An Indiana woman claims to have DNA evidence to prove she is Brittany Renee Williams, who disappeared 21 years ago in Virginia, USA, and has never been heard from since.
Brittany Renee Williams was seven years old when she disappeared from a foster home owned by Kim Parker of Henrico, Virginia. When the police began investigating the case, the girl had neither been to school nor had been taken to court by Parker. Parker was the prime suspect in the case, as he was sentenced to eight years in prison after it was revealed that he had committed fraud by taking funds for his stepchildren and transferring them to his own bank account.
After an extensive search, which included digging the garden of the house where Williams lived before he disappeared, and examining the many years that have passed, police believed the girl was dead, although they could not find any evidence. Parker claimed that he sent Williams to California to live with two women after he was unable to care for himself. The women denied this.
The police assumed that without AIDS medicine, Brittany had no way of surviving. He was known to have HIV. But years later, 800 kilometers away, Kaylynn Stevenson, who was adopted, came across a photograph of Brittany taken just before she disappeared while researching her own family history in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Stevenson couldn’t remember much of his childhood, but he had the name “Williams” in the back of his mind. When he searched using that name and the words “missing children,” he found the photograph and Stevenson was quickly convinced that it was the girl in the photograph.
In an interview with NBC 12, “I woke my wife up and said, ‘This is me!’ I said. ‘I know myself when I see it. This is me!'”
Stevenson has several hallmarks of Williams, including a mole on his neck and scars on his stomach and chest. Stevenson remembers being in the hospital as a child, and the traces of the catheters were part of Williams’ description listed by the police.
Stevenson told NBC 12 that she has since had a private DNA test, which gives her a 95% chance of being a half-sister with another daughter of Brittany’s mother, Anastasia McElroy. He showed that he was 83. NBC 12 contacted the duo and they both believe Stevenson is Williams.
However, some questions remain, the oddest of which is how Williams survived all these years. Stevenson, who now uses “Brittany” as his first name, does not show that he is AIDS or HIV positive. It’s unclear whether the initial diagnosis was a mistake or if there are other parts of the story we don’t know yet. Still, this mystery did not cause Stevenson to be suspicious.
“Blood doesn’t lie and DNA testing never lies,” he said in an interview with NBC 12. “I may not have AIDS, but I am Brittany Renee Williams.”
Local police and the FBI reopened the case and took DNA samples from both Stevenson and McElroy. . .