A Texas grandmother has been accused of poisoning her seven-year-old granddaughter – potentially by injecting Mean Green Degreaser into her feeding tube.
Lisa Campbell-Goins, 56, was taken into custody last week as detectives claimed she was making it seem that the young girl had an illness that required extensive medication and treatment, while defrauding Medicaid to rake in hundreds, if not thousands, from Good Samaritans on GoFundMe, Big Country Homepage reports.
Police say she has taken care of the young girl as an infant, as her biological mother was unable to care for her.
Campbell-Goins then claimed that the child fell at the age of seven months and hit her head, causing an alleged movement disorder called dystonia. But detectives later concluded the child only suffered minor injuries from the fall.
Still, she was hospitalized 17 different times between January 2021 through her final stay at Cook Children’s Medical Center in August 2023, when Campbell-Goins claimed she had severe dehydration, vomiting and diarrhea, according to Law & Crime.
Doctors soon determined the victim suffered ulcers in her GI tract as well as damage to her colon and lower intestine, and ended up giving her a gastric tube to administer medication.
Court documents obtained by KDFW also state that the grandmother pushed doctors to also feed her through the tube.
But the medical professionals were left stumped as the ‘illness presentation did not match a known medical diagnosis’ and were not responding to treatment, forcing the girl to remain at the hospital for months, a police affidavit states.
Lisa Campbell-Goins, 56, has been arrested for allegedly poisoning her seven-year-old granddaughter
Police say she was making it seem that the young girl had an illness that required extensive medication and treatment
By January 2024, another family member said she was concerned that the child’s symptoms may have been caused by poison in the child’s feeding tube.
She expressed concern about a bottle of nail polish remover that was left near the child before she was hospitalized – and noted that Campbell-Goins did not have painted nails.
Multiple family members also told detectives they saw the grandmother administering Benadryl and melatonin through the young girl’s feeding tube, claiming Campbell-Goins had been giving her medications since she began caring for the child.
As police began to investigate, they learned that Campbell-Goins did not actually have legal custody of the girl, and had her removed from the hospital.
Ever since, the child has made major improvements in her behavior, her ability to move around and her ability to eat and drink by mouth, court documents state.
The GI issues that Campbell-Goins originally brought her granddaughter to the hospital for also subsided, and the girl was taken off her myriad of medications.
One of the girl’s doctors later told police ‘that once the suspect was removed from the hospital, the victim made almost immediate strides, was able to be weaned off of many psych drugs and stopped having unexplained diarrhea,’ court documents state.
Another reportedly ‘stated that he could count on one hand the times he has seen a child as sick as the victim get better with the only thing done by medical professionals is ending interventions and decreasing care’ and noted that abuse was suspected in all other cases.
In the end, state doctors concluded that the child’s symptoms could be explained by alkaline poisoning – which could have stemmed from the nail polish remover or bottles of Mean Green Degreaser found in the girl’s hospital room.
The young girl was hospitalized 17 different times between January 2021 through her final stay at Cook Children’s Medical Center in August 2023
Court documents also claim Campbell-Goins insisted doctors at the hospital use an enclosed tent-style bed, which nurses claimed they saw the grandmother using ‘as punishment’ for behaviors she didn’t like.
The girl was in that bed on and off for days, weeks or even a month at a time between her admittance to the hospital in August 2023 and when police started their investigation in January 2024.
She is now in the custody of her maternal grandmother, and court documents state that her feeding tube was removed, she gained weight and had her gastrostomy closed.
The girl now takes food and medication by mouth with no issues, police said, and she is not presenting any abnormal behavioral issues.
She is also in school for the first time, where court documents say she is excelling socially, but is being monitored to see if she is behind educationally due to a learning disorder or because she has not received any formal education before.
Due to the drastic improvements, state doctors determined the child’s disorders were ‘consistent with fabricated illness’ and the child is most likely the ‘unfortunate victim of medical child abuse.’
Police also say Campbell-Goins caused $600,000 worth of Medicaid fraud due to the unnecessary treatments and hospitalizations, as she collected money from online fundraisers.
The child is now in the custody of her maternal grandmother, with police saying she has made major improvements in her behavior, her ability to move around and her ability to eat and drink by mouth
But this is reportedly not the first time Campbell-Goins has done such a thing.
Her stepson told investigators she falsified his symptoms when he was a teenager so he would be on higher ADHD medications and claimed she would give him some of his father’s medication as well.
‘[The stepson] stated that he was on a multitude of different medications,’ court documents said.
‘[He] stated that he knew he didn’t need that many medications and was “to the point of hallucinating and seeing stuff.”‘
Campbell-Goins was even under official Texas Department of Family and Protective Services investigation in 1999, when she was caught telling doctors her son vomited at the hospital even though he did not.
Her then-husband also told police at the time he had come to believe Campbell-Goins was inducing illness in her son and overmedicating him.
The investigation, however, ended when Campbell-Goins took parenting classes.
She told police she was also tested for Munchausen by proxy at the time, but claimed she did not have it.