updated 1 hour, 1 minute ago
ELDORADO, Texas - Ambulances were being sent Saturday evening to a polygamist compound in West Texas as authorities prepare "for the worst" in a conflict with members of the compound.
Prosecutor Allison Palmer said sect leaders Saturday refused to let authorities search a temple for a 16-year-old member who reported being physically abused.
Palmer told the San Angelo Standard-Times that medical workers were being sent "in case this were to a go in a way that no one wants."
She said that law enforcers are "preparing for the worst."
A search warrant authorized troopers to enter the retreat run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They are looking for evidence of a marriage between the girl and a 50-year-old man.
183 children, women removed
Child welfare officials said earlier Saturday that they had removed nearly 200 women and children from the retreat, built by polygamist leader Warren Jeffs.
Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said 137 children and 46 women are being housed Saturday and interviewed. That's including the 52 girls removed the day before.
The investigation began with a call alleging physical abuse of a 16-year-old girl living there, Meisner said.
A search warrant authorized troopers to look for evidence of a marriage between the girl and a 50-year-old man. The search warrant said the girl had a baby when she was 15.
On Friday afternoon, the Department of Public Safety officials began executing the search warrant.
A total of 52 girls, ages 6 months to 17 years, were bused away on Friday to be interviewed, but only 18 were immediately taken into state custody, said Meisner. No arrests had been made.
Meisner said welfare officials were looking for foster homes for the girls, most of whom have rarely been outside the insular world of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They were being housed for now at a civic center, she said.
"We're dealing with children that aren't accustomed to the outside world, so we're trying to be very sensitive to their needs," Meisner said.
The warrant seeks records dealing with the birth of children to a 16-year-old and any records listing a marriage between a 50-year-old man and the girl, according to the San Angelo Standard-Times, which cited court records released late Friday in Tom Green County. Prosecutors in Tom Green, a larger county north of Eldorado, were handling the case.
An arrest warrant was issued, but spokeswoman Tela Mange said she could not reveal whose name was on the warrant.
Children leave a polygamist retreat on Friday in El Dorado, Texas.
"We have been working very closely with the adults at the ranch, and they have been assisting us in our search," she said.
The ranch is north of the two-stoplight town of Eldorado, down a narrow paved road. Authorities blocked access to the compound's gate, keeping onlookers miles away.
Only the compound's 80-foot-tall, gleaming white temple is visible on the wind-swept desert horizon, but Vinger said the ranch has numerous buildings.
He did not know how many people live there, but local officials in 2006 put the number at about 150 as members of the reclusive church moved from a community on the Arizona-Utah line.
The congregation, known as FLDS, has been led by Jeffs since his father's death in 2002. It is one of several groups that split from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in Salt Lake City, decades after it renounced polygamy in 1890.
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