Off Record: The Promise of a Cure

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Knife: A True Crime Podcast — Off Record: The Promise of a Cure

Episode Date: February 19, 2026
Hosts: Hannah Smith & Pasha Eaton

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Overview

This episode dives into the story of Antonella Carpenter, a self-styled “doctor” who claimed she could cure cancer with a homemade laser, operating out of multiple clinics across several states. Through the personal stories of patients, legal battles, and the failures of oversight, the hosts examine the dangerous lure of alternative medicine, the power of desperation, and the blurred lines between hope and fraud.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction to the Case (02:36–05:20)

• Pasha Eaton introduces the story of Cindy Babecka, who traveled from Georgia to Arkansas in 2008 to receive cancer treatment from Antonella Carpenter.
• Carpenter guaranteed a cancer cure without chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery using her "LEISH therapy" (Light Induced Enhanced Selective Hyperthermia).
  • The “therapy” involved injecting homemade green dye into tumors and targeting them with a homemade laser. It was both painful and expensive (~$10,000).

Quote:
“She is guaranteeing it. The pitch... is that she is going to kill the tumor and thus cure the cancer.”
— Pasha Eaton (04:10)

Timestamp: 04:07–04:10

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2. Patient Vulnerability and Distrust of Medical Institutions (06:08–11:17)

• Many of Carpenter's patients sought alternative treatments to avoid the feared side effects of conventional cancer therapy.
• The hosts reflect on general distrust in the medical system, compounded by the high costs and impersonal care.

Quote:
“You can see how... someone could take these things that are very real complaints and use them to say, well, it's all bad. Don't trust any doctors. Just trust me.”
— Hannah Smith (09:28)

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3. False Hope and Tragic Outcomes (07:52–12:08, 22:11–23:19)

• Cindy was convinced by Carpenter to avoid other doctors. Her tumor worsened; she eventually sought medical help too late and died in 2010.
• Another patient, Therese Westfall, similarly believed she was cured after visiting Carpenter, only to discover her cancer had progressed to stage 4.

Notable Moment:
Hosts discuss how patients told that their bodies were "expelling" dead tumors were actually experiencing tumor growth—a sign of the progression, not healing (08:26–08:35).

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4. Carpenter's Credentials and Background (12:09–13:39)

• Carpenter claimed degrees in physics and called herself a doctor, but had no medical license and admitted she wasn’t a medical doctor.
• Despite patient deaths, she continued operating and attracting desperate clients.

Quote:
“Not a doctor. Not a carpenter either.”
— Hannah Smith (11:41–11:42)

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5. Expansion, Lawsuits, and Law Enforcement Struggles (15:14–28:03)

• Carpenter advertised in health food stores, promising "Star Wars level technology."
• White-collar and medical fraud is often treated as a civil, not criminal matter.
• Therese Westfall’s lawsuit resulted in a $2.5 million judgment, which she never received; Carpenter simply moved her operations to another state.
• The FDA eventually investigated using undercover agents, raiding the Oklahoma clinic in 2012 and shutting her down.

Quote:
“All she has to do is cross state lines and she evades responsibility.”
— Pasha Eaton (27:16)

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6. Conspiracies and Carpenter’s Motivations (29:45–35:14)

• Carpenter maintained a blog and gave interviews on conspiracy platforms, positioning herself as a victim of “Big Pharma.”
• Hosts reflect on the persuasive power of anti-establishment rhetoric and anger.

Quote:
“She’s selling anger, right? Which as we... see now, is like, a very sellable, very powerful message.”
— Pasha Eaton (33:14–33:21)

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7. Trial and Aftermath (41:08–48:48)

• Despite clear evidence of patient harm, Carpenter avoided prison due to strong support from some of her "patients," who testified she had helped them (often despite their disease persisting or getting worse).
• Courts found her guilty of wire and mail fraud; she received probation and a financial penalty, neither of which stopped her operations or compensated victims.

Quote:
“Five of the seven patients who felt defrauded by Carpenter had died before the trial... the people who supported her, they were alive, and so they were able to testify.”
— Pasha Eaton (43:23–43:41)

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8. Wider Implications & Reflections on Medical Freedom (49:13–54:22)

• The episode closes on reflection: Desire for medical autonomy must be grounded in facts. Fraud comes not just from personal gain but, as in Carpenter’s case, ego and identity.
• Hosts discuss the legal and ethical challenges posed by nontraditional practitioners and how patient endorsement complicates prosecution.

Quote:
“You want medical autonomy, you want decisions about your body to include you... but we should all be making decisions based on facts.”
— Pasha Eaton (49:06–49:23)

“If someone starts telling you, don’t go see a doctor, run for the hills.”
— Hannah Smith (50:04)

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9. Related Recommendation: Medical Liability in Home Births (50:26–54:29)

• Pasha recommends the A&E show Accused: Guilty or Innocent?—an episode involving an unlicensed midwife and a tragic home birth in Nebraska.
• The case illustrates complex intersections of patient choice, legal responsibility, and blurred medical authority—paralleling themes from Carpenter’s story.

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Memorable Quotes by Timestamps

• “So Dr. Antonella Carpenter, as she calls herself, she promises to cure cancer without chemotherapy, without radiation, and without surgery.” — Pasha Eaton (03:55)
• “So she has a syringe full of green liquid, and she's just injecting it into people's bodies?” — Hannah Smith (05:21)
• “Which is probably so powerful.” — Hannah Smith on Carpenter’s personal touch attracting patients (10:33)
• “All she has to do is cross state lines and she evades responsibility.” — Pasha Eaton (27:16)
• “She’s selling anger… It’s a very sellable, very powerful message.” — Pasha Eaton (33:14)
• “Five of the seven patients who felt defrauded by Carpenter have died before the trial.” — Pasha Eaton (43:23)
• “If someone starts telling you, don’t go see a doctor, run for the hills.” — Hannah Smith (50:04)

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Key Timestamps for Major Segments

• 02:36 – Introduction of the Carpenter case
• 05:26 – Mechanics and cost of “LEISH therapy”
• 11:46 – Cindy Babecka’s decline and death
• 14:38 – Lay’s Med Inc. and the confusing branding
• 15:14 – Therese Westfall’s “Star Wars” marketing encounter
• 18:00 – The lure of a “miracle cure” for thousands out-of-pocket
• 23:19 – The lawsuit, Dr. Ward, and civil vs. criminal enforcement
• 28:11 – The FDA’s undercover investigation
• 32:29 – Carpenter's YouTube interview and lack of charisma
• 35:14 – The challenge of prosecution, patient support for Carpenter
• 43:23 – Court case: survivor testimony vs. voices of the deceased
• 46:15 – Final judgment and Carpenter's death
• 49:06 – Reflections on autonomy, fraud, and facts
• 50:26 – Parallels with the home birth midwife case

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Episode Tone & Takeaways

The hosts maintain an empathetic, nuanced tone—acknowledging the desperation of cancer patients, the flaws in the U.S. medical system, and how those factors create opportunities for charismatic fraudsters. They highlight the criminal risks of alternative practitioners, the difficulty in criminal prosecution, and the importance of skepticism when hope is being sold as certainty.

The episode is a cautionary tale: Fraud in healthcare thrives where fear, desperation, and distrust take root, and legal consequences do not always halt dangerous actors.

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For More:

• Follow @theknifepodcast on Instagram and Bluesky
• Send stories: [e-mail]

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Transcript

[Pasha Eaton]

This is exactly right.

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[Hannah Smith]

Contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

[Pasha Eaton]

The claims and opinions in this podcast are those of the speaker and do not necessarily represent the knife or exactly right media.

[Hannah Smith]

Welcome to the Knife Off Record. I'm Hannah Smith.

[Pasha Eaton]

I'm Patia Eaton and today, Hannah, I have a story for you.

[Hannah Smith]

I can't wait to hear it.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah, it's Actually, a story that we had talked about briefly a couple of months ago, but I couldn't find. You know, I made a bunch of phone calls and didn't find the right person to speak with about it, but wanted to tell you what I found out.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay, great.

[Pasha Eaton]

So It's July of 2008, and we're in North Little Rock, Arkansas. It's characteristically hot and muggy outside. And accompanied by her husband, a woman named Cindy Babecka walks into lay's Med, Inc.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

Cindy is there for cancer treatment. Cindy has breast cancer. And she's traveled all the way from her home in Powder Springs, Georgia, to North Little Rock for an appointment with Dr. Antonella Carpenter.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

And Dr. Antonella Carpenter has promised to cure Cindy's cancer.

[Hannah Smith]

So, yeah, when I hear someone's traveling across state lines, like, my mind first goes to see a specialist or someone who is particularly good at treating your type of cancer. Is that the situation?

[Pasha Eaton]

It is the situation that Dr. Antonella Carpenter has promised to cure her cancer. But, no, she is not a specialist and she is not a medical doctor.

[Hannah Smith]

She's going by doctor.

[Pasha Eaton]

She's going by doctor. So Dr. Antonella Carpenter, as she calls herself, she promises to cure cancer without chemotherapy, without radiation, and without surgery.

[Hannah Smith]

And when you say promises, is she actually, like, promising?

[Pasha Eaton]

She is guaranteeing it. And her sort of pitch with this treatment that I'll get into is that she is going to kill the tumor and thus kill. Cure the cancer. And, of course, because she's not a medical doctor, she can't perform chemotherapy, she can't perform radiation, and she certainly can't perform surgery. So Cindy arrives for cancer treatment, and over the course of a year, Cindy goes to several appointments with Carpenter for Carpenter's leash therapy. This stands for light induced enhanced selective hyperthermia. Carpenter claims that she can inject a dye into the site of the tumor. So if it's in your breast, if it's breast cancer, she will inject you with this dye that's a combination of food coloring and something else. It's homemade.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

And she injects it into this area where the tumor is growing. And then she shoots the tumor by looking at the dye to see where the tumor is with a homemade laser.

[Hannah Smith]

What color is this dye?

[Pasha Eaton]

I think it's green.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah.

[Hannah Smith]

So she has a syringe full of green liquid, and she's just injecting it into people's bodies.

[Pasha Eaton]

Right. And it's not painless. It's very painful. And so the idea is that this laser is so hot that it's going to get in there and it's going to target the tumor because she can see exactly where to point it, and the tumor will then be killed off. And the whole sort of underlying reason for her getting cancer patients to come to her for this unconventional treatment is that it is almost no side effects compared to chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery like this is so easy compared to that. And the cancer medical industry doesn't want you to know that this exists.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

Because there's so much more money to be made by these extensive chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Right.

[Hannah Smith]

So what are the side effects? Does it burn your skin?

[Pasha Eaton]

It's swelling, and it can feel a burning sensation. And she recommends ibuprofen.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

So it's a painful process, but less so than chemotherapy or radiation.

[Hannah Smith]

How much does she charge for a treatment?

[Pasha Eaton]

Thousands of dollars. So Cindy paid about $10,000 in total.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

And this was back in 2008. So Cindy's really hopeful, and she has a lot of confidence in Carpenter, so much so that she is persuaded by Carpenter to avoid medical doctors and conventional treatments.

[Hannah Smith]

I don't know if you know anything about Cindy, but I'm just curious, you know, why Cindy chose to go with this doctor as opposed to getting the traditional chemotherapy treatment.

[Pasha Eaton]

Great question. So there's not too much about Cindy specifically. And by the way, a lot of my research was pulled from court documents that we'll get into later. But most of Dr. Air quotes Carpenter's patients were people who had seen others go through chemotherapy, go through radiation, and thought, I don't want to do that to my body. There has to be another way. And so they're seeking out an alternative treatment that will not, you know, wreck them the way that chemotherapy is just really hard on a person's body.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah. Which is absolutely true. But it's obviously also a tested, studied method of killing cancer.

[Hannah Smith]

Yes. With a lot of statistics about survival rates, et cetera.

[Pasha Eaton]

Right. Yeah. And so Cindy goes to this clinic in Arkansas several times over the course of a year. And sure enough, Antonella Carpenter tells Cindy her body is responding to the treatment. The tumor, though, is breaking through Cindy's skin. That is extremely painful, as you might imagine. But on the upside, Carpenter's explanation for this is that the body is expelling the tumor because now the tumor has died. And so Cindy's body is just pushing it right out. And this is just the process.

[Hannah Smith]

Oof. And you have to imagine. Well, I don't know, but I would guess what's really going on is that this tumor is growing. It's growing, yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

But Cindy, at this point, is still believing Carpenter. So this is, you know, about a year from her first treatment.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

And I'm not sure of the exact timeline of what happens next for Cindy, but she does return to Georgia and eventually go see a radiologist. And that radiologist, Dr. Christine Murphy, encourages Cindy to have her tumor biopsied.

[Hannah Smith]

Dr. Christine Murphy is the radiologist.

[Pasha Eaton]

She's a radiologist. She's just an actual doctor, a real doctor.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

And Cindy is very hesitant. You know, her trust in this doctor is almost none. And based on what was available in articles and court documents, seems like Antonella Carpenter really hammered hard this idea of, do not go see medical doctors. They just want your money. They don't care. You're just going to suffer. They're not going to cure your cancer. I'm going to cure your cancer.

[Hannah Smith]

There's so much truth that our medical system is unbelievably broken and expensive. And there's a lot of distrust in it that people have for sometimes for good reason, maybe not because of the medical care, but because of the insurance companies and how expensive it is. And you get these bills that show up that are unexplainable. And so you can see how some. Someone could take these things that are very real complaints and use them to say, well, it's all bad. Don't trust any doctors. Just trust me.

[Pasha Eaton]

Right. Because that is the experience so many people have when they go to the doctor, is that they feel rushed, they don't feel listened to. They don't feel like this unique case. They feel like they're given this blanket treatment. These are all things that we hear from all manner of people. And Dr. Carpenter, from multiple patients, we hear that she took the time, she sat in front of them, she listened to their concerns, she spoke at length with them about their cancer diagnosis, and she reassured them that it would be.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay, which is probably so powerful.

[Pasha Eaton]

Right. And Cindy was a mother. You know, she had children that she wanted to live for.

[Hannah Smith]

I just think, wouldn't you be afraid of death?

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah. I have watched someone that I was close to go through chemotherapy and radiation. And I will say, and I was younger, they were close in age to me. So, you know, it was very sad. You watch a young person go from healthy to not and then pass away. But, you know, the treatment is gnarly. Yes, it can be gnarly.

[Hannah Smith]

Oh, for sure.

[Pasha Eaton]

Vomiting, weight loss, hair loss. I mean, skin going to, like, basically colorless. And I can understand being fearful of that. How could that be helping me?

[Hannah Smith]

Totally.

[Pasha Eaton]

But I have to imagine what's going on here is that these people are getting a diagnosis from a doctor who can diagnose cancer, and then they're hearing about the side effects of this treatment and saying, wait a minute. No, no, no, no, no. And this doctor's saying, I can give you this much of a chance of survival, whereas doctor or carpenter, she can cure it.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah. Not a doctor.

[Pasha Eaton]

Not a doctor.

[Hannah Smith]

Not a carpenter either.

[Pasha Eaton]

Right. Not a carpenter.

[Hannah Smith]

Lady with some green dye.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yep. And so Cindy does not ever go back to Dr. Christine Murphy, the radiologist who recommends the biopsy. But she does eventually begin chemotherapy treatments.

[Hannah Smith]

She does. Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

But it's too late. Her cancer has progressed beyond the point of chemo. Being able to save her. And loving mother and wife, Cindy Babecka passed away on May 11, 2010.

[Hannah Smith]

Wow.

[Pasha Eaton]

So a little bit about Antonella Carpenter. She has this fiery, bright red hair, vibrant makeup, usually wearing colorful clothing, a super eccentric and passionate seeming person. Okay. She was born Aug. 29 in 1944 in Italy. She was raised in Milan, graduated from high school, attended the University of Milan. And she came to the US after marrying her husband, James Barry, who was in Vietnam in June of 1968.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

He was there with the U.S. army.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

So Antonella became a U.S. citizen shortly after that. She then attended Cameron University in Oklahoma from 1976 to 1977. So it says that she received. And this is from her obituary, by the way.

[Hannah Smith]

1976 to 1976. So one year.

[Pasha Eaton]

One year.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah. But it says online that she received a bachelor of science in physics in 1997. Okay. Now, this is why she refers to herself as a doctor, because she got.

[Hannah Smith]

A bachelor's degree in physics. In physics.

[Pasha Eaton]

So she says. Well, she goes on to then say she has a master's of science in state physics from Oklahoma State.

[Hannah Smith]

And does she? We don't know.

[Pasha Eaton]

We don't know.

[Hannah Smith]

That's not in her obituary.

[Pasha Eaton]

That's in her obituary.

[Hannah Smith]

Oh, okay. It is.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah. So.

[Hannah Smith]

But still not a doctor.

[Pasha Eaton]

Not a doctor.

[Hannah Smith]

But you're not a doctor if you get a master's.

[Pasha Eaton]

Right. And I will say that Antonella Carpenter, with Cindy and with the other patients that we're going to be talking, she tells them, I'm a physicist. I'm not a doctor. I'm a physicist.

[Hannah Smith]

Interesting.

[Pasha Eaton]

But you can trust me, because I'm not a doctor who's out there to just, like, scam you for insurance money. So Cindy Babecka's Death doesn't deter Carpenter. It's not like Carpenter gets a call and is like, oh, maybe my treatment doesn't cure cancer. She just continues.

[Hannah Smith]

Are there people that claim that this has saved them?

[Pasha Eaton]

Yes.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

And that will come out in a trial that happens later.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

But Cindy Babecka's death does not deter Carpenter from continuing to tell those who arrive for treatment that she can cure their cancer with her homemade laser. And importantly, she, as I mentioned, does tell them that she's not a medical doctor. She's a physicist. I'm not sure that she communicates with them that that also means she doesn't have a medical license. And if you remember, her clinic is called LAYS Med Inc. So it's very confusing.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

Like, MED must stand for Medicine Medical. And so people are still coming to see her from all over the country. And one of those people is Therese Westfall, who traveled all the way from Tarzana, California, so just north of Los Angeles In September of 2007, a year before Cindy Babecka ever stepped foot in Carpenter's clinic. There Norse Westfall was 50 years old and facing down her own breast cancer diagnosis at the time. Lay's Med Inc. Was also in Jacksonville, Florida. So Therese finds the clinic through a handwritten note that she finds on a bulletin at a health food store.

[Hannah Smith]

Wow.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah. She's found out that she has breast cancer. She's at a health food store. I'm not necessarily assuming she's going to cure cancer with, like, alternative methods just because she's at a health food store, but she is clearly someone who is thinking about her health, maybe holistically.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

And so she calls the number on this pamphlet or note at the store, and they direct her to Antonella Carpenter's website. And on the website, it's all the same stuff that Cindy Babecka was fed, which is, you know, we're gonna cure your cancer. This is how we're gonna do it. This is why you shouldn't see medical doctors. And so Therese Westfall decides to go. And this was one thing on the website, it promised Star wars level technology with little to no side effects. Star wars can't. Yeah. And so it's like a fictional sci fi series.

[Hannah Smith]

Right. And it's a sci fi movie. What are we talking about?

[Pasha Eaton]

What are we talking about? And, you know, the whole medical system can be, like you said, so difficult to navigate that I imagine if someone's like, okay, why would someone be able to say this if it's not true?

[Hannah Smith]

Well, she shouldn't be able to make promises that she can cure people when it's not true. I imagine that's going to come back in the trial to bite her.

[Pasha Eaton]

It sure is. Yeah. The website reads, we perform the necessary testing to confirm the death of the tumor. We show all patients the results which confirm that the tumor mass is dead or dying. Leash therapy, as originally designed by its founder, can successfully kill cancer without the need for additional damaging procedures or the utilization of any follow up drug regimen.

[Hannah Smith]

Wow. You're reading this from the website, which is still up.

[Pasha Eaton]

This is from a court document.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah.

[Hannah Smith]

I'm just so curious what their, like, origin story is.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah. So this claim on the website that says, without the need for damaging procedures or the utilization of a follow up drug regimen also gives you this sense of finality. When your treatment is done, it's done. You don't need to go questioning it. That's very dangerous, right?

[Hannah Smith]

Oh, yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

Because then if someone experiences another symptom.

[Hannah Smith]

Well, even. Even when people are in remission, when they've gone through like chemotherapy and whatever other, you know, treatments and they're in remission, you hear about cancer survivors saying, you still are on edge for a certain amount of years. There's these chances, depending on your treatment and your body and everything, that it could return. So you have to be really diligent about going and getting checkup.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah.

[Hannah Smith]

So the idea that you would just be like, boom, boom, never again gonna check it out is just like terrible.

[Pasha Eaton]

So dangerous.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah. So In November of 2007, Terese makes this trip to Jacksonville. And just like Cindy, who would come a year later, she paid almost $7,000 for this treatment. Her treatment takes place over one week. So she's there for a week and she's doing treatment the whole time. Of course, none of these fees are paid by insurance because this isn't valid medical treatment.

[Hannah Smith]

So this is all out of pocket.

[Pasha Eaton]

This is all out of pocket. And it's not FDA approved. It's not being performed by a real doctor. But miraculously, after a week at this Jacksonville clinic, Carpenter tells Therese her cancer is cured. The homemade laser machine has killed the cancerous cells. Now, to answer your question about what is the origin story of Antonella Carpenter becoming this person who treats cancer? This is according to her obituary.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

She's an electronic engineer for government contractors during the Reagan administration and later created a patented laser and started her own company in the pursuit of treating cancer. So the answer is, I don't totally know. But as we get into this, we'll see Antonella Carpenter is a conspiracy theorist.

[Hannah Smith]

Who it's not a surprise, right?

[Pasha Eaton]

Not a surprise. She is openly against conventional medicine and medical doctors.

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[Hannah Smith]

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[Pasha Eaton]

So Terese Westfall goes to Lay's Med Inc. In 2007, spends a week there, is told her cancer is cured. But By March of 2008, she's feeling a lot of pain on the left side of her chest.

[Hannah Smith]

How much longer is that?

[Pasha Eaton]

This is about, I want to say, like maybe six months.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay. So then she starts feeling pain, okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

And she's been told that her tumor has been killed by this. So when she starts feeling this large, hard feeling mass, she calls Antonella Carpenter and Carpenter reassures her that she's fine. Her left breast has now turned purple. But Carpenter's not concerned. She says it's a non issue.

[Hannah Smith]

Oh, my God.

[Pasha Eaton]

Right. But Therese is in a lot of pain, and so she does go see an oncologist, who of course then confirms actually the cancer is still there. And this time Therese opts for chemotherapy and eventually a mastectomy. But by this time, she's considered to have stage four cancer, which is a 10% chance of survival. Now, backing up a little bit to 2007, the time that she spent thinking she was cured by Antonella Carpenter when she was initially diagnosed, which led her to go seek out Carpenter, she had a 75 to 90% chance of survival.

[Hannah Smith]

Wow.

[Pasha Eaton]

So this is really the criminal aspect, I think here that might not have a specific associated charge, they'll look for other ways. But she's putting lives in danger.

[Hannah Smith]

Absolutely.

[Pasha Eaton]

And so by the time Therese has sort of seen the light here, that this person is not able to make good on these claims of curing cancer. Her cancer has progressed and now she's, you know, got a 10% chance of survival. So it's horrible. It's horrible. So Therese Westfall files a lawsuit and she says, you know, not only did Carpenter mislead her, but she's done this to countless others, which puts their lives at risk with pseudoscience. And maybe the worst of all is that she almost forbades them from seeing medical doctors. She's a very charismatic, persuasive person, and she's able to get in their heads and say, don't go see these doctors. Now, as someone who's researching the story all these years later, I have to wonder, maybe Some part of her wanted to believe she could cure cancer, I'm sure, right?

[Hannah Smith]

I mean, who knows? She does seem like the kind of person who believes her own story to a delusional degree. Because when you have a patient, you're not even a doctor, you shouldn't have a patient who dies. This should be a huge wake up call to you. It should be a huge wake up call. And you should ask yourself, what responsibility do I have? This doesn't seem like that was the case.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah, it doesn't seem like it was the case. And I would think that if I were operating outside of the medical system, making these bold claims, if an oncologist then did come back and say to one of my patients, hey, your cancer's still there, I would be like, wait a minute, what's going on?

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

Because, of course, meanwhile, she's treating other people. So this lawsuit is filed. And actually, this is where I read about Cindy Babecka's death, is because her husband gave testimony as part of this lawsuit about what happened to Cindy. So going through the lawsuit, you start to wonder, okay, these claims that Therese Westfall is making that Bob Babecka, Cindy's husband, is talking about, you're like, well, how could you believe her? But Antonella Carpenter had an actual medical doctor who was present at her clinic.

[Hannah Smith]

Really?

[Pasha Eaton]

And I couldn't find out a lot about him, but he's named as Dr. Joseph Ward in the lawsuit, in the court documents. And the complaint alleges that Dr. Ward was actually asleep during some of these appointments that he was supposedly overseeing.

[Hannah Smith]

How much was Dr. Ward being paid?

[Pasha Eaton]

I would love to know. I would love to know. Now, a lot of the court docs were redacted. There wasn't a ton on Pacer that I could find. But the court did side with Therese Westfall, and she received a $2.5 million judgment. She never received the money. But what did come out of it? Right. Nothing. Is that Lace Men Inck left Jacksonville, Florida. So that was the small win in the lawsuit, is that people were starting to talk about it and take notice, but, you know, it's kind of a drop in the bucket because what did Dr. Carpenter do? She opened a new location.

[Hannah Smith]

Of course she did.

[Pasha Eaton]

In Oklahoma.

[Hannah Smith]

My gosh, it's so infuriating. Like, obviously, the civil courts, the civil system, legal system is important, but the amount of times we've heard stories of people winning civil cases and never seeing a dime, and then the person just, like, skips town and is doing the same thing. And look, I Don't know. But I've heard again and again from people when they try to contact law enforcement about this, they're told, eh, it's a civil case.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah, nothing we can do.

[Hannah Smith]

I mean, it's just. It's.

[Pasha Eaton]

It's maddening, but it's also dangerous.

[Hannah Smith]

It is dangerous because here you have.

[Pasha Eaton]

Someone who's putting people's lives at risk, and all she has to do is cross state lines and she evades responsibility.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

And so she opens this new location just outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in Owasso. Am I saying that right?

[Hannah Smith]

Owasso.

[Pasha Eaton]

Owasso. Okay. Our Oklahoman here. So by 2010, the FDA is now watching. A man has come forward and alerted them that he has throat cancer. And Carpenter promised him she would cure it with only three treatments, but didn't. And of course, this was easy now for the FDA to see. Okay, now they can track her from the lawsuit. She was sued in Florida. She also has a clinic in Arkansas.

[Hannah Smith]

That'S still operating at this time. Right.

[Pasha Eaton]

They overlap, it closes down, and then she's entirely in Oklahoma. And so they started investigating in 2010 in the Oklahoma location.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

And how they do that, And I didn't even know this about the fda. The fda, kind of like the FBI or police departments, has undercover agents. Oh, cool. Yeah.

[Hannah Smith]

How exciting for them.

[Pasha Eaton]

I know, like, no offense to the fda, but I pictured them as more like quality control lab codes. Yeah. So the FDA sends undercover agents, agents to her clinic.

[Hannah Smith]

Nice.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah. And they pose as cancer patients and relatives of cancer patients, and they eventually do a raid.

[Hannah Smith]

I mean, so you're an undercover agent, and you're gonna let this lady inject unknown liquid green liquid into your body and then burn you with a laser? I mean, that's commitment to the job.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah. You know what? I wonder if they took it that far or if they just did these appointments where they were like, tell me more about this innovative treatment.

[Hannah Smith]

Wearing a wire, getting her to say, I guarantee you, or whatever.

[Pasha Eaton]

Exactly.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah. Probably. They weren't injected.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah. And you know, of course, also at these appointments, they're hearing Antonella Carpenter talk about how vaccines are harmful and don't see medical doctors. Chemotherapy's a scam. Radiation's a scam. It's all gonna kill you.

[Hannah Smith]

Gosh.

[Pasha Eaton]

And so they're putting together a case, but it takes two years. And in the midst of that, you know, Carpenter has seen patients.

[Hannah Smith]

Wow.

[Pasha Eaton]

So the investigation begins in October of 2010. The raid happens in July 2012, and they take everything. They take all of her digital evidence, the homemade laser, they take it all.

[Hannah Smith]

Love it.

[Pasha Eaton]

And she is pissed. And this is what makes me think she believes what she's selling.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah. She's like, how dare you come between me and my purpose of saving people's lives?

[Pasha Eaton]

Right, Exactly. And she had a blog at one point, and she accuses the raid of just being, like, sort of an agent for the medical field and big cancer business. Like, they're just an agent for this big pharma that wants to, like, take away my ability to cure cancer because it's gonna cost them zillions of dollars. When people realize this is how she is.

[Hannah Smith]

It's, like, so bananas. And also creeps me out in a way where I'm like, with where we are now with, like, anti vax beliefs and science denialism. I'm like, I could just picture some people hearing about this and being on her side.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah.

[Hannah Smith]

I don't know. It just. It sends, like a shiver down my spine.

[Pasha Eaton]

It's so scary. And as we get into the case, we'll see people were on her side who she did treat. So for two years, she's without all of the things that were taken from her in the raid.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

And she is pissed.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

And she is, because her laser.

[Hannah Smith]

She only has one laser.

[Pasha Eaton]

I think she had two lasers and.

[Hannah Smith]

They'Ve both been taken.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah. And you know what? If I was, like, some sort of mad scientist that believed I could cure cancer and I've got the laser to do it, I'm gonna have, like, a backup. Backup.

[Hannah Smith]

If she made the laser, why couldn't she just make another one?

[Pasha Eaton]

Right. I mean, I assume they would have shut that down immediately.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

She went on a YouTube show called Truth Talk News. I would not recommend it.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

And she did an interview with this person. I mean, first of all, it sounded like the interviewer who owns this YouTube channel. It sounds like he has a sound machine on in the background.

[Hannah Smith]

Oh, wow, that's so annoying. It is. So if you're not trying to sleep. Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

It is so bad. And the audio quality. Yeah, the audio quality is so bad. It was unusably bad.

[Hannah Smith]

Oh, gosh.

[Pasha Eaton]

He has like 80 total videos. Most of them have just a few hundred views. But the interview, it is nonsensical beyond sort of what I would have expected. Not that I would have thought I would ever agree with what she was saying or what he was saying. But he's not asking her even to sort of, hey, tell us why they shouldn't have done this. Tell us why this works. They're just, like, yapping back and forth about conspiracies. You know, I've never.

[Hannah Smith]

That's why not everyone should have a show.

[Pasha Eaton]

Not everyone should have a fricking podcast.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

And, you know, I was listening to it, like, wow, I'm fortunate. I've never had a cancer diagnosis. But it was surprising to me because Antonella Carpenter, when I was listening to her speak, I don't see the charisma, really. I don't see the, like, oh, this inspires confidence person. I mean, she sounds angry.

[Hannah Smith]

Wow. And so. But this is after the raid, so maybe she is angry that these lasers have been taken away from her.

[Pasha Eaton]

Right? She's definitely angry about the raid, but she is a conspiracy theorist to the next degree.

[Hannah Smith]

She's angry at big pharma. Big Pharma, the government.

[Pasha Eaton]

Cancer's a business for them. All of these treatments are just to get you to suffer and pay off all this money and.

[Hannah Smith]

But, I mean, it sounds like she's selling anger, Right? Which is, as we. We see now, is like, a very sellable, very powerful message.

[Pasha Eaton]

Totally. And the interview, I mean, there wasn't even really a useful clip. It was just, like, nonsense back and forth, actually. Her and the host sort of, like, talking over each other. Like, it was so bizarre that I was like, how could this person have convinced so many people?

[Hannah Smith]

You know, you think a person's way of being when they come in, especially someone who you have expectations for being a medical professional, even if they're not. I don't know. Like, I would want someone to feel grounded and knowledgeable, but I also think there's a way to spin the kooky. I'm sort of crazy. I'm all over the place. But that's just because, like, I'm kind of this weird genius who has this miracle cure, right?

[Pasha Eaton]

Like, I'm just crazy enough to think outside the box and want to help people. Maybe I'm charging you thousands of dollars, but these people, it's nothing compared to what they're making.

[Hannah Smith]

Right.

[Pasha Eaton]

You know? Whereas me, I'm like, if I'm going in for a surgery, I want the most, like, antisocial surgeon, you know, whoever that person is, I don't want them to feel, like, warm and fuzzy. Right.

[Hannah Smith]

I don't need them to be friends with me. I just need them to be good at what they do.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah, exactly. And so In October of 2014, Marie Antonella Carpenter. So Marie is her first name, but she goes by Antonella Carpenter. Is indicted on 41 different charges, all Ranging from a scheme to defraud cancer patients to wire fraud and mail fraud. And this might seem really egregious, right? Here's this kind of quirky, angry person who wears, like, very eccentric clothing. It might seem like, okay, this should be an easy case for the U.S. attorney's office. But it wasn't because Antonella Carpenter had a lot of supporters, and not friends and family, but patients who truly believed that she had cured them.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

And not just that she had cured them, but that she had spared them from this awful treatment like chemotherapy and radiation that actually would have threatened their lives more. And one of those people is Tamara Ford. Tamara Ford testifies at the trial, and that's where I'm getting this information. So Tamara's from just outside of Fort Worth, Texas, and she's been diagnosed with breast cancer. This is sometime around, I think, 2008. And she wants to avoid surgery and radiation, which is what leads her to lasemed Inc. She meets with Carpenter. She likes her right away. And what Tamara says is that Carpenter took the time to answer her questions and her husband's questions and says that she felt transparent and offered a plethora of information. And now we have at our disposal now ChatGPT, a whole new version of the Internet than existed back in 2010. Accessibility to information. So you're really more reliant on doctors telling you or perceived doctors telling you information. So she's saying a plethora of information, but this is just a sales pitch.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah. But I do think the information accessibility is a really important piece because you're right, like anyone who has some. A medical scare or a diagnosis would have so many questions about what this means for their body, for their life, for their chances. And so, yeah, imagine having someone sit with you and just listen and answer, even if those answers are made up. Probably feels good.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah. And how many people have known someone who did go through chemotherapy, did go through radiation and still died?

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

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[Pasha Eaton]

That's loseweightnow co. Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford.

[Hannah Smith]

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[Pasha Eaton]

And so Tamara has a tumor in her left breast. It's called low infiltrated ductal carcinoma. This is the most common type of breast cancer. It actually accounts for almost 80% of cases. It begins with abnormal cells growing in milk ducts make their way into breast tissue. So when it's caught in the early stages and treated properly, it's still very serious, but survival rates are high. It's when it metastasizes that the chance of survival goes down. So back to this clinic. Tamara and her husband are in the treatment room with Carpenter, and Carpenter's moving this laser around her left breast and it takes a couple of hours. Tamara says the treatment is painful, results in swelling, and Carpenter says, ibuprofen, and you're good to go. So Carpenter also gives her some other advice. She says, cut out sugar, eat a healthy diet. But mostly, she says, just let the treatment do the work. And there's a lot of forms being signed at these appointments and so the intention is to release Carpenter from responsibility if someone doesn't respond to the treatment. After the treatment, Tamara and her husband return to Texas. And six months later, Tamara returns for a second treatment with Carpenter. She returns for a third treatment, another six months after that. So over the course of 18 months, the only cancer treatment that Tamara receives is this laser therapy treatment from Mantinella Carpenter, who is a physicist. Now, Tamara says she then has two ultrasounds, one from Carpenter and one from a doctor, a medical doctor in Texas. In both ultrasounds, Tamara says she's giving this court testimony reveal that the tumor has decreased in size, but it also has revealed a second tumor. So Tamara is there in defense of Carpenter at this trial, even though now she has a second tumor. And the first one did not, in fact, die with the chemotherapy treatment. I mean, with the laser treatment.

[Hannah Smith]

At the time of the trial, she has two tumors. Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

The time that she's giving the testimony, she has had two tumors.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

And she decides to have more conventional treatment now that she has the second tumor. However, even despite that, like, I'm looking at the situation, I'm like, okay, maybe you don't fully feel confident in her ability to cure cancer, but Tamara's still there in defense of Carpenter. And she doesn't give, like, a clear reason to me in her testimony why she saw a medical doctor. But I can imagine. Maybe it was, like, cognitive dissonance. I've told all these people about this unconventional treatment I'm doing, and she said, my tumor reduced in size, and now I have this other one, and I spent all this money and time. I'm gonna go see a conventional doctor. But, you know, that's okay. I'm not mad about Carpenter. In 2009, these are supporters of Carpenter. A man named Raymond Barrons was diagnosed with skin cancer. Now, a conventional doctor, A medical doctor, Dr. Gregory Hogle, recommends surgery and radiation treatment. But Raymond doesn't have health insurance and wants to find an alternative. Eventually, he finds Antonella Carpenter and pays $14,000 for this treatment. But as he's doing that, the state that he lives in approves financial aid for treatment. Okay, so then he goes back to Dr. Hogle in January of 2010, and he tells Dr. Hogle, well, Carpenter told me that she cured my cancer. Dr. Hogle says, no, she didn't. It's still there. The cancer was growing. And Raymond dies in March of 2011.

[Hannah Smith]

Wow. But he's one of her supporters.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah. So he didn't feel defrauded, but he passed away before the Trial.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

But he was someone who Carpenter pointed to as a success. I mean, it makes no sense.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah, he died.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah, he died. Carpenter pleads not guilty to these charges. Right. She's fighting it. And the state's attorney's office for the Northern District of Oklahoma is alleging all of this fraud that happens from 2006 to 2012 of claiming these treatments were 100% effective, which they weren't.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

Now the state's attorney says this is not a malpractice case. This is a fraud case. Five of the seven patients who felt defrauded by Carpenter has died before the trial. So it's hard because the people who supported her, they were alive, and so they were able to testify.

[Hannah Smith]

Right.

[Pasha Eaton]

And the people who were there to testify that didn't make it are the doctors who treated the people who died post being treated by Carpenter or like.

[Hannah Smith]

The husband of the woman who died.

[Pasha Eaton]

Right. And he was part of the civil suit testimony.

[Hannah Smith]

Oh, right. So he's not even part of this.

[Pasha Eaton]

Right.

[Hannah Smith]

So you just have doctors, and on the other side, you have people. People. Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

Who feel that their lives were spared.

[Hannah Smith]

I mean, obviously, doctors are people, but in a courtroom. So there's a differentiation there. Yeah, yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

And so the people who were called to testify on behalf of what happened to those patients who died were these post treatment doctors. And now a quick wording note is I'm not implying that any of Carpenter's treatments were successful, only that some people who saw her for treatment felt that they were right.

[Hannah Smith]

That was their perception. Even though they all went on to get traditional, you know, medical chemotherapy or other treatments for cancer.

[Pasha Eaton]

Right. It's like correlation, not causation.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

And so In July of 2012, this is another doctor who's testifying at the trial. He's telling us the story of a cancer patient named Donna.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

Donna is lying in a hospital bed in Little rock, Arkansas, and Dr. Scott Stern, a surgical oncologist, is brought in to help diagnose her. He says it's already known to doctors that Donna has cancer, but she's previously been treated elsewhere. He says that Donna has squamous cell carcinoma of the base of the tongue that has metastasized to her lymph nodes in her neck. So this is very deadly. And she has been seeing Carpenter for laser therapy, and she passes away in May of 2015. So from the three years that he saw her, she passes away despite then having conventional treatment. So another patient who saw Antonella Carpenter saw her in 2010. Carl Trant. He Had a tumor on his jawbone. Carpenter said that she could kill the tumor. But after $14,000 out of pocket treatment, the tumor grew. By the time Carl returned to her clinic in 2012 for yet another treatment, it had been raided by the fda, so couldn't happen.

[Hannah Smith]

Wow.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah. So by February, the jury's deliberating in this trial, and more than 10 former patients testified in support of CAR despite the fact that she did not rid them of cancer. And she's sentenced to probation. She's sentenced to probation and a $1.1 million forfeiture.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Pasha Eaton]

And she's very angry about this, despite the fact that she totally avoids incarceration for this. And, you know, I think part of the reason is she was in her 60s or 70s when this was going down. And, you know, she's probably not gonna be able to keep practicing after this. And she actually passed away on April 26, 2021. And, yeah, she had a little blog that was sort of poorly written, Mostly anti vax conspiracy theories, fear of big Pharma. And she did make money from these lay's mending.

[Hannah Smith]

I don't know how much money she made.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah. So I couldn't find anything saying that she was living a lavish lifestyle, but this was supporting her family. Her daughter worked for her at the clinic. But what I did find is a quote from the prosecuting attorney for the U.S. attorney's office who said that he believed she was driven by ego.

[Hannah Smith]

Interesting.

[Pasha Eaton]

It's interesting because, you know, we hear about male fraudsters and them being ego driven. And of course, that can be true with women, too. It's just, I think, less common. We usually hear about financial motivations and. Yeah, and that was his sort of assessment of it. But they were disappointed that she did not get a harsher sentence.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah. I mean, I hope that she didn't go on to practice after that. At least she's not actively harming people with her, you know, snake oil treatments for cancer, the amount of patients that she had, even that you listed who died, it's unbelievable. And either she's like a maniacal. She was like a maniacal, terrible person who didn't care that people died, or she had just created this illusion that she believed that was probably very much about her own ego and being this person who'd figured it out and knew more than the whole medical industry.

[Pasha Eaton]

Right. And it's like this identity, you know, you see, with these conspiracy theorists who have these YouTube channels and do these, like, bogus. They call them interviews. It wasn't really an interview. He didn't ask her any hard questions. You know, they just hyped each other up on these conspiracies and it's an identity. It becomes someone's identity.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

And then it's hard for them to, I think, step away and look. Although, you know, I'm not excusing what she did, making claims like that, life threatening. But, yeah, she passed away in April of 2021 and never spent a day in prison and never paid the civil suit.

[Hannah Smith]

Wow, that's horrible. What a story. Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

Oklahoma. Just keeps popping up.

[Hannah Smith]

It really does. It's a theme on the show.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah.

[Hannah Smith]

I mean, I'm glad that there was some record of her being sued and then prosecuted by the fda.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah. And it really, I think, is clear that we live in a country where you want medical sort of autonomy, you want decisions about your body to include you.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

And I totally understand that, but we should all be making decisions based on facts.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah. And also, if someone doesn't want treatment, like, I agree, like, I'm on board with people making decisions, whatever it is, about their own bodies, but it's the fact that she claimed that this was, like, guaranteed when it was so clearly not when her patients were dying, and also discouraged her patients from seeing medical doctors. That so conniving and gross and criminal and, like, cool. You want to go do alternative treatments alongside, you know, your standard medical treatments. Great. Like, go for it. But as soon as someone starts telling you, don't go see a doctor, run for the hills. Run for the hills.

[Pasha Eaton]

Like, they're trying to hide something like, that was my takeaway is she doesn't want them to see doctors because the doctors will tell her patients that this doesn't work. What, she's selling to them.

[Hannah Smith]

Totally.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah. And, you know, I don't think she was making millions of dollars, but she was making enough to support herself.

[Hannah Smith]

And this was her career.

[Pasha Eaton]

This was her career. Yeah. Yeah. I have one recommendation, actually.

[Hannah Smith]

Let's get into it.

[Pasha Eaton]

Not related to this, but it sort of prompted the same sort of conversation or question in my mind about our, you know, medical freedom, quote, unquote.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

So the show that I've talked about on the podcast before, it's called Accused Guilty or Innocent from Aegis. And actually, before I go any further, the episode that I'm going to be talking about today does deal with child loss, so please take care when listening. So there's a new season out and there's an episode about our midwife and she is accused of, I don't Remember her exact charge, but basically she was there for a birth that resulted in the. The baby didn't make it.

[Hannah Smith]

Was this an at home birth?

[Pasha Eaton]

Mm. It was a home birth.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

And important part of that that I forgot to mention is a home birth. She had a close relationship with the parents. And what ends up happening is the baby is breech and she's not equipped to help deliver this baby. And the baby doesn't make it. And by the time the ambulance arrives, things are really bad. But the baby dies later on, doesn't die at home. And it's this horrific tragedy. These young parents that are so excited about this baby lose the baby. She was found not guilty of any wrongdoing because I can't say totally why, but the way that the episode depicted it is that the parents were very supportive of her.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

They did not feel wronged by her. They felt like this was a tragedy that had many layers and that she was not responsible. And, you know, I can't imagine the pain that they must be experiencing. And while one part of me is like, you know, they made that decision to have a home birth, so maybe she shouldn't be totally at fault. But there's these very blurred lines between medical professional and not in the way that someone can promote themselves online.

[Hannah Smith]

Right.

[Pasha Eaton]

And we see that with home births. We see that with chiropractic care.

[Hannah Smith]

I mean, don't get me started on that.

[Pasha Eaton]

Seriously. They said that they would use her services again.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah. I guess in that scenario. I mean, I haven't watched it, but it makes sense to me that she wouldn't be held responsible. Because if you choose to have a child in your home, I know you have to know that there are risks involved with that.

[Pasha Eaton]

Right.

[Hannah Smith]

Unless she's presenting herself as a doctor. I imagine she's very honest about what she is and what her qualifications are. Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

Let me look up her actual title. Cause I'm pretty sure it was. It was. Let's see. Yeah. Her name is Angela Hawk, and In June of 2019, an unlicensed, quote, old school midwife attempted to deliver a breech baby at home in Omaha.

[Hannah Smith]

Oh, maybe she didn't have a, like, midwife license or something. Yeah.

[Pasha Eaton]

An unlicensed midwife.

[Hannah Smith]

I feel like I looked this up at one point. Maybe when we were doing an adoption fraud story. There might be something to do with the laws on what qualifications midwives have to have. Are different state by state. And they also have changed over time.

[Pasha Eaton]

Right.

[Hannah Smith]

So sometimes, like older midwives, they didn't have to do the same testing and qualification whatever than they do now. I don't know if it's something like that or not, but I don't know. It gets sort of confusing.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah. I mean, I had a hospital birth and I felt like I was in, you know, and I know not everyone leaves their birth experience feeling that way, but, you know, anytime you have to travel from your home to a hospital, when there's a life threatening event happening, that obviously takes time and then you're at the mercy of a lot of other factors. So, I mean, it's just terrible. And the couple, I think, played a big part in how the jury saw it because they were supportive of her and did not feel that she was the reason for this.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah. So they didn't bring the charge. This was like criminal charges.

[Pasha Eaton]

Right. They did not bring these charges. The state brought the charges.

[Hannah Smith]

Interesting.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah.

[Hannah Smith]

Cool. Well, that's exciting. There's a new season out. I'll have to check it out.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah. It's just such a unique show because it portrays the side of the defendants which you just don't usually see and really makes you think about how they found themselves in these situations.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah. Well, thanks for telling me that story today.

[Pasha Eaton]

Yeah, thanks for listening. We will see you guys next week. If you have a story for us, we would love to hear it. Our email is thenifexactlyrightmedia.com or you can follow us on Instagram, Henife Podcast or blueskyenifepodcast.

[Hannah Smith]

This has been an exactly right production, hosted and produced by me, Hannah Smith.

[Pasha Eaton]

And me, Pasha Eaton. Our producers are Tom Breyfogle and Alexa Samarosi.

[Hannah Smith]

This episode was mixed by Tom Breifogel.

[Pasha Eaton]

Our associate producer is Christina Chamber.

[Hannah Smith]

Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.

[Pasha Eaton]

Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.

[Hannah Smith]

Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.

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[Pasha Eaton]

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