Lydia Fairchild (born 1976) is an American woman who exhibits chimerism, having two distinct populations of DNA among the cells of her body.
When Fairchild applied for enforcement of child support in 2002, providing DNA evidence of Townsend's paternity was a routine requirement.
Fairchild stood accused of fraud by either claiming benefits for other people's children, or taking part in a surrogacy scam, and records of her prior births were put similarly in doubt.
A breakthrough came when her defense attorney,[1] Alan Tindell, learned of Karen Keegan, a chimeric woman in Boston, and suggested a similar possibility for Fairchild and then introduced an article in the New England Journal of Medicine about Keegan.
Fairchild was carrying two different sets of DNA, the defining characteristic of chimerism.