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Texas begins DNA tests on polygamist sect children
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - State authorities on Monday began running DNA tests on over 400 children removed from a polygamist compound in west Texas to determine if some were born to underage mothers.
Such evidence could be key in an investigation of possible abuse at the secretive compound linked to a break-away Mormon sect run by followers of jailed polygamist Warren Jeffs.
"It is a cheek swab and it is very non-invasive," said Patrick Crimmins of the Texas Department of Children and Family Services of the tests.
A judge on Friday ordered the tests to determine parentage and relationships within the community. Meanwhile, the children must remain in the department's custody.
Crimmins said the DNA testing will continue for several days. For the tests to be useful, the adults would also have to give DNA samples. However they can legally refuse to do so which could complicate matters further and delay legal decisions about the fate of the children.
The largest child welfare case in Texas history began earlier this month when authorities removed the children from a remote Texas ranch in response to a complaint of abuse there.
It was the latest legal confrontation between the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints which, regards plural marriage as ordained by God, and civil authorities.
In November, the sect's spiritual leader Jeffs was sentenced in a Utah court to 10 years to life in prison as an accomplice to rape for forcing a 14-year-old girl to marry her 19-year-old first cousin.
Polygamy is outlawed in the United States. Male followers of such sects typically marry one woman officially and take the others as "spiritual wives."
The mainstream Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormon faith is officially called, renounced polygamy over a century ago and is at pains to distance itself from the few thousand renegades who still practice plural marriage.
(Reporting by Jim Forsyth in San Antonio; writing by Ed Stoddard; editing by Alan Elsner)
