California closes raw-milk E. coli case without penalty

Two children developed rare kidney condition after drinking raw goat milk

Emily Marris, a trained birth doula and former teacher living in suburban Winchester, California, described herself as a “crunchy” mom. She had detoxified her home of synthetic materials and limited her family’s intake of ultraprocessed food. Her husband ran a sports technology startup. Their youngest child, Brooklyn, was born when Marris was 48, seven weeks premature, with low birth weight and underdeveloped lungs that confined her to the intensive care unit for her first month. When Brooklyn was barely a year old, Marris started a new medication for chronic hip pain that could pass through breast milk. She tried organic infant formula but was alarmed by the number of additives, and store-bought cow milk left the toddler severely constipated. She considered stopping her medication but said she could not walk without pain.

In a private Facebook group of backyard farmers, Marris’s chiropractor, Chris Boman, had shared a photo of a refrigerator filled with gallons of freshly collected raw milk. Marris had seen him selling raw milk from his own cow in his clinic’s waiting room. She commented on his post: “Would this be a good milk for baby Brookie?” Other mothers responded with endorsements. “I had to put my baby on raw goats milk,” one wrote. “Healed her right up. … Goats milk is easier digested than cow.” While sales of raw milk are prohibited on Facebook’s Marketplace and such ads are removed when flagged, discussions of raw milk are still allowed, a Meta spokesperson told ProPublica.

A commenter recommended Moonlight Ridge, a farm run by 23-year-old Courtney Baker and her husband, who had started raising goats during the pandemic and selling raw milk to help animal rescues and breeders, Baker later said. The farm’s Facebook page featured pictures of Nubian goats and stated the dairy was “always the freshest and best quality.” Marris drove to the farm, about 10 miles away, turning down a dirt road with no sign marking the entrance. Baker met her at a metal gate near a white pickup truck and handed over an unlabeled jug of raw goat milk, still warm to the touch. Marris pointed to Brooklyn, asleep in the back seat, and explained her digestion struggles. “This is the sweet girl you’re helping,” she recalled telling the farmer.

Once home, Marris filled a baby bottle and nervously handed it to Brooklyn. “She is gobbling it down! 💜” Marris texted Baker. “Yay!! I’m glad she likes it!” Baker responded, then later that day asked, “How’s her tummy handling the milk?” By the next morning, Brooklyn’s problems seemed to ease. “She has had two great and more normal poops!!!!” Marris texted Baker. For six months, Marris gave Brooklyn raw milk without incident.

Similar cases were occurring across the country. According to ProPublica, social media influencers and President Donald Trump’s White House had been promoting what the medical establishment describes as the unproven benefits of raw milk and minimizing its known risks. In the past two years alone, hundreds had fallen ill across nine states from drinking raw milk or eating products made with it. California, recognizing that many residents still want access to raw milk, had struck a regulatory balance: it licenses farms that sell raw milk for human consumption, inspects them for sanitation and requires them to regularly test batches for pathogens. But the milk suspected of sickening the two girls did not come from one of the state’s dozen licensed farms; Moonlight Ridge was operating entirely off the regulatory radar.

On June 2, 2025, the situation began to unravel. On the way home from swim lessons, Brooklyn vomited all over the back seat. That same day, navy veterans Iris and David Galindo drove to Moonlight Ridge to pick up their first order of goat milk for their 6-year-old daughter, Victoria, whose doctor had recommended limiting cow dairy. Iris had grown up drinking goat milk in Guatemala and contacted Baker, who had tutored their son in math years earlier and was now advertising raw goat milk in a local Facebook group. The Galindos said they made it explicitly clear the milk was for their young daughter. That evening, Victoria drank her first cup.

The days after Brooklyn first threw up became what Marris later described as a “hellish blur.” Her vomit turned bilious yellow, then a tarry blackish-green. Bloodwork so alarmed emergency room doctors that they called for transport to a pediatric intensive care unit 70 miles away at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego. There, doctors fastened a tube down Brooklyn’s trachea to help her breathe and inserted dialysis lines into her blood vessels to support her failing kidneys. She had developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a rare condition in which microscopic blood clots clog small vessels and destroy vital organs. Infectious disease doctors suspected a strain of E. coli and had Marris walk them through Brooklyn’s recent diet. When she mentioned the raw milk, she said, they looked at her uneasily and told her that was the likely culprit. E. coli can thrive in animal intestines; as few as 10 cells, hidden in an infinitesimal fleck of feces, can contaminate raw milk and trigger a fatal infection.

Marris was terrified for her daughter and furious with herself. “I’m the one that gave it to her,” she recalled thinking. “Just how stupid could I be?” She was not aware of the medical consensus that raw milk has no proven nutritional benefits compared with its pasteurized counterpart and that it carries over 100 times the risk of foodborne illness.

From her daughter’s bedside on June 5, Marris texted Baker: “They think Brookie got a strain of e-coli possibly from a bad batch of the milk … I just wanted to let you know in case you want to alert anyone that had milk from the week before this.” Baker responded that she was “so incredibly sorry to hear she is going through this!!” and that “none of my milk testing results have showed anything abnormal.” Later that day, Marris learned that Baker had not tested for E. coli; it seemed she did not know how to. “All the tests I’m finding looks like it mainly comes from meat,” Baker wrote. Marris was taken aback. Still, she remained polite. “Please don’t beat yourself up either. You are a sweet kind person and I don’t want you or me to go there,” she wrote.

Two days after Brooklyn arrived at the hospital, on June 6, doctors took her off the ventilator, but she struggled to wake up. For hours, as she continued on dialysis, her eyes drifted back into her head, her body occasionally convulsed and her breathing grew heavy and rapid. That evening, her blood grew so acidic that it disrupted the electrical signals of her heart, which struggled to pump enough blood and oxygen to her brain. For hours, the medical team tried to stabilize her spiking pulse. Her parents did not know if she would survive the night. As they awaited an update, a stool sample confirmed that Brooklyn had contracted E. coli O157:H7, one of the most dangerous strains. When Marris texted Baker about the diagnosis, the farmer detailed her equipment-cleaning process and said she would send a sample to a lab in Colorado.

After a couple of days, Brooklyn finally turned a corner. But in suburban Murietta, not far from the Marris family home, Victoria was just starting to decline. She had grown lethargic over the past week, with bouts of bloody diarrhea. After two unhelpful urgent care visits, the Galindos drove her to Rady on June 13. Bloodwork revealed she had the same disorder as Brooklyn, brought on by the same E. coli strain; she was rushed into intensive care, where she received blood transfusions. “My world just dropped,” Iris Galindo said.

On June 14, after Marris learned that another child had fallen sick after drinking raw milk, she texted Baker again: “Maybe hold off on selling any until we know if there is a common thread.” Baker did not reply. The next day, Marris saw that Baker had recently responded to someone in the Facebook group looking for raw goat milk: “I have raw goat milk from a clean tested herd in wine country … We milk 2x a day so it is always super fresh.” Marris typed up a detailed description of what had happened and posted it to the group. “My 17 month old almost died this week,” she wrote. “I NEVER WANTED TO have to call her out on this, but it’s prudent that she take a break, make sure she tests for THIS SPECIFIC strain and ensure the milk is safe before resuming sales.” Supportive comments rolled in: “Praying for your sweet baby.” “Omg I almost bought milk from her a couple weeks ago.” “Thank you for protecting the rest of us.” Baker eventually replied, apologizing for the slow response, explaining that she had also been hospitalized with an unrelated illness and said she had stopped selling milk while waiting for test results. She asked Marris to take down her post. “As much as I hate and feel bad for what happened to Brooke [sic] I really really do,” she said, “I really don’t appreciate my name being thrown out there like that.” Reluctantly, Marris deleted what she wrote. She had already shared her text messages with state regulators and believed they would act.

Investigators with the California Department of Food and Agriculture, coordinating with at least four state and county agencies, took the lead. In California, selling raw milk for human consumption without a license is a violation of state law and can lead to fines of up to $10,000 and jail time of up to a year. On the evening of June 17, an undercover investigator messaged the farm’s Facebook account: “Would like to buy like a gallon 🤗🤗🤗” Someone from the farm replied they sold goat milk by the gallon and would message when a shipment of jugs arrived.

On June 20, three regulators paid an unannounced visit to Moonlight Ridge. The farm was located within a larger horse ranch, and they did not see anyone at the entrance. They walked along the fenceline until they spotted Baker’s husband, who asked if they were there because of the goat milk. Baker arrived about 20 minutes later and told them something she had not said to the parents or the undercover investigator: the milk was for pets only and advertised as such on Facebook. “Of course, she insisted that she only sells the goat milk for pet food,” Jill Soares, a regional supervisor with the Food and Agriculture Department, later wrote in an email to the team.

Although California requires licenses to sell raw milk for human consumption, unlicensed farms can sell raw milk as long as they label it as pet food. Sellers have seized on the loophole to avoid scrutiny and prosecution, a health official familiar with Baker’s case told ProPublica, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly. “There is a gap in regulation,” the official said. The investigative report makes no mention of regulators interrogating Baker about the pet food defense, despite the text messages they had read. “She clearly knew the milk was going to a child,” Soares wrote to her team.

Before the site visit, supervising special investigator Jeffrey Eggert had written in an email that pursuing charges was not the priority. “The immediate goal here is to get the goat farm to stop all milk related-product manufacturing, and keep the community safe,” he wrote. His unit “typically pursues the criminal route; however, the legal process is lengthy.” Regulators handed Baker a cease-and-desist order and a violation notice for operating as a food facility without a valid permit; neither carried penalties, but both threatened consequences if she did not comply.

The next day, they met Baker at the gate and accepted a half-gallon jug of raw milk she assured them had been collected the previous night from 11 goats. Department officials told ProPublica that California law does not permit investigators to enter unlicensed properties to collect their own samples, as they do at licensed farms, where investigators also comb the farmland for the pathogen, sampling dirt, groundwater and animal droppings. In some cases when they have not found the pathogen in the milk, they have found it in the surroundings.

Eleven days after regulators left with the sample Baker collected, the state’s limited test results came back negative for several pathogens, including E. coli. Regulators then pivoted to helping Baker get approval to start selling her milk again — still without a license, inspections or testing — so long as she labeled and registered it as pet food. Baker soon wrote back to the undercover investigator: “I have gotten confirmation from CDFA that I’m in full compliance for pet consumption milk!” On Aug. 1, the Food and Agriculture Department closed its case, finding that Baker had “promoted raw milk for sale and sold unapproved milk products in commerce without a CDFA license.” She was given no penalty. “I was unable to show that she sold milk intended for human consumption,” wrote special investigator Nancy Del Cid. “If this had been proven, the case would have been referred to the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office for potential prosecution.”

The department did not respond to ProPublica’s specific questions about why officials had come to this conclusion despite evidence that had made at least one supervisor remark that Baker “clearly knew the milk was going to a child.” Officials told ProPublica that seeking criminal charges would have slowed down their effort to stop Baker from selling more milk. “Issuing a cease-and-desist order almost always results in a product being removed from the market more rapidly than a criminal referral,” said Devon Keeler, a department spokesperson, in an emailed statement. “In this case, CDFA acted to protect public health as quickly as possible by taking steps to stop this product’s distribution based on the evidence and information investigators collected and confirmed.” In response to questions about why it did not pursue prosecution in parallel, officials said local law enforcement often does not pursue criminal charges unless a cease-and-desist order has been violated.

The gap is magnified in 13 other states, where raw milk can be sold only as pet food but regulators know people are still drinking it. Outbreaks this year in Louisiana and last year in Florida sickened multiple children, including at least one who developed the same life-threatening kidney condition as Brooklyn. No dairy faced enforcement action; state officials said the milk was legally sold and clearly labeled.

Earlier this year, Baker moved out of California and reopened her farm in Arizona. Before she left, ProPublica visited Moonlight Ridge. The reporter drove through the same gate, past horse corrals and stables, and parked near a grove of peeling eucalyptus trees where a small pen held a large herd of goats, protected by a barking farm dog. About 30 yards away was an aging trailer. Baker opened the door wearing leggings and a tank top, her hair held back with sunglasses. She told the reporter the case had been dismissed and urged them to call the state’s Food and Agriculture Department. “Everything was negative,” she said. “There were no pathogens.” She added that the results from her own private lab test had also come back clean.

Baker touted the resolution of the case as total vindication, and the negative test results — from samples she had gathered unsupervised, weeks after the infections started — as proof that her milk had not caused the outbreak. If her animals had carried E. coli, she said, she and her husband would have been infected. “Quite frankly, we don’t care if we’ve cleaned the pen and then go grab a sandwich,” she told the reporter. “We’ll eat with our hands filthy.” She said she tested her herd for some goat diseases but never claimed to have tested the milk for foodborne pathogens. She stressed that families had knowingly bought milk that was not for human consumption. “Everything is sold as pet milk,” she said. “What they choose to do with it is not my business.” She said Marris made a poor decision and was “trying to find someone to take the blame for it.” She suggested she did not know the Galindo family well, or that they were drinking the milk, and maintained that it was a coincidence that the two families, who had not met each other, both had children who fell ill with the same rare strain of E. coli — one strongly associated with raw-milk consumption — after drinking her product. “I was nice to Emily,” she said in a sharp tone, describing how she gave the family special privileges by allowing them to visit her farm. “She has completely ruined it.” Several of her assertions did not line up with what the families had shared or with the text messages and state records, ProPublica reported. When the reporter followed up, Baker refused to respond to questions. Through Facebook Messenger, she said she “vehemently” disagreed with ProPublica’s “distortion and mischaracterization of the facts,” but did not point out any specific errors.

When Brooklyn came home from the hospital, the disease had substantially interrupted her development. “It just all sort of stopped and stalled,” Marris said. Brooklyn began physical therapy but walked with a slight limp and could not sleep through the night without terrors. Doctors warned she would likely face long-term kidney issues; she would need to be seen every six months by a nephrologist and would never be able to drink alcohol. Victoria, too, will require ongoing medical monitoring.

Not long after both girls had been discharged, a mutual acquaintance connected their two families, who gathered in Marris’ backyard. Sitting over a spread of cheese, crackers and blueberry jam, they compared the text messages that Baker had sent them. It became evident, recalled Marris, that Baker had known that both children had become sick after drinking her raw milk, but had not informed the hospital or told the families that they weren’t alone. Together, they decided to file a lawsuit against Baker and her farm in Riverside County Superior Court, alleging they had negligently sold the families contaminated raw milk that was presented as “fit for human consumption.” The case is ongoing. Baker told ProPublica that the farm will “fully defend against the allegations by Plaintiffs.”

Hoping to spare other families the same pain, Marris posted another warning when she saw someone else advertising raw milk in Boman’s Facebook group that summer. “Just PLEASE PLEASE educate yourself and make choices about raw milk carefully. My 17 month old baby and one other little girl almost died last month from raw goats milk,” she began. When she later logged in, a notification said: “Your profile is suspended from this group.” She texted Boman, one of the group’s three administrators. “I’m now banned from the group Chris runs, despite knowing what has happened,” she wrote. “I’m pretty disappointed.” Boman texted back with his condolences but said he was not a mediator. “You shared your story, we appreciate it, and people can read it and decide for themselves if they want to assume the risks or not,” he said.

ProPublica visited Boman in January at his office in a Murrieta strip mall, where he specializes in pediatric and prenatal chiropractics. The reporter found him leaning on the front desk, wearing a sweatshirt that said “PRAY” across the chest. After Marris was suspended, Boman said, he hoped it would calm down the conversation. She was “just drumming up a bunch of fear,” he said. “She’s coming out of this traumatic experience. … People need to see all perspectives.” Boman said he had spoken with Baker to understand her side. “I don’t want someone in the group that’s doing shady things,” he told ProPublica. “People have been kicked out for selling bad cows.” But Baker assuaged his concerns. “From everything I understand, her standards are super high,” he said, citing her negative pathogen results. “Her milk came back squeaky clean.” Boman said he still believed in raw milk; he had only stopped selling it in his office because his cow had dried up. He said he connected Baker with the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. The organization said it is not representing Baker in the lawsuit. Boman did not respond to follow-up questions sent by email.

For Marris, Boman’s response was a betrayal. But the experience did not keep her away from Facebook groups where people continue to discuss raw milk. At night, after tucking her children into bed, she scrolls through them, tracking the posts. From time to time, she steps into the comments and shares her story, hoping to prevent other mothers from making what she called the worst mistake of her life. Sometimes she is attacked and accused of lying by raw-milk supporters; sometimes the groups delete her posts.