COLORADO CITY, Ariz. — Two teenage girls who ran away from their Colorado City homes last month are in hiding again, this time from the Arizona officials who are trying to help them.
The girls, who were placed in Arizona protective custody after Flora Jessop, an anti-polygamy activist, drove them one night from Utah to Phoenix, are now the focus of a search by Arizona officials.
"We want them back and we want them back safe," said Andrea Esquer, spokeswoman for Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard. "We don't know where they are right now."
Most of the residents in the twin border towns of Colorado City and Hildale, Utah, are members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Polygamy is a central tenet of the FLDS Church, and most children grow up in homes with strict moral codes of conduct and little contact with outside media or influences.
Colorado City's runaway teens ran again, said Jessop, because they feared Arizona officials were planning to send them back to their parents in Colorado City.
Not true, said Liz Barker, spokeswoman for the Arizona Department of Economic Security that oversees child protection services.
"The statement that CPS was going to return the teenagers to their parents is incorrect, " she said. "The statement that CPS removed the teenagers' support system also is incorrect."
But Jessop, who grew up in Colorado City, ran away at 16 and then returned for a time, insists the girls ran because they did not believe Arizona was willing to protect them.
"I'm really (angry) with the state of Arizona for letting these girls run away from state custody," Jessop said Thursday afternoon. She added that she hasn't talked with the girls and doesn't know where they are.
Jessop has issued numerous press releases blasting Arizona officials and has talked to someone the girls are communicating with: Joni Holm, the wife of Carl Holm Jr., an elder brother of one of the girls. The Holms are hoping to adopt or provide foster care in their Salt Lake City-area home for both girls.
"The girls are doing OK, as far as I know. They have talked to others, to Joni," Jessop said. "I don't know where the hell they are. Nobody knows where they're at."
The Holms' 18-year-old daughter, Meagan, is with the girls.
"My wife has talked to Megan a couple of times. She says the girls are safe, they're OK," Carl Holm said. "I have to go with what they are saying on the phone."
Holm said he doesn't know how the teenagers, including his daughter, are able to pay for necessities like food and lodging.
Jessop is angry that the girls' parents were able to get a no-contact order issued against Jessop by the Maricopa County Superior Court. It took a couple of days to serve Jessop with the order, and by that time, said one parent, the girls had disappeared.
"We do not want Flora around our girls. The guardian ad litem assigned to our case did not want her around our children. Our children have been exploited by Flora and they're still being exploited," said Esther Holm, whose youngest child, a 16-year-old girl, is one of the runaways.
Carl and Ester Holm, along with Matthew and Kathryn Broadbent, said they believe Jessop lured their children away from families who love them.
"I bet I can tell you the exact day Flora Jessop started working on my daughter," Esther Holm said of her red-haired youngest daughter. She said the child had begun breaking curfew, wearing revealing clothing and swearing at her mother.
"I found out the day that she left that someone had given my daughter a cell phone and had been calling her," she said. "Now who do you think gave her a cell phone with the number 619-FAWN? You tell me."
That someone, she said, was most likely Jessop.
"I don't give a (expletive) what the parents think," Jessop said in response. "This case isn't as rosy as everyone thinks it is."
The Broadbents' daughter, who just turned 17, is also missing, and both sets of parents have been unable to see the girls. They once were in Arizona state protective custody, though they were not in a state-approved safe house or approved foster care.
In an e-mail sent to dozens of media outlets on Wednesday, Jessop said she placed three conditions on the Arizona officials before turning the girls over to them and Arizona complied with her demands. The first was that the girls stay in a home of Jessop's choosing, which was granted. The second was that the girls stay together, which also was granted. The third was that Jessop continue to have unrestricted access to the girls.
Donnalee Sarda, regional director of the Phoenix chapter of Justice for Children, said her nonprofit organization has offered to help.
E-mail: nperkins@infowest.com