I wanna call it a nightmare.
It was
absolutely wrong from the beginning.
I personally think it was an experiment for him,
some sick game.
I think about the "why" every single day.
Hi, Jacoba, this is Dr. Webber calling.
I have your lab results in.
So give me a call when you have a chance, and we can go over those.
Thank you. Bye.
Hi, this message is for Jacoba Ballard. This is Jane over at Dr. Chan's office.
Give us a callback. We want to reschedule you for an appointment.
Thanks so much.
Growing up, I felt different.
I'm this blonde-haired, blue-eyed person
in a family with dark hair
and, like, olive skin and dark eyes.
So, I kept asking my mom
if I was adopted.
I kept, like, reassuring my parents,
and I'm like, "It's fine if I am, you can tell me. It'll be okay."
Finally, my mom told me the truth.
So, I've known since the age of ten
that I was from donor sperm.
I believe it was 1979,
and... I wanted a child so bad,
but my husband could not have children.
So I went to see Dr. Cline
for artificial insemination.
I was young.
I think, like, 20, 21.
He was professional.
Uh, we didn't really say a lot.
I mean, he just told us that he would match us with a donor
that looked like my husband.
He was gonna use medical students,
their sperm.
And so, when I start ovulating,
I went in, they did the procedure...
and, um, I went home, and I was pregnant.
She's my everything.
I love that child more than life itself.
I always had this longing for siblings.
I just wanted somebody that related to me,
that's, you know, my brother or sister,
and I just wanted to have that bond.
When I was around the age of 18,
you know, around, like, 1999,
there wasn't commercial DNA testing.
All I knew was my mom went to Dr. Donald Cline,
and he was the go-to doctor.
My mom was told that
they used a medical resident for donor sperm,
and they never used the medical resident or the donor,
say, more than three times.
So, since there was me,
I figured that I might have one or two half-siblings.
So, I looked him up, and I called him at his office.
He actually answered the phone.
I wanted to know if he had a donor number
or my mom's medical records
to where I could have some kind of identifying information.
He was very
straightforward, matter-of-fact,
um, no empathy.
But I remember asking him,
like, telling him I wanted to find half-siblings,
and he said that I can't ever know that information.
My mother's records have been destroyed.
He wished me good luck, and that was it.
I just went on with life and, you know,
married, raised my children, and hoped that someday maybe
I would find a sibling or two.
Watching our friends' children growing up around us
left us feeling isolated and desperate.
But as we found out, we were not alone.
One out of five couples living in the United States
experience infertility problems.
The physicians and staff at Indianapolis Infertility
can help you understand your particular infertility problem more clearly.
Both Dr. Donald Cline and Dr. Robert Colver
are specialists in the field of infertility
and have achieved excellent results
in diagnosing and treating thousands of infertile couples.
Dr. Cline was the best-known infertility doctor in Indianapolis.
And I started working for him
in '81 to '94.
I worked 13 years.
I was partnered with Dr. Cline from 1987 to 1991, and I have to say,
my career wouldn't be what it has been over the last 35 years
if it hadn't been for Don Cline. So...
You know, I have a very special place in my heart for that man.
Before '85, for an insemination
or for a donor insemination,
fresh sperm was used.
And back then, you didn't have, like today,
you go on a website, 300 guys show up.
We had a notebook
so they could pick from what donor criteria they wanted.
The hospital was... It's just right across the street.
And I actually went to the hospital and met some of the donors
because they were residents, and I knew 'em.
And they would pass me the specimen,
and I would take it back to the office.
It has to be kept warm, body temperature.
And so I transported the sample in my bra,
so the sperm was still viable by the time I got it over at the office.
It was a great field. It was really interesting.
We were putting tubes back together so people... women could get pregnant.
And he had a terrific success rate at that.
We'd do laser surgery on tubes,
and that was a new thing that Don did that other doctors didn't do.
For these couples, you have to have them
really think through this, talk through this, pray about it.
Really feel like you thought through this whole thing, because
once you do that donor insemination
and they get pregnant, that's their baby. Forever.
It was always very emotional
when one of your girlfriends would call you and say she was pregnant
because there were several times that I'd get off the phone,
and I'd just cry because I wanted a child so bad.
My husband and I had gone to various fertility doctors
trying to find... my issue.
It was hard on me and my husband.
But I thought, "Okay. I've finally found a doctor that might be able to help us
because he was so well-known."
I was about 27.
I, uh... My husband and I talked about having our own children.
My husband got tested, and he was infertile.
I was told, "The only person who's doing live sperm donor insemination
is Dr. Don Cline."
"He's the best of the best, so go to him."
By that point, it'd been two and a half years
of having my period when I wanted to really conceive,
taking my temperature, and... for every month and every day.
So it was the first time I felt... It was hopeful.
I carried my husband's sperm in a little container.
Well, we didn't have much time because you had to have it there,
I think, within an hour.
And then there was this room
that I would go into for the artificial insemination,
right then with the sperm,
with some kind of long, like, um...
Well, it looked like a needle-type thing, but that was all I remember.
He'd walk me back to the exam room,
I'm lying down, and my knees are up in the air.
He said, "Okay. I'm gonna, uh, put this... this specimen in you."
So I wait on the table for about 20 minutes.
I was thinking actually positive thoughts.
I was thinking,
"Wow. I might be able to have a child."
When the doctor's office called me
and told me I was pregnant,
I... I couldn't believe it.
We were just so happy when I had her.
I even took Julie back into the office and then showed her off to Dr. Cline.
I thought I had altitude sickness.
So I laid off a little bit of skiing,
and ate more crackers, and drank some tea,
and, um, never thinking I was pregnant.
I thought I was just late.
I was ecstatic.
I thought it was a gift at the time.
In 2014, you see 23andMe
on, like, every other commercial on TV.
I was 35,
and I told my husband I was gonna take a DNA test
because I figured, at least, I had one or two siblings.
I felt like it was kind of a bonus if I did find the donor,
but that wasn't, like, my goal.
My goal was to find a sibling.
The fall of 2014,
I received my results.
I remember that day vividly.
It came back that I was related to
seven siblings.
It was actually immediate excitement, um,
with concern.
Finding out that I had siblings was amazing,
but there's, you know, eight of us.
What... what's going on here?
Because my mom was told
that they never used a donor more than three times.
Three times was the ideal.
We didn't want a large population
with all the same father.
There's the concern for consanguinity,
uh, having too many people in a certain geographic area
that could potentially be your brother or your sister, and you didn't know it.
Because you could potentially have a brother and sister marrying.
Hold up.
This doesn't make sense.
Obviously, you used someone's sperm more than three times.
And that's when we started to do our own investigating.
Every weekend, we would call each other,
or we would plug names into Ancestry and work on a family tree.
We joked one day, trying to figure it out,
and we're like, "Wouldn't it be crazy if it was the doctor?"
But we disregarded it, and we're like,
"Probably not, but we'll go through this journey together."
"We'll help each other find who our biological father is."
We were able to just focus on our paternal matches,
and we all matched a lady named Sylvia,
who was our second cousin,
and she was on 23andMe.
So, we had messaged her.
I asked her what surnames was in her family tree,
and she gave us a whole list of names.
One of the names that popped up was Swinford.
Swinford is Donald Cline's mother's maiden name.
I said, "By any chance,
do you have the name Cline in your family?"
She said, "Oh yes, I completely forgot. My cousin Don."
"He's a doctor."
Right then, my stomach dropped,
and I felt sick because she just confirmed
what I think we probably already knew, but we were hoping wasn't true.
Dr. Donald Cline
could be our biological father.
I was in shock.
There were so many emotions.
So many questions.
He lied about a donor being used.
Why did he do it?
And how long did he do it?
And how many siblings do we have?
I honestly didn't know who to go to.
I googled, like, "Where do you make a complaint against a doctor?"
That, in turn, led to me filing a complaint
with the Attorney General's office for Indiana.
So, then I received a form back from the Attorney General's office
that was like, their generic messaging like,
"Hi. We've received your complaint, and it's gonna be investigated further,
and someone will be in touch."
We waited and waited. Nobody was returning my calls.
No questioning, nothing from the Attorney General's office.
I wanted answers.
So I reached out to every news outlet, big and small,
and nobody would pick up the story.
...and I'm Angela Ganote.
Yeah. We're starting off on a chilly start today,
but it's gonna warm up and warm up fast.
I was watching TV one day,
- and I was like... - ..."Her!"
"I forgot to send it to her."
In February of 2015, I logged onto Facebook,
and I had a message from Jacoba.
The message was in-depth,
saying that she believed a doctor in Indianapolis
had inseminated multiple women with his own sperm.
It was shocking, but it was also backed by proof.
Before Jacoba came to me,
she had reached out to Attorney General of our state,
the Attorney General of the United States.
She had reached out to national news organizations,
and she had gotten no response.
And I thought, "Why is no one listening, or at least
finding the truth?"
I walked into our news director's office,
and I said, "You guys are not gonna believe this."
I reached out to Dr. Cline in the very beginning.
He told me that he was not the father.
He told me that he only used sperm from a doctor in training,
that there is no way possible
that the siblings had more than three brothers or sisters.
I asked if he would like to see the DNA evidence.
I asked him if he would like to provide his own DNA
so that he could help them.
"If you're not the father, have a DNA test and prove to them."
And he wouldn't.
So when we first aired the first story,
I couldn't use his name, and that was, um, hard for me.
Sisters, born here in Indiana, uncover a family secret.
Their dad is not their biological father.
They are donor children,
the product of an anonymous man who donated his sperm.
Since we didn't have Donald Cline's DNA,
we couldn't really move forward
until we had him take a DNA test
to prove that he was our biological father.
Like, we knew it in our gut, but we didn't have anybody at the state
that would get back with us, and
they weren't in any hurry to get a DNA sample from him.
So, one of my half-siblings
messaged all of Cline's children and grandchildren
that were over the age of 18.
Basically said,
"Our mothers went through infertility treatment."
"Did somebody in your family donate sperm?"
It was probably a week or two later,
Cline's son messaged me.
So, I met with Doug and Donna,
which are two of Cline's children, with his wife, Audrey.
I chose to do it at my church
because I felt more comfortable.
I don't know these people,
and these are some big accusations.
They said they had talked to their dad,
and he did admit that he was our biological father.
But Doug said that the only time that Cline used his sperm
was when he didn't have access to a donor,
and as far as siblings go,
there was absolutely no more than ten.
I had seen the news pop on one night...
...they are donor children searching for answers...
...and I saw Jacoba on TV,
and my husband thought that we looked a lot alike.
My husband's exact words were,
"I don't feel like this is going to end well,
and I want you to be aware of that."
So I talked to my mom.
My daughter called me and said,
"Should I get tested?" And I said, "No."
'Cause I, at that point in time,
I thought it was my husband's sperm that he had used.
She said,
"You know, honey. This doesn't apply to you."
"This doesn't pertain to you at all. I know you're your dad and I's."
Um, but something in my gut, I just couldn't let it go.
So I notified Jacoba via Facebook.
She wasn't really sure if this would pertain to me at all,
'cause I was supposed to have been from my father and not a donor.
So she said the best way to do it is just take a test.
And once I took that test,
if we were related, her name would show up.
Hardest thing I've ever had to go through.
Go back to everything that you've known about yourself.
It just completely washes away your identity.
And you really have no idea who you are anymore.
We both cried on the phone,
and then I had to...
...figure out a way I was gonna tell my husband
'cause I knew that it was gonna devastate him.
I said, "Remember when we went to Dr. Cline?"
And I said, "Unfortunately, um,
Dr. Cline didn't use your sperm. He used his own."
"So...
we're just now finding out that Julie is not yours."
My husband started crying.
And he said that, and I'll never forget these words.
He says, "He's taken everything away from me."
And he did.
It's hard.
I mean, what did he do with my dad's sperm?
He just threw it away like it was nothing?
I mean, it's just... It's wrong.
After I met with Doug,
he had called me and said,
"I will do whatever it takes to get you the answers."
And I said, "We want to meet him."
"We have questions for him."
"I want him to look us in the eye."
"You at least owe us that much."
And so he set up a time for myself and five other siblings
to be able to meet Cline.
It was almost like the moment that his feet hit the floor,
you could hear his footsteps,
and you could hear his cane.
He was not showing emotion.
And on his hip, I could see the outline of a gun.
I think that it was partially to intimidate us.
So he introduced himself,
and he went around the table, asking each one's name, age,
and what they did for a profession.
It was almost like he was ranking us.
Like, "Let me see
which one of my offspring made it to the top."
I felt like we were being judged.
Then we asked about medical history
because some of us, we have autoimmune disorders and stuff.
He said that there was nothing that we needed to worry about.
He had a piece of paper with him
that he brought scripture on.
Jeremiah 1:5.
I remember him looking at me and going, "Jacoba, this is for you."
Because he knew I was having a hard time with this,
and I'm like, "Put that shit away."
I said... I did, I said, "Just put that shit away."
"You're not gonna use my God to justify your actions."
One of my siblings did ask him why he used his own sperm.
And he said that he only did it
because he felt like the mothers
were just basically desperate for a child,
and he was doing it to help them.
Finally, he said that the absolute number,
there would not be more than 15 siblings.
It's just too fucked up.
I... I just felt bad for my mother.
I mean...
here she was, you know,
a young woman just wanting to have a family
like anyone else.
It's a sick individual that puts themselves in that position
to be able to do that.
There are parts of me that wish that I never had to deal with infertility.
I wish that walk on no one.
The way it worked for me with Cline is, uh,
I would go to his office.
He was always the only one in the office,
whether I was coming in on a weekend or during the week,
during the midday, or late evening.
He was the only one that greeted me in his office, which was strange.
And now the truth is that,
as Cline was closing the door
and I'm undressing and putting my feet in the stirrups
getting ready for him to bring in the donor's sperm,
he was in the... some other place in the office ejaculating,
and not only creating the erection, but he has to go in full force
in a sexual manner to create that ejaculation.
To me, that has always remained a very sad part to me,
and disgusting.
That he was placing then his semen
into some kind of syringe,
and then he's got to place that syringe at the base of my cervix.
The fact that he
was still in an endocrine high
from having the ejaculation
has no place in a medical setting.
When Matt's DNA test came back...
my first words were,
"I was raped 15 times and didn't even know it."
This is unbelievable.
How the fuck did no one know?
I mean, just even the act of what he did
for so many years,
and to just get away with it
for decades, and no one knew anything.
No one in the office?
Come on.
Well, here's the thing.
There wasn't much traffic on that first floor
other than we'd come directly into our office.
Don could have clearly collected a specimen,
and then he got it back, and no one would know.
They could... The nurse could be in there for the insemination.
They wouldn't know if it was a donor from the hospital or not.
Dr. Colver and I have discussed it, and we had no idea.
It just was never a thought,
because it was so totally opposite
from his normal behavior.
This was a person of a position of power.
He's known in our community as a philanthropist.
He's known in our community as an elder of the church.
He was always a doctor.
He was not gonna sit there and chat with you.
It was all pretty much
doctor-person relationship.
Or a stern father figure,
if, you know, if you can relate better to that.
Mark was stationed at Grissom Air Force Base,
and so was Don,
and we were socially friendly.
I would say arrogant fits him, for some reason.
I mean, I don't know exactly why I felt that way.
You... you do because you were in study groups and so on.
Uh, he was... he was okay. I mean, he obviously was a bright guy.
He thought he knew... He did know a lot.
He always was confident.
He always was self-assured.
He wasn't... I never saw him doubt
that what he was doing wasn't right.
If you knew something, and he knew something, he knew more.
That was his attitude.
He always belittled how much I knew about child de...
You know, child development, even.
I mean, that was my area of specialty.
Uh, I... I have a PhD in neurobiology,
and I'm also, um, an occupational therapist,
and I treated preemies.
But he knew more.
If you crossed him...
...that was it.
The first conversations that I had with Dr. Cline,
he told me that he was protected under HIPAA.
He told me that I could be sued or that Fox 59 could be sued.
He made it very clear that I needed to be careful.
So, that's when Cline called me.
I was in shock.
I don't know what it was in me.
He called my home phone, and I recorded that conversation.
- Jacoba? - Yes.
Uh, this is Dr. Cline.
Uh, do you have time to talk with me just a little bit?
- Yes. - Okay.
Um, I'm getting, uh, a real problem with, um,
uh, the television station, um, 59.
Mm-hmm.
Um, they are demanding, um, that I meet with them.
Uh, I can't do that.
Uh, it's not fair to me. It's not fair to you all.
Uh, they're... they're trying to make a, um...
Oh...
They're... they're trying to, um...
improve their ratings,
and, um, my wife and I, after 57 years of marriage...
Um, if... if this comes out,
uh, our marriage will be over.
Um,
can you help?
I mean, no disrespect,
but I feel like what you're telling me is to keep my life a secret.
That I am not allowed to know who I am...
- Well... - ...when I didn't do anything wrong.
Well, yes, but you know, I didn't...
At the time, I didn't feel like I was doing anything wrong either.
But you... I feel like I'm being blamed for this, like it's my fault.
I don't understand.
It's, uh, it's your fault because I don't care who you tell.
It's just
putting it on television for the entire world to see.
Well, I... I cannot... Like I said, I can't control her.
I can't stop that. I can't.
Well, because you... you... you can stop talking to her and say,
"You know, I... I just don't want to share anymore."
I'm just telling you what's gonna happen,
and I'm going to be hurt badly.
Well, that's what's happened to everybody so far,
and you know, that... that's because of the actions...
This tells me that that's exactly what you want.
When you push me, I'm gonna push back 100 times more.
So when he called me, it's like,
"Bring it on."
"Bring it on because I'm ready to fight you."
♪ When I go, don't cry for me ♪
♪ In my Father's arms, I'll be ♪
I contacted the Attorney General's office again
to get a status on this complaint,
and nobody was returning my calls.
♪ Sun and moon will be replaced ♪
♪ With the light of... ♪
So I decided to investigate him myself.
♪ And I will not be ashamed ♪
♪ For my Savior knows my name ♪
I started researching everything about him,
from papers written, to articles,
to conferences he had attended, to blogs.
♪ It don't matter anywhere I lay ♪
It was so much research.
♪ All my tears be washed away ♪
I had just papers everywhere
to prove that I wasn't some crazy maniac.
♪ All my tears be washed away ♪
He wanted me to keep quiet.
And he wanted me to keep quiet
because he knew that there were more siblings.
My husband gave me a DNA test as a gift,
and then I got a message saying,
"I think we're related."
When it all hit me, I kind of
just sat and stared for the rest of the day.
And then, for the next couple of weeks, had a complete identity crisis,
and I couldn't look in the mirror.
I didn't wanna think about where I got my hair from,
or where I got my eyes from,
because I had always thought those were from my dad.
There was never any reason that I would have questioned anything.
My parents trusted their doctor,
who said that it would be better for me to not know,
and that I would never find out.
Every time that a new sibling pops up,
I know that I'm going to call them,
and I know that, um, I'm going to ruin their life.
It's hard because we know what we went through.
And we're making someone else go through this exact same thing.
The first people who reached out to me were Julie and Jacoba.
I messaged them back and said, "I need some time to process."
"I'll reach back out later."
Um, and so it was probably a couple of months
before I, um, actually reached out
to... to have a conversation with anyone.
Um,
your world is changing.
When you have new siblings pop up,
you are on the phone with them for hours
because it's the worst day of their life.
You've lived that over and over and over.
I asked for a DNA test for Christmas,
and I was really confused
'cause all of these random names to me
were popping up, and it said, "Close Family."
And so I really did not know what "Close Family" meant.
It did... did not even... I did not even think,
"Oh, brother or sister," I didn't even think, "Cousin."
I got a message that a new sibling popped up,
and I logged in, and it said, you know, "Lisa,"
and her last name, and I was like, "Huh, I know her."
Her husband taught my daughter on the softball team.
Um, my daughter and her daughter played basketball together.
I sent her a message, and I said,
"Hey, did you happen to do an Ancestry test?"
She said, "Well, do you know about the Dr. Cline story?"
And she said, "He's our father."
And I honestly, I started laughing.
I... I was... thought Julie was kind of crazy. I was like, "What are you talking about?"
"There... there's no way he can be my dad."
And then I called my mom.
I said, "Hey, Mom, did you and Dad ever have any issues conceiving me?"
She said, "Well, I didn't, but yeah, your dad did."
And so my heart dropped a little bit.
And she said, "He actually had a low sperm count,
and his doctor recommended us to a specialist."
I said, "Mom, was this specialist in Indianapolis?"
And she said, "Yeah, why?"
And I said, "Was it Dr. Donald Cline?"
And she said, "Yes."
She said,
"I went and had the procedure done twice,
but both times your father was there with me and provided a sample."
And so, at that point, I realized my mom and dad had no idea.
They thought all along that I was my dad's.
I worry for my kids,
especially I have siblings that live in the same town as me,
and our kids go to school together.
And so, I've had to have the talk with my daughter about,
"You've got to be careful when you start dating."
"We got to be aware of who this person is,"
but it's definitely a huge concern.
When we get a new sibling alert,
you're praying, "Please don't let it be somebody I know."
Or "Please don't let it be somebody I dated."
And I'm sure it's bound to happen.
The majority of us live in, like, a 25-mile radius of each other.
There's also quite a few that live within minutes of Cline.
I walk around,
and I could be related to anyone.
I mean, it's just common for me to pass people on the street,
um, at work, wherever I may be,
and, I mean, I'll look at them and think,
"Oh, the way you stand, the way you look."
"You could be related to me."
We live in this small community.
Everyone that you interact with
appears to have some sort of connection to Cline.
My dentist across the street was a patient of his.
My next-door neighbor was the nurse to one of my half-siblings,
and then there's this connection,
or there's that connection.
"Oh, my mom saw them at the nail salon."
I think without a doubt, there are probably people that I've met
that are my half-sibling, and I just don't even know it.
They don't even know it.
Who knows how many siblings we have?
I had emailed Dr. Cline and told him,
"We're moving forward with the story. We would be using his name."
You know, "This is the time for you to come clean to the public."
So, finally, he said, "If there's no audio and no video, I will meet with you."
I asked him if he wanted to come to FOX 59.
He said no. I said,
"There's a restaurant close to the TV station."
And I wanted to be close to the TV station
because I wanted to make sure for my safety.
I wanted it to be someplace that I felt safe.
My boss at that time wanted me to take our security guard with us
because she feared for my safety.
We knew that Dr. Cline did not want to, quote, "be outed,"
and Jacoba told me that he carried a gun.
We thought that he was desperate.
She is, um, uh, demanding I meet with... with them.
They're going to force me to do this.
- Mm-hmm. - I've gotta tell the truth.
- Mm-hmm. Well... - And I don't want to do that.
I was very nervous,
and when he came in, it was within minutes he's asking me
if guns are allowed in the restaurant.
And I'm thinking, "What a weird thing to say to me."
Then I'm looking down, and it looks like he has a gun underneath his sweater.
There's something bulging on the side, and I'm thinking,
"I don't wanna be crazy, but is there any chance
that he could pull out a gun and shoot me?"
I honestly thought that.
One of the first things he said in our conversation
was that he knew where I lived,
and he knew where I was from.
Remember, this was after he had said before,
"Be careful."
The meeting was about an hour long,
and I feel like he was begging me
to not air the story.
He said, "It will ruin my marriage."
"It will hurt my church. I'm an elder at the church."
I let him know that we have that burden to tell the truth,
and the truth matters.
So that's when, like, the whole whirlwind just started with him,
and strange things started happening.
I had woke up one day,
and all of the lug nuts were missing off of my car.
And I'm talking all four tires.
And that's scary.
So, yeah.
Um...
And you can't tell me that that's like some freak...
Yeah.
I was hacked.
Everything that I had saved to a Google Drive
of publications of Cline was just erased,
and every single email regarding him was gone.
Soon after I went public,
I started getting harassing phone calls,
like the cemetery
asking if I wanted to buy a plot
for me to be buried in.
I think it was to rattle me.
Um...
to... to re-traumatize me so that I would be quiet.
I don't think he wanted, um, any of us to talk publicly if he could help it.
In my gut, I feel like we're being harassed and stalked
to get us to shut up,
especially when Cline called and threatened me over the phone.
What you're doing is that you're telling the world,
and the world doesn't need to know.
- I... - I'm not trying to do harm.
Well, you are.
I'm not scared of you.
You can threaten me,
but I will never back down.
I am going to expose you.
And I'm gonna expose all of your secrets.
I found out that
in 1963...
...he was driving...
...and this little girl darted out between two cars...
...and he hit her.
No!
She ended up dying.
He has told everybody that's when he changed his life.
That's when he found God.
That traumatized him.
After that, he became more religious
and, um, churchgoing than he had been before.
Maybe he thought that this was his way of giving back,
that he took a life that really wasn't his fault.
Now, he was going to give back.
Maybe that was a psychological process going through his mind.
But it doesn't really matter because that should not have been a way
that he was trying... to try to, uh, make amends
for some terrible accident that happened.
He was very religious,
had very deep roots,
and he and his wife taught marriage counseling in their church.
They taught Sunday school.
And whenever he was in the office and all of us were there,
he would sit down, and we would wait, and he would say a prayer.
He, at some point, asked me
if I was Jewish,
and I said yes.
And I said, "And by the way, I'm very uncomfortable with your office
full of all kinds of Christian sayings."
Things like, "If you want to get into heaven,
you need to be Christian."
Yeah. I knew... I knew Donald Cline.
The church is set up where they have an eldership.
So they have seven or eight men
that governed the church body as far as what was taught,
and he was one of those elders.
We would go over to his house for baptisms.
Literally, 50 to 100 people would attend baptisms
right there in their... at their swimming pool.
That's where we really got to know them.
From a Christian perspective, you have to say,
"Hey, we... we all have skeletons in our closet."
"We all have done things that we regret doing."
I know that he and God have reconciled that.
That he's been forgiven, and that he has moved on from that,
and he's a different person now.
He portrays himself as this godly man.
And I know we all make mistakes,
but I think there's more behind this.
What made him
every day wake up and decide to go into his work,
masturbate,
and place it unknowingly inside women without their consent.
He could've stopped at any point,
but he kept doing it over and over and over and over.
Growing up, I kind of knew that something was off.
Something was different.
You know, why do I got blond hair, blue eyes?
Everyone in my family has dark eyes and dark hair.
So, I got an Ancestry kit just to figure out where I came from.
When Ancestry results came through, my coworker said,
"Well, you'll have 11, 15 hits on Ancestry."
Well, when I opened up mine, I had over 3,000 hits.
And then immediately after that,
Jacoba called me.
"I'm your sister."
And she told me the truth.
I don't even know how to tell you the emotions that came over my head.
Took me to an incredibly dark place.
Why?
Why feel the need to do this?
Is it to... to further your career?
Is it to be the best of the best?
Is this to create life?
Is this some sort of sexual thing?
Like, I don't know.
I feel like he's hiding something more sinister.
Jason, we talked on the phone a lot before we got to meet.
Hey, how are you?
This is crazy.
I know!
Jason and I are very similar.
Like, we can read through people's bullshit.
When someone isn't religious,
and you're gonna use religious verses to justify your actions,
that just makes it even more...
Worse. I would have just laughed at him.
Well, and it makes it even more of a reasoning of people saying,
"That right there is why I would never be religious
because of fuck nuts like you."
And it took all I had in me
to talk to him on the phone that day without going off.
And I thought, "You've just got to remain calm
because you're recording this, and try to get as much out."
Let me hear it.
You know, I know that nothing happens without God,
um, allowing it.
Um...
See, I think that's where our problem is.
I don't think that God should have allowed it in the first place,
and I really think that we ask ourselves every day, "Why are we here?"
I think that's, like, a lot of our problems.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I mentioned one of my favorite, um...
One of my favorite scriptures was Jeremiah 1:5.
If you'll remember, it says,
"Before I formed you in your mother's womb, I knew you."
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Um,
and... and that tells me, and it should tell everybody
that no one is born as a mistake.
Before I knew you, in your mother... What it... What was it? It's...
"Before I formed you in your mother's womb, I knew you."
Jeremiah 1:5.
Which really just kinda...
nails it all home that he knew what he was doing.
He knew exactly what he was doing with us.
I've just become obsessed with the story
and trying to piece everything together.
When I was sent an email
from someone at the Attorney General's office,
I would go through, and the person that sent me the email,
and every person that was copied in on that email,
I would search them on Facebook.
And one of the people with the state
has a "Quiverfull" email address.
That's when it was...
"What is Quiverfull? Like, what the hell is it?"
God says, "Children are a blessing."
"We should want to have our quiver full of them..."
Quiverfull. It's essentially a cult
aimed to having as many children as possible.
If a man with his wife has a lot of children,
he will send them out as arrows.
He's like a warrior for God, and he sends his children out
as arrows into the world, who will be ambassadors for God.
The children are raised to actively participate in government,
to actively run for office,
to seek positions of political prominence,
and eventually that the civil law will actually be the Bible.
Lo and behold, Jeremiah 1:5,
the verse that he kept using
is one of the Bible verses
that Quiverfull uses.
Basically, for them, women are just... You... you breed.
Was Cline in this Quiverfull movement?
Were all of us part of some sick, twisted, secret society?
There's so many theories that I've thought of in my head.
I think the philosophies
or the beliefs of the Quiverfull movement seem so outrageous to me
that it's hard for me to actually believe that it's real.
I agree with that and that we could even be a part of it.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
With the Quiverfull theory, back when we were all conceived,
that theory was to produce more of the white race
because they were in fear that other races were infiltrating that
and the white race would eventually disappear.
I mean,
when you look at that wall of babies,
it is all Caucasian babies.
It's crazy because every time we get a DNA match,
it's like, "Yep. Looks like one of the Cline boys,"
or "Looks like a Cline girl."
Most of us have blond hair
and blue eyes.
I hate to say this 'cause it sounds so... But it's almost like
we're like this perfect Aryan clan,
and... it's disgusting.
It's sad that we have to have conspiracy theories
to understand why he did this.
If he would just tell us,
then we wouldn't have to go through
of trying to find all these different reasons...
Life would be easier for him if he did.
It would help all of us heal too.
But you're not gonna get that from somebody
that does not have compassion or any empathy.
It's disgusting to sit there and lay in bed at night,
and wonder if the person that created you
is some racist bigot,
and he used my mom as a pawn.
And he did it over and over and over again.
Ugh.
Ugh!
I didn't ask to be born.
I didn't ask to be born into this situation.
But this is my life.
But it's not your fault.
No, it's not, but then you have this man who shares half of my DNA.
Our DNA.
There's just so many theories, and I...
I don't think we'll ever know why he was doing it,
but
I want him to have to pay for it. I want an investigation.
I want him punished.
The Attorney General's office didn't give a shit.
We were told that they couldn't give us any information
and we weren't allowed to know.
And we just kind of got disregarded.
The one person that we had was Angela Ganote,
calling and asking them, "What are you going to do?"
I had started back in 2015,
asking the Attorney General for an interview,
asking anything that I could know about this, and they would tell me nothing.
And then I also reached out to the Marion County prosecutor
and said, "Is anyone listening?"
Finally, the spokesperson
from the Marion County prosecutor's office said,
"Angela, I'm sorry. I don't... Somehow I missed it."
I laid out a long paragraph of the whole story and what had happened.
I had even sent our story that had aired and said,
"Did you watch our story?
I've been asking these questions for more than a year,
and I'm getting nowhere."
"And I feel like it's time that the prosecutor, or the Attorney General,
or somebody sits down and answers the questions that I have."
When we got the media inquiry,
there hadn't been any true investigation done anywhere yet.
But at the end of the day,
there's just no crime that touches
this particular act.
That's our problem.
So I remember we were sitting there,
and, um, you know, we're asking him,
"How is this not rape?"
I don't deny that it was a sexual violation.
But legally, it isn't a sexual violation.
"I feel like my mother was raped"
is a valid human emotional statement.
But..."Dr. Cline committed rape"
is a legal assertion that was not true,
and I wasn't gonna put it on paper
with my signature.
And I said, "What about battery?"
And... he got rude with me.
He said, "I don't know how many times I'm gonna have to tell you this."
"I can't charge him with battery. It wasn't battery."
I, uh, was so pissed.
I looked at Tim Delaney, and I said,
"So if I spit in your face right now,
it's not battery?"
And he said, "It is, because you'd be spitting on me."
And I'm like, "What the fuck?"
"So a doctor can go jack off
and put their sperm in a woman
who's their patient that did not consent
to have their doctor do that,
but yet, you're gonna tell me that if I spit in your face,
I'd be arrested and charged with battery?"
Jacoba and a lot of the individuals touched by this were very emotional,
and had, um, a feeling that what I was there to do,
wasn't to apply the law
to determine whether or not Dr. Cline had committed a crime.
They thought I was there to deliver catharsis.
And I wasn't.
There's unequal application of the law.
It happens every day, it happens all over the United States,
and it happens here in Indiana.
Was there fraud?
Was there something else?
I just didn't feel like it was investigated enough
to look at what could he have been charged with.
There was never a good explanation in my mind.
I had a copy of the Indiana sexual assault law,
and I said, "Surely, there's somewhere in this law that you can say..."
He says, "No, it has to have both components. It has to have force
and non-consent."
When you talk about rape,
there is a provision in Indiana law that says,
"Rape can include conduct
which a victim does not know is sexual, but the perpetrator knows is sexual."
And that, I think, is actually the closest charge,
because in order for him to produce this sperm sample,
he had to masturbate in very close proximity
to the office where a patient was waiting,
unclothed from the waist down,
with a paper cloth covering her knees,
and knees spread apart.
Who's to say when this touch
stops becoming sexual and starts becoming clinical?
I think even if he's not thinking of the patient in a sexual sense,
the very fact that he's still under the effects of physical arousal
makes this a sexual touching.
Even if he's thinking of his wife or a pink fuzzy bunny rabbit,
it is still a sexual act.
But I also think we have to see Tim Delaney
in the context in which this case was brought.
And so when I interviewed Tim Delaney,
he said that Indiana juries
were not willing to buy rape-by-deception theories.
The jury is going to say, "This woman consented to insemination."
"This woman wanted a child." And the question is always out there,
"Does this woman's desire for a child legitimate Donald Cline's deception?"
And unfortunately, that is a question
that Tim Delaney had to weigh would enter into the minds of jurors.
If he asked me if it'd be okay for him to be the donor,
I would have not said yes.
I would say no.
It was a violation of him into me.
The issue for me is there was no consent.
He didn't give me a choice.
The Attorney General's office had at least
reached out to Dr. Cline at some point
and asked him if he... if he had used his sperm,
or had asked some sort of question because Dr. Cline told me that.
He told me that he filled it out,
and that he denied anything, that he wasn't the father.
I don't know what's in that letter 'cause I've never seen it,
but I know what our conversation was.
Dr. Cline told me that he talked with the Attorney General's office
through paperwork,
and that... he was not the father.
That was really what ended up getting him in trouble,
because he lied to me, and I knew it,
and he lied on the paperwork to the Attorney General's office.
So at one point, I reached out to the Attorney General,
and say, "You know he's lying to you."
He lied and said that he never used his sperm
to inseminate his patients.
Only after we determined that the Attorney General's office
had sent those letters
were we able to come up with a theory for how to proceed.
We wanted to nail him with something,
and the fact that we finally got something,
it was like a "hurrah" moment.
And not only that,
he also added that he was going to sue me
for libel and slander.
Denying is obstruction of justice,
but denying and threatening, and, to paraphrase, saying,
"Do you know who I am?" was more than enough.
It was like, "Eureka!" The, you know... The bathwater started spilling out.
I said, "Oh my God, we've got an angle."
After we began the investigation,
obviously the first step was to get DNA from Dr. Cline.
He was sick.
He had pneumonia, I believe.
So he said, "Don't come too close."
And we said, "We have a search warrant for your DNA."
He asked a little bit about "What is this all about?"
But he knew what it was all about.
Detective Sergeant Carmen Walker
of the Marion County Sheriff's Office said,
"We need you to open your mouth."
And he complied.
He did not look like he was enjoying it.
It came back 99.9997%
that I am his biological daughter.
And how many times did you use your own sample?
Sparingly, but
keep in mind, we're talking 30 to 35 years ago,
and I... I can't remember.
All the records have been shredded.
The fertility doctor at the center of a controversial case
is headed back to court to answer criminal charges.
Dr. Donald Cline is charged with two felony counts
of obstruction of justice for statements he made to investigators.
The retired Indianapolis fertility doctor
now plans to plead guilty to obstruction of justice.
Prosecutors say he intentionally misled investigators about a case
that's turned dozens of people's lives upside down.
And it was literally 20 months ago
that I got a Facebook question to me, "Angela, can you help me?"
And thank you for believing in them, because no one else did but you.
Yeah, thank you.
He didn't want to go to trial
because more information would come out,
and then also, he'd probably get more of a punishment.
So he changed his plea to guilty.
I felt good that day at the court hearing.
Even though I knew that all he was being charged with
was two counts of obstruction of justice,
I thought, "Fucking finally. Something."
I didn't wanna make eye contact with him. I...
I was afraid of him.
Uh, he actually walked right past me and brushed up against me, and...
it almost brought me to my knees.
That was my first time seeing that man
and being that close to him, and there was no regard for us.
Your honor, I'm asking for mercy
and compassion for myself.
I've tried to live out my life
showing honesty and care to others,
and I will continue to do so.
He looked very old
and weak, and part of me thought,
"Is this an act that you're putting on to get the judge to go easier on you?"
I was allowed to give a victim-impact statement
because I was one of the originals that filed a complaint with the state.
My hope was that the judge would be appalled by this,
and that he would at least get, like, some jail time.
These are my words to Cline.
Every time I or my half-siblings look up our name,
we all have the same issue tied to you.
It has caused anguish in everyone,
and some of us have wanted to die from this pain.
For 30 years, my half-sister, Julie, believed her dad was her biological dad...
Objection, Your Honor.
Relevancy.
We had agreed to the wording of the statement.
Literally redlined it.
And I had things crossed out or highlighted that you can't say.
Because of your denials,
I feel you have no consideration for the mothers
who came to you, us as your biological children,
or your wife and the four children you had with her.
It was always about you. You lied. You still lie.
You even have your family believing you, and that sickens me.
- Our mothers trusted you... - Objection!
She... she went for it.
I don't know if I would've had the courage to do that in front of a judge.
But, you know...
I'm asking you to look at the depth of the reasons he is charged with...
Objection!
What we're really getting at
is the inability of victims to tell their stories.
Those who testify can only testify
to... to what is relevant to a criminal proceeding.
But... And what is relevant to Cline's proceeding
was not what happened in the '70s or '80s,
not the births, not the fertility fraud.
It was the lies to the state.
In Cline's proceeding, the state was the victim. They weren't.
I do want to reiterate, probably for the fifth or sixth time at this point,
that the court, by law, can only consider
the charges that Dr. Cline's plead guilty to,
the obstruction of... of justice charges.
Obviously, it would be inappropriate for me to consider outside of that realm.
What we asked for the judge to do
was twofold.
One, to make sure that these crimes remained as felonies
on his record, and two,
deliver executed time, an executed sentence,
meaning time served in jail.
We received a number of support letters for Dr. Cline.
These are letters from members of the community,
former patients, and members of Dr. Cline's family and church.
These individuals have known Dr. Cline for many years.
And they evidence a strong connection to his family,
the community, and that rehabilitation
is not only possible but actually has already taken place here.
A lot of folks submitted letters
on his behalf to the judge.
I believe there was one that came from a prosecutor
from Boone County, which is where he lives,
saying that "This guy is a good man,"
you know, "He should get some leniency."
Is that an odd thing for a prosecutor to write to a judge
if it's a friend?
I'd do well not to comment on that particular question.
That's when I, in my gut,
felt like the state was corrupt.
There were people corrupt,
and they were friends with him or something.
Please remember that whatever happens during sentencing,
the people that love you are gonna continue to love you.
The judge seemed very sympathetic towards him,
like on the verge of tears.
With the limited resources that we have, overcrowding at the jail,
and your lack of a criminal history,
um, an executed sentence is nothing that the court is gonna order.
I really wanted him to have jail time.
I really did.
I thought that that would bring a little bit of closure to me.
But... no.
I know that this is your first offense, but Dr. Cline, I do believe
that the facts support going ahead and sentencing you as a level 6 felon.
Um, as to fines and costs,
sir, the court will fine you $500.
And so he got the two Level 6 felonies
with complete suspended sentences
and a $500 fine,
which is a slap in the fucking face.
Dr. Cline, do you have any comment at all?
Dr. Cline, what would you change now if you could change anything?
This was a span of two years
from me filing a complaint,
to them actually, finally doing something about it.
And...
...this judge just let this man
pretty much off the hook.
And I dread every new match that comes.
But they just keep coming,
and you never know the day that you're gonna wake up,
and then they're going to be there.
I just... Uh, I feel like he...
That this was some sick
game experiment for him.
As far as I know,
all of the inseminations that I did with my sample,
um, and again it was sparingly,
um, had a healthy baby.
It was, you know, important to my parents
that it was someone that was healthy,
and for him to turn around and violate them
and do this without their consent, and
there's a lot of us that have the same health issues.
Almost every single one of us.
I've been to so many doctors, been to the Cleveland Clinic.
They don't know what's wrong with me.
I'm sick.
And other, um, siblings have, um,
autoimmune diseases and stuff.
I have an autoimmune disease, yeah.
It's, um, a blood clotting disorder,
um, which I didn't know until I had a miscarriage,
and, uh, we were determining what would have caused that.
I mean, I've had...
...colonoscopy, endoscopy, I've had...
I mean, I've spent weeks in the hospital,
losing 15 pounds at a time.
I have a lot of digestive, um, and colon issues, and
no one on my mom's side does.
In the early '70s,
I had heard that he was having trouble, uh, operating
because he had rheumatoid arthritis.
And he had... His hands were swelling up.
I... I, at that time, I felt I would hate to see him,
his career of being a great surgeon end
because he couldn't get the right treatment for his arthritis.
And so, I called our chief of medicine,
told him about Cline's problems.
And he said, "Yeah. Well, let me call Dr. B. up there,"
and Cline went down and met with him, and he told him what to take, etcetera.
So, once he got on the right medications, he seemed to be fine.
His symptoms abated.
I know in talking to a sperm bank,
30% of the guys didn't even make it
past the questionnaire
because of what was in their family.
History of cancer, history of whatever,
even color blindness, for goodness sakes.
Now, looking back at it, and being like,
"Okay. He's got an autoimmune disease,
um, and his sperm wouldn't have even been allowed
to be a donor because of that."
Like, "Dude, you knew this."
"You knew... you knew you had issues."
"Like, how... how dare you?"
Yeah.
Now, there's the Don Cline we knew,
that I knew, that I th... knew well.
And there's the Don Cline I would have never imagined.
Yeah.
Yeah. It broke my heart.
Evil.
And I... If Don was right here, I'd say that right to his face.
Still to this day,
there are people in his community that back him.
And people that sit there and say, "But he is such a wonderful man."
And I just want to look at those people
and say, "Well, then maybe he should have put his sperm
in your wife without her consent."
"And then how would you like that?"
I took a 23andMe DNA test because,
about four or five years ago now,
my children and I were both diagnosed with a genetic disorder.
I got the results back.
And when I got to the genetic DNA family,
there were half-siblings listed.
And I honestly just thought, "Oh, this is a mistake."
Because by that time,
I didn't know that my parents had any type of fertility treatment
other than receiving fertility medications.
So I kind of just put it out of my mind, and didn't think anything of it.
And then I had a couple messages from Jacoba.
And it basically said,
"I'm sure you're confused by your results."
"Feel free to contact me with any questions."
It didn't occur to me that she was talking about the siblings,
so I just kind of disregarded that message.
On December 9th of 2019,
a Dr. Phil show aired.
Well, question for you.
How would you feel if you found out
your mother's fertility doctor
was actually your biological father?
When the siblings walked out...
Jacoba was introduced.
You felt no remorse from him, other than just the fear of being caught.
He was not remorseful at all.
- None? - He just did not want it to be public.
He told me, "The world does not need to know."
Wow.
I, uh, quickly got my phone and opened my 23andMe,
and all of the siblings on that show were listed as my half-siblings.
So then I knew, I knew at that moment,
that there... That we were a part of it.
I was a patient of Dr. Cline's for many years.
I think he took each case very personally.
At least he did with me.
He delivered the girls,
and he came over with his wife
to see our babies at home.
So this is a picture of my twin sister and I
right after delivery, in the incubator.
And...
this is the picture of Cline holding me as an infant at the house.
I was probably eight months old there.
I had such mixed emotions in that
the thought that he had used
his own specimen to impregnate me
made me kind of queasy and sick to my stomach.
Whereas, um...
on the other hand,
I thought about the fact that because of his skills
in operating on me,
and... and clearing up some of the things that were causing infertility,
I was grateful to him.
So I had this mix of emotions,
and I have twin daughters
who are absolutely delightful girls.
And I...
You know, you can't be angry
when you have... you have what you always dreamed of.
Well, it was, um, complex for me because...
I was 47 years old at the time,
and to find out...
...that the man I looked up to and emulated
from the time I was small...
was not my biological father was crushing.
That was the biggest part.
I felt this need to protect him,
and I didn't want people to know.
But the other part of my story
is that Don Cline was also my fertility doctor.
He was my main GYN.
He took care of all my gynecological needs for the two years that I saw him.
He did my Pap exams.
He did breast exams.
I mean, I don't think any grown woman wants...
someone closely related to them,
a member of the opposite sex, to touch them in that way, in such...
It's a very vulnerable position that the patient is in.
And to be touching and examining
private areas of your body. It's just...
It's... I can't... I can't even think about it without getting upset.
I didn't get to have that knowledge. He knew.
I didn't get to know that or have the chance to say,
"No. I would... I... I'd rather I see someone else."
"I don't... I don't want someone who is biologically related to me
to touch me in that way."
I didn't get to do... know that.
It's almost, you know,
it's like... it's like a bad dream that you... that's recurring.
You wanna wake up.
But every time you wake up, it's not a dream.
I just can't believe how it was, you know, done to us.
I really can't. And for him to act like nothing happened.
I think that's the worst part of it.
I don't want you to think that I do this...
I did the insemination with my own sample
very blasé.
Was there a sexual connotation to it?
Absolutely not.
I don't look at these people
and consider them to be my
children.
I want zero relationship with him.
He's not my father.
I may share half of his DNA,
but he's not my father, and he never will be.
I feel sorry for him because his whole life to his wife,
to his own children, to his community, to his church,
to his colleagues in the hospital and his office.
It's all a lie.
I would like to see him pay for what he did...
...but I just, I feel like...
there isn't gonna be any justice.
I'm okay.
This is not my issue. It's his.
I think continually putting his name and face in the media,
and telling our story was the absolute way to go.
I'm not gonna run away from him.
Not gonna run away from this story.
If you were not even experiencing problems with infertility,
if you saw Dr. Cline and you have a child,
I think it is important, very important, that you have a DNA test.
Your child has a DNA test, just to be certain that you know
who the father is of that child.
Instead of destroying me...
you made me realize my self-worth.
That's absolutely what you did.
And you made me realize what my purpose is too.
And I'm a fighter.
And I will fight for every sibling
that I have that I know, that I don't know,
and for every woman that you assaulted.
And I will do this until the fucking day I die.
♪ Devil, Devil ♪
♪ Clever Devil, Devil ♪
♪ How quickly they do sell their souls ♪
♪ For the feast and the promise of gold ♪
♪ But Devil, that won't be me ♪
♪ Devil, Devil ♪
♪ Bones of metal, metal ♪
♪ You torture saints With a single glance ♪
♪ Make them think They ever stood a chance ♪
♪ Do not try me, Devil, Devil ♪
♪ Cannot buy me, Devil, Devil ♪
♪ You won't make a fool of me, oh no ♪
♪ What makes you so special, special ♪
♪ To think I would ever settle ♪
♪ For that devious dance ♪
♪ Between you and me, Devil, Devil ♪
♪ Rebel, rebel ♪
♪ Call me a rebel, rebel ♪
♪ I walk the plank, not a tear in my eye ♪
♪ I won't go down your blushing bride ♪
♪ Under the water I'll be sharpening my knife ♪
♪ Do not try me, Devil, Devil ♪
♪ Cannot buy me, Devil, Devil ♪
♪ You won't make a fool of me, oh no ♪
♪ What makes you so special, special ♪
♪ To think I would ever settle ♪
♪ For that devious dance ♪
♪ Between you and me, Devil, Devil ♪