Mr. Frank Smith was found murdered, apparently as he was emerging from the shower. He had been shot once in the head and once in the chest. He had also been stabbed with a knife 29 times, the majority in his groin area. This was not a killing stemming from a burglary discovered in progress. This was not a gangland slaying. That much cutting is always a crime of passion. The police focused their attention on a party he had hosted just a week before.

Twenty-nine people had identified themselves through 23andMe as half siblings, and they had traced their paternity to Mr. Smith. Sixteen of them attended his party. Police had full access to Mr. Smith’s computer, and could easily find some of the key participants. The ones they located told him what happened and referred him to others. Eventually the police interviewed 13 people, whose stories were all consistent.

The police could with considerable confidence put together a transcript of the evening’s key events. While the quotes are undoubtedly not exact, they convey the facts accurately.

[The weather was warm. The whole party took place outdoors. After pleasant conversation and a burger cook-out, conversation got more serious.]

The organizer said “Mr. Smith -- may I call you father?”

“Certainly -- my daughter!”

“We were comparing notes and it seems a fair number of our mothers have no memory of ever meeting you. That includes some mothers who raised us but also some birth mothers who gave us up for adoption. Many of them went on a date with you but swear there wasn’t any sex. Only a couple had artificial insemination during the relevant time period. So it’s a mystery -- are their memories all defective? Are you such a great lover that your partners forget the experience?”

[general laughter]

“Oh, that! You really want to know about that? Isn’t enough that I gave you life, and however it happened, what matters is that you’re here now?”

“Well, sure, in one sense, dad. But we’re also curious.”

“I’m an only child. My childhood was ... less than ideal. Both my parents died a few years ago. Anyway, to make up for being an only child I set out to father a lot of children. It was just an obsession with me. I was quite popular with the girls when I was young -- pretty handsome.”

“You still are!” said a woman. This was followed by murmurs of agreement.

[The rest of the transcript is Mr. Smith’s words unless otherwise noted.]

I signed up as a donor with a sperm bank. But my sperm was not popular, as I never got called again after the initial donations. But I had cased the joint while I was there. Their security was terrible. I could break in at night and spend hours. I could tell from the books which guys were popular. I prepared a series of my donations and broke in at night, and washed out the contents of some of those vials of the popular guys and replaced it with my own. They say there’s a problem when a guy fathers too many babies because they might later meet and have incest problems, and I helped prevent that problem. But I couldn’t tell whether those sperm donations were working or not. And then their security got better. So I looked for other ways.

One thing was to hang out around Catholics. If a Catholic girl got pregnant, she would have my baby and not have an abortion. Another thing was having an intuition about when a girl might be fertile. There’s a certain something about the girls. I couldn’t say what it is, but I think I’m right a lot of the time. I later learned about vaginal mucus -- I know, it doesn’t sound like a topic for polite company. Anyway, if I ever got in the position of exploring a vagina with my finger, there are signs. The mucus gets stringy. If you lift your finger, a little strand comes away with you.

For a few of the girls, they were just passionate and gave in to my seductions. I did it several times with some of them as we dated. I told them how much I loved them and wanted to marry them. Had no intention of doing THAT, of course [laughs]. Sometimes it was just once ... If I was going to put a move on a girl I tried to time it for when she was fertile. They were using hope as a method. Obviously it didn’t work, but you wouldn’t be here if they’d been more prudent.

But there were also other methods I used.

[A woman asked if any of the mothers had contacted him after they found they were pregnant.]

Oh, I didn’t want anything to do with the babies. Raising babies is for mothers to do. My job was just to make them pregnant. I always gave them fake or temporary contact info. I made sure none of them could find me.

[A man asked for more information about how he himself had been conceived.]

You really want to know that? You’re sure? Well, OK ... I kept a detailed diary of all the encounters I had. A few years ago I typed the key things into a spreadsheet. Come to think of it, it’s on my laptop right here ... If you give me your mother’s name I can search for it.

Mary McCarthy, let me see ... Ah, that was a simple one. I just told her solemnly that a girl couldn’t get pregnant the first time she did it. That’s worked several times.

What’s the name? Just ‘Emily’? Hmmm. If you give me your birthday we can work backwards, that should narrow it down a lot ... Oh, found it! I actually remember her! Quite a beauty. I promised to use a condom, and I did -- but I pricked a tiny hole in it beforehand, and I kept thrusting after I came to squeeze a little of the sperm out and into her. Very clever, eh?

Oh, here she is ... I kissed her and fingered her down below and she came. Quite the comer, that one! Then I jerked off onto her tummy. But there was plenty on my hand too. A little later I started fingering her again, but this time there was sperm on my fingers, and that was all it took!

Oh, her! I promised to pull out before I came, but then I forgot and came way up inside her. I said I forgot, but I didn’t forget [laughs].

This one ... Ah, I got better at the ‘pull out’ thing. I learned to keep quiet when my first spurt was coming out, then pull my cock out and make a big orgasm noise for the later ones. That way they thought everything had worked fine.

Oh, this girl. Such a lovely smile! We were fooling around, making out, and it was about time for getting to third base. I excused myself and went into the bathroom and jerked off. I kept some goop on my fingers, so when the crucial moment came and I put my fingers into her underpants and prodded it into her pussy, sperm was in touch with wet vagina. That’s all it takes -- and the result is you!