Local Man Embarks On Emotional Journey To Find Brothers
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Tommy Hearn has one picture of his father who is dead after drugs and alcohol killed him and no photos of his mom who died from a drug overdose.
He has one picture of himself from Holy Family Institute where he was raised. He spent 10 years of his life at the facility for troubled children.
The first 15 years of his life are recorded in files a phone book thick – a clinical discussion of abuse, neglect and mental illness. A young boy drugged up on pharmaceuticals to ease the pain.
KDKA's Marty Griffin interviewed Hearn in front of a house in Shaler where he says his mother and grandmother used him as part of a satanic ritual when he was five years old.
"I'd be sitting in the basement in a chair tied up," he said.
And his father was a drug addict – enraged his mother wouldn't get high with him he tried violence.
"She flipped out and she lifted up her shirt, had this scar … and she said my dad tried to cut me out of her," Hearn said.
The Broadhead Manor Apartments in the West End is where he has the most vivid memories of his baby brother and protecting him from his mother.
"I would step in and take beatings for him," Hearn said.
And his other brother, he saw one time. Both of his siblings were removed from the home. For 25 years he's wondered where they were.
"They're my bloodline. They're proof that I exist," Hearn said. "They're my family. They're all I have at this point as far as immediate family."
Despite all this, Tommy survived with no family and no support. He worked his way through college. And now has a master's degree and a job as a counselor. Now, he desperately wants to find his lost brothers.
The search for that bloodline is underway at CSI Investigators in Beaver County. The company volunteered to help us find Tommy Hearn's lost brothers.
Investigator Jessica Milko is obsessed with the case.
"I genuinely care about seeing these three boys reunite," she said.
She worked all of her sources, all of her resources and a month into her quest and an hour before KDKA-TV was bringing Tommy to meet her and others – a breakthrough.
The folks here found his brothers and Tommy is just now hearing about it.
"He just turned 21-years old, he's a good kid, he's doing really well," Milko told Tommy. "And she's just ecstatic for the opportunity to bring you guys together."
An overwhelmed Tommy Hearn now knows for the first time in more than two decades he has a family.
"It's overwhelming and exciting at the same time," he said.
Tommy will meet one of his brothers for the first time in more than 25 years in Homestead next weekend. The other brother is in jail headed to trial on felony charges. Tommy is also reaching out to him.
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