Lost | Foundling Ep 6

Summary

Foundling | Tortoise Investigates

Episode 6: Lost

Host: The Observer (Lucy Greenwell)
Date: April 28, 2026

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Episode Overview

The final episode of "Foundling" draws together the series’ central threads: Jess’s search for answers about her abandonment as a newborn in rural Suffolk, the complexities of family formed and found, and the persistent absence—and silence—of her birth mother, Jennifer. As cold case detectives revisit the past, Jess confronts rejection, struggles for control of her own story, and seeks the closure she has never truly received. Parallel stories, particularly another foundling’s journey in America, illuminate the universality and deep wounds of being left behind.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. A Visit from the Past: Cold Case Detectives Reopen Jess's Case

• Timestamps: 02:12–07:36
• Jess is unsettled by two visits from plainclothes men—eventually revealed to be cold case officers seeking her DNA in connection to other abandoned babies from the 1980s.
• The officers inform Jess another baby's body will be exhumed for DNA comparison; they need her sample to rule out connections.
• Lucy’s persistent inquiries revived official interest: her questioning of the original detective set off a chain reaction, including the cold case team’s renewed investigation.

Notable Quote:
Jess: "I said, actually, before I boil the kettle, can you just tell me what the hell this is about? Because you're making me panic so bad." (03:59)

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2. Fragile Connections: Family Tension and Rejection

• Timestamps: 08:20–15:21
• Jess narrates the emotional challenge of trying to maintain bonds with her birth family while choosing not to have a relationship with Jennifer.
• The death of Jess’s biological grandfather acts as a flashpoint: she is excluded from saying goodbye or attending the funeral, reinforcing her sense of being perpetually "one step removed."
• Jess finally decides to distance herself for self-preservation, but when her relatives subsequently cut contact on social media, she describes feeling both relief and devastation.

Notable Quotes:
Jess: "It's not for you to decide that. I have had all these years of not knowing him and I'm not even allowed to say goodbye." (10:20)
Jess: "It just takes you back to feeling like you're nothing." (11:16)
Jess: "It's too painful. And this has really hurt my feelings more than anything. I wish you all the best... and just kind of signed off from that." (12:36)
Lucy: "It's so hard for me to understand who's rejecting who." (14:41)

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3. The Battle for the Story: Jess’s Voice

• Timestamps: 15:21–22:05
• Jess considers what it means to finally tell her own story and reveals the emotional fallout from going public—including feeling misunderstood and "rogue" in the eyes of Jennifer’s family.
• For Jess, speaking out is an act of self-determination, but it is also a struggle for respect and acknowledgment from a family still mired in secrecy.

Notable Quotes:
Jess: "Ultimately, I was the one that chose to not have anything to do with them anymore. Yeah, but it's the hurt that they've got. No fight in there for me at all." (17:00)
Jess: "If you do something wrong in life, you have to confront it eventually, like one way or another. It's not very often that you can get away with it for the rest of your life and not confront it and not own it and not talk about it." (19:00)
Jess: "It's the lying of finding me. That's what the issue is for me." (22:40)

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4. The Elusive Mother: Jennifer’s Silence

• Timestamps: 22:44–23:00, 38:56–42:33
• Discussion turns to Jennifer, who has consistently refused to tell her side or participate in the podcast.
• Lucy pushes Jess to consider what, if anything, would be different if Jennifer faced the truth—even asking if Jess would ever forgive her.
• Jess’s anger is repeatedly reframed as frustration with the continued secrecy rather than a desire for confrontation.

Notable Quotes:
Lucy: "Like this idea of Jennifer owning her own story comes up again and again." (19:19)
Jess: "But then she had nine months to think of a good story." (23:00)
Lucy: "She doesn't want to be found... this is one of the most subversive human behaviours and it's as if the explanation for it is unprintable, unspeakable." (38:56)

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5. The Father’s Perspective: Conversation with Lewis

• Timestamps: 26:00–31:43
• In a rare interview, Jess’s biological father, Lewis, expresses shock at learning of Jess’s existence only in 2022. He reflects that Jennifer concealed both pregnancies from everyone around her.
• Lewis discusses his former relationship with Jennifer, his regrets, and his own family traumas, particularly regarding his daughter Chloe and the complicated ethical boundaries around Jennifer later serving as Chloe’s counsellor.

Notable Quotes:
Lewis: "She had plenty of opportunity, really, didn’t she, to tell me, and she never did." (29:22)
Lewis: "Obviously I'm absolutely shattered and gutted by... what bothers me more than anything is that it's caused so much trauma and upset to my family." (29:43)
Lewis: "She must have been under great strain to do it not once but twice." (28:36)

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6. Another Foundling’s Journey: Janet’s Story

• Timestamps: 31:53–38:33
• The episode introduces Janet Barnacote, a foundling from North Dakota with a remarkably mirrored experience. Both she and Jess learned the truth as teenagers, both searched for answers, and both used DNA testing to unravel family origins.
• Janet’s journey contrasts Jennifer’s silence with a US reunion where her birth mother, Joanne, openly admits the truth and apologizes on camera. Janet finds some peace; Jess observes that she does not.

Notable Quotes:
Janet: "I made a sign that said, hey, I'm looking for this lady. Joanne Houser. She found me as a newborn." (33:44)
Joanne (Janet’s birth mother): "I did give birth to you." (35:56)
Janet: "Answers were what was needed and I got those and I can move on." (37:46)
Jess: "[For me] it's not a done deal... I'm still working through it." (38:38)

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7. Final Reflections: Acceptance? (or Not)

• Timestamps: 38:56–42:33
• Lucy reflects on what remains unknowable about Jennifer and the silence surrounding maternal abandonment.
• Jess’s husband observes she’s not the same since pursuing these answers; Jess admits there’s no closure, but she must consider a future where her own children might seek out their grandmother.
• Jess firmly states she does not want a reconciliatory relationship with Jennifer—she simply wants honesty and boundaries respected.

Notable Quotes:
Lucy: "The truth is she didn't want to be found." (38:56)
Jess: "I just don't want any part of that. And what you done was wrong. That's the end of it." (42:13)

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Notable Quotes (Chronological Highlights)

• Jess: "You don't get to pressurize me into that decision. And I did say numerous times, it's just not what I want." (09:06)
• Jess: "It's just telling my story and getting their side of the story." (13:32)
• Jess: "I'd love to be able to just take a pill and then forget that they even existed. I don't care." (15:25)
• Jess (on her public search): "But ultimately it's all for my kids... They're gonna have that for the rest of their lives." (17:39)
• Jess: "If there's a good reason, most normal human beings will completely understand that." (21:50)
• Janet (American foundling): "It wasn't that her birth mother didn't love her. It's that the circumstances somehow short-circuited her maternal instinct." (36:58)
• Lucy: "I wanted to paint a portrait of a human being. I wanted to understand Jennifer. But the truth is she didn't want to be found." (38:56)

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Key Emotional & Memorable Moments

• The dramatic cold case visit to Jess’s home, shifting her from investigator to subject. (03:45–07:13)
• Jess’s heartbreak at being excluded from familial goodbyes and funerals. (10:04–12:36)
• The relief, pain, and ambiguity of Jess "signing off" from her birth family—only to be quickly cut off herself. (12:36–14:57)
• The candid interview with Lewis, Jess’s father, exploring secrecy, regret, and unintended consequences. (26:00–31:43)
• The contrasting American foundling story, with its on-camera confession and closure. (31:53–38:33)
• Jess’s reflection on the lasting impact of secrecy and the limits of forgiveness. (42:05–42:33)

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Structural Timeline

• 02:12 — Series recap, bonus episode announcement.
• 03:45 — Cold case officers visit Jess.
• 08:20 — Jess describes three families; challenges of navigating "birth side."
• 10:04 — Loss of grandfather, sense of exclusion.
• 12:36 — Jess "signs off" birth family.
• 15:21 — Emotions around telling her story, family backlash.
• 17:00 — Agency and ownership of narrative.
• 19:00 — Jess’s longing for honesty from Jennifer.
• 22:40 — Lingering wounds about the original lie and public face of Jennifer.
• 26:00 — Call with Lewis, Jess’s biological father.
• 31:53 — Janet’s (US foundling) story and DNA journey.
• 38:56 — Lucy’s reflections on Jennifer’s life and maternal abandonment.
• 41:49 — Jess’s thoughts about possible reunion and forgiveness.
• 42:33 — End credits and thanks.

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Conclusion

The series ends not with catharsis or neat answers but by laying bare the raw, enduring ache of abandonment and secrecy. Although Jess has made some peace with parts of her story, Jennifer’s enduring silence keeps the real ending out of reach. The possibility of future contact remains remote—and fraught. Jess, finally, narrates her life for herself and for her children, determined to break cycles of shame and silence, even as the past remains unresolved.

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This summary preserves the reflective, candid tone of the podcast and captures the emotional complexity and unresolved nature that make "Foundling" such a compelling listen.

Transcript

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[Lucy Greenwell]

Tortoise Investigates. Hello, it's Lucy. Before we get into episode six, the final part of our story, I just wanted to say a huge thank you for listening. We're so glad you've enjoyed the series. Because we've had such an overwhelming response, we're planning a special bonus episode for observer subscribers to try and answer some of the Questions we know you still have Katie and I will be sitting down with Jess and putting some of your questions directly to her. So if there's anything you'd like to ask us about the investigation, the DNA search or Jess Journey, please send us an email or a Voice note to foundlingbserver.co.uk we can't wait to hear from you. Now onto episode six. In late October last year, two men turn up on Jess's doorstep. Jess isn't at home, but the smartly dressed middle aged men are spotted by some builders and they tell Jess they looked just like coppers. But when Jess calls the local force, they don't know anything about the visit. So if they aren't police, who are they? Jess spends an anxious week thinking about this. She becomes slightly paranoid and tries to avoid being at home on her own. The men return a week later and they seem friendly and Jess is her usual warm, welcoming self.

[Jess]

I said, do you want a cup of tea? Yeah, we'll have a cup of tea.

[Lucy Greenwell]

But she can't contain her nerves. She can't help worrying that she must have done something wrong because the two men, they are from the police, just not from the regular force.

[Jess]

I said, actually, before I boil the kettle, can you just tell me what the hell this is about? Because you're making me panic so bad. And he was like, oh, we're from the cold cases team and it's about you as a founding. I went fine.

[Lucy Greenwell]

For years, Jess has been the one asking the questions. Since she was a teenager, she's been the one trying to unearth hidden things. Now, all of a sudden, the tables have turned. Two professional investigators are asking Jess questions about being a foundling.

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Oh, God.

[Jess]

I was like, what the hell is going on?

[Lucy Greenwell]

Oddly, apart from the TV producers who made the long lost family episode and then me, no one's really asked Jess about the events at the start of her life. Her friends have, sure, but never anyone official. The police investigation into her abandonment ended years ago when she was still tiny. There were no answers then and the case was shelved. And then last year, I started asking questions and trying to speak to officers who worked on the investigation back in 1987. And that seems to have set off a chain reaction. I was setting up the mics to interview Aldwyn Jones, the original detective on the case, who we heard from at the start of the series. And he asked me something I wasn't quite prepared for.

[Cold Case Officer]

Are you gonna do anything with the mother or not?

[Lucy Greenwell]

Or I'm gonna ask her I've written to her. Now, in an investigation like this, you tread quite carefully with the information you're gathering. You don't go around telling everyone everything. But when a senior policeman, even one who's retired, asks you for the answer to a mystery he and his team didn't manage to crack, well, you feel a bit of pressure.

[Cold Case Officer]

Can I ask you if she's been. I don't know her name. I'm guessing. Of course.

[Lucy Greenwell]

I wonder if you. Who was your suspicion about who it was in the moment, I'm buying time and I'm thinking this isn't my information to share. Is there any way I can not

[Cold Case Officer]

tell him the person who found the body, Some connection either with her or her? Is that right?

[Lucy Greenwell]

Yes, that is right.

[Cold Case Officer]

One or the other. Is she the mother or the connected?

[Lucy Greenwell]

He's not giving up. And I can't see a way not to answer him. I end up confirming a suspicion he's obviously had all along. She's the mother, all right. And it turns out he shared that crucial piece of information with some of his former colleagues. Once a copper, always a copper. Right. And that's led here to a pair of cold case officers drinking tea on Jess sofa.

[Jess]

So I was trying to get all the timeline together for them to write it down.

[Lucy Greenwell]

My questions had set something in motion that I hadn't anticipated. Remember how old Win had said that baby Jess was lucky to be alive? How a lot of babies who are abandoned don't survive. The plainclothes police officers tell Jess about two babies who were found dead in

[Jess]

1984, the very matter of fact about it all, and laid out the facts that, you know, they were looking at these two other characters, cases of babies being abandoned, and they had to investigate them because it was in a certain mile radius of where I was left and these babies weren't far away.

[Lucy Greenwell]

They say that one of the baby's bodies is being exhumed so that DNA samples can be taken. The officers are here because they want to take a saliva swab from Jessica. They need her DNA because they want to rule out any connection to Jennifer. I'm Lucy Greenwell and from Tortoise Investigates and the observer, this is Foundling Episode six Lost.

[Jess]

So I'd always kind of found it difficult to manage the relationships on that side.

[Lucy Greenwell]

It's been two and a half years since Jess completed her family jigsaw, and in a way, Jess feels like she has three families. There's her own family unit with Jamie and the kids. There's Kim on her father's side. And then there's her birth mother's family too.

[Jess]

It's a lot, because obviously I chose not to have a relationship with my biological mum. It was always going to be difficult, so to have a relationship with my nan and granddad, my aunts and uncles

[Lucy Greenwell]

on her mother's side of the family. Everyone tiptoes round the central issue that Jennifer and Jess don't have a relationship, have never met.

[Jess]

There was always that slight pressure of, oh, you know, why don't you meet your other siblings? Or bitches, you know, your biological mum's only around the corner, why don't we go and see her? And it's. I didn't. I hated that, hated every part of that. You don't get to pressurize me into that decision. And I did say numerous times, it's just not what I want.

[Lucy Greenwell]

But for a while, they sort of make it work. There's a fragile sense of family. They muddle on as families do. But a couple of years after they all first meet, in early 2025, Jennifer's dad, Jess's granddad, falls ill and everything begins to change. He and Jess had grown close. The last time she saw him, they'd gone for a walk together. He'd said lovely things to her about what she meant to him and it felt genuinely special. But now, when he's really sick, there's a closing of the ranks.

[Jess]

They kept saying that he hasn't got long, he hasn't got long at all. And I said, well, can I come up? Like, even if it's for an hour and then I'll drive back home.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Her grandad's immediate family tell her again and again, don't worry, there's really no point coming to visit at this stage.

[Jess]

It's not for you to decide that. I have had all these years of not knowing him and I'm not even allowed to say goodbye.

[Lewis]

Sorry.

[Jess]

I felt very pushed out, very unwanted again, very rejected, and I wanted to just be able to say thanks to him because he was lovely. I kept explaining my reasons why I wanted to go and say goodbye, but they just didn't seem to get it.

[Lucy Greenwell]

She thinks about ignoring their messages, just jumping in her car, but she doesn't want to tread on toes. So she. She stays at home. Jess only finds out that her new grandfather has died when one of her cousins posts about it on Facebook.

[Jess]

It was devastating because again, it's another kick in the teeth of that you're not that important, you're not seen as one of us. It's that it just takes you back to feeling like you're nothing.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Jess hatches a plan to pay her respects at his funeral. Her dad offers to drive her north, and she decides she'll slip in at the back and disappear home before the wake. But then she gets a message saying the funeral is for close family only. She'd missed out on Chloe's funeral, and now she's not welcome at this one. She's always one step removed from these newfound families at these critical emotional moments, like she's a disruptor, a needless distraction. Look at it from Jennifer's point of view. She's never been in the same room as her long ago abandoned daughter. To risk coming face to face for the very first time at her own father's funeral, well, that would add a heavy emotional burden to an already difficult day. I can see why Jennifer and her mother wanted to avoid that. But for Jess, this funeral decision is the final straw. She makes a choice to distance herself from the mall.

[Jess]

So I just kind of said, I can't do this anymore. I'm finding, like, managing everything and everyone too much. It's too painful. And this has really hurt my feelings more than anything. And I wish you all the best and I hope everything goes okay tomorrow. And just kind of signed off from that.

[Lucy Greenwell]

This message, sent the day before the funeral, causes its own hurt, a hardening of attitudes towards Jess. For a while, Jess feels like her life is a bit simpler again without them all. No more visits, no more birthday cards, no more diplomatically dividing her time between different family members. But then a few months later, we start recording this podcast. So this was after I had written to various people saying, like, inviting them to tell their side of the story or to contribute to this podcast.

[Jess]

And, like, I'm some sort of enemy and I'm up against them and it's just not the truth at all. Listen to what this is actually about. It's not putting shade on them as a family. It's just telling my story and getting their side of the story.

[Lucy Greenwell]

So what happened? You just went on one more, like, what did you notice?

[Jess]

First, I noticed that Rachel had defended me.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Rachel is her aunt Jennifer's sister.

[Jess]

I looked on the profile and I was like, oh, I'm not friends of her anymore. What on earth's happened here? Like, what? And then I thought, oh, surely not. So then I checked the rest of them and lo and behold, I think Sam had then got rid of. Rid of me off Instagram. And then the other sibling from Jennifer, who I'd never met. She'd got rid of me. But then I noticed they'd all started locking down their profiles a lot more so you couldn't see anything. Okay, something's obviously happened. There's this happening with the podcast, and we need to protect ourselves. Let's all come together. Let's all get rid and just wipe it out.

[Lucy Greenwell]

You know, it's so hard for me to understand who's rejecting who. Yeah, because you signed off, you said signed off from them. It's too painful. But at the same time, it hurt your feelings when they rejected you from, like, unfriended you or.

[Jess]

I hadn't rejected them fully, but they took that drastic action of, that's it, we're done. I'm wipe you out completely, like you never existed. And that's what it just felt really drastic. Especially when I'd already said, you know, we can still keep in touch. It just won't be the same as it was. And the fact that they all done it, that was like, the worst part.

[Lucy Greenwell]

For some months, whenever Jess and I speak, she's upset.

[Jess]

I can hear them talking. She just wants the attention. I'd love to be able to just take a pill and then forget that they even existed. I don't care.

[Lucy Greenwell]

At this point, those months of phone calls are hard. Jess is upset, and I'm part of the reason things have deteriorated with Jennifer's family.

[Jess]

It's brought up emotions I didn't realize I'd had or I thought I'd got rid of. But, yeah, I didn't think that there would be this huge fallout.

[Lucy Greenwell]

She imagines them all condemning her, and she hates it. She feels like they think she's gone rogue. I tell her I get where they're coming from, because going public with something this private must feel like a betrayal to them. And that's why Jennifer's family, her parents, her siblings have closed ranks around her. Whatever confusion or embarrassment they feel about how Jennifer's handled things, however baffled they are by how she's reacted to Jess, she's still theirs. Jess has been cut loose again. For her whole life, Jess's story has belonged to. To other people, to the police who investigated, to the journalists who wrote about her, the social workers who placed her with a family, and crucially, to Jennifer, who buried the story. Now Jess, by speaking publicly, is the one who's deciding what gets said and when. It feels to me like an ongoing battle for control over her own story.

[Jess]

Ultimately, I was the one that chose to not have anything to do with them anymore. Yeah, but it's the hurt that they've got. No fight in there for me at all.

[Lucy Greenwell]

When I started on this investigation, I was trying to understand Jennifer, what she did and why. But the longer I've spent with Jessica, the more I've realised her choices also matter. Why does someone take the story of their abandonment and their search for answers, this painful, private thing and decide to

[Jess]

tell has helped me work through emotions that I'd buried pretty deep. I think it's worked through the story and actually dug up bits that I'd forgotten. But ultimately it's all for my kids, like their mum's story. Ultimately my story is a crazy one. It's an incredible one and it's really interesting and they're gonna have that for the rest of their lives. They have their mum telling that.

[Lucy Greenwell]

But it is very public as well. And I'm trying to understand a bit more about like what your hopes were, what you. What it felt like for you to tell your story in this way.

[Jess]

It is mostly for me it's getting it down because like the timeline is so crazy and there's so much happened in a number of years in. It's just nice to be able to be heard and make sense of it a bit more.

[Lucy Greenwell]

A way of being heard, sure. But maybe it's more than that. A way of trying to get her new family to see all of this through her eyes.

[Jess]

I think. Not even just Jennifer, like all of them, I don't think they've ever really understood from my perspective and how things feel for me.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Jess says she doesn't want a relationship with her birth mother. She's not angry, she says, but there's something she keeps coming back to.

[Jess]

If you do something wrong in life, you have to confront it eventually, like one way or another. It's not very often that you can get away with it for the rest of your life and not confront it and not own it and not talk about it.

[Lucy Greenwell]

So how much does it irk you that she's never had any consequences to this?

[Jess]

That annoys me the most part. Just own it.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Like this idea of Jennifer owning her own story comes up again and again. Jess has been told that when Jennifer admitted to her family that she was Jess mother, nothing happened. The story didn't spill out, There was no release of long held secrets. And since then, as far as Jess knows, Jennifer said nothing more. And without hard facts or reasons, Jess still clings to the story of her being found. For a long time, though that verge was very much part of your origin Story, it's all you had, was the

[Jess]

verge essentially for years, years and years, that that one little lane was all I had. I have to take my story as face value. What I know that I was left on the side of a road and the poignant part of it all is that she lied and said that she found me. The fact that she was happy to have her face in the newspaper I've grew up with all my life looking at them newspapers with her face in it, not knowing that that was her, that is horrendous. And then when you find out that bit of information, you relook at them pieces of newspaper and it is sickening to the bottom of your stomach that you've stared at that all your life.

[Lucy Greenwell]

But does it make a difference to think that perhaps she gave birth to you somewhere, held you in her arms, wrapped you in that 12 to 18 month old vest and handed you to the gardener or the policeman. Does it, does that change the feeling about what happened? If it was that?

[Jess]

No, not really.

[Lucy Greenwell]

I think there's more compassion or more love there, isn't there? To do that rather than leave you free.

[Jess]

Yeah. But then I think to. I think that I would feel that more if she hadn't then gone and done it a second time. If it was just me and it was literally a case that she gave birth, held me, passed me over to the police. That I can understand. There's a lot more love, there's a lot more compassion and understanding. But then to go and get pregnant and then do it a second time and leave them somewhere completely different again, that's where I lose all of that.

[Lucy Greenwell]

The anger that comes through that Jess always insists she doesn't feel towards her birth mother, it conceals something simpler, a question that never goes away.

[Jess]

All any adopted person, foundling, anybody wants is just that explanation of why, why couldn't you keep me? For what reason? If there's a good reason, most normal human beings will completely understand that.

[Lucy Greenwell]

I think this is key to understanding Jess as she sees it. The loving thing to do would have been to just tell her the facts. The ongoing secrecy feels like a lack of respect, a lack of care. It eats away at her. I really do understand this. The facts would have helped fill an enormous void in her life. Also, for what it's worth, having spent this much time with Jess, I think she'd have found it within herself to understand. I think she could have forgiven Jennifer if Jennifer had ever told her the truth.

[Jess]

It's the lying of finding me. That's what the issue is for me.

[Lucy Greenwell]

But what was she supposed to do? I mean, she's 18. She really doesn't want to. She's hidden the pregnancy. She's hidden. She doesn't want to be busted now. So what could she do? She had to pretend to have found you, otherwise you were clearly her baby.

[Jess]

But then she had nine months to think of a good story.

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[Lucy Greenwell]

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[Jess]

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[Jess]

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[Lucy Greenwell]

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[Lucy Greenwell]

Hello.

[Lewis]

Hello.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Hi.

[Lewis]

Hello, Lucy.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Hello.

[Lewis]

Sorry, the line's not very good. Sorry.

[Lucy Greenwell]

As I'm writing this episode, my phone lights up. Oh, great. Is that. Is that Lewis?

[Lewis]

It is, yeah.

[Lucy Greenwell]

It's Lewis, Jess's biological father.

[Lewis]

Yeah. I want to say I'm very wary about this, to be quite frank.

[Lucy Greenwell]

I've wanted to speak to him for ages about Jennifer, about Jess, about why he allowed his daughter Chloe to be counseled by someone he'd had a relationship with. And we've spoken once before about very briefly. I then wrote to him with a long list of questions. Now he's calling me to set the record straight. We get talking and we go all the way back to the 1980s, when he was with his partner Debbie, but having an affair with Jennifer.

[Lewis]

She were an affable, bubbly, friendly sort of character. She knew a lot of people and she were friendly with a lot of people.

[Lucy Greenwell]

He says he knew that Jennifer was in love with him, but after a few months, he decided to call time on their relationship out on the town one Friday or Saturday night in what would have been around May 1987.

[Lewis]

And I just told her I wanted to make a go of relationship with Debbie and I'd got two sons and I just wanted to do the right thing, really, and try and make a go of it and, you know, make a family home and all that sort of stuff.

[Lucy Greenwell]

He tells me he didn't notice Jennifer was pregnant. By my reckoning, she would have been about four months.

[Lewis]

How should I put it politely? She's. She was never a very thin woman, if you know what I mean. So it's. It's difficult to tell when. I mean, obviously. I mean, sounds awful, this, but I don't mean it to be.

[Lucy Greenwell]

I press him. He may not have noticed, but did she honestly not mention it?

[Lewis]

They had no idea. No idea.

[Lucy Greenwell]

He says he didn't know anything about a pregnancy or a baby until Jess turned up in 2022, aged 34. So her parents and siblings didn't know, her husband didn't know, Lewis didn't know. It seems certain now that Jennifer carried the knowledge of what she did all alone for more than 30 years. So Lewis hadn't known about their baby. But he knew Jennifer really well, so perhaps he can shed light on why Jennifer had a baby in secret and then pretended to find her.

[Lewis]

I'd ask somebody to try and explain it to me because happening once is a shocker, but for it to happen the same time, it. Well, it defies explanation, really. She must have been under great strain to do it not once but twice. There must have been something not quite right.

[Lucy Greenwell]

We know that Jennifer and Lewis have seen each other since their relationship ended in 1987. In the NHS clinic, of course, but also at her home when he delivered her a Christmas card. And speaking to Lewis, I get the sense that they've definitely stayed in touch. How often would you see her in the intervening years, roughly?

[Lewis]

Didn't see a lot of her, basically, you know, it weren't like I saw her every week or every month or whatever. We'd been in touch, but there were no mention, no mention of Jessica. She had plenty of opportunity, really, didn't she, to tell me, and she never did.

[Lucy Greenwell]

So what's your feelings about the fact that she didn't?

[Lewis]

Well, obviously I'm absolutely shattered and gutted by. Really knocked me duck off. It really knocked me head off. And what bothers me more than anything is that it's caused so much trauma and upset to my family.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Even if there'd been no baby, no Jess, his ex girlfriend, counselling his daughter Chloe, it's still a conflict of interest. Think of it from Chloe's point of view. Were you concerned about the impact it might have had on Chloe if she was to have found out about your previous relationship with her counsellor? Did that cross your mind?

[Lewis]

Well, it did, but I wanted all the help I could possibly get for her. And I didn't think a conflict of interest would bear on a relationship that had gone a long, long time ago, really. And I just wanted best for Chloe all help that she could possibly get. That was basically it really. Perhaps it were naive on my part.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Did you ever go into the counseling room? Did you? I know Debbie did, yeah.

[Lewis]

Yeah.

[Lucy Greenwell]

He tells me something else about those times at the NHS clinic that he actually sat in on a session with Chloe and Jennifer.

[Lewis]

Yeah, I seem to recall, yeah. I think there was an occasion when I were in the same room, perhaps another occasion when I were in waiting room.

[Lucy Greenwell]

I asked Debbie about this, but she doesn't recall Lewis ever joining one of Chloe's sessions. Still, I can't get my head around it that he thought it was okay for Jennifer to be involved in Chloe's care in any way, but even more that Jennifer did an expert on this stuff. I tell him I'm sorry for his loss and that Chloe sounded like a great person.

[Lewis]

She was lovely loosening.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Yeah.

[Lewis]

You feel such a failure. You feel such an absolute failure.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Yeah.

[Janet Barnacote]

They sat me down with the newspaper articles. And this is what we know, this is what we don't know.

[Lucy Greenwell]

This is Janet Barnacote. She's another foundling who lives in North Dakota. Her story is remarkably similar to Jess. And I've been wondering if any of this gets easier, whether there's a point when a foundling makes peace with what's happened to them. So I suggest the two of them speak. Jess is a bit wary at first. I'm not sure she wants to see herself reflected back, but she goes along with it.

[Jess]

They showed me all the newspaper clippings, which, as a 13 year old, you can imagine is hard to sort of understand. I didn't expect anything like that. It's just not something you'd contemplate, is it? Is you a similar age or like, how did yours come about?

[Janet Barnacote]

Same age. Same age, really? Always knew I was adopted. That wasn't a. A secret or anything.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Like Jess, Janet was a teenager when her adoptive parents decided it was time to tell her the full story, that she was found in California in 1981.

[Janet Barnacote]

My story was, oh, you were left in a paper bag in an alley by a dumpster. And so I flat out.

[Lucy Greenwell]

When she learns the details, she's angry at her mother, says she feels she's been tossed aside. Then she has kids. And just like for Jess, it gets even harder. She's thinking, why didn't my mother love me like I love my kids? For years, she presumes she'll just never know. But like Jess, at a certain point, she can no longer live with the blanks. In 2013, when Janet's 32, she tries to find the person who spotted her and who called the police. A woman who'd now be in her late 50s or early 60s.

[Janet Barnacote]

I made a sign that said, hey, I'm looking for this lady. Joanne Houser. She found me as a newborn.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Janet holds her sign up in front of the camera and she posts the photo on Facebook. Within days, Janet's meeting Joanne Hauser.

[Lewis]

Hi.

[Lucy Greenwell]

A friend videos their meeting. It's emotional. Janet's so grateful for the fragments Joanne remembers about that day. But Joanne's got no idea about who Janet's mother might be. A year later, Janet does what Jess did a DNA test. And just like Jess up pings a Close DNA match. It's a brother, Dean. And it turns out he. He's also a foundling. But that's not all. A third sibling crops up shortly afterwards, also a foundling. So three babies, same mother, all abandoned within hours of their births. When the three of them appear on tv, a professional genealogist gets in touch and offers to help, the same way Michelle did with Jess's DNA results. She pieces together the wider family jigsaw and delivers extraordinary news that Joanne Hauser, the woman who found Janet, is either the three siblings aunt or their mother

[Jess]

sat in her house.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Janet and her adoptive mother look back at the video. Her friend filmed footage of the moment she met the woman who had found her.

[Janet Barnacote]

And my mom re watched the video and she. She goes, that's your mom.

[Jess]

No, woman, that's exactly what my mom does.

[Janet Barnacote]

She said, there's no way that that woman can't be your mother. Look at how she's looking at you. Look at how she's holding you and just soaking everything in about you. I was like, hey, like, just come clean.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Like, this is where the similarities end.

[Joanne Hauser]

I've been living with the guilt for so long.

[Lucy Greenwell]

The big reveal for Janet happens in front of the cameras and it later goes out on a popular American TV show.

[Joanne Hauser]

But, yeah, I did give birth to you. I knew it. Yeah.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Joanne admits it all to Janet. She apologizes, and she goes on to tell Janet about her birthday.

[Joanne Hauser]

I was terrified. I remember it was around 4 o' clock in the morning and I did it by myself.

[Lucy Greenwell]

She was perfect. Just tiny little thing.

[Joanne Hauser]

I felt if someone else had her, they could give her a better life than I could.

[Lucy Greenwell]

It's not a complete explanation, but for Janet, it's a reason, and that's enough. Now, 10 years on from that emotional reunion, Janet feels sorry for the young woman. Her birth mum was back then.

[Janet Barnacote]

She was divorced, had two children, on welfare, no job. And then all of a sudden you have something traumatic happen to you and you pop up pregnant. You have no way of taking care of a child.

[Lucy Greenwell]

You know, here's how Janet sees it. It wasn't that her birth mother didn't love her. It's that the circumstances somehow short circuited her maternal instinct.

[Janet Barnacote]

I have six siblings altogether. Do I talk to all of them? No. I only talk to my brother Dean, and I'm okay with that. I have that one person. I have an amazing brother that I just adore. I always text him. I'm like, I just love you.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Janet's no longer in touch with her birth mother. Or most of her siblings. She has just one meaningful relationship is with her brother Dean. Jess listens to this and I wonder if it resonates. She has Kim, her half sister on her father's side. One person out of all of it.

[Janet Barnacote]

Answers were what was needed and I got those and I can move on.

[Jess]

Do you think time's been a good part of that? Like it's given you however many years now, hasn't it? It's what, 10 years or shy of. And so like, because I feel like mine's still quite fresh, it's still sort of bringing up bits here and there and like you say earlier, like little bits of salt to the wounds every now and then and it just reinvigorates all of them. Feelings and like it's horrible.

[Janet Barnacote]

For this situation, I am at peace. For me the chapter's closed.

[Lucy Greenwell]

As a roadmap, like meet once, conversation and then go separate ways.

[Jess]

I feel like that would damage me more doing that. It's not a done deal for me. It is very much for her. She's a totally different place in comparison to me and I feel like I'm still working through it. I'm still trying to understand my own emotions.

[Lucy Greenwell]

This story starts and finishes with Jennifer. And over time, the image I have of her has changed. When I first realized who she was, the nanny from my childhood, the woman who'd pulled this off and fooled everyone, I felt shock and then sympathy. She must have been through hell. When I found out about the second baby, I filled in the gaps myself. I imagined someone permanently weakened by it all, worn down, shuffling through a quiet, damaged life. But that's not what Jennifer's life looks like from the outside, at least her internal life, whether there's regret or shame, whether she thinks about Jess, we can't know. Those who are close to her, they say if she does feel these things, it's not obvious. Despite repeated efforts to talk to her, she doesn't want to take part. The cold case officers who turned up on Jess doorstep in the autumn get back in touch with her a few weeks later. There's no match with her DNA. The exhumed baby and Jennifer aren't connected. It was always a far fetched idea that a crime from 1984 would have anything to do with Jennifer. She would have been just 15 at the time, at school in another part of the country. But whenever I think about those officers turning up on Jess doorstep, I think about how it makes the chance of Jennifer ever speaking freely even more remote. In America, DNA is being used to prosecute mothers who have abandoned their babies, in some instances decades ago. I do wonder, though, if this makes it harder to reach the truth or to understand why it happens. I wanted to paint a portrait of a human being. I wanted to understand Jennifer. But the truth is she didn't want to be found. A sociologist who studied child abandonment tells me that mothers who leave their children find it almost impossible to talk about. I've spent a lot of time looking for other mothers tales of child abandonment, but there are vanishingly few out there. This is one of the most subversive human behaviours and it's as if the explanation for it is unprintable, unspeakable. Jess husband Jamie said something to her the other day. He said that she hasn't been the same person since her search for answers began. The joy has gone from her, he said. So now she wants to find her way back to her old self, to look to the future.

[Jess]

I can't see a world where things would shift. For now, you can never say never. My three kids, that is ultimately their biological grandmother, and I'd have to jump that hurdle if it came to it. Like, if they wanted to meet her or something.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Jess is still scared of coming face to face with Jennifer. What would you be worried about saying in the room to her? Like forgiving her.

[Jess]

Yeah. And poo. Pooing it and just going, yeah, it's okay, I forgive you. I love you. It's okay. Let's hug it out. Like, I don't want to do that because it's not that I don't forgive you. I just. I just don't want any part of that. And what you done was wrong. That's the end of it.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Jess says she's chosen not to have a relationship with her mother, but truthfully, I feel that's only because her mother doesn't appear to have made any space for Jess in her life. Not at the start of Jess's life and not now either. Foundling is reported by me, Lucy Greenwell. It's written by me and Katie Gunning, who's also the second series producer. The theme music was composed by Tom Kinsella. Sound design and additional music was by Rowan Bishop. Podcast artwork is by Blythe Walker Sibthorpe. The development producer was Jess Swinburne. The narrative editor was Gary Marshall. The editor is Jasper Corbett.

[Tim Spangler]

Leadership used to mean having all the answers. But today's best leaders embody a more human approach.

[Jack Myers]

I'm Jack Myers.

[Tim Spangler]

And I'm Tim Spangler.

[Jack Myers]

Tim and I have spent our careers inside media, marketing and culture and we

[Tim Spangler]

partnered with the Acast Creator Network to start Lead Human to answer one simple question. What does it really look like to lead in this AI dominated world?

[Lewis]

The biggest tip for being a creator? It's a job.

[Nikayla Matthews Akome]

What I learned from Michael Jackson Here's

[Lucy Greenwell]

a man who understands precision.

[Jack Myers]

It's about answering the questions that are hard, not about answering a bunch of teed up questions that are fake.

[Tim Spangler]

What we're looking for are real stories and practical advice that you can use with your teams right away.

[Jack Myers]

Subscribe to Lead Human with Jack Meyers and Tim Spengler Wherever you get your

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[Lucy Greenwell]

Thank you for listening to Foundling. You can listen to more of our investigations right here on Tortoise Investigates from the observer to get more from the observer, become a subscriber by subscribing. Not only do you get all our podcasts before anyone else, you also get access to our premium newsletters, exclusive offers from our partners Mubi and I, Escape tickets to our events, and much, much more. Subscribe [e-mail] subscribe or via the link in the Show Notes. Subscribe today for £1 for your first.