General Hospital spoilers: Are Dex’s birth parents John 'Jagger' Cates and Karen Wexler?

In the realm of General Hospital, it’s not uncommon for new arrivals in Port Charles to discover they actually have blood ties to the city. To give a few examples, Sam (Kelly Monaco) arrived on the soap canvas as a swindler working for Jax (Ingo Rademacher) but it was later discovered her birth mother was Alexis (Nancy Lee Grahn) and her father was Julian (William deVry).

Then there’s Dante (Dominic Zamprogna). The top cop arrived as an undercover agent working to take down Sonny (Maurice Benard) only to be shot by the mob boss. It was at that point it was revealed that Sonny is his biological father, a shock to both men.

With such examples as a backdrop, for months now, we’ve believed that Dex (Evan Hofer) has an unknown connection to Port Charles as well. Not much has been disclosed about his family history other than he confessed that he has two older brothers who used to beat him up as a child, and his parents didn’t see the need to help him. Then, right after high school, he joined the military just to get away from his family, and he’s seemingly not looked back.

Using these minimal clues, we started to wonder if Dex’s older brothers were so violent toward him because they knew he was adopted and built up hatred toward him because of that. It’s possible that Dex doesn’t even know he’s adopted or Sonny’s henchman Brick (Stephen A. Smith) failed to uncover that info and Dex opted not to disclose it.

If we run with the story that Dex is adopted, then we automatically have to wonder who his parents are. While there are a lot of men from the General Hospital canvas we could guess is Dex’s bio dad, we think the lucky winner is returned character John "Jagger' Cates (Adam J. Harrington).

In the present, Jagger is an FBI agent who arrived back in Port Charles with a mission to track down who’s trying to kill Sonny (and we tend to think he’ll eventually work to take Sonny down as well). But before his latest stint on the show, once upon a time, he was a misguided teenager who got into trouble. He eventually, cleaned up his act and decided to become a boxer, but his career was derailed when Sonny threatened him to throw a boxing match and Jagger refused.

That wouldn’t be the first time Jagger and Sonny would be at odds. They again had some heated confrontations over Karen Wexler (Marie Wilson). Karen was the love of Jagger’s life but she unfortunately got hooked on pills and found herself working for Sonny at his strip club. She even wound up carrying on a brief sexual affair with him.

Eventually, Karen would get back on her feet, and she and John would get married and leave town. He enlisted in a police academy and she enrolled in medical school. She eventually returned to Port Charles without Jagger to begin an internship at the hospital, but the distance between Jagger and Karen led to their divorce.

Long story short, Karen became a physician at the hospital but had a continued battle with addiction. She was killed off the soap when she was hit by a car.

To make it clear, we believe Dex’s birth father is Jagger and his mother is Karen. Now if you’re wondering how Karen and Jagger could have a baby and neither one of them opted to raise him, we can picture a scenario in which Karen found out she was pregnant in the midst of her problems with Jagger during their marriage, and she chose not to tell him. Then, because she was just starting her medical career at the hospital, she decided to give the baby up for adoption, not ready to have a child while trying to become a doctor. As a result, Dex was raised by his adoptive parents.

If our hunch proves correct, it would make for a great storyline for multiple reasons. To have Sonny’s once-trusted employee be the son of his old rival would be incredibly ironic. Especially, because Dex has come to admire Sonny a great deal. Should Dex find out Jagger is his dad, he may find his loyalties are suddenly split.

Oh and in case you didn’t know, Karen was Scott Baldwin’s (Kin Shriner) daughter. He can’t stand Sonny either, so he wouldn’t be pleased with the idea of another one of his family members cozying up to Sonny.

New episodes of General Hospital air weekdays on ABC. If you miss an episode, you can catch up on Hulu.