ST. JOSEPH, Mo. — Ashley Standridge already has a lot to deal with, as her 9-month-old daughter Isla Bailey has hypoplastic right heart syndrome, meaning the right side of her heart hasn’t developed.
Isla has had three open-heart surgeries and two cardiac catheterizations, but the little girl has stayed strong and happy through it all, WDAF reported.
“Even right out of surgery she was smiling and laughing and nothing that she has gone through has fazed her at all,” Standridge said.
But a new issue has fazed Standridge: A woman has been using Isla’s suffering and her pictures in a disturbing scam.
Standridge said one of her high school classmates, whom she was friends with on Facebook, was using pictures of Isla and at least one other child and claiming they were hers to demand money from ex-boyfriends.
The current girlfriend of one of the targets told Standridge what was going on.
Standridge called it “a punch in the gut” and “like getting her diagnosis all over again.”
Nicholas Bailey, Isla’s father, agreed reading the scammer’s messages brought back painful memories.
“Just going through her surgeries, she stated that her heart stopped, and there has been instances where we’ve been real close to that and that’s not something I want to go through again. She made it seem like a story.”
Now Standbridge is warning other parents to be extra careful about what they put up online about their children and only allow real friends to see those posts.