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HUNTINGTON - Anger and frustration at Crandall Canyon mine co-owner Robert Murray has boiled over among some families who are clinging to hope that six trapped miners might still be alive.

Murray has been asked not to brief families anymore on efforts to try to reach the trapped miners after a confrontation with two families at a briefing this week, one of the families said Wednesday night.

Jackie Taylor told reporters that family members also are angry that Murray and federal officials are saying that any bodies likely will be left in the mine and not recovered.

Taylor is the mother of Lacee Taylor, girlfriend of Brandon Phillips, one of the six miners trapped on Aug. 6 when a large portion of the coal mine collapsed. The two also were accompanied by Cassie Phillips, the sister of the 24-year-old miner. Phillips declined to comment.

Jackie Taylor, of Castle Dale, said she had a confrontation Monday with Murray, chief executive of Murray Energy Corp., after he bluntly told families the miners were likely dead.

"He came in yelling," she said.

Taylor said she asked him if Murray knew how the families felt.

"He said, 'Yes, I have felt this.' I said, 'When?' And all he could do was sit and yell at us and tell me I was out of control. He has never felt this before. He doesn't know what we're going through. He doesn't know what the hurt is.

"He hasn't been around when my 18-year-old daughter sits at night and sobs. I've sat there and watched her and held her at night when she's asked, 'Mom, do you think he's cold down there. Mom, what do you think he's feeling now.' "

Taylor also reported a second confrontation between Murray and another family at the same meeting.

"He told them, 'Well you've lectured me twice. I don't want to hear from you anymore either,' " Jackie Taylor said. Taylor said Mine Safety and Health Administration head Richard Stickler apologized to the families, and that he and Emery County Sheriff Lamar Guymon asked Murray not to participate in any more family briefings.

Lacee Taylor, who has dated Phillips for about a year and said that the couple was talking marriage, also complained about Murray's attitude.

" I don't know why Bob is so negative," she said. "Just because we do have hope and every time he talks to us it just makes it like we lose a little bit more hope."

Attorney Sonny Olsen, who is acting as a media liaison for the families of the trapped miners, described the Wednesday family briefing by federal officials as "more of the same" but that families still believe the men may be alive.

"I continue to see people cry when they're given bad news and that tells me they still have hope," Olsen said of the briefing.

Family members and Olsen have begun to urge mine and federal officials to recover the bodies should a sixth bore hole into the mine not yield any evidence the miners survived.

"The hope is Mr. Murray will retract his statement that they won't retrieve them if in fact they did perish," said Olsen, "that he'll find some way and utilize some method regardless if it takes three months for the seismic activity to stop. They want some method to do down and get their families."

Jackie Taylor also said retrieving the bodies was important.

"Maybe our family members are not alive but we want them out," she said.

Brandon Phillips, who has a 5-year-old son, had been working at the mine for only three weeks - for the wages, according to Taylor and her daughter.

But Lacee Taylor said her boyfriend also told his sister of a premonition.

"He said, 'I know it's going to cave-in,' " she said. "That's pretty much all he told us. He didn't know when, but he just had a gut feeling something was going to happen."

Meanwhile in Price on Wednesday night, a viewing was held for Brandon Kimber, who was killed in a collapse Aug. 16 when he was part of a team trying to bore through the mine to rescue the trapped miners. His funeral is set for Friday in Moab.

Friday for the families of the trapped miners. The event, starting at 7 p.m. on Main Street, features a raffle, food, prayer and entertainment, according to Mayor Mike Dalpiaz. Contact Debbie Jones at 435-650-1882 or Mava Farrell at 435-472-5954 to make a donation.