FLDS are still feeling effects one year later

ELDORADO, Texas — Annie Jessop breaks into a smile whenever someone walks into her home. But her brothers are wary.

The 4-year-old girl reaches out to play, while her older brothers — Zachary, 10; Ephraim, 8; and 6-year-old Russell — are reluctant to talk.

A year after the raid on the Fundamentalist LDS Church's Yearning for Zion Ranch, the children still feel the effects of being taken from their homes and scattered in foster homes across Texas.

"I didn't like it," Zachary Jessop succinctly says of his time in foster care.

Their parents, Edson and Zavenda Jessop, said the children occasionally have nightmares about Child Protective Services taking them. Some have become more aggressive, verbally and physically.

"They're not over it," Zavenda sighs.

It was a year ago this week that child welfare workers and law enforcement responded to a series of phone calls claiming a 16-year-old girl was being abused on this isolated property on the Texas prairie. They never found "Sarah Jessop," but CPS says it has found other evidence of abuse prompting a judge to order the removal of all of the children.

"There's no question in my mind when they first came here, it was about our religion," said Rulon Keate, the father of six children ranging in age from 18 months to 9 years old. "I've never seen anything like what they accused us of here."

Hundreds of children were removed in what quickly mushroomed into the largest child custody case in U.S. history. CPS alleged a pattern of abuse among the Utah-based polygamous sect, with girls groomed to become child brides and boys growing up to be sexual abusers. But the 439 children were ordered returned two months later when a pair of Texas courts ruled the state acted improperly and that the children were not at immediate risk of abuse.

Homecoming

A year later, residents of the YFZ Ranch estimate more than half of the families who scattered themselves across the state to be closer to their children and stay in CPS' good graces have now moved back.

"Some still have rental contracts. Others have chosen not to come back because of the trauma they experienced here," Keate said. "The children, when they come here, are not able to cope with it."

Around the YFZ Ranch, there are signs that things are returning to some semblance of normalcy. Women are seen working in greenhouses, young men are working in fields. Children are playing outside.

"We're not quite there, but it feels real good," Frederick Merril Jessop, the leader of the YFZ Ranch, told the Deseret News. "We're grateful."

Jessop's own 14-year-old daughter is the only child remaining in state custody. Child welfare authorities allege she was married at age 12 to FLDS leader Warren Jeffs.