Uncover - S30 E2: Who's the father? | Bad Results

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

Four years later, a Canadian college student named Corale needs to identify the father of her unborn baby. The 19-year-old turns to Viaguard Accu-Metrics for a prenatal paternity test. Like John, her world is rocked by tests that name the wrong dad. Unlike John, she starts asking questions and connecting dots. “Are there other people? Am I the only one?” A legal note: Over the course of this podcast, a number of allegations are made against Viaguard Accu-Metrics and its employees. When asked, company owner Harvey Tenenbaum said he stands by the test, and that any errors were caused by customers during sample collection.Hear Episode 3 right now — early and ad-free — by subscribing to CBC True Crime Premium on Apple Podcasts.

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news, so I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Oh, please don't put me through to a voicemail. DNA testing, could you please hold? Yep. Please don't put me through to a voicemail. DNA testing, could you please hold? Yep. Oh, these are voices. Thanks for holding. How can I help you? Hi there, am I speaking to a manager or a supervisor?

For a prenatal department? Well, both prenatal and... This is cell phone video recorded by a young woman named Coral Mayer. She and her mother, Michelle Renaud, are calling a company called Viagard Acumetrics. Michelle takes the lead. But here's the situation. So my daughter had a prenatal paternity test done, and it showed 99.99% probability that this person was the father of her unborn child.

Then he recently had a DNA test done. We got the results from him yesterday showing he was not the father. Two paternity test results from the same lab. The prenatal paternity test result says he's the baby's dad. The postnatal paternity result says he's not. So I did a little bit of research online and both of these tests are 99.9% accurate. So it's impossible for the same person to be tested accurately and have two different results. I would need to grab the file. Yeah. Would you happen to know the case ID number? The receptionist says something about having to go through boxes of files to find Caudal's case.

And listen, who needs to call today? Like, this is extremely, like, you have no idea how much this affects somebody emotionally and mentally, getting a positive and negative test for the same person, because that's impossible. Unless the lab made a mistake. It's devastating. I'm definitely going to have the manager call you. The manager doesn't call. But what Cadell doesn't know yet is that other people, many others,

have called this company asking the same questions, looking for the same answers, for years. How could I be that unlucky? Is it my fault? It's not my fault, right? It's like, what the fuck? They made my life. And they're not victims of random bad luck. There was nothing random about it.

I'm Jorge Barrera. This is Bad Results, Chapter 2. Who's the father? You ignored my first question. Do you like Putin? Yes, Taylor, I like Putin. This all started for Kodal when she was 19, living the life of a college kid studying broadcasting in North Bay, Ontario,

a small city on the shores of Lake Nipissing. She had her own place, worked at a pizza joint, was into photography and filmmaking, which explains the videos you've been hearing. What's up, world? For Codal, they're a bit like diary entries. In them, she looks like a blue-eyed Maisie Williams. You know, Arya Stark from Game of Thrones? Brown hair, round face, with a delicate gold-hooped nose ring.

And, how she tells it, her life back then, it was a little wild. I, at the time, was pretty mentally unwell. I was very much into partying and seeing random men all of the time. So when she started feeling a little off in July 2019 while working the night shift at the pizza joint, she had a suspicion. I told my friend, hey, let's get a pregnancy test because I'm not feeling so well about this. So for some reason, I was too nervous to get it myself, so I asked her to get it for me. So she went to Dollarama and got me a pregnancy test.

I watch it slowly move, and then I see one line and then two lines, and then I yell at my friend to come in. But I wasn't panicking. I was in shock. And she started panicking. Cudal is pregnant. And her gut tells her it's this one guy. I just like immediately went to him to tell him.

Because like I felt that it was him. But she can't just trust her gut. She needs to be sure. I had to search paternity tests, but I was like, wait, I'm pregnant. So I had to do research on the difference between prenatal and a paternity test after the child is born. Then I searched prenatal paternity tests near me, and then this Viagard Acumetrix at 1232 Kingston Road shows up.

And I was like, oh, wow, this is really close. In 2019, Viaguard Acumetrix is offering a full slate of lab services. Fingerprinting, pardons and waivers, drug testing, and of course, DNA paternity testing. Cadell finds them on the eastern edge of Toronto, wedged between a hair salon and a Montessori school. And the hallway outside of this medical office, there was no lights on. So it was a little weird.

Caudal is ushered in. There's a lot going on in her head. She remembers an elderly man taking her for the blood draw. She doesn't know his name, but in time it will become a name she'll never forget. I just remember though, like his hands were really shaky when he was doing it. He was very shaky. It was, it felt really weird. In his white lab coat, he squeezes drops from her pinky finger to put into a vial. For some reason, I started to feel dizzy.

So I think it was just blood and being overwhelmed. So he's like, can you just sit down and I can get you some water if you want and stuff like that. And I was like, yeah. And I think he caught the gist that I was feeling like weird about everything. And he said, don't worry, we'll take care of you just reassuring because I very much show my emotions and I was very much showing my emotions that day and he reassured me that we'll figure this out and all that kind of stuff. Codale pays the bill $400 up front and she'll need to pay $400 more when she gets the results.

But while driving away, Acumetrix phones back and says they didn't get enough of her blood. They say they'll send her a home test kit. And when it arrives, the envelope reads Prenatal Paternities, Inc. Codell doesn't think much of it at the time. She doesn't yet know that it's the name of the company that got John Brennan's test results wrong four years earlier. We're poking holes in Coral's finger. But right now, here in her bathroom,

Coral just wants to get this done. Why do we have to do that? It's a paternity test. Paternity test. She's with three friends, filming the blood extraction for a school project about her pregnancy. Oh my God, it's just a mess in here. Okay, clean your finger off.

Are we doing it on your index or middle finger? That's what the paper says to do. What? He did it on my pinky. Well, I don't care what he fucking did. He obviously didn't know what he was doing. Yeah, that makes me feel very comfortable right now. Okay? You're okay?

Okay. One of her friends pricks Codal's finger and squeezes blood from it into a little vial. It's done. It's really done. You guys are such good friends. Later that day, the man she believes is the father comes over to give his DNA sample for testing. He swabs his cheek.

And then he put it into the envelope, and I remember him saying that he'd trust me to send it out. She puts her blood and his DNA in a box, tapes it up. It just felt so... trashy. Doesn't that sound terrible? I felt trashy. Why?

What I'm feeling at that moment is that I'm irresponsible and immature to put it into the mailbox to send it to a company who's going to tell me who the father of my child is. It didn't feel very nice. And there's people just catching the bus. And I'm putting a box of DNA. It's just weird. It's a weird concept. I had a pit in my stomach. But at the end of the day, my brain kept saying, science? You know, like, it's obviously legit. It's a DNA company. You know, why would anything go wrong?

A couple of weeks pass. Then Codal gets the call she's been waiting for. The voice on the other end of the call was calm. He's not the dad. And I remember I couldn't breathe. Like, I started crying really hard. But it was like the cry that hasn't come out yet. The phone call ended, and that was just it.

Karel is now 14 weeks pregnant, and Acumetrix has just told her that the man she hoped was the dad isn't. When you're given all of these different avenues where your life could go for your child, and you start to almost visualize what life will be like, and now that one's gone. You have to erase that from your mind and now visualize these other lives that you might have. She needs to arrange a DNA test with another man. She takes a deep breath and makes the call. I was basically begging him to come over and do the test and I assured him that it would be in my house. We'll both be there and we'll send it out together. So it's like super safe and foolproof. Like there's, why wouldn't you?

He agrees, but there'll be nothing foolproof about the answers she's about to get. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is.

I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. Codow's gender reveal party happens on a warm October day. Woo! She's wearing sandals, her belly a growing bump under a coral dress. Her brother Jaden is behind the camera and the lens focuses on Codal standing alone, a smoke flare in her hand. Go! Do it!

Oh! Oh! She lights the flare and smoke billows out in a cloud of pink. No way! See, that's exactly what I wanted, but I didn't say it this whole time. Her little sister runs to hug her. This is a rare moment for Kodal. Everyone here knows what she's going through, that she still doesn't know who the dad is, and that she's waiting on results from a second DNA test. But for one afternoon, they can all just relax a little, celebrate.

A couple weeks later, she gets the results from the second DNA test. Over the phone, an Acumetrix rep tells her this guy, he's the father. So then I texted him and he sent like heart eyes and he was all excited. But this man does little more than send emojis.

He leaves Kodal mostly alone to face her pregnancy. I have 21 weeks and four days. 21 weeks and 4 days. And I'm not happy at all. I'm always exhausted. I'm always sick. Karel records this in her bathroom. Her eyes are red, her face drained of colour. Holy, it just sucks.

People live their own lives and you're just stuck. Alone, all the time. The dad-to-be shows up for only one ultrasound when Kodal is seven months pregnant. She phones him later, after the appointment. Okay, um, do you want to be there for the delivery? Sure. What? Sure. Sure? Mm-hmm. Or yes? sure what sure sure or yes i sure mean yes

when baby harlow was born on march 7th he's not there. So when my daughter was born, she was given my last name. And the person who Viagard said was the father was upset about that. So he was like, I'm going to do a DNA test because I want her to have my last name. So I want to go change it, basically. So I told him, go ahead. I was very upset because I went through this whole process. Like, it's over now. I don't want to revisit.

When I spoke to him, he told me he'd always wanted a second test. That when he held Harlow for the first time, shortly after her birth, he said he felt sure at that moment she wasn't his daughter. For her part, Codal is exhausted. She doesn't need another fight, but they go back to Acumetrix, which offers them a postnatal paternity test. And I came back like a week, week and a half. And he was told that he wasn't the father. I mean, how do you even react, you know? So now we don't know is he positive or is he negative?

So is he positive or is he negative? Let me go and get the file. I'm just going to put you on a quick hold, okay? Yep. Okay, thanks. Which is how could Al and her mother, Michelle, end up on the phone with Acumetrix? They don't understand what is happening.

All these tests, all these conflicting results. I was at my mom's house. And so I'm just eating my broccoli. And I'm like, is this really my life right now? Can I not just have dinner with my family and know who the father is? Like, I already had the baby. I thought we were supposed to figure this out when I was pregnant. Caudell's mom, Michelle, shares her frustration. You know, for me, I just wanted Harlow to know who her dad was. She has that right to know who her parents are,

and this company was taking that right away from her. They were doing this again. How do we know that this is real? Who's the dad? Which test is correct? Karel's baby is now six months old, and Karel is back where she started. Honestly, I just wanted to enjoy my child. I feel like I was robbed of that.

You know, everyone always says, like, that's the most valuable time. Like, soak it all in. I could not soak anything in. So she calls up the first guy again, The one her gut told her was the dad asks him to do another test but with a different company. These results say he is the dad but he's a bit wary and doesn't totally trust these new results. He wants yet another test. So they do one more. 14 months and five paternity tests with three different companies later, they finally have an answer. This man, the first man Codal tested with, he's the father. And all the emotions that have swamped Codal throughout all of this, All the emotions that have swamped Caudal throughout all of this, well, they all harden into one.

Anger. There's no way that this is real. Like, this can't be real. Like, you're in a state of disbelief. Like, are there other people? Am I the only one? Like, was it just me that got messed up? And, you know, there was no way in heck I was going to let the company just fade from existence in my mind. DNA testing, how may I help you? Hi there. I called an hour or so ago. I haven't heard back from whoever was supposed to call me back.

Okay, give me one second. Hi there, thanks for holding. Okay, he's in his office. I'm going to transfer you right now. Okay, what's his name? Kyle. Kyle? Okay, thank you. Hi, how are you doing?

I'm doing okay. How are you? Good, good. I see I was handed your file here. Yeah, so I'm Kyle's mom, but she's sitting here with me right now. I'm trying to help her through all of this. Right. To be honest, we have the lab looking into the issue. We're not sure what went wrong and what the issue is in this scenario. So this mistake has a devastating ripple effect on many, many people involved in this. I understand.

No, you need to hear this. We got a positive result. So we put his name on the birth certificate. It has an effect on the grandparents, you know, that are devastated. Like there's's no way. You can't have a negative and a positive. DNA doesn't change. And the prenatal, I did my research, is 99.9% accurate. And paternity is also 99.9% accurate. We're trying to figure out what happened on our end. I mean, I don't deal with the lab in that situation. I just deal with the administrative side.

Cadell and her mom, Michelle, don't know it yet, but the guy they're talking to is Kyle Sui. As far as we've been able to work out, Kyle is the second in command at Acumetrix. He's the technical manager. He oversees quality control for sample collection. So what we'll do is we're going to look into the issue and in the meantime we're going to look into the issue. And in the meantime, we're going to issue Corral a full refund. After the refund, Acumetrix closes the file, moves on. But not Corral.

I feel like I'm not even living in real life. I feel like every day is a movie. That's just some fucked up nightmare. I don't know how to deal. Every day is a movie. That's just some fucked up nightmare. I don't know how to deal. I could have never imagined in a million years that I would be in this situation. I just wish sometimes I had someone to relate to. But I wish I could sit face to face with someone and have them completely understand my pain. So Caudal starts digging into Acumetrix and comes across reviews that weren't online when she first looked up the company two years earlier.

And she finds a connection she hadn't seen before. Prenatal Paternities Inc. and Viagard Acumetrix, they're the same company. And she discovers something else. She's not alone. When I found out there were other people that were affected by the company the way I was, it was relief. And it's not because I want other people to experience what I've experienced, but it's because finally I could talk to somebody and they would be like, yep, I get that. That happened to me too.

Kodal helps set up a Facebook page for people burned by the laboratory's prenatal paternity tests. And it grows quickly. When I saw the Facebook group, I was really happy because finally I can get completely understood. Dozens join, like this woman from Guatemala. They are playing with lives, you know. It's not they are playing with cards. They are playing with lives. There is a couple from Victoria who almost had an abortion after an acumetrics test.

If we hadn't done the retest, I just, I go through my head, like, what would have happened? What would have happened? I think I know the answer to what would have happened, and it's terrible. And I see our amazing daughter all the time, and would she not be with us? I mean, it's just devastating to think about.

And there's a woman from Montreal. She finds out when her son is six years old that Accumetrix got his biological dad wrong. What is my son going to do later in time when he finds out about any of this? Is he going to be mad at me for years? Is he going to forgive me? Is it my fault? It's not my fault, right?

I hope he knows that it's not my fault. And John Brennan, the man who raised a baby boy for eight months before learning the results of his tests were wrong, he finds his way to the group as well. I think I was reading the reviews, and somebody in the reviews had maybe said, hey, there's a Facebook group, you should join it. And so I log on to Facebook and I joined this group. Record this so this can be helpful.

Yeah, sorry. In January 2021, Kodal and her Facebook group reach out to me. Oh, I think he's coming. When I finally get the chance to drop in on one of their regular group calls, there are people on the line from at least three different U.S. states, a couple from Central America and Codal. If you're open to answering, like how did it affect you? Did it affect you like emotionally and everything like that? Oh my gosh, it did really bad. Um, it was embarrassing and people were like,

how did you not know? And what were you doing that you didn't know? And it definitely hurt. And it, I didn't think my first pregnancy was going to be that way if I could ask a question did it um do you have like a number of how much money it costs you for us that we between the dad and I we spend over twenty thousand dollars at court because you know two fathers and myself and going to court and lawyers and all that stuff um I paid back about five or six grand to the guy. It was just, yeah, it made like ruin my life for a little moment. And I just, just to hear that there's so many other people that it's happened to, it just, I don't know, like it makes me even more like upset and stuff.

And their group, it just keeps growing. But now we have about 50 some odd people in the group. Wow, this group of people who have lost so much, finding others in the same position fuels more than just a sense of solidarity. one day I want to bring justice to people who experience the scam by Viaguard Acumetrix for anyone who used the fucking company if somebody is losing out on precious time with their kids because they're raising the wrong kids or they don't even get to raise their kids I'm so mad I'm so mad I don't even get to raise their kids. I'm so mad. I'm so mad. I don't know what to do anymore. Corral also has questions about the company itself and the people it hires. Like, I just don't get it. Like, I can't. I don't know how the people, like, sleep at night. I don't

know how they sit there and do their little jobs and answer phone calls from people who do find out and call them and tell them all the time that they have false results. Like, how do you actually sit there and continue to work there? They're the questions that both Rachel and I share. How is this company getting away with this? Who works there? Who's answering the phones? Who's answering the phones? Who's analyzing the samples, playing with science and people's fates? Next time on Bad Results, we go looking for people who can take us inside the company.

When you hear things and you're seeing things and you've dealt with things and then you leave, wondering is that place still standing and finding out yeah it's still standing it's like wow that's interesting. I think it's so ridiculous like if I walked in there as 35 year old me today I'll just be like you've got to be kidding me. That's all coming up on Bad Results. A legal note here over the course of this podcast, you're going to hear a number of allegations made against Viagard Acumetrix and its employees. When asked, company owner Harvey Tenenbaum said he stands by the tests and that any errors were caused by customers during sample collection.

Bad Results is written and reported by Rachel Houlihan and me, Jorge Barrera. Mixing and producing by AC Rowe. Jessica Lindsay is our showrunner. And Carla Hilton is our executive producer. Special thanks to the folks at CBC Podcasts for their support. Karen Burgess is managing editor for CBC News Podcasts. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.