High school students Robin Jeter and Jordan Dickerson made headlines across the country in spring 2013 when they found themselves in a situation that resembled a movie. Their respective Washington, D.C., high school track teams were competing against each other; people started pointing out that they looked alike; and, lo and behold, it turned out they were long-lost sisters.
It wasn’t quite as easy as that to figure out, but they had an inkling right away. After all, Jordan was adopted and Robin had grown up in the foster care system. Jordan called her mom, Patrice Dickerson, who looked at adoption papers and confirmed that Jordan’s last name was originally “Jeter” when she was born. Given that the two looked nearly identical, the evidence seemed clear enough: Robin and Jordan were related.
Still, the girls never confirmed their blood relation by DNA test — that is, until a recent Wednesday night, when they were featured on VH1’s “Swab Stories,” a new reality show that features a “Who’s Your Daddy” DNA truck that drives around to different cities. Sound seedy and potentially scandalous? Why, sure! That’s VH1’s business model. But during the D.C.-themed episode that aired on a recent Wednesday, Robin and Jordan were featured and officially discovered that, yes, the DNA test showed they were indeed sisters.
“It never occurred to me to go, ‘Let’s test this and see,’ … I would have been shocked had it turned out negative,” Patrice Dickerson said in a phone interview. “The evidence in front of my eyes was enough for me to know.”
Robin, 20, and Jordan, 19, felt the same way. Ever since they discovered they were related, they’ve been inseparable. They wound up on “Swab Stories” after a producer saw their story and sent them Facebook messages in the spring, wondering if they wanted to be featured on the show. The sisters agreed, and spent a day filming scenes in the “Swab Stories” van with host Jared Rosenthal.
“I think it’s just a nice thing, and wanted to get our story out there,” Jordan said. “So people could be like, ‘This actually can happen.’ “
The episode plays up the “are they really related?!” angle even though the answer is fairly obvious. “It’s hard for me to believe that these two are not sisters,” Rosenthal acknowledges in the episode before he even runs the test. Not only do Robin and Jordan look alike, but they speak in union much of the episode and have similar mannerisms.
At the end of the episode, Rosenthal indeed concludes their DNA is a match (though he’s not able to tell if they had the same birth father — that would require more testing). Jordan admitted it was still weirdly stressful awaiting the results, even though they assumed what the answer would be.
Rosenthal also lets them down easy that the fact that they’re not twins. Again, not exactly a surprise — although born in 1995, their birth certificates list separate birthdays. Still, they wanted to be sure.
So what are their future plans after brief media fame? Robin is a student at University of District of Columbia. Jordan attended North Carolina A&T University, though next year she’ll transfer to Parsons School of Design. They’ll spend the summer break together living at Patrice’s house, trying to make up for the 17 years that they didn’t know the other one existed.
But there’s still one thing left on their list: “I mean, I don’t know about you,” Jordan said. “But I know Robin really wants to meet Oprah.”
