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(BIRDS SINGING)
♪ (PEACEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(WATER LAPPING)
MIKE OTIS: How did I get here? (LAUGHS)
How did that happen?
Was it something unholy, something...
circumspect, something that was evil?
WENDI BABST: You know, I can't believe that...
we're the only ones.
JONATHAN STENSLAND: Did you ever think we'd find out?
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
CATHY HOLM: In those days, in the '60s,
it was get married...
have kids...
everything's gonna go nice for the rest of your life.
♪ (GUITAR MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
CATHY: Las Vegas was not nearly as busy as it is now.
Not crowded.
It was nice.
I was 22.
All my friends were having babies
right off the bat and everything,
and we didn't have one.
People would ask, "Well, when are you guys
going to start your family?" You know?
But it wasn't easy to get pregnant.
A lot of pressure.
It wasn't just the pressure. I just wanted one.
I wanted kids.
♪ (MUSIC ENDS) ♪
Nobody had any solutions...
until I went to Dr. Fortier.
♪ (WHIMSICAL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Dr. Fortier, he was listed in the phone book
as a fertility specialist.
He just told us to bring samples in
and that he would do the insemination
with my husband's sperm samples.
I thought, "Well, it's worth a try," you know?
♪ (MYSTERIOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
CATHY: And then over time I, you know, I would look at Wendi
and I'd think, "Gee, you know, it's really funny that
she doesn't really resemble...
her father's side of the family at all."
As she grew up, I thought,
"Where'd she get all these brains?"
She didn't get them from me,
and I didn't think her father was all that smart. (CHUCKLES)
I mean, he was like I was, average.
♪ (SERENE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
WENDI: I was a detective for almost 13 years.
I retired from my job.
I needed some more things to keep me busy,
and so I thought, "Well, maybe I'll do some genealogy."
I think every person thinks that when they retire.
So I bought an ancestry dot com kit.
You know, you always see the commercials
and people are having these great results.
I had a bunch of matches,
which initially I thought were first cousins.
But I don't have any first cousins.
When I noticed that I had half sibling matches,
I knew something wasn't right.
The only name that I kept seeing was Fortier.
I knew I needed to talk to my mother.
I said, "I did a DNA test, and my dad's not my dad.
And my dad was the fertility doctor
that you were seeing in Las Vegas."
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
HANNAH OLSON: Do you think you would've ever gone for a donor?
CATHY: No, I didn't even know.
I didn't. Never even thought about it.
Did you know that people even did that?
No.
Hmm, yeah, I wondered if it--
I didn't.
You know, 'cause stuff like that wasn't really talked about.
You know, it was probably kind of a new thing, even.
But if it had been an option,
I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have done it.
♪ (JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
DR. FRANK SILVER: There's a normal ovary.
This is an abnormal ovary.
Yeah. That was really a-- As they say, a, uh...
monster.
Oh, there-- there's a tumor.
Uh, but that's not what I wanted to show you.
This is her again. She was showing me shoes.
She's pretty cute.
That's a uterus with the tubes in it.
Ah! A sunset...
on the Pacific, huh? What do you think of that?
You know what she said? She said...
"Thank you. You have...
changed my life."
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
I'm a gynecologist.
And a gynecology, um, kind of specialty
was something... that, um...
was a door opener in Las Vegas
because I would say that 70 to 75 percent
of the population were females.
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
And they needed some kind of, um,
oversight by a female physician.
Not a female physician. The female that treats...
or a male that treats females. Okay?
This banana should soon, any minute now,
pop a big flower...
that looks like a hippopotamus's penis.
It's a huge thing. It's huge.
And the petals of it...
okay, are the banana fruits that we eat. Okay?
So, once it does that, it dies.
So this plant then dies, but it made a baby.
You have to understand, I'm an obstetrician.
That's my job. To give life.
(CHUCKLES)
Come on, I'll show you some working.
The number of OB-GYNs here, which is my specialty,
well, you could count on your hands.
And so Doctor Fortier said,
"To heck with all of you others. We'll start our own place."
DR. SILVER: Quincy was the inceptor
of, uh, Women's Hospital.
We were delivering thousands, thousands.
I would say I delivered...
probably in excess of maybe close to 5,000 babies.
It was such a great little center for females.
DR. HARRISON SHELD: We treated conditions associated with infertility,
not having any of the modalities we have today...
especially genetics. We didn't have any of that.
There was no sperm bank.
We had no way to know that you could freeze sperm, okay?
Which meant we had to use fresh sperm.
And in a medical school or a hospital,
you could be a donor.
It was more or less informal.
You know, I was a donor.
When I was a medical student,
we would sell our-- our goods
for 50 dollars a sample,
and they would pull the sperm and then inseminate these women.
-HANNAH: How do you do it? -A syringe.
You just use a syringe with a long, uh, needle on it,
and you just put it into the cervix, actually.
And it's one, two, three. Nothing to it, really.
♪ (QUIET MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Quincy, he was doing some fertility work,
uh, but it was unbeknownst to the patients.
But in those days,
they didn't even understand DNA then.
If someone was fertilized out of that sperm sample,
they would never be able to say who was the father of a baby.
♪ (MUSIC ENDS) ♪
QUINCY FORTIER JR.: I grew up in that hospital...
-(FEET TAPPING) -...chasing up my father on his rounds. It was fun.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
I had four older sisters and a little brother.
My older sister was my mother's daughter.
My mother had been married before to somebody else.
My father was a brilliant, brilliant man.
He could look at your toenails
and tell you your teeth were rotten, and he'd be right.
He understood the human body.
Women got pregnant when they went to him.
Other doctors couldn't figure it out. He could.
He knew what to do
or whatever needed to be done...
which led him to using his own sperm.
HANNAH: How do you know that your father was doing this?
Because he told us.
HANNAH: But what did he say?
He just said that, "I'm just helping out."
HANNAH: How many siblings do you think you have?
QUINCY JR.: Hundreds. Plural, yeah. Lots and lots.
My father was real busy.
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
(MOUSE CLICKS)
HANNAH: How many siblings have you found?
WENDI: Well, at least 14.
(MOUSE CLICKING)
The first thing, when I started contacting people,
was, "Can I see a picture? What do you look like?"
If I'm looking at all these features,
trying to say, "Well, what is common?"
Yeah, I think I'm probably the only sibling
that doesn't look like the other siblings
that I've seen so far.
I think everybody else has a pretty common nose.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
You know, I've seen some of my siblings
on their family trees have listed him as their father.
I'm not ready to do that.
(MOUSE CLICKING)
I have found half-siblings that were born in the 1940s,
in the '70s, and in the '80s.
Two that are almost the same age as my oldest son...
and some as old as 70.
I've emailed a couple of the people
that I was matched to,
and I said, you know,
"Hello, I just received a close DNA match to you.
Think I have figured it out, but it is a bit of a story.
Would you be willing to talk/message with me about it?"
He said, "I'm very willing to talk about our close connection.
If your story involves infertility, you are not alone.
I may be his oldest child."
He died in 2006 at the age of 93.
(MOUSE CLICKS)
Everything I can find that paints a picture of who he was
is important to me.
You know, I'm putting it together like a case,
just like a case.
(CAR DOOR SLAMS)
I'm-- I'm a-- I'm a digger. I'm an investigator at heart.
♪ (GUITAR MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
I've been trained my whole life to go into cop mode.
I started when I was 19 years old.
I worked my way up and retired as a captain.
I worked mostly major crimes investigations,
lots of homicides and cold cases.
What we do in a case like this, if the--
if there is any inkling, we are better safe than sorry.
We're gonna do a full investigation.
We're gonna cover all our bases.
I'm one of those people that, I wanna know.
I wanna solve the mystery, and I wanna know.
And that's how I feel with this.
I've thought a lot about whether or not he knew
he would be caught.
I think even he didn't foresee that for, you know, 69 dollars,
you could send in a sample
and connect yourself with people all over the world.
I just-- I think he didn't see that coming.
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
♪ (WHIMSICAL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
BRAD GULKO: My name is Brad Gulko.
My PhD is in human evolutionary genomics.
People tend to confuse
what is unknown with what is unknowable.
And, so, a lot of things like parentage
was ultimately unknowable, right?
You could do a blood test, maybe you could find out
a little bit of information,
but the idea that you could pin down
with statistical certainty
who was your parent was an unknowable.
It turns out it wasn't unknowable,
it was just unknown.
So, these genetic tests
have now come to produce scientific answers
on things that were previously thought not just unknown,
but not fundamentally knowable.
And in that way, they seem almost mystical.
♪ (MYSTERIOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
Well, my first sense, I think, was a sense of sinking.
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
I didn't know about Dr. Fortier until about two months ago.
Fortier? Is that how you pronounce it?
See, I actually don't know.
My mom, uh, lives in Southern California,
and in her housing complex randomly ran into somebody...
who, uh, was talking about Las Vegas.
And it came up
that I was born at a particular hospital,
and she heard about him using his own sperm.
And my mom realized, "Wow, I was a fertility patient...
at that practice at that time."
I later found out
he was a personal friend of my father's.
They served together in the Civil Air Patrol,
and my dad really liked him and looked up to him.
And Dr. Fortier did actually deliver me.
He's on my birth certificate.
So, I decided to get my DNA sequenced,
and, uh, my sister's came back 99.5 percent Ashkenazi Jew,
and mine came back, uh, 51.2.
♪ (MUSIC ENDS) ♪
I always wondered about the blue eyes, though.
(MIKE CHUCKLING SOFTLY)
MIKE: Gosh, it was a couple of years ago.
I was trying to find what tribe my grandmother came from.
♪ (QUIET MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Most likely Native American.
And I get this information back and look at it,
and, "Who are these Fortier people?"
When I was born, my mother still talks about
how her sisters were upset
that how did she come out
with a blonde-haired, blue-eyed child?
Perhaps the doctors saw that she was married to,
um, imperfect selection, shall we say?
Part Native American, he had olive skin, dark hair,
and he was going to give her a gift.
Maybe I'm a gift.
♪ (WHIMSICAL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
♪ (MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
BRAD: I think there's a natural human drive to reproduce...
and to reproduce as diversely and as fruitfully as possible.
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
I can understand why somebody would have a primary motivation
to use their own sperm
and to see somebody who you feel like is attractive
carrying your child.
Simple, uh, straightforward.
And most people at a civilized society realize,
well, you can't just do that.
I feel like...
uh, Dr. Fortier...
found a way to justify in his own mind,
I imagine, found a way to justify in his own mind
doing what he wanted to do,
um, that didn't violate his ethical norms too much,
even if it pushed them pretty hard...
As being the result of that kind of a decision...
I don't know. I think I'm still struggling with that.
I don't know where I'll end up.
(PLANE ENGINE ROARING)
(FILM WHIRRING)
WENDI: Height five foot, ten inches.
Weight, one... maybe sixty-five.
Blue eyes.
(PROJECTOR RATTLING)
The physician and his wife had five other children together
before they divorced in the 1960s.
He later adopted two more daughters.
Hmm.
♪ (QUIET MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
He's just saying that he mixed his sperm with her husband's
and that, you know, would help with the, quote, "swim-up."
And that he'd done it before.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
He was impregnating people into his 70s.
He never lost his license.
He died in good standing.
You know, he just was able to kinda get away with doing this,
just paid the people off,
and now they're not allowed to talk about it.
I think they gave him the benefit of the doubt
and just let him continue to practice.
(TURN SIGNAL TICKING)
You know, I know that there's gotta be
some influence from his genetics in me.
I just want to know what that is.
I struggle with whether or not I think he was a good person.
(SIGHS) Do you wanna say that your father was a monster?
And what does that say about you?
♪ (QUIET MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(CHUCKLING)
♪ (MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
REPORTER 1: Dr. Quincy Fortier is a legend
in Las Vegas medical circles.
His private practice began in 1945.
Fortier continued his fertility practice
from a small office behind his home
even after passing his 90th birthday.
In 1991, he was honored
as Nevada's physician of the year,
but the good doctor harbored dark secrets.
REPORTER 2: Mary Craddock wanted one of these, a baby.
She and her husband tried and tried.
Then, with the help of an infertility specialist,
Mary says she finally got what she wanted,
or so she thought.
DNA tests show the doctor is actually the father.
REPORTER 3: Mary Craddock suing for at least 14 million dollars.
REPORTER 4: Fortier, now 93 years old,
finally closed his practice,
put his multi-million-dollar estate into a trust,
and counted on his lawyers to keep a lid on the lawsuit.
There's a confidentiality agreement.
It's reciprocal to both sides, all parties and all lawyers.
REPORTER 4: Briefs written by Fortier's lawyer
argue there is no Nevada law
to prevent a doctor from doing something like this.
Lawyers for the doctor are trying to settle the case
and seal it, and for an obvious reason.
They worry how many other cases might be lurking out there.
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
NANNETTE FORTIER: He was an old man
who had dedicated his entire life to helping people
because he loved people.
And to have one of his patients try to vilify him
in the public light, it-- it hurt him.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Back in those days, often any kind of agreement
between a patient and himself was just a verbal agreement.
You sealed a deal with a handshake.
I learned a different way of thinking
about the press that time,
and it has colored my thinking ever since.
So, this is difficult...
but if you love somebody, you stand up for them.
It's the very, very least I could do for my dad.
HANNAH: What was your dad like as a dad?
NANNETTE: He said that we-- we saved him.
He was going through a divorce at that time,
um, and was facing the loss of his six other children.
We were two babies.
He delivered us, took us home from the hospital.
And the rest is history.
HANNAH: He adopted you at what age?
NANNETTE: Um, I think he would have been 55.
Many times, we were asked, "Was that your grandpa?"
"No, it's our dad."
SONIA FORTIER: I love that one.
Oh, this is a good one.
It's high school graduation.
(CHUCKLES) You wanna see?
-NANNETTE: Oh, my God. -(SONIA CHUCKLES)
♪ (MUSIC ENDS) ♪
NANNETTE: Look, it's the American Institute of Hypnosis.
SONIA: He used to hypnotize himself
instead of taking anesthesia for, like--
NANNETTE: Yeah, he didn't like pain medication
because it fogged his mind.
He circumcised himself.
How many men do you know can do that? Um...
You know, but let's...
See, he donated a lot of money to
a lot of different organizations and of course,
as soon as he did that, then he would become a member.
He would see patients on a Sunday or a Saturday.
Sometimes he'd see them at five or six in the morning.
♪ (QUIET MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
He moved the practice, uh, into our home,
which I know some people who think that that's odd,
but everybody's home life is...
different.
Oh, my--
My dad had a great love of music,
and he had us take piano lessons,
and sometimes, we'd come home from school
and there would be patients in the living room
and we had to practice with an audience. (CHUCKLES)
And obviously, some people might think it would be weird
for an OB-GYN to be treating his own daughters.
But I was so grateful,
not only because he was such a phenomenal doctor,
but loved me, too.
You can't ask for anything better.
I knew how much people needed him.
Did they need an emergency appendectomy?
He was there for them.
Needed a tooth pulled? (CHUCKLES) He could do that.
If you wanted to have a baby, you'd come to him.
HANNAH: Did you know that he was doing this?
-NANNETTE: Doing what? -HANNAH: Using his own semen.
NANNETTE: Um, once this came out, we'd have discussions,
and I think that him using his own sperm,
to him, was no different than using his own blood.
People were so desperate to have a child
and really wanted it so badly,
and he couldn't do it any other way, then of course...
You know, if there was a way, a will and a way, then...
there it goes.
And in his mind, he meant no harm.
♪ (MYSTERIOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
NANNETTE: In his mind, he provided
a biological necessity.
But then, what went on after that,
was then another family. That was--
That was their family then, and he was removed from that.
HANNAH: Why didn't he tell patients
that he was using his own sperm?
I don't think that people had as much, um...
desire to know their backgrounds
and things like that as they do now.
I think people were, um, happier with knowing that
their family was their family.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
CATHY: I think the part that bothers me the most
is the fact that I trusted him.
HANNAH: What do you think he did with your husband's sample?
Well, I know that the ones I read about online
said that-- he said that he had mixed--
mixed, you know-- then donor thing and--
I don't know.
I do know that when I was in there, in his office,
for my exam and whatever procedure he was doing,
that he was in and out of the...
the exam room...
two or three times, and I--
At the time, I did kinda wonder,
"I wonder why he keeps going in and out,
in and out, in and out," you know?
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
I do feel like I have to protect my mom.
And I can't, and I couldn't.
I wasn't there, and there's nothing I can do,
and I-- and, you know, my own selfishness
probably kept me from protecting her
even from the secret because I had to know.
I just had to know more, once I found out.
HANNAH: Do you regret telling her?
I do feel guilty about telling her, because...
you know, maybe it would be better if she just didn't know.
And I just remember her starting to cry on the phone...
and she said, um, "He was older than my dad."
All I could think of was,
here is my sweet young mom wanting a baby
and being in love with her husband and happy...
and just wanting a baby.
And this-- this old man--
'cause to someone who's 23 years old,
a 53-year-old person is an old man--
um, doing this to her...
Um, my father is passed away...
and I'm very glad he didn't know.
It would have devastated him.
(KEYBOARD CLACKING)
Yep. Came up. Here we go. This is my real tree.
Family tree.
I think most of us that have a tree online have two trees.
We have the tree of what we're supposed to be,
and we have the tree of what we are.
And, usually, what we are is hidden.
Windows 10 says we're one and the same person. (LAUGHS)
I wouldn't mind making it public, except that...
You know, after I tell my mother.
That's the only thing.
My mother, she was so afraid
I was gonna turn out like her first husband,
the man I thought was my father.
He could do these violent things.
He left her when I was a little kid.
I knew he was gone. I knew he wasn't coming back.
So I inherited this very negative context of who I was
by who she thought my father was.
I wasn't going to tell her initially.
I had it in my mind not to tell her.
And then, my gut thinking that, well, this, uh--
I don't have any right not to tell her.
Who else can I share it with, you know?
Who do I go back with the longest?
And that's my mother.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(CARS DRIVING DISTANTLY)
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
WENDI: I can be distant from people.
I'm quiet. I like to be to myself.
My tendency to be kind of cool and clinical
did serve me very well in the work that I did.
But I worry that that coldness, you know, comes from him...
because it's part of me. It's half of who I am.
I think that there can be good in people
that are doing bad things. I-- I do think that.
And, you know, he builds this hospital
when he was first starting out being a rural doctor
in an area where, you know, they desperately need doctors.
(BIRD SQUAWKING)
(DOOR OPENS, CREAKS)
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
WENDI: There's stuff just kinda left behind.
Unbelievable.
There are, uh, birth cards in here.
Dr. Q. E. Fortier's Pioche Hospital.
Pioche, Nevada.
Makes me wonder how many cards he filled out
for his own children.
(PAPER RUSTLING)
(LAUGHING)
(THUNDER RUMBLING)
MIKE: I was born in Pioche.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
As a little kid, I was always a little odd.
You know, I did needlepoint from the time I was three.
I took apart a stuffed animal because it stopped working
and actually sewed it back up
with the kit from my needlepoint set.
In the fourth grade, I get announced to the class
that I'm a bastard. "Do you know what that means?
It means he doesn't have a father.
He can never be a priest."
And I wanted so much to have a father.
Everybody had a father.
When I turned 18, I found him.
And he was in a dive, South of Market, alcoholic.
"Hey," I beat on the door, and he said, "Who are you?"
And I said, "I'm your son."
I put my hand out.
And that's how I met him.
We talked for a while.
Then he hit me up for 20 bucks.
And I thought to myself,
"That's the most expensive 20 bucks you ever got."
♪ (QUIET MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
(PANTING)
BRAD: I don't think it would be controversial to say
50 percent of a person's traits, behavior predispositions,
are determined by DNA.
♪ (QUIET MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
My father is very socially adept.
Uh, he's very comfortable with people,
more traditionally, uh, extroverted.
And I was never like that...
from the time I was a kid.
Yeah, I was interested in chemistry,
physics, and mathematics.
And I've never been all that socially comfortable.
I was kind of closed and egg-headed.
I always felt like there was something wrong with me.
People who don't share DNA with their parents,
and don't know they don't share DNA with their parents...
may feel that they're not just different, but somehow wrong.
(PANTS)
You know, I-- I believe in the biological
and psychological manifestations of genetics.
I'd like to see my half siblings' personality traits
and... (EXHALES) ...discuss life choices
and see where we had similar and divergent perspectives,
and why.
(PANTS)
(PLANE ENGINE ROARING)
I'm anxious.
I've gone over it and over it in my mind,
probably for the better part of a year.
My mom is 93 years old.
And I still haven't nailed down exactly how I'm going to...
broach the subject with her.
(BLINKER TICKING)
(ENGINE STOPS)
(BIRDS SINGING)
(CRICKETS CHIRPING)
♪ (SERENE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(BIRDS SINGING)
(WATER RUNNING)
♪ (MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
You know, I couldn't sleep last night.
I played Scrabble at three o'clock in the morning
'cause I couldn't...
wrap my head around all this information.
I-- I was sitting--
Then the first thing I woke up this morning,
I was deciding certain things, what this and what that.
First thing you think of, I didn't have sex with him.
-Don't wish that on me. -MIKE: This is-- This is the biggest story
of my life, Mom, this thing with Quincy,
and I so wanted to share it with you.
And I-- It was like...
uh, having a whole different life,
and not being able to share it was eating me up.
DOROTHY OTIS: Yeah.
There's a lot of stuff in my life I don't remember,
but that was strong. And I--
I went in there, uh, because I didn't feel good,
and I thought he was treating me for infection or something,
I don't know.
He put me on this table and examined me, and...
He says, "You stay here and, uh, and don't move. Don't move."
So... (CHUCKLING) I did what he said.
Well, I was wondering if, you know, that I was out,
and was he, you know...
MIKE: Yeah, I don't know that he did...
he had any history of...
forcing himself.
He certainly did some unscrupulous things.
DOROTHY: Was he trying to see how many people
he could have on this earth before he left?
I don't know.
I really don't know.
♪ (MELANCHOLIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
DOROTHY: I wasn't even looking to have a baby.
I wasn't wanting a baby at that time.
You know, my life would've--
may have been altogether different.
I'd have gone back to school,
but I probably would've gone farther.
You know, because I was young.
I was only 20 years old when I got married.
I had plenty of time to... you know, to...
redo.
I had already saved...
money to go to school.
I just wanted to get out of Pioche, Nevada.
Doctors in those days, you took them as--
as, uh, almost next to a priest, or like a priest, you--
you, uh... uh, whatever they said, you would...
think they're a good doctor, and, uh,
they know what they're talking about.
You just took them at their word.
HANNAH: What do you think about the doctor now?
-Doctor Fortier? -I think that
that's a terrible thing to do to people,
but I wouldn't have had Mike.
Life takes...
You know? I think...
God decides what--
what's gonna go on with you, you know?
I keep looking at that picture,
and it looks exactly like Mike did at that same age.
You know, I'm relieved.
Because I didn't think much of his...
what we thought was his father.
-My not-father. -"My not-father," yeah.
♪ (QUIET MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
AUTOMATED VOICE: You have one unheard message.
MALE VOICE: Hi, Ms. Babst.
I'm calling from the Clark County courthouse.
Uh, some materials you requested just came in.
You can pick them up this week during our business hours.
Have a good day.
♪ (MUSIC ENDS) ♪
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
WENDI: It's a notarized affidavit of Connie Fortier.
She allegedly recanted.
(SIGHS) That's pretty suspicious.
Uh, it says, "...being first duly sworn upon oath, said,
'My father passed away around 1950.
My mother married Quincy Fortier, MD.
Dr. Fortier later adopted me.
My stepfather sexually molested me
on numerous occasions as a child,
beginning at age four to five
and continuing until around age 13.
Dr. Fortier also sexually molested me
during his many medical exams of me as a child.
He would examine my vaginal area
even if I only had a stomachache.
When growing up, our family never discussed
my father's sexual molestations of his children.
I avoided thinking about these sexual attacks.
As a teenager, when I finally realized these attacks
by my father were wrong, I felt even more guilt and fear
telling anyone, as I thought they would not believe me.
I asked him why he had sexually molested me.
He then said, "I never raped you or were physically violent.
I was always gentle, and you were very relaxed
and never got hurt."
I became pregnant at age 17. This was a shock,
as I was not having sexual relations.
My stepfather would not allow an abortion
and sent me to Minnesota
to live in a home for unwed mothers.
At that home, I arranged for my son to be adopted.
I never attempted to have any contact with such son,
as I was ashamed of this involuntary
and surprise conception.
Around 1992, I was contacted
by a Minnesota governmental agency to arrange contact
with my then about 27-year-old son.'"
Maybe "John." I can't see. It's too blurry.
♪ (MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
WENDI: Hello?
Hello?
-JONATHAN: Hi. -Hi.
-I'm Wendi. -Hi. Jonathan.
-WENDI: Nice to meet you. -JONATHAN: Good to meet you.
Let's see if we can get the heat going.
(JONATHAN WHISTLING)
(FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING)
(JONATHAN MUTTERING)
I wonder what you were doing that year?
-'Cause that was '78, I think. -Oh, my goodness.
-Probably finishing middle school. -What town were you living in?
-I have to take a load off for a second. -(WENDI SNIFFLES, CHUCKLES)
(JONATHAN SIGHS)
I always knew I was adopted.
But you always answer this question when you're adopted:
"Well, do you know who your real parents are?"
-"Yeah. These are my real parents." -WENDI: Yeah, the people who--
And then, you say that long enough,
and it's its own truth. It's true.
But it's not all of the truth.
-WENDI: Right. -And so, you start to feel at a certain age
that somehow it starts to feel like a lie.
WENDI: Did your parents know any circumstances about you?
They knew, um, that my mother was pretty young,
but they didn't know anything about who the father was.
Yeah, my-- so my mom was really thinking...
"Go find out, maybe you can find out."
And so, I wrote Lutheran Social Services...
with the intent of finding her.
Then Connie wrote a letter to me.
WENDI: What did she say?
I mean, how did she say she conceived you with him?
She just said when she was at the--
getting the checkup from Quincy.
-And she ended up pregnant. -JONATHAN: And ended up pregnant.
-And wasn't sexually active. -JONATHAN: And said she wasn't sexually active,
so that she-- it couldn't have been--
Nothing else worked in her mind.
So...
Do you-- do you believe now that that's truly
-how you were conceived? -JONATHAN: Yeah.
And when Connie's mother found out...
that was the end of their marriage.
The divorce was--
-They got divorced right after. -WENDI: Mm-hmm.
So, I suppose you could say
my grandmother divorced my grandfather,
who is also my father.
WENDI: Did you ever meet Quincy?
JONATHAN: I did.
One of those trips out there.
Went into-- He--
I went in the house. I could hear him whistling.
And then I went through the side door 'cause, it--
You know, "Come on in," da-da-ba-da.
And he jumped up over the dryer.
He was working on the dryer duct or something behind the dryer
in, like, Mr. Furley nylon bib,
um, kind of dark green...
nylon one-piece.
But he had the same arms I have, like, you know,
where there's, like, a big forearm muscle.
Me and Quincy had, like, Popeye arm.
You know, it took me off guard.
I-- I-- On some level, I liked him.
And on another level, I just like,
I still kept the aperture really closed.
But on this, just this level of, like...
uh, just...
"There's his hands," you know,
nothing about what his hands have done.
"There's his--" You know, like, just the raw materials.
It's like I liked the raw materials.
WENDI: And what'd you talk about?
JONATHAN: Um... with-- uh--
Conversations with Quincy,
he doesn't talk about anything that means anything.
So it's hard to remember.
I can remember a feeling of mendacity,
'cause you're trying to listen to somebody
who's like a worm...
you know, wiggling away. And so...
He had a kind of higher pitched voice, right?
And, uh-- At least, when he was squirming.
And he was like, "Well, Connie had a kinda, um, no--"
"When Connie came in for a physical,
I had just taken a semen sample and-- on a cotton swab, but--
and then I did a swab of her, and that's--"
And then he switched--
"Somehow I got the swabs switched.
And then when she left--" He plays the drama.
"Then when she left the, uh, checkup..."
(DRAMATICALLY) He looked!
Then he realized the cotton swab was missing!
You know, that he must've used--
"I must have used the wrong swab!"
It's like he was still selling himself this story,
or trying to sell me the story that he had made a mista--
It was an accident!
You know, that that was an accident.
He had the audacity to tell her, like,
"It could be a virgin birth."
This guy of science, like...
So what-- when you-- when that-- I mean, how--
how did that-- how'd that make you feel?
I hate to ask that question, but I mean, what--
what went through your mind?
JONATHAN: I think that it was violence.
I don't feel like the violence is carried by me,
but I feel like the-- the consciousness...
of the violence was born into me.
(CHIMING)
Um, I'll tell you, I never did really confront Quincy.
I don't think he would've been impossible for you to confront.
Also, I really felt like it was Connie's thing to confront him.
Like, I'm the sperm that's confronting him.
It's just, the drama didn't seem--
I could never step into it, like the motivation
for the character just didn't fit.
But you realize, "Jesus Christ, who are you?"
I certainly have some impressions that I wanna share.
"I asked him how he could take back the sexual abuse
that he did to his children.
I told him what he did was wrong
and had tremendous lifetime negative effects.
I asked him why he thought it was okay
to sexually abuse his daughters.
He said that there were studies from the Menninger's Clinic
that sexual relations with children and their father
were not harmful.
On my way home, I deliberated on the conversation
and feel that he was trying to manipulate once more,
so that he doesn't get in trouble for the sexual abuse
that he committed when we were children.
I am so sorry for him. He is pathetic.
He has always used money and his power and control
to make us do things that no one wanted to do.
He needs to be held accountable
both on this earth and after death."
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
QUINCY JR.: So, my father was crazy.
Also a pervert.
When my mother found out, she started,
she got right into it.
But nobody told her. For the longest time.
He molested every one of my sisters,
me and my little brother, and anybody else
who happened to show up. He didn't care.
He wanted to play.
I think the happiest he ever made me was
when he was laying in his coffin, dead.
Then I felt safe.
That's a long way to go.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
HANNAH: Sonia, was there any abuse in your house
when you were growing up?
It wasn't part of my life.
HANNAH: Do you think any part of the allegations were true?
I don't know.
-HANNAH: Have you asked? -No.
HANNAH: You never asked your siblings?
No.
HANNAH: Did you ever ask your dad?
No.
HANNAH: Why not?
I don't wanna know.
HANNAH: Do you think there was a part of you
that was afraid it was true?
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
WENDI: I wanna change my nose.
I just, I don't-- I mean, I don't like it,
and now I feel like it, you know,
I know where it comes from, and it just-- it's not--
I don't know. Just makes me not wanna...
have my nose look this way.
I've spent more than half my life
trying to, you know, hopefully protect children.
And I put my family aside, even, a lot of times
to do what I thought was pursuing justice.
And, so, to find out all those years I'm doing that,
there's this man who's molesting his children...
and he's my, you know, my biological father.
And that's, um...
You know, you can-- you can feel like you're fighting
and stopping a lot of monsters,
and then there's this monster that's your-- your--
He's living in me.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
WENDI: (WHISPERING)
♪ (CELLO MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
DR. SILVER: He probably had the idea
that he was doing a great service.
Yeah, but you can't be a miracle worker
and not let the individuals know what's going on.
Means to end, my dear.
They don't justify the end.
Bad means don't justify the end.
HANNAH: What if one of the kids from the times you've donated
in medical school came out of the woodwork?
(LAUGHS) Well-- That can't happen.
It can't happen.
It's not supposed to ever happen, you know?
HANNAH: But what about with DNA?
Oh, yeah, what-- Well, again, it's not supposed to happen
because, um, the...
It would be very difficult to identify.
So, I guess you could with DNA. Yeah, it's possible.
HANNAH: And if they found you?
Oh, I'd love it. You know, what's wrong with that?
Listen, another little me. How could you not love that?
♪ (MUSIC ENDS) ♪
DR. SHELD: One day, one of my sons, uh, called me up
and told me that I have a daughter.
And I said, "What do you mean?"
He said, "Well, we did the genetics,
and we did the genetic-- the DNA test,
and-- and you're-- you're the father of this person."
About two weeks later,
he calls me up again.
He said, "Dad?" "Yeah?"
"Uh, we got another one."
And then it was about a month later, I think,
I got-- He calls again, and again, it's another...
another daughter.
And now I know of 13.
HANNAH: When you think about all the times you donated
in medical school, how many kids do you think you have?
I don't know.
(LAUGHS)
What can I tell you? I don't know. It's-- (LAUGHS)
It's a-- it's a not-- not a--
not a number that we can put our fingers on.
Let's just put it that way. (LAUGHS)
♪ (PIANO MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(INAUDIBLE)
You know, I feel like I actually share a lot in common with you.
-Yeah. -I just so appreciate hearing about your background
and the desire to work with your hands,
but in technically oriented ways...
-Yeah, likewise. Likewise. -Um, I just--
-It feels really familiar. -You went through the schooling
that I didn't do. Gee, could I...
-No, no, no. -(LAUGHS)
♪ (MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
MIKE: Which finger is longer?
Is your index finger longer than your ring finger?
BRENT LEAVITT: My ring finger's longer.
-MICHAEL CLEAVER: Yeah, me too. Yeah. -MIKE: The ring finger's longer?
So, Brad, has this revelation changed your research
-or your mindset at all about your research? -(MIKE CHUCKLES)
BRAD: It's like-- like a puzzle that we all have pieces to.
BRENT: Sure.
So, I found out a year and a half ago.
-MICHAEL: Man. -My parents said it, they said,
"We need to tell you something." They sat us down like,
"Okay, well, we're not-- I'm not your dad
because, you know, I'm infertile, blah blah blah.
We used a donor. We don't know who it is."
I was like, "Great." And I guess the initial thing for me,
it was just the whole, like...
You find out later in life, it's like,
"I don't even know who I am," you know?
MIKE: "Everything I know is wrong."
Exactly.
I got really sick for...
like a month and a half.
-I was, like, sick-- -BRAD: As a result, like?
Yeah, I was just totally distraught.
"Am I a child of something unspeakable?
Am I a child of someone who is helping her husband?"
You know, is that what he was thinking? I don't know.
♪ (MUSIC ENDS) ♪
♪ (MELANCHOLIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
MIKE: I used to dream that...
there was a door in the back of a closet,
and I would work my way through,
and there would be this hall out of Beauty and the Beast,
this fantastic hall.
It was finding something where there was nothing...
and finding something dramatically different.
When I found out about my father...
this was that something different.
JONATHAN: I think it would be a mistake to-- to presume
that by having the facts you have the truth.
It's never the whole truth.
I did sense that there was a little bit of a pleasure
of pulling it off.
But... there we are.
These kind of, like, you know, forbidden fruits
that shouldn't even exist.
And somehow he's the reason that we exist.
♪ (MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
(PLANE ENGINE ROARING)
(CRICKETS CHIRPING)
WENDI: He's propagated himself forever
through me and my family.
It's like a chain reaction that I can't really stop.
Did you think you knew better than my mom and dad?
Um, why did you decide...
you know, that them having a child was worth, uh...
deceiving them and...
you know, did you think you were better than them or...
you know, wh-- why-- why?
And I don't think I have that answer.
♪ (MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
♪ ("PATIENT ZERO" BY AIMEE MANN PLAYING) ♪
♪ They served you champagne Like a hero ♪
♪ When you landed Someone carried your bag ♪
♪ From here on out You're patient zero ♪
♪ Smelling ether As they hand you the rag ♪
♪ Life is good You look around and think ♪
♪ "I'm in The right neighborhood" ♪
♪ But honey, you just moved in ♪
♪ Life is grand ♪
♪ And wouldn't you like To have it go ♪
♪ As planned? ♪
♪ Go as planned ♪
♪ Hip hip hooray, hocus pocus ♪
♪ With some magic You can fly through the air ♪
♪ But when you're the guy Pulling focus ♪
♪ There are people who will Wish you weren't there ♪
♪ Life is good You look around and think ♪
♪ "I'm in The right neighborhood" ♪
♪ But honey, you just moved in ♪
♪ Life is grand ♪
♪ And wouldn't you like To have it go ♪
♪ As planned? ♪
♪ Go as planned ♪
♪ Go west, young man Go west ♪
♪ Take a real screen test ♪
♪ Doesn't count As a job well done ♪
♪ The locusts had their day ♪
♪ The suckers pay and pay ♪
♪ Carmen Sternwood probably Pulled that trigger for fun ♪
♪ And in the hills where hope is Such a constant companion ♪
♪ Constant companion ♪
♪ Close enough to almost Touch the lights of the canyon ♪
♪ Lights of the canyon ♪
♪ The lights of the canyon ♪
♪ But news filtered Over the transom ♪
♪ That a villain ended up With the part ♪
♪ You paid your respects Like a ransom ♪
♪ To a moment that was doomed From the start ♪
♪ Life is good ♪
♪ You look around and think ♪
♪ "I'm in The right neighborhood" ♪
♪ But, honey, you don't belong ♪
♪ Life is grand ♪
♪ And wouldn't you like To have it go as planned? ♪
♪ Go as planned ♪
♪ And in the hills where hope is Such a constant companion ♪
♪ Constant companion ♪
♪ Close enough to almost Touch the lights of the canyon ♪
♪ Lights of the canyon ♪
♪ The lights of the canyon ♪
♪ Lights of the canyon ♪
♪ The lights of the canyon ♪
♪ Lights of the canyon ♪
♪ The lights of the canyon ♪
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪