From Deseret News archives:

Warrants could lead to more FLDS charges

Grand jury will weigh evidence as church seeks their dismissal

Published: Sunday, Sept. 7, 2008 12:19 a.m. MDT
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The latest warrants also name an ex-member of the polygamous sect who gave information to Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran in the years leading up to the April 3 raid on the YFZ Ranch.

"Sheriff Doran advised affiant that Becky Musser has provided him with information regarding the FLDS on more than 100 occasions over the past four years, including as recently as April 8, 2008, and that, on each occasion, that information has proven to be reliable, true and correct," Wilson wrote in the probable cause statement.

Becky Musser is a sister of Elissa Wall, who was the star witness in Utah's case against Jeffs. Musser also testified at the trial and was married to Jeffs' father, Rulon, when she was a teenager.

Jeffs, the sect's 52-year-old leader, is serving a pair of 5-to-life sentences after being convicted on charges of rape as an accomplice, a first-degree felony. He performed a marriage between Wall, then 14, and her 19-year-old cousin.

In Arizona, Jeffs is facing sexual misconduct charges, accusing him of performing similar marriages. Texas prosecutors have said they will seek to extradite him here to face charges.

Doran would not comment on whether Musser specifically was his much-publicized confidential informant, who leaked information including salacious claims about sex on a bed in the FLDS Church's temple.

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"There have been several people that have been contacted," he told the Deseret News on Friday.

In her probable cause statements, Wilson only said Musser provided them with information about FLDS customs and terms.

Law enforcement insists it was not any informant's tips that sparked the raid on the YFZ Ranch, but a phone call to a family crisis hotline from a frightened, pregnant 16-year-old girl named "Sarah," trapped in an abusive, polygamous marriage to an older man. CPS caseworkers and police responded to the FLDS compound to search for the girl.

The call is now believed to be a hoax. But at the ranch, authorities claim to have seen other evidence of abuse. That prompted a judge to order the removal of all of the children and sparked the nation's biggest custody case. A series of search warrants for evidence was also served.

Approximately 439 children were ultimately returned to their parents two months later when an Austin appeals court and the Texas Supreme Court ruled the state acted improperly and the children were not in immediate danger of abuse.

The FLDS Church and some of its members have filed legal challenges to have the search warrants and any evidence tossed. A hearing has been scheduled Oct. 1.

The Texas Department of Public Safety has declared a 33-year-old Colorado woman a "person of interest" in the hoax call.


E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com

Recent comments


291 innocent children have been cleared.....no abuse.
Texas...

zxcvbnm | Sept. 17, 2008 at 9:28 a.m.

Before you accuse others make sure you are not hiding any sin. I...

freethinker | Sept. 16, 2008 at 6:50 p.m.

I'm glad to see all the FLDS posting their same old nonsense....at...

schweet! | Sept. 11, 2008 at 10:45 a.m.

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