An Indiana mother has been accused of fraud and neglect for allegedly lying about her daughter’s “terminal” medical condition and raising money for it.
Katherine Jackson, 41, claimed in 2021 that her daughter suffered from Pilarowski-Bjornsson Syndrome (PBS) with “80-90 seizures per day” because of a second disease, Lennox-Gastant Sydrome, WANE reported.
Jackson set up a GoFundMe that raised more than $1,600 for the girl, and the Make-A-Wish Foundation approved a Disney World trip for the girl, her sister, and her mother, although the trip never happened because of COVID. WANE ran a story about the illness in 2022 after learning about the Make-A-Wish involvement.
Court documents filed in Jackson’s arrest say that she brought the girl to the hospital about three weeks after the television story, and medical staff raised concerns at that point about possible abuse, citing the girl’s irregular heart beat and ongoing seizures.
The child was taken to Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis, where doctors learned that Jackson had not been refilling the girl’s many prescriptions.
Investigators spoke with a doctor who explained that the child had been diagnosed with PBS but that while it has no cure, it is considered a chronic illness and not a terminal illness as Jackson claimed. A psychologist who treated the children in late 2021 told investigators that Jackson had said the girl with PBS was “terminal” and would not likely live for another year.
After those two hospital visits in August 2022, the child and her sister. who were 6 and 5 at the time, began living with a foster parent. The foster parent told detectives in April last year that neither girl was in school or had been potty trained when they arrived.
Jackson was charged with one count of fraud and two counts of neglect of a dependent.
