When Lydia Fairchild applied for child support in 2002, she thought it was a routine process. She was a young mother of two, pregnant with her third child, and wanted to ensure help from her children’s father. But what began as paperwork turned into one of the strangest legal and scientific mysteries in modern history—the case of Lydia Fairchild and … Read More
This Mom’s DNA Didn’t Match Her Kids | Lydia Fairchild Ep 298
Episode Transcription
00:00 Hey man, what's up? Have you ever heard of Lydia Fairchild? Lydia Fairchild, Lydia Fairchild, no Lydia Fairchild here. You want to look at her? Yeah, here she is. This is her and child okay or fair child. Is this like an eighties picture? Eight and eighty. This is nineties. Maybe this is a for those it's a it's a you know old picture and she's holding a baby and the baby is just like 00:29 I think this is nineties because because the story takes place. Is that her baby? Yeah, that's her baby. Okay, here's another picture of her where honestly in this picture she also with the baby also with the baby baby and on and on a house phone. Oh, how the baby was flipping us off for a second, but it's not a little ring. Very close in this photo though looks kind of like Heath Ledger. Okay, are we? I don't know if we can bully her like that. 00:57 I don't know story. You know the story she does she that's a beautiful woman. I he fled her is a beautiful man. Okay, so anyway, 01:12 She's like, but you might have had to dig around a little bit and find out what's going on with your DNA. And she's like, yeah. And that is not the way the doctor brought that to her. That's the way I was like, you might know I'd dig around a little bit. The doctor was like, mind if I just like poke and broad and just kind of figure out what's going on with you? Things I learned last night. 01:42 What's the story? Who's so fair child, let me for your child, let me for your child and her. I don't know if this is her husband or a boyfriend. I'm not sure I've heard conflicting reports. I've seen completely r for reports. They don't have the same last name, but that maybe that maybe she's a modern woman, neither do me and my wife right now. We couldn't find our mayor's certificate for a long time, so also it's like a whole. It's a really big process. You got to read to your passport, your driver's. It's a lot of work. It's just 02:07 Oh my God, which I mean it really is. If you think about it, it's just the patriarchy keeping their thumb down on a woman because it makes it much harder. It's just so much harder to separate from a man. If you have your name stuck to them, you got to go change all these documents. You're just kind of yeah, you're tied, you're tethered legally. I mean, yes, 02:28 Like is it really worth leaving that man if you have to go to that many notaries? 02:37 Oh, I've been wanting to leave my husband for years, but I just can't find an open spot on my calendar to go get that notarized. Okay, so what what is so Jamie Townsend okay? Is her husband or boyfriend? I'm not sure this is a later photo. The babies are obviously yeah and there are three kids yeah. They have three kids. This story takes place specifically in two thousand two while she's pregnant with a third child. Okay, and when this happens uh sometime during the pregnancy, 03:06 they couldn't had unresolvable differences. They end up separating okay, and she has three children that she's trying to support. She's pregnant and wait, wait, wait. She's pretty with her. You said their third child. Sorry, she has two children. She's pregnant with a third child, but that's a picture of all three of them. So they resolve their conflicts. It appears so either that or they are there. They are sticking together for the kids and taking great photos at the mall, sure, which is something that just is sad. We don't have anymore. 03:34 the photo shop three minutes right now. I you to remember this forty minutes from now when Tim goes, we're only halfway through the story. It's just it's just it's sad like we used to be able to just walk in the mall and get some not great photos done like I miss those days. We did it. We've got those lying around here somewhere. 03:56 stop. What do you do? No talk about them all. No, I've done talking about the mother. No, you ain't. You want to spend a lot of time our podcast. Oh my gosh speaking of balls. Do you want to talk about subway? We said we were going to talk about some way this episode. We kept people on their toes for a week. Should we just go playing block blast right now? I'm busy. 04:19 describe it to the audio. So I'm playing block glass, which is it's a it's like a tetris type game. My high score is forty seven thousand. Here's my conspiracy on this by the way. I do think that they have made this game easier in the last ah because they used to be way hard. My high score for a long time was fifteen thousand and now it's forty seven and it's like I've scored my highest scores in the last. 04:46 So I think this game was too hard and they just made it easier to be honest. I really do. Why was the motivation so people play it more? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, you don't want it to be too hard. That's what I'm saying, but you know, what are you going to do? not very fun for you because you're too good at it, right? Yeah, I'm just I'm so good at this game. You're like I want the old one back where it was harder. Give me the old one where it wasn't as easy. Anyways, put that away and talk to me about something just anything. 05:15 No, no, you wanted to go off. I, I, you're talking about be a full tangent. It was literally just a side comment where I was just like, I just missed the photos places of them all. Okay. That was all that wasn't why you got that out. Be this thing where you know, I'm glad you got it out of your system, buddy. Let's talk about Lydia Fairchild. So she, her and Jamie separate, put your phone away. I know you're like, Oh, I got to finish this level. The game is so easy, but he can't finish this level in less than 45 seconds. 05:43 oh five and a half minutes dude, so you're on your phone. I miss her. You go to the mall dude and like they had like this there for those who don't know there was like a store. My mom loved the store by the way. My mom, whatever those whatever glamour shots or whatever was called 06:11 my mom loved this place because they would have a whole drop down. You know they could put the they always props and stuff and you know my mom actually started to move away from it in. I remember this real clear like two thousand and eleven. My mom and my my dad my mom my mom and my dad my parents. They got my mom my dad my my parents who are my mom and dad 06:40 that's how you talk. It sucks. It's really hard to listen to. Oh sorry. I know that's you and so uh they got these photos and they like they did the face tune thing to my mom so much that she looked like way too smooth and she got them back and she was like just give me the unedited pictures. Normal photos please. Oh it's bad yeah because they weren't like trained 07:08 they were just like like yeah. They were high school student. They were like smooth, smooth, smooth, smooth, smooth, smooth, smooth, smooth, smooth, smooth, 07:36 I don't know how far, I do know she is pregnant with her third child at this point. Okay. I would guess with the way the story goes, like it's early in the pregnancy should be my guess. Um, very early in the pregnancy, honestly, 2002 with how this timeline goes out 2002. Yeah. Um, and so she goes, uh, because now she's on her own, a single parent, right? Um, she goes in and she applies, um, for child support and, uh, 08:04 Obviously when child so when you go in for child support normal procedure is they DNA DNA test the children and the father to make sure the father is actually the father um Because you you don't want to force someone to pay child support for right kid That's not their own kid. And so they go in very routine thing do it um Had to wait a couple weeks and then they call her and they say hey, we think you should come down to the 08:28 office. I almost at station. Yeah, she come down to the come down to the manager suite. Come on down to the manager suite. did. They did this test that twizer us and and while we we think you should come down for for these results and she's like never a good sign. She's like you could just tell me over the phone. She's like no, like no, we can't. We'd really like to tell you in person and so they sit down in the office and there's video of her kind of like we're counting this story and she said it was very awkward like 08:57 it was very like, it felt very tense in the room when she got there and like everyone was like, there was not like pleasantries exchanged. It was like sit down and then they were like, Hey, so result came back a hundred percent. We can guarantee Jamie is the father, um but you aren't the zero percent. You're the mother and so of the baby inside of her, no, of her children, her two children. Okay. Yeah. And so she says, 09:27 um excuse me. I I remember I know for a fact these are my children. I gave birth to them and so they start like grilling her. ah Why does they think that she is like trying to commit like welfare fraud or something like that and so they're grilling her asking her all these questions. um They start asking her like do you have a sister? Could these be your sister's kids? ah So the DNA can say zero percent chance that it's yours. Yeah, 09:57 but it's a hundred cent Jamie's. Okay. And so they're very, they're very like, she says like she was getting grilled and it was very, it felt like an interrogation. They were asking all these questions of like, are, are you actually Lydia Fairchild? Like, did you do something with the real Lydia Fairchild and like you took her kids and she's like, no, I'm the real Lydia Fairchild. She's like, here's my ID. Like here's all my papers. Like we've gone through this whole process. Like I'm, I am me. These are my children. I remember giving birth to them. Like, 10:25 I did. There's some must be something wrong with the tests and so they end up going through this whole like interview where they're like their honor. She any pictures from when she was pregnant? I don't have any pictures. I'm sure she does right, but I don't have any pictures and so they basically were like look. We can run another test, but the guy straight up tells her in this thing and he straight up says we're going to take your kids away because these are not your 10:55 kids like we're confident that it's a zero percent chance we've we've got the DNA results. And so she's obviously distraught. Yeah. And so she starts going through all the possibilities. She leaves this. She's like, what are all the possibilities of what's going on? She really thinks like the DNA test must just be wrong. There's I suppose the possibility that something happened like in the hospital, maybe these got switched and they weren't my kids, but it's like, well, no, it's Jamie's. Yeah. 11:23 it's yeah. This is actually Jamie's kids, so maybe he had two baby mamas in the hospital at the same time and they were in different rooms and he's got them all mixed up and he was like he's like I need to go to the restaurant real quick and then he to the other person was I go to the bathroom. You got it, you got it, babe, you got it, I got a poop again. 11:48 I'm just a nervous pooper. I'm so nervous right now. When I was, when, my baby was born, there was another dad there. Did I tell you this story? Uh, there was an, there was only one other baby being born that on our floor that day. Um, and the other dad, when it happened, uh, he got, uh, sick and he passed out and he had to like go to the ER cause he hit his head. And so, uh, I remember 12:16 at some point during the day, like I went down for lunch and came back up and I rode the elevator with him and he was like bandaged up and then the nurse, the nurse told me later. She's like yeah, we've had an eventful day and she's like she's like. Are you going to pass out because I don't want another one of the he doesn't remember that yeah yeah that's embarrassing. I think I think he had yeah, that's embarrassing anyways, so she's trying to figure out what is going on. 12:46 meanwhile the the state is like starting to come after her and they're like taking her to court and so they take her to this court and then she start she's trying to tell the story to this is like a ongoing process then yeah. This is not like a one day thing. This is something that's going on and where her kids during this so she still got him at home like they they have to go through the process to be yeah. They can't take they can't just back. These are ours and so yeah they're home with her. Jamie is trying to like vouch for her and be like yeah, they're 13:15 she's like on the father which for her yeah like I'm the father. That's their mother. We're not together, but that is their mother his her parents are defending her, but the longer this runs on and the more the state starts to a lot of people start to have some doubts. They're like like it's strange like we know we were there at the birth like we know this, but something has to be going on for her to not be showing up in DNA. Like how is that possible that she's not showing up in DNA and so 13:44 uh they uh they take they take her to court and the judge is like hammering her at court because she's the judge is like this is fraud. You're committing some kind of fraud and we're going to get you for it. She shows up without a lawyer because she did all this searching for lawyers and no one would pick up the cake because they were like yeah this is obvious like no lawyer will take the case. Yeah no lawyers taking the case because they all think it's obvious that she's committing fraud because there's no ray of the evidence. Yeah there's no way a mother would come up with a zero percent 14:15 a zero percent match. It's not even like it's not like it's like a sixty percent. It's a zero percent match that she came up as and so she goes to court. The judge is like I suggest you get a lawyer. She's like I tried. No one wants me and and so they have this initial hearing. It does not go well. Well, didn't she get a lawyer though like there's public defenders? Well, I don't know. I don't know in a case like this because this isn't 14:43 I'm not sure in a case like this. I don't know enough about how this stuff works like this isn't like she was arrested and she's facing like a criminal trial like this is, I guess, technically a civil trial. Okay, you still got a lawyer. Do you do they provide a lawyer in the civil if the if the state is suing you for something? Yeah, I don't know if they're technically suing. Okay, I don't know. I don't know if the state provides a lawyer in a situation. I don't know. Maybe they do 15:11 but all I know is she was going to defend herself because she couldn't find someone to sure be her defender. The judge was like I suggest you find a lawyer and she's like I tried I can't find one and so basically they go to this hearing and they say okay well you're pregnant. So this works out perfect. What we're going to do is you're going to have this baby. We're going to have a representative of the court there to witness the birth and immediately we're going to DNA test both of you like that same moment. 15:40 and we're going to this feel so crazy okay, and then we'll be able to know ah if there's just something weird about your dna yeah. If there's something amiss or if yeah and so so you're in the you're in the hospital legs up trying to give birth yeah and there's the father doctor comes in and goes uh you know hi. I'm I'm doctor tiler cocks and 16:10 and so and and he goes okay. This is the father who is that's there's judge in the robin and next to a stenographer 16:29 Have you seen that they had like mouth stenographers now? Oh yeah. With like they've got like this like weird it looks like an oxygen mask. It's crazy looking. 16:39 crazy right to an ASMR and whispering the court case. 16:49 Hey, join us on Patreon if you want this to be ad free and also there's tons of other perks you get to all episodes are ad free. You get next week's episode right now and you get to do monthly hangouts with me and Tim like we really look. It's like a virtual just hangout room and we play games together. We talk. We have show and tell sometimes we've made a lot of good friends through this and so it's a really good time to do that. So either way, please share the episode. Tell somebody about it. These are all those ways to help us grow the show because we love doing it. We want to keep doing it. So thanks for being here. 17:23 now they just got to watch or give birth. Yes, they're watching her give birth, which is so weird. Yeah, it's very weird. It is very weird. Imagine the other side of that too. You're just the guy who's got to go watch a lady early birth that you don't know. It's like you're leaving. You're getting the kids ready for school in the morning. You're making a breakfast right and your wife's like yeah. What do you guys do today? Oh, I got to watch a lady give birth. I go watch the miracle of life. 17:51 Oh yeah, I yeah. I actually went to three other ones last week to prepare what I just want to make sure I know you know. I make sure I know what I'm looking at. Hi, sorry. Can I sit in on this birth? Excuse me. Who are you? It's for the I'll tell you who I am and that's classified. I live in a secure facility doctor. uh I need to see this board. Here's my badge. 18:21 that you got to look quick. That's the thing about badges got a quick. We flash a really quick. That's the whole thing about that. You got to look fast, so yeah, this guy with questionable credentials is there for the birth witnesses, everything and then is like all right. Let's do this DNA test. They time flies when when giving birth. I don't know if that's true. It did fly being there. ah I don't know about the doing it part. Oh yeah, 18:50 that's slow and excruciating and awful. I heard yeah anyways, ah so she she gives birth. They take the baby. They do the DNA test. They DNA test her in that moment like at right away. Wait, when is this now? This is it's still two thousand two. Okay, you don't have like a you don't okay. I don't have an exact date. Yeah, I don't have the exact date and so they're there for the birth. They go back to court. The DNA results come back and at this point like 19:17 Jamie is pretty invested because Jamie doesn't want his, even though they're not together, he still wants his kids to be raised by their actual mother. And so he doesn't want this whole situation either. so they've talked a lot about this and they kind of came to the conclusion that the best case scenario is that this one comes back that she's 0 % too. Because if it comes back as this is her child, 19:44 then that kind of proves to the court that she's lying about the other two. And so they're like, I don't know how that happened that these other ones came back zero, but we're hoping that this one's zero too. Right. And so they come back to the court and the result ended up being it's a zero again. So she's a 0 % match. And so they witnessed the birth though. They had someone from the court who witnessed the birth. Okay. And so you would assume because they watched it happen, they would say, yeah, you are the mother, but instead what the court says 20:14 is we think that you're committing fraud through in vitro fertilization and we think that you were somehow and I don't know there is like black market and vitro fertilizers out there. I guess if the court thought that that was what was happening and so they said that you're carrying someone else's child and trying to commit fraud and get money from the state through that and so they still are taking the case against her and moving forward with the case. Okay, 20:43 so we need a welfare check. We need some money. We need to be on food stamps. What's what should we do? Let's have three children, carry them in my body, give birth so that I can skim a couple hundred dollars a month from the government and the US government. That's probably the best plan. Let's do that. Yes, let's do that. 21:11 Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You're thinking the right way. So she begins, so this happens. She now has, um, uh, uh this third situation. So she then thinks, okay, because of this third child and this third set of DNA tests with a court witness, she says, maybe I can go back to the, all these lawyers that shot me down and maybe someone will be like, okay, this is actually interesting. Maybe there's a case here. So she got, starts knocking on the doors of more lawyers again. 21:38 to write. Okay, hey look, this just got more interesting. Look, they watched me give birth. Yeah, and they still what? Excuse me, ma'am. I don't think you're in a real court. I don't think this is an actual thing. 21:52 the whole thing was a set up a fake court. That's crazy. Yeah, we're going to assign Brian to watch you give birth to a baby. It's just his fantasy football punishment. You know, I'm talking about like he lost the league and so now his punishment is to watch someone give birth. All the other 11 guys in the league like 22:15 They're all the guy who won the guy who won is the judge and the jury is all the other guys. Yeah. And then the prosecuting attorney is the second place. The whole thing is just a giant fantasy football league. 22:32 crazy called the court house. The league name the league name. That's pretty hard. That goes pretty hard actually and then so they're sitting there. They're holding court and the loser has to watch a lady give birth. So they had to create this whole job. This crazy call a random mom and tell her that the DNA results say zero percent. Honestly, this makes as much sense as someone trying to scam welfare by having three. This is just as likely. 23:04 That's crazy. dude, fantasy football punishments are absurd. They're getting nuts. They're getting. Did we joke about that on the podcast before? I don't know. We talked about that. I don't know about how I've seen some ones that were great. Like they seem like, this is a good time. 23:20 the Waffle House one. I'm talking about that's a waffle house and then you can share our off, but yeah, yeah, that's a good time. I love that and then everybody in the league can come at different times during the day and mess with you and watch you suffer like that's fun, but there's other ones that are not fun. Yeah, the there was a guy that we met in San Francisco who told me that he wants his fancy full of Lake Parnes meant to be a stolen Valor Day where for a full day you have to 23:50 steal and it has to be convincing enough that people will go. Thank you for your service, but also just wrong enough that any serviceman can go yeah, but you can't break. You can't break. If someone says thank you for service, you have to go. You're welcome. That's really funny. That is a really funny. Oh no, this is my fantasy football punishment. It's stolen Valor day 24:19 That sounds like that sounds like the like the Wednesday of spirit week stolen. All right guys this week I know it's a lot going on. There's a big sale. There's a catering lunch um Tuesday's pajama day. 24:38 Thursday is Jennifer's dead in the parking lot. They Wednesday is stolen Valor Day. So I brought to us by student council. Yeah, idea creative idea. Yeah, well, we only went with it because that kid said he was a purple heart. So felt weird to say no to him. Weird to say no, you know, are you 25:01 hold on. I think I'm just now realizing that he's not a purple heart, purple heart. He just crashed in that accident last month and he said he's a purple. Okay, so anyway, that's okay. So that's the whole thing sounds so stupid. So did a lawyer take the case? Yeah, so she ends up finding a lawyer named Alan Tindal who says, yeah, I want it. I'll keep looking. Don't worry. 25:30 Oh yeah, I want in. Wow. This case is so worth it. 25:39 this case is my Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader, so worth it. If you don't listen to our show, some of these quotes are crazy about that, so he starts digging into how this could be possible. How could it be possible that she's coming up as a zero percent match when she clearly gave child gave gave a gave gave child of the birth? 26:03 Yeah, that's a hundred percent what I'm calling giving words from now on gave child to the world child. So he starts digging and he ends up coming across this woman named Karen Keegan, which I should have got you a picture of her. Hold on, give me a second. Let me get a picture of her. Okay, why don't you? While we do this, we said we were going to talk about 26:21 Subway in this episode. Perfect. Okay. So the reason that subway sucks now is the fact that Cisco and US foods have monopolized the food distribution system. So everywhere you go is the same food cooked just slightly different, right? So the mozzarella sticks that they serve at Chili's are the same mozzarella sticks. They serve a TGI Fridays, the chicken strips that you're ordering it at different places is the same chicken strips, right? And so they've made it so hard for restaurants to 26:49 uh source their food from local farmers or local produce or You are even like the distribution of like the people who make chicken because these giant monopolies in the food distribution system have Monopolized and become these gigantic things. They are only buying from certain suppliers Which means that the small chicken farmer, you know quote-unquote a smaller chicken farmer or a processing plant ends up going out of business because all the all the 27:19 the US foods and Cisco are buying from Tyson or buying from, you know, so it creates a system where competition can't exist, which is the whole purpose of capitalism. And if you believe in capitalism, you want it to be able to have different competing products that can compete for fair prices. But what ends up happening is these large conglomerate companies start taking over and then they control the price markets everywhere down. So that's why all their food in these fancy restaurants, fancy, because when I was growing up, Red Lobster was fancy, ah but that all the food in these restaurants and everywhere else, 27:49 One, tastes the same. Two, is worse now than it used to be. And is more expensive than it used to be. Yeah. Yeah, because that is that- Because they control all the levers. That's the one, like, guarantee of the stage of capitalism we're in, where everything will just continue to get worse and cost more. It's awesome. So, like, it's, for real, if you ever go to, like, what was that place, Oh Charlie's or whatever, and you're like, man, these chicken strips taste a lot like 54th Street. They are. 28:17 It's the same chicken strips. Yeah, the only thing that might be different is that the cook might have put them in a little bit longer. Yeah, or season them a little different and that's that's the only different sauce. Yeah, even the sauces. The sauces are all the same, but you might have a different flavor of sauce. Maybe a little bit different of a honey mustard. Wow, unless you go to pick them is because legally they're not allowed to use the same mayonnaise, but that's like 28:43 Dude, okay, so when looking at Subway, right? Because that's where I have the most knowledge from, is that they expanded so far so fast. They were trying to outnumber McDonald's. It was a weird, know, Fred DeLuca turned into a crazy person and was like, we gotta put more Subways. That's why they ended up with two street stores and a Walmart store in the same small town, right? Didn't make any sense. Yeah. But they just wanted as many stores as they could. But when you expand that fast, you have to then get a distributor who can handle that kind of thing. 29:11 And so what they did, like all their products, like we used to, I don't know which ones they still cut right now, but ah you know, all the produce there, used to, the only thing that we didn't know is our lettuce came in a bag. But everything else we cut there. We cut the tomatoes, we cut the onions, we cut the peppers, and you know. so the meats and the sauces and everything came from the same place that the other sandwiches, 29:41 The other sandwich stores got their stuff from as well. And it just, because you're trying to do it on a mass scale, you end up having to do it on a cheaper scale. Yeah. Which then makes the product worse. Yeah. Yeah. And you have to go to the same place that, the one place that offers But it also makes it that the small guy can't get in at a competitive price. When you go to a local sandwich shop and it's like, oh, it's double the price of Subway. Yeah. It's because same thing with like my, so, you know, if you're building a new house, the... 30:10 larger construction company can buy trusses for way cheaper because they buy a thousand of them. They're buying a thousand trusses. Yep. And then you get a bulk discount. But then if you're trying to build your own house on your own property, it's going to cost six times as much because you don't have that bulk discount. You don't need a thousand trusses. Yeah. You just need 999 trusses. So they made it so that you can't build your own home. 30:38 Yeah, you have to use that construction company. Otherwise you're paying six times the price. Yep. Anyway, that's our weekly crash out. Thanks for joining us right here, but that's what I was. I was really upset about it. Really? They think the last episode that stemmed from talking about how in the sweets like we have paid before like for an experience of like, oh, I've never done like a suite at an NFL game. That's crazy money. But even then, like you pay crazy money for some of these things and the quality is not 31:08 Good. Yeah. Like it's like, this is just chicken strips. Oh, like of the food that they have there. That's crazy. Really? When, and this was a long time ago, but, and, I didn't do it. My dad did it while I was in college, but he, someone at the church gave him tickets to the Colorado Rockies and it was like the top of the line ticket that they had. It wasn't a suite, but it was like, you had this separate entrance. There was like a presidential like diner or something like that. 31:36 and they had like special food that was all free and then they just you sat right behind home plate and they like had waiters that came out and he said the food was incredible and so what year was a while ago this was when we were in college so maybe it was different. I think I think honestly in the last ten years is when stuff started to really interesting huh anyway yeah yeah I mean I thought that when we were in Orlando like I don't think any of that food there was incredible at the Ritz like I don't think it was 32:05 crazy like it was good, but it wasn't better. It wasn't like oh, this is it wasn't what that numbed the price on those tickets. Oh for sure it was not that much better yeah, but that stuff's inflated anyway. I mean you know yeah anyway, but that was my that was my rant. Did you find a picture of Karen yeah? So here's Karen Keegan and her family ah and so this is a case. Can you guess which one's care? This is Karen and her three sons ah 32:35 This photo is probably late eighties, I would guess. OK, maybe early nineties. I don't know. m But Alan finds this case in Boston, a woman named Karen Keegan, who her liver was failing. And so she needed a transplant. And so she gets a DNA test and her two adult sons and her husband tested to see who she could um have be a donor for a new liver or not a kidney. Sorry, kidney. 33:04 um not a liver, a kidney. um What was strange in that test, her husband ended up being a positive match, so she was able to get a kidney from her husband. But what was strange was in that test, both of her sons came back as a 0 % DNA match to her. And the doctor was like, that's really weird. And so the doctor came and was like, hey, your kids are your husband's kids, but not yours. And she was like, that's strange because they're mine. 33:34 And she's like and the doctor was like, yeah, I believe you and she's like, that's really weird. She says, look, we're to work out this kidney thing for you and make sure you're healthy. And she's like, but you might if I dig around a little bit, find out what's going on with your DNA. And she's like, yeah, and that is not the way the doctor brought that to her. That's the way I was like, you might know, dig around a little bit. The doctor was like, I a question. You mind if I just like poke and prod and just kind of figure out what's going on with the care if I can to look into this? 34:04 the doctor was like. Would you mind if I did some medical research with you? Would you consent to some medical research? And so she was like sure as long as the same thing when you do improv. If you're going to touch anyone in the audience, you have to give verbal consent. 34:19 when you do improv, you gotta go. Can I you're like oh this per can I touch any verbal consent? Yes, it's the same thing when you're watching an ASMR haircut and the ASMR barber is like. Do you consent to me touching your hair before the haircut because every barber does that and you're like yeah and they the ASMR bar was wearing a hot dog costume. 34:40 drives me insane. If you're an as of artist out there, stop doing that. No barber asks that question. Every barber just assumes you're here. You're sitting in the chair. You're okay with me touching your hair. You care if I touch her. They don't even say you do care if I touch her. They say real quick before we can do consent to me touching your hair drives me crazy drives me insane. Yeah, I guess that didn't come up on my feet because ah 35:08 I as I don't watch that stuff on the internet. I don't watch it either. I just listen to it while I work. I actually I actually put it on my phone, put it in my ears, put on noise cancellation, so it's the best effect and then I turn my phone face down so I can't see it because it makes me uncomfortable to see it, but it helps me focus to hear it. 35:31 What are you doing? What are you doing right now? You're playing Blockbuster. It's not called Blockbuster. 35:42 I don't know you just want to talk about. don't want to talk about here. I don't want to think about it wasn't a bit. I was talking about it. Yes, I'm are okay. Anyways, so here's about this core. This case about Karen Keegan. 36:02 Sorry, is that blockbusting? You got some good blockbusts. m 36:08 So here's what the case about Karen Keegan. The doctor is like, can we research on you and she's like yeah, as long as I survive, like do whatever you want. She's like, if you can do anything short of killing me, no, she's like, if you save my life, you can do whatever you want. That's fair. That's fair. It's fair. And so she gets her kidney transplant. Her husband gives her a kidney and she continues the research and 36:34 They do all these DNA tests. constantly swapping her in. It's constantly coming back. Every test is coming back that she's a 0 % match with her children. They end up getting her third child, where her third child didn't qualify to do the kidney transplant because now they're doing this research. It's like, OK, yeah, we can test him for that. We're not going to take his kidney. But we're going to see if he matches you. He also doesn't match. And so this is very strange. So doctor's pointing through all these research documents trying to figure out what's going on. And she finds out about this case about a child in Texas. 37:02 ah And there is a doctor there who wrote a whole report about this case in Texas where this child was born with two complete sets of DNA. uh So much so that the child had a seam right down uh the center line of their body with two different skin tones. And we actually have a picture of this where there is a legitimate seam where the skin is different. uh And those were two completely different sets of DNA. 37:32 on each half of the child's body. And what this paper concluded was that this was a situation where that child, when the egg was fertilized and in that early stage, and there was the two zygotes, they merged and they fused and they grew as two complete separate sets of human DNA, but merged together. So kind of like a Siamese twin, but without the twin part. 38:01 And so was essentially twins that were stuck together. And so they went down that route to try to prove, is it possible that even though, what did I say her name was? Karen? Karen Keegan? Even though Karen didn't have like any evidence on the outside, like that child in Texas did, could it be possible that she is a similar situation where she is a fused twin that fused in the room and has two sets of DNA? Okay. 38:30 They spent months and months and months swabbing for DNA, finding DNA from different parts of her body until eventually they found, okay, she does. They ended up finding on her thyroid that almost 100 % of her thyroid was a completely different set of DNA. And upon digging deeper, what they were able to discover is that her entire body was peppered with two sets of DNA. But the frequency of what DNA was showing up in each cells was... 39:00 predominantly the set that came out in those first tests. Okay. The thyroid was the one place where it was predominantly the other set of DNA. And when they compared that DNA to her children, it was a hundred percent match that she was the mother. 39:16 Hey, if you love the show, a great way to serve support is by getting some merch. We got lots of great stuff. I'm going to showcase some of it right now. This is like our little tilling QVC. You can get a it's not a call. It's a podcast sweatshirt. Very sweet. The nice thing about this is no one knows what podcast you're talking about. So you wear it in public and you can tell them about your Lord and Savior to a podcast. We also got the this is one of my favorite things we've ever made. The fiddle off fest hoodie. It's got uh the devil. 39:45 playing a fiddle. It's not really the devil's a skeleton. And then all of the bands on the back of it like it's a festival. But spoiler alert, these aren't bands. These are jokes from episodes. So worth checking out. And this is one of my favorite things we've ever done. This is for the real fans. This is an old one. We've got a Tim Stones get well quick trick shirt. And it's very cool. We've got some really good designs. Darren is good at designing stuff. So support his dream. No one will hire him as a designer, but you can by buying his merch. 40:14 It's our merch, but it's his designs. so leave a comment, say, Jared, you're good at this. um We like your art. He really needs it. He needs your support so bad. Please make him feel better about it and buy some merch. It helps make this show keep happening. You can tell people about how much you love this show with it. So. 40:37 Did you hear it? Did you hear what I said? Yeah, you're going to do a two minute merch ad. wasn't a two minute merch ad. Oh, Jaren's a good designer. Go give him a high five. He can feel good about his art. 40:51 and then you're going to make them listen to two minutes of ads. We got to do all that and then it's going to be like back to school this fall like 41:02 I don't want to be. Well, hey, there's skippable ads. They're not skip. They are skippable. You got YouTube premium leave all this in that uh 41:16 And so what they concluded was that the DNA that was showing up predominantly in every other cell was the DNA of a twin that she had in the womb that merged. And in her case, it was in a situation where there was that thin line right down the middle on that split. was just completely like merged and there was little bits in every cell of DNA. Oh that's my twins thyroid and that's my twins, three kids. 41:45 And sometimes I have thoughts that are the twins. 41:51 Sometimes I think about my twins thoughts. Sometimes my twin has thoughts. 42:06 before. Sorry. And so as a part of that journey to get to that point before they got before they found the actual DNA in Karen, they tested extended family from Karen's family tree to see if there is any DNA that match. And they found that her children matched her mother. And so for them to match her mother, it had to either be they are Karen's child or one of Karen's siblings child. Karen only had a brother. And so they said it's probably not the case that 42:35 Karen's husband and brother had this these children probably the case that there's something strange going on with Karen's DNA. And so when Alan found this case he got all those documents together and he basically went to the court and requested that Lydia's extended family be tested to see if they were sure to the family line uh as well as they went to see if they could find some other set of tissue within Lydia that matched her children. 43:06 Um, and so they did all those tests with Lydia. They did all the tests with the extended family members. Uh, but the timing of it with where her court date was, they were not able to find out before the court date, uh, the results of her DNA tests. So she went into that court, court date, the genuinely not having an idea about what was going on. Um, and because she, her tests had not come back to her yet. Alan shows up to court, her, her lawyer, um, luckily. 43:35 with the data from the extended families DNA. Okay. And what those tests proved was that uh her mother was the grandmother of the children. And so that ended up being enough to prove to the courts that the children were Lydia's children, because that was, there was no sibling on record. uh It didn't end up coming out until weeks later when she got the results of the test that they did find a second set of DNA within Lydia. And so she was also had the same 44:04 She had the same thing. She had the same thing where she was probably merged with a twin. And the technical term for this is ah chimerism, which is named after the Greek creature, the chimera. Oh. ah Which this is like a Greek mythological creature, which is like a lion and a goat and a snake fused together. I mean, there's lots of iterations of this. This is the most common version in Greek mythology where two creatures have like their... 44:32 they didn't know that DNA, but yeah, where for those listening, it's a lion statue and then it's just got a goat head sticking out. It's literally side like its shoulder right out of its ribs. There's a goat head and then its tail is a snake is a snake. Yeah, like it has a normal tail and then the tip of the tail is the snake head. Yeah, yeah, pretty cool um and so they named this this condition after that it's a kind 44:58 chimerism. Okay, there is a actress who's got the same thing where she's got the line. This one just looks like a sunburn to me, but it is. She has two sets of DNA and says her and who is the actress looking at her. You don't know her. She's not famous. Oh, uh but she, she has the majority of her credits are going on things like the today show to talk about her chimerism and how it's difficult for her and person with 45:27 career. I guess I guess um what's interesting is this is still very new like we obviously like we couldn't find out that this was even possible until we could test DNA and it wasn't even possible. She did play uh Harvey Dent and the Batman movie, though no makeup needed. 45:47 to face. What's interesting is this. This is a very, very new field of study like we don't know a lot about it. There are two ways it happens and there's there's let me get the let me pull this up so I can get the technical. should do a whole episode on Siamese twins. Those things freak me out. There are that's not how I meant to say that I was trying to be in their people. 46:12 there are people and they freak me out. That's not how I meant to say that I meant to say it a different way. It came out very poorly. No, we should do an episode on the time. These twins because or like at least a couple of them, because like I just want to know the social lives of them like they some of them get married. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah and it's just like 46:41 You're made of honors right there. Yeah. Yeah. 46:45 that's uncomfortable. I'm now thinking about it too. Most of the Siamese twins that I've seen stories of my entire life are all female. They're always on TLC. Yes, but I are there male Siamese twins is Siamese twins. What we're supposed to call them. It feels like that's not what I call them right. I joined feels. I think conjoined is the word yeah. I think conjoined is what we're supposed to call them. I think you're right there are 47:13 I'm looking at a bunch of them on Google right now. 47:25 I'm looking at a bunch of them right now. 47:33 Yeah, there's dudes. I'm looking at a lot of them right now. 47:39 You 47:50 Oh my God, yeah, I'm looking at a lot of them right now. All right, where are they all joined it because they're joint like I joined at different spots. Yeah, because that's just how it happens. Yeah, yeah, that's so crazy. Yeah, and so essentially chimera ism is the same concept. What's the success rate of D joining conjoined twins? Well, I'm I probably not very much 48:18 because my understanding is like a lot of times they're sharing like their central organs right and so it's like they have like their nervous systems are separate, but their main organs are together. This is what I'm saying. We should do a long breakdown of how this stuff works because I'm very interested. It's interesting because this chimer ism is essentially uh the same conjoined twins thing, but it's happening much early in the pregnant much earlier in the pregnancy. Yeah to where when the child is born you you 48:47 usually can't tell is what they're finding. Like the tetragametic, think is tetra tetragametic or tetragemetic. I'm not sure exactly the pronunciation of that is where it's fusing. And there is a there is a word for it when they're when they get the split, where it's where it's a clear cut between the two. And I can't find the word for that. But there's a word for it where there's the two. So it's essentially 49:16 Two versions is there's a there's a clear cut between you where it's like this half is your twin. The other half is the other and it could be a split. It could be a side by side. There are cases too where it's like you can see this part of you is them. This part of you is them. This part of you is them. That's crazy. Yeah, it's nuts. I don't like saying them and then there's still you then then then there's the other situation where it's like Karen or Lydia where 49:45 You can't tell at all from outward appearances. It's just looking at a cellular level at your DNA. Yeah, look at the cells. There are portions of each cell that are one set of DNA and portions that are the other set of DNA and they're just mixed together like salt and pepper, eh which is crazy, crazy. ah What is really interesting about this research though is they are discovering well, I shouldn't say they're scaring. There is very early signs that 50:13 They believe that one in eight, as much as one in eight of people are this situation, which calls into question DNA test is a whole. Yeah. One in eight? Yeah. Because they know that there are a lot of situations where early in pregnancies, there are two embryos that, and it ends up one fails. And so they're starting to wonder how many of those are fusing in that early stage. And so we don't know for sure yet. 50:41 but there are these early estimates say that there could be as many as one in eight people are this situation, which does really like you never know now, like if that's true, it means one and eight of DNA tests could be wrong because that person's DNA is that calling a question DNA evidence then for crimes a hundred percent because you wouldn't know well because that would still match you though in theory because with the situation of Karen 51:11 if you took DNA from her thyroid and you took DNA from somewhere on her arm, those are going to two different sets of DNA. Yeah, but that would only help you get out of the crime. Well, they're not gonna that wouldn't be like a DNA match to pin you for a crime. Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's right. They can't pay, but yeah, you could get out of it. So would be pretty cool, but it did. It did get me thinking. 51:38 You guys are trying to get a DNA sample from me uh for a crime. Can you pull it from my thyroid? Can I choose how? Can I choose what DNA you take? Let me choose the DNA you get. Let me choose. No, let me choose. Let me choose. No, let me choose. Let me do it. Sorry, that is them talking. What? 52:06 I know I sorry my Twitter English twin thoughts the twin doesn't speak English the twin speaks his own they don't speak English. They made up their own language shut up about the see my night. The police like yeah I think they come into the crime. We don't need to do the DNA. That's the 52:36 criminal right there. That's a dog. all right. You're going to jail. I don't know for what, but we're going to put you away for something. You're gonna jail half of me. 52:51 that's also a conjoined twins. Yeah, I mean you were there yeah, but are you responsible? What's the whole time? No, he did it want to do this. He did it. I don't want to do this. I'm turning you in for this. He calls the cops. Hey, so this is going to be awkward. Hey Janus. Yeah, I know it's me again. Here's the thing. It's not me this time. I know 53:20 I mean I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm I'm powerless to stop it to be honest, but it was them. Can you imagine being with me? Yeah, yeah, we were robbed. He was super super kind, really generous, like really nice cut. It came into the conjoined twin was he was a co-joined twin. Only one of them was wearing a basket. Hey, put that away, put that away. 53:44 the twin, the toy is like chill like cop, bad cop situation. Wow, I don't know how insensitive this whole stuff is and I'll be honest. I don't really care. That's crazy. Anyways, so it got me thinking and I don't know if I should put this out on the internet for any would be criminals out there, but crisper is becoming a thing and what is crisper? Are you familiar? 54:13 the mattress company, not even close, not even close. Crisper is this company that is and it's an air fryer, not even close, kind of close. No, because there's a company that's doing the DNA modification and it's crazy. Do you not know about cation? Do you not know about crisper? Is this a thing where like you can choose the sex of your baby before way crazier? Okay, uh crisper. It looks like it honestly. I'm trying to think of how to describe it. Like it looks like kind of a crazy looking syringe. 54:43 and you can modify DNA from a living person and change their DNA um and like right now what they're capable of doing is very, very, very small modifications. Like what kind of modifications we talking about like they can come into your DNA and change like one line of your DNA code. Yeah, but for what end right now what they're researching it. So here's the thing CRISPR is not available to the public. There's a black market overseas that's doing CRISPR 55:12 um just for whatever reason, and they're doing some crazy stuff where they're like changing like actual physical appearance things with DNA. The okay in medicine though, what they're they're looking for genetic diseases and they're selecting out genetic diseases, but they're doing it and people who are already alive, they're just coming in, finding that genetic mutation and changing it uh with CRISPR technology. And it looks like a crazy syringe that that's what they're using for it for it is wild technology and 55:43 we're probably a decade away from it being like mass use, but like the research we're past the early research stage. Like we're kind of in the like get approved to use it on anybody stage. Okay, but we are. We're at the point now where the science is there. It's like yeah, this works. We can do this and now it's like, can we get the government to let us do this? And there's like what are, what are DNA altering diseases that any genetic disease? Okay. And so like Alzheimer's oh 56:13 Is that genetic? I don't know if it's isn't it is that genetic? I genuinely don't know. I don't know what I didn't. don't know what gen what diseases are genetic. That's I'm asking. You're the one that has a Google machine in front of you. Here's a list of genetic diseases from Google, certain types of cancer, Alzheimer's being a Red Sox fan, Huntington's Marfan syndrome, kidney disease, cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, 56:43 I this show more is not showing more, so that's all I got for you right now. Okay, but yeah, anything that's genetic, they can come in and select for that and and just remove it and you can while you're alive. But what's crazy is now the legal route that is happening in the actual medical community today is not doing like cosmetic stuff. The black market and overseas is doing cosmetic changes. They're changing eye colors or changing hair colors. 57:11 they're changing like while you're alive, you can change it yes how because because with this your cells are regenerating yes and so with this technology they come in and they literally will take that part of your genetic code and swap it with a different part of genetic code and it changes you and it's not like, but your cells have to die. They replaced and it's it's insane. I don't know about that since they what and that's the medical researchers are coming out and they're saying this is possible. They're like that's not what our here's what I think, but this is possible. Here's my take on that. I think 57:42 if I had the right coaches, the right nutrition, the right practice schedule and access to the CRISPR DNA changing, altering science. I'm not saying you could be as good or a starter. Even I'm saying I can make the league 58:02 I mean, yeah, if you could get CRISPR modification, yeah, you could for sure. No questions asked. But yeah, there's a lot of, the medical researchers are working really hard to get this approved and they're coming against like a lot of political pushback because of particularly in the religious community, they feel like it's like playing God. But there's people outside the religious community that are kind of. 58:25 being like, well, this is kind of like opening a Pandora's box because if you can modify anything, especially when you're alive, what happens, especially when you give that, if it's a medical thing that is a treatment, like of course it's going to go to the rich and the rich are going to use it and they're going to get ahead and there's going to widen the gap. So there's a lot of like, is incredible technology that could change a lot of lives and save a lot of lives and make a lot of people live better, healthier experiences. And there's the aspect of that that's amazing. And we should do that. 58:55 there's another aspect that is it's risky, ah but it's here and whether or not it happens is. mean it's one those things where it's like the rich have access to it anyway. If you're rich enough, you have access to it. You go overseas and do the black market thing for sure, because yeah, there's a huge black market market for it. Yeah, it's been around for a while. It's crazy. Maybe I should cover it. Well, I kind of covered all all. Maybe I haven't. I could look into it more. That's all I just joined twins episode. Okay, so anyways, 59:25 uh What I was saying was if you could get your hands on a CRISPR device, because they're black market devices anyways, you could modify your DNA. You could go commit a crime, modify your DNA, and then you're good. It wasn't me. Do the test. don't put that out there. 59:44 either. Yeah, so that there's another issue with CRISPR. It's crazy technology, but anyways, that's the story of Lydia Fair, Lydia Fairchild and how she came this close to losing her kids. If it wasn't for her finding this lawyer who was really interested in the case of doing a lot of work and honestly for Karen going like there's just there was just so many dominoes that were like so lucky honestly, because Karen like had she not had kidney failure and had a doctor 01:00:12 who saw that and was like I want to know more about that. Like if the doctor was just like that weird and then just did the procedure and just let it sit like there's so many things that had to fall in line for Lydia to be able to keep her kids and she was able to because of it. Wow and they're like a little bit younger than us her kids. Yeah. I mean her youngest kid was born in two thousand two. So yeah, the oldest kid older kids are probably only a couple years younger than us. So got to grow up with her mother because of happy for you guys. Yeah, if you're watching 01:00:43 I hope we didn't say what's crazy about your Lydia listens to the podcast, but only half of her likes it. I like this show. I love this show. Listen, listen to the funny guys. Oh, I love listen to this podcast. I'm so mad. You're listening to this right now. I hate this podcast so much fiddle off 01:01:11 Hey, thanks for checking out this episode. If you liked this one, you might like John R. Brinkley. It's another episode where there's a doctor who's doing some weird stuff. It's really worth the watch. And if you want to see next week's episode, you can see that right now over on Patreon. Our patrons get a lot of bonus perks, including seeing every episode a week early ad free. But we'll see you next week on another episode of Things I Learned Last Night.