Polygamists putting Mancos on the map
 
By Tom Vaughan
Mancos Times Editor
 
Like it or not, the quiet purchase of two 60-acre Mancos Valley parcels by an agent of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is drawing attention to Mancos from as far away as British Columbia, Canada.

Just last week, the attorneys general of Utah and Arizona jointly published "The Primer: Helping Victims of Domestic Violence and Child Abuse in Polygamous Communities." The 50-page document (available to download at http://attorneygeneral.utah.gov/polygamy.html) is intended to "assist human services professionals, law enforcement officers and others in helping victims of domestic violence and child abuse from polygamous communities in Arizona and Utah."

Following the introductory material, the handbook includes a brief history of polygamy, a glossary and seven pages on fundamentalist groups, followed by chapters on typical practices and the special problems of dealing with victims of domestic violence and child abuse who are members of fundamentalist, polygamous groups.

The first three pages of the listing of groups is taken up by the FLDS and its offshoots. Mancos appears in the second paragraph: "The FLDS Church claims 8,000 to 10,000 members residing in the sister cities of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona; Eldorado, Texas; Mancos, Colorado and Creston and Bountiful, British Columbia. Polygamy is practiced openly, but the community allows little contact with outsiders, especially since Warren Jeffs assumed leadership in 2002. Many show deep loyalty to him; however, others have left either because of a disagreement with his style of leadership or because they have been excommunicated."

When the handbook was circulating in draft form last summer, reporter Brooke Adams noted in a July 14 Salt Lake City Tribune story that foes of polygamy complained it fell far short of making a strong indictment of plural marriage. As Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard acknowledge in the foreword, "Polygamy is illegal in Utah and forbidden in the Arizona constitution. However, both states have decided to focus law enforcement efforts on crimes within the polygamous communities that involve child abuse, domestic violence and fraud. Laws regarding these issues will be strictly enforced."

The publication does cite relevant Utah and Arizona statutes, as well as listing shelters, clinics, legal service and other sources of assistance for victims of domestic violence or child abuse.

Suggestions are offered for training peace officers and case workers to deal with the specific cultural values of members of polygamous groups.

The bibliography at the end of handbook includes major stories and books by and about polygamous groups in Utah and Arizona, including the 2004 publication "God's Brothel," by Andrea Moore-Emmett, but not Jon Krakauer's "Under the Banner of Heaven."

The Colorado property is also mentioned by Winston Blackmore, the bishop of the Bountiful, B.C., FLDS community who was excommunicated by FLDS Prophet Rulon Jeffs in 2002. Rulon Jeffs was ailing at the time and it is widely thought that his son and successor, Warren Jeffs, was behind the ousting of Blackmore.

Warren Jeffs is both secretive and highly restrictive in governing the Short Creek and Eldorado, Texas, compounds. His home in Colorado City has been surrounded by an 8-foot wall with cameras, he has forbidden his followers to watch television and he travels with bodyguards.

Blackmore, on the other hand, employs technology as part of his battle against Jeffs for control of the Bountiful (and perhaps the larger) FLDS community. Blackmore has a Web site (www.sharethelight.ca) on which he has posted 10 issues of his 4-page newsletter, "The North Star," since Jan. 15, 2003. On a biographical page, he expresses his "huge gratitude that the Lord was kind enough to me to remove me from the workings of the present administration of the FLDS under Warren Jeffs."

In a manifesto of his own, Blackmore says, in a Dec. 28 story captioned "We are Canadian!" that "It is time to make sure that our children go through grade twelve in school," a contrast with the record the Bountiful schools have had and with the limited education offered in the main FLDS group, under former schoolmaster Warren Jeffs. Lest anyone doubt his commitment to plural marriage: "We have as much right to live in our multiple family relationships as ever anyone has that is cheating on their spouses, or is on their fifth husband or wife, or into their tenth relationship."

The Dec. 28 newsletter also has a story on the UEP - the United Effort Plan trust that owns all the FLDS property in Short Creek and Bountiful. In a sidebar, he observes, "Millions of dollars worth of funds owned by the UEP have been transferred from Utah and Arizona to Texas and Colorado for the purchase of land that is not in the UEP."

Blackmore's comment coincides with evidence that David Allred, apparently acting in behalf of Warren Jeffs and the FLDS, paid top dollar for the Mancos Valley parcels north of Joe Moore Reservoir that he purchased in July 2003 and October 2004.

It is also supported by the series of reports in the Eldorado Success, recounting the tremendous investment of FLDS labor and capital that has been made in the 1,691-acre YFZ compound in Schleicher County, Texas, outside the town of Eldorado. The latest issue of the Success (www.myeldorado.net) shows the basement of the temple, estimated to be 16 feet deep, ringed with structural steel uprights that appear to be 50 feet high.

Editor Randy Mankin also reports an increase in workers at the YFZ (thought to mean Yearning for Zion) compound, where work on the buildings continues virtually round-the-clock. Speculation has been voiced in Utah, Arizona and Texas media for some weeks that Jeffs is moving FLDS assets and members from Short Creek to Texas to escape growing legal pressure in Utah and Arizona.

Jeffs is a defendant in two state and one federal civil suit in Utah. In the two state complaints, plaintiffs' attorneys have filed for compensatory and punitive damages and seek to have the UEP assets seized to ensure that Jeffs does not move them out of reach of the Utah courts. None of the properties in Mancos or Texas have been purchased or placed on the tax rolls in the name of the UEP.

Jeffs has been served notice by publication that he is a defendant in the child molestation complaint brought by his nephew, Brent Jeffs, and the "Lost Boys" suit - six young men who claim they were wrongfully kicked out of the FLDS in order to reduce competition for young women as plural wives for older men.
 
cortezjournal.com
Originally published January 25, 2005
 
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