The Binge Cases: Denise Didn't Come Home - Baby Broker | 2. Three Babies

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

A family from Chicago working with Tara Lee has agreed to adopt two babies when Tara Lee tries to rope them into adopting a third. They’re cornered, and they don’t feel like they have a choice.  Binge all episodes of Baby Broker, ad-free today by subscribing to The Binge. Visit The Binge Crimes on Apple Podcasts and hit ‘subscribe’ or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access.  The Binge – feed your true crime obsession. A Sony Music Entertainment & Perfect Cadence production. Find out more about The Binge and other podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Listen to all episodes of Baby Broker ad free right now by subscribing to The Binge. Visit The Binge channel on Apple podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page. Or visit getthebinge.com to get access wherever you listen. The Binge, feed your true crime obsession.

The Binge. Feed your true crime obsession. The Binge. The Binge. The Binge. The Binge. The Binge. Before we begin, please be advised that this episode includes discussions of suicide and sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised. In the previous episode, Teresa and Mike Matheny learned of a secret FBI investigation into Tara Lee and Always Hope.

They packed their car with everything they needed to take care of a baby, and set out from Atlanta to Detroit in a desperate attempt to rescue their adoption. Their heads were spinning. Did Tara Lee lie to them about Stephanie? Was the baby boy even real? It didn't even occur to them that their son might also have been promised to another couple in what the FBI would come to call a double match. But there was another couple who wanted their baby, Tammy and Nick Granith. When I met the Graniths at a recording studio near their home in Chicago last fall, Tammy told me she'd been thinking about adopting for a long time.

To be honest, I always knew that likely I couldn't have my own children. I just knew it. knew that likely I couldn't have my own children. I just knew it. So how I felt is, I want to adopt. It's one thing saying it out loud, and it's fine. It's a completely different undertaking when you're actually in it. What did you imagine it would be like? I have got to be honest, it wasn't this. Like most families trying to adopt,

Nick and Tammy figured they'd sign up with a private adoption agency, which would match them with a birth mom. But they rejected that idea after visiting an agency in Chicago. And they flat out tell you, you know, are you looking for a Caucasian baby or are you looking for, you know,

an ethnic or African-American baby? And for us, we were open to any gender, any race. And they right away just made it very clear, oh, wow, okay, well, you guys are gonna, you're gonna match quicker. And also, if you go for an African-American child, it is less money. And that really bothered us.

We also asked the average wait list for most of the families. They were saying creeping up to four to five years. And it's because they're waiting for essentially a blonde, blue-eyed baby boy to drop out of the sky. Their specific clientele is more wealthy. So the Graniths took another route. They run a successful company doing hair and makeup for hundreds of weddings a year. Tammy is the creative visionary.

Nick runs the business side. They work with a lot of wedding planners and they wanted someone like that to help them with their adoption. Someone to connect them with adoption opportunities in different states and guide them along the way. So the Graniths hired an adoption consultant, and right away she had a lead.

The first person she told us about was Tara Lee. It's called Always Hope Adoption Agency out of Detroit, Michigan. She had reassured us there's so many babies coming out of this agency. Over the next few months, Tara Lee matched them with two different birth moms. It was like winning the adoption lottery. Incredibly, both women were set to deliver in this same hospital at the same time in early September. And Stephanie from the last episode was not one of them. Adoptions are expensive, ranging from $10,000 to more than $60,000. Terri Lee's cost was in the middle, which was another way she appealed to clients.

To secure their two adoptions, the Graniths paid her about $20,000. About half would go toward the birth mother's living expenses. Another 25,000 or so was due at delivery, including legal fees. The Graniths had been saving for years and could afford it. By late August 2018, the the Granites had baby proofed their house and decorated two nurseries. In just two weeks, they'd pack a car and drive to Detroit for both births.

It was all set. But you know what they say about best laid plans. This is where it gets even more wild. And I can never forget it. It was a Saturday and I had done a wedding. I came home and he was mowing the lawn. And Tara Lee calls me. Immediately her stomach just drops because you're thinking, oh my gosh, something's going

on with my match. And I answer the phone and she said, stop what you're doing. And I said, oh, Nick's mowing the lawn. Do you want me to stop him? Yep, stop what you're doing. And so I walk over and I could distinctly, I can even tell you like on my driveway where I stood and I signaled to him to stop.

And I threw speaker phone on and then she's like, okay, Tammy, Nick, meet birth mother Stephanie. And all of a sudden you just hear this voice that goes, hello? And you're thinking, what? She has me on the phone with another birth mom? Tara Lee starts telling us that she accidentally, and that's the word she used, she accidentally showed our profile to Stephanie.

The same Stephanie the Mathenies matched with in the last episode. ["Fantastic Love"] The Granites had been working with Tara Lee for five roller coaster months. Their rose-colored glasses had cleared. They were ready to be done with her. But they knew.

No Tara Lee, no babies. They couldn't believe that Tara Lee would cold call them with an offer of a third baby, with the birth mother on the phone. Stephanie was begging them to take her baby. I knew it had to be you. This was God telling her that it was us. And she just fell in love with you guys and we're completely silent on our end. We're like, we're getting matched now a third time with Tara Lee.

She said you'll be in the hospital at the same time. Did she really think they'd consider adopting a third baby? And we're just staring at each other like, there's no way this is real. And you feel like she's trying to get you to give an answer right there in the driveway. Right, exactly. She was. Oh, absolutely.

From Sony Music Entertainment and Perfect Cadence, this is Baby Broker. I'm Peter McDonald. Episode 2, Three Babies. This is an ad from BetterHelp Online Therapy. We always hear about the red flags to avoid in relationships, but it's just as important to focus on the green flags. If you're not quite sure what they look like, therapy can help you identify those qualities so you can embody the green flag energy and find it in others. BetterHelp offers therapy 100% online and sign up only takes a few minutes.

Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com. Tammy and Nick Granith stood dumbfounded in their driveway. At Tara Lee's urging, Stephanie was pleading with them to adopt her baby. Here's where the story gets a little more complicated. Because one of their two matches was in jeopardy. The faltering match was with a birth mom named Sabrina, who had a harrowing story. As Tara Lee was going on and on about Stephanie,

all the Graniths could think about was Sabrina. And then Tammy does interject, like, what about Sabrina? And she wants to forget Sabrina, forget like blatantly straight out, forget about Sabrina. The Graniths could no sooner forget about Sabrina than they could forget how desperately they wanted to be parents. She was etched into their lives.

She was going to give them a child and she'd been through hell to get pregnant. But in one fell swoop, Tara Lee wanted them to discard her like yesterday's fashion and try on a new birth mom in their life. For Tara Lee, it was like babies were interchangeable, like pawns on a chessboard. Sabrina was 19, and the Graniths had been matched with her for five months. It was a closed adoption, which meant Sabrina's identity was confidential.

The Graniths had never seen a picture of her, didn't know her last name, and would never have any communication with her. I asked the Graniths to take me back to when they first heard Sabrina's story, months before Tara Lee's surprise phone call in August. So we did, on March 30th, have a phone call with Tara Lee, and I distinctly remember, and I've now heard that this is kind of her spiel to everybody. She was like, I cuss like a trucker.

I'm extremely blunt. I'm not out here for the money. I'm doing this to help young women. There was nobody in Detroit helping them. I have so many birth moms. And basically, she told us the story of Sabrina. And Sabrina is a girl who loved makeup, loved doing hair, loved them all.

She was Caucasian. She was blonde with blue eyes. So Sabrina, what's her living situation? She lived with her parents. They described it as that's their only daughter. Sabrina was raised in a town, a very little town. And this town had like 4,000 people. It was very small.

And she said it was a fishing town. And we were told that birth mom was receiving daily therapy. We weren't allowed to see her picture, and we couldn't receive any medical updates related to her or her future child. When she gives birth, we are to be at the hospital, but they're going to provide a room next door because she doesn't want us to meet her. The reason Sabrina wanted a closed adoption is upsetting. We were told that she was a victim of gang rape.

She had been at this party. She was just 19, wild, having fun, and this horrible, horrible thing happened to her. I remember distinctly the story being so at a trap house. Like stairs were broken. She couldn't run. It was dark. This happened. Yeah.

Four men had committed the crime and they weren't caught. And that the identity of the birth father was unknown. And her parents right away told her, you're going to put the baby up for adoption. They did not believe in abortion. Tammy said she liked Sabrina because she could see herself in her. Like I just pictured this girl who was you know young and just living her life and just got into

this horrible circumstance and being that she loved to fish and she loved makeup and she loved shopping and she loved perfume and everything I just pictured her almost as myself like I really connected to her. But Terri Lee said Sabrina was still weighing her options. It's between you and another family, but Sabrina wants to know, how are you going to tell this child that it was conceived? So I said, we're going to be honest. We'll have to cross that bridge when we get there

as to how honest." And she was like, okay, great. By the way, it's abnormal and unprofessional for an adoption facilitator to pit families against one another to win a birth mother's favor. Lucky for Tammy and Nick though, Tara Lee said that their answer was the one Sabrina wanted. And sometimes it's the little things that a birth mom sees in a couple that makes her choose them.

So we were told by Tara Lee that she chose us because in our profile book, there's a sentence about, I love to fish. I grew up fishing. Like of all the things. Yeah, so of all the things. Nick, Tammy and I were sitting around a table of things. Yeah, so of all the things. Nick, Tammy and I were sitting around a table in a basement recording studio in Chicago. As their story progressed, Nick kept shaking his head and sighing in

exasperation as he remembered how Tara Lee manipulated them. Tammy sat very still, but I could sense her churning with emotion. I think one reason the Graniths are successful in their business is that they carefully weigh their decisions. They try to see where different outcomes will lead, but on the Taralee roller coaster to adoption, they couldn't see what was coming. They just knew there was a baby at the end of the ride. In the wedding business, they were used to working with people who were really good at their specialized jobs.

Tara Lee was kind of a mess. They needed to talk to someone who had seen it all in the adoption world and could tell them it was okay to match with Sabrina. They needed their consultant. Just calling her, calling her, calling her. And finally she answered her phone and she was like, you know, calling her. And finally, she answered her phone, and she was like, you know, I'm going out to dinner. I'm going out to dinner. And I'm thinking, well, I need to know if I'm

signing to adopt a child. We just felt so like, oh my gosh, we're in. We're left alone, kind of. And you feel left in the middle of a field. Had the consultant told Tammy and Nick that something about Sabrina's match seemed fishy, had she cautioned them to reconsider, I think they would have turned Tara Lee down.

But she didn't say that. They told me she said it sounded fine, that she'd heard of situations like Sabrina's. Then she went to dinner. Later that night, as Tammy and Nick wrestled with this big decision, they remembered something reassuring an instructor told them in an adoption class they'd taken a few months earlier. You're going to answer tough questions. You're going to have these weird scenarios that you completely don't conceive of.

And I remember being like, no, we could totally do this. We were like, okay, we're in. Yeah. They told Tara Lee, yes. And then March 31st, we were matched. Tara Lee said, I want to be very upfront that you're matching with her at three months pregnant. And due to the fact that she's in therapy daily,

your fees are going to be way higher than a normal match. To secure the adoption, Tammy and Nick told me they signed a contract with Always Hope and sent Tara Lee about $15,000 for Sabrina's living expenses and counseling services. Much more would be due upon delivery. They had six months to get everything ready. And I'm like, okay, I can start buying stuff. I could start getting clothes and doing the nursery. I loved our nursery.

I love our nursery. Like, I just wanted it to look almost like a castle style, but all pure white. And I did the theme like stars because I love Coldplay. And so everything was themed after their song, Yellow. Over the crib, it said, look at the stars, look how they shine for you. Because it was a closed adoption, the Graniths weren't supposed to get any updates

about Sabrina, but then they did, distressing updates that were full of details. Tara Lee would send very erratic text messages saying, Sabrina's having a horrible day. Sabrina didn't show to her doctor. Right. Tera Lee made it seem as if that was just how it went with these birth moms she worked with in Detroit. She would act as if they had drug issues, had no moral values.

They were in the situations that they were in because of themselves. You know how these girls are. That kind of talk didn't sit well with Tammy and Nick. Sabrina, for one, had been raped, and that wasn't her fault. Although the updates Terri Lee gave them were upsetting, there was one update they really wanted. One of the things I said to her is, would you be able to take her to an ultrasound

to get the gender reveal? Supposedly she was very skittish of the doctors and didn't want to do these things. And I said, could you please take her just so I could start prepping everything? I would love to know the gender of the baby. Oh my goodness, I'm hoping it's a girl. TARA LEE SENT THEM AN ALTRA SOUND IMAGE girl.

Tara Lee sent them an ultrasound image with the word girl. The next day, the Graniths had a gender reveal party and decided to name the baby Avery. Avery was always a name that I absolutely loved. Naming the baby, revealing her gender, and decorating her nursery were the high points of the match with Sabrina. In late June, things took a dark turn. Tara Lee was coming to Chicago with one of her daughters for the Pride Parade and wanted to meet the Graniths for dinner to give them an update on Sabrina.

It was a Saturday and we just kept saying, hey, where are we meeting? Where are we meeting? I was waiting for this moment to be in person with her to be able to find out all of the information about our child. But it was getting late. They were supposed to meet at five and they'd heard nothing. And our consultant ended up reaching out to us

and she said, so Tara Lee is not in town. Tara Lee had had a crisis with a birth mother in Detroit. So instead of dinner in Chicago, they'd have to do a video call on Skype. The Graniths were pissed, but Tara Lee held a Trump card. And so she gets on the Skype with us and she tells us that the reason she can't come is because this birth mom was shot in her car

in a parking lot and lost the baby. Terri Lee said the murdered birth mother, Rashonda, had been matched with a couple and they were devastated. She told the Granith she was paying for Rashonda's funeral herself and was collecting donations if they wanted to contribute. Then Terri Lee gave them a grim update about Sabrina. She was taking entire bottles of pills.

She tried to drown herself in a bathtub. They had to pump her stomach. She's saying that they had to bring her back to life multiple times. I was crying so intensely. It was just like a stab in the heart. I remember distinctly her saying that no matter what, the baby was going to be special needs. We turned off our cell phones that day and I just went on a drive. We just went and drove because we couldn't talk to our family. It was too heavy. We couldn't talk to anyone.

We just drove. Because they have too many questions that we don't have answers to. just drove. Because they have too many questions that we don't have answers to. In need of help, they called their adoption consultant. Our consultant says to us that we have two different options. She's like, you can back out. Your other option is that you stay matched. Because our concern was we were told that Taralee made it clear

that if we didn't stay matched, that it was very likely that Sabrina would kill herself and kill the baby. Sabrina's life is in your hands. Literally. And the baby's life is in your hands. Literally, yeah. So in that weekend, we made the decision to stay with Tara Lee and always hope and to stay with Sabrina.

But the match with Sabrina had begun to feel less likely to happen. So because the Granites were open to having two children, Tara Lee tried to match them with a second birth mom. And yes, this was all before that startling phone call on the driveway when Tara Lee introduced them to Stephanie, the third birth mother. So now at this point, she's actively searching for a second birth mother for us. And then we do, we actually see said birth mother on a video call.

And there she is, flesh and blood. She asked us a lot of questions, which I appreciated. She was very open about why she was going to be giving her baby up for adoption. She was having a baby girl. She has a son, she has a daughter. And then she's pregnant with another little girl. And the craziest part was that Sarah was due September 7th of 2018. I was like, wow, this is a baby girl who's literally due the same week. The same week as Sabrina's baby.

So that was the complicated situation that Graniths were in when Tara Lee called them in August and introduced them to Stephanie. Remember, Tammy told Nick to stop mowing the lawn, and then they were both on speakerphone with Tara Lee. This phone call is completely bonkers andowing the lawn. And then they were both on speakerphone with Tara Lee. This phone call is completely bonkers and off the wall. She kept telling us, forget about Sabrina's baby. She says to us, Sabrina's going to raise that baby,

whether it lives or dies, and I'll never forget that. How did we go from being told we can't unmatch with Sabrina, we can't unmatch with this baby, and then being told, forget about her, and match to this new mom, Stephanie, and this new baby. Like a lot of complicated things, this all started really simply, with their wish to adopt a baby.

Their first match had been brutal, but they stayed with it. The second match had been comparatively easy. It was like insurance securing their dream. But Tammy and Nick wavered for a good reason. If we're still matched with Sabrina and the potential child that comes from that, they would have put us with three kids. But they couldn't say no, and Tara Lee knew it. The pleading became more intense. Tara Lee turned up the heat.

So Tammy and Nick thought of a way to stall for time, to put the burden back on Tara Lee. They said, We need to know the gender. Even though Stephanie was due in a few weeks, she said she didn't know the gender of her baby. But that wasn't because she wanted to be surprised. It was because she hadn't had an ultrasound. An ultrasound would tell them a lot. First, it would give a snapshot of the baby's health.

Second, it would confirm when Stephanie was probably due, although ultrasounds at a later stage are less accurate. And third, it would reveal the baby's gender. So the next day, the Graniths sent Tara Lee money for Stephanie to get her first ultrasound. They told Tara Lee they would strongly consider adopting Stephanie's baby if it was a girl. That might sound harsh, but they were thinking practically. They'd been expecting two girls, the nurseries were decorated accordingly, and it looked like Sabrina's match was not going to happen.

A few days later, the Graniths took a road trip north to visit Tammy's brother and sister in Minneapolis and check out the Minnesota State Fair. It's called the Great Minnesota Get Together. Two million visitors. Live bands, farm animals, fireworks, carnival rides, beer, fried everything. I think we're in the alley with all the trinkets, like the vendor Emporia, basically. When Tammy got a text from Tara Lee,

it was a video of Stephanie's ultrasound. The video has the heartbeats, and it has the picture up on the screen of the baby. It's a boy. it's a baby boy. There was a text message too. Did you see your baby? And I remember just kind of tapping Nick with my phone and handing him the phone.

Did you see your baby? It didn't feel like we were given a choice. More texts followed about Stephanie. She's crying, she wanted we were given a choice. More texts followed about Stephanie. She's crying. She wanted it to be a girl. She's so scared you're going to say no. It's almost this guilt that you feel immediately, like you have to take this baby.

The fair was in full swing around them. I said no. I, my answer was no. I basically left the decision to him. Nick's feeling was, let's do it. I gotta be honest, Terri Lee prayed on my bleeding heart at this, for this match. Most couples wait years, we'd have both at the same time and we're gone. We've already bought two of everything.

Nick texted back and forth with Tara Lee. They talked on the phone and then he told her, yes, they'd adopt Stephanie's son. When I met them in Chicago, Nick showed me their adoption contract for Stephanie's baby. It was just a handwritten paragraph in pen, jotted down at an angle on the back page of their contract for Sarah's baby. So this is Sarah's contract that we've already signed for. Then it says, per verbal conversation on 8-27-18, Nick and Tammy agreed to use this signature page to accept contract.

Nick signed it at the state fair. Then they went shopping. Tammy agreed to use this signature page to accept contract. Nick signed it at the state fair. Then they went shopping. We went to buy-buy baby and we bought $1,000 on baby boy clothes and it was straight up, no tax. Did you pick out a name? Oh yeah. Atticus. Atticus?

Atticus. When the Granites got back home to Chicago, they had just one week before they needed to drive to Detroit for Sarah and Stephanie's births. They had two nurseries ready to go. They stashed the baby boy clothes in the one that was originally meant for Sabrina's daughter, Avery. But they couldn't forget Sabrina. I remember telling people, like, there's this crazy chance that there could be three.

On the back of your mind, you're like, what if? Because you're so attached to Sabrina's child that you're thinking, well, if this baby's born and if this baby lives, how could we not take her home if, of course, she didn't want a parent? Of course we're gonna say yes. Despite never having met, seen or heard from Sabrina, they knew her story. They'd taken the pencil outlines of her biography

and imagined them into vivid moving images. They'd seen an ultrasound of her baby girl too, her little body. Who would take care of her, love her, they wondered. If it wasn't Sabrina, or Sabrina's parents, it would be them. If you're wondering why the Graniths hadn't started deeply questioning the veracity of what Tara Lee was telling them, I think it's because they didn't know nearly as much as you do about this story.

They didn't know anyone else who was adopting from Tara Lee, and she was controlling the narrative of their adoptions. Tara Lee was a nimble storyteller, able to generate characters, plot lines, motivations, and details on the spot. But she didn't count on the granite sticking so hard to Sabrina's baby. And that became a problem for Tara Lee. Sometimes I noticed she underestimated how attached her clients would get to the babies she promised them. I think she too often saw the matches coldly, transactionally. When

Tara Lee couldn't wrestle Nick and Tammy away from Sabrina and replace her with Stephanie, she reacted by saying something inhumane, but on brand in its brutal directness. Sabrina will raise that baby whether it lives or dies. So Nick finished mowing the lawn. Tammy made sure their business was covered for the next month of weddings and events, and the Graniths hit the road for Detroit. What they couldn't know is that in a few weeks, the FBI would start secretly investigating Tara Lee for adoption fraud, a case unlike anything they'd seen before.

It was also going to uncover something very disturbing about what Tara Lee had done to the Grananniffs. One month later, the couple from our first episode, Teresa and Mike Matheny, started their trip to Detroit. They knew the FBI was investigating Always Hope, but that was all they knew. Neither couple knew about the other, that they were both expecting to go home with Stephanie's son. When Mike and Teresa were three hours from Detroit, they asked Tara Lee for proof of life.

So, Teresa reaches out to Tara. Teresa just very gently asked her like, oh, like, is there, you know, an ultrasound? And Tara ends up sending her ultrasound. Oh, she not only does she send me the ultrasound, she follows it up with, yes, the baby is very real. So I'm like, oh my God, it's real. It has her name on there, her birth mom's name, it's legit. And then I think I sent a picture to my cousin and I'm like, oh my God, look.

She goes, I don't want to alarm you, she said, but if this due date on this ultrasound is correct, she would be 42 weeks. And Mike literally said, surely she wouldn't have us drive across the country if this wasn't real. Surely she wouldn't do that. Next time on Baby Broker.

In walks this lady who has jet black hair and is covered in tattoos. She has like her name brand jeans. She has her nails done. Tammy and Nick discovered their money wasn't going where it was supposed to. We knew we had given this money. And they went looking for Sabrina's baby. We're thinking that baby's here somewhere. I knew the lawyers had to come,

and so I wrote everything down, every red flag down. Don't want to wait for that next episode? You don't have to. Unlock all episodes of BabyBroker ad-free right now by subscribing to the Binge Podcast channel. Search for The Binge on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page. Not on Apple? Head to GetTheBinge.com to get access wherever you listen. As a subscriber, you'll get Binge access to new stories on the first of every month.

Check out the Binge channel page on Apple Podcasts or getthebinge.com to learn more. Baby Broker is an original production of Sony Music Entertainment and perfect cadence. It was hosted and reported by me, Peter McDonald. I'm the executive producer, along with Catherine St. Louis and Jonathan Hirsch of Sony Music Entertainment. Steven George recorded the narration at the Invisible Studios, West Hollywood.

We used music from audio network and a few tracks from Epidemic Sound. News clips are courtesy of WXYZ7 in Detroit, Michigan. Our production managers are Tamika Balanz-Kalosny and Sammy Allison. Our lawyers are Allison Sherry and Kathleen Farley. Special thanks to Steve Ackerman, Emily Rasek, and Jamie Myers. Meyers.