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To get this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, please visit patreon.com/forensictales. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. On April 26, 1964, Dora Fronzac gave birth to a baby boy she named Paul at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. She adored the baby as only a mother can.
Just one day after Paul was born, a nurse walked into the room and told Dora she was there to take the baby to the nursery down the hall. But then hours later, another nurse entered the room and said the same thing. That's when Dora's motherhood quickly turned into a nightmare. Who took baby Paul Fronzak? This is Forensic Tales, episode number 179. Who is the real Paul Fronzak? ♪
Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola.
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On April 26, 1964, Dora Fronzak gave birth to a baby boy she named Paul at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. From the moment Paul was born, he completed his mother's life. Paul was everything she ever dreamed about in a baby boy. But just hours after he was born, he mysteriously vanished. On April 27, 1964, a woman disguised as a nurse walked into Michael Reese Hospital and
Because she was dressed exactly like the other nurses on shift that day, no one at the hospital even gave the woman a second look. When the phony nurse entered Dora's hospital room, she said it was time to move baby Paul to the nursery down the hall. This was standard practice for one-day-old babies. So Dora didn't think twice about the nurse's question. So she handed Paul over and watched him and the nurse walk out of her hospital room.
Dora grew concerned when neither the nurse nor Paul returned to the room. It had been hours since he had moved to the nursery, so she thought something might be wrong. But a second nurse entered the room before Dora could even ask where her son was. She said she was there to take baby Paul to the nursery. Dora instantly realized someone had stolen her baby.
As soon as the hospital found out that someone disguised as a nurse had come in and taken Paul, the entire hospital started looking either for the woman or the baby. But by that point, it had been hours. So the woman and Paul were likely long gone from Michael Reese Hospital. The hospital staff immediately notified the Chicago Police Department that a one-day-old baby was kidnapped. They believed a woman might have stolen him right from his own mother's arms.
That same day, Chicago police launched one of the biggest manhunts the city had ever seen before. Every available police officer was instructed to stop what they were doing and start looking for this baby. Unless there was another very serious violent crime happening, nothing else really mattered. Finding Paul was the police department's number one priority.
The authorities knew that time wasn't going to be on their side. According to the Megan's Law website, children abducted by violent predators are usually dead within three hours, 74% of the time. That meant the more time passed, their chances of finding Paul safe significantly decreased. Their best chances at recovering him would come from the first few hours of the investigation.
But despite a massive search that spread across the entire city of Chicago, Paul was nowhere to be found. Neither was the woman who the police believed kidnapped him from the hospital. The manhunt rose from hours to days to eventually weeks. And the hope of finding Paul faded with each passing day. Weeks eventually went by without any sign of the baby or his kidnapper.
Throughout the early days of the search, the Chicago police interviewed hundreds of people. They also received thousands of tips from the public claiming to either have seen the baby or the mystery woman. In total, the Chicago police tested some 10,000 babies from all across the country who they believed might be Paul. However, not one of them turned out to be true.
The search for the baby became the largest manhunt in Chicago history up until that point. But the tips eventually ran out. Dora and her husband, Chester, held a public vigil that was attended by several hundred people. Everyone came together to hope and pray that Paul or his kidnapper would be found and that he would be brought home safe and sound.
Although it had been weeks by that point, they still held out hope that against all odds, he would return home. Two years into the search for Paul, the case went cold. The tips had dried up, and the Chicago police were left without any solid suspects. No one working at the hospital had gotten a good look at the woman because she was dressed like every other nurse there.
And even Paul's own mother, Dora, wasn't too sure what the woman looked like. She said she didn't get a look at her because she just thought she was another nurse there to take her baby to the nursery. So she didn't think anything about it. No one at that time could provide a very good description of what that woman looked like. And so the case ultimately turned cold until 1965.
Almost two years after baby Paul was kidnapped from the hospital, a young boy was found abandoned in a stroller in front of a department store in Newark, New Jersey, a place over 700 miles away from the Chicago hospital where Paul was born. The infant had a bruised eye and seemed to have been neglected, and no one knew exactly how long he had been abandoned outside of the busy department store.
Law enforcement figured they would find the parents almost immediately. Maybe some mom or dad out there forgot to put their child in the backseat of their car or simply drove away after a busy day of shopping. No one expected this case to last very long. Surely this baby had someone out there looking for him. But it turned out no one did.
While the abandoned baby was in state custody, the police waited for someone to come forward. But again, no one did. Weeks went by, and then months. So, the baby was eventually put into foster care and given the name Scott McKinley. A few weeks later, the Fronzac family received a phone call. An FBI agent told them they might have found their missing baby boy.
When Dora and Chester picked up the phone, they couldn't believe what they just heard. According to the FBI, their missing baby, Paul, might have been recently found hundreds of miles away in New Jersey. He was the only infant who couldn't be excluded from the possibility of being Paul. So Dora and Chester hopped on the first available plane to Newark, New Jersey to meet with the FBI.
Upon arrival, the FBI drove them to the foster house where the baby was staying. And from the moment they laid eyes on the baby, they knew it was their missing boy, Paul. He looked exactly like they would imagine their son to look almost two years later. And they were both confident that this was their missing son.
Since this happened in the mid-1960s, DNA testing wasn't available. So the FBI couldn't collect DNA samples from either the baby or the parents to see if he was actually their son. So they only had the parents' opinions to rely on. And if they said it looked like their son, it had to be him. The FBI also had an expert compare a photo of the missing baby to the abandoned toddler.
They compared the shape of the child's ears with an infant photo of Paul and felt confident in their identification. At the time, the shape of an infant's ears was thought to be as unique as a fingerprint. Plus, there was all the other circumstantial evidence. The boy was the exact same age Paul would have been. He physically resembled both his parents, Dora and Chester.
He was left abandoned in a stroller in front of a department store, so the police assumed his kidnapper finally let him go. The kidnapper probably placed him in a stroller and walked away. End of story. So the FBI turned the baby over to Dora and Chester. And finally, after almost two long years, this little boy was reunited with his parents. A story straight out of a Hollywood film.
A one-day-old baby is kidnapped from the hospital by a woman disguised as a nurse from his mother's arms, so everyone around the country starts looking for him, and he's been missing for two years. But then he magically appeared in front of a department store hundreds of miles away from the hospital where he was kidnapped. It was a story that almost seemed too good to be true.
Once his parents identified him, he was sent to live with them in Chicago and was raised as Paul Joseph Fronzak. According to both the FBI and the Chicago Police Department, this case was closed. It wasn't until about eight years later, when baby boy Paul turned 10, that he thought something about his family might be off.
When Paul turned 10 years old, he did something many kids his age did. It was right before Christmas, and he was curious about what his parents had bought him for Christmas. So one day, while his parents were busy working, he went upstairs to the attic. He knew this was the hiding spot for Christmas presents. But when he got up there, he didn't see any presents. Instead, the 10-year-old stumbled upon something else up there.
It was an old box stuffed with old newspaper clippings. Newspaper clippings about his kidnapping when he was only one day old. Up until that point, Paul had no idea about any of this. His parents never told him what happened and that he had no clue he spent almost the first two years of his life with some other people than his parents. Paul was too young to remember any of it.
So when he stumbled upon the newspaper clippings about his upbringing, he was shocked, even for just being 10 years old. After finding the box, Paul brought it downstairs and showed it to his mom. But his mom was absolutely furious. He was never allowed to go up there alone and was never supposed to find this box. So not only was she mad about him looking for Christmas presents, but she was even madder that he had found this box.
But that didn't stop 10-year-old Paul from asking his mom questions. He had just read all of the articles, and he wanted to know more. So Paul's mom, Dora, told him everything. She said, yes, you were kidnapped when you were only one day old at the hospital when you were born. A woman disguised as a nurse came into the room where you were born, and she told me she was there to take you down the hall to the nursery.
Since she was dressed in a nurse's outfit, I didn't think anything of it. And I handed you over to her. A few hours later, the real nurse returned and said, well, the same thing. She said she was there to get you to the nursery. And that's when we found out the first woman had kidnapped you. So yes, Paul, you were kidnapped. We found you. We love you. And that's all you really need to know.
After that conversation, Paul never brought it back up. Although he was only 10 years old then, he started to question whether his parents were actually his parents. So for the rest of his childhood and early adulthood, he kept his suspicions to himself. Paul never dared to talk about it again until almost four decades later. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.
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Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash tails to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash tails. Throughout his childhood and adulthood, Paul moved over 50 times in his life. But no matter what, he held on to those newspaper clippings he found in that crawl space inside his parents' house in Chicago.
Although he never talked about what he found again, he couldn't shake the feeling his parents weren't actually his biological parents. He also knew he didn't look anything like his younger brother, Dave. So he kept the newspaper articles until he was ready to do something about it. And finally, as an adult, Paul decided it was time. By 2012, commercial DNA testing had become increasingly popular in the U.S.,
DNA testing was no longer reserved for police departments and crime labs. Instead, ordinary people could order a DNA test online, submit a sample, and learn more about their ancestry within a few weeks. For most people, a DNA commercial test was a fun way to learn more about their ancestry. They may find a long-lost relative or discover their dad had another child or
But most of the time, they were just used to be finding out where their family came from, their family lineage. But for others, like Paul, these commercial DNA testing kits meant something bigger. For Paul, this DNA test meant that he could finally test his own DNA. He could finally determine whether his supposed biological parents were his actual parents, something that had been troubling him since he was 10 years old.
In 2012, Paul had been living in Las Vegas, Nevada, thousands of miles away from Chicago, Illinois. He was also married with a child of his own. But one day in 2012, his parents visit him in Las Vegas and stayed for a few days. On a whim, he asked them if they would be willing to take a DNA test.
He didn't go into much detail about why he wanted them to take a test. He simply said he bought them all commercial DNA test kits and wanted everyone in his family to submit a DNA sample. So without going into too much more detail, both of Paul's parents agreed and they submitted their DNA. It wasn't until they returned home to Chicago that they started second-guessing their decision.
When they arrived back home in Illinois, they immediately regretted submitting their DNA to this commercial website. Not because they were worried about what they might find out about their ancestry, but because of what happened to Paul when he was a baby. And that's when his mom, Dora, remembered her conversation with him when he was 10.
She knew that he had found the newspaper articles in that crawl space, and she was worried that he was trying to find out whether they were actually his biological parents. So as soon as their plane landed in Chicago, Paul's parents picked up the phone and called him. They begged him not to submit the DNA samples. They said they were his biological parents, and he didn't need to do this in order to prove that.
But Paul didn't listen. He told his parents it was too late and that he had already submitted the DNA samples. After they hung up the phone, all everyone could do was wait for the results, which took several weeks. The DNA company had hundreds of other test kits to test first. So over the next few weeks, Paul waited to find out if the people who raised him were actually his parents.
And maybe his parents were waiting to find out the truth as well. Several weeks after the DNA was submitted, Paul received the results. The DNA had been submitted to Identigen DNA, an Ireland-based company that tests samples from all across the U.S., Ireland, the U.K., and Canada. And the wait was well worth it. The DNA test results confirmed his suspicions for the last four decades.
He was not his parents' natural-born son. He was not the real Pawn Fronczak. According to the representatives at Edenogen, there was a, quote, no remote possibility that he was his parents' biological child, end quote. Right then and there, he suddenly became a man without a name, birthday, or medical history that
In an instant, in a blink of an eye, he became an unidentified living person. But if he wasn't Paul, who was? This DNA test result didn't just mean his parents weren't his actual biological parents, but this meant he wasn't really Paul. Paul was just the name he was given by the people who raised him.
It also meant that he wasn't the baby who was kidnapped from that Chicago hospital all those years earlier. After the DNA kit confirmed he wasn't related to the people who raised him, he set out on a quest to discover his true identity. If he wasn't Paul, then who was he? Paul immediately began his search by opening up about his story to anyone that would listen. This included social media and the internet.
The more people who knew about it, the more people he could use to help find out who he actually was. That's when a group of genealogists called the DNA Detectives offered to help him for free in 2013. But the quest to find out who he really was and who the real Paul was wasn't easy for him or the DNA Detectives. And it quickly evolved from a simple quest to an obsession.
Paul was not only eager to discover his true identity and locate his birth parents, but he also became fixated. He became obsessed on getting the answers. According to an article published by the Chicago Sun-Times, it became an obsession that he blames in part for the breakup of his marriage and the rift it caused between him and his adoptive parents. It was no longer a quest to simply find answers,
it became a fixation he had to solve. One of the people who heard about Paul's story and wanted to help was Cece Moore. Cece Moore is a famous and world-renowned genetic genealogist known for working on many high-profile cold cases. Her work in genetic genealogy has led to the identification of several high-profile John and Jane Doe cases.
She's also contributed to identifying suspects involved in old, cold homicide cases. Today, she heads the genetic genealogy unit at Parabon Nanolabs, a private company based in Virginia that provides DNA phenotyping to law enforcement agencies nationwide. As soon as CeCe Moore heard about Paul's story through his Facebook page, she messaged him to see if she could help.
She knew she wanted to be involved in trying to figure out who he was, as well as to find out who the real Paul Frongzak was. But at the time, Paul was working with local reporters to get his story out. And it was working. But there was a big problem here. Because Paul's Facebook page had received a lot of attention from local reporters, it
The Facebook page received an insane amount of attention, tips, and messages. So unfortunately, during all of this traffic and all of this messaging, CeCe Moore's message on Facebook fell through the cracks. Her message got lost in the sea of others, and Paul never saw it. About a year later, the television show 2020 became interested in airing an episode on the case.
And while the show producers were prepping for the episode, they reached out to Cece Moore. Some of the show's producers had worked with her in a past episode, and they thought that she would be the perfect person to partner with on this episode because it involved DNA testing and genetic genealogy.
But when the producers of 2020 contacted her, they were surprised to find out that she had already heard about Paul's case and she told them that she had already offered to help him, but she never heard back from him. So when she learned that 2020 was doing an episode on the story, she quickly agreed to help.
By the time the show 2020 picked up the story, they had already found one of Paul's biological second cousins through a DNA database. So the show's producers thought once CeCe Moore started working on it, the entire case would be solved before the episode aired in a month. But it wasn't that easy. First, CeCe Moore started her investigation with a second cousin.
But she ran into one big problem. The second cousin was adopted. Without a family tree, it was impossible for her to identify Paul's true identity through this second cousin. So it was like starting from scratch. The next step was to upload Paul's DNA across various DNA databases to see if they could find another blood relative.
So Paul's DNA was uploaded to AncestryDNA, 23andMe, and FamilyTreeDNA. But at that time, these three websites were relatively small. Combined, they only had about 1 million DNA profiles. The next step was for Paul to do Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA testing.
Y-DNA testing helps identify relatives from the paternal side of the family, or Paul's biological father's family, and mitochondrial DNA testing traces the maternal side, Paul's biological mother's family. Based on the Y-DNA and mitochondrial testing, Cece Moore was able to determine some of Paul's ancestry.
She believed he had a unique combination of ancestral lines containing Jewish, Southern European, and Northern European roots. But she still hadn't identified any close family members. After working alone for several months, Cece Moore enlisted the help of as many genetic genealogists as possible.
Some volunteers who offered to work on Paul's case were Carol Rolnick, Michelle Trostler, and Allison Dembski. Together, they spent the next two years searching through Paul's biological family tree to finally find his true identity. Two years into the search, Cece Moore and her team of genealogists finally found hope.
After digging deep into his family tree, they found one particular name that stuck out. When they tested his DNA against Paul's DNA, they matched. This meant, through genetic genealogy, they finally found his true identity, Jack Rosenthal. When they found out, Cece picked up the phone and called Paul. She asked him what he thought of the name Jack.
He said he thought it was a nice, strong-sounding name, but he didn't know what she meant. That's when CeCe Moore told him that that was his real name. He wasn't Paul. His real name was Jack Rosenthal. He went missing in 1965, and he wasn't from Chicago. He was actually from Atlantic City, New Jersey. But that's not all, CeCe said.
She also said they found out he has a twin sister, Jill Rosenthal, and she's also missing. Cece and the team of DNA detectives identified Jack and Jill's biological parents as Gilbert and Marie Rosenthal. Jack Rosenthal was the toddler found in the stroller abandoned outside the Newark, New Jersey department store in July 1965.
He was then raised by the Fronsack family, who believed that he was their missing and kidnapped son, Paul. But Jack's twin sister, Jill, is also missing. Jill and Jack were both born on October 27, 1963. After tracking down some of their relatives, they said they stopped seeing Jack and Jill when they were around two or three years old.
They said their biological parents, Gilbert and Marie, would come up with excuses as to why the twins weren't around, or they would come up with a reason why their relatives couldn't see them. But it's now believed that's when Jack was abandoned in the stroller at the mall, and Jill was also abandoned somewhere else. According to the relatives, Jack and Jill were badly abused and neglected while under the care of their parents, Marie and Gilbert.
They were often seen very malnourished, and their bodies were covered in bruises like they had been beaten. According to one specific relative, when they visited Marie and Gilbert's house, they asked, where are the twins? And when they went upstairs to the bedroom, the room was completely empty except for a chair. The twins didn't even have a bed to sleep in. Gilbert Rosenthal was described as an angry, violent drunk.
After he returned home from the Korean War, he suffered from terrible PTSD, and instead of seeking treatment for his trauma, he turned to alcohol. According to relatives, he often turned violent toward his wife Marie and the twins after drinking too much. Marie was also described as a heavy drinker herself and would often be missing from the house for days on end.
This meant that the twins, Jack and Jill, were likely left unsupervised or cared for, possibly for days at a time. Sometime in July 1965, Marie and Gilbert Rosenthal decided to abandon their twins, Jack and Jill. Jack was left outside a busy department store in Newark, and that's when he was found and placed in foster care.
Once he was in foster care, he was given to the Fronczak family, who believed that he was their missing son. But what happened to his twin sister, Jill? Well, the short answer is, we don't know. Today, Jill Rosenthal is still considered missing. We don't know what Marie or Gilbert did to her, or where they abandoned her. Both Gilbert and Marie Rosenthal are now deceased.
The New Jersey State Police have opened a missing person investigation and believe Jill disappeared sometime in 1965, around the same time Jack was abandoned. Today, she would be in her late 50s. And although the last photo taken of her was taken when she was a baby...
Forensic artists from the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children have created an age-progressed photo of her, and the photo is available on their website right now. It also combined physical features from Jack and other living family members, since it's impossible to say exactly how she would look all of these years later.
Anyone with information about the disappearance of Jill Rosenthal is asked to contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST. Although Jill is officially considered a missing person by the New Jersey State Police, her twin brother Jack fears that she might have been killed.
After four decades, Jack Rosenthal's true identity was finally revealed through genetic genealogy. But what about Paul Fronzac? Who is the real Paul, the baby that was stolen from that Chicago hospital in 1964? In 2019, the real Paul Fronzac was finally identified as Kevin Ray Beatty,
but his identity wasn't made public until after he died in 2020. Kevin Ray Beatty died at the age of 56 after a long battle with cancer. Kevin Beatty was born Paul Fronczak on March 14, 1964, at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. He was the biological son of Dora and Chester.
the parents who had their baby snatched from the hospital by a woman disguised as a nurse. The woman who kidnapped him has never been identified, and the FBI investigation into the kidnapping remains open. Kevin Beatty, a.k.a. Paul Fronzak, was raised by Robert and Lorraine Fountain in Michigan.
It's unclear how Kevin got the last name Beatty. And it's also unclear how Robert and Lorraine started raising him or why. According to his obituary, Kevin graduated from Matten High School and worked as a mold maker and machinist. He enjoyed spending time outdoors in his garden and garage. He also liked to spend his free time with close family and friends.
Before he passed away from cancer in 2020, Kevin spoke with his biological mother, Dora Fronzak, several times over the phone. But they were never able to meet in person before his death. In 2017, Paul released a book titled The Fondling, The True Story of a Kidnapping, A Family Secret, and My Search for the Real Me.
In the book, Paul talks about the original kidnapping in 1964 that started everything. His life after being abandoned inside that stroller in New Jersey and his quest to find his true identity. If you're interested in reading for yourself, the book is available on Amazon or online at many other book retailers.
After 40 years, genetic genealogy provided identities to two people, the real Paul Fronzac, a.k.a. Kevin Beatty, and the other Paul, Jack Rosenthal. But genetic genealogy still hasn't been able to find one person, Jack's missing twin sister, Jill Rosenthal.
Although the exact day and circumstances are unknown, it's believed Jill was last seen in 1965. This was around the same time her twin brother was abandoned by her parents, Gilbert and Marie Rosenthal. Today, she remains missing. To share your thoughts on this week's story, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook.
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