Texas authorities defend polygamous sect raid
After four-year inquiry, sheriff says he got legal grounds to act last week
ELDORADO, Texas - It was no secret that a polygamist sect that built a compound in the West Texas desert believed in marrying off underage girls to older men. And the sheriff had an informant for four years who was feeding him information about life inside the sect.
But authorities say their hands were tied until last week, when they finally obtained the legal grounds to move against the group.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24014376/
Sheriff: Cops had spy inside polygamist sect
ELDORADO, Texas (AP) -- When authorities moved to search the large white temple on the polygamist compound in West Texas, about five dozen of the sect's men prayed and cried around the structure, state investigators said Thursday.
Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran also said he had been working with a confidential informant for four years who was feeding him information about life inside the polygamist sect.
Doran declined to say whether the informant was in Texas or other sect compounds in Utah or Arizona. It wasn't until after the search had begun that Doran learned about marriage beds in the temple and the forced marriages of underage girls to older men.
"It was instrumental in teaching me the group's ways," Doran said.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/10/....ap/index.html
A dark history repeats for religious sect
ALONG THE ARIZONA-UTAH BORDER (CNN) -- A monument stands in a park in the twin cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, commemorating the 263 children taken from their families during a predawn polygamy raid in 1953.
The raid at Short Creek, as these isolated border communities were known back then, holds an ignoble place in the region's history.
It was a public relations nightmare from the start. Crying children in their bedclothes were yanked from their parents in the dark of a July night.
The backlash drove a governor from office and discouraged officials from taking action against the practice of polygamy for half a century.
It also left a traumatic imprint in the collective mind of a community that has withdrawn from an outside world it views as evil.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/10/...wns/index.html