Jill Rosenthal

On April 27 1964, young mother Dora Fronczak was in her hospital bed feeding her one-day-old son, Paul, when a nurse entered the room and said she had to take Paul back to the nursery. Dora handed her baby over, and the nurse hurried out of the room. Still carrying baby Paul, the nurse fled the hospital through a rear entrance and disappeared into Chicago’s city streets. It didn’t take long for staff at Michael Reese Hospital to realise Paul Fronczak had been kidnapped, and soon the city’s largest-ever manhunt was underway. Despite the best efforts of the police, no trace of the woman or Paul was found. 

Then, just over a year later, a toddler is found abandoned in Newark, New Jersey. Investigators are quick to identify him as possibly being the missing Paul. But was he?