With that in mind, Steve received a unique Christmas gift in the form of a DNA test, and was shocked to find out that he had Scandinavian ancestry. Even so, that seemed like it might have opened him up to even more questions than answers.
CNN / YouTube
That wasn’t the first time Steve Jr. was struck by the idea of DNA testing: In 2011, he read a story about a woman named Carlina White (below), who was kidnapped as a baby from a Harlem hospital and raised in Connecticut, believing her kidnapper to be her birth mother until she was 23. She learned the truth after researching missing persons.
Carlina White / Facebook
Recalling Carlina’s story, Steve Jr. didn’t stop at questioning his Scandinavian heritage. He began a quest to learn more about his past, starting with a search on missingkids.com, which is run by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. After combing through records, he made a startling discovery.
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Under a listing for a person named “Marx Panama Moriarty,” who’d been missing since July 1977, there was an age progression sketch of how the missing boy may have looked in his teens. Steve Jr. couldn’t believe his eyes. “I got chills,” he said in an interview. “I was like, holy crap, that’s me.”
Steve got in touch with the appropriate authorities as soon as he could for a DNA test. Eight months later, they had proof that he and “Marx” were indeed the same person! Steve Jr.’s wife, Tracey, encouraged him to pursue the truth even further.
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