addict and shirley saved rene, raised her as a granddaughter but kept her in line by threatening to abandon her. did she ever threaten to do that? yeah. many times we would do something wrong and she would say you stop doing that or i m going to send you off to jeri s house. hunger constant. medical care nonexistent. when money ran out, as it often did, shirley drove to the nearest truck stop. the girls would bed down in the car and watch shirley sneak off to do, well, they didn t know. and alone and frightened they held onto each other and watched the shadows of strange men pass by their car until the night when terrified and unable to sleep rene followed shirley. she s taking a long time and
pepper and rene, claiming to be the woman who, according to shirley and barbara, was a child abandoning drug addled prostitute probably dead. could this woman really be their mother? hardly a claim allred could take on simple faith. i asked here to come in to see me the very next day, which she was very anxious and happy to do. i asked her to bring whatever evidence she had. and in that meeting the woman presented her evidence. she brought some photos that she had of pepper and rene when they were very little. she told allred she had been a waitress when the girls were little, brought a photo of that, too, and a picture of surely and also the photo of a man she said was the girls father, long since dead. she said her name was jeri. i asked her immediately, jeri, would you be willing to do a dna test.
but back then they celebrated, an amazing reunion. so of course dateline was happy to broadcast it all around the country on march 25, 2011, no idea that something quite unbelievable would happen. because one of the people who tuned in that night was a woman named jeri. and oh, what a story she had to tell. it was a story two sisters had waited a very long time to hear. coming up 99.99% probability. that s it. yep. that means it s confirmed. when dateline continues. t s . when dateline continues
she said i ll take the dna test, but these are my children. i know it. allred put the dna test on a fast track and waited. and within a week called pepper and rene to her office to hear the results in person the results of the test. 99.99% probability. that s it. it means it s confirmed. how soon could they meet, jeri, is what the sisters wanted to know. we arranged for a reunion the next day. jeri arrived first and told us how she saw her long lost girls on our program. i was hysterical because i knew that s who she was. and then when i saw the girls i knew they were mine. after all the years of looking and there they are. what did they feel like?
it felt great. i was hoping i could find my children before i died because i m getting old and that was just like a miracle. jeri s story, the shirley who took the girls had been her friend turned roommate turned baby-sitter. she said i ll baby-sit for you, i ll take care of them while you work, and i said that s great because i really thought i was blessed. first it was rene she looked after, then rene and pepper and then two years later little leonard smith, jr. wait, brother? it wasn t just the two girls. there was a younger brother the girls never knew they had. the father wasn t around very much, jeri supported them all with what she could make as a waitress and shirley made a change, a positive one at least financially. she got this job supposedly at the motel managing, which was