← Nobody Should Believe Me
Nobody Should Believe Me
S05 Ep08: They Saw You
00:43:25
In our season finale, we see Sophie Hartman follow in the footsteps of the Kowalski family, Andrea’s sister Megan Carer and others, as she files a lawsuit against Seattle Children’s and the others who investigated her for Medial Child Abuse.
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- [00:04]
Andrea Dunlop
True Story Media before we begin, a quick warning that in this show we discuss child abuse and this content may be difficult for some listeners. 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 In April of 2009, Sophie Hartman left her small Christian college in Michigan to become a missionary in Zambia. While there, she encountered two sisters in an orphanage, C and M. And in May of 2015, after going numerous rounds in court with the Zambian government, she won the right to take the two sisters into her home. In March of 2021, after her younger daughter had endured countless doctor's visits, testing and two surgeries, a court in Washington state where Sophie had resettled them took them away. And in May of 2021, almost six years to the day after the adoptions were finalized, Sophie was charged with assault of a child in the second degree. But after a costly and bitterly fought year long battle, Sophie got her daughter's back. That following summer, the criminal charges were dropped. This season we followed the long and windy road of this case and how it collided with my own family. And after reading hundreds of pages of documentation, listening to many hours of police interviews, and our tireless researcher scouring the Internet for the truth, there's so much of this case that remains unknown. One of the biggest mysteries is how a judge could look at all of this and still decide to return Sophie's children to her care. I spoke to Olivia Lavoise, the reporter who broke this story to try and unravel the way this case played out. I think the justice system for those people who haven't interacted with it is so much more complex than I think people realize.
- [01:58]
Olivia Lavoise
No, absolutely. And it just goes to like the case being dismissed does not give you the answer as to if she did it or not. You know, it just doesn't. I think we all wish that it could because we want to know. Like it's just human nature. You want to know, right? Is the child sick or not?
- [02:24]
Andrea Dunlop
People believe their eyes. That's something that is so central to this topic because we do believe the people that we love when they're telling us something. If we didn't, you could never make it through your day. I'm Andrea Dunlop and this is Nobody Should Believe Me. The Mother Next Door Medicine, Deception and Munchausen by Proxy is Now available from St. Martin's Press wherever books are sold. This is my first foray into nonfiction and I co authored the book with none other than friend of the show Detective Mike Weber. This true crime saga covers three of Mike's most impactful cases and follows along with his game changing tenure at the Tarrant County DA's office. As a listener of this show, I think you will love the book and if you are an audiobook fan, just know that I am the narrator. You can find the mother next door in all formats right now wherever books are sold and we'll include a link in our show notes and thank you for your support.
- [03:24]
Megan
Birthdays, anniversaries, weddings. Whatever the occasion, it just got a.
- [03:29]
Detective Mike Weber
Little more personal with me.
- [03:31]
Andrea Dunlop
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- [03:33]
Detective Mike Weber
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- [03:36]
Andrea Dunlop
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- [03:37]
Megan
Fleece blanket for your teen, gift your.
- [03:39]
Andrea Dunlop
Husband a desktop plaque featuring all the kids.
- [03:42]
Detective Mike Weber
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- [03:53]
Andrea Dunlop
If you'd like to support the show, the best way to do that is to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or on Patreon. You 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. I always talk about how strong the patterns in these cases are. The premature births, the feeding tubes, the seizures that no one else witnesses. The one in a million rare diagnosis that only the mother, or perhaps one sainted doctor out of the laundry list of specialists truly understands. There's the unnecessary wheelchairs and leg braces. There's the graphic and disturbing social media posts. The ominous march towards death for a child no medical professional has deemed has a terminal illness. There's the heartstrings media coverage, the devoted church and community members that financially support the family. The inevitable make a wish trip. And often it's not. There's a celebrity cameo. Look, I brought things for you. That last clip is of my niece getting a special visit from the beloved former Seahawk Richard Sherman at the same hospital, Marybridge, where Sophie's daughter C was also being treated at this time. The parallels between my sister Megan and Sophie's cases are endless and exhausting. And given that they worked together to get C and M returned to Sophie, it's unsurprising that Sophie's next move followed in Megan's footsteps too. With the dependency case and criminal charges behind her, it was time to rebrand as a falsely accused mom. Here is a segment from Fox 13 News in Seattle.
- [06:17]
Unnamed Reporter
Search Sophie Hartman's name online and you'll get a glimpse at the nightmare this mom faced for years. Called a liar and an attention seeker for trying to get treatment for her daughter's case of alternating hemiplegia of childhood, Hartman was charged that officials with the King County Prosecuting Attorney's office tell me the evidence was not there for a felony case and it got dropped down to District court where it was eventually dismissed. Now, in a lawsuit that I obtained, attorneys look to clear Hartman's name by targeting the people who they say made this mom out to be a villain. The suit names employees of the Department of Children, Youth and Families, the Renton Police Department, Washington's Court Appointed Special Advocates, and Seattle Children's Hospital.
- [07:05]
Andrea Dunlop
Other news outlets had headlines such as this one from Law and Crime, quote the Spirit of Subversion and Hubris, Mom Falsely Accused of Medical Child Abuse Files, Multimillion Dollar Lawsuit against Hospital Child Welfare Authorities and this banger from the US Sun Humiliating. I was falsely accused of forcing my daughter into 500 medical procedures. I almost lost custody. Now I'm suing for $3 million. I always knew that I would cover this case because of my family connection to it, but when this lawsuit was filed in 2024, I bumped it up in the queue. I devoted my entire third season to the Kowalski case, in which a family filed a similar lawsuit against Johns Hopkins, all children's, and won a quarter billion judgment in court. That case is on appeal, but the court of public opinion made up its mind before the trial even started, thanks to a little film called Take Care of Maya that was viewed by almost 14 million people in the two weeks after its release. So I thought I'd better get the facts of Sophie's case out there before she called Netflix. Here I am again with Olivia Laboise, her and her team to say that these people maliciously conspired against her. To which is the charge? I mean, it's not the exact legal charge, but like that is sort of what that is the nature of the lawsuit is basically that these doctors conspired against her, that, you know, this was. They were all wrong and sort of this, you know, she had this legitimate diagnosis and all these doctors sort of ganged up upon her for reasons I.
- [08:44]
Olivia Lavoise
Really hope there's not a settlement in that case. And then I feel like that happens often. You know, we never get to find out really, information, the real information on.
- [08:57]
Andrea Dunlop
Either side, because we just air the whole thing out.
- [09:00]
Olivia Lavoise
Yes, that would be great. If there's a trial, you know, a jury trial, that would be, I would think, very informative.
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Andrea Dunlop
Well, they have put in a demand for a jury trial, so we will see if that goes through. I. I, too, am very nervous about them settling out of court because I think then we will not ever have the kind of information we would. And also, I think, again, when you were talking about, like, what message does that send if someone settles. And again, entities settle out of court for all kinds of reasons. Right. There's, like, there are some, you know, accountants doing the math back behind the scenes, and there's like, actuarial, you know, insurance, whatever, things that play into that. It's not. It's not like, oh, you know, she's right, so we're going to give her the money. It's quite a lot more complicated than that. But it does certainly send the message of like, oh, well, look, this. Not only were the charges dismissed, she then won this settlement. So she really must have. Not only did she not do it, she must really have been maliciously, falsely accused. And then that sort of reinforces the idea that, oh, false accusations are a thing that are. That's happening.
- [10:09]
Olivia Lavoise
Well, I mean, and if King county settles with her, to me, it's like, okay, they've settled everything. Right. I mean, they charged her, they went through with charging her, but then that would be it. They didn't stick to it being a felony, then they dismissed the case. So if there's a settlement, it's like, they really don't want to go up against her.
- [10:33]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah, yeah. And I always been worried also about the precedent that sets for other people who, you know, are accused of child abuse, charged with child abuse, may get it, sort of have this same slip through the cracks. And then sort of. I worry about that becoming an opportunity for opportunistic lawsuits, to be honest. Yeah.
- [10:59]
Olivia Lavoise
Very, very interesting perspective. And I think I already told you, I had the thought, not as a journalist, just as a person, that if I did something and I was criminally charged and then they dismissed the case. I personally think that I would go away quietly and just live my life and think, damn, I got lucky. I do not think that I would say, actually, let's go to court and let's open this all up if I knew that I got away with doing something, you know, so. And I think that's how the average person looks.
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Andrea Dunlop
Right. Like, why would you put yourself back in the position to get more. Be under more scrutiny? Yeah.
- [11:49]
Olivia Lavoise
If you got away with it, why would you do that?
- [11:51]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah. Why indeed? Because Olivia is right. Most people wouldn't push their luck in such a scenario. However, I think it's safe to say that nothing Sophie has done over the past 10 years is what most people would have done. Sophie is really on her own singular mission in life. In the last episode, we talked to my parents about the emotional blackmail that my sister Megan pulled on them after the first investigation, telling them that they could either help her sue Seattle Children's for, quote, falsely accusing her, or they were never going to see their grandchild again. As far as I know, she didn't go through with that lawsuit, likely because she and her husband couldn't pony up the fees themselves given their already shaky financial situation. But after the next investigation, Megan took it to the big leagues, appearing in a national news story about being falsely accused, this time by Marybridge Hospital. There are two other hospitals, by the way, that have at one point or another reported my sister. So that's a conspiracy of four, if you're counting this time. Megan did file a lawsuit against Mary Bridge. She also attempted to sue DCF both for their investigation into her, the second in time, and in a separate suit for not destroying the records from the first investigation. I have come to think of these lawsuits as part of the pattern of Munchausen by proxy. It's another chance to get all of the things that drive these behaviors in the first place. Attention, sympathy, publicity, and potentially ill gotten money to keep up all these pursuits. Now you're not just a victim of the cruel fate that delivered you a sick child. You're the victim of a false accusation. Now you're not just the martyr trying to save your own child. You're an advocate for others too. You are bravely fighting back against the evil system that tried to take your child away. And all of the time Megan has spent in court appears to have opened up a whole new career path for her. She has, I hear, been showing up quite a lot in dependency court. Not fighting her own battle this time, but as a paid consultant doing medical forensics for the Office of Public Defense defending other parents facing medical child abuse charges. The fact that her work is being funded by my very own tax dollars and yours, if you're one of my Washington listeners, is just quite the cherry on the sundae. Especially because according to someone I spoke to on background about Megan's second case, the reason the prosecutor gave for not pressing charges was that it would be too expensive. And when I ran this by a retired prosecutor familiar with the office in question, he said this tract There is this notion that the state has endless resources to battle something in court, but it's just not the case. Especially in child abuse. If there is a high enough profile case where the political will is there, sure they'll find the resources. But my sister isn't Luigi Mangione no one was going to lose their job if this went away. The sad reality is that no one is held accountable in most violent interpersonal crimes. The clearance rate in Washington State for murders is 47% and 55% for aggravated assaults and clearance rates don't account for what gets prosecuted. It only tracks cases where there were charges filed. How this all intersects with something like child abuse where the thing being fought over is whether a crime even happened at all, well, you can see how the numbers just get lower and lower. And there is, as I have learned, quite the little cottage industry around not only getting the children returned to parents and helping them evade criminal charges, but also in helping them turn around and sue the providers as Sophie did after her criminal case was dismissed in her multi million dollar lawsuit. This lawsuit is 152 pages long, but the gist of the argument it tries to make is that everyone was in a conspiracy against Sophie. Here is a quote from the opening pages. The child's condition was real was validated by medical experts and the supposed child abuse medicine claims were a vehicle for attention for misguided licensed professionals who themselves wanted attention and were willing to contrive a fake condition to get it. So in other words, C's HC is real and Sophie's Munchausen by proxy is the fake condition. But also, Sophie isn't doing Munchausen by proxy. The doctors are doing Munchausen by proxy and they accuse the doctors of conspiring against Sophie again for attention. They laid the groundwork for an accusation of medical child abuse for two years, a false claim that was slow rolled while they gradually set the family up to be separated with false criminal charges, horrifying publicity and removal of the children based on a contrived rush two years later to court for a phony emergency. This entire thing reads like someone gave an AI Chatbot instructions to write a lawsuit in the voice of your drunkest conspiracy theorist uncle. Just word salad from top to bottom. And a lot of this is very parents rights coded, such as the lawsuit, using scare quotes every time they mention child abuse medicine as though it's not a real thing, and their description of a dependency action as, quote, a legal term for an attempt to take away children and destroy a family. I spoke to Detective Michael Lee about how Sophie and her attorney have framed this whole situation. This language around the conditions of the. Of dropping the misdemeanor charges, and then sort of how those were, how those translated into the media coverage of, you know, both the media coverage of the case being dropped and then the. And then the lawsuit itself. And, you know, the language that Sophie herself uses to describe what happened in this situation, which was that there was no evidence of abuse found. She says that. She says we were exonerated. Even the headlines around this say, you know, renton mom cleared of charges. And I was like, that doesn't really describe what happened here.
- [17:37]
Dr. Lauren Turek
That is. But. But routinely legal professionals will do this. So her attorneys are definitely going to. And they did. In their. In their documentation, they use very informative, inflammatory language. You know, they. You know, they make it seem like it's a conspiracy that on an absolute lack of evidence, it's like, okay, listen, none of those things are the case, incidentally. Did you know that attorneys, whenever they put those. Those, you know, briefs together or they put something together, they file for the court. There's no burden on them to tell the truth. Okay, if. If it's an affidavit and somebody signs their name to it, there is a burden then, but it's on whoever is declaring that or swearing to it. Right, but there's no. There's no legal requirement, and it happens all the time. These attorneys know that. So they can grotesquely falsify information when they put it in these documents like that. And they do that to be very inflammatory to make. Oh, oh, we're going to get real excited now, now that we see that. And as complicated as this is, if you were to hand any one of these cases, I think, to a very, very good and capable family law attorney or defense attorney today, because of how limited the professionals are, the judges and everybody in their understanding, they're going to be very effective at arguing it. So I'm not surprised to see that. And obviously it. I think we all probably just need to keep it in our Rolodex. I believe that this child, in this case, that her, her condition is going to worsen. It would not surprise me if she dies from some supposed medical condition along the way because the courts failed this child. And it is that simple.
- [19:24]
Andrea Dunlop
The courts by and large do not take Munchausen by proxy cases seriously, but it's one of the deadliest forms of abuse. The most common cited Death rate is 9%, but one more recent study showed it being closer to 17%. And the evidence in Sophie's case had all the hallmarks of going in a dangerous direction. The feeding tube, the push for TPN and an unnecessary central line, the constant talk of the child's death. So why would family court send her kids back? How could they just ignore all of this? I was hoping that Sophie's lawsuit filings would provide some insight. If some piece of exculpatory evidence had come out in the dependency trial, it would certainly be the center of this lawsuit. But the 152 page court filing includes only one direct quote from the judge's order. That Seattle scan team's process had been deeply flawed, which could mean almost anything. And I have to say, given how little the family courts understand about these cases, I'm not inclined to read much into this. Instead of any concrete evidence, the lawsuit does mental gymnastics to explain why all these providers would conspire against Sophie. At one point, comparing Dr. Wiester and the Seattle Children's child abuse team to Joseph so Stalin and his secret police. The conspiracy angle seems to be tied to the length of time that Seattle Children's was tracking this case. But as Dr. Jim Hamilton explains, there often needs to be a long period of observation to detect this particular form of abuse.
- [20:54]
Dr. Jim Hamilton
What's important in distinguishing medical child abuse from other cases is not whether there's medical evidence of an illness or not. It's evidence that there's misinformation, disinformation, misrepresenting to one doctor what another doctor has said. In some cases, evidence that a substance has been given. The mere inability to find an explanation for symptoms isn't in and of itself evidence of medical child abuse. There has to be evidence that the accused caregiver is actively doing things to create a false impression. And again, moving toward the idea that this is more like a prolonged exploitive type of abuse rather than an event related type of abuse like physical abuse or sometimes sexual abuse. You can't make that case if you're looking for big boffo clear evidence like suffocation or poisoning. That the mother is causing the child symptoms. It's evidence that's revealed through an excruciatingly careful examination of the medical records, comparing the timelines of this doctor and that doctor. And did this doctor really say that? This whole thing, this whole drama, plays out like a game of telephone for those of us who are old enough to remember things like telephones, where somebody says something and when that information is passed along to the next person, it's changed, it's manipulated, and then that person takes that and passes it on to the next. In the end, you have a bunch of doctors who all think the other other doctors were on board with the parents explanation of what was going on and everything made sense and they agreed and there was a diagnosis, etc. And it's really not true. When the doctors get together and conference about these cases, as they often do when suspicions arise, they are sort of shocked to realize how much they misunderstood what the other doctors were thinking and doing based on the distorted reports they were getting from the mother.
- [23:23]
Andrea Dunlop
Much of this lawsuit hinges on the idea that C does have AHC and that it was diagnosed by Dr. Mikati from Duke, a notion we have already devoted plenty of time to unpacking. I do not believe, after reviewing this case file, that this child has AHC and also C. Having a legitimate diagnosis of AHC would in no way preclude the possibility of abuse. This is a very common misconception about Munchausen by proxy that we discussed with Jim.
- [23:52]
Dr. Jim Hamilton
It's terrible when there's so much focus on sick or not sick. I like to say when I do one of these cases and testify, you could take 100 people and line them up along a third baseline of a baseball field and hit each one in the knee with a bat using a mechanical device that makes it the exact same injury. And 10 of those people will never walk again, and 10 of them will rub some dirt on it and continue to play the game. And then, you know, the people in the middle might go to the emergency room or they might go to their doctor later. But given an actual provable objective injury, bat to the knee, you're going to get a wide variety of illness behaviors, a wide variety of actions taken, health care seeking, etc. And, and so even somebody who has AHC, a family where there is AHC, there are going to be people who are afraid and they ignore and deny it. There are going to be people who, you know, acknowledge it, but try to kind of give their child the best life they could possibly have, even if they have this disease. And then there's going to be the rare case like the Hartman case, where it's used as a lever, it's used as a purchase to get attention, to manipulate others. There, you know, in some of these cases, some satisfaction of being able to control and manipulate others and exercise entitlement, et cetera. So the presence or absence of the illness is almost irrelevant to the discussion and evaluation of whether someone has medical Child abuse.
- [25:38]
Andrea Dunlop
In a Small Mercy this fall, as we were working on this season, we learned that Sophie's lawsuit against Seattle Children's had been dismissed with prejudice, meaning she cannot make any additional appeals. The court decision is straightforward, upholding protections for mandatory reporters of child abuse, stating that, quote, the court has no reason to doubt the accuracy or authenticity of the report as submitted by the Seattle Children's Hospital defendants. The dismissal of Sophie's criminal case made the news. The dismissal of her lawsuit, however, did not. So in the end, Sophie probably won't get her big payout. I genuinely could not be more excited to tell you about our next sponsor because I am obsessed with this brand. I had already done some holiday shopping for other people on Quints because I had heard so much about their iconic Mongolian cashmere sweaters. I got one for my husband and I got a Quince gift card for my daughter's teacher. So I was thrilled when they came on as a sponsor and I got to shop for myself. I picked up one of their cashmere hoodies and one of their beautiful cashmere pullovers. They are my new favorite things. And I also got one of their washable silk tees, which I can tell is just going to be a go to for me. I am at a stage in my life where I want my clothing to be simple and classic and I want it to be nice. So basically I don't want to shop anywhere else. Now. Quint is all about everyday luxury at an affordable price. They are famous for their Mongolian cashmere sweaters which start under $50. They've got Italian leather handbags, European linen sheet sets and 14 karat gold jewelry. And all quince items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They are able to do that by partnering directly with top factories and cutting out the cost of the middleman, passing the savings on to you. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices so you can feel good about shopping there. I genuinely cannot recommend this brand more. I am going to be out and about on tour this year and friends you're going to see me in my quints. So treat yourself this winter without the luxury price tag. Go to Quince.com believe for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's Q-I-N C E.com believe to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com believe and remember that shopping our sponsors is a great way to support the show. Imagine what's possible when learning doesn't get in the way of life at Capella University. Our game changing flexpath learning form lets you set your own deadline so you can learn at a time and pace that works for you. It's an education you can tailor to your schedule. That means you don't have to put your life on hold to pursue your professional goals. Instead, enjoy learning your way and earn your degree without missing a beat. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more@capella.edu this case is deeply intertwined with Sophie's faith. In her memoir and in her journals, she positions herself as being on a mission from God and the church communities in her life played a big role in supporting and financing her efforts throughout SE's medical odyssey. Sophie's now moved on from her former North End mega church and these days she's with a new flock and God, we don't want anything other than you. It is of your glory and it is of your magnificence and your majesty that we come into this place and say, God, have your way. God, do what only you can do. God your glory. We caught Back up with Dr. Lauren Turek, our evangelical history expert, to ask her about this new church.
- [29:33]
Detective Mike Weber
She's at this Live Life Church which is also a non denominational church, also evangelical, really focused on a born again experience, focused on evangelism, but it's a black evangelical church.
- [29:46]
Andrea Dunlop
This church is much smaller and with a much mellower vibe than Pursuit Northwest. And in keeping with Sophie's narrative of leaving pursuit because of racism, this church is led by a black couple and the congregation is far more diverse than Pursuit.
- [29:59]
Detective Mike Weber
They're really focused on this vision of diversity.
- [30:01]
Andrea Dunlop
Right?
- [30:01]
Detective Mike Weber
You see the pictures of a diverse group of leadership in the church and diverse worshipers. The Live Life Church had much less information about their statement of belief. They had very kind of broad messaging. Again, I think meant to be really inclusive to invite people in. Their vision for their faith was not as spelled out in terms of here are the creeds we believe in or here's our here are the sort of specific scriptures that are animating our worship. They have a lot on their sort of site about the work that they're doing in the community, that sort of thing. So they seem to be more in line with what we might think of as a social action focused church. Not necessarily. It wouldn't necessarily mean that she didn't feel welcome there politically, although I just, I find it very interesting that she moved from what's very clearly a very, very conservative church to one that looks quite different.
- [30:55]
Andrea Dunlop
The church is small and community focused. No pyrotechnics like Pursuit. However, they do livestream all of their services. And Sophie and her girls can be seen on the church's social media accounts. And so she even delivered a sermon at one point.
- [31:09]
Megan
So, Jesus, thank you so much for who you are. Thank you, God, for this house and this family and the generosity that so marks each one of our hearts. I thank you that you are growing all of us in generosity. But I pray that at the forefront of our minds would be just this understanding of the gift that it is to be able to be generous. Thank you, God, that we are a privileged people.
- [31:37]
Andrea Dunlop
And then.
- [31:38]
Detective Mike Weber
But it was interesting because I watched her doing her service at that church and she was still using a lot of the same language from earlier. So I don't know how much she has changed in that different environment because she's still talking about, like, partnering with God. She's asking for donations. She's talking about what she's doing for the kids and about how God has kind of infused her, her journey and all of that, which, again, not that it wouldn't like, it certainly resonates, but it's not clear to me that she has broken from that model.
- [32:05]
Andrea Dunlop
No, I mean, she sounds like the same Sophie and it's, you know, just different, different backdrop. And Sophie is still in touch with her home church, Haven, which she paid a visit to this past summer.
- [32:16]
Dr. Lauren Turek
We also have an opportunity this morning. I don't know if you remember, but a couple years ago, Sophie Hartman had gone through a very traumatic experience being falsely accused and having her children taken away. And we as Haven Church, got the opportunity to support her and hold her up with our prayers and doing whatever we could to help her to get through that situation. And praise God, she did get through the situation. And she's going to come up here right now. This is her first time back at Haven Church for many years and she just wanted to thank you. So here's Sophie.
- [33:03]
Andrea Dunlop
Sophie approaches the podium with a stack of letters.
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Megan
But I wanted to say thank you for those of you who have been here and saw me grow, you knew that I was a spitfire from the start and that God was going to do something kind of wild in my life. And so in the process of getting to know him as someone falsely accused, right in that process for me and in joining him in that intimacy to see the house of my youth and the community that my parents are still fully immersed in, stand firm and contend firmly believing the call on my life, the character and the godliness of my family. I cannot thank you enough. And so I just, I'm not going to read these, but I just wanted to read the names from where these came from because it's a reminder that yes, we may just be this church in Kalamazoo, but this is a house that is waging war on the kingdom of evil. And so Clements Vander Plaas Fra the.
- [34:23]
Andrea Dunlop
Names go on for a while.
- [34:27]
Megan
And countless more that maybe were addressed to my folks or notes on Amazon wish lists for Christmas for my children. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, from the bottom of my family's heart for standing firm in the Gospel and firm in faith that he who began a good work in me in this house would bring it to completion. We ask for your continued prayers as we we pursue systemic change.
- [35:04]
Andrea Dunlop
Let me tell you about the systemic change that I believe Sophie and the so called parents rights advocates who perpetuate this idea of medical kidnapping want. These groups are at the heart of the parents rights movement in the U.S. evangelicals believe that parents have a God given right to raise their children, that the Bible gives them authority to do that as they see fit, and that only God has authority over them as parents. I believe the change these people are advocating for is a world in which the state has no business interfering in family life. No say in what their kids learn in school, no say in whether they need to be vaccinated against childhood illnesses, and no ability to intervene when there is abuse in the home. Which is why there is such a vilification of doctors and child abuse medicine in particular. In all of these rage baiting media pieces about false accusations of child abuse, it is my strong belief that the world these people want is one in which they can bring their children to the doctor and the doctor does what they want regardless of the harm to the child. A world in which children are not people but property. I've also thought a lot about what Sophie's evangelical framing gives her and those who would seek to remain in denial about her, a tidy exercise explanation for behavior that is utterly inexplicable Sophie is moving according to God's plan, and God's plan is not for us to understand. And as to why doctors and police officers and the state would devote their time and resources to persecuting her, well, that's just Satan at work. And again, it isn't for us to understand. The church can be a wonderful place of community and support, but it can also foster a pushback on any outside influence on one's children. We've heard from so many survivors who've either reached out because of the show or because they found Munchausen Support, the nonprofit that I founded several years ago. And they've told us how their mothers kept control of the narrative by making anyone who questioned her into the enemy. And she made them extremely fearful of the outside world.
- [37:12]
Megan
So I. If you want to meet them. Oh, yeah.
- [37:14]
Andrea Dunlop
Would that be okay?
- [37:15]
Megan
I mean, they might be scared, but.
- [37:17]
Andrea Dunlop
They don't need to be scared. This was from the end of the police interview with Sophie after the detectives had spoken with her for over 90 minutes. She asks if they want to meet the girls. The notion that they should be afraid of outsiders doesn't seem to just be about the police, as their neighbors observed. We know that Sophie kind of. We hear her telling the kids, you know, about men and, like, kind of telling them to stay away from it. I don't know if word any other way. They won't play in her little park because once they saw a guy walk through the park with a backpack, and we were like, seriously? He wasn't sleeping there. You're teaching your kids to be scared of something. They should be observant and maybe watchful.
- [37:56]
Unnamed Reporter
But they don't have to be scared.
- [37:57]
Andrea Dunlop
Of everything that happens.
- [37:59]
Detective Mike Weber
Sure.
- [38:01]
Andrea Dunlop
So in the end, Sophie did not get her big payout, but she did get her girls back. M is now 15 and has quit gymnastics, and C is 10. And as for her, ah, C, well, she's still being treated for that. Sophie posted pictures on her social media just this past summer of the two of them visiting Duke Medical center in North Carolina. In one picture, Dr. McCaughty stands smiling in his exam room, his arm around C's narrow shoulders. It is perhaps this more welcoming medical environment that has contributed to Sophie's planned move to North Carolina this summer. A fresh start away from all those doctors who devoted so much time to persecuting her. She's also told friends that she's currently attending Duke remotely and getting her master's in divinity. I will be blunt when I tell you that I fear for these girls, especially as Sophie appears to be moving across the country, even the courts, at least initially, recognized how important it was for Cee to stay with the same doctors for continuity of care. But now that those conditions have expired, Sophie is once more uprooting the girls she originally took so far from their homeland, going to a place where perhaps there won't be so many eyes on them. And this is a big reason I chose to cover this case, so that those who are in their lives could know the truth and would hopefully look out for them. My work on Nobody Should Believe Me has always been about the children, because I believe that children are not the property of their parents, but members of a community, and that as a community, we should put protecting them above anything else. When I started this show, I kept my story about my sister Veg. But eventually I realized that saying her name and dragging all the facts I could find into the light was the only mechanism I had left to try and protect her children after the system had failed them so horribly. And when they come to that revelation, if they ever do that, their own father and paternal grandparents chose over and over again to look the other way. I wanted them to know that there were people who didn't and that I was one of them. Survivors of this abuse can't heal without knowing the truth, and this show has been my attempt to lay it all out for them. I wanted them to know that I didn't give up, that I was still thinking of them. I wanted to light the path if they ever wanted to find a way back. I wanted them to know where to find me. So finally, to C and M, should you ever find yourselves hearing this. I did this because I felt you deserved to know the facts about what happened. I wanted you to know that the doctors at Seattle Children's and the Renton Police Department went to the mat to protect you because they believe, as I do, that you matter and that you deserve to be safe in your home. I'm sorry that your family members appear to have chosen denial, but not everyone did. People saw what was happening to you, and they were brave, and they spoke up, and they saw you M. They saw that you were smart and disciplined and talented, and they saw how much you love your sister. And C, they saw that you were kind and funny and capable and full of life. Because I have been here before, I harbor no illusions. I know that I will be an enemy in your family, as I have been an enemy these many years in my sister's family. I know that you may hate me for doing this, and I understand. But if you should find yourself on a journey of discovery and you need my help, I will be there. So now you know where to find me. 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. This season would not have been possible without the help of many people who I cannot name here. But you know who you are, and we are so grateful to you. 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 SA.