1 00:00:01,791 --> 00:00:03,958 In April 1964, 2 00:00:03,958 --> 00:00:06,958 a woman dressed like a nurse walked into a hospital room in Chicago. 3 00:00:07,500 --> 00:00:11,250 She told a new mother that the doctor needed to see the baby for more tests. 4 00:00:12,041 --> 00:00:14,166 The mother handed the baby over. 5 00:00:14,166 --> 00:00:17,916 The nurse walked out of the room and then vanished without a trace. 6 00:00:19,083 --> 00:00:22,083 I set off one of the largest manhunts in Chicago. 7 00:00:22,416 --> 00:00:24,666 And that's only the beginning. 8 00:00:24,666 --> 00:00:26,416 I'm Paul Fronczak. 9 00:00:26,416 --> 00:00:28,583 I was that baby. 10 00:00:28,583 --> 00:00:30,416 And I'm Tracey Hastings. 11 00:00:30,416 --> 00:00:33,583 This season, the Fronczak Files will take you on a journey 12 00:00:33,791 --> 00:00:36,625 following the twists and turns of Paul's story. 13 00:00:36,625 --> 00:00:38,208 Many of you may have heard my story. 14 00:00:38,208 --> 00:00:41,916 Another podcasts or other TV shows and things like that. 15 00:00:42,666 --> 00:00:45,666 But at the end of the day, you really don't know, Jack. 16 00:00:46,333 --> 00:00:47,708 Welcome to the Fronczak Files. 17 00:01:07,583 --> 00:01:08,541 You know, 18 00:01:08,541 --> 00:01:11,541 I don't want the show to be just another audio book, 19 00:01:11,875 --> 00:01:14,875 you know, spitting out facts about what happened. 20 00:01:15,208 --> 00:01:18,208 The story was very tragic, and people know that. 21 00:01:18,458 --> 00:01:21,625 But what they don't know is what really happened behind the scenes. 22 00:01:22,208 --> 00:01:23,916 How did it affect people? 23 00:01:23,916 --> 00:01:25,708 How did people feel? 24 00:01:25,708 --> 00:01:28,000 What, like my parents when they went through this? 25 00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:31,000 What what do you think is going through someone's mind? 26 00:01:31,375 --> 00:01:34,375 All those things you can't get with just the facts. 27 00:01:35,083 --> 00:01:35,416 All right. 28 00:01:35,416 --> 00:01:38,416 So are we going to start with 1974. 29 00:01:39,500 --> 00:01:39,791 All right. 30 00:01:39,791 --> 00:01:42,791 So Tracey from 1974 can you set the scene. 31 00:01:43,333 --> 00:01:44,458 Sure. 32 00:01:44,458 --> 00:01:46,791 Watergate. Big story that year. 33 00:01:46,791 --> 00:01:50,208 The break in at the Democratic National Convention, 34 00:01:50,208 --> 00:01:54,208 at the Watergate Hotel, people trying to wiretap phones 35 00:01:54,208 --> 00:01:58,958 and steal information to assist Nixon in his reelection campaign, Yeah, yeah. 36 00:02:01,291 --> 00:02:01,791 movie guy. 37 00:02:01,791 --> 00:02:03,500 I know you watch a lot of films. 38 00:02:03,500 --> 00:02:05,250 Got a background in acting. 39 00:02:05,250 --> 00:02:08,125 Top films of 1974. 40 00:02:08,125 --> 00:02:11,125 The Godfather, Part two. 41 00:02:11,208 --> 00:02:13,708 Oh. Yeah. 42 00:02:13,708 --> 00:02:14,541 Excellent. 43 00:02:14,541 --> 00:02:17,541 And so right about this time, you're you're what, like 44 00:02:18,666 --> 00:02:21,666 I was 10 in 1974. 45 00:02:22,125 --> 00:02:23,500 That's where this journey really started. 46 00:02:23,500 --> 00:02:25,625 This is where my life kind of took. 47 00:02:25,625 --> 00:02:28,416 There was a movie called Sliding Doors a while ago 48 00:02:28,416 --> 00:02:31,166 about how your life could change in a matter of seconds 49 00:02:31,166 --> 00:02:34,166 if you just take a different, different route. 50 00:02:34,583 --> 00:02:38,375 And I decided to take a route that changed my life forever. 51 00:02:38,500 --> 00:02:41,375 And it's still being changed today. 52 00:02:41,375 --> 00:02:44,125 Well All right. 53 00:02:44,125 --> 00:02:47,125 So in 1974, 54 00:02:47,208 --> 00:02:50,208 we already set the scene, but it was Christmas time. 55 00:02:50,625 --> 00:02:53,250 My street was like a Rockwell painting. 56 00:02:53,250 --> 00:02:55,708 I grew up in Oklahoma, on the south side of Chicago. 57 00:02:55,708 --> 00:02:58,708 You know, mostly working class Irish, Polish. 58 00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:02,708 And Christmas time was like, I used to get up early after a fresh snow 59 00:03:03,416 --> 00:03:05,458 because it was cold out, but just to, you know, 60 00:03:05,458 --> 00:03:08,458 walk up and down, you know, be the first footprints in that snow. 61 00:03:08,541 --> 00:03:11,000 Look at all the other lights, because the sun hasn't come up yet. 62 00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:14,083 And it's just those memories are forever ingrained. 63 00:03:14,166 --> 00:03:17,083 And that to me is what Christmas still is to this day. 64 00:03:17,083 --> 00:03:19,375 Except I live in Las Vegas and there isn't much snow. 65 00:03:20,791 --> 00:03:23,791 That lights. 66 00:03:24,541 --> 00:03:27,458 Okay, so My dad was at work. 67 00:03:27,458 --> 00:03:28,958 He was a machinist. 68 00:03:28,958 --> 00:03:30,250 He worked for Foot Brothers. 69 00:03:30,250 --> 00:03:31,291 They made 70 00:03:31,291 --> 00:03:34,666 transmissions for helicopters and things, you know, for the for the military. 71 00:03:34,916 --> 00:03:37,791 I a, you know, Department of Defense contracts. 72 00:03:37,791 --> 00:03:40,083 My mom was upstairs doing something dishes, cleaning. 73 00:03:40,083 --> 00:03:42,958 She was always cleaning. I mean, the house was. 74 00:03:42,958 --> 00:03:44,333 But I mentioned a Rockwell painting. 75 00:03:44,333 --> 00:03:46,416 It was really like that. 76 00:03:46,416 --> 00:03:48,875 So I was downstairs looking for Christmas presents. 77 00:03:48,875 --> 00:03:52,083 I thought, this is a great time to maybe sneak inside that crawl space. 78 00:03:52,416 --> 00:03:54,458 Kind of a scary crawlspace. 79 00:03:54,458 --> 00:03:55,541 I actually had pictures on my 80 00:03:55,541 --> 00:03:58,541 my board behind me, and actually, I think we'll put them on the website. 81 00:03:59,625 --> 00:04:00,833 I moved the couch. 82 00:04:00,833 --> 00:04:03,833 I opened a little three by four crawl space door, 83 00:04:04,541 --> 00:04:07,125 and I kind of scanned the entire room. 84 00:04:07,125 --> 00:04:08,500 It was dark, 85 00:04:08,500 --> 00:04:11,708 but I thought if they have presents for us, they're going to be in here. 86 00:04:12,041 --> 00:04:14,958 Had you had. Had you looked in there before? 87 00:04:14,958 --> 00:04:16,750 And now for Christmas presents. 88 00:04:16,750 --> 00:04:20,333 You know, I'm I'm like, yeah, I've always been kind of a snooper. 89 00:04:20,666 --> 00:04:22,458 You know, I like to I don't know why. 90 00:04:22,458 --> 00:04:24,750 Maybe as I guess we'll get to that later. Right. 91 00:04:26,458 --> 00:04:29,125 I turn on the light and I scan around, looking in the back. 92 00:04:29,125 --> 00:04:33,125 I saw a bunch of boxes and I thought, this is it. 93 00:04:33,541 --> 00:04:35,875 This is the big score for Christmas. 94 00:04:35,875 --> 00:04:38,500 So I kind of low crawled because the ceiling was really low 95 00:04:38,500 --> 00:04:40,500 and there were spiderwebs and, you know, nails 96 00:04:40,500 --> 00:04:44,416 sticking out of the the floor, which scary, right? 97 00:04:44,625 --> 00:04:46,791 But I'm like, you know what? Spiders are Christmas presents. 98 00:04:46,791 --> 00:04:49,125 I think I'll take the I'll take the heat. Yeah. 99 00:04:49,125 --> 00:04:53,041 So I crawled back and I found the boxes and I open the first box 100 00:04:54,083 --> 00:04:55,458 and I didn't see Christmas presents. 101 00:04:55,458 --> 00:05:00,125 I saw newspaper clippings and I was like, well, this is not Christmas. 102 00:05:00,291 --> 00:05:02,000 What is this? Right. So I grabbed one. 103 00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:05,000 I started looking at it and it was these things on the wall 104 00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:08,541 right behind me, all these headlines from papers all over the country, 105 00:05:09,625 --> 00:05:12,333 but mostly in Chicago, because that's where 106 00:05:12,333 --> 00:05:15,208 this whole event happened that I was going to read about. 107 00:05:15,208 --> 00:05:18,125 So I look at the first headline, it's, 108 00:05:18,125 --> 00:05:21,000 Sad City Hunt drags on for missing kidnaped 109 00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:24,000 child 10,000, 110 00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:28,000 FBI agents or police, all looking for his kidnaped child. 111 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:31,875 I was like, okay, so something someone was kidnaped. 112 00:05:31,875 --> 00:05:33,750 And then I saw a picture of my mom and dad, 113 00:05:33,750 --> 00:05:35,666 and they looked really, really sad. 114 00:05:35,666 --> 00:05:37,208 They were, you know, crying. 115 00:05:37,208 --> 00:05:40,208 And they looked like they hadn't slept in a long time. 116 00:05:40,833 --> 00:05:43,208 And it said the hunt for Paul. 117 00:05:43,208 --> 00:05:43,666 Joseph. 118 00:05:43,666 --> 00:05:48,083 Fronczak drags on and I'm like, okay, wait a minute. 119 00:05:48,625 --> 00:05:50,791 That's me, Paul, Joseph Fronczak. 120 00:05:50,791 --> 00:05:53,041 And those are my parents in that picture. 121 00:05:53,041 --> 00:05:54,583 So I got real excited. 122 00:05:54,583 --> 00:05:56,250 Okay, I kind of forgot about the Christmas presents. 123 00:05:56,250 --> 00:05:57,875 I grabbed one of the headlines 124 00:05:59,125 --> 00:06:01,000 and I ran upstairs to my mom, 125 00:06:01,000 --> 00:06:04,000 and I was all excited, and I just like, mom, what is this? 126 00:06:04,416 --> 00:06:06,625 I mean, I read the headline. 127 00:06:06,625 --> 00:06:08,416 She stopped what she was doing. She turned around. 128 00:06:08,416 --> 00:06:11,416 She looked at me, she saw what was in my hand, 129 00:06:11,458 --> 00:06:16,125 and her face went from, you know, a normal, kind person to this rage. 130 00:06:16,791 --> 00:06:19,916 And she simply said, how dare you stoop around his house? 131 00:06:20,125 --> 00:06:22,208 Those aren't your things. 132 00:06:22,208 --> 00:06:24,291 I said, well, wait a minute, this is about me, right? 133 00:06:24,291 --> 00:06:27,291 This kidnapping Paul Joseph Fronczak. 134 00:06:27,375 --> 00:06:30,166 She said, you were kidnaped. 135 00:06:30,166 --> 00:06:32,666 We found you. We love you. 136 00:06:32,666 --> 00:06:35,666 That's all there is to talk about this. 137 00:06:35,791 --> 00:06:39,416 And I was, like, completely deflated because I was like, excite. 138 00:06:39,416 --> 00:06:40,291 I'm ten years old. 139 00:06:40,291 --> 00:06:42,833 This is like the coolest thing I've ever seen. 140 00:06:42,833 --> 00:06:44,333 And I know my parents. 141 00:06:44,333 --> 00:06:47,333 When they said something, they meant it and I wasn't going to talk back. 142 00:06:48,125 --> 00:06:51,000 And I thought, okay, so I walked away. 143 00:06:51,000 --> 00:06:54,000 We never talked about it again, but I never forgot. 144 00:06:54,875 --> 00:06:57,125 And I kept those paper clippings with me. 145 00:06:57,125 --> 00:06:57,500 Yeah. 146 00:06:57,500 --> 00:06:59,708 I'm looking at some of these newspaper clippings 147 00:06:59,708 --> 00:07:03,250 that I'm imagining you saw while you were going through those boxes. 148 00:07:03,625 --> 00:07:07,000 And I want to read some of it, but first, 149 00:07:07,083 --> 00:07:09,291 why don't we hear a little bit about your mom and dad, 150 00:07:09,291 --> 00:07:12,291 since they're a big part of this story this season. 151 00:07:12,750 --> 00:07:15,166 And tell us about them. What kind of people are they? 152 00:07:15,166 --> 00:07:18,375 So my mom was from a little town called Escanaba, Michigan, 153 00:07:18,375 --> 00:07:21,375 in the U.P., the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. 154 00:07:21,541 --> 00:07:23,833 She was in a family of ten children. 155 00:07:24,791 --> 00:07:26,958 They had two bedrooms. 156 00:07:26,958 --> 00:07:28,916 They had an outhouse. 157 00:07:28,916 --> 00:07:31,458 And if you Google, if you Google the weather in Escanaba 158 00:07:31,458 --> 00:07:34,583 in the winter, it's winter for like nine months a year with nothing 159 00:07:34,583 --> 00:07:39,125 but snow and torrential, wind and just horrible. 160 00:07:39,625 --> 00:07:43,125 So my mom told me stories growing up as a little girl, having to run outside 161 00:07:43,125 --> 00:07:46,375 in the middle of the night to go, to go to the bathroom, and that outhouse. 162 00:07:47,333 --> 00:07:49,916 And then she said later in life, when they upgraded, 163 00:07:49,916 --> 00:07:52,791 they actually put in a bathtub in the basement. 164 00:07:52,791 --> 00:07:56,375 But it wasn't a running water bath, so they had to fill it with jugs of water. 165 00:07:57,875 --> 00:07:59,750 My, no. 166 00:07:59,750 --> 00:08:02,833 I tell my daughter that and she's like, get out of here, you're making this up. 167 00:08:03,000 --> 00:08:04,166 Here's a little house on the prairie. 168 00:08:05,666 --> 00:08:07,583 So my mom was lucky because 169 00:08:07,583 --> 00:08:11,250 she was the youngest out of ten, so she got to take her bath first. 170 00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:15,000 But they they weren't changing the water. 171 00:08:15,208 --> 00:08:18,083 So at the time, you were the 10th, you were probably like, you know what? 172 00:08:18,083 --> 00:08:18,833 I think I'm good. 173 00:08:18,833 --> 00:08:21,291 I don't need to get in there, you know? 174 00:08:21,291 --> 00:08:21,583 Yeah. 175 00:08:21,583 --> 00:08:23,833 So it was, it was a different, different time. 176 00:08:23,833 --> 00:08:26,416 So my mom grew up with those values. 177 00:08:26,416 --> 00:08:29,416 My dad, both his parents were from Poland, 178 00:08:30,500 --> 00:08:33,000 so he grew up in Chicago's South Side. 179 00:08:33,000 --> 00:08:37,291 He went in the military, came back, and he worked as a machinist. 180 00:08:38,166 --> 00:08:41,750 And one day he grew up in Brighton Park, which is, you know, kind of a cool 181 00:08:42,166 --> 00:08:45,500 a little, little side note, what was his name? 182 00:08:46,250 --> 00:08:48,583 Ron Howard shot a movie called shot shot, 183 00:08:48,583 --> 00:08:51,625 a movie called Backdraft, two blocks from my grandma's house. 184 00:08:51,625 --> 00:08:53,958 They used the firehouse that was right there. 185 00:08:53,958 --> 00:08:57,125 And my grandma would sneak over there and sneak into the craft 186 00:08:57,125 --> 00:08:59,250 service area and get all the food. 187 00:08:59,250 --> 00:09:00,291 And she actually befriended 188 00:09:00,291 --> 00:09:03,291 Ron Howard and his wife, which I thought was pretty funny. 189 00:09:03,500 --> 00:09:06,125 So it was a quaint little neighborhood, Brighton Park. 190 00:09:06,125 --> 00:09:07,666 My mom worked in the bank there. 191 00:09:07,666 --> 00:09:11,791 She had moved from from Escanaba to Chicago as quick as she could. 192 00:09:11,791 --> 00:09:12,750 As soon as you get out of high school, 193 00:09:12,750 --> 00:09:14,666 because nobody wanted to grow up in Escanaba, 194 00:09:15,958 --> 00:09:17,500 right? 195 00:09:17,500 --> 00:09:20,041 So her and her older sister moved to Chicago. 196 00:09:20,041 --> 00:09:22,916 My mom got a job as a and working in the bank there. 197 00:09:22,916 --> 00:09:27,416 And my dad, who lived about a block and a half away, we do all his banking there. 198 00:09:27,958 --> 00:09:31,708 And one day he walked in the bank and he saw Dora, 199 00:09:32,416 --> 00:09:36,083 and he's like, wow, this is, I gotta I've gotta go out with this girl. 200 00:09:36,625 --> 00:09:41,666 So he asked her out and of course she said, no, no, no way. 201 00:09:41,791 --> 00:09:42,791 Right. 202 00:09:42,791 --> 00:09:47,083 So my dad, being the persistent guy that he is, he did that for five years, 203 00:09:47,791 --> 00:09:50,791 kept trying to get her to go out with him right. 204 00:09:51,583 --> 00:09:54,583 And my mom said that one day she was like, you know what? 205 00:09:55,166 --> 00:09:56,458 What is that guy Chester? 206 00:09:56,458 --> 00:09:59,000 He hasn't. I've seen him a couple of days. He hasn't asked me out. 207 00:09:59,000 --> 00:10:01,666 So she had just bought a new car. She was driving down the street. 208 00:10:01,666 --> 00:10:05,458 She saw him crossing the street, so she pulled over and yelled at him. 209 00:10:05,458 --> 00:10:06,833 Hey, do you want to go out? 210 00:10:08,083 --> 00:10:10,916 And Chester said, oh my God, yeah. 211 00:10:10,916 --> 00:10:13,916 And they have been together ever since. 212 00:10:14,541 --> 00:10:15,708 Okay. I love your mom. 213 00:10:15,708 --> 00:10:18,083 What a strong woman. Like she. 214 00:10:18,083 --> 00:10:20,583 She bought her a car, her off room all by herself. 215 00:10:20,583 --> 00:10:24,500 At this time, when, you know, it was not easy for women to buy things 216 00:10:24,500 --> 00:10:27,500 on their own without having a man on alone, 217 00:10:28,541 --> 00:10:31,541 Yeah. 218 00:10:31,958 --> 00:10:32,250 Yeah. 219 00:10:32,250 --> 00:10:34,833 She's, She's stronger than you'll ever know. 220 00:10:34,833 --> 00:10:36,708 Yeah. 221 00:10:36,708 --> 00:10:38,666 So, Tracy, I think you actually have some of the clippings 222 00:10:38,666 --> 00:10:41,666 that I pulled out of the box. 223 00:10:43,833 --> 00:10:45,041 one that I'm looking at here. 224 00:10:45,041 --> 00:10:48,041 Dated Chicago, April 28th. 225 00:10:48,166 --> 00:10:51,083 Headline baby stolen at a hospital. 226 00:10:51,083 --> 00:10:54,458 And it reads, hundreds of policemen combed a Southside neighborhood house 227 00:10:54,458 --> 00:10:58,208 to house today for a two day old baby boy abducted from his mother's arms. 228 00:10:58,208 --> 00:11:00,916 And Michael Reese hospital, the mother, Mrs. 229 00:11:00,916 --> 00:11:02,500 Dora Fronczak, at 28, 230 00:11:02,500 --> 00:11:06,250 told police she was feeding her baby when a woman dressed as a nurse entered 231 00:11:06,250 --> 00:11:09,500 and took the infant, saying it had to be returned to the nursery. 232 00:11:10,375 --> 00:11:11,500 When a nurse asked Mrs. 233 00:11:11,500 --> 00:11:12,541 Fronczak for the child. 234 00:11:12,541 --> 00:11:15,916 A short time later, the abduction was discovered and the police were called. 235 00:11:16,833 --> 00:11:19,250 The infant is the only child of Mr. and Mrs. 236 00:11:19,250 --> 00:11:22,083 Chester S. Fronczak Junior of Chicago. 237 00:11:22,083 --> 00:11:25,291 Fronczak, an aircraft machinist, broke the news to his wife 238 00:11:25,291 --> 00:11:28,291 that the baby, Joseph, had been stolen. 239 00:11:28,291 --> 00:11:32,208 The hospital does not make a practice of making footprints of newborn infants 240 00:11:33,291 --> 00:11:34,625 that could handicap police. 241 00:11:34,625 --> 00:11:37,625 If the infant is missing for some time. 242 00:11:38,250 --> 00:11:43,083 All right, so that pretty much takes us into what really happened. 243 00:11:43,541 --> 00:11:46,833 So I think, Tracey, we should go back to 1964. 244 00:11:47,666 --> 00:11:50,666 Sure will go back even a decade further. 245 00:11:51,708 --> 00:11:52,833 The 60s. 246 00:11:52,833 --> 00:11:55,000 Who wasn't confused in the 60s, right? 247 00:11:55,000 --> 00:11:56,708 Time of profound change. 248 00:11:56,708 --> 00:11:59,708 Social and political ideals were shifting. 249 00:11:59,833 --> 00:12:02,500 The country is moving more from a traditional way of living 250 00:12:02,500 --> 00:12:04,083 into a more modern way. 251 00:12:04,083 --> 00:12:07,000 And growing pains are always hard. 252 00:12:07,000 --> 00:12:10,333 And so the civil rights amendments allowed for integration in schools. 253 00:12:10,750 --> 00:12:13,875 It made employment discrimination illegal and started us on the path 254 00:12:13,875 --> 00:12:16,875 to equality in this country. 255 00:12:16,875 --> 00:12:18,791 We were also in the middle of the Cold War. 256 00:12:18,791 --> 00:12:20,333 And I remember this. 257 00:12:20,333 --> 00:12:23,291 I remember as a kid doing, 258 00:12:27,208 --> 00:12:30,208 Yeah, I remember that. 259 00:12:31,291 --> 00:12:34,833 hallways and put your head up against the wall and shelter in place, like, yeah. 260 00:12:34,833 --> 00:12:36,083 So, you know, we're giving 261 00:12:36,083 --> 00:12:38,708 getting this false sense of security from the adults around us 262 00:12:38,708 --> 00:12:40,750 that if there's a nuclear war, you'll be fine. 263 00:12:40,750 --> 00:12:43,750 Hide under your desk. And and music. 264 00:12:44,208 --> 00:12:46,916 Number one song on 265 00:12:46,916 --> 00:12:47,625 Let me guess. 266 00:12:47,625 --> 00:12:50,625 I'm going to say the Beatles. 267 00:12:50,833 --> 00:12:52,333 Which one? 268 00:12:52,333 --> 00:12:54,083 Of course. 269 00:12:54,083 --> 00:12:56,458 on April 26th at Michael Reese Hospital 270 00:12:56,458 --> 00:12:59,666 in Chicago, Paul Joseph Fronczak was born to Chester 271 00:13:00,916 --> 00:13:03,916 So of course, Chester and Dora, one of the start a family. 272 00:13:05,125 --> 00:13:07,916 So they decided to have a child. 273 00:13:07,916 --> 00:13:11,000 And when they had their first child, it was a stillborn. 274 00:13:11,875 --> 00:13:13,916 So they were devastated. 275 00:13:13,916 --> 00:13:16,791 I mean, nobody wants to 276 00:13:16,791 --> 00:13:19,041 to not go home with the child 277 00:13:19,041 --> 00:13:21,500 right after, after, you know, giving birth. 278 00:13:21,500 --> 00:13:25,250 So they related to be pregnant and to be having Paul Joseph, 279 00:13:25,916 --> 00:13:28,791 this is going to be like their my mom later said 280 00:13:28,791 --> 00:13:31,791 they put all their hopes and dreams into this child. 281 00:13:32,333 --> 00:13:34,416 So my mom gives birth. 282 00:13:34,416 --> 00:13:36,500 It's a healthy, healthy boy. 283 00:13:36,500 --> 00:13:38,208 She was 28. 284 00:13:38,208 --> 00:13:41,208 Chester was my dad was 33. 285 00:13:41,208 --> 00:13:43,333 Paul was 7 pounds, two ounces 286 00:13:44,583 --> 00:13:46,541 in room 418. 287 00:13:46,541 --> 00:13:48,083 Everything was fine. 288 00:13:48,083 --> 00:13:51,083 April 26th April 27th. 289 00:13:51,166 --> 00:13:53,125 Paul was in the nursery as what they. 290 00:13:53,125 --> 00:13:57,208 But you know, back then when I had my daughter out here, we never left the room. 291 00:13:57,791 --> 00:13:58,500 We kept her. 292 00:13:58,500 --> 00:14:01,125 And, you know, the next day we we took her home 293 00:14:01,125 --> 00:14:04,166 and we knew that she was our child back then. 294 00:14:04,166 --> 00:14:07,916 They would take the baby away, put it in a nursery with all the other babies. 295 00:14:08,833 --> 00:14:11,833 And I mean to me right there, what could go wrong, right? 296 00:14:11,958 --> 00:14:14,000 Yeah. Yeah, exactly. 297 00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:17,000 A lot of things can go wrong with that situation. 298 00:14:24,833 --> 00:14:27,833 And ironically, they had no security right? 299 00:14:29,916 --> 00:14:32,208 Yeah, yeah. 300 00:14:32,208 --> 00:14:35,208 So it was April 27th. 301 00:14:35,458 --> 00:14:38,166 Paul was less than a day old. 302 00:14:38,166 --> 00:14:42,708 The nurse brought Paul from the nursery to Dora to, you know, for feeding time. 303 00:14:43,666 --> 00:14:44,541 Everything's happy. 304 00:14:44,541 --> 00:14:47,791 You know, Dora with my mom was extremely happy. 305 00:14:48,125 --> 00:14:51,125 You know, this is this is everything she's wanted, right? 306 00:14:51,375 --> 00:14:53,458 So she's feeding the baby. 307 00:14:53,458 --> 00:14:55,833 This nurse walks in 308 00:14:55,833 --> 00:14:57,833 and tells her that the doctor 309 00:14:57,833 --> 00:15:00,833 needs to see the baby for more testing. 310 00:15:01,708 --> 00:15:03,250 My mom thought it was strange 311 00:15:03,250 --> 00:15:06,291 that a nurse would want to take the baby away during feeding, 312 00:15:06,291 --> 00:15:10,250 because it's such a precious time and the baby needs to to eat right? 313 00:15:11,333 --> 00:15:14,333 So she handed the baby over because it's a nurse in a hospital 314 00:15:14,333 --> 00:15:16,166 and that's what you do. 315 00:15:16,166 --> 00:15:17,416 She handed the baby over. 316 00:15:17,416 --> 00:15:22,083 The nurse took the baby, left that room, went down a few flights of stairs, 317 00:15:22,458 --> 00:15:27,083 and then jumped into a cab that was waiting outside and vanished without a trace. 318 00:15:29,041 --> 00:15:29,958 The hospital 319 00:15:29,958 --> 00:15:32,958 was totally unaware of what's going on. 320 00:15:33,083 --> 00:15:36,375 As a matter of fact, it was almost an hour or so before that. 321 00:15:36,583 --> 00:15:39,583 They noticed the baby was even missing. 322 00:15:39,791 --> 00:15:43,125 And then to make it worse, they thought the baby was just misplaced. 323 00:15:43,875 --> 00:15:46,041 So they decided to not tell Mrs. 324 00:15:46,041 --> 00:15:47,875 Fronczak. 325 00:15:47,875 --> 00:15:50,875 They decided to just spend a few hours looking for the baby, 326 00:15:51,625 --> 00:15:54,958 and the baby was taken about 10:00 in the morning. 327 00:15:55,666 --> 00:15:58,666 They didn't notify the police til three in the afternoon, 328 00:15:59,791 --> 00:16:01,458 and they didn't even tell Mrs. 329 00:16:01,458 --> 00:16:02,166 Fronczak. 330 00:16:02,166 --> 00:16:07,208 They called my dad at work and told him, your baby's gone. 331 00:16:07,250 --> 00:16:10,166 You need to come and tell your wife. 332 00:16:10,166 --> 00:16:12,708 My dad was at work and the machine shop 333 00:16:12,708 --> 00:16:15,708 because back then there was no such thing as paternity leave. 334 00:16:16,041 --> 00:16:17,875 He had to go and do his shift. 335 00:16:17,875 --> 00:16:19,666 He was handing out cigars with his buddies, 336 00:16:20,750 --> 00:16:21,833 and then he gets this call. 337 00:16:21,833 --> 00:16:27,166 So he has to race down to the hospital to tell his his wife, who's totally happy 338 00:16:27,625 --> 00:16:31,166 because she's waiting, you know, for her child to come back for the next feeding, 339 00:16:31,791 --> 00:16:34,791 that the baby's not coming back, the baby's gone. 340 00:16:35,375 --> 00:16:36,833 And then as soon as she said that, 341 00:16:36,833 --> 00:16:40,041 all the FBI and the police just charged into the room, 342 00:16:40,666 --> 00:16:43,250 you know, reporters just snapping pictures and, 343 00:16:43,250 --> 00:16:46,250 you know, screaming out questions and, you know, all this. 344 00:16:46,375 --> 00:16:49,291 And my mom didn't know what the hell was going on. 345 00:16:49,291 --> 00:16:52,458 She had just been told the most horrible news that you can ever imagine. 346 00:16:53,125 --> 00:16:55,375 And then she's flooded with the media. 347 00:16:55,375 --> 00:16:58,333 And to this day, she really hates the media. 348 00:16:58,333 --> 00:16:59,875 But now I don't. I don't blame her. 349 00:16:59,875 --> 00:17:03,500 You know, it's ironic how we actually use the media later down the road, 350 00:17:04,541 --> 00:17:05,958 but it's the whole thing 351 00:17:05,958 --> 00:17:09,416 happened and it was just it was bizarre, you know, within a couple of hours, 352 00:17:10,041 --> 00:17:13,041 the FBI had scrambled all these police officers. 353 00:17:13,875 --> 00:17:17,541 The postal workers took 120,000 letter carriers. 354 00:17:17,666 --> 00:17:18,958 They had them going door to door, 355 00:17:18,958 --> 00:17:22,041 knocking on doors, trying to find this kidnaped baby. 356 00:17:23,541 --> 00:17:26,333 Lee Kelsey was the cab driver 357 00:17:26,333 --> 00:17:29,333 that happened to be the unlucky one to pick up the Kidnaper. 358 00:17:30,250 --> 00:17:33,375 When she had ordered the cab, she had told him to meet her 359 00:17:33,375 --> 00:17:36,375 by a different, different wing, different name. 360 00:17:36,583 --> 00:17:38,791 He said that's not Michael Reese Hospital. 361 00:17:38,791 --> 00:17:41,791 So then she corrected herself and said, meet me at the back doors. 362 00:17:42,250 --> 00:17:42,791 She came out. 363 00:17:42,791 --> 00:17:45,791 The baby, wrapped in the blanket, jumped in the cab. 364 00:17:46,041 --> 00:17:48,208 He took her down to like 35th and Halsted. 365 00:17:49,541 --> 00:17:50,875 She got out and he said he 366 00:17:50,875 --> 00:17:54,375 saw her get into another car and take off and that was it. 367 00:17:54,875 --> 00:17:56,541 She just vanished. 368 00:17:56,541 --> 00:17:58,375 Later when he was interviewed. 369 00:17:58,375 --> 00:18:01,958 This poor guy, I mean, he ended up being dragged in for all kinds of 370 00:18:01,958 --> 00:18:04,958 whenever they they found someone that they thought was the kidnaper 371 00:18:05,125 --> 00:18:08,875 they'd brought him in to do a and I witness you know it, you know, 372 00:18:09,375 --> 00:18:13,083 what would they call it when you recognize the person you know? 373 00:18:13,083 --> 00:18:13,875 Is that the person? 374 00:18:13,875 --> 00:18:16,583 And he's like, no, right. 375 00:18:16,583 --> 00:18:19,958 So and anyway, so he said that he had seen 376 00:18:19,958 --> 00:18:22,958 this lady numerous times around that neighborhood. 377 00:18:22,958 --> 00:18:25,375 So she must have had something to do with that area, 378 00:18:25,375 --> 00:18:28,041 whether she lived there or was staying with somebody. 379 00:18:28,041 --> 00:18:29,875 But I think back on, Lee Kelsey, 380 00:18:29,875 --> 00:18:32,875 I feel bad for him because that really changed his life, 381 00:18:33,208 --> 00:18:36,208 you know, plus probably the feeling that he had inside, 382 00:18:36,833 --> 00:18:38,416 knowing that he picked up a kidnaper. 383 00:18:38,416 --> 00:18:39,541 That's just all, baby. 384 00:18:40,666 --> 00:18:43,666 You know, that's it's something that it's been really 385 00:18:43,666 --> 00:18:46,666 it's been on my mind lately and it's kind of hard to shake. 386 00:18:47,416 --> 00:18:50,416 I mean, this this whole story has affected so many people over the years. 387 00:18:50,958 --> 00:18:54,041 And I found that the people never really got over it. 388 00:18:54,041 --> 00:18:56,208 It's always been a part of them. 389 00:18:56,208 --> 00:18:58,666 And that's that's what I was talking about. 390 00:18:58,666 --> 00:19:02,958 When this is a journey, not just like an audio book full of facts, 391 00:19:03,500 --> 00:19:06,916 but how it actually affects people and the human emotion 392 00:19:06,916 --> 00:19:09,916 that's tied into something like this to a tragedy. 393 00:19:10,958 --> 00:19:13,083 so in addition to the human element 394 00:19:13,083 --> 00:19:16,333 of having your child kidnaped and everyone else that's involved with it, 395 00:19:16,958 --> 00:19:19,875 how about the failure of the institution? 396 00:19:19,875 --> 00:19:22,166 very blatant and very obvious. 397 00:19:22,166 --> 00:19:25,666 When we look back on it from through our lens from today, 398 00:19:26,500 --> 00:19:29,500 as a high risk obstetrical nurse for 18 years, 399 00:19:29,541 --> 00:19:32,875 I have seen security, for instance, evolve. 400 00:19:32,875 --> 00:19:36,166 Just in the last 18 years, it has changed and improved. 401 00:19:36,916 --> 00:19:39,916 It was nonexistent in 1964. 402 00:19:40,458 --> 00:19:44,916 Today, babies are but printed within their first hour of life. 403 00:19:46,458 --> 00:19:48,458 Babies are banded. 404 00:19:48,458 --> 00:19:50,416 We have double bands on babies. 405 00:19:50,416 --> 00:19:53,000 One goes on a wrist, one goes on an ankle. 406 00:19:53,000 --> 00:19:53,958 We do that 407 00:19:53,958 --> 00:19:57,541 because babies tend to lose weight in the first few days after they're born, 408 00:19:57,791 --> 00:20:00,875 and they could wiggle themselves out of one of those ID bands. 409 00:20:01,291 --> 00:20:04,541 So we never want a baby that's not identified in some way. 410 00:20:05,666 --> 00:20:09,291 Parents are given matching bands or the mom, and then someone of her 411 00:20:09,291 --> 00:20:12,500 choice has a matching band numbers, match names, match. 412 00:20:12,500 --> 00:20:14,291 Everything has to line up. 413 00:20:14,291 --> 00:20:17,333 And in order for us to hand a baby over to a mother, 414 00:20:18,583 --> 00:20:21,833 and as far as culturally for a labor 415 00:20:21,833 --> 00:20:25,416 and delivery, we no longer have nurseries and most of our hospitals. 416 00:20:25,416 --> 00:20:26,958 Babies stay at the bedside. 417 00:20:26,958 --> 00:20:29,666 Now, everything is done at the bedside. 418 00:20:29,666 --> 00:20:32,500 Bathing medications assessment. 419 00:20:32,500 --> 00:20:37,791 And if the babies do need to go somewhere for more invasive testing, 420 00:20:38,833 --> 00:20:40,250 a person is allowed to go with them. 421 00:20:40,250 --> 00:20:44,208 An adult who has the band can accompany that baby to whatever procedure 422 00:20:44,208 --> 00:20:47,708 it might be, whether it's an X-ray or to the operating room. 423 00:20:47,708 --> 00:20:48,750 Any of those type of things. 424 00:20:48,750 --> 00:20:51,750 So, babies are also 425 00:20:52,625 --> 00:20:55,625 given a security device on the opposite ankle, 426 00:20:55,750 --> 00:21:00,208 which is a Bluetooth device that is hooked up to a security system. 427 00:21:00,583 --> 00:21:04,291 And, babies have to be cleared to go down certain hallways, 428 00:21:04,291 --> 00:21:08,583 near certain doors, like, all stairwell doors are a trigger. 429 00:21:08,791 --> 00:21:10,416 If a baby is wheeled near 430 00:21:10,416 --> 00:21:14,250 a stairwell door, it will start sounding a very loud alarm. 431 00:21:15,083 --> 00:21:18,083 Everyone on the floor scrambles, 432 00:21:18,083 --> 00:21:21,125 to find what's called a code pink location. 433 00:21:22,333 --> 00:21:24,333 Every hospital has plaques on the wall 434 00:21:24,333 --> 00:21:28,458 that identify where those Code Pink locations are, and staff 435 00:21:28,458 --> 00:21:32,500 members are drilled regularly for how to find those places 436 00:21:34,625 --> 00:21:37,625 And Tracey, can I ask what prompted Code Pink? 437 00:21:38,208 --> 00:21:41,208 interesting story here is the kidnapping 438 00:21:41,458 --> 00:21:44,458 Which one was that? 439 00:21:44,833 --> 00:21:47,208 The Fronczak kidnapping. 440 00:21:47,208 --> 00:21:49,625 started this whole process of slowly evolving 441 00:21:49,625 --> 00:21:51,250 security for babies in the hospital. 442 00:21:51,250 --> 00:21:52,708 And it was still slow. 443 00:21:52,708 --> 00:21:55,000 This stuff didn't happen overnight. 444 00:21:55,000 --> 00:21:56,791 It was still a slow process 445 00:21:56,791 --> 00:21:59,166 because I think most people thought this was an anomaly. 446 00:21:59,166 --> 00:22:01,375 This is something that is unusual. 447 00:22:01,375 --> 00:22:03,625 This is not the common, normal thing. 448 00:22:03,625 --> 00:22:06,125 So it was still slow at that point. 449 00:22:06,125 --> 00:22:10,083 And so hospitals are very diligent about this now about keeping babies safe. 450 00:22:10,083 --> 00:22:12,291 All labor and delivery units are locked. 451 00:22:12,291 --> 00:22:17,041 We have badges that we have to badge in with and the doors will unlock. 452 00:22:17,416 --> 00:22:20,750 People are interviewed essentially before they come on the floor. 453 00:22:20,750 --> 00:22:22,250 Who are you here to see? 454 00:22:22,250 --> 00:22:23,750 What room are they in? We want names. 455 00:22:23,750 --> 00:22:24,958 We want location 456 00:22:24,958 --> 00:22:27,166 so that we know that people that are coming on to the floor 457 00:22:27,166 --> 00:22:29,208 are actually family members, are people that 458 00:22:31,833 --> 00:22:32,791 So you're saying out of this 459 00:22:32,791 --> 00:22:35,791 horrible tragedy, something good actually came out of it? 460 00:22:36,625 --> 00:22:37,250 Yeah. 461 00:22:37,250 --> 00:22:39,541 That's fantastic. 462 00:22:39,541 --> 00:22:43,458 there's some statistics, from the, center 463 00:22:43,458 --> 00:22:47,958 for Missing and Exploited Children, about babies that are abducted. 464 00:22:47,958 --> 00:22:51,791 They consider an infant abduction to be the abduction of any child 465 00:22:51,791 --> 00:22:53,916 under one year of age. 466 00:22:53,916 --> 00:22:57,166 And this, abduction can take various forms 467 00:22:57,166 --> 00:23:00,791 from, being abducted from, like, a non-custodial parent, 468 00:23:01,458 --> 00:23:04,583 to a stranger abduction, to being abducted from the hospital, 469 00:23:04,583 --> 00:23:07,500 from their home or in a public place. 470 00:23:07,500 --> 00:23:10,500 And there are several, 471 00:23:10,541 --> 00:23:13,541 numbers that they have compiled, 472 00:23:14,291 --> 00:23:17,333 total abductions of infants related to health care 473 00:23:17,333 --> 00:23:20,333 confirmed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children 474 00:23:20,541 --> 00:23:25,500 from 1964 to January of 2025, in the US, 1964 475 00:23:25,500 --> 00:23:29,625 being this case, there's been 148 476 00:23:29,625 --> 00:23:33,041 children taken from health care facilities in that Well. 477 00:23:33,875 --> 00:23:36,500 you think about the thousands and thousands and thousands of babies 478 00:23:36,500 --> 00:23:41,583 have been born since then, 140 isn't a lot, but it's 140 479 00:23:42,875 --> 00:23:43,625 Well said. 480 00:23:43,625 --> 00:23:44,916 Yeah. 481 00:23:44,916 --> 00:23:46,666 So thanks for those. 482 00:23:46,666 --> 00:23:47,583 Those facts, by the way. 483 00:23:47,583 --> 00:23:49,125 It's very eye opening. 484 00:23:49,125 --> 00:23:52,125 It's very sad, but at least there's hope. 485 00:23:52,125 --> 00:23:55,125 And I like that. 486 00:23:55,500 --> 00:23:56,208 So the funny thing 487 00:23:56,208 --> 00:23:59,750 about the nurse, a lot of people saw her, but 488 00:23:59,750 --> 00:24:03,166 the hospital never really bothered to try to get descriptions of her right away. 489 00:24:03,166 --> 00:24:06,166 They were just they just thought the baby was misplaced. 490 00:24:06,166 --> 00:24:11,000 So when the police came in, they had their sketch artist, Otis Raffel, 491 00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:14,000 come in and do a quick sketch of what, 492 00:24:14,083 --> 00:24:17,583 a couple of people that saw the the kidnapper 493 00:24:18,041 --> 00:24:22,500 what she might look like 35 to 45 years old, around five, three. 494 00:24:23,500 --> 00:24:28,166 Kind of brownish, grayish hair, graying hair, no scars. 495 00:24:28,166 --> 00:24:30,458 Just a regular person. Could be anybody 496 00:24:31,541 --> 00:24:34,333 but Joyce Doane, who was the patient next to me? 497 00:24:34,333 --> 00:24:38,125 Dora, my mom in the hospital so that she looked like 498 00:24:38,125 --> 00:24:41,458 a very uncaring person that probably didn't like children. 499 00:24:42,791 --> 00:24:45,625 And I thought that was that was pretty interesting, right? 500 00:24:45,625 --> 00:24:49,541 And a lot of times people go, well, maybe it's someone who just wanted a child, 501 00:24:50,583 --> 00:24:53,666 but someone with that description to me isn't somebody that wanted a child. 502 00:24:54,125 --> 00:24:58,000 And she was seen for a couple of days before the kidnapping 503 00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:02,625 looking at different babies, almost like she was shopping for that perfect one. 504 00:25:03,333 --> 00:25:07,250 And then when she said she found the one that she thought would fit the bill, Paul, 505 00:25:08,375 --> 00:25:11,458 then she decided, okay, I need to just grab this baby and run. 506 00:25:11,958 --> 00:25:16,541 yeah, at the time, there was no such thing as profiling criminals. 507 00:25:16,541 --> 00:25:18,625 That was not a done thing. 508 00:25:18,625 --> 00:25:21,541 So people were relying just on their physical attributes to, 509 00:25:21,541 --> 00:25:23,333 to see if people would recognize them. 510 00:25:23,333 --> 00:25:27,083 But today, after, you know, years of of study 511 00:25:27,083 --> 00:25:30,875 in this field and profiling, what type of a person would take a baby? 512 00:25:31,166 --> 00:25:35,291 The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 513 00:25:35,291 --> 00:25:40,375 they've released some information about what type of a woman could be an abductor, 514 00:25:40,750 --> 00:25:43,833 and they typically are all of childbearing age. 515 00:25:44,666 --> 00:25:46,958 They are most likely compulsive. 516 00:25:46,958 --> 00:25:50,333 They rely a lot on manipulation, lying and deception 517 00:25:50,333 --> 00:25:53,583 to get what they want, which I'm sure describes a lot of people. 518 00:25:54,833 --> 00:25:56,166 They and. 519 00:25:56,166 --> 00:25:59,208 And and people will say that they hear these women 520 00:25:59,208 --> 00:26:02,500 talk about the they've lost a baby or they're incapable of having one. 521 00:26:02,833 --> 00:26:05,416 This becomes a big theme in their life. 522 00:26:05,416 --> 00:26:09,416 They either have had a stillbirth or a miscarriage, or have been told that 523 00:26:09,416 --> 00:26:13,500 they're infertile, and this could drive their need to adopt a child. 524 00:26:14,208 --> 00:26:16,625 Oddly enough, they're often married, 525 00:26:16,625 --> 00:26:19,625 or they're often collaborating with someone else. 526 00:26:19,750 --> 00:26:24,625 And this can feed into their desire to give their companion a child 527 00:26:25,083 --> 00:26:28,583 if they're unable to do so, they could be driven to take a baby 528 00:26:28,583 --> 00:26:30,666 in order to please their partner. 529 00:26:30,666 --> 00:26:33,333 This is something that the partner wants. 530 00:26:33,333 --> 00:26:36,500 Oftentimes, they live in the community where the abduction has taken place. 531 00:26:36,708 --> 00:26:38,708 That's very common, which makes sense. 532 00:26:38,708 --> 00:26:41,541 They would know the streets, they would know the ways to get away. 533 00:26:41,541 --> 00:26:43,416 They would be able to watch comings and goings. 534 00:26:44,750 --> 00:26:45,250 They were 535 00:26:45,250 --> 00:26:48,500 frequent visitors to their nursery or the maternity units 536 00:26:48,500 --> 00:26:52,000 at more than one health care facility in the area prior to the abduction. 537 00:26:52,416 --> 00:26:54,083 And they were asking a lot of questions. 538 00:26:54,083 --> 00:26:57,208 And we know that this nurse had gone 539 00:26:57,208 --> 00:27:00,500 into more than just your mother's room to look at baby Paul. 540 00:27:01,041 --> 00:27:04,041 She it was reported that she was in other rooms as well, 541 00:27:04,166 --> 00:27:06,750 taking down blankets, looking at babies, turning on her heel 542 00:27:06,750 --> 00:27:08,458 and walking out and saying nothing. 543 00:27:08,458 --> 00:27:11,458 Like you said, I'm shopping for a baby. Like 544 00:27:12,416 --> 00:27:15,583 They even had sightings from different hospitals of the same lady. 545 00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:17,583 Yeah. 546 00:27:17,583 --> 00:27:21,750 right into that profile that they are scouting out other hospitals as well, 547 00:27:21,791 --> 00:27:25,500 which is the place that's going to be the easiest for me to take a baby. 548 00:27:25,875 --> 00:27:28,125 They ask a lot of questions about procedures, 549 00:27:28,125 --> 00:27:29,875 about the maternity floor layout. 550 00:27:29,875 --> 00:27:34,625 They use fire exit stairwells, to escape because these are not guarded. 551 00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:36,666 They're easy ways to get out. 552 00:27:36,666 --> 00:27:40,375 And occasionally these babies are ejected from the home 553 00:27:40,375 --> 00:27:43,375 setting as well, but predominantly from a hospital. 554 00:27:43,375 --> 00:27:45,333 And the abductions are usually well planned. 555 00:27:45,333 --> 00:27:47,833 This is not something that is done on the fly. 556 00:27:48,833 --> 00:27:51,583 They have usually has targeted a baby, 557 00:27:51,583 --> 00:27:54,583 and they're just going to wait for their moment to take them. 558 00:27:55,041 --> 00:27:58,958 And though this can describe a lot of people, a lot of women, 559 00:27:59,166 --> 00:28:02,416 in the setting of security 560 00:28:02,416 --> 00:28:05,416 on a labor and delivery floor, this is a very dangerous person. 561 00:28:06,375 --> 00:28:08,583 And I mean, just ballsy. Alone, right? 562 00:28:08,583 --> 00:28:11,333 Just to be able to do that to me. 563 00:28:11,333 --> 00:28:13,458 To talk to the mother face to face. 564 00:28:13,458 --> 00:28:16,458 I need to take your baby. 565 00:28:17,458 --> 00:28:18,708 And then just walk out. 566 00:28:18,708 --> 00:28:20,750 Right. And I still feel bad. 567 00:28:20,750 --> 00:28:21,333 There's Lee. 568 00:28:21,333 --> 00:28:22,583 Kelsey's in the picture. 569 00:28:22,583 --> 00:28:24,791 He's the cab driver right there. 570 00:28:24,791 --> 00:28:28,250 I mean, I really feel bad for him and his family that he had to go through that. 571 00:28:28,500 --> 00:28:31,375 And he was just an innocent bystander just doing his job, you know, 572 00:28:31,375 --> 00:28:34,583 trying to pay, trying to pay his bills, you know, picking up a fare. 573 00:28:34,916 --> 00:28:35,291 Right. 574 00:28:35,291 --> 00:28:39,125 And who knew that that little thing would change his life and the way it did? 575 00:28:43,125 --> 00:28:45,625 It's so crazy. 576 00:28:45,625 --> 00:28:47,041 Yeah. 577 00:28:47,041 --> 00:28:49,166 It's hard to imagine what your parents must have been feeling 578 00:28:49,166 --> 00:28:52,166 at this point in time with, losing a second baby. 579 00:28:53,916 --> 00:28:57,625 And, you know, from what I understand, your dad wasn't a very. 580 00:28:57,625 --> 00:29:00,416 Didn't seem like a very emotional guy. He didn't talk about his feelings 581 00:29:00,416 --> 00:29:01,375 very much. 582 00:29:01,375 --> 00:29:03,833 From what I understand about him. 583 00:29:03,833 --> 00:29:08,416 But there's some really touching quotes in the newspaper that he was able to give 584 00:29:08,416 --> 00:29:09,791 when reporters were asking him 585 00:29:09,791 --> 00:29:12,791 how he felt about all of this and what was happening. 586 00:29:12,791 --> 00:29:16,666 And simple and to the point, he says, please take care of the baby 587 00:29:16,666 --> 00:29:20,083 and return him, almost begging to 588 00:29:20,083 --> 00:29:23,083 please bring that child back. 589 00:29:23,375 --> 00:29:25,791 He also is quoted as saying, I just want to plead 590 00:29:25,791 --> 00:29:28,791 for the kidnaper to take care of the baby and to return him. 591 00:29:29,250 --> 00:29:31,083 She should give him formula. 592 00:29:31,083 --> 00:29:33,416 There's a recipe for that in the newspaper. 593 00:29:33,416 --> 00:29:34,833 Please take care of our baby. 594 00:29:36,083 --> 00:29:36,583 So it just 595 00:29:36,583 --> 00:29:39,583 sort of speaks to a parent's desire to care for their child. 596 00:29:39,583 --> 00:29:40,833 And the child is not present. 597 00:29:40,833 --> 00:29:43,833 And they're still agonizing over 598 00:29:45,041 --> 00:29:48,291 You know, when one reporter in a story actually said 599 00:29:49,041 --> 00:29:53,333 that she was a mother for the second time, going home with no children 600 00:29:54,166 --> 00:29:58,000 and just heartless to even even put that in print, you know? 601 00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:02,083 So Dora stayed in the hospital for five days after the kidnapping. 602 00:30:03,041 --> 00:30:04,375 Five days. 603 00:30:04,375 --> 00:30:08,250 She kept hoping that that whoever took Paul would bring him back to the hospital. 604 00:30:09,375 --> 00:30:10,958 And then eventually she said, you know what? 605 00:30:10,958 --> 00:30:12,041 I've got to go home. 606 00:30:12,041 --> 00:30:14,166 I've got to start living my life again. 607 00:30:14,166 --> 00:30:16,875 Even though she didn't want to. 608 00:30:16,875 --> 00:30:19,958 So I can't even imagine just being in the hospital for five days, 609 00:30:21,208 --> 00:30:22,166 you know? 610 00:30:22,166 --> 00:30:25,541 You know, the thing that really got me was when Paul was taken 611 00:30:25,541 --> 00:30:29,125 in the hospital, knew they had a student nurse. 612 00:30:29,541 --> 00:30:31,208 Mary transferred. 613 00:30:31,208 --> 00:30:34,458 She was a student nurse, and they told her the baby's gone. 614 00:30:34,666 --> 00:30:37,541 But do not let Mrs. fronczak know. 615 00:30:37,541 --> 00:30:40,541 Take her through all the classes, business as usual. 616 00:30:41,125 --> 00:30:43,416 Because the baby's probably just misplaced. 617 00:30:43,416 --> 00:30:46,416 We'll find him and everything will be fine. 618 00:30:46,541 --> 00:30:49,500 But she knew her baby was gone, 619 00:30:49,500 --> 00:30:51,916 and I got to meet her 620 00:30:51,916 --> 00:30:53,541 and she hugged me. 621 00:30:53,541 --> 00:30:54,958 And you could feel. 622 00:30:54,958 --> 00:30:56,625 You could still feel it with her. 623 00:30:56,625 --> 00:30:59,916 This has been with her her whole life that she did that. 624 00:31:00,500 --> 00:31:04,500 And you can't you can't shake something like that. 625 00:31:04,541 --> 00:31:05,750 You know, once again, 626 00:31:05,750 --> 00:31:09,250 when something like this happens, it just doesn't affect 1 or 2 people. 627 00:31:09,250 --> 00:31:12,208 It affects everyone. It's a chain reaction. 628 00:31:12,208 --> 00:31:13,208 And when you're starting out 629 00:31:13,208 --> 00:31:16,208 your nursing career and you're told to lie to a patient 630 00:31:17,041 --> 00:31:20,333 and then cover it up like that, that's that's insane. 631 00:31:21,041 --> 00:31:23,333 And she she stayed a nurse 632 00:31:23,333 --> 00:31:27,208 and she retired, you know, an amazing nurse, which is so fantastic. 633 00:31:27,208 --> 00:31:30,208 And I was hoping to get her on the show, but it just didn't work out. 634 00:31:30,541 --> 00:31:34,083 But just to meet her, you know, someone that was actually there living 635 00:31:34,083 --> 00:31:37,958 through this, it's incredible, you know, and it gives you hope and humanity. 636 00:31:38,958 --> 00:31:42,625 I. I really feel for Mary as a nurse myself. 637 00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:45,958 I feel how devastating that 638 00:31:45,958 --> 00:31:49,041 must be to feel like you took part in something like this. 639 00:31:49,041 --> 00:31:51,625 That you didn't know enough to stop it. 640 00:31:51,625 --> 00:31:54,208 You didn't realize it was happening. 641 00:31:54,208 --> 00:31:57,875 And as a young nurse just starting out, like you said, to be asked to lie 642 00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:01,708 to a patient that does not set a good precedent for a career 643 00:32:01,708 --> 00:32:06,083 as an and, also that, you know, that whole subterfuge 644 00:32:06,083 --> 00:32:09,333 just to keep up the lie, to keep, keep it propped up 645 00:32:09,333 --> 00:32:14,000 so that they could try to recover this baby, that would never happen today. 646 00:32:15,041 --> 00:32:19,125 And, you know, I mean, what you tell me about Mary. 647 00:32:19,125 --> 00:32:21,083 I wish that I had been able to meet her. 648 00:32:21,083 --> 00:32:24,416 I wish she was able to come on the show and be able to talk to us herself 649 00:32:24,416 --> 00:32:25,375 and tell us your story. 650 00:32:27,125 --> 00:32:27,833 If I could 651 00:32:27,833 --> 00:32:30,833 speak to her, I would just like to tell her thank you. 652 00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:33,625 Because even though she experienced the trauma 653 00:32:33,625 --> 00:32:36,958 of being a part of this event, and it carried it with her her whole life, 654 00:32:37,250 --> 00:32:40,750 she was also an integral part of the change that took place in caring 655 00:32:40,750 --> 00:32:44,750 for moms and babies and their safety, and that cannot be replaced. 656 00:32:45,333 --> 00:32:50,958 And so it's, it's a lifelong burden that she has carried to have been part of it. 657 00:32:50,958 --> 00:32:53,958 But it's also been huge for change. 658 00:32:54,291 --> 00:32:56,583 Yeah. It's, 659 00:32:56,583 --> 00:32:58,750 You're making me tear up a little bit here. 660 00:32:58,750 --> 00:33:00,166 Yeah. 661 00:33:00,166 --> 00:33:03,291 You know, and then you have to have that aspect of it. 662 00:33:03,291 --> 00:33:07,083 And then you actually have the whole city of Chicago coming together, right? 663 00:33:07,083 --> 00:33:09,416 Trying to find this baby that was kidnaped from a hospital. 664 00:33:10,375 --> 00:33:13,541 200 police and FBI descended upon the city. 665 00:33:13,541 --> 00:33:16,541 Thousands of homes were searched. 666 00:33:16,791 --> 00:33:20,166 They, I can't believe how much manpower 667 00:33:20,166 --> 00:33:23,500 they invested into actually trying to find this, this child. 668 00:33:24,041 --> 00:33:27,541 You know, as a matter of fact, Susan Nolan reached out to me. 669 00:33:27,833 --> 00:33:30,791 Her dad was actually John Norris. 670 00:33:30,791 --> 00:33:33,791 He was a beat cop in Chicago, and he became a desk sergeant 671 00:33:34,625 --> 00:33:36,083 his whole career. 672 00:33:36,083 --> 00:33:39,625 I mean, he dealt with thousands of cases throughout his career. 673 00:33:40,250 --> 00:33:45,166 There was only one case that he actually made part of his life. 674 00:33:45,583 --> 00:33:47,708 He actually took it home with him. 675 00:33:47,708 --> 00:33:50,708 And she actually, I'm going to show you this. 676 00:33:53,166 --> 00:33:54,916 She actually gave me this file 677 00:33:54,916 --> 00:33:57,916 that he kept in his in his home, 678 00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:01,916 because this is the actual police file on the front of that kidnapping. 679 00:34:02,583 --> 00:34:05,291 And inside, it's just 680 00:34:05,291 --> 00:34:09,875 I mean, this is the original pictures that the hospital took apart. 681 00:34:11,250 --> 00:34:14,250 They didn't have time to blood type home or get a footprint, 682 00:34:14,458 --> 00:34:17,750 but they had time for this glamor shot, right? 683 00:34:18,333 --> 00:34:19,583 Yeah. 684 00:34:19,583 --> 00:34:21,500 And, 685 00:34:21,500 --> 00:34:22,791 yeah, more on that later. 686 00:34:22,791 --> 00:34:27,916 But I just to me, I spent a whole day just going through these files, you know. 687 00:34:27,916 --> 00:34:29,833 And here's the thing. 688 00:34:29,833 --> 00:34:31,458 This isn't like today's police work. 689 00:34:31,458 --> 00:34:34,458 Everything is handwritten. 690 00:34:34,666 --> 00:34:37,666 Everything. 691 00:34:38,083 --> 00:34:41,083 Or typed very poorly. 692 00:34:41,166 --> 00:34:42,666 You know, just the typing. 693 00:34:42,666 --> 00:34:46,625 I mean, just the the time alone that they took to just to type this stuff. 694 00:34:46,958 --> 00:34:50,458 And you can see, I mean, there's just pages and pages 695 00:34:51,083 --> 00:34:54,083 of all these accounts. It 696 00:34:54,541 --> 00:34:56,916 they had fake ransom notices going in. 697 00:34:56,916 --> 00:34:59,458 You know, the, 698 00:34:59,458 --> 00:35:01,291 the cops said they were chasing down 699 00:35:01,291 --> 00:35:04,291 people that, you know, were trying to get ransom money. 700 00:35:04,375 --> 00:35:07,750 People would phone in tips about, you know, this woman was found in a subway 701 00:35:07,750 --> 00:35:12,958 platform and subway, you know, they had the, the, the the trains in Chicago. 702 00:35:13,625 --> 00:35:16,958 And of course, whenever they brought someone in to a station, 703 00:35:16,958 --> 00:35:19,750 they had to bring Lee Kelsey and the cab driver again to, to do I 704 00:35:19,750 --> 00:35:20,791 try to identify them. 705 00:35:22,666 --> 00:35:23,083 Yeah. 706 00:35:23,083 --> 00:35:26,291 Over and over and over and all these things. 707 00:35:26,291 --> 00:35:29,500 It's just it's to me, it's just mind boggling 708 00:35:29,500 --> 00:35:31,875 how much effort they put in it to try to find this. 709 00:35:31,875 --> 00:35:34,125 This kidnaped child. 710 00:35:34,125 --> 00:35:34,416 Yeah. 711 00:35:34,416 --> 00:35:38,583 When I was reading about it, you know, I was reading like, numbers, like, 712 00:35:39,250 --> 00:35:42,875 that, they were looking at like 2600 hospital 713 00:35:42,875 --> 00:35:44,208 employees or something crazy 714 00:35:44,208 --> 00:35:48,041 like that, looking for people with like mental health issues, nurses 715 00:35:48,291 --> 00:35:51,291 who had maybe lost a child or 716 00:35:51,500 --> 00:35:54,125 were unable to have children of their own, assuming 717 00:35:54,125 --> 00:35:56,083 that this woman might actually have been a nurse 718 00:35:56,083 --> 00:35:59,083 because she seemed to know so much about how the hospital functioned. 719 00:35:59,291 --> 00:36:04,125 And, you know, thinking about taking a baby out of a glassed in nursery, 720 00:36:04,625 --> 00:36:07,708 it's far easier to take a baby out of a mother's arms in the room. 721 00:36:07,791 --> 00:36:09,791 So this had all been thought out. 722 00:36:09,791 --> 00:36:11,083 So they were looking at 723 00:36:11,083 --> 00:36:13,833 who would have known, who would have had this information, 724 00:36:13,833 --> 00:36:16,750 going through 18 months of hospital records of women 725 00:36:16,750 --> 00:36:19,333 who had had stillborn babies at the hospital, 726 00:36:19,333 --> 00:36:20,583 wondering if maybe one of them 727 00:36:20,583 --> 00:36:23,416 might have disguised themselves and come in to take the baby. 728 00:36:23,416 --> 00:36:23,916 Just. 729 00:36:23,916 --> 00:36:26,916 And it was almost like all of Chicago was mobilized. 730 00:36:26,916 --> 00:36:31,000 So when Dorian Chester finally went home, they had the FBI staying with them. 731 00:36:31,625 --> 00:36:33,708 They had two really good agents. 732 00:36:33,708 --> 00:36:36,666 They had Bernie Carey and Ronald Minter, 733 00:36:37,666 --> 00:36:40,125 and they were there to 734 00:36:40,125 --> 00:36:42,166 tape calls, any ransom 735 00:36:42,166 --> 00:36:45,166 phone calls that might come in, any tips? 736 00:36:45,375 --> 00:36:47,375 Just to be ready for anything. 737 00:36:47,375 --> 00:36:50,250 And my parents had a small apartment 738 00:36:50,250 --> 00:36:54,375 so they would stay towards the back or downstairs. 739 00:36:54,375 --> 00:36:57,375 And the and my dad's parent's house. 740 00:36:57,375 --> 00:36:59,625 And whenever something would happen, they'd run upstairs and talk to him. 741 00:36:59,625 --> 00:37:03,416 And I remember I actually got to talk with Bernie Carey before he passed away. 742 00:37:04,125 --> 00:37:06,375 Him and my parents became really good friends. 743 00:37:06,375 --> 00:37:09,250 I mean, how could you not bond over something like this, right? 744 00:37:09,250 --> 00:37:12,000 I mean, if he can't bond over a kidnapping, what can you bond over? 745 00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:15,000 I'm kidding. I'm kidding. 746 00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:17,125 But I remember him saying that my mom would. 747 00:37:17,125 --> 00:37:18,250 You know, he said that it was. 748 00:37:18,250 --> 00:37:21,625 It was the most, most despairing, 749 00:37:21,916 --> 00:37:25,625 just the saddest atmosphere he's ever been in in his entire career. 750 00:37:26,416 --> 00:37:29,750 And he said he had a feeling back then that they would never find that child. 751 00:37:30,666 --> 00:37:33,916 But remember that even through the that emotional sadness 752 00:37:34,250 --> 00:37:36,458 that my mom would bring him food downstairs, 753 00:37:36,458 --> 00:37:38,708 you know, she'd bake cookies or bring them something. 754 00:37:39,916 --> 00:37:41,458 And he said he loved that part. 755 00:37:41,458 --> 00:37:44,458 You know, though, those fleeting moments of a 756 00:37:44,625 --> 00:37:47,916 I'm not going to say happiness, but less despair. 757 00:37:49,500 --> 00:37:51,166 Well, I think your mom is a caregiver. 758 00:37:51,166 --> 00:37:52,541 And this was helping her 759 00:37:52,541 --> 00:37:55,666 to channel her grief because she was able to care for someone. 760 00:37:57,000 --> 00:37:57,583 Yeah. 761 00:37:57,583 --> 00:37:59,500 Yeah, I agree totally. 762 00:37:59,500 --> 00:38:03,750 And then after time went by, you know, Mother's Day came and went nothing. 763 00:38:04,125 --> 00:38:06,375 No ransom calls, no tips. 764 00:38:06,375 --> 00:38:09,166 A year goes by, nothing. 765 00:38:09,166 --> 00:38:10,500 The FBI has pulled back. 766 00:38:10,500 --> 00:38:11,916 They're they're working other cases. 767 00:38:11,916 --> 00:38:14,916 Now the headlines. Stop talking about it. 768 00:38:15,041 --> 00:38:16,875 You know, after the first year, they said, 769 00:38:16,875 --> 00:38:20,166 you know, that the papers talked about the anniversary one year 770 00:38:20,166 --> 00:38:22,666 since the kidnapping, you know, stuff like that. 771 00:38:22,666 --> 00:38:25,333 It just, you know, kind of reopening that wound from my parents. 772 00:38:26,416 --> 00:38:29,291 And then after a year or so, it kind of just faded away. 773 00:38:29,291 --> 00:38:31,000 No one talked about it. 774 00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:32,708 My mom never gave up hope. 775 00:38:32,708 --> 00:38:37,208 You know, she just kept hoping one day something would happen, but nothing did. 776 00:38:38,041 --> 00:38:39,750 Two years go by? 777 00:38:39,750 --> 00:38:41,916 Nothing. 778 00:38:41,916 --> 00:38:44,166 Shortly after two years, 779 00:38:44,166 --> 00:38:46,791 they get a phone call 780 00:38:46,791 --> 00:38:48,291 and that became 781 00:38:48,291 --> 00:38:51,291 something bigger than we ever thought. 782 00:38:51,958 --> 00:38:54,208 A phone call. 783 00:38:54,208 --> 00:38:57,333 I'm glad you asked that question, Tracy, but unfortunately, 784 00:38:58,125 --> 00:39:01,583 we're out of time, and the files are closed. 785 00:39:02,875 --> 00:39:07,583 week and through the rest of the season, we are going to be on a journey 786 00:39:07,625 --> 00:39:09,291 where we're going to be introduced 787 00:39:09,291 --> 00:39:12,041 to a lot of different topics that pertain to this case. 788 00:39:12,041 --> 00:39:14,625 Genetic genealogy is one of a new 789 00:39:14,625 --> 00:39:17,916 and emerging science in finding people that have gone missing. 790 00:39:18,333 --> 00:39:21,791 And we have a team members who are outstandingly good 791 00:39:21,791 --> 00:39:24,208 genetic genealogists who are going to be helping us 792 00:39:24,208 --> 00:39:27,125 as we move forward and helping people solve their mysteries. 793 00:39:28,666 --> 00:39:29,166 Just when you 794 00:39:29,166 --> 00:39:32,166 think you know what's going to happen next, you don't. 795 00:39:32,208 --> 00:39:35,000 There are so many twists and turns in this story. 796 00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:37,250 Even I can't believe it. 797 00:39:37,250 --> 00:39:39,166 And it's my story. 798 00:39:39,166 --> 00:39:43,833 I'll see you next week. And. 799 00:39:46,208 --> 00:39:47,791 The project files is created 800 00:39:47,791 --> 00:39:52,208 and hosted by Paul Jack Fronczak, co-hosted by me, Tracey Hastings. 801 00:39:52,666 --> 00:39:55,666 Produced and edited by Gavin Boughner. 802 00:39:56,000 --> 00:39:59,000 Lead genetic genealogist Emily Ripper. 803 00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:02,000 Lead historical researcher Colleen Neuhart. 804 00:40:02,041 --> 00:40:04,750 Social media manager Amy Morris. 805 00:40:04,958 --> 00:40:09,375 original theme music written and produced by Paul Jack Fronczak and Rick Holland. 806 00:40:09,708 --> 00:40:11,625 Thank you for joining us on the journey. 807 00:40:11,625 --> 00:40:12,958 And please remember to subscribe.