Officials return to polygamy sect’s compound

updated 2:58 p.m. ET May 21, 2008

ELDORADO, Texas - Child Protective Services workers returned to the West Texas ranch of a polygamist sect after learning that there may be more children living there.

Agency spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said Wednesday that workers went to make initial inquiries and were conferring with law enforcement.

Guy Jessop stood guard at the main gate of a ranch run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He said he denied two state workers accompanied by a sheriff's deputy access without a search warrant.

Jessop and FLDS spokesman Rod Parker said they don't believe there were any children at the 1,700-acre ranch.

CPS have seized more than 460 children from the Yearning For Zion ranch, believing the children were being forced into underage marriages and sex.

In other developments, child welfare officials have said in the opening days of individual custody hearings for members of a polygamist sect that at least eight mothers once held in state custody as minors were actually adults. One is 27.

The disclosures, which have dribbled out in hearings held across five courtrooms, brings the number of underage mothers in state custody to 23, eroding statistics state officials have cited to bolster their claims of widespread abuse. Other reclassifications are likely to follow as judges sort out family relationships in custody hearings scheduled to last three weeks.

On Tuesday, two men excommunicated by the sect, offered to serve as guardians for their children if the state deems their mothers unfit.

Sect outsiders
"If we can establish I'm not guilty of those things, why can't I have my children?" asked Arthur Barlow, 59, after driving from southern Utah to seek custody of five of his children, who lived at the Yearning For Zion ranch in Eldorado.

Barlow and Frank Johnson, another father seeking custody of his children, were excommunicated from the church about four years ago.

It was not clear how many other relatives have asked to be considered as alternatives to foster care. Child Protective Services typically looks for relatives in custody cases, and preference is usually given to a noncustodial parent if he or she can demonstrate a safe home.

Barlow testified he had never been to the YFZ Ranch, where all the children were removed last month and placed in foster care facilities around the state. The agency argued underage girls were being forced into marriages and sex, and that boys were being raised to be perpetrators.

Church members and the excommunicated fathers denied FLDS parents are abusive or endanger the children.

Spiritual marriage
Barlow said he entered into a spiritual marriage 15 years ago with Esther Jessop Barlow, now 35, whom he has known since she was a child. He said she is a fit mother, but that if the state rules otherwise, he wants custody of the children he hadn't seen until recently.

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