Navigated to Baby Snatchers - Transcript
The Unborn

ยทS1 E4

Baby Snatchers

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1

Sixteen plus hours unaccounted for in the hospital.

We have Jared locked out of the berth confined to his car from Christie's side.

Speaker 2

We have her text messages to Jared.

Speaker 1

We have the photoshop images of the two babies with the placard Jared sent in with her.

Speaker 2

We have the fact that.

Speaker 1

Christy was escorted out of the hospital by two police officers who told Jared she was not allowed back on the premises without an appointment.

And we have the good old fashioned western Pennsylvania rumor mill.

Speaker 3

So my sales guy whose wife was a nurse at one of the local hospitals.

Speaker 2

And one of the leaders of that rumor mill was Henry in the she called.

Speaker 3

A couple of our buddies at work still hospital.

She said that there was a lady there that they suspected that she was hanging around the nurseries and they was suspecting her of want missus steel babies like Breadlake Wildfire, and that's when they that's when they threw her out of the hospital.

Speaker 2

Molly heard it too.

Speaker 4

I can't confirm that that was true, but from her being kicked out of the hospital and the restraining order, I think that's what we assumed, especially since I want to say that my personal opinion is that she had planned to kill the one baby off and then since the one baby was said, excuse me, bring another baby home, so potentially she could.

Speaker 2

Have stole a baby.

Speaker 5

Did she.

Speaker 6

Thank god she didn't, But I think if she went through this whole nine months of tricking everybody, stealing a baby wouldn't be.

Speaker 5

That far off.

Speaker 1

Even Jared's father, David, had a theory on how Christy was able to remain under the radar.

Speaker 5

I don't know how she checked herself in the hospital.

We're thinking she used her maiden.

Speaker 3

Name, so then Jared couldn't call over and find out what happened to more any of that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1

In spite of all this talk, no one could really understand exactly what was going on.

Speaker 5

How did this all happen.

Speaker 7

I'm like, I don't know, I said.

Speaker 5

It doesn't make sense.

How do you everything?

In the morning, we're getting text we're getting pictures, everything else.

Speaker 7

Then all of a sudden, it just stops.

Speaker 5

You don't get anything.

Speaker 2

There was a lot of hurt and confusion.

I think it was for me.

Speaker 6

The hardest part is you've could have had a miscarriage or whatever.

But for you to give birth and then be like, oh they died.

This mindful was me?

Yeah, like it's it's I don't even know who thinks like that.

Speaker 5

She was throwing a fit in the hospital, grabbing scissors and all these things, and she was detained, so they ran a search, weren't on her.

Speaker 1

All of the pieces of information just led to more questions.

Speaker 2

But Jared knew one thing for certain.

Speaker 5

I think there was a wanted sign up.

If you see this person.

Speaker 2

On a maternity ward or nick you or and they put.

Speaker 5

My name on there too, I'm like, WHOA, well, well they put my name on there.

It was like, if you see these two people.

Speaker 1

Jared's photograph is now hanging at all the local hospitals, right next to Christie's, a modern day Bonnie and Clyde of Baby Snatchers.

Speaker 8

I'm Trisha la Fog.

I'm a writer, director, actor, and federal criminal defense attorney.

I'm going to tell you a story that's all too real about love, lies, and the lens people will go to for attention.

It's a story that will leave you questioning everything you thought you knew about truth, about reality, and about what happens when the two collide in the most unimaginable way.

From audio up and just sweet Press productions, this is the unborn.

Speaker 1

The wanted sign that Jared is referring to is actually a the.

Speaker 2

The lookout or BOLO alert.

Speaker 1

And it's the first piece of concrete evidence that we have that Christie was in fact detained and escorted out of the hospital not because of a warrant for an unpaid speeding ticket, but because she was suspected of attempting to kidnap at least one baby.

And how I know that for sure?

The title of the BOLO alert reads Infant Security Risk.

I have it here in front of me, and I'm going to read it in its entirety as well as describe it now.

The BOLO alert has three pictures of Christy on it, and over her picture it reads infant security risk.

Christy Akron with her date of birth, is not permitted on grounds unless seeking medical attention.

If seen, immediately contact MWh Police and Security.

Speaker 2

The phone number to the police is.

Speaker 1

Listed, as well as the fact that she drives a Burgundy su TV and the SUV's Pennsylvania license plate is listed on the other side of the bolo is Jared's photo and it's just one photo, and over his photo it reads infant Security risk with his day to birth, and then all of the same information listed under Christie's BOLO with her three photos, most notably that he is not allowed on grounds unless seeking medical attention, and that if he is seen on the grounds, the police should be contacted immediately.

We spoke to a nurse who works in the hospital about an hour from where Christie gave birth.

Speaker 2

Her name is Gretchen.

Speaker 9

I'm a Pede's icy U nurse.

Speaker 1

Not only did Gretchen and see the bolo, it was hanging in her unit.

Speaker 9

Yeah, those were the ones that were hung up.

Speaker 1

To be fair, the bolo does look like a wanted sign.

It's an entire eight by eleven piece of paper that contains Christie's information and her three photographs, and beside it is Jared's information and one photograph from his driver's license.

Christie's photos one is from her driver's license, a second from her Facebook profile, and they both look like the bubbly girl people.

Speaker 2

Had described her ass.

Speaker 1

The third photo, however, stands out in sharp contrast.

It's her mugshot from that evening when she was attained at the hospital.

Speaker 2

Her hair is pulled into.

Speaker 1

A disheveled gun, her mask is hanging still attached to her left ear.

She appears to be wearing a hospital down and her face expression she looks not just sad but lost, despondent.

Speaker 2

Gretchen and Jared are not strangers.

Their parents are friends.

Speaker 1

Jared is older than Gretchen by a couple of years, and while they are not as close as Jared and Molly, Gretchen feels like she knows.

Speaker 2

Jared pretty well.

I asked her what it felt.

Speaker 1

Like to see her friend's photo hung up all over her hospital on the BOLO alert labeling him as an infant security risk.

Speaker 9

I felt sad for him that he was getting drug through all that, and I felt like I was screaming at a people, this is not Jared, this is not him.

He is not going to take any kids from this unit.

And I think people looked at me like you are crazy, because they're like, you don't know that, But like I was, like, I have one hundred and ten percent.

Guy would put money on it, I'd put my life on it that Jared was not coming into.

Speaker 2

That facility to take a child.

Speaker 9

Was Christy, I don't know, but I knew Jared was not coming into that facility.

Speaker 1

Her feelings of Jared's innocence aside, Gretchen said that it was not uncommon for hospitals to share information about suspicious activity on maternity boards.

Speaker 9

Anytime there's like a suspicious activity, it's passed around to each hospital, and if there's a they call them baby snatchers.

If there's like a person in the area that is known to try to break into a hospital, like their pictures posted on everywhere, we can like watch for these people or on lockdown.

To get in and out of the facility, you always have to have like a swiite badge, and they're like extra cautious during those times.

Speaker 1

As it relates to Jared and Christy, however, she heard something a little bit more specific.

Speaker 9

Hey, there's this mom and dad that are claiming they had babies and they didn't and the dad's confused as to where these babies are.

Are like, just be cautious because that's a big sign of baby snatching.

Speaker 1

Security and staff are not playing around when it comes to the safety.

Speaker 2

Out of the war.

Speaker 9

Babies have a what's basically like an ankle monitor on, so they put this little tag on them when they're born.

In the second that they get even close to a door, everything locks down nine times out of ten.

On a unit that has kids, there's panic buttons, and now a lot of floors in general have panic buttons, so if something happened, you compress the panic button and it also alerts the police.

Speaker 1

It's not just the babies whose movement is limited, it's all patients and guests who are given a badge to keep them where they're supposed to be.

Speaker 9

That badge only gets them if they're supposed to be on the eighth floor.

It only gets them to the eighth floor.

They can go from the lobby to the eighth floor and back down.

They can't stop on any other floors, they can't roam around the hospital anything like that.

Speaker 1

As much as Gretchen was put off by the BOLO because she knew Jared was not a risk, she wasn't surprised by it.

Speaker 9

They're everywhere in a hospital.

It's like, be on the lookout for this person.

Be on the lookout for this person.

It is beating your head.

It's in your email, it's posted everywhere.

You see that, and then it's like, oh gosh, I see them.

You're doing whatever you can to like keep them right where they're at.

Speaker 1

Gretchen knew that the hospital where Christy gave birth had its own police force in addition to hospital security.

Speaker 9

Bigger hospitals have their own police force.

I mean they are police officers.

They carry guns.

They are able to arrest you, they are able to find you, they are able to do whatever they need to do.

Smaller hospitals oftentimes have security officers, but the hospital that she was at was a hospital with a security team inside and a police team outside.

Speaker 1

The level of security where Christy gave birth is very high, but sometimes even the best laid plans don't always work out.

It wasn't the first time this hospital had dealt with a potential baby snatcher.

In fact, eight years prior this happened at the same hospital on the same mord.

Speaker 2

When we heard about it, times seemed to stop a newborn baby kidnapped from the hospital, every minute feeling like a lifetime for his frightened family.

Speaker 3

Somebody got my baby.

Speaker 9

Godly grands we were with police tracking down every lead and there.

Speaker 5

When they put someone in cuffs.

Right now, the search for baby bryce.

Speaker 2

Breaking news coverage starts right now.

Speaker 5

A tearful and desperate pleading after a newborn baby is.

Speaker 6

Taken right from the hospital by a stranger wearing hospital scrubs.

Speaker 5

We've been breaking into programming all afternoon.

Speaker 1

Initial news report said that the kidnapper was posing as the mother's sister.

Speaker 2

That was false.

Speaker 1

She was posing as a hospital nurse, complete with hospital issued scrubs.

Speaker 10

Now police swarmed her to the hospital when this was reported, that grandmother told me a woman posing as the mother's sister came.

He had dressed in scrubs and somehow removed the baby from the nursery as the family was preparing to be discharged today.

Speaker 1

Luckily, baby Bryce was found five hours after he was taken from the hospital.

Speaker 11

A Brianna Moore cried at her sentencing, saying it was the biggest mistake she's ever made.

She apologized to the victim's family, to the staff at McGhee, an to her own family, and in the end she was sentenced to jail time, ten years probation, and she must register he as the Megan's law fender for life.

Speaker 9

Take a look at the video.

Speaker 11

More pled guilty to taking three day old Bryce Coleman from McGee hospital in August of twenty twelve.

Speaker 9

She admitted opposing.

Speaker 11

As a nurse and walking out of the hospital with a newborn that prosecutors say she put in a zippered bag.

Five hours later, Moore was found.

Speaker 9

Hiding with the baby, who was not hurt.

Speaker 11

She was facing as many as sixty years in jail, but instead was sentenced to thirty to sixty months with credit for time served, which means she could be out in as little as eight months, or spend the maximum time locked up, which amounts to another three years.

Her attorney says more suffers from both mental and physical health issues that prevent her from having her own child.

Speaker 1

For weeks prior to the abduction, Brihanna told her family that she was pregnant, even posting pictures of her pregnant belly and sonograms on Facebook with the caption, oh my, I just want to give him so much love.

Sound familiar, but Brianna plied guilty and took accountability for her actions at her sentencing before the judge.

Here's Brianna's statement to the court at her sentencing.

Speaker 11

I'm so sorry, I regret my actions and accept for responsibility No mother should have to go through that heartbreak.

You have been blessed with a beautiful baby boy.

All I wanted was to love someone.

Speaker 1

Unfortunately, for this young lady, her story doesn't have a happy ending.

Tragically, she passed away in prison while serving her sentence.

She was twenty two years old.

We reached out to her attorney for comment and our calls were not answered.

Brianna Moore obtained access to the maternity ward by purchasing hospital issued scrubs from a uniform store the day before her attempt at Baby Nappy.

Speaker 2

The protocol of the store is.

Speaker 1

That employees are required to ask for proof that a person requesting scrubs actually works at the hospital they are requesting scrubs for, but they.

Speaker 2

Didn't follow that protocol.

Speaker 1

Were sure how Christy gained access to the ward, but Ratchen was able to provide some insight.

Speaker 9

Any person coming into an er seeking medical attention, they're going to take you in her room, They're going to put you in a gown, they're going to treat you.

At that point.

They're not there to say you're pregnant.

You're not pregnant.

I mean, we have patients all the time that you walk in their room and you're like, where did they go?

They disappeared?

You find them down in the cafeteria, you find them outside smoking, you find them all over creation.

Speaker 2

Which fair.

Speaker 1

We knew that Christy went into the er and got a hospital ID band.

She could have watered out of the er when no one was looking, but that wouldn't explain how she got access to a lock maternity ward until Gretchen said this, so.

Speaker 9

For her to make it somewhere else, or did they take her up there?

You know, did the er say we have a pregnant woman down here, They went down security escorted her up there.

A lot a lot of escorts in the hospital have security with them.

Speaker 1

If Christy entered the er presenting as visibly pregnant and told them that her water broke, it's completely possible that they took her upstairs without giving her a thorough exam.

That's a real probability.

It would mean one less hurdle for Christy to sneak on the ward.

But there's so much time unaccounted for.

It seems she must have spent at least some of it in the er.

Speaker 9

As soon as you go into an ear, they put you in a gown, and you know, if something does happen, it's you don't have clothes on that we're trying to cut off.

We can put heart monitors on you quickly, like a lot of them are snap.

You can just pull them and they pop right open and you can do whatever you need to do.

Speaker 1

Was Christy erroneously escorted onto the maternity ward from the er at the direction of hospital staff.

Did she leave the er and sneak onto the locked maternity ward.

The truth is we just don't know either way.

Christy looked pregnant visibly and would have been dressed for the part.

We heard about fakesograms and constant Facebook posts and the fact that Christie looked pregnant, But there were a lot more tangible ways that Christy was able to convince Jared and everyone around then that she was pregnant.

Speaker 5

The one thing that kind of jumps out in front of me is the at home pregnancy test.

It was I think it was called at the right time.

There was a two pack, and she wanted to do this little box to keep like here's the first when I would go to the hospital, here's my bracelet.

Here's the pregnancy test, which I thought was way out of whack.

I mean, why would you want to keep something you peed on?

That throws me off.

But getting back to this pregnancy test, she made it a point to hey, come watch this turn into two lines.

Speaker 2

Why would anyone want to keep something they peed on?

Speaker 5

So I'm looking back at at it now, and I did a couple of searches of what an at home pregnancy test and what the brands are.

And after the whole debacle of Hey, I'm not pregnant, I type it in on Amazon, I'm like, fake pregnancy tests up pops first one at the right time.

It's a picture of the box and everything, as like in April Fool prank.

It's a fake pregnancy test, like seventeen bucks in that flipped my whole world upside down.

It's all took seventeen bucks.

I didn't think anything.

I didn't know they made fake ones.

Speaker 1

I also googled fake pregnancy tests, pregnancy tests that always come out positive.

Not surprisingly, fake sonograms also came up in the search, and sure they are labeled as pranks, April Fools, joke, pregnancy, et cetera.

Which I'm sure they label them that way for legal reasons.

And Jared and I even discussed certain situations wherein I guess it could be funny, but certainly not in this case.

They also seem to go out of their way to create a scenario where they look real, which I guess in some cases is necessary for a true gag, but here we're not laughing.

A final side note, you can use water on them.

You don't need urine, so it's possible.

Hopefully that's what Christy did.

Speaker 2

In true Christy, she also snapchatted her positive pregnancy.

Speaker 1

Test for all to see, but she was sure to cut off the identifying factor of at the right time.

When Jared wasn't working or rehabbing their home, he brought Christy to her doctor's appointments at the hospital, even though he wasn't allowed to go in.

Speaker 5

Yeah, I saw her going to the front of the hospital where I had picked her up from the Fiasca night.

She told me, Hey, there's free parking over on this side street.

Here, I parked on the side street.

I'm making phone calls and stuff, not thinking anything of it.

It was just a normal checkup.

Speaker 2

How long was she in there, I'd say it.

Speaker 5

Was probably an hour and fifteen minutes.

Speaker 1

Keep in mind that it's the peak of COVID.

You're not even supposed to be in the hospital unless you're really sick.

And she's pulling off an hour and fifteen minutes.

Speaker 5

Babies are measuring this, they weigh this.

Hey, this one's bigger than the other one.

We've got to do this test next, like it was methodically thought out to a tea.

That is me not being a father.

I've never been through this.

I'd just take it for what it is.

Speaker 1

There was a lot of Jared just taking it for what it is as it relates to what Christy told.

Speaker 2

Him about her pregnancy, but it wasn't all the time.

Speaker 1

In fact, Molly witnessed Jared questioning Christ's position that he was not allowed in the hospital.

Speaker 12

Jared and I were on the way to Moe's one day and he had been informed by one of our coworkers that he could go into the hospital.

And she called him on the phone and it was on bluetooth on the car, and she was mother effing him up and down that she knows he's not allowed in the hospital and would why would he say that?

Speaker 6

I think she said she would do anything for him to be in that room, and she yelled at him for five minutes, screaming, and Jared kept saying, like it's okay, Like I just thought i'd ask because someone told me that you were allowed in.

Speaker 2

And then that was it.

Speaker 12

But then she went to lunch with us and she was completely fine after she just screamed at him for five to ten minutes.

Speaker 2

Sound eerily familiar, That's because it is.

Speaker 1

Remember when Christy and Jared first found out they were pregnant, Christy flipped out at his initial response, telling Jared she was leaving and never coming back, only to tell him hours later she wanted to go and tell their families and put it on Facebook again, another outburst followed by a hard pivot and emotion, But this particular Christie outburst may have had a darker agenda.

Nip these questions in the butt, because if he keeps asking questions, it's going to be a problem for Christy.

After Christie told Jared that they were having twins, she informed him that her doctor said that one of the twins was definitely a boy, but they were unable to determine the gender of the second baby.

It was no secret to everyone who wasn't Jared that Christy was desperate for a baby girl.

Christy insisted on having a gender revealed party to announce the gender of their second baby, and even though Jared thinks gender reveals are dumb, he of course obliged his pregnant wife.

Speaker 5

I mean, I think it's gender revealed just dumb.

It's a miracle, it really is, And why does that have to be turned into a party.

It should be a happy time in your life.

Speaker 2

But Jared had a theory as to why she wanted that party.

Speaker 5

I think it's just an excuse to put something else on social media.

Speaker 2

And Molly had her own theories.

Speaker 6

I think, I don't know, I have so many opinions.

I think it's it's just so weird looking back on it now knowing that it was fake.

So like, was she the one that wrote the gender in the cards?

And she got the boy and the girl like she wanted?

But anyway, that's beside the point.

When we went, they cut open a cake.

It was two layers, and they had already known that it was a boy from I think that the blood test or like a hCG level something like that.

I don't know for sure, So they already knew they were having a boy.

And then the second layer was the second gender, and as soon as she cut into the cake she was screaming and jumping and whatever else.

We assumed it was a girl because like they didn't announce it, but other than that, it was pretty normal.

And then they did like those smoke bomb things and like kissed and posted a picture and everything.

Speaker 1

Interestingly, Mollie was very aware that Christy wanted a boy and a girl, and Jared Wasn't you know that The way that gender reveals work is that you bring an envelope to the cake maker and allegedly the doctor writes on the piece.

Speaker 2

Of paper boy or girl.

Speaker 1

But the person who delivers the envelope to the cake maker doesn't look at the envelope, so that they're also surprised, especially if it's the mother who does that.

Obviously, if it's the sister or the friend and they want to cheat, they can, But the whole point of the reveal.

Speaker 5

Is that you everyone's surprised.

Speaker 1

Right, So are we now in retrospect thinking that Christy wrote girl on a sheet of paper, put it in an envelope and hand it to her friend.

Speaker 5

Had to be right.

You didn't have you weren't pregnant.

Speaker 1

So do you remember how she reacted when you cut the cake and it was pink.

Speaker 5

Like, full of joy, ecstatic.

Speaker 1

Christy had her gender reveal, and in Jared's defense, it seems pretty unlikely that he would be able to guess that it was CHRISTI who wrote girl on the paper and gave it to her friend.

We contacted her friend who made the cake, and she agreed to talk to us, but after multiple attempts to interview her with no response, we are left a mad that scene and how it went down.

Aside from the home pregnancy test and the sonagrams that Jared actually framed, there was at least one more piece of hard evidence that contributed to Jared's completely believing that Christie was pregnant.

Speaker 2

She was receiving and he was paying for her doctor.

Speaker 9

Bills throughout the pregnancy.

He's getting things in the you know mail, Hey, you had a doctor's visit this day.

You had a doctor's visit that day.

So she was going and complaint, like going to an obgyn and having complaints of this and complaints of that, and so he was getting the bills in the mail.

So he was like, oh, these are all her doctor visits.

He's paying these bills in the mail, and in reality, she's just going there.

You know, I have these weird cramps this day, I have this that day.

So she would always go and see a doctor.

She would have a doctor's visit.

She would go to the er and get a bracelet like she was seen there.

Speaker 2

Jared is receiving and paying for doctor busus.

Speaker 1

On one hand, it takes a lot of forethought to attend doctor visits you don't need, just so your husband will get a bill and believe you're pregnant.

On the other hand, it could be evidence that Christy really believed she was pregnant, and no matter how many times they told her she was not, she kept going back.

There was another element to this time in Jared and Christie's marriage that I have a hard time wrapping my brain around.

Speaker 2

Jared tells me.

Speaker 1

There were multiple times that Christie accused him of being unfaithful to her during her pregnancy.

She would send him tender accounts with his name on them, alleging that even though they were married, he was still on Tinder.

Speaker 2

Why works so.

Speaker 1

Hard on building this lie and threatened to blow it all up?

Speaker 5

What the hell?

Why would I do that?

I mean, I got married for a reason to adapt to do this part, and that I remember that I made sure to make that part of my vows.

So I was angry.

I really was that I would be accused of this when all I did was go to work, come home, try to make our house nicer, make sure you had everything you wanted.

You weren't paying for anything.

I went above and beyond to make sure you were happy, you had everything you needed.

Speaker 2

Did you ever say to her, these are obviously fakes?

Speaker 5

Yeah, So I was like, these are fake.

I even emailed Tender.

I'm like, hey, these aren't me.

Why are they popping up?

They ended up telling them.

I got an email back They're like, these have been taken off for you.

We're sorry that this happened to you.

Speaker 1

At the time, Jared didn't suspect Christy was behind the fake tender accounts.

Speaker 2

Because why would she do that?

Speaker 1

But thinking about it now, perhaps it wasn't about blowing up her marriage.

The tender accounts, the allegations of infidelity could have all been smoking yours, a ruse, a distraction to keep Jared focused on other things, rather than, for example, asking Christy questions about information he was hearing as to who can accompany a pregnant woman.

Speaker 2

Into the hospital.

Speaker 1

This potential room isn't the only thing that Christy pulled to make sure Jared was not allowed in the hospital.

Remember, her original due date was November twenty fourth, twenty twenty, but she tested positive for COVID at that time.

The doctors pushed the birth, but as it turns out, she also was testing positive for COVID after Thanksgiving.

Speaker 2

In fact, up to and including the date of her birth.

Speaker 1

In totality, Christie tested positive for COVID for twenty days.

Speaker 5

I never saw any proof she tested positive around Thanksgiving, and then she also tested positive in December twelfth, which shouldn't have been possible because once you get COVID, there's the fourteen days that you can test positive and it goes away or I don't know if it goes away, but you don't test positive anymore, then you aren't able to get COVID for another ninety days.

Speaker 1

When Christi tested positive for COVID, you're Thanksgiving.

Speaker 2

That was very close to her original due date.

Speaker 1

But Christy told Jared that the doctors pushed the date of her scheduled ce section, which could have potentially screwed up her COVID cover for why Jared couldn't come in the night, Christy had Jared drop her off.

She told him she had to go in and test for COVID and if she was still testing positive, he couldn't come in from inside the hospital.

She told him she was still positive twenty days after her initial positive test.

Speaker 2

Do you think she had COVID?

Speaker 5

No, I truly don't think she had COVID.

I think it was to keep me out of a hospital.

Speaker 1

This is what Jared says in hindsight, but in the moment he didn't question it the same way he didn't question a lot of things.

We know that Jared mostly took what Christy said at face value, and if he questioned it, he got berated and let it go.

But should Jared have asked more questions?

Should he have figured out that his wife was never pregnant?

Speaker 9

Any man, if I would say you can't come to this appointment because of X, Y and Z, they would be like, oh okay.

Speaker 1

Gretchen, for one, clearly does not think so.

She doesn't think there's a chance in the world that Jared could have figured out his wife wasn't pregnant.

Speaker 9

Being in the medical world, we have dads that are in their forties and we say something and they turn and look at mom, and Mom's like okay, and they're like okay because they have no clue.

They have no clue you know what a pregnancy looks like, what you have to do for a pregnancy.

I mean, I'm not saying every man doesn't, but majority of young guys especially, they have no clue.

And then you have it during COVID where like you can't go to doctor's appointment.

It's all over you know, the news, like oh, parents are giving birth by themselves because you know so and so is not allowed in, and like all these different things like how.

Speaker 2

Would he know?

Speaker 1

Gretchen also saw Christy herself and just believes there would be no way to know.

Speaker 9

I had seen her in per and you'd be like, oh, yeah, she's pregnant.

She's pregnant.

She looks good for having twins, but she's pregnant.

She's definitely got two babies in there.

You would never have known.

I mean, as a medical professional, there's times I can look at it ultrasound and I'm like, what am I looking at?

You know, So, as a male that has no medical background.

Speaker 1

During her career as a nurse, Gretchen has treated people with various psychosomatic conditions.

Speaker 9

And we have plenty of people that come in and they're absolutely convinced that they have X, Y and Z wrong with them, and they are in the er every other day with it, and it's to the point like they have theirselves so convinced that they're showing signed and symptoms.

Speaker 1

This is Gretchen sharing things she's heard vocalized in the er.

When a woman is experiencing pseudopsysis, they tell.

Speaker 9

Them a lot like it's not there, and those people are so convinced that it's there.

They're like, you're missing it, Gan me again, you're missing it.

Take more of blood.

I know I'm pregnant.

Take more blood.

I have this pregnancy test and there's a faint line on it and I'm telling you I'm pregnant, And how would my period stop if I'm not pregnant.

You have no heartbeat, you have no baby on the ultrus sound, you have nothing.

And then at that point it is a full blown psych disorder.

There is something that is not right in her, like there's a chemical imbalance there that does making her one hundred percent believe or have an ulterior motive of why.

Speaker 2

She was doing that.

Speaker 1

We've spoken extensively to Jared's friends and family about Christie, to a psychiatrist and her survivor of phantom pregnancy to help us understand the whys.

Speaker 2

Of it all.

But what about Christie's side?

Speaker 1

We wanted to know more about Christie's relationship with her own family.

Was there something there that had a heart to play in all this?

How would you describe Christie's relationship with her mom Sheila?

Speaker 5

Terrible?

They never saw it.

Speaker 6

She had said that she like went through some stuff as in like with her mom.

I don't want to see she had a bad home life when she was younger.

Speaker 2

But that's what I got.

Speaker 7

She she kept saying throughout, you know, our relationship with her, that her and her mom had this like falling out.

Her mom like just up and left randomly and then came back for her wedding and you know, wore this like black dress.

Speaker 2

You're all out about it.

Speaker 1

Other people like Henry, for example, had stronger opinions on Christie's mom Sheila, for better or worse in Henry's case, worse.

Speaker 3

Her old man.

They got back together and they tried to work things on and then she went fast shit crazy and run off the reservation and shot and killed all their farm animals, tried to burn her house down, and oh yeah, she's certifiable.

The mother is like slaughtered them in front of the kids.

Yeah, it was.

Speaker 1

It was pretty crazy.

Speaker 2

So that's Henry's opinion.

Speaker 1

But for Jared's part, he didn't feel like he knew Christie's mother, Sheila, very.

Speaker 2

Well, but he did know and love her grandmother.

Speaker 1

In fact, his grandmother and Christy's grandmother were pretty close friends.

Speaker 5

It's kind of a funny story, like we live so close together.

Our grandmothers actually grew up together, and our friends well after this had all come out, and my grandmother holds a grudge.

You do wrong, it's the end of the world.

They used to be pretty close and would go and get lunches and stuff.

They don't do that anymore.

Speaker 1

Jared talks about the effects this whole event had on his younger siblings.

Speaker 5

This whole thing actually had a pretty big toll on my brothers and sisters.

I'm the oldest, so they all kind of look up to me, or at least I feel they do.

Maybe they don't maybe they're making fun of me at home right now.

Who knows.

But my sisters had kind of gotten real close to Christy and they had they had true friendship that I saw.

And like my youngest sister, she was very close to Christy and always was texting and snapchatting and stuff like that, Like she doesn't even do that with me.

Even my brother would send her pictures and stuff like that a fish he was catching or anything like that, like stuff you send your buddies.

And I didn't see that happening.

I mean, it was, it was so quick, but the relationship between them was so true to my siblings.

I can't speak for what Christie felt about it, but that they were truly heartbroken when they found out all of this.

Speaker 1

At the time, Jared's siblings were all on their teens, and I could feel that Jared felt responsible for placing him in that level of pain.

Speaker 5

You can do wrong to me, fine, but when you involve my family and you hurt them, that really pushes it to another level.

Speaker 2

I guess that's how your grandmother felt.

Speaker 5

Maybe that's where I get it from.

Speaker 1

Jared had spent so much time being excited anticipating the arrival of his twins, then in the blink of an eye, internalizing the heartbreaking aftermath of their death.

Speaker 2

Only to find out it was all a lie.

Speaker 5

I mean, it's hard to say.

There's no words for how I was feeling that it was mixed emotions.

I was sad, I was very angry.

I felt deceived, but I felt relief.

I felt so much relief that two children didn't pass on.

I mean, even if they weren't mine.

You hate to hear about it.

Children are kind of sacred.

I mean, you help them grow and flourish into these people that we walk around with, and to see them be taken it kind of drains me of how I feel.

But just seeing that there were no babies, it really the relief set in.

I felt ten times better.

Speaker 1

And while he was still processing all of this, he had to figure out what to do next.

Speaker 5

So I actually called one of my state trooper bodies figure out what I should do.

It was a Saturday night, it was seven seven point thirty.

There were no lawyers open.

It's Saturday.

I didn't have a family lawyer, So I'm trying to figure out what do I do.

And I decided got to go back to the rental house and act like everything was okay.

Speaker 1

Jared decides he is not going to tell Christy he spoke with the hospital and that he knows the truth.

Speaker 5

I knew I had to keep it a secret because she still had access to all the money.

What money, all the money from the donations and the stuff that was donated because her house had just burned down a few days prior.

Speaker 2

Next time on The Unborn, Christie.

Speaker 5

My wife ended up waking me up.

I remember seeing smoke hovering above the bed.

Speaker 3

And then all the shit hit the fan and all the wheels fell off, and everybody wanted their money back, and it turned into.

Speaker 5

A little bit of a shit show.

Speaker 7

But I think once it got to, you know, an escalated point, she freaked out and fight or flight type thing.

Speaker 5

Her plan wasn't thought out.

She didn't think it would go this far, and she needed some time to earn an excuse to move the due date.

At this point, I opened my safe, I count all my firearms, and I realize one's missing.

Speaker 2

That's next time on the Unborn.

Speaker 8

The Unborn is a production of iHeart Podcasts, Audio Up and Jesu Press Productions.

Speaker 1

Created by Trishila Fotch and Frank Rodriguez.

Speaker 2

Mal produced by Alvin Cohen and Rachel Foley.

Speaker 1

Executive produced by Jimmy Jellinek, David Dwaites and Jared gustav Edited by Gerard Bauer and Preston Dawson.

Speaker 2

Sound design and mixing by Jeremiah Zimmerman.

Never lose your place, on any device

Create a free account to sync, back up, and get personal recommendations.