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Minister with 8 wives free after serving 2 years
More articles on this topic: Anthony OwensALAMO, Ga. — Attention Joanna, Earleen, Queenie, Valerie, Mattie, Paulette, Shirley and Gwen:
Your husband is out of prison.
Bishop Anthony Owens, the traveling minister who made national headlines by marrying a Duluth woman without divorcing his other wives, got out of prison Saturday after serving two years on a bigamy conviction.
In a prison interview conducted a day before he was to be released, the repentant preacher said he truly has been rehabilitated and has big plans for a new life.
Shortly after he walks past the barbed wire barricades of Wheeler Correctional Facility in the tiny South Georgia town of Alamo, Owens said he will issue a public apology to his eight wives.
Then he will sign a stack of divorce papers.
“I know that what I did was wrong,” said Owens, looking noticeably thinner and older than the man who used to woo women with religious talk and flashy suits. “I have apologized to them in as many ways as I know how. I’ve sent notes to them. I said I was sorry in national newspapers. I even asked for their forgiveness on the “Montel” [Williams] show. And still I plan to apologize again.”
But for those who have followed this well-publicized saga of the marrying minister who said, “I do” to women in Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina and Alabama, another plot twist might be in store.
Owens says part of the story has not been told. And he thinks the information he is holding may surprise some people.
“I just want the whole truth to come out,” Owens said. “Now, it is true that I was married to more than one wife. But they were not so innocent in this. Many of them knew I was married, and they married me anyway.”
Owens would not be specific about what he’s holding back, other than to say it might be of interest to the police. He said he wanted to save the details for an upcoming news conference, book and film.
But if there is another chapter in this drama, it would be hard to top the bizarre tale that took Owens from pulpit to prison.
According to police reports, Owens and some of his wives, his first marriage was in 1990 in Memphis, Owens’ birthplace. At the age of 18, Owens married 43-year-old Joanna Hill.
The couple had dated for about three months, Owens said. And Hill had two sons, ages 18 and 15. The marriage was troubled from the start, Owens said. And it did not help that Hill’s teenage sons often complained that Owens was young enough to be Hill’s third son.
After only a few months of marriage, the couple decided to get a divorce, Owens said.
The only problem was Owens did not believe in divorce. He had already become a minister. He was building a nondenominational ministry and was studying the Mormon faith. Owens said his misunderstanding of Mormon teachings was one of the reasons he married 41-year-old Earleen Mabien in 1992 even though he was still married to his first wife.
Another factor was that he was searching for a mother figure, Owens said. His own mother had passed away when he was a child.
Owens, 34, said he kept searching for a mother in the older women that he continued to marry.
He would love them and leave them, sometimes moving to another state as he struggled to find a home for the church he dreamed of building.
“I never tried to intentionally hurt those women,” Owens said during the interview in the prison’s visiting room. “I love them. And not all of them hate me. Only the last three hate me.”
After Earleen, Owens married Queenie Sanders in South Carolina in 1995. Then Valerie Brown in Alabama in 1997. Then Mattie Noland in 1999, also in Alabama. Then Paulette Miller-Owens in 2001 back in Tennessee. Then Shirley Rhodes 11 months later in the same Tennessee county. Then, finally, Gwen Robinson of Duluth in 2002.
During their marriage, Robinson learned about the other wives and called Gwinnett police. Owens said he did divorce some of the wives, but he can’t remember which ones. He reiterated that he plans to get everything straightened out once he is a free man.
Some of his wives say Owens did not just leave them brokenhearted. He also left them broke. Owens was a smooth talker who was able to convince his wives to pay the expenses Owens incurred in building his church.
Noland said Owens left her $50,000 in debt. Rhodes says that Owens left her homeless. Robinson said she spent $10,000 of her retirement money trying to help Owens build his church.
One of his wives said she will forgive Owens, but she will never forget.
“I am a Christian, so I have to forgive him,” said Robinson, the Duluth wife who helped put Owens in prison. “But I do not believe he is rehabilitated. He will say the right things right now because that is what con men . . . do.
“But give it six months, and he’ll back on the run conning people.”
Though he has vowed to sign a stack of divorce papers, Owens said he does not want to sign one.
“There is a wife that I still want to stay with,” Owens said. “I really don’t want to say it for the newspaper, but she knows who she is.
“One thing I wanted to say to all the wives is that I am not a con man,” he said.
“I made mistakes, but I am still a man of God.”
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