Polygamist Sect Cases Begin Individual Hearings

SAN ANTONIO (AP) – Starting Monday, judges will begin to decide what parents of the polygamist cult in West Texas must do to get their children back from state custody.

More than 400 children from newborns to teens were seized from the retreat in Eldorado six weeks ago and put into foster care.

Until now, the children have been treated as a single group. Judges will start to handle the custody disputes individually and determine what the parents must do to get their children back, or whether their rights will be permanently lost.

The families from the polygamist ranch run by a Mormon splinter group include at least 168 mothers and 69 fathers.

The state still matched more than 100 of the children with their mothers. It will be two to four weeks before results of the first court-ordered DNA tests are known.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)