UP CLOSE

I Was Elizabeth Holmes’ Prison Nurse. I Saw Everything

Noella Turnage first met the disgraced Theranos founder as she wrestled with a woeful government-issue breast pump.

exclusive

WARNING: Spoilers for You Can See Everything ahead.

The subject of the cringe-inducing hit documentary You Can See Everything was still breastfeeding her three-month-old daughter when she became Inmate 24965-111 at Federal Prison Camp Bryan on May 30, 2023.

The rules did not allow Elizabeth Holmes to use her own breast pump, but she insisted, citing the policies of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP). Officials at the Texas facility secured an official pump that proved inferior and difficult to manage. The only other nurse at FPC Bryan was male, so Noella Turnage was assigned to assist.

“There were all kinds of things that were going on with that, and things that had to be worked out. So basically, I spent a lot, lot of time with her,” Turnage told the Daily Beast.

At the same time, Turnage was the prison’s phlebotomist by default.

“We didn’t have one,” Turnage said. “So I had one day a week to draw blood, and I would do 40 or 50 people a day by myself. It kind of sucked. So she was in the lab with me because, you know, she was trying to pump and try to work things out with the pump that we had got her. And I had a counter full of vials of blood.

“I’m like, ‘Hey, can I ask you something?’”

Turnage asked about the supposedly revolutionary blood-testing device super hyped by Holmes’ bio-startup Theranos, which she launched after dropping out of Stanford University in 2004 when she was 19. She had convinced a host of big-name investors to back her and was briefly heralded as the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire. She distinguished herself from more traditional con artists by not cashing in or hiding the proceeds in advance of being found out.

Once Holmes’ supposed miracle proved to be a sham, the same qualities that had enabled her to hoodwink even the likes of Henry Kissinger made her all but impossible to trust. The steady, sparkly-eyed gaze that led some people to consider her a visionary now gave them cause to wonder if she was in fact a psychopath, capable of timing the birth of her first child to delay her trial and of the second to avoid prison time.

She ended up being convicted of fraud at trial and sentenced to 137 months in prison. Nathan Fielder, the duke of deadpan, was on his way to becoming the king of cringe when he moved into Holmes’ home to film the last 34 days before she self-surrendered at the minimum security facility. It was there that a nurse overwhelmed by blood testing asked about the discredited device.

“I said, ‘When you get out of here, can you make that s--t work, so I don’t have to do this anymore?’” Turnage remembered. “You could tell she was taken aback for a second. And then she just, you know, busted out laughing.”

In the meantime, Turnage assisted Holmes with the woeful official breast pump.

“And then [BOP] were like, ‘Oh, well, fine, you could pump, but you have to pump and dump,’” Turnage said. “You know, discard the milk.”

But Holmes again cited BOP rules.

BLOCKBUSTER

‘You Can See Everything’ Has Biggest Doc Opening in 13 Years

Lauren Hartley

“And she’s like, ‘No, because I’ve already looked into the policy with this. The policy says that it can go in a freezer or whatever, and then when my family comes to visit, that I can send it home with them so they can give it to my baby, right?’” Turnage recalled.

The nurse continued: “There’s a reason people say that BOP stands for ‘Backwards on Purpose.’ They were like, ‘No, you can’t do that.’ And she fought like hell for that, to be able to do it. So they can actually get a space for inmates to be able to pump, and make arrangements for these women to be able to send that breast milk home to their children.”

Holmes constantly talked about how much she missed her new daughter Invicta and 3-year-old son, William.

“When she would get new pictures of them, she would come and show them to me,” Turnage remembered. “Those kids are everything (to her).”

One weekend, Holmes popped into the clinic.

“She’s like, ‘Hey, do you mind stepping over to visitation with me?’” Turnage remembers. “I’m like, ‘I mean, I guess, why?’ And she was like, ‘Well, you know, you just, you help me with so much. My mom, my dad, my husband, the kids are here, I’d like to introduce you to them.’”

Turnage went to the visiting area and met the entire family, including the son and daughter.

“I guess a lot of people figured she got knocked up so she wouldn’t have to go to prison, and maybe she did. Who knows? I never asked her,” Turnage said. “But those kids are her entire world. I don’t know what she would do being separated from them any longer than she’s already gonna be.”

In her dealings with other inmates, Turnage saw and reported what she felt constituted medical neglect and abuse.

“Apparently, they don’t really like being told on, so I got reassigned to the phone room,” she recalled.

In her new assignment, Turnage spent the day monitoring inmate phone calls and emails. She particularly liked Holmes’ communications amidst the typical inmate exchanges.

“I actually used to love reading her emails because they were some of the more intelligent ones that I ran across,” Turnage recalled. “The email conversations with her dad, those were the ones that really, really got to me, because they would just discuss anything and everything. I was like, ‘Wow, this is fantastic,’ because I was so used to all the emails that were, ‘Hey, I need money. When are you gonna put money on my book?’”

“Book” is prison slang for commissary account. Holmes’ family were sending her actual books.

“Her and her dad would be reading the same thing, and they would discuss what they were reading,” Turnage said. “I guess as close as you could get to [a] book club in prison.”

Turnage’s new duties also involved monitoring inmate video visits, including several of Holmes and her family, including her son.

“She was always trying to teach him something, and trying to keep up with everything they were doing,” Turnage remembered. “Her son was so into dinosaurs, and she would ask him what kind of dinosaurs he had learned about, and she would tell him stuff about this one or that one. She did everything she could to stay involved in their lives.”

Play Video

During one shift in the phone room, Turnage came upon an email written by a new inmate at FPC Bryan. Ghislaine Maxwell had been transferred there from a medium security prison while serving 20 years for joining Jeffrey Epstein in a conspiracy to sexually exploit and abuse multiple minors as young as 14. BOP rules ordinarily bar sex offenders from minimum security facilities such as Bryan, but the Department of Justice made an exception for Maxwell after she agreed to a nine-hour sit-down with then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

Maxwell said she had never seen Trump be anything but a “gentleman” and insisted she knew nothing about the president contributing to a 2003 birthday album she assembled for Epstein’s 50th birthday. One of the pages featured a silhouette of a naked woman with “Donald” signed in familiar black Sharpie in the pubic region.

Maxwell emailed to her brother of FPC Bryan that “the food is legions better, the place is clean, the staff is responsive and polite.”

“I feel like I have dropped through Alice in Wonderland’s looking glass. I am much happier here and more importantly safe,” she added.

On learning that Maxwell was being accorded a host of special privileges, Turnage wrote a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, reporting that the prison staff was waiting “hand and foot” on Maxwell, delivering “customized and prepared meals” along with water bottles to her cell. She was accorded after-hours access to recreation facilities. The visitation area was closed one Saturday, depriving other inmates of seeing their families while Maxwell’s visitors were given a “special cordoned-off area” with “snacks and refreshments.”

The immediate outcome was predictable.

“I was fired,” Turnage said.

The BOP went after 47-year-old Turnage’s nursing license, a struggle that was still unresolved on Saturday when she and her husband attended the 10:50 a.m. showing of You Can See Everything at a Cinemark just five miles from FPC Bryan, where Holmes is still being held. Turnage was surprised that the theater would be packed to near capacity at such an hour.

“I want to say there were maybe three open seats in the theater,” she said.

BAD BLOOD

Nathan Fielder Reveals Holmes’ Partner Tried to Derail Film

Dana Herrnstadt

But the turnout was not attributable to the cinema’s proximity to where 42-year-old Holmes was imprisoned. Fielder had expanded his cringe comedy stunts into a two-hour-and-54-minute look at Holmes. And the result was a $15 million opening weekend, a near record for a documentary.

One scene in You Can See Everything that Turnage would have rather not seen involves Holmes’ husband, 34-year-old hotel heir Billy Evans. Turnage had encountered him in person at the visitation center at FPC Bryan. She now saw full frontal footage of him in his shower at home, apparently at least as much of a narcissist as some say Holmes is a psychopath.

“You would think if somebody had any modesty about them whatsoever, they’d try to at least turn a little bit, hide a little something,” Turnage said. “No, this guy is, like, leaned against the wall of the shower, brushing his teeth, junk swinging in the wind, like he’s in GQ. And he’s just standing there, like, ‘Hey, check it out.’

“I tell my husband, ‘Well, I guess we know what she initially saw in him.’ I’m like, ‘You know, I mean, I guess he didn’t even have to be much of a conversationalist.’”

With regard to the rest of the film, she noted, “Three hours is a long time to sit in an uncomfortable chair.” Turnage said that the Holmes on screen was much like the one she had come to know in prison amid vials of blood and containers of breast milk.

Turnage has no use for Evans, but she remains as beguiled by Holmes as a host of big money investors once were.

“I know my opinion of her is not exactly the popular one, but I like the woman,” she said.