Patricia Stallings (born 1964 or 1965) lived in Jefferson County, Missouri.
In July 1989, she took her 4-month-old son Ryan to Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital with vomiting and breathing trouble. Lab testing seemed to show elevated ethylene glycol—the chemical in antifreeze—in his blood. Doctors suspected poisoning.
She was allowed a short visit with Ryan in protective custody on August 31. He got sick again 4 days later. She was arrested September 5th on assault charges, which were changed to first-degree murder when Ryan died on September 7, 1989. She was convicted in early 1991 and sentenced to life in prison. While in jail awaiting trial, she gave birth to a second son, David Jr., on February 17, 1990. He was placed in foster care and developed the same symptoms, even with no contact with her. He was diagnosed with methylmalonic acidemia (MMA), a rare genetic disorder where the body produces propionic acid—a compound that differs from ethylene glycol by just one carbon atom and can be mistaken for it on certain lab tests. During the trial, the judge did not allow the defense to introduce MMA as a theory without proof Ryan had it. After her case was featured on Unsolved Mysteries in May 1991, biochemist William Sly of Saint Louis University saw it and had Ryan's blood retested. James Shoemaker at SLU confirmed Ryan also had MMA and showed that the testing method used in the original case could misidentify propionic acid as ethylene glycol. Stallings was released in July 1991 after nearly two years incarcerated, placed on house arrest, and prosecutors dropped the case and apologized in September 1991. In 1993 she won a seven-figure settlement against the hospital and lab. The case is still cited in medical textbooks as an example of a metabolic disorder mimicking a criminal act.
