81-Year-Old Finds Son He Never Knew He Had, Then Learns It’s Not True

If you were looking for an ugly example of fate, I've found it for you. An 81-year-old man was excited to learn he had a 61-year-old son he never knew about. But then he learned the man he thought was his boy wasn't really. This is the story of how it all went down.

Tony Trapani was recently introduced to the long-lost son he never knew he had.  Trapani  found out about his son while cleaning out a filing cabinet after his late wife passed away.

What happened was that Trapani came across a letter that was sent to him by an old girlfriend in 1959. Trapani never saw it, but his wife apparently did and hid it from him. The letter said, "I have a little boy. He is five years old now. What I'm trying to say Tony is he is your son. He was born November 14th, 1953."

Trapani and his late wife were never able to have children and he says, "Why my wife didn't tell me, I don't know. She wanted children. She couldn't have any. She tried and tried."

The man Tripani believed to be his son is a man named Samuel Childress and he spent his entire life believing that his father had abandoned him. Both Trapani and Childress were ecstatic at finding each other and looked forward to catching up and building a relationship. Imagine the emotions that must have been flowing when they faced each other for the first time, right?

And then the bottom dropped out.

A paternity test has just revealed that Trapani and Childress aren't biologically related. Not even one tiny bit.

Obviously, Childress said he was shocked when he found out there's a big fat zero chance that Trapani is his father, but swears that their new father-son bond can't be broken.  Trapani's family, his biological family disagrees.

Trapani's sister told ABC News, "I don’t know where this bond is forming when they were never really alone together. I mean, it’s too bad it happened, but at least it’s closure for both of them."

Ouch!