And that investigation revealed some troubling information.
They discovered that Patricia Stallings was the mother
of another child, a five year old son who
was in her sister's custody because
of allegations of child abuse.
He was born out of wedlock when she was young.
Subsequent to his birth, he was taken away from her
by the state when they discovered
that he was in the first stages of frostbite and malnutrition.
Now, Patricia's explanation to me at the time
was that, you know, the reason that he was in that state
was because she was in a similar state
because she didn't have any money, any place to live.
NARRATOR: While Ryan was in foster care,
Patricia was only permitted to visit him once a week
under the supervision of the Department of Family Services,
or DFS.
A few days after her sixth parental visit,
Ryan got sick once again and was taken to Cardinal
Glennon Children's Hospital.
This time, the lab found even higher levels
of ethylene glycol in Ryan's blood, 911 milligrams
per milliliter of blood serum.
Ryan's blood was also sent to the toxicology lab
at the University of St. Louis.
They performed another test called
mass spectrometry that found the same thing, ethylene
glycol in Ryan's blood.
Although the baby bottle Patricia used to feed Ryan
during her supervised visit had been washed and refilled,
tests on that bottle found trace amounts of ethylene glycol.
And prosecutors learned that the individual assigned
to stand guard during Patricia's visit with Ryan
inexplicably left the room for a short time
against instructions.
Prosecutors suspected that Patricia
had poisoned Ryan again after the supervisor left the room.
We went over in detail talking to every person that was there
in the room, every movement that was in the room,
what things were brought into the room,
the bottle seized from the visit, again,
tested positive for ethylene glycol.
NARRATOR: Patricia Stallings was arrested
and charged with assault. Is
That the ethanol drip?
Yes, it is.
Get that in right away.
NARRATOR: When Ryan was diagnosed with ethylene glycol
poisoning, his treatment included both fasting
and ethanol given intravenously to counteract the effects
of the ethylene glycol.
One week later, Ryan Stallings died.
The charge against Patricia Stallings was now murder.
When four-month-old Ryan Stallings died,
a social worker from Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital
called Patricia Stallings in prison
to inform her of her son's death.
I don't care about that.
Put David on the phone.
I want to get out of this hellhole.
NARRATOR: Patricia's response raised suspicions.
When you put those kinds of statements and the reactions
and all the things and the circumstantial evidence
together with the science, it only pointed to one person.
NARRATOR: Laboratory tests revealed
large amounts of ethylene glycol in Ryan's blood.
Ethylene glycol is the main ingredient in antifreeze.
Scientists also found trace amounts of ethylene glycol
in the baby bottle Patricia Stallings used to feed
Ryan during her last visit.
Three months later, while still in prison awaiting trial,
Patricia Stallings learned some surprising news.
She was pregnant.
During her pregnancy, Patricia became friends with prison
guard Patty Matthews.
She was very depressed most of the time.
You know, she'd been through a lot.
And it was just a--
an amazing emotional strain that she was going through.
NARRATOR: Five months after Ryan's death,
Patricia Stallings gave birth to David Stallings Jr.
in a hospital near the prison.
Patricia and David nicknamed him DJ.
When DJ was just a few weeks old,
he had an episode of vomiting, seizures, and breathing
problems while in foster care.
DJ was rushed to St. Louis Children's Hospital.
Ironically, it was the hospital Patricia planned to take
Ryan to before she got lost.
Doctors diagnosed DJ with a very rare metabolic disorder
called methylmalonic acidemia, or MMA, which
inhibits the body's ability to process
food, especially proteins.
It also produces toxins in the blood.
To prosecutors, it was a startling development.
They wondered if Ryan Stallings might
have died of the same disease instead
of ethylene glycol poisoning.
We went back to square one.
Met again with all the doctors and said, look,
something's not right here.
And matter of fact, released her from custody
at that point on a recongizance bond, which
is unheard of in a murder case.
NARRATOR: But the prosecution's medical experts did not
believe that Ryan died of MMA.
His blood had been tested at two independent laboratories.
Both found ethylene glycol in Ryan's system.
And the autopsy revealed calcium oxalate crystals
in Ryan's brain, consistent with ethylene glycol poisoning.
Tests on Ryan's baby bottle also found trace amounts
of ethylene glycol.
Everyone was saying there was ethylene glycol in the body.
Tests from different laboratories showed that.
And everyone agreed that if there's
ethylene glycol in the body, it wasn't
MMA that killed the child.
NARRATOR: So the murder case against Patricia Stallings
went to trial.
Prosecutors were seeking the death penalty.
Despite the genetic illness diagnosed in DJ,
Patricia Stallings' defense attorney could not
produce one medical expert to testify
that it was MMA and not antifreeze poisoning that
caused Ryan's death.
I put on my witnesses, all of them said ethylene glycol,
all of them said it had to be ingested,
all the evidence pointed toward Patty Stallings.
If somebody fed the baby antifreeze,
it must have been her.
NARRATOR: The jury also heard what
Patricia Stallings said to the social worker
when informed of Ryan's death.
Patricia Stallings was found guilty of murder
in the first degree and was sentenced to life in prison
without possibility of parole.
Her husband, David, collapsed in shock after hearing the verdict
and was rushed to the hospital.
She was just devastated.
She was very upset.
She was crying.
We talked for a little while.
There wasn't a whole lot of comfort
I could offer at that point.
NARRATOR: Although the jury had reached its verdict
beyond a reasonable doubt, two local scientists
had doubts of their own.
Although Patricia Stallings was found guilty of the poisoning
death of her son Ryan with antifreeze,
not everyone was convinced.
Dr. William Sly and Dr. James Shoemaker
wondered whether the lab tests done by their colleagues
and by the SmithKline Beecham lab were accurate.
JAMES SHOEMAKER: It was only when I found out
that no one had really thoroughly explored the science
behind the ethylene glycol testing
that I became convinced that I had to do it myself.
NARRATOR: First, Dr. Shoemaker turned
his attention to the gas chromatography
used to test Ryan's blood.
In gas chromatography, the sample is vaporized and sent
down a tube with an inert gas.
Each compound settles in the tube at a different rate, which
is called the retention time.
Those retention times are then charted on a graph.
A reference library of retention times
is then consulted in order to identify any compounds
found in the blood.
Medical experts who testified against Patricia Stallings
said that the peak on the graph of Ryan's blood serum
appeared at a retention time that matched
that of ethylene glycol.
Dr. Shoemaker retested Ryan's blood samples
and analyzed the retention times.
He didn't find ethylene glycol.
He found something else.
There was a compound that was very highly elevated
in the serum, compound called propionic acid, that
comes off very close, but not identically with ethylene
glycol.
And he and I speculated that that might be the--
the basis of a misidentification that
led to the incorrect diagnosis of ethylene glycol poisoning.
NARRATOR: Proprionic acid is often produced in patients who
have MMA, the rare genetic illness diagnosed
in Ryan's brother, DJ.
The only difference between propionic acid and ethylene
glycol is a few carbon atoms.
To find out if other labs were capable of misreading
propionic acid as ethylene glycol,
Dr. shoemaker sent blood samples spiked with propionic acid
to seven different laboratories.
Sure enough, three out of the seven laboratories
that we tested came back with positive results for ethylene
glycol when we knew the only thing in those samples
was propionic acid.
NARRATOR: When Dr. Shoemaker examined the graph shown
to the jury during Patricia Stallings' trial,
one showing the ethylene glycol found in Ryan's blood,
and next to it, a graph of a known
sample of ethylene glycol, he discovered a huge mistake.
But the tragic thing is that no one bothered to actually
superimpose the two like this.
And when you look at it very closely
and line up the injection point here
and the internal standard here, the two pigs
are actually quite different.
And you move them up here so you can see,
they don't come out at the same time at all.
The retention times are actually very different.
NARRATOR: Dr. Shoemaker suspected
that Ryan Stallings died of MMA and had not been
poisoned with ethylene glycol.
But Dr. Shoemaker was a junior member of the faculty
at the time and knew that his conclusions
would be challenged by experts.
When prosecutors learned about these new test results,
they were stunned.
Was it possible that Patricia Stallings
had been convicted of a murder that never happened?
The Stallings hired attorney Robert
Ritter to handle their appeal.
He immediately requested a new trial,
arguing that Patricia Stallings' first lawyer had not mounted
a proper scientific defense.
After several hours of discussion,
I came away convinced that Patty did not poison her child
and that a horrible injustice had resulted here.
NARRATOR: When prosecutors heard the new test results from St.
Louis University, even they agreed
that this new medical information
raised serious questions.
Once we were well aware that there were actually doctors
out there prepared to say that, that, obviously, didn't testify
at trial, may have made a difference at the trial,
and we agreed to a new trial, and we didn't have to do that.
NARRATOR: But prosecutors had two
independent laboratories that found ethylene
glycol in Ryan's blood.
Traces of ethylene glycol were found in the baby bottle.
And the autopsy report found oxalate crystals
in Ryan's brain, a finding consistent with ethylene glycol
poisoning.
To sort through the scientific inconsistencies,
prosecutors sought an outside expert.
At Yale University, they found Dr. Piero
Ronaldo, one of the world's leading experts
in metabolic diseases.
He reviewed the scientific data that
formed the basis for the case against Patricia Stallings.
I received all the raw material,
all the data from the labs where the tests were done.
That was really the exceptional moment for me in this story
because I couldn't believe how low
was the quality of analytical work
done in the commercial lab.
NARRATOR: Dr. Ronaldo called the lab reports garbage.
He agreed with Dr. Shoemaker and Sly
that the gas chromatography peak shown to the jury as that
of ethylene glycol was not ethylene glycol at all
and did not match the graph depicting the known sample
of ethylene glycol.
The retention time of the peak in question
was 33 seconds later, which, in gas chromatography,
is an enormous difference.
It's-- it's really huge.
NARRATOR: And when Dr. Ronaldo reviewed
the mass spectrometry results, he found a similar error.
The spike in Ryan's blood identified as ethylene glycol
did not match the known sample.
That really blew me away because, especially
in a case where, obviously, with legal implications,
it must be perfect match.
This was not even close.
It was, again, absolutely strikingly obvious evidence
that there was no match.
NARRATOR: Dr. Ronaldo immediately
presented his findings to prosecutor
George McElroy the next day, McElroy held a news conference.
State of Missouri is dismissing all pending charges
against Patricia Stallings based upon the death
of her child, Ryan.
And I'm satisfied, I'm convinced that Patricia Stallings
did not poison her child.
NARRATOR: Dr. Ronaldo believes that Ryan Stallings
died of MMA, the same genetic illness
his brother DJ was born with.
Is that the ethanol drip?
Yes, it is.
Let's get that in right away.
NARRATOR: He also believes that the inaccurate lab reports led
doctors to administer the wrong treatment,
the ethanol drip, which possibly contributed to Ryan's death.
The ethanol drip was also the suspected cause of the calcium
oxalate crystals found during Ryan's autopsy and not ethylene
glycol.
Scientists also suspect that the process of washing Ryan's baby
bottle caused the false readings of ethylene glycol
when the bottle was tested.
The conviction of Patricia Stallings had been a mistake.
Oh, wow, if DJ hadn't been born,
Patty Stallings would be in jail for the rest of her life
without parole and no one would ever
have raised a second question.
I think DJ--
DJ's birth is what saved her because it--
the first child's diagnosis would never have been made.
I can understand a person who's been through all that she
went through finding the--
an apology pretty lacking.
But as I told her, I--
I had a job to do.
I had the evidence before me that I felt gave me no choice.
NARRATOR: Patricia Stallings filed lawsuits
against the hospitals, doctors, and laboratories
that had misdiagnosed Ryan.
All were settled before going to trial.
Their son, DJ, who by being born with MMA,
led scientists to the real killer of his brother, Ryan,
is managing his disease with a special diet
and other treatments.
It is strange that such a small mistake on paper
could make such a huge change in the lives of people.
But in this case, you can see that a few millimeters
of difference in where a peek appeared on a sheet of paper
made all the difference in a woman's life.
The science was the strongest evidence
and was what ultimately convicted her,
but it was also what ultimately freed her.
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