DOUBLE BIGAMY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20928, 6 January 1938, Page 9

DOUBLE BIGAMY

MOTHER OF EIGHT Stated to have gone through four marriage ceremonies and to be the mother of eight children, a 35-year-old woman figured In an amazing story at Rothesay Sheriff Court, Scotland, when she was sentenced for double bigamy. The woman, Annie McGinnis, pleaded guilty to charges alleging that, being the lawful wife of John McGinnis. now residing at Worcester, Massachusetts, she bigamously married Francis Ewart Hunter, of Hatton Mains, Kirkewton, in Edinburgh, and Alexander Grant Jones, of Meikle Grenach Farm, Rothesay. Mr W. Grant, prosecuting, explained that she married McGinnis in 1921, when only 19. The couple lived with the husband’s parents for some months, but later separated. Thgre was one child of the marriage. The following year she went to Canada and later, in Boston, went through a form of marriage with a sailor named Kay. This man was the father of two of her children. Afterwards she returned to Scotland, and in July, 1928, "married” Hunter, with whom she lived until his death in 1930. There were two children of this union. Later she “married” Jones at Rothesay, describing herself as a widow. There were three children by this last union.

Mr T. MacLagan, defending, pleaded that McGinnis went through a form of marriage with Hunter so as to have a home for her children. When he died she married Jones for the same reason. Both Hunter and Jones were aware she was married. Her union with Jones had not turned out happily. He had continually taunted her with the fact of her bigamy and on one occasion had been sentenced to 14 days’ imprisonment for assaulting her. Matters became so bad that the woman actually attempted to take her own life and finally she determined to give herself up to the police. Passing sentence of three months’ imprisonment, Sheriff McLean declared that what he had heard of the woman’s history had caused him to take a more lenient view of the case than he would otherwise have done.