eldorado at a Baptist church, a civic center and elementary school.
On Friday, Walther issued a gag order in the case and, since then, law enforcement officials have refused to comment about the operation.
An estimated 60 officials have been involved in the incident at Eldorado. They have included Department of Public Safety troopers, CPS investigators and caseworkers, Texas Rangers, state game wardens, Texas Forest Service personnel, district attorney investigators, local sheriff’s department officers and a SWAT unit from Midland County. Dozens of official vehicles clog the roads adjacent to the ranch and authorities have utilized a helicopter for surveillance, neighboring towns dispatched firetrucks to the site and the SWAT unit brought an armored personnel carrier.
The 219 women and children are in CPS custody but only 18 have been legally removed to be placed in foster care.
The remainder will have to have hearings within 14 days, where CPS will be required to prove the children are in danger in order to keep them in custody, Mary Jo McCurley, former chair of the State Bar of Texas family law panel, said Sunday.
McCurley said that if CPS has evidence that one child had been abused, that would be enough legally to remove all the children. She said she couldn’t recall another instance in Texas history where so many children had been moved into protective custody.
“It’s pretty amazing that the judge had the guts to do that, to remove all of the children,” McCurley said. “I can’t think of another case where so many children have been removed. Of course, that didn’t happen in Waco with the Branch Davidian case and maybe it should have given what happened there. Maybe that’s why the judge did it.”
Tensions between the sect members and authorities peaked late Saturday when investigators feared resistance as they prepared to search the church’s temple.
“There was never any violent confrontation of any kind,” Midland County Sheriff Gary Painter said Sunday. “But some of them objected very strongly to (investigators) entering the temple.”
Painter, whose SWAT team helped search the towering white temple, said church members asked authorities to find a locksmith to open the doors to the temple. Painter said there have been no other problems since investigators searched the temple.
The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) splintered from the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after the Mormon Church rejected polygamy in 1890. The sect has an estimated 10,000 members with most of them living in the twin towns of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, just south of Zion National Park.
In a crackdown on polygamy, Arizona authorities staged a massive raid on Short Creek in 1953 and removed hundreds of women and children. The town later changed its name to Colorado City.
Rulon Jeffs, who, according to some reports, had dozens of wives and fathered as many as 65 children, claimed to be a prophet and led the FLDS until his death in 1986.
His son, Warren Jeffs, who is also reported to have as many as 50 wives, was a fugitive for about two years after he was charged in Utah with arranging the marriage of a 14-year-old girl to her 19-year-old cousin. He was arrested in 2006 during a traffic stop in Las Vegas and in 2007 was sentenced to two consecutive life terms.
William Jessup is the now the bishop of the church but many observers believe Warren Jeffs still leads the sect from behind bars.
In 2003, FLDS follower David Allred purchased 1,691 acres of land that became the YFZ Ranch. But it wasn’t until March 2004, that local residents realized it had become a polygamous outpost.
The compound now has 30 to 35 residential buildings and another 30 outbuildings. The residential structures are as large as 32,000 square feet and the temple, the only one the FLDS church has built, rises to 125 feet tall.
“They’ve built a town right outside of our town,” said Randy Mankin, editor of the Eldorado Success.
Most of the ranch residents are believed to have moved here from Colorado City and Hildale.
No one is sure how many people live at the compound but Mankin estimates 350-400 people live there. The children have been home-schooled on the property.
The ranch supervisor is Merril Jessup, who is believed to be one the leaders in the sect. The compound is believed to be home for Warren Jeffs’ most loyal followers.
The operation includes a dairy, an orchard, grain silo, vegetable garden and machine shops. Residents make their own bread and cheese but most grocery items are trucked in to the compound.
Mankin said that on rare occasions a few of the male ranch residents pick up provisions in Eldorado. The newspaper editor said he has never seen women or children from the ranch in Eldorado. The women, who wear long, old-fashioned dresses, head to San Angelo, where they’re less conspicuous.
After initial fears about the sect arriving near Eldorado, residents developed an “uneasy relationship” with their neighbors. They worked with them to truck their sewer water to the city’s water treatment plant, which helped the sect comply with state environmental regulations.
But residents rarely saw church members in town and largely adopted a live-and-let-live attitude.
“In a sense I was surprised but in a sense I wasn’t,” Mankin said. “If you look at their history in Arizona and Utah, it was almost inevitable. This is the same group that continually had run-ins with the law out there.”
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