Kimberly Mays Reflects on Being Switched at Birth, 30 Years After Learning She Went Home With Wrong Parents

It has been 30 years since Kimberly Mays, now 41, discovered she was switched at birth. Now, she’s revealing new details about the high-profile custody battle and running away from both families. 

“I wasn’t prepared for, like, life,” Mays said in a new interview with ABC’s 20/20 airing Friday.

Mays was born in Florida in late 1978 and went home with new parents Bob and Barbara Mays. Barbara died of ovarian cancer three years later.

When Mays was 9 years old, a different set of parents, who were at the hospital the day she was born, discovered Mays was actually their biological daughter.

Ernest and Regina Twigg had gone home with another baby, named Arlena Twigg, that fateful day. It was discovered that Arlena was not the Twiggs’ biological daughter when they learned she had a different blood type from them.

When Arlena died of a rare heart condition, the Twiggs came to know of their true biological daughter and began a five-year custody battle that was broadcast on television screens all over America.

The court decided to keep her with Bob Mays, which initially made Mays happy. But she ran away from the man months later to move in with the Twiggs.

She also soon terminated her relationship with the Twiggs. 

Was the switch truly an accident? New evidence suggests the mystery that cast a shadow over her entire life might have been intentional.

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