How did U.S. teen end up in polygamists' commune, mom asks
 Mother fears girl secretly wed after getting over border
 
By Fabian Dawson
Edmonton Journal
 
The American mother of a teen bride has filed a report with the RCMP asking police to find out how her daughter ended up at a polygamous commune in the East Kootenays.

"I am concerned my daughter may have been married in secret and I want to know how she got across the border without parental consent," Lenore Holm said Wednesday.

Her daughter Nichole was 16 when she came across the border last May after Holm objected to her marriage to a 39-year-old Utah polygamist with 10 kids.

The report was compiled by a U.S. child advocate and ex-members of the polygamous group called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Reports are being prepared in about 30 other cases of underaged girls and teens that have been married off to polygamists in B.C., Utah and Arizona.

Creston RCMP Cpl. Doug Barron said "a file has been opened and we will start an investigation," in confirming the report had been received from Holm on Wednesday.

The Vancouver Province reported in September the Bountiful polygamous commune in Lister, B.C., was to be part of a U.S. probe into the movement of young American girls across the border.

"I definitely plan to investigate this issue," said Ron Barton, a special investigator hired by the Utah attorney-general to look into abuses in "closed societies."

Jay Beswick, of the child-advocacy group called For Kids Sake, said Wednesday that in some of the cases involving teen brides and underaged girls there seems to have been parental consent.

"In these cases we are seeking investigations and charges for parental endangerment," he said.

Helping him compile the names and details is a Salt Lake City-based support group for ex-polygamous wives called Tapestry of Polygamy.

A partial list shows girls as young as 14 being married with their sisters and mothers to church elders and senior members of the "priesthood."

In at least one case in B.C., a senior member of the group is said to have married four sisters with ages ranging from 14 to 21.

In another case, two teenaged sisters from the commune in B.C. were married to a 30-year-old man in Colorado City.

In B.C., anyone under the age of 16 must apply to the Supreme Court to get married.

In Utah and Arizona, teens under the age of 16 cannot marry people who are more than 24 to 48 months their senior.

"This is all about older men wanting young teens and church leaders getting their pick of the crop," said Holm, who was turfed from the group after objecting to her daughter's marriage.
 
Edmonton Journal
Originally published November 2, 2000
 
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