Together Again

After almost two agonizing months, Sandra Jeffs walked into a shelter near Houston on Monday to reclaim her 1-year-old daughter, Annette. The toddler, like some 400 other children, had been taken away by Texas authorities in early April in a crackdown on a religious sect that practices polygamy.

When Sandra appeared, the little girl, fair-haired and cherubic, seemed puzzled at the sight of her mother. It had, after all, been such a long time for a little one. Rather than lift her arms to her mother, she reached instead for a shelter worker.

"She had forgotten me," says Sandra, 26. "It hurt more than I can even describe.

The children were returned to their mothers this week after two court rulings in Texas found that state child-welfare officials overstepped their bounds in the sudden and drastic intervention at the Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado. The community calls itself the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a group that long ago broke away from the mainstream Mormon church.

 State authorities insist the removal of the children was motivated by serious concerns about abuse. The raid had been prompted by a call from a person claiming to be a 16-year-old girl being beaten by a 50-year-old "husband." The source of the call has never been identified; church members and, now, some authorities, suspect it was a hoax.

Still, some lawyers continue to express deep anxiety about the leadership of the polygamous community. Deborah Keenum, who was assigned to represent 11 of the children, noted that recent court evidence included pictures of sect leader Warren Jeffs, now imprisoned for serving as an accessory to rape, passionately kissing a 12-year-old "bride," pictures she found "disturbing, completely disturbing." She adds: "Those children need to be protected. And if mothers allowed that to happen, then that's a failure to protect under state law." Investigators continue to sift through DNA results, which started coming back this week, looking for signs of underage marriages or sexual abuse among the group. Willie Jessop, a spokesman for the sect, on Monday issued a "clarification" that the church would not preside over the marriage of any woman under the age of legal consent. He said the church will tell families that they cannot request or permit any underage marriages. To counter what he has described as malicious and inaccurate information about the sect, Jessop says the church has started a Web site, www.captivefldschildren.org.

Jessop compared the actions of Jeffs to Roman Catholic priests who have been accused of sexual abuse with minors. "Would it be right if you took down the entire Catholic church," he asked, on the basis of isolated priests? He warned that the state's interference in the sect should worry other religious groups. "If they can do it here in this community, they can do it in yours."