President Clinton's natural father, a traveling salesman who died before he was born, may have fathered a daughter in addition to Clinton and his alleged half brother, a newspaper reported Thursday.
That would give Clinton a half sister who lives in Tucson, The Arizona Republic said, citing birth records.The woman, Sharon Pettijohn, 52, refused to comment. In Washington, Clinton spokesman Mark Gearan said Thursday the White House would have no immediate comment.
Pettijohn's birth certificate lists William Jefferson Blythe of Sherman, Texas, as her father. She was born in Kansas City, Mo., on May 11, 1941, five years before Blythe married Clinton's mother.
Pettijohn's mother, Wannetta Ellen Alexander of Tucson, feels certain Blythe is the man she briefly was married to, said Bob Pettijohn, Sharon's husband. Alexander discovered the Clinton connection during the 1992 campaign when information about Clinton's family was made public.
Alexander "swears on a stack of Bibles, when she saw the pictures of Clinton's father on TV, that that was the man she was married to," Pettijohn told the newspaper.
Mrs. Pettijohn is the second person said to be Clinton's half sibling. Henry Leon Ritzenthaler, 55, of Paradise, Calif., says he is Clinton's half-brother.
Blythe, listed on his birth certificate as his father, married Ritzenthaler's mother in 1935. They divorced a year later, and Ritzenthaler was born in 1938, conceived after the divorce.
Clinton has spoken with Ritzenthaler but never has said publicly whether he believes the man is his half brother.