Breaking the Silver Cord

Danny Bass, a Tennessee construction worker, was 20 years old in 1978 when he married Mary Ann Garton, then 37. Bass had been put up for adoption when he was three, and except for a brief encounter in his early teens, he never saw his mother again. Then, after three months of married life, Mary Ann Bass casually informed Bass that she was his mother. As Danny's lawyer, Doug Jackson, put it, "That really set him back a notch."

Bass ran off and joined the Army for four years, but his mother persisted in her efforts to lure him back. Says Jackson: "He has letters from her in which she says she loves him like no other girl." Last week in Charlotte, -- Tenn., the attorney general's office brought charges of felonious criminal incest against Mrs. Bass, who pleaded innocent. If convicted, she could face up to 21 years in jail. Danny now says that all he wants is a new life and a new wife. One closer to his own age.