Forty-five years ago today, a baby boy was born in a North Carolina hospital. Named Phillip Steven Brandenburg, the infant quickly disappeared. He is listed on some websites as a missing endangered child—a boy who some have believed was abducted by a killer now awaiting execution in Florida.
But the boy is not even mentioned by other databases. Just weeks after his birth, his biological mother married a man named Franklin Delano Floyd, whose trail of felonies spanned the country and have been the subject of best-selling true-crime books.
The existence, let alone whereabouts, of the boy named Phillip Steven could not be determined for decades by anybody—detectives, writers, or family members.
Also born on April 12, 1974 at the Carolinas Medical Center in Lincolnton was Phillip Steven Patterson, adopted by a couple named Mary and Bob Patterson just six weeks into his life.
Just weeks ago, amid a time of family mourning, Patterson’s mother told him something. That something resulted in him going to a local police station, and giving a DNA sample to law enforcement.
His cheek swab could provide some resolution: whether the two Philip Stevens with the same first and middle names, and birthdays, are the same person.