On the Search for Army Vet's Long-Lost Twin Kids: Part 2

the epic story of a soldier searching for his twins now leaps across time and distance from an Army Airfield in 1960s South Korea to the present day and a home in South Jersey that's where we find Pam Slayton and that's where she finds lost loved ones there's probably 15 20 cases in there Pam Slayton is an author and a one-woman Department of missing persons forced to give up my seven-year-old daughter please help us find her son I don't think people can comprehend how many people are hurting and still out there trying to find somebody important in their life but now a viral facebook plea of help me find my twins is about to spark a worldwide search led by Pam at her first meeting with veteran Allen Thomas he shows her two letters that broke his heart they arrived in the early 1980s from the State Department and the pearl s buck Foundation an organization that arranged adoptions for thousands of Asian American children abandoned in Korea by their GI fathers the letters informed Allen his Korean ex-wife Connie had given away their children the twins and amazingly the letters say he would have no legal right to his children you must have been a public t'k I mean what do you mean they were a DA I'm the father I were highly highly upset where my rights I was told I hadn't all right there was one piece of good news in that letter it said the twins had been adopted together in the United States okay so this is 1980 now is this the very first time that you're finding out these kids were adopted out into the US but since that letter there have been no new clues until now allan gives a mysterious Facebook message from Korea from a man named consolee it turns out Lee is a policeman in Seoul specializing in finding missing children a Korean version of Pam with a badge he runs an investigative team in Korea and holds the world record for finding more than 3,000 missing children I feel like I need to get on a plane and go to Korea but I don't speak the language that's when the worldwide resources of ABC News went to work for Alan in Seoul South Korea ABC news bureau chief joe heat show helps us pull back the curtain on the four decade mystery her first stop is a meeting with mr. lee jong-hyun and get the most important thing for us is to figure out the mother's identity almost immediately a breakthrough lee finds the twins mother Alan's ex-wife Connie she is listed in the Korean government registry she gave birth to twins and also she was married to Alan Thomason so we're like bingo yay but the registry says Connie died in 2007 it was her heart soju his next stop on the advice of mr. Lee is Korea's social service a small adoption agency issues Juhi mentions Connie's Korean name to the woman at the agency when I told her the name of piss and GU man she had twins and there was this whole story on Facebook I got a feeling that she knew who I was talking about but she wouldn't admit it the agency tells her Alan has no right to access the adoption records but there is someone who does she said only siblings have rights to ask for it she gave me that hint it's like wow we didn't even know that loophole remember little Jane the twins older brother the boy Alan adopted when he married Connie Joo he finds him all grown up now married with children he now holds the key to finding the lost siblings Alan's twins back in America the doors were locked unless gave you the key in essence with his permission yes but there's a problem even after all these years Jame resents Allen Thomas the man who once adopted him because he believes Allen abandoned them when you first contacted Jim he wanted nothing to do with you he said no jus he goes to visit Jame and his wife in person Jame remembers the day his little half brother and sister vanished athough I came home after school and they were gone I asked my mother about the twins and she told me that they went somewhere so I just accepted that Jew he shares some insight about why Connie may have given up the twins for adoption what would it have been like for these children in growing up in South Korea these GI babies impossible for the mothers to raise them because they would have been disowned by their family if they if they brought home a mixed-race baby is absolutely and they said that they had as it was considered that bad still reluctant Jame is finally persuaded by his wife to give permission for the adoption agency to release the records Pam Slayton is in the u.s. ready to receive them I woke up and I could see that I got an email from Korea and I can't even tell you how excited I was this was the break she been waiting for the email explains someone back in Korea had changed the twins date of birth making them appear to be a year younger and making tracing them nearly impossible so you had spent all that time searching yes and had that birth date off by a year in a month yeah but Pam is finding out nothing is easy with this search and I start working my databases over and over again I'm coming up empty again even with the correct birth date even with the correct date of birth ever persistent Pam goes looking for the twins adoption records there are copies in the archives of the Pearl as buck Foundation in Pennsylvania Pam calls but gets nowhere and I said well please let your boss know I'll be stopping by I'll be in the area that was kind of like I'm coming you're not getting rid of me I'm presently in Percocet Pennsylvania I'm about to go see the Pearl Buck foundation I don't know what they're going to be willing to disclose to me let's see how persuasive I can be not persuasive enough as it turns out they still offer no help because adoption records here are kept private by law I got all Queens girl you at Queen's girl I want Queens girl being a stubborn woman that I am I call the agency back man can you check what's known as the order of adoption she gets back on the phone she's like wow she said you're right the names were changed hmm changed to what well I said for instance Sandra something maybe similar to Sandra she said something similar Wow what about James James first names completely changed she said however he did keep part of his name well that's telling me his first name James is now probably his middle name as I said well thank you very much I will try not to bother you again so the two of you are basically playing a little game we're playing a game coughs if I'm close right with the correct date of birth and information that Alan's son may have the middle name James Pam dives back into her databases so I figured okay let me pop James in the middle see what I get and I'm going through all my list and then this one person Timothy James Parker catches my eye Timothy James Parker could he be half of the 40 year old mystery you

Channel: ABC News

Views: 2,032,480

Keywords: missing, family, tree, lineage, genealogy, genealogist, Allen, Thomas, army, vet, kids, twin, children, long, lost, twins, ABC, News, 2020

Id: EhpP1-m3S2s

Length: 8min 17sec (497 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 12 2015