Teen in tug of war between Vegas and FLDS dominated community
 
By Darcy Spears
KVBC News 3 - Las Vegas
Colorado City

A 16-year-old girl is caught in a tug of war playing out in family court. One side wants to move her into an area in Arizona dominated by the FLDS church, the other is trying to keep her in her native Las Vegas, and away from the polygamist lifestyle.

In Cane Beds, Arizona, just 2 miles outside the FLDS stronghold of Colorado City, residents live a simple, rural life. Not the life one 16-year-old girl wants or can even imagine. And one she fears being dragged into by her own mother.

"The main goal here is to keep Christine the way she's always been her entire life. She was raised here. She's from here. This is where her family is," says Christine's aunt Carol Scott.

But part of the 16-year-old's family has moved to Cane Beds, Arizona, a bedroom community of nearby Colorado City.

"I've been contacted by several people, people who have tried to rescue girls that are there because, you know, even though Warren Jeffs has been captured, it's still is full of people that are living that lifestyle and girls are trying to be rescued from there every day," explains Christine's other aunt, Lynn Reynolds.

Christine's mother and step-father, Jennifer and Marcus Bistline, want to move her there. The town is populated by many members of the Bistline family, including her step-grandfather, Ben Bistline, who wrote a historical book about the FLDS polygamists, and subsequently had his house burned down by church members. Based on that, a family court judge Friday decided to allow Christine to stay in her grandmother's custody in Las Vegas, until they can hold an evidentiary hearing.

"Christine has expressed to me that if this doesn't go her way, that somehow this family in Cane Beds has some sort of underground operation and Christine is afraid that they will come and take her and she'll disappear and we will never see or hear from her again," said Carol.

Though Cane Beds isn't Colorado City and many residents there are FLDS outcasts, many of the polygamist lifestyle beliefs are in place there. "They still aren't allowed to wear make-up, they're not allowed to socialize, they're not allowed to have fun," says Lynn.

Christine would attend Colorado City High School. "They don't even know if it's accredited so that she'd be even able to go to college," says Lynn. "There's no sports. The science class is actually plowing fields, so she wouldn't be doing chemistry or biology, she'd actually be doing stuff like that. There's no football games, there's no prom. There's no shopping. There's no homecoming."

And, no ability to continue in the ROTC program Christine is currently enrolled in.

Through the ROTC she wants to join the military, become a lawyer in the military, and if she were to move and live in Arizona with her mother, that's not a possibility for her and that's the most important thing to her; her future.

The Bistlines were advised by their attorney to hold off on doing an on-camera interview with us until Monday, when a date will be set for their evidentiary hearing. Attorney Robert Lueck says Jennifer and Marcus Bistline will not live the polygamist lifestyle in Arizona, and Jennifer maintains her constitutional right to parent her own child. They do acknowledge, however, that Christine does not want to move there and leave her life in Las Vegas.
 
KVBC.com
Originally broadcast October 9, 2006
 
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