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WEST JORDAN, Utah (AP) -- After more than one year apart, the polygamist couple at the heart of a long child custody case left a courthouse today hand in hand.
A judge this afternoon lifted the no-contact order between polygamist John Daniel Kingston and Heidi Mattingly.
The couple hugged and held hands as they left the hearing. It was the first time since October 2004 that the couple was allowed to have contact.
But Juvenile Court Judge Elizabeth Lindsley warned Kingston that the no-contact order remains in effect between him and the couple's children.
Kingston and Mattingly have eleven children together. All the children, except an infant, were removed from her home last year amid allegations of abuse and neglect.
They have since been returned except for the two teenage girls who sparked the investigation. Kingston and Mattingly agreed to terminate their parental rights for those two girls, who did NOT want to return home.
Kingston has one legal wife, but allegedly has more than 100 children with 13 other women.
(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
