Compound considered home for sect’s ‘elect’
Members of polygamist group aspired to live at Yearning for Zion Ranch
ELDORADO, Texas - The secretive and insular community established near this West Texas town by a radical offshoot of the Mormon Church is considered by the sect's members to be a holy shrine populated by its most fervent adherents and is propped up financially by members of the group living in other states, according to law enforcement officials and former members.
Interviews with law enforcement authorities and former members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints depict the Yearning for Zion Ranch, which was raided last week by Texas authorities, as an outpost whose adult residents were considered the sect's elite. They were handpicked by the church's leader, Warren Jeffs, who was convicted last year in Utah of being an accomplice to rape for arranging the marriage of a 14-year-old girl to her cousin.
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