Charge: Father, Daughter Married (Is it Okay With Sandra Day O'Connor?)

Mobile Register ^ | 07/25/03 | KAREN TOLKKINEN

[nickcarraway]

Authorities accuse couple of illegal incestuous union

A Mobile County grand jury has said that a Theodore husband and wife may really be father and daughter and ought to be tried for incest.

Carrol Eugene Ferdinandsen, 53, and Alice Faye Ferdinandsen, 30, were arrested Thursday and charged with incest and fraud in connection with their May 2 marriage in a civil ceremony in Mobile County. They were indicted in June.

According to Mobile County court records, Alice was the third child of Carrol and Shirley Faye Ferdinandsen, and her mother filed for divorce when Alice was only 4 months old. Her mother said Thursday that she later met and married Charles Stewart, who Alice listed as her father on her marriage license application.

Up to that point, Alice had used "Ferdinandsen" as her last name, according to court records.

Incestuous marriages are forbidden in all states, in part due to fears about genetic mutation and child abuse. They still occur, though rarely, according to a survey of news articles from around the country.

The Ferdinandsens could not be reached for comment Thursday. They were still being held in the Mobile County Metro Jail, with bond set at $8,500 for each, officials said.

Family members said they had heard about the marriage and disapproved of the relationship.

"My father is completely convinced that she's not his daughter, no blood relation at all," David Ferdinandsen, who said he is Carrol's son and Alice's older brother. He's tried to discourage his father from the relationship, he said, but his father won't listen.

Alice's mother, whose last name is now Crayne, said Carrol is definitely Alice's father. She didn't meet Charles Stewart until Alice was 3 or 4 years old, she said.

"I told her she was stupid for marrying her own daddy," Shirley Crayne said. "I told him he was crazy and stupid. I told her I didn't ever want to hear from her again."

Crayne started crying during an interview Thursday. It hurts so bad, she said, because Alice is her youngest child and she worked hard taking care of the children when they were young.

After the divorce, the couple's three children were placed in foster care, David Ferdinandsen said. They were there for five years, he said. They went to live with their mother, and later moved in with their father, he said.

Crayne said Alice sometimes called Carrol "Daddy" and sometimes just "Carrol."

Crayne said she would scold her daughter when she used her father's first name.

During the 1980s, Carrol and Alice went to Illinois, staying for months, David Ferdinandsen said. When they returned, Alice went back to school, he said.

According to Mobile County Circuit Court records, Carrol pleaded guilty to second-degree rape in 1989. The records do not identify the victim and prosecutors could not be reached for comment Thursday. He spent a year in jail.

Alice moved to Texas, where she got a boyfriend and a job at a hamburger stand, her mother said. But in the mid-1990s, Carrol came looking for her and she ended up moving back with him to Theodore, according to her mother and brother. They've been together ever since, relatives said.

Crayne said she never heard that Carrol claimed that Alice wasn't his daughter until just a few years ago. Now Alice believes it, too, she said.

[cake_crumb]

"I would suspect if they want to be true to Lawrence v. Texas then it would be ok."

It would have to be. And as with this case, the issue of how old the child was when the father began training him or her his sex slave would be moot.

[Elric@Melnibone]

Twelve year-olds can legally get married in Texas (unless it's been changed in the last few years).

A 14 year-old can get married without pemissions from anybody; a 13 year-old can get married with parents permission and a 12 year-old can get married if they can talk a judge into signing the order.

I found out about this in the '80s when reading about a marriage-license clerk who was retiring after some un-godly long period of time.

[Spok]

Just two more consenting adults doin' what comes naturally. I think the freakin' ACLU needs to get right on this-it could be bigger than second hand smoke!!

[sandydipper]

-----my own grandpa?

Way over my head - I'm gonna go take an asprin.

[cogitator]

According to an authoritative article commissioned by the Encyclopedia Brittanica for their 1970 issue, all the diseases you list are spread primarily by prostitutes and homosexual men in that order.

I wonder what the percentage is? The AIDS epidemic in Africa is primarily promulgated by prostitutes (say that five times fast), so I'm not surprised that they are the major vector for the other diseases, too. Given the known promiscuity of the homosexual community before AIDS hit them hard, the 1970 report makes sense. Also, I've heard that the "success" of AIDS drugs has allowed some members of the current homosexual community to take up the promiscuous lifestyle again.

However, I don't think that prostitution is against the law primarily because it spreads disease, and thus I'd still say that attempting to outlaw homosexual activity on the same basis wouldn't get very far. On the other hand, given what it did for SARS, maybe we should just start quarantining HIV-positive men in their homes to slow down AIDS in Africa (but it's probably already too late for that).

[Clemenza]

In New York, it is perfectly legal to marry your first cousin. Paul Castellano, the late head of the Gambino crime family, married HIS first cousin to move up within "the family."

[cogitator]

I think the guy thinks his ex-wife slept with another man and that's how the daughter was conceived-- making them only legal and not biological relatives. In that case, it's hard to come up with a good reason why they shouldn't be able to marry.

Oh man, that's just another mess. Even though it's not the circumstances in this case, what are the legalities of a situation in which an unfaithful wife conceives a daughter with another man, has the child (with the husband claimed as father on the birth certificate), then divorces the cuckolded husband? If the biological father was then legally acknowledged as the child's father, but the other man is still legally the child's parent, could he then sue to "disinherit" his daughter so that he could marry her because they are not related by blood?

My head is spinning...

[L.N. Smithee]

The Lonzo and Oscar classic. Thanks for not making me search for it.

The last time I thought about that song was when remembering the case of former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman:

---

[Wyman] has a 35-year-old son, Stephen, from his first marriage...Stephen once dated the mother of Bill's second wife, Mandy [who was 13 when she and Wyman started dating with her mother's approval, and who filed for divorce after eight weeks]. Had they all stayed together, Stephen would've been Bill's father-in-law. "We can laugh about it now," Wyman says.)

---

[born yesterday]

Your screed delighted me. Many, many thanks.

[nickcarraway]

In New York, it is perfectly legal to marry your first cousin. Paul Castellano, the late head of the Gambino crime family, married HIS first cousin to move up within "the family."

And looked what happened to him! Dead at Sparks.

[Way2Serious]

"David Ferdinandsen, who said he is Carrol's son and Alice's older brother. He's tried to discourage his father from the relationship, he said, but his father won't listen."

So his sister is now his step-mother and his father is now his brother-in-law, which would make any offspring his siblings/nieces/nephews. This is a privacy issue. The government has no business inside this couple's bedroom. Just ask Sandra O'Connor and David Sueter.

[Onelifetogive]

Inbreeding, even when it doesn't cause overt birth defects, results in weaker, less intelligent, less attractive children.

We breed dogs...according to AKC breeding father-daughter or mother-son is legal. Brother-sister is not.

Not sure how's that relevant here.....

[gogeo]

I truly doubt it. There's a sea of difference between two consenting, unrelated adults, and incest. And there is a "compelling State interest" in protecting the offspring from genetic mutation. Uh, Luis, 30 years ago, some "right-wing, fundamentalist christian" types stated their fear...that gays would one day want to marry. They were laughed at. The recent SC decision wasn't settled on equal protection grounds. It was based upon privacy rights for consenting adults.

[auggy]

"And further down the slippery slope we slide. "

Hey, look!

We are almost at the bottom.

[Graybeard58]

Kentucky Love Poe

---

Susie Lee done fell in love;
She planned to marry Joe.

She was so happy 'bout it all
She told her Pappy so.

Pappy told her, "Susie gal,
You'll have to find another.

I'd just as soon yo' Ma don't know,
But Joe is yo' half brother"

So Susie put aside her Joe
And planned to marry Will.

But after telling Pappy this,
He said, "There's trouble still...

You can't marry Will, my gal.,
And please don't tell your Mother,

But Will and Joe and several mo'
I know is yo' half brother"

But Mama knew and said, "My child,
Just do what makes yo' happy.

Marry Will or marry Joe.
You ain't no kin to Pappy.

[Luis Gonzalez]

June 26 - US Supreme Court decision finding a Texas anti-sodomy statute to violate the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment: "The Texas statute furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual."

• Lawrence v. Texas (02-102) ("When homosexual conduct is made criminal by the law of the State, that declaration in and of itself is an invitation to subject homosexual persons to discrimination both in the public and in the private spheres.")
• Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986) (overturned in Lawrence "Bowers was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today. It ought not to remain binding precedent. Bowers v. Hardwick should be and now is overruled.")
• Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992) (post-Bowers affirmation of privacy under due process); Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996) (post-Bowers rejection, under equal protection, of legislation targeted against non-heterosexuals)

[Elsie]

Why would God allow this incest to occur if He did not approve?

What?  Do you REALLY mean this???

Why would God allow MURDER to occur if He did not approve?

Why would God allow RAPE to occur if He did not approve?

Why would God allow CHILD MOLESTATION to occur if He did not approve?

Why would God allow UNBELIEF to occur if He did not approve?

Why would God allow HOMOSEXUALITY to occur if He did not approve?

[Aliska]

Inbreeding, even when it doesn't cause overt birth defects, results in weaker, less intelligent, less attractive children

That isn't always true.

[Luis Gonzalez]

You should not assume anything at all, specifically about what I believe in.

[Mercat]

Theadore's firthe great grandparents openned the first tavern on Manhattan Island. The Grandmother, Maria, was quite a character. Her father is my direct ancestor but she is only my half cousin multiple times removed because I'm descended from her half brother.

Maria Truax (du Trieux) was the eldest daughter of Philippe du Trieux (de Truy) and his first wife Jacquemyne Noirett. She was baptized in Leyden, Holland, on 5 April 1617, and emigrated with her family to New Amsterdam in 1624. She married firstly Cornelis Volckertsen Viele, possibly before 1640, and definitely by January 1642, when an adoption paper mentions her husband. This paper constitutes an acknowledgment of the paternity of her daughter Aeltjem, by Pieter Wolphersen van Couwenhoven.

Maria Truax was a 'tapper' or tavern keeper, as were both her husbands. The fact that she was the one in charge is indicated by the marking of 'The Tavern of Marie du Trieux' on the 1644 map*. Her second husband, Jan Peek, was also an early settler of New Amsterdam, and the town of Peekskill, NY takes its name from him.

Maria was constantly in trouble with the authorities, and was finally banished from New Amsterdam in 1664, for shady business dealings and keeping a disorderly tavern. Some of the charges specifically mention her tapping after hours and during prayers, selling spirits without a license, and selling liqour to the Indians. She and her husband were eventually allowed back into New Amsterdam, but at some point she moved to Schenectady where her brother lived. She died there some time before 1684.

I also read somewhere that she "mooned" the stevedores on the dock one day when they were harrassing her. Quite a lady. ... gives me hope for my daughter and her progeny.