This edit of my work on the Texas raid on the YFZ Ranch that won 1st place from the Society of Professional Journalists’ Utah Headliners. I could only submit twelve photographs in which to tell the story.
Eldorado, Texas - In April 2008, Child Protective Services (CPS) raided a polygamous sect's Texas ranch and removed 416 children after receiving phone calls, now believed to be a hoax, from someone claiming to be an abused sixteen-year-old girl. This raid on the FLDS Church's YFZ (Yearning for Zion) Ranch became the largest child custody case in United States history. Here, on the first night of removals, young FLDS women and children are taken into shelter at the First Baptist Church in Eldorado, Texas.
Eldorado, Texas - As law enforcement officials fearing a Waco-type incident prepare to breach the polygamous sect's temple at the YFZ Ranch, Texas State Troopers speed through a roadblock, en route to reinforce the assault which would meet with only minimal non-violent resistance.
Eldorado, Texas - After removing nearly 500 women and children from the polygamous sect's YFZ Ranch, local law enforcement officials and the FBI breached the bolted doors to the polygamous sect's temple, producing hundreds of boxes of evidence to be sifted through in a search for proof of sexual abuse and underage marriage.
Eldorado, Texas - In justifying the removal nearly 500 women and children from the YFZ Ranch, Marleigh Meisner, spokesperson for Texas Child Protective Services, expressed the agency's concerned opinion that the FLDS culture was one of abuse which raised young girls to be married off to older men and young boys to become sexual predators.
San Angelo, Texas - Janet, an FLDS matriarch, tearfully embraces young girls as they arrive at the historic Fort Concho, where hundreds of FLDS women and children would be temporarily sheltered in primitive buildings such as former horse barns. The large amount of people that Texas Child Protective Services called victims threatened to overwhelm the state's foster care system.
San Angelo, Texas - Young FLDS women gather behind a fence at Fort Concho, waving to other FLDS women in another building out of view. Texas Child Protective Services and Texas State Troopers made every effort to keep the nearly 500 women and children in custody out of view and out of contact, going so far as to confiscate their cel phones.
San Angelo, Texas - A group of FLDS boys run from journalists at Fort Concho after being ordered away by Texas Child Protective Services officials. Soon CPS would separate the mothers from their children and spread the children into shelters throughout the state.
Eldorado, Texas - Back on the YFZ Ranch for the first time since the raid began ten days earlier, Marie Musser, an FLDS mother of three, clings to a post for support while telling the story of CPS taking her children from her earlier that day. For a secretive group that had long kept the outside world at a distance, the thought of their children living in the modern world among outsiders and without their parents had become a painful reality.
San Angelo, Texas - Hundred of attorneys, officials, and FLDS members lined up to get through security and into the Tom Green County Courthouse for the initial hearing to decide the fate of the 416 children removed in the raid on the FLDS Church's YFZ Ranch. As each child and parent were entitled to a state-appointed attorney, the hearing was quickly bogged down with objections from dozens of attorneys. After two long days of hearings, including twenty-one hours of testimony, Judge Barbara Walther ruled that CPS could keep the FLDS children in foster care until at least the next hearing, scheduled for two months after the raid began.
San Angelo, Texas - FLDS member Dan Jessop and his wife Louisa Bradshaw wade through media cameras as they leave the Tom Green County Courthouse after a custody hearing on the status of their newborn son. CPS had refused proof that Bradshaw was an adult until her child was born in state custody, at which point they sought to take custody of the newborn. Bradshaw did her case no good by refusing to answer such seemingly simple questions as who attended her wedding and who else lived in her home.
Eldorado, Texas - Nearly two months after 416 FLDS children had been removed from the polygamous sect's YFZ Ranch, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that CPS must return the children due to a lack of sufficient evidence. Having spent two months in a shelter, Edson Jessop's young sons Zachery, Ephraim and Russell Jessop wanted nothing more than to see an end to the persistent media coverage and return to their quiet family life on the ranch.
Eldorado, Texas - FLDS member Sarah Draper waits to testify to a grand jury at the Schleicher County Courthouse. Though CPS was forced to return over four-hundred FLDS children to their parents, evidence seized in the raid led to grand jury hearings that resulted in sexual abuse and underage marriage charges being filed against several FLDS men including the polygamous sect's imprisoned leader Warren Jeffs. The men are currently awaiting trial while courts examine the validity of the search warrants.
