Patricia Stallings (born 1964 or 1965) is an American woman who was wrongfully convicted of murder after the death of her son Ryan on September 7, 1989.
Because testing seemed to indicate an elevated level of ethylene glycol in Ryan's blood, authorities suspected antifreeze poisoning, and arrested Stallings the next day.
After a professor in biochemistry and molecular biology had some of Ryan's blood samples tested, he was able to prove that the child had also died from MMA, and not from ethylene glycol poisoning.
[3][1] Noting a high level of what they then believed to be ethylene glycol in the baby's blood, physicians suspected that the boy had been poisoned with antifreeze.
He was diagnosed with methylmalonic acidemia (MMA), a genetic condition in which the body produces propionic acid, a compound that differs from ethylene glycol by one carbon atom.
[4] In May 1990, defense attorney Eric Rathbone obtained copies of notes determined to have been written by assistant prosecutor John S. Appelbaum.
[4] The Stallings case was featured on the Unsolved Mysteries television program in May 1991, and biochemist William Sly of Saint Louis University saw the episode.
He agreed to test Ryan's blood, and gave it to James Shoemaker, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the Metabolic Screening Lab at St Louis University.
When the method was used on blood from Ryan and David Jr., it was seen that propionic acid, which is produced in MMA, caused a result that careless observers might mistake for ethylene glycol.
[4] At Sly's and Shoemaker's request, Piero Rinaldo of Yale University also looked at the case and concluded that Ryan had died of MMA.
[1] In 1993, Stallings won a seven figure settlement against Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital and the laboratory that tested Ryan's blood.
[2] In 1994, McElroy ran for reelection as Jefferson County prosecutor, and Stallings donated $10,000 to his opponent, Robert Wilkins.