Crime & Justice

Former FLDS Moms Plead for Help to Find Their Missing Kids

‘THEY ARE NOT SAFE’

The worried parents fear the children may have been lured back to the polygamous cult by leader Warren Jeffs.

Warren Jeffs waits for the jury to reconvene for deliberation in his trial in St. George, Utah September 24, 2007.
Douglas C. Pizac/Reuters

Former members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) on Monday called for police action to investigate the disappearances of their children amid fears they may have gone back to the church. At a news conference in Cedar City, Utah, a group of mothers detailed how their kids vanished over the last year and said they worried a purported jailhouse revelation from Warren Jeffs—the church leader imprisoned for sexually assaulting one of his child “spiritual wives”—may have prompted some of the children to return to the polygamous cult. The document called for young members to return to the faith and said the kids “must die” soon before their salvation at the coming end of the world, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. “They are not safe,” said Elizabeth Roundy, a former FLDS member who reported her 16-year-old daughter missing in January. “They are being taken, coerced, kidnapped or told to run away from us. And law enforcement isn’t doing anything to help.”

Read it at The Salt Lake Tribune