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David Lindquist Indianapolis Star. Show Caption. Back in Berino, Sarah raised the girl as her own. Deborah panicked, fearing the woman would take away the child. Compounding her distress were the still-ongoing legal problems. Before, she had enjoyed a kind of freedom, interacting with strangers in stores and around town. Now there was no one.
What would it mean to leave the group behind? The question had preoccupied Sarah for years, but now it took on new urgency. The most difficult consideration was the children. Sarah loved being a mom and wanted desperately to give her kids a better life.
But she was also terrified of subjecting them to the kind of insecurity that would inevitably come with escape. There were also the practicalities of leaving: Could she really expect to escape undetected with three small children? They started taking long walks together. Before long, Sarah began to have feelings for him. She soon revealed she was thinking about running away. As fall approached, a plan began to take shape.
The young man was headed to Canada to renew his visa. Sarah proposed fleeing with him. Though she would leave without her kids, she told herself she would return for them when she had established herself on the outside. She knew it was an impossible compromise, but her need to live a life that was hers — to get an education, to experience romantic love — now felt too strong to suppress. The day before she left, Sarah packed a backpack with photos of her children, her parents, and her brother along with some granola bars, a water bottle, and a stack of evangelizing tracts.
She planned to use the flyers as an alibi if she got caught. I was looking for new recruits. That night, she read her kids stories and squeezed them tight.
She wrote them each a letter, telling them she loved them and would return to them soon. Then she got in bed herself. She felt overcome with dread and anticipation, fear and excitement. A desert sunrise illuminated Sarah and her companion as they walked down the highway. After hitchhiking to Los Angeles, they took a bus north to Seattle, where they camped out under a bridge.
The young man continued to Canada without Sarah. They made no plans to see each other again; despite the romantic charge of their relationship, Sarah had never seriously considered staying with him. Far more important was the new life she planned to create for herself. Sarah was now overwhelmingly, almost inconceivably alone.
She moved into a church shelter. She got a job at a coffee shop. When she had saved up a little money, she rented a room from a pair of nudists. She slept on the floor in a sleeping bag. Though she worked constantly, Sarah was enjoying her freedom.
She ate whatever she wanted. She wore whatever she wanted. She went to art galleries, and to the park, and to the library. She saw a play called Metamorphoses. These new experiences were exhilarating.
They were also overwhelming. She missed her kids and felt tremendous guilt for leaving them behind. She worried that she had condemned herself to hell by fleeing. Everyday frustrations made her wonder if God was judging her. Nine months after her escape, Sarah got a call from Deborah. She was shocked her mother had tracked her down, perhaps through cards she had sent her kids. That exchange opened up a written correspondence. The story we like to tell about transformation is one of easy binaries.
But change is more frequently a disorienting and even painful process. Sometimes Deborah mailed her religious tracts to distribute, and though Sarah discarded most of them, she also left a few around town, thinking perhaps they could help someone. She took a few nursing classes. She met a man at the coffee shop and got pregnant. Ten months after the baby was born, she decided to fulfill the promise she had made to return to New Mexico for her kids, now ages 7, 5, and 4. She wrote letters home falsely suggesting she might rejoin the group; she knew that without such assurances, her parents would never allow her on the compound.
The letters worked. In the spring of , new baby in tow, Sarah arrived back in Fence Lake. Two and a half years had passed since she had last seen her children. The younger boy was happy to see her, but it was the girl who clung to her most fiercely. But when Sarah broached the possibility of taking the children, she and her baby were driven back to the bus stop.
Believing she would never see them again, she started sobbing. This is the end , she thought. This is the end of the end. She allegedly subjected members to appalling punishments — no one more so than the girl Sarah had brought to America.
Denied sufficient nutrition, the girl developed rickets. Her softening bones grew visibly misshapen. In , the girl broke a femur in what Jim and Deborah said was a swing-set accident. The injury prompted them to finally take the girl to a nearby hospital. The girl was taken into state custody and entered foster care.
Sarah knew almost nothing of these events. Jim and Deborah informed her they had lost custody of the girl, but she remained unclear about the broader circumstances of the removal. Sarah says she reached out to New Mexico authorities in an effort to find her, but that these efforts went nowhere. As for the boys, Sarah felt she had run out of options. Even the prospect of police involvement struck her as futile: Deborah was sure to get away, as she always did.
Having tried and failed to retrieve her kids, Sarah had turned away from the past. Sarah sent her sons emails on their birthdays but says she never received a reply. But he is very profound for his age and he readily admits when he has been tricked or duped by the devil. In , Sarah had another baby. Years went by.
When she heard from her mother, the messages scorched with judgment. Though Sarah still wondered and worried about the children she had left behind, her primary focus was on her life in New York. She sent her kids to school and treated them with kindness.
Perhaps the most emotionally significant difference from her mother was one that had no practical impact: The children bore names that Sarah, not Deborah, had chosen for them.
Meridian Street, E. Prospect Street, and Cruft Street. Riggin was a firefighter with the Indianapolis Fire Department for 28 years.
Riggin lived on the west side of the property and rented the other side, first to David and Beverly Stanton and later to Larry W. In , the property was transferred to Robert T. Kelsey II. During the years of his ownership, the garage was listed in the February 8, , issue of The Indianapolis Star as being slated for demolition.
Kelsey owned the property until , when it was quitclaim deeded to his ex-wife, Lucille A. Jakad Kelsey, who sold it two months later to Jack L. Whitaker and Cynthia S. Jack Whitaker worked for Hubler Chevrolet for 30 years. With its recent purchase and ongoing renovations, the property at East Tabor Street is now entering a new chapter in its year life.
The year-old two-family residence at East Tabor Street is currently in the midst of a complete renovation photo by Sharon Butsch Freeland. Sharon Butsch Freeland is a freelance researcher, writer, proofreader, and editor.
She's been the executive director of a nonprofit association, a newspaper columnist, a residential real estate broker, and a political campaign staff member. Fascinated by Indianapolis history from an early age, Sharon's passion for bygone eras became even more compelling when she discovered that her ancestors had settled in Indiana in Since learning that she's a seventh generation Hoosier, many details about both the State of Indiana and the City of Indianapolis have taken on new meaning for her.
Sharon enjoys helping others get excited about the history of Indianapolis, as well as the histories of their own families. Your email address will not be published. About The Author. Sharon Butsch Freeland Sharon Butsch Freeland is a freelance researcher, writer, proofreader, and editor.
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