Does victim at center of polygamy case actually exist?

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SAN ANGELO, Texas -- Where is the girl? Thursday marked two weeks since Texas authorities entered a polygamous sect's ranch near Eldorado and removed every child living there, but authorities still do not know if they have the 16-year-old whose alleged calls for help moved them to act. Members of the sect question whether she really exists. "It's all a farce," says Annette, a Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints member whose children are in state custody. Says Donna: "They searched. Did they find her?" Tela Mange, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said investigators are still looking for the 16-year-old who placed the calls, but she said she didn't know whether they have any good candidates.Investigators have zeroed in on one Sarah, according to a FLDS member who was in custody for a week with her six children. According to "Annette," who has since returned to the ranch, the girl has a 5-month-old daughter, is petite and looks young, leading investigators to believe that she could be younger than 18. Annette declined to name the girl's husband, but said it is not Dale Evans Barlow, the Arizona man named in the initial arrest and search warrants. Skeptics point to a number of problems with the alleged caller's story, which Texas authorities acknowledge was key to the dramatic raid. No call for help, no raid. FLDS women who were in state shelters with their children until Monday say investigators appeared desperate to find "Sarah" and were grilling girls by that name. There also are discrepancies between what the girl said about her "spiritual husband" and what is known about the man later named in the search and arrest warrant first used to enter the Yearning For Zion Ranch, owned by the FLDS. Authorities say a girl named Sarah made a series of telephone calls March 29 and 30 to the crisis line at NewBridge Family Shelter in San Angelo. In those calls, Sarah said she was the seventh wife of a 50-year-old man named "Dale" and had conceived her first child when she was 15, according to affidavits used to get the first search warrant. In a later call, she seemed to indicate he had three other wives at the ranch. She described being beaten by her husband, once so badly she needed treatment at a hospital for broken ribs. The girl said she was pregnant and wanted to leave the ranch, but also said she had been warned of the dangers of the outside world and threatened with being locked up.Some say the story sounds concocted. "There is no verbage or terminology used that leads me to believe the statements were made by someone inside," said Ezra Draper, of Hildale, Utah, who left the FLDS sect six years ago. "I think it's bunk." Examples: The term FLDS members use to describe others is "gentiles," not outsiders, and they don't observe the Easter Sunday holiday, when the alleged victim claimed she was last beaten. Susan Risdon, a spokeswoman for NewBridge, said the calls to the family shelter were not recorded but that the two employees who spoke with the girl wrote down exactly what the alleged caller said. Barlow, who was convicted in Arizona of sexual misconduct with a minor in 2007, has said he does not know the girl and has not been to Texas since 1977 -- claims backed by his attorney and his Arizona probation officer. How important it is that Sarah exists is unclear. What will matter when Judge Barbara Walther decides whether to send the 416 FLDS children into foster homes is the strength of the state's evidence of alleged abuse, experts said.John J. Sampson, a University of Texas law professor and expert on family law, said those cases will focus on what investigators found once they were at the ranch. But if the state hopes to later bring criminal charges, they must find Sarah. "The problem for the state is this girl is the linchpin that holds together any criminal case against the group or even any individual," said Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor. (Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)