Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Evil Mommy forces tot-son into 300 hospital visits, 13 life threatening surgeries, feeding tube and wheelchair, ALL FAKE

Episode Date: August 27, 2019

A Texas mom says her son is sick, taking him to over 300 hospital visits. He endures 13 surgeries. Doctors say the boy is perfectly healthy. Nancy Grace discusses the Munchausen by Proxy diagnosis: Psychologist Dr. Brian Russell, Defense Attorney Jason Oshins, Former detective Steven Lampley and Crime Online Investigative reporter Levi Page. 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. Last month was a critical turning point when Kayleen once again took Christopher to the hospital, claiming he was having a seizure. The medical staff did not believe her and again called investigators. This time, Child Protective Services took action. The arrest warrant states that when Christopher was removed from his mother's care, he was wearing an IV and using oxygen. According to Kayleen's arrest warrant, once he was away from her, Christopher began eating regularly and needed no IV or oxygen assistance. In fact, they say Christopher, while in the hospital, was playing most of the time. He could have died.

Only God saved him. You're hearing from our friends at NBC today. Wow. Listen to this. 13 unnecessary surgeries. I'm still whining about my knee surgery. 13 unnecessary surgeries. And if that's not enough, have you ever been in the hospital? Do you not hate it? I hate the smell of it. I hate everything about it. I think people go there to die. No offense to all the doctors on the panel this morning. I have horrible memories of it. My dad passing away there. 323 hospital visits for a healthy little boy. He's just turned 10. So how many years of his childhood, probably since he was a baby, has he had 323 hospital visits,

trying to get a lung transplant, admitting him to a hospice during the first eight years of his life, 13 surgeries, and he's perfectly healthy. Okay, I'm not going to be happy until somebody goes to jail. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. With me, an all-star panel, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart, Dr. Brian Russell, lawyer, psychologist, host of Investigation Discovery's hit series, Fatal Vows.

Renowned defense attorney in the tri-state area. Joining us today out of New York, Jason Oceans, Steve Lampley, ace detective, Dr. William Maroney, Michigan medical examiner, author of American Narcan on Amazon. It's awesome. But first to Levi Page, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Levi, who is Kaleen Bowen? Who is this person? She's a 35 year old mother in Texas that was the mother of this eight year old little Christopher that she mistreated horribly, according to prosecutors. Whoa, whoa, back it up, back it up, back it up. This all started when he was just eight days old. Eight days. So Dr. William Maroney, who not only is a renowned medical examiner

and author of American Narcan, but now tooling around the region in a giant bus trying to help opioid addicts. I mean, when you've got a degree like his and a career like his, and you are still bending over backwards, motivated by your faith to help other people. You know, I'm just a big fat loser compared to you, Maroney. Let's just start right there. That said, Dr. William Maroney, eight days old. Here's what you have. In Munchausen syndrome, that's a medical term we've used for people who inflict punishment to themselves. They're looking for intention. In Munchausen by proxy, people inflict punishment or fake disease in a family member or somebody they give care to. And putting them out for medical treatment and clinical evaluation and doctor's visits gives the parent some reward. They're looking for attention.

Well, you know what? You're putting perfume on the pig because in my mind, Dr. William Maroney, if a doctor, no offense to you doctors, Dr. Maroney, I don't know how in the hay, H-E-L-L, how a doctor could not figure out there was nothing wrong with this child and just went along with the mom. I mean, frankly, I think the doctors ought to be thrown in the same pot to stew. Take a listen to the father, Ryan Crawford. It started eight days after he was born. Every time that he would drink milk, he would throw it up. So she says, it really just didn't make sense because I never saw him throw up any milk. She started explaining to the judge that the doctors stated that my son

would never walk. And then she stated that he had problems continuing to eat and that he's going to need a feeding tube. I was horrified because from what I knew, my son was fine. The issues escalated to eventually she claimed that my son was dying. I put myself at blame for the simple fact that if I was there from the very beginning for my son, he had to go through these issues. He could have died and only God saved him. Well, I hate to kick a guy when he's down. I really do. But he's probably right. If the father had been on the scene and more involved with the child, he may have been able to stop this. I don't really know about that because to Dr. Brian Russell, not just lawyer, but psychologist and host of ID's

Fatal Vows, this mother was hell-bent on treating this child this way, insisting, insisting that he had all these serious ailments, even putting him on a feeding tube. I'm gonna have to circle back to Maroney on that, but take a listen to this before you weigh in, Dr. Russell. It started when she was pregnant and she would call me at all times of night, normally three, four or five o'clock in the morning and explain to me that she's in the hospital. One particular time I remember is that she called me and stated that she had 110 degree temperature for the last seven days. And I didn't believe it. I didn't even hear anyone in the hospital. You know, I was trying to see if I could hear anything in the background.

It was just quiet. And at that particular time, I don't have the evidence that we have now. So I kind of just played it off like whatever. Okay. Well, wait a minute, Dr. Russell, I got to get to you regarding what's going on in her brain. But Dr. Moroney, I didn't know a person could have 110 degree fever. It's impossible. You die.

You get brain damage at 105. It's a lie. It just hit me right there when she called the husband. And guys, I got to defend the husband after I just said the father, he should have been there. He actually tried. Jackie's corrected me. He tried to be there. The mother blocked him. She even went to court and had a judge block the father from seeing the son as much as he wanted to. You're right, Jackie. I recall that now. So I can't really get on the father that much because he even went to court trying to see his son more. So, dad, you get credit for trying. 110 degrees. Dr. Brian Russell, what? She started all this when she was pregnant? I mean, help me out. You're the shrink. So, I think the most important thing

that we need to all understand is that while this clearly is not a mentally healthy woman who wants to do something like this, this disorder that we're talking about is not the type of disorder that forces anybody to do anything. These women who engage in this, I'm not trying to be discriminatory, but it just statistically it is. They absolutely go to all kinds of effort to conceal what they're doing. And so they absolutely are aware that these illnesses are fake. They're aware that their children are sustaining all kinds of damage, physical and psychological. And they absolutely go right ahead and do it anyway because of what's in it for them, which is definitely emotional in the form of all the

attention and sympathy they get. Sometimes it's also financial. Sometimes they get donations and all kinds of free services and stuff from sympathetic people. And so this is absolutely not the kind of thing that should ever form the basis of an insanity defense, because these people know what they're doing and they go right ahead and do it anyway. You know, to Jason Oceans, you're the defense attorney. Did you hear what Dr. Brian Russell just said? This is not like some delusion where every time I open the door, I think the devil is standing there. That, you know, some kind of a psychotic delusion or vision or auditory hallucination. This is not a compulsion where you have to do it. You can't stop yourself from doing it. I remember one defendant,

nothing would do until he pulled his eye out. They tried, they tried, they tried to stop him. Of course, he had murdered his girlfriend and pulled her eyes out. That was a big indicator that something was way wrong. But he had to do it. It was the compulsion. And no matter what you did, he was going to do it. All right. Not so according to Dr. Brian Russell with these nut job moms that torture their children, pretending they're ill so they can get the attention.

I'm so mad I could chew a nail in half. Jason Oceans, what's your defense? I think if you chewed the nail in half, that might be a Munchausen by proxy as well as your tooth comes out. But I'm I'm yes. And again, mostly women. There are some men involved in this. It's a cry out for something. Obviously, there's something wrong, as the doctor says, and that compulsive need to grab attention or, in many cases, in this situation where people are actually raising money and using that and using the threat of illness for their child as a basis for being a fraudster. So I'm just sort of wondering, after so many times and records of this child, did anyone correlate the fact that he had been attending all these hospitals all the time? I mean, to me, there's some negligence on their part as well. What are the medical records? And he, you know, 323 times in the Dallas and Houston area in just seven years and 13 surgeries. I mean, someone should have been calling out on this way before, you know, this continued ad nauseum.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I heard her scream once, and there was more screams, not like the kind in a horror film, just like a startled scream. And she called out to my name about three or four times, and at that point, I wanted to go help her so bad, but I was so afraid to get up. It's like my body wouldn't move, and then everything just went quiet. That's from ABC's 2020. Gypsy Rose Blanchard's mother, Dee Dee, had been murdered in her own home after years and years of abusing her little girl,

Gypsy Rose, pretending she was disabled, chronically ill, having all of her teeth pulled out, having a feeding tube, a feeding bag put into her daughter. It was a sensational, sensational case. And people end up in jail and a dead body because of Munchausen by proxy. And that is what we're talking about right now in the case of this mom, Kayleen Bowen-Wright. Joining me, Levi Page, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. It all started really in the pregnancy where Kayleen Bowen-Wright calls her husband, says she's got 110 degree fever, which as Maroney tells us is actually impossible. It starts then. But then when does it start with the child, Levi? Immediately, Nancy. The father says that she would say that he was not eating, he was not drinking his milk, that he couldn't walk

and he couldn't crawl, that he was going to be disabled for the rest of his life. And the father was thinking, I'm not noticing any of these symptoms that she is describing. And here is what is so tragic. She, you know, did not let him see the child and he had taken her to court. And she was saying that he was like a deadbeat dad, was not there for the child when he was sick and the judge would scold him. And he described in one case that he was like a deadbeat dad, was not there for the child when he was sick. And the judge would scold him. And he described in one case that he tried to bring it to the judge's attention that this could all possibly be a scam because she was going into family court and saying, my child is almost dead. He's dying. And the judge looked at the father and said, how dare you drag this woman to court to try to modify custody when the child is dying and you're not there for the child.

And that's the tragic aspect of this case, the way that the father was treated by the judicial system. I can't actually pick out which is the most tragic aspect of this, but take a listen to this. He had a feeding tube inserted, used oxygen, and took seizure medication. CPS also found Bowen Wright cut her son's hair and posted this picture of him in a Make-A-Wish shirt claiming he had cancer. Every single time we went to court, she would say that my son was dying the next day. During a trip to Dallas Children's Medical Center last month, staff began to suspect Bowen Wright might be trying to induce her son to have seizures and called CPS, which took custody of Christopher and his siblings. No one wants to believe me until it was almost too late. He almost

died three different times due to infections from the 13 different surgeries. So he has a long road ahead of him. And I hate that he had to go through that. I hate it. I hate it so much. I talked to an attorney tonight who represented Ryan Crawford back in 2014. She said back then she collected hundreds of medical records showing that there was nothing wrong with Christopher, but she said the judge in the case refused to read those records or listen to their side of the story. She says she remembers it clearly because in her words,

it was the biggest flaw in the judicial system that she has ever personally experienced. You're hearing our friends at CBS. That's reporter Andrea Lucia with the dad, Ryan Crawford, who goes to court fighting to get his son. The son almost died from all of these needless surgeries. You know what? To you, Dr. William Maroney, I was about to come bring the hammer down on the judge, but she also tricked hospitals and doctors as well. How did she do that, Dr. Maroney? Well, there's two things at play here. The first thing is nobody wants to disbelieve a mother bringing in a child, claiming the child's sick. And the second thing, which is more nefarious, the hospitals and the doctors all got paid. They got

paid to do what they were doing. So to stop it, I mean, there's some motivation here. And it wasn't to find the truth. It was admit them, put them in three, four or five days, collect the insurance money, bill Medicaid, take the money. Oh, let them go home and then we'll follow up. That's terrible. to treat a healthy baby, knowing that the baby was healthy for the reimbursement money. Unfortunately, there are enough real patients out there all the time that I don't think many of our colleagues need or want to do that. I think what happens, sometimes these mothers actually poison the kids, as I think happened in the Gypsy Rose Blanchard case and they create symptoms other times they come in and they very convincingly these are sophisticated sociopaths they come in and they very convincingly report seizure symptoms they research it on Google they come in and say oh my god every night I'm having to run in their bedroom at night and they're they're have doing this and and doing that. And so when the kid's a baby and can't speak for itself and the mother is reporting this and she seems genuine, you can understand for a while how the medical professionals do get fooled. we start seeing surgeries because when you do surgery you're supposed to have a target something

that you've identified on some kind of testing or imaging or something that you're going after to fix and when there's nothing then you know I question how do you go in 13 times when there's nothing now maybe she created some symptoms maybe she poisoned maybe she broke some symptoms. Maybe she poisoned. Maybe she broke some bones. I don't know. But that's where I think, OK, how did we go in 13 times physically with nothing wrong? When you say 13 times, well, first back to what Maroney said, they did get paid. Now, Dr. Brian Russell is saying he doesn't know any doctors that would perform surgeries unneeded on a little child.

But the reality, and they may not have intended to do anything nefarious, but the reality is, is that Maroney is also right. They did do the surgeries and they did get paid. As a matter of fact, by the time this little boy was just eight, he had already undergone 13 major surgeries, all unnecessary, confining this little boy to a wheelchair. Why? Because of mommy. I have dedicated my life to crime victims, to giving a voice to those who can no longer speak for themselves. And that is why I work with Oxygen to create a new show, Injustice with Nancy Grace.

We investigate cases that I believe never got it right, from wrongly accused to botched investigations to unclear motives to unjust sentences. I don't just cover cases. I solve them. I put my heart and soul in it. Dig deep. Look at the background, at the crime scene, at the families, at the witnesses. I look at every tiny detail because what matters to me is justice. Join us in our search for the truth. Injustice with Nancy Grace. Watch now on demand and every Saturday at 6, 5 central, only on Oxygen, the true network for crime. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A CPS investigation found Kayleen Bowen Wright was bouncing between hospitals here and in Houston looking for doctors willing to treat her son.

The state agency believes this is a case of munchausen by proxy, where a parent either fakes or creates a child's symptoms in order to get attention or some other personal benefit. The problem started shortly after Christopher was born she claimed that he had issues drinking milk I never saw those issues Ryan Crawford says his son's mother Kayleen Bowen Wright surprised about a custody hearing with news of serious health issues. I've been crying saying that Christopher is never going to walk and that we need to, you know, that I need to learn how to take care of a disabled child. A report from Child Protective Services shows the now 8-year-old has visited the doctor 323 times and undergone six major surgeries.

That's just hurting me to hear it. That's from our friend Andrea Lucia at CBS. 323 doctors visits, multiple major surgeries. Well, Stephen Lampley, renowned detective Steve Lampley, she tricked a judge. She tricked doctors and hospitals. How do we prove what she did was a felony? Well, Nancy, we go back. Probably if we go back and look, we start with her and we're going to go back and look and see what she did. because oftentimes when we have a defendant, a suspect, who is committing Munchausen by proxy, we have a history of herself,

usually a woman, like the psychologist said. We have a history of a woman who herself probably had Munchausen's or got attention from fake illnesses. She probably has a self-esteem. We're going to look at her as well and see her history. She probably has a history of attention-seeking, doing things. She may have a self-esteem issue. We're going to look at all of that.

We're also going to look at the fact. Steve Lampley, please, please help me. Did you actually say she may have a self-esteem issue? She's going to have a self-esteem issue, but she wears nothing but an orange jumpsuit for the next 20 years. You darn right she may have an esteem issue. My rear end, I just, uh-uh. Dr. Maroney, I hear Lampley. He's't right. She may have an esteem issue. My rear end, I just, uh-uh. Dr. Maroney, I hear Lampley. He's probably right.

She probably did have a self-esteem issue. I don't care. I don't care. And another thing, Maroney, she has two other children. How come she picked on this one? There's usually a timing thing. Maybe there could be a different father. There's a certain time in her life where she

feels this is the focus she couldn't get away with it and you know i want to go back to that not being hey wait wait maroney you're right the other two children wait wait wait wait the other two children are half siblings just so you know they were from a different father you're right about that okay go ahead sorry so it goes back to its very relationship and cultural focus but who's had a baby that hasn't seen it vomit formula so all babies vomit they they vomit food they vomit formula, they vomit milk, breath milk or anything else. It happens to identify that and then call back. Wait a minute, Maroney. Wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I know you have your own children, but they keep vomiting. The other day we went to Indian restaurant. I said, mild, mild, mild, mild. They made it spicy. John David walked out to the car. He didn't get one foot out before he projectile hurled in the parking lot. They keep vomiting. I don't know that they ever quit, Dr. Maroney, but that's a fun thing for me to look forward to. Go ahead.

So I would say this person has had an attention-seeking problem going all the way back to adverse events in their childhood. Oh, no. And this person is probably highly likely. You did not just blame Kayleen Bowen Wright's mommy and daddy. Boy, you're going way far back, Maroney. You're going back to the little boy's grandparents? Stop. I did.

Oh, you know, you're going back to the little boy's grandparents? Stop! I did. Oh, you know, you're hurting me. Dr. Brian Russell, please tell me you do not condone this. Trying to blame her, the mom's parents, for her self-esteem issue. No, no. And now she does this to this child? She needs to be prosecuted for every time a scalpel cut his stomach open. Had him in hospice in line for a lung transplant for Pete's sake, Dr. Russell. And Maroney jumps up and tries to tell me she had a problem as a child.

So three things. Number one is I think that what he's doing is he's looking at what would be the origin of the motivations for somebody to do something like this. And what I'm saying is, I don't really care what the motivations are. If the person knows what they're doing and they know that it's wrong, then it's a crime regardless of the motivation. So some psychology intern can sit there with her in prison and try to delve back into the motivation. The second thing is when you ask about how you prove this, you're going to see all kinds of doctor shopping, going to one doctor for this, another doctor for that, another doctor for that, so that you prolong the point where somebody like they finally did sees that wait a minute we're seeing this kid

an awful lot of times we're seeing this kid for things that we don't find to be there when the kid's in the hospital he eats just fine and then the last thing the third thing is that one of the things that makes this so insidious and so difficult for the medical professionals is that over time, real symptoms do show up because of all the medication the kid is on, because of all of the things that the mother has put the kid through. And then it gets hard to tease out what are the symptoms that are caused by this whole process versus what symptoms, if any, were there to begin with? Well, I've got to say, Dr. William Maroney, the proof is in the pudding because now he's away from the mother and he's fine. The father even says he's become very

athletic. So to me, it's a litmus test. When he's with the mom, he's confined to a wheelchair. He's on a lung transplant list. He's in hospice. An eight-year-old boy is in hospice preparing to die. Now he's out playing in the backyard with a soccer ball. There you have it. Dr. Russell alluded to a very important point of the failure in the medical system. it was fractured care. She sought out this doctor for that and that doctor for that, and these doctors did not talk to each other to see what was happening. There was no coordinating arbitrator looking to see, well, why is this happening here? Why is this happening here? So part of the medical system failure, if it's, and child protective services, seeing what's going on, there needed

to be a unification of all medical records. And that's how they're going to end up prosecuting her because real time medical care was fractured and people worked in silos separate from each other. Well, as a matter of fact, you're right. Take a listen to this lawyer, Shannon Pritchard. We've talked to people who investigate these cases, and everybody wants to know how did this happen? How on earth could this happen? What you have to remember is our doctors are not teams that all communicate with each other.

That's what we'd like to believe. And in 2014, when I was representing Ryan, which I was the first attorney that did any discovery. Discovery is asking for documents, asking for information. And in that discovery, I had records from the Houston hospital that included a letter from one of those doctors that said, oh, he has a lung condition and he it's going to be degenerative. This was in 2013. They continue to treat at both hospitals through 2015 and nothing in the discovery that we read and reviewed corroborated any of these conditions and when I reached out to that doctor he couldn't admit or deny that the child was terminal which is what Kayleen was telling the court. A lot of the surgeries were exploratory surgery she would claim

that he has some type of illness and so they would actually cut him open to try to find out what's going on. Other surgeries included a g-tube, the most invasive type that goes directly into the He had a central line right next to his heart. And he also had, I'm trying to think of the major surgeries. He had ear tubes put in. A lot of kids have those. Prime Stories with Nancy Grace. CPS is trying to claim that my son doesn't know me.

And I explained to CPS that, of course, my son doesn't know me. I've been fighting for him for the last eight years. Every time I try to come into his life, his mother would say that he's dying. I can't come around. He's too sick. If you breathe on him, he may get some type of illness. And they're just being very difficult in trying to place Christopher with me, saying that he needs to remain into a foster home. In a foster home. That's dad Ryan Crawford who battled for his son. No judge would listen. Back to CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter Levi Page. Levi, pick it up where you left off. Well, we know now that he has temporary conservatorship over his son, but his son was in foster care for a while, Nancy. And a lot of people have been

asking, what did these doctors do? How did they not catch on to this? They actually did catch on multiple times. In 2015, they reported this to CPS and then reported it again two years later in 2017. It wasn't until 2018 when CPS launched an investigation and then removed Christopher from his mother's custody. Dr. Brian Russell, I mean, she couldn't even keep her story straight. She tells some people Christopher was dying from a rare genetic disorder. She told others he had cancer. She's also accused of holding fundraisers, having a feeding tube inserted into his body that caused him to suffer life-threatening blood infections. In fact, that connector is still in his body.

He's got to have a surgery to get the feeding tube connector out of his body. And the dad was denied visits starting at age three by a judge who believed the mother. I mean, it's a tragedy everywhere you look. The only thing that's going to make me feel a little bit better is for the father to get the boy to get custody and the mom to go to jail for the rest of her life. Yeah, two things. One is that dads are getting the short end of the stick often in family courts still today in 2019 all across the nation. Now, I have to be a little bit careful here. The fact that the child went to foster care for a little while suggests to me that there's a chance that the dad's not perfect either, certainly compared to the mom, obviously much better. But it just remains

true that dads get the short end of the stick a lot of time just for being dads in family court. The second thing is for those who are real psychology, crime psychology buffs, the aspect of this where there is not just attention seeking, but there's money seeking, we call that a factitious aspect where it isn't just about the emotional reward for the perpetrator. It's about an actual tangible reward. So there's the Munchausen by proxy, which is about the emotions. And then there's the factitious disorder by proxy, which is about trying to get money off of somebody else's fake problem. You know, Levi Page, I don't have any indication the father has ever been a bad father. I just know that he got a bad rap in court when the baby was three years old and was cut off from the child. So I guess when the mom originally

was taken, the boy was taken away. They just didn't go to the dad because he had already, you know, been cut out by a court. I don't know that the dad ever did anything wrong, Levi. You're correct in your assessment, Nancy. Kayleen Bowen was saying that the father shouldn't be around him because he was so sick. And then when he did try to get custody and take her to court, she was saying that how horrible it was of him to take her to court while she's been treating for their sick son and he has not been around his son. So she's very manipulative in the way that she has been dealing with this child's father and manipulating him and even the judicial system and the judges. Take a listen to ABC Action News Deborah Reilly.

In his eight years of life, Christopher Bowen has been to the hospital 323 times and he's undergone 13 major surgeries. His mom is in jail accused of making all of her son's illnesses up. But Christopher's father questioned his son's medical issues and was subsequently stripped of his visitation rights by a judge. How do you do it? How do you do 13 surgeries and not question the fifth surgery, the sixth surgery? The judge stated that I needed to accept that my son was dying. Investigators think this is a case of Munchausen by proxy syndrome, a mental disorder in which a caregiver makes up an injury or an illness or creates an injury or an illness to

get medical care to gain attention. Christopher and his two siblings are now in foster care. He is wonderful. He's not on any medications. Well, let me rephrase, allergy medications. He doesn't have any tubes inside of him. Obviously, he still has the connection for the G-tube, which, you know, one day we're going to have to address that. And he's just ready to begin the process of healing, which he can't do in a foster home. You are there hearing the dad, Ryan Crawford, listen to this. This same time last year, this little boy, Christopher Bowen, was dying, eight years old, on oxygen, in a wheelchair, a feeding tube, an IV in his arm. Miracles do happen. An eight-year scam is over. Today, the feeding tube is gone. The wheelchair is discarded. The need boy doesn't even wear glasses.

This child almost died. The intervention was a miracle, and now this child is flourishing. What, if anything, can we learn? We can make sure it doesn't happen again to another child. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend.

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