ST. GEORGE — Persistent questions about how much of a grasp Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Warren Jeffs retains on his followers could help investigators digging into alleged crimes within his polygamous sect.

Some are leaving the FLDS Church and bringing with them information, authorities say. Some of that information has also been about Jeffs, who remains under investigation by the offices of the Utah and Arizona attorneys general.

"It's not an avalanche, but we are able to talk to people. There's more of a dialogue," Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said.

In an interview with the Deseret Morning News, Goddard said law enforcement officials have focused on "every aspect of life" in the polygamous border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz. Officials are going after suspected abuses within the Colorado City Unified School District and the multimillion-dollar United Effort Plan Trust. Efforts are being made to reach out to abuse victims within the closed society.

Goddard believes the effort is having results.

"I'd like to think it has made isolation a little more difficult," Goddard said.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff acknowledged that many FLDS faithful still remain entrenched and refuse to have anything to do with social workers or law enforcement.

"I don't think that entrenchment by the absolute faithful will ever change until Warren Jeffs is convicted," Shurtleff said.

Both Shurtleff and Goddard declined to comment on Deseret Morning News reports that Jeffs had abdicated his role as a "prophet." There were indications of an abdication in a jailhouse conversation with one of his brothers and in a note he tried to give to a judge.

"The bottom line for me is, (Jeffs) has held absolute power over a large number of people, and he has abused his power in ways that we know about and probably in many ways that we don't know about," Goddard said. "A lot of people suffered as a result of that."

Jeffs, 51, is facing criminal charges in St. George's 5th District Court. Charges accuse him of rape as an accomplice, a first-degree felony. He is accused of performing a marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin. Jeffs is facing similar charges in Arizona and has been indicted by a federal grand jury on a charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

Jeffs was arrested outside Las Vegas last year. At the time, he was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list.

Questions have been raised about the FLDS leader's physical and mental health after recent court appearances have showed him dozing off and in one instance, drooling on himself.

Lawyers for news media outlets, including the Deseret Morning News, have presented a court motion asking that a seal on some documents in the case be lifted. The judge has asked attorneys to address federal medical privacy laws to see how they would affect the request.