In 1989, a mother was wrongly convicted of murder after her five-month old son, Ryan, died of anti-freeze. While waiting for her hearing in prison, she gave birth to another son, who also showed the same symptoms as her former son. Upon investigation, authorities dropped all the charges against her, as it was found out that both the babies had a rare genetic disease that remained undiagnosed.
One day, Patricia noticed something unusual in her son, Ryan, after which she rushed him to the hospital. Shortly after, he died, leaving doctors and investigators to question the mother. They had found ethylene glycol in the son’s body, as per the diagnosis report, that led them to arrest Patricia immediately. Ethylene glycol is sweet-tasting liquid that performs the job of an antifreeze in cars, however, highly toxic, when consumed, resulting in poisoning.
As Patricia was waiting in the jail for further hearing, she gave birth to a second baby boy, who also showed similar symptoms as her former son. Curious, the scientists voluntarily devoted special time on the case for weeks when they finally concluded that all the evidences denied that Patricia had killed her son. “I’m satisfied there was no ethylene glycol,” said the scientist to the attorney.
It turns out, the new born, named David Jr., who had immediately fallen ill had a rare genetic disease called methylmalonic acidemia (MMA), just like her former son, that released faulty chemicals, causing poisoning.
All the charges were against Patricia were dropped and she was free to go with her son, David Jr., after one year of spending time in jail.
It came as a shock to many who have witnessed Patricia’s story, questioning how one wrong or unidentified diagnosis would have kept Patricia apart from her son for the rest of her life, as she was initially sentenced to life-time of jail.”If Ryan was correctly diagnosed with MMA, none of this would have happened. None of these series of events in the last two years would have happened,” said David Stallings Sr., father of David Jr.
This reminded us of the man who was wrongfully convicted of murder by his ex-girlfriend.
