I always thought Verna was his real mom. I know she was a drifter woman who was always on the run, but I figured she was his biological mom they looked alike?

Not really, since Virna and Chet both had red hair while Shawn had brown hair.

And considering how Virna NEVER took Shawn with him whenever she got fed up with Chet, that's another sign that she truly couldn't have cared less what happened to him since he wasn't her son (regardless of Chet claiming that she had liked powdering Shawn's butt as a baby).

However, considering how Chet never ONCE protected Shawn from anything in his life, I seriously didn't buy Chet's spin that he lied about Shawn's bio mother to protect Shawn rather than himself (which he had done ALL the time). I mean, even if Shawn's bio mother had left him as a baby on her own free will, what would it have hurt for Shawn to have found her as an adult and asked to hear out her side of the story? It just seemed to me that Chet and Virna had somehow done the bio mother wrong and they didn't want to take the chance of Shawn finding her and finding out what so Chet concocted this story. Oh, and the whole 'she left before I could tell her 'it's a boy!' is utterly medically impossible so that should have been a huge clue right there that Chet was lying! Too bad Shawn bought that whole story hook, line and sinker rather than keep searching for himself to see what kind of person she actually was (even in the unlikely event that Chet actually had been honest).

Yeah I agree that Verna talked a good game and had motherly advice to Shawn least on the show. She never really cared for Shawn for always running away his whole life and I do remember Chet lying to Shawn he also would run away chasing after Verna.