April 2, 2024 • 26 mins
A lot of relatives on Sandi’s side came out of the woodwork after Steve found his biological mother. Some of his long-lost relatives on his maternal side he let in, some he kept at arm’s length. In this episode, Todd goes to a family get-together to spend time with Steve’s half-siblings and learn what they make of finding him after all these years. After some disappointing news, Todd doubles down on fulfilling his promise to help Steve figure out who his father is.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Previously on Hello John Tale.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
She kicked me out and we went for two years.
We didn't talk two years, not a word. I feel
like he's a little bit jealous because I had our
actual mom, and I'm jealous that he didn't have her.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Since I started talking to Steve, he's made it clear
he wanted to know who his father was. Losing the
only father he had ever known made him waning to
find out who gave him life. Finding his mom wasn't
necessarily enough for Steve. I sensed he harbored resentment toward
his biological mom, Sandy, forgiving him away, and that pushed
Steve to want to find out who his birth father was.
(00:43):
So he asked Sandy, He asked his newfound sister Amy,
even asked me if I could do some digging. I
started looking at his family tree. I'll remind you of
what that tree looks like. Sandy was married to clips
se Vegas and had Susie Savegas, her first daughter. She
was the one that Franklin Floyd kidnapped. Then she had
two daughters with Dennis Brandenburg. Remember this, Sandy and her
(01:06):
girls thought he had died decades ago, but he was
actually alive and well, the whole down time. Anyway, Sandy
and Dennis had Alison and Amy. You already know Amy,
the bus driver from Virginia. Alison lives in Oregon, but
she and the family don't keep in touch. Sandy got
pregnant Steve around the same time she was still with
Dennis Brandenburgh. Meaning Steve's hunch and mine too, was that
(01:29):
he was a Brandenburgh. That would make sense, but he
had no proof. He was looking for something definitive. He
hadn't expected to find someone who wanted answers as badly
as he did another adoptee.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Actually, I'm Andre, a carpenter. I am just turned fifty
six on a farm on Wstness. They investigations are your
private investigtor?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yes, oh honey, we can have fun. Oh yes, Tennessee.
When she met Steve in twenty twenty one, she was
on her own journey.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I've known all my life that I was adopted from
ever since I can remember, but did not even attempt
to find my biological parents until twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen.
I did not want to disrespect my adopted parents because
it would hurt them, even though they were encouraging.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Once she started looking, Andrew learned about her birth story.
Her mom got pregnant young and she wasn't married to
her dad, so she was forced to give Andrew up
for adoption.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
And her dad, Dennis Brandenburg is my father.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Dennis Brandenburg is in Sandy's second husband, the professional gambler,
and the guy Steve thought was probably his father. Once
Andrey figured out that she was in Brandenburg, she started
finding his other kids. That's how she connected with Steve.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
I found out I potentially had another sister through the
Brandenburg side.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
They had a lot in common. Both were adopted, Both
waited in till later in life to seek their birth parents,
both figuring out where they fit into this world with
all this new information. Andrew had grown up as an
only child. She couldn't live one more minute not knowing
her brother.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Within forty eight hours, when I was on the road
going to North Carolina, and as soon as he walked
in the door, ooh, I knew it was him. I
knew it was him, and I stood up and he
knew it was me, and it.
Speaker 5 (03:25):
Was just like he's finally here.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
All the anticipation had come forth, and I feel like
that he needed us.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
As much as we needed him us as in the
other Brandenburgs. One of Dennis's daughters lives in Michigan and
his name Michelle.
Speaker 6 (03:46):
I am the oldest one so far that we found,
and I'm fifty six, live in Fowlerville, Michigan, and on
a boarding kennel for pet's pep boarding kennel.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Andrew is on a mission to find as many of
her siblings as possible and round them up. So she
called up Amy.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
She said, my name is Andrew. She said, I believe
we may have the same father. Would I be willing
to take a DNA test to see if we're related?
Speaker 5 (04:14):
Sure? Why not?
Speaker 7 (04:15):
Why?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
And I've been riding this wave of response.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Andrew felt in her gut that she was a Brandyburg,
but she didn't have no proof. But Amy was definitely
his daughter. Andrew is kind of the captain here. She
got both sisters, Amy and Michelle to do their DNA
test from their home states, but she did hers from
North Carolina with Steve.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
So she paid for everybody get a DNA test. Another sister,
another lady on the Brandyburgh side, and.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Her DNA tests can be expensive, somewhere between fifty dollars
and a few hundred dollars Andrew wanted to pay. She
worked several jobs, and I also was adopted into a
family of means she could.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Everybody went like that day or the next day, and
we had to wait so much forever.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
While they waiting, Andrew and Steve got to know each
other better. They didn't do anything fancy. They just went
out to dinner talked a lot. After all, there was
so much to catch up on between the supposed brother
and sister. Everything was changing so fast, Andrew tried to
soak it all in.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
We were supposed to be two nights and three days
in North Carolina ended up being a week because we
want to spend the time with Steve, kid to know him.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
After a few days the results came back. All four
of them crossed their fingers in hope, and then I
was the one that got.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
The first results. I called Michelle and I'm like, you're
not gonna believe this. I said, we're all sisters, but
Steve's not our brother.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
And they were all connected to brandon Bury except me.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Steve was Sandy's son, but his dad was not the
gamble Dennis Brandenburg.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Our hearts broke.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
This new stone, the test ruled out the only man
Sandy could remember being with around the time Steve was conceived,
but the test didn't say who his dad was. Steve
had reached a dead end, had insult injury. The DNA
results also many wasn't related to Andrea, who had spent
a whole week with him.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
We were crushed because he is such a wonderful, wonderful person.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Steve was already wrestling with so much he wanted the
certainty of knowing who he was related to on his
dad's son. From talking to Steve, I could tell he
resented Sandy forgiving him away, even though he knew it
saved him from a lot of pain and it may
have even saved his life. His father, however, was already
(06:50):
out of the picture when Steve was given away. If
Steve had been part of the Brandenburg clan joined with
this group of women from three different mothers, maybe that
would have been an easier family for him to fit in.
But Steve was back to square one. He still didn't
know who his birth father was, and now he had
a choice to make. Andrea, Amy and Michelle were ready
to welcome him into their family. Should he choose this
(07:12):
family or keep looking for his biological father. My name
is Todd Matthews and this is Hello John Doe. A sleuth,
a family, and a serial killer. The story of a
family torn apart by tragedy and my quest to bring
them back together. Chapter nine, Finding his father. It's one
(07:37):
thing to learn you've been adopted late in life. Steve
is making sense of that. When he learned about Franklin
Employe's destructive rampage through his family tree, he was discovering
new relatives like his sister Susie Sevegas and his nephew
Michael Hughes, but at the same time mourning their passing.
Ever since he learned he was adopted in twenty nineteen,
Steve has tried to understand his origin story still unanswered questions,
(08:01):
and I can imagine it must feel like he's sinking
in quick sin. He wants to be proud of who
he is and stand tall, but how can he when
there are so many unanswered questions? He was in the
fog through my years. In this work, I've seen myself
as a hailer. I identified the unclaimed dead and brought
them back to their families who had been grieving their
(08:21):
loss for years. I brought them closure. But there's a
big difference between Steve's story and the other cases I've worked.
Steve was alive, and because of how unique this whole
story really is, I found myself in an unfamiliar place.
I can't heal Steve. I can't fix what Franklin Floyd did.
In a lot of ways, I'm woefully unequipped. But Andrea,
(08:45):
she reached step in a way I never could. In
some ways, only other people who are lost in the
same way can guide you. Andrea, like Steve, was sheepish
about asking her adoptive parents about her birth for a
long time. Andrew didn't want to end anyone by speaking up.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
I just knew, you know, as a mall myself, that
it would probably hurt them, so I just let it go.
He might have been like me, you feel like that
these two people that raised you.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
And you hung the moon for.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
That you were going to hurt them. You were going
to hurt their hearts. And I think that's what Steve
and I have in common, that we don't like to
hurt people's hearts. And I think he kind of felt
like I did that it was disrespected. Now because you know,
in the South. You're raised to respect your parents, and
I think he just thought, oh, I'll save it for
another day, and he waited thirty years, twenty years.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
But waiting had consequences. Andrew's biological parents died before she
even went looking for him. Dennis Brandon Burg died in
twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Unfortunately, by the time I got there, you know, late
to the dads. By the time I got there, they
were already gone.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Andrew and Steve shared this profound thing in common. They're
both looking for answers about their adoption later in life.
But there's an important difference too, Andrew and you. She
was adopted early, but Steve didn't. That makes him what
experts call a late discovery adoptee. Anyone who finds out
they were adopted later than three years old found out late.
(10:25):
That makes Steve a late discoverer. He only found out
in his teens. Experts say discovering your adoption later in
life can shatter your sense of who you are. Think
of it this way. If you grew up always knowing
and feel like your parents have always been straight with you,
that's one thing. But finding out on the verge of adulthood,
it can make you question your whole damn childhood, and
(10:47):
if you only start dealing with the fact you're adopted
in middle age, it can be overwhelming to your sense
of identity. Andrew could since that was happening to Steve,
so despite the fact they didn't have the same father,
she invited him into her new family.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
I said, now here's the situation. I said. He is
Alison and Amy's brother. He is their half brother, but
he's our stepbrother because our dad was still married to
Sandy at the time that Steve was born. So in
my eyes, there is no step no hives, no nothing.
He's our brother. And we agreed on that.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Andrea saw beyond blood connections and Steve. She saw a
man with a quiet demeanor but a big heart, someone
had don anything for his kids or his girlfriend Jeanette's
kids too.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
I love him to death. I don't see any difference.
And I guess I could say that because I was
adopted and Steve was adopted, so he should be able
to understand that. And he's got you know, Janette's kids
are in his house and he loves them like they
were his own.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Someone trecking through what may be the most challenging years
of his life, and she wanted to help.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
He wants those answers. We're going to do everything we
can and as a family to help him get those answers.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
If there's something this whole family has in common, it's
that they're all looking for answers. Think about it. Amy
certainly didn't know she had more sisters. Andre didn't know
her birth parents. Steve didn't know his whole adoption story
until he was almost fifty. They each became detectives on
their own, talking to one another trying to figure out
who fit were. Over the summer of twenty twenty three,
(12:26):
Steve's sister started making plans to see one another, and
they wanted Steve to come too. They considered him a
Brandenburg no matter what his DNA said.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Amy messaged me and she's like, hey, what do you
do in July tenth through the sixteenth? And I said
nothing that I know of why? And she said, I
think we're going to come for a visit. I said, huh, amazing,
because I thought it's the perfect time for all of
us to finally get together.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
I'm on summer break because I'm a school bus driver.
I told everybody I'm gone and we just.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Left, and Andrea was on board too, so I thought
this is.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
The perfect time. My birthday's the tenth, so I said
that'd be my birthday. Presis to bout seven.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Andrew offered her own place in Tennessee and started counting
down the days until she would be reunited with these
long lost siblings, and she invited me too. I think
it's because I'd ask so many questions about their family,
they started considering me part of it, and I felt
like family too. I've had this feeling before in other
cases at work. I like to leave a little piece
of myself with the family and take some of them
(13:26):
with me. But this time I wonder if I got
in too date. I want it so badly for Stived
to get answers, I might have pushed him too hard,
too fast.
Speaker 7 (13:44):
Are you staking any worse? Good?
Speaker 5 (13:50):
I'm good.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I'm good.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
It's easy to find. On an incredibly hot day in July,
we all descend on Andrew's home in Dyersburg. It's a
beautiful property, a ranch style house on a big piece
of land, and it was incredibly green. That's the way
Tennessee is green all over. We're not going to christ
your party that.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Oh no, you're part of the party.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
She said so herself. I was part of the party.
That was a good feeling. I felt a little awkward
at first at someone else's reunion, but they really seemed
to embrace me. I guess that's where I fit into
this family. Before all of this, I had thirty years experience,
first as as cybersluth and then as a contractor for
the Department of Justice, doing everything I could to help
(14:37):
reunite the missing in the dead. I know Steve can
be reserved, so I thought I could help him get
the answers he was looking for. I've said this before.
This family don't always talk to each other. I became
an intermediary, relating little bits of information to the different
family members who couldn't or wouldn't ask for themselves. Amy
(14:57):
told me that even after I interviewed Sandy, they didn't
really talk about it.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
I said, well, how'd your little session with Todd go?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
She said, it went well, you went really well.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I said, what would y'all talk about? She said, just
he asked some questions and I answered, and I'm like, okay,
you want to further.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Talk to each other?
Speaker 5 (15:17):
Every day?
Speaker 3 (15:18):
I know, but not about what you need.
Speaker 6 (15:19):
To talk because she won't.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
I guess she feels more comfortable talking to his stranger.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Maybe it is, and maybe you just need somebody that.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
A million times.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
We don't give a shit.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
It's your past.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Look, I ain't a reporter. I never promised to keep
sources at arm's length or not to fill in with
the people I interview. I feel like I have the
skills to help people find answers, and I'll be honest.
I really like Steve's family a lot. I can relate
to them. We all share the same sense of humor
and culture. I guess it's a Southern thing.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Because Steve's story kind of started and has grown legs
every which I mean.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
All of you colorful people to start popping up definitely, well,
I mean I found you, you're not. This is a
whole family event now at.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
This point, it's a little fun week.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
I bet it. You've been at her all way.
Speaker 5 (16:10):
Ye yes, since we got it.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
We pulled in with Monday night on my birthday.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
There was only one person missing, Phillip.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Steveh and Patterson. You should have had your butt here.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Steve had plans to be there. We texted a lot
in the weeks before the reunion, he was going to come,
but his excitement started to dwindle. He said he couldn't
get time off work in North Carolina.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Because your sisters love you. We love spending time with you.
The time that I got with him personally myself changed
my life because he was the beginning.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
That's why I felt like I have to come for it,
you know, I have to. I want to try to
take something.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Back to him.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
I figured if I was there, I could share what
I've learned with him when he was ready to hear it.
That weekend, I spent time with his family, like Amy,
who came with her husband Mike Winkles.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
I don't think I'm going to free anything about this true.
I mean it has been. It's been awesome, just a
regular family cookout, laughing, joking, having a good time.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
By the time I showed up, the sisters had been
together for a few days.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
We're like three peas in a pod. It doesn't seem
like we've missed fifty years of each other together, but
we're trying to cram it all in this week.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
This was the first time they were all in the
same place together, and they appeared to be having the
time of their lives.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Oh, we're all crazy as hell. If we want to
know something, we're gonna find out, and all three of
us are like that.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Watching them is like watching the litter of puppies play.
These sisters enjoyed the best part of siblinghood. No fighting
over clothes or parent's attention, just having a really close
friend who loves you, even if she's just getting to
know you. There were three of them that weekend, all
Dennis Brandy Bird's kids. Andrea did adopt, he w s
and Dyersburg, Amy the bus driver who grew up with Sandy,
(18:04):
and Michelle, who grew up with a single mom in Michigan,
who was shot to see Amy for the first time.
Speaker 6 (18:10):
When I saw her walk in, I was like, dang, yeah,
that's definitely a Brandenburg.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Amy and Michelle are practically identical, same laugh, same facial shape,
same brown hair, they both wearing a low ponytail. But
it's not just looks.
Speaker 6 (18:24):
Once I met the Brandenburg, it's like, oh my god,
this is why I talk real loud, this is why
I get super excited, this is why.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
I think the way I do it.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
It's like we're all thinking on the same wave pattern,
and it's amazing. I would have argued that environmental factors
were a heavier weight on somebody other than genetics until
this last two years.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Like close friends getting together after a long time, the
Brandenburgh spent a lot of time shooting a shit and drinking.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yeah, my husband is heavy, head to hell.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
That's a good thing, right. They even shared with me
the gifted Steve some Jack Daniels, but he wasn't there,
so I got some of that.
Speaker 7 (19:10):
Don't let my husband think you make it good. You
know how to how to do it. You care now, Lock.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
The weekend was very lighthearted, lots of laughter, lots of drinking,
teasing and poking fun, but there's no doubt there was
a serious part of it. They all wanted to know
about the thread that ran through each of them. Dennis Brandenburgh. Michelle,
the sister from Michigan, was the only one to know him.
Meaning of all the people in Steve's orbit, she has
(19:45):
and you, Dennis.
Speaker 5 (19:46):
I was with my dad until I was two or three.
Speaker 6 (19:50):
Two They were married for two and he was maybe
around for part of another year.
Speaker 5 (19:55):
That was it.
Speaker 6 (19:56):
So all when I was growing up, I wanted to
know my dad and My mom never talked bad about him.
Speaker 5 (20:02):
She just said he wasn't responsible and please, wait, two,
you're older.
Speaker 6 (20:06):
That's all because I didn't feel like to fit in
on my mom's side of the family. It just seemed
like I thought differently, I felt differently about things, and
I just felt like there was a hole.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
So that's probably what he's feeling.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
She's talking about.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Steve.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
There, she finally met Dennis when she was a grown up.
Speaker 5 (20:24):
I met him when I was twenty three.
Speaker 6 (20:25):
I wanted to find him, so I knew him from
the time I was twenty three till I was what
fifty three fifty four?
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Yeah, so even though she wasn't raised by him, she
at least knew the guy.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
Yeah, they're little jealous. I would think they would be.
Speaker 6 (20:38):
I would be just kind of bummed that they didn't
get that a little bit of that experience.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Amy didn't get any of this experience. Remember all of this,
She grew up thinking her dad died before she was born.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
It made me start going, what was he?
Speaker 5 (20:52):
What was for dad?
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Like Dennis died in twenty nineteen, he'd been alive the
whole damn time. Steve showed her as a bitch Steve
brought her a piece of information that she didn't know
they were working together.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
And then, like I said, I was hurt when I
found out that he was alive all that time. And
Michelle says that, you know, he was mean, he was
a drinker, he was a lady's man. He didn't want
to be tied down. But the fact that I didn't
get to see for myself or talk to him or something,
(21:28):
I'm a little jealous, but it's not a mean jealousy.
It's like, so when she talks about him, I listened
a little bit closer.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
There was something about the weekend that I felt like
breaking things down and building them back up again. This
weekend was about these sisters, now all grown up with
kids and grandkids of their own, choosing their own family.
For Andrea, that meant choosing Steve and wanting him to
know it.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
It took me fifty three years, fifty four years to
know what that missing part of me was. It's given
me so much enjoyment, calmed my heart down.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Even Michelle, who had never even heard of Stephen, wanted
him in this family.
Speaker 6 (22:10):
You're missing your sisters, Stephen, You're missing your sisters.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
I don't care who your dad is.
Speaker 6 (22:19):
You're our brother, You're Brandenburg, You're born of Brandenberg, You're Brandenburg.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
End of the story.
Speaker 6 (22:26):
Quit hiding, Come play with us, come hang out.
Speaker 5 (22:31):
We're all family.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
The brandon Burg sisters wanted embrace Steve with open arms.
They wanted him to jump into the d bend with them, drinking,
hanging out and making up for lost time. Whatever the
reason he had for not being there. The women thought,
you know, what the hell, let's just FaceTime him, tell
him he should have been here.
Speaker 7 (22:53):
Oh you do, I got just his way a woman.
You got got crapy on my ball for you, and
you didn't show off. Hey I drink it instead. You
just got off work. You're first supposed to be in Tennessee.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Over FaceTime, Steve seemed a little overwhelmed, but happy taking
the whole scene in.
Speaker 7 (23:24):
There's your sister, Michelle. Hi boy, how are you good?
We miss you? You look good.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
I know what you did too.
Speaker 7 (23:35):
I said, you got a bunch of sisters, Whether you like.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
It or not.
Speaker 7 (23:40):
You the baby, we get to spoil you.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
I want Steve to have this so much, to know
who his people were. I wanted to be a matchmaker,
not just for the dead, but for the living. Steve
was a lie. He could actually embrace the family. Never
knew that doesn't usually happen in my line of work.
Maybe the jack and coke blurred my judgment, or maybe
(24:06):
I just got carried away by the excitement of it all.
At some point during the weekend, the girls got another idea,
so they made plan to surprise Steve on his home turf.
And I was cautiously optimistic, but I was running ahead
of Steve. Usually that's a good thing. I could open
doors for him that were hard for him to open
by himself. Then he could catch up and walk through.
(24:30):
But what if he didn't want to walk through those
doors just yet? As much as he enjoyed talking to
the Brandon Burr sisters, what if he still needed to
forge on and find his birth father. And what if
he needed more time to come to peace with Sandy.
That's next time. On the finale of Hello John Doe.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
It was just started out really good.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Well, it did not start out really good because I
said just ripped the banded off in brought her in
the roof, and some people were mad at me because
I did it that way.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
He did not want to meet us and it was
forced on him.
Speaker 5 (25:13):
Hello.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
John Doe is and original productions by Revelations Entertainment in
association with First and Last Productions from Revelations. Our executive
producers are Morgan Freeman and James Younger from First and Last.
Lindsay Moreno is the executive producer. Our producing partner is
Neo on Hum Media. It was written and produced by
Kate Mishkin. Our editor is Katherine Saint Louis. She is
(25:35):
also nio on Home Media's executive editor. Our executive producer
is Sharah Morris. Our development producer is Ian Lindsay. Our
associate producer is Rufaro Faith Maserua. Sound design and mixing
by Scott Summerville. Theme and original music composed by Jesse Pearlstein.
Additional music came from Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions.
(25:55):
Vindall Faulton is our fact checker. Our production manager is
Samantha Allison from my Heart Media. Dylan Fagan as our
executive producer. Special thanks to Adelia Ruben at Nion Hum
and Carrie Lieberman and Will Pearson at iHeartMedia. Special thanks
to Ben Odo, I'm Todd Matthews. You can learn more
about name us at NamUs dot com. The number for
(26:17):
the National Center for Missing Exploited Children's Call Center is
one eight hundred the loss that's one eight hundred eight
four three five six seven eight. The National Sexual Assault
Hotline from the Rate Abuse and Incest National Network is
one eight hundred six five six four six seven three. Okay, guys,
this is the end of the show. If you didn't
(26:37):
like it, don't do anything. But if you did like it,
you make sure that you rate and review the show.
It helps more people to find it and hear this
wonderful story. Thanks again for listening.
Previously on Hello John Tale.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
She kicked me out and we went for two years.
We didn't talk two years, not a word. I feel
like he's a little bit jealous because I had our
actual mom, and I'm jealous that he didn't have her.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Since I started talking to Steve, he's made it clear
he wanted to know who his father was. Losing the
only father he had ever known made him waning to
find out who gave him life. Finding his mom wasn't
necessarily enough for Steve. I sensed he harbored resentment toward
his biological mom, Sandy, forgiving him away, and that pushed
Steve to want to find out who his birth father was.
(00:43):
So he asked Sandy, He asked his newfound sister Amy,
even asked me if I could do some digging. I
started looking at his family tree. I'll remind you of
what that tree looks like. Sandy was married to clips
se Vegas and had Susie Savegas, her first daughter. She
was the one that Franklin Floyd kidnapped. Then she had
two daughters with Dennis Brandenburg. Remember this, Sandy and her
(01:06):
girls thought he had died decades ago, but he was
actually alive and well, the whole down time. Anyway, Sandy
and Dennis had Alison and Amy. You already know Amy,
the bus driver from Virginia. Alison lives in Oregon, but
she and the family don't keep in touch. Sandy got
pregnant Steve around the same time she was still with
Dennis Brandenburgh. Meaning Steve's hunch and mine too, was that
(01:29):
he was a Brandenburgh. That would make sense, but he
had no proof. He was looking for something definitive. He
hadn't expected to find someone who wanted answers as badly
as he did another adoptee.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Actually, I'm Andre, a carpenter. I am just turned fifty
six on a farm on Wstness. They investigations are your
private investigtor?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yes, oh honey, we can have fun. Oh yes, Tennessee.
When she met Steve in twenty twenty one, she was
on her own journey.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I've known all my life that I was adopted from
ever since I can remember, but did not even attempt
to find my biological parents until twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen.
I did not want to disrespect my adopted parents because
it would hurt them, even though they were encouraging.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Once she started looking, Andrew learned about her birth story.
Her mom got pregnant young and she wasn't married to
her dad, so she was forced to give Andrew up
for adoption.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
And her dad, Dennis Brandenburg is my father.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Dennis Brandenburg is in Sandy's second husband, the professional gambler,
and the guy Steve thought was probably his father. Once
Andrey figured out that she was in Brandenburg, she started
finding his other kids. That's how she connected with Steve.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
I found out I potentially had another sister through the
Brandenburg side.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
They had a lot in common. Both were adopted, Both
waited in till later in life to seek their birth parents,
both figuring out where they fit into this world with
all this new information. Andrew had grown up as an
only child. She couldn't live one more minute not knowing
her brother.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Within forty eight hours, when I was on the road
going to North Carolina, and as soon as he walked
in the door, ooh, I knew it was him. I
knew it was him, and I stood up and he
knew it was me, and it.
Speaker 5 (03:25):
Was just like he's finally here.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
All the anticipation had come forth, and I feel like
that he needed us.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
As much as we needed him us as in the
other Brandenburgs. One of Dennis's daughters lives in Michigan and
his name Michelle.
Speaker 6 (03:46):
I am the oldest one so far that we found,
and I'm fifty six, live in Fowlerville, Michigan, and on
a boarding kennel for pet's pep boarding kennel.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Andrew is on a mission to find as many of
her siblings as possible and round them up. So she
called up Amy.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
She said, my name is Andrew. She said, I believe
we may have the same father. Would I be willing
to take a DNA test to see if we're related?
Speaker 5 (04:14):
Sure? Why not?
Speaker 7 (04:15):
Why?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
And I've been riding this wave of response.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Andrew felt in her gut that she was a Brandyburg,
but she didn't have no proof. But Amy was definitely
his daughter. Andrew is kind of the captain here. She
got both sisters, Amy and Michelle to do their DNA
test from their home states, but she did hers from
North Carolina with Steve.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
So she paid for everybody get a DNA test. Another sister,
another lady on the Brandyburgh side, and.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Her DNA tests can be expensive, somewhere between fifty dollars
and a few hundred dollars Andrew wanted to pay. She
worked several jobs, and I also was adopted into a
family of means she could.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Everybody went like that day or the next day, and
we had to wait so much forever.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
While they waiting, Andrew and Steve got to know each
other better. They didn't do anything fancy. They just went
out to dinner talked a lot. After all, there was
so much to catch up on between the supposed brother
and sister. Everything was changing so fast, Andrew tried to
soak it all in.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
We were supposed to be two nights and three days
in North Carolina ended up being a week because we
want to spend the time with Steve, kid to know him.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
After a few days the results came back. All four
of them crossed their fingers in hope, and then I
was the one that got.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
The first results. I called Michelle and I'm like, you're
not gonna believe this. I said, we're all sisters, but
Steve's not our brother.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
And they were all connected to brandon Bury except me.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Steve was Sandy's son, but his dad was not the
gamble Dennis Brandenburg.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Our hearts broke.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
This new stone, the test ruled out the only man
Sandy could remember being with around the time Steve was conceived,
but the test didn't say who his dad was. Steve
had reached a dead end, had insult injury. The DNA
results also many wasn't related to Andrea, who had spent
a whole week with him.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
We were crushed because he is such a wonderful, wonderful person.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Steve was already wrestling with so much he wanted the
certainty of knowing who he was related to on his
dad's son. From talking to Steve, I could tell he
resented Sandy forgiving him away, even though he knew it
saved him from a lot of pain and it may
have even saved his life. His father, however, was already
(06:50):
out of the picture when Steve was given away. If
Steve had been part of the Brandenburg clan joined with
this group of women from three different mothers, maybe that
would have been an easier family for him to fit in.
But Steve was back to square one. He still didn't
know who his birth father was, and now he had
a choice to make. Andrea, Amy and Michelle were ready
to welcome him into their family. Should he choose this
(07:12):
family or keep looking for his biological father. My name
is Todd Matthews and this is Hello John Doe. A sleuth,
a family, and a serial killer. The story of a
family torn apart by tragedy and my quest to bring
them back together. Chapter nine, Finding his father. It's one
(07:37):
thing to learn you've been adopted late in life. Steve
is making sense of that. When he learned about Franklin
Employe's destructive rampage through his family tree, he was discovering
new relatives like his sister Susie Sevegas and his nephew
Michael Hughes, but at the same time mourning their passing.
Ever since he learned he was adopted in twenty nineteen,
Steve has tried to understand his origin story still unanswered questions,
(08:01):
and I can imagine it must feel like he's sinking
in quick sin. He wants to be proud of who
he is and stand tall, but how can he when
there are so many unanswered questions? He was in the
fog through my years. In this work, I've seen myself
as a hailer. I identified the unclaimed dead and brought
them back to their families who had been grieving their
(08:21):
loss for years. I brought them closure. But there's a
big difference between Steve's story and the other cases I've worked.
Steve was alive, and because of how unique this whole
story really is, I found myself in an unfamiliar place.
I can't heal Steve. I can't fix what Franklin Floyd did.
In a lot of ways, I'm woefully unequipped. But Andrea,
(08:45):
she reached step in a way I never could. In
some ways, only other people who are lost in the
same way can guide you. Andrea, like Steve, was sheepish
about asking her adoptive parents about her birth for a
long time. Andrew didn't want to end anyone by speaking up.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
I just knew, you know, as a mall myself, that
it would probably hurt them, so I just let it go.
He might have been like me, you feel like that
these two people that raised you.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
And you hung the moon for.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
That you were going to hurt them. You were going
to hurt their hearts. And I think that's what Steve
and I have in common, that we don't like to
hurt people's hearts. And I think he kind of felt
like I did that it was disrespected. Now because you know,
in the South. You're raised to respect your parents, and
I think he just thought, oh, I'll save it for
another day, and he waited thirty years, twenty years.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
But waiting had consequences. Andrew's biological parents died before she
even went looking for him. Dennis Brandon Burg died in
twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Unfortunately, by the time I got there, you know, late
to the dads. By the time I got there, they
were already gone.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Andrew and Steve shared this profound thing in common. They're
both looking for answers about their adoption later in life.
But there's an important difference too, Andrew and you. She
was adopted early, but Steve didn't. That makes him what
experts call a late discovery adoptee. Anyone who finds out
they were adopted later than three years old found out late.
(10:25):
That makes Steve a late discoverer. He only found out
in his teens. Experts say discovering your adoption later in
life can shatter your sense of who you are. Think
of it this way. If you grew up always knowing
and feel like your parents have always been straight with you,
that's one thing. But finding out on the verge of adulthood,
it can make you question your whole damn childhood, and
(10:47):
if you only start dealing with the fact you're adopted
in middle age, it can be overwhelming to your sense
of identity. Andrew could since that was happening to Steve,
so despite the fact they didn't have the same father,
she invited him into her new family.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
I said, now here's the situation. I said. He is
Alison and Amy's brother. He is their half brother, but
he's our stepbrother because our dad was still married to
Sandy at the time that Steve was born. So in
my eyes, there is no step no hives, no nothing.
He's our brother. And we agreed on that.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Andrea saw beyond blood connections and Steve. She saw a
man with a quiet demeanor but a big heart, someone
had don anything for his kids or his girlfriend Jeanette's
kids too.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
I love him to death. I don't see any difference.
And I guess I could say that because I was
adopted and Steve was adopted, so he should be able
to understand that. And he's got you know, Janette's kids
are in his house and he loves them like they
were his own.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Someone trecking through what may be the most challenging years
of his life, and she wanted to help.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
He wants those answers. We're going to do everything we
can and as a family to help him get those answers.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
If there's something this whole family has in common, it's
that they're all looking for answers. Think about it. Amy
certainly didn't know she had more sisters. Andre didn't know
her birth parents. Steve didn't know his whole adoption story
until he was almost fifty. They each became detectives on
their own, talking to one another trying to figure out
who fit were. Over the summer of twenty twenty three,
(12:26):
Steve's sister started making plans to see one another, and
they wanted Steve to come too. They considered him a
Brandenburg no matter what his DNA said.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Amy messaged me and she's like, hey, what do you
do in July tenth through the sixteenth? And I said
nothing that I know of why? And she said, I
think we're going to come for a visit. I said, huh, amazing,
because I thought it's the perfect time for all of
us to finally get together.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
I'm on summer break because I'm a school bus driver.
I told everybody I'm gone and we just.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Left, and Andrea was on board too, so I thought
this is.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
The perfect time. My birthday's the tenth, so I said
that'd be my birthday. Presis to bout seven.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Andrew offered her own place in Tennessee and started counting
down the days until she would be reunited with these
long lost siblings, and she invited me too. I think
it's because I'd ask so many questions about their family,
they started considering me part of it, and I felt
like family too. I've had this feeling before in other
cases at work. I like to leave a little piece
of myself with the family and take some of them
(13:26):
with me. But this time I wonder if I got
in too date. I want it so badly for Stived
to get answers, I might have pushed him too hard,
too fast.
Speaker 7 (13:44):
Are you staking any worse? Good?
Speaker 5 (13:50):
I'm good.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I'm good.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
It's easy to find. On an incredibly hot day in July,
we all descend on Andrew's home in Dyersburg. It's a
beautiful property, a ranch style house on a big piece
of land, and it was incredibly green. That's the way
Tennessee is green all over. We're not going to christ
your party that.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Oh no, you're part of the party.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
She said so herself. I was part of the party.
That was a good feeling. I felt a little awkward
at first at someone else's reunion, but they really seemed
to embrace me. I guess that's where I fit into
this family. Before all of this, I had thirty years experience,
first as as cybersluth and then as a contractor for
the Department of Justice, doing everything I could to help
(14:37):
reunite the missing in the dead. I know Steve can
be reserved, so I thought I could help him get
the answers he was looking for. I've said this before.
This family don't always talk to each other. I became
an intermediary, relating little bits of information to the different
family members who couldn't or wouldn't ask for themselves. Amy
(14:57):
told me that even after I interviewed Sandy, they didn't
really talk about it.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
I said, well, how'd your little session with Todd go?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
She said, it went well, you went really well.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I said, what would y'all talk about? She said, just
he asked some questions and I answered, and I'm like, okay,
you want to further.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Talk to each other?
Speaker 5 (15:17):
Every day?
Speaker 3 (15:18):
I know, but not about what you need.
Speaker 6 (15:19):
To talk because she won't.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
I guess she feels more comfortable talking to his stranger.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Maybe it is, and maybe you just need somebody that.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
A million times.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
We don't give a shit.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
It's your past.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Look, I ain't a reporter. I never promised to keep
sources at arm's length or not to fill in with
the people I interview. I feel like I have the
skills to help people find answers, and I'll be honest.
I really like Steve's family a lot. I can relate
to them. We all share the same sense of humor
and culture. I guess it's a Southern thing.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Because Steve's story kind of started and has grown legs
every which I mean.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
All of you colorful people to start popping up definitely, well,
I mean I found you, you're not. This is a
whole family event now at.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
This point, it's a little fun week.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
I bet it. You've been at her all way.
Speaker 5 (16:10):
Ye yes, since we got it.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
We pulled in with Monday night on my birthday.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
There was only one person missing, Phillip.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Steveh and Patterson. You should have had your butt here.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Steve had plans to be there. We texted a lot
in the weeks before the reunion, he was going to come,
but his excitement started to dwindle. He said he couldn't
get time off work in North Carolina.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Because your sisters love you. We love spending time with you.
The time that I got with him personally myself changed
my life because he was the beginning.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
That's why I felt like I have to come for it,
you know, I have to. I want to try to
take something.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Back to him.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
I figured if I was there, I could share what
I've learned with him when he was ready to hear it.
That weekend, I spent time with his family, like Amy,
who came with her husband Mike Winkles.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
I don't think I'm going to free anything about this true.
I mean it has been. It's been awesome, just a
regular family cookout, laughing, joking, having a good time.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
By the time I showed up, the sisters had been
together for a few days.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
We're like three peas in a pod. It doesn't seem
like we've missed fifty years of each other together, but
we're trying to cram it all in this week.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
This was the first time they were all in the
same place together, and they appeared to be having the
time of their lives.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Oh, we're all crazy as hell. If we want to
know something, we're gonna find out, and all three of
us are like that.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Watching them is like watching the litter of puppies play.
These sisters enjoyed the best part of siblinghood. No fighting
over clothes or parent's attention, just having a really close
friend who loves you, even if she's just getting to
know you. There were three of them that weekend, all
Dennis Brandy Bird's kids. Andrea did adopt, he w s
and Dyersburg, Amy the bus driver who grew up with Sandy,
(18:04):
and Michelle, who grew up with a single mom in Michigan,
who was shot to see Amy for the first time.
Speaker 6 (18:10):
When I saw her walk in, I was like, dang, yeah,
that's definitely a Brandenburg.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Amy and Michelle are practically identical, same laugh, same facial shape,
same brown hair, they both wearing a low ponytail. But
it's not just looks.
Speaker 6 (18:24):
Once I met the Brandenburg, it's like, oh my god,
this is why I talk real loud, this is why
I get super excited, this is why.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
I think the way I do it.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
It's like we're all thinking on the same wave pattern,
and it's amazing. I would have argued that environmental factors
were a heavier weight on somebody other than genetics until
this last two years.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Like close friends getting together after a long time, the
Brandenburgh spent a lot of time shooting a shit and drinking.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yeah, my husband is heavy, head to hell.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
That's a good thing, right. They even shared with me
the gifted Steve some Jack Daniels, but he wasn't there,
so I got some of that.
Speaker 7 (19:10):
Don't let my husband think you make it good. You
know how to how to do it. You care now, Lock.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
The weekend was very lighthearted, lots of laughter, lots of drinking,
teasing and poking fun, but there's no doubt there was
a serious part of it. They all wanted to know
about the thread that ran through each of them. Dennis Brandenburgh. Michelle,
the sister from Michigan, was the only one to know him.
Meaning of all the people in Steve's orbit, she has
(19:45):
and you, Dennis.
Speaker 5 (19:46):
I was with my dad until I was two or three.
Speaker 6 (19:50):
Two They were married for two and he was maybe
around for part of another year.
Speaker 5 (19:55):
That was it.
Speaker 6 (19:56):
So all when I was growing up, I wanted to
know my dad and My mom never talked bad about him.
Speaker 5 (20:02):
She just said he wasn't responsible and please, wait, two,
you're older.
Speaker 6 (20:06):
That's all because I didn't feel like to fit in
on my mom's side of the family. It just seemed
like I thought differently, I felt differently about things, and
I just felt like there was a hole.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
So that's probably what he's feeling.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
She's talking about.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Steve.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
There, she finally met Dennis when she was a grown up.
Speaker 5 (20:24):
I met him when I was twenty three.
Speaker 6 (20:25):
I wanted to find him, so I knew him from
the time I was twenty three till I was what
fifty three fifty four?
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Yeah, so even though she wasn't raised by him, she
at least knew the guy.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
Yeah, they're little jealous. I would think they would be.
Speaker 6 (20:38):
I would be just kind of bummed that they didn't
get that a little bit of that experience.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Amy didn't get any of this experience. Remember all of this,
She grew up thinking her dad died before she was born.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
It made me start going, what was he?
Speaker 5 (20:52):
What was for dad?
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Like Dennis died in twenty nineteen, he'd been alive the
whole damn time. Steve showed her as a bitch Steve
brought her a piece of information that she didn't know
they were working together.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
And then, like I said, I was hurt when I
found out that he was alive all that time. And
Michelle says that, you know, he was mean, he was
a drinker, he was a lady's man. He didn't want
to be tied down. But the fact that I didn't
get to see for myself or talk to him or something,
(21:28):
I'm a little jealous, but it's not a mean jealousy.
It's like, so when she talks about him, I listened
a little bit closer.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
There was something about the weekend that I felt like
breaking things down and building them back up again. This
weekend was about these sisters, now all grown up with
kids and grandkids of their own, choosing their own family.
For Andrea, that meant choosing Steve and wanting him to
know it.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
It took me fifty three years, fifty four years to
know what that missing part of me was. It's given
me so much enjoyment, calmed my heart down.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Even Michelle, who had never even heard of Stephen, wanted
him in this family.
Speaker 6 (22:10):
You're missing your sisters, Stephen, You're missing your sisters.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
I don't care who your dad is.
Speaker 6 (22:19):
You're our brother, You're Brandenburg, You're born of Brandenberg, You're Brandenburg.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
End of the story.
Speaker 6 (22:26):
Quit hiding, Come play with us, come hang out.
Speaker 5 (22:31):
We're all family.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
The brandon Burg sisters wanted embrace Steve with open arms.
They wanted him to jump into the d bend with them, drinking,
hanging out and making up for lost time. Whatever the
reason he had for not being there. The women thought,
you know, what the hell, let's just FaceTime him, tell
him he should have been here.
Speaker 7 (22:53):
Oh you do, I got just his way a woman.
You got got crapy on my ball for you, and
you didn't show off. Hey I drink it instead. You
just got off work. You're first supposed to be in Tennessee.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Over FaceTime, Steve seemed a little overwhelmed, but happy taking
the whole scene in.
Speaker 7 (23:24):
There's your sister, Michelle. Hi boy, how are you good?
We miss you? You look good.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
I know what you did too.
Speaker 7 (23:35):
I said, you got a bunch of sisters, Whether you like.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
It or not.
Speaker 7 (23:40):
You the baby, we get to spoil you.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
I want Steve to have this so much, to know
who his people were. I wanted to be a matchmaker,
not just for the dead, but for the living. Steve
was a lie. He could actually embrace the family. Never
knew that doesn't usually happen in my line of work.
Maybe the jack and coke blurred my judgment, or maybe
(24:06):
I just got carried away by the excitement of it all.
At some point during the weekend, the girls got another idea,
so they made plan to surprise Steve on his home turf.
And I was cautiously optimistic, but I was running ahead
of Steve. Usually that's a good thing. I could open
doors for him that were hard for him to open
by himself. Then he could catch up and walk through.
(24:30):
But what if he didn't want to walk through those
doors just yet? As much as he enjoyed talking to
the Brandon Burr sisters, what if he still needed to
forge on and find his birth father. And what if
he needed more time to come to peace with Sandy.
That's next time. On the finale of Hello John Doe.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
It was just started out really good.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Well, it did not start out really good because I
said just ripped the banded off in brought her in
the roof, and some people were mad at me because
I did it that way.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
He did not want to meet us and it was
forced on him.
Speaker 5 (25:13):
Hello.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
John Doe is and original productions by Revelations Entertainment in
association with First and Last Productions from Revelations. Our executive
producers are Morgan Freeman and James Younger from First and Last.
Lindsay Moreno is the executive producer. Our producing partner is
Neo on Hum Media. It was written and produced by
Kate Mishkin. Our editor is Katherine Saint Louis. She is
(25:35):
also nio on Home Media's executive editor. Our executive producer
is Sharah Morris. Our development producer is Ian Lindsay. Our
associate producer is Rufaro Faith Maserua. Sound design and mixing
by Scott Summerville. Theme and original music composed by Jesse Pearlstein.
Additional music came from Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions.
(25:55):
Vindall Faulton is our fact checker. Our production manager is
Samantha Allison from my Heart Media. Dylan Fagan as our
executive producer. Special thanks to Adelia Ruben at Nion Hum
and Carrie Lieberman and Will Pearson at iHeartMedia. Special thanks
to Ben Odo, I'm Todd Matthews. You can learn more
about name us at NamUs dot com. The number for
(26:17):
the National Center for Missing Exploited Children's Call Center is
one eight hundred the loss that's one eight hundred eight
four three five six seven eight. The National Sexual Assault
Hotline from the Rate Abuse and Incest National Network is
one eight hundred six five six four six seven three. Okay, guys,
this is the end of the show. If you didn't
(26:37):
like it, don't do anything. But if you did like it,
you make sure that you rate and review the show.
It helps more people to find it and hear this
wonderful story. Thanks again for listening.
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