Kidnapped Baby Returned To Parents In 1966 Was Not Their Child

Kidnapped Baby Returned To Parents In 1966 Was Not Their Child

A couple whose baby was kidnapped in 1964 and apparently found and returned to them in 1966 have discovered the son they raised is not actually theirs.

Chester and Dora Fronczak had welcomed a baby boy they named Paul Joseph Fronczak at the Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago in 1964. The baby was taken 16 hours later by a woman posing as a nurse.

The impostor stole the baby, leading to a nationwide manhunt by the FBI.

Two and a half years later, a baby was found abandoned on a pavement in New Jersey, and was taken to an orphanage and given the name Scott McKinley.

The FBI eventually decided that toddler Scott was Paul Fronczak - on the basis his EARS matched those of the missing baby.

As the Fronczaks didn't have proof that Paul was their child, they had to go though the legal process to adopt him - something they kept from their son as he grew up.

Eventually, Paul discovered a box of newspaper clippings about his abduction and adoption and challenged his parents.

"It was like, 'you don't need to see that, you are our son,'" Paul told CBS. But as he got older, he was keen to find out more - particularly why he bore no resemblance to his Polish and Croatian mum and dad.

Eventually, Paul decided to undergo a DNA test, and now, married, and living in Nevada, he has found out the truth - that he was not the Fronczaks' missing child.

"They will always be my parents. Great people. Raised me the way I am today," he said, adding that it would be 'really cool if we actually found the real kidnapped baby'

"It would be nice to have a happy ending for once," he said.

Fronczak hopes that the DNA tests will now help him track down his real biological family.

Close