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.

[wideawake]

They are not just legally father and daughter. She is his biological daughter.

[dead]

I think marrying your first cousin is legal everywhere. I could be wrong though.

[Im Your Huckleberry]

"I told her she was stupid for marrying her own daddy," Shirley Crayne said.

Only in Alabama could you read a line like that...

[Scenic Sounds]

"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."

Now, just look what you've done, Gary. ROFL.

;-)

[OpusatFR]

You betcha.

The ruling was regarding the rights of adults to do what they wish in privacy. Now, whether the marriage, father/daughter is not considered private, but in the public sphere is another thing entirely. However, if the justices rule on civil marriage for homosexuals, the whole adult incest wall could come down to tradition not law.

[wideawake]

FDR was married to his first cousin. Rudolph Giuliani first marriage was to his second cousin.

[bourbon]

I think the criminal defense atty. hired or assigned to defend this case would have the obligation to raise a constitutional defense to his client's prosecution. This is sad, but it is the strange fruit of the Lawrence v. Texas ruling.
(Yes, I meant to say "strange fruit." The choice of words was no accident.) :-)

[CholeraJoe]

I would have expected this in Walker or Lowndes counties, not Mobile.

[Naspino]

Ah -- I got hung up on the line "She didn't meet Charles Stewart until Alice was 3 or 4 years old, she said". I guess I didn't understand the point of why Charles Stewart was necessary to the article.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

[johnb838]

Who are we to judge?

[Eric in the Ozarks]

if an Arkansas couple get a divorce, are they still brother and sister ?

[muawiyah]

FDR was married to Theodore Roosevelt's cousin, not his own. There are a lot of Roosevelts (and Hoods, too, the other name this much married, much interbred family travels under).

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Not quite right.

Question: How was ER related to FDR?
Answer: Eleanor and Franklin were fifth cousins once removed. They are both descended from Claes Martenszen van Rosenvelt who arrived in New Amsterdam (Manhattan) from Holland in the 1640s. His two grandsons Johannes and Jacobus began the Oyster Bay and Hyde Park branches of the Roosevelt family. ER descended from the Johannes branch and FDR descended of the Jacobus branch.

[Catspaw]

I think marrying your first cousin is legal everywhere.

You can marry a first cousin in Wisconsin, but there are restrictions.

765.03 Who shall not marry; divorced persons. 
765.03(1)       
(1) No marriage shall be contracted while either of the parties has a husband or wife living, nor between persons who are nearer of kin than 2nd cousins except that marriage may be contracted between first cousins where the  female has attained the age of 55 years or where either party, at the time of application for a marriage license, submits an affidavit signed by a physician stating that either party is permanently sterile.  Relationship under this section shall be computed by the rule of the civil law, whether the parties to the marriage are of the half or of the whole blood.  A marriage may not be contracted if either party has such want of understanding as renders him or her incapable of assenting to marriage.
 

[johnb838]

First cousins are borderline ok to marry. I'm not sure if all states ban them or not. Second cousins it's perfectly all right, I'm pretty sure. Still a bit distasteful. Inbreeding, even when it doesn't cause overt birth defects, results in weaker, less intelligent, less attractive children. Outbreeding results in the opposite.

[johniegrad]

I guess I didn't understand the point of why Charles Stewart was necessary to the article

Maybe she's seeing him on the side. Actually, if she married Charles, she could become her mother's mother, and, hence, her own grandmother.

[neb52]

No she married here real father. The mother or the daughter put the step-father as the father on her birth certificate.

[Naspino]

I am compelled to rule that because abortion is legal; it provides a legal means of rectifying the objectionable side-effects of incest. In the second point the right to sexual privacy has been establish by this court on several occassions. Therefore it is the ruling of this court that the legislative law criminalizing incest is unconstitutional.

-- Sandra Day O'Connor -- 2004

[ellery]

They should form a club with Woody and Soon-yi.