Inside the Canada Family’s Fight to Save Their Son, and a Concerning Pattern at a Children’s Hospital in Texas
In December of 2025, Mr. and Mrs. Canada believed they were dealing with the same normal bout of family sickness that many families deal with that time of year. Tyler and Mallory homeschool their children, and over the course of several days, the family was passing around something that seemed like an ordinary seasonal illness. But by the evening of December 30, Tyler’s symptoms had worsened enough that he needed medical care.
Tyler and Malory, who is a licensed midwife herself, went to a small local hospital together. With them was their youngest child, Jesse, just five months old.
The visit was straightforward. Tyler was treated and discharged. No concerns were mentioned about Jesse by any medical staff.
They didn’t get home until after 11:00 pm.
Exhausted, Tyler and Mallory lay down in bed but remained awake, talking quietly after the long day. Jesse was nursing and after switching sides, they heard a sudden sound—a dull thump. Jesse had fallen off the bed.
He was on the floor and after picking up the crying child, he began seizing and then went limp.
The parents immediately called 911. Paramedics arrived, and Jesse was rushed by ambulance to Cook Children’s Hospital. Just a few hours after leaving the local hospita and going home, they arrived at Cook Children’s, desperate to save their son’s life.
They did not yet realize they were also entering a battle with one of the largest children’s hospitals in Texas.
Help Sought, Accusation Made
When Jesse arrived at Cook Children’s, he was placed on a ventilator and admitted. Medical staff described him as minimally responsive. It was confirmed quickly that Jesse had multiple active viruses in his system. His parents remained at his bedside, asking questions, pressing for explanations, and urging the hospital to do everything possible to help him recover.
But behind the scenes, something very different was unfolding.
Very quickly after the family’s arrival, Cook Children’s made a call to Child Protective Services, alleging abusive head trauma, more commonly known as Shaken Baby Syndrome. Shaken Baby Syndrome has become a highly controversial diagnosis among medical and legal professionals in recent years. Medical professionals now hotly contest whether the theory holds water scientifically. They also point out that, even if it did, one could not attribute it to an act of a parent–as it commonly done in CPS cases.
NBC News recently reported on a ruling from the New Jersey Supreme Court “affirming a lower court ruling that likened the diagnosis to unreliable ‘junk science’ and barring expert testimony about it from two upcoming trials.” In 2013, Texas passed a Junk Science law to allow convicted individuals to seek a new trial if their conviction was based on unreliable scientific evidence.
Despite this backdrop, once the Shaken Baby accusation was made against Tyler and Mallory, CPS caseworkers and police officers quickly descended on the hospital to interrogate the parents.
To Tyler and Mallory, the accusation was bewildering.
Just hours earlier, Jesse had been at the local hospital with them, where he appeared well even while fighting the same illness running through the family. Now, they were being accused of having gone home, physically abused their infant, and then calling 911 on themselves and rushing him to the hospital.
Knowing they had nothing to hide, Tyler and Mallory spoke openly with investigators and fully cooperated. They even authorized law enforcement to conduct a walkthrough of their home while they remained at the hospital with their son.
A Familiar Backdrop
For families and advocates familiar with Cook Children’s history, the trajectory was troublingly familiar.
The hospital has previously been at the center of multiple high-profile controversies involving rapid CPS referrals and disputed medical conclusions. In one such case, Jackie and Juan Boatright were also accused of Shaken Baby–the same accusation leveled against Tyler and Mallory–just two minutes after a Cook Children’s radiologist reviewed their daughter’s brain scan.
Jackie and Juan’s daughter was taken by CPS and only returned after a 10-month legal battle.
In another widely publicized case, Cook Children’s sought to withdraw life-sustaining treatment from a baby named Tinslee Lewis–over her parents’ objections. Cook Children’s asserted that her recovery was impossible. After a high-profile legal battle, the hospital was forced to back down, and today Tinslee Lewis is alive and well.
In a case from 2018, a child died in the hospital hours after a Texas Court of Appeals blocked Cook Children’s from withdrawing life-sustaining treatment.
Watching, Waiting, Hoping
Over the next several days, Jesse remained minimally responsive. Tyler and Mallory stayed with him constantly, watching for signs that he was still fighting. They noticed small movements and subtle responses—that gave them hope. But hospital staff insisted that these movements were just reflexes. Meanwhile, CPS and law enforcement remained involved. The parents, focused on their son’s survival, assumed the medical questions would be resolved and the accusations would fall away once a clearer picture emerged.
Instead, the situation escalated.
Lawyers Arrive—and the Clock Speeds Up
On Friday, January 2, friends connected the family with Krista Mcintire, a well-known Parent Advocate. Mcintire contacted attorney Brad Scalise and defense consultant Judy Powell. All three are well-experienced in complex medical CPS cases and are long-time partners of the Family Freedom Project (FFP). FFP, Scalise, and Powell all worked together to win the Boatright case against CPS and Cook Children’s Hospital just two years earlier.
Powell arrived at Cook Children’s quickly. That same day, they delivered a formal letter of representation invoking the parents’ rights under Texas law, including the right to seek a second medical opinion when abuse has been alleged.
The purpose of that safeguard–just passed by the legislature in 2025–is to slow down the process and avoid premature medical judgments and rushed CPS removals.
But Friday night, Cook Children’s began pitching the parents on a brain death test and possible organ donation, which the parents refused. The next day, Saturday, January 3, Cook’s told the parents a brain-death test on Jesse would occur with or without their consent. The test required removing him from the ventilator temporarily.
The parents were told this was happening despite their refusal. They pleaded with doctors to give their baby more time and insisted adamantly that they did not consent.
Cook’s proceeded anyway. After the test, hospital staff told the family a second brain-death test would be conducted at 1:00 a.m. If Jesse failed, life-sustaining treatment would be withdrawn, and Jesse would die in his parents’ arms. Tyler and Mallory were informed they had no choice in the matter.
Immediately, Mcintire and Scalise rushed to the Cook Children’s. Mcintire talked her way back to Jesse’s hospital room to join the parents and Scalise found himself standing in the hospital, arguing with medical staff about their rush to withdraw treatment and demanding that they give Jesse more time. Cook Children’s staff went so far as to tell Tyler and Mallory that Cook’s was obligated under Texas law to complete the test and withdraw treatment if Jesse failed, but no such law exists in Texas.
No medical explanation was offered for why such a rushed removal of life support would be needed.
Emergency Intervention
That evening, Scalise and his team moved quickly. With assistance from Texas Right to Life—the same organization that successfully defended Tinslee Lewis against Cook Children’s years earlier—they sought emergency judicial relief.
A local judge granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) barring Cook Children’s Hospital from conducting further brain-death testing or withdrawing life support or life-sustaining treatment.
For the moment, Jesse remained alive.
Over the following days, Cook Children’s attempted to get the court order changed. By this time, the legal team had expanded. Attorney Shelly Troberman and defense consultant Johana Scot joined the team and began combing through medical records and preparing a defense.
Cook’s attorneys got an emergency “clarification” hearing in an attempt to alter the TRO that was in place on Friday, January 9th. The judge gave the parents even more time by extending the TRO to January 20th and the legal team headed to the hospital with the good news. Jesse had more time to recover; however, this victory would be short-lived.
Tyler and Mallory’s extended family and church community rallied around them, offering their support, watching the Canada’s four remaining children, and hosting prayer meetings for Jesse at the hospital and in the family’s home.
The family continued to seek additional medical input and waited for their independent second opinions from outside medical experts, but on the evening of January 9, less than 12 hours after their court victory, Jesse suddenly started having medical issues and passed away.
He was 6 months old.
No Time to Grieve
Ten days before, the Canadas had been a family of seven dealing with what seemed like a normal round of seasonal sickness. Now, they were struggling to grieve the death of their son while the State of Texas and accusations from Cook Children’s Hospital threatened criminal prosecution and the removal of their other four children.
Now, six days after Jesse’s death, no closure is offered. Instead, the family and their community are rallying to defend their other four children. To Tyler and Mallory, the accusation remains as unbelievable as ever–that Jesse was physically shaken to the point of death in the few hours between when he left the local hospital and then was rushed to Cook Children’s Hospital by his parents.
Family Freedom Project is working directly with the family’s legal counsel to defend the family and ensure that their other four children remain together as they grieve.
The irony is hard to escape: a family sought medical help for their child. But rather than saving their infant child, the actions of Cook Children’s Hospital have now threatened the other four.
Jeremy Newman, J.D. serves as Vice President at the Family Freedom Project, where he oversees all legislative, political, and litigation-related efforts. He received his Juris Doctor from Oak Brook College of Law and has over a decade of legal and legislative experience.