Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Shanda Vander Ark
2.4k Plays2 years ago
This week on the Mothers of All Crime Podcast the discussion centers around Shanda Vander Ark. Shanda Vander Ark was leading, what many would assume, was a busy/ successful /wonderful life. She had five children, was married to a good man, had recently passed the Bar Exam after graduating law school with honors. She was even training service dogs in her spare time. Sounds pretty good right? Turns out- Her impressive outward front was masking a nightmare at home.
This mother came to the attention of the world following the tragic death of her son Timothy Ferguson. The details of Shanda's horrific crimes are nothing short of grim. Join your favorite hosts while we unpack the grisly facts surrounding this "perfect" mother.
Listener discretion is advised.
May contain explicit language and unfounded accusations.
Like, follow and chat with us @ Mothers of All Crime on Instagram and Facebook. Email us @ mothersofallcrime@gmail.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Mothers of All Crime
00:00:18
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Mothers of All Crime. This is a podcast where we deep dive into mothers involved in infamous crimes and scandals. I'm Monica and this is Crystal. Hi Monica. Hey Crystal. How you doing? Really good. Thanks for asking. How are you? I'm good. Another day in paradise talking about another mother. Oh yeah.
00:00:50
Speaker
We do. This one is very emotional for, I feel like anybody who looks into it, the judge that was in the trial, it just breaks your heart just hearing some of these testimonies and stuff. So why don't you introduce us to our mother of the week.
Who was Shonda Von Der Ark?
00:01:11
Speaker
So our mother of all crimes this week is Shonda Von Der Ark, which some people say Shonda, but I think it's Shonda.
00:01:21
Speaker
There's a few in there. Regardless. Regardless. She's our mother of focus. And she came to national attention pretty quickly after her 15 year old son, Timothy, was found dead in Shonda's home in Michigan on July 6, 2022. The apparent cause of death was starvation and hypothermia.
00:01:51
Speaker
And a series of events obviously led us to that point and many happened afterwards. But that is our scene that has been set is that a 15 year old boy is dead in his home.
Family Dynamics and Legal Troubles
00:02:07
Speaker
He weighed 69 pounds. And his brother, Paul, his youngest brother who I think they're calling G for all the trial stuff was eight.
00:02:21
Speaker
And then he had other siblings that did not live at home, two older siblings. His mother Shonda was with her second husband, Adam. She had previously been married to Paul Ferguson, who is Timothy Ferguson's father. They have four kids together and they lived together in Oklahoma. And then Shonda remarried after her divorce, Adam, who was
00:02:51
Speaker
a man that used a wheelchair. And they had a son. And so Shonda had a total of five children. And it's pretty horrific. Yeah, it's super sad. And so continuing with the scene, this is the case and the death of Timothy occurred in Norton Shores, Michigan. However, they weren't always in Michigan. They moved there.
00:03:22
Speaker
Um, they actually originally lived in Oklahoma, where this family was not like the average family. They already were having issues. And when they were all living in Oklahoma, child protective services actually were already involved with this family. And the investigation with Oklahoma started and they didn't
00:03:51
Speaker
lose full custody of all of the children, but she definitely started being fully investigated by the state. She ended up losing custody of her children and full custody went to the father, which I think most people can kind of assume that when a father is getting that full custody, you know that the mother is being looked at for some pretty serious things.
00:04:21
Speaker
When we was originally living in Oklahoma, child protective services were already involved with this family. So sadly, the fact that things got worse personally wasn't super surprising. I wish I could say when a family in protective service gets involved, it actually helps the family, but that's majority of the time, particularly with other examples we've talked about, it's not always the case.
00:04:48
Speaker
But during their investigation, the father actually took full custody of the children, and she didn't have parental rights at the time.
00:05:02
Speaker
For anybody who either has been involved with any kind of custody battle, if a father is getting full custody and not the mother for multiple children, as well as having no visitation rights, that's some serious allegations against the mother.
00:05:23
Speaker
And unfortunately, I don't know about you. I couldn't find specifics about that because when they left Oklahoma, basically the case got dropped because they moved out of state and states don't communicate with each other about that kind of stuff. So I found stuff on Reddit. I definitely don't know how substantiated all of these things are,
00:05:52
Speaker
probably not very, not very, but the cases are sealed, they're closed and they're sealed and that's to protect the children involved and I think that's the right way to handle it probably. But for the purposes of us discussing it, it does make it more difficult to not have all of the information. My understanding of what happened in Oklahoma is that there were allegations of abuse against Shonda and not her husband Eric and that's why
00:06:23
Speaker
he was given the option of retaining custody of the children if Shonda would leave and she would give up custody of the children. Yeah, but I couldn't figure out what those allegations were because was it allegations of she's beating her children or she forgot her kid at school? Because unfortunately, there's such a range when it comes to those allegations.
00:06:50
Speaker
My understanding, again, from what I've read is that there were accusations that she was not properly caring for Timothy. I think he was about 18 months old when the investigation started and he was malnourished or very underweight at the time. There were allegations of abuse and neglect against Shonda about Timothy specifically.
00:07:18
Speaker
Yeah, so eventually after she actually voluntarily waived those rights with those four children in Oklahoma, which I thought was interesting. Yes. Well, otherwise they probably would have been terminated. Oh, absolutely. But you're right, she did waive it. But it's kind of interesting where, again, most people aren't thinking that a mother's going to go, you know what, sure, whatever, it's fine.
00:07:41
Speaker
But she unfortunately was allowed supervised visits for three hours a month with all four children that she had with her ex-husband. And it's unknown the specifics, and this is where things get mucky, because she ended up moving back to Michigan.
00:08:01
Speaker
or moving to Michigan. And as we know, Timothy died in her home. Her eldest, Paul, was in the home with her. It's interesting how all of a sudden she has Timothy in her custody where she had only had supervised visits at that time in Oklahoma. So something had to have changed for that to have occurred.
00:08:31
Speaker
So to my understanding, she never got legal custody of him back. She had, of course, physical custody of him because he physically lived in her home. But I think what happened is that her and her ex-husband worked out an unofficial arrangement where she took over his care.
00:08:51
Speaker
She only, he only lived with her for 14 months, but Paul, his older brother had lived with Chanda previously to that. He moved there first because Chanda remarried. So she's living with her husband. They have a kid and then Paul moves in with them after he had already become 18. So on his end and on his father's end, he's an adult. So they don't need a court order. He doesn't need anybody's permission to go move to Michigan and live with his mother and his stepdad and his little brother.
00:09:20
Speaker
He's just allowed to do that. But Timothy was 14, so he was a minor, and it's worth mentioning he's a minor with disabilities.
The Move and Custody Battle
00:09:30
Speaker
He'd been diagnosed as autistic, as bipolar, ADHD. He had sensory processing disorder. There were multiple diagnoses, and he was receiving help in Oklahoma, and he was on medication. He was under the care of a doctor.
00:09:46
Speaker
And then it seems to me that he was removed from school in Oklahoma and he was just picked up and put down in Michigan. I don't think that they asked anybody's permission. I don't think they transferred any kind of custody. In the trial, Shonda mentioned that they had discussed Eric signing over custody of Timothy, but he never actually did it.
00:10:11
Speaker
And I think that, in my opinion, I don't think she wanted the state of Michigan to be aware that she had this child that she should not have had, because she did not have custody of him, and she was supposed to have supervised visitations with him. I don't think that she was supposed to have him, and I think that that was a huge factor in all of the events that unfolded. Yeah.
00:10:38
Speaker
Important to note, I think, when it comes to Timothy's disability is there is no question that he needed special care and special attention.
00:10:50
Speaker
But it's not like Shonda was uneducated. She not only boasts about it, but she's not wrong. She's highly educated. She graduated with honors from law school, um, from University of Michigan University. And she was working at like another county. Yeah.
00:11:14
Speaker
This is this is like something I really, really wanted to talk about because it annoys me so much. I do feel like she's pretending that she went to Michigan, which is a very, very good law school. That's not where she went. She was not at a good law school. I was very not impressed. I was actually kind of horrified by how she was discussing her fledgling law career, because she did go to law school. She did pass the bar. She was not an attorney, though, because which is another issue. And I feel like maybe
00:11:44
Speaker
Sure. But I kind of want to talk about this from my personal experience, maybe. Because I talked about this yesterday with my husband because he is a lawyer, and he went to a very good law school. And I was talking to him about this case, which he's not very familiar with. And he was like, oh my goodness, she went to Michigan? That's a really good school. And then he looked it up, and she didn't. She went to Western Michigan University Cooley School of Law. Oh, interesting.
00:12:14
Speaker
It's sometimes in the top 200 law schools. It's not. All of the interviews, and even in court records, it says Michigan University. I know, but it's not. It's Western Michigan. It's a different school. It's not nearly as highly rated.
00:12:33
Speaker
It's way less impressive. It's still impressive. I really don't want to shit on it at all. Yeah. Anyone who goes to law school and passes the bar has to be a certain level of smart though. Like not everyone is doing their time. She is intelligent, but I think that she wants people to think that she is extremely intelligent. And I think that the way that she phrases things and the way that she explains things, it makes it seem.
00:13:01
Speaker
Like she highlights what she thinks are her good qualities and she does not. And I don't think anybody was really, like a lot of the articles I see it's just that she went to one of the top law schools in Michigan, barely true, barely true. Definitely not one of the top law schools in this country, but not the best law school in Michigan. And she did get a scholarship. She did pass the bar on her first try, but that's only the test. There's another portion of the bar, which I do not believe
00:13:31
Speaker
Shonda would have ever passed because so the process of becoming a lawyer, go to law school, you pass the bar exam, which is an actual test. And then there's another process called character and fitness. And in that part, you basically get a huge background check.
00:13:51
Speaker
they look into your finances, they look into your criminal history. My husband has one last name on his driver's license and two last names on his birth certificate. And he had an issue with character and fitness and he had to prove that he is actually both of those people. And that's something that happens a lot because they're really making, trying to make sure that who they're admitting to practice law is the person and that they meet the criteria. And Shonda,
00:14:21
Speaker
was ineligible for character in fitness, not because of her previous child abuse claims, but because she owed back child support about $24,000, $25,000, and her wages were being garnished. You're not getting through character in fitness with that. She was not. I hate to say it. She might have. Unfortunately, the interview process from the
00:14:48
Speaker
the individual seems so much scrutiny. But then when push comes to shove, a lot more people get through that shouldn't. And it's scary that I would hope that that disqualifies her, but who knows? Because every state does it so differently too.
00:15:09
Speaker
at the time that she took the test, they were not part of the universal bar exam. So she would have, even if she had passed, she would have only been able to practice in Michigan. But they actually take financial issues much more seriously than a lot of criminal. Oh, absolutely. And that's a national standard.
00:15:29
Speaker
Yeah, because a huge issue that comes up with lawyers is misappropriation of funds. So they're trying to not have people with that. And I do not think that she would have passed character in fitness, at least not the first time. She would have had to get a lawyer. She would have had to battle it out. It's not a simple process. When you have something like that, when your wages are being garnished, it's not something that they even need to do a background check to see. It's going to be very obvious. Yeah.
00:15:57
Speaker
I don't think she was passing that. She was doing a clerkship, ironically, in the appellate criminal court that she ended up being convicted through. Very ironic. But I just want to point out Shonda, you did not go to a very good law school. I'm sorry to everyone else that went there. You're probably great. But Shonda did not go to Michigan. And her bar score was not that impressive. And I'm not impressed.
00:16:24
Speaker
Yeah, I hope that she wouldn't have passed the characters, but just knowing some circumstances, I wouldn't be surprised if she did, unfortunately.
00:16:36
Speaker
Um, but she never even took it. So it doesn't even, it doesn't seem like she ever had any interest in ever practicing. And like, oh, from a financial perspective, parts make decent money. Like, I don't know if she even, I think it was just easier for her. It was less work. Like she's never pegged me as someone who wants to put in all the extra hours and work that attorneys need to do.
00:17:01
Speaker
And Clark's kind of, it's a lot, I don't want to say easier, but it's a different route that doesn't necessarily take all that extra time and effort that a lot of attorneys have to put in. So I also want to nitpick her about something else because she talks a lot about how busy she was. And I'm not saying that someone with five children that's in law school is not busy. I think that that makes you very busy.
00:17:29
Speaker
But at the time that Timothy lived with her, she was done with law school. She was doing a clerkship and she was studying for the bar and then she passed the bar.
Shonda's Legal Ambitions and Failures
00:17:40
Speaker
During her clerkship, her hours should have been about eight to 4.30, nine to five. They're court hours. She was saying she was working six to six. There is no court that's open and operating from six to six. It's not a thing.
00:17:59
Speaker
Yeah. She's not as busy as she pretends to be. Oh, yeah. But that doesn't fit the vibe of how hard her life is. She has to play the part. So I mean, it makes sense. Well, it also sounds like you're way more busy if you just say you have five kids versus you say how many of them you have custody of, which at the time was one because her other kids were adults. She never got custody of them back. She did not have legal custody of Timothy.
00:18:29
Speaker
So the only custody that she had was of her fifth child, who was eight. So you really have one kid that you should be taken care of. So everything ended up over to her in July, was it? Let's see. No, it was May. It was May, 2021. Okay. And he was pulled out. He started being homeschooled in January of 21. So it's one of those. And like, it's interesting where
00:18:59
Speaker
they started kind of like getting on the same page on paper, not reality, but like, hey, we're gonna pull him out. The defense took it as he needs the special attention. It was incapable of being within the schools. The best way to educate him is through a homeschool setting for specialized attention, which again, as a presenting upfront,
00:19:27
Speaker
That does sound great. Like, hey, you're going to take your child. You're going to make it so that they can have a more focused education and have more help because they're disabled. But it very quickly came out that that was not the
Neglect Disguised as Homeschooling
00:19:41
Speaker
reality. He wasn't getting that education. He wasn't getting that specialized attention. He wasn't getting all of these special helps that the defense tried to present once they were at trial. Definitely not.
00:19:55
Speaker
And Shonda didn't help her own case because she contradicted herself multiple times during the trial about why he was homeschooled, the rationale behind it. She, she had a lot of different excuses that all contradicted each other. Basically it's Timothy's fault because he's too bad to go to school. It's her ex-husband's fault because he wouldn't give her the paperwork that she needed. It was, she's too busy. She can't go enroll him in person in school.
00:20:22
Speaker
she had a lot of reasons, none of which I think were the reasons. I'm not against homeschooling. I actually think it could be a really good option for a lot of people. But I think that unfortunately, it's something that abusive parents sometimes do to keep their kid secluded, isolated, and out of other people's eyes. Yeah. And we've talked about already a couple of families that this is
00:20:48
Speaker
a theme win and we have a couple more coming up that are gonna have the theme of homeschooling. And I think you're right where if it's used in the right circumstance, it can be amazing. Some homeschool kids are some of the smartest ones I've met, but at the same time, it can be really dangerous in the wrong hands and control for sure. So while he was quote unquote being homeschooled, Timothy was actually being tortured.
00:21:18
Speaker
day in and day out, every day, all day, up until he basically died within the home, July 6th of 2022. Right. So I think that the entire time that he lived with Shonda was probably horrible.
Escalation of Abuse
00:21:34
Speaker
But it seems like when Shonda's husband, Adam, had his stroke in January, and he moved out because, okay, this also doesn't make sense to me. I'm gonna have to take it back for a second.
00:21:47
Speaker
So Adam had a lifelong disability and was in a wheelchair and then he had a stroke and all of a sudden the stairs in their house were a problem and he couldn't live there because of the stairs. But he was already in a wheelchair. So is this home not accessible for people who can't use stairs?
00:22:10
Speaker
I just wonder if it's more of like a safety thing where if you're in a wheelchair and fully able to take care of yourself and do things for yourself, if they had like a little
00:22:22
Speaker
I don't know, you know those little chairs that you sit in, and they elevate you up the side? I wonder if he had something like that, and because he was otherwise functioning fully and he could take care of himself, it was fine. But once you have a stroke, people tend to need a lot more care.
00:22:42
Speaker
If you have a really bad one, you lose some mobility where he wouldn't be able to get himself around. It might've become like a lesson. It's not safe for him anymore to be alone in the house. Like that was my only thought. I mean, maybe that could, I mean, that could be, it makes more sense than all of a sudden the house is not handicap accessible because he was already like, it should have already been. And also, I don't know if my husband, God forbid, had a stroke.
00:23:10
Speaker
And he could not get to where we live. We would have to move. Right. And you would think like move as a family, not just be like, okay, bye. Yeah. Or honestly, we would all be living with his parents. We would, I would not just be like, Oh, well, his parents can just take care of him now. And we are just going to stay here. No, that's absurd. And I understand like financial constraints, but Shonda and Adam did not own the home that they lived in.
00:23:39
Speaker
And maybe it would have been wise to rent somewhere else if that's not like get an apartment where you can take an elevator. I don't know how extensive Adam's issues were post-stroke, but I mean, he wasn't in a hospital. He was living with his parents. So I don't know if they had round the clock nursing for him or if they were, his parents were caring for him all of the time, but it just seems like he could live in a residential setting. And that's your husband. So.
00:24:08
Speaker
It just seemed really odd to me. Yeah. No, it more was odd for me where she didn't go with him. It wasn't the house being inaccessible that actually kind of felt like it felt weird, but it was like, all right, I can see how that could happen.
00:24:23
Speaker
but like the fact she didn't go with him was weird to me because yes she's at work all day and like he would need help during the day okay that's where your parents step in or you hire a nurse to step in but like the fact you were living separately was just bizarre particularly when you have a child together who's six seven eight years old during all of this like they're consciously aware of what's happening like it's not like they're an infant and they don't know
00:24:51
Speaker
if I'm Shonda and I'm working full time and I have this little child and my husband is so ill that he cannot physically get into our home, we are all going to go move in with his parents so they can help us and provide childcare. Right. Because clearly they're willing to do that. And she seemed like she was very close with his parents with her in-laws. Right. But she was also hiding a lot of things from them, which I think is important as well. Because she stopped letting
00:25:20
Speaker
Adam's mother, her mother-in-law, she stopped letting her in the house after the stroke. And that is because the cleanliness of the house decreased so quickly and so badly. The house was a pit. It was disgusting. There was stuff everywhere. It was not picked up. Apparently, Adam was doing all of the house cleaning prior.
00:25:44
Speaker
it's nobody picked up where he left off. Right. Nobody. It was disgusting. And she said that the parents couldn't come in because the house was disgusting. So they would come pick up their grandchild from her house and the child would stand outside and wait for them because they couldn't come in. Oh, yeah. And I think that they also were intentionally hiding Timothy or Shonda was intentionally hiding Timothy from
00:26:12
Speaker
you know, her in-laws as well. And not even like question of like, hey, when did you get your son? That's a normal question. But I think more questions of like, this is a 15 year old boy weighing under 70 pounds. Like, picture any teenage boy, I don't care how small you are, 70 pounds is unhealthy and not okay. And you're going to be able to notice that this kid's not okay. So,
00:26:40
Speaker
I think it would be hard for her. The questions wouldn't even be like, hey, when did you get Timothy? It'd be more like, what's happening inside that house? And there's no way to hide that. Exactly. I don't think anybody was seeing Timothy other than Shonda and Paul and their littlest brother who, I just want to say his name, but I'm going to call him G for this. Yeah. And I will say, oh, go ahead.
00:27:12
Speaker
Oh no, I was just gonna say, based on Adam, Adam is, he passed away in 2023, but he gave interviews and stuff prior to that, which he did not die from the stroke. He had leukemia. He really had a string of bad luck. But he said that he never saw child abuse and that it wouldn't have been tolerated if he was there. And then Paul,
00:27:40
Speaker
has gone on to say that there were no food restrictions when Adam was living there. So I think really from January 3rd to July 6th is when the bulk
00:27:51
Speaker
of everything happened. Oh, absolutely. And it definitely seemed like he was a decent guy who just kind of was like, he ran that house, he took care of everything, he did everything. There's been no signs of abuse or accusations or any concerns regarding the youngest child, thank goodness. He seems perfectly healthy, healthy, happy. I mean, he lived in the home while all this abuse and torture was happening. So who knows psychologically what that did to him.
00:28:19
Speaker
um but thankfully he all he himself didn't endure anything um and in Adam's defense is like you meet someone and even if there are these accusations like you listen to your partner and what your partner tells you you believe and we'll never know the conversations they've had of the story that she told him on why she doesn't have her children or yada yada
00:28:45
Speaker
And if he had no reason to believe any of that would have been happening, or it would have happened if it, if he wasn't around, like, I just feel like she, she talks a good game. And I think that he had no reason to not listen to her. And she probably just told him that her ex-husband was crazy and it was all him and blah, blah, blah. And
00:29:12
Speaker
She somehow probably made herself a victim with it. And he believed her like anyone would. Yeah, I think that's probably exactly what happened. And I think that you could come up with an explanation for why
00:29:27
Speaker
your children's other parent has custody of them. I think people do that all the time. You could definitely make it seem, oh well, I had to move, so I moved and the kids were in school, so they stayed there, but I'm very involved with them and talk all the time and I pay child support and whatever.
00:29:46
Speaker
You could have a lot of explanations. People who are divorced usually don't live together. So their kids are either split between the homes or one of them has them the majority of the time. Right. So it's not that weird. It really isn't. Yeah. And maybe all the kids wanted to stay together in Oklahoma. And that's a fair enough explanation.
00:30:07
Speaker
And you could just be like, I'm going to law school in Michigan. So that's why I moved here. Right. So I think it just to kind of everything aligned for her for that. So when he was making these interviews, he had no idea. He never would have thought that she was capable of it until he wasn't there.
00:30:29
Speaker
I mean who could believe I still can't believe how bad this was yeah so I think we need to get into a little bit of what happened to poor Timothy yeah we've been alluding to it but we haven't really talked about some of the stuff this boy went through just to name a few and obviously there are so many things that happen to him
00:30:54
Speaker
The autopsy found that he died from dehydration.
Tragic Death and Trial
00:30:59
Speaker
Hypothermia was involved. There was malnourishment, starvation. Through testimonies, it came out that he
00:31:10
Speaker
would be plunged into ice baths for up to nine hours in time. He was sleeping in a closet. They would take bread. So there were food restrictions, which we touched on, but he would only get fed bread or bread soaked in hot sauce or they'd pour hot sauce straight down his throat. If he got food at all, they wouldn't let him sleep and they shackled him and
00:31:38
Speaker
just i think any form of just manipulation on somebody's life that could be done was done which is why it was ruled a homicide and she was charged with murder yes and yes the thing that creeps me out unfortunately the creeps not the most of all of it is there were surveillance cameras mounted around the house
00:32:05
Speaker
So she could watch this in live time while she was like at work or out at the store, which I think just is even more disgusting. Just, I mean, the cameras, the motion sensors, and the text messages were so incriminating that
00:32:28
Speaker
I mean, it tells the story a hundred percent of what happens because they, I mean, when we say text messages, it's Shonda and her son, Paul are talking. There's so many, there are thousands of text messages, specifically referencing the way that Paul is being instructed to treat Timothy.
00:32:48
Speaker
And there's stuff with the soaking the bread in hot sauce, which they got the most extreme, it's called extreme regret hot sauce. It is supposed to be like one of the spiciest ones. She had to special order it. And I mean, she said that she couldn't stomach it. So she never tried it. It's like, okay. That wasn't just like, Oh, I'm mad at my kid. Well,
00:33:18
Speaker
Her Amazon cart is also very incriminating because it's full of surveillance equipment and torture devices. And she's always saying that she doesn't have any time, she doesn't have any money, she doesn't have any whatever. She's so stressed, she's so run thin. I mean, it's not cheap to buy cameras for your whole house. She even had them in the bathroom. She had cameras everywhere. She had him sleeping with motion sensors on. And if he moved in his sleep, those sensors would go off and everyone in the house would wake up.
00:33:49
Speaker
Yeah. But you know, conveniently during- They are literal recordings. Yeah. I don't remember how many times over and over again, they would present those texts, those videos. Oh my gosh. I don't remember. Yes you do. Yes you do. Oh my gosh. I don't even think we talked about that, but most frustrating thing ever to listen to. She said that she has
00:34:14
Speaker
PTSD as a result of seeing her husband after his stroke. She did not see him have a stroke. She saw him afterwards, which I'm not saying that's not traumatic, but whatever. She said that she had such severe PTSD that she would dissociate and she would have memory loss. And unfortunately, it was at very convenient times for Shonda. Anytime that she was upset about something, anytime she was punishing, anytime she was
00:34:44
Speaker
texting something terrible, she just does not remember it. And it's super inconvenient, convenient. Oh, yeah. I mean, something she has just a picture perfect memory of.
00:34:58
Speaker
by these text messages that she's being shown printouts of, she can't remember. And I think what it's interesting about- I mean, I can't remember every text I've sent. No, but you remember the gist of things happening. And there was one point during the trial that they actually had to stop reading some of the text messages because she claimed she was having a panic attack that was so debilitating that she couldn't listen anymore.
00:35:28
Speaker
And I give this judge a lot of credit because he stayed very professional during the entire trial while also making it very clear how horrific this case was. And when he granted the recess for her to collect herself post panic attack, he kind of threw in like a little like
00:35:55
Speaker
It makes sense considering what you said. That's not verbatim what he said, but it was more of this little jab of, yeah, you should be worried because this is horrible.
00:36:09
Speaker
I do like that they had like a male and female officer and I think it was a detective act out these texts so that the jury could grasp better because it's confusing if one person reads both parts so they really could have a better understanding of like that back and forth between her and her son about the torture. So I did like that. I totally agree because I thought it was confusing when it was her reading both sides as well because it was at what point are you talking at what point is Paul talking?
00:36:39
Speaker
So it's easier if two people read it for sure. She just, I mean, I feel like that anxiety attack, if that had been authentic, that would have been the first time she had a normal reaction. If you truly did not remember doing these things to your child, but there's so much evidence that you are looking at with your eyes that you did these things, that should be so extremely distressing.
00:37:09
Speaker
I cannot fathom how disorienting and upsetting that would be. And I don't think anybody could hold their composure if that was truly what they were experiencing. But she really had, she held it together a lot of the time. There were a couple times where she cried. There was once where she threw up. She was shown a picture of Timothy after he had passed away and she threw up. But she hadn't even shown the picture multiple times. And she saw him when he was dead.
00:37:39
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm more likely to believe like Ruby Frank, who we've talked about her reaction of like pain and realization. I'm more likely to believe that than I am about Shonda's reaction because of just
00:37:57
Speaker
during this trial all of these things had already been presented to her she had been able to review it she had looked at it and then now you're saying like oh i don't remember seeing it or oh we never got it or you just now are upset and you weren't upset before like it just doesn't add up i mean it's wild to me that she did not plead guilty right off the bat um
00:38:25
Speaker
because of all of the evidence. I mean, you can watch videos of Shonda the night before Timothy is found dead, you can watch a video, or people have had to watch this video and I've heard about it a lot and not actually watched it, of her dragging Timothy out of a bathtub that he'd been in for nine hours into a closet that had a tarp on the bottom and her just pushing him
00:38:55
Speaker
where he almost looked lifeless into the closet and then her criticizing him for how loudly he was breathing and calling him a dummy. And having the audacity to tell him that she deserved an apology. She could watch that video.
00:39:14
Speaker
of a recording that she knew existed because she purchased the surveillance equipment and she is the one in the video and then she also had the opportunity to view this evidence and she still refused to plead guilty and she took the stand in her own defense. Which is never really the level of narcissism. Most of the time you don't see defendants taking the stand. Most attorneys don't want you to. It's a terrible idea.
00:39:43
Speaker
But Crystal, she did not have a defense at all. She didn't even try to really present one. I don't understand what the case was. There was no defense. There was the defense. She did do all of the stuff. Oh, yeah, I know. The defense that they tried a couple different things. I do agree, I'm surprised that they didn't plead guilty. But again, I think she was just trying to lower her sentence if possible, which surprised me because it's not like Michigan's a death penalty state.
00:40:12
Speaker
They have life, but the death penalty was out in the 60s back in Michigan. So it's not like she was fighting to stay alive. So spoiler alert, as we've... Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. Sorry. No, I was just going to say, spoiler alert, she was obviously convicted, as we've said.
Conviction and Sentencing
00:40:32
Speaker
But I think maybe she just wanted to have the right to appeal because she worked in an appellate court and I think she understood that if she pled guilty, she would not be able to appeal.
00:40:42
Speaker
yeah and like so before we get to that phase of her trial um one thing they did present was that timothy was on a hunger strike and he chose not to eat um which can't eat okay your kids on a hunger strike then why are your cabinets and fridge locked if that why are you in text messages upset that they ate a brownie if
00:41:07
Speaker
I had a kid who was on a hunger strike, say they were, I'd be like, you want a brownie? Absolutely. Okay. You want a chip? You want to eat like garbage for days at a time? That's fine. At least you're eating. She's saying, nope, they were locked for his safety or whatever the defense was, which again, something the defense tried failed because very quickly, there's all this evidence showing that it's not true.
00:41:35
Speaker
He definitely never went on a hunger strike and thank goodness for all of these text messages because otherwise you could have maybe, I wouldn't have, but I think that you could have made an argument that maybe the lack of eating was just like what he was choosing to do.
00:41:52
Speaker
Whereas the text messages prove that he not only is not on a hunger strike, he's trying to sneak food. Yeah. And that's what he's being punished for. That's the opposite of a hunger strike. This kid ate a pound of ground beef. Raw. Out of the fridge, not cooked. Yeah. He ate a pound. He ate an entire bag of frozen chicken nuggets, which Shonda pretended she thought were raw chicken. And so she was very worried about his health.
00:42:18
Speaker
But obviously chicken nuggets are cooked. It's just they're frozen. So nobody would normally eat that. But I mean, someone who's on a hunger strike is not going to eat frozen chicken. They don't need it at all if they're on a hunger strike. So you wouldn't have to lock up the food. And you're right. I think that most people whose kid was refusing to eat would be encouraging them to eat, certainly not using food restriction as a punishment. I mean,
00:42:48
Speaker
Hell yeah. Once again, it just makes no sense. So, fast forward. This was a jury trial. The jury only took an hour to deliberate, which is pretty quick and comes back guilty. She was found guilty of life and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for first degree murder. Her parental rights for all children were terminated.
00:43:18
Speaker
And she was also charged and found guilty of first degree child abuse. And I think it said 50 to 100 years, which I don't know if that is just like this.
00:43:31
Speaker
each count. Like, I'm not quite sure what number actually she'll end up with, but it doesn't really matter. Nope, she's not getting out. That's true. And then she was credited 575 days because that's the time she spent in jail during the trial, which again doesn't really matter if you're never getting out.
00:43:50
Speaker
Yeah. Or maybe just for your rap. So when you're in for 20 years, you could be like, but I have 500 saved. Like, I don't know why that would happen. Yeah, I mean, it's just like beating a dead horse kind of a thing, a little overkill. But I mean, I think they just really wanted to make sure that she would have no possibility of ever getting parole. Yeah.
00:44:12
Speaker
Because when you do 25 to life, it's not quite enough. Yeah, and it is important to say that this was an excessive extenuating circumstance because it was longer than the typical guidelines for charges.
00:44:28
Speaker
specifically the child to be charged. And that basically gives the judge that kind of discretion for sentencing, where in very unique circumstances, they do have that professional discretion of being like, you know what? That's just not enough. Like, it's just for what you did, it's not enough.
00:44:50
Speaker
Again, this trial judge I think is great. During the trial and even during the sentencing, he had this super cute little picture of Timothy up smiling, happy, and any of these horrific photos and videos weren't shown in open court because he wanted to preserve the memory of this little boy.
00:45:14
Speaker
He was just, I think he handled it very well, where he's like, you stripped him of everything. You're not gonna strip the image that's about to go national. This is gonna be the picture that everybody sees. This is a smiling boy, and this is who you did this to. Kind of like humanizing who he was. And it was described as a Holocaust victim, is what he looked like. And the fact that like,
00:45:41
Speaker
I think she just basically dehumanized her own son and her brain. And the judge was trying to be like, no, this is a live person. And you're going to feel it if it's the last thing I do. I mean, she really did strip him of everything. I think it's I actually cried a little bit when the judge explained the picture because I thought that was a beautiful message. And I think that
00:46:11
Speaker
it's really important to not think of Timothy as someone who was like some sort of poorly behaved monster. Like Shonda is trying to make him sound like that he somehow deserved all of the things that were happening to him, which is definitely what she's saying is like, well, yeah, I did it. Yeah. I told Paul to abuse him, but I mean, it was justified because of his behavior. Yeah. And like that, and it doesn't, it also, I think we need to talk a little bit
00:46:42
Speaker
about potentially why Timothy would have some bad behavior. And I think that something really, really important that Shonda did strip him of was his medication, because when he was living with his father, he was on multiple medications. And when he moved to Michigan, he had not seen a doctor, he was not on any prescriptions, he went cold turkey off all of his psych meds.
00:47:09
Speaker
And she was saying that he was such a zombie when he was on the medication, but he's unmanageable and uncontrollable without restraints and full-on surveillance equipment otherwise. So she somehow decided that was better. And then she was saying that he would keep them awake all night, but maybe he's awake all night because you took him off all his medication.
00:47:34
Speaker
And you're making him sleep in a closet. So he's not very comfortable. Right. And he was waking them up because she had motion sensors on him. And I, it's, I mean, I, I don't know what the plan was. I have no idea what her motivations were for doing this. And I don't. Do you have a theory? Her motivation? No. I think.
00:48:00
Speaker
So it's hard because I think there's more to, if we knew more about Oklahoma, things would make more sense about motivation because during her
00:48:12
Speaker
like, sentencing, which she declined to speak during, but her other two children that were not involved did speak. So you have Millie, who was one of the middle children, basically said she ignored Timothy and never checked up on him the minute that she left the house, which I think she's feeling a lot of guilt for now.
00:48:38
Speaker
um but then you have Nolan who I would love to not love to hear about it because it's gonna be awful but I think it would be interesting because he made a statement during his um testimony to the court where he thought his mom was better than his childhood so clearly
00:49:07
Speaker
had happened where he... I don't think he ever thought that she would kill someone, but it didn't seem like he was surprised that this is where they were.
00:49:20
Speaker
And you gotta wonder, from the psychopathy, what was her childhood like? What did she go through? Or is it just a wiring? Because clearly Nolan experienced things during his childhood that were traumatic and terrible at the hands of his mother, where this wasn't shocking to him.
00:49:47
Speaker
So that's what I think is. That's a really good point. Is odd. And then you also have Paul, her other son, who's her co-defendant, who he went through his court and he's serving 30 years in prison for basically being the enforcer of the abuse that led to the child's death. He did his mother's bidding. Right.
00:50:15
Speaker
I look at that where, and again in those text messages, for me, I've read it more as like he's being, he's 20, but he's behaving like a defiant teenager and like just wants, is just doing what he's told. So you got to wonder if no one experienced abuse and trauma in his, Paul definitely did, and
00:50:40
Speaker
the eldest so he probably got the most of it for the longest and so conditioned where if it's not happening to me I'm safe if I'm doing it to somebody else where like his abuser made him into an abuser so it's I think there's so much more that just didn't come out because it's just not no way to and there was no need to yeah well I mean I guess there was no need to
00:51:10
Speaker
But I think it's interesting that you say the cycle repeats itself because I'm looking at this is just from Reddit, but it's called the cycle repeats itself. And it's a it's background about Shonda's family, which I wasn't really able to find other places. Yeah, she says herself that she has an older brother that lives in her house in Oklahoma.
00:51:32
Speaker
and that she has two sisters who she hasn't talked to in 20 years. But she does not talk about her parents. She just talks about her in-laws and her brother and her sisters. But apparently, she had spent time in foster care. Her parents lost custody of her when she was, I think, 11 or 12, doesn't say here, 11 or 12. And she was not cared for well in foster care. And apparently, her
00:52:02
Speaker
father had been convicted of sexually abusing a 14-year-old. And there was allegations that he abused her as well. And there are many allegations on many different sources that Shonda's mother went to prison for trying to kill her own mother. Yeah. So there's some history there that led to how you can
00:52:30
Speaker
I'm a firm believer of things cause people to do things and no one is just necessarily wired that way. I think we'll never truly know because if this was a standard court case that just was about a really horrific incident. But I do think something definitely had happened. Do you have a theory on anything?
00:52:59
Speaker
Well, so I have seen other cases where a parent targets just one child in a family to abuse. I mean, that's before I was thinking about Nolan and Paul as victims of abuse as well and probably your daughter too. But it does seem like Timothy was a special project and he got treated much worse than everyone else. Um, and I was looking it up and there's, I think it's called Cinderella.
00:53:27
Speaker
Um, syndrome or Cinderella abuse. It's also called single target. Um, and it's where a parent just, there's something about that child that triggers something in them and they focus all of their abuse on that child. And the result of that is that the other children, instead of defending the sibling being abused,
00:53:49
Speaker
tend to align themselves with the abusive parent because they're recognizing that they're getting treated better and they want to stay on that side. So they become more compliant and more willing to do what you want. So I think for Paul's end, I could understand for sure how that happened. And then I think with Timothy, I think that Shonda herself is pretty neurodivergent.
00:54:15
Speaker
I think that she, I mean, she says that she has sensory processing disorder and OCD, which doesn't make you a neuro divergent necessarily. But I think that she sees her, she saw a lot of herself in Timothy. I think that his struggles irritated her and she didn't believe that he really had all of these problems that he was struggling with because there are many text messages where she's saying that he's faking it basically.
00:54:44
Speaker
like he'd be pretending to be autistic, and she would always reference that he would act like he couldn't hear her. But if he has autism and a sensory processing disorder, it's not like he's just choosing not to listen to you. And I think that she didn't accept his disabilities, and she was just very angry at him for being disabled.
00:55:05
Speaker
And that also makes him an easier target. Once he became her control, all the other kids had the ability, to the best of our knowledge, to eventually say something and speak out.
00:55:20
Speaker
kids who are disabled tend to struggle doing that. So he might not have been able to, particularly if they pulled him out, he might not have had the verbiage or knowledge on how to ask for help or get help or whatever the case is. It's an easier target than your non-disabled. For Sandra is, like you mentioned before, she did put in an appeal last month, actually. So this is very new.
00:55:50
Speaker
Um, because she wants the ability to get custody of her youngest child in the future. Which is so comical to me on so many levels. Like, first of all, who in their right mind is going to give you that child? I'm sorry. No. No. Nobody.
00:56:15
Speaker
And second of all... Of course not. Well, she wants to, even if she remains in... Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, you were right about to say what I was going to say. You're in prison, like, for the rest of your life. What custody could you truly have? Yeah. But also, she wants to retain decision-making for him. She wants to be able to force him to visit her in prison. Yeah. That's really the only thing. Which right now he doesn't want to do. And his grandparents are not forcing him to do.
00:56:45
Speaker
Rightfully so. I wouldn't force my kid or my grandkid to do that either. Of course. Okay, you want to go talk to your super traumatic child? Let that child have peace. Like, this kid's gonna be in so much therapy, it's not even funny. Just let him be. I hope he's in therapy. I mean, the poor child, he lost his brother, he lost his father, and his mother and his other brother are going to prison.
00:57:14
Speaker
or are in prison. There's actually one more thing about Paul, which I feel like we didn't talk about Paul very much, but he doesn't have a lot of his own stuff going on. It really is all Shonda. And then she just kind of... Some people say he's also kind of a psychopath, but I'm not really sure. I agree there's not a ton about him, but I also think he's a product of his mother. I think he did exactly what he was told. Yeah.
00:57:44
Speaker
Yeah. He's engaged now. How would all these prisoners find love? It just shocks me. Yeah. It's kind of like love after lockup. We need to do an episode on that show. We've talked about that show before. It's just... Please. So good. Oh my god, I would love to. I love all the prison shows.
00:58:10
Speaker
So, all right. So wrapping up for Miss Shonda, what are your final thoughts? Final thoughts. Um, she is totally guilty and she ruined a lot of people's lives. And I hope that she is having a terrible time in prison, although I fear she's probably doing pretty well.
00:58:40
Speaker
I don't know. And then I hope I can watch more stuff about Paul's wife. Yeah. I typically like people who torture children. But yeah. That's true. I'll be curious if like Paul does his time and then comes out and like with a documentary in 10 years on talking about like what their childhood actually was like. That'd be really interesting.
00:59:10
Speaker
That would be great. I mean, he mentioned in some of his prison phone calls that HBO has been talking to him about doing a documentary, so I'll definitely watch it. Oh, same. For sure. Well, Miss- I mean, it's probably going to be good. Oh, it's going to be so good. They have a lot coming out. I believe it. Well, I think that's all of my thoughts on her. Definitely.
00:59:36
Speaker
poor Timothy and I'm glad that the justice system put her away because I think she got everything she deserves and there's still things she deserves because Timothy's not here as well. Oh yeah. Actually, I guess that's maybe the only thing I had left to say is like her defense attorney afterwards was interviewed and he said it's the worst case he's ever worked on. It'll haunt him forever and that justice was served. So I don't think he was too broken up about the loss.
01:00:05
Speaker
now and honestly it's kind of funny like defense attorneys get such a bad rap and don't get me wrong some of them are scum but like a lot of them are just doing their job they're like with it i recognize she's a horrible person but i still have to do my job like if it's not me it's someone else like oh totally i mean it's like representing the area it's like what are you gonna do yeah exactly so i sometimes
01:00:30
Speaker
But everybody deserves a defense. Yes, because you're entitled to it. Unfortunately, there are people in the prison system that are actually innocent, and I will recognize that. The majority are not. Totally. And there's no question Shonda is guilty of everything she was charged plus some. Well, thank you for chatting with me tonight. Crystal, I have one more question for you. Oh, yes. I'm sorry. I just thought of one more thing.
01:01:00
Speaker
Just one more thing. You said that you didn't think Eric Ferguson is legally responsible for, or I don't want to put words in your mouth. Do you think Eric Ferguson, Timothy's father, should be charged in relation to his death? Charged? No, but I do think he is somewhat morally responsible for it.
01:01:26
Speaker
Um, just because when it comes to criminal charges, I struggle with the idea of what he actually did criminally because him giving their child to the biological mother, he had no, unless he knew and like they talked about like, Hey, I'm going to like neglect our son. Like.
01:01:53
Speaker
It's just negligence, but negligence isn't necessarily a criminal action unless he himself does something. I think morally he probably knew his ex-wife was a bad person and he probably shouldn't have done it, but I don't know criminally how he would be held responsible personally. What do you think? So I think in my opinion, in my opinion,
01:02:22
Speaker
I think that it was child neglect on his end because he had full legal custody of Timothy. And when you have full legal custody of someone, it is your responsibility to make sure that they are in a safe environment. In fact, you are supposed to provide the environment, but there was a court order preventing Shonda from having custody.
01:02:44
Speaker
due to allegations of child abuse, she gave over her parental rights. So now Eric is the only one with parental rights and he is not supervising this child. He does not appear to be checking in on this child. And he is not ensuring his safety in any way. And I do think that he neglected him. Yeah. And that if he had played any sort of role, he would have known.
01:03:09
Speaker
There are some states, and I'm not familiar with Michigan or Oklahoma, that in order to get custody back, the other parent... Can you not hear me anymore? No, I do now. Sorry. It just, it said that you were having connectivity issues. And it was orange instead of green.
01:03:36
Speaker
I'm actually going to have to listen to this entire episode. I'm so sorry. To edit it, I mean. No, it's okay. It's fine. It's fine. I think we can probably wrap up here. I hope we don't have to rerecord any of these segments. I don't know. I'm going to try to do this tomorrow.
01:03:58
Speaker
I hope that we won't have to. I think it'll be fine. I think I can make some creative edits. All right. Well, you let me know. I'm back on Sunday afternoon. It'll be fine. If we need to. OK. OK. I think we should maybe just quit while we're ahead here, though. Yeah. I think it was pretty good when we actually got to talk without being interrupted, but it just. Yeah, I agree. It's connectivity issues and robot sounds.
01:04:24
Speaker
I can't hear you. I hope you have a really good night. Have a great night. It was good chat.