The Strange Way Olivia Gant's Mother Killed Her

A fatal case of Munchausen syndrome

By Rare StoriesPublished 3 years ago • 3 min read

Olivia K. Gant, an American girl born on June 21, 2010, was killed by her mother, Kelly Renee Turner-Gant, after years of medical abuse.

Kelly took the girl to the hospital at first because she had severe constipation. After this was resolved and Olivia went home, Kelly said that Olivia couldn't eat, which led to many surgeries, feeding tubes, and finally an intravenous tube that put food directly into her veins.

Olivia was sometimes confined to a wheelchair or bed because the anti-seizure medicine that Kelly had persuaded a doctor to give her made her too weak to move.

The Beginning

Olivia K. Gant was born in Pasadena, Texas, where her parents, two sisters, and mother also lived.

After moving to Colorado, Kelly Turner-Gant took a lot of pictures of Olivia, most of which were from the girl's trips to the hospital, and posted them online for people to see.

Olivia is Abused

In 2012, Olivia was very constipated, so Kelly Turner-Gant took her to Children's Hospital Colorado to get help. Even though the treatment (removing the girl's hardened stool from her colon) worked, Kelly soon came back to say that Olivia couldn't eat properly.

She presented Olivia as a sick child when she was healthy

Olivia had several surgeries to fix this problem, including one where her small intestine was diverted through her large intestine and a bag was attached to her stomach so she could eat from it.

Olivia was given strong painkillers for five years, and was taken to the hospital more than 1,000 times before she died. In addition to taking advantage of Olivia's health care, Kelly would tell her friends that Olivia was dying, and she would use their sympathy to scam different charity groups.

She would put up Olivia's "bucket list," which was a list of things she wanted to do before she died.

Kelly may have scammed more than $500,000 out of different organizations and individuals.

Olivia had three different types of feeding tubes put in by surgery at different times, and she was also given a strong seizure medicine. Even though no doctor had ever seen her have a seizure, Kelly was able to convince the doctor who gave her the medicine that it was necessary.

Kelly pushing her daughter in a whealchair

Kelly also gave her daughter nutrition through an IV because she thought the other feeding tube methods were not working.

The Death

Kelly Turner-Gant was able to get a "do not resuscitate" order for Olivia. Olivia's usual doctors wouldn't sign it, so Kelly had to switch doctors until she found one who would.

Olivia's feeding tubes were then all taken out by Kelly, and the girl was put in hospice care.

At initially, she was said to be in excellent spirits, but this quickly changed as Olivia started to starve while being maintained on powerful narcotics and only being given melted popsicle liquid rubbed on her lips with a sponge as food.

Intestine failure was determined to be the cause of Olivia's death on August 20, 2017.

Investigation

Authorities and doctors didn't start looking into Kelly's role in Olivia's death for over a year. This was partly because Kelly brought Olivia's sister to the hospital with similar symptoms, which turned out to be false.

Kelly was arrested in 2018 and taken to jail, where she was charged with a number of crimes, including murder in the first degree, and defrauding people.

Trial and Sentencing

In January 2022, Kelly Turner-Gant pleaded guilty to a felony charge of child abuse that led to the death of her daughter.

As part of her plea deal, Kelly's first-degree murder charges were dropped, and the prosecution and defense both agreed that she should spend 16 years in prison. Kelly also admitted to felony charges of theft and fraud, for which she was given a total of 13 years in prison to be served at the same time.