Buildings disappear after court freezes polygamous sect's assets

Associated Press/June 3, 2005

Salt Lake City -- An investigators says buildings believed to belong to a southern Utah religious sect are being dismantled and moved to an unknown location.

Private investigator Sam Brower says the move began hours after a court order was issued freezing some assets of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints.

Brower says a warehouse-type building in Hildale, Utah, was dismantled. He says in Colorado City, Arizona, a 34-by-130-foot building near an elementary school was uprooted from its concrete foundation and moved.

However, church attorney Rodney Parker says the descriptions of the buildings he'd heard suggests the buildings were modular structures that were personal property. He says any structure not owned by the church isn't subject to the order.

The church is building a temple and housing complex on a ranch near Eldorado, Texas, south of San Angelo.

Schleicher (SHLYE'-kur) County Sheriff David Doran says he flew over the ranch Wednesday and noticed no unusual activity there.