Boy Snatched In 1964 Returned To Wrong Family

The FBI is reinvestigating the 1964 kidnapping of a newborn baby, after DNA tests revealed the wrong boy was later returned to the elated parents.

Paul Fronczak, 49, is a married father himself now, and for a long time he wondered why he did not resemble his own father and mother, Chester and Dora Fronczak.

They all underwent genetic testing earlier this year to prove once and for all that he was their biological son. The test came back negative.

Mr Fronczak wrote his parents a letter when he got the results to let them know.

"I really feel in my heart that the real Paul Fronczak is alive and well ... and nothing would make me more happy in this life than to find the real kidnapped child, and at the same time I wouldn't mind finding out who I am," he told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Hundreds of police officers and FBI agents searched for the couple's newborn son after his abduction from Michael Reese Hospital Chicago in April 1964.

The case came to an apparently happy end more than a year later when an abandoned child resembling the Fronczaks' baby was found in New Jersey and returned to them.

The police made the decision largely based on the pointed shape of the child's ears.

With no firm proof at the the time that he was their son, the happy parents had to legally adopt the one-year-old.

The elderly Fronczaks have declined to comment about the reopening of the investigation. They say they prefer not to get directly involved as it would be too painful for them.

They spoke briefly to the Sun-Times, telling the paper: "We went through this once, and we certainly don't want to go through this again."

Joan Hyde, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Chicago office, said the bureau decided to reopen the Fronczak case after reviewing the original case file.

"We decided it merited another look," she said. "The main thing is to look at physical evidence and see if technology and tests that weren't available when the case was originally worked could provide leads."

The bureau is likely to interview witnesses as part of the investigation, which is expected to "take time".

Paul Fronczak has said he just wants to learn his true identity.

"I don't know how old I am, or who I am, or what nationality, all those things you just take for granted," he has said.