S05 E09: Out of the Shadows

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Many of you know that I have a new book out this year called The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy, which I co-authored with friend of the show, Detective Mike Weber.

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Unlike with Hope, there was no carefully crafted facade of a loving mother doing her best.

Brittany's abuse was in plain sight, observable by all who interacted with her.

But no one knew what to do.

It seemed impossible to prove that Alyssa didn't have these medical issues.

And after all, why weren't the doctors doing something?

But even if people in Brittany's life suspected she was mistreating Alyssa, they had no idea what she was truly capable of, and the darkness in Brittany would shock them all.

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Hello, it's Andrea, and today we have something really special for you that's a bit of a first here on Nobody Should Believe Me.

In the months that we were reporting on the Sophie Hartman case, we reached out to dozens of potential sources to try and get as complete a picture about this case as possible.

And while a number of people had quite a lot to say, the majority of them didn't feel comfortable going on record.

And listen, I get it, there's nothing in it for anybody to talk to me.

I always hope that people will be willing to speak up on behalf of the kids, but everyone has to evaluate their risk in getting involved, and I respect that.

But then, last fall,

I heard from someone that I wasn't even aware of.

And last week, that person decided that she wanted to go on the record.

I've been out and about doing stuff for the book the last couple of weeks, and a lot of folks have been asking me how I handle being so knee-deep in all this dark stuff all the time.

And the reality is it can be hard, but it's also extremely rewarding a lot of the time, especially in those moments where I know that the show has reached someone who really needed to hear it.

And while I bear witness to an awful lot of horrific behavior in this line of work, I also get to witness people like Chalice, who we're talking to today, make the incredibly brave choice to see the truth and speak up.

And that's what keeps me going.

So without further ado, please meet my brave friend, Chalice Howard.

I wanted to start just by asking you, how do you know Sophie Hartman?

How did you two meet?

Yeah, so Sophie and I met

back in 2015.

We connected online through an adoptive parents Facebook group, I believe, something of that nature.

We had both spent time overseas specifically.

I had spent time in East Africa and we had a lot of mutual friends on Facebook.

So

yeah, we had connected, I believe, the summer of 2015

and then met in person

the following summer when she was over on the East Coast.

So

yeah.

And what was your relationship with her throughout these past 10 years?

Honestly, I

would have said until very recently that she was one of my closest friends.

She,

it was a long distance relationship, but our girls are the same ages.

And we both, I adopted my girls through the foster care system.

I live in Charleston, South Carolina.

And her girls are obviously from overseas, but we were both white moms raising kids of color.

And so,

and single moms.

And so

if anybody could understand the nuances and the unique struggles of being a single parent

to two little girls from trauma, It was Sophie.

And

yeah, I mean, we talked on a weekly basis for almost the past decade.

If you can go back, and I know you've been on a real journey, so it can be hard to put yourself back in that mindset.

But like, if someone would have asked you before all of this, like, what is like, who is Sophie?

What is she like?

Like, what do you think you would have said about her?

It's such a mind warp to go back.

It's so hard to

think about myself unknowing what I know now.

But if you had asked me, even last

September, October,

I would have said that Sophie is

one of my best friends, a loving and devoted mom,

someone who has been through unspeakable trials

and

has been tested and tried and

proven faithful.

I am in a really different, more evolved place of faith, but I'm still deeply a person of faith.

And so we had a connection through our shared faith.

I probably, if anybody had asked me about Sophie, I probably would immediately get would have gotten emotional because I was so proud of her and

proud of

watching her walk through the fire for so many years.

And

yeah, I mean,

there's a lot now knowing what I know.

There's a lot more red flags that have come to the surface, but I believed the best.

And my experience of her was

that she was someone who just

could really hang on when hope was thin.

And, you know, obviously, given that you've known Sophie for 10 years, you knew her when this case with her younger daughter, C, and this investigation was happening.

And

you even came out to the Seattle area to visit with her during that.

Is that right?

Yeah, twice.

Yeah.

And what was your

understanding

of what was happening in that case?

Yeah, so I remember exactly where I was when I got a Facebook message from Sophie saying it's an emergency, please call me.

And

I think it was maybe a day after the girls were taken,

after CPS had come.

And all of her things had been taken, her phone and her computer.

So it took her a while to be able to get in touch with people.

But she had eventually gotten to a friend's, been able to log into Facebook and said, like, here's the number to call me at, call me.

And when she said it's an emergency, call me.

And it was kind of an odd circumstance.

I immediately thought the worst because I thought that something horrible had happened to C.

I thought she had died.

I remember calling Sophie and she was

just kind of monotone, like in shock.

And she was just like, they took the kids.

They took the kids.

CPS came and took the kids.

And I,

it was during the pandemic.

I was in the middle of my workday and I remember like it felt like the walls around me were like shifting.

I was just like,

what?

And then

she was like, they think I'm lying about everything.

They took the kids.

And I mean, I think we just sat on that call with like the silence and the chaos of it all.

And I just kept saying, like, no, no, no, like, this is impossible.

What's happening?

No.

Like, I had so many questions, but didn't even know how to formulate them.

But

I think she may have even said something like, I was always afraid this could happen.

And

yeah, my understanding was, oh, my gosh.

I had known that all through the years she had been seeing all of these symptoms in C

that.

No one else was seeing, the doctors weren't picking up on.

And so,

yeah, I thought, wow,

this has really happened.

Like, she's always been working so hard to get people to see what she, to see her life, see what she lives with on a daily basis.

And

it's come to this.

They have really taken her kids and think that she's lying.

So, yeah, that's what I thought had happened.

And, you know, you mentioned that when you got this phone call, that the first place that your mind went was that something terrible had had happened to C and

you know we talked a lot about what Sophie had communicated about how precarious C's health was to many of the people in her life

what was your understanding of C's condition

that it was life-threatening she had this horrible neurological disease called AHC.

And the line that I heard over and over was she could leave us at any time.

She could leave us at any time.

Any episode could put her into any kind of organ failure and

at that point episodes were happening on

daily, weekly basis.

Hospitalizations were the regular

and so

Yeah, I mean it was horrific, but it wasn't I was kind of preparing myself in being friends with Sophie that anything could happen at any time and she could be gone.

And

yeah, it was just this really fragile tension we lived in.

You know, it's really wild to be friends with someone whose child is in a medically fragile position that they're just kind of always

hanging in the balance.

But, you know, we celebrated the good days and

I just tried to be be present as much as I could from afar on the bad days which were a lot.

When Sophie would tell you

none of these doctors are taking this seriously like this is I'm you know and even the sort of narrative of like I'm the only one who's seeing this

did that

like how did how did that strike you like did that did anything seem

strange about that to you at the time or were you just sort of thinking oh like this is something that happens, like, you know, where doctors don't take something seriously or they dismiss a mother's concerns?

What was your sort of take on that at the time?

I mean, honestly, I was complete, I was totally bought in.

And I, you know, my partner now is a pediatric occupational therapist.

And so,

you know, our relationship goes back over the past five or six years.

And as a pediatric OT, you know, she's in a position position where there's often times that she will interact with, she sees kids on a, you know, some of her kids she sees once or twice a week.

And so she'll see things that the pediatrician may not see, or she'll see things that other doctors don't see.

And she at times can be an advocate for a parent in those situations and, you know, will communicate to doctors what she's seeing through a therapeutic lens.

And so because Sophie was always in crisis,

I see now that I just learned to not ask a lot of questions.

I didn't really have any reason at that time

to question.

Yeah, I just thought this is something that they're missing.

And I also knew like she homeschooled her kids and

they weren't necessarily out and about as much.

I think my family and I have a much more social life and my kids were in public school.

And so.

you know, I was just like, oh, you know, well, their life is a little bit isolated, so it makes sense that nobody else is seeing what she's seeing.

She's providing the best environment for C, being there for her 24-7, keeping her in a safe environment.

So I just kind of rationalized, like, I guess that's why nobody else sees it.

Yeah.

And as far as the girls,

you know, and you mentioned that you have girls the same age, and did you get to spend much time with the two of them?

Yeah.

Surprisingly, yes.

We were literally on opposite sides of the country, but

that summer of 2016, they were on the East Coast and they came and spent a few days with us.

And that just kind of kicked off

what felt like such a dream come true of a friendship.

Like we spent probably three or four days together.

They came to our home.

We went all around Charleston.

And, you know, we always said like we're twin families.

Everyone has a buddy.

Like Sophie and I have each other.

C and my daughter Myla.

you know, were buddies and then M and Aaliyah.

And that was pretty dreamy, you know?

and so we saw them that summer and then

I think the following year they came to the East Coast again for treatment for C at Duke and then we made it a

tradition that we would spend that time with them when they would be over here and kind of go and you know brighten those days where they would see would be getting treatment at Duke and

yeah it was an opportunity for us to spend time together.

We'd get matching outfits for our girls.

It was always we'd make it a big deal for C, so it was like a fun thing.

She and Mila, you know, we'd stay in a hotel and she and my daughter Mila would have matching jammies and we got them little matching jean jackets.

And it was just like this fun thing.

It's like, oh, we're going to make like this big scary Duke trip like fun.

And

that was such a joy to do that.

And our girls, like

C and Myla, are just like

the funniest, little quirkiest

peas in a pod, and they adore each other.

Their weird really matches each other in the best way.

So, yeah, we did that for a couple of years.

And then

we, just a few years ago, we went on a vacation together.

Again, they were back on the East Coast, and we went to Myrtle Beach and stayed a few days in an Airbnb.

And in between all of those in-life, in real-life connections,

our kids would FaceTime constantly, all the time, especially our little girls.

They could just, I'd hand over my phone, they'd go set up in their rooms and they'd like play through the phone and give each other tours of each other's rooms and introduce their dogs.

And

they could just gab and gab and gab forever.

And

so yeah, it's, it was long distance, but it was, it was very real.

And we really came to know each other's kids.

And I mean, sometimes I'd call, Sophie would call and my daughter, my my little one would see, oh, it's Sophie calling.

And she'd answer the phone and she'd be like, I'm talking to her, you know, and they'd go off and talk in the other room.

And

we, we prioritized the friendship because it was so special.

It was so unique that it's like,

what are the odds?

Like, Sophie and I are maybe a year apart.

Our kids are all a year apart.

And

yeah, again, everybody had a buddy.

So Yeah, that's really sweet.

Yeah.

I mean, I like one of my best friends has a daughter that's a few years older than my daughter, but they are super buddies.

And like, it truly, it's the dream, right?

Like, when you have like, otherwise, you kind of have to like try and make friends with the parents of whoever your kid makes friends with.

And that's a whole, you know, that's a whole crapshoot.

So yeah, I totally understand why that would be, especially because you and Sophie had all these like unique things in common with like the transnational adoption and you know, being

people of faith and all of that.

This is one of the only times I've made a season and told a story without like without starting with a direct source.

And I think one of the hardest things for me about covering this was that I did not want C and M to be reduced to

sort of characters from a true crime drama.

And most of what we know about them was from Sophie's narrative about them when sort of with M, the gymnastics stuff was the most prevalent.

And then with C, obviously, the story of illness and the story of her impending death was really the story that Sophie told in

the documents and accounts that we had.

Sounds like you really love these girls.

And I mean, can you tell us, like, from your perspective, like, just

a little bit more about

who they are?

Yeah,

this will make me pretty emotional because they are so special.

They are

such special little girls.

Em is

so bright and so

thoughtful and so

wholehearted.

She's always been an amazing writer.

And

when they were homeschooled, like especially over the pandemic,

when she would

do different writing assignments, she would Sophie would send them to me or she would call and read them.

I mean, just

she has such a gift of writing and articulating her thoughts.

And she's,

you know, been through so much in her little life.

And

she's just fun and funny and has such a pure heart.

She was obviously a gymnast, so she's just tough as nails.

Yeah, you know, when our kids were together, like, I remember she would watch all these tutorials on how to do her makeup on YouTube.

And then when we went on that little trip together in Myrtle Beach, she did my daughter's makeup.

And I remember her telling Aaliyah, like, just how beautiful she looked.

And she's just full of so much light and just to like

love on my kid.

And

she's really special.

Like, she's the kind of kid, like when you talk to her, you're just like, oh, you're a deep well, you know?

And so

she's really cool and um

yeah she's such a gift

see

again

we would just always get the biggest kick of how

weird and wonderful our little ones were they're just like typical second borns like just off the rails like just

anything that comes to their head is coming out of their mouth.

And

yeah, she had had and has, I'm hoping, guessing, a vibrancy about her and a silliness and

just so many things that she's into.

And

yeah, she's such a cutie and

so sweet.

I mean, both girls are just overwhelmingly sweet and

fun to be around and thoughtful.

And

yeah,

they're pretty special.

Yeah

thank you for sharing that.

It's really nice to just hear some stuff about who they are as people.

So

tell us

where this takes a turn.

How did you come to find out about the podcast?

Yeah,

so

back in the fall,

Sophie had actually reached out to me and

told me about the podcast and said that she had found out that different people in her life were being contacted because she was being investigated for this podcast that was going to come out.

And it's another one of those moments, like I remember where I was sitting and I just thought,

gross, like how horrific.

Like who?

is going to dig into her life like they are recovering from so much.

They've just been through hell and back.

And,

you know, I was there when everything was released to the media.

And seeing your dear friend on the headlines with the most horrific headlines is just...

It's like a gut punch, you know?

And so I thought, man, they've been coming in for a landing the last couple years since this whole case.

And now here it goes again.

I was so angry.

And I talked to to my partner about it and

I remember saying,

like,

you know, this sick podcast is going to be delving into her story and

don't listen to it.

We're not going to give them another single listen.

Like, we can't do that.

And

my partner, who's a little more level-headed,

was like,

you know, if Sophie's going to be investigated on this podcast and it has the the potential to really

mess with her life, like we like, is this some little known podcast that like 10 people are going to listen to it?

What is it?

Like, let's find out.

And so

we did start listening to it.

I definitely did not tell Sophie I was doing that.

But I thought, yeah, what is this whole thing?

And

so I started at season one.

And so

this would be the beginning of the end because that whole time back in the fall is kind of a blur in my mind

because

as I start listening,

it is

undeniable

how the moms in the seasons that you are covering

just feel so familiar

and

eerily

familiar and just like even as I'm listening I'm like

this is weird that it's similar because they couldn't be any more different than Sophie like all throughout the process of beginning to educate myself on what actually is Munchausen by proxy and

what how does this manifest and what does it actually look like

I still had some cognitive dissonance.

You know, I knew I was listening to this podcast out of protection for my friend and to know what she was about to be up against.

And I've told you, Andrea, like I went in wanting to hate it and

was immediately struck by your

sincerity and

the warmth and the kindness in your voice.

You sounded like someone I would be friends with, which was weird.

So then I went through this whole wrestling of like, oh, this really sucks.

This must just be someone who's like, has a good heart and is on a good mission, but is getting it wrong.

You know, maybe she's gotten it right in these other cases, but like, she's got to be, this is wrong.

She's all wrong here.

And

but I didn't stop listening.

I couldn't stop listening.

And over the course of the next week or two, like my world just started to cave in because

every red flag that I had

been suppressing for so long

just came into clear view.

And especially listening alongside my partner, we're both just kind of looking at each other like,

why?

Why does it feel like she's used a playbook?

Why does it feel like

What's happening?

What is happening?

How is it possible?

This is my friend.

This is my like, this is like a hero of a friend who's only, you know, been overcoming all of these hardships.

It's just,

it's hard.

Even now, it's hard to even put words to, but

there was just the most disturbing similarity between

some of the narcissistic behaviors of...

the moms that you investigated and when I could zoom out

and look objectively, which I still don't really know how I did that.

I think the evidence was presented to me in a deeply compelling educational way.

And

yeah, it just all started to click and it was horrible.

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So Sophie told you about the podcast,

but she didn't tell you whose sister I was, did she?

No.

No.

I'm just listening to the podcast and I skipped around a lot because I knew about the Kowalski case.

So I'm like, okay, she's covering this Hopi Barra case.

I don't really know that much about this person, but I am kind of interested in her take on the Kowalski case.

So I think I was just jumping around a lot kind of chaotically, looking at like, you know, the titles of the different episodes, like

looking for one that's going to be so outlandish that I could just drop this podcast and be done and be like, okay, that's just some salacious, like somebody on a bent to, you know, get a lot of hits for their true crime podcast.

So I was jumping all over and I knew that you had this sister, you know, and that was also like a really compelling piece of it.

It's like, oh, well, this has happened to her family, you know, so she's probably,

she probably sees it more than most people does because she's had to live through this, you know, or whatever.

But again, remember exactly where I was when you said the name Megan Carter.

And just, I like sank to the floor in the kitchen.

I was like putting away dishes, listening with my AirPods.

And

Megan Carter

was a hero to me.

Megan Carter was someone who had carried my friend.

I flew out to Seattle maybe

three weeks after Sophie's kids got taken away and she was in a transitional living situation in a friend's basement and I went and stayed with her there and you know it was all so fresh.

They had just retained a lawyer and

the kids had just come out of foster care and been placed with her parents.

So, everything, it was just fresh wreckage everywhere.

And

we're just trying to see a path forward.

I was there the weekend that she first met with her attorneys, with Adam Shapiro, and that all happened while I was there.

So, it was very new, but I had heard,

oh my gosh, we've

retained this attorney who has done one of these cases before.

And there's been a mom just like this who's been falsely accused and you know that lives right in the area and I just thought

what provision from God like here's another mom who's been through this and so immediately Megan was someone who was going to be a pillar of hope for Sophie I remember Sophie telling me the number of days that her kids had been taken away and so it kind of gave Sophie this anchor of you know you're just in panic mode like when am I going to get my kids back and so Megan was able to say this is going to be a long process and and you got to suit up and get your head in the game, but you can win this thing.

And I just remember thinking, what a gift of grace that she has someone who's gone before her and can be this beacon of hope.

And I read about

Megan's story online and I knew the names of her kids.

And, you know, I would have...

I would get picture, I would check in on Sophie after I left Seattle and there would be selfies of her and Megan, you know, that it's like, oh, an unexpected friendship, you know, out of all of this horrificness.

And so I'm listening to this podcast, but was so deeply moved by your story and what your family had gone through.

And so when I heard Megan Carter,

when I had to grapple with

Megan Carter, it is not who I thought she was.

Maybe Megan Carter is not a hero.

Oh my God.

I came upstairs.

I came to

my partner was like getting ready for bed, washing her face.

And I was just like, you have to sit down.

Like, and I remember just trying to explain.

It's so hard to explain.

Like, I feel like in a way, it sounds like I'm being really dramatic.

Like, I hit the floor and I can't think, but it's.

When you find out that someone is not who you thought they were, I mean, it flips your world on its head.

And

yeah, I just was like, I mean, Rachel knew the name Megan Carter because Megan Carter was a hero and someone who stood by the Hartman family.

And

yeah, that, that was,

that was really when it all kind of, there was no going back at that point.

No, I mean, you're right.

It's absolutely earth-shattering when you find something like this out.

And

that is just like, I think a deeply shared experience for everyone who goes through a case, right?

It's just like, yeah, it's one of those things where you remember exactly where you were.

You know, there's like a before and after of your whole life with that kind of thing.

So at some point,

I get an email that was sent to like the,

you know, general email box for

the show

and it was anonymous.

And, but I thought, oh, this has to be about Sophie.

Can you tell me, like,

what

made you decide to reach out to me directly?

I remember sending that message on Instagram.

And I think I said something like,

I have been listening to your podcast.

I'm trembling writing this.

I feel like nothing but a traitor, but I can't refute

what's been presented

through your podcast.

And I believe that you're investigating my friend.

And I just needed to connect.

Like I needed more answers and I needed some things confirmed.

And so I remember initially I

sent a message on Instagram and then you can like unsend.

So I like sent it and then I

like unsent it like an hour later just like in a panic like what am I doing?

This is this is Sophie like I can't I can't do this.

I just remember sending and unsending that and I would send it and I'd be like no this is the next right step.

I have to I have to dig deeper.

I have so many questions.

I was still just like maybe I'll connect with Andrea and I'll find out she's full of shit or she'll be like really invasive or I don't know.

I don't know what I was hoping for.

I think part of me wanted answers and part of me wanted to just be able to throw the whole thing out.

I just remember like weeping in between all of that, thinking like, I felt like such a traitor.

I remember I said that in my email, like this feels awful and evil.

Like, how could you?

And

I kept asking myself, well, why don't you just go to Sophie?

Like.

Tell her what you've heard and like go to your friend.

Like, this is your friend.

You share so much.

And I knew that I couldn't do that.

I knew somehow that bringing it up would be bad news.

And so, yeah, I

finally sent that email and,

you know, sent it anonymously and said that I wanted to completely keep my anonymity.

And you told me that you took that part of your job really seriously.

And

yeah,

that was the reaching out.

Yeah.

And then so shortly after that

message came in, we got on the phone and

I think we talked for like, I don't even, like two and a half hours maybe.

We talked for a long time.

It was at least two or three hours.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And

I mean, it was just really

extraordinary to hear from you.

You know, I'm, I'm, like, I'm aware that like my voice is going out into the world without me and that people are listening to it.

And, you know, you hope it, you hope it moves people.

And one of the things that I always hope is I'm like,

I hope this show reaches the people it needs to reach.

Right.

Like that's the whole point of it.

Right.

And so I was very moved by the fact that it reached you.

And it is deeply ironic that Sophie is the person who

made that happen.

Right.

Yo, it was kind of amazing to like just

have these like, you know, lengthy conversations.

I mean, the reality is not everyone,

most people, in fact, don't deal with

coming to this realization

like

the same way that I did.

Right.

Cause I, we had really parallel experiences of,

I really remember, you know,

like

my that conversation with my parents where we finally sat down and like said the thing and said what it was i remember having that conversation with my parents where we finally just said it all out loud and

it was it was like it was like a tear in the fabric of the universe you know yeah and

and then we were grappling with what to do next and i felt all those same things that you know you have gone through feeling like a traitor feeling like i was betraying her knowing that there was no possibility of sort of confronting her directly about it.

Because I think

I suspect maybe you have had some similar experiences with Sophie because it sounded like you knew that, right?

That's like when someone you're really, really close to, you would hopefully be able to sort of sit down with them and say like, hey, man, I'm having these feelings and I'm just like, I need to talk this through.

And because you can't sort of have that like boulder of doubt, you know, in the middle of your friendship.

And

like, yeah, I'd had enough previous experiences with trying to sort of confront my sister on things or sort of trying to, you know, like,

like

hold her accountable in some way, or like asking her questions when I had questions and getting that shut down and being dealt with this, like, really emotional, you know, how could you reaction that I knew that like that wasn't a possibility.

And

so we just had like such a common experience, I think, with that.

And

just like you,

I was like, well, but like, I don't see how there's any other option but to try and do now whatever I can to sort of protect the kids.

And

I think,

especially because you were close to Sophie and in touch with Sophie and were someone who had a relationship with the girls,

I was very concerned while I was making this season that there was, you know,

it's unlike the other seasons of the show where I've made where I've been making it with the family members, with people who are in contact with the survivors or victims or what have you.

And, you know,

the

cases I've covered previously, even the Mayakalski case, those children were out of danger, right?

And like, that is not how we, either of us, I think, now see this situation.

And so I think it was a huge relief for me to have someone that

could see how this family was doing because

I do care about how my reporting impacts the people it covers.

I care about that a lot.

And I did feel

conflicted to some degree about the fact that I was covering this without the participation of the family and without the consent of the girls, right?

And that does feel different for me than the other stories I've covered.

And I think that was why we took, you know, again, measures to like

obscure their identities as much as we could and all that.

But

it felt nonetheless important to cover it, especially because

there was this lawsuit that Sophie was waging.

And

also because I felt that this was another situation where people understood this to be a false accusation.

And that wasn't what the evidence showed.

And I just thought, especially with the sort of climate that's been created with the Kowalski case, I just thought, I better cover this before Netflix gets old,

you know, really.

And so I think it was a tremendous relief to have contact with you.

And so, you know, for a number of months,

we were in touch while you were still in touch with Sophie.

And I know that was really

uncomfortable for you.

Can you kind of talk through like what that experience was like and what our conversations were around that, like why we decided to sort of go about things that way?

Yeah,

so

it's been such a wild past

four months because even as I'm coming to terms with

the truth

and even as I'm looking

at our not so distant past, my relationship with Sophie and I'm thinking about

different things that have been said or different diagnoses that have been mentioned or different crises that have come up and as I'm realizing

this is what they do.

this is what these perpetrators do, there is always a crisis.

And let me tell you: in 10 years of friendship, there was always a crisis.

It was not always C.

And so, even as

I'm starting to realize that I've been lied to, that I've been dragged along for this

crazy ride that she takes everyone on

at that point and today,

I still love this person.

I

do

feel deeply protective of her children.

You know, as I'm finding these things out, and I want to make sure that I can advocate for them or maintain contact or like keep this open door for their sake.

But

you can't just flip a switch.

Like, this is someone who I have built a relationship with, who I have shared deeply troubling seasons of my own with.

and so

that was so tough

but the hope was

let's keep this relationship open

to keep

access to the girls available

and

to keep a safe

person who knows the truth in their life.

And that was the hope was that

somehow it helped that there was distance

physically.

We could do what we'd always done, which is our kids can FaceTime.

And, you know, there's like all this, it's like now that I look back, you know,

you and I were trying to handle this thing as like prudently and carefully as possible given the circumstances.

But there was still this part of me that's like, maybe my kids like.

don't have to know and they can keep the their relationships with their friends.

These are their friends.

These are girls that they can talk to about what it's like to have a white mom.

These are girls that, you know, they have connected in a deep way with about, you know, not getting to stay in their family of origin and all of the trauma that comes from being an adoptee.

And,

you know, those friendships were rich and important.

And so there was this hope that like we can stay the course for the sake of the girls.

And I can just play the part,

whatever that looks like.

With the hope that I mean, I knew it couldn't go on forever.

You can't maintain a friendship where you know you're being constantly lied to and attempted, you know, all this manipulation.

But there was the hope that there would be a point where we would visit again, that we would see each other, and that

I would be able to tell,

like,

I

see you

and I believe you,

and

I'm here

and I don't hate your mom

but I know

I know what's happening

and I'm here because

there will come a day where she

I hope will see what is real and what is true and she will need

people like this is in a much more intense way because this is a daughter, this is a child.

But I mean, Andrea, I needed you when I was navigating this.

I needed someone else

to be able to say, like,

you kept, I remember you kept saying to me, like, yeah, this breaks your brain.

This breaks your brain.

I mean, I feel like so much of what I said in our phone calls probably felt so nonsensical.

And you just created space and held space for me to, I mean, you were so, you held space for me to

talk about the things that I loved about Sophie, to

work through the grief.

I mean, it was like on a daily basis.

I was like, where am I today?

Am I back in shock?

Am I back in denial?

Am I back in anger?

Like, what's the emotion of the day?

And

you,

you have been and were such a steady friend and such, there was nothing in it for you at that point.

I was like, I'm not going on the air.

I'm not going on record.

I'm not doing any of that stuff.

And,

but

you were in it for the reasons that I had hoped you'd been in it, which is for the love of these children, for the love of vulnerable children.

And so, my hope was that you know, when her world comes crashing down one day, because all of these this podcast will be available to her, these investigative reports, like anything she wants, if she ever

digs into what suspicions I know are already there, this stuff will be available.

But tragically, like even her extended family, who I

have

so many good things to say about the extended Hartman family.

Their hearts are good.

I think they are very deceived and in deep denial.

That is doing a lot of destruction.

But they are good people.

But good people is not enough.

This is my next step to just reach in hopes that

I say, I keep saying M because she's older and

I think she could come to what I know now about the siblings of these kids who are

being abused.

I mean any kid in the family like this is being at the very least psychologically emotionally abused if not abused in other ways but yeah I mean my hand feels it feels like M is most reachable.

She'll be of a legal age sooner than C.

And

sadly, you know, C has been given such such a strong identity of disability that

I can't even go there yet.

Like, I pray that one day she can come out of that and see who she is outside of that, but that just seems so far down the road.

So my priority right now and my hope is

making some sort of reach for M.

Yeah.

Well,

first of all, nothing that you have ever said to me sounded crazy.

I find I have a lot of these conversations with folks that are in these same situations.

I was like, the story is crazy.

You are not crazy.

And I think that is one of the

after effects of gaslighting, right?

Is that you just find yourself really like grasping for reality.

And yeah, having that shared experience is so powerful because even though I do now know other people who've been through it, it's still a relatively unusual experience, you know?

And I was and am so concerned about these girls.

And like I said, I take the ethics of what I'm doing really seriously.

And I don't hate Sophie either.

I'm not out to get her.

And so I was worried about the impact that it would have on her.

And I think one of the things that, like, and I really, you know, adore my team and my producer, Mariah, it's so deeply ethical.

And I really, I have a wonderful team, especially on this, our researcher and one of our producers, Aaron Ajai, and Nicole Hill, who worked with us on the season.

And just like really such a solid team team to talk through some of these things with and like how can we best approach this and how can we do our best to mitigate any unintended bad consequences on this family and so it really was such a relief to be in touch with you and I think there's this question of like Sophie's family and I think one of the reasons that I connected with this case other than the fact that my sister was literally involved was that like Sophie is a very strong parallel to Megan, right?

Because there are these other cases that we've covered where

they come from these chaotic families.

And I think there's a real knee-jerk thing to say, like, I think especially because the most well-known case is the Gypsy Rose Blanchard case, where Dee Dee Blanchard really did come from this like very troubled family and there was a whole bunch of stuff about like her father.

And, you know, I think that people really

want there to be an explanation for why someone.

does these things and they they want to be like oh well they were abused as a child or what have you or they were deprived in some way or they had you know all these stressors and um and certainly those things can contribute to child abuse as a whole medical child abuse is in sort of a different category there is there is no known sort of like adverse childhood experience big connection and i think sophie was such from such a similar family in some ways my family is not religious but you know both megan and sophie are upper middle class

white women who are very polished very presentable very well well educated, have all those trappings, and I, you know, and use the same very expensive attorney to get their children returned to them.

It's just like that, those pieces were so compelling to me and sort of like explaining how the system works the way it does.

And I'm so compelled by like

our family faced the same choice and we went that way and her parents went the other way and have continued to fund and support and enable

everything

that she's done and you know you talked about wanting to hate me I sort of wanted to hate them or at very least I felt a ton of frustration with them and

It was really interesting talking to you about what they're like and what you've said, which is like the other people that we talked to on background for the story said the same thing.

Like, this is a really nice family.

like, they're like, are really good people,

well liked in their community.

You know, again, it would be easier, I think, if we

would be easier if the people who were enabling monstrous things were monstrous themselves.

And that's not the case with the Hartmans, right?

It's not.

And I think one of the things, in addition to hoping that you could keep some line of communication with the girls,

we were hoping that you could get through

to the Hartmans.

Can you talk about

your conversations with Sam and your kind of attempts to maybe reach out to her?

Yeah.

So my relationship with Sophie has always been long distance and her family lives in Michigan.

I connected more with her family when I was out in Seattle.

And, you know, they had come to Seattle to

be there for her and the kids in every way through all of this.

And so I, you know, I didn't, I don't know them deeply, but I know them well enough.

And I kept open lines of communication with them

as we supported Sophie over the course of what became a couple years.

I don't really know these people, but we have this

mutual love for Sophie and a deep commitment to supporting her.

And so

I did reach out to Sam

and we had a lengthy phone conversation.

I did not tell her

what I suspected,

but I did reach out to tell her:

you have to listen to this podcast,

and

Megan Carter is not who you think she is, as kind of a gauge to see,

can you even hear that at all?

And Sam was was very kind.

She is deeply kind.

And

I stand in such a torn place about the position of this family because

on the one hand,

I see them as more of Sophie's victims, more of

people that have just been taken on a crazy train ride for at least as long as she's had the girls,

but much longer than that, I know now.

And so,

yeah, I reached out and

the general response was just like

that family has been to Helen back.

You know,

if you believe

that

doctors conspired against your sister, your daughter, and took her children away, especially a medically fragile child, especially two children who have already lost their first family.

One was being held and and sheltered in the hospital, and

one was put in foster care.

And if

you believe that narrative, how horrific, right?

And so I was treading very lightly

because

this is a family who's, you know, half of them moved out to Seattle, left their lives, dropped everything to go and show up for her.

And as far as I could tell, really

believed it all to the nth degree and so

i know i mean there were times when my partner rachel would say

this thing seems off about sophie this thing seems kind of strange this is my partner who i love who i is the you know

will be adopting my children when we get married and who I trust with my whole world.

And even I, when she would say, that seems weird, I would get defensive.

I would say, well, you don't know her.

You don't know what she's been through.

It's not if you knew her, you know, and I couldn't hear it.

There was a time when I couldn't hear it.

There was a time when I would have my suspicions.

I remember initially reading the police reports and thinking, this stuff is weird.

I don't,

this seems off.

But I would show it away in light of all these other things.

in our friendship.

I do have a very real fear of the wrath of Sophie.

I have at different times throughout our friendship, been cut off or been given the silent treatment for different things that I've done, always making me feel like I was the problem.

I wasn't afraid of Sam.

I knew calling Sam and reaching out to Sam that she would be kind and that she would listen and that she would hear me in earnest, but I knew it was a step too far to say,

I think that Sophie is abusing your nieces.

I knew that was too far and I knew it was just too much.

It's too earth shattering.

This was shattering my world.

And I am living my life separate in Charleston.

Like my life could blow up, but still kind of go on

when you more than anyone know.

Like when it is your sister, your family, what does this mean?

What are the ramifications of this?

And so I couldn't say everything that I knew, but I pleaded with her.

I said, listen, I don't think Andrea is who we think she is.

I don't think she is

on this vengeful mission mission to make a really great true crime podcast and deceive all of these people.

I think she, you know, she might be wrong about some things,

but listen to her tell the story of her sister.

Listen, you have to listen.

You have to listen.

So remember, I sent her three episodes and I just said, will you please listen to these?

Hoping that she would hear what I heard, which was undeniable.

The similarities, the personality, the walking on eggshells that you have in a relationship with someone like Megan or someone like Sophie, though the, I've said this to you, like that unspoken, do not cross her.

I thought

maybe this will feel familiar at the very least.

And

she couldn't answer whether or not she would listen to the episodes.

I know even bringing it all up was just, she's like, it's just so much.

You know, it was People Magazine Online.

It was Huffington Post.

It was all of these different sources.

I think she felt like, it's already been covered.

I've seen it all.

She was in trial.

She's heard the opposing side.

But it is wild how you can armor yourself against the truth when you are committed to a certain narrative and committed to not betraying someone who has said in no uncertain terms, do not cross me.

So that's the position she was in.

Yeah, I mean, it does feel so familiar, right?

Like you think about these sort of

things that I brushed off or the times I did defend her, you know, it was like when she had her fake pregnancy.

And then

like somehow

I managed to blame the boyfriend for that, which is like, I don't know how I made those mental leaps, but I did, right?

Cause it was just like, yeah, it was definitely because he stressed her out and then she just.

faked a whole pregnancy.

It's like, that's not, that's not an explanation that made sense, but emotionally, to me, it made sense at the time.

And then thinking back on, on, yeah, these periods were before she had cut me off, right?

Where like, I was thinking about this the other day because there are, you know, there are such frequent financial shenanigans that come up in these cases.

And we talked about some of that with, with Sophie's case, but like, you know, previous to any of the pregnancy stuff, like actually right before the pregnancy stuff, you know, Megan had committed check fraud and my parents bailed her out, but she was very mad about it.

Like she was was mad that they were, I think, because they were kind of trying to hold her accountable in some way.

And so she was very, very upset about it.

And then she got mad at me for

like, quote, siding with them.

Cause I was like, well, you know, you did like do the thing.

Like, I kind of understand why they're mad.

And then she didn't talk to me for like three months.

And then when she got, quote, pregnant, that was when she got back in touch with all of us.

So it was already like, oh, any attempt to like confront her will be seen as a betrayal.

So it's like, yes, they do the wrong thing that is harmful.

And then somehow everyone else has to apologize for it.

It's very bizarre, but it's very like

believable to me that Sophie's younger sister is also in that dynamic with her and like understands that like you

support their version of events 100% or you are dead to them.

And obviously, that is what happened with, you know, like, I know what would have happened to Sophie's parents if they had declined to fund all of that.

I presumably it would be the same thing that happened to my parents when they declined to file, help Megan file a lawsuit against Seattle children's

because, you know, then they never saw their grandchild again.

So

I think the fear, the fear is real,

you know, like that and understandable.

And I'm empathetic to it.

I'm not empathetic to putting that over.

the safety of the children.

And

I also think, you know, one of my my sort of lingering questions, and I think you have some insight into this because you have been sort of on both sides of it, believing the narrative and then seeing the reality,

is that, you know, Sam and presumably their mom and

to some extent their dad, you know, were sitting in this track, listen, heard those doctors present, saw that evidence, have seen everything that I have seen and that you have seen and much more.

Because all of this took place in family court.

And so there is presumably a large amount of evidence that has not made it into the public record, or at least a large amount of narrative that hasn't made it into the public record.

And,

you know, you mentioned seeing

these reports in the press, reading some of the charging documents.

Like you're a very smart, thoughtful person.

You're not a person that would, you know, read to me as someone who just like hops on board with the conspiracy theory of the week.

And yet this narrative of medical kidnapping, right?

And you'd said even you'd seen sort of the Maya story before you'd encountered the show and everything and sort of thought, oh, there's another example.

And you saw my sister's case and you were like, oh, there's another example.

You know, which is like how confirmation bias works for all of us.

But like, why do you think that made sense to you?

Like, how did you sort of like see it in a different light?

Yeah.

If you're familiar with the Enneagram, I'm a two, I'm like a helper,

like deeply empathetic.

And I think when you grow up middle class, upper middle class, you

live in a separate reality than a lot of people.

And so at one point in my life,

you know, I remember when I was 16, I was teaching dance at my dance academy.

I was really involved there.

And I found out that one of the moms was being like horrifically abused.

And

I was made privy to a lot of information.

I realize now at 16, I shouldn't have been, but this mom was like confiding in me.

And that was the first time I realized like

horrible things happen to people.

People without resources are really screwed.

And

people don't believe victims.

Like, people don't believe women.

And so that was like a cracking for me.

And then, I don't know, just my life circumstances took me

to kind of realize, oh my gosh,

I've lived in kind of an idyllic world where we have enough money to pay for groceries and I've never worried about my electricity getting cut off.

And, you know, I,

you read the Hunger Games, you're like, oh, I like kind of live in the Capitol, you know, like I just live in a world where things work out for people.

And then you're introduced to a world where things don't work out for people.

And people do go from one.

horrific trial to the next.

And, you know, as I became a foster parent and as I worked at a sex trafficking safe home or volunteered for a time, like I just had these different experiences where I'm like horrible things happen and people do stand by and listen and and know and they don't do anything you know and so yeah I just sorted it into one of those things that like

horrible things happen

you know and I accidentally placed Sophie with a ton of privilege into a category of

people whose lives really can just spiral keep spiraling out of control without resources because of the color of their skin or because of their you know sexual identity or gender identity or all of these things I just like I missed

I just have

become so deeply empathetic to a fault that I believe people I believe people very easily if you tell me that you need something I will try to help you get it like I just I've seen enough suffering and enough people look the other other way that when someone's suffering and says like will you look this way like I've tried to build a life where I do that and so I'm always kind of being drawn into

the plight of people who are living outside of a world where everything works out for you and so

yeah I believed that medical kidnapping was a thing I believed

I was kind of bought into that.

And I followed different people's Instagram pages who had had their children taken away.

And you know this Andrea it's still hard to make sense of like

what stems from systemic racial issues and true injustices of authorities CPS the police

you know

unjustly taking families apart or providing

interventions that end up causing more harm than good like

I had some sort of framework for that and I allowed Sophie's story to just fall into that framework.

Does that make sense?

No, it really does.

And I think, you know, I will tell you that when, you know, when I have been looking at

these sort of stories about medical kidnapping in particular, like as a whole, or like the separations that happened, and I mean, I think like the biggest misconception to my mind is that like the doctors are doing it.

Like doctors don't have the power to do that.

Like doctors do a medical evaluation and then they present that evidence that they collect to whatever authorities are making those decisions.

So

the fact that they place the blame so directly on the doctors, you know, that like, oh, this is a, this is a conspiracy headed up by Dr.

Wiester at children's, like that to me, just as a framework is, is very suspicious.

And now that is not to say that especially, and I will tell you, like.

If it is a non-white parent or, you know, a parent that is not like middle class or upper middle class, especially, like, then you sort of look at like, all right, there could be other things going on with with the system here that are unfair, that are, you know, that are dragging this out, that are, you know, meaning this the person can't afford, but like

it just doesn't track for a white mom who, let alone a white mom who can afford, you know, one of the best like defense attorneys in town.

Sorry, like, that's not how, that's not how the system works.

And like, I understand where you're coming from.

And I think a lot of us do understand

that there are problems within, quote, the system.

And the system is many systems they are all different in every state there are different problems with different ones they affect different populations differently so there's so much nuance and to sort of group it under this whole thing of like families are you know being torn apart by these doctors and then I find it especially galling that given that there are families that are so disenfranchised by the child protection apparatus and we had that wonderful expert dr jessica price on to talk about her book where she was talking about some of those stories And those were, you know, yeah, black moms that had been really put through the ringer.

And those were really like sort of deeply human stories.

And then all of these, you know, like the fact that most removals happen because of neglect, which is far, far sort of,

you know, that's far more attached to sort of like resources than abuses.

And these stories that have been highlighted in Take Care of Maya, in my kicks in the box work,

in USA Today and elsewhere.

Like, these are not those stories, right?

Like, if you want to go and find extraordinarily sad stories about families who've had their kids taken away unfairly, those stories are out there.

Those are not the ones they're featuring.

And I think it makes me doubly mad that, you know, the people like my sister Megan

and Sophie Hartman and Jack Kowalski, they're exploiting then that experience of parents who do unjustly have their kids taken away.

And it's just sort of like insult upon insult, you know?

Yeah.

And I think another thing that that plays into this in my situation as to why I was so given over to this narrative of believing that Sophie was being victimized by the system has so much to do with

my evangelical background and my understanding of spiritual warfare and how when you're doing God's work, you're going to have, you know, you're going to fall out of favor with people and, you know, Satan's out to get you and the enemy will try to take you down, especially if you're practicing that passage from James.

Pure and pure religion is to care for orphans and widows.

And so when you do that work, you will put yourself in the direct line of fire from the enemy and he will try to take you down.

I thought that way for a very long time.

It's embarrassing now, but I had a very

deep

theological framework for spiritual warfare.

And so that was another thing I sorted.

You know, I've come a long way even in the last four or five years.

And,

but, you know, one of my go-to thoughts when I found out about all this is this is spiritual warfare.

This is

the enemy trying, you know, Sophie is living out her purpose, caring for these formerly orphaned children and bringing them into a home.

And that is what you hear in church.

If you do the Lord's work, you have a target on your back, you know?

And so

that checked out.

And Sophie would reiterate that, you know, all of the ways that she has been laying her life down for the Lord and following the straight and narrow and living a bold life of faith and how much suffering and struggle comes with that.

And she had been

priming and prepping me for years to believe, see, this is what it's like to live a life of obedience.

This is what it's like to live a life of faith.

people see how many people don't like me now I go back and I'm like well you're very abrasive and

I see now

you don't really have long deep rich lasting friendships because you don't actually know how to build friendships with people you don't

have that capacity as someone who I believe is narcissistic and

you know, but at the time, it just all made sense.

And I, again, I realize now, like,

has been life altering for me because i realize i am very susceptible to like getting in a current and just being taken by the current and i was very much taken by sophie's current which was

i

live a life of obedience and radical love and so i i will be you know the enemy is going to try to take me down the enemy being satan yeah and i remember you know you and i talking through this piece of things while i was researching the case and

that that was very helpful for me as a person who did not grow up as a person of faith.

And,

you know, that I really wanted to approach the evangelical piece of this with care because I don't want to make it, you know, like it's not, the point is not to dunk on people who are evangelicals or people who are Christians or be like, you know, look at these idiots or whatever, whatever that kind of, you know, thing, because that's not how I feel.

And, um, and yet I think this piece about like it really struck me reading Sophie's memoirs, reading her journals, just reading how she presented herself and how she appeared to really sort of even think about herself when she was in her own time and on her own time, writing journals, presumably not for an outside audience, that

that really struck me of like, oh, well, that's pretty convenient framework for someone who wants to do this because then you don't have to assign any human motivations that make sense to the people who are out out to get you.

Just be like, Satan.

And it's sort of a, it's like a thought,

it shuts down any sort of further questioning.

And it was really interesting to see even how Sophie, you know, her relationships with these churches.

And

I have

obviously deep ideological differences with like.

the churches that she went to.

And yet with the church here with Pursuit, I mean, I feel like those people were victimized by her.

And I think that there's every evidence that they really did care about her and care about her girls and try and support them.

And, you know, I really feel a lot of empathy for them.

I just wonder too,

like,

you know, we were sort of talking about with Sam and even with

where you were at before this of like

there's this

desire, like when you're trying to maintain a relationship with a person like this and you love that person and you don't want to lose that person

there is this thing of like i think instinctually you know if you look too closely at it for too long yeah

it it might break through and so you just kind of like

look away look away look away totally

and once you're you know it's it's really it's like that that matrix moment right like if you take i think it's the red pill right that wakes you up to reality and it's like oh then you just really can't go back you know and so like once you had like made that step and then you were looking at some of this documentation you know in particular Sophie's journals which obviously are quite disturbing to read

like what did that like what did that feel like for you I'll use your words it breaks your brain it's

because you're looking at something

You're looking at these investigative reports.

You're looking at something that's so familiar to you, that you know so well but now the lens is flipped and you see it in focus in a different way me looking at all of these facts Sophie was always clearly in focus and it was about Sophie as the victim

and through your podcast and through the other education I did around Munchausen by proxy and this kind of abuse it takes Sophie out of focus

and it puts the children in focus.

It puts the other glaring realities into focus.

And so

I eventually came to a place where I chose:

if Sophie is telling the truth, then it's okay

to stop defending her and just look at the facts.

I had to come to that.

I'm like, with anything in my life, if you have to cling so tightly to something for it to be true, like you might want to loosen your grip a little bit.

And I realized

I have been

clinging so tightly to

being there for Sophie, believing Sophie against all odds, against everything she's coming up against.

I will be a faithful friend.

I will, I will be one of the people that believes, you know.

And so, when I chose to come into a place where I'm like, I'm going to put that on a shelf, I'm going to let Sophie's life and reality just sit there.

And I'm going to look at this stuff.

And if it's true, then all of this will crumble and I will, Sophie will come back into focus and it'll be fine.

But as soon as I stopped mentally, emotionally, psychologically defending Sophie, which now I realize was like a full-time job in our friendship, was

you have to keep these things at bay.

You have to keep telling yourself, like, you have to stop, once you stop making all the excuses,

it all just caved in

very quickly, very quickly.

Yeah.

So I had to, in order to see the truth,

it's like to take the world of defending Sophie and like put that on a shelf and to step back from it.

That is scary.

That is a scary thing to do to take something that you've known, that you've believed in, that you've invested in, that you've given yourself to, a friendship that you've poured yourself into.

And to have to look at something else

that

may mess with that.

You know,

I would read, I read the journal entries, the stuff that was in the reports.

I read the reports with like Sophie's voice in my head.

Nobody ever believes me.

You know,

I have a target on my back.

Just all of this stuff that she had told me about her reality.

And then, so I go into those documents just ready to defend, you know, and thinking I just lend myself like, oh, well, you know, that's really weird what she said, but like, I've lied about some stuff before.

And, you know, like, oh, like, I've, you know, done some like very benign, shady stuff in my life, like we all do.

And you just think, like, oh, if all my stuff was like put out there, that'd be embarrassing.

And then you're just like, this is not those things.

This is not those things.

This is dark.

This is dark.

And this, this is, you're really in Christianity in the world of good and evil.

Like, this is actually evil.

And

so it took so-I I mean, I give a lot of credit to you, Andrea.

I can say, no questions asked.

I would not have been able to do that without nobody should believe me.

I would not have been able to do that without the educational

work of advocacy that you do through this podcast, the careful way that you tell these stories.

I was given the right resources, which was this podcast, to

educate myself about what this actually is.

There was a time when I was like, you know, I could really just stop listening and go on with my life.

And I could call Sophie and tell her how horrific this is and just keep doing what she's asked me to do, which is to pray for her and to be available to her family.

I could do that, but

what?

So it eats away at me for the rest of my life, like what the reality is.

And I just couldn't do it.

I couldn't do it.

Yeah.

It became, it's wild to think that something that I defended so fiercely

became

disturbingly obvious

when I just stopped defending her.

Well, I appreciate all those things you said, first of all.

And I,

you know, I think like that, that's, that's exactly, it's really truly exactly what I, what I hope the show will provide for people.

And I think everyone who's been through one of these situations at some point gets into this sort of self-recrimination piece of it where you just go, my God, like, how did I, how did I keep doing this?

Like, how did I, how did I defend this person?

How did I believe them?

Like, I feel like such an idiot.

And the reality is like, no, you're not an idiot.

You're, you've been victimized by that person.

And like, they,

we all function that way.

Like we all live in a basic sort of emotional truth that, you know, is varying degrees of detached to or detached from or attached to reality, right?

It's just like how humans are.

So you are not in touch with Sophie anymore.

No.

Can you tell us

how things eventually did come to a head between the two of you?

Yeah.

Listening to the podcast, being in communication with you, you know, I would read these documents and the evidence is just overwhelming.

And I would process these things with you.

I process these things with other close people in my circle.

I had just come to a place of firm belief that this is exactly exactly what I'm looking at.

I'm looking at medical child abuse.

I have been deceived.

And so I was compelled to

contribute whatever I could to the story that you were telling because I believe that it needs to be told for the protection of these children.

People have to know.

People have to keep eyes on them.

And so,

you know, I had shared things here and there.

The podcast was eventually released.

Sophie began to be suspicious of me.

There were probably things that she had told just a handful of people that eventually got to you as it should.

And

she sent me a very,

what's the word?

Accusatory text message.

And this was a really tricky place.

I'm going to pause on that.

This is a really tricky place because, again,

the fuckery of all of this is that

I am aware of what this person is doing and how deeply at risk her children are.

And as this podcast is about to

release, I am deeply concerned for her mental health.

I might

reach out to her dad, reaching out to her sister to say, rally around her.

I don't want something bad to happen.

Enough bad things have happened in this family.

My God.

Yes, Sophie has been behind pretty much all of them, but I don't want the worst for her.

I'm still crazy enough to think like maybe there's a 1% chance somewhere that she could like

get healing and like actually live a life worth living.

And so I didn't want bad things to happen to her.

And I was earnest and honest in my attempts to say, family, people who know her, take care of her.

It's going to be hard because the truth is coming.

But when the accusation came back to me, like, have you said something?

You've something

it just bursts the dam because you know that you've I've had to process all these emotions but there was anger because I thought here you come pointing the finger at me and I am now aware

that the number of lies the number of betrayals towards me are so innumerable it's it's laughable except not laughable because it's just devastating

but i didn't want to have a conversation i didn't there's no confronting someone like this.

And so

I couldn't, you know, I had been like, you know, keeping my cards, lying by omission, if you will, communicating with you while keeping relationship with her for the sake of the kids.

But I couldn't, that duplicitous life for the birds.

Hate it.

Terrible.

10 out of 10, do not recommend.

I couldn't do it.

And so when that was finally like,

she was basically saying like, did you do it?

And I was like, yeah, I did.

And I sent her kind of like a final sign-off message that just said, like,

I love you, but I don't believe you anymore.

And

please do not contact me unless by some miracle, which I do believe in miracles, you choose a new way of life.

And if you

My door is always open to the truth and it is slammed shut for anything less than that, which is what has made up our entire friendship is deception and manipulation.

And so

I sent that message

shaking and trembling because again, despite it all, there's grief and sadness and I blocked her number and I don't expect to ever hear from her again.

But

if she ever listens to this,

I hope I do hear from her.

I don't think you're all bad, Sophie.

I don't.

I think you could be really brave and do the right thing.

And I would pick up our friendship again.

And I would be there for you like I have been if you will be honest

in a heartbeat.

Like I

love her.

I care about her as a person.

I don't understand all the factors that have contributed.

I don't know how it's gone this far.

I don't know how she's become who she's become, but I believe that she has deep pain.

It's not an excuse, but I think there are reasons.

You know, you listen to the Hopi Bar case and on the one hand, it's so disturbing and so horrific, but I'm a human.

Like I realize that no matter how upper middle class you live, like life still hurts, trauma still happens, things still happen.

At some point, you believed that this was the way to receive love and you were sorely, devastatingly, horrifically misguided and you have made horrible mistakes.

But I don't think anyone is beyond the reach of grace.

I don't believe that.

And so

I hope against all hope that

there could be healing for that whole family.

And I will always be championing that for that family, no matter how villainized I am.

You know, I've been immediately cut off, blocked on all the things you can be blocked on from the family.

And I know that this story about me is that I'm a traitor.

And it's heartbreaking because the truth is that I love that family.

I love Sophie's parents.

I think they're good people.

I love Sam and her family.

I wish them all well.

But for the love of God, would you guys open your eyes and protect those children?

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You know, I think probably one of the reasons that we did connect as much as we have is that I know that you mean that and that you hold all of those complicated truths about Sophie.

And

it is so complicated for those of us.

You know, something I talk to friends who are survivors about a lot.

And it remains, you know, complex for me, where on the one hand,

this behavior is

so

cruel and

horrible and damaging.

And I don't ever want to soften it for anybody.

Right.

Because we do that too much already.

Like, oh, they're struggling with a mental.

And they're like, no.

Right.

No.

Right.

No.

It's inexcusable.

They, they're doing what they're doing.

They're committing these horrendous acts.

They're putting their children in

danger.

They're lying about it.

They're manipulating everyone.

It's very dangerous behavior.

And I don't think that that precludes

us seeing the humanity in them.

Yeah.

And both the conversation with Hope

and one of Sophie's journal entries in particular,

the one where, you know, a lot of her journal entries are these extremely florid, you know, plugging into this narrative about herself as

Jesus, essentially, you know, right?

Like on this sort of, you know, I'm this martyr and I, my daughter, and, you know, I'm like sort of talking to God and really, you know, framing herself that way.

And then there's this one entry.

where it's very plain spoken.

It's a very different tone.

And she just sort of says,

Yeah, I'm a compulsive liar.

I've done this.

I've done that.

This is when it started for me.

You know, around the age of four, I remember feeling this way.

And, you know, that the only way that I could be loved and be worthy of love was to have it the worst.

The highest need, yeah.

Right.

And I mean,

I felt like that was the truth.

And that felt

like

that felt true.

And I,

it really broke my heart to read that because I just, I can still

remember a version of my sister that I did really love and was really close to.

And

whether that's sort of the real her or not, or whether that was always a mask, or whether something in between is sort of, you know,

a deep and open question.

But I think about that, about her being younger in particular and being in that kind of pain.

And it makes me really, really sad and i do think that megan and sophie are in a lot of pain i think it's a sad and horrible and destructive way to live a life yeah and

i

think

they

do so much damage to others and they also do so much damage to themselves and i think it really also

you know thinking about the lack of connection that you would have to feel with other people to be able to do these things, the lack of empathy that you would have to feel to commit these acts,

that must be so profoundly lonely.

I mean, Talis, you're a mom also, like, you know, I have two little kids, like

the love I feel for my kids is like the most rewarding thing ever.

You know, like, it's just like, it's the best.

And like, just your relationships with other people, whether you have kids or not, like having deep relationships with other people and trust with other people and connection with other people is like the thing that makes life worth living.

And I think like

the way I feel about, it was like, you know, while I was like digging into this case, I was just like,

you know, it's like the more I learn about Sophie, the, the, the sort of more remote she is.

And just like talking to people who knew her and, you know, you were, you were one of our background sources and, but we had others.

And I did talk to a number of people who, who know her and knew her.

And I just sort of felt like, oh, nobody knows this person.

This person's unknowable.

And that was what I ultimately felt about my sister.

And it's like, people think they know some version of Megan and they don't because she's unknowable because everything is a lie and it's everything is, there's no sort of like unadulterated version of her.

that is connected to another person.

Everyone's sort of a prop in her play, you know?

And I think like that really is

like, yes, that's horrible for the people who are being used as props, but it's also horrible for the person because they're at the middle of it and they're alone.

And

I mean, I think we can like, I don't think it's wrong to feel empathy for a person who's having that experience in their life because it is sad.

But you have to like

see the truth in addition to that because otherwise you're not going to keep.

the children safe or anybody else.

It's like you can't be safe around a person like that unless you see what you're really dealing with.

Right.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And, you know,

I can, I still, there are nights I can't fall asleep and I'll just cry and cry thinking about what a lonely, sad existence.

I believe that this is someone who is hungry

for love and to be known and just

has chosen, has chosen, let's be clear,

has chosen to

get that hit

in one of the most deeply destructive ways.

And that's devastating.

That's just devastating.

I don't want that for anyone.

But the priority shifts from the adult who is choosing this to here I am willing to talk about this case, willing to publicly say, I have been lied to.

I mean, there's so much I can't say, but

I mean, when you start combing back through the years of it all, you just are like,

oh, none of it was real.

That emergency, that emergency, that crisis, that crisis, that diagnosis, this, this, this, this, this, this, this.

It was always something.

None of it's real.

But

it is time.

Sophie has been the center point for a very long time.

And I am willing.

Out of my love for her, as much as she and people like her could never believe that.

Like, I love you enough to decenter you and hope the best for your healing.

And now to do whatever I have to do, whatever I feel compelled to do, whatever is the next right step to extend a hand of help to two little girls who are in a very dangerous situation.

And so this was my next right step.

I take no joy in,

you know, ratting her out or saying it's all true or being the person who comes on the podcast and says, like, I know her, like, this isn't fun for me.

This is not inherently rewarding, but I am compelled to do the uncomfortable thing and to do the thing that's hard.

And this is hard.

It's hard to say,

I was deceived.

I believed, you know, this is hard, but it's right.

I can and I will do the next right thing.

And the next right thing is to

extend myself as, you know, we called each other, like, I've been her girls' auntie, and the girls, Sophia was an auntie to my girls.

It was a, it felt deeply familial.

It felt deeply like this was going to go the distance.

This is crazy, but there was a time where

working to the finalization of the adoption of my girls.

I mean, this is how far in it I was.

And there's parts that are like embarrassing, but it, you know, whatever, it is what it is.

But there was a time when I had to choose.

I'm a single parent.

If anything happens to me, who do my kids go to?

Sophie was on a list and at the top of that list because

for everything that we know now,

there's a different side to all of these people.

That's kind of disastrous in my mind.

But there was a time when I thought that would be the next best option.

Yeah, it's a lot of loss.

It's a lot of loss for you.

It's a lot of loss.

And a lot of grief, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

For all of us, for my family, for my girls.

It's a lot.

Yeah.

And I mean, I can personally vouch for you not being here

with some kind of vendetta because, or to gain something, because

trust me, and my producer can back me up on this one as well.

You know, when we're, when we're sort of looking to talk to people about these stories, like the last thing we want is somebody who's like, yes, sorry, let's do this.

It's a little like, oh, maybe you want to do this, like maybe a little too much.

And then, you know, you wonder if someone's trying to settle a score or something.

Then, yeah.

And I know that like, especially considering like where we started this conversation of like, this can never be out there.

My name can never be out there.

And then,

you know, it really was just like watching you evolve.

And then really this conversation came about because you had shared something on your Instagram

about like the book and the show.

And I was like, I wonder if Talice is feeling like she wants to talk about this.

And then, you know, and then so we had that conversation.

Since since stepping into this whole world and this new understanding of what medical child abuse is there's another incident in my life there's someone else I know a friend of a friend you know it's not that

I wish it were more rare than it is but it's popped up in another place and I've talked to other people and it's popped up in their life and

I feel

like my work

like the whole work of my life is like

defend those who are defenseless, you know, care for the marginalized and the oppressed.

These are tenets of my faith that I still cling to and what I believe it is to be a good person.

And so,

yeah, this is the next right step.

You do the hard thing and you talk about the things

in secret.

It's my dog's head.

You give a voice to the things that are not being given a voice.

And this is such a deliberately, successfully silenced form of abuse that

there are not the safeties and the protocols in place.

And so now it's this new, unexpected part of my life that I never wanted and I'd love to back out of, but I won't, to

do the work.

What does that look like to protect children and to advocate for children who

are in harm's way.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, like, same all around.

Like this is not what I expected to be doing with my life.

Right.

You know, and I'm glad that I've gotten the opportunity to do something that feels valuable.

And

believe it or not, this was not a long-term plan to have a popular podcast that I just was like, you know what I'm gonna do?

Right.

So Talice,

it's been so wonderful to get to have this conversation with you.

It's one of many conversations we've had and hopefully

will have in the future.

But I really appreciate you doing this with us.

And just lastly, and I think, you know, when we were talking about this, like what we both hope, and I think what we made me realize about like hearing about your experience of listening to the show, you kind of realize like there's so much fear

around confrontation when you're in one of these situations.

How the person will react, how the family members will react, whether or not you will be believed.

And because you've been gaslit, you worry that you're crazy.

And I realize that having some kind of passive way to process it

can be really helpful.

And

so I think like,

I think we both hope that M in particular, you know, but C also,

will someday listen to this because it will hopefully give them a way to like process that information that does not involve taking a personal risk off the bat.

And so, if they do hear this,

what do you want to say to the two of them directly?

But I love them both so deeply.

And

they are like nieces to me.

They are

You always have been so special to me.

You've been friends to my little girls.

You have made their lives lives better and richer and fuller.

And Aaliyah and Jamila love you and our family loves you.

And there's nothing that we wouldn't do for you.

Our home, our hearts, our money,

it's all like open to you and

We'll believe you.

We'll always believe you and

I promise to keep fighting for you however I can

and to keep fighting for your family and in my own way to keep fighting for your mom

who I know you love

and when I say I'll fight for her

I will do that in a spiritual way I will pray for her

I

will always keep a soft part in my heart to her.

But

the Howards love you so much

and we see you

and I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry for all the pain.

Thank you so much.

That's really beautiful and

you know I guess like

I said this to hope

I put this out on the air, you know in the beginning I think there was like this part of me that was hoping, obviously, that Megan would listen to it and be like, oh, look, my sister has gone and learned all these things where she can help me.

Right.

And now the accepting of that help is like a totally different story.

But I think like,

I know I'm the enemy big time.

But like also,

I think

you and I have the right idea about what it means to help someone like Megan and Sophie, right?

Because like we can connect them with the people who built the treatment model

for this.

Right.

That is possible.

Not easy,

but it's possible.

I think

it's really important to like sort of

first like keep the lights on for the kids, right?

But then like

for them too.

Like you said, if they ever wanted to come out of

this,

there would be another way.

There's always a way.

It feels so far gone.

I admit that.

It's

gotten so dark,

but

I believe that for every human, that there is always a way.

Sadly, so often there aren't people to support, but there are.

There are people that know everything

that have been hurt the most by this.

Even I, even Andrea, like, we will still reach a hand out and say, like, you too

are worthy of rehabilitation.

You are not a monster.

You have made monstrous choices.

You are not a monster.

You are human worthy of love.

And if you choose that, you won't be alone.

You won't have to choose it alone.

Is there anything else that you want to say before we get off?

Thank you, Andrea, for

your brave, brave work.

You

have given your life to something so unglamorous, so unsexy, and so messy, and so dangerous and crazy.

It is for love and it is for liberation.

And it is because you are a person of

unspeakable hope.

And I'm so thankful.

I hate everything that I know, but I'm so thankful that because of your work, I'm on the other side of a delusion.

And this work is

so important and will liberate so many people and will be a hand on someone's back when they feel so alone in the wake of uncovering these terrible truths and reckoning with abuse and reckoning with all these things.

You are lighting away and

I'm so thankful and it's taken immense courage and you just keep waking up and choosing to do it because

you have a heart full of love and so thank you I really owe you so much and I'm deeply grateful oh well thank you so much for saying all that that just means

the world to me and I I'm so grateful for you as well and

thank you so much for

being here with us.

And we will keep talking about the next right step.

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