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The released copies of search warrants showed that police investigators involved in the raids at the Texas polygamist ranch found marriage and birth records, journals and also a "cyanide poisoning document" on which they wouldn’t comment.
The warrants show that more than 80 pages of documenting items were seized at the Yearn for Zion Ranch (YZR) Ranch built by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Eldorado, Texas.
The seized documents also include computer equipment, family photo albums, letters, school and medical records.
The name of the 16-year-old girl whose call set off the raid was also found in the records, but she has the same name as several other girls from the retreat.
The documents seizure came just a day after police investigators said they found a bed inside the temple of the polygamist sect. The bed was apparently used by freshly wed couples to have their first marital sex encounter. Usually, the marriages were arranged between old men and under aged girls.
The investigation at the YFZ Ranch in Eldorado began last Thursday after the local family violence shelter received a phone call from 16-year-old girl, who said that she was forced to marry a 50-year-old man. The two had a child when the girl was 15 and her husband beat and raped her.
The search became more and more intense and with it grew the tension between state authorities and the members of the compound. However, they were cooperative and the state took custody of 416 children. Another 139 left the compound to stay with their children. All of them were sheltered at two sites in San Angelo, about 200 miles west of San Antonio.
Investigator found out that several teen girls at the ranch were pregnant. They were taken out of the compound because they were in danger of "emotional, physical, and-or sexual abuse."
The search and arrest warrant affidavit signed by Department of Public Safety investigator Leslie Brooks described what investigators found in the temple as “an area where there is a bed where males over the age of 17 engage in sexual activity with female children under the age of 17".
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