A Mississippi judge has ordered two brothers to take paternity tests to uncover which of them is the father of their sister’s five children.
Abigail Whitman, 37, Joel Whitman, 34, and Buck Whitman, 39, were all arrested during a family feud last week when several gunshots were fired after an argument arose about who was going to pay for child support between the two brothers.
Abigail Whitman, who recently lost her clerk job at a 7/11, threatened to sue both her brothers after they strictly refused to take a paternity test, a situation which quickly escalated into violence before they were shortly arrested afterward.
“Both brothers acknowledge that they have had multiple sexual relations with the plaintiff but do not believe they are the father of her five children” Attorney Alan Watts told the judge.
“The plaintiff has sworn on the Bible that she has never had once in her life any other sexual partner than her two brothers, which makes it impossible for one or both of the defendants not to be the father of her five children,” Attorney Alan Watts told the judge.
A paternity test could reveal that Joel Whitman, 34, and Buck Whitman, 39, are both the fathers of at least one of Abigail Whitman’s children.
“I am a God-fearing Christian and all I hope for is that we can all settle this once and for all, that my children can finally learn the identity of their real father and that we can go back to having a normal family life once again as we had before,” Abigail Whitman pleaded to the judge.
Abigail Whitman, who gave birth to her first child at the age of 11, currently lives with her mother, father, six brothers and all of her five children in the family house.
Although incest has been illegal in the state of Mississippi since 2014 and is officially punishable by up to ten years in jail or a $500 fine, the unique cultural and historical background of the state has made judges extremely lenient upon this matter, no person ever having been prosecuted for such an offense although same-sex marriage is void and punishable by up to twenty-five years in jail.
