Woman Blames Alternate Personality For Morphine Scam Says ‘Nikki’ Faked Brain Tumor To Get Prescriptions For Drugs

She claims to have more than 3,000 different personalities, but it took only one to fool six doctors.

Nichol Chastain says it was one of her multiple personalities - one named Nikki - who faked a brain tumor and duped doctors from two states into prescribing morphine for her.

And the 23-year-old Post Falls woman says her wayward personality learned it all by watching television and from the doctors themselves.

“One of my personalities used to be addicted to drugs really bad and for some reason she tried to get them again,” Chastain said Friday during a telephone interview from the Kootenai County Jail. “It wasn’t like I tried to do this. I didn’t mean to hurt anybody.”

Chastain landed in jail on Wednesday, charged with obtaining drugs through deception.

Starting in late May, Chastain went to nine doctors in Coeur d’Alene and Spokane, claiming to be terminally ill with an inoperable brain tumor, according to police.

She sported a nearly bald head and sometimes arrived at doctor’s offices in a wheelchair, according to a Coeur d’Alene Police report. She asked the doctors for morphine to dim the pain and told them her medical records were in California.

According to the police report, six doctors prescribed the morphine for her without looking at prior medical records. One doctor inserted an IV line that allowed Chastain to more easily receive the drug intravenously, according to Coeur d’Alene Police.

Chastain says Nikki also talked friends into opening up a trust fund for her cancer treatment and convinced a good Samaritan truck driver into raising money for her. She says none of them knew she was faking the illness.

But on Wednesday, Dr. Brad Drury of Coeur d’Alene and his nurse Dee Pierce saw through the deception and called police.

Drury carefully examined Chastain, looking for a scar where a biopsy on the tumor had been done.

“Generally speaking, patients with that type of diagnosis would have a rather large incision,” he said. “I became concerned when I couldn’t find one.”

Drury wrote Chastain a fake prescription, then called police, who later arrested her at a pharmacy.

Chastain says she was diagnosed with multiple personalities - 3,817 to be exact - when she was 16. She said the disorder stems from being abused by both her mother and father while growing up in California.

The California doctor who Chastain says treated her could not be reached for comment.

Chastain said she was in a Washington hospital for kidney problems and was given morphine when one of her personalities got addicted. On Friday, she said that she didn’t cut her hair for the charade, but that it just started falling out.

Chastain said she learned how to fake her ailment by watching a television show about a girl who had a brain tumor. Then she listened very carefully to what the doctors told her about the disease.

“Every time I go into different doctors, they tell me a new fact about it and I go to the other doctors and tell them,” she said.

To prescribe morphine, doctors must be licensed with the state and registered with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. Doctors are not required to have a patient’s prior medical history to prescribe the drug and instead make their decision on a case-by-case basis.

“I think we try to give the patients the benefit of the doubt … we want to be as compassionate as possible,” Drury said. “Unfortunately, we get taken advantage of.”

Last year, Gary Domeny, chief investigator for the Idaho Board of Pharmacy, investigated 305 cases in which people used medication for illegal purposes. Most often people would pretend to be doctors and call in false prescriptions to pharmacies.

Domeny said doctors are in a difficult position when it comes to possible fraud cases.

“Doctors have a mission; they’re in the job to help people,” he said.

“Their job isn’t to suspect everybody who walks in their office.”

Dr. John Gollhofer, president of the Spokane County Medical Society, said most patients are honest.

To act suspicious of every one would hurt more people than it would help.

He and Domeny don’t blame the doctors who were fooled into helping Chastain.

“I think they were acting out of compassion,” Gollhofer said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo