A Mother’s DNA Test Revealed Her Children Weren’t Biologically Her Own
When Lydia Fairchild sought public assistance for her family, she dutifully completed her DNA tests and sent them off for analysis. She probably didn't expect to be told, "You're not the mother of your children." Lydia's tortuous journey after learning the impossible would become so harrowing that she'd be dragged through the courts, subjected to countless medical tests, and even risk losing her little ones entirely.
So far, so normal
In 2006 Lydia was 26, an unemployed mother of two and pregnant with her third child. At that time, she’d applied to her home state of Washington for public assistance. The routine procedure in situations like this is simple. In order to receive government help, the claimant's children must be subjected to DNA testing.
In Lydia's case, everything — so far — was normal. To prove that her children had been fathered by her ex-partner, Jamie Townsend, the testing process began. Naturally, Lydia agreed. She was confident of her children’s heritage.
An urgent call
After submitting her tests, Lydia received a phone call. Again, things seemed relatively normal. Surely the call from the Department of Social Services was routine? Even when the person on the other end of the line requested to see Lydia right away, nothing seemed untoward.
She presumed that the call was just another standard appointment in the process. However, as she sat with a social worker, it soon became clear that this wasn’t the case.
Treated like a criminal
Quite the opposite, in fact. Straight from the off, it dawned on the single mom that she was being treated like some kind of criminal. At this stage, though, she had no idea why.
“As I sat down, they came up and shut the door,” she told ABC News in 2006. “And they just went back and just started drilling me with questions like, ‘Who are you?’”
Something more sinister
It soon became clear that the DNA tests Lydia’s children had completed had thrown up some unsettling results. When the tests came back, they showed that Townsend was definitely the kids’ father, but Lydia's connection was cloudy.
Unbeknownst to the single mom, her link to her children was being called into question. Anomalies in the tests had led the state to wonder whether the mom-of-two was guilty of welfare fraud — or perhaps something even more sinister.