adoption – saleintothe90s

Two things on my computer collided with each other recently.

Thing one: last week, Dr. Phil had on this lady who found the son she gave up for adoption. The thing is, she’s way too cuddly with him. It’s uncomfortable. It’s like they’re boyfriend and girlfriend.

What mom and son sit under a blanket and watch TV soo close to each other like that.

Thing two: a few days later, I was cleaning out my bookmarks when I ran across something I bookmarked from the old Google Newspapers and titled, “man eho married mom pg 4″ (yup, with the typo). I bookmarked it years ago, and forgot about it. I thought, “how do you marry your mom and not know it?”

This is what it looked like on my computer, aw, right next to a Toys R Us ad advertising a book about Ernie from Sesame Street lying.

Well, turns out it had a lot in common with that episode of Dr. Phil!

At first, I didn’t understand why Danny James was indicted on incest charges if he was the one who discovered that Mary Ann was his mom and tried to divorce her. Also, isn’t James a bigamist too because he married a month prior to this article, and his marriage to his mom hadn’t been granted a divorce yet? He considers it void, but did the court?

(this was also the only photo I could find of either of them. He kinda looks like Gerald McRaney in Simon & Simon)

I began to dig and it only got more off the wall:

…how could she formally adopt her 22 year old son after marrying him? He’s an adult. I’m so confused.

Then it came time for court:

Danny Bass testified he had not had sex with, did not live with, and did not marry his mother within the last four years – the statute of limitations cited by defense attorneys in their motion to dismiss all counts.

But he invoked the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 13 times when questioned by the prosecutor about his relationship with his mother.

Charles B. Bass, the woman’s husband before and after her admitted marriage to her son, testified Danny Bass still lived with and slept in the same bedroom as his wife through June 1984.

He said he didn’t know about the incestuous relationship ‘until I read it in the paper.’

Asked by the prosecutor whether she was still legally married to both men, Mrs. Bass replied, ‘Yes sir.’

She said, however, she has ‘not had intercourse’ since the marriage to her son was consumated in 1978. She testified that when her son came home from the Army in 1979, she admitted that she was his natural mother and told him to pack his bags and leave.

‘I got down on my knees and begged him,’ she said.

During her testimony, Mrs. Martin gulped down a nitroglycerin pill and asked for a court recess when a prosecutor asked her if she were the mother or the wife of Danny James Bass. 1

Apparently it was wrapped up in December of 1984:

1. Schwed, Mark, “Mary Ann Garton Bass and Danny James Bass, the…,” UPI, October 26, 1984. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/10/26/Mary-Ann-Garton-Bass-and-Danny-James-Bass-the/7085467611200/

Tag: adoption

378. Mary Ann Garton Bass & Danny James Bass