Bigamist Sentenced in West Chicago
By Margaret Lyons in News on Jul 20, 2004 4:20PM
Who says men dont want to get married? A West Chicago man was sentenced Monday to serve 30 days in jail for bigamy. Our favorite part of this story is that the man, Bruce Kerill, is also divorced.
Kerill, 48, married Marian in 1991. They separated, but didnt divorce. Then he married Carol in September 2003. Then he filed for divorce from Marian in March.
Carol reported Bruce missing in October, but it turns out he was just with his other wife. Upon his return, Bruce tried to get insurance benefits for Carol even though he still listed Marian as his spouse on employee documents. Police investigated (slow crime day?), and now Bruce has to go to jail. Well, sort of. He can leave during the day to go to work, and he has to undergo alcohol counseling.
For whatever its worth, bigamy is when you have two spouses, so it is a subset of polygamy, which is whenever you have more than one spouse. Polyandry is when someone has more than one husband, and polygyny is when someone has more than one wife. The preferred term is plural marriage, in case you were wondering or writing a constitutional law paper on Reynolds v. United States.