Mom, Daughter Charged With Incest After Marrying

A woman and her daughter are facing incest charges after authorities learned the pair were legally married in Oklahoma this year, and that the mother had married her son a few years earlier, the AP reports. The motivation behind the March marriage was unclear Wednesday, when 43-year-old Patricia Ann Spann and her daughter, 25-year-old Misty Velvet Dawn Spann, made initial appearances in court. Under Oklahoma law, marrying a close relative is considered incest whether or not a sexual relationship exists.

According to a police affidavit, officers learned about the marriage late last month amid a child welfare investigation. Patricia Spann told a state child services investigator she'd lost custody of three children, who were adopted by their paternal grandmother, but reunited with her daughter two years ago. She said she thought a marriage was OK because her name wasn't on her daughter's birth certificate, the affidavit states. Detectives later learned she married her son in 2008. He filed for an annulment 15 months later citing "incest," stating he was married to his birth mother, according to the affidavit. (More incest stories.)