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Inside private world of polygamist ranch
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Along with allegations that women at the ranch were brainwashed and children abused, there are other questions. What should happen to the kids taken from the ranch? And what about "Sarah" herself, the one who called a hotline begging for help?
She spoke in a frightened whisper, claiming she was a pregnant, teenaged mother being held against her will at the Yearning for Zion ranch. She was wife number 7, she said, married to a middle-aged man who forced himself on her sexually and beat her viciously while another woman held down her infant child.
But three weeks after "Sarah’s" mysterious phone call prompted a massive raid, with armed men ransacking the ranch and the church's sacred temple -- and hundreds of women and children swooped away on buses - authorities have yet to find her.
(News conference)
Sheriff David Doran, Eldorado, Texas: The rangers, child protective services, and everybody is diligently working on that to identify that person.
The FLDS church members don't buy it. They say it stinks of fabrication.
Richard: It was all just a set up
Keith Morrison, Dateline NBC: You say it's a set up?
Richard: That's my opinion.
Willie Jessop, FLDS: There's no victim. Nothing even remotely close to the allegations of what they came in on.
Keith Morrison: They want to shut you down, make you move away? You don't belong here? What's the deal?
Willie Jessop: Wouldn't we like to know that.
Is it possible the lives of these devoutly religious people were turned upside down because of a call from someone who may not even exist?
A week ago, the Texas rangers issued a press release saying they are actively pursuing a woman named Rozita Swinton as a "person of interest" in the case. Swinton has a history of making phony calls and even using the name Sarah.
Flora Jessop: When she very first called me, she identified herself as Sarah, a 16-year-old.
In late March, at the very same time the girl claiming to be "wife number 7" called a Texas shelter for help, Flora Jessop, the former FLDS member, was also getting calls from a girl who said she was at the church's Arizona location, 16, pregnant, and in danger.
Flora Jessop: Everything she said to me rang absolutely true. She is very believable. She sounds like an injured child when she makes these calls.
(Flora Jessop recording)
"Sarah": Thank you for trying to comfort me.
But something didn't sound right. Flora started recording the calls. She spent some 40 hours on the phone with the girl before she was finally able to coax a confession out of her.
Flora Jessop: Tell me what your real name is. Are you from the FLDS?
"Sarah": I don't want to get in trouble.
She wasn't a teenager at all. She was Rozita Swinton, who is not 16 years old. She is 33. Nor does she belong to FLDS.
Flora Jessop: I’m still having a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that it was a 33-year-old woman that was making these calls to me.
Is there a connection? Is it possible 33-year-old Rozita Swinton is also the person who made the calls to the shelter? Did she fool the Texas child protection authorities into thinking she was an abused 16-year-old mother?
Jessop says it doesn't matter. Even if the call that initiated the raid on the Yearning for Zion ranch was a fraud, she says, the state of Texas made the right move.
Flora Jessop: They still did the right thing, because what they found once they entered that compound was absolutely valid. The men inside the FLDS are predators.
What did the state investigation uncover? It says it found 20 minors who had been impregnated between the ages of 13 and 16.
Rod Parker, an attorney for the church, claims the case of the 13-year-old occurred in a different state ten years ago. And the others? Of them, he says, only one may have been under the legal age of marriage.
Rod Parker: I know that there are examples where an abuse has been discovered within the community. And the community has taken action, turned them over to authorities.
Keith Morrison: People in this country do not condone sex between an adult and an underage girl. That is sex abuse.
Rod Parker: Right, and neither do I condone that.
Keith Morrison: We're talking about 50-year-old men having sex with 14- and 15-year-old girls, and that isn’t on. Americans won't accept it.
Rod Parker: I’m not sure that we have any evidence of that.
Parker, the FLDS church members, and the bevy of attorneys representing them, insist the state is not only wrong but it overstepped its boundaries and violated their rights in the worst possible way.
Rod Parker: What the state is saying by taking away every child of these people is, if you're a member of this religion, we don't care what you think. It's such overkill. It's such cruelty to tear these families apart. It's unconstitutional and it's inhumane.
Keith Morrison: How is this religion not to think that you're trying to shut it down? That you're persecuting it?
Abbott: Because the laws of Texas are clear. You cannot have sex with a girl who is underage. That you cannot marry off a girl who is underage. Doesn't matter to me or the state of Texas what their religious background is, you can't sexually assault a young child.
Keith Morrison: What if what you’re saying about this group of people is not factually correct and you've moved all these children?
Abbott: If it turns out it's untrue, they'll be placed back in their home. This happens every day.
So far, no charges have been filed.
But every day, here at the ranch they call Yearning for Zion, people like Lorene and Rulon find it harder to imagine the day that their children are back in their arms again.
Rulon: We don't know why we got caught up in this, other than because of our religion, no other reason. They haven't proved any other reason.
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