True Crime with Kendall Rae - Foster Son Gets Salt Poisoned? The Andrew Burd Story

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

Andrew Burd was a young victim of neglect and placed into the foster care system when a local family took him in. As the family didn’t know his history and what he had been through, they were at a loss when it came to dealing with his strange behaviors, which including eating dangerous things and whatever happened to be around him. Donate to NCMEC through my campaign!  https://give.missingkids.org/campaign/kendall-rae/c438796 Shop my charity merch! https://milehighermerch.com/  All profits from this charity merch will be donated to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: https://www.missingkids.org/  This episode is sponsored by: Vessi - promo code: KENDALLRAE Generation Why Check out Kendall's other podcasts: The Sesh & Mile Higher Follow Kendall! YouTube Twitter Instagram Facebook Mile Higher Zoo REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://bit.ly/32kwPly Form for people directly related/ close to the victim: https://bit.ly/3KqMZLj Discord: https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN CONTACT: For Business Inquiries - [e-mail]

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Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. So the case I'm going to be telling you about today is definitely one of the weirdest I have covered. It's very strange and I think people are going to have very mixed opinions on it. I definitely fall somewhere in the middle of the whole situation. It's one of those cases that I don't really feel like

I have a good grasp for what truly happened at the end of the day. A lot of it is very up in the air and confusing. So I definitely want to hear your thoughts. Personally, I'm very curious about how you guys will react to this family that I definitely want to hear your thoughts. Personally, I'm very curious about how you guys will react to this family that I'm about to tell you about. To this mother, her name is Hannah Overton. And this is the Overton family. Larry and Hannah are the parents and they were very good Christian parents. And they got married when they were pretty young. And

they were living in Corpus Christi, Texas and they had a huge heart for kids. And they were also a very religious family. They were very devoted to their faith and to Christianity. They actually did missionary work for a few years. They were definitely considered to be really good people because they did a lot to give back through their church. And Hannah Overtan actually had been doing volunteer work for a lot of her life, even when she was a teenager.

She used to spend her holidays volunteering at an orphanage across the border in Reynoza. She spent a lot of her time helping to feed, bathe, and minister kids who were living on the streets. And in addition to this, she had even spent several years caring for special needs children who were severely disabled. Hannah really loved children and she

specifically told her husband that one day in the future she wanted to adopt a child, specifically a child who had some type of disability or issue that they could help guide in. So as you can tell, Hannah was a pretty good person. Like people around her knew her as being a very, very good person. So after Hannah and Larry got married, they had four kids and after they had their fourth kid, they started to think about possibly adopting a fifth child. And this was something that Hannah always wanted to do. She always knew that she wanted to be a mom of several different children, and she wanted it so that not all of them were her actual biological children. In 2005, Hannah and Larry decided to start taking the whole adoption process. A lot more seriously,

really going after it, trying to make sure they were all lined up to adopt a child into their family. And they actually did find a little girl. She was nine years old and she was deaf. So it was a perfect fit. Hannah wanted a child with disabilities. So they were really, really excited, but by the time they got everything, you know, sorted in the process, which is a huge process. Adoption's a crazy long process that is difficult and confusing and stressful. So once they got through all of that

towards the end of the process of them being able to adopt, they actually lost this little girl because she was adopted by a different family, which is good, but it was kind of upsetting for them. But they still wanted to go ahead with the idea of adopting. So as I mentioned, they were a Christian family and so much so that Larry actually taught a Sunday school program for kids and Hannah taught a Bible study. So they were very devoted and their children were also very involved in the church as well. So not long after they had lost the first girl that they tried to adopt, they ended up coming across a little boy in their church who was a foster child and their

foster family attended the church and they were looking for someone to adopt him. His name was Andrew Bird. So Andrew had a speech delay and he spoke very gently. He even spoke sometimes with a bit of a stutter and the Overton family had heard that every Sunday, Andrew was praying when they had their prayer request or something during their Sunday school that he was praying to get adopted. So just really tugs on your heartstrings.

What are you looking for Andrew? I'm looking for it. Yeah. And the over 10 daughters actually were in Sunday school with him, and they overheard him saying this, and that's when they brought the idea to their parents of adopting Andrew Bird. So they started thinking about possibly adopting Andrew, but as soon as word got out to other people in the

church that they were even considering it, a lot of warnings came in from other people about his behavioral problems. Now, obviously a lot of kids in foster care have behavioral problems. Andrew's birth mom actually gave birth to him when she was only 16, and she used a variety of substances, but she had really abused a lot of things while she was pregnant with Andrew. Andrew's father was also really young, only 17, and his father actually worked at a traveling carnival, so he was almost never home, terrible situation,

and way too young of parents. So how did Andrew end up in foster care? Well, CPS ended up launching an initial investigation when he was brought into the hospital on his first birthday for a broken arm. And after this, there were four more investigations launched into reports of abuse and neglect. So he was just in a very bad home.

And apparently his grandmother also had a substance abuse problem. So she also could not take care of Andrew. So CPS decided it was best to remove him from the home. He was only two and a half years old when they decided that he was an immediate danger and needs to be put in a foster home. And his parents both lost complete parental rights to him a little after he turned three years old. So obviously Andrew is a kid that has a lot of problems. He really came

from a rough rough situation and tons of kids in foster care have these behavioral problems because they were in such rough situations before they got adopted or you know ended up in a new foster home. So it is very common and people in the church were warning them about this. Andrew was actually supposed to be adopted by the church pastor and his wife, but after they spent more time with him, they decided that he was too much for them to handle and they backed out of it. So the overtens decide to step up and try to take on the challenge of having Andrew join their family. But at the same time that they made this decision, Hannah also got pregnant. So they're about to have six kids.

Andrew had all of these behavioral problems going in. Specifically, he would hoard food. He would take food out of the trash. He would store food, try to hide food from people, which is very, very common. He also threw really bad temper tantrums. I mean, he was a very angry kid, a very upset kid. And on top of all this, Larry was also experiencing a bit of financial problems. His job was really only allowing him to barely bring in and meet. And so they were pretty strapped

financially. And just emotionally, They had a lot going on. She's pregnant. They have four, about to be five, about to be six kids. So the stress levels are very high. The Overson family truly felt like if anyone could raise this kid and help him get through his problems, it was them. Hannah really felt like she was meant to be a mother.

So in spring of 2006, they went ahead and proceeded with the adoption process. Andrew was gonna come live with them for a six-month trial period before the adoption was finalized, so that's what he was doing. So he moved in with them as foster at first. They were really really excited about him joining their family, especially their kids. They knew him from Sunday school and they were super excited to have him as a brother. They really wanted him to feel as welcome as possible. They built like a three tiered bunk bed for their sons to all sleep in with Andrew and they also got him a bunch of Spider-Man stuff because he loves Spider-Man. So they got him

like the Spider-Man toothbrush, shoes, sheets, blankets, everything like decked amount and Spider-Man, so they got him like the Spider-Man toothbrush, shoes, sheets, blankets, everything like decked-amount and Spider-Man stuff, so he would be really excited when he came. You guys, I am so excited that today's episode is sponsored by Vessi. This has become one of my favorite brands. I have several pairs of Vessi shoes and they are the best shoes out there. I cannot say enough good things about them. I've recommended them to tons of my own friends and family. These shoes are a game changer.

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guys got to check them out. You can visit vests.com slash Kendall Ray for a pair of your vests shoes and use the code Kendall Ray for 15% off your entire order. You can check them out at vests.com slash Kendall Ray using code Kendall Ray for 15% off a pair order. You can check them out at Vesy.com slash Kennell Ray using code Kennell Ray for 15% off a pair of your Vesy shoes. So that year actually on Mother's Day Andrew spent the first day with the Overton family and he became attached them extremely quickly soon calling Hannah mommy and Larry Daddy and he followed Larry around everywhere he went. He really loved Larry. He was doing really well.

Even at Sunday school, he was doing way better. They noticed at Sunday school that he seemed to be in a good home, that he seemed happier and more upbeat. Interesting God to know. Pastor Rod Carver and his wife Marie noticed an immediate change in Andrew. If you saw him around the church, Andrew was always with his brothers and sisters. Andrew would tag along on Larry's feet all the time.

He started being able to put sentences together, easier, put words together and make sense. And their adoption supervisor even noted that Andrew seemed like he was in an awesome home with loving parents. And even though to everyone else and at Sunday school he did seem like he was making a lot of improvements, there were still some major issues that the over-tens were experiencing back at their house. They noticed that he would act more like a toddler than a preschooler like he was just delayed a bit. One of the ways was instead of like using his words to say like I want that he would just point it to me and go, and you know a lot of younger kids do that but you kind of grow out of that as you get older so he wasn't doing that. When he was four years old he spent most of his time playing with their youngest

son who was two years old instead of their four-year-old. They said that his motor skills were really behind and he just was going to need a lot of work for a long time. He was also physically really unsteady. He was very clumsy. Hannah was super worried about his safety about him knocking into something. She would make him wear an inflatable life vest just to go in there like little toddler pool. She was very very worried about him getting into something because he was just kind of a busy kid. But his most odd behavior was his obsession with food and eating. And this makes sense. Like, you, we don't know exactly what happened to him when he was at his first home. He could have been, you know, kept from food or starve. We have no idea what he's been through to make him like that.

But that is very common in foster children, the whole hoarding and just food issues and general eating disorders. Regardless of how much Andrew Aide, he always said that he was still hungry. If he was denied seconds or thirds, he would throw a tantrum, absolutely freak out and rage at them.

He would literally look on the ground for crumbs. He also got caught trying to eat strange things like cat food and play dough, crams, toothpaste, glow sticks. He was literally eating pieces of the carpet. Today, he could barely graham along on errands because he would always grab stuff and eat random things off of the shelves. And then not to mention, he would eat things

in the parking lot off the ground. He would even try to pull up gum off the ground and eat that. And if you think the gum is bad, he also would try to eat cigarette butts. So his problems went very deep. They took him to the doctor and they determined that it probably wasn't a medical problem, that it was just a behavioral issue. And they thought, you know, with more time and more love and patience that he would grow out of it. The adoption agency had shown them plenty of cases of children who had this problem and grew out of it, so they were hoping that would happen for Andrew too, but later that year in September,

it would actually get worse because the family was in a car accident and this really, really upset Andrew and just threw him off. It wasn't a terrible accident that's for sure. The only one who was really injured was Hannah and she wasn't injured. She got like whiplash on her neck and she got bruised on her face from where she hit the dashboard. But it was still upsetting for Andrew and it seemed to really trigger even worse behavior. And after the accident Hannah had to lay in bed for a few weeks and recover and this was really hard for them because Larry actually had to work more to make up for her lost hours because they had just bought some new

property and they had to keep up the payments for it. They tried to get babysitters and family friends to come over and watch Andrew but eventually they would all you know not want to come any more because Andrew's behavior was just so bad. So Andrew's eating habits were still getting worse and he even was starting to get up in the middle of the night and try to get things out of the kitchen. One morning his father Larry decided to have him just eat whatever he wanted for breakfast. He thought maybe he would just eat until he was full or maybe he would eat until he threw up and that would teach him a lesson. So Larry made him a full plate of sausages and a dozen eggs. And apparently he ate every last bit of it. And he kept eating until he eventually threw up and then he asked for more.

So this was obviously a major issue for him. So since he kept getting up in the middle of the night to go to the kitchen, they decided to end up installing a camera in his room so they could watch him during the night. And on the camera, they saw him trying to eat part of the foam mattress and also paint off of the wall. So at this point, they're like, what is going on? So they decided to bring him to the adoption therapist and have a little bit of a chat.

And that's when the supervisor suggested that Andrew might have something called Pika, which is something that is always fascinating me. It's basically where you have cravings to eat things that are not food. There are a lot of people that have this. I've seen plenty of TLC shows about this. I'm sure you guys have two.

People who just eat random different things, it's honestly bizarre But it's a real medical condition and they start to think that maybe Andrew has that and it's maybe not something behavioral. It's more of a you know a medical struggle that he's dealing with so they made an appointment with his doctor to get that checked out Then they also had an issue with his temper tantrums getting a lot worse Then they also had an issue with his temper tantrums getting a lot worse. So on October 2nd 2006, Larry took the rest of the family out to go to church and Hannah stayed home with Andrew to have some one-on-one time with him. So pretty soon after they left, Andrew already started asking if he could have lunch

and Hannah told him that he needed to wait because Larry was going to be bringing lunch home and he did not like this answer. He went to his room and threw a huge tantrum. And this is something that he had done before, but Andrew ended up shitting all over his room and wiping it, smearing it all over the walls, the bed, pretty much everywhere. Now this is something that some kids will do, especially kids with behavioral issues. It's a way to lash out or to get a parent's attention, but it's not completely uncommon. So after he did this, they ended up having to throw out his bed sheets and they kept putting it in the trash. And Larry

said that every time they would put it in the trash, Andrew would keep going to the trash and taking them out. And so they finally decided to burn them. Now this is very strange to me. Feels like there's like other things you could have done first, like maybe just taking it to a dumpster away from the house or literally taking it outside to the trash can, unless he was literally going outside to get it.

But anyway, Larry decided to burn the sheets on the grill. I have never really heard of someone using their grill to burn something like that. I feel like that would just mess up your grill. I mean, you are cooking food on a grill, so putting dirty, shitty bed sheets on a grill and burning them seems very strange to me and they didn't even burn them all the way. They were like kind of stuck to the grill. Almost seemed like the sheets

ruined the grill. But anyway, and they also said that to clean Andrew, they sprayed him down with a hose outside. What are you doing hosing him down in the backyard? I mean, it's sounds like something you see in a movie about prisoners. He was filthy. He's all over him. We have a shower. I do have a shower.

And in retrospect, I probably would have made. I would have definitely made that decision. Stand a four-year-old boy naked in the yard and hose him down with a hose that seems harsh. And this is also very strange. They also had to clean Andrew's actual mattress and so the mattress was wet and he couldn't sleep on it that night. So instead of having him like sleep on a couch, you're having him sleep in bed with them or something, they had him sleep on the bed frame like

just the wooden bed frame and this has been very controversial and some people don't see too much wrong with it. I think it's very very weird. I don't understand why you would make a a child sleep on a wooden bed frame. Like, my parents never would have done that to me as a punishment. I know people like have varying degrees of punishment and I'm also one of those people who would probably never spank my kids. But like, I feel like a wooden bed to sleep on is pretty harsh of a punishment for a young child who is struggling with all these issues from being abused. It's not like he's just doing this. He is messed up.

Like, you know what you're getting into with foster kids. I get a rant on about this. I think that was a very strange move, but I do understand that I necessarily don't understand when it was like to have six kids in that house and to be dealing with a child with that bad of problems. I don't even have one child, so I can't imagine what it would be like to have that many and a child who is putting feces all over the walls and throwing tantrums

and eating everything like I understand it could be very stressful. So I guess you kind of have to make your own mind up about what you think about that whole situation. So this was the day before something worse happens. The following day is October 3rd, 2006. Larry had left for work early that day. Hannah was home with Andrew and another one of their sons

and she was still recovering from that accident. So she was still in a ton of pain. That morning she made the boy's breakfast and after breakfast they went and laid in bed with her So that she could kind of rest and they could just watch cartoons in her room at some point Hannah ended up falling asleep And when she woke up, Andrew was no longer in the room and so Hannah ran out into the rest of the house She went into the kitchen and she found him like with his face in the baking ingredients. I took it away from him and put it back and don't even remember what it was that he had.

I don't know if it were me and my child had like gotten into the pantry. I would definitely find out what they had been eating, but she just said baking ingredients. So it could have been anything. On a cold night in 2010, a boy is stopped by the police while walking home from a party in the Bronx. He's only 16. He's been stopped by the police before, but this time is different. In a special four-part series, the Generation Y podcast unravels the story of Khalif Browder, a young boy who was falsely accused of stealing a backpack and held without bail at Riker's Island for three years. He endured regular abuse by prison staff and inmates and was held in solitary

confinement for more than 700 consecutive days. Three years later, Caliph was released, never having stood trial. This story digs into the injustice of the justice system. A young life caught in the middle. We say innocent till proven guilty. But where do we draw the line between due process and cruelty? To hear this four part series, follow Generation Y, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon music or Wondery app. You can listen ad free on the Amazon music or Wondery app. So she dealt with that situation and then Andrew wanted lunch already and she said no, you have to wait until dad gets home. But again, Andrew did not like this answer and he proceeded to go ahead and poop again

and spread it all over the kitchen floor. So after she cleaned this up she just decided to give in. I mean she was in a ton of pain, she was like whatever at this point and she decided to make him some soup and she added some crayol seasoning into it. So he ate that and then he said he was still hungry after that. And so she decided to let him have another bowl of soup with the seasoning in it. And then after that, he said he was still hungry and he was demanding more food from her. So she decided to fill him up a sippy cup with water

and the quail seasoning inside of the sippy cup, which I thought was so, so strange. I just don't understand why someone would do that. I've never heard of someone doing that. Maybe she thought that he would like the taste of it and it would kind of make him stop asking, but I just think it's so weird to give a kid a Cippy Cup of water and seasoning, like very strange. Anyway, even after she gave him this water, Andrew ended up throwing a temper tantrum like a bad one for 20 minutes and then about 20 minutes into it, he started to chill out and he almost started to chill out too much. He started really

quieting down. I ended up throwing it. My first thought was that he threw it because of the fit he was throwing. He kept saying it was cold. I thought that he threw it because of the fit he was throwing. And he kept saying it was cold. I thought that he had some sort of stomach virus. But as time went by, it was clear this wasn't just the flu. He started breathing funny at that point. More like, Tana like King was having an asthma attack. Hannah said he started acting like he had the flu all this sudden.

His breathing became kind of short and she could tell that it was kind of hard for him to breathe almost like an asthma attack. She said he fell to the floor, became less and less responsive. So she threw him in the car and it took him to the clinic to get looked at. However, Hannah says that right as they pulled up and they were about to get out of the car, he completely stopped breathing. He fell into a coma and doctors did everything that they could, but sadly, he passed away the following day. So it was very, very fast. So obviously, they ran tests on him immediately to figure out what was wrong. And when they did, they found that he had an insane amount of salt.

He had twice the amount of normal sodium levels for a human. And doctors also determined that he had a brain bleed. The toxic levels of sodium caused Andrews brain to swell and his organs to shut down. And the medical examiner decided that the cause of death was poisoning. It's extremely, extremely important how he, he beheaded, what he did, and then what measure she took.

I think her already did. Well, okay, because there must be some things missing. Do you think that maybe we need to call these emergency medical people. We work, that's what we're trying to decide. And we just decided to be quicker just to run up to the emergency thing in the corner. Why didn't you call 911? I mean, that just seems like the automatic thing. You're seeing that watch this child die.

And you don't do anything. How do you do that? I don't understand that. Well, you've been told that we couldn't come back to the hospital, so we... I don't know. We sent my mom and my stepdad and my past trip there. We were really fat with him.

And no one wasted any time. They immediately arrested Hannah and Larry. All of their kids had to go into temporary housing. It was really, really hard for them. There was a funeral held for Andrew. It was just a terrible time for everyone. Right away, Hannah was saying, I'm innocent. I did not poison my son. I did not purposely give him a lot of salt. I mean, think about it. He did go into the pantry and could have eaten a ton of salt before she even gave him the soup and stuff that could have just added to the problem.

Your child dies to be told to be so many things that's your fault. We were just waiting for someone to look at it and say this is just an accident. And instead, and say we're arrested. So after they interviewed her and stuff, they decided to do a search of their house. And when they got there, things looked a little weird.

First of all, Andrew's bed. It's just a wooden board, basically. This doesn't look good. Very weird to make a kid sleep on a bed like that like I said. And then they go outside and they find his bed sheets freaking burned on the grill like half-burned bed sheets. It just looks straight. Whether or not that shows anything, it doesn't look good. Medical examiner also noted that there was blood-force trauma on the head, which they ended up changing that, because he did have like a bunch of blood pulled up on the top of his head, but that

hemorrhage could have been caused by the salt as well. There was no evidence of external bleeding, and you can have bruising and hemorrhaging like that if you have those higher sodium levels in your blood. But then they had another concern because Hannah's other children were being interviewed by the police. And they basically told them that to punish them, Hannah and Larry would put spicy stuff on their tongues. And this was kind of odd, but I guess it's kind of like a sudden thing.

I don't know. I'm dying to know if any of you guys have ever done this but weren't had this done to you let's hope you guys are doing this to kids but I guess Hannah had worked as like a nanny for a pastor's family and he had this whole program for like raising and disciplining kids and one of the methods was to put a hot pepper flake on a kid's tongue if they were bad. And she kind of took this method into her own house. Hey Pepper. Yeah. What is that mean?

It's expressionally thin. It hurts your mouth. So they went to trial. And basically the prosecution said that Hannah probably gave Andrew many teaspoons of seasoning, just teaspoons that forced him to take it down and then didn't call 911 when he was slowly dying so that he would just die and she wouldn't have to deal with him anymore because he was up to deal with, you know, he was very difficult and they also pointed out that, you know, he is their only unbiological son.

Does she love him the same as her other children? Would she possibly actually murder a child who isn't her own. They really went off the fact that, you know, Hannah was a medical professional. She really should have known to take Andrew to the hospital sooner than she did, which arguably so, and it does make you raise an eyebrow, but once you know the full story it makes a bit of sense. Since Andrew was still in that like trial adoption period, they could not make medical decisions for him at all because technically the state still had custody of him. They couldn't even make any appointments or decisions for him unless they got the state

to do it for them. But another thing that was really used in the defense side was Hannah's behavior when she was being interrogated. It is very strange. She was smiling a lot. She says that it's a nervous smile. It seems weird to me. It definitely doesn't seem like what you would think, but that's the thing with crime so as you never really know how someone is going to deal with grief or trauma. So it's hard to judge someone's initial actions and so I don't know you guys will have to be the judge of this video. School is an EMT and then I have baby. Extremely extremely important how he behave what he did and then what measures

you took Well, okay There must be some things missing. Well, you're shaking these things cold. What can I do? At that point he was still awake Just not you know, you're still breathing you was still Moning there was more damning testimony this time from Andrew's foster mother, before he lived with the overtones, Sharon Hemel. Andrew was not a difficult child to take care of.

At least he was not when he was with me. I used to keep prudence things on the table, and I never had Andrew take anything off of the table and hide it or eat it. But Hannah told the jury the exact opposite. We did have problems with it. We had a real obsession with eating. When Mel time was over, it almost always ended in tears.

So they ended up interviewing people at the hospital and one of the nurses in the ER ended up saying that Hannah did not act like a grief-stricken, freaked out patient. She was actually smiling while they were performing CPR in Andrew, which you kind of take the nurses word for that, but that's pretty strange as well. And another nurse also said that they noticed Hannah's smirk when they were giving CPR to Andrew. So on September 7th of 2007, Hannah was sentenced to two life in prison. Jenn, we did jury find that defended and everything over 10 guilty. My wife is so shocked. I didn't even think about her the kids in the morning. Currently, the jury only really had two decisions.

They could either acquit her completely or they could send her to life in prison. So really intense choice. Larry Overton was also charged with murder, but after his wife's conviction, he was offered a plea deal and given probation. And after he was put on probation, his charges were completely dismissed.

So Hannah was sent to prison for life and Larry was forced to raise their five kids on his own, which was extremely stressful for him. And it was also really, really hard on their poor kids. I don't know how we've made it this long in this farm, but we have. I've had my moments with being overwhelmed and feeling like I can't do this anymore. It took me. I'm overwhelmed in it. Feeling like I can't do this anymore.

It took me about three years before I could even sleep in our room again. And it's been tough. I don't know that I could get used to it. I think you could numb into it. I'm a starlight. There's little things that most people take for granted, like getting the hug your mom, and helping you with homework and stuff. I miss when she used to tuck me into my bed every night,

and how she used to play with me. I get three contact visits with her, which means that I can sit across the table for her and hold her hand. But the kids, the kids can only talk to her through both of her class and over telephone since sometimes works and sometimes don't. Isabelle is getting to that age where she is starting to grow into a young woman and I'm starting to grow into a young woman and I'm missing that.

I can't grow up the same. She taught me how to do my hair. And I had to teach Emma how to do her hair. It's just, I kind of have to do some of my mom's show. She needs her mom. How do you cope with that? Hannah was built to be a mom, loved being her mom. She does. How do you cope with that? You know, Hannah was built to be a mom, loved being a mom, and now she was watching her kids grow up from jail,

not knowing if she would ever get to see some of the biggest moments of their lives. But the more that people looked at her case, the more they realized that her sentence was really bullshit. So Hannah and her defense team decided that they were going to appeal the sentence. And the people in this community were really kind of polarized on this situation, kind of somewhere where I am. That's why I'm so curious about what you guys think of all this. I am so, I don't know. A lot of people strongly believe that she was innocent and that she would never do something like this.

And then a lot of people think that maybe she did. From the interviews with Hannah, she doesn't strike me as someone who would do this. She, from her actions and her life and her charitable giving, she doesn't seem like someone who would do something like this. But there is so many weird little things, like the sheets and the bed and the sippy cup filled with the seasoning that gives people a reason to be like hmm but is that enough to convict someone of murder and sentence them to life in prison? Like that's pretty intense. So the church that her family attended definitely got involved

with this. They really backed her up. They ended up raising a million dollars for her defense. And in addition to this, three different attorneys who were considered to be some of the best in the state of Texas ended up working for her for free. And during the appeals trial, one of the prosecutors that originally testified against Hannah ended up switching their position and testifying for her. And one of Hannah's attorneys, Cynthia Orr, made huge discovery. She ended up coming across documents that showed that Andrew Stumick contents did not actually have an elevated amount of salt when he arrived to the care clinic. They were actually only including blood sodium levels from his blood test,

not the salt in his stomach. He also had scratches and bruises all over his body, I think, which the prosecution used to illustrate their contention that Hannah was somehow abusive. And the very reason that the emergency doctors missed the diagnosis as well, continued to give him sodium for an hour and a half before they determined he had hyponotremia.

This high sodium, Dr. Mordz, if he'd been called to testify, what it told the jury, causes the blood to stop clotting. And so with a child like this, and he scratch, any minor injury is going to bleed, and not only that, any sort of slight bump

is going to cause bleeding under the skin, which is results in bruising. So you can imagine with the heroic life-saving efforts being made with Andrew, he was being more than bumped and scratched and moved. He had tubes, he had clips, he had CPR being done, and everything was bruising him and scratching him. So the doctors who didn't understand it

thought they were seeing an abused child and they weren't. He also found that there was no sign of dehydration or lack of water, which is something that you would do if you were trying to poison someone with salt, like you probably wouldn't get them soup, because there's a lot of water in it, and if you want someone to die of salt, you'd want them to have like no water. And in the first trial, they'd argued that Andrew had shown a lot of different signs of abuse on his body, but they realized that a lot of these marks,

like he had bruises and kind of bumps and stuff, they realized that a lot of these he didn't have and he actually got to the hospital. Most of them were made by hospital staff trying to save his life. I mean, they're poking him, putting his knees in him, moving him around and stuff, and he had this salt problem which causes blood to pull up and make a bruise. So he looked like he was in pretty bad

condition once his body made it to the medical examiner. So in the appeals trial Hannah's defense team basically argued that Andrew probably ate a bunch of salt. When she found him in the pantry eating baking supplies, he probably oversalted himself. Because he had that eating disorder, it may seem like insane for someone to eat enough salt. Like that would be really gross, but if you had that eating disorder,

you don't care about what it tastes like, like you're just doing it. There's definitely a good chance that he could have had this. A lot of kids in foster care do have this disorder. about what it tastes like it. There's definitely a kids and foster care do disorder. Looking into the and salt taking into much salt can actually be quite danger. And deadly. How does it kill you salt poisoning? Well, our bodies

regulate salt very precisely. And if you take into much salt and rises in your blood, that can cause bleeding in your brain, seizures, coma, and death, and it can be extremely hard to treat. In my opinion, even though I really question the whole parenting decisions that they made,

like the 24 hours before Andrew died, and I think there's some strange things for sure. I definitely don't think there was enough to sentence Hannah Overton to life in prison for murder. I do not think she purposely killed Andrew Bird. So the state's court of criminal appeals ended up overturning her conviction in 2014, which was, you know, absolutely amazing for her.

You're free to go. That's what the district attorney, Mark Gonzales, said to Hannah Oververton today. Good evening everyone. I'm Joe Gays. And I'm got to the out of the after serving seven years behind bars charged for killing her foster son Hannah Overton was formally declared innocent on all counts today. Hannah Overton is a free woman. It's daddy. Don't even know where to begin. On Wednesday, Overton celebrated with friends and family in the lobby of the Noises County Courthouse.

Just so excited that this day is finally coming. Overton was convicted in 2007 for the death of her four-year-old foster son Andrew Bird. It's still a little overwhelming. The last time I was in that courtroom, I was in shackles, so walking out by was pretty scared still. And, I mean, it's amazing, but it's still a little overwhelming. I think it'll take a while to sink in.

The state of Pills Court ruled her legal defense was ineffective, sending the case back to Nueces County where it was dropped. She's innocent of this crime. District Attorney Mark Gonzalez says in his opinion, Overton should never have been convicted of the charges in the first place. A lot of times you have to look past how may seem politically and do the right thing. The law says that a district attorney is supposed to not just seek convictions, but

seek justice. And rarely do you get to see that. In all that time, Overton says she never lost her faith in God. It's wonderful to be home with my family and it's been crazy busy and exciting. It's hard because transitioning is hard and after everything that I've been through, that takes a toll, that God is good. She had spent seven years in jail, which is still a lot, but after all this time she was finally able to get out and reconnect with her husband and her five kids. And then most recently, in March of 2018, Hannah was actually granted over $600,000.

Welcome back. The state of Texas has given more than half a million dollars to the woman who was once convicted of murdering her foster son. The Texas Comptroller's office tells Christyx News they've sent a check to Hannah Overton for more than $573,000. On top of that, starting next March, Overton will receive a $2,600 check from the state every month for the rest of her life. In 2007, Overton was convicted of capital murder for the salt poisoning death of her four-year-old foster son Andrew Bird. She was sentenced to life in prison, but Overton served just seven years of that sentence and appeals court overturned the conviction because key evidence was left out of that trial. Because her conviction was overturned, the state must compensate her for the challenge she's been present. Hannah also ended up having another baby in June of 2018, so she has six kids again.

I think this is such a strange story, but I don't think these people are killers. I think they definitely maybe were a bit in over their head, and maybe adopting Andrew wasn't the best fit for them. I definitely think some of their decisions were super odd. Like I said, but I really want to know what you guys think of this case. I just don't think there's enough evidence to show that Hannah purposely did anything to him as weird as it is to give your kid a sippy cup filled with water and seasoning. Because I really do think that there's a good possibility that while Hannah was sleeping, that Andrew went and got an eight a bunch of salt. And you know another thing to point out is like if your kid has these problems,

then you probably shouldn't be sleeping while he's able to get to the kitchen and do something like that because that shows how dangerous something like that can be. So if anything, I think there's some really bad parenting mistakes here. Just mistakes that a lot of parents could have made. And especially under the stress they were in, you know, they were having financial stress. She has six kids, six. And she just got in this car accident. She's in a ton of pain.

So I think mistakes definitely happened. It's a very sad story though. It seems like Andrew just had such a horrible, short little life and I feel really sorry for him in this situation. I also feel sorry for Hannah for having to spend seven years in jail. I mean, that's crazy. I really don't think she purposely did this.

That is gonna be it for me today guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple Podcast. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon,

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