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ELDORADO, Texas -- Child Protective Services workers returned to the west Texas ranch of a polygamist sect Wednesday in search of children they believe might have arrived since more than 460 others were seized in a raid last month.
Guy Jessop, standing guard at the main gate of the ranch run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, said two CPS workers accompanied by a sheriff's deputy asked whether they could enter the ranch to look for more children. Jessop said he denied them access without a search warrant.
CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said workers went to make initial inquiries and were conferring with law enforcement about how to proceed.
FLDS spokesman and attorney Rod Parker said CPS won't be allowed on the ranch without a search warrant.
"As far as I know, there are no children, but I haven't searched, either," Parker said.
Meisner said she didn't know how her agency came to suspect that children other than the 463 seized last month had arrived at the remote, 1,700-acre ranch in Eldorado.
The attempt to enter the ranch Wednesday underscores the confusion that has marked this case since CPS and Texas law enforcement entered the Yearning For Zion ranch on April 3, taking the children into custody on the belief that the sect forces underage girls into marriage and sex.
In a courthouse in San Angelo, about 40 miles north, child custody hearings entered their third day. It's expected to take about three weeks for judges to tell each of the 168 mothers and 69 fathers what they must do to win back their children, now scattered at foster-care facilities around the state.
Earlier this week, child welfare officials have said that at least eight mothers once held in state custody as minors are actually adults. One is 27.
The disclosures, which have dribbled out in hearings held across five courtrooms, bring 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 during the hearings.
The children were removed en masse from the ranch during a raid that began after someone called a domestic abuse hot line claiming to be a pregnant abused teenage wife. Authorities are investigating whether the calls were a hoax.
The FLDS, which teaches that polygamy brings glorification in heaven, is a breakaway of the Mormon church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago. |
