An Open Letter to the Woman Using My Daughter's Pictures Online

Kristin Keel Of Minot;

I keep blinking to make sure this is not a nightmare. I have refused to believe that people like you and situations like this actually exist in the world. But I have to admit the truth to myself- you do. You are real. As real as my daughter is, though you have attempted to make her un-real. Shame on you.

I was lying on the couch and resting on Wednesday. I had spent all of Tuesday in an ER testing for a miscarriage and would be going back for a last test on Thursday to be sure that is what was happening. A miscarriage of pregnancy, that is. It was my first since loosing my daughter. I was emotionally drained and physically exhausted. Then Dawn called. I didn’t know what a CHERUBS coordinator could be calling me for, but I was eager to take the call and talk about the daughter that they had helped me prepare for and say goodbye to.

MY daughter, Eden Olivia Coker. We learned we were expecting her on October 15, 2014. We learned she was a girl in February 2015. She was diagnosed with a severe and fatal Bilateral Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia in March 2015. I carried her to induction on June 25 2015 and birth on June 26 2015 at Fort Carson, Colorado. She was born at 10:40 am and died at 11:20 am. She took a few breaths, her last one in my husband’s arms. She never cried. She never opened her eyes. She saved every bit of her energy for those breaths. She went peacefully and quietly into the arms of Jesus. She smelled so good. And she looked like her father, her real father. If you'd like to know more about her actual birth story, you can click this. My little Cherub, that raised awareness to thousands of people about CDH. Over 300 people attended her viewing and saw her body in the casket. She was buried on July 2, 2015 in Sumter South Carolina. Her real Nana goes to visit her body there every day. She resides in Heaven with Jesus, her great-nana, and her cousins. She also resides in the air I breathe and the birds that visit and the faces of every other loss mama I have met on this journey. 

You know who’s face she isn’t in? Yours. Not at all, not one bit.

Dawn said, “I have some disturbing news...” and the rest was a blur. She cried with me and we sat in amazement at this development: someone in Minot, North Dakota had apparently faked a pregnancy and a stillbirth and was using Eden’s pictures to pass the baby in them off as their fake daughter, “Parker Ann Marie Keel”.

I hung up with Dawn when I became hysterical and I called my husband, my mother, and my photographer (by the way- Kahva Photography owns ALL of the rights to all of the images you printed and many of the photographs in this blog post). They joined me in tears. I sobbed so hard- how could the world just keep heaping all this crap on me? Who would do such a thing?

Not wanting to be hasty, Ryan and I waited and let this sink in before we decided we would be taking whatever actions possible against you. So I told Dawn that I would like to know who you are. She sent me screenshots of my baby’s face in your life. Printed and put up on your wall, printed and taken to sit in a Santa’s lap at Christmas (or photoshopped?). Google images for your ultrasound picture and another bad edit job. The memory of my very real Eden Olivia defiled to be fake “Parker”. A nursery prepared and posted on your mother’s facebook. My thoughts went to your poor mother, Kristin. Has she been grieving a granddaughter that isn’t even hers, or does she help you with this façade?

I don’t know if Troy is in on your game. But what made my stomach twist in knots was the video Troy posted of you two sprinting out to a “grave” to make snow angels, smiling and laughing and jumping around. The cherub with this name “Parker” engraved onto it. The wreath made to look like a turkey.  Nothing but toothy grins plastered all over Facebook. Lies. All of the sickest types of lies.

Your smiles are wicked. And my heart breaks for every person who believed this charade.

It’s been suggested that you could have had many different motives for using my daughter’s pictures… for stealing the identity of a deceased baby. Maybe you did loose a child and could not get any pictures for whatever reason… I don’t believe you lost a child. Because if you had, you couldn’t have done such a thing. I know too many people living after they have lost their babies to believe that after going through such pain, you would be able to make a mockery of it by using another parent’s pictures of their child.

I dug, but I did not have to dig far. The people around you had been keeping tabs on your lie ever since it began.

After adding up more information and learning about you, your past plagued with fraud, theft, and many other offenses to include suspected poisoning and taking advantage of those with disabilities… I can say that I know in my heart that you were never pregnant and there was never a baby.

I’ve heard multiple versions of your story- showing up to the ER, sending your husband home for clean clothes, birthing this baby and then leaving the hospital, walking down the street before he could even return to pick you up, then telling him that a hospital employee took your baby’s body from you, dug up her own son’s grave and put your baby in with him (all while neither one of you calls the cops) is outrageous enough….  Then I’ve heard the one where you claim the baby’s body was donated to science… Then I’ve heard there is a grave with a baby in it and then I’ve heard there is a grave with a casket of toys in it, then I’ve heard there is no actual grave. None of it adds up. Nope, you are a liar and I don’t believe there ever was a baby.

Other offerings of motives came. Maybe you were never pregnant but needed Troy to marry you and locked him in with pregnancy and solidified it with loss? Maybe you were both looking for money so you told all of your town your situation and started a Caring Bridge campaign to exploit the hearts of people around you over the saddest situation on earth. All of these possible reasons sounding like plots from a Lifetime movie.

Then, when asked in a personal message from me, all Troy could say was “we immediately questioned the amount of hair”(yet you kept using the pictures?)… and “the pictures were given to us by a local nonprofit”… so when I spoke with the local NILMDTS photographer and the only photographer the hospital calls in the case of stillbirth and infant mortality and she told me she’d never taken the pictures I showed her… well. You know. But I was told by Troy “there’s no need for you to be involved anymore, as I’m sure my wife has already messaged you, we now know we were given the wrong pictures.”

No, Kristin (and I never did receive a message from you). You weren’t given the wrong pictures. You took the pictures. Not only that, but you sought out the story behind the pictures and you made that true story your tall tale. You took advantage of the CHERUBS community, of your community, of every babylost parent that ever reached out to you in solidarity, and of my sweet, precious, innocent girl.

You are a morally bankrupt woman and if your husband was aware, he is just as bad. There is all the need for me to be involved. I will stay involved.

Do you know what you’ve done to me? To my husband?

In the middle of loosing our second child, your actions have broken our hearts. And for what?

We have never done anything to you. I had to make sure I haven’t lost my own mind… that this all really happened to us and not you. I have had to check my own crazy a few times this week.

Did you ever stop to think that there was a real person behind the story you have been scheming? That a very real little girl existed for those photographs? That her true mother and father have spent all this time in agony living without her and then they have to see you playing pretend with her? I’m sure you didn’t stop to think of the people Eden belongs to- her parents, her family, our friends, and every person her little life touched.

But you have messed with the wrong mama.

I prayed so hard that the Lord would show us what to do about this. So he sent these sources- people that know you and the havoc you leave in your wake. We are so grateful for them for encouraging us to do what we feel led to do, for them telling us exactly what type of person you are.

If the only thing I can nail you on is pain and suffering, I won’t. I don’t want your money. There’s no amount of money that could make what you’ve done right. But I won’t stop.  I will read every law every concerning identity theft. I want you put away. I want you unable to reproduce. If you can kill off a fake child, what would you do with a real child?

Some might say that taking legal action is going too far, that it is tainting my daughter’s memory. I say that I must do all I can to protect it fiercely. Her memory is all I have left! I’m not sorry for pursuing those avenues.

Some might also say that exposing your name publicly is going to far, that it is ruining your reputation. I say that you did that to yourself when you decided to do this to us. I’m not sorry for putting you out there or any embarrassment this causes you. When I finish writing this, I'm going to snitch everywhere. 

There are some things I am sorry for. I am so sorry that my beautiful daughter isn’t here living and breathing and growing. I am sorry that she died. It’s not fair.

I’m sorry that any babies die. And I’m sorry that people like you exist to exploit how unbearable and unthinkable that experience is.

I’m very sorry for your family and friends and coworkers, the ones who unknowingly ate your crow and mourned your fake daughter in very real ways. They do not deserve this any more than I do.

You are a sick, despicable human being. Really. I mean that. You owe my baby girl an apology.  You owe Ryan, and I (her actual parents) an apology. You owe my family and friends an apology. You owe your family and friends an apology.

And I hope that you get some mental help. That’s what you owe yourself.

I will choose forgiveness. Not today, Lord knows it. I’m not ready.

I have accepted that I will probably never receive an apology from you, but I know that unless I forgive you, your awful actions will only eat me alive. They will consume parts of me that exist solely to honor my Eden girl. And I will not allow that.

Her life was too damn beautiful for me to allow her death to be hijacked by you. She raised so much awareness about CDH and child loss, and she even raised a little awareness about that as “Parker”, but that isn’t her name. Her name is Eden and she was not a baby doll or the play-thing you tried to make her into. She lived, she was real, and she was OURS.

   

Anyone who attempts to water down her lasting impact in the world by claiming her as his or her own will receive the full wrath of our everlasting love for her.

Eden’s Mama,

Megan Coker



**UPDATE**
THANK YOU all for sharing this post and making sure it gets out there. I will not stop until I'm sure she is kept from being able to do this to another family, and I appreciate you joining me in that quest.

Please also note that I am extending forgiveness as well as I can. This is a very hard situation that Ryan and I have prayed over and we just need time to work through these very human feelings. Thanks for the encouragement. However, we will never "forget" what she has done. And we don't believe that forgiveness requires forgetting under any definition of grace. We will remember. 

I initially turned all of Eden's album to "private", then to "friends only". But after thinking about it, I decided that I would not let one crazy stop me from sharing Eden's story with the world. I will not let fear win, because Eden still has a purpose and raises so much awareness that would be stifled if I just hid it all away. I encourage you all to be vigilant about who can see your baby's pictures, but I also urge you not to let these twisted few individuals have the last word. 
Please, please do not drag family, exes, or employers into this. It's hard enough to learn you've been duped or used, and it's even harder when all these strangers are confronting you about it. Also, I knew there would be a select few who would stand by this couple and their story, and that is fine. I don't want to believe people can be so deceptive and sick either. Let those people be.


One extra sassy thing:
In the United States, there are approximately four home burglaries per minute (that's one every 15 seconds). Does that stop you from living in a house, apartment, dorm, whatever you live in? No? Oh, because you still like shelter and a place to put your things, rest your head, and be with people you love. I see. It definitely wouldn't be your fault if someone broke into your home and took something of yours.

Then why would the remote possibility of a crazy person stealing my kid's pictures stop me from sharing her and her story with anyone that would look or listen? It wouldn't. Because she is worth sharing and I can't begin to imagine the number of people's lives she touched that wouldn't have been touched if we kept her to ourselves.

Please stop saying "what you're going through right now is exactly the reason why I don't post my kid's pictures online." It makes you sound paranoid and ridiculous, and it also places blame on me for what this woman has done.