My Stepmom Baked Me Cookies. I Said My Brother And I Ate Them. She Shook, “your Brother Too?”

The hospital kept Oliver and me for four days of treatment and observation. We both received fomazole infusions and had our kidney function monitored constantly.

We gave multiple blood samples to track the ethylene glycol levels as they decreased. Oliver asked for his mom constantly during the first two days, not understanding why she wasn’t visiting.

He didn’t understand why strange doctors and nurses kept coming in instead of the parent he wanted most. My father tried to explain in age-appropriate terms that mom had made some very bad choices and wasn’t allowed to visit right now.

He told us that we were safe and loved and he’d make sure we stayed safe. Oliver cried a lot.

So did dad. I mostly felt numb, processing the fact that the woman who’d seemed to care about me had been slowly planning my death for insurance money.

Detective Hworth came back on day two with updates. They’d located Vanessa at a motel about sixty miles away and arrested her on charges of attempted murder, poisoning, and child endangerment.

The man who’d been at the house was her boyfriend, someone she’d been seeing for over a year behind my father’s back. His name was Richard Sloan, and he had a criminal record including fraud and identity theft.

They’d arrested him as well on conspiracy charges. Detective Hworth explained that they’d executed search warrants on our house, Vanessa’s car, and her work computer.

What they’d found painted a disturbing picture of long-term planning and cold calculation. Vanessa’s personal laptop contained extensive research on antifreeze poisoning.

It included articles about detection times, lethal doses, and how to disguise the taste in baked goods. She’d visited forums and websites discussing insurance fraud and how to make deaths look accidental.

Her text messages with Richard Sloan detailed their plan to kill me for the insurance money to pay off their significant debts. Apparently, Richard had gambling problems that had left them owing over $200,000 to various creditors.

The plan was to eventually divorce my father and move away together. The messages went back months, discussing different methods before settling on antifreeze as the most reliable option.

They thought it could potentially be attributed to accidental ingestion of something toxic that the teenager got into on his own. They’d found the bottle of antifreeze in Vanessa’s car, hidden in the trunk along with a burner phone she’d been using to communicate with Richard.

Detective Hworth showed me printed copies of some of the text messages, and reading them made my stomach turn. Vanessa had written specific details.

“The basketball game is Thursday night, so he’ll definitely eat the cookies when he gets home hungry. And I’m making them extra sweet to cover the taste. He won’t notice anything wrong until it’s too late, and once the kid is gone, we’ll have $300,000 to solve all our problems and start fresh.” She had written.

She’d referred to me as “the kid” or “the teenager” throughout, never by my name. It was like I was an obstacle to overcome rather than a person she’d lived with and claimed to care about for three years.

The texts also revealed that Oliver had never been part of the plan. Vanessa genuinely loved her biological son and had been careful to plan the poisoning for a day when Oliver would be at soccer practice.

She expected that he wouldn’t be home to accidentally consume any of the tainted cookies. When I’d brought Oliver home early and shared the batch with him, I’d inadvertently saved my own life by splitting the dose between us while also endangering his.

Detective Hworth said the amount of antifreeze in the cookies had been calculated to be lethal for a person my size if consumed alone. But split between Oliver and me, it had been serious but survivable with quick treatment.

She said if I’d eaten all the cookies myself and then felt sick, I likely would have assumed it was food poisoning or stomach flu. I would have gone to bed and died in my sleep from kidney failure and metabolic acidosis before anyone realized something was seriously wrong.

My father hired a lawyer, a woman named Patricia Reynolds, who specialized in family law and criminal defense. She explained that while the criminal case against Vanessa was being handled by the state prosecutor, we also had options for civil litigation.

We would ensure Vanessa had no access to Oliver or any parental rights going forward. She said the evidence was overwhelming and that Vanessa would likely take a plea deal to avoid trial.

But if it went to trial, I’d probably have to testify. I said I’d testify.

I wanted to. I wanted to look at her and tell everyone what she’d done.

I wanted to make sure she faced real consequences instead of being able to manipulate her way out of it like she’d manipulated her way into our lives. The preliminary hearing happened three weeks later.

I attended with my father and Patricia Reynolds. Vanessa was brought in wearing an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs, her previously perfect appearance now haggard and tired.

She wouldn’t look at me or Oliver or my father. Her lawyer, a public defender who looked overwhelmed and underprepared, tried to argue for reduced bail.

The prosecutor, a sharp woman named Diana Blackwell who’d been handling major crimes for twelve years, presented the evidence. She showed the research on Vanessa’s computer, the text messages with Richard, the antifreeze bottle, and the life insurance policy with the changed beneficiary.

She presented the toxicology reports showing both boys had consumed ethylene glycol. The judge denied bail, citing flight risk and danger to the community, particularly to the victims.

Richard Sloan’s case was being handled separately. According to Detective Hworth, he was cooperating with prosecutors and had provided a full statement about the plan.

He claimed Vanessa had initiated everything and that he’d just gone along with it because he was in love with her and desperate to pay off his gambling debts. He said he’d never actually done anything except provide moral support and help Vanessa research methods.

The prosecutor wasn’t buying it. He was being charged as a co-conspirator and accomplice, and his cooperation would be considered in sentencing but wouldn’t eliminate his culpability.

The media picked up the story because it had all the elements that drive clicks and views—attempted murder, stepmother villain, poisoned cookies, young victims, and insurance fraud. Local news ran stories with engaging headlines.

“Stepmom accused of poisoning teenage stepson for insurance money,” One headline read.

“Cookies of death: Woman allegedly used antifreeze to kill stepchild,” Another said.

My father tried to shield Oliver and me from most of it, but it was everywhere—at school, online, and in the grocery store where people would recognize us and whisper. Some people were sympathetic, while others seemed to treat it like entertainment, asking invasive questions about how it felt to almost be murdered by my stepmom.

School was difficult. I’d missed two weeks and had to make up work while also dealing with everyone knowing my story.

Some kids were supportive, but others were weird about it, either treating me like I was fragile and might break or asking for gruesome details like it was a true crime podcast. My basketball coach was great, letting me practice when I felt up to it and giving me space when I needed it.

My teammates mostly followed his lead, treating me normally but being there if I needed to talk. Oliver had it worse because he was younger and didn’t understand why his mom had tried to hurt his big brother.

He was in therapy twice a week, working with a child psychologist named Dr. Rachel Kim who specialized in trauma and family violence. The trial was scheduled for six months after the arrest, but Vanessa took a plea deal two weeks before the trial was set to begin.

She pleaded guilty to attempted murder, two counts of child endangerment, insurance fraud, and conspiracy. In exchange for the plea, the prosecutor agreed to recommend concurrent sentences rather than consecutive, which meant she’d serve less total time.

The sentencing hearing was emotional and brutal. The prosecutor presented victim impact statements from my father, from me, and from Oliver’s therapist on his behalf since he was too young to testify himself.