Melinda and Judy | Criminal Podcast | Forensic Files

Phoebe Judge: This episode contains descriptions of violence and is not suitable for everyone. Please use discretion. Melinda Dawson: We took a little drive about
a mile from our house and she parked in this little park area and she said, "I'm not your birth mother, but I am your mother and I love you as if you were my own daughter.
But you came from a clinic in Georgia and the doctor was selling babies, and so we paid money for you." [Music comes in.]
I just didn't really understand what she was telling me, except for the fact that she loved
me and I was her daughter, regardless. Phoebe Judge: This is Melinda Dawson describing a conversation she had with her mother,
Judy Johnson, in 1970, when Melinda was just 7 years old. Had your mother had a hard time getting pregnant herself? Had she
and your father been trying to get pregnant and not having any luck, and so kind of came to adoption through that? Melinda Dawson: Right. She was told that she
was not able to have children because of an assault that she had endured at a young age.
Yes, they tried, and so she wanted a baby very badly, and that's where I came in.
Phoebe Judge: Melinda says her mother and father had looked into adopting a baby through official
channels, but it wasn't easy or cheap to meet the requirements. Back in the '60s, you could be
turned down if you'd ever been divorced, you often needed to own your own home. And that's when they
heard about a clinic in Georgia that didn't ask any questions. Like a lot of people in and around
Akron, Ohio, Melinda's father and grandfather worked in the tire business. This is the home
of Goodyear, Goodrich, Firestone. And someone at Goodrich was acting as an intermediary between the
clinic and people looking to bring home a newborn. [Music fades out.] Melinda Dawson: And let people know that if they wanted to get a baby, that they should
call this number and talk to Dr. Thomas Hicks in McCaysville, Georgia. I guess they made the
decision to be put on the list and didn't know when they were going to get a call, just waited.
She told me that the instructions were to get to Georgia within 12 hours, once they were called,
come in the front door, sign the birth certificate, and head out the back door,
and get out of town as quickly as possible. Phoebe Judge: That's exactly what Melinda's
adoptive parents did in February of 1963. For a long time, Melinda's mother wouldn't tell her how much it cost. But eventually when Melinda was an adult,
her mother told her they'd paid Dr. Hicks $1,000. Melinda Dawson: We had a discussion and she said,
"We paid $1,000 for you," and back in the 1960s, that was a lot of money. It didn't matter to me if they would have paid a dollar for me,
none of that made a difference to me, ever. Phoebe Judge: As Melinda grew up, she asked more questions. Her mother did everything she could to answer them. They
both assumed that Melinda was one of a few babies who couldn't, for one reason or another. Be kept,
and that when this happened, Dr. Hicks quietly paired them with couples who couldn't conceive.
They had no reason to think otherwise until Melinda went to the county courthouse and
McCaysville, Georgia, and asked for a copy of her birth certificate. Melinda Dawson: I noticed that the clerk of courts was very ... almost like a movie. There
was this great big spotlight on her and she was like, "Aha." There was an 'aha' moment
for her. And there was a whole list of birth certificates in this one particular file drawer,
because when I told her that I was born at the clinic, that aha moment came to her like,
oh, this is one of the babies. She gave me my birth certificate and asked if I could talk with the probate court judge, Linda Davis.
Phoebe Judge: Judge Davis had already noticed something very odd about the birth
certificates coming out of the Hicks Clinic. Melinda Dawson: There's one telltale sign if
you're a Hicks baby, and that is that your birth certificate says that you were born
at the Hicks Clinic. On the left side of it, it'll say non-resident. Like you live in Akron
and you're going to travel all the way down to McCaysville to this little, little clinic
and give birth and then go all the way back to Akron. That's just absolutely ridiculous. So,
when they filed the birth certificates, they would put it as these people were at the clinic,
gave birth, and they were a non-resident. That's the telltale sign that you're a Hicks baby.
[Music comes in.] Phoebe Judge: Talking with Judge Davis, Melinda discovered the scale of the operation she was a part of. She's one of
at least 200 babies that were illegally sold to couples in six states from 1951 to 1964.
And when your very arrival in the world is marked with a fake birth certificate,
you learn that you can't believe everything that you see. I'm Phoebe Judge, this is Criminal. [Music up to full volume.]
Melinda says she grew up really happy. Her mother did everything in the world to make sure she felt like part of the family. Melinda Dawson: I have natural red hair, and
so she started dying her hair red. She was very funny. I've got to tell you, she was about 5 foot
tall, maybe 100 pounds, and when I started growing up, I'm 5 foot 10, nowhere near a hundred pounds,
but she never made me, none of my family ever made me feel like I was an outsider. I mean,
they were my family, she was my mom, I was her daughter. And proud of it. Phoebe Judge: Her mother and father eventually divorced and her mother later remarried. In the
second marriage her mother was actually able to become pregnant in spite of what she'd been told,
and she gave birth to Melinda's younger sister. [Music fades out.]. In 1981, Melinda got married herself to a man named Clarence Elkins, and they had two
children. And when she had children of her own, she got curious about her biological
family's medical history. There were some health issues that couldn't be explained.
By this time, Dr. Hicks was dead. The clinic was long closed, and of course, there are no records.
All anyone knew was what they'd been able to piece together with the help of Judge Davis. And the more questions they asked, the more complicated the story got.
Melinda Dawson: Some of the parents that purchased the babies were told that the mother had died,
when in reality, the doctor was also telling the mother that the baby had died,
and he would take care of the funeral. And then he would sell the baby. [Music comes in.] Phoebe Judge:
Here's what we know about Dr. Hicks. Thomas J. Hicks got his medical degree from Emory in 1917
and opened the Hicks Community Clinic in McCaysville, Georgia, in the 1940s, after completing a federal sentence for selling drugs just over the border in Tennessee.
That conviction cost him his medical license, but only in the state of Tennessee. So he just crossed
the border into Georgia and opened a new practice. The Hicks Community Clinic became a thriving
abortion facility during a time when abortion was illegal and birth control was basically
nonexistent. Many of his patients were wealthy out-of-towners, so much so that a private airstrip
was built nearby so that the rich could fly in and out for their appointments. The locals
knew about the abortions too, but Dr. Hicks was regarded as an upstanding figure. He was handsome
and charming. His wife taught Sunday School at First Baptist church. They were very well liked
in town. One woman even told The New York Times, "He gave the most terrific Halloween candy."
Melinda Dawson: He did a lot of good things for the town and so the townspeople are very...
They hold him in a high regard, and my mom did too, because she said, "Had he not given me you, I wouldn't have you," and so she held him in a really high regard. Now,
we know a lot about Dr. Hicks over the years that we've been doing our research, and yeah,
he was a very good guy, but he had a dark side as well. Once the practice of selling
the baby and getting the money became 'on a roll,' as you can say, he profited,
big time, on selling us to our parents. Phoebe Judge: Melinda believes that Dr. Hicks was purely profit-driven, but the truth is we just don't know. Some of the adoptive parents
were told the $1,000 payment covered the cost of the biological mother's care. $1,000 back then
comes out to about $8,000 today. But the only way for the Hicks babies to figure out whether their
biological mothers were helped or exploited by Dr. Hicks would be to find them and ask.
In May of 1997, an article came out in the Akron Beacon Journal telling Melinda's story and
describing the efforts by Judge Davis and another Hicks, baby, Jane Blasio, to create a birth
registry matching babies with biological mothers. [Music fades out.] Melinda Dawson: The majority of the babies were sold to Akron couples because
that was where the money was being made in the rubber industry. And so when this kind of liaison
between Dr. Hicks and the potential buyers, that's where it was targeted. Either from, you
worked at Goodrich, Goodyear, or Firestone, a lot of babies' parents worked in those industries. So
when it came out in the Akron Beacon Journal, a lot of people still lived in the area.
Phoebe Judge: And some of those people were mad. Judge Davis told the LA Times,
"There are some people who are very opposed to this whole thing being brought to light. There's
an air of protectiveness about Dr. Hicks." The Hicks babies around Akron tried to work as a
group to manage the story, but eventually they splintered into two camps. Those who felt they
should come up with one message and stick to it. That faction called itself Silent Legacy,
and those like Melinda and her mother who said, "Hey, this is our story. We can talk about it however we like." Here they are in The Maury Povich Show in 1998.
[Applause fades in.] Maury Povich: Hi, everybody. Thank you. Today, we are talking to women who were all told they were orphans. They were all adopted when
they were babies. What they didn't know was that they may have been sold illegally, on the black
market. Judith is an adoptive mother who is here with her daughter, Melinda. Give us a picture of
exactly what happened, because you would go down to this small town in Georgia, right?
Judy: We walked in and then they wrote out the birth certificate. They did not write it out in
the mother's name, they wrote it out in my name. Maury Povich: So the name on the birth certificate
is yours. Judy: Yes. Maury Povich: When it comes to parents. Judy: She never had her. I
had had her. There's no way. Maury Povich: Was your daughter being born then, or had she already been born? Judy: She had already been born.
Maury Povich: How old was she at the time? Judy: She wasn't even a day old when we got
there and started back. Maury Povich: Right. [Clip fades out.] Melinda Dawson: So after the show, the
local news picked up on this and people would call my mom and say, "Are you the lady that was on the
TV?" Or, "Are you the lady that was on the news? I've got something to tell you. How could you
do something so illegal? You should be punished for that." And we didn't know what that meant.
Phoebe Judge: The threats were from people who were saying, "How dare you do something like this?" Melinda Dawson: Yeah.
Phoebe Judge: Primarily. Melinda Dawson: Yeah. Or: how dare you put Dr. Hicks in a bad light?
I think that maybe we were kind of a target because we were out there more and so accessible.
And so that's when I told my mom, "We need to have a watch put on our house." And that's what
terrified me so much when I ... that was my first thought when they told me she had been murdered,
that it had something to do with the Hicks babies. Phoebe Judge: On June 7th, 1998, Melinda was at home when her oldest son came to her and said that there were
a lot of police cars outside their house. Melinda Dawson: I'm screaming at them,
"What is going on?" I mean, you can't imagine seeing police run out of the woods in full SWAT
gear and running towards your house, and you don't know where your husband and your oldest
son are. And then they're coming through the front door, instructing you to come outside. He said,
"I'm going to tell you what's going on, but I don't want to tell you in front of your boy."
My youngest son was 12 at that time and my oldest son was 15. The deputy asked me what my mother's
name was, and I said, "Judy. Why?" Phoebe Judge: The deputy told Melinda that the police department had gotten a call early that morning that Judy
had been fatally stabbed inside her home. Melinda Dawson: This is all in one sentence,
and he says his 6-year-old niece is saying that it was her Uncle Clarence. Phoebe Judge: That's your husband. Melinda Dawson: Yep. I remember
that feeling where you just kind of ball up into a fetal position because that pain was
unbearable, and I just screamed. You can't wrap your head around that, you just cannot. And I
remember snapping to, and saying, "You guys are crazy. He would never have done something like
that." Because they had him in handcuffs in the back of a patrol car. So at that point,
they took him and he never came back home. Phoebe Judge: Not only was Melinda's husband,
Clarence Elkins, charged with stabbing his mother-in-law to death, he was also charged with the rape, attempted murder, and assault of Melinda's 6-year-old niece.
Melinda Dawson: My niece was staying the night with my mom on June 6th, Saturday night.
After the attack, my niece had made a phone call that was picked up by an answering machine.
Her message to my mom's friend was that somebody had killed her Mamaw, and she needed help. Phoebe Judge:
The 6-year-old then went next door to ask for help, and reportedly told the next door neighbor
that the man who had assaulted her and killed her grandmother looked like her Uncle Clarence.
So not only was your mother stabbed, but your niece could have been killed as well. Melinda Dawson: Yes, and
I later come to find out that my mom was not stabbed, but she had been so brutally
beaten that it appeared to be like stab wounds. That's hard. That's hard to say.
Phoebe Judge: How do you even split your brain enough at that moment to be able
to process the fact that your mother has been murdered and your husband is being taken away from her —? How do you even function? Where does your mind go?
Melinda Dawson: I cannot even explain how that is, because it's such a surreal, spiritual event. Because you're back and forth. "Oh my gosh, my mom," "oh my God,
my husband," "oh my God, my niece," "oh my God, my mom." It was horrible and horrendous.
My first thought was, there's no way it's him. I wondered if it had something to do
with the Hicks adoption, because things were getting crazy. And once your life goes public,
you're game, you're a sitting duck for some things. And I really thought and was terrified
that they would be coming after me next. Phoebe Judge: It had only been two months since Melinda and her mother appeared on The Maury Povich Show,
and they'd been getting more and more angry phone calls. And so this is where Melinda's
mind went. She tried to process what had happened to her mother and niece. She truly believed someone wanted to shut them up and tried to get the police to consider what
she was saying. But there just wasn't evidence of any connection. It was a horrifying coincidence.
And if it wasn't related to Hicks, who did do it and why? What did you know about what your husband had been doing
the night... Before the murder happened? Did you know, was he with you? Melinda Dawson: Well, yes, part of the night he was with me. The other part, he had a bonfire
in our front yard. He went to one of the local watering holes with some of his friends. So he was
never alone. And I've got to say, we were married for 17 years at that point, right? And I know that
there are people in this world that can manipulate others to think that they're some way, and they're
really not. But I mean, we were married at 18 years old. We basically grew up together. And I
knew him in and out. And we didn't have a great marriage, but he was not a violent, sadistic,
serial killer like they made him out to be. I mean, it was just ridiculous. I could not even ...
I think that that may me ... what fueled my anger the most, besides the fact that someone
had actually done that to my mom and my niece. The other part, they're not out there looking
for the true killer. They're trying to put their story together and make him guilty when he's not.
Phoebe Judge: Did they have anything to say that he was near your mother and niece?
Melinda Dawson: No, nothing. Nope, we lived an hour away. There was no physical evidence.
There was an eyewitness, and she was 6 years old, who said, "It looked like him, but I only
seen him in the dark. I only seen the back of his head." That was it. Yep. That was the evidence,
the evidence. That was it. She said, and she hadn't seen him for over a year, and she was 6
and had been brutalized and traumatized. You could tell that she wasn't sure because she kept saying,
"Well, it was dark, and I only seen the back of his head." And the prosecutor was like,
"Well, thank God she doesn't remember." Phoebe Judge: This tore Melinda's family
apart. Her sister wouldn't speak to her, and no one wanted her anywhere near her niece.
Clarence Elkins was charged with aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, rape,
and felonious assault. Melinda's niece testified to what she'd seen. And Elkins' defense attorneys
said he'd been in local bars until 2:30 a.m., and arrived home at 2:40 a.m., went for a
walk with his wife, and then went to bed. Melinda Dawson: When I got on the witness
stand to testify for him, wow. They tried to make me look like the biggest liar and some
dumb country hick that was standing by her man. Phoebe Judge: The jury deliberated for three days,
and on June 4th, 1999, they reached a decision. Melinda Dawson: I watched the jury walk in and I watched them look at Clarence,
and I knew that it wasn't good. Phoebe Judge: How did you know that? Melinda Dawson: A lot of the men on the jury gave him a look like, 'you're disgusting, you freak,'
just hateful. Then a couple of the women jurors were crying/ and the judge read the verdict, and
he ultimately was sentenced to two life sentences, guilty on three counts of rape and two counts of
assault. And so I remember the prosecutor telling me, "Well, you're not going to see your husband
for at least 54 years." I remember looking into the news camera and I said, "You want to bet?"
[Music fades in.] Phoebe Judge: We'll have the rest of Melinda's story in our next episode. Melinda Dawson: My niece had said that
it was not Clarence that was there that night. She was just saying what everybody was telling her to say, what everybody was expecting her to say.
Phoebe Judge: Criminal is produced by Lauren Spohrer, Nadia Wilson and me. Audio mix by Rob
Byers. Alice Wilder is our intern. Julienne Alexander makes original illustrations for
each episode of Criminal. You can see them at our website, thisiscriminal.com. And learn all about our fall tour. We'll be in D.C., Durham, New York, Boston, Chicago,
Minneapolis, Iowa City, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Toronto — all new stories told live,
and some surprises. We hope to see you. Criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC. We're a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collection of
the best podcasts around. Radiotopia from PRX is supported by the Knight Foundation and MailChimp,
celebrating creativity, chaos, and teamwork. Thanks to Adzerk for providing their
ad-serving platform to Radiotopia. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. [Music ends.] Jingle: Radiotopia. From PRX.

When Melinda Dawson was seven years old, she learned that she was adopted under suspicious circumstances. As she got older and had children of her own, she tried to learn something about her biological parents. And when she went to the county courthouse and asked to see a copy of her birth certificate, she discovered that she was an unwitting participant in a traumatic history of a small town in Georgia where Dr. Thomas Hicks stole and sold babies to parents desperate for children of their own.

This is part one of a two-part episode. Listen to part two here: https://youtu.be/aeUhCzPkzig

Music in the episode “A Certain Lightness” by Blue Dot Sessions “Grey Snow (Instrumental Version)” by Josh Woodward “Thread of Clouds” by Blue Dot Sessions “Timethod” by Ars Sonor & Total E.T. “A Catalog of Seasons” by Blue Dot Sessions “IA 08” by Andrew Sacco

Criminal is a show about people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. Hosted by Phoebe Judge. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

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Episode transcripts are posted on our website https://thisiscriminal.com/.

Episode 53 originally published 10/21/2016 https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-53-melinda-and-judy-10-21-2016

Brief Summary

Melinda Dawson reveals her adoption story and the tragic murder of her mother, leading to her husband's wrongful conviction.

Key points

Melinda's Heartfelt Revelation. Melinda shares her mother's love despite the complex circumstances of her adoption.
The Cost of Love. Melinda learns the price her parents paid for her adoption, revealing deep emotional ties.
Facing Public Backlash. After appearing on a talk show, Melinda and her mother receive threats from the community.
A Mother's Tragic Fate. Melinda receives devastating news about her mother's murder, leading to a shocking revelation.
A Defiant Stand. Melinda's fierce response to her husband's sentencing showcases her determination.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I'm not your birth mother, but I am your mother and I love you.

Melinda's mother expressing her love during a pivotal conversation.

0:21WatchNov 30, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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