Indiana woman seeks `twin' after years of eerie sightings

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (AP) - Judy Ohm has no definitive proof she has a missing twin, a sister separated from her at birth.

But in her gut, she knows there's someone out there. Or at least there was.

'œShe could have already passed away,'ť said Ohm, who, at 76 and recently widowed, knows how precious time can be.

Sending off a DNA sample recently to 23andMe turned up half-siblings on the West Coast she never knew existed, and the realization only intensified her drive to fill a void she's felt her whole life.

Ohm, who lives in West Lafayette, desperately wants to find out if she has a twin or if a series of mistaken identity is merely proof she has a doppelganger.

'œWe all have one, I guess, someone who looks like us,'ť Ohm said. 'œBut all my life, I have just felt incomplete, searching for something missing. When people continue to mistake you for someone else, you try to dismiss it. Everyone has a doppelganger.'ť

The instances where strangers thought she was someone else ring like the plot of a compelling mystery novel. Even her daughter was fooled.

'œTwenty years ago, my daughter introduced her boyfriend to us and he was floored that I looked just like his co-worker,'ť Ohm said. 'œAbout the same time, I went to Marsh (Supermarket) and came home. I put the groceries away and was sitting at our table with my husband for a while. My daughter came in and said, '~How did you beat me home?' 'ť

Ohm's daughter had been stopped at the intersection of Navajo and Salisbury streets, waiting for the light to change, when she thought she saw Ohm driving her husband's blue truck, turning onto Navajo.

'ť '~And you had on that pink blouse,' 'ť Ohm recalled her saying, '² 'œand you turned right onto Navajo. We were driver's window to driver's window. She was moving. It was you.'ť

Another doppelganger sighting came when she and her husband attended a 1985 performance of the Purdue Christmas Show, and a co-worker the following Monday asked why she didn't say hello.

'œ '~Why didn't you talk to me?' I told her that I didn't see her,'² 'ť Ohm said, remembering the exchange with her co-worker. 'œ '~I was sitting right in front of you and you didn't acknowledge me during intermission.'

'œI asked that she describe the person I was with. She described a tall, slim man with curly hair. '~That is not my husband.' I said. We figured out that my husband and I had gone to the matinee, but my co-worker had gone to the evening show. She could not believe it wasn't me.'ť

An employee of the West Lafayette post office on Navajo Street would often call her by another name, she said, but attempts to find that employee in the years that followed were unsuccessful.

'œI went online and found an address and wrote a letter,'ť she said, 'œbut never got a response.'ť

Born April 19, 1945, in Aitkin, Minnesota, as Judy Chrisinger, Ohm said her mother talked about a difficult birth aided by a nurse and doctor who gave her qualms. Her mother said she was 'œout of it'ť for several days before and after the birth, and hadn't realized she'd delivered Judy.

Her birth certificate says she was the result of a single birth, but a rather traumatic one, according to her mother.

'œI have recently found out that, in many cases involving twins, a medicine is given for eclampsia, I believe,'ť Ohm told the Journal & Courier, 'œand mothers are, indeed, '~out of it.' My mother was a twin, but the boy died at birth. Also my real father came from a family with many twins.'ť

It's possible, she said, that her mother kept the news of a twin from her, since her half-siblings were the product of a relationship Ohm didn't know occurred. She ponders other reasons for a possible separation.

'œMy parents were extremely poor,'ť Ohm said. 'œI can imagine them not thinking they could afford two babies, or a doctor not telling them they had two.'ť

Having recently received her late husband's ashes, Ohm feels a sense of mortality and an urgency to find answers, any answers.

'œI'm 76, and I think it would be awesome to find her in these last few years,'ť Ohm said. 'œShe may be alone, or dead. She may be looking for me.'ť

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Source: Journal & Courier