February 19, 2026 • 48 mins
Patia tells Hannah a story about a woman named Antonella Carpenter who charged thousands for a laser treatment she claimed was 100-percent effective in killing cancerous tumors. But in 2010, a federal investigation exposed a million-dollar fraud.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
The claims and opinions in this podcast are those of
the speaker and do not necessarily represent The Knife or
Exactly Right Media.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Welcome to The Knife Off Record. I'm Hannah Smith.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I'm Patia Eaton, and today, Hannah, I have a story
for you.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I can't wait to hear it.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah. It's actually a story that we had talked about
briefly a couple of months ago, but I couldn't find
you know, I made a bunch of phone calls and
didn't find the right person to speak with about it,
but wanted to tell you what I found out.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Okay, great.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
So it's July of two thousand and eight, and we're
in North Little Rock, Arkansas. It's characteristically hot and muggy
outside and accompanied by her husband and a woman named Cindy.
Butbecca walks into Lay's med Ink.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Cindy is there for cancer treatment. Cindy has breast cancer
and she's traveled all the way from her home in
Powder Springs, Georgia to North Little Rock for an appointment
with doctor Antonella Carpenter. Okay, and doctor Antonela Carpenter has
promised to cure Cindy's cancer. So, yeah, when I hear
someone's traveling across state lines, like my mind first goes
(01:29):
to to see a specialist or someone who is, you know,
particularly good at treating your type of cancer. Is that
the situation? It is the situation that doctor Antonola Carpenter
has promised to cure her cancer. But no, she is
not a specialist and she is not a medical doctor.
She's going by doctor, She's going by a doctor. So
(01:50):
doctor Antonola Carpenter, as she calls herself, she promises to
cure cancer without chemotherapy, without radiation, and without surgery.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
And when you say promises, is she actually like promising?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
She is guaranteeing it.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
And her sort of pitch with this treatment that I'll
get into is that she is going to kill the
tumor and thus cure the cancer. And of course, because
she's not a medical doctor, she can't perform chemotherapy, she
can't perform radiation, and she certainly can't perform surgery. So
Cindy arrives for cancer treatment, and over the course of
(02:28):
a year, Cindy goes to several appointments with Carpenter for
Carpenter's leash therapy. This stands for light induced enhanced selective hyperthermia.
Carpenter claims that she can inject a DIE into the
site of the tumor. So if it's in your breast,
if it's breast cancer, she will inject you with this
(02:50):
DIE that's a combination of food coloring and something else.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
It's homemade, Okay.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
She injects it into this area where the tumor is growing,
and then she shoots the tumor by looking at the
dye to see where the tumor is with a homemade laser.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
What color is this dye? I think it's green?
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Okay, Yeah, So she has a syringe full of green
liquid and she's just injecting it into people's bodies, right,
And it's not painless, it's very painful. And so the
idea is that this laser is so hot that it's
going to get in there and it's going to target
the tumor because she can see exactly where to point it,
(03:32):
and the tumor will then be killed off. And the
whole sort of underlying reason for her getting cancer patients
to come to her for this unconventional treatment is that
it is almost no side effects compared to chemotherapy, radiation,
or surgery, Like this is so easy compared to that,
(03:55):
And the cancer medical industry doesn't want you to know
that this exists, okay, because there's so much more money
to be made by these extensive chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
So what are the side effects? Does it burn your skin?
Speaker 2 (04:11):
It's swelling and it can feel a burning sensation, and
she recommends ibuprofen. Okay, so it's a painful process, but
less so than chemotherapy or radiation.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
How much does she charge for a treatment?
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Thousands of dollars? So Cindy paid about ten thousand dollars
in total. Yeah, and this was back in two thousand
and eight. So Cindy's really hopeful, and she has a
lot of confidence in Carpenter, so much so that she
is persuaded by Carpenter to avoid medical doctors and conventional treatments.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
I don't know if we know anything about Cindy, but
I'm just curious. You know, why Cindy chose to go
with this doctor as opposed to getting the traditional chemotherapy treatment.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Great question.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
So there's not too much about Cindy's specifically and by
the way, a lot of my research was pulled from
court documents that we'll get into later, but most of
doctor Air quotes Carpenter's patients were people who had seen
others go through chemotherapy, go through radiation and thought, I
don't want to do that to my body. There has
(05:18):
to be another way, and so they're seeking out an
alternative treatment that will not wreck them the way that
chemotherapy is just really hard on a person's body. Yeah, absolutely, yeah,
which is absolutely true. Yeah, but it's obviously also a tested,
studied method of killing cancer, Yes.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
With a lot of statistics about survival rates, etc.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, And so Cindy goes to this clinic in Arkansas
several times over the course of a year, and sure enough,
Antoninla Carpenter tells Cindy her body is responding to the treatment.
The tumor, though, is breaking through Cindy's skin. That is
extremely painful, as you might imagine. But on the upside,
(06:06):
Carpenter's explanation for this is that the body is expelling
the tumor because now the tumor has died, and so
Cindy's body is just pushing it right out.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
And this is just the process.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
And you have to imagine, well, I don't know, but
I would guess what's really going on is that this
tumor is growing.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
It's growing.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, But Cindy at this point is still believing Carpenter.
So this is about a year from her first treatment, okay,
And I'm not sure of the exact timeline of what
happens next for Cindy, but she does return to Georgia
and eventually go see a radiologist, and that radiologist, doctor
Christine Murphy, encourages Cindy to have her tumor biopsy.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Doctor Christine Murphy is the radiologist.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
She's a radiologist, actual doctor, a real doctor, Okay, and
Cindy is very hesitant. You know, her trust in this
doctor is almost none. And based on what was available
in articles and court documents, it seems like Antonina Carpenter
really hammered hard this idea of do not go see
(07:13):
medical doctors. They just want your money, they don't care.
You're just going to suffer. They're not going to carry
your cancer. I'm going to carry your cancer.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
There's so much truth that our medical system is unbelievably
broken and expensive, and there's a lot of distrust in
it that people have for sometimes for good reason, maybe
not because of the medical care, but because of the
insurance companies and how expensive it is. And you get
these bills that show up that are unexplainable. And so
(07:41):
you can see how someone could take these things that
are very real complaints and use them to say, well,
it's all bad. Don't trust any doctors, just trust me.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Right, because that is the experience so many people have
when they go to the doctors, that they feel rushed,
they don't feel listened to, they don't feel like this
unique case, they feel like they're given this blanket treatment.
These are all things that we hear from all manner
of people, and doctor Carpenter, from multiple patients, we hear
that she took the time, she sat in front of them,
(08:15):
she listened to their concerns, She spoke at length with
them about their cancer diagnosis, and she reassured.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Them that it would be okay, which is probably so powerful.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Right.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
And Cindy was a mother, you know, she had children
that she wanted to live for.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
I just think, wouldn't you be afraid of death? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:36):
I have watched someone that I was closed to go
through chemotherapy and radiation. And I will say when I
was younger, they were close in eache to me, so
you know, it was very sad you watch a young
person go from healthy to not yah and then pass away.
But you know the treatment is gnarly. Yes, it can
be gnarly, oh for sure, vomiting, weight loss, hair loss,
(09:00):
I mean skin going to like basically colorless. Yeah, And
I can understand being fearful of that. How could that
be helping me?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Totally?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
But I have to imagine what's going on here is
that these people are getting a diagnosis from a doctor
who can diagnose cancer, and then they're hearing about the
side effects of this treatment and saying wait a minute, no, no, no,
no no. And this doctor is saying, I can give
you this much of a chance of survival, whereas.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Doctor or carpenter she can cure it. Yeah, not a doctor,
not a doctor, not a carpenter either, right, not a
lady with some green dye, yep.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
And so Cindy does not ever go back to doctor
Christine Murphy, the radiologist who recommends the biopsy, but she
does eventually begin chemotherapy treatment.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
She does, okay, but it's too late.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Her cancer has progressed beyond the point of chemo being
able to save her and loving mother and wife Cindy,
but Beecca passed away on May eleventh.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Twenty t Wow.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
So a little bit about Antonela Carpenter. She has this
fiery bright red hair, vibrant makeup, usually wearing colorful clothing,
a super eccentric and passionate seeming person.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
She was born August twenty ninth in nineteen forty four
in Italy. She was raised in Milan, graduated from high school,
attended the University of Milan, and she came to the
US after marrying her husband, James Berry, who was in
Vietnam and June of nineteen sixty eight. Okay, he was
there with the US Army. Yeah, so Antonela became a
US citizen shortly after that. She then attended Cameron University
(10:40):
in Oklahoma from nineteen seventy six to nineteen seventy seven.
So it says that she received This is from her obituary,
by the way.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Eighteen seventy sixth to nineteen seventy six, so one year,
one year, okay.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, But it says online that she received a Bachelor
of Science in Physics in nineteen ninety seven. Okay, Now
this is why she refers to herself as a doctor
because she got a bachelor's degree in physics. In physics,
so she says, well, she goes on to then say
she has a master's of science in state physics from
Oklahoma State.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
And does she we don't know, we don't know. That's
not in her obituary. That's in her obituary.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Oh okay it is. Yeah, So but still not a doctor.
Not a doctor, but you're not a doctor for you
to master's right?
Speaker 2 (11:21):
And I will say that Antonella Carpenter with Cindy and
with the other patients that we're going to be talking about,
she tells them, I'm a physicist. I'm not a doctor.
I'm a physicist. Interesting, but okay, you can trust me
because I'm not a doctor who's out there to just
like scam you for insurance money. So Cindy Bobeca's death
doesn't deter Carpenter. It's not like Carpenter gets a call
(11:43):
and it's like, oh, maybe my treatment doesn't care cancer.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
She just continues, are there people that claim that this
has saved them? Yes?
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Okay, and that will come out in a trial that
happens later. Okay, but Cindy Baba Becca's death does not
deter a Carpenter from continuing to tell those who arrive
for treatment that she can cure their cancer with her
homemade laser. And importantly, she, as I mentioned, does tell
them that she's not a medical doctor, she's a physicist.
(12:16):
I'm not sure that she communicates with them that that
also means she doesn't have a medical license. And if
you remember, her clinic is called Lay's med Ink, so
it's very confusing. Yeah, like men must stand for medicine
medical and so people are still coming to see her
(12:37):
from all over the country. And one of those people
is Teres Westfall, who traveled all the way from Tarzana, California,
so just north of Los Angeles in September of two
thousand and seven, a year before Cindy Butbecca ever set
foot in Carpenter's clinic. Teres Westfall was fifty years old
and facing down her own breast cancer diagnosis. At the time,
(12:58):
Lay's med Ink was also in Jacksonville, Florida, so Teres
finds the clinic through a handwritten note that she finds
on a bolton at a health food store Wow. Yeah,
she's found out that she has breast cancer. She's at
a health food store. I'm not necessarily assuming she's going
to cure cancer with like alternative methods just because she's
at a health food store, but she is clearly someone
(13:20):
who is thinking about her health maybe holistically.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
And so she calls the number on this pamphlet or
note at the store and they direct her to Antonella
Carpenter's website. And on the website it's all the same
stuff that Cindy Babecco has fed, which is, you know,
we're going to cure your cancer. This is how we're
going to do it, this is why you shouldn't see
medical doctors. And so Teres Westwall decides to go. And
(13:49):
this was one thing on the website. It promised Star
Wars level technology with little to no side effects.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Star Wars can't. Yeah, yeah, And so it's like a
fictional sci fi series, right, and really, movie, what are.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
We talking about?
Speaker 2 (14:07):
What are we talking about? And you know, the whole
medical system can be, like you said, so difficult to
navigate that. I imagine if someone's like, okay, why would
someone be able to say this if it's not true?
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Well, she shouldn't be able to make promises that she
can cure people when it's not true. I imagine that's
going to come back in the trial to bite her.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
It sure is. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
The website reads, we perform the necessary testing to confirm
the death of the tumor. We show all patients the
results which confirm that the tumor mass is dead or dying.
Leash therapy, as originally designed by its founder, can successfully
kill cancer without the need for additional damaging procedures or
(14:51):
the utilization of any follow up drug regimen.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Wow, so you're reading this from the website which is
still up. This is from a court document. Yeah, I'm
just so curious what their like origin story is.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
So this claim on the website that says without the
need for damaging procedures or the utilization of follow up
drug regiment also gives you the sense of finality when
your treatment is done, it's done. Yeah, you don't need
to go questioning it. That's very dangerous, right, Oh yeah,
because then if someone experiences another symptom.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Well, even when people are in remission, when they've gone
through like chemotherapy and whatever other you know, treatments and
the intermission, you hear about cancer survivors saying you still
are on edge for a certain amount of years. There's
these chances, depending on your treatment and your body and everything,
that it could return. So you have to be really
(15:42):
diligent about going and getting check ups. So the idea
that you would just be like boom boom, never again
going to check it out, just like terrible, so dangerous.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Yeah, So in November of two thousand and seven, Trace
makes this trip to Jacksonville, and just like Cindy, who
would a year leader, she paid almost seven thousand dollars
for this treatment. Her treatment takes place over one week,
so she's there for a week and she's doing treatment
the whole time. Of course, none of these fees are
paid by insurance because this isn't valid medical treatment.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
So this is all out of pocket.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
This is all out of pocket, and it's not FDA approved,
it's not being performed by a real doctor. But miraculously,
after a week at this Jacksonville clinic, Carpenter tells to
Race her cancer is cured. The homemade laser machine has
killed the cancer as cells. Now, to answer your question
about what is the origin story of Ansanella, Carpenter becoming
(16:37):
this person who treats cancer. This is according to her obituary. Okay,
she's an electronic engineer for government contractors during the Reagan
administration and later created a patented laser and started her
own company in the pursuit of treating cancer. So the
answer is, I don't totally know. But as we get
(16:58):
into this, we'll see Anne Carpenter is a conspiracy theorist
who's not a surprise.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Right, not a surprise.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
She is openly against conventional medicine and medical doctors. So
Teres Westfall goes to Lay's Minding in two thousand and seven,
spends a week there, is told her cancer is cured.
(17:26):
But by March of two thousand and eight, she's feeling
a lot of pain on the left side.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Of her chest.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
How much longer is that this is about, I want
to say, like maybe six months, Okay.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
So then she starts feeling pain, okay, and.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
She's been told that her tumor has been killed by
this laser. So when she starts feeling this large, hard,
feeling mass, she calls Antonola Carpenter, and Carpenter reassures her
that she's fine. Her left breast has now turned purple.
But Carpenter's not concerned. She says it's a non issue.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Right, but Teresa isn't a lot of pain, and so
she does go see an oncologist, who of course then
confirms actually the cancer is still there, and this time
Terse opts for chemotherapy and eventually masectomy. But by this
time she's considered to have stage four cancer, which is
a ten percent chance of survival. Now, backing up a
(18:24):
little bit two thousand and seven, the time that she
spent thinking she was cured by Angela Carpenter. When she
was initially diagnosed, which led her to go seek out Carpenter,
she had a seventy five to ninety percent chance of survival.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Wow, so this.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Is really the criminal aspect, I think here that might
not have a specific associated charge, they'll look for other ways,
but she's putting lives in danger absolutely. And so by
the time Teres has sort of seen the light here
that this person is not able to make good on
these claims of curing can her cancer has progressed and
(19:02):
now she's, you know, got a ten percent chance of survival.
So it's horrible. It's horrible. So Teres Westfall files a
lawsuit and she says, you know, not only did Carpenter
mislead her, but she's done this to countless others, which
puts their lives at risk with pseudoscience. And maybe the
worst of all is that she almost forbades them from
(19:24):
seeing medical doctors. She's a very charismatic, persuasive person, and
she's able to get in their heads and say don't
go see these doctors. Now, as someone who's researching the
story all these years later, I have to wonder maybe
some part of her wanted to believe she could cure cancer.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
I'm sure, right, I mean, who knows. She does seem
like the kind of person who believes her own story
to a delusional degree. Yeah, because when you have a
patient you're not even a doctor, You shouldn't have a
patient who dies. This should be a huge wake up
call to you. It should be a huge way and
(20:08):
you should ask yourself, what responsibility do I have? And
this doesn't seem like that was the case.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah, it doesn't seem like it was the case. And
I would think that if I were operating outside of
the medical system making these bold claims, if an oncologist,
then did come back and say to one of my patients, Hey,
your cancer are still there, I would be like, wait
a minute, yeah, what's going on? Yeah, because of course
meanwhile she's treating other people. So this lawsuit is filed,
(20:37):
and actually, this is where I read about Cindy Bebecca's
death is because her husband, Dave, testimony is part of
this lawsuit about what happened to Cindy. So going through
the lawsuit, you start to wonder, Okay, these claims that
Teres Westfall is making, that Bob Rebecca, Cindy's husband is
talking about.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
You're like, well, how could you believe her?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
But Antonola Carpenter had an actual medical doctor who was
present at her clinic, really and I couldn't find out
a lot about him. But he's named as doctor Joseph
Ward in the lawsuit. In the court documents and the
complaint alleges that doctor Ward was actually asleep during some
of these appointments that he was supposedly overseeing. How much
(21:19):
was doctor Ward being paid? I would love to know, Yeah,
I would love to know. Now, a lot of the
court docs were redacted. There wasn't a ton on pacer
that I could find, But the court did side with
Terse Westfall, and she received a two point five million
dollar judgment. She never received the money. But what did
(21:40):
come out of it, right, nothing, is that Lai's mending
left Jacksonville, Florida. So that was the small win in
the lawsuit, is that people were starting to talk about
it and take notice. But you know, it's kind of
a drop in the bucket because what did doctor Carpenter do?
She opened a new location, of course she did in Oklahoma.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
My gosh, it's so infuriating. Like, obviously, the civil courts,
the civil system, legal system is important, but the amount
of times we've heard stories of people winning civil cases
and never seeing a dime and then the person just
like skips town and is doing the same thing. And look,
(22:22):
I don't know, but I've heard again and again from
people when they try to contact law enforcement about this,
they're told, Eh, it's a civil case.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Yeah, nothing we can do. I mean, it's just it's
it's maddening, but it's also dangerous. It is dangerous because
here you have someone who's putting people's lives at risk
and all she has to do is cross state lines
and she evades responsibility. Yeah, and so she opens this
new location just outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma in oaso am.
(22:52):
I saying that right owaso ohasa, Okay, our Oklahoma in here.
So by twenty ten, the FDA is now watching. A
man has come forward and alerted them that he has
throat cancer and Carpenter promised him she would cure it
with only three treatments, but didn't. And of course this
(23:13):
was easy now for the FDA to see. Okay, now
they can track her from the lawsuit she was sued
in Florida. She also has a clinic in Arkansas that's
still operating at this time. Right the overlap it closes down,
and then she's entirely in Oklahoma. And so they start
investigating in twenty ten in the Oklahoma location. Okay, and
how they do that? And I didn't even know this
(23:34):
about the FDA. The FDA kind of like the FBI
or police departments, has undercover agents.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Oh cool, yeah, how exciting for them.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
I know, like no offense to the FDA, but I
pictured them as more like quality control lab coats.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
So the FDA sends undercover agents to her clinic. Nice, yeah,
and they oppose as cancer patients and relatives of cancer patients,
and they eventually do a raid.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
I mean, so you're an undercover agent and you're gonna
let this lady inject unknown liquid, green liquid into your
body and then burn you with a laser. I mean,
that's commitment to the job.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Yeah, you know what, I wonder if they took it
that far, or if they just did these appointments where
they're like, tell me more about this innovative treatment.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Wearing a wire, getting her to say I guarantee you
or what exactly. Yeah, probably they weren't injected.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Yeah, and you know, of course, also at these appointments
they're hearing Antonola Carpenter talk about how vaccines are harmful
and don't see medical doctors chemotherapies of scam, radiations of scam.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
It's all going to kill you, gosh.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
And so they're putting together a case, but it takes
two years, and in the midst of that, you know,
Carpenter a is seeing patients. So the investigation begins in
October of twenty ten. The raid happens in July twenty twelve,
and they take everything. They take all of her digital evidence,
the homemade laser, they.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Take it all, love it and she is pissed.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
And this is what makes me think she believes what
she's selling.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Yeah, she's like, how dare you come between me and
my purpose of saving people's lives? Right exactly?
Speaker 2 (25:20):
And she had a blog at one point, and she
accuses the RAID of just being like sort of an
agent for the medical field and big cancer business, Like
they're just an agent for this big pharma that wants
to like take away my ability to cure cancer because
it's going to cost them zillions of dollars.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
When people realize this is how she is, it's like
so bananas and also creeps me out in a way
where I'm like, with where we are now with like
anti vaxx beliefs and science denihalism, I'm like I could
(26:01):
just picture some people hearing about this and being on
her side. Yeah, I don't know, it just it sends
like a shiver down my spine.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
It's so scary. And as we get into the case,
we'll see people were on her side who she did treat.
So for two years she's without all of the things
that were taken from her in the.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Raid, okay, and she is pissed, okay, And she is
because her she only has one laser. I think she
had two, and both they've both been taken.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Yeah, and you know what, if I was like some
sort of mad scientist that believed I could cure cancer
and I've got the laser to do it.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
I'm gonna have like a backup, backup.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
If she made the laser, why couldn't she just make
another one?
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Right?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
I mean I assume they would have shut that down immediately.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
She went on a YouTube show called truth Talk News.
I would not recommend it. Yeah, and she did an
interview with this person. I mean, first of all, it
sounded like the interviewer who owns this YouTube channel. It
sounds like he has a sound machine on in the background.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Oh wow, it's it is. It is so bad.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
And just the audio quality, Yeah, the audio quality is
so bad. It was unusably bad. He has like eighty
total videos, most of them have just a few hundred views.
But the interview, it is nonsensical beyond sort of what
I would have expected. Not that I would have thought
I would ever agree with what she was saying or
what he was saying. But he's not asking her even
(27:34):
to sort of, hey, tell us why they shouldn't have
done this, tell us why this works. They're just like
yapping back and forth about conspiracies. You know, I've never
seen not everyone should have a show, not everyone should
have a freakin' podcast. Yeah, And you know I was
listening to it, like, Wow, I'm fortunate I've never had
(27:56):
a cancer diagnosis. But it was surprising to me because
intonal Carpenter when I was listening to her speak, I
don't see the charisma. Really, I don't see the like,
oh this inspires confidence person.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
I mean, she sounds angry.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Wow, and so but this is after the raid, so
maybe she is angry that these lasers have been taken
away from her.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Right, She's definitely angry about the raid, But she is
a conspiracy theorist.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
She's an angry degree. She's angry at big pharmac Pharma,
the government.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Cancer is a business for them. All of these treatments
are just to get you to suffer and pay all
this money. And I mean it sounds like she's selling anger, right,
which is as we've seen now. It's like a very sellable,
very powerful message totally. And the interview, I mean there
wasn't even really a useful clip. It was just like
nonsense back and forth. Actually, her and the host sort
(28:50):
of like talking over each other, Like it was so
bizarre that I was like, how could this person have
convinced so many people?
Speaker 1 (28:58):
You know, you think a person's way of being when
they come in, especially someone who you have expectations for
being a medical professional, even if they're not. I don't know,
like I would want someone to feel grounded and knowledgeable.
But I also think there's a way to spin the kooky.
I'm sort of crazy. I'm all over the place, but
(29:20):
that's just because like I'm kind of this weird genius
who has this miracle cure.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Right, Like, I'm just crazy enough to think outside the box. Yeah,
and want to help people. Maybe I'm charging thousands of dollars,
but these people, it's nothing compared to what they're making, right,
you know. Whereas me, I'm like, if I'm going in
for surgery, I want the most like antisocial surgeon. Yeah,
I don't you know whoever that person is. I don't
want them to feel like warm and fuzzy, right, I
(29:48):
don't need them to be friends with me. I just
need them to be good at what they do. Yeah, exactly.
And so in October of twenty fourteen. Marie Antonola Carpenter,
So Marie is her first name, but she by Antila.
Carpenter is indicted on forty one different charges, all ranging
from a scheme to defraud cancer patients to wirefraud and
(30:08):
mail fraud. And this might seem really egregious, right, here's
this kind of quirky, angry person who wears like very
eccentric clothing. It might seem like, Okay, this should be
an easy case for the US Attorney's office. But it
wasn't because Antonina Carpenter had a lot of supporters and
(30:29):
not friends and family, but patients who truly believed that
she had cured them, and not just that she had
cured them, but that she had spared them from this
awful treatment like chemotherapy and radiation that actually would have
threatened their lives more. And one of those people is
Tamra Ford. Tamra Ford testifies at the trial, and that's
(30:53):
where I'm getting this information. So Tamra's from just outside
of Fort Worth, Texas, and she's been diagnosed with breast cancer.
This is sometime around I think two thousand and eight,
and she wants to avoid surgery and radiation which is
what leads her to Lay's med ink. She meets with Carpenter,
she likes her right away, and what Tamer says is
(31:15):
that Carpenter took the time to answer her questions and
her husband's questions, and says that she felt transparent and
offered a plethora of information. And now we have at
our disposal now chatgebet a whole new version of the
Internet that existed back in twenty ten, accessibility to information.
(31:39):
So you're really more reliant on doctors telling you or
perceived doctors telling you information. So she's saying a plaza
of information. But this is just a sales pitch.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah, but I do think the information accessibility is a
really important piece because you're right, like, anyone who has
a medical scare or a diagnose would have so many
questions about what this means for their body, for their life,
for their chances. And so yeah, I imagine having someone
sit with you and just listen and answer, even if
(32:11):
those answers are made up, probably feels good. Yeah, in
how many people have known someone who did go through chemotherapy,
did go through radiation and still died. Yeah, And so
Tamar has a tumor in her left breast. It's called
(32:33):
low infiltrated ductyl carcinoma. This is the most common type
of breast cancer. It actually accounts for almost eighty percent
of cases. It begins with abnormal cells growing in milk
dugs make their way into breastissue. So when it's caught
in the early stages and treated properly, it's still very serious,
but survival rates are high. It's when it metastasizes that
(32:55):
the chance of survival goes down. So back to this clinic,
tam and her husband are in the treatment room with
Carpenter and Carpenter's moving this laser around her left breast
and it takes a couple of hours. Tamra says the
treatment is painful, results in swelling, and Carpenter says, i'd
be profen and you're good to go. So Carpenter also
(33:15):
gives her some other advice. She says, cut out sugar,
eat a healthy diet, but mostly she says, just let
the treatment do the work. And there's a lot of
forms being signed at these appointments, and so the intention
is to release Carpenter from responsibility if someone doesn't respond
to the treatment. After the treatment, Tamar and her husband
(33:36):
return to Texas, and six months later, Tamara returns for
a second treatment with Carpenter. She returns for a third
treatment another six months after that. So over the course
of eighteen months, the only cancer treatment the Tamra receives
is this laser therapy treatment for mantonella. Carpenter, who is
a physicist. Now, Tamra says, she then has two ultrasounds,
(33:57):
one from Carpenter and one from a doctor doctor in Texas.
In both ultrasounds, Tamra says, she's giving this court testimony
revealed that the tumor has decreased in size, but it
also has revealed a second tumor. So Tamra is there
in defense of Carpenter at this trial. Even though now
(34:19):
she has a second tumor and the first one did
not in fact die with the chemotherapy treatment, I mean,
with the later treatment. Time of the trial, she has
two tumors, Okay.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
At the time that she's giving the testimony, she has
had two tumors. Yeah, and she decides to have more
conventional treatment now that she has the second tumor. However,
even despite that, like I'm looking at the situation, I'm like, Okay,
maybe you don't fully feel confident in her ability to
(34:48):
cure cancer. But Tamra's still there in defensive parpener and
she doesn't give like a clear reason to me and
her testimony why she saw a medical doctor. But I
can imagine maybe it was like cognitive dissonance. I've told
all these people about this unconventional treatment I'm doing, and
she said, my tumor reduced in size, and now I
(35:08):
have this other one, and I spent all this money
and time. I'm going to go see a conventional doctor.
But you know that's okay, I'm not mad about Carpenter.
In two thousand and nine, these are supporters of Carpenter.
A man named Raymond Barns was diagnosed with skin cancer.
Now a conventional doctor, a medical doctor, doctor Gregory Hogel,
(35:30):
recommends surgery and radiation treatment, but Raymond doesn't have health
insurance and wants to find an alternative. Eventually, he finds
the Antonola Carpenter and pays fourteen thousand dollars for this treatment.
But as he is doing that, the state that he
lives in approves financial aid for treatment. Okay, so then
(35:51):
he goes back to doctor Hogel. In January, of twenty ten,
and he tells doctor Hogel, Well, Carpenter told me that
she cured my can Doctor Hogle says, no, she didn't.
It's still there. The cancer was growing. And Raymond dies
in March of twenty eleven.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Wow. So but he's one of her supporters.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Yeah, so he didn't feel defrauded. But he passed away
before the trial. Okay, but he was someone who Carpenter
pointed to as a success. I mean, it makes no sense. Yeah,
he died, Yeah, he died. Carpenter pleads not guilty to
these charges. Right, she's fighting it, and the state's Attorney's
office for the Northern District of Oklahoma is alleging all
(36:32):
of this fraud that happens from two thousand and six
to twenty twelve, of claiming these treatments were one hundred
percent effective, which they weren't.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Now, the state's attorney says, this is not a malpractice case,
this is a fraud case. Five of the seven patients
who felt defrauded by Carpenter has died before the trial.
So it's hard because the people who supported her, they
were alive and so they were able to testify, right,
And the people who were there to testify that didn't
(37:02):
make it. Are the doctors who treated the people who
died post being treated by.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Carpenter, or like the husband of the woman who died, right,
and he was part of the civil suit testimony. Oh right,
So he's not even part of this, right. So you
just have doctors. And on the other side you have
people people, yeah, who feel that their lives were spared.
I mean, obviously doctors are people, but yeah, in the courtroom, Yeah,
(37:27):
there's a differentiation there.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
And so the people who were called to testify on
behalf of what happened to those patients who died were
these post treatment doctors. And now a quick wording note
is I'm not implying that any of Carpenter's treatments were successful,
only that some people who saw her for treatment felt
that they were.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Right, that was their perception, right, even though they all
went on to get traditional you know, medical chemotherapy or
other treatments for cancer.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Right, It's like correlation, not causation. And so in July
of twenty twelve, this is another doctor who's testifying at
the trial. He's telling us the story of a cancer
patient named Donna. Okay, Donna is lying in a hospital
bed in Little Rock, Arkansas, and doctor Scott Stern, a
surgical oncologist, is brought in to help diagnose her. He says,
(38:20):
already known to doctors that Donna has cancer, but she's
previously been treated elsewhere. He says that Donna has squamous
cell carcinoma of the base of the tongue that has
metastasized to her lymph nodes in her neck. So this
is very deadly, and she has been seeing Carpenter for
laser therapy and she passes away in May of twenty fifteen.
So from the three years that he saw her, she
(38:43):
passes away despite then having conventional treatment. So another patient
who saw Ansela Carpenter saw her in twenty ten, Carl Trant.
He had a tumor on his jawbone. Carpenter said that
she could kill the tumor, but after fourteen thousand dollars
out of pocket treatment, tumor greup by the time Carl
returned to her clinic in twenty twelve for yet another
(39:04):
treatment that had been rated by the FDA, So it
couldn't happen. Wow, Yeah, So by February, the jury's deliberating
in this trial, and more than ten former patients testified
in support of Carpenter, despite the fact that she did
not rid them of cancer. And she's sentenced to probation.
(39:25):
She sentenced to probation and a one point one million
dollar forfeiture, Okay, And she's very angry about this, despite
the fact that she totally avoids incarceration for this. And
you know, I think part of the reason is she
was in her sixties or seventies when this is going down,
and you know, she's probably not going to be able
(39:46):
to keep practicing after this. And she actually passed away
on April twenty six, twenty twenty one. And yeah, she
had a little blog that was sort of poorly written,
mostly anti vacs theories, fear a big pharma and she
did make money from these place many.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
How much money she made.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Yeah, So I couldn't find anything saying that she was
living a lavish lifestyle, but this was supporting her family.
Her daughter worked for her at the clinic. But what
I did find is a quote from the prosecuting attorney
for the US Attorney's office who said that he believed
she was driven by ego.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
Interesting, it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Because you know, we hear about male fraudsters and them
being ego driven, and of course that can be true
with women too, it's just I think less common. We
usually hear about financial motivations and yeah, yeah, and that
was his sort of assessment of it. But they were
disappointed that she did not get a harsher sentence.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Yeah, I mean, I hope that she didn't go on
to practice after that. At least she's not actively harming
people with her her you know, snake oil treatments for cancer.
The amount of patients that she had even that you
listed who died, it's unbelievable. And either she's like a
(41:12):
maniacal She was like a maniacal, terrible person who didn't
care that people died, or she had just created this
illusion that she believed that was probably very much about
her own ego and being this person who'd figured it
out and knew more than the whole medical industry, right.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
And it's like this identity you know, you see with
these conspiracy theorists who have these YouTube channels and do
these like bogus they call them interviews. It wasn't really
an interview. Yeah, he didn't ask her any hard questions.
You know, they just hyped each other up on these conspiracies,
and it's an identity. It becomes someone's identity. Yeah, and
then it's hard for them to, I think, step away
(41:52):
and look, although you know, I'm not excusing what she did,
making claims like that life threatening, but yeah, she passed
away in in April of twenty twenty one and never
spent a day in prison and never paid the civil suit.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Yeah, that's horrible. What a story. Yeah, Oklahoma just keeps popping.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
Up, it really does. It's the theme on the show. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Well, I mean I'm glad that there was some record
of her being sued and then prosecuted by the FDA.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Yeah, and it really I think is clear that we
live in a country where you want medical sort of autonomy,
you want decisions about your body to include you, Yeah,
and I totally understand that, but we should all be
making decisions based on facts.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
And also if someone doesn't want treatment, like I agree, Like, yeah,
I'm on board with people making decisions whatever it is
about their own bodies. But it's the fact that she
claimed that this was like guaranteed when it was so
clearly not. When her patients were dying, and also discouraged
her patients from seeing medical doctors. That's so conniving and
(43:04):
gross and criminal and like cool, you want to go
do alternative treatments alongside you know, your standard medical treatments, great, like,
go for it. But as soon as someone starts telling
you don't go see a doctor, run for the hills.
Run for the hills, like they're trying to hide something. Yeah,
Like that was my takeaway is she doesn't want them
(43:25):
to see doctors because the doctors will tell her patients
that this doesn't work. Yeah, but she's selling totally.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
And you know, I don't think she was making millions
of dollars, but she was making enough to support herself
and this was her career. This was her career.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Yeah, mm hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
I have one recommendation actually, and it's going to it's
not related to this, but it sort of prompted the
same sort of conversation or question in my mind about
our you know, medical freedom quote unquote.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
So the show that I've talked about on the podcast before,
it's called Accused, Guilty or Innocent from any And actually,
before I go any further, the episode that I'm going
to be talking about today does deal with child loss,
so please take care when listening. So there's a new
season out and there's an episode about our midwife and
she is accused of I don't remember her exact charge,
(44:18):
but basically she was there for a birth that resulted
and the baby didn't make it.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
Was this at home birth? It was a home birth.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Yeah, yeah, and important part of that that I forgot
to mention.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
It's a home birth.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
She had a close relationship with the parents. And what
ends up happening is the baby is breach and she's
not equipped to help deliver this baby, and the baby
doesn't make it, and by the time the ambulance arrives,
things are really bad. But the baby dies later on,
doesn't die at home, and it's this horrific tragedy. These
(44:53):
young parents that are so excited about this baby lose
the baby. She was found not going of any wrongdoing
because I can't say totally why, but the way that
the episode depicted it is that the parents were very
supportive of her. They did not feel wronged by her.
(45:14):
They felt like this was a tragedy that had many
layers and that she was not responsible. And you know,
I can't imagine the pain that they must be experiencing.
And well, one part of me is like, you know,
they made that decision to have a home birth, so
maybe she shouldn't be totally at fault. But there's these
(45:37):
very blurred lines between medical professional and not in the
way that someone can promote themselves online. And we see
that with home births, we see that with chiropractic care.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
I mean, don't get me started on that.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Seriously, they said that they would use her services. Again, Yeah,
I guess in that scenario and I haven't watched it,
but it makes sense to me that she wouldn't be
held responsible because if you choose to have a child
in your home, I know, you have to know that
there are risks involved with that, right, And unless she's
presenting herself as a doctor, I imagine she's very honest
(46:14):
about what she is and what her qualifications are. Yeah,
let me look up her actual title because I'm pretty
sure it was it was.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
Let's see.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Yeah, her name is Angela Hawk And in June of
twenty nineteen, an unlicensed, quote old school midwife attempted to
deliver a breach baby at home in Omaha.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
Oh maybe she didn't have a midwife license or something. Yeah,
and unlicensed midwives. I feel like I looked this up
at one point, maybe when we were doing an adoption
fraud story. There might be something to do with the
laws on what qualifications midwives have to have are different
state by state, and they also have changed over time, right,
(46:55):
so sometimes like older midwives, they didn't have to do
the same testing and the qualification whatever, then they do now.
I don't know if it's something like that or not,
but I don't know. It's sort of confusing.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
Yeah, I mean I had a hospital birth and I
felt like I was in you know, great hands, And
I know not everyone leaves their birth experience feeling that way,
but you know, anytime you have to travel from your
home to a hospital when there's a life threatening event happening,
that obviously takes time and then you're at the mercy
of a lot of other factors.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
So I mean, it's just terrible.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
And the couple I think played a big part in
how the jury saw it because they were supportive of
her and did not feel that she was the reason
for this.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
Yeah, so they didn't bring the charges, was like criminal charges, right,
They did not bring these charges. The state brought the charges.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Yeah, cool, Well that's exciting. There's a new season out
to check it out.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Yeah. It's just such a unique show because it portrays
the side of the defendants which you just don't usually
see and really makes you think about how they found
themselves in these situations.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
Well, thanks for telling me that story today. Yeah, thanks
for listening. We will see you guys next week. If
you have a story for us, we would love to
hear it. Our email is The Knife at exactlyrightmedia dot com,
or you can follow us on Instagram at the Knife
Podcast or.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
A Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
This has been an Exactly Right production hosted and produced
by me Hannah Smith and me Paysha Ey.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
Our producers are Tom Bryfogel and Alexis Samarosi.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel. Our associate producer
is Christina Chamberlain. Our theme music is by Birds in
the Airport.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
Artwork five Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgareth Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
The claims and opinions in this podcast are those of
the speaker and do not necessarily represent The Knife or
Exactly Right Media.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Welcome to The Knife Off Record. I'm Hannah Smith.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I'm Patia Eaton, and today, Hannah, I have a story
for you.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I can't wait to hear it.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah. It's actually a story that we had talked about
briefly a couple of months ago, but I couldn't find
you know, I made a bunch of phone calls and
didn't find the right person to speak with about it,
but wanted to tell you what I found out.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Okay, great.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
So it's July of two thousand and eight, and we're
in North Little Rock, Arkansas. It's characteristically hot and muggy
outside and accompanied by her husband and a woman named Cindy.
Butbecca walks into Lay's med Ink.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Cindy is there for cancer treatment. Cindy has breast cancer
and she's traveled all the way from her home in
Powder Springs, Georgia to North Little Rock for an appointment
with doctor Antonella Carpenter. Okay, and doctor Antonela Carpenter has
promised to cure Cindy's cancer. So, yeah, when I hear
someone's traveling across state lines, like my mind first goes
(01:29):
to to see a specialist or someone who is, you know,
particularly good at treating your type of cancer. Is that
the situation? It is the situation that doctor Antonola Carpenter
has promised to cure her cancer. But no, she is
not a specialist and she is not a medical doctor.
She's going by doctor, She's going by a doctor. So
(01:50):
doctor Antonola Carpenter, as she calls herself, she promises to
cure cancer without chemotherapy, without radiation, and without surgery.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
And when you say promises, is she actually like promising?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
She is guaranteeing it.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
And her sort of pitch with this treatment that I'll
get into is that she is going to kill the
tumor and thus cure the cancer. And of course, because
she's not a medical doctor, she can't perform chemotherapy, she
can't perform radiation, and she certainly can't perform surgery. So
Cindy arrives for cancer treatment, and over the course of
(02:28):
a year, Cindy goes to several appointments with Carpenter for
Carpenter's leash therapy. This stands for light induced enhanced selective hyperthermia.
Carpenter claims that she can inject a DIE into the
site of the tumor. So if it's in your breast,
if it's breast cancer, she will inject you with this
(02:50):
DIE that's a combination of food coloring and something else.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
It's homemade, Okay.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
She injects it into this area where the tumor is growing,
and then she shoots the tumor by looking at the
dye to see where the tumor is with a homemade laser.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
What color is this dye? I think it's green?
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Okay, Yeah, So she has a syringe full of green
liquid and she's just injecting it into people's bodies, right,
And it's not painless, it's very painful. And so the
idea is that this laser is so hot that it's
going to get in there and it's going to target
the tumor because she can see exactly where to point it,
(03:32):
and the tumor will then be killed off. And the
whole sort of underlying reason for her getting cancer patients
to come to her for this unconventional treatment is that
it is almost no side effects compared to chemotherapy, radiation,
or surgery, Like this is so easy compared to that,
(03:55):
And the cancer medical industry doesn't want you to know
that this exists, okay, because there's so much more money
to be made by these extensive chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
So what are the side effects? Does it burn your skin?
Speaker 2 (04:11):
It's swelling and it can feel a burning sensation, and
she recommends ibuprofen. Okay, so it's a painful process, but
less so than chemotherapy or radiation.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
How much does she charge for a treatment?
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Thousands of dollars? So Cindy paid about ten thousand dollars
in total. Yeah, and this was back in two thousand
and eight. So Cindy's really hopeful, and she has a
lot of confidence in Carpenter, so much so that she
is persuaded by Carpenter to avoid medical doctors and conventional treatments.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
I don't know if we know anything about Cindy, but
I'm just curious. You know, why Cindy chose to go
with this doctor as opposed to getting the traditional chemotherapy treatment.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Great question.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
So there's not too much about Cindy's specifically and by
the way, a lot of my research was pulled from
court documents that we'll get into later, but most of
doctor Air quotes Carpenter's patients were people who had seen
others go through chemotherapy, go through radiation and thought, I
don't want to do that to my body. There has
(05:18):
to be another way, and so they're seeking out an
alternative treatment that will not wreck them the way that
chemotherapy is just really hard on a person's body. Yeah, absolutely, yeah,
which is absolutely true. Yeah, but it's obviously also a tested,
studied method of killing cancer, Yes.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
With a lot of statistics about survival rates, etc.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, And so Cindy goes to this clinic in Arkansas
several times over the course of a year, and sure enough,
Antoninla Carpenter tells Cindy her body is responding to the treatment.
The tumor, though, is breaking through Cindy's skin. That is
extremely painful, as you might imagine. But on the upside,
(06:06):
Carpenter's explanation for this is that the body is expelling
the tumor because now the tumor has died, and so
Cindy's body is just pushing it right out.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
And this is just the process.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
And you have to imagine, well, I don't know, but
I would guess what's really going on is that this
tumor is growing.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
It's growing.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, But Cindy at this point is still believing Carpenter.
So this is about a year from her first treatment, okay,
And I'm not sure of the exact timeline of what
happens next for Cindy, but she does return to Georgia
and eventually go see a radiologist, and that radiologist, doctor
Christine Murphy, encourages Cindy to have her tumor biopsy.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Doctor Christine Murphy is the radiologist.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
She's a radiologist, actual doctor, a real doctor, Okay, and
Cindy is very hesitant. You know, her trust in this
doctor is almost none. And based on what was available
in articles and court documents, it seems like Antonina Carpenter
really hammered hard this idea of do not go see
(07:13):
medical doctors. They just want your money, they don't care.
You're just going to suffer. They're not going to carry
your cancer. I'm going to carry your cancer.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
There's so much truth that our medical system is unbelievably
broken and expensive, and there's a lot of distrust in
it that people have for sometimes for good reason, maybe
not because of the medical care, but because of the
insurance companies and how expensive it is. And you get
these bills that show up that are unexplainable. And so
(07:41):
you can see how someone could take these things that
are very real complaints and use them to say, well,
it's all bad. Don't trust any doctors, just trust me.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Right, because that is the experience so many people have
when they go to the doctors, that they feel rushed,
they don't feel listened to, they don't feel like this
unique case, they feel like they're given this blanket treatment.
These are all things that we hear from all manner
of people, and doctor Carpenter, from multiple patients, we hear
that she took the time, she sat in front of them,
(08:15):
she listened to their concerns, She spoke at length with
them about their cancer diagnosis, and she reassured.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Them that it would be okay, which is probably so powerful.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Right.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
And Cindy was a mother, you know, she had children
that she wanted to live for.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
I just think, wouldn't you be afraid of death? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:36):
I have watched someone that I was closed to go
through chemotherapy and radiation. And I will say when I
was younger, they were close in eache to me, so
you know, it was very sad you watch a young
person go from healthy to not yah and then pass away.
But you know the treatment is gnarly. Yes, it can
be gnarly, oh for sure, vomiting, weight loss, hair loss,
(09:00):
I mean skin going to like basically colorless. Yeah, And
I can understand being fearful of that. How could that
be helping me?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Totally?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
But I have to imagine what's going on here is
that these people are getting a diagnosis from a doctor
who can diagnose cancer, and then they're hearing about the
side effects of this treatment and saying wait a minute, no, no, no,
no no. And this doctor is saying, I can give
you this much of a chance of survival, whereas.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Doctor or carpenter she can cure it. Yeah, not a doctor,
not a doctor, not a carpenter either, right, not a
lady with some green dye, yep.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
And so Cindy does not ever go back to doctor
Christine Murphy, the radiologist who recommends the biopsy, but she
does eventually begin chemotherapy treatment.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
She does, okay, but it's too late.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Her cancer has progressed beyond the point of chemo being
able to save her and loving mother and wife Cindy,
but Beecca passed away on May eleventh.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Twenty t Wow.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
So a little bit about Antonela Carpenter. She has this
fiery bright red hair, vibrant makeup, usually wearing colorful clothing,
a super eccentric and passionate seeming person.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
She was born August twenty ninth in nineteen forty four
in Italy. She was raised in Milan, graduated from high school,
attended the University of Milan, and she came to the
US after marrying her husband, James Berry, who was in
Vietnam and June of nineteen sixty eight. Okay, he was
there with the US Army. Yeah, so Antonela became a
US citizen shortly after that. She then attended Cameron University
(10:40):
in Oklahoma from nineteen seventy six to nineteen seventy seven.
So it says that she received This is from her obituary,
by the way.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Eighteen seventy sixth to nineteen seventy six, so one year,
one year, okay.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, But it says online that she received a Bachelor
of Science in Physics in nineteen ninety seven. Okay, Now
this is why she refers to herself as a doctor
because she got a bachelor's degree in physics. In physics,
so she says, well, she goes on to then say
she has a master's of science in state physics from
Oklahoma State.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
And does she we don't know, we don't know. That's
not in her obituary. That's in her obituary.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Oh okay it is. Yeah, So but still not a doctor.
Not a doctor, but you're not a doctor for you
to master's right?
Speaker 2 (11:21):
And I will say that Antonella Carpenter with Cindy and
with the other patients that we're going to be talking about,
she tells them, I'm a physicist. I'm not a doctor.
I'm a physicist. Interesting, but okay, you can trust me
because I'm not a doctor who's out there to just
like scam you for insurance money. So Cindy Bobeca's death
doesn't deter Carpenter. It's not like Carpenter gets a call
(11:43):
and it's like, oh, maybe my treatment doesn't care cancer.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
She just continues, are there people that claim that this
has saved them? Yes?
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Okay, and that will come out in a trial that
happens later. Okay, but Cindy Baba Becca's death does not
deter a Carpenter from continuing to tell those who arrive
for treatment that she can cure their cancer with her
homemade laser. And importantly, she, as I mentioned, does tell
them that she's not a medical doctor, she's a physicist.
(12:16):
I'm not sure that she communicates with them that that
also means she doesn't have a medical license. And if
you remember, her clinic is called Lay's med Ink, so
it's very confusing. Yeah, like men must stand for medicine
medical and so people are still coming to see her
(12:37):
from all over the country. And one of those people
is Teres Westfall, who traveled all the way from Tarzana, California,
so just north of Los Angeles in September of two
thousand and seven, a year before Cindy Butbecca ever set
foot in Carpenter's clinic. Teres Westfall was fifty years old
and facing down her own breast cancer diagnosis. At the time,
(12:58):
Lay's med Ink was also in Jacksonville, Florida, so Teres
finds the clinic through a handwritten note that she finds
on a bolton at a health food store Wow. Yeah,
she's found out that she has breast cancer. She's at
a health food store. I'm not necessarily assuming she's going
to cure cancer with like alternative methods just because she's
at a health food store, but she is clearly someone
(13:20):
who is thinking about her health maybe holistically.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
And so she calls the number on this pamphlet or
note at the store and they direct her to Antonella
Carpenter's website. And on the website it's all the same
stuff that Cindy Babecco has fed, which is, you know,
we're going to cure your cancer. This is how we're
going to do it, this is why you shouldn't see
medical doctors. And so Teres Westwall decides to go. And
(13:49):
this was one thing on the website. It promised Star
Wars level technology with little to no side effects.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Star Wars can't. Yeah, yeah, And so it's like a
fictional sci fi series, right, and really, movie, what are.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
We talking about?
Speaker 2 (14:07):
What are we talking about? And you know, the whole
medical system can be, like you said, so difficult to
navigate that. I imagine if someone's like, okay, why would
someone be able to say this if it's not true?
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Well, she shouldn't be able to make promises that she
can cure people when it's not true. I imagine that's
going to come back in the trial to bite her.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
It sure is. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
The website reads, we perform the necessary testing to confirm
the death of the tumor. We show all patients the
results which confirm that the tumor mass is dead or dying.
Leash therapy, as originally designed by its founder, can successfully
kill cancer without the need for additional damaging procedures or
(14:51):
the utilization of any follow up drug regimen.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Wow, so you're reading this from the website which is
still up. This is from a court document. Yeah, I'm
just so curious what their like origin story is.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
So this claim on the website that says without the
need for damaging procedures or the utilization of follow up
drug regiment also gives you the sense of finality when
your treatment is done, it's done. Yeah, you don't need
to go questioning it. That's very dangerous, right, Oh yeah,
because then if someone experiences another symptom.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Well, even when people are in remission, when they've gone
through like chemotherapy and whatever other you know, treatments and
the intermission, you hear about cancer survivors saying you still
are on edge for a certain amount of years. There's
these chances, depending on your treatment and your body and everything,
that it could return. So you have to be really
(15:42):
diligent about going and getting check ups. So the idea
that you would just be like boom boom, never again
going to check it out, just like terrible, so dangerous.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Yeah, So in November of two thousand and seven, Trace
makes this trip to Jacksonville, and just like Cindy, who
would a year leader, she paid almost seven thousand dollars
for this treatment. Her treatment takes place over one week,
so she's there for a week and she's doing treatment
the whole time. Of course, none of these fees are
paid by insurance because this isn't valid medical treatment.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
So this is all out of pocket.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
This is all out of pocket, and it's not FDA approved,
it's not being performed by a real doctor. But miraculously,
after a week at this Jacksonville clinic, Carpenter tells to
Race her cancer is cured. The homemade laser machine has
killed the cancer as cells. Now, to answer your question
about what is the origin story of Ansanella, Carpenter becoming
(16:37):
this person who treats cancer. This is according to her obituary. Okay,
she's an electronic engineer for government contractors during the Reagan
administration and later created a patented laser and started her
own company in the pursuit of treating cancer. So the
answer is, I don't totally know. But as we get
(16:58):
into this, we'll see Anne Carpenter is a conspiracy theorist
who's not a surprise.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Right, not a surprise.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
She is openly against conventional medicine and medical doctors. So
Teres Westfall goes to Lay's Minding in two thousand and seven,
spends a week there, is told her cancer is cured.
(17:26):
But by March of two thousand and eight, she's feeling
a lot of pain on the left side.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Of her chest.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
How much longer is that this is about, I want
to say, like maybe six months, Okay.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
So then she starts feeling pain, okay, and.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
She's been told that her tumor has been killed by
this laser. So when she starts feeling this large, hard,
feeling mass, she calls Antonola Carpenter, and Carpenter reassures her
that she's fine. Her left breast has now turned purple.
But Carpenter's not concerned. She says it's a non issue.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Right, but Teresa isn't a lot of pain, and so
she does go see an oncologist, who of course then
confirms actually the cancer is still there, and this time
Terse opts for chemotherapy and eventually masectomy. But by this
time she's considered to have stage four cancer, which is
a ten percent chance of survival. Now, backing up a
(18:24):
little bit two thousand and seven, the time that she
spent thinking she was cured by Angela Carpenter. When she
was initially diagnosed, which led her to go seek out Carpenter,
she had a seventy five to ninety percent chance of survival.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Wow, so this.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Is really the criminal aspect, I think here that might
not have a specific associated charge, they'll look for other ways,
but she's putting lives in danger absolutely. And so by
the time Teres has sort of seen the light here
that this person is not able to make good on
these claims of curing can her cancer has progressed and
(19:02):
now she's, you know, got a ten percent chance of survival.
So it's horrible. It's horrible. So Teres Westfall files a
lawsuit and she says, you know, not only did Carpenter
mislead her, but she's done this to countless others, which
puts their lives at risk with pseudoscience. And maybe the
worst of all is that she almost forbades them from
(19:24):
seeing medical doctors. She's a very charismatic, persuasive person, and
she's able to get in their heads and say don't
go see these doctors. Now, as someone who's researching the
story all these years later, I have to wonder maybe
some part of her wanted to believe she could cure cancer.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
I'm sure, right, I mean, who knows. She does seem
like the kind of person who believes her own story
to a delusional degree. Yeah, because when you have a
patient you're not even a doctor, You shouldn't have a
patient who dies. This should be a huge wake up
call to you. It should be a huge way and
(20:08):
you should ask yourself, what responsibility do I have? And
this doesn't seem like that was the case.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah, it doesn't seem like it was the case. And
I would think that if I were operating outside of
the medical system making these bold claims, if an oncologist,
then did come back and say to one of my patients, Hey,
your cancer are still there, I would be like, wait
a minute, yeah, what's going on? Yeah, because of course
meanwhile she's treating other people. So this lawsuit is filed,
(20:37):
and actually, this is where I read about Cindy Bebecca's
death is because her husband, Dave, testimony is part of
this lawsuit about what happened to Cindy. So going through
the lawsuit, you start to wonder, Okay, these claims that
Teres Westfall is making, that Bob Rebecca, Cindy's husband is
talking about.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
You're like, well, how could you believe her?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
But Antonola Carpenter had an actual medical doctor who was
present at her clinic, really and I couldn't find out
a lot about him. But he's named as doctor Joseph
Ward in the lawsuit. In the court documents and the
complaint alleges that doctor Ward was actually asleep during some
of these appointments that he was supposedly overseeing. How much
(21:19):
was doctor Ward being paid? I would love to know, Yeah,
I would love to know. Now, a lot of the
court docs were redacted. There wasn't a ton on pacer
that I could find, But the court did side with
Terse Westfall, and she received a two point five million
dollar judgment. She never received the money. But what did
(21:40):
come out of it, right, nothing, is that Lai's mending
left Jacksonville, Florida. So that was the small win in
the lawsuit, is that people were starting to talk about
it and take notice. But you know, it's kind of
a drop in the bucket because what did doctor Carpenter do?
She opened a new location, of course she did in Oklahoma.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
My gosh, it's so infuriating. Like, obviously, the civil courts,
the civil system, legal system is important, but the amount
of times we've heard stories of people winning civil cases
and never seeing a dime and then the person just
like skips town and is doing the same thing. And look,
(22:22):
I don't know, but I've heard again and again from
people when they try to contact law enforcement about this,
they're told, Eh, it's a civil case.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Yeah, nothing we can do. I mean, it's just it's
it's maddening, but it's also dangerous. It is dangerous because
here you have someone who's putting people's lives at risk
and all she has to do is cross state lines
and she evades responsibility. Yeah, and so she opens this
new location just outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma in oaso am.
(22:52):
I saying that right owaso ohasa, Okay, our Oklahoma in here.
So by twenty ten, the FDA is now watching. A
man has come forward and alerted them that he has
throat cancer and Carpenter promised him she would cure it
with only three treatments, but didn't. And of course this
(23:13):
was easy now for the FDA to see. Okay, now
they can track her from the lawsuit she was sued
in Florida. She also has a clinic in Arkansas that's
still operating at this time. Right the overlap it closes down,
and then she's entirely in Oklahoma. And so they start
investigating in twenty ten in the Oklahoma location. Okay, and
how they do that? And I didn't even know this
(23:34):
about the FDA. The FDA kind of like the FBI
or police departments, has undercover agents.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Oh cool, yeah, how exciting for them.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
I know, like no offense to the FDA, but I
pictured them as more like quality control lab coats.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
So the FDA sends undercover agents to her clinic. Nice, yeah,
and they oppose as cancer patients and relatives of cancer patients,
and they eventually do a raid.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
I mean, so you're an undercover agent and you're gonna
let this lady inject unknown liquid, green liquid into your
body and then burn you with a laser. I mean,
that's commitment to the job.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Yeah, you know what, I wonder if they took it
that far, or if they just did these appointments where
they're like, tell me more about this innovative treatment.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Wearing a wire, getting her to say I guarantee you
or what exactly. Yeah, probably they weren't injected.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Yeah, and you know, of course, also at these appointments
they're hearing Antonola Carpenter talk about how vaccines are harmful
and don't see medical doctors chemotherapies of scam, radiations of scam.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
It's all going to kill you, gosh.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
And so they're putting together a case, but it takes
two years, and in the midst of that, you know,
Carpenter a is seeing patients. So the investigation begins in
October of twenty ten. The raid happens in July twenty twelve,
and they take everything. They take all of her digital evidence,
the homemade laser, they.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Take it all, love it and she is pissed.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
And this is what makes me think she believes what
she's selling.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Yeah, she's like, how dare you come between me and
my purpose of saving people's lives? Right exactly?
Speaker 2 (25:20):
And she had a blog at one point, and she
accuses the RAID of just being like sort of an
agent for the medical field and big cancer business, Like
they're just an agent for this big pharma that wants
to like take away my ability to cure cancer because
it's going to cost them zillions of dollars.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
When people realize this is how she is, it's like
so bananas and also creeps me out in a way
where I'm like, with where we are now with like
anti vaxx beliefs and science denihalism, I'm like I could
(26:01):
just picture some people hearing about this and being on
her side. Yeah, I don't know, it just it sends
like a shiver down my spine.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
It's so scary. And as we get into the case,
we'll see people were on her side who she did treat.
So for two years she's without all of the things
that were taken from her in the.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Raid, okay, and she is pissed, okay, And she is
because her she only has one laser. I think she
had two, and both they've both been taken.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Yeah, and you know what, if I was like some
sort of mad scientist that believed I could cure cancer
and I've got the laser to do it.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
I'm gonna have like a backup, backup.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
If she made the laser, why couldn't she just make
another one?
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Right?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
I mean I assume they would have shut that down immediately.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
She went on a YouTube show called truth Talk News.
I would not recommend it. Yeah, and she did an
interview with this person. I mean, first of all, it
sounded like the interviewer who owns this YouTube channel. It
sounds like he has a sound machine on in the background.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Oh wow, it's it is. It is so bad.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
And just the audio quality, Yeah, the audio quality is
so bad. It was unusably bad. He has like eighty
total videos, most of them have just a few hundred views.
But the interview, it is nonsensical beyond sort of what
I would have expected. Not that I would have thought
I would ever agree with what she was saying or
what he was saying. But he's not asking her even
(27:34):
to sort of, hey, tell us why they shouldn't have
done this, tell us why this works. They're just like
yapping back and forth about conspiracies. You know, I've never
seen not everyone should have a show, not everyone should
have a freakin' podcast. Yeah, And you know I was
listening to it, like, Wow, I'm fortunate I've never had
(27:56):
a cancer diagnosis. But it was surprising to me because
intonal Carpenter when I was listening to her speak, I
don't see the charisma. Really, I don't see the like,
oh this inspires confidence person.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
I mean, she sounds angry.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Wow, and so but this is after the raid, so
maybe she is angry that these lasers have been taken
away from her.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Right, She's definitely angry about the raid, But she is
a conspiracy theorist.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
She's an angry degree. She's angry at big pharmac Pharma,
the government.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Cancer is a business for them. All of these treatments
are just to get you to suffer and pay all
this money. And I mean it sounds like she's selling anger, right,
which is as we've seen now. It's like a very sellable,
very powerful message totally. And the interview, I mean there
wasn't even really a useful clip. It was just like
nonsense back and forth. Actually, her and the host sort
(28:50):
of like talking over each other, Like it was so
bizarre that I was like, how could this person have
convinced so many people?
Speaker 1 (28:58):
You know, you think a person's way of being when
they come in, especially someone who you have expectations for
being a medical professional, even if they're not. I don't know,
like I would want someone to feel grounded and knowledgeable.
But I also think there's a way to spin the kooky.
I'm sort of crazy. I'm all over the place, but
(29:20):
that's just because like I'm kind of this weird genius
who has this miracle cure.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Right, Like, I'm just crazy enough to think outside the box. Yeah,
and want to help people. Maybe I'm charging thousands of dollars,
but these people, it's nothing compared to what they're making, right,
you know. Whereas me, I'm like, if I'm going in
for surgery, I want the most like antisocial surgeon. Yeah,
I don't you know whoever that person is. I don't
want them to feel like warm and fuzzy, right, I
(29:48):
don't need them to be friends with me. I just
need them to be good at what they do. Yeah, exactly.
And so in October of twenty fourteen. Marie Antonola Carpenter,
So Marie is her first name, but she by Antila.
Carpenter is indicted on forty one different charges, all ranging
from a scheme to defraud cancer patients to wirefraud and
(30:08):
mail fraud. And this might seem really egregious, right, here's
this kind of quirky, angry person who wears like very
eccentric clothing. It might seem like, Okay, this should be
an easy case for the US Attorney's office. But it
wasn't because Antonina Carpenter had a lot of supporters and
(30:29):
not friends and family, but patients who truly believed that
she had cured them, and not just that she had
cured them, but that she had spared them from this
awful treatment like chemotherapy and radiation that actually would have
threatened their lives more. And one of those people is
Tamra Ford. Tamra Ford testifies at the trial, and that's
(30:53):
where I'm getting this information. So Tamra's from just outside
of Fort Worth, Texas, and she's been diagnosed with breast cancer.
This is sometime around I think two thousand and eight,
and she wants to avoid surgery and radiation which is
what leads her to Lay's med ink. She meets with Carpenter,
she likes her right away, and what Tamer says is
(31:15):
that Carpenter took the time to answer her questions and
her husband's questions, and says that she felt transparent and
offered a plethora of information. And now we have at
our disposal now chatgebet a whole new version of the
Internet that existed back in twenty ten, accessibility to information.
(31:39):
So you're really more reliant on doctors telling you or
perceived doctors telling you information. So she's saying a plaza
of information. But this is just a sales pitch.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah, but I do think the information accessibility is a
really important piece because you're right, like, anyone who has
a medical scare or a diagnose would have so many
questions about what this means for their body, for their life,
for their chances. And so yeah, I imagine having someone
sit with you and just listen and answer, even if
(32:11):
those answers are made up, probably feels good. Yeah, in
how many people have known someone who did go through chemotherapy,
did go through radiation and still died. Yeah, And so
Tamar has a tumor in her left breast. It's called
(32:33):
low infiltrated ductyl carcinoma. This is the most common type
of breast cancer. It actually accounts for almost eighty percent
of cases. It begins with abnormal cells growing in milk
dugs make their way into breastissue. So when it's caught
in the early stages and treated properly, it's still very serious,
but survival rates are high. It's when it metastasizes that
(32:55):
the chance of survival goes down. So back to this clinic,
tam and her husband are in the treatment room with
Carpenter and Carpenter's moving this laser around her left breast
and it takes a couple of hours. Tamra says the
treatment is painful, results in swelling, and Carpenter says, i'd
be profen and you're good to go. So Carpenter also
(33:15):
gives her some other advice. She says, cut out sugar,
eat a healthy diet, but mostly she says, just let
the treatment do the work. And there's a lot of
forms being signed at these appointments, and so the intention
is to release Carpenter from responsibility if someone doesn't respond
to the treatment. After the treatment, Tamar and her husband
(33:36):
return to Texas, and six months later, Tamara returns for
a second treatment with Carpenter. She returns for a third
treatment another six months after that. So over the course
of eighteen months, the only cancer treatment the Tamra receives
is this laser therapy treatment for mantonella. Carpenter, who is
a physicist. Now, Tamra says, she then has two ultrasounds,
(33:57):
one from Carpenter and one from a doctor doctor in Texas.
In both ultrasounds, Tamra says, she's giving this court testimony
revealed that the tumor has decreased in size, but it
also has revealed a second tumor. So Tamra is there
in defense of Carpenter at this trial. Even though now
(34:19):
she has a second tumor and the first one did
not in fact die with the chemotherapy treatment, I mean,
with the later treatment. Time of the trial, she has
two tumors, Okay.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
At the time that she's giving the testimony, she has
had two tumors. Yeah, and she decides to have more
conventional treatment now that she has the second tumor. However,
even despite that, like I'm looking at the situation, I'm like, Okay,
maybe you don't fully feel confident in her ability to
(34:48):
cure cancer. But Tamra's still there in defensive parpener and
she doesn't give like a clear reason to me and
her testimony why she saw a medical doctor. But I
can imagine maybe it was like cognitive dissonance. I've told
all these people about this unconventional treatment I'm doing, and
she said, my tumor reduced in size, and now I
(35:08):
have this other one, and I spent all this money
and time. I'm going to go see a conventional doctor.
But you know that's okay, I'm not mad about Carpenter.
In two thousand and nine, these are supporters of Carpenter.
A man named Raymond Barns was diagnosed with skin cancer.
Now a conventional doctor, a medical doctor, doctor Gregory Hogel,
(35:30):
recommends surgery and radiation treatment, but Raymond doesn't have health
insurance and wants to find an alternative. Eventually, he finds
the Antonola Carpenter and pays fourteen thousand dollars for this treatment.
But as he is doing that, the state that he
lives in approves financial aid for treatment. Okay, so then
(35:51):
he goes back to doctor Hogel. In January, of twenty ten,
and he tells doctor Hogel, Well, Carpenter told me that
she cured my can Doctor Hogle says, no, she didn't.
It's still there. The cancer was growing. And Raymond dies
in March of twenty eleven.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Wow. So but he's one of her supporters.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Yeah, so he didn't feel defrauded. But he passed away
before the trial. Okay, but he was someone who Carpenter
pointed to as a success. I mean, it makes no sense. Yeah,
he died, Yeah, he died. Carpenter pleads not guilty to
these charges. Right, she's fighting it, and the state's Attorney's
office for the Northern District of Oklahoma is alleging all
(36:32):
of this fraud that happens from two thousand and six
to twenty twelve, of claiming these treatments were one hundred
percent effective, which they weren't.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Now, the state's attorney says, this is not a malpractice case,
this is a fraud case. Five of the seven patients
who felt defrauded by Carpenter has died before the trial.
So it's hard because the people who supported her, they
were alive and so they were able to testify, right,
And the people who were there to testify that didn't
(37:02):
make it. Are the doctors who treated the people who
died post being treated by.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Carpenter, or like the husband of the woman who died, right,
and he was part of the civil suit testimony. Oh right,
So he's not even part of this, right. So you
just have doctors. And on the other side you have
people people, yeah, who feel that their lives were spared.
I mean, obviously doctors are people, but yeah, in the courtroom, Yeah,
(37:27):
there's a differentiation there.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
And so the people who were called to testify on
behalf of what happened to those patients who died were
these post treatment doctors. And now a quick wording note
is I'm not implying that any of Carpenter's treatments were successful,
only that some people who saw her for treatment felt
that they were.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Right, that was their perception, right, even though they all
went on to get traditional you know, medical chemotherapy or
other treatments for cancer.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Right, It's like correlation, not causation. And so in July
of twenty twelve, this is another doctor who's testifying at
the trial. He's telling us the story of a cancer
patient named Donna. Okay, Donna is lying in a hospital
bed in Little Rock, Arkansas, and doctor Scott Stern, a
surgical oncologist, is brought in to help diagnose her. He says,
(38:20):
already known to doctors that Donna has cancer, but she's
previously been treated elsewhere. He says that Donna has squamous
cell carcinoma of the base of the tongue that has
metastasized to her lymph nodes in her neck. So this
is very deadly, and she has been seeing Carpenter for
laser therapy and she passes away in May of twenty fifteen.
So from the three years that he saw her, she
(38:43):
passes away despite then having conventional treatment. So another patient
who saw Ansela Carpenter saw her in twenty ten, Carl Trant.
He had a tumor on his jawbone. Carpenter said that
she could kill the tumor, but after fourteen thousand dollars
out of pocket treatment, tumor greup by the time Carl
returned to her clinic in twenty twelve for yet another
(39:04):
treatment that had been rated by the FDA, So it
couldn't happen. Wow, Yeah, So by February, the jury's deliberating
in this trial, and more than ten former patients testified
in support of Carpenter, despite the fact that she did
not rid them of cancer. And she's sentenced to probation.
(39:25):
She sentenced to probation and a one point one million
dollar forfeiture, Okay, And she's very angry about this, despite
the fact that she totally avoids incarceration for this. And
you know, I think part of the reason is she
was in her sixties or seventies when this is going down,
and you know, she's probably not going to be able
(39:46):
to keep practicing after this. And she actually passed away
on April twenty six, twenty twenty one. And yeah, she
had a little blog that was sort of poorly written,
mostly anti vacs theories, fear a big pharma and she
did make money from these place many.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
How much money she made.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Yeah, So I couldn't find anything saying that she was
living a lavish lifestyle, but this was supporting her family.
Her daughter worked for her at the clinic. But what
I did find is a quote from the prosecuting attorney
for the US Attorney's office who said that he believed
she was driven by ego.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
Interesting, it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Because you know, we hear about male fraudsters and them
being ego driven, and of course that can be true
with women too, it's just I think less common. We
usually hear about financial motivations and yeah, yeah, and that
was his sort of assessment of it. But they were
disappointed that she did not get a harsher sentence.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Yeah, I mean, I hope that she didn't go on
to practice after that. At least she's not actively harming
people with her her you know, snake oil treatments for cancer.
The amount of patients that she had even that you
listed who died, it's unbelievable. And either she's like a
(41:12):
maniacal She was like a maniacal, terrible person who didn't
care that people died, or she had just created this
illusion that she believed that was probably very much about
her own ego and being this person who'd figured it
out and knew more than the whole medical industry, right.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
And it's like this identity you know, you see with
these conspiracy theorists who have these YouTube channels and do
these like bogus they call them interviews. It wasn't really
an interview. Yeah, he didn't ask her any hard questions.
You know, they just hyped each other up on these conspiracies,
and it's an identity. It becomes someone's identity. Yeah, and
then it's hard for them to, I think, step away
(41:52):
and look, although you know, I'm not excusing what she did,
making claims like that life threatening, but yeah, she passed
away in in April of twenty twenty one and never
spent a day in prison and never paid the civil suit.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Yeah, that's horrible. What a story. Yeah, Oklahoma just keeps popping.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
Up, it really does. It's the theme on the show. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Well, I mean I'm glad that there was some record
of her being sued and then prosecuted by the FDA.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Yeah, and it really I think is clear that we
live in a country where you want medical sort of autonomy,
you want decisions about your body to include you, Yeah,
and I totally understand that, but we should all be
making decisions based on facts.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
And also if someone doesn't want treatment, like I agree, Like, yeah,
I'm on board with people making decisions whatever it is
about their own bodies. But it's the fact that she
claimed that this was like guaranteed when it was so
clearly not. When her patients were dying, and also discouraged
her patients from seeing medical doctors. That's so conniving and
(43:04):
gross and criminal and like cool, you want to go
do alternative treatments alongside you know, your standard medical treatments, great, like,
go for it. But as soon as someone starts telling
you don't go see a doctor, run for the hills.
Run for the hills, like they're trying to hide something. Yeah,
Like that was my takeaway is she doesn't want them
(43:25):
to see doctors because the doctors will tell her patients
that this doesn't work. Yeah, but she's selling totally.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
And you know, I don't think she was making millions
of dollars, but she was making enough to support herself
and this was her career. This was her career.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Yeah, mm hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
I have one recommendation actually, and it's going to it's
not related to this, but it sort of prompted the
same sort of conversation or question in my mind about
our you know, medical freedom quote unquote.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
So the show that I've talked about on the podcast before,
it's called Accused, Guilty or Innocent from any And actually,
before I go any further, the episode that I'm going
to be talking about today does deal with child loss,
so please take care when listening. So there's a new
season out and there's an episode about our midwife and
she is accused of I don't remember her exact charge,
(44:18):
but basically she was there for a birth that resulted
and the baby didn't make it.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
Was this at home birth? It was a home birth.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Yeah, yeah, and important part of that that I forgot
to mention.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
It's a home birth.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
She had a close relationship with the parents. And what
ends up happening is the baby is breach and she's
not equipped to help deliver this baby, and the baby
doesn't make it, and by the time the ambulance arrives,
things are really bad. But the baby dies later on,
doesn't die at home, and it's this horrific tragedy. These
(44:53):
young parents that are so excited about this baby lose
the baby. She was found not going of any wrongdoing
because I can't say totally why, but the way that
the episode depicted it is that the parents were very
supportive of her. They did not feel wronged by her.
(45:14):
They felt like this was a tragedy that had many
layers and that she was not responsible. And you know,
I can't imagine the pain that they must be experiencing.
And well, one part of me is like, you know,
they made that decision to have a home birth, so
maybe she shouldn't be totally at fault. But there's these
(45:37):
very blurred lines between medical professional and not in the
way that someone can promote themselves online. And we see
that with home births, we see that with chiropractic care.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
I mean, don't get me started on that.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Seriously, they said that they would use her services. Again, Yeah,
I guess in that scenario and I haven't watched it,
but it makes sense to me that she wouldn't be
held responsible because if you choose to have a child
in your home, I know, you have to know that
there are risks involved with that, right, And unless she's
presenting herself as a doctor, I imagine she's very honest
(46:14):
about what she is and what her qualifications are. Yeah,
let me look up her actual title because I'm pretty
sure it was it was.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
Let's see.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Yeah, her name is Angela Hawk And in June of
twenty nineteen, an unlicensed, quote old school midwife attempted to
deliver a breach baby at home in Omaha.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
Oh maybe she didn't have a midwife license or something. Yeah,
and unlicensed midwives. I feel like I looked this up
at one point, maybe when we were doing an adoption
fraud story. There might be something to do with the
laws on what qualifications midwives have to have are different
state by state, and they also have changed over time, right,
(46:55):
so sometimes like older midwives, they didn't have to do
the same testing and the qualification whatever, then they do now.
I don't know if it's something like that or not,
but I don't know. It's sort of confusing.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
Yeah, I mean I had a hospital birth and I
felt like I was in you know, great hands, And
I know not everyone leaves their birth experience feeling that way,
but you know, anytime you have to travel from your
home to a hospital when there's a life threatening event happening,
that obviously takes time and then you're at the mercy
of a lot of other factors.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
So I mean, it's just terrible.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
And the couple I think played a big part in
how the jury saw it because they were supportive of
her and did not feel that she was the reason
for this.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
Yeah, so they didn't bring the charges, was like criminal charges, right,
They did not bring these charges. The state brought the charges.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Yeah, cool, Well that's exciting. There's a new season out
to check it out.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Yeah. It's just such a unique show because it portrays
the side of the defendants which you just don't usually
see and really makes you think about how they found
themselves in these situations.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
Well, thanks for telling me that story today. Yeah, thanks
for listening. We will see you guys next week. If
you have a story for us, we would love to
hear it. Our email is The Knife at exactlyrightmedia dot com,
or you can follow us on Instagram at the Knife
Podcast or.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
A Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
This has been an Exactly Right production hosted and produced
by me Hannah Smith and me Paysha Ey.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
Our producers are Tom Bryfogel and Alexis Samarosi.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel. Our associate producer
is Christina Chamberlain. Our theme music is by Birds in
the Airport.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
Artwork five Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgareth Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.
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