DNA Samples To Be Taken From Polygamous Sect Kids This Week

[Pale Rider]

DNA Samples To Be Taken From Polygamous Sect Kids This Week

2008-04-21 06:33:58
By MICHELLE ROBERTS Associated Press Writer

SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) — More than 400 children taken from a polygamous sect's ranch will undergo DNA testing this week, an attempt to determine who their parents are and if any sexual abuse took place.

Officials plan to begin taking DNA samples Monday at the coliseum in San Angelo where the children are being housed, but may need three or four days to complete the job.

Judge Barbara Walther ordered the tests at the request of state officials, who have complained that members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have continually changed their names, possibly lied about their ages and sometimes had difficulty naming their relatives.

The process will likely take about half an hour per sample because of the paperwork and care needed to avoid contamination, said Darrell Azar, a spokesman for Child Protective Services.

Story continues here...

[theHawk]

Can't they just ask the kids who their parents are?

[Pale Rider]

Can't they just ask the kids who their parents are?

Tried that, kids don't know, and nobody is talking. Men come and go in this cult, and when a man leaves, the women and the kids are just given to another man. Kids are left thinking four or five different women and men are their mothers and fathers, or they just don't know.

[mundame]

Tried that, kids don't know, and nobody is talking. Men come and go in this cult, and when a man leaves, the women and the kids are just given to another man. Kids are left thinking four or five different women and men are their mothers and fathers, or they just don't know.

The news said the kids are trained to call all their father's wives "mother." There's a lot of lying by the women, too. The question of how guilty those mothers are is bothering me --- I know they are sequestered away from any news or any knowledge of what modern America is really like, but sacrificing these little girls so young --- I guess it was done to them, so they think that's all right!

High time and past time to bust this cult up.

[Yurt]

The news said the kids are trained to call all their father's wives "mother." There's a lot of lying by the women, too. The question of how guilty those mothers are is bothering me --- I know they are sequestered away from any news or any knowledge of what modern America is really like, but sacrificing these little girls so young --- I guess it was done to them, so they think that's all right!

High time and past time to bust this cult up.

link, proof?

[mundame]

'The news said the kids are trained to call all their father's wives "mother." There's a lot of lying by the women, too.'

link, proof?

The children identify all the women in the house as their mothers and if a father leaves the community, children and mothers are reassigned to another man, a child welfare investigator testified during a hearing last week.

Child protection officials have said that when the children were removed from the compound, it was the first time they had ever ridden on a bus or seen the outside world. ...
Law enforcement officials and former sect members have said girls as young as 13 are forced to marry men who may be 40 years their seniors. The sect practices polygamy as originally preached by the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, in the 19<SUP>th</SUP> century.
“When I lived in that community, child abuse was a way of life,” Jessop told TODAY’s Hoda Kotb. In an interview on TODAY two weeks ago, she spoke of infants being severely spanked and subjected to a form of water torture to break their wills.
Jessop, who has written a book about her experience entitled “Escape,” insisted that girls are regularly married off at very young ages. She pointed out that the sect’s leader, Warren Jeffs, is in prison for forcing a 14-year-old girl to marry and have sex with her first cousin.
“It is happening and it was happening at a rampant rate when I was involved in the community,” said Jessop, who escaped before Jeffs began building the Texas ranch five years ago.

<TABLE id=rateableImageSlice cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=500 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top align=left width=428>Guilty Moms in Texas Cult? 04/21/08 12:30 PM


</TD></TR><TR><TD class=g12bl vAlign=top align=left width=428>Once it's clear who the parents of these children are, what should happen to their mothers?
Getty Images




A Texas judge has ordered the 416 children removed from the polygamous sect in Texas to remain in state custody, and, along with their parents, to undergo DNA testing to determine both paternity and maternity, according to the Christian Science Monitor.
The tests will help the court sort out a tangled web of familial relations and reveal not only who the real dads are, but the real moms as well. This could be needed, experts say, because a younger child in the sect may consider more than one of the so-called "sister-wives" to be his or her mom.
According to some legal experts, once moms are identified, there's a possibility they, along with the dads, could be charged as complicit to statutory rape, if they were found to willingly turn over their underage daughters, some who may have been as young as 12 or 13, for "spiritual marriages."
"As long as the women were conspiring in the child sex abuse, knowingly allowing these underage marriages, all of them are capable of being indicted," says Marci Hamilton, an expert on church-state issues at Cardoza Law School in New York and author of the recently released "Justice Denied: What America Must Do To Protect Its Children."

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

After an unprecedented two-day hearing involving at least 350 attorneys, state District Judge Barbara Walther ruled the children would remain in state custody until each child could be granted individual hearings by June 5.
She also ordered each child and adult member of the sect undergo DNA testing in a bid to untangle confusion over parentage, identities and family ties in this reclusive breakaway Mormon sect.
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You are challenging my statement that the women are doing a lot of lying. The state would not be having this much trouble identifying who is who if the mothers told the truth. They cannot afford to tell the truth, however, as the DNA testing will tell two things: who is related to whom and thus had babies illegally early; and who is illegally a child of incest, which the state believes to be a common practice in this cult.


We need a lot more transparency. These cults that get together and imprison people in remote locations and do weird sexual things ---

It's always about sex with the young girls. That's a cult staple, that and multiple sex partners. Doesn't matter the cult, from Koresh, to the Oneidas, to the Mormons, to Jim Jones, it's always about sex by dominant males with lots of little girls.

[My Winter Storm]

I heard there were 400 kids being taken for DNA testing, and only 100 mothers being taken for DNA testing. Thats at least 100 kids per woman, shouldn't there be more mothers being taken for testing?

[avatar4321]

I heard there were 400 kids being taken for DNA testing, and only 100 mothers being taken for DNA testing. Thats at least 100 kids per woman, shouldn't there be more mothers being taken for testing?

you have it backwards. that would be four kids per woman.

Oh and does anyone else see any potential problems with the DNA testing? This sect doesnt get alot out outside genetic codes in its community very often. Many of the people are already closely related. What's going to happen if DNA results come back with children from different parents coming back with similiar results because one guy "married" sisters? how is it going to help figure out who is with whom?

[mundame]

you have it backwards. that would be four kids per woman.

Oh and does anyone else see any potential problems with the DNA testing? This sect doesnt get alot out outside genetic codes in its community very often. Many of the people are already closely related. What's going to happen if DNA results come back with children from different parents coming back with similiar results because one guy "married" sisters? how is it going to help figure out who is with whom?

They addressed this in one of the articles I posted links to. It is an interesting issue, but isn't a problem even with the extreme inbreeding within this cult (look at the photos!! they have a lot of genetic problems, I've read) -- they can readily tell degree of relationship with DNA testing. It's used for that constantly, and in fact is used now to find criminals by testing who they might be related to -- there was an article about that yesterday. Oh, and testing dead bodies by testing people who might be relatives to see who the person was related to. And mystery people: They finally did conclusively prove that the Anastasia pretender, who died in the 1990s, I think, was NOT related to the Romanoffs, so it was a lifelong hoax.

[Pale Rider]

These people sound like lunatics when they talk, like drugged or brain washed zombies. This cult was way overdue to get busted. Everybody has to live by the same laws here, and these people were making up their own.

When they interview these women, it's just painful to listen to them. I want to reach through the TV and SLAP them.... "HEY... WAKE UP.... HELLO!"

[mundame]

When they interview these women, it's just painful to listen to them. I want to reach through the TV and SLAP them.... "HEY... WAKE UP.... HELLO!"

I'm very conflicted about it, Pale Rider. I know that given the women have been locked for generations in this peculiar belief system, and I know they are not allowed any books, magazines, TV, any modern culture AT ALL, and they are carefully disciplined to be all alike (look at those identical dresses, all alike!), but still ---------------

It's hard for me to imagine such isolation that they don't realize that what they are doing to their children is wrong.

Anyway, put them all out into society and they WILL know what's actually going on, and that will be that. And that's what's happening.

The amazing degree of inbreeding alone seriously needs some air.

[Pale Rider]

I'm very conflicted about it, Pale Rider. I know that given the women have been locked for generations in this peculiar belief system, and I know they are not allowed any books, magazines, TV, any modern culture AT ALL, and they are carefully disciplined to be all alike (look at those identical dresses, all alike!), but still ---------------

It's hard for me to imagine such isolation that they don't realize that what they are doing to their children is wrong.

Anyway, put them all out into society and they WILL know what's actually going on, and that will be that. And that's what's happening.

The amazing degree of inbreeding alone seriously needs some air.

I agree. It's a cult, and a dangerous one at that I think.

[82Marine89]

Maybe it's just me, but wasn't the search made because of a fraudulent phone call and the caller has been arrested for it? Have not the 4th Amendment Rights of these people been violated? How would you like it if this happens to you? The cops enter your house and seize your weapons because of a fraudulent phone call then refuse to give them back to you until they do a ballistics check on every one of them. Would you be outraged?

[Gaffer]

Maybe it's just me, but wasn't the search made because of a fraudulent phone call and the caller has been arrested for it? Have not the 4th Amendment Rights of these people been violated? How would you like it if this happens to you? The cops enter your house and seize your weapons because of a fraudulent phone call then refuse to give them back to you until they do a ballistics check on every one of them. Would you be outraged?

The police acted on a phone call, whether it was fraudulent or not. When they found illegal activity going on they proceeded as they are suppose too. They are still sorting through all the details and will bring criminal charges soon enough. Children being abused does not compare with guns. This is an evil, controlling cult. One of many in this country and any excuse to take them down is a good thing.

[mundame]

The police acted on a phone call, whether it was fraudulent or not. When they found illegal activity going on they proceeded as they are suppose too. They are still sorting through all the details and will bring criminal charges soon enough. Children being abused does not compare with guns. This is an evil, controlling cult. One of many in this country and any excuse to take them down is a good thing.

This country has been into cults or as they used to be called, utopian societies, since the early 1800s. The Mormons were the only one that survived those early days, but they are certainly one of the worst.

I've read some books on America's tendency to go off the deep end with strange cult systems. They are nearly always about the leader getting weird sex with little girls, and usually have communal money pooling and many other communal systems. Violence is common, as with the Mormons ambushing and killing the people in that wagon train (they kept the little girls, of course, and raised them as Mormons!). Or David Koresh and his guns and Heavens Gate with all those computer programmers committing suicide and all the rest.

Why Americans occasionally go in for this stuff, I don't know. Well, religious experimentation is part of it, I suppose.