Who Trolled Amber? - The fallout | Foundling Ep 4

Episode Date: April 14, 2026

Jess ignores a plea from her birth mother to stop searching for answers. She decides to track down her father. Foundling is a 6 part original series from Tortoise Investigates and The ObserverTo binge listen to all episodes today, ad-free, subscribe to The Observer and use the code AUDIO50 to get 50% off your annual subscription.You'll get access to:This series and all our podcasts before anyone elseAd-free listeningPremium newslettersPuzzles from the inventors of the cryptic crosswordExclusive offers from our partners including Mubi and iescapeTickets to join Observer events in our newsroom or onlineOr subscribe to Observer+ on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to listen to all our podcasts, including this one, without any ads.Reporter - Lucy GreenwellProducer - Katie GunningOriginal theme music - Tom KinsellaSound design and additional music - Rowan BishopPodcast artwork - Blythe Walker SibthorpNarrative editor - Gary Marshall Editor - Jasper Corbett Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tortus investigates. Do I think about going to see these guys? I mean, this is kind of act two of this strange story, isn't it? I'm in a taxi with my producer, Katie, and we're on our way to meet one of Jess's newly discovered half-sisters and her mother. Kim and Debbie have experienced something really just like this terrible, terrible loss. and we're trying to piece together how it came to be. I'm speaking to them on the phone.

I know how they're angry and really angry. The stakes feel quite high. Because they're hoping we'll help them find answers. Yeah, exactly. When I think back to the day, Jess did her DNA test five years ago now, I picture a large stone dropping into still black water. A splash, a circle of ripples, expanding outwards. And those waves, they've travelled quite far now, disturbing the water's calm surface, and they're still spreading.

Jess's DNA sample has already linked her to her birth mother. Now Jess is using the technology to go in search of her biological father, too. This time, Jess is hoping the DNA will confirm a lead she's been given, the name of a man, a man Jennifer was in a relationship with around the time. Jess would have been conceived. So the timing stacks up. His unusual Germanic surname also stacks up because Jess's DNA results suggest some of her genes

come from that part of the world. So Jess is pretty confident she's nailed this. But she also wants to tread carefully. And I left it for a bit though because I thought, okay, I found them, I know they're there. And I said, but I just need to figure out how I'm going to approach this. Particularly because she's had a warning from

Jennifer, let sleeping dogs lie, a message urging her to stop asking questions, to call off her search for her biological father. And Jess tells me she understands the risk, that answers may come at a cost. She knows those ripples are about to disturb the calm surface of another family. And what she's learned from contacting her birth mother is that she can't control what happens next. But she still has this void at the start of her life and she still wants answers. I'm not out to break up families and I'm sorry I was born.

Like, what do you want me to do? Jess gives it a few weeks before going on Facebook and rather than contacting her possible father, she messages his five adult children. They all seem to live in the same town as their father, the same town where Jennifer grew up. It's a couple of hundred miles north of Jess. It must be so surreal to be looking on Facebook

at the profiles of people and you have... It's a secret that it's going to burst into their lives. I kept looking at the pictures thinking, how on earth is this going to work? Because the last thing I want to do is break up this time. She keeps the message deliberately vague. She tells them she's resolved. searching her ancestry, and she thinks they may be able to help.

Only one of them replies, the eldest, Adam. And straight away, he seems to know exactly what Jess is looking for. He kind of put two and two together and asked me how old I was, and then when are you actually looking for your father? And I thought, I didn't want to outright say that because, so I was like, well, I'm just kind of looking on that side, and he was like, but you're about the right age. Adam's into family history, so he's already done his DNA,

but he's used a different company, not the ancestry site that Jess is on. So now Jess orders a new kit. Once again, a small vial of her saliva is sealed and mailed. In a laboratory somewhere, technicians in white coats extract and decode the data. As Jess waits for the results, That warning from her birth mother, Jennifer, plays on her mind.

Please have some consideration for the impact another search could have on another family. Surely Jennifer knows that Jess is bound to search for her father, so why is she trying to put her off? Why is Jennifer so anxious about Jess's search? These days, Jennifer's no longer that frightened young woman. She's a respected figure, a woman with a reputation, a livelihood, a carefully built life. Is she worried that this second DNA test threatens that in some way? As Jess's circle widens and draws in more relatives?

Jess doesn't like being compared to her mother, but I think this compulsion to find things out makes her similar to Jennifer. Remember how Jennifer's curiosity led her, someone who didn't want to be found, to take a risk and reply to that Facebook message from Jess years ago? Jennifer could have ignored it, but she didn't. And that desire to know things

from the shadow of anonymity well, it wasn't a one-off. Is this the street? I'm Lucy Greenwell and from Tortoise Investigates and the Observer, this is Foundling. Episode 4, the fallout. It doesn't take long for the DNA results

to come back. They confirm just as Jess suspected, Lewis is her father. That man in the blurry photos Jess was shown taken in the pub back in the late 80s. So you text your birth dad when you know who it is.

You've got a little bit of information from his eldest son, your half, you found half-brother about him. What do you say to him in that text? I first messaged him on the 18th of August of 2022. And I said, Hi, it's Jess.

It's a bit of a crazy day all round, I'm sure it's come as a shock to you, Jess. He replied and said, it's knocked me sideways. I just don't know what to say at the moment. I'm sure you understand, but it's so nice to hear from you. This new connection, like so much of the story, hinges on DNA. And I want to be sure of something. It's not that DNA can lie, but it's entirely possible to misread what it's telling you. In your results, a close match tells you how much DNA you share with the person.

It doesn't say what relation they are, because it can't. You share the exact same proportion of DNA, 25%, with someone who's your nephew, your uncle, or indeed your half-siblings. So there's room for mistakes. My name is Michelle Leonard. I am a professional genealogist, DNA detector. to wear a lot of hats, but primarily I focus and specialize on solving mysteries, especially complex mysteries, using DNA testing. And Michelle tells me too many people assume the DNA test process is straightforward. Spit, lab, name pops out. In truth, it's a bit more complex

than this. DNA is microscopic in size, but mighty in impact. Michelle uses it to help clients find answers about their families. Everyone has the right to know where you come from, the right to know who your parents were and the right to have your medical history and know things that might be really important to your medical future as well. That right to understand where you come from means Michelle will go digging whatever the potential fallout. However, the right to know is not the same as the right to a relationship.

The parent has the right to say, I don't want to be contacted, I don't want to have a relationship, and as sad and devastating as that can be at times for the child in that instance, that has to be respected. I went to Michelle to check that Jess had drawn the right conclusions from her DNA test, but this feels like a salutary warning that just because you find family doesn't mean you get to keep them close.

And mothers who give up their children for adoption or even abandon them as babies, they aren't necessarily waiting with open arms for the moment the child arrives back into their life. For the person's searching, it can feel like the most important quest of their life. For the person being found, it may feel like an ambush. I ask Michelle, with Jess's safety,

so to take a look at all of Jess's results from the DNA companies she's used. Hopefully, we're in the right place here. Okay, let's see if we made that a bit bigger. All right, so we are looking here at Jess's ancestry results. And what I was talking about early... She gets going, pulling in results from the different sites and creating a family tree. What I do is I build a private and unsearchable... research tree in ancestry, and I work the matches.

Michelle goes back further and further in time, building out generation after generation of Jess's ancestors, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents. I watch the screen as she gets to work. It's kind of amazing. These kinds of cases are like giant jigsaw puzzles. However, they're old jigsaw puzzles. All the pieces are a bit, you know, worn, there's bits missing, the box is long gone. You don't know what the original jigsaw's meant to look like. And you just have to slowly start to put these old worn pieces on the board until a picture emerges. And it inevitably does emerge if you get enough pieces on the board. In Jess's case, the picture seems pretty clear. Jess has matches across the board.

And here's the thing. All of Michelle's detective work to check Jess's conclusion is possible even though Jess's biological parents haven't done their DNA. These databases are now so big, Michelle's able to use other people's DNA profiles to narrow a search right down, and at that point, it doesn't take much to fill in the blanks. These days, it's very hard to stay hidden. Is it generally the case that they're finding out big gaps in your family using DNA leads to happy-end? Ah dear, that is a really good question and it's just so individual. I've seen some beautiful happy endings. Honestly, amazing, amazing happy endings and I've also seen some terribly,

terribly sad outcomes as well. I'd gone back home and Lewis said to me, I need to talk to you about something. Lewis's long-term partner is Debbie. She's a slim woman with light brown hair tied back in a ponytail. We're sitting in her daughter's kitchen as the son streams in the back window. Debbie starts slowly, like she's not used to being the one doing the talking, and she tells me how she found out about Jess. They said, can we go for a drive-out, which were unusual because by this time, relationship were in tatters, really, I'd been for a while. Debbie and Lewis have been a couple since they were in their teens. They've had five children together. But the way she tells it, the relationship hadn't been good for some time.

When you think back, were there happy times? Um, to be honest at a moment, I can't really think of any. I suppose they were. But at the moment, I can't. So when he asks her to go for a drive that August evening, just the two of them, she smells a rat. And I just said, well, can't you tell me here? And he said, no, because he didn't want neighbours to hear. So he drives her to a pub in the countryside and buys her a drink? Set outside because it were nice.

It was summer. It was just talking like just normal and not coming, not telling me what it took me there for. And then I said to him, well, what did you want to tell me? And he said, this is what he said. He said, I think I've got a daughter

or something. This woman's been in contact and said she thinks I'm a dad. Because obviously I'd been with him since I was 17. He were a bit older but not that much. 19. So I was just like, gobsmack sort of thing. Debbie asks Lewis how old this daughter is

and he tells her, Debbie does the maths. Jess is almost exactly the same age as their second son. And I just said, take me home. I did feel like smashing glass over his head, to be honest. But he just acted normal, took glasses back to the bar. Because he knew that I couldn't kick off in pub car park,

or he knew I wouldn't kick off. I know some people would have just kicked off, but he knew I wouldn't. So I just got in car with him, and he were just trying to talk. and I just, I don't want to talk to him. Eventually, Debbie asks him to pull over and she gets out. She calls her eldest daughter, Kim. Whenever I get a phone call, I instantly know something wrong.

If it's not a text, I'm like, right, what the hell's going on here? So I answer his phone, I'm like, hello. And she says, do you know as well? I'm like, what? Do you know? I'm like, know what? Because Debbie's paranoid that everyone's heard before she has. At the pub, Lewis had said that their two eldest sons already knew about Jess before Debbie did.

What are you talking about? And she said, don't you've got another sister. I mean, my art just dropped because I'm just thinking, what on earth? Like how, when, what? Looking at the messages between family members during those crazy days after Jess appears on the scene, They all seem pretty stunned. I know at least two of his children are sure their dad Lewis had no idea Jess existed. Maybe because of this, Jess doesn't seem to judge him as harshly as she does her biological mother.

He replied and said, it's knocked me sideways. I just don't know what to say at the moment. I'm sure you understand, but it's so nice to hear from you. I don't know. He sounded quite caring. And yeah, that's what I got from it as well. Still, it must have hurt a bit when after that brief exchange of messages, she hears nothing more. That was more than three years ago now.

Jess tells me she doesn't mind, but I'm not so sure. You go through life wanting to be accepted and wanting to be loved, because you've got this little seed in your brain right from when you were born that you're not loved and you're not wanted. And then you've got this fear of rejection going into new relationships. of are they going to meet me and are they actually going to want to continue to see me and do they like me as a person?

Jess often says to me, family bonds aren't just about blood. Having been raised by incredible adoptive parents, she knows that for certain. But when there's blood and a bond, there's a kind of alchemy to it. Jess was looking for her birth parents. She's found them and gained eight new half-siblings.

But it's with her two half-sister. Kim and Chloe that she finds the real magic. And it's only when you find that connection and you realise that's the connection that I really wanted. This. This is what it's all about, that search for a sense of closeness, a kinship. After a few months of chatting over WhatsApp,

the three women arranged to meet in the gardens of a stately home. So it looks like it's kind of autumn time. It was, yeah. And there are the two girls with their long black hair and you in the middle and you've all got your arms around each other. And actually everyone looks kind of a little bit stunned but also genuinely quite delighted. Yeah. And we was laughing and joking because I stupidly wore a dress and that was caked in mud. And then Chloe had wore some beautiful new trainers that got caked in mud. So none of us had really prepared for the weather at all.

And we just had this lovely walk. It was very, really organic. really natural. Kim is in her early 30s, chatty, gregarious. Chloe is 10 years younger. She seems shy and a bit nervous at first. Even though there wasn't massive amounts of conversation, she was so warm. Everything she ever said was with a smile.

And I don't know, I found that really beautiful. And it was lovely. You could see the dynamic between her and Kim. Like you could see they absolutely adored each. each other. Chloe takes real care to include Jess's two kids. She was sort of pointing out the ducks and having chats with them. It was lovely to see. The way Jess tells it, this first meeting with her new sisters,

the muddy walk, lunch in the pub, everything just fell into place. We just had the same thoughts, the same interests, everything. And so like, okay, we didn't look like each other, but that connection was much deeper than just looks. than just looks, because we came away going, God, we're so alike. Because everything we discussed, we were on the same page, and it was beautiful.

Jess says she's always dreamed of being part of a big family, and we know she has one now, on paper at least. By my reckoning, on top of those eight-half siblings, she's gained two parents, four grandparents, a lot of aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews, and that's before you get to her new cousins. But it's Kim and Chloe who make that feel real. That autumn day, Chloe walking ahead with Jess's children, pointing out the ducks, the three women content.

If only you could just press pause and freeze it there. You are this bringer of change without meaning to be. Yeah. You know, so things do happen in their family as a result of it. Tell me what happens. So it was really difficult. The dynamics were really hard to juggle. I knew that there was tensions and things and difficulties with their mum.

It wasn't anything she ever expected. I certainly wasn't anything she ever expected to sort of jump onto the scene. And I can understand that her thoughts and feelings towards me would have been really difficult. I'd put so much effort into my kids and they were sort of everything. It were hard for me because this person's nothing to do with me but still to do with the dad. so I'm kind of outside of everything and it that were really hard

this is so unexpected for Debbie and she's not coping well it were like an hand grenade in there's life in August 22 she feels angry and she starts to wonder who was this woman he had a baby with a baby she abandoned obviously I were trying to get stuff out to him and piece stuff together She learns the name of the woman Lewis had an affair with in the 1980s, a woman named Jennifer. But it doesn't ring any bells.

It isn't anyone Debbie remembers. Lewis tells her the relationship was casual, no more than a fling, really. He just said that he went out with mates and she were there and it weren't really see, she weren't really, she weren't really his girlfriend. He just used to take her home at end at night. Have sex. Home where? What home?

To her house. And did he say how long, before, how long it went on for like that? How many times? Well, he said it finished it in the May. May. That would be May 1987, five months before Jess was born.

So Jennifer would have been around four months pregnant. So he's sleeping with someone as they go from not being pregnant to being four months gone and he doesn't notice. But Lewis insists to Debbie he had no idea. He said no, he said he couldn't tell

because she were big and she'd never said anything. We know the relationship ends around this point when Jennifer moves to Suffolk to become a nanny. From what he said, she was scared of her parents and all this. and she'd given him an ultimatum and said, it's her or me kind of thing.

And Debbie's convinced Jennifer would have leveraged her pregnancy at this point to keep the relationship going. Surely you'd use it. You're pregnant and scared. I'd been in that position. I were only 17, like young when I had had him. So I'd been in that position. Jennifer, surely you'd say, well, I'm pregnant.

What you're going to do about it? As time goes on, Debbie starts to realise Lewis's relationship with Jennifer wasn't a one-off. I just started to, like, think of little things that had not made sense. Like, I remember hearing him being dropped off once at night, late at night. And I also remember finding lipstick on his shirt and him just saying, well, it must have been, you know, You know, like when you're in a pub and it's really loud.

I found an earring as well in his van once. And he said, he used to go to a class and he said he'd give somebody a lift. Up till now, it's Debbie who's been left most hurt and confused by Jess's arrival. But the ripples are about to reach Chloe. Jess is softly spoken half-sister. So I've been like on antidepressants since I've like 14. This is a voice note sent from Chloe to Jess in 2022. Something happened when Chloe was 14 and the memory of it still haunts Debbie.

She'd gone to a friend's house. I don't think I'd banned her from seeing him but I didn't really want her having a lot to do with him because they'd been shoplifting and I'd got called to store by a store detective and his mum had just not been bothered about it and I'd obviously told her off because I didn't want to do anything. things like that. So she'd gone to his house and not told me. Chloe's not a badly behaved kid, but she's no angel either. And on this particular day, she's lied to her mum so she can go to a boy's house while Debbie thinks she's elsewhere. There was a friend of the family there, a man.

And he plied him both with drink. Well, I think he's so... Well, I think he tried to touch Chloe. And she basically just got herself out of there. Chloe escaped to another friend's house. But her friend, I mean, he weren't a boyfriend, but he was a boy. This man raped him. She blamed herself because she'd got out of it and left him.

Chloe feels traumatised and guilty. And on top of all of that, she's due to give evidence at the time. trial. It's plain for Debbie to see the toll it's taking on her daughter. Because she'd got to, you know, go to court. To tell the police she was struggling, but she weren't seen as the victim. So, um, and then she came down one morning before school and said she'd take them some tablets. Chloe's admitted to hospital. And when she's discharged, she's referred to the local mental health team. But this attempt to take her own life becomes the first of many. Chloe stops going to school regularly, days go by without her leaving her room, and her family lives in fear of her trying again.

Chloe's been having counselling one way or another ever since. It just felt like it were a cycle. It were a cycle. After that first time, she'd come out, not be grateful for her. bit, then sort of be a bit more normal again, and then she'd go down hill again. The counselling has often been the best way, the only way, of coping during some of her darkest moments of despair and depression. You know, like, the alarms that all people have on the doors, there were stages where we had alarms so that if she got up in night and opened that door, we'd hear it, so we'd up. Chloe's very open about her struggles. So when Jess and Chloe discover each other and start

chatting in 2022, it's one of the first things Jess learns about her. To me, Chloe was always fragile. She was always vulnerable. She said that she's always struggled with her mental health. She's struggled with everything's been a struggle and she's always tried to move forward from it and we spoke at length about, you know, how she was doing horse riding which helped her with a mental health. We'd spoken about sort of alternative medicines and things like that. When they first talk, Chloe's in a good place. She's at college studying mental health nursing. And then what's next?

And when she's not doing that, she's spending time with her niece. Well done, you're so clever. Goes out singing karaoke with her brother, Josh. Normal stuff. It's only a few days after the revelation in the pub garden when Debbie starts to seriously worry. Not about the breakdown of her decades-long relationship with Lewis, nor about Jess herself,

but about what it all means for Chloe. Because there's a reason why I've told you about Chloe. and her fluctuating mental health. Debbie's worry is prompted by something her eldest son Adam had said to her. He was the first to be in touch with Jess, and it was Adam who'd broken the news to Lewis that this woman had come forward and that the DNA confirmed Jess was his daughter. During that conversation, Adam also told Lewis who Jess's mother was.

This conversation, just imagine it, being told by your son that a woman you had an affair with years earlier had secretly gone on to give birth to your daughter, that she's now an adult and she wants to get in touch. Anyway, Adam had later relayed this conversation to his mum, Debbie, and it keeps popping back into her head. He said that when he'd said to his dad, who it was, who Jess's mum was,

His dad had said No, no, it can't be her She's a mental health nurse It had seemed like an odd detail to include at the time But it stays with Debbie Because she knows about mental health Because of Chloe's illness Chloe's been under the care

Of the local NHS mental health team for years Debbie's been in close touch With some of the members of the team She's even sat in on some of Chloe's sessions, including with the most recent mental health nurse who's really stood out. She's been kind, responsive and understanding. Yeah, she seemed really nice and Chloe liked her and I liked her. She just seemed nice and caring. She gave me a number and she gave Chloe a number.

She's told Chloe to ring her if she ever feels she wants to, and Chloe does. The counsellor is a woman in her mid-50s. Her name's Jennifer. And I just, I don't know, I just thought, it's a bit of a coincidence if it's the same name. The woman who had a fling with Lewis decades ago and who'd gone on to have his baby is a local mental health nurse named Jennifer.

And Debbie's thinking, how many mental health nurses in a small town can there be with the first name Jennifer? Debbie calls her son and asks him, What is this woman's surname? Her married name? The surname she might use at work. Next time on Foundling.

She just kept saying she felt violated. That's the word that she kept using. And she were angry. Because she trusted Jennifer. for it's the it's chloe not knowing and that's what Chloe that's what affected her it's the fact that she knew and Chloe didn't know knowing exactly who she is and to continue to counsel that even though knowing that's a conflict of interest knowing she's had a baby with her dad like it's just awful honestly what are you thinking doing that what are you getting out of that there's no there's no

rhyme or reason for that. She must have known who Chloe were. There's no way that she didn't. I 110% believe that she knew all Chloe were. Foundling is reported by me, Lucy Greenwell. It's written by me and Katie Gunning, who's also the 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 Sybthorpe. The development producer was Jess Swinburne. The narrative editor was Gary Marshall. The editor is Jasper Corbett. Thank you for listening to Foundling. We hope you're enjoying the podcast so far. You can listen to all six episodes today by subscribing to The Observer. 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, Mooby and I Escape, tickets to our events, and much, much more.

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