FBI working hard to follow up as Jeffs leads pour in
 
By Ben Winslow
Deseret Morning News
Warren Jeffs

Warren Jeffs

Leads continued to pour into FBI offices in Salt Lake City and Phoenix in the nationwide manhunt for fugitive polygamist leader Warren Jeffs.

"The tips are coming in and the agents are working the leads as hard and as fast as they're coming in," FBI special agent Patrick Kiernan said Wednesday.

FBI agents searched a home in the Denver suburb of Lakewood, Colo., on Tuesday for any sign of Jeffs. Reportedly, someone phoned in a tip to authorities that Jeffs was seen at a home. However, FBI agents told the Deseret Morning News on Wednesday they did not find anything.

"The agents were out there and talking to people," Kiernan said. "We will follow up aggressively on every lead."

Rumors have placed Jeffs in Mesquite, Nev., within the past few weeks and Eldorado, Texas, within the past few months. However, law-enforcement officers have acknowledged that they do not have any concrete leads in the hunt for the fugitive Fundamentalist LDS Church leader.

Jeffs has been named to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, and a $100,000 reward is being offered for information leading to his arrest.

National TV shows have been talking nonstop about Jeffs since Saturday's announcement. A 1993 videotape of Jeffs obtained by the Deseret Morning News has been played repeatedly on cable TV talk shows.

Utah's leading anti-polygamy group is hoping to use the national publicity to get law enforcement to focus on other polygamous groups.

"Warren Jeffs is just the tip of the iceberg," Tapestry Against Polygamy's Vicky Prunty said Wednesday. "Any chance we get to educate the nation about other polygamous groups that are under the radar screen and multiplying nearly on a daily basis, we'll do it."

Prunty said she hopes that Utah officials will use the momentum to formulate a task force, first proposed by Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard. In an interview with the Deseret Morning News, Goddard appeared to soften his call for a joint federal-state-local task force.

"I think it's a good idea," he said Tuesday. "But we have so many irons in the fire that we're going to have to focus on the ones that are most urgent at the moment."

E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com
 
deseretnews.com
Originally published Thursday, May 11, 2006
 
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