Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Evil Mommy forces tot-son into 300 hospital visits, 13 life threatening surgeries, feeding tube and wheelchair, ALL FAKE

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Evil Mommy forces tot-son into 300 hospital visits, 13 life threatening surgeries, feeding tube and wheelchair, ALL FAKE · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Last month was a critical
0:13
Speaker 1: turning point when Kayleen once again took Christopher to the hospital,
0:17
Speaker 1: claiming he was having a seizure. The medical staff did
0:19
Speaker 1: not believe her and again called investigators. This time, Child
0:24
Speaker 1: Protective Services took action. The arrest warrant states that when
0:27
Speaker 1: Christopher was removed from his mother's care, he was wearing
0:30
Speaker 1: an IV and using oxygen. According to Kayleen's arrest warrant,
0:34
Speaker 1: once he was away from her, Christopher began eating regularly
0:38
Speaker 1: and needed no IV or oxygen assistance. In fact, they
0:42
Speaker 1: say Christopher while in the hospital was playing most of
0:45
Speaker 1: the time. He could have died and only God saved him.
0:50
Speaker 1: You're hearing from our friends at NBC today. Wow, listen
0:55
Speaker 1: to this thirteen unnecessary surgeries. I'm still whining about my
1:02
Speaker 1: knee surgery. Thirteen unnecessary surgeries. And if that's not enough,
1:07
Speaker 1: have you ever been in the hospital. Do you not
1:09
Speaker 1: hate it? I hate the smell of it, I hate
1:12
Speaker 1: everything about it. I think people go there to die.
1:15
Speaker 1: No offense to all the doctors on the panel this morning.
1:18
Speaker 1: I have horrible memories of it, my dad passing away
1:22
Speaker 1: there three hundred and twenty three hospital visits for a
1:30
Speaker 1: healthy little boy. He's just turned ten, so how many
1:35
Speaker 1: years of his childhood? Probably since he was a baby,
1:39
Speaker 1: as he had three hundred twenty three hospital visits trying
1:44
Speaker 1: to get a lung transplant, admitting him to a hospice
1:50
Speaker 1: during the first eight years of his life, thirteen surgeries
1:56
Speaker 1: and he's perfectly healthy. Okay, I'm not gonna be happy
2:00
Speaker 1: until somebody goes to jail. I mean, I see Grace
2:04
Speaker 1: this describing stories. Thank you for being with us, with
2:07
Speaker 1: me an all star panel, and I mean that from
2:10
Speaker 1: the bottom of my heart. Doctor Brian Russell, lawyer's psychologist,
2:13
Speaker 1: host of investigation Discoveries, hit series Fatal Vows, renowned defense
2:20
Speaker 1: attorney in the Tristate area. Joining us today Oudam, New York,
2:23
Speaker 1: Jason Oceans, Steve Lampley, Ace detective doctor William Moroney, Michigan
2:31
Speaker 1: medical examiner, author of American Narcan on Amazon. It's awesome.
2:37
Speaker 1: But first to Levi Page Crime online dot Com investigative
2:41
Speaker 1: reporter Levi, who is Killeen Bowen? Who is this person?
2:47
Speaker 1: She's a thirty five year old mother in Texas that
2:51
Speaker 1: was the mother of this eight year old little Christopher
2:55
Speaker 1: that she mistreated horribly, according to prosecutors. Well, well, back
3:00
Speaker 1: it up, back it up, back it up. This all
3:03
Speaker 1: started when he was just eight days old. Eight days
3:08
Speaker 1: to talk to William Maroney, who not only is a
3:12
Speaker 1: renown medical examiner and author of American Narcan, but now
3:17
Speaker 1: tooling around the region in a giant bus trying to
3:22
Speaker 1: help opioid addicts. I mean, when you've got a degree
3:30
Speaker 1: like his and a career like his, and you are
3:33
Speaker 1: still bending over backwards, motivated by your faith to help
3:41
Speaker 1: other people, you know, I'm just a big fat loser
3:44
Speaker 1: compared to you, Maroney. Let's just start right there. That
3:48
Speaker 1: said doctor William Maroney, eight days old. Here's what you
3:54
Speaker 1: have in Munchhausen's syndrome. That's a medical term we've used
4:00
Speaker 1: for people who inflict the punishment to theirselfs. They're looking
4:03
Speaker 1: for attention in Munchhausen by proxy, people inflict punishment or
4:11
Speaker 1: fake disease in a family member or somebody they give
4:16
Speaker 1: care to, and putting them out for medical treatment and
4:23
Speaker 1: clinical evaluation and doctor's visits gives the parents some reward.
4:30
Speaker 1: They're looking for attention. Well, you know what, you're putty
4:34
Speaker 1: perfume on the pig because in my mind, doctor William Moroney,
4:37
Speaker 1: if a doctor, no offense to you. Doctors, Doctor Moroni,
4:40
Speaker 1: don't know how in the Hey hubl how a doctor
4:45
Speaker 1: could not figure out there was nothing wrong with this
4:47
Speaker 1: child and just went along with the mom. I mean, frankly,
4:51
Speaker 1: I think the doctors ought to be thrown in the
4:53
Speaker 1: same pot to stew. Take a listen to the father,
4:56
Speaker 1: Ryan Crawford started eight days after who was born. Every
5:01
Speaker 1: time that he would drink milk, he would he would
5:04
Speaker 1: throw it up. So she says, it really just didn't
5:07
Speaker 1: make sense because I never saw him throw up any milk.
5:10
Speaker 1: She started explaining to the judge that the doctors stated
5:13
Speaker 1: that my son would never walk, and then she stated
5:16
Speaker 1: that he had problems continuing to eat and that he's
5:20
Speaker 1: going to need a feeding two. I was horrified because
5:24
Speaker 1: from what I knew, my son was fine. The issues
5:28
Speaker 1: escalated to eventually she claimed that my son was dying.
5:33
Speaker 1: I put myself at blame for the simple fact that
5:36
Speaker 1: if I was there from the very beginning for my
5:38
Speaker 1: son he had to go through these issues, he could
5:42
Speaker 1: have died and only God saved him. Well, I hate
5:45
Speaker 1: to kick a guy when he's down. I really do.
5:47
Speaker 1: But he's probably right. If the father had been on
5:50
Speaker 1: the scene and more involved with the child, he may
5:53
Speaker 1: have been able to stop this. I don't really know
5:55
Speaker 1: about that because to doctor Brian Russell, not just lawyer,
5:59
Speaker 1: but psychologists and host of Id's Fatal Vows, this mother
6:03
Speaker 1: was hell bent on treating this child this way, insisting,
6:09
Speaker 1: insisting that he had all these serious elements, even putting
6:13
Speaker 1: him on a feeding tube. I'm gonna have to circle
6:15
Speaker 1: back to Maroney on that, but take a listen to
6:17
Speaker 1: this before you weigh in, doctor Russell. It started when
6:21
Speaker 1: she was pregnant, and she would call me at all
6:24
Speaker 1: times a night, normally three, four or five o'clock in
6:28
Speaker 1: the morning, and explained to me that she's in the hospital.
6:32
Speaker 1: One particular time I remember is that she called me
6:35
Speaker 1: and stated that she had one hundred and ten degree
6:37
Speaker 1: temperature for the last seven days, and I didn't believe it.
6:42
Speaker 1: I didn't even hear anyone in the hospital, you know.
6:44
Speaker 1: I was trying to see if I could hear anything
6:46
Speaker 1: in the background. It was just quiet, and at that
6:50
Speaker 1: particular time, I don't have the evidence that we have now,
6:54
Speaker 1: so I kind of just played it off like whatever, Okay,
6:58
Speaker 1: well wait a minute, doctor, so I gotta get to
7:01
Speaker 1: you regarding what's going on in her brain. But doctor Moroney,
7:05
Speaker 1: I didn't know a person could have one hundred and
7:06
Speaker 1: ten degree fever. It's impossible, right Why it just hit
7:15
Speaker 1: me right then what she called the husband and guys,
7:17
Speaker 1: I got to defend the husband after I just said
7:20
Speaker 1: the father he should have been there. He actually tried,
7:23
Speaker 1: Jackie's correct to me. He tried to be there. The
7:26
Speaker 1: mother blocked him. She even went to court and had
7:28
Speaker 1: a judge block the father from seeing the son as
7:32
Speaker 1: much as he wanted to. You're right, Jackie, I recall
7:34
Speaker 1: that now. So I can't really get on the father
7:37
Speaker 1: that much because he even went to court trying to
7:39
Speaker 1: see his son. More So, Dad, you get credit for
7:42
Speaker 1: trying one hundred and ten degrees. Doctor Bryant Russell, what
7:47
Speaker 1: she started all this when she was pregnant. I mean,
7:52
Speaker 1: help me out. You're the shrink. So I think the
7:54
Speaker 1: most important thing that we need to all understand is that, well,
7:58
Speaker 1: this clearly is not a mentally healthy woman who wants
8:02
Speaker 1: to do something like this. This disorder that we're talking
8:06
Speaker 1: about is not the type of disorder that forces anybody
8:11
Speaker 1: to do anything. These women who engage in this, I'm
8:15
Speaker 1: not trying to be discriminatory, but it just statistically it is,
8:19
Speaker 1: they absolutely go to all kinds of effort to conceal
8:25
Speaker 1: what they're doing, and so they absolutely are aware that
8:29
Speaker 1: these illnesses are fake. They're aware that their children are
8:34
Speaker 1: sustaining all kinds of damage, physical and psychological, and they
8:39
Speaker 1: absolutely go right ahead and do it anyway because of
8:42
Speaker 1: what's in it for them, which is definitely emotional in
8:47
Speaker 1: the form of all the attention and sympathy they get.
8:49
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's also financial. Sometimes they get donations and all
8:53
Speaker 1: kinds of free services and stuff from sympathetic people. And
8:56
Speaker 1: so this is absolutely not the kind of thing that
9:00
Speaker 1: should ever form the basis of an insanity defense, because
9:04
Speaker 1: these people know what they're doing and they go right
9:07
Speaker 1: ahead and do it anyway. You know, to Jason Oceans,
9:09
Speaker 1: you're the defense attorney, did you hear what doctor Brian
9:12
Speaker 1: Russell just said? This is not like some delusion. For
9:17
Speaker 1: every time I opened the door, I think the devil
9:19
Speaker 1: is standing there that you know, some kind of a
9:22
Speaker 1: psychotic delusion or vision or auditory hallucination, This is not
9:28
Speaker 1: a compulsion where you have to do it. You can't
9:31
Speaker 1: stop yourself from doing it. I remember one definite, nothing
9:36
Speaker 1: would do until he pulled his eye out. They tried,
9:40
Speaker 1: they tried, they tried to stop him. Of course, he
9:43
Speaker 1: had murdered his girlfriend and pulled her eyes out. That
9:45
Speaker 1: was a big indicator that something was way wrong. But hey,
9:50
Speaker 1: he had to do it. It was the compulsion and
9:53
Speaker 1: no matter what you did, he was going to do it,
9:56
Speaker 1: all right. Not so, according to doctor Brian Russell. Would
9:59
Speaker 1: these nut job moms that torture their children pretending they're
10:04
Speaker 1: ill so they can get the attention. I'm so mad.
10:07
Speaker 1: I could chew and nail and half. Jason Ojans, what's
10:09
Speaker 1: your defense. I think if you chew the nail and
10:11
Speaker 1: half that might be a Munchausen by proxy as well
10:14
Speaker 1: as your tooth comes out. But I'm h and again
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Speaker 1: mostly women, there are some men involved in this. It's
10:22
Speaker 1: it's a cry out for for something. Obviously there's something wrong,
10:25
Speaker 1: as the doctor says, and that compulsive need to grab
10:29
Speaker 1: attention or in many cases in this situation where people
10:34
Speaker 1: are actually raising money and using that and using the
10:37
Speaker 1: you know the threat of illness for their child as
10:41
Speaker 1: a basis for being a you know, fraudster. Um. So
10:47
Speaker 1: I'm just sort of wondering, after so many times and
10:49
Speaker 1: records of this child, did anyone correlate the fact that
10:53
Speaker 1: he had been attending all these hospitals all the time.
10:56
Speaker 1: I mean, to me, there's some negligence on their part
10:58
Speaker 1: as well. What are the medical any you know, three
11:02
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty three times in the Dallas and Houston
11:05
Speaker 1: area in just seven years and and thirteen surgeries. I mean,
11:11
Speaker 1: someone should have been calling out on this way before,
11:15
Speaker 1: you know, this continued to add none of the crime stories.
11:34
Speaker 1: With Nancy Grace, I heard her scream once and there
11:41
Speaker 1: was more screen, but like a kind of horror film,
11:45
Speaker 1: just like a startled screen. And she called out to
11:49
Speaker 1: my name about three or four times. And at that
11:53
Speaker 1: point I wanted to go help her so bad, but
11:58
Speaker 1: I was so a free to get up. It's like
12:01
Speaker 1: my body when you move. And then everything just went quiet.
12:06
Speaker 1: That's from ABC's twenty twenty. Gypsy Rose Blanchard's mother, d
12:11
Speaker 1: d had been murdered in her own home after years
12:15
Speaker 1: and years of abusing her little girl, Gypsy Rose, pretending
12:20
Speaker 1: she was disabled, chronically ill, having all of her teeth
12:23
Speaker 1: pulled out, having a feeding chube, a feeding bag put
12:29
Speaker 1: into her daughter. It was a sensational, sensational case, and
12:36
Speaker 1: people end up in jail and a dead body because
12:40
Speaker 1: of Munchhausen by proxy. And that is what we're talking
12:43
Speaker 1: about right now in the case of this mom, Kayleeen
12:47
Speaker 1: Bowen right joining me Levipage Crime Online dot Com investigative reporter.
12:51
Speaker 1: It all started really in the pregnancy where Killeene Bowen
12:55
Speaker 1: Wright caused her husband says she got one hundred and
12:57
Speaker 1: ten degree fever, which, as Maroni tells us, is actually impossible.
13:02
Speaker 1: It starts then, but then when does it start with
13:06
Speaker 1: the child? LEVI immediately Nancy, the father says that she
13:11
Speaker 1: would say that he was not eating, he was not
13:13
Speaker 1: drinking his milk, that he couldn't walk and he couldn't crawl,
13:18
Speaker 1: that he was going to be disabled for the rest
13:20
Speaker 1: of his life. And the father was thinking, I'm not
13:23
Speaker 1: noticing any of these symptoms that she is describing. And
13:27
Speaker 1: here is what is so tragic. She did not let
13:31
Speaker 1: him see the child, and he had taken her to court,
13:35
Speaker 1: and she was saying that he was like a deadbeat
13:37
Speaker 1: dad was not there for the child when he was sick,
13:40
Speaker 1: and the judge would scold him, and he described in
13:43
Speaker 1: one case that he tried to bring it to the
13:45
Speaker 1: judge's attention that this could all possibly be a scam
13:49
Speaker 1: because she was going into family court and saying my
13:53
Speaker 1: child is almost dead. He's dying. And the judge looked
13:56
Speaker 1: at the father and said, how dare you drag this
13:58
Speaker 1: woman to court to to modify custody when the child
14:02
Speaker 1: is dying and you're not there for the child. And
14:05
Speaker 1: that's the tragic aspect of this case, the way that
14:07
Speaker 1: the father was treated by the judicial system. I can't
14:10
Speaker 1: actually pick out which is the most tragic aspect of this,
14:16
Speaker 1: but take a listen to this. He had a feeding
14:20
Speaker 1: tube inserted, used oxygen, and took seizure medication. CPS also
14:25
Speaker 1: found bow and Wright cut her son's hair and posted
14:28
Speaker 1: this picture of him in the Makeaways shirt, claiming he
14:31
Speaker 1: had cancer. Every single time we went to court, she
14:34
Speaker 1: would say that my son was dying the next day.
14:36
Speaker 1: During a trip to Dallas Children's Medical Center last month,
14:39
Speaker 1: staff paget to suspect bowen Wright might be trying to
14:41
Speaker 1: induce her son to have seizures and called CPS, which
14:45
Speaker 1: took custody of Christopher and his siblings. No one wants
14:50
Speaker 1: to believe me until it was almost too late. He
14:53
Speaker 1: almost died three different times due to infections from the
14:57
Speaker 1: thirteen different surgeries. So he has a long road ahead
15:05
Speaker 1: of him, and I hate that he had to cope that.
15:09
Speaker 1: I hate it. I hate it so much. I talked
15:13
Speaker 1: to an attorney tonight who represented Ryan Crawford back in
15:16
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen. She said, back then she collected hundreds of
15:20
Speaker 1: medical records showing that there was nothing wrong with Christopher,
15:22
Speaker 1: But she said the judge in the case refused to
15:25
Speaker 1: read those records or listen to their side of the story.
15:28
Speaker 1: She says she remembers it clearly because, in her words,
15:31
Speaker 1: it was the biggest flaw in the judicial system that
15:34
Speaker 1: she had ever personally experienced. You're hearing our friends at CBS,
15:37
Speaker 1: as reporter Andrea Lucia with the dad Ryan Crawford, who
15:41
Speaker 1: goes to court fighting to get his son, the son
15:44
Speaker 1: almost died from all of these needless surgeries. You know
15:48
Speaker 1: what to you, doctor William Moroney. I was about to
15:50
Speaker 1: come bring the hammer down on the judge, but she
15:53
Speaker 1: also treatd hospitals and doctors as well. How did she
15:56
Speaker 1: do that, doctor Moroney? Well, there's two things that play here.
16:00
Speaker 1: Or the first thing is nobody wants to disbelieve a
16:03
Speaker 1: mother bringing in a child claiming the child sick. And
16:06
Speaker 1: the second thing, which is more nefarious, the hospitals and
16:10
Speaker 1: the doctors all got paid. They got paid to do
16:13
Speaker 1: what they were doing. So to stop it. I mean,
16:16
Speaker 1: there's some motivation here, and it wasn't to find the truth.
16:20
Speaker 1: It was admit them, put them in three, four or
16:23
Speaker 1: five days, collect the insurance money bill Medicaid, take the money. Oh,
16:28
Speaker 1: let them go home and then we'll follow up. That's terrible, Nancy.
16:31
Speaker 1: Can I weigh in on that jump in? This is
16:33
Speaker 1: doctor Russell, I think I don't think there are very
16:36
Speaker 1: many of our colleagues out there who would go to
16:40
Speaker 1: great lengths to treat a healthy baby, knowing that the
16:45
Speaker 1: baby was healthy, for the reimbursement money. Unfortunately, there are
16:49
Speaker 1: enough real patients out there all the time that I
16:52
Speaker 1: don't think many of our colleagues Needer want to do that.
16:54
Speaker 1: I think what happens sometimes these mothers actually poison the kids,
16:59
Speaker 1: as I think happened in the gypsy Rose Blancher case,
17:02
Speaker 1: and they create symptoms. Other times they come in and
17:05
Speaker 1: they very convincingly, these are sophisticated sociopaths. They come in
17:09
Speaker 1: and they very convincingly report seizure symptoms. They research it
17:12
Speaker 1: on Google. They come in and say, oh my god,
17:15
Speaker 1: every night I'm having to run in their bedroom at night,
17:17
Speaker 1: and they have doing this and doing that. And so
17:21
Speaker 1: you know, when the kids a baby and can't speak
17:22
Speaker 1: for itself and the mother is reporting this and she
17:26
Speaker 1: seems genuine, you can understand for a while how the
17:30
Speaker 1: medical professionals do get fooled. Now, where I draw the
17:33
Speaker 1: line though, is when we start seeing surgeries, because when
17:38
Speaker 1: you do surgery, you're supposed to have a target, something
17:42
Speaker 1: that you've identified on some kind of testing or imaging
17:46
Speaker 1: or something that you're going after to fix. And when
17:49
Speaker 1: there's nothing, then you know, I question, how do you
17:52
Speaker 1: go in thirteen times when there's nothing? Now, maybe she
17:56
Speaker 1: created some symptoms, maybe she poisoned, maybe she oaks and bones.
18:00
Speaker 1: I don't know, but that's where I think, Okay, how
18:03
Speaker 1: did we go in at thirteen times physically with nothing wrong?
18:09
Speaker 1: When you say thirteen times, well, first back to what
18:12
Speaker 1: Maroney said, they did get paid. Now, doctor Brian Russell
18:17
Speaker 1: is saying he doesn't know any doctors that would perform
18:20
Speaker 1: surgeries unneeded on a little child. But the reality and
18:24
Speaker 1: they may not have intended to do anything to fairies,
18:27
Speaker 1: but the reality is is that Maroney is also right.
18:31
Speaker 1: They did do the surgeries and they did get paid.
18:34
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, by the time this little
18:36
Speaker 1: boy was just eight, he had already undergone thirteen major surgeries,
18:44
Speaker 1: all unnecessary, confining this little boy to a wheelchair. Why
18:52
Speaker 1: because of Mommy. I have dedicated my life to crime victims,
19:04
Speaker 1: to giving a voice to those who can no longer
19:07
Speaker 1: speak for themselves. And that is why I work with
19:10
Speaker 1: Oxygen to create a new show in Justice. With Nancy Grace,
19:16
Speaker 1: we investigate cases that I believe never got it right,
19:20
Speaker 1: from wrongly accused to botched investigations, to unclear motives to
19:27
Speaker 1: unjust sentences. I don't just cover cases. I solve them.
19:33
Speaker 1: I put my heart and soul in it. Dig deep,
19:37
Speaker 1: look at the background, at the crime scene, at the families,
19:41
Speaker 1: at the witnesses. I look at every tiny detail because
19:45
Speaker 1: what matters to me is justice. Join us in our
19:49
Speaker 1: search for the Truth Injustice with Nancy Grace. Watch now
19:53
Speaker 1: on demand and every Saturday at six five Central only
19:57
Speaker 1: on Oxygen, The True Network for Crime stories with Nancy Grace.
20:13
Speaker 1: A CBS investigation found Kayleen bowen Right was bouncing between
20:17
Speaker 1: hospitals here and in Houston looking for doctors willing to
20:21
Speaker 1: treat her son. The state agency believes this is a
20:24
Speaker 1: case of munch child and by proxy, where a parent
20:28
Speaker 1: either fakes or creates a child's symptoms in order to
20:32
Speaker 1: get attention or some other personal benefits. The problem started
20:40
Speaker 1: shortly after Christopher was born. She claimed that he had
20:45
Speaker 1: issues drinking milk. I never saw those issues, Ryan Crawford
20:52
Speaker 1: says his son's mother, Kayleene bowen Wright, surprised about a
20:56
Speaker 1: custody hearing with news of serious health issues, crying, saying
21:00
Speaker 1: that Christopher is never going to walk and that we
21:06
Speaker 1: need to you know that I need to learn how
21:10
Speaker 1: to take care of a disabled child. A report from
21:13
Speaker 1: Child Protective Services shows the now eight year old has
21:17
Speaker 1: visited the doctor three hundred and twenty three times and
21:20
Speaker 1: undergone six major surgeries. That's just hurting me to hear it.
21:25
Speaker 1: That's from our friend Angea Lucia at CBS three hundred
21:30
Speaker 1: twenty three doctors, visits multiple major surgery as well. Stephen Lampley,
21:38
Speaker 1: renowned detective Steve Lampley. She tricked a judge, she tricked
21:45
Speaker 1: doctors and hospitals. How do we prove what she did
21:50
Speaker 1: was a felony? We'll answer, we go back probably if
21:53
Speaker 1: we go back and look, we start with her, and
21:56
Speaker 1: we're going to go back and look and see what
21:58
Speaker 1: she did because oftentimes, when we have a defender, a
22:03
Speaker 1: suspect who is committing Munchausen by process, we have a
22:09
Speaker 1: history of herself, usually a woman, Like the psychologist said,
22:14
Speaker 1: we have a history of a woman who herself probably
22:17
Speaker 1: had Munchausens or a guide attention from fake illnesses. She
22:24
Speaker 1: probably has a self esteem We're gonna look at her
22:28
Speaker 1: as well and see her history. She probably has a
22:32
Speaker 1: history of attention seekings, doing things. She may have a
22:39
Speaker 1: self esteem issue where we're gonna look at all of that.
22:41
Speaker 1: We're also going to look at flam play. Please please
22:44
Speaker 1: help me. Did you actually say she may have a
22:47
Speaker 1: self esteem issue. She's gonna have a self esteem issue,
22:51
Speaker 1: but she wears nothing but an artist JUMPSU for the
22:53
Speaker 1: next twenty years. You don't write she may have an
22:57
Speaker 1: esteem issue. My rare end uh, doctor Moroni, I hear
23:02
Speaker 1: lamp lay him as probably right, she probably did have
23:05
Speaker 1: a self esteem issue. I don't care. I don't care.
23:09
Speaker 1: And another thing, Maroni, she has two other children. How
23:13
Speaker 1: come she picked on this one. There's usually a timing thing.
23:17
Speaker 1: Maybe there there could be a different father, There is
23:20
Speaker 1: a certain time in her life where she feels this
23:24
Speaker 1: is the focus. She couldn't get away with it, and
23:27
Speaker 1: you know, I want to go back to that not
23:28
Speaker 1: being and wait wait MARONEI you're right. The other two children.
23:32
Speaker 1: Wait wait, wait, wait the other two children are half siblings,
23:36
Speaker 1: just so you know they were from a different father.
23:39
Speaker 1: You're right about that. Okay, go ahead. Sorry, So it
23:41
Speaker 1: goes back to it's very relationship and cultural focus. But
23:46
Speaker 1: who's had a baby that hasn't seen it? Vomit formula?
23:51
Speaker 1: All babies vomit. They vomit food, they vomit formula, milk,
23:58
Speaker 1: breast milk, or anything else that happens. To identify that
24:03
Speaker 1: and then cause call back. Wait a minute, Maroni, White
24:07
Speaker 1: a minute, whoa, whoa, whoa. I know you have your
24:09
Speaker 1: own children, but they keep vomiting. The other day, we
24:12
Speaker 1: went to Indian restaurant. I said, mild, mild, mild, mild.
24:17
Speaker 1: They made it spicy. John David walked out to the car.
24:20
Speaker 1: He didn't get one foot out before he projectile hurled
24:23
Speaker 1: in the parking lot. They keep vomiting. I don't know
24:27
Speaker 1: that they ever quit, doctor Moroni. But that's a fun
24:30
Speaker 1: thing for me to look forward to. Go ahead, so
24:32
Speaker 1: I would say, this person has had an attention seeking problem,
24:38
Speaker 1: going all the way back to adverse events in their childhood.
24:44
Speaker 1: And probably you did har why you did not just
24:49
Speaker 1: blame Kayleen Bowen writes, Mommy and daddy boy, you're going
24:54
Speaker 1: way far, you going back to the little boy's grandparents. Stop. Oh,
25:01
Speaker 1: you know you're hurting me. Doctor Brian Russell, please tell
25:04
Speaker 1: me you do not condone this. Trying to blame her
25:08
Speaker 1: the mom's parents for her self esteem issue. No, no,
25:12
Speaker 1: And now she does this to this child, she needs
25:15
Speaker 1: to be prosecuted for every time a scalpel cut his
25:18
Speaker 1: stomach open, had him in hospice in line for a
25:21
Speaker 1: long transplant for Pete's sake, Doctor Russell and Moroni jumps
25:26
Speaker 1: up and tries to tell me she had a problem
25:29
Speaker 1: as a child. So three things. Number one is I
25:32
Speaker 1: think that what he's doing is he's looking at what
25:37
Speaker 1: would be the origin of the motivations for somebody to
25:41
Speaker 1: do something like this. And what I'm saying is I
25:44
Speaker 1: don't really care what the motivations are. If the person
25:47
Speaker 1: knows what they're doing and they know that it's wrong,
25:49
Speaker 1: then it's a crime, regardless of the motivation. So some
25:54
Speaker 1: psychology intern can sit there with her in prison and
25:57
Speaker 1: try to delve back into the motivation. The second thing
26:01
Speaker 1: is when you ask about how you prove this, you're
26:05
Speaker 1: going to see all kinds of doctor shopping, going to
26:09
Speaker 1: one doctor for this, another doctor for that, another doctor
26:13
Speaker 1: for that, so that you prolong the point where somebody
26:17
Speaker 1: like they finally did, sees that wait a minute, we're
26:21
Speaker 1: seeing this kid, and awful lot of times we're seeing
26:23
Speaker 1: this kid for things that we don't find to be
26:25
Speaker 1: there when the kids in the hospital eats just fine.
26:28
Speaker 1: And then the last thing, the third thing is one
26:32
Speaker 1: of the things that makes this so insidious and so
26:35
Speaker 1: difficult for the medical professionals is that over time, real
26:40
Speaker 1: symptoms do show up because of all the medication the
26:45
Speaker 1: kid is on, because of all the all of the
26:49
Speaker 1: things that the mother has put the kid through, and
26:52
Speaker 1: then it gets hard to tease out what are the
26:55
Speaker 1: symptoms that are caused by this whole process versus what symptoms,
27:01
Speaker 1: if any, were there to begin with. Well, I'm gonna say,
27:03
Speaker 1: doctor William Moroney, the proof is in the pudding because
27:07
Speaker 1: now he's away from the mother and he's fine. The
27:10
Speaker 1: father even says he's become very athletic. So to me,
27:14
Speaker 1: it's a litmus test. When he's with the mom, he's
27:17
Speaker 1: confined to a wheelchair, he's on a lung transplant list,
27:20
Speaker 1: he's in hospice. An eight year old boy is in
27:23
Speaker 1: hospice preparing to die. Now he's out playing in the
27:27
Speaker 1: backyard with a soccer ball. There you haven't. Doctor Russell
27:32
Speaker 1: alluded to a very important point of the failure in
27:35
Speaker 1: the medical system. It was fractured care. She sought out
27:42
Speaker 1: this doctor for that and that doctor that, and these
27:46
Speaker 1: doctors did not talk to each other to see what
27:49
Speaker 1: was happening. There was no coordinating arbitrator looking to see, well,
27:57
Speaker 1: why is this happening here? Why is this happen here?
28:00
Speaker 1: So part of the medical system failure, if it's and
28:04
Speaker 1: child protective services seeing what's going on. There needed to
28:09
Speaker 1: be a unification of all medical records, and that's how
28:13
Speaker 1: they're going to end up prosecuting her because real time
28:17
Speaker 1: medical care was fractured and people worked in silos effort
28:23
Speaker 1: from each other. Well, as a matter of fact, you're right,
28:25
Speaker 1: take a listen to this, lawyer, Shannon Pritchard. We've talked
28:28
Speaker 1: to people who investigate these cases, and everybody wants to know,
28:34
Speaker 1: how did this happen? How on earth could this happen.
28:37
Speaker 1: What you have to remember is our doctors are not
28:40
Speaker 1: teams that all communicate with each other. That's what we'd
28:44
Speaker 1: like to believe. And in twenty fourteen, when I was
28:47
Speaker 1: representing Ryan, which I was the first attorney that did
28:50
Speaker 1: any discovery, discovery is asking for documents, asking for information,
28:56
Speaker 1: And in that discovery, I had records from the Houston
29:00
Speaker 1: Hospital that included a letter from one of those doctors
29:04
Speaker 1: that said, Oh, he has a lung condition and it's
29:09
Speaker 1: going to be degenerative. This was in twenty thirteen. They
29:14
Speaker 1: continued to treat at both hospitals through twenty fifteen, and
29:18
Speaker 1: nothing in the discovery that we read and reviewed corroborated
29:24
Speaker 1: any of these conditions and when I reached out to
29:27
Speaker 1: that doctor, he couldn't admit or deny that the child
29:33
Speaker 1: was terminal, which is what Kayleen was telling the courts.
29:35
Speaker 1: A lot of the surgeries were exploratory surgeries. He would
29:39
Speaker 1: claim that he has some type of illness, and so
29:43
Speaker 1: they would actually cut him open to try to find
29:47
Speaker 1: out what's going on. Other surgeries included a G tube,
29:52
Speaker 1: the most invasive type that goes directly into the intestines.
29:57
Speaker 1: He had help me a central line right next to
30:03
Speaker 1: his heart, and he also had to think of the
30:09
Speaker 1: major surgeries. He had ear tubes within a lot of
30:12
Speaker 1: kids have those time stories with Nancy Grace. CPS is
30:23
Speaker 1: trying to claim that my son doesn't know me, and
30:27
Speaker 1: I explained to CPS that of course my son doesn't
30:31
Speaker 1: know me. I've been fighting him for him for the
30:33
Speaker 1: last eight years. Every time I tried to come into
30:36
Speaker 1: his life, his mother would say that he's dying. I
30:39
Speaker 1: can't come around. He's too sick. If you breathe on him,
30:43
Speaker 1: he may get some type of illness. And they're just
30:48
Speaker 1: being very difficult in trying to place Christopher with me,
30:53
Speaker 1: saying that he needs to remain into a foster home
30:56
Speaker 1: in a foster home. That's dad Ryan Crawford, who battled
31:02
Speaker 1: for his son. No judge would listen. Back to Crime
31:07
Speaker 1: online dot Com investigative reporter Levi Page, Levi pick it
31:10
Speaker 1: up where you left off. Well, we know now that
31:12
Speaker 1: he has temporary conservatorship over his son, but his son
31:17
Speaker 1: was in foster care for a while. Nancy and a
31:22
Speaker 1: lot of people have been asking what did these doctors do?
31:25
Speaker 1: How did they not catch onto this? They actually did
31:28
Speaker 1: catch on multiple times in two and fifteen. They reported
31:33
Speaker 1: this to CPS, and then reported it again two years
31:37
Speaker 1: later in two seventeen. It wasn't until twenty eighteen when
31:42
Speaker 1: CPS launched an investigation and then removed Christopher from his
31:49
Speaker 1: mother's custody. Doctor Brian Russell, I mean she couldn't even
31:52
Speaker 1: keep her stories straight. She tells some people Christopher was
31:56
Speaker 1: died from a rare genetic disorder. She told others he
31:59
Speaker 1: had cancer. She's also accused of holding fundraisers, having a
32:04
Speaker 1: feeding tube and started into his body that caused him
32:07
Speaker 1: to suffer life threatening blood infections. In fact, that connector
32:11
Speaker 1: is still in his body. He's got to have a
32:12
Speaker 1: surgery to get the feeding tube connector out of his body,
32:17
Speaker 1: and the dad was denied visits starting at age three
32:20
Speaker 1: by a judge who believed the mother. I mean, it's
32:24
Speaker 1: a tragedy everywhere you look. The only thing that's going
32:26
Speaker 1: to make me feel a little bit better is for
32:28
Speaker 1: the father to get the boy to get custody and
32:31
Speaker 1: the mom to go to jail for the rest of
32:33
Speaker 1: her life. Yeah. Two things. One is that dads are
32:38
Speaker 1: getting the short end of the stick often in family courts,
32:43
Speaker 1: still today in twenty nineteen, all across the nation. Now,
32:47
Speaker 1: I have to be a little bit careful here. The
32:49
Speaker 1: fact that the child went to foster care for a
32:51
Speaker 1: little while suggest to me that there's a chance that
32:55
Speaker 1: the dad's not perfect either. Certainly compared to the mom,
32:59
Speaker 1: obviously much better. But it just remains true that dads
33:04
Speaker 1: get the short end of the stick a lot of
33:06
Speaker 1: time just for being dads in family court. The second
33:10
Speaker 1: thing is, for those who are real psychology, crime psychology
33:15
Speaker 1: buffs the aspect of this where there is not just
33:19
Speaker 1: attention seeking, but there's money seeking. We call that a
33:24
Speaker 1: factitious aspect, where it isn't just about the emotional reward
33:29
Speaker 1: for the perpetrator, it's about an actual tangible reward. So
33:33
Speaker 1: there's the Munchausen by proxy, which is about the emotions,
33:36
Speaker 1: and then there's the factitious disorder by proxy, which is
33:40
Speaker 1: about trying to get money off of somebody else's fake problem.
33:44
Speaker 1: You know, Levi, Page I don't have any indication the
33:46
Speaker 1: father has ever been a bad father. I just know
33:49
Speaker 1: that he got a bad rapping court when the baby
33:51
Speaker 1: was three years old and was cut off from the child.
33:55
Speaker 1: So I guess when the mom originally was taken the
34:00
Speaker 1: boy was taken away, they just didn't go to the
34:02
Speaker 1: dad because he had already been cut out by a court.
34:06
Speaker 1: I don't know that the dad ever did anything wrong, Levi,
34:08
Speaker 1: You're correct in your assessment. Nancy Kayleen Bowen was saying
34:12
Speaker 1: that the father shouldn't be around him because he was
34:15
Speaker 1: so sick, and then when he did try to get
34:18
Speaker 1: custody and take her to court, she was saying that
34:22
Speaker 1: how horrible it was of him to take her to
34:24
Speaker 1: court while she's been treating for their sick son and
34:28
Speaker 1: he has not been around his son. So she's very
34:31
Speaker 1: manipulative in the way that she has been dealing with
34:35
Speaker 1: this child's father and manipulating him and even the judicial
34:39
Speaker 1: system and the judges. Take a listen to ABC Action
34:42
Speaker 1: US Deborah Riley. In his eight years of life, Christopher
34:44
Speaker 1: Bowen has been to the hospital three hundred twenty three
34:47
Speaker 1: times and he's undergone thirteen major surgeries. His mom is
34:52
Speaker 1: in jail, accused of making all of her son's illnesses up.
34:56
Speaker 1: But Christopher's father questioned his son's medical issues and was
35:00
Speaker 1: subsequently stripped of his visitation rights by a judge. How
35:04
Speaker 1: do you do it? How do you do thirteen surgeries
35:07
Speaker 1: and not question the fifth surgery, the sixth surgery? The
35:12
Speaker 1: judge stated that I needed to accept that my son
35:15
Speaker 1: was dying. Investigators think this is the case of munchhousing
35:18
Speaker 1: by proxy syndrome, a mental disorder in which a caregiver
35:22
Speaker 1: makes up an injury or an illness, or creates an
35:26
Speaker 1: injury or an illness to get medical care to gain attention.
35:30
Speaker 1: Christopher and his two siblings are now in foster care.
35:33
Speaker 1: He is wonderful. He's not only any medications, well, let
35:37
Speaker 1: me rephrase allergy medications. He doesn't have any tubes inside
35:42
Speaker 1: of him. Obviously, he still has the connection for the
35:45
Speaker 1: G tube, which you know one day we're going to
35:48
Speaker 1: have to address that, and he's just ready to begin
35:53
Speaker 1: the process of healing, which he can't do in a
35:55
Speaker 1: foster home. You're there hearing the dad, Ryan Crawford, listen
35:59
Speaker 1: to this. This same time last year, this little boy,
36:04
Speaker 1: Christopher Bowen was dying eight years old, on oxygen, in
36:11
Speaker 1: a wheelchair, a feeding tube, an ivy in his arm.
36:17
Speaker 1: Miracles do happen. An eight year scam is over. Today.
36:24
Speaker 1: The feeding tube is gone, the wheelchair is discarded, the
36:29
Speaker 1: need for a long transplant is over. The cancer is
36:35
Speaker 1: not a remote possibility. This little boy that doesn't even
36:40
Speaker 1: wear glasses, this child almost died. The intervention was a miracle,
36:49
Speaker 1: and now this child is flourishing. What, if anything, can
36:53
Speaker 1: we learn we can make sure it doesn't happen again
36:58
Speaker 1: to another child. We wait as just as unfolds. Nancy
37:04
Speaker 1: Grace Crime Story signing off, Goodbye, Fred