Find My Baby Daddy!

The Situation

Recently, we were approached by a woman in her late 30’s. She was well educated, well dressed and very friendly. In short, a class act. She needed help finding the father of her child, who walked out on her shortly after they had a child. She remarried and her husband was the only father her son had known. He wanted to adopt their son, making the boy legally his kin. But, to do that, she would need to track down the boy’s father and have him relinquish parental rights. Since it had been nearly fifteen years since she had seen him, she didn’t think it was going to be a problem. Neither did we, so we took the case!

The Assessment

First, we needed the full story. The Client explained that when she was a senior in college, she met a young man delivering pizzas. They fell in love. A few months later and found themselves in the family way. They moved in together and had a baby boy. But, being young and not ready to be adults, they fought a lot. One weekend, she told me, she went home with the baby to try and get her head together. When she got back to their apartment, he had taken all of his things and moved out, leaving her a note saying that he couldn’t handle this anymore and to have a nice life. She moved back in with her family and finished college. Shortly after graduation, she met a man, they fell in love and they got married.

She never heard from the boy's bio dad again, so she didn't have much to give us other than his name, a picture, and his birthdate. She said he told her he was an orphan, had no siblings, and had dropped out of high school. She also knew he was born in Charlotte, NC. That was all the information she had on the man, but no worries, MG&A had success in closing cases with much less than that.

We Went to Work

The first thing we did was put the cyber team to work doing what they do best-mining for information on the web. That included the birth certificate, NCIC, social media, etc. Basically, the whole ball of wax. Except, they came up with nothing. Which meant that our baby-daddy had probably lied about his name.

Next was facial recognition. The picture the client shared with us was nearly two decades old, but the cyber team ran an age progression program, so that we could match it up to current men in his age group. It didn’t take long to find a match. Unfortunately, it was in the Wake County judicial system.

The man had indeed lied about his age. According to his rap sheet, he had several aliases as well as a lot of charges. Check fraud, theft, GTA, drug possession, possession with intent, etc., etc. The list went on and on and he was currently serving a fifteen year stint for an attempted murder conviction on a drug-deal gone wrong. Based on the date of his first arrest, it looked like he had fallen of the straight and narrow shortly after he ditched the client and young son. In my opinion, the Client had dodged a bullet.

I contacted the Client to tell her what we had found and see how she wanted to proceed. She told me that she would call me the next day to discuss things. We ended up meeting at the Silver Diner in Cary. I love their pancakes, reminds me of the diners in Jersey. She and her husband had consulted a lawyer and she expanded my job to include serving the biological father with Parental Rights Dissolution Papers.

Not a problem!

The lawyer called the prison to set things up, so that I could meet with the baby-daddy, deliver a set of papers to him, have him sign the papers stating that he had received the papers and leave. This would give the father the opportunity to have his lawyer, or at least a legal representative look things over and explain his legal rights.

That afternoon, I was at the prison, being 'wanded' down and this was after a drug dog sniffed me in places that I felt vaguely violated by. The envelope of paper work that I had was opened and shuffled through, making sure that I wasn’t smuggling in contraband. After being briefed by the corrections officer at the front desk, I was escorted to the visitor room. Shortly after, the baby-daddy was escorted in, wearing an orange jumpsuit and matching canvas shoes.

He sat down and I handed him my card. I explained that I was there on behalf of the Client and why I was there. He nodded at my explanation and then asked me if I had pictures of his son. I apologized and told him I didn’t. I had him sign the receipt of the paperwork and signaled to the officer that I was ready to leave.

Quick and easy. Fastest money I made that day. Or so I thought.

After dropping the paperwork off to the Client’s lawyer, I went back to the office to find a half dozen messages waiting for me. A couple from the baby-daddy, one from the Client, one from the Client’s attorney and a few from some woman I had never heard of.

I called the Client, first. She was crying hysterically and not making much sense. Her husband took the phone from her and tried to calmly explain that after I left, the baby-daddy contacted the Client’s attorney at the number on the letterhead. It seemed the man who had dropped out of his son’s life, now wanted to get to know him and was refusing to sign the papers. Oh, boy!

I told the husband that I would be in touch. My next call was to the attorney. She was not very happy, to say the least. This should have been a walk in the park. Instead, it was turning into some kind of nightmare. Fortunately, the lawyer was prepared for something like this. Clearly, it wasn’t her first rodeo.

She told me to send over a MG&A agreement contract; we were now being hired to provide PI services. She wanted my team and I to dig up every last bit of dirt on this creep as possible. She wanted to determine his angle and what he hoped to gain. The lawyer was changing strategy.

Now, she needed proof for family court to show the felon had abandoned his son and didn’t deserve to be in the boy’s life, then let the court dissolve parental rights.

That wasn’t going to be a problem. We had already developed quite a file on this guy. And that was just the cyber team. I knew that once the shoe-leather team hit the streets, their tenacity to turn over every rock until they achieved their objective was mind blowing.

While my assistant was handling the contracts with the lawyer’s office, I called the mystery woman’s number.

She said her name was Phyllis and her son was the baby-daddy. She insisted that she knew nothing of the Client’s son. It wasn't until recently that she began talking to him after years of being apart. She told me that she wanted to meet her grandson, also. The nightmare had just gotten worse. 

NC is one of the few states that considers grandparent’s impact on children when determining custody. A grandparent can petition the courts to allow visitation with their grandchildren. Since Phyllis shared how she didn’t know the boy existed until that very afternoon, I could see where the courts might allow it.

I told her that she should contact the Client’s lawyer and gave her the number. Then, I went and took some aspirin. It was going to be a long couple of days.

I gave Phyllis’s name and number to the cyber team and told them to start digging. Better to be prepared than get caught by a surprise. It turned out the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Mommy dearest had a rap sheet of her own. Mostly trivial things like shoplifting, petty theft, some bad checks and fraud/identity theft. She was currently unemployed and had won a worker’s compensation settlement. She was living in a trailer park, smoked like a chimney and looked like a stereotype. Not exactly grandma of the year material, but I may be a little "judgy".

A Happy Ending

Within two days, I was able to present two case files to the Client’s attorney. We were able to paint a picture for the court of two people the Client’s son was related to by DNA only and showed why it would be in the best interest of the child to not be exposed to them. Especially since he had never met these people in his life and only knew of his biological father’s existence.

EPILOGUE: It took a few months, but the Client’s lawyer, along with a child psychiatrist, the boy’s pediatrician (the boy had severe asthma and being around cigarette smoke would be a health hazard), the biological father’s probation officer and a dozen character witnesses against the biological father and his mother, convinced the judge that being in the company of his biological family would not be in the boy’s best interest and terminated parental rights for the biological father and maintained that the biological grandmother would not have access to the Client’s son unless she was willing to stop smoking. She told the judge that no kid was worth giving up something that personal to her. Now, it all made sense!

My team and I were invited to the adoption celebration.

Need help with a case like this? Michael Guadagno & Associates offers litigation support for local, state and federal civil and criminal cases. As your Legal Investigation Team, we uncover and assemble the evidence necessary for successful litigation. If you need help with an upcoming trial, contact us at (919) 363-6321 or email us at [email protected]