Posted on 05/08/2006 7:44:17 PM PDT by Anti-Bubba182
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The FBI has placed polygamist church leader Warren Jeffs on the agency's 10 most-wanted list, hoping the additional exposure and reward money leads to an arrest in the long-running investigation.
Jeffs is wanted in Arizona on criminal charges of sexual conduct with a minor. He also was charged in Utah with rape as an accomplice. He is accused of arranging marriages between underage girls and older men. "We are doing everything we can to track him down," said Tim Fuhrman, special agent in charge of the FBI's Salt Lake City field office. "We just made the determination that this is the next step that we can take as federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, to potentially result in the apprehension of Mr. Jeffs."
The FBI's announcement in a rare Saturday evening news conference coincided with Jeffs' case appearing on the television program "America's Most Wanted." Although Jeffs, who is 6-foot-4 and 150-155 lbs, isn't considered armed, he believed to travel with armed bodyguards.
Jeffs, 50, is the leader of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, based in the state line communities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz. Jeffs has not been seen by anyone outside of the FLDS community for nearly two years...."
(Excerpt) Read more at abc4.com ...
If you stop in one of the towns for gasoline on your way through the AZ strip the local men will surround the station out of the blue to make certain you get back in your car and leave asap... the police were part of them.
The Mohave County Sheriff's Department were pretty much hand's-off until a couple of years ago... the hands-off attitude goes back to the famous raid in the 50's when the Government tried to do something about this and it all blew up in their faces and the AZ governor ended up being impeached.
The road in and out of the area is very straight and very flat and not good cover, thus the late night visits since he is a wanted man.
Thats really sad. I hope they get him but I dont know that he will get caught. Since he has all that money and followers it may not be easy to get him. He looks like a creep and sounds like one too. What happens to these people when they get away from this cult and see theres a real world? How do they deal with it?
We were looking for property near Lake Powell and looking at a couple of acres in Big Water --
I looked around at the desolate nature of te area and asked the female real estate saleslady what you do there -- she tells us her 'husband' is the mayor and she is one of his eight wives.... my husband said my jaw dropped to the floor when she told me that....
Two of the wives were sisters and another a very young girl he married after her parents were killed in a crash and she inherited a lot of money -- which he took control of after marrying her at a very young age.. he died about 6 years ago but I know several of the wives still live there -- the interesting thing in their case is all the wives -- with the exception of the young wife -- were college graduates and accomplished women in their own rights -- one a lawyer, one ran the tv station, one the real estate sales, etc.
Me! I wasbn't sure at first about Big Love but I find it entertaining. What about the blonde wife who has a credit card addiction?
Several young girls escaped and Jeffs was trying to force them back into the town, Flora was instrumental in helping get them into foster homes and not returned to that life...
The son of Jeff's brother who was sodomized seems scared, says he is okay, but you can see the emotion right under the surface when he talks on the subject.
One of the wives from Colorado City who escaped with her eight children tells of outright terror as she was trying to load her kids in the car to meet her brother outside of town (the husband was gone for a day) and one of the wives figured out what she was doing and tried to stop her, said the car was on empty and she just prayed she had enough to get where she could meet her brother... she did and is another who is working to help bring this to light....
What is interesting is these people are like aliens when they emerge into the real world, they are innocents in so any ways and scared emotionally at the same time.
I've been reading about Flora Jessop and have seen her on tv. She has a lot of courage to be doing all that she is. What a shame this has gone on for so long. I hear theres a lot of inbreeding too and birth defects. I really feel bad for these people.
According to your post this"cult" has been going about their business for over 50 years. Why is it now that the feds want to get involved? Although we as a society may not agree with what they are doing, it is evident it has been going on for a long time. I do not agree that islam is a religion of peace we still as a society allow it, along with devil worship and witchcraft. Many societies believe a female is a woman at 13 YO and in the old west many a young teenager was married off. It just seems wierd that the feds are just now getting involved.
Why the sudden concern about adult males and female children
being sexually involved?
Planned Parenthood routinely covers up for adult men who
buy young female teens abortions.
Life Dynamics caught them in a sting a few years back where
Planned Parenthood told really young girls "Don't tell us how old
your boyfriend is."
Colorado's AG office told several of us last fall that they have no jurisdiction
in solving the problem.
Ask John Suthers why?
That's the part I left out -- about the inbreeding. Turns out there is a lot of buried bodies in Colorado City of newborn baby boys and very young boys -- with no real death certificates. Seems the male babies and boys in that area are 'accident prone.'
Is that the facts or rumors. I question alot of what you have to say much like I questioned the feds info about the Davidians. Much of what they accused Koresh over just was not true and I see this going in the same direction.
After that people took a live-let-live attitude to the area... it is, after all, a very cut off, desolate, area of Mohave County being on the other side of the Grand Canyon from the rest of the county.... periodically the LA Times would do an article about what was going on, but with so many Mormons in both Utah, AZ and Nevada most people looked the other way -- until Flora escaped and started getting the word out. The Rulon Jeffs died and his crazy son, Warren, took over and literally all he!! broke loose, our County Supervisors got involved and put a lot of pressure on Janet Napolitano (she was AG before Gov) and she ignored it, the outcry grew...
Then we got a new AG, he got involved they finally got the Utah AG involved and the investigations grew and grew and too much info came forward to ignore, including mysterious graves...
Anyway, this is a case of benign neglect,isolation, fear, fraud, sexual exploitation of young girls.. you name it there is so much that it probably is much better in a Federal Court than our local Mohave County court system..
Once the pressure was really on Colorado City/Hilldale Jeffs bought property and a huge compound was built in Texas, not what they were told it would be the people in that small town grew concerned (you see when the Jeffs clans move in they swamp the voters and vote in their own style of city and county management) and attention was spotlighted there so he started building another compound in Mexico another in Canada and yet another in S. Dakota...
I don't think this is going to have a good ending BTW...
It's been reported in our local papers, our local radio show had Flora on for two hours on two separate occasions and it was discussed in detail, the last I heard the Mohave County coroner is supposed to try and determine cause of death of these bodies.
Its the same with the amish with the inbreeding too. Many children are born with bith defects. And theres some cases of incest. They also will toss you out and shun you. However I think they aren't quite as crazy as this group. Personally I think they're cult like too from what I've seen and read. My heart goes out to the children.
Yes, it is all about the children, thats what Janet Reno said also.
Well what would you like be done? Should they be left to live like this? I dont like Janet Reno at all and I think what went on at Waco was horrible. However I think doing nothing is just as bad. And yes it is about the children. I happen to hate to see children abused and left to live in cults. So Eastfork what should be done? Do you have any ideas? I am sickened to find its been going on as long as it has. Are you?
Well, once the feds are involved there is a good chance a bunch of those kids will die, just like they did in Waco.
Too true and a shame but what would you suggest? We can only hope and pray that the feds may have learned something since Waco. Leaving them exposed to abuse isnt the answer. It never should have been allowed to come to this.
Keep us informed. This guy is one sick pup.
The Amish have birth defects because the marrying pool is so small.
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