Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Evil mom watches as her girl near DEATH BY LICE

Episode Date: May 27, 2021

An Indiana woman is facing charges after doctors said her young daughter’s lice infection was so critical that the child almost died. Shyanne Nicole Singh, 26, was arrested and charged after her daughter ended up in the hospital, in critical condition.According to an arrest affidavit by the Scottsburg City Police Department, the Indiana Department of Child Services contacted authorities after a 4-year-old child was admitted to the hospital with a "near-fatal" infestation. Hospital staff told investigators that the child could barely walk. Her hemoglobin levels were “the lowest they had ever seen.”Joining Nancy Grace today: Ashley Willcott - Judge and Trial Attorney, Anchor on Court TV, www.ashleywillcott.com  Dr. Shari Schwartz, Forensic Psychologist (specializing in Capital Mitigation and Victim Advocacy), www.panthermitigation.com, Twitter: https://twitter.com/TrialDoc, Author: "Criminal Behavior" and "Where Law and Psychology Intersect: Issues in Legal Psychology" Dr. Bernard Cohen - Professor of Pediatrics and Dermatology Johns Hopkins Children's Center, Author: "Pediatric Dermatology" Sheryl McCollum - Forensic Expert & Cold Case Investigative Research Institute Founder, ColdCaseCrimes.org Angenette Levy - Emmy-nominated Reporter & Anchor, Twitter: @Angenette5 Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A four-year-old little girl, the oxygen getting sucked from her body as her mommy stands by and watches. It's not quite what you think. The four-year-old little talk girl nearly dying from head lice. You heard me right. A four-year-old talk girl nearly dying from head lice. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

A four-year-old talk girl nearly dying from head lice. How does that happen? Listen. This is a situation local health officials say they are shocked by, and they say the situation was 100% preventable. This is very rare. This is the exception, not the norm. According to court documents, in Scottsburg, Indiana, two children were brought to the hospital with a severe lice infestation. One of the children's infestation was so severe,

the hospital said the four-year-old was near death. How can that be? And how could a mother stand by and watch it happen? Again, thanks for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. With me, an all-star panel to try and make sense of it. First of all, judge, trial lawyer, anchor, Court TV, Ashley Wilcott at ashleywilcott.com. Dr. Sherry Schwartz, forensic psychologist at panthermitigation.com, author of Criminal Behavior. With us, Dr. Bernard Cohen, professor of pediatrics and dermatology at Johns Hopkins Children's Center, author of Pediatric Dermatology. Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute, forensics expert. You can find her at

coldcasecrimes.org. And Anjanette Levy, Emmy nominated reporter and anchor. And you can find her on Twitter at Anjanette five first to Dr. Bernard Cohen, professor of pediatrics and dermatology at Johns Hopkins. Doctor, how is it that lice can end up killing you? I mean, to be honest with you, this is as rare as hen's teeth, to be honest with you. If I had a child who came in with an iron level, a red blood cell, a blood level this low, it would make me think about more than just the head lice issue. It would make me think that there's issues of neglect neglect that I'd want to know a lot more

about this kid's history, the immunizations up to date, the child seeing the pediatrician. Has this kid had normal care at home? It would make me worry. In fact, it's so rare. I looked to see if I could find any data on how much blood these organisms take from your scalp. And it turns out that in a normal kid who gets infested with the head louse, that it's like each bite takes like one hundredth or one ten thousandth of be 1 30th of an ounce so there were a couple of rare reports of patients presenting and a couple of children presenting with very very very low iron levels and very very low red blood cell levels and these organisms in the scalp which is again incredibly rare I've never ever seen or heard of anything like this. And even in... Well, you're never going to believe this, Dr. Cohen, but in the last six months, I've

covered a case where a little girl died from head lice. They had been sucking her blood for so long, and there were so many of them. I mean, for this child, this little four-year-old tot girl and a six-year-old little girl to be in such bad shape, how many head lice would there have to have been? It's hard for me to understand it. I can give you a sense of this, but again, in the few rare reports, in most people with head lice, there may be a couple hundred organisms. I mean, maybe 200 organisms. The one case that I actually found in literature had like 2,500. And I don't know how that's something that could have been neglected.

So you're talking about not just head lice. You're talking about kids who are neglected overall. So it would make me worry about just everything in the household. Is the kid getting adequate nutrition? Is everything else being taken care of? And how long has this kid been neglected? And the thing is, this is that everybody, with that kind of infestation, everybody in the household would be infested.

So it makes me worry there's something more going on with his mom in terms of her general care of the kids at home, other than just the head lice issue. I think a secondary infection can cause severe complications too, but that's going to happen quickly. This is different. Dr. Bernard Cohen, along with Dr. Sherry Schwartz, Ashley Wilcott, Cheryl McCollum, and Anjanette Levy, I hope you're sitting down.

Take a listen. You are hearing our friend Elle Smith, WHAS 11. Listen. Stephen Harold, an officer with the Scottsburg City Police, worked this case and in the probable cause said, I began receiving information and photographs of the four-year-old and six-year-old that showed an infestation of lice like nothing I had ever seen before. That four-year-old girl could no longer walk and needed four blood transfusions. Why? The child's hemoglobin levels were 1.7 rather than the normal 12.

Okay, what does that mean, Dr. Bernard Cohen? 1.7 rather than 12, and she could no longer walk. They did four blood transfusions. Well, if that happened to you, let's say if today you were 12.7 hemoglobin and tomorrow you were at 1.7, you'd be dead. This is something that could have only happened over a period of of many years because because they well she's only four i know can i jump in what else is going on in this family i thought i want to know was this kid you're right you're

right about that and dr bernard cohen let me tell you this is like a big family sitting around the supper table arguing so go ahead because ashley wilcott and cheryl mccollum will interrupt you okay go ahead ash all right thank you because the doctor's absolutely right and he's being kind he's saying i would want to know i'd be concerned about abuse or neglect specifically neglect as a judge i sit on the bench i hear these these cases. I'm a child welfare law specialist. And I say that to tell you this, he's absolutely spot on, right? This type of infestation is a result of medical neglect, period. It's neglect. A parent is not paying attention to nor taking care of their child if it reaches this level of infestation.

I mean, you know, Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute, I know Dr. Bernard Cohen is saying this is rare. You and I just investigated a case in the last six months of a little girl that died from lice infestation. And as Dr. Cohen is saying, total neglect. Because if you can't see there's something wrong with your child when the hemoglobin is 1.7 rather than the normal 12, as Dr. Cohen just said, you'd be dead if that were one of us. How can the mom, and where's the dad? I haven't even heard about him, not notice there's something wrong with the child. I mean, you know what?

The other day, Cheryl, I was so worried about Lucy. She was sheet white, and she had dark circles under her eyes. I immediately, as soon as I could get an appointment, took her to the pediatrician. And she was, believe it it or not borderline anemic she got in her head she wanted to be a vegan no offense to vegans but i was worried about this very same thing and you know it happened she was not anemic but she needed help with her blood the iron in her blood. What I'm saying is I immediately got worried.

How can you not notice your child can't walk anymore? Well, there's a reason this mother's been charged with a crime because she's a straight-up criminal. You have a four-year-old who has been suffering for years at least half of her life she has slowly being killed by life to the point she can't walk yeah mama needs to be in jail straight up Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. You know what? Let's just start at the beginning. Joining me right now, Anjanette Levy, Emmy-nominated reporter and anchor on Twitter, at Anjanette5. Anjanette, tell me, what happened? What do we know? Well, we know that the little girl, there was a four-year-old girl,

the one who nearly died, and her six-year-old sister. And the school had told the mom they had lice. And this was in March and the mom was told that she needed to take care of this. And the children missed 31 days of school beginning in March. And the six-year-old had the lice for three days, the school told the mom in March. She then missed 31 days of school, according to the court record. And her hemoglobin levels were low, but not as low as her younger sister's. So child services took the children away from the mom and gave them to the grandpa. Can I circle back on something you just said?

You said the school alerted the mother, your child has head lice. Correct. And then immediately she got taken out of school for 31 days. Well, she missed 31 days of school, which makes you wonder, usually if kids miss too much school, the school gets involved and calls the police. And, you know, there's an investigation launched. Did that happen here? We're not 100% sure of that. Child services did get involved.

Oh, please. That's like yelling out the car window on Madison Avenue. You call DFACS, Department of Family and Children's Services, nothing happens. They probably made a note in a file that they put away in a warehouse. And here this little girl can hardly walk. I see a failure, Ashley Wilcott. I don't think the school took action with a child missing 31 days of school.

Yeah. And defects. That's a joke calling Child Protective Services. Forget about it. And the unfortunate thing is, you know, often Child Protective Services is dealing with a death of a child. And so things like, oh, a child has lice,

they don't pay as much attention to. 31 days out of school, that would get my attention. I would think the child could be dead. Absolutely. That's what I was going to say. The school issue compounds that, and something should have been done before 31 days. And let me just add something, a little addendum, as we love to say in the law, a codicil, so to speak. CPS is dealing with dead children for a reason, because CPS puts abused children back in the home for them to get murdered. That's why CPS is in on it, because it's their fault, along with the killer. Here we've got a child out of school 31 days and nobody notices, nobody lifts a finger? Well, I want you

to take a listen to our cut for L. Smith WHAS 11. Catherine Webb, an infection and prevention manager for Scott Memorial Hospital, said this case of lice is uncommon. It's extremely rare to have a case that is that severe, and I think you can see through that case if you are, if it does go on and on, it can lead to that. But that would be, in my opinion, a very heavy infestation that's gone on for a great deal of time. So that tells me even more that the mom stood by and watched this happen, as Dr. Bernard Cohen told us, for a great period of time. To Dr. Sherry Schwartz joining us, forensic psychologist, author of Criminal Behavior and Where Law and Psychology Intersect.

Dr. Schwartz, that takes, let me say, a unique type of criminal mind to stand by and watch two little girls suffer to near death. Yeah, absolutely. I'm, you know, it's, it's really, it's really troubling that she is told by the school, there's this head lice problem. And it seems that she doesn't do anything to try to solve it. And that makes me wonder what's going on with her, this kind of neglect of children that is seen over and over in the courts. Often the parent, the neglectful parent has some sort of major mental illness, possibly clinical depression, major depression, maybe bipolar disorder, but also there could be, you know, drug problems that she might have. And if she's an addict, then she's not caring about much of anything.

It's hard to imagine that she also didn't have a life problem. If it was so prolific in her home and she's around these children, then surely she must also have the problem. I would be very surprised to find that she didn't. Hold on just a moment. I want to follow up on what you're saying. Cheryl McCollum, we are hearing a renowned forensic psychologist, Dr. Sherry Schwartz, speaking about what may or may not be plaguing the mother, depression, bipolar, possible drugs. We don't know any of that. But my overarching question, Cheryl McCollum, is do I care? Do I care why the mother tortured

her children to near death? Do I, I mean, if she has bipolar, I want her to be treated. I don't want her to suffer. If she has a drug problem, I want her to get well. But I'm focused right now on the little girl that can't walk. Don't come whining to me that you're depressed, and that's why you didn't take care of your children and let them come that close to death, to the brink of death. Can I make a comment, too, here? It's sort of a vicious cycle sort of phenomena.

So let's say she gets a headlight infestation, gets a normal headlight infestation, but when she gets this kind of infestation with thousands of organisms, which is incredibly rare, it makes me think that she's becoming chronically ill, malnourished. There's all sorts of other things going on, which allows her to get thousands of organisms for a period of years that is profound. And I totally agree. This mom, a long time ago, needed to be fully evaluated for all these other issues that

may have confounded and created the maltreatment or neglect from the get-go. Oh, Nancy, for the love of Pete, this woman is sorry and good for nothing. That's all there is to it. And we can sit there and say, oh, she's this or she's that or she's this or she's that. She's a mama. And by that, she had an obligation legally and morally to take care of those babies. And I guarantee you, this six-year-old sister is going to make an incredible witness. Because before that four-year-old was able to walk, think how many times she fainted. Think how many times she couldn't really catch her breath. She had no energy.

Those organisms sucked the oxygen out of her blood. She couldn't play like a normal four-year-old. She couldn't eat like a normal four-year-old. She was probably laying around lethargic and pitiful. While we sit around talking about she may have been depressed. Mommy may have been depressed. Dr. Cohen, you're preaching to the choir. All right. I don't know if they have that saving saying at Johns Hopkins, but I'm on board with you. Of course she was neglecting the children. I agree. But right now I'm worried

about the thousands of headlines sucking the oxygen out of her blood. And you know what? Can I be honest with you? That's an easy fix. That's actually an easy fix, to be honest with you. You're right. I know that. I get it. But she didn't do it. That's what is so incredibly poignant. It is an easy fix, but instead of fixing it, she let her girls suffer. Take a listen to our friends at crimeonline.com, our cut eight. After discovering the lice infestation, Singh's grandmother says she confronted Singh about how the lice infestation had gotten so out of hand, but Singh allegedly replied that she didn't notice, that she was just in a fog. Looking for advice, the grandmother took the photos of the infestation to a pharmacist, and the pharmacist recommended getting the children to the hospital. She took the advice.

They were admitted in such poor physical condition that child services contacted local police. The grandmother reportedly told police that the girls also had lice last November, but that Singh was just too lazy to help comb them out, and it would start all over again. Too lazy to comb them out. crime stories with nancy grace okay back to you and janet levy reporter and anchor so the grandmother steps in and tries to save the girl she knows something's horribly wrong she confronts the mother and the mother says oh i didn't notice did i understand that correctly yes you did and the mother said that she was in a fog that makes you wonder if she was on drugs or just didn't care so okay actually i'm not really wondering i I'm not wondering. And I'll tell you why. Because I'm more concerned about the children that nearly died at mommy's hands. Now, if it were a case of documented insanity, which is a legal defense under the law, I might perk up and listen. But other than that, to sit by and watch your children as they are dying and you

do nothing. I mean, Ashley Wilcott, in my mind, this is really no different than the House of Horrors out in California where the Turpin parents wouldn't feed their children and kept them locked and chained to their beds and starved them. They stood by and watched them starve. Here she's watching her children die and didn't notice? Right. No, there are obviously other issues, other concerns, other things, because there's no way, there's no way a person wouldn't notice and they are watching them die. Because this level of infestation, okay, lice, nits, or eggs, you may not be able to see, you may not notice unless you're specifically looking. This level of infestation, anybody can see.

When I see anybody, you can walk the child through a grocery store and one of us would say, oh my gosh, look at their head. They need medical care. This mother wasn't paying attention. Guys, we are talking about a four-year-old and a six-year-old little girl, two of them sisters that nearly die as mommy sits by twirling her thumbs. Believe it or not, lice infestation. And as our friend, Dr. Bernard Cohen from Johns Hopkins says, it was probably hand in hand with so many other types of neglect. But this is what we know. The hemoglobin count was low enough to kill someone, and the little four-year-old couldn't even stand up. Where were the social workers? Where were the

school? Nobody knows. But take a listen to our friends at Crime Online. The pharmacist's advice likely saved the four-year-old's life. Doctors described the girl's condition as a near fatality because she had lost so much blood. Lice feed on human blood, and if left untreated, an infestation can cause anemia. According to an affidavit, hospital staff told police they measured the girl's hemoglobin levels when she was admitted. Hemoglobin is a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen throughout the body and gets rid of carbon dioxide. Typically, hemoglobin levels are around 12 grams per deciliter. But hospital staff said the 4-year-old girl's levels were the lowest they had ever seen, measuring just 1.7.

Court documents show that the 4-year-old had to have at least four blood transfusions and was so sick she could not walk. The 6-year-old girl's hemoglobin levels were 8.7 grams per deciliter. Take a listen to our friend Rick Van Hoos at WLKY. Police have arrested a Scottsburg woman after investigators say a 4-year-old had lice so bad she almost died. Cheyenne Singh faces multiple neglect charges. Officials say the girl was taken to a hospital last month and nearly died. Because of the lice, it had been feeding on her blood for so long. And what does it look like if your child has lice, much less enough lice to kill them?

Take a listen to our Cut 6, the American Academy of Dermatology. First, see if your child has lice by sitting your child under a bright light. Separate hair into sections and carefully search each section. Look for eggs called nits that look like tiny seeds attached to the hair. In contrast to dandruff, the nits cannot be easily removed from the hair. The nits can be yellow, brown, or tan if the lice haven't hatched. Live knits are clear and found within an inch of the scalp. Lice and knits are more commonly found in the hair behind the ears and around the nape of the neck. So to you, Dr. Bernard Cohen, have you ever seen a case like this where the child is near death. Now, listen, this is something that did not happen overnight

because if you go from 12 grams to 1.7 overnight, you're dead. That's what happens when you get your leg cut off and have a giant bleed. You know, she got four transfusions. This is something that happened over probably a period of at least a year or longer. I bet several years. And not only that, but again, at this point, she probably had many hundreds or thousands of lice in her scalp. This is the kind of thing where you don't need a magnifier to see this. You just look at her hair.

You probably see these things crawling all over the place. It also makes me wonder, a couple of the case reports I found showed evidence not just of head lice, but also body lice, bubic lice. But, I mean, to be honest with you, this would have been possibly thousands of organisms at this point. And this is something that happened over a very long period of time. This is something that if they were out in public, other family members, friends, neighbors, you're right, In the shopping center, everybody in the store would notice this. This is not something difficult to say. So this is something where these kids were probably hidden away from the public.

I don't know what their oral intake was like. We don't know how they were fed. We don't know what this mother did. But this is a lot more than lice. My suspicion is that lice is just one of the many symptoms of what was going on crazy in this household. You know, I'm thinking about what this child went through. Dr. Bernard Cohen joining us from Johns Hopkins. He is a pediatric dermatologist. He is the author of Pediatric Dermatology. He literally wrote the book.

Dr. Bernard Cohen, how would the children have felt? Would they feel any pain? Oh, my God. I mean, initially, these kids would have been itchy like crazy. They would have been uncomfortable. I can't imagine that you were able to sleep at night. There's a lot going on here. And like I say, your hemoglobin doesn't drop from 12 to 1.7 overnight without killing you. It's got to be something that happens chronically over a long period of time.

So these kids were absolutely miserable for a very long period of time. There's no question about it. Ashley Wilcott, do you ever get totally saturated with crimes on children where each case seemingly is worse than the case before? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And you think you've seen it all, and you think, oh, my gosh, I'm never going to see this again. And it all gets worse and you see more. And this is a case of you never think that somebody is going to neglect something that's so visible to the naked eye. But yet parents do this over and over. This is not the first case.

And did you hear our friends at CrimeOnline.com to Cheryl McCollum, director of Cold Case Research Institute, say if it had not been for that pharmacist, this girl would have died. Right. And Nancy, I'll tell you, I've been looking at her social media and it looks like her two children had almost crew cuts before. I don't know if this has happened again, but I'm pretty sure. Well lot of grandma said it had happened before and they got to the point they needed their head shaved nancy may i interject for for one please do just to share some context because um cheryl and dr cohen are right on the money it looks like cheyenne n Singh was charged with a felony neglect of a dependent back in June of 2019. This was public record. So this has been a chronic ongoing problem.

It doesn't say why. I don't know if this was life, but it also was in a different jurisdiction. So it makes me, from a psychological perspective, wonder. This case is supposed to go to trial in August. So it makes me wonder does she get up and move to the neighboring jurisdiction because she knows that she's in trouble and actually we see that that common practice with is that cheryl or ashley jumping in cheryl yeah i was just about to say we see that a lot with abused children go ahead cheryl it's common practice if

the cab county's investigating you move to gwinnett if Gwinnett gets a hold of you, move to Fulton. They're not going to hardly be able to keep up and find you. So you just stay ahead of being charged and you are able to maintain custody of your children. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Well, guys, I hate to crash all your theories that mommy has depression and maybe she's on dope and maybe she's bipolar. Uh-uh. No. I'm looking at her picture right now. She's a glamour girl on Facebook and Insta. She's got all these pictures totally made up, looking awesome, doing that trout pucker thing with her lips at the camera. Mm-mm.

No, I'm looking right at her. I wonder if she's going to look like that in court because it's almost time for her first appearance. At the hospital, the girl's levels of iron were so low, they declared it a near fatality. Four blood transfusions for a four-year-old girl? What does that mean to you, Dr. Bernard Cohen? A blood transfusion? Four of them? Well, just again, when you have, when your blood level is that low, you don't want to give a large quantity of blood to correct it overnight because that could be overwhelming and could cause some serious complications as well. What you probably would like to do is spread out the transfusions so that the child can accommodate to the volume of blood that they're giving this kid. And again,

I mean, how much is for blood transfusions versus how much blood is in your body to start with? Guys, we're talking to Dr. Bernard Cohen joining us from Johns Hopkins Children's Center. Dr. Cohen, how much blood is even in your body? Well, again, I usually figure like, you know, 100 cc, which is like three ounces for every. Can you speak to me in like gallons or cartons of milk or Coke bottles? Well, in a kid this age, you're probably talking about uh i got a normal weight it's like about 25 kilos you're talking at like two and a half like two and a half liters or three liters uh which would be like what like um a gallon of milk yeah yeah i mean yeah a little bit more than that but the

thing is this is okay a gallon and a half of milk that's how much blood we have in the body of, say, a four-year-old girl. All right, how much is four blood transfusions? Well, again, what they're not telling you is the quantity they gave you with each blood transfusion because they probably had to give her a fairly large quantity, but they divided it over a period of time so as not to put her into heart failure. If you corrected that overnight, you could cause more trouble than... Trying to figure out how much, I mean, did she have to have half her blood added? I mean, how much of what? Go ahead.

Again, remember that when you give a blood transfusion, you're giving a certain volume to replace it. And the blood on the transfusion is probably normal concentration. So it's probably going to be like a 12 or 13 grams per milliliter. Now, see, that's just the kind of talk that I never let before a jury because nobody knows what you're saying. So the bottom line is this. Milk cartons and Coke bottles. Yes.

Please. You probably have to give her a whole milk carton to replace that, but you can't do it quickly. Thank you. You can't do it all at once. And, you know, another thing that's throwing me off, Dr. Bernard Cohen, is I'm looking here at mommy. To you, Cheryl McCollum, you know how you always see the Kardashians? I happen to see them during my legal research every morning. But they're always taking a, there's a picture of them taking a picture of themselves with a cell phone. I'm not knocking them. They're laughing

all the way to the bank. Okay. My point is I'm looking at mommy in this case, that's what she's doing. Taking a selfie of herself with some kind of, um, crown on her head. I don't know what that is, but this woman, she's not worried about these two children. Have you seen? She's got too many posting too many selfies to be worried about her children. Right. Nancy, it looks like she's had her eyebrows done. Her hair is always done. And some of the pictures that she's got, you know, other accessories on is children. Well, the other thing that makes me worried. What, doctor? I'm just going to say the other thing that makes me worried is that since this is a problem that occurred chronically over probably a period of at least a year or two, maybe even longer,

it's hard for me to believe that if the child and children were actually seeing the grandparents on a regular basis or other friends on a regular basis, that nobody else would have jumped on this way before that. Doctor, they could hardly walk. I don't think they're visiting very many friends and relatives. The grandma did find out about it. And, Dr. Cohen, remember how you said this was very rare? Well, take a listen to our Cut nine. This is Ashton Web

at Channel 13 WMAZ. D-Vax files show a call in 2018 about the home being quote bug infested, excessive cats and hazardous conditions. Our folks came in. They saw that the house was really a wreck. D-Vax agreed the house was unsanitary and Caitlin was placed outside the home with an aunt, but returned six days later. So they responded very quickly to our request that they make this house a fit place to live. That indicated to us that they were in fact capable of caring for Caitlin. He says there wasn't enough evidence to pull Caitlin out of the home in 2008 or 2018. The standard required to remove a child from home

is that the child is in imminent danger. There's child safety. Is it really a threat? Now, that can be emotional safety as well as physical safety. But we also do get involved with cases that maybe are a little less than that, but that when there's a chronic issue where we need the assistance of the

courts in making sure the family does what they need to do to remedy the situation. There you're hearing the speaker address what Dr. Cohen is saying with severe head lice infestation to the point of near death. There are other issues typically in the home, issues of neglect. And in that case, take a listen to our friends WXIA 11 cut 12. In August, Katie Horton and Joey Yazviak were both charged with murder and child cruelty in the 12-year-old's death. A GBI investigator testified Monday that Caitlin's death likely resulted from a severe lice infestation. Special Agent Ryan Hilton testified that Caitlin's primary cause of death was cardiac arrest. The secondary cause was anemia.

He said the girl's lice infestation was the worst he'd ever seen and doctors had ever seen, and it may have lasted for years. Hilton said repeated bites lowered her blood iron levels, which likely caused that anemia and may have triggered the heart attack. After hearing the evidence, Judge Brenda Trammell ruled there was enough evidence to charge both parents. That little girl dies because of lice infestation after living years of misery because mommy and daddy do nothing to you and Jeanette Levy Emmy nominated reporter and anchor where is mommy now and hey it's not all her I haven't heard a word about daddy where is he uh we don't know anything about the dad um the mom is facing the charges, but we haven't really heard anything

about dad. There's nothing showing dad on the Instagram or the Facebook that I can see. And I'm wondering how much time she can face. Typically with a case like this, it's a revolving door, as she will come. Of course, absolutely it is. So the thing that happens in cases like this, it's a little bit different when it gets this severe. But it's true. When they first investigate, the goal is always by the feds reunification, the child may get treated and then the child goes home. Nancy, that's the reality of what happens back in the home. Sad to say, I do know that the mom is still in custody. And straight out to you, Dr. Sherry Schwartz, based on what I'm seeing, and this is just on the outside looking in at all of her postings of herself, it doesn't look like mommy's at all concerned about the children. What frame of mind, what mindset is that? Well, one of the things that, you know, in considering that and looking at her social media

and, you know, all of those postings is, you know, you think about self-centered, possibly rising to the level of narcissism. But the one problem with that, and it doesn't mean it's not true, but the one question mark in my mind is, you know, a narcissist generally will want their children to look a certain way too, right? Because they, you know, they want to trot them out for social media, but maybe in this case, because she's not doing that, that she's only putting herself out there. It could be where she just wants to pretend she doesn't have children and, you know, it doesn't take a really big leap to then completely neglect those children. There are a few

photos where she has them kind of like on parade using them as props. We wait as justice unfolds and mommy goes before a judge. I'm still looking for daddy. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.