Created specifically as a centre for Warren Jeffs' leadership of Mormon Fundamentalists, the 1,700-acre Yearning for Zion Ranch now resembles a ghost town, its 700 resident's having all but left.
A huge amphitheatre, presumably designed for hundreds if not thousands of Jeffs devoted followers to listen to his teachings lies unfinished, while rows of huge accommodations show no signs of life bar one or two pick-up trucks.
With the Texan authorities threatening to seize the huge ranch, the majority of the residents of the once-bustling religious commune seem to have vanished - perhaps heralding the final chapter in the ranch's short history.
Texas wants ownership of Warren Jeffs' massive ranch where prosecutors say the convicted polygamist sect leader and his followers sexually assaulted dozens of children, the state attorney general's office said Wednesday.
A judge will determine whether to grant the state control of the nearly 1,700-acre property owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. According to local tax records, the total value of the land is appraised at more than $33 million.
Seeking to bolster their case for seizures, prosecutors also allege that FLDS leaders financed the property through money laundering. The sect bought the land for about $1.1 million in 2003, according to an affidavit filed Wednesday.
Starting with a raid on the secluded Schleicher County ranch in April 2008, the state spent more than $4.5 million racking up swift convictions against Jeffs and 10 of his followers. Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, said the warrant begins the final chapter in the state's five-year-old investigation into the sect.
This is simply the next step,' Strickland said.
Texas Rangers raided the ranch following a call to a domestic abuse hotline that turned out to be false, and took 439 children into state custody. Jeffs last year was convicted of sexually assaulting two minors whom he described as his spiritual wives. At trial, prosecutors presented DNA evidence to show he fathered a child with one of those girls, aged 15.
Jeffs, 56, is serving a life prison term in Texas. He has continued to try to lead his roughly 10,000 followers from behind bars. The sect is a radical offshoot of mainstream Mormonism whose members believe polygamy brings exaltation in heaven.
Rod Parker, a Nevada attorney for the FLDS, did not immediately return a phone message when asked for comment.
He told the Salt Lake Tribune that it seemed the state's purpose was to take the land and sell it to the highest bidder, which would result in sect members living at the ranch likely being evicted.
'They're punishing the victims. These aren't the people who committed the crimes,' Parker told the newspaper.
It's not known how many people still live at the secluded ranch located about 200 miles west of San Antonio, but the seizure warrant does not require them to leave. The property is so far off the main roads that only helicopters or planes can provide a true glimpse of the ranch.
Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran said the population at the ranch has 'reduced quite a bit over the last several months' since Jeffs was convicted.
Whereas the property was once under a constant state of construction — the FLDS even had its own cement plant — Dolan said he believes only a small contingent of members are still there keeping the ranch working.
'We don't see the traffic as much,' Doran said. 'All that has slowed to almost zero.'
Doran said his deputies accompanied state investigators to deliver the warrant at the ranch. No one answered, so Doran said they taped the warrant to the ranch's front gate.
Strickland, the attorney general's spokesman, said it was too early to speculate about what the state would do with the property if given ownership. The group will have a chance to contest any seizure.
According to the state's affidavit, the ranch is controlled under the name the United Order of Texas, which is described in county filings as a 'religious trust created to preserve and advance the religious doctrines and goals of the FLDS.'
Online records from the Schleicher County Appraisal District indicate a dozen pieces of property at the ranch's address that are owned by the trust and total 1,691 acres. Combined, the most recent appraised value of the properties is $33.4 million.
Jeffs' most devoted followers consider him God's spokesman on earth and a prophet, but they were absent from court for the bulk of his criminal trial.
Paving the way to Jeffs' conviction were his own 'priesthood records' — diary-like volumes, covering tens of thousands of pages, in which Jeffs recounts his sexual encounters and records even his most mundane daily activities.
Prosecutors cite the records in the 91-page affidavit filed Wednesday.
'This will be a major gathering place of the saints that are driven,' Jeffs wrote. 'You can see it is well isolated. In looking at this location, we can raise crops all year round.
There is no building code requirements. We can build as we wish without inspectors coming in.
There is a herd of animals that the storehouse needs, that we can nourish and increase.'
In the affidavit, prosecutors allege that sect members illegally structured financial transactions and that Jeffs personally toured the ranch before the land was purchased.
To support prosecutors' claims that FLDS leaders financed the property through money laundering, one section in the affidavit lists 175 deposits, almost all of which are just less than $10,000, made at San Angelo banks over the course of two years and staggered by only a few days each. The total is about $1.5 million.
Prosecutors say the series of four-figure deposits — which financial investigators call 'structuring' — are typically done to evade federal reporting requirements.
However, the Texas attorney general's office, however, has not formally charged any FLDS members with any financial crimes.
Under Texas law, authorities can seize property that was used to commit or facilitate certain criminal conduct, such as a home being used as a stash house for drugs.
Strickland said he didn't immediately know where this attempted seizure would rank among the state's biggest efforts to claim ownership of criminal property.
In the affidavit, prosecutors allege that sect members illegally structured financial transactions and that Jeffs personally toured the ranch before the land was purchased.
Jeffs wanted the 'a rural location where the FLDS could operate a polygamist compound where the systemic sexual assault of children would be tolerated without interference from law enforcement authorities,' according to the affidavit.
This comes as disturbing details of the bed polygamist Warren Jeffs ordered to be specially made for the purpose of sexually assaulting hundreds of young girls were outlined in pages of a diary he referred to as 'priesthood records'.
He told his followers the bed must be made of hardwood, sturdy so it wouldn't rattle, long enough to hold his frame and covered with a plastic sheet to 'protect the mattress from what will happen on it'.
Prosecutors read out excerpts from the diaries on Wednesday as part of an attempt by the State of Texas to seize the multimillion dollar ranch owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Among the thousands of pages of journal entries, Jeffs gave detailed instructions to his followers on how they were to relocate and build a secret compound in West Texas, where he said God had led him to.
Initial descriptions of the bed Jeffs ordered to be made were first heard shortly after the raid on the 1,600-acre compound. Investigators found the altar-like bed on the top all-white floor of the towering limestone temple.
More details were available in the journals, in which he said the bed should have padding on either side to hold him in place as 'the Lord does His work with me' but can easily be disguised as a table.
'It should be made so the table top can come off. It will be on wheels. When the mattress is in place, this bench will be to the right side the bed. This will be made so that it can be taken apart and stored in a closet where no one can see it.
'When I need it, I will pull it out and set it up. The bed will be a size big enough for me to lay on. ... It will be covered with a sheet, but it will have a plastic cover to protect the mattress from what will happen on it.'
Jurors at his trial were moved to tears when hearing how the children were restrained to this bed while he sexually assaulted them.
Texas has spent more than $4.5 million in prosecuting the cases against Jeffs and ten of his followers.
Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, said the seizure warrant begins the final chapter in the state's five-year-old case against Jeffs.
'This is simply the next step,' Strickland said.
The cult leader has spent the past six years behind bars after being arrested and convicted of sexual abuse of young girls after law enforcement officials raided the compound in April 2008 and removed 438 children to state custody.
According to the Houston Chronicle, the diary offers a narrative of daily events from 2002 to 2006, where he meticulously documented the events as his followers in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints were being driven from their home base in Utah.
According to Jeffs' writings, it was the Lord who sent him to the ranch in Eldorado.
'Three times the Lord sent me here, not knowing where I was going, but naming the place,' he wrote. 'The second time, we drove right to this place and didn't realize it was for sale, as the Lord said, "Go to Sonora and then Eldorado". Sonora is south of here.
'We need to keep this particular property so private and sacred and secret that not even the faithful who are driven will know of this place, because this is where the sacred records are.'
He would refer to the site as 'R17' because of its location 17 hours away from FLDS communities on the border between Utah and Arizona, known as Short Creek.
The attorney general's office argued that the documents prove Jeffs deliberately chose the remote location to shield widespread child sexual abuse and money laundering from the scrutiny of law enforcement authorities.
More than a year after his conviction of child sex abuse, it appears that little has changed in the remote compound in Colorado City as Jeffs continues to decide where people live, whom they marry and even what they eat and how they dress.
'Land of Refuge': The Mysterious Compound Warren Jeffs Built in the Middle of the Texan Desert
The Yearning for Zion Ranch, is a 1,700-acre community which housed as many as 700 people just outside of Eldorado in Schleicher County, Texas
The Ranch was settled by members of the FLDS Church who left Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona under increasing scrutiny from the media and anti-polygamy acitivists.
It boasts a temple, a waste treatment facility, a 29,000-square-foot house for FLDS church president Warren Jeffs and several large log and concrete homes.
Combined, the most recent appraised value of the properties is $33.4 million.
It's not known how many people still live at the secluded ranch located about 200 miles west of San Antonio, but the seizure warrant does not require them to leave.
