Marriages
In 1984, Karr married 13-year-old Quientana Ray Shotts. Karr evidently told Quientana to lie about her age, and took her out of Alabama, where they both lived, to marry her. Karr and Shotts lived together as a couple in Hamilton after their wedding, and Karr "was abusing her every way there was," according to Melissa Shotts. Court records show that, in 1985, a 14-year-old girl sought an annulment of what the records call a "ceremonial marriage," saying she had feared for her life when she agreed to marry Karr in 1984. Karr admitted to the court that Shotts was a minor, but disputed Shotts had been 13. The marriage was annulled in 1985. Shotts later remarried and now bears a different surname.
Karr then married Lara Knutson in Alabama on May 19, 1989, when Karr was 24 and Knutson was 16 and pregnant. She was carrying twin daughters who were delivered via a home birth on September 1, 1989. The girls, named Angel and Innocence, died later that day. The couple went on to have three boys in close succession, the oldest, John born in 1990, Damon in 1992 and Seven Exodus in 1993. The couple divorced in 2001 following Karr's arrest for five misdemeanor counts of possession of child pornography in Petaluma, California. In the divorce petition, Karr's wife wrote that Karr was never physically violent towards her, but that Karr was "very controlling" of her. A restraining order against Karr was granted. Knutson said she (then he) purposely set out to get her pregnant, telling her the pregnancy would allow them to skirt the law and get married, according to statements she made in divorce records.
In 2007, Karr became engaged to a 23-year-old woman named Brooke Simmons who had a three-year-old daughter from a previous relationship.
Read more about this topic: Lara Knutson
Famous quotes containing the word marriages:
“If common sense had been consulted, how many marriages would never have taken place; if uncommon or divine sense, how few marriages such as we witness would ever have taken place!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Those Marriages generally abound most with Love and Constancy, that are preceded by a long Courtship.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
“The happiest two-job marriages I saw during my research were ones in which men and women shared the housework and parenting. What couples called good communication often meant that they were good at saying thanks to one another for small aspects of taking care of the family. Making it to the school play, helping a child read, cooking dinner in good spirit, remembering the grocery list,... these were silver and gold of the marital exchange.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)