While the Nobody Should Believe Me team is hard at work on season 5, we’re revisiting the first episode of our third season, which covered the Kowalski v Johns Hopkins All Children's trial, also known as the Take Care of Maya Case. Next week, we have a brand new miniseries coming to your ears, so stay tuned. *** As the Maya Kowalski case heads to trial, we dig into the massive trove of documents about this case and begin to unpack what we know about what really happened during Maya Kowalski’s fateful stay at Johns Hopkins All Childrens in October 2016. The Netflix documentary about the case—and the prevailing media narrative---would have you believe that Maya was ripped from her parents by a corrupt system, and that this could happen to any parent of a sick child. But did Maya really have a deadly disease for which she required the massive amounts of ketamine and other drugs she was being given? Was the hospital unfairly biased against Beata Kowalski because she was difficult, or was something more sinister at play? We talk to national law enforcement expert on medical child abuse, Detective Mike Weber, as well as a Florida pediatrician who helps us unravel some of the myriad strange details about Maya’s medical history. The beginning of our multi-part deep dive into the case reveals the shocking events that led up to the family separation. *** Links/Resources: Join Patreon for a look at Andrea and Dr. Bex’s previous coverage of the Kowalski case: https://www.patreon.com/collection/548199 Preorder Andrea's new book The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy 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: What happened during Maya Kowalski's hospital stay?
True Story Media. Hello, it's Andrea. First of all, thank you so much for all of the great feedback that you've sent us on our new in-between series format, Case Files. We got so, so many interesting responses about our Justina Pelletier mini series. And in fact, we're going to be following up on a few of those in upcoming episodes. So keep an eye out for that.
I am really loving having these episodes to feature all of the many interesting things that end up in our inbox. You know, when I started this show, it seemed like the topic I was covering might be a bit niche, but it turns out there is just kind of endless stuff to talk about within the Nobody Should Believe Me extended universe. And I am so grateful to be able to keep doing this every week.
And it's all thanks to you. So today we are re-airing the first episode of season three, in which we covered the Kowalski v. Johns Hopkins all children's case, aka the story featured in the Netflix film Take Care of Maya. I still think about this case all the time because it is just a perfect example of how damaging unscrupulous media coverage in child abuse cases can really be.
And also because the outcome of this case could set a massive precedent for future parents' rights cases. And this is only going to become a bigger issue in this country given the recent political shifts. So the Kowalski saga is very much ongoing as this verdict has been appealed. And there is a lot of drama going on behind the scenes with the legal team for the plaintiff.
And we will continue to update you on all of that on the main feed at some point. Our third season of the show is really unique because I covered this case as it was unfolding in real time. And we have, at last count, more than 20 episodes about the Kowalski case on the main feed.
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Chapter 2: How did the media portray the Kowalski case?
And this is in addition to truly innumerable hours of bonus content on the Patreon, where I did weekly trial recaps with Dr. Bex and have been covering all of the developments of the appeal. A fun thing about this episode is that this case is Dr. Bex's origin story here on Nobody Should Believe Me. She started talking to us in this very first episode as our secret Florida doctor friend.
And as those of you who are subscribers will know, Dr. Bex now co-hosts our twice monthly subscriber show, Nobody Should Believe Me After Dark. And speaking of subscribing, that is one of the very best ways that you can support everything that we are doing over here. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or on Patreon.
And on the latter platform, we have a free tier where I unlock episodes for free listening from time to time. So for a limited time, I'm going to make
all of our kowalski content free to listen to over there so if you want to join dr becks and i on an absolutely obsessive deep dive about this case you can go do that right now we will be back next week with a new episode to keep you company on your thanksgiving travels and our new full season is coming at you the first week of january now on with the show
Just a quick reminder that my new book, The Mother Next Door, Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy, is on sale right now wherever books are sold. The book was an Amazon editor's pick for nonfiction, and the Seattle Times called it a riveting deep dive into MVP. And if you are an audiobook lover and you like hearing my voice, which I'm assuming you do since you're listening here...
You should know that I narrate the audiobook as well. If you have already read the book, which I know so many of you have, thank you so much. Please let me know your thoughts and questions at helloandnobodieshouldbelieveme.com, and we will bring my co-author, Detective Mike Weber, on for a little book Q&A and post-retirement tell-all special. Thanks for your support.
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Before we begin, a quick warning that in this show, we discuss child abuse and this content may be difficult for some listeners. If you or anyone you know is a victim or survivor of medical child abuse, please go to munchausensupport.com to connect with professionals who can help. Every investigation begins with a question, but this film starts off with an answer.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of false allegations in medical child abuse?
The audio you just heard is from the Netflix documentary, Take Care of Maya. People believe their eyes. That's something that actually is so central to this whole issue and to people that experience this is that we do believe the people that we love when they're telling us something.
If you are just joining us, it will be very helpful if you go back and listen to season one and season two before diving in. It will give you a great foundation for the concepts of what we talk about on this show. This season, we are going to be diving into one of the things we get asked about the most, the concept of false allegations of medical child abuse.
And we're starting with the biggest case in the headlines right now, the Maya Kowalski trial. and the Netflix documentary about this story, Take Care of Maya. You know, so what we covered in our first episode about this documentary was really what we felt had been omitted. There were these gaps in the story that you could tell from watching it, and we knew there was just so much more to this case.
And as I've been digging through the documentation that's publicly available, I've found answers and context for some of those things that were left out. And I feel like those pieces of information are really important to our understanding of this case and how these cases play out. And this whole concept about false accusations that's really catching fire right now.
And as a reminder, because I see this kind of misdirection happening everywhere in the conversation about this case, Beata Kowalski is not on trial. The hospital is on trial. Kathy Beatty is on trial. DCF is on trial. Originally, Sally Smith and Suncoast were also on trial. They have settled out of court. I do not have details about what that settlement was or why it happened.
If I get them, I will most certainly share them here. So Jack Kowalski, the father of Maya Kowalski, is currently suing those parties for $220 million in punitive damages. So we are doing something that we have not yet done here on Nobody Should Believe Me, and that is covering a case that is happening in real time. So this is going to be different. We're going to have updates.
The description of the Take Care of Maya documentary on the production company's website really tells you what you need to know about the angle that it's taking. My producer Tina is going to read it for us.
When nine-year-old Maya Kowalski was admitted to the John Hopkins All Children's Hospital near Sarasota, Florida, her only problem was a painful stomach ache. By the time she left the facility three months later, her health had declined, her world was shattered, and her mother was dead.
This true crime feature documentary unravels a medical horror story that is still playing out, one with the potential to uncover an overlooked national menace. Are a handful of medical professionals saving children like Maya from abusive homes? Or are they running a for-profit scheme that destroys hundreds of families each year?
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Chapter 4: What role does the hospital play in allegations of abuse?
The documentary also broadens the scope by the end to insinuate that there is a, quote, national menace of false accusations of medical child abuse happening in this country. And that any parent who takes their child to the doctor is at risk of having that child kidnapped.
So for someone like me who works in this field, who has spent the last several years of my life very deep in these cases and these issues, this premise just could not be more wrong. The actual epidemic about medical child abuse in this country is one of underreporting. People who are committing this crime are not being held accountable by and large.
That is what we know from all of the experts we have talked to. So let's start off by talking about what the concept of a false accusation would mean in a case that was at the stage that Beata Kowalski's case was when she died, which is halfway through a criminal investigation.
It would mean that the doctors who reported their suspicions, the judge who made the no contact order, and the DCF officials who were working on the case all knew that Beata Kowalski was not actually abusing her child and they were holding her daughter and keeping them apart anyway. The plaintiff's strategy is clearly to fixate on Maya really had CRPS.
And if she really had CRPS, that means Beata was innocent. That means she was falsely accused. That means this hospital is liable. It's a red herring. And this film, you know, really focuses on that. And they bring up this sort of smoking gun that the hospital was billing her insurance for treating CRPS. So the point I want to make is that the plaintiffs are leaning really hard on two things.
Number one, that Maya genuinely had CRPS. They are leaning really hard on that. And the reason they're leaning really hard on it is because they are using a completely false excuse.
description of factitious disorder imposed on another and they misrepresent what's in the dsm they say oh well we had this dr duncan evaluate her and dr duncan says in her report that if there's a genuine diagnosis that rules out munchausen by proxy factitious disorder imposed on another It does not. That is false.
So in this context, a false accusation would mean that you are making an accusation that you knew not to be true, not reporting a genuine suspicion of harm being done. And the reason I want to start this conversation by talking about what is and is not a false accusation is that this case and the media coverage about it have implications that go far beyond just this family and this situation.
And right now, in many places in the country, including a big situation in Lehigh, Pennsylvania, which we will talk about, child abuse pediatricians are under attack. They are getting pushed out of their jobs. They are getting excoriated in the press. And this has real consequences, both for those pediatricians and for the children that we trust them to protect.
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Chapter 5: How do legal and medical professionals respond to suspected abuse?
Again, we've talked a little bit about how they framed Dr. Sally Smith's role in an incorrect way, but they made a big deal of the fact that Dr. Sally Smith only spent 10 minutes talking to them. But it's not really, it's not her role to evaluate the child's health. It's her role to go back through the records, which I'm assuming were extremely voluminous, and look
for these patterns of deception and these patterns of medical child abuse. So that is not something, the fact that she spent, you know, they frame it as she spent a few minutes talking to this family and just made her mind up. And that's not what happened. I mean, we can see that in the records that that's not what happened.
She was still working on her report, even during, you know, this first part of the investigation.
Right. And her report was a 45 page report. So it was not, you know, it was not some small document. Right. And it obviously was not put together haphazardly.
One of the notes that the detective did make in her narrative that was extremely interesting to me was that an allergist had actually charted concerns for Munchausen by proxy in Beata in December of 2015, a full eight months before this investigation kicked off. And that's another doctor having the same concerns.
And there was another hospital that had reported her as well. There was a hospital that she had seen. There was a rehabilitation nurse that actually made a report. One doctor just put it in his notes, I believe. And then there was another doctor that actually called it in. And to be fair, they do mention this in the movie that she'd been reported by more than one place.
But they rushed past it pretty fast and they don't really give any details on that report. And to me, I mean, I think to me, one of the strongest indicators that something is amiss is if you have multiple people who have no communication with each other reporting concerns. Right. That really points away from, oh, this is all at the feet of one overzealous doctor. Right.
Well, and I think it's also important to point out that, you know, a hospital like John Hopkins is a huge place. You're going to have multiple people caring for this child that may not even know each other. Are we to believe that they're all in some big conspiracy?
There is a very specific protocol when it comes to reporting in these cases. And I spoke to a pediatrician in Florida about this process. She opted to remain anonymous for this interview because of her proximity to this case.
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Chapter 6: What evidence suggests medical child abuse in this case?
This is not the only time that Beata had talked about Maya's mortality. Can you tell us about what came up in some of this other documentation that we saw about Beata framing this as a terminal illness?
Beata was getting IV Dilaudid, which is an opioid pain medication for Maya to be administered at home from Dr. Kirkpatrick. She asked the IV infusion company, which is the one where she worked, for terminal to be placed on the diagnosis for the medication. Again, I don't know if that's to get insurance to cover it or what the purpose was, but she asked for that.
They actually reached out to Dr. Kirkpatrick, who said that is out of his scope of practice. to put terminal on the prescription.
And also, I have to say, I was struck by the second half of that letter from Dr. Kirkpatrick, which told Beata to seek out resources from her local hospice care.
Exactly. So he wasn't willing to say it, but then recommended that. And then it still ended up somehow from the company to be on that prescription. And then what it says is she went back to a second pharmacist within that
company and said can you put terminal on they again reached out to Dr. Kirkpatrick who said no and it was not put on at that time by that pharmacist so there was concern too with I believe the company that she worked with then reaching out and it seemed Dr. Kirkpatrick at least at that point was not comfortable adding that word.
We can't know for sure why Beata was making that request but We know that Maya was already receiving a very high dosage of ketamine. What could a reason possibly be that someone would add? What's the purpose of adding terminal to a prescription? Do the insurance companies treat it differently? Does that permit a higher dose? Does it permit more coverage? What could some possible reasons be?
I mean, my thoughts, at least from experience, would be that there are doses of pain medications you can use at home legally because now there's a lot more restrictions as well in cases of palliative care, hospice care versus just a child who may need pain medication. So dosage that would be appropriate to use in the home or even IV opioids in the home, in my experience, I mean, that is a very...
rare occurrence in and of itself, as well as the fact that insurance companies may question if there aren't certain terminology, you know, we're asked sometimes, oh, did you mean failure to thrive? Or did you mean malnutrition? Because there's a word that the company would say, oh, you just didn't use the correct terminology. And that terminology may be correct in that case.
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Chapter 7: What is the impact of media coverage on medical professionals?
Yes, it is strange. Now, eventually, Beata was successful in getting terminal added to Maya's prescription. And in the testimony that was recently released, pharmacist John Schott, who filled this prescription, testified that he only added the terminal designation after a 10-minute conversation with Dr. Kirkpatrick.
They questioned Dr. Kirkpatrick about this as well, and he repeated his stance that this was out of scope of his practice to label her as terminal and that he did not recall having this conversation with Schott. Now, this testimony is happening years after the fact. There are several possibilities. It could have been a genuine miscommunication.
He could easily not remember a conversation he had many years ago. That's perfectly possible. credible, but it does raise questions as to how this label got on there. There were a lot of things that Dr. Kirkpatrick said in the documentary that came off very strange. Here's a clip from the documentary of him talking about a message that he sent to Beata while Maya was at Johns Hopkins.
This was not the first time I've seen this type of scenario. After a few days at the hospital, they refused to give her ketamine. And without the high dose ketamine treatment, she had virtually no mobility in her legs at all. And that's where you get these blood clots forming, which can break off, go to the lungs, and it could be fatal.
And I felt it was important that Beata understood the seriousness of this. So I warned her in all medical probability that Maya would die a slow, painful death.
The whole timeline of Dr. Kirkpatrick's treatment with Maya is very striking. So this is a child who has her alleged onset of these symptoms in July of 2015. And her first meeting with Dr. Kirkpatrick, where she officially gets diagnosed by him with CRPS, is just a few months later in September of 2015.
And by that fall, she had already escalated to doing these four-day ketamine infusions, and Dr. Kirkpatrick had sent them down to see Dr. Cantu in Mexico, who performed the five-day ketamine coma procedure. This is the procedure that notably has a 50% chance of death. And this, for me... I just don't understand how a reasonable person can look at this series of events and not have questions.
How do you go from the onset of a pain disorder in July to giving your child a treatment for that pain that has a 50% chance of death And this is the treatment that Beata was demanding at Johns Hopkins, not just that they give her ketamine, that they give her an infusion pump and put her in a coma. So I had lots of questions about Dr. Kirkpatrick.
And in fact, another piece of his testimony was just released into the public record. This one is from 2022. So with the caveat, of course, that I am not a doctor, in going through Dr. Kirkpatrick's testimony, there were some pretty notable things. And I think it's important to have this information to give some context for what he says in the documentary.
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Chapter 8: How do parents navigate treatment decisions for their children?
His background is as an anesthesiologist, and he runs a pain clinic where it appears from his website and all the information I could find there that the main thing he does is treat pain disorders with ketamine. This is also the subject of his research.
So it actually makes sense that he has a background as an anesthesiologist because this is one of the main things that ketamine is used for here in the U.S., Importantly, also in the film, he's very critical of Dr. Sally Smith for not including notes on the phone call that they had in October of 2016 in her report.
So another important piece of information that comes from his testimony is that Dr. Kirkpatrick, by his own admission, is doing pro bono work on behalf of the Kowalskis. He says this in his testimony that he created a, quote, "'roadmap' of what he believed happened in this case," And he provided this roadmap to the producers at Netflix.
There are a few other things that struck me about Dr. Kirkpatrick, both in his testimony and sort of the way he speaks in the film. He uses really hyperbolic language. He refers in his testimony to Maya being incarcerated at Johns Hopkins. That is really notable language for a doctor to use about one of the most highly respected medical institutions in the country. That is notable.
And I just have to say, there is a moment where he nods off during his testimony. That doesn't necessarily tell us anything about his testimony. I just wanted to include it. It can be so daunting to make an appointment for something. First, you have to call. Then they call you back, inevitably right as your six-year-old absolutely needs to ask you a next essential question.
And then you have to coordinate your hot mess of a calendar. Okay, parts of that example were very specific to me. Thank you so much for having me. for mental health to dental health, primary care, and more. You can filter for doctors who take your insurance, are located nearby, and are highly rated by verified patients.
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