EXPLORE WITH US - Every Parent's WORST Nightmare: The Case of Lindsay Partin

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

Every parent's WORST nightmare...The following podcast episode is not legal advice. Do not rely on the information in this presentation without speaking to a licensed attorney.No one discussed in these videos has been formally diagnosed by EWU and our psychological analysis is based on the general behaviors and traits of the people discussed.

Hi there, can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you what's going on. Okay, my name is Lindsay. I babysit kids. He just dropped her off, and all of a sudden she just passed out. Who's passed out? The little girl, who's three? She fell pretty bad yesterday, and she got fine,

and all of a sudden you dropped out this morning, and she walked in and she just kind of passed out, and she went to rent. Okay. I don't know. Are you with her now? Yes, and so is bad. I go to... Yes, her is too bad.

There's something wrong. Okay. Is she awake right now? Yes. No, no, stand the line with me. I have to ask you two questions while my partner gets the medics dispatch. Yeah, send him out. Okay.

I send him out. I don't know what's wrong. Okay. Is her breathing completely normal? No, yes. Almost gone. Hurry, please. Okay.

Lay her down on her back. No, she'll get her back. Lay her down on her back and let her head feel back. Okay. And she's still unconscious, correct? Yes. Okay. No, she's not unconscious.

She's her eyes. her open and she's like gasping for air what's the matter she fucking shock or something i don't know what the fuck would be wrong with her i don't know she's a fine and we just walked in the house she got up bruscious city i don't know but i just the one lindsie it's okay they're on the way hey car kason hey look at me anna look up you're okay i love you nana you're love you father cubs hey Oh, look up. There we go. The woman in this 911 call is 35-year-old Lindsay Parton of Butler County, Ohio.

The distraught babysitter made the call after one of the children in her care, three-year-old Hannah Weschie, abruptly passes out while at her home. But when confronted about exactly what happened to Hannah leading up to the tragedy, Lindsay would end up changing her story in unbelievable seven times, leaving detectives to work out what, or who, Lindsay was trying to hide. On Thursday, March 8, 2018, Jason Weschie and his young daughter Hannah woke at dawn, as they did every morning. Just like any other day, Jason got ready for work,

then got Hannah ready to be dropped at her babysitter, Lindsay Parton's house. Despite being next-door neighbors, Jason's house is approximately 300 feet away from Lindsay's. Hence, he regularly drove to drop his daughter off every morning instead of walking. Jason would later recall that on this particular, morning, instead of wanting to sit in his lap and drive like she usually did. Hannah crawled into the back seat and laid down, which was very unusual for the energetic toddler. About five minutes after texting Lindsay to let her know that they were on the way over, Jason's car pulled into her driveway. Lindsay went into her garage to meet the pair. Jason set Hannah down in front of Lindsay,

then gave her a hug and a kiss before he turned to leave. Hannah called him back, asking for or double kisses, and Jason gave his daughter more kisses and hugs before assuring her that he'd be back later, then rushed out to make the hour commute to work. He had no idea the horror that would occur just minutes after he turned his back. Lindsay escorted Hannah inside the house where the little girl asked if she could sit on the couch and eat a donut before breakfast. Hannah then began to remove her jacket and in the next moment she fell wimply to the floor. At least that's what Lindsay's Nancy Parton told detectives about what had happened when she spoke to them later that morning. So take us back to this morning when the child, when Hannah, gets your house.

He walked in the door like normal. Through the front door, back door. Where you guys came in and sat her down. Was he carrying her? He carries her in, has her blanket over her cold, obviously right now. And sat her down. In the garage or? Yeah, you know, she's standing there.

and you know, the kiss goodbye, whatever. He saw her back to get you and she said, okay, bye. And I looked around her, I said, are you tired of this morning or do you want to stay up? She said, I want to stay up. I said, okay, so we walked in. She was in front of me. I opened the door. She was in front of me.

That red chair that sits right there. My phone down started to take off my rope. She looked at me. She said, you can we do a couch and donut. And she went to take off her jacket and just fell forward. And like I said, and I said, hey, get up. What are you doing? I thought maybe she tripped because I was putting my road down. It wasn't necessarily like looking at her. And she didn't get back up. Jason had just made it to the barn at the end of their street where the company stored supplies.

He was starting up his work truck when he received a frantic call from Lindsay at 7.01 a.m. Just three minutes after leaving her house. It took Jason only a single minute to get back to Lindsay's house. When he gets there, Hannah is lying on the floor only a few feet inside the doorway to the garage. And then she just, her eyes were like half open, and she was non-responsive. Like she was like staring at that book. And I'm trying to talk. I'm like, Hannah, Hannah, talk daddy, talk daddy.

It's like I wasn't even there. I told her neck up to open her airway because she was having trouble breathing. and she would she'd like gas like and then let it out and she wouldn't breathe you for like a split second and I bet a hand on, shake or she'd and then she'd stop

and then Lindsay she said what should I do should I call 911 yeah call 911 so Lindsay calls 911 911 off her phone and Lindsay was on the phone with 911 until they got there while on the phone with emergency services

Jason moved his daughter from the floor inside Lindsay's home to the couch in the garage He desperately tried to comfort Hannah and keep her breathing until the ambulance arrived. About 15 minutes later, paramedics entered the garage and rushed Hannah to Ford Hamilton Hospital. Shortly thereafter, she was transported to the renowned Cincinnati Children's Hospital in critical condition. Jason claims that Lindsay asked him whether she should call 911 or not. If this is true, it's a big red flag.

Most people experiencing a true emergency where someone is struggling to be, breathe, would want to get help right away. But for some reason, Lindsay didn't call for an ambulance, which leads to the question. Why? One possibility is that panic can impair a person's course of action. People can both physically and psychologically freeze. Another is that Lindsay knows more about the cause of Hannah's injury than she's letting on. It's possible that she's trying to come up with her story first before having to provide that information to a dispatcher. This is the fabrication phase of the liar's loop. We've talked to the doctors down at UC, Hannah's up to the go.

Okay? Happened to her happened this morning. Oh, my God. It's not from the fall from yesterday. She has a severe wrangling. Oh, my God. So what we need is the truth from you. Yeah.

Because we need to know how this happened, that way we can treat her. I'm absolutely telling you. The truth. Oh, my God. This way it's looking right now is that this happened at your house because we need to find out. We need the truth. I swear God, I'm telling you the exact truth. We walked in the house.

From what the doctor saying, she did not walk. She did not talk with this type of injury. When interrogators hear, I swear to God's statements, such as what Lindsay has just said twice, they're trained to recognize this is a sign that the suspect may be trying to make their lie sound more convincing. It's important to remember that one deceptive indicator doesn't prove that Lindsay is lying. It's possible for phrases like this or other similar statements to be part of someone's normal speech patterns. Detectives will already have a general idea about how Lindsay usually talks, since they will have gathered a baseline during the first part of the interview.

If this sounds out of the ordinary for her, they will be on high alert and will likely push her further on her story. She walked right in my house. Okay. And within 30 seconds that I swear I'm not lying. Notice that Lindsay's palms are faced down when she insists that Hannah walked into her house. When someone makes a declarative statement with their hands palms down, this is typically seen as a high confidence position. You would expect to see this when someone is telling the truth.

However, it's possible that Lindsay is feeling confident in her story, even if it's not the truth. This is the version she already gave on the 911 call, and at least once to these detectives. Each time someone repeats their lie, they will feel more confident in what they are saying. That's part of the reason that detectives will point out inconsistencies in the suspect's story, because it shakes up the person's confidence, which could make it more likely for them to slip up or confess. As well, when Lindsay says, I swear I am not lying, this is likely a convincing statement. suspects who are lying may feel uncomfortable just denying the allegations because they know the evidence may not support their answer.

This could lead to them making convincing statements to alleviate their discomfort and make their lie sound more credible. I would never hurt a kid in my life. My kids don't even get spanked. Here, her hands flipped a palm up, a low confidence position when she says her kids don't get spanked. This is known as the rogatory position and usually indicates that the person is pleading or begging to be believed. This can be a red flag to detectives because someone telling the truth

doesn't usually need to ask to be believed. Okay, so if you wouldn't, who would? I don't know. Okay, I believe you're not being honest with us and you need to come clean with it because you're going to be a part of this. Do you understand me? Yeah.

Okay, as one mother to another, you can't kid, you can't joke around about this, you can't hide behind it, You need to come ahead of this and tell us what's going on and what you know. I don't know anything that goes on her video, but then I know she's just tedious. Okay. What happened this morning? Nothing at my house. It's a red flag that Lindsay's hands are in the rogatory position while she's making a declarative statement about how nothing happened at my house.

If she had nothing to do with Hannah's injury, she should be confident in her statement here, but her body language suggests otherwise. What did he say to you? He said, I said, oh, her bruise looks better. And he said, yeah, because actually I put vapor up on her. Yeah. Trying to make, you know, make it cool down. And I googled how to make a bruise look better. It's interesting that Lindsay volunteers information about how she Googled how to make a bruise look better,

especially given she used the phrase, look better, rather than feel better, suggesting she was concerned about how it appeared rather than how Hannah felt. It's possible that she's aware that her. search history may be examined by detectives, and she's trying to preemptively cover her tracks. We're talking about something happened today, okay? Yeah, nothing happened this time. She's probably not going to make it. You're fucking kidding.

No, I'm not. We're not. So this is going to be a homicide. We need to find out what's going on. Oh, my God. What did he say to you this morning? God, I'm you trying to remember what we even said this morning. I said it's snowing again.

How did he act? Normal. Completely normal. This was a completely normal warning. By shifting their focus to Hannah's dad, the detectives may be hoping to lure Lindsay into a false sense of security by making her think she is not the main suspect. She may be more likely to give information away if she thinks she is in the clear. How she was acting was normal. Yes. I swear to God. I swear on my daughter's lies. She walked into the house and nothing was abnormal whatsoever. Never. No one thing. While pediatricians at the hospital were examining Hannah, they'd made several horrifying discoveries.

In addition to the swelling in her brain, Hannah's body was covered in various scratches and bruises, including a black eye, several small bruises across her chest, a scrape on her chin, a bruise on the left side of her head, as well as on her shoulder and neck, and most concerningly, a severe swollen bruise on the back of her head. The doctors confirmed that Hannah's injuries were consistent with her being shaken, and they didn't have to speculate long before they were sure that the marks on her body were the result of abuse. This news landed Lindsay as well as her husband and Jason in front of detectives on March 8th. Later on the same day, Hannah fainted.

So I'm going to be very matter of fact with you, and I want you to be a matter of fact with me. And if you're sitting here telling the truth, that's great. But if you're sitting here and you're covering and you know things, then watch. Listen to the words I'm going to tell you. You will be. Yes. Because this is the only spot that you're going to get a chance to cooperate. Because once we're done, and if you don't let it out, then that's on you.

Cooperation is actually available to a defendant throughout the process. In fact, cooperation at this stage is the worst possible option for Lindsay, because she's not secured the advice of her legal counsel, and therefore her cooperation only benefits the interrogators, not her. There'll be no hands reached out to you. So the things I know for a fact, for a fact, are these doctors who have a lot more knowledge than, as you said, any of us. Say this, this baby was beat.

Listen to me. these bruises that are all on its chest has made the doctor's nauseous, that the swelling on the brain was from a beating, that her retinal being her eye is totally, I mean, it's just from the beating. When you have doctors telling you this child was beat, they've just pulled a plug on this child. This child is dead. Oh my God.

So we can't get any more serious than what we're at, Lindsay. No, I can't. That's what I'm saying. So... So... It's unclear whether the detective was fed false information here, or if he was knowingly lying to Lindsay. But at the time of this interview,

Hannah actually isn't dead. She was still in the hospital in critical condition, fighting for her life. Lying during an interrogation is legal, so long as the lie itself does not amount to psychological. abuse. This is an interesting gray area, but likely wouldn't amount to a Fifth Amendment violation. The beating that took place on her head was absolutely in a time frame of the time she was in your house to the time that had to be almost immediate prior to coming to your house.

That there's absolutely no positive way that this child was sitting down, playing with blocks, having conversations that it absolutely could not have happened. Have you ever seen TJ strike any of the kids? No, he's hardly ever home. And when he gets home... Was he there this morning and you're just covering your line? No, he was at the barn. Timothy, T.J. Smith is Lindsay's husband and the reason that she started babysitting Hannah in the first place.

T.J.'s father owns Smith Corp Construction, a local construction company where T.J. over saw various groups of contractors as they work on different projects. In June of 2017, T.J. had hired Jason Weschion as a mechanic. At the time, Jason happened to be the sole caretaker of his young daughter. Hanna's mother allegedly struggled with addiction. Her substance use reportedly resulted in Anna being born addicted to substances. Doctors weren't sure that she would survive her first week of life. However, with her father's support and tireless work by NICU staff, She was successfully weaned off of the substances over the course of three months, and she would go on to grow into a healthy little girl.

Before Jason started working with T.J., he and his daughter spent the majority of Hannah's life struggling with homelessness. Almost every night for two years, Jason would sleep inside his car so that Hannah could safely sleep at his brother's house. After landing this job, Jason was making enough money to care for his daughter, but he still had no one to watch Hannah while he had. worked up to 12 hours a day. Since Lindsay was already babysitting a friend's daughter, in addition to watching two young daughters of her own, her husband figured she wouldn't mind taking on one more little

girl. She agreed to a temporary arrangement where she would watch Hannah on a near daily basis, while Jason was at work. About a month after getting hired, Jason had another huge stroke of luck. The house right next door to Lindsay and T.J. went on the market. He bought that house and he and his daughter went from being homeless to living more comfortably than they ever had together. Soon, Jason asked Lindsay to take on the job of being Hannah's babysitter indefinitely. Lindsay agreed to watch Hannah every day except Fridays, with Hannah getting dropped off as early as 6 a.m. Some mornings. In addition to just watching her for the day, Lindsay took Hannah to dance classes on Mondays, washed her clothes, regularly bathed her, and fed Hannah dinner when her father wasn't back to pick her up

by suppertime. By the time the incident had transpired, Lindsay was with Hannah the majority of the time and effectively acted as a second parent to her, which makes it hard to believe that she would do something to hurt her so badly. Who then could it have been? If you was just to reach out and take a guess, tell me what's happened. I'm sure she did something bad and got in trouble. She's a little mischievous. This is at least the second time Lindsay has mentioned Hannah being mischievous, which is not a positive characteristic. Lindsay appears to be blaming Hannah for the injuries, which is another big red flag. Abuse of caretakers often place blame on the child and may label the child as bad. Is Jason capable of this? Does he have a temper? Have you ever seen it? Have you ever seen him

hit the kids? No, I haven't. But I have not known them long enough to know that and I'm not, I don't go. I've never been been in his house. Have you ever seen bruises on her? Yeah, she's bruises. Have you ever seen any bruises that you've looked at and went? Yeah. Where? I'm concerned with her head.

Yeah. Have you seen bruises on her head? Look at me, please. I need to get a good feel for you. Yes. Lindsay may have been caught off guard here and may be taking a break from eye contact to ease her stress as she tries to figure out the best way answer this question. When someone has a lie prepared, they may be more likely to maintain strong

eye contact to see if the lie is believed. However, if they need to think or remember something before responding, they may break eye contact. Okay, have you ever asked her about those bruises on her head? No. Why not? And I'm not trying to belittle. No, I know. I know. I feel like I haven't done. I know. She does a quick sigh, followed by an anchor point movement, likely two indications that she feeling uncomfortable in trying to release nervous energy. She may feel like she's trapped. If she says that she never noticed any bruises, that makes her look like a poor caregiver. However, if she admits to seeing them, that could also make her look bad as she never expressed any concern about how Hannah got those injuries, especially the ones to her head.

I don't know that I've asked her, but I'll say, oh, did you fall? Do you jump off the couch again? because she jumps off the couch a lot. Do you know if there's carpet over there at the house? I've never been in there. When you say he has a temper, I'm listening. I've never seen it, but like when we talk about, like, things that go on the job site or whatever, if the guys get into a fight, like, we're friends. He and I are friends.

I'll kill somebody that hurt my kid. Or, like, the other day he got into a fight, I guess, with a lot of guys on the job site. And he's like, you don't want to do that to meet you. You know what I mean to stuff like that. I think he's even said I have a temper. So Jason's telling us that she gets her a lot at your house. She always comes home with bruises. That's completely I'm sure she comes to my house with bruises.

Okay, so who do we believe? I know. How many kids do you have? I have to myself. And then I just lost one. Let's see. I don't know anything other than what I've told you. Like I don't know of anything.

I don't know of anything that has happened that could help us help with us. Other than I don't know what goes on over there and he's gone a lot. I take care of her. I am the one that takes care of her. She comes to my house a lot and dirty clothes, not a bath. I wash her clothes. I make sure she's taken care of it. I don't.

I can't. Well, here's one thing I'm going to tell you. if you're trying to, I don't know, play patty cake with the ideas that you don't want to look at him as a bad father, if you didn't kill her, he did. It's as simple as that. It's one or the other. I didn't. Well, then, I mean, if you got some things that you think you need to tell us about him,

you need to be telling us he's not going to get father of the year. Because if you didn't kill her, he did. I think there's been some things going on at the job. I think he got into a big trouble the other day. Transitioning to just the female investigator is a common tactic. It takes some pressure off the suspect and can cause them to open up during a softer form of interrogation. For what, a trailer got hit and it could have killed somebody. He parked it on the hill.

I think there's some stuff going on. Like with him, weren't about his job or his house or whatever. Yeah. So you think he's got some aggression inside he's building up and he's upset over that? Mm-hmm. If he did her, he did. Yeah. I mean, I guess he had to him. How do you know about him parking that trailer there?

He told me about it. Lindsay continued to drop hints that Hannah's dad had something to do with what happened to her, but without outright saying that this is the case. The detective has clearly stated to her that it was either Lindsay or Jason, so it's not surprising that she would give reasons for why it could have been him. Both innocent and deceptive individuals would likely do this. An innocent person would know that they didn't do it, so it must have been the other person. A deceptive person knows they did do it, so they need to blame the other person if they want to get away with it.

Still, detectives weren't quite sure what to think, so they decided to ask Lindsay if she'd be willing to take a polygraph exam, despite them being notoriously unreliable. Expecting her to agree, investigators were taken aback when she actually had. refuse to take the test. We can get you immediately off the radar screen if you're willing to take a polygraph and go on. We can focus everywhere else. Are you willing to do that? Why was you going to be able to do that?

Because I'm not a lie to tell you. I'm only taking you at just your word. I'm all nervous. It takes all that into consideration. If you had to take one, are you going to pass it or fell it? I don't know. Why? At this point of how it passed it because I'm telling the truth.

That's the answer I would be looking for. Nervous doesn't have nothing to do with nothing. I don't want to do that with our lawyer. Now I'm nervous. This is not an outright invocation of the right to counsel, but it's close. To stay on the safe side, investigators should cease all questioning until counsel is obtained and present. Now I'm all nervous. I don't know what to do.

I don't know what to do. I'm just asking. It's all I was doing is asking. I can't give you advice on what to do. I'm just asking. Polygraphs measure cardiovascular activity, heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory activity, breathing, and electrodermal activity, the sweat glands. The idea behind the polygraph is that perceived threats, such as being asked questions about a crime you're suspected of committing, can affect one's bodily processes,

and these processes can be measured. However, some research suggests polygraph exams are not a reliable way to detect deception, as those measurements can be affected by factors other than deception. If someone is extremely worried or nervous that the test will indicate they are lying, even if they're being truthful, this anxiety may be reflected in the results and wrongfully interpreted as deception. On the other hand, someone who is a very savvy liar, such as a psychopath, may feel very confident in themselves, and therefore the polygraph may not show deception when it actually is present.

Polygraphs should instead be seen as a tool detectives can use to gather information, along with body language analysis, verbal responses, witness statements, and physical evidence. Can we get, do you care, send a consent, so we can dump your phone and get the timeline for the text messages and when you call that one more. So we can have that. Okay. Okay. Let me go get the form all quick and I'll just sign it from you. Okay. All right.

Shortly after Lindsay signed the consent form that gave police permission to search her phone, she stated that she wanted to leave. With no hard evidence to keep her there, officers had to let her go. Lindsay then waits inside the station for T.J., her husband, who's also being interrogated just a few rooms away. So what happened this morning, man? Dude, I ain't got a clue. I wasn't there. Well, I wasn't there when it took place.

I met under the office looked up and handled its likes. How well do you know, Jason? Not real good at all. He started. I met him through an operator buddy-in-law that come to work here. He'd been looking for decent people, people coming up with people. He said, I got a good guy that's decent mechanic, whatnot. So, time to be much the cool, you're hired.

That's probably been a year ago. Is that a very reliable? Yep. Any problems with them as far as arguments or not doing what you're supposed to? Get along with people? He did two days ago about getting fired. He's doing. We're on a job and trailer.

People were so stupid. That steep street, we got a pipe trailer 40 foot long. He went down and unhooked that trailer on a street like that. Right above Route 8, like it's going into a highway if something happens. So he blocked it on a street like that, like an idiot. So he's going to fire him right there. Right. So we've been a reprimand talking to him yesterday.

T.J.'s story about Jason almost getting fired is consistent with what Lindsay told in investigators. This doesn't mean that everything Lindsay has said is true, but it could indicate that Jason's stress level was higher than usual at the time Hannah was injured. It appears that both Jason and Lindsay were experiencing major stressors around the time Hannah was hurt, with Lindsay having a miscarriage and Jason at risk of losing his job. So did you see the baby girl? Did you see Hannah laying there when the squad was there or the squad right took off? This morning when I walked in, the squad was going, they went in ahead of me and had her in the garage putting her on a couch

and was trying to get packets open. And all I did here was, she ain't coherent, and Jason was standing over. They was all huddled around her. I turned the light on. And they said, finally, a tear rolled out of her. That's all they said, well, there's a tear out of her. You got any questions for us? Yeah, what's going on?

There's something more than. The baby's in bad, bad, bad shape. Yeah. So, that's what I'm doing. And then she, see, she called me when she was down here and said, hey, they're coming to get a toy, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, we have it. Straight up, I said, no, I know how y'all watch police movies on. I'm like, now you're...

What's a problem? You watch too much police movies? Yeah, well, I'm not there. I'm not involved. I ain't nothing to do it. I ain't know what's going on, but I'm like, whole shit. My homeowner's insurance all my sheds up. You know what I mean?

So I'm like, damn, what I just like all attorney. Like, hey, man, it just seems weird like they're collecting evidence and ain't saying nothing. she's very like in a corner she don't play she ain't you can tell but kids that are messed up and messed up parents are they're not normal kids she's very like not it's very introverted very kid so always thought something's wrong with her then this happens she reminds her starts playing what was it from fall well she falls all the time right tj gives a very different description of hannah compared to lindsay the conversation with t j didn't get them any closer to understanding what

happened to Hannah. So once investigators were done with them, officers escorted him and his wife out of the police station, and the couple made their way to the hospital to see Hannah. Earlier that morning, detectives had already made their rounds at the hospital getting statements from the victim's family, including Hannah's older sister, Caitlin. So you did it's turn 17? Do you currently live in the house? With my mom? With your mom? Hannah's your step-sister. It is my half-sister. Your half-sister, okay.

Do you stay with your father often? Yeah, weekends and the days that I don't want to sleep. Is there anything that would make you feel that what happened was done in malice? Like she didn't fall? Yes. It wasn't an accident. Yes, is what I'm asking. I mean, she goes to Lindsay's Monday through Thursday,

and she goes to a different babysitter on Friday. Okay. For some reason, she likes to go to that babysitter on Wednesdays. Okay. That's the only thing I have to say. Have you ever spoken to Lindsay? I go over there and she, because I'm in cosmetology,

so I go over there and I do her hair. Okay. And she's going out. What type of person is Lindsay? She's nice, and she has two of the kids that aren't the same age as Hannah. Does anything seem odd about her? I mean, her kids were kind of rambunctious

and she didn't get, like, mad, like she didn't snap out of them. Okay. Tell me a little bit about your dad. What other guy? My dad was my best friend, and I mean, that was my whole heart. He's been there for me, more than anybody else has. Okay.

But I've been, these past few years, I've been going through a lot of stuff, and he's always been the one to take care of me and be there for me. So he's kind of here to rock then? Yeah. Okay. Like I said, you know, you looked at your dad in the room, and you asked him, and you asked him very concerningly that, did she really hit her head?

Did she really hit her head? What would make you ask you, Matt? Because, I mean, if the kids are going to fall and hit their head, it obviously has to be pretty hard for it to start bleeding like that. True. So I'm just concerned whether somebody maybe pushed her and made her fall or somebody hit her and made her fall or somebody hit her and just hit her and made her head her head and heard her like that. Do you change your clothes, help her change her clothes or anything?

Paper bath. Saturday. Did you see marks on her? I mean, not like these marks. I mean, she probably had some bruises on her legs or something. Okay. Does she have bruises on her neck or her chest? She did have a bruise on her chest right here.

She had one bruise on her chest or several? I think I just see one greenish. Okay. Next, David Latham, Hannah's grandfather who she spent every other weekend with, provided some interesting insight into his final interactions with him. Have you ever noticed any kind of change in her? Yes. You have?

In those two weeks, I was just telling my family that I thought maybe she didn't like this new baby, this babysitter. She had two marks on her, which were probably still there, because I noticed it over the weekend. I got fingerprint marks, and I asked her. You know, she's three. She speaks pretty good, and she told me babysitter. And I noticed there was a bruise her on her chest. And that last weekend I had her, which was two weekends ago. I noticed there was bruise around here on her, and I asked her about that.

She said babysitter. I guess she's been going to Lindsay for eight months. Gilman Sam Bruises on her pretty much the whole eight months. The whole eight months? Pretty much hair and there, but I've been taking it, okay, a little kid, fall down. This time you get a bruise here and a bruise here. Have you ever asked Jason? Yeah, I'm asking him several times.

What's up? Does this babysitter, a good babysitter? I told him, I said, I've asked her, I saw a bruise on her, you know, And I said, she goes, he says, yeah, they had another daughter close to her age and a rough house. You know, there's other kids. And that's what the babysitters relaying to Jason? I assume. Did she ever say anything there that hurts her?

No, she loved her dad. Investigators also spoke with Jason. Has Hannah ever told you anything about Lindsay? I mean, there's time that she says she doesn't want to go or she doesn't want me to leave her. She never wants me to leave her. I don't care where. I don't care for it. my daughter or Lindsay or Sandy.

That little girl is going with me since the day she's been born. So I'm pretty much all she knows is other than her sister. So she never wants me to leave her. But she never says she spanks me or she's rough with me. There was one time that Lindsey and, or no, Vivian, Lindsay's daughter and Hannah, they were playing on a crib and she fell and hit her chin. And she didn't want to tell me that she was climbing on the crib because she wasn't supposed to. Lindsay told him.

And I asked her, I said, what happened? She said, Lindsay hit me. And I'm like, Hannah, what happened? She said, I was playing on the crib. Okay. So I mean, you can normally get to the truth with her. Right away. Okay.

Yeah, and that's the only time she's ever said that. Okay. She just didn't want to get in trouble because she was just told the day before not to climb on the crib. Okay. And then her and Lindsay's oldest was climbing on the crib. So Lindsay took it down. It took the crib down.

It's possible that Hannah only changed her story because she felt like her dad didn't believe her. Sometimes parents may ignore red flags like this because they need to justify their choices. This can be due to a psychological concept known as confirmation bias, which is how people search for information that confirms their beliefs, while they discount anything that goes against those beliefs. If Jason believes that Lindsay is a good caregiver,

he may have been more likely to discount what Hannah said about Lindsay hitting her, as he knows a good caregiver wouldn't do that. You started making a comment up before that she said that she told you about the past three weeks that her head has hurt. Yeah, she'd point to her head and she'd like, Daddy, my head hurts. And I thought maybe she was playing the whole or whatever, had a headache. But then I thought it was for attention because she was like, Daddy, my head hurts. We'd kiss it and I kissed it. And then she's like, that's better.

Thanks. She went to play. How often would she tell you about? She's probably told me that three times. And I even asked a neurosurgeon. I told him. I said, you know, this is what she told me? I said, is this something that could have been happening or going on within the last few weeks?

You know what I mean? And he said, no. He said that the trauma that she had to her head had happened within the last few hours. I know it didn't happen in my house because we fell asleep on a couch. She woke up on a couch. And then Wendy said she fell. With all of this in mind, investigators weren't quite done with Lindsay yet. It wasn't long before police were at her front door again. Two detectives paid a visit to Lindsay's home around 9 a.m. the very next morning and summoned her to the station. They explained that they wanted to close. clarify some details of her story, and talk with her a little more about Jason. Initially, Lindsay told detectives that she couldn't come to the station right away,

since no one would be available to watch her daughters until later that afternoon. However, the officers insisted that Lindsay needed to come with them immediately. Just a little while later, Lindsay and her two daughters were in her van, following officers down to the police station. Once in the interrogation room, investigators got to call to call. questioning Lindsay more about Hannah. Lindsay's explanation of what had happened that day simply wasn't matching up to the reality of Hannah's injuries.

In order to possibly clear Lindsay's name, detectives needed an explanation for every single injury found on Hannah's body the day she was admitted into the hospital. We're going to show you some pictures. Okay. So we just kind of want you to point out all the bruises and all the small little nicks and scratches that you were aware of. Gotcha.

Exactly how they happen and all that stuff. Okay, yes. We've got quite a few that may or may not be easy to look at, you know. Okay. Asking a non-parent caregiver to explain every small scratch, scrape, and bruise is an interesting tactic. This is a way to elicit both conflicting statements and prior knowledge. Both useful, depending on which direction the investigation goes, determining whether or not this is a case of aggravated assault versus criminal gross negligence. Exactly where she fell and on her chin, she didn't even, her hand didn't even hit. Like she just, what she was doing, and I can show you how she was running, running like this, and then looked back and went like that, literally. Did she slide?

No, it was just bam, bam. When describing the hit, her hands in verbal bam don't line up. Mismatched verbal and physical gestures are a red flag that the words from her brain aren't matching up with her actions, and there is some cognitive disconnect often associated with dishonesty. Yeah, and she got right back up, but you kept her in and I said, hey, are you okay? So all these small little bruises and the ones on the chin. Yes, I know about those right there. And even the one on the neck.

Yes, there's another one on the chin, yep. And the neck there. Yep, that's all that. from that. Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay.

You saw it, I mean. The next, it was. Yes. Up under her chin like that. So she would have been extended pretty far. She went like that. Yeah. Okay.

In what day did this happen? Tuesday. Okay. This of this week. Yes. Okay. Tuesday. It was nice out.

It was. Is that the same day? June 11. Okay. 11 that morning. We went out before lunch. Okay. Same day as the train?

No. The train was Wednesday. One day, okay. Yeah. So which side did she fall on Wednesday when she followed the train? Her right side. Yes, you snap your bits on the right. Her right side on the train?

Yeah, right, yeah. Okay. Yes. Her right side. Correct? Yes. Okay. Yeah.

I'm sorry. No, you're fine. So it's probably that wasn't the train. Is that the left side? Oh, yeah. I obviously cannot tell my right from my left. No, that's, that was, but you're sure that she fell on her right side off the train? Yes.

Okay. I'm positive. Positive. Okay. All right. So the, I didn't actually see the train. I haven't seen the train. How tall is the train?

I'm not that high off the ground. She was standing up on it. Yeah. Doing the serpent thing. Yeah. And it went out from the side and she went down like that with, I mean, her arm's back. Yeah. Yeah.

And smacked. Smack the right side of the face. Yeah. And I freaked out. and ran out there. I'm like, are you okay? She jumped back up. She said, yeah, I'm fine. I said, let's go put ice on it. Let's sit down with a park. Well, she complained of.

Headache. Her head hurt. Jason was also asked about this incident. Any type of falls, injuries to your daughter, anything right then? She told me that she got up on that toy, and the toy came out from under, and she hit her face on the handlebar and gave her a black eye. Okay. Does she tell you what kind of toy it was? It was a little four-wheel.

wheel plastic bike, I guess, or maybe like a little scooter type deal, a little toddler toy there can roll herself around on. Okay. And that's what she actually slipped on? That's what, yeah, it was a little train. And she stood up on the seat instead of sitting on it, she stood up on it. Okay. As soon as she stood up on it, Wendy said it kicked out from under her.

So she didn't have time to get up. So the eye that you were, you know what? I don't even know. Yeah. It is her life. I mean, she fell on her face on the side off the chit-tree. I'm not, the pictures. There's a, nearing is not good for me.

Well, that's how she would be looking at you. Yeah. But if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, it's not. Yeah. It was the left side. I'm sorry. I'm so like, yeah. So, so when she fell off the train.

Yes, she did. Yep. She hit her face. Yep. Now you're saying that it's the left side of. Yeah, I was thinking because she felt, she felt at the left. This is the first change Lindsay made to her story. However, it won't by any means be the last.

Be warned, these changes only get more graphic and tell a steadily, more horrifying story. You were saying the right side, none of this was on her right side from the train, you're saying? No, that's from the gravel. She literally bit it. Okay. Full force running. And you said when she totally bit it, her head was going down towards the ground. Yeah, she smacked her chin.

Her chin right here? Yeah. Okay. And that's a problem. There's no mark directly on the plane. Point over chin. We're looking at it. Very little to know bruising right here in the middle.

It's on the left. Yeah. And on the right. Like I said, I was far away too. I was way behind them, so. And then up underneath. Underneath. Yeah.

So when people fall, you're going to have bruising on the sharp points. Okay? Yeah. So it's going to be this point, none here, and then some here. Or if you're over here, you're going to have some here. And she could have. I don't know.

I honestly. I was just coming out of the door and if you fall straight forward, you're not going to have. Adding the word honestly to her statement is known as a perception qualifier, the purpose of which is to make one statement sound more credible. Detectives will be listening for qualifiers, but they're generally only seen as red flags if there are multiple qualifiers used within a short period of time. Bruising over here and over here and none in the middle. Yeah. Bruising would have been here. And up underneath there, there would have been no bruising.

soft spot that your body naturally your body naturally protects. Yeah. The way your body's tough in. Like that's tucked in. And that's what we're getting. That's why we wanted to come down and fill in some of these holes. Yeah.

Because, I mean, honestly, I've been pretty honest with you this morning, a lot of these aren't adding up to a fall in the gravel. Yeah. And here's another thing on the chest. Once again, you don't have to be a doctor. You've got to be a mother. Yeah. Like a dad.

Okay. You see that bruise? Mm-hmm. What's that kind of look like? Is it older? Older. Yeah. If older, older, there's some yellowing all through here, and then see this here, that looks, what would you say?

Older. To me, that looks brand new. Oh, okay. That is newer than even... Okay, yeah, see, I don't know. So what it kind of looks like is that these are all from a different time. Yeah. And like I said, she's...

She is, well, I don't think that she's been hurt. I really don't think that she's been hurt. Like I said, is a referral statement intended to raise someone's belief in a story, because the more you repeat something, the more other people believe it. She's also significantly increased her hair flipping, moving, and face stroking, all of which are self-soothing techniques associated with anxiety and deception. Now, this is from a senior neurologist, right? he's telling us that

the brain injury that she sustained was absolutely not 24 hours prior or even an hour prior the injury that caused this or the incident that caused this brain injury was immediate so whatever happened did not happen

prior to her getting to your house It was absolutely instant. So if you believe it's that it's instant, you're agreeing that, okay, she fell because she got hit. There's something happened. Something caused, look, something caused this, okay, in her head. She fell because of that. All right? What caused that?

What accident caused this? She fell on the door and hit the concrete step. She went. Thursday morning. Walking into the house? Yes. So when I opened up the door, she was coming through, and she slipped on that concrete step,

and the metal part, she hit the metal part on her eye. Which door? Which door? Yeah, going into the house, the carpet. And so I got her back up, and she stood up and looked up at me and did say, I want donut and couch, and then collapsed. Lindsay changed her story for a second time in an attempt to justify the chilling injuries,

Anna suffered to her eye. To detectives, Lindsay had started showing signs of being a habitual liar. It's possible that she could have a personality disorder, such as antisocial or narcissistic personality disorder, which would explain why she lied so convincingly. Even still, detectives didn't seem to be buying into her story. So then she gets up. Is the stuff about, do you want to go back to bed or what?

Is that all that true? Yeah, yeah. She got back. She got up. She got up. Don't know, I want butterty. Yeah. Okay.

And they collapsed. Okay. And I thought she was having a seizure. I didn't think that that was her. I thought this was a Wednesday for her. Listen, that's not what happened. The detective interrupts her when she tries to claim she thought it was a seizure. The more someone tells a lie, the more confident they may become about it.

And the detective doesn't want that to happen here. Instead, he wants to shake Lindsay's confidence so that she'll continue to get closer to confessing what really happened to Hannah. happened to Hannah. It is, I promise. No, that's not what happened. When Lindsay makes this declarative statement, one of her palms is up while the other is facing down. This could indicate that she may feel conflicted about what she is saying, as it is an

unconfident body position. If she'd been feeling confident in her statement, both palms would likely have been down. It is. The doctor said, when this injury occurred, she was out. We've come a long way. We got past that. Okay. You're right there.

You're right there. Confrontation with evidence countered to a suspect's story is commonly employed by the Reed interrogation method. What's interesting here is the investigators using medical forensic evidence in this case. Often it's crime scene or statement evidence, so this is interesting to see in an interrogation. Thank you. When I opened the door, I dropped her. And I slip up, though. Tell us what happened.

So I slipped on her blanket when I opened the door, and we both went down, and she hit that concrete step really hard. We're on her head. On her face, because I was holding her on the left side. When I slipped, it hit her side. I actually hit my head on the door coming down, but she smacked her face. Her head really hard on the concrete step. Okay. And then we'll happen.

We got up. I tried to get her to come to. She did ask me for a donut and couch out in the garage, not inside, but she did. When we first walked in and Jason walked out, she said, And I was saying she asked that before. Yeah. And I fell, and she fell. Where did, where were you at when you fell?

Against the door, trying to get the door, the door open. I was holding her, the blanket was kind of like falling because he had handed her to me, and I put her down. And then I picked her, no, he put her down, and when he walked up the door, I picked her up with the blanket, and it got tangled up. And when I opened up the door, it got tangled and I slipped. Finding her revised answer to still be unsatisfactory, Lindsay changes her story yet again. This is perhaps the most disturbing version since it describes what must have been a very painful event for Hannah. Still, this version doesn't make logical sense. If it truly were an accident, Lindsay would have had, had no need to lie about it the entire time. Hannah was someone she took care of almost as frequently as her own biological children. If she was responsible for an accident that led to Hannah's death,

it's reasonable to expect that Lindsay would feel tremendous guilt and express remorse over what happened. However, she's not done this yet, which could suggest that it wasn't an accident. Back to under the chin here, this absolutely did not happen from a fall on a flat driveway. Okay? Yeah. I believe you. Okay. How'd I happen?

So what happened to her neck? I do not know. I thought it was the gravel in the fall. Well, it wasn't. Remember we went through this and you told us how you agreed with us that some of this stuff is older? Yeah, of course. Okay. So it's the exact same size as the fresh ones.

And they look very similar. Mm-hmm. So either as she fell on that very same gravel a couple of times, different states, Could be, I don't know. May have grown up his house too. Okay. I think you know about these two. Yeah.

I don't know about this. I think you do. I don't. I honestly don't. I'm positive you do, yeah. Why would you think I know about them? Because you just lie it to us. How many times...

Well, you are. We didn't even how many times to tell us how... What happened with the fall, okay? Can you see how that doesn't look good? Yeah. And we understand, you call for help. Okay? We're not getting mad at you or anything.

We just want to do. know what happened. We want to know everything to happen. We want to know how that happened. We want to know how that happened. We want to know how the fingers, you know, these things happened. This morning, you know, the doctor's called and said, you know, tell us what happened. What are you being told? The doctor said, no. I don't know. I really, I don't know anything about that. I really don't. And here's another thing, okay? Dad, obviously, every time she comes home with a new scrape or bruise, dad asks her, what happened? I know you told him.

Yeah. But he's doing what any other dad would say. Of course. So what is she telling dad whenever he says, what happened here? What happened there? What happened here? What's the one word for one thing she is saying? I don't know.

Babysitter. This statement isn't exactly true. As we heard earlier, that statement actually came from David, Hannah's grandfather. Perhaps the detectives are using Jason to elicit an emotional response based off of the personal relationship he had with Lindsay. I really don't know what this head. Start with these. How do these get here?

I didn't do that. I don't know. Okay. I really didn't do that. I don't know. How does this happen? I dropped your upside bed. With what?

My hand. Open, close? Open. When Lindsay shrugs here, only one shoulder goes up. According to body language analysis, one shoulder shrug indicates that the person isn't confident with their response. So, even though this is a pretty huge admission for Lindsay to make, during such a serious investigation, could she still be hiding something?

She may think that if she's honest about a relatively smaller incident, investigators will see her as honest and believe her story about the big incident. The investigators remain calm and non-judgmental as she admits to why she slapped Hannah. If they had a strong reaction, she would be less likely to admit to doing anything else. What caused that? She took all of the... I don't know why she'd have been trouble. She took all the ketchup out and squirted it into the toilet

while I wasn't looking. That's frustrating. And I'm like, yeah. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. What else had she done that day? Is this like a culmination of things building up? She's tedious.

What day was that? This week? This week? This week? Yeah. Okay. And I didn't think that I hurt her. I really didn't.

After she changed several aspects of her story, Lindsay eventually began to admit that she actually was the reason behind some of the wounds found all over Hannah's body. After an hour of digging, investigators were finally striking the answers they were looking for. Answers that coincided with Hannah's injuries. So what caused this? I smacked her on the chin for doing the catch. It was the same thing. Okay. So this is the same incident. Yeah.

Tell us about this. because this is not a smack. I just want to tell you right now, this is not a deep bone contusion from an open-handed smack, okay? Knowing that, listen, listen, listen, knowing that we know that,

what happened here? The same thing, it was the same incident. Tell us, though, what happened these specific bruises. When she was, I caught her doing the ketchup, you know, I took it away, and I put her on the potty because I think she had to go pee anyway and I said Hannah, you can't do the catch-up

and I got mad and I just slapped around the side of the head and went like that. Closed? Yeah, like that. How many times? Don't say once. Yeah, because, look, bruise?

Yeah. Okay. Does he give you permission to discipline? Yeah. I mean, spank and stuff? Okay. Which I don't really spank. I don't even know why I was my.

So these were a closed fist like uppercuts. Yeah. Okay. And this was an open-handed smack. Was it really open-handed? Yeah. Yes. The bruises on the chest.

Listen. Listen. No, I believe you. Do you see the pattern here? Yes. Deny, deny, deny. I'm not this right. I did not touch her chest.

I'm definitely telling you the most positive truth. I did not touch her chest. But I was mad that day. Let's look at this. Okay. And we also... Sorry, interrupt, we also know exactly what these are. Yeah.

They're... In all these cases, they're consistent. I mean, you can literally take 100 of them on the board right here, and they're all going to have the same exact reasons. And anyone who knows what they're talking about or what they're looking at will say, this is this, this is this, this is this, this is this, this is this. That's up to you, okay? We want to know what happened.

Yeah. That's why I ask you if he gets... gives you permission to just what we're trying to figure out. Okay, I mean, what's, you know, what's discipline and what's not? Look, she's not yours. Right. I don't, honestly, I don't like kids that aren't mine either. Does that make me a bad part of life?

I really know. I do like kids that are mine. I have a lot. I have a lot of, I've had some things going on. I had a miscarriage two weeks ago. That was really traumatic and I took care of four days. Four days? How long ago was this?

Right. Have you been trying to have another one? Been having more time? Yeah. Do you know about her mother? This is the second. This carriage. Do you know about her mother?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Does that piss you off? Yes. I don't know why I heard her. I don't know why I even slapped her. No, I'm talking about it. Does her mother piss you off?

Yes. Hardcore. Because you're trying to have a child. Trust me. I know. I've gone through this. Investigators are reinforcing the sense of sincerity to keep Lindsay open and talking. I went through this. Me and my wife went through this for like seven years, and you see all these heads, popping out these kids that can't take care of them and don't even want them.

This is your. I don't do anything when I'm pregnant. Not that I drink or smoke or anything anyway, but like I won't even like drink coffee when I'm pregnant. Yep. I've been having bad time. Yeah. Sounds like it. You have. Your husband or what is the fiancé? We got married, but we didn't.

didn't sign a marriage certificate. Your husband's never home. He tries, but yeah, I'm by myself all the time. It's so frustrating. With her dad? No. They don't. They don't work together? They do, but like, they don't. There's so many different crews. They don't hit a bar or nothing after work on? No, he does, though. Who does? That makes you mind longer? Yeah. Yeah. The consented search of her phone yielded proof that her and her husband's marriage was not as good as she tried to make it seemed to detectives. The couple generally argued over text message to refrain from exposing their daughters to their myriad of problems. In reality, they fought quite frequently. Just two days before the incident, Lindsay had found T.J. in their garage drinking with colleagues after work,

instead of spending his very limited free time with her and their daughters. Needless to say, Lindsay was outraged at this show of inconsideration. They bickered about this via text message for day straight leading up to the incident. Lindsay may have felt like she had very little control over her problems with T.J., his drinking, and her struggles with getting pregnant. But the one thing she did have control over was the kids. She may have felt like she could exert her power over them when she didn't have power or control in other situations in her life. She could also dole out whatever punishment she saw fit, and no one would intervene. I love babysitting. I love my life. I'm really do. I want another kid. I want to watch more kids. Do you know, have you ever had with your other ones postpartum

depression or anything like that? Big time. I don't know when that starts. Big time. But the second one really bad. Yeah. A mention of postpartum depression is part of the reed technique method to shift Blaine from Lindsay towards something else. In this case, the circumstances of the miscarriage. And you're being honest with this, you're coming every day. The hard part is just saying it out loud because you probably even said it out. out yet, right? You told DJ about it, about how you feel, about maybe going too far with, with Hannah? It's too much. It's too much on one person. It was. It was. You got it out, okay? Let's finish it. Let's get it all the way through, okay? It's probably the same incident. Was it, was it the same incident? What happened? Hannah, you know better.

Because we know that. They didn't hurt her. I wasn't even trying to hurt her. I was trying to get her attention. That stuff hadn't hurt her. This stuff's not a lot of hurt her. They have hurt, obviously, but she's being disciplined. And I'm not like that I really am not an aggressive person. I've never even like... Well, normally, but these aren't normal circumstances. No, I'm not normal right now.

Oh. I'm not. No. The detective is downplaying the injuries to make it easier for Lindsay to keep talking and admit to what really caused Hannah's traumatic brain injury. Her story is coming apart piece by piece as she continues to fold under the pressure of the interrogation. End of February, you have the miscarriage. These are at different stages of healing.

Was there other times where you've got her in the chest, where some are healing and some aren't? No, but I remember one morning she was... What was that you just did? I just kind of like squeezed her when I picked her up, because she was, Jason was late and that morning... And that's what these are. Yeah, probably.

These are little pinched breezes. Yeah, where I squeezed her from... The shirt does that. Because Jason's like, no, I gotta go. I'm in a hurry, I'm in a hurry, I'm in a hurry, because she kept wanting to give him more kisses, which is normal. He's like, will you grab her?

I got to go. So I remember grabbing her from squeezing her and like, Hannah, you got to stop. You got to go. Okay. Your dad's got to go. Okay. I remember doing that.

Lindsay admits that the bruises on Hannah's shoulders were a product of her handling the toddler roughly. At this point, she's told the investigators about almost all the bruises and scratches found on Hannah's body. All but the one that ultimately sent her to the hospital. And now, now that we're being honest, we got everything out on the table, right? Yeah. Tell us about when she, would this step in her head.

The interrogator is developing the narrative at this point and reinforcing the first part of the confession. Because I don't, I'm still, not without the fall. Listen, I'm honestly talking about. Were you mad when you dropped her off? No. Not at all. Did something happen Thursday morning? No.

That made you mad? No. Because, I mean, I'm. No. Not at all. It sounds, I mean, the fall, I don't want to say convenient, but now that you're being honest with us, now that you're telling us everything,

and we know, we kind of have an idea of your mindset. The fall did happen. You've been through some. I bruised myself right here trying to catch myself. Okay, so tell us exactly. I'll freeze myself here trying to catch myself. Can you not see your ankles? Yeah.

The palm of the hand. Yeah, right there. Do you hit her in the head with it? No. No, not at all. No. Be sure. I posit it.

Because here's the thing. I'm dead. That absolutely matches with what we're dealing with. The full is not what knocked her knowledge. What knocked her unconscious? I did not. I would never hurt anybody that bad. We did fall.

Did you shake her? Yeah. Because I was trying to get her to come too. Hell hard. Like, I mean prior to her passing out. Is that what caused this? Here's the thing. Here's the thing. I don't think that you're strong enough or big enough to strike her to cause this damage.

No, I don't think the doctor would either. No, and I didn't hit her Thursday at all. I believe you. Yeah, we fell. I believe that you did not hit her. Yeah. Tell me what happened. We fell, she smacked her head. We got up and I shook her, trying to get her to come to. I'm talking. This takes a shaking. I remember like putting her on my thing, on my, I sat down like this. On the floor, and I was like holding her, like, spread, like, her legs over like that. And I'm like, you didn't wake up, you end up wake up, what is wrong with you? And I'm like, you want some juice, you want some juice, what's wrong with you?

Why aren't you waking up? Why are you waking up? What does she do to make you shake her? She wasn't answering me. I'm not talking about it. This is before the fall, you're talking. Before she would have been unconscious, something had to have happened. Tell us what happened.

Well, so she didn't want him to go to work. And he's like, I got to go, I got to go. So he rushed out, and I was like, Hannah, you can't do that. Daddy's got to go to work. You shook her. Yeah. I shook her, and I remember picking her up and squeezing her, and we did fall. But she, and she did ask me for donut and couch before I...

How hard did you shake her? What was the shake? She was in trouble. Chubby? Yeah. Then you were angry. Yeah. This is the answer detectives have been looking for.

According to Lindsay, she aggressively shook Hannah before she fell unconscious. which was likely what caused her cranial injury and subsequent fainting spell. So how many times did you shake her? How long? How many seconds? How many seconds? I mean, just enough to work. Hannah, you know better than to do that.

Why would you do that? Your dad's late. We can't do that. You know better than that. What are we going to do tomorrow morning? Like until she's whining? Until she stops whining? Yeah.

I mean, it was up five seconds. You show her until she stopped whining? Yeah. When I picked her up. What did her face look like when you picked her up actually to stop wanting? Did she stop whining? Yeah. So you shook her for about five seconds.

You picked her up. Then you walk in the house. That's when you noticed she was unconscious. Yeah. Well, we fell. We did fall. I'm not lying about that. Why didn't you fall?

Because I slipped on the blanket and the stuff. We did fall. Snatch her up real quick and going in the house because you were angry still? Is that what caused you to fall? Probably. Yeah. Because I was doing it quickly. This story that Lindsay tells detectives is particularly interesting.

Because according to Jason, there was an incident at the same. some point in December 2017, where Lindsay called him at work to say that she had just taken Hannah to urgent care. Her story then has some similarities to the one that Lindsay has just told detectives. At the time, she claimed that Hannah had tripped over her blanket when leaving the kitchen and hid her face on the concrete floor. However, this incident didn't appear on Hannah's records, because according to Jason, Lindsay claimed to have checked Hannah in under her own daughter's name in order to have her insurance pay for the visit to the doctor. Though he said that Lindsay told him Hannah was medically cleared, Jason never saw any paperwork.

However, the little girl had two black eyes, a lump between her eyebrows and on her nose, and her nose was swollen. Around this same time, Lindsay's internet history shows that she had Googled how to watch a toddler who might have a concussion. Still, what is most interesting about all of this is that the police checked Lindsay's daughter's medical history, and there was no record of the visit. In fact, according to her medical history, Lindsay's daughter hadn't been seen by a doctor since November 2016.

There was also no medical entries at the hospital under Hannah's name for this incident. So when you got up, you noticed she was unconscious? From the fall? Yes. No. The fall's not what rendered her unconscious. Well, the shake might have,

but I didn't notice that. I just picked her up. She's not wanting to lie. That's what I'm saying. Yes. You had a hold of her and you don't know if she's conscious or not. I didn't. You fall down.

I didn't think that was. She hits the ground. And you shook her some more and tried to wake her up. Yeah. Wensie confessed to having physically struck Hannah on multiple occasions in the week leading up to her death, including slapping and hitting Hannah on the head, uppercutting Hannah on the chin with a closed fist, poking her in the chest hard enough to leave bruises, and grabbing and squeezing her tightly. Are you sorry?

Are you kidding me? Yeah. Now that you've laid it all out. Oh, I'm a nice cry. You feel responsible for everything that happened? What would you say to Dad if you could talk to him right now? I'm sorry. Crying is usually taken as an inference of guilt during interrogations.

But this late in the game, it's not something investigators need to develop at this point, as they've already got a full confession. But a question remains, why? What would you say if he asked why? Lonely, fractured, and sad. I know what he would probably ask. I'm going to ask you, why her? Because of the mischievous stuff.

The other ones don't do that. He's going to want to know why my daughter. It's out of the floor that's there, why my daughter. Interestingly, police spoke with parents of children who Lindsay also babysat, and according to one person whose child had been in Lindsay's, care for a year and a half. They never noticed any injuries on their child. Another person whose daughter was also looked after by Lindsay for a year said that their

child never had any bruises or complained of being hurt. What I just said is some of the mischievous things in frustration. I don't know. Good. Following this interrogation, Lindsay was escorted out of the interrogation room, arrested, and booked into jail. Hannah Weschie never recovered from her injuries and passed away in the hospital nine days later on March 18th from what doctors called tremendous brain damage. Her death would officially turn this case into a homicide investigation.

After she's told she's under arrest, Lindsay oddly asks if there are a bunch of people back there, and if she's going to be embarrassed. This may be a sign of her narcissistic traits. She appears to care more about what other people will think of her rather than about the little girl she took care of for months. We spoke to someone who knew Lindsay personally, and they shared their opinion on a very different side of Lindsay than the one seen in interrogation. It's important to note that any personal opinion shared

belong to the individual, and therefore do not reflect Iwu. So I know Lindsay because she dated my brother, and she dated him for years. She was the matron of honor in my dad's wedding, and my family, we love her. We love her like she's family still. She is the sweetest person. Anyone that knows me, that knows her, if I've posted, they've commented. And they've all said the same thing.

There's no way Lindsay could have done that. As shocking as this case already is, perhaps the most intriguing aspect is actually Lindsay's trial, which would occur a year later in April of 2019. The ordeal lasted eight days, endearing medical personnel who treated Hannah testified to the fact that Hannah's head injury would have immediately preceded her falling unconscious, and therefore must have been sustained at Lindsay's house. Footage of the interrogations was also played for the jurors, including the second interrogation where Lindsay repeatedly lied to detectives and ultimately admitted to being overwhelmed with Hannah. In a surprising twist, despite her detailed confession, Lindsay took the stand at her trial and vehemently denied having harmed Hannah at all during the day or week of the incident. She proceeded to claim that she was coerced into making false confessions because the detectives

were being pushy and insinuating that Jason would take the fall if she didn't admit to something. In front of the jury, Lindsay insisted that Hannah did indeed just spontaneously pass out that morning. Not only that, but she asserted that everything else she'd told detectives from the instances of her angrily hitting Hannah to Hannah squirting the ketchup in the toilet was all a lie she'd made up to protect everybody else. She didn't think she would actually get in trouble for those things since they were all simply instances of what she referred to as discipline. Despite Lindsay's argument, there were a lot more factors working against her. I don't see her ever being abusive. Do I see her disciplining a child? I can't imagine her spanking a child. I can see her doing timeout or something like that because she was a teacher. I just, I can't imagine what could have gone wrong. I don't even see her having a bad day that would warrant what they are saying she did. Jason had readily agreed to take a polygraph test and passed while Lindsay refused to take hers. Despite being notorious, notoriously unreliable, her refusal made it look like she had something to hide.

There were also old text messages from Lindsay claiming that she was concerned about the possibility of Jason moving in next door and dumping his daughter on her all the time. The angry messages between her and her husband that week didn't make her case any better. She griped about how Jason was regularly behind on a couple hundred dollars of her child care payments. Then, of course, there were the pictures of the injuries that littered Hannah's body. the same injuries that made seasoned medical professionals sick to their stomachs. Jason testified that, to his knowledge, the bruises found on Hannah's ear, as well as the back and left side of her head, were not present when he dropped her at Lindsay's house the morning of March 8th.

Jurors deliberated for 12 hours. When all was said and done, Lindsay Parton was found guilty of four counts of child endangerment, one count of involuntary manslaughter, and of the felony murder of three-year-old. old Hannah Wessie. Lindsay was sentenced on May 9, 2019 to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 15 years, plus three years for the count of felony child endangerment, which totaled at least 18 years in prison. But the case doesn't end here. She appealed the following year in September. However, the 12th District Court of Appeals stood behind the original verdict. The person we spoke to also had something to say about this.

She loved kids. I've seen her around children. She was around my brother's children, and she was wonderful with them. She has the patience of Job. Right now, I would leave my children alone with her. I would leave my grandchildren alone with her and not think twice about it, even after all of this. Intuition alone is all I need to know that she didn't do it. And I'm really upset, not only for Lindsay, but for that.

baby to think that someone else did this as getting away with it. That infuriates me. By the time Lindsay's trial had rolled around, her and T.J. were no longer together and actually weren't on speaking terms. He'd even refused to testify for her in court. In an ironic twist, T.J. would end up in cuffs just six months later. In September 2019, T.J. was arrested and indicted on multiple charges. He got out of prison on a $250,000 bond, and on June 2nd, 22, he took a plea deal, pleading guilty to a lesser charge of one count of aggravated assault. The rest of the charges were dropped. As of the release of this video, he has yet to be sentenced. Despite her conviction, to this day, Lindsay maintains her innocence. She insists that she was

pushed into making those confessions, and furthermore, she's recently, asserted that she can now prove her claims because of a photograph. In the photo, Hannah is sitting shirtless in a high chair, looking directly at the camera. There are two small circular bruises on her chest, right below her neck where the knots in her collarbone would be. This picture was taken on Hannah's first birthday, a year before Lindsay and Hannah would meet for the first time. Lindsay claims that photo could possibly prove that Hannah had allegedly suffered abuse before she began babysitting her, though of course this has never been confirmed to be true. Still, Lindsay's family is trying to use this photo to file a new appeal. But unless they can prove her allegations,

Lindsay will sit in prison until at least 2006 and possibly for the rest of her life.