A judge officiating a wedding in Lawton, Oklahoma might have thought that the couple before him was a bit unusual, given the twenty year age gap between the two women. Beyond that, however, Patricia and Misty seemed happy together, and were even looking forward to the prospect of adopting a child once their marriage was solemnized. While intergenerational couples may raise an eyebrow for some, legally there's absolutely nothing wrong with them. Unless, that is, they share a parent/child relationship.
Patricia Ann Spann, 45, and daughter Misty Velvet Dawn Spann, 26, tied the knot on March 25, 2016 in witness of two acquaintances. The pair had met about two years prior and according to Patricia, just "hit it off" right from the start.
Misty and her two brothers had been taken away from Patricia when they were quite young. They were raised by their paternal grandmother, and often referred to her as "mommy." Once Misty was an adult, she and Patricia. decided to reunite. That's when the sparks of incest began to fly.
Both women were aware of exactly who the other was; they were biologically related as mother and daughter. Nonetheless, their relationship began to quickly grow, breaking the normal familial bond and entering a romantic and erotic forbidden territory. They decided to get married as soon as same-sex marriage became legal in Oklahoma.
How is it Possible?
Misty had reservations, knowing that what they were going to do would not be accepted socially or legally. Her mom assured her that everything would be fine. After all, nobody would know since they had_ just met_ two years ago and Patricia said that she had consulted three different lawyers and was told by all of them that there was a way this could work.
In reality, no attorneys had been contacted. Patricia assumed she could trick the system since she was not listed as the mother on Misty's birth certificate - government officials had issued a new certificate listing Misty's grandmother as her mother. As an extra precaution, Patricia decided she would put her name on the marriage license as "Patricia Ann Clayton." That was enough for the Comanche County clerks, who accepted the license application and booked a date with a judge. It was time to perform a wedding.
The Past Catches Up
Fast forward two years. The Department of Human Services received a child welfare complaint about Misty and went to investigate. While looking into her situation, officials discovered the incestuous nature of her marriage. The couple was headed back to court, this time not for a wedding, but to face felony charges that could land them up to ten years in prison.
The judge annulled their marriage in October of 2017. Misty pleaded guilty, but was only given 10 years probation and had to undergo regular counseling. This light sentence could have resulted from her claim of coercion. "She forced my sister into this, there's a lot of people that know it," said Cody Spann, one of Misty's brothers. "For you to want to put your own daughter through this, what kind of person are you?"
Cody's account of coercion seems slightly different than Misty's, who says she was tricked into thinking the marriage would be perfectly legal.
The mother, however, was given two years in prison, eight years on probation, and of course had to register as a sex offender.
For some, it might be tempting to say this resulted from the "slippery slope" created by the legalization of same-sex marriage. But Patricia has a history of exploiting the system -- in 2010, she married her eighteen-year-old son Jody. That Oedipus-esque relationship lasted fifteen months before the son had it annulled.
While wedding officiants are free to accept or decline any request to perform a wedding for any reason, let's all pray that we are never approached by someone like Patricia.
39 comments
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Chris
I agree with bethkz. This has nothing to do with same-sex marriage no matter how badly the so-called Moral Majority would love to have it be so. The mother did the same thing with her son previously. It has nothing to do with religion no matter how bad the Evangelicals want to inject their beliefs into things and force everyone to follow their beliefs. It has everything to do with fraud. My sympathy lies with the child they were planning to/had adopted for having to lose more parents.
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Miranda Allison Young
That mother deserves more than two years in prison. This was her second offense since she also married one son when he was 18. Her three children are lucky they were raised by their grandmother rather than a criminal.
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DRREVHANNAHHOPE GORDON
The so called mother in my opinion was not just a criminal , but was very disturbed. I wonder if the law enforcement even asked why she married her children and her and her children's responses.
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John Owens
This is the brave new world on the road to Utopia.
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John Maher
RIGHT JOHN BOOGER BUTTERFLY OWINS and PERSONS that THINK and VOTE as YOU are the ONEs that got the US of A in the MESS WE ARE IN NOW, RIGHT GOOD OLE BOY................................................................
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mike
This is a very very sick situation. They need to put this mother under the jail, and put this young girl in extreme mental care. This is proof want happens when you get this far away from God's Word.
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Steve
there is no young girl involved the daughter is a 26 year old grown woman
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Janice A Ellery
Incest tends to go from generation to generation. This is no excuse but the mother was likely sexually abused as a child.The story doesn't say why family services investigated but at least it stopped another generation of children from getting screwed up too.
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DRREVHANNAHHOPE GORDON
I completely agree. I too was an incest survivor. No one helped me, but thank the Lord, my children were never part of that sick and evil cycle of that kind of abuse.
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Carl Elfstrom
I've heard a lot of strange things, but this is one of the strangest. Of course, it takes two to tango, and I haven't heard anything said about the children being brainwashed into thinking they were in love with her. The other son seemed to think it was weird, so how did he get to be normal? Were they having threesomes, but excluded him? It seems unlikely. There was an episode like this on The X-Files.[ I have the the first four seasons on DVDs.] It was called Home. Was the mother deformed in a bad wreck, and did they keep her under a bed? I wonder if the children will eventually marry each other. That would make a good sequel, in the new series, or better yet, a good movie. They might have been planning it all along. Don't believe everything at face value. There could be a lot more to this story than meets the eye. Then again, if its real, what's going to stop them from being together when the mother gets out of prison? Those freaks can be together without being married. All of their relatives might be the same way, and they might have been doing this for generations. Who knows? And still even stranger things have happened in this world. Just ask Rod Sterling. It could even be that creepy neighbor of yours. What about those strange growls you hear coming from his house...
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Steve
Misty (the daughter) was 26. She is old enough to know better too. Maybe they watched one to many episodes of Game of Thrones LOL
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Ralph Miller
Very entertaining story.Don't understand why family members knowingly marry within their own family(their already related).But there are other problems in the world,much more relevant than this
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Amy
Umm ok I just got lost here. How does the mother get charged as a sex offender? Is it because of the accusation of coercion? The daughter is an adult. She knew this was her mother. I am assuming she knew about the marriage to her brother. If all it takes is an accusation of coercion to be charged as a sex offender there is a hell of list of teenage boys and girls I know from high school and I am sure an inexhaustible list to add from the last 30 years since I left high school of sexual coercion. The charge of sex offender seems to get bantered around a lot more than it use to and for me at least, it takes away from the seriousness of this issue when applied willy nilly to everyone. While incest is illegal even between consenting adults, when its consenting adults, it's not something I think should be categorized this way. Along the same lines, why didn't the daughter also get charged as a sex offender? because of the coercion?
Not trying to be an ass or start a flame war, just honestly confused.
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DRREVHANNAHHOPE GORDON
It could be sad or sick. Possibly she really is attracted to them on different levels. She is attracted to the young man, whom she gave birth to, but did not raise. Technically, he is biological , only. Possibly, because he was raised with his paternal grandmother, he looks like the father and she found that attractive. In addition in regards to to her biological daughter, she was raised by her paternal grandmother, her values might be like her father in which she found attractive. So even though she gave birth to these 2 people, she did not raise them herself so these is where it gets to be a gray are, not a simple black and white. I find it very fortunate though, that she did not have a biological child/grandchild with her son. Maybe she was on the sex offenders list, because when she married the young man , he was 18, and the so called marriage lasted for 15 months. Possibly , he was under 18 when the marriage. All of this in my opinion reminds me of the series of books called Flowers in the Attic, by V.C. Andrews.
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biblical scholar
Trump will pardon her anyway, he empathizes with wanting to sleep with one's own family members!
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John Maher
NOW THAT is REALLY TRUE SPEAKING of REAL OBSERVATION BUTT THEN the RNC/GOP are ALL of the SAME CHURCH, St. DO yer SIBLINGs A/O yer MAMA, the CHURCH of the CONFEDERACY !!!
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Nick
This confuses me too. I don’t believe the incestual relationship was illegal, only the marriage. There wasn’t a concern about children having birth defects. There many questions left unanswered.
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Joe Bill Schirtzinger
However the law justified this scenario, the fact remains that a mother marrying her offspring is an unnatural state. It appears to me that the marriage laws being so inconsistent with spiritual law is allowing all manner of nonsense to occur.
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Carl Elfstrom
There are many strange laws in this land which have nothing to do with what seems right or wrong to most of us. Why do you think attorneys have to go to law school for three, whole years? If it was based on common sense or even common law it wouldn't take nearly that long.
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Penny
Why would she want to marry her own children someone that she gave birth to. This is sad
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MB
After reading all these comments, I know we are living in the last days!!! REPENT
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Carl Elfstrom
I'm sure its the last days of this article. It will soon be time to move on to another, hopefully more important and less perverted one. As a matter of fact, I would have been much happier if I never had to hear about this crap at all. Someone in the ULC must have a deranged sense of humour to throw this one to us, and is probably getting his jollies right now by reading this sick debate.
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John Hutchinson
Hello Carl I like what you had to say about common sense or common law when it comes to 3 years for an attorney because of their training is not based on common sense or common law.
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John Hutchinson
Carl I agree with you about somebody might have or must have a deranged sense of humor for putting this up! It seems like you might be putting your head in the sand by not thinking this is important because the 26 year old woman might have been perverted by her Mom in incest when she was a little girl! Have you thought about saying we should pray for her. This would be a noble thing to do. This would add to the conversation in a positive way! By yelling at the darkness does not always gives light to the darkness.Light always wins over every darkness in the end.
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Ron
Just let Dr Phil at them.
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Carl Elfstrom
I wonder who Dr.Phil's psychiatrist is. He might ought to get a second opinion.
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Gregory Bledsoe
Gimmie a Break, Why is it always the ones out of Oklahoma?
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Gayle Morris
I’m not in any way supportive of incestuous relationships. I just had a thought, if Adam & Eve were the beginning, Eve had to have had incestuous relationships with her sons to continue procreating. And Adam & sons had to have had incestuous relationships with daughters & sisters to continue procreating. Just saying...
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Michael
That is very interesting; thanks.
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Amy
Shhhh we are not suppose to question common sense things like that. It will get some of us rather testy. ;)
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Kristen Lake
I have always questioned that. When I was a little girl I used to ask my Mom and Dad who Adam and Eve's sons wives were. They never answered me. I don't think that incest was ever addressed in Genesis. Correct me if I missed it somewhere.
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Gayle Morris
I feel sorry for the daughter. She most likely never had a chance....impoverished, lack of opportunity to thrive. She needs our prayers to lift her up. Please think about her and imagine what she must have gone through as a child. I pray that she has peace and healing. I pray that she has an opportunity to experience a healthy, loving relationship that lifts her up.
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Carl Elfstrom
If God could make Eve from one of Adams ribs he could do anything. He probably planted some more people here who weren't related to Eve who she could screw without committing incest. They didn't have room to mention everything that ever happened in the Bible, and something like that seemed to trivial. They had to make room for more important things, like what to do with their mandrakes..
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Preacher Man
What you said is quite true. It is also possible that some of the ancient documents are yet to be discovered or, lost forever. That's where this thing called faith comes in. Everyone who reads scripture needs to keep an open mind and not take everything verbatim.
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Clifford Oliver
They need to treat problems like this as psychological disorders.
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Dana Hoffman
Incest hasnt or didnt go unnoticed for years this is just another form of trafficking only done so within the family. Again another crime thats being committed in plain site.
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Richard Lee Cornell
In some States you can marry your sister if both are over 50. Legal yes, ethical maybe not. But again inbreeding in many societies between cousins while again is strange it is the only way of increasing their numbers.
This has nothing to do with the legality of same-sex marriage. She did the same thing with a son. It is the fact that the two spouses were more closely related than legal in Oklahoma (or any other state), and making materially false statements on the marriage licenses. With a second offense, the mother should get more time.
I have to wonder what, precisely, the goal is in marrying her adult children.
In my opinion Patricia was not mother, but a rapist and sick. She needs more jail time than 2 years. Not that I'm excusing her behavior, but possibly there is an inheritance involved somehow.