Virginia Families Feuding Over Girls Switched at Birth

A year ago, the families of two little girls switched at birth met for the first time, and everyone got along just fine.

They agreed they could work things out without lawyers. The children would stay with the families rearing them, and the biological families would get liberal visitation rights.

That was then.

This is now: a custody battle so bitter that one mother screamed as she was leaving court: “That’s my child, and I want her home with me!”

Paula Johnson’s outburst was the latest twist in a yearlong saga.

It began last summer when Johnson, a single mother, asked her former boyfriend for more child support for their daughter, Callie. To make sure he was the father, his blood was tested. When the results came back, Johnson learned that not only was the man not Callie’s father, but Johnson was not the girl’s mother.

It turned out that Callie and another girl, now both 4, had been switched after their births at University of Virginia Medical Center. Investigations by state officials failed to determine how the switch occurred, and several lawsuits are pending.

Just a day after Johnson got the test results, Callie’s biological parents, Kevin Chittum and Whitney Rogers, were killed in a car wreck without ever learning that the girl they were rearing, Rebecca, was not theirs. After the car accident, Chittum’s and Rogers’ parents agreed to share custody of Rebecca, only to learn a short time later that Rebecca was not their biological granddaughter.

When the truth came out, the two sides met in August 1998, and Johnson said at the time: “Everyone was just wonderful. These are people you can feel very close to, even without this ordeal.”

The truce has since broken down. Johnson has petitioned for custody of Rebecca and wants to keep Callie, too, while the other side wants to stick to the original agreement to keep things as they were.

Tommy and Brenda Rogers, who are helping to rear Rebecca, leave little doubt they blame Johnson for the rift but won’t go into specifics. “My days of speaking to Paula are over,” Tommy Rogers said in an interview at his Buena Vista home.

Johnson’s lawyer, Ken Mergenthal, would not allow his client to be interviewed. He said grandparents with differing agendas caused the rift. He said the Rogerses and the Chittums were bickering, and Johnson didn’t like Rebecca being in the middle of it.

Experts who have followed the case said discord was predictable.

Nadine Kaslow, professor of family and child psychology at Emory University in Atlanta, said the families’ pledge to work out custody and visitation amicably “was too much to expect.”

“This is so complicated, even the courts and mental health professionals will have trouble figuring out what’s best,” she said.

In the meantime, it’s not clear whether Callie knows what is going on. As for Rebecca, Brenda Rogers said the little girl is doing fine and has been told nothing about the switch.

“She just knows her mommy and daddy are in heaven,” Brenda Rogers said. “Eventually, when she gets older, she will know the truth.”