Tim Harrell was raised by a woman named Helen Harrell. She never made a secret of the fact that Tim was adopted. She also never shielded him from the near tragic circumstances that she said brought him to her in 1947. Helen had worked as a nurse at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis. She told Tim that she had found him as an infant in a garbage can behind the hospital. Tim was very sick. He apparently been born with the birth defects of a harelip and a cleft palate. In addition he had rheumatic fever, which causes a heart murmur. Helen had a plastic surgeon repair the defects and nursed Tim back to health. She also managed to adopt the baby at a time when single parenthood was almost unheard of. Helen became both mother and father to Tim, making sure that he was involved in activities that provided him with solid male role models.

Inevitably, however, the day came when Tim wanted to know more about his past. According to Tim, Helen told him that his birth parents were no good, and that they were obviously awful people to have abandoned him the way they did. Tim let the matter drop. By 1976, Tim was on the staff at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. He was married and had a son of his own. That summer, Tim received a phone call that haunts him to this day. A woman called claiming to be Tim's birth mother. She told him that he had a brother, and that the family lived in San Jose. She also said she was sorry for "what she did to him". Tim says that he vented all his pent up anger at his birth mother in that phone call. When the woman said she wanted to see her grandson, Tim refused. Later, when he told Helen about the call, she became hysterical, insisting that Tim not try to find her. Helen's reaction solidified Tim's decision not to allow his birth mother into his life.

Six years later, in 1983, Helen passed away. By then, Tim had divorced and his son had gone to live with Tim's ex-wife. It was a lonely time, a moment when Tim became acutely aware of how much family meant to him. In 1986, Tim married his second wife, Denise, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing. On a trip back to St. Louis in 1990, Tim and Denise tried to locate his birth mother through adoption records. Incredibly, Tim soon learned that Helen had lied about every detail of his birth. His birth mother was not some cold-hearted stranger who had abandoned him in a garbage can. She was, apparently, Helen's own niece, who had given Tim up only because she had to. Tim was deeply moved to learn that Helen's niece was only 18 years old when he was born. Tim's father had just gotten out of the army and was apparently in no position to be both a husband and father. The couple gave Tim to Helen and bowed out of his life.

In hindsight, Tim now sorely regrets not having given his birth mother an opportunity to explain. Now he desperately wants to find his birth mother, to apologize for his emotional outburst of long ago, and hopefully reconcile with her and the rest of his family. UPDATE: Tim Harrell's search for his birth mother ended on May 28, 1996, after a sympathetic private investigator, who had viewed his touching story on Unsolved Mysteries, located Muriel Gartner, 67, in Campbell, California within days after the show aired. The investigator, Alice Syman of Orphan Voyage in Scottsdale, Arizona, contacted Unsolved Mysteries and offered her services free of charge. She was then put in immediate contact with Tim Harrell. On May 28, 1996, just 11 days after Tim's story aired, he had a lengthy and emotional conversation with his mother. It was the first time they had spoken in 30 years.

Tim was amazed to learn that he has a half-brother and three half-sisters. His mother, Muriel Gartner, now widowed, was elated to locate the son she had never forgotten. Muriel said that now the huge hole in her life has been filled. At the time this update was compiled, reunion plans were being made to welcome Tim to the loving family that always held a place for him.

Thanks to Unsolved Mysteries, Tim Harrell was reunited with birth mother, Muriel Gartner.