By Marie E. Matyjaszek
I was having a conversation with my mom the other day and she brought up an interesting question – if a woman slept with identical twins and became pregnant, could anyone tell who is the real father? My first thought was, “Wow, that’s a really weird question coming from my mom,” while my second thought was “I wonder if there are any cases on the topic?” Because Google is the best search engine ever, I found a great result as soon as I plugged in the question.
With the facts reading straight out of a “Maury Povich” episode, two identical twin brothers from Missouri, Raymon and Richard Miller, both had sex with Holly Adams on the same day. Allegedly, the timing of these encounters was pretty darn close too (did brother No. 2 enter through the front door while brother No. 1 left out of the back?). It’s hard to believe things like this really happen, but I’m betting there was not a high moral standard with this group. So, nine months later, Holly gives birth to a baby girl. She writes Raymon down as the father, but he contests it. In a particularly salacious move, he drags his brother Richard into court as his defense. Now, as you may know, identical twins have the same DNA. One sperm fertilizes one egg that subsequently divides in two.
When the paternity test result was in, it showed that both brothers had a 99.9 percent chance of being the child’s father. The tricky issue (well, legally; I’m sure family get-togethers were a lot more awkward) was which brother would be held responsible for the little girl. Who had to fork over the child support that was owed? Judge Fred Copeland was certainly in a dilemma.
There was absolutely no way scientifically for him to conclude who was the real father. So, he relied on Holly’s testimony and went with whom she had originally named – Raymon. Not surprisingly, Raymon was quite irritated and planned on appealing until he was vindicated. Both brothers were quoted as saying the other just doesn’t want the financial burden or responsibility of a child. Too bad the kid can’t just pick – my guess is she’d vote for anyone other than these two.
(The author is a family law attorney whose blog site is: http://legalbling. blogspot.com. She can be reached by e-mailing her at matyjasz@hotmail.com.)
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