Tina Ennis and Jill Lopez: Women swapped at birth 57 years ago sue hospital after DNA test
Two women who learned that they were swapped at birth back in 1964 are suing an Oklahoma hospital for the mixup. The women, Tina Ennis and Jill Lopez, now 57, learned from an Ancestry.com DNA test that they were switched at birth. Both of them were born at Duncan Physicians and Surgeons Hospital, on May 18, 1964. They have now claimed that they were each given away to the other's biological parents.
The Daily Beast reported that the two women and their families spent over 50 years without knowing the truth until Ennis sent her DNA off to Ancestry.com. The results that came back were shocking. With her daughter's help, Ennis tracked down Lopez. After Lopez took her own DNA test, it was confirmed that she is the actual biological daughter of Ennis' mother, Kathryn Jones. Ennis, Lopez, and Jones are now suing Duncan Regional Hospital, which merged with Duncan Physicians and Surgeons Hospital in 1975, for recklessness and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
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How the truth came to light
Ennis said that as she grew up, she realized that she was taller and thinner than her mother and two siblings. Jones, however, told her that she looked like the man they believed was her biological father. He had left when she was only two years old. Innis now works as a postal service carrier.
Jones' father had also left her when she was a child. In 2019, Ennis decided to take a DNA test to learn more about the man she thought was her grandfather. However, the results showed that her DNA relatives had names she did not know, including Brister. When Jones confirmed that she did not know the names either, Ennis urged her to take a DNA test as well. The results revealed that Jones and Ennis were not related.
Ennis assumed that there could be a mistake, and subsequently called customer service, who told her, "You know, you find out some interesting things on Ancestry." Ennis' daughter, 26, suggested the possibility that Ennis may have been swapped after birth. After some Internet sleuthing, Ennis, with the help of her daughter, tracked down a woman nearby who was born on the same day. The woman, Lopez, looked very much like Jones. Ennis messaged Lopez, who later took a DNA test and found that she was the biological daughter of Jones.
Since the discovery, Lopez has spent some time with her biological mother Jones. Ennis, however, could not do the same as her biological parents, Joyce and John Brister, are both dead. "Jill got to be with my real parents, and now she gets to be with my parents I grew up with," Ennis said. "I didn’t know what to think about it at first, but the more I think about it, it makes me really sad." Ennis, Lopez, and Jones have together filed a suit against Duncan Regional Hospital, which has fought back saying although it merged with the hospital where the women were born, it is not the same one. They have claimed that they are not responsible for the matter.