Mystery Man

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Speaker 11 And I think with Becky, I feel like Becky has a more similar personality to me and that is that the girl will always land on her feet and she will get knocked down but she will wipe herself off and get back up again and I would say that Becky is really she's just she's so positive and she's so warm and she's so loving despite all of the heartache that she has been exposed to.

Speaker 11 Or maybe because, you know, she had two parents who really tried hard to make her feel safe and loved. I think that she has the right to know who her father is.

Speaker 11 And I think just because her mother refused to tell her doesn't make it any less valid desire to know. I mean, any, I think we all have the fundamental right to know who our parents are.

Speaker 11 And obviously, I support her trying to find out who it is.

Speaker 13 That was Elena, Becky's former babysitter, who, like many people in Becky's life, recognized that despite what she's endured in her life and some of the choices she made early on, she's ultimately become a fundamentally good person, the complete opposite of who her mother is.

Speaker 13 Whatever darkness lives inside of Diane Downs and whatever that may exist genetically inside Becky Bobcock, she's pushed past it to lead a life and become a person who's nothing like her biological mother.

Speaker 14 And so I think there was this sort of this

Speaker 14 Diane-shaped void inside of her that she's always trying to bring the drugs and the men and everything to.

Speaker 14 And

Speaker 14 I remember sensing she can't quite fill it

Speaker 14 with what she's trying to fill it with. And

Speaker 14 so, I mean, she would talk about really sort of crying out to God and saying, please help me. I don't know who I really am.
Am I just just the daughter of this crazy killer?

Speaker 14 Or am I this person who's going to have my own life and my own identity? And I don't want to be known as the daughter of Diane Downs anymore.

Speaker 14 And I think by the time we were done talking with her, she was pretty much, it felt like she was

Speaker 14 shaking the dust of Diane off of her because I think she makes the decision once

Speaker 14 they have some communication, her and Diane, that she's not going to go, she's not going to go back there,

Speaker 14 which is what Diane wanted. Please come visit me.
Let's talk. Let's, you know,

Speaker 14 whatever.

Speaker 14 And so, for Becky to say, you know what, I'm making a decision. I really don't want to be involved in that.
And so I have some control over a few things, and this is what I'm going to do.

Speaker 14 And it's going to feel better that I got to do it.

Speaker 13 From the time he met Becky and as he got to know her, Eric Mason supported the idea of Becky searching for her father.

Speaker 14 Oh, I thought it was a really good idea

Speaker 14 because

Speaker 14 she's looking for grounding. That's what I always felt about Becky.

Speaker 14 From the day she showed up at that pizza parlor in Bend, and I looked across the table and I said, Wow, that is Diane's daughter.

Speaker 14 And

Speaker 14 she just had so many plans and dreams.

Speaker 14 It's like, I would like to be a nurse and I would like to help people and I have all these plans and my Mercedes needs parts and I need to get it fixed and I need to find a better place to live.

Speaker 14 And there was this orbit around

Speaker 14 Becky that felt a little bit like the orbit and the energy and the spin around Diane. But certainly she had a lot more control and grounding.
And she understood

Speaker 14 that if she wasn't careful,

Speaker 14 the undertow of all of that could pull her under and that she'd be lost. And so I think she really was introspective and really wanted to make changes.
and not be like her mom.

Speaker 14 And so, you know, she got involved in a church and she really

Speaker 14 did some self-examination when she would sense herself going down the rabbit hole of drugs and men and chance meetings and all of those things.

Speaker 14 And she

Speaker 14 would pull herself short. and say, you know what, I can't go down those roads because for my mom, she's in prison for the rest of her life.

Speaker 14 So I think she wanted to make contact, some limited contact with mom, but really did want to find out who her real biological father was. And that made sense.
And it was a good thing.

Speaker 14 I thought it was a great thing.

Speaker 13 Michelle Leonard, the DNA detective, who was key in helping Becky confirm that she was, without a doubt, Diane Down's biological daughter, reached out again, and this time with news about Becky's paternal side.

Speaker 16 It's been several weeks since we all convened with Michelle at the DNA detective and Becky.

Speaker 16 Becky and now Michelle had some breakthroughs in your case Becky so I wanted to have this meeting so we could go over her findings and I'll turn it over to you Michelle.

Speaker 18 Okay hi Melissa. Hi Becky.
Hi. So

Speaker 18 last time we

Speaker 18 had a session where we talked about my first impressions of your DNA results and there were some important clues that I was able to share with you at that time about your recent immigrant ancestry coming from areas like Poland, Ukraine, and perhaps the Netherlands.

Speaker 18 But this time, what we're going to do is much more of a deep dive into your actual DNA matches and their ancestry.

Speaker 18 And I'm going to go through the research I've been doing and talk you through how I've come to certain conclusions about your paternal ancestry.

Speaker 13 Jumping off from the jackpot match she previously discovered, Michelle was able to narrow down the relationship of the match.

Speaker 18 You've spent, you know, most of your life wondering about and

Speaker 18 to see it in black and white is a big thing. It really is.

Speaker 18 And of course, you have what I named the jackpot match, a paternal match sharing around the same amount of DNA as your maternal uncle. Therefore, this is a very close paternal relative.

Speaker 18 And I had worked out the last time that it has to either be a paternal half-sister because this is a female match or a paternal full aunt.

Speaker 18 The other option was grandparent but that doesn't work because this person is matching to all of the different clusters of matches that I'm seeing on your paternal side so that means she's matching to both your paternal grandparents therefore she can only be a paternal half-sister or aunt.

Speaker 18 But of course she doesn't have a name. She just has a username with a set of letters and numbers that aren't easy to decipher and she doesn't have a tree.

Speaker 18 So we need to look at other matches to try to get to the bottom of this and try and work out who she is and who your biological father is.

Speaker 18 So if we scroll down your match list, the first thing you're going to note is exactly what I'm saying about all of these maternal matches.

Speaker 18 I have been grouping your matches into colour-coded clusters, if you like. So I've been putting all the maternal matches into one group and the maternal matches are here.

Speaker 18 And you'll see that as you scroll down, it's maternal, maternal, maternal, maternal, maternal. And the first useful match that doesn't match to your maternal matches is

Speaker 18 this one.

Speaker 18 And we're going to call this man Hugo Kowalski.

Speaker 13 Just to note, Michelle isn't using any real names in order to make sure the identity of Becky's paternal relatives stay private.

Speaker 18 So Hugo Kowalski is a pseudonym of my making, and is the first interesting paternal match. Now, he's sharing much less DNA than your massive jackpot match, of course, only 138 centimorgans.

Speaker 18 But if we look at the probability chart for that, we'll see that it tells us it's 50% likely that this is a second cousin once removed, a half-second cousin, a first cousin three times removed, a half-first cousin twice removed.

Speaker 18 Lots of relationships there.

Speaker 13 In order to start untangling the complicated web of potential relationships, Michelle has to dive into the relationships and start putting together a family tree.

Speaker 13 Sometimes the information is geographical, so the work Michelle is doing requires more than just the ability to analyze DNA results.

Speaker 18 If you look at a tree and you say, okay, here's me, here's my parent, here's my grandparent, here's my great-grandparent, so that's that number of generations removed.

Speaker 18 from the common ancestors and then you say okay here's a cousin there's their parent there's their grandparent and there's the same great grandparents okay so we're on exactly the same level it is so much easier when you look at it visually than when you're trying to explain it in words but it is all to do with the number of generations away from the common ancestors between the two people and that's so so important in this case because we've got all these relationships to look at but how do we narrow them down?

Speaker 18 So Hugo is a great match to get on his own but as you can see there's only one shared match with him and that shared match also has ancestry that goes back to Ukraine, but also an area that a lot of people call Galicia, the Galicia area of Eastern Europe.

Speaker 18 So when people immigrated from this area to the United States or other countries in the 18 and 1900s, often they would say they're from Galicia, but sometimes they would say they're from Poland.

Speaker 18 Sometimes they'd say they're from the Ukraine. Sometimes they'd say they're from Austria.
Sometimes they'd say they're from Hungary. It was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at one point.

Speaker 18 So that's why you might see in some older records someone says they're from Austria when in actual fact they're from the Ukraine as we would know it now.

Speaker 18 So this is the area that you have strong ancestry from and very recent strong ancestry from.

Speaker 13 Found a cousin.

Speaker 18 If he is perhaps a first cousin of one of your grandparents, then I want to know who his parents and grandparents were.

Speaker 18 But I could only get as far as his parents because they were both immigrants and they came from the Galicia region to Canada.

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Speaker 20 This is Bowen Yang from Lost Culture East with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

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Speaker 13 Once Michelle has names and backgrounds, she starts doing a deep dive on social media accounts and even obituaries in order to find potential relationships.

Speaker 13 Michelle continues to unpack the relationships that unfold from this discovery, naming cousins, grandparents, aunts, and uncles down the paternal line.

Speaker 13 The lines cross and get somewhat complicated, but thanks to her visual build out, Michelle is able to keep everything together.

Speaker 18 And I do a lot of Facebook sleuthing to try and work these things out. So that is a good way to go.

Speaker 18 So I built a few lines out and I looked at Vadim and Ella in particular and I found that they had a daughter, Melissa Wozniak, born in the 1880s.

Speaker 18 And I traced Melissa's line forward and she married a man named Walter Pavlenko.

Speaker 18 Now, this is one of these moments that I call a Eureka moment because we've seen that name before.

Speaker 18 And I call it a Eureka moment because it's that moment where while we're building this large jigsaw puzzle and we're putting these pieces on the board two of the most important pieces have come together and then Michelle is one step closer to Becky's father and I also was able to source John and Esther's obituaries and those obituaries told me that they only had those two children they only had those two daughters now

Speaker 18 Looking at this, I was convinced at this point that these two people are your direct ancestors. You descend directly from Esther and John.

Speaker 18 You have DNA to both their sets of ancestors and they come together in Canada. So

Speaker 18 I believe you descend from one of their children.

Speaker 18 Yes. Okay.
So

Speaker 18 looking at these people, Esther and John, If you descend directly from them, they were born in the early 1900s in the Ukraine. They emigrated to Canada and they had these two children in the 1930s.

Speaker 18 You're born in the 1980s. We're looking for a biological father for you, born around the 1950s, perhaps.

Speaker 18 Therefore, this next generation, the daughters of Esther and John, this has to be your grandparent generation.

Speaker 18 And one of these two women is almost certainly your grandmother.

Speaker 13 And from the grandparents, Michelle is able to narrow down the connection even more.

Speaker 18 oh yeah

Speaker 18 so katya i've called her katia pavlenko born in the 30s in canada and guess what she went to the united states and guess what she did in the united states

Speaker 18 she got married to a man who came from the netherlands oh I found they got divorced in a particular state in the United States in the 1970s and later I found that they had married in the 50s and they had three children.

Speaker 18 I have used the surname Jensen for your paternal grandfather. So I've called him Jan Jensen.
He was born in the 20s in northern Holland in the Netherlands.

Speaker 18 He emigrated to Canada as an infant and in the 1950s he came to the United States permanently but I have found a great document from the 1940s where he's crossing the border and it actually gives us some information on his description, a description of his appearance.

Speaker 18 It tells us he's six foot three inches in height, got a fair complexion, very tall, blonde, blue eyes, quite typical Netherlands male description there.

Speaker 19 So a really interesting fact, when I was young and started asking questions about who my biological mother and father were, I was actually given that exact description for what my biological father was.

Speaker 13 And from this description of Becky's grandfather, she understands that the description that's been given of her biological father is most likely accurate.

Speaker 18 So at this point, I've found that Katia Pavlenko married this Dutch man, Jan Jensen, in the United States, and they had three children.

Speaker 18 Now, Jan passed away a few years ago, and I did find his obituary as well, which confirmed that he had immigrated to Canada as an infant and had come to the United States in 1950, and that he'd lived in Oregon.

Speaker 18 Wow. And that's where he had died.
So, Jan and Katia had three children during their marriage between the 1950s and the early 1970s when they divorced.

Speaker 18 And those three children, Matt, Richard and Louisa. Now, at this point, I was fairly certain on

Speaker 18 who had to be your biological father.

Speaker 13 And now with Becky's father identified, Michelle takes a somewhat careful approach of identifying him to Becky, starting with some of the questions she's had.

Speaker 18 First off,

Speaker 18 I remember that it says that he was a little younger than Diane. That's true.
He was slightly younger than Diane.

Speaker 18 Another thing is, of course, the appearance, the description. And I'm just going to stop sharing for a second and read a couple of things here.

Speaker 19 I just saw in there it says he's still living.

Speaker 18 He is still alive. Yes.

Speaker 16 becky how do you feel right now i'm looking at you on the screen you your your face is blank what are you thinking i'm trying not to cry let's just take a moment this is really monumental really monumental and i don't want it this to be trivialized or dismissed this is really massive he's alive which means that

Speaker 19 he's most likely known about me

Speaker 12 And that's what's pretty hard for me right now.

Speaker 19 If I remove all emotion from it, I'm super curious what his name is because,

Speaker 19 you know, Diane had given me a certain name and

Speaker 19 I'd heard names over the years and stuff. So it's, I mean, there's that curiosity of who he is

Speaker 19 with the emotional part removed, but there's also the emotional part that's just flooding right now.

Speaker 14 Yeah.

Speaker 18 So we're at the point now where one of the sons of Jan Jensen and Katia Pavlenko must be your biological father, and I believe it is their son that has been named Matt Jensen.

Speaker 18 And I'm going to go over some of the additional evidence for that, that isn't just the DNA.

Speaker 18 I have found a description of him, which tells us that he is six foot three inches tall and has brown hair, which completely matches the description already given.

Speaker 18 Additionally,

Speaker 18 there's location. This Matt Jensen is on a US index with an address in Cottage Grove, Oregon.
Now

Speaker 18 the date of this address isn't given, but it is prior to 1993 and I have tracked where he was in the 1970s.

Speaker 18 Therefore, he has to have been living in Cottage Grove in the 1980s, which means he was in the right place at the right time.

Speaker 13 Becky also learns that she has a half-sister. Michelle reveals this information to Becky and explains this could be another potential point of contact.

Speaker 16 How does that make you feel, Becky, hearing you have a half-sister?

Speaker 19 Um,

Speaker 17 hopeful.

Speaker 19 Christy and Danny didn't want a relationship with me, which I completely respected and understood. But

Speaker 19 I mean, maybe this person might, or, you know, maybe it would just be nice to know them.

Speaker 19 I mean,

Speaker 19 I don't know.

Speaker 19 It's all a lot. It's overwhelming right now, but I'm ready, you know.

Speaker 18 It's very hard to take such news like this in, and it takes time. It takes time to take it in and to understand it and to come to terms with it.

Speaker 13 With Becky's mother being who she is, Michelle is ready with the background information of Becky's father, confirming that he's nothing like Diane.

Speaker 18 I have not been able to find anything for your biological biological father other than he's a successful man, he runs a business, there's no criminal record other than a speeding fine, I think I found.

Speaker 18 Nothing of any that's where I got the description of his physical features. A $30 speeding fine is the worst thing I can find for him.
He is educated, he comes across as intelligent.

Speaker 18 His daughter is a high-flying person in her chosen profession. I can't find anything about the family that gives me any concerns as to who they are.

Speaker 18 There's no news clippings of him having done anything wrong at all.

Speaker 19 That's good.

Speaker 19 So I have a question. Was he a reporter?

Speaker 18 Yes.

Speaker 19 That's what we all thought.

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Speaker 5 This is Matt Rogers from Los Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

Speaker 20 This is Bowen Yang from Los Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

Speaker 5 Hey, Bowen, it's gift season.

Speaker 20 Oh, stressing me out. Why are all the people I love so hard to shop for?

Speaker 9 Like me? Exactly.

Speaker 5 Honey, I'm easy. But you're right.
Holiday gifting is stressful.

Speaker 20 And all the gift guides out there are boring and uninspired. Wait, what about the guide we made? In partnership with Marshalls, where premium gifts mean incredible value?

Speaker 8 It's giving gifts!

Speaker 5 A series of guides filled with premium gifts at great value for everyone on your list.

Speaker 20 Yeah, because if I see one more for the dad who likes golf list, I'm out.

Speaker 5 Right? How about something for the people who actually surprise you?

Speaker 20 With categories like best gifts for the mom whose idea of a sensible walking shoe is a stiletto, ps, she wants a pair of stilettos.

Speaker 5 Or best gifts for me that were so thoughtful I really shouldn't have.

Speaker 20 Dying to see what those are.

Speaker 5 And you won't believe their prices.

Speaker 20 Just wait till you see what else is in there. It's basically a one-stop shop for everyone you know.

Speaker 5 I started bookmarking half the list for myself, honestly.

Speaker 20 This is the guy for the 2025 holiday gifting season.

Speaker 5 Check out the guide on marshalls.com.

Speaker 9 It's giving gifts.

Speaker 14 Gift the good stuff at Marshalls.

Speaker 5 This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culture Eastas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. From executive producer Ryan Murphy comes your next TV obsession.
All's fair.

Speaker 5 Starring Kim Kardashian, Naomi Watts, Nisi Nash Betts, Tayana Taylor, with Sarah Paulson and Glenn Close.

Speaker 5 A team of female divorce attorneys leave a male-dominated firm to open their own powerhouse practice.

Speaker 5 Fierce, brilliant, and emotionally complicated, they navigate high-stakes breakups, scandalous secrets, and shifting allegiances, both in the the courtroom and within their own ranks, in serious style.

Speaker 5 In a world where money talks and love is a battleground, these women don't just play the game, they change it. They'll never settle.

Speaker 5 Don't miss the show everyone will be talking about and watch All's Fair now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

Speaker 21 What do you do when things get tough?

Speaker 6 You don't give up. You stand your ground.

Speaker 22 If you've been diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer and have tried hormone therapy, ask your doctor about Pluvicto. Lutetium-LU177, Vipivatide Tetraxetan.

Speaker 23 Pluvicto is not chemotherapy.

Speaker 22 It's a different treatment that targets PSMA-positive cells.

Speaker 24 Pluvicto can be used before chemotherapy for some people.

Speaker 22 Pluvicto is a prescription treatment used to treat adults with prostate-specific membrane antigen-positive metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, or PSMA-positive MCRPC, who have already been treated with hormone therapy and are considered appropriate to delay chemotherapy.

Speaker 22 Pluvicto involves contact with radioactivity, which may increase the risk for cancer and cause fetal harm.

Speaker 22 Drink plenty of fluids, urinate often, use contraception, and talk to your doctor about ways to reduce the risk of exposing others to radiation during and after treatment.

Speaker 23 Pluvicto can cause low levels of blood cell counts, kidney problems, and infertility.

Speaker 22 Tell your doctor if you have weakness, pale skin, shortness of breath, bleeding or bruising more easily, an infection or changes in urination.

Speaker 22 Side effects include decreased blood cell counts, tiredness, dry mouth, nausea, appetite loss, joint or back pain, and constipation.

Speaker 22 Ask your doctor about Pluvicto because every day without cancer progression is a victory.

Speaker 23 Visit pluvicto.com to learn more.

Speaker 13 And now the only step that remains for Becky is contact.

Speaker 13 Michelle and Becky avoided contacting the jackpot match previously in order to prevent jeopardizing any chance Becky may have of making contact.

Speaker 18 Now,

Speaker 18 you remember I was very reticent about contacting the jackpot match because I thought if it's a half-sister, we could be opening that can of worms and taking away his chance to tell her himself if he wanted to.

Speaker 18 And so it's a good thing that now we know for sure that that is who she is, that we didn't go take that route.

Speaker 19 I agree, because if she doesn't know, that would be kind of a scary awakening.

Speaker 18 Exactly. We could have blundered in with a message, hey, you're a close match.
Who are you? Blah, blah, blah. And we might have got the answer much quicker and easier.

Speaker 18 But we could have taken away your chance of having any meaningful contact um if that upset your biological father and he decided he didn't want to to know because we had blundered in and told his daughter something that is is yeah what begins to dawn on becky is that he's been near her the entire time and has likely known his relationship to her this entire time in general it's often Said, especially in the United States, that it's better for something personal to come.

Speaker 18 In this situation, that might be true and it might not. I don't know for sure.

Speaker 18 But I wouldn't want you to send a letter that outlines everything if he and his wife are people that open each other's mail and his wife opens it and that's how she finds out and that's that's then a big problem.

Speaker 18 If you decided on a letter to his address, then it would have to be something much more general to begin with until you could get some way of being able to communicate with him that you were 100%

Speaker 18 sure is private, him and him only.

Speaker 19 Yeah, most definitely. I mean, I'm curious about

Speaker 19 so many things. I mean, about who he is and his life and how he knew Diane and, you know, if he really thought about me, you know, all that stuff.

Speaker 19 But it's just been a really long time that I've had those questions and now I have the chance to ask them and I'm

Speaker 19 scared.

Speaker 13 After Michelle revealed Becky's father's identity to her, including his immediate family, location, and other details, including biological information and some online and public information about him, she did in fact reach out.

Speaker 13 He has declined to participate in the podcast, so this information is being left out in order to preserve his public autonomy.

Speaker 13 Becky reached out carefully through a letter explaining very generally what her purpose was in locating him and gave her number.

Speaker 13 He contacted her through what appeared to be a burner burner phone, and after confirming her identity and purpose, he declined to speak at length with her or answer any of her questions with a lingering promise that he would reach out to her after the holidays.

Speaker 13 Becky took some time to absorb this information, to reconcile her thoughts and feelings, and what we leave you with now is an end to Becky's journey in her own words.

Speaker 12 He's known that I've been who I am for at least 10 years. I've been in the media,

Speaker 12 and he's chosen to stay out of my life and continues to choose.

Speaker 12 So

Speaker 12 I respect it. It's all I can do.
I don't know.

Speaker 12 But he made it extremely clear that he is not interested.

Speaker 12 I mean, he used a burner phone to contact me. And the only reason I think that he even contacted me was because he knows I was looking for him.

Speaker 12 And I'm assuming he knows that I wouldn't stop until I found him. But more so, I think that he contacted me to guarantee that I would not put his information out there.

Speaker 12 And as soon as I promised him I wouldn't,

Speaker 12 he didn't want anything to do with me.

Speaker 12 So that sucks. I mean, that's hard.
And

Speaker 12 I don't understand it.

Speaker 12 You know, my son out there, when he looks for me, I'm going to be

Speaker 12 so excited and so ready for him

Speaker 12 to be a part of my life and answer any questions that he may have and

Speaker 12 just embrace him into my life fully. Um, my biological father, I think, is scared.
He,

Speaker 12 and it's understandable. I mean, he slept with an infamous killer and it produced a child that's now gone into the media and been pretty out there.

Speaker 12 So

Speaker 12 if I were him, I guess I'd be embarrassed, maybe. I don't know.
Or it would just be a secret that I would want to keep. And I think that that's what it is for him is a secret he wants to keep,

Speaker 12 which means that that secret is me

Speaker 12 and I have to remain

Speaker 12 at a distance, I guess.

Speaker 12 He had said that maybe around Christmas he would contact me, but honestly, I am not holding my breath.

Speaker 12 I think that what I did get from him was probably all that I'm going to get from him.

Speaker 12 And it was just a bunch of promises to answer questions in the future and then telling me to never contact him again.

Speaker 12 So I got no real answers.

Speaker 12 I sought out to find him. I did.

Speaker 12 It was disappointing,

Speaker 12 but it just reconfirms how amazing my parents are and how grateful I am that I have such loving parents. My dad would,

Speaker 12 you know,

Speaker 12 my dad would do anything to see me happy and to see me smile and to know that I'm loved. And

Speaker 12 that's important. Not a biological father and not hanging on his

Speaker 12 every,

Speaker 12 you know, promise, but my real father, my adopted father is my real father because he is the one who has been there for every scraped knee, every broken heart, every challenge my life, and to celebrate all of the good as well.

Speaker 12 He has always been there and he

Speaker 12 is a very, very good man. And I am grateful to have him as

Speaker 12 just the same as my mom. I mean, she's amazing and

Speaker 12 She was always there for me and she still is. And

Speaker 12 I have amazing parents. And if nothing else, from this journey,

Speaker 12 it has confirmed that they are all that I need. I don't need Diane Downs in my life.
I don't need this new biological father

Speaker 12 in my life. I need my real parents, my adopted parents, the ones that love me, the ones that chose me, the ones that would do anything

Speaker 12 to see me safe and happy

Speaker 12 and loved.

Speaker 12 What were my thoughts on the journey, good and bad?

Speaker 12 It has been and it's been a wild ride for sure. I mean

Speaker 12 there's been

Speaker 12 a lot of interesting facts that have come to light

Speaker 12 and a lot of disappointing ones. I mean it's it's hard to be

Speaker 12 denied

Speaker 12 by people you share blood with. Even if I don't want them to be my family, you know,

Speaker 12 it still

Speaker 12 hurts my heart a little bit that

Speaker 12 they deny me,

Speaker 12 which is so weird. I understand.
It's like, I don't want to know them, but I want them to know me in a sense. I don't know.

Speaker 12 I don't want to know them, but I want them to want to know me, if that makes any sense. It's just weird.
I don't even understand myself.

Speaker 12 But, you know, I was denied by Diane, denied by her brother, now denied by my biological father. It's

Speaker 12 it has made me extremely grateful for this life that I have. I have an amazing fiancé.
I have parents that I would never, ever, ever want to change. I've got a son who makes me so proud and so happy.

Speaker 12 And,

Speaker 12 you know, I have a sister, and I just, my life is full of love. I will continue my journey as strong as I ever have been.

Speaker 12 I'm grateful that I found my biological father and that I got some of the answers that I've been searching for. But it doesn't change who I am.
It doesn't change my presence on this earth.

Speaker 12 I'm here to be a good mother, a good friend, a good wife, a good daughter.

Speaker 12 None of that

Speaker 12 is affected by who I came from. Diane Downs does not control who I am or who I continue to be.

Speaker 5 She was just

Speaker 12 somewhere that housed me for nine months.

Speaker 12 You know, it's

Speaker 12 that's all she was. She's not a mother.

Speaker 12 She's not someone that I care for or that I wish to have a part of my life.

Speaker 12 She was my incubator.

Speaker 12 And

Speaker 12 I mean, in a sense, I'm grateful for that because if she hadn't

Speaker 12 gotten pregnant or continued her pregnancy, I wouldn't be here. So for that,

Speaker 12 I guess thank you, Diane Downs. But other than that, that's all she's ever been for me.

Speaker 12 Never

Speaker 12 my

Speaker 12 mother. I have never once referred to Diane Downs as my mother.
She is my biological mother. She may be my blood, but she would never be my mother.

Speaker 12 I've met some great people on this journey.

Speaker 12 The iHeartRadio staff and Melissa Moore have just been godsends. They've been amazing.

Speaker 12 Some of the people that we've met and interviewed have been wonderful. It's been so great to meet kind, caring, honest people.

Speaker 12 that are truly concerned about me and my journey due to where I came from.

Speaker 12 And they want to help and they wanted to, you know, answer any questions that they could because they truly care and they are decent human beings. And for that, I am grateful.

Speaker 12 We got a lot of answers.

Speaker 12 We found out some information.

Speaker 12 We are continuing to find out information as we go. Therefore, we are working on some projects in the future.

Speaker 12 So for the listeners that want to know more, there quite possibly could be more in the future that you're going to want to hear and you're going to want to know.

Speaker 12 But for now, I'm content.

Speaker 12 I'm happy. I'm healthy.
I'm loved. I'm grateful for this journey.

Speaker 12 It didn't go as I had hoped or planned, but it gave me the closure that I needed, that I've been searching for since I was 11 years old. I can close that chapter of my life.

Speaker 12 and not have to look back on it anymore or wonder or have questions. I can just live this amazing life that I have and appreciate everyone and everything in it.

Speaker 13 Ben Bolin is our executive producer. Melissa Moore is our co-executive producer.
Maya Cole is our primary producer. Paul Dekant is our supervising producer.
Sam T. Garnen is our researcher.

Speaker 13 And Matt Riddle is our story editor. Featured music by Dreamtent.
Happy Face presents to Face as a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 25 It's the gaming event of the year featuring T-Pain's Nappy Boy Grizzlies versus Neo's Gentleman's Gaming.

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Speaker 4 Hey guys, it's Aaron Andrews from Calm Down with Erin and Carissa. So as a sideline reporter, game day is extra busy for me, but I know it can be busy for parents everywhere.

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Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.