‘Cruelest Woman’ Back In Jail Breaks Parole To Marry Off 16-Year-Old Abused Daughter

Susan Clemmer, once dubbed the “cruelest woman in America” by a prosecutor, is back in the Ferry County Jail after marrying off her 16-year-old daughter to a 30-year-old man.

Clemmer, 47, admitted Tuesday that she violated her parole from a 1993 conviction for repeated sexual abuse of her daughter when the child was 10. Instead of keeping away from the girl as ordered, Clemmer gave permission for the girl to marry an Oklahoma man and attended the Oct. 22 wedding in Las Vegas.

Superior Court Judge Larry Kristianson sentenced her to 20 days in jail, the amount she served while waiting for Tuesday’s hearing. Clemmer remains in jail, though, until Oklahoma authorities can pick her up on a warrant charging parole violation in connection with a 1993 check fraud conviction.

Clemmer declined to be interviewed.

She got national attention in 1992 after allegations of a bizarre extortion plot against her boyfriend.

While hauling goods for Clemmer in July that year, Edsel Mikesell accidentally drove his pickup into a ravine and was pinned in the wreckage with a broken back. Okanogan County authorities said the wreck couldn’t be seen from the road, but Clemmer went to the site on the day after the wreck.

Mikesell said Clemmer offered to bring help only if he would sign a document giving her all his possessions. When he refused to sign, she left.

A day later, he said she came back with the same offer. Again Mikesell refused to sign, and again he said she left him in the wreck with no food or water.

The next day, a passing motorist finally spotted Mikesell and called for help. Sheriff’s deputies were rescuing Mikesell when they saw Clemmer cruise past. Officers pulled Clemmer over, and said she immediately asked how Mikesell was doing - even though rescue vehicles blocked her view of the wreck.

Newspapers all over the country printed the story, and the Globe supermarket tabloid had a field day.

“MOST EVIL WOMAN IN AMERICA?” the Globe speculated in a giant headline.

Al Nielson, the Ferry County prosecutor at the time, was quoted as saying Clemmer may have been the “cruelest woman in America.”

Court documents in Ferry and Okanogan counties show Clemmer routinely forced her daughter to have sex with Mikesell, who is now 40, and even encouraged the girl to have sex with one of her brothers.

Clemmer didn’t deny that the girl was sexually abused up to 50 times. Ferry County Superior Court Judge Fred Stewart cited that fact in October 1993 after Clemmer pleaded guilty to one count of attempted indecent liberties.

Sentencing guidelines called for her to get less than two years in prison, but Stewart gave her five years because of her violation of trust as a mother.

Mikesell got 19 months in the Okanogan County Jail - including credit for time served while awaiting trial. The Okanogan prosecutor dropped a first-degree rape charge and two assault charges in exchange for Mikesell’s guilty plea to one third-degree assault charge.

Sexual abuse of the girl occurred at a campground in Ferry County as well as at Clemmer’s and Mikesell’s cabin in Okanogan County. Clemmer was prosecuted in both counties, but Mikesell - who was paralyzed by the traffic accident - faced charges only in Okanogan County.

The Okanogan prosecutor dropped a traffic-accident extortion charge against Clemmer when she pleaded guilty in March 1993 to exposing herself indecently to a child. She got six months in the county jail for that conviction and went on to face a similar charge in Ferry County.

Clemmer got out of prison two years ago and her probation was about to end when Nielson’s successor, Steve Graham, found out last month that she had enabled the girl to marry a man almost twice her age. Graham rushed to court for a warrant, and had Clemmer arrested in Tacoma.

Graham said he recommended only one-third of the maximum 60-day sentence for the parole violation because of the cost of bringing witnesses from Nevada. Also, he noted that Clemmer’s action would have been legal in less than three months when her probation expired.

The 1992 tabloid story about Clemmer also was spiced with details of her association with “circus fat man” Jesse “Tiny” MacDonnovann.

MacDonnovann, who weighed 400 pounds at the time, got 2-1/2 years in prison on a second-degree burglary conviction in 1994. Authorities said MacDonnovann recruited Clemmer’s 14-year-old son to break into a home for him on one occasion.

“He’s huge, and I heard he worked for a circus one time,” Nielson told The Spokesman-Review at the time.

MacDonnovann was not connected with the sexual-abuse charges.