By AP/MICHELLE ROBERTS
Wednesday, Jun. 4, 2008

(ELDORADO, Texas) — Just a fraction of the children taken from a polygamist sect's ranch remain in foster care after parents traveled this sprawling state to reunite their families.

By Tuesday, 397 children had been returned to their parents, leaving just a few dozen of the roughly 430 to be picked up from far-flung foster care centers. Those reunions were expected to occur Wednesday.

Families began trickling back to the Yearning For Zion Ranch on Tuesday — exactly two months after child welfare authorities and law enforcement first arrived at its battered metal gate looking for a caller to a domestic abuse hot line.

"We're sure grateful to be home," said Zavenda Young, whose 3-year-old daughter clung to her while her three sons, ages 5 to 9, stood nearby. "They can't believe it, for sure. Even though we drove all night, they hardly slept."

Willie Jessop, an elder with the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, didn't know how many families plan to return to the ranch. He said some were cautious about bringing children back to the 1,700-acre spread they last saw when police clad in body armor raided the ranch's homes, school and temple, looking for evidence of underage girls pressed into marriage and sex.

"This is the scene of the crime, and the crime is not how they lived. It's how they were taken out of here," Jessop said.

The Texas Supreme Court ruled last week that the state overreached in the massive custody case by taking all children from the ranch when evidence of sexual abuse was limited to a few teenage girls.

Young's husband, Edson Jessop, said his family intends to stay at the ranch even though it's unclear what some of his fellow FLDS members will do. "We didn't build this place to walk away," he said.

Even as families returned to the ranch in Schleicher County, Sheriff David Doran said he believes the raid was handled appropriately and he expects some members to face criminal charges.

"This needed to be done. There was an outcry for help. There were crimes being uncovered. There were victims on the property," he said Tuesday, predicting indictments in the next several months.

The criminal investigation is being conducted by the Texas Attorney General's Office and Texas Rangers; no charges have been filed.

Parents began picking up their children on Monday after a judge, bowing to the high court's ruling, signed an order returning the children. One girl whose attorney requested she stay in custody will not leave foster care right away.

At foster facilities in Amarillo, Fort Worth and outside San Antonio, mothers in their now-familiar prairie dresses arrived to retake custody of their children. Most declined to comment to waiting reporters.

It was unclear how many families will return to the ranch in Eldorado, nearly 200 miles northwest of San Antonio. After their children were put in foster care in cities across Texas, many parents moved to be near them.

The families are not allowed to leave Texas under the order signed by Judge Barbara Walther, and parents must attend parenting classes and allow children to be examined as part of any abuse investigation.

Associated Press writers Elizabeth White in Gonzales, Linda Ball in Fort Worth and Betsy Blaney in Amarillo, contributed to this report.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1811645,00.html

Emphasis added by H4K Editor