Mothers tell their side of polygamy story
Posted: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 11:24 AM
By Don Teague, NBC News Correspondent
SAN ANGELO, Texas – For nearly two weeks, journalists covering the removal of children from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints compound, known as the YFZ Ranch, have had access to just one side of the story.
During the initial raid, the men who live on the ranch weren’t allowed to leave, and the women who had been removed with their children were sequestered away in shelters.
That gave state officials the advantage of presenting their allegations of physical and sexual abuse of children on the ranch to the public with little chance for rebuttal except through church lawyers.
Well, the situation changed dramatically last night, when Texas Child Protective Services and police officers separated dozens of mothers from their children, keeping custody of the children and sending the women back to the ranch. (Some may have chosen to go to a battered women’s shelter, according to a CPS official.)
Immediately after the women went home, I received a call on my cell phone from a spokesman for the family.
"They’re all back at the ranch," he told me. "They want to talk."
"When?" I asked.
"As soon as you can get here," he said.
So I dropped everything, and rushed to the ranch, along with more than a dozen other reporters who had received a similar call.
Speaking out
After a short wait at the main gate (where construction is almost complete on an ominous looking guard tower), we were all allowed in to the ranch living area. Homes and log-sided dormitories sat on a gentle knoll, separated by a wide, well maintained road.
Two dozen or more women wearing prairie-style dresses were waiting for us outside of one of the buildings.
I’m posting some of their interviews here because I want you to hear from these women for yourselves.
They all had similar stories (so similar that some reporters suggested they were pre-rehearsed).
In short, the women are heartbroken at having had their children taken away. They’re angry at the government for doing so, and for allegedly tricking them into returning to the ranch Monday without their children.
They said the living conditions in the shelter were cramped and dirty, but they also said many of the volunteers and even state workers who cared for them were warm, loving people. They worry they’ll never see their children again, and depending on the outcome of custody hearings on Thursday, they may be right.
They all denied their children were sexually or physically abused. They said all women are free to leave the ranch anytime they wish. And, they suspect the phone call from a 16-year-old mother alleging abuse was a hoax from outside the compound.
One of the women, Marie, wanted to make sure to have the opportunity to say she forgives the people who have torn her family apart.
Click here to read more about the polygamist sect raid:
Compound considered home for sect's elite
Newsweek: Texas sect kept to itself
