Oops! Texas officials now discover 21 more FLDS children than they thought they had

[TeeYiYi]

Source: Deseret News

By Ben Winslow
Deseret News
Published: Monday, April 21, 2008 5:30 p.m. MDT

SAN ANGELO, Texas — Texas child welfare authorities admitted Monday there are more children and mothers inside the San Angelo Coliseum than they originally believed.

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services said Monday there are 437 children being held at the makeshift shelter — not 416 children as they have reported since April 8 when they announced that number and said they had removed all the children from the YFZ Ranch of the Fundamentalist FLDS Church.

"You can imagine with these many people and different locations, it was hard to get an exact count," said Shari Pulliam, spokeswoman for the department. "We finally think we've got a count."

Pulliam defended the miscount, saying there were many instances where they would be told a different name and different birth date every time they asked, and in come cases, information was not accurate. A head count was made more difficult because so many people were doing different things at different times.

Read more: http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695272578,00.html

---

I heard that a number of the 'women' who had originally claimed to be adults turned out to be under the age of 18...

TYY

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. How can they tell the ages?

I mean, if a "woman" is 16 or 17, how can the authorities find out? That's too close in age to be able to use teeth or bones as indicators.

What does the LDS Church say about all this?

[Donnachaidh]

2. it's amazing how deadly QUIET Salt Lake City is, huh?

Wonder if any of the press poodles will track down Mittens for a comment? :evilgrin:

Damn! I wish he was still in the race.... :rofl:

[Cronus Protagonist]

36. They're using "Let it drop"

:P

[barb162]

53. mayne there's some relatives there....

sweep it under the rug

[yellowcanine]

34. Exactly. It can be difficult to tell ages of young women.

[kestrel91316]

46. The authorities are in possession of the genealogical records

(specifically the family group sheets) these people kept on EVERYONE.

FLDS records, combined with DNA testing, will tell them all they need to know. And yes, they had a warrant.

[barb162]

54. I read there are really lousy records and some didn't even have last names.

The men are all called "uncle" and things like that, even if "unc" is your father.

[zonkers]

3. In an interview with the moms on TV, they seemed to be lying when asked by Larry King how

old they were when they were marrried. They each replied 20 or 21. I just don't buy it. They seem coached and coordinated.

[saigon68]

6. They are mindless drones

Assaulted by Dirty old Pederasts

[pnwmom]

30. Coached? No.

They're robots. Stepford wives. Totally not there.

So sad.

[marshall]

35. They may not know how old they are

They swap wives and children around from man to man. If a man is not living up to the creed his wife and children are sealed to some other man. It's like a game of musical chairs, and I'm sure nobody can keep track of who exactly their parents or children are, or how old they are or when the last time they got married was.

[Jacobin]

4. Sadly, if they are put in foster care, the outcome will often be

worse.

What a mess.

[skyounkin]

14. I take great

inssue to that statement. It's wrong and it's biased. There is a percentage of children who end up worse in fostercare but to think that it would be worse than being used as sex slaves in a shelter is based on willful ignorance and is personally insulting.

Are there flaws in the system. Yes. Are there ways to exploit the system? Yes. You never hear any good stories surrounding foster care becase it doesn't make "goood press". There are good stories. Many in fact.

Do your research before painting all of fostercare with a large ignorant brush.

[uppityperson]

19. Thank you for the good comment. nt

[noonwitch]

37. Most foster parents are good, and we don't pay them enough

There are some people who are in it for the money, what small money is involved.

Most people are in it to help kids. The bad foster parents get a lot of attention and distract from the millions of good ones who nurse sick kids back to health, who get handicapped kids into services, who take care of addicted babies, who deal with children who have been sexually abused and all the behavior that comes with that history. Most of them get about $15 a day for each kid. That is very little money, as anyone who is raising their own kids knows all too well.

[barb162]

55. Good points. Those kids have to be better off out of that hellhole.

[customerserviceguy]

27. Sorry

While a few foster homes have been absolute disasters, the majority of them are loving people, seeking to deal with the crises that young children have endured. When you compare the level of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and drug use that some of the foster kids come from, it will be relatively easy for foster parents to simply provide unconditional love and truth to children whose great misfortune it was to have been born into a brainwashed cult. We need to wipe out the mindless religion in the world, starting with the FLDS is a great place.

It's my hope that the men are all in jail, the women are all liberated from their 19th Century slavery, and the kids are brought up as human beings, not as breeding machines for a corrupt version of a vengeful god.

[Ian David]

5. 21 more already? Man, they breed quickly! n/t

[TeeYiYi]

7. I wonder . . .

. . . if any of these kids will turn out to be the mothers of other kids they are being detained with, after the DNA testing...

TYY :shrug:

[girl gone mad]

8. well, they did find a 16 year old..

who had 4 children so there's a good chance there will be others.

[TeeYiYi]

10. She's 16 now? . . .

. . . as in, she started having four kids when she was 11 or 12?

Another thing I wonder about... I wonder how many of the detained kids are female. Do you know if the male to female ratio of detained children has been reported? I'll wait until I know the answer to that question before I say what's got me worried... I hope I'm wrong.

TYY

[Lone_Star_Dem]

12. To be fair I think she's pregnant with her fourth now

Still we're talking about a girl who was impregnated at around 13-years of age maximum.

[barb162]

56. Whoa, whoever the fathers are, I hope they do some serious jail time.

[girl gone mad]

13. I did read..

that most of the youngsters were girls. I'll see if I can find a source for that, but it jumped out at me (probably for the same reason you asked).

[TeeYiYi]

26. I looked . . .

. . . and couldn't find actual numbers. Just this: "There are believed to be far more girls than boys among the children in custody." I'll be curious to see a breakdown of male to female among those still in custody... There has to be a head count; especially in light of the 21 new kids that just surfaced.

I read that they found a crematorium inside the temple. Has that been disputed, I wonder? I found reference to the crematorium by a guy who says he helped build it:

Robert Richter, a former member of the FLDS says he worked for Jeffs on secret projects in Colorado City, AZ, where the largest concentration of FLDS members live. He allegedly worked on temperature controls for what he has come to believe may be a crematory at the newly built temple at the FLDS compound in Texas. Richter said:
"  ...They kept me uninformed as to what the furnace was for. I do know that I wanted an LCD display for it....They said because where it's going, it's going to be quite dark...It was definitely a furnace. And the thing about the furnace. it was weird. It was real hush hush. I was told to keep quiet." http://www.religioustolerance.org/ldsblood.htm

TYY

[kestrel91316]

43. Ok, we seem to have a deficit of males, even among the very young, right?

Why would this be?

Why are the girls supposedly taught that it is natural for twice as many girls to be born as boys?
Where are the missing little boys?
Why is there a crematorium inside the temple?
What scenario would answer aLL these questions AND solve the excess male problem BEFORE they have a chance to eat the FLDS out of house and home?

How many male infants have SUPPOSEDLY died at birth? What was the manner of their deaths? How were their remains disposed of?

I would love to see a head count of males age 0-13 ve females age 0-13 at the FLDS compound. If the teen boys are gone, that's one thing - booted out or ran away.......but if they are missing younger males, somebody needs to start asking "Why?".

[TeeYiYi]

48. My point . . .

. . . precisely. I hope I'm wrong. :tinfoilhat:

One possible explanation for the disparity in gender ratio might be that some of the young girls were kidnapped from other sects, artificially skewing the numbers...

In the absence of a reasonable explanation, those 'baby graveyards' may warrant a closer look.

TYY

[janx]

61. Well they were taken from other compounds, yes?

The Texas FLDS compound isn't very old.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

59. One of the symptoms of consanguinity is a family having just one gender of children

It's natures little way of trying to deepen the gene pool and slow the inbreeding.

I recall reading they had a prophet by the name of Heber Grant in the early 1900's who kept blaming his lack of sons on his wives not being virtuous enough. More than the likely the reality was that he carried a genetic defect which prohibited him from fathering sons.

[KamaAina]

63. I believe that many of the teenage boys do get booted out.

Those who do anything like, y'know, think for themselves or something get the boot. There are enough of them that they have become known as the "Lost Boys".

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,650224503,00.html

Teens who ran away or were kicked out of the polygamous enclaves of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., came to the state Capitol complex Friday to share their heartbreaking stories and plead with lawmakers for money to help fund housing and to purchase clothing and food for other children in their situation....

Many of the children have been dubbed "Lost Boys" — teenage boys that have been kicked out of the FLDS Church for committing a "sin," such as wearing short-sleeved shirts. The girls are never ousted; they run away.

I certainly hope that explains it... say, how do those huge compounds feed themselves, anyway? :scared:

[PSPS]

15. I wondered that myself, but couldn't find anything specific in news reports.

The best I came up with was one report in a Texas newspaper a week or so ago that referred to the children as "mostly girls."

[TeeYiYi]

17. I think they're being intentionally vague . . .

"But what about the boys who are among the 416 children taken from the YFZ (Yearning For Zion) Ranch?

There are believed to be far more girls than boys among the children in custody. And the Texas boys are thought to have escaped the hardships common in other Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints communities, where boys are routinely expelled.

On Friday, during a chaotic child custody hearing, a lawyer for the children said two dozen boys had been taken from the FLDS compound near Eldorado, Texas.

State child welfare officials disputed that number, saying the population of boys was "substantially higher," without giving an exact figure.

"We don't have a solid breakdown on that right now. . . . I'm sure we have estimates, but I don't have anything reliable," said Greg Cunningham, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/04/20/20080420polygamist-ON.html

TYY

[pnwmom]

21. The two dozen boys were all teenagers.

I know I've read statements from at least a couple of lawyers who mentioned their clients were boys, including one two year old. In other words, it has always been clear that there were more boys among the larger group than the two dozen teens -- but a lot more girls.

[CookCountyResident]

28. Don't forget that the Jeffs nephew said he'd been abused

... by the uncle(s), etc.

[pnwmom]

18. Lots more girls than boys. I only saw the numbers once, though,

and I don't remember them.

I also read that there are claims that a few dozen children were sent to the ranch from other settlements -- without their parents -- and assigned to new families. I bet they were all girls.

[pnwmom]

9. I've thought all along that would happen. Some of the "sisters" or

"caregivers" that were taking care of babies.

[TeeYiYi]

11. I have a feeling . . .

. . . that the DNA testing is going to be shockingly telling. I don't think that Texas would be hanging on to that many children if they didn't have a damn good reason. And I don't believe it's because of their 'religion'.

TYY

[High Plains]

52. They better hope they have a damned good reason.

We'll see how this all shakes out.

[uppityperson]

20. I am going to hell, along with you.

Yes, that made me laugh. In an ironic way, but still.

[DBoon]

23. in just a few days, no less

nt

[kestrel91316]

47. Those 21 were probably born to pregnant teens in the time

since they got them in custody........

(kestrel is envisioning a situation not unlike a dog or cat rescue organization....)

[Ellen Forradalom]

50. Sign on Volkwagen dealership: " '89 Rabbits Here Today!"

Graffitied addition: "2000 Next Week!"

[Canuckistanian]

16. I'm guessing that Father's Day in FLDS-land is somewhat awkward

What with all that shunning and re-marrying and shuttling all those women and kids back and forth across the Canadian border....

A pretty sad experience for the kids, though.

*on edit*
Misspelled "Canadian"
:blush:

[pnwmom]

22. I read today that the kids call all the men "uncle."

I knew that they call all the sister-wives "mother" but why don't they identify their own father? Unless the fathers are viewed as interchangeable parts.

[Canuckistanian]

25. I've been in Mennonite communities

And it's the custom there to call all unfamiliar men "uncle".

I'm not sure if it's related to the FLDS communities, but it's an interesting parallel.

[pnwmom]

29. Those are unfamiliar men.

But the FLDS children apparently call their own fathers "uncle." If this is true, it seems to be yet another way of loosening the ties between parents and their biological children. (Other instances include not distinguishing mothers from step-mothers and re-assigning children and wives to different men.)

[kestrel91316]

41. Given how hung up this particular brand of fundies is on the whole

"family" thing, they sure seem to have screwed up their own family structures pretty badly. Betcha they LOVE to point at gay couples as liable to confuse children, and therefore a bad thing. Oy.

[pnwmom]

51. Yes, indeed. Irony upon ironies. n/t

[kestrel91316]

40. Well, it's certainly clear that the men view all the females as

interchangeable units.

What a fucked-up system. Yikes.

[MountainLaurel]

49. Your second sentence is correct

If a man pisses off the prophet, his wives and children can be re-sealed to another man, at which point all of the children are to consider the new man as their father. Since this can happen more than once to the same children, it may be easier (from the perspective of Jeffs and his minions) to try to ensure the children have little bond with their biological fathers.

[barb162]

57. Hey, every day is father's day around there, it seems.

:eyes:

[pnwmom]

24. This isn't surprising, really, given all the trouble they've had with

people changing names and having very similar names.

[fasttense]

31. Well, if they were in the habit of sexualizing their little girls,

they probably sexualized their little boys too. It sounds like a giant underfunded pedophile harem for old white men.

[mwb970]

32. If they are raping children, they should be punished. Duh!

The Columbus Dispatch has an article this morning about a guy who is being sent to prison for planning to have sex with someone on the Internet he thought was a 14-year-old girl (it was a police officer).

The Texas Cult men did have sex with girls they knew were 14 years old - or even younger! So shouldn't they go to prison as well? This seems like a no-brainer to me.

[WolverineDG]

33. Actually that was due to a court order

CPS has been disputing the ages of some of the women, including those who have birth certificates & drivers licenses, simply because they "look" under 18. This situation was written about in this blog from the Salt Lake Tribune in the writer's entry from Sunday:

http://blogs.sltrib.com/plurallife/

dg

[ogsbee]

38. How come they took the infants?

Texas Department of Family and Protective Services are monsters. You don't destroy those you're "trying to help." But I guess they're comfortable playing gods.

[kestrel91316]

42. All children need to be removed from a home where ANY children are being

abused. This is basic common sense. In the individual hearings 60 days from now, everybody will get a chance to have their say on what they think is best for individual children. Until then, they are out of the abusive homes.

Oh, and the cultural practice of waterboarding infants to teach them to be obedient to men might have something to do with removing them, too. It's called "breaking the baby", and appears to be a time-honored FLDS tradition.

[Marrah_G]

44. They took the infants because they are investigating abuse

If they did not take them and there is indeed widespread systematic abuse it would be to late to go back and get the infants. They would be long gone, hidden in one of the many compounds.

[yardwork]

45. Monsters? Are you familiar with the laws in Texas?

The department is following the law. If you think its monstrous for a state to investigate allegations of rape and abuse of minors, maybe you live in the wrong country. I don't know if there is anyplace on earth that applauds the rape of children, but it sounds like that's what you're seeking.

[barb162]

58. How are they destroying the infants by getting them out of an abusive situation?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

60. How's the weather there in Texas today?

And your magic underpants? Are they comfy?

[knitter4democracy]

62. Because they waterboard babies to "break" them.

That's why.

[kestrel91316]

39. The actual ages of individual wife-units or daughter-units or son-units

are irrelevant. All that matters, apparently, is that the female part be large enough for the male part to fit in. The female units are all pretty much interchangeable, as far as the men are concerned.