False Positive

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Speaker 7 My contractions were coming on a lot stronger and I still had to make dinner for my family.

Speaker 11 So I got the easiest thing out of the fridge, which was frozen pizza and a salad kit from Costco.

Speaker 1 This is Susan Horton. She lives in Santa Rosa, California.
And in August of 2022, she was just about to give birth to her fifth child.

Speaker 14 I don't think I got much sleep that night.

Speaker 8 And by morning, I remember I was in a lot of pain.

Speaker 11 Hallie was very big.

Speaker 10 She was nine pounds, 11 ounces.

Speaker 17 And I had forgot how hard it is to birth a nine-pound baby.

Speaker 15 So the pushing out took a little longer.

Speaker 1 It was the next morning that I believe she was a social worker.

Speaker 10 She came in and said, said,

Speaker 10 so I just want you to know that your urine tested positive for drugs.

Speaker 1 Susan asked if they were sure it was her urine that it tested positive. They said yes.

Speaker 1 And she asked what drug the test said she'd taken. They told her codeine.

Speaker 10 Cough syrup? You mean like cough syrup?

Speaker 11 And she said, yes, but

Speaker 22 it's prescribed cough syrup. So they asked me, were you prescribed cough syrup?

Speaker 10 And I said, no, absolutely not.

Speaker 8 I hardly take Advil.

Speaker 1 Today we're sharing an episode from the radio show and podcast, Reveal. It's one of the best investigative shows out there.

Speaker 1 And last year, they shared this story in collaboration with the Marshall Project.

Speaker 12 Here's reporter Shoshana Walter.

Speaker 12 She's lying down in her hospital bed, racking her brain over what she might have eaten or taken that could have caused this result. And she remembers ding, ding, ding, the pizza and the salad.

Speaker 19 A poppy seed salad.

Speaker 22 It was delicious.

Speaker 19 You know, it had its separate little packages of dressing and it had a separate little package of just poppy seeds.

Speaker 17 And they were so crunchy. You know, when you crunch something and you can like hear it in your ears and stuff.
So I vividly remember chomping down on those poppy seeds.

Speaker 12 After the provider leaves the room, she just does a quick google search and she realizes like that that had to be it i have no clue what else it could be

Speaker 14 so i tell them eventually i'm like 24 hours ago for dinner i had a salad and pizza

Speaker 9 and that salad had a lot of poppy seeds on it

Speaker 12 i know from reading her medical records that Providers noted her shifting story. At first, she said, you must have gotten me mixed up with someone else.

Speaker 12 And then they noted that she changed her story to assert that it was this poppy seed salad.

Speaker 12 Multiple providers file into Susan's room and tell Susan that because she tested positive for opiates, they need to keep the baby in the hospital for five days to monitor for withdrawal symptoms.

Speaker 15 You can leave.

Speaker 17 but your baby cannot.

Speaker 10 And I was not leaving baby.

Speaker 8 There was no way.

Speaker 17 And they're like telling me what's going to happen.

Speaker 12 That they contacted Child Protective Services and that a CPS investigator would be coming to ask her questions.

Speaker 16 There was a point where I was just like, this is absurd.

Speaker 15 I want to go home.

Speaker 16 I have not taken anything.

Speaker 12 She basically argues there's no reason for the baby to stay in the hospital because the baby is not going to experience withdrawal symptoms.

Speaker 12 That falls on deaf ears because the process has already been set in motion, and the investigator is coming in a matter of hours to interview Susan.

Speaker 13 I felt

Speaker 11 very like

Speaker 15 emotional, and I was alone.

Speaker 18 Like,

Speaker 21 I just gave birth the day before.

Speaker 23 I'm not sleeping,

Speaker 18 and

Speaker 9 I just felt like really ganged up upon

Speaker 9 they had a singular piece of evidence that I had taken something and it was wrong.

Speaker 12 Susan calls her husband, Colin, and is basically like, I need you here because I'm losing it.

Speaker 12 So Colin comes to the hospital. His parents, who are elderly, go and stay at the house with the kids.
And then the CPS investigator comes.

Speaker 12 Because this was her fifth child and it was during COVID, she skipped a lot of prenatal appointments.

Speaker 8 I felt like I went to all the important ones.

Speaker 12 You know, she lacked child care, and both her husband and her 16-year-old are immunocompromised.

Speaker 8 My second born, Liam, was born with a congenital heart defect and had five open-heart surgeries.

Speaker 12 So Susan basically avoided the doctor during COVID.

Speaker 17 And they wanted to go over

Speaker 15 some points: like,

Speaker 18 why did you miss all the prenatal appointments?

Speaker 15 Um, your son has a heart condition, right?

Speaker 16 Would you miss appointments for him?

Speaker 15 I really went off on her when she asked me that.

Speaker 13 I was like,

Speaker 13 My son has a life-threatening congenital heart defect.

Speaker 8 Of course, I would take him to every appointment or do whatever surgery needed to save his life.

Speaker 16 Not going to a prenatal appointment is not the same.

Speaker 18 Like, what is happening?

Speaker 15 They want me to sign a safety plan.

Speaker 12 A safety plan is essentially a voluntary agreement between a family and child protective services that may include additional drug testing.

Speaker 12 It may include inspections and searches of the home, allowing CPS to interview other people in your life. It can be a very intrusive and invasive agreement.

Speaker 16 I literally just said, I haven't done anything.

Speaker 15 Like, there was no reason for any of this to be taken place, and I didn't want to sign something, almost like admitting guilt because I was not guilty.

Speaker 12 But they did not realize what the consequences would be if they did not sign it.

Speaker 17 Basically, as soon as I made the choice to not sign, she stomped out.

Speaker 9 I didn't know this at the time, but she was getting a judge to sign a paper to take away my baby.

Speaker 12 Around the same time that I started talking to Susan, I was reaching out to other families, and Grace and Michael Smith had had this experience at a hospital in Pennsylvania.

Speaker 12 Their case is a little bit different from Susan's because instead of poppy seeds, it actually involves Grace's prescribed medication.

Speaker 12 They had just moved to the Poconos to be closer to Grace's parents when essentially Grace went into labor with their fourth child.

Speaker 24 I called Michael and I was like, Okay, my water broke, we gotta go. And then me and Michael went in to have a baby.

Speaker 12 Everything seemed to be fine.

Speaker 25 He grabbed my finger and I told him that I was gonna love him for the rest of his life.

Speaker 24 And everybody in the room just got really quiet and they're like, aw.

Speaker 12 When did you get the sense that something might be going awry?

Speaker 25 It was the following day when

Speaker 25 they started talking to us about trying to get him into the NICU.

Speaker 12 Doctors seemed to think that their son was developing respiratory issues, so they took him to the neonatal intensive care unit.

Speaker 12 Shortly after that, the OBGYN started asking Grace and Michael some questions. You know, why they moved, what do they do for a living?

Speaker 12 Grace told the doctor that she's a lawyer and Michael is a stay-at-home homeschooling dad who also went to law school.

Speaker 12 And then finally the doctor told them, well, you tested positive for methamphetamine.

Speaker 12 I was like,

Speaker 24 I'm not sure how that's possible. I mean, I don't take anything that would come up as methamphetamine.

Speaker 12 Grace was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder when she was 12 years old. So she was on a medication called Vivance for her ADHD.

Speaker 24 And I'm like, well, I take an amphetamine. She's like, well, your urine tests show that you were positive for methamphetamine.

Speaker 24 And so we've had to alert the children's services who will conduct a, what was the word they use? They're going to conduct a.

Speaker 25 An investigation of your family. Yeah.

Speaker 12 Just like Susan and like many parents I've talked to, Grace and Michael just felt furious that their home and privacy would be invaded over something that they didn't do.

Speaker 24 I'm like, I don't think so. And Michael's going, nope, I've got rights.
They're not coming to my house.

Speaker 12 The conversation basically went south from there.

Speaker 22 I went, I don't trust this hospital anymore.

Speaker 24 I want to leave. And Michael went, yeah, I agree.
And I said, we're withdrawing all consent for treatment for me and for the baby. And we're leaving immediately.

Speaker 24 And it got really scary, like just so fast.

Speaker 24 As soon as she left, I was like, I'm going to dress right now, go get the baby. And he went to the NICU, gave the baby a kiss.

Speaker 25 Gave him a kiss on the forehead, and I told him I would be right back, and I wasn't.

Speaker 25 And I hate that.

Speaker 12 He goes downstairs to the car to get the car seat.

Speaker 25 Pulled the car around to the front, got Grace,

Speaker 25 went up two floors to the NICU,

Speaker 25 and found it locked.

Speaker 12 They weren't allowed back in the NICU to get their son. And then shortly after that, the police arrived.

Speaker 24 Running out of the elevator, like into Michael's face, like, Okay, so what's the problem here?

Speaker 25 To which my response was, That's exactly what I'm trying to figure out.

Speaker 12 This is all going on in the NICU waiting room where there are other families.

Speaker 16 So we've got a little bit of an audience collected here.

Speaker 24 And in front of all of these people, the officer goes, They're saying that you have tested positive for meth and that you need to leave.

Speaker 24 You are trespassing, and if you don't leave, you're going to be arrested.

Speaker 12 In the hospital records, the doctor had described Michael as agitated and confrontational.

Speaker 12 Michael says he was stern, but at this point, he and Grace understood the stakes of being combative.

Speaker 24 I looked at Michael and I said, Michael, you can't say anything.

Speaker 24 You just please don't say anything.

Speaker 12 The police escort the parents down the elevator, out through the hospital doors, and then finally they drive home without their baby.

Speaker 4 It was a really dark moment.

Speaker 24 Like, I don't think I've ever felt that low.

Speaker 24 I didn't know what to do. I didn't even know where to start.

Speaker 5 We'll be right back.

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Speaker 1 The most common way for new mothers to be tested for drugs is through urine tests, because they're non-invasive and inexpensive.

Speaker 1 But the tests aren't always very precise. They identify anything that looks like it could be an illicit drug, but they don't really tell you exactly what the drugs are.

Speaker 1 Reporter Shoshana Walter talked with Dr. Gwen Miller, a medical director at a lab that analyzes drug tests, including those given to women who have just given birth.

Speaker 12 Can you list off a few substances that could cause false positives on screens?

Speaker 26 Some common cold medications will trigger positive results. The pseudofed that they're taking or the VIX nasal inhaler.

Speaker 12 Lobetalol, the blood pressure medication, looks similar to meth and amphetamine.

Speaker 26 Lobetalol metabolites are triggering the test into thinking that fentanyl or methamphetamine are present.

Speaker 12 Bivance, the medication for attention deficit disorders, also looks like meth.

Speaker 12 There's a baby soap that is very commonly used in hospital nurseries, and that can show up as positive for marijuana when an infant's urine is tested.

Speaker 26 Codeine and morphine could come from poppy seeds.

Speaker 12 I was really shocked when Gwen told me how high the false positive rates can be on these tests.

Speaker 26 Close to 50% for many drug classes.

Speaker 12 These are the types of drug tests that hospitals routinely rely on to determine whether or not a patient used substances during their pregnancy. And the issue is not that they're malfunctioning.

Speaker 12 You know, this is how p-tests work. They cast this wide net.
The problem is when hospitals act on these preliminary results.

Speaker 26 Action should not be taken based on a single drug testing result, period.

Speaker 12 What Gwen said is that there should be a second step, and that's a more definitive test where a toxicologist looks at the molecules in that sample to determine whether or not they are the illicit substance that the screen identified.

Speaker 26 But really, that type of testing is not mandated, it's not standardized, and so each hospital gets to decide what type of test they do.

Speaker 12 Many hospitals just don't do that second more definitive test. For one, it's expensive.
And also, they're just not legally required to do it.

Speaker 12 Federal law requires states to identify babies that are, quote, affected by substances and refer them to child welfare authorities.

Speaker 12 But when I reviewed every state law and policy, I learned that most states go even further than that.

Speaker 12 They're requiring hospitals to take action anytime an infant is simply exposed or even potentially exposed to substances.

Speaker 12 And the fastest, easiest way to determine exposure is having the mom pee in a cup. No state requires hospitals to do any follow-up test once they have that initial result.

Speaker 12 And even when they do that follow-up test, it can take a while for the results to come back, which could mean releasing a baby to a potentially unsafe caregiver.

Speaker 12 And you have to remember: medical providers are mandatory reporters. They can be criminally charged for failing to report child abuse and neglect.

Speaker 12 So, hospitals are basically erring on the side of caution, either because they're worried about the baby or they're worried about liability.

Speaker 12 When Grace Smith tested positive for meth at a hospital in Pennsylvania, she and her husband insisted the result was wrong.

Speaker 24 I've never done anything like that in my life. So it was just unthinkable that it was being thrown as an accusation and by the hospital no less.

Speaker 12 This was a new hospital for Grace and Michael. They had just moved.
So when she came in to give birth, she actually gave them a copy of her medical records from her previous provider.

Speaker 12 So they would know what medications she was on.

Speaker 24 Because they were like, you know, we're going to do a drug screen. Like they told us at the outset.

Speaker 5 And I was like, okay, here's my medical marijuana card and here's my prescription for Vivans.

Speaker 12 Her OB had told her it was fine to continue her ADHD meds during pregnancy.

Speaker 12 So when this new doctor came in saying Grace had tested positive for meth, Michael started urging her to look at Grace's old records.

Speaker 25 You have her medical records. You know she's on Vivans.

Speaker 12 Vivans is amphetamine. It's prescribed amphetamine.

Speaker 12 And when Grace was drug tested by her previous OB, who used a more precise test, she tested positive for amphetamine, her prescription medication, and negative for methamphetamine.

Speaker 25 I asked her, did you call her OB, whose name is right at the top there?

Speaker 25 It's been her OB for years.

Speaker 12 And what was her response to you asking if she'd looked at her records?

Speaker 5 She didn't care.

Speaker 1 She didn't care.

Speaker 12 In the doctor's notes, she says that Michael asked why they weren't consulting the records or contacting medical providers.

Speaker 12 And in her own notes, she tells the parents it's not the hospital's job to investigate. Their responsibility is to report the case to Monroe County Children and Youth Services.

Speaker 24 They shouldn't have a test that doesn't differentiate between a legal substance and an illegal substance, period. They shouldn't use that, ever.

Speaker 12 I reached out to St. Luke's University Health Network and a spokesperson declined to answer questions about Grayson Michael's case.

Speaker 12 What he said is that the hospital complies with all the rules and regulations around testing and reporting.

Speaker 12 In Grayson Michaels' case, a confirmation test could have clarified that she was positive only for her prescription medication. But in other cases I've looked at, confirmation tests are not enough.

Speaker 12 For example, poppy seeds actually do contain codeine. So when Susan Horton ate that crunchy poppy seed salad, it's not a surprise that her test was positive.

Speaker 12 And behind the scenes, her doctors and the CPS caseworkers were even talking about the poppy seeds.

Speaker 19 Can poppy seeds give a dirty drug test?

Speaker 25 And the answer was yes.

Speaker 12 There is a way to determine whether poppy seeds might have caused a positive result.

Speaker 12 And that to look in the urine sample for the presence of the compound thebane.

Speaker 12 But there's no indication in the medical records that they did that test or even were aware that it existed.

Speaker 10 I felt like everyone at the hospital immediately after having the positive drug test was against me. I didn't feel like any one of them felt like

Speaker 7 there was a possibility that it could be wrong.

Speaker 12 Susan's hospital and CPS both declined to say anything about her case specifically.

Speaker 12 A spokesperson for Kaiser Permanente said that they take their role as mandated reporters very seriously and that they always conduct a, quote, multifaceted assessment before reporting someone.

Speaker 12 An official with CPS told me, in general, a positive drug test on its own doesn't warrant an investigation. She said they need to see an impact to the child.

Speaker 12 People are always asking me how many women are affected by false positive drug tests. How many babies have been removed from their families? I wish I had an answer.

Speaker 12 There's no agency that tracks this information, and it's extraordinarily difficult to get medical and child welfare records, which are confidential.

Speaker 12 What I do know from talking to top experts in this field is that that drug testing of pregnant patients is incredibly common due in part to the opioid epidemic.

Speaker 12 And every year, tens of thousands of babies are reported to child protective services without any guarantee that the underlying test results are accurate.

Speaker 12 In 2022 alone, more than 35,000 of these cases were reported, and authorities removed more than 6,000 infants from their families.

Speaker 12 When Grace and Michael told me their story, it was almost three years after Grace had given birth. I visited them at their house in the Poconos in the dead of winter.
He's super friendly.

Speaker 18 Two dogs. Squatty.

Speaker 12 Okay, you have to tell me how to play it. Four kids.

Speaker 18 This is the kid himself.

Speaker 5 This is Julian.

Speaker 8 Yeah, this is Julian.

Speaker 12 Hi, Julian. Grace grew up in a big family, and both of her parents and her her sister have an attention deficit disorder.

Speaker 24 My sister was the youngest person in the state to be medicated for it. Oh my gosh, how old was she?

Speaker 20 Three, I think.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 24 And the CDC wanted to do a family study on our family because we all had it.

Speaker 12 Grace's mom was actually pretty funny about so many of them having ADHD.

Speaker 8 We're not a very good breeding pair.

Speaker 8 It was Christmas last year for Julian.

Speaker 12 This is the house Grace and Michael came home to after they were kicked out of the hospital without their new baby Julian.

Speaker 12 But at the time, it wasn't all decked out in thrift store furniture and sci-fi books. Instead, there was stuff piled everywhere because they just moved here.

Speaker 24 When I went into labor, the house was completely, it was still boxed up. We all had our mattresses, but everything, everything was in boxes.

Speaker 12 And they both just felt

Speaker 8 broken.

Speaker 24 The next day when we woke up i would call the hospital every couple hours and see if he was doing okay and they'd tell me he's

Speaker 24 he's doing okay he's he's he's taking formula okay and i just remember how hard that hit me

Speaker 12 later that day the hospital tells grace that she is allowed to come back to the hospital and visit you're allowed to come back in and michael is not allowed to come but your husband can't come He's still barred from entering the hospital.

Speaker 24 I was like, okay, I'm coming.

Speaker 5 I'll be right there.

Speaker 24 If he was there for two weeks, I was going to sleep on a chair for freaking two weeks. And

Speaker 24 that's what I slept on for the next two nights.

Speaker 12 There's no privacy. A security guard is posted outside and she's required to leave the curtain open.

Speaker 24 It made me feel paranoid.

Speaker 9 and like I also couldn't act like I was paranoid.

Speaker 12 Grace stays in the hospital for a couple days while the hospital is treating her son's respiratory problem. And while she's there, a worker from Child Protective Services arrives.

Speaker 24 The guy who came into the hospital, he couldn't have been older than 21, 22, tops.

Speaker 18 It was just,

Speaker 24 I'm just sitting there having to swallow my pride and going like, this person is about to make a decision based on like my kids.

Speaker 12 At the same exact time, a caseworker goes to Grace and Michael's house to do a home inspection and to interview Michael.

Speaker 25 He came to the door. He's a big guy.

Speaker 12 Michael's approach was kind of just to be very amiable.

Speaker 25 I was really nice to him.

Speaker 12 I reached out to Monroe County Children and Youth Services and they declined to comment. But after those two interviews and the home inspection,

Speaker 12 the agency notifies the hospital that they can release the baby.

Speaker 24 Do you remember when I finally got to bring Julian home from the hospital?

Speaker 27 I just remember like you got back and you were like, We have him now or something. That was like the only thing I remember from that day.
And you just holding Julian.

Speaker 27 And when we didn't have him, you and Dad were crying.

Speaker 3 Hello, Julian.

Speaker 12 During my visit, I gave Julian my headphones so he could hear people talking on the mic.

Speaker 25 Hi, Julian.

Speaker 4 What's your name? What's your name?

Speaker 16 That's right.

Speaker 8 Julian, how old are you?

Speaker 25 He's in the weeks or two where he's starting to take sentences.

Speaker 12 Oh, it's delightful.

Speaker 12 And then we got those dicks.

Speaker 5 We'll be right back.

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Speaker 12 Susan Horton's poppy seed salad saga officially ended about two weeks after her daughter was born.

Speaker 18 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Where's your toys?

Speaker 12 The baby didn't get to live at home those first couple of weeks.

Speaker 26 Please, thank you.

Speaker 12 Before Susan was allowed to even be alone with her, she had to convince child welfare authorities and a juvenile court judge that she wasn't a danger to her child.

Speaker 12 Susan remembers her attorney advising her not to bring up the poppy seeds in court.

Speaker 11 I had receipts that I had bought it from Costco about four or five days before, but he was like, do not mention the poppy seed salad because it sounds stupid.

Speaker 13 And I realize that.

Speaker 9 But that is what caused the dirty drug test.

Speaker 17 So why are we not talking about the poppy seed salad?

Speaker 12 Susan and her husband agreed to more testing and a home inspection. And once that was done, the judge just dismissed the case.

Speaker 12 But this experience has created an undercurrent of doubt for Susan.

Speaker 16 We can go outside if you want.

Speaker 12 Susan really believes in teaching her kids to feel comfortable in nature. And so she has them playing outside all the time,

Speaker 12 helping to plant the garden.

Speaker 18 It's a worm.

Speaker 19 Shall we save the worm?

Speaker 16 Yes.

Speaker 16 Yes.

Speaker 12 This scene right here is like Susan Horton's mothering strategy. Yeah.

Speaker 10 Yeah, so she's got her toes in what was a water hole. Now that she's kicking, it's more of a mud hole.

Speaker 12 She was like splashing in the mud puddle and her bare feet and legs.

Speaker 20 Just kicking her little toes.

Speaker 12 Susan feels like that's such an important part of childhood.

Speaker 12 And she said that even in this moment when she and I were talking and watching her daughter delighting in the muddy puddle, that she had this fear that passed through her.

Speaker 19 Like,

Speaker 10 if anyone knew that she was in a little dirty, watery hole playing,

Speaker 10 that someone out there would see it as neglect or abuse in some way.

Speaker 12 It's just undermined her sense of self and confidence as a mother.

Speaker 16 Mama's gonna get you.

Speaker 24 Mama's gonna get you.

Speaker 12 It took Grace and Michael Smith three days to bring their son Julian back to their home in the Poconos.

Speaker 9 Cypress Poops.

Speaker 12 But they remained under investigation by Child Protective Services for another month.

Speaker 12 Like Susan, they spent several thousand dollars on an attorney, plus $300 more to pay for their own follow-up drug test.

Speaker 12 It was Grace's mom who had the idea of doing a hair follicle test, which can identify specific illicit drugs going back three months.

Speaker 24 We knew that we had to get the lie, the initial lie, put down before we could make any progress. And as soon as I turned that into them,

Speaker 12 that was it. CPS then closed their case.

Speaker 25 Very cut and dry, very bureaucratic.

Speaker 8 Oh my gosh.

Speaker 8 There's a dog peeking at.

Speaker 24 I could see just one eye peeking around that door.

Speaker 12 One of the things I found in my reporting that totally blew me away is that there's a known solution to all of this.

Speaker 12 There are already laws and regulations for drug testing, just not when it comes to pregnant people.

Speaker 12 When the Reagan administration started drug testing many workers in the 1980s, those workers were up in arms about false positives. So now there are all these protections.

Speaker 12 Many workers have the right to confirmation tests.

Speaker 12 They have the right to a review from a specially trained doctor who talks to them about what they've eaten or taken that could have caused a positive result.

Speaker 12 I actually found this report from the 90s where a federal advisory committee recommended pregnant women get all of those same rights. But that detail buried in that report was basically ignored.

Speaker 12 So today, even most child welfare workers have protections in the workplace, but the mothers they're tasked with investigating have none.

Speaker 12 Michael and Grace were so incredibly upset by their experience that they spent the entire next year filing their own lawsuit against everyone they thought might have been involved.

Speaker 12 The complaint was almost a thousand pages long, and it didn't get very far. The hospital argued it did not violate Grace's privacy and civil rights.

Speaker 12 And the judge eventually dismissed the case, saying in part that the Smiths did not sufficiently argue their claims.

Speaker 12 You could see that as a total failure, but that's not how Grace's parents see it.

Speaker 24 They had to do that lawsuit. They could not have lived with themselves if they hadn't tried.

Speaker 17 Just to make sure that this wouldn't happen again.

Speaker 8 You got to try.

Speaker 9 They wanted justice.

Speaker 3 Justice is important to people.

Speaker 24 You know, when things go wrong, you say, well, somebody's got to do something here.

Speaker 17 It's the only way we improve.

Speaker 1 Special thanks to the team at Reveal and the Marshall Project. You can listen to a longer version of this piece on the Reveal podcast at the link in our show notes.

Speaker 1 This piece was reported by Shoshana Walter and was produced by Marianne McCune and edited by Jenny Casas.

Speaker 1 Additional editorial support from Manuel Torres, Nina Martin, and Kate Howard. Score and sound design by Jim Briggs and Fernando Aruda.
They had help from Claire Mullen.

Speaker 1 Fact-checking by Nikki Frick and Kim Frida. Legal Review by Lita Walker.
Reveal's interim executive producers are Brett Myers and Taki Telanitis.

Speaker 1 You can listen to many more great episodes of Reveal at RevealNews.org.

Speaker 1 Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer.
Katie Bishop is our supervising producer.

Speaker 1 Our producers are Susannah Robertson, Jackie Sagico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinnane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti.

Speaker 1 Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com.
And you can sign up for a newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter.

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Speaker 1 I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

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