Patty Branson is a child who was the victim of several attempts at kidnapping by her birth mother and stalker, Michelle Osborne.
History[]
Patty was born from in-vitro fertilization, but with unexpected circumstances. Patty's legal father, Matt Branson, and legal mother, Sarah, went to Dr. Stanley Norton for fertility treatments. Norton then committed the felony act of implanting the embryo from which Patty developed into Sarah from that of another patient, Michelle Osborne, with him forging the records with Michelle's fraudulent "consent for donation". Michelle and her husband, Steve, had their own daughter, Anna Osborne, but Steve and Anna died in a car explosion in 2000 that left no remains of her family.
In 2004, when she was six and lived happily with her parents, until Michelle witnessed Patty on the street once and began stalking the Branson family, unstably believing Anna wasn't dead and instead made to live as Patty. Patty commissioned the services of two private investigators specialized in returning kidnapped children, Kenny Pratt and Peter Carson, to observe Patty and then kidnap her. Pratt was directed by Carson to try and snatch Patty while passing by on his bike while Patty was at the park.
The plan was a failure, as Patty fought back but lost a clump of her hair. Since Pratt was much more noticeably younger-looking to point of appearing to be a minor, which the PIs often used in their operations, Patty distinctively remembered Pratt's looks. When the duo's movements are tracked and they're later seen again outside of Patty's school, resulting in both being arrested. Threatening to have their licenses revoked, the PI's give up Michelle as their client, Michelle warmly welcoming the detectives and having already set up her home to welcome Patty into it. An age progression photo of Anna reveals her stark resemblance to Patty. Despite Anna being confirmed dead by records, when Michelle's taken to trial for her actions, Carson appears with a DNA report from Patty's hair sample revealing she'd definitively Michelle's biological child.
When Anna and Patty were both revealed to have been conceived from in-vitro fertilization and a mitochondrial DNA test revealed them maternally linked to Michelle, Norton was tracked, as well as his clandestine crimes. As a result, he was arrested and imprisoned for medical fraud, forgery, and endangerment. But Michelle refused to leave Patty alone and kidnaps her on a school trip to the museum, taking Patty to Michelle's vacation home in Queens. There, Michelle tells Patty about her roots, which traumatizes her especially after Michelle's arrested and Patty's rescued.
When Patty's placed on the stand, she's goaded by Novak to answer to which parents she accepts when Michelle still openly professes she's obsessed with Patty. Patty starts to cry and shouts she wants the family who raised and to not be ripped way from the life she knows by Michelle kidnapping her. Michelle finally regrets her actions from Patty's anguish and swears to not keep Patty in her life, swearing to leave her alone and even taking a plea to custodial interference. Patty runs back to her parents in tears, and Michelle moves out of state on the suspended sentence for Patty's sake.
Medical records reveal Michelle's embryos led to Patty having more siblings, specifically two sisters and a brother. (SVU: "Birthright")