Seth Augenstein / Forensic Magazine 

April 11, 2019

Forty-five years ago today, a baby boy was born in a North Carolina hospital. Named Phillip Steven Brandenburg, the infant quickly disappeared. He is listed on some websites as a missing endangered child – a boy who some have believed was abducted by a killer now awaiting execution in Florida.

But the boy is not even mentioned by other databases. His biological mother had married a man just weeks after his birth – and it was generally believed this infant had been abducted by that man: Franklin Delano Floyd, whose trail of felonies spanned the country and have been the subject of best-selling true-crime books.

The existence, let alone whereabouts, of the boy named Phillip Steven could not be determined by anybody – detectives, writers, or family members.

Also born on April 12, 1974 at the Carolinas Medical Center in Lincolnton was Phillip Steven Patterson, adopted by a couple named Mary and Bob Patterson just six weeks into his life.

Just weeks ago, amid a time of family mourning, Patterson heard something from his mother that resulted in him going to a local police station, and giving a DNA sample to law enforcement.

His cheek swab could provide some resolution: whether the two Philip Stevens with the same first and middle names and birthdays are the same person.

The 45-year-old man believes he is the long-lost infant boy – and so does his adoptive mother, whose recollections line up with most of what is known about a killer’s run of crimes decades ago.

If Patterson is the long-lost Brandenburg child, it could tie up a loose end in the tale of the infamous killer Floyd, convicted of one slaying but suspected of at least three deaths, including what could prove to be Patterson’s biological sister he never met – and her son, his nephew he never knew of, either.

Could they be one and the same? And could the story provide one positive answer to a tale that ended with so many lives and families broken?

“I knew I was adopted… but it hasn’t really hit me,” said Patterson in a series of interviews with Forensic Magazine over the past month. “I’m on pins and needles, waiting.”

“He was six weeks old when his momma gave him to me,” said Mary Patterson, his mother who adopted and raised him. “God had his hands on Steve… He was godsent to me.”

“Getting that call was like being hit by a ton of bricks. It's hard​ ​not to get too excited until you have final confirmation. So we did​ ​our job and began that process,” said J​.​Todd Matthews, ​(former) ​case management and communications director for the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs.

A DEATH IN THE FAMILY.

Bob Patterson passed away on March 3 at the age of 72, and his family mourned him at funeral services two days later at his local Anthony Grove Baptists Church in Crouse, N.C.

Amid the grieving, his son Steve – who goes by his middle legal name – yet again asked his mother Mary to tell him what his birth name had been. He wanted to finally know the whole truth: who his biological parents were.

Since his teenage years, Steve had known he was adopted – but his mother never considered him “mature enough” to hear the absolute beginnings of his life, she recalled in a phone interview recently with Forensic Magazine.

But now was different – Steve had three of his own children, and was a grandfather himself, by 2019. So she went to the computer and did a search of her boy’s birth name.

What she saw absolutely shocked her.

The boy she had raised was listed as “endangered missing” on one of the major missing persons websites, DoeNetwork. Appended was a horrifying tale of how two and perhaps three people had come to gruesome ends in connection with a man now on Florida death row.

She printed out a paper copy and showed her son. And together, they were stupefied.

That listing showed that he had been considered abducted by a man posing as Brandon Cleo Williams in 1974 – but who was really a convicted murderer named Franklin Delano Floyd, an infamous child abductor and killer whose crimes did not truly come to an end until the 1990s.

Neither Mary nor Steve had ever known how their lives may have briefly crossed the paths of a notorious criminal, albeit briefly, more than 40 years earlier.

MOTHER’S STORY.

Mary Patterson had two biological children. Neither lived more than a few hours, she told Forensic Magazine. The second was born – and died – on April 10, 1974, in Lincolnton.

Two days later, Mary Patterson was still in the hospital recovering and grieving her loss, when into the hospital came another woman to have a child: Sandi Brandenburg.

Mary Patterson recalls she knew Sandi, a coworker with her at a local sewing company. The woman had given birth to a healthy baby boy – but even right after the arrival, she wanted to give the boy up for adoption, Mary Patterson recalls.

(Brandenburg, who has since remarried and was last listed as living in Virginia, could not be located by Forensic Magazine for this story). 

But she has been included in numerous accounts of the crimes of the man then going by the name of Brandon Cleo Williams she married in 1974, shortly after Phillip Steven’s birth. Two of the major accounts of the decades of the misdeeds are two books by journalist Matt Birkbeck, entitled A Beautiful Child and Finding Sharon.

Sandi Brandenburg at the time of Phillip Steven’s birth had been married twice before, and had three older children, all girls, according to all the accounts.

But Brandon Cleo Williams, who was her third husband, was not who he claimed to be. Instead, he was really a fugitive named Franklin Delano Floyd, according to later court proceedings.

Sandi Brandenburg met “Williams” at a Greyhound bus station in the spring of 1974 while her three girl children were in the custody of social services, Mary Patterson recalls. Brandenburg married “Williams” shortly thereafter. The new couple quickly regained custody of the kids, according to news stories.

Mary Patterson remembers seeing “Williams” from afar in 1974. But the new husband wanted nothing to do with Phillip Steven, because he was not his own child, as it was explained to her back then. She never actually spoke with the man later revealed to be Franklin Delano Floyd.

With the adoption still officially pending, Sandi and “Brandon” Williams, left town. According to the DoeNetwork, the couple and the three girls all moved to Texas. In 1975, Sandi Brandenburg was reportedly jailed on a minor charge for 30 days – and according to some accounts she was released only to find her husband had abducted all four children.

Other accounts, like Birkbeck’s two books, go on to say that the two middle children were later located by the mother, and at least partly raised by her.

All accounts agree: the eldest girl was taken away by the “Williams” man – who was really Franklin Delano Floyd. As was later established through DNA, that girl was really Suzanne Mari Sevakis – and she would later live under assumed names in constant travel with Floyd, posing various as his wife or daughter. Sevakis, a pretty blonde who was long known as Sharon Marshall during her school years, was eventually killed in a mysterious hit-and-run accident in Oklahoma in 1990 – a death for which Floyd has long been suspected but never charged.

At the time of her death, Suzanne Marie Sevakis was known as Tonya Dawn Hughes.

Floyd was also never charged with the apparent death of Michael Anthony Hughes – her son. Michael Hughes, then 6, was abducted from his school by Floyd in 1994, and was never seen again. Floyd later told FBI agents that he had killed the boy and disposed of his remains on the Oklahoma side of the Texas border – but Floyd was only convicted of kidnapping because a body was never found.

It was the discovery of sexual and violent photographs in 1995 which led to the sole actual murder conviction.

Floyd had hidden a large envelope of images in a vehicle he had abandoned while on the lam in 1994, later discovered by a mechanic working on the car. Those pictures later matched descriptions of Cheryl Ann Commesso, a woman who had disappeared in Florida in 1989, and whose bones were unearthed in 1995. Commesso and Suzanne Marie Sevakis had worked at the same gentlemen’s club – until Commesso disappeared, and Floyd and Sevakis moved from the area. The pictures sealed Floyd’s conviction – and consequent death sentence, according to court coverage of the proceedings.  

EVERYONE IS WAITING ON THE DNA.

Steve Patterson has been interviewed by FBI agents about his possible relation to the Floyd series of crimes. He has also spoken to Matthews, ​(formerly) ​of NamUs.

In fact, the first indication of Steve Patterson’s potential identity at birth was DoeNetwork, an online resource for which Matthews remains one of the original members from before the inception of NamUs. Although “Phillip Steven Brandenburg” was listed in the NamUs database, it was not validated as a missing person entry – and was thus not viewable by the general public. *FBI could not validate his existence allowing publication in NamUs.

But it remained from years past in the DoeNetwork, where it was found by Mary Patterson and her son just a few short weeks ago – and utterly changed their understanding of what happened in 1974.

Matthews has long had an eye on the case, even before NamUs started. He wrote to the convicted killer in 2004, asking for further information to help locate and identify the victims he left in his wake – including not only the then-pseudonymous Tonya Hughes but also her son Michael – and also the unaccounted-for Phillip Steven Brandenburg. Floyd's handwritten response to Matthews was not particularly helpful. *It did yield an interesting handwriting analysis report. 

Steve Patterson has a good unionized job at a trucking company and three children. Today, he doesn’t have real major plans for his birthday – he will likely work another day, as usual, he said.

Everyone is waiting on the DNA.

The DNA of course, may not “hit” to Suzanne Sevakis. Just last week, in a completely separate case, the story of a man claiming to be Timmothy Pitzen, a boy who went missing from Illinois over seven years ago, was debunked by the same kind of genetic test being done currently. That case shows some of the cautions that must be taken before assuming an identity.

But multiple sources close to the case said the Patterson beliefs could be promising.  

Presumably, the swab that Steve Patterson gave to law enforcement on March 27​,​ ​2019​ could be compared against what is on file – namely, the DNA of what could be his long-lost sister, Suzanne Marie Sevakis, who was killed in 1990.

But even as he was filling out a form that day before submitting the sample, he was taken aback that he was circling the words “Missing Person” – in a literal attempt to find himself.  

“I had to ask myself, why am I the one circling this?” he said.

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For more information - 

​J​.​Todd Matthews
Executive Director
www.DoeNetwork.n​org 
Former Director of Case Management 
& Communications for NamUs.gov​
J.ToddMatthews@gmail.com
cell / text: 931.397.3893