ST. GEORGE (AP) — After a year of forced separation that was ordered by his former church leader, Warren Jeffs, Wendell Musser has had a bittersweet reunion with his wife and child.
On Friday inside an auto parts store in Hildale, Musser saw Vivian Barlow Musser and their 18-month-old son Levi — but his wife rejected admonitions of love and refused to let the 22-year-old father cradle his son.
"He was crushed when he came out," said Greg Hoole, Musser's attorney, who waited outside the store during the 90-minute meeting.
Musser hadn't seen his family since leaving the Fundamentalist LDS Church last July. A nephew of Jeffs, Musser fell out of favor after a DUI arrest in Colorado Springs, Colo., and was sent away by Jeffs to repent and had his family taken from him. He was told by his father that Vivian and Levi had been given to another man, a practice common in the FLDS Church.
Musser filed a civil lawsuit against Jeffs May 4 in St. George's 5th District Court. The lawsuit asks the court to force Jeffs to disclose Vivian and Levi's whereabouts.
Jeffs, 51, has led the church since 2002. He is in jail charged with rape as an accomplice in connection with the 2001 spiritual marriage of a 14-year-old FLDS girl to her 19-year-old cousin.
Friday was the deadline for Jeffs to respond to the lawsuit. He didn't, but the meeting arranged by Musser's father, David Musser, could only have happened with church approval, Hoole said.