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Overview
Gregg Olsen tells the whole shocking story of this true crime in Cruel Deception.
In and out of hospitals since birth, angelic nine-month-old Morgan Reid finally succumbed to what appeared to be Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Morgan's Texas-born mother Tanya, a nurse and devoted wife, pulled up stakes with her grieving husband Jim, and moved on. It was the best way to put the past behind them. Until their son Michael, a boy who by all accounts was terrified of his mother, began showing signs of the same affliction that stole the life of his baby sister...
First, the suspicion: Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. Then, Tanya was charged and convicted with felony child abuse of her son. She was later tried and ultimately convicted for first degree murder of Morgan. It would become a landmark trial that unfolded in a series of reversals and bizarre twists of fate as it gradually revealed another side of Tanya Reid--of her own troubling childhood and the dark secrets that drove a woman to the cruelest deception of all...
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781429907538 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | St. Martin's Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2007 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 336 |
| Sales rank: | 107,340 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
About the Author
Gregg Olsen has been a journalist and investigative author for more than twenty years. He is the recipient of numerous writing, editing, and photojournalism awards, including citations of excellence from the Society of Professional Journalists (Sigma Delta Chi), the International Association of Business Communicators, Washington Press Association, Society of Technical Communication, and the Public Relations Society of America.
A resident of Washington state, Olsen has been a guest on dozens of national and local television shows, including educational programs for the History Channel, Learning Channel, and the Discovery Channel. Olsen also appeared several times on CBS's 48 Hours, MSNBC's Special Edition, Entertainment Tonight, Sally Jesse Raphael, Inside Edition, and Extra. He has been featured in USA Today, Salon Magazine, Seattle Times, and the New York Post.
#1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Gregg Olsen has written more than thirty books, including Lying Next to Me, The Last Thing She Ever Did, and two novels in the Nicole Foster series, The Sound of Rain and The Weight of Silence. Known for his ability to create vivid and fascinating narratives, he’s appeared on multiple television and radio shows and news networks, such as Good Morning America, Dateline, Entertainment Tonight, CNN, and MSNBC. In addition, Olsen has been featured in Redbook, People, and Salon magazine, as well as in the Seattle Times, Los Angeles Times, and New York Post. Both his fiction and nonfiction works have received critical acclaim and numerous awards, including prominence on the USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. Washington State officially selected his young adult novel Envy for the National Book Festival, and The Deep Dark was named Idaho Book of the Year.
A Seattle native who lives with his wife in rural Washington State, Olsen’s already at work on his next book.
Read an Excerpt
Cruel Deception
A Mother's Deadly Game. A Prosecutor's Crusade for Justice.
By Gregg Olsen
St. Martin's Press
Copyright © 1995 Gregg OlsenAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-0753-8
CHAPTER 1
Tanya Reid was like a lot of women. She was not unattractive, though neither was she gorgeous. She was a woman with the kind of looks that either went unnoticed or sparked a person's memory of someone else. Tanya's tiny nose at times seemed too small to hold the bridge of her oval-shaped eyeglass frames; her brown hair was of a sensible cut, the kind that takes only a minute to shampoo and just a few more to brush out. It was the look of a woman with plenty to do.
Of course, Tanya could dress up. And when she was in one of her skinnier cycles, she looked pretty good.
But mostly, with her well-trod sneakers and car crammed with kid stuff, Tanya looked exactly like what she was: a busy wife, a caring mother.
When she flew from Amarillo to Des Moines, Iowa, to join her husband Jim at a Holiday Inn, she had paid a little extra attention to her hair and makeup. She wanted to look nice for Jim. Reunions were important to Tanya Reid.
In what had become a cruel merry-go-round in the era of corporate takeovers and mergers, the Reid family was moving again. In the three years since their baby's death, the Reids had lived in Hereford, Texas, returned to the Chicago area, and gone back to Texas — this time, Amarillo. They knew the drill — Jim went ahead, while Tanya spiffed the house for real estate agents and packed the cartons for the movers.
It was the last week of May 1987.
Jim had been transferred again by Swift Independent, the meatpacking giant that had employed him since he was a teenager working himself through school. If Tanya wasn't happy about the move because she would rather have stayed closer to Dumas, her husband was decidedly and justifiably bitter. His pay had been cut in Texas and his responsibilities reduced. What could he expect in Iowa, where he was told he'd be working evenings? It had been years since he worked nights. But what choice did he have? He needed the job to keep the health insurance for his children. The Reids had been boxed into a take-it-or-leave-it situation. He swore that once they were settled, he'd look for a new position in the industry.
Tanya had come to Iowa to find a suitable place to live for six-year-old Carolyn and two-year-old Brandon Michael, a good school, and a doctor who could keep watch over the boy. Michael had suffered from repeated apnea — episodes during which his breathing abruptly stopped — and some seizures of an undetermined cause. The health of the Reids' children was always on their minds.
On the morning of May 28, Tanya and Jim arrived for an appointment with pediatric neurologist Thomas Kelly. The doctor, a soft-spoken, gentle sort with a drawn face set off by the sparkle of eyeglasses, listened intently to the sad story of the couple's beloved baby Morgan and how she had died of SIDS. Tanya said postmortem testing had determined that Morgan had Fragile X Syndrome, a genetic defect sometimes linked to retardation, though primarily in boys. Tanya explained how at one time she believed she was a carrier for Fragile X, but that followup testing had proved negative. And while the information was interesting to the neurologist, he knew of no studies suggesting a link between SIDS and Fragile X.
Both parents were concerned that Michael was suffering from problems similar to those of the sister who had died fifteen months before his birth.
Tanya did most of the talking. The twenty-nine-year-old mother rattled off the names and dates of medical procedures her son had endured. She provided the information in an extremely clear, ordered fashion. Her chronology left nothing out, so there was no need to backtrack on a point missed along the way. That she was able to do so could not have been a surprise. Not only was she the boy's mother, she also told Dr. Kelly she was a trained nurse.
Amid the medical diatribe was good news. Thankfully, Michael had not had any apnea episodes for a while. He was no longer on seizure medications — dosages of Tegretol, pheno-barbital, Dilantin had all been discontinued by April. He had been off a home apnea monitor since December of 1986.
Dr. Kelly took a single page of notes and told the Reids he was looking forward to taking care of their son's neurological problems. For regular pediatric care, the neurologist gave Tanya and Jim the name Dr. Leonard Gangeness, a pediatrician nearing retirement whom some young residents had fondly nicknamed "Old Bear."
During the mornings of that week in late May, Tanya scouted the area for a house while her husband was at work, getting up to speed on his new job. Since the Reids would be taking a financial hit with the sale of the house in Amarillo, they quickly decided houses in suburban Des Moines were too expensive, beyond a practical reach.
Jim and Tanya found an apartment in Urbandale, one of Des Moines's bedroom communities. The complex was located near the Sherwood Forest Shopping Center — one of those pseudo-Tudor developments more akin to a bargain-basement Disneyland than a replica of Merry Olde England. The massive maze of apartments and town houses called Nottingham Square was built on an incline overlooking the Kmart on Hickman Road. The units, clustered in groups of six, were painted gray and beige and trimmed in dark timbers. Each apartment had two floors, cut-loop carpeting, a balcony, and a patio. Some had views of the back side of the Kmart. And during springtime, and sometimes into summer, the cloying scent of blooming lilacs hung in the moist air like damp clothing on a line.
Tanya liked the fact that Nottingham Square was close to the grade school, and that it appeared many of the families who lived there had young children. She thought the apartment itself was adequate, though a lot smaller than the homes they had owned in Texas and Illinois. When one became available, they planned to move into one of the roomier town houses.
It didn't matter much, though; neither husband nor wife planned on staying in Des Moines very long.
This was not going to be home.
BACK IN Texas, good-byes and unfinished business were in order.
On June 27, before leaving for Iowa, Tanya Reid carried her son into a pediatric clinic in Amarillo. Not only did he have a sore throat, but the second toe on Michael's right foot was infected. Tanya told the doctor her little boy had "stubbed his toe." The two-year-old's toenail was removed and antibiotics were prescribed for the infection.
Tanya Thaxton Reid had always been close to her parents and three sisters. She was tearful when it came time to say good-bye. Her mother, Wanda, wasn't entirely pleased with her daughter's move either. Tanya was her baby girl, and she liked having her close to home. Since John Thaxton's business was now headquartered in Amarillo, sometimes before work John and Wanda would stop by the Reids' house for coffee. That could be no more. Everyone understood Jim had no choice but to accept the position. But no one had to be happy about it.
Iowa seemed like a million miles away from the Panhandle.
"I really was not averse to going to Des Moines," Tanya insisted years later. "It was a big enough town; I could continue my nursing degree. Yes, I would miss my folks, but they could come up and visit and I could go down to see them, too."
Jim flew back to Texas to escort his wife and children as they drove north. Carolyn and Michael took turns riding with their mother or father. Tanya drove her car, an '85 blue Cutlass Ciera, and Jim's Ford pickup pulled a boat. Michael was quiet, but Carolyn jabbered all the way to Iowa.
The Reids moved into apartment #122 at 7400 Canterbury Road on July 1. Two days later, Tanya carried Michael into the emergency room at Iowa Methodist Medical Center. It was late afternoon, around four-thirty. The little boy had had a fever since eight-thirty that morning. The mother told the ER staff about her son's history of seizures and her concern that something could be happening to Michael. He wasn't eating, and had, in fact, vomited. His temperature was 103 upon admission by Dr. Leonard Gangeness. A young intern named Robert Colman also examined the boy. A blood workup was ordered, chest X rays were taken, urine was analyzed, and the boy underwent a thorough physical examination. He was healthy except for the toe and the fever. He slept well through the night.
The Fourth of July holiday for Tanya and her son was spent at the hospital. Since Michael wasn't eating, IVs were continued. He vomited again, late in the afternoon, but slept well that night.
The next day was a repeat of the previous one, though Tanya was able to get her son to eat some solid food.
By the third day in the hospital, the boy's temperature was normal and his elevated white blood cell count had dropped. Michael was released. Tanya carried her son, along with a little pink bottle of the antibiotic amoxicillin and a slip of paper with Dr. Gangeness's phone number to confirm a follow-up visit in a couple of days.
Never one to make friends easily, Tanya spent much of her days isolated in her apartment. Sure, she had the kids, and granted, her husband did come home after work, but for someone who loved to talk as much as she, having no adult ears around during the day was unbearable.
She and her sisters and mother kept in constant contact by telephone, but that could only ease the boredom to a point. Tanya needed some new friends. She could do it, all right. She had done it before.
According to her oldest sister, Beverly Kay, Tanya had to "teach herself to be outgoing."
One way to meet friends was to hang around the pool at Nottingham Square and engage other stay-at-home moms in conversation. But Tanya's initial poolside efforts proved futile. She tried to befriend women who had their own lives, own friends. None had time for the talkative gal from the Panhandle.
CHAPTER 2Tanya Reid had been the new mom in town several times before. She knew the isolation and loneliness that came from settling into a neighborhood where yours is the last For Sale sign to be plucked from its patch of grass by the sidewalk.
Neighbors were polite, to be sure, but not overly eager to invite new folks into their lives. Everyone was too busy to take in someone new. For Tanya, it was a world where brief chats by the mailbox or unseen waves as automatic door openers raised and lowered the double panels of a garage were sometimes the highlights of the day.
Paperback books and afternoon TV talk shows were no substitute for the conversation of an adult.
Tanya did not want to settle into that kind of existence, could not have it. She had been there. And waiting for Jim to come home with stories to tell of his day at Swift was akin to the excitement of watching ice cubes freeze. It was true she loved her husband, or told people she did. But Jim was quiet and Tanya was a talker.
She was on the hunt for a new friend. And in Des Moines, more than anyplace she had lived, Tanya was at ground zero. She didn't know anyone. None of the Swift people that had been the Reids' friends had made the move to Iowa.
"I didn't have nobody," Tanya said years later. "No friends, no nothing."
* * *
Like so many of the women Tanya gravitated to, Staci Sue Mullins was a lady in white — a nurse, specifically an LPN. The divorced Iowa mother of three sons and a daughter had decided she no longer wanted the responsibility of a house and the backbreaking chores of a yard. She purchased a town house at Nottingham Square to start her life over.
Staci met Tanya as most moms meet each other — through their children. Since Carolyn Reid and Staci's daughter were the same age, they would be in the same grade that fall at Clive Elementary. Tanya bubbled with enthusiasm about the possibility of the girls being in the same classroom. That, along with the half-block proximity of their apartment and the Mullins town house, assured a friendship for the girls.
Staci gave Tanya a thumbnail sketch of her own life and nursing career. She also shared her greatest tragedy — her son Steven had died in a plane crash. Staci didn't say much more about it, and Tanya seemed to be more concerned about appearing interested and understanding than actually listening to what Staci had been saying.
Tanya, it appeared, wanted to make a good impression.
Then Tanya prattled on about her life, her son's health, her husband's job, being new in town. She was a little too open, a little too forthcoming for Staci's tastes. She tried to force a kind of familiarity that can only develop over months, sometimes even years.
"I'll take care of your daughter anytime if you want to go out and do something. Just leave her with me. I'm home all the time. If you need anything, give me a call — or just come on over!"
The offer took Staci back a bit. She had only just met this lady. She certainly wouldn't leave her own daughter with a complete stranger. She felt Tanya Reid's gesture was sincere enough, but she would find no need to take her up on it.
Within days, however, Tanya Reid had no problem asking Staci to watch Carolyn and Michael. It irked Staci.
"It was her that was always needing me to watch her children, that's why I started feeling kind of dumped on. I did feel like I was being taken advantage of," she recalled years later.
Tanya's husband, Jim Reid, a short and trim man with plastic-framed glasses, cowboy boots, and a somewhat reserved demeanor for a man who made his living on the sales side of the beef industry, made little, if any, impression. Staci Mullins met Tanya's husband only once that summer — at the pool, while he watched over his son and daughter. He seemed concerned about his kids, though Tanya had complained that he rarely spent any time with them. Later, Staci struggled to come up with a clear recollection of the man.
"He was quiet, real quiet," she said as she fumbled for a description.
Tanya was gleeful and a bit nervous at the same time when she learned the Des Moines Golf and Country Club would be hosting a luncheon and fashion show for members and their guests, a group primarily of newcomers to the area — and she was going. Jim's boss's wife had invited Tanya; Tanya, in turn, invited Staci Mullins to accompany her.
Staci barely knew Tanya, but since her new friend was so insistent, she went along. Still a tad overweight, Tanya Reid dabbed on a little Jontue and put on a flattering dress and heels for the big social to-do. Staci figured they would have a good time, meet some people, have lunch, and that would be the end of it. Yet at the country club, Tanya became irritated and angry when she tried to find a place to sit down. The boss's wife had her own group of friends and had made no arrangements for Tanya. In fact, all of the women had paired off with longtime friends, circles that excluded the newcomer from Texas. It was awkward. Tanya knew no one, and Staci had expected she'd be introduced to some of the women there. That never happened. They ate lunch, watched the fashion show, and went home. Tanya drove.
Just as they returned to Nottingham Square, their conversation moved from the luncheon to a more personal subject. Staci told Tanya the details of her son's death. Steven Mullins had been among the 248 soldiers who died in the big army plane crash at Gander, Newfoundland. He was only twenty-one, about to get out of the service, go to college, and get married.
"I thought that if anything had ever happened to one of my kids, I'd die ... but I didn't die," Staci said, tears falling.
Tanya started to cry too. She reached for the billfold in her purse and pulled out a baby picture. It was of Morgan.
"My baby girl Morgan died of SIDS, just before her nine-month birthday."
Tanya told the sad story of an infant with dire and unknown medical problems who could not be saved, whose life was even shorter than Staci's son's. Staci set her own tears aside and tried to comfort Tanya with words of understanding.
"I know how you feel ..."
"But she was just a baby ..."
Later, Staci pondered why Tanya chose that time to tell her about Morgan. When they had met poolside that summer, Staci had revealed she lost her son in the plane crash, but Tanya had said nothing of Morgan's death. Maybe she was more comfortable to mention the baby's death now that they had spent some time together. Still, it puzzled Staci. The woman she had come to know seemed to have little problem in talking about anything. Talking was her favorite activity.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Cruel Deception by Gregg Olsen. Copyright © 1995 Gregg Olsen. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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