Nobody Should Believe Me - Season 7 Mailbag Part 1

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

Andrea and executive producer Myrriah are back on the mic for part one of our season seven mailbag episode: answering listener questions, reflecting on the stories that resonated most this season, and sharing some behind-the-scenes thoughts on the reporting process. From the reactions to John Stewart and the Knowellan Kelly case to ongoing conversations about abusive head trauma, media narratives, and Take Care of Maya, they dive into the questions that kept coming up as the season aired. Keep an eye out for part 2, coming tomorrow! *** 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: https://read.macmillan.com/lp/the-mother-next-door-9781250284273/ View our sponsors: https://www.nobodyshouldbelieveme.com/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 bonus content: https://www.youtube.com/@NobodyShouldBelieveMePod Follow Andrea on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreadunlop/ Buy Andrea's books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Andrea-Dunlop/author/B005VFWJPI For more information and resources on Munchausen by Proxy, please visit: https://www.munchausensupport.com/ The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children’s MBP Practice Guidelines: https://apsac.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Munchausen-by-Proxy-Clinical-and-Case-Management-Guidance-.pdf Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

True Story Media. Hello, it's Andrea, and today my co-executive producer and partner in true crime, Mariah Gossett, and I are digging in to the Nobody Should Believe Me mailbag to answer some of your questions and share your feedback from season seven. You had a lot to say, and we are here for it. We always do a big roundup at the end of the season, but we love hearing from you anytime, so reach out if you've got something to share at hello at nobody should believe me.com. Let me tell you, that mailbox is perennially a wild ride, and we read every message that comes through.

So without further ado, here's what you had to say about season seven of Nobody Should Believe Me. Hello, Mariah. Hi, Andrea. Thank you so much for being with us on Mike today. Always an exciting moment for me when we get to have a Kiki that is recorded and on the feed. We have so many conversations. I know. Off mic. Many phone calls.

You are our incredible co-executive producer of the show. My partner in true crime, as I refer to you, workwife, just mind-meld, all the things. This is our fourth season together. Which is wild because four seasons and I think two and a half years, which is, yeah, a lot. A lot of work. Yeah. So many seasons. Plus, now we've been doing for the last.

almost two years, a weekly episode. So you work on all of that with me and the rest of our incredible team. And we are very sad because of vacation schedules. Aaron Ajai was not able to join us today. We did get some notes from her. So Aaron's presence will be felt, even though she is not on the mic with us today. But yeah, I just wanted to ask you a little question to put you on the spot. Mostly we're going to be answering listener questions today. But just, yeah, like any reflections after this, our fourth season from where, together, from where you started with the show and sort of like what this experience of working on this show has been like for you.

Yeah. I mean, I'm so thankful that you're always willing for us to bring in, I think, like, more people to work on this. Because I do think it's important. Like, we are a very small independent show. But it's like we could not do our jobs without people like Aaron. and Greta and Robin and Nicole and all of the amazing people who and the rest of our research team who helps us out as we work on everything. And Nola.

Nola, who our operations manager keeps everything moving. Nothing without Nola. And yeah, like the team is so incredible. And so I think I'm always so thankful to get to point out and highlight how it does take a team to make a show that's this fact check that is this intensely researched. and like we try to do our due diligence to the best of our abilities, right? And I'm always really proud of that work. And I think our workflows have gotten just so much more seamless. Our brains are kind of melded into one at this point, I think. And yeah, it's like, I remember at one point I was

describing the indicators of abusive head trauma to a friend. And he looked at me and said, you know, Mariah, most people just don't know that. And I was like, Like, you know, in many ways I would love if I didn't know that, but I'm thankful that I do. You know, so the material is tough, but I can only really get through it because we are like a team of people who put this all together. Yeah. I echo all of those sentiments and I really take on any praise that people give to me for the show as a collective praise of the team because I know that it all has to be sort of firing on all cylinders

to work at all. And I am just consistently impressed, I have to say, with our team, especially as we are looking at, these other media stories around child abuse and how many holes there are in those processes and just sort of the lack of due diligence, how underwhelming the results of those efforts often are with teams that are like three times the size of ours and way longer timelines. And if you think this is me taking another opportunity. to dunk on the preventionist and Diane Neary, you're correct it is. Literally, I was just like, yeah, if we had the budget of the New York Times and Sierra behind us and the amount of people in those credits, wow, what we could have gotten done

in two years. I mean, it would have been more than three 35 minute episodes. I'll tell you that, right? Yeah, I was like, it probably would have been longer than this season for us. So with that said, we have a lot of feedback to get this. through from this season. We're going to talk about all of it. We're going to answer your questions as you have them. And just to say thank you to everyone who commented, who sent us emails, who interacted with the show in any way. That is something I think neither of us take for granted.

We love having such an engaged listenership. This is a smart listenership. We learn things from our listenership all the time. We've got medical professionals weighing in. We've got child welfare people weighing in, lawyers weighing in, people who suffer from long-term illnesses weighing in, people who've had ill children weighing in. These experiences that you all share with us are so genuinely valuable and we are so grateful to you all for being this sort of massive chorus who care as much about these things as we do. So we're going to start. We've got Nola who co-related these questions for us. So Nola is the person who's interfacing with a lot of the comments. We do read every single thing that we can find that people say about the show on our channels. And the first

collection of questions and comments are about John Stewart, who is the man that we started with his story and the Nolan Kelly case, which took up the first several episodes of this season. lots and lots of feelings about John Stewart. Yeah. I would say this was probably one of- We all had lots of feelings about John Stewart. We did. There were a lot of, I think we were working through our collective feelings about John Stewart.

And I think this was maybe some of the biggest reaction we've had to, like, a person who's been on the show. Certainly we've had other, you know, our season six case with Lisa McDaniel, obviously big, big reactions to her. but this brought up some new things for listeners. So that was really interesting to sort of change the lens. So first question, did John listen to all of your Kowalski coverage and what is his reaction to your perspective on that case? I don't think John listened to any of the podcast before he came on.

Yeah, I don't think so. In our, you know, we did ask him like, how did you hear about us or like what prompted you to reach out? And we included some of that in the show. but a lot of it was him essentially diving down a chat GPT, like rabbit hole of putting in information about his case and trying to AI is a thing. If you write the prompts in specific ways, you're going to get the answers you kind of want out of it.

And so I think he was looking for chat GPT to tell him what he thought about his case was correct. And then when he was looking for places where there had been news coverage about his case or about Sally Smith, Obviously, the podcast came up. And so perhaps he only really listened to the episode where we, I don't even know if he did. He could have just said, I think Chat ChpT probably just said, seemed to have a favorable outlook on Dr. Sally Smith, is what I'm guessing would have happened.

Yeah, I think that's right. But I don't know. Conjecture, conjecture, conjecture. Yeah, conjecture, conjecture. But this goes beyond, John. This certainly is true of the other people that we covered this season, Vivianagram specifically, but also the fractured families ecosystem more broadly. that they took the Kowalski story as it played out in the initial court case. Obviously, that verdict has been overturned. But that sort of initial court victory and the media, the complete, like media deluge around it,

which was universally favorable to the Kowalski's other than my podcast, they took that as very much being, this is like our moment, this proves our case, this is our big sort of thing that we're going to kind of hang our hat on. And John certainly approached that the same way and had said, I think, in one of his emails to me, that Sally Smith had medically kidnapped Maya Kowalski. So no, I don't think he did a deep analysis of me and what I was about, which I just recommend to anybody if you're going to speak to the media. Certainly, and now I say this, I don't think that we did John Dirty. I think we were very fair to him. We really, really take the fact that we're talking about real people very seriously. And we make every effort we can to be balanced and fair. we talk to them, but just probably like before you're going to talk to a media outlet, always a good idea to give it a Google. I certainly do when someone requests an interview with me, but anyway. So the next question is, how is this John person making this into a Sally Smith issue? The child died and had an autopsy. Sally Smith was brought in while he was alive, but if the autopsy's determination of homicide and the police investigation that pointed the finger at this guy,

who, by the way, is a walking red flag. Obviously, a little bit of editorializing from this commenter there. But I think this is a salient question of sort of how does John make this about a misdiagnosis from Sally Smith? Yeah, you know, I mean, that was a question we kind of kept asking him. And I think in his mind, you know, again, like we can't really talk for John, right? Like, we have, you know, we did talk to him for over three hours and that's what we have a reference back to. And many, many emails. And so I can't get into his mind. But I do think there, is probably, you know, maybe this is a question for like Dr. Ayub or someone in our, in our circle about just the like hyper fixation upon someone you can easily put blame onto.

I think a lot of like, you know, we interviewed a therapist Carly one time and they so beautifully put that a lot of folks who, well, a perpetrator, alleged perpetrators of abuse are almost running from a tiger. It's like they know what they've done is wrong, but they're. are running from it and that's all they can really think about is the run and how to get away from it rather than how to actually face it. And even we've had other, I think mental health professionals talk about how like the first step to specifically, I mean, I think any type of abuses, you have to admit that you did it, right? Any type of bad behavior, you have to first admit there

is bad behavior or else there's no point moving forward. And I think it becomes a lot easier to place blame on other people than it is to face what you potentially, did that could have harmed somebody else. Yeah, and I think there are various elements that you could look at. I mean, I think given John's overall tone and language, I would not characterize him as someone who is respectful of women, although he, yes, somebody, we had a funny listener comment about this where they said, in quotes, I'm not being misogynistic by being a cis man calling a cis women misogynistic terms is some misogynist ass logic. I'm going to agree with you. there, listener. Thank you for that comment. But I think, like, yeah, could it be that Sally Smith

was a powerful woman who was involved in his case? Julie Binkley, you know, the prosecutor who was involved in the case. He also, I mean, to be fair to John, he had negative things to say about literally everyone who was involved in his case. I think the reason he fixated on Sally Smith probably in the media. I mean, number one, I think what was really striking about, and I can't remember if this really made it into the interview, but we did ask John about his experience being interviewed for take care of Maya. And we did sort of put this question to him of why he was so focused on Sally Smith. And, you know, he had said like, and he, there was a lot of rants about, you know, in these emails and elsewhere about the detective and the prosecutor and, you know,

this, that, and the other thing about the medical examiner, even though he sort of at once presented the medical examiner as having exonerated him, but not. And because he didn't. And, I mean, it was a bit complicated to tease out the logic there. But, you know, I think what was really striking is that from according to John, you know, when the producers have Take Care of Maya reached out to him, they had sort of, it sounded like positioned that as an opportunity to tell his story. And what they ended up using was a very, very brief soundbite. And so whether or not the story John told them was overly, you know, emphatic about Sally Smith being the problem or whether that was opportunistic editing on their part because they were trying to build a story about how Sally Smith

was the problem and look at these other doctors because it's very much framed that way in the film where it's just like, oh, what's the one thing all these people have in common? I would argue not being falsely accused by Sally Smith. But that was the way that they wanted to use it. And so I think that was just interesting to sort of know what that process had been behind the scenes. obviously like you can afford sympathy as you see fit in this situation. But I think that that is like to sort of be used as a soundbite also might not feel terribly good. So I think, you know, there was no context in any of those stories that were shared, those four stories, which was what we were after here, was to bribe context around. You heard these tiny brief soundbites where you don't hear anything about what happened to the child.

You don't hear any context. Let's give you some context for those stories. Totally. Yeah. So there was another comment about, you couldn't pay me enough to convince me that if any of dogs, if any of John's dogs had suffered a seizure for the first time, he wouldn't immediately take them to the vet. Yeah, I think there's a salient point here that I think it certainly struck us. And we did ask John this, like just the idea of a small child who's never had a seizure before having a seizure and not seeking immediate medical attention. That is a hard thing to excuse. Yeah. And I mean, something we talked about a lot throughout

the production of this season is obviously there's a lot of evidence that points to John harming this child. And then the big thing that's that for me is there were three adults who did fail this child who failed Nolan. It's really hard to think about. Yeah, like I can't even imagine if a child was in my care and had a seizure. And even if I had another child who did have seizures, why you wouldn't immediately take that child into the hospital. And so it is really unfortunate and very tragic and I feel so much sympathy for all of Nolan's siblings and Nolan's biological father, Chris, and so many people who were in this child's life who didn't get to see Nolan survive this, this, I was like, incident doesn't feel like a big enough word, but.

That's tragedy. Tragedy, yeah. And it is maddening to listen to and it was maddening to sit through interviews and ask like, why would you not take this child to the hospital when something like that happened and not really getting any kind of satisfying answer from that. I think where we sort of landed on this was that they're, you know, impossible for us to say, you know, exactly what happened. But certainly the ME and the CAP both agreed that there was evidence that John had done harm to this child within that time period. And also we're saying that delayed seeking of medical care is a red flag for abuse for probably obvious reasons. And I certainly

think like all of the adults in the situation do bear some responsibility. We had a lot of comments to that. Like this is at very least negligence on behalf of these adults. And I wish we had gotten a chance to speak to Larry or Danica just so they could speak for themselves and kind of give us context. And obviously that's always our preference. I also do want to say that we heard from Christopher Kelly just on Instagram. I got like a comment from him and a message. I reached back out to him. I said we'd really like, he was upset that we were covering the case. I think he was just upset that we were covering it at all. I don't think that he listened to, I don't know that he listened to any of the series.

It was not, did not seem to be a reaction to our reporting on it. Again, I contacted him. We tried to get in touch with him while we were reporting. Again, I wish we could have talked to him. Certainly, if he ever gets in touch, we will have him on because we would certainly want to give him that. Honor off the record would be happy. Yes. We always, like, just very important to me to always speak to family members because, of course,

I have been that family member that was trying to reach out to the media. and it does feel shocking. And I'm sorry for anybody who was connected to this situation that found out just well it was airing. And so another comment from a listener, which I think there's a whole bunch of comments to this degree. But this was a quote, like, is Larry a good caretaker? If you look at it from the perspective of, are the kids alive and happy, then yes, which is something that, you know, is paraphrasing what John Stewart said to the police about Larry is a caretaker. And there was kind of a lot of this about, I think it was very something that really seemed to stick out to a lot of listeners was John's descriptions of on the one hand he's describing this obviously horrific situation that we're describing where you are failing as a caretaker in the most extreme way, right?

Not seeking medical attention for a child who clearly needs prompt medical attention. And then at the same time, John is very emphatic about the way. in which he was a good caretaker to these children and the teaching the one, two, three is in ABCs. And, you know, these clearly had like the sort of feel of details that had been shared many times, you know, and the T-ball and sort of the ways that he, he was, that he felt he was a good caretaker for his daughter. And I think, you know, we presented those to be fair to John, right? I think it doesn't, I don't think it ever helps to present people one-dimensionally, and that's not reality. And we're not saying that there was never good moments of him being a good caretaker or that we're not

commenting on anything except the sort of case at hand. But I think it really struck many people how critical he was of Danica and Larry's parenting and specifically the stuff with like the potty training really stuck out to people because obviously that was also there was some indications that there was abuse around that, right, that he was physically disciplining kids for wetting the bed at very young ages. So that's, I can see why that stood out to people. And then also this sort of like what, how much television Larry was letting them watch and how many snacks he was giving them and the child's weight and all of that stuff. And I think, yeah, I mean, certainly that stuck with me as well because I think there is a very shifting standard of what it means to be a good parent. And

certainly the potty training stuff stuck out to me. My kids were, I mean, my son was like late to potty training, but super normal. I mean, it's like any time before four years old is normal. Like it's like is well within sort of the normal range. And like, and I think like those things, I think for many people that our parents are just like, what are you talking about? Yeah. These are not like big transgressions for a kid to wet that bed at that age or like, you know, giving a kid too many snacks is like, what are we talking about when we're talking about a child that died? Why are we talking about snacks and television? Yeah. And for us, it's like we want to. We to present this person as the as as a whole person like you were saying and then there's also like we are looking to find the patterns of behaviors right like I think listeners who've been listening for a long time know that specifically Munchausen by proxy abuse is you find it in the patterns in the behaviors in like it's not one incident right and so when you're also talking to someone and it it was very apparent the more cases we looked at this season of of like we are looking for what are what is the patterns of behavior right not saying that people can't

overcome patterns of behavior but when you are looking at caretakers in a child specifically one who has now been killed it is important to look at patterns of behavior and so I think it was these moments of quote unquote good parenting but it's also you know as soon as we looked into more records there's history of domestic violence there's history of other outbursts of violence there is medical records detailing quick to anger moments. And so there's just like, it's not just about like, let's look at this one incident in this one moment in this one piece of time. It is also like what else is around this to establish if this is just established what actually happened in this particular moment. And I think back to a lot of many of the child abuse pediatricians we talk to, right,

have talked about how so often they see those moments where it is a parent who's had the lack of sleep who's just gone over the edge, it was a flash moment of a behavior that's not normal for them, right? There wasn't a pattern of aggressive behavior. It was someone who was on their very worst day who made a mistake. And that is a different incident to treat and to find a method forward. Those are things like parenting classes, case plans, getting additional resources versus patterns of increasingly aggressive and violent behaviors, which unfortunately is led to death. Yeah. I mean, and I think there's a very false binary that people look at these cases through, and these are

really different than the Munchaus and Biproxy cases specifically that we cover on the show, which we are only covering something that has gone to an extreme if we're talking about it on the show by and large, because we're usually talking about situations where there was a police investigation. And that is very sort of like methodical, purposeful. It's over a long period of time. It is not someone having a moment. And abusive head trauma can be both. It can be part of a pattern of abuse. And certainly with Nolan, you know, where you have this old and new injuries. And I think when you have that sort of pattern. But there are also incidents like the mother who spoke to us in episode 10, where there was no history and there was no previous injuries and no history of domestic violence. And it was a

moment. And this was a parent who had otherwise been a good parent and been a loving parent. And I think we have to get away from seeing it as if you're a person who hurts a child, you're a monster. And if you're a person and if you're a loving parent, that means you would never harm a child. Because the reality is there is a lot in between a lot more gray area than that. Yeah. I can't remember if this made it, I think this made it into the final edit. But the mother who we've been calling Nicole in the final episode, you know, she was so good at talking about to us the decision to have, like, visitation with her child. And, like, her ex has now gone on to have another relationship and other children. And so it's like, how do you balance your obvious anger for this person who harmed your child? But also, like,

yeah, when do you get to say you're rehabilitated? When do you get to say, this is okay? When do you get to say, I need you to have supervised visitation? Like, there's just so many elements to it. it that folks have to consider. Yeah, and I think it is the appeal of these wrongful conviction stories that turn out to be not that is just that we really want an answer. And I think if a person doesn't get convicted of a crime and if they get their children back, we don't want to grapple with the fact that oftentimes those are cases where one of those parents harmed the child. And that was the outcome anyway. I think there's this desire to believe that the justice system works more than it does. And I think that's like, everyone wants it to be an episode of law and order.

Yeah, you want by the end credits, you want them to have gotten the bad guy. And that just is not what happens in a lot of cases of interpersonal violence of any kind. It doesn't happen in domestic violence cases. It doesn't happen in rape. It doesn't happen even in murder. Like, you know, clearance rates are not above 50% in a lot of places. And so it's really like, I think that that is a really uncomfortable gray area for people to sit in and just be like, sometimes a person did a terrible thing to a child. Sometimes someone kills a child and no one is held accountable. And that feels very bad. And so we want to believe that something else happened, even if we, you know, there's no plausible explanation for anything else that happened.

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beautiful items. You know I love Quince and I love hearing from listeners who love Quince. So give me a shout and let me know if you've been shopping over there. Are you into their maxi dresses, their sleek jewelry, their Italian leather handbags? Tell me everything. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com slash believe for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E. dot com slash believe for free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash believe. And remember that shopping our sponsors helps support the show. So I had a question and this was interesting. So said in all your correspondence and interviews with John did he express grief for Nolan's death. Did John talk about him fondly, share any

stories or relate idiosyncrasies of the little guy asking because the absence of evidence isn't the same as evidence of absence? Did you get the message that John grieved Nolan? You know, he did talk a lot about how he was upset that Nolan didn't have a headstone. I do remember that story from John specifically. And then there were descriptions of a smiley, happy baby. Yeah, I don't know. What do you remember? I remember that it did not strike me that John was grieving. I always got more anger than any other emotion in our conversations with John. Yeah. And I mean, I think there's like with the caveat that obviously we're talking about this 10 years later, I think it was very striking for me. And honestly, this is one of the things that made me feel some very real empathy for John is that after we talked to him for three hours, and it is an intense experience to talk to someone about this kind of thing. And I just got off the phone and was like, whatever happened here, because that was kind of more towards the beginning of our, you know, exploration. We did not have the police files that we eventually got. And it became a lot more clear. I think what. it had likely happened as we got more evidence. But, you know, at that point, I just thought whatever happened here, like this guy is tormented. You just feel like this happened 10 years ago. He does not seem to have moved on at all. Like, I think the extent to which he has sort of nurtured this grievance was very evident. I think it was striking hearing the police interviews

while it was happening. Well, no one was in the hospital, while he was. being investigated right after his death, there did not seem to me to be much acknowledgement from John about what had happened. It was like Nolan was immediately lost in his own story, and it was very much about John having anxiety about what was going to happen to him. And, I mean, that's what came through. And I don't, you know, don't presume to know what was on his heart at the time, but that's certainly, it was, it was certainly striking. We did not. edit out any. And certainly actually we were really looking for, especially in those police tapes, because we were not able to speak to anyone who'd known and loved Nolan. We were really looking

for any, you know, and there were some descriptions from Danica and Larry about just like what he was like and what he was, you know, him being a good baby. And I think those were some really heartbreaking moments in the interviews. We certainly, there was nothing John said that we edited out about Nolan that was made it sound as though they had, you know, and the family members did not describe him having a loving relationship with Nolan. Yeah. So a couple of just like later ones. Now we got lots of comments about just some of John's idiosyncratic way of speaking, the in any way, shape or form. If I hear that one more time, I'm going to scream. And I took a, oh, sorry, if I took a drink every time this guy says, freaking, I'd need my stomach pumped by the end of the episode. Holy cow. You know, we all have our things. So I don't judge the way people speak because as someone who definitely has lots of. of um's,

Oz and you knows and edits out lots of um's, Oz and you knows from people from across the spectrum of whom we've talked to. Yes. I will second this because when you are on a microphone as much as I am, people will let you know about your little ticks, about what they find annoying about the way you talk, how you talk, how much you talk.

So someone who gets a lot of feedback on my voice, but I just wanted to acknowledge those because that was one of the, hear you. We had lots of, we had lots of people weighing in about about that. Okay, let's see. Lots of just nice comments about the season and how we handled it. So that's very nice. Thank you. I don't like to devote a ton of time to just reading praise, but we do really appreciate it. So thank you to all of us who has said those. So there was a question and it's a lengthy email. So I will sort of paraphrase it here, but it was basically someone asking me about a question that, about a case that they could not remember. so I was not able to find and sort of give an analysis of this specific case, but basically that they were saying, so in this words, the child had recently, the way this was presented in this podcast, because the child had recently suffered a short fall while in the care of the parents. And now in the present day, they suspect that the shortfall was the cause of the shortfall was the cause of the shortfall was not previously thought to be possible.

from what I understand new research shows that a shortfall as in under three to four feet can actually be the cause of retinal hemorrhaging, which was not previously thought to be possible slash likely. So I want to address this one because it's actually a little collection of sort of myths about abusive head trauma. So obviously not a doctor, but I will sort of paraphrase from my knowledge on this. So the idea of the triad of symptoms, which is the retinal hemorrhaging, the shearing injuries, and I can't remember what the third is. Yeah, so it's, there's this idea that basically like, that abusive head trauma, there's this idea out there that it's very persistent, despite it not being true, that it's sort of these like check boxes of like if you have these three things, then that is abusive head trauma for sure. And I actually was just speaking to a cap about this earlier today on another case. So the thing that really gets lost in the Meyer here is that you can have fluid on the brain or those shearing injuries that we talked about with this with the Nolan Kelly case. or retinal hemorrhaging, you can have those things from a variety of types of injuries, including from shortfalls. They do not look like those symptoms in an abusive head trauma case. So it's a specific pattern of those things. It's a specific type of retinal hemorrhaging.

And those aren't the only three symptoms that they look for. And so this idea that it's diagnosed on a triad is very much a piece of abuse denialist rhetoric. And, the shortfall new information, there is no new information on shortfalls. That is just the John J. Plunkett study from about 20 years ago. He is a very well-known abuse denialist. That study has been debunked six ways from Sunday. It was about children on playground equipment. It is not at all relevant to, particularly to babies that are shaken, right, because they're non-ambulatory. So this is just, you know, if you see those kind of things, if you see like emerging science that debunks abusive head trauma, to the best of my knowledge, that's not real. It's just the same, as I said,

like Mike Hicks and Baugh in his reporting, he links to the Plunkett study saying that same thing. Diane Neary, when she was interviewing Matthew Torbenson, she mentions a study that is clearly the Plunkett study. It is one study. It is a single author study that is not be reviewed. It's been completely debunked. And yet the ghost of John Jay Plunkett continues to haunt us all. Yeah, I will say for me, one of the most interesting. parts of this whole season. And I think part of the core of why we did it, because I do think, I remember seeing like a fair bit of questions about why we were going into physical abuse versus medical cases. And I think for me, the connective tissue is really about how we've

stopped believing doctors and specifically child abuse pediatricians. And the amount of expertise that they have all, like so many provided to the show that we talked to and like hearing them, it was so interesting to me. We would talk to child abuse pediatricians from like across the country and when we were asking them, you know, like, can you describe what does abusive head trauma look like or going through the process of diagnosing that? It was essentially like all in their own words, but the same answer every time. And to me that was like, oh yes, scientific consensus, you know, like as.

Not evidence, not evidence of a collusion and a conspiracy. Which is how it's often presented in these sort of look. They all answer the same way. You know, it's like, well, yes, that's medical consensus. Yeah, I mean, you know, as someone who's had my own, like, medical journeys of stuff, it's like, I find a comfort when I've gone to multiple doctors for maybe a second opinion. And they are saying, like, yes, based of these series of symptoms and these scans, we can diagnose you through this, this and this. You know, like, to me, that means great.

You all went to medical school. You all got the amount of information that we need to get through this. And then it's like, everyone will have their own version of what's, like, your best method of treatment, what's going to work best for you in your schedule. And like, that's where you can have some nuance on different conversations with, with doctors, you know, not specifically about abusive head trauma, but that's like, you know, the main differences of approaches of doctors is like, what are the guidelines for treatment and what series of those guidelines do you follow and when do you follow them, etc., etc. Yeah, just like to me, it really is about science communication and how do we make something that

is getting spun out of control in other media narratives around how we should have a distrust of doctors and how do we rebuild that. As someone who's worked in communications and in journalism for like well over a decade now, I think that is something the scientific community struggles with, right? Like I'm a big maintenance phase fan. You know, like there's all these different platforms, which, you know, like not every platform gets everything right, but I appreciate how much research they put into their shows and, you know, not to put a astric caveat there. Where I'm going is when studies come out, there's like the headline of the study, right? Like, we've all seen it on the news. It's like the news is telling you the scientists tell you you should drink

red wine. Now they're telling you not to drink red wine or you should eat dark chocolate or don't eat dark chocolate. There's like these studies that come out and the studies often get spun into just these headlines rather than the nuance of the conversation. So to this person's question of like there might be new science, but did you read the study of the new science? And when was this new science actually put out? Is it actually new? Or did someone put out a press release to get someone to talk about this particular study at some point. And like, is it limited to the population where it was actually done? Like, we were talking about a study where we're prepping for the next season and we were talking about a scientific study about a particular disorder and how, like, essentially because they

did a big survey of college students, it really skewed the data in one particular way, but it was because of the age range. So it's like you have to be able to read into what these studies are actually saying beyond just the headline, right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think I want to be really clear about where I put the onus for all of that. And it is on journalists. Yes, the communicators, right?

Because I don't blame people for having a lot of misunderstanding about abusive head trauma. That has been engineered. I don't exactly want to call it propaganda because that just sort of feels like the wrong word. But, I mean, it is this bizarre narrative. It's like all these different, whether it's Lester Holt or John Grisham or Dianery or Mike Hicks and Boggs. It's like I don't quite understand how they are looking at the same materials that I am. And you're looking at this massive thorough consensus document from the American Academy of Pediatrics that had radiologists and child abuse pediatricians. I'm just really like all of the doctor subspecialties that you would want.

disciplinary, yes. And your disciplinary, rigorous, peer-reviewed, extensive. It's like, that's what you want. And, like, how you can look at that document and you could be like, but what about this one single author story from a guy who, like, I mean, reading John J. Plunkett's court testimony, I mean, this is a man who has said that he does not believe that shaking a baby can harm or kill that baby. That's wild. That's a wild thing to say. So it's like, why you would lean towards that one. two-page set versus this other consensus document, that makes no sense to me unless you are trying to backfill some kind of narrative. And I think the media unfortunately does that a lot in a lot of cases, right? Not just not specific to this. And also I think like with the medical stuff, I think I've thought a lot about because these are this legislation that's in these various states that we're going to talk some more about on the show has been referred to as the second

opinion legislation. And that's the sort of sanewashing of all this is be like, well, we just want a second opinion. What's wrong with a second opinion? Well, nothing exactly, except what they mean by second opinion is we want to be empowered to find a quack, and I'm defining quack as someone who is far outside the medical consensus, just to be, you know, and is making their money from doing expert defense work. If we can find a quack to say that this is not abuse, then that should count against all of the other doctors. And that's not a world I want to live in. From all of our reporting and all the conversations we had with caps, they are the second opinion, almost always. Yes. Yes. So it's,

It's usually... I've never heard of a system where a cap is the first doctor to evaluate and diagnose. They're only brought in if there's a suspicion of abuse. Correct. So it means another doctor has said, this looks weird. I want a second opinion. So then they bring in the cap, who then is also usually also consulting with radiology, consulting with ortho, consulting with...

Geneticist. Yeah. All the people that they say they want. Yeah. I feel like people should be actually yelling from the rooftops that they want caps in their hospitals because I think that's actually how you get the interdisciplinary work to get rid of misdiagnoses. The one story we did share in the series of a family that was falsely accused from Dr. Jill Glick. She talked about how an attorney, I believe an attorney friend of hers reached out and was

like, I have this family. They are about to get deported because they've been accused of abusing their child. So she came in and looked at all the records and did an additional series of like, you know, she tells the story of how she essentially goes through and finds that the child did have a rare disorder that had been overlooked. And that family then didn't get deported and got to keep custody of their child. And so, yeah, it's just mind-boggling to me that you wouldn't want the person who has the most expertise on something like this in the same way that like, I don't know, like if any other kind of weird crime occurred in your household, you'd probably want the person who's the most familiar with how to solve those types of crimes. You know, I had a good friend who worked for years as like a fingerprint specialist for the LAPD. And she's so good at talking about how it's like a very imperfect science. And this is how this has to work. And like a lot of times going on the stand, sometimes lawyers wouldn't like her because she often would have to be like, well, it's likely, but I can't tell you with 100% certainty. And like there's all of these ways that. And all of the caps have discussed that

dynamic with them that sometimes like law enforcement or CPS are frustrated that they can't be more certain. And I think that like, and it's not because those people are like out to get the parents. You know, I think it's because we all want to be certain. If there's a suspicion that a child has been harmed by an adult and decisions have to be made about where that adult goes, we all want 100% certainty. And that is often not possible. And I will say that like in the cases, like so many of these media stories have presented these as like, oh, there's just these cases we're in a gray area. Well, we have heard over and over and over again from all child welfare professionals we've talked to, not just caps, is that those cases get dropped. And it's often to the frustration of many people involved because, like,

they don't know what happened to the child, but it's like those cases do not make it onto a prosecutor's desk. They do not make it to the stage of child removal. Most CPS involvement does not end with the removal of the child. Correct. Yeah. And I mean, Matthew Torbenson, the DA who spoke to us, He was very clear on like if there is, if he can't prove it from a shadow of a doubt, then he wouldn't be taking it to court. That's his job is to prove that. And so I'm not saying that our justice system is perfect. I wanted to read a fun email because I think one of the things that I really love about this show is that it casts a wide net in terms of location, cultural affiliations, political affiliations.

And I think although those of us who work on the show are all probably like pretty, I think, like politically aligned more or less. We recognize that our listeners are all over the place and come from all different kinds of backgrounds and, you know, faith or not faith. And like, we love that. Like, that is one of my favorite things about the show. Getting to go around the country and meet people in different parts of the country who are not just like in my Seattle area, you know, coastal bubble is one. And so I just wanted to share this email because it was very fun. So it says, hi, Andrea Antim. I don't think I've ever emailed message or commented on anything in my life, but I cannot resist. I just got through episode one of your new season. I have listened to every minute of the subscriber feed up to this point, and I am literally cheering while cooking dinner. I'm a fourth generation Texas educator who worked in the field for 15 years as a teacher and administrator and am now teaching in a master's program for practicing educators. I am also an evangelical Christian who feels that political alignment weakens the good news of the gospel instead of. strengthens it. I know that you say people being reactive or vindictive is a benchmark that gives you

pause when they share their experiences. Between that, my religious beliefs in love and compassion, being a lifelong educator and, of course, being an almost 40-year-old mother of three, I know I shouldn't say this, but I cannot wait for you to rip this guy a new asshole. And I know you will do it with fairness, integrity, and grace, but I cannot wait. That was all caps. Keep up the good and brave fight on behalf of children everywhere. It may not be medical child abuse, but it could be. be curriculum, gender affirming care vaccinations. The list goes on. Keep it up. I know you're not religious, according to your podcast, but I'm praying for you and the team. Yeah. I remember when you forwarded that to us and we're all like, that's very nice to read. Yeah. And it's just like a very good

reminder that genuinely in these very divided times, and I'm not telling anyone that they shouldn't be angry about what's going on. I'm very angry about many things I've been going on. But when you are looking at your fellow citizens, remember that it is a lot more complex than what you are being told online. been my pervasive experience working on the show. 100%. Yeah. Okay, so we have some questions about Take Care of Maya, which we touched down on this season, and probably will never stop talking about at least any time soon.

So these other stories in Take Care of Maya seem so obviously like child abuse. I'm wondering why the filmmakers decided to go with these cases, who in the world is going to believe that someone, quote, accidentally through a phone at their infant? So this is in regards to the Ashley Finnegan and George Gleshinko case. And to the question of what made the filmmakers decide to go with these cases, boy, I wish I knew. We sent multiple requests for comment to Caitlin Keating. I reached out to Story Syndicate. Nobody was willing to answer questions about their process, about what they knew when they were including these stories in terms of the history of domestic violence of John Stewart and Jeremy Graham.

I would love to know. I think it is really telling that the stories they chose really did not seem like marginal cases in the least. I mean, just sort of blaring red flags. We asked ourselves that from the moment we got our first FOIA delivery, like this kind of the second we could open up any additional information that wasn't presented in the documentary, we went, this, this is who you picked? Yeah, it was, it was mind boggling. And to me, I was like, well, if, this is your best options. What were the other options? So I don't know. I don't know if it was just, you know, I have worked in quote unquote, like unscripted in the past. And like typically those things are like a casting call that's put out. That's reality television for those that don't know the humuncleager. And unscripted. It's a classier version. And it's like it's a casting call and some interviews and then a background check. And that's kind of it. And then you're kind of just working on the story that you want to present. Like, if people, I have a lot of friends who are

very into like the Love Islands and all those shows and all that stuff. And it's an interesting process. Yeah, I'm always just like never fall in love with anyone on reality TV because they definitely usually only dig about an inch deep before they're casted. So, and it's changed a lot. You used to not have to do any of that, you know, like. Yeah. I mean, even the psyche valves. The fact that take care of Maya was nominated for a research, an Emmy Award for Research, specifically a real head scratcher. Evidence, marked safe from doing any research. I have a letter drafted to the Academy of Television. Yes, that's how we fight back. Foyer request and strongly worded emails. Strongly worded emails. Polite, but strongly worded emails. Okay, so another

question. I'm sure this has been asked and answered previously, but did Beata have any Munchausen by proxy symptoms? So was there any evidence of abuse before the onset of the CR. quote CRPS symptoms started. It seems impossible that she would have gone from zero to 100 in a matter of days and weeks. The answer to that question is yes. There were many suspicious things that went much further back than the CRPS diagnosis. And there were things that predated their move to Florida. It was really the asthma diagnosis that she started with and all these breathing issues. She also had, there was just a bunch of other, like, interesting things that stood out from that more complete picture of the background. There was, you know, she had her tested for cystic fibrosis

twice, you know, which is a serious respiratory condition. It's come up in other cases. It's come up in a number of other Munchausen by proxy cases. Hopiabara, our first case season, was able to manipulate the tests. The first two tests that Hopiabara did came back clear. And then, or sorry, one came back clear, one came back mixed. And then she was messing with the test result with nasal solution and then got the sort of positive result on the third one. She also had her tested for Lyme disease, which if that doesn't stick out to you, stay tuned. You know, in a number of other conditions. So there was a bunch of other sort of, with the lens of what it escalated to, I think there was a whole bunch of other sort of, at very least strange stuff,

not accepting a negative, you know, there was no evidence that that asthma diagnosis was legitimate. So I think that was sort of the precursor to all of this. Yeah. And then I mean, as I always like to point out, seemingly Maya is still alive and is currently working in Hollywood. So yes, that is going back to court potentially next. spring. So the medical malpractice claim is one of the ones that's still in play. So they are going to have to make the case that Johns Hopkins, all children's refusal to give her, you know, a hundred times, you know, the dose of recommended ketamine hurt her so badly that she now is going to suffer lifelong CRPS symptoms. It's a pretty convoluted argument. So it'll be interesting to see

them try to make that without the whole sort of whole, whole dramatic story of it. So this is a comment about Viviana Graham's case. And by the way, just to mention, we reached out to Viviana Graham for comment. She said she was not interested. We reached out to all of the parents that we covered this season and the majority of them we just did not hear back from, but we made several attempts to get in touch. So this commenter said, I think I need a psychiatrist or 30 to connect all the dots for me between the Viviana Graham who officially reports concerns about her husband's potential for hurting their son to the Viviana Graham of a few weeks later who throws the full weight. of her support behind him in denying his abuse of their son. Yeah. I mean, I think we just released recently the interview with Dr. Campbell, who I think is like, does a much better job. I think it's talking about. Domestic violence expert.

Uh-huh. I think it's hard when you are someone who loves someone and has probably also been under abusive patterns of behaviors and then not to excuse Viviana's defense of of her now ex-husband, but I don't know, I hold a lot of empathy for, I mean, everyone we cover at all times because these are not, no one ever wants to be in this situation, right? But I think, yeah, it's a tough thing to square, I think. And especially when you hear the, essentially the flip side of what could be possible with our mother in the 10th episode. Yeah, and I think we all walked away from this season with just a lot of admiration for parents

that do act protectively of their child when their co-parent and spouse is the abuser. I think that is a really difficult thing to do. And I think we also, like frequently are in situations where we hold that someone can be a victim and a perpetrator. And so I think, like, you can bear both of those and you can have empathy for what maybe created the circumstances where someone became a perpetrator. Same thing with John, you know, he had a reported history of abuse from stepfathers and had been through some other things in his life that affected his mental health and maybe his reactivity. And we can be, you know, we can have like human empathy for those things. And it, and also like, acknowledge the harm he's caused. And I think the same thing with Viviana Graham, right?

She was obviously, you know, well documented that she was a victim of violence by her husband. And also she made choices of whether or not to protect her children. And I did find it ironic that when she did not want to speak to me about her story, she requested that I received. respects her family's privacy. There's a bit of irony to that for someone who spent 10 years speaking to the media to disparage a child abuse doctor and spread pretty harmful misinformation about abusive head trauma. So she has also done harm and we can acknowledge both. Yes, no, totally. And like in meetings and stuff, you know, I would reflect that I have family members who went through pretty horrific abuse in their life and ended up on the other

side not also being abusive in their lives. Right. And so there's work to be done. done to break those patterns of behavior. So I recognize the work that has to be done there, but that work is so possible that it is so frustrating when you see someone make all of the opposite choices. And it's sad for everyone involved. Nobody should believe Meek is produced and hosted by me, Andrea Dunlop. Our editor is Greta Stromquist and our senior producer is Mariah Gossett. Administrative support from Nola Karmouche.