Man reunites with mother after being abducted 4 decades ago through fraudulent adoption

The world was shocked when the fraudulent adoption scheme that took place in Chile from the 1960s to 1990s was revealed by the investigative news agency CIPER. This scheme led to almost 20,000 children being taken away from their mothers without proper consent, giving them the misery of a lifetime. Jimmy Thyden unbeknownst to him was a victim of this scheme and was separated from his real mother at birth. After years he got the chance to reunite with his mother, and the event was nothing less than emotional, leaving no dry eye in the room, as reported by CBC.

This meeting ended a 42-year wait for Maria Angelica González who lived under the painful assumption that she had lost her child. The son she thought had died grew up to be Jimmy Lippert Thyden, a criminal prosecutor after getting adopted by an American couple. His adoptive family was also in the dark about the hurt their desire to have children had caused Maria. They were told that everything was happening within legal boundaries.

Maria gave birth to a weak son who had to be put on a ventilator. After she came with her family to take him back, she was informed that he had died. Devastated, she asked for his body but the hospital informed her that they had already disposed of her son. Though, aggravated she had to move on, as she could not afford to fight against the hospital. This was the main reason this racket targeted families from low socio-economic backgrounds, as they could not afford to further probe into the matter.

Meanwhile, Thyden grew up happily with his adoptive parents, got married and had his own family. The first seed of doubt came within him after hearing about Scott Lieberman who was also abducted in the same manner and reunited with his Chilean family, as reported by USA Today. Having lost a set of twins there was also an emotional aspect to the decision, "I just realized if there was a woman in this world that had suffered that anguish for nothing other than somebody else's greed, that I would be no better than the perpetrators if I denied her the truth, knowing that I lived."

Thyden decided to contact Nos Buscamos, an organization that has to this date arranged 450 reunions between mothers and their long-lost children. The organization is in collaboration with MyHeritage, which provides home-testing DNA kits to get the process running. Being a lawyer, he was hesitant to give his DNA but ultimately went through with it as he wanted to get to the bottom of the matter. He was 100% Chilean and got connected to his first cousin who was also present in the MyHeritage database. This led him to his mother. "It's a miracle from God," Marie, 69, told USA Today. "When I learned that he was alive, I couldn't believe it."

Thyden taking the blessings of his adoptive parents, took his family to meet Marie. The reunion was emotional for both of them, with Marie crying and Thyden collapsing into her arms and relaying to her in Spanish that he loves her very much. He told about his experience to As It Happens guest host Katie Simpson, "It's amazing how instantly I can feel like I fit in — like I've been meant to be here all along."

At present, Thyden is spending time with his biological family. He elaborated, "We do things together. We went to the zoo. We walk through the neighborhood. Something as simple as going to the corner market, a place that they frequent multiple times a day to get groceries, is an adventure for me because this is a market I would have gone to." Even after returning he aims to keep the love that he has garnered in his heart and assure that "there are no more goodbyes, only see you later."