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[music playing] NARRATOR: Four-month-old
Ryan Stallings had spent an entire weekend vomiting.
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When he also developed
breathing problems, his mother decided
to take him to St.
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Louis Children's Hospital. [music playing, baby crying] Somewhere along the way,
Patricia Stallings made
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the wrong turn and got lost. It was a mistake she'll regret
for the rest of her life.
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[music playing] Patricia and David Stallings had
been married for about a year and had recently
moved into a home
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overlooking Lake Wauwanoka just
outside of St. Louis, Missouri. David was a printer.
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Patricia worked in
a convenience store. Four-month-old Ryan
was their only child
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and had always been sickly. After an entire weekend
of vomiting and breathing problems, Patricia decided
to take the baby to St.
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Louis Children's Hospital. During the trip, Patricia
got lost and ended up at the emergency room
of Cardinal Glennon
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Children's Hospital instead. Doctors there perform
tests to understand what was causing Ryan's illness.
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He was listless,
almost comatose, and continued to vomit. Nurse, let's get
that blood right away.
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NARRATOR: He was given a
complete medical examination, including blood and urine tests.
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Ryan's blood samples
were sent for testing to an outside, independent
lab, the SmithKline Beecham
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Clinical Lab in St. Louis. Gas chromatography on
Ryan's blood sample found the cause of
the child's illness.
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It was ethylene
glycol poisoning. Ethylene glycol is a colorless,
sweet-tasting substance
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found in industrial
solvents and resins. It can be fatal in
large enough doses. Hospital officials
notified both the sheriff's
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department and the Missouri
Department of Family Services. I'll take the basement.
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NARRATOR: Investigators
searched the Stallings' home. In the basement, they found
two containers of antifreeze
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under a pool table. One of the containers
was half empty, and it listed ethylene glycol
as the main ingredient.
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You cannot form ethylene
glycol in your body. The body can
naturally form that. Therefore, it has
to be ingested.
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And when you've
got a child who's four months old, a child
who's four months old
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doesn't have the capability
of ingesting anything, therefore, it had to be
purposefully ingested.
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NARRATOR: Fortunately, Ryan's
condition gradually improved. When he was released
from the hospital,
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he was not returned
to his parents. Instead, the Department
of Family Services placed Ryan in foster
care until they
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completed their investigation. And that investigation revealed
some troubling information.
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They discovered that Patricia
Stallings was the mother of another child, a
five year old son who
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was in her sister's
custody because of allegations of child abuse. He was born out of
wedlock when she was young.
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Subsequent to his birth,
he was taken away from her by the state when
they discovered
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that he was in the first stages
of frostbite and malnutrition. Now, Patricia's explanation
to me at the time
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was that, you know, the reason
that he was in that state was because she was
in a similar state
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because she didn't have any
money, any place to live. NARRATOR: While Ryan
was in foster care,
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Patricia was only permitted
to visit him once a week under the supervision of the
Department of Family Services,
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or DFS. A few days after her
sixth parental visit, Ryan got sick once again
and was taken to Cardinal
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Glennon Children's Hospital. This time, the lab
found even higher levels of ethylene glycol in
Ryan's blood, 911 milligrams
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per milliliter of blood serum. Ryan's blood was also
sent to the toxicology lab
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at the University of St. Louis. They performed
another test called mass spectrometry that found
the same thing, ethylene
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glycol in Ryan's blood. Although the baby bottle
Patricia used to feed Ryan during her supervised visit
had been washed and refilled,
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tests on that bottle found trace
amounts of ethylene glycol. And prosecutors learned
that the individual assigned
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to stand guard during
Patricia's visit with Ryan inexplicably left the
room for a short time
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against instructions. Prosecutors suspected
that Patricia had poisoned Ryan again after
the supervisor left the room.
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We went over in detail talking
to every person that was there in the room, every movement
that was in the room,
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what things were
brought into the room, the bottle seized
from the visit, again,
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tested positive for
ethylene glycol. NARRATOR: Patricia
Stallings was arrested and charged with assault. Is
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That the ethanol drip? Yes, it is. Get that in right away. NARRATOR: When Ryan was
diagnosed with ethylene glycol
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poisoning, his treatment
included both fasting and ethanol given intravenously
to counteract the effects
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of the ethylene glycol. One week later,
Ryan Stallings died. The charge against Patricia
Stallings was now murder.
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When four-month-old
Ryan Stallings died, a social worker from Cardinal
Glennon Children's Hospital
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called Patricia
Stallings in prison to inform her of
her son's death. I don't care about that.
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Put David on the phone. I want to get out
of this hellhole. NARRATOR: Patricia's
response raised suspicions.
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When you put those kinds of
statements and the reactions and all the things and the
circumstantial evidence
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together with the science, it
only pointed to one person. NARRATOR: Laboratory
tests revealed
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large amounts of ethylene
glycol in Ryan's blood. Ethylene glycol is the main
ingredient in antifreeze.
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Scientists also found trace
amounts of ethylene glycol in the baby bottle Patricia
Stallings used to feed
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Ryan during her last visit. Three months later, while
still in prison awaiting trial,
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Patricia Stallings learned
some surprising news. She was pregnant. During her pregnancy, Patricia
became friends with prison
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guard Patty Matthews. She was very depressed
most of the time. You know, she'd
been through a lot.
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And it was just a-- an amazing emotional strain
that she was going through. NARRATOR: Five months
after Ryan's death,
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Patricia Stallings gave
birth to David Stallings Jr. in a hospital near the prison.
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Patricia and David
nicknamed him DJ. When DJ was just
a few weeks old, he had an episode of vomiting,
seizures, and breathing
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problems while in foster care. DJ was rushed to St.
Louis Children's Hospital.
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Ironically, it was the hospital
Patricia planned to take Ryan to before she got lost.
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Doctors diagnosed DJ with a
very rare metabolic disorder called methylmalonic
acidemia, or MMA, which
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inhibits the body's
ability to process food, especially proteins. It also produces
toxins in the blood.
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To prosecutors, it was
a startling development. They wondered if
Ryan Stallings might
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have died of the
same disease instead of ethylene glycol poisoning. We went back to square one.
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Met again with all the
doctors and said, look, something's not right here. And matter of fact,
released her from custody
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at that point on a
recongizance bond, which is unheard of in a murder case. NARRATOR: But the prosecution's
medical experts did not
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believe that Ryan died of MMA. His blood had been tested at
two independent laboratories.
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Both found ethylene
glycol in Ryan's system. And the autopsy revealed
calcium oxalate crystals
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in Ryan's brain, consistent
with ethylene glycol poisoning. Tests on Ryan's baby bottle
also found trace amounts
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of ethylene glycol. Everyone was saying there was
ethylene glycol in the body. Tests from different
laboratories showed that.
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And everyone agreed
that if there's ethylene glycol in
the body, it wasn't
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MMA that killed the child. NARRATOR: So the murder case
against Patricia Stallings
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went to trial. Prosecutors were seeking
the death penalty. Despite the genetic
illness diagnosed in DJ,
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Patricia Stallings'
defense attorney could not produce one medical
expert to testify
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that it was MMA and not
antifreeze poisoning that caused Ryan's death. I put on my witnesses, all
of them said ethylene glycol,
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all of them said it
had to be ingested, all the evidence pointed
toward Patty Stallings.
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If somebody fed the
baby antifreeze, it must have been her. NARRATOR: The jury
also heard what
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Patricia Stallings said
to the social worker when informed of Ryan's death. Patricia Stallings was
found guilty of murder
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in the first degree and was
sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.
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Her husband, David, collapsed in
shock after hearing the verdict and was rushed to the hospital.
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She was just devastated. She was very upset. She was crying. We talked for a little while.
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There wasn't a
whole lot of comfort I could offer at that point. NARRATOR: Although the jury
had reached its verdict
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beyond a reasonable doubt,
two local scientists had doubts of their own. Although Patricia Stallings was
found guilty of the poisoning
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death of her son
Ryan with antifreeze, not everyone was convinced. Dr. William Sly and
Dr. James Shoemaker
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wondered whether the lab
tests done by their colleagues and by the SmithKline
Beecham lab were accurate.
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JAMES SHOEMAKER: It was
only when I found out that no one had really
thoroughly explored the science
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behind the ethylene
glycol testing that I became convinced
that I had to do it myself.
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NARRATOR: First,
Dr. Shoemaker turned his attention to the
gas chromatography used to test Ryan's blood.
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In gas chromatography, the
sample is vaporized and sent down a tube with an inert gas.
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Each compound settles in the
tube at a different rate, which is called the retention time.
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Those retention times are
then charted on a graph. A reference library
of retention times
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is then consulted in order
to identify any compounds found in the blood. Medical experts who testified
against Patricia Stallings
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said that the peak on the
graph of Ryan's blood serum appeared at a retention
time that matched
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that of ethylene glycol. Dr. Shoemaker retested
Ryan's blood samples and analyzed the
retention times.
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He didn't find ethylene glycol. He found something else. There was a compound that
was very highly elevated
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in the serum, compound
called propionic acid, that comes off very close, but
not identically with ethylene
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glycol. And he and I speculated
that that might be the-- the basis of a
misidentification that
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led to the incorrect diagnosis
of ethylene glycol poisoning. NARRATOR: Proprionic acid is
often produced in patients who
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have MMA, the rare
genetic illness diagnosed in Ryan's brother, DJ. The only difference between
propionic acid and ethylene
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glycol is a few carbon atoms. To find out if other labs
were capable of misreading
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propionic acid as
ethylene glycol, Dr. shoemaker sent blood samples
spiked with propionic acid
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to seven different laboratories. Sure enough, three out
of the seven laboratories
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that we tested came back with
positive results for ethylene glycol when we knew the
only thing in those samples
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was propionic acid. NARRATOR: When Dr. Shoemaker
examined the graph shown to the jury during
Patricia Stallings' trial,
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one showing the ethylene
glycol found in Ryan's blood, and next to it, a
graph of a known
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sample of ethylene glycol,
he discovered a huge mistake. But the tragic thing is that
no one bothered to actually
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superimpose the two like this. And when you look
at it very closely and line up the
injection point here
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and the internal standard
here, the two pigs are actually quite different. And you move them up
here so you can see,
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they don't come out at
the same time at all. The retention times are
actually very different.
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NARRATOR: Dr.
Shoemaker suspected that Ryan Stallings died
of MMA and had not been
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poisoned with ethylene glycol. But Dr. Shoemaker was a
junior member of the faculty
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at the time and knew
that his conclusions would be challenged by experts. When prosecutors learned
about these new test results,
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they were stunned. Was it possible that
Patricia Stallings had been convicted of a
murder that never happened?
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The Stallings hired
attorney Robert Ritter to handle their appeal. He immediately
requested a new trial,
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arguing that Patricia Stallings'
first lawyer had not mounted a proper scientific defense.
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After several
hours of discussion, I came away convinced that
Patty did not poison her child
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and that a horrible
injustice had resulted here. NARRATOR: When prosecutors heard
the new test results from St.
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Louis University,
even they agreed that this new
medical information raised serious questions.
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Once we were well aware that
there were actually doctors out there prepared to say that,
that, obviously, didn't testify
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at trial, may have made a
difference at the trial, and we agreed to a new trial,
and we didn't have to do that.
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NARRATOR: But
prosecutors had two independent laboratories
that found ethylene glycol in Ryan's blood.
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Traces of ethylene glycol
were found in the baby bottle. And the autopsy report
found oxalate crystals
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in Ryan's brain, a finding
consistent with ethylene glycol poisoning. To sort through the
scientific inconsistencies,
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prosecutors sought
an outside expert. At Yale University,
they found Dr. Piero Ronaldo, one of the
world's leading experts
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in metabolic diseases. He reviewed the
scientific data that formed the basis for the case
against Patricia Stallings.
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I received all
the raw material, all the data from the labs
where the tests were done.
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That was really the exceptional
moment for me in this story because I couldn't
believe how low
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was the quality
of analytical work done in the commercial lab. NARRATOR: Dr. Ronaldo called
the lab reports garbage.
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He agreed with Dr.
Shoemaker and Sly that the gas chromatography
peak shown to the jury as that
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of ethylene glycol was
not ethylene glycol at all and did not match the graph
depicting the known sample
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of ethylene glycol. The retention time
of the peak in question was 33 seconds later, which,
in gas chromatography,
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is an enormous difference. It's-- it's really huge. NARRATOR: And when
Dr. Ronaldo reviewed
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the mass spectrometry results,
he found a similar error. The spike in Ryan's blood
identified as ethylene glycol
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did not match the known sample. That really blew me
away because, especially in a case where, obviously,
with legal implications,
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it must be perfect match. This was not even close. It was, again, absolutely
strikingly obvious evidence
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that there was no match. NARRATOR: Dr.
Ronaldo immediately presented his
findings to prosecutor
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George McElroy the next day,
McElroy held a news conference. State of Missouri is
dismissing all pending charges
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against Patricia Stallings
based upon the death of her child, Ryan. And I'm satisfied, I'm convinced
that Patricia Stallings
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did not poison her child. NARRATOR: Dr. Ronaldo
believes that Ryan Stallings died of MMA, the
same genetic illness
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his brother DJ was born with. Is that the ethanol drip? Yes, it is. Let's get that in right away.
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NARRATOR: He also believes that
the inaccurate lab reports led doctors to administer
the wrong treatment,
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the ethanol drip, which possibly
contributed to Ryan's death. The ethanol drip was also the
suspected cause of the calcium
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oxalate crystals found during
Ryan's autopsy and not ethylene glycol. Scientists also suspect that the
process of washing Ryan's baby
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bottle caused the false
readings of ethylene glycol when the bottle was tested. The conviction of Patricia
Stallings had been a mistake.
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Oh, wow, if DJ
hadn't been born, Patty Stallings would be in
jail for the rest of her life
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without parole and
no one would ever have raised a second question. I think DJ--
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DJ's birth is what
saved her because it-- the first child's diagnosis
would never have been made.
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I can understand a person
who's been through all that she went through finding the--
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an apology pretty lacking. But as I told her, I-- I had a job to do. I had the evidence before me
that I felt gave me no choice.
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NARRATOR: Patricia
Stallings filed lawsuits against the hospitals,
doctors, and laboratories
00:20:15
that had misdiagnosed Ryan. All were settled
before going to trial. Their son, DJ, who by
being born with MMA,
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led scientists to the real
killer of his brother, Ryan, is managing his disease
with a special diet
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and other treatments. It is strange that such
a small mistake on paper could make such a huge change
in the lives of people.
00:20:42
But in this case, you can
see that a few millimeters of difference in where a peek
appeared on a sheet of paper
00:20:51
made all the difference
in a woman's life. The science was the
strongest evidence
00:20:57
and was what ultimately
convicted her, but it was also what
ultimately freed her.
00:21:03
[music playing]