In 1964, single mum Thelma Tipton, 24, gave birth in the mining town of McCaysville, Georgia.
Informed that her baby, Kristie, was stillborn, she was heartbroken.
‘[Dr Hicks] said she had a bad heart and I believed it,’ Thelma told America’s ABC News.
But Dr Hicks was illegally selling newborns on the black market for people to adopt for between $800-$1000 each.
Between 1950 and 1965 he forged birth certificates and falsely told mothers their babies hadn’t survived.
Dr Hicks died in 1972, aged 83, leaving no records to help match the 200 ‘Hicks Babies’ with their birth parents.
In 1997, Kristie Hughes learned she was one of his newborn victims. After a DNA test she was reunited with her mother.
But for Thelma, the pain is still overwhelming.
‘He stole my daughter. I missed out seeing Kristie growing up… I missed her wedding. I missed everything,’ she says.
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