South Dakotans believe polygamist group wants to expand
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — The brother of an imprisoned leader of a polygamous sect wants to double the amount of water available to the group's compound in South Dakota, prompting concern by neighbors and law enforcement about a possible influx of members being displaced from an enclave on the Utah-Arizona border.
Seth Jeffs, the brother of imprisoned sect leader Warren Jeffs, told state authorities that members of the United Order of South Dakota, a trust run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or FLDS, need more water for gardens, orchards and animal herds at its 140-acre spread about 30 miles from Mount Rushmore.
With few concrete details available, coupled with the group's troubled history — Warren Jeffs and other church leaders have been convicted of sexually assaulting underage girls — some landowners and law enforcement officers worry that the exodus from other areas make the remote corner of the Black Hills a likely and attractive home.
"As locals, we know what is going on in there and we don't want to see it expand," wrote Linda Van Dyke Kilcoin, one of several neighbors who filed petitions to intervene in the group's water request. "We value our 12-year-old girls in South Dakota."
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/article/South-Dakotans-believe-polygamist-group-wants-to-6145490.php