Salt Lake City, USA - A former follower of Warren Jeffs' polygamous sect who sued for access to his own family was rejected by his wife in court papers Friday in which she voluntarily divulged her location.
Even though a judge ordered cooperation from Jeffs, the 51-year-old leader has refused while jailed on felony charges of rape as an accomplice in the spiritual marriage of a 14-year-old girl to a 19-year-old cousin.
Wendell Musser, 22, was still searching for his wife, Vivian Barlow, and child until she filed to intervene in her husband's lawsuit. He claims Jeffs forced him out of the church and cut him off from his family last summer after a drunken-driving arrest in Colorado.
"One would have to assume Vivian Barlow might have some rights that are being affected by this action," according to her papers filed in the 5th District Court in southern Utah's Washington County.
Barlow said she lives in Mohave County, Ariz., where many members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints live, and she claims Musser is unfit for custody of Levi or unsupervised visits. She also seeks $250 in monthly child support.
Musser's attorney, Roger Hoole of Salt Lake City, said that he was not surprised by the filing and that Barlow was pressured by the sect.
The suggestion that Musser is an unfit parent "doesn't sound like words that would come from Vivian if she wasn't under pressure," Hoole said.
Jeffs has been the powerful head of the FLDS church since 2002 and is said to still rule with an iron fist, even from behind bars.
"Warren Jeffs is under pressure, and his followers will do anything in an effort to take the focus off of him," Hoole said.
Hoole said he will oppose Barlow's effort to intervene in the Jeffs case. However, Barlow is named in May 25 filing that seeks to establish Musser's paternity, he said.
Barlow's attorney, Reed Braithwaite, declined to comment on the court filing.
Raised in Jeffs' church on the Utah-Arizona border, Musser and Barlow were married in a religious ceremony in 2005.
Musser then served as a caretaker for Jeffs' many wives in a string of Colorado homes while the church leader was on the run from authorities in 2006.