5 Parents Who Got Locked Up for Parenting Too Hard

5 The Stranger Danger Warning

Elizabeth L. Hupp suspected that her six-year-old son was “too nice.” This left him easy prey for kidnappers, and this fear seemingly proved valid one day when a guy named Nathan lured the boy into his truck. “You’re never going to see your mommy again,” said Nathan, showing him a gun. The plan, explained Nathan, was to nail the kid to the wall of a shed.

He tied the boy’s hands and feet together and put a jacket over his head to blind him. Then he pulled him down into a basement and left him there. Only, this was actually the basement of the boy’s own home, and when he finally went upstairs, it was to a family meeting featuring Nathan, his aunt and the mother. The kid had done a bad thing, they explained, and should have known better than to follow a stranger.

The next day, the boy told his teachers about this, and they told the police, who rounded up everyone involved. Missouri initially charged everyone with kidnapping and felonious restraint. That was shaky, since they’d had the permission of the mother, who’d in fact been the one to come up with this whole idea. They did manage to charge Nathan and the mother with child endangerment. Sometimes, the danger’s coming from inside the house. 

4 The Tennis Dad Who Drugged Competitors

Christophe Fauviau was what you might call a helicopter parent, in that he was a parent who flew helicopters for the French army. He also oversaw his kids closely during their years playing tennis. Between 2000 and 2003, he ensured his son and daughter had the best chance of winning, by slipping drugs into opponents’ water. His drug of choice was Temesta, which causes drowsiness. It’s pretty good for handicapping players, since naps mid-match are against the rules.

He poisoned 27 kids over the course of those years. Some fainted, and some wound up in the hospital, but nothing was suspicious enough for a real investigation, so Fauviau probably would have got away with it. But then his son Maxime was set to play against his teacher, Alexandre Lagardère. Fauviau poisoned this guy as well, and when Lagardère felt drowsiness kick in, he withdrew from the match and drove home. He fell asleep on the way, crashed and died.

Investigators found the Temesta in his system and traced them to Fauviau, before getting him admit to the years-long plot. Fauviau pleaded guilty and got an eight-year sentence. A report about the sentencing makes the sad observation that though Fauviau’s daughter did go on to some success in tennis, son Maxime “had never been highly rated as a tennis player.” That is the last line of the report, because they knew Fauviau would take that personally. 

3 The Cheer Mom Who Tried to Kill a Rival

This next sports parent tale, unlike the last one, does not end in death. But this parent tried to carry out a murder, instead of doing one by mistake, so we’ll leave you to decide which is worse. 

In 1991, Wanda Holloway really wanted her daughter to be a cheerleader. Shanna didn’t make the team, so Wanda came up with a plan to hire a hit man to create a place on the squad via murder. No, she wouldn’t kill another student. She’d kill a student’s mother. That way, the student would be so grief-stricken, she’d surely quit cheerleading, and Shanna could take her spot. 

Wanda sought help from her ex-husband’s brother, which is never a good idea, even when the matter involves no illegal activity. He went to the cops, who stuck a wire on him and recorded Holloway officially soliciting murder. She wound up pleading guilty. 

The mother and daughter she targeted also sued her, winning $150,000, which worked out pretty well for them, considering that no hit man ever did get around to attacking. A spot on the cheer squad and $150,000? That girl’s next year at school must have ruled. 

2 Treadmill Dad

We all want kids who are healthy, and exercise is a part of that. Perhaps that’s why Christopher Gregor put his six-year-old son Corey on a treadmill one day in 2021. Security footage shows the dad raising the speed on the machine till the son goes flying off. Then Corey goes back on, and dad raises the speed again until Corey flies off once more. This repeats six times, each ending with Corey flat on his face. 

Some would say that sounds like delightful Looney Tunes antics, but the falls banged up Corey’s heart and liver so much that he wound up in the hospital and died. The cause was blunt force trauma, ruled investigators, with the falls being the culprit. 

Authorities started by charging Gregor with child endangerment then escalated it to full-on murder. In the end, they settled on aggravated manslaughter, and on Friday, a judge sentenced him to 25 years. Yes, we mean this past Friday — this case just wrapped up. Part of the reason the court ruled so heavily against the father was that Corey’s mother testified, calling him a monster and fully to blame. 

The very narrow lesson here is: Don’t raise the speed on a kid’s treadmill, or they may fall off and die. “And also, you might go to prison for decades,” we suppose authorities would add, but for those of you who don’t actively want your kid to die, the “kid dying” part is probably all the disincentive you need.

1 The Deadly Crucifix

Exercising your child can be deadly. So can exorcising them. The most famous case of this was surely Anneliese Michel, the inspiration behind multiple movies, including The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Her parents ordered 67 separate exorcisms on her in 1975 and 1976, and their neglect of her basic needs during this time led to her death by malnutrition. Authorities convicted the parents and two priests. 

But while a proper exorcism, administered by priests, can lead to that sort of catastrophe, an amateur exorcism can be even worse. Consider the case of Geneva Gomez, believed by her mother to be possessed by the devil. In 2016, her boyfriend came by and discovered Geneva’s body on the floor, arms spread out in a crucifixion pose. Her mother Juanita had beat her to death while trying to “rid Satan from her daughter’s body.” The neck also showed puncture wounds. These were from the crucifix that Juanita had shoved down the girl’s throat, and which had cut her from within.

The defense started out by pleading insanity, but that fell apart when it became clear that Gomez was faking memory loss. The court sentenced her to life without parole. She was found guilty of murder and also ignorance of how exorcisms work — both real exorcisms and pop-culture exorcisms. We’ve all seen The Exorcist, and a crucifix does go into a girl’s orifice there, but that’s not part of the exorcism. That’s the work of the demon. 

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