Nobody Should Believe Me - Answering Your Season 3 Questions with Dr. Bex

Episode Date: June 6, 2024

Welcome to the Season 3 mailbag episode! Andrea is joined by Dr. Bex (aka Secret Florida Doctor Friend), to sort through all the commentary and listener feedback from Season 3. They tackle the good, the bad, and the just plain weird from the comments, and answer burning questions about the Kowalski case. We hear what it was like to cover this case in real time and to go on the road to meet some of the key players. Come down the rabbit hole with us! * * * Preorder Andrea's new book The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy. Click here to view our sponsors. Remember that using our codes helps advertisers know you’re listening and helps us keep making the show! Subscribe on YouTube where we have full episodes and lots of bonus content. Follow Andrea on Instagram for behind-the-scenes photos: @andreadunlop Buy Andrea's books here. To support the show, go to Patreon.com/NobodyShouldBelieveMe or subscribe on Apple Podcasts where you can get all episodes early and ad-free and access exclusive bonus content. For more information and resources on Munchausen by Proxy, please visit MunchausenSupport.com The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children’s MBP Practice Guidelines can be downloaded here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

True Story Media. today by a very special guest who listeners of season three will know and subscribers of the show will know very well because she has been doing all of my subscriber bonus episodes with me because it is much more fun than doing them by myself. So that is our very own secret Dr. Bex. Hi, Bex. Hi, Andrea. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for coming on and being now a contributor of this show full-time. I love having you, and I'm really excited to talk through some of the feedback that we got for season three, and we will get to that. But before that, I wanted to just reintroduce you to our listeners, especially now we can talk a little bit more freely than we could when you were originally

on the show. Secret Dr. Bex is still your name. You are not that secret as people who follow me on Instagram will know. So we are going to keep a few of the details close to the vest, especially since we have some gold star Reddit detectives as listeners. I'm sure people can figure it out. But that said, I'd love to just hear a little bit more from you about who you are and what you do in the medical profession and how you got interested in the topic of Munchausen by proxy. So I have been a pediatric hospitalist for my whole career for over 10 years, which is crazy to say. And I did most of my training in California and then moved out to Florida to be nearer to family and to start my own family. And that's kind of where I've

settled. And I've been at the same hospital for over 10 years. So I've worked with students, residents, and had a crazy amount of cases that I've had the opportunity same hospital for over 10 years. So I've worked with students, residents, and had a crazy amount of cases that I've had the opportunity to be a part of. And just to explain what a pediatric hospitalist is, because I think some people maybe don't know, you have your pediatrician who is out in the community who will see you for your well-child checks,

ear infections, vaccines, all of that. And then I'm kind of their counterpart within the hospital. So if a patient is admitted to the hospital for any reason, from respiratory symptoms to a GI bug to things even more complicated than that, then I would be the physician in charge of the patient while they're admitted to the hospital. And the way I got involved in all of this, it seems like so long ago, but it really wasn't all that long ago. It was really inspired by a case that I took care of in my own hospital.

But that being said, it's been something that I have seen evidence of medical child abuse. I think throughout my career, I've seen maybe softer cases or cases where I've questioned or cases where when I was a very young physician that I knew something didn't feel right or I knew there was something that was not adding up, but honestly, I didn't know what to do with that or where to go with that. And so one case in particular that obviously I can't talk about,

but that was the most significant I have seen and the most devastating and actually has a very good outcome, which I think also gave me hope. And I ended up reaching out to Andrea because I listened to the podcast. I was really looking for anything to put light on the subject or to help me to realize that there's other people out there that feel strongly about this and want things to be better. And I reached out and we ended up connecting. And then ironically, the Take Care of Maya case

happened right down the street from me. And you, I think, called me the day after you watched it. And there it went. And then from there, it really became something we wanted to cover. And I think for people that I've met through the show and just through all of this, the doctors involved in these cases do not have a voice. They cannot talk. They're bound by HIPAA. And I'm obviously bound by HIPAA with my own cases, but I can be a voice for the doctors as much as I possibly can be to say what it's really like when you're kind of in the trenches or in the middle of one of these cases. And that's, I think, how we got here. Yeah. You were such an asset to the show. This season, you really were able to give us some on-the-ground feedback about how this

was resonating locally in sort of that immediate blast zone of the Kowalski case, given your proximity to it. And we watched the verdict together. We recorded an episode that day. And I wonder, how have you seen things playing out locally within the medical community? I mean, I know that was a heavy day for you at work. That was just a day where your colleagues were really impacted and really upset. What's the mood like now in that medical community that's so close to this case in particular? I think there's days that you remember in your life or in your career, and I hate to say that that might be one of them.

We were all sitting in my office. I called everybody in and we were listening to the verdict. And when the first count went in favor of the plaintiffs, and it was one of the ones that I did not think was going to, my gut just dropped. I think I actually cried. I screamed. I probably said some bad words. The people around me, you felt this kind of deflation. I've now found and met multiple people at my institution and now hospitalists and people from around the country who listened and then who watched the trial almost as obsessively as I did. And those in the medical field are just dumbfounded.

Well, friends, it's 2025. It's here. This year is going to be, well, one thing it won't be is boring. And that's about the only prediction I'm going to make right now. But one piece of news that I am excited to share is that the wait for my new book, The Mother Next Door, is almost over. It is coming at you on February 4th from St. Martin's Press. So soon! I co-authored this book with friend and beloved contributor of this show, Detective Mike Weber, about three of the most impactful cases of his career. Even if you are one of the OG-est of OG listeners to this show, I promise you are going to learn so many new and shocking details about the three cases we cover.

We just go into so much more depth on these stories, and you're also going to learn a ton about Mike's story. Now, I know y'all love Detective Mike because he gets his very own fan mail here at Nobody Should Believe Me. And if you've ever wondered how did Mike become the detective when it came to Munchausen by proxy cases, you are going to learn all about his origin story in this book. And I know we've got many audiobook listeners out there, so I'm very excited to share with you the audiobook is read by me, Andrea Dunlop, your humble narrator of this very show. I really loved getting to read this book, and I'm so excited to share this with you. If you are able to pre-order the book, doing so will really help us out. It will signal to our publisher that there is excitement about the book, and it

will also give us a shot at that all-important bestseller list. And of course, if that's simply not in the budget right now, we get it. Books are not cheap. Library sales are also extremely important for books, so putting in a request at your local library is another way that you can help. So you can pre-order the book right now in all formats at the link in our show notes, and if you are in Seattle or Fort Worth, Mike and I are doing live events the week of launch, which you can also find more information about at the link in our show notes. These events will be free to attend, but please do RSVP so that we can plan accordingly. See you out there.

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Gambling problem? For free assistance, call the Connex Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. I heard from many, many physicians and many people in child abuse, pediatrics, and sort of on child abuse teams this season, and I have heard this makes me more determined than ever. Also, this is really terrifying, and my profession's being completely vilified, and my colleagues and I don't know what to do. It's not just, obviously, the Kowalski case. It's the Lehigh Valley situation in Pennsylvania where another child abuse pediatrician's been pushed out of her job. There's quite a lot going on here in my backyard. Doctors who go into pediatrics and especially who

go into child abuse pediatrics and we'll get to some of the feedback about what people think about child abuse pediatricians that might be in need of a little correction. But this is not a job that you go into lightly. It's not a job that you go into to make the big bucks. And you have to be extraordinarily dedicated to be in that field. And so I think in some ways I'm unsurprised that they are an unwavering group. We have to be very mindful of, especially if the verdict stands up, what this could mean. the things that got so misrepresented about this case is this idea that the child abuse team's reporting abuse is the beginning, middle, and end of a story in terms of what happens to a family where there are so many other stages to go through. There's the report. If the report's

accepted, there's an investigation. If the investigation goes through, there may be action on the DCF side. There might also be a criminal investigation. And there are all of these people that have no connection to the hospital system who are making those calls, where if it gets all the way through the police investigation, it's going to get referred to a prosecuting attorney to make a call about whether to file charges. If the charges go, then it's going to go to court, and then a judge is going to make a call on one side. Maybe it's going to go to a jury trial.

I mean, there's so many hoops to go through. So really, that first step is what we're talking about. And so it's really a big mystery, I think, to see how all of this is going to be affected. And I try to hold on to hope that, number one, that this verdict will eventually be overturned hope that number one, that this verdict will eventually be overturned. And number two, that this could be a moment where we really are seeing a breakthrough in awareness about Munchausen by proxy. So with that, let's get to some of the

feedback that we got about season three. And I want to say just two things up top. Number one, we got so, so many really lovely and moving messages and reviews and pieces of feedback. And I definitely cried more than once reading some of the letters that I got from folks, you know, in particular folks in the medical profession. I was so moved by those. I'm not going to sit here and read all of those because I'm not going to sit here and read praise about the show because I don't think

that necessarily makes for an interesting conversation. But I just want to say, if you are one of the people who sent me one of those notes, I do read them and they mean the world to me, especially in this season where I got some considerable pushback, very different than the other seasons of the show. And so I also want to point out that the point of bringing up some of these questions and or pieces of negative feedback is not to argue with them, especially the stuff that we pulled from reviews. I do not read the reviews of the show on a regular basis for my mental health. I had my lovely assistant Nola pull some ones that I thought would make interesting talking points. But I will say this, you are entitled as a listener to think and say whatever you like about the show.

My intention is not to argue with these. Reviews are for other people listening to the show or reading your books, right? They're not really for me unless they're being sent to me. You have to have kind of a thick skin about feedback. I will say I got my first death threat this season. So, you know, please don't do that. But other than that, you're all entitled to think and say whatever you like about the show. So one of the ones that I got the most frequently in terms of criticisms was about my bias about this topic. And this is sort of leveled as this idea that I did not have a clear head looking at this case because this is a situation that has happened in my own family and kind of the idea that I just see it everywhere. Like I'm a hammer and everything's a nail kind of situation, which is

interesting and really reflects a lot of the broader criticism around child abuse pediatricians, right? Of like, oh, they're just looking for abuse. I see where people are coming from. And I have always been open about the fact that like, I am not a neutral commentator on this subject. I am extremely close to it. I have been extremely impacted by it. And I think that gives me more of a right than other people actually to comment on it. And I have done a tremendous amount of research. And I think it was particularly frustrating to hear on this case because I did so much research. So I want to just talk about the kind of behind the scenes of how much you and I, because you and I really

tackled this as a team for this one, how much documentation we read, how many hours of testimony we watched, just like the extent to which we were so deep in this. I don't even know. I'm almost embarrassed to say. By the time we were done, our Google Drive had thousands and thousands of pages of testimony and things off the court docket and medical records that were available because of the Sunshine Laws in Florida. I mean, it is all highlighted. It's notated. It's documented. I mean, we read it and we read it again. And we not only watched the trial, we would go back and rewatch parts or we would dig a little bit further. We reached out to the players. I mean, we went right

to the source. I mean, meeting Sally Smith really changed my life, honestly, because I knew what I believed and what I thought I knew based on reviewing the charts. But meeting the people that really were a part of the case only intensified that for me. I walked out of there knowing we were doing the right thing, you know, by talking about this and by talking about all of it. And then just the number of records, when we looked into Dr. Kirkpatrick and Dr. Hanna even, I mean, we were going to the Florida Board of Medicine sites. We were really going to the heart of things. And anytime there was someone we could reach out to or someone that could help us or make it more accurate, whatever we were saying, we would do so. And so I would argue as a pediatrician, probably I inherently have a bias to protect the child. I mean, that's why I do what I do. But I always tell my residents and my med students, I want to stay grounded.

If it ever becomes, I see every kid that walks through the door as a potential case of medical child abuse, I probably shouldn't be doing this anymore. But that's not what it is. Yeah, of course. I'm sorry. Like every person walks into a situation with a bias.

And I would say working with Andrea for the last couple of years, you always say, I want to talk to those other people. You're right. I mean, everyone has a bias. Everyone sees things through a lens. There's actually sort of no such thing as a neutral journalist. And even the most ethical and transparent and straightforward of journalists, they are drawn to certain topics because of a story. One person I relate with quite a bit is Ronan Farrow, who was one of the people instrumental in the reporting on Harvey Weinstein. And as he

writes about in his book, Catch and Kill, part of why he was drawn to that was because he had the sexual assault situation with his own father and his own family, right? It's like, nobody does come to these things because they have no skin in the game, usually, especially if you make something a huge focus of your career. And to that point, Maxie Nightingale, who's someone that we've talked about so far on the subscriber feed, and I have not reached out to her, I would really like to have her on the show, who has written extensively about false accusations of medical child abuse and really just casting a lot of doubt on whether this is a form of child abuse that is legitimate and exists, came to the topic because she had a daughter who was diagnosed with mitochondrial

disease, which is something that came up in a very famous case, the Justina Pelletier case, and is a very common condition that comes up in medical child abuse cases. So I don't hold that against her. I don't hold that against her. I don't hold it against Mike Kixenbog that he had an uncomfortable experience with the child welfare system that appeared to get him interested. I think that's the normal sort of progression of things. So again, it's hard to tell if that is a criticism that was coming at me in good faith or if that's just someone that saw that I was being critical of the family and just didn't listen to any of the episodes that I did. My final word on the question of my bias is yes, it's there.

However, I'm hyper aware of it. As you said, yeah, do I get weird vibes whenever a parent posts a little overshare about their child's medical situation on social media? Yes. Do I recognize that the vast majority of parents that do that are not abusing their children? Also, yes. And if I'm covering something for the show, you can always be sure that I am doing the utmost due diligence, that I'm talking to my lawyer about

it, that I'm hiring a fact checker, because I cannot afford not to do that. The people I cover are extremely litigious. I would get sued into oblivion if I did not do that. So if nothing else, just count on my self-interest to do my due diligence in my reporting. So another thing that we got a couple of questions on was, why did we not get an expert on CRPS? So that is complex regional pain syndrome. This is the diagnosis that Maya Kowalski allegedly had that was allegedly ignored by the hospital. And this was at the heart of her medical treatments that she was getting. So I want to say two things to that.

Number one, I did try. I did reach out to several experts on CRPS. As you can imagine, it is not easy to get doctors to come on a podcast, especially with any relation to this case, right? I was like, I really would love to talk through CRPS with someone. What does it look like? What is it not? What's the diagnosis? And I also completely understood why none of those people got back to me because I was like, what's in it for them? They know the tenor around this case.

Anyone who's an expert in this particular disorder in this country is going to be so aware of this case. We're unable to get an expert in CRPS. And ultimately, as we dug into the origin of this diagnosis, and also because there was extensive testimony from an expert, this was Dr. Elliot Crane from Stanford, who testified at length why he did not feel that Maya had CRPS. And then also, additionally, finding those records of how this diagnosis came to be, which is Beata Kowalski's communication with another parent whose child had allegedly the diagnosis on a parent's message board community where she was expressing that she had been unable to get a doctor to diagnose her child with this, even though she believed her child had it, and someone sent her to Kirkpatrick. Also, this information that she had reported a positive

finding of the diagnosis to a pulmonologist before she ever saw Dr. Kirkpatrick. I was like, well, yes, I could spend a lot of time. We could all spend a lot of time. People did spend a lot of time in court debating whether or not this child has this. But with the origin of this diagnosis and the pattern that it fit into with Beata Kowalski's extensive history with her blog and her emails, etc., we're talking about a fictional diagnosis. Not that CRPS isn't real, but it sort of became moot for me, I will say. But yeah, anything else to say about the sort of CRPS question, Bex? I agree. I think it was about so much more than that. I think at the end of the day, what we've said all along is that the truth is a child can

be a victim of medical child abuse with or without a medical diagnosis, and often something medical does start the whole process. Although I think for the medical malpractice claim that they did not appropriately treat her CRPS and instead chose this other diagnosis, that's where it came into play. But all the other counts, everything else came down to this whole backstory and everything else that we'd seen. And just like Andrea, having reviewed all of the medical reports and reading the testimony and the depositions of multiple pain doctors, those who'd seen Maya and those who had not seen Maya, I came to my own medical opinion that she did not

have CRPS. And again, that is my interpretation of things. But when Dr. Crane left the stand or the doctor who commented on her CRPS lesions and said, are those CRPS lesions? No. Yeah, that's a scratch. And they were like, why is it a scratch? And he said, this is the doctor from Lurie's because it's a scratch. We're laughing just because I think we got into this completely absurd territory where it's like, you're not just talking about, to begin with, you have a rare disorder.

Then the child has the single most atypical presentation of that disorder that has ever existed, and it's the most severe. This is not hyperbole. I'm paraphrasing Beata's emails and her blog posts. And even though their symptoms are so subtle that they cannot be detected by any other doctors except for Dr. Patrick and Hannah and Cantu. They, at the same time, need the most extreme treatment possible, including life-threatening treatments. And you have a parent who's talking about putting their child in hospice care. I will say in terms of my bias, such as it is, the place where I went in with an open mind and tried to maintain a possibility of sort of a more complicated story than maybe what my assumption would be was, is this an anxious parent that got very,

very bad advice from doctors and was following it? That's not the conclusion I came to after reading the totality of all these documents. You know, I originally started off with a much rosier picture of Jack Kowalski's possible motivations. He came across very sympathetically in the film, Take Care of Maya. Even to me, I think I was allowing for the possibility that this was an extremely misguided father who had been snowed by his wife and was sort of in the cult. And that is not where I landed at the end of this. And that was another thing we got a lot of questions about was why didn't anyone ever investigate the weird circumstances around Beata's death? So, Bex, what do we know about that piece? That's not really a question that I can answer because there just are gaps in the story. I know that Beata's brother, who we heard from some of his deposition in a couple of the more recent episodes on the feed, I know that Peter had a lot of questions about her death, and I know that he was trying to get people to look into it. And the only answer I have is that one thing I have learned in the last several years of being deep in the true crime space is that

the police choose to investigate something or not. And that is up to the will of the particular department. And there are all kinds of reasons, both malicious and benign, that something can get not investigated, right? I think one of the shocking things that I came across in, and I think I was researching this to sort of deal with the idea that in this broader sort of medical kidnapping narrative, there's sort of this idea that if a parent isn't criminally charged, that means they're innocent. And that's just not, of course, the justice system at all.

And also, the police have in Florida about a 50% clearance rate, which only means they consider a case cleared if there was an arrest. So basically, charges filed. So not even if there was a conviction, right? That doesn't apply to the clearance rate. So the number of convictions is even smaller than that. This is for violent crimes, which obviously includes child abuse. 50% clearance rate. So that's a lot of cases that are not getting solved where there was a crime committed that no one has been held accountable for. So, I mean, I think that's the only answer I can give because I don't really know why there wasn't a little bit more inquiry into all of the weirdness around her death. There were so many questions, the whole description of the night. And this is something

that actually a lot of people have come to me with who know I watched and know I got very involved. They said, why did they come home, go to bed? Nobody checked. Everybody assumed she was asleep. Jack happens to go back up and not check. Kyle happens to fall asleep on the couch. Just the whole timing of everything played out very odd for a family who the night before this woman had been missing potentially with the gun from the home. I mean, this is all stuff that people didn't even realize, but that she was considered to be suicidal potentially the night before that.

And yet they go to a birthday party and come home and don't even check on her. It just, there was so much there that that's where I wanted to know so much more. But unfortunately, once it was kind of rolled a suicide, it sounds like, that was period at the end of the sentence and anything else is going to take somebody having to go back on that or kind of backtrack on that original, how it was originally reported. Right. And they're just not going to devote additional resources to it unless there's a reason. And again, I don't even know what to infer from any of this other than this is so much more complicated than it was presented. But her brother coming to the house, finding that the

power had been shut off, finding that the security system had just been canceled. I mean, there's a lot of really strange stuff there. You know, it was such an insight into the dynamics between the two families and the dynamics between Beata and Jack at the time of her death. I can only imagine that the situation of being investigated for child abuse would put an incredible strain on a marriage.

I don't think that anything about the fact that their marriage was very strained is suspicious in the least. I think that's probably the most likely outcome. But, you know, him kicking the brother and sister out of the house the day after, there's just more to this story. And I think there's probably a lot of questions that are just not going to get answered. Season three was such a different experience for me because I was covering something in real time, whereas these other cases, the two cases we'd covered before in depth, had been adjudicated years and years before, you know, more than a decade before. There was not only they'd come to a conclusion, but there'd been time for everyone to process.

You can look at a whole story, whereas for this one, I think we're very much in the middle of this story and things are still happening, right? And so where we are now is that this case is headed for appeals. And another thing I got a lot of messages about was the Kowalskis and CrimeCon. So Bex, you and I went to CrimeCon last year and we had a great time and lots of fun. And we were both on the mailing list for CrimeCon. So we both got the email announcing their appearance. They were positioned as the headliners of the entire thing. And my inbox was blowing up with people who'd also seen this news. And it was Maya, Jack, and then Caitlin Keating from the film, and Nick Whitney, who is one of their lead attorneys, and somebody that we saw almost every day in court. And this seemed to me at the time a very curious move. It seemed risky to be talking on a huge stage about a case that was not over, at least to my mind. And so then a couple of weeks ago, after the mediation happened

and they were not able to come to an agreement, which certainly was not a surprise to me. I was worried that they would and that that would be the end of it, but that's not what happened. I don't think that was ever a likely outcome. They pulled out. Then I got another surge of emails of they've disappeared from the website. There was no like announcement around it. They just sort of quietly disappeared from the website. So Bex, why do you think the Kowalskis pulled out of Grimcon? Well, I will be honest. I was considering going. Andrea and I were like, okay, wait, I just have to go for the one day where they're talking. And part of it was morbid curiosity. I think part of it was honestly really wanting to know what they were going to say and how they were going to say it. I mean, last year when we went, the highlight talk was Gabby Petito's family,

which was very emotional. And in Florida specifically, where CrimeCon was last year, was just really hit home. And some other families of missing people or things that had not been solved. And Gabby Petito's parents were on stage with two other parents who had missing children. And actually one of those cases just got solved and they called it missing white woman syndrome. It felt very strongly on the ethical side of true crime to me. I was impressed actually at CrimeCon on the whole of like how many people I met that were either family members of victims or had some like really close situation where they were really trying to make ethical content and not just the sort of murder show, LOL type of thing. It seemed like

a very marked contrast, I think, in that way. And again, I sat there and I said, okay, I mean, if you look at how it is played out so far, but no money has been doled out. This is still so far from over. And then you add in Caitlyn Keating as part of it too. It just again becomes entertainment news. I equate it with true crime in the sense people were watching it. It was a trial. People were talking about it. To me, it just is not the same as a Gabby Petito story that was so devastating to this family and then all the aftermath of it.

I think this is an important case to talk about. I also think if CrimeCon was going to do it justice, there probably should have been people invited or asked maybe from both sides because it is still in play. I think that the reason they pulled out, and again, this is opinion, someone legally or someone in that whole world said this is not going to play out well, or one misspeak or one thing said out of turn at CrimeCon, one question that pushes a button and someone answers it a certain way could mean the whole appeal. I think someone said this is not smart. Let's give it another go and maybe they'll try to get them next year or whatever it is but I can't help but imagine it has to do with the next steps right because they signed on before

the mediation happened so this is pure speculation on my part right do not have any information about what was going on behind the scenes or what happened during the mediation process exactly we only know that they did not come to an agreement. I have to believe that the fact that they signed on to do it in the first place, especially with Nick Whitney, if they'd signed on without him, I've been like, maybe they're going rogue. It was positioned as they were going to talk about the case and with their lawyer. I was like, okay, well, their legal team obviously approves.

He's appearing with them. It made me realize, and this was actually like such a gut punch, they really thought it was over. And I can't believe on the legal side for Gregory Anderson and Nick Whitney and for Jack Kowalski, also an adult, I mean, the hubris of that is wild to think that you got this kind of verdict and it was this contentious with all the jurors, all the things that came up in this case, right? From a lawyer's perspective, you have to know there's a huge chance this is going to go to appeal. And like, maybe don't start signing up for high-profile appearances to talk about the case in public. That seemed like a wild choice to begin with. It indicates to me that that's what they thought, that this was all done and settled. And the reason that broke my heart is because I realized that

those kids who, you know, are kids, they're 18 and I think Kyle's 16 now, who have spent so much of their young lives embroiled in this whole thing, that they were probably being told by the adults in their life, this is over. Checks in the mail. This is done. You don't have to come to court anymore. You don't have to have this case be central to your life for the next however many years. And so the fact that they have just learned that this is now going to take several more years to play out, I mean, that is just devastating. And I just cannot get past the lack of empathy for your children to put them through that because that's a decision that falls on Jack Kowalski 100%. So yeah, I think that that was for me where it really hit. And as to Maya being the victim in this whole thing, I agree she's the

victim. I think there's a lot of disagreement on who she's been victimized by. Can I talk about one funny thing that we got in feedback? Yes, please, please. I think it's funny that there have been a couple of pediatricians or pediatric hospitalists that have reached out and said that people at their hospital speculated that they were Dr. Vax or a secret doctor or friend or whatever. And they were like, no, but that's amazing or that's so funny or that's so funny. Or that's so fun. And I've had a couple of people actually reach out and say that. And I just think it was funny to hear because what's crazy is nobody at my hospital thought it even for a second. So it's just funny to think that these other people were getting that. And so I love it. But now you guys

know a little bit more about who I am. Yeah, I love that too. I think somebody actually on the Patreon was like, someone at my hospital thinks I'm secret Dr. Bags. And I was like, that's so cute. And also, I've said this before, but I got a lot of messages from folks in the medical profession were just like, everyone in our hospital is listening to this season. And you honestly cannot imagine how much that meant to me because I was like, okay, if I accomplish nothing else, I often feel very lonely out here. Thankfully, I have Dr. Bex to be in it with me, but certainly I was the only real dissenting voice on this in terms of people who had a public platform. And so it was very, very validating and really meant a lot to me to know that doctors were listening and felt that I was getting it right. So one criticism that I got that I wanted to talk through and that I think is actually valid to an extent is that I was sort of unwilling to admit that the hospital might have done anything wrong at all. And the reason I thought this would be interesting to talk through is that, you know,

I certainly felt defensive of the hospital when I was going through this. I mean, I'm not going to tell you I didn't pick a side, right? I absolutely did because I felt very strongly that given the evidence, again, we've talked through how much stuff we read about this case, given the evidence, I felt very strongly the hospital had saved Maya's life and that they got vilified for it. And with that said, we aren't going to know if they didn't do anything wrong. I don't think they necessarily did everything perfectly. And I think there are some valid questions to be asked. Whether or not these are things that belong in court is sort of another thing entirely. But how visitations were handled,

how certain things were communicated to the family, I think there are a lot of problems with these things and are very frustrating for families. And I do have empathy for the families who are in the midst of an investigation. I understand that's very stressful. I understand it's very hard on the kids. I actually really do have empathy for everyone on all sides. And I will say, I think I did pretty strongly express that I had some misgivings about Kathy Beatty because she had that history of being arrested for assaulting a child. And she was not convicted. But again, reading the information about that case, it didn't sound like nothing happened. It sounded like there were some pretty dubious circumstances. So Johns Hopkins bringing on someone with that

kind of record, I think that all of those are valid questions. I do think I pointed those out, but I can see where it may have felt to listeners like I was defending the hospital on every count. And I think the reason is because in the sum total of things, it felt a little bit, but her emails in 2016, where you're like, okay, are we saying this side is perfect and they never did anything wrong? No. We're looking at X versus Y in a court case. The other side of this in terms of what they had put their daughter through with these treatments and what Beata was saying she was going to do if she was allowed to leave the hospital. There was such strong evidence on the hospital side that I think I did get frustrated when I felt people were nitpicking. Some of the things that they were talking about I think I did get frustrated when I felt people were nitpicking. Some of the things that they were talking about I think were valid. You know, did Kathy Beatty cross some boundaries

with hugging and kissing Maya when that wasn't wanted? That's valid to me. Did she bring her the right Christmas dress? Come on, are we really talking about this when a child's life was potentially in danger? So, I mean, I think some of the pettiness of some of the stuff that was brought up in court about the hospital really got under my skin. I want to tell you about a show I love, Truer Crime from Cilicia Stanton. My favorite true

crime shows are the ones where I feel like the creator has a real stake in what they're talking about. And this is definitely the case with Cilicia, who got interested in covering crime because, like many of us in this genre, she experienced it. In each episode of the show, Cilicia brings a personal, deeply insightful lens to the crime that she covers, whether it's a famous case like the Manson murders or Jonestown, or a lesser-known case that needs to be heard, like the story of a modern lynching. She covers these stories with a fresh and thoughtful lens, helping listeners understand not just the case itself, but why it matters to our understanding of the world. Her long-awaited second season is airing now, and the first season is ready to

binge. So go check out Truer Crime with Cilicia Stanton wherever you get your podcasts. If you've been listening to this show for a while, you know that I have very strong feelings about what is and is not responsible true crime content. Maybe you've heard me make some pointed comments about the producers of a certain film, or perhaps you've heard one of my dozen or so rants about a certain journalist whose name rhymes with Schmeich, Schmeich and Bog. And if you've been with me for a while, you'll also know that getting Nobody Should Believe Me on the air was quite the roller coaster. Podcasting is just the wild west, y'all. And these experiences are what led me to launch my new network, True Story Media, where we are all about uplifting true crime creators, doing the work, and making thoughtful, survivor-centric shows. And I could not be more thrilled to announce our very first creator partner, You Probably Think This Story's About You. The first season of this enthralling show from breakout creator Brittany Ard took podcasting by storm in 2024, zooming to the

number one spot in the charts on Apple and Spotify as Britney revealed the captivating story of a romantic deception that upended her life and traced the roots of her own complicated personal history that led her there. Britney is back in 2025 with brand new episodes, this time helping others tell their own stories of betrayal, heartache, and resilience. If you love Nobody Should Believe Me, I think you will also love You Probably Think This Story's About You for its themes of deception, complex family intrigue, and its raw, vulnerable storytelling. You can binge the full first season and listen to brand new episodes each week by following the show on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also find it at the link in our show notes. I want to tell you about a really wonderful organization we're supporting this month. Equality Texas has been working for full equality for LGBTQ plus Texans since 1978 through political action, education, and community organizing. Texas is not my home state, but it is near and dear to my heart. Several of our team members are based in Texas, as are many of the people you've heard from on the show and many of our listeners. Over the last few years, LGBTQ plus folks in Texas have faced increasing restrictions on private decisions, private actions, and private spaces. And Equality

Texas has been on the forefront of fighting back. During the last legislative session, Equality Texas stopped 96% of the 160 bills that would have restricted freedoms for LGBTQ plus Texans. And I believe that the fight for our queer communities is a fight for us all. So join me in supporting Equality Texas as they hold the line for freedom in the Lone Star State. If you are in Texas, you can sign up for their newsletter at equalitytexas.org, where you can learn about upcoming events like their Lobby Day at the state capitol on March 24th. And even if you're not one of our Texas listeners, your donation will go a long way towards helping these fine folks keep doing this crucial work. You can find a link to donate in the show notes, and if you do donate, please be sure to send us a screenshot at hello at nobody should believe me.com so we

can match your donation. This ad was provided pro bono. And it's a matter of the hospital or the individual, which I know now because of this case, again, that the hospital took on all of that, right? By agreeing to just kind of put all of these people under the umbrella of Johns Hopkins All Children and not have it be these individual people that were involved, they were choosing to take ownership of all of that. But the truth is, in any organization, it's human beings, it's people. You as an organization cannot control the behavior, the words, the actions of every single person in your employment all the time.

So you're taking a risk with that. I want to say for the millionth time, there are good doctors and there are bad doctors. And there are good doctors who make mistakes because they're human. And there are bad doctors who purposefully do things, right? So it does not mean that within one organization, there's not some spectrum of all of those things. But the truth is at the end of the day, they were going down to these little individual moments as opposed to looking at the big picture. And I think in the closing statements, their attempt to line things up in such a timeline of what had played out, it was kind of to try to, I think, bring everybody back to the story, which is where we started and where we ended up. You know, Maya was not on a

freight train on her way to college when she came to Johns Hopkins. She was more so when she left six months after that. So again, I think they tried to bring it back to that big picture and take away some of those little tiny moments. I think people lost track of the fact that the false imprisonment charge ended up coming down to those three or four days, not all of the months, the three or four days leading up to the shelter order. So words were used and the hyperbole is used, I think, by the plaintiffs, the big words like medical kidnapping, et cetera, really took away from, at the end of the day, we were looking at these counts being more specific. As a physician that works at an organization, you know you have

the support of your organization, right? That's the idea. And seeing these physicians all come up and back each other up and support each other, speaking as someone who works in this environment, I was thoroughly impressed every day with how much it seemed they respect their colleagues there. Maybe they did not agree with every little individual thing that someone did, but like, this is my social worker. This is who I relied on. Or this was the PICU doctor that transferred her to me on the floor or whatever it is. And there was really a lot of show of mutual respect. And to me as a physician, that went a long way. I think it spoke to the culture of the organization at the time. And honestly, hearing the nurses and the doctors, they cared about Maya.

And I think from my experience with kids who are sheltered in the hospital, it's hard to explain the dynamics until you've actually been there. These kids are in a really terrible point in their life. And people go above and beyond. I mean, they went to her gelato shop and brought her her favorite gelato. And when we have kids sheltered, people are bringing clothes from home so that they don't have to wear a hospital gown every day because they're going to be there for a couple of weeks or whatever. It's just, I wish people could experience it because I've seen it

with my own eyes. And it's a hard situation when there is a lot going on behind the scenes with the family or things are being said and things are being told to the child. So every day you walk in, you don't really know where you stand. But what I can say is I've developed some unique bonds and relationships with kids who have been sheltered. I really appreciate that perspective. This brings up a couple sort of much more big picture issues for me. And I think that's why I have obsessed so much over this case. It's not because I have some kind of personal vendetta against Jack Kowalski, certainly not one against Maya Kowalski. It's because of how this is going to impact so many other people.

And because of what it tells us about where we are as a society, what you're speaking to is something that is a very deep belief of mine, which is that, you know, and I'm a parent, so are you, we trust people in the community to take care of our children also. It's not just us, our husbands, our family members. And yes, I agree that parents should have rights, but the parents' rights movement is a lot about shutting out the ability of others to sort of influence our children, right? It's about limiting what teachers can say in classrooms. It's about limiting the ability of medical professionals to intervene when there are signs of abuse. I mean, I believe that one of the underlying values of it is that children are the property of their parents.

And that's not something I believe. I believe children are individuals with human rights of their own and deserve dignity and most of all, to be safe in their home. One of the things that children's hospitals do, whether it's in a shelter situation or just with a long-term patient or just in the 10 minutes that they're spending with a child and having a pediatric patient for just even well child visits. You trust those people to care about your child. And I think the vast majority of them do. Of course, they're bad actors like there are anywhere. I think the other thing that

really chafes at me about this case, when we're talking about the pettiness of the Christmas dress and all of that, whether or not they were able to bring her chocolate cake from home, like these kind of things. There are families that don't get treated well or fairly by the medical establishment, and it's not upper-middle-class white families. There is just mountainous data about how families of color get shorter visits, worse care, the maternal death rate for black mothers is much higher than for white mothers. There are those problems within the medical system

and this is not it. It is not a child not getting their Christmas dress on time. It's not. And the idea of all of these resources being devoted to sort of that, and I understand that was not like the crux of the case, but thinking about who gets the right to stand up for themselves and who doesn't. You know, especially talking to Dr. Jessica Price and sort of thinking about how many other families that are really, for whatever complex set of reasons, not able to get good medical care for their children, right, are medically disenfranchised because there's only so many hospitals that take Medicaid and they might not live close to one of those

hospitals. And this is a question of the poverty tax where people who are on public assistance programs of any kind have to spend so much more time jumping through so many hoops. And those are people that are working more jobs and have less time. There's all these complicated factors that lead into those and those are so worth exploring. But we've also talked with Ethan Shapiro about a verdict like this is going to directly take away resources that are going to those families that are more vulnerable. There's a lot to get worked up about here to the point of like why I was so strongly on the hospital side. I mean, I think we've addressed it. So another one that I wanted to just read verbatim and have you react to. We've got a few comments like this and I got some emails like this.

So I didn't know any of these going into this, just to say that. Bex came in cold. I'm nervous too. So I want everyone to scrutinize her facial expressions if you're watching this on video. I got a bunch of comments like this and I suspect that a number of the reviews and comments that I got, I could tell by some of the specifics. I do not think these are people that actually listened to the episodes. I think these are people that, again, got wind that I was covering this case in a certain way and decided to let their feelings be known, which is their right, by the

way. Again, please don't send me death threats, but other than that, you can say whatever you like. It's America. We still so far have that right. So I will just read you this one. The child abuse pediatricians who all too often are assumed to have great knowledge, but actually just pass a test with a 99% first-time pass rate. Many of them have God complexes and take actions that harm the very children they claim to protect. Fortunately, many of their ethical colleagues have the moral fiber to call them out. There are huge profit centers at hospitals that need to be shut down. Bex,

what would you like to say about all that? Because this is actually pretty representative of the overarching argument against this case. So let's take it piece by piece. Child abuse pediatricians, are they just sitting down for a little five-question Q&A, checking some boxes, or what kind of training goes into becoming a child abuse pediatrician? So it's interesting because actually pediatric hospital medicine falls into a similar category or did when I first became board certified. So the idea is when a specialty really takes hold and becomes big enough or important enough that the board of pediatrics feels that this is its own specialty that requires its own set of training or knowledge that is

outside of just general pediatrics, that's when they talk about a new board kind of coming up. And so I was actually the first group of board certified pediatric hospitalists just because I'd had enough years under my belt. And then I studied for a whole year, like all the stuff that is specific to pediatric hospital medicine. And having been the first group was actually harder because there was no background. I mean, nobody knew what a test was going to look like or what questions were going to look like. And so you really had to understand the medicine. And then you would sit for the board. And luckily, I passed. So I was the first group of board certified pediatric hospitalists. The same thing happened when child abuse pediatrics began,

was the concept that there were these people that were doing the work, that were working either in the child protection team or that were affiliated with hospitals to do consults, just like you would if a kid has a kidney problem, you consult a nephrologist. If you have concern for child abuse, you consult a child abuse pediatrician. And then it became, wow, this is actually its own specialty. This takes a lot more knowledge than what a general pediatrician would have. And so that's when they instituted the test. And that was for people who could show X number of years of experience in the field, and then who studied and took a very hard, I can say, board exam. And now what happens is then fellowships get started in this specialty. And so now you have to have completed a fellowship

in pediatric hospital medicine and sit for the boards to get board certified. But in order to start that, people that were already doing the work were kind of grandfathered in to be the first group. Just to clarify, much like you were in the first group of pediatric hospitalists to be board certified, Sally Smith was in the first group of child abuse pediatricians to be certified. And so she was grandfathered in. Anyone who goes for that subspecialty post-2010 is doing a three-year fellowship and then taking this test. So as to whether it has a 99% success rate, I truly have no idea. I don't think that sounds plausible. I can guarantee you nothing does. And then as this thing about like the God complex, I mean, I think this is something that has really been portrayed with Dr. Jensen, who's the Lehigh Valley child abuse pediatrician who was pushed out of her job. And what I want to say

about that is I cannot tell you whether or not child abuse pediatricians, there are not that many of them. There are about 250-ish nationwide. I cannot tell you whether or not any of them have a God complex or whether they sit in their homes and look in the mirror and just feel like a God. I don't know. But this is not a high glory, high ego profession because they're not getting any of the things that someone who had a God complex would want, which is to be treated like a God. They are not treated like that. They are treated like pariahs more often than they are treated like gods. This is a grueling, grueling job when you think about what they are actually doing. And it is something I think people feel a strong calling to do. And they do it because they are able to, and they are able to

have whatever sort of compartmentalization you're able to look at those things in the question of does this harm children because they're looking for abuse or is this helpful to children and families going through these things? You know, again, I refer back to that study that child abuse pediatricians are less likely to come up with positive filings than their less skilled colleagues, which makes perfect sense because a colleague with less training, you know, in the many, many places in the country, for instance, where you have a pediatrician who's not trained in that subspecialty or a nurse practitioner at the hospital who's doing child abuse evaluations, they don't have that training. They're more likely to make a call based on things like the parent's story and does

it sound suspicious, right? All these sort of other factors that go into. So if you are able to have that knowledge of what fractures are caused by what types of injuries and what abusive head trauma looks like versus another kind of head bonk, this is backed up by the data. The vast majority of parents who abuse their children do not come to the hospital and say, I whacked my kid in the head and now he needs help. They say, he fell out of his chair. He did this. They give an alternate story. You're less likely to make assumptions if you have more training because you have that training to fall back on. So I wish people could really grasp that children are more safe when child abuse

pediatricians are present. Parents are more safe from being dragged through an investigation that isn't warranted if a child abuse pediatrician is present. That is backed up by the data. That is the fact. I agree with Andrea that child abuse pediatricians actually don't get the credit they deserve because you're in it with these families at the worst parts and the worst times. And for that reason, they are the least likely to be held on some pedestal. Although I, as a pediatrician, am grateful for them and respect them with all my heart because I know I could not do what they do. People have asked because of all this work I'm doing, oh, would you want to get involved in that? No, like I know in my heart, that's not me, but it doesn't mean that they are different. It just means they have, like you said, they have that ability to

compartmentalize or whatever it is, but we need people that are willing to do that work because it is so important. Yeah. I was incredibly moved by meeting with Dr. Sally Smith, and I will say in terms of feedback that I got about this season, it was the exact opposite of what I feared. When we walked out of there after talking to her, I was genuinely a little concerned about the level of hate mail that I might get, especially as this case has been embraced by the QAnon folks and some people that are known for some distressing internet behavior and sometimes in real life behavior. And I was just like, oh, I'm going to get filleted for how much I'm going to support this woman. And I was like, I guess RIP my podcast. If there was ever a hill to die on, I feel like it's this one. So here I go. I think you said that as we were walking in and walking out. That was your biggest, I know you were worried about it. I was like, I'm really worried I'm going to just feel even more strongly about this.

And sure enough, I did because I just found her to be very genuine and I was really moved by what she'd said. And sure enough, I mean, I got some emails about her that were not nice. However, the vast majority of messages that I got were so positive. I heard from people who'd worked with her. Without going into any details, I heard from someone who felt that her interventions had saved their sibling's life. And it really renewed my hope in humanity at a time when I really needed it. Because I think we told the truth about her and about what she does for work. And I think that I was encouraged by how many people were able to

change their minds after hearing that. And I was like, you know, not everyone's mind is going to be changed by hearing the facts of this case, but some people's will, and that felt very worthwhile. That was sort of an unexpectedly lovely thing that happened. So I wanted to address just two more quick things. This actually was a comment that surprised me, and I wanted to just spend a minute unpacking it because I think that it gets to a larger problem that we have around how we see this abuse and frame it.

So here's the comment. This is from a review. So I struggle with how the host portrays those struggling with factitious disorder as evil. I am by no means trying to excuse child abuse or harmful behaviors, but the host seems to think and spreads the idea that those suffering with factitious disorder

just quote snapped. She neglects to acknowledge the trauma and history that leads one to develop factitious disorder. We have to acknowledge the trauma that leads to factitious disorder in order to stop it. And I'm assuming this person means factitious disorder imposed on another rather than just factitious disorder imposed on self. I have some things to say about this, but Bex, I want to hear what you thought about this comment. We can get kind of bogged down, I think, by the semantics of everything, but I've been talking a lot about this, even with my residents and the students, that I'm focused more on the concept of medical child abuse. I don't really focus so much on where it all started, meaning if it was a factitious disorder imposed on another, which is the condition that the mother

has, the psychiatric diagnosis. But medical child abuse is whether the perpetrator or the caregiver is malingering in the sense that they're doing all of this for GoFundMe funds or for Instagram followers, or whether it is a psychiatric diagnosis leading them to have these behaviors, wherever it came from, once harm comes to the child. So once this leads beyond just, I'm telling people my child has cancer, they are falsifying labs, they are changing the story, they are exaggerating symptoms, and they are seeking treatment outside of the normal. However, that's when it becomes medical child abuse to me. And so I don't think we've ever in our talks, at least in my opinion,

degraded in any way the person or where they came from or where this all started from. And I think that's a whole nother thing to unpack because I do know that even borderlines, histrionics, all of that, it does usually stem from somewhere. And a lot of it is trauma related. I just come at it from the perspective of the child. And although I want to know all of that, I don't know that I ever will. I can only know that a child is being harmed, but I appreciate what they're saying. I mean, I know it's a really touchy subject, especially if you've been affected by it. Yeah, it's complicated. And that's why I wanted to address it because this is something that I'm sensitive to. Where we both come at this from is first think of the child and what's happening to that child and what has happened to survivors of

this abuse and how we are framing it for those people who have been affected by it. What we know about this abuse in terms of the motivations of the perpetrator is secondary. First, you have to make sure the child is safe, and then I think you can sort of start to think about, is this a perpetrator that is treatable? Is this someone who could make steps and make those changes to where they could safely parent? What we know, you know, from my APSAC colleagues who've written the guidelines on this abuse is that the vast majority of perpetrators cannot. That's really sad. That's sad for everyone involved. That's sad for the perpetrator. It's sad for the kids. In terms of whether this is specifically factitious disorder imposed on another is a result of childhood trauma, I can tell you what the research says on that topic. Again, perpetrators are not terribly

well studied, so there's much more study that needs to happen. But what we do know, anybody who experiences childhood trauma is more likely to grow up to be abusive. That has to do with these ACEs, adverse childhood experiences, studies that show that there are these cycles of abuse, right? So that is a possibility. And certainly some cases that I have heard of, anecdotally, those people were victims of abuse themselves. That's obviously not unheard of. But there are many cases I've looked at where there is no known history of abuse. My sister is one. Hope Ybarra is another. That's not actually something where the research is definitive by any stretch of the imagination. Now, whether or not someone does this because they're a victim of abuse themselves or not, I don't think impacts whether or not we should have empathy for that perpetrator. I'm not against having empathy for that perpetrator. And what I would like to say to this commentary and how it crosses over with my bias that I bring to this is that I am a person who's had to accept that someone I love is doing this.

If you don't think I have empathy for perpetrators, you're wrong. I would love to get to a place where the interventions in this abuse or the interventions in the behaviors that predate this abuse, namely factitious disorder imposed on self, where people have a long history, which many perpetrators do, of engaging in their own medical deception. I'm hopeful for a future where if those behaviors could be caught earlier, interventions could happen so that no child ever had to get hurt. And the perpetrator could find better, healthier coping mechanisms. These are not happy people. They do not have happy lives, and they do not have happy ends. Beata, everything we know about her, she did not seem like a happy person who was thriving. She seemed extremely lonely. She seemed very troubled.

I do have empathy for her. I do think that her life and the fact that her life ended, that is all very sad. And also, I don't think she was a person who could be safe in a home with children. And those two things can coexist. And that is something that for me can coexist. I just think we have to prioritize it accordingly. Right. All I can do, I think from my end or that we can do from our end is recognize the signs sooner too. And I know it's sometimes too late or if you come in, you know, and you've met the child and things have already gone way off course, it's a lot harder, but it's also easier too when you have a lot more information and there's a whole lot more to the story that does not line up. It's a discussion that you're not going to find a physician among the group that doesn't agree

that this is a problem versus very early on when I think you do get a lot more of the, well, are we sure they're not just anxious or are we sure they're not just anxious? Or are we sure they don't just this? Unfortunately, my colleagues and I, we've been right before where it's, we knew there were signs and then it just explodes to the level of where you would not believe. I would love to be better about what do we do on that day one that isn't necessarily calling it into DC because I don't know if it hits that level, but what can we do on that day one that isn't necessarily calling it into DC, because I don't know if it hits that level,

but what can we do for these families? How can we tie them in? How do we get them a medical home? How do we get them a pediatrician that's going to be that gatekeeper in making sure that the things that are being done and that are being asked for are warranted? Like, how do we do all of that?

I've always said I want there to be a system outside of the system, like the one that is the preventive branch of DCF-CBT. It doesn't exist because we just don't have the manpower. That's what I would love is to get these people hooked in with a watchful eye, with someone to keep an eye and make sure that this child is on the right path. And I agree with the stance that there's so much more to the perpetrators. I can just also say that for me, I'm coming at it from the child and I know that

we need to be better on that end as well, but it doesn't change what I would do to protect the child. I'm going to say something provocative here, but a more well-studied form of child abuse is child sex abuse. And those perpetrators frequently have a history of abuse in their backgrounds. So I wonder where someone feels there should be empathy for those people if they feel like there should be empathy for these abusers. Because to my mind, we should see them the same way. I agree with you. And I've said that to people and I've had looks of complete befuddlement, but the truth is they are so entwined. There's this, it's a lie. It's a story that's just been reiterated to them time and time again. It's become so much a part of their narrative that they don't know any other story. And there's a mutual deception that occurs that at some point

they become old enough to say, wait, but I ate cake last night. Why would I not tell the doctor that? And there has to be this conversation and this deception and this control aspect. And it's the fear of if you don't do this, then this, and they live in fear of mistaken something or not saying the right thing and that they will die because that is what the parent has told them. In the same way, sexual abusers will say, if you tell anyone this, I'm going to have to kill your mom. Or if you tell anybody this, this will happen. And I agree. I equate those to much more than I do even abusive head trauma or any of the physical types of abuse where someone with anger management issues, a parent who there's just a

moment of complete and utter overwhelm. Even the worst of the physical abusers, I would say it's not the same intertwining and connection. Most children are scared of a perpetrator of physical abuse, but there's still this bond between when it is sexual, yes, with sexual abuse and with medical child abuse that you want to make this person proud or you want this person to love you. The psychopathology is so much bigger. And I think when you think of it that way, would you ever put a child back in that home where they were sexually abused? No. They fall into the same sort of tricky category. And I did speak to Kathleen Strader from Prevent Child Abuse America, and we talked about prevention strategies, and they don't have any for medical child abuse at this moment. I think we can look hopeful to a

future where maybe we will be able to have some preventative strategies. But what their preventative strategies about child sex abuse essentially came down to was keep your kids away from that person. So it is a similarly tricky thing to deal with. Whereas for physical abuse, which again, not to undermine the seriousness of it, abusive head trauma is the leading cause of death for children under two. It's extremely serious. However, there are these other factors where you might have someone with anger management. there might be a substance abuse problem, there might be these contributing factors that are more treatable than perpetrators of medical child abuse or child sex abuse. So one very, very last thing that I did want to discuss because it was actually the thing that I heard the most about this season, despite

it being a tiny, tiny blip in two of the episodes, I just really have to address this one. The two episodes that involved my interviews with Laura Richards from Crime Analyst, which I am not going to rehash that. I did get also a lot of emails about Laura Richards, but I feel like I've addressed those on my Instagram. So if you are interested in that, you can go there. But what I wanted to say was that in one of those episodes when I was introducing the topic I recommended a podcast called The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling. I thought this was a really interesting podcast. They did a bunch of interviews with J.K. Rowling. If you have been living under a rock and are not aware she has expressed some strong feelings about trans issues that many people have found objectionable many other people have found them laudable. So that has made her a

controversial figure in a way that she was not previously, although one of the things they talk about in this podcast is sort of her long history of being a controversial figure with some groups. And it was fascinating. So I recommended that podcast in the context of talking about how to talk to people you disagree with. It was hosted by this person, Megan Phillips Roper, who used to be with the Westboro Baptist Church, who is this infamous organization. They are the folks that picket military funerals with these horrifically offensive homophobic signs, et cetera. She left that group.

She has a very interesting backstory, which was covered in the podcast. So that is the context under which I was recommending this podcast because I was embarking on this conversation with Laura Richards, who was someone I vehemently disagreed with, and trying to sort of learn from that approach. So now I got a couple of messages from listeners after I had recommended that podcast. And I will say these messages were extremely respectful. They were not nasty.

They were thoughtful that said, hey, you recommended this podcast, and this is kind of a bummer because this was a podcast that was made by Barry Weiss, who's a very conservative thinker, and it really felt like this podcast had some difficult origins, and they felt it was sort of a pro-J.K. Rowling podcast, sort of endorsing her beliefs about trans people. I didn't feel that way listening to it, but because I was like, oh, I can see where people are sort of connecting those dots, I felt it really important because I know I have trans listeners and because I care about trans people in general. I felt like it was really important to just point out like, hey, if this was how you interpreted my recommendation of this podcast, it wasn't that trans people deserve human rights, trans

women are women, those are my beliefs, end of sentence, right? So very, very brief piece at the top of an episode. I got more messages about that, about me clarifying my stance on things than I have gotten about anything else in this podcast. And it was so reflective of how unhinged people have become about this topic. And I don't really have anything else to say about it except that we have a coalition of people who are supporting progress for this awareness of this abuse for legislation that includes people like Sheriff Bill Wayburn and Laura Wayburn, who are people I adore, who could not be further on the political spectrum from myself. We have a wide tent in that respect. But if you are so offended by me clarifying that my

personal stance in support of trans people, that that offends you, then maybe you are too sensitive of a listener for this podcast. So I think I can safely bid some of those people adieu. Again, I have no desire to alienate people of any specific political belief. I know I have some conservative listeners because I've heard from some folks, and I don't also believe that all conservative people are transphobic by any means. But if you are that wildly offended by me taking a moment to clarify my stance on trans issues just so that I am not misinterpreted, wow, maybe find something better to focus on.

Anyway, any thoughts on that, Bex? I mean, I think it just speaks to the world. It's hard for me because I think we lose track of what it's all about or what it is. And again, just to remember, we're humans. Andrea and I, I'm sure, agree on some things. I'm sure we disagree on some things. It doesn't mean we can't be people who sit here and have conversations and talk about things respectfully. I guess that's where I come from is at the end of the day, I'm willing to talk to anybody. I'm willing to have the conversation. But to me, those topics shouldn't change how they see you as a podcaster, how they see you as someone who's speaking for another cause. We can agree to disagree, but it doesn't mean we can't respect

each other and be in a conversation or show respect, I guess, to each other. Where I draw the line is like, if you're going to be on my show, and part of the reason that I felt the need to clarify because of where this landed in the show was because I was also alerted to the fact that Laura Richards has made some J.K. Rowling-esque assertions about women or women, et cetera, on her social media. And of course, we did not, Laura Richards and I did not discuss anything having to do with trans issues, so that did not Laura Richards and I did not discuss anything having to do with trans issues so that was not relevant but I thought okay these things are sort of stacking up the one thing that is not and will never be welcome on my podcast is transphobia homophobia racism I don't think most conservative people are those things I think that those things

have been very blown up in a certain way by people with very extreme beliefs but those things will never be welcome on my show. And you have a right to say that. I mean, that's the way. I do. It's my show, y'all. That's right. These are my airwaves.

I get to decide what's on it at the end of the day. But it was just very funny. I mean, I got all these messages that were like, I can't believe you're backing down on your support. I was like, what are you talking about? Attacking J.K. Rowling. I was like, I think J.K. Rowling is fine. J.K. Rowling has personally decided that this is the hill she's going to die on, and that's her right. She gets to be as loud and wrong as she wants to be,

and if you think I'm being loud and wrong, then that's your opinion. But it was just, I couldn't believe, like, this is a podcast about an extremely taboo, controversial issue, and here is the thing I've gotten the most email about. It was just kind of like, it was just wild. But I think that is the world. That is the world. You say the word trans and everyone's head immediately explodes. It is also very important to me that my trans listeners feel welcome in this community that has formed around this show. So that's my final word on the subject. So Bex, thank you so much for being with us.

Is there anything else you want to say just about the experience of this wild ride that we took for season three? And anything else you want to say as we leave you here? I'm so grateful that I've gotten to be a part of this. It's really, I mean, it's changed my life, honestly. And I think big picture, it's changed it so much for

the better. I feel like I have something that I really, truly am passionate about and to be able to be a part of this and actually feel like we're making a difference and we're talking to people. And I'm with you when people in the medical field have reached out or said things. It just matters to me. And that goes for anybody who maybe heard this and it touched one person or one person heard it differently. And, you know, I'm going to be presenting a lot at medical conferences and DCF conferences and things. And I'm just grateful for the opportunity. I said to Mike Weber, I said, if one cop happens to hear my presentation and reaches out and wants to know more or is willing to kind of take it on a little bit, that matters to me.

And so I'm just so grateful that we do have a voice here and that you've given me this voice. I really enjoy doing this and I want people to know that I'm trying to be as good of a voice as I can be for people in the medical profession who deal with this and maybe don't have as much of a voice. So I'm grateful. Well, we're very grateful to have you.

And listeners, if you would like to hear much more of me and Bex chatting through everything under the sun, including the Gypsy Rose Blanchard Lifetime Series and the Justina Pelletier case, and if you would like to go back and listen to our weekly trial coverage that we did the Kowalski case, that is all on the subscriber feed on Patreon. And you can also get that content by subscribing on Apple. And also, if you would like to leave us a nice five-star review to cancel out some of those folks that left us one-star reviews after clearly not listening to the podcast at all, you can do that. That's always very, very much appreciated. And we will be back very soon with our season four premiere that is

coming on June 20th, and we will see you then. If you've been listening to this show for a while, you know that I have very strong feelings about what is and is not responsible true crime content. Maybe you've heard me make some pointed comments about the producers of a certain film, or perhaps you've heard one of my dozen or so rants about a certain journalist whose name rhymes with Schmeichel. And if you've been with me for a while, you'll also know that getting Nobody Should Believe Me on the air was quite the rollercoaster. Podcasting is just the Wild West, y'all. And these experiences are what led me to launch my new network, True Story Media, where we are all about uplifting true crime creators, doing the work, and making thoughtful, survivor-centric shows. And I could not be more thrilled to announce our

very first creator partner, You Probably Think This Story's About You. The first season of this enthralling show from breakout creator Brittany Ard took podcasting by storm in 2024. Zooming to the number one spot in the charts on Apple and Spotify as Brittany revealed the captivating story of a romantic deception that upended her life and traced the roots of her own complicated personal history that led her there. Brittany is back in 2025 with brand new episodes, this time helping others tell their own stories of betrayal, heartache, and resilience. If you love Nobody Should Believe Me, I think you will also love You Probably Think This Story's About You for its themes of deception, complex family intrigue, and its raw, vulnerable storytelling. You can binge the full first season and listen to brand

new episodes each week by following the show on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find it at the link in our show notes.