The Misery Machine - The Horrific Story of the Goodman Family Starvation

Episode Date: June 1, 2026

This week, Drewby and Yergy head to Wisconsin to discuss the case of a 14-year-old girl, whom we'll be referring using the pseudonym, "Emma." Emma was subjected to severe child abuse and neglect, and was hospitalized in November of 2025 after weighing only 35lbs. The teen was discovered by police after her father called 911 when she became severely ill. She was admitted to the hospital with extreme malnourishment and multi-organ dysfunction. In the hospital, she was able to regain weight and eat normally, which contradicted the family's claims that she had autism and simply refused to eat.Those arrested were her father, Walter Goodman, her stepmother, Melissa Goodman, her stepsister, Savanna LeFever, as well as Savanna's girlfriend, Kayla Stemler. Support Our Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/themiserymachine⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠PayPal: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.paypal.me/themiserymachine⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join Our Facebook Group: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://t.co/DeSZIIMgXs?amp=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram: miserymachinepodcastTwitter: misery_podcastDiscord: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://discord.gg/kCCzjZM⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠#themiserymachine #podcast #truecrimeSource Materials Available Upon Request.

We need to be up front about something before we start. The victim here is a minor and she is alive. Every court document, every news outlet covering the story refers to her only by her initials, MJG. We are going to refer to her by the pseudonym Emma. What happened to this girl is documented in a 41-page criminal complaint and the medical records are part of the public court record. What we are going to tell you is all on record,

but the person it happened to deserves whatever privacy she can hold on to going forward. Emma was born in 2011 and is a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, a tribal nation with a reservation in the Green Bay area. For everything that happened to her, Emma was just a kid. Her third grade teacher at Oneida Nation Elementary School, Ms. Quiver, remembered her clearly when investigators came asking. She described her as friendly and talkative. When the school went virtual in the spring of 2020,

she remembered Emma sending her messages after the switch saying that she missed her. Emma loved food. We know this because when she was finally in a hospital bed and a nurse told her she'd be getting three meals a day, her eyes lit up as she started listing off all the options she could think of, pancakes, Eminem's, tacos. She said she was looking forward to having vegetables.

When she got her first chocolate pudding and asked for her second one, she said. My dad will be so mad. He doesn't like when I eat that much. Walter Samuel Goodman III was born in 1978. He had at least four children, three of whom are now adults. He has said that he still talks with one of them, but he hasn't seen any of them in years. A court date over name changes was apparently the last time that he had seen them. He worked at Domino's for a while, and by the time this case came to light, he had been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver and was on the transplant list. He described himself to investigators as having end-stage liver disease. In 2014, Walter met a woman named Melissa online.

She's also referred to in some documents by her nickname Missy. They married on March 3, 2016. Melissa had two children from a previous relationship, an adult daughter named Savannah Lefebvre, and a teenage son referred to in court documents by his initials NM. For the sake of simplicity, we will be referring to him by the pseudonym Nate. By the time this case broke, Melissa was in her early 50s, and according to the criminal complaint, she was significantly obese to the point of being nearly bedbound.

She had kidney disease, and she rarely left her home. Savannah Lefevre was 29 at the events of today's story. She was of a similar build and also rarely left the house. She previously worked in child care, including at the Oneida Daycare, and had transitioned to working from home, primarily doing administrative work and selling Mary Kay. Her girlfriend, Kayla Stemmler, moved into the family's trailer on Hattie Lane in August of 2021. Kayla was around 28 at the time and was the only person who worked outside the home. Her job is one of the more important details in this case because Kayla's professional background was in early childhood education and work with autistic children.

She had worked as an assistant teacher in a Head Start program and then joined the Wisconsin Early Autism Project, where her title was advanced technical. She worked with children on social skills and school readiness. She described her work as individualized per child. All of this makes what we're about to tell you very troubling. Emma's mother referred to in court documents only by her initials AF, went to jail in the spring of 2020. Prior to that, Emma had been staying with her maternal grandmother, Joanne Close. A CPS worker contacted Walter and asked if he wanted to take his daughter. Walter said, well, she's my daughter, yeah, of course I'll take her.

Walter gained sole custody of Emma on May 1st, 2020. Up to that point, she had been a healthy, normal kid. The last time Walter had a real relationship with Emma was during a stretch when he was dating a woman named Dana. After that relationship ended, Walter went to jail in, his contact with Emma ceased. He told investigators the first time he saw Emma after that long gap, they painted Easter eggs. The point is, he had been largely absent from her life and Emma didn't really know him. Emma first met Melissa in April of 2019.

When she moved in, she initially shared a room with Nate, sleeping on the top bunk of a set of bunk beds while he took the bottom. At some point, Nate moved to the couch in the living room. When Kayla moved in in August of 2021, the living arrangements shifted again, and by that point, Emma had a bedroom to herself, one with a lock on the outside of the door. Nate was 15 at the time and in cancer remission. Alyssa and Walter had spent years traveling back and forth to children's Wisconsin and Milwaukee for Nate's treatments, sometimes being gone for days at a stretch. During those absences, Savannah and Kayla were left alone with Emma in the trailer.

What happened during those absences would later be documented in text messages. For the 2020 to 2021 school year, Emma was enrolled in fourth grade virtually. Starting in the fall of 2021, Walter told authorities she was being homeschooled. In Wisconsin, that requires nothing more than filing a one-page form of the Department of Public Instruction once a year. No form of oversight or follow-up was required. DPI spokesperson Chris Buker was quoted as saying, DPI has no legal authority or responsibility to monitor or regulate or investigate the home-based private educational programs or homeschooling. There is nothing in state law that exists to check up on that.

If the form is not submitted, the student is technically truant, but it is up to the local school district and local law enforcement to find those kids an act. In this case, nobody did. Emma later told investigators she believed she was doing normal fifth grade schoolwork, but she was 14. She should have been in either the eighth or the ninth grade by this point. Melissa's son Nate attended no in-person school either after COVID, but that was because of his cancer diagnosis.

Emma had no documented reason for missing school. Walter told people she was autistic. Alyssa said she refused to eat. And Kayla, a woman professionally trained to work with autistic children, went along with a narrative about food refusal in the context of autism. A neighbor named Anthony Bodway had known Walter for over a decade and reconnected with him around the summer of 2025 over a shared interest in four-wheelers. Walter brought Emma along to his house several times.

Told investigators he had no idea Emma was 14 years old. He thought she was either 8 or 9. Or in Anthony, and I quote, she didn't seem mentally sick or physically sick. To me, I thought she was a very sweet little girl. But Anthony witnessed how Walter was treating her. He heard Walter tell Emma to sit on the steps and not say a word to anybody. He heard Walter tell her to shut up.

And allegedly, Walter also said, I wish I could leave you in the woods and just get rid of you, as well as, I wish I could kill you. He also said that Emma would try to ask Anthony questions, and Walter would get irritated and tell her not to say anything. When Anthony offered her food or water, she ate normally. He also caught Walter telling him Emma would dig through the garbage for food. Anthony told him, well, hello, you're taking food away from her. She has to eat. He called CPS after that.

He told reporters later through an interview, talking to whoever I talked to, through CPS, they said, I'll document this. I'm writing this all down. Thanks for reporting it. That's all I got. Anthony's call went nowhere. What happened to Emma in that trailer on Hattie Lane did not happen all at once. According to the criminal complaint, investigators believe the neglect began around August 1st, 2021, and it continued until August 21st of 2025. Investigators described the neglect as chronic, and the evidence they collected makes clear that that was not an exaggeration. As we mentioned previously, the bedroom Emma occupied had a lock on the outside of the door. When investigators executed a search warrant on August

27, 2025, Detective Sergeant King found a barrel bolt lock hidden in the closet shared by Savannah and Kayla, along with two long screws. When investigators held the boltlock up to the holes, all four holes matched, concluding that Emma was being locked inside her room. room. Her mattress had been taken away from her and she slept on the bare floor. Photographs found on Melissa Goodman's phone showed Emma lying on the floor of her bedroom in nothing but her underwear and socks with her spine and hip bones visible. Multiple images were timestamped across December of 2024 in March of 2025, showing a human figure on the floor of her room while Walter and Melissa's iPad sat on a charging dock next to the television. There was a camera in Emma's

room. Walter said he installed it around 2020 shortly after she moved in. The camera had a motion sensor and Emma's every move was being tracked. If she was picking at her skin or doing something Walter did not like, he would tell her through the camera to stop. Emma was not allowed to leave her room without permission. She estimated she left her room three or four times a day, always with supervision. She was not allowed to speak or ask for anything except to use the bathroom and she would be accompanied to the bathroom door and waited on when she went. The reasons the family gave for monitoring her was that she stole food from the kitchen and according to Walter that she had a history of hurting herself. These are the two most common reasons we've seen terrible parents give when asked why they lock

their children up. In this case, how is it they can claim that she was malnourished because she refused food but was also constantly stealing food. Wouldn't they be happy she was eating at all? Sometimes she would wake up in the middle of the night, needing to use the bathroom and could not get out because the door was locked. She told investigators sometimes she had to urinate in her room. Text messages from January of 2023 show Kayla telling Melissa that Emma had taken more than one bite of food at a time and that she had used a belt on her for it.

Melissa replied, that's fine. She deserved it. A separate message, Kayla told Melissa, she will be fed before you come home tomorrow so she can wait until the next day for any more food if you choose. August 15th, 2024, Savannah texted Nate asking him to unlock him as door for her. March 4th, Melissa texted Savannah that Emma was not to be out of her room at all. Texts from 2024 and 2025 show Savannah asking Nate whether she could send Emma to retrieve things from another room for her while Savannah, herself, lay in bed. they referred to Emma as dummy and stupid across hundreds of text messages for years between every adult in the household. March of 2025, Savannah and Kayla were again caring for Emma while Walter and Melissa were away. A text from Savannah to Melissa that month read,

I don't mean to freak out. My anxiety just gets so bad when you guys are gone. But also, I am just scared because of how horrible she looks. I'm scared we're all going to go to jail or something. Melissa replied, I know she does, but she don't sleep either, and that's the biggest issue. Svanna also wrote, I just wish we could get her healthy enough looking to take her to the damn doctor to fix it.

But Emma was never taken to see a doctor. May of 2025, the text messages show Walter telling Joanne Close, who is Emma's maternal grandmother, that Emma was on a trip with his cousin when she came looking for her. Apparently, Emma's mother was in the process of dying of pancreatic cancer. By August of 2025, Emma had not been. to a doctor in five years. She's not been outside in years.

She told investigators she believed the last time that she had played outside was when she was 10 or 12. She could no longer walk to the bathroom on her own. She could push herself up using furniture and hold onto objects to move around at all. Her knees were permanently bent from years of being curled up in the fetal position on a hard floor. Doctors later documented contractures in her shoulder. She could not lift her arms up all the way.

Emma showered by her own estimate, weekly, or monthly, depending on when she was allowed to do so. On August 21st, 2025 at 528 in the evening, Walter called 911. He told the dispatcher his daughter was lethargic, moaning, and almost comatose, but he framed it as a recent thing. He said she had been sick for four or five days with a stomach bug. He said she was autistic and didn't like to eat. The call was several minutes long, when the dispatcher asked how long she had been sick. Walter said she'd been sick five or six days.

He thought it was just a cold because she'd been throwing up. He again mentioned her autism. He said her clothes were huge in hanging on her. He said her eyes were open, but she's not there. Walter carried her out on the porch because he said the porch was broken and he wasn't sure the ambulance could get inside. He described her weight by saying, and I quote, I said she don't eat.

officer saw Walter carrying Emma down the driveway. Her collarbone, rib cage, hip and sheetbones were all very prominent. She looked to be the size of his six to eight-year-old child. Walter told him Emma had last been to a doctor approximately a year and a half ago, that he stopped her care because the doctor was weird. He said no medical services had come to the house for Emma. He said he did try to get her to eat and gave her insured drinks, but she usually refused them.

Walter told officers Emma had been sick the last six days just throwing up normal kid stuff. When asked where Emma's mother was, Walter replied, and I'm quoting here, she's a whore. A first responder noted Emma's blood sugar at 24 milligrams per deciliter, which is severe hypoglycemia. Walter said he had given her a sip of wild cherry Pepsi to try to bring her sugar up because he said her mother was diabetic and thought that she might be diabetic too. Then why not get her care? Emma was transported to St. Vincent Hospital in Green Bay. She arrived. She weighed 35 pounds. She had a large bruise on the right side of her forehead,

was hypothermic, and had pressure sores. She was intubated and airlifted to Children's Wisconsin Hospital in Wawatosa. The following morning, August 22nd, investigators and CPS workers went to Children's Wisconsin and interviewed Walter. He said Emma was always the healthy one because she was never sick. He described her weight as something that fluctuated constantly, up to 60 or 70 pounds when she slapped down to 40 when she didn't. He said by the beginning of July of 2025, she had weighed 70 pounds. A CPS worker pressed him on why he hadn't called the doctor if she was losing weight.

Walter said Emma was walking and talking fine yesterday and then dropped. None of it matched the medical evidence. Emma's malnutrition was not the result of sleep deprivation or autism. It was the result of years of inadequate caloric intake, and her entire body was riddled with evidence supporting that. The CPS worker asked Walter directly why, if he had noticed Emma wasn't eating and was losing weight, hadn't he called the doctor?

Walter said, I didn't call the doctor. I didn't think anything of it. Later that same morning, officers paid a visit to the trailer. Kayla answered the door and initially said that Melissa was not home and that she had not seen her since the day before. But after she went back inside, she came out with Walter on FaceTime and Melissa. She told the CPS worker that Emma had caught a little bug. She said Emma had come to them as a petite girl.

So they offered Emma food and sometimes she would eat it, but if she didn't, they would offer her something else. The end of the conversation, when pressed on why Emma had not been taken to a doctor, Melissa said, looking back now, we probably should have taken her in. She said Emma had not been to a doctor because Walter didn't like the pediatric. that she had. Then she said Walter was going to switch Emma to the family doctor, but never did. Children's Wisconsin, the medical team began the process of figuring out what had been done to this child's body. Dr. Sandeep Narang, the attending physician, wrote the medical records that became

part of the criminal complaint. Emma's body had essentially no fat left anywhere on it. Her ribs, her spine, and her hip bones were all visible through her skin. Her hair had thinned to the point of being sparse and patchy in places. Her skin was dry and flaking. She had pressure sores in multiple areas. She had Lenugo, and if you don't know what that is, that's the fine body hair that grows when severe starvation strips away the fat that normally insulates the body. This is most commonly seen in newborns and people in the late stages of starvation.

Her BMI on a mission was 8.68. She was in the less than 0.01 percentile for both weight. and height for her age. On August 22nd, the day after admission, Emma went into circulatory shock. Her blood pressure and heart rate dropped to critical levels. She had to be given a blood transfusion.

Following day, she developed acute refeating syndrome. This is what happens when a body that has been starved for a very long period of time is suddenly given adequate nutrition again. This shift in electrolytes can be fatal and managing it requires around-the-clock monitoring. Emma's case, This was over the course of weeks.

Imaging showed insufficiency fractures to her vertebrae at T9 through T11 and to her left 11th rib. She had severe osteoporosis. Her vitamin D levels, according to the anachronologist that was treating her, were undetectably low. She had optic nerve neuropathy in both eyes from vitamin deficiency. Her teeth showed diminished enamel and discoloration from malnutrition. She had bilateral knee and hip flexion contractures, bilateral shoulder contractures, and she required moderate assistance at her pelvis and trunk just to stand upright. Medical's team conclusion was consistent with severe malnutrition over an extended period,

likely spanning months to years. The clinical nutrition team told investigators that a child who shows no height gain over years almost certainly has been malnourished for that entire stretch, not for days or weeks the way that Walter was claiming. The last known medical record for Emma was from September of 2020 when she weighed 58 pounds and was at the 25th percentile for weight. Between that appointment in August 21st, 2025, no doctor saw her. In those five years, she lost 23 pounds and failed to grow whatsoever. Emma remained in the pick-you until September 1st, 2025 when she was transferred

to a regular floor and exubated the same day. Once she could eat by mouth, she was eager. She wrote on her whiteboard again and again, I'm hungry, I need a snack, can I eat? Contrary to what Walter said, she wasn't refusing meals. Despite everything, she also told investigators she loved her family. She just wished she didn't have to be locked in her room and monitored with a camera. The attending neuropsychologist found Emma's cognitive abilities to be broadly age appropriate, working memory, attention, language, visual spatial skills, all in the low average to average range. She was not functioning at the mental level of a four to six-year-old, as Walter had claimed. She had some difficulty with processing speed likely related to her recent medical complications,

but her cognitive baseline was intact. Her third-grade teacher had never seen any signs of autism. She was never in special ed. Her cognitive abilities were found to be age-appropriate. There was no documentation during her hospital stay that suggested that she had autism. Walter's explanation for five years of starvation wasn't holding up. Out of Gamy County began its investigation on August 21st, 2025, the same day that Walter had called 911. Three months later on November 11th, the criminal complaint was filed.

Four people were arrested and charged, 47-year-old Walter Goodman III, 51-year-old Melissa Goodman, 29-year-old Savannah Lefevre, and 28-year-old Kayla Stemler. All four were held at the Outergamy County Jail. Walter, Melissa, and Kayla were each held on a $150,000 cash bond. Savannah was held on $100,000 bond. Each was originally charged with five felony counts, three counts of chronic neglect of a child with consequence being great bodily harm, and two counts of chronic neglect of a child,

with consequence being emotional damage. Combined, this is up to 105 years in state custody per defendant. At Melissa Goodman's initial court appearance, out of Gamy County Court Commissioner Brian Figgi said, quite frankly, we have some incredibly disturbing allegations before the court today. According to the allegations in this matter, the victim, quite frankly, was living in a house of horrors, but for the grace of God, she did not die. Melissa waived her preliminary hearing on December 16, 2025, and was ordered to stand trial.

On May 6, 2026, she appeared by video conference. She pled no contest to one count of chronic neglect causing great bottom. harm as party to a crime. One count of chronic neglect causing emotional damage as party to a crime, and one count of false imprisonment as party to a crime. Three other counts were dismissed. Combined, those three charges carry a maximum of 46 years in prison. The judge asked if she was being treated for a mental illness. Melissa said she was, but added, I'm of sound mind. Melissa sentencing is scheduled for July 1st, 2026, and we will be keeping an eye out for updates as they become available. and if she does get the maximum sentence,

it is quite likely that she will die in prison. Kayla Stemler, the woman with a early childhood education background, who could have easily taken one look at Emma and said, hey, I don't think she has autism. Hey, I think we should be feeding her. Well, she has a plea hearing set for the day after Melissa's. As of the date of this recording in May of 2026, Walter and Savannah were both awaiting pretrial conferences.

All remaining parties are presumed innocent. until proven guilty in a court of law. The trailer on Hattie Lane is now condemned, and neighbors who spoke to reporters were shaken. Pam Medina, who lived directly across the street, said she witnessed first responders carry Emma out, she said. I remember they carried her out. She looked very small.

Her head just kind of fell to the side. I didn't even know a child lived there. Pam said she used to see large grocery deliveries to the home, sometimes more than once a day, she said. They ordered a lot of food. How could they do that to her? Anthony John, another neighbor, told reporters, it's way beyond horrible.

How can one human do that to another human, regardless of what state of mind they're in? I'm appalled because they let this go. The state let that go. Anthony Bodway, who called CPS after witnessing how Walter treated Emma, put it plainly. It took her dad calling an ambulance to save her life. I don't like that it went that far to get her to.

some help. Wisconsin's Department of Children and Families website showed no CPS reports about this case before August 21st, 2025. News outlets contacted the Outta Gamy County Department of Health and Human Services. The agency responsible for handling the case and asked whether any prior reports had been received. The agency responded with a statement citing confidentiality laws and did not confirm or deny prior reports. The 90-day case summary that state law requires was overdue when reporters started asking questions in January of 2026. The agency said the delay was partly due to a request from the DA's office and partly due to staff transitions. Case also raised questions about Wisconsin's homeschooling laws, which require nothing but a one-page annual form. Walter had claimed Emma was being

homeschooled from 2021 onward and no one checked on her. She was locked in a room for all that time. Emma's cousin Leslie Dox Tater set up a go-fund me for her in November of 2025 and just the first few days, it raised over $4,000 out of its initial $6,000 goal. The goal was later raised to $22,000. As in May of 2026, it raised over $21,000 from 537 donors. Funds were designated for home modifications to give Emma a safe and comfortable space, transportation to medical and therapy appointments, and whatever else she will need going forward. Emma was released from Children's Wisconsin Hospital after weeks of intensive treatment. She went to live with family on her mother's side.

She is now enrolled in school. In the months following her rescue, she grew three inches and doubled her body weight reaching 78 pounds. Her cousin Leslie told reporters, she's a very vibrant little girl. She will tell you exactly how she feels about all situations. And I think that's really what's helped her to progress as far as she has.

And she wants to go and play. She wants to go and run and we have to just keep. reminding her, just wait for your body to catch up, but she is getting there. The GoFundee posted an update on March 27, 2026. A family member wrote, While we are careful not to share anything that could impact the ongoing criminal proceedings, we can confidently say that Emma continues to grow and thrive in every possible way. She truly is a miracle.

From surviving what she endured to the incredible progress she has made, her resilience is nothing short of astounding. We remain hopeful and encouraged every single day, knowing that with continued love and strength surrounding her, Emma's future is brighter than ever.