My Dead Brother’s Stolen Identity
I’m watching a Dateline episode that touches on infant stolen identity. In the episode, a suspected murderer had stolen the identity of a child that had died at two years old.
Thieves of these type troll cemeteries looking for children that had passed that were born a year or two on either side of their actual birth. They do some research and are in business.
It was heart-wrenching to see the child’s father describe how devastating it was to hear from police that his son had been believed to be alive and was wanted. It took him right back to that tragic death.
This took me back to my family’s experience with one of my brothers that passed away at seven years old from Leukemia. Someone had tried to take on his identity. It took our whole family back to those dark days around his passing just as it had this gentleman.
It is hard to describe the feeling. It wasn’t like the theft of property, it felt like a personal violation. It was like the theft of memories and a piece of each of us. It happened years ago, it still upsets me to think about it.
This dirt bag was just trying to escape debt and may have had some idea of faking his death. He had applied for a social security number in what would have been my brother’s thirties. He had some story about living in rural Alaska all this time…
