American polygamist living across the border
 
By Angela Kocherga
KENS 5 Eyewitness News - San Antonio, Texas
 
They're known for taking multiple brides — sometimes even wives as young as 13 years old. Now, some American polygamists are crossing the border to a tiny Mexican town to escape the law.

It could be a classroom anywhere in America until you hear the students recite the school credo in Spanish — after all, this is Mexico. The children share a common heritage and history. Their American ancestors crossed the border to preserve a way of live.

"My dad had seven wives at one time," said Clarence Le Baron, former mayor of Le Baron, Mexico.

His grandfather was a Mormon bishop and also a polygamist, who left the United States during a crackdown on polygamy in 1890.

"They actually came down and settled 13 Mormon colonies, kind of similar to the 13 U.S. colonies," Le Baron said.

This colony, in the Mexican border state of Chihuahua, bears Clarence's grandfather's name: Le Baron.

"He said the nice thing about Mexico is if you don't have enough freedom, you can always buy a little more," Le Baron said.

Le Baron owns a successful carpentry business. He has one wife, but some here still practice polygamy.

"There's some that live it," Le Baron resident Lillian Tucker said. "It's not something we demand or teach our kids to do. It's their choice."

It's a choice Tucker made years ago. She shares her husband with another woman who lives nearby. Tucker cannot imagine anywhere she'd rather build a family.

"I can afford it. The stress level is very low. My kids go to school right across the wall there," Tucker said.

She has 16 kids of her own; the youngest is nearly two months old. For a time, this mother raised the older children in the United States but often worried.

"You could have a predator living in the same neighborhood and you wouldn't really know," Tucker said.

The peace of mind Tucker found in Mexico would be threatened by what happened hundreds of miles away in Colorado City, Ariz. A SWAT team surrounded the home of Orson William Black, a polygamist facing criminal charges.

But Black slipped across the border into Mexico.

Despite its history, many locals here in Le Baron say they do not welcome polygamists who are crossing the border to evade the law. Town leaders warned Black he could not hide there.

Witnesses say Black lived in a house near the town of Le Baron with several wives, including two teenage girls — the youngest just 13.

The former mayor of Buenaventura, Mexico, says several American polygamists with child brides have tried to turn Le Baron into a hideout.

Neighbors say Black has left the area near the town of Le Baron.

Local authorities told us no one notified them Black is a wanted man in Arizona, and federal police in Mexico do not have the necessary warrant to arrest him if they find him.

Sources say he's moved to a remote mountain village south of Le Baron — still on the run with his American wives and children.

Meanwhile, the town of Le Baron seems to be running from its past. The families who've found a haven in Mexico vow it will no longer be a hideout for those fleeing the law.

One of the groups turned away from Le Baron, Mexico, is slowly becoming familiar in Texas.

An ever-growing compound is being built about 200 miles west of San Antonio near the West Texas town of Eldorado, where a secretive, religious community part that is part of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has made its home.
 
mysanantonio.com
Originally published February 22, 2005
 
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