Saturday, April 5, 2008

girls taken from polygamist ranch

Child welfare officials following up on an abuse complaint took custody of 18 girls Friday who lived at a secretive West Texas religious retreat built by polygamist leader Warren Jeffs.
Just in case you don't know what a plygamist is, its someone who practices polygamy.
Polygamy is when one person has more than one spouse at a time.
So, from what you have already read, one man had at least 18 girls who he was involved with.
What an amazing country, America.
A total of 52 girls, ages 6 months to 17 years, were bused away on Friday to be interviewed, but only 18 were immediately taken into state custody, said Texas Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner. No arrests had been made.
I honestly thought polygamy was illegal...
Meisner said welfare officials were looking for foster homes for the girls, most of whom have rarely been outside the insular world of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They were being housed for now at a civic center, she said.
This can show that church is bad.
"We're dealing with children that aren't accustomed to the outside world, so we're trying to be very sensitive to their needs," Meisner said.
Hey, its survival of the fittest in this world.
They need to learn that not everyone will be kind to thier needs.
They need to tough up.
Authorities had interviewed about half the girls since arriving Thursday evening at the remote compound with law enforcers, she said. Interviews were expected to continue over the weekend.
I would guess that the interviews would take a while.
There were 52 girls!
The investigation began with a call alleging physical abuse of a 16-year-old girl living there, Meisner said.
No way, there was abuse! I could have never guessed!
On Friday afternoon, the Department of Public Safety officials began executing a search warrant.
What did they need to search for??
The warrant seeks records dealing with the birth of children to a 16-year-old and any records listing a marriage between a 50-year-old man and the girl, according to the San Angelo Standard-Times, which cited court records released late Friday in Tom Green County. Prosecutors in Tom Green, a larger county north of Eldorado, were handling the case.
Oh! Now it makes more sense!
And that is just nasty. A 50 year old guy having kids with a 16 year old girl.
And this was some religeous ranch too. EWW!
An arrest warrant was issued, but the individual that public safety officials are looking for had not been located Friday evening, said spokeswoman Tela Mange. She said she could not reveal whose name was on the warrant.
Something tells me it might be the man who was holding these girls at the ranch...
"We have been working very closely with the adults at the ranch, and they have been assisting us in our search," she said.
Oh that's nice. There were multiple adults!
This story gets wierder and wierder by the second.
The ranch covers roughly 1,700 acres. It is north of this two stoplight town, down a narrow paved road. Authorities blocked access to the compound's gate, keeping onlookers miles away.
Only the compound's 80-foot-tall, gleaming white temple is visible on the wind-swept desert horizon.
I thought the guy would want to keep the place a secret.
State officials said they did not know how many people lived at the retreat, but local officials in 2006 put the number at about 150, as members of the reclusive church moved from a community on the Arizona-Utah line.
That is a relatively large group of people there.
The congregation, known as FLDS, and has been led by Jeffs since his father's death in 2002. It is one of several groups that split from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in Salt Lake City, decades after it renounced polygamy in 1890.
Maybe the group didn't so much split as instead it probably got removed.
In November, Jeffs 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.
No way! He did stuff like this before!
In Arizona, Jeffs is charged as an accomplice with four counts each of incest and sexual conduct with a minor stemming from two arranged marriages between teenage girls and their older male relatives. He is jailed in Kingman, Ariz., awaiting trial.
He is one lonely, desperate, disgusting man.
The group's retreat, about 160 miles northwest of San Antonio, is on a former exotic game ranch. The group bought the property in 2004 for $700,000 and began an ambitious construction program anchored by the temple.
I still don't get why a church group leader did this.
You gotta love America!

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