Monday, Nov. 03, 2008

The Children of Zion

In April, Texas authorities raided the The Yearning for Zion Ranch, home to several hundred members of a breakaway group of polygamist Mormons, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The state, which had received a "tip" that suggested that some of the children living on the compound were the victims of sexual abuse, proceeded to remove hundreds of kids from the Ranch. In June, photographer Stephanie Sinclair was given a rare opportunity to document the daily lives of the sect. In this frame, Teresa Jeffs, 16, a daughter of FLDS founder Warren Jeffs, shows off some of her best trampoline moves in a house they had moved into in New Braunfels, Texas, while the courts sorted through the complex legal issues presented by the case.