By JENNIFER DOBNER – 25 minutes ago
SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) — Texas law enforcers met Saturday in Arizona with the man accused of abusing the 16-year-old girl whose call for help triggered a raid on the West Texas compound of a secretive polygamous sect.
Dale Barlow, 50, of Colorado City, Ariz., has denied allegations of physical and sexual assault made in a whispered March 29 telephone call to a Texas domestic violence hot line.
Tela Mange, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, confirmed the meeting but offered few details of the interview between Barlow and Texas Rangers.
“We have not made an arrest in this case and may not necessarily make one today,” she said.
A telephone message left at Barlow’s home by The Associated Press was not immediately returned.
Barlow has said he doesn’t know the girl, whom Texas child welfare officials have not yet located.
In her phone call, the girl said that she was pregnant with her second child and that her husband beat her about the head and chest when angry. She said she was trapped and not allowed to leave the Yearn for Zion Ranch in Eldorado.
The ranch is owned by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, whose members believe practicing polygamy will bring exaltation in heaven.
The faith’s members have traditionally made their homes along the Arizona-Utah border, but in 2003 purchased the 1,700-acre former game preserve about 40 miles south of San Angelo.
Barlow spent 45 days in the Mohave County, Ariz., jail last year after pleading no contest to a charge of conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor. He is a registered sex offender on probation and can’t leave the state without permission. Bill Loader, his probation officer, has said he saw Barlow in Arizona a day after the Texas raid.

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