In our season finale, we see Sophie Hartman follow in the footsteps of the Kowalski family, Andrea’s sister Megan Carter and others, as she files a lawsuit against Seattle Children’s and the others who investigated her for Medical Child Abuse. Journalist Olivia LaVoice shares her thoughts about how this has all played out. We hear Sophie rebranding herself as a ‘falsely accused’ mother in a visit to her home congregation in Kalamazoo and examine the crossover between evangelical Christianity, the parents' rights movement, and medical child abuse cases. We reveal what we know about where Sophie and the girls are today. *** Links and Resources: Learn more about our featured non-profit and mutual aid organizations: https://www.nobodyshouldbelieveme.com/nsbm-supports/ Check out You Probably Think This Story's About You: https://brittaniard.com/podcast Click here to view our sponsors. Remember that using our codes helps advertisers know you’re listening and helps us keep making the show! Subscribe on YouTube where we have full episodes and lots of bonus content. Follow Andrea on Instagram for behind-the-scenes photos: @andreadunlop Buy Andrea's books here. To support the show, go to Patreon.com/NobodyShouldBelieveMe or subscribe on Apple Podcasts where you can get all episodes early and ad-free and access exclusive ethical true crime bonus content. For more information and resources on Munchausen by Proxy, please visit MunchausenSupport.com The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children’s MBP Practice Guidelines can be downloaded here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Sophie Hartman and what is her story?
In April of 2009, Sophie Hartman left her small Christian college in Michigan to become a missionary in Zambia. While there, she encountered two sisters in an orphanage, C and M. And in May of 2015, after going numerous rounds in court with the Zambian government, she won the right to take the two sisters into her home.
In March of 2021, after her younger daughter had endured countless doctor's visits, testing, and two surgeries, a court in Washington State, where Sophie had resettled them, took them away. And in May of 2021, almost six years to the day after the adoptions were finalized, Sophie was charged with assault of a child in the second degree.
But after a costly and bitterly fought year-long battle, Sophie got her daughters back. That following summer, the criminal charges were dropped. This season, we followed the long and windy road of this case and how it collided with my own family.
And after reading hundreds of pages of documentation, listening to many hours of police interviews, and our tireless researcher scouring the internet for the truth, there's so much of this case that remains unknown. One of the biggest mysteries is how a judge could look at all of this and still decide to return Sophie's children to her care.
Chapter 2: What were the legal outcomes of Sophie's case?
I spoke to Olivia LaVois, the reporter who broke this story, to try and unravel the way this case played out. I think the justice system, for those people who haven't interacted with it, is so much more complex than I think people realize.
No, absolutely. And it just goes to, like, the case being dismissed does not give you the answer as to if she did it or not. You know, it just doesn't. I think we all wish that it could because we want to know. Like, it's just human nature. You want to know. Right. Is the child sick or not?
People believe their eyes. That's something that is so central to this topic because we do believe the people that we love when they're telling us something. If we didn't, you could never make it through your day. I'm Andrea Dunlop, and this is Nobody Should Believe Me. Hello, it's Andrea. The episode you're about to hear was originally the finale of our season.
However, in the weeks since the release of the premiere, one of the sources that I'd been speaking to for months decided that she wanted to go on the record. So we will be airing my in-depth conversation with her next week. And trust me, you will not want to miss it. Well, friends, it's 2025. It's here. This year is going to be...
Well, one thing it won't be is boring, and that's about the only prediction I'm going to make right now. But one piece of news that I am excited to share is that the wait for my new book, The Mother Next Door, is almost over. It is coming at you on February 4th from St. Martin's Press. So soon!
I co-authored this book with friend and beloved contributor of this show, Detective Mike Weber, about three of the most impactful cases of his career. Even if you are one of the OG-est of OG listeners to this show, I promise you are going to learn so many new and shocking details about the three cases we cover.
We just go into so much more depth on these stories, and you're also going to learn a ton about Mike's story. Now, I know y'all love Detective Mike because he gets his very own fan mail here at Nobody Should Believe Me. And if you've ever wondered, how did Mike become the detective when it came to Munchausen by proxy cases, you are going to learn all about his origin story in this book.
And I know we've got many audiobook listeners out there, so I'm very excited to share with you the audiobook is read by me, Andrea Dunlop, your humble narrator of this very show. I really loved getting to read this book, and I'm so excited to share this with you. If you are able to pre-order the book, doing so will really help us out.
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Chapter 3: How does Sophie's case connect to Andrea's family?
It will signal to our publisher that there is excitement about the book, and it will also give us a shot at that all-important bestseller list. And of course, if that's simply not in the budget right now, we get it. Books are not cheap. Library sales are also extremely important for books, so putting in a request at your local library is another way that you can help.
So you can pre-order the book right now in all formats at the link in our show notes at And if you are in Seattle or Fort Worth, Mike and I are doing live events the week of launch, which you can also find more information about at the link in our show notes. These events will be free to attend, but please do RSVP so that we can plan accordingly. See you out there.
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For even more, you can also find us on YouTube, where we have every episode as well as bonus video content. I always talk about how strong the patterns in these cases are. The premature births, the feeding tubes, the seizures that no one else witnesses. The one in a million rare diagnosis that only the mother or perhaps one sainted doctor out of the laundry list of specialists truly understands.
There's the unnecessary wheelchairs and leg braces. There's the graphic and disturbing social media posts. The ominous march towards death for a child no medical professional has deemed has a terminal illness.
There's the heartstrings media coverage, the devoted church and community members that financially support the family, the inevitable make-a-wish trip, and often it's not, there's a celebrity cameo.
Hey, I'm Cain Berry and Kids. It's a real night! It's a real night! Look, I brought things for you.
That last clip is of my niece getting a special visit from the beloved former Seahawk, Richard Sherman, at the same hospital, Marybridge, where Sophie's daughter, C, was also being treated at this time. The parallels between my sister Megan and Sophie's cases are endless and exhausting.
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Chapter 4: What is the significance of Sophie's lawsuit?
And again, entities settle out of court for all kinds of reasons, right? There's like there are some, you know, accountants doing the math back behind the scenes and there's like actuarial, you know, insurance, whatever things that play into that. It's not it's not like, oh, you know, she's right, so we're going to give her the money.
It's quite a lot more complicated than that, but it does certainly send the message of like, oh, well, look, this, not only were the charges dismissed, she then won this settlement. So she really must have, not only did she not do it, she must really have been maliciously, falsely accused. And then that sort of reinforces the idea that, oh, false accusations are a thing that's happening. Yeah.
I mean, and if King County settles with her, to me, it's like, okay, they've settled everything, right? I mean, they charged her. They went through with charging her, but then that would be it. They didn't stick to it being a felony. Then they dismissed the case. So if there's a settlement, it's like they really don't want to go up against her.
Yeah, yeah, and I always then worry also about the precedent that sets for other people who, you know, are accused of child abuse, charged with child abuse, may get it, sort of have this same slip through the cracks, and then sort of, I worry about that becoming an opportunity for opportunistic lawsuits, to be honest.
That's a very, very interesting... and I think I already told you, I had the thought, not as a journalist, just as a person, that if I did something and I was criminally charged and then they dismissed the case, I personally think that I would go away quietly and just live my life and think, damn, I got lucky. I do not think that I would say, actually, let's go to court and let's open this all up.
if I knew that I got away with doing something, you know? So, and I think that's how the average person looks at it.
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Chapter 5: How does the media portray medical child abuse cases?
Like, why would you put yourself back in the position to get more, be under more scrutiny?
Yeah, yeah. If you got away with it, why would you do that? Yeah.
Why indeed? Because Olivia is right. Most people wouldn't push their luck in such a scenario. However, I think it's safe to say that nothing Sophie has done over the past 10 years is what most people would have done. Sophie is really on her own singular mission in life.
In the last episode, we talked to my parents about the emotional blackmail that my sister Megan pulled on them after the first investigation, telling them that they could either help her sue Seattle Children's for quote, falsely accusing her, or they were never gonna see their grandchild again.
As far as I know, she didn't go through with that lawsuit, likely because she and her husband couldn't pony up the fees themselves, given their already shaky financial situation. But after the next investigation, Megan took it to the big leagues, appearing in a national news story about being falsely accused, this time by Mary Bridge Hospital.
There are two other hospitals, by the way, that have at one point or another reported my sister. So that's a conspiracy of four, if you're counting. This time, Megan did file a lawsuit against Mary Bridge. She also attempted to sue DCF, both for their investigation into her the second time and in a separate suit for not destroying the records from the first investigation.
I have come to think of these lawsuits as part of the pattern of Munchausen by proxy. It's another chance to get all of the things that drive these behaviors in the first place. Attention, sympathy, publicity, and potentially ill-gotten money to keep up all these pursuits. Now, you're not just a victim of the cruel fate that delivered you a sick child. You're the victim of a false accusation.
Now, you're not just the martyr trying to save your own child. You're an advocate for others, too. You are bravely fighting back against the evil system that tried to take your child away. And all of the time Megan has spent in court appears to have opened up a whole new career path for her.
She has, I hear, been showing up quite a lot in dependency court, not fighting her own battle this time, but as a paid consultant doing medical forensics for the Office of Public Defense, defending other parents facing medical child abuse charges.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of settling out of court in these cases?
The fact that her work is being funded by my very own tax dollars — and yours, if you're one of my Washington listeners — is just quite the cherry on the sundae. Especially because, according to someone I spoke to on background about Megan's second case, the reason the prosecutor gave for not pressing charges was that it would be too expensive.
And when I ran this by a retired prosecutor familiar with the office in question, he said this tract. There is this notion that the state has endless resources to battle something in court, but it's just not the case, especially in child abuse. If there is a high enough profile case where the political will is there, sure, they'll find the resources. But my sister isn't Luigi Mangione.
No one was going to lose their job if this went away. The sad reality is that no one is held accountable in most violent interpersonal crimes. The clearance rate in Washington state for murders is 47%, and 55% for aggravated assaults. And clearance rates don't account for what gets prosecuted. It only tracks cases where there were charges filed.
How this all intersects with something like child abuse, where the thing being fought over is whether a crime even happened at all? Well, you can see how the numbers just get lower and lower.
And there is, as I have learned, quite the little cottage industry around not only getting the children returned to parents and helping them evade criminal charges, but also in helping them turn around and sue the providers. As Sophie did after her criminal case was dismissed in her multi-million dollar lawsuit.
This lawsuit is 152 pages long, but the gist of the argument it tries to make is that everyone was in a conspiracy against Sophie. Here is a quote from the opening pages.
The child's condition was real, was validated by medical experts, and the supposed child abuse medicine claims were a vehicle for attention for misguided licensed professionals who themselves wanted attention and were willing to contrive a fake condition to get it. So in other words, C's AHC is real and Sophie's munchausen by proxy is the fake condition.
But also, Sophie isn't doing munchausen by proxy. The doctors are doing munchausen by proxy. And they accuse the doctors of conspiring against Sophie, again, for attention. Quote,
They laid the groundwork for an accusation of medical child abuse for two years, a false claim that was slow rolled while they gradually set the family up to be separated with false criminal charges, horrifying publicity, and removal of the children based on a contrived rush two years later to court for a phony emergency.
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Chapter 7: How does the parents' rights movement relate to these cases?
Instead of any concrete evidence, the lawsuit does mental gymnastics to explain why all these providers would conspire against Sophie, at one point comparing Dr. Wester and the Seattle Children's Child Abuse Team to Joseph Stalin and his secret police. The conspiracy angle seems to be tied to the length of time that Seattle Children's was tracking this case.
But as Dr. Jim Hamilton explains, there often needs to be a long period of observation to detect this particular form of abuse.
What's important in distinguishing medical child abuse from other cases is not whether there's medical evidence of an illness or not. It's evidence that there's misinformation, disinformation, misrepresenting to one doctor what another doctor has said. In some cases, evidence that a substance has been given. The mere inability to find an explanation for symptoms isn't in and of itself.
evidence of medical child abuse there has to be evidence that the accused caregiver is actively doing things to create a false impression and again moving toward the idea that this is more like a prolonged exploitive type of abuse rather than an event related type of abuse like physical abuse or sometimes sexual abuse you can't make that case
If you're looking for big, boffo, clear evidence like suffocation or poisoning that the mother is causing the child symptoms, it's evidence that's revealed through an excruciatingly careful examination of the medical records, comparing the timelines of this doctor and that doctor, and did this doctor really say that?
This whole thing, this whole drama plays out like a game of telephone, for those of us who are old enough to remember things like telephones, where Somebody says something, and when that information is passed along to the next person, it's changed, it's manipulated, and then that person takes that and passes it on to the next.
In the end, you have a bunch of doctors who all think the other doctors were on board with the parents' explanation of what was going on and everything made sense and they agreed and there was a diagnosis, etc., And it's really not true.
When the doctors get together and conference about these cases, as they often do when suspicions arise, they are sort of shocked to realize how much they misunderstood what the other doctors were thinking and doing based on the distorted reports they were getting from the mother.
Much of this lawsuit hinges on the idea that C does have AHC and that it was diagnosed by Dr. McCotty from Duke, a notion we have already devoted plenty of time to unpacking. I do not believe, after reviewing this case file, that this child has AHC. And also, C having a legitimate diagnosis of AHC would in no way preclude the possibility of abuse.
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