Reply #20: Found something on Warren Jeffs, from a google search

[Judi Lynn]

It's contained in a post by Liberalind2:

In November 2003, David Allen Steed had purchased a 1,691-acre ranch just outside of town, telling locals it would be used as a hunting retreat for business clients from Las Vegas.

But Mankin discovered that Steed was actually an agent for a breakaway Mormon sect known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) and based in an Arizona-Utah border community long known as Short Creek (encompassing the twin cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.).

He began researching the FLDS, and what he would learn would astonish him: stories of "blood atonement," child brides, rabid racism, multiple wives, and a secretive, religious dictator.

The more he learned, the more apparent it became that the folks at the ranch had no interest in hunting at all.

The FLDS is a polygamous religious cult led by 48-year-old "prophet" Warren Jeffs, who teaches his followers (he claims an estimated 10,000) that blacks are the descendants of Cain, "cursed with a black skin" and selected by God to be "the servants of servants."

Since taking over leadership of the group when his father died in 2002, Jeffs has demanded absolute obedience from his followers and preached blood atonement, an early Mormon doctrine dictating the extrajudicial killings of certain sinners. (Modern Mormon officials have said that blood atonement was never actually carried out, but researchers have produced some evidence to the contrary.)
(snip)

In the two years since he became prophet, Jeffs has ordered all dogs shot; closed the town zoo; forbidden television, holidays, movies and music; banned laughter; forbidden swimming and water sports, and sent "God Squads" of young men to inspect residences and report any violations of his edicts.

Marriages are arranged and performed exclusively by Jeffs in order to keep his chosen people pure. "The devil is trying to get people to go out and marry and mix with the world," he preaches, "even different colored people. That is why we marry only who the prophet says."

Strangers ("gentiles") touring the town are met with glances ranging from hostile to fearful. Outsiders, residents have been told, are "wicked."

Everywhere visitors go in Short Creek, they are shadowed by an entourage of men SUV and pickups watching their every move, taking note of where they go and who they speak with — a silent intimidation of both the visitors and anyone who accommodates them.
(snip/...)

http://www.thumperscorner.com/discus/messages/1258/5526.html?1118463598

On edit:

Here's the article to which the poster referred:

Tempest in Texas
Racist cult 'prophet' Warren Jeffs is on the move, and a tiny West Texas town fears another Waco

Intelligence Report
By Susy Buchanan
Southern Poverty Law Center

http://www.childbrides.org/abuses_SPLC_tempest_in_texas.html