Most of us, somewhere, have our birth certificates somewhere in our homes. In most cases, listed on that piece of paper is the name of our parents, and usually, there isn’t a lot of controversy around who those people are. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. There are far too many stories out there of young children with a parent, typically the father, who denies having anything to do with their child. That child’s other parent often has to file a lawsuit to obtain financial support for the child.

The good news is that modern science can help the courts hold the absent father accountable. With DNA testing, we can tell, with near absolute certainty, if the man being tested is indeed the father of the child in question. And in 2019, a woman in the Brazilian state of Goiás asked a judge to order one such test for the man who, she believed, fathered her child — but when the result came back positive, the case wasn’t over. Despite this evidence, the apparent father, indigently, maintained he wasn’t the dad.

And he may have been telling the truth.

The mother, according to the Guardian, “said she had relations with the man just once. She has a nine-year-old daughter as a result and began court proceedings in 2017,” seeking child support. The man she believed she had slept with denied having ever met her, and the court ordered the DNA test. It came back a 99.9% match, which normally would be more than enough to establish paternity. But in this case, the man had a twin brother, and asserted that his twin, and not him, was the father. The court also ordered the twin tested (perhaps being skpetical that the two men were indeed identical twins) and, unsurprisingly, the second man was also found to be a 99.9% match. (Because of privacy concerns, the names of the mother and daughter have not been reported, and the men were only identified as Fernando and Fabrício, per the BBC.)

The two men refused to admit which one was the dad, relaying on this seemingly perfect get-out-of-child-support free card. But that didn’t fly with Judge Filipe Luis Peruca, the arbiter assigned to the case. Judge Peruca, per (and translated by) the New York Times, wrote in his decision that “It’s evident that the defendants, from adolescence, took advantage — and continue to take advantage! — of the fact that they are identical twins,. It became clear that they used each other’s name to attract as many women as possible and to hide instances of betrayal in their relationships.” And Judge Peruca decided to hold both twins accountable for their conspiracy-like approach to dating. As the BBC reported, the judge “ruled that the names of both men would be on the girl’s birth certificate,”making both of them her father in the eyes of the law.

The judge then found that both Fernando and Fabrício, indvidually, needed to provide the mom with child support typical in such situations: abut $60 a month, or 30% of the minimum salary in Brazil. As a result, the mother and daughter received twice the typical support. Additionally, per the Times, had to “collectively cover 50 percent of the child’s school and medical expenses.” Economically, the mother and daughter came out ahead of where they’d be had only one man been accountable for support, but that still wasn’t the outcome that the mom wanted; as the mom’s lawyer told the Guardian, “We believe the child has the right to know who the biological father is.”

More About Twins

Today’s Bonus fact: In 2007, a baby was born a few minutes before her older, twin brother. (If that doesn’t feel strange to you, read the sentence again.) As WRAL reported, on November 4, 2007, Allison Raye Cirioli was born at 1:06 AM; her brother, Peter, was born at 1:32 AM. But despite the 26-minute difference in baby Allison’s favor, Peter was actually the first born of the two. The culprit? Daylight Saving Time. Allison was actually born 34 minutes after Peter, but because the clocks turned back at what otherwise would have been 2 AM, her birth minute is recorded as before her brother’s.

From the Archives: How A Nearly-Perfect Crime Became Perfect Again: Two twins, one theft, and a DNA test that was inconclusive.