Nobody Should Believe Me - The Lisa Campbell Goins Case with Mike Weber

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

In this episode, Andrea is joined once again by retired detective and medical child abuse expert Mike Weber to discuss a case that closely mirrors patterns we saw in season 6 of the show. The conversation centers on a caregiver who presented a child as chronically and mysteriously ill, resulting in repeated hospitalizations and invasive medical interventions.  Together, Andrea and Mike examine the systemic failures that allowed the abuse to continue despite prior warnings, including gaps in CPS oversight, lack of training, and reluctance to act without a catastrophic trigger.  * * * 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. Hello, it's Andrea, and today we have a familiar and always welcome voice, Detective Mike Weber, who is going to tell us about a case that has some really haunting parallels to our season six case, and not only because both perpetrators are named Lisa, though that is an odd detail. As many of you know, Detective Mike is my co-author on my nonfiction book, The Mother Next Door. He is retired, but still very active, consulting on cases and doing trainings around. the country. We always appreciate hearing from him. The team and I are currently hard at work on season seven, and before that, we've got some incredible case files episodes coming up, including a

conversation with probably my most requested guest ever. Truly, a big full circle moment for Nobody Should Believe Me. We also have some exciting news to share, which is that Nobody Should Believe Me has been nominated for an Ambie Award for Best True Crime Podcast. I am super honored to be nominated by the podcast Academy because these are my peers and it's really special to be recognized by them. As always, if you want more, Nobody Should Believe Me, you can subscribe on Apple or Patreon for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, and binge drops of the new season. That's the best way to support the show. And if monetary support is not an option, rating, reviewing, and telling friends about the show are all great ways to help us out.

And a reminder that if you have questions or want to share feedback, the best way to get in touch is by reaching out at hello at nobodyshould believe me.com. I know things are really intense out there right now, and I hope you're finding comfort and community with one another wherever you are. Thank you for being part of this community and showing up here each week. I appreciate you. We'll be right back with my conversation with Detective Mike Weber. Fiscally responsible, financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds.

Because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full. owning a home and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help when you need it so your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates, potential savings will vary, not available in all states or situations. Hey, it's Andrea.

It's come to my attention that some of you have been served programmatic ads for ICE on my show. Now, podcasters don't get a lot of control over which individual ads play and for whom on shows, but please know that we are trying everything we can to get rid of these by tightening our filters. And if you do continue to hear them, please do let us know. In the meantime, I want it to be known that I do not support ICE. I am the daughter of an immigrant. I stand with immigrants. Immigrants make this country great. Hi, Mike. Thank you so much for joining us yet again. You have a really interesting case to tell us about today. But for those listeners who have somehow not met you yet. Can you tell us who you are and what you do? Sure. My name is Mike Weber.

I'm a retired but still a reserve police detective from Tarrant County Sheriff's Office in Fort Worth, Texas. Fantastic. And you are nationally renowned law enforcement expert on my husband by proxy cases. So today we're talking about a case that is a more recent case of yours that has some very strong parallels to the Lisa McDaniel case. We have two perpetrators called Lisa that we're talking about today, but part of the reason this really struck me is, you know, we have this case that we covered in our last full season, the Lisa McDaniel case, where this was an instance of a perpetrator who had been previously criminally convicted for medical child abuse, had served a very light sentence, got custody of her children back, abused a second child who died in her care, and then,

now unfortunately lives with her original victim, Angelin, and her two babies. And obviously, that situation is incredibly dangerous and concerning. And we have another case today that we're talking about that really has some strong generational patterns and is really striking in the amount of time that this has been permitted to go on. And so, yeah, can you just tell us about, first of all, explain. So our perpetrator that we're talking about is Lisa Campbell Goins. Can you explain who she is and just give us kind of the who's who in this family to begin with? Yeah, Lisa is. She's now 57-year-old grandmother and obviously mother also. And she lives out near Brownwood, Texas, which is about two-hour drive southwest from Fort Worth.

And at the time I started my investigation, she was the caregiver for her granddaughter, and it was her son's daughter. So she's the paternal grandmother of the victim? The paternal grandmother of the victim. And both the victim's parents had narcotic-related problems, which calls them not to be able to care for the child. So Lisa took over what age was the child when Lisa took a sort of primary caretaking role, if not official custody?

Like right around a year old. And at the time I started my investigation, the little girl was seven. So for the majority of her life, Lisa had been her primary caretaker. And so the child was living with, was living exclusively with her. her grandparents. And it sounds like the husband Lance was not as present in the home. No, he was an oil field worker. And if you know anything about oil field workers, he could be gone to Louisiana. He could be gone to New Mexico. He could be out on the Permian Basin for two, three weeks at a time, come home for a weekend, maybe four or five

days, and then he's back out again. So what do we know about this child's health history by the time that you got involved? Well, I became involved. Interestingly enough, Lisa's husband's relatives became concerned. The little girl had had a medical event. She was care flighted to Cook's Children's Hospital, and she was found to have eschemia in her colon, which is dead tissue in her colon,

and was in really, really, really critical shape. She had to be revived a couple of times on the lawn outside the house. And that was in August of 2003 when she was brought in. I did not become involved until January of 2004. When a family member walked into Cook's Children's Hospital, just into the ER, she was up on the main floor. A family member walked into the ER, grabbed the social work and said, hey, have a relative

here. You all need to know that we believe she's poisoning this child through the feeding tube to cause the issues that this child has. And what sort of issues was the child having, obviously you're describing, you know, like they were having, that she was having a medical crisis that brought her in for that August hospitalization. But what kind of, you know, she said she had a feeding tube. Like what kind of persistent issues was the kiddo having? So from August of 2023 till January of 2024, she was inpatient at Cook's Children's the whole time. She had never left the hospital. She kept, she would get better and then regressed. and get better and then regress, and regress by mom's reports. And mom was only allowing like five milliliters a feed through the feeding tube. And sorry, you're saying mom, but it's grandmother, right?

Sorry, yes. That's okay. That's okay. I'll probably do that a lot. It is grandmother. Grandmother was only allowing five millimeters through the feeding tube. She wouldn't allow doctors to go any further. She said she couldn't take it, whatever.

Good old Benadryl rears its ugly head again. She was apparently at the hospital, a parent can request certain drugs that are over the counter to give to the child. Well, she was requesting a ton of Benadryl, a ton of menito melatonin. So anyway, that family member walked in in January and reported, we think she's being poisoned. And that initiated a report to the care team. They reported to me. And that initiated the entire investigation.

And, you know, my initial steps were contact those family members. And when I contacted that family member, she's like, well, it's actually her mother-in-law who has all the information. So I contact the mother-in-law, and they were at her house whenever she was careful to Cook's Children's in August. And interestingly enough, she became concerned and took her while for her to wrap her head around everything. But that night, Lisa had come to her and said, hey, you know, and my daughter's, I think

something's wrong with her. She went and looked and her eyes were fixed, and she was obviously in pain. and they immediately called for the ambulance service. And they went out, she was care flighted to Cook's Children's. By the way, I think her third or fourth helicopter trip, again, the attention-seeking aspect. But this time, it was truly needed. The other times when I talked to medics that said it really wasn't needed. So, and I think people, yeah, sort of this is something we've heard about in cases where this happened in the Mary Welch case, right?

Where sometimes, obviously most of the time if a child is traveling by helicopter, they need to be. but there are instances where if a parent is being very insistent that the child needs to be transported by helicopter, people will do that, which seems a bit wild, but we certainly have seen that in cases before. Yeah, and the medics made clear to me that every other time before this, that had been the case. And this time, there was absolutely something wrong with her. But whenever the mother-in-law went back into the bedroom, she noticed there was a bottle of fingernail polish remover in the bedroom. And the thing about Lisa is Lisa didn't wear fingernail polish. And the 7-year-old didn't have fingernail polish. There was no reason to have fingernail polish in the room.

And that kind of stuck with her. And then, you know, when you see it, when I talk to the GIs, they're like, well, that matches this injury pattern that we're seeing that we have no other medical explanation for. You know, we've checked her for all the diseases that could cause this. She doesn't have any of them. and there's no reason for the therapy that we've given her for her not to improve. And yet mom is reporting she's not improving. Yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, this is a case, again, that has a lot of parallels of what we've seen in other cases. So you have, you know, a child with a mystery illness that is not responding to the treatments, as the doctors would expect. And is having feeding issues. So there was a feeding tube, and it looks like at one point the child was on intravenous nutrition. So really these just, I would say, extremely classic things. Looks like there were some fake seizures or perhaps induced seizures. And so this is something that is following, I would say, like a pretty typical pattern. Before the outcry from this family member, do you know was there any sort of?

suspicion from doctors about abuse, or were they just sort of treating this as a mystery case? They were treating it as a mystery case. I think they were getting to the point. I think the nurses had a lot of concerns. She also had the victim in a posy bed. If you don't know what a posy bed is in a hospital, it's a tent-like structure on top of the bed that only opens from the outside. So she had her contained in that, and she would leave her in there all day, and she would use it as a punishment. Also, if she got her out and she started acting up, she would use it as a punishment. Nurses saw no need for her to be in the bed. It was actually removed once, and then grandma griped about it so much, she got to put back in the room, got someone

to put up probably a hospitalist who didn't know the situation, got it put back in the room. The good thing about this is I did go to the hospital and I did confront her. I did not get a confession, unfortunately. Yes, so if you can take us kind of back through your investigation. So you speak to the relative that had seen the nail polish remover and was, sounds like putting some pieces together. And so, yeah, then what's your next step in your investigation? Well, my next step was they told me what our social media accounts were immediately.

Yeah, I go on there. I preserve those immediately. That's always the next step. And law enforcement, if you listen, that's what you do first in these cases. And the good thing about this case was CPS wasn't involved at this point. And I wanted to respond to the hospital before they became involved. And so that's what I did. She had left the hospital the day I got this and the day I talked to the people.

And so I told the nurse, give me a call when she comes back. If she comes back this evening, she came back around 5.30. Me and another detective responded to the hospital. I pulled her into a side room. That detective searched the hospital room while we were in the side room. Again, there's no expectation of privacy in the room itself. He did not search her belongings because she has expectation of privacy in her purse and her suitcase and her whatever. She doesn't have any expectation of privacy in the room itself.

He can search under cushions and bedding, whatever. And while I'm interviewing her, he texts me and says, hey, there's two bottles of mean green degreaser in this room, which is, again, alkaline substance, which we suspect it could cause the symptoms in the victim. Is that like a household? I'm like, you can tell I don't do it. I don't do any degreasing in my household. So is that like?

It's an alkaline degrecer. Okay. So something to just remove grease, so not something that you would expect to find in a hospital room particularly. Right. And her excuse for it was, well, I have that for my husband's laundry. Well, she never did her husband's laundry in the hospital. So why is it in the hospital room? they do have laundry machines there.

I did talk to nurses. And they're like, yeah, but she's never, her husband, no, she doesn't do that with her husband's clothes here. She only does the child's clothes. So anyway. Now, Mike, I just want to, I want to pause for a second because you said that luckily CPS wasn't involved yet. So why do you say luckily? Well, it just gave me the opportunity to have them involved when I wanted them involved. Okay.

So it gave me the opportunity to get her back to the hospital interviewer. when we got to the hospital and I interviewed her, we contacted CPS at that point. The other good thing about this, about CPS not being involved previously, they were involved previously, which we'll get to, but they weren't involved in her getting custody. It was just her daughter just gave her to her. So the good thing about that is she had no legal custody of this child. So the CPS liaison for Cook's children's, God bless you, Robin, walked in and said, get out of my hospital because she had no legal right to be there with the child.

So it was very easy for us to get a separation test on this child because she had no legal right to the child. So you don't have to go to the court and get a separation order and get an emergency removal. And that whole thing, you can just say leave. Leave. Get out. You have, yeah. All she had was a piece of papers, like a notebook piece of paper signed by her daughter-in-law. Okay. So her daughter-in-law had signed.

So the parents had signed like a notarized. piece of paper, but that's not not even not even. Oh, it wasn't even. So it's just like a piece of paper that says you have custody or child. Okay. So not very official. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. And so she was kicked out of the hospital that night. And what we saw was immediate improvement.

Immediate improvement. The posy bed was removed. She was in the covert video room, but we really didn't capture anything on film. That was, I mean, there was some disturbing, you know, it was almost like she was arguing with an adult again. you know, instead of treating her like a child, the seven-year-old like a child.

And this girl did have learning disabilities for sure because she'd never been in school. She was, quote, homeschooled, end quote. And was, you know, told to Lisa by everyone in that community that she was disabled. Do you know what I'm wearing right now? A beautiful cashmere hoodie from Quince. Do you know what I got my mom

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Quince.com slash believe. And remember that shopping our sponsors is a great way to support the show. On June 11, 1998, a deputy from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department went missing. Hey, if they don't kill a cop and bury them, what are they going to do to me? What really happened to the missing deputy? Valley of Shadows, a new series from Pushkin Industries about crime and corruption in California's high desert. Listen to Valley of Shadows wherever you get your podcasts. I wanted to ask about the video surveillance and the posy bed because, yes, again, for those that don't know, this is a bed that has restraints. So presumably for people who are having some kind of, you know, regular outbursts where they get harm themselves, like that kind of thing.

Or seizures where they roll off the bed or something. I assume that's what those are really for. But it really appears that she was using, that Lisa was using this posy bed as honestly a torture device. You know, sort of psychological torture voice. Certainly an abusive device. Yeah. And I mean, I'm going to weigh in as a parent and say that's not an appropriate way to discipline your child. I'll weigh in as a law enforcement official and say that's illegal.

Yeah. So can you talk about what the video surveillance captured with this moment where, as you said, they had gotten rid of the posy bed and then Lisa pressured someone to bring it back in? And can you talk about the reactions of Lisa and the victim? Yeah. So it had been taken out that day. And then Lisa conned someone into getting it brought back in. As it's coming in the door, Lisa's, the victim's on her lap. And Lisa's like, yay.

And the victim's like, oh, shaking her head violently, no. Like, she does not want to go on that bed, which is great evidence for me. Lisa, it sounds like had told staff, oh, she likes to be in there. This is her happy place. sort of indicated that that was where her granddaughter felt safe. So that's pretty compelling. And staff knew that was a lie. Yeah. And the nurses all knew that was a lie. And they would have testified to such. And so from that point, you know, we separate her at the hospital. I've got a lot of work to do. I'm not going to arrest her at that point. I go back and I start talking to her, again, her family again.

Her husband has a son that she came into his life about middle school age. And she has done this to him. with a psychological presentation, probably because he was a bit stronger-willed. Well, he was older, right, when she came in. So he had a baseline for medical health. But she would say that he had all these ADHD behaviors and get medication. And I interviewed him, and he always thought that she was doing it, you know, because she was a former drug addict. And she did have drug convictions and that she was doing it as a pill seeker.

He didn't get the connection to much. child's in by proxy. And then, you know, I started digging back into her history and I find a CPS report from 1999 where she had actually done this to her own son, a different son than the one who has this child. And she had done this to her own son in 2001, 2000, 2001. And she had been ruled reason to believe by CPS. But of course, just like we saw with Lisa McDaniel, She's ordered to take parenting classes. Okay, everyone out there, if you're CPS listening to this, parenting classes will have zero effect on this behavior.

It is compulsive, it is intentional. They know what they're doing. They know what's wrong. They're not going to stop because they go to a parenting class. So, of course, now I want to talk to that dad. And so I hunt him down and get him on the phone. And, yeah, he tells me that she's never seen that child since she was reason to believe they weren't together when it happened.

He got custody of the child, but the child is really, as an adult now at age 30, is really messed up and is in a state mental hospital, as you could imagine, for the abuse that he suffered. And he told me it was the same thing,

same thing she was doing with this victim, presenting seizure disorders and presenting gastric issues and that child. And then I would later, once she was arrested, I would come across, I would be contacted by,

a lady who was babysat by Lisa. She was the same age as that child that she had previously offended against and babysit at the same time when she watched Lisa take a pill and mix it, you know, open up a capsule, mix it into boys' food and tell her, don't tell anyone.

And that was when she was eight years old. And the one thing I hope people get out, these offenders who do this, who induce symptoms, they do not stop. They are compulsory. and they do not stop their behavior. I mean, what, we're 25 years down the line and she's still doing it? I mean, come on.

And she's done it now to three kids she's had access to. Honestly, like, and that we know of, right? I mean, I think that's always the, you know, these things take so long to come to light often. And they're so dramatic. They usually take some extremely dramatic. to come to light. And I think, you know, this one, of course, makes me think of Lisa McDaniel. It's a very similar timeline, very similar outcomes. Fortunately, you know, this person has now been stopped. That is kind of the big, big market

difference. But it also reminds me of, um, Benadryl poisoning. Yeah, the Jessica Jones case where, you know, again, same, you know, same weapon of choice with Benadryl and the, and, I mean, fake seizure disorders. Seasures no one else sees, seizures that end up, you know, being able to be traced back to a medication like Benadryl ubiquitous in these cases, so common. And that was a case where even while she was being investigated for this, she managed to get access to and poison two additional children. And it really is such a compulsive behavior. And, you know, I think I'm feeling this way, and I'm sure many listeners of this show,

the idea of being given parenting classes as a remedy for munchausen by proxy abuse, just makes me want to put my head through a while. Now, there is one other thing I do want to say, even though she was given custody of several things, even though she was given custody by her daughter, CPS did become involved with her in 2018 because of another case her daughter had on a different child. Her daughter-in-law, yeah.

Her daughter-in-law had on a different child. So CPS noted in that case, they noted her history. They noticed she was reason to believe for medical child abuse, but they didn't separate her, from her grandchild. And I know why they didn't, and I don't blame the worker. They didn't separate her because they need to be able to show an immediate threat. And because Texas CPS provides no training to their investigators on this, they have no policies on this abuse, they don't,

or their attorneys, they don't know how to articulate that to a judge that someone who has done this is an immediate threat to any child in their presence. And they don't know how to, and they don't know how to articulate that. And that is a Texas CPS issue. I've given them Arizona's policies on four different occasions. They won't do anything. That's an administrative issue that's not a, that's not a CPS investigator issue. That is on their administration in Austin. Yeah, well, and I think we have a similar issue in the Lisa McDaniel case, which is that, like, yes, she has, you know, and more than a, more than a designation of abuse, she has a criminal conviction for very serious life-threatening, And there's been no investigation by law enforcement into Collins' death.

And, you know, even more urgently, she is living with a, you know, a vulnerable adult and two vulnerable babies. And, you know, to our knowledge, D.FACS has done nothing. And for the record, law enforcement has also done nothing. And I've attempted to reach out. I have had conversations with Birmingham PD. I've had conversations with the Alabama Bureau of Investigations. I even contacted the Alabama Attorney General's cold case unit. None of them seem to care about this situation, whether it's through a lack of understanding,

you know, I've told them I'm a resource. None of them will even reach out to Michelle or you to get the information, which is evidence that you all have. I don't understand it. It's very frustrating. I mean, I think there have been high-profile moves in both Texas and Georgia. in the other direction to prevent these alleged false allegations that are happening. So I, you know, humans are humans and act in their self-interest. And to say these cases are a headache is an understatement. So I think we can probably assume that. It's extremely

disappointing. I wish people behave differently, but I am not. Well, and it's just so dependent on the human that you talk to in Kent County, Michigan. where they suspected mom of killing two of her children, and they reached out to me. And all I did was give them a path. They did all the work, and they did a fantastic job. And they got a confession from her. She presented both of her kids with a rare respiratory disorder,

and they got a confession from her for killing both kids. Amazing what you do when you actually, you can do when you actually investigate something. Alabama, Georgia. No, I share your frustration, to say the least. So this was another case where, like, I think, wall cases in the modern era, where there was quite a lot of social media activity

and also some fundraising. So can you talk about what you discovered about Lisa Campbell Goines' online presence in your investigation? Yes, she had a Facebook where she was posting about, again, the typical stuff we see, about the victim in the hospital continually all the time. and she had conned a good-hearted friend into opening up a go-fund me for her. You know, it was nominal the amount of money she raised. It wasn't a great amount. But that allows me to file a charge on her for child exploitation also.

And then, you know, and I think having read the posts that you excerpted in your affidavit, which, you know, I wish all detectives would write their affidavits just like you do. But very detailed. You just hate me. You know, well, you know what? They're trying to read things. Oh, no. If you don't like reading core documentation, you shouldn't be involved in the legal system.

Anyway, you know, it was really the typical stuff, asking for lots of prayers, asking for money, talking about all of this mystery child. There was the intimation that she had Crohn's disease or they couldn't figure out what's wrong with her. Right. Which was she didn't have. Right. Lots of pictures of the child in medical settings. and just, you know, distressing stuff. And again, I just really encourage everyone.

You know, I think a good takeaway from this case, right, is like, if you see something, say something. If it does take someone walking into an ER and saying, hey, I'm worried this child's life is in danger because of what I've seen, then that's worth doing. And you never know if your report is going to be the first report or if it's the 11th or if it's the 11th or if it's one small piece of the puzzle and it doesn't get acted on right away. Like, it all still matters to an investigation like this, doesn't that? Right. And for cops and CPS out there, you know, yeah, it's going to sound crazy. You know what? You investigate it until you can determine whether it's crazy or whether you are dealing with a crazy person or you're dealing with a series of events that to you seem crazy, but are actually occurring. Yeah. And what, what, I mean,

Just to, you know, we know about, obviously, the Benadryl. This child was subjected to a number of unnecessary surgeries. As we mentioned, you know, kind of the ones that we see a lot, the feeding tube, the TPN, all the nutrition stuff. What about medications? It looks like they had, she came in with a very lengthy list of pretty heavy hitting medications. And psych medications, too. Yeah, so Clonidine, Larazepam, Klanazepam, yeah, Syracul. McLaughin.

All of those. And amazingly, of course, she was even on methadone and had to be weaned off. Now, was the argument for methadone because her biological mother had, was an addict? I don't think it was for pain. Oh, I didn't realize they gave methadone for pain. Okay. It's in the documentation. And it looks like she had maybe a family friend who was prescribing some of these medications.

Is that right? Yeah, well, she had a relative who was a doctor who she said would, and of course when I contacted him, he was extremely defensive of her. I didn't care. I didn't. I had like about a 10 minute conversation with him and that was done. Just enough to let him on a recording demonstrate how bias he was. And, you know, and he was blaming the doctors. I'm like, well, she's, you know, this is an induction case. I don't know why you're blaming doctors for induced symptoms. Yeah, a doctor did not put nail polish remover in this child's life. Right. And the interesting thing was, once I got her arrested, and again, I encourage everyone get media on these cases. You'll get additional witnesses. I not only got the additional witness, you know, from the 1999 case where she was in daycare with Lisa, but I also had a lady called me.

She actually transported, she was very close with Lisa, and it transported her and the victim to Cook's Children's time that the victim got the gastric feeding tube placed. And she said she was around them all the time. There's two reasons the feeding tube was placed. One reason given was for medication. And then Lisa was also pushing that the victim couldn't eat. Well, she told me all the time she was around them, she never saw the victim have a problem eating. And as a matter of fact, on the way the hospital, they stopped at McDonald's and she ate a happy meal. And she also never saw her, saw the victim have any problems taking medication. Oh, and family member, had also told me that from the time she was very little, like from the time Lisa first got her,

she was giving her a melatonin and Benadryl at a year old, which, and they didn't know there was anything wrong with it. Yeah. So tell us about your interactions with Lisa herself. You know, I only had, I had two interactions with her. It was very clear she was not going to admit to anything. I had one interaction at the hospital, and then I interviewed her again when I went out and served a search warrant at her house. You know, we had tried to test the Mean Green through a presumptive test that kind of showed it may have had this rat poisoning in it. That presumptive test ended up being wrong, but at the time it was enough for me to get

a search warrant for our house. And, of course, we did find rat poisoning in our house. But we sent the Ming Green off to the FBI lab, and it did not come back with rat poisoning in it. But I interviewed her out there. And that's where I served the search one on her for her cell phone that she gave me. And she had recorded videos on her, showed me videos on her cell phone, probably from her Facebook account.

And what did the videos show? You know, like she was trying to prove to me that the victim had symptoms. And they were inconsequential. So this is kind of like in the Sophie Harmon case where she's showing all these videos of the child having a quote episode. episode right right yeah and and the child's just sitting there and again in those situations you never even know if the child's drugged or not you know um so yeah and you know we searched her her house didn't really find anything of consequence which i really didn't expect to other than

the rat poison and uh and then the cell phone um and was rap poison was rat poison one of the suspected substances well that was the that was what tested in the presumptuble in the mean green. Later on. What is presumptive mean? It's a test that the fire department had that could test for chemicals. That could test for certain things. But it's not a lab approved test.

It's not evidentiary at all. But it gave me enough probable calls to get a search warrant to see if she had any rat poison in our house. That ended up being just a complete non-issue in the case because we sent it off to the FBI lab, the mean green, and there was no rat poisoning in it. So it was just a false presumptive. Still kind of weird. So, yeah. So when you spoke to her, did she, how did she sort of present?

Did she, was she maintaining her innocence? Oh, yeah. All about her admissions. Okay. Yeah. Even when I hit her with the whole thing about the previous incident, you know, she's like, oh, I took a test and I didn't have much housing by proxy. Oh, okay, because we all know that's how that works.

You know, and. Right. Yes. Famously, Lisa McDaniel, all. also did some psych testing where it showed that she did not have much housing by proxy and she poisoned her daughter nonetheless. So that's goes back to the hammer we're hitting about this not being a psychological diagnosis. Anyway, just carry on. Well, I mean, and again, I always say I'm fine with it being a psych diagnosis because pedophilia is,

but we don't give pedophiles these tests for a reason because pedophiles lie. And these offenders lie way more, and they're going to lie to protect their self-interest. Anyway, so, I mean, from that point, nothing really comes to the search warrant of value. And then I just continued to talk to people. It was a very long investigation to get all the medical records. This child had been all over Central Texas to all these different facilities. And, you know, Dr. Kaufman, as you know, is extremely thorough. And so we collected all of these medical records. There was no rush on this because she had no access to the child so we could take our time. You know, the child was safe. And CPS ended up placing the child with her maternal grandmother, which we thought would be a good placement,

more on that later. And in her maternal grandmother's care, she blossomed. She, like, she left the hospital with the G-tube still in, but maternal grandmother used it only twice afterwards. She could eat by mouth. She had no problems eating by mouth. She had to teach. To teach, her because food freak her out. She thought she had been taught she was going to throw up if she ate. And who knows what Lisa was given her, right? Because, you know, we'll know she'll she induces symptoms. So, you know, you go through this investigation and then how does, you know, what, what ultimately leads up to her arrest? Yeah. So we go through this investigation. I'm interviewing a bunch of people. We're getting medical records from all over central Texas. Have multiple interviews with the

GI doctors. And it comes down, Dr. Koppel and finally in December of 2024, very fortuitously, because I'm retiring in January of 2025. She has enough information and she provides the affidavit for medical child abuse. And I arrest Lisa for three counts. Indridged a child serious bodily injury for the gastric feeding tube, a placement, child exploitation for the fundraising that for the injuries she calls and for the posy bed unlawful restraint there you go is what I arrest her for all of those are felonies and and then I forwarded on to

the DA's office and as we know our DA's office does not have the best record on these cases but they actually added another charge for the poisoning which I did not I did not add I was going to go with the others just because I felt there was better evidence there. Again, we got tons of people calling afterwards saying, yeah, you know, I always had questions about this. It's so funny. One of the people who called me said, yeah, you know, me and my friend discussed whether she was committing my child by proxy or not. And it's like, people, come on, if you suspect, report. We want to give so much leeway with people when they're raising children. Well, and I think that that's really it, Mike, too, isn't it?

Like, I wonder what this case, we're talking about it in plain language, but, you know, if this went through the Mike Hicks and Bogg machine, you know, or the Diannery machine, this could easily be presented as some wrongfully accused mom with all the same evidence. And I think there's just such as, there's this idea, you know, with these cases that they're so murky and they're so uncertain and all, like, as. though all these things are unknowable and they're not unknowable. And the reality is by the time this is ever caught, it's almost always blazingly obvious to many people that something's wrong. Right. Right. Well, and so that was in early January, at January 1st or 2nd, 3rd, somewhere around there, she got arrested. Of 2025. Okay. 2025. And then earlier, this month, to their credit, the Terrant County DA's office reached out to me, and they were considering

a plea deal for her. And they had offered her 30 years, and her attorney had come back with a counteroffer of 20. And you have to keep in mind, she is 57 years old, and these are complicated cases. And she's five, six, and about 300 pounds. So 20 years to her is probably going to be a life sentence, because I'm to be on Vine and Vine can contact me and I'm going to lay, Vine is victim notification. So I always join it on these cases because the kid can't join it. Right. So that's kind of the idea of like whether or not they're going to be released early. On parole. And you'll get, you'll get notification from parole board. You can email them back. You can send them an email telling them why you believe they shouldn't be released. You know, signed up for that. And she accepted

that, she accepted that plea deal. And I do want to give credit to the attorney who actually handle this case. I can't remember her name or else I would because there's pressure at that office not to do things on these cases. And maybe this case was handled different, Andrea, because of your podcast and because of the counterpressure that's out there. Because I think that's the only thing that's going to make these cases be handled differently as long as the current leadership is in place there. Again, there are attorneys there who will do their job. It is a leadership issue at that DA's office. And that doesn't appear to be going away anytime soon. Yeah. Well, and as you said, this is an, this is an unusual case because of the custody

situation and there wasn't, you know, I think. Well, and the DA's office also had a lot to work with because the thing about Texas is that previous CPS, the actions that she did to that child, where she was found reason to believe, all of that would have been admissible in guilt innocence at trial. If the judge followed the law, you always have to throw that caveat in there. It would be admissible at trial, because in Texas,

if any other child abuse is admissible in a child abuse trial, just in layman's terms. So that would have all come in to play in this trial. So she would, you know, all of that evidence of the previous stuff that she had done would have also been immiscible, which would have helped show a pattern.

So they had a lot to work, with in that respect. But it was a difficult case. And she pled guilty to the poisoning. Now, they dismissed the, which I was fine with. They dismissed the other two charges. But she played guilty to injury to a child serious bodily injury,

which is the highest charge. And I'm fine with that. So she is currently in prison? She just checked today. She's still in Tarrant County Jail, awaiting transfer. That's how soon we are. It usually takes about a month to get them transferred out of the jail and into into a Texas Department of Corrections.

So since I've been recent. Okay. Right. Now, would this case have the same outcome if her attorney had said, no, we're going to trial with the Tarrant County DA's office? Good possibility it wouldn't have. I mean, it's a good step in rebuilding trust, but it's a first step. Yeah.

And I think, you know, it's certainly you and I have spent no small amount of time talking about this and certainly my observation of how these cases are treated in the media. is such that, you know, you wonder if this is a mom, if she's sort of like, yeah, sorry. Yeah, I mean, like, if this is a, if this is a sort of lovely presentable middle-aged white mom with a really fancy, with a, with his higher social status and a fancy attorney, is there any chance? Are there getting, she's getting 20 years in prison and I, it seems unlikely. No, she hadn't appointed attorney in Tarrant County. It was court appointed. Now, here's the thing about Tarrant County. That's not, we don't have public defenders. So you go on the wheel and you have to, you know, certain steps to qualify for higher cases on the wheel. And, you know, you can get a good attorney. You can get a bad attorney. Just depends on the spin of that wheel and we're, you know, what you draw. You know, was her attorney up to this? I mean, he's a known attorney here, but I don't know that he's ever really. been known for child abuse cases. Yeah.

I mean, I think it's just, it's sort of fascinating to look at these cases and their different outcomes. And yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it's not to take any credit away from your investigation or, you know, the DA's office doing the right thing or any of those things, which happened in this case and family members came forward. And a lot of people did the right thing to protect this child. And that's, you know, that should be acknowledged. And, you know, the deciding factors of.

of which offenders get a 20-year or plus sentence and which ones get a nice media write-up and maybe a Netflix film and a nice civil case against the doctor are not because of the abuse they subjected their child to and how severe it was, right? Those are not actually determining factors in how these cases sort of get translated to the public imagination. I can tell you that every case that I've had where,

the offender has had a lot of assets. They've walked away, Scott-Free. And usually get custody of their kids back, right? Well, if you walk away, Scott-Free, that's usually what happened. Yeah, right. Yeah. So people should, I know there's a lot of things to be outraged about in this world right now, but I think people walking around, for the most part, sort of don't know how many people get

away with abusing and even murdering their children. And that is something I think people should be. outraged about. So what do we know about how the kiddo is doing now? The kiddo is, unfortunately, we had a little hiccup with the other grandmother. She became overwhelmed, did not reach out to me, reached out to CPS, they did not reach out to me. She is, and she lived in Oklahoma. CPS told her to reach out to Oklahoma CPS to find a, to find a place, She didn't do that. She just gave the child back to her daughter and the child was physically abused again in the house of her daughter and then was removed and is now in foster care where this child, look, false care has its issues, but this child doesn't need to go anywhere else right now and is thriving and is doing really well in foster care, I'm told. Yeah, well, we certainly are keeping that child in our hearts and really hope for the best for her.

And, you know, I think that's, this is another case that speaks to just how complex these decisions are in terms of there isn't always, you know, one really hopes best case scenario in one of these situations that there is a loving family member that can support that child in their recovery and that unfortunately is not always the case. So certainly I think a call for interventions within people's lives that happen way in advance of when they have children, when those children are at risk, you know, when this dysfunction gets to the point where there just aren't safe family members for that child. Right. And, you know, in this abuse, it just also highlights the risk of placing with a family member, even if they seem completely protective, what she did? Yeah. that's really, that's really sad. Well, we, we hope for the best for that kiddo and certainly, at least justice has been served against this offender who should not have been allowed to do this for decades, but later is better than never. At least that person is, you know, not going to be in a position to harm any more children. And that's just important.

Justice delayed is better than justice than I for sure. That's right. That's right. All right. Well, Mike, thank you so much for for, for. being with us again today. And anything else you want to say or want to plug about what you're doing now as we sign off here? Yeah, I've got several trainees coming up. I'm excited to be doing a training in Sedona, Arizona. That's going to be a conference that caters to family court judges. So I'm extremely excited about finally getting in front of family court judges. And I'm doing the Jessica Jones presentation. So it'll be interesting to see how they take that. And then I'll be back in San Diego the day after that.

These are both in January. I've got trainings lined up in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Illinois again. Illinois's really been a hotspot for trainings on this issue. I expect to see more cases out of there in the coming months. So hopefully we'll stay busy this year. So you're not getting too bored in your retirement over there. Well, you know, not too bored. Maybe, you know, Christmas was a little boring because,

nothing was going on, but, you know, I figure it out. There's always something to do. Well, we really appreciate you and keep fighting the good fight, Mike. Thanks, Andrew. 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 Carmouche.