Nobody Should Believe Me

Latest Episodes:

S05 E09: Out of the Shadows Feb 27, 2025

Show notes

Episode 8 was originally our season finale, but a source we’d been speaking to for months bravely decided to go on the record. This is Andrea’s conversation with Chalice Howard, Sophie’s friend of nearly 10 years.

With many similarities, being white single moms of adoptive black daughters and a shared faith, Chalice and Sophie found a kinship with each other despite living on opposite sides of the country. Chalice shares about her relationship with Sophie and the girls, the journey to learning about and accepting what Sophie’s been doing to C, and why she decided to contact Andrea. She describes how things came to a head with Sophie and gives a touching message to C and M.

***

Please remember that this conversation is from Chalice’s perspective and experience, so we are not able to fact check certain dates/times, nor her conversation with Sam. We have invited Sophie and other members of the Hartman family onto the podcast to tell their side of the story, but at the time of publishing have not received a response.. As always, the door remains open if Sophie or other members of the Hartman family would like to tell their version of events.

***

Links and Resources:

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

S05 Ep08: They Saw You Feb 20, 2025

Show notes

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

S05 Ep07: Who is This Bad Soul? Feb 13, 2025

Show notes

We examine perhaps the most important piece of the complex puzzle of the Hartman case: what Sophie wrote about it in her journals.

We’re joined by Dr. James Hamilton, an MBP expert with a PhD in clinical psychology, to walk us through some of Sophie’s most chilling journal entries collected in the case files. We also look at Sophie’s disturbing internet search history during the time of C’s alleged Central precocious puberty (CPP) diagnosis.

After being separated from Sophie, M and C are placed with Sophie’s mom and sister. Detective Lee discusses the problems that arise when placing children with people that are most likely going to side with the perpetrator. In April of 2022, C and M are returned to Sophie and criminal charges are subsequently dropped. Andrea offers a key insight into how this might have happened by revealing a surprising member of Sophie’s legal team: her sister, Megan Carter.

***

Links and Resources:

Dr. James Hamilton: https://www.munchausensupport.com/who-we-are/

Check out Olivia LaVoice’s podcast, The Bakersfield Three: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/867-the-bakersfield-three-128074552/

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

S05 Ep06: Human Timebomb Feb 06, 2025

Show notes

Sophie insists to police and others that the real problem isn’t that she’s abusing her daughter but that Seattle Children’s–a world class pediatric hospital–simply doesn’t understand her daughter’s rare condition: Alternating Hemiplegia of Childhood.

But according to police interviews, very few people in C’s orbit ever witnessed an episode, and if they did, they described symptoms that, alone, are not indicative of AHC. We also hear snippets of interviews stating that Sophie often presented AHC as a terminal illness, a claim that Dr. Zupanc refutes.

Dr. Jill Glick, a child abuse pediatrician from the University of Chicago, returns to talk us through the process hospitals go through when evaluating medical child abuse cases. We also go through a few of the many inconsistencies in Sophie’s reports to C’s various doctors. Sophie claims that C could die at any moment from AHC: but does she even have it?

***

Links and Resources:

Watch Human Timebombs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qbjprd9v9Y

More about Dr. Mary Zupanc: https://www.childneurologysociety.org/awards/mary-l-zupanc-md/

More about Dr. Jill Glick: https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/find-a-physician/physician/jill-c-glick

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

The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy Feb 04, 2025

Show notes

It's pub day!! The Mother Next Door is officially out in the world. Thank you to everyone for all of your support! For our amazing podcast listeners, we have a very special treat for you: a 40 MINUTE exclusive excerpt of the audiobook! Enjoy!

***

Order The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy https://read.macmillan.com/lp/the-mother-next-door-9781250284273/

Catch Andrea and Mike at their Seattle Book Launch Event: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/andrea-dunlop-and-mike-weber-the-mother-next-door-tickets-1097661478029

Catch Andrea and Mike at their Fort Worth Book Launch Event: https://www.instagram.com/p/DE0ynPhxLOo/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

S05 Ep05: The Breaking Point Jan 30, 2025

Show notes

In 2020, the Hartmans grow even more isolated as Covid hits: Sophie pulls C out of school citing worsening health and breaks with the church community who’ve been supporting her and her daughters.

Concerns for abuse grow as Sophie begins to push a new narrative that C has central precocious puberty (CPP), a condition that causes the body to go through puberty prematurely, After making an initial DCF report in 2019 and tracking Sophie’s demands for increasingly invasive procedures: Seattle Children’s Child Abuse Team files an official report to the Department of Children, Youth, and Families. Her daughters are subsequently placed in protective custody and Sophie is charged with assault of a child in the second degree.

We hear from the Seattle reporter who broke the story, Olivia LaVoice and dig into the extensive documentation from the investigation with Detective Michael Lee, a major crimes detective in Texas and co-founder of the National Crimes Against Children Investigators Association.. Andrea also talks with Dr. Mary Zupanc, a pediatric neurologist and epilepsy specialist with over 30 years of clinical and research experience with AHC. She gives listeners a better understanding of AHC by describing the history of the disorder, the various symptoms, common environmental triggers, and how clinical diagnoses of AHC are made.

***

Links and Resources:

More about Dr. Mary Zupanc: https://www.childneurologysociety.org/awards/mary-l-zupanc-md/

Check out Olivia LaVoice’s podcast, The Bakersfield Three: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/867-the-bakersfield-three-128074552/

Chad Goller-Sojourner’s Sitting in Circles with Rich White Girls: Memoir of a Bulimic Black Boywill be adding show dates in spring 2025. Click HERE for more information.

Preorder Andrea and Mike’s new book The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy

Catch Andrea and Mike at their Seattle Book Launch Event: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/andrea-dunlop-and-mike-weber-the-mother-next-door-tickets-1097661478029

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

S05 Ep04: When the Cameras are On Jan 23, 2025

Show notes

From corporate sponsorships to fundraisers large and small, Sophie Hartman was an expert at raising money for C’s various medical devices, mobility aids, and specialized treatments.

But were any of these things actually needed?

We hear audio from the police interviews of Sophie’s next door neighbors and a school aide who note that they rarely saw C in her wheelchair.

We also take a closer look at C’s diagnoses with friend-of -the-show (our not-so-secret Florida doctor) Dr. Bex, joins us briefly to explain the process that pediatricians go through to provide a clinical diagnosis to their patients.

We take a closer look at the narrative Sophie weaves on Instagram, documenting her daughter C’s medical journey on both her personal account and where she posts relentlessly about C’s health and includes pictures of her G-Tube and Cecostomy Tube. We listen to reports from both Sophie’s mother and father stating that C had no trouble eating by mouth, and we’re joined by Dr. Jill Glick, a Child Abuse Pediatrician from the University of Chicago, who explains why a child who can eat normally but still has a G-Tube, as requested by a parent, is incredibly troubling.

***

Links and Resources:

More about Dr. Jill Glick: https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/find-a-physician/physician/jill-c-glick

Preorder Andrea and Mike’s new book The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy

Catch Andrea and Mike at their Seattle Book Launch Event: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/andrea-dunlop-and-mike-weber-the-mother-next-door-tickets-1097661478029

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

S05 Ep03: Constant Crisis Jan 16, 2025

Show notes

Immediately after moving with C and M from Zambia to Seattle, WA, Sophie starts bringing C to various doctors, reporting severe health issues. Just three days after C’s third birthday, she is diagnosed with Alternating Hemiplegia of Childhood (AHC), a rare, one-in-a-million neurological disorder.

Simultaneously, Sophie enrolls her older daughter, M, in an elite gymnastics program. We speak to some of the moms who knew Sophie from the gym to get a better picture of Sophie and the two girls. They reveal a picture of a woman who, despite seeming to move from one crisis to the next, is somehow caring for a medically fragile child, nurturing an aspiring Olympian and financing all of this without a job or a partner.

***

Links and Resources:

Chad Goller-Sojourner’s Sitting in Circles with Rich White Girls: Memoir of a Bulimic Black Boywill be adding show dates in spring 2025. Click HERE for more information.

Preorder Andrea and Mike’s new book The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy

Catch Andrea and Mike at their Seattle Book Launch Event: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/andrea-dunlop-and-mike-weber-the-mother-next-door-tickets-1097661478029

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

S05 Ep02: Spiritual Warfare Jan 09, 2025

Show notes

In the second episode of season 5, Andrea dives into how Sophie’s Evangelical Christian beliefs colored her worldview. From claiming that adopting a child from Zambia was God’s path for her life to allegedly performing an exorcism, Sophie’s faith is an integral part of this case. We hear from Dr. Lauren Turek, an Associate Professor of History at Trinity University in San Antonio, TX and author of To Bring the Good News to All Nations: Evangelical Influence on Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Relations, gives us a context about Evangelical Christianity in the US and abroad and helps us understand Sophie’s religious upbringing and worldview. Andrea is then joined by some of the Nobody Should Believe Me team: Senior Producer Myrriah Gossett and Lead Researcher/Producer Erin Ajayi to attempt to fill in the many blanks left by Sophie’s memoir about her time in Zambia. The three of them lay out a timeline leading up to Sophie’s adoptions of M and C, while at the same time examining the series of omissions and half-truths riddling Sophie’s story.

***

Links and Resources:

Learn more about Dr. Lauren Turek: https://laurenturek.com/

Preorder Andrea and Mike’s new book The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy

Catch Andrea and Mike at their Seattle Book Launch Event: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/andrea-dunlop-and-mike-weber-the-mother-next-door-tickets-1097661478029

Learn more about our featured non-profit and mutual aid organizations: https://www.nobodyshouldbelieveme.com/nsbm-supports/

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

S05 Ep01: Sophie Saves Zambia Jan 02, 2025

Show notes

We begin the season by delving into Sophie Hartman’s 2016 memoir about her time in Zambia, Crowns of Beauty, where we learn about how a young woman from Michigan came to be the adopted mother of two Zambian girls by the age of 25. We learn about Sophie’s deep roots in evangelical Christianity and her state of mind prior to and during the adoptions of M and C; examining the way she portrays herself as both a martyr and savior. We’re also joined by Chad Goller-Sojourner, a performance artist and transracial adoption coach, to help listeners understand the complexities of transracial adoptions.

***

Links and Resources:

Chad Goller-Sojourner’s Sitting in Circles with Rich White Girls: Memoir of a Bulimic Black Boywill be adding show dates in spring 2025. Click HERE for more information.

More information on Chad’s background with transracial adoption: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q76t_IpbJil2vWQVsNnw7f8Ms8p_lstK/view

Preorder Andrea and Mike’s new book The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy

Catch Andrea and Mike at their Seattle Book Launch Event: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/andrea-dunlop-and-mike-weber-the-mother-next-door-tickets-1097661478029

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

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