7 FLDS mothers return to empty houses
Standing at the gates of the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch on Thursday, she relived the pain of having her four children taken from her that morning.
"I have a set of twins that are 1 year old, also nursing," the 34-year-old woman said softly.
Of the seven women who elected to leave the San Angelo Coliseum to return to the FLDS compound, Ruth and another woman, Velvet, spoke about their experiences inside the makeshift shelter and what they claim happened when they were separated.
"The children were crying and reaching for their mothers," said Velvet, whose 13-month-old girl is now in foster care.
The stories told by the FLDS women differ greatly from what Texas child welfare officials said as the women and children were bused away from the coliseum on Thursday. The women claimed that child protective services workers were cold to them, even threatening them.
These are allegations Texas CPS officials emphatically deny.
Meeting for mothers
Velvet, 31, said she was told there was a meeting at 8 a.m. Thursday inside the coliseum, crowded wall-to-wall with cots and cribs.
Ruth said she defied orders to not bathe her children that morning, filling a plastic tub with warm water and going into a bathroom stall to wash them.
"The CPS lady came in there and said, 'Ma'am, you've got to get out of there right now. Whoever you are, you've got to come now. We are going now,'" she recalled. "I said, 'I've got a child undressed in here. I'm going to finish dressing her. You can wait."'
Ruth said she and her children were herded down to their cots and told they would be separated.
CPS officials said it was difficult news to break to the women. A script made public by child protective services describes what the women were told: "Since CPS has been granted legal custody of the children from Eldorado, we need to make decisions based on what is in the best interests of your child," it said. "CPS has determined that it is in the children's best interest for them to be moved to facilities that can appropriately care for their needs. You will not be able to move with them, unless you are a mother of a child who is less than 1 year old. For those mothers, you will be allowed to remain with only the infant."
The announcement said that child-care workers would immediately begin taking the children and that the mothers would be escorted to a bus that would take them to the ranch or to a "family violence shelter for your safety."
"I finished combing my little daughter's hair as they were calling out the names and taking the children away. My two little children are terrified ... ," Ruth said, breaking into sobs. "They clung to me saying, 'Mother, mother we want to be with you. We want to go with you!"'
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