News about the broken bones.

Child welfare official testifies about YFZ Ranch kids at Texas Senate hearing

09:24 AM CDT on Thursday, May 1, 2008

By ROBERT T. GARRETT / The Dallas Morning News
rtgarrett@dallasnews.com

AUSTIN – Dozens of youngsters swept by the state from a polygamist sect suffered broken or fractured bones in the past, some when children were "very young," Texas' top protective services official said today.

Carey Cockerell, head of the Department of Family and Protective Services, the parent agency of Child Protective Services, told a Senate panel that medical exams of the 463 youngsters removed from the sect discovered that 41 had previous bone breaks or fractures.
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"Several of these fractures have been found in very young children," Mr. Cockerell testified before the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. He did not specify their ages.

Mr. Cockerell said some individual youngsters experienced more than one bone break or fracture. He did not elaborate. At least initially, senators heeded Committee Chairwoman Jane Nelson's request they not ask questions about the April 4 raid and child removals so as not to jeopardize the ongoing legal investigation.

It was not clear whether the youngsters' rustic lifestyle at the Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado might include work or recreational activity that could cause broken bones.

Willie Jessop, a defacto spokesman for the YFZ ranch, called the broken bones testimony outrageous, and said it's "propaganda to make a case that cannot be proved."

Of course there are children who have had a broken arm or a broken leg, he said. "But to this magnitude – the picture they’re painting is very misleading," Mr. Jessop said. "It will never be able to be backed up with any facts."

According to the Web site of the Seattle Children’s Hospital, about half of all boys and a quarter of all girls break a bone sometime during childhood.

Mr. Cockerell also disclosed new details about difficulties the state had in keeping track of the children at makeshift shelters it set up in San Angelo this month.

He said it tried three different times to have each youngster and mother wear a wristband but some were tampered with. Also, he said some mothers switched children, and some exchanged clothes with one another, changing their own and the children's appearances. He said the sect’s mothers are use to "sharing motherly duties, including breast feeding."

Mr. Cockerell said CPS continues to investigate underage pregnancies among the 463 children removed from ranch owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He said a 464th child was born to a minor girl on Tuesday.

The state says more than half of the 53 girls ages 14 to 17 are pregnant or already have children. The sect says CPS is incorrectly including in that count 26 females who are actually 18 or older. Mr. Cockerell acknowledged there are "disputed minors."

But he said CPS has been presented with "no proof any … will ultimately be determined to be an adult."

CPS said it had to remove the children because the sect had a "pervasive" practice of arranging "spiritual marriages" between underage girls and older men, who are encouraged to have multiple wives. The sect's leaders, mothers of the children and some of their court-appointed lawyers have accused the state of overstepping its bounds.

Mr. Cockerell said the sect's children are "doing remarkably well" in state care, despite an earlier outbreak of chicken pox. Most are being kept in shelters and other group home-like settings. A few have been placed with traditional foster families.

"I want to assure you that every decision that I made … was predicated on ensuring the safety of these children," Mr. Cockerell said. "That was foremost in our minds every step of the way."

Ms. Nelson, R-Flower Mound, said all Texans worry about the children.

"Every child removed from that compound is now our responsibility," she said.