Unabridged interview with Patrick (son of Dr. Sally Smith)

True Story Media.

Hello, it's Andrea.

So today we are bringing you the unabridged version of one of my favorite conversations that I had this season.

And this is with Patrick, who is Dr.

Sally Smith's son.

You know, the biggest surprise of this season was that I got the opportunity to interview Dr.

Sally Smith, and it happened because of Patrick.

He reached reached out to me early on in our season.

And so it was really fascinating to get to sit down and connect with Patrick and just talk to him more about who his mom actually is and what this whole experience has been like for his family.

And of course, I also got to interview his mother, Dr.

Sally Smith.

And we are going to be sharing the unabridged version of that conversation, but that one is going to be subscriber only.

So if you want to listen to that, go ahead and check us out on Apple Podcasts or on Patreon.

In the meantime, here is my conversation with Patrick.

If you just can't get enough of me in your ears, first of all, thank you.

I have a job because of you.

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The Mother Next Door, which I co-authored with Detective Mike Weber, is available in all formats wherever books are sold.

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Well, it's so good to see you.

So

I just wanted to start with

how did you find the podcast?

And because you reached out to me, I got a voicemail from you.

This was, gosh, this was a few months ago, probably now.

A couple months ago.

So how did you find the podcast and what compelled you to reach out?

Yeah, at the time that the Netflix film came out that

sort of launched this whole story into a more

into the public discourse, a good friend of mine shared the podcast with me.

And this was at a time when the dialogue was pretty one-sided about the whole case and

about, you know, sort of what my mom did, both both both in her usual role and in this case specifically.

So,

and the podcast immediately stood out to me as

specifically the episode of

you and some of your guest hosts responding to the film that stood out to me as a really measured and

critical take, as in a lot of critical thinking was applied to the claims made in the film.

So,

yeah, I mean, the work kind of spoke for itself.

Oh, well, I really appreciate that.

And

I mean, obviously

I, so

I wanted to interview Dr.

Sally Smith from the beginning of starting on this project, probably before that, because I'd read even about her in some other stories.

And this was the interview that I thought I was never going to get this season.

I just thought, I think I put in a request through the communications folks from Dawns Hopkins, but I was like, there's no way she is ever talking to the media again.

You know, she did the one interview with New York Magazine and they just did her so dirty, in my opinion.

And so I was shocked when I heard from you.

And I mean,

given how your mom's been treated in the media, I mean, did that feel risky, even reaching out to me?

It felt really risky.

I

at the time was,

I think we had received harassment online.

We were concerned about

people actually coming to her house.

And,

you know, we have that fear even now, my family does, about any sort of media

contact.

And so

it took two to three weeks, I think, before I even started to consider the idea of reaching out to you all.

The,

yeah, the

I don't know what else to say beyond that, just that

it was it was after I had started to see some of your further coverage on the case and then also looking into your coverage of past medical child abuse cases that

knowing what my mother had been through with other interviews, I really started to think that this was

a really rare chance to talk to someone who would

really consider all the aspects of the story and not simply the parts that can be kind of sensationalized.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I mean, I was super honored to hear from you guys.

And I'm really interested to know.

I assume, you know, you and I have been talking back and forth for a couple of months and I've had a kind of series of conversations.

And

yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I feel sort of, I think we, we feel a bit of a bond because there's just so few people that it seems like are understanding what's happening here.

And it can make you feel like you're losing your mind a little bit.

And I really appreciated being able to have that connection with you.

And I'm assuming that it took some convincing to get your mom to be open to the idea of talking to a podcaster.

And I mean, I'm curious what you can tell me about how those conversations went.

I didn't bring up the idea of my mother talking to the podcast until after you and I had had a few phone calls.

I think we'd had two phone calls at the point that I

opened the idea up to her.

And

she was

really hesitant at first.

I think, you know, rightfully so.

And it was only after I shared

podcasts with her that had discussions with Carol Jenny and with sort of other people in the field that she really looks up to and respects, and

that have gone through a similar experience as she has.

And

I am,

you you know, I'm kind of a podcast junkie, or at least I was.

I think this

last

few months has kind of broken my brain a little bit and kind of changed my ability to consume anything.

And so

I'd say

at least used to be.

And

I

remember talking to my mom and telling her, like, you know, I've listened to a lot of different shows.

And I said, like, this one is

different, or at least it's in, you know, the

high tier of like doing your homework and

documenting

your sources and claims.

And

it was through that combination of sort of my,

I guess, experienced consuming of podcasting and my take on it to her, plus her just listening to some of those curated episodes and getting a sense of the kind of work that you all do.

Yeah.

Say a little bit more about what you just said when you said that these last few months have broken your brain a little bit when it comes to consuming media, because

I think I'm going through something similar.

So

tell me what you mean when you say that.

Well,

it has been a gradual process that has kind of

worn us down, us being

my mom and her family.

This all started

a few, well, you know, it started in

July or so, or this started in the summer when the film came out.

And

at the time, I was working really on the other side of the world in a pretty remote area.

And so,

and doing a job where I actually used to listen to podcasts a lot, like one, you know, a lot of people do, just like one headphone in.

And

I would go out into this, when I would go out for a day of work, I'd be out of cell range.

And

I

would just have these almost like anxiety attacks during work, thinking about, you know, I knew that my mom was being doxxed, harassed, identified, that people were talking about coming to her house and burning it down or hurting her.

And that was,

I think, that the wires kind of get crossed in your brain when you're worrying about something that's that intense.

And

I listened to various hot take episodes on the film just to see what people were saying.

And it was just one after the other, people saying, like, this woman deserves to anything from go to jail to die.

And

yeah, it created, I think, like the association in my brain is now with a fair amount of stress with any sort of coverage of

this case.

And then also sort of the format of podcasting has been kind of

distorted for me now.

Yeah, yeah,

I can see that.

And I think, you know,

it's so personal and visceral for you.

I think this was what, you know, and

it's on such a more muted level because I think there are these varying, you know, degrees here where, like,

I remember what it felt like to see that My Kicks and Bog piece in

the paper and in our, you know, in our local paper and on our local TV station.

And that was a national story, but I mean, it's not, not the level of tens of millions of people watching a

Netflix film and then sort of this whole cottage industry of people.

you know, covering that case because of that.

I mean, obviously, I'm included there, but,

you know, I just remember feeling like, yeah, like this really deep sense of betrayal and,

you know, just injustice at how wrong they'd gotten it.

And it was a very similar thing to what, you know,

formula-wise, to what's happened to your mom,

where they picked on the doctor and

she got harassed.

She got, you know, a ton of blowback, really reputation got dragged for the mud.

They dug up a few other families that were mad at her and just used the same exact formula.

And could she say anything?

Nope, because nobody had signed a HIPAA release.

So, you know, and in that case, like I, I knew about that case.

I feel very strongly that that doctor's actions probably saved my niece's life.

And to watch her go through that was totally devastating.

And so

you've been through that, but like amplified by, you know,

a huge factor in terms of

that being your mom, who's the person directly being criticized.

And

just like, yeah, I mean, I, the online vitriol against her, and it sounds like some of which is translated into real life is like nothing I've

like almost like nothing I've ever seen.

Um, so I'm just, I, I really, yeah, I just, I really

feel for you.

Um, so I want to just back up.

Um,

assuming that you watched the movie,

Yes, I did.

Um, I mean, what was your,

did you know much about it going in?

Were you,

I mean, what, yeah, what was just, what was your experience of watching the movie?

Well,

you know, I was aware that this case had happened, obviously.

The pieces had been written in the Sarasota Herald Tribune before,

and those had prompted some

questions from me to my mom about, like,

I mean,

starting from the point of, you know, are you doing okay?

This was before

it had been picked up by Netflix, but

I think

both because of how seriously my mother takes the sort of privacy of this whole topic, and

I think just the nature of our relationship and how we can discuss things,

I have always kind of understood that, you know, I have to respect that boundary as something that she can't talk about.

And so, up to the point of the film being released,

I had no idea who

any of the details of the case or who the

family was,

though I

was roughly aware of sort of the

medical child abuse

analysis that she had done, and

that this was

one of the more alarming cases that she had encountered in her career.

So

that was the extent of what I knew about the case before the film came out.

And

just knowing

how

my mom sort of approaches like the critical thinking and

sort of like the scientific aspect of her work, I could pretty quickly see the way that the film was edited and the way that they presented their story, that it was really not presenting it from that,

with that kind of frame of mind.

But I did still kind of, I tried to maintain some respect for that,

the sort of the privacy that everybody in these cases deserves, the families, you know, most of all, and the children that are affected.

Yeah, you know, it's really, I have to say, it's, it's striking to hear you say that.

And

having spoken to your mom, hearing her talk about it that same way, and even seeing,

you know, the back and forth.

She, you know, sent me the email with Liz Boyd, who's the fact checker for New York Magazine, and

seeing how seriously she takes the privacy of the families as a whole, and specifically, of course, of the kids.

And

that, to me, has been one of the points of

real dissonance in watching the actions of the people who are right now positioning themselves as Maya's advocates, as Maya Kowalski's advocates.

Jack Kowalski, her father, and Gregory Anderson, the lead attorney.

Their actions have demolished any hope that this young woman ever has of privacy and

have

put her and her brother in a position to relive their worst traumas over and over and over again

for their entire teenage years and going forward to however, who knows how long, because

there's this legal case is nowhere near from over.

And even when that's over, the reverberations of it have been their defining years.

And to see that behavior contrasted with the medical professionals involved,

even understanding that there's like a legal

issue of HIPAA and all that stuff, but just like

I can tell that's something that your mom really takes seriously, just as a value.

And

to look at that in contrast to the way that this has been turned by the other side, by the plaintiff side, into a pop culture story

is really

dissonant to say the least.

So, yeah,

I can see that.

So if we can just like back up from the whole recent events, I'd love to know just

what your mom was like as a mom growing up, you know,

how you know her.

Well, I think that everyone who

in our sort of nuclear family, as well as just everyone in her life, would say she's like a caretaker personality type, if that makes sense.

She,

I think,

to the point that it like, you know, irritates

me and my sibling, you know, and if we ask my mom what she wants to do, where she wants to go out to eat or something it's like like she is um just solely focused on like what other what would make other people happy

um

and i have

um

you know i think that everybody thinks that their mother is special but like i

um

truly like think that

the amount of like happiness she created in our our lives when we were young kids is like this kind of um

I mean it just

it's hard to describe and

she was this

she's um

she's warm she's not stern she's like

um

just pays attention to

needs that you don't really realize that you have in the moment and then

But then at the same time, growing up with her, like my sister and I were, I think, aware from like

relatively early age, the sort of work that she did.

And

so

it was interesting to

grow up in her household.

And in all of our one-on-one interactions or interactions as a family, she's just, she's

warm and caring.

And then she has to do this job where you have to actually kind of turn off part of your,

I think, the emotion parts of your brain.

She

would just work these like late hours into the night.

Remember our dinner or our dining table not being a dining table.

Instead, it was covered in

like that.

That was her office that she would work in.

And I just remember her working there into the, like, late at night and

working on these topics that are just really brutally serious, you know, like blood in a kid's urine or like a bizarre fracture that nobody can explain that

to anybody in

anybody in the everyday society would think that a kid had like, you know, fallen two stories out of a building or something, but in fact, it's related to

a parent that couldn't control their emotions.

I think a lot of people have, I've actually seen this speculation about like clips taken from her deposition where she seems robotic or something.

And

I mean,

it's weird to see that so prominently displayed when it's such a tiny part of

her day-to-day life and not a part of her personality.

It's more that I think you have to have this ability to separate your

warmth and caring that would motivate you to be a pediatrician, you know, from a job that forces you to face some of the darkest parts of human nature.

Yeah, I mean, that's so well said.

And it, it is, it's a quality that I feel like, you know, there's, there's two other child abuse pediatricians that I've gotten to know pretty well, Dr.

Carl Jenny and then Dr.

Jamie Kaufman, who we've had on the show a bunch.

And I mean, I think it's a real, like, there is just a real specific quality.

Again, it's that, that

not very many people have.

I mean, I think it's just one of those jobs you either sort of are designed for or not, where you have, you know, the ability to like, get to, to look that the, yeah, the darkest element that like most of us couldn't would be haunted by a day in that job, you know, let alone decades.

And yes, your mom cracked us all up when she said that her sister called her before she went down to testify and reminded her about her resting bitch face.

And that just cracked me up because I also, yeah, have, have seen some of that commentary.

And, you know, number one, she's

giving a deposition to Gregory Anderson, you know, for many, many hours on the stand.

And I do not want to know what my face would look like if I had to be giving him a defosition for 20 minutes.

But,

you know, yeah, we have this real, I mean, there's some real misogyny here that, like, if a woman has a serious look on her face, a woman who's in a serious role, who's on the stand, like, I don't know what people exactly want her face to look like under those circumstances because it would be deranged if she was smiling during that.

But yeah, I mean, we do, we do judge women that way.

And

yeah, I mean, I think that that sort of selective editing that happened in the film in particular was

pretty notable.

I'm interested to know when you said, you know, I think it's always really funny to

like ask kids what they think their parents do for a living.

I famously told someone when they asked me what my dad did for a living that he didn't actually do much.

He just told other people what to do,

which, you know, I kind of stand by that, but no, I'm kidding.

But

like, did you like with that's obviously like you know there's obviously got to be like a lot of sort of age appropriate moments of explaining that kind of work like do you do you remember like what

you know like

do you remember kind of what the process of understanding what your mom did for a living was like

so i have been trying to reconstruct this um

recently i mean since this all has been thrust so fully into under a spotlight um

And

I think the point where I knew where she worked was because when I got old enough to notice the times when she had to leave at weird hours, you know, and like,

you know, if she wasn't there for dinner and you start to ask, like, where's mom, you know,

and my dad.

uh would would just tell us like oh she had to go to child protection team and it was like a word You know, like when you're a kid, sometimes words mash together.

You just think child protection team, like that, you think it's like one word.

It's like a place.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

It's a name, you know, it's like Publix or something.

So that was when I kind of became aware of it.

And then it must have been, you know, that would have been like five or six years old.

And then I started to put together that those words are separate and mean something.

And then

I remember,

I must have been around 10

or

yeah, maybe nine or 10.

And I remember asking my sister about a phone call that my mom had had to take.

And I didn't understand some of the words that she said.

You know, I mean, like, she would take these calls privately, but sometimes, you know, you overhear snippets.

And I asked my sister what blood in the stool meant.

And

my sister, who's, you know,

close to three years older than me, i think had you know picked up more than i could and told me that um

you know that that

just rather matter of fact that that's what happens when um someone's been beaten to the point that they're bleeding inside and

um

and then they and then it all kind of clicked you know what her her job was um

and so

Yeah, and

my sister listens to this.

I I don't even know if she remembers that, but

that was a moment where I knew what my mom did.

And then from that point forward, it's been pretty matter of fact when people ask what my mom does.

I think just because of the

seriousness, the seriousness with which she does her job.

And

I think the conviction that she

displays that this is

the right,

that it's the right thing for her to do with her life is to protect kids.

And

so I've actually, like, for years been quite proud when people ask, like, what do your parents do?

I'm like, oh, my mom works for child protective services.

And

basically, I tell people, yeah, you know, like,

have you ever thought about like there must be someone out there who has to medically assess a kid after they've been abused?

And they're usually like, oh, yeah, I guess that does make sense.

That's a thing that has to be done.

I'm like, yeah, well, that's what

my mom does.

Yeah, I mean, I

would imagine that you're deeply proud of your mom.

Yeah.

Um,

I think everybody is proud of their parents, you know, for the job that they do.

But I don't know if that's true.

I don't, I don't know if that's true once you get to adulthood.

I think as a child, you idolize your parents, but I mean, you are just, you're...

I think early 30s, right?

I mean,

you are an adult.

So like the fact that I think, I think,

and I know I'm a parent.

I have two little kids.

And

I think if your kids admire you by the, if they still admire you, if they admire you in their kids, no big deal, you're a god in their world.

They don't have any reference points.

But if they admire you still when they're in their 30s, then I think that that says you've done a really good job as a parent, to be, to be totally frank.

I think most people who, most people have figured out that they're,

you know, people figure out that their parents are human beings as they're growing up.

So I think actually that's not always the, that's not even maybe frequently the case that people are still really proud of their parents by the time they're adults.

I'll say this about sort of my adult, my respect for her and everything she does now that I'm an adult is

I'm a, my job is that I'm a scientist and I am.

motivated by our sort of a family saying, which isn't unique to our family, but just that they're in the typical stiff upper lip, sort of Midwest,

I don't know, Protestant vibe of from those who have much, much is expected.

And

I actually, it's funny, as a kid, I rolled my eyes at that, and now I kind of believe it.

And I think that my,

you know, I became a scientist because I wanted to, and I'm still striving toward this.

I haven't achieved it yet.

I want to do something that

protects the environment in a way that will

benefit the kids that I hope to have and the future generations.

And I think that when I was a teenager,

I had the same sort of emotional motivation that I actually wanted to be a pediatrician.

I thought about it really seriously to the point that I volunteered at a children's hospital.

And I realized I couldn't pack it.

Like I couldn't deal with

seeing kids struggling with some of the things that they were dealing with.

And

so, in that sense, I can't be anything but proud of her because

I think of it like she takes this

same motivation that all of us have in our family and does it in a way that not everyone can handle.

You know, protecting kids from something as

hard to,

it's, I don't, like, I don't ever want to demonize any parents who are

in these situations where they have to deal with, you know, a case plan and stuff.

But so I'm not, I don't, I would never call any of this like

heyiness or anything like that.

But, you know, it's

you're,

I think she does a job that requires this

level of like poise and focus on like what is really important, which is, you know, the welfare of kids,

with a discipline that I can't

replicate.

And I've tried.

And so that's a big part of why I continue to just deeply respect the work that she does.

Yeah, I mean,

it's,

I think

part of what is going on here in this discourse is

something that I've really observed.

with my own work over the last few years as I've gotten into, you know, work related to child abuse is that, and I by no means could ever do the job that your mom does.

Like I, I think I've built up a tolerance for the work that I do, but I,

that to me would be to see that kind of suffering in children to see, and yeah, I mean, I really appreciate that you are not using that kind of language that demonizes people who abuse.

their children because I think that like that's not necessarily helpful, but those

acts are certainly heinous, right?

And

to understand

that

people are capable of that

and to really have to look that in the face is hard.

It's hard to think of

what people are capable of.

And that's something that I encounter all the time with that just disbelief about specifically the kind of abuse we talk about.

But I think it's, you know, with medical child abuse, but I think it's, it's true of all child abuse where

people don't want to look at it.

And I think sometimes we resent people that make us look at it.

And I think that's part of, certainly not the whole explanation, but I think that's part of what,

part of the sort of constellation of things that came together against your mom.

And,

you know, I think

people that are willing to look at it are so brave.

I, you know, I got a message from from someone,

and I can't remember.

It was either about some comment I'd made about your mom, or some comment I'd made about, or some interview with Dr.

Kaufman, or just kind of about child abuse pediatricians.

And they said to me,

You know, you should really look at whether or not those people are feeling pressure to come up with a lot of positive findings so that they can keep their jobs.

And I just thought,

do you live in a world where so few children are abused that someone has to drum up cases?

Like, this is not a job anyone wants to exist.

It's a job that has to exist.

And there are those people that are brave enough to do it.

And I just, like, I was like,

I just thought that's, that's amazing to me that someone could sort of do the math in that way, I guess, you know?

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's extraordinary, I think, how naive sometimes people are.

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Yeah, I mean, so you come from actually like a line of medical professionals.

So your your grandfather was a was a neurosurgeon.

Is that right?

That's right.

Yeah.

So

yeah, so that's, I, my grandfather actually was a surgeon as well.

So yeah, so I was gonna I was gonna ask you if you considered that a career, but you you did answer that already.

Um

yeah, so uh I'd love if you could just sort of tell us a little bit more about what your mom is like as a family person.

I know, and again, if you don't want to say this, I think, I think she might have mentioned it, but I know you have a nephew.

Like, what is your mom like as a grandma?

My mom,

like, she

restructured her,

you know, her work schedule around

being able to spend weekly time with him, which, you know, I'm immensely jealous of in some ways.

I live far away from my nephew and I wish I could see him every week.

But

gosh, she,

I mean, she dedicates herself to these

elaborate costumes after he watches a Pixar film and wants to,

you know,

play a,

you know, play a lead character with grandma there to you know be the sidekick um

she

okay so is your mom crafty is she like a is she a crafty mom my mom is really crafty she

um i think she made my sister a full uh dolphin costume when my sister was like four or five um like with you know her um the combination of sewing and probably plastering and stuff.

I mean, she's,

yeah, I think she's actually getting to relive this

really sort of glorious first few years of, you know, caring for a kid during their first few years when they're like immensely curious and exploratory.

And,

but, you know, need a need a guiding hand so they don't go, you know, jumping into a lake full of alligators or something.

Like, she, um,

yeah, I mean, I, the,

she's just like sort of effortlessly dedicated to

that kid.

To the point that, like, I think my

sister and her brother-in-law, or my brother-in-law, who, you know, one of my very best friends, like, I think they actually have to sometimes be like,

we need a day without grandma, you know?

And

yeah,

you know, the

kids at that age have this like immense immense energy and fixation on the same topics over and over and over again.

And like, she is just sort of tirelessly enthusiastic about all the same things that he's enthusiastic about.

And so, um, yeah, I mean, it's really nice to have that reminder of how to be a parent to a young kid when I'm approaching that, you know, stage in my life where we're hoping to have kids.

And so, um, yeah, just as a

sort of a

perfect little role model reminder of how you

how you do that.

That's amazing.

I feel like

my mom was also a prolific and amazing maker of Halloween costumes.

And so I have a five-year-old and an 18-month-old.

And, you know, Halloween just happened as we're talking.

And I had the realization to myself that that was a piece of my childhood I would probably not be reliving because I was like, oh, I, you know,

sorry, kid, you're probably getting Halloween costumes from Amazon because I, the time it takes to put together the idea that your mom was doing this job and was the elaborate Halloween costume maker.

I mean, that's, that's some, that's some gold metal parenting right there.

But yeah, I mean, I, I really like,

I can just see like on your face when you're talking about your mom, like, you know,

I think it's such a gift, right, to have parents like that and to be.

at this stage in your life when you're becoming a parent yourself or thinking about becoming a parent like that.

You're really lucky if you get to look at your parents and being like, oh, they, they're, they're showing, they're modeling good.

Like, I want to be like them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, and I think that she continues to be a role model in other, in other ways and how you have adult relationships.

Yeah.

I mean, I, I think something that struck me about your mom, you know, I was fortunate enough to spend like, you know, we spent like half a day together.

And I, I think one of the things that really struck me

was

she doesn't seem bitter about what's happened.

I think she seems justifiably

angry about,

but it seems to me that she's more angry about the effects she knows it's going to have.

Not, it doesn't actually sound like she's taken it.

I don't know, like, not that she hasn't taken it personally, but she doesn't have this sort of like, I mean, if I had been made the villain of a Netflix movie that tens of millions of people saw and dealt with half of the things she's dealt with, I would feel

pretty angry and bitter and personally aggrieved.

And I didn't see that with her.

And I was, I was sort of amazed by that.

I just thought, like, how could you go through this kind of, you know, this is this kind of public experience is like the stuff of nightmares.

And

I really didn't see evidence of that.

Well, I think part of what keeps her perspective

stable is that her work has always been in and around Pinellas County.

There have been various, you know, stories that try to tally up how many cases she

has dealt with.

you know, somewhere around like 3,000 cases.

And

people love to,

certain angry internet groups love to say that, well, that's like 3,000 people that have, you know, had their family torn apart.

And I can tell you that probably part of the reason why she's not bitter is because she's had

a lot of kids reach out to her who have grown up and said,

you know, I,

you know, what can you say about like, thanks for probably saving my life.

And,

you know, I think with that in mind, I think

this is a small blip relative to all the times that she's heard, you know,

young adults, people who are like finally out on their own and have gotten free of some sort of abusive or neglectful situation

and tell her that, you know, that they actually have some sort of future

because of that intervention.

So

I'm, you know, I'm not surprised that she,

you know, I sure, I bet there's a lot of,

you know,

just negative feelings toward Greg Anderson, people that took the two.

I think she can probably join the club there, but yeah, yes, sorry.

You know, I think there's

that's the only people that she feels negatively towards.

I mean,

you know, as much as

in my discussions with her since that film came out, like, we've,

I'm always, I try to be really respectful of, like I said, of like the families, the struggle that the family has gone through.

Like, I mean, I can't imagine growing up or

with this hanging over your head or dealing with this situation, but like,

I think like every conversation I have with my mom, even after

being dragged through the mud by, you know, a Netflix film.

Like

she

ends those conversations talking about like

her worry about what those kids will go through as they become young adults.

And I'm not surprised that that's how she ends the conversation because that's like what her motivation has always been.

I really thought, you know, as I've been metabolizing this conversation for the last week and a half, I just thought like, you know, there's something to be said about like true character being like, you're going to do the right thing,

even if everyone hates you for it.

And you're going to stand by those actions because you know it was the right thing.

And that's really what I got from your mom.

And like, that is, I'm like, okay, I, I mean, I feel like you're honestly like, I'm not, like, I, your mom is a role model for me now.

I mean, I just, I like,

I, I admire her so much.

And I think like, whatever,

you know, I say, I think sometimes people have

taken her certainty about her, what her work is to be arrogance.

And I did not

talking to her for three hours.

I've had numerous conversations with her since then.

Like, I don't, I don't see it.

And I mean, I'm also from a medical family.

Like, I'm a woman who's gone to the doctor many times.

Like, I understand doctors can be extremely arrogant.

Like, we,

it's not that, that archetype doesn't exist, but

I don't, I think her certainty is that she believes in the facts and she believes in her training and

that she has a great conviction about what her work means.

I mean, that's, that's, that's what I, that's what I observed.

She didn't, she didn't seem real,

I don't know, I guess it's just so stritely, she didn't seem defensive.

She didn't seem

like she wanted to self-aggrandize in any way or like, which I mean, I think after that kind of you know internet

experience like you know or her experience of harassment i keep saying internet but it's not just been the internet i mean

there's been you know there are police reports because of people threatening to show up at the clinic where she works and people calling and calling and calling the clinic and she's

when she told us about those experiences and you know talking about Viviana Graham, who's one of the moms from the film who talked about sending her this Christmas card every year.

And

she,

you know, she was like, they send it to my pediatric practice.

Your mom's always had the work of being the CPT and then being just a pediatrician, like a, you know, regular seeing kids, healthy kids and all that.

And she really resents people sending that to her office there because then her coworkers have to deal with it.

And that's, that's what she talked about.

She didn't say,

And I'm sure she is mad.

She's rightfully mad.

I'm not trying to paint her as a saint that has no, but, you know, whatever.

I'm not, but I just, I was very struck by that.

Yeah, she's like, she doesn't, she also like, I think she seems to accept the nature of her job and the way that that's going to make people angry and doesn't want that spilling out over onto her coworkers that are, you know, working in a pediatric's office.

And

yeah,

I mean,

I feel like in some ways this has probably been harder emotionally on you

in a lot of ways, just because I mean,

I can't imagine watching someone do this to my mom.

I mean, I'm very close with my mom also, and I really,

I mean, this, like, how is this?

You talked a little bit about this already, but I mean, what this must have taken such a toll on you.

Um,

well, you know, I

have worried over the last six months or so

about how this has

actually sort of cascaded out from me to affect

um you know my my wife i think she's had to deal with me at a time when i'm you know pretty emotionally

tightly wound

um

and

i

you know for a few months

when we were unsure of like how big this

Netflix funded wave wave of anger would get.

I was worried about, you know,

arson at her house.

I woke up,

I can't count how many times I've woken up from dreams where

either I'm there or someone calls me and tells me that she's been killed.

And I,

you know, wake up and throw up.

Yeah, I mean, it's,

it's gotten to the point where I, um, and I mean, you know, I like it.

Fortunately, it's died down a bit, but stupid things like

people found the, you know, my wedding album on Facebook and started posting comments about like that I was lucky to get away from my monster of a mother.

You know, like, it's just things like this where you, um,

and again, I want to make clear, like, I'm not comparing, I'm not minimizing the struggle that I think that Maya and Kyle have been through.

Like, it's, it's a nightmare that they've lived through.

And mine doesn't add up to that, you know, but

it just

it's been a,

it's weird to have that sort of just online mob.

that takes a certain glee in

just like a small twisting of the knife every

now and then at an unsuspecting time to

the point that you start to mentally break a bit.

You're like, how long does this go on?

Does this ever really end?

But

yeah,

it

has

certainly led to a lot of conversations about

what sort of

therapy needs to happen.

how, what is a way to deal with

the stress and the idea of a sort of constant, potentially violent threat.

But

yeah,

and

I mean, credit to my mom, I think she has played, as she's dealing with all of this herself, she has been one of the people that I've leaned on of like, how to,

how do I

handle this,

these emotions,

these feelings of

almost like a fight-or-flight, you know,

lizard brain reaction to it all.

So,

yeah, I mean, I don't know.

I would, I would, I'm not,

I don't ever want to make it seem like I'm

quantifying whatever I've gone through as being on the same scale as either my mom mom or the

Kwalski family.

Um, that everyone's been through a pretty awful experience.

Um, but

um,

but yeah,

it does really make me worry for humanity that like this seems to be an activity that a lot of people enjoy doing is like taking a movie because it really is a movie and thinking that that represents.

You may have noticed we do not refer to it as a documentary on this show.

And

they take that and see it as a call to action.

You know, there's

it's getting sort of dangerously close to some sort of vigilante justice

that

is not what a liberal democratic society is built on.

But yeah.

Yeah, no, I, you know, and I appreciate like, as you've mentioned several times, you know, and of course,

you know, this has been an interesting couple of months for me because I, nothing like anything that you're, you know, but like, I'm like, okay, we're officially avoiding Googling our name these days,

you know, and, and like being aware that some people have these feelings about, about me and that think I'm really doing something awful.

And,

you know,

I

think

that it is, it's sort of, it's confusing.

And I, also, the idea that I

am

against Maya and Kyle.

To be totally frank,

my opinion of Jack Kowalski, as I've watched the trial, as I've learned all of these things, as I've seen these communications that he was part of, as I've, you know, my opinion of him, better not said.

But the kids,

I am so worried about the kids, and I am not against them.

If all of this money were going to that, I mean, the amount of money is ludicrous, but if it was going to Maya and Kyle and Jack and Gregory Anderson were getting none of it, I think I would actually feel quite, quite a bit differently.

But

I think your mom saved Maya's life.

That's the only conclusion I can come to after having read

all of this, all the medications, Beata's communications, this was not going in a good direction.

It wasn't.

It's so parallel to something like the Olivia Gant case or the Danita Tuck case.

I don't know what the people who are detractors of

what I'm saying,

pointing out those things.

I don't know what they think was going to happen if she was allowed to leave the hospital.

And if they had let them leave the hospital and she died, what would they be saying about the hospital and your mom then?

And I think it's people's

either don't know the truth or absolute refusal to grasp that, what was at stake.

And

I don't think it's good for Maya and Jack to believe.

that a bunch of people were in a conspiracy out to get them.

And I don't think it's good for Maya to believe that she's this sick girl that's not capable, et cetera, et cetera.

I don't think any of those things are good.

And I don't think that a six plus year revenge journey is doing anyone any good.

So it's like

you can hold compassion for the kids, especially and for what the family's been through.

And the fact of having to experience your mother's death by suicide is horrible.

You can hold compassion for all of that and still acknowledge the truth of the case.

Like those things are not mutually exclusive.

And I would argue that you're not, it's no favor to these kids not to acknowledge that.

Well, and to your point about

the

conspiracy side of it all, you know, I think that

there have been

sort of, there have been pretty dubious constellations made out of

the

individual points in this case and people sort of drawing patterns,

for instance, about like some sort of quota that like a CPS

medical director has or something like that.

I mean, I can tell you,

if there's any logic to this, let's just walk through this.

So I, as an adult, as you've said, I have

sort of

it separate from the just the deep love I have for my mother.

I have a deep respect for the work that she does.

And

that is

partfully, that is partly born out of like when I was, you know, a teenager.

And like, I just remember like being,

I was playing soccer at, you know, a fairly competitive level.

And like often,

maybe not often, but there was, there were no shortage of times where she would miss a game or something.

And it was because I would learn later, like, she

was, you know, doing a medical exam exam for a kid who had been, had had their skull cracked by their, by their parent or who had,

you know, in rare cases, you know, dealing with medical child abuse or,

I mean, it comes in all sorts of forms.

But,

you know, she is an extremely attentive parent and she sacrificed a lot, a lot of school events, a lot of like school concerts and soccer games and birthday parties and stuff to go look at like the worst thing that you can look at.

And

we certainly had a stable

family income growing up, but like she did that for years without a raise, you know?

Like there was her salary stayed the same for like, I don't know, a decade?

Like, you know, and

you would hope that you'd at least get a cost of living raise, you know, in that time.

But the, just,

there's,

I don't really know what else to say to the claims that there's some financial incentive or like a sick ego incentive,

you know, like she'd come back at

like late at night, just kind of like

broken sometimes by what she had seen.

And like,

and

I get that some,

I get that some people who are affected by this and feel that they've been unfairly, you know,

identified as someone in need of help in how they parent their kids.

I get that that's a really stressful experience, and that maybe that's like the shortest line you can draw between two points: of like, well, this person must have some motivation.

They must be getting something out of it.

It lines right up with the like, why are cops giving out speeding tickets?

It's like, oh, they must have a quota that they have to hit for the month.

I mean,

if

that was the motivation, well, she didn't get money out of it.

She didn't get more time with her kids.

She sacrificed a lot to

deal with this topic for decades.

And

I don't, if people don't believe that, that's fine.

But

maybe they should at least hear somebody in her immediate family say that, like,

all of us kind of bore a bit of a sacrifice because of this job when we were growing up.

And

I can't change anybody's mind about it, but

it should be said.

Yeah, I mean, and I think, you know, I heard from,

and I'll definitely mention in the episode because

I asked if I I could mention it.

I just heard from someone,

you know, that she has, that she was a lawyer, she was a family court lawyer for years in Pinellas County.

And she had really good things to say about your mom.

And she said, I remembered a whole bunch of times she would testify on behalf of a kid and not charge because, you know, and

yeah, I mean, and even if it was for some ego thing, it's like, well, your mom wasn't out there seeking press for being this amazing doctor.

She did not want to be in the press, right?

It's like, I don't, I think if someone had those motivations, you would see evidence of them.

That's the thing, right?

Like there'd be some trail, some paper trail there of, you know, we know it when we see it.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, I,

My position is that the truth still matters, even if people, I know there's going to be people that discount everything you say, everything I say.

Um,

but it's not everyone.

And there are a lot of people that watch this movie that just have no idea about the facts in this case.

And I think, you know, you had said this thing earlier about how this broke your brain in terms of experiencing media.

I think for me and actually for the entire team here, as we've made this season and sort of, you know,

unthreaded everything in this documentary, having all watched it months ago and now poured over the transcript many times.

Um,

when you realize how there's just nothing to it, it's so thin.

And it sort of made me go, oh my God, like how many podcasts or documentary, documentaries, or whatever have I consumed and just been like, well, that's true.

So this is a true story.

So this person must have done their due diligence.

They must have talked to both sides.

They must have documentation.

They must have,

and now we realize that's not true.

You actually can just put something that bears almost no relation to the truth, and Netflix will buy it because it's an emotional story that's going to inspire outrage.

And that is a currency, and that is real.

And

I don't think

I just will never look at anything the same way.

And that part, that part is hard to sort of, you're like, oh,

it has shifted my worldview.

You know, but I think it's like, you still have to try, right?

You still have to try and get the truth out there.

And I think,

and I think it's so, you know, something that there's like, it's a real setup here with doctors where they can't talk in the media and they can't respond and they can't speak out for themselves.

So,

you know, we don't we think of doctors as powerful people, but actually they're incredibly vulnerable when it comes to this kind of coverage.

And so I think there are a lot of people that just are swallowing the narrative that they're given, much like I'm sure I have.

It's not just because they're dummies, you know, or like not capable of critical thinking.

And I, I think that this will mean a lot to people to hear from you.

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I just wanted to ask you, kind of as like a final question.

What do you want people, like what do you most want people to know about your mom?

I guess I would.

I would want them to know that,

you know, when you get a family together and you talk about something like this that's happening in your life, you know, we just had Thanksgiving, we all got together and

wanted to check in on my mom and how she's doing.

You know, people get

animated and they will have a lot to say and they'll say their

worst,

you know, their

least generous ideas if they're angry about the world.

And

even in that environment, even like no matter what, like as you said, she is,

she's not bitter at the

way that this has shook out.

I, you know, you can just sort of,

she hangs her hat on the knowledge that like a lot of children are alive because of her.

And

I get that one slickly edited film makes it seem like one of those cases is dubious, but like

there are so many

kids that grew up in Pamelas County that are alive because of her.

And

it's

really, you know,

in cases that I

where they've reached out to her and said as much, you know, I think there's,

yeah, that doesn't, that doesn't sell as a Netflix movie, but

even in these close conversations that would never, you know, that would be in, you know, in our, at our kitchen table, I'm kind of stunned that you can't get a

rise out of her.

You can't get like a

can't get a negative thing from her about this.

She's not going to rant even a couple glasses of wine in at Thanksgiving when most of us would rant about, you know, someone getting a parking ticket, right?

Yeah, because I think it's, she doesn't see this as

it's not that she's motivated to do this.

It's not that she loves this job.

It's that she sees it as something she had to do, right?

For,

I get, you know, in her testimony, I think she said that she was interested in it all because after going through a,

you know, in her in her internship, having some exposure to this topic, but like

it's,

I think that's why she's so sort of solemn when she does this work is that she sees it as like sort of a,

I'm not religious, but like, I think a, you know, a sort of a higher calling to do it.

Knowing that it's the right thing to do, even if you have to face like a horrible trial.

You know, I mean that in the sense of the trials of life, not a legal trial.

But

yeah, she

is

through to her core.

Has understands why this family has felt the way that they do,

but that

it still was the right thing to do

yeah i mean

yeah i i absolutely like i i i see that in talking to her and it's really had such

it's really had such an effect on me um

you know and when we talk to like detective mike weber

anything even even for me you know like and again i'm not comparing my job to hers by any stretch of the imagination, but like

sometimes you are, sometimes you realize that there is something that needs to be done that you can take on in a way that maybe other people can't.

And it's not because, like, oh, wow, this is the most fun.

It's because

it feels purposeful and there's a drive to do something where you are uniquely

sort of made to do it.

And I mean, talking to her mom, you know, it sounds like she had a mentor that really saw that in her.

And,

you know, and I mean, that's, that's a powerful thing, and we shouldn't make the cost for doing the right thing so high.

Yeah,

um, well, is there anything else that you want to say while we have you?

Um,

in some ways, I'm really

thankful for some aspects of all of this happening.

Um,

I

am so glad that I became aware of this show.

You know, my mom's career is over in this space.

She can't contribute to

this really important cause anymore as a medical director, but

this show, I think, is like.

Like,

there will probably be kids that survive

because of this.

So,

whatever vitriol you all receive, I hope you know that, like, it's

you're, you know, you're not just doing it for the same reason, but you're having, you're, you're doing it for the same impact.

Even if it's like, if there's one doctor out there who

realizes, because they're exposed to the show, like, oh, maybe I should revisit this one

case that I'm stumped by, and they realize that it's a potentially fatal,

you know,

instance of

medical child abuse.

I mean, that's worth it, right?

So,

so thank you all for the work that you're doing.

I'm glad that I

became aware of this show.

I'm a little,

thank you so much for saying that.

And yeah, like I have to say, you know, I

am aware of what the discourse is.

And, you know,

there's some scary people who have it out for your mom.

And I'm sure I'm going to hear from a few of them.

And,

you know, when we were walking out of your mom's house, I was like,

I'm, I bring it because, like, I've never been so sure I'm on the right side of something.

And I think it is

worth it to stand up for your mom and

everything she represents in this case.

And it's much bigger than this family and your mom and me.

And like, we all understand the impact here.

And I just like, I'm very grateful to have

had you, you know, to have made the connection with you too.

I really, you know, so

just thank you.

I mean, I, I, I'm so grateful that you got in touch and, and brought your mom, you know, got your mom on the show.

Like, I know she talked to me because of you, you know, and she said as much.

She's like, well, Pat put in a good word for you.

That helped.

And I was like, yes, you know, and

it's, it's like, to me, this is, this is like a once-in-a-lifetime chance to to help right a wrong.

And I hope as many people,

I hope if people ever listen to anything on this show, I hope they listen to this.

So thank you so much for being with us, Pat.

Yeah.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah.

Keep up the work.

Thank you.

And we'll be in touch, obviously.

I hope I get to meet you in real life sometime.

Yeah, that'd be great.

Yeah.

I hope so too.

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