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A mother’s intuition to protect & care for their children is typically ingrained & instinctual, ready to kick-in to prioritize their child’s safety above all else. A mother might not even realize just how strong it is until the moment arrives & when it does, she would likely move mountains or stand in front of a freight train in order to keep her child safe. A mother’s love & care can be raw, relentless & dang near unstoppable, but sadly, it isn’t always the case. When a mother harms her child, it goes against every primal instinct which is why it can be so jarring. When it happens, it’s likely entangled in extreme circumstances or deep psychological breaks.
In 2017, after a 7-year-old little girl spent the majority of her short life in & out of the hospital, forced to undergo invasive painful surgeries, placements of feeding tubes & intravenous lines for nutrition, her mother, Kelly Gant, who is also known as Kelly Turner, made the decision to place her daughter on hospice care. Three weeks after her IV nutrition was removed, Olivia Gant sadly passed away with her cause of death listed as intestinal failure.
Many were saddened by the loss of the precious young child & most would believe this was the end of the tragic story. That is until within a year of Olivia’s death, Kelly was back in the hospital, this time with her oldest daughter. She explained that her daughter was suffering from bone pain, likely related to a cancer she’d previously overcome. Kelly told the physicians that she suspected the cancer had come back. However, unlike in Olivia’s case, this time, the doctor was highly suspicious & began to dig deeper. As they took a closer look, they began to unravel a horrendous web of lies that ultimately caused a young girl to die.
Olivia Gant was born on June 21, 2010 in Pasadena, Texas to Jeff & Kelly Gant & she had two older sisters. The couple had a tumultuous relationship & after their divorce, Kelly relocated with her three girls to Littleton, Colorado.
Olivia was exceptionally close with her step-grandfather, Lonnie Gautreau & he & his wife often visited their three grandchildren. They watched movies together & Lonnie remembers Olivia as a sweet, loving child who loved to do typical things like play with her dolls.
Beginning in 2013, when Olivia was only 2-years-old, Kelly first presented to the hospital with her daughter due to concerns of a developmental delay & Olivia was ultimately diagnosed with autism. Kelly returned in January 2013, this time regarding constipation & elaborated that Olivia was unable to properly digest food, something that had been a problem since she was an infant. During her visit, the doctor noted that Olivia was within her normal growth range. On a follow-up visit for constipation in April 2013, the doctor indicated that Olivia was displaying stool withholding behaviors which is very normal in children of her age.
However, it wasn’t long before Kelly was back in the ER with Olivia, each time saying that her daughter was having issues with eating & properly digesting food. Four years after her illness began, Olivia was taken into surgery where doctors created an ileostomy, rerouting her small intestine through an opening or stoma to a bag attached to her abdominal wall.
After her surgery, Olivia seemed to be doing better & her constipation issues resolved. With this she was able to start pre-K & move on to kindergarten at Columbine Hills Elementary School where her classmates & teachers adored her.
Soon, Kelly was back at the hospital with Olivia, reporting that yes, some of her daughter’s symptoms had improved since surgery, but she was continuing to struggle with digestive issues. Over the course of five years when Olivia was 2-7-years-old, she had been to the hospital more than a thousand times. Doctors would later admit that all of the symptoms that Olivia suffered from as well as Olivia’s medical history all came from Kelly.
During these visits, gastroenterologists inserted feeding tubes for enteral nutrition after Kelly maintained that Olivia wasn’t able to digest food properly. It wasn’t long before Kelly claimed that Olivia was no longer able to tolerate her tube feedings & with this, she was switched to IV nutrition with what is known as total parenteral nutrition or TPN which requires a central venous catheter for infusion into a large vein.
Throughout her hospitalizations, Olivia was also prescribed strong narcotic pain medication as well as the anti-seizure drug, Keppra. Despite the fact that not one healthcare worker had ever witnessed Olivia having a seizure, Kelly told healthcare workers that her daughter’s seizures were persistent.
Because Olivia spent so much time in the hospital, she developed a connection with the staff who came to know her as Princess since she preferred to wear her princess gowns rather than the standard hospital gowns.
When she wasn’t in the hospital, Olivia loved playing with her sisters & being a typical child who loved to play games on her iPad, watch her favorite DVDs & use her imagination. Those that knew Olivia absolutely adored her as she was a precious girl who talked non-stop & had an amazing spirit. She loved going to Dairy Queen for a vanilla ice cream cone & visiting the zoo to see the lions or Dinosaur Ridge since she was fascinated with dinosaurs.
Kelly took to social media where she started a blog in September of 2011 & eventually documented Olivia’s hospital visits & detailed her medical conditions. Her photos depicted the young girl sitting in a wheelchair, propped up in her hospital bed with her stuffed animals surrounding her, almost always wearing outfits with Disney characters.
Because Olivia had so many visits to the hospital, medical bills were piling up so Kelly turned to various charity organizations to help cover the costs as well as provide Olivia with special events, gifts & outings. With the help of organizations such as Make-A-Wish, Olivia was able to fulfill her bucket list as Kelly indicated that her daughter was terminally ill.
Kelly also started a GoFundMe page on July 27, 2015 that raised more than $22,270 to offset the costs of what wasn’t being covered under Medicaid. Olivia was also receiving trial medications that weren’t approved by the FDA for those under the age of 18.
During one of Olivia’s birthdays, an $11,000 bat princess birthday party was thrown in her honor at the Hyatt Regency Denver that included a limo ride, costumes, balloons & music. The party had a combined theme of Batman & Disney princesses all of which was captured on a local TV station. She was given the opportunity to pretend to be a police officer as well as a firefighter for the day.
Over the years, Olivia’s case drew national attention.
Kelly told doctors that she wanted to implement a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order for 7-year-old Olivia. She expressed that she wanted her daughter’s TPN to be stopped, arguing that Olivia’s quality of life had gotten so bad.
At the time, Olivia had only been receiving about one-third of the nutrition that she needed after Kelly indicated that her daughter was rejecting her TPN despite the fact that the doctor explained that this doesn’t happen & several doctors urged Kelly to reduce her dependency on the TPN & allow her daughter to eat, but she refused, saying, We’ve already tried that.
Doctors later described Kelly as a high maintenance mother who was not afraid of surgery. At this point, the doctors refused to sign the paperwork, fully aware that the young girl would die without nutrition.
Kelly was irate & accused the healthcare team of denying her wishes. She was relentless & continued to pursue the request so she sought a different doctor to care for Olivia & this doctor consented to signing the appropriate paperwork. With the DNR order signed, Olivia’s nutrition was also stopped & she was placed under hospice care.
Throughout this time, Kelly posted photos & videos to social media, one video depicting Olivia & Kelly on their way to hospice on August 2, 2017 singing Hakuna Matata. In the video Olivia was wearing purple pajamas & playing with her tablet as she sang. During her time in hospice, the only nutrition she was receiving was the minimal amount from melted popsicles that were rubbed on her lips with a sponge. Slowly & steadily, Olivia continued to starve while her large doses of prescribed medication continued.
When Lonnie visited his granddaughter, he described her as lucid. During his visit, Olivia complained that she was incredibly hungry & Lonnie was devastated knowing that it was only a matter of time before his sweet granddaughter would die & that time was likely going to be soon.
Tragically, on August 20, 2017, Olivia Gant died, after nineteen days without nutrition. Her official cause of death was listed as intestinal failure & her death certificate also listed that she suffered from autism as well as seizure disorder.
Sweet Olivia had been in & out of hospitals for so many years of her young life, forced to undergo painful surgeries & procedures. She was unable to eat the typical foods that children love such as ice cream or birthday cake after undergoing feeding tube & IV line placements for enteral & parenteral nutrition. According to Kelly, her daughter had been terminally ill & despite their devastation after her passing, Olivia’s extended family were in a way prepared for her death.
As the family tried to move forward with the gaping loss of Olivia in their lives, within a year of her death, Kelly was suddenly claiming that her oldest daughter had fallen ill. When Kelly arrived at the hospital with her daughter, she indicated that she was experiencing bone pain & she suspected that her cancer had returned. She explained that when they were living in Texas her daughter was treated with chemo & radiation when she was between ages 2-5 years old.
This time, the doctor was immediately suspicious of Kelly’s story & as he began to examine her eldest daughter, something just did not feel right. It was unusual that one of Kelly’s young daughters had been so ill & now another was sick so soon after.
The doctor questioned Kelly’s reports of her daughter’s cancer history & decided to investigate further rather than taking her words as true. With this, the doctor also began mulling about the idea that maybe Kelly had been playing a role in Olivia’s supposed illnesses & terminal condition. Maybe now with Olivia gone, Kelly was moving on & orchestrating her older daughter’s illness as well.
When the doctor contacted the staff in Texas, they confirmed that the girl had never had cancer & had never been treated. As they did more research, they came across blogs & Facebook posts where Kelly described medical conditions that were not consistent with Olivia’s medical records that included Olivia having suffered from lymphoma. With this, hospital staff immediately contacted social services to report Kelly.
Knowing what this woman was capable of, medical professionals began taking a closer look at Olivia’s medical history that included five years of ongoing treatments, procedures, surgeries & medications. The poor girl had slowly starved to death in hospice. What was once seen as a tragic death was now being investigated as potential Munchausen syndrome by proxy.
Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSP), also known as Factitious Illness by Proxy, is a mental illness & a form of child abuse where a caregiver of a child makes up fake symptoms or causes real symptoms in order to make it look as if the child is ill in order to garner sympathy & attention. It’s most commonly seen in mothers of children under the age of six. It’s unknown what causes MSP, but in some cases, the person was abused as a child or has a history of Munchausen syndrome which is faking their own illness.
In some cases of MSP, the abuser will go to great lengths in order to convince others of their child’s illness, including adding blood to their child’s urine or stool, withholding food so the child becomes weak & frail, thus appearing ill. They may falsely concoct medical records, fake labs, infect their IV line to make the child truly ill or administer medicine or a substance that will cause them to vomit or have diarrhea.
In many cases, the caretaker has worked within the medical field & are able to describe the symptoms in great medical detail. They are extremely involved with the healthcare team & present the appearance of nothing more than an involved, devoted parent. The child is often in & out of the hospital, undergoing many tests & procedures at the caretaker’s suggestion & may be suffering from strange symptoms that are never witnessed by the healthcare team, only reported by the caretaker.
In order to identify MSP, a medical team must first see the clues & be diligent about providing the medical care they believe to be correct rather than what the caretaker is suggesting. Oftentimes, the parent or caretaker is so manipulative that doctors don’t suspect any wrongdoing so it goes undiagnosed. According to the Cleveland Clinic, approximately 1,000 of the 2.5 million cases of child abuse reported annually may be related to MSP.
Warning signs that MSP may be happening include ongoing injuries, illnesses or hospitalizations, symptoms that don’t fit the disease or test results, symptoms that are worse when the child is home with their caregiver, a caregiver that is overly involved, refuses to leave the child’s side, speaks for the child & appears to enjoy the attention they receive in the hospital. Because parents & caretakers of sick children are naturally very concerned when their child is ill, thus refusing to leave their side, it can be difficult to spot.
Had Kelly not brought her older daughter into the hospital, thus alerting their suspicions, she would have likely gotten away with Olivia’s death unsuspected.
Authorities went on to exhume Olivia Gant’s body from the Seven Stones Chatfield Cemetery on November 28, 2018, 15 months after her death, & an autopsy found absolutely no evidence of intestinal failure or other conditions that Kelly claimed her daughter suffered from, including seizure disorder & a tumor & a build-up of fluid in the cavities deep within her brain. With these findings, Olivia’s updated cause of death was listed as undetermined.
Kelly’s two daughters were removed from her care & lo & behold, since October of 2018, her older daughter had absolutely no complaints of bone pain or other illnesses which further proved that Kelly had been lying. The names of her two surviving daughters have been withheld from the media due to their ages, but they were placed in the care of their relatives.
Family members were horrified when they learned that everything Olivia had been put through which ultimately led to her death had all been a lie. Every moment in the hospital, every surgery, procedure, inability to eat had all been done to a healthy child who had no legitimate digestive issues.
Olivia’s obituary reads: We lost our little princess Olivia after a long battle to a rare disease at the age of 7. Through her short life & BIG battles she taught us that we can “be joyful in all things.”
After a yearlong investigation, Kelly was arrested in October 2019 at a Denver-area hotel & charged with the first-degree murder of Olivia as well as felony charges. Both girls were insured by Medicaid & Kelly is accused of fraudulently obtaining approximately $539,000 worth of care from the government-funded program.
During the five years that Olivia suffered, Kelly took money from fundraising organizations as well as the Heflebower Funeral & Cremation Services & Seven Stones Cemetery who supported the family after Olivia’s death.
Kelly herself spontaneously brought up Munchausen syndrome by proxy when she was speaking with investigators & said, That has never been my case, like at all, whatsoever. She acknowledged that she lied about her other daughter having cancer, but maintained that none of Olivia’s medical conditions had been fabricated.
In 2021 Lonnie Gautreau, Olivia’s grandfather, alongside Kelly’s biological father, filed a civil lawsuit against the Children’s Hospital Colorado for $25 million as they believed that the medical professionals hadn’t done enough to protect Olivia when Kelly brought her in for treatment. Despite the fact that she was a healthy girl, she had been forced to endure so many unnecessary surgeries & procedures. Lonnie fully believed that had Kelly’s lies been discovered sooner, Olivia would most certainly still be here today, healthy & thriving.
Red flags had been missed during visits to the hospital. Despite the fact that Kelly insisted that her daughter was suffering from ongoing seizures, not one single seizure had been witnessed by another. Despite the lack of evidence, doctors treated Olivia based on Kelly’s words alone. Throughout Olivia’s thousands of visits to the hospital, the idea of Munchausen syndrome by proxy had never once been broached.
The hospital eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed amount of money in Lonnie’s civil suit. Lonnie has spoken out on the fact that he never wants what happened to Olivia to happen to another healthy child & went on to say, If anybody spoke up & protected Olivia, she would be here today.
After reporters went on to interview staff from Children’s Hospital Colorado, it was revealed that there had been some who were suspicious of Kelly during Olivia’s hospitalizations. Despite the fact that Colorado has a mandatory reporting law, no one notified authorities of their concerns or suspicions.
For five agonizing years, Olivia was robbed of having a normal childhood, she’d suffered despite the fact that there had been nothing wrong with her gastrointestinal system. Her death had been entirely preventable, but sadly, no one had stood up against Kelly to advocate for Olivia or reported their concerns.
According to Lonnie, it wasn’t until after Olivia died that the hospital staff went on record, telling him that it was their belief that Olivia had not been terminally ill. He was wracked with guilt that he believed what Kelly had told him & recalls spending time with his granddaughter in hospice when she voiced how terribly hungry she was. When Olivia made this complaint, Kelly jumped in & reminded Lonnie that Olivia could only have the melted popsicle juice as she was not allowed any food. Lonnie was haunted that he withheld food from his granddaughter as she slowly starved to death & cannot shake the image of the little girl opening her eyes & saying, Paw, Paw, I’m hungry.
A neurologist indicated that they ordered Kelly to stop giving Olivia Keppra, repeatedly insisting that Olivia was not suffering from seizure disorder, but somehow Kelly managed to continue to get a hold of the medication & continued to give it to Olivia. The neurologist also told Kelly that it was their belief that Olivia was not terminally ill.
Authorities interviewed other staff members of the hospital including two pediatric gastroenterologists who agreed that Olivia had not been terminally ill. Despite this belief, no one came forward to advocate & protect the innocent, young, helpless girl from her mother.
An occupational therapist who specializes in feeding & eating also worked with Olivia & indicated that during their sessions, the child had been able to eat age-appropriate foods without issue. She showed no signs of distress in terms of eating or digesting.
In the meantime, Olivia also had a procedure because her bladder was no longer functioning properly as Kelly claimed that at 7-years-old her daughter still wore a diaper & had no idea how to go to the bathroom. Her IV line for nutrition was frequently infected, six or seven times, according to Kelly’s indictment.
Dr. Thomas Walker, a pediatric gastroenterologist, spoke with police about how Kelly would describe her daughter’s symptoms to the staff yet no one had personally witnessed any which led them to believe that her symptoms could not have been as bad as Kelly was insisting they were. During Olivia’s hospitalizations, she acted as an energetic, playful child & staff witnessed the young girl exhibiting signs of a healthy child rather than the terminally ill patient that Kelly depicted.
According to Dr. Walker, he’d grown so concerned about the situation that he reported his suspicions to upper management within the hospital. After the hospital’s ethics team reviewed the case, they ultimately voted against Dr. Walker & sided with Kelly. With this the hospital decided to transfer Olivia’s care from Dr. Walker to a different doctor which allowed Kelly to obtain the DNR order during Olivia’s hospitalization in July 2017 after two doctors signed off on the paperwork. With this, Olivia’s TPN was stopped & she starved to death.
During their investigation, authorities learned that two years before Olivia’s death, the young girl had been sent to Boston Children’s Hospital in 2015 for a second opinion. With this, the consulting doctor found that Olivia had undergone multiple feeding tube placements as well as surgery to create an ileostomy pouch in November 2014. The physician recommended that her ileostomy be reversed & she be taken off her narcotic medications & fully believed that she would have a full & healthy life. The doctor’s reports & recommendations were sent to the Children’s Hospital Colorado, but sadly, this advice was not followed & they continued to treat the terminal illness that Kelly claimed her daughter suffered from.
In January 2022, 43-year-old Kelly pleaded guilty to felony child abuse that negligently caused her death, felony theft & felony charitable fraud. With this plea, other charges, including two counts of first-degree murder were dropped. Had she been found guilty of first-degree murder, she could have faced life in prison.
Kelly was sentenced to sixteen years in prison & she also received a thirteen year sentence that would be served simultaneously with the sixteen year sentence for the felony theft & fraud charges she pleaded guilty to. The judge also ordered that Kelly cannot financially benefit from her daughter’s death should there be a movie or book deal offered to her. Any money generated from the case should be donated to the charities that she defrauded.
When word of Kelly’s involvement in Olivia’s death had gotten out, the public was outraged with how the medical community treating the young girl had failed her. For five years, Kelly had been abusing her child & all the while, she was getting away with it in plain sight.
Those that helped fulfill Olivia’s wishes were devastated that the girl had been suffering only at the hands of her mother rather than a true medical diagnosis. Olivia should have been able to freely live her life as all children deserve to instead of undergoing unnecessary surgeries & procedures, being fed medication she did not need & prevented from eating despite the fact that she had no issues with her digestion.
Hollynd Hoskins, the family attorney who represented Olivia’s sisters, as well as their grandparents wanted to prevent something like what happened to Olivia from happening to another innocent child. With this, they identified that more safeguards need to be implemented to prevent other young patients, like Olvia, from being subjected to unnecessary surgeries, medications or procedures from hospital staff fully relying on parents like Kelly Turner-Gant feeding them lies.
References:
- Medline Plus: Munchausen syndrome by proxy
- Healthline: Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy
- CBS News: Indictment: Kelly Turner caused daughter Olivia Gant’s 2017 death
- The Guardian: US woman who faked child’s illnesses gets 16 years for abuse that led to death
- Heflebower Funeral & Cremation Services: Olivia K. Gant
- Daily Beast: Mom who faked daughter’s terminal illness gets 16 years in prison for her death
- Medium: The tragic murder of Olivia Gant
- The New York Times: Mother gets 16 years for treating daughter for illnesses she didn’t have
- Scribd: Olivia Gant case/Turner Kelly Renee indictment
