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I found out I was adopted at 48 - and that my birth dad is a killer: It tore my life apart

Writer's picture: trushali Kotechatrushali Kotecha

By GAIL LUKASIK

Published: 13:26, 26 January 2025 | Updated: 13:26, 26 January 2025



As a police sergeant and a bomb squad commander, Brad Ewell had fought for justice his entire adult life.


Then, at 48, he got a DNA surprise that’s the stuff of Hollywood movies.


Not only did Brad discover that he’d been adopted, itself a total shock, but that his biological father was a violent gang member and a cold-hearted killer.


Brad’s thick gray hair and full beard give him a rugged, stoic appearance. But the discovery of this closely guarded family secret tore his life apart, leaving him questioning his entire identity.


‘Everything about myself was wrong,' he says. 'Though I still had the same job, same kids, same wife, same house. Nothing had changed. But at the same time, everything in my life had changed.’ 


And he was left with more questions than he knew how to answer. Would he confront the parents who had raised him, keeping this lie for nearly 50 years? And now that he knew his biological father was still alive - albeit serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison - would he want to meet him?


On the evening that derailed his life, Brad was at home in Plano, Texas, while his wife and her parents untangled their own family tree in a room next door.


But something was eating at Brad. That same day, a woman had contacted his wife via Facebook Messenger, claiming to be his maternal aunt. She’d seen Brad’s DNA results posted on Ancestry.



Brad with his adoptive father, Cecil Ewell - he's convinced his parents were going to take their secret to their graves



Brad's first Christmas with his adoptive parents, Cecil and Roddah Ewell


It was true that this unknown woman knew his date and place of birth. But Brad dismissed her claim. He had no idea who she was, after all. 


He reasoned that lots of people shared birth dates and places. 


But as he listened to his wife and her parents sift through the past, he decided to put his suspicions to rest.


Anxious for reassurance, he dug out his own birth certificate to compare it with his wife’s – and that’s when the doubts really set in. Both husband and wife had been born in Dallas in 1970, yet their certificates could hardly have looked more different.


His ‘looked like an old microfiche copy’.


In the space where a hospital should have been listed, there was just a dash. And, while his wife’s birth certificate was signed by her father, Brad’s had the name typed in.


Tamping down his panic, he said nothing until the in-laws had left the house. Then he started asking his wife the questions he’d been asking himself.


Why were there no family stories about the day he was born? Had he ever seen a photograph of his own mother pregnant with him? The answers were no.


Uncertain what to do next, they got in touch with a woman from church, Ann, who’d always known she was adopted. She kindly agreed to help.


Within three days, everything Brad thought he knew about himself was changed forever.

She told him her own birth certificate was almost identical to his. And, with a little extra research, she was now convinced that he, too, had been adopted.


Troubled, Brad called his dad.


After the usual small talk, he finally blurted out: ‘Y’all never told me I was adopted.'

His father was driving at the time and feigned distraction.


‘Huh,’ was the response, the silence between them broken only by the sound of his dad’s fingers drumming on the steering wheel.


Brad's heart broke. ‘Even though it wasn’t an answer, it was an answer.


‘I said to him, “You know Dad, I’m not trying to be a d*** here, but I need you to say it. I know I’m adopted, but I need you to say it to make it real.’”


His dad sighed and confessed: ‘Yeah, you’re adopted. We’ve been trying to find a way to tell you.’


Brad was shocked: ‘He’s been trying for 48 years to tell me? That was the new lie.’


His father ended the conversation saying that none of it mattered because they loved him and were still his parents. And that he needed to go home and tell his wife.


Even today, Brad finds this difficult to process.


‘The only reason it doesn’t matter to somebody is because they’ve never been through it,’ he says.


‘It absolutely matters when you wake up one day and you find out you’re not the kid of the people who raised you.’


Brad is convinced his adoptive parents were never going to tell him, that ‘they were taking it to their graves’. That, he says, is the ultimate betrayal.



Jimmie Graves, in a photograph taken in late 1969 - Brad was born the following year




Brad hugs his 'Pop' as he takes his first steps out of the prison gates



As a police sergeant and a bomb squad commander, Brad Ewell (right) fought for justice his entire adult life. Then, at 48, he discovered his biological father (left) is a killer and a former gang member


He was determined to find out everything he could about his birth parents, and started to research more deeply.


That’s when the second blow landed: ‘I found out my biological dad was Jimmie Graves. And that he was in prison for murder,’ he says, still incredulous at the fact.


Jimmie Ray Graves’s slide into crime began when he quit his junior draftsman job because he was passed over for a more senior position.



‘We’re the people your parents warned you about,’ reads an old gang motto. They took pride in being the baddest of the bad.


In 1972, two years after Brad was born, Graves killed a National Guard sergeant with two bullets to the back of his head on Interstate 20 in Louisiana. The guard, Charles Overfield, had interrupted a burglary at a National Guard armory in Shreveport and was set to testify against one of the suspects, a Bandidos associate.


After Graves was apprehended, he pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty and was given a life sentence in the notorious Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana.


Brad wrestled with what to do next. Even if he did ever speak to him - and that was a big if – he knew how their conversation would go. He'd met criminals like that before: ‘Nothing is my fault. The world is against me. I didn’t do anything wrong. I have bad luck.’


Yet, he decided to press ahead and organize a meeting anyway - a one-and-done kind of thing.


‘I needed to lay eyes on someone that was directly responsible for my existence on earth,’ he explains.


But nothing about the encounter went as expected. By this stage, Graves was in his mid-70s and had already survived a heart attack.


‘He walked in, gave me a hug, and said, “Son, it’s good to meet you.”’


Then within two to three minutes of meeting, he admitted he’d killed Overfield intentionally and that it was all his fault.



One of his most treasured photographs is of the pair sitting on a front porch swing. Their arms touch and their easy smiles tell their own story of family and redemption


‘He just owned it.’


This admission of guilt was a game changer for Brad.


They talked for eight hours while in the background electronic locks buzzed, doors and gates slammed shut, and prisoners came and went.


‘I told him my life story. That’s when he said he had no idea I existed. But seeing me, he knew I was his.’


Brad, too, was in no doubt that he was looking at his natural father.


‘I’m built just like him. And we share personality traits, which I never shared with my adoptive parents. For one, I’m more introverted, like him.


‘One of the best things mental health–wise for me was to finally see me back in someone else.


‘People take for granted growing up with people who look like them. I didn’t have that. But I had it when I met my bio-dad. After a year of not knowing who I was, seeing him let me feel whole and real again.’


Brad knew his adoptive parents didn’t want to hear about any of this, so he kept his visit secret – until his adoptive father lay dying in hospital.


Waking up at night with Brad by his side, his dad said, suddenly: ‘Tell me about your biological family. Have you met?’


Brad crumpled and told him everything – and his father’s response stunned him.


‘That’s great,' he said. 'I’m glad you finally got to meet your dad.’


‘I stopped him and said, “You will always be my dad.’”


About a week later, his adoptive father died.


Brad has taken to calling his new-found biological father ‘Pop’ because it recognizes their bond but still leaves a place for the man who raised him.


As for his adoptive mother, she has Alzheimer’s and is incapable of telling him anything about his adoption, but she remains staunch in her belief that keeping it from him was the right thing to do.


Brad now realizes his maternal aunt - the woman who started his search for the truth - was the only family member who had known of his existence.


At the time of his birth mother’s pregnancy, she was living with her sister and, fearing retribution from her father, hid her pregnancy.


At 18, with no husband and no means of support, she relinquished him two days after he was born.


She later married, and had more children - but she never once told her family that she'd had another child. 


It’s not until he talked to his newly discovered – and much loved – half-sister did Brad fully understand how it had affected his birth mom.


Although she never told anyone about him, she never forgot her baby boy.


‘My sister’s father was in the military. And the fourth of July was a big deal in their family. But every fourth, my birth mom would turn into a recluse. She wouldn’t go out for a week.


‘You see, my birthday is July 8,’ Brad explains. ‘She did this every year. She mourned me until the day she died.’




Brad had dealt with criminals and knew how their conversation would go. ‘Nothing is my fault. The world is against me. I didn’t do anything wrong. I have bad luck'



Brad’s thick shock of grey hair and full beard gives him a rugged appearance. But underneath the imposing exterior is a man riven to the core by his family secret


Brad’s biological mother died in 2002 at 49, 19 years before his discovery.


He stayed in touch with Pop, getting to know the man who gave him life. And what he did next might seem ironic.


Although he acknowledges that his biological father was a man who very much deserved to be jailed for what he did 50 years ago, he doesn’t believe he’s the same man any longer.


So he went before the Louisiana House and Senate committees pleading for his release – and succeeded.


On November 17, 2022, Jimmie Graves was given his freedom.


One of his most treasured photographs is of the pair sitting on a front porch swing. Their arms touch and their easy smiles tell their own story of family and redemption.


But knowing what he knows now, would it have been better if he'd never known he was adopted?’


His answer illuminates the dilemma faced by so many adults exposed to these startling discoveries.


‘On the one hand, I was happily living my life clueless about the reality of my biological roots,’ he says.


'On the other hand, knowing I’m adopted has brought some really amazing people into my life.’


They include two half-brothers and his half-sister.


‘Knowing my biological roots has made me feel more grounded and more of a whole person,’ he continues. ‘It brings me a great deal of personal peace.


‘But that personal peace came at the cost of breaking a part of me that will never be fully whole again.’


Edited excerpt from What They Never Told Us: True Stories of Family Secrets and Hidden Identities Revealed. Copyright 2024 Gail Lukasik. Excerpted by permission of Skyhorse Publishing Inc. 

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