10A NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009
"The Revolutionary Theatre"
Chance Dibben/KANSAN
Poet Amiri Baraka gives a reading inside Woodroof Auditorium of the Kansas Union Tuesday night. His lecture and readings were a part of the Marwa Africana Lecture Series, sponsored by the Department of African and African-American Studies
Families of deceased softball players mourn
NATIONAL
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Family members and teammates of three North Dakota college softball players have thrown roses and softballs into a pond where the students were found dead inside their Jeep.
The bodies of 22-year-old Kyrstin Gemar, of San Diego; 20-year-old Afton Williamson of Lake Elsinore, Calif.; and 21-year-old Ashley Neufeld, of Brandon, Manitoba were found inside their white SUV on Tuesday. Authorities say it appears the three were on a stargazing trip when their vehicle slid into the pond in southwest North Dakota.
Police traced cell phone signals from the women's frantic calls to friends late Sunday. These signals helped lead authorities to the pond near Dickinson.
About 30 relatives, friends and teammates gathered at the pond on Wednesday.
Stark County Sheriff Clarence Tuhy said the women's SUV was found resting on its wheels Tuesday in about 10 feet of water hidden by tall grass, with the doors and windows closed.
"When you're not familiar with an area like that it would have been very easy to drive into." Tuhy said.
The sheriff said the Dickinson State University students were on private property. He stopped short of saying they were trespassing.
No foul play is suspected in the deaths of the students. The bodies of the women and Neufeld's dog were found inside the SUV after signals from their last desperate phone calls late Sunday helped phone authorities to the farm.
NATIONAL
Police Lt. Rod Banyai said that the autopsies will help determine the exact cause of death and whether the women were under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Woman discusses lack of rights in polygamist sect
ASSOCIATED PRESS
EL DORADO, Texas — Women in a polygamist sect were taught that their fathers or husbands and the sect's prophet had the right to direct every aspect of their lives, a former member testified Wednesday in the child sexual abuse trial of a current sect member.
"As a woman you have no direct connection to God," said Rebecca Musser, a former member of the Pundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. "Every area of our lives was directed by the church and their teachings."
Musser left the church in 2002
and never lived at the Yearning For Zion Ranch, the site of a state raid in April 2008 that led to the trial of 38-year-old Raymond Jessop, who is accused of marrying an underage girl. Prosecutors asked Musser to talk about her experience in the FLDS and how church records are kept.
Jessop is the first man from the sect to face trial since the raid. The girl he is accused of marrying when she was 15 had been "reassigned" to Jessop from his brother, according to records seized by authorities. If convicted, Jessop faces 20 years in prison.
The prosecution is relying on records and dictations by jailed
FLDS leader Warren leffs that were seized from the ranch. In one dictation, Jeffs indicates that he advised people at the ranch to avoid taking the girl to the hospital even though she had been in labor for days.
"I knew that the girl being 16 years old, if she went to the hospital, they could put Raymond Jessop in jeopardy of prosecution as the government is looking for any reason to come against us there," Jeffs wrote.
Jeffs, who is revered as a prophet by FLDS members, was convicted in Utah as an accomplice to rape. He is jailed in Arizona awaiting trial on charges related to underage marriages there and faces sexual
assault and bigamy charges in Texas.
In all, 12 men from the sect have been indicted on charges ranging from failure to report child abuse to sexual assault. The 439 children taken from the ranch have all been returned to their parents or other relatives, but the seized documents resulted in the criminal charges.
The FLDS is a breakaway sect of the mainstream Mormon church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago and does not recognize the FLDS. The FLDS bought a ranch about six years ago in El Dorado, about 150 miles northwest of San Antonio.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Raymond Jessop is seen outside the courtroom during a recess in his trial Oct. 27. He is the first man to face criminal charges following the raid of a polygamist sect's West Texas ranch.
Senic