Source: New Scientist

Want to live a little longer? Get a second wife. New research suggests that men from polygamous cultures outlive those from monogamous ones.

After accounting for socioeconomic differences, men aged over 60 from 140 countries that practice polygamy to varying degrees lived on average 12% longer than men from 49 mostly monogamous nations, says Virpi Lummaa, an ecologist at the University of Sheffield, UK.

Lummaa presented her findings last week at the International Society for Behavioral Ecology’s annual meeting in Ithaca, New York.

Rather than a call to polygamy, the research might solve a long-standing puzzle in human biology: Why do men live so long?

This question only makes sense after asking the same for women, who – unlike nearly all other animals – live long past the menopause.
Enforced monogamy

One answer seems to be a phenomenon called the grandmother effect. For every 10 years a woman survives past the menopause, she gains two additional grandchildren, Lummaa says. It seems that doting on and spoiling grandchildren aids their survival, as well as furthering some of their grandmother’s genes.

Men, by contrast, can reproduce well into their 60s and even 70s and 80s, and most researchers assumed this explained their longevity. But Lummaa and colleague Andy Russell wondered whether other factors explained the long lifespan of men, such as a grandfather effect.

To test this possibility, the team analysed church-gathered records for 25,000 Finns from the 18th and 19th centuries. People tended to move little, no one practiced contraception and the Lutheran Church enforced monogamy.

Only widowed men could remarry, and if they had children with their new wife, they fathered more kids, on average, than men who married once.

But ultimately remarried men “don’t end up with any more grandchildren,” Lummaa says. “If anything the presence of a grandfather was associated with decreased survival of grandchildren.”

Perhaps, Lummaa adds, the children of the first mother lose out on food and resources that go to the second mother’s kids. “It’s kind of the Cinderella effect.”

Even fathers with only one wife provided no benefit to their grandchildren, a finding supported by previous research.

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Source: News Radio 1200 WOAI San Antonio Texas

A judge in San Angelo ruled this afternoon that a 14 year old girl who was ’spiritually married’ to Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints ‘prophet’ Warren Jeffs when she was 12 must be taken away from her mother and placed into foster care, 1200 WOAI news reports.

Merrianne Jessop, the daughter of sect leaders Merril and Barbara Jessop, is believed to be one of the two girls what Jeffs was shown kissing in a photograph seized from the Yearning for Zion Ranch in west Texas during a raid by police in April.

State District Judge Barbara Walther ruled that by allowing her daughter to participate in underage marriage, Jessop was not a suitable parent for the girl.

She allowed another of the Jessop’s children, an 11 year old boy named Benjamin to remain in her care. Texas Child Protective Services dropped custody motions against a third Jessop child, Samson, 17, because he is of legal age.

“We were able to present our evidence to Judge Walther, and she agreed that there were serious concerns,” CPS spokesman Patrick Crimmins told reporters after the hearing.

In the case of Merrianne Jessop, she ordered the child back to foster care. Benjamin can stay with his mother, but with some very specific conditions which will allow Child protective Services to monitor his safety.”

Crimmins said Judge Walther also ordered that both of the children not have any contact with Merril Jessop.

Crimmins said Walther ordered that Merrianne Jessop be turned over to state care immediately. He didn’t know if the girl has actually been turned over.

He says the state is prepared to present its evidence in the other children involved in motions to remove, although he said it two of the cases, an out of court settlement is possible.

The two children are among eight which Texas Child Protective Services officials have asked be taken away from their parents because the parents declined to adhere to a court approved conditions forbidding the children from having any contact with men involved in ‘underage marriage.’

The two children involved in today’s court proceeding are among the 460 children who were removed from the YFZ Ranch by state officials during a raid in April, and then returned to their parents by order of the Texas Supreme Court in June. Crimmins says motions to reclaim custody of dozens more FLDS children are likely to be field as the investigation continues.

Source: CNN.com

The mother of a girl allegedly given in marriage at age 12 to jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs refused to answer questions Monday from attorneys for the state.
Warren Jeffs and four followers were indicted in Texas last month for sexual assault of a child.

Warren Jeffs and four followers were indicted in Texas last month for sexual assault of a child.

The state wants to remove the girl, now 14, and an 11-year-old brother from the mother’s care, saying she has refused to guarantee the girl won’t have contact with men accused of being involved in underage marriages.

The girl’s father allegedly blessed her marriage to Jeffs and the underage marriages of at least two sisters.

The hearing was initially delayed while lawyers in the girl’s case and three others tried to negotiate settlements. Later, Texas Ranger Nick Hannah helped Child Protective Services introduce into record dozens of marriage records, photos and church records outlining family relationships that were seized from the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado.

The girl’s mother refused to answer roughly 50 questions asked by attorneys for the child welfare agency, including what constituted abuse, the names of her children and her relationship with their father.

“I stand on the Fifth (Amendment),” she said repeatedly in a flat tone.

Her attorney, Gonzalo Rios, said Jessop, 55, was exercising her right against self-incrimination because of the continuing investigation.

In documents submitted with the state’s custody petition, the 14-year-old girl is quoted as telling a caseworker that a young teenage girl marrying an older man “can’t be a crime because Heavenly Father is the one that tells Warren when a girl is ready to get married.”
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Source: KXAN.com

The ex-husband of a teen bride who helped convict polygamous church leader Warren Jeffs on counts of rape by accomplice — could face trial.

Allen Glade Steed is charged in Utah with one count of first-degree felony rape for his sexual relationship with Elissa Wall after the couple married in a 2001 religious ceremony.

She was 14 and he was 19, and both were members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Steed attorney Jim Bradshaw says plea negotiations recently ended with no agreement.

A hearing is October 22nd to determine if prosecutors have enough evidence for a trial.

If convicted, Steed could spend the rest of his life in prison.

He didn’t immediately comment.

Jeffs has also been indicted in Texas on sexual assault charges for an alleged relationship with an underage bride in 2006.

The Associated Press does not generally identify people who say they were sexually assaulted, but Wall has spoken publicly and published a nationally distributed book, “Stolen Innocence.”

Source: Salt Lake Tribune

While Texas authorities were initially investigating 20 cases of sexual assault and 50 bigamy cases involving FLDS members, it is unclear how many of those cases remain open four months later.

Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Tela Mange confirmed the number of cases – outlined in an April e-mail – was accurate in the month officials raided the Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado.

But she said she can’t confirm the current number of cases still being investigated. And Salt Lake City attorney Rod Parker, a spokesman for the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, thinks that more than likely the numbers have drastically changed as the investigation has progressed.
So far, the Schleicher County grand jury hearing evidence against sect members has indicted six men, including sect leader Warren S. Jeffs, on charges of sexual assault, bigamy and failure to report child abuse.

Parker said he wonders in particular about the volume of bigamy charges that had been predicted back in April.

Based on the number of men on the ranch in plural marriages, prosecutors likely would need to charge women in order to file 50 bigamy charges, he said – a departure from the typical bigamy suspect. He said women typically have been viewed as victims of bigamy, not perpetrators.
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The modern Pharisee had a few words to say about all of this…check it out.

Source: Deseret News

Texas Rangers are investigating 20 cases of sexual assault and about 50 bigamy charges involving members of the FLDS Church, the Deseret News has learned.

Texas officials on Monday confirmed the number of open cases but would not say how many suspects were involved.

“We are working with several other agencies on this investigation, and I do not know what ultimately the team will decide to do as far as possible charges filed,” Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Tela Mange said.

The investigation has already prompted five indictments, including one against the church’s leader, Warren Jeffs. A Schleicher County grand jury will convene again next week and may consider further indictments.

Rod Parker, a Salt Lake attorney acting as spokesman for the Fundamentalist LDS Church, was surprised by the sheer number of sexual assault and bigamy cases.

And he insists there aren’t enough men practicing plural marriage at the Yearning For Zion ranch outside Eldorado, Texas, to come up with 50 bigamy investigations.

“I think they would have a problem coming up with 50 bigamy charges without charging the women,” Parker said.

Mange would not go into specifics on suspects.
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Read the full article at: Newsweek.com

When Flora Jessop answered her phone on the morning of March 30, a female caller spoke in a meek and frightened whisper. She said her name was Sarah, a child bride trapped on a polygamist compound in Texas. She had apparently sought out Jessop because of the woman’s work with abused kids as executive director of the Child Protection Project. Sarah claimed she had been assaulted by the older man she was assigned to marry and was often locked in a room with boarded windows. She described details, like names of elders, that only someone in the sect would likely know.

Around the same time, Sarah was also calling a shelter in San Angelo, Texas. After counselors there forwarded her abuse reports to law enforcement, authorities responded with a massive April 3 raid on the property where Sarah claimed to be held, the Yearning for Zion ranch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) in Eldorado, Texas. In the course of the operation, officials said they discovered such a troubling pattern of sexual and physical abuse that they forcibly removed more than 400 kids. (All of them have since been returned to their families by court order; last week sect leader Warren Jeffs and four of his followers were charged with sexually abusing underage girls.) But Sarah was never found.

The reason, according to law enforcement: Sarah was not the blond, blue-eyed teen bride she claimed to be, but rather a 33-year-old African-American woman living in Colorado Springs, Colo., named Rozita Swinton. It’s not the first time Swinton has been accused of duping authorities. She’s been arrested for false reporting in two separate cases in Colorado, allegedly setting off frantic manhunts by repeatedly impersonating abuse victims. But even as she now faces possible charges in Texas, Swinton remains an elusive and enigmatic figure. As one woman who cared for her believes, Swinton might well be a victim of sexual abuse who fractured into multiple personalities to cope with the trauma. Others who’ve known her view her as a masterful manipulator with an insatiable appetite for attention. In a brief conversation with NEWSWEEK, Swinton only added to the mystery. “There are so many lies about me that have been published,” she said without elaborating.

The daughter of a convicted murderer, Swinton had a turbulent upbringing in Nashville. By the age of 14, she had run away from home so many times that she became a ward of the state. In her senior year in high school, Rozita accused her father, Clarence Swinton, of sexually abusing her—an allegation she would repeat throughout her life. Though he was never charged with abuse, a restraining order against him—which cites Rozita’s allegations—was issued in 1992. In a recent conversation with NEWSWEEK, Clarence described Rozita as “the world’s greatest con artist,” and denied her accusations. “If there is any victim, it is me,” he said. (Rozita didn’t address the abuse allegations with NEWSWEEK, and her attorneys did not return repeated calls for comment.)

When Swinton was 19, she went to live with Mary Nelson, a social worker who gave shelter to foster kids. Writing under the pseudonym Kate Rosemary, Nelson authored two books that mention Swinton. In “After Disclosure,” Nelson wrote that the girl “had been tragically abused” and “had been diagnosed as having developed multiple personalities, each of which experienced part of her abuse.” When news of Swinton’s arrest broke, a newsletter put out by Nelson’s publisher featured a story meant to defend Swinton. Citing a “source very close to her,” the article claimed that “Rozita has flashbacks to a time when she was an abused child and teenager, and to times when she had been locked up and kept hostage.” (Nelson, who is exceedingly private, declined to comment.)

After leaving Nelson’s home, Swinton headed west, eventually settling in Colorado Springs in the mid-1990s. She became a Mormon and worked in the insurance industry, first as an agent and later in the claims department at State Farm.

Soon, Swinton came to the attention of authorities. Around 1997, she filed the first of some 15 police reports claiming that her father or some other man was sexually assaulting her (Clarence denies he ever visited Colorado). But “we could never corroborate information because she would never do any follow-up,” says Det. Terry Thrumston of the Colorado Springs Police Department.
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