Neighbors Learn They're Long-Lost Siblings

It's not unusual for neighbors to become friends.

It is unusual when those friends turn out to be -- siblings.

Jamie Wheat, 32, was given up for adoption by 16-year-old JoEllen Cottrell when he was born at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana in 1977. She eventually moved to Missouri and had three daughters.

"My girls always knew they had a brother," JoEllen says.

But what no one could have ever imagined how close he was to one of the sisters, by pure chance.

One of them, Candace Eloph, had been living in Shreveport, La. -- right across the street from Wheat.

They say they were just sitting and talking one day when the realization began to set in that they might be brother and sister.

Candace said she had a brother who was adopted, whose mother had red hair and was 16 when she gave birth to Candace's brother on an Air Force Base. As those and other amazing coincidences piled up, the two began to feel in their hearts they were indeed siblings - but had DNA testing to be sure.

The tests were conclusive. And positive.

And JoEllen was reunited with the son she'd given up 32 years ago.

"I feel like a weight has been lifted off me," Jamie says.

JoEllen says she's thinking of moving back to Louisiana to be with her kids.

Jamie, Candace and JoEllen all told the story on The Early Show Friday: