Imagine longing for something so badly that you’ll ignore the signs, the nagging doubts. “My heart told me something wasn’t right,” Lori Keeble admits, but she plowed ahead anyway.
Goodness. Where to start with her story? So much deception. So much hurt.
And all because she wanted to adopt another baby … desperately. She’d already endured years of infertility treatments, with each pregnancy ending barely before it had begun. Her only desire was giving her adopted daughter a sibling and making her family complete.
She wanted to be a mother to another.
Little Did She Know What Would Lay Ahead
The deception started the moment Lori went online, specifically to a chatroom geared to independent adoptions. Soon, Lori was exchanging emotional emails and telephone calls with an expectant woman who called herself Christy, a single mother and victim of domestic abuse.
“I felt so drawn to her. She seemed so desperate and alone,” Lori says. “I didn’t want to go through an adoption agency and at first I wasn’t looking to adopt her baby. I told her I would walk with her through this. My goal was to be there for her.”
Just before Thanksgiving 2005, Christy sent a message that altered everything: ‘“I’m interested in placing my baby with you.’”
Little did Lori know what would lay ahead.
She was too busy fielding questions from excited family members, talking with her daughter about becoming a big sister, redecorating the nursery, buying clothes for the baby and gifts for Christy and her two-year-old daughter, Jasmine. “Anything I could do to exuberantly bless her.”
“My heart told me something wasn’t right…”
Why Did Her Abdomen Feel Soft?
Oh yes, Lori went into the situation with her eyes open. She and her ex-husband hired an attorney to draw up papers and agreed to pay Christy’s living expenses in addition to the money they’d already given her.
And yes, Lori met Christy face-to-face. She drove three hours from her home in Athens, Tennessee, to Nashville where Christy lived. Twice.
“She totally looked pregnant,” Lori says. They talked for hours, making plans for Lori and her husband to be at the hospital when Christy gave birth in January 2006.
Christy then went incommunicado.
Why did she always bail when they were supposed to meet? Why was her phone always getting disconnected? Why did her abdomen feel soft?
“My heart told me something wasn’t right…”
Scared and Worried: Where is Christy?
“I started to worry,” Lori says, refusing to think the worst. In their hours-long conversations, Christy did talk about her financial struggles, her inability to support herself and Jasmine. “I was afraid, so worried something had happened to her. I was sick.”
Lori also feared Christy had changed her mind—like another birth mother years earlier. She went back to the chatroom. “I’m supposed to adopt this baby,” Lori remembers posting. “Does anyone have contact with her.”
‘“This sounds eerily like someone who scammed one of my clients in Texas…’” This gut-wrenching news came from an adoption facilitator in North Carolina who put Lori in touch with her clients.
It became clear to both couples that they had been talking with the same woman.
“My heart told me something wasn’t right…”
Hope Still Springs Eternal
By then, NBC Dateline had learned of Lori’s story and asked if she might be interested in reeling Christy back in for a Dateline Hidden Camera Investigation. (Details of that sting are worth reading!)
“I couldn’t bear the thought of this happening to someone else,” Lori says. She agreed and posted another message on the chatroom board: “Hey, I’m really worried about Christy. Worried about her paying her rent.”
A woman claiming to be Christy’s friend responded, assuring Lori that Christy wanted her to adopt her baby. Everything had been a big misunderstanding. Arrangements were made, and Lori and Dateline reporter Victoria Corderi, who posed as a friend, met Christy at a Nashville hotel. Hidden cameras rolling.
Christy was good. She talked about her daughter, invited Lori to her doctor’s appointment the next day, and said she wanted her labor induced so that Lori could be there to cut the umbilical cord.
“My brain knew she wasn’t pregnant,” Lori says, “but my mind kept thinking, well maybe on the off chance she is, she’ll give the baby to me.”
She couldn’t help but feel a spark of hope. Christy called several hours later to report that her contractions had started.
“My heart told me something wasn’t right…”
Lies Uncovered
But unbeknownst to Christy, the jig was up. Dateline had followed her as she went shopping and out to eat, using the gift card and cash Lori had provided. Dateline also uncovered the woman’s lies. Jasmine, of course, was fictional, as were Christy’s name, employer, and doctor.
She’d been conning people for years, and to Lori, she’d shown no remorse when they met face-to-face the following day.
“I saw eyes that were empty. Her countenance was blank,” Lori says. “You watch programs and read articles about the most heartbreaking scenarios people have lived through, but you never really think it could happen to you.”
Lori would go home to a nursery that would never be used.
Postscript
Seventeen years have passed since Christy scammed Lori and a host of others across the country. Where is this woman? No one knows. But certainly, much has changed.
Lori and her husband did adopt a baby boy but divorced a few years later. She moved to a city close to me and remarried.
While Lori grieved the loss of the three children she miscarried, she didn’t process the predator’s heartless cruelty until three years ago when she relived the duplicity. “I completely broke down. For three weeks, I couldn’t get out of bed.”
A heartless con woman had emotionally raped her, exposed her to the evil that does exist in the world. But the experience did show Lori light in a very dark place. “I learned full reliance on my Abba, Father … I learned to listen to the Spirit.” He had warned her, but her human longing blinded her to the truth.
“I’m so thankful God had a plan,” Lori says, explaining that she now helps coordinate adoptions. “Adoption, along with failures and scams, can be an exceptionally lonely road. That’s why I’m so passionate about walking the adoption journey with others.”
“My heart told me something wasn’t right …”
What About You?
Lori’s story isn’t just about adoption. Predators and liars lurk everywhere. Is you spirit telling you something isn’t right?
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