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Updated 6:23 PM- SAN ANGELO, Texas - Following testimony from FLDS mothers today, the judge hearing the custody case involving 416 children taken from a polygamous sect's compound has gone into her chamber to decide the case.
The FLDS mothers testified today that they will do whatever Judge Barbara Walther requires, including moving away from the YFZ ranch and getting jobs, to regain custody of their children.
Merilyn Jeffs, 27, said she will move and get a job to support her 7-year-old daughter, adding that she would never agree to an underage marriage.
"I will have her wait," she said, adding that she was married at 20. "That's a good age."
Linda Musser, 56 and divorced, said she would do the same if Walther requires it as a condition of regaining custody of her 13-year-old son. Musser was with her 29-year-old daughter, who was hospitalized in Lubbock when the raid began on April 3, and she hurried to return, only to find her son had been taken into custody.
Musser moved to the ranch in August, and told the court that if she had to leave, she would prefer to go to Lubbock with her son to be close to her daughter.
The women's attorneys put them on the stand to describe their living circumstances, their marriages, personal details of their lives and what they'd be willing to do to get their children back.
Lori Jessop, who has been with her three small children since the raid, said it concerns her that 15- and 16-year-old girls at the ranch become brides and mothers. She said she is in a monogamous marriage with a 27-year-old man.
Now 25, Jessop said she married at 18, and has worked as an emergency medical techician. She told Walther that she would take parenting classes or whatever the Texas Child Protective Services requires for her to regain custody.
Her attorney elicited testimony to show Jessop is free to make independent choices, but the state tried to show that she is dependent on the church. Jessop conceded that she does not know who owns her home and that she could be forced to leave at any time.
And Lucille Nielsen, who also has been staying in the CPS shelter with her son, who is nearly 2, described the ranch as "peaceful and loving."
The soft-spoken Nielsen said she cares for her own child and seven other children belonging to her two sister wives and their husband. They are fed three meals and two snacks every day, go to school and are taken on strolls to the garden. Discipline, she said, is "with love, never harsh."
Nielson said her father first broached the topic of her marriage when she was 18, but she didn't feel ready. She married just before her 20th birthday, she said.
"I plead with the judge to allow my son to remain with me."
Earlier today, William John Walsh, a Mormon scholar who has studied the FLDS religion for 18 years, said it's not part of FLDS doctrine or scripture that teenage girls marry and have sex with older men.
Walsh's testimony came as attorneys for the fathers left behind at the FLDS ranch near Eldorado, Texas, began to present their case in a custody hearing here. Some 57 men remained on the YFZ Ranch after a days-long raid earlier this month left 416 children in state custody.
Texas authorities earlier had said that one reason for the raid was to protect underage girls from arranged marriages with older men in the sect. "It's a major distortion to say they should engage in adolescent sexual activity," Walsh said.
In fact, Walsh said, it's quite rare for teens in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to marry, although he said the practice has been encouraged more since Warren S. Jeffs, the faith's imprisoned leader, succeeded his father as prophet in 2002.
"There are a variety of opinions as to when is the right time to marry among the FLDS," said Walsh, who acknowledged that parents and church leaders may pick mates for their daughters. "Basically they're matchmakers," he said. The negotiations include the girl, her parents and church leaders.
An attorney, referring to investigators' discovery of beds in the temple the FLDS have built on the ranch, asked Walsh if that's an FLDS practice. The temple, however, is the first to be built by FLDS faithful on any of their properties in several states and Canada.
Walsh said that in the mainstream LDS faith, there is a bed in temples because those who enter them to do hours-long spiritual work often have been fasting and grow faint.
In earlier testimony, a key witness for state attorneys seeking to retain custody of more than 400 FLDS children this morning said there was little their mothers could do to get them back.
Texas Child Protective Services chief investigator Angie Voss testified yesterday boys in the polygamous sect are groomed to become perpetrators of sexual assault, and girls become their victims. Today, she rejected scenarios proposed by attorneys that might lead to the return of the children.
Psychiatrist Bruce Perry of Texas, also took the stand this morning. Perry has worked with children from the Branch Davidian sect.
The psychiatrist said he has found much to be admired about the FLDS - mothers who are loving and respectful of their children, he said. But, he said, "the environment is authoritarian."
Perry testified that "young girls who are 14, 15 or 16 are not emotionally mature enough to enter into healthy sexual relationships" and also focused his testimony on the limited choices available to FLDS children.
Friday was the second day of the historic custody hearing that has brought together hundreds of volunteer attorneys representing the children, FLDS parents, and reporters. At stake: the future of 416 boys and girls now housed in a pavilion and coliseum in San Angelo.
Officials have said they do not know if the 16-year-old girl who prompted the raid is in state custody. Authorities say a girl named Sarah made a series of telephone calls to the crisis line at NewBridge Family Shelter on March 29 and March 30.
Court documents say the girl spoke of becoming the seventh wife of a 50-year-old man named "Dale" and conceiving her first child at 15. She described being beaten by her husband, once so badly she needed treatment at a hospital for broken ribs, and said she wanted to leave the ranch.