Adoptee sold by Georgia doctor 50 years ago reunites with birth mother

MCCAYSVILLE, Ga. — After being apart for 50 years, a woman has been reunited with her birth mother and brother after being sold by a doctor in Georgia.

The adoption of Kriste Hughes, 51, was far from typical. A doctor in Georgia essentially sold her to her adoptive parents, according to ABC News.

Hughes is among the roughly 200 adults who have come to be known as the "Hicks Babies," newborns who were illegally sold into black market adoptions by Dr. Thomas Jugarthy Hicks between 1950 and 1965, according to county birth records.

Hicks was the town doctor in McCaysville, Georgia. He would tell women he would find adoptive parents for their children. In other reported cases, he lied to the birth mothers, telling them their newborn baby had died. Hicks would then secretly sell the newborn for $800 to $1,000 each and included a forged birth certificate with the adoptive parents’ names on it.

"Nightline" spoke with eight people who identify themselves as Hicks Babies, including Hughes, and asked the genealogy website Ancestry.com for help in tracking down their birth parents through DNA testing.

According to ABC News, Hughes’s DNA matched a first cousin, a woman named Jackie Flowers. When speaking to Flowers on the phone, she revealed that two of her aunts had given birth at the Hicks clinic and that one of them could be Hughes’ birth mother. Hughes learned that one of the women also had a son named Roger Tipton, 52, who could be Hughes’ biological brother.

After Roger agreed to take the DNA test, they learned it was a match and after speaking to him, she found out her biological mother was still alive.

Hughes was eager to reconnect, so “Nightline” brought her to Georgia to meet her biological family.

Roger and Kristie had lived their entire lives without either of them knowing the other existed. They greeted each other with a hug and could barely catch their breaths as they started exchanging personal history. Roger said he has always wanted to have a sister.

“I wish I had had a sister to pick on or picked on me or something,” he said. “I just don’t think Hicks had a right to play God and bust up our family.”

Roger’s mother, Thelma Tipton,75, said unlike most of the other Hicks moms who willingly gave up their babies, Hicks told her after she gave birth that Hughs was stillborn.

“He said she had a bad heart and I believed it,” Tipton said.

She said Hicks even had her sign her daughter’s death certificate. One week later Hicks sold Kriste to her adoptive parents, according to ABC News.

“He stole my daughter,” Tipton said. “He robbed me of my life. I missed out seeing Kristie growing up, missed out on her first tooth… her first day in school… I missed out on her wedding, I missed out on everything.”

Even though the moment was bittersweet because of what they missed, they both celebrated they newfound family and are making up for lost time.

“I’ve got both of my kids, my son-in-law, and my daughter-in-law and three of my grandkids, I’m happy,” Tipton said.

WSBTV