FBI Cuts Off Power at Polygamists’ Utah Homestead

MARION, Utah — An FBI marksman shot out the electricity at a homestead held by an outlaw clan of polygamists, a utility spokesman said Friday as police repeated their intention of ending the seven-day standoff without bloodshed.

The severing of power to the 2 1/2-acre compound holding six adults and nine children came after a federal judge issued a court order permitting it, said John Ward, spokesman for Utah Power & Light Co.

State and federal authorities refused to comment on their first reported use of a weapon in the standoff with the group, whose leaders are wanted in the Jan. 16 bombing of a Mormon church.

The polygamists, who are said to be awaiting the return of the clan’s dead patriarch, used a mirror and lantern Thursday to signal in Morse code: “Cops not telling truth.”

Doug Bodrero, deputy state director of public safety, said the messages were aimed at reporters. He called the messages “a move in the right direction”--communication with the outside world.

“There’s still no plan to storm the house,” Bodrero said Friday, citing the presence of the children in the compound.

Ward said the FBI cut off the power by shooting out a cutoff switch next to a pole-mounted transformer serving the compound.

“It was the safest thing to do,” he said. “We didn’t want to put a lineman anywhere near that place.”

Inside the log house, besides the children, were Vickie Singer, 44, the widow of John Singer, and Addam Swapp, 27, husband of two Singer daughters.

Mrs. Singer and Swapp face federal charges in the bombing of the Kamas Stake Center, which they reportedly said was to avenge the 1979 shooting of Singer by law enforcement officers in an 18-day siege of the same compound.

Relatives of Mrs. Singer said she and Swapp believe an armed confrontation with police will trigger the resurrection of her husband, who will then save his family.

Singer had been excommunicated from the Mormon Church for polygamy and had defied a judge’s order to send his children to public schools.