Something Was Wrong - S13 Ep10: [Whitney] CODE PINK

Episode Date: July 7, 2022

*Content Warning: Today’s episode discusses kidnapping, pseudocyesis, miscarriage and psychological violence. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to help find missing children, reduce child sexual exploitation, and prevent child victimization. NCMEC offers services for families, victims, professionals, schools, law enforcement, private industry, and communities to help prevent abducted, endangered, and sexually exploited children and to mitigate and combat exploitation. www.missingkids.orgFor free and confidential resources, please visit: somethingwaswrong.com/resources SWW’s theme music – U think U by Glad Rags, from their album Wonder Under. Follow Something Was Wrong on InstagramSources:KOCO 5 News, 2019, video archives (1990): https://cs-cz.facebook.com/koco5/videos/294426101245444/ KOCO 5 News, Jan. 2019, video archives (1990):Baby snatched from Oklahoma City hospital, now adult, speaks out for first time Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree, by Tony Orlando and Dawn, sample via youtube: https://youtu.be/PxG9XFqHSFw (Album: Tuneweaving, 1973)

If you're serious about growing this new year, what you put into your mind actually matters. And as someone who lives and breathes careers and self-development, even I get overwhelmed trying to do it all. Between work, life, and trying to better yourself, self-care can start to feel like just another thing on the to-do list. But investing in yourself doesn't have to be complicated. And with Audible, it isn't. It's time to take care of you. And who better to help than the top voices in well-being all in one place. With Audibles Well-Being Collection, you can level up your career, finances, relationships,

sleep, parenting, or mindset. Whether you want motivation, clarity, or practical advice, there is something there to support you every step of the way. I listen while I commute, clean, work, or just when I need a little bit of downtime. You'll hear from best-selling authors Brené Brown and Jay Shetty, Chef Jamie Oliver, finance expert Rachel Rogers and popular parenting guides like Raising Good Humans. Kickstart your well-being journey with your first audiobook free when you sign up for a 30-day trial at outable.com. Membership is 1495 a month after 30 days. Cancel any time.

There's more to imagine when you listen. Something was wrong is intended for mature audiences. Episodes discuss topics that can be upsetting, such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence, suicide and suicide and murder. If you're in need of support, please visit something was wrong.com slash resources for a list of non-profit organizations that can help. I'm not a therapist or a doctor. Most names have been changed for anonymity purposes. Opinions expressed by guests on the show are their own and do not necessarily represent my views. Resources and source material are linked in the episode notes. Thank you so much for listening.

My name is Whitney D. Herrera. I'm 32 years old and I live in Kansas. My parents met in the late 1980s at a car show in Nebraska. My mom, her name is Teresa, was living in Kansas City, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City called Olathe, and she'd gone to a car show with her dad. Her dad, my maternal grandpa, liked to fix up hot rods and show them off at car shows. My biological father, his name is Willie, was living in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and he'd also gone to the same car show with his dad in Nebraska because he and his dad, my paternal grandpa like to fix up hot rods together and show them at car shows. So that's how they met.

And then my parents had a long distance relationship for a while because Kansas City and Oklahoma City are about 300 miles apart or about a five-hour drive in early 1980. they were actually married in a very classy Las Vegas ceremony. And then after they were married, my mom moved to Oklahoma City, where my dad owned a home and moved in with him. My mom and dad were both actually born in the Oklahoma City area, but my mom moved around a lot growing up. She still had a lot of aunts and uncles and cousins in the area. But other than family, she didn't really know anyone.

My dad grew up in the same area, his whole life, and all of his friends lived in the state. They were newly married, young, and wanted to start a family. So six, eight months into their marriage, they got pregnant with me. That was at the end of August of 1989. I was born Whitney Ryan Morse. That's my maiden name at 6.21 p.m. on June 19, 1990. My mom, Teresa Morse, was 26, and my dad, Willie Morse, was 25.

I was born at Deaconess Hospital in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and I was also born in the same day as my dad's birthday. I was healthy by all accounts. I was six pounds, 14 ounces. My mom had had a difficult natural childbirth, so difficult that she was unable to walk after. She ended up staying at the hospital for a few extra days so she could recover before she went home. and I assume could walk after that point. As I said, most of my mom's family, like her parents and one of her sisters actually lived in Kansas. So her parents, my maternal grandparents, lived in Olathe, Kansas, and they drove their motor home to Oklahoma City and parked it in my parents' backyard in preparation for my birth. My aunt, who's my mom's sister, also lived in Kansas, and her and her daughter, my girl cousin,

lived in Lawrence, Kansas, and they had flown in to Oklahoma City from Kansas City after I was born. I just know she flew in and then flew home pretty soon after. They do it a little differently in the maternity wards than how they do now. Unlike how it is today, when women would give birth back then, the newborns would only see their mothers for feedings. They didn't stay in their parents' room the entire time. The babies would sleep or changed and cared for in the nursery of the maternity ward by the nursing staff. As I'm sure people have seen in movies, the nurseries have big windows or visitors

or the parents could view the babies from the hallway, but only the medical staff could access the inside of the nursery. So newborns are typically fed every two to three hours. The nurses would bring the babies to their mothers for feedings on that schedule. I don't know if they did it every two to three hours. I just know it was somewhere in that time frame. I was born June 19th at 6 p.m. on the day of June 20th, I have been brought to my mom by the nurse throughout the day to be fed. My mom had also had visitors on and off, like my grandparents on my mom's side, my dad's parents, my aunt, you know, friends, family, things like that. The last feeding of the day was at around 11 p.m.

And that's for all the moms on the maternity ward floor. The mother's rooms there in that hospital were assigned alphabetically. So down the hallway, the maternity ward, they were assigned A to Z, and our last name was Morse. So my mother's room was somewhere in the middle. On the night of June 20th, 1990, my mother remembers being asleep around 11 p.m. My father was asleep on the couch next to her. She says that although she's asleep, I mean, I think mothers know that you can still hear things when you're asleep. So she remembers hearing like the crescendo, a baby cries as they were.

brought to their mother's rooms like the A to L rooms to be fed. One thing, though, she does remember being weird is that her room, she said, was skipped. Like, she could hear their mother's babies cries from A through L and then in through Z. She never, they never brought me in for my feeding at the 11 p.m. time. But she thought, okay, good, a little relieved. Maybe she could sleep a little more, but she didn't think. anything of it. She assumed I'd be in at any moment. Around midnight, my mom's nurse came into the room and asked how her feeding went with me. My mom said, I haven't seen Whitney yet. And she said,

oh, okay, I'll go check. And she left the room. But this point, around midnight, this was June 21st. Then the nurse came in a second time. This time, she brought the head nurse. And the head nurse question my mom and asked, Mrs. Morse, are you sure you haven't seen Whitney since your last feeding? My mom responded, no, I think I would remember if I had. And so they said they were going to go check, see where I was, and that they'd be right back. At that point, my mom knew that something was wrong. Her room was still dark since my dad was sleeping. She couldn't walk. So she lowered herself off her bed and onto the floor, and she crawled to the door of the room. And once she opened the door, her eyes adjusted to the bright hallway, and all she could see were doctors and nurses running up and down the hallway of the maternity ward in a frenzy. Code Pink was being announced on the speakers, and my mom says that at that point she knew I was gone. She didn't know why. Maybe it was mother's intuition, but she just knew that I wasn't in the building. Code Pink, for those that don't know, is when an infant less than 12 months of age is suspected or confirmed as being missing.

When that happens, security is notified, all the unit staff is notified. They check the exits, the stairwells, they do unit searches, we notify nursing managers, and they try to preserve as much evidence as they can. So that's what they did at that time. I don't know if my mom exactly knew what Code Pink meant, but she just assumed it was for me. She knew something was off and that I wasn't there. She crawled back to her bed. I'm sure her thoughts were racing, and she got into bed and told my dad to get up.

That something was going on. She didn't know what, but something was going on with me and that he needed to wake up. At that moment, the head nurse came back into the room, but this time she brought along with her a hospital administration. The hospital administrator said, Mr. Mrs. Morse, I don't know how to tell you this, but Whitney is missing. We checked the entire hospital and no one can find her. My mom said, have you checked the psych ward? Which was a floor above the maternity ward on the fourth floor of the hospital. The administrator said, yes, we've checked there. They then asked, is there anyone you know that would want to hurt you by taking your baby? And both my parents responded with. no. As I had mentioned, my mom didn't really know anyone in Oklahoma City and my dad had no enemies so they couldn't imagine who would want to take their newborn baby. The local police ended up transferring the case to the FBI because they suspected that whoever took me left the hospital with me around 11 p.m. on June 20th, 1990 and then that person could have easily crossed

state lines by the time the authorities even got involved. Oklahoma City is only an hour and a half from the Kansas border, three hours to the Missouri and Arkansas border, and two hours to the Texas border. So within the time frame that person had, I could have easily been in a completely different state. A problem occurred when the hospital administrators found out it was missing after they informed my parents, which was around midnight, maybe a little after midnight on June 21st, 1990. they waited one hour to call the authorities. They decided to call an emergency board meeting or some type of meeting with their senior staff because they knew they had a huge problem. They had a potential lawsuit on their hands and they made a major mistake in their security

and keeping their babies safe in their hospital. The authorities weren't alerted until around 1 a.m. on June 21st, 19th. Even more time had passed for whoever had taken me, they could possibly have left the state. All in all, I think it had been two hours from the time I was taken until the authorities were notified. The FBI came to my parents' room in the early hours of June 21st, and they explained the typical process for families after their child goes missing. They already suspected I'd been kidnapped by a stranger. they knew that she was a young white female, given the evidence they found in the hospital and on surveillance. They knew that for every day I was missing, the likelihood of me being found

became less and less. And that's also because newborns changed so much in their first week of life. I'm a mom and I know my daughter changed so much between the day she was born and even day two. They told my parents the most important tool to finding me was to make a mom. I'm a mom, and I know my daughter changed. sure that it stayed in the media, in the news, and that that was one of the most important tools they could utilize. The FBI needed a picture of me to use on the morning news, but my parents and grandparents didn't have any pictures of me. There was only film cameras back then, and my aunt, the one who had flown from Kansas to Oklahoma City, had already flown back home, and she was the only one with the film. My mom had my grandma call her. My grandma call her. My

grandma who was staying at my parents' house to tell her the news that I was missing and asked for the film because the FBI needed it. My grandma has told the story that my girl cousin, who was probably maybe 17 or 18, answered the phone. And she told her, don't hang up. I'm not making this up. But Whitney's been taken. They don't know where she is. And the FBI needs the film from your mom's camera with the pictures of Whitney on it. It wasn't a time where you could just email a picture over or text it over. She actually had to fly back to Oklahoma City from Kansas City to give the FBI the film. She did that and an FBI agent met her at the gate at the airport and got the film from her and developed it. Not a lot of time had passed. There would be a live press

conference held from the hospital lobby for the 6 a.m. local news. in Oklahoma City. And that would also be broadcast on the news in the four closest surrounding states, which were Texas, Kansas, Arkansas, and Missouri. The broadcast, the FBI told my parents that they needed to appeal to the kidnapper instead of to the public because they knew the kidnapper would likely be watching. They told them what language to use, and given it was a female, there was specific language that they asked them to include in their statement.

At that point, my mom was 36 hours postpartum. She still couldn't walk. She had to get dressed, put on makeup, be pushed in a wheelchair in front of news cameras to beg for her baby back. As a mother myself, I couldn't imagine having to do that. I know what a hot mess I was after I had my baby. I have so much compassion for what she went through in that moment. And then the following days, it's amazing. The strength that women can find. mind within themselves. Just please bring her back. I need her back, folks. I need her back. I just hope that somewhere in your heart that you can see how awful upset I am.

There was a lot of unanswered questions at that point, too. They didn't really know who would want to do that to some young couple in Oklahoma City. Probably the only motive is that she cannot have a child in one to one. She definitely describes it as being a fog. She says now she remembers the lights, all the lights from the cameras and having to find the words to say.

How do you even say it? Please bring home my baby. We love her. We want her back. And in such a short time frame, too, between you're woken up to your baby's gone at midnight and then at 6 a.m., oh, you've got to be on the news. I don't even know how she did that quite honestly. but she's like, I would have done anything. You could have done it too.

Had you been in my shoes? It's just something you have to do. So it's just something I had to do to get you back. I don't even know if my mom would remember this, but I know from the news I've seen, there was a lot of mention of, we just want her safe. Please keep her safe and bring her home.

Also because it was a female, they wanted my mom to do more of the talking because she was trying to talk to another woman, and they hoped that would work. Especially back then, everybody watched the news. So they figured that she would have been watching. They knew it was by someone they didn't know. June 26, 1990, my parents had been on the news on every day in a live broadcast along with the FBI, I assume.

The FBI gave some sort of update, and then my parents would talk. They did that every day for five days from the hospital lobby. My mom refused to leave the hospital because in her mind, at that time, she thought if I were to come back, I'd come back to the hospital or to the place I was taken from. She realizes now that that wasn't a rational thought when you're going through that kind of trauma. I mean, it's impossible to be thinking clearly. But finally, on that fifth day, the medical staff of the hospital convinced her that she needed to go home. that when I came home, I wasn't going to be returned back there. I would likely be returned wherever she was staying.

So she did. On the way home, my mom was riding in the backseat with my grandma, her mom. And she told her that she wanted to do something that would involve the community and the search for me. She remembered a popular song in the 1970s called Tie Yellow Ribbon Around the Ool Oak Tree. It was sung by Tony Orlando and Don. Probably no one nowadays even knows what that song is. but it was popular back then when my mom was younger. And in the song, Yellow Ribbons were signified as a reminder of an absent loved one in that context,

either in military or in jail, and that when they returned home, they'd be lovingly welcomed home. So my mom decided that for that night's news broadcast, she would tie a yellow ribbon around the tree in their front yard. That whole concept really took off like a wildfire in the community around Oklahoma City, and people were tying yellow ribbons around the trees in their front yarns and their neighborhoods, businesses. It became a big deal. And it was sort of an awareness to bring baby Whitney home. Somebody made my parents' t-shirts that were yellow with my face on it.

And that's what they wore when they went on the news. It was a little wild and surreal, I'm sure, for them to even be doing that. That whole time, my parents were still on the news from their home. this time from their front porch. My picture was still being broadcast around Oklahoma and the four surrounding states. While my parents were at home, the people of Oklahoma City were so generous and supportive. They brought my parents homemade food every day all day long. Women would sew or knit beautiful dresses for me that I could wear when I came back home. My mom jokes that she's never seen so much pink in her life. They really made sure my family was being taken care

of. During that time, too, while she was home, the head nurse from the hospital decided that she would become my mom's full-time nurse. She spent every day with my mom while I was missing and made sure she was okay. The medical staff and law enforcement that were involved asked that my mom continue to pump and freeze breast milk. The reason being is because they didn't know what state I would be in when I was returned. They didn't know how health. or unhealthy I would be. So that's what my mom did, which still blows my mind, given I had such a difficult time with my supply. I don't know how she kept up her supply with no baby in sight and with all the trauma going on. It's just amazing to me. Another one of those crazy things women can do when they need to do it for their babies. They said that when I was returned, or if I was, that her breastfeeding

me would be the best way for us to bond again. So that was another reason too. News vans were wrapped around the block every day. My parents were home. My mom said she couldn't go outside or open her windows without being bombarded with cameras. My mom had been introduced to a lot of the news anchors in the area. One happened to be friends with my mom's cousin. Her cousin was a well-known disc jockey in Oklahoma City for King Country Radio Station. And he had my mom meet a woman named Linda Kavanaugh. She's now retired, but at the time, she was a popular reporter for Channel 4 News in Oklahoma City. When she talked with my mom, she gave my mom her card and wrote on the back her personal home phone number,

and she told her that if she needed anything to call her any time of day. And I think that really stuck with my mom and that stuck in her her mind to reach out to her if something ever happened or if I were had been found. I was gone in total 11 days. The FBI notified my parents on July 1st, 1990 at 1.30 a.m. They knocked on my parents' door, told them that they think they'd found me in Butler, Missouri. If you're serious about growing this new year, what you're, you put into your mind actually matters. And as someone who lives and breathes careers and self-development, even I get overwhelmed trying to do it all. Between work, life, and trying to better yourself, self-care can start to feel like just another thing on the to-do list. But investing in yourself

doesn't have to be complicated. And with Audible, it isn't. It's time to take care of you. And who better to help than the top voices in well-being all in one place? With Audible's well-being, collection, you can level up your career, finances, relationships, sleep, parenting, or mindset. Whether you want motivation, clarity, or practical advice, there is something there to support you every step of the way. I listen while I commute, clean, work, or just when I need a little bit of downtime. You'll hear from best-selling authors Brene Brown and Jay Shetty, Chef Jamie Oliver, finance expert Rachel Rogers, and popular parenting guides like Raising Good Humans. Kickstart your well-being journey with your first audio book free when you sign up for a 30-day trial at

Audible.com. Membership is 1495 a month after 30 days. Cancel any time. There's more to imagine when you listen. They had found me because of a tip that was called into the FBI hotline by a man that worked at a local hearties in Butler. One reason he was motivated to call was because my grandpa put up a reward. I think it was like $10,000. Whoever identified me and called the authorities and I had been found, he would give them that reward. He actually got drunk the morning of June 30th and called the FBI hotline, hung up, and then called back again. He had told them, he suspected that I was living with the family in Butler. He knew who the family was. And one reason that he didn't call sooner was because Butler's a small town. And if he knew he was wrong,

He'd be ostracized, possibly run out of town. So that's why he got drunk to work up the courage to call. When the authorities showed up at the house, they asked Heather Brewster for my birth certificate. They had said that the reason they were there was that there was some suspicions that one of the babies that had been kidnapped from Oklahoma City was actually living in Butler, Missouri, and that they were just following up on a lead. They kind of played dumb, like, oh, it's probably necessary. thing, but maybe you could show us the birth certificate and prove that your baby is yours.

My name, those 10, 11 days, my name was Shelby. They asked her for a birth certificate. She said, yeah, I have a birth certificate. I'll be right back. She actually left the house, me there with my quote unquote dad and his parents. And she went to like a local kinko's or copyco and came back with what was clearly a forged birth certificate. They knew it was forged also because she wouldn't have been able to get a real birth certificate in the 1990s, let alone today within 10 days. So once they pointed that fact out,

she eventually confessed to everything. At 11 p.m. on June 30th, she was arrested. The social worker came to pick me up and took me to the local hospital there. They identified me with footprints and medical records and said I was in good health. and had been well treated for those 10 days. I stayed at the hospital waiting for my parents, and actually one of the nurses ended up knitting me a dress, so I had something pretty to wear when they picked me up. Once the FBI informed my mom and dad that I had been found,

they told them that they needed to get from Oklahoma City to Butler, Missouri, but didn't provide a means of transportation. So my mom decided that she was going to call the news anchor Linda Kavanaugh and talk to her about it because she knew they had a plane. When she called Linda Kavanaugh, I'm like probably two in the morning on July 1st. Linda told her to meet her at the Wiley Post Airport, which is a small airfield in Oklahoma City, and that the news team would meet her there and that a private jet would be ready for her to take her and my dad to Butler, Missouri. My mom jokes now that she would have called anybody, she would have called the mob if they provided her a plane. They arrived in the early morning hours of July 1st and they waited for the Kansas City FBI to pick them up and take them to the Butler Hospital.

The airfield they landed in was north of Butler probably about 45 minutes and they had to wait for the Kansas City FBI for two hours. for them to get there. And my mom, I think at that point, was about to lose her mind. And she was basically like, I'll just walk there. You can meet me there. But she waited. They finally arrived and they went to the hospital. I assume they probably did more testing when they got there.

They did know that I was their baby. Then we flew back to Oklahoma City that day. And there was a big crowd waiting for my parents at the airport. it was a big deal. I mean, it's not every day that a kidnapped 11-day-old baby is found and returned home safely and in good health. It's just not something that's very common, if at all. I was very lucky. I was very lucky that my kidnapper did take good care of me.

Heather Lynette Brewster. She was 19 years old. She just graduated high school the summer prior. around August 1989, her high school sweetheart told her he wanted to break up with her, and she said, you can't. I'm pregnant. This also happened to be her second pregnancy with him, but her first ended in a miscarriage. Her pregnancy was actually a lie. She was not pregnant, but over the course of nine months, her belly swelled just like a pregnant woman's belly would.

There's a mental condition called pseudosciasis. I don't even know if I'm saying that right, but it's where a woman with a woman with a false belief at pregnancy shows signs and symptoms of pregnancy. That's why she could easily fake it because her belly did swell just like she was a normal pregnant lady. Heather Brewster ended up moving in with her boyfriend and his parents after she told him that she was pregnant into their home in Butler, Missouri. The boyfriend and his parents were completely fooled by her. They had no idea. This was a lie. They had no idea she wasn't pregnant. The boyfriend, thought he was going to be a dad. His parents believed they were going to be grandparents.

So they acted accordingly. They even threw a baby shower. Closer to the end of her pregnancy, she told her boyfriend and his family that she was going to be going out of town every week for Lamas classes. I believe she did return home for part of that week. Like maybe she only went for a day or two and then came back. But really what she was doing was going around to neighboring hospitals. those in Kansas City to see which hospital would be easiest to kidnap a baby. Because she knew her pregnancy wasn't real, so she needed to provide a baby at the end of it. One of those weeks that she was going out of town for Lamas classes, she actually ended up going to Oklahoma City. She had lived there as a child until she moved to Missouri six years prior in 1989.

Deaconess Hospital, the hospital I was born at, she was familiar with her. with the layout because she spent time there as a child. I don't know exactly why, but she knew the layout pretty well. And so that's the hospital that she decided to target. June 19, 1990, Heather Brewster planned to disguise herself as a nurse, a nurse that worked in the maternity ward. She stole nurse's scrubs from one of the supply rooms. She ended up stealing those. She memorized the nurses shifts and she knew the best time to kidnap a baby would be during one of the late-night feedings because there was less staff and security on the floor at that time. Hospital floor layouts are similar right on all the floors, the elevator, stairwells,

bathrooms are generally all stacked on top of each other. And outside of the third floor maternity ward, there's a stairwell and bathroom. Heather Brewster decided to change into her scrubs and store her street clothes and empty car seat in the second floor bathroom. I assume she probably did this in the locked stall, but I doubt anyone was going to be checking. That's where she stored all of that for when she returned. Once in her scrubs, she walked up to the third floor at around 11 p.m. When all the other nurses were busy taking babies to their moms for their feedings,

I had found in some court documents and in the news that she decided to take the baby closest to the window, which happened to be me. She walked into the nursery, started wheeling me in the cart, past the nurse's station, pretending like she was taking me to my mom. The head nurse said, oh, you must be new, we just carry the babies to their moms for the feedings, which made it easier for her. So she wheeled me back into the nursery, carry me down the hallway of the maternity ward, past my mother's room, out the doors, down the stairwell, and to the second floor bathroom. And there she changed back into her street clothes, put me in a car seat. She then walked down the stairwell to the ground floor and out of the hospital. One of the reasons there were no alarms going off is because back then they didn't have low jacks like they have now.

There's no sensors on the baby for when they leave the doors, an alarm goes off. There was none of that. So she could very easily take me out of the hospital and no one would know. After my kidnapping, Lojacks became much more commonplace like they are now. Now they're required. So that wouldn't happen now, but that definitely was something that happened then. By the time she likely ended up leaving the hospital, it was probably about 1130 p.m. on June 20th. She still looked pregnant, and she had a baby in a car seat.

I mean, most women look a little bit pregnant after they have birth, so no one probably questioned her. or even noticed. After she left the hospital, she ended up staying the night at a hotel that was just a block from the hospital near the highway. The authorities thought I was likely out of the state. I was actually just a block away. And she had everything there to care for me. She had clothes, diapers, formula, bottles, a car seat, stroller, everything.

So she was prepared for a baby. I mean, luckily, she was prepared for that. On the 21st, when my parents were going on the news, she was driving to Butler, Missouri, and she passed me off as her own. She told her family that she had suddenly given birth while at a Lamas class in Oklahoma City. And then she drove the four and a half hours back home with a newborn in the car that wasn't hers. where she went wrong is at some point during those 10 days, I'm not exactly sure when. She took me to the Hardee's where my quote-unquote dad worked her boyfriend. The manager of the Hardee's, the one who actually ended up tipping off the FBI, never liked her.

He thought she intentionally got pregnant just to trap his employee, her boyfriend, into continuing their relationship. And he had known that he tried to break up with her, but was not successful. He was suspicious of the baby that she brought in, me. One reason is he thought it was weird that the baby on TV, baby Whitney, and the baby she was passing off as her own, both had a full head of hair with a curl on top. He thought all babies were born bald because his nieces and nephews were all born bald. That was one characteristic of me that helped identify me was my hair. and the curl on top. That's a great example of trusting your gut. When you see something that's

wrong, say something. Myself and my family are lucky enough that he did. So around day 10, this would have been the morning of June 30th, 1990. He called the FBI hotline and told them that he suspected Heather Brewster of kidnapping a baby. The authorities ended up showing up at her house, her boyfriend's parents' house, the boyfriend and his parents were home with her there, and I was home with her there. He didn't see any red flags from what I found. The courts didn't really see him as a suspect from what they found in the interviews they did with his family. They fully believed they were just as fooled as anyone else. He really did believe I was his daughter, and his parents really did believe I was their granddaughter,

and they took good care of me in their home. Then 11 days later, the police to show up, and for her to confess to, yeah, this isn't my baby. Sorry, I lied. Not only had she lied just those 11 days, she had lied those nine months prior. That's just, wow, like, I don't know who could possibly do that. This was so premeditated. She really thought this through. It wasn't like she just came up with this plan

willy-nilly. She had been working on this plan for months and months and months and knew exactly what to do. She was smart. I can only imagine that he was just as hurt as my parents were. I mean, he was lied to. He believed he lost in his mind a baby too, not the same. is what my parents went through obviously, but it's just as traumatic and hard. I definitely feel for him and his family that they were the victim of this woman's tricks. It's a huge violation of trust and something that should never happen to any parent. Although I have no memory of it, it still affects my life. It affects my parents' lives for sure.

It impacted my family and even the community in Oklahoma City. People still remember it. It's still a big deal. It still hurts. When a baby is kidnapped, everyone feels it. The impact that I don't think anyone even knew it would have 32 years later. My mom and dad ended up getting divorced when I was two. My mom moved to Kansas to live closer to family and my dad stayed in Oklahoma.

Most of my family still live in Kansas. But for the years that followed, my mom had to do a lot of work to raise me or try to raise me with a normal life. I think she did a pretty dang good job considering I didn't really know what happened until I was about five. I didn't feel like I was raised any differently from anyone else. I could still go outside and play by myself. When we were at a store, I could still go on a different aisle than she was on, you know, and she wasn't freaking out. She really tried her best to make sure that this didn't negatively impact me because this really was just a freak thing. But it still definitely impacts her even now.

It was a huge violation of trust for her, hurt her. changed her life forever. Absolutely. I imagine something like this just changes you forever. I can't imagine how long those 11 days were for your parents. I imagine they weren't able to sleep. It must have been hell. Absolute hell for them. Yeah.

When I came back home, I mean, my mom still continued to breastfeed, which was amazing. I'm so amazed by that. Even though she was having her own issues, like if she were to go to the grocery store, would recognize her. She says now, like, I changed my hair like every month. I'd have a different hair color, different cut, just so that she would be able to live a normal life, because that's really all she wanted. She just wanted to live a normal life, the life that she was supposed to have before this happened. She wanted to have a normal mother-child relationship and a mother-child bond that she was really robbed of. I'm over it now. I was just, I'm just over it.

there's no pain. It'll probably take me a while to trust again without her being right there with me all the time. Although she made up for it, it definitely did change the trajectory of our relationship in her life.

She's had to work through a lot of that to make sure that I could go on and not have this cloud hanging over me. My parents were more severely impacted by this than I was, but I have to watch that play out in their lives. That's how it feels from my perspective. And I'm so glad I don't have a memory of this, but it still lingers. And it's still just something that, especially as an adult, raising my own children and being an adult child to my parents.

it definitely changes how I raise my child, how I move forward with my relationship with my parents, knowing everything that happened. Even though you don't want it to be a cloud, it sort of becomes like one. My mom never went on to have more children. She actually ended up getting her tubes tied when I was around two years old. This was also around the time that she remarried to my stepdad who ended up raising me for most of my life. I don't blame her, obviously, that I didn't get siblings. I likely would have done the same thing. When I had my daughter, I wondered if my mom would be okay.

If she was going to be okay in the hospital, would she be freaking out? Would she be worried? Would she be kind of like hovering and scared? And actually, she did really great when my daughter was born. But again, securities change so much. Now when babies are born, there's a wristband on the mom. There's a wristband on the baby. There's a lowjack on the leg. There's a wristband on the dad. They check that every time the baby leaves the room. And they make sure a parent can be with the baby at all times if possible.

So it's a lot different now than it was. So I think that's another reason why she wasn't having such a freak out when my daughter was born. I am glad that for all subsequent children born, that they did have better security in hospitals. The babies stay with their mothers in their rooms. I think that's a huge deal too. They need to be building that bond from the minute they're born. It's unfortunate that my family had to suffer the consequences of that, but unfortunately that's kind of how life works, doesn't it? By especially day 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,

she didn't think I would be returned home. She felt that I was alive, but she didn't think I would come home. She had really started to convince herself, maybe I didn't deserve to be a mom. Maybe this was supposed to happen. Maybe this woman will be a better mom than I will be. Just things to sort of, I don't know, what's the word for it? But it makes sense of it. And how do you do that?

The hospital compensated my birth. They didn't have to pay for that. So there's that. They did provide free therapy for them after I came home, which helped. But there was just a lot to unpack, and I don't think they could do that together. Both of my parents were going through something that was a different experience for each of them. And they had so much to unpack. I don't think they could do that together.

That's why they ended up getting divorced. I mean, there's a lot of other reasons, too, but that's a big one. But to go over what happened to Heather Brewster, under federal sentencing guidelines, the base sentence for kidnapping is 51 to 63 months. I've read other places, it's 57 to 71 months. But kidnapping is generally charged at a state level. It is charged at a federal level if the defendant crosses state or international lines, which she did. If you're convicted of a federal kidnapping, you could face up to 20 years to life in prison, depending on your prior convictions and the circumstances behind the case. And if the kidnapping results in death of a person,

you could face life in prison or the death penalty. But Heather Brewster had no prior convictions. Heather Brewster pleaded guilty to kidnapping on October 19, 1990 after her attorneys dropped their insanity defense. The insanity defense came about because she claimed that because her parents walked out on her. She was sent to live with her grandparents in Butler, Missouri. And when she found out she was pregnant during her senior year of high school, she thought it was the light at the end of the tunnel. The miscarriage was really her breaking point, she says. So that did play a factor into what she ended up being charged with. She was sentenced to five years in prison or 60 months and three years probation with further mental care after her release. I don't think she thought as far as thinking

she would get away with that. I think she thought it was possible because I was a newborn. It's unlikely that I would be found. I mean, kids are kidnapped all the time now and they're not found until they're adults, if they're ever found. So she had a shot. I believe she did it because of something mental. She needed a baby to fix whatever was going on in her life, whatever she lacked or needed from her parents most likely. I don't think she intentionally meant to take someone else's baby, but I do know she couldn't risk losing this boyfriend. And so desperate times, call for desperate measures. she decided this was the best alternative. Maybe she feared that her next pregnancy went into miscarriage, too.

I definitely know she was not mentally well, and that was number one. How did your parents feel about her sentencing? They were very unhappy with it because five years is not a long time. And the same week that she was charged in the same court in Oklahoma City, a black man was charged with grand theft. auto and sent to prison for 20 years for stealing a car. And she was only sent to prison for five for stealing a human. And my parents were really, really upset. And the fact that they couldn't seek any damages or anything from the hospital. And that's another thing too. My parents were

considered a third party, so they couldn't bring a lawsuit against Deaconess Hospital. I'm considered the first party, Heather Brewster is considered the second. So only myself or Heather Brewster could sue Deaconess Hospital. I had until I was 19 to do that. I chose not to. There were a lot of reasons I chose not to mostly. I didn't know if I could prove given I was a newborn and had no memory. I didn't think I had a good chance of proving that I had suffered huge amounts of mental anguish. I mean, it mostly just impacted my parents and I had no memory of the event. I didn't want to put my parents through that either. I didn't want to drudge up everything that had happened. I didn't want to have to face all this in court. I'm really grateful that the community was able to rally around my

parents during that difficult time. And I think that's important if this were to ever happen again. I think it's important to know that there are. many, many children, women and men that are being kidnapped every day in the United States, and they're not on the news like mine was. I think there needs to be more awareness of that. The media is a great tool to find out about those cases, but so many of them are forgotten and not talked about. I'm really privileged and that mine was, but I really hope and wish that one day we will have more awareness of all the kidnappings that happen and not just the ones where the victim is white. And that's unfortunately what we see too often now.

I so appreciate you making that point and highlighting it because it's absolutely so true. How has this impacted you even if you don't have first person memories of it? Well, one of the ways, and it's not even logical, but sometimes I do fear, like, what if Heather Booster hunted me down and tried to find me and maybe take one of my kids? I mean, it's not rational. It would likely never happen. But it definitely is something where you're like, hmm, my story is so crazy. It's like, well, crazier things could happen. This is pretty dang crazy, my story.

So that's not too far-fetched, in my opinion. I do have that fear. And maybe I'm a little bit more careful. I probably don't even realize it, but I'm more careful who my young children are around. I make sure that even when my daughter was little, I tell her if we're in a mall and this is, of course, pre-COVID. I always tell her, go find a police officer. And I tell her, go find a mom with kids and tell them that you're missing. I made my daughter memorize my phone number.

I made sure that she knew what to do if someone ever took her or if she ever got lost. So that was, maybe I was a little bit more paranoid about that than the average person. I say to my husband, is it paranoid or am I informed? With this job, I am so much more informed. Yes. I mean, of course, we don't want to let fear overcome our lives. but there can be some safety benefits of being more aware for sure. I think it is so admirable for your mom to make such a conscious effort to try not to

impact you negatively. I think it's so cool that you could still play outside and be a little kid. I spent a lot of time outside, and I think one thing that helped her is after my parents got divorced and my mom remarried. We moved to a really small town in Kansas, and I think that helped her feel a little bit more safe. She could keep better track of me. There was less places I could go and get lost. I was outside all the time. Of course, that was the early 90s when you could do that and feel safe. But yeah, she really did a great job in that. I'm really so glad and so impressed and in awe of her because I have a hard enough time with my daughter and she's not been kidnapped.

So, you know, I think she did a really, really a good job with that. She wanted me to be independent and she helped me be independent. My mom and my stepdad made sure that I was well taken care of but didn't helicopter parent me. Thank you so much for taking the time and energy to share your story. I think it's a good reminder for all of us. When we see those missing posts, re-share them, because even those tiny little acts can really help families who are in the most dire and desperate of situation

with a child missing. Yes, for sure. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe, friends. Something Was Wrong is a Broken Cycle Media Production, created and hosted by me, Tiffany Reese. If you'd like to support the show further, you can share episodes with your loved ones, leave a positive review, or follow Something Was Wrong on Instagram at Something Was Wrong podcast. Our theme song was composed by Gladrags. Check out their album, Wonder Under. Thank you so much.