Latest / The Knife: A True Crime Podcast / Kidnapped at Birth (Part 1 of 2)

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Kidnapped at Birth (Part 1 of 2) · The Knife: A True Crime Podcast

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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
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Speaker 2: The claims and opinions in this podcast are those of
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Speaker 2: the speaker and do not necessarily represent The Knife or
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Speaker 2: exactly right media.
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Speaker 3: Everything I thought I knew about myself just vanished, and
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Speaker 3: I sat there going, I don't know anything about me.
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Speaker 3: I don't know how old I am. I don't know
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Speaker 3: my name.
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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Knife. I'm patia Eton, I'm Hannah Smith.
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Speaker 1: This week we have part one of a two part series.
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Speaker 1: Part two will air next week.
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Speaker 2: Today we're speaking with Paul Franksak. In December of nineteen
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Speaker 2: seventy four, Paul was ten years old when he accidentally
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Speaker 2: learned that he'd been kidnapped as a newborn baby. One
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Speaker 2: day old, later found states away and returned to his family.
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Speaker 2: It was a miracle, But as Paul got older, he
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Speaker 2: dug deeper and deeper into his own abduction, and with
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Speaker 2: every answer came more questions. And then in twenty twelve,
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Speaker 2: came a DNA test that would up end the story
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Speaker 2: Paul had been told about his life. Let's get into
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Speaker 2: the interview, so if you could give us a brief introduction,
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Speaker 2: however you would like to be introduced on the show.
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Speaker 3: Okay, names, I have quite a few names. I was
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Speaker 3: how was Paul for Onzac for a long time. Then
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Speaker 3: I found out who I really am, so I'm actually
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Speaker 3: Jack Thomas Rosenthal. And I was Scott McKinley for a
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Speaker 3: while and there. I still go by Paul, but I
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Speaker 3: prefer Jack because that's my biological name. So I'll go
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Speaker 3: by Paul Jack Farronzac. It's got a nice ring to it.
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Speaker 2: Great, So let's start out with your childhood. Tell me
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Speaker 2: a little bit about where you you grew up in
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Speaker 2: your family life.
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Speaker 3: So my childhood was pretty normal. I grew up in
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Speaker 3: the suburbs in Oaklawn, Illinois, blue collar family, mom and dad,
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Speaker 3: and I had a younger brother. I just never really
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Speaker 3: felt like a fit in. And when I was ten
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Speaker 3: years old everything changed. When was that nineteen seventy four
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Speaker 3: best time for music, rock and roll, the best bands, everything.
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Speaker 3: So it was close to Christmas time and I was
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Speaker 3: doing what every other ten year old would do. I
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Speaker 3: was looking for Christmas presents because nobody wants to wait
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Speaker 3: till Christmas morning to find out what you have, right,
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Speaker 3: You want to, you know, find out ahead of time.
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Speaker 3: So you could prepare. Of course, my mom was upstairs
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Speaker 3: doing something, and I figured, now it's a good time
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Speaker 3: to do it. So I hadn't checked the cross space yet,
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Speaker 3: so I moved the couch away and I noticed the
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Speaker 3: crawl space door. I opened it up, propped it, and
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Speaker 3: I kind of did a scan of the crawl space
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Speaker 3: and on the very back I saw a bunch of
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Speaker 3: boxes and I thought, there it is. There's the Christmas score, right.
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Speaker 3: I thought, this is it. So I low crawled down
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Speaker 3: to the boxes and I started going through the boxes
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Speaker 3: and I didn't find Christmas presents. When I did find
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Speaker 3: we're headlines of newspaper articles and clippings said city hunting
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Speaker 3: drags on for kidnapped child. Ten thousand police officers swarmed
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Speaker 3: the city looking for Paul Joseph Franzac. And I was like,
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Speaker 3: wait a minute, that's me. I was kidnapped. And then
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Speaker 3: I saw a picture of my mom and dad and
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Speaker 3: they looked really sad, just just devastated, and it just
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Speaker 3: said that the forensics are looking for their kidnap child.
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Speaker 3: So I was excited. I grabbed one of the articles
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Speaker 3: and I ran upstairs to talk to my mom. I'm like, mom, mom,
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Speaker 3: what is this? And she looked at me and her
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Speaker 3: face got red and she said, how dare you snoop
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Speaker 3: around this house? Those aren't your things? And I said, yeah,
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Speaker 3: but this is about me, right? Was I kidnapped? And
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Speaker 3: I think she realized I wasn't going to walk away
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Speaker 3: without an answer, so she looked at me and she said, yeah,
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Speaker 3: you were kidnapped. We found you, We love you. We'll
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Speaker 3: never talk about this again.
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Speaker 1: What Paul learned from those articles he found in that
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Speaker 1: crawl space before his mother, Dora Franzak told him they
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Speaker 1: wouldn't be speaking about it, was that when he was
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Speaker 1: only one day old on April twenty seventh, nineteen sixty four,
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Speaker 1: a nurse entered his mother's hospital room while she was
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Speaker 1: feeding her newborn baby Paul. The nurse said she needed
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Speaker 1: to take the baby for some additional testing, so Paul's mother, Dora,
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Speaker 1: handed him off to the nurse. Except that woman was
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Speaker 1: not a nurse. She didn't even work at the hospital.
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Speaker 1: She was just dressed like a nurse. She turned around
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Speaker 1: and left the hospital with baby Paul in her arms.
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Speaker 1: Then she disappeared. A massive search ensued, but Paul was gone.
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Speaker 1: Then over a year later, Paul was found, but not
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Speaker 1: in Chicago. He'd been abandoned outside of a department store
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Speaker 1: in Newark, New Jersey. It was a miracle. He was
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Speaker 1: reunited with his parents, who were overjoyed. End of story,
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Speaker 1: or at least that was the end of the conversation
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Speaker 1: ten year old Paul had with his mother that day.
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Speaker 1: But he had so many more questions, questions that brood
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Speaker 1: in his mind for years. Where had he been while
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Speaker 1: he was missing? And who was the woman who kidnapped him?
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Speaker 1: And what were the circumstances of his discovery in New Jersey.
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Speaker 1: Paul grew up, got married, had a kid of his own,
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Speaker 1: but he never stopped wondering what really happened to him.
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Speaker 3: The older I got, I really thought about it. What
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Speaker 3: are the chances of me being found in your New
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Speaker 3: Jersey on the street, The chances of me being their
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Speaker 3: kidnap child after over two years across the country. To me,
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Speaker 3: it just sounded sound like a fairy tale. So growing
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Speaker 3: up I didn't notice things in all little things here
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Speaker 3: and there, Like I looked nothing like my parents or
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Speaker 3: my younger brother, who looked exactly like my dad. I
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Speaker 3: didn't have the mannerisms they had. I'm a musician. I
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Speaker 3: told myself I how to play guitar and bass. My
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Speaker 3: parents never listened to music, but I was drawn to
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Speaker 3: rock and roll. And then I noticed that my younger
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Speaker 3: brother had the big bedroom and I was putting in
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Speaker 3: the tiny, little guest room, even though I was the
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Speaker 3: older brother. And usually the older sibling gets things first
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Speaker 3: and then they get passed down. Yeah, I thought that
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Speaker 3: was kind of strange, you know. It just little things
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Speaker 3: like that growing up.
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Speaker 1: Paul had his daughter in two thousand and nine, and
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Speaker 1: he started to think more about the truth of his past.
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Speaker 1: Maybe it was finally being a parent himself. He couldn't
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Speaker 1: imagine having his own child kidnapped, or ever doing that
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Speaker 1: to another parent. He decided it was time to find
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Speaker 1: the truth, so he started digging into his own past.
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Speaker 1: By this time, there was more information available on the internet,
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Speaker 1: old news articles, video segments. He started to search for
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Speaker 1: information about the woman who kidnapped him from that Chicago
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Speaker 1: hospital in April of nineteen sixty four.
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Speaker 3: So a woman dressed like a nurse went to Michael
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Speaker 3: Whys's hospital That's where missus Vronzack had Paul. She came
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Speaker 3: into the hospital room. She was actually seen a night
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Speaker 3: before too, checking out different babies, but she walked in
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Speaker 3: the hospital room at one point thirty on April twenty seventh.
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Speaker 3: She told missus Fronzick the doctor needed to check out
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Speaker 3: the baby, so missus Fronzick handled the baby over. She
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Speaker 3: took the baby, She walked out of that room, went
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Speaker 3: down staircase, jumped in a cab, and vanished without a trace. Hope.
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Speaker 3: They took about three minutes and then she disappeared from
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Speaker 3: the city.
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Speaker 2: And Dora is not immediately aware that this has occurred.
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Speaker 3: So the hospital really really screwed this up because there
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Speaker 3: was no protocol for this. The hospital thought that Paul
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Speaker 3: was misplaced, so they didn't notify the police for two hours,
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Speaker 3: so the kidnapper had a huge head start.
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Speaker 2: How do they notify your parents?
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Speaker 3: The hospital called my dad at work and they said
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Speaker 3: your child is missing. You need to come to the
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Speaker 3: hospital and tell you're one. So Chester Fronzac had to
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Speaker 3: leave work, go to the hospital room, and then tell
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Speaker 3: his wife that the baby is missing. As soon as
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Speaker 3: he did that, all of the FBI and the cops
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Speaker 3: stormed the room and started doing their criminal procedures for
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Speaker 3: a crime scene.
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Speaker 1: According to a twenty twenty one documentary called The Lost Sons,
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Speaker 1: the hospital staff knew that the baby was missing for hours.
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Speaker 1: There was a student nurse interviewed in the documentary and
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Speaker 1: she remembered spending almost an entire day with Dora Franzac,
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Speaker 1: all the while she knew the baby was missing, but
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Speaker 1: she wasn't allowed to inform Dora. The entire hospital was searched,
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Speaker 1: but baby Paul was not found, and it was many
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Speaker 1: hours later that the Franzacs were finally given the devastating news.
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Speaker 2: What was Dora's reaction to learning that her baby had
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Speaker 2: been stolen beyond devastation.
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Speaker 3: There's actually live news footage of when this happened, and
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Speaker 3: she's pleading to the kidnapper to bring Paul back, you know,
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Speaker 3: and the media was very tough on her. They just
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Speaker 3: followed her everywhere, and it just makes things worse when
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Speaker 3: you're trying to grieve and hope that your child comes
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Speaker 3: back and then you have the media stalking you as well. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: I mean, to go from one moment being this sort
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Speaker 2: of anonymous civilian person to being followed around by the
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Speaker 2: media and having the worst moment of your life all
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Speaker 2: over the news. I mean that has to be just
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Speaker 2: mind blowing, but also a little bit. You want it
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Speaker 2: in the news, I imagine because you want to find
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Speaker 2: out where the baby is and who has taken your baby.
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Speaker 2: So tell me a little bit about your dad, Chester
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Speaker 2: and your mom Dora. You know what are they like?
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Speaker 3: They were just normal, a normal couple. You know that
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Speaker 3: the sad part is a year prior Dora gave birth
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Speaker 3: who was stillborn in that very same hospital, the same
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Speaker 3: eternity wing. And then one of the newspapers actually had
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Speaker 3: the gall to say that she's had two children and
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Speaker 3: has gone home with none. My dad worked in the
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Speaker 3: machine shop and my mom her profession was banking, and
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Speaker 3: then when she had children, she stopped working for a while,
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Speaker 3: and then she'd go back to work.
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Speaker 2: And so the FBI swarms the hospital and the hospital room.
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Speaker 2: What does that search look like and what do they find?
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Speaker 3: Well, they set out ten thousand letter carriers to go
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Speaker 3: door to door trying to find the baby. So it
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Speaker 3: was a huge, huge case. They really wanted to find
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Speaker 3: this baby. The panic that was setting in all these
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Speaker 3: mothers scheduled to go to the hospital to give birth
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Speaker 3: and the ones already in there. They're thinking, my god,
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Speaker 3: someone could just walk in here and steal my baby.
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Speaker 3: It's not not a good feeling. Yeah, And it was
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Speaker 3: different back then because you know, all they had was
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Speaker 3: newspapers and radio news. It wasn't like we had Instagram.
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Speaker 3: People were taking pictures and you know things like that.
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Speaker 3: So people were phoning in tips whenever they would find someone,
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Speaker 3: you know, a suspect or they had a tip phone in.
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Speaker 3: They have to go and you find this per and
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Speaker 3: you know, vet them out and everything like that. So
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Speaker 3: it was pretty crazy.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, mobilizing a search effort in the nineteen sixties does
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Speaker 2: look really different than it looks right now. You don't
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Speaker 2: have the benefit of the Internet and social media to
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Speaker 2: immediately spread the word about something, but it's still news
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Speaker 2: of this baby's abduction, of your abduction spread very quickly,
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Speaker 2: and it was big news. But it sounds like, you know,
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Speaker 2: how much time went by until things sort of died down.
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Speaker 3: Quite a while. Dora was in the hospital about another week,
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Speaker 3: and then finally she had to go home and start
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Speaker 3: her life. But they had the FBI living with them,
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Speaker 3: they had their phones tapped. I mean, it's just like
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Speaker 3: a movie, right, and they were trying to, you know,
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Speaker 3: if there was a ransom call, make sure that they're
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Speaker 3: on top of that. But no ransom calls came in.
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Speaker 3: They had one it was a scam, someone trying to
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Speaker 3: scam money out of them, which was pretty exciting, but
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Speaker 3: it didn't lead to anything. But after about a month
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Speaker 3: they started pulling back in the detail and I guess
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Speaker 3: they realized, we really have exhausted our options.
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Speaker 2: Here in the initial search effort, they discover enough about
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Speaker 2: what happened that they're able to They have a description
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Speaker 2: of the person that took the baby. Can you tell
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Speaker 2: us what this person looked like according to the sketch?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, so they said that she was about five to five,
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Speaker 3: about one hundred and thirty five pounds. She had dark
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Speaker 3: hair pulled back, slightly graying around the temples, a ruddy complexion,
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Speaker 3: very stern look on her face.
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Speaker 2: What do they find about how this person left the hospital?
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Speaker 3: She went out the backstairs because Dora's maternity room was
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Speaker 3: right next to the stairwell. She went down the staircase.
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Speaker 3: I guess they had a taxi stand outside with a phone,
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Speaker 3: so she called for a taxi, but she told the
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Speaker 3: taxi driver to pick her up at the Butler building.
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Speaker 3: The cab driver said, there is no Butler building at
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Speaker 3: Michael Rey's Hospital, and then she said, okay, just pick
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Speaker 3: me up outside the the side entrance. I'll be there
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Speaker 3: in three minutes. The cab driver was Lee Kelsey. Lee
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Speaker 3: Kelsey was just a cab driver doing his job, and
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Speaker 3: it turned out that because he was an eye witness,
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Speaker 3: because he actually picked her up. He dropped her off
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Speaker 3: at thirty fifth in the Halstead. Then he told the
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Speaker 3: cops that he remembers her from previous trips picking up
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Speaker 3: bringing her to a restaurant in that same area, So
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Speaker 3: that tells us that she was either very familiar or
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Speaker 3: she lived in that area. Well, he said that she
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Speaker 3: got out, she crossed the street, and then jumped into
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Speaker 3: another car with the baby.
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Speaker 1: Paul has done extensive research over the years. His information
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Speaker 1: comes from conversations. He since had newspaper articles and importantly,
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Speaker 1: the original police report from April of nineteen sixty four,
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Speaker 1: which was all handwritten. Of course, over the years he's
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Speaker 1: been able to catalog what information exists on his kidnapping
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Speaker 1: and reappearance. There are still many gaps in the story
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Speaker 1: from what Paul has found. The initial search for him
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Speaker 1: as a baby eventually died down due to lack of leads.
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Speaker 1: The news cycle also stopped covering the story. It seemed
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Speaker 1: like whoever took baby Paul had effectively vanished. But then
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Speaker 1: in July of nineteen sixty five, one year and three
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Speaker 1: months after Paul disappeared from Michael Rees's Hospital in Chicago,
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Speaker 1: a baby matching his description was found in Newark, New Jersey.
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Speaker 1: He was found in a stroller outside a five and
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Speaker 1: dime department store in a busy downtown shopping district.
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Speaker 3: Someone had left this baby in a brand new stroller
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Speaker 3: in a brand new blue suit. Baby had a black eye,
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Speaker 3: And at first I guess it was normal that laser
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Speaker 3: goes shopping inside leave their babies outside. But after like
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Speaker 3: six or seven hours, you're like, okay, something's wrong here.
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Speaker 3: But someone dropped the diamond said there's a baby out here.
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Speaker 3: For a long time. You know, it could have been
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Speaker 3: whoever abandoned me. I don't know, but the cops came.
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Speaker 3: They picked me up. They took me down to I
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Speaker 3: think the hospital to get checked out and everything. They said,
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Speaker 3: they ran a couple of ads. They thought that'd be
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Speaker 3: be cleared up within a day. The parents probably just
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Speaker 3: forgot the baby was there or something. Nobody claimed me.
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Speaker 2: Nobody, Yeah, and you were found in an area where
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Speaker 2: women frequented shops.
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Speaker 3: McCrory's Variety Store right on Broad and Cedar. This was
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Speaker 3: the hottest store in town. It was so popular. They
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Speaker 3: had a train platform going right up to the store,
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Speaker 3: so everyone from the city, in different boroughs, whatever, could
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Speaker 3: go there and go shopping and then get out. I
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Speaker 3: was a foundling. They put me in the system and
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Speaker 3: I was put into a foster home. That's where I
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Speaker 3: became Scott McKinley. I was there for a year and
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Speaker 3: the family that ran the foster home they wanted to
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Speaker 3: adopt me. The FBI shows up after a year and says,
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Speaker 3: that's the kidnap child from Chicago. So they went ahead
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Speaker 3: and contacted the forrensacs and they had to come out
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Speaker 3: to New Jersey. I was identified by the shape of
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Speaker 3: my ear because Paul in the hospital. They never took
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Speaker 3: his footprints or blood type, but they took one picture
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Speaker 3: of him and you can see his ear. It's actually
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Speaker 3: right behind me if you can see on the wall.
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Speaker 3: So supposedly out of ten thousand boys. I was the
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Speaker 3: only one they couldn't rule out based on the shape
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Speaker 3: of my ear.
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Speaker 1: It's been reported that the baby found outside the department
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Speaker 1: store in Newark was taken in by Claire and Fred Eckert,
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Speaker 1: who ran a foster home in New Jersey. During his
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Speaker 1: time living with the Eckerts, they baptized him and named
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Speaker 1: him Scott McKinley. They were reportedly very fond of him
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Speaker 1: and had plans to adopt him, but before they could,
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Speaker 1: a New Jersey police detective connected the dots that this
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Speaker 1: found baby might be the very same baby missing from Chicago.
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Speaker 1: So in March of nineteen sixty six, almost two years
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Speaker 1: after baby Paul was kidnapped, Dora and Chester Franzac got
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Speaker 1: a life changing phone call. They were told Baby Paul
17:04
Speaker 1: had likely been found and they were asked to come
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Speaker 1: right away to Newark to identify this baby.
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Speaker 3: They put me, Dora and Chester in a room, gave
17:16
Speaker 3: them about five minutes to make up their mind whether
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Speaker 3: I was there a kidnap child or not. I mean,
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Speaker 3: I can't even imagine the pressure that they were under.
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Speaker 3: Dora spent maybe twenty minutes with her child before he
17:27
Speaker 3: was kidnapped, and then over two years later, she's put
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Speaker 3: in a room with his child and given a few
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Speaker 3: minutes to make up her mind. Is this year kidnapped child?
17:36
Speaker 2: I mean you you changed? You changed so much.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Like, you know, if you're looking at a three year
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Speaker 2: old and then you go look at a picture of
17:43
Speaker 2: them as a newborn, you might be able to be like, Okay, yeah,
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Speaker 2: I see it. But certainly if you have one photo
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Speaker 2: of your newborn and then you see them as a
17:52
Speaker 2: three year old, it's not obvious.
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Speaker 3: No, not at all.
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Speaker 1: Dora fran Zach reportedly said that my baby, identifying the
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Speaker 1: found child as her son Paul. Dora and Chester officially
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Speaker 1: adopted this child, who was then known as Scott McKinley,
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Speaker 1: took him home to Chicago and changed his name back
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Speaker 1: to Paul Franzac. The more Paul learned about his past,
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Speaker 1: about the kidnapp being about being found outside a New
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Speaker 1: Jersey department store and then later identified as Paul Franzac,
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Speaker 1: he couldn't help but wonder how anyone could be one
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Speaker 1: hundred percent sure that he was the real Paul, the
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Speaker 1: same baby who'd been taken from Michael Ry's hospital on
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Speaker 1: April twenty seventh, nineteen sixty four. What if he wasn't
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Speaker 1: baby Paul but another unrelated abandoned baby. In the sixties,
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Speaker 1: DNA testing didn't exist to double check that he was
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Speaker 1: the real Paul, and even as Paul adult Paul started
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Speaker 1: his initial investigation into his past, DNA testing wasn't something
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Speaker 1: as widely used by the public as it is today.
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Speaker 1: We were still years away from DNA databases and accessible
19:02
Speaker 1: genealogy websites. He could do a DNA test with his parents,
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Speaker 1: Chester and Dora to see if he was biologically related
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Speaker 1: to them, but he would need their permission and participation,
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Speaker 1: and he sensed that they would be resistant. They didn't
19:19
Speaker 1: want to talk about the almost two years that he
19:21
Speaker 1: was missing as a baby. To them, the past was
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Speaker 1: the past, and so Paul just continued to live his life.
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Speaker 1: But he and his then wife Michelle would sometimes joke
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Speaker 1: about how his parents might not be his parents at all.
19:35
Speaker 3: My parents come out and see Hima, and they always
19:37
Speaker 3: talk about when they were here, when they would go
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Speaker 3: to church. I would get their hairs off their pillows,
19:42
Speaker 3: put him in a ziploc baggie and try to get
19:44
Speaker 3: a DNA test done. Just to find out for sure
19:46
Speaker 3: if I was actually their their kidnap child. And then
19:50
Speaker 3: one day in twenty twelve, I was in a CBS
19:52
Speaker 3: drugstore and it was like a movie moment. It's like
19:56
Speaker 3: the spotlight just shown. I heard the angel singing, and
19:59
Speaker 3: it was going towards an identity and paternity kid. It's
20:02
Speaker 3: like twenty five bucks. I can afford that. So I
20:04
Speaker 3: bought it and I kept it in the bathroom cabinet
20:06
Speaker 3: for quite a while. My parents come out to see Emma,
20:09
Speaker 3: and I thought, this is a chance to really find
20:11
Speaker 3: the truth because I've always thought about it for a
20:14
Speaker 3: long time. Am I actually my parents kidnap child? But
20:18
Speaker 3: there was no way to know. Michelle was against it.
20:20
Speaker 3: She said, your parents don't want to open up this
20:23
Speaker 3: whole Pandora's box. I said, yeah, but I've always been
20:26
Speaker 3: the kind of person that if you're living a lie,
20:28
Speaker 3: you're not living at all. I have a way to
20:31
Speaker 3: find the truth. Now. How could I not do that?
20:34
Speaker 3: So they came out to visit us. They were here
20:35
Speaker 3: for a week and I was almost ready for me
20:38
Speaker 3: to take them back to the airport, like an hour ago.
20:40
Speaker 3: And we're ask some dinner and Michelle tells them like
20:44
Speaker 3: I was just like ordering a pizza. I'm like, Hey,
20:46
Speaker 3: did you ever really wonder if I was really your child?
20:49
Speaker 3: My mom was like, yeah, we thought about it. I said,
20:52
Speaker 3: what if we had a way to find out for sure?
20:54
Speaker 3: Would you want to do that? And I know I
20:56
Speaker 3: got them off guard. My mom was like, yeah, probably.
20:59
Speaker 3: So I got that DNA kid. I popped it out
21:03
Speaker 3: and within five minutes we're all swabbing away and I'm
21:05
Speaker 3: sealing it up and I'm like, oh my god, I'm
21:08
Speaker 3: going to get the truth. I'm really going to find
21:10
Speaker 3: out for sure once and for all, Am I really Paul?
21:13
Speaker 3: For Anzac?
21:15
Speaker 2: Did they say anything about, you know, however these results
21:22
Speaker 2: come back, you're still our son? Like, was that conversation had?
21:27
Speaker 3: No? They got real quiet. I took them to the airport.
21:31
Speaker 3: It's a ten minute drive, felt like it took six months.
21:33
Speaker 3: I dropped them off a couple hours later. When they
21:35
Speaker 3: got back to Chicago, they called me and they said,
21:38
Speaker 3: we don't want to know, don't send it in. That
21:41
Speaker 3: was it?
21:42
Speaker 2: Oh, so not just we don't want to know, We
21:43
Speaker 2: don't want you to know. Don't send it in.
21:45
Speaker 3: Don't send it in. I hung up the phone. My
21:48
Speaker 3: mind was already made up. I'm sending this in.
21:50
Speaker 2: How long did it take to get the results?
21:53
Speaker 3: That's the funny part. Okay, now, right now, and Ancestry,
21:56
Speaker 3: you get your results back in a couple of weeks.
21:59
Speaker 3: Took three months. So I mailed it off in July.
22:02
Speaker 3: I got the results in October.
22:04
Speaker 2: This is July twenty twelve.
22:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so I'm at work in October and I
22:09
Speaker 3: get a phone call. This is Paul Fronsac. Yes, this
22:12
Speaker 3: is ident the Gene. We have your results. There is
22:15
Speaker 3: no remote possibility that you're the child of Chester and
22:18
Speaker 3: Dora Franzac Boom. And even though I knew it, I
22:23
Speaker 3: knew it in my heart for a long time. Once
22:26
Speaker 3: you hear those words and you know it's dead fact,
22:29
Speaker 3: I felt the color drained from my face. Everything I
22:31
Speaker 3: thought I knew about myself just vanished, and I sat
22:35
Speaker 3: there going, I don't know anything about me. I don't
22:38
Speaker 3: know how old I am, I don't know my name.
22:42
Speaker 3: I'm probably not Polish. I was raised Polish? Am I
22:45
Speaker 3: really polished? And I know I'm not a Taurus. I
22:47
Speaker 3: knew that. I told myself right then, I've got to
22:50
Speaker 3: go on a mission. I want to find their kidnap child.
22:54
Speaker 3: I called Michelle and I said, I'm not Paul. I
22:58
Speaker 3: have no idea who I am. And she didn't miss
23:01
Speaker 3: a beat. She said, you know exactly who you are.
23:04
Speaker 3: You're Paul Franzac, you're my husband, You're Emma's dad. But
23:07
Speaker 3: that didn't help me because I really didn't know who
23:10
Speaker 3: I was. Those are just who they thought they saw
23:13
Speaker 3: me as.
23:15
Speaker 2: Because this also means that your brother is not your brother,
23:18
Speaker 2: that your extended family is not your extended family.
23:21
Speaker 3: Right, nothing was true.
23:23
Speaker 2: When do you decide I need to tell my parents
23:26
Speaker 2: and we need to talk about this.
23:28
Speaker 3: That came later. The first thing I wanted to do
23:30
Speaker 3: was get my story out there and try to find Paul,
23:35
Speaker 3: their kidnap child, because the first thought I had was
23:38
Speaker 3: they were amazing parents. They gave me a fantastic life,
23:41
Speaker 3: but this tragic thing happened to them that was never solved.
23:44
Speaker 3: Maybe I can pay them back by finding their kidnap child.
23:48
Speaker 3: I wanted to find the truth. I wanted to find
23:51
Speaker 3: their kidnap child and maybe find out who I am.
23:53
Speaker 1: At the same time, Paul was living in Las Vegas
23:57
Speaker 1: at the time, and he began his search for the
23:59
Speaker 1: real old Paul Franzac in a somewhat unusual manner.
24:04
Speaker 3: He said.
24:04
Speaker 1: The first person who came to mind to reach out
24:06
Speaker 1: to was a local Las Vegas journalist, news anchor, and
24:10
Speaker 1: talk radio host named George Knapp. I say unusual because
24:15
Speaker 1: George Napp is probably most well known for his investigations
24:18
Speaker 1: into the paranormal. What can I say? Paul's a fan.
24:22
Speaker 1: So he sent George Knapp an email.
24:25
Speaker 3: He's got numerous Peabody Awards. He cracked Area fifty one.
24:29
Speaker 3: I mean, the guy is a legend. He's a real reporter.
24:33
Speaker 3: Pound the pavement, find the answers. I sent him a
24:36
Speaker 3: brief paragraph, this is what's happening. What do you think?
24:40
Speaker 3: He got back to me in like six minutes. He said,
24:43
Speaker 3: I want to meet you. First thing that next week,
24:46
Speaker 3: coming down to a station, and we had a meeting.
24:48
Speaker 3: We talked. He said, this is incredible. We've got to
24:52
Speaker 3: get the story on the air. We've got to find Paul.
24:55
Speaker 3: And we were planning all this. He looked at me
24:56
Speaker 3: and he goes, and don't you want to know who
24:58
Speaker 3: you are? And I said, I haven't even really thought
25:01
Speaker 3: about it. And I just want to find Paul, and
25:03
Speaker 3: I want to pay my parents back for being such
25:05
Speaker 3: great parents and raising me. And he said, well, let's
25:08
Speaker 3: put a story together. But he said, I'm telling you
25:09
Speaker 3: right now, it's going to be a ship storm when
25:12
Speaker 3: you get this out there. It's going to be huge.
25:14
Speaker 3: He said, you got to let your parents know before
25:16
Speaker 3: this airs. And that's what I was tasked with. I
25:19
Speaker 3: didn't want to call them. They're both up in age,
25:22
Speaker 3: hard of hearing. If I tried to tell them on
25:24
Speaker 3: the phone, they're only going to hear what they want
25:26
Speaker 3: to hear and probably shut down and get mad and angry,
25:30
Speaker 3: and it's not going to solve anything. So I sat
25:32
Speaker 3: right down and I knocked out a first draft email
25:35
Speaker 3: and it covered everything, and I sent them that email.
25:38
Speaker 3: My initial hope was that they would join me on
25:41
Speaker 3: this journey to help me find their kidnap child. I thought,
25:45
Speaker 3: what a great family thing to do together, you know,
25:50
Speaker 3: work on this together and find your kidnap child. I
25:52
Speaker 3: thought it'd be awesome in my mind. They saw it
25:56
Speaker 3: completely opposite. After they got the email, my mom called
26:00
Speaker 3: screaming at me, how dare you do this? How dare
26:03
Speaker 3: you want to find better? Parents, you don't like us,
26:06
Speaker 3: you know whatever. And my dad got on there and
26:08
Speaker 3: he just swore at me and hung up and that
26:11
Speaker 3: was it.
26:12
Speaker 2: So they really felt it sounds like a sense of betrayal.
26:16
Speaker 3: Betrayal like I wasn't happy with them as my parents.
26:19
Speaker 3: I wanted to find other parents.
26:22
Speaker 2: Right, and that possibly this is exposing them to I mean,
26:26
Speaker 2: I'm guessing I suppose with more heartache because they had,
26:31
Speaker 2: you know, at least been living under the impression or
26:34
Speaker 2: maybe convinced themselves at some point that they had found
26:37
Speaker 2: their missing child exactly, and now they were forced to
26:41
Speaker 2: reconcile that they had not. Yeah, did you tell your brother?
26:46
Speaker 3: We had brief conversations. Originally he was going to help
26:49
Speaker 3: me with DNA and DNA sample, but then he jumped
26:52
Speaker 3: on their bandwagon pretty much said how dare you do
26:54
Speaker 3: this to mom and dad? And I didn't understand that,
26:57
Speaker 3: thinking to me, if you know something's not right, why
27:00
Speaker 3: wouldn't you want to find the answers and find the truth.
27:03
Speaker 2: I speak to so many different kinds of people, with
27:05
Speaker 2: so many different kinds of stories, and it's just so
27:08
Speaker 2: unpredictable how someone's going to respond to trauma or something unexpected,
27:14
Speaker 2: And yeah, it sounds like your parents and your brother
27:17
Speaker 2: would have been happy to sort of just accept that
27:20
Speaker 2: you were maybe their biological son, or maybe you weren't,
27:25
Speaker 2: but that you were just their son regardless. And I
27:28
Speaker 2: think it's your right to know who you are.
27:37
Speaker 1: In April of twenty thirteen, the news segment about Paul
27:41
Speaker 1: Franzac and his search for his true identity ran on
27:45
Speaker 1: eight News Now Live at five. It was called Hunterson
27:49
Speaker 1: Man's True identity Remains mystery. Paul and his then wife
27:53
Speaker 1: Michelle are both interviewed for the story, and it wraps
27:56
Speaker 1: up like this quote. It isn't one mystery, it's several.
28:01
Speaker 1: What became of the real Paul Franzac? Not to mention
28:05
Speaker 1: his kidnapper? Why was that baby abandon outside a store
28:09
Speaker 1: in Newark? What's the real name, age, and nationality of
28:13
Speaker 1: the man who lives in his Henderson home? And where
28:16
Speaker 1: is his other family? The story was about to catch fire.
28:22
Speaker 2: And so sounds like a brace for impact. You send
28:25
Speaker 2: the email, you make the phone calls, and now you're
28:28
Speaker 2: going to get the story out there. And how quickly
28:33
Speaker 2: does that take off?
28:35
Speaker 3: Overnight? George ran the first segment, all of a sudden
28:39
Speaker 3: getting calls from Matt Lauer, every network, every TV show,
28:44
Speaker 3: you know, they all wanted a piece of the action.
28:47
Speaker 3: So I went to New York and met with every network.
28:50
Speaker 3: I wanted to find the perfect show to help get
28:53
Speaker 3: my story out there, and went with Barbara Walters in
28:55
Speaker 3: twenty twenty.
28:57
Speaker 2: And so you're teaming up with Barbara Walters in twenty
29:01
Speaker 2: twenty to not only tell your story, but to solve it,
29:04
Speaker 2: like her plan is to help. Yes, So you speak
29:09
Speaker 2: with Barbara Walters. Your story is all over the news
29:13
Speaker 2: at that point, and how does the next sort of
29:16
Speaker 2: part of the investigation into who you really are? Unfold?
29:22
Speaker 3: So George George Knapp, he also co hosts I'm Coast
29:26
Speaker 3: to Coast AM, one of my favorite radio shows, So
29:29
Speaker 3: he had me on the show, and CC Moore, who
29:32
Speaker 3: was probably the top genealogist in our country, heard the show.
29:36
Speaker 3: George and I set up a who is Paul Facebook
29:38
Speaker 3: page to start capturing tips and leads and information. So
29:43
Speaker 3: CC writes to us, you know, I'd like to help
29:45
Speaker 3: you pro bono. You know, I'm a genetic genealogist. And now,
29:50
Speaker 3: in all fairness, George and I were inundated. It was
29:53
Speaker 3: just me and George doing this. We're getting thousands of
29:56
Speaker 3: tips in information. So the first contact you made I
29:59
Speaker 3: overlooked it because there were so many things. I'm like, Janet,
30:02
Speaker 3: you know, just what the hell is that you know? Next? Right?
30:05
Speaker 3: And then after we did the Barbara Walters twenty twenty
30:08
Speaker 3: reached out to her and she started working with us.
30:10
Speaker 3: Now they call me one of the ogs of the
30:13
Speaker 3: Ancestry DNA because no one was really doing this yet,
30:17
Speaker 3: so Ancestry reached out. They gave me a kid that
30:20
Speaker 3: did my DNA. Maybe six seven weeks later we get
30:23
Speaker 3: the results. I have zero matches. So you think you're
30:28
Speaker 3: alone when you have your identity taken away from you
30:31
Speaker 3: put your DNA out there and get no hits, totally alone.
30:35
Speaker 2: What did that feel like? Because you had so much
30:38
Speaker 2: information from the first test you took, I mean, what
30:42
Speaker 2: did it feel like to sort of get nothing back
30:45
Speaker 2: from that second one?
30:47
Speaker 3: It sucks. It's a lonely feeling. So after a couple
30:50
Speaker 3: of weeks went by of having nothing, all of a
30:52
Speaker 3: sudden I had to pop up and it was a
30:54
Speaker 3: they said it was a third cousin turned out to
30:56
Speaker 3: be like a fifth or sixth, because they were still
30:59
Speaker 3: honing there After a couple of months, I had a
31:02
Speaker 3: hit and it was a guy named Alan Fish. We
31:07
Speaker 3: matched as third cousins.
31:09
Speaker 2: Third cousins, so that is I just googled it. A
31:13
Speaker 2: third cousin is someone who shares the same great great
31:16
Speaker 2: grandparents as you with you.
31:19
Speaker 3: Okay, all right?
31:21
Speaker 2: Wow?
31:22
Speaker 3: Yeah it was close, but it turned out that Alan
31:26
Speaker 3: was adopted. You can't make this story up. You know,
31:30
Speaker 3: if we said it was made up, people wouldn't believe it,
31:33
Speaker 3: you know.
31:34
Speaker 1: Truly, Paul was initially over the moon that he'd matched
31:39
Speaker 1: with a long last relative, a guy named Alan Fish.
31:43
Speaker 1: When Paul learned that Alan was adopted, he was slightly crestfallen.
31:48
Speaker 1: Alan may or may not have the answers Paul was
31:50
Speaker 1: looking for, but at least it was something. It was
31:53
Speaker 1: step one in his discovery of his biological family.
31:59
Speaker 3: So Alan reaches out to me. He's so excited. He's like,
32:01
Speaker 3: you know, I've had questions about my identity, so my
32:03
Speaker 3: kids got me this kid. And because you're the first
32:06
Speaker 3: guy I matched with, So we talked a couple of times.
32:09
Speaker 3: He was very excited. I couldn't wait to meet this guy.
32:12
Speaker 3: Barbara Walters wanted to get us on the show. A
32:14
Speaker 3: couple of days before we're supposed to meet, Alan wakes
32:17
Speaker 3: up not feeling good and chest pains. He goes to
32:20
Speaker 3: the hospital. He's telling everyone in the hospital his family
32:23
Speaker 3: told me this, you got to fix me up quick.
32:25
Speaker 3: I'm going to New York to meet my real family.
32:28
Speaker 3: And a couple hours later he was dead.
32:31
Speaker 2: That is just heartbreaking.
32:35
Speaker 3: I cried. I pulled over in my car and I
32:36
Speaker 3: got the news and I just cried. You know, It's like,
32:39
Speaker 3: you get so close to finding the truth for both
32:42
Speaker 3: of us and then something like that happens. You know,
32:44
Speaker 3: it's totally unexpected, and it just it really sucked for everyone.
32:49
Speaker 3: And his adoption was closed. But twenty twenty he was
32:54
Speaker 3: able to open the adoption papers, which was amazing. They
32:56
Speaker 3: have a lot of clout. His mother's name was listened
32:58
Speaker 3: on there. There was no father, so that was a
33:01
Speaker 3: bummer too, you know, because it could have been a
33:04
Speaker 3: lot easier if everything was on there.
33:07
Speaker 1: The first biological connection Paul had ever made in his
33:10
Speaker 1: life had died suddenly just before they'd had the chance
33:14
Speaker 1: to meet. But by this point there were fans across
33:17
Speaker 1: the country who were rooting for Paul to find his identity.
33:21
Speaker 1: With the help of Barbara Walters and the show twenty twenty,
33:24
Speaker 1: he was able to find more information on Alan Fish.
33:28
Speaker 1: He then located another third cousin named Amy. Amy was
33:32
Speaker 1: not adopted. She was biologically related to both Alan and
33:36
Speaker 1: to Paul, but grew up with her biological family. Amy
33:40
Speaker 1: was able to fill in some of the gaps, and
33:42
Speaker 1: she remembered her grandfather talking about a man named Lenny Rocco.
33:47
Speaker 1: With that information, along with the help of a genetic genealogist,
33:51
Speaker 1: Paul learned who Alan Fish was and how they were related.
33:57
Speaker 3: They were able to ascertain that the mother of Alan
34:01
Speaker 3: had a one night stand with this one guy in Philadelphia,
34:05
Speaker 3: same neighborhood, same high school, very young, and it turned
34:09
Speaker 3: out to be Lenny Rocco. Lenny Roco was my second cousin.
34:13
Speaker 3: They reached out to him. He said, oh my god,
34:16
Speaker 3: I'll do a test. If I have a child out there,
34:18
Speaker 3: I'll do everything I can to find and do help.
34:21
Speaker 3: He did DNA and it turned out that he was
34:24
Speaker 3: Alan's father, and then they could start working with his
34:26
Speaker 3: matches to help build a tree to find out how
34:30
Speaker 3: he and I were connected.
34:32
Speaker 1: Paul had solved one mystery. He discovered who Alan's biological
34:37
Speaker 1: father was, Lenny Roco. Sadly, this discovery was made after
34:42
Speaker 1: Allan died. Paul was doing the laborious and detailed work
34:46
Speaker 1: of filling out his family tree. He'd now made a
34:50
Speaker 1: big discovery. Lenny Rocco was his biological second cousin. How
34:57
Speaker 1: old was Lenny?
34:58
Speaker 3: Lenny was in his eighties the late seventies when this
35:02
Speaker 3: first started.
35:04
Speaker 2: So what did you find from Lenny's test?
35:07
Speaker 3: Turned out that he was part of the Rocco family.
35:12
Speaker 3: The Rocos were also associated with the Rosenthals and Cecymore
35:16
Speaker 3: and a Pertein. They had to talk with a lot
35:17
Speaker 3: of different people, and they had heard that someone in
35:20
Speaker 3: the family had twins, but the family member got the
35:23
Speaker 3: person wrong of who actually had the twins. Turned out
35:27
Speaker 3: later that they found some newspaper articles about Jack and
35:32
Speaker 3: Jill being born to Gilbert Murie Rosenthal on the same
35:36
Speaker 3: birthday as their older sister, and so they matched up
35:40
Speaker 3: to DNA. We had get DNA from both sides of
35:42
Speaker 3: the family, the Rocos and the Rosenthals, and I was
35:46
Speaker 3: a perfect match as Jack.
35:48
Speaker 2: Rosenthal so you were Jack Rosenthal, one of those twins.
35:54
Speaker 3: Yeah. Cecymore texted me whenever we get information that was
35:57
Speaker 3: pretty important, she would text me, can you talk. I
36:00
Speaker 3: was at work once again, so I kind of ducked out,
36:02
Speaker 3: went up to my car and I called her. She said, Hey,
36:05
Speaker 3: I have the whole team here. What do you think
36:07
Speaker 3: of the name Jack? I said, that's a good name.
36:10
Speaker 3: That's a strong name. She said, that's your name, and
36:14
Speaker 3: without missing a beat, she said, but there's more. You
36:19
Speaker 3: have a twin sister, Jill, and she's missing. And I said,
36:23
Speaker 3: oh my god. Now I've got to find Jill immediately.
36:28
Speaker 3: I just that's my next mission.
36:30
Speaker 1: Paul Franzac had discovered who he was, or at least
36:34
Speaker 1: his name, Jack Rosenthal, but as was parr for his
36:39
Speaker 1: genealogical quest, answers only came with more questions. Paul, who
36:45
Speaker 1: now goes by Paul Jack Rosenthal, had just discovered he
36:49
Speaker 1: had a twin sister, Jill, and that she was missing.
36:54
Speaker 1: Now he had a double mission. He still needed to
36:57
Speaker 1: find the original Paul Franzac, the one kid napped from
37:00
Speaker 1: that Chicago hospital, and now he also wanted to find
37:04
Speaker 1: his twin, Jill. That's it for part one. Please join
37:10
Speaker 1: us next week to hear the second part of Paul
37:12
Speaker 1: frank Zac's story. If you have a story for us,
37:15
Speaker 1: we would love to hear it.
37:16
Speaker 2: Our email is The Knife at exactly rightmedia dot com,
37:20
Speaker 2: or you can follow us on Instagram at the Knife
37:22
Speaker 2: Podcast or a Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.
37:24
Speaker 1: This has been an Exactly Right production hosted and produced
37:28
Speaker 1: by me Hannah Smith and me Paysia Eaton. Our producers
37:31
Speaker 1: are Tom Bryfogel and Alexis Samarosi. This episode was mixed
37:35
Speaker 1: by Tom Bryfogel.
37:36
Speaker 2: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.
37:38
Speaker 1: Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.
37:41
Speaker 2: Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.
37:42
Speaker 1: Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.