It usually goes without saying that parents want what’s best for their children, including keeping them away from the hospital and as healthy as possible.
However, that was not the case with Kaylene Bowen-Wright, the mother of Christopher Bowen, who has insisted since his birth that something isn’t quite right with her son — subjecting him to 323 hospital visits and 13 major surgeries.
“Christopher has trouble breathing so basically, his lungs — and body — doesn’t get the oxygen it needs, so he gets tired,” Bowen-Wright told CW33 TV during one of the many instances she raised money for his alleged sickness.
“He can’t play as long as the normal kids,” she added.
But it seemed the longer Bowen-Wright insisted on her son’s illnesses, the more doctor’s began to speculate that there was something else that was off — and it wasn’t Christopher.
The 34 year-old mother was arrested nearly a month after she brought Christopher to the hospital, claiming that the child had a seizure.
However, upon examining Christopher, medical staff found no proof of any such event, leading care providers to contact Child Protective Services, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
“I am very concerned that mother has moved from exaggerating symptoms to inducing symptoms,” Dr. Suzanne Dakil wrote in an affidavit to CPS. “If mother has given Chris something to induce a seizure, this is potentially fatal. At this point, I am very concerned for his welfare.”
It was the second report to be filed against Bowen-Wright, with the first being reported to CPS by a doctor back in 2015.
Authorities added that, at the time of Bowen-Wright’s arrest, Christopher had been on oxygen and even had a feeding tube and specific medication to regulate seizures, all of which doctors stated were unnecessary, according to CPS documents.
But there is one voice in this whole case that has been fighting on behalf of Christopher the entire time: his father Ryan Crawford.
For years, Crawford attempted to convince Dallas County judges that Christopher was healthy, yet they chose to believe the child’s mother, who would often break-down in tears before them and claim that their son was dying.
“It was always the same story: Christopher is dying. The father doesn’t need to be around because he doesn’t know to take care of him,” Crawford told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
“Every time I went to court,” he added, “they made me feel like I was the worst human ever.”
One particular judge even blocked Crawford from seeing Christopher in late 2012, when the boy was only 3 years-old.
Yet, the conditions Christopher had been subject to are found within the documents and occur even before he was three, ranging from being wheelchair-bound to his mother attempting to get his name on a lung transplant list, and even telling others that her son had cancer.
Suspected of Munchausens disease (where a guardian will induce and/or exaggerate an illness to garner attention or sympathy) Bowen-Wright is reportedly being charged with seeking unnecessary medical care and possibly causing bodily harm to her child.
She is currently being held at the Dallas County Jail on a $150,000 bond.
When speaking to Child Protective Services last month, however, she denied all allegations of abuse.
And Crawford hasn’t stopped fighting for his son, who has since been placed in foster care.
“Out of everything that has happened,” Crawford told the Star-Telegram, “the worst thing you can do is put my children in foster care with strangers.”
“I need my son in my life and my son needs me in [his] life.”
A GoFundMe page has been set up by Crawford’s friends and family, who are helping him to hire a new attorney. (For more from the author of “Dad Insists Son Is Healthy, 13 Surgeries Later Mother Behind Bars” please click HERE)
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