Ohio mother faked child’s cancer battle for money, investigators say
CALDWELL, Ohio (WCMH) — A woman from Pleasant City has been arrested and accused of faking a young child’s serious illness for money.
Pamela Reed, 41, faces a felony charge of petty theft. Noble County Court records showed a judge set her bond at $100,000.
The Noble County Sheriff’s Office said it and the county children’s services agency began investigating Reed after getting a Jan. 4 report from a local school of a possible theft by deception. The incident was tied to Reed portraying a child as fighting cancer, and several local organizations had fundraised and donated money to help with the family’s medical expenses. While a Noble County Court affidavit did not mention how much Reed’s family had received in total, a detective wrote that one of the groups, Zeps Against Cancer, had given them around $8,000.
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In public online posts as recent as Saturday, Reed detailed the child’s battle with acute myeloid leukemia. While she wrote in the latest post that people did not have to send money or gifts, she asked for birthday cards for the child.
Reed’s story began to unravel when the child’s elementary school grew concerned with how much school they had missed. Reed had provided school staff with documentation on the child’s cancer diagnosis and had also told them the child was blind in their right eye, the detective wrote in the affidavit. However, the school disproved that when it gave the child an eye exam.
When one of the school’s administrators contacted the medical care provider listed on the cancer diagnosis documentation, they confirmed that the child did not and never had cancer or leukemia. Reed would later tell investigators that she had altered documents she received from the provider to say the child had leukemia, according to the affidavit.
Detectives alongside Noble County Children’s Services arrested Reed on Monday. During an interview with detectives, the sheriff’s office said she admitted she had “exaggerated and fabricated medical conditions” to get the donations. She had shaved the child’s hair off, and it was never because of medical treatment for cancer, according to the affidavit. Reed also received seizure medication prescribed to the child as a result of what she reported to doctors, despite the child not needing it.
Reed has a preliminary hearing in Noble County Court scheduled for Tuesday at 9:30 a.m.
The sheriff’s office asked anyone with information on the case, or any person or organization that feels they may have donated mistakenly, to call 740-732-5631.
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