The Binge Cases: Denise Didn't Come Home - Baby Broker | 4. We All Became Investigators

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

The Mathenys arrive in Detroit praying their adoption is on—when two women contact them with grave concerns about Tara Lee. The scope of her crimes is only beginning to come to light.  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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Or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access wherever you listen. The Binge. Feed your true crime obsession. On September 8th, right on schedule. session. On September 8th, right on schedule, Tammy and Nick Granath's daughter, May, was born. But they were also matched with a birth mother named Stephanie. According to Tara Lee, Stephanie was supposed to deliver any day. But Stephanie had shown no sign of going into labor. She said she wasn't even due until late October.

Tara Lee sent Tammy and Nick a text disputing that. Tara Lee said, She's huge and very low, and baby is big. She said she has been going to the hospital for care. We are a bit unsure of her last period. She will come any day." The Graniths had come to Detroit expecting to adopt two babies who would be born at the same time. They'd paid Tara Lee.

They were invested. But the Graniths had been camped out in a hotel for more than two weeks. Nick was keeping their business afloat remotely. And soon, their daughter May would be healthy enough to go home with them. They'd also begun to trust that Stephanie was telling the truth,

that the baby wasn't due for another month. And Tara Lee just kept blowing it off. No, no, no, the baby's going to be born. And here we are sitting in Chick-fil-A on September 24th and still no baby. They decided to meet face-to-face with Terri Lee to discuss what to do about Stephanie. And because the Granites were always at the hospital,

they picked the Chick-fil-A near the hospital lobby as the meet-up spot. While the hospital lobby as the meetup spot. While this huge Detroit hospital has won awards for medicine, to feed its patients and employees, it plays host to the same fast food joints you'd find in a mall or airport, serving staples of the great American diet, burgers and fries, footlong meatball subs, fried chicken, candy and ice cream. It made me think. If a well-handled adoption is like an award-winning hospital, Tara Lee is like the fast food in the lobby.

It's bad for you. It doesn't belong here. There's no escaping it. Tara Lee walked into Chick-fil-A with a man named Jay. In a photo I saw of Jay, he has dark eyes, a shaved head, and a knowing look. The Granites couldn't tell what Jay's role was in Tara Lee's business, but he seemed to appear when conflict resolution might be needed.

Part muscle, part negotiator. Nick, who by nature is quick to smile and diffuse tension, said hello. His tone must have rubbed Tara Lee the wrong way. Tara Lee basically was like, you're too happy, Nick. We're going to slap that smile off of your face. I think Tara Lee knew what was coming. So we told her at that meeting that we were pulling out

of the situation with Stephanie. Tammy wrote Stephanie a letter explaining their decision. Stephanie, you are amazing and strong. Thank you so much for allowing us to be part of your life. We feel like you were absolutely put in our path for a reason. It's been such a tough decision and journey for us. At this time, since we have been in the hospital, NICU, for 17 days and counting. With Mae, we both feel and know we couldn't give proper care to your baby boy at this time. We have nothing but love and

admiration for how strong and how amazing you are." They handed Tara Lee the letter to give to Stephanie. They handed Tara Lee the letter to give to Stephanie. I learned she never received it. Stephanie, about to make the most difficult decision of her life, was simply told that the Graniths were backing out. Nick told me Tara Lee expressed frustration at the meeting, but not because she might owe them a refund. It was because she thought Tammy and Nick had picked the wrong baby. It was because she thought Tammy and Nick had picked the wrong baby.

Why are you choosing her? Why are you choosing Zara's baby over Stephanie's baby? They'd been parenting May for more than two weeks. The idea of swapping her for another baby was outrageous. I don't think she cared. She was just flailing at that point, I think. The Graniths stood up and said goodbye and walked out of Chick-fil-A. It was the last time they hoped they'd see Tara Lee and the last time they thought they'd hear about Stephanie. But later that night, Tammy got a text from her.

I'm sorry to hear about me. I hope and pray everything works out and you three will be in my prayers. God bless you." She had a huge heart. The day the Graniths backed out of their match with Stephanie was the day the Mathenys first heard about her. As it turns out, Tara Lee's suspected double match of Stephanie's baby

wasn't with the Mathenys and the Graniths. It was with the Mathenies and someone else. Days after the meeting in Chick-fil-A, Tara Lee told the Graniths she'd matched Stephanie to a new family. So they asked for a refund of whatever money of theirs hadn't been spent. I distinctly remember getting told that the new adoptive parents were refusing to pay for Stephanie's bills and Stephanie's living expenses up until they got matched. And I remember distinctly thinking like, oh my goodness, who are these people that she chose? Like, that's horrible. Why would they do that?

They wouldn't and didn't. The Mathenies paid $8,000 for Stephanie's living expenses, even though they were told she was due in just two weeks. And they said Tara Lee told them that the money was needed to cover previous expenses during Stephanie's pregnancy. Tara Lee never expected that the Graniths and Methenes might one day figure this out. The worst part of all was that Stephanie

didn't even get half of it. What was Tara Lee doing with all this money? The Graniths had paid Tara Lee to guide them on their adoption journey. Her path was the one less traveled, a bit of a shortcut. But the woods Tara Lee took them in were dark, disorienting, and off trail. And they went in so far, they could not turn back. And now she was leading the Mathenys into the same woods. They were isolated and freaked out. How many families were in there, lost and robbed? If only they could find one another and compare stories. They could see the forest for the trees

So much would come to light From Sony Music Entertainment and Perfect Cadence. This is Baby Broker. I'm Peter McDonald episode 4 We all became investigators Imagine this. You help your little brother land a great job abroad, but when he arrives, the job doesn't exist. Instead, he's trapped in a heavily guarded compound, forced to sit at a computer and

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In early October, the Granith's daughter, Mae, was discharged from the NICU. I'm frantically packing up whatever we've got. So meanwhile, I'm sitting in the car with our daughter, who's, you know, at this point, 26 days old, and we have this huge security issue on our hands. We're worried about Sarah's current boyfriend. He knows we're getting released. Nick checked every mirror for signs of Sarah's armed boyfriend,

who they'd heard wanted to kidnap May. MUSIC When Tammy was wheeled out, they drove off, taking an evasive route out of the city. They'd been there for a month. We're watching every car, making sure nobody's following us. When they safely crossed the border into Illinois, they got an idea. Days earlier, Tammy's sister had delivered a baby girl the same age as May, cousins.

And so we decided to drive straight to my sister's house and we surprised them. Yeah, we rang the doorbell and they opened and my sister just screams and it was very exciting. Then Tammy and Nick went home for the first time in a month as parents. And they sent Sarah, May's birth mother, updates. But some of the problems Nick and Tammy thought they'd left behind in Michigan

had traveled home with them. A few days after they got home, Tammy texted Tara Lee about a refund check for the money that hadn't been spent on Stephanie. And then we asked a couple of questions in regards to birth certificates. She responded and said, you don't get birth certificate until finalization.

Talia and Tanya will help you with anything else. So basically she avoided the question about the check. The new family Taralee matched Stephanie with was, of course, the Mathenies. By early October, the Mathenies were driving to Detroit in a panic, trying to rescue their adoption of Stephanie's baby boy. In the car, Teresa opened his ultrasound photo dozens of times on her phone, like a compulsion, like she could will him to be theirs. They were incredibly tense.

They'd been told that the FBI was investigating Tara Lee for fraud. But they couldn't betray what they knew. They had to have poker faces. That's what their lawyer, Tanya Carrotto, had said. When you get up here, you are going to have to sit down with Tara. You're going to have to pretend that you know nothing. She said, it's got to be business as usual. So Tara, you know, when we got into Detroit, I text her and was like,

we're here. And she's like, yay. You know, and so her plan was for the following day for us to meet Tara and our birth parents in Port Huron at a restaurant. Baby S's birth father, who was Stephanie's partner, would be there too. The next day, while driving to the restaurant in Port Huron, they got a distressing text from Tara Lee. She said, oh, I can't get a hold of her. She won't answer. I'm doing everything I can. Yeah.

Tara Lee canceled the dinner. So then we go back into panic mode. I'm a mess, you know, crying, don't know what to do. We had not slept. We were running on fumes. Teresa called the adoption consultant who'd first connected them with Tara Lee to see if she had any information. She did. She said a former client of Tara Lee's was bashing her on Facebook. Julie Falconberry.

And so that name stuck in my head. That night when we were at our Airbnb, I sent her a message. I was like, hey, just kind of fishing, you know, hey, you know, we're with Tara Lee, you know, we're here in Michigan or whatever. And she immediately, you know, sent me a message back and was like, can I call you? But I don't want to call you alone. I want to have my friend Courtney on the phone. We're still trying to figure out which way is up,

who's on our team, who's not, what's true, what's real. Don't talk to these women. I had to, I had to. I didn't know what was going on. I had to know. They called me. I am in the dining room pacing around the kitchen table. I'm on the phone with these two women.

Teresa was desperate to find out more about what Tara Lee had done, to get a glimpse of the bigger picture. But she wasn't prepared for some of the bombshells she'd learned from these two strangers, two women who were much further down the path with Tara Lee. They'd had time to wrap their heads around things, but Teresa was still barely processing the unthinkable that was happening. On the call, Courtney told them that the FBI investigation was new and real. She invited Mike and Teresa to join a group they'd started on Facebook.

She said it was full of other couples who'd worked with Tara Lee. Many, including Courtney and Julie, had had failed matches. Birth moms who suddenly backed out. Or had miscarriages. Or had babies that died after delivery. Babies they never saw. Yes, all of these things did happen in adoptions, but they were happening a lot with Tara Lee.

Something wasn't right. And Courtney had been to Tara Lee's house. She'd seen behind the curtain. Seen some things that made her fear the worst. That when the FBI began turning over stones, they were going to discover a giant fraudulent scheme. Hi everyone, this is Jonathan Van Ness. Clean water, fresh air, our health.

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Learn more and get involved at au. No, no. It's called denying a sweetened speech. It's misinformation. Like so many Americans, my dad has gotten swept up in conspiracy theories. These are not conspiracy theories. These are reality. I spent the year following him down the rabbit hole, trying to get him back. Listen to alternate realities on the embedded podcast from NPR.

All episodes available now. Courtney Edmond and Teresa Matheny would become very close friends. I met Courtney in Atlanta, where Teresa and Mike live. She'd flown in for the weekend from her home in Colorado Springs. Courtney and her husband Curtis met in high school. He's a self-taught computer programmer. She worked as an EMT and is trained as a doula. By 2015, they had four biological children and decided they wanted to adopt a baby. In the studio, Courtney sipped on a soda while I asked her about Tara Lee.

What was Tara Lee's sales pitch to you? One of her most famous sayings was, my adoptions don't fail. And that was one of my biggest fears. She would tell all of her families right from the start, my adoptions don't fail. All of my adoptions are successful. She would tell me how she would get to know these women personally.

She would say that she would take them herself to doctor's appointments. And so it didn't seem like it was run just like a business. She made it sound personal. She made it sound like it was her passion, her lifeline. Like this is what she lived to do. her passion, her lifeline, like this is what she lived to do. Like a lot of the couples Tara Lee worked with, Courtney and Curtis had been trying to adopt for more than a year, and they'd gotten nowhere. Their desire was high, their expectations were low. In 2017, less than one week after they signed on with Tara Lee,

she matched them with a birth mother. But being on a monitored text chain with the birth mom was too arm's length for Courtney. She wanted to get closer to the woman whose baby she was going to adopt. So she found her on Facebook. The young woman had posted selfies of the timeline of her pregnancy, with excited captions like, just eight more weeks. She'd even given the baby a name. It didn't seem like she wanted to give her baby up for adoption. Courtney called Tara Lee.

Can I back out? What can I do? And she was like, no, I can guarantee you that she's going to place this baby. I can guarantee you that it's gonna happen place this baby. I can guarantee you that it's going to happen. You don't have anything to worry about. She's just in denial. She can't take care of this baby.

I know she can't take care of this baby. She knows she can't take care of this baby. And so hesitantly, I continued. But despite Tara Lee claiming her matches never failed, Courtney had a bad feeling this one would be the exception. So she didn't prepare her house for a baby. And Tara's like, she would get mad at me. She would yell at me, no, you need to set up a nursery.

You need to buy a crib. You need to buy a stroller. You need everything. Get everything set up. Courtney had raised four babies. She knew what she was doing. So did Tara Lee though. I think she wanted Courtney to not only financially invest in the outcome, but

emotionally invest in it. And that's what Courtney was guarding herself against. I hadn't heard Courtney's story yet, but I knew enough to predict that if the match did fail, Tara Lee would try to roll her into another one. predict that if the match did fail, Tara Lee would try to roll her into another one. At Tara Lee's constant urging, Courtney began to believe the adoption might happen. One day, at home in Colorado Springs, Courtney and Curtis put a present out for their kids to open. It was an outfit for a baby boy, their way of announcing they were adopting a baby. She said her kids flipped out with excitement. She said Tara Lee was proud of her.

A few weeks later, the birth mother went into labor. Courtney and Curtis flew to Detroit for the delivery. They went to the hospital, the one with the Chick-fil-A, and gave Tara Lee her final payment of $4,000. Then they went up to meet their son. We got to feed him and, you know, we're talking to the nurses and they said, well, well, Tara told us not to be there too long because the birth mom wanted to have her other kids meet the baby. I thought it was weird, but we just went with it. We went out to dinner. we did a little shopping.

We'd come up with a name because Tara was pushing us, you have to come up with a name. She called me and she's like, hey she's wavering. I don't know she's gonna place this baby. And I, I went off on Tara. I had lost it. I was in at the parking lot on my knees telling her, I told you I didn't want to do this. I told you this was going to happen. And I was like, you have my kids involved. You have my husband involved.

And my husband had to literally pick me up, put me in the car and take me for a drive because people were looking. I was screaming. My husband had to literally pick me up, put me in the car and take me for a drive because people were looking. I was screaming. I was so broken at that point. I remember just sitting in my shower, crying for like an hour.

Because it's a very weird feeling when you meet a baby that you think is yours, but it's not really yours. Curtis broke the news to their kids. They were heartbroken for sure, but I think they were more sad for me. Tara Lee convinced Courtney that her failed adoption was an anomaly. All she needed to do was stick with it,

give it one more try. In early 2018, Courtney flew back out to Detroit. This time, she planned to stay for a few weeks. She wanted to help Tara Lee. She'd even sleep at her house. She wanted to see how adoptions are supposed to work. But that's not what she saw. Courtney said she stayed in a spare bedroom in Tara Lee's five-bedroom,

four-bath house, and that everything was chaotic. The way Tara Lee acted in the hospital with the granites, compulsively typing, and matching families to birth mothers, was how she acted at home too. Her kids and husband revolved around her. Courtney said Tara Lee divulged that she'd had some serious health issues in the past year, including breast cancer and a heart attack. But after living with Tara Lee, Courtney began to doubt if that was true. And I heard the same doubts from other couples I talked with.

Courtney said she thinks it was Tara's cover for when she was too busy, too overwhelmed with matches and birth mothers. If she dropped the ball, she'd blame it on a health issue that no one would dare question. She'd also go shopping. She said, my way of therapy is shopping. But she said, I don't ever shop with anybody. It's always me by myself. But this one time she did take me. She was like, you're lucky, I don't ever shop with anybody. It's always me by myself.

But this one time she did take me. She's like, you're lucky. I'm taking you. I don't take anybody. Courtney told me they went to a high-end shopping mall, probably Somerset Collection in a northern suburb of Detroit. It has stores like Balenciaga, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany's, and Versace.

Oh, and a Chick-fil-A. And we weren't even there an hour, and she probably blew through 10 grand. She walked into the stores. They all knew her name. She would go up to the counter. She would say, I want that. Not look at the price tag.

I want that. Pack it up for me. Get it ready. And she would go to the next store. So what's going through your head? Say, I just want you to know that this is not my money. This is not coming from the adoption, or adoptions, I don't make a lot of, this is all Jeremy's money.

And what did Jeremy do? Jeremy was a HVAC guy. She said he owned the business and made a lot, a lot of money. So she said that that's where all the money would come from. Huh, right. And as you're at their house, are you witnessing Jeremy sort of his business going gangbusters? Oh, Jeremy was always home. Jeremy was always home. Jeremy was pretty much the Jeremy was always home.

Jeremy was pretty much the only parent. And then do what Wotero said. And while I was there, they did start demoing their kitchen. In Detroit, the highest-earning commercial HVAC installer makes about $75,000 a year. But most people who work on HVAC systems make a lot less. According to ZipRecruiter, the average is under 30 bucks an hour. I don't know where Jeremy was on that scale. He could have been at the top or the bottom. The Lees had a mortgage too, and health insurance, and multiple cars, and cell phones, and big

grocery bills. By my calculations, they wouldn't have much left over, if any, for a shopping spree at Tiffany's. But Courtney said she didn't grasp the significance of this until much later. She was focused on how Tara Lee would pinball between crisis and opportunity with her adoption clients all day. She would get phone calls in the morning from a woman she had never met that would state she was pregnant.

Tara would take her word for it, not get any proof, call many, many families that afternoon, match her, and demand money that night. Tara Lee, admired for her straight talk, was also making stuff up, and Courtney saw it happen. You had a birth mom come over to the house, take a pregnancy test that I went and bought, Courtney saw it happen. Yeah, the birth mom come over to the house,

take a pregnancy test that I went and bought, came back negative. I looked at it and Tara said, it's positive I'm calling this family. So she took a negative test that you saw and she pretended it was positive and called the family to say, hey, I've got a baby for you.

Yeah, and this family, this birth mom had already placed with this family. So she said, I'm just going to call the same family. Wow. Right, because then she can play the, you need to adopt the sibling card. Yeah, exactly. That money-making lie sent Courtney packing.

She flew home to Colorado Springs, but she wasn't done with Tara Lee, because Courtney was still invested. She had matched with another birth mom, and this baby was real. When the match began, the birth mother didn't have a place to live. Tara did have a relationship with a slumlord that had these junk houses that she would just kind of house her, the women she was working with. I only saw one.

It was trash. Holes in the walls, tarps for roofs, yards overgrown, smelled like musty mold, like just not clean, not clean, just crap houses. Tara put her in a house that had no appliances, I don't think it had any heat, didn't have electricity. So she was keeping her food in the snow to keep cold. Her baby's milk, you know, eggs, just the basic stuff. They slept on the floor, no bed, not even an air mattress, no couch, nothing.

Courtney said she gave Tara Lee money to buy the woman a refrigerator, a bed, and to pay for heat. But the woman told Courtney she hadn't gotten any of those things. She would send me pictures and I would tell her, I would come back to Tara and say, Tara, why is she not getting these things? She's keeping her food in the snow. She's sleeping on the floor. She's pregnant.

And Tara would be like, she's lying to you. I gave her that money. She had to have used it on something else. She would say, you know, she probably used it to buy drugs. She probably used it to get drugs. She probably used it to get alcohol. It was always something like, you can't trust these girls. You can't trust them. But Courtney kept pushing, and she said Tara Lee eventually got the woman what they'd agreed on. Where it came from and how much she paid for it wasn't clear.

As the baby's due date approached, Courtney said Tara Lee asked them for her final $4,000 payment. They paid her and flew to Detroit for the delivery. But when they got there, this birth mother also expressed serious doubts about whether she wanted to give her baby up for adoption. Courtney said Tara Lee tried to convince the young woman she should do it. But Courtney did not feel right about that at all. She ended the match. I'm done, I'm walking away, I'm going home. And I left and haven't seen Tara since.

When it was over with Tara Lee, Courtney said she felt all alone. She didn't know any other couples who tried to adopt through Tara Lee. But she knew they were out there. She thought if she could just talk with some of these families, it might help her heal. So in July of 2018, she found Sarah Scott on Facebook. Sarah lived in Maryland. She'd also had a failed adoption with Tara Lee.

And she's like, you know what? Let's start a little Facebook group. That's just, I'm gonna start one up right now. I was like, all right. She's like, okay, it's gonna be you and me and I'll add Julie and we'll just see where this goes. The third member was Julie Falconberry from South Carolina.

She'd had a failed adoption with always hope too. They started messaging and then Julie addressed the elephant in the chat room. She's like, I have a question. Do you think there's something not right with Tara? I was like, girl, I'm glad you asked because yes, this is what I am seeing. Courtney told them everything you just heard. And when she did, she said they recognized their stories in hers. Like, there was a pattern to these failures. Birth moms on the fence about the adoptions early on. Birth moms not

getting the money the couple sent to Tara Lee. They wondered how many other couples were out there who'd had failed adoptions with Tara Lee, who'd been through the same things they had. They decided to find them and invite them to join their group. By the third night we had nine families. After a month we had 20 families, and then a little bit after that we were up to 100 families. It wasn't until we started adding more families that we were like seeing patterns of,

that it was like, they would mention the same birth, two families would mention the same birth mom. And then it would be, they would show the same a sonogram picture. And then it would be in the comments that they would connect like, wait a second, I matched with that birth mom. You're matched with her too? And yeah, you know, and they're like, wait, wait,

I've already paid this much in fees. Have you? You know, and it was, we were connecting the dots there. So what began as a support group became a group that realized there might be a crime being perpetrated here. Yes, and we all became investigators. being perpetrated here. Yes, and we all became investigators. By the time Courtney and Julie called Teresa Matheny in mid-October,

their Facebook group had grown to include couples from dozens of states across the U.S., all the way to Alaska. Courtney told Teresa and Mike that she really hoped their adoption with Stephanie was real. But it was also possible that Tara Lee was planning for Stephanie's baby to go to another family. Theresa told me she and Mike barely slept that night. They were fully invested in this adoption, financially and emotionally. She'd taken maternity leave from work.

They'd booked a long term rental. We're like in the middle of it. Tara's got our money. We're already in Detroit. They knew the FBI was investigating Tara Lee. She'd canceled their dinner. And then Courtney called to tell them she believed Tara Lee had been double matching babies. By Tuesday, I literally was like, if this dinner, like if we don't meet these people today, like we're leaving. I'm outta here. Next time on Baby Broker. We drive to Port Huron.

It's supposed to be me and Teresa, birth mom, birth father, and Tara. The FBI gets involved. Went into our conference room and I took that big rollout paper, tore off like a ten foot section, put it across the conference table, and then just literally started handwriting a roadmap of every name, who's connected to who, birth parents names, match date, how much money was paid, did the match succeed, was it failed. We don't know anything about birth mom's medical condition, it was

high-risk. She whispered to me and said, you know you still have a balance to do We don't know anything about birth mom's medical condition. It was high risk. She whispered to me and said, you know, you still have a balance to do to me. Don't want to wait for that next episode? You don't have to. Unlock all episodes of Baby Broker 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 Rasic, and Jamie Meyers.