A Mother's Deception
- Gina Westfall
- Apr 3
- 5 min read
A Mother’s Deception
A mother’s job is to protect and nurture her child at all costs. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs includes water, sleep, food, shelter, clothing, breathing, and homeostasis as the most basic needs. However, the next level of basic needs includes safety and security. Children rely on their parents for safety and security. What happens when a mother deceives their child in such a way that they destroy their sense of safety and security? This is the story of a little girl named Hannah and the hell her mother put her through.
Hannah was born to Teresa and Robert Milbrant on August 25th, 1995. The proud parents made her birth announcement in the local newspaper in Urbana, Ohio, announcing her height, 21.5 inches, and weight, 8 lbs. 6 oz. Hannah was the youngest child, welcomed home by five half-sisters and one-half brother. Her father was the primary breadwinner, making her mother the primary caretaker for the children.
Hannah described her mother as portraying herself very differently in public verses in private on the show Evil Lives Here (Season 18 Episode 3). In public, Teresa would be very loving and portrayed herself as a loving and involved mother. Behind closed doors, however, she would be very uncaring, uninvolved, and sometimes angry and abusive. Not only was she relatively detached from her children, but she was also prone to fits of rage. Hannah described walking on eggshells around her mother. Hannah was always relieved when her father came home from work. He was her safe person.
Around the age of five, Hannah started to notice changes in her mother and the way she cared for her. Her mom became more attentive and caring, which she enjoyed. Once, she got sick with what she described as a cold or flu. She went to the doctor’s office and remembered coming home to a family meeting. Her mother had called her father and grandparents. While they were all sitting around the kitchen table, she recalled her mother telling her family members that the little girl had leukemia. She didn’t know what that meant at the time, but she knew it was bad.
Her father pulled her aside and answered her questions. She asked if she was going to die and her father told her no. Her father assured her that they would fight the disease and she would be okay. Hannah always felt that her father was her strength and hope in the chaotic world of her childhood.
After her diagnosis, Teresa began taking Hannah to visits for treatment. Because Hannah had anxiety about the hospital, Teresa explained that she would give her a pill before going to make things easier. Hannah recalls taking a blue pill before leaving the house for each visit. She had no memory of being at the hospital or any of the treatments. She would just wake up groggy later. Her mother told her about the treatments.
Hannah remembered the day she woke up with no hair. She was in shock. She had expected it to fall out in chunks, not all at one time. Her mother explained to her that it was an expected side effect of her chemotherapy. Hannah was just a small child and figured her mother knew what she was talking about. She didn’t dare argue with Teresa. Hannah had bandages on her chest and back that covered what Teresa told everyone were ports for her chemotherapy. Hannah also wore a mask to protect her from infection.
The community rallied around Hannah and her family. The police department had put buckets at many local businesses by the cash register to collect money for the little girl. Hannah recalls seeing her picture on the cans. There was a spaghetti dinner benefit as well. Several fund raisers and generous donations were made. Teresa and Robert accepted a total of approximately $31,000 to cover Hannah’s medical expenses.
After six months of care, Teresa told her family and her seven-year-old child that the treatment was not working. She told the family that Hannah was dying. She even had Hannah start seeing a therapist to help her cope with her upcoming death.
Some people in the community were starting to get suspicious of the situation, however. Hannah’s teachers noticed that Hannah had lots of energy, and aside from her bandages and hair didn’t seem any different from her peers. She certainly didn’t appear sick. Robert had started asking questions to his wife as well. Once, Hannah fell and split her head open. She needed stitches, so he rushed her to the emergency room. He explained that she had leukemia and was getting care at the hospital. They informed Robert they had no record of her there.
An organization granted Hannah a wish, a trip to Disney World, but ran into a problem when they tried to verify her illness with the hospital. That is when the truth came out. Hannah had never had leukemia. She had never been treated for leukemia. Teresa had made the entire thing up. When she was taking Hannah for treatment, she was simply giving her sleeping pills and shaving her head.
Because Robert knew about the scheme for at least a month before Teresa’s arrest and did not notify authorities, he was arrested along with his wife. Hannah was put into foster care for a while before being placed with relatives. She was relieved to know that she was not dying. The mental torture her mother put her through by making her believe she was terminally ill damaged her psyche in unimaginable ways.
Teresa Milbrant was sentenced to six years in prison and forced to pay restitution. Robert was sentenced to five years and forced to pay restitution. Hannah has moved on with her life and still has a great relationship with her father. She believes her father was innocent in the situation, yet another victim of her mother’s betrayal. He is currently involved in her life and a grandfather to her children. She does not have a relationship with Teresa, whom she does not refer to as mom.
Teresa was released in 2010 but was sent back to prison after pleading guilty to an unrelated charge of forging a prescription to obtain narcotics along with another of her daughters. She served an additional ten months in prison and has since been released again. Formerly referred to a Munchausen’s Disorder by Proxy, making someone else ill is known as Factitious Disorder and is often thought to be a psychological disorder in which a person seeks attention.
REFERENCES
Evil Lives Here Season 18 Episode 3: “Mom Said I Was Dying”
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