It took just one phone call for Branum to explain to her daughter Annie who her biological father was. Branum did not hesitate to dial the numbers. She did not pause when she heard “Hello?” on the other line. She simply told the truth.
Annie’s biological father was a convicted felon in a kidnapping case. And he is dead.
His name was Thomas Lippert and he was not supposed to be Annie’s father. For Branum, it may have been God’s plan, but it was definitely not hers.
Discovering the switch
In 1990, Branum and her husband John were visiting a fertility clinic associated with the U because they were having problems conceiving. They had attempted artificial insemination several times using John’s sperm. On the second attempt, Branum lost the pregnancy. She and John vowed to try once more, and were met with success on the third try. They had Annie in May 1992.
But what Branum did not know is that Lippert, an employee at the sperm bank from 1986 to 1995, had allegedly switched his sperm with John’s. This knowledge came in April 2013, 21 years later.
“I was really kind of devastated, just for my daughter’s sake,” Branum said.
Branum, now a San Antonio resident, discovered the mishap after an interest in genealogy led her to map her family tree. She sought DNA testing for herself, and later convinced her husband and daughter to do the same through 23andMe, one of the three major genealogy databases that include AncestryDNA (owned by Ancestry.com) and Family Tree DNA.
When Branum received her husband’s results she remembered being “on pins and needles.” It had taken Branum a lot of persistence to get John to finally agree to the testing. Once she opened the results, she had to wade through the usual disclaimers.
“You just don’t click on it and it gives you all this information,” Branum said. “It’s kind of warning you, but of course you never expect any of those things to apply to you.”
The results showed a 50 percent match between Branum and Annie, as expected, but when Annie and John were compared the data indicated a zero percent match. Branum remembered saying at the time, “I’m really sorry that I did this. What have I done?”
Branum’s first suspicions were that John’s sperm sample had been accidently switched with another couples’ at the clinic. They contacted CeCe Moore, a professional genetic genealogist, in search of answers.
“We had no idea they were going to find something like this,” Moore said.
Branum had first come in contact with Moore through her blog “Your Genetic Genealogist,” where Moore first reported the incident on Tuesday, Jan. 7. Moore suggested that Annie test her DNA at the two other databases — AncestryDNA and Family Tree DNA — to find a paternal family match. Moore using this developing branch of genealogy to help adoptees find their biological parents, but did not expect something as “bizarre” as this.
Lippert comes into the picture
Lippert’s first cousin led to a positive match with Annie on Ancestry.com. Branum contacted her and received a phone call a month later.
Wanting the truth to be accurately unmasked, the cousin explained Lippert’s connection to the fertility clinic and his harrowing record to Branum.
Lippert, a former assistant professor of business law at Southwest Minnesota State University, according to the college’s 2007 newsletter, had conspired with SMSU student Harold Ross Tenneson to kidnap a female student from Purdue University on Feb. 19, 1975.
Lippert was arrested on March 13 and plead guilty to the charges on Oct. 1. He served two years in jail out of a six-year sentence. According to a 1975 archived issue of People, Lippert allegedly subjected his victim to a “love experiment” wherein Lippert shocked the student in an attempt to force her fall in love with him.
“I just hated who he was and that he had done that,” Branum said.
His widow, Jean Lippert, met her husband in Minnesota while he was in jail. She said he used to deny the kidnapping and said the student willingly went with him.
The two were married in 1979 and moved to Utah sometime around 1982. To Jean, the marriage was “hell,” with heightened tensions during the last five years.
“He threatened to kill me every day of the week and he said if I left he’d track me down and kill me for sure,” Jean Lippert said. “I was considering suicide at one time because I felt so trapped.”
Jean Lippert said her husband died in 1999 because of cirrhosis of the liver as a result of his alcoholism. She recalled that his habit of drinking a box of wine a day changed his personality to an exceedingly violent one. She also said Lippert was donating sperm for the extra money and that the current allegations came as somewhat of a shock.
“I knew he was a sperm donor and I knew that his job involved shipping sperm samples all over the country, but I had no idea that he was doing the switcheroo,” Jean said. “I just feel bad for the people he lied to.”
The U investigates
In a press release from Jan. 9, the U said there is “credible” evidence regarding Lippert’s misconduct and they have been investigating the case since April 2013. According to the release, the clinic was called Reproduction Medical Technologies Inc., and has since shut down with no remaining records.
The U did not own the facility, but contracted with the lab for analysis purposes. Three U faculty members owned RMTI separately from the University, but the U has not returned requests for the staff names.
Branum and Moore, however, felt the release had some discrepancies.
Branum said she did not visit RMTI, but what she understood to be the U’s fertility clinic. She had not heard the name RMTI until the story unraveled.
“I don’t know what the technicalities were between the two companies, but it’s somewhat irrelevant,” Moore said.
Moore also recalled Branum’s requests to the U being “stonewalled” when Branum first discovered Lippert’s offense in April. Both Moore and Branum are worried about other parents who visited the clinic in the nine years that Lippert worked there. The outreach of his alleged sperm swaps are potentially extensive.
They also worry that any half-siblings produced by Lippert’s transgression might form a relationship. Branum wanted to go public to warn people of that possibility. She said people have a right to know the truth and it is worth her current loss of privacy.
“The only reason we came out publicly this way is because [Branum] had pleaded with the University since April to contact the families that could potentially be affected. And they declined to do so,” Moore said. “So we were sort of out of options. We didn’t know how else we could get this story out to the people who need to hear it. It wasn’t out first choice.”
The press release said there is no current evidence to suggest others were affected, but that concerned individuals should call the U’s andrology lab at (801) 587-5852. They are offering DNA testing for patients at the clinic between 1988 and 1993, six of the years that Lippert worked there.
Marissa Villaseñor, a U public relations specialist, said as of Friday morning the lab had received two calls connected to the situation with only one that required a follow-up.
Looking for answers
Moore and Branum have set up a website titled “Was Your Child Fathered by Thomas Lippert?” for parents who might be seeking answers as well.
But for Branum, the answers are not always readily available. It is her faith that has helped her through.
“We don’t always understand the things that happen to us,” she said.
When the conversation ended, Branum immediately regretted the way she told Annie about the incident over the phone. Despite the shock, Annie told her that was the best way to have let her know.
Annie is currently studying astrophysics at the University of Texas—San Antonio. Branum said she inherited only the “good genes,” such as being musically gifted at the piano and cello.
“If it’s changed anything it’s made us stronger. We’ve had to communicate on a much more intimate level because of this,” Branum said. “God has a plan and it’s his way of doing things, not ours. And for some reason, he allowed this to happen and Annie has been nothing but a complete blessing to us and so we’re blessed to have her.”