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Faking cancer for donations and sympathy
Best friends betrayed after helping a 'terminally ill' friend
 Jennifer Dibble |
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When tragedy strikes, whether it's across the country, or across the street, Americans often want to help. Most don't expect to be repaid. But two women did not expect what would happen. They opened their hearts and their wallets to someone in need. A woman they knew so well they practically considered her family. She told them she was battling a deadly disease, and they believed her. You may not believe what was really going on. This report airs Dateline Friday, July 21.
Marlo Domagos, Jennifer Dibble's friend: She was like my diary. I told her everything.
Tamara Burross, Jennifer Dibble's friend: She was like my sister.
Tamara says she and Jennifer shared the most intimate events of their lives.
Tamara Burross: She was at the bedside when my daughter was born, holding my hand. And I equally was in the room when her youngest son was born, watching her have the baby. We were as close as I’ve ever been to any other friend.
In fact, at Tamara’s wedding Jennifer met her second husband Brian. Brian Dibble became an instant dad to Jennifer’s two sons from her first marriage and then Brian and Jennifer had three more sons together. Over the years, Tamara’s and Jennifer’s families shared nearly every birthday and holiday.
Rob Stafford, Dateline correspondent: So she was there at every turn whenever you needed her.
Tamara Burross: Everything.
Stafford: And if she were in trouble?
Tamara Burross: I was there also. I would do anything for Jennifer.
And Tamara was there and ready to do anything.
In the spring of 2003, Jennifer called with devastating news. That one phone call set in motion a cruel and painful chain of events that would ultimately test the bonds of their friendship and take a huge emotional and financial toll on those involved.
Tamara Burross: She had gone to the doctor and told me that they found something on an x-ray and that it was cancer.
Stafford: Terminal cancer?
Tamara Burross: terminal cancer.
Stafford: And how much time did she say she had?Tamara Burross: She told us that she would be lucky to be around at Christmas.
And I think I cried for three days.
Jennifer told her friends the cancer had infected both a lung and a kidney. She was only 29. How could that be? The news was even tougher on Marlo.
Domagos: It was devastating and every day was so difficult because I didn’t know, at any given point, when the cancer was gonna take her life.
Stafford: Jennifer had done so much for you over the years and you felt it was time that you had to help her?
Domagos: Yeah.
So these friends and others rallied to Jennifer’s aide. They knew nothing about the disease and, in their young lives, had never even known anyone with cancer. But with five boys and Jennifer’s husband working two jobs to make ends meet; they knew the family would need a lot of emotional and financial support.
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But first, they tried to provide medical support. Tamara dug into the Internet, searching for a cure.
Tamara Burross: I got online and I found a treatment and one man that had survived this type of cancer—with an Interleukin treatment. And I sent her this link and I think it wasn’t but two weeks later that she was on that treatment.
Stafford: So you were making this your cause.
Tamara Burross: Oh yes.
Stafford: You’re fighting for your friend.
Tamara Burross: Yes.
By December 2003, eight months after that fateful phone call - Jennifer was still alive. Yet there was more bad news: her kidneys were failing.
Tamara Burross: It seemed hopeless.
Stafford: So everything that could go wrong is going wrong.
Tamara Burross: Yes.
Now, on top of the chemotherapy and radiation for the cancer, Jennifer would eventually get dialysis for her kidneys. Bandages hid the tubes and ports Jennifer said doctors put into her chest for treatments.
Tamara Burross: She would sometimes call and sound very sick and tell me how hard it had been and how much she was throwing up.
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Despite all the treatments, Jennifer said her prognosis was poor and she was living on borrowed time. That took a huge toll on Jennifer’s five sons—ages 3 to 11. The oldest boy’s grades dropped and even the three-year-old understood what was happening to his mom.
Tamara Burross: He couldn’t talk a whole lot, but some of his only words he would say would be, “Mommy sick. Mommy sick.”
Marlo said it was gut-wrenching to hear Jennifer talk about goodbye videotapes she’d made for her children and the plans she’d made for her own funeral.
Domagos: She wanted to be cremated. We talked in length about just her fears of death and the afterlife and all of the emotions that you go through about losing someone—was just very hard.
Still, no matter how bleak the future looked, Marlo said Jennifer stayed strong and hopeful.
Stafford: Even now, facing her own death, she’s as strong as she’s ever been?
Domagos: Uh huh. I hardly saw her cry.
Marlo and Tamara were determined to make life easier for Jennifer. And to make the most of the time she had left.
Tamara Burross: I said, “We’ve been so busy raising children. Let’s do a girls trip. Just one last girls’ trip.” So I took her to New Orleans.
Stafford: If you only have a year left, we’re…
Tamara Burross: Right.
Stafford: Gonna make that the best year of your life.
Tamara Burross: Right.
And Jennifer did make the best of it, taking more than a dozen trips with friends and family—to the Grand Canyon, New York, Las Vegas, and Disneyworld. Cancun. Even Paris and Lourdes, France, where Jennifer and her family prayed for a cure.
Stafford: Did you ask her where she was finding the strength for all this?
Tamara Burross: Yes I did, and she would just say she wasn’t gonna let this beat her and keep her down.
And her friends were more than happy to help pick up the tab.
Tamara Burross: Money is replaceable. But a life isn’t. And if I can give her the happiest year of her life, then money shouldn’t be an object.
Marlo says she spent about a thousand dollars on trips and pitched in another 500 in cash to help cover Jennifer’s medical bills. But it wasn’t just her best friends who kicked in the money. Jennifer’s parents and in-laws gave the couple an estimated 200-thousand dollars... While other cash came in from community fundraisers in and around Fort Worth, Texas—even a local church group.
Jennifer also got money through the Internet, where she belonged to a parent support group and posted emails under the name of “Five boys mom.”
Emails from Jennifer:
“You have no idea how shocked I was to see that you had all rallied around and surprised me with the donation... It touched my heart in more ways than one. The medical bills are paid!”
Her other postings were not so upbeat:
“The treatments are getting harder... very tired and very sick... If I don’t eat soon my doctor will place a feeding tube in and feed me.”
At the end of 2003, Jennifer had outlived her prognosis of death by Christmas. But in the early months of 2004, she suddenly dropped 25 pounds, prompting friends to worry that the cancer might be finally taking its toll.
Domagos: It was horrible to try and see her decline like that.
Stafford: Did you break down in front of her?
Domagos: Yeah.
Stafford: And how would she react when that happened?
Domagos: Supportive, trying to keep me positive. She’s very strong. You have to know her to know how strong-willed she is.
So strong, in fact, she refused to let anyone take her or go with her to treatments. That concerned her girlfriends, but they could never change her mind.
Stafford: Did you offer to take her to chemotherapy?
Domagos: Yeah.
Stafford: And what did she say?
Domagos: She said no. She didn’t want anybody going with her. She’d say, “I’m not gonna put my family and my friends through that. I’m gonna handle this on my own. I don’t want to have to see you guys there, upset and crying.”
And when it seemed Jennifer’s health couldn’t get much worse, Tamara and her husband, Michael, received another stunning phone call.
Tamara Burross: She called me and told me that she had spent the night in the emergency room because she had a heart attack.
Stafford: In the middle of terminal cancer.
Tamara Burross: Right.
Stafford: Having dialysis for the kidneys.
Tamara Burross: Right.
Stafford: Chemotherapy and radiation
Tamara Burross: Yes.
Stafford: And now a heart attack on top of all this?
Tamara Burross: A heart attack.
Michael Burross: Yes.
Stafford: So this has gone from bad to worse.
Tamara Burross: Yes. How could so many bad things happen to one person?
Michael wondered exactly the same thing—but his concerns were for entirely different reasons. He saw things about Jennifer that others had not.
Michael Burross: I'm starting to think to myself that some things may not be adding up.
Stafford: You’re starting to have questions.
Michael Burross: Yes.
Stafford: But you’re walking a tight rope?
Michael Burross: Right.
Stafford: And you’re talking about your wife’s best friend?
Michael Burross: That’s exactly correct. I don’t want to say anything that could set Tamara off, but at the same time there’s a piece of the puzzle missing somewhere.
It turns out Michael wasn’t the only person with nagging questions about Jennifer. Questions a private detective’s hidden camera would soon help to answer.
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