Evidence presented in the trial court indicated that the Department began its investigation of the YFZ Ranch on March 29th, when it received a report of sexual abuse of a sixteen-year-old girl on the property. On April 3rd, the Department entered the Ranch along with law-enforcement personnel and conducted nineteen interviews of girls aged seventeen or under, as well as fifteen to twenty interviews of adults. In the course of these interviews, the Department learned there were many polygamist families living on the Ranch; a number of girls under the age of eighteen living on the Ranch were pregnant or had given birth; both interviewed girls and adults considered no age too young for a girl to be “spiritually” married; and the Ranch’s religious leader, “Uncle Merrill,” had the unilateral power to decide when and to whom they would be married. Additionally, in the trial court, the Department presented “Bishop’s Records” — documents seized from the Ranch — indicating the presence of several extremely young mothers or pregnant “wives”[1] on the Ranch: a sixteen-year-old “wife” with a child, a sixteen-year-old pregnant “wife,” two pregnant fifteen-year-old “wives,” and a thirteen-year-old who had conceived a child.
The testimony of Dr. William John Walsh, the families’ expert witness, confirmed that the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints accepts the age of “physical development” (that is, first menstruation) as the age of eligibility for “marriage.”
How LOW does that age go?
There is another thread on FR where a girl (not related to the FLDS case) was raped, and has consequently had a child.
Apparently, she had already had her first ‘menstruation’.
Right? Now, the girl is 10 years old.
According to the doctrines of Warren Jeffs, she would be good to go for a child-bride.
Therein lies the problem.
The LAW states a specific age, and the FLDS members don’t believe in the law, nor even know what the Law is.
I say that because they have even stated so publicly.
The ten-yo thing is just sick, I agree.
Now, back on topic - “conducted nineteen interviews of girls aged seventeen or under”
How many of these were actually of the 31 adults they kidnapped, claiming they were seventeen or under?