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Sarah Barlow's tearful pleas were convincing: She was a desperate, pregnant 16-year-old mother in need of rescue.

Her calls to a battered women's shelter in Snohomish County, Wash., began on March 22. She started calling the NewBridge Family Shelter in San Angelo, Texas, on March 29. Anti-polygamy activist Flora Jessop in Phoenix says she received her first call from Sarah the next day.

Sarah's pain and the details she offered had the shelter workers and Jessop certain her story was legitimate.

"She has lived [through this kind of abuse]," Jessop says. "I believe she has lived this."

On April 3, Texas Rangers entered the YFZ Ranch in Eldorado, where Sarah claimed her polygamous husband was physically and sexually abusing her. Their unsuccessful search for Sarah triggered the massive raid that swept more than 450 children from the ranch - home to members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - into state custody.

The FLDS assert authorities knew before the raid that Sarah's calls to the San Angelo shelter had been made with a cell phone registered in the area of Colorado Springs, Colo.

Had police traced the owner first, the sect argues, they would have linked the phone to Rozita Swinton, a Colorado woman with a history of hoax calls.

Police eventually made the connection, court documents show, discovering the two shelters and Jessop got calls from Sarah via the same phone - one registered to Courtney Swinton, the name of Rozita's younger brother.

But in the meantime, Sarah kept calling.

"Taking all our kids!"

On the day of the raid, Jessop got another call from the voice she had come to recognize as Sarah. But the caller now said she was Laura, Sarah's twin sister. Sarah's sister wives were holding her 8-month-old baby girl, Claire, hostage on the YFZ Ranch so she could not escape, Laura claimed.

Laura was angry, Jessop said, because authorities were supposed to meet Sarah at the gate of the ranch - not raid it.

"And she said, 'Can you hear my dad? He's on the phone, can you hear my dad? ... He's yelling right now, he's yelling: they're taking all of our kids!"

Days later, Sarah told the Washington state shelter she was among the FLDS women and children in state custody in San Angelo. She explained she was using the cell phone of a Colorado cousin. And she dropped in small, accurate details, such as the name of a woman who worked at the San Angelo shelter, which had not been reported by news media, and a rainstorm that hit one night, according to a later Colorado arrest warrant request.

By April 10, the Washington shelter had called officers in Schleicher County, where the ranch is located. That day, a deputy was linked in to a call from Sarah and offered to help her leave the FLDS group in state custody. But when he pressed her to reveal herself, she declined or hung up.

The trail to Colorado

By April 13, Texas Rangers had talked to a Colorado Springs police officer who recognized one of the numbers Sarah used to call the San Angelo shelter as one connected to an earlier investigation.

The next day, a Colorado Springs detective told Texas Rangers about Swinton's history of false abuse reports. The Rangers responded they were headed to Colorado, the warrant request said.

On April 16, police searched Swinton's apartment and arrested her on suspicion of making an unrelated hoax call in Colorado. She posted bond later that day.

Despite reports about Swinton, child welfare officials said they still believed Sarah existed. A spokeswoman for the San Angelo shelter agreed: "She had so much information about what was going on at the compound."

The day after Swinton was released on bail, Jessop got a call from the familiar voice of Sarah. But the caller now said she was "Rose," a friend of Laura, Sarah's sister. But Jessop confronted her.

"I've been talking to you for two weeks now and I have a bunch of lies and tricks that you've played on me," Jessop says on a tape of their conversation, the last they had.

"It wasn't like that," Rose says, sobbing.

"Yeah, it was like that. You told me your name was Laura, her name was Sarah, and that [Sarah's husband] hurt you guys," Jessop said. "OK. That is a lie, a straight up lie. You got a bunch of people getting searched over a bunch of lies, honey. You've got to understand that's not all right."

"It's the truth," Rose said, nearly hysterical. "It's her story."

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