and he was a great man. he came from nothing. cuban: you're a star, johnny. man, congratulations. thank you. dejoria: superstar, dude. god bless you, johnny. thank you. [ sniffles ] come here today and go in front of the sharks. i didn't have a clue that it was gonna be like that, you know? i'm going home with a billionaire for a business partner. it's all good, brother. [ laughs ] you know? i mean, it doesn't get any better than that.

i don't know any about myself, i don't know how old i am, my heritage, my birthday. everything i thought was my life wasn't. >> tonight on 20/20. the shocking story of a baby stolen at birth. by a woman dressed up like a nurse. >> the baby was kidnapped. >> the baby was gone. >> but suddenly, 14 months later, he's found, or is he? >> this is the spot where your stroller was found. >> i was eerie. >> barbara walters with the amazing search of a lifetime, you'll only see here. a grown man's obsession with finding out if he's the real baby paul. could it tear his family apart? a 50-year-old cold case, and our

brand new investigation turning up fresh leads. dna tests, stunning age progression images. what the baby would look like today. if he's not the real paul, then who is? could it be one of these three men? tonight, cracking open the case. >> this is close. >> of who was really stolen at birth. here is barbara walters. >> good evening. tonight a most bizarre story, what would you do if everything you thought you knew about your life was a lie. and the real truth was more incredible than anything you could have imagined. well, one man is telling that very story. about the suspicions, and the family secrets, that have haunted him for the last 50 years. so joining us now as we take you along on this thrilling mystery. >> reporter: i want to show you some photographs. looking at old photos of paul

frohn clack is a strange experience. the baby in his baby pictures is not him. how do you feel when you see this picture? >> i feel like i want to find him, and hug him, and make sure he's okay. >> reporter: paul has a wife, michelle, a daughter, emma, and a fish named blue. a perfectly ordinary life. the problem -- as he recently discovered -- it is not his life. this mystery, born of a terrible crime, was supposedly solved nearly 50 years ago. but today it is paradox so strange, even his name is not his own. who is paul fronczak? >> that's what i hope we can find. >> reporter: the story begins with a villain. an evil woman dressed in white. and a baby, stolen at birth half a lifetime ago, in 1964. lyndon johnson was in the white house, leading a nation still reeling from the assassination

of president kennedy. a young journalist named barbara something-or-other was breaking into television, and the original super nanny --"mary poppins," was coming to movie theaters. >> reporter: in chicago, chester and dora fronczak, married two years, living in an apartment in his parents' home, were starting a family. a first pregnancy ended in still birth, but on sunday, april 26th, dora gave birth to a healthy nine pound boy. they named him paul joseph. >> he was a very cute, alive, sparkly baby. and she was thrilled. >> reporter: mary trenchard petrie was a 19-year-old student nurse at michael reese hospital in chicago. she was in the maternity ward with dora fronczak the day after her delivery. >> that whole thing is like a movie in my brain. i see myself in my uniform as a

student nurse, i see the joy that was when they brought the baby to her the first time. how thrilled she was. >> reporter: but soon the thrill, and the baby, would be gone. it was the last time dora fronczak would hold her son. earlier that day, a woman dressed like a nurse, all in white, had come into her room. she looked at baby paul and left without a word. the woman had been seen elsewhere in the maternity ward several times that day and the day before. no one questioned her or raised any alarm. former fbi agent and abc consultant, brad garrett has looked into this case for us. >> my sense is she was looking for what child she wanted to take. >> reporter: that afternoon, the woman in white returned to dora fronzcak's room. >> and as i was leaving the room, a woman came into the room, this time, she did more than just look. >> reporter: and did mrs. fronczak give her, her baby?

>> the woman said to her "um, the doctor wants to see your baby." and she said "oh, okay." and handed the baby to her. >> reporter: the fake nurse was able to whisk paul fronczak out of the maternity ward, down several flights of stairs and out of the hospital. >> apparently she got in a cab and took off. >> reporter: easy? >> easy, very easy. >> reporter: just like that, paul fronczak, less than two days old, was stolen from his mother's arms and vanished. the baby was kidnapped? >> the baby was gone. >> reporter: mary trenchard says 45 minutes passed before the baby was missed. >> and they said "do you have the fronczak baby?" and i said no. and she said "well then, the baby's gone." i was like "gone where?" you know and, and she said, "you go back to mrs. fronczak's room and stay with her. the baby's been taken." >> reporter: there was a frantic search. nurses turned the hospital upside down. but, astonishingly, for several

hours no one told dora fronczak, the one person best able to describe the kidnapper, that her baby had been taken. your heart must have been in your mouth. >> it was awful. >> reporter: finally, authorities came empty handed to the maternity ward to deliver their stunning news. >> and they told her "mrs. fronczak, your baby's been taken." >> what would you like to tell the person who took the baby? >> reporter: we uncovered rare archival news photos and film footage of the case. here is chester fronczak, the day after learning that, while he was at work as an aircraft machinist handing out celebratory cigars, his boy had been stolen. >> do you have an appeal to the kidnapper? >> i pray that she'll take care of the baby. return him. i don't know what more to say. >> reporter: a distraught

dora fronczak, with chester kneeling by her side, made a public appeal for the kidnapper to return their son. >> would you have any reason to think why she might have taken the baby? >> the only thing i can think of she must have been desperate for a baby that she would come and take someone else's baby away from them. or she couldn't have her own. or she lost hers or something. but even losing a child, i don't think you're that desperate to go and take another woman's baby. >> reporter: if the kidnapper --seen in police sketches, heard the fronczak's plea, she was not moved by it. but others were. fbi agents and police, many working on their day off, searched the city for the phony nurse and the kidnapped baby. they threw out a dragnet, pursuing hundreds of leads and tips from the public. >> so where do you go from here, lieutenant? >> we're still checking out all the leads we have, that we're receiving by telephone and other checks that we are making. >> reporter: authorities had another problem. if and when they found the baby,

how would they positively identify him? there was no dna testing and blood testing was inexact. >> particularly if you go back to 1964, '65, extremely challenging trying to match up -- is this the child -- the biological child of the fronczaks? >> reporter: there was another identification method then in vogue -- the shape of an ear. >> basically, it's the dimension size and the folds of the ear. >> reporter: authorities were about to get a chance to put the ear theory to the test. 14 months after the kidnapping, a child was found. a boy, apparently the right age, half way across the country. was it possible? might this be the face of paul fronczak? when we come back, the fronczaks want to see him with their own eyes. authorities want a good look at his ear. stay with us.

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>> reporter: it was the biggest kidnapping since the lindberg baby -- paul fronczak, stolen at birth by a fake nurse. his angelic face peering from the front page was the last anyone had seen of him. left behind were an empty crib and two broken hearts. a year passed. and then, one day, their phone rang. 800 miles away in newark, new jersey, a boy had been found. >> the fbi contacted my parents and said, "we think we found your, your son." so my parents had to drive to new jersey. >> reporter: and they said this is our baby? >> this is paul. >> reporter: we recognize him? >> yes. >> reporter: whoever abandoned the boy had dressed him up, wheeled him to a department store in a new stroller, and walked away. >> you have someone who places a child in a place that's going to be found and found quickly. so it's not somebody that wants this child to -- to die or be

harmed in any way. >> reporter: this is a picture of you when you were found in newark after you were abandoned. so, how do you feel when you see yourself? >> that's my first baby picture, that's all i have so far. that's it. >> reporter: this is the boy new jersey authorities called "unknown male number one" in the arms of a nurse from a newark hospital. somebody wheels a stroller, puts you here, walks away. >> and never looks back. >> reporter: and never looks back. >> it's -- it's crazy. >> reporter: last week, we returned to newark, new jersey with paul fronczak, back to the very place where someone left him sitting in a stroller 48 years before. is it emotional for you to be here? >> it is. it's -- i feel eerie. i feel anxious. i feel excited. i feel sad. all those things. >> reporter: paul fronczak back on a new jersey street, a crossroad in his life.

>> i wish these walls could talk, you know, maybe we could learn somethin'. i don't know, it's -- it just -- i -- i -- i can't believe that this actually happened, and i can't believe it's my life. >> reporter: in the summer of 1966, the fronczaks believed their family miraculously had been reunited. the fbi had ordered a series of blood tests on the abandoned boy. and compared photographs of his left ear with that of the fronczak baby. eventually confident enough that they informed the fronczacks, who said they had no doubt the child was theirs. they brought him home to chicago and, for the second time, named him paul joseph fronczak. your parents were convinced. why were they so convinced? >> i feel it's the fbi, the fbi is like the, the epitome of authority, and when they say this is your child, i would believe them. that's it. >> reporter: and that ended the search. >> yes. >> reporter: at that point. everyone stopped looking for paul fronczak, that was the end

of the story? >> yes. >> reporter: tell me about your childhood. was it happy? >> yeah, it was a great childhood. barbecues, family get-togethers, family vacations. >> reporter: the family so often filmed in heartbreak, now recorded home movies of their own. the star of every celebration of course, was paul. they had missed his first step, first word, first birthday. but paul was now back where he belonged. blissfully unaware of his past until years later when you were 10 years old, you had a shocking discovery, tell me about it. >> i was looking for christmas presents, and snooping around the house, and i found all these boxes. and it turned out it was a box of clippings and a bunch of cards and letters all about a kidnapping. >> reporter: did you ask your parents about it? >> i did. i asked them, you know, "what is this?" and they said, "well, you were kidnapped, we found you." >> reporter: just like that, you were kidnapped, we found you? >> and that's all that matters, you're our son, we love you.

>> reporter: how did your parents explain what happened to you? >> they really didn't talk about it, it was something that we really didn't bring up in the house. it was a very touchy subject. >> reporter: did you ever feel that there was anything out of the ordinary when you were growing up? >> well i, i did notice that i didn't resemble anybody in my family. >> reporter: you had a brother? >> correct. >> reporter: and he looked like your parents? >> exactly like my dad. 100%. >> reporter: and you didn't at all? >> not at all. >> reporter: when he grew up, paul pursued a career as an actor. his resemblance to george clooney got him work as a stand-in in "ocean's eleven" movies. today, paul works for a college in nevada where he lives with his wife, michelle and their daughter, emma. you remember how you felt when paul said, "i'm not really sure who i am?" >> the first time he told me i thought he was joking. i thought he was just kidding

around. but then, once i realized it was true and i saw the newspaper clippings i felt - - very sad for his parents and sad for him. >> reporter: how do you think it has shaped him? >> i think as a 10-year-old boy, when he first saw those newspaper clippings, not realizing who he was, i'm sure that that has somehow shaped him and that's done something to him over the years. it's just sad. >> reporter: was it sort of there in the back of your mind, this peculiar thing? >> it was really a big part of me through my whole life, and it's just gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. >> reporter: who am i? who am i? >> yeah. >> reporter: then, last year paul happened to see a dna test kit for sale at a local drug store. at last, an easy answer to the question that had followed him all his life. the hard part -- asking his parents for a dna sample, forcing them to travel back in time, to the most painful part of their lives. >> it's something i wanted to do for a long time, but i never really had the nerve to, to ask my parents.

>> reporter: still ahead -- will the fronczak family agree to end decades of doubt? paul is determined to find the truth. but his parents seem just as determined to keep it hidden. >> and they said, "paul, please don't -- please don't send it in. we don't wanna know." ♪ man: [ laughs ] those look like baby steps now. but they were some pretty good moves. and the best move of all? having the right partner at my side. it's so much better that way. [ male announcer ] have the right partner at your side. consider an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. go long. insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. to search your stuff and stthe web all from one place. let bing find the photos you've been gathering in the cloud,

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stolen at birth continues. once again, barbara walters. >> reporter: from his home in las vegas, a city defined by luck and loss, paul fronczak took the biggest gamble of his life. after decades of wondering, of suspecting that he might not be the baby stolen from his mother's arms, he asked his parents for samples of their dna. >> i think i got them off guard a little bit, because i, i had just, i mentioned my, to my mom, did you ever really wonder if i was really your child? she said, "yeah, we, we thought about it." i said, "well, what if we can find out? a way?" and they said, "well, yeah, we'd like to know." and then i went and got a dna kit, and it was all done in five minutes.

>> reporter: but later, second thoughts. were you ready to handle whatever secrets might come out? >> yes. >> reporter: were your parents ready to handle the secrets? >> no. they called me and they said, "we don't want you to have that test done, and if you do it, we don't want to know." i had the, the packet ready to go on my desk in my house for about three weeks, and i would pass it every day, fighting with whether to do it or not. and finally one day i told my wife, i said, "you know what, i have to do this. i really need to know." >> reporter: it was the answer he had anticipated, and feared. the results were in. the test that would tell him if he'd been living a lie. describe the moment when you got the results of the dna test. >> i got the phone call. i found out there is no remote possibility that you're the fronczak child. all of a sudden i felt the color drain from my face.

>> and i said, "are you okay?" and he said, "i don't know." he said, "i feel a little dizzy. i need to stay in my chair right now." >> all the sudden i started thinking, "i don't know anything about myself." i don't know how old i am, my heritage, my birthday, every, all these things that people take for granted, i, everything i thought was my life wasn't. >> he said, "i don't know anything about myself." and i said, "well, you do. you're -- you're my husband. you're emma's dad. you know who you are. >> reporter: but who he is is not this baby boy. for chester and dora fronczak, the fairy tale ending to their family tragedy was revealed to be just that -- a fiction. how does a loving son say to his parents, you are not my biological parents? >> that was another hurdle i had to go through. my dad is 82. he has a hard time hearing on the phone, and my mom, i knew she would be very upset. so, i really thought the best way would be to send them a letter. >> reporter: would you read it? >> dear mom and dad, first, i am your son and always will be.

i love you both, and that will be forever. i am not the kidnapped baby that you had stolen from your arms on april 27, 1964. this means that the real paul joseph fronczak may still be out there, alive, not knowing who he is. i know this is hard for you, but this is also about me at this point. >> reporter: what was the reaction of your parents? >> my dad called me, and he called me a name that he never has called me before in my life. >> reporter: how did you feel? >> i was speechless. and then my dad hung up. in their heart, i was their son, and that's all that mattered. >> reporter: did you think maybe you shouldn't have taken the dna test? >> i struggle with that quite a bit. it's, i mean, i love my parents, and i always do what they ask. but this is something that i really felt i had to do. >> reporter: but the truth hurts. the fronczaks' prayers to find their stolen baby had actually never been answered. >> i feel like the fronczaks, it's like their baby has been kidnapped again. like they're going through it all over again.

>> reporter: for mary trenchard petrie, the student nurse who witnessed their grief firsthand, it is a heartbreaking development. we have a film to show you from 1964. it's your parents at a press conference just days after their baby was stolen. let me show it to you. >> she must have been desperate for a baby that she would take someone else's baby away from them. what are your thoughts when you see this? >> when i see that, it just really hits home with how my mother-in-law felt. and then hit hits home that it -- the pain that she went through then. i'm sure she's feeling it now. >> reporter: for paul, fond memories have become bittersweet, tainted by the knowledge that he was not kidnapped and found. he had been abandoned, most likely by a parent. >> the toughest moment for me is when i watch the home movies of when i was first brought back from jersey, and i see how a young boy was running around

that someone had just left. and it, it just, it kills me every time i see that. i look at my daughter, and the thought of leaving her behind, i -- that's what really hurts me the most. >> reporter: paul is now determined to solve the two mysteries in his life. who is he? and what happened to his parents' stolen baby? >> my main goal for this whole project is to find the real paul. my parents raised me, and they did a great job, and i feel that if i don't do everything i can to help find the real child, then i'm not doing my job as a son. >> reporter: don't you also want to find out who you are? >> it would be a great bonus. >> reporter: but the bigger mystery is who is, and where, is the real paul fronczak? >> yes. >> reporter: to help paul solve these mysteries we introduced him to brian ross, our chief investigative correspondent, and abc news correspondent brad

garrett, former fbi profiler. >> we're starting to pull together anybody who touched the case. and, and you're game? >> i'm in this for the long haul. >> because it does seem that the best shot is to get the word out. >> i think it's the only shot. >> reporter: to crack open cold case five decades old we hit the airwaves, asking viewers to test their memories and send in tips. >> if you know anything about this case, let us hear from you. >> reporter: next -- the search for a 49-year-old man who could be the stolen baby. is this a glimpse of the real paul fronczak? "20/20's" investigation, when we return. but also extremely powerful. it could be used to start a poem. or finish a symphony.

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now, we're putting this 50-year-old cold case into hard drive. with little more to go on than a photograph of a new born baby and a sketch of the woman who

snatched him. will new clues emerge? or new witnesses step forward? here's abc's brian ross back at the scene of the crime. >> reporter: when we arrived in chicago, the case was as cold as could be in a city notorious for its lake michigan wind chill. the hospital on the south side where paul fronczak was stolen has been shuttered, its records long gone. >> do you have any further clues? >> no sir. not at this time. >> reporter: and the key detectives, even most of the reporters assigned to the story back then, are all dead. but there is one clue, and really only one clue, left -- this hospital photograph taken the morning the baby was stolen, at a day and a half old. so that's how we began our investigation. with artists at the national center for missing and exploited children trained in criminal forensics who create what are called age progression images. steve loftin runs the unit.

>> we've had good success. especially with the long-term missing kids that have been gone 10 years or more. >> reporter: it was this unit that worked on the case of the kidnapped jaycee duggard in california by creating an age progression image from a photo when she was 11 to what she would look like as a young adult, except for the hair color ,close to what she actually looked like when found. >> reporter: so then what was the challenge when you got the assignment with paul fronczak? >> obviously being an infant, that was the only picture we had available and it was the awkward angle of that image. >> reporter: artist colin mcnally was assigned the task. working from family photos of paul's parents and brother, it became a kind of jigsaw puzzle, fitting distinctive features from each of the family members into a blank face. >> i think the nose is the defining characteristic amongst all the family members. the deep-set eyes are another

characteristic that i saw looking at the father's eyes next to the brother. along with the mother's mouth and lips. and then for the first time what the real paul fronczak could look like from blank face to a handsome man in a dark shirt stolen from his mother's arms and does not know it. >> i think it is in the ballpark, yes. >> reporter: someone who looks like that? >> yes. i would bet on it. >> reporter: the last siting of the baby was at this intersection where a cab driver told police he dropped them off after picking them up at the hospital. 35th and halstead. the police went door to door looking for possible suspects. the search went for days in 1964, hundreds of officers and fbi agents were involved, and our consultant, former fbi agent

brad garrett, says it is likely the kidnapper had some ties here, given past infant abduction cases. >> they tend to be from the community where they take the child. >> reporter: so we did our own door to door canvas, with the image from the center for missing and exploited children, and another one produced by artists commissioned by abc news from the michigan firm phojoe.com. some of the old-timers in bridgeport remembered the case, and a few, the door to door search. >> there was handbills with the picture of the woman. >> reporter: but that was about all. once again on the air on our abc station in chicago, channel 7, to show the new age progression photos. >> reporter: and within hours, the tips began to roll in. one viewer said the stolen baby was a chicago fireman and we'd find him at a station on the south side.

>> never heard of it. >> reporter: next, another viewer thought the owner of this suburban restaurant was the stolen baby. >> reporter: take your hat off, i want to see. >> no. >> reporter: not you? >> no. >> reporter: but another lead gave us new insight into the woman who kidnapped the baby. she may have tried to steal another baby a few weeks earlier from the back yard of this home also on the south side of chicago. >> all of a sudden i heard my mother scream, "oh, my god. oh, my god, that's her." and mom was pointing at the old black and white tv set saying, "that's the woman who was in our yard trying to take nicole." >> reporter: joan roehm was a teenager at the time and her niece nicole was 10 months old, in a baby carriage while joan's mother was taking the sheets from the laundry line. >> mom immediately ran to the other side of the sheets and yelled at the woman, "what are you doing here? get out of my yard!" the woman had taken the mosquito

net off nicole's buggy and had her hands in the buggy, ready to grab nicole. >> reporter: so she took off running? >> she took off running, yes. and my mother scooped that baby up and took it right in the house. >> reporter: she says her family called the local police precinct, but there was never any follow up. >> boy, that's really interesting. >> reporter: when brad garrett and i went to las vegas to brief paul fronczak on the hunt, he was disappointed that so many of the leads were blind alleys. but convinced the drawings were still the best leads. >> well, that one looks exactly like my mom and all her brothers. i mean, my mom was a croatian and that looks exactly like that drawing there. >> reporter: and in fact, the drawings would lead us to a new batch of intriguing leads, several serious enough to conduct dna testing, with fbi agents eager to hear what we found. >> i could be paul. >> i might be paul fronczak. >> i do believe that there is a chance of me being paul fronczak

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stolen at birth continues.

once again brian ross. >> reporter: the search is on, with new solid leads coming in from the oil fields of the west. >> it could be. i could be paul. >> reporter: to southern california. >> i might be paul fronczak. >> reporter: to a family that added facial hair to the age progression image, and saw the spitting image of dad. >> i do believe that there is a chance of me being paul fronczak. >> reporter: after almost 50 years, there is now new life in the stolen baby investigation that the fbi closed out in the 1960's. >> we're going to do everything that we can to follow up to see if that baby is out there. the special agent in charge of the fbi office in chicago, bob shields, says the case was re- opened after paul fronczak dna revealed that he was not the stolen baby. >> reporter: and he showed me the thousands of page of documents from the old case files. including one directive signed by then-director j. edgar hoover.

>> you could tell from the documents, significant investigation with priority. we believe there's someone out there that has information. >> reporter: is there a danger that the person who think she might be the stolen baby would say, "but i don't want to turn in my mother as a kidnapper?" >> it is. there's always that concern. but i would ask them to reach out to us, talk with us. >> reporter: would you actually prosecute 50 years later? >> that's the us attorney's office who would make that decision. but we definitely would follow up with them and see whether or not this could be prosecuted. >> reporter: law enforcement experts told us that once the age progression images were made public, we should be prepared for all kinds of people to come forward with their own sad tales. own reasons why they may be the grown up stolen baby. so far, four separate individuals have come forward, each of them 48 or 49 years old, the right age range. joel lang and his wife joni contacted us after they saw the age progression images on the abc news website. >> it's about as close as it's gonna get. it's shocking, the similarities.

the hairline, everything is a match. >> reporter: lang volunteered to have his dna tested, telling us that he learned at the age of 8 that he was adopted under what he called suspicious circumstances. >> nothing adds up. nothing is normal. everything is different all the time and that's you. >> reporter: it was much the same story with cody hall of loveland, colorado. his wife pamela contacted us after seeing the story on television. >> the baby picture really just reminded me so much of cody that it gave me chills. >> reporter: hall said he wanted to take a dna test because he never knew his birth parents, and was told he was just "found somewhere" by a relative. >> she just said she found me, but i don't know how that was done. >> reporter: and then there is david fisher, who lives outside fresno, california. a man with a troubled life that he says grew out of uncertainty about his real identity and parents.

even questioning what appears to be a valid birth certificate. >> i do believe there is a chance that i am the stolen baby, just due to the fact of all the circumstances of my childhood and how i was raised, and how i was passed around. >> reporter: as he provided us with his dna sample, he told us how his wife and children saw the abc news stories. >> and when they saw the picture pop up, they said, "well, dad, that looks like you." >> reporter: and when his family added facial hair to the age progression images, there was a distinct resemblance. >> i was totally shocked when i saw the resemblance. if i had no mustache, it would be me. >> reporter: but we found an even more intriguing lead closer to chicago. in kansas city, where we sent our consultant, former fbi agent brad garrett to meet with a man who did not want to be identified publicly but said he not only looks like the drawing, but that his grandmother was found with an aged clipping of the original kidnap story from 1964 hidden in her closet.

>> there's enough loose ends in this case, in this particular lead, to resolve with a dna test. we can cut to the chase. but with four separate dna samples ready to be tested, the best leads in five decades, our investigation hit an surprising and unexpected roadblock. paul fronczak reported to us that his parents and his brother refused to provide their dna samples to us, making it impossible for us to see if any of the men were a match. >> you know, my parents love me and i love them. but for some reason, they don't want to know. and i think by not wanting to know, they don't want to help at all. the fronczak parents, chester and dora, and their other son david say they will work with the fbi. but they declined to speak with us and have not spoken publicly about the case since 1964 when they pleaded for their son's return.

it turns out there are a number of questions they have never addressed. either publicly or with their son. when they brought paul home from new jersey, there was no celebration, and they refused to talk to reporters about what should have been a joyous homecoming. in fact, there was so much uncertainty, that they were required to formally adopt paul as their son. and the previously-sealed adoption files obtained during the course of our investigation, in fact, say the blood tests of the parents and the little boy "were contradictory," meaning the tests did not prove or disprove that the little boy was the fronczaks' son. but we learned, the top detectives on the case, including lt. jack cartan who led the investigation, were skeptical all along. >> he was sure that was not the baby. >> reporter: lieutenant cartan's daughter mary hendry says her father said the police and the fbi tried to tell the parents it was not their missing son, but

kept it quiet publicly. >> and the fbi and chicago police, who were working together closely, agreed that they would do that. >> reporter: they kind of went along with it? >> yeah. i overheard him saying to my mother,"that's not the fronczak baby." those people are so nice and want to believe it that we're going along with it. >> reporter: with the public believing the case had been solved, the fbi and chicago police essentially closed the investigation. the search for the stolen baby was over. and at the fronczak home, paul says his parents never shared whatever doubts they might have had with their adopted son, trying to keep it all a deep, dark secret. >> next, a bull's eye with a dna test, his first blood relative. >> this is close, this is good. right? >> what can

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and i want to find mine. >> reporter: desperate to find any connection to his biological family, paul sent dna samples to the genealogy site ancestry.com. we took the sample that you gave us and we put it on a chip. and what that does is, it gives us a unique dna signature that only you have. so we compare your dna to dna from populations all over the world. >> so, you're kind of like csi but you work with dna. >> it's family history. >> reporter: the results were paul's first indication of who he is and where he's from. there were surprises about his ethnic roots. >> you are, 37%, according to our analyses, of european-jewish descent. >> wow. >> is that new? >> well, i was raised a roman catholic. >> well -- >> so this is interesting. i was baptized twice, actually. and i'm actually jewish. so, it's kind of cool. i have to learn a whole new religion now. i'm excited about that. >> reporter: even more exciting,

a major development in ancestry.com's search. finally, a link to his first blood relative, a third cousin. >> i saw third and i'm like oh! this is close, this is good, right? it was like a lottery when i saw that. >> if you communicate with her and she wishes to work with you and help with you looking at a family tree, it could actually be very informative. >> reporter: you have been in touch with that cousin. >> i have. she got back to me and said, "wow, how can i help?" >> reporter: and how has she helped? >> she sent me a list of her relatives. i believe that once we actually have that family tree we can start looking for where my dna overlaps with their family. >> reporter: if any of her relatives lived in or near new jersey, where paul was abandoned, they could be the key to unlocking the mystery of who he is. >> we have to kind of work on that path. >> reporter: to see if anybody really does know who you are or what happened? >> right. >> reporter: how much a part of

your life is this whole search. >> right now it is a lot. it's like he's on a mission and he doesn't want to stop until he finds answers. >> reporter: does that bother you? >> yes. i think he needs to put the brakes on a little bit. like he's kind of missing out on just everyday things. it's always there for him. >> it's something you can't do at a 9:00 to 5:00 job. it's not like punching in, "i'll find out who i am today. oh, gotta punch out for lunch." you can't do that. >> reporter: being a detective of his own life has taken at toll on paul and on his wife michelle. >> there are many days where i know he wants to cry, and i want to cry, too, but you know, you can't. >> are you crying? >> i get sad when i think about it. like when we really talk seriously about it, it makes me sad. >> reporter: as for paul's parents michelle says there is now a rift that she hopes can soon be repaired.

>> they love him. they don't care whether he's their biological son. paul is their son. i think what they're feeling right now is that maybe they weren't -- maybe they're questioning, "why do you wanna do this? we're your parents. are -- were -- aren't we good enough?" and i think that they're maybe feeling as though he wasn't happy with his upbringing. but that's not the truth. >> yeah, and i just -- i can't understand that -- that kind of thinking. if anything, it should get stronger by finding out these missing links. i mean, how could you not want to know what happened to your kidnapped child? >> reporter: so the search continues and the hope that a tragic mystery can one day end in a reunion 50 years in the making. >> reporter: if you found the real paul fronczak, what would you say? >> first i think i'd have to give him a really long hug, and say i've been looking for you for a long time, pal. and then i'd just ask him how he is, how was his life. >> reporter: you know, you may never find the answers. >> but i might.

>> and he might, after tonight's broadcast. if you have information, that would help with the investigation, then contact us at abc new developments in the l.a.x. shooting. we are learning more about the

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