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[serene music playing]
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[Peggy Phillips] When I was four or five,
my mother and dad got me a puzzle...
and I was not able to get the puzzle to fit.
So I snuck off and got my mother's scissors...
I cut the pieces to make them fit.
I never liked things
that went zigzag in my mind.
I wanted everything to fit even if I had to make it fit.
And I think that was the beginning of the story of my life.
I always tried to make it fit.
[woman 1] Peggy Phillips stands by her baby's grave.
[low tempo music playing]
35 years ago she had a baby girl out of wedlock,
a baby she says her parents didn't want her to keep.
Peggy gave birth here at Chattanooga's Memorial Hospital.
Doctors told Peggy the baby died days after she was born.
But Peggy says before her mother died, she told her the truth.
She told me that the baby had been adopted out.
So then, of course, I wondered, well, what's in the grave?
[Zach Marion] A few years ago I discovered Peggy's story
while doing research for another project.
It came to me in the form of a short online article from 1997.
Like many people, I have questions about a family tragedy in my past that trouble me,
but none loomed so large as to cast a shadow over my entire life.
Peggy's longing struck me as an intriguing premise for a documentary
and a potential opportunity to help another human being.
I wrote her a letter...
and three days later she called me.
It was the beginning of an unlikely friendship
formed to unravel a mystery nearly 60 years in the making.
[low tempo music playing]
Okay.
-Hey. -Hey.
-How are you? -I'm fine.
-Can we come in? -Sure.
All right.
I think what we'll, what we might do
is maybe we'll bring in a few little pieces of equipment.
-[Peggy] Okay. -[Zach] And then we can pick a spot
-and then we can sit and talk for a little while. -[Peggy] Okay.
-[Zach] Does that sound good? -[Peggy] That sounds okay.
[Zach] Okay.
[serene music playing]
When I was 19, my sister-in-law brought these guys over
and... Bob was not one of them
that was to be considered...
but he decided to impress me by walking on his hands
down the sidewalk.
I never thought about him being married.
That never entered my mind.
He told me that they were getting divorced,
that she had left him.
So we started dating each other.
He did have one other habit I wasn't happy about,
he did drink.
This one night he fooled me and he was pretty high...
and...
that's when...
that happened.
[crying]
[cries]
[Peggy] After that I didn't see him.
I talked to other girls
and they told me the first time that you probably won't get pregnant.
But I did.
I was 19, but I was 19 going on 13.
Right here is the little house.
I was 15 when we first moved here.
There wasn't anything but a barn.
I left and went to my aunt's because I knew my dad had a quick temper.
And with me being pregnant,
I didn't want him to get mad and hit out at me.
I remember when I was pregnant
that mother would take the chairs
and take them behind the house when I was here.
She didn't want the neighbors to know it.
Dad told me that...
if I agreed to have the baby put up for adoption that I could come back home.
And I told him no.
I never intended to do that.
And you know after that it never felt back home again.
Never did.
So I stayed with my aunt...
and her daughter.
[Zach Marion] Jewel, tell me about your house. How long have you lived here?
-How long have I lived here? -Mm-hmm.
Before he was born. How old are you, Doug?
67.
I've been here about 80 years.
[Zach Marion] So we're actually in the room where Peggy stayed when she was pregnant?
[Doug Scott] Right. When Peggy was here, I was 12 years old.
At first I kind of thought like what's this person doing here, you know, or why is she here.
And nobody really said.
She just said it was just that she's gonna be staying with us for a while.
[Peggy Phillips] When I was six months pregnant,
I had my first visit with Dr. Thomas Monroe.
After the exam, he told us to go into his office
and he had papers there for me to sign...
to give my baby away.
I told him I never intended to give my baby away.
And he said, "Well, you know your baby will be called a bastard, don't you?"
And I remember saying they can call me what they want to,
but they won't be able to call my baby a bastard.
[Zach Marion] One of the things that Peggy told me was when she first met with your father,
he... he strongly encouraged her to give her child up for adoption
saying that she didn't want to keep this child because it would be a bastard
and, you know, would have a stigma against it.
Could you see your dad saying something like that?
Yes, I could see him saying that very forcefully
and... and really putting pressure on... on her.
He... he would think that would be completely best.
He believed that and... and there was something to that in 1962.
I was surprised
I had never heard of a doctor
trying to push an adoption on someone.
It might have been because my dad was connected to other OB/GYNs
and OB/GYNs in those days would facilitate private adoptions,
that they would do that sort of thing.
It might have been that he had access
to that kind of secondary adoption agency
or adoption trail.
[Peggy Phillips] I went into labor about two weeks
from being time for me to have the baby.
So I called mother and told her.
She said, "Well, we'll be over to get you."
But my dad left that night.
He said that he couldn't stay under the same house
with a whore.
Correct.
He was concerned about the people he worked with finding out.
There was so much shame about having a child when you weren't married
was just totally different than it is today.
At that time Memorial Hospital would not allow a single woman
to go into their hospital and have a baby.
They had a paper there
that they needed me to sign
saying that I could go into the hospital under Bob's name.
It wasn't really that bad of a labor.
I mean, it was 13 hours and me, I was scared.
I... I had a feeling that something wasn't going to be right.
When they got me in there to the delivery room,
I said there's no need in giving me anything to knock me out...
and they did it anyway.
[dramatic music playing]
When I woke up, my mother and my cousin were there
and said that they got to hold the baby
and the baby had all its fingers and its little toes
and it was okay.
I was there.
Yeah, how'd you get there?
I guess somebody took me.
-I guess somebody... somebody had to take me... -Well, of course.
...because I couldn't drive back then.
-Do you remember who took you? -I don't know.
-Did Gary take you or... -But I know I stayed down there.
I stayed with her until she had the baby.
-Right. -And the baby was fine.
And I didn't... they wouldn't let me see the baby.
[Zach Marion] Do you remember being in the room when it was born?
No. I asked her about that earlier.
No, she wasn't in the room.
So... and she just never really saw the child, you know.
Uh, she wants to think that she did, how's that,
uh, and she wants to believe that she did, uh, but, no, she didn't ever see the child.
My OB/GYN came in...
and he said that, "I guess you know your baby was a stillborn."
And I was trying to tell him, "No, she's okay now."
"Did you try to do away with her?"
"Did you take something?"
"No. Well, she's deformed, so you don't want to see her."
There was an ashtray sitting there by the bed.
I picked it up, threw it at him.
He went running down to the nurse's station
and ordered me a sedative.
Ten minutes after that Dr. Brackett, who was the family doctor, comes in...
and he was asking me, "Why are you pitching a fit?"
"Why are you throwing out ashtrays at doctors?"
I told him and he said, "Your baby's not dead."
"I just come from your baby."
"Your baby's not deformed."
And he called and told him to get him a wheelchair up there.
He put me in a wheelchair and wheeled me up to the nursery.
I was pretty well out of it,
but I can remember them holding a baby up for me to see.
There was no IV on her, there was no oxygen.
Nothing that you would put on a baby that was seriously ill.
[baby crying]
When I woke up the next morning at about 6:00,
this other doctor come in, Dr. Perrin,
a specialist and said that she had just died.
And I did look him in the eye and I said, "Are you sure?"
And he said, "Yes, I'm sure."
[Zach Marion] Peggy shared with me the birth certificate
and death certificate for her daughter who she named Darlene.
On the certificate of death, the cause listed is primary atelectasis,
which is the failure of lungs to fully expand at birth.
Also listed is a congenital heart deformity.
Is there anything about these documents that make you question their authenticity?
The name was spelt different.
On the birth certificate her name was D-A-R-L-E-N-E,
and on the death certificate it was D-A-R-L-I-N-E .
There is no mistake that can be made on a death certificate.
I know that from experience.
I worked for a pulmonary specialist for two years
and I would prepare the death certificates
and all he did was sign the bottom of it.
So I realized it wasn't that hard
to get a death certificate done.
[Doug] Well, now wait a minute.
One minute you say you saw the baby, an hour later you didn't see the baby.
I did. I saw the baby.
-See what I'm saying? -And then they said it died.
They wouldn't let me see her and they wouldn't let me go to the funeral.
Every time I would request it, I got another pill stuck in my mouth.
[Zach] There was a funeral for the baby.
-At that time. -At that time.
Yeah. See, we don't know anything about that.
-We never... -So you don't remember a funeral?
I don't even know. I wasn't driving or anything back then.
-They brought the baby into the room. -Yes, they did.
-And the baby was alive then? -Yes.
Baby was alive then.
So it died that night or the next day
or whatever in your opinion or the way you remember it.
-Well, they... -Or that's what was told to you.
And... and that was what we did, yeah.
That's important, I know now that ended it right there.
[Peggy] I called my aunt from work
because I couldn't mention anything about the baby in my parents' house.
She told me to quit crying.
She said, "Peggy, your baby's not dead."
"Charles Byles adopted your baby."
I went and faced my parents
and asked them if that was what had happened.
They said, "No, it wasn't."
So again, I believed my parents.
[Zach] Dr. Byles passed away in 2007.
He spent most of his life working in Chattanooga as a veterinarian
where he co-founded what is now known as the Shallowford Animal Hospital.
Dr. Byles had one daughter, an adopted child named Catherine Suzanne Smith.
Peggy keeps this newspaper clipping of Chattanooga's most wanted.
Catherine Suzanne Smith, who Peggy refers to as Suzanne,
was born six months to the day that Peggy's baby was born.
[Peggy] I entered school to become a dental assistant....
graduated and that's when I met my husband.
The next few years I was having trouble trying to get pregnant.
I was getting pregnant but I was miscarrying.
They had to do surgery.
My dad [inaudible] once told me,
he said for a certain amount of money I can get you a baby,
you don't have to go through that.
I said, "What do you mean you can get me a baby?"
He says, "I know some people."
And it went through my mind then
if you can get me a baby, you could get rid of my baby.
[Zach] Did you suspect that when your dad told you that he could get you a baby
that there might be some kind of operation going on or...
Yeah, I did think that. In fact, I knew that.
This next story will blow your mind.
With the help of a DNA test, a mother and daughter just met for the first time
after nearly 70 years.
Tonight in Georgia there are still hundreds of people looking for answers.
Tonight's story is about babies right here in the United States in Memphis, Tennessee.
Certain members of my family...
was...
doing...
-Black market. -Black market babies.
...black market babies.
Infants and young children are stolen and sold by underground baby selling rings.
I know you all find this hard to believe but it really is going on in America.
Some of the girls was very poor.
It... I mean, they really had nothing.
Mostly women who were poor or uneducated and so couldn't fight back.
And they would pay them a thousand dollars.
Up to thousands of dollars.
For the baby.
I just feel like that... that I'm a black market baby until I know better.
Beyond your father, did you ever hear about a baby ring from anybody else?
Only from my first cousin, Margaret.
She had heard about me having so many miscarriages.
I don't remember her exact words but it was,
"I know how to get you a baby."
She seemed proud of the fact.
My name is Zach Marion.
I'm a filmmaker working on a documentary.
Did your parents ever have any involvement with a baby trading ring or anything like that?
No, not that I know of. I've never heard anything.
-They never mentioned that they were-- -No.
Never mentioned it.
Do you think that something like that could be true?
Knowing my mom and dad, no, I don't think so.
My daughter could never find me.
But she's here today. Meet your daughter. Jackie, come on out.
[applause]
In a lifetime of wanting this, wishing that I could find my mother.
[indistinct chatter]
[woman 2] It's okay.
[Zach] So your dad offers to get you a baby, and then what do you decide to do?
I wanted a baby so bad
even though I knew that that had to be wrong...
I decided I would do it.
For three or four months I was happy,
I was buying baby clothes.
I didn't notice but I was pregnant.
[serene music playing]
[Peggy] For a long time it was normal home.
Having my son did help me to forget but not completely.
It never completely went out of my mind about the first baby.
[Zach Marion] Tell me the events leading up to your mother's passing.
After she fell and broke her hip, she just seemingly gave up.
She just would not eat.
She got to where she wouldn't get up, didn't want to walk.
This is from my diary.
"I heard nothing until mom entered the hospital.
She went into a coma on December 10, 1994.
The doctor said she wouldn't come out of it.
He expected her to die before morning.
But God had other plans.
She came out of the coma the next afternoon."
And that's when she said you're doing this
just because of what Claude did to your daughter.
She told me that she tried to get dad not to do what he did with my baby.
"But then she turned on me and said it was my fault
because I made him do it by getting pregnant."
I said, "How did you do that, mother, I never did sign adoption papers?"
And she said, "Your daddy signed your name, said you'd never know the difference."
I asked her, I said, "Well, who... who was it?
Who had her?"
And she said, "When I get out of here, I'll take you to her."
She rolled over in the bed and went into a coma.
She never did come out of it.
♪ Happy birthday to you
♪ Happy birthday, dear Peggy
♪ Happy birthday to you
Thank y'all.
[blowing]
Whooo!
Well done.
-Did you make a wish? -Mm-hmm.
Don't tell anybody.
You're not supposed to tell it.
I got this attorney to represent me.
[Zach Marion] Just first say your first and last name and spell it.
It's Doug Cox. D-O-U-G C-O-X.
I'm a lawyer and I've been practicing since 1987.
When I first heard the story, it was strange enough that I thought this could be true.
Her mother on her deathbed had told her
that the child had actually survived and had been adopted by Dr. Byles,
which was up the street from, or up the road from where they lived.
I think they actually knew each other.
And I felt like Miss Phillips, she needed some closure to this issue.
[Peggy Phillips] Then I called Doug Cox and asked him if he would slip an appointment for me
and the Byles to meet.
I decided that maybe they would just come on out
and tell me the truth
and tell me how they got her and so forth.
When Charles and Dorothy Byles came in,
I said, "Well, I guess you have heard of me."
And he said, "No."
I said, "Well, I think you have my baby."
"No."
And so I knew it wasn't gonna be no truth meeting.
And he got very angry
when he found out I had his daughter's birth certificate.
Yeah.
[Zach] This is Suzanne's actual birth certificate.
[Peggy] Mm-hmm.
[Zach] How did you get the hospital to give this to you?
[Peggy] At that time I worked in medical records.
From the birth of Miss Phillips' child to the adoption was a six month period,
which was fairly close for an adoption.
Charles Byles asked my attorney,
"Does she have enough evidence to sue me?"
Doug Cox said, "No, she don't have enough evidence now."
He said, "Well, then if she don't have enough evidence to prove this case,
then I'm wronged," and he got up and left.
And while he was gone, his wife had pictures
and she was showing me pictures and telling me about them,
what kind of baby Suzanne was and asked me then,
"Would you like to have some of the pictures?"
And I thought you just told me that...
that couldn't be my baby,
why are you doing this?
That's automatic to me but you knew that it wasn't right.
When Peggy's daughter was born,
um, I was probably in the second grade but my aunts always discussed it.
They always said that her daughter was adopted out, or didn't die.
They've always said that. My whole life I've heard it.
And so one day I went to see Peggy and she started talking about it
and it kind of angered me because I find people for hobby.
So I thought, "Well, I'm sure I can find Suzanne."
[Peggy Phillips] My cousin said,
"Well, there's a woman that lives up the street here by the name of Suzanne."
Suzanne lived on a street where my daughter's friend's grandmother lived there forever.
So her friend's grandmother remembered Suzanne and growing up.
She went up there and knocked on the door and Suzanne's husband come to the door.
And so he took my number and called the detention center
and Suzanne called me that night.
Her words was, "I've... I've heard that you've been hunting me."
And I remember, I said, "I think I've been hunting you all my life."
Hey, Suzanne, it's Zach.
I'm up at, uh, at Hardee's.
Do you think you can make it up here?
-[laughs] -Oh, no?
Um...
Okay.
Hey.
We're just, uh, we're sitting at the bottom of the driveway.
All right, hang on.
I try to keep my distance from people because I don't want to harm them with my drug addiction
and, you know, [inaudible], I'm... I've been dried out and then bang, back.
[woman 3] A search for the truth brought Peggy here
to the Tennessee Prison for Women in Nashville.
Behind the security guards and the wire fence
Suzanne Smith walks the hallways.
All I've been told about my birth mother is that she was a nurse,
she was unmarried and she just couldn't raise me and she gave me away.
Yes, this is one that she sent me.
[Zach Marion] Do you want to hold it up actually?
It's because the camera will see it.
From prison when we were very close to each other
and I felt that connection with her...
that she was my daughter.
This is a picture of Suzanne.
And, of course, you're going to put your children's pictures out
where people can see them.
People that adopt their children are going to have to understand
that that no matter what they do, no matter what they buy us, no matter what they give us,
beat us, give us, whatever,
we want our mama and our mama wants us.
[woman 4] Peggy says she's 99 percent sure Suzanne is her daughter.
In an exclusive Eyewitness News interview
Suzanne says she first learned about Peggy from a childhood friend.
I believed it. I really believed it.
And then... and I took it real hard at first.
[Peggy Phillips] This is a letter I received from Suzanne where she was in prison.
February 2, 1996.
"Dear Peggy and Jimmy,
while I was home on escape I dyed my hair black,
well, there is no doubt I look just like you, Peggy."
[Suzanne Smith] Peggy would say, "Oh, my little finger looks like yours."
I'd say, "Peggy, I know it looks like yours.
Women's fingers, you know, they..."
I said, "But I'm not going to go into that with you, Peggy."
I said, "If you want me to be your daughter and fill that void in your life, I will."
I said that I can only do it until my drug addiction kicks in
and I'm out of control.
I said, "Darling, there's nothing you can do. Nobody can do."
I don't think God can do anything with me, you know, because I go on self-destruct.
Suzanne has spent three years in prison for drug dealing and parole violation.
When I met Peggy, I just started doing drugs, you know, just every day.
Suzanne says she then turned to her adoptive parents for answers,
but then learned they had connections to Peggy.
Peggy was pregnant.
She stayed at her aunt's who lived next door to my father's parents.
Then she also has some of my mother's cousins
married into her family, you know her parents' family.
[Peggy Phillips] "Dear Peggy, I get really mad
when I think of you being lied to all those years."
"Dear Mom, I got your letter today."
"I'm just really thankful you all did find me."
"I'm at peace knowing the real mother I have [inaudible]
has a face to go with it."
February 12th, 1996.
"Hi, Mom, a lot of people don't understand why I've always been so unhappy.
You were and are the key of making me whole."
March 5th.
"I really thought it's sweet for you to want to make your daughter a room.
Green is my favorite color."
"Hi, Mom, thanks for my birthday present."
March 12th.
"It's really nice to be able to tell you anything."
March 20th, April 17th.
By that time I... It... I felt like I had adopted her
in my heart,
that she would always be like my daughter no matter what.
You know, I really want to believe this
and, you know, I'd much rather think, you know, I was taken than given.
But, you know, I have to also keep that other spot open just in case it's not true.
What is it? Yeah.
[Zach Marion] It says, uh, "Dear Suzanne,
I've been wanting to get in touch with you for quite a while.
I want you to know that I didn't lose touch with you because I wanted to.
I lost my job and I had to have surgery.
I still love you.
And if you ever decide to call me, my number is," and the number's here.
It says, "Love, Peggy."
[bell chimes]
Yeah. You know, she... she does love you.
I know she does.
-Do you want this too? -Mm-hmm.
She really does.
-And I think-- -I know she does. [sniffles]
You know, I've heard.
I just...
I mean, now, um, where I'm at in my life...
I could be around her and not hurt her.
All that I know is that at one point in time
that Peggy had welcomed Suzanne into her home
and that... and... and Peggy was really under the impression
that, uh, she had found the truth that this was her daughter.
But that didn't turn out well.
[Peggy] This is where she got my checks
and wrote... wrote them up.
And my jewelry.
And that is the reason my son feels hurt at her.
[Evelyn Burroughs] It was pretty early in the morning, a knock on the door,
and a gentleman at the door identified himself,
told me he was process server and that he had papers for Mr. Robert Burroughs.
He was trying to get a DNA test from my husband
so that they could make sure that Suzanne was his daughter.
They came up and took blood from my husband and they had blood from Peggy.
So they went out to Silverdale to get some from Suzanne.
[Zach] Did you know anything about the child earlier on,
like, throughout your marriage or anything?
No.
I mean, my husband was a womanizer
and I'm sure there might be more out there, I don't know.
How did you feel about the DNA test that was done?
I felt like it was a waste of her money.
-Did you tell her that? -Yes, I did.
But there was nothing going to make Peggy have peace within herself until she did.
It came back showing she wasn't my daughter.
That was very hard to believe.
I guess I chose not to believe.
I was talking to Peggy one day and she said, "I just got a phone call from somebody."
I said, "What happened?"
She said, "This lady called me and said do you remember
when you had somebody out here to take a DNA sample from Suzanne?"
And Peggy said, "Yeah, why?"
And this girl said, "Well, it wasn't Suzanne's blood."
Said, "I'm the one that gave the sample."
I said, "Well, did you find out who she was or anything?" She said, "No."
Said, "She wouldn't tell me and she just..."
You know, she said, "I just thought you needed to know."
DNA testing, as we discussed earlier back then,
everybody was under the, you know, impression that it was infallible.
And so I... I was hoping with that in hand that Peggy would finally put it to rest.
But she didn't.
So I decided that I would go another way
and try to have the grave exhumed.
I called the funeral home and asked the man
if he had records that went back that far and he told me he did.
It showed only thing that was put down as an expense
was 45 dollars for a casket,
nothing for keeping the baby overnight,
nothing for the embalmment,
no expense on the hearse taking the baby to the gravesite.
I said I remember that they charged for all that.
And he said, "Yes, Ma'am, I can't explain that.
I don't know why they didn't."
[woman 5] Peggy Phillips walks into Chancery Court looking for truth.
She's hired an attorney.
They want Judge Vann Owens to order the grave be dug up.
State law requires that the Department of Health to have a court order to dig up a grave.
A decision will be made in about 30 days,
unlocking a mystery that's haunted Peggy most of her life.
[Jodi Brooks] I was in my mid-20s
and I was working in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for Channel 3
and we had just finished my story in the newscast.
And I go back to my desk and my phone's ringing.
And usually it's like, "Oh, my gosh, my boss is calling me," like, "What did I say wrong?
What did I do?" And I answered the phone and it was Peggy.
And she said she had just seen my story on the news and she had a story for me.
[Zach] When you first heard Peggy's story, how did you feel?
Yeah, I was... I was sad for her and I wanted to help her.
I'm like, you deserve the truth. We all deserve the truth. Let's figure it out.
[Doug Cox] The chancellor was not sure that he had the authority
to order this disinterment.
But after some time he came around and we got the order that was necessary
to exhume the body.
The only way I've made it is my belief in God
and God's been with me through the whole thing.
He wanted me to find out.
[Jodi] Soon Peggy will find out if her intuition is right.
Judge Vann Owens ruled today the baby's grave can be dug up.
He said Peggy deserves closure.
It's hard to explain how I feel.
It's wonderful, at least I know I can get to the end of this now.
[Zach] At any point did you think that Miss Phillips' motivating factor was financial?
Never. That... that... It was never financial.
And I... I feel quite positive about that.
I mean, because we, even at the time this was going on,
we were contacted by other companies that wanted to do a film production
and, uh, it never crossed her mind.
It... it was never anything that she seemed that interested in.
Is there a reason that you never did talk shows or anything like that?
I just... I really am more of a private person
and I really didn't want to stimulate that
to where they would be more [inaudible] in that one and more [inaudible] in that one.
Was there something different about this film?
I just... I just liked your voice
when I first heard you talking to me.
I worked for Chattanooga Wilbert Vault Company
and, uh, we were hired to come in and do the disinterment.
And who actually hires you to, to bring you in for something like that?
Uh, it's usually... usually the funeral homes do that.
And so would that be Curtis Ottinger?
I believe it was Curtis.
When I was in high school, I've always said I want to be a funeral director
and I've done that very thing.
You know, I was there because in the State of Tennessee
you have to have a licensed funeral director present for a disinterment.
[Jodi] Peggy Phillips gathered with family and friends in the pouring rain.
Nothing would stop her today from solving a 35-year-old mystery.
It was rainy and it was muddy and it was cold.
I mean, I even remember the jacket I was wearing. I remember that day.
I had to put my, you know, all the plastic on to keep dry.
Anticipating what we would find, if anything.
It was a somber event.
More people there than I thought would be there.
A caretaker hired to dig up the baby's grave first removed the headstone
marked with the name Darlene Elizabeth Burroughs.
Peggy had won the battle to have this grave dug up,
but still fought an emotional battle, one she'd win if this grave was empty.
I had my backhoe and I had to be real careful go in
because you don't want to tear up any other graves or anything getting in there.
Peggy watched as a caretaker first used a machine to dig up the grave.
At about four feet deep, he saw something and switched to a shovel.
I had my shovel and was trying to be gentle and, you know, as easy as I could
to stay in where the grave was and not bring anything else out, you know.
Embalming in children and babies that... that young,
they're not embalmed like... like adults are embalmed.
There's an entirely different embalmment process.
So you just... you don't know the decomposition process over the years,
you... you just don't know what you're going to find really.
You just... you... You never know.
The first thing I do remember was the interior of the casket.
The material, the little pillow of the casket and everything else was disintegrated.
It was just basically the wood.
Everything was real dirty and it was muddy, water was pouring in the grave.
Funeral home manager Curtis Ottinger used a rubber glove to sift through the mud.
He set aside what appeared to be evidence of an infant.
That's when we started finding, I think we found a little armband, I believe,
um, with... with the name Burroughs actually on the little band.
And then we little by little we... we did find a bone.
My attorney called me away from the grave
and told me that they had felt one or two pieces of something.
They wasn't sure whether it was bone or not.
Remains were exhumed, they were taken to the funeral home and that's where it was opened.
There wasn't anything done there on the site.
When we did unearth the remains, we found just a few.
But now that we're back, we've sifted through, we found quite a few bones.
[Zach] Was Peggy ever shown the remains at that point?
I don't know that she was.
I don't recall. I mean, it's been a long time.
Was she ever brought into a room to look at what was found?
Yeah, I think she was.
20 minutes after we got back the funeral home,
they said they had found 50 something bones.
A newborn baby...
the bones haven't even formed real good.
They're soft.
Those bones would not have been bones that many years in... in... in the ground.
They would have deteriorated.
They had found booties.
Now here is the booties...
that they gave me that they were supposed to be under the ground for 33 years.
There's not a hole in them.
Do you think the booties could have lasted in a good condition as they were?
Yeah, it just must have been the way the cloth come down when it collapsed,
eventually, the wood and kind of pancake, you know, like a pancake
and protected it on the inside. That's what I would assume.
The dress, now if it'd been in that grave for 32 years, it would have been rotten.
It looked like it what did when you bought it.
It came out of the ground because I was standing there.
The dress that came out of the ground, it had design on it.
It's been over 20 years but it had design on it.
What color was it?
I want to say it had green in it but it was nylon dress for sure.
And my mother went with Peggy's mother to buy the dress.
Did your mom say it was a white dress?
Yeah, definitely, without a doubt.
And my mother said, "No way the dress had lace on it. It was white."
And that's not the dress.
[Zach] They found this bracelet that said Burroughs on it in.
Do you have any idea? What do you think?
Uh, it was, uh, it was part of it. She showed that to me too.
[Peggy] The pink is still on the bead.
If they had found one bead one place, another bead another place,
but it to be together and you can read the letters
after being under the ground for about 33 years, I just can't believe that.
There's no way all that stuff would have been in there that many years.
It's just almost impossible.
To switch and place, you know, another child's remains in that box and bury it,
I don't know how that would have happened.
That would have been a criminal act.
[Zach] What would it take from your perspective to kind of do a bait-and-switch with a skeleton
on a... on a disinterment like that?
Wow.
No, that's... that's a... I don't know, that's a...
When I saw that there were remains, it kind of suggested to me that,
well, maybe it didn't go down as Miss Phillips thought it did.
You know, that would be so difficult.
I don't know how that could have happened.
I really don't know how that could have happened.
It's too large a dress, it's the wrong color.
It's just... it's not her baby.
I could not believe that they had found all them bones
because how could it went from two pieces of something
to 50 bones?
I rarely will discuss anything about a case with the news
um, but I don't... I don't recall saying anything to them.
And if I did, the only thing I would have given them were facts and not opinions.
I think that she had adopted what she thought, you know, was the truth and pursued that
and that's not what's happened here today.
Today's discovery is not what Peggy expected.
Right now she just wants to stay home, sort through all this
because she still believes her daughter is alive.
Still a lot of unanswered questions to this, Jodi.
You bet. We'll follow it to the end.
Okay, keep us updated. Thank you.
Peggy wanted me to keep following on this story
and keep, keep digging, if you will,
like where's her daughter 'cause she believed those weren't her daughter's bones.
The man that dug the grave called me and we talked.
He said he definitely did not see no bracelet,
he didn't see no booties.
He said I did not bring that stuff up.
I don't remember ever saying that, uh, you know, because I... I was with Curtis
and the funeral director and I actually saw,
you know, the remains coming up out of the ground for myself, you know.
So I... I never did call Peggy, you know.
[Zach] Do you have any idea why she would say that?
Maybe there was somebody else named Steve?
There was a lot of people involved. I don't know.
[Zach] Is it possible that somebody could have seen the news story on TV
and then called you pretending to be Steve as kind of a prank?
Yes.
The other time when it was in the paper
and on the TV,
received them constantly.
We would expect more remains had the excavation been done
using controlled archaeological techniques.
[Jodi] Peggy has hired forensic anthropologist Tom Botkin.
He will put the bones back together to see if they belong to an infant.
The first thing that I will do is determine whether they're human or non-human.
At the time I was a forensic anthropologist for the County Medical Examiner's Office.
The analysis showed that the remains were consistent
with a full-term infant.
I remember that they were going to have them tested or checked or something like that.
And the story that I got back was that they were dog bones, which... Wow.
Probably came from Peggy you're saying?
Yeah. Oh, I'm sure it came from Peggy.
Like I think that I... I don't think that... I think... I don't think I checked the report.
I never remember. I would never...
I would remember if we checked a report to see what the bones were and it said dog bone.
-I think it all came from Peggy. -Okay.
It never dawned on me to stop and think, "Dog bones?"
Like, okay, so there was a dead dog at the time to take the bones to put him in a...
Like that never, never made me stop to think like, "Does this make sense?"
Because it was such a fascinating story, right.
Like, it had everybody thinking like, "Oh, my gosh, like, I can't believe this story."
The extent they went to cover up this... this child's life and this baby,
this, you know, baby that was born in such a...
in a... in a way that was so shameful
that this is the level and the extent that people went through.
You know, there's another piece to this besides the skeletal analysis
and that was the medical records from Memorial Hospital
that I was given,
uh, not only about the birth records, the OB/GYN records,
but the post-mortem autopsy that the hospital performed.
[Zach] Tom sent me Peggy's birth records, 32 pages in all.
It's a minute-by-minute record of Darlene's failing health over the course of two days.
Included was the seven-page autopsy report
whose final diagnosis states that the child died of anemia
or a lack of oxygenated blood.
Specifically, the cause of death was an interatriel septal defect,
a hole in the baby's heart.
[Zach] There is an autopsy report, right?
[Peggy] Yeah.
[Zach] And does the... what does the autopsy report say is the cause of death?
A hole in the heart.
Is it difficult when you look at these records in their detail
to reconcile that?
Yeah, I got them 10 years before the grave was exhumed.
And after I read them, I put... put it up again for a while.
When you say you read these and then you put them up,
does that mean initially when you saw them you thought that they were?
-Accurate. -You thought they were convincing?
I was going to have DNA done on the bones.
It would only be a 10 percent chance that they would be able to find the DNA.
If the remains in the grave don't match what we expect,
then she doesn't need to pay a lot of money for DNA testing.
I never was able to get the money again to get the DNA done.
And I just... I felt like I was
at the right process that I'd be able to do anything...
until I got the letter from you.
-[Peggy Phillips] Hi. -[Barbie] Hi there.
My name's Barbie.
-Hi Barbie. I'm Peggy. -It's good to meet you.
-I'm here to do your DNA swap today. -Okay.
[line ringing]
-That is it. -All right.
Thank you, Ma'am.
[Zach] Mitochondrial DNA is inherited by both women and men
but it's passed from one generation to the next by women only.
It branches out to form what is known as a family's maternal line.
A mitochondrial DNA test can determine if a mother and her child, like Peggy and Darlene,
belong to the same maternal line.
In light of the fact that we're supposed to get the results back in the next couple of days,
have you thought about when you want to look at them?
Yes, I thought about it.
And I think I would like to look at them...
right, maybe Friday or Saturday...
um, because of it being a New Year.
-[Zach] You ready? -Mm-hmm.
Okay. So, you know, we weren't able to get nuclear DNA from the bones.
-We were able to get mitochondrial DNA, okay? -Okay.
We talked kind of about that in great detail.
So, um, the mitochondrial DNA from you and the remains
did match.
Okay? And what that means
is that, uh, there's I think about a 96.7 or 96.8 percent chance
that that the results are accurate.
Does that... Do you understand that?
-Yes. -Okay.
You okay?
[grunts]
Okay.
That means that my baby is dead.
Mm-hmm.
"Piggy Phillips for any maternal relative
is not excluded as the mother of the remains."
It... it means that, um, they can't exclude you as the mother.
So they can... So to put it in another way,
the test shows that you are included in the mother
in somebody that shares the same sequence as the remains.
[Jimmy Smith] Seems legit.
-I mean, it seems good from reading the report. -Yeah.
[Zach] Coming into this moment, were you suspecting this outcome?
Yeah.
I know it's hard for y'all to imagine, but it feels like it just happened.
Just so many unanswered questions still.
That... that concludes it.
It's the beginning of the... of the end.
But yet, there'll never be an ending.
Not for your child.
I think I'm watching people myself.
-[Jimmy] This still leaves a lot of questions. -[Zach] What did you say?
Oh, yeah.
[Zach] We did a mitochondrial DNA test with the remains
and it's about 97 percent chance that that was her baby.
Could that baby have been her mother's miscarried baby or...
Her mother's miscarried baby?
-Was her mother... -Her mother had a few...
I think it was her mother.
Her mother or her aunt had a few babies buried in the same area,
that Peggy's baby's grave was unmarked,
so that Peggy's baby actually could be beside this baby.
Huh.
This test we did showed a maternal match of 97 percent.
What do you make of that?
I just... I... I still think that Suzanne was...
was her daughter and my husband's daughter.
I mean...
to look at everything the way it...
I don't know when I saw her the way she...
when she come in the door, it... it just... I knew that it was her.
I don't know if it was... what... what it was
but it just... that's the way I've always felt.
[Zach] Do you think that the way you feel necessarily means that that's the truth?
Well, no, you know, that you can feel a lot different things and it not be the truth.
But as far as I am concerned...
it's truth to me right now.
This is Melanie take one.
-You see this? -Yes.
-Did you get that? -[woman 6] Yes.
That was Melanie take one.
You're my sister. You're a therapist. You have a newborn.
So I was hoping you'd be willing to provide some therapeutic context
to Peggy's story.
[Melanie] Okay.
As human beings we're animals, we want to avoid pain.
Anything that's painful, we're going to find avenues around it.
We construct exactly what we... what we want in terms of our narrative in any given moment.
We take snapshots.
We take that information very quickly and put it into a story
that makes sense to us in order to us to avoid anything further painful from happening.
-You know, maybe on some level... -Yeah.
...unconsciously she knew there was a loss. There is a loss.
Whether the baby was, um, dead or whether the baby was taken, it's a loss.
I mean, I can't imagine, you know, if somebody just, like, took my baby
right after you carried it and went through labor.
I mean, just the pain of that, right, of... that's your baby.
She maybe lived her life not wanting to accept
and not wanting to grieve the pain of that because that was going to overtake her.
If in truth those bones are, you know, DNA connects her to... to Peggy,
the... the bones connected to Peggy,
I mean, how tragic, right, how tragic
and how, um, how sick, like, these people played with her.
Like, as a journalist, you know, I've covered a lot of horrible, horrible stuff,
shootings and car accidents and fires and murders and, like, all this horrible ugly stuff,
and that leaves an impact.
And Peggy's story definitely left an impact.
We created this little program, take your unwanted newborn to an area hospital,
hand it to somebody, walk away, no questions asked.
As long as that baby's not harmed, there's no charges, there's no crime.
The DA's not going to press charges.
And ever since then I have been on a mission,
you know, this... this theme of these babies and promoting the laws across the country.
Every state now has a law. Over 4,000 babies have been saved.
If... if there's anybody to thank for all of this, it's someone like Peggy.
I'll coordinate getting, uh, Darlene back to you,
um, and get it all set up.
So I'll help you with all that.
That gravesite is a place that you go back to and you can remember your loved one.
But before you do that, you have to bury them.
That is part of life.
When you're born, you die and you have to be placed back in the ground.
And for Peggy, that's what she's going to need to do.
She's going to have to put that sweet little girl back in the ground, have a service,
and bury her and walk away and begin that healing.
When she does that, I promise that's when that healing will start in her heart.
[knocking]
Hey.
[laughs]
-Hi. -Hi.
How are you doing?
We're heading to Hensley Cemetery
where my daughter was buried.
She'll be reburied tomorrow.
It's really given up that she's out here somewhere.
She's gone, that I don't have a daughter.
Do you remember... Do they have to put the headstone back over here
or was that about where it was?
I don't think it was near that tree.
This doesn't look familiar though, does it?
Uh-uh. No.
And see stones like that a lot of them was my aunt's children.
She had about six children and they couldn't afford...
markers, so they would just make something like that and put up.
[inaudible].
Did any of them die young?
They died, a lot of them when they were babies.
So you're saying these stones...
Are my aunt's children.
And your aunt on your mom's side or your dad's side?
My mother's.
You know, I know what you're thinking...
and if they had done that...
the DNA would have matched.
I didn't think about it until today and I got the pictures now,
so we would be sure to get the right spot.
And...
it looked like where he was down digging,
like there was one of those...
stones was down there.
It could be that the bones washed down that hill.
-I'll show you when we get back. -Okay.
[Zach] So what... are we saying that, like, these things represent children?
These are all infants.
-They only lived, let's say she had twins... -Okay.
...and one died,
I'd stay in bed with her, I'd stay smothered.
-Okay, her... her name is what? -Alice.
-Alice. And tell me the last name again? -Whalen.
-And how is she related to you? Just so... -She was my aunt.
Do you remember any of the kids' names?
The twins was Paul and Pauline.
They died separately, maybe six months...
-Apart? -...apart.
As babies?
Yeah.
Were you... were you alive when they were alive?
No.
It just keeps getting deeper and deeper, doesn't it?
It does.
Hi.
How are you doing?
-[laughs] Hi. -Hi.
[Suzanne] You... you did go [inaudible].
Yeah, I lived there about--
First let me say I'm sorry here.
I'm sorry for all that bullshit I've done because that was all it was bullshit.
But, you know, I did that because I think we've been adopted children,
we have to do something to see if we have unconditional.
And you pass the test with flying colors but still yet that was wrong.
I was on crack. You know, I kind of forewarned you but, you know.
-Yeah. -But it was, you know...
But I didn't know. I really I was...
All that I did, I did you guys wrong.
I opened the adoption records and all that and I was born in 1960.
-You were? -Yes, I was.
-You weren't born in '62 then? -No.
No.
No wonder your appearance was...
Well, it's no wonder my feet were so big in... in fourth grade.
No wonder I got boobs in fourth grade
because I wasn't, you know, I was two years old enough then.
They... she... they looked at me so funny when I had your birth certificate.
Mm-hmm.
Well, I still got your picture up over there.
-Oh, you do? -Mm-hmm.
[inaudible] how many of those [inaudible].
The one that you wrote, "Hi, Mom."
Oh, right, yeah.
-It's a prison picture. -Mm-hmm.
Oh, Lord, mercy.
Well, I was pretty, wasn't I?
Yes, it's yours.
Now I have pictures and they're all on my phone
and I don't have them like that I can hold them in my hand like they used to, so...
And I'm a ham kind of girl. She is too.
We like ham sandwiches and mayonnaise, don't we?
Mm-hmm.
-I love you, darling. -I love you too.
And now you know I'm not fussing at you.
-I just want you-- -I know you're not fussing at me.
I just want you to do...
-I know you don't. -...what's good for you.
I... I try to.
We took the bones back.
Do you think that's your baby?
Do you think that's her? Or do you still think it's me?
Which one? I'm... I'm just curious.
I thought that they were my bones.
I've got a question about them again now.
Oh, oh, watch out people, she's on it.
But I'm not.
-It's okay. -I don't think--
I believe... I believe really in my heart that, you know, she died
and... and they did... they... they did tell the truth
but there was something that wasn't...
-There was something wasn't right about it. -This is true.
I think Darlene did die.
Yeah. And, you know, she's in heaven with God and it's okay.
Just let it be, okay, so you'll have that peace in your heart, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
You want the phone number?
Do you want me to have your phone number?
'Cause I'm not far. I mean, I might have to ride my bicycle.
But I'm refused to get my driver's license.
[Zach Marion] Before the funeral tomorrow,
there are a couple things I want to talk through with you.
The first thing is that I talked to Curtis about the markers
that might represent buried children.
And he said those are actually footstones, they mark the foot of a grave.
So then I drove back out to the cemetery
and I look down the line of the markers near Darlene's grave.
Each marker has a corresponding headstone.
Does that make sense?
-Yes. -Okay.
Also, I found the death certificates for your cousins Paul and Pauline Whalen.
They both died in 1925.
Pauline was 16 days old and Paul was one-day-old.
Paul's grave is closest to Darlene's grave.
And when I say closest, they're a good 15 feet apart.
And in that 15 feet are the graves of your aunt and your uncle.
Your aunt is buried kind of kitty-corner to Darlene
and they are part of the same maternal line.
But according to your aunt's death certificate, she died in 1988 at the age of 96.
So those bones...
Those bones would have been much older.
Yeah.
So it was just a passing thought.
Let's talk about why your mom would have said what she said when she passed.
The only other theory I could come up with
is my mother was always afraid
that I would put her in a nursing home.
So I don't know.
I don't know if her thinking was that...
she knew that I wanted to find my daughter so bad
that she thought that if she told me that, that I'd take her home.
Is it conceivable to think that that was like a false confession then
and she was saying that so that she wouldn't be moved?
It could have been a false confession.
Hey, Peggy, it's Zach.
Hey, I thought I'd just call and check in on you.
Yeah.
Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah. It's a lot to process.
♪ Amazing
♪ Grace
♪ How sweet
♪ The sound
♪ That saved
♪ A wretch
♪ Like
♪ Me
♪ I once was lost
♪ But now I am found
♪ Was blind
♪ But now
♪ I see
Let's pray.
Lord God, please give comfort to mom in this time when...
even though it's been years this is going to be extremely difficult.
We know that Darlene's in heaven with You
and that one day we're all going to get to see her again
and help us to be strong and stay on that path
so that one day we may be able to do that.
In Jesus' name I pray.
-Amen. -Amen.
[Peggy] Sometimes down here you don't always get the answers.
The puzzle pieces to all of it.
But I never gave up.
And I was able to get the puzzle to fit the right way
in my mind.
And I hope what I've went through with it
for it to be able to help other people.
That will help with the lonely nights
the questions that'll come up all at once.
And it won't be that many years I have before I can meet her.
[serene music playing]
Being able to talk to you
and know that you understand means everything to me.
Because in this world we all belong to each other.
[low tempo music playing]
[Peggy] Well...
-I guess we're at the end of it. -Yeah.
May I see you again soon?
-Yeah. -Yeah.