Home at last for sect children

Source: Agencies  |   2008-6-4  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

MORE than 400 children taken from a polygamist sect's ranch in the United States two months ago began returning to the arms of their tearful parents on Monday, hours after a judge bowed to a Texas state Supreme Court ruling that the seizure was not justified.

"It's just a great day," said Nancy Dockstader, whose chin quivered and eyes filled with tears as she embraced her nine-year-old daughter Amy outside a foster-care center in Gonzales. "We're so grateful."

Legal age

Amid the joy, a church elder announced a shift in sect policy aimed at keeping such a seizure from ever happening again. Future marriages would only involve sect members who were of legal age.

"The church will counsel families that they neither request nor consent to any underage marriages," said elder Willie Jessop, reading from a statement at the ranch in Eldorado.

Jessop said the church had been widely misunderstood and insisted marriages within the church had always been consensual. He would not say whether marriages of underage minors had taken place in the past but said the sect as a whole should not be punished for the misdeeds of a few.

Roughly 430 children were ordered released after two months in state custody, much of it spent in foster care centers. Because siblings were separated at facilities hundreds of miles apart, it will probably take several days for all the families to be reunited.

By Monday evening, 129 children had been returned to their parents.

Judge Barbara Walther responded to a state Supreme Court ruling last week by signing an order that cleared the children to be released from foster care. Walther allowed parents to begin picking up their children on Monday, ending one of the largest child-custody cases the US has seen.

Dockstader and her husband, James, were headed to Corpus Christi and to Amarillo to pick up their other children.