Jack Barron: The Munchausen by Proxy Dad

[00:00:08] Hey everyone, my name is Nikki Young and this is Serial Napper, an international true crime podcast. I'm back with another true crime story to lull you to sleep or perhaps to give you nightmares. Lately there's been a ton of chatter in the true crime community about Gypsy Rose

[00:00:36] Blanchard, the victim of one of the most infamous cases of Munchausen by Proxy. Gypsy was medically abused by her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, for the vast majority of her life up until the point

[00:00:50] that Gypsy, along with her boyfriend at the time, murdered Dee Dee to get away. When all of that came to light back in 2015, many people learned for the first time what Munchausen by Proxy is.

[00:01:03] Known as a type of factitious disorder, it's incredibly rare and it involves the individual deliberately acting as if they or someone that they know or care for is sick. They thrive on the sympathy and the attention that they receive in return. Although the most well-known case of

[00:01:22] Munchausen syndrome involves a woman, according to WebMD, it's actually much more common for men to have the disorder. Tonight we're talking about Jack Barron, the first man recorded to be suffering from Munchausen by Proxy. Jack loved the attention he received after his wife mysteriously died so

[00:01:43] much that he desperately needed more. When his four-year-old son died just a few months later, the community thought that he must be the most unluckiest man alive. They rallied around him, showing him nothing but love and support. But when Jack's young daughter also suddenly passed away,

[00:02:05] the police decided it was time to take a closer look. You won't believe the final act that Jack took that would break this case wide open. So let's jump right in. Jack Barron was born in 1961

[00:02:20] to his parents Elmore and Roberta Barron. Growing up in Orange County, California, he was described as a bit of a mama's boy. His father worked really long hours outside of the family home

[00:02:32] as a railway engineer, so he spent the vast majority of his time with his mom, Roberta. While Jack's father was the disciplinarian, his mother coddled him, so it's no wonder why he was so much closer to her. Jack's relationship with his father further deteriorated when he abandoned

[00:02:52] their family for a woman he was having an affair with. Jack was devastated, his family was destroyed, and the only male role model in his life deserted him. Elmore and Roberta would ultimately divorce

[00:03:06] when Jack was a young teenager, and Roberta would retain full custody, raising him as a single mother. The mother and son would move to Sacramento, where Roberta was originally from, so

[00:03:18] she had family that she could rely on to help raise her son all by herself. The move meant that Jack didn't get to see his father as much as he'd like to, instead spending even more time with his

[00:03:31] mom. Unfortunately, they developed this codependent mother-son relationship, and in Roberta's eyes, Jack could do no wrong. Roberta found a job working at a local grocery store, and this is where she would meet her new partner, Bob Butler. Roberta and Bob planned to move in together and get married,

[00:03:54] which would have put a wedge between Roberta and her son, Jack. Jack liked his stepdad pretty well, but it meant that his mom now had to split her time between her son and her new husband. Nothing

[00:04:09] would ever be like it was before. The new family moved to Port Costa, where Jack graduated from high school and began working a new job for the railways, just like his dad did, but unfortunately, it didn't

[00:04:22] last long. Jack was injured while on the job, suffering from a knee injury which prevented him from carrying out his duties. In 1986, he left the railways and filed for disability while taking a

[00:04:36] lesser-paying job in retail. That same year, Jack would meet Irene Padgett. Irene was a few years older than Jack. A mutual friend would introduce the couple, and they hit it off immediately. Irene has been described as a very sweet woman who was absolutely beautiful in looks. Born in 1957

[00:04:58] in Reno, Irene came from a large and loving family. She spent much of her childhood living in Germany. Her father worked in the Air Force. She returned to the United States with her family in 1964,

[00:05:12] where she finished high school in Fallbrook, California, which is located just north of San Diego. Irene grew into a tall, stunning young woman with light brown hair and blue eyes. There was no shortage of suitors interested in dating her, and in 1976 at just 19 years old, she married

[00:05:32] her first husband. The union only lasted a few years before Irene decided that she wanted more out of life. They divorced, and Irene decided to move to Sacramento with her best friend Denise

[00:05:46] for a fresh start where she worked as an office receptionist. This is where Irene and Jack Barron's two worlds would collide. Jack and Irene were set up by a mutual friend who was playing matchmaker.

[00:05:59] Jack really liked that Irene came from this big, close-knit family that was vastly different than his own. He had always wanted that kind of upbringing, but unfortunately it wasn't to be. Jack and Irene were inseparable from the beginning, and they would get married in 1988,

[00:06:19] just two years after they first began dating. From the outside, it appeared to be a match made in heaven. Jack's family loved Irene. She was everything that they could ever want in a daughter-in-law. She was beautiful, ambitious, and just a really genuinely sweet person. On the other hand,

[00:06:39] Irene's family, they weren't too sure about Jack. He was younger than Irene, and it really showed in his childish behavior. But because they loved Irene, they supported her decisions, and they accepted Jack Barron into the family. The couple purchased a beautiful three-bedroom home

[00:06:59] which was located in a new residential community in Sacramento. It was perfect for starting a family. Jack was working part-time as a stock clerk at the local supermarket, so money was definitely tight.

[00:07:13] He worked the night shift, which he really enjoyed, though many wondered how they were able to purchase such a large home on a limited income. And it is alleged that Jack's mother, Roberta, she helped them substantially with the down payment. Shortly after exchanging vows on January 8, 1989,

[00:07:33] Irene gave birth to their first child, a son named Jeremy. Jeremy was very much a planned and wanted child, but finances became even more of a struggle with Jack making very little money at his part-time

[00:07:48] job. To help bring in a bit more money into the house, Irene opened a home daycare. She would be able to care for little Jeremy as well as other kids in the neighborhood. This allowed her to stay

[00:08:01] home to raise Jeremy and still earn an income. Yet, things were tense. Not only were Jack and Irene struggling to keep up with the bills, but Irene was now having difficulty with her new mother-in-law.

[00:08:15] Rumor has it, Roberta did not respect their marital home or any of their boundaries. She would show up unannounced and walk right inside without being invited, even going as far as to rearrange the

[00:08:29] furniture if she didn't like the placement. There were multiple instances where Irene had to beg her husband to have a conversation with his mom. Things were different now that he was married and

[00:08:42] had his own family. She'd have to take a backseat to Irene, something that she didn't really like. But she got over it. A year after Jeremy was born, Jack and Irene would have their second child,

[00:08:56] a little girl who they named Ashley. Their family was now complete. It should have been a really happy time for the Barron family, but there was trouble brewing behind closed doors. Jack was said

[00:09:11] to be incredibly vain. He was this tall, muscular man, much bigger than Irene, and those who knew him claimed that he spent much of his time admiring his looks in the mirror. He was always

[00:09:24] primping, fixing himself, ensuring that he looked perfect, all the while his wife Irene was holding down the fort with the kids. Jack was also said to be very controlling. Once he married Irene,

[00:09:38] she lost her independence according to her friends. And to top it off, Jack had a terrible temperament. Jack liked his house to be meticulously clean, and if Irene wasn't on top of it,

[00:09:52] there were arguments. In addition to caring for their two children and the other kids in her home daycare, she had to ensure that their house looked like a museum, not a speck of dirt or dust to be

[00:10:05] seen. And it wasn't just the house that had to be spotless. He didn't like it when the children got dirty either, and good luck keeping toddlers clean. Irene's best friend Denise would call

[00:10:17] an occasion when she was watching their two children, Jeremy and Ashley, and Jack had a total meltdown because his son was wet from playing in the water. She would say, quote, one day Jack arrived at our house and saw Jeremy playing with the water hose in the backyard.

[00:10:35] Jack got angry. After that, every time Jeremy and Ashley came over, we would let them play with the hose, but we would make sure they were cleaned up before Jack got home. Things became really rocky

[00:10:49] in the Barron family in 1992. It's alleged that Jack began an affair with a co-worker. Irene suspected this to be the case, especially after he went away for a weekend and she couldn't

[00:11:01] get in touch with him, but she couldn't prove it. When she confronted Jack, he denied the affair. He completely gaslit her, telling her that it was all in her imagination. He said he wanted to

[00:11:15] get a divorce, but not because there was another woman in his life, but because she was a terrible housewife. Just a vicious thing to say. While he continued to bring up a divorce to Irene,

[00:11:28] he told others that he'd never actually leave his wife. Allegedly, he told one of his friends, quote, I'd do away with her first. A really disturbing claim to make, particularly because just a few

[00:11:42] weeks later, Irene would be found dead. On June 8th, 1992, a woman by the name of Christina Hamilton arrived at the Barron household to drop her daughter off for daycare at around 7am. She knocked on the door and there was no answer. Christina had been taking her daughter to

[00:12:03] Irene's home daycare for some time now, so she knew that this was really odd for her to not be there during the work week. Christina had to get to work, so she asked another neighbor if she could

[00:12:16] watch her daughter for the day, but while she was at work, Christina continued to have this sort of sickening feeling in her stomach. She couldn't shake the idea that something might be wrong,

[00:12:28] so she decided to go back to the Barron house again. It was around 8am when Christina knocked on the front door, but again, there was no answer. This time, she decided to walk around

[00:12:40] to the side and peek into the window, and she saw little 3-year-old Jeremy inside the home. She was able to coax him into unlocking the sliding glass door at the back of the house

[00:12:52] and let her in. When she entered the home, she found Jeremy and his little sister alone. Jeremy told her that he couldn't wake mommy up. I've been trying to drink more water lately, but it gets boring after a while,

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[00:15:03] That's 310nutrition.com and use the code NAPPER. I'll also have the details in my show notes. Christina followed Jeremy to the master bedroom where she found Irene lying on the floor still

[00:15:17] in her pajamas, a pink nightgown and fluffy pink slippers. Most strangely, she had a pillow on her face. Irene was unconscious and didn't appear to be breathing. Christina told little Jeremy and Ashley to go to their rooms, as she called emergency services, and attempted to perform CPR,

[00:15:39] but it was far too late. Irene was clearly deceased and she had been for some time. First to arrive on the scene were the paramedics, but there was nothing that they could do for Irene. When the

[00:15:52] police arrived, Christina told them about the pillow that she had removed from Irene's face. It was a strange scene. Irene was a healthy 34-year-old woman, so how did this happen? I've read in some reports that there wasn't any obvious evidence of foul play, like signs of

[00:16:11] strangulation or a gunshot wound, but to me, a pillow over a young woman's face? That's a pretty clear sign that there may be foul play involved, but I digress. There were no signs of a break-in.

[00:16:25] All of the doors had been locked, besides the back door that Jeremy unlocked for Christina. Nothing appeared to be missing from the home or taken, and there wasn't any signs of a struggle.

[00:16:36] Jack Barron arrived at his home at around 9.30am that morning to find the police and ambulance parked in front of his house. Officers told him that his wife was dead, and Christina remembered

[00:16:48] that she had to hold him up because he nearly collapsed right in the middle of the street. He was crying, attempting to go inside the house to see his wife, but the officers prevented him.

[00:17:01] Jack relayed that he had been working the night shift at the grocery store, as he often did. He left for work at around 11pm the night prior, and his wife seemed to be perfectly fine the last

[00:17:13] time that he saw her. But now that they mentioned it, he did remember Irene had a few headaches in recent days and a cough. He had even noticed at one point that her speech was slurred. Investigators

[00:17:27] weren't really sure how they should handle Irene's death, whether this was a case of natural causes or a murder. They called in the on-duty forensic pathologist to have a look at her body,

[00:17:40] which was almost completely rigid at this point. They noticed a pillow lying on the bed that had blood on it, and then there were two other pillows on the ground beside Irene's body.

[00:17:52] One of these pillows on the ground had black streaks on it, which could have been from Irene's makeup, but she didn't appear to be wearing any. The thought was that Irene may have

[00:18:04] used the pillow to cover her own face during one of these headaches, which is actually really common. Her body was taken for an autopsy, and in the report, it would be noted that there were no

[00:18:14] physical injuries to Irene's body other than a small bruise on the back of her right calf. Her time of death was as early as 7 30 p.m., the night before she was found. Jack stated that he

[00:18:28] had seen her alive when he left for work at around 11 p.m., so it was believed she had likely died shortly after that. Ultimately, the pathologist was unable to determine if Irene was killed

[00:18:40] or if she had died of natural causes. The generally accepted theory was that she was ill, suffering from horrible headaches, and she had laid down with a pillow over her face when she died.

[00:18:54] It was so tragic, as this loving mother of two was just 34 years old. The community rallied around Jack, who appeared to be this devastated, grieving husband. Friends and family would cook and deliver meals for him, they would babysit the kids, while others gave him money.

[00:19:15] Irene's daycare income had greatly supported the family, so they thought that they really needed to help out Jack, who was only working part-time at the grocery store. And there wasn't much in terms of life insurance, so Jack only received about $15k. Overall, people just felt terrible

[00:19:32] for Jack, for losing his wife so young and now having to raise two little ones all by himself. Well, those feelings kind of began to change when Jack announced just a month later that his

[00:19:46] co-worker, a woman by the name of Starla Hayes, was moving into the home. At first, he denied that he and Starla had any sort of romantic relationship. Instead, he said that she was having marital

[00:19:59] problems and just needed a place to stay with her two children, who were 6 and 8 years old at the time. He could also use the help caring for his own children, so he said that it was an arrangement

[00:20:10] that kind of worked out for the both of them. Starla just so happened to be the co-worker that Irene thought Jack was having an affair with before she died. She never did get confirmation

[00:20:21] before she passed away, but after the funeral, family members found a letter that Irene had written but had never given to Jack, and it said, I'm really sorry you're unhappy right now. I have

[00:20:33] a hard time believing the only reason for this is my inability to keep the house exactly the way you like it. You obviously don't want to talk to me about it, and that really scares me. It really

[00:20:45] upsets me when I hear you talk about divorce. I can't believe you are really serious about that. If you are, then you had me and everyone fooled for a long time. As it turns out, Irene was right.

[00:20:59] Jack and Starla had been having an affair, and now they were playing family in the barren home with their combined four children. But it wasn't happily ever after, not by a long shot. Shortly

[00:21:13] after moving in, tempers flared and Jack and Starla began to argue constantly. Much of their conflict had to do with Jack's anger issues and how he treated the children, Starla's and his own.

[00:21:27] Starla would recall one occasion when little Jeremy was upset and he was crying for his deceased mother's comfort. I can't imagine, it is so sad. But allegedly Jack snapped back at him and said,

[00:21:40] if you don't shut up, I'll send you to where mommy is. Ominous words, because about a week after Starla decided to move out of the barren home with her children, Jack's four-year-old son, Jeremy, stopped breathing in his sleep. Now that Starla was no longer living in the home,

[00:21:58] Jack hired a babysitter so that he could continue working night shifts at the grocery store. On February 7th, 1993, Jack went to work and a babysitter sat at the barren house while Jeremy and Ashley slept in their bedrooms. In the morning, Jack returned and then went to sleep in

[00:22:16] his room while the babysitter went to wake the children up for the day. The babysitter would find Jeremy unresponsive in his bed. She ran to Jack and begged for him to help, but according to her,

[00:22:30] he said, don't bother, it's too late anyway. When paramedics arrived, they found an eerily similar situation to the one that they had found when they attended Irene's death. Jeremy Barron had mysteriously died in his sleep. Investigators were just as puzzled this time. Jeremy was a very

[00:22:50] happy, healthy little four-year-old boy, so how did this happen? There weren't any apparent injuries other than a small red mark on his face. It would take the coroner's office about six months to come

[00:23:03] to some sort of a conclusion that Jeremy's cause of death could not be determined. Obviously, no answers are not what anyone wants to hear, especially when a child dies in their sleep. Again, the community was shocked, but some friends and family members were growing a little suspicious.

[00:23:22] While Jack appeared to be devastated and grieving the loss of his child, something just didn't feel right. For two seemingly healthy people to die in this house in a similar manner, it was highly unusual. Jack told everyone that there was some underlying genetic illness that had claimed the

[00:23:41] lives of both his wife and his young son. Irene's family, they actually put that theory to the test. They volunteered to have genetic testing done and no abnormalities were found. The general consensus was that this had to be some sort of freak accident. The alternative option was that

[00:24:00] Jack Barron was a monster living amongst them and nobody wanted to believe that. So once again, people rallied around Jack who now had lost his wife and his son in less than the span of a year.

[00:24:14] But again, there were some that felt things weren't quite right. At Jeremy's funeral, Jack appeared to be emotionless. He also made a disturbing comment to one family friend, something to the effect that

[00:24:28] Jeremy died of a broken heart and he was better off in heaven with his mother. Like, what? He also sold all of Jeremy's things like his toys and his clothing in a yard sale. And look, everyone grieves

[00:24:44] differently. I've never lost a child. I have no idea how I would act if that happened to me. And I think that's likely how everyone else kind of approached this situation. The whole thing,

[00:24:56] it was really unusual and strange and mysterious. But just in case Jack really was this grieving husband and father, everyone wanted to be there to support him despite having internal conflict about what really may have happened. Now here is where we introduce Wynonna Judd to the story.

[00:25:16] But Nikki, what does Wynonna Judd have to do with this case? Well, let me tell you. It's a wild connection. Jack was a massive fan of Wynonna's music. And when the president of her fan club

[00:25:29] learned that one of Wynonna's biggest fans had tragically lost his wife and young son, she arranged with the country music star to get him free tickets to the show plus a backstage pass to actually meet her in real life, which he gladly used. Jack would meet Wynonna backstage

[00:25:49] where she expressed her sympathies and even gave him a few more free tickets to an upcoming show. But it didn't stop there. Jack was kind of in love with Wynonna and he became obsessed,

[00:26:03] even began telling people close to him that the two were dating. People were kind of like sure-Jan and roll their eyes thinking that it was just his way of grieving. He was just going

[00:26:13] through dark times and sort of made this story up to make himself feel better. But Jack reveled in the attention that he was receiving. It's alleged that Jack even went as far as calling Wynonna

[00:26:26] and leaving threatening voicemails for her husband. Wynonna was of course married and not interested in Jack romantically at all. She had simply tried to help out a fan who she believed had tragically

[00:26:38] lost his family to natural causes. But Wynonna's husband was in the way of her and Jack being together, in Jack's mind at least. As time passed, things settled down and the attention on Jack and

[00:26:52] his tragedy, it was dwindling. It happens all of the time. Tragedy strikes and there is this outpouring of love and support and sympathy until the next tragedy strikes and then the attention is diverted elsewhere. Jack was now a single dad to his one remaining child, his three-year-old daughter,

[00:27:13] Ashley. Because there weren't any answers as to what had happened to Irene and Jeremy, doctors wanted to take a closer look at Ashley just to ensure that there wasn't something medical that they were missing. The thought was that perhaps Irene and Jeremy had died to a complication from

[00:27:31] sleep apnea, when there are periods of time that you stop breathing when you're sleeping. It's not typically fatal, but if it's left untreated, it can be. Doctors fitted Ashley with a sleep monitor

[00:27:43] that she would have to wear at night to ensure that everything was operating as normal, but little Ashley, she refused to keep it on. It was uncomfortable and she was just a toddler at the

[00:27:54] time. Despite the fact that Jack had already lost two of his family members who died while they were sleeping, he wasn't really cooperative with the doctors. He didn't make Ashley wear the monitor and he stopped showing up for appointments. It clearly just wasn't a priority for him, despite

[00:28:13] Irene's family insisting that he needed to have her tested. They didn't want to lose another grandchild after already losing their daughter and their grandson. And then it happened again. On August 7th, 1994, a babysitter was called to the Barron home to watch Ashley while Jack went

[00:28:32] to work. Before leaving for his night shift, Jack made the babysitter an iced tea, which he never really did before, and then he asked her to leave the back door open. At the time, it wasn't really

[00:28:44] noted as an unusual request, but it would be notable later. The babysitter remembered checking on the little girl at around 10.30pm that night, and she was safely sound asleep in her bed. She

[00:28:58] returned to the living room where she fell asleep until the morning, only waking up when Jack arrived home from his night shift. When the babysitter went into Ashley's room to wake her up for the day, she found her cold to the touch, unresponsive. Three-year-old Ashley was dead. Absolutely

[00:29:17] shocking that three members of the same family would be found deceased in a similar fashion in less than two years. And again, there were no obvious injuries to little Ashley's body, so a cause of death could not be determined. However, this time, under cause of death,

[00:29:35] the autopsy report said, undetermined. Homicidal violence cannot be excluded. Investigators were waking up to the idea that this was not simply a family tragedy, but perhaps a family annihilation. They decided that it was time to exhume the bodies of his wife and son for further tests. Despite

[00:29:57] the fact that many now believed that Jack, who was once again milking every ounce of sympathy he could, was involved in his family's death. His mother, Roberta, she didn't think that her son was

[00:30:08] capable though. She believed he was innocent, that this was all just a terrible tragedy that happened to her baby boy. She truly believed this, right up until the day that she died.

[00:30:21] Jack decided that without a family, he ought to sell that beautiful home that he had bought with Irene, and he moved in with his only support system at that time, his mother, 52-year-old

[00:30:34] Roberta Butler. He quit his job at the supermarket, and he found another job working as an assistant conductor at the railroads. It truly was a dream job for him, he was following in his father's

[00:30:46] footsteps. He was supposed to be paying his mother rent each month, but he just didn't bother. And it caused a lot of tension between Roberta and her live-in boyfriend at the time, Tim. Jack

[00:30:59] and Tim, they argued non-stop over how he was taking advantage of his mother. But no matter what, Roberta always took her son's side. She was once again coddling him, enabling him, to the point

[00:31:13] where Tim decided to move out and leave her alone with her son. Without Tim there to defend Roberta from her own son, things quickly went downhill. Jack verbally abused his mother daily. Things got

[00:31:27] so bad that she asked her golden child to move out and get his own place again. Unfortunately, she wouldn't live long enough to see that happen. On February 27th, 1995, Jack would call 911 after

[00:31:42] saying he found his mother lying face up on her waterbed, not breathing. She was dead, and she had been for quite some time. Nothing in the home was out of place, no sign of forced entry, just

[00:31:56] stacks of paper found neatly piled around her room. Jack recalled speaking to his mom on the phone just the night before. He claimed that she was feeling really stressed out, she was working a lot,

[00:32:08] and she was suffering from horrible headaches that were making her sick. While Roberta's death looked eerily similar to that of Jack's wife Irene, there were some major differences. This time, there were signs that the death was actually a homicide. During Roberta's autopsy, there were

[00:32:27] marks on her body that pointed to this being a case of suffocation. Her death was ruled a homicide, and five months later, Jack Barron was arrested for her murder. Investigators went back and they

[00:32:40] took a closer look at the other deaths in Jack's family, his wife Irene and two children, Jeremy and Ashley. There was a ton of circumstantial evidence that pointed towards those deaths also being a homicide, but with Roberta's murder and Jack being the common denominator, they now

[00:32:59] believe that Jack had killed all of the members of his family. For instance, the night of Ashley's death, they believed that when Jack had made the babysitter that iced tea before leaving for work,

[00:33:11] he had likely put something in it to make her fall asleep, and while she was sleeping, they alleged that he left for work and then snuck back into the home and suffocated Ashley in her

[00:33:23] bed. There were also strange comments made, like when he began talking to Irene about a divorce, but then told one of his friends that he would quote, do away with her first. It couldn't all just be a coincidence. Jack Barron would be arrested for the murders of his

[00:33:40] wife Irene, his children Jeremy and Ashley, and his mother Roberta. Experts believe that Jack displayed signs of having Munchausen by proxy. The motive that he had for killing his family wasn't finances, although he did stand to gain nearly $130,000 as the sole beneficiary of his

[00:34:01] mother's estate. He wasn't killing to move on with another love interest, although he did move that woman in. It was a desire for the sympathy and the attention that he received when they died.

[00:34:13] The way that people rallied around him and gave him the support he felt he never received from his father, who abandoned the family. It was the money that people gave him to keep the house going,

[00:34:25] the Winona concert tickets, and the backstage passes that made him feel like a celebrity. He loved the role of grieving husband and father. Besides with Roberta's death, there wasn't much in terms of physical evidence. The case against Jack Barron would weigh heavily on circumstantial

[00:34:44] evidence only. In February of 2000, he would go to trial. The prosecution knew that they had their work cut out for them, trying to prove that Jack deliberately killed his family. One medical expert testified that, quote, asphyxial death by suffocation or smothering is a very subtle kind of death

[00:35:03] that frequently leaves no signs. And when signs are left, they are subtle at best. The prosecution alleged that the victims all died by being suffocated with a pillow, while the defense continued to argue that they must have died from some sort of medical mystery. It was unknown, but

[00:35:22] not murder. Eight years after his wife Irene was found dead alone in the home with their two babies, Jack Barron was convicted of first-degree murder in three of the four deaths. He was acquitted in

[00:35:36] the murder of his daughter Ashley. There just wasn't enough information to prove that he came home from work and killed her. Still, he would be sentenced to three consecutive life terms in prison with no parole. When given the opportunity to speak, Jack said, I have committed no crimes.

[00:35:55] Still to this day, Jack maintains his innocence, insisting that his family all died from some underlying heart condition. The first man identified as having Munchausen by proxy continues to thrive on sympathy under the guise of a misunderstood and innocent man,

[00:36:14] wrongly imprisoned after the tragic deaths of his family. Thankfully, most of us can see him for exactly who he is, a monster who loved attention more than he loved his family.

[00:36:28] That's it for me tonight. If you want to reach out, you can find me on Facebook at Serial Napper. I also have a Serial Napper true crime discussion group on Facebook. It's called Serial Society,

[00:36:40] and I'll have a link in my show notes. You can find my audio on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. I post all of my episodes in video format over on YouTube, so go check it out.

[00:36:51] And if you're watching on YouTube, I would love if you can give me a thumbs up and subscribe. I'm also over on X, formerly known as Twitter at Serial underscore Napper, and I post things on TikTok. Serial Napper Nick, and that's all one word. Until next time,

[00:37:06] sweet dreams, stay kind, especially in the comments. Bye.