By Paul A. Anthony
Originally published 02:56 p.m., February 3, 2009
Updated 03:16 p.m., February 3, 2009

A 14-year-old girl alleged to be a bride of Warren Jeffs received text messages while in state custody telling her to "please stay angry" and to "keep crying, pout, sleep in," according to a report filed by court-appointed guardians and obtained by the Standard-Times.

The report, filed by the girl's guardian ad litem, describes a series of text messages sent to the girl between Jan. 15 and Jan. 21 from a phone number labeled in the phone as "POP." It recommends that 51st District Judge Barbara Walther halt visitation between the girl and her mother, Barbara Jessop, and no longer allow any phone communication between the two.

"CASA (Court-Appointed Special Advocates) is shocked that Mrs. Jessop would place her daughter again in a situation where she would be forced to sneak around to communicate," the report states. "The text messages telling (the girl) how to behave are disturbing."

CPS investigators allege the girl was married at age 12 to Warren Jeffs, leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, in a 2006 ceremony at the sect's YFZ Ranch in Schleicher County.

The ranch was the focus of a weeklong raid in early April that led to the removal and subsequent return of 439 children in the nation's largest-ever child-custody case. The girl was returned to state custody in August on the strength of evidence that included the sect's own documents and photos showing Jeffs kissing the girl deeply shortly after their alleged wedding.

The girl had secretly obtained the phone, according to the report, and a caseworker with the state's Child Protective Services agency had gone through it "to determine who she had been talking to and the content of the text messages."

The report says the girl told CPS her mother told her to take the phone, after which the girl received 36 text messages.

The report does not include a transcript of the messages, but describes quotations from several "incoming text messages telling (the girl), 'Please stay angry,' 'We need you to keep crying, pout, sleep in,' 'Crying will get you what you want,' 'CPS needs to see that you are miserable there.'

Although the phone also contained 88 outgoing text messages - many to a contact named "Mother," according to the report - the cited incoming messages came from a contact named "POP."

"Having (the girl) take responsibility for the cell phone shows a serious disregard for her," the report states, "and it places her in a terrible position of having to lie repeatedly, especially to her foster family with whom she's developed a close relationship."

http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2009/feb/03/breaking-news-alleged-
jeffs-bride-instructed-to/

Emphasis added by H4K Editor