Officials wrap up DNA testing on polygamist sect kids

SAN ANGELO, Texas -- Texas authorities said Wednesday they had finished taking DNA samples from all the children housed at a coliseum since being removed from a polygamist compound more than two weeks ago.

Roughly 500 samples were taken from the children at the San Angelo Coliseum beginning Monday as child welfare officials try to sort out the complicated family relationships at the ranch compound of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Spokeswoman Janece Rolfe said the testing at the coliseum was completed late Tuesday, but technicians are still taking samples from parents in Eldorado. The technicians also still had to complete taking samples from the two dozen adolescent boys who were sent last week to a boys ranch in Amarillo.

Child Protective Services moved 114 children from the coliseum on Tuesday to foster facilities. They've declined to say when the other children might be moved, but a half dozen buses arrived at the coliseum on Wednesday morning.

The children eagerly waved and smiled at television cameras, even as attorneys for the children complained they weren't warned their clients would be moved so quickly.

A hearing was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon for lawyers representing the children to air concerns about how the children will be cared for in foster homes.

State District Judge Barbara Walther signed the order Tuesday allowing the state to move the children into temporary foster care while the state completes DNA testing and develops individual custody and treatment plans.

DNA testing at the coliseum included mothers who were allowed to stay there with children ages 5 and younger. Another testing site was set up Tuesday in the Eldorado courthouse square, closer to the Yearning For Zion Ranch, for other adults.

Women in prairie-style dresses and men with shirts buttoned to their necks arrived a few at a time to let technicians swab inside their mouths.

Their lawyers said many believe the testing is invasive and unnecessary.

"We've told them to cooperate, but there are a lot of people who are reluctant," said Cynthia Martinez, a spokeswoman for the Legal Aid attorneys who represent dozens of mothers. "There's a perception there that the state will be using it to separate them" rather than reunite them with their children.

David Williams, a former member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, arrived from Nevada to give a DNA sample.

Clutching photos of his boys, ages 5, 7 and 9, Williams looked at his feet as he said his children were "taken hostage by the state."

"I have been an honorable American and father and I have carefully sheltered my children from the sins of this generation," Williams said. He denied the children living at the ranch were abused.

Susan Hays, an attorney for a toddler in state custody, said some of the fathers may have left the state, fearing that the tests are really designed to help prosecutors make criminal abuse cases.

The state won the right to put the children in foster care on suspicion that FLDS members pushed underage girls into marriage and sex and that all the children raised in the church are in danger of being victims or becoming predators.

CPS spokesman Darrell Azar said child welfare officials want to move the children to a more homelike setting.

"They need to be out of the limelight," he said. "Children can't get into a normal routine in a shelter."

CPS said it will try to place mothers under 18 with their children and to keep sibling groups together. Some of the families may have dozens of siblings.

Boys ages 8 and older will likely be placed in a setting similar to the Boys Ranch near Amarillo where dozens of teen boys were taken last week.

A CPS document lists facilities all around Texas _ as far as Houston, about 500 miles away _ where the children may be placed in what is one of the largest custody cases in U.S. history.

All the children are supposed to get individual hearings before June 5 to help determine whether their parents may be able to take steps to regain custody or they'll stay in state custody.

FLDS spokesman Rod Parker said at a news conference Tuesday in Salt Lake City that Texas doesn't know how to handle sect children, and that efforts to keep them from being moved have been ignored.

"These people are not equipped to handle these children," said Parker. "They don't know anything about these children."