February 1977 Ray Johnson had been back from Vietnam 4 years and was about to celebrate his 4th wedding anniversary in his new town of San Jose when he was served divorce papers. A few weeks later he showed up for a weekend visit with his six-month-old son, Jeremy. No one was there and the house was empty. Authorities put out an All Points Bulletin, but they were gone.
After the police said neither they nor the FBI could find a trail Ray spent pretty much all the money he had to hire private investigators. They reported back that his ex had managed to change all of their birth certificates and were off the radar. The trail was dead. They could be anywhere in the world living with fake ID's so they would have no way of knowing where or when they settled down.
Ray was deeply depressed but vowed he would never gave up. He had no idea in the late 70's that DNA testing would become a thing to help with these searches 40 years in the future.
With nothing to live for in CA Ray moved back to Huntsville AL area. He married a woman named Loretta and started a new family, but kept hope alive he would find his first son. When he heard about Ancestry.com a few years back he took the test and searched for any potential matches. Everyone who came back was someone he already knew.
WHNT-TV reports that on Valentines Day this year, almost 47 years to the day since he had last seen his son, Ray received an email saying they had matched him with a man who was 47 years old. Later that day they were on the phone together. The first conversation Jeremy had ever had with his dad. He explained that his mom had recently died. She had forbade him from using the DNA tests. She said that his father was a monster and if he found you he'd ruin your life. Now with her gone Jeremy's wife said he should look for his dad.
To this day no one knows how she changed their birth certificates.
Easter weekend Jeremy and his wife and their 2 kids flew in for their first visit. Ray couldn't stop staring at his son. “He had my dimples, my chin, my nose, my blue eyes, and I found out while he was here that he was left-handed and so was I. I love him so much and always have, now I just get to know him."