"The devil is here... We're afraid
something may happen here."
May 24, 2004 CBS 11 (transcript) The people who live here
in Eldorado call it your typical West Texas country town.
"Very friendly... community oriented... Neighbor helps
neighbor." And the hottest topic among the neighbors isn't
the newest item on the menu at Rosa's Cafe. It's the new people
moving into town. A fundamentalist sect of the Church of Jesus
Christ Latter Day Saints... or the F-L-D-S. They are polygamists.
"They did explain under their religion, having three
wives will get them on the higher end to heaven." Schleicher
County Sheriff Dave Doran recently held a meeting in the town
square to calm many nervous residents. "The devil is here...
We're afraid something may happen here." Something is happening
here. But you wouldn't know it from outside the gate to this
16-hundred acres on the north side of town. These trucks... and
a crane are the only clues... a community is rising. "They
came in basically under the radar."
The only way to see what's going on here is from the air.
"It looks like the beginning of a town." And since
construction began in January the sect has put up five buildings.
And crews have laid the foundation for a sixth one. "They
do a lot of their coming and going at night.. so we never do
see what's brought in."
At first, the F-L-D-S said they were building a hunting retreat.
But then came the truth... they're building what they call the
"yearn for zion" ranch. A place where Prophet Warren
Jeffs can move 200 of his most loyal followers. As many as eight
thousand people now live in the border towns of Colorado City,
Arizona and Hildale, Utah. It's a secretive society... and their
elders don't do any interviews. They've attracted a lot of attention
there. Amid accusations some of the men marry girls 16 and under...
and have children with them. Flora Jessop who says she fled the
polygamist society is now on a mission. During the middle of
the night she helps other teenage girls get out.
"It's the only chance they've got to live." In a
highly publicized case, Jessop helped 16-year-olds Fawn Broadbent
and Fawn Holm escape. "I don't want to become a 50-year-old
man's wife." [Source: The Berean Call Ministry] |