This story featured on Today showcases the story of Donna Freed, a woman who grew up in White Plains, New York, with her caring adoptive parents. When she decided to search for her birth parents later in life, what she discovered was truly unbelievable.
Donna tells Today how she grew up in a completely normal and loving family with her parents and two siblings. She recalls that there was one thing that made her feel different: when she discovered that she had been adopted.
“The five of us, that was like my world,” Donna explains of her family dynamic growing up. “So, that did create a certain rift for me.”
When she was in her teens, she asked her mom about her adoption and was told that it wasn’t necessarily some big family “secret.” Though, after Donna’s adoptive mother died, she felt the need to do a little digging in hopes of discovering who her birth parents were.
Once she found out what her birth last name was and she could look up her parents, she was met with a number of incredible headlines that involved criminal activity, con artistry, and even a fake drowning.
She goes on to tell Today that she discovered that her birth father had been married with children and was having an affair with her mother when they discovered they were pregnant. Donna learned that they had been quite happy to find out about the unexpected pregnancy and decided that they wanted to run away to Spain to be together and raise their child.
Only they didn’t have the means to make a big international move like that, so they faked her mother’s death via drowning in order to get themselves a big payday, but things didn’t exactly go as planned.
To learn the whole truth about what Donna discovered about her birth parents’ criminal past, watch the video.
