[MUSIC]
Tortoise investigates. [MUSIC]
“The six pound, three and a half ounce baby is doing well in hospital,”
after being dumped in an orange and white plastic bag around mid-morning yesterday. Imagine growing up with no idea about where you were born or who gave birth to you. The opening scenes of your life are a complete blank. All you know is that as a newborn baby, you were abandoned. You are a fumbling.
[MUSIC] I was found on the side of a road in a village in Suffolk. I was wearing a vest and a napy. This is how Jess' life begins in 1987. For decades, Jess has been looking for answers.
No one's going to put their DNA out there. No one will want to be found. Then DNA gave her names.
And out there are people who hoped they'd never be found.
We all sat there as like, well, this just happened. [MUSIC] I'm Lucy Greenwell and Jess' story has gripped me since I was a child.
“Because I remember the day the baby was found.”
It was my friend, Nanny, who discovered Jess, who wrapped her in a jumper and handed her to the police. When you saw the baby, what did it look like? Very happy. It was good and smiling. But right from the start, there were questions and rumors.
We were like, why did you stop? What made you stop to look what it was? Because she said it was in a place.
The mystery of that baby has never been solved.
And I've always wondered, what does it do to you, to know that you were left? Because you've got this little seed in your brain right from when you were born, that you're not loved and you're not wanted. And why would anyone do that? Lay their baby down and just walk away. This fork of terror, of them paralyzed, of that fear, just taking over.
As Jess' search takes her closer to the truth. Things spiral out of her control.
“I think I'll always be angry, because you constantly think in, could it have ended differently, had things being different?”
Jess had hoped to find her parents.
She could never have anticipated the ripple effect her search would have.
Or the lies and deception it's uncovered. She just kept saying she felt violated. That's the word that she kept using. No words can express when you think that someone has dumped you on the side of a road that they'd then go and do it again. From tortoise investigates and the observer, this is foundling, a story about the decisions we make, and the secrets we keep. Lies always come out, don't they?
A skeleton's always going to come out eventually. [BLANK_AUDIO]
