An Indiana woman who received public sympathy for her ill daughter was accused of lying about the girl’s true condition.
According to court documents obtained by WANE, a local CBS affiliate, prosecutors charged Katherine Jackson, 41, with felony neglect and fraud. Jackson had previously appeared on WANE to raise awareness and seek gifts for her young daughter, who allegedly had a terminal genetic disorder.
Prosecutors stated that the daughter’s genetic condition was chronic, not terminal. Investigators who worked on the case also accused Jackson of failing to refill medications prescribed to her daughter.
Jackson made several alleged false claims about her young daughter having Pilarowski-Bjornsson Syndrome (PBS) and Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome (LGS) over the course of several years. Jackson claimed on a GoFundMe page in 2021 that LGS symptoms caused her daughter to have “80-90 seizures per day.”
Seizures can be a sign of PBS, according to the National Institutes of Health.
The GoFundMe page, which was created in July 2021, stated that the then-5-year-old only had six months to a year to live and that it was her dream to visit Walt Disney World.
Her story drew the attention of both the Make-A-Wish Foundation and WANE, which published a story about the child’s illness in August 2022.
Jackson told WANE at the time, “Only ten people in the world have ever had it, and she is the only survivor.” It’s known as Pilarowski-Bjornsson Syndrome. “She will never be better.”
According to court documents, while the girl was confirmed to have PBS, Jackson misrepresented the disease’s nature, which is chronic rather than terminal.
However, prosecutors claimed that the girl was not given access to the necessary medications.
Three weeks after the 2022 WANE story, Jackson took her daughter to the hospital, where doctors suspected medical abuse was occurring.
Despite being prescribed medications to treat her seizures and other symptoms, the girl continued to experience them.
Doctors at Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis reportedly discovered that Jackson was not refilling her daughter’s prescriptions. Following Jackson’s hospital visit, his other two children, ages 5 and 6, were placed in foster care.
The foster parents reportedly told authorities that neither child was potty trained or attending school.
Jackson was charged with one count of fraud and two counts of neglect for a dependent. All charges are felonies.
