Nobody Should Believe Me - Revisiting Kowalski Part Two: The Descent

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

In this episode, Andrea sheds light on the disconnect between the narrative presented publicly vs the medical records and trial testimony. She traces how ketamine became the driving force in Maya Kowalski’s treatment from Dr. Anthony Kirkpatrick. What followed was a rapid escalation: four-day ketamine infusions, increasingly alarming blog posts written in Maya’s voice, and ultimately a controversial, high-dose ketamine coma in Mexico. This sets the stage for Maya’s arrival at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital. *** Try out Andrea’s Podcaster Coaching App: https://studio.com/apps/andrea/podcaster Order Andrea’s 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: @andreadunlop Buy Andrea's books here.  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 podcastchoices.com/adchoices

True Story Media. If you're an elder millennial like me, you may remember a time when ketamine was mostly known by its street name, Special K. Otherwise known as a substance you are not even tempted by after that one time that your friend's cousin got stuck in a K-hole and hallucinated in a hall closet for an entire night and freaked everyone out. The ketamine has gotten a bit of a makeover in recent years after the FDA's 2019 greenlight for intranasal ketamine has helped fuel thousands of. of ketamine clinics across the United States, and a large number of clinical studies are currently exploring the drug for treatment-resistant depression and other conditions.

But despite some genuinely promising research, ketamine has been trending again more recently for less positive reasons, as it was responsible for the death of beloved actor Matthew Perry in October of 2023, and is also responsible for some of, whatever the hell is going on with Elon Musk. Ketamine is also a big part of this story.

You see enough of these patients, you know how they deteriorate and nothing is working. Surgery doesn't work. Drugs don't work. Drugs don't work. And you do this one thing and it works. One of my enduring questions about the public reception of the Kowalski's story is how on earth they managed to tell this story in such a way

that it seemed fine and normal to give a nine-year-old girl so much ketamine. Where are my gloves? Come on, heat. Any day now? Winter is hard, but your groceries don't have to be. This winter, stay warm. Tap the banner to order your groceries online at voila.ca. Enjoy in-store prices without leaving your home.

You'll find the same regular prices online as in-store. Many promotions are available both in-store and online, though some may vary. On September 23, 2015, after being told by doctors from three separate hospitals, including a pain specialist with expertise in CRPS, the Maya Kowalski, did not have CRPS, but was suffering from a conversion disorder, Biotta Kowalski took Maya to see Dr. Anthony Kirkpatrick. So let's go over your history just a little bit. Okay, approximately three months ago, you started having some pain down in your feet here, okay?

Here's what's important to understand is that there is no particular injury we can attribute this to, okay? Also, another thing that's important to note is that with that, she knows different, fluctuating temperatures between the two sides. In other words, sometimes one side would be colder, sometimes one side would be warmer, and sometimes one would be more red than the other, but it would flip-flop back and forth. Dr. Anthony Kirkpatrick is an anesthesiologist and self-described expert in CRPS. As we learned at trial, his credentials are a little questionable. Here he is being cross-examined by attorney Howard Hunter.

You're not board-certified? No. Not board-certified in either anesthesiology or pediatric. Correct. You've never been board certified in anything. Correct. And Dr. Gertpatrick readily acknowledged his outlier status, again from his cross-examination. I had a patient in front of you who dozens, literally dozens of other doctors had seen and treated at length. And you were the first one making a diagnosis of CRPS. Correct?

Correct. But for Biotto Kowalski, Dr. Kirkpatrick was a godsend. The day after their first visit on September 23rd, Biazza emailed Dr. Kirkpatrick to thank him for giving us supporting evidence and the diagnosis. Supporting evidence because, of course, Bata had already reported to a doctor that Maya had CRPS, as Howard Hunter mentioned in court. Incidentally, you were the first one to diagnose CRPS? Yes, sir. On September 23rd, 2015? Yes, sir.

How do you suppose it was that the mother thought that was the current diagnosis a week before? Dr. Kirkpatrick admitted that he didn't know where that diagnosis had come from. In this same email, Biaa also discusses scheduling Maya for her first ketamine infusion and asks about laser and stem cell treatments for her daughter. Biazza signs her email XOXO. As he appears to do with many of his patients, Dr. Kirkpatrick recorded videos of his evaluations of Maya, and these are frankly strange to watch. As we discussed in the last episode, Maya's alleged condition, complex regional pain syndrome,

is, well, regional, and it's a condition that begins with some kind of injury. Yet in Dr. Kirkpatrick's evaluation of a wheelchair-bound Maya, he's asking her about pain everywhere, from her cheeks to her shoulders, to her feet, and the skin on the top of her thigh. Okay, excellent. Good job. Now, the next thing we want to do here, Maya, is, are you You see how we've got your marked here? I want you to close your eyes. Bring your little trousers back a little bit. That, a girl.

Reading Dr. Kirkpatrick's depositions and watching his testimony, it's tough to wrap your brain around how he justifies giving Maya this diagnosis, which he describes as severe and progressive in her case. He says in a deposition that while CRPS is usually triggered by an injury, that, quote, often we don't know what causes it in children because they're, quote, not good recordkeepers on account of how much they're, quote, bouncing around. Which, sure, they are, but as a mom of a seven-year-old and a three-year-old,

I can tell you that children are not especially stoic when they hurt themselves. It is, in fact, usually, an entire opera. Anyway, according to Bia's CRPS symptoms allegedly began with an asthma attack, which even Kirkpatrick says there's no known connection with. And yet right away, in the first appointment, Biazza gets the CRPS diagnosis she's been looking for, and they're off to the races scheduling a four-day-long ketamine infusion. Here, Biazza asked Dr. Kirkpatrick about the side effects.

How, in her case, how bad is it going to be? And how long will the short memory loss less? Yeah, good question. We want the short-term memory to be really bad, really bad. But her long-term memory should be intact. So if I ask her to remember, you know, if she can remember me telling her that her Mom has got a visitor, a visitor. You know what I'm talking about, Mom?

But she'll remember. What did I just remember about your, what did I just tell you I saw in your mother? What did I see? Visitor. A visitor. You know what that is, don't you? See, so I do pick on moms too, don't I?

Did she see she remembered that. But when she's on the ketamine, I don't want her to remember that. We want to get, but if I ask you, what country do you live in, you can tell me what country? United States. Perfect, perfect. Now, it's not unheard of to use ketamine in treating CRPS. As Dr. Elliott-Krain, the pediatric pain specialist we heard from in the last episode, explains on the stand.

And it's something that we reserve for refractory cases that we cannot make better after a full court press, which would be intensive physical therapy every day for weeks, typically 10 or 12, weeks, psychotherapy every day for the same period of time, and using all the drugs that we have on the shelf that are, to some degree, effective in CRPS. However, Dr. Crane emphasized that ketamine is used as a last resort for refractory pain, or pain that won't resolve any other way, and is used at a very low dose. So it's possible that a child with CRPS might need to receive some type of ketamine treatment at some point. However, as a reminder, three hospitals, Johns Hopkins All Children's, Lurie's Children's in Chicago,

and Tampa General had all evaluated Maya and determined that she was suffering from a conversion disorder. And interestingly, the standard of care for conversion disorder is the same as that for CRPS, physical and occupational therapy and psychotherapy. But that was not Dr. Kirkpatrick's way of doing things. He's in the business of ketamine. And less than two weeks after her first visit, Maya was back in his office for a four-day ketamine infusion. Now, are you ready to do some testing? Do two vertical fingers in your mouth and tell me you still have that pain under your eye and if so, if it's the same

or if it's decreased. Go ahead, tell me. It's the same. It didn't improve? Can you open your mouth better now? What do you think? It hurts a lot more when I open my mouth. Well, I know, I know, but we're talking about how it compared to where it was before we gave you the ketamine, okay? It's about the same. Yeah, all right. If it's difficult to tell, it's difficult to tell. There are a number of moments like this in these videos, where Maya is saying one thing, and rather than accepting her assessment, that her pain is the same as it was before the pricey

ketamine infusion, Kirkpatrick overrides it in real time. These videos, which were posted on Dr. Kirkpatrick's website, are frankly disturbing. One features Maya coming out of one of her ketamine infusions, and she's very clearly in a state of distress and disorientation. And Dr. Kirkpatrick is just really something. Questions. This is an exchange from a later video. Okay. All right.

I have a question for you. You ready? Yes. Do you have a boyfriend? Do you? Do you have a boyfriend? I'm not telling you. People want to know.

Well, they don't. Talk about putting somebody on the spot, huh? I can tell you that if a doctor shoved a camera in my daughter's face and asked her this, that would be the last time I set foot in his office. The efficacy and necessity of the ketamine that Maya received over the year that followed her diagnosis was a big point of contention at trial. According to Biata and Dr. Kirkpatrick, as well as Jack Kowalski and his legal team, ketamine was necessary to help Maya.

But the exhaustive medical records, as well as Biata's own emails and blog posts, tell a markedly different story. On October 23rd, one month after her CRPS diagnosis from Dr. Kirkpatrick, and about a week after her first ketamine infusion, the tone of Bia's blog turns dire. She writes, again, as Maya, quote, I told my mom that day, I don't want to live this way anymore. I can't take this pain anymore. I wish I could just die. End quote.

This notion of Maya being suicidal comes up in a later Kirkpatrick video from a follow-up visit, where Biazza and Jack Kowalski are both present, and which is once again filmed, as Dr. Patrick put it, to help other kids. And Maya, I think you made the point that you just didn't really want to continue, did you? No. You'd rather be in a coma and then continue the way of what life was going for you, right? Am I correct on that, right? Maya did say several times that she would rather be in a coma or die than live like that.

The theme of death and wanting to die become a constant drumbeat on Piatas' block. In their follow-up visit with Dr. Kirkpatrick on November 2nd, Biotta and Maya don't report much of a change from the ketamine. And this visit tracks one of many reports that the ketamine does not seem to be helping Maya. Here's Howard Hunter questioning Dr. Kirkpatrick on the stand. In this report, you indicated that the CRPS she had was intractable, correct? Correct. And it had proven refractory to your first pair, correct?

Yeah, very poor risk. poor response. And despite CRPS not being a fatal diagnosis, in a series of email exchanges where Biotta is directing care, coordinating between a pharmacist named John Schott, who appeared to have been a co-worker of hers, and Dr. Kirkpatrick, among others, Biaa requests that Maya be labeled as terminal. This was about six weeks after her diagnosis. I asked pediatric hospitalist Dr. Bex what the implications of this label might be. There are doses of pain medications you can use at home legal, because now there's a lot more restrictions as well in cases of palliative care or hospice care versus just a child who may need pain medication.

Maya was receiving many medications at home in addition to her ketamine infusions. Biatta's emails with Dr. Kirkpatrick and John Schott discussed high doses of pain medications including powerful opioids such as Oxycontin and Dilaudit. In a November 2nd email, the day of her follow-up with Kirkpatrick, Biaata asks about giving Maya fentanyl. Bia also frequently asked Dr. Carpatrick to step in with others, including asking him to speak to John Schott about labeling Maya as terminal, which did eventually make it on to one of her prescriptions.

She also asked Dr. Kirkpatrick to intervene with Maya's GI doctors to request that Maya be put on TPN or intravenous tube feats. In a pretrial deposition, the pharmacist John Schott said he only added the terminal label to Maya's prescription after a phone call with Dr. Kirkpatrick. Dr. Kirkpatrick didn't have much of an answer for this on the stand, other than to say that it was outside of his scope to label a patient as terminal. Dr. Kirkpatrick maintained that he didn't authorize pharmacist John Schott's notation that Maya was terminally ill. Kirkpatrick also noted in an email to Biata that when asked for a second prescription from another pharmacist with a terminal label, that he wasn't willing to do it because it was beyond the scope of his practice. However, he didn't seem to shy away from the idea that Maya was at risk of death.

Here he is in the Netflix film explaining an exchange he had with Biaata. So I warned her in all medical probability that Maya would die a slow, painful death. The specter of Maya's death is consistent on Biaa's blog. On November 4th, she writes, Every day is the same as the one prior or worse. I'm losing hope, and I often ask God to let me die because I cannot handle. this anymore. This is not fair. I don't want to live this way anymore. I would rather die. Full disclosure, my husband, Derek, does the majority of the cooking in my house. I'm not actually sure

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So, to recap, Maya is diagnosed with CRPS on September 23rd and receives her first ketamine infusion starting on October 6th. Then she comes in for a follow-up on November 2nd where they discuss the lackluster results of this intervention. Dr. Kirkpatrick explains the next step they took. So I discussed with the mother and with Maya the idea of the ketamine coma procedure. On November 12th, fewer than eight weeks after Maya's diagnosis, Biaa, Jack, and Maya flew to Mexico to visit Dr. Fernando Kentu for an experimental procedure

that would begin on November 18th. It's described here in the film. Some patients are taking control of their pain by going into a coma. Here, doctors use up to 50 times the typical dose to induce a five-day coma. The Kowalskys were referred to Dr. Kantu by Dr. Kirkpatrick, and as he testified to a trial, this treatment was a last resort for patients suffering from the elusive condition of whole-body complex regional pain syndrome. He said in court that a qualification for the procedure was that patients were experiencing pain

on 80 to 90% of their body and that they had failed all other treatments. because these high-dose infusions administered while the patient is intubated and in a medically induced coma are extremely risky. Here's Jack and take care of Maya. And then he told us that there's a chance that she could potentially die. Though Dr. Cantu equivocated on the exact percentage on the stand, when asked in a pretrial deposition about just how high the risk of death was for this procedure, Dr. Cantu said 50% or more and testified that he always informs patients of the risk. And Biazza, on her blog, positions this risk as necessary. She writes, quote, So far, I am the youngest child in history who has developed severe generalized RSD in a very short period of time.

And I am the first youngest child in history who is going to be placed in a high-dose ketamine coma. It's my last and only chance for a better quality of life. And this framing goes unchecked by the Netflix film. Beata also emphasizes the risks Maya in particular is at. from this procedure on her blog, writing, quote, This procedure is very high risk in my complex case due to the fact that I have immunodeficiency, very poor nutrition status, and now severe adrenal insufficiency. I was told today that I am a high risk patient for developing infection slash sepsis during

the coma, difficulty weaning off the ventilator after coma, needing blood transfusions, and total body failure slash death as a result of adrenal insufficiency and other complications. But again, according to the blog, this is all well worth it, because as Biaa writes, in Maya's voice, quote, The doctors explained to me and my mom that because of history of cough variant asthma, I am at high risk for dying. Dying, yes, that may sound very scary to any 10-year-old girl. But to me, it beats the alternative of constant suffering and pain.

I would almost welcome death over the kind of life I have right now. While Maya is in a medically induced coma in Mexico, intubated, sedated, and unable to speak, The blog continues to post daily updates written in Maya's voice. These posts describe ICU complications, ventilator issues, lab values, all written as though Maya herself is narrating the experience. And a number of these posts have an oddly proud tone about how much medication Maya's little body can endure. On November 21, she writes, quote, I have a very high tolerance for drugs. If I was a horse, I would be comatose or dead already. but things are totally different when it comes to a girl with RSD.

And, quote, Dr. Cantu told me he has not seen a soon-to-be 10-year-old girl requiring this much sedation. Well, what can I tell you? I'm just a very, very special little girl. Winky Face emoji. Despite Biazza's markedly cheerful tone, this is one of the most disturbing sections of the blog, as it includes numerous photos and videos of Maya intubated in a hospital bed.

And the Netflix film includes a heroine, clip of Maya from this trip. Am I? Am I? No master. Mommy's here. And mommy's not a man, okay? Fortunately, Maya did survive this treatment.

And between this trip and a return visit to Canto in December for a booster, Maya had a follow-up visit with Dr. Elvin Mendez, an allergy and immunology specialist who'd seen her once previously for concerns of immunodeficiency, another of Maya's alleged conditions. Following this visit, Dr. Mendez sent a note to Maya's pediatrician Dr. Wassenauer. Here's Dr. Mendez at trial with attorney Howard Hunter. What specifically did you call to Dr. Wosanauer's attention to that? So I was concerned about much hassle biopausea at the time. And why was it?

Because the symptoms, the physical examination, the objective tests that I've reviewed in medical records did not correlate with the story I was getting from now. Dr. Mendez was one of a series of medical professionals to independently document concerns about a psychological element to Maya's symptoms, and the second provider, the first being Bonnie Rice from Tampa General, to explicitly mention Munchausen by proxy concerns, though he did not report these concerns to DCF. Maya's pediatrician, Dr. Wassenauer, who received this note, did not share Dr. Mendez's concerns for abuse. incidentally, although Dr. Cantu testified that a psych consult was part of his protocol, it's unclear if Maya was ever given one. Despite the outsized role he played in this case, Maya only saw Dr. Kirkpatrick in his office four times.

Once for an evaluation, a second time for a four-day ketamine infusion, for a follow-up post-infusion, and then for a check-in after the ketamine coma procedure he'd referred her for. So she went through the five-day ketamine infusion. Why did we elect to do that after trying to get her under control? with a four-day outpatient ketamine, because her response was not definite enough, clear enough that we could, the more ketamine infusions was the way to go. But keep in mind, as the mom knows, since she's a nurse, going to the, going in intensive care unit is much, much higher in risk, much higher.

Not to mention how it is when you come out of the coma. I mean, going into the coma is no problem, right? Maya, isn't that right? Yeah. Tell us about how it was when you came out. Was it pretty bad news? Yeah, I did not like it. I felt like I couldn't breathe.

I was coughing like crazy, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. Right, right. So it's important to tell it like it is. That's right. It's tough. But now having been through all that, was it worth it? Yes. Look me in the eyes and say.

Yes. Dr. Patrick, it was worth it. Yes, Dr. Kirkpatrick, it was worth it. Okay. Here's Jack Kowalski and take care of Maya, explaining what they did next. When we got back from Mexico, we couldn't afford to keep up with Dr. Carpatrick's treatments. So he recommended his colleague, Dr. Hannah, who took our insurance and prescribed low dosages of ketamine for Maya. I'm Mike Volo from Lexicon Valley.

What do you know about toast? The word toast, he means. I'm Bob Garfield, and how much did you really understand that whole 6-7 meme? God help us. On Lexicon Valley, we dig into the etymology, history, and usage of words and phrases that, for better or worse, define our lives. With many unexpected stops along the way. Take toast. That journey goes from a public bath in England to the Ghostbusters franchise.

And 6'7? From the violent genre of drill rap to your middle schoolers math class. Here for yourself on Lexicon Valley. Wherever you go for podcasts, there we are. Dr. Kirkpatrick's ketamine clinic is cash only, and the four-day infusions he performs run about $12,000 a week. So in January of 2016, Maya had an initial consult with Dr. Ashraf Hanna, and she began treatment with him days later.

Dr. Hanna is a Florida pain management physician and anesthesiologist who advertise as, quote, the world's leading ketamine doctor on billboards around the area and online under the moniker No Pain Hannah. Like Kirkpatrick, Hannah is a self-described expert on CRPS, but is not trained in pediatrics. And also like Kirkpatrick, he's a ketamine guy. A previously recorded deposition from Dr. Hanna was played in court.

Can you confirm with me, Dr. Hanna, that those are your standard initial and maintenance therapy doses for CRPS patients receiving ketamine? Yeah, but again, these are, as you see here, dosage me left up MD discretion. So they change a lot, yes. Understood. But your standard initial dose is one milligram per kilogram per hour? Yeah, those are guidelines in general. Yes, I start with the one milligram per kilo and titrated. I can stay at one, I can stay at two, I can go to three. It really varies. And how often do you go above 20 milligrams per kilogram per hour in your practice?

Not that common. According to records, Dr. Hanna started Maya off with 4.5.5 milligrams per kilogram per hour. And by the time he was finished treating her, according to testimony from Dr. Elliott Crane, a recognized expert in pediatric pain medicine and CRPS, Maya was receiving an exceptionally high dose of ketamine. How does it compare to the doses that Kirkpatrick and Hannah used? Kirkpatrick started around, I think, a milligram per kilogram per hour,

and over four days ramped it up to 2.5 milon. milligrams per kilogram per hour. I don't remember what Hannah's starting dose was, but it was significantly substantially higher and went up even higher and higher still so that by October of 2016 he was using doses in the range of 25 to 30 milligrams per hour, 10 times the typical anesthetic dose for a patient. Mind you, an anesthetic dose means enough to knock you out cold. And indeed, ketamine has been in use the longest for this purpose. The doses used to treat pain are much lower. All in all, between her first visit with Hannah in January of 2016 and her hospitalization at Johns Hopkins All Children's in October of that same year, Maya would receive 55 ketamine infusions

from Dr. Hannah in escalating doses that doctors would later testify were 15 to 100 times the recommended amount. In February of 2016, Maya had a visit with pediatric neurologist Dr. Carl Barr for an evaluation. He did not confirm the diagnosis of CRPS independently, and once more recommended the same course of treatment that Johns Hopkins All Children's, Tampa General, and Lurie Children's had recommended, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and non-narcotic interventions. But non-narcotic interventions were not the direction that the Kowalskys went in. Biotto reported to Dr. Barr that Maya had been diagnosed with CRPS in August of 2016 by Dr. Kirkpatrick, rather than September, and that Dr. Kirkpatrick believed that the likely source was a gymnastics

injury that had occurred in April of 2015. This alleged inciting injury is not mentioned anywhere else. The following month in March of 2016, Maya had a port placed for intravenous medication, which had been ordered by Dr. Hannah, as Maya was regularly getting infusions in his office and having to be stuck with needles each time. Beata reported accessing Maya's port a number of times during an April visit to the pediatric ICU at Orlando Health Hospitals for an IVIG treatment, which had been recommended by Dr. Barr, likely for Maya's alleged immunodeficiency issues. During this visit, Biotta reported that she was giving Maya intravenous ketamine at home, sometimes several times a day.

This picky record also indicates that Maya scored a five out of five in strength for all major muscle groups and showed good muscle tone. It also states that Maya had a full range of motion, no joint swelling, and no joint limb, deformities. And this is despite the fact that Maya was in a wheelchair during this time. On Biotta's blog around this time, she posts about the family fundraising with their church and Maya's school for Maya's medical treatments, and each blog post includes a link where people can donate to help Maya's fight. The idea that ketamine treatments were the only thing that helped Maya, despite the fact that Maya continued to decline while receiving massive doses, is something that

neither the Netflix film nor the plaintiff's attorneys made any attempt to reconcile. It's mostly explained away by positioning Dr. Kirkpatrick and Dr. Hannah as the only two people who truly understand CRPS. Here's Hannah in his deposition. I've treated 18,000 CRPS, you know, infusion done with thousands of patients that are treated for me, that are coming from all over the world. And I've seen that very common. And it's unclear what the markers of treatment success are for Hannah. So she comes to you with the quality of life scale in January of 2016 of two. And when she leaves you, it's zero, and you're now sending her to the emergency room at a children's hospital,

and that's considered a success in your book based on 18,000 patients. Sir, the treatment she had a flat. All those patients that have treated, at some points of the other, they had zero relief. At some points of the other, they have trauma that increased their pain. They had surgery, and their pain went sky high, went to zero. Then we treat them, and then they get better. But the answer always seems to be more ketamine. Both the medical records and Biatta's own accounts on her blog revealed that Maya received no sustained benefit from the ketamine. Her pain was always coming back and coming back worse.

Maya was wheelchair-bound and she was pulled out of school. But on October 6, 2016, Maya had a final visit with Dr. Hanna after receiving a total of 55 ketamine infusions at his office. Maya was in bad shape, suffering from excrucients, She was dehydrated, malnourished, and was having issues with withdrawal in her short-term memory. All symptoms consistent with the high use of ketamine and opioids. Maya was reporting a zero out of ten on the quality of life scale that Hannah gives patients during visits. Biazza wanted more ketamine, but Hannah had reached his limit.

Okay, so you send her to Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital? Yes. Why? Because I fail to help. There's nothing I could do to. I told the mother, that's the maximum I can do. I cannot give her anymore. On October 7th, the Kowalski's arrived at the ER at Johns Hopkins All-Childrens,

igniting a series of events that would change the course of many lives. Her concern was merely administering ketamine, over and over more and more and more. That's next time on Nobody Should Believe Me. Nobody Should Believe Me is executive-produced written and hosted by me, Andrea Dunlop. Our co-executive producer is Mariah Gossett. Our editor is Greta Stromquist. Research and fact-checking by Aaron Ajai.

Additional research by Jessa V. Randall. Our production manager is Nola Carmuch. Music from Blue Dot Sessions, Sound Snap, and Slipstream.