The Deception and Trauma Experienced by the Lacks Family

Key Insight

Sir Lord Keenan Kester Cofield, falsely claiming to be a lawyer, contacted Deborah Lacks, persuading her to copyright Henrietta's name and pursue a lawsuit against Johns Hopkins for medical malpractice, seeking a percentage of the profits from HeLa cells. Offering his services without upfront fees, Cofield gained the family's trust by alleging that Henrietta's doctors at Hopkins were unlicensed or expelled from the American Medical Association, had misdiagnosed her cancer, and potentially caused her death through an overdose of radiation. His supposed 'findings' from investigating Hopkins's archives resonated with the family's existing fears, confirming their worst suspicions about Henrietta's treatment.

Cofield's deception was exposed by Johns Hopkins attorney Richard Kidwell, who discovered Cofield was a con artist with a long criminal history of fraud, including over 150 'frivolous' lawsuits against various institutions, and had been banned from filing lawsuits in at least two counties. Following this revelation, Deborah, at Kidwell's urging, signed a document denying Cofield access to her family's medical records. Undeterred, Cofield filed a lawsuit against Deborah, her brother Lawrence, Courtney Speed, the Henrietta Lacks Health History Museum Foundation, and ten Johns Hopkins officials. He accused them of breach of contract, racial discrimination, and made the astonishing claim that 'Henrietta Lacks' never officially existed, as she was born 'Loretta Pleasant,' meaning the family had no legal relation or right to information. The case, despite its bizarre and baseless claims, was eventually dismissed.

The lawsuit had a devastating and prolonged impact on Deborah. Overwhelmed by daily legal documents, she accused Courtney Speed of conspiring with Cofield and threatened to sue her. The extreme stress profoundly affected Deborah's physical and mental health; she stopped checking her mail, rarely left her house, and suffered a severe physical attack on her school bus job, resulting in permanent spinal damage. Her health further deteriorated, marked by disorientation, hives, and dangerously high blood pressure that nearly caused a stroke. This decline was explicitly linked to her anxieties about her mother's and sister Elsie's past treatments and a pervasive belief that information was being hidden, particularly after discovering that Elsie's medical records from Crownsville before 1955 had been destroyed.