Man Repeatedly Raped By His Own Mom At 10 Fears Little Brother Is Also His Son
A man who was subjected to repeated sexual abuse by his own mother starting at just 10 years old is now left questioning whether his younger brother might also be his biological son.
Logan Gifford, now 26, has spoken out about the horrifying abuse he suffered over many years at the hands of his mother, Doreene Gifford. His early life was already marked by loss and instability. Logan was exposed to drug use at a young age, and the family endured tragedy when one of his younger brothers — Logan is the oldest of four boys — drowned in a pool at the age of three. The child was in a vegetative state for several months before passing away, a loss that deeply affected the entire family.
In a 2015 preliminary court hearing, Logan, who is from Las Vegas, testified that around the age of 10, his mother led him into the bedroom he shared with his father. While a pornographic video played on the television, she began to sexually abuse him, marking the start of a pattern of repeated assaults.
Doreene Gifford has always insisted she is innocent. However, after Logan opened up to a therapist about what he had endured, she entered what is known as an ‘Alford’ plea.
An Alford plea is a type of legal agreement where the accused maintains their innocence but accepts that the evidence gathered by prosecutors would likely lead to a conviction if the case were to go to trial.
When Logan was 17, he was in a therapy session where the therapist raised a painful and shocking possibility: that his younger brother, born in 2009, might actually be his biological son, according to reporting from the Las Vegas Review Journal.
“Look at the mess that I’m left with,” Logan Gifford said to the Las Vegas Review Journal. “I didn’t ask for any of this. I was a child when all of this happened and yet now I’m responsible for picking up the pieces of something that really is still continuing to have an impact in my life and dragging me to deal with that. I feel that as though it is my obligation or my duty to (him) to do this and find out who his biological father really is.”
At present, his younger brother is living with Logan, along with Logan’s wife and stepdaughter. Logan has been granted temporary guardianship of the child as the situation unfolds.
Logan’s attorney, Timothy Treffinger, explained that if the DNA test confirms Logan as the father, the legal proceedings will shift into a custody case. However, if he is not the father, it will remain a guardianship matter.
“To sit here and say that my brother may be the product of my sexual assault is a very visceral thing to think about as a male survivor,” he said. “But he’s here now. There’s no going back and undoing anything. And he deserves to have a quality of life where he’s comfortable, where he can be a kid.”
The memorandum further claimed that Doreene herself had experienced abuse during her own childhood, both from her parents and while in foster care. It also described abuse during her marriage and noted that she struggled with drug addiction, particularly methamphetamine.
Doreene is currently incarcerated at the Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center in Las Vegas. She had been released on parole in July of the previous year but was arrested again earlier this year after violating a condition of her release that barred her from contacting her victim.
Another parole hearing is scheduled for April, which is the same month her original sentence is set to conclude.
