Conception Deception

An East Texas doctor who allegedly used his own sperm to impregnate patients remains in practice. Why has the Texas Medical Board let him keep his license?


In 1984, Pauline Chambless went to Dr. Kim McMorries in Nacogdoches for help after she struggled for more than a decade to have a child. After multiple attempts using donors from a California sperm bank, McMorries located a local sperm donor he described as a tall, red-haired, music-loving, medical resident at a nearby hospital. McMorries personally administered artificial insemination and Pauline’s daughter, Jessica, was born in March 1987.

Jessica Stavena, now a young mother of three, lives in the Houston suburbs and runs a medical spa at a Houston plastic surgery practice. In early 2020, she tried a consumer DNA test as a way to unravel the origins of a troubling gastro-intestinal issue. She knew she was a donor baby, but when she got her online test results in February, she was confused: Stavena matched with several unexpected half siblings, including a woman named Eve Wiley, another slim blonde from East Texas.

Born only months apart, the pair bore a resemblance, and Stavena soon received a Facebook message from Wiley, who asked if her mother had also worked with the same OB-GYN. “Heya!! Omg!!” Jessica replied, surprised and thrilled at the coincidence.

Back in 1986, Wiley’s parents also visited McMorries. For years, Wiley and her mother believed her biological father to be “Donor 106” from the same California sperm bank Stavena’s mother initially chose. Wiley wrote McMorries after learning in mid-2018 that the physician was linked to her through multiple consumer DNA test matches—a relationship separately verified by a nationally known DNA expert, after Wiley shared her story with ABC’s 20/20.

Read more: https://www.texasobserver.org/fertility-fraud-east-texas-kim-mcmorries/