| Lawmen enter temple Authorities prepped for worst | |||||||||||
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By Paul A. Anthony San Angelo Standard-Times | |||||||||||
ELDORADO - Local and state officials entered the temple of a secretive polygamist sect late Saturday, said lawmen blockading the road to the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado. The action comes hours after local prosecutors said officials were preparing for the worst because a group of FLDS members was blocking efforts to search the structure. The Texas Department of Public Safety trooper and Schleicher County sheriff's deputy confirmed officials entered the temple but said they had no word on whether any resistance occurred in the effort. The temple entry caps the three-day saga of the state's Child Protective Services agency removing at least 183 women and children from the YFZ Ranch. Eighteen girls have been placed in state custody since a 16-year-old told authorities she was married to a 50-year-old man and had given birth to his child at age 15. Saturday evening, ambulances were brought in, said Allison Palmer, who as first assistant 51st District attorney, would prosecute any felony crimes uncovered in the investigation. "In preparing for entry to the temple, law enforcement is preparing for the worst," Palmer said Saturday evening. They want to have "medical personnel on hand in case this were to go in a way that no one wants." Apparently as a result of action late Saturday at the ranch, about 10:15 p.m. Saturday, a Schleicher County school bus unloaded a group of at least a dozen more women and children from the compound. Although members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, provided varying degrees of cooperation to the sheriff's deputies and Texas Rangers searching the compound, all cooperation stopped earlier Saturday once authorities tried to search the gleaming white temple that towers over the West Texas scrub, Palmer said. Sect members consider the temple, dedicated by then-leader of the sect Warren Jeffs in January 2005 and finished many months later, off-limits to those who are not FLDS members, said Palmer, who prosecutes felony cases in Schleicher County. Palmer said she didn't know the size or makeup of the group that was in the temple. The earlier refusal to give access was even more disconcerting since CPS investigators have yet to identify the 16-year-old girl or her roughly 8-month-old baby among the dozens taken from the compound. "Anytime someone says, 'Don't look here,'" she said, "it makes you concerned that's exactly where you need to look." The girl told authorities in two separate phone calls a day apart that she was married to a 50-year-old man, Dale Barlow, who had fathered her child, Palmer said. The joint raid included the Texas Rangers, CPS, Schleicher County and Tom Green County sheriff's deputies and game wardens from the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife. Although CPS and Department of Public Safety officials described the compound's residents as cooperative, Palmer disagreed. "Things have been a little tense, a little volatile," she said. Authorities removed 52 children Friday afternoon and 131 women and children overnight Friday. About 40 of the children are boys, said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner. No further children have been taken into state custody since Friday, when 18 girls were judged to have been abused or be at imminent risk for abuse. CPS has found foster homes for the girls, Meisner said, and will place them after concluding its investigation. Meisner declined to comment on the fate of the 119 other children and said authorities were still searching the ranch for others Saturday evening. "They're in the process of looking," she said. "They're literally about halfway through." About the FLDS
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gosanangelo.com Originally published Sunday, April 6, 2008 | |||||||||||
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