A Connecticut woman is speaking out after learning she unknowingly dated her half-brother in high school — after years of being left in the dark regarding the true identity of her biological father.
Victoria Hill, 39, recently made the gut-wrenching discovery after it was revealed that her mother was wrongfully artificially inseminated by fertility doctor Burton Caldwell — allegedly without consent, CNN reported.
After Hill mustered up the courage to tell close friends — including her former partner in unwitting incest — the whole, sordid story, the unnamed man, whose own mother had allegedly been treated by Caldwell, took a DNA test.
“You are my sister,” he wrote to Hill.
Caldwell is now said to be responsible for at least 22 children who, like Hill, had no idea of their true heritage, according to the network.
“I was traumatized by this,” Hill told CNN. “Now I’m looking at pictures of people thinking, well, if he could be my sibling, anybody could be my sibling.”
“This was the first time where we’ve had a confirmed case of someone actually dating, someone being intimate with someone who was their half-sibling,” Indiana University law professor and fertility fraud expert Jody Madeira told CNN.
Laws against fertility fraud are few and far between within the US.
The lack of legal groundwork has been an obstacle for Janine Pierson, another of Caldwell’s biological children, who is currently trying to take him to court, according to CNN.
“It shouldn’t just be, you know, the Wild West where these doctors can just do whatever it is that they want,” she said.
Pierson — who was floored to learn in 2022 that she has so many siblings from Caldwell — also described allegedly sick behavior from her biological father.
“He was not in any way apologetic,” she said, adding Caldwell admitted he “never gave it the thought that he should have … that there would be so many [children], and that it would have any kind of an impact on us.”
Pierson remembers the doctor being exceptionally curious about her lineage and intellect.
“One thing that really has always bothered me is that he asked me how many grandchildren he had,” she said.
“And he was very curious about my scholastic achievements and what I made of myself. … Like how intelligent I was, basically.”
Fortunately for victims, modern DNA testing sites such as 23andme are putting an end to fertility fraud, said Julia T. Woodward, clinical psychologist and OBGYN professor at the Duke University Health System.
“To my knowledge, the majority of fertility fraud cases took place before 2000,” Woodward said.
“I think it is highly unlikely any person would engage in such practices today. So this part of the landscape has improved significantly.”
