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Details emerging about Texas polygamist community

by amyjudd | April 9, 2008 at 06:06 pm | 868 views | 1 comment | 10 recommendations

Children rescued from religous sex abuse

Busload of Girls Leaves Polygamist Ranch

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Some new and disturbing details are emerging about the ranch that was raided earlier in the week in Texas.
Details include a 'sex bed' found in a temple on the compound, and men beating their young and pregnant wives.
The police are on the lookout for Dale Evan Barlow - the 'husband' of the girl who made the initial phone call about what was happening on the ranch and who is still missing.

Frightened and perhaps pregnant for the second time in a year, the 16-year-old mother whispered into a borrowed cell phone, defying everything she'd been taught by making contact with the outside world.

An affidavit says "Sarah," 16, said Dale Evans Barlow, shown in 2005, beat her and forced her to have sex.

She said she was being held against her will at the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado, Texas. She said she'd been beaten by Dale Evans Barlow, a man more than three times her age, who had taken her as his seventh wife. Now, her parents were talking about sending her younger sister, 15, to the ranch as well.

She said she wanted out.

The first call came through to a Department of Family and Protective Services hot line at 11:32 p.m. March 29. A second call came the following day.

This time, the caller said, crying, that she wanted to take it all back. She said she was "happy and fine" and didn't want to get in trouble.

The dramatic scenario is detailed in a court affidavit that gave police and social workers the legal authority to raid a 1,900-acre polygamist compound built in West Texas by the reclusive Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It was made public late Tuesday. Read the affidavit

The affidavit also states that the girl said she has an 8-month-old child and is pregnant again. She said Barlow has beaten her -- once hard enough to break her ribs -- choked her and forced her to have sex with him.

She said another of Barlow's "spiritual wives" would hold her infant child while he beat her.

The April 6 affidavit also alleges a former member of the polygamist church told authorities details of the sect's activities, which included the use of a bed inside the group's temple for men to have sex with underage girls immediately after wedding ceremonies.

After authorities raided the ranch late Thursday, Texas Ranger Leslie Brooks Long "observed the bed within the temple that had disturbed bed linens and a strand of hair that appears to be from a female head."