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Stakes may be high in search for family of infant abandoned in 1963

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - 3/12/2017

March 12--There were prominent headlines in bold type, some topping the front pages of Pittsburgh's newspapers:

"Month-Old-Baby Found In Castle Shannon Hall; Foundling Discovered by Newspaper Boy In Perfect Health at St. Clair Hospital"

"Infant Found In Castle Shannon; Police Seek Baby's Identity"

"Whose Bouncing Boy Is He?"

Fifty-three years later, August "Corky" Heisler of Brookline still is asking: Whose bouncing boy is he?

The answer to that question could be even more important today than when it first was posed in 1963.

Mr. Heisler -- known officially as Baby Doe until his formal adoption in 1965 -- now is the grandfather of a 3-year-old boy with a mysterious medical condition, possibly genetic in nature. Mr. Heisler and his only child, Chelsey Heisler Musolino, 27, of Mount Washington, believe that completing the puzzle of his family tree could help the doctors puzzle through the 3-year-old's underlying medical issues.

"I've got some basic curiosity. That's true. I'd like to know 'why' for myself. Why was I abandoned? But, mostly, I'd like to know 'who' for my grandson. Who am I?" Mr. Heisler said.

There's little evidence of what happened that early Sunday morning on October 27, 1963.

If Castle Shannon police had made any case file in 1963, it would have been purged long ago, said police Chief Ken Truver.

No criminal charges were filed so there are no records with the Allegheny County District Attorney's Office, said spokesman Mike Manko. The DA's office coordinated the detectives who handled such investigations during that time period but investigatory paper work would not have been preserved.

Mr. Heisler's adoptive parents, August and Enid Heisler, now dead, knew nothing more than any reader of the local newspapers.

It's those old newspaper clippings, preserved in microfilm and in digitized code on the internet, that tell us what we know:

A newspaper boy making his early morning rounds found a red-haired baby in the vestibule of an apartment building at 444 Hoodridge Drive. The infant was dressed in a clean diaper, a white knit shirt and a blue komono with tags indicating the clothing was bought in the Pittsburgh area. The child was lying inside a cardboard box along with a few diapers and two 4-ounce bottles, one with formula and the other with water. There was no note.

It was about 7:30 a.m. when the paperboy for The Pittsburgh Press, 14-year-old Robert Binek of Mt. Lebanon, now deceased, heard the cry of an infant. It was coming from a cardboard box that was sitting on the middle shelf of a mail stand inside the vestibule. He knocked on the door of one of the apartments and the residents inside notified police of the discovery of the healthy, 8-pound baby. The infant -- estimated to be between 4 and 6 weeks old -- initially was evaluated at St. Clair Hospital and declared "in perfect health." He was placed in foster care and was adopted in 1965 by the Heislers. Mr. Heisler believes his adoptive parents were his foster parents, as well. He's not really sure. It just wasn't discussed.

On a recent Sunday, Mr. Heisler was standing with his daughter Chelsey and grandson Ethan inside the apartment building at 444 Hoodridge, a 28-unit complex -- one of several brick buildings just like it that line Hoodridge on the edge of Castle Shannon. It was his first time inside the building since he was found there.

"I've been past here but I've never actually stopped. It's weird standing here and feeling like I should feel something but I don't feel much of anything," said Mr. Heisler, a quiet man who works as a mechanic for a local bus company.

He said that what he feels mostly is a kind of anxious hope that all of this dredging up of the past will lead to something good for his daughter and her son. "In the back of my mind, if I stopped to think about it, I had some questions [through my life]: 'Why wasn't I wanted? What happened?' But, mostly, I didn't think about it," Mr. Heisler said.

He didn't think about it much until about three years ago when Ethan came along then started showing developmental problems. There have been many doctor visits and even more medical tests. But, there's been no conclusive diagnosis. Chelsey has become convinced that some answers may lie in her family history.

She has taken the lead on the search but has hit dead-end after dead-end. Finally, she reached out on Facebook with a simple plea: "Looking for Birth Parents OR any known information! PLEASE SHARE!"

As Mr. Heisler recalls it, he was 12 or 13 years old when he found out that his start in life wasn't the typical kind. He was playing outside in his Mount Washington neighborhood when a young girl, a year or two older than himself, began teasing him. "She started saying to me, 'You were adopted and you're not your mom's kid.' I called her a liar. I was really upset. I went to my mom and I said, 'Ma, [this girl] said this to me. And my ma said, 'I have something to tell you.' It was like getting hit with a pile of bricks."

His mother showed him a legal advertisement in 1965 from a newspaper; It outlined the basic facts of his abandonment and urged anyone with a claim to the child to come forward before the baby's adoption was made final. No one did. So, he became part of the Heisler family.

Mr. Heisler said he remembers his initial disbelief. "I couldn't believe it at first. ... I had questions and she didn't have any answers. [I wanted to know] why did this happen? How did this happen? But, all she told me was, 'I was always waiting for a boy and you were the one.'"

Then his mother asked him never to discuss the subject with his adoptive father. So he never did, nor did he discuss it again with his mother. His dad died in 2006, and his mother in 2011. Though he said his relationships with his parents and between his parents were "rocky" his entire life, he didn't discuss his adoption because he "didn't want to hurt" them.

Mr. Heisler said he thought about his abandonment and adoption every now and then and, "in the back of my mind, I thought maybe my real true mother was out there and following me in my life, watching me from a distance." But, the older he got, "the less I thought about it."

He's hoping that his "real true mother" still is out there and may read this article. Perhaps a sibling or an old neighbor or distant relative -- anyone who might be able to link him to his biological family -- will come forward, not just to answer the nagging question of 'Why?' but, more importantly, to shed some light on the medical travails of his grandson.

His wife, Wendy Heisler, 48, said she's known her husband's story since they were dating. It was a curiosity but nothing that she saw as impacting their life together. After Chelsey was born, she understood more clearly the potential impact of not knowing his husband's family history: "Every time we'd go to a doctor and they'd asked for family history, we couldn't give a complete answer. We didn't know." She didn't ever envision the issue becoming critical. Until Ethan came along.

Mr. Heisler said he has no "hard feelings" toward his biological mother or whoever dropped him off that day.

"Whoever did it could have just thrown me away. But, that didn't happen. Whoever did it cared. I was clothed. I had diapers. I had bottles. I was put someplace where I'd be found. I was cared for," he said.

Now, he hopes the same tender care that went with him that morning in October 1963 will come to bear now: that someone will come forward for the sake of his grandson.

Chelsey, a patient care technician at a local MedExpress, and her husband, Keith Musolino Jr., who works in concrete restoration, have two children: Kylie, 6, and Ethan, 3.

Chelsey said she was "always aware" that her father had been adopted but never focused on it much until she had her own children.

"There's half of me that I don't know about because my dad doesn't know about himself. Since I had my first child, I've thought about that a lot on and off," Chelsey said.

When Ethan was born and suspicions were piqued that he had medical problems, Chelsey became more convinced that tracing the family history could be important. "It was more about general curiosity before. I would have an urge to research and look into it on and off over the years. Now, I think these answers could be really important," she said.

Ethan has been evaluated by doctors from a range of disciplines: a cranial facial specialist, a cardiologist, an endocrinologist, an ear nose and throat specialist. He's been diagnosed with developmental delays, an enlarged aorta, low muscle tone. He receives a variety of in-home therapy. His parents are convinced that something deeper is at play. "I just have a feeling there's something in the family history," Chelsey said.

She's contacted Allegheny County Orphans Court and local police. She's done two different types of ancestry kits and has reached out to cousins as far removed as "fourth." She's looked for search tips on the internet and television.

She's gotten nowhere.

Richard Mullen, a lieutenant with the Allegheny County Police who leads the agency's child abuse unit, said there's no legal disincentive to prevent anyone from coming forward with information -- not even if the person actually was responsible for Baby Doe's abandonment.

"The statute of limitations would have long expired," Lt. Mullen said. He noted that, at the time, the person who abandoned Baby Doe could have been charged with endangering the welfare of a child, perhaps. Or, if the baby was taken from the mom without the mom's permission, there could have been a count of interfering with the custody of a child or kidnapping, depending on the exact circumstances. At this point, though, no criminal charges would be filed. "I've been a police officer for 27 years and I can think of absolutely nothing that should stop someone from coming forward," he said.

Karen Kane: kkane@post-gazette.com or at 724-772-9180.

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