An FBI affidavit revealed that Samuel Bateman — through video calls from behind bars — was keeping in touch with the girls who disappeared from group homes, and the young adult wives, as they traveled in groups to multiple states.
Girls are taken into protective custody in Colorado City, Ariz., on Sept. 14, 2022, following Samuel Bateman's arrest.On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, eight girls under the care of Arizona child welfare officials disappeared from group homes near Phoenix. By Thursday of that week, they were back in custody — and two young women had been arrested, accused of kidnapping them with a third woman, who was arrested the next day.
Then, early on Sept. 13, FBI agents surrounded one of his homes near the Arizona-Utah state border with their guns drawn. According to a copy of their search warrant, which was shared with The Tribune, agents were seeking evidence of any marriages or sexual relationships between adults and children. Four days later, court documents said, a Spokane County Sheriff’s deputy found all eight girls outside an Airbnb in Spokane, Wash., in a vehicle driven by a 19-year-old woman. Also on Thursday, a 24-year-old woman was arrested in Colorado City; the FBI described both of the women as wives of Bateman. Federal court records show a third woman, described by the FBI as a young adult, was arrested the next day.Officials took girls from a historically polygamous community on the Utah-Arizona border.
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