At just six years old, Jane Blasio learned that she and her sister were adopted. “It’s like that moment was burned into me,” the private investigator told People. She believed that until her decades-long search to find her birth parents uncovered a shocking secret. Blasio wasn’t adopted – she was one of the hundreds of “Hicks Babies” who were sold by Dr. Thomas Hicks out of his clinic in McCaysville, Georgia, during the 1950s and 1960s.
Beginning her search as a teen, Blasio was finally told the truth by her father when she was 23 after her mother’s dying request that Blasio be told everything about what happened. “My father knew [that Hicks’ actions were illegal], but my mother just wanted a baby and didn’t want to know anything, so my dad was going to do whatever would make her happy,” she wrote in her memoir, “Taken At Birth.”
Jane Blasio: “My Parents Bought A Child”
“My parents bought a child in a way that gave me no option but to search and possibly find no answers,” she continued. “That’s not love, that’s desperation.” As part of her efforts to fully expose Hicks and give the children he sold closure, Jane Blasio founded the McCaysville Lost and Found where Hicks’ victims can share their stories, get counseling, and “extensive genealogy builds” to find their true relatives.
“McCaysville Lost and Found serves as search facilitation and provides a support touchpoint for Hicks Babies and families in the beginning, amidst, or completed their birth quest,” the site reads. In 2019, one of Hicks’ victims, John Stapleton, praised Blasio for her tireless pursuit of the truth. “[Jane] has been fighting for me and for all of us for years,” the retired Army vet told the New York Post. “And she has never given up.”
Stapleton also suggests Hicks may have started with good intentions, but money corrupted any good he believed he was doing. “I know abortion was illegal at the time, and then I think he was running into people who couldn’t afford adoptions,” he continued. “I think, at first, it was under the table, and then he had seen there was money involved. It turned into a business. [But] I don’t think it initially started that way.” He added, “Honestly, I am grateful for the life I have had. I would be afraid to change anything.”
