SEASON 06 | EPISODE 03

We begin this week’s episode with a young Mishelle struggling to adjust to life with her grandparents, finding it difficult to accept both the separation from her parents and the reality of what her mother had done. Meanwhile, Lisa is in the midst of a police investigation, undergoing a psychological evaluation and attending therapy.

We hear from Bea Yorker—an expert in Munchausen by Proxy and the President of Munchausen Support—and Dr. Mary Sanders, a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and a member of APSAC’s Munchausen by Proxy committee. They explain what should have been considered during Lisa’s evaluation and what it truly means to “treat” someone with Munchausen by Proxy.

Armed with letters from therapists attesting to her remorse, Lisa turns to the online forum MAMA (Mothers Against Munchausen Allegations) to build her case for court. There, she begins digging for information on enemy number one: Bea Yorker.

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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] Mishelle: Just something that I wanted to touch on after sitting down. Down with my aunt and everything was the fact that even as I was sitting across from her and not able to like remember some of the things, like some of the events that she was like talking about, it just like really stuck out to me how much crap my mom talked about them and like.

[00:00:51] Mishelle: Growing up, I was just like convinced that, I guess that’s just what families did is like sit and like talk crap about the [00:01:00] rest of their families. Like I just remember my mom telling me literally every mistake my aunts had ever made, and not just my aunts, but like. Anybody in my family, just all the negativity and all of like the things, and like she would call my family liars and like they would make stuff up.

[00:01:19] Mishelle: And so over the years I just feel like that just kind of seeped into me in ways that like I didn’t really realize, like my first instinct. It’s to just assume people are lying to me sometimes and like, especially when it comes to my own family. And I think that really directly came from her. And then when I really started to like examine that, I kind of realized that like there was this voice in my head that sounded like my mom that was like telling me, oh, like she’s clearly just lying about this because you don’t remember it.

[00:01:55] Mishelle: And like it’s just such a bizarre thing. It [00:02:00] just becomes this web that you have to untangle of who you can trust and who you can’t trust, and who’s telling the truth and who’s not.

[00:02:11] Andrea: Our children depend on us as parents to tell them what is real and what isn’t. Which fears are valid and worthy of attention running into busy streets, for example, and which they can safely put to rest. Zombies are a big one in my household right now, as is the fear of accidentally becoming an astronaut.

[00:02:30] Andrea: Perhaps most importantly, parents teach us how to determine for ourselves who we can trust, who is a safe adult and who is not. And this is what really throws Munchausen by proxy survivors. Into the upside down, the person they should be able to trust the most. Their parent is the biggest threat to them, and anyone who attempts to protect them, whether it’s family members, social workers, or doctors, is immediately cast as the enemy.

[00:02:56] Andrea: The gaslighting and manipulation Michelle experienced from [00:03:00] her parents was relentless and getting to the truth would be the work of a lifetime. 

Intro

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.

[00:03:15] Andrea: If we didn’t, you could never make it through your day. I’m Andrea Dunlop, and this is, nobody Should Believe me.

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Act 1

[00:03:30] Andrea: After Michelle’s mother, Lisa, was caught abusing angelan on video in December of 1998, Michelle was placed with her grandparents. She remembers learning that her life was about to change.

[00:03:43] Mishelle: My mom and dad came to my grandparents’ house and they sat down with me and they were like, we have some things that we want to tell you and you’re gonna have to listen and you’re not gonna like ’em.

[00:03:53] Mishelle: And I’m like, okay. And like at this point, I think I’m like seven. I. And I just remember my mom saying, [00:04:00] Hey, I did some really bad things to your sister that I regret, and it’s because I had like a mental breakdown, but I’m dealing with it and I’m gonna go to therapy for it and we’re gonna get through it.

[00:04:11] Mishelle: But in the meantime, you may not be able to go back home for a while. So that was really the first, I guess, moment. I realized like things weren’t gonna be normal for a very long time. I. And I just remember being really hurt and really confused, and I remember the really prominent moment I remember outta that conversation was them like making me repeat it back to them so that they could understand that I understood.

[00:04:42] Mishelle: I remember being really upset and being like, I don’t understand, like why we have to do this. Why do I have to say this? Like I feel like if I say these things, it means I hate you.

[00:04:53] Andrea: The McDaniel case made its way through the juvenile court, and in February of 1999, a judge found in favor of [00:05:00] deprivation placing Angeline in the custody of the state.

[00:05:04] Andrea: This order summarizes the steady improvement in Angeline’s Health. After being removed Heartbreakingly, Angeline was able to go outside for the first time in eight months while she was still with her medical foster family, Michelle and Angeline’s father. Carrie was permitted to visit Angeline at her medical foster home.

[00:05:22] Andrea: Lisa, however, was not. Meanwhile, the police investigation carried on gathering records for Angela and interviewing those involved, including Lisa and Carrie. As part of their investigation, Lisa was ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation and counseling. People use the medical system to harm their children for different reasons, and it’s important to understand those reasons.

[00:05:44] Andrea: As the courts look to treatment of a perpetrator and the possibility of reunification, as B Yorker explains,

[00:05:51] Bea: it’s very difficult to treat this okay for a malingering mother, a mother who’s doing it for benefits, that’s much easier to [00:06:00] treat. I. A mother who’s poisoning their child because they believe the child is the devil incarnate, and their minister told them that you’ve got to purge them by making them drink Clorox.

[00:06:10] Bea: We saw those kinds of cases. Okay. That mother is easier to treat. We would not terminate parental rights. On a mother who got on antipsychotic medications and did the work so that they really truly were remorseful for and understanding that they were delusional. The reason we started talking about munch hasen by proxy after Roy Meadow’s article and in those, you know, early eighties working up to the nineties in Georgia is because the typical court judge police.

[00:06:48] Bea: Think, oh, this mom made a mistake. She accidentally poisoned the child. Oh, she didn’t mean to overmedicate the child. Oh, this poor mother. She sounds like [00:07:00] she really loves the child. Of course we can reunify. And so at that point, there was a lot of literature and a lot of data out there that this is a compulsive behavior.

[00:07:10] Bea: This is more like substance abuse. This is more like anorexia. This is something that you can’t just treat with psychotherapy, get some insight, and you’re cured. It’s an ongoing battle to be in recovery to. Struggle with your demons and your compulsions every day that you wake up. We don’t have a cure for it.

[00:07:31] Bea: If it’s genuine factitious disorder and the motivation is to make a child sick or to get that attention for a sick child or a dead child, if that’s the compulsion, it’s as difficult to cure as anorexia. We don’t really have a cure for anorexia. We have treatment and it’s a recovery model. In Lisa’s case, when I read the interview with the police, this is where I got her minimization, her justification [00:08:00] and her admissions.

[00:08:01] Bea: She admitted, she admitted she had, um, taken syringe from an unauthorized, an unauthorized syringe, and injected saline repeatedly into angeline’s trach. And every time that happened, the baby basically suffocated, struggled, turned blue. Um, choked and then it would need to be suctioned, and she admitted that that had been wrong.

[00:08:28] Bea: However, continuing with the alligator tears and the very little empathy of how this has affected your family, your behavior. Tore your family apart and from then on out, the narrative that Lisa told everybody was that B Yorker had torn the family apart. And one of the things that we wait for, for even contemplating reunification [00:09:00] vacation is when the mother fully admits to what they did and says.

[00:09:07] Bea: I am responsible. My behavior is responsible for tearing this family apart. My behavior is what caused the girls to have to be in custody my behavior. Is what caused our family to have to go to therapy, da, da, da, instead of continuing to say, be Yorker caused all the problems in our family.

[00:09:41] Andrea: This case took place over 20 years ago, and I was curious to understand where the field was at this time.

[00:09:47] Dr Sanders: Brenda Burch and I wrote a paper in 2002. I, I know this, uh, the first evaluation was done in the nineties, but there was still information out there. I was certainly doing evaluations during that time, [00:10:00] and the approach is to get the medical records and to.

[00:10:05] Dr Sanders: Analyze the records looking for either evidence or lack of evidence of falsification or possibly induced illness.

[00:10:12] Andrea: This is Dr. Mary Sanders, clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and a longtime member of the American Professional Society on the abuse of children’s Munchhouse by proxy committee.

[00:10:25] Dr Sanders: In this case, it’s very blatant because we have videotape of, um, induction of illness. Uh, numerous times. And so it, it’s not even a question. I mean, the records, I, I would’ve gotten the records anyway, but, um, but basically, yes, this is a case of Munchhausen by proxy. We have it on video to add to that, as far as doing a psychological evaluation.

[00:10:51] Dr Sanders: I don’t know that I would’ve felt the need to, uh, assess, um, the possibility of a delusional system because his parent is [00:11:00] volitionally abusing the child. Uh, from my point, what I, when I’m doing a psychological evaluation, I’m looking for is there, is there anything that’s contributing to, maybe the parent is an anxious parent.

[00:11:11] Dr Sanders: Maybe this is, uh. A parent that has a delusional system and and believes a child is ill. Um, but certainly in this case, it doesn’t appear that that’s the situation.

[00:11:24] Andrea: The court saw things this way as well. The deprivation order is plainspoken. In recounting the horrors that Angeline was subjected to stating, quote, her life was placed in jeopardy because of Lisa McDaniel’s.

[00:11:37] Andrea: Callous Intentional Acts, a more egregious form of child abuse cannot be imagined. Dr. Albert Davis, the psychiatrist who evaluated Lisa and then saw both her and Carrie for treatment for about a year, had a much different take. As B Yorker remembers,

[00:11:56] Bea: she got therapists to evaluate her and say she didn’t have [00:12:00] much housing by proxy.

[00:12:01] Bea: And as we know now, that’s not how you diagnose much has by proxy. You diagnose it through the separation test. If upon separation from the perpetrator, does the child start to thrive and their medical issues improve? And the second is from looking for lies, and both of those were amply evident. In addition, we had the video surveillance, so doing a psych eval on Lisa or on any mother.

[00:12:36] Bea: Is not how you determine a factitious disorder. There is no psych test for factitious disorder. Yeah, it’s a constellation of looking at circumstantial behaviors.

[00:12:49] Andrea: A year of counseling for something like Munch Hasen by proxy is not in any world a solution. However, Dr. Davis was never convinced this was Munch hasen by proxy to begin [00:13:00] with, as he states in his June, 1999 evaluation where he instead diagnoses Lisa with major depression and anxiety.

[00:13:08] Andrea: Lisa also gets a referral this same month. From Christian Concepts of Living where she and Carrie were attending counseling. This letter recommends allowing Lisa visitation with Angeline and placing Michelle back in the home. They do not elaborate on why they would make such a recommendation for someone who’d been caught poisoning and suffocating her infant daughter a mere six months after this happened.

[00:13:30] Andrea: This leads me to believe that these practitioners either have no understanding of Munchausen by proxy or simply don’t believe it exists. Not the people for the job. So I asked someone who is qualified, Dr. Sanders, how she would’ve approached this. So what would your goals have been in evaluating this parent?

[00:13:52] Dr Sanders: Yeah, but I would still want the records and since there was another child, I’d want those records because I, I would be looking for evidence of. [00:14:00] You know, potential falsification of illness in the other child as well. Um, and I, if possible, I would like to have the, uh, the parents’ medical records because frequently the parent has engaged in falsified illness.

[00:14:15] Dr Sanders: And so, you know, having all that information actually. Helps with trying to determine, you know, is this a case or not? Certainly in this situation, we know that it is, but also speaks to treatment. Um, so I would want to then be able to ask this mom about these incidents and what was going on in her life.

[00:14:35] Dr Sanders: You know, how does this, you know, how did, how did we get to this place where you are abusing your child? You know, where does that come from? And that speaks more for the possibility of treatment.

[00:14:51] Andrea: As far as we can tell, the investigation did not look into Michelle’s medical history, but you can’t look at Lisa’s actions as an isolated incident. Munch, [00:15:00] hasen by proxy is a pattern, and when a perpetrator has repeatedly put their child’s life at risk, they’ve proven themselves to be a threat to children, period.

[00:15:11] Andrea: I have to wonder if Dr. Davis looked at any of the records in this case as he appears to have taken Lisa at her word about both what she did and why she did it. He describes Lisa in one letter as quote, open, reliable, and trustworthy. I. In Dr. Davis’s report, he calls Lisa Excruciatingly remorseful about her actions, which he describes as Lisa injecting water into her daughter’s trach.

[00:15:36] Andrea: And again, this is Lisa’s preferred version of the story, not what really happened. He blames these actions on the overwhelm that Lisa experienced having such a sick child. His overall take on Lisa is just. Wild. It leads me to believe that Dr. Davis willfully or otherwise has absolutely no idea what or who he’s [00:16:00] dealing with because you can’t just take a perpetrator’s story at face value, as Mary Sanders explains,

[00:16:07] Dr Sanders: when I do these evaluations, I look for what I call checkout audibles.

[00:16:11] Dr Sanders: And so for example, if a, if a parent tells me, well. You know, the doctor saw the seizures. Then I’m like, okay, who is that? So I can, you know, I can access that doctor, I can check it out. Or the teacher saw this happen or what have you. I don’t necessarily believe everything I’m being told by the, um, alleged perpetrator, and I want to be able to kind of check that out outside of what I’ve been told.

[00:16:36] Andrea: B also agrees.

[00:16:38] Bea: So when people say to me, shouldn’t you Eva, shouldn’t you meet with the mother and interview them before you decide if they have munchow by proxy? No. It obfuscates the whole picture. I do much better if I just look at the records and see did they lie, or if we do a separation. I have been snookered every time.

[00:16:59] Bea: [00:17:00] Every time I do an interview.

[00:17:01] Andrea: Dr. Davis does detail Angeline’s litany of health issues. Her surgeries for her GI and breathing issues her many emergency admissions and brushes with death. But his framing of these events are as quote, catastrophic stressors on Lisa, not as something she herself caused the dissonance, especially given the video evidence.

[00:17:22] Andrea: Is staggering. He mentions that Lisa and her husband reported that she’d been struggling with depression having panic attacks, and that she’d experienced a number of other traumatic events including an alleged sexual assault and that these issues had led to her behavior. However, these events were not to use Mary’s parlance checkout Audibles.

[00:17:44] Dr Sanders: We certainly see a high percentage of perpetrators, um, report trauma and, and as you’re saying, it’s sometimes it’s hard to check out whether it actually happened or not. And you know, when it comes down to it, I mean, as you said, um, unfortunately. [00:18:00] Uh, sexual assault is not uncommon. Um, however, that’s not an explanation for abusing a child.

[00:18:06] Dr Sanders: Dr. Davis

[00:18:07] Andrea: clearly bought Lisa’s justification that she’d harmed Angeline because she was so afraid of bringing her home. He says in one letter that quote, her inappropriate actions were clearly a cry for help to delay the impending discharge by demonstrating just how fragile was Angela’s condition.

[00:18:25] Andrea: PICU Nurse Judy does not find this argument compelling.

[00:18:30] Judy: I don’t buy that one. I, I really don’t. And she not saying that she didn’t have scary things at home. You know, she had a trach and she had oxygen and she had to be suctioned, but they would not send someone home unless they felt that they were demonstrating in terms of all of the things that they had to learn and do.

[00:18:50] Judy: CPR, like all of that until you’re ready.

[00:18:55] Andrea: Dr. Mary Sanders was equally incredulous.

[00:18:58] Dr Sanders: I see it as a rationalization. [00:19:00] I, um, I, I, I work in a hospital and I would say almost a hundred percent of the time, my parents tell me they’re worried about taking their children home. And I understand that. Um, however, if a parent is then making their child ill to remain in the hospital.

[00:19:21] Dr Sanders: That’s child abuse. And um, and that’s certainly what’s happened in this situation. It’s hard to admit that you’re purposely, um, harming your child and putting them close to death. I think it’s an easier, it’s easier to swallow, to say, oh, well I was scared to take her home. You know, rather than, you know, admitting that I put my child at risk of end, you know, ending their life, this is a kind of case that you don’t reunify.

[00:19:51] Dr Sanders: This is a case where there’s serious risk of death. There’s poisoning. Um, there’s smothering. This is not a [00:20:00] reunification case. I’m actually amazed from what you’re telling me that this child lived through this,

[00:20:10] Andrea: and B, who was evaluating this case for the court. Agreed.

[00:20:13] Bea: I wrote a report. That said that it was very similar to the report that I had written in previous, um, injecting microbials and suffocating, which is that this is the most dangerous form of child abuse. It is the most lethal and. That I recommended Termination of parental rights.

[00:20:38] Bea: We didn’t have the exact accept model at that point, but at this point, Lisa was blaming me for everything that had happened rather than saying it was her behavior. And so without that acknowledgement, um, I said I recommended termination of parental rights. I recommended that the children [00:21:00] remain placed with their grandparents because it looked like a loving and.

[00:21:04] Bea: Stable environment for them.

[00:21:08] Andrea: I think it’s valuable to consider why perpetrators do what they do. The clearer picture we can have of the motivations and psychological picture of offenders, the more attuned we will be to the warning signs. And someday, perhaps this could even lead us to strategies that could curtail this behavior before it crosses the kind of line where someone can never be safe around children again.

[00:21:32] Andrea: But understanding behavior is not the same thing as excusing it. And from Dr. Davis’s notes, he appears to be in full on denial about what Lisa has proven herself to be capable of. He writes. Throughout her treatment with me, she has consistently maintained her belief that although wrong her actions were never to intentionally harm her child.

[00:21:56] Andrea: He goes on to say that she represents the recovering picture of a [00:22:00] young mother once overwhelmed by fear and desperate for help, who is genuinely struggling to find peace and forgiveness. This Mobius strip of an argument. Is like a snake eating its own tail. If Lisa found her daughter’s health crises so very stressful, she could have just stopped causing them.

[00:22:19] Andrea: In their original case plan, DFCS gave the objective of Lisa being quote, free from Munchhausen by proxy in six months, which as bee explains isn’t even remotely possible.

[00:22:32] Bea: Mark Feldman’s book on fictitious disorders in post on self has got some glimmering and some inspirational stories from people who’ve compulsively made themselves sick for attention.

[00:22:47] Bea: Who get into recovery, who actually do. So I figure if you can recover from making yourself sick compulsively for the attention ’cause [00:23:00] it’s, it’s your default way to get your needs met then. If you, if you have a sponsor, if you have daily check-ins, and this is what the accepts model says is, you know, every day you wake up and you say, okay, what might trigger me today to need to go back to the hospital or to need to have a dying child, or to need to have the funeral or the hospice, or what might trigger me to resort to my old bad behaviors?

[00:23:29] Bea: And then build your day around avoiding those triggers. Build your day to reach out as soon as you feel yourself slipping.

[00:23:38] Andrea: So kind of what you talked about of it’s not a treatment that you sort of go to for six months. It’s like you are in recovery for the rest of your life. For the

[00:23:45] Bea: rest of your life.

[00:23:46] Bea: Yes. And that’s what the 12 step model is based on

[00:23:49] Andrea: being in recovery for Munchausen by proxy, regardless of reunification with one’s children must begin with a full acknowledgement of one’s actions. Dr. [00:24:00] Davis seems convinced that Lisa has reached the milestone, describing her in a January, 2000 letter as being remorseful and ashamed and as understanding the harm she’s caused.

[00:24:10] Andrea: But outside of Dr. Davis’s office, Lisa was insisting she’d done nothing wrong in the spring of 1999. In the midst of her police investigation, Lisa begins posting on an internet forum called Mama or Mothers Against Munchhausen Allegations. This forum and its creator, Julie Patrick, are also the subject of a documentary by the same name.

[00:24:31] Andrea: And this is simply too big of a rabbit hole to dive all the way into here. But this forum was created by Patrick after she was suspected of abusing her infant son and is well known to those of us in the field. It was, to my knowledge, one of the first internet forums dedicated to, as the site describes it, exposing the Munchausen by proxy agenda.

[00:24:53] Andrea: The webpage for Mama Remains, but it appears to be abandoned these days. Lisa’s posts, however, are preserved in the police [00:25:00] record. These posts show Lisa looking for information about how to combat the allegations against her and requesting information such as the quote, CPS Bible. And according to Lisa, this whole thing is the fault of one person in particular on Angela’s second birthday, she writes.

[00:25:18] Andrea: Help. My baby is two years old today and I haven’t seen her in five months. This week DFCS put in a new case plan that I couldn’t see her for the next six months. Thanks to B Yorker, this early social networking in Munchhouse and denier communities is, I believe, important to how the story of Lisa McDaniel progresses.

[00:25:38] Andrea: And it gives us insights into not only Lisa’s lack of accountability, but how B Yorker became a scapegoat in the McDaniel household. A place she appears to hold to this day.

[00:25:49] Bea: The first. Much Hasen by proxy is something that even B Yorker says you cannot recover from over. And she doesn’t agree with that anymore.

[00:25:55] Bea: Mama. She doesn’t

[00:25:56] Lisa: even agree with that anymore. She’s in my courtroom and said That ruined my [00:26:00] fucking life and we don’t ruined my damn life. We can leave.

[00:26:04] Andrea: Lisa asks the mama community for information on B to use in court and a fellow forum member named Kathleen Tro Obliges. Sending Lisa detailed instructions on a password protected website containing information about B Kathy.

[00:26:20] Andrea: Emails. Lisa, this information because as she explains in her message, Kathy is currently under a court order not to post on Mama. She ends her email saying, quote, I sincerely hope you find what you’re looking for so you can nail the bastard. This kind of scapegoating, the idea that it came down to one doctor or one expert is ubiquitous in these cases.

[00:26:42] Andrea: But it’s particularly preposterous. In this case though, bee’s testimony and expertise was no doubt invaluable to the court. Even someone with no understanding of munch chazen by proxy could likely grasp that. A parent who repeatedly poisons and suffocates their own child is a [00:27:00] danger to them. Unless they’re Dr.

[00:27:02] Andrea: Davis. Apparently on June 11th, Lisa posts on Mama that the courts have decided to terminate their rights. Saying didn’t mean a hill of beans. What our doctors and therapists said, just what b Yorker had to say. It does seem that DFCS in the courts were aligned that Lisa should not be permitted to parent her children after what she’d done.

[00:27:23] Andrea: Judge John w Beam Jr. Is quoted in one document as saying that reunification should not happen under any circumstances. You may assume, as I once did, that a parent who goes to prison for child abuse would automatically lose their parental rights, but criminal court and juvenile court are separate if intertwined systems.

[00:27:43] Andrea: In the Alyssa Wayburn case, which we covered in season two, the Weber’s Alyssa’s adopted parents ended up having to pay exorbitant legal fees to terminate her biological mother’s rights. Despite her criminal conviction. Just as Derek Jones, a case we’ve also covered had to do to terminate the rights [00:28:00] of his ex-wife even after she was sentenced to 60 years in prison.

[00:28:05] Andrea: In the end, despite the judge’s warnings. The state did not terminate the McDaniel’s rights. A move that set the stage for everything to come.

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Act 2

[00:28:25] Andrea: In September of 2000, Lisa McDaniel was convicted on two counts of aggravated assault and one count of cruelty to children. She pled guilty and was sentenced to 10 years probation and to serve six to nine months in a women’s detention facility.

[00:28:43] Andrea: Throughout this time, Michelle and Angelan lived with their maternal grandparents, and while the girls were safe, it was a rough transition for Michelle,

[00:28:52] Mishelle: me and my nana. So I called her. We would argue about my parents a lot. Um, she was very. I’m not a fan [00:29:00] of my dad. She was, did not like my dad at all. Um, and she was very angry at my mom and like, understandably so, but my nana had some pretty hefty like kind of untreated mental illness herself.

[00:29:12] Mishelle: I. Could not put any blame on my, I mean, I was like, what, seven or eight years old? Like I could not put any blame on my mom whatsoever. Like this was all like CP S’s fault and these people, these awful lawyers and these awful judges, and they’ve torn my family apart and I could not wrap my head around, would not admit like, this is my mom’s doing.

[00:29:31] Mishelle: And so I think that really frustrated her and she could not handle it. And so it caused a lot of conflict between her and I because I was just very like angry. Um, and she was like, no, like this is your mom. Like your mom’s doing this, and your dad is not here protecting you. And so it caused a lot of grief because I was like, you’re just crazy.

[00:29:53] Mishelle: You know, you’re, that’s not true. And you just hate my mom for no reason is how, and of course, that’s. I’m sure you [00:30:00] know, understandably why that would drive her up the wall

[00:30:03] Andrea: Angelan, who’s five years younger, didn’t have much of a bond with her parents and she became especially close with their grandparents.

[00:30:12] Mishelle: And then I think my sister got really, really close to both of them. Um, and so I think that was a direct comparison like. I was the oldest, just like my mom was the oldest, and you know, I was always at war with her the same way. My mom was always at war with her. And so I think for my nana there was a lot of like parallels there that made the whole thing worse.

[00:30:33] Mishelle: My sister started calling the mom and dad, and for me that was like really awful because I, I heard like my mom found out about it and my mom, like I would go visit my parents on the weekends before my sister was able to have visitation with them. And so I would go by myself and then my sister would stay with my grandparents.

[00:30:51] Mishelle: And so that really kind of like, I think drove a wedge between all of us because I was going over there and then my mom and dad would question me the whole time of like, [00:31:00] um, what was said or How’s Angeline doing? Or did y’all talk about this this week? Or yada. I mean, it was just all these like questions just being kind of used as that, that pawn, I guess, of like the back and forth.

[00:31:14] Andrea: Lisa served the minimum sentence of six months in a women’s detention facility, and after she was released, due to the fact that her rights had not been terminated, she was still allowed visitation with Michelle supervised only by her husband, Carrie. Michelle even spent nights back at her parents’ house until yet another dramatic turn of events.

[00:31:33] Andrea: I

[00:31:33] Mishelle: just remember that particular night her asking me over and over and over to sleep in my room. And she just went on and on and on about it and she was never pushy about it. Mm-hmm. Um, and I remember getting woken up in the middle of the night and they’re like, the house is on fire. The house is on fire.

[00:31:50] Mishelle: And they, my mom like, wraps a blanket around me and just kind of runs me outside and my bedroom. Like the wall outside my bedroom and the window like [00:32:00] was all on fire and like no other part of the house was on fire. Like nothing else. It was just isolated. And it was very intentional, right? Because there’s no like wiring that it could have been right there.

[00:32:09] Mishelle: There was no, like somebody very clearly said just that piece on fire, it didn’t spread like it was literally right there. And I remember like, um, like we were going to church at the time with like some firefighter friends and like they came out and I just remember like sitting. Um, in the truck of like one of our church friends and like there, and then my nana, papa took me home.

[00:32:30] Mishelle: They were like, you’re coming home with us. And I was very upset by that and they wouldn’t let me go back that weekend. And I, that is the one of two occasions I’ve ever seen my papa cry. And this was like, to describe my papa, he was like, really tall, big, burly, just like. You know, beard, just very like strong presence.

[00:32:51] Mishelle: Like did not cry. Very rarely showed emotion, right? Just like, and that is like one of two instances. I remember him crying and I had walked in the bedroom because I [00:33:00] was dead set on. I’m going back to my mama’s like, and I walked in and he’s sitting on the bed and he’s crying. And that was so jarring for me because I had never seen this man cry.

[00:33:11] Mishelle: And I am just like. I don’t understand what’s going on. And they sat me down and they were like, you can’t go back to your mom’s right now. And I just remember being like angry about it and being like mad about it. And them just being like, I don’t think they ever, I don’t, they, I don’t think they ever said like, your mom did it, but it was very like, I think they probably handled it in the most.

[00:33:33] Mishelle: Like child-friendly way of like, they were just very like, we don’t

[00:33:37] Andrea: think you’re safe there right now. We can’t be certain that Lisa was responsible for this incident, but the connection between arson and munch. Hasen by proxy has been studied with an entire chapter of Catherine Al’s book Munch Hasen by Proxy and other Factitious abuse.

[00:33:52] Andrea: Devoted to it. Arting stall even advises detectives to prepare for the potential to need to investigate this. [00:34:00] The theory is that being a victim of arson or other crimes such as vandalism or burglary, which the book also notes in case studies, fulfills a similar psychological need as much has by proxy, namely gaining attention and sympathy from the person’s spouse, family, and community, and of course, playing the victim role.

[00:34:19] Andrea: Fire can also serve as a potential way for them to harm their children and further the medical abuse itself. All of this drama was exhausting for Lisa and Sabrina’s father.

[00:34:29] Sabrina: So much at that point had happened. And to be honest, he was really just sick of Lisa because it was just after everything. ’cause everything that about Angel and had come out at this point.

[00:34:43] Sabrina: And mom and Daddy had had had custody of Angel and Aunt Michelle. Um, and Daddy was just so tired of dealing with Lisa’s drama. And then when he saw that, I think in his mind he was just thinking, you know, it could have killed her. It could have killed Michelle. And I think it’s just so many [00:35:00] emotions ran through and like my daddy was not an emotional person.

[00:35:03] Sabrina: Yeah, he would love, he would hug you. He would love you. He would tell you he loved you and everything. But as far as him really being an emotional person, he was not

[00:35:13] Andrea: even amidst all this chaos and every sign in the world that Lisa and Carrie were not able to provide a safe home. Michelle just didn’t feel much of a bond or much stability with her grandparents.

[00:35:25] Andrea: In this vacuum, Michelle’s child mind created a fantasy that her life could return to normal if only she could be back with her parents.

[00:35:37] Mishelle: I was very ready to go home, like in my mind like that were my parents. That’s where I belonged. I was still very angry at everybody else, like I was ready to go home. And so my grandparents knew that and they saw that for years. And so I, I remember sitting down with them one day and my grandmother being like.

[00:35:53] Mishelle: Okay. Like if you’re sure we’re not gonna keep you here. If you’re ready to go, like we have kind of, the [00:36:00] attorneys have kind of talked and um, we’re ready to sign the paperwork for you to go back. My dad still had access visit. He had like legal, legal custody still, or like joint legal custody or something because he was still able to like talk to my teachers and like be involved in my school and stuff.

[00:36:21] Andrea: Even if Michelle didn’t understand at seven the gravity of what had happened, she understood that her father was supposed to step up and she quickly learned that he was never going to do so.

[00:36:33] Mishelle: Me and my nana had been arguing and, um, I was got in the car and like he would come in and then I think him and my nana tied up multiple times too, like during all this.

[00:36:43] Mishelle: And, um, anyway, I got in the car and I was just like, boohooing, like, I was just very upset. I don’t even remember what the arguing was about. I just remember like I had arguing with her. And then it always upset me more to see the adults in my life argue like that. Just I couldn’t handle it. And so I, I vaguely remember them like tying up and my dad being [00:37:00] really mad.

[00:37:01] Mishelle: And I was like, just a mess. Just very upset. And we were in the car and we were backing out of the driveway and, um, going down my nana’s little road and he was like, I’m so sorry. If I knew things would’ve turned out this way, I would’ve made different choices. Is when I was given the option to, and I’m like, what does that mean?

[00:37:22] Mishelle: And he was like, oh, don’t worry about it. And I’m just like, well, you can’t say something like that and then just not tell me. Like even, you know. And he was like, well, I just mean when um, everything came out about your mom, they gave me the option to divorce your mom and take custody of you and your sister.

[00:37:40] Mishelle: And he was like, I just, sometimes I wish I had done things differently. If I had known this was how it was gonna be. Um. And yeah, like that stuck with me I think my whole life. And then, um, years and years and years later as an adult, I had another conversation with him in which I brought all that back up and I was [00:38:00] like, is that true?

[00:38:00] Mishelle: And he admitted to me then it was true. And like.

[00:38:08] Andrea: One of the most heartbreaking things about children in abusive households is the love and attachment. They still feel towards parents who haven’t demonstrated any ability to return that love. This is why even abused children so often defend their parents or even lie for them. And when separated, they often long for and even idealize their missing parents.

[00:38:30] Andrea: But as any parent knows, children aren’t always capable of deciding what’s best for them, and that’s why they need loving protective adults in their lives. And this family dynamic was about to get a lot more complicated.[00:39:00]

Ad Break

Act 3

[00:39:02] Andrea: Following Lisa’s brief stint at a detention center and in the midst of the ongoing custody battles over Michelle and Angelan, there was another big change afoot for the McDaniel family.

[00:39:13] Mishelle: I remember some like whispers and like talk, um. I knew something was going on. Like I was that kid that, like, I was always trying to eavesdrop because I wanted answers to my own life.

[00:39:25] Mishelle: And so I would get like bits and pieces that I probably shouldn’t have. Um, and so I remember just like hearing some things about like, um, uh, CPS coming in about my brother and, um, being really scared.

[00:39:43] Andrea: On July 25th, 2002, Lisa gave birth to her third child, Colin. He was also born slightly early at 35 weeks.

[00:39:53] Andrea: Unlike his sister who’d been born months before her due date. He reportedly had some breathing issues initially, but was otherwise [00:40:00] healthy.

[00:40:01] Mishelle: My mom had come in to pick me up for the weekend and my nana had kind of met her at the door and they were being really friendly to each other, which was bizarre because they weren’t very friendly to each other.

[00:40:15] Mishelle: Um, and my nana was just like. You know, how did everything go? And, and my mom was just being like, it’s okay. Like, everything’s okay. And like I remember her saying something about asked, like if I knew or like how I was or something, and my nana was like, well, she doesn’t know, but she’s asking. Or something like that.

[00:40:31] Mishelle: And so that was like when my mom like sat me down and was like, um. CPS came in and they tried to remove Colin too. Like they tried to take Colin from us, but they did rule that there was no need to because he’s not sick. Um, and so we’re, we’re gonna get to like, keep him and stuff.

[00:40:49] Andrea: The DFCS reports from this initial visit are telling.

[00:40:52] Andrea: By way of explaining her past, Lisa repeats the story of her being so overwhelmed that she interfered with Angeline’s trach to keep [00:41:00] her in the hospital. Lisa Tearfully recounts that she had no support from family and friends and that though she’d been diagnosed with mache by proxy, her psychiatrist disagreed.

[00:41:10] Andrea: Picu, nurse Judy, who’d been there for Angela’s abuse had followed the case and remembers hearing when Colin was born.

[00:41:18] Judy: So she went from medical foster care to her maternal grandparents, I believe. And so she was with them, and then Lisa had another baby boy. And so I’m pretty sure that must have been the first time that I went to court.

[00:41:32] Judy: And there was several other nurses that worked in the PICU that were subpoenaed. Um, and it had something to do with foster care for the little boy, not for Angela.

[00:41:41] Andrea: Within a month of Colin’s birth, a complaint to DFCS was filed, resulting in an emergency petition of protective custody. The court ultimately ruled that Lisa could maintain custody, but that she could not be left alone with the baby, though how this would’ve been enforced is unclear.

[00:41:56] Andrea: In March of 2003, when Colin was still under a year [00:42:00] old, DFCS entered a deprivation petition for him, requesting that he be removed from Lisa’s custody because of the abuse she’d subjected Angela to. The court cites the severity of Angela’s abuse and the expert testimony that this was a munch by proxy case, which they describe as not being treatable and having an extremely high recidivism rate.

[00:42:20] Andrea: In the midst of all this legal back and forth, Lisa continues to minimize her actions, blaming the stress, and a hospital staff that was forcing her to go home. When asked how many times she’d injected a substance into her daughter, Lisa says around seven.

[00:42:40] Andrea: The video evidence, however, captured dozens of incidents, and furthermore, because the pattern had been ongoing since Angela’s birth, the hospital concluded that there had been many more times other than those that were captured during all of this.

Carrie remains fully in step with his wife. He continues his dubious claim that while he was in the [00:43:00] room while she was hurting Angeline, he couldn’t actually see what she was doing and in his testimony during the custody case, he also shares a chilling detail about the two of them shopping for a dress for baby Angeline to be buried in.

[00:43:14] Andrea: They both present Lisa as contrite and reformed, but the nurses who’d seen what Lisa had done did not

[00:43:21] Judy: agree. I was pretty horrified at the end of the court hearing when the judge gave full custody back to them. ’cause I remember I stood up and I told them I thought I’m gonna get arrested. I said, I hope you don’t sleep when you go home tonight.

[00:43:35] Judy: You have no idea what you’ve done and you should be ashamed of yourself.

[00:43:38] Andrea: On September 10th, 2004, the court denied the deprivation petition and the case was closed. Colin could remain with Lisa and Carrie and in November of that year, Carrie and Lisa. Regained full custody of Michelle

[00:43:54] Mishelle: walking into the house for the first time after.

[00:43:57] Mishelle: Like everything was finalized and after I was like coming [00:44:00] home and being really disappointed because my parents told me that like, what a wonderful homecoming party we were gonna have when I got to go back to live with them. And so I had like, thought about that for years, like, and so I remember. Coming home and being disappointed.

[00:44:14] Mishelle: And then my dad had like made like a screensaver on our family computer that just said, welcome home, Michelle. And just like almost crying because I expected like this really big thing. And then I remember feeling really guilty about it because my dad was like, I’m sorry, like we, everything happened last minute and we didn’t know it was gonna be today, but like, we’re, we’re gonna do something.

[00:44:33] Mishelle: You know,

[00:44:33] Andrea: Michelle had been dreaming of this homecoming. But even though it wasn’t the moment she’d been promised, she was still hopeful about the family’s future.

[00:44:41] Mishelle: I just remember he was really little and still in his car seat, and I would always sit in the back. I was obsessed with my little brother, like he was just amazing to me.

[00:44:49] Mishelle: And so I always wanted to be around him and be like a part of like whatever was going on with him, like that’s where I wanted to be. And so I would sit in the back with him [00:45:00] and like my mom would be back there too, and I would like choose to sit in the back beside him. And I remember. His car’s eaten in the middle and me being on one side and her being on the other, and I remember her looking at me and looking down at him and saying, he’s gonna be what puts our family back together

[00:45:18] Andrea: in a letter from the state.

[00:45:19] Andrea: The agency wishes the family well and writes that they hope they never find themselves in need of their services again, which was quite a pivot. As B Yorker remembers,

[00:45:28] Bea: I see that in 2002. Child Protective Services in Georgia said Ms. McDaniel now has another infant child, Colin McDaniel. This agency feels that this child is subject to harm by Ms.

[00:45:45] Bea: 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. So Child Protective Services was [00:46:00] 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 in another jurisdiction, and that they were able to keep calling and they were able to get the girls back.

[00:46:25] 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?

[00:46:36] Andrea: In the two years after Colin is born, everything goes to pieces in terms of protecting these children between unresponsive judges and delayed hearings. The case is eventually closed and DFCS asked to be relieved of any responsibility for continuing to monitor this family.

[00:46:52] Andrea: From reading these documents, it appears that on this round, the court fully bought Lisa’s minimizations and claims of [00:47:00] rehabilitation. The description in these documents of Lisa’s previous crimes mirror her story, the seven incidents, the refuted MVP diagnosis, rather than the truth of what was captured on video and how it was contextualized by experts.

[00:47:15] Andrea: Eventually though the paperwork for this piece has been lost to time, the McDaniels got Angel in return to their care as well.

[00:47:27] Andrea: So off the McDaniels went Now with all three of their babies back under their roof. While there had been eyes on Colin McDaniel, he’d remained healthy, but that sadly wouldn’t last.

Preview

[00:47:40] Judy: I walked into the unit one day and he was in the picu, PICU number four, and I saw the name on the board and I had to leave the unit ’cause I thought I was gonna be sick.

[00:47:49] Judy: And so I said to the charge nurse, I said, I can’t take care of that patient. I told all my coworkers, you know who he was. ’cause most of them had no idea. And I did let, [00:48:00] um, the physician group that was taking care of him, you know, know my concerns. I, I, I couldn’t even look at her after everything that she’s done.

[00:48:09] Judy: And then I was off after that. And by the time I came back to work, he wasn’t there anymore. That’s next time on. Nobody should believe me.

Credits

[00:48:24] 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 Carmo.

[00:48:45] Andrea: Music provided by Blue dot Sessions. Sounds Snap and slipstream [00:49:00] media.