A Web of deceit

It’s no surprise when Christy asks Lori to bring cash.  She says she needs $600 for rent and overdue bills.

Lori on the phone with Christy: Does the $25 late fee need to be paid this month or next month?

The Colemans had already given Christy $800 and say they spent thousands more on legal fees to prepare for the adoption. Now that Dateline has decided to investigate, Dateline will provide the money. 

The night before our meeting, Christy asks for even more.  She calls Lori to say that she and her little girl Jasmine are hungry and broke. 

We buy them a $100 gift card at Wal-Mart for food. Lori calls Christy back and urges her to use it.

Lori on the phone with Christy: You need to get you some groceries.

The next day, we finally get a look at Christy, up close and in person.   She arrives at a Nashville hotel for what she thinks is a casual lunch date.  She has no idea that Dateline is watching or that Lori is part of our hidden camera operation.

Christy (on hidden camera): She's dropped.

Lori Coleman: Yeah.

She comes upstairs where I am posing as Lori's friend, with five cameras secretly rolling.

Lori Coleman: I’ve been tellin' her about you. Hi, honey. This is my friend, Vicky.

Christy: Can I take my shoes off?

Lori Coleman: Here, yeah, come over here and sit down.

As we sit down to lunch, I get right to the point, although Christy thinks I'm kidding. 

Victoria Corderi: I’ll be your servant.

Christy: Oh.

Corderi: Because I want to find out everything about you.

Christy: Uh-oh. (Laughter)

Our hidden cameras record every word as we settle in like old friends. As we snack on cookies, Christy thanks Lori for the grocery money we gave her the night before.

Christy: I got some grapes because after I have this baby, I'll have to be on the diet.

Christy does look pregnant, but not quite like a woman in her ninth month as she claims to be.    

Christy: I told you I've dropped a lot. (Laughter)

Corderi:  What's your due date?

Christy: January 26th. But I've been dilated at two for how long?

Lori: Two weeks.

She repeatedly plays up how soon she thinks the baby will be born.

Christy: I'm tellin' you, I'm having the baby today or tomorrow. I swear, if I don't have her tomorrow I'm going in there tomorrow and telling them I'm having contractions.  I know it’s not nice to lie.

Perhaps to convince us she's not lying, she invites Lori to a doctor's appointment the next day. She says she wants to have labor induced so that Lori can be there for the birth.

Christy: Really, she's coming. Tomorrow we need to go in there as a team; you're not leaving til she's born.

Over the next 2 hours, Christy has a ready answer for every question: details we say we need for the adoption paperwork.

Her address, her mid-wife's name, her history.

Victoria Corderi: What's your maiden name?

Christy: Tidwell.

She even volunteers information about her job: a profession that highlights her generosity and goodwill.

Christy: I work at a domestic violence shelter.

Corderi: What do you do there?

Christy: I'm an advocate.

Corderi: What's the shelter's name?

Christy: Hope House.

She tells us the story of how she got pregnant: a drunken one-night-stand.

Christy: That's just one of those whoops. I had too much to drink and woke up in some other man's bed.  Whoops.

Perhaps it is a way to show there is no father involved, nothing to get in the way of the adoption. 

She even answers sensitive questions without hesitation, telling us just what she thinks we want to hear.

Corderi: Is this gonna be hard for you?

Christy: Giving the baby up?  Actually, I don't think so, ‘cause I never got attached to the baby. My whole pregnancy I never considered it my baby.

Lori Coleman: Like I've always told you though, if it weren't for people like that were so unselfish I would never get to be a mom.

Throughout our hidden camera meeting, Christy makes a point of talking about her daughter Jasmine.

Christy: I love my daughter unconditionally, but she's been so clingy.

She knows that Lori bonded with her over their shared experience of raising a little girl.

Christy: I can't even take a shower without her pullin' the curtain.

Corderi: Does she know that the baby's going elsewhere?

Christy: She knows it's Lori's.

Christy takes pains to show how careful she was in selecting Lori out of all of the women on the Internet who wanted to adopt her baby.

Christy: A lot of people emailed me.

Corderi: Why'd you pick her, do you think?

Christy: Because she didn't come right out and say, "I want the baby."  She said, "I wanna be there for you." She actually cared more about me than the baby.

I wanted to know the family. And I'm not going to hand over some babies to a complete lunatic.

As if to prove that she of high moral character, Christy tells us the story of a woman she met online who had asked her to lie on the adoption paperwork.

Christy: She wanted me to use a fake name, so the baby couldn't find me when the baby turned 18.  You can't do a fake name.  It won't be legal.  How could I go through the court proceeding?

Christy doesn't know that Lori's husband, Chris, is watching it all in the next room.  He's sure Christy is lying and gets fed up her act. 

Chris Coleman: I was to the point where I was so angry, I was so mad, I had to leave. Lori brought out the outfit that she wanted to bring the baby home in and that girl sat there eatin' her little sandwich, not even lookin' at the outfit. That's when I got so mad that I left. 

Christy, on the other hand, seems willing to stay all afternoon.  She hasn't said a word about money, yet she's too busy laying it on thick, getting Lori excited about the birth.

Christy: Oh, you're gonna see it all in the delivery room, honey. Now, will Chris be in the delivery room, too? In case you fall apart.    

Lori: I’m not going to fall apart.

Christy: He just needs to be on the top part. Hey, i want him to cut the cord.  No I want you to cut it. Maybe you...

And once again she says something to convince Lori she's serious about handing over the baby.

Christy: I don’t want to hold her, I don’t want them bring her to me. I don't want it laying on my stomach; I don't want to hold her. I just want you to snip and go.

Christy is saying all the right things and her performance is so convincing that despite everything Lori knows, she finds herself being drawn back in. 

Lori Coleman: So now I'm getting really double-extremely excited. You’re not going to change your mind, right?    

Christy: No, I’m not changing my mind.

After all, Lori is still a woman deeply longing for a baby.  And even though she is here as part of a Dateline investigation, she can't help but feel a spark of hope that  maybe, just maybe, some of what Christy says is true...

Lori Coleman: I kept thinkin', "Well, maybe she's scamming everybody but us."

Victoria Corderi: So even though you were being nice for us and having this contact to let it play out.

Lori Coleman: I was still thinking, "Well, I might get the baby."

Soon enough, Christy turns the conversation to the real reason we think she is here. She drops a not-so-subtle hint that she needs the cash...

Christy: I’m set. Just need to get the rent paid or I’ll be without a place to live.     

Lori hands over more $600. Then Christy gets up to go.

Outside, we watch the two women say goodbye, and wonder if they will ever see each other again, or if Christy is about to take the money and run.

Corderi: We were pretty sure you weren't going to hear from her again.

Lori Coleman: Oh, exactly. 

Corderi: This is the way the game ends.

Coleman: It had to end. But will it?

Minutes later, to our surprise, Christy calls Lori's cell phone.

Christy says casually, "Hi, it's me; I have to pick up Jasmine."

Was Lori right to hope? Could Christy be for real this time? We were about to find out

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