Show notes
Over the past two episodes, we followed a story that almost refuses to be believed: a newborn taken from Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, a toddler found abandoned outside a department store in Newark, and a man raised as Paul Fronczak who later learned through DNA that he was not the baby everyone believed had been returned. After decades of questions, genetic genealogy finally gave him the name he had been born with: Jack Thomas Rosenthal. But that answer opened another mystery, because Jack had not been born alone. Fourteen minutes before him, a baby girl entered the world too. Her name was Jill Lynne Rosenthal.
And unlike Jack, Jill was not found abandoned in Newark. She was not placed into foster care under another name. She did not grow up inside someone else’s story. She simply disappeared—without headlines, without a public search, without a childhood photograph, and without the world even knowing it should be looking for her. Today, in the final episode of our coverage, we turn fully toward Jill: a little girl who was born, a little girl who had a name, and a little girl whose disappearance was hidden so thoroughly that silence nearly became the final word. This is the final episode in our three-part coverage of the case of Jill Rosenthal.
I want to again thank Paul Fronczak and Tracy Hastings again for trusting us with this story and for taking the time to speak with me. Please listen to their podcast, The Fronczak Files, because they are telling this story from the inside—not just as a mystery, but as a lived experience involving identity, family, loss, silence, and the ongoing search for answers. You can find their work at https://www.thefronczakfiles.com/.
And if you are caught up on our regular Coffee and Cases episodes and want more content, join us on Patreon, where we cover a solved case each month as part of our state-by-state spotlight: https://www.patreon.com/coffeeandcases.
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