Answering Your Season 6 Questions

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Hello, it's Andrea. Today is our season six mailbag episode.
Thank you to so many of you who shared your thoughts and questions with us about this season.

We really appreciate having such an engaged audience.

And as a reminder, anytime you want to get in touch, you can do so by sending an email to hello at nobody shouldbelieveme.com or leaving us a comment on Spotify.

We do check and respond to those as well. We're going to be back soon with some more updates on our season six story with Michelle and Soprina.

And next week, we are talking to the detective in the Olivia Gant case, which we touched on briefly last season, but wanted to take a closer look at.

If you want even more, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Patreon for exclusive bonus episodes.

This month we're talking about Unknown Number and the Kendra Lucari story, one of our most requested topics recently. We do have some main feed coverage of that story story coming up soon as well.

However, if you want to listen to me recap the lifetime adaptation of this story starring Lisa Rinna, you're going to have to subscribe.

As always, if monetary support is not an option, rating and reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts is a big help, as is spreading the word wherever you talk to people. We appreciate you.

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Hello!

It's Andrea, and I'm here with two of my fabulous team members, Mariah and Erin, for our season six mailbag episode. Mariah, Erin, how are you guys? Good, yeah.

You know, as well as one can be and appreciative of all of the folks who listen to the season.

Hi, Erin, how are you doing?

Yeah, doing all right. This was my second season with the show as a researcher and fact checker.
And

yeah, this was this is a really, really intense case, but but hearing the feedback from week to week, as well as those from the Patreon community who listened to it

kind of all at once was really great. And it was motivating just kind of as we're going along too, even in the episodes, the bonus episodes that we're doing too.

Yeah, agreed. And so, yes, I should have started off with introducing who the two of you are.

Both of you, as usually, you are behind the scenes presence and two of the people who definitely make this show what it is.

So we've got Mariah here with us, who is our lead producer and showrunner and Aaron, who is our research producer and fact checker

and keeps us, as we always like to say in the Slack, clean, cute, and out of court.

So

your efforts on this season, both of you are so deeply appreciated. I know this was a really tough season for all of us.

And I just wanted to sort of start with a check-in about what this experience was like for you. So we can start with you, Mariah.
You know, you've been with me now. This is our third season together.

And,

you know, we've been on the road together multiple times. You really are my right-hand person with making this show.
And so you went on the road with me twice to Georgia for this case

and obviously got to know, you know, Michelle quite well. And yeah, I mean, what was the experience of making this season like for you?

Yeah, I mean, with all of these seasons, you know, these are tough stories to dig into. And,

you know, we hope that by talking about them on the show, that one, more people can know about this type of abuse so that it doesn't just live in the shadows any longer.

And then two, hopefully you get, you know, in some instances, we're able to push people towards actionable items.

And, you know, especially with this case with Colin and then everything that's going on in Michelle's family, you know, there are still vulnerable people involved in this story.

And so in approaching it, we're, at least in my mind, I'm always thinking about how can we make sure we're holding the people who are being so vulnerable with us and sharing these really deeply personal stories in a space that feels safe for them, but then also thinking about the wider consequences, right?

And hopefully there's consequences towards justice, but also then what are the consequences that can hopefully help move the systems of justice in a better way as well.

But yeah, no, it's this was our first, I mean, we talked about it a lot.

This is the first case where we really had to talk about the death of a child, which I think really hit a lot of the crew pretty hard.

And so we tried to really honor the emotional space that it takes to tell that story. And then hopefully that it landed with the listeners also in a respectful way.
Yeah. Yeah.

And is there a moment from the season?

You know, I think like you, you as our lead producer, you spend the most time listening to all of the raw audio that we capture when we're on the road, when we're doing remote interviews.

Is there like a particular moment from this season that really stuck with you?

I mean, sitting, there's like two.

There's when we sat in the pizza restaurant on our first trip with Sabrina and Michelle, It was like, one, I think giving the opportunity for Michelle to really connect with her aunt in a space that was like, you're allowed to talk about Colin and Colin's story and the story of what has happened in your household.

And then when Sabrina, you know, sort of revealed Colin's last sort of words to her, I think is something that we all in the moment really hit us very. hard.

And it's, you know, when you're sitting with folks who are telling you about like the one of the worst days of their lives, you have to hold a space for them, but you also want to, you know, we're all human and you have emotional reactions to things, but you're like, this isn't my story to be emotional about.

So holding that space for Sabrina and Michelle felt really poignant.

And on a similar vein during the second trip to Georgia, we. uh kind of brought sabrina up to speed of everything that we had found out through our investigation and throughout working on this case.

And, you know, Michelle has been, you know, we keep her in the loop of everything as we gather information as well.

So I think she was a little bit more informed, but I just, I could see a moment of relief, I think, for Sabrina to know, especially when you connected with her as someone who is a sibling of a of a perpetrator about how you can constantly have that shoulda, woulda, coulda dialogue going on in your head, but it ultimately was not her fault.

And I think that that was a moment of true relief. And then it also was just like really,

you know, we were sitting outside. It had been after a long day of recording with everyone, like the cicadas and the frogs.
We were in this really, you know, lovely backyard in South Georgia.

And I think just having a moment of quiet serenity in nature was really nice. It was a moment to rest.
Yeah, those are two moments that definitely stuck with me.

And I feel so lucky that we're able to do field reporting on this show because you really do,

you know, it does like create just these really human experiences that is tough to have over Zoom.

And yeah, I mean, I think that that was something that,

and not in a particularly critical way, but I think there were some comments about, well, wasn't there something sort of the family could have done to intervene?

And I think we touched on that, obviously, in that episode.

And I think it's one of those things where there are some things that are so unique about this experience, about going through this situation in a family.

And like, I really felt like I could look Sabrina in the eye and tell her, like, it wouldn't have changed things.

It wouldn't have, because, because I went through it, you know, and it's like, there's truly no, um, yeah, there's truly nothing that would have been accomplished by that.

And like, I truly cannot imagine a circumstance where that would have ended with anything other than her getting caught out.

So yeah, I was really grateful that we got to have that, that conversation as well.

And then, Erin, for you, you know,

you and I are the two parents on the team also. So I think that always adds kind of a layer to this work.
And we both have young kids.

And I know that I know that that can kind of make this work extra difficult.

And yeah, what was this season like for you? I think one word for me, it was, it was gutting

in many respects.

You know, when Mariah talked about getting in the episode where Sabrina is talking about Colin's last words, like I distinctly remember that point in the production taking a few days away after fact-checking that particular episode.

But what I will, I think one of the hardest moments for me, and it was really the start of the season when we start to tell Angelin's story.

And I know that I

talked to the team with this and I was taking a pretty long time in getting getting through, I think it was the second episode, because there was just such,

so many medical records to go through, which was very unusual for these types of cases to have access to that, right? And the level of access that we had to the family was quite unusual this season.

And Angelyn,

you know, just reading about her time recounted in the hospital at the time of production, my daughter was around the same age.

And so that was really difficult difficult and just having to go through those medical records.

And I think... It just points to how convoluted this story was.
You have Michelle, you know, reconciling with her own identity and upbringing, right, as a victim of her mother's abuse, right?

And that she saw, you know, firsthand being inflicted on her two siblings.

And again, you know, Sabrina as well and her perspective.

And then, you know, later on, as we got into the issues surrounding Lisa's employment and what accountability there is for nonprofits right so there were just so many

I think tentacles to this story that made it all around really difficult to report on.

But perhaps one of the most comprehensive that we had as it related to kind of looking in depth at the system and systems that Lisa was able to take advantage of to perpetuate this abuse. Yeah.

And I, one thing that I know both Mariah and I really appreciate about your review, your reviews of episodes, you know, when we're going through drafts and polishing them up,

is that you're always a very reliable gut check reader.

And, you know, not just for factual accuracy, not just about, you know, keeping us out of court,

but also really making sure that we are in line with what our ethical goals are for telling the story, right? Because I think it is a really challenging balance to

where do we need to include the really shocking and horrible details because we need to get across what happened

and where is that too much? Or like, if we're sharing something that's sort of shocking and upsetting, like, is there a real strong purpose for that? I think the.

the details of Angelin's abuse, that was one of the, you know, one of the really difficult points, I think, for everyone working on it.

And then for listeners, you know, obviously, because it's just so shocking and it's so horrible. But we also had to say what really happened because Lisa had been able to whitewash it.

She'd been able to say, well, it was just this. It was just that.
It was only a few times.

It was, I had a mental breakdown, you know, and it's like, you really like, there's, there's always this tension, I think, with making the show of like, in order to get people to pay attention and recognize this for what it is, like we have to really like, you can't hold, you can't pull your punches.

But also, you don't want to get into this sort of like salacious shocking, you know, sort of shocking for shocking sake. And you're always a really good backstop.

Like I always, I always love a gut check Aaron comment.

So you're such a thoughtful listener and reader in addition to being an eagle-eyed fact checker. So really appreciate you.
Thank you. Thank you.

You know, I know with when it came to the story of Angelin's abuse and the extent to which we reported on it,

we're going back in time, but also in real time, I think knowing and understanding that Lisa, at least, you know, at the time, she had very close access and proximity to her grandchildren as well.

And so when I, you know, when we think about too, with Angelyn's kids

and Lisa, you know, having a close relationship and living with Lisa and Carrie,

we start to think about, okay, what the cycle of abuse, right?

And I think, I know that for our team, the way that we framed it and also in talking with Michelle, but it's, you know, it's the more eyes and ears we can have because the story, you know, is not ending with Colin.

And so the more eyes and ears that we can have

and also letting Angelin know that, you know, there's a community of people who are out there who continue to care about her and also her children,

you know, that that's an important reminder as well. Yeah.

Yeah. So yeah, thank you guys for sharing those reflections.

So I wanted to take us into kind of some feedback and some questions that we got about the season.

And so, you know, we're not going to spend too much time on this because I don't want to just sit here and read a whole list of compliments about the show.

But I did want to say, I mean, we've never gotten so much feedback for a season, just period. And we had lots of kind words from listeners.

So much love for the team and also for, you know, Michelle and Sabrina,

for the nurse, Judy, that we talked to, for Becca, who is one of our listeners who weighed in from a disability rights standpoint when we were talking about Gethie Jackson.

Just really like an outpouring of love for, you know, for us, which was very, very nice to read. I think this was a high wire act this season in many ways.

Like there was many things that we were really concerned about getting right. And so just to have that feedback that it was resonating with listeners really, I know, meant a lot to us.

I tried to share as those sort of came in.

And then also just like, yeah, huge outpouring of love for Sabrina and Michelle. And, you know, if you are one of the people who sent in those comments, we've shared a lot of them.

I know they've seen a lot of them. It's meant a lot to them.
And we are going to have them back on very soon. So I know people sent some questions for them.

So we will, we will not answer those questions on their behalf. We will get them back in here to talk about that.
But just again, thank you.

Thank you so much for all of the for listening and for caring so much about this case. I think that just came really clear that people really care about the outcome in this case.

And that matters a lot because Erin, as you said, you know, this story is not over. This cycle continues.
You know, Lisa is still living with her daughter and two grandchildren.

So, something we got a couple of questions about, and I'm going to kind of like group these into categories of questions because we did get, again, so much feedback from this season.

We got some questions about Carrie and about Carrie's role in this. And

I know we all have feelings on this. So, I thought, I thought we would kind of talk about this for a minute.

And this would be, I think, also, you know, as I was reading some of these, also, these give me, especially because we are continuing to report on this kind of guidance for like, oh, maybe we should get someone in here to talk about kind of the specific element.

And I know for me, having looked at a lot of these cases,

you know, what has really emerged for me is these sort of different types of perpetrator spouses when there is a spouse present that you see.

And they really run the gamut from, you know, full on dads who are so protective.

And the moment that they realize there is abuse happening, you know, that moment of confrontation, they act in a way that is very protective and they will fight to the death for their kids to be safe.

And unfortunately, that does often end up in a very, very long and painful and expensive battle.

And then you sort of see this middle ground where the dad's just, you know, checked out, or maybe he works somewhere where he travels a lot or he's in the military or for whatever reason, just doesn't really see what's happening, but then will, you know, when backed into a corner, will do the right thing.

And then you see dads like Carrie. And

Carrie and some other dad, I have seen other dads that are on this end of the spectrum.

So it's definitely like sort of a subtype, if you will, where I think Carrie can be fully considered, to my mind, I consider him fully culpable in this abuse.

And it's because of what some listeners have pointed out in this, and we didn't spend a ton of time talking about him,

but certainly, certainly I think we're, we're pretty aligned that he's, he's culpable for what Lisa has done because he was so present. He was defending her at at every turn.

He defended her on the stand. He's stuck by her.
He's had these couple moments of maybe looking like he recognized something, but has, it's fallen away every time.

And certainly, you know, like I talked to him on their doorstep. He was there when I had that confrontation with Lisa.

So yeah, my question for you two, and yeah, we can start with you, Mariah, like, how did your conception of Carrie, you know, evolve as we went through this?

Because this is also a family I've known for a long time.

So I think I had a slightly more charitable view of Carrie going in than I ended up with once I'd seen sort of all the evidence and the things he'd said on the stand and the fact that he was sitting in the room when, you know, she was abusing Angel.

And yeah, what was your impressions of him as a dad?

And especially as we have, you know, we have worked on some other cases together and you have seen him sort of in contrast to some of these other dads we've talked to. Yeah, it's interesting, right?

Because like, I think in comparison to other like spouses or co-parents, it's like we've seen ones where like the dad is completely cut out of the situation and is just made unaware due to lack of contact and like legal issues around that.

But with Carrie, it was like kind of just a big, you know, in the beginning, it was a big question mark.

I was like, oh, is this person been, you know, it's like, what bucket does this person fall into as far as like what other cases we've seen?

Is this someone who has just also been manipulated and had the wool pulled over their eyes?

And it's just someone who's like, I'm going to believe my spouse to the ends of time because I believe they're a good person, whatever their justification is, right?

But I think from the moment that, you know, Sabrina described in watching the videotape of Angelyn's abuse of when she saw Carrie tip the newspaper down, see what's happening, and just put the newspaper right back up, I think really shifted my thoughts around him.

in general.

And similarly, every other time I've heard like when Angelyn came home and they put her in a room far away, and then like, you know, there was the arson stuff with what they had Michelle put in another room and just the constant like not choosing your kids to me puts him into the category of like a co-conspirator, an abuser.

I think there was also a lot of big question marks about when Carrie and Lisa got married and how young Lisa was and how old he was.

And so there's just a lot of like red flags of predatory behavior overall that I noticed in Carrie's behavior.

And then to your point, Andrea, you know, watching how he came out and then talked to you and the other reporter, Meredith, when we were in Georgia and, you know, sort of his, I don't know, it was like a weird like vibrato of like, I'm going to stand in this doorway and pretend like I am protecting this castle, like kind of, you know, body language as I perceive it.

But

it's, yeah, I fully would consider him a, like a co-conspirator in this abuse at this point. Yeah.
In my opinion. But yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I agree with you about his stance,

you know, when I was talking to him. And certainly like,

you know, his stance when Michelle was telling her parents about doing this podcast.

And he was, you know, really like, well, this is going to, you know, devastate, you know, kind of the same guilt trip he tried to put on me, right?

Well, like, she's going to lose her job and you're okay with that.

like just really this treatment of like oh you're here to like ruin my family and i'm gonna you know kind of yeah like puff my chest up a little bit um

and i'm like where was this for your kids right it's like where's that energy where was this for your kids dude like yeah the moment actually that stood out to me in my confrontation with him and you know by then we'd seen so much damning stuff about him in terms of like him defending lisa him never choosing to protect his kids him never you know prioritizing minimizing yeah his minimizing her behavior.

And really, I mean, he's really such a participant in the gaslighting, right?

Of the like, you know, looking at these emails that he sent to Michelle before Colin's death, where he was like, well, your mom's done everything she could to make that up to you, and you just need to let it go.

And that's your problem kind of attitude.

And that's just so, you know, such an absolutely heartless take to your child or like acting like, oh, it's just something that you should get over is truly a wild thing.

They, they clearly had sort of a like

united language and like united defense about this whole situation. Because, you know, when he came out and said to me,

well, so you're just going to rely on the word of a child. And I was like, your child, she's your child.

And that just, oh, it was just, it was just like so ice cold, you know, where you're just thinking like, yeah, you're, you're going to make an enemy of anyone.

who questions your wife, including your children. Like, not only are you not going to protect them, you're going to make them the enemy.
Yeah.

And then, as far as like, why we didn't include like, I think, more content about Carrie specifically is right.

So, like, we, we have pretty like, and Erin can kind of jump in on this is like, we do have fact-checking protocols.

We have like a pretty high standard of what we will include because we have to have multiple sources confirm it.

And so, you know, there is some things about Carrie that, you know, obviously we all found unsavory and like thoughts and feelings that we have about it.

But because we don't have any like, we don't have a police investigation, we don't have like much in the way of being able to talk about his specific behaviors.

So it's like we can only really comment about what we have sort of on the record and on like background from other individuals.

And, you know, I can definitely, I think confidently say he was definitely not a lot of people's favorite person. So.

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So, Andrea, going back to what you were saying as it relates to words from Carrie's shell, and you were like, Your child, and you were talking about Michelle, the thing that struck me is when Sabrina was recounting Colin's last words to her, he did say he's like, Mommy and Daddy won't be in heaven, right?

Or something to that effect. And so, that for me

really

also

put Kerry in the spotlight. And so,

you know, I had gone through and I read, I know, as we, as we all did, but, you know, there's the video transcripts from the hospital that are describing his actions and inactions.

You have transcripts from the police interview where Carrie is minimizing Lisa's behavior about, oh, you know, she's postpartum. And,

you know, I travel quite a bit for my work at the time he was a pastor. But I think, you know, what Colin said to Sabrina, that squarely puts him in the middle of this.

And that, and that did for me, that that was the point of the story that it really did for me. But it's really interesting, too,

when I think about Carrie and his role and then Lisa and her role, she was really the one who was perhaps the attention seeker, right?

She's out, she's doing the blog, she was talking about Carrie a little bit, but it's interesting just, you know, Lisa, how she took on the part of this couple,

who was kind of more on stage and in the spotlight and seeking that attention but that doesn't mean that Carrie wasn't aware it doesn't mean by his inaction right that he wasn't right there with her

also also abusing Colin yeah that's a really good point and I think you know in further sort of like deepening our understanding of Carrie's role in this I mean certainly the fact that he got together with Lisa when she was underage and he was way older um speaks to a bit of a predatory nature kind of from the jump.

And then,

you know, and then the fact that he benefited.

I mean, that's the other thing is I think because these two were involved in so much financial fraud, and like that's something that we've had reports of pouring in since we,

you know, since we released the released the season, that that picture is sort of becoming more and more clear. And we'll certainly follow up in our reporting on that.

But I mean, you know, they're given a free house. They're going on vacations all the time.
And like, they are not working.

Like for most of the time, you know, Carrie was a a pastor when the first case came around but then you know throughout the next years when colin was sick he basically was barely working and you know lisa wrote about that on her blog that's the recollections of the family members that like yeah he'd kind of have a job for a little bit and lose it so i mean like to the extent the two of them are just straight up grifters i mean i think if you're looking at like what's in it for carrie

like that i mean that just could could have been just like well this is this is working out actually pretty well for me. And I think like,

I think what's sort of horrifying about the two of them as a couple is like, how did these two people in this small town find each other?

Because there's some dads that have sort of gone along with, there's like levels and levels of this behavior that happens around these cases that like, I think is more relatable and less relatable, right?

Like, certainly we can relate with a dad that like absolutely, you know, fights to the death for his kids.

I think that's where, you know, I think I'm sure I speak for both of us, Aaron, when we're like, oh my God, if I found out my spouse was harming my children, like, I would, you know, take up arms, you know, and then, but then I think there's also like for the dads that are kind of in denial, for the dads that are just having a really hard time accepting that they've married someone like this, and there's a lot of shame around it, and there's a lot of like, you know, confusion.

Like, I think some of that, like, I can understand.

But when you just know somebody knows what's going on, you know, that he knows that his spouse poisoned his baby, you know that he knows his spouse is fabricating these things and really torturing his children.

And to be able to ignore that and override that, I mean, I think that's not something that most of us could relate with in a million years.

And I think similarly, like one of the things that really got to me working on this case is

just candidly, I know we make a lot of efforts on the show to really look at the humanity of everyone involved, right?

Like not to sympathize with them necessarily, the perpetrators, or minimum, certainly not to minimize their behavior, but just because like I don't find much utility in this sort of, this person's a monster and we're going to put them over here and we're going to hold them at a distance because I think like that's not quite how these things work.

And I think we have to like sort of recognize like people in all their complexity, right? And I really struggled with this one.

And I've had these moments in previous seasons, right? Like with Hopiabara,

you know, just like sitting with her and talking to her about her story.

I didn't believe her reasoning, but it was like, you sort of saw like these, yeah, just like like shreds of sort of something that you recognize, you know, we're like, yeah, because we're all human.

We're all human. Yeah.
And I think there's that desire to see the humanity in other people, right? Like, God, if I ever stop seeing the humanity in other people, I have to quit this job.

And so like, that will be time to, yeah, switch, switch topics. Yeah.
Yeah.

Cause I think it's like, if you don't have that drive to see a way for someone to get the help they need or get to the other side of it or to get into a place where they can no longer harm another person.

It's like, yeah, to your, to your point, Andrea, it can be really hard when you're constantly faced with details of like the worst things people have done.

But I do think on the other side of this, the thing that was like so interesting specifically about Lisa is in like the public eye, like she was this incredible advocate for families with NMO.

And like there are families who I'm sure were helped by her and like felt that they were getting the assistance that they needed from the services that she was providing, right?

Cause you can't fly under the radar for this long without at least charming some people

and finding a way for folks to want to give you the money, right? Like it's it's like this charismatic, it's, you know, if you watch any like cult documentary or documentaries about grifters, right?

Like everyone starts out with the description of like, they were so incredible in person, they lit up the room, you know, it's like all these descriptors of ways that they're able to put this personality forward that is hiding these like deceitful and harmful acts that are going to come on the other side of it and so but some piece of this goodness that people are gravitating towards has to be inside of you as well and so it is like this i don't know it's such a people are wild

yeah i mean i i think this one like as you said right it's like it is important when you do work like this to maintain your humanity and your ability to see humanity in even people that do terrible things.

And, you know, something that my colleague Mary Sanders, who's on this season, you know, said that really stuck with me is that she said that like, we're not defined by the worst thing that ever happened to us.

And we're not defined by the worst thing we've ever done. Like no human should be.
And I totally agree with that.

But you look at someone like Lisa and the harm that she's perpetuated over the years in this continuing pattern.

And I will say that like, yeah, Maria, I think in past instances, and you know, of course, like, there's, there's also my sort of that I'm always looking in the rear view and sort of reconceptualizing what happened in my own family.

Right. And I think, like, it is challenging when you have had positive experiences with someone because you go, okay, was that their sort of good side or was it a mask? Right.

And I think with Lisa, the good side was a mask.

And I think that with the variety of perpetrator that does this kind of thing, where you're talking about poisoning and induction and death and that kind of thing, like that level of perpetrator, I don't know that I believe that I believe that they can still like do good in the world.

Right. I mean, it's just like, it's like, that's not to say that like, I mean, and I saw the same thing with my sister, right? Like she, she helped people, people love her.

She's, you know, people have, lots of people have had good experience with her.

I had a lot of good memories with her.

But I think like when I found myself sort of like looking back through this sort of prism, you know, of this season layered on top of all my other experiences, I just thought, oh no, like there was only masks and more masks.

And I think like, you know, that's something that Michelle has expressed to us too, where she was like, even for her listening back and then dealing with this sort of deluge of people getting in touch where she's like, oh, I don't know my mom at all.

Whatever I sort of thought I knew about her is just completely now even more fractured. And this is, you know, Michelle is so far along the road of like recognizing who her mom really is.

And so I think that was like, that, that's almost like been,

obviously, like just the things she's done to her children are so horrific, but that's almost been kind of the most disquieting part for me is that like, I've sort of had to like reorient myself and how I sort of conceptualize the folks that engage in these behaviors.

And yeah, like, Erin, I know this is for you, this is like your second season.

But yeah, like, how did Lisa, I mean, Lisa is such a sort of final boss of this whole thing, right?

I mean, she just took it so far and had this, this like such this dissonant presentation of being this advocate and being so admired for it.

Yeah, I mean, like, what, what struck you about Lisa in terms, like in contrast to maybe some of the other cases we've talked about?

You know, I think it was looking at the beginning of her abuse and knowing that the first wasn't Colin, right? And knowing under and understanding that,

you know, beginning with Angelyn's case where

you have very clear videos from the hospital,

such that, you know, both Angelin and Michelle were removed, they were in the system.

You know,

when I look at this case and I, you know, it shouldn't have, how it got as far as Kellen, I think that that's the most mind-boggling part of this story to me, because,

you know, by and large, the things that happened in terms of like a criminal case being brought against her and, you know, she pleads guilty, all of that, right, was

done probably up until the part of her sentencing, which I know we weren't really able to get and understand the records of her detention and what happened during that year. That she was

perhaps at a women's facility. She's a woman's detention facility, yeah.
Yeah, and I think so many things broke down in the system, right, after she was able to be released, right?

And then she has another child, and then child's in the hospital, right? And you know, and there's you know, red flags going up, and and nurses are reporting and saying this, this isn't right.

And, and so

the key difference between this and other seasons is there's just such a long record of the abuse. And I think for me, it was just continually, you know, how did she get this far?

How did she get this far? How did she get as far as Cullen? How did she get as far as the Guthie Jackson Foundation, right?

And ways in which she was able to kind of embed herself into this rare disease community.

And so I think just, yeah, the brokenness of everything that happened after Angelin and even being able to get Michelle and Angelin back, right?

There were just so many things that broke down that should have been in place to protect Colin. And I know Michelle has said this far more eloquently than I'm saying right now.

But that I think is the key sticking point in this case for me. Yeah.

I mean, I know something that like Michelle repeated in a lot of our interviews with her, and it's something that I think a detail that stuck out to all of us was that in a file, like literally in a file, it said if colin was ever to show up mysteriously sick that these children should be removed and and so the fact that the systems broke down so

you know we know there are doctors and nurses who reported and so the fact that these children weren't removed before there was the ability for them to pack up and move to a whole nother state in order to avoid the watchful eyes of the community.

And I think that is something that we talk about a lot on this show.

I know with like Sophie Hartman's case and then with this one is like the reason we use people's names is because when communities are paying attention is when these reports actually happen, right?

Like we saw the reports happening in Savannah and in Georgia where these doctors and nurses were aware of Lisa's behavior.

And then when you take people out of the community, that is where the danger can continue to be perpetrated. Yeah, I know that like for me, the decision to use Angelyn's real name was agonizing

because if it had not been for the fact that her children are now living with Lisa, like I wouldn't have.

And I just probably would have approached this whole thing totally differently. But I think we do see our role as being, you know, a watchful eye.

You know, and as this sort of like relates to, you know, these broader conversations about parents' rights and what role communities should play in a child's life.

I mean, I just, I just always come back to like, I feel so strongly that children deserve to be safe and cared for in their home.

I believe they have an inalienable human right to be safe and cared for by the people that they are absolutely dependent on.

And I think unless you are of the belief that every single parent is capable of providing that kind of home, which I don't think most people believe that, unless you just outwardly believe that A, child abuse doesn't exist or B, that it's okay.

I mean, which I think that is like the shocking thing that is sort of coming to the fore now is that like, there are actually people really who just do not think that this is something that should be the subject of intervention, other than from maybe church leaders.

And that is so chilling. And I think, yeah, this case, Erin, to your point, I mean, it was like watching a hundred car pile up, just kind of like watching everything sort of fall through the cracks.

And we had actually a couple of specific questions that I wanted to address about the investigation where, which actually I don't know that I, that I have answers to.

So one was a question question about how they got surveillance video in the room.

So most, just to sort of do a like quick thing about covert video surveillance, which is a tool that's used in these cases and can be a life-saving tool, as we saw in this case.

It's something that people can get very upset about, I think, you know, that people do not, you know, and I understandably kind of maybe have a little bit of a like, oh, the idea of being surveilled in a hospital room can be uncomfortable.

However, you know, hospitals are not private spaces.

There are many hospitals, I don't know if it's most, but there are many hospitals, especially if you're looking at a big pediatric hospital, that will have surveillance rooms.

And so they will put someone in one of those rooms that's equipped that way. Not every hospital room has surveillance just built in, but they'll put them in.

So, as to why this went on for so long without an earlier intervention, that's kind of a question. That was one question we got from a listener.

That is a question mark for me, too, because there were so many incidences captured.

Like, I believe in this case, and that this is true, especially of this era, because this was 25 years ago, that there are surveillance rooms that can capture, but they don't necessarily have someone

monitoring it, right? 24-7.

So like there are cases where people will be put in a covert surveillance room where like there's an intervention while someone is harming their child because someone is watching that video, but not every hospital has the capability.

So I think we can assume that they just didn't have the resources to be able to like watch the video simultaneously or watch it every single day while they were capturing it.

So I'm assuming it's something along those lines. I think too, what's interesting to note is that it was around this time where Angeline was in and out of the hospital in her very early life.

And the doctors and nurses started questioning, you know, why that was when she was going home and she was getting sick, right?

And so in terms of the surveillance, it also could have been kind of an extra step in terms of like, okay, we're just going to monitor and kind of see what's going on, right?

Because she, she does keep coming back into the hospital sick. And so,

you know, in terms of letting it go on for three weeks, who knows if it was to build a case or to just try to better understand her illness, right, at that time.

We know that there was suspicions around Lisa, but, you know, they needed further evidence for it.

But a lot of that surveillance, I also think of it from the fact of, you know, they're trying to figure out this medical question as to why Angeline keeps returning to the hospital and why she's frequently being admitted.

Yeah, and that is something actually that hospitals also use, you know, video surveillance tools for, right?

to see if they can capture a child who's having a seizure when the doctors are not in the room or that kind of thing. And it can be also a tool to like clear a parent, right?

If they're, if they just can't get to the bottom of something and they are suspecting a parent and then they don't, you know, capture anything on that.

Now, that's not like a that's not a full exoneration because it doesn't mean the parents are not doing anything, but it certainly can like can just help get a better picture of what's going on with the child.

Uh, so we also this season had a lot of strong feelings about Dr. Ness

and Michelle's conversation conversation with her. I know for me, that was the sort of stunning bombshell moment of the season.
I think going in,

even though this was a story that I'd had one understanding of previously, because I knew this family, you know, we always go in with like, our job here is to get to the bottom of what's happened here and get as close to the truth as we possibly can with the resources that we have.

And I did not think we were going to get as close to having an answer about whether or not Colin had this diagnosis as we did. And I know that, like, the fact that Dr.

Ness even talked to Michelle was completely stunning for me.

And listening to that phone call after sort of like wondering, like, what could have ever been going through this doctor's mind to sort of hear her recounting of it was just, I was gobsmacked. Yeah.

I mean, and,

you know, that tape was hard to listen to for many reasons.

I mean, also just like shout out to, not like shout out, shout out, but like Michelle held her composure so well throughout that conversation that I can't even imagine all the things she's probably wanted to say or ask this person who's been at the center of it for so long.

And so the way that she was able to really like keep very calm and ask very clear and direct questions.

And I just think Michelle did an incredible job of advocating for herself and for her brother in that phone call.

But yeah, but when she sent it to us, it was, I think, we all were pretty gobsmacked listening back to it and hearing the details in there.

And then also hearing someone, I mean, you know, we don't edit to ever take people out of context, but we had to do quite a bit of cleanup on Dr.

Nessa's tape in order for it to be, I think, listenable to other people. Coherent, yeah.
Coherent.

Yeah, because there was quite a lot of the, you could just, you could hear her brain running faster than she could explain or talk about anything and she was trying to figure out how she wanted to say it so the amount of you knows and long just filler words in between any kind of sentence was like like she was very much spinning out i think about the realization that she was having in that moment i think dr ness was yeah yeah i have such sort of complicated feelings about that piece of it because on the one hand i'm very glad that she had that conversation with michelle because i think that helped michelle a lot.

And on the other hand, it's really hard to sort of hold up whatever courage it took Dr.

Ness to sort of come to whatever, you know, we had a lot of feedback about this phone call where they're like, I don't really think she's fully grasping what happened or like, I don't, I think she's obfuscating.

And like, yeah, I mean, I think it was just like, I sort of read it the same way that you did, Mariah of like her brain was just sort of like, and I can't, and genuinely, like, I can't imagine that sort of emotional experience of holding on to that for, you know, going on, yeah, like 14, 15 years since this, since this child died.

And to sort of carry that with you and then to hear from that person's sibling must be an extremely intense emotional experience. And like, yeah, it's hard, it's hard to sort of like hold whatever

feelings about like the, whatever sort of help she's provided versus her negligence in this case. And I feel pretty comfortable just calling it straight up, you know, negligence.

Yeah, I mean, she's a, she's a complicated figure.

And I think like there are, you know, so interesting looking at the doctors in these case, and then we're going to talk about, you know, another example of a completely different sort of involvement of a doctor in our, in our next season.

But, you know, you sort of see, it's almost like the gambit that we were talking about with like spouses, right?

Where you see everything from like, you know, we've seen so many doctors in these cases absolutely be heroic, right?

Like, and put their careers on the lines and their safety and their livelihoods on the line to make the call that a child needed to be separated to save that child's life.

And I mean, I believe, obviously I've said many times, but I believe that the doctor who made that call in my sister's case almost certainly saved my niece's life.

And then you have this whole other end of the spectrum where you have doctors who really appear to have built their business model around giving parents any diagnosis and any treatment that they want and that are sort of like catering to perpetrators.

And then you have these doctors that are caught in the middle, right? Where they get enmeshed with a, a, because I don't think Dr. Dr.
Ness is like on that end of the spectrum at all, you know?

I think she is exactly what she said, gullible with a capital G and like got very enmeshed with Lisa and was seeing things through things through the lens of her specialty

and got blinded.

And I think it's like, it's a tragedy, but it's sort of like, I think my bigger sort of like, if you want to look at a sort of systemic question, it's like, she's a pediatric neurologist.

Why does she not know what she's looking at when she has a munch house and biproxy case staring her in the face? Because that's one of the most common subspecialties that are going to see these cases.

So it's just like, how could she be on the one hand, this experienced, by other accounts, really good doctor, and just have this such a glaringly obvious case and not see it?

But like, yeah, it's sort of co-sign this whole thing right to the end. I mean, it just sort of like, yeah, she is just like such a complicated fake gear.
Yeah. Like, Erin, what are your?

Well, and also, again, Lisa had the track record, right? It's also, you do this with a mother. It's one thing to be gullible, right?

But it's another thing to ignore the information that you were given. Right.
And so to know that, you know, you have a mother

who was accused of, you know, medical child abuse. Convicted of.
Convicted of. Right.
Convicted of. Yes.
Of medical child abuse with her previous child.

And then now she's in your office from a different state. You know, it.

Yeah. It's like, when does gullible become culpable?

I think there's a yeah there's a there's a question yeah i mean she you know we were able to confirm from other medical providers in savannah that a that a phone call did go into dr ness and and dr ness even confirmed that that phone call happened on her phone call with michelle and so you know she tried to say that she was unaware of the circumstances, but I was like, you didn't think you could just call one of those doctors back to get the circumstances.

But right. It's it's like you didn't think to to make that, you know, phone call but ask for more information before, you know, before you let the camera crews into your clinic, right?

From Guthi Jackson Foundation.

Right. Right.
And I think like it's interesting, like something I think about a lot, it, you know, with regards to like how we see child abuse medicine as being somehow separate from medicine, right?

Like, I think it's almost better to like put this in, like, if a doctor misses a diagnosis that they ought to have seen and the child dies, that's malpractice in a lot of other contexts, right?

And in this case, she did miss a diagnosis that she should have seen, which is a diagnosis of medical child abuse. That is a medical diagnosis that should be made by doctors, right?

And so I think like, I do think it's like we need to re-anchor it in that context.

It's not, oh, they need a psychologist to come in there and tell them if Lisa fits the profile of like, no, you're seeing medical signs.

You're being told a medical history of previous abuse and concerns from doctors over this child that's a medical history. And you're seeing evidence of abuse.

You're seeing polymicrobial septic infections that have no known source and you're seeing gastrointestinal,

you know, issues that are unexplained and do not fit with a diagnosis.

Hello, anybody who has listened to probably like two episodes of Minobisha, believe me, could tell you that those are like the two. I mean, those are the two hallmarks that come up in every case.

And she flagged that, right? When she was saying, so it's like, this is bad medicine. It's not just like, oh, you failed in your duty to protect this child.

You're not being a good doctor if you fail to consider the diagnosis of medical child abuse.

Yeah.

And I know, you know, we never got access or were unable to get access to Colin's medical records, but it's, you know, it's something that's remained a big question mark for us too is like, what were his repeat scans looking like?

And, you know, we've had other doctors reach out with other potential diagnoses for Colin, which again, would not have resulted in death,

nowhere near. And a lot of them, you know, pointed to potential things that look like something on a scan.
And after about eight months, they don't look like that scan anymore.

And they've kind of healed themselves, especially in children with this particular subset.

So yeah, the big question marks that we're always left with at the end of these things.

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Something else that we got a few questions about that I did want to sort of answer just to the best of our ability.

So, you know, we got a couple of questions of like, well, if he didn't die of NMO, then what did he die of? And so, you know, we're unable to know, obviously, without his medical records.

I think our best guess from the observations of the family members from, you know, these many, many reports that they cut off his feeds, that they were turning them on and back off.

And that was something Lisa had mentioned,

messaged many people about during his time in hospice. And also just like looking at other similar child deaths, I think that starvation is probably a likely outcome.

We cannot possibly know that for sure, but that is, I think, the, I think that's the understanding of many people that were around him.

So

to move on a bit to some of our follow-up coverage,

we had a lot of reactions reactions to our coverage of the Guthy Jackson Foundation's role in this case. And I wanted to talk about that.

And actually, I wanted to read verbatim a quote that we got from someone outside of the United States.

We do have a decent number of international listeners. And for many reasons, I find their commentary very interesting because,

you know, this is the only country I've ever lived in long term. This is the only country I've ever gotten health care in.
So I forget that it is not like this other places.

And ditto to our very wild tax system that

we have in this country that we explored with that wonderful expert, Rod Rich. So here is a quote from one of our listeners.

As a Swede, I didn't realize how extremely screwed up the tax deduction system for spending money on, quote, charity is in the States.

And every time an ultra-rich person or company throws money on things to improve their image it should always be stated in relation to that person or company's net worth it would not surprise me if many of the so-called charitable billionaires are giving amounts that are negligible in the grand scheme of their wealth and that's without discussion of ethics of how they accumulated that wealth charity galas piss me off too it's so performative it's not about being charitable it's about being perceived as charitable and again i was like oh yeah that's right it's not like this everywhere

um so i think think, like,

I wanted to get y'all's take because I know we had so many conversations about this behind the scenes because we all knew that Guthy Jackson was in a difficult position, right? And I think.

we wanted to give them some grace because they had been manipulated by Lisa and they were in some sense victims. And also just because we knew that this was going to be awful news.

I mean, that's like, that's not the hardest phone call I've ever made in the course of this work, but it was, it was one of the less pleasant ones, you know, to have to sort of drop this bomb on someone.

And I think, you know, it really helped, I think, to look at it in this broader context that this comment sort of talks about of like,

yeah, we just have this incredibly toxic system

around who gets what health care. who has access to what,

and sort of all the vulnerabilities for opportunistic people like Lisa to exploit those, I think, just has sort of never been clearer than it is in this case.

But I wanted to get, yeah, I wanted to get like, Erin, I know especially you have, you know, a background in nonprofits.

And so I wanted to just sort of like, yeah, talk to you about that, that process of kind of looking into Gethie Jackson and maybe how your sort of thinking on their involvement evolved over the course of our research.

Yeah, sure. And yeah, so and my background is in nonprofit fundraising.
And I've also,

you know, I've been able to advise wealthy individuals on giving away their money.

And I believe strongly in the power of philanthropy. And I think what it for me, it comes down to the five words, and it's, it's the oversight for me.
Right.

And so, you know, even in looking into Guthy Jackson Foundation, which,

you know, in terms of their whole governance structure, it's Victoria and Bill.

And so, and I think there's great rare disease organizations, There's great nonprofits who

are focused at,

you know, and trying to find, you know, cures for diseases. I think about the Michael J.
Fox Foundations, right, which is focused on Parkinson's disease and research. So there's great foundations.

doing amazing work who also have celebrity star power and backing, right? That's not the criticism.

I think the criticism for us was the oversight, the level of oversight in terms of, you know, who is granting out this funding, who is setting the agenda for the medical research,

you know, who is vetting staff and how, and volunteers and how.

And when you're faced with some really tough information, right, that's going on internally that maybe you were taken advantage of,

how are you, how are you addressing it? What are you doing to address it internally, but then also more publicly to your community? And again, it's the oversight for me.

And so I think that the Gussie Jackson Foundation has had a lot of opportunities that unfortunately, from what I as a person in the public who has been following this case, certainly throughout the summer and ever since we notified them, I don't think that they're doing enough to address it.

And, you know, it's fine if they want to keep the focus on research for NMO and the great work around NMO. That's excellent.

But also recognizing that there was a high-level perpetrator in their midst who had a great degree of access

and who they put on a platform to help spread their message and

used a child, right, to

do that. It's just, it's wrong.
And to say that it's wrong is okay. It's wrong and we'll do better.

And so, and I think that that's the standard that I think we were all hoping that they would live up to.

I think it's what, you know, Michelle and her family were hoping that they'd live live up to, but unfortunately, it's, it's not the, um, the route that they've chosen to take at this, at this time.

Yeah. And, you know, I think a lot about how much shame plays into these cases and that, like,

so much of the reason that I think we haven't come as far with awareness as we otherwise might have is because it like a lot of people do feel a lot of shame when they get caught up in one of these cases, when they realize they've been fooled.

People don't like to admit that they've been fooled. People don't like to, especially if them being fooled ended up meaning that they were unwittingly contributing to harming a child, right?

That's a horrible thing to have to confront. And that keeps people from confronting it.

And I think that's why I think we always try and be so careful about when we're talking about, you know, who, who else, like, besides the perpetrator, like who else is a victim and who else maybe deserves some of the blame, right?

Like Carrie deserves some of the blame. Obviously, Dr.
Ness deserves some of the blame.

But, you know, there are other people involved in this case who really tried so hard to do the right thing. And I think,

you know, it's like, I'm very much of the mind of like, for me, it's all about what did you know and when did you know it?

And once you know, once you have been presented with compelling evidence that this abuse happened, then your reaction and your response to that.

is on you right i mean it's like you are then sort of responsible for whatever choices you make in the the wake of that. And before that point, you know, you're not.

And again, like, I know we kind of went like the idea of like background checks, but I think I'm so struck by this case in that like, yes, in Lisa's particular case, that would have caught it.

In almost every other case I've looked at, that would have done nothing.

right because most of them do have a clear criminal record and so like background checks if that's the only measure they're taking is to do more thorough background checks that will not prevent other perpetrators from getting in and i i hope that even if they have not responded i hope that they heard that.

Like, I hope that they heard, like, if you are not doing anything to educate your population on what this abuse looks like, if you are not taking any additional measures besides just background check and following like the letter of the law in terms of hiring practices, you are not protecting your organization from this happening again.

And like worse than that, you may have already established yourself as a mark, you know, because it's like, if you're like, well, we're not going to like, we're not going to put up any additional barriers.

So if someone else would like to come on down you know and i i know that probably sounds like that might sound a little extreme but we know these perpetrators are out there they're talking to each other they're watching each other they copycat each other it's like if you do not want to have a giant mark on your head like just for your own you know for your own well-being going forward if you do not want to find yourself on another true crime podcast then putting up some additional barriers is a very good idea and we did actually have a couple of questions from listeners of like oh you know that know people that work in these kind of organizations that are rare disease groups and what can we do to help?

And so I wanted to offer some advice on that. You know, if you have specific questions, you can always reach out to Munchausen Support.

You know, I'm still on the board at Munchausen Support and that's really will go to the experts who can give you specific advice.

Or if you really want to get a training for your organization, you know, that's something that they can help with.

And then also, I think though, like, from my perspective, just being knowledgeable about it, just like, you know, again, and you can find this stuff obviously on our show, but also on Munchausen Support of like warning signs of Munchausen by proxy abuse, just knowing what it looks like.

I think if people at Guthy Jackson had been knowledgeable about this abuse, they would have seen it in Lisa's story. I mean, it was not, she was not hiding it particularly well.

You know, I mean, she was like, if you, if you had read her blog and you knew what you were looking at, you would see that there was red flag and reason for concern.

You know, obviously that's not enough to like.

you don't have to like criminally convict someone, but it's like, you know, you would know at least enough to know, like, yeah, I don't know if maybe this is someone we want to hire to represent our organization.

You know what I mean? So it's like, I think even just knowing what the abuse is, I mean, it's like, it's most people just don't even know what it is or what it looks like.

And you know what? There is a comment that I really appreciated that I wanted to highlight.

So it was an individual who wrote in and she said that there's a large foundation for her son's rare disease. It focuses solely on research treatments.

And they recently sued a family with a child with the condition over use of their child's name to fundraise and that there had been a lot of controversy in that community.

But this individual said, you know, she said, I'm grateful for the last two episodes that covered this case because I'm able to look at that foundation more critically.

And I think we should all do that, right?

Of those kind of philanthropic organizations that we support, we should all have access to the information that is able, you know, for us to look at them critically and to be able to hold them accountable.

And I think at the end of the day, right, we cannot rewrite the tax code, right?

As the three people on the call as we are, but we can, you know, demand more accountability and we can demand different oversight. And I think the more people know

that, you know, what could be happening at Guthy Jackson and other organizations like it, they can start to look out for those warning signs.

But, you know, when you're given and offered resources, take those as well. So the onus is definitely on the Guthi Jackson Foundation.
Yeah. And I do that.

And I want to say to like, to anybody listening who is involved in that foundation, if that foundation has been a really good thing in your life, if that's a place you found community and support and resources and you have like a lot of love for those people, like that, none of that is negated by this, right?

It's just like, maybe it's complicated by this, but it's like, I think, you know, I understand where like that also could be sort of painful for people to just like, yeah, to just watch this go.

I mean, I did, I really feel for the people in that, in that community for, for many reasons.

And as Erin said, you know, as you alluded to, we heard from a number of parents this season who

have kids with rare diseases. And

we heard from a couple of people who had lost children. And I wanted to just say, you know, thank you so much for reaching out and sharing your experiences with us.

And, you know, the sort of general mood of those messages was, this is really dissonant from what I experienced when I lost my child.

child you know the things lisa was putting about plant care and stuff like days after the funeral um yeah just struck people as as really really dissonant um oh there was another comment that i wanted to share that this was really helpful and just to say like we're so grateful when people who are caregivers to children with illnesses and disabilities who have illnesses and disabilities themselves reach out because that is something that that's just a perspective that is extremely helpful to us in how we talk about all of this and so we're we're just always super grateful when we hear from that community.

Yeah.

So we heard, it was really, we got a really interesting comment from, you know, one of the things that we had pointed out was Lisa always arguing with people when they said Colin was doing better, right?

And sort of this pushback against like, well, yeah, okay, he looks okay today, but, you know, you missed the, this, and that. And this is the really common theme that we see in these cases, right?

Where they just don't seem to want to acknowledge that they're.

like if their child's having a good day like colin according to lisa never had a good day throughout this whole thing sophie hartman Sophie Hartman, same thing.

You know, yeah, just like, oh, well, yeah, you didn't, you didn't see that we were up all night having fits, you know, before this, but she looks happy here, but really she's not, you know, it's, so it's, it's this sort of, you know, presentation of it's always worse, it's always the worst case scenario.

And so what this parent shared with us that I thought was really appreciative of was there was like, and I think this is how this abuse function and how it hides.

There's usually like a grain of something real in there, right? So she was saying, well, oh, this is an invisible illness.

I don't know that like, and I think with NMO, you know, yeah, sometimes, sometimes people don't have visible, disable disabilities, sometimes they do.

But she was saying, you know, that she has a son who has an illness that can appear invisible. Yeah, so I'll just read this, read this little piece of it.

So she said, it frustrates me incredibly when people want to comment on how he appears at the moment.

Feels like they are diminishing the seriousness of his condition and what he deals with, especially when that comment comes right after a traumatic moment for us.

But I never reply with that frustration because I also don't want people people to see him as different or fragile.

It's a complicated feeling because of my own trauma, but people seriously wanting others to view their child as sick is wild.

And she also says, you know, we were also told early on by specialists to never hold him back from doing something because we are scared due to the condition.

We, we can always fix his body up afterwards, but he can never fix the harm forcing him to sit out does to his self-esteem.

I thought that was just like a really poignant comment.

And I think, yeah, we always want to, I know on the team, like we always want to be respectful of like, yeah, there are some nuances here that do reflect the experience of parents with caregivers, which is why I think it's so insidious, right?

Because they're co-opting those experiences and they're watching how other people talk about their legitimately sick children and sort of piggybacking off of it.

And I think that listener really expressed very well the difference is that even if that person feels those frustrations, they still want the best for their child.

They're not going to undermine their child's view of themselves and just how important that is, right?

Because I think like the thing that's become really clear to me in this case and in many cases, obviously there can be grievous bodily harm and in this case, death, but the psychological damage that that does to a person is going to be something they're going to be living with for the rest of their life.

And that's just so really can't be overstated. Yeah.
And I think too, it's like when there's this emphasis on, you know, in this case, with the listeners, she's talking about a quality of life, right?

And I think with these perpetrators, it's just all of these, like the texture, that's the quality of the illness that they continually focus on and you know I just think about Lisa you know the some of the captions on what she was posting oh this is our last family photo shoot oh this is you know the last time that we're gonna all go out together our last family dinner I mean and this is weeks before Colin Colin passed away and so

It's just this rush to the end.

And I think Sophie Hartman also had that as well. It's, you know, this rush for hospice and treatment and for the end of life.

Yeah. Yeah.
And that really resonated with, you know, what Becca had said about this, you know, about some of this

sort of philosophical questions about disability and how we talk about it and illness and how we talk about it of the sort of question of like, oh, being the person being sort of already dead.

And I really appreciated having her perspective on that because that sort of, I think that kind of put a finger on what feels so wrong about that way of like, it's not a parent fearing that their child's going to die.

It's a parent sort of longing for it.

And I think because that seems so awful, I think even when people are sort of seeing it, and then we did hear from a lot of people afterwards that said, yeah, like we were very uncomfortable with how Lisa was talking about this and was talking about his death and that she was pushing him towards these treatments that were possibly life-threatening.

But I think it's just, yeah, like people don't want to, there's just such a strong desire to not believe that a parent would do that to their child, that it just sort of keeps them from seeing it as disturbing as it is.

Well, this is our sort of, I guess, midway mailbag episode because we have more coverage of this case coming. We're going to talk to some of the people we've heard from.

We are going to check back in with Michelle and Sabrina. And I know a lot of people have questions about where the status of a possible criminal investigation is.

As far as we know, there has not been one initiated.

So if you have not yet sent an email to the Birmingham Police Department to encourage them to open an investigation, we certainly appreciate if you would do that.

We have some information about what to say if you need some help there. And we'll include that information in the show notes.

And to all of the people who have sent communications, I know some of you who don't even live in the U.S. have been contacting the Birmingham Police Department.
Thank you so much for doing that.

Public pressure really does make a difference.

And yes, we will have some, there will also be some other news coverage of this from our reporter friend, Meredith Anderson in Georgia. So we will certainly highlight that when it comes out.

And yeah, we're just going to stay on this story and

just really thank everyone so much for tuning in. I know we sort of, you know, we know we took you on a hard journey this year, but it was a really important story.

And we're really glad that everyone was so engaged with it and cared so much about what happened to this little boy and this little and this family.

So

yeah, Mariah, Erin, any

final thoughts to share before

we sign off? No, I mean, I think it's always like with all of these cases, it's so hard because it's never really,

you don't really ever get to close the whole book, you know? So we have a lot of them with a lot of bookmarks and books open and

things left on shelves for us to continue to keep an eye on.

So but thank you for listening and also thank you for all your feedback because it also it gives us the motivation to um to continue on in this work and also new insights as well to incorporate into the show so thank you yeah yeah ditto and i just want to say thank you to you two because you are um our whole team and nobody should believe me so that's us that's greta and nola and robin and taj who worked with us this season we just really had a tremendous team um there's like this is a wonderful uh this is a wonderful team to work with and i feel so lucky that i get to get to work with you guys And this is like tough material, but I'm very grateful to be able to tackle it with such good people.

Yeah, same.

All right. Thanks for replacing.
All right. Thanks, everyone.
Thank you.

Nobody Should Believe Meek is produced and hosted by me, Andrea Dunlop. Our editor is Greta Stromquist, and our senior producer is Mariah Gossett.
Administrative support from NOLA Carmouche.

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