Speaker 1: Previously on Hello John Doe.
Speaker 2: I would like to know who my dad is. I
Speaker 2: found out I potentially had another sister through the Brandenburg side,
Speaker 2: but they were all connected to the Brandenburg except me.
Speaker 3: Philip, Steedhm and Patterson. You should have had your butt
Speaker 3: here because your sisters love you. He wants those answers.
Speaker 3: We're going to do everything we can and as a
Speaker 3: family to help him get those answers.
Speaker 2: At this point, Steve still hadn't met Sandy, his biological mom,
Speaker 2: and he had no plans to, but he had met
Speaker 2: plenty of people related to Sandy. In our last chapter,
Speaker 2: the Brandenburg sisters wanted to accept him into their fold,
Speaker 2: even though DNA test showed they didn't share the same father.
Speaker 2: Now that Brandyburger's ruled out, Steve really wanted an answer
Speaker 2: to what man helped make him him. You want to
Speaker 2: find your father, right, or at least I know who
Speaker 2: he is, know who he is, at least find out. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's one of my biggest things. I needed to ask
Speaker 2: an expert, So I call Carol Silecki, who's been with
Speaker 2: the Dough Network for years. She got involved after her
Speaker 2: ex husband disappeared in nineteen eighty nine. He was missing
Speaker 2: almost twenty years before he matched with a John Doe
Speaker 2: who had drowned what's snorkeling in Florida. Carol has always
Speaker 2: loved genealogy and ancestry, but she also had a stepfather
Speaker 2: who was adopted as a baby and a.
Speaker 4: Child, I was more interested in learning about his biological
Speaker 4: family than he was.
Speaker 2: For the last few decades, she's helped adoptees find their
Speaker 2: biological families.
Speaker 4: I work in retail jewelry sales. I make my money
Speaker 4: and then I come home and this is my hobby.
Speaker 2: I asked Carol to help me build out Stay's family
Speaker 2: tree on ancestry dot Com.
Speaker 4: So like the strength of the DNA matches, if you
Speaker 4: have close matches and you're able to identify who these
Speaker 4: people are and to build out their family trees, you
Speaker 4: could solve this pretty quickly. What I mean by the
Speaker 4: strength of the DNA matches, the amount of DNA that
Speaker 4: two people share is measured in a unit called centim organs.
Speaker 2: In general, the higher the cine morgan count, the closer
Speaker 2: the genetic link. This step can get real complicated, but
Speaker 2: basically you want to find where those numbers are The highest.
Speaker 2: So in Stave's case, Carol found a woman who shared
Speaker 2: five hundred fifty six cinem organs of DNA with him.
Speaker 4: So the next thing I do is look at the
Speaker 4: matches and luis color five fifty six. We look at
Speaker 4: the matches that Stephen in five fifty six have in common,
Speaker 4: and I try to look for matches that have good
Speaker 4: sized public family trees that you can look at and analyze,
Speaker 4: and I try to see how people are interconnected. And
Speaker 4: what you want to do is find their most recent
Speaker 4: common ancestor. We want to try to find maybe a
Speaker 4: grandparent or great grandparent.
Speaker 2: Then Carroll built private, unsearchable trees, plotting out DNA matches
Speaker 2: to see how people connect. Basically, that's how she pinpointed
Speaker 2: their most recent common ancestor, and I was.
Speaker 4: Able to determine that five point fifty six is his
Speaker 4: first cousin once removed, so she is Stephen's father's first cousin.
Speaker 4: So she and Stephen's birth father share a set of grandparents.
Speaker 4: Now we need to figure out who the other set
Speaker 4: of grandparents is.
Speaker 2: Based on this meticulous matching process, Carol identified State's paternal grandparents.
Speaker 2: They settle in Nevada, and they had one son.
Speaker 4: In a nutshell, we have the only son of a
Speaker 4: married couple who come from two different areas of the country,
Speaker 4: and we have close and clear DNA connects to both
Speaker 4: sides of this couple's families. So that's what leads me
Speaker 4: to believe that Daniel is his birth father.
Speaker 2: After her exhaustive search, Carol had a name, Daniel Polk.
Speaker 2: It felt like we'd found him, but I wanted to
Speaker 2: run His name passed Sandy, so I called her up
Speaker 2: and asked, did the name Polk sound familiar? And she
Speaker 2: confirmed that yes, she did remember a Dan Polk who
Speaker 2: she knew in Charlotte. She told me Dan was a
Speaker 2: car salesman, a very slick person. Steve would have been
Speaker 2: conceived around the summer of nineteen seventy three. Sandy tell
Speaker 2: me she didn't date him per se, but she did
Speaker 2: remember him. So he did a bit more digging on
Speaker 2: Daniel Polk. He served in the Navy in Vietnam and
Speaker 2: then he drilled water wells. He also volunteered with the
Speaker 2: fire department in Lubock, Texas. I also found out that
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy nine he married a woman named Ronalda
Speaker 2: about five years after Steve was born, and there was
Speaker 2: something else he died.
Speaker 4: I had in nineteen eighty Daniel would have been a
Speaker 4: newly win pretty much bring tumors or what it looks like, Yeah,
Speaker 4: bring tumor.
Speaker 5: Yeah, very sad.
Speaker 2: He was just thirty three and living in Texas when
Speaker 2: he died. He was buried at a cemetery in New Mexico.
Speaker 2: After all this time, I'd be able to tell Stavis
Speaker 2: father's name, but he'd never be able to ask him
Speaker 2: the questions he had, or to visit with him or
Speaker 2: see if they both sit in the same way or
Speaker 2: talk similarly. This isn't the first time Carol's digging help
Speaker 2: someone find the parent they were looking for, only to
Speaker 2: find that they were gone. It was too late.
Speaker 4: I know firsthand what it's like to live without answers
Speaker 4: for many, many years, And you know, it's just important
Speaker 4: for people to know their origins.
Speaker 5: You know, it just.
Speaker 4: Gives people peace of mind, regardless of what the answers are.
Speaker 4: Just to have the answers and to know the truth
Speaker 4: is what gives people peace of mind.
Speaker 2: After Carol filled me in, I needed to tell Steve.
Speaker 2: I called Stephen Janette in June of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: we have been into ancestry and we have you know,
Speaker 2: I did find Polk. Polk was a name.
Speaker 6: The closest relative to you that I found in ancerstory
Speaker 6: was a Polk. Got a hold of Handy and I said,
Speaker 6: do you remember any Pokes?
Speaker 2: And she did. I do believe it. Daniel James Polk.
Speaker 2: Where is he from?
Speaker 4: Was he from North Carolina?
Speaker 6: Yes, in the same area. She said that pretty Charlotte
Speaker 6: is in Charlotte and he.
Speaker 2: Has passed away. He passed away in nineteen eighty. Oh wow.
Speaker 6: Now, as of right now, unless something changes my mind,
Speaker 6: I believe that your last name would be Polk. And
Speaker 6: you have family there that we were stolen from too.
Speaker 6: They probably don't even know you exist.
Speaker 2: Steve didn't say much on the phone that day. I
Speaker 2: can see why I told him his father was Daniel
Speaker 2: Polk at the end of a long phone call. The
Speaker 2: name of his father could only do so much in
Speaker 2: that moment. It didn't make him feel any more wanting.
Speaker 2: I've thought about this interactional lot. Like I said before,
Speaker 2: I'd been running ahead of Steve opening doors for him
Speaker 2: that he wasn't ready for. I wanted so desperately to
Speaker 2: help him move forward. I'd been pushing and maybe I'd
Speaker 2: gone too far this time. My name is Todd Matthews,
Speaker 2: and this is hello John Doe, A sleuth, a family,
Speaker 2: and a serial killer. The story of a family torn
Speaker 2: apart by tragedy and my quest to bring them back together.
Speaker 2: Chapter ten, The Reunion. Okay, I am recording now. We
Speaker 2: are about how far out, sixty four miles out from
Speaker 2: our hotel, and we won't see Steve until later tonight
Speaker 2: after he gets off work. A few weeks earlier, in
Speaker 2: August of twenty twenty three, the Brandenburg sisters had all
Speaker 2: gotten together for their own reunion at Andrew's place in Tennessee.
Speaker 2: You remember Andrea the Firecracker didn't know her birth family
Speaker 2: till her fifties. She had invited her sister, Michelle, the
Speaker 2: dog killer owner from Michigan, and her other sister, Amy,
Speaker 2: the Virginia school bus driver, and that invited Steve.
Speaker 5: They was supposed to be a mini family reunion, but
Speaker 5: he didn't come.
Speaker 2: Steve was a no show, but all of them were
Speaker 2: so excited to welcome him into their circle, so the
Speaker 2: three of.
Speaker 5: Us decided racing in there at her tables at Andrea's
Speaker 5: house that we were going to go to him.
Speaker 2: It could be a little road trip, and they invited
Speaker 2: me to come along again. This second reunion came together
Speaker 2: real fast, late summer. In a matter of days, Andrew
Speaker 2: and I were talking about driving there in the same
Speaker 2: car from Tennessee to Steve's hometown, Cherville, North Carolina. Amy
Speaker 2: and her husband Mike were going to meet us there.
Speaker 2: They didn't want to give Steve a chance to back
Speaker 2: out or make an excuse, so they forged ahead.
Speaker 5: He didn't know we were coming. We knew if we
Speaker 5: told him, he probably would have said he had to
Speaker 5: work or something. We kind of just sprung in on him.
Speaker 2: I get where Amy's coming from. She and her brother
Speaker 2: had an amazing connection when they first met, but after
Speaker 2: that he seemed distant. Amy wanted to continue spending time
Speaker 2: with her new found family, but it's hard to contain
Speaker 2: surprises at this scale. Mary, Steve's adoptive mom, soon found
Speaker 2: out that the sisters were coming to Cherryville to see Steve,
Speaker 2: and she didn't think he'd appreciate them just dropping in,
Speaker 2: so she told him. That's the first time things got tense.
Speaker 2: She started texting me tell them not to come. He
Speaker 2: is very upset, but when I texted Steve he said
Speaker 2: he was cool with it as long as we met
Speaker 2: at the hotel, not at his place. He would be
Speaker 2: the first of many contradictions that weekend. That summer afternoon,
Speaker 2: Steve met us at the Quality Inn. It was an
Speaker 2: enthusiastic reunion. He seemed genuinely happy to see his sisters
Speaker 2: and vice versa. They couldn't wait to tell him about
Speaker 2: their plan. Here's Andrew the hisstory was adopted to well,
Speaker 2: we're good.
Speaker 3: To Our original plan was Toy was gonna message you
Speaker 3: and say, hey, I just came in to Charlotte. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna be in you know, he's Mountain or Shelby. You know,
Speaker 3: I want to see you. Can you come over to
Speaker 3: the hotel and hang out here?
Speaker 7: And then we were surprised and that was our original plan.
Speaker 5: It's just been over two years.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's one thing my mong little teaching secret for me.
Speaker 8: I promise you that I can't.
Speaker 4: There were nothing.
Speaker 2: She asked me if I was working sad and I
Speaker 2: said no.
Speaker 4: I said what you need?
Speaker 9: She said, I mean stuff done around the house?
Speaker 10: What you done?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 7: She said, I can't.
Speaker 10: Down.
Speaker 8: The next text said was five minutes later. She said,
Speaker 8: you know I keep everybody.
Speaker 2: I'm kind and glad. She told us it wouldn't be
Speaker 2: too much of the shop. We wanted to surprise you,
Speaker 2: but we didn't want it to blindside you, but it
Speaker 2: would be another surprise that we'd end up unrappling some
Speaker 2: of the goodwill between Steve's new sisters and his mom
Speaker 2: and girlfriend. Steve, his sisters, and I gathered at the
Speaker 2: hotel not too far from his house. The hotel wasn't fancy.
Speaker 2: It was the kind where each room opens up into
Speaker 2: the parking lot. We all got separate rooms, but we
Speaker 2: treated andreas like homebase. So that's where we were catching
Speaker 2: up and getting settled. Everyone seemed to ease. It felt
Speaker 2: like whatever tension had happened before we got there was resolved.
Speaker 2: About an hour after we all gathered, his sisters told
Speaker 2: Steve there was more. It's a little hard to hear,
Speaker 2: but here's Andrea.
Speaker 3: Okay, you have another surprise.
Speaker 5: It's your choice.
Speaker 7: Sanity came with you.
Speaker 8: She's in the race.
Speaker 3: If you don't want to see her, that's fine with
Speaker 3: all of us.
Speaker 2: Steve's mother, who gave him up for adoption fifty years ago,
Speaker 2: who had only messaged on Facebook, was suddenly a room away.
Speaker 2: Sandy had tagged along an Amy in MIT's car. Now
Speaker 2: she was sitting in her own hotel room at the
Speaker 2: same quality inn. I couldn't believe we had arrived at
Speaker 2: this point. A mother and son torn apart by Floyd
Speaker 2: might be reunited today if Steve would agree to see her.
Speaker 2: We're here with you, Stephen.
Speaker 8: I think you will open your cart. Both of you need.
Speaker 2: We didn't want Jerry Springery, but both of you need
Speaker 2: because you weren't going to.
Speaker 8: Go and there's no hold of faults. If you want
Speaker 8: to yell out of yell, yell.
Speaker 2: At her, he said, I ain't gonna yell at her.
Speaker 8: We're just saying, you do what you want.
Speaker 3: If this last three years been through fucking rough on it,
Speaker 3: so don't feel like you're strained. You can't ask or anything,
Speaker 3: because everything is open right now for all of us,
Speaker 3: and you don't have to worry about it.
Speaker 11: We got you.
Speaker 2: Are you okay with that?
Speaker 3: If you're not, tell us.
Speaker 2: Be honest with us, he said, it's fine. Steve seemed
Speaker 2: really laid back in this moment. He was sitting having
Speaker 2: a drink, seemingly going along with the flow.
Speaker 3: I'm not serious. I want to help you so you
Speaker 3: could process this whole thing.
Speaker 5: She understood before we went that if he didn't want
Speaker 5: to see her, we weren't going to force her on him,
Speaker 5: you know, So she came prepared to stay in the
Speaker 5: hotel room by herself, without seeing him.
Speaker 2: Steve got to choose, you can hear us ask him,
Speaker 2: But his choice is made in the matter of a
Speaker 2: few minutes, with Sandy sitting in the other room. If
Speaker 2: he had known this was the weekend he'd meet Sandy,
Speaker 2: his girlfriend or his mom would have been by his sight,
Speaker 2: but that day he didn't have either of them to
Speaker 2: lean up. I'll let Amy tell you what happened next.
Speaker 5: Before we brought her in, we asked Steven if he
Speaker 5: wanted to see her, and he said yes. So we
Speaker 5: took Sandy and she was in the hotel room, and
Speaker 5: then we asked and he said, sure, bring her over.
Speaker 11: I said, just rip the band it.
Speaker 5: Off and brought her in the room. And some people
Speaker 5: were mad at me because I did it that way.
Speaker 2: The thinking was that Sandy wouldn't live forever. She was
Speaker 2: already in her seventies, and that Steve had real questions
Speaker 2: about his background that only she might be able to answer.
Speaker 2: I figured if we all got behind him and supported him,
Speaker 2: maybe this was the right time to meet Sandy. They
Speaker 2: willed Sandy into Andrea's room, where we were all gathered.
Speaker 2: She looked a little nervous and a little tired, like
Speaker 2: she had been traveling all day and it had been
Speaker 2: hard on her. There were a lot of us in
Speaker 2: that hotel room and only a few chairs and two
Speaker 2: big beds. I watched the two. I was delighted to
Speaker 2: reunite mother and son. I'd been the go between for
Speaker 2: so long, and here they were finally face to face
Speaker 2: after all this time. They didn't look too much alike,
Speaker 2: but they did share the same temperament, A little reserved,
Speaker 2: but polite.
Speaker 5: They just said hello. There wasn't no big, happy like
Speaker 5: happy reunion hung each other.
Speaker 2: Based on all the time that I'd spent with both
Speaker 2: Steve and Sandy separately, I knew Steve had hesitations about
Speaker 2: meeting her, and I knew Sandy was reluctant to push
Speaker 2: too much. For the rest of the afternoon, we all
Speaker 2: sat in the hotel room together. Steve said, with Sandy
Speaker 2: knee to knee, him in a hotel chair, and her
Speaker 2: and her wheelchair. The rest of us hung around the room.
Speaker 2: Some went in and out to smoke cigarettes, some poor drinks.
Speaker 2: Everyone cracked jokes and exchanged stories about the car ride there.
Speaker 2: I don't know all of what Sandy and Steve talked
Speaker 2: about in that corner. We tried to give him some space,
Speaker 2: to be fair, though there wasn't much space in that room,
Speaker 2: no real quiet for a private conversation. But every time
Speaker 2: I glanced over, it felt like they were getting along.
Speaker 2: I saw Steve show Sandy photos of his kids, and
Speaker 2: she reciprocated. At first, they didn't talk about anything too deep,
Speaker 2: but as the afternoon went on, Steve dug a bit deeper.
Speaker 2: You can hear Steve here. He's pretty faint.
Speaker 8: Were you scared of him?
Speaker 2: Steve asked if she was scared of Floyd, the man
Speaker 2: who tore them apart.
Speaker 7: Terrafied, who had a knife with him all the time,
Speaker 7: a knife under the pillow, knife and guns. One time,
Speaker 7: the girls a lot in the thing and he was
Speaker 7: in the kitchen. He caught us for us somewhere When
Speaker 7: you said, if any of you ever tried to believe
Speaker 7: I'm gonna skin you just like this squirrel.
Speaker 2: We've heard this story before, how Floyd threatened to skin
Speaker 2: Sandy and her girls like squirrels. But this was the
Speaker 2: first time that Steve had hurt. It was he starting
Speaker 2: to say that Sandy was a victim too.
Speaker 7: I was arrested for raining at dollars seventy eight check
Speaker 7: at seven eleven for diapers for eighty. I mean, the
Speaker 7: biggest part of it was after the tornado and after
Speaker 7: you were born. Fema put us back in a trailer
Speaker 7: in church and I had no car, no way to
Speaker 7: get out, and every time the storm came. Annie was two,
Speaker 7: she would freak out. I would freak out, and I
Speaker 7: guess and now they call it chu ksd And there
Speaker 7: was no help. I asked the mask and asked for help,
Speaker 7: and ever.
Speaker 9: Because you'd say the system failed her, yes, one.
Speaker 2: Yes, How does that make you feel?
Speaker 9: Don't I would be happy.
Speaker 2: I think everyone wanted to make him feel validated, But
Speaker 2: in hindsight, we didn't give him a whole lot of
Speaker 2: space to just sit with this.
Speaker 8: It's a lot to process. I'm not gonna lie when
Speaker 8: I found out about it, you know, I still have
Speaker 8: the messages. I said, they tell me your up. I
Speaker 8: was like, is that true? And he was like, yeah,
Speaker 8: I think I am sobby. It's a lot to process,
Speaker 8: a lot, it is.
Speaker 2: Throughout the story, I'd learned something from say Sandy, and
Speaker 2: then relay it back to Steve, and Steve would say
Speaker 2: something and I'd tell Sandy I was the carrier pigeon.
Speaker 2: I'd been a buffer for both of them, but now
Speaker 2: I needed to step away and give them a chance
Speaker 2: to talk to each other. If Steve had questions, this
Speaker 2: was his chance to ask Sandy directly. Every time I
Speaker 2: looked over to see Sandy talking to Steve, I thought
Speaker 2: to myself. Fifty years ago, Franklin Floyd told Sandy should
Speaker 2: never see her son again. Today we were undoing that promise.
Speaker 2: While all of this was going down in the hotel room,
Speaker 2: Mary who lives pretty close to Steve, checked in on him.
Speaker 11: I take to Steve, I said you okay, He said, Mama,
Speaker 11: get down here.
Speaker 2: Mary had no idea that Sandy was at the hotel.
Speaker 2: She thought, just as sisters had come. She was already
Speaker 2: on the fence about that. So when she realized Sandy
Speaker 2: herself was face to face with Steve. Well, Mary was angry.
Speaker 11: Steve was ambushed with this, and it's not very nice
Speaker 11: for them to do that. Why I went down there,
Speaker 11: and the first thing he said when I went into
Speaker 11: the room was this is my mama, and I love her.
Speaker 2: Steve was proudly introducing her, but I think something else
Speaker 2: was going on. He wanted the whole room to know
Speaker 2: that Mary was the one who had been there for
Speaker 2: him his whole life. Or maybe after Mary arrived he
Speaker 2: felt guilty after unexpectedly spending the whole day with Sandy.
Speaker 2: I wasn't sure Amy noticed a ship too.
Speaker 5: His whole attitude changed because before Mary got there, he
Speaker 5: was talking to Sandy and asking her questions and she
Speaker 5: was answering for him, and he seemed to be a
Speaker 5: little more relaxed. But then when Mary got there, they
Speaker 5: say he just Withdrew.
Speaker 2: Jeanette came to the hotel after work too. She seemed
Speaker 2: a little quiet, but I figured she was just in shock.
Speaker 2: We tried to light in the move by going out
Speaker 2: to eat together. We all went, the sisters plus Sandy,
Speaker 2: Jeanette and Steve. We all sat at a big long
Speaker 2: table at a Mexican joint in town.
Speaker 5: When we went to dinner, it was comical as hell.
Speaker 5: We all would just laughed so much, all being silly.
Speaker 5: Oh we had a blah.
Speaker 2: But by this point something was a miss. Mary would
Speaker 2: later say that she was upset Sandy had come without
Speaker 2: telling Steve first. I had a hard time seeing it clearly.
Speaker 2: Just then that day, I was only thinking about the
Speaker 2: potential positives of having Steve been able to sit down
Speaker 2: with Sandy, not the blowback it might have. I'd grown
Speaker 2: tired of Steve not wanting to move forward on his journey,
Speaker 2: not walking through the doors I'd helped open for him.
Speaker 2: Mary and Jeanette aren't exactly the kind of people to
Speaker 2: scream or get visibly angry, but it was clear they
Speaker 2: weren't happy with this situation. Jeanette said as much to me,
Speaker 2: I wish this hadn't have happened. By Saturday morning, the
Speaker 2: tension began to come into focus for the sisters. At
Speaker 2: the Mexican restaurant the night before, Jeanette apparently told Andrew
Speaker 2: she felt this had been sprung on Steve without his consent.
Speaker 2: Here's Andrea, and you know.
Speaker 3: She's like, you know, I'll have to pick up the
Speaker 3: pieces stand that, but we're your tea, you know. We
Speaker 3: We've got his bag, we'll help. We're a phone call away,
Speaker 3: we're a text message away.
Speaker 8: We'll talk to you.
Speaker 3: Because if he did have any more questions, she is
Speaker 3: the only person that could answer them.
Speaker 2: That Saturday, Steve had to run a few errands, so
Speaker 2: we knew we wouldn't be seeing him until later. That
Speaker 2: mostly left Sandy, Amy and Andrew alone with me, so
Speaker 2: we went out to lunch. How did you be last night?
Speaker 7: We went talking pretty good for a while, help wonderful,
Speaker 7: and he called me Mama last night. I told him
Speaker 7: I looked for him in every way that I knew
Speaker 7: how at the time, and found nothing.
Speaker 11: And he said, oh.
Speaker 7: And then then Mary said that they had done away
Speaker 7: with the birth certificate when she adopted him. And then
Speaker 7: he said, oh, I see. And that was the end
Speaker 7: of that, and then everybody else came back in. We
Speaker 7: stopped talking like that. I think it answered a question
Speaker 7: for it, but I think in the back of his mind,
Speaker 7: and I guess if I were in his position, i'd
Speaker 7: feel the same way that I didn't.
Speaker 8: Look hard enough.
Speaker 2: After fifty years.
Speaker 7: Strange, but good.
Speaker 2: Of all the people in the room with Steve that weekend.
Speaker 2: It seemed like Sandy could empathize with Steve the most.
Speaker 7: He's more fragile than I am, so I need to
Speaker 7: let him do it in his time, in his way.
Speaker 2: Sandy remained clear headed about the whole thing. She knew
Speaker 2: this might be hard on him. She didn't always want
Speaker 2: to surprise Steven Cherville or think it was the right
Speaker 2: thing to do. Amy encouraged her to go. Sandy had
Speaker 2: already lost one kid. Amy wanted her to have the
Speaker 2: opportunity to know her son.
Speaker 7: I told her at first, I said, no, I'm not going,
Speaker 7: and she said, if I should drag you out of
Speaker 7: the house, you're going.
Speaker 2: Go too.
Speaker 7: Because I told her that I didn't feel like she.
Speaker 8: Observed to see him.
Speaker 7: I think you did, though I think I do now,
Speaker 7: but I'm sort of like Steven that I don't like
Speaker 7: to intrude.
Speaker 2: Sandy had already processed Steve coming back in her life
Speaker 2: before she even showed up this weekend, but Steve was
Speaker 2: still processing. She knew she didn't have a right to
Speaker 2: know him if he didn't want her. She recognized that boundary,
Speaker 2: but Steve's sister Amy wanted peace in the family. She
Speaker 2: thought bringing everyone together would help them move through things.
Speaker 2: Amy was trying to get Steve to see for himself
Speaker 2: that he wasn't abandoned or discarded. What happened was for
Speaker 2: the best. I think Amy, who had already gone through
Speaker 2: so much in her life, wanted Stephen Sandy to feel
Speaker 2: the peace that she'd found. She knew Janette would be
Speaker 2: left to care for Steve in the aftermath, that maybe
Speaker 2: Steve wasn't ready, that there would be consequences, but she
Speaker 2: barreled ahead, leaving Steve's girlfriend in the dark.
Speaker 8: And I understand why she's mad, because she is the
Speaker 8: one that has to deal with him after everybody's gone.
Speaker 8: But I wish she would take a minute to realize
Speaker 8: all of this needed to hack. We need to close
Speaker 8: the story. We need the story to have an Endie,
Speaker 8: and I expect him to not talk to me for
Speaker 8: a long time.
Speaker 2: This is kind of a remarkable bit of insight. Amy
Speaker 2: knews surprising her brother with her Mom had pushed her
Speaker 2: brother away, but still hoped he had come back on
Speaker 2: his own sometime in the future. Sandy I also recognized
Speaker 2: this might be the only time she ever sees Steve.
Speaker 7: He's not at peace and it's not going to be
Speaker 7: closure until he's at peace. So I would love to
Speaker 7: have a relationship with him, but if that's not what
Speaker 7: he wants, I'm not going to push it on. To
Speaker 7: know that he's alive and that we found him and
Speaker 7: that I've seen him, and if that's.
Speaker 11: All, I've got this all like that.
Speaker 2: After that weekend, it took a long time to get
Speaker 2: married to call me back. She ended up talking to
Speaker 2: my producer, Kate.
Speaker 11: Well. I was told who his sister was coming, and
Speaker 11: that was his and a friend from up Tennessee.
Speaker 2: Mary, for her part, said Steve felt blindsiding and maybe
Speaker 2: ganged up on.
Speaker 11: They could have been honest, but they want they will
Speaker 11: awful whip him. And if it had told me his
Speaker 11: mama was coming, then it might have been different.
Speaker 2: To this day, Mary Sam Sandy wants something from Steve.
Speaker 11: She's trying to play Steve on a pity card, but
Speaker 11: he's smarter than that.
Speaker 2: Look, it could be that Steve has just been polite
Speaker 2: that day in the hotel, showing Sandy pictures and talking
Speaker 2: to her. Maybe you didn't want to offend her, so
Speaker 2: he stayed put to hear her out. Even if he
Speaker 2: had lost faith in her, But it could be that
Speaker 2: Mary was the one having a hard time dealing with
Speaker 2: Sandy coming back into the picture. Amy thinks Steve's deferential
Speaker 2: to Mary that he felt he didn't want to disappoint
Speaker 2: her by knowing Sandy. There's a lot of complicated dynamics.
Speaker 5: Sarah, I think he was afraid to let Mary know
Speaker 5: that he wanted Enginette to know that he wanted to meet,
Speaker 5: or like there was something wrong with that. It's almost
Speaker 5: like he doesn't doesn't want to hurt her feelings. I
Speaker 5: don't know. I can't get a read on it. Steven
Speaker 5: needed to know and Sandy needed to know that even
Speaker 5: though it was a shitty decision that she made to
Speaker 5: give him to Mary, it saved his life.
Speaker 2: The circumstances of Steve's life, even the one no one remembers,
Speaker 2: ensured he survived.
Speaker 5: Now. He hugged her both days. Friday before when we
Speaker 5: were leaving, he hugged her, and Saturday before he left,
Speaker 5: he hugged her and he called her mom. Andy, you
Speaker 5: teared up and said that he called me mom. That's
Speaker 5: when I knew what I had done was right.
Speaker 2: But there's something I keep coming back to if there
Speaker 2: is a part of this family story that is black
Speaker 2: and white. It's this Franklin Floyd did a world of
Speaker 2: damage that persists to this day. He took away a.
Speaker 8: Lot, and we're finding what he didn't get his hands on,
Speaker 8: and we're trying to put it back together. And that's
Speaker 8: all that matters.
Speaker 2: Every single person this story is experiencing the ripple effects
Speaker 2: of their family being torn apart and dealing with their
Speaker 2: own struggles. It's like that saying hurt people, hurt people
Speaker 2: and bringing a family together is sim not enough to
Speaker 2: bring closure to tragedy. Franklin Floyd robbed this family of
Speaker 2: a lot. He took Susie from them, and then he
Speaker 2: took Michael. He forcing into a situation in which she
Speaker 2: felt she had to give up her son.
Speaker 8: You know, we will survived, We have survived, and we'll
Speaker 8: just keep growing from here, she hoped so.
Speaker 2: And I do too. After that weekend, my conversations with
Speaker 2: Steve and Jeanette Dwindle, I don't think Steve was necessarily
Speaker 2: cutting me out. I just figured he retreated from everyone.
Speaker 2: Then several months later, my producer Kate tried Mary one
Speaker 2: last time, and she picked up I was glad she
Speaker 2: picked up. I was worried about how the reunion hit Steve,
Speaker 2: and I was anxious to hear how he was faring.
Speaker 2: Mary said. The months after the reunion had been tough.
Speaker 11: He has not been the same and he's not happy.
Speaker 11: He did not want to meet her and it was
Speaker 11: forced on him.
Speaker 9: What does us say about all this?
Speaker 11: He won't talk about it. He didn't want no more
Speaker 11: said about it. We're trying to let it die, just
Speaker 11: let it die down, and he's trying to avoid Tod
Speaker 11: to real. Yeah, he he'll answer him shortly, but he
Speaker 11: wants He won't call you on a conversations to God.
Speaker 9: Todd cares about him.
Speaker 11: I know that. But you know, the more you stir
Speaker 11: my parents talk, made more you stir shit the worsest thinks.
Speaker 11: And he doesn't tell me, he said mom, And she
Speaker 11: might give life to me, but she won't answer tell
Speaker 11: me the truth on questions. It's like one time you
Speaker 11: lie to me, shame on you. Second time's shame on me.
Speaker 11: They won't be a third time.
Speaker 9: What is she worried about?
Speaker 11: You know, she didn't know who he did he was,
Speaker 11: and she didn't remember all lis She remembers all Lias,
Speaker 11: it's just a pedetoria.
Speaker 9: Has he talked about therapy aal like with that help.
Speaker 11: He wouldn't he thought my husband he wouldn't go to they.
Speaker 9: The reasoning I wanted to ask you, So I just
Speaker 9: I just want to run this by you. Sandy to me,
Speaker 9: seems pretty unrecognizable. She seems like she watches out for
Speaker 9: her grandkids, and she cares for her kids, and that
Speaker 9: she's she's a better mom than she used to be.
Speaker 9: And I wonder if you believe that she's changed.
Speaker 11: I don't know. I'm not a random A lot on that.
Speaker 9: She got settled down, she married for thirty years, had
Speaker 9: more kids, and now has you know, grandkids and his
Speaker 9: great grandkids, and they say that she's.
Speaker 11: Changed, Well, it's about the bomb.
Speaker 9: Do you think people can change?
Speaker 11: Ye talked they walk so God, Bob, if you're willing.
Speaker 9: Do you think you regrets starting on all this knowing
Speaker 9: that his real name and knowing about Tindy and knowing
Speaker 9: of us, so we ain't unhappy about that.
Speaker 11: I don't think I think he will calm down eventually,
Speaker 11: maybe ten fifteen years from now he might reach out
Speaker 11: to him, but I doubt it.
Speaker 2: Three years ago Steve asked me to find out more
Speaker 2: about his origin story. We ended up on the journey together,
Speaker 2: but neither of us knew just what we were getting into.
Speaker 2: Kate asked Steve's sister Amy about my role here.
Speaker 5: It's like he's been digging in and searching, and he
Speaker 5: brought Steve to the rest of us. You know, he's
Speaker 5: the one that's been fighting as you'd have thought, he
Speaker 5: was the parent that lost their traps time ago. You
Speaker 5: just thought he was Sandy. Surely he's family.
Speaker 2: Knowing what I know now, should I have done this?
Speaker 2: I think the answer is yes, if you ask me,
Speaker 2: I think the reunion is the only thing to do.
Speaker 2: But I wish i'd realized center that Steve needed more
Speaker 2: time to process. Not the months I gave him, but years.
Speaker 2: And like I've said, I have my own journey to
Speaker 2: Steve's story. I first heard about him twenty years ago,
Speaker 2: long before I knew Amy or Sandy or even Steve himself.
Speaker 2: I said this in the beginning. This case chose me.
Speaker 2: The way I see it, Steve and I are still
Speaker 2: early in our relationship. Once you've been in this situation
Speaker 2: like this, one have been lost and found the people
Speaker 2: you embark with on that journey. Stay with you even
Speaker 2: if we don't talk for a while. I think we
Speaker 2: can pick up right where we left off when Steve's ready.
Speaker 2: I guess I know why I'm so invested in this one.
Speaker 2: You ever wish for something you can't have. I wish
Speaker 2: I have what Steve has, the opportunity to know his siblings.
Speaker 2: I wasn't afforded that, And when I opened the door
Speaker 2: for room, he decided he didn't want to walk through.
Speaker 2: It's left me jealous. I guess what I do to
Speaker 2: trade places with him, just for a day. You always
Speaker 2: want what you can't have. I'm used to dealing with
Speaker 2: the dead. It's easier to hand someone to bot some bones.
Speaker 2: There's a homecoming and a finality of knowing your loved
Speaker 2: one's not missing anymore through at peace. It's so much
Speaker 2: harder to work with the living. We're complicated and messy
Speaker 2: as humans, people who love and hurt each other. Today,
Speaker 2: Steve has more people to love him and ready to
Speaker 2: support him when the time is right for him to
Speaker 2: reach out. I hope you'll be glad to have those
Speaker 2: people in his life, and I'll hope you'll forgive me
Speaker 2: for the mistakes he might alone the way I've opened
Speaker 2: the door, and hopefully sometime in the future stable choose
Speaker 2: to walk through.
Speaker 1: Remember how I told you at the end of the
Speaker 1: story we'd see things in a different light. Just as
Speaker 1: we'd finished this episode, Todd Matthews died suddenly. He's now
Speaker 1: on the other side of the veil between life and death.
Speaker 1: He spent so much of his life thinking about the
Speaker 1: dead and hoping one day to reunite with the siblings
Speaker 1: he lost, But his sudden passing has left us. All morning,
Speaker 1: I keep thinking about all the things he said during
Speaker 1: this journey that now have deeper meanings since he's gone.
Speaker 1: So we felt like it was only fitting to spend
Speaker 1: time with his story for our first bonus episode. We're
Speaker 1: going to dig into the life of an original, our host,
Speaker 1: Todd Matthews, so on the other.
Speaker 10: Side now, and who's to say that he might leave
Speaker 10: a little tidbit of information here, little clues you don't
Speaker 10: know that you know. Do I believe in God? Yes
Speaker 10: I do. Do I believe in Todd?
Speaker 2: Yes I do. Hello. John Doe is an original productions
Speaker 2: by Revelations Entertainment in association with First and Last productions
Speaker 2: from Revelations. Our executive producers are Morgan Freeman and James
Speaker 2: Younger from first to last. Lindsey Moreno is the executive producer.
Speaker 2: Our producing partner is Neo on Hume Media. It was
Speaker 2: written and produced by Kate Michigan. Our editor is Catherine
Speaker 2: Saint Louis. She is also ne on Home Media's executive editor.
Speaker 2: Executive producer is Sherah Morris. Our development producer is Ian Lindsay.
Speaker 2: Our associate producer is Rufaro Faith Masarua. Sound design and
Speaker 2: mixing by Scott sun Reveal Demon Original music composed by
Speaker 2: Jesse Pearlsting. Additional music came from Epidemic Sound and Blue
Speaker 2: Dot Sessions. Vendall Faulton is our fact checker. Our production
Speaker 2: manager is Samantha Allison from my Heart Media. Dylan Fagan
Speaker 2: is our executive producer. Special thanks to Adelia Ruben at
Speaker 2: Nion Him and Carrie Lieberman and Will Pearson at iHeartMedia.
Speaker 2: I'm Todd Matthews. You can learn more about name us
Speaker 2: at nam us dot com. The number for the National
Speaker 2: Center for Missing Exploited Children's Call Center is one eight hundred.
Speaker 2: The loss that's one eight hundred eight four three five
Speaker 2: six seven. Eighth. The National Sexual assaul Hotline from the Rate,
Speaker 2: Abuse and Incest National Network is one eight hundred sixty
Speaker 2: five six four six seven three. Okay, guys, this is
Speaker 2: the end of the show. If you didn't like it,
Speaker 2: don't do anything. But if you did like, get you
Speaker 2: make sure that you rate and review the show. It
Speaker 2: helps more people to find it and hear this wonderful story.
Speaker 2: Thanks again for listening.