KIDNAPPED BABY MEETS MOM — 42 YEARS LATER!
Horrifying mystery ends in tears of joy
AVIRGINIA attorney and U.S. Marine has finally wrapped his arms around the loving mother he never knew existed — 42 years after he was kidnapped from a Santiago, Chile, hospital where he was born!
“Hola, Mama! I love you very much” were the first words Jimmy Lippert Thyden uttered while finally hugging biological mom Maria Angelica Gonzalez, who’d been told by a nasty nurse her baby died shortly after the 1981 birth. Instead, the newborn was snatched in a cruel child adoption ring that stole up to an estimated 20,000 babies during the vicious 17-year reign of dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet in the ’70s and ’80s!
“It’s a miracle from God,” cried Maria Angelica, 69, who’d spent a lifetime grieving the loss of her son. “When I learned he was alive, I couldn’t believe it!”
Jimmy enjoyed an all-American upbringing in Arlington with a loving adoptive family, but after seeing a story about kids who had been trafficked to the U.S. from Chile, he began wondering about his true origins.
“These kids were stolen from poor families, poor women who didn’t know,” says Constanza del Rio, founder and director of the nonprofit Chilean group Nos Buscamos, which tries to reunite the fractured families.
Jimmy finally tracked down his birth mom in Chile with the help of a cousin he discovered through an unexpected DNA match.
“It knocked the wind out of me,” says Jimmy. “The paperwork I have for my adoption tells me I have no living relatives. And I learned in the last few months I have a mama and I have four brothers and a sister!”
He brought along his wife, Johannah, and their daughters, Ebba Joy, 8, and Betty Grace, 5, to meet Maria Angelica — who gushed, “Mijo [my son], you have no idea the oceans I’ve cried for you!”