Texans wary as polygamous sect moves in
The arrival of fundamentalist Mormons sounds echoes of the Branch Davidian
fiasco in Waco
By Howard Witt
June 27, 2004
ELDORADO, Texas-The population of this drowsy West Texas town
hasn't done much but dwindle in recent years, so its residents grew pretty
curious in March when a pilot shot some aerial photos showing construction of
several huge dormitory-style buildings on a sprawling ranch just outside town.
The curiosity soon changed to concern when anti-polygamy
activists from Utah showed up for a news conference to reveal the identity of
the group that had bought the 1,600-acre ranch: the Fundamentalist Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or FLDS, a secretive Mormon sect that
practices polygamy and marriages involving underage teenage girls.
Now, with construction on the buildings nearly complete and
the first of an expected 200 church members about to take up residence, the
1,951 residents of Eldorado are trying to make their peace with new neighbors
many regard as followers of a strange cult.
"Our biggest concern was that we wouldn't be dealing with
another Waco problem here," said Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran,
referring to the Branch Davidian siege in Waco in 1993. "We have talked to
them about polygamous marriages and underage brides and made them very aware of
Texas laws governing sex with a minor. They told us they didn't plan on
practicing that in this community."
But the practices of the church have drawn increasing interest
from law-enforcement officials in Utah and Arizona, where an estimated 10,000
church members live in two small towns that straddle the state line. A local
police officer who is a member of the sect was convicted last year of bigamy and
unlawful sex with a minor for taking a 16-year-old as his third wife.
Ron Barton, a special polygamy investigator for the Utah
attorney general's office, confirmed that the leader of the church, Warren
Jeffs, 47, is under investigation for allegedly fathering children with two
17-year-old girls.
Meanwhile, some former church members expelled from the group
by Jeffs are accusing him of running a mind-control cult, while anti-polygamy
activists charge that young women are being held against their will and forced
into polygamous marriages.
All of that pressure has driven the church to seek a new
outpost in Eldorado, according to Rodney Parker, the group's attorney and de
facto spokesman. Church officials will not speak with reporters.
Spokesman explains move
"The state of Utah has a polygamy czar who's down there
looking in people's windows and camps out in front of the leadership's homes
sometimes. That's part of it," said Parker, referring to Barton.
"There has been a stepped-up effort to try to create laws that would
ensnare these people. So part of the reason for the move is to establish a new
foothold somewhere else."
Utah officials estimate that up to 60,000 residents practice
polygamy in defiance of rulings by the Mormon church and state laws that forbid
it but are rarely enforced. The mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints condemned polygamy as a condition of statehood for Utah in 1896.
The FLDS church, founded in the 1930s, is believed to be the
largest polygamous sect, and for years it has prospered as a closed society
whose members are forbidden to watch television, read newspapers or use the
Internet to maintain contact with the outside world.
But that secrecy began to crumble earlier this year, when
Jeffs, regarded by his followers as a prophet and infallible leader, expelled 20
church members for failing to follow his dictates and evicted them from their
church-owned homes.
Former members portray an authoritarian world in which Jeffs
demands tributes of $1,000 per month from each male church member and decides
where each man may work.
The leader also decides whom each woman will marry and how
many wives each man will take based on divine revelations only he can receive.
Girls as young as 15 have been married to men in their 30s, 40s or older on
Jeffs' command, former church members say. Families are expected to have many
children and to take advantage of state and federal welfare programs to support
them.
Any member who resists Jeffs' rulings risks expulsion from the
church, shunning by other family members and, followers are repeatedly warned,
eternal damnation.
"They say, `If you don't marry this 80-year-old man, you
are going to hell,' so a 15- or 16-year-old girl is told it's time to get
married and an hour later she's married," said Ross Chatwin, 35, one of
those expelled by Jeffs in January. "The fathers agree because they feel
they are ensuring their own salvation, getting brownie points for themselves. It
shows the submission [Jeffs] is looking for."
Chatwin said he was expelled because he could no longer make
the $1,000 monthly payments and because he wanted to take a 17-year-old as a
second wife without Jeffs' approval.
Ex-member does `rescues'
Flora Jessop, 34, another former church member who now devotes
herself to what she calls "rescues" of young women seeking to leave,
said followers are effectively brainwashed and unable to free themselves.
"When you're born into this stuff and it's the only thing
you know, and you're taught that if you don't abide by this law, you damn
yourself to hell, it's not a matter of submitting themselves voluntarily,"
said Jessop, who has been trying to free her 18-year-old sister from the group.
Parker, the church attorney, denied that any members are being
forced to do anything against their will.
"There are marriages that occur out there under the age
of 18," Parker said. "But to say that anyone's being forced, that
something is happening that is not consensual, is just not true. Legally in
Utah, a young woman is considered old enough to make her own decisions regarding
marriage at the age of 16, as long as she has her parents' consent."
Jeffs is "under investigation" for having allegedly
conceived children with two 17-year-olds, said Barton, but investigators have
not been able to serve him with subpoenas or other legal papers.
Leader virtually invisible
"Warren Jeffs is so insulated that I have never seen
him," said Barton, the Utah investigator. "His house has 8-foot solid
masonry walls around it. He can come and go in vehicles with tinted
windows."
The group, Barton said, "has created sort of a prison
situation for themselves in Utah, a self-imposed prison. I suspect the Texas
facility is a place for them to go where they perceive they will have more
freedom."
At first, church officials claimed that the Eldorado ranch
would be used as a "hunting retreat," but later they conceded to local
officials that the compound will house the most elite members of the church.
The distaste of some lifelong residents here for their new
neighbors is palpable.
"I feel like some UFOs landed here and now people are
saying, `OK, they're here, there's nothing we can do, let's welcome them,'"
said Thelma Bosmans, 51, a teacher's aide at the Eldorado Middle School.
"But how can we welcome someone with so many people under his control? How
can you condone teenage girls being married to 60-year-old men?"
