A Lost Child Finds Himself in Adulthood

She doesn't remember exactly how much time passed before she drove her boys to the orphanage, which closed its doors less than a year after her sons' arrival and was demolished in 1983. She knows, though, that she was emotionally in ruins at that time, overwhelmed by her daily life. During the car ride, she said, she told her boys what was about to happen, but she knew they did not understand. When she left the building, she said, she felt like running.

"I thought it would be better for them," she said. "I thought they wouldn't have to worry about anything, everything was going to be fine. I didn't realize I would basically be dead, and I was. You never can recover from that, for years and years after."

'A Perfect Child'

Cathy McManus adored her adopted son, who grew big and strong. He was, she said, a "perfect child." He did chores without complaining. He was polite and kind. He got good grades and excelled at sports. He bagged groceries and drove a truck for a lighting company in Augusta, Ga., where the Hoffas moved after another fire -- this one Reese had nothing to do with -- destroyed much of their farm.

But for a long time, McManus sensed, Reese did not let his guard down. Reese saw the distance, too. He had no interest in building a bridge into the heart of strangers. His ambition was simple: He wanted to ensure his behavior didn't cause him to be abandoned again.

"All I wanted to do was please my adopted family," Reese said. "I thought, if I ask to do too much, maybe they will ask me to go back to the orphanage. For a long time, I had a great respect for them, but not really a love for them. For a long time, the entire family could have gotten wiped out, and it wouldn't have mattered."

A Mother's Search

Two years after taking her sons to the orphanage, Diana Chism married an enlisted Navy man and moved with him to Connecticut. The marriage lasted just six months, but Chism landed a job working for a real estate company and began to pull her life together.

By then, in her early 20s, she realized how angry she was, how confused she had been. She blamed her mother and sister for leaving her alone as a child. She went back to Louisville, seeking answers, explanations. There, she was reunited with Lamont, who had been removed from the orphanage by her sister Fannie, 10 years her senior. But Fannie, who became Lamont's primary caretaker, had not located Reese. His personal file was sealed.

Diana Chism, once fixated on escape, became fixated on finding Reese.

"I had no idea what had happened to him," she said. "I looked all of the time. I was so distraught. I just wanted God to tell me where he was so I could stop worrying."

Chism called the social worker with whom she arranged the space at the orphanage, begging for information. The social worker declined to open his file, but said Reese had been adopted by nice people who had moved after a fire damaged their farm.

Then, she let slip what Chism believed an important clue; her son had changed his name to Michael Ray. Though she didn't know his last name, her hopes surged.

Lamont provided another hint; he recalled a sculpture at the center of the town in which he had visited his brother's family. Chism believed she had seen the sculpture. Reese, she ascertained correctly, must have been in Bardstown. Full of hope, she drove to Bardstown.