New "Texas Monthly" FLDS Article (The "Sex Bed" is baaaaack...)

I've read through it. The article is incomplete and somewhat one sided. You might want to as well.

"Less apparent in the tranquil setting was a powerful undercurrent of joy: Merrianne Jessop had arrived the night before. There was no 'Welcome Home' banner, no party; such theatrics would have been out of character for these humble, quiet people. But the feeling was there all the same. 'Right now there seems to be a little bit of relief in the air,' said Willie Jessop, the unofficial FLDS spokesman (Jessop is a common surname in the FLDS), as he drove me around the 1,700-acre spread outside Eldorado. Merrianne, a spunky fifteen-year-old with red hair, was happy to be back with her family on the ranch. She was quick to joke, rolling her eyes every now and then for laughs, tossing her head as a light West Texas breeze ruffled her lavender prairie-style dress.

The past year had been an ordeal. In the spring of 2008, the ranch was raided, and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services had removed 437 children, including Merrianne, after a local domestic abuse hotline received a call from someone claiming to be a sixteen-year-old FLDS member. The caller’s report of underage marriage and sexual abuse triggered a massive investigation that led to an epic child custody battle, the largest in U.S. history. The Third Court of Appeals ruled that the removal of the children had been unwarranted, and a chastened DFPS returned the kids to the ranch, though the department continued to investigate the cases. Merrianne’s was the last to be settled.

Her mother, Barbara Jessop, and her new court-appointed guardian, Naomi Carlisle, who is also an FLDS member, seemed giddy as they looked at her. All three of them were confident that the Lord was on their side and that the state had had no right to intervene, never mind the mountains of evidence obtained during the investigation, some of which plainly showed that the FLDS had married young teenage girls to much older men. Never mind that the church’s prophet, Warren Steed Jeffs, was himself in prison for being an accomplice to the rape of a fourteen-year-old. Never mind that criminal charges, including sexual assault and bigamy, were still being brought against twelve men from the ranch. When asked about the upcoming trials, which start on October 26, Merrianne shrugged. 'The truth will prevail,' she said."

The Texas Monthly. There is this interesting allegation, for which I can find no basis in real evidence:

"A document that (Charles) Childress had not seen but was obtained by TEXAS MONTHLY appears to be instructions for the construction of a similar bed. It describes a bed 'covered with a sheet, but it will have a plastic cover to protect the mattress from what will happen on it.' It also described 'padded sides that can be pulled up that will hold me in place as the Lord does His work with me.' What in the world was going on here?"

I have never heard this allegation before, and if this document was found with the bed, why was it not entered into evidence? There is a serious matter implied here, and the even more serious question of why would evidence "obtained" by the Texas Monthly NOT be in the possession of the state?

There is this indictment of Governor Rick Perry:

"Childress wasn’t terribly impressed with the state leadership’s understanding of the situation. 'Going up to the governor, none of them had any idea what was going on,' he says. 'They had no clue.' As he worked through the cases, he says, all the department saw was numbers. ' "The department is losing two hundred some-odd cases!" That’s what was all in the news,' he says. Nonsuits were not 'losses,' a subtlety overlooked in most accounts. Having formed a clearer picture of family structures by way of DNA testing, the DFPS was identifying the individual circumstances of each family and coming up with specific tasks that needed to be done, such as psychological evaluations or parenting classes. By mid-September (last year), more than 250 children’s cases had been nonsuited."

The article seems to be written from the point of view of Mr. Childress. Charles also seems to reflect the attitude I have ascribed to Barbara Walther, and all those on the prosecution side of the issue. Just get this in front of a "West Texas Jury."

"As the months wore on, Childress went down to Austin to attend several meetings and explain his approach. One meeting included Albert Hawkins, the Health and Human Services commissioner; one included representatives from the attorney general’s and governor’s offices. Childress said he wanted to take some cases to trial. 'They’d ask, "Well, can you guarantee us it will win?" "No, there’s no such thing as a guarantee in a jury trial," I said, "but I’m pretty doggone certain that a West Texas jury hearing what all these people have been doing the last ten years is gonna be real reluctant to send these kids back to be raised by Warren Jeffs," ' Childress says. 'I didn’t get any feedback . . . I think they just frankly lacked the courage.'

And so, on October 23, Childress quit."

The article never touches on the evidence challenge. If it's lost, all the evidence Childress worries about is irrelevant from a legal standpoint and he has no cases. It sounds like Rick Perry seems to know that.

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More on Merrianne, Troubled "Visit" with strange family over.

She'll be home with family on Sunday.

The San Angelo Standard-Times - (Merrianne Jessop) will be released from foster care Sunday.

However, Court Appointed Special Advocates argued that the girl should stay in the custody of her San Antonio foster care family. She is the last of the children taken from the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado in April 2008 to be taken out of foster care.

CPS still will have regular visits with the girl and (Naomi) Carlisle. If all parties follow the safety plan laid out, then Carlisle will be granted full custody in September."

It's hard to say that there is a plan here, beyond getting Merrianne home. In a very small way it's a victory for Texas because it preserves the window dressing effect of claiming there was an "abused child." In addition, CPS can regularly visit (read SPY) on the FLDS and look for further "cause."

"During the hearing, CPS caseworker Ashley Kennedy said Jessop has been following all the guidelines in her visitations with the girl during the past two months. Before that, case workers had found text messages on an unauthorized cell phone and unauthorized letters Jessop passed to the girl during visits. Some of the notes seemed to direct the girl's behavior toward foster parents and the attorney.

However, there had been no issues since March 17, and the visits between the girl and Jessop had been going well, Kennedy said."

The press however, cannot resist falling for subtle state spin telling us that the visits between Barbara and her daughter had been "going well" as contrasted to previous visits. "Going well?" read that as Mom and Daughter may very well have been actively conspiring to mess up Texas plans for them and may well have succeeded. Merrianne was not having traumatic visits that upset her with her MOM, Merrianne was on a long visit with a family that deeply troubled and upset her. At some point they STOPPED bucking the system and either got their way partially as a result, or got their way and stopped bucking the system because they didn't need to anymore.

"The girl's attorney refused to answer questions after the trial but told the judge the girl told her she was "bursting at the seams" to live with Carlisle."

Clearly this is no "pro-mom because she's my mom" ambivalence. Merrianne wants to be with her mother. This is not an abused child that loves a flawed mother and chooses her because even children of abuse do that. There is no conflict here.

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