All eyes turn toward Eldorado
 
The Eldorado Success
Work continued Tuesday on the FLDS temple four miles north of Eldorado on the YFZ Ranch.

Work continued Tuesday on the FLDS temple four miles north of Eldorado on the YFZ Ranch. Many FLDS observers believe Prophet Warren Jeffs will host a large gathering of his followers there on Wednesday, April 6th. The date is important both to mainline and fundamentalist Mormons since it marks the 175th anniversary of the founding of the Mormon Church by Joseph Smith.

Investigators from three states and a small army of print and broadcast journalists are looking toward Eldorado this week, wondering what Warren Jeffs, the self-proclaimed prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is going to do next.

Many of Jeffs critics, some of them excommunicated members of the FLDS, say that he plans something big for April 6, which just happens to be the 175th anniversary of the founding of the mainline Mormon Church.

Jeffs and his followers believe that it is they, and not the current LDS Church, who are the true descendants of Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith, prompting some to see it as logical that he will use the occasion for a ceremonial purpose. Some of Jeffs most ardent detractors go so far as to predict the group will commit mass suicide, Jonestown-style, in order to protect their Prophet from his enemies.

Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran doesn’t buy into the doomsday scenario.

“Each year this group holds a church conference on April 6, and I expect they will do the same this year,” Doran told the Success on Tuesday.

The sheriff says he is aware of the intense media interest surrounding the April 6 date and says that he knows a number of reporters have already made plans to be in Eldorado on that day. With that in mind, Doran says he has been in contact with YFZ officials and that he hopes to arrange for law enforcement officers to be on the property April 6.

“I don’t anticipate any problems,” Doran said, “but the best way to avoid them is to be prepared.”

Warren Jeffs was and is under investigations by Utah and Arizona authorities. Recently, the plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought against Jeffs and his church, asked a Utah judge to remove him as head of the United Effort Plan Trust, a charitable trust operated by the church, when the Jeffs failed to offer a defense in the case. The judge has yet to act on the request but Jeffs could lose much of his financial clout if the judge rules against him.

Jeffs’ failure to defend other lawsuits means that he is likely to lose control of UEP property that makes up much of the twin cities of Colorado City and Hildale, the FLDS stronghold on the Arizona-Utah border. That property is said to be the source of much of his wealth.

The possibility that Jeffs’ financial empire is crumbling leads many FLDS observers to surmise he is hurrying to complete his New Zion at the YFZ Ranch, before he runs out of money.

Is Jeffs simply using April 6 as a ploy to entice his followers to work harder, or could there be something more sinister at work? Perhaps everyone is wrong and Jeffs is laughing at the media circus that surrounds him.

Since neither Jeffs nor his lieutenants speak publicly, we may never know.

For his part, Sheriff Doran says he and his officers will be watching, just in case.

The Eldorado Success invites Warren Jeffs and/or other leaders of the FLDS church to comment on this or any other story surrounding the FLDS and the YFZ Ranch.
 
MyEldorado.net
Originally published April 1, 2005
 
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