SAN ANTONIO — The more than 400 children, from newborns to teens, forced from a polygamist sect’s sprawling ranch during a raid six weeks ago and into foster care have been treated as a single group of abused and at-risk kids.
Starting today, judges will filter the chaotic custody dispute involving the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints into hundreds of individual cases to determine what parents must do to get their children back.
The state hasn’t matched more than 100 of the children with mothers. Results from the first of court-ordered DNA tests won’t be back for two to four weeks. Authorities are still trying to sort out whether nearly half the teen girls they’ve had in foster care facilities are actually adults. Last week, they conceded two women who gave birth since the raid are actually 18 and 22.
