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- [00:00]
Andrea Dunlop
Foreign hello, it's Andrea and today is our Season five Mailbag episode. Thank you so much to everyone who listened to this season and took the time to leave us comments and questions. We got by far the most feedback we have ever gotten on this season and I am just really grateful that people are so engaged with this show. It's amazing. This was a really fun episode to record because I got to bring my entire editorial team on the mic with me. Podcasting is a collaborative art form and I am so lucky to have such a talented and lovely team. We are hard at work on our new full season which will be coming out this June, and in the meantime we have a bunch of great stuff lined up for our new season of Case Files, which is our in between season show. We're going to be talking about the lawsuit against Rady Children's in San Diego, the Bill Gibson case that was the subject of the new Netflix series Apple Cider Vinegar and a frequently requested topic, Chronic Lyme. So stay tuned for all of that and if you're a subscriber, we've got lots of good after hours stuff coming soon as well. So with that, please enjoy our Mailbag episode and let us know your thoughts by leaving us a comment on Spotify or sending us an email to helloobodyshouldbelieveme.com Imagine what's possible when learning doesn't get in the way of life at Capella University. Our game changing flexpath learning format lets you set your own deadline so you.
- [01:37]
Nicole Hill
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Andrea Dunlop
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Nicole Hill
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Andrea Dunlop
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Nicole Hill
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Andrea Dunlop
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Andrea Dunlop
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Nicole Hill
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Andrea Dunlop
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Nicole Hill
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Andrea Dunlop
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Nicole Hill
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- [02:29]
Andrea Dunlop
All right, well, hello, it's Andrea and I am here today with the entire Season 5 editorial team which is so exciting to do our Mailbag episode. The only people from the rest of the team who Are not. Here is Nola Carmouche, my assistant, who does all kinds of tasks for the show and helps keep everything running, and our wonderful audio engineer, Robin Edgar. So shout out to those ladies as well. But with me here, I have Mariah Gossett, Nicole Hill, Erin Ajayi, and Greta Stromquist. So if y'all could go around starting with Mariah and just tell us who you are.
- [03:14]
Mariah Gossett
Yeah. So this is my second season working with Andrea. Nobody should believe me. And I'm so glad to still be on the team and to have worked with this amazing crew, to have made this incredible season that was both, like, heart or, you know, heart wrenching, intense, but also very, I think, editorially rewarding by the end of it. Um, and I think this team really had a lot to do with that. Um, and then I also edit if y'all want some. Some giggles, some hahas, some tehees after some really intense. Nobody should believe me. I also produce and sound design a show called One of Us with Finn and Chris, which is like a part improv, part interview show. Andrea has been a guest on that show as well. It was bananas. We went into the fridge of the bear. It's a really silly good time. And then I also currently work on the ACLU's podcast at Liberty with W. Kamau Bal. And so we're doing a bunch of know your insert rights here. So we just had an episode come out about the current state of disability rights, so definitely check that out.
- [04:20]
Andrea Dunlop
Amazing. Thank you so much, Mara. And yes, I can confirm that my interview with One of us was the single most fun podcast interview I've ever done. I don't think I've ever laughed that hard. I mean, as probably not surprising since I don't usually laugh in interviews I'm doing about the show. So that was very. That was very nice. It was a nice palate cleanser. Erin Ajayi, let's hear from you.
- [04:40]
Nicole Hill
Yes, Erin Ajayi, this was my first season with nobody should believe me as the researcher and fact checker. This. This was very cathartic for me. I've. I've been transitioning from nonprofit administration and fundraising world, and so one of the things that grips me with this story in particular was just the undertones of a white saviorism. And that being a theme of, you know, Sophie going to do mission work and being coming out of the nonprofit field. There is a lot of that, particularly with donors, that notion of white saviorism and good ish intent. But. But I really wanted to. To dive into that part of the story. And then my family's Nigerian. And so I think going into. And exploring the cross cultural ties with transracial and transnational adoption was another thing that really deeply interested me. And the final thing is I actually went to college in West Michigan. And so understanding white evangelicalism and where kind of Sophie came from and grew up, there were just a lot of. Lots of cross pollination with experiences in my own life that I could see and observe and unfortunately, in a lot of ways relive, but hopefully bring to light a lot of problematic issues.
- [06:21]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah. Well, Erin, I can just really attest to the fact that your voice and perspective was so helpful with this season. And yes, you were a researcher and fact checker, but also I feel like you just added so much, especially to the early episodes where we, you know, you found so much interesting stuff online and that we did not, you know, did not have to begin with. And just talking through all of that in those first couple of episodes with you and obviously some of that on the mic was really amazing and helpful. So, yeah, just, yeah, really appreciate your work this season. Nicole, can we hear from you?
- [06:56]
Erin Ajayi
Yes, hello, I'm Nicole Hill. I am the story editor for this season. This is my first season with the show. And I would have to say, like, the thing that really stood out to me, this is really, really a very heavy, very emotional, very, like, delicate topic. And I loved, I mean, for lack of a better term, sort of our writer's room or the editor's room where we. Where we talked about how do we want to approach these. How do we infuse as much empathy and understanding into this story and into everybody who's being represented in the story as possible? And I was raised an evangelical Christian. I'm not that anymore, But I am still a person of faith. And I think that the way that thought about faith and how to represent it was like a lot with. With so much care, with so much intentionality. And so it just made the story editing. I just feel like I upped my story editing game that much more from the conversations that we had about, like, how do we push ourselves to be even more thoughtful and empathetic and understanding. So this has been like, it's a heavy, heavy, heavy project, but it has just been also the way that we've approached it. I think we've taken a lot of care of one another and done our best to take care of the people that. Whose stories we got to tell. So I've loved it.
- [08:13]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah. And Nicole, can you also tell us about your new show real quick, because it's my favorite thing in the entire world right now to listen to.
- [08:21]
Erin Ajayi
You want to do, like, Mariah, like, just a hard 180?
- [08:25]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah, exactly.
- [08:28]
Erin Ajayi
So I have a black history comedy storytelling show. It's called Our Ancestors Were Messy. And on it, I'm telling stories that I found in historical black newspapers in their gossip columns and society pages, and looking at at both how our ancestors thought about beating Jim Crow while also just being so messy and just living their lives and making mistakes and figuring out, you know, what is it gonna mean to be black in America immediately after slavery and before the civil rights era? So there's lots of sound design. It's meant to feel a little bit like a movie. It's meant to feel fun, but also, you know, to make you think a little bit, hopefully.
- [09:05]
Andrea Dunlop
It's really incredible. I love it so much, and it really reinforces this feeling that I have that all history should just be told as goss. Like, if we learned history as gossip, I think we would remember it much better because I'm, like, listening to these historical figures that I only sort of knew about in this very academic context and just be like, oh, and they were, like, having affairs and, like, who was sleeping with who? Which is, like, a lot of what the show's been about so far. And I'm like, I'm so into it. So highly recommend. Thank you so much, Nicole. And your contributions this season were just incredible. I mean, it would not have been the same show without you this season. So just really, really appreciated. Appreciate you as well. And last but certainly not least, Greta Stromquist.
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Greta Stromquist
Hi, I'm Greta Stromquist. I worked as an associate producer on the season, and sorry, gonna edit that out.
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Mariah Gossett
I was like, greta gets to edit. You have the ability.
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Andrea Dunlop
Yeah.
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Greta Stromquist
Quick sidebar. I didn't realize. I was like, oh, I'm going to be joining this just to, like, record and listen. I didn't realize I'd be talking at all, so I wasn't mentally prepared.
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Andrea Dunlop
Oh, my gosh. We should have probably warned you, because I did not warn Greta she'd be on the mic today. This is Greta's first time on the microphone.
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Mariah Gossett
You can say as much as little.
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Andrea Dunlop
As you want, Greta, and then you.
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Mariah Gossett
Get to edit it later.
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Greta Stromquist
So I'm not as Mike savvy talking, like, as you all.
- [10:46]
Mariah Gossett
I can also just humble brag on you, Greta, because you do an incredible job of helping to really keep the process moving forward. Like, you do such great. I don't. It's like beyond what an I'm so glad you've actually so here's our other humble brag is that Greta is now producing our Case Files episodes for the week to week. So she's been promoted and moving on up because she's an incredible ear for story and cutting tape down and taking our monstrous three hour long sessions where we dive into other cases week to week and getting them down into manageable pieces as well as to help make sure that we are telling great stories during the documentary seasons as well. So Greta does a great job. I've got to work with her on multiple projects and I'm always so happy that we get to stay a happy little team. So that's my brags on Greta.
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Greta Stromquist
Thanks Brianna.
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Nicole Hill
Vigorous nods all around. More bragging. No vigorous nods all around. And also Greta, like just a phenomenal editor as well.
- [11:49]
Erin Ajayi
So truly I was gonna say the same thing. Those notes, when a Greta note comes in, it's not like you're not leaving a bunch of them, but when you.
- [11:56]
Andrea Dunlop
Do, it hits yeah, 100%. 100%. And yeah, I second all of that. And just, yeah, it's been as the creator of this show, you know, like having this team come on for the fifth season was just really like this was, you know, I felt like we were just kind of firing on all cylinders and everybody like really brought their best and that was just like so satisfying podcasting, so collaborative. It's so fun. So I think the behind the scenes work this season was really just worked really well and was very satisfying. And I think that's just down to all of y'all. So let's jump into the comments. There were so many comments. Definitely the strongest and quickest response we've ever had to a season. For the first time, we put all of the episodes behind the paywall at launch and boy oh boy did a lot of people listen really fast, which actually shocked me. And I know everybody on the team worked really hard to get all of those done by the launch date, which was right after the holidays. Sorry y'all. Never again. And and yeah, so we had a. Most of the comments were really nice. A lot of people binge the season really fast. As I said, a lot of folks saying which I just want to ask.
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Mariah Gossett
Are those people okay? How are you doing? That's a lot. I hope you're doing well.
- [13:22]
Andrea Dunlop
The first person I heard from so we launched at midnight on whatever that Thursday was and the first person I heard from who had finished all eight episodes was at 2:30. That afternoon and I was like, what did you literally just. They must have just like woken up and started listening. That was barely enough time had passed since it had been up. And so I. And I heard from a lot of people within like the first 48 hours. So yeah, it was like, that is like a really intense journey that everyone went on. Yeah, I mean, I'm very glad. But yes, that was. Yeah, let us know. Let us know how that hit you if you listen that fast. So we just had like comments pouring in really from the minute we launched this time. And most of it was really nice. Lots of thoughtful comments, lots of interesting points and questions that we have to get to. And a lot of folks saying this was our best season yet, which really made me happy. And I think that that is really again, down to what a great team we had working on this. You know, this is. There were many, you know, as we go forward into new seasons. You know, I started this show as a limited series. I thought it was like a pretty niche topic to make a show on because it's obviously we cover like a very specific thing and it turns out that actually it's even within our niche. There are so many issues that come up that actually like, I could probably make this show for as long as I had the stamina for it. And I think at this point I really look for cases to dive into that, you know, that bring up some of these interesting other things that we really dived into. And you know, this season with the elements of evangelical Christianity and you know, the transracial adoption were things that I found really interesting but also did not feel equipped to handle on my own and just like through my own lens. So I think having the right team in place for this one really helped us get it right. And so yeah, that's just. That was like, I just, I feel so good about, you know, about a process on this one. So the first comment that I wanted to just address and I love to get, especially since a couple of you are, you know, have. Have your own shows, just the. Com commentary on this. And we had a lot of comments about the number of ads. So I wanted to address this not just to kind of complain about it, but just to say that number one, we do have actually fewer ads than the average show our length. So I just wanted to say that. And we do offer an ad free option on our subscription on our subscription channel. But I did, you know, obviously I don't think ad are anyone's favorite part of a show. We try to work them in we take a lot of care with our ad breaks and where we put them and all that stuff to make it as the least disruptive possible. But there's some cold hard facts here about capitalism that unfortunately are unavoidable. And these fine people on this call and our two other staff members, I do like to pay them. I do think that that is the right thing to do. And in order to do that, I have to keep revenue of the show going. So, you know, we do. This is like an expensive show to make, especially our main seasons. We do almost all original reporting, we do field work. And I'm extremely grateful that I'm able to make this show independently. It is just feels like kind of a miracle that I'm able to do that. And I'm able to do that because of how many people listen to the show and how many people sit through our ads and use our, you know, offer. Offer codes and join our subscription channels and stuff like that. So mostly I just want to say thank you all for doing that. That support is how I keep making this show. And yeah, I mean, that's really all I have to say about ads. That's probably the only time I'll ever address that comment. Every podcaster does get that at some point, completely. Ads.
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Mariah Gossett
Yeah, it's gotta happen. And like, you know, there's networks out there who put way more ads in on their shows than we ever do, and they put them in willy nilly places. So I like to think that we take good care to make sure they're at place where like an ad break should be. You know, it's not in the middle of sentence. They're where they're supposed to be. But yeah, and if anyone's ever interested in the business of podcasting, it's wild out here. I mean, the fact that, like, it's like, I'm like, Nicole has an incredible show. Why aren't these giant networks just like cutting her a big fat check to make her incredible show? Like, this is insane to me. But yeah, it's wild out there, y'all. And I can tell you, I've worked on really big network shows that have very large budgets and they put just as many, if not more ads on their shows and they have the backings of giant tech companies. And like Andrea said, we're a little indie show who is paying everyone, like, their wages as instructed by Air Media. We follow all of our guides, we pay everyone their correct rates for all the work that they do, and that is something we're proud to do. But does take ad revenue to do.
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Nicole Hill
And can I just add, it's a very personal benefit to the advertisements. If we need to cut this out, we can. But actually, Lumi deodorant, it's really good. I discovered that during the course of this season. I'm not even kidding. And I'm logging in from. From Texas, where it's very warm and good. Deodorant really matters. And so I'm just. Personally, I benefited from the repetition.
- [19:07]
Andrea Dunlop
No, we are keeping it. We are keeping that in. I am sending it to Lumi. If anyone has anything. I'm wearing something from Qu right now. Like, it's true. I do. I do actually like my sponsors. And yeah, y'all, those, those, those host red hats, they are hard to get.
- [19:23]
Mariah Gossett
So I am also wearing a full quints outfit head to toe.
- [19:27]
Erin Ajayi
Yesterday, I was all quints. I was like a walking quince billboard.
- [19:31]
Nicole Hill
Listen, they make good clothes, but under the quince. Lumi, I'm just saying it's very good deodorant.
- [19:37]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah, it is. I wear it as well. Yeah. Without the crap. That's amazing. So to all those of you who are complaining about ads there, you just got one and you. Amazing, amazing. But, yes, we should do, like a sort of business of podcasting episode just as a bonus. That would be really fun. If y'all are interested in that, let me know. Because it is a wild, wild, wild industry. So crazy changes every five minutes. So, you know, just know that your support is helping us survive out here, truly. So the other thing that I got a lot of feelings about from our listeners was sort of this notion of me kind of, quote, getting political and. Yeah, I mean, I will sort of choose my words carefully here. Some of this was just sort of complaints about me mentioning, like, the existence of race, saying a person's race, saying what politics a church had and were sort of projecting, you know, and those details. So I'll just say with those details, like, those details were germane to this case. This was a case that involved evangelical church. It involved Sophie sort of aligning herself with this social movement and that social movement and sort of having these seemingly very contradicting beliefs. And then in terms of race, I mean, that played a massive role in this case also.
- [21:03]
Mariah Gossett
So, you know, I can also like, jump into. I think we. We told you what people thought about things, and we didn't ever put a value judgment on those things. Like, you know, I think we got a lot of feedback, especially around Dr. Turek's, like, explanations of what these particular and we want to be spec. Dr. Turek did research about the actual churches that Sophie attended, not the larger branches of evangelical Christianity as a whole. Although she's also an expert in that field, literally has a PhD and teaches about the use of religion and how it interacts specifically with the government, which we thought was a really great place to come from in this season, since we're talking about medical care, which is something that does have oversight with government agencies, that has oversight from boards. A lot of these hospitals are nonprofits, so there's a lot of like intersecting.
- [21:55]
Andrea Dunlop
And the child protective system, which also has inter, you know, obviously with the government. It's a government agency.
- [22:00]
Mariah Gossett
Is a government agency.
- [22:01]
Andrea Dunlop
Right.
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Mariah Gossett
And so which is what part of the reason we reached out to her. So, you know, we. She dug into these different particular churches and just made the statements of. These are the beliefs of this church, which were things like they were anti trans or they. They were outspoken about particular topics in the zeitgeist of the news, where they stood on different things happening in the news. And so just because all of those things were in a row, people who had big reactions to them, obviously there's big reactions to have around a lot of these topics. These are big issues. But they also, I think, were important to know where Sophie was coming from and how she was relating to her place in the world, how she viewed. How she talked about adoption, how she talked about race in general, how she talked about politics and how that intersected with the carer and the nonprofits she was working with. Anyway, it's a giant spiderweb of things. And so we tried to make sure we're not out here being like all evangelicals are bad. We were saying these particular churches have these particular views. And here's how they intersect with what's happening in the household that Sophie is bringing these children into and working within these systems to abuse these children.
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Andrea Dunlop
Yeah. And thank you, Maria. And you know, in terms of the evangelical stuff, because we did hear from a lot of people about this in particular, you know, we took again and again, this is something, you know, that Nicole is more versed in than I am. We had Dr. Turek to talk to about this stuff, because this is not. I'm not an evangelical. I wasn't raised in like a churchgoing household. And I really wanted to be respectful. You know, I don't want to loop all evangelicals together. I don't want to loop all Christians together. And you know, if I didn't strike that balance perfectly in every single, you know, episode of the show that's just, you know, that's kind of the nature of the beast. But we certainly tried our best to be thoughtful about that. And also like, you know, in terms of just the. Is this an apolitical show or not? I certainly appreciate that we have, you know, listeners from really all places on all points on the political spectrum. And I really, that's something I appreciate about this show. And with that said, you know, none of the things that we talk about on the show are apolitical. These are, you know, we talk about medicine and healthcare and government systems and entities. Now with that said, I don't feel that either side of the political spectrum gets it right specifically about this abuse. So I'm not really championing like, you know, the right's take on this or the left's take on it. Say some politicians get it right in some ways, others get it right in other ways, but it's not like anybody's doing a good job with this. So it's kind of like everyone is open to critique from my perspective, but I just think on a broader sort of thing because something that I also got feedback on was the ads that we were running for Equality Texas. And something that I mentioned late last year was that we're going to start doing these pro bono ads to, you know, really just be a way to support, you know, groups that are really.
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Mariah Gossett
Could use support at this time.
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Andrea Dunlop
Yeah, the groups that really need support at this time. And I'm trying to use my platform to help folks that are really going to be impacted by this current administration and all of the things that are happening right now. And I will just say kind of as a, as a, you know, I'm not going to make this into a current events show. This is a show about a specific thing. I will sort of probably only bring up politics when it is germane to what we're talking about. Right. But my feelings about what's going on right now in the world are not neutral. And I don't owe it to anybody to be neutral. And this is my platform that I built and I'll use it as I see fit. And this is something that I feel a responsibility to do right now. And again, I try to be as open minded as possible and we have different voices on the show and that's something that I really appreciate. I will continue to do that. But you know, I didn't start a podcast because I have don't have a lot to say. I do have a lot to say. So that's. That for the moment. Anybody else?
- [26:31]
Erin Ajayi
Yeah.
- [26:32]
Andrea Dunlop
You know, do you feel like weighing in on this?
- [26:33]
Erin Ajayi
I would just add, like, the story takes place within a context and a culture that you have to understand in order to understand any of the people that we're talking about in this whole situation. I think if you exclude race and if you exclude the role of the church in Sophie's life, you are not going to understand any of the story. You're not gonna understand why anybody moved the way that they did, why the response was what it was. It's all important context to understand the culture. In the same way that, you know, if you told a story about people who lived by the sea, you need to talk about the sea a little. So for us, we told a story in which people are deeply involved in the church and in which the people who are the most important, the people who have the least voice and the least agency, are from a place that their mother doesn't know that much about. That's very far away, and that's very different, and that we're assuming a lot of our listeners also don't know a lot about. And so it's part and parcel, like, you have to talk about. About these things. If you want to understand the story at all, you want to understand the urgency of the story that we're telling at all.
- [27:43]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah, yeah, no, that's a really good point. And I just want to say too, like, I. I'm very open to feedback. I really enjoy having, you know, constructive, thoughtful feedback from listeners. But, you know, the sort of shut up about politics stuff, like, I'm just. That's not something I'm going to.
- [27:59]
Mariah Gossett
It's also very interesting to me what people always assume is, like, gets dumped in the bucket of politics, because to me, most of this season was like. Besides the mention of, like, the political leanings of pursuit, which is very apparent, it's on all their social media pages. They literally take out billboards in Andrea's town. Like, driving around, you can see them. So they are very vocal about what they believe. And because of how much they were involved in the financials of this story, like, all of Nicole's points, like, it was also intertwined that to leave any of these things out about these places wouldn't be doing the story justice at all. You'd be missing a huge, essentially other character in this story, which was Sophie's belief systems, which was so integral to how she justified so much of her actions, how she justified the adoption of these girls in the first place. Like, so much of this was the driving motivating factor to, you know, not to put, you know, real people in the quote, unquote, like, title of a character. But we are telling a story right, like, and so in order to flesh out the character, you need the backstory. And that's so much of the backstory there.
- [29:07]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah. And with pursuit, you know, probably will come as a surprise to no one on this call or listening to this. You know, I find a lot of their beliefs extremely objectionable. And I think those people at that church were very victimized by Sophie. They were very exploited by her. And I, you know, from what I've heard, sort of talking to folks on background that like, that church really did care about Sophie and her girls. And I think I can make room for that very good intention that they had in supporting them, even as I disagree with them. And that's just the kind of nuance that I think we sometimes miss. My children are 6 and 2 and both of them perennially have no appetite for actual meals while having a bottomless appetite for snacks. Snacks before dinner, yes. After dinner? Also yes. Actual dinner, no ma'am. So with the snacks in our house doing such heavy lifting, I am so glad I have Thrive Market my go to online grocery store for getting all of my healthy essentials delivered. Thrive has so many on site filters that make it simple to shop by your needs. Whether it's gluten free snacks, high protein meals or non toxic cleaning products with brands that you won't find in regular grocery grocery stores. I filter for high protein snacks to keep both me and my kids going. My new favorite thing on Thrive is their righteous felon beef and turkey sticks. My kids also love their bare apple chips because. Did we buy a food dehydrator? Yes. Is it still in the box? Also yes. I also feel good about shopping with Thrive Market because they seek out the highest quality brands that follow ethical practices and strict quality standards. They also now accept SNAP EBT and offer free memberships for low income families through their Thrive Gives program. Love that. Ready to make the switch? Go to thrivemarket.com nobody for 30% off your first order plus a free $60 gift. That's T H R I V E market.com nobody thrivemarket.com nobody. And remember that shopping our sponsors help support the show. Your data is like gold to hackers. They're selling your passwords, bank details and private messages. McAfee helps stop them. Secure VPN keeps your online activity private. AI powered text scam detector spots phishing attempts instantly and with award winning Antivirus, you get top tier hacker protection. Plus you'll get up to $2 million in identity theft coverage, all for just $39.99 for your first year. Visit McAfee.com, cancel anytime terms apply. So, onto a much less controversial topic, race. But I wanted talk a little bit about some of the reactions to this. So this was very interesting to kind of hear from people about their reactions to some of the behaviors that we talked about Sophie having with her girls. And I think a lot of folks kind of just felt a big ick about the, you know, some of the behaviors we talked about with Sophie. And interesting just kind of gave us interesting, like, feedback about their own experiences, either, you know, in this adoptive world or just as, you know, like we had one that said, I'm a mom of a biracial child and I find it really icky and uncomfortable how often I see white moms posting about their black or biracial child. Like, omg, look at me. I'm so amazing. Look at me. Take 6,000 videos of me doing their hair. Aren't I just the best white mom ever? Very fetishizing. And we had kind of a lot of comments that were, that were in this vein. And then on the other side, we sort of had some that were like, oh, I don't know that these incidents that you're sort of discussing about, like the chalk in the hair or them being the only, only, you know, child at the only black child at a gymnastics meet were really like, you know, that big of a deal or whatever. So we kind of had both. And you know, even this, this listener, which I think there's, there's some validity to this, right? Like saying like teaching a black child about social inequities and awareness, lack of diversity in sports, that, that's something that, that should be taught. And I think, you know, there is a lot of nuance here. This wasn't something that I felt super comfortable like, weighing in one way or the other whether these things are a big deal, which was why, you know, which was why we chad to weigh in on it as that's his area of expertise. So, yeah, I just wanted to kind of get everybody's take on. Like, I didn't want to just go too hard on Sophie if there wasn't any evidence that this was the case. You know, you don't want to just like make assumptions about someone's intentions. However, you know, we had quite a bit to work with in terms of what people told us about her and also her Memoir, which obviously Aaron and Maria both read as well. So I just kind of love to hear from the team. Team on your impressions of that piece of it.
- [33:59]
Nicole Hill
Yeah. This is Erin again. And I think, you know, in my. In the research process, I started with the memoir and trying to get to understand Sophie and where she came from and her background. So that's where I actually started with this story. And then later kind of went down the rabbit hole of the accusations and things like that. But, you know, certainly I think anytime someone goes in to go to a different country in which they will be the minority race is going, it becomes an issue, right? And I think an important element of investigation. And there are a lot of problematic depictions of Zambia in Sophie's memoir. I think the monolith that people have about the continent of Africa falls in line with a lot of what Sophie was writing. And so to. To bring that to light, I think was very important. To call that out was really important. I often said several times throughout this process, you know, if you. If you heard Sophie tell it, you know, she'd never met a healthy Zambian child. So just the way that the children and the people were depicted in her memoir, I felt was deeply unfair and inaccurate. And I think that that was the first call, certainly. I think when you use the lens of, you know, Sophie coming in as a young white missionary, right, to this poor, depraved black country, right. It just. The dynamics there and a lot of the racist undertones, intentional or not, were there. And I think that they certainly deserved to be called out. And because her children came from. From this place that she very rarely talked about being beautiful or having any sort of beauty or redeeming qualities. For me, it led me to question and I guess be more sensitive to how she thinks of her daughters or the lens at which she views her daughters.
- [36:16]
Andrea Dunlop
Right?
- [36:17]
Nicole Hill
And just that degree of sensitivity that we see when, you know, when there's. When M is in gymnastics, the degree of sensitivity to see's experience in the medical system. So, again, it's something that I would beg to say that race was an issue that Sophie brought up. And so we followed that thread and pulled on it where needed.
- [36:43]
Erin Ajayi
And it was also a lot of the people that were interviewed, I mean, it wasn't just us saying, this is weird. People who were with her, who were around her, who were embedded in her life, who were a part of her, the fabric of her. Her life, were made uncomfortable by these behaviors and highlighted these behaviors for the team. And so part of this is just reporting out on the little flags that started going up for people about Sophie and her relationship with her daughter. Some of these flags might seem small. Oftentimes they are, but they add up and add up in people's minds and start to raise real alarms for them about, about the safety and the well being of the girls. And so I think we documented kind of how those small flags became like blaring alarms in the lives of the people that were around Sophie and her girls. And I will say, like one of them, the way that she cared for them when it comes to their hair, when it comes to things like that, the community that she's surrounding them with and the example that she's being sure that they have access to. There's been so much data and so much research and so much study and scholarship has gone into the things that will that help you to raise a healthy, happy, self actualized young child and then a young child of color, of any color, in an environment in which they're not seeing people like them. And a lot of the behaviors that she demonstrated just go against kind of what has become the understood best practices. And I think Chad speaks to that. I mean, I think, you know, what we were documenting is just somebody who is acting seemingly in opposition of what we all know now to be a better way to raise a child in that kind of environment.
- [38:35]
Mariah Gossett
Yeah. And just to like echo both Aaron and Nicole, like, the pattern is really what this show is so much about for us. And so it's never like, you know, we have had a. We had a story we didn't even air from a person that we felt had like kind of more of a vendetta against Sophie than anything else. But it was sort of our first flag indicator right where we went. Okay, this is obviously a point of contention that is happening specifically within, you know, it was around M's gymnastics. And we were like, I don't know if we fully trust the recounting from this particular person, but it led us to be like, what else is there? And that's when we got corroborated stories from other people from the gymnastics community. And then we, you know, to Erin's point, like, the way she spoke about the people of Zambia was just like the first of many alarms that went off because we did reach out to like reporters in Zambia and asked about, we were like, hey, we think this is wrong. Can you tell us a little bit about what your day to day life is like? Like tell us a bit more about your lived experience, not just what we're finding on the Internet or in videos and like these sort of easily, I don't know, suede materials that are from a, a white perspective. Especially, like Nicole said, there's the red flags that come up and then there's the alarms that come up. And so we tried to just say like, hey, here's the pattern of all of the red flags, which then sent up this alarm, which then was like, hey, Chad, you're a person who has this lived experience. You're also a person who does consulting for families that are in transracial adoptions. And you actively talk about how to make these homes best for these children. And so much of what he talked about was you have to raise a child to be prepared for their life as they are, not as how you think they're going to be. And so he made beautiful points about like, you have to actually prepare your child to be a black child living in America. America. And that does not always look the way that a white parent thinks it's going to look. And so how do you build the community around your child to make sure that they're fully prepared for that? And based on the lack of community we really saw around these kids, we were very concerned. And that was a big part of the abuse flags that went up for us as we were investigating.
- [40:55]
Nicole Hill
Mariah, can I just read a quote from a listener that we got? And Nola, thank you for, for compiling all of this feedback for us. But one comment is the idea that you would do an international adoption and then immediately put one of those children in a super competitive environment where they are missing out on social and educational development in order to train all day is just bizarre. And that was a comment from a listener. And I think, Mariah, that absolutely underscores the point that you were just making.
- [41:29]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah, yeah, no, and I, I think we can kind of get into that next. We got, we got quite a few comments about the gymnastics piece of things, but something I, I did want to share. I talked to Chalice Howard, who was our, our source that, you know, eventually came on the record, and we got so many nice comments about her. We'll get into this as well. You know, something that she shared with me, which I thought this was so interesting and sort of in, you know, through, through my lens of someone who studies perpetrators of this crime is that Sophie, you know, and they were, she was living across the country, right. So they had this relationship that was very close, but they were not around each other a ton. And she was telling me that, you know, what Sophie was Sort of reporting to her was that she. And, you know, and some of this may have been happening, it's sort of hard to gauge, but that she was making a big effort to like, keep the girls in touch with their Zambian heritage and, you know, connect them with that community and really, like, be thoughtful about that and that she seemed very thoughtful about being the white parent of two, you know, black children from Zambia. And, you know, Challis is also a white parent of two black children that are from, you know, they're from the United States. So different. But that was something that was. She talked about being a big point of connection between the two of them. And I think what is. So what really comes through in Sophie's case and that I think is really present in all of these cases is that people who engage in these behaviors are operational opportunists. So they are going to put on a mask that suits the scene they're in.
- [43:01]
Nicole Hill
Right.
- [43:01]
Andrea Dunlop
And I think we could really see this with Sophie's pivots around, you know, being part of this, you know, church pursuit that has these very, you know, very extreme sort of far right political beliefs that again, yes, like, that's not a guess on my part. They're putting it on billboards that I sometimes drive by, you know, and then sort of having this strange reaction to being like, well, they were just not on board enough with, you know, Black Lives Matter and then suddenly deciding that this is not a safe place for her black children, which seemed very bizarre reaction, right? And I'm like, well, this to me is evidence of someone that is just going to use everything, right? And then even the way that she used the investigation into Seattle Children's for systemic racism, I think it all just sort of points to, like, this opportunism, right. That she's gonna use whatever she has. And then I think the thing that has really struck me after covering so many of these cases that is so profoundly sad and just manifests in a whole bunch of different ways in every case, differently, is that they're just not people that feel empathy for their children or anyone else. I don't think. I mean, this is something I've talked about at length with my colleagues on the psychologist and psychiatrist side, and that I just think that if you're able to put children through this, that you're not really someone who's feeling empathy on the level that one would hope. And so I think that that then sort of enables someone to, like, use whatever resources are available to them at the moment. And so I think we See a lot of evidence with that. And so that I think was what struck me about those incidents of like the thing with the hair and the thing with it was like that it was not about her children. It was about her. It was calling attention to her as a white parent of black children. And like, as that sort of heroic figure.
- [44:52]
Mariah Gossett
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- [45:09]
Nicole Hill
4 Galaxy S25 Ultra. The AI companion that does the heavy lifting. So you can do you it yours@samsung.com compatible with select apps. Requires Google Gemini account. Results may vary based on input.
- [45:20]
Andrea Dunlop
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Erin Ajayi
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Andrea Dunlop
You value most, file a claim right on the State Farm mobile app and even reach a real person when you need to talk to someone. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Well, okay. Yes. So I wanted to talk just a little bit. We did get a lot of reactions to the gymnastics stuff. And Erin, you read us that quote from a listener and yeah, I think that this was. This was something that obviously stuck out to all of us as we were looking into this case. Just the idea of sort of taking a child and putting them in this very extreme competitive environment. And I think, you know, we had some questions about just, you know, Em's role and her relationship with Cee and kind of what their relationship between the two of us. I mean, certainly the impression that I got and the impression that I've gotten from how these other cases play out is that often an older sibling is kind of a forgotten child. I think, especially as M is no longer doing gymnastics, you know, I. That she sort of doesn't have a role anymore. And again, that's sort of speculation on my part, but just again, having sort of seen this pattern. And I think some of that came through in her writing that was excerpted in the investigative report that she seemed very eager to, you know, to be this gymnast in order to get her mom's approval. And it seemed very clear that that was kind of a big part of their Dynamic. And then also just that, you know, in terms of her relationship, relationship with Cee. You know, I think it came very clear even from the information that we have and then certainly from talking to Chalice, who knows these girls very well, that Em really, really loves Cee and that those two have a really strong bond, which I hope is something that, you know, that will, that will endure. But. Yeah. What was kind of everybody's thoughts on Em? I know we had a lot of conversations about Em behind the scenes.
- [47:38]
Mariah Gossett
Yeah. And I, and I want to say too, like, we, we talked a lot about sharing those pieces of M's journals because we did, you know, we. Sophie is under a microscope because of the, the case and the police investigations. And so we tried to be mindful of only sharing the things that we felt illustrated what we thought Em might be going through within all of this. And to say that the way this abuse can impact everyone around it is not just for the, you know, quote unquote, PR victim and that we hope that it was done with enough. It's something I still think about a lot. So I hope we, we did it to the point where everyone was able to understand that the reason we shared the pieces that we shared and not in like direct quotes was because we wanted to represent Em in a way that felt like she was not forgotten in the investigation of all of this. And also so appreciative of people who shared like the real stories of these kids and like how they are in their day to day life beyond like what's going on in their household that is out of their control. So, so appreciative to people like Chalice and the police tape we had from the neighbors and the many gymnastics parents who talked to us and other people who spoke on background. So to put that forward first. But yeah, I remember when we were doing the field reporting, there's a point where I was like, do we just need to do a whole season on gymnastics? Was like it. It was just so wild, like the way it was talked about. And I mean, I. There's been a ton of documentaries about how, I mean, any highly competitive, intense sports unfortunately does leave doors open for potential, I think abuse when kids are, are put up to these performance goals that maybe they don't have for themselves anyway. It's. Yeah, sports forcing kids is a whole, whole other rabbit hole to dive into. But to me, the most important, important to this particular case was, you know, to the point that Aaron made with that quote from the listener. It's very isolating. It's an individual sport. Like there are team teams. Right. But it is so concretely based on your individual performance and the pressure that that can put on someone and the pressure on someone who's also still trying to like learn to fit into a new cultural environment. Like what a double whammy of a serving of things to get through in life. It's.
- [50:02]
Erin Ajayi
I mean, I think that's what we kept talking about. It was the everything that's happening culturally, medically, and then not just like you're gonna join a team sport. You're gonna join it in the most intense way possible, like training for the.
- [50:16]
Mariah Gossett
Olympics, not just like go have fun and learn gymnastics and then if this is something you're really into, let's step it up. But it's like from day one, from day one.
- [50:25]
Erin Ajayi
And so it's just like to imagine anybody, not even just, but anyone dealing with all of those factors turned up to like 10. We had to talk about it. It was just as shocking to us, I imagine as it was to people when they first heard it. And it was really to err into the comment Erin read. It just is like why this doesn't make any sense. To do all these things at once all together. It just seems brutal and devastating and just like so taxing for an adult. Adult, let alone a child.
- [51:02]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah, 100%. I mean as a parent of a six year old, you know, which is the age that Em was, was when she was getting into gymnastics. And just like I know I harped on that so much in the episodes but like the driving distance just because like that, you know, that was where my sister went to college was in Bellingham. So I actually, and I live much for, you know, I live further north than, than where Sophie was going for gymnastics. But like I know that drive, you know, and like that is a long ass drive. And just the like sort of of like I think that was what it. That was like what struck me as part of like the pattern of this behavior is like the like looking for hardship anywhere and like looking to make your life either really harder or seem harder or like, you know, of just like for no good reason. Right. And I gather that you know from folks we spoke to on background that she, Sophie explained this as like, well, you know, Em has all these issues and this is the only way that like this is the only thing that helps is to have this. But then again, I mean like that doesn't, that that explanation doesn't make a lot of sense on its face. But also like again, it's like, it's the competitive gym. It's like, you know. Yeah. Like, you can have, especially for like, 6, 7 year olds, it's like you can take them to a gym that just like, they just like, do cartwheels and little jumps and tumbles and whatever and, like, play around. And then there's this program which was just of a different level entirely. So, yeah, I think that part was really striking about the story also.
- [52:33]
Greta Stromquist
Just confusing considering what Sophie is claiming C has. And like, you're saying enduring that drive was really striking. And the time commitment, it just doesn't make sense.
- [52:48]
Andrea Dunlop
No. And that was one of the things actually the AHC parents talked about in some of the literature I read. And, like, some of the, you know, the documentary that we watched, like, was the Challenges of Transportation was this sort of, like, you know, the time bomb thing. Really, that expression, at least the way that I interpreted it, which seems to be on point like that after talking to the expert, was the unpredictability of it, you know, that it was like one of the parents talked about, well, it's hard to even, like, take them out to the grocery store because if they have an episode like, there while you're out and about, you know, or while you're in the car, it's gonna be really brutal. And so you're just thinking you have this child that has this thing where they could go into episode. And Sophie's reporting that she's going into episode kind of all day, every day, off and on, or being in episode for whatever a month or whatever she claimed at times. And why would you then put yourself in a situation where you're putting that child in a car two hours each way? It makes no sense whatsoever. And so on the one hand, either she doesn't have that condition, which I strongly believe that's the case. Right. We had that signed affidavit, sworn affidavit from Dr. Wainwright to that effect, that this child does not have ahc, or if they do have ahc, that seems incredibly cruel. So either way, bad. Right.
- [54:07]
Nicole Hill
I know one of the things that certainly I've learned from you, Andrea, and listening to the show is just this division that can be created between siblings, right? The siblings, sibling who is experiencing the Munchausen by proxy abuse, and then the sibling who is, you know, for all intents and purposes, kind of typical in their. In their development. And so for me, I think what the gymnastics kinds of, you know, M versus C. Kind of illustrated for me is you have one sister who is like the picture of, you know, great physical health, so much that she can endure this level of, you know, high competitiveness and, you know, has to physically be, you know, great and excellent. And then on the other hand, you know, you have C. Who is, you know, plagued with all of these different ailments, particularly physical. Right. And so what I read into that is. Is. And kind of questioned as well is, is. Was, you know, there's some intentional way of creating division right, between those two pictures where you're perpetuating abuse on one of the children, and then the. The other is, you know, again, involved in this highly competitive sport. The other thing that I'll note, too, that didn't. I don't. We didn't mention it anywhere in the show, but it came up in the research is when I was looking back at. It was a high school or. No, it was a college newspaper, and it had covered. Or magazine, and it had covered a lot of different students going through some clinic. And it named Sophie as an athletic training major. And we also knew from high school that she was involved in a variety of different sports. Golf at one point, basketball, soccer, and that she continued at least one of those sports on into college. So it was just Sophie's own background with kind of athletic training and understanding kind of like high competition and sports and things like that. I don't know. It just. It was a. It was a note that I took, and certainly nothing that, you know, we could follow concretely, but it was a note that I took in terms of how kind of Sophie's understanding of the physical body, the study of the physical body, how that then showed up in the girls.
- [56:35]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah, I think that's. That's a really interesting point, Aaron. And I think that was what, you know, when we were sort of talking about, like, oh, could competitive. If gymnastics be its own podcast? You know, like, that's an archetype that I think people are really familiar with, right. Like the parent that projects their sports dreams, either what they did achieve or what they didn't achieve, you know, onto their child and then sort of pushes them. And I think that. That, you know, that is also something that can become abusive in its own. Right. I mean, I grew up playing tennis and was quite a competitive player and, you know, played in college. And I saw certainly a lot of. And again, that's a very, like. That's a very, like, expensive, intense, individualistic sport. So certainly some kind of parallels there. And I mean, I just remember, like, I have these images in my head of, like, you know, parents, like, screaming at nine year olds after they lost a match and stuff like that. So it's like, you know, I think that's another way that parents like don't let their kids be their own individual humans. And I think as we're sort of talking about this. Yeah, this bifurcation between like the, between C being the sick one and M being the hyper capable one. Like neither of them just gets to be a kid. Right. Like, and it's really, really important to just like, it's like watching, you know, watching my kids grow up and like, Aaron, you're a mom as well. Like, you know, it's really important to just like that's a lot of work. Like, it's a lot of work being a kid. Like you have, you know, you're just like learning how to like be a person. And like, that's a huge job, you know, like learning how to like, you know, my daughter's in kindergarten. Like, she's learning how to like have friendships and social. And it's just like this is just a lot, like you just realize you're like, it's so much to take on. And so it's like you have to be really careful, like not to pile a bunch of other stuff on them, you know. And I'm sort of like very sensitive to that. And I think it's just another way in which people like sometimes don't really see their kids as humans. I think they see them as reflections of themselves. They see them as like, you know, kind of like trophies or like, I think that. So I do think there's like some really interesting crossover and certainly like Sophie, coming from that competitive of athletic background, certainly could sort of have affected the flavor of the way that this particular dynamic played out. All right, so we had a lot of questions about like, you know, we had a couple questions about like the status of these lawsuits. So as far as we've been able to tell, the only piece that is still making its way through the court system is the lawsuit against Renton pd. So as soon as we find out what the outcome of that is, we will certainly let everybody know the rest of it. The part against children's has been dismissed. And yet one of our listeners on the Patreon pointed out that, yeah, that part certainly, we said it in the show, but that part certainly didn't make the news. You cannot find that information except for public records request and now obviously the show. Actually, you know what, before I get to this one, I just wanted to talk about our chalice. Our chalice, Our Lovely Chalice. So this was our surprise ninth episode of the season. You know, this was. I've been speaking to Chalice, as I mentioned on the show, really frequently since the fall and had been, you know, communicating with the group about her and, you know, not someone we thought was gonna go on the record initially. And that was quite an evolution for her. We had such amazing feedback. This was by far. This is some of the most positive feedback I've gotten, actually, from the entire length of the show was just people's reactions to this episode. People really loved hearing from her. And I think there was a bunch of stuff that resonated with people from the Chalice episode. I think just her love for the girls and even for Sophie really came through. And also just. I think it really. Part of what really resonated with people, which, again, I think in the context of kind of what's going on is just listening to someone who changed their mind about something, you know, and so I just wanted to kind of hear from everybody about, like, yeah, this was a really, like, unexpected thing to have this season where we did not go in with any, you know, close sources and didn't know kind of who would come through. And, yeah, I just wanted to get everybody's kind of take on, like, watching that kind of connection happen behind the scenes and that her decision to go public.
- [61:00]
Mariah Gossett
Yeah, I mean, I think for me, it was like the talking. Having Challice as, like, a person we could ask questions of and, like, gut check with, especially around. We had a lot of conversations about how can we do the least amount of harm on this show. Because it was one of the first seasons that Andrea, as you mentioned, that we didn't have cooperation of either a survivor or a family member who was involved in a sort of wanting to tell this story. But we saw how it was important because it was talking about larger system failures.
- [61:35]
Andrea Dunlop
Right.
- [61:36]
Mariah Gossett
And how this type of abuse is misunderstood, specifically in the court systems, I think was like, a big driver for this season. And so to have Challice around to make sure. Sure. Not even to make sure, but just like, in my mind, I kept being like, we're making the season for Chalice. Like, that was like a driving force was to be like, this is a person who has listened and has been. Had a revelation about a person who was so close to them and how hard that must have been for her to go through and to. You know, luckily, she does have a really lovely support system around her with her fiance and other mental health professionals in her sphere. But I Wanted to make sure she walked away listening to the season and was like, okay, I have made the correct decision. Because as we always say, we literally go in and we're like, what else could it be? Halfway through reporting, I was like, this kid might have ahc. And there's all these other things on top of it that are kind of like, you know, abuse patterns, Munchausen by Proxy behavior patterns. But maybe they're. You know, it's always this push, pull, and then there's eventually the big reveal. Aha. Moment that happens, unfortunately. Because I would love to get to the bottom of a season and be like, you know what? This kid is really sick. Oh, my God, let's talk about this. That would be incredible. But anyway.
- [63:02]
Andrea Dunlop
Or really, more specifically, that this is not abuse. Right? Not abuse.
- [63:05]
Mariah Gossett
Right.
- [63:06]
Andrea Dunlop
The kid can be sick and it can be abuse. Those two things can. But, yes, I mean, like, me too. Like, I think it would be so fascinating to go into a season and be like, oh, this person really. This really was a misunderstanding. Or of, you know, the failures of.
- [63:21]
Mariah Gossett
The medical system and trying to get that, you know, like, I've been listening to a lot of Kate Downey's Season of Cramped. I don't know if y'all are listening to that show, but it's about her journey, about period pain. And it's so fascinating. And it is kind of delving into those, like, issues around the medical system, specifically around reproductive health. And so you're like, this. This is not, you know, these barrels are not that far apart from each other of the containers of what's happening in these broken ways, that specifically United States healthcare system and the way that we investigate child abuse.
- [63:48]
Andrea Dunlop
Right.
- [63:48]
Mariah Gossett
Like, there's systemic failures across the board. But for Chalice, it was like, a way for us to make sure in my mind that I had kind of a guiding north star of, like, I want to make sure Chalice feels by the end of the season that her talking to us was not going to affect her life in a negative way moving forward, that she felt like she got to walk with us on this journey and have a sense of. I hate to use the word peace, because it's not peace, because it doesn't feel fully resolved. Right. But it at least has resources and tools to help her find other ways to help other people in her sphere or to find ways to help the girls, if at all possible. Which, yeah, that was our hope at one point. Which didn't. Didn't quite come to fruition, but.
- [64:35]
Erin Ajayi
But I love that we work towards that. Because I do. Like, in our meetings when we were talking about this, we were like, we're making this so that somebody who can intervene in the lives of these girls hears it with the hope that they hear it and that they do. And obviously that can still happen. And so that was. That's just. To have that as a North Star, it keeps us honest. It keeps us focused. On what? On the story we want to tell and not on, like, some of the pieces of it that were just so upsetting and enraging. You just, like, want to rage against people and systems and all these things. But if somebody near them hears this and knows her and loves her and knows these girls and loves them, we need to be telling the story in a way that that person can hear and wouldn't just immediately shut them off. And so I do think that we kept that top of mind and watching. Child Sister, I didn't not think that. I really did not think that Chalice was ever going to come on the show. That wasn't even really. I was just like, you wouldn't do that. So the amount of courage that it took is just. It just blows me away. And also how heartbreaking it has to be to get to a place where you're like, you know what? They're right. Like, I can't ignore these things anymore. To have the little flags and be like, I hope. Because, like you, Mariah, I was like, I really hope that this isn't abuse. And when we were doing the earlier episodes and I would first get the scripts, I was like, yeah, this is some unsavory behavior, but maybe it's not abuse. And then you get further in the season, and it's just undeniable. And I'm just a story editor coming at it, not knowing these girls and not having that love for them and not knowing Sophie, not having that love for her. And so to listen and to get to the point where you have to finally acknowledge is really, really heartbreaking. And just the amount of courage it takes to admit that within yourself and then come on a show and admit that to everybody else is just extraordinary. I'm blown away.
- [66:34]
Nicole Hill
I think one of the things, Andrea, when you talked about, especially with Chalice, but you've said this before, there's something in your brain that breaks. And that really stuck out to me because I think we could kind of see Chalice, like, slowly, like, slowly getting to the light, not knowing that if, you know, she would come and come out publicly. But we certainly saw her own journey throughout the course of the months that we were working on the show. But my hope is that, you know, thinking about kind of some of the background research that we were doing for this, for this season, listening to the police interviews of the. I think I remember the teachers. Sees teachers, the neighbors, other healthcare professionals, or like, therapists. Right. So listening to the police interviews and. And you. We kind of were getting breadcrumbs of like, something is off where people are. Like, this didn't quite feel right. This seemed unusual. And just noticing these behavior behaviors. Right. And I think, you know, what they're going on is. Is really based on gut. Right. And as Nicole said, yeah, maybe this is some unsavory behavior, but then to have kind of chalice go through that journey of, like, okay, this is a lot that's, you know, based on intuition. But here are the facts that I see. Right. And those are the things that. Right. Like. Cause the break. My hope is that people. People will lean more into their intuition and be okay speaking up. Right. When they see that someone is, you know, bravely done it. Knowing that, yeah, it's. It can come at the sacrifice of your relationships with the adult who is abusing the child. But at the end of the day, it is about the. It is about the child. And I think landing on that and being able to end this season on that reminder. This is about the children who are victims of this abuse, and nothing else should get in the way of that.
- [68:39]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah, I loved that. That image that Challis shared with us in that episode of, like, when Sophie was the only one in focus, she could ignore it. And then the minute that the kids came into focus, like, I, like, I just thought that was such a beautiful way to describe what this is, because I think it's like, it's so hard to, like, get your feet under you when you're in one of these situations because you are in. You are being gaslit, you know, and you are being told this, like, story. And. And, you know, and then it's just like, if you just think about, like, what is happening to the kids, I think then it's like, it really registers as a kind of like, last. Last question. And then I also would love to know just if there's anything like, as you guys read through, like, the comments, if there was anything that stuck out to you. But, like, you know, we get asked a lot in response to, like, all of the show, like, what can we do to prevent this? And the truth is, I don't know. I think conversations around prevention of child abuse are so Necessary. I've had some. Had a couple people on someone from Prevent Child Abuse America, which is a fantastic and large organization that's been around since the 1970s. And they've talked a lot about prevention of other forms of abuse, you know, like physical abuse. You know, those things are really exacerbated by a lot of factors that actually can be controlled for by parents having enough support, by, you know, dealing with mental health issues, substance abuse issues, poverty, you know, adjacent issues. Like, there's a lot of like, abuse and neglect that happens that is very much tied to those things and that can actually be solved for. Not easy to solve, especially when we're not having a moment where we feel like giving resources to those things.
- [70:26]
Erin Ajayi
But.
- [70:26]
Andrea Dunlop
But this one, I don't know. I truly don't know what can really be done to prevent other than to just separate. And it may just be my lens of like, I do look at extreme cases a lot. I think there are probably, you know, there is all of the professionals I've talked to, there is a spectrum of this behavior. I think maybe there is. It does manifest with some people in a way that could be mitigated, but I don't know. And I wanted to know if, you know, y'all from obviously, Greta and Mariah, you've been with us for two seasons. Aaron and Nicole, this was your first season. So I know this is sort of obviously a newer topic, but I mean, when you sort of look at this case or like when you look at these situations, I mean. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that?
- [71:16]
Greta Stromquist
Well, I just kind of think what came to. Came to mind first was, I think big part is this show, Andrea, that you've created and, you know, sharing information. And I think especially on Chaos and by proxy, I think a lot of people under. Are under the impression, I mean, especially I and myself at first, that it's really rare, but I think it's much more proud. Prevalent. But I think having a, you know, show like this with journalistic integrity and, you know, sharing things with, you know, leading with compassion, and I think Chalice was like a great example of that on just how that could help someone like C and M. But yeah, I think sharing information with integrity is really helpful.
- [72:13]
Mariah Gossett
Yeah.
- [72:13]
Andrea Dunlop
Thank you, Greta.
- [72:14]
Mariah Gossett
Yeah, I think on like a really micro level, it's being a safe adult for any kids that are in your orbit and in your community, because that is like step one of just like if a kid feels like they can actually talk to you, that can be a really powerful tool for prevention of all Kinds of abuse. The second thing that I've been ruminating on a lot, especially going now working on season six, is the importance of having child abuse pediatricians at local hospitals. And really, if you have any ways to volunteer at your hospital or they have board meetings, anything like that, to just really advocate to have a system in place at your local hospital and to make sure that there are people who are trained specifically to recognize this type of abuse. I think, as Greta mentioned, there's an idea that it's really rare. And I've said this multiple times. When we interviewed Detective Michael from Texas, he gave us a stat that I, for my own mental health, had to immediately erase from my mind about how prevalent child sexual abuse is now and how back in the 70s, it was viewed as this thing that was very rare. It didn't happen. It was strangers. And that is so not the case right now that we all are more aware of that. And so he thinks where we were with the stats in the 70s around child sexual abuse is where we'll eventually get to when it comes to medical child abuse. And, like, when we talked to the child abuse pediatrician on the show this season, she mentioned, you know, it's her job to find that it's anything else. Like, that's her job as well. And she's like. And so often there's medical neglect, which is usually due to lack of resources, as Andrea mentioned. And then there's actual medical child abuse. And so you want someone who knows those differences and can discuss those nuances and say, hey, this isn't a parent that needs their kid taken away. This is a parent that needs support and resources because they can't bring their kid to the doctor. Right. Versus someone with factitious disorder who's using their kid as a part of their mental health disorder. So, yeah, so I think it's like, you can advocate for better systems in place at your local hospitals to help recognize and flag this abuse when it's happening. And then, yeah, be a safe adult for the kids in your community and around you.
- [74:36]
Andrea Dunlop
I love that, Maria, and thank you for saying that about child abuse pediatricians. And just, yeah, a note like, we've talked about this previously on the show, but child abuse pediatricians are really under attack right now. There's not that many of them. There's something like 250 in the entire country. If you have a child abuse pediatrician at your hospital, you are very lucky. That is a lucky community that has that person. Again, if I am a parent that brings my kid to A hospital under some with a suspicious injury, with a suspicion, suspicious whatever. Right. If there's something that's going to be a red flag for abuse, I want a child abuse pediatrician. They are going to be way less likely to make, and this is, the data supports this. They're going to be less likely to make a wrong assumption to make, to make an incorrect evaluation as to whether or not something is abuse. This is getting tremendous, they're getting tremendous pushback. There is a law in Texas. There's another one that people are advocating for in Georgia. Those are the two I know about. I have a done a full research on this of these like second opinion laws, as they're called, which is just, just basically completely hamstringing a hospital's ability to evaluate and report abuse and intervene. So there is a lot of like, be aware of what the, what is going on in your community. If there are people that are pushing back. This is happening a lot of places. It's happening here too. I don't know if they've made any headway with the legislature, but this is something that, you know, is really, really people are really pushing. This is not just specific to mentalism by proxy. This is also people that are saying, you know, that they, their children who came in with fractures or, you know, had trauma or those kind of things. You know, like there aren't parents. From my understanding of sort of the broader scope of abuse and child abuse pediatrics, I don't think there are that many parents who abuse their children, who bring them to the hospital with injuries and just say what they did. They usually come in with another story about what, about what happened. So I think again, be very, be vigilant about what's happening in your community and be very, very skeptical about stories you hear about falsely parents who've been falsely accused of abuse, especially if all of the parents in that story are white. Well, any other just final thoughts, comments that resonated with y'all from the season.
- [76:51]
Nicole Hill
I think for me on a whole, one of the things that I really appreciated is I know that we just in looking through the comments, we had an attorney write in. We had people who, folks who have fostered children or who have friends who have fostered kids. There were just all of these really great perspectives coming in from listeners on the show that I think adding their expertise, whether or not, you know, lending a correction for, you know, some reporting that we did or another angle or just kind of, you know, affirming what we had learned. It was just really nice and Great to hear. And so, you know, it's. We love the great comments, but we also love the. The ones that make us think. Because I think that it only makes our reporting better. It. It only widens our lenses. Someone wrote in about the hospice versus palliative care, and I know we're seeking an expert on this season to talk about the differences between the two. So I think for the listeners just to better know that all of their feedback is taken in a way that we're thinking about, you know, how we use it and curating it, moving forward in different seasons. And then, I guess on a note of levity, there was someone who wrote in. They said, I'm a Canadian and do not understand your healthcare system. And I just wanna say, we don't either.
- [78:15]
Erin Ajayi
That's the comment. I was gonna say something about that too. I was like, oh, oh, Canada. We don't know. We don't know what's going on.
- [78:21]
Nicole Hill
We don't know.
- [78:21]
Mariah Gossett
Have you seen that meme that was like, why don't we ever get, like. You know, there's a tradition of British television getting an American adaptation, but there's very rarely an American show that gets a British adaptation. And it was like the opening scene of Breaking Bad, and it was just them being like, yeah, here's your chemotherapy for your cancer.
- [78:38]
Andrea Dunlop
And then I was like, like, full credit. Oh, God.
- [78:44]
Mariah Gossett
The end.
- [78:45]
Erin Ajayi
Yes.
- [78:45]
Andrea Dunlop
Bleak.
- [78:47]
Nicole Hill
No, no renewal after the pilot. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [78:52]
Erin Ajayi
Problem solved.
- [78:53]
Andrea Dunlop
And then everyone was fine. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We actually did get a handful of questions about how did Sophie slash. Are these perpetrators getting in shape? Insurance to cover everything. And I wanted to share two pieces of something that I have, like, that I have just sort of, like, one is an observation. One is kind of a data point from Detective Mike Weber in Texas. We all sort of are familiar with, like, how you can have to fight with insurance even to get something that is totally necessary that your doctor ordered. So it's like, how are they getting all this unnecessary stuff? It's like, the amount of time that they devote to it is just like nothing that a normal person. Person would do. Right? Like, so I think there's sort of like, you know, there's the level to which, like, a parent with a legitimately sick child would have to advocate for that child to get their stuff covered. And that's heartbreaking and horrible and very real. And I think that's one of the things that this sort of hides behind. And then this is on another level altogether. Like, the level of obsession and compulsion in this behavior is Just such that, like, we see all the time in these cases, like, the person calling, calls the doctor's office, and then they call the hospital administration, and they call this person, and that person just go up the chain to where they're, like, on the phone with the, you know, like, CEO of that. Maybe not exactly, but, like, I mean, they will go up, they will call everybody. They will call everyone's manager and their manager, and, like, they will go online and they will start campaigns, and they will, like. You know what I mean? So it's like this level of, like, activity that just, like, is so relentless. And the other piece that I wanted to point out about that, about the sort of interaction with the healthcare system that I think should really, really make people angry. Obvious. Should make people angry about these cases. But I think, like, when you look at it on a community basis, most of these cases are Medicaid cases. So, like, because that's the biggest health insurer of. Of people, that's obviously something that's looking at, you know, huge cuts right now. So that's like a whole other separate, very sad, very troubling thing. But, like, that is a system that obviously, like, taxpayers pay into, that is being defrauded by the people who. Who commit this abuse. And just the sort of, like, amount of community resources. And I think we really saw this in this case, right? Or, like, resources that are supposed to go to kids that actually have this disorder, like, that kind of thing. Like, they really rip a lot of people off, and they take a lot of, like, time and resources, and they get their kids seen first, and they get their court case moved up on the docket, and like, they just. Just devour all of these resources, which are already strapped and looking to be more strapped soon. So that's something that should really make people mad, I think.
- [81:39]
Mariah Gossett
What was the stat from Detective Mike?
- [81:42]
Andrea Dunlop
Oh, just that he was saying that the vast majority of cases that he looks actually a stat. It's an observation, but, like, that the vast majority of cases he looks at are Medicaid cases. Interesting. Yeah.
- [81:53]
Mariah Gossett
Yeah.
- [81:54]
Andrea Dunlop
So final thoughts from Nicole.
- [81:57]
Erin Ajayi
Greta, It's a lot to be in community. It's a lot to be in community with people. But, I mean, this is what's gonna be needed, especially as we move forward. Knowing the cuts that are being made to sort of the safeguards around vulnerable children and people. I think it's really important, and I think it really. It's not the main story of the season, but just the ways in which people. People, for lack of a better Term saw something and said something around the girls that makes all the difference. I worked in public schools for, you know, in and around public schools for nearly a decade. It's the. The people who are around kids at schools and then after school activities and then when they're. You're babysitting, those are the ones who spot these issues most often and are the ones to raise the alarm. And so I think if there's any kind of, you know, this is, again, not the A story, but the B story of this is just the work of community and protecting one another and in protecting kids. And I hope that that comes across in Chalice's role. I hope it comes across, you know, with the neighbors and the parents at gymnastics and all over. All throughout the season, we just saw people seeing something and saying something, and that's so important when it comes to protecting. So my last thought is just around that. I hope everybody gets involved, either in your school or wherever you can get involved in your community where you have the capacity to be consistent and engaged. I really think right now it is very important.
- [83:27]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah, I really agree.
- [83:29]
Mariah Gossett
I feel like that was everything I would have wanted to say.
- [83:33]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah, no, thank you. That was so well said. And I do think actually this. That sort of community aspect really come through in. In this case. And I think, yeah, it's just sort of like top of mind for everybody. So. Yeah. Well, everyone, thank you so much for your incredible work on this season. I feel just very grateful and honored to have been able to work on this with y'all and. And, yeah, thank you so much. And we will include links in the show notes to everybody's respective projects. Go check them out. They are fun. They are less heavy than we do here on.
- [84:19]
Mariah Gossett
You gotta have a duality.
- [84:21]
Nicole Hill
You gotta have that duality.
- [84:22]
Mariah Gossett
Yeah.
- [84:22]
Erin Ajayi
Comedy comes from this stuff, you know.
- [84:24]
Mariah Gossett
It'S just the other side of the coin. Comedy, tragedy.
- [84:28]
Andrea Dunlop
All true. All right, thanks, everybody.
- [84:30]
Mariah Gossett
Thank you. Thanks for listening, everyone.
- [84:31]
Nicole Hill
Yeah, yeah.
- [84:37]
Andrea Dunlop
Nobody should believe me. Case Files is produced and hosted by me, Andrea Dunlop. Our editor is Greta Stromquist, and our senior producer is Mariah Gossett. Administrative support from Nola Carmouche.