Woman who fakes her son’s cancer receives $3,500 in donations from community

Mental illness is no joke. Especially when it's believed to be involved in telling a 9-year-old boy he has cancer when he doesn't.

That's exactly what a New Jersey mother of four, Susan Stillwaggon, has been accused of doing. She also allegedly accepted $3,500 worth of donations from family and friends since March for her son's bogus stage 3 lymphoma.

Stillwaggon, 35, has been charged with theft by deception, forgery, endangering the welfare of a child, and using a child to commit a criminal offense, ABC reports.

After news got out through her Facebook page about her son's fake cancer, she accepted money from several charity events that were organized including a bake sale and bingo game. The scam was revealed when police got an anonymous tip.

"Investigation confirmed that the boy does not suffer from any life-threatening illnesses," a local police department news release states.

Stillwagon is currently in a psychiatric hospital receiving treatment, says her mother.

“I will just tell you that my daughter is sick. Something snapped in her head, don’t know what. That’s why she is where she is so we can find out what’s wrong,” her mother tells CBS.

This is not the first court case involving a parent lying about their child being ill.

In 2010, a North Carolina mother pleaded guilty to suffocating her daughter and then seeking help from doctors and nurses regarding why her daughter stopped breathing.

And just last year, a British mother of four told her 9-year-old son he was gravely ill and didn't have long to live while discussing his funeral arrangements. None of which was true.

In both these incidents the mothers were diagnosed with Munchausen syndrome by proxy -- a serious mental disorder in which a caregiver, often a mother, pretends a child is sick and seeks unneeded medical attention in order to gain sympathy. It is considered a form of child abuse and the cause is unknown.

By contrast, Munchausen syndrome is a disorder in which someone with a deep need for attention pretends to be sick themselves or gets sick or injured on purpose.