12:00 AM CDT on Saturday, April 19, 2008

By KAREN BROOKS / The Dallas Morning News

SAN ANGELO – More than 400 children removed by authorities from a ranch run by a polygamist religious sect will remain in state custody for at least the next six weeks and undergo genetic testing, a West Texas judge ruled Friday.

TONY GUTIERREZ/The Associated Press Marie, the 30-year-old mother of three boys in state custody, talked on the phone Friday as she waited with others from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints outside the Tom Green County Courthouse.

After an arduous two-day mass hearing with hundreds of lawyers, state District Judge Barbara Walther decided the state had enough evidence of a culture of sexual and emotional abuse – including child brides and boys groomed to be abusers – on the Yearning for Zion Ranch to warrant the unprecedented removal of 416 children two weeks ago.

Touched off by whispered phone calls from someone who said she was 16 and being abused by her 49-year-old husband on the ranch, it is the largest child-welfare case in U.S. history and began with the April 3 raid near tiny Eldorado, Texas, on the compound run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a breakaway Mormon sect.

The children will stay in state custody, whether in foster or group homes or with relatives under supervision, at least through early June, when the state is required to determine whether the parents are taking appropriate steps to keep their children safe and earn the right to bring them home.

A mobile lab will arrive Monday at the San Angelo Coliseum fairgrounds, where most of the children have been staying since the raid, to begin DNA testing of children and parents to confirm who the mothers and fathers are in a case that has legally and logistically overwhelmed Texas authorities.

Women from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints left the Tom Green County Courthouse during a break in the child custody hearings Friday. Mothers took the stand and described a 'peaceful' and 'very wonderful' existence on the Yearning for Zion Ranch.

"We're very pleased with the ruling," said Marleigh Meisner, spokeswoman for the state's Child Protective Services, which oversaw the investigation that uncovered what she called "systemic" abuse of the children. "This is not about religion. This is about keeping children safe from abuse and neglect."

No abuse, mothers say

Attorneys for the parents, however, expressed dismay as the women, heads down and clad in prairie dresses, scurried out of the courthouse Friday behind the grim-faced men of the ranch.

They had worked throughout the day to prove, particularly in the cases of young children and boys, that the state had no evidence of widespread abuse and that CPS had overstepped its bounds in the sweep.

Mothers had taken the stand and described a "peaceful" and "very wonderful" existence on the ranch, no harsh discipline, no abuse, no forced marriages and a widespread belief that girls should not marry before their time.

All to no avail. It took the judge less than 20 minutes to return with her decision after the final arguments were made Friday evening.

"I'm sure disappointed," said attorney Tim Edwards, who was representing four mothers. "We're going to do everything in our power to get the children back to their parents. This is a very, very difficult situation for all concerned. It was a difficult situation for the court, and it was not a decision that she made lightly."

Children's attorneys, more than 300 of them, were as divergent in their hopes for the outcome during the hearing as they were in their reactions.

"The nature of this proceeding is just to check in and make sure CPS has some evidence that would make a reasonable person worry" about abuse and continue their investigation unimpeded, said Dallas attorney Susan Hays.

Ms. Hays, who was representing a child, added that the state seemed to have met that low burden of proof.

"It would have been imprudent for the state to put all the kids back on the ranch without more information," she said.

But many agreed that CPS would need some oversight – perhaps by several judges – to ensure that the attorneys, who came from all over the state, are able to contact their clients, all of whom are currently without telephones or other forms of long-distance communication.

Finding temporary homes

Authorities said they'll consider relatives' homes first as locations to put the children. They said they would also make sure to train any foster families or group homes, on the advice of child-welfare experts who say that traditional placements could be destructive to children who had spent their entire lives in a closed society, afraid and mistrustful of outsiders.

"These children are going to need specialized placement," Ms. Meisner said.

The ruling concluded an emotional evening of testimony from ranch mothers who, in soft voices and smiles, said they'd been married after they were of legal age, that they did it willingly, and that they wouldn't let their daughters marry underage.

"I want to protect her," said Merilyn Jeffs, 29, who has a 7-year-old daughter, Marva.

Their short interviews revealed some details of ranch life: morning and evening devotionals, three meals a day for the kids, early bedtimes, working in the community garden and picking up litter throughout the day.

Linda Musser, 56, said she was permitted to drive to Lubbock regularly to visit her 29-year-old daughter, who was on dialysis. She had been allowed to divorce her abusive husband nearly a decade ago and was still in the church, she said, though two of her older sons "have chosen a different way of life."

She was willing to move to Lubbock with her 13-year-old, Jason, to keep him, she said.

One woman, however, described knowing about young girls who were pregnant or married on the ranch, though she said she didn't know any personally.

Asked by her attorney whether she knew of 15- and 16-year-olds having babies, 25-year-old Maureen Jessop, trained as a paramedic, said she did.

"Does it concern you that there are girls who are 15, 16 who are getting married?" her attorney asked.

"Yes," Ms. Jessop said.

Ms. Jessop, the only wife of her 27-year-old husband, said she married at age 18, and, looking back, felt that might have been too young.

"Sometimes I felt immature at 18," she said.

Emphasis added by H4K Editor