BARTOW, FLA., NOV. 23 -- A former nurse's aide has come forward in her dying days to say Kimberly Mays was switched deliberately in the hospital nursery with another baby 15 years ago.
If true, Patsy Webb's story could shed light on the long mystery of what happened in a tiny Wauchula hospital in 1978.
Webb, 60, now in failing health with respiratory illness, says she was employed at Hardee Memorial Hospital when Regina Twigg and Barbara Mays gave birth to baby girls within days of each other.
Through her attorney, Webb said a physician asked her to switch the Twigg and Mays babies. She refused. But when she got to work the next day, she saw the switch had occurred.
"She was informed that if she said anything about the babies being switched, she would be immediately terminated from her employment at the hospital," her statement said.
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Webb's own child was gravely ill at the time, suffering from leukemia, so she kept the secret to keep her job -- and the health insurance that went with it, she said.
Her attorney announced that with her own health failing now, she is speaking out because of "a desire to make the truth known."
Webb could not be reached for comment, but she had been deposed repeatedly during the long legal struggle over Kimberly's custody and consistently denied knowing of any intentional plot to exchange the babies.
After her birth, Kimberly went home with Robert and Barbara Mays. Their sickly baby went home with the Twiggs and died of a congenital heart defect in 1988. During treatment, the Twiggs learned that blood tests showed that the child could not have been theirs and they embarked on a search for their real child.
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Five years ago, genetic testing revealed that Kimberly was the Twiggs' child.
Barbara Mays died of cancer in 1981. Robert Mays' second marriage ended in divorce, and he since has remarried.
A series of visitations ended after relations strained between Kimberly and Regina Twigg, who made public statements indicating that the Mays family may have been responsible for the switch. This year, Kimberly successfully sued for a divorce from the Twiggs, ensuring that she would never have to visit them again.
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