Hello, this is Josh Levine. The Queen was made possible with support from Slate Plus members. To thank those listeners for their support, we've made two special bonus episodes that are available exclusively to our members. You're about to hear an excerpt from the first bonus episode. In it, I share the story of one of the most notorious child abductions of the 1960s. The theft of a one-day old baby from Michael Rees Hospital in Chicago.dle in Chicago. With the help of a special guest, I lay out the evidence that Linda Taylor may have been the perpetrator, and I explain why I can't be certain that she was involved. Joining me for this conversation is Paul Joseph Franzack. After Paul was found abandoned outside a department store in New Jersey, the FBI came to believe that he was the child who had been kidnapped in Chicago. Paul was reunited with his parents, the Franz Axe, and life carried on. But in 2012, Paul took a DNA test and learned that he was not the Franz Axe family's missing baby. Ever since then, Paul's been trying to figure out who he really is and what happened to his parents' kidnapped baby. Tear the full episode and to help make podcasts like The Queen possible, join Slate Plus at Slate.com slash plus. March of 1975, the Chicago Tribune publishes a story and the headline is, Probe Aid Queen tied a kidnapping. The first sentence is, Linda Taylor dubbed Chicago's welfare queen because she is suspected of swendling Illinois out of more than $154,000 in fraudulent welfare payments is under investigation in the 1964 Franz Act baby kidnapping. The story later says the sources in the FBI reported that the case was reopened after Chicago police and FBI agents uncovered information that could link Miss Taylor to the crime. When I first wrote the piece first slate about Linda Taylor, that piece came out in 2013 as I was doing my research. I found these old articles in the Tribune and elsewhere about the Franz Act kidnapping and about Taylor's possible connection to it. And so I was looking around and seeing, you know, was there any ever any resolution to this? You know, what happened? And I found a short message that you, it turned out, had posted on a message board called orphan memories. Do you remember posting that message? I sure do. That was one of the first steps I took. Yeah, let me read that message and then you can talk about it. It says, Hi, I was identified by the FBI as Paul Joseph Franzack, the kidnapped baby from Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago. I was abandoned in Newark, New Jersey on July 2, 1965. Found an astrologer outside a variety store. I was placed in an orphanage. When FBI found me, I was placed in a foster home and given the name Scott McKinley. I have just found out that I am not Paul Joseph Franzek. I need help to find out who I am. So what had happened just before you posted that message? I actually was able to have a DNA test done with my parents.

You know, it was, it was something I thought about

for years and years, like I even joked about when my parents come out to visit me in Las Vegas to see, you know, to see their granddaughter that I would get hairs off their pillow, you know, and do stuff like that. But the tests weren't available, you know, and if you could find them, they were so expensive I couldn't afford it. So in 2012, I was at CVS and I happened to find this kit by a dented

gene. It was like $25. you could find them, they were so expensive, I just couldn't afford it. So in 2012, I was at CVS and I happened to find

this kit by a dentogen, it was like $25.

So I bought the kit, I brought it home

and I put it in the closet and I thought,

you know, this is it.

I'm gonna find a way to ask my parents,

who I love with on my heart, to take this test.

And it took quite a while, but I was actually able to finally do it. And the results showed that there was essentially zero chance that you were related to Chester and Dora, right? Yeah, the guy who called me on the phone after he had me jump through a bunch of security hoops, he said, there was nobody more possibility that you're in Paul Franzack. And that, you know, even though I felt it for so long, I really believed I wasn't Paul. But once I heard it, it's like my life just stopped. Everything I thought I knew about myself, my life that I was, you know, talked to believe, just vanished, you know. Who was I? How old am I? Am I really Catholic? Am I Polish? You know, all these things that I was told and it just vanished. You can really see that in that message board post that I read. You're reaching out, it seems kind of in desperation to find if anybody can help you. It seems like you're really struggling with how to handle this. It's like a huge bomb that's dropped that explodes your whole life. Well, you know, Joshua really hit me was, I wasn't really concerned about myself. I wanted to find out where Paul was, what happened to my parents real child, because this horrible tragedy happened to them, and it wasn't solved. And I was hoping that he would be out there and I'd be able to find him. So we've been kind of working on this in parallel, right? You have been following so many different leads. You know, we first chatted with each other, I think in 2013 and you had a Facebook page where people would give you tips and clues. You did a bunch of TV spots that kicked up a bunch of interest in the case. And then on my side, I've been reporting out the Linda Taylor story and trying to look into not only this kidnapping, but other kidnappings that she did or may have done. Let me run through Paul some of the evidence against Taylor that was laid out back in the 1970s and just so folks are clear. Before I got in touch with you, you had never heard of any suggestion that Linda Taylor, the so-called welfare queen, had anything to do with this or had even been suspected of having anything to do with this? No, I never even heard her name. Okay, so the evidence against Taylor as laid out first

in the Chicago Tribune in March 1975 was that one of her ex-husband had told FBI agents that she appeared one day in the mid-1960s with a newborn baby, although she had not been pregnant. Taylor's explanation was that she hadn't realized she was pregnant until she gave birth that morning. The Tribune also said that a woman calling herself Connie Reed, and that was a name that Taylor had used in the 1940s, had been at the hospital at the time of baby Paul's abduction. Finally, the Tribune noted that the Chicago police had received a tip a week after the kidnapping that a person who could have been the kidnapper had tried to rent an apartment under the name Constance Wakefield, which is another name the tailor used. All right. Then in May 1977, after Taylor was convicted of welfare fraud, the Tribune picked up the story again and wrote that a man named Samuel Harper said he was certain that Taylor had stolen the Franz Act baby. This man, Sam Harper, said that Taylor had several children and infants, all white that were staying with her. The Tribune also reported that Harper said he assure Taylor was the kidnapper because she left that day dressed in a white uniform in the description of the kidnapper matched Taylor., the Tribune, also said that Linda Taylor had even filed a police report after the kidnapping, saying she had seen the kidnapper with a baby. When you hear all of that stuff, Paul, you've heard so many different theories for what happens. I can remember looking on that Facebook page and elsewhere and people saying, I think it might be this person. I think it might be that person. What do you make of it? And fairness, this was printed in the Chicago Tribune, which is one of the leading newspapers in the country. So this isn't just like some crank theory. Absolutely. And when I ever spoke to you about this, I thought, wow, I think Josh is not to something here. I think that just Linda Taylor might have been the one that could not fall. When you hear all this specific evidence against her, what do you think? I had a couple of things that kept me kind of away from thinking it. My mom, I think, would have noticed if she was, you know, you know, African-American. And she was certainly taller than Linda Taylor's height and, you know, in the voice. So I, you know, I just, I had a hard time really thinking it was her. But then again, you don't know until you know. Right. I'm kind of with you where I've ended up with all of this is that I know for a fact that Taylor kidnapped children. She was charged with it. I have first hand accounts from people who know that she kidnapped kids. If not baby Paul, know that she was in the vicinity at that time. I know for a fact that she would dress as a nurse and would say that she was a nurse. That being said, there are reasons to believe that she didn't do it. The height thing, I think, is one that, I think by all accounts, the kidnapper was something like five, six, or five, seven, and she's much shorter than that. And there are other reasons too. I think maybe where we both have landed on this, Paul, is that if we were in charge of the investigation back then,

she's somebody that would have been a person of interest

that you would have wanted to talk to.

Oh, absolutely.

For a very, very long time.

With the swinging naked light bulb, you know?

Ha, ha, ha.

We're right there.

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