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Missing: One mayor of a polygamous Arizona town.

The U.S. Justice Department wants to serve Colorado City Mayor Joseph Allred with a subpoena ordering him to appear as a witness at next month's civil rights trial. According to court filings, the Justice Department's process server has been unable to find the 43-year-old Allred.

So a judge Monday approved a motion to serve Allred by mailing the subpoena to Colorado City's Town Hall and posting the subpoena on the building's door.

Documents accompanying the motion show the lengths that the process server, private investigator Sam Brower, has gone in trying to serve Allred.

Brower, in an affidavit, says he "was denied access to the Colorado City Town Hall many times."

The building has a foyer with a door separating the foyer from the town offices. A receptionist must push a button to open the door and admit a visitor into the offices. Brower, in his affidavit, describes multiple occasions in which a receptionist over an intercom or in person told him Allred was not at the Town Hall and that no one knew when Allred would be there.

Brower tried to serve the mayor at a Nov. 16 City Council meeting, but Allred apparently wasn't there. The next day, Brower and a Mohave County, Ariz., deputy tried to serve the mayor at his home.

"Although there were people and vehicles at the residence," Brower wrote, "there was no response to repeated knocks on the doors."

One young man exited the house, was surprised to see Brower and the deputy, and said he didn't know if Allred was inside.

Court documents also include emails between attorneys for the Justice Department and Colorado City in which the feds ask for a time and place to serve Allred.

"Let me check with Mayor Allred and get back to you," Colorado City attorney Jeff Matura wrote Nov. 18.

The court filings do not include another email from Matura.

Colorado City and adjoining Hildale, Utah, are home to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Finding members of the sect to serve them with court papers has been a longstanding problem

A former marshal for the towns, Helaman Barlow, has testified that the towns had a system for warning residents over municipal-owned radios when a process server was in town. Lawyers in both civil and criminal cases frequently seek permission from judges to serve Hildale and Colorado City residents through alternative means, such as door postings or buying legal ads in newspapers.

Allred has been evasive even when law enforcement has located him. During a civil trial in 2014 — when the two towns were accused of denying utilities to a family who is not FLDS — Allred cited his Fifth Amendment rights and refused to answer any questions on the witness stand.

Then, in August of this year, Allred's 5-year-old son, Jerold, went missing on northern Arizona's Kaibab National Forest. Police reports show Allred was hesitant to let investigators speak to the boy's mother and other family members.

Jerold was found dead four days after his disappearance. An autopsy determined he died of exposure. The death was ruled an accident.

Twitter: @natecarlisle