SALT LAKE CITY — The father of a 10-year-old girl whom authorities say was kidnapped following a "revelation" by polygamist leader Warren Jeffs is pleading for her return.
"We want our daughter back. We want Tammy," said Dowayne Barlow in an interview Friday with FOX 13 News. "The craziness, the insanity of ripping these families apart, taking these children and disenfranchising the biological, caring loving parents from their children..."
Dowayne Barlow said he has been forbidden from seeing his daughter since she was eight months-old, when he left the Fundamentalist LDS Church. The girl was being cared for by Barlow's former wife after they split up. She had placed the girl in the care of her brother, Heber Pearson Jeffs, 54. He is a nephew of FLDS leader Warren Jeffs.
"She was refused access after she said to her brother, 'I would like to take Tammy. I have what I need to take care of her and I want her back home to take care of her,'" Barlow said. "Then her brother turned on her and absconded, fled with her daughter."
In court documents charging Heber Jeffs with first-degree felony child kidnapping, Piute County prosecutors said that he told the girl's mother "he was cutting her off, and that she would 'not be allowed access to her child unless she was going to get back in the Church (FLDS) by writing to Helaman Jeffs or Warren Jeffs.'"
The disappearance of Heber Jeffs and Tammy Barlow follows a "revelation" in August by Warren Jeffs from his prison cell in Texas, where he's serving a life sentence for child sexual assault related to underage "marriages." FOX 13 News reported in August that Jeffs was re-asserting control over the FLDS Church, calling some people back into the faith and splitting families up. He had also delegated some authority to one of his sons, Helaman Jeffs.
"Through Warren Jeffs’ revelation he commanded or ordered that the FLDS female members should quit their current employment or activities and ‘gather’ (essentially ‘shelter in place’) and prepare to move to a location or locations (unknown to your Affiant) as directed by Warren Jeffs and/or Helaman Jeffs," prosecutors wrote.
Under Warren Jeffs' leadership in the FLDS, families have been split up with some cast out of the Utah-based polygamous church and family remembers remaining being sent to live with others. Edicts about members' lives and behavior have prompted an exodus, while those still loyal to him have left Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Ariz., and scattered across the western United States under pressure from state and federal authorities.
Barlow said he had concerns that his daughter was at risk of being harmed. FOX 13 News is not showing her face because she may be a victim of abuse.
Piute County Attorney Scott Burns and Sheriff Marty Gleave did not respond to repeated messages from FOX 13 News seeking comment on the case, nor have authorities released a photograph of Heber Jeffs. Barlow said the Utah Attorney General's Office and federal authorities were also now looking for Heber Jeffs and Tammy, but the case did not meet all the criteria to issue an AMBER Alert. A no-bail warrant has been issued for Heber Jeffs.
Barlow said he wants his daughter returned to be with her mother.
"As a father and as a parent, we don’t want our children mixed up into the mess that has been the outcome of Warren Jeffs," Barlow said. "We’re desperate to give her the life with her parents that she deserves. And returning her to her mother is a priority. She needs her mother. Tammy needs her mother."
Anyone with information about Tammy Barlow's whereabouts is urged to call police.
