Teen Panics After Discovering The Truth About His Adoptive Parents

There's something safe and comforting about your own personal space — most of the time. But for a teenaged Steve Lickteig, his once secure and pleasant home suddenly turned into a waking nightmare. What happened? Lickteig learned a startling truth about his adoptive parents that shook him to his core. And then, unable to face up to this terrible realization, the boy fled his home, hoping to leave the dark secret far behind him. Still, the past has a way of catching back up to you...

Shadow Hanging Over Him

The 18-year-old's reaction was pretty reasonable — considering everything he'd known had turned out to be lies. Before that fateful day, you see, Steve Lickteig had been just one of nine regular kids living on a farm in Kansas. He knew that he was adopted, but that wasn't a problem... at first.

The First Meeting

The story that Steve had grown up believing was that he was simply taken in by Don and Mary Jane Lickteig. Don was a veteran of the Second World War, and Mary was his devoted wife and mother to his eight biological kids. And — so the tale went — the Lickteigs saw baby orphan Steve in a nursery, fell in love, and eventually adopted him. He had no reason to think it was all a lie.

Welcoming One More

"I always wondered why Mom and Dad wanted me, after having so many kids of their own," Steve said in his documentary Open Secret. "But my childhood was great." He described an idyllic life on the Kansas farm, with Mary in charge of the kids and Don in charge of the land. They were, for all appearances, one big happy family.

The Perfect Life

As he grew up, of course, Steve did start to think about who his biological parents could be. But he didn't obsess about it, figuring he'd find out one day. In the meantime, he hung out with his two brothers and six sisters. "I was a really happy-go-lucky guy in high school," he told NPR in 2013. Then everything changed.