From Deseret News archives:

Warrant dropped in FLDS raid

Published: Friday, May 2, 2008 4:21 p.m. MDT
 |  E-MAIL | PRINT | FONT + - 
An arrest warrant has apparently been dropped for the man fingered as an abusive husband in a phone call that triggered the raid on the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch.

"The warrant is no longer active," Tom Vinger with the Texas Department of Public Safety said Friday.

The warrant, for 50-year-old Dale Barlow of Colorado City, Ariz., accused him of being married to a 16-year-old "Sarah," whose phone call triggered the raid that resulted in more than 450 children being taken from the YFZ Ranch and placed in foster care.

Authorities said a phone call from someone claiming to be a girl named "Sarah," who was pregnant and in an abusive marriage.

"I do not know this girl that they keep asking about," Barlow told the Deseret News last month. "And I have not been to Texas since I was a young man back in 1977."

Texas Rangers traveled to St. George to question him, and ultimately did not arrest him.

Story continues below
Vinger said investigators are continuing to scrutinize the phone call and have named a Colorado woman as a "person of interest." Rozita Swinton, 33, is facing charges accusing her of making a phony abuse call to Colorado Springs police. Texas Rangers were there when she was arrested last month and seized evidence from her apartment they acknowledged were related to calls regarding the FLDS compounds in Eldorado, Texas and Colorado City.

"That investigation is ongoing. We still have quite a bit of evidence to process," Vinger said Friday. "At this point she has not been charged."

Authorities have said they are investigating if Swinton made similar hoax calls purporting to be "Sarah" or "Laurie" to Utah and Arizona child welfare workers.

Attorneys representing the children have said that even if the original call that prompted the raid is a hoax, it doesn't affect their case. It is what child protective services workers found when they responded to the ranch that is at issue. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services said its workers found evidence of abuse involving teenage mothers at the YFZ Ranch.


E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com

Recent comments

The State is not after these FLDS just because they practice...

me | May 6, 2008 at 1:19 a.m.

A last comment or two.

How many young pregnant girls must be...

Joe | May 3, 2008 at 1:45 a.m.

Sorry, Bob, but plural marriage is illegal (perhaps you are...

Joe | May 3, 2008 at 1:17 a.m.

previousnext

Latest comments

Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh get the audience they deserve and vice versa. ...

I find the rule,very discriminitory. I am not gay, I don't understand what...

Celtics crush Jazz

I understand we were outmanned last night. However, this effort was awful....

Tavernari has matured

My advice to Jonathan is shoot it when they pass it to you as soon as you...

Maybe they should try drafting a shooting guard who can shoot from outside ....

The sad thing about it is that there are actually people out there that are...

12 Utes return to Texas

Thank you TCU and BYU. Your wanting to beat Utah so bad has to drive you...

Celtics crush Jazz

Play fes and koufos. Look to the future. It looks like we will have two...

Letters: Obama 'too busy'

Oh come on. Obama's a horrible president, but I couldn't care less which...

"We had the best soccer of any place in the state. There's no disputing...

Advertisements
Advertisement