Sophie Hartman (3:43)

Birthdays, anniversaries, weddings.

Andrea Dunlop (3:46)

Whatever the occasion, it just got a little more personal with meaningful photo gifts from Shutterfly. Add a silly photo to a gold rimmed mug for your bestie. Put your sweet puppy on a cozy fleece blanket for your teen. Gift your husband a desktop plaque featuring all the kids. Enjoy. 40% off orders over $29 with code pod40@shutterfly.com and make something that means something. If you'd like to support the show, the best way to do that is to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or on Patreon. You get all episodes early and ad free, along with extended cuts and deleted scenes from the season. You also get two exclusive bonus episodes every month. And for the first time ever, we have the entire season ready for you to binge right now on the subscriber feed. That's right, you can listen to every episode of season five right this minute if you subscribe to the show. And as always, if monetary support is not an option for you right now, rating and reviewing the show wherever you listen also helps us a great deal. And if there's someone you feel needs to hear this show, please do share it with them. Word of mouth is so important for independent podcasts. For even more, you can also find us on YouTube where we have every episode as well as bonus video content. When we last left off, we were talking to Dr. Zouponts about age Z to better understand this rare condition that C had been diagnosed with. If this diagnosis was legitimate, could it explain all of these Other symptoms that Sophie had described, specifically the severe and ongoing gastrointestinal issues that had required C to undergo two invasive surgeries. Is that another thing that might sort of get worse over time as they're having more episodes and they might have like kind of ongoing problems with gastrointestinal stuff?

Dr. Zouponts (5:39)

Yeah, it's more the swallowing, it's not really the digestion with these episodes where because the vagus nerve is in the brainstem, you know, so there is a brain gut interaction. So if the brain stem is effective and you're having difficulty swallowing, the vagus nerve can be affected and that vagus nerve could slow down the heart rate. Autonomic symptoms, they can slow down the heart rate, they can slow down gut Trent's mobility. And so, yes, you can have vomiting as well.

Andrea Dunlop (6:17)

So if it was, as Sophie reported that C was having such severe gastrointestinal symptoms that she required a G tube and a sarcostomy tube, this would put her in a slim minority, 10% of an already extremely rare disorder. And she's already in the minority of AHC patients being one of the 20% that doesn't have the gene mutation. And then there were the details that Sophie reported about her episodes. Something caught my eye when I in the literature that it was saying there can be this huge duration of time difference in duration of time for an episode. So you said a few minutes to 14 days. And again, I won't ask you overly much to sort of speculate on what's about this case in particular, but there was apparent report of paralysis lasting 32 days. Have you ever heard of something that long?

Dr. Zouponts (7:05)

No, I have not and I've rarely seen. Honestly, I've seen episodes that last for a day or two, but I've not personally, I've read about it in the literature. I don't think they comment on how frequently that happens. It just says the episodes can last greater than 24 hours. Up to three weeks in duration were reported for 38% of subjects, let's say that of patients. So I think those are the outliers. Three weeks is a really long time. I've not personally seen this and I've probably seen and interviewed at least in the 90s and 2000s at the alternating hemiplegia of childhood foundation. The average time is really hours to maybe a couple of days. The it's an outlier to last three weeks or longer. And you were saying how long? 32 days. I think that would be reportable, quite frankly.

Andrea Dunlop (8:17)

Yeah. And I mean, it seems to me that if an episode was going on that long that there would be a hospitalization during that period?

Dr. Zouponts (8:27)

Oh, I would. I would, personally, yes. Because I'd want to make sure that, you know, these children can have what I call comorbidities. Let's make sure there's not ongoing seizures. Let's make sure that there isn't vasospasm. That means where the blood vessels are constricting. Let's make sure there's not something else going on. I would want to have that child be hospitalized. Furthermore, for 32 days, that child would have had to have slept. And when the child wakes up for 10 to 20 minutes or longer, they should be pretty much back to normal. So if it's just continuous and invariable, that would make me question. I'd want to get more details about that mystery.

Andrea Dunlop (9:15)

There is a range of symptoms and severity with ahc, as with many things, but consistently, Sofie is reporting severe, frequent and long lasting episodes. And in such a case, an AHC patient would experience significant cognitive decline. And according to the teachers and care providers the police spoke to, C had occasional issues, but was more or less developmentally on track with her peers. So the episodes Sophie is reporting are twice as long as any ever discovered in AHC research, making meaning this would be one of the most severe cases of AHC ever documented. The reason pediatricians take parent reports so seriously is that they recognize that we usually know our kids best and are much more in touch with what's normal for them and what isn't. Was it plausible that Sophie was the only person attuned enough to her daughter to understand what was going on with her with this disease in particular and sort of the presentation of it, Is it plausible that given that there were other people around this child pretty frequently, that no one else would see this child have an episode?

Dr. Zouponts (10:22)

Well, that would raise a lot of red flags to me, particularly because let's take an example of a parent, a grandmother, grandfather, would occasionally take care of that child, or a daycare center or other observer. These episodes are noticeable. They're not so subtle that nobody else would notice. Particularly because I would presume the parent or care provider would say, or caregiver would say, you know, Johnny has these episodes and just keep a lock. Like oftentimes parents or caregivers will save. We've kept a log of these episodes and we always have our babysitter or daycare provider or grandma or grandpa write down when the episodes occur. They're not typically subtle, particularly if they're happening frequently and you'd want to characterize. Were they alert and conscious? Could you get them to smile? Did they have difficulty breathing or heart rate? I would. I really. I'd be hard pressed to wonder if that was really totally and completely true. That's what you need to do to figure out is this something that the parent is just worried about and exaggerating because they're worried and they're afraid nobody's going to believe them, you know, that's possible. Or is this something that is really a fabrication? And then that's where I've done my deepest dives, is I'll call the daycare provider. I'll call grandma, grandpa, babysitters, extended relatives, because all of those are caregivers for that particular child. Normally, a single parent can't. Well, particularly single parent. It's a. I personally can't imagine having had four daughters. I can't imagine raising them without a partner.

Andrea Dunlop (12:33)

No one disputes that a parent's perspective on their child is important, but Dr. Zoupons talks about getting other people who are around the child in the loop as well, and this piece is equally important. In a medical child abuse investigation. Detective O'Rourke and her colleagues from Renton PD did one of the most thorough investigations I have ever seen in a medical child abuse case. They spoke to dozens of people. Neighbors, friends, people from M's gym, multiple schools that C attended, therapists, church members, people from the writing program, doctors and family members. Sophie was nearly always with the girls, though reportedly em would sometimes stay with friends while Sophie took C to doctor's appointments. And when the girls were a little bit older, she would sometimes leave them at the gym under the supervision of one of the coaches. Now, no one other than the doctors in this case who treated Zee are qualified to determine whether or not she truly has HC but given that Sophie had proven to be an unreliable narrator of her daughter's health, it was important for the police to talk to as many people who'd had eyes on the girls as possible to see if Sophie's reports matched up with, well, reality. She kind of explained the paralysis and stuff like that. And I've never seen it like how.

Art Hartman (13:44)

Have a seizure or any other sort of medical emergency?

Andrea Dunlop (13:47)

No, I don't.

Art Hartman (13:49)

I don't think I did. Did you ever witness having what Sophie calls one of her episodes? I did not.

Andrea Dunlop (13:59)

I have not personally seen her in an episode where I would be able.

Dr. Zouponts (14:03)

To say, oh, she's an episode.

Art Hartman (14:04)

I saw more of the videos than I did in person. And did she ever have any episodes when you were with her? No, I never witnessed that.

Ann Hartman (14:13)

Have you ever seen her have a seizure?

Dr. Zouponts (14:15)

No.

Andrea Dunlop (14:16)

No. Go into an episode of paralysis? No.

Ann Hartman (14:21)

Or have a seizure?

Andrea Dunlop (14:23)

No. In my research, I watched a short documentary about children with AHC called Human Time Bombs. In order to better understand the lives of families coping with this condition. They show some video footage of kids having AHC episodes. And it's very difficult to watch. You can see their whole bodies stiffen, their eye movements become erratic, and some of them are just howling in pain. It's heartbreaking. And as Dr. Zoupont said, it's not subtle. The majority of people who were asked said they had never witnessed an episode firsthand. Those who did report witnessing something went on to describe something that does not actually sound like an HC episode, such as these reports from Sophie's parents.

Art Hartman (15:10)

Have you witnessed any of these episodes or these events? Yes. One time when I was out visiting my daughter and two granddaughters, my daughter ran an errand and I watched the girls.

Andrea Dunlop (15:25)

This is Sophie's father.

Art Hartman (15:26)

Art had an episode. And. And it's. It's. You know, it's a sad thing when. When you have that. Yeah.

Andrea Dunlop (15:34)

So what.

Art Hartman (15:35)

What did you see her do? Well, she can. She can become a little defiant. She can kind of freeze. She can be in tremendous pain because it. If you can imagine when you have. When your body is freezing up, she can sometimes go into dystonia, which is extended cramping. So if you could imagine the worst Charlie Horse and not being able to get out of that Charlie Horse, then that's the kind of pain that she endures at times. Okay.

Andrea Dunlop (16:01)

And so you saw her have, like.

Art Hartman (16:03)

One of those painful episodes or. I did. I did. Yeah. It's really rough. Oh, man. I'm sure that was hard to see. Does she, like, double over in pain or does she lay on the floor or what? Do you remember her reaction? Yeah, I mean, I think it's just. There's a little bit of. There's a little bit of everything. She can. She can. You know, she can. Oh, what's the right word? She. I think she can be defiant, and she can. She can kind of be in pain. She can be aggressive. I mean, you can't control that. And, you know, she has quite a medical history at Children's Seattle. She gets a lot of treatment there and said multiple surgeries and different scans and everything. So I think what I just. I think what I would say to you is it's a very rare medical condition, and I think it presents itself in many ways. Sure.

Andrea Dunlop (17:00)

And this is Sophie's mother, Ann, in her conversation with a Renton detective.

Art Hartman (17:04)

Have you ever witnessed any of these episodes? Yes, I have. I've been up.

Andrea Dunlop (17:09)

Yeah.

Art Hartman (17:10)

What did you see? Well, it varies. It could be all of a sudden, you're in the middle of a conversation with her, and then her face just of goes blank. Okay, That's a. That's kind of a gentle one. She can come in and out. Okay. She does hippotherapy with horses, which often will bring her out of an episode. Okay, so she could have five, six, seven episodes left dead in a day. Oh, she could go for a week. She could go for a week and not have any episodes like that. Okay. If it's a more severe episode, she could. I don't know, not. Not so much crying, but she can't speak words, so she might cry in frustration and her hands are gripping and curling in pain, and she might swing her arm. Okay. You know, somebody might see her facial expressions and think it's, I don't know, an angry outburst. But she's. Her brain knows that she can't function and that inwardly upsets her. But she doesn't know how to speak it. Yeah, she can't speak it. And then the worst episodes, which I have also seen, she is flat on her back on the sofa, curled up, her hands and feet and legs for days and days unresponsive. Those are the worst. Okay. I can't imagine, as a grandparent seeing that. Okay.

Andrea Dunlop (18:35)

Have you attended any medical appointments with Sophie?

Art Hartman (18:39)

And I think once when I was out in Seattle, I stayed with Sophie's older daughter while Sophie went in with the doctor. So I've not attended any, but I usually get a good briefing when she goes to Duke.

Andrea Dunlop (18:53)

And, yeah, as a reminder, Sophie's parents live all the way in Michigan, so they weren't there on the day to day. In fact, they saw the girls pretty rarely.

Art Hartman (19:01)

How often do you see the girls? Once or twice a year.

Andrea Dunlop (19:06)

These descriptions struck me because there was only one report from a physician of witnessing any symptoms at all in C. During one visit with Seattle Children's, a physician named Dr. Bray reported C having some behavioral issues, something like Art describes in his interview. Now, behavioral issues can be part of hc, especially because the disorder can cause severe developmental delays. But behavioral issues alone are not indicative of a child having a rare neurological condition. Dr. Bray also noted that the longer the quote episode went on, he had the sense that the child was more aware and more purposeful in her actions. And according to Sophie, C. Wasn't just impacted by this disorder, she was going to die from it.

Art Hartman (19:48)

I flat out asked her, like, what is the lifespan of a person with ahc? Because she always speaks like a, you know, like a ticking time bomb. And she, she told me, like, because I, I don't know. I don't know how many people in the world. It's not very many people that have this disorder. As she said, like, the oldest person that has this disorder is like in their early 20s or something like that. And I would say, I would say she has the. Use the word terminal term, that it's.

Sophie Hartman (20:23)

Rare and that kids don't normally live past this. Whatever age it is where she was born, she would have definitely not made it. Is what she would say that because she was able to come here, she's had a way better chance. She still might not live through adulthood. There's a really good chance she's not gonna survive, is what she would tell us.

Art Hartman (20:44)

Many AHC children don't live to even 20 years old. Oh, wow. Going to be hard diagnosis to. So I'm, I'm just going to say, and this is from a grandmother.

Dr. Zouponts (20:54)

Sure.

Art Hartman (20:54)

I can't even imagine what my daughter's going through right now. If somebody has filed a complaint on this after everything she did. She's an incredible mother.

Andrea Dunlop (21:13)

I am doing a ton of press and events right now because of my new book. And one thing I do not want to be worried about is whether I am going to have have pit stains when I'm on television or be stinky when I'm meeting fans. I have very sensitive skin, so I am extremely picky about deodorant. And Lume's products have been such a find. All of Lume's products are baking soda and paraben, free and clinically proven to control odor for up to 72 hours. They have delightful scents like clean tangerine, lavender, sage and toasted coconut. And they're formulated for use anywhere on your body. Lume's starter pack is perfect for new customers. It comes with a solid stick deodorant, cream tube deodorant and two free products of your choice, such as their deodorant wipes, which are a favorite of mine for travel. And you get free shipping as a special offer for listeners. New customers get 15% off all Lume products with our exclusive code. And if you combine the 15% off with the already discounted starter pack, that equals 40% off of the starter pack use code nobody for 15 off your first purchase@lumideodorant.com that's code nobody at L U M E D E o d o R-A-N-T.com and please support our show by telling them that we sent you Smell Fresher, stay drier and boost your confidence from head to toe with Lumi. My household includes two busy working parents plus a two year old and a six year old who are both the world's slowest and and the world's pickiest eaters. We run on snacks around here, so I want to make sure we're stocked with good ones, which is why I'm so glad we have Thrive Market. Thrive Market has an incredible selection of healthy snacks to keep us going, like their Chomps Beef Sticks which are my husband Derek's favorite, their Bear Snacks organic apple chips which both my kids love, and my new favorite from the ground up's Cauliflower stalks. I tend to get very distracted when grocery shopping and sometimes make questionable choices, which is why I also love Thrive Market's Smart Cart feature. When you create an account, Thrive Market asks the right questions and automatically builds a grocery cart tailored to your needs, filled with healthier alternatives to your favorite brands. From there you can adjust, add or remove items before checking out and then everything just shows up at your door like magic. It's so great. They also have a subscribe and save option so you don't have to remember to restock. Ready for a junk free start to 2025? Head to thrivemarket.com nobody and get 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 using our offer codes is a great way to support the show. Sophie frequently told people that C wasn't likely to live past childhood, but many of the patients in long term AHC studies are in their 50s. Sophie nonetheless seemed preoccupied with C's death. She would frequently tell people that she wasn't sure how long they had with her, and she makes many references to C being a quote ticking time bomb. This seems a clear reflection of the language from the film that I mentioned, which I know Sophie had seen as well because she posted about it on social media and which her sister mentioned in her police interview.

Dr. Zouponts (24:37)

Do you know what? Like the prognosis?

Sophie Hartman (24:40)

It's not great.

Andrea Dunlop (24:43)

I think the the hardest part about.

Dr. Zouponts (24:45)

AHC is that it's so unpredictable.

Sophie Hartman (24:48)

Like they there's a documentary about it.

Dr. Zouponts (24:50)

Called like Human Time Bombs where basically.

Dr. Bex (24:53)

At any moment there can be like.

Dr. Zouponts (24:55)

Sudden heart failure leading to death.

Andrea Dunlop (24:59)

Having Watched this film. The context the parents use this term is to reference the unpredictability of their children's episodes and the disruptive nature of it to daily life. That is that they could have a painful episode anytime, not that they could, as Sophie says, leave us at any time. So this all begs the question, how life threatening is this diagnosis? So I'm interested in sort of especially in terms of like, I mean, is this a fatal or terminal illness? I mean, is this a terminal diagnosis? Would that language be used?

Dr. Zouponts (25:39)

I wouldn't call it terminal. I think it's debilitating, certainly with the advancements in our technology and maybe our ability. You know, there are things that could happen, like gene therapy, targeted drug therapy that could be transformative. But even with, let's say, our current status, where we're going to treat the seizures, we're going to treat the episodes of alternating hemiplegia with flunarizine, I would call it more of a lifelong condition that with appropriate and attentive care to treatment can be manageable. Not curative, not by any means curative.

Andrea Dunlop (26:24)

And this wasn't just talk. Sophie began requesting palliative care for C as early as 2018. But Seattle Children's told the police she was never a candidate for this type of care, which focuses on alleviating pain and discomfort rather than treating an illness or disorder. In spring of 2019, about a year after C's age C diagnosis, Sophie began requesting more extreme interventions in seas eating, including getting a central line placed and pursuing tpn, which gives children nutrition intravenously. We're talking about some of those gastrointestinal complications, and I realize there's a huge range here, but have you seen a situation where a child with HC was put on tpn?

Dr. Zouponts (27:05)

Oh, we try to avoid that. No, I have not. There's so many advances now in gastrointestinal motility, where you can promote motility, you can. TPN carries a whole range of complications. I mean, that's not a long term solution. They're important. That's why we were meant to eat and digest our food, is that we haven't figured out through what I call hyperalimentation, IV fluids and liquids and lipids, how to properly nourish an adult long term. And so gastroenterologists work very closely if there is a GI problem to try to offer what we call enteral GI feeds because the gut manages it much better than we do artificially through IVs.

Andrea Dunlop (28:04)

Dr. Zoupons likewise said she'd never heard of a child with HC going into palliative care. Now, palliative care is not only used for end of life care, but especially in children. When palliative care is brought in, it's because death is a distinct possibility, as Dr. Bex, pediatric hospitalist and frequent contributor to this show, explains here.

Dr. Bex (28:24)

So hospice care specifically are those ones that, you know have less than six months to palliative care is kind of that expansion on that, for instance, they have a cancer or a life threatening condition that there is a potential that the child could die. You're not saying that the cure may not still work, but you're kind of trying to help the family through that time, knowing that the outcome may not be the one everyone is hoping for, but that you are concurrently doing the palliative care, knowing that the prognosis is poor, but you are continuing to do the treatment and continuing to be hopeful and to think my child is gonna be that one, you know, that that gets through this.

Andrea Dunlop (29:07)

The Police also asked Dr. McCaudy from Duke about Sophie's request for palliative care, and he was surprised by this and stated that, quote, most of his AHC patients would not be candidates for palliative care and would not apply for such a program. Dr. Mikati also told the police that that referring to HC as a terminal illness was very inappropriate. He likened it to epilepsy, where there's certainly an increased risk of death, but many people live to an old age. He said probably less than 10% of HC patients die in childhood, and these deaths were due to complications from an episode. So to recap, Sophie insists that C has HC despite her not having the genetic marker for it and the fact that no one else has ever witnessed something that could correctly be identified as an HC episode. She also claims that C is terminal and appears fixated on the child's impending death. She is moving her toward last resort interventions such as TPN and palliative care. And by the time she's six years old, Cee has undergone two surgeries for gastrointestinal issues that Sophie claims are severe enough to warrant them. And in 2020, Sophie begins pushing for a third surgery for a hormonal implant.

Sophie Hartman (30:18)

So.

Andrea Dunlop (30:18)

So was any of this medically necessary? The doctors from Seattle children's Child abuse team had this to say. The following is a list of problems, symptoms, behaviors and diagnoses for which there is no documented objective Excessive vomiting or dehydration chronic diarrhea, hematemesis, which is vomiting, blood, seizures, prolonged paralysis, 32 days straight prolonged apnea, not breathing, low blood oxygenation, prolonged lack of urine output, speech or language pathology, recurrent ankle sprains, need for any orthotics, wheelchairs, gait trainers or leg braces, and terminal illness. Following the separation from Sophie In March of 2020, 1C was observed by hospital staff for more than two weeks. As far as we could tell, this was the longest she'd ever been away from her mother since the adoption. This separation test is crucial in MVP investigations. If the reported symptoms persist, then you know right away that the mother isn't the cause. And if they don't, another question, you know, I had sort of asked you and again I recognize that I'm asking you to speculate so only to the degree that you feel comfortable. There was actually a prolonged hospital stay after the separation. It was 16 days, I believe, with an AHC patient. And given that the reports were that the episodes were extremely frequent, would it be pretty unusual during that time that where a child's being very closely observed that no one would record any signs.

Dr. Zouponts (31:48)

Or symptoms that would be unusual? Particularly if the parent. Usually there are well described precipitate triggers, particularly if they try to precipitate one of these episodes. If there is a question of the episodes, they could have done video EEG monitoring or careful surveillance because people come in and out of a room, right.

Andrea Dunlop (32:12)

And just actually a question with the, A question with the EEG monitoring because they sent them for an at home. And so you were talking about kind of like they look different than the epileptic seizures, but an EEG monitor. So if a child is hooked up to a monitor and a parent reports that they're having an episode during that time. Okay, would it, like how likely is it that it wouldn't catch anything at.

Dr. Zouponts (32:41)

All if it was alternative, if it was ahc?

Andrea Dunlop (32:44)

If it was ahc, highly unlikely. Okay.

Dr. Zouponts (32:48)

It should show slowing. Most studies that have captured that, well, if it was an epileptic seizure, you'd see the seizure. But the, if it's an episode of hemiplegia or one side of the body is paralyzed, almost invariably in the contralateral. If it's right sided weakness, the left side of the brain should show slowing and it should be pretty obvious.

Andrea Dunlop (33:15)

It's certainly true that for AHC and seizure disorders like epilepsy, it can be very hard to capture seizure activity during a doctor doctor's appointment because episodes are unpredictable. And this is why doctors rely so much on parent reports. One of the challenges of MBP investigations is that it can be very difficult to disprove a clinical diagnosis. As Detective Mike Weber always says about these investigations, you never ask doctors if something is possible because with medicine, almost anything is possible. It's a constantly evolving science. So though these investigations, investigations are lengthy and work intensive, at some point the picture becomes pretty clear. As Dr. Zuponts recalls from the 10 or so Munchausen cases that she's come.

Dr. Zouponts (33:56)

Across in her career, I get suspicious when a child has multiple symptoms and no specific diagnosis. And those symptoms change over time. And nobody's been able to demonstrate a specific diagnosis, nor does my exam confirm any abnormalities on the exam that are consistent. You can't take just one little abnormal diagnostic test without looking at the entire clinical picture and family. You just can't. Because you will miss the forest for the trees. And some physicians get so fixated on this one little abnormality that they do. They miss the forest for the trees. You have to be kind of an artist. Look back, stand back. What does this entire picture look like as opposed to that one tree standing in the corner? Is it labor intensive to get all those details? Yes, it is. But that's to me, that's what the art of medicine. That's where you have to really dig a little bit deeper. And then it becomes perfectly clear. This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace.

Andrea Dunlop (35:13)

You know when you're really stressed or not feeling so great about your life or about yourself, talking to someone who understands can really help.

Dr. Zouponts (35:20)

But who is that person?

Andrea Dunlop (35:22)

How do you find them? Where do you even start?

Dr. Zouponts (35:24)

Talkspace.

Andrea Dunlop (35:25)

Talkspace makes it easy to get the support you need.

Dr. Zouponts (35:28)

With Talkspace, you can go online, answer.

Andrea Dunlop (35:30)

A few questions about your preferences, and be matched with a therapist. And because you'll meet your therapist online, you don't have to take time off work or arrange childcare. You'll meet on your schedule wherever you feel most at ease.

Dr. Zouponts (35:41)

If you're depressed, stressed, struggling with a.

Andrea Dunlop (35:44)

Relationship, or if you want some counseling for you and your partner or just need a little extra one on one.

Dr. Zouponts (35:49)

Support, Talkspace is here for you.

Andrea Dunlop (35:51)

Plus, Talkspace works with most major insurers and most insured members have a $0 copay. No insurance, no problem. Now get $80 off of your first month with promo code SPACE80 when you go to talkspace.com match with a licensed therapist today at talkspace.com save $80 with code SPACE80 at talk. If you've been listening to this show for a while, you know that I have very strong feelings about what is and is not responsible true crime content. Maybe you've heard me make some pointed comments about the producers of a certain film. Or perhaps you've heard one of my dozen or so rants about a certain journalist whose name rhymes with Schmike Schmixenbach. And if you've been with me for a while, you'll also know that getting Nobody Shot, believe me, on the air was quite the roller coaster. Podcasting is just the Wild west, y'all, and these experiences are what led me to launch my new network, True Story Media, where we are all about uplifting true crime, creators doing the work and making thoughtful Survivor centric shows. And I could not be more thrilled to announce our very first creator Partner. You probably think this story's about you the first season of this enthralling show from breakout creator Britney Ard took podcasting by storm in 2024, zooming to the number one spot in the charts on Apple and Spotify as Britney revealed the captivating story of a romantic deception that upended her life and traced the roots of her own complicated personal history that led her there. Britney is back in 2025 with brand new episodes, this time helping others tell their own stories of betrayal, heartache and resilience. If you love, nobody should believe me. I think you will also love. You probably think this story is about you for its themes of deception, complex family intrigue, and its raw, vulnerable storytelling. You can binge the full first season and listen to brand new episodes each week by following the show on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find it at the link in our show Notes by May of 2021, after Sophie had been charged and bailed out by her parents, her daughter C, who is now in the custody of her grandmother and aunt along with her sister Em, was seeing dramatic improvements in her health and abilities, and she was back in school several days a week. Meanwhile, Detective O'Rourke was still putting together the immense medical puzzle that had been laid on her desk. The notes in internal meetings about at Seattle Children's Date all the way back to 2019, with the police investigation starting in 2021. Even before making a report to the Department of Children and Families, hospitals do their own work of due diligence. These cases are often portrayed by perpetrators and the media who give them megaphones as a hospital rushing to judgment, making it all about a parent whose child has a condition that the hospital just doesn't understand. But in reality, especially in a large hospital such as Seattle Children's, the doctors often have extensive documentation before they report medical child abuse. This abuse is Very different than a child coming to a hospital with a suspicious broken bone, because it is a pattern. There may be a single alarming incident that's captured on video, as with my sister's case, but the devil is always in the details. We spoke to Dr. Jill Glick from the University of Chicago to give us some insight into evaluating this abuse so that we could see what things might have looked like behind the scenes at Seattle Children's when they started tracking this case in 2019. Just a note that the University of Chicago Medical System uses the abbreviation CAPS or Child Advocacy and Protective Services. And you'll hear Dr. Glick reference this acronym. Talk us through the process for a hospital of investigating a medical child abuse case. And then maybe like, kind of how that is different from some of these other injuries.

Ann Hartman (39:39)

This is a vetted protocol for when children need to be referred to caps. We evaluate children. We don't investigate. We are medical people that evaluate. And. And so we put together a very well documented role and responsibility of who does what and the rollout. Okay. So if a child, if. If someone has a concern for medical child abuse, it is immediately brought to the attention of the CAHPS team. At that point in time, there's a conversation between the attending. Both attendings mean the senior people. We don't have the residents kind of trying to interpret what's in our brains. We talk about it and then we do our due diligence of getting data and information, past medical records, reviewing things that kind of. And we immediately legal know. Okay. And risk management. And at that point, we identify all the different subspecialists that need to review this case to come together. And then we have a multidisciplinary team meeting. And each one of us has to present and this is attending level people, present our findings and then talk about our level of concern for child abuse. You know, for medical child abuse. At that point in time, there might be a bifurcation which is, you know, this is a very anxious mother with a chronically ill kid. And that might be one of the. Or this is new to us. And this is. Mother's gone to a lot of other places, but no one has made a diagnosis yet of what's wrong with her child. So it she's looking for an answer.

Andrea Dunlop (41:10)

Versus shopping with the doctor shopping thing in particular. Can you differentiate for us what is the difference between someone, a parent who is, you know, because I think any parent can imagine themselves in this situation. If you had. If your child was having issues and nobody was able to give you an answer. Right. Of going to a doctor and they don't have answers. Doctor, what is the difference between that and an abuse pattern where it is what we refer to as doctor shopping.

Ann Hartman (41:35)

Sure. You have a child with chronic abdominal pain. Okay. You take this child to your pediatrician. He or she, they does what they can, says, you know what, let's get you to a gastroenterologist. I send you a gastroenterologist, and the gastroenterologist doesn't really give you an idea of what to do. Like just keep what you're doing. I don't see. And does a couple of tests. You go back to your pediatrician and she goes, well, let's maybe go to Lurie or Comer Children's. And you go there and the GI and whatever work and say, you know, this is tricky. Let's try these things. Because I don't. I've done X, Y and Z. I've looked at your records. Mom, dad, or them. Bring the records. Right. And say, we need help. This is what let's call my guru at Lurie on dismotility. And let's see if we can get you in there to see what he. He thinks. That's a parent who's working with the.

Andrea Dunlop (42:27)

System, who being transparent, like being cooperate.

Ann Hartman (42:31)

Yeah. And you know, there is a point where when you. And you get a. You get a diagnosis, say this is a very unique situation of Crohn's disease, turns out, finally manifests itself and the patient's not doing well. Well, you might go to two or three different GI doctors until you find the GI doctor. You best suits you. That's appropriate. You have to be an advocate for your kid, and you have to be an advocate these days, there is no question. Because the way medicine is done is that people don't pick up and read what happened at the other institution. A lot of times they start over. And that's why MCA people who are, if you will, are causing mca.

Andrea Dunlop (43:12)

MCA is short for medical child abuse.

Ann Hartman (43:14)

They take advantage of a system where doctors just start over and do their own own jam. You know, they start over. Well, let's get our own upper GI or let's re scope you. Right. And they don't look back and see, you know, because doing a medical record review is a nightmare. The way. Because it's going into a website. It's not a paper chart like in the old days. You just read a book. So we just had a case which is. Is. It's kind of like medical child abuse and medical neglect at the same Time, very complicated.

Andrea Dunlop (43:46)

Well, we've seen, honestly, that's something I've seen quite a bit of.

Ann Hartman (43:49)

Yeah. And so therefore it took my residence a whole week. That's like 80 hours. We got all the records. I now have 18 pages summary of this child's medical history from the last 10 years. Put in one document. That took me a week to get that because I had two residents working with me. Thank you, residents. I thank them over and over. It was illuminating that we needed no more testing, no more draw the line, meet with mom and move forward. So the, so the red flags are when they don't disclose where they've been, they keep on getting more diagnoses over time. There's no centralization of care. Right. And that starts bringing the question of is there, is there medical child abuse here? Is this child getting excessive, unnecessary care? You answer that and then you go meet with the family and then you try to work out the next steps. And based upon that, you know, that's something that is the big lift.

Andrea Dunlop (44:54)

There has been a deluge of press about so called medical kidnapping, particularly in the wake of the Mayaku Nowalski case. This is the conspiracy theory that doctors are snatching children away from innocent parents. And within this corrosive narrative, there is much, I believe, deliberate confusion created about the doctor's role in abuse investigations. They are there to provide a medical evaluation of a child and listen, if you are in fact an innocent parent of a sick child, you want a team like SCAN at Seattle Children's or CAPS in Chicago with a child abuse pediatrician at the helm. Child abuse pediatricians and the teams who work for them are less likely than their colleagues who are not trained in the subspecialty to make a mistake or rush to a judgment when reporting abuse. And these teams are going to be incredibly thorough. Medical child abuse is particularly difficult for child abuse teams because the question of when to report is incredibly tricky. If a team reports to DCF too early and without strong enough documentation of a pattern of abuse, it's likely to go nowhere. And the parents will surely then begin taking their children to different doctors and begin the pattern all over again. But if you wait too long to report, the child could be further harmed or even die. In Sofie's case, the doctors at Seattle Children's made an initial report in 2019 and continued to document the patterns of Sophie's escalating requests for invasive treatment over the next two years. During this time, Seattle Children's was trying to mitigate the harm by not agreeing to invasive treatment. Procedures such as the G tube surgery, which Sophie then went to Marybridge to get. It seems that the incident that put things over the top may have been the precocious puberty debacle and the request for yet another surgical procedure.

Ann Hartman (46:33)

I was writing some notes to myself thinking about. What I would love to be able to tell the world and tell you is that the child welfare system is completely incapable of diagnosing medical. Child abuse. They need the medical people.

Andrea Dunlop (46:46)

Just.

Ann Hartman (46:46)

That was like my first, my first slide in every talk is, I see a kid, broken arm, I report, they come back and say, you're my expert, you should have an expert. Now if you're an expert for DCFS now, you're considered conspiracy. You're considered like if you hire a cardiologist, you hire the medical examiner to look at a dead body. Is that person trying to find homicide? No, that's my point. These families have driven the court systems to think of us as having a conflict of interest. And we have no conflict of interest.

Andrea Dunlop (47:20)

Yeah. And I think what like, like you said, you know, a medical examiner that's a neutral person, regardless of who's, you know, whose sort of side they're testifying on. I think. And actually to me, like a doctor in the position of a Catholic, you know, once it gets to court, to a court case.

Ann Hartman (47:38)

Yeah.

Andrea Dunlop (47:39)

You know, you have like experts on both sides. Many times if the person has resources, right. If they have money to pay for medical experts and they have the money to pay for people to come in and do their depositions and review records and stuff. So that is like sort of a different scenario where if someone's being paid, but if it's a, if it's a doctor that was involved, if it's either a treating physician or, you know, someone on the child abuse team that did this evaluation, like, what I struggle to find any even plausible explanation for is what is the incentive for anybody to do that?

Ann Hartman (48:15)

Why am I trying to find childhood? I don't get more money, Right. So I have a contract with the state of Illinois. The state of Illinois pays me for my clinical and educational and administrative services to provide expert testimony. But not testimony expert, interdisciplinary, real time case review. So what mpeak does is as soon as a hotline call is made, say there's a little boy with a broken leg at St. Elsewhere and he's a Chicago resident and he's reported that will come from DCFS immediately to me, to my coordinator, who will immediately start locate the DCFS investigator, the police officer, get the medical records, notify me, we start talking immediately about this case. Okay? So the idea is we do this real time so that we can get good histories, we can get good medical evaluations in the best interest of the family and the child. Because for me to do a paper review two weeks later and they didn't do all the right tests and didn't write questions, I always say crap in, crap out, right? So we're setting the highest standard. And like I said, our statistics show us that we find a lot of accidental injuries in these kids. In fact, almost all the kids are accidental injuries. Many of these cases, you know. So back to the whole process about who we are. Another nuanced thing that's important to recognize is we are part of the treating team. We are consultant. There is an attending physician and an attending service that you're admitted to, general peds, for instance, or icu. But we are a big part of the treating team, just like ID or whatever. And that's how they get me to court. Because court says you're a treating physician and therefore, Dr. Glick, you're obligated to come and testify and we don't have to pay you as an expert. Right? Okay. So I am part of the treating team.

Andrea Dunlop (50:08)

But so literally nothing in it for.

Ann Hartman (50:09)

You except to do a good job.

Andrea Dunlop (50:13)

Doing the right thing and protecting your child? Yes, but like, no, no nefarious motivation, like, you know, like, not. Not a good time, probably like going to court and testing for these cases.

Ann Hartman (50:23)

No. And then being, you know, for me, it's a chess game at this point, after years of sitting in court that, you know people. I know this so well that by the time I go to court, I'm not going to court unless I'm certain. Okay? I'm never going to go and speculate. Either I know or I don't know, or more likely than not, this is abuse or whatever. Right. And the, the reality is the. Because our process for MPIC in our hospitals that are use the MPIC process, which is mine, which is interdisciplinary, real time evaluation, collaboration. We educate police and DCFS about, you know, this is this kind of fracture. This is how this happens. These are the things we would like to know that help us as medical people understand the biomechanics. And we've helped DCFS go in and they, they will take like real time video now of what happened. And so many times it's completely explainable. Okay? So that's why we love those cases.

Andrea Dunlop (51:17)

While Detective O'Rourke was continuing with her investigation in possibly preparation for a criminal Trial. This case was making its way through dependency proceedings. So basically, in a child abuse investigation, there are two things happening at once. The police and the prosecutor are investigating whether there is strong evidence that a crime has been committed, and DCF is looking at whether the child will be safe in the home with the parent. This latter piece of the proceedings happens mostly behind closed doors. And these findings are not released into the public record unless the parent does so willingly. So we don't know much about what the doctor said on the stand. We do know that the police investigation into Sophie uncovered a significant pattern of her making false reports from one doctor to the next, reporting that a swallow study came back with severe findings when they were mild. Saying that the doctors at Seattle Children's had, quote, given her the impression that C needed a G tube when they clearly told her otherwise. And reporting a diagnosis of cerebral palsy and significant brain damage, despite the MRI coming back with only a mild finding. Then there was the saga that started in July of 2020 when Sophie brought C to a doctor saying that she was concerned that her six year old might be experiencing early puberty. Here is Sophie explaining this piece to Detective O'Rourke.

Sophie Hartman (52:31)

That's really scary. So we got into endocrinology. The provider was great. She was like, some puberty signs. Let's go ahead and do some blood work. Let's go ahead and see where she's at in this process. And we will schedule for her to have an implant put in that would basically delay. And is that what they recommended?

Andrea Dunlop (52:50)

Like just so well.

Sophie Hartman (52:51)

So they rec. There was two recommendations. They either said we can put in or we can do a monthly shot, like a monthly injection, or we can put in like you. It's kind of a little like a bigger needle, but they just insert like a little. It's like an inch thing in the back of her arm. That would then deliver medication for an entire year. So when I said that to them, I said, listen, needles, when we think about her underlying condition, that any pain or like big, huge emotions that's gonna trigger these other episodes. Even though doing an implant is a little more invasive, it really isn't that big of a deal. I think that would be the better. The provider was like, yeah, like that sounds like the right thing to do.

Andrea Dunlop (53:35)

Okay.

Sophie Hartman (53:35)

So we were going down that line and she was like, we need to confirm with lab work just to make sure her levels are off. So, right, her levels came back. She called me. She's like, they are off. So we will go ahead and move forward. I just Want to do one more thing. I want to do ultrasound testing just to make sure she doesn't have, like, an ovarian cyst. So they did the, like, it's like a bladder and ovary ultrasound. Okay. And that came back fine. So I was like, great. And so then I thought, okay, let's get this thing on the schedule. And then she's like, oh, now we need to do an mri, because I want to make sure she doesn't have a pituitary tumor or mass. And I'm like, okay, this is interesting because the plan keeps changing. Like, you. You've told me that precocious puberty is common with neurological disorders, but. Okay, I'm not going to complain about an mri, but it requires her to be sedated, which that is not an easy thing for a kid with ahc.

Andrea Dunlop (54:34)

When C arrived at the doctor, she was in a wheelchair, despite Sophie having been told by physicians that this was both unnecessary and harmful. In this appointment, Sophie also described C as a, quote, very handicapped child. Upon examination, there were some modest clinical findings, the endocrinologist told police, but these were discordant with further lab tests, testing. While doctors were in the process of trying to get to the bottom of this precocious puberty question, they requested an mri, and Sophie told them something shocking. That C. Had gone into cardiac arrest while undergoing an MRI at Duke. The Seattle doctor was alarmed and told Sophie she needed to see the chart notes of that visit before proceeding with the scan. Sophie then changed her story, saying, actually it had been a different child at Duke who this had happened to to. When asked about this, Dr. McCaughtie from Duke told the police he was surprised that Sophie had said this, as this was not a published case and that this patient fortunately completely recovered. This incident had happened two years earlier at Duke, and they'd added some additional precautions to their protocols around MRIs because of it. Sophie continued to pursue a surgical hormone implant for C, against the doctor's advice, and told numerous people that C was in full blown puberty and that the likely cause was a brain tumor. This is not behavior that can be explained away as anxiety or a parent advocating for their child in a complicated healthcare system. There are legitimate challenges with getting the correct diagnosis for a rare condition like AHC, but this odyssey does not include lying to doctors. Dr. Mikati declined our request for an interview, but we do have extensive notes from his conversations with the police detectives. He told Detective O'Rourke that he'd only seen Cee three times and was not in the position of treating the child who lived on the other side of the country, but that his role was to advise the doctors at Seattle Children's who were treating her and that he would defer to them on making the differential between AHC and Munchausen. Seattle Children's and Duke had been in contact during treatment, and in fact, Mikati knew C's neurosurgeon, Dr. Wainwright, pretty well. Dr. Wainwright had trained at Duke, and Mikati said that he'd once hoped they'd get a chance to work together. Mikati described him as an excellent neurologist. Dr. Mikati confirmed that he'd never himself witnessed an episode and that the only way to definitively say whether an episode is AHC or not is to have providers witness and evaluate it. This is why they sometimes attempt to trigger an episode when a child is in the hospital, which Sophie describes in her police interview as though it's cruel. Also worth noting that Sophie reported episodes as long as 32 days, but she never brought C to the hospital. During one of these alleged episodes, most of the people the police spoke to reported never seeing anything like an episode of ahc, and those who did, such as Sophie's parents, didn't really describe anything consistent with what an HC episode actually looks like. But people did report seeing something, either behavioral issues, such as what Art described, or just C seeming very subdued and very out of it as one of C's hippotherapy. As a reminder, that's with horses, not hippos, providers told the police.

Dr. Zouponts (57:48)

Have you ever seen the paralysis?

Sophie Hartman (57:51)

I've seen it when I sat at the front desk.

Andrea Dunlop (57:53)

What was that like?

Sophie Hartman (57:57)

I mean, she's unable to move. It's horrible is what it's like.

Ann Hartman (58:06)

Is she.

Dr. Zouponts (58:08)

You've seen it more than once?

Sophie Hartman (58:09)

I've only seen it once fully, yeah.

Dr. Zouponts (58:13)

Was she standing? Sitting?

Sophie Hartman (58:15)

She was sitting, yeah.

Dr. Zouponts (58:17)

And how did that.

Andrea Dunlop (58:18)

Are you able to describe it? Like, does the paralysis make her go.

Dr. Zouponts (58:22)

Rigid and she falls?

Sophie Hartman (58:23)

I can't remember that. Well, she definitely was not in a situation where she would fall or anything like that. They were. I think she might have been in her chair. And like I said, this is when I was sitting on the front desk. So this is way before I was teaching her. It's probably like two and a half years ago or something like that. So I wouldn't say I can accurately recall the. But, yeah, she would. She was. I'm pretty sure she was either sitting in one of our chairs or in her chair.

Andrea Dunlop (58:52)

And there was one church friend who witnessed some of c's gastrointestinal issues.

Art Hartman (58:58)

Especially before she had the stomach surgeries. It was like if she would eat and then be playing, like with my son, as soon as she would like bend down where her head was like, you know, lower than her stomach or whatever, she would instantly like, puke everything up.

Andrea Dunlop (59:17)

Sophie also took frequent videos of C when she was quote in episode and shared them with doctors, teachers, as well as posting them on YouTube in order to, by her explanation, raise awareness about AHC. Here's how one of C's speech pathologists describes watching those videos.

Art Hartman (59:33)

They made me uncomfortable, okay? I had a hard time imagining being a parent and making videos of those kinds of things for my kid, right? And then I sort of thought, well, she's trying to prove that there's something happening with the medical profession. Maybe that, maybe that was her motivation for doing it. But it was an uncomfortable thing to watch.

Andrea Dunlop (60:02)

Dr. Mikati confirmed that he couldn't conclude anything from the videos that Sophie had shared with the team. And Dr. Wiester, who heads up Seattle's scan team, reports that the videos recorded random behaviors and crying that were not demonstrative of anything. By all appearances, Seattle Children's and Duke were very much on the same page. But Sophie often told Seattle Children's that a particular recommendation was coming from Duke, such as in an email Sophie drafted to Dr. Wainwright in March of 2020, telling him that Dr. McCaughey said they needed to put C on a higher dose of Baclofen, which was one of the medications being used to treat her purported episodes. As far as the precocious puberty question and the findings that didn't quite match up, the charging documents provide one possible explanation that C was being given birth control pills which contain estrogen and which would account for the clinical findings in the initial appointments that did not match up with the lab workup. Presenting side effects of a medication as symptoms is a common thread in these cases. So it makes sense that doctors and the police dug into this. And then there was this disquieting detail from the police interview with Sophie's next door neighbor in which she describes picking up some prescriptions for cnm.

Sophie Hartman (61:12)

So I was going to the store every once in a while to Fred Meyer, and I offered one day to pick up anything she needed. So she said, oh, I have prescriptions to pick up. And I said, okay, great. You know, so she said they were. I feel like she said they were both for.

Dr. Zouponts (61:27)

One was and one was for.

Sophie Hartman (61:30)

And I. They're right. They're like right in the bag I got right in my hands. And they asked me if I needed a syringe. And I looked at the bottle because I was like, what is it for? And it was for. Sorry, this is really weird.

Andrea Dunlop (61:43)

That's okay.

Sophie Hartman (61:43)

You take a second. It said had the G tube, and she doesn't have a G tube. As far as I know. She doesn't have a gastric d hoob to eat.

Andrea Dunlop (61:55)

Just to clarify this, because the names are bleeped out, this neighbor picked up a G tube medication that was labeled for M who does not have a G tube. The neighbor was so alarmed that she took photos of the prescription bottles.

Sophie Hartman (62:08)

I actually took photos of them, the bottles, because I was that bothered by it. And we'd already had some inklings that something was kind of off. So I've been sitting on it for all this time because I just didn't know what to do with information. But have a G tube. And I don't know if a doctor's office would get that wrong. And there were two different doctors. The other medication was for. For the seizures or whatever she supposedly has seizures. Right. I just had it because I felt like someday it might be useful. And I gave her the prescriptions. I didn't say a word. Thank you, because it wasn't my place. But to me, that was weird. I don't know why a doctor would prescribe the wrong medication. A different doctor to the different child, and that nobody's gonna catch it after all. I don't know how long it was happening, but it just. It just didn't feel right.

Andrea Dunlop (62:57)

When she was separated from Sophie and admitted to the hospital for observation In March of 2021, C was on a number of medications for her supposed symptoms. This list, along with the list of medications found in the home when police searched, it, could give us some insight into the, quote, symptoms other people saw.

Dr. Bex (63:14)

I can start with C, the ones that were actually prescribed to her.

Andrea Dunlop (63:18)

Here again is Dr. Bex.

Dr. Bex (63:21)

So she, it looks like, was on atropine sulfate drops, which are eye drops. And they're usually used in children. Most commonly, if you have one eye that's much stronger than the other. The thing is, this does have side effects of things like dilating the pupils. You know, just putting drops in a child's eyes before the exam could change. And it may change your diagnosis if you come in and see a child with dilated pupils. Pupils. And you don't have an explanation for it. And then it's in the class of benzodiazepines. So things Like Ativan and things that we use in pediatrics both to break seizure episodes is probably the most common reason that I prescribe it. And then also for things like increased tone. So children who have cerebral palsy or brain injuries and therefore are very tense or very increased in tone, this medicine helps them to be a little more relaxed. Now, diazepam in and of itself is extremely sedating. One of the reasons that we only give it in specific situations, like when a seizure happens, or to kids at appropriate doses that are often what we say titrated up, meaning you start at the lowest dose and then you work up. So you're sure that they don't have all of those side effects is it is extremely sedating. And then the extra medicines for C that I saw were fludrocortisone and oxcarbazepine. And then the last one actually does worry me just because of what I know about it. So oxcarbazepine is Trileptal. Again, it's another seizure medication with any medicine. We sometimes use it off label for other things, but this one is definitely a medication used by neurologists in seizures in children. The thing with Trileptal is if you are taking too little, you may have seizure episodes that break through. If you are taking too much, you can have side effects from taking too much. So, and one of the biggest ones, again, being somnolence or sleepiness. And I have actually had a child come in with toxic levels of trileptal in my career. And I mean, it really looks like a child who is completely out of it. Like, you can't. You can wake them up, but they don't seem very coherent. They can't. They aren't aware of their environment.

Andrea Dunlop (65:40)

I also asked Dr. Bex about the prescription for Baclofen.

Dr. Bex (65:44)

Okay, so Baclofen is a medicine also similar to Diazepam in the sense that we use it in children with cerebral palsy or increased tone to also help them with relaxation. Posturing is just very tight. And so what that does is it helps to release all of the connections so that they can move a little more further freely.

Andrea Dunlop (66:05)

The most common symptom people reported seeing, if any at all, was C being really out of it. So the fact that there were multiple highly sedating medications in the house is notable. Bex also mentioned that the side effects of one of these medications is difficulty swallowing, which Sophie constantly reported in C despite a series of swallow tests that showed either mild or no difficulty. Sophie's explanation for this was that Cee could simply perform being able to swallow in a hospital setting. Even the manner in which these medications were used sounded off to Bex, such as what Cee herself told the police about how her mom treated her during an episode. During the police investigation, forensic interviewers spoke to Cee about her episodes, and what she told them is shocking. Here is my producer, Mariah, talking to Dr. Bex.

Sophie Hartman (66:54)

The investigator asked, tell me what your mom says about your episode. Well, my mom, she gives me Baclofen. That is for an episode.

Andrea Dunlop (67:01)

And it's really disgusting. So she gives it to me with food or water.

Dr. Bex (67:05)

Huh. So that is four an episode is what she says.

Sophie Hartman (67:09)

That's what C is recalling. Which again, you know, C is 5, but.

Dr. Bex (67:12)

Right. So baclofen being for tone is kind of what I was saying. So tone is that you either have low tone and you're extremely floppy, or you have high tone and you're extremely excited, stiff, intense. As far as baclofen being like a rescue medicine for something, I mean, that I don't. Diazepam, Yes. I could argue we do, but typically it's given either like rectally or through the nose or something. Something that if a child was truly in a seizure, that you could still give it. So again, it's odd that you would give it during an episode because during episodes, usually you don't wanna put things necessarily in the child's mouth. And that's just. Baclofen is more of an everyday. You take it three times a day or, you know, however many times a day to maintain normal tone. Not that you would give it in kind of a bolus dose like that.

Andrea Dunlop (68:01)

So are there other medications on this list that would be given orally that she could remember tasting?

Sophie Hartman (68:06)

That would be something you would give during an episode.

Dr. Bex (68:08)

So diazepam we do give during episodes, but like I said, you're. Usually you give it in a safe way because during an episode of any kind. Check. Children are at risk of aspirating. So you don't really want to put anything in the mouth. So you want to put it somewhere that it can absorb where they don't have to actually swallow. But typically we don't do like an oral liquid medicine in those cases because you would worry they're not going to protect their airway during an episode and that they could choke or like she said, she gets it with food. To me, that would imply you're also maybe eating during that episode. Just something about that timing that wouldn't. That wouldn't be how we would do it.

Andrea Dunlop (68:45)

I am obviously not qualified to say whether or not Cee has hc. The person who is best positioned to make this call is Dr. Wainwright, the neurologist from Seattle Children's, who Dr. Mikati himself said he would defer to on the question of whether this was an AHC case or a Munchausen case. This is from Dr. Wainwright's sworn affidavit. Quote. C. Hartman is a patient of mine since October 2019. At that time, she had been diagnosed with alternating hemiplegia of childhood. C had genetic testing which had not identified a variant in the gene associated with this disorder, and the diagnosis was therefore made on clinical grounds, including the reports of symptoms made by her mother over the course of her treatment. She had hospital admissions, inpatient and outpatient EEG studies, and brain MRIs. These studies were normal or showed only only mild abnormalities. These findings were not consistent with the severity of the clinical symptoms reported by her mother. In addition, her neurologic examination and symptoms during hospitalizations in 2019, 2020 and 2021 did not reveal these symptoms. I have concluded that C does not have ahc, nor does she have the severe and recurrent neurological symptoms reported to the medical teams. Instead. Instead, she has a mild static encephalopathy, which does not require the medications she was previously treated with, nor does she require the other medical devices, including wheelchair, orthotics and feeding tube. Given my role as the creator of a podcast about Munchausen by proxy, I think sometimes people assume that I go into a given case looking only for evidence of abuse. But what I actually go in looking for is the truth. And and in that search, I look for any other possible explanation that could make any kind of sense. And after months of researching this case, I simply cannot find one. If C really has ahc, it would be in defiance of all known science on the disorder and truly of reality itself. It would appear that the truth was what Seattle Children's observed at the end of C's 16 day hospitalization following her separate separation from Sophie, that she was a completely normal six year old girl. On March 18, 2021, the day after C M were placed in protective custody, Detective O'Rourke got a call from an attorney named Adam Shapiro, who was representing Sophie Hartman. He said he was just digging into this case, but that he'd seen a number of these medical cases. In fact, he'd had one the year before and it had even involved some of these same doctors. It had all turned out to be garbage, he said. In that case, Shapiro, an experienced family independency attorney had gotten the children returned to the mom and no criminal charges had ever been filed. This case had also been covered. On the local news Tonight, a joint Kink 5 and NBC News investigation has found some Washington state children were needlessly torn apart from their parents after a Tacoma doctor said they were abused. It was a Marybridge Children's Hospital doctor.

Ann Hartman (71:47)

In Tacoma who triggered the removal. She reviewed the case and found Megan.

Andrea Dunlop (71:51)

Had abused since birth. This case was my sister's next time.

Dr. Zouponts (71:58)

I told Shapiro this is what I want.

Andrea Dunlop (72:01)

You know, I want Megan to get treatment.

Dr. Zouponts (72:05)

There's no doubt in my mind she's seriously ill and his job is is.

Andrea Dunlop (72:11)

To make sure that she gets treatment. Nobody Should Believe Me is written, hosted and executive produced by me, Andrea Dunlop. Our senior producer is Mariah Gossett, Story editing by Nicole Hill, research and fact checking by Erin Ajayi and our associate producer is Greta Stromquist. Mixing and engineering by Robin Edgar. Administrative support from Nola Carmouche. If you or anyone you know is a victim or survivor of medical child abuse, Please go to munchausensupport.com to connect with professionals who can help. Coming to ABC and Hulu. Amanda Riley was a mother, wife, speaker at her church and then she got diagnosed with cancer.

Sophie Hartman (73:08)

A beloved young Christian woman fighting a battle undeserved. We thought she was God's gift, but she was a liar.

Andrea Dunlop (73:15)

Why would somebody fake cancer?

Dr. Zouponts (73:17)

From the number one smash hit podcast.

Andrea Dunlop (73:19)

It was only a matter of time until Amanda's whole world came tumbling down.

Dr. Zouponts (73:22)

You're not gonna believe this.

Andrea Dunlop (73:24)

Scamanda New episodes Thursday nights on ABC and stream on Hulu. If you've been listening to this show for a while, you know that I have very strong feelings about what is and is not responsible true crime content. Maybe you've heard me make some pointed comments about the producers of a certain film. Or perhaps you've heard one of my dozen or so rants about a certain journalist whose name rhymes with Schmeik Schmixenbach. And if you've been with me for a while, you'll also know that getting Nobody Should Believe Me on the air was quite the rollercoaster. Podcasting is just the Wild west, y'all. And these experiences are what led me to launch my new network, True Story Media, where we are all about uplifting true crime creators doing the work and making thoughtful survivor centric shows. And I could not be more thrilled to announce our very first creator partner. You probably think this story's about you. The first season of this enthralling show from breakout creator Brittney Arduino took podcasting by storm in 2024, zooming to the number one spot in the charts on Apple and Spotify as Britney revealed the captivating story of a romantic deception that upended her life and traced the roots of her own complicated personal history that led her there. Britney is back in 2025 with brand new episodes, this time helping others tell their own stories of betrayal, heartache and resilience. If you love, nobody should believe me. I think you will also love. You probably think this story's about you for its themes of deception, complex family intrigue, and its raw, vulnerable storytelling. You can binge the full first season and listen to brand new episodes each week by following the show on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find it at the link in our Show Notes.