Word: utah
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...construction crews work across the region, but home is Hildale, Utah, and neighboring Colorado City, Arizona, two ramshackle settlements 40 miles from St. George and set on a high prairie in a glorious mountain setting. For every tongue-tied Merril Shapley who has chosen to stay, there are other boys, perhaps as many as 1,000 or more, who have been cast into exile for offenses as trivial as acting out or watching forbidden movies. Dubbed the "Lost Boys," - exiled boys far outnumber girls - they live in low rent apartments or on the street, in the backs of cars...
Warren Jeffs, head of the breakaway polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), has been convicted in a St. George, Utah, court, of being an accomplice to rape, for forcing a 14-year-old girl to marry her first cousin. He faces other charges in Arizona and federal court. While this first case focused on the marriage of a young girl, many young boys' lives have been severely affected by the FLDS, and the Utah trial opened a window into their sad stories...
Clearly nervous when asked to spell his name, Shapley slowly said "M...E...R...R...I....L" punctuating each letter with a swallow. He had left school at eight years old to join his father's construction crew, he said, and works as a framer in booming southeastern Utah, building townhouses for retirees and outlet malls for tourists. Like most FLDS members, he was not accustomed to conversation with strangers...
Awareness of the plight of the "kids from the creek" began in Utah about four years ago. Volunteers working with street kids and runaways began to notice a new breed of homeless teen who didn't have the survival and social skills other teens had. But long before public awareness began to rise, Brenda Jensen, a co-director at Hope Organization, took runaway boys into her home. She fled the FLDS 30 years ago and married a fellow exile from another polygamist group...
Their allegiance to each other and family members makes pursuing legal redress difficult, according to Paul Murphy, an assistant to Utah's Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. Any attempts to try to hold parents accountable has been rebuffed by the boys. In meetings with Shurtleff, Murphy said, the kids have warned they would stop cooperating if agencies moved against their parents...