This is one crazy story of child abuse. Have you ever seen the movie The Sixth Sense? Because this story reminded us of that movie. Laurie Williamson of Spring, Texas faces life imprisonment after being convicted of “injury to a child” by forcing her son to have two unnecessary surgeries. That’s not the worst of it however, as Williamson took her three children to at least 500 appointments with doctors during a 10-year-period, telling the children that they were all going to die before their teens. She convinced the doctors and the children that the youth were really sick when they were not. The children were found malnourished, in wheelchairs, and two had feeding tubes, all for falsified non-existent medical conditions.

The two unnecessary surgeries that resulted in Williamson’s conviction was the implantation of a nerve-stimulation device and the insertion of a gastric feeding tube into her son who needed neither. Apparently Williamson was able to trick doctors using her knowledge of the medical system, as she was a nurse’s aide at one time. She simulated and fabricated symptoms to make surgeries appear necessary.

Williamson may have a weird type of Munchausen syndrome. In normal cases, the person with the disorder will fabricate and induce symptoms of disease for attention. Williamson seemed to project that on her children, telling them and doctors that the children would die young because of their conditions. It was all apparently a money making scheme, as she raised $150,000 between 2000 and 2005 from organizations and people in her community.

The children are in the care of the relative, and their mother is never allowed to contact them. They are physically fine but small from the malnourishment and mistreatment over the years. They’ve lost a mom, but gained a life.

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