Polygamy Sect Kids And Moms To Be Parted

(CBS/AP)  Adult mothers who have been allowed to stay with their young children since they were taken from a polygamous sect will be separated from them after DNA sampling is completed next week, a child welfare official said Saturday.

Texas District Judge Barbara Walther late Friday ordered that parents and children of the Yearning For Zion Ranch submit DNA samples to help sort out family relationships that have confounded authorities since 416 children were taken into state custody two weeks ago.

Sampling is to begin Monday and will probably take several days to complete, said Darrell Azar, a spokesman for Child Protective Services. Results could take more than a month.

Once sampling is complete, the agency will begin moving the children from the San Angelo coliseum and fairgrounds to other sites.

Child welfare officials allowed adult mothers with children ages 4 and younger to stay together when the state took custody of the rest of the children from the ranch. Now, only mothers younger than 18 will be allowed to remain with their children once the sampling is complete. The welfare agency will also try to keep siblings together, he said.

"We're going to make these transitions as easy as possible," Azar said. "We want to keep them together as much as possible so they don't feel they're completely isolated from their culture or the people they know."

DNA testing was ordered to help determine how the children and adults of the compound are related. Child welfare officials say solving those relationships has been difficult because of evasive or changing answers.

Other challenges are families with half brothers and sisters, as well as reports of marriages between first cousins. Dr. Arthur Beaudet, chairman of the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said DNA testing can easily deal with these types of complexities.

"It's reasonable to say the information (from testing) will give full proof documentation" as to which parents belong to which children, he said.

Although the many unique family ties found in the sect will probably add a level of difficulty for DNA analysts in determining parentage, Beaudet said the added complexity is still "not a significant concern."

A certain number of DNA markers - segments of the DNA with specific genetic characteristics - are tested to determine if two people are related. Beaudet said that if any uncertainties arise, analysts simply test additional markers.

While more than 400 children will be tested, officials have not said how many adults will also be tested. Such a considerable amount of DNA testing is not new but is usually associated with trying to identify the victims of mass violence or natural disasters.

Walther on Friday continued an emergency order giving the state custody of the children after a sometimes chaotic two-day hearing in which the state argued that the teachings of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints jeopardized children.

The child welfare agency has said that the sect encourages adolescent girls to marry older men and have children, and that boys are groomed to become future perpetrators. Sect members deny the allegations.

Individual hearings will be set for the children over the next several weeks, and the judge will determine whether they are moved into permanent foster care or can be returned to their parents. All of the hearings must be held by June 5.

The custody case is one of the nation's largest and most complicated. The ruling Friday capped two days of testimony that sometimes became disorderly as hundreds of lawyers for children and parents competed to defend their clients in two rooms linked by a video feed.

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Read about how the YFZ Ranch was founded as a corporate hunting retreat.

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The April 3 raid on the Yearning For Zion Ranch was prompted by a call made to a family violence shelter, purportedly by a 16-year-old girl who said her 50-year-old husband beat and raped her. That girl has never been identified.

Rod Parker, one of the attorneys representing the sect, told CBS News that he doubts she even exists.

CBS News correspondent Hari Sreenivasanreports that Texas Rangers and police in Colorado Springs, Colo. are investigating a possible link between the call to the shelter and Rozita Swinton, a 33-year-old Colorado woman who was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of false reporting to authorities.

[cpaide]

but you know that this KLK (krazy lesbians kult) have been stalking this clean humble mormans for years now:

look at this http://web.sccn2.net/flds/More-Pics.htm and see that i have good and honest proof of this KLK activities with this mormans.

[mrsmiggins-2009]

As of yesterday 4/21/08, Child Protective Services has 437 children. 77 are aged 2 or younger. Ninety-five mothers have been allowed to stay with younger children, but this week, the state will send those mothers home. Attorneys representing the mothers asked Judge Walther to allow nursing mothers to remain with their children.

The state plans to separate adult mothers from their children later this week, after it finishes collecting DNA samples that will be used to determine parentage. Attorneys for the women asked the judge to consider letting nursing mothers remain with their children after negotiations with CPS on the issue stalled. They asked the judge to let the mothers stay until DNA results are in, likely to take up to 40 days.

" Walther acknowledged the nutritional and bonding benefits of breast-feeding. ''But every day in this country, we have mothers who go back to work after six weeks of maternity leave,'' she said." http://www.sltrib.com/polygamy/ci_9002940

[mrsmiggins-2009]

The law that made it non-criminal to kill mormons was only recently taken off the books in Missouri.

Posted by drtcotter at 12:25 PM

Can you give me a link so I can read about this?
Thank you.

[cantshutup]

so texas wants to trade the immoral religious lives of these kids in a secluded compound for the immoral religious/nonreligious life in modern day society...sheesh, not sure one is better than the other...boy are those kids in for a shock...maybe they''ll get beat up and someone will post the video on youtube...

what do you do when the America you grew up believing was a good and just place turns into a realilty show full of murder, greed and selfishness??? we dug this hole...we all better get ready to jump in...

[husein_pasha]

I am Abdoul

[drtcotter]

I was sitting with an old friend and his attorney having drinks one day and complaining about American Jurisprudence. My friend asked, "Where is it better?"

His lawyer promptly answered, "France."

"Why France?" we both asked in unison.

"Because in France, the accused is considered guilty until proven innocent. In America, we state that the accused is considered innocent until proven guilty. But we don''t abide that way and therefore there''s no real protection for the accused. France, knowing the burden is on the accused allows them to defend themselves before reaching judgment. Here it''s totally twisted."

If you want proof of this allegation consider: America has more of its citizens locked up than all other democracies combined. Only China, with five times our population and an equally powerful government has more prisoners than America.

Those folks haven''t been convicted of any crime. Apparently, they weren''t even correctly accused. So why is everyone assuming they''re bad for their children? My fellow Americans and especially my fellow Texans: sometimes you make me sick. The law that made it non-criminal to kill mormons was only recently taken off the books in Missouri.

[ccdsswrkr08]

many applause for sopaboxlady. Very good posts.

[mrsmiggins-2009]

Hi Soapbox Lady,

You really can''t see that the sheer size and scale of this case requires exceptional treatment, and that the protocol for dealing with child abuse in a family setting may not be appropriate here?

[soapboxlady]

Not all biological parents are righteous and upstanding people either. There are no guarantees that any of these situations are always great. For every bad foster parent story that one hears about, there seem to be even more about "real" parents choking, beating, starving and otherwise abusing their own children. What of these monsters who keep their kids in cages and starve them that one reads about occasionally in the newspapers? Do they deserve to keep their children? Do we wait for a judge to decide the verdict before removing them from their parents'' custody?

Of course not. That is why these children were removed from their parents'' dormitories. They didn''t have "homes" like the rest of us. They have grown up in dormitories and that is why some of the kids didn''t really know which mother was the mother who gave them life.

FLDS leader Warren Jeffs is believed to have over 100 children of his own. He is now in jail convicted last year of being an accomplice in the rape of a 14 year old girl.

[mrsmiggins-2009]

Okay, let''s take this little ones and farm them out to fosters. Not all foster parents are righteous and upstanding people. Some are motivated by the wish to do good, while some are motivated by the check they get in the mail.

In my state, we have had numerous incidents of abuse and neglect while children in foster care. One of the worst was a little girl, who died in the care of a social worker who was allowed to foster. Perhaps you''ve seen the Frontline Documentary: "Failure to Protect: The Taking of Logan Marr"

That''s why I say it is scary to read that so many people think the State of Texas will provide better care than the parents.