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The Case of Kim Hoover
📻 Episode #434
🎙️ Hosted by Maggie Freleng
📅 Mar 11, 2024
About This Episode
On November 29, 2002, a 7-month-old baby enrolled in Kim Hoover's Columbus, Ohio home day care began to struggle to breathe. After being taken to the hospital, the baby was found to have a skull fracture and bleeding on her brain; tragically passing away two days later. Doctors and authorities began to suspect the child…
Case status as carried in this site's original 2026 profiles. Independent record verification is rolling out episode by episode — statuses are being re-checked against court and registry sources and date-stamped as verified.
The Case
On November 29, 2002, a 7-month-old baby enrolled in Kim Hoover's Columbus, Ohio home day care began to struggle to breathe. After being taken to the hospital, the baby was found to have a skull fracture and bleeding on her brain; tragically passing away two days later. Doctors and authorities began to suspect the child was a victim of Shaken Baby Syndrome due to her brain injuries. Despite no evidence of prior abuse or accidents while under her care, Kim was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for murder and child abuse.
https://lavaforgood.com/podcast/410-wrongful-conviction-junk-science-shaken-baby-syndrome/
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In Their Own Words — transcript excerpts
Short excerpts from the episode's official published transcript, with timestamps — listen from these moments, or read the full transcript via the podcast's own platforms.
00:04:50“Speaker 2: would have realized that and not got married. But about Speaker 2: two and a half years after we were married in Speaker 2: eighty eight, we got a divorce and I raised my Speaker 2: son all by myself. I had so custody. Speaker 1: What was that like, being a single mother with a newborn.”
00:18:57“Speaker 5: belief was that they would go into distress. And what Speaker 5: that meant and the criminal context is really the last Speaker 5: adult with the child was always the suspect and always Speaker 5: the person who was blamed for what happened to the child. Speaker 5: And that's exactly what happened in Kim's case.”
00:32:06“Speaker 1: Armed with that information, the team went back to doctor Fardel, Speaker 1: the coroner who had performed Samisha's autopsy, and asked him Speaker 1: to review his diagnosis. Speaker 5: He was retired at the time, and you know, it Speaker 5: took a while for him to get access to a”
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