Man Kidnapped At Birth Reunites w/ Chilean Mother After 42 Years

After 42 long years, a Chilean woman has been reunited with her son, who was kidnapped from the hospital as an infant.

Jimmy Lippert Thyden Met His Chilean Birth Mother Face-To-Face

According to AP News, the heartwarming reunion recently took place in Valdivia, Chile. It occurred over four decades after nurses allegedly told Maria Angelica González that her infant son, later named Jimmy Lippert Thyden, had passed away in an incubator before his remains were disposed of.

However, Thyden — a Virginia-based criminal defense attorney — was actually alive and trafficked through what he called a “counterfeit adoption.”

“The paperwork I have for my adoption tells me I have no living relatives. And I learned in the last few months that I have a mama and I have four brothers and a sister.”

While meeting his birth mother for the first time, Thyden greeted her with a simple but reverberating “Hola, Mamá.” This was followed by an emotional, long-awaited embrace. For the monumental trip, he was accompanied by his wife, Johanna, and their two young daughters.

Following the pair’s reunion, Thyden told AP News, “I was suffocated by the gravity of this moment.”

“It knocked the wind out of me. … How do you hug someone in a way that makes up for 42 years of hugs?”

After showing his birth mother photos of various milestones, he added, “I was trying to bookend 42 years of a life taken from her. Taken from us both.”

🔴 Mamá te amo, fue lo primero que dijo Jimmy Lippert Thyden a su madre cuando la abrazo luego de casi 4 décadas sin verla.

Jimmy fue uno de los más de 20.000 bebés que fueron arrebatados a sus madres, en su mayoría niños y niñas de bajos ingresos, en Chile durante la dictadura… pic.twitter.com/vhETVEoFka

— Roberto Kiltro (@RobertoMerken) August 27, 2023

The Man Says His Adoptive Parents Were “Unwitting Victims” Of An Illegal Adoption Scheme

Thyden shared that his journey to meeting González began in April after learning about a charity called Nos Buscamos. This Chile-based nonprofit works to reunite adoptees with their birth parents.

Constanza del Rio, the founder and director of Nos Buscamos, says that Thyden’s situation is far from unique. In fact, the nonprofit’s website notes that approximately 50,000 Chilean children were kidnapped from their mothers in the latter half of the 20th century.

“The real story was these kids were stolen from poor families, poor women that didn’t know. They didn’t know how to defend themselves.”

It’s essential to point out that Thyden says his adoptive parents were supportive of his reunion with González. He also notes that they were the “unwitting victims” of a clandestine adoption network.