Local News

WESTCLIFFE, Colo. (CBS4) ― They have been in the news for bigamy, accusations of forced marriages, mistreatment of women and young boys. Now the polygamist group the FLDS or Church of Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints has quietly purchased at least eight properties in Colorado.

Two of the properties are near Mancos in Montezuma County in southwest Colorado, another near Crawford in Delta County and five near Westcliffe in Custer and Fremont counties.

CBS4's Rick Sallinger has become the first TV reporter allowed inside one of their compounds to see how they live and what they are doing. He reports going through their gate is like leaving one world and passing into another.

It is a place where some of man's laws are at odds with what they see as God's laws; a collision of values that has led to raids, arrests and seizure of children in other locations.

Beneath the soaring peaks of the Sangre de Cristos and the Wet Mountain Range -- they have come here in search of a safe haven.

"I think we just came here for a place of safety while this goes on, we're not going to settle here," FLDS Member Margaret Jessop told CBS4.

These FLDS members moved to Colorado after law enforcement actions involving their church in Utah and Arizona, what they refer to as Short Creek.

Lee Steed is the man who bought the properties in this Colorado area. He agreed to speak on camera if we would not show his face.

"Why did you buy up all this property?" Sallinger asked.

"It's been my privilege to help these people and to find places to live for people to remove from the persecution at Short Creek," Steed, an FLDS member, replied.

The location, he insists, is only intended for church widows and grandmothers who came to Colorado 2 to 3 years ago from their traditional base.

"We enjoyed it there until persecution ... they just moved in," Jessop sighed.

That persecution, they say, continued this year when the FLDS compound in El Dorado, Texas, was raided. More than 400 children were removed then later returned to their mothers. That included Jessop's grandchildren.

"They were taken away from their parents and kept two nights without a mother," she said.

On the walls above her here in Colorado are pictures of Warren Steed Jeffs, the man they call their prophet. But he now is behind bars convicted as an accomplice in the rape of a teenage girl.

"I think it's terrible. I think he was falsely accused," FLDS member Dorothy Barlow said.

A negative reputation, or what the FLDS calls "misconceptions," has preceded them to Colorado as they try to balance their beliefs with the laws of the land.

"Is polygamy being practiced here in Colorado?" CBS4 asked Lee Steed,

"Polygamy, meaning is there men here with multiple wives with them? Absolutely, I think so," he said.

In Colorado they hoped to find not just beauty, but a "live and let live attitude."

Custer County Sheriff Fred Jobe has said he does not want the polygamist group here.

"Yeah, because of their association, I mean it's not likely they come here by their selves," Jobe said.

FLDS member Debbie Steed says there is no reason to dislike their group,

"Well I think any group or individual who has issues against our religion is misinformed," she said.

Her message is that they are here for refuge, not to set up a kingdom. But their presence has raised concerns -- not just from the sheriff, but from many of the people of the Westcliffe area.

How I Got That Story

Read Rick Sallinger's account of the events that led to his reporting of this story.

(© MMIX CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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