Teen's calls led to raid, search
 
By Paul A. Anthony
San Angelo Standard-Times
 
ELDORADO - Last week's joint raid on the Mormon splinter sect compound - which sent shock waves through Eldorado, as well as through Utah and Arizona, where the FLDS is based - developed out of phone calls from a teen claiming an underage marriage to a 50-year-old man, a local prosecutor said.

Authorities continue to search for Dale Barlow, 50, who is accused of fathering a girl with a Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints member who was 15 when she gave birth. Allison Palmer, first assistant 51st District attorney, said officials believe Barlow is in Utah or Arizona and may have been detained and released by authorities there since the warrant was issued.

Palmer prosecutes felony cases in Schleicher County, of which Eldorado is the seat. That city of about 1,700 is about 45 miles south of San Angelo.

Authorities also do not yet know the whereabouts of the girl, now 16, nor of her baby, now about 8 months old. They may be among the dozens of children removed from the compound, or they may be elsewhere.

Barlow's probation officer told The Salt Lake Tribune that he is in Arizona.

"He said the authorities had called him (in Colorado City, Ariz.) and some girl had accused him of assaulting her and he didn't even know who she was," said Bill Loader, a probation officer in Arizona.

Barlow was sentenced to jail time last year after pleading no contest to conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor. He also was ordered to register as a sex offender for three years while he is on probation.

His lawyer in that case, Bruce Griffen, said he had not spoken to Barlow in a year.

Palmer, in an interview Saturday with the Standard-Times, revealed for the first time the raid's genesis.

The girl called authorities at least twice, Palmer said - once March 29 and again the next day. Palmer declined to say which agency the girl telephoned, but said it was not by dialing 9-1-1, and that the girl said she was calling from inside the ranch.

"She didn't use the term 'forced into marriage,'" Palmer said. "She indicated that she was underage and had a (50)-year-old husband."

According to a search-and-arrest warrant filed Thursday in Tom Green County state district court and released by the court Friday afternoon, the girl named Barlow as her husband and said he had fathered her child.

Doing the math, Palmer said, the girl could have been no older than 15 at the time of conception, and state law does not allow any kind of marriage for girls younger than 16.

"You have a 15-year-old child who was assaulted by the father of her baby," Palmer said. "That is not a marriage the state of Texas has been prepared to recognize."

Obtaining the warrant, signed at 5:30 p.m. Thursday by 51st District Judge Barbara Walther, was the final step in a more than three-day process of preparing to raid the ranch, find the teen and her baby, arrest the father and determine whether other crimes have been occurring at the compound.

The group's most recent leader, Warren Jeffs, was convicted last year of rape by accomplice for forcing a 14-year-old girl to marry her 19-year-old cousin, and officials suspected they may find other children in need of state care, Palmer said.

"If (underage polygamy) is the practice of this religion," she said, "CPS needed to be prepared."

CPS has yet to determine whether the girl and her baby are among the children removed from the compound Friday and Saturday, said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.

State law requires nearly immediate emergency hearings when CPS determines a child should be removed from the parents, meaning the 18 girls' cases likely will be heard Monday in Tom Green County District Court.

Meisner said the timing of any hearing ultimately is at Walther's discretion.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
 
gosanangelo.com
Originally published Sunday, April 6, 2008
 
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