Feb 8, 2008 10:30 am US/Central
Cops: N.C. Man Circumsized Sons With Utility Knife
DALLAS, N.C. (CBS) ―
Investigators say a man has been charged with child abuse in Caldwell County for circumcising his two infant sons with a utility knife.
Johnny Eric Marlowe, 32, pleaded no contest to more than a dozen counts of child neglect and one count of assaulting his wife. "I'd rather just take the maximum and let it go," Marlowe said to the judge, reports CBS News affiliate WBTV in Charlotte.
Authorities said Marlowe fathered children with his legal wife and another woman who lives in their home. One gave birth to a boy at their home in the rural Kings Creek community in November 2005, and the other gave birth to a boy there four months later.
The Associated Press reported that Marlowe had a total of 11 children with the two women, but WBTV reports that he is actually the father of 12.
Marlowe's wife, Amber, tried to tell the judge that her husband was married to another women at the same time and they all lived together in a very small house, the station reports.
Caldwell County Sheriff's Detective Shelly Hartley said Marlowe denied the women prenatal care in both cases and circumcised the boys when they were 8 days old.
Police reports indicate that Marlowe used a utility knife and one of the boys bled extensively, reports WBTV.
Marlowe said in 2004, doctors at a Pennsylvania hospital tried to force Amber to have a C-section, which Marlowe opposed, the station reports.
The doctors even went to court to try and get legal guardianship of Marlowe's unborn daughter.
The story made national news, but Marlowe won the case. Amber gave birth without complications at another hospital.
Marlowe later moved to Gaston County and is serving a 150-day jail sentence there on charges of resisting a public officer, assault on a female and multiple counts of child neglect.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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