FLDS Compound In South Dakota Drawing Attention

KUTV (CBS) Salt Lake City/May 17, 2006

Salt Lake City -- As the FBI searches for fugitive polygamous leader Warren Jeffs attention turns to the compound the FLDS church recently built in South Dakota.

Members of the polygamous FLDS church bought remote land in the Black Hills three years ago, and from the air, you can see they're building a community.

Three-story houses, and a large pole building. They have more lumber and heavy equipment, so they may build more.

From the ground, all you can see is locked gate barbed wire fence and no trespassing signs.

Cheryl Hadlock lives near the FLDS, and she likes them.

"They plow the road in the winter; they watched our house after it was broke into. They've been good neighbors. We have no problems."

Warren Jeffs, the leader of the FLDS polygamous church, is on the FBI's 10 most wanted list. He's charged with performing a marriage between a 16-year-old and an older man.

The compound would be a good place for him to hide, but Custer County Sheriff Phil Hespen hasn't been on the property, and says he has no reason to go.

"In my job we have to deal in facts," says Hespen. "And the fact is we haven't any substantial reports of anything."

Besides the South Dakota compound, the FLDS church has this other compound, yearning for Zion in Texas, and their home base is here in Hildale and Colorado City on the Utah-Arizona border.