Woman Says She Uncovered Mom’s ‘Medical Rape’ by Fertility Doctor and 10 Half-Siblings After Marfan’s Diagnosis

A series of medical battles and the discovery of a previously undiagnosed genetic disorder led a woman to discover she had been secretly fathered by a North Carolina fertility doctor.

Summer McKesson, 43, told CNN that DNA testing uncovered that she and 11 others were half-siblings, all born to mothers who had been patients of Dr. Charles Peete at Duke University Hospital.

Her mother, Laurie Kruppa, confirmed to CNN that she had been a patient of Dr. Peete for all three of her pregnancies.

Her husband had a vasectomy during his previous marriage, said Kruppa, so she became pregnant via intrauterine insemination. Kruppa was told her donor sperm would come from residents working at the school’s medical facilities.

More than 40 years later, Summer made the decsion to do DNA testing after a series of medical battles – including emergency open heart surgery at the age of 40 – led doctors to diagnose Summer with Marfan’s Syndrome, a genetic disorder which if left untreated can result in cardiovascular complications throughout a person’s life, according to the National Institute of Health.

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She said that while sitting on her couch a few weeks later she got the results, and initially found no new information as she scrolled through her family’s ancestry.

Then she went to see if she had any relatives, and discovered seven half-siblings.

“I just remember being shocked and my mind just swirling,” she told CNN. “I’m like, how is this possible? … Did my dad have another family or something?”

Summer decided to reach out to the seven strangers, and a month later received a cryptic response from one of her newfound family members.

“I don’t want to cause any conflict, but if you want to dig into this, I’d ask your parents if they went to see Dr. Peete,” read the email, according to CNN.

Summer said that she then learned of another half-sibling, and that her sister and brother were also fathered by Dr. Peete.

“I was really glad they were all true siblings,” Kruppa said of her initial reaction.

That happiness as short-lived, however, as she considered the ethics of Peete’s actions — and the fact he was in his 50s during all three of Kruppa’s pregnancies.

“This is like getting raped by your father,” Kruppa told CNN.

“We have been made aware of unacceptable actions by an individual that occurred in our program in the early days of fertility care during the late 1970s and early 1980s,” a spokesperson for Duke Health told PEOPLE. “The unacceptable actions could not happen today at Duke Health and should never have happened.”

Dr. Peete died in 2013 so it s unclear what, if any, legal action Summer and her half-siblings might be able to pursue.

She said that she decided to speak out because of her Marfan’s diagnosis and the complications that can come if left untreated, and has urged her half-siblings to be tested for the disorder, which she believes was passed down as a result of Dr. Peete’s advanced age at the time of her conception.

Summer said that her medical battles, difficult as they have been, are only a small part of her struggle.

“Ultimately, the hardest thing to process once you started putting the pieces together was that I was a product of a crime, that I was the product of medical rape,” she told CNN.

If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.