SEASON 06 | EPISODE 07

Mishelle recounts how she and her sister, Angellyn, stumbled upon their past medical and court records while helping Lisa and Carey move. This discovery prompted the sisters to reach out to people who could offer a perspective unfiltered by their mother’s influence: Judy, the PICU nurse who once treated Angellyn, and Bea Yorker, the Munchausen by proxy expert who testified against Lisa more than twenty years ago.

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This season covers sensitive subject matter involving allegations of child abuse, medical child abuse (also known as Munchausen by proxy), and the death of a minor. All information presented is based on court records, first-person interviews, contemporaneous documentation, and publicly available sources.

The podcast includes personal statements and perspectives from individuals directly involved in or affected by these events. These accounts represent their experiences and interpretations, and some statements reflect opinions that may be emotionally charged. Where appropriate, the reporting team has verified claims through official records or corroborating sources.

Nothing in this podcast should be interpreted as a legal conclusion or diagnosis. All subjects are presumed innocent unless convicted in a court of law. This podcast is intended for informational and public interest purposes.

This podcast contains audio excerpts from two phone conversations recorded in the states of Georgia and Alabama, respectively. Both recordings were obtained by a third-party source, who acted in accordance with the relevant one-party consent laws of those states, which allow for the lawful recording of a conversation with the consent of one participant.

These recordings were subsequently shared with the producers of this podcast after the fact, and were not made by or at the direction of the podcast team or its parent organization.

The podcast producers have made good-faith efforts to confirm the legal compliance of the original recordings, and are presenting these materials in the context of public interest reporting. The inclusion of this audio is intended for journalistic, educational, and documentary purposes in alignment with the principles of fair use and First Amendment protections.

Listeners are advised that the views expressed in the recordings are those of the individuals speaking and do not necessarily reflect the views of the producers or affiliated entities.

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[00:00:00] Trigger warning[00:00:00] Cold Open

[00:00:00] Andrea: Once Michelle told Lisa about the podcast, Lisa tried everything she could to stop Michelle from digging. She made empty offers to go to therapy and tried guilt tripping Michelle, about how Lisa would lose everything about how it would hurt. Not only her and Carrie, but Michelle’s sister, Angelan as well.

[00:00:26] Andrea: But Michelle kept looking for answers, which led her to call Dr. Jane Ness, who after making the series of stunning disclosures, we heard in the last episode, told Michelle she would do anything she could to help her get to the bottom of what really happened to Colin. And after Michelle hung up with Ness, she called me

[00:00:44] Call: to say, I’m on the edge of my seat, is like, I’m off my seat, I’m off my chair, I’m out the door, right?

[00:00:48] Call: Like.

[00:00:48] Mishelle: Well, I mean, she started out being very, as vague as what she could, but then it, it dawned on me very quickly. I’m sitting there and I’m looking at Brent, and I’m just like, am I losing my mind? Because this sounds like she’s [00:01:00] telling me point blank. She knew, she kept bringing up the line infection. She kept saying the line infection didn’t make any sense.

[00:01:07] Mishelle: Um, she brought up sepsis, his gut problem. She said, I, I couldn’t make sense of the gut problems he kept having.

[00:01:14] Andrea: Oh my God. 

Andrea: Both Michelle and I were stunned by what Ness told her because neither of us thought we’d get these kind of answers from someone who’d been right at the center of Collin’s Care. And while what Nest told her, gave Michelle a sense of validation and relief, it also brought into Sharp focus the scope of how the medical system had failed her brother.

[00:01:36] Andrea: He’d seen dozens of doctors during his treatment and none of them intervened. And the sense of gratitude Michelle felt for Dr. Ness. Frank disclosures quickly curdled,

[00:01:46] Mishelle: um, because as a doctor you take an oath to protect kids and she didn’t, she didn’t protect kids. She didn’t protect my brother. She didn’t do her job to the fullest extent, she didn’t report.

[00:01:57] Mishelle: There are probably [00:02:00] hundreds of things she could have done to intervene to save my brother’s life, and she should have, and she did not. But at the end of the day, she was a doctor. And not just her, but like multiple doctors. There were so many people involved in this that should have done their damn jobs and they didn’t.

[00:02:20] Mishelle: I had all the empathy in the world for her and just how difficult it is because it’s rare that you encounter somebody in this world that is willing to take responsibility to that degree and willing to say, admit like, I should have done more. My mother tortured my brother and these doctors and this hospital went along with it and they co-signed on it and they helped her torture him.

[00:02:52] Mishelle: And the longer it sits with me, and the more I think about all these things that that doctor said, the more I am so pissed off [00:03:00] because he shouldn’t have died. He shouldn’t have died. He wasn’t supposed to die. There was intervention in my sister’s case and it did save her fucking life, but nobody did that for my brother and honestly, fuck the judges who gave us back.

[00:03:16] Mishelle: Fuck the judge who decided it was okay for this woman to walk around and have another child in her house. Fuck the people who didn’t follow up, fuck the people who didn’t bother to to listen to out and pleads for somebody to intervene. Dr. Ness got a phone call from another doctor and it still wasn’t enough for her?

[00:03:42] Intro

[00:03:42] Andrea: People believe their eyes. That’s something that is so central to this topic because we do believe the people that we love when they’re telling us something. If we didn’t, you could never make it through your day. I’m Andrea Dunlop, and this is, Nobody Should Believe me.

[00:04:06] Ad Break [00:04:06] Act 1

[00:04:06] Andrea: As I’ve said in previous episodes, this story has been in the making for years. I met Michelle before I even launched this podcast way back in 2021. This was not long after Michelle had moved back to Georgia and her parents had followed close behind. Michelle remembers Carrie and Lisa claiming that because they had financially assisted with her divorce, they were no longer able to afford their home in Alabama, which if you’ll remember, they were given for free.

[00:04:33] Andrea: Michelle, her husband Brent, and a now grownup Angelan went to their parents to help them clear out for the move. And it was during all of this that they made an alarming discovery.

[00:04:44] Mishelle: We were over there like helping ’em clean out the house and get ready. Um. To get all their stuff out really. And, um, it was me and my sister and Brent I think were down there and, um, I think my sister found ’em, like she came across all these court records and she was like, [00:05:00] what is this?

[00:05:00] Mishelle: And I knew immediately, like I walk over and there’s this like huge, like 1500 page, if not more stack of, it was the same stack of records that actually Allie and her mom helped me.

[00:05:09] Allie: 3000, three to 5,000. Pages, not 1500.

[00:05:14] Andrea: This is Michelle, her husband Brent, and her friend Allie.

[00:05:17] Allie: 15

[00:05:17] Andrea: seconds.

[00:05:17] Mishelle: Yeah. Um, they helped me put all of that into a computer to read digitally, but they were just paper records, um, that we found that my mom had just held onto for all these years.

[00:05:27] Mishelle: And I mean, this is like. I think the most recent one of those records were dated like 2003. And this would’ve been in like, like it’s 2018. Mm-hmm. Um, that she had just kind of held onto ’em and like moved states with ’em. Like all of this also happened in Georgia. This was a house in Alabama. And so my sister’s like, holy crap, like, what is this?

[00:05:45] Mishelle: And I’m like, okay, these are all the records. These are all like, your medical records are in here, like. Um, the stuff where they took like DHR or DFCS or whatever CPS had intervened, like this is all these records [00:06:00] and my sister had been asking for like information because she also like. Had a lot of gaps in her memory.

[00:06:07] Mishelle: Um, and so she had been like questioning mom about like, wanting to have a conversation with her about what happened to her and like, why it happened and all these things. And my mom just refused to do it. So when she found these records, she’s like, I’m keeping these, like, and so the first thing on her mind was like getting these out of the house because.

[00:06:23] Mishelle: I really felt like she deserved and like my own records were in there, like some of my, like my psychological evaluation was in there and I was like, we have a right to look at these. And so we grabbed ’em and the stuff ’em in the back of her trunk.

[00:06:35] Andrea: This discovery was crucial to Michelle and Angelan uncovering the truth about their own past, because memory for all of us is an unreliable narrator.

[00:06:44] Andrea: But Lisa had worked so hard to bury her past. Why keep all of this Michelle’s husband, Brent, has thoughts: 

[00:06:52] Brent: Have you’ve ever been to like a thrift store? It was, it was several years of accumulated stuff. Some of ours was down there, so a lot of theirs was down there. Our [00:07:00] grandparents’ stuff was down there.

[00:07:01] Brent: Um, all of Colin’s stuff, I mean, we’re talking down to the wreath that was at his funeral was still down there. So, you know, every time we go downstairs to try and find a. I don’t know, like a controller for a remote control car. Here’s this giant, you know, two of them reminder of Yeah, no, there was, there was two of ’em.

[00:07:19] Brent: That’s right. There’s this two giant reminders of like this very, very awful moment. His, his whole, his race car bed was still down there, I believe. Yeah. All of his clothes. Yeah. I mean it was, it was, yeah. Full of stuff. And she had decided at that point she was getting rid of everything that they couldn’t take.

[00:07:35] Brent: And there was still a lot of things that you wanted. So that was, that was really the background for how we ended up down there with them not there and found the documents. Looking back on it a little bit of context, I wonder if that wasn’t entirely Lisa’s intention for us to find them.

[00:07:51] Andrea: And what do you think are some reasons that Lisa might have wanted the girls to find those?[00:08:00]

[00:08:00] Brent: So. To avoid the, what I’m sure is, is a commonplace mistake that people make. I’m by no means a psychologist or a psychotherapist, and I’m not qualified to psychoanalyze anybody. However, the folks who are qualified, what do they do. They go to school and they train and they learn these, these behaviors, these habits, they see a, a practical example of what they might encounter in the field.

[00:08:23] Brent: I’ve spent. Over 10 years now analyzing that woman. So I will give you my genuine thought. Lisa is very, very concerned with the, her ability to control the narrative that’s important to her. Um, and then if it was intentional, um, or even if it was. Subconsciously intentional. That was why it was, it was very much about her controlling the narrative.

[00:08:53] Brent: In some way. It was a a little bit more information because Angel was looking there. There were conversations had [00:09:00] prior to this where Angela asked questions and they were being kind of froggy on the answer, not really wanting to be a hundred percent accurate, or kind of giving her just in general answers.

[00:09:09] Brent: And then all of a sudden she finds a treasure trove of information.

[00:09:13] Andrea: Yeah. It’s hard to, it’s hard to imagine. I mean, even into your point, like, I think what I, what strikes me on this story is like the moving with bots, like that’s not a small amount of Yeah. Things to move. And with like the physical copies, it’s kind of, it’s kind of really different than having it done on

[00:09:29] Brent: your computer.

[00:09:29] Brent: Right. Why would you take that with you? I mean, you know, legitimately the, the worst moment of your life. Why would you have such a a, a visceral. Physical manifestation of that in your home.

[00:09:43] Andrea: Munchausen by proxy abuse is characterized by intentional deception. Perpetrators know what they’re doing and they know it’s wrong, but they are also, as I’ve learned from my psychologist colleagues, extremely adept at compartmentalization.

[00:09:57] Andrea: The Museum of Horrors that Lisa kept in her [00:10:00] own basement is an almost too perfect metaphor for this. Lisa had adeptly buried her past, rebranding herself not as a convicted abuser, but as a heroic advocate, but ultimately she knows the truth. She’s just been keeping it in a literal box. There’s also the fact that munchausen by proxy perpetrators get a thrill from deceiving people, and I’ve never seen someone pull off quite the coup that Lisa has here.

[00:10:27] Andrea: Her horrific abuse didn’t stop her from getting her kids back. It didn’t stop her from having another child and then using his death to rebrand herself as a hero and to cozy up to rich and powerful people like Victoria Jackson. Maybe these reminders of her past were a point of pride, evidence of just how much she could get away with.

[00:10:50] Andrea: But Lisa is also the architect of her own downfall to whatever extent that happens in the wake of this podcast. Getting public records in Georgia is notoriously [00:11:00] difficult. They have some of the most onerous record laws in the country, and there is no whisper of this case on the internet, at least not that I found.

[00:11:08] Andrea: Lisa kept this vast archive right in her own home for her daughters to find. And one of those daughters couldn’t let it lie. And while there’s no digital record of her previous crime, Lisa left an extensive history of her potential abuse of Colin in her endless interviews, blogs, and social media posts about him.

[00:11:27] Andrea: My guess is she assumed no one would ever read all of this, but she guessed wrong. And without these two pieces, this puzzle would not have been solvable. I always believed what Michelle was saying, but without corroboration, I couldn’t have reported on it. And as for the call with Dr. Ness, that helped us put the remaining pieces of the puzzle together.

[00:11:48] Andrea: Well, Michelle didn’t call her at her office. She called her on her cell phone. And why did she have that number? Because years ago Lisa gave it to Brent in case their son happened to need a good [00:12:00] neurologist. Brent, by the way, wanted to make sure that you knew that, that Lisa knew that. Lisa is a master at finding ways to blame other people for not only her misfortune but her own misdeeds.

[00:12:12] Andrea: But if she’d like to blame someone for all of this becoming public, she can at long last, take a look in the mirror. Being a true crime podcaster is a weird job. We’ve covered some cases on this show where things worked as they should, but mostly we’re a last resort when the system has failed miserably, when sunlight is the only tool left.

[00:12:36] Andrea: Lisa had a million chances to face the truth before it ended up here. She didn’t take them and at some point it’s too late for empty promises and guilt trips. Not that that stopped her from trying One last time when Michelle told her about the podcast.

[00:12:53] Lisa: Just please ask. Really think about that podcast.

[00:12:58] Lisa: At least put a pin in it for now [00:13:00] so we can get through some therapy because it is going to make a big difference in all of our lives. Yours too, even though you may not see how much of a difference this gonna be. Mine. Angel is yours. It’s gonna affect Angel’s future. It’s gonna affect your future. It’s gonna affect our future and your kids’ future.

[00:13:13] Lisa: Future down road. We could all be in a better place to face it then if we wanted to. That’s all I ask at this point, is just to really think about that.

[00:13:22] Andrea: But Michelle did really think about going public with this story. She thought about it for years as she was putting the pieces of her own fractured past together.

[00:13:30] Andrea: Her mother wouldn’t answer her questions, so she found other people to ask, such as Judy, the NICU nurse who had cared for Angelan, whose name Michelle came across in the records from her parents’ basement.

[00:13:43] Judy: Michelle found me on Facebook and reached out to me and asked if I remembered, and I was like, oh my gosh.

[00:13:49] Judy: Like I, I ended up calling them and talking to them, and I said, I have never forgotten you, y’all. I’ve never forgotten you ever. They were stunned and very touched [00:14:00] to hear that. Um, and so we corresponded back and forth through, uh, Facebook and through emails for a little bit, probably like a year and a half maybe.

[00:14:10] Judy: And then, um, of course I put her in touch with some of the other nurses that really loved her and took care of her, which ultimately led to Angela and her boyfriend coming to visit us. And we set up a tour for her at the hospital. We started a neonatal and she got to meet some of her neonatal nurses.

[00:14:27] Judy: ’cause neonatal nurses. At my hospital, stay there forever. So they all remember her. She got to meet all of the doctors that took care of her personally, got to hug them and shake their hand, and then she got a tour of the picu, and then we all met a few days later and sat around a table and took her to lunch.

[00:14:46] Judy: Now, at that particular time. We had never told her what her mother had done, and apparently the way that they found me was they had, um, the mother was moving and they found a box in the basement and it had a [00:15:00] whole bunch of the, um, papers from that particular time. So they, they didn’t really have any idea about all of that, and I didn’t feel like it was my place to tell Angelan either.

[00:15:12] Judy: So that’s when I reached out to, um, Dr. E and put her in touch. And then they started having conversations and I think that’s how she got involved with the support group.

[00:15:23] Andrea: So at long last, Michelle and Angelan met the woman who’d been the villain in their house: Bea Yorker. Bea at this time, had just joined the board of a brand new nonprofit called Munchausen Support and was heading up the pilot support group for the organization along with its founder:

[00:15:39] Andrea: Me. The three of us recalled this fateful trajectory earlier this year at the American Professional Society on the abuse of Children’s annual Colloquium in San Diego.

[00:15:48] Bea: Yes, I believe is, that’s how I first even learned that your sister was still alive. Mm-hmm. That you were. Okay. Um, [00:16:00] and I gave the NICU nurse my email information and I said, I would love to hear from both of the girls.

[00:16:09] Andrea: So who did you hear from initially?

[00:16:11] Bea: I remember hearing from Angel the first she emailed me. So we scheduled a FaceTime and um, it was very emotional. It was just. Oh my gosh, my biggest worry because whenever you work in the field of child protection and you make placement recommendations, you just agonize.

[00:16:34] Bea: Did I do the right thing? And I had made that home visit. So the last time I saw Angel and you was when she was maybe 18 months old. At your grandparents.

[00:16:48] Mishelle: See, I never realized you did a home visit on us. Like I somehow missed that. Like I never knew. And I guess that’s it, right? Like I never knew for sure what your involvement was in reality versus what I was told your [00:17:00] involvement was, right?

[00:17:01] Mishelle: Part of the

[00:17:01] Bea: emotion is that the last time that I had seen Angel was um, she was 18 months old. She had a hole for her trach. She had to close her hole up to breathe in and to be able to talk. Just like when you see people on television who have a trach. She had her beautiful little red ringlets. She had a little walker that she used because to your grandparents’ credit, they took a medically fragile child after she’d been in a medical foster home.

[00:17:34] Bea: Then the grandparents said, we’ll, step up. We can do this. I think B is

[00:17:39] Mishelle: the reason why my sister’s here. Absolutely. Um, I think unfortunately there was not a Bea Yorker around when my brother was sick, and I think that could have greatly impacted how things went with him. And, um, so I feel incredibly fortunate and so lucky and just, I have so much gratitude [00:18:00] for you to be here.

[00:18:01] Mishelle: Um, and a little bit of grief because I wish my, my sister should be here too. You know, like she, she should be on that path of healing. Um, and I hope in some world she can hear me where I’m at now and understand that like there are people who care. There are people who really deeply care in a way that she’s never known.

[00:18:21] Mishelle: And they’re here and they are, will always be here for her.

[00:18:41] Ad Break – Act 2

[00:18:41] Andrea: I met Angelan at the same time I met Michelle. I would’ve loved to have her on this journey with us, but for reasons we’ll get to in a moment, this wasn’t possible. After Angeline grew up and moved out of her parents’ house, her life got complicated. Bea has been in touch with Angela in all these years as well, and she [00:19:00] remembers seeing her in person for the first time as an adult.

[00:19:04] Bea: I was in Georgia for a child abuse conference. And so, um, we were emailing and I said, can we meet? I’ll drive down to Macon. And you said, yeah, I’ll drive us up to Macon. So we had a lovely lunch together. Angel was pregnant and that was before we had made decisions and sort of pressured her to make decisions about putting.

[00:19:31] Bea: Her unborn baby in a safe place. Yeah. And then I saw Angel again at the home in Savannah, and that was lovely. She gave me a tour, I got to cuddle with, got to give her gifts. And um, she showed me around and she seemed, um. She seemed in such a good place.

[00:19:55] Andrea: I really agonized over whether or not to include the details of Angeline’s [00:20:00] story, and importantly use her real name.

[00:20:03] Andrea: I’ve known Angeline for years and I really care about her. When she got pregnant, Bea, Michelle, Judy and I coordinated to try to help her break free from her parents finding her a safe place in a maternity home in Savannah to spend her postpartum months. But despite our efforts, Angelan ended up right back with Lisa and Carrie.

[00:20:23] Andrea: You may have noticed a child’s voice in some of the audio of Michelle’s confrontation with her parents. That’s Angeline’s 2-year-old son. He has flaming red hair and is the spitting image of Colin. For Michelle going public was a last resort, and her nephew was a huge motivator in this decision. No one intervened with her brother and now he’s gone, and the people who failed him have been able to keep their unforgivable negligence a secret.

[00:20:50] Andrea: Until now, we’ve named Angeline here because as much as what happened to her should be her story to tell, it’s a necessary piece of understanding what happened to [00:21:00] Colin. And what could happen to her own children under Lisa and Carrie’s roof, allowing Lisa to bury what she did to Angelan, to rebrand it as a little mental health crisis that she has, in her words, worked so hard to overcome, has allowed her to continue on in this world unchecked.

[00:21:17] Andrea: Telling this story here is Michelle’s attempt and mine to see that history doesn’t repeat itself. And hopefully if Angeline does listen, she too will know that there are so many people who care about her and people

[00:21:31] Bea: who fought for her. One of the confusing things when we all met and we were seeing each other in a support group, is that I had not known about Colin until that group.

[00:21:46] Bea: Wow. Until that group, and I also realized when you guys. Saw the medical records that you felt like we had abandoned you after they moved with Colin. And let me [00:22:00] just tell you. NICU nurse, she went up to the state level in Georgia to try and protect. Colin. I have a letter that I will share that shows how fiercely cared about Colin being born and your parents taking you across state lines.

[00:22:21] Andrea: Did you know that before?

[00:22:23] Bea: No, I knew.

[00:22:26] Mishelle: I knew, always followed my sister, but I had no idea that she interv or tried to intervene with our brother that way. Like that is just, I knew know how to process that. Um. Because it just brings the question, right, like there were people, there were, I mean, she was a NICU nurse.

[00:22:45] Mishelle: She saw who my mother was and the things she did. Why was her opinion not enough? You know what I mean? Like, it just, it makes me grateful. There was, was always somebody truly looking out, even when we didn’t know it. But at the same time, it makes me furious because there was no follow up. There was no [00:23:00] follow through.

[00:23:00] Mishelle: And like there was somebody telling them to do this follow through and still nobody, you know, cared enough to do anything about it. And that just wow.

[00:23:09] Bea: And to me it speaks of how devious, uh, parents can be when they cross state lines. They know, they know that they cannot be followed.

[00:23:22] Andrea: We see so many perpetrators cross state lines in these cases, and because of these massive holes in the system, their past, especially with child protective services, often simply evaporate the moment they move.

[00:23:34] Andrea: It’s maddening. In this period of discovery, both girls got to see and reconnect with Judy and fill her in on what else had happened.

[00:23:44] Judy: And when they came to visit after we all went out to lunch, uh, we walked in the park. They told me a lot of stuff Angela did, and then Michelle did on the phone about, um.

[00:23:56] Judy: Lots of things that had happened over those years and that they [00:24:00] also thought that their mother had been doing some things to their brother.

[00:24:05] Andrea: And the implications of Lisa’s career trajectory after Colin’s death were deeply unnerving. I.

[00:24:10] Judy: But the fact that where, how she got to that place by what she did to her children is just, I, I mean, if I knew someone was having, lecturing me in, you know, in a big hall with a whole bunch of other nurses or doctors, and then after the lecture was over, you know, by the way, and then after I heard that, I would think everything that that person just talked to me about is gone.

[00:24:36] Judy: I, they have no credibility. None. I think it’s terrifying.

[00:24:40] Andrea: What Judy is referring to here is Lisa’s position as the Director of patient advocacy for the Guthy Jackson Foundation, which was established by Bill Guthy and Victoria Jackson, two extremely successful marketing entrepreneurs, whose daughter Ali was diagnosed with Neuromyelitis Optica in February of 2008, just a month [00:25:00] before Colin.

[00:25:00] Andrea: By August of that year, the foundation had been established and was up and running. Many families launched nonprofits dedicated to a cause that has personally impacted them, but this is no small scale effort. Since its inception, Guthy Jackson has invested more than $70 million into NMO research, funded more than 90 research studies at universities and clinics worldwide, and formed an international panel to revise the diagnostic criteria for NMO.

[00:25:27] Andrea: Designed and recruited patients for clinical trials and helped to develop three NMO therapies that were approved by the FDA in 2019 and 2020. Patients and caretakers have always played a big role in Guthy Jackson’s work. They hosted their first patient day in Los Angeles in November 2009, where they brought patients and families to meet with a panel of world-class doctors and experts that they’d rallied to help find better treatments and hopefully a cure for the rare disease that their daughter was diagnosed with.

[00:25:55] Andrea: Lisa writes about attending this and many subsequent patient days with Guthy [00:26:00] Jackson, and she’s even featured in video footage of the event.

[00:26:03] Lisa: My name’s Lisa McDaniel. I think I know most of you. My project right now is called Lunch and Learn, and what I do is I go out and I talk to doctors and hospitals, really anybody who wants to listen to me and my Southern charm, right?

[00:26:17] Lisa: So. The way I started was with my son’s pediatrician. I asked her, told her what I was wanting to do. I asked her about coming into her office and just tell ’em a little bit more about NMO, because as you guys know, sometimes our doctors don’t know, and as patients and advocates. We have the responsibility to teach our doctors

[00:26:40] Andrea: In its early years.

[00:26:41] Andrea: The Guthy Jackson Foundation was mostly funded by Victoria and Bill’s massive personal wealth. Both members of the couple are very successful entrepreneurs. She and cosmetics, and Bill as one half of the direct to consumer giant Guthy Ranker. My fellow millennials will almost certainly remember the ubiquitous, [00:27:00] proactive infomercials of the 1990s and early two thousands.

[00:27:03] Andrea: That’s Guthy Renker, though both parents funded the Guthy Jackson Foundation. It’s Victoria, who’s become the face of the organization writing two books about the foundation in its origins, and giving dozens of interviews on the topic. Victoria is easily the most prominent voice on the topic of NMO. Lisa appears to have attached herself to this foundation from the moment it existed.

[00:27:24] Andrea: And it’s easy to see why Victoria made such a compelling target, and Lisa wasted no time in cozying up to her. In a post not long after the first patient day, she writes, I was able to talk to Victoria Jackson after Dr. Greenberg. She assured me she’s willing to do whatever needs to be done to make sure Colin gets what he needs and goes where he needs to go.

[00:27:45] Andrea: She’s an amazing woman and she’s on a mission to find a cure. So lovely, so caring, so compassionate. And a mom to a 16-year-old daughter with NMO. She understands. Here’s Victoria herself, giving Lisa a [00:28:00] shout out during their 2018 Patient day.

[00:28:02] Victoria: Lisa McDaniel, who has been with us from the beginning, Lisa, she, um, obviously the most painful of losses, her son Colin, and she has been extraordinary and there for so many patients, and we’re so grateful.

[00:28:25] Andrea: This couple is not only wealthy and powerful, but extremely celebrity adjacent. Guthy launched the career of controversial self-help guru Tony Robbins in the 1990s and helped Cindy Crawford launch her wildly successful makeup line. Victoria counts Ellen DeGeneres and Meghan Markle. Pardon me, Megan Sussex as close friends De DeGeneres has also shown support for her work with Guthy Jackson, as have Reese Witherspoon, Monica Lewinsky, and Dustin Hoffman, who is also an early donor to the foundation.

[00:28:55] Andrea: You get the picture.[00:29:00]

[00:29:00] Andrea: The celebrity connection wasn’t lost on Lisa, who shared Guthy Jackson’s video testimonials with Witherspoon and Hoffman, and there’d already been some celebrity cameos in her story. With the NASCAR trip that was gifted to the family where they got to meet several famous drivers, and this too is a part of the Munch Hasen by proxy pattern.

[00:29:18] Andrea: There are frequent celebrity cameos in these stories, often in the context of visiting with sick children, but also in admiring their heroic mothers. My sister has Beloved ex Seahawk, Richard Sherman, Megan and Jean Bhari, who were featured in the excellent podcast, believe in Magic, had one direction. Kathy Bush, who positioned herself as an advocate for healthcare reform and was later convicted for abusing her daughter, got a meeting with no less than Hillary Clinton while she was First Lady.

[00:29:46] Andrea: It was through Guthy Jackson that Lisa also got access to two of the most high profile doctors in the field who had pioneered the research around NMO, Dr. Dean Wingerchuck, and Dr. Benjamin Greenberg, who is seen talking to Lisa in a video from one of [00:30:00] the patient days, and who later consulted with Dr.

[00:30:02] Andrea: Jane Ness about Colin and Guthy Jackson gave Lisa a platform to tell Colin’s story. Or at least her version of it to tens of thousands of people, his name and his likeness have been used in their fundraising. How did this ever happen?

[00:30:21] Lisa: Because my work does not know about all this shit. My work does not know about my past. Well, I don’t. I’ve tried to tell them before, but they’re like, it is not relevant at this point. But they don’t know what it is either. If they knew what it was, they may not feel that way. Well, I don’t understand.

[00:30:38] Mishelle: Ooh. I mean, I just, I get that.

[00:30:41] Mishelle: It is really irrelevant, my opinion on that. I don’t think, I don’t, I don’t understand why they wouldn’t not. No, I mean, I’m not saying what you’re saying is not, I’m saying I don’t understand why they wouldn’t have done a background, Tiffany, you in the first place and then haven’t explained it before hiring you, but we’re past that point.

[00:30:54] Mishelle: It really doesn’t matter. I mean, I get They never asked her about that. I get, I get it. They didn’t. But I just feel like that’s such an oversight. I just [00:31:00] can’t. Comprehend that

[00:31:03] Andrea: Lisa’s fears that she would lose her job when this went public appeared to have been well founded. Within 24 hours of my contacting them, Lisa and Colin had mostly disappeared from the Guthy Jackson website, and according to Michelle, Lisa had been fired.

[00:31:18] Andrea: And we received a statement almost immediately from Victoria Jackson, which I’ll quote here. First and foremost, I appreciate you reaching out and informing us of this shocking information. We had absolutely no knowledge of this. As a result of receiving this troubling information, we are taking all appropriate action, effective immediately.

[00:31:35] Andrea: Our mission to find a cure remains our focus for all patients affected by NMO. In a follow-up email about Lisa’s claims that they did not run a background check on her. They said this, while we follow all applicable local, state, and federal laws in terms of background checks in our hiring process, clearly her being able to join the Guthy Jackson Charitable Foundation is something that should never have been able to happen, [00:32:00] especially given the incredibly sensitive world in which we operate.

[00:32:03] Andrea: They also reiterated that they’re taking steps to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. There’s no legal requirement to do a background check, but there are plenty of other very good reasons to do one, especially for someone who’s in a highly sensitive and very public facing role as Lisa was.

[00:32:22] Andrea: Guthy Jackson did not directly respond to Lisa’s statement that she had tried to tell them, but this is rather moot. If Lisa mentioned anything about her past to anyone at Guthy Jackson, it was almost certainly the sanitized and minimized version of the story that she’s been telling other people for years, because as she said herself, if they had known what she’d really done, it seems wildly unlikely that they would’ve been willing to overlook it.

[00:32:48] Andrea: Hiring Lisa was a bad mistake, but I also see how it happened. The information about Lisa’s previous conviction was not very accessible and it didn’t come up on a basic background check, and the people at [00:33:00] Guthy Jackson had known Lisa as a parent and then as a volunteer for the organization for years before they hired her.

[00:33:06] Andrea: I cannot say that I would’ve done things differently in their position. I mean, okay, I would have after years of making this show, but in the absence of that, what would ever make them think that she was capable of what she’d done? According to Guthy Jackson, they never received any complaints about her, which I completely believe nothing about.

[00:33:26] Andrea: Lisa would hint at what she’s capable of. It’s exactly why she’s so terrifying. The reality is that it likely never occurred to Victoria or anyone else to question Lisa. But unfortunately, charitable foundations and support groups dedicated to rare diseases are a magnet for perpetrators. Make A Wish has shown up in many of the cases we’ve covered.

[00:33:46] Andrea: Then there were AHC groups in Season five that provided support to Sophie Hartman and they’re the even more disturbing groups such as Mito Action that provide specific advice on dealing with false allegations of medical child abuse. [00:34:00] These groups provide funding, they provide legitimacy, and in the worst case scenario, they provide ways for perpetrators to get information about how to pull off their charade to begin with, and even to communicate with fellow perpetrators and find doctors who won’t ask too many questions or will just give them a specific diagnosis, as we saw with Bea Kowalski getting her CRPS diagnosis from Dr.

[00:34:21] Andrea: Kirkpatrick. So then it’s especially chilling that Lisa had such a prominent role in this foundation for over 12 years where she was one of only a handful of staff. Lisa was entrusted with a lot, including running support groups and networking with patients, caregivers, and in her words, local advocates on behalf of the foundation.

[00:34:42] Andrea: The damage Lisa has done to this organization and to this entire community feels incalculable, the swath of destruction, these perpetrators leave in their wake is always massive, but I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like this case. I genuinely feel for Victoria and for all of the [00:35:00] people at Guthy Jackson who are now learning this information, particularly the many caregivers and patients who have relied on Lisa over the years for information and support.

[00:35:09] Andrea: No one understands better than me how Lisa pulled this off. She is a master manipulator. Even her younger daughter who she likely would’ve killed if she hadn’t been stopped, got sucked back in, as Judy reflects on.

[00:35:22] Judy: And then the other thing, if you think about it, so in terms of Angela now grown up where several years after that meeting we had another.

[00:35:32] Judy: You know, reached out to me and told me that she was expecting a baby and I got, you know, very involved in that part. But thinking about that part too, where, uh, during that six month period where I would come to visit her at the maternity home, and, you know, I’m sitting in the rocking chair, she’s on the bed nurse and her baby, and we’re just having these pretty intimate talks about lots of different things.

[00:35:58] Judy: Um. [00:36:00] I just have a real problem with a lot of the things that we talked about where her mother was desperately trying to get her to move back home and using the same exact tactics just in a different way because now she’s dealing with a grownup daughter, not a vulnerable. Baby in a crib. It was the same stuff.

[00:36:21] Judy: It was just tailored to an adult daughter instead of a baby daughter.

[00:36:26] Andrea: A lot of the work around Munchausen by proxy is rightfully focused on protecting children, but the reality is that the psychological abuse doesn’t stop when someone turns 18. Children are groomed by their abuser to remain under their control.

[00:36:40] Andrea: As we saw in the Gypsy Rose Blanchard case, and as my colleagues and I have seen with countless other adult survivors, breaking free from an abusive dynamic with a parent is often a lifelong endeavor for survivors. And over the past few years, Angelan just keeps slipping deeper back under her mother’s spell.

[00:36:58] Andrea: And as I am recording this, [00:37:00] Angelan has just given birth to her second child, another son. Neither of the fathers are involved. Angelan is entirely isolated with Carrie and Lisa who was in the operating room during the birth. This situation is terrifying.

[00:37:16] Judy: Lisa know she has a lot of eyes on her. Although that didn’t stop her before in the hospital, but I’m mostly concerned because this new baby, at least she had, and he was six months old before she moved back home.

[00:37:31] Judy: And then once, you know, a DFCS report was made, Lisa did not live in that home for a couple months until she was allowed to come back. And I guess DFCS felt like everything was fine, but that new baby is coming straight home. To that house brand new baby, and Angela will have two children. It’s not like she can just worry about one kid.

[00:37:54] Judy: So she’s gonna be split between the two of them. Yeah. She gonna be able to watch [00:38:00] as carefully as she thinks she will. I did also. Um, after the original DFCS report was made, I reached out to the office of the child advocate in Atlanta and spoke to their senior investigator who put me in touch with the supervisor in the county that they are living in, and I had a long conversation with her about a lot of things and never received any kind of response back after that, but I, I put it out there.

[00:38:27] Judy: So, yeah, she knows about it. And the office of the child advocate, that’s a whole different story. She’s a wonderful person and I’ve worked with her on a number of cases when I was working at the hospital, and, um, so she, she’s, it’s on her radar.

[00:38:44] Andrea: Angelan is, by all accounts, a loving mother, but living in the house with Lisa is like moving in with a grizzly bear and hoping the baby gate that you put up will protect your children.

[00:38:54] Andrea: Lisa almost killed Angeline, and she should never have been allowed to be with children [00:39:00] again. The lack of eyes on Colin almost certainly led to his death. To be honest, reporting on a story with stakes this high has been stressful, but to my great relief, I am not alone this time as another journalist is covering this story as well.

[00:39:15] Andrea: Way back in the fall of 2023, I got a very nice email from a decorated television journalist in a Augusta. Meredith Anderson has won an Edward r Murrow Award, an Emmy award, and too many others to list here. In her email, she told me that she had recently found the podcast and binged it on a long car ride.

[00:39:33] Andrea: She said that she knew I was feeling pretty disenchanted with the media. I was covering the Kowalski case at the time. So yes, but that she found my work really compelling and that I should let her know if I ever had a case in Georgia. I called her up the next day and told her, boy, do I ever have a case in Georgia.

[00:39:52] Andrea: Communities like Augusta can count themselves. Lucky that they have journalists like Meredith looking out for them. Local journalism, which has all but disappeared from too [00:40:00] many places is one of the most effective ways to hold power to account. Meredith has covered everything from hurricanes to the defrauding of military families, and crucially for this story, a number of cases where systemic failures led to the deaths of abused children.

[00:40:15] Andrea: So in May, several months after our initial trip to Georgia, we headed back to film with Meredith and her team. Meredith and I sat down with Michelle for two and a half hours.

[00:40:26] Meredeth: So do you think she caused his death? Yeah. How long did it take you to come to that conclusion?

[00:40:40] Mishelle: I don’t know that I.

[00:40:44] Mishelle: I don’t know that I said it out loud until the last five years. You know, I, I wondered and I question, um, he died in March, 2012. My daughter was born in [00:41:00] August, 2011, so I was very postpartum and I was very like, very young mom and, um. I didn’t have the best relationship with my child’s father at the time and like just was really questioning everything about myself.

[00:41:17] Mishelle: And so it was like, I guess my mind was so twisted up and just so gaslit my whole life that, I mean, one day I would think there had to have been something to it. Like there’s no way that he just like died from this with no. Without her doing something and the next day it would be like, how could I ever think that way about my own mother?

[00:41:41] Mishelle: I mean, it was just back and forth and this like deep internal struggle. And there were parts of me that like legitimately had a lot of guilt for even feeling that way about her. You know? And just really, I mean, when you don’t have that information and you don’t know what to call it and you don’t have words for it, and all, you know [00:42:00] is like, and there was a while where I started digging.

[00:42:03] Mishelle: Like, I turned 18 and I got out and I moved out and, um, I started digging. I mean, and I was like googling everything I could and looking people up on Facebook and went to like Telfer County and dug up the old newspaper article of it just to like, I was looking for any answer I could because I knew at least at that point that my mom was a liar.

[00:42:26] Mishelle: You know, I knew that like her version of events weren’t exactly true. But I didn’t really know what the truth was, e either, and I couldn’t trust anybody.

[00:42:51] Ad Break – Act 3

[00:42:51] Andrea: We returned to Hazelhurst this time camera ready and spent a long day filming with Meredith and her crew. Shout out to her producer Estelle and [00:43:00] her cameraman, Hector, and once again to the fine folks of Village Pizza. Our PA for the day Michelle’s husband, Brent, made an emergency run and brought back a

[00:43:09] Andrea: Approximately 100 pies. Michelle has come a long way since I first met her, and even in the months since we first began recording this podcast. So it was such a beautiful full circle moment to hear her tell Meredith about this journey.

[00:43:24] Mishelle: I’m very thankful, um, for the support group and the therapy and like.

[00:43:31] Mishelle: Um, I think is of utmost importance. Like I really, I really don’t believe I would’ve been able to like, move on with my life and not be like, stuck in that just searching for answers because I mean, that’s what, how can you not, how can you not look at all of this chaos? And not want some sort of answer as to like, how this happened or what happened or could we, could we have done more And like just to have to sit in that support group and watch all of [00:44:00] these people.

[00:44:01] Mishelle: Just not along and get it and not have to like explain in a hundred different ways. And like, again, like you’re saying, like there are people who are not gonna understand like why I had any relationship with my mom ever, you know? But like to hear all these other people. That just get it, that just understand like what that does to your brain and how that makes you like doubt everything about yourself and everybody around you.

[00:44:33] Meredeth: Is that why you’re speaking out and share? Like, are you wanting to give that to somebody else?

[00:44:41] Mishelle: I think that’s a huge reason why I’m doing it. There’s two reasons. So that’s like a big one. I know what that was like for me and I know how, just like everything in my life felt like it felt fell into place during those support groups and like just hearing it and like how it just all started to fall into place and click and it [00:45:00] was like I could breathe.

[00:45:02] Mishelle: It was like literally for the fir, it was like taking a deep breath for the first time because it all made sense now and it was horrible. Like the reality of it is horrible and awful. But at least it made sense. At least there was like other people on the side of this, instead of just being this lost girl in this town where nobody understands anything and the rumors and like everybody has their own opinion.

[00:45:24] Mishelle: But another really big reason is because my brother should still be here. My brother should be here, and I’m fully convinced. That there are other children that are still slipping through the cracks, that are still being harmed and that are still dying at the hands of perpetrators, at the hands of doctors who don’t report.

[00:45:48] Mishelle: And if I can save even one kid. Even one kid, it’s worth it.

[00:45:56] Andrea: I know what it is to grieve someone who’s still living, to [00:46:00] go through the years long process of fully understanding the horror of what they’ve done. Every interaction I’ve had with Michelle since we picked up the mics for this season has told me that she’s doing this for the right reasons, and it certainly hasn’t made her life easy.

[00:46:15] Meredeth: She lives down the street from you, right? Like how do you coexist?

[00:46:21] Mishelle: Um, since I told her I was doing the podcast, very little communication. Um, a lot of it, there’s a lot of like nuance that I, I won’t get into just for the sake of my kids. Sure. Um, but I’ll just say she has a very. Keen way of getting inside your head, um, and threatening you without threatening you, if that makes sense.

[00:46:57] Mishelle: Um,

[00:46:58] Meredeth: yeah, it does.[00:47:00]

[00:47:01] Mishelle: But the other piece of like how hard it’s been is like realizing that my brother could have been saved, but he should have been saved, and like realizing that

[00:47:13] Meredeth: there could be some pretty heavy consequences to speaking out. And

[00:47:19] Mishelle: Oh yeah.

[00:47:20] Meredeth: Um, Andrea and I have talked, what if somebody opens an investigation into Collins’ death, and we’ve kind of have you thought of all the possible scenarios of what happens when this is released into the world?

[00:47:36] Mishelle: I don’t think there’s a scenario I haven’t thought about. Um, I think Andrea and I have talked about the podcast part of it for years now. Um. I’ve talked to my therapist about it for well over a year. I mean, there were sessions where we would, I would literally just say, okay, I just need to talk about all the possibilities.

[00:47:55] Mishelle: Um, and I have examined it every way. I know how [00:48:00] to, um, and ultimately I am not doing this to hurt her. I am not doing this to ruin her life. I’m not doing this to go after her because I’m capable of feeling more empathy for her than she’s capable of feeling for me. Um, but at this point, but

[00:48:26] Mishelle: I think it’s about saving kids. And that may sound really dramatic, but like my brother should literally be here and he is not. And there were so many people I. Who could have stepped in? Who should have stepped in, and it was their literal job to step in and they didn’t.

[00:48:44] Mishelle: And I, there’s a lot of like, talk about my trends about proxy in the media. There’s a lot. Um, and I think it’s really, really important to show people what happens. You don’t step up and you don’t report, and this goes [00:49:00] unnoticed and it’s looked over and it’s given a million justifications and reasons why you shouldn’t.

[00:49:06] Mishelle: This is what happens.

[00:49:09] Meredeth: There’s talk about it, but there’s not a lot. Um, there’s a lot of talk about the other side of it,

[00:49:16] Victoria: about

[00:49:16] Meredeth: medical kidnapping. Right. The landscape for that right now is, I mean, just Georgia. Yeah. There’s been laws. Past that kind of give parents more leeway, parents, more rights, parents, um, they’re believing, I guess when it comes down to investigations, you believe the parents sometimes more than the kids or the child abuse physicians.

[00:49:40] Meredeth: And so do you think now is an important time Yeah. To speak up? Especially since, I mean, here we are in Georgia where. It’s almost like things are getting harder now.

[00:49:53] Victoria: Yeah.

[00:49:53] Meredeth: For these cases. They’re already hard enough. Yeah. To be prosecuted, but [00:50:00] it’s getting even harder

[00:50:04] Meredeth: and I don’t think enough people see real people talking about the real consequences. Yeah.

[00:50:10] Andrea: And I know a lot of people who work as frontline, you know, in child protection or who are child abuse pediatricians or have you know those positions. They understand that it’s really traumatic to take a child away from their parents, and they understand that that alone causes harm.

[00:50:24] Andrea: But there are times when it has to be done. And I think overall, we’re totally losing sight of that. And we’re being asked to sympathize with the parents’ experience of being.  A accused of child abuse of having to go through a court battle of potentially losing their children. Were asked to being sympathized with that without presenting what that child has actually endured.

[00:50:50] Andrea: I am guessing that many of you are feeling pretty angry about the failures of the child protection apparatus in Georgia after hearing this story. But as we allude to here, [00:51:00] things are unfortunately headed in the direction of making it harder to intervene in cases of suspected child abuse. Thanks in part to the high profile Hernandez case.

[00:51:09] Andrea: This is a complex story that I may cover in a future episode, but the thing to know about it for right now is that this case and the fervor over it, has led to passing what’s known as Ridge’s Law, which grants parents the legal right to obtain a second medical opinion when suspected of child abuse.

[00:51:25] Andrea: This law might sound benign and sensible, but in practice, laws like this prioritize parental rights over child safety. And create additional barriers to emergency protective orders. By slowing down the process in the hands of an abuser, it gives them an opportunity to shop for a favorable opinion, a more thriving industry than you might imagine.

[00:51:44] Andrea: And it further erodes trust in child abuse, pediatricians, despite their lower error rates and diagnosing child abuse. And so I think what Michelle’s doing is so important because Colin isn’t here. [00:52:00] To say what he went through, but Michelle watched it, other family members watched it. We have so much information about what he endured, and right now the only person telling his story is Lisa, the person who did it to him.

[00:52:20] Andrea: And so it’s a, it’s an exact parallel, right? Like we’re letting his abuser own his story. And that’s not right.

[00:52:31] Mishelle: Not just own it, but live a life ’cause of it.

[00:52:34] Andrea: Exploit. I mean, Lisa’s entire career is based off of her experience as a caregiver for her son, and she has built an entire brand and career off of that.

[00:52:49] Meredeth: Well, if I didn’t know anything about her and I went to her Facebook page, her one of the. Top pictures mm-hmm. Is Colin and, uh, [00:53:00] almost like a memorial Yeah. To Colin. So even as someone who doesn’t know anything about her, it’s, it’s right there. Right? As like part of her identity that is, that she presents to the world.

[00:53:12] Meredeth: What she publicly puts to the world attached to her name on her personal page is. Um, Memorial to Colin.

[00:53:18] Andrea: Yeah. Well, and she’s done interviews about it. She presents through her work to doctors about this. She’s had this job for 12 years, the number of people who have talked to her, and that’s been their point of contact.

[00:53:35] Andrea: Yeah. And now they’re gonna find out that, I mean this, like she has done quite aside from all of her other misdeeds, I mean, she has done. Irreparable damage to this community that has coalesced around this disease because the betrayal of finding out, I mean, can you imagine. You, that [00:54:00] person that you leaned on for support and that person who gave you the information and that person maybe referred you to the doctor that helped her do it.

[00:54:10] Andrea: After a long day of filming in Hazelhurst, we turned in for the night before heading out for our second day of filming in Valdosta for the duration of this season. I’d been wondering when and how to reach out to Lisa. I’d spent so many hours reading her words. Listening to her voice in interviews and talking to some of the people who’d known her best.

[00:54:30] Andrea: I felt like I knew her better than I wanted to, but much as it is for the detectives who investigate these cases. I knew I had to get the timing right. I needed to know everything I possibly could before I spoke to Lisa. Trying to get the truth out of a pathological liar is complicated. But by May, when we took our second trip to Georgia, we were coming up on our deadlines.

[00:54:52] Andrea: So it was now or never.

[00:54:54] Preview

[00:54:54] Meredeth: Speaking of Lisa, we’re about to go knock on her door. Do you think she’s going answer? [00:55:00] I mean, do you think she’s gonna be receptive?

[00:55:04] Andrea: I truly don’t know. I, I’m not sure. I, I’m not sure I would be surprised by either. Outcome. Right. I think I could absolutely see her being saying, you know, I’m not gonna talk to you because your, your coverage is gonna be so biased.

[00:55:24] Andrea: She knows the podcast is coming. Mm-hmm. I suspect she’ll kind of connect the dots that they’re related, but I think it will be interesting because the other thing about Lisa is she likes attention. And she likes the opportunity to bend the narrative in her direction. So I don’t know how that, uh, equation will play out kind of in real time.

[00:55:45] Andrea: Yeah. When she’s faced with that decision. That’s next time on the season finale of Nobody Should Believe Me.

[00:55:57] Credits

[00:55:57] Andrea: Nobody Should Believe me is written, hosted, and [00:56:00] executive produced by me. Andrea Dunlop. Our supervising producer is Mariah Gossett. Our senior producer is Taj Easton, assistant editor and Associate Producer is Greta Strom Quist Research and Fact Checking by Erin Ajai. Engineering and mixing by Robin Edgar and administrative producing by Nola Kamus.

[00:56:19] Andrea: Music provided by Blue Dot sessions sounds Snap and slipstream Media.