Crime Weekly - S3 Ep160: Maya Kowalski: The Denial of A Mother's Hug (Part 2)

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

Maya Kowalski was ten years old when her father brought her to Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital in October of 2016. The previous year, Maya had been diagnosed with a rare neurological condition called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome which caused her excruciating pain. Consistent therapy and ketamine treatments had gotten Maya’s condition under control, but she would have flare ups from time to time, and one of these flare ups brought her to the emergency room at All Children's Hospital, complaining of pain in her stomach. Maya would remain at the hospital for the next several months, against the wishes of herself and her parents, lawyers would later say. Her mother Beata Kowalski was accused of neglect and medical abuse, and by the time Maya was finally allowed to go home, her mother was dead, having taken her own life after being forbidden from seeing her sick daughter for 87 days. Maya’s family would go on to sue Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital, claiming it’s actions led to Beata Kowalski taking her own life, devastated that she could not see her daughter and that she was being accused of abusing Maya. The Kowalski family also alleged that Maya was medically kidnapped, battered and abused while in the hospital’s care. This lawsuit would bring to the light deeper issues at Johns Hopkins, issues that affected far more than the Kowalski family and lead many of us to ask the question; if you can’t trust those who take an oath to do no harm, who can you trust? Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: 1. IQBAR Refuel smarter with IQBAR’s Ultimate Sampler Pack. That’s 7 IQBARs, 4 IQMIX sticks, and 4 IQJOE sticks. And now, our special podcast listeners get 20% off all IQBAR products, plus get FREE shipping. To get your 20% off, just text WEEKLY to 64000.  2. SkyLight Frames As a special, limited time offer for our listeners, get $15 off your purchase of a Skylight Frame when you go SkylightFrame.com/WEEKLY. 3. SKIMS SKIMS Holiday Gift Shop is now open at SKIMS.com. Plus, get free shipping on orders over $75. After you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you! Select "podcast" in the survey and be sure to select our show in the dropdown menu that follows. 4. Liquid IV Grab your Liquid I.V. Hydration Multiplier Sugar-Free in bulk nationwide at Costco or you can get 20% off when you go to LIQUIDIV.com and use code CRIMEWEEKLY at checkout. That’s 20% off ANYTHING you order when you shop better hydration today using promo code CRIMEWEEKLY at LIQUIDIV.com. 5. Zocdoc Go to Zocdoc.com/CRIMEWEEKLY and download the Zocdoc app for FREE. Then find and book a top-rated doctor today.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. So today we're diving into part two of the Maya Kowalski case. Part one was full of high emotions because this is a case that will elicit those emotions. I know just writing this script, I went through all of them. And I see you guys in the comments. Everybody has their own experiences, their own health battles that they've gone through or their kids or their family members, their own times that they've gone to doctors and felt this way. So I definitely know that this hits home with a lot of people. And today's episode is not going to be easier on the emotional front.

In fact, I think it's a little more difficult, but it's important to talk about. So we're going to dive right in. Yeah. And before you even dive into it, I agree with everything you said. As far as the emotions, there's definitely people who have strong opinions about this case. And that always happens when the case is as publicized as this. Like, that's the one thing. And I've said it before. Whenever we cover cases that have been highly publicized or on Netflix or there's been documentaries, people have informed opinions already. And we're not trying to change them but we know the the

quicksand we're going into we still we're stepping on when we cover cases like this because there are a lot of people out there there's a lot of sources to get information from and i will say this i'm i'm open to hearing both sides this is going to be a multiple part series so we're going to get to everything but there are people in the comments who don't necessarily believe that Johns Hopkins and Dr. Smith and that they were like these, they're in the wrong here. There are people who say, well, could there be something to it? And again, I don't even know enough about this case yet to make an informed decision, but they're very cordial. They're respectful in the comments, but it's not like

100% on one side. This isn't like a foregone conclusion for everyone, which I think is always interesting. So it's good to hear those differing opinions and just stick with us. We're going to cover everything. We got a lot to go. We're breaking it down section by section, and we will obviously cover the other side of things for sure. Yes. What do they say? There's three sides to every story, right? Yeah. Absolutely. Kind of like that. However, I will say that this case pretty much has already been settled in and out of

court. You know, the doctor that we were speaking about, Dr. Smith, right? I think it's, yeah, it was Dr. Smith. I have my notes here. Sally Smith. Sally Smith. I might have my notes here. Sally Smith. Sally Smith. She and Suncoast LLC, her employer, they've already settled with the Kowalskis for, I believe, almost $3 million. And just recently, a judge ordered All Children's Hospital and Johns Hopkins to pay the Kowalskis

several more million dollars. Do you want to say how much it is? Are we waiting? Are we holding off on that? I mean, do you know off the top of your head what this figure is? $220 million. Yeah. I was going to say it's in the $200 million range.

It's a lot of money. So with both sides presented, a judge and jury said, This is what it is. You could have done things a little bit better, hospital. And I think that that's not up for debate. Whether or not the hospital and Dr. Smith had Maya's best intentions in mind, and who can say whether they did or not, we can't speak to people's intentions, whether or not they did have her best intentions in mind, the execution of what they did was traumatic, not only for Maya as a

10-year-old girl being torn away from her family for three months with no explanation and no way to actually connect with them. I mean, she spent Halloween in the hospital, Thanksgiving, Christmas, her birthday. And then when she got out of the hospital, her mother was dead. So I mean, there's things that happened here, time, memories that cannot ever be given back to this child. And whether or not you think that that was well-intentioned is irrelevant to me at this point, as Dr. Smith would say, it's irrelevant because a court and a judge decided that this child had not been treated properly and that this family was put through a travesty that they will probably never recover from.

Well, there's one thing we can guarantee too, right? Obviously, there's a lot of money that's going toward the Kowalskis, but on a bigger macro level, at minimum, what is going to be taken out of this case is the policies, procedures, and practices of not only Johns Hopkins, but every hospital throughout the country will look at this case and make adjustments to their own policies and protocols to avoid something like this. Because if there's one thing that'll incentivize any agency, whether it's in the private sector or public sector, to make changes is when they have to go into their wallets. I hope they do make changes. I hope they do.

I mean, this is a big ding. There's going to be some heads rolling for this one. For 220 million, some people getting fired. I mean, you guys know if you watch me on my regular YouTube channel, nobody's a bigger advocate for children than I am. That is, to me, I would vigil vigilante Batman style take out parents who hurt their children. But you didn't hear me say that.

But we're going from one extreme to another here, right? So there has to be some sort of parental rights. And you have to also take into account what the child says and what the child wants. And it was very clear from the get that Maya did not want to be there. That Maya missed her mother desperately. And you could say, oh, it's Stockholm syndrome or, oh, it's this or, oh, it's that. That child did not feel harmed by her mother. She wasn't beaten. She didn't have bruises. She wasn't being malnourished. I think that she had a very rare and disruptive medical condition. And her mother, as a nurse,

made it her personal mission to help her daughter through it. And her mother, as a nurse, made it her personal mission to help her daughter through it. And maybe she was a little bit intense with it. And the ketamine thing probably scared a lot of people and probably made them feel off. But at the same time, parents still in this country have a right to make medical decisions for their children.

And unless it's something that's like obviously detrimental, you have to kind of do your homework, which I don't think Dr. Sally Smith really did. I don't think I think she saw what she thought was medical abuse. And instead of doing her research and looking into it and educating herself on what CRPS was and about ketamine treatments and listening to the specialists who had been treating Maya for much longer than she had even known the Kowalskis, she didn't take those things into account. And I think she tried to err on the side of caution.

But at the same time, the untold trauma that it caused Maya and her family, that can't be repaid by any amount of money. So it's something to keep in mind. Absolutely. I apologize. I know you said we're going to dive right into it and then I got us off on that thing, but here we are. I mean, we dived in. We dived in. We dove. We dove. So 10-year-old Maya Kowalski was placed in the protective custody of John Hopkins All Children's Hospital, at which point her parents were told that they could not see her. On October 14, 2016, the first dependency court hearing decided that Maya's mother, Beata Kowalski, would be forbidden to have any contact with her daughter, but Maya's

father, Jack, was allowed supervised visits with Maya as long as a DCF supervisor was present. Now, the hospital staff believed that Maya was not really as sick as her mother had described and that Beato was suffering from Munchausen by proxy. So they thought a good test to determine whether or not this was true was to first remove the offending parent. This is what they do in these Munchausen by proxy cases. Take the offending parent away This is what they do in these Munchausen by proxy cases, take the offending parent away and see if gradually over time the child's symptoms improve when the parents are not there constantly reminding them that they're sick, that they should be sick, how they should be acting, what they would be doing if they were sick, etc., etc. And in this case, Bieda Kowalski was thought to be the offending parent. But all children's hospital, they sort of went

about this in a very strange way, in what some might say a cruel way. Without her consent, without the consent of her parents, Maya was placed in a dark room between October 18th and October 20th. And then nurses and social workers, Dr. Sally Smith included, made the decision to intentionally place the toilet that was in the room out of Maya's reach, meaning that if she needed to use the bathroom, she would have to get out of bed and walk to it, which was something that she and her parents were saying she could not do. She was in a wheelchair. Or she would have to basically soil herself, which truth be told, she'd already done multiple times.

So I'm not sure what these people were hoping would be different. Remember, Jack Kowalski said that when the nurse walked into the room the first time that they told him, like, you have to go, your daughter's staying here with us, he was cleaning up after Maya because she had lost control of her bowels because she couldn't get to the toilet fast enough. So once again, I'm not sure. And Beata Kowalski was not there at this time. So I'm not sure what they thought was gonna be different, but they thought that they were gonna

really figure something out. Maybe they felt the difference would be that no one would be present in the room because they secretly recorded Maya in what one medical professional referred to in a text as her charade. They wanted to expose her charade and catch her on camera walking and not in pain. See the location of the commode? Yes, I do.

Was Maya physically able to make it over there to go to the bathroom? No. If you've seen the nurse, she assisted lifting her legs in that. She's weak. All right. Did it come to your attention that there were times when Maya, they wouldn't come fast enough for Maya to make it over to the commode? She wet herself several times.

And I don't know if you can see on the right side there, her feet, the dystonia, they're severely turned in. The one, the right one. Right there? Yeah. Okay. Now, let's talk a little bit about the blankets over her. With the Aldenia, what, if anything, is significant about the blankets versus people trying to reach out and grab her?

Well, the blankets can affect it. Just like I said, droplets of water in the shower. But a person, yeah, sometimes when it's severe, even with the person going near her, she'll retract. I don't know if you're going to show it, but there was a video of Kyle. He actually touched her legs and they spasmed. But it's all dependent on the day as well all right and so as you see she's in shorts it's probably the most

comfortable thing for her to have on instead of long pants where it would potentially irritate and I know at the end there she kept the blanket off yes all right let's look at 2703 b that position of the commode again could maya reach that no did you see her legs she's so weak they're so weak there's no way that she would have been able to. And let the record reflect that this was performed, this happened October 18th through October 20th. Now, does it appear to you or did it appear to you that this room was darkened? Yes. Do you know why they or what they told your daughter in terms of the reason she needed to go into that room as opposed to telling her that she was going to be videotaped? They told Maya that they changed rooms after a certain time frame.

All right. So first off, take off the detective hat just as a father. This video infuriates me because I think about Maya was 10 at this time, right? Yeah. Right around there. Tenley's 10, going to be 11. So it just, there's no way not to look at this and think about your own daughter. And it just, it really infuriates me because not only, I don't see anything in this, we're going to dive into it. There's a lot wrong with this video. That's why they're showing it, but just on the surface, they're not like, the woman's, the nurse seems to be at least taking

care of her. There's not like an overt form of child abuse. Although we could say that what was happening in there is a form of child abuse, which I would agree with you. So yes, first thought anger, frustration, but then to start to break it down from a, from a objective perspective, as like an investigator, there's a lot going on in here. Right. And it's what the, what dad is saying. You can clearly see, she doesn't know she's being filmed. So there's a lot going on in here, right? And it's what dad is saying. You can clearly see, she doesn't know she's being filmed. So there's no quote unquote charade, as you said, going on at this point, as this text message said, she's got the, I may say some of these things wrong, but dystonia, the inward facing of the feet. The turned in feet, yeah.

Yeah. Like you can see it if you're watching this on video, if you listen to it on audio, some of this might be difficult to explain without over-explaining, but- Very clearly, you can see that her feet are like that. And there's many pictures documenting that her feet are like that. And her feet were like that when she arrived at Johns Hopkins. Right. And if you're on team hospital, you're going to say she was doing that for the crowd, right? But the whole principle, the whole point behind this video being the secret recording is you're going to expose the fallacy, right? But she's still doing it when she doesn't even know somebody's watching her. That's the point. So if anything, it's disproving what they're thinking. Exactly. It's not a good video for them. That's why they didn't show it during any dependency hearing, by the way.

Of course they wouldn't. Which you're withholding information to support your narrative now. You did that video specifically to expose her charade. It didn't expose her charade. So you were like, well, nobody has to see this. Nobody has to see it. And again, for audio people trying to be conscious of you guys, it looks like a really severe case of like pigeon toe, like her feet are basically facing each other. Her toes are basically facing each other. And there was other things. I'm not going to break it down the whole thing. You can hear the clip, but she said before that certain types of clothes on her skin bother her. You can clearly see in this video, she's got shorts on, nothing covering her legs. The blanket is next to her, but not on her. And it does appear from the nurse picking her up that she has like no, no strength in her legs at all. She's basically being dragged over to the, to the, to the porter pot. What would you call that thing again?

The, uh, they call it a commode, but like, uh, it's a port, like a, basically a little pan that you pee into. That's on a, like on a stool type thing. Everyone's seen it before if you've been to the hospital. So it's just terrible to watch and to think that this was going on for the specific purpose of proving that she was lying. It really pisses me off. That's my takeaway on it. Yeah, and I think it shows a very, and obviously the court, the judge, the jury agreed, it shows a very specific narrative on the part of All Children's Hospital where they were only going to bring to court the evidence that they felt supported their already perceived narrative.

And I think that was because they had gone so hard to take Maya away from her family, and they had done so much, even not listening to the specialist, not listening to DCF, the first time they dismissed the report of child abuse, continuing to push for this, that they were like, well, it's kind of, what do they call it? Confirmation bias when detectives do it? Yeah. It's confirmation bias. And when you're medical professionals who are supposed to do no harm, right? First do no harm. You're doing harm. And you see that this stupid video you took without the consent of Maya or her parents, which I think is an issue all on its own. I agree. That's an issue.

Well, they couldn't tell them. They couldn't tell them because they thought that they were in on it as well. But I'm with you. They're not going to tell them because they feel like Bieta and Jack are going to tell Maya, hey, you're on video. Make sure you stay in character. I think that that child in the privacy of her hospital room has a reasonable expectation of privacy. I don't disagree. She's 10 years old. What if she decided to take her clothes off? Yeah. What if her clothes were hurting her because of her CRPS and she decided to strip naked

thinking she was alone? It's an issue and it should never have happened. I'm with you. Have a psychologist or a psychiatrist examine her and actually get an idea of whether she shows signs of somebody who's the victim of Munchausen by proxy. You start there before you go to like CIA methods. So it's gross. Creating an environment that would hurt

or hinder her ability to live. Like they're purposely putting her in situations that if she's telling the truth would be difficult for her. That's what I'm saying. No one's in the room with her. So yes, if she needs help, she can call for it. But what if nobody comes right away? What if she has to wait?

What if she ends up, you know, soiling herself, which she had done on multiple occasions? You're putting her in a position where she's not like being cared for and protected. And like I said, there's no privacy here and she does not know. And so I understand, once again, their intention behind it, but the execution is poor. Optically, it looks terrible. Terrible. Let's take our first break. So as I said, there were text messages exchanged between staff members at All Children's Hospital at this time. And it proved that Dr. Sally Smith was basically calling the shots for Maya's care

and that they were recording Maya to prove that she did not have CRPS. And even though the surveillance footage proved that Maya was not able to get up and go to the bathroom by herself, which meant she did have symptoms of CRPS, that hospital never mentioned this at the next dependency hearing. And additionally, during the first dependency hearing on October 14th, when the judge announced that Maya was going to be kept from her family, her mother, Beata Kowalski, suffered from extreme emotional shock and grief. In the courtroom, she fainted, hit her head on a wooden table, and then fell to the floor. Beata had to be transferred to the emergency room where she was diagnosed with acute stress

and grief reaction. And part of the court's orders were that Beata had to undergo a psychological examination, which she did. And this is completely fine. This is completely fine. There's nothing wrong with this. But this exam determined that Beata did not show signs of suffering from Munchausen by proxy. In fact, it showed she had an adjustment disorder with a depressed mood.

Can you imagine why? Well, according to this mental health professional, it was because she had been separated from her child and treated like a criminal. And it's so sad because there were audio recordings taken by Beata throughout this terrible time. You can hear them in the Netflix documentary, Take Care of Maya. Beata recorded everything.

And in my opinion, and I could be completely off base because this is just coming to me in this moment, and maybe parents of children who, you know, the Munchausen by proxy parents, maybe they do do this, but if I'm doing something wrong, I'm not recording every single thing that's happening. I'm not going to record every single thing that's happening. She recorded doctor's appointments. She recorded phone calls with hospital advocates. She recorded phone calls with hospital advocates. She recorded phone calls with Maya. She recorded conversations between herself and her husband at home. She recorded everything. So it just doesn't seem like somebody who's guilty. It seems like somebody who

wants documentation of what's happening during this process because she knows it's wrong. Yeah, I don't disagree with you. You definitely don't want to document your criminal act, right? If that's what you're doing here, if there's something nefarious going on, the last thing you want is to be a video, a visual record of the things you were doing to try to. And I also think to myself, I guess, I guess it's a whole nother can of worms, but what would the incentive be here to make your kids sick? I guess it could be a condition. Obviously, we know that this has happened before. This isn't something that's completely out of the realm of possibilities only give more ammo for a hospital or for a psychologist to use against you? If you had this malicious intention, why would you create evidence against you? Yeah. I agree with you. I mean, some people could say like, oh, well, she was only recording what she wanted to. Like, that's fine.

That's an argument to be made, I suppose. It's a narrative. Yeah. That's an argument to be made, I suppose. Yeah, recording the narrative, yeah. Overall, so far, it just seems like this was a mother who went into a hospital. Just to this point, we're very early on, even in episode number two, this is a woman who loved her daughter and went to a hospital to try to get her the help she needed. When she realized she wasn't going to get it there, she wanted to get her out of there. And this is the point where she felt like she lost her daughter forever. This hospital completely pulled a 180 on her. She did lose her daughter forever.

That exactly. That's what I'm saying. So it's like, and I think she felt it. Like she felt like this is not going to end well for me, which is why she's having these mental breakdowns in these moments. Yeah. It wasn't even that, that she lost her daughter. That was awful.

What we're going to talk about in a second, her entire family unit is fractured now. She's fighting with her husband. They went bankrupt. Like this was incredibly traumatic on every single end. Like you feel like one day you're already dealing with something terrible, which is this childhood illness. But you're doing the best you can.

You're holding it together. Some days better than others, but you're holding it together. You're at least feeling that you can be productive and you can do something for your child. And the next day, your entire world is changed and you don't even know what the hell happened. And the fact that they brought her to All Children's Hospital and tried to take her out and bring her to another hospital when All Children's Hospital was basically being little bitches about everything. They looked at that as doctor shopping. Doctor shopping. Not like, oh, we don't know shit about what you're talking about

and we can't provide you the help you need. And as an American citizen who has freedom, you have the right to leave and go someplace that can give you help. No. Well, you're doctor shopping. That's just more proof of your abuse. It's just a really terrible thing that you go to the hospital for help and to think that that's what they went there for and this was the outcome. Scary. So I highly suggest that if anybody has not seen the documentary Take Care of Maya on Netflix, you should. It's not a series. It's just like an hour, 45 minutes. But there's a lot of stuff in there, Beata's recordings and stuff that I can't put in here, obviously, for copyright issues. But in one interaction that Beata had recorded, you can hear her. She's trying to fight with the hospital to be able to at least speak to Maya. They refused. But then she's calling the hospital and just trying to get some indication of like, how is Maya doing? Is she getting her pain medication? Like what's happening here? And they won't even discuss that with her. So imagine your daughter's sick in a hospital and you just

want to know, is she okay? Like what kind of medication is she on? How is she doing? And they're like, well, we can't discuss that with you. This is your child. And so she's talking to this nurse named Teresa on the phone call and she's recording it she's trying to make sure Maya's getting her pain medication she's being told they can't disclose anything about Maya's care plan and you can hear Jack her husband in the background he's telling Beata hang up the phone you can hear this in the Netflix documentary Jack sounds pissed and he's not necessarily pissed he He's desperate. He's desperate. His back's to a wall. He doesn't know what to do. So he wants to conform to whatever

the hospital wants so that they can get Maya back. So he says, quote, they're going to hold this against you. Stop this bullshit now. I want to see my daughter again. Don't do this. Don't talk about pain meds. You're going to cause more problems. I want to see my daughter again don't do this don't talk about pain meds you're going to cause more problems i want to see my daughter again don't do this shit end quote he's screaming this and i'm not saying anything bad about him he's a father who's desperate to see his child again and at this point he's like we just let's lie let's let's lie do what we got to do we just need to go along with this and we need to not make waves. But you're talking about your own child in this way. She's being held captive. She's being held by terrorists and it's just do whatever the terrorists want to give them whatever they want so I can get my child back.

Yeah. Because what I'm thinking, and I'm sure he was too, I'm sure it crossed his mind. I'm thinking, hey, I'm going to play nice. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Let's do it your way. The minute they let me take her out of that hospital, even for a walk, I'm gone. Yeah. Well, we're out. Yeah.

And that's funny. That's funny that you say that because we're going to talk about that. And by the way, I have not watched a documentary for this reason. I almost was tempted to do it, but I'm like, yeah, it's going to give me too much. And now I'm swayed whatever way the documentary goes, which I'm pretty sure it goes the direction that I'm thinking it's going to go based on what it's called. So I purposely didn't watch it. But yeah, at this point I'm thinking I'm going to tell you whatever you want to hear. And the minute you slip up and think that I'm playing ball with you and you allow me to take

her down the road for some fresh air in a wheelchair, you're going to look outside your window and that wheelchair is going to be sitting on the sidewalk empty because I'm out. Just saying, that's what I'm doing. So he's thinking in the long term, but Beata as a mother is thinking every second that she's not with her child, my child is suffering. My child's in pain. My child's lonely. She feels probably abandoned. She's alone with people she doesn't know 24-7 and she's probably in pain because Beata was the one who is scared, sad. So she's thinking about in the moment, how can I soothe my daughter? How can I make sure she's being taken care of in this moment? And Jack is thinking like, we just got to get through this. And this makes sense. But it's heartbreaking because in the background, you can hear Maya's brother, Kyle. He's crying. He's sobbing. And then he comes over to his mother and he tells her, you know, mommy, I love you. But then he begs her, just please listen to daddy. Please do what daddy's asking you to do. And it's so, it's so heartbreaking to see a child put in this position once again, because his parents are fighting. His sister is gone. And he too just wants to go along with whatever it is that they want so that his family can be whole again, so that they can have normalcy again. And Beata, you can hear her kiss Kyle.

And she says, daddy's not always right. And then she says to him, I have the right to ask questions. I have the right to know what's happening with my child. And this would be me, honestly, at this point, because it would be. I'm sorry, because I do have the right. I live in America. I have the right to ask questions about my child. I have the right to know that my child's okay. And it blows my mind that anybody is telling me, like, fall back. Now, is this the right thing to do? Probably not, but it should be, right? It's like in a perfect world, in a society that is free, where people respect each other

and listen to each other and try to find a compromise that makes both parties feel comfortable and happy. This would not be a crazy thing to ask questions. How is Maya doing? And yeah, it was an issue here. And she's like, remember, she comes from communist Poland. So she's thinking like, I left this place where the government controls everything,

can take your own children from you. And I came to a place where they can't do that. And now it's happening. But I'm still feeling in my heart that this can't possibly happen here. It's the land of the free and the streets are paved with cheese. Yeah. No, it's such an interesting discussion and probably not even one because this is a minor thing and a bigger issue that we're talking about, but you nailed it as far as what you should be able to do and what can be done in the moment.

And I'll even give an example that doesn't support, I'm obviously pro-law enforcement, but there's moments where we see police misconduct and you'll have two parties and one party's fighting with the police and you know that they're right. The person arguing with the police is in the right. And yet by arguing and proving your point, it's only going to get worse. In that moment, it's- Because it's an ego thing then. It's an ego thing. We're the authority. How dare you challenge us? Right. And it's, well, I'm saying from the victim side of things where it's an ego thing then it's an ego that how weird that we're the authority how dare you challenge us right and it's well i'm saying from the victim side of things where it's an emotional thing where you know you're right and you may have someone with you going so and so just calm down just let them do what they got to do we'll fight it later you know what i mean like we'll get a lawyer we'll do it later but in that moment you're just you're

passionate about whatever you believe and i do think this could be a situation where jack as you said is thinking I guess more strategically for lack of a better way of describing it he doesn't necessarily agree with what he's saying I think he believed he did not yes no he he obviously agrees with with Bieta but he's thinking strategically and obviously Bieta is not wrong but she's thinking more I guess again lack of better way of saying it, like more emotionally, like how she's feeling in that moment and voicing it. And so it's just a terrible thing because she's right. And yet they're arguing amongst each other.

There's dissension amongst the inner workings of their family dynamic because they're both looking at it from different perspectives. But the sad thing is they both want the same thing. That's the real tragedy. If it is, and I mean, this is a happy couple. They don't fight. And now they're tearing each other apart because they want the same thing, but they're trying to take different paths to get there. But I will say, if it's just me, yeah, I'll go along. I'll fight it later. When it comes to my kids and it's my job to protect them in this world and you're not letting me do my job, we're going to have some issues. And the thing is, Maya was in there for three months. It only would take a couple of weeks for the hospital to realize,

hey, this kid's not faking it. She's actually not doing great. Like her symptoms didn't improve. She didn't get better. Now we're going to hear next up. So when we talk about this, the hospital claims that she did, but this is disproven. Okay. So she didn't get better. She wasn't getting better because she wasn't getting treatment. But so it's funny that you had said you would just say like, hey, whatever, I'll go along with whatever you want. Whatever you want to see or hear, you're going to get it. And I'm going to be your best friend.

And the minute you slip up, you're going to realize you slipped up after the fact. We just shouldn't have to do that. We shouldn't have. It's manipulative and it's big brother behavior. And hey, don't come after my favorite show no i listen i i totally agree with everything i'm not making light of the situation i'm i'm just saying i'm not arguing whether it's right or wrong but as soon as i figured out the game i would start to play it yeah and then what they send police to your house and get you with kidnapping and then they then they charge you

with kidnapping and the situation's worse i get it i. I totally am with you. I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying where I'm, my head's at because if you've, if you've exercised every option and you can see the writing on the wall where this hospital is going to take my child from, from me forever, well then I'm, I'd rather go out swinging. So I would play their game for short term and then try to get them out. But listen, I'm not arguing with you that, that what she did was right. And that it's wrong that she couldn't voice ask questions about her own daughter. But if I realized that every time I asked a question, like Jack was realizing that they were literally documenting it and using it to build a case against her at minimum, I'm going

to say as little as possible and let lawyers handle it. But you also brought up something as far as finances. They're already broke. They're already going broke doing all this. So I don't know what their financial capacity was to have legal consultation involved. Oh, yeah. And the hospital's charging them for having her there, charging them for treatments. Do you know what they were charging them from? CRPS treatments, while at the same time saying that she did not have CRPS. So like, this is a huge problem. Okay, these people are assholes. And you hear Beata on the phone. She's not being rude. She's not raising her voice. She's being very amenable. There's even times where she's like, can you please go over the rules with me again? So I know what I can and

cannot say. Like she's not being argumentative. She's not being aggressive She's literally playing along because i'm sure she wanted to be all of those things But you're saying this argument happened while she was still on the phone with the hospital Am I misinterpreting that like they were listening to this argument? Yeah, it kind of felt like that at some point. Okay, so the hospital just maybe she'd just gotten off the phone i'm, not sure yeah, okay you get i'm saying like that at some point. Okay, so the hospital is on the phone. Maybe she had just gotten off the phone. I'm not sure. Yeah. Okay, you get what I'm saying? Like that's strategically, that's not going to work well.

Now, if she wasn't on the phone with them and that's just a recording amongst her and the family and her workings, that's a different conversation. But I felt like you were saying this argument was happening while nurses and doctors were on the other end. Maybe I'm wrong. I think it started like that. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

So there's another phone call between Beata and a parent advocate. And this person says, quote, this is the thing you need to understand about these cases. They're not fair. They don't care about evidence. I've done 60 of these cases from the parent perspective and cooperating is the best way to get your kid back. End quote. Beata responds that she's worried because the hospital told her that they don't know how to treat CRPS and she doesn't want Maya suffering and in pain. And the parent advocate responded, quote, I'm going to tell you right now, I'm sure that is all true. But once the case has already started, none of that really matters anymore. Judges don't care about whether the hospital

was wrong nearly so much as they care about whether or not you're going to put your child in danger. That's why the best way to get this case to end successfully, in my experience, is to convince everyone that you've changed your mind and you're going to put your child in danger. That's why the best way to get this case to end successfully, in my experience, is to convince everyone that you've changed your mind and you're going to do what they want you to do, end quote. Beata says, quote, so in the meantime, I'm going to let my daughter deteriorate more. And the parent advocate responded, quote, well, what other option do you have?

Either she suffers now for a little while and eventually you get her back or she suffers forever and you never get her back, end quote. Could you imagine? Could you imagine somebody telling you that? Play along with what these people, these strangers that you just met want your child to do and what they want to happen with your kid. Play along with that or you're never going to get her back. That should never be said to a parent, especially a parent that's already been proven to not

have Munchausen by proxy by a mental health professional, especially a parent of a child who's already been proven that she's not just getting up and doing cartwheels when no one's watching. This is not how people should be treated, not in this country, not in any country ever. It's horrendous. It's disgusting. And it's heartbreaking because you can hear the absolute defeat and frustration in Beata's voice, the sadness, the helplessness, which I'm sure any parent can understand because I'm heated by it. Listening to it, and you're going to hear that you will hear a phone call between Beata and Maya, which absolutely almost made me cry, but it's hard to believe that it could

happen. But understand, anybody who's saying or on the side of the hospital and saying like, well, maybe there's reasons, blah, it could happen, but understand anybody who's saying or on the side of the hospital and saying like, well, maybe there's reasons, blah, blah, blah, blah. This did not need to go on for as long as it did. This did not need to go on for as long as it did. I think that at some point ego kicked in and the hospital people were like, well, I mean, we went pretty hard and we have to die on this hill.

And that's when it became like a personal thing and not a good intention for Maya. There's lots of stuff that happens to Maya in this hospital that should never have happened to her. And her mother's knowing this, as a mother's instinct does, if I can't see her, if she's not under my care, anything could be happening to her. These are strangers. You think that predators and pedophiles don't hang out in hospitals and work there? We know that's not true. We know that there's bad people everywhere. And this child's alone. And anybody could come in at any time and do anything to her. And as a mother, those are the worst case scenarios. But that's what's going through my head. My child's alone. I can't even see her. For a while, she couldn't

even speak to her on the phone. Do you understand? She could not speak to her on the phone for a while. So it's just disgusting. So anyways. Yeah. You know, it's for me, this whole conversation with the parent advocate is I go back and forth, like my emotions are all over the place and it's kind of a continuation of what we just talked about where obviously in hindsight, you always, the outcome of this case is terrible and it's not a win, even though we talked about money earlier, it's a loss for everybody. So I kind of think like what, even though it shouldn't have been the case in the first place, and even though they be it, they shouldn't have had to conform with this parent advocate. I'm just, I'm taking it from the side of, it seems like this parent advocate was on

her side, did have good intentions. Like what you said is true. Like a parent should never have to hear that they just have to conform to get their child back. That shouldn't, it shouldn't be one or the other should be what's right. But I do think that this, this parent advocate did have good intentions because they're saying, Hey, listen, I've been around this block before. I think you said 60 cases or something like that, where they're not telling them what

is right or wrong. They're just telling them how to get their kid back. And by no means am I saying be it was wrong, but I do think what this advocate was trying to say is, listen, I don't disagree with you. I don't. And I understand what you're going through and the fact that even every second that you have to think that your daughter is in pain when she doesn't have to be, you as a parent, your natural reaction and your natural instinct is to protect her and

to try to take away any ounce of pain that you can. But all I'm trying to do is get your daughter back for you. So you may, you know, we get more bees with honey than we do with vinegar. If you keep, you know, bucking on this, it's going to take even longer to get her back and you may never get her back. I just want to help you in getting Maya back in in your you know in your control under your household so again, it's like I have multiple mixed emotions where it's like I hate that she's having to make this choice of what is right and what she needs to do

But I I do feel like there were some people Specifically this person without knowing much about him this parent advocate who genuinely was trying to help her even though the advice she's giving her is just terrible that that's even the option she's being given that's the options that's what i'm saying like it shouldn't be that way and and anybody this person was trying to help her like she wasn't like yeah i suppose but the the point is like you're a part of this rotten system. And instead of standing up to ever and saying this is wrong and we should revamp this, the judge in the court don't care. The hospital doesn't care about evidence like it's not fair. You understand how broken this is. And yet you continue to be a part of it.

You don't say anything or do anything to fix it. I do have a problem with that. I do have a problem with that. I would like to think almost 100 percent of the people in watching this or listening to it, Will, it's like, when do you fight that battle? Do you fight it while your child is out of your possession? Or do you do what you have to do to get her back? And then you come at them guns blazing? I get it. But the whole premise is this system is not fair, as she said. They don't care about evidence. So when you talk

about taking a child away from their family and then say, well, they don't care about evidence and it's not fair. Okay. You still work in inside this system and inside this framework and you're not doing anything about it to change it because it needs to be changed. Yeah. It's not fair. You just said that yourself. Well, why are you supporting it? Why are you continuing on and consulting with parents and saying hey just play along and not know what's happening to your child for as long as you need to so that you'll have a chance of getting her back yeah i'm so interested to hear what all you have to say about this part because i mean it is a very interesting conversation and the sad thing

is it could happen to any one of us that's's exactly what I want everybody to keep in mind. Yeah. Yeah. Because you may be like, well, I see. I see. Not if it was your kid. I promise you wouldn't see. I promise. I will say this unpopular opinion, maybe. And I think I've already said it, so I won't make it long in this moment. Call it big. I know we were joking about big brother or whatever, but I would, I would big brother this a little bit. I would try to conform. I would still try to do what I could for Tenley or Peyton in that moment because I'm not going to leave them out to dry. But if I saw the writing on the wall, my objective, number one objective is to get them back in my possession. What any way I can, because I want to get it as fast as possible. So I may be wrong, but that is my opinion. I would play ball to get them back. But again, I'm not saying that I should have to. I'm just saying that's what I would do, which is why I know you feel differently. Well, she was. No, she was playing ball.

That's the thing, though. She wasn't being offensive in any way. Everything she tried, they blocked. So then why was Jack so upset with her? Why was he saying, like, stop asking those questions. Stop doing this. He's upset with her because it's in a rational system. And he's trying to figure out a way to live inside of it while letting go of every emotion, gut instinct, everything that he has, which is to protect his daughter, which is

to go to that hospital and literally punch every single person in the face that stands between him and his daughter. And he's feeling powerless as a man, as a father, as a husband. And that's why he's pissed. And that's why he's yelling like that, because he feels like his hands are tied and they shouldn't be. And he's taking it on his wife, as is the thing, because at this point, she's the one who's there. And he feels like she's causing problems when in reality, she's just a mother asking questions about how her daughter's doing. She's not really doing anything wrong. So let's go to break. Let's go to break.

As I said earlier, weeks went by and Maya did not improve. And during this, Dr. Sally Smith was in constant communication with hospital staff. One employee texted Smith, quote, I just went to see Maya. I watched her use her feet to push herself several feet in her wheelchair. She was distracted and I'm not even sure she realized she did it because I didn't bring attention to it, end quote. Dr. Smith responded, quote,

fortunately, at 10 years old, she can't perform the charade effectively 24-7 and doesn't even know if she's making physiological mistakes. I'm coming to take some pictures of her affected legs, end quote. And when I said affected legs like that, that's because Dr. Sally Smith put affected legs in quotes as if like, affected legs, as if she doesn't believe her legs are affected, even though she's got lesions all over them and they're turned inward. Now, did Maya push herself in her wheelchair? It's possible because as Dr. Anthony Kirkpatrick

testified to, as many other CRPS specialists testified to, this condition goes on a day-by-day basis. Jack said it. Yes. Her father said it. Sometimes you can have blankets on your legs. We all have that. Yes, exactly. blankets on your legs sometimes you maybe can yes it's in it exactly right that's like that's like 101 not every day is going to be the worst day ever anybody who has a chronic medical condition understands that some days are better than others i mean that seems like common sense to me one day out of 20 you know and even they say they can't effectively do the charade 24 7 no dip shit that doesn't happen 24 7 there can be moments where fortunately she's not in excruciating pain you should be you should be happy about that excited that she's

using her legs instead you're looking at it as a way of incriminating her and her mother it's crazy to me like they're there and also it sounds like the way you're reading it because this is a direct quote they're almost excited about the fact because this is like affirmation that they're right. Like, what the fuck are we talking about? Excuse my language, but what are we talking about? For real. What this says to me is Dr. Sally Smith was not even entertaining the possibility that this child did have CRPS.

She was not coming at it from an unbiased perspective. She was literally being like, well, this is just what I expected. Yeah, she's looking for something. Again, confirmation bias. Looking for something to confirm her analysis, her hypothesis. Yeah, and that's not what you should be doing if your main concern is for the child, right? But Smith also told the hospital to reduce and then eventually eliminate Maya's ketamine treatments.

And this was bad, right? Because Dr. Anthony Kirkpatrick would testify during the trial, quote, this was not the first time I've seen this type of scenario. After a few days at the hospital, they refused to give her ketamine. And without the high dose ketamine treatment, she had virtually no mobility in her legs at all. And that's where you have these blood clots forming that could break off, go to the lungs, and it could be fatal. I thought it was important that Beata understood the seriousness of this, and I warned her in all medical probability that Maya would die a slow, painful death.

End quote. And this was why Beata was so concerned about checking in on Maya and making sure she's okay because she's hearing this from Dr. Kirkpatrick. It's valid. He's a doctor. He's seen it happen before. And she wants to make sure that these idiots aren't just completely taking Maya off ketamine which they did because that would be bad but they didn't even consult with anybody who knew shit about CRPS or about being on long term ketamine treatments before they did this so it's like yeah I understand why she was trying

to get some answers and all things considering hearing that from a doctor and then having to be blocked from getting any information by these other people, this all children's hospital, I would be furious. Furious, okay? I would show up to the hospital with the National Guard. It's the walking dead up in there, all right? I'm shutting the lights off. I'm dropping down from the ceiling like Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider. I'm getting my kid out of there. Extraction method, whatever it takes. Mission impossible. Mission impossible, dude.

Let's get. OK. I was going to say, let's get your boy Tom Cruise on the phone. But, you know, not my boy. Not a big fan. Let me say one thing, because I'm kind of we're going I'm talking about different things earlier as far as what you do you play ball. This is the this is the conundrum the battle running in through be at his head right. Exactly. She's aware that if she plays ball eventually she might get her child back. But in the meantime there is an internal clock in her brain about how much time Maya has left. And so she's got that sense of urgency to act now to get her the treatment she needs. And I think I see where

she's coming from, where she's saying, screw it. In spite of the fact that I know it'd be better for me to play ball, I don't have that luxury. I got to keep pushing because even if I don't get her back anytime soon, I don't want her to be in pain. And more importantly, I don't have that luxury. I got to keep pushing because even if I don't get her back anytime soon, I don't want her to be in pain. And more importantly, I don't want her to die from this condition because of their negligence. So I'm willing to push the envelope and stay on top of them and hold them accountable because of what other doctors are telling me what the potential outcome could be, which is death. So I see the, I see the, the, the dilemma she has there where it's not what she knows is the right thing to do. It's what she's being told

could happen if she doesn't continue to push the hospital. So clearly that's what she chose to do. And I can't say I blame, I can't say I blame her. I mean, it's an impossible situation to put yourself. It's a lose, lose, literally a loselose. Yeah. I hope that I never do because it's not going to be good for anybody. No, no, no, no. So on November 10th, this is, I mean, Maya's been in the hospital for almost a month at this point. There was a second dependency hearing and this allowed Beata to have supervised phone calls with Maya. So understand for almost a month, this woman could not even speak to her daughter in the hospital. And at that point, Maya could also get letters from her mother and other things like magazines, books, as long as the materials were reviewed by hospital staff and

determined to be appropriate prior to Maya receiving them. Jack Kowalski was able to see Maya, but he became frustrated when he saw that she was getting worse. He said her feet were turning in more. She had more lesions. She was becoming weaker and weaker. And Jack felt that he could not even go home and express this to Beata because he was afraid of losing his ability to see Maya because if he told Beata how bad Maya was getting,

she would be more urgent in trying to get through to the hospital. So he couldn't even talk to his wife about this. Once again, that's a tough spot. Yeah. Causing a fracture between husband and wife, causing a fracture in a family. The court order also stated that Maya could have meetings with her attorney and she could be visited by her priest who would be allowed to bring in certain religious artifacts. But even the priest, when he came in, he was told he could not be there and that he couldn't bring anything to Maya. Like he tried to leave her with a crucifix and a little Virgin Mary statue. And they were like, no, you can't do that. This is like arbitrary and stupid at this point.

These are control freaks who get a little bit of power. And now they're like, oh, I am the ultimate say-so of what happens with this child. It's disgusting. Okay, disgusting. This started to become a big problem because everything Maya did was monitored by a certain social worker, a social worker who worked for All Children's Hospital and who had been assigned to Maya initially when she came into the hospital. And this woman was named Catherine Beattie.

And Beattie would become a strict gatekeeper between Maya and the outside world. So there's a clip in the documentary where Beattie calls to talk to Maya and Kathy Beattie tells her the rules. And this is Beattie saying to Kathy before she even gets on the phone with Maya because Kathy has to get on the phone first and say, okay, Beattie, I have Maya here. And Beattie said, okay, can you just go over the rules with me once again? Because I don't want to say anything wrong. Because every time Beata would say something that Kathy Beata didn't like,

Kathy would get on the phone and be like, okay, we have to go now. You can't say that. You can't do that. This is unacceptable. We're going to have to go now because you did that. So she'd be punished. Even though what she was saying and doing wasn't even that bad at all. It wasn't really anything. She's just talking to her kid like she's talking to her kid. So Kathy Beatty tells Beate of the rules, no discussing the case. She said, keep it to Maya's activities and how she's doing. But Kathy Beatty would sit there next to Maya during every call. And this level of control and monitoring, it sent off red flags in the minds of the Kowalskis, even Jack. So they went and they looked up who Catherine Beatty was,

and they found out that she'd been arrested for child abuse. According to the Tampa Bay Times, a 10-year-old boy had entered an office at Sunco Center in 2007. And I guess there was a few employees and they were like, oh, hey, what are you doing in here? And he wouldn't answer. And while these people watched in shock, Catherine Beattie grabbed the boy's head,

which caused him to fall down. And then she placed both knees on his chest. The boy reportedly told Beattie several times that he could not breathe, to which she responded, yes, you can. And then another therapist who was there also took part in the incident and covered the boy's face with a towel. So I think there was six or seven people who worked for Suncoast that called and reported this. And they were like, we can't even believe this shit happened. It's crazy. He was 10. Like what risk

does this 10-year-old boy pose that you have to knock him down by his head and then sit on his chest and not listen to him when he tells you he can't breathe? Both women were arrested and they this 10-year-old boy pose that you have to knock him down by his head and then sit on his chest and not listen to him when he tells you he can't breathe. Both women were arrested and they are charged with one felony count of child abuse, but Suncoast offered the boy free counseling and the charges were later dropped. Now, not only could Beata and Jack not do anything about this, even after they found out that this woman had a tendency of putting her hands on kids when she should not be doing that, not only could they not do anything about it, including asking a hospital to assign a different social worker to their daughter, but Kathy Beatty would never let Beata have any time with Maya and she would consistently interject and interrupt their brief

phone calls. She would instruct Beata to redirect the conversation, even though all Beata was doing was asking Maya how she was feeling, if she was sleeping, how her pain was. But that was not the extent of Kathy Beattie's allegedly nefarious actions towards Maya Kowalski and her family. Here is Maya explaining how she was made to feel very scared and uncomfortable with her assigned social worker. It's pretty like standard practice that whenever you move floors there's like a social worker per floor but weirdly enough Kathy Beatty literally followed me wherever I went. I have a lot of stories about Kathy Beatty so it's going to take some time to go through them all but there is the whole chapel incident where a nurse wheeled me down to the

first floor where the chapel is located the nurse left when kathy beady approached me kathy beady then kissed me said i'm not trying to be your mother but i can be then she wheeled me into the chapel and at this point you know i was so excited to finally be able to go to the chapel. And she just destroyed all of my excitement. She picks me up, puts me on her lap. She sits in this tan chair at the back of the chapel. There's a photo of that. And she just sat with me there.

And then I told her I was done praying. I was very quick in there because I just wanted to go back to my room. And then I was put I was done praying. I was very quick in there because I just wanted to go back to my room. And then I was put back into my room. There's many instances, numerous occasions, that she lifted me up and put me on her lap. She clawed through my hair. I was close enough to her almost at all times to the point where I knew she had permanent eyeliner.

That's not something you know unless you're really close to a person. She would tell me weird details about her life. Yeah. Let's show 2597-18. I believe this is a photo of the chapel. Were you ever curious as to why she had you in the chapel? So one really interesting thing about the chapel is there's no cameras. It's the only place.

Were you uncomfortable with Kathy B's advances on you? Objection. You're on her argument That's part of the argument. Sustained. Did these incidents with Kathy Beatty, were they upsetting to you? Yes. Did they cause you to fear her? Most certainly.

And the whole photo incident truly solidified that. So you heard Maya say something about a photo incident. We're going to get to that in a minute because this is not the worst of it. But yeah, Kathy was apparently, you know, getting a little too intimate with Maya. And according to Maya, Kathy told her a bunch of stuff, told her that she was going to go into a foster home. And Kathy was like, well, I could adopt you. You know, I could be your mommy, things like that. Kathy also told Maya that her mother was in a mental institution, all sorts of stuff. And we're going to hear from Kathy Beatty herself after this next break. All right, we're back. Do you have anything to

say about that chapel incident? No, we can keep going with it. I know we have more clips here. We have about almost 30 minutes of footage to show you out throughout this episode. And that was, we're only five minutes into it. So let it keep going. But I don't like it. I think that's like pretty self-explanatory. I mean, there's no way you watch that clip and you're comfortable with it as a human, as a parent, as an adult, it sounds like she took things a little too far and maybe got a little too close with, with Maya to that. And that's just, you know, at minimum. So it seems like she, the professional relationship went a little further than it should.

And the fact that Maya brought up that that's the one room that doesn't have a camera. I have to agree with her. I don't think that's a coincidence. And keep in mind, this is a child with CRPS. So it hurts to get touched sometimes. It's like she can walk up and go back to her room. Yeah. She can't leave because she can't walk.

And her body hurts. So picking her up, putting her in your lap, running your fingers through her hair, things like that are very, Mai's very sensitive to that and very at times intolerant to that. Once again, depending on the day. So Kathy is not even keeping in mind Maya's medical condition or potential medical condition at this time when she's just manhandling her all over the place. Now, here's Kathy Beattie being asked about her relationship with Maya during her deposition. Did you ever take Maya into the chapel? No. Did you ever sit Maya on your lap?

In whenever they had the last court hearing, or maybe it was right before Christmas and Maya thought she was going home, I was called by Charlotte to tell, and Charlotte asked me to go in and tell Maya that Maya wasn't going to be able to be going home for Christmas. Maya became very upset, started crying. I'm just asking you whether you put Maya on your lap. She asked then to sit on my lap. Oh, so Maya asked you for permission to sit on your lap? It wasn't my idea? Strike it.

So you're contending that this wasn't your idea, that it was Maya's idea that she sit on your lap? Is that your testimony? Yes. All right. And did you kiss maya i don't think so were you hugging maya um i think that we provide comfort to a lot of kids so what probably why she was sitting on my lap i'm sure i did hug her who gave you permission to touch the child in this manner we provide a lot of comfort to kids now Now my question, who gave you permission to be this intimate with that child? So Maya asked. She's 11. What adult, either Maya's mother or Maya's father, the only two people, not the state and not the hospital, who gave you permission to be intimate with that child?

So currently at that time DCF had custody of the child, and the child and the case manager on several occasions asked that we provide comfort to Maya. And in your view comfort included what? I talked with Maya. She held my hand. I would hold her hand. She asked me to come in and pray with her. I guess your answer is no one with any authority

to permit you to be that intimate with their child gave you permission to do so. So I do think a couple of times that Mr. Kowalski and I discussed the fact that I provided comfort to Maya. Was Mr. Kowalski complimenting you about it it or were you telling him that you were providing comfort? I can't tell you how the conversation happened, but I can tell you that Mr. Kowalski thanked me. So he's being polite. So by thanking you for comforting his child, is it your interpretation that that meant he believed it was okay for you to have the child on your lap

and be able to hug her and kiss her? Again, I don't think that I kissed her. Are you sure you didn't kiss her? Pretty sure. So if Maya specifically remembers you kissing her and telling her it was going to be okay, that's just another thing that she made up. Again, another thing, I'm not trying to like speed this along. I don't want to, it's pretty self-explanatory what's going on here. I will say this, this lawyer, what's his name? Do we know his name? His last name is Anderson. He's incredible. And even like just from like the way he I don't even know who he is, but just the way he asks questions.

These are the types of lawyers that do the best. He's monotone kind of. He never gets too high, never gets too low. He just you can tell where he's leading her, but she doesn't even know it yet. Like he's he's he's got seven questions lined up that is going to accomplish whatever he's trying to whatever picture he's trying to paint. Even though the questions in the beginning just seem like they're just throwaways. They're all leading somewhere. And then the way he uses his tone at certain points to express disgust or non-belief in what she's saying, but still doing it in a respectful way, he's very good. He's very good because I'm sitting here and I don't feel like he's being confrontational. He's just being very pragmatic, but also commonsensical, which is always the best type of lawyer to listen to when they're asking these questions because they're allowing you to come to your own conclusions.

But the way in the shape that they're asking the questions really only leads you to come to one conclusion. And that in this particular situation, what she's saying is not okay. That's it. That's the general takeaway. This situation is not okay.'s it that's that's the general takeaway this this situation's not okay yeah that's that was a very good interview i mean the way he's doing he's good anderson you said right yeah i gotta remember that i think at some point she realized where he was leading her but she oh yeah they always do but it's too late she was also afraid of lying right so yeah so he's saying oh so you didn't kiss her? I don't think so. Well, Maya said she did, right?

So what is she lying? She's making it up just like she's making up her illness, you know? And she keeps saying, I'm pretty sure I didn't. I don't think so. Like, you would know, right? Because if you don't make it a habit of kissing the children who are under your care as a social worker, then you would have it in your head like, no, I've never kissed a child that's been under my care as a social worker, which should be the right answer. The fact that you had to say, I don't think so, I'm pretty sure I didn't, lets me know that there's probably a

chance you did and you don't want to say no because then you're lying under oath. Yeah. And I think you said something earlier unrelated to this. It's always, it's pretty much impossible. We do do it, right? Like in a court of law to prove intent or to explain a person's intent. That's like the hardest thing to do, but that's what you try to, what picture you try to paint here. We're not going to be able to prove what her intent was, but to your point, what you're saying right there, whether it was malicious or whether she was just maybe overstepping, but her intentions were good, we're never going to be able to prove that. It doesn't matter. What matters is what this lawyer is trying to explain. Whether your heart was in the right place or not, irrelevant to me. No one with the authority,

which would have been Maya's mom or dad, gave you permission to touch their daughter in that way, regardless of the circumstances within the hospital, current situation, DCYF having custody over her. How you feel about it, what you think is appropriate. It's not appropriate if the parents don't believe it's appropriate. And if you didn't ask for permission, you don't know whether or not they think it's appropriate. Yeah. Right. And unless you're explaining to them, hey, I'm going to be kissing and hugging your daughter. Yeah. Jack may have given you some acknowledgement and may have loved the fact.

I know I would. Like if I thought you were just spending time with my child in this really traumatic situation and just keeping her company and whatever, I may be like, hey, thank you. I appreciate you spending time with her. But I don't think Jack, even if that's true, what she's saying is true as far as him being complimentary of her. I don't think he was like, hey, you know, good job. Keep keep smooching on her. She loves that. Keep hugging and kissing her. Put her in your lap. And Jack even said like, no, I would not

like be comfortable with that. And the thing is, even if he said, oh, thanks for like providing comfort to my daughter, most likely he was just trying to do what we already discussed he was trying to do. That's also possible to play along and not make waves. And when a parent is put in that position where they feel like they can't even advocate for their child because then you're going to punish them for that, you're going to get some, you know, maybe some blurred lines.

Yeah. Yeah, but again, I'm just going to stress, I'm not saying, intent versus action, two different things. I'm not going to sit here and try to get into the mind of her, what her intent was.

If it was malicious in nature, was there mind of her, what her intent was, if it was malicious in nature, what she was doing, if there was gratification behind it. But overall, just the action on the surface, not appropriate, not professional. And I do agree with your assessment as far as her inability to say definitively it did not happen is because she's probably thinking, was there something there that he's going to pull out of his hat that proves I'm lying? So she's keeping the door open. Exactly. Which was indicative of someone who may, she's not 100% sure she didn't kiss her either,

or she is, and she just doesn't want to say it because of how it looks. And I mean, listen, I can speak a little bit to intent because is there any good intention behind telling a child that their mother's in a mental hospital? Oh, yeah. No, that's not good. Is there any good intention in telling the child they're going to go into foster care? Unless I adopt you, I can be your new mommy. No, there's no good intention there.

So this is weird and damaging to a child that's already in an unthinkable position, separated from her entire family in a place that she is not familiar with, surrounded by people she doesn't know. So now understand, Maya is going to be moved around. There's a social worker assigned to each floor. When Maya was moved to the seventh floor, the assigned social worker for that floor had sent Kathy Beatty a message. And this message said, quote, Yvonne said you were wanting to continue following this child. Please let me know if you plan to do this now that she's on my floor, end quote. So Kathy's going to make it seem like, oh, she was assigned to Maya. No, not really. She was just the social worker on the floor that Maya was at. And yeah, they asked her being on the floor, hey, can you pay special attention to

this child who's like stuck here and imprisoned here and doesn't have access to her parents? She made the decision that when Maya was moved to a different floor to continue being with Maya. That's weird. Okay, that's weird. So we're going to play you another clip. And it says, Avon, who's Avon? Avon was another social worker. Avon said you wanted to continue to follow this child. Is that true? No, it was assigned and I said I would continue to follow. Okay, so when Avon said you were wanting to follow this child, Avon was incorrect. Correct.

You were assigned and you did not ask for this assignment in any way? I don't know. I don't think so. Yeah. So this is something I've, you know, I've witnessed numerous times in criminal cases where when in doubt, just say, I don't know. Exactly. Another noncommittal answer. She can't say yes or no. I don't know. You would know whether or not you had asked for that. Yvonne thinks you did. Yeah. You would know. And I think this is a very easy thing to go back and investigate from whatever perspective, whether you're the lawyer or you're an independent investigator working for one of the lawyers.

I just go back and look at her history. Has she ever requested this before? Has she ever asked to follow a patient after they're moved off her floor? These are things you can do. Hey, Mrs. Beatty, let's look it up real quick. Has she ever done this before? No. Just for this case with this child? Okay. That's not good. That just shows it. Now, if she could say, yeah, listen, I did. I get close to these children. I want to see them do their best. And there's been many occasions- She gets close to these children. All right. I mean, there's been many occasions where I followed after the fact because it's not just a job for me. I really want to see them do well. And if you go look at my record, I've done this with hundreds of children. If that were the

case, you got a little bit more of an argument there. She didn't say that though, did she? She didn't. She didn't. Exactly. That's the point I'm making. So she's not, she's making it seem like it was misinterpreted. And also then the all too familiar, I don't know. I don't know. I don't think so. I can't stand her. God, you're so, you're the worst. I can't stand her. Okay, so we're going to hear from Kathy one more time on some justifications for why she controlled Maya so thoroughly, even after the courts had loosened their restrictions on visitation and phone calls. So there's a point when Beata was allowed to finally talk to Maya on the phone

and there was no regulations or restrictions placed on these calls. They could happen whenever and they could be for as long as they wanted. And there was no restrictions on what they could speak about, et cetera. Now, Catherine Beatty took it into her own hands to make these restrictions for herself.

When you start caring for a patient, do you read the chart? Yes. Do you determine what the operating diagnosis is? Yes. Did this child's operating diagnosis include complex regional pain syndrome? Her diagnosis included that yes as soon as this child the medical doctors now you determined hospital determined in the chart that she did have complex regional pain syndrome that invalidated any allegation of of Munchausen's by proxy, correct?

That was not a determination for me to make. Well, you said that you'd read up on it, right? On Munchausen, correct. And you did recommend on multiple occasions that the child be kept in the hospital, did you not? It was my- I just read it to you. Yes, yes I did. And on multiple occasions, you made recommendations to keep the mother away from the child, did you not?

Yes. And on multiple occasions you made recommendations to limit the child's contact with certain family members, including the father, did you not? Yes. All of the things you were doing were based on a presumption that there was Munchausen by proxy going on with this family, right? Not my presumption. At that point, she had been sheltered, and I had to follow the shelter order along with the visitation orders that were given by the court.

I made recommendations based on how Maya was participating in her therapies and with the staff. Isn't it true you were the person in the hospital that had the primary control over who saw Maya, what Maya ate, what she did, who she could talk to? No. Okay, who else in the hospital, after reviewing all of these emails and memos we're about to go over, who else had day-to-day control over who Maya could see and not see and who could come in at what time and not come in at what time? What other person? That was up to the court order. You read all these court orders before this deposition, did you not?

I did read the court orders. And you're aware that when those limitations were put in, that the court then deferred to the hospital for the specifics of everything, right? Correct. The court made certain general findings for the benefit of the child, but then deferred to the hospital about how to implement those, right? Correct. But you were the person in terms of when we get to the hospital discretion on a do things you were the person that had most day-to-day

control if you will. I was at that point consulting with risk and so that would have been up to risk to interpret and I asked many times to have risk interpret them for me so that we knew what we were supposed to do and not do. Right but But the day-to-day implementation of the orders left it up to the hospital, right? The hospital's discretion, correct? You can answer. As much as we could. Okay. That discretion then, is it your testimony here that your discretion, whatever actions you implemented regarding who got to see Maya, how much they got to see him, what she ate, all of these things that involved limitations on her life while she was in there.

Those actually came from the Risk Management Committee, right? Yes. If the father has a visitation right, who was making the decision of how, where, and when Jack Kowalski could see his daughter? DCF. Okay. So would it be safe to say then that your basis with your own eyes and ears, which was

the question, for why Maya should be taken away from her family was this request for an amount of ketamine that was in excess of what you heard was appropriate. Is that right? Correct. And did you explain to her why the report was made? I attempted to, but she shut me down and didn't want to talk to me about why the report was made. She wanted me to name the doctor that made the report, and she wanted me to call whoever that doctor was and have them rescind it.

She also wanted me to speak to risk management immediately and get them to call her back. What's wrong with that? That's an indication of child abuse? No. Let me rephrase that. In all of my dealings at the hospital, I usually don't have parents who ask for risk management and who don't demand that we call the hotline report and have it rescinded. Also, she was saying at that point she had no intentions of following the recommendations here. I watched her and observed her in rounds demanding with the doctors of what to be done.

All right. But look, you're talking about taking a little girl away from her parents. Are you telling me that, to the best of your knowledge, Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital took this little girl away for over three months because of a dispute over dosage? First of all, Johns Hopkins didn't take this child away from her parents. We'll get down with that later. Okay. So that was a court decided that through DCF. I understand that somebody called the court, called DCF and complained that this was child abuse and that this child should be taken away from her mother

and that the people that said that were all children's hospital doctors, social workers, and nurses. You understand that, right? Under Flora's statute, we have the responsibility to report all suspected child abuse. Okay, so we're back. Pretty good sparring session there. There's a lot of back and forth, you know, so I It was pretty again self-explanatory. You guys can be your own judge. I felt like again, mr Anderson, I feel like i'm talking reference to the matrix every time I say that now if you know the matrix But he was he was trying to lead her a certain way She picked up on it very early. So he didn't really accomplish his mission. I don't think on this one

I felt like she was answering the way she needed to answer, and she was deflecting a lot and putting it on other people. So I wouldn't say this like watching this. I was like, whoa, he ate her lunch on this one. Like I just said, I think it was a pretty back and forth sparring match. Well, he's also saying to her, listen, the court left these day to day decisions up to the hospital. So who was making the decisions of what should happen? And she said, DCF. That wasn't necessarily true, because as he had just stated, the court left

it up to the hospital, not to DCF. And that was the court order. So why would DCF be calling the shots? And then she refers to consulting with risk. She's talking about risk management. Risk management is, you know, also a department at the hospital who's supposed to keep the hospital safe from lawsuits and things and that I guess they didn't do their job very well, but there's a whole deposition with the person who, you know, headed risk management. And I mean, we could do 12 parts on this case based on the depositions and the testimony. But yeah, it wasn't really it was she was taking it into her own hands. She was hearing from DCF like, well, you know, don't let the parents grill Maya about what's

going on. Basically, they don't want the parents to start planting ideas and things, but that was never what was happening with Beata. So Catherine Beattie was basically taking matters into her own hands, which is what he's trying to show her, but she is not taking the bait. And as we had talked about previously, when Maya was talking, you heard her mention something about a photo incident. This photo incident happened on January 6th, 2017, right before a dependency hearing where Maya was planning to be able to see her mother for the first time since she'd entered the hospital in October.

Kathy Beattie and a nurse allegedly moved Maya to another room, and then they instructed her to remove her clothes so that they could take some pictures. And this was an action allegedly dictated to them by All Children's Hospital's risk management department. Here's Maya describing this incredibly traumatic incident that she was forced to go through as a, well, she was 11 then, so as an 11-year-old child, because she spent her 11th birthday in the hospital, surrounded by these damn fools. On that day, were you excited? I was ecstatic.

I mean, not only was I getting out of the hospital for a little bit of time, I was going to see my uncle, and the goal was to see the judge. All right. And were you preparing for it, getting yourself ready? Yeah, I told people in the hospital, the people, like the nurses and whatnot, I said, oh, I'm going to court today. I was excited, yeah. And so then what happened insofar as trying,

what did you have to do before you were allowed to go to the court and see the judge? What happened with Ms. Beatty? So it was my understanding that I was just allowed to go to the court and see the judge. What happened with Ms. Beatty? So it was my understanding that I was just allowed to go to court because they ruled on it and I was allowed to come in person. So I was just expecting my uncle was going to come pick me up, and Kathy Beatty was going to wheel me down to meet with my uncle and put me in his car. Instead, Kathy Beatty showed up in my room a little bit earlier

than the time I was supposed to go. She came in alone initially and she told me that if I wanted to go and see my mom in court, I was going to have to be stripped naked and photographed by her nude so I could go to court. I cried and cried because I'm a very modest and private person when it comes to stuff like that. I had been, and there's a reason for that. I really respect my privacy. And eventually I was able to reason with Kathy and she said that I could keep my training bra on and my shorts.

That's when she left the room. She came back with nurse Alicia. I don't know her last name, but she came in and she assisted with holding me down and moving me and removing some articles of my clothing for the photos. Now the purpose for these photos, typically DCF takes them. DCF did not take these. And there's supposed to be a side-by-side comparison of pre-visit and post-visit. So I was leaving the hospital, so they took the photos before. There was never photos taken after. And has it come to your attention that this did not end up in any analysis in the medical records or anything like that? That's another thing I was promised in the whole reasoning with Kathy

about not being nude. She told me that I could keep my shorts on in the training bra, and I specifically asked her to keep these photos private. I asked her if they were just going to be in the medical record, and she told me, yes, only doctors can see them. She actually physically went over to the computer where I've seen nurses and doctors put in information, and it turns out she never put the photos in there.

All right, so let's turn to, first I'm going to publish a photo, 2604. Were you actively trying to keep them from taking off your clothes? No, that's not it. There. Yes, so that, you see my hands right there, and then nurse, well, someone else's hand. I can't tell if that's Kathy's or the nurse's, but I was trying to pull up my shirt actively as she was pulling it down. All right. And around this time, we go into a few more photos. Did you document this in your MyCare journal?

I believe I did. I haven't seen the MyCare journal in quite some time, so I would need my memory refreshed. Let's look at this photo here. Now, it has been portrayed that you were somehow enjoying this and just holding hands. Tell the jury what was going on. I was not enjoying this at all. It is true. When the nurse came back into the room

I wasn't crying as much because Kathy had called me down after we made that, you know agreement we met in the middle But you can see my cheeks are red and that happens a lot when I've been crying Okay, and we can see a little corner of your mouth there. Are you smilingacing, or what? I am most definitely not smiling. Is that a training bra? It is. Now, was there a time that you had to switch out of one bra to another? Yes. So they're trying to maintain the position that, oh, I was in a training bra and shorts, like we didn't see anything. No, Kathy watched as I got naked because I was changing into clothes

for court that's why there's two different outfits this was the same time period there was no one before and after photos all right let's look at 2604 15 there are blue shorts now tell us about the shorts we did you remain in the same outfit during this ordeal no No, because I was changing into court clothes. Okay. So which are these, the blue shorts there? I don't know which outfit I ended up wearing to court, but... Okay. And then let's look at two, three... Oh, no. We're going through these. Let's go through these. And now, what is that? What kind of bra is that? That's a training bra again. Which came first, the training bra or the, oh those are both training bras?

Both are training bras, correct. They switched them out. So this wasn't a workout bra? No, no, no, no. And did you tell them while they were, were they holding you down so much? Yes, and some of the photos you could see their hand, but it looks like the photos are mostly zoomed in so you can't see their hand placement. Did you want to leave and get out of there? Yes. And were they preventing you from getting out of there? They were until the photos were completed. And did you have any control or ability to get out of there? No because I couldn't walk or stand. Yeah, this video is tough to watch,

to listen to. You can definitely hear that even to this day, it's still very traumatic for Maya to kind of go over this moment. And it doesn't take a doctor or anybody with a specialty to see that one image where you can see a little bit like from her nose down. Yeah. That's clearly not a smile. She's obviously not not enjoying what's going on she's clearly upset and these the people that are holding her hands are not necessarily holding her hands because she's enjoying it they're holding her hands to keep her somewhat still um for the for the photos and she clearly was not into it and yeah it just uh you just as we're going through this as storytellers i guess you try you try to stay somewhat in the middle but it's just as parents, it's always hard. I hate doing kid cases.

I hate it. Um, so yeah, that, that was my takeaway from it just sucks to hear about it from her perspective and then to know what she went through and to understand that even though it's not happening right now, it is something that she remembers vividly, not because it's a good memory. She will remember it for the rest of her life because of how she felt in that moment. And it was clearly not a good feeling. Yeah. I mean, I don't even think I need to comment on this. I think that clip said it all.

Yeah. Terrible. Real gross. Real quickly before you continue, because I was looking something up to make sure you asked me at the beginning of the show, and I know someone would check me on it. I believe it's 260 million. I think I said 220 million earlier. I believe it's 260 million. If I'm wrong, guys, I apologize. It doesn't really matter if it was 260 or 720 or 120, but for the sake of accuracy, I believe it's 260 million from what I saw from the New York Post, I believe it was. But if I'm wrong, correct me in the comments.

It was a lot. It was a lot of money. And again, it's still not enough. It's not going to bring back Bietta. But I just wanted, for the sake of making sure I got my numbers right. So after this happened, Maya was allowed to get dressed. And she met her uncle outside the hospital. And keep in mind, this was the first time she'd been outside of all children's hospitals

since the middle of October. Like I said, she spent Halloween there, Thanksgiving, Christmas, even her 11th birthday. And during all of that time, she'd been kept from the loving arms of her mother and her biggest support system. Now at the courthouse, the family lawyer told the judge that Maya had a request. Well, obviously she wanted to go home. She said she wanted to play Mario Kart with her brother and watch figure skating with her mother. But in that moment, she would settle for just being able to hug her mother. But the judge said no. Even though the lawyer stressed, Maya only wanted to see Beata for a minute.

And I mean, once again, if you watch the Netflix documentary, it's absolutely heartbreaking because Beata had recorded her calls with Maya. And it's just so sad because Maya sounds so little, so scared, so sad. She cried a lot. She sobbed. She said, I don't understand why this is happening. Like, I don't understand. We didn't do anything. Why is this happening? And Beata had to apologize to her. She had to say, I'm so sorry this is happening. And she told her, you know, just be strong, to which Maya in a tear-filled voice responded, she was trying. And Beata asked her, you know, how was Thanksgiving? And Maya was like, it wasn't that her, you know, how was Thanksgiving? And Maya was

like, it wasn't that good, you know, and it's just heartbreaking. And Beata's like, yes, this was my worst Thanksgiving ever. And during that same call, Maya said, you know, it's frustrating because I can't use the phone to call outside the hospital. And Beata said, what do you mean you can't call outside? You aren't in prison. You aren't in a Nazi camp. And Kathy Beatty interjected at that point in a very condescending way, might I add. And she was like, mom, mom, she just has to ask the nurse how to do it. And Beatty's acting here as if Maya is free to call whoever she wants, whenever she wants, which we know is not true. And Maya could not call outside the hospital. And if she asked the nurse how to do it, she wouldn't be asking the nurse how to do it.

She'd be asking the nurse if she could do it, at which point she would be told no. The way that Catherine Beatty responded to Beata is as if Beata was suggesting that Maya being in the hospital was like her being in prison. And that was a direct insult to Catherine Beatty. And after this call,

Beatty reported Beata to the hospital and to DCF for being inappropriate during the phone conversation. And she attempted to get Beata's phone call privileges suspended. She tried to further restrict communication and contact between this mother and this child who were clearly missing and needing each other desperately. And not only that, Catherine Beatty had actually prevented a call between Maya and Beata that was scheduled for Thanksgiving because she could not be available to monitor it. And here's the kicker. It appears that Catherine Beattie was never even ordered to monitor Maya's calls with her mother. And we're going to hear from somebody when we come back from this break who elaborates on that. So Jessica Blackrick had been appointed as the

guardium ad litem for Maya following the first dependency hearing. So basically it's her job to advocate for Maya. She's supposed to act as a truly neutral party. She's not on the side of the parents. She's not on the side of the hospital. She is going to do whatever's in the best interest of the child. And so Blackrick, Jessica Blackrick was supposed to monitor these calls. And so she would call the hospital. And the only purpose that Catherine Beatty really had was to facilitate the calls, to answer and put Maya on. That was the only job that Beatty had when Maya called her mother or Beata called Maya. But Jessica Blackrick would testify that she had never delegated the supervision of these calls to Catherine Beatty or any other ACH employees.

And she said there were no limits on how often these calls could take place or how long they could be. So you're going to hear a small portion of a call between Maya and Beata. And then you're going to hear Jessica Blackrick's explanation of how these calls were supposed to go and what Catherine Beatty's reaction was to some of these calls. What is your understanding about who was appointed to supervise phone calls? Myself and the case manager. Who was the case manager? Charlotte Laporte. So if I understood your testimony, there's two people appointed to supervise these phone calls. Yes.

Either yourself or Ms. Laporte. Yes. Was there a time that you would supervise these calls simultaneously? With? With Ms. Laporte. No. Is it fair to say it was one or the other? Yes, that was the point of adding me because normally we weren't appointed to actually be supervisors of phone calls.

We would just be observers, but the judge in this case did do that. All right. Did you ever delegate your authority to supervise these phone calls to Catherine Beattie or anyone at the hospital? No, sir. Let's talk about the phone calls you did supervise. Can you explain the framework, the setup of how these phone calls occurred? Where were you? Where was Maya?

Where was Ms. Beattie if she was involved? Okay. I was remote in Sarasota and in my car specifically because that was the quiet space that I could find. And I had to call in to these through the hospital. And so it was facilitated through Ms. Beattie. And she was with me as my understanding. Okay. Hi, Mommy. Hi, honey. How are you, sweetie pie? I'm hurting. I miss you.

I miss you so much, too. I miss you so much too. I miss you so much every day. Every single day. You know how happy and amazing it feels to hear your voice? Same here. I miss you so much and I am so happy that I'm finally able to hear your voice too. Yeah. Yes. Yes. I will help you.

What did you say, sweetie? I hope I can see you soon. I would love to see you soon. I would love to see you soon. We just have to wait for the judge to make the decision, okay? As soon as he makes the decision, then I'll be able to see you. We're not allowed to talk about the case, okay? Maya, honey, we're going to talk about what you've been doing, if you need any shopkins or things like that, if you had nice visits with your daddy,

but we can't discuss the case, okay, honey? Do you remember that call? Yes, sir. Was that you interrupting the phone call? No. Was that Ms. Beattie? Yes. Beyond that October 15th call, did you have additional phone calls? Were you supervised?

Yes. Was Ms. Beattie present on those calls as well? Yes. Do you recall that you supervised several phone calls in mid to late November? Yes. All right. The court order in effect at the time, having reviewed that court order, was there any limitation placed on the frequency of the phone calls between Beata and Maya that were allowed?

No. Was there any limitation imposed on the length of those phone calls? No. Did you make yourself generally available to facilitate phone calls as the supervisor under the order? Yes, sir. Do you recall a time that Beata had requested a phone call on Thanksgiving? Yes, sir. Did you make yourself available?

Yes. Was that phone call allowed to happen? No. Why? Because Ms. Beattie's schedule didn't allow for that. So Ms. Beattie was not amenable to a phone call on Thanksgiving between Beattie and Maya? She just wasn't. It just wasn't in her schedule, from what I know.

All right. Do you recall a phone call after Thanksgiving? Yes, sir. Have you had an opportunity to listen to that phone call? Yes, sir. In that post-Thanksgiving phone call, did Beata Kowalski attempt to pray with her daughter? Objected. Here's the order. I haven't asked for it. Overruled. Did Ms. Kowalski attempt to pray with her daughter? Yes, sir.

What was Ms. Beattie's reaction to Beata trying to pray with her daughter, if you could explain that to the jury please? Well, the phone call was, Ms. Beattie had mentioned that the phone call, it was time for the phone call to end because she needed to go to a meeting. And Ms. Kowalski asked to pray or began praying. And then at one point it was interrupted by a lot of loud noises, and Ms. Kowalski asked what the noises were, and Ms. Speedy said that it was her office stuff. And anyway, she proceeded to finish the prayer, and then the visit ended. And afterwards, Ms. Let me stop you right there. Sorry.

You're doing great. I just wanted to clarify. When you say the visit ended, does that mean that at that point after the prayer, which was slightly interrupted, that Maya and Beata both hung up? Yes. So at that point in the phone call,

it was just Ms. Beattie at the hospital and yourself? Yes, sir. All right. Please continue. So at the end of the call, Ms. Beattie said to me that that prayer was just the mom's way of extending the phone call. And I said, well, she has a right to pray. And then we were going to schedule, I asked her, can we schedule the next phone call? And Ms. Beattie said, no, we're not going to schedule, I asked her, can we schedule the next phone call? And Ms. Beattie said,

no, we're not going to schedule anything right now. I'm going to end the phone calls at this point. I'm going to take care of that. And as part of your training as a guardian ad litem, do you receive training on the right of families in these types of situations to maintain their religious practices? Yes, sir. There's cultural competence training that includes all different aspects, including religion. And it's part of our goal as Guardian of Light to make sure that the child is having all of their normalcy needs met, and that includes any kind of religious practice. And did you inform Catherine Beattie of this, the right to practice their religion?

Yes, it was a quick comment, but I did say, well, she has a right to pray. And after Ms. Beattie stated to you that she was going to put an end to the phone calls, did you have any future phone calls? Were you allowed to supervise Beattie and Maya speaking? No. So that's disgusting. And I hate this. I hate this Catherine Beattie woman. Honestly, I think she's awful. And I think she took too much control and power and I think she was almost jealous of the relationship between beata and maya and Clearly, I mean she had a problem with them praying told the guardian ad litem that it was just a way to extend the phone call This is a very religious family

By the way maya's praying and and asking katherine Catherine Beatty to come in and pray with her, apparently, according to Catherine Beatty. So obviously, this is a very religious family. This is not a way to extend the phone call. And you could hear from that small clip of the phone call how happy Maya is to talk to her mother. She says, I'm so happy to hear your voice. And Catherine Beatty, seeing this, still told Jessica Blackrick, I'm going to put a stop

to these calls. And you know what? She did. She put a stop to the calls. Yeah, just no compassion. I mean, I think that's one of the things that's like... No compassion. This goes beyond no compassion.

This is... I'm just at minimum. This is nefarious. Yeah. No compassion for the situation and the fact that there's two people who are hurting there. And as a hospital, I mean, I think compassion is one of the number one requirements for doctors, nurses to understand that you may not personally experience what your patients are going through, but you have to have

sympathy. And in some cases, if you can't empathy for what they're going through and understand that these are real human beings and they're not prisoners. And yeah, you want to do your job, but you also want to be empathetic or sympathetic to the situation that those individuals are in. And it does appear not only was she violating the rights that Maya and Beata had, right? But she was also just being very inconsiderate, non-compassionate to the situation. Yeah. While they're praying, she's over here shuffling papers and being loud in the room on purpose. And you heard her interrupt the call. She would do this all the time. And I don't think Beata said anything wrong. Well, I want to also bring that up too, because I've done this, right? As a parent where you try

to say something in a nice way, but the reality is when your daughters are seven, 10 years old, when you're being like condescending or sarcastic, or you're irritated, they can tell, they understand. So like, even just listening to that phone call and the delay in Maya's response, when, uh, Kathy is talking to her, Maya knows regardless, even though she's saying, okay, honey, just, you have to keep it on this. You can't talk about the court case. Okay. Maya's like totally reading between the lines. Like that's uncomfortable. Like you're parenting my parent right now and you're parenting me. And this is weird. And it just, even her tone is off. It's just not very professional. It's condescending. And what did

Beata say that was wrong? She was basically doing what she was told, telling Maya, we'll see each other, you know, when the judge makes his decision. She's trying to explain to her. She's trying to give her hope. There's nothing wrong with saying that when the judge makes his decision. You can't talk about the case. You can't talk about what does she say? What is she supposed to say? Because does this woman, Catherine Beatty, want Maya to believe that Beata is purposely that the Beata is the reason why she's not seeing her daughter but that's not the truth you can't talk about the case what is she talking about the case she's just trying to give her daughter hope there is a light at the end of this tunnel we have to all she said was we have to let the judge decide we have to let the judge we have to wait

for the judge to make his decision right we're going through the process we're playing along we're playing along beata's doing what she's been told to do and even that's not good enough and that shows to me there's something very wrong here there's something very wrong what do they always say too right i don't like to look too far into things because you never know you don't want to speculate we try to be objective right it's it's one of those things too where you can say it about anyone but at this point kathy knows she's being recorded right it's on a recorded line whatever so you just have to ask yourself how's she talking to maya maya when when

there's no recording yeah you just again that you come to your own conclusions but i know what i think and and it's and you're entitled to your opinions but i don't know you come again come to your own conclusions on that yeah and at first she was like, Beata, Beata, you can't do it. And then she goes to my, Honey, honey, honey, we can't talk about that. This kid's 11, dude. She wants to know what's happening.

You're being all fake nice and weird, interjecting when you don't need to. The guardian ad litem is on the phone. If she wanted to interject the person who's court ordered to monitor the calls she's not interjecting where do you get off lady shut your mouth sit down and do your crossword puzzles you idiot because you know you didn't have any meeting to rush out to you just didn't want this girl on the phone with her mother you didn't have a meeting to rush out to because you had time to stay on the phone and talk shit to Jessica Blackrick about how you were going to stop the phone calls. I thought you had a meeting to rush out to.

Oh, oh. Anyways. All right, Stephanie, reel it back in. Reel it back in. Anyways, she's an idiot. She's an idiot. She needs help. She needs mental help. She needs to be committed. You have made that very clear. I hate her. Anyways. Okay. So the judge makes his decision that Maya cannot even see her mother for a minute and hug her. He can off off too, as far as I'm concerned. So the day after the judge made this decision, Beata and Jack went home, obviously with their hopes crushed. And Beata specifically took it very hard. She'd already been going downhill in the past months.

She was crying nonstop. She'd lost weight. She was always pale. And that night when they got home, Beata told Jack she was running out to CVS, but she didn't return home until after midnight, at which point Jack noticed that she'd been drinking. And he said in the 13 years they'd been married, he'd never seen his wife drunk. But she was that night, and I don't blame her. The next day, Beata begged out of a birthday party she was supposed

to attend with Jack and Kyle. She said she had a headache. And when Jack got home, he couldn't find his wife, but he saw that the door to their son's bedroom was closed. And so he assumed she was sleeping in there, as she did most nights. During the trial, Jack said, quote, it was like her security blanket. You know, that's all she had, Kyle. End quote. So Jack and Kyle, they watched television together on the couch. They both fell asleep. But the next morning, Jack was abruptly awoken by the sound of someone screaming. It was Beata's brother, Peter. He'd come over. He walked into the garage and he found his sister in the garage hanging from the ceiling. Beata had taken her own life and she had sent an email to herself titled Goodbye.

It read, quote, Thank you for all your support. Please take care of my Maya. Tell her how much I love her every day. Please tell her that I will see her in heaven one day and we will be united forever. Please tell Kyle also that I love him very much and I hope that he grows up to be a strong, good man, has a great future and stays close to God. Until then, please take care of Maya, but don't make her suffer anymore. She doesn't deserve that. No child deserves that. And please tell her the truth,

why her mom died. She deserves that at least. I'm sorry, but I can no longer take the pain of being away from Maya and being treated like a criminal. I cannot watch my daughter suffer in pain and keep getting worse while my hands are tied by the state of Florida and the judge. It's been three months of Maya not being home, end quote. To the judge and the rest of the people who had kept her away from her daughter, Beata said, quote, your heart is made out of iceberg. ACH and DCF have destroyed my family, my marriage. You have put us in bankruptcy and you still denied me to see my daughter in court today and have face-to-face visitations with her. You are unfair and unjust. I can't believe that you, the judge, allowed ACH to treat your orders like toilet paper and treat

our family as criminals. You have continued to allow to keep my daughter Maya in the ACH prison without giving her any human rights. Basically, you are keeping her in the camp because that's how she gets treated there. I grew up in Poland during communism. This nightmare slash horror that we are dealing with right now is far worse than what I ever experienced during my childhood years under communism. Furthermore, you let them continue to destroy her even more slowly each day. My daughter will never be who she was before October 13th, 2016, end quote. Beata also said she hoped Dr. Sally Smith

will lose her medical license and never be able to hurt another child again. And there's many people that believe that Beata didn't do this to escape the pain or to abandon her children and her husband. She did this because she felt that it was the only thing that was drastic enough to bring attention to what was happening, the travesty that was happening to her family.

She died to save Maya. She died to bring her daughter home because she knew once there was enough eyes on this and once the hospital and the court and the police found out about what was going on and saw how impactful it was, that they would make a different decision. And in the end, that is exactly what happened, although ACH, the hospital, didn't want to give up easily. But Deborah Salisbury, she was one of the Kowalski lawyers, she said, quote, It never made sense to me why she was denied giving her child that hug. And I can tell you, as we left the courthouse that day that if Beata had been able to hug Maya that day,

if she had thought that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, that she had been able to hold her daughter and feel her in her arms, things may have turned out differently. Now, during the trial, text messages between an ACH doctor named Laura Vose and a nurse, Beatrice Tepe Sanchez, were revealed. And in these text messages, after Beata's death, voice said, quote, learned today that ketamine girl's mom committed suicide yesterday. Sorry to say my prediction was correct. End quote. Teppa Sanchez responded, quote,

I know we did the right thing, but this is really fucked up. I feel bad. End quote. Too little, too late. You feel bad. And Voss said, quote, I don't know all the details yet,

but I think the courts and psychiatrists finally called it for what it was. I had another mother do the same thing. We definitely did the right thing for the child. End quote. Tepe Sanchez wrote back, quote, we did. Well, I really hope she has a chance of a better life now. End quote.

Wow, these people are monsters. So first of all, no psychiatrist ever found Beata to be mentally ill. She had no history of mental illness. I don't know where they're getting this from. They're pulling it out of their asses. What it sounds like to me is two people who were like, oh shit, did we, are we the baddies? Are we the bad guys here? Did we do something wrong? Who are trying to convince themselves and each other that they did the right thing when you didn't, you didn't do the right thing. Sorry to say

my prediction was correct. And I read some Reddit threads and people were saying, oh, I think that they were saying, she was saying, she wasn't saying her prediction was correct. And I read some Reddit threads and people were saying, oh, I think they were saying she was saying she wasn't saying her prediction was correct that Beata would commit suicide, that her prediction was correct that Beata had mental health issues. I don't care if that's what she meant, because neither of those predictions were correct. People who take their own lives don't do so always because they have mental health issues. And as a doctor, Laura Vose, you should know that and you should be more compassionate. A lot of people had issues with the nickname ketamine girl. I personally don't.

I know that there is an issue with patient privacy and they can't be using patients' names in like outside text messages and things. So I think that was just a name that they gave her so that they could communicate about her outside of the hospital, I guess. But should they be? Is this an appropriate text to have? If you were Beata's husband and Maya was your daughter and you heard these two people talking about them like this, how would you feel? Oh, I'd be enraged. And it would be the tip of the iceberg, right?

Because what are people saying off text message? What are they just saying and passing amongst each other? So I would be infuriated. What are they saying around maya what are they saying around maya yeah what is yeah what is she overheard no the whole thing is really tragic and i what what deborah salisbury said as far as that hug being i don't think that's some form of sensationalism or draw to try to be dramatic for you know impact you know she had been going through this, Beata had been going through this for over three months. And with any troubled situation that we've all experienced, right? When you're going through something bad in your life, you look for small wins. You look for little milestones that suggest you're on the other end, right? You're coming,

it's going to get better eventually. And that's what allows you to take that next step to continue to move forward and continue to fight because you're getting these small little wins that ultimately add up to the overall goal. And it gives you the motivation to keep fighting. And I think when that happened that day, after all that time, after all that fight. After all the cooperating that she was doing. After everything she had done, she wasn't even at a point yet where she was allowed to give her own daughter a hug which as other people have stressed had no impact on the case right obviously someone would be present for

that hug of course nothing she's going to do in that moment she's not going to administer some form of ketamine by you through the native through hugs right so it's just it's ridiculous and i think at that moment like deborah salisbury said, she just lost hope realizing like this is never going to end. And I do wonder, I do wonder and we'll never know for certain, but you said something as far as like, yes, Beata potentially did this to bring the type of notoriety and attention to this case to ultimately get Maya home and she sacrificed her own life to do so, I would almost take it a step further and say, I wonder if there was a part of her, because it's very obvious here that she was the villain, right? Like she was the one they were attacking. Obviously Jack was- She was the perceived villain, yeah. Yeah. She was the perceived villain by the hospital. Jack was more guilty by association because obviously he was still allowed to see Maya. And so I wonder if there was part of

her that said, listen, they're coming after me. If I'm no longer in the equation, at least Maya gets to come back home. And she accomplished that if that's what she wanted. But I do wonder, it doesn't look like she said it in the letter, but I wonder if that was part of the process in her mind where she's like, one, as long as I'm around, at first I got to bring more attention to this and I need to hold people responsible. I need to get the proper people to look at this because nobody's listening. But also if I'm no longer here, there's no excuse for them to not let her come back home because I'm physically no longer there to do whatever they're accusing me of doing. So I, it only adds salt to the wound, right. To think that, but based on what you, the way you explained it, it sounds like that could have been part of her, the rationale behind

her decision to do what she did. Yeah. Cause it worked. It worked. Cause like you said, you know, we, we, we're going to get to it, but yeah, I won't, I won't continue to go to that road. You have a little bit more to go, but yeah, it sounds like she might have known, like, as long as I'm here, as long as I'm in the equation, Maya's never coming home. Yeah. And honestly, that judge,

that judge who thought that a simple hug between mother and daughter that would give them both the ability to continue fighting and continue cooperating, he thought that was too much. That was inappropriate. He's lucky was too much. That was inappropriate. He's lucky he has immunity. And this is exactly why judges shouldn't have immunity

because you've got all children's hospital being sued. You've got Dr. Sally Smith being sued. Everybody's being sued. The judge can't be sued. The judge can't be sued. He can just make all the arbitrary, stupid decisions that he wants to, not considering how it's affecting people

and nothing happens to him. So honestly, yeah, well, there's a nice spot in hell waiting for him. Nice and toasty. I like how you, the restraint there. Oh, I literally don't understand why a hug was so, after three months? After three months? I don't think anybody, and the worst part about it, never mind being held accountable, he doesn't have to explain himself.

Yeah. I don't even know. It was a he, right? He'll have to explain himself to somebody someday. Yeah, it was a he. Yeah, it was a he. I don't know. And it'll be a man with horns and a pitchfork.

Oh. I hate that dude, too. I hate that judge. I hate him. I mean, listen, that's brutal. I don't get it. I don't get it. I mean, let's say on the surface, and I don't want to keep just beating a dead horse here.

Let's say on the surface, he did feel that Beata was doing whatever she was being accused of. By this time, it had already been said, and as you heard that lawyer say to freaking Catherine Beattie, it had already been determined that no one was suffering from Munchausen by proxy. It had already been determined that Maya did have CRPS. You were charging her family for CRPS treatments. And yet you still kept her mother away from her. And yet the judge still felt her mother couldn't hug her, even though it was already established that this woman did not have Munchausen by proxy and that Maya did have CRPS. They can all burn in hell. Period. Point blank. chosen by proxy and that maya did have crps they can all burn in hell period point blank no it's a terrible terrible situation so the same month that biotica walski took her own life maya was finally allowed to go home with her father and brother but it was not an easy win like i said because for some reason all children's hospital continue to fight in court that maya should stay and not

only that that she should be, that she could possibly be in danger still. And they suggested that she should be transferred to a long-term inpatient medical foster care. And that's where we'll pick up next time because this hospital literally was like, how can we keep torturing her? We can't lose our control. How can we keep torturing her?

How can we make it worse? Long-term medical foster care. Because she could still be in danger even though we never had a problem with Jack Kowalski. Never. It was always Beata. She's dead now. Well, now we have a problem with Jack. Why not? You know, anything to die on the hill that they created out of their idiocy. Yeah, that's where we'll pick up next time. That's where we'll pick up next time. I know this is going to be a long episode. So we'll, we got one more to go, right? Yeah. One more to go. Terrible case. Obviously this is not the outcome anybody wants.

And obviously most of you probably knew where this was going. We're just giving the background before it, but, um, yeah, we'll get it. We'll pick it up next week. We'll let everyone digest this one. Uh, this episode will be coming out the day after Thanksgiving. So obviously I will say this, you know, you always try to find some type of something you can take from this. We can't bring Beata back, but I think if she was here, she would say that on times like this with Thanksgiving and the holidays around the corner, make sure you hug your loved ones really tight because there are people out there. Make sure you hug them tight before a judge tells you you can't. Oh my God. Can I get my moment out? Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You know, there's a lot of people who are still going through things like this that are still

here and they would kill themselves literally to be in the position you're in. So keep that in mind as you listen to this episode and you may think about some of the things going on in your life. Think about the people you care about, whether that's family, friends, children, siblings, whatever it might be, parents. Think about Beata. Think about Maya. Think about Jack. Think about their family, what they've gone through and what would ultimately Beata sacrificed in order just to get her daughter home to her father. And maybe put that emphasis on whatever thought process you're having at the time about your own personal life. And, you know, you might think, yeah, I wish it were better. Think about their family.

Maybe gives you a little bit more appreciation. I know it does for me. I'm not just schooling you. Yeah. We're recording this before Thanksgiving. You're going to hear it after, but we're recording it beforehand. And I'll tell you, I don't know how, as a human being, you don't hear these stories and think about your own, your loved ones in your own life. And even if you have a good relationship, think about maybe I spend that extra 20 minutes over there tonight or, you know what I mean?

Like it just, that's the, that's the one thing that those are the things we can take out of these circumstances. Yeah. Yeah. That's all I got. What do you got? Final, final words? You good? I think I've said enough words today. You, you definitely have spoke your mind tonight. Spoken? Spoke? I did both. Yeah. Okay. Everyone, I hope you guys had a good holiday because this is coming out after it.

We will see you guys again next week for the final part. As always, like, comment, subscribe. Let us know that you're watching. Let us know what you think in the comments. We'll see you soon. Stay safe out there. Good night. Bye.