Mother, Martyr, Manipulator: Introducing 'Nobody Should Believe Me'

Summary

Truer Crime Season 2, Episode: "Mother, Martyr, Manipulator: Introducing 'Nobody Should Believe Me'"

Release Date: April 10, 2025
Host: Celisia Stanton

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Introduction

In the second season of Truer Crime, host Celisia Stanton delves into the intricate and unsettling story of Sophie Hartman, a seemingly devoted mother whose actions have sparked national controversy. This episode, titled "Mother, Martyr, Manipulator: Introducing 'Nobody Should Believe Me'," explores the depths of Sophie’s life, her mission in Zambia, the adoption of her two daughters, and the subsequent allegations of Munchausen by proxy that have rocked her family and community.

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Sophie Hartman’s Journey to Zambia

Sophie Hartman, a young evangelical woman from a small town in Michigan, embarked on a mission trip to Zambia during her college years. Driven by a profound sense of purpose, Sophie returned to the United States with two orphaned sisters, aiming to provide them with a better life. Her memoir, Crowns of Beauty, offers a first-person account of her experiences abroad.

Sophie Hartman ([11:42]): "A memoir the strong ache in my stomach that felt like homesickness was for another country, a land where children ran freely and dust filled every crevice. A place so different and foreign, yet one where heaven met earth more clearly than I had ever seen before."

Sophie’s portrayal of Zambia is vivid yet controversial. She describes it as a "dusty and basically just kind of hellish" place, highlighting severe poverty and suffering.

Andrea Dunlop ([21:10]): "Sophie appears to have been in and out of Zambia from roughly 2008 to 2015, but the details of where she was and with whom are obscured in her memoir."

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Adoption and Allegations of Abuse

Upon returning to the United States, Sophie adopted her two daughters, Em and C. However, allegations soon surfaced accusing Sophie of Munchausen by proxy—fabricating or inducing illness in her children to gain attention and sympathy.

Andrea Dunlop ([08:54]): "King county prosecutors are accusing Hartman of subjecting her daughter to medically unnecessary surgical procedures and restraints."

The legal battles culminated in the courts returning her children to her sister, Megan Carter, and eventually, the decision not to file charges against Sophie despite substantial evidence.

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Analyzing the Narrative: Martyrdom and Savior Complex

Sophie presents herself as a martyr and savior, deeply entwined with her religious beliefs. Her memoir is replete with passages depicting her as a Christ-like figure, tirelessly fighting for the oppressed.

Sophie Hartman ([26:54]): "One afternoon in late 2010, I was walking home through the compound where I lived, dialoguing with Jesus about my day... I calmly approached her and gently placed my right hand on her head. She pulled away, falling down in the dirt, and immediately I could tell that the little girl inside was held captive by darkness."

Andrea Dunlop critically examines these portrayals, noting a lack of detail about daily life in Zambia and an overemphasis on crisis and suffering.

Andrea Dunlop ([24:36]): "Sophie's primary descriptor of Zambia is that it's, quote, dusty and basically just kind of hellish."

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Expert Insights on Transracial Adoption

To understand the complexities surrounding Sophie’s adoptions, Truer Crime brings in Chad Golder Sojourner, a Seattle-based writer and educator specializing in transracial adoption.

Chad Golder Sojourner ([31:59]): "One of the misconceptions is that the white parent knows more... You have to prepare them to enter into the world they're going to live in."

Chad emphasizes the challenges and responsibilities inherent in transracial and international adoptions, highlighting the risk of children being perceived as commodities and the potential disconnection from their cultural heritage.

Chad Golder Sojourner ([34:21]): "There's a lot of stuff there that is still doesn't make sense... It just seems like who, like where, like where is that biblical?"

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Red Flags and Discrepancies in Sophie’s Story

Andrea Dunlop identifies several red flags in Sophie’s account:

1. Obscured Details: Sophie changes names and locations in her memoir, limiting transparency about her time in Zambia.

   Andrea Dunlop ([15:20]): "In the beginning sections of the book... it's hard to get a grasp on what she was doing day to day in Zambia."

2. Lack of Specifics: The memoir lacks concrete details about daily activities, relying heavily on religious rhetoric instead.

   Sophie Hartman ([30:06]): "I declared under my breath that because Jesus made it clear in the Bible that visiting the orphan was true religion..."

3. Inconsistent Symptoms: Em, Sophie’s younger daughter, was diagnosed with alternating hemiplegia of childhood (AHC), a rare genetic disorder. However, Andrea points out inconsistencies in the severity of her symptoms.

   Andrea Dunlop ([41:37]): "Would it surprise you if I told you that AHC is not a terminal disease? Yes, it would."

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Community and Legal Response

Sophie's actions garnered significant attention, both supportive and critical. Her church and local community initially rallied to her support, raising funds to assist with medical expenses.

Andrea Dunlop ([40:39]): "The church raised about around $30,000 something like that. I'd gone through a very traumatic experience having her children taken away."

However, legal investigations revealed extensive medical appointments and procedures that raised suspicions about the necessity and intent behind them.

Andrea Dunlop ([08:54]): "Records say the girl underwent more than 474 medical appointments since 2016 when the Sophie Hartman case broke."

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Conclusion: A Complex Web of Faith, Altruism, and Manipulation

The episode paints a multifaceted picture of Sophie Hartman—a woman driven by faith and a perceived mission to save others, yet whose actions may have caused profound harm to her own children. Truer Crime challenges listeners to question the narratives presented by those in positions of authority and trust, emphasizing the importance of scrutiny and the complexities of familial and cultural dynamics in adoption.

Andrea Dunlop ([37:33]): "This is the troubling vein running through Sophie's book. It's the grandiosity of thinking that Zambia is a problem and it's one that she's equipped to solve."

As the season progresses, listeners are invited to explore deeper into Sophie's story, uncovering layers of truth and deception that make this case a compelling study in true crime and human psychology.

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Notable Quotes

• Sophie Hartman ([11:42]): "A memoir the strong ache in my stomach that felt like homesickness was for another country..."

• Andrea Dunlop ([24:36]): "Sophie's primary descriptor of Zambia is that it's, quote, dusty and basically just kind of hellish."

• Chad Golder Sojourner ([31:59]): "One of the misconceptions is that the white parent knows more..."

• Andrea Dunlop ([37:33]): "This is the troubling vein running through Sophie's book..."

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Final Thoughts

Truer Crime's exploration of Sophie Hartman's life serves as a poignant reminder of the complexities surrounding adoption, faith-driven missions, and the potential for manipulation within trusted relationships. By weaving together personal narratives, expert insights, and critical analysis, the episode encourages listeners to seek truth and question narratives that may seem too good to be true.

Transcript

[Payne Lindsey]

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[Andrea Dunlop]

That's TFTV20.

[Payne Lindsey]

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[Andrea Dunlop]

Hi friends, I am so excited to share this new Season 2 episode of True Crime with you. If you want an ad free listening experience, subscribe to Tenderfoot [e-mail] or on Apple Podcasts. Hi friends, if you caught the recent crossover episode I did with Andrea Dunlop about the Susan Smith case, then you already know how thoughtful and sharp Andrea's work is. And and today I wanted to share an episode of her show Nobody Should Believe Me right here in the True Crime feed. Nobody Should Believe Me began as a personal investigation into Andrea's own family after her sister was accused and investigated for Munchausen by proxy. Every season, Andrea takes a gripping and deeply researched look at this form of abuse that many of us know very little about. She really exposes the realities of the damage it leaves in its wake. She does such important work and I am super excited for you to hear how she approaches these stories. And if you love this episode, the good news is you can binge the entire season right now. So without further ado, here's the first installment of her newest season. 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. There is a family in Renton that I want to introduce you to. Mom Sophie went on an inspiring trip to Zambia in her college years. She's since adopted two girls. One of them has an incredibly rare disorder. Doctors say it's a one in a million chance. The audio you just heard is from a news story that aired on King 5 television back in May of 2019. This story wasn't on my radar, but I had a lot going on back then. I had just had a baby and had a new book coming out. And this was around the time that Munchausen by Proxy was really entering my work life. The month that this story aired, I'd done my very first interview about my own family story for Vanity Fair, and this was followed by an appearance on a local station about my third novel. We came Here to Forget this was all taking place amid the second investigation into my sister for Munchausen by Proxy abuse of her children. By the middle of that summer, the courts would return my sister's children to her, and a few months after that, the prosecuting attorney would make the decision not to file charges against my sister, Megan Carter, despite the horrifying and voluminous evidence against her. But back to Sophie. In general, seeing stories about sick kids in the news is upsetting for a bunch of reasons. So family friends are banding together. They're trying to raise money, and this is something that is, you know, no, little ask. We're talking about like $60,000 for a vehicle for them. So we just wanted to put their positive energy out there. Of course, there are the particular fears and questions that I bring to it, given my experience with my sister. Is this mom telling the truth? What if this child isn't a victim of a rare disease, but a victim of the person purporting to care for them? Even when there are no red flags for abuse, which is mostly the case, these stories are pretty dystopian because they illuminate a tragic failing of our country's healthcare system. The horrible reality that families, many of whom, I'm sure, would prefer to keep their children's health private, are forced into a situation where they have to perform their trauma publicly in the hopes that kind strangers might step in to relieve the skyrocketing medical Bills that could otherwise bankrupt their family. So while I usually avoid these types of stories in my day to day life, once I did see this news report, right away I noticed that Sophie was positioning herself as the only one who saw what was happening with her child. I started noticing just kind of weird things or times where her body would just feel really different. Like it would either be super, super tight or like really limp. Doctors visits filled the first few years of life, and right away they found pretty significant brain damage. And so she was diagnosed with CP at the end of 2015. This is like a sandwich. But Sophie quickly realized was experiencing something much more concerning, Complaining to the neurologist, saying, like, she's having seizures. So they would bring her in for an eeg and it was nothing. They're like, no, we don't see anything. Maybe she is. Here's the walls. Sophie admits she started to question her own instincts. There'd be times where she was like, literally totally paralyzed. And I'd go to her doctors and be like, I know she's walking right now, but like, she was literally paralyzed all day yesterday. And they'd be like, no, that's not possible. I'm like, but like, she couldn't move, like I'm telling you. And they're like, okay, but she can now. And I'm like, right, I know. But after seeking a second opinion and running through genetic testing, she also has 1 on the ATP1A3 gene, which is associated with a disorder called alternating hemiplegia of childhood, which is a extremely rare one in a million genetic disorder. And she's right. It affects one in one million children. It is progressive and has no cure. Wow. Lord, you took me up to the fullest extent on what I told you I was willing to do. This piece on the evening news ended up being the first chapter in what would become a major national news story. This is rare for Munchausen by proxy cases, which usually garner little national coverage outside of the truly sensationalized stories like Gypsy Rose Blanchard and Maya Kowalski. But there were many elements of this story that caught people's attention. For one, there were the optics. Sophie, who is young, white, blonde and conventionally pretty, had adopted two children, sisters from a faraway nation. I went to Zambia after my freshman year of college on a month long mission trip. And when I was there, I just encountered the plight of an orphan. Which one is in the hand? Adoption wasn't on my radar at all. In the televised segment, there are images from Sophie's life with her two adorable girls interspersed with footage from the interview and B roll of Sophie's younger daughter, who we're referring to as who is smiley and cheerfully dressed in the family's kitchen. At one point, as the two play a game together, Sophie sitting beside her daughter's wheelchair, the little girl says this at all, oh, I don't want to get a poke. I'm so scared. It would be easy to miss this blip in the audio, but the little girl is saying, I don't want to get a poke. I'm so scared. This moment is odd because they're not in a medical setting and there's no medical equipment nearby. To most, this might be a throwaway moment, but for me, it's a harbinger of how this seemingly inspiring story of a mother who'd moved heaven and earth to help two orphans became this so this is detective or work with the Renton Police Department. Today's date is March 17, 2021. It is approximately 8:03 hours.

[Payne Lindsey]

And then.

[Andrea Dunlop]

Can you just state your name for me? Sophie Hartman. In 2019, KING 5 first met Sophie Hartman after she adopted two sisters from Zambia. She told us one has a rare neurological disorder called alternating hemiplegia of Childhood, or AHC. At the time, Hartman set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for a wheelchair vehicle. Today, she faces second degree assault charges against a child her own daughter. This is not based off of one investigator. It's not based off of a quick investigation. This was months of investigation by police and several experts who weighed in. King county prosecutors are accusing Hartman of subjecting her daughter to medically unnecessary surgical procedures and restraints. Records say the girl underwent more than 474medical appointments since 2016 when the Sophie Hartman case broke. It was the typical litany of eye popping numbers of doctor's visits and procedures that her daughter had to endure. But this season we're diving into the complicated, many layered story of Sophie Hartman, a white evangelical woman from a small town in Michigan who traveled thousands of miles to Zambia and ran returned with two vulnerable little girls. 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. If you'd like to support the show, the best way to do that is to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or on Patreon. You get all episodes early and ad free, along with extended cuts and deleted scenes from the season. You also get two exclusive bonus episodes every month, and for the first time ever, we have the entire season ready for you to binge right now on the subscriber feedback. 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. Figuring out where to start with these cases can be a challenge. And going in I always know that hearing from the person at the center of it is probably unlikely. However, in this instance we had a pretty compelling source document because Sophie wrote.

[Payne Lindsey]

A memoir the strong ache in my stomach that felt like homesickness was for another country, a land where children ran freely and dust filled every crevice. A place so different and foreign, yet one where heaven met earth more clearly than I had ever seen before.

[Andrea Dunlop]

That was an Excerpt from Sophie Hartman's 2016 self published memoir entitled Crowns of Beauty. The book offers her first person account of her time in Zambia and her journey to adopt her two daughters, Sophie's younger daughter, who we're referring to as C, and Sophie's older daughter, who we're referring to as Mr. The COVID is a moody professional photo of Sophie carrying her youngest on her hip and holding her older daughter by the hand. Born in 1989, Sophie Hartman grew up in a small town outside of Kalamazoo, Michigan. From what I've been able to glean about her childhood, she appears to have had a fairly normal upper middle class life. I've spoken to some folks on background who know the family and they told me that they were well off and well respected in town. The whole family was also very active in the church and according to Sophie's memoir, she began her devout relationship with God at the age of 14 during a Christian summer camp. Sophie was a talented athlete and played basketball and soccer growing up and after graduation went on to college. And then, according to her book, a summer mission trip prompted her to leave school about two and a half years early, changing the course of her life.

[Payne Lindsey]

Scenic Kafui screams of a divine artist's touch, one that faithfully brings forth beauty each day within moments of setting foot on the soil. That day in 2008 draped behind the fierce beauty of Kufueh's landscape, I witnessed the torments of everyday life by the people who called this compound home. I saw malnourished children ply their way through sewage drains, chewing on plastic bags, and my heart burned in my chest. Filthy, unclothed babies crawling alone in the middle of the street caught me completely off guard, their desperate, empty eyes gazing lifelessly back at mine. The dramatic and contrasting reality that was present every day in Kufui devastated me, and I've never been the same. But maybe I had been missing something. Maybe beauty could always be found in places long thought to be dark, and maybe beauty could still surface in places of utter darkness. That is, if someone was willing to fight for it.

[Andrea Dunlop]

Sophie appears to have been in and out of Zambia from roughly 2008 to 2015, but the details of where she was and with whom are obscured in her memoir. In fact, everything about her time there is obscured, as she notes to the reader that she's changed the names of not only the people who appear in the book, but even many of the towns that she lived in and traveled to. I can certainly understand changing the names of people to protect their privacy, but the lengths she goes to to hide the details of her life there are somewhat extraordinary given that this is a memoir. Notably, in her acknowledgments, which appear in the opening pages of the book, she thanks a large number of Americans by name. But given that the memoir is focused on her time in another country, her words of thanks to the folks in Zambia are strikingly different.

[Payne Lindsey]

My big Zambian family, you have changed my life forever. Thank you for not just being eager, but ecstatic about this book. And thank you for letting me tell those stories. I'm so grateful. Grateful we'll get to be together in the age to come. I look forward to amazing chocolates and the biggest pillow fights forever. You are beautiful to me.

[Andrea Dunlop]

And that is it. I've written acknowledgments of my own for five books now, and especially on the first one, you name just literally every person ever. Like the barista who got your coffee while you were writing in the morning. Your third grade teacher. Your dog walker. If these Zambian friends were so ecstatic about the book, why aren't we thanking any of them by name? The book is largely focused on her time abroad, and we're given scant details of Sophie's life before in Michigan. In fact, we mostly hear about how much resistance she encountered for a decision to go to Zambia.

[Payne Lindsey]

A believer very near to me, aggressively questioned my decision. What do you know about helping people in Africa? And how do you think you can handle all the poverty and the horrible situations when you have never experienced that you will not be safe. And all I'll be able to say when you come home is I told you so.

[Andrea Dunlop]

And look, I can imagine that Sophie's parents were probably a bit dismayed at the idea of their daughter dropping out of college to move to Zambia. However, an idealistic college kid heading out to save the world is so common it's a cliche. We all know the guy who goes on to be an accountant but never shuts up about his time in the Peace Corps. But Sophie's description of the town's reaction to her decision elevates her to the status of martyr.

[Payne Lindsey]

Images of leaving my upper class education and culture and stepping into the dusty lives of children deemed filth triggered thoughts of a scripture passage I had read time and time again. Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly. Defend the rights of the poor and needy. Proverbs 31:8 9.

[Andrea Dunlop]

In the beginning sections of the book, we also hear from Sophie's little sister Sam, who contributes journal entries describing the change she sees in her sister I saw Sophie walking through a towering doorway, given away by her bright blonde hair and beaming smile. She rolled two large suitcases behind her and she was wrapped in colorful Zambian fabric. I clung to Sophie's right side the entire ride, wide eyed and in awe of my big sister who looked like an African princess. After her initial trip, Sophie returned less than a year later and at 19 started interning for an orphan sponsorship ministry. And that was where Sophie would find her true calling. Foreign.

[Payne Lindsey]

I've been working with a nurse dietitian for the last six months and it's been life changing. I've lost weight, healed my relationship with food, and have way more energy. Working with a dietitian online to create a personalized nutrition plan was so easy thanks to Nourish. The best part? I paid zero dollars out of pocket. Because Nourish accepts hundreds of insurance plans, 94% of patients pay $0 out of pocket. Find your [e-mail] that's usenourish.com the missing.

[Andrea Dunlop]

Child is Lucia Blix, 9 years old. Please let her come back home safely. April 16 the kidnappers hummed it meticulously. If money is what it takes to get her back, we're gonna pay it. The secrets they hide. You can't talk about this.

[Payne Lindsey]

You can't write about it are the clues.

[Andrea Dunlop]

The mother's hiding something. I know it. To find her, tell me where she is. The Stolen girl series premiere April 16 on Freeform and Stream on Hulu. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Do you have a point of sale system you can trust, or is it a real pos? You need Shopify for retail. From accepting payments to managing inventory, Shopify POS has everything you need to sell in person. Go to shopify.comsysteme all lowercase to take your retail business to the next level. Today, that's shopify.comsysteme.

[Payne Lindsey]

He has called me to Zambia. I was there and then he told me he wants me to move there. I'm still in college, but I'm leaving soon. He's called me to be a mother in this nation. He's called me to serve these children and to be a voice for those who have no voice. It's crazy. Most of my friends and family are trying to stop me from going, but I can't say no. I love Jesus. I love him. I love him. Oh I love him.

[Andrea Dunlop]

Reading this book was a disorienting experience. Given the context a young white evangelical setting out to, quote, save the people of Zambia, I was expecting the writing to be a bit problematic, but it was also settling in for what might at very least be an interesting fish out of water story of someone leaving everything they've ever known. And I didn't know anything about Zambia, so I was looking forward to hearing the little details about day to day life. You notice so much when you're in a new place. It's what makes traveling abroad so thrilling. Suddenly everything from the food to the fashion to the local shopping habits and modes of transportation are new and fascinating. I was also quite curious to know what a 20 year old college kid even does when they land in Zambia. And after reading the nearly 200 pages of this memoir, I learned none of that. Reading this book was the beginning of an experience that I continue to have as I try to get a handle on Sophie's story. It's like the closer I get to it, the more it pixelates. It's like trying to see through layers of smoke only to discover more smoke. Sophie's primary descriptor of Zambia is that it's, quote, dusty and basically just kind of hellish.

[Payne Lindsey]

Walking through the streets of Shanti Zambian compounds does something to me. These compounds are slums, squalid, densely populated areas where poverty and disease are rampant. Whether I return home with mud between my toes because of the rains, with dust in every crevice during the dry season, or with soiled clothes because of a mixture of urine and diarrhea from all my little friends. Something unexplainable happens. My heart is moved every time, and something in the depths of me yearns.

[Andrea Dunlop]

For Jesus because of the obfuscation of many of the exact locations. I can't say for sure whether Sophie really encountered this much dust, but certainly the whole country is not dusty. Zambia is a developing country, but to reduce the nation to scenes of crushing poverty and desperately maltreated children, as Sophie does in this book, is unfair and inaccurate. Zambia is one of the most urbanized countries in Sub Saharan Africa. In 2008, when Sophie first arrived there, Zambia would have still been reeling from the global economic crisis, but they'd also undergone about a decade of economic growth and export diversification. Progress was being made in education, lowering maternal and child mortality rates, and tackling the HIV AIDS epidemic. But there isn't much nuance to Sophie's descriptions of Zambia. The picture she paints is evocative of those Sally Struthers commercials from the 90s. For about 70 cents you can buy a can of soda, regular or diet in Ethiopia. For just 70 cents a day, you can feed a childlike Jamal nourishing meal. Since 1938, Christian Children's Fund has helped children of many faiths and their communities with food, medical care, clothing, a chance to go to school, or whatever is needed. Most. Today, so many children around the world still need your help, and through Christian.

[Payne Lindsey]

Children's Fund you can reach out to one of them by sharing, well, just.

[Andrea Dunlop]

A little of your pocket change. It takes so little for you to.

[Payne Lindsey]

Become a special friend to a child in a developing country, but boy, the good it can do is worth more than you can imagine.

[Andrea Dunlop]

So while there certainly is poverty in Zambia, much like in most places, Sophie's descriptions feel troubling. Now, it's hard to say on its face whether the problem here is that Sophie just needs to take a few more creative writing workshops, or if this is evidence of something deeper. But I just couldn't get over how the people she was with and the place she was in just never came into focus. Much more vivid than her descriptions of life in Zambia were Sophie's internal experiences, mostly talking to God. These were numerous and florid, occasionally veering into downright romantic passages like this one.

[Payne Lindsey]

You will find that I have loved you, Lord, I have loved you hard and with abandonment. My eyes are on you locked in I'm gazing, you will find me fully and wholly in love with you. I will drink this cup, this double agony, this double grief, this searing pain, this deep anger and this hatred of injustice because of them. And I will love you wholly as I drink this cup, Sowing in tears, sowing in tears, sewing in tears.

[Andrea Dunlop]

In her memoir and when she speaks to the media about her daughters, Sophie refers to the two young girls she brought home from Zambia as orphans. And there's an important cultural nuance here in the United States. When we say orphan, we usually take this to mean a child whose parents are dead. However, because of the differences in family structure, the words word orphan has a pretty different context in Zambia. According to Zambian journalist Glory Machingi, children become orphaned when they lose their parents. But parents are not seen as the only primary caregivers in a Zambian family. Zambians embrace the extended family system, so the adults that we would refer to as aunts and uncles are also considered parental figures and often referred to as mom and dad as well, especially in traditional village settings. Similarly, cousins are referred to as sisters and brothers, etc. So when someone loses their parents and can't live on their own, the other adults in the family automatically take over custody of that quote orphan. In a few circumstances where families are too poor or too abusive, the orphans will be taken to an orphanage where they will remain until they are able to be reunited with family or, in cases where that's not possible, come of age and go out on their own. So while in the US we may think of an orphanage as a place where abandoned children await adoption, orphanages in Zambia can serve as more of what we think of as a foster home for children. Because of the vagueness and, frankly, the strangeness of Sophie's writing, it's hard to get a grasp on what she was doing day to day in Zambia prior to meeting and adopting her older daughter. M. Largely, it seems that she was in the business of saving souls. There's a lot of talk about saving women and children and being a mother to them, but the particulars aren't clear. Other than various mentions of proselytizing and Bible study and occasional mentions of meetings with various healthcare providers. And Sophie doesn't appear to have any specialized training. However, as well demonstrated by the book, she sure does seem to know a lot of scripture. There's a lot about Jesus in this book. I would say at least a third of the text is Sophie in rapturous conversation with him. Now, as for any of the earthly men she encounters in her time in Zambia, Sophie has nothing good to report.

[Payne Lindsey]

One afternoon in late 2010, I was walking home through the compound where I lived, dialoguing with Jesus about my day. Drunken men directed profanities at me as I passed a tavern, but simultaneously my eyes fixed on three little girls playing in the dirt just a few feet in front of them. Their soiled dresses barely covered their bottoms, making it obvious that they wore no undergarments. My heart burned and adrenaline shot through my veins as I recalled that three days earlier a young child was severely raped in an alley nearby. A fire rose within me as I recalled another very complex sexual assault assault case in which three precious young girls confessed that they had agreed to give themselves to a man for a gift, which turned out to be a single lollipop for the three of them to share.

[Andrea Dunlop]

Now, sadly, sexual assault is both pervasive and universal, and unfortunately, it has not been possible to corroborate or disprove any of the anecdotes Sophie shares in her book. The story she tells here could be true, but her descriptions of the people in Zambia, particularly but not exclusively, the men, often paints them as cruel and violent.

[Payne Lindsey]

The transition from my southwest Michigan normal to my new Zambian compound normal was tough. It was now normal to cry myself to sleep every night, to be fondled and grabbed by men throughout the day, and to encounter severely abused women and children. It was also normal to hear heinous sexual comments by drunken men. It was normal to have bruises and sore limbs from being dragged into an alleyway, to be threatened with stoning and being thrown in fire while fighting, to rescue children, and to be harassed and followed by individuals with legions of unrestrained demons possessing them. It was normal to hold babies who had been dumped in sewers, to feed children whose babies bellies and bottoms were being eaten away by worms, and to listen to little girls replay the abusive events of the night prior.

[Andrea Dunlop]

And while we don't get any sense of the daily details like meals or dress, the passages about the suffering of the children she encounters are vivid and gruesome. The book positions Sophie as both a martyr and a savior, helping various women and children at great risk to herself. And while Sophie talks a lot about Jesus, she also paints herself very much as a Christlike figure. Her story culminates with the adoption of her two daughters, C and M, following a lengthy battle with the Zambian government, who, according to her, fought her every step of the way. Sophie was under 25 at the time, which made it against Zambian law for her to adopt children. She was also less than 21 years older than M, her eldest daughter, which went against a separate legal requirement. However, the adoptions did eventually go through, with M. In 2014 when she was 5, and with C, the baby when she was less than a year old in 2015.

[Payne Lindsey]

One day after I had completed my primary responsibilities, I was prompted by the Holy Spirit to visit a crisis orphanage. I had been there only once before, and since then I had repeatedly asked Jesus for another opportunity to go. I declared under my breath that because Jesus made it clear in the Bible that visiting the orphan was true religion, I knew that more would happen during my time at the orphanage than would meet my eye. I walked in and there she was. As she wiggled beneath three blankets, I could start to make out her tiny frame. It was obvious just by her face, though, that malnourishment had left her entire body skeletal. Her body came to a rest as I drew her near. I looked down, gazing into her eyes. I couldn't help but stare at such beauty. She pulls her little fist close to her face and she rubs her tired eyes. I've never seen something so precious. My hand supports her damp bottom. The smell of urine meets my nose as the most fragrant, glorious foreign.

[Andrea Dunlop]

Case I've covered on this show has concerned parents and their biological children. So I wanted to better understand the nuances of the adoptions in this case and get some insight into the girl's experience. To help us understand the process and complexities of transracial adoption, we sat down with Chad Golder Sojourner, a Seattle based writer, educator and performer who counsels families and organizations on this topic. What do you think is the biggest kind of misconception or set of misconceptions about transracial adoption, in particular when you're talking about like a white family adopting black children?

[C]

So I think so I think one of the misconceptions is that. That the white parent knows more. Think about that way. We have this weird way about adoption, especially transracial adoptees. Is this narrative that the adoptee should be grateful. Some home is better than no home. How dare you not be grateful? You know, in this ma. You know, remember the whole was it the Sally Struthers ads with the kids and the flies and all that, even that mentality. And the fact is that's not right, you know, and the fact is that you have to put in more energy and time. So one thing I did when I did consulting is that somebody's going to be uncomfortable. It's just how life is and if the parent is not feeling uncomfortable, you can assume that the child is uncomfortable. For transracial adoptees, especially with adopting black kids, is you have to prepare them to enter into the world they're going to live in.

[Andrea Dunlop]

I have a two year old and a six year old and I really see my job as a parent to prepare my kids for the world that they live in. And this is hard enough as it is. So I can only imagine what an uphill battle it would be if you had such a difference in your lived experience to what you know that your children's will be. So it's really important to me to note that neither Chad nor myself is against adoption, transracial or otherwise. Families come to be in all kinds of different and often beautiful ways, and families are always complicated. It's also true that there are some additional layers of complexity when adoption comes into the picture. And as I know from talking to friends who've adopted, including our season two family, the Wayburns, it's just a lot to navigate. As Chad explained, there is always the risk that children in these situations will come to be seen as commodities. And consideration for them and their birth parents isn't always top of mind. Sadly, in the worst case scenario, adoption can be seen as a marketplace. For example, prospective parents can flock to states that allow shorter windows of time for birthing parents to change their mind. And when you add international borders into the discussion, children are also at an increased risk of being fundamentally and profoundly disconnected from their homeland.

[C]

I think one reason that people benefit from international adoptions is because it's harder for you cut the kid away. So there's no three days, you can't take them back. You know, it's less likely this kid's going to be taken back from, right?

[Andrea Dunlop]

So this family, you know, it is a transracial adoption, it's a white mother of two black daughters. And it's also an international adoption that is a faith based adoption that took place in the context of this woman when she was quite young going to Zambia to do missionary work and then eventually returning to the States with these two girls. So can you help us kind of understand these, these different sort of complications that come around with these things?

[C]

Well, so first of all, as somebody who's been running with Jesus since the Carter administration, I would tell you that God will Never tell an 18 year old to go 6,000 miles to get a child. Okay, he might then go down to the soup kitchen, go mow the guy's lawn. So I think the problem with international Adoption for a couple reasons is you have no idea. First of all, you don't know what you're going to get. I don't mean that you're going to a place where you don't know local currency, you can't spell, you can't find it on a map. I can't play. I'm not saying I'm. But I'm not going to Zambara to get a kid. There's all these different things, you know, nothing with history. And you want to take a kid and remove them, just erase that part, which is very bold and brash. It just seems like who, like where, like where is that biblical? You know, the Bible talks about God helps the widows and orphans. He doesn't like talking about just removing them.

[Andrea Dunlop]

Missionary work itself is very fraught territory. It's mostly young white kids going to countries that have often been destabilized due to long histories of colonialism and foreign conflict. And as Chad pointed out, Sophie's traveling to Zambia to take two girls home was probably not the most efficient or economical way to help out.

[C]

I mean, being the plane fares, all the money that they earn, all the stuff that goes into these questions like why it goes back to why. My other concern about transracial international adoptions is I just have this thing that kids should be able to put their feet on the soil. So my thing is, are you taking the kid back? When are they going back? Because it's all interesting. Oh, we can afford. Well, you afforded it the first time, you know, you went to Ethiopia to get the kid, but now you can never afford to go back. So I think, I mean, I don't want to see just totally disparaging about it, but I think there's a lot of stuff there that is still doesn't make sense. I think when you look at this whole concept, I don't want to use the word white nationalism the way we all think, but there is. This is white savior complex.

[Andrea Dunlop]

This is the troubling vein running through Sophie's book. It's the grandiosity of thinking that Zambia is a problem and it's one that she's equipped to solve.

[Payne Lindsey]

A fierce fire started to burn in me with the knowledge that I had been born to fight for justice. The core of my God given personality combined with the circumstances of my life had given me a unique skill set that seemed particularly valuable in Zambia's darkest compounds.

[Andrea Dunlop]

And the two kids that Sophie ends up adopting are not the only kids that she tries to save from Zambia. She attempted to adopt twins before she successfully adopted her older daughter, Em. She also describes many other instances in her book where she's saving kids in a different way.

[Payne Lindsey]

I took a few steps in Espina's direction. She immediately retreated backward and began shouting, almost barking. In that moment, I became certain that she was under a demonic influence, and I immediately felt a generous boldness to share the gospel. Completely unhindered, I began to share the gospel from Genesis to Revelation. Espina was now seated with intense anger across her face. I calmly approached her and gently placed my right hand on her head. She pulled away, falling down in the dirt, and immediately I could tell that the little girl inside was held captive by darkness. I got down in the dirt beside her and proclaimed freedom over her. I could hear her calling out, jesus, Jesus. And then suddenly she would stop. I made no retreat and simply continued to declare freedom in Jesus name. Espina thrashed around on the ground for quite a while, sometimes extending her hands up to the sky but kicking up a dust storm. She screamed as if her entire body was chained, and I stood in agreement with Jesus as he ordered the demons to let go.

[Andrea Dunlop]

I don't want to be dismissive of anyone's beliefs, but also what While the religious piece of Sophie's perspective feels pretty foreign to me as an agnostic, and we're going to bring in an expert to help us unpack those parts of the story, the positioning of Sophie as both a martyr and a savior feels extremely familiar to me, as does the book's fixation on crisis and suffering. So much is glossed over in the book, but the scenes like this one where Sophie is heroically saving children feel downright cinematic. So as we move away from Sophie's account of her origin story and the adoptions go through for both C and M in 2015, this brings us back into the real world, a world where Sophie is now a single mother of two and after leaving Zambia, she doesn't choose to head home to Michigan, where her family and friends live, where her childhood church congregation is, or where her entire support system appears to reside. She moves to Seattle, where I live. This season on Nobody Should Believe Me if she wasn't guilty of these allegations, if she was not doing what this search warrant was alleging. You know, how horrific. I mean, she seems like a saint.

[Payne Lindsey]

She would start to talk about money and how, you know, she doesn't have.

[Andrea Dunlop]

Any money and she needs fundraisers and all this stuff. But her daughter is in one of the most expensive sports, and I believe the church raised about around $30,000 something like that. I'd gone through a very traumatic experience having her children taken away, and we, as Haven Church got the opportunity to support her and hold her up with our prayers. But from my observations, she's like the.

[Payne Lindsey]

Healthiest kid I ever seen in my life.

[Andrea Dunlop]

Would eat as much as we'd feed her. But given the fact that her digestive system is so messed up, my daughter has to regulate that.

[Payne Lindsey]

I had a hard time imagining being.

[Andrea Dunlop]

A parent and making videos of those kinds of things for my kid.

[Payne Lindsey]

Did you ever witness having what Sophie calls one of her episodes?

[Andrea Dunlop]

I did not. She allegedly had this journal entry that talked about how she had an issue with lying. Every time I go in, like, to the doctor, she wouldn't be exhibiting those symptoms. I'm like, I know this sounds crazy, but I'm not making this up. This is not. This is not. Yeah, well, you're the mom. Yeah. Would it surprise you if I told you that AHC is not a terminal disease? Yes, it would.

[C]

So I think that all of the.

[Andrea Dunlop]

Signs and symptoms are here for, like, it's obviously a concern that she's pushing this child towards death. 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. Book passages were performed by Ilana Michelle Rubin. Special thanks this week to Chad Goeller, Sojourner Glory Machingi, Francisco Alvarado, who originally covered this story for the Daily Beast, and the many people who spoke to us on background. 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. Thanks for listening to this season two episode of True or Crime. If you want an ad free version of this show and other great shows from Tenderfoot TV, you can subscribe to Tenderfoot plus at tenderfootplus.com or on Apple Podcasts.