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    "parsed_content": "Tony Luong for The New York TimesIn Payette, Idaho, population 8,800, a young mother is accused of killing her 18-month-old twins.She says childhood vaccinations killed them.The mother has the support of an anti-vaccine group founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.Her fate will be in the hands of a jury in a place where skepticism about vaccines runs deep.Supported bySKIP ADVERTISEMENTShe Says Vaccines Killed Her Twins. The Authorities Say She Did.Listen \u00b7 18:31 min Share full articleBy Lisa MillerLisa Miller reported from Payette, IdahoSept. 30, 2026Andrea Shaw has spent most of the summer alone in a cell in Payette, Idaho, taking comfort from photos of her family, according to her lawyer. Her twins were 18 months old when they died, in May 2025, and her living daughter is three months old. She can talk to her husband, Nate, and the baby only by phone or video chat, which she does several times a day. As she waits for her lawyer to drive up from Boise, she reads inspirational books such as \u201cTuesdays With Morrie.\u201dShaw, 23, is charged with the smothering murder of the twins \u2014 Tyson, a boy, and Dallas, a girl \u2014 in the middle of the night, in the bed that they shared. At trial, scheduled for January, evidence will show that \u201cthe only conceivable explanation\u201d for their deaths is that she suffocated them, the Payette County prosecutor Mike Duke wrote in a court filing. Shaw has pleaded not guilty.Joe Filicetti, Shaw\u2019s lawyer, describes Shaw as \u201csweet.\u201d In court, in her red-and-white striped uniform, she mostly comes across as young. The Shaw case, grim as it is, might have been a purely local story except for the extraordinary attention it has received from the captains of the nation\u2019s vaccine-skeptical movement. Three days after their twins died, Andrea and Nate Shaw appeared on a video podcast produced by Children\u2019s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.Looking stricken, the couple told their version of events. The twins had been preemies, Shaw said, and had required intensive medical care. She inoculated them on the recommended schedule without ill effects. But in April 2025, after receiving the D-tap, flu and hepatitis A shots, the toddlers got sick, and when she sought help, clinicians repeatedly dismissed her concerns, she said.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT\u201cI wish I was anti-vaccine now,\u201d Shaw concluded, with a wry chuckle.ImageAndrea Shaw appeared in court via video feed in July.Shaw was indicted by a grand jury more than a year after the deaths of her children. During that interval, in January, 2026, she became the lead plaintiff in a federal lawsuit filed by Children\u2019s Health Defense against the American Academy of Pediatrics. (\u201cI don\u2019t understand where they come up with these plaintiffs,\u201d said Richard Sauber, the attorney who represents the academy in this case, when reached for comment.) That suit claims that the nation\u2019s pediatricians defrauded American families by colluding with pharmaceutical makers to spread misinformation about the safety of vaccines.The Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, established in 2021 by Steve Kirsch, the Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur, to \u201ctell the truth about vaccines,\u201d as he put it in an interview, is working \u201cin conjunction\u201d with Children\u2019s Health Defense to help support Shaw and her family. (Children\u2019s Health Defense did not respond to a request for comment.) Documents in the court file make a terse reference to the law firm of Aaron Siri, a Kennedy ally and prominent vaccine critic. Siri wrote in an email, \u201cWe do not represent Ms. Shaw with regard to her criminal proceedings.\u201dKirsch described his motivation. \u201cWhen you hear of a case which is 100 percent consistent with a vaccine injury and is not at all consistent with a mother who is killing her kids, you have an ethical obligation to come to the mother\u2019s aid,\u201d he said. He added that if a single shred of evidence pointed to murder, he would \u201cbe out of there in a heartbeat.\u201dVideoThe town cemetery in Payette. Some Shaw family members are buried there, but the cremated remains of Tyson and Dallas are with Nate Shaw\u2019s parents.CreditCredit...Tony Luong For The New York TimesFilicetti began representing Shaw the day after the twins\u2019 deaths. He doesn\u2019t remember who first called him, he said, but in 2023, he had met some of the players in the vaccine-hesitant world at a Children\u2019s Health Defense conference in Georgia. Filicetti has a solo practice in Boise, with a focus on defending Idaho police accused of crimes and misdeeds. In the Shaw case, he consults with the high profile advocacy groups. \u201cThey all want to give input,\u201d Filicetti said in an interview. \u201cI take any help I can get from anybody.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTHaving received almost \u201cevery vaccine, including the shingles vaccine,\u201d he said, he does not consider himself a vaccine denier. But during the Covid outbreak, he questioned the lethality of the novel virus and the efficacy of the new vaccine. He viewed government mandates as an overreach.A believer in alternative therapies \u2014 in massage, dopamine patches, cold plunges and therapeutic ketamine for trauma \u2014 Filicetti declined the Covid shot. Instead, he treated his Covid symptoms with a 30-day water fast, as well as \u201civermectin, hydroxychloroquine, and I went to a naturopath who flooded me with ozone,\u201d he told me. \u201cI came out of that healthier than I\u2019ve ever been in my life,\u201d he said. Existing as he does at the nexus of libertarian politics and the crunchy lifestyle of Boise, Filicetti gained a reputation for defending vaccine refusers.In my conversations with him, Filicetti stressed Shaw\u2019s vulnerability, portraying her as a young, na\u00efve mother who is unjustly accused, has lost her twin toddlers and is separated from her newborn. His sole focus, he told me, is to \u201ckeep my client from being wrongly convicted and then receiving the death penalty for something she did not do.\u201d At trial, his only burden will be to show that the state did not prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, and in this case, \u201cvaccines were a factor,\u201d he said. In Payette, the \u201cnumber of people who did not get vaccinated or are vaccine hesitant is high,\u201d and those skeptics will be in the jury pool.Filicetti is not out to set vaccine policy, he said. But he does have strong views about the way vaccines are debated in the public sphere. The pro-vaccine faithful are too absolutist, Filicetti told me. \u201cWhen science becomes unquestionable, it becomes a religion,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re just saying, \u2018Fall in line.\u2019\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTImageAndrea Shaw\u2019s criminal defense lawyer, Joe Filicetti, in his office in Boise, Idaho. \u201cI don\u2019t have the burden of proving how they died,\u201d he said, referring to Shaw\u2019s twins. \u201cI have only the burden of showing that the state did not prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.\u201dCredit...Tony Luong for The New York TimesFilicetti sent Shaw \u201cTuesdays With Morrie\u201d and other uplifting books. He also arranges frequent sessions for her with a trauma therapist specializing in E.M.D.R., or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, which can be conducted through a glass barrier.The next hearing is scheduled for Oct. 15. \u201cIt\u2019s super important for me to keep her emotionally and spiritually healthy,\u201d he said.Andrea Shaw made the 911 call on Thursday morning, May 1, 2025. At the time, she lived with Nate and the twins at the Northgate trailer park, at the edge of town. Northgate is known locally as the Stepford Wives trailer park because the 65 homes there all look the same, like whitewashed barracks. The dispatcher told her to wait outside.The police arrived at around 11:30. The park\u2019s manager, Kathy Killkenney, a sharp-eyed 82-year-old, sits in an office at the entrance collecting rent checks. That day, observing all the emergency vehicles, she decided to stay in her office, she told me when I stopped in to see her in September.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTImageNorthgate Mobile Court, where Andrea and Nate Shaw lived and their 18-month-old twins died.Credit...Tony Luong for The New York Times\u201cNobody asked you,\u201d she said to herself that morning. \u201cAnd the police are going to do an investigation. Just leave them alone.\u201dInstead, she called Nate at work, according to his account on the Children\u2019s Health Defense podcast. \u201c\u2018What\u2019s going on?\u2019\u201d she asked him. \u201c\u2018The police have taped up your trailer.\u2019\u201d Nate said he did not know. He repeatedly called Andrea, who did not answer, and when he called his mother, a police officer picked up the phone. The officer said, \u201c\u2018Hey, I hate to inform you but your kids are dead,\u2019\u201d Nate recalled. \u201cI was like, \u2018You\u2019re lying. You\u2019re not telling me the truth. This isn\u2019t happening.\u2019\u201dAndrea described peeking in on the twins earlier that morning and thinking they were asleep. When she went to wake them up later, she said, she touched Tyson and he was cold.\u201cThe way I saw them, they looked as if they had gone in their sleep. They were in their sleeping positions. I think it\u2019s called rigor mortis,\u201d she said on the podcast.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTAccording to the prosecutor, Shaw changed her story several times under police questioning. Duke summarized Shaw\u2019s interview at a July hearing: She had been out late with a friend the night before; first she said she had gotten up with the twins at around 8 that morning and fed them breakfast; later she said that wasn\u2019t true. On the other hand, Nate\u2019s account was consistent, Duke said: He had been sleeping the whole time. Duke did not respond to requests for comment.VideoCreditCredit...Chd TvFor her part, Andrea said the police had gotten into her head and made her feel crazy. They said that \u201cI had supposedly had a postpartum, overwhelming blackout and done it to my children,\u201d she said on the podcast.In the podcast interview, Andrea appeared stunned. Nate looked tense and chewed his lip. Encouraged by the interviewer, they recounted the events of the previous week. On April 23, Andrea and Wendy Shaw, Nate\u2019s mother, had brought Dallas and Tyson to Snake River Pediatrics for their 18-month well-child checkup. Both women had expressed caution about the flu vaccine, Andrea recalled: Nate and other members of the Shaw family were reactive to it. The nurse practitioner was dismissive of these concerns, Andrea said, and Andrea consented to the shot. (Snake River Pediatrics did not return requests for comment.)The following day, both children were passing a greenish diarrhea and had a blue cast to their lips, and they were lethargic, according to Andrea. Alarmed, she took them to the emergency room at St. Luke\u2019s in Fruitland, Idaho, in the company of her mother-in-law. After assessing them and giving them Tylenol and ice pops, the doctor sent them home.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTIn medical records provided to The New York Times by Children\u2019s Health Defense, the E.R. physician remarked that the children had not seemed to be in any danger. They were diagnosed with \u201cpost-immunization reaction,\u201d and he noted, further, that Andrea \u201cseemed satisfied with their visit.\u201d According to Duke, postmortem tests had showed that one twin had a rotavirus infection, transmitted from feces to mouth and extremely contagious. Multiple physicians I spoke with explained that rotavirus is rarely fatal but can become so if children are not vaccinated against it in infancy, or if they are inadequately hydrated. (The children were making wet diapers, the hospital notes said. Whether they had been vaccinated is not known.)VideoA day after the twins received vaccines, Shaw took them to the emergency room.CreditCredit...Tony Luong For The New York TimesAccording to Andrea, the toddlers continued to have \u201csevere\u201d diarrhea. On the morning of April 30, she called Snake River to see if she could get an appointment, but they were backed up. That was the final day of the twins\u2019 lives. In the Children\u2019s Health Defense interview Andrea said they had started to recover that day and were \u201cgreat\u201d \u2014 eating, talking and drinking from their sippy cups.Angela Wulbrecht was in touch with the Shaws within days of the twins\u2019 deaths. A nurse who worked for 17 years at a hospital in Marin County, Calif., caring for mothers and babies, Wulbrecht is on the board of Kirsch\u2019s Vaccine Safety Research Foundation. For her whole career, she had been an avid vaccine proponent, she said in a joint interview with Kirsch. But she said she had suffered an adverse reaction to the Covid vaccine and over time became a skeptic. \u201cI didn\u2019t know, when I went and got my Covid shot and 12 minutes later I almost died, that there would be no help for me. There was no recourse, nobody to sue,\u201d Wulbrecht said.Now, helping families like the Shaws \u201cis my passion,\u201d Wulbrecht said. People harmed by vaccines are \u201cdistraught,\u201d she said, \u201cand they need guidance.\u201d She wouldn\u2019t speak about the Shaw case, but said she often meets families who post what happened to them on Facebook.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT\u201cAll of a sudden I\u2019ll get tagged,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople know me. So they\u2019ll start saying, \u2018Contact Angela.\u2019\u201d Wulbrecht estimates she has helped about 1,000 families since starting this work. Her Facebook page recently included selfies of her with Kennedy at public events.In the time between the deaths of the twins and her arrest, Shaw became pregnant again. When Shaw worried that the fetus was too small, Wulbrecht reviewed her test results and reassured her by text. \u201cI have a feeling everything is going to be just fine,\u201d she wrote.ImageA defendant\u2019s table at the Payette County Courthouse.Credit...Tony Luong for The New York TimesShaw was charged with two counts of murder on June 29. Initially the judge set her bail at $2 million. But when Filicetti requested a bond reduction, citing the best interests of the mother and her newborn daughter, Duke responded with ferocity. His experts had considered explanations other than murder, he said. They had looked at poisoning and considered the temperature in the bedroom, which frequently surpassed 100 degrees. They had ruled out both possibilities.A forensic pathologist excluded vaccines as the cause of death. \u201cThis is not a vaccine case,\u201d Duke said in court.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTAccording to the autopsy report, both children had pulmonary vascular congestion, or a buildup of blood and fluid in the blood vessels of the lungs, he wrote. Tyson had pulmonary edema, a more severe buildup, as well.\u201cAccording to our expert, these symptoms are consistent with being smothered. They occur when something blocks air from entering the airways, and as the diaphragm expands, it creates a low pressure condition in the lungs and airways,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThis is the cause of death of the twins. It is also the only reasonable explanation for why both would die at the same time, on the same night, in the same room, in the same bed.\u201dWhile Shaw enjoys the presumption of innocence, Duke continued, he had to consider the risk presented to the defendant\u2019s infant daughter. Judge Kiley Stuchlik agreed. Instead of reducing Shaw\u2019s bond, she revoked it.ImageA jury seating area at the courthouse. Prosecutors will need to prove their case against Shaw in a community with deep skepticism of vaccines.Credit...Tony Luong for The New York TimesFor Duke to prevail, a jury in Payette needs to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Andrea Shaw murdered her children. But in Idaho, doubt about doctors and medications, and especially vaccines, has long been a way of life.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTUntil the deaths of Tyson and Dallas, Andrea and Nate Shaw were not known for anything much. Andrea moved in with Nate\u2019s family when she was 17, during Covid. She \u201chas no criminal record of any kind \u2014 not even a speeding or parking ticket,\u201d according to a filing by Filicetti. In high school, Nate liked working on engines and was an active member of FFA (formerly Future Farmers of America), his teacher Tyson Smith said in an interview. Tyson, the boy twin, was named after him.In Payette, a town of 8,800, Shaw\u2019s claim that vaccines harmed her children is seen as unremarkable. Childhood vaccination rates in Idaho are 68.9 percent, well below the state goal of 79.5, and declining. Bryon Hemphill, a family doctor I spoke to, said that in his rural clinic in Payette, \u201cI don\u2019t know that we are reaching 30\u201d percent.In a conversation in his office on a bright September day, Hemphill pondered the causes of this deep reluctance. In general, people don\u2019t go to the doctor in Payette, he said. That\u2019s in part because Idaho has fewer doctors per capita than most other states, and Payette has fewer than the Idaho average.But neither conventional medicine nor the insurance companies have made wellness, or prevention, a priority. Patients drive to the doctors\u2019 office only when they are ill. Since Covid, he said, they often arrive with their own theories about why.ImageBryon Hemphill, a family doctor in Payette. When he encounters people skeptical about vaccines, he said, he talks to them about the risk, and avoids being judgmental.Credit...Tony Luong for The New York TimesAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTIn his practice, Hemphill confronts what he calls \u201can epistemological problem,\u201d he said. As he experiences it, the vaccine debate boils down to warring truths, in which \u201ctruth is what you think it is. It\u2019s your perception. There\u2019s this element of, \u2018It\u2019s my truth.\u2019\u201dFaced with such strong hesitancy, Hemphill knows better than to push too hard. Instead, he tries to engage his patients in a conversation about risk. The chance of dying from a vaccine is far smaller than that of dying from the disease it\u2019s designed to prevent, he\u2019ll explain. Symptoms after vaccination indicate that the vaccine is working, he\u2019ll sometimes add.But he doesn\u2019t insist. It is not his role, he told me, to tell his patients what to do. \u201cThat can come across as judgmental.\u201dIn July, days after Shaw\u2019s arrest, Kirsch, the tech entrepreneur, sent the prosecutor\u2019s office an email. Kirsch doesn\u2019t usually delve into the nitty-gritty of individual vaccine-injury claims and said he has never been to Payette. But he spoke to Shaw after the deaths of her children, and he believes this case could change the national conversation. It could \u201cbreak this acceptance of, \u2018all vaccines are safe.\u2019\u201dKirsch wanted Duke to see a 2004 study, based on research from the 1980s, by a retired micropaleontologist that purported to show a correlation between childhood vaccination and respiratory distress and deaths otherwise attributed to SIDS or shaken baby syndrome.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT\u201cIf a jury understands science, unless you have a witness to the suffocation (which you don\u2019t have), this creates reasonable doubt,\u201d he wrote to the prosecutor, using boldface type.The prosecutor did not respond to his note, Kirsch told me. \u201cThey never do,\u201d he said.VideoThe jail where Shaw is awaiting trial.CreditCredit...Tony Luong For The New York TimesFrom the commentsLisa MillerHealth reporterI was very affected by reporting this article. Any way you look at it, the story is so sad. But also, the country\u2019s contentious views on vaccines are being played out in this one case. Everyone I spoke to had different, and strongly held, beliefs. Now, I\u2019m curious to watch this unfold, in a vaccine hesitant place, as the trial approaches. The story isn't over yet.Christina Jewett contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett, Alain Delaqu\u00e9ri\u00e8re, Georgia Gee, Sheelagh McNeill and Kirsten Noyes contributed research.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT",
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    "ai_headline": "She Says Vaccines Killed Her Twins. The Authorities Say She Did.",
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