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Inside the weird world and the palatial churches of the Mormon polygamist sectLast updated at 18:40pm on 9th April 2008
Many of the teenage girls were pregnant and some already had babies. Few of the 416 youngsters brought out of the sect in the Texas desert knew their full names, their birth dates or could even identify their own mothers. Some had been beaten so badly they suffered broken bones and younger girls, some as young as 12 and 13, had been expected to have sex with much older men.
Scroll down for more...  Compound: The sect built giant, elaborate temples on the West Texas ranch   Place of worship: The gleaming 80ft high temple has been searched throroughly by the FBI 
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Ominously, a disproportionate number of the children, ranging in age from toddlers to 17-year-olds, had the surname Jeffs, as in Warren Jeffs, the leader and self-styled prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, rumoured to have more than 80 wives and 250 children. But yesterday, as the youngsters played with donated toys, social workers claimed the shadow of fear was finally lifting for the children of the Yearning for Zion Ranch. Scroll down for more...  White light: The building standout in the barren landscape  A sinister picture of systematic underage sexual abuse and violence was emerging for the first time from interviews with the children and some of the 140 mothers with them following a police raid on the isolated compound in Eldorado, Texas. Still wearing their hand-sewn ankle-length pioneer dresses, the women and girls were hesitant in talking to officials after years and sometimes generations spent cloistered in the male-dominated sect. But child welfare officials allege in court documents released yesterday that the 1,700-acre compound was rife with sexual abuse, with girls being "spiritually married" and "conditioned to expect and accept sexual activity with adult men at the ranch" as soon as they reach puberty and boys groomed to perpetuate the cycle.
Scroll down for more...  Dark secret: Girls as young as ten were married off to middle-aged men   Grand entrance: FBI investigators enter the sect's giant church building yesterday 
It was only when the teenage girls were removed from the ranch that investigators discovered that many of them were pregnant, some for the second time. The children were all removed and taken into temporary state custody on the grounds that they were in danger of "emotional, physical and/or sexual abuse". "A number of the children interviewed were unable or unwilling to provide the names of their biological parents or identified multiple mothers," said Lynn McFadden, an investigator with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
Scroll down for more...  Rescued: Female members of sect are escorted onto a school bus in Eldorado, Texas  Relieved: A group of women church members tearfully embrace after being reunited at Fort Concho, Texas
She added that mothers did not appear to know the full names of many of the children. Two surnames ? Jeffs and Jessop, the name of compound leader Merrill Jessop ? came up repeatedly when officials were checking identities. Jeffs, who took over leadership of the church on his father's death in 2002, was rumoured to rule the church with a rod of iron before his arrest in August 2006. The 51-year-old, who is awaiting another trial in Arizona on child-sex charges, preached that every man must have at least three wives to achieve the highest glory in Heaven.
 Spiritual leader: Warren Jeffs is currently in jail in Arizona Children living in the self-contained ranch were deprived of food and forced to sit in closed cupboards as a form of discipline, said the court documents. The secretive sect broke away from the mainstream Mormon Church when it banned polygamy in 1890 and claims about 10,000 members who still practise plural marriages in Utah, Arizona and Texas. The raid was triggered by a call to a family help centre last week from a terrified 16-year-old girl, who said she was the mother of an eight-month-old baby and pregnant with a second child. She claimed to be the seventh "spiritual" wife of a 49-year-old man and said she had been beaten so badly that her ribs were broken. When he was angry, she said, he would hit her while other women held her baby. The most recent attack was on Easter Sunday. Although she tried to retract her claims in a flood of tears, police and local authorities raided the ranch on Friday and removed the last of the children by Monday night. The teenager who called for help is thought to be among the children now being looked after at a 150-year-old fort about 40 miles from the compound, but too afraid to identify herself. The man she claimed to be her polygamist husband is in Arizona and claims he does not know her. Last night, the men were still being detained by police and the FBI behind the gates of their desert hideaway. They face DNA testing to determine which of the children they fathered. Meanwhile, the children were playing happily with toys brought by churches and local charities. "The sounds of glee, the shouts, the joy," said Helen Pfluger of the First Baptist Church. "They were having an awesome time."
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