Jackpot Match

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Speaker 13 The day I was adopted, the things that I know were that

Speaker 13 Diane went into labor, was taken to the hospital. I was told that there was a huge media frenzy outside.
So once I was born, I was told that she did not hold me.

Speaker 13 But the way that she tells it is that she spent hours with me in the hospital holding me as a baby. So I'm not really sure which is the right,

Speaker 13 you know, I don't know which is true.

Speaker 15 I'm trying to think of the word that I wanted to say, but I don't know.

Speaker 13 An officer took me out the back to hide from the media and rushed me over to a hotel nearby. That's where my parents were waiting.

Speaker 16 Did your adoptive parents know who you were?

Speaker 14 related to?

Speaker 13 Yes, my adoptive parents did know.

Speaker 13 My mom even told me that, you know, she had or her and my father had gone to my grandfather and was like, you know, we've got this child. We're very excited about it.

Speaker 13 But, you know, she is Diane Down's daughter. How do you feel?

Speaker 13 And, you know, he just said, she's a Babcock. You know, it doesn't matter where she came from.
She's ours, you know, in some in a roundabout way.

Speaker 13 My mom did tell me a little bit about the day I was born, and that they were waiting at that hotel room, and the officer came through the door holding the little baby girl.

Speaker 13 She said that she looked down at me and that I was perfect, you know, that it didn't matter where I came from, you know, because I'm her daughter, and to her, I was perfect.

Speaker 17 Dana Timms was able to confirm some of what Becky had heard about the day she was born.

Speaker 15 I was told that the day that I was born that Diane held me for a very long time, for a couple of hours. Then I was also told that I had to be

Speaker 15 snuck out the back of the hospital by authorities because of the media that was out front covering the story. Do you know anything about that?

Speaker 20 That's probably true, although it was, you were born. 10 days after her conviction.

Speaker 20 So I'm not sure that, I mean, certainly the Lane County Sheriffs didn't alert the press to say, hey, Diane's been taken to the hospital.

Speaker 20 So if they took you out the back, it would have been as a precaution, not that there was a row of TV cameras set up there.

Speaker 14 Oh, okay.

Speaker 20 But yeah, I think she held you for

Speaker 20 maybe even longer than two hours. And she let Doug Welch, one of the Lane County Sheriff's detectives, hold you also.

Speaker 20 I'll say also that during the trial, as she was sort of continuing to get fuller as her pregnancy was moving along, she was constantly, it was hands on her belly.

Speaker 20 belly and it was sort of like she had a little partner every day who was helping bring her strength in a tough situation. Definitely got the feeling that she was holding you all that time.

Speaker 8 The idea of Diane's courtroom pregnancy and subsequent birth after conviction were perhaps an important part of Becky's own experience to come.

Speaker 21 She experienced pregnancy in her teens and the experience wasn't easy.

Speaker 13 Yeah. And I begged them, I said, please don't tell my dad.
You know, he can't, let me at least tell him that I'm pregnant. You know, and they ended up telling him.

Speaker 13 And I talked to my dad later about it. I was like, I asked them not to tell you.
He's like, you're a minor. And he's like, so, and that's how I phrased it.
I knew something was wrong.

Speaker 13 There was a reason you were not at boot camp, you know, and so he's like, that's how we found out.

Speaker 16 You must have been going through so many emotions.

Speaker 13 Oh, my gosh. I remember I was just crying.
And it got to the point where nobody was telling me anything at MEPS in Portland.

Speaker 12 I just left.

Speaker 13 I was like, I'm not going to boot camp, obviously. I can't just sit here and do nothing.
And I left.

Speaker 13 And I went back to where I was staying and I, you know, sat down on the couch next to Christian's biological father and sat there for a while in silence.

Speaker 13 Then I looked over at him and I'm like, I'm pregnant. He says, I know.

Speaker 13 That was it. We sat there for like an hour, just silent.
And later on, I asked him, I'm like, what do you mean? How did you know? He's like, because you're back.

Speaker 8 Becky's second pregnancy was initially planned with her then-boyfriend, a different man from her first pregnancy.

Speaker 18 She loved him and they wanted a child together.

Speaker 8 Unfortunately, things began to fall apart and the situation became difficult.

Speaker 13 It was a high-risk pregnancy. I was bedridden for most of it.
I didn't want to give up on our family, so I ended up staying in a homeless shelter because I couldn't work. And

Speaker 13 he went back to his ex

Speaker 13 and they just, they were awful. They just kept telling me, you know, that they were going to take him from me or they were going to have the state take him from me.
And it's all these horrible things.

Speaker 13 Whereas I'm here in Clement Falls trying to make our family work and it didn't. So I called my parents, you know, and I asked for help.

Speaker 19 Becky's parents agreed to take her in and help take care of her during the pregnancy, but on the condition that she consider adoption.

Speaker 13 So I didn't decide until I was eight months pregnant that

Speaker 13 adoption was what was going to be best.

Speaker 13 I fought it. I really, I tried so hard to get everything right in my life just so that I could keep him.
But

Speaker 13 in about eight months, I had to just accept that I couldn't.

Speaker 10 And so

Speaker 13 I got a hold of the adoption agency and they brought all these folders of families, just family after family after family. And I just remember going through the pages and

Speaker 13 just thinking, like,

Speaker 13 these people cannot raise my child.

Speaker 13 This isn't the right place for him. I had to pick somewhere that was perfect.
And

Speaker 13 in one of the very last

Speaker 13 folders that I got

Speaker 13 were the ones. They had already had a son and they just couldn't have children together.
So

Speaker 13 that was who I chose. And, you know, I met them and

Speaker 13 they were just amazing.

Speaker 17 Letting go wasn't easy for Becky.

Speaker 23 In many ways, giving up her second child mirrored Diane's own experience with her.

Speaker 8 But Becky was able to control the narrative.

Speaker 23 As difficult as the situation was, she was able to ensure that he went to a family who would love him.

Speaker 11 I didn't even hold him for very long.

Speaker 12 And they just had to take him.

Speaker 13 I couldn't let go. So they took him.

Speaker 13 The family was in a room close by and

Speaker 13 they spent those first two days in the hospital with him. you know how mom stays in the first day ought to do that I had to go home and recover and

Speaker 13 two days later I get a call from the hospital they forgot to have me sign the adoption papers they left those part out so

Speaker 13 I actually had to go back into the hospital and see them and see the baby and sign over my rights right then

Speaker 13 after two days of just misery because i gave my child away it was the hardest moment of my life.

Speaker 13 But he is with an amazing family.

Speaker 13 He's doing so great. He's,

Speaker 13 I get pictures every year on his birthday and you know, it's an open adoption. But at this point, I feel that I'm going to wait until he's ready to find me.
I don't want to push myself into his life.

Speaker 15 And they didn't hide that he was adopted.

Speaker 13 So, you know, I'm sure when he's ready, or if he's ever ready, he'll find me.

Speaker 17 Perhaps thinking back on her own situation and her curiosity about her own biological parents, Becky considered whether or not the son she gave up for adoption would one day wonder about her and who she was.

Speaker 21 So she made sure he would have the answers if he ever wanted them.

Speaker 13 Of course, I wrote him a letter and gave it to the parents to give him when he was old enough. Just.

Speaker 13 I remember writing it when I had decided to put him up when I was eight months pregnant and I just wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. And the thing probably was 10 pages long.
And

Speaker 13 I just realized that I need to, you know, short and sweet, just, just let her to know, let him know that I loved him. And then I was really doing what I thought was best.

Speaker 13 I'm terrified that he may think bad of me, that he thinks that he was unloved or that he was unwanted or didn't have that connection because, you know, he was part of my heart.

Speaker 8 Shortly after this difficult experience, Becky reached out to Diane for the first time.

Speaker 25 Do you remember what you wrote to Diane?

Speaker 13 I think it was pretty general. The first letter, you know, said that I think I'm your biological daughter.
Here's my date of birth, time, here's what I look like, just all the basics.

Speaker 16 And then when you reached out to her, this was only because you just had your son up for adoption.

Speaker 16 He was now in the picture of with another family.

Speaker 14 Is that correct? Correct.

Speaker 18 We've spoken about the nature of their correspondence in an earlier episode, but the letters immediately devolved into Diane attacking Becky for wanting to know about her biological father.

Speaker 21 And over the years, Diane has continued to deny that Becky is her daughter.

Speaker 17 Diane recently went so far as to claim that Becky could be a disinherited niece out to con Diane out of Amy's inheritance.

Speaker 15 I've corresponded with Diane through emails, and

Speaker 15 she is somehow has flipped it to that you're not her biological daughter.

Speaker 23 Amy is somewhere out there and she hasn't reconnected with Amy.

Speaker 22 And she only uses Amy as the name of that little girl, which is you.

Speaker 22 How does that make you feel?

Speaker 25 Hearing the name Amy, how does that make you feel?

Speaker 15 It's about the same as hearing the Hungry Like Wolf song. It just kind of sends chills up your spine a little bit.
I don't identify with it because I don't. It doesn't fit me.

Speaker 15 I don't feel like it's my name. Yeah, in the letters when she started with her conspiracy theories and, you know, really getting stories that I just didn't want to hear.

Speaker 15 And I asked her to stop writing me is when she decided that I wasn't her daughter. I'm assuming because I rejected her.
I asked her to stop writing me. And at that point, then I was the enemy as well.

Speaker 12 And she decided that I was the one who was after her.

Speaker 13 And I didn't want to feed into that.

Speaker 15 So I didn't continue conversating.

Speaker 28 A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers. But it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught.
The answers were there, hidden in plain sight.

Speaker 28 So, why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster: Hunting the Long Island Serial Killer: The Investigation into the Most Notorious Killer in New York since the son of Sam.

Speaker 28 Available now. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 29 In 1997, in Belgium, 37 female body parts placed in 15 trash bags were found at dump sites with evocative names like The Path of Worry, Dump Road, and Fear Creek.

Speaker 29 Despite a sprawling investigation, including assistance from the American FBI, the murders have never been solved. Three decades later, we've unearthed new evidence and new suspects.

Speaker 27 We felt like we were in the presence of someone who was going to the grave with nightmarish secrets.

Speaker 29 From Tenderfoot TV and iHeart Podcasts, this is Le Mansre Season 2: The Butcher of Moss, available now. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 31 I'm Cheryl McCollum, host of the podcast Zone 7. Zone 7 ain't a place.
It's a way of life. I've worked hundreds of cold cases you've heard of and thousands you haven't.

Speaker 31 We started this podcast to teach the importance of teamwork in solving these crazy crimes.

Speaker 31 Come join us in learning from detectives, prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts, and most importantly, victims' family members.

Speaker 31 Listen to Zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.

Speaker 32 From the studio who brought you the Piketon Massacre and Murder 101,

Speaker 32 this is Incels.

Speaker 3 I am a loser. If I was a woman, I wouldn't date me either.

Speaker 32 From the dark corners of the web,

Speaker 32 an emerging mindset.

Speaker 26 If I can't have you girls i will destroy you a kind of subculture a hidden world of resentment cynicism anger against women a seed of loneliness explodes

Speaker 34 i just hate myself i don't know why you girls aren't attracted to me but i will punish you all for it at a deadly tipping point incels will be added to the terrorism guide Police say a driver intentionally drove into a crowd, killing 10 people.

Speaker 26 Tomorrow is the day of retribution.

Speaker 33 I will have my revenge.

Speaker 32 This is Incels.

Speaker 36 Listen to season one of Incels on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 21 There's quite a bit of anecdotal evidence to suggest that Becky is Diane's daughter, but the only way to remove any lingering doubts Becky might have is through DNA.

Speaker 8 For this, we checked back in with Michelle Leonard, the DNA detective.

Speaker 8 With both Becky as well as Diane's brother James having submitted samples, Michelle Michelle is finally able to start putting together the pieces of the larger puzzle.

Speaker 37 So

Speaker 37 with Becky's ancestry's results, you get two main components.

Speaker 37 You get an ethnicity estimate and you get the DNA match list. And I'm sitting here looking at Becky's results page at the moment and I'm going to open up her ethnicity estimate.

Speaker 37 And I'm going to go through what that tells us. So first up, so it's telling us that Becky is 46% Germanic Europe, 42%

Speaker 37 England, Wales and Northwestern Europe, 5% Eastern Europe and Russia, 4% Norway, 3% Baltics.

Speaker 39 That makes sense. I was told that I have Danish ancestry.

Speaker 37 One of the other things I've done in preparation for the case is I've built a tree out for your maternal side.

Speaker 37 But your Frederickson line goes back to Denmark, came over to the United States after your great-great-grandfather, Christian Peter Frederickson, who was born in 1867.

Speaker 37 So he was the immigrant who came to the United States and died in South Dakota.

Speaker 34 What I think is interesting, just right off the top, is you said Frederickson line. That confirms that Becky is in fact the biological daughter of Diane Downs.

Speaker 37 Absolutely, 100%.

Speaker 37 Yeah, there's no doubt about that whatsoever.

Speaker 37 That is definite, especially since Diane's brother has also taken a test and Becky matches him exactly as you would expect for an uncle-niece relationship.

Speaker 37 So there's no mystery as to the maternal side.

Speaker 34 Becky, how do you feel about that? Because there has been speculation and doubt, especially from Diane herself saying that you aren't her daughter.

Speaker 39 Like you said, Diane has denied I'm her biological daughter for a really long time.

Speaker 39 In her very first letter, she was excited to have me as her daughter, but then, you know, it quickly went to I was not her daughter.

Speaker 39 And ever since then, she has believed that I'm not her biological daughter. So, I mean, those results are super huge for me.

Speaker 39 Every emotion you can think of is what I feel.

Speaker 39 I have seen my adopted birth certificate, but I've never had this kind of proof. Like, this is zero doubt.
I am her biological daughter. And there's been a lot of stipulation out there.

Speaker 15 And people

Speaker 39 weren't quite sure if I was that child that, you know, she was pregnant with on when she was on trial.

Speaker 31 So I don't know.

Speaker 39 It just kind of shows that it's real.

Speaker 23 With Becky's maternal line established and having finally received confirmation that she is, in fact, Diane's biological daughter, Becky's next question, and perhaps to her the most important, is to begin tracing the paternal line.

Speaker 23 In order to do that, Michelle has to begin by building a family tree.

Speaker 37 I want to know who your maternal ancestors are because that helps me with eliminating DNA matches that result from your maternal side.

Speaker 37 So that's why I've built out a maternal tree to help me with doing that.

Speaker 37 And basically, with outside of the Danish ancestors, it just shows that your maternal ancestry has been in the United States in general, in most lines, for a number of generations.

Speaker 37 The longer that the lines have been in the United States, the more DNA matches you tend to get to them, which is another thing that is important to know about when you're trying to work out the DNA.

Speaker 37 So if we go back to the ethnicity side of things, we've obviously got this 46% Germanic Europe showing up and this little bit Eastern Europe and Russia.

Speaker 37 The little bit that's categorised as Norway might well be the Danish.

Speaker 37 The Germanic Europe, if you can look at the map, it covers quite a large area which takes in the likes of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Speaker 37 So it's quite clear you have some strong and a large amount of ancestry from this part of Europe from your ethnicity estimate.

Speaker 39 Well that makes sense. I mean I'm 5'9 and blonde hair, green eyes and yeah, I look like I'm from that region.

Speaker 8 As Michelle unpacks Becky's estimated ethnicities, she warns that they're accurate to some extent, but they don't give much detail at a micro level.

Speaker 37 It does make sense in those terms, yes. And the looking down the rest of it, obviously there's the 42% England, Wales and Northwestern Europe.

Speaker 37 I suspect that quite a lot of that is your maternal side, those American lines that have maybe come over from England, Wales, etc., further back in time.

Speaker 37 I always say don't read too much into the ethnicity estimate as a whole.

Speaker 37 It's very interesting to see, especially when you have one side of your ancestry that's unknown, it can really give you a clue as to the direction to look in, but it's never going to solve the case.

Speaker 37 And there's always going to be, you know, things that aren't quite right with ethnicity estimates as well.

Speaker 37 I say they're generally accurate to the continental level, but when you try to drill them down further to country level, it's much more difficult to do and they have to be taken with a bit of a pinch of salt at the same time.

Speaker 12 Michelle believes that even with the information she has currently and with a few more database submissions, she will be able to trace Becky's paternity.

Speaker 39 So, do you think we're going to be able to solve the mystery?

Speaker 37 I really do think we are. The key, however, to solving the mystery isn't the ethnicity estimate.
Like I say, it can give us a clue.

Speaker 37 And that bit about the Germanic Europe is interesting, but it's not going to tell us who your biological father is. The key are the DNA matches.

Speaker 39 His DNA is not on file, then. He's not submitted.

Speaker 37 No, you don't have a parent match, which is, as I say, not at all unusual.

Speaker 37 The vast majority of people looking for a birth parent, when they take a DNA test, will not find that birth parent has already tested. A few will, and they're very lucky if they do.

Speaker 39 Makes it easier.

Speaker 37 It does make it easier, but most don't. So obviously your top match is your maternal uncle, and you're sharing a lot of DNA with him, nearly 1700 centimor organs, as we call it.

Speaker 37 And that's a really significant amount of DNA. Exactly the right amount to be sharing with a full uncle.

Speaker 19 But it turns out that James isn't Becky's only high-level match.

Speaker 37 However, with that amount of DNA, there are a number of different relationships that you could have with someone. And your second highest match is sharing over 1500 centimorgans with you.

Speaker 39 So what does that mean about another aunt or uncle?

Speaker 37 So this is a female match. This person is either a grandmother, a full aunt, or a half-sibling.
She is one of those three relationships. Now, at this point, we don't know which, but

Speaker 37 she's what I call a jackpot match. And she does not match your maternal uncle.

Speaker 37 Therefore, given the size of the match and given how closely related he is to you, she is most definitely a paternal match.

Speaker 37 She's either a paternal grandmother, a paternal aunt, or a paternal half-sibling, half-sister.

Speaker 11 She's one of those three.

Speaker 37 It is. It's very exciting.
There are caveats though.

Speaker 24 Even though there is a high-level match, there are obstacles in the way.

Speaker 21 Not all users on DNA databases, even those that appear to be relatives, as matches, are easy to track down, nor do they always want to be.

Speaker 37 She has no tree and she has a username that is quite privatized and I have tried everything I could think of to see if this concoction of letters and numbers has been used by somebody somewhere that I could identify who this person is and it hasn't.

Speaker 37 They've been very smart in maintaining their privacy on the site with the name that they've used. The one thing that I can tell from it is that she is not a grandmother.

Speaker 37 She's not your paternal grandmother, simply because I'm able to look at all of the matches that she has and she's clearly matching to you know both sides of your paternal ancestry and not just one so that suggests to me that we can narrow her down to being either your paternal aunt or half sister so she's one of those two relationships with you Michelle also cautions against the natural tendency that many of us would have in this situation A lot of people, when they see such a jackpot match, the very first thing they're going to want to do is fire off a message to that person.

Speaker 37 It's human nature and it's normal to want to do that and in many cases it's the right thing to do and in some it's not.

Speaker 37 At this point in time we don't know if she's a paternal aunt, we don't know if she's a paternal half-sister and contact is the most delicate thing that we're going to be doing with this situation.

Speaker 37 It could be that she is your birth father's daughter. It could be she's his sister.
But either way, we're not going straight to the source if we message her and we give her this information.

Speaker 37 And then she goes to him, whether he's her brother or he's her father, and says, Dad or brother, what's this? Who's this person? What do you know?

Speaker 37 And maybe he knows nothing, and maybe he knows something, and maybe that puts him in a very difficult situation, and that makes him less likely to want to have contact because we've gone through his family and not given him the opportunity to tell them himself, if you know what I mean.

Speaker 28 A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers. But it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught.
The answers were there, hidden in plain sight.

Speaker 28 So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, Hunting the Long Island Serial Killer. The investigation into the most notorious killer in New York since the son of Sam.

Speaker 28 Available now. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 29 In 1997, in Belgium, 37 female body parts placed in 15 trash bags were found at dump sites with evocative names like the Path of Worry, Dump Road, and Fear Creek.

Speaker 30 Investigators made a new discovery yesterday afternoon of the torso of a woman. Investigators believe it is the work of a serial killer.

Speaker 29 Despite a sprawling investigation, including assistance from the American FBI, the murders have never been solved. Three decades later, we've unearthed new evidence and new suspects.

Speaker 27 We felt like we were in the presence of someone who was going to the grave with nightmarish secrets.

Speaker 29 From Tenderfoot TV and iHeart Podcasts, this is Le Mansre Season 2, The Butcher of Moss, available now. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 31 I'm Cheryl McCollum, host of the podcast Zone 7. Zone 7 ain't a place.
It's a way of life. I've worked hundreds of cold cases you've heard of and thousands you haven't.

Speaker 31 We started this podcast to teach the importance of teamwork in solving these crazy crimes.

Speaker 31 Come join us in learning from detectives, prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts, and most importantly, victims' family members.

Speaker 31 Listen to Zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.

Speaker 32 From the studio who brought you the Piketon Massacre and Murder 101,

Speaker 32 this is Incels.

Speaker 3 I am a loser. If I was a woman, I wouldn't dame me either.

Speaker 32 From the dark corners of the web,

Speaker 32 an emerging mindset.

Speaker 26 if i can't have you girls i will destroy you a kind of subculture a hidden world of resentment cynicism anger against women a seed of loneliness explodes

Speaker 34 i just hate myself i don't know why you girls aren't attracted to me but i will punish you all for it at a deadly tipping point incels will be added to the terrorism guide Police say a driver intentionally drove into a crowd, killing 10 people.

Speaker 26 Tomorrow is the day of retribution.

Speaker 33 I will have my revenge.

Speaker 32 This is Incels.

Speaker 36 Listen to season one of Incels on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 19 There have been some speculation that Becky's father may not know his identity, but there are a number of things that indicate that he very likely does in fact know that Becky exists.

Speaker 37 So I think that it's best to hang back from making that contact with her at this point in time until I've, at least until I've done a full evaluation I might be able to identify her through her more distant relatives I might be able to identify who her father or her brother is and if that's possible then you always want to go straight to the birth person the birth parent if at all possible because that gives them the opportunity then to tell their family if if they want to do that of course it might be that we'd get no we get to that point and we get no reply and then we can always go back and try contacting her at that point That's one thing that I'm a little bit nervous about is the contact if he is alive because I've been public with my story for 10 years and he has not contacted me.

Speaker 39 I'm worried that he may not want to contact me. He may not know he's my biological father or he's deceased.
So

Speaker 39 it's, I am very nervous about that first contact.

Speaker 34 I think with you, Becky, I've been thinking about that as well, how public you've been over the last 10 years. And then also, as I was digging in a little bit more about

Speaker 34 what Anne Ruhl has reported on her contact with your birth father, if that's in fact true, I don't have any reason to doubt she's lying.

Speaker 34 But if it is true that she did have contact with your birth father and she made a deal with him, he would know then that Diane Browns, you know, obviously had a child and that he has a child with her.

Speaker 34 You know, I'm not a man, obviously so i don't know if there's shame that he we we don't know the circumstances how he came into the position of being with diane intimately if that was a as it's been quoted in books and and resources is that he was duped into this affair or whether he went into it willingly but i could imagine this is somewhat shameful to know that he

Speaker 34 he had sex with a convicted child killer.

Speaker 39 It's just the same as it's shameful to be the daughter, you know.

Speaker 18 Several names have floated for who Becky's father might be, but with Anne Roll's use of an alias, his real name may have died with her.

Speaker 8 No one else seems to know exactly who he might be.

Speaker 34 So what's interesting, Michelle, is that everybody has a theory who Becky's father is.

Speaker 38 So many theories.

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 34 So I spoke to the nanny. She had the theory it was a defense attorney, which is ruled out.
So that's not the case.

Speaker 34 But everybody speculates who had this access on a daily basis with Diane that could be potentially the father.

Speaker 34 Based on what I have researched, Anne Roll gave the statement that she made a deal that she would use his story in the book, but change his name, you know, make a pen name for him, and then also changes profession, which she changes profession in a book to teacher.

Speaker 34 But then interesting enough, when we talked to reporters, they all said, we heard it was a local reporter.

Speaker 34 And there's so many people who are attached to this case that want to know the results and are curious in a different fashion to Becky.

Speaker 37 I mean, I always say the proof is in the DNA. Yeah, the problem with what you've got, you've got a jackpot match.

Speaker 37 And at the same time, you've got the unlucky status of being from almost certainly from very recent immigrants, which means that there are less DNA matches to work with.

Speaker 37 Like I said, the vast majority of your matches are maternal. That sort of issue of, oh, we've got

Speaker 37 fewer matches to work with, yet at the same time, we've got the jackpot match.

Speaker 17 Michelle plans to dive far beyond the DNA results and using whatever name she's able to find, she'll build a paternal family tree bit by bit until she's able to solidify the identities of Becky's closest relatives on her father's side.

Speaker 37 And next, what I want to do is a full evaluation of the paternal matches that she does have. I want to build their trees.
I want to try and find their connections.

Speaker 37 And of course, the fact that it is recent immigration from countries like Poland and the Ukraine does make that more difficult, but I will try my very best to build these people back to their ancestors and see if I can find connections.

Speaker 37 And if I can do that, I might be able to solve it through these more distant matches.

Speaker 37 It just depends how lucky we are with them and how possible it is to build the trees back and find the connections.

Speaker 37 And at that point we can make a decision on contacting the jackpot match or if I've been lucky that maybe contacting the birth father himself.

Speaker 37 So that's why I'm saying hold off on any contact with the high match at the moment until I've done this.

Speaker 17 Having been through this scenario many times with others, there's an approach Michelle recommends for those who may be contacting possible family members for the first time.

Speaker 37 I say,

Speaker 37 you know, you have to do it very cautiously. You don't want to barrel in there telling them your life story in a first message.
You have to gauge.

Speaker 37 what they may know and what they may be willing to how you know when you make a first contact you have to make it short you want to say you know hey we have a close match but you don't want to say oh i think i'm your daughter or i think I'm your sister or you know you don't want to go into that detail just you know are you know are you interested in exploring our match is there anything you could tell me about your ancestry general questions you know I think one of the worst mistakes is if you're looking for a birth parent and you instantly see you have half siblings or you have aunts or you know first cousins people that are close to that man and you know you've worked out who he is but you instead go on Facebook and message his daughter because then you might be opening up a can of worms that leads you to alienating the person that you're trying to get in contact with before you've even managed to speak to them and going about these things the right way doesn't always result in a positive outcome if you can possibly get to the birth parent themselves always you want to do that i was just thinking it's funny that all of your don't do's when contacting is exactly what i did when i contacted Diane.

Speaker 39 I said, I think I'm your daughter. I told her my entire life story.
And

Speaker 39 I think I overwhelmed her.

Speaker 39 It was just like I was

Speaker 39 kind of excited to contact her, which is weird, I know, but

Speaker 39 it's still where I come from. And so I got a little over excited when I wrote my letter.

Speaker 37 It's natural, isn't it, to get overexcited contacting someone who's so so closely related to you. And what's right for one person isn't right for another.

Speaker 37 And I always say keep the first, you know, contact short and general.

Speaker 37 But when they when if they come back and they're super interested and they're telling you their life story, you know, then get into it because, you know, obviously there's they want to hear it.

Speaker 37 And of course, I'm talking from the perspective of finding people as a DNA match and not from having adoption papers and the like and knowing this person is supposedly your birth parent.

Speaker 37 My first thought isn't let's fire off a message to her straight away. I want to do some more digging and find out if I can work out who she is and maybe work from her to get to your birth parent.

Speaker 8 With the jackpot match of Becky's paternal side, discovering the identity of Becky's father seems likely.

Speaker 8 In many ways, finding out would be the culmination of her journey in the reconciliation and acceptance of who she is.

Speaker 19 The question is whether or not her biological father will feel the same.

Speaker 40 On the next next episode of Happy Face Presents Too Face, in a bizarre letter from Diane Downs to her post-conviction attorney, she completely changes her version of the events that took place that night of the shooting and what happens when Diane escapes from prison.

Speaker 12 Ben Bolin is our executive producer. Melissa Moore is our co-executive producer.

Speaker 25 Maya Cole is our primary producer.

Speaker 12 Paul Deccant is our supervising producer.

Speaker 18 Sam T. Garnen is our researcher.

Speaker 24 And Matt Riddle is our story editor.

Speaker 8 Featured music by Dreamtent.

Speaker 12 Happy Face Presents To Face is a production of iHeartRadio.

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