Haltom City mom accused of using child’s fake illness to raise money on Facebook
A Haltom City mother of three is accused of faking her child’s illness and using the fake sickness to raise money for unnecessary medical equipment on Facebook, according to an arrest warrant from the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office.
Susan Reynolds was arrested in November 2021 and accused of medical child abuse based on allegations of falsifying her child’s medical history. According to a warrant served on June 3, Reynolds now faces an additional charge of exploitation of a child based on allegations that she raised money under false pretenses and used her child for personal benefit. The warrant includes additional interviews from doctors who treated Reynolds’ children.
Based on interviews with doctors, family members and teachers, Reynolds fabricated her children’s medical problems, according to the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office’s investigation. The situation in which a caregiver falsifies medical symptoms and problems in another — usually in a child — is known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy.
In October 2021, Reynolds’ three children — a 5-year-old son, an 8-year-old daughter and a third child whose age was not given — were removed from her care by Child Protective Services. She was booked into jail in November 2021 and charged with endangering a child and bodily injury to a child. According to court documents, she remained in jail as of June 14.
Medical abuse allegations
The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office filed an arrest warrant affidavit against Reynolds in November that detailed allegations of medical child abuse dating back to 2013. According to the affidavit, Reynolds falsified her 5-year-old son’s medical history, had him on 23 medicines and forced him to use a wheelchair. According to the affidavit, the boy did not need those medical treatments. Reynolds was also accused of abusing her daughter through unnecessary medical treatments. In a nine-month period in 2013, Reynolds took the girl to urgent care 28 times.
Reynolds posted frequently on Facebook about her and her children’s apparent plethora of medical problems, and she raised at least $540 for medical equipment, according to a Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office affidavit. According to the warrant, Reynolds would also use her son’s false illness to get “front of the line passes” at Six Flags.
Reynolds’ son and daughter had nasal gastric tubes and the boy also had a gastric tube inserted based on Reynolds’ insistence that they could not keep food down, would not take their necessary medications and had other gastrointestinal issues, according to the affidavit. Reynolds’ was charged with bodily injury to a child due to the feeding tubes placement.According to the affidavit, the girl told Tarrant County Detective Michael Weber the feeding tube insertion, “felt like I was being eaten by a rattlesnake.”
In January, the boy had the gastric tube removed and is doing well, according to the affidavit. In May 2022, one of the doctors filed an affidavit saying he would not have placed the tube if he had known the child’s actual medical history.
Another doctor at Cook Children’s Medical Center reviewed the child’s medical history and said in an affidavit on May 31 that the boy’s gastric feeding tube placement was medical child abuse.
Since Reynolds’ arrest in November, her children have stayed with other family members. Those family members say the children are doing well and are healthy, which contradicts Reynolds’ claims of debilitating medical problems, authorities said.
In January, a Tarrant County detective talked with the family member who had been caring for Reynolds’ son. The family member said the son had the feeding tube removed and is a healthy, normal child. Reynolds’ daughter is now staying with her paternal grandparents. She had no health problems and is able to eat normally without a feeding tube, the affidavit says.
According to the affidavit, Weber also learned that while Reynolds was seven months’ pregnant with her youngest son, she asked a friend how to induce labor. The friend told her giving birth at seven months was dangerous to her baby. Reynolds went into labor later that same day, the affidavit says.
The three children also described being abused by Reynolds’ boyfriend while Reynolds watched, according to the affidavit. The children said he would force them to drink hot sauce when they misbehaved. Each time they got into trouble, the spiciness level of the hot sauce increased. The children said they all had to face this discipline, even the 5-year-old — who Reynolds claimed had severe gastrointestinal issues. At times, the children would throw up from this punishment, according to the affidavit.
Reynolds was investigated by Child Protective Services in 2013 and suspected of medical child abuse against her now-8-year-old daughter, according to the arrest warrant. She was not criminally charged and her daughter was returned to Reynolds’ care within a year. In 2019, a staff member at Cook Children’s Medical Center reported Reynolds again to CPS, but there was not enough medical evidence to confirm the abuse.
This story was originally published June 14, 2022 at 5:09 PM.
