‘I was a target’: Texas mom cleared on medical child abuse charges speaks out
A Texas mom and social media influencer made headlines in 2023 when she was arrested on suspicion of medically abusing her 2-year-old daughter. Now, weeks after a Tarrant County grand jury no-billed her case for lack of evidence, Jessica Gasser wants to share her story.
“I was a target,” Gasser said. “That’s exactly what it was.”
Gasser, 29, said she noticed her daughter was failing to thrive shortly after birth. Texas Children’s Hospital diagnosed the then 4-month-old with gastroparesis, a rare medical condition where the stomach takes too long to empty, she said.
“She was diagnosed by one of the top hospitals in the country with gastroparesis off of a scan,” the Rusk County mom told the Star-Telegram in a Zoom interview Thursday. “It wasn’t something that they’re like, ‘Oh, we think it might be this.’ No, they did a scan and diagnosed her off of the scan.”
The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office arrested Gasser on two counts of injury to a child based on procedures her daughter underwent in February 2023 at Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth. In a 25-page arrest warrant affidavit, investigators accused Gasser of lying about her toddler’s medical conditions and subjecting the child to treatments she knew were unnecessary.
While medical child abuse, also known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy, is a real thing, Gasser’s attorney said that was not the case in her situation. Mike Schneider said the key to clearing his client was found in detailed records that had been withheld by Texas Child Protective Services — records that showed Gasser was telling the truth about her child’s condition and evidence that Tarrant County investigators knew it. Schneider said they were only able to obtain the documents through a Rusk County court order.
“The most damning (documents) of which are the conversations between CPS and law enforcement, bragging about how much money they’re going to make doing consulting and training on these cases, bragging that they’re going to look like heroes on ‘60 Minutes,’” Schneider said. “It’s, it’s unbelievable.”
“We respect the Grand Jury’s decision. We have no further comment,” the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
Retired Tarrant County Detective Michael Weber, who investigated Gasser’s case, declined to comment on Schneider’s allegations. A CPS spokesperson also declined to comment, saying it would mean going into the details of the case, and “CPS cases are confidential.”
“A Tarrant County Grand Jury declined to take any action against Jessica Gasser,” the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office told the Star-Telegram in an email.
Investigation and arrest
Patients with gastroparesis often struggle to gain weight because they feel full after eating just a little bit of food. Gasser says that’s what happened with her daughter. When medicine to speed up her stomach motility didn’t work, she was given a feeding tube, the mother said.
In a quest to find help for her child, who also suffers from ketotic hypoglycemia, Gasser said she visited multiple health care providers. In 2022, a social worker in Temple, Texas, reported the family to Child Protective Services. CPS launched an investigation, but completely ruled out the possibility of medical child abuse, according to Gasser and Schneider. The CPS case was closed later that year.
In 2023, a pediatrician referred Gasser’s daughter to Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth. Gasser regularly posted about her daughter’s health on social media, interacting with people who were facing similar situations and giving tips for dealing with feeding tubes and other medical paraphernalia. Schneider said he believes Tarrant County investigators learned of Gasser’s daughter’s situation and decided to use it to promote their agenda of appearing tough on medical child abuse cases.
The basis for the child injury case against Gasser were two procedures performed at the Fort Worth hospital, including one that involved 28 blood draws from her daughter as part of a hypoglycemia test. According to Gasser, she didn’t want the test performed on her then 2-year-old child because she knew it would be painful. She finally went along, though, because she was told it was necessary.
Schneider said one of the disturbing things they discovered when CPS released the medical records was that Cook Children’s had apparently altered some of the records to indicate the little girl hadn’t been diagnosed with conditions that Cook Children’s had already diagnosed her with. Schneider said he’s seen different versions of the same records.
Cook Children’s Medical Center didn’t immediately respond to the Star-Telegram’s request for comment about the alleged alteration of records.
CPS opened another case against Gasser, this time at the request of the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office, according to Schneider. Gasser’s daughter was removed from her home and placed in CPS custody on June 9, 2023. Tarrant County investigators used Google searches made by Gasser immediately after this as part of the evidence for her alleged guilt, Schneider said.
According to her arrest warrant affidavit, Gasser searched such questions as “Is lying to a doctor about a child illegal?” on June 11 and “How do you fix munchausen by proxy?” on June 12. Gasser told the Star-Telegram she searched those questions because she was trying to understand what she’d been accused of.
“I barely had any understanding of what Munchausen was,” she said. “I didn’t know is there a treatment for it? I don’t know. Does anybody really know?”
Gasser was arrested in July 2023 on one charge of injury to a child, but was able to bond out. She was arrested again the following month during a family court hearing in Rusk County, and the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office filed the second charge against her in May 2024, according to court records.
In the meantime, Gasser’s 2-year-old daughter was suffering, according to the mother and Schneider. The little girl had been on a diet prescribed by a clinic in Cleveland and was gaining weight before being taken out of her home. During her first two months in CPS custody, she went from the 24th percentile to the 2nd percentile in weight, they said.
“(Her) health just plummeted,” Schneider said.
Gasser’s arrest warrant affidavit, which was issued July 11, 2023, presents a very different narrative.
“After separation from the suspect where the suspect could no longer manipulate the victim’s medical history, feeding, and care, the victim is thriving,” the affidavit states.
That presentation of the toddler’s condition wasn’t just a little bit off, according to Schneider. “It’s the opposite of what is true,” he said.
Next steps
CPS dismissed their case against Gasser’s family in 2024, according to a news release from the Connolly Schneider Shireman law firm. Gasser regained custody of her daughter in April 2024.
Now that the grand jury has declined to indict her on the injury to a child charges, she’s trying to move on. Her daughter is receiving care from doctors who understand her needs and is “doing as well as she can be,” she said.
The family has been through a lot of trauma, Gasser said. Even though she defeated the charges against her in Tarrant County, she’s worried it could happen again. There’s no way to delete the entries about CPS involvement from her daughter’s electronic hospital records. Gasser said she wants to see that changed, not only for daughter, but for others in a similar situation.
“We will continue to be targets unless we can have change to where, when these cases are ruled out, that ... it’s either redacted from the medical record or destroyed completely,” she said.
This story was originally published July 26, 2025 at 1:02 PM.
