Children taken to polygamous enclave without parents, former member suspects

The Vancouver Sun - April 23, 2008

by Daphne Bramham

Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints leave the Tom Green County Courthouse following an informational session with lawyers in San Angelo, Texas April 23, 2008. Reuters

VANCOUVER - It is likely that some of the Canadian children seized by authorities recently at a polygamous Mormon enclave in Texas were there without their parents, a former member of the sect said Wednesday.

"I suspect that they (the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) had a whole lot of kids there without their parents," Carolyn Jessop said in an interview.

When she was 18, she became the fifth wife of Merril Jessop, who is in charge of Yearning for Zion ranch. It was raided earlier this month by Texas officials who seized 437 children and put them into protective care.

Jessop fled the compound in 2003 with eight of her children.

She said that for several years now, children have been reassigned from one father to another and even one family to another as Warren Jeffs, the prophet of the FLDS, grew increasingly tyrannical. That, she said, helps explain why so many of the children are unable or unwilling to tell authorities who their parents are.

This confusion over identities is why a Texas judge has ordered DNA tests for all of the children and asked that parents voluntarily provide DNA samples. Testing began Monday and is expected to continue through the week. Processing the samples will take several more weeks.

Jessop doubts if men in the compound will comply with the request as any voluntary DNA samples could be used later in a criminal trial if the mothers were minors when they were impregnated.

And while some of the mothers have said that they will do anything to get their children back including leaving the reclusive, breakaway Mormon sect, Jessop said Texas ought to require psychiatric evaluations of them.

"I don't think there is one of them who is stable enough to get their children back. Mind control is classed as a mental illness and a child's right to safety far exceeds a mother's rights," she said.

"The women in this society will never protect their children . . . they turn them over to the perpetrators."

Jessop said her own children are still in therapy because of what her so-called "sister wives" did to them.

Not all of the women are perpetrators of abuse, she said. Some are victims of it and they are "pretty good, decent moms within their reality," she added.

The FLDS launched an Internet offensive Tuesday. Although the media have been careful to obscure the faces of the children taken from the compound, the FLDS has posted dozens of photos and video of them on its website along with a plea for donations to a legal defence fund.

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