Lydia Fairchild
publication date: Monday, May 15, 2023 (part of May 2023)
category: Injustice
clue: The Washington officials who believed her DNA instead of her were trying to do what was fair for each child.
explanation: In 2002, when Washington state resident Fairchild applied for enforcement of child support, a DNA test indicated that her unborn child wasn't hers, and that neither were her two older children. Over her protests and documentation of her pregnancies, she was accused of fraud and nearly had the children taken away, until her attorney found a medical article that led to a diagnosis: Fairchild had chimerism, an extremely rare condition in which different parts of the body possess different sets of DNA. more…
intended difficulty: hard
solved by: Russ Wilhelm, Steve West, LaVonne Lemler, Samir Mehta, Richard Slominsky, and Erik Bates