SEASON 06 | EPISODE 08

In our season finale, Andrea comes face-to-face with Lisa McDaniel, the woman at the center of this story when she arrives on her doorstep with television journalist Meredith Anderson to request an interview. 

As they process the revealing conversation with Mishelle, they reflect on the ripple effects that this story has already had on the McDaniel family, and for Lisa’s former employer, the Guthy-Jackson Foundations. 

Drawing parallels between Collin’s case and that of Olivia Gant, Andrea speaks with Melissa Kalish, the lead detective in the investigation of Kelly Turner, Olivia’s mother for insight and, perhaps, a roadmap.

Mishelle reflects on what justice would mean for her, as she and her aunt Sabrina reclaim their memories of Collin.

***

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] Mishelle: This may be one of the hardest, most difficult things to put out in public, which is saying a lot because I’ve already recorded so much that will be in the public and that I won’t be able to erase from the public. Um, but this will likely be the only opportunity that I get to address my mom again. So, mom, if you listen to this, I love you so much, even through all of this.[00:01:00]

[00:01:00] Mishelle: And all the things I told you were absolutely true about how you were deserving of love and you were deserving a better life than what you were given. But so did we, so did I. So did Angeline, and so did Colin. He deserved, and we all deserved a better life than what you gave us. And Angeline’s kids deserve a better life than what you gave us.

[00:01:34] Mishelle: I know. You think I don’t understand and maybe I don’t understand all of it, but I don’t have to understand to know that we deserved better. I don’t have to understand because what I do understand is that Colin shouldn’t have died. And what I do understand is that my sister will have a lifelong physical [00:02:00] complications with her own body because of what you did to her.

[00:02:07] Mishelle: And what I do understand is that I just wanted you to be a mom, and I also understand that you’re not capable of being the mom that I needed. But the only thing I can say to you now is that you can stop. You can stop, and there is help for you to stop and that you never have to hurt another person, not even yourself ever again.

[00:02:40] Andrea: A lot has happened. In the final weeks of recording this season, Lisa lost her job and Angelan, Lisa’s middle daughter, gave birth to her second baby. Michelle was able to visit her sister in the hospital and meet her new nephew, but within a week, Angelan stopped speaking to her. Angeline knows [00:03:00] that the show’s coming out, and at least at this moment, it’s causing a rift.

[00:03:04] Andrea: When I met Michelle and Angelan years ago, I was the sister who’d been cut out for telling the truth. And now in addition to everything else she’s gone through, Michelle appears to have joined my unlucky club. But the truth is powerful and keeping it hidden is corrosive. And Michelle has been brave enough to help us drag it into the light to face.

[00:03:25] Andrea: Lisa, head on. And now it was my turn. Okay.

[00:03:41] Andrea: Here we go. I hope shocks us.

[00:03:48] Intro

[00:03:48] 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. [00:04:00] I’m Andrea Dunlop, and this is, Nobody Should Believe me.

[00:04:14] Act 1

[00:04:14] Andrea: During our second day in Georgia, after spending the morning filming my sit down with television journalist Meredith Anderson, we headed out to talk to the woman at the center of the whole thing. Meredith is a far more experienced journalist than I am, and I was glad she was with me. I’ve never actually walked up to someone’s door for an interview, let alone in a stand your ground state, like Georgia.

[00:04:35] Andrea: I was nervous.

[00:04:36] Meredeth: Alright, we got this. Okay.

[00:04:42] Andrea: My producer, Mariah and I got into our rental car and she cranked a hype playlist. While we drove the 20 minutes from Valdosta to Hira. We were followed close behind by Meredith, her producer Estelle, and their cameraman Hector. We pulled up around the corner from Lisa and Carrie’s house on a quiet sun drenched suburban [00:05:00] street just a few blocks away from Michelle.

[00:05:02] Andrea: The house looks like new construction and the lawn was well kept. Nothing to hint at how dangerous the inhabitants were. An apt metaphor, Mariah camped out with Meredith’s team, their cameras trained on the door. As Meredith and I approached.

[00:05:23] Andrea: Lisa did not agree to be interviewed, but she did end up talking to us on her doorstep for more than 40 minutes. And once we’d said our goodbyes, leaving our business cards, in case she changed her mind, we hurried back to Michelle’s house to fill her in. So Lisa answered the door. Mm-hmm. And kind of like stood in the doorway for a little while, and then finally like came out and closed the door.

[00:05:44] Andrea: Um, eventually your dad came out

[00:05:49] Meredeth: and the first thing she said was that she felt very bombarded by the two of us. And I mean, I, I physically took a step back when she said that because I was very kind of aware of like, okay, this [00:06:00] does probably feel like that. And you know, we said, oh my gosh, no. You know, we wanted to talk to you face to face, like, look, you in the eye, face to face, because we figured this was the best way to ask you if you wanna talk to us.

[00:06:14] Andrea: It was surreal seeing Lisa in person after all these years, she’d loomed large in my mind. And especially after spending these past six months, sifting through so much of her own writing and listening to hours of interviews with her. And to be fair, it did feel like a lot to spring on someone. I can’t imagine how it would feel to have two journalists show up on your doorstep like this.

[00:06:35] Andrea: But I do know exactly how it feels to have journalists who are telling your family’s story ignore you. When I found out that Mike Hixenbaugh and Taylor Mirfendereski were covering my sister, I tried to reach out to them then and numerous times after. Over the years, they had no problem trashing the doctor who saved my niece’s life and including gruesome photos of my niece in the hospital in their coverage, but they wouldn’t even talk to me.[00:07:00]

[00:07:00] Andrea: Mike Hixenbaugh, the national journalist, eventually did respond once to decline my request to interview him. But as of this writing, Taylor Mirfendereski, a local journalist and a person, I have friends in common with. Has never even so much as sent me an email. It’s bad journalism and it’s cowardly and I’m not about to do that to someone else.

[00:07:22] Andrea: So especially given the consequences that this could all have for Lisa, it felt like something that I really ought to say to her face.

[00:07:31] Meredeth: I think right off the bat before we even could say anything else, as she said, no one has believed me. Um, nothing I say is gonna matter because no one’s gonna believe me.

[00:07:43] Meredeth: Anyway, that was kind of the theme throughout, and she kind of kept returning. It doesn’t matter what

[00:07:48] Andrea: I say, it doesn’t, you won’t believe me. It doesn’t matter what I say. Right. People are gonna think what they’re gonna think. Right,

[00:07:52] Meredeth: right. And I’ve had to defend myself my whole life. Mm-hmm. And, um, she kind of said that almost immediately.

[00:07:58] Meredeth: Yes. After we introduced ourselves. Yeah. Really. [00:08:00] But then kept revisiting that throughout. Everything’s gonna be taken out of context and she. For a long time was like, this happened 25 years ago. This happened 25 years ago. Yeah. Why are you bringing up something that happened 25 years ago? I’ve worked so hard to overcome this, and,

[00:08:16] Andrea: and we, we tried to kind of, you know, pick up that thread of like, you know, I’ve worked, or I’ve worked with my therapist.

[00:08:22] Andrea: Mm-hmm. I’ve worked, you know, she presented herself as having taken a lot of accountability mm-hmm. For what she did. Yeah. And she was like, I never said I didn’t do that. I, you know, um, and then in one, I did

[00:08:33] Meredeth: horrible things. I did

[00:08:34] Andrea: horrible things to my daughter. I’ve acknowledged that. She said, I believe, um, you know, she said as soon as they asked me at the hospital, I told them mm-hmm.

[00:08:45] Andrea: And here is the reason I needed to wait until I’d gotten all the information I could before talking to Lisa. Because the minute that she opened her mouth, Lisa did what she has always done lie. Just not [00:09:00] what happened according to the records. Um, and, you know, I came clean is what she said. I came

[00:09:05] Meredeth: clean.

[00:09:06] Meredeth: Um, those were her words. Yeah. You know, and

[00:09:07] Andrea: so like really, again, just much the narrative that you’ve always heard about this. Um, and, you know, I asked her, I was like, well, what, you know, what, what, what were the circumstances? I’m not gonna tell you. I was like, well, okay, we, you know, we have a documentation.

[00:09:20] Andrea: So, you know, and at one point, this was later in the conversation when I mentioned, I was like, you know, there isn’t, I was like, there isn’t dispute about what happened. And we’re not basing that off of someone’s account of it. Right. We have documentation. There was video evidence, there’s a transcript

[00:09:33] Meredeth: of that

[00:09:33] Andrea: video.

[00:09:33] Andrea: Mm-hmm. That’s what we’re gonna be referring to. Um,

[00:09:36] Meredeth: but then she was like, uh, 25 years ago. 25 years ago. Yeah. And so it was kind of. Kind of going in a circle.

[00:09:45] Andrea: She started off saying we would just believe Michelle no matter what. But when we explained everything, we’d gathered to corroborate the story, she switched to bemoaning the fact that we were just dredging up the past.

[00:09:56] Andrea: But of course we weren’t just here about that piece of her past. [00:10:00]

[00:10:01] Meredeth: I said, I know this is gonna be a really painful question, but with your past and the death of your son, there are questions about a connection there. Right? And uh, then she got really upset. I mean, I expected her to, I think anyone would get upset about that.

[00:10:23] Meredeth: But I mean, she vehemently defended herself. And

[00:10:26] Andrea: what she said was, you know. We got investigated by, you know, dhs. Mm-hmm. And we know that, but I don’t know if you’d have those. Right. And I was like, well, I don’t have records about the investigation. I have record, I have court records from that.

[00:10:40] Meredeth: Yeah. And then I was like, oh, you got investigated in Alabama?

[00:10:42] Meredeth: And she’s like, no.

[00:10:42] Andrea: Yeah. So she was like, no, here in Georgia. I was like, and so I don’t know if she’s referring to the kind of earlier ones, if there were subsequent ones, but, um, you know, and then she said, well, all of our doctors agreed about his diagnosis of NMO and here is where the time that we’d invested in this case and the [00:11:00] many days of my life lost to reading Lisa’s blog posts paid off.

[00:11:04] Andrea: And I said, actually, that’s not the case. We, you know, have, have listened to her recorded phone call, recorded call with Dr. Jane

[00:11:11] Meredeth: nist. And she says that,

[00:11:14] Andrea: that diagnosis with a dispute,

[00:11:16] Meredeth: right?

[00:11:16] Andrea: Yeah.

[00:11:17] Meredeth: And I said, or if she’s not certain that that’s wasn’t the diagnosis, or there’s some questions about that diagnosis.

[00:11:22] Andrea: And I said, um, and I said, and actually Lisa, you yourself and your blog, you know, months before Collin’s Death mentioned that the doctors were unsure that was the correct diagnosis. And then she, this is

[00:11:34] Meredeth: when she pulled up the phone to start texting your dad. Mm-hmm. And, and then after the

[00:11:37] Andrea: Nest thing, you know, she said, well, that’s not what she told me.

[00:11:40] Andrea: And I was like, yeah, I understand that. And I said, um, and then she said, well, what about his positive tests that came back? That what about his tests that came back positive? And I said, oh, well I assume you’re referring to the blood test that was taken in January that was part of the UT Southwestern study.

[00:11:55] Andrea: Mm-hmm. Um, and they came back 11 months later. Is that the one you’re talking [00:12:00] about? And she was like, well, I don’t know the timing. And I was like, I’m aware of that study that he was a part of, because that’s in the Kathy Jackson video stuff. Mm-hmm. So I, presumably there was some truth to that. Um, I said, I’m aware of that study.

[00:12:10] Andrea: So the thing about those types of studies is that research studies don’t return individual diagnostic results. And she. She said, oh, well, actually, the thing is they didn’t use his sample for research. Right?

[00:12:24] Meredeth: He wasn’t part of that study

[00:12:25] Andrea: or he wasn’t, and I was like, okay, so they sent you, I was like, okay.

[00:12:28] Andrea: So you’re saying that, yeah, they sent you 11 months later after they took that blood draw, they sent you a positive test and she’s, well, I don’t know how long it was, and I was like, okay, well it was 11 months when you posted about it. And I was like, and so I think then she just kind of dropped it. I learned the details of what my sister had done long after she stopped speaking to me.

[00:12:49] Andrea: I never got to look her in the eye and confront her with the information in real time. The thing about people like Lisa, is they have an answer for everything, and it often doesn’t occur to you [00:13:00] until much later that what they’re saying doesn’t add up. I’d been obsessing over these discrepancies for months, outlining them and connecting all of my red string, but I’m always worried I’ll get it wrong.

[00:13:12] Andrea: Always worried I’m missing something. So to be able to tell this to Lisa, to her face, it was strangely comforting. I’m not going to pretend that I’m some neutral observer in all this, but I really do want the truth. At the end of the day. It’s the only thing I’m after. So then I said, listen, this is what I’m trying to get to the bottom of.

[00:13:33] Andrea: If there’s additional information, I don’t have his medical records. I, I said, but, um, yeah. So I’m trying to remember where

[00:13:39] Meredeth: there was a lot of the weaving in. Like, I don’t trust you. Right. How am I supposed to trust you? Fair. I mean, I think that’s a fair question. Absolutely. Um, you, and she said, you’ve already made up your mind.

[00:13:49] Meredeth: We’re like, no. You know, we’re we, that’s why we’re here. I mean, we wouldn’t be here. But when your dad came to the door, he opened the door and he is like, oh, dfcs, I presume.

[00:13:59] Andrea: Yeah. So she [00:14:00] said she, she looked at Carrie. So Carrie opened the door to step out. Yeah. And Lisa goes, guess who’s here? Oh yeah. And he goes, oh, dfcs, I presume.

[00:14:10] Andrea: And she was like. She goes, she

[00:14:11] Meredeth: goes, no, the podcaster like,

[00:14:14] Andrea: but I couldn’t believe that your dad said, you answered the door that way and said, oh, dfcs, I presume so. Yeah.

[00:14:22] Meredeth: And we were like, no, we’re not dfcs.

[00:14:26] Andrea: Once Carrie realized who I was after that, extraordinarily telling initial guests, he got right to work trying to discredit Michelle, asking me if I was going to trust the memory of a child, his child, of course.

[00:14:39] Andrea: But no, I said I had records. This wasn’t about Michelle. She was a source, but we had many others. And then Lisa dropped the bomb. He

[00:14:47] Meredeth: looked at her, he is like, why do they wanna know this from 25 years ago? And she said, no, you’re not following. They’re here about Colin. And he went, uh, like it was genuine [00:15:00] surprise.

[00:15:00] Andrea: And he also said to me, um, he goes, do you understand how devastating this will be for our family? Because she’ll lose her job. And I said to him, I said, I do understand how serious this is, so why I’m here? And I said, and to be clear, if you are fired from your job because of this, that will not be, I can’t remember what exactly I said, but I was like this, that will not be because I reported on it.

[00:15:33] Andrea: Like that is,

[00:15:35] Meredeth: it’s, he blamed it on you. He blamed on, ’cause it was, it wasn’t just a, do you know how serious this is? He was like, like are, and you’re okay with that? He said, and you’re okay with that and you’re, she might lose her job and you’re okay with that.

[00:15:46] Andrea: And I said, well, you know, if that’s the consequence of the truth.

[00:15:50] Andrea: Right. You know, being out, it was like, that’s not something I can control. Carrie went right along with the template his wife has been using for decades. I. Deny deflect and most [00:16:00] importantly, blame everyone else. And you know what? If Lisa and Carrie blamed me for all of this, that’s fine. Glad to have given them a face to put with the name.

[00:16:09] Andrea: I’d prefer it if they blamed me instead of Michelle, but I suspect they’ll find room for both. And they’ll probably even save some space for our dear friend B Yorker, who was at that very moment down the street holding Michelle’s hand while they waited to hear the outcome of this conversation. I expect now that they’ve met her, they’ll add Meredith to this club.

[00:16:29] Andrea: Welcome, Meredith. But in all seriousness, I don’t take the consequences of my reporting lightly. And Lisa did end up losing her job about a week after this conversation, but it was a job she never should have had in the first place. And I said, and you know, the question of what really happened to Colin is very important and very relevant to the work that you’re doing at Gothy Jackson.

[00:16:51] Andrea: Mm-hmm. So people need to know either way. So if you think. That we thought, we do not have all the information that we need. Mm-hmm. If you think that [00:17:00] we’re gonna tell an incomplete story, that’s why we’re here. And I explained to her, I was like, I can’t get Collins medical records. Mm-hmm. I can’t get the defects investigate, you know, I can’t get those reports If you have other sources you want me to talk to, if you have, you know, things you want to share.

[00:17:15] Andrea: Um, and she asked me, I thought this was really interesting. Yeah. She was so straightforward. She asked me at one point, she goes, what would you need to put the questions about Colin to rest? And she was like, his medical records, you started to start off. We’re not gonna share his medical records. Yeah.

[00:17:29] Meredeth: She’s, she’s, she’s like, yeah. ’cause she immediately said, I don’t wanna share his medical records ’cause that’s not fair. And I said, well, wait a minute. You’re very public about his medical situation. Like,

[00:17:40] Andrea: and they kind of both said like. Oh, it would just be so painful for us to talk about what happened to him.

[00:17:44] Andrea: And I was like,

[00:17:44] Meredeth: and we’re like, but you’re, and I said, you’re on video all the time talking about his diagnosis. You share the different treatments. And she says, yeah, but I control that. Yeah, I control that. I was, that was the real answer. I can’t control what you do with it. Yeah. [00:18:00] But I can control what I do and put out, so I don’t wanna give you anything because then you have control over it.

[00:18:07] Meredeth: But when I have control over it, I’m willing to share. I’m willing to share all of these private things.

[00:18:13] Andrea: Right. And then I, I said, you know, to be, frankly, you’ve done a number of interviews about this, Lisa, your blog was 170,000 words and very detailed. And she was like, yeah, that’s when she said, I think she’s like, yes.

[00:18:26] Andrea: But I controlled that. Yeah. As we went back and forth, I offered to do an interview under any parameters. Carrie and Lisa would agree to. I told them that they could review transcripts afterwards and that I would take out anything they asked me to. Lisa told me that she was concerned, I would just take her out of context.

[00:18:43] Andrea: So I told her I would agree to air the interview straight up, but she just kept saying that it wouldn’t matter. We wouldn’t believe her. Both Meredith and I kept reiterating that it wasn’t about what we believed our job was to present the information people could make up their own minds. And then she asked me, [00:19:00] well, what would you need?

[00:19:02] Andrea: Mm-hmm. To put questions about Colin’s death to rest. And she said, what do you need? Like his medical records? And I was like, well, yes. And I was like, what? I also wanna tell you, I was like, I can’t take a single batch of medical records without context. Right. ’cause that’s not how medical records work.

[00:19:21] Andrea: Mm-hmm. Um, so I would need access to the full medical records and a HIPAA release so I could speak to the doctors.

[00:19:28] Meredeth: And your dad went, well that’s, I don’t know that you have time to go through all of that. Yeah.

[00:19:33] Andrea: So he said, and I was like, oh, I’ve got time. Yeah, I was like, I said, you’re like, that’s my job. I was like, I will make time.

[00:19:37] Andrea: I was like that, you know? And if that, if I was to get access to that and that meant pushing back my deadline, that would be worth pushing my deadline back for. And I was like, and if you know, it comes in after and I have to issue corrections, I was like, and Lisa says, well, we know it’s never like issuing a correction after the fact.

[00:19:52] Andrea: And I was like, correct. So it would be much better to have it at this point. Mm-hmm. So that I could put it in my original recording. I get that. It’s [00:20:00] stressful to have journalists knock on your door. Meredith and I took great pains to be as respectful and polite as possible, and no one owes me an interview.

[00:20:08] Andrea: They could have told us to go to hell. I was half expecting that they would, but if it were me, I’d want the chance to talk offering them. That was the best I could do because all I want, all Michelle wants is the truth. And she more than anyone knows the stakes.

[00:20:26] Mishelle: I’m shocked. I’m shocked you got as much as do.

[00:20:29] Mishelle: I mean, I honestly, how, like

[00:20:34] Meredeth: how do you feeling? Yeah. Are you okay? Um,

[00:20:37] Mishelle: I, I’m really worried about my sister, um, because I know she has to go back there, you know what I mean? Like, I, I’m here and have my own safe place and, you know, I know I’m gonna be okay, but like, she has to go back there. Like, I think the biggest feeling is worried about my sister and worry about my nephews.

[00:20:57] Mishelle: Um, and [00:21:00] then there’s this like, I mean, it’s not shocking, but like, I don’t understand why I’m always the villain in her story. Like, if it’s not, it’s, it’s always me. Like it’s always, and like even talking to you guys, are you talking Michelle’s side of the story, we’re like, no, actually, like there’s so much more to it than that.

[00:21:16] Mishelle: And like to kind of the way she’s been able to like twist that on her own mind. ’cause I think on some level she does believe that like, deep down, that like I’m her biggest enemy in life. And if it wasn’t for me, then. She would, you know, the Scooby-Doo thing, I, I would’ve gotten away with it if you weren’t, you know, were you messy, messy kids?

[00:21:33] Mishelle: Like, I don’t know, it just, it’s not shocking, but it’s still really painful, you know, like I, it sucks because at the end of the day, like, that’s my mom, but like that’s not a mother. Yeah. And there’s a big difference. Um, and yeah, of course I’m my [00:22:00] answers and of course I love nothing Morgan, to see his medical records.

[00:22:02] Mishelle: Right. Like,

[00:22:06] Mishelle: but I think there’s a lot of truth in the lack of them. I think something she’s always kind of done is tried to humanize it in a way and like think about like, kind of like what you’re saying she did with you guys. Like she’s done that to us our whole lives. And that was the other thing I wanted to touch on.

[00:22:23] Mishelle: As you guys were talking, she’s known this was coming. I went over there to her house and had this whole conversation with her and told her like, I am doing this. I wanted to let you know because I at least have some respect somewhere for you to let you know this is coming before you just hear about it or before you show up on their doorstep.

[00:22:43] Mishelle: You know what I mean? Yeah. Like I wanna let you know. And I told her in that conversation like, you will get the opportunity, like they will reach out to you and give the opportunity to speak about this. That’s,

[00:22:52] Andrea: that’s true. I’d sort of forgotten about that piece of it. While we were talking to them, Carrie and Lisa complained repeatedly that we were bombarding them, [00:23:00] that they weren’t given enough time to decide.

[00:23:02] Andrea: But to Michelle’s point, while me on their doorstep was a surprise, they’d had plenty of time to think about whether or not they wanted to talk to me. And I’m not hard to find. Google Munch has and by Proxy podcast and there I am. So it all begs the question, did they want time to decide or time to cover their tracks?

[00:23:21] Mishelle: We were raised to protect them. Which is why I think this is me doing this and me speaking to you at all. Like it seemed as such a betrayal. Mm-hmm. Because I wasn’t raised to live a life mall, and I wasn’t raised to be independent. I wasn’t raised to be me, like I was raised to protect them. Okay. And so anything outside of protecting them is the worst thing I could ever do to them in their eyes.

[00:23:46] Meredeth: Even though you’re speaking the truth. Yeah. And even though it’s healing you to speak the truth.

[00:23:52] Mishelle: Well, to quote my dad, when I, when I told him I was gonna do the podcast, what he said was, if that’s what she knew to do to heal, then damn us [00:24:00] guess

[00:24:03] Andrea: at one point Lisa looked me straight in the eye and said, I know what this looks like, but he was really sick. She didn’t need to elaborate on what exactly this looked like. Lisa is a convicted perpetrator whose son died under extremely suspicious circumstances. But if Lisa has some information that would make this all look different, she’s not sharing it.

[00:24:26] Andrea: At least not with me or Meredith. And of course in the end, she’ll still blame Michelle

[00:24:34] Mishelle: After talking with Andrea and Meredith, um, after they talked to my parents and waking up today and watching my brother’s carrying Bridge blog get taken down. Nobody can access it now. Um, watching my mom delete her Facebook and then reactivate it and my dad either block or delete me or delete his Facebook [00:25:00] altogether and watching her delete post and like watching all of these things come down and all of the, the, the steps they’re taking to try and like protect themselves from the still, I’m reminded at how at the end of this all.

[00:25:19] Mishelle: Now that all of this is coming out and they’ve been confronted with the absolute truth, they still only choose to protect themselves. They’re not worried about me. They’re not worried about my sister. They’re not even worried about Colin or his quote, legacy. They’re worried about themselves the same way they always have been, and it’s really sad, but I feel such a relief because for the first time in my life, I feel like it’s not my fault.

[00:25:51] Andrea: That evening we all went out to dinner. Me, Mariah, Michelle, her husband, Brent, b Yorker, and two friends from the extended, nobody should [00:26:00] believe me, universe, Dr. Becks and Joe, who both came along for moral support, even though it had been a stressful day, Michelle looked visibly lighter that evening, and the mood was buoyant because whatever happened next.

[00:26:12] Andrea: This little family that had found each other was sticking together. And Michelle’s husband, Brent has been here throughout all of this, and he hopes that telling the story will be a turning point for Michelle.

[00:26:26] Brent: So for Michelle, I hope that this, this lets her bury the, the things that she, the negativity she’s had to drag around behind her from it finally, I mean, and conclusively.

[00:26:40] Brent: And that where she chooses to bury it, all the parts that she continues to spread, it grows into something beneficial for other people who need that, who, you know, are the, the older sibling or the only sibling, you know, the only, the only kid in some cases who, who feel like, I can’t, I can’t say anything. I [00:27:00] can’t speak to my truth at all because it’ll hurt all these people to realize that you, you don’t get to decide that.

[00:27:06] Brent: They made those decisions in some cases years ago. What you are dealing with is, is the aftermath of that, and you have every right to deal with it in a way that benefits or helps you to help other people or just yourself. That’s okay too. Um, honestly, uh, my hope is that, uh, if anyone in the family specifically is listening right now, they understand that this is not a failure of their daughter to talk to them about these problems.

[00:27:43] Brent: This is a failure on their part to not have listened the years and years and years and years, she’s tried to talk about it, but you’re gonna have to square with it someday. Today would be a good day to start.

[00:27:59] Andrea: Just as I do [00:28:00] in my work with this show, Michelle has her eye on the bigger picture. Telling the truth can certainly provide relief and catharsis just in the act of doing it, but now that the horrible truth is out, what comes next?

[00:28:30] Act 2 – Ad Break

[00:28:30] Andrea: Unfortunately, in cases of medical child abuse, the systems fail more often than not. But I’ve never seen quite the cascade of failures present. In this case. Every guardrail that should have protected the McDaniel children fell apart. Starting with Child Protective Services as Bea Yorker explains.

[00:28:47] Bea: In 2002 Child Protective Services in Georgia set, Ms.

[00:28:54] Bea: McDaniel now has another infant child, Colin McDaniel. This agency feels [00:29:00] that this child is subject to harm by Ms. McDaniel due to the severity of her past history and the fact that she has not received any professional counseling, nor has she had custody of her previous two children since this incident.

[00:29:13] Bea: So Child Protective Services was on it. When Colin was born, I don’t know what happened after that. I mean, I’ve heard from the girls that the parents were able to work through the legal system, get lawyers move to another state and another jurisdiction, and that they were able to keep Colin and they were able to get the girls back.

[00:29:42] Bea: But I, I look at this report and I’m like, okay, people did not follow what Child Protective Services had recommended when Colin was an infant.

[00:29:54] Andrea: And now there are two new vulnerable McDaniels, Angela and Sons living once again under [00:30:00] Lisa’s roof. Wholly unprotected. DFCS has been alerted that there is now not only a 2-year-old in the house with a convicted perpetrator, but an infant.

[00:30:08] Andrea: And as far as we know there, they remain. In the late nineties when Lisa was caught the first time, the hospital in Savannah did the right thing and reported, and they almost certainly saved Angeline’s life by doing so. And then when Colin ended up back there in the picu, the very same nurse who’d cared for Angelan raised the alarm once more.

[00:30:29] Andrea: A doctor from that hospital called Ness, who Lisa had crossed state lines to be near, but Ness didn’t intervene. And at least to our knowledge, neither did any of the other two dozen doctors that Colin saw during his treatment. And by this point, Lisa had absconded over state lines after finding Dr. Ness, who even according to Ness herself, was an easy mark.

[00:30:51] Ness: I’m very vulnerable to being snookered. You know, I am definitely, I am gullible [00:31:00] with capital G and sometimes it helps me help a patient, but I have no doubt, it’s also made me miss things.

[00:31:08] Mishelle: I just wonder like why? From everything. It sounds like you and the team knew why was Colin ever reported?

[00:31:17] Ness: Okay, so he may have been reported by someone.

[00:31:20] Ness: I mean, you know, ’cause like did anything not make sense? Were there symptoms that were worrisome for that? And at the time I, I mean, I’m thinking about some, some specific incidences, you know, like, oh God, that was really weird. Now it could it have been because your mom was doing something to him?

[00:31:41] Mishelle: Um, yeah.

[00:31:41] Mishelle: I mean there are a lot of, there’s a case. Yeah, yeah,

[00:31:43] Ness: yeah. There may have been, but there’s also, but what, and again, you know, and again, thinking about him in retrospect there, you know, that, that, you know, what, you know, could, could it have been? But I’ve also, it’s stuff that, you know, either saw before or had subsequently seen.

[00:31:58] Ness: Um, [00:32:00] with, with other kids, with specifically NMO, again, it was never a hundred percent proven to me whether he had NML or not.

[00:32:09] Andrea: At the end of the day, we’ll never know if Colin really had NMO or not, but it doesn’t really matter. He wasted away over a period of months while his parents turned his feeds off and on.

[00:32:20] Andrea: This is not how people die from NMO. It’s not a match. It is, however, a match with several other known deaths from Munchhouse and by proxy abuse, including the high profile death of Olivia Gantt, which we will touch on later. This all should have raised alarms for the doctors treating Colin, and yet one of those doctors signed off on hospice care despite NMO not being a terminal illness, and that decision was a Rubicon.

[00:32:45] Andrea: Once a child is in hospice, while there is still monitoring, they were no longer trying to treat Collin’s illness. And parents are given even more medical control during end of life care. According to the experts I spoke to, Lisa and Carrie would likely have been provided [00:33:00] with a care kit that could have contained powerful drugs like morphine.

[00:33:03] Andrea: And the state of hospice care in this country is not exactly reassuring to begin with. 70% of hospice care facilities in the United States are owned by for-profit companies, including New Beacon Health, the company that cared for Collin. New Beacon and its parent company at this time, Gentiva Health Services, were the subject of a series of wide ranging whistleblower complaints that resulted in a $19.4 million settlement.

[00:33:28] Andrea: And the reason for settlement, the company was treating patients who were not terminally ill. And then there is the matter of Collin’s continued exploitation even after his death. As Lisa embedded herself at the Guthy Jackson Foundation, cementing her image as a trustworthy, heroic mom.

[00:33:47] Lisa: Now I want, I wanna say one thing.

[00:33:49] Lisa: In these resources we have, I want you to know we have them because of how organized Guthy Jackson is. I want you to know that Guthy Jackson is not just [00:34:00] about Bill and Victoria and it’s not about all the staff members. You are Guthy Jackson. We are Guthy Jackson. Together and together we can make a difference.

[00:34:09] Lisa: Thank you.

[00:34:12] Andrea: Lisa is a pretty stunning example of a perpetrator infiltrating a rare disease organization, but it’s not the only time we’ve seen it, and when they do, the damage goes far beyond the reputation of the organization that has been unwittingly supporting them beyond the issues of trust and credibility, which are serious enough, they can mess with the actual data and impede the science around a rare disorder that is already working with a limited sample size.

[00:34:38] Andrea: This is something we discussed with Dr. Jim Hamilton last season when looking at the Sophie Hartman case and her daughter’s extremely dubious. HC diagnosis,

[00:34:46] Dr. Kenneth: rare disease advocacy groups, researchers and parents and such are really harmed. By when a situation where somebody sort of co-ops this rare disease, perhaps spoiling research data, [00:35:00] perhaps casting suspicion upon everybody else who’s who says they have it, it’s, it’s awful.

[00:35:05] Andrea: And Lisa appears to have made Colin a part of the NMO sample size in a very real way as she reported that he was included in their biorepository. The other thing that has really come to light for me is the extent to which perpetrators become a resource for one another. As we saw in the Bea Kowalski case with Sophie Hartman and my own sister, and Lisa’s early networking on the Mama or Mothers Against Munchausen Allegations forum These are anecdotal, but they’re not isolated.

[00:35:32] Andrea: And there’s much more to say about this in my coming reporting. So it all begs the question about these other families of sick children that Lisa mentions on her blog, not to mention all of the networking she did with advocates on behalf of the Guthy Jackson Foundation during her more than 12 years working with them.

[00:35:49] Andrea: In her work with Guthy Jackson, Lisa was given a large platform and a lot of credibility. Up until recently, the Guthy Jackson website touted her as having educated tens of thousands of people, [00:36:00] including medical professionals. And that was as of nine years ago in 2016. So while I think they did the right thing in firing Lisa, it certainly doesn’t undo the damage.

[00:36:11] Andrea: Most people believe that munchausen by proxy is extremely rare. But the consensus amongst experts is that it’s not rare, but under-recognized and underdiagnosed, even the most famous case that of Gypsy Rose Blanchard didn’t involve an official diagnosis, DD Blanchard was never even investigated. And this has led people like pediatric neurologist, Dr.

[00:36:33] Andrea: Ness, who works in one of the subspecialties, most likely to be targeted by perpetrators, And Victoria Jackson, who’s poured tens of millions of dollars into a rare little understood disease to be blinded to the targets on their backs. They simply never saw someone like Lisa coming. Foundations like Guthy Jackson are focused on raising awareness and fundraising, and Lisa came with one hell of a story.

[00:36:57] Andrea: They didn’t know what Michelle and I know [00:37:00] all too well that the sweet unassuming mother next door could be the scariest person you’ll ever meet. Michelle had watched Lisa dupe Guthy Jackson for over a decade, and she felt for them having to learn the awful truth after unwittingly supporting her mother all this time.

[00:37:17] Mishelle: So one of the things on this journey that was really important to me was to reach out to Victoria Jackson, myself for several different reasons. For one, to kind of offer a type of support that I don’t know that many in the organization will have, which is somebody who just deeply understands the betrayal that they experienced.

[00:37:43] Mishelle: So I reached out to her through email. Really just to say just that, that I can’t imagine the ripple effect it’s gonna have on the NMO community. Like there are people out there who were close with my mom. I’ve met some of those people. There were [00:38:00] people in the NMO community who probably thought a lot of my mom, who they really feel like my mother has helped them and they’re not gonna, it’s not an easy road to

[00:38:10] Andrea: understand.

[00:38:13] Andrea: Michelle’s letter was heartfelt, and I know she genuinely cares about this community of people. We both do. We both understand that NMO is a serious disease and no one knows better than Michelle, what it’s like to have your world turned upside down by Lisa McDaniel. This is the response Michelle received.

[00:38:32] Mishelle: Dear Michelle, thank you so much for your letter. It means a lot, especially giving all that you have adored in the past and must be going through right now that you took the time to write. I hope that you and your family are doing as well as possible under the circumstances. I really appreciate that.

[00:38:48] Mishelle: Amidst everything you shared, such a compassionate and empathetic offer of support. Right now, we are in our own way seeking the time, space, and wisdom to make sense of this all. But through it all, [00:39:00] we are absolutely determined to keep focus on our charity’s mission, battling in mo, assisting those who suffer with the disease and supporting their families, and all those who care about them.

[00:39:10] Mishelle: Thank you again, and sending you all my best. Sincerely, Victoria.

[00:39:14] Andrea: After putting her heart on her sleeve, Victoria’s response felt a little unsatisfying.

[00:39:22] Mishelle: I guess the first initial reaction I had was. Okay. She is being kind and wrote me back. But then the longer I kind of sat with it, the more that felt like that was, I feel very placated. Um, I feel a little dismissed and all I want is a chance to like explain and then for really, really understand and dig into how much harm my mother caused that community, because that is the piece I feel like they are really, really missing is how [00:40:00] much harm she’s done in that community because there are people who did not deserve to be manipulated and did not deserve to be lied to, that are going to be hurt by this, that are going to have a hard time grappling with this.

[00:40:14] Mishelle: And I hope that even one of those people hear me and realize there is very human, very raw emotions behind all this. This is an ugly, ugly truth that nobody wants to face, but there are people here that can explain it and I don’t mind explaining it. That’s what I’m in this for, is to provide some understanding and to help people not feel as alone, because this is a hard, hard thing to grapple with, and I do honestly feel like Victoria should really take this more seriously than she is.

[00:40:51] Mishelle: I do think she should really take a moment to look outside of herself, to understand the [00:41:00] gravity of my mom’s time there in the 12, 13 years that she worked there, just how many people she’s harmed.

[00:41:12] Andrea: I was so proud of Michelle for yet another act of courage. In her emails to me, Victoria told me that they are taking the situation very seriously, quote, taking all appropriate action and taking steps to ensure it never happens again.

[00:41:27] Andrea: But the decline to offer any specifics. Obviously background checks are a good idea for anyone working with a vulnerable population. Hell, I had to pass one to chaperone my daughter’s school field trip, but in most cases, this would be woefully inadequate to protect against someone like Lisa because too often perpetrators won’t have a prior criminal conviction.

[00:41:47] Andrea: For those rare offenders that do get criminally prosecuted, they’re often first time offenders. Munchen by proxy is also a pattern of abuse, not a single event. And as a rule, it can [00:42:00] take months or even years to diagnose, and perpetrators can do untold damage during that time. So just as pediatric doctors need to be educated about the warning signs of Munchen by proxy, so do rare disease groups.

[00:42:13] Andrea: And if they find they’ve been unwittingly harboring a perpetrator for over a decade, they need to take a close look at everything that person has touched, and especially at anyone else that came in through them. I don’t mean that they need to do a deep dive on every parent who reaches out for help, but if someone’s story is natting up, if there are a parade of red flags that a child is being abused, you should think twice about putting that person in your marketing materials and funding their exploits.

[00:42:39] Andrea: And you should definitely think twice about hiring them to represent your organization and educate others on your behalf. Make referrals to specialists and participate in research. And most importantly, you should watch out for those children and report if you begin to see a strong pattern of abuse. I have to believe that if the people surrounding Lisa at Guthy Jackson had understood what they [00:43:00] were looking at, the gruesome blog and disturbing social media posts, the harrowing photos of Colin, the constant talk of death for a non terminal illness, the many symptoms that didn’t match his diagnosis, the fact that he wasn’t responding to treatments that were so effective for other patients.

[00:43:17] Andrea: I could go on here, but you’ve listened to this series. You get it. That they wouldn’t have let Lisa in, that they wouldn’t have put her on a pedestal and given her the proverbial keys to the kingdom. There is a misconception that munchhouse and by proxy is hard to detect, but if you’ve been listening to the show for a while, you’ll know that actually the pattern is so strong that it’s often blazingly obvious to those who know what they’re looking at.

[00:43:40] Andrea: Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Proving it beyond a reasonable doubt in court is another matter, but this abuse is not subtle. The problem is getting people to find the courage to look. I understand that this threat is painful to contemplate, but it’s very real. And if you happen to [00:44:00] be a part of such an organization and some alarm bells are going off for you right now, head to the show notes.

[00:44:05] Andrea: You know where to find us. And I hope that at some point, Victoria does decide to talk to Michelle because she deserves to be heard and she has good information to share. From the beginning, Guthy Jackson was built on the idea that families and patients should have a seat at the table because they have valuable insight.

[00:44:23] Andrea: And now the organization is in crisis because of Lisa, who attached herself to the foundation nearly the moment it existed, they ought to listen to her daughter. I hope they don’t look at this as just a matter of bad press. Meredith Anderson has also reached out to Guthy Jackson for comment around the same time I did.

[00:44:42] Andrea: And after three attempts, she finally got a response, not from Victoria or anyone from Guthy Jackson, but from a Beverly Hills based crisis PR firm called Eden Dale Strategies. Crisis PR firms help high profile people who find themselves in hot water for one reason or another, manage the fallout to their reputations.

[00:44:59] Andrea: Eden Dale’s [00:45:00] website claims that they represent high profile clients from Fortune 500 companies to award-winning actors, directors, and producers. For what are probably obvious reasons they don’t list their clients publicly, but a few of their notable recent clients have been reported on in the press.

[00:45:14] Andrea: They include Neil Gaman, Marilyn Manson, and Vince McMahon, WWE Chairman and CEO, and former husband of the current Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, possibly the most 2025 sentence I’ve ever uttered. And if you’re wondering if this all makes me a little nervous, yes it does. This was a difficult story to tell, and many people, including myself, are taking some risks in telling it.

[00:45:39] Andrea: But these risks feel worth it because this story illustrates so many of the egregious holes in the system that shield and enable these abusers. Detective Mike Weber, a frequent contributor to this show, and the top law enforcement expert on this abuse always says that it’s going to take a high profile death to swing us back from the current prevailing narrative of Munchen by proxy, [00:46:00] denial, and medical kidnapping.

[00:46:02] Andrea: Until now, Collin’s death and the suspicions that it was a result of abuse have been entirely hidden from View Paper Dover by Lisa’s mask as an advocate. And this is our effort to change that. But there was another high profile case several years ago that has been on my mind since I began my reporting that of Olivia Gantt, a 7-year-old girl who died after years of abuse at the hands of her mother, Kelly Turner.

[00:46:26] Andrea: Not only are the parallels between the two cases haunting, this investigation might provide a roadmap for where to go next

[00:46:44] Act 3 – Ad Break

[00:46:44] Andrea: if Colin died as the result of abuse, because those who were meant to protect him failed to do so. What does justice even look like here? I was lucky enough to interview Melissa Kish, who was the lead detective on the investigation into Kelly Turner, and she walked me [00:47:00] through how she became involved in this life altering case.

[00:47:03] Andrea: So you were brought in initially to do a child abuse investigation regarding Samantha Gantt, who was Olivia Gantts older sibling. Yes. And then it sounds like that suspicion of abuse in that case then cast Olivia Gantts death, which had previously not been investigated. Correct. As a possible, as a possible homicide.

[00:47:26] Melissa: Yes. And one of the doctors on that child abuse team with Children’s Hospital had said, well, we can’t really say, ’cause Olivia’s not here, but looking at her records, we would probably diagnose her with. Uh, child abuse as well, you know, so that’s what kind of got us going, kind of probing things. And so when we did the forensic interview, we kind of asked about Olivia.

[00:47:45] Melissa: Same thing when a detective interviewed mom for two hours, Olivia stuff came up and then stuff with grandpa. We asked him about some stuff with Olivia, and then it just kind of turned into like, okay, so I’ve got a child abuse case going with Samantha, and [00:48:00] now I’ve got a child homicide case going with Olivia.

[00:48:02] Melissa: Had you ever done a medical child abuse or meant child by proxy investigation before? To this extent, no. We would get reports of ’em, but a lot of ’em, they’re really hard to, you know, investigate or prosecute or bring to justice. Like this one, it’s usually, you know, we get DHS involved with us and it’s, it doesn’t rise to the level of abuse, the ones that we got or we couldn’t prove it.

[00:48:26] Melissa: Or if we did try and file charges, the DA was like, I don’t have enough. But we would let DHS handle it from there. With the family check-ins, we gotta separate families. They would take a lot of that. If we couldn’t get the criminal part of it, DHS would help us. So the extent of this case, no, I have never worked a case like that.

[00:48:45] Andrea: Melissa walked us through the incredible and heart wrenching story of her investigation, and we’re going to cover this case more thoroughly and share the rest of my interview with Melissa in a standalone episode. But the reason I wanted to talk to her about this case here is because Olivia’s trajectory was so [00:49:00] similar to Collins throughout her short life.

[00:49:02] Andrea: Olivia endured a number of surgeries and treatments for gastrointestinal symptoms, which her mother claimed were the result of an exceptionally rare genetic condition called mitochondrial neuro gastrointestinal encephalopathy. She also had numerous instances of polymicrobial blood infections.

[00:49:21] Andrea: Ultimately, in July of 2017 when Turner claimed that Olivia’s disease was inhibiting her ability to absorb nutrition, they moved the child towards end of life care. Turner signed a do not resuscitate order, and Olivia was removed from her intravenous feeding support. She was admitted to hospice in August of 2017

[00:49:41] Andrea: Where she died 20 days later. Ultimately, the police investigation would reveal that Olivia’s rare diagnosis had been fabricated by Turner Medical experts concluded that Olivia likely starved to death. This is a horribly tragic story, and Olivia’s death never should have happened, but the [00:50:00] investigation that unearthed this murder more than a year after the fact was a remarkable one.

[00:50:05] Andrea: And Melissa and her team’s diligent work were still able to put Kelly Turner behind bars, or is she still in prison? As far as I know, she’s still in prison. Turner ultimately pled guilty to child abuse, resulting in death theft and charitable fraud, and was sentenced to 16 years. It’s hard to imagine what justice even looks like when a child has been killed, but the sentence meant Turner was held accountable and would no longer pose a threat to her older daughter who was still in her care, and Olivia could finally rest.

[00:50:34] Melissa: We had a funeral service for Olivia, the sheriff’s office did, and the funeral home donated a headstone to her. So she’s no longer in an unmarked grave and ’cause she did the, you know, Makea wish thing and like you were saying, the photos of, you know, running, she, I have a photo from dad where she was going to do her Makea wish and she’s jumping up and down and excited and yelling and I’m like, this is not that sick kid, you know?

[00:50:59] Melissa: And the [00:51:00] chaplain that had worked for her, because she became a Denver cop for a day, she became a south metro firefighter for a day. And the chaplain came up to me and he said, one of the items on Olivia’s bucket list, and this gives me chills every time, was that she wanted to help catch a bad guy. So that’s why I think I had divine intervention because I think I had Olivia on the other side helping me out because she wanted to catch a bad guy.

[00:51:26] Andrea: Something I’ve learned in my years doing this work is that when it comes to justice, so much depends on the individual departments and detectives and what they’re willing to pursue. We attempted to bring this case up to law enforcement officials in Birmingham, but so far no luck. We don’t know if there are any detectives like Melissa in Alabama or Georgia who might take this on.

[00:51:47] Andrea: It would certainly be a challenge, especially because Lisa and Carrie Exhumed Collin’s Body years ago when they moved back to Georgia, and at least according to them, had him cremated. But there is precedent. Difficult, [00:52:00] yes, but not impossible.

[00:52:05] Andrea: Even if justice in the traditional sense isn’t likely to happen. Michelle hopes that a different kind of justice will still be possible.

[00:52:13] Mishelle: I have a weird take on justice in general just because like there is no justice, because he’s dead. Nothing’s gonna bring you back. At best to remove her from being able to make any other, to harm any other children or really any, any vulnerable population, right?

[00:52:33] Mishelle: Like we’re not just talking about children.

[00:52:38] Mishelle: And I think, yeah, I think like not her, her being allowed to no longer make and harm vulnerable populations to no longer be able to speak publicly about his death. At least put enough scrutiny on her where, where she feels that, like she feels scrutiny every [00:53:00] time she opens her mouth to talk about his death in any public platform, any public way.

[00:53:06] Mishelle: Um, and then I think. The hospital and the doctor that told me she didn’t report needs to be held accountable because it’s not, it’s not just about Colin anymore because he’s gone. Sorry, he’s gone and nothing will bring him back. But I have a strong feeling that these other children, that my mom have passed along to her and have referred to this doctor, I have a feeling that a lot of those children are also being abused, but there are other perpetrators that are, that are seeing this doctor and if she has questions about other children that have been in her care that needs to be investigated.

[00:53:59] Mishelle: My [00:54:00] crazy dream is that there is like another family member that hears this and says, Hey, wait a minute, my. Sibling or nephew or niece or cousin or whoever, you know, my grandchild was treated by that doctor for the same thing, and we had questions too, and this didn’t add up. I think at a minimum that needed to be held accountable.

[00:54:29] Mishelle: Then I do think, I, I feel very strongly that there is at least one other child that’s, this life could be saved by just people hearing this and really, really thinking through. And honestly, that doctor could still, she could still choose to do the right thing. Now she can’t bring my brother back, but she could choose to do the right thing.

[00:54:49] Mishelle: Now,

[00:54:51] Andrea: I’ve come to live by the idea that courage is contagious. Covering these cases can be really hard, and this one was especially, but I’m forever [00:55:00] moved by the courage of people who put themselves at risk to protect kids. So it’s worse saying that it’s never too late. Dr. Ness promised to help Michelle get to the bottom of what happened with Colin.

[00:55:10] Andrea: But beyond the two phone calls she had with her, there’s been no additional movement on that. To be clear, I don’t think Dr. Ness is some kind of monster. I think she is, to use her words, gullible with a capital G. But if she let Lisa, a convicted perpetrator with what even she agrees was a wildly suspicious pattern, slipped through her fingers, that’s not a doctor who’s shown herself to be capable of protecting kids.

[00:55:38] Andrea: After a long day of filming in Hazelhurst, on our second trip to Georgia, we sat down on the porch with Sabrina and Michelle in the balmy spring night to process everything that had come to light during the months of our investigation. And as you can hear, I was pretty emotional. I know that you know some of the stuff that you told us you really hadn’t shared before.

[00:55:59] Andrea: Right. [00:56:00] And how has that been? For you kind of after, after

[00:56:09] Sabrina: that. Um, it’s been a little bit like weight kinda off the shoulders, if that makes sense. Um, because I still, I don’t talk about a lot of things with a lot of people. Um, and part of that is because I have a hard time trusting people. That’s a lot to do with it.

[00:56:33] Sabrina: And the other part is I just, um, people don’t wanna hear it. They don’t wanna take time to, to hear it. And people, people are gonna believe what they wanna believe, regardless of what you say. I just, you know, I know it happened and, you know, I and PE everybody don’t deserve to hear it, I guess

[00:56:55] Andrea: so. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:56:56] Andrea: That really resonated with me when you were talking about, you [00:57:00] know, how. You were in this impossible position when Colin got sick. And I, I think it, it hit me really hard because with my family, like we did, we did raise the alarm. Mm-hmm. And then the result was she didn’t get her kids taken away. She wasn’t held accountable that she cut us off.

[00:57:19] Sabrina: Looking at it now, in a lot of ways, I wished I had fought harder and done more. But then I, I, in a sense, I also realize that that would’ve come with a huge price tag. So, and honestly, I don’t know what price it, it would, what the price tag would’ve been in the end. Had I done a whole lot more than what I did.

[00:57:43] Sabrina: But I, but in a lot of ways I do wish I had done more.

[00:57:46] Andrea: Well, one of the things I wanted to do was just, you know, we obviously. You know, obviously I had read a bunch about the case before I talked to you. Mm-hmm. But we’ve been just really, really digging into like everything [00:58:00] that we can figure out about this situation and coming at it from all possible angles.

[00:58:06] Andrea: And so I kind of wanted to like, just fill in some of what we f like fill you in. Okay. On kind of what we’ve, what we’ve been able to put together. Because I actually feel like, you know, and I hope this is not like overstepping, but like, I feel like I can tell you that you having tried to report would not actually probably have changed things because a nurse did report and nothing

[00:58:36] Sabrina: happened.

[00:58:38] Sabrina: And so a nurse reported the Colin situation. Mm-hmm. I was not aware of that. No. ’cause we have, we

[00:58:46] Andrea: have, we have her on the record and I didn’t know that she. Also told, it was a nurse that had cared for Angeline, and so this was when they were in Savannah. Okay. Lisa was bringing him [00:59:00] in there. So this was probably around the time things were kind of escalating.

[00:59:03] Andrea: Oh. And I also know that that nurse told a doctor in Savannah who called Dr. Ness himself and told her that they had concerns about Colin because of Lisa’s history. And obviously, you know, Michelle has talked to Dr. Ness. Mm-hmm. Dr. Ness confirmed also that that phone call happened. So I don’t, I guess I just want to take that off.

[00:59:32] Andrea: You like that? If like, I, I actually don’t know that there was anything el We’ll, we’ll never know. You can’t replay the clock. Right. But I understand why it felt impossible. And I don’t know, given how badly DFCS messed this up with the information they did have. Mm-hmm. But like, none of this, none of the responsibility from my [01:00:00] mind, none of the responsibility falls on you or

[01:00:02] Sabrina: on you that no matter what, it probably wouldn’t have changed anything.

[01:00:06] Sabrina: And now I have such, um, a lack of respect for people like Dr. Ness, and I don’t understand how, how are you not held accountable for your part in this? Because you had a part in it, just like the pediatrician that was here had a part in it. Because there are times that she absolutely, positively should have called DFCS or reported even if they didn’t do anything.

[01:00:37] Sabrina: She had an obligation that says, doctor to call. And she didn’t because she was so intertwined with Lisa. Yeah. And how? How does the system fail? Kids,

[01:00:56] Andrea: we always encourage people to report, to raise the alarm, [01:01:00] to fight for kids, no matter the risk. And to be clear, I have no regrets about my role in keeping the heat on my sister. If you’ve ever wondered why continue to reference her case so much on this show, that’s the answer. Making sure the name Megan Carter stays on people’s radar is all I’ve got, and Michelle wants to make sure that her nephews and her sister stay on the radar as well.

[01:01:24] Mishelle: I have really struggled with what to say about my sister and had to handle this whole situation. I completely wanna respect her privacy and all of this. I know that this story is also hers, but I also. I have to protect my sister, and she may not agree with the way I need to go about protecting her right now, but protecting her and her children are [01:02:00] the most important thing.

[01:02:02] Mishelle: And I strongly feel like she is at a place where she cannot make the healthy decisions for her and her kids. And I don’t take saying that lightly. That is a very hard thing for me to realize. And unfortunately, I think it is absolutely because of the abuse that has gone on. I think it is absolutely because of the abuse that she, the emotional and mental abuse that she endures every day for my mother.

[01:02:36] Mishelle: And I know that’s really, really hard for her to hear right now, but that’s why I’m doing this. Because I feel strongly that she is not safe. She is not safe around our mother, and her children are not safe around our mother, and that is something that she cannot see right now. But for anybody out there who wonders how they can help and what they can do, [01:03:00] first you’ve done the, the first thing is listening.

[01:03:04] Mishelle: Thank you for listening and hearing this and absorbing it. The second thing, don’t forget their names. Don’t forget, my sister’s name is Angel, or Angel Lynn McDaniel. Don’t forget my mom’s name, Lisa McDaniel. I will not say the names of her children, but if you see them, you know and you know what to look out for.

[01:03:29] Mishelle: Now

[01:03:36] Andrea: with the systems as broken as they are. We need all the help we can get. In Collin’s case, DFCS didn’t listen to the nurse Judy, who raised hell about this child. This should never have fallen on Sabrina trying to intervene and her doing so would’ve almost certainly meant that she was not able to be with Colin in his final days, that he would’ve had one less person by his side who really loved him.[01:04:00]

[01:04:01] Andrea: One of the things that struck me as we talked to Michelle and Sabrina that night amidst a chorus of frogs and cicadas, is that they were never given the space to really grieve. Colin Lisa co-opted Collin’s death as a plot point in her own heroic journey. She used his memory to fundraise, get attention and build a whole career off of, but Colin wasn’t an object for Lisa to use.

[01:04:24] Andrea: He was a human being. And we wanted to share some memories from people who knew him beyond his illness, like these reflections from family, friends that Michelle sent us.

[01:04:33] Family 1: I feel like we spent a decent amount of time with Colin growing up and stuff because of how much time we spent together. And you know, he fit right in, no matter the circumstance.

[01:04:46] Family 1: Playing with Barbies, jumping on a trampoline, whatever. It have you Like, he just would always be the life of the party. Um, and again, it was just truly amazing, like to think [01:05:00] back and see how much he was like loved and still is loved. Um, just because of the impact he had on everyone’s lives, including mine.

[01:05:09] Family 2: I had this one particular sweater that was really long and red and kind of flowy. Um, and I came in and his eyes just slid up and he told me it was my Superman sweater. Um, I’ll never forget that was just so childlike and so sweet and such a sweet comment and it has stayed with me. Anytime I see like a long red sweater, I just think, oh, it’s a Superman sweater.

[01:05:37] Andrea: Colin wasn’t a mascot for Lisa’s heroic mothering or a symbol of her suffering. He was a little boy who deserved to be loved and to be safe in his own home. A little boy who deserved to live

[01:05:51] Collin: Lay. And Michelle, what was our favorite part?

[01:05:56] Andrea: Colin would be 22 years old today, just setting out into his [01:06:00] adult life.

[01:06:01] Andrea: The loss is unspeakable. I know his family shared this story because they want people to learn from it and that they hope Colin’s memory can serve to protect other children, that perhaps there can be some kind of justice in this case, but much as Colin’s memory shouldn’t belong to Lisa, it doesn’t belong to this podcast either.

[01:06:20] Andrea: I am deeply honored that Michelle and Sabrina trusted me to tell the story of Colin’s death. And now as I leave you, I wanna pass the mic back to them. Colin McDaniel Should not have died. But in this life, he was much loved. May he rest in peace.

[01:06:39] Sabrina: He loved to prank me, um, and wanted to play football. He wanted to play football so bad because my son played football.

[01:06:48] Sabrina: And every time he would come to our house, he’s like, aunt Bebe. And then it turned into Aunt Sabrina. Mason’s gonna show me how to play football, Mason, will you come throw the football with me? [01:07:00] So he was a typical little southern boy who liked to go outside and prank and play football. And around here, that’s, that’s what boys do.

[01:07:12] Sabrina: And he loved to play Mario and he loved to play his video games. And he just loved life. He just, he was full of life. He loved life. He liked to have fun, and he wanted everybody around him. To have fun with you.

[01:07:28] Mishelle: But I remember when, when we did move to Alabama, um, there are literally lighting up mugs over here in the corner, um, of the yard.

[01:07:36] Mishelle: Like right now. I’m like, been watching her the whole time she’s been talking. He like,

[01:07:42] Mishelle: we moved to Alabama. That’s one of like the first things he noticed out there was like this yard and there was just, he like went up this hill to get to it and there was like all these lightning bugs and I just, I remember him watching, I remember how cool he thought they were.

[01:07:58] Mishelle: Um,[01:08:00]

[01:08:02] Mishelle: like him and my son would get along so well and they would be like best friends ’cause they both are obsessed with video games. Um, and he had a heart of gold where all he cared about was other people. Um, even that young, like, he was like, I think one of the most selfless kids I’ve ever met beyond my own daughter.

[01:08:23] Mishelle: Um. I just always wanted to make sure everybody else was okay. Um, he loved my granny furiously, like he loved that woman. And I think that a lot of that has to do with their souls to me were very, very similar.

[01:08:40] Meredeth: Um,

[01:08:42] Mishelle: they were both very, very selfless people and, and my hope is that, yeah, like his memory is this just sweet boy that loved to watch wipe out on television because he thought it [01:09:00] was hysterical when these people would bounce off these balls into the water.

[01:09:03] Mishelle: Like at one point they got the wipe out video game, and I just remember him sitting in the living room and making everybody else watch it because he was so excited when it came out and just laughing, just cackling because he could make people bounce off the bouncy ball. Um, and that’s who he was. He always wanted to have a good time and he always wanted to laugh, and he brought joy to every single person that ever encountered him.

[01:10:02] Credits

[01:10:02] Andrea: Nobody should believe me is written, hosted, and 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.

[01:10:24] Andrea: Music provided by Blue Dot Sessions sounds Snap and Slipstream Media.