Texas Authorities Are Unsure Where Girl Caller Is

SAN ANGELO, Tex., April 10 -- Texas law enforcement authorities have yet to find the teenage mother whose call to authorities sparked the raid on a polygamist sect's compound that resulted in the largest child removal in the state's history.

The 16-year-old girl has been identified in court documents, but neither child protective services officials nor law enforcement officers have confirmed her presence among the 416 children removed from the ranch, authorities said Thursday. Darrel Azar, spokesman for Texas Family and Protective Services, said the agency believes she is among the children but that, given the allegations, "she may be reticent to identify herself."

"We think we may have her, and we hope that we have her," Azar said. "But it's going to take time for these children to open up."

Officials said Thursday that law enforcement agents have left the grounds of the Yearning for Zion ranch, whose members had formed a human barrier last week to stop them from entering their temple, finally giving in and breaking down in prayer and sobs as officers trooped in.

The scene of the resistance, described as somewhat tense but "passive," was related by Capt. Barry K. Caver of the Texas Rangers, one of several agencies that raided the compound in nearby Eldorado. The compound is owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a splinter sect of the Mormon Church, which banned polygamy in 1890.

According to court documents unsealed this week, the teenager said during her call to a local domestic-abuse hotline that she was taken to the ranch by her parents three years ago and shortly afterward was married "spiritually" to a man three times her age who physically and sexually abused her.

Caver of the Texas Rangers said that when he and other officers arrived at the ranch on April 3, he told the ranch's overseer, Merril Jessop, that they would execute the search warrant "at whatever cost that may be." But Caver said he told Jessop he wanted to do it "in the most peaceful, respectful way I could, to avoid destroying their property."

Caver said that all the buildings on the sprawling 1,700-acre compound were searched for children and that he asked sect leaders to unlock the temple and the gate on the 10-foot-tall concrete fence around the building, but sect leaders refused. Authorities brought in a locksmith to unlock the fence gate, but they had to "physically breach" the temple door and every door inside the structure, Caver said. At that point, church members formed a human chain in front of the temple and then dropped to their knees as officers proceeded.

Inside the four-story limestone temple, officers found beds believed to have been used to consummate the "spiritual" marriages between adult males and their underage wives. Officers also found vaults, locked safes, computers and boxes of records, according to court documents unsealed Wednesday.