Werthead
Lemming of Discord
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2006
- Messages
- 2,188
And his wife too.
This isn't even a Marion Zimmer Bradley, allegations made after death kind of thing. They were arrested, put on trial and they both went to jail for a year in 1970 for imprisoning and torturing their adopted son. Both their adopted son and daughter were removed from their custody and their adoption papers revoked. Eddings lost his job working in academia in South Dakota and they were forced to relocate to another state, Eddings having to take a job working in a grocery store because he couldn't get another job teaching young people for love nor money (and probably legal requirements).
There is no suggestion of sexual abuse, but the details of the story are still pretty grim. They had a dog cage in their basement (where several animals lived) that they made their four-year-old adopted son sit in for hours and perhaps days at a time, and inflicted physical punishment on him with a belt and other implements. They were literally caught red-handed in the middle of beating him when the cops showed up and arrested them.
After becoming famous, Eddings joked that he left academia because the pay was better working in groceries. In the pre-Internet age the story never came up (in fact, they didn't even change their names, otherwise the story may have never come to light).
It should be noted you don't need to go burn your Eddings books: Leigh died in 2007, David in 2009 and all proceeds from their estate now go to Reed College in Portland, Oregon.
This isn't even a Marion Zimmer Bradley, allegations made after death kind of thing. They were arrested, put on trial and they both went to jail for a year in 1970 for imprisoning and torturing their adopted son. Both their adopted son and daughter were removed from their custody and their adoption papers revoked. Eddings lost his job working in academia in South Dakota and they were forced to relocate to another state, Eddings having to take a job working in a grocery store because he couldn't get another job teaching young people for love nor money (and probably legal requirements).
There is no suggestion of sexual abuse, but the details of the story are still pretty grim. They had a dog cage in their basement (where several animals lived) that they made their four-year-old adopted son sit in for hours and perhaps days at a time, and inflicted physical punishment on him with a belt and other implements. They were literally caught red-handed in the middle of beating him when the cops showed up and arrested them.
After becoming famous, Eddings joked that he left academia because the pay was better working in groceries. In the pre-Internet age the story never came up (in fact, they didn't even change their names, otherwise the story may have never come to light).
It should be noted you don't need to go burn your Eddings books: Leigh died in 2007, David in 2009 and all proceeds from their estate now go to Reed College in Portland, Oregon.
