CHAPTER TEN: The Reunion

Previously on Hello John Doe.

I would like to know who my dad is. I found out I potentially had another sister through the Brandenburg side, but they were all connected to the Brandenburg except me.

Philip, Steedhm and Patterson. You should have had your butt here because your sisters love you. He wants those answers. We're going to do everything we can and as a family to help him get those answers.

At this point, Steve still hadn't met Sandy, his biological mom, and he had no plans to, but he had met plenty of people related to Sandy. In our last chapter, the Brandenburg sisters wanted to accept him into their fold, even though DNA test showed they didn't share the same father. Now that Brandyburger's ruled out, Steve really wanted an answer to what man helped make him him. You want to find your father, right, or at least I know who he is, know who he is, at least find out. Yeah,

Child, I was more interested in learning about his biological family than he was.

For the last few decades, she's helped adoptees find their biological families.

I work in retail jewelry sales. I make my money and then I come home and this is my hobby.

I asked Carol to help me build out Stay's family tree on ancestry dot Com.

So like the strength of the DNA matches, if you have close matches and you're able to identify who these people are and to build out their family trees, you could solve this pretty quickly. What I mean by the strength of the DNA matches, the amount of DNA that two people share is measured in a unit called centim organs.

In general, the higher the cine morgan count, the closer the genetic link. This step can get real complicated, but basically you want to find where those numbers are The highest. So in Stave's case, Carol found a woman who shared five hundred fifty six cinem organs of DNA with him.

So the next thing I do is look at the matches and luis color five fifty six. We look at the matches that Stephen in five fifty six have in common, and I try to look for matches that have good sized public family trees that you can look at and analyze, and I try to see how people are interconnected. And what you want to do is find their most recent common ancestor. We want to try to find maybe a grandparent or great grandparent.

Then Carroll built private, unsearchable trees, plotting out DNA matches to see how people connect. Basically, that's how she pinpointed their most recent common ancestor, and I was.

Able to determine that five point fifty six is his first cousin once removed, so she is Stephen's father's first cousin. So she and Stephen's birth father share a set of grandparents. Now we need to figure out who the other set of grandparents is.

Based on this meticulous matching process, Carol identified State's paternal grandparents. They settle in Nevada, and they had one son.

In a nutshell, we have the only son of a married couple who come from two different areas of the country, and we have close and clear DNA connects to both sides of this couple's families. So that's what leads me to believe that Daniel is his birth father.

After her exhaustive search, Carol had a name, Daniel Polk. It felt like we'd found him, but I wanted to run His name passed Sandy, so I called her up and asked, did the name Polk sound familiar? And she confirmed that yes, she did remember a Dan Polk who she knew in Charlotte. She told me Dan was a car salesman, a very slick person. Steve would have been conceived around the summer of nineteen seventy three. Sandy tell me she didn't date him per se, but she did

I had in nineteen eighty Daniel would have been a newly win pretty much bring tumors or what it looks like, Yeah, bring tumor.

Yeah, very sad.

He was just thirty three and living in Texas when he died. He was buried at a cemetery in New Mexico. After all this time, I'd be able to tell Stavis father's name, but he'd never be able to ask him the questions he had, or to visit with him or see if they both sit in the same way or talk similarly. This isn't the first time Carol's digging help someone find the parent they were looking for, only to find that they were gone. It was too late.

I know firsthand what it's like to live without answers for many, many years, And you know, it's just important for people to know their origins.

You know, it just.

Gives people peace of mind, regardless of what the answers are. Just to have the answers and to know the truth is what gives people peace of mind.

After Carol filled me in, I needed to tell Steve. I called Stephen Janette in June of twenty twenty three, we have been into ancestry and we have you know, I did find Polk. Polk was a name.

The closest relative to you that I found in ancerstory was a Polk. Got a hold of Handy and I said, do you remember any Pokes?

And she did. I do believe it. Daniel James Polk. Where is he from?

Was he from North Carolina?

Yes, in the same area. She said that pretty Charlotte is in Charlotte and he.

Has passed away. He passed away in nineteen eighty. Oh wow.

Now, as of right now, unless something changes my mind, I believe that your last name would be Polk. And you have family there that we were stolen from too. They probably don't even know you exist.

Steve didn't say much on the phone that day. I can see why I told him his father was Daniel Polk at the end of a long phone call. The name of his father could only do so much in that moment. It didn't make him feel any more wanting. I've thought about this interactional lot. Like I said before, I'd been running ahead of Steve opening doors for him that he wasn't ready for. I wanted so desperately to help him move forward. I'd been pushing and maybe I'd

They was supposed to be a mini family reunion, but he didn't come.

Steve was a no show, but all of them were so excited to welcome him into their circle, so the three of.

Us decided racing in there at her tables at Andrea's house that we were going to go to him.

It could be a little road trip, and they invited me to come along again. This second reunion came together real fast, late summer. In a matter of days, Andrew and I were talking about driving there in the same car from Tennessee to Steve's hometown, Cherville, North Carolina. Amy and her husband Mike were going to meet us there. They didn't want to give Steve a chance to back out or make an excuse, so they forged ahead.

He didn't know we were coming. We knew if we told him, he probably would have said he had to work or something. We kind of just sprung in on him.

I get where Amy's coming from. She and her brother had an amazing connection when they first met, but after that he seemed distant. Amy wanted to continue spending time with her new found family, but it's hard to contain surprises at this scale. Mary, Steve's adoptive mom, soon found out that the sisters were coming to Cherryville to see Steve, and she didn't think he'd appreciate them just dropping in, so she told him. That's the first time things got tense.

To Our original plan was Toy was gonna message you and say, hey, I just came in to Charlotte. I'm gonna be in you know, he's Mountain or Shelby. You know, I want to see you. Can you come over to the hotel and hang out here?

And then we were surprised and that was our original plan.

It's just been over two years.

Yeah, that's one thing my mong little teaching secret for me. I promise you that I can't.

There were nothing.

She asked me if I was working sad and I said no.

I said what you need?

She said, I mean stuff done around the house?

What you done?

Right?

She said, I can't.

Down.

The next text said was five minutes later. She said, you know I keep everybody.

I'm kind and glad. She told us it wouldn't be too much of the shop. We wanted to surprise you, but we didn't want it to blindside you, but it would be another surprise that we'd end up unrappling some of the goodwill between Steve's new sisters and his mom and girlfriend. Steve, his sisters, and I gathered at the hotel not too far from his house. The hotel wasn't fancy. It was the kind where each room opens up into the parking lot. We all got separate rooms, but we

Okay, you have another surprise.

It's your choice.

Sanity came with you.

She's in the race.

If you don't want to see her, that's fine with all of us.

Steve's mother, who gave him up for adoption fifty years ago, who had only messaged on Facebook, was suddenly a room away. Sandy had tagged along an Amy in MIT's car. Now she was sitting in her own hotel room at the same quality inn. I couldn't believe we had arrived at this point. A mother and son torn apart by Floyd might be reunited today if Steve would agree to see her. We're here with you, Stephen.

I think you will open your cart. Both of you need.

We didn't want Jerry Springery, but both of you need because you weren't going to.

Go and there's no hold of faults. If you want to yell out of yell, yell.

At her, he said, I ain't gonna yell at her.

We're just saying, you do what you want.

If this last three years been through fucking rough on it, so don't feel like you're strained. You can't ask or anything, because everything is open right now for all of us, and you don't have to worry about it.

We got you.

Are you okay with that?

If you're not, tell us.

Be honest with us, he said, it's fine. Steve seemed really laid back in this moment. He was sitting having a drink, seemingly going along with the flow.

I'm not serious. I want to help you so you could process this whole thing.

She understood before we went that if he didn't want to see her, we weren't going to force her on him, you know, So she came prepared to stay in the hotel room by herself, without seeing him.

Steve got to choose, you can hear us ask him, But his choice is made in the matter of a few minutes, with Sandy sitting in the other room. If he had known this was the weekend he'd meet Sandy, his girlfriend or his mom would have been by his sight, but that day he didn't have either of them to lean up. I'll let Amy tell you what happened next.

Before we brought her in, we asked Steven if he wanted to see her, and he said yes. So we took Sandy and she was in the hotel room, and then we asked and he said, sure, bring her over.

I said, just rip the band it.

Off and brought her in the room. And some people were mad at me because I did it that way.

The thinking was that Sandy wouldn't live forever. She was already in her seventies, and that Steve had real questions about his background that only she might be able to answer. I figured if we all got behind him and supported him, maybe this was the right time to meet Sandy. They willed Sandy into Andrea's room, where we were all gathered. She looked a little nervous and a little tired, like she had been traveling all day and it had been

They just said hello. There wasn't no big, happy like happy reunion hung each other.

Based on all the time that I'd spent with both Steve and Sandy separately, I knew Steve had hesitations about meeting her, and I knew Sandy was reluctant to push too much. For the rest of the afternoon, we all sat in the hotel room together. Steve said, with Sandy knee to knee, him in a hotel chair, and her and her wheelchair. The rest of us hung around the room. Some went in and out to smoke cigarettes, some poor drinks. Everyone cracked jokes and exchanged stories about the car ride there.

Were you scared of him?

Steve asked if she was scared of Floyd, the man who tore them apart.

Terrafied, who had a knife with him all the time, a knife under the pillow, knife and guns. One time, the girls a lot in the thing and he was in the kitchen. He caught us for us somewhere When you said, if any of you ever tried to believe I'm gonna skin you just like this squirrel.

We've heard this story before, how Floyd threatened to skin Sandy and her girls like squirrels. But this was the first time that Steve had hurt. It was he starting to say that Sandy was a victim too.

I was arrested for raining at dollars seventy eight check at seven eleven for diapers for eighty. I mean, the biggest part of it was after the tornado and after you were born. Fema put us back in a trailer in church and I had no car, no way to get out, and every time the storm came. Annie was two, she would freak out. I would freak out, and I guess and now they call it chu ksd And there was no help. I asked the mask and asked for help, and ever.

Because you'd say the system failed her, yes, one.

Yes, How does that make you feel?

Don't I would be happy.

I think everyone wanted to make him feel validated, But in hindsight, we didn't give him a whole lot of space to just sit with this.

It's a lot to process. I'm not gonna lie when I found out about it, you know, I still have the messages. I said, they tell me your up. I was like, is that true? And he was like, yeah, I think I am sobby. It's a lot to process, a lot, it is.

Throughout the story, I'd learned something from say Sandy, and then relay it back to Steve, and Steve would say something and I'd tell Sandy I was the carrier pigeon. I'd been a buffer for both of them, but now I needed to step away and give them a chance to talk to each other. If Steve had questions, this was his chance to ask Sandy directly. Every time I looked over to see Sandy talking to Steve, I thought to myself. Fifty years ago, Franklin Floyd told Sandy should

I take to Steve, I said you okay, He said, Mama, get down here.

Mary had no idea that Sandy was at the hotel. She thought, just as sisters had come. She was already on the fence about that. So when she realized Sandy herself was face to face with Steve. Well, Mary was angry.

Steve was ambushed with this, and it's not very nice for them to do that. Why I went down there, and the first thing he said when I went into the room was this is my mama, and I love her.

Steve was proudly introducing her, but I think something else was going on. He wanted the whole room to know that Mary was the one who had been there for him his whole life. Or maybe after Mary arrived he felt guilty after unexpectedly spending the whole day with Sandy. I wasn't sure Amy noticed a ship too.

His whole attitude changed because before Mary got there, he was talking to Sandy and asking her questions and she was answering for him, and he seemed to be a little more relaxed. But then when Mary got there, they say he just Withdrew.

Jeanette came to the hotel after work too. She seemed a little quiet, but I figured she was just in shock. We tried to light in the move by going out to eat together. We all went, the sisters plus Sandy, Jeanette and Steve. We all sat at a big long table at a Mexican joint in town.

When we went to dinner, it was comical as hell. We all would just laughed so much, all being silly. Oh we had a blah.

But by this point something was a miss. Mary would later say that she was upset Sandy had come without telling Steve first. I had a hard time seeing it clearly. Just then that day, I was only thinking about the potential positives of having Steve been able to sit down with Sandy, not the blowback it might have. I'd grown tired of Steve not wanting to move forward on his journey, not walking through the doors I'd helped open for him.

She's like, you know, I'll have to pick up the pieces stand that, but we're your tea, you know. We We've got his bag, we'll help. We're a phone call away, we're a text message away.

We'll talk to you.

Because if he did have any more questions, she is the only person that could answer them.

That Saturday, Steve had to run a few errands, so we knew we wouldn't be seeing him until later. That mostly left Sandy, Amy and Andrew alone with me, so we went out to lunch. How did you be last night?

We went talking pretty good for a while, help wonderful, and he called me Mama last night. I told him I looked for him in every way that I knew how at the time, and found nothing.

And he said, oh.

And then then Mary said that they had done away with the birth certificate when she adopted him. And then he said, oh, I see. And that was the end of that, and then everybody else came back in. We stopped talking like that. I think it answered a question for it, but I think in the back of his mind, and I guess if I were in his position, i'd feel the same way that I didn't.

Look hard enough.

After fifty years.

Strange, but good.

Of all the people in the room with Steve that weekend. It seemed like Sandy could empathize with Steve the most.

He's more fragile than I am, so I need to let him do it in his time, in his way.

Sandy remained clear headed about the whole thing. She knew this might be hard on him. She didn't always want to surprise Steven Cherville or think it was the right thing to do. Amy encouraged her to go. Sandy had already lost one kid. Amy wanted her to have the opportunity to know her son.

I told her at first, I said, no, I'm not going, and she said, if I should drag you out of the house, you're going.

Go too.

Because I told her that I didn't feel like she.

Observed to see him.

I think you did, though I think I do now, but I'm sort of like Steven that I don't like to intrude.

Sandy had already processed Steve coming back in her life before she even showed up this weekend, but Steve was still processing. She knew she didn't have a right to know him if he didn't want her. She recognized that boundary, but Steve's sister Amy wanted peace in the family. She thought bringing everyone together would help them move through things. Amy was trying to get Steve to see for himself that he wasn't abandoned or discarded. What happened was for

And I understand why she's mad, because she is the one that has to deal with him after everybody's gone. But I wish she would take a minute to realize all of this needed to hack. We need to close the story. We need the story to have an Endie, and I expect him to not talk to me for a long time.

This is kind of a remarkable bit of insight. Amy knews surprising her brother with her Mom had pushed her brother away, but still hoped he had come back on his own sometime in the future. Sandy I also recognized this might be the only time she ever sees Steve.

He's not at peace and it's not going to be closure until he's at peace. So I would love to have a relationship with him, but if that's not what he wants, I'm not going to push it on. To know that he's alive and that we found him and that I've seen him, and if that's.

All, I've got this all like that.

After that weekend, it took a long time to get married to call me back. She ended up talking to my producer, Kate.

Well. I was told who his sister was coming, and that was his and a friend from up Tennessee.

Mary, for her part, said Steve felt blindsiding and maybe ganged up on.

They could have been honest, but they want they will awful whip him. And if it had told me his mama was coming, then it might have been different.

To this day, Mary Sam Sandy wants something from Steve.

She's trying to play Steve on a pity card, but he's smarter than that.

Look, it could be that Steve has just been polite that day in the hotel, showing Sandy pictures and talking to her. Maybe you didn't want to offend her, so he stayed put to hear her out. Even if he had lost faith in her, But it could be that Mary was the one having a hard time dealing with Sandy coming back into the picture. Amy thinks Steve's deferential to Mary that he felt he didn't want to disappoint her by knowing Sandy. There's a lot of complicated dynamics.

Sarah, I think he was afraid to let Mary know that he wanted Enginette to know that he wanted to meet, or like there was something wrong with that. It's almost like he doesn't doesn't want to hurt her feelings. I don't know. I can't get a read on it. Steven needed to know and Sandy needed to know that even though it was a shitty decision that she made to give him to Mary, it saved his life.

The circumstances of Steve's life, even the one no one remembers, ensured he survived.

Now. He hugged her both days. Friday before when we were leaving, he hugged her, and Saturday before he left, he hugged her and he called her mom. Andy, you teared up and said that he called me mom. That's when I knew what I had done was right.

But there's something I keep coming back to if there is a part of this family story that is black and white. It's this Franklin Floyd did a world of damage that persists to this day. He took away a.

Lot, and we're finding what he didn't get his hands on, and we're trying to put it back together. And that's all that matters.

Every single person this story is experiencing the ripple effects of their family being torn apart and dealing with their own struggles. It's like that saying hurt people, hurt people and bringing a family together is sim not enough to bring closure to tragedy. Franklin Floyd robbed this family of a lot. He took Susie from them, and then he took Michael. He forcing into a situation in which she felt she had to give up her son.

You know, we will survived, We have survived, and we'll just keep growing from here, she hoped so.

And I do too. After that weekend, my conversations with Steve and Jeanette Dwindle, I don't think Steve was necessarily cutting me out. I just figured he retreated from everyone. Then several months later, my producer Kate tried Mary one last time, and she picked up I was glad she picked up. I was worried about how the reunion hit Steve, and I was anxious to hear how he was faring. Mary said. The months after the reunion had been tough.

He has not been the same and he's not happy. He did not want to meet her and it was forced on him.

What does us say about all this?

He won't talk about it. He didn't want no more said about it. We're trying to let it die, just let it die down, and he's trying to avoid Tod to real. Yeah, he he'll answer him shortly, but he wants He won't call you on a conversations to God.

Todd cares about him.

I know that. But you know, the more you stir my parents talk, made more you stir shit the worsest thinks. And he doesn't tell me, he said mom, And she might give life to me, but she won't answer tell me the truth on questions. It's like one time you lie to me, shame on you. Second time's shame on me. They won't be a third time.

What is she worried about?

You know, she didn't know who he did he was, and she didn't remember all lis She remembers all Lias, it's just a pedetoria.

Has he talked about therapy aal like with that help.

He wouldn't he thought my husband he wouldn't go to they.

The reasoning I wanted to ask you, So I just I just want to run this by you. Sandy to me, seems pretty unrecognizable. She seems like she watches out for her grandkids, and she cares for her kids, and that she's she's a better mom than she used to be. And I wonder if you believe that she's changed.

I don't know. I'm not a random A lot on that.

She got settled down, she married for thirty years, had more kids, and now has you know, grandkids and his great grandkids, and they say that she's.

Changed, Well, it's about the bomb.

Do you think people can change?

Ye talked they walk so God, Bob, if you're willing.

Do you think you regrets starting on all this knowing that his real name and knowing about Tindy and knowing of us, so we ain't unhappy about that.

I don't think I think he will calm down eventually, maybe ten fifteen years from now he might reach out to him, but I doubt it.

Three years ago Steve asked me to find out more about his origin story. We ended up on the journey together, but neither of us knew just what we were getting into. Kate asked Steve's sister Amy about my role here.

It's like he's been digging in and searching, and he brought Steve to the rest of us. You know, he's the one that's been fighting as you'd have thought, he was the parent that lost their traps time ago. You just thought he was Sandy. Surely he's family.

Knowing what I know now, should I have done this? I think the answer is yes, if you ask me, I think the reunion is the only thing to do. But I wish i'd realized center that Steve needed more time to process. Not the months I gave him, but years. And like I've said, I have my own journey to Steve's story. I first heard about him twenty years ago, long before I knew Amy or Sandy or even Steve himself. I said this in the beginning. This case chose me. The way I see it, Steve and I are still

Remember how I told you at the end of the story we'd see things in a different light. Just as we'd finished this episode, Todd Matthews died suddenly. He's now on the other side of the veil between life and death. He spent so much of his life thinking about the dead and hoping one day to reunite with the siblings he lost, But his sudden passing has left us. All morning, I keep thinking about all the things he said during this journey that now have deeper meanings since he's gone.

Side now, and who's to say that he might leave a little tidbit of information here, little clues you don't know that you know. Do I believe in God? Yes I do. Do I believe in Todd?

Yes I do. Hello. John Doe is an 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 to last. Lindsey Moreno is the executive producer. Our producing partner is Neo on Hume Media. It was written and produced by Kate Michigan. Our editor is Catherine Saint Louis. She is also ne on Home Media's executive editor.