North Dakota switched at birth claim puts two moms in court fight
Two families say a DNA test revealed men born at Unity Medical Center in 1988 went home with the wrong parents.
By Georgia Hale · Staff Writer
3 min read
A North Dakota switched at birth claim is now a court fight nearly four decades after two boys were born on the same day at Unity Medical Center, CBS News reported.
Elizabeth O'Toole and Evelyn Newton are speaking publicly after their families filed a lawsuit in state court last week alleging their sons, Jeremy Morrison and Kyle Bylin, were sent home with the wrong parents in 1988. Morrison told CBS News he believes he and Bylin were swapped at birth.
According to the lawsuit described by CBS News, Morrison and Bylin were the only two babies born at Unity Medical Center in North Dakota on Jan. 26, 1988. Their birth announcements later appeared next to each other in a local newspaper.
O'Toole, who raised Morrison, said the discovery that he was not biologically her child left her stunned. She told CBS News that it did not feel real until she met Bylin in person.
Newton, who raised Bylin, also challenged the hospital's response. She told CBS News she was upset that the hospital was saying, in her view, that nothing happened.
How did the North Dakota switched at birth claim come to light?
Bylin took an at-home DNA test that he had received during a Christmas gift exchange, CBS News reported. The results connected him to Morrison's aunt through Ancestry.com's DNA registry.
Morrison said the results then linked him to both of his aunts and to his mother, who had only one child. CBS News reported that Morrison's own DNA later matched with Bylin's parents.
An at-home DNA test compares a customer's genetic sample with other people in a company's database. Matches can point to biological relatives, which is how families sometimes discover unknown parentage or family connections.
Morrison told CBS News the discovery has brought a mix of emotions, describing it as both a blessing and a curse. He said the parents who raised him, Liz and Terry, taught him independence and resilience.
He also said he wants the hospital to apologize and acknowledge what he says was a mistake. Morrison told CBS News he believes the hospital was at fault because there were only two babies there and, according to him, they went home with the opposite families.
What does Unity Medical Center say?
Unity Medical Center said it no longer has the medical records from 1988, according to CBS News.
In a statement reported by CBS News, the hospital said it sympathizes with the men and their families but has found no evidence that Unity Medical Center or its staff were responsible for what occurred.
The lawsuit is now the families' attempt to press their allegation in court. CBS News reported the central claim as an alleged baby switch dating back to the same winter day in 1988, when two newborns arrived at the same North Dakota hospital and, decades later, DNA testing pulled the families into a very different story than the one they had known.
This story draws on original reporting from CBS News.