Texas polygamist women 'gave birth at 13'

A child welfare worker told a court early today that numerous women at a polygamous church ranch in West Texas may have had children when they were as young as 13.

The testimony came during a hearing to determine the custody of the 416 children swept up in a raid on the San Angelo ranch two weeks ago. The state claims the children were physically and sexually abused.

Child welfare investigator Angie Voss also says that currently at least five girls younger than 18 were pregnant or had children.

They are part of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a renegade Mormon splinter group suspected of forcing underage girls into marriage with older men.

Members deny children were abused and say the state is persecuting them for their faith.

Earlier the hearing in San Angelo descended into farce, with hundreds of lawyers in two packed buildings shouting objections and the judge struggling to maintain order.

The case – clearly one of the biggest, most convoluted child-custody hearings in US history – presented an extraordinary spectacle with big-city lawyers in suits and mothers in 19th-century, pioneer-style dresses packed into a court and a nearby auditorium connected by video.

At issue was an attempt by the state of Texas to strip the parents of custody and place the children in foster homes because of evidence they were being physically and sexually abused by the sect.

As many feared, the proceedings turned into something of a circus – and a painfully slow one.

By late afternoon, US time, only two witnesses had testified, and both only to lay the foundation for documents to be admitted. One witness, a state trooper, was cross-examined by dozens of lawyers, each of them asking the same question on behalf of a child or parent.

But additional details on life at the ranch began to emerge as Ms Voss gave evidence.

She said that if one of the men fell out of favour with the FLDS, his wives and children would be reassigned to other men. The children would then identify the new man as their father.

Ms Voss said that contributed to the problem of identifying children’s family links and their ages.

Texas District Judge Barbara Walther struggled to keep order as she faced 100 lawyers in her 80-year-old Tom Green County court and several hundred more participating over a grainy video feed from an ornate City Hall auditorium two blocks away.

The hearing disintegrated quickly into a barrage of shouted objections and attempts to file motions, with lawyers for the children objecting to objections made by the parents’ lawyers. When the judge sustained an objection to the prolonged questioning of the state trooper, the lawyers cheered.

Upon another objection about the proper admission of medical records of the children, the judge threw up her hands.

“I assume most of you want to make the same objection. Can I have a universal, ’Yes, Judge’?” she said.

In both buildings, the hundreds of lawyers stood and responded in unison: “Yes, Judge.”

But Judge Walther added to the chaos as well by refusing to put medical records and other evidence in electronic form, which could be emailed among the lawyers, because it contained personal information. A courier had to run from the court to the auditorium delivering one document at a time.

“We’re going to handle this the best we can, one client at a time,” Walther said.

The sect came to West Texas in 2003, relocating some members from the church’s traditional home along the Utah-Arizona state line. Its prophet and spiritual leader, Warren Jeffs, is in prison for forcing an underage girl into marriage in Utah.

Ms Voss said through their interviews with girls at the ranch, investigators believed there was a pattern of underage girls given in marriage to older men.

She said that if the prophet told the girl to marry or to lie the girl would do as instructed.

“If the prophet told her to lie she would because the prophet received all his messages from the Heavenly Father,” Ms Voss said.

State officials asked the judge for permission to conduct genetic testing on the children and adults because of difficulty sorting out the sect’s tangled family relationships and matching youngsters with their parents. The judge did not immediately rule.