There have been some truly incredible stories of families reuniting after decades spent apart, and Jacqui Ochoa’s tale is right up there with the most incredible and heart-wrenching.
Jacqui, a Californian mother-of-two, has made headlines after reuniting with her long-lost siblings, 50 years after being left on a doorstep as a newborn.
According to reports in the Daily News and ABC News, Jacqui was the third child of David and Leslie Faulkner. She was found on the doorstep of a minister’s house one night in 1965, along with an unsigned note and baby supplies. While there was no name on the note, it stated that she had two siblings and her father was ‘not with them’.
Jacqui was adopted by ‘wonderful’ parents who never hid her past or the heart-breaking tale of how she entered their lives. Having read the note however, she was always eager to find out who her biological siblings were and finally meet them.
Elsewhere, the Faulkners’ other children, Victoria and Eric, were trying to put the pieces of their own story together. Abandoned in the back of a police car at the ages of 17 months and two years respectively, their parents had been tracked down and charged with child endangerment. They were later officially adopted after their mother committed suicide and their father declined to care for them.
Victoria and Eric would often visit their biological grandparents, and questions were raised over a box of baby items in the attic that didn’t belong to either of them – and, significantly, newspaper clippings about an unnamed baby who had been left on a doorstep. While no one knew that the Faulkners had another child, the grandparents always had their suspicions.
Using the same newspaper clippings and police reports, both Jacqui and Victoria made enquiries through the courts to find each other – and when their cases matched up, they were put in contact.
Jacqui made the call to Victoria, and the siblings all met for the first time last Saturday. Also there was their half-sister Katrina; David’s daughter from a previous relationship.
Speaking to local media, an emotional Katrina said: “I thought we’d never hear anything. It’s a government bureaucracy, the kiss of death. The next day the phone rings. It’s Clare [their social worker]. She says, ‘I know who your sister is.’ I started crying.”
The siblings are now enjoying getting to know each other, and piecing their stories together.
