Late-Night Call Revealed Secret World

Law enforcement officials, including FBI agents, continued to search the 1,700-acre compound Tuesday evening.

Authorities say the girl who made the original calls has still not been accounted for.

According to an affidavit released Tuesday, the girl's "spiritual husband" beat her whenever he got angry. Sometimes the beatings included, "hitting her on the chest and choking her" while another woman in the compound held her infant child. The teenage mother received her last beating on Easter Sunday, then six days later made her first call to the shelter.

She said she wanted to leave the ranch, but had been told that life would be hard in the outside world. She told authorities that her parents did not live at the ranch, and she said she had no one to "explain that she does not want to continue to be on the ranch," the affidavit said.

After the first raid, Eldorado's First Baptist Church provided meals and its Fellowship Hall as a shelter for about 80 women and children. The women wore loose dresses in muted colors that covered their bodies. They huddled together, hardly speaking except to ask when they could "go home." One woman, interviewed by an agent from the state Child Protective Services, was asked how to spell her last name. "I don't know," she responded.

They asked for the same all-natural diet they ate on the compound -- raw milk, yogurt, cheese, steamed vegetables, steamed oatmeal, honey, berries, nuts. The churches tried to accommodate them, offering grilled chicken, steamed vegetables and fruit.

By Saturday, the women and children had relaxed somewhat. Children began playing with toys that were brought to the church-turned-shelter.

"The sounds of glee, the shouts, the joy," said Helen Pfluger, a leader at the First Baptist Church. "From all the aerial photographs [of the compound] I've seen, I've never seen anything that would suggest playing for children. They were having an awesome time."

Kilgore reported from Eldorado.