I was watching that yesterday thinking. Granted, she was being a concerned neighbor and can understand where her heart was at and yes, Penny's mother was abusing her, but nor she or the Evans family ever saw it. We did. I don't think Willona had any right to take Penny to the doctor. It's a catch 22. The girl was being abused, but no one had any proof of it. And Mrs. Gordon, being the most convincing liar, could've complained about it, and Willona would've been in trouble. Actually, she did complain to the one cop and he did say that if it happened again that she would get run in.

A question: If you knew that a child neighbor was being abused, would you go out of the way and take them to the doctor? Me? No. I probably would've reported it on the down low, but to get involved like that, I don't think so.

Last, where did I see that doctor from? He either was on GT before or another show. His face is familiar.

It was either look after Penny or let her die, sooner or later her mother would have ended up killing her. Penny's mother disliked her sooooo much that she blamed her for all of her problems. So I think Willona did the right thing with taking Penny to the doctor.

If a child was being abused with a possible broken arm and burns on their backs then yes I would take them to a doctor and then to the police. When you see an iron burn on a childs back and arm you know that they didn't burn themselves.

A lot of times child services don't check up on children. So someone has to help them.

In this day and age, one cannot take a child to the doctor without suffering the ramifications of taking a child without parental permission, I can't think of a hospital seeing a child that you brought in and then signing documents. I don't know. I remember when my daughter had suffered a seizure at a friend's house and the family called 911. She was taken to emergency and I was paged that she was at the hospital. The hospital was waiting for me to show up so I could sign documents for consent to treat. I asked why hadn't they done anything for her? they said, they stabilized her, but couldn't treat her any further (unless medically necessary to keep her from getting worse) until I showed up and had signed documents. Even her dad got to the hospital before I did, but because I had sole legal/physical custody, they wouldn't allow him to sign anything. So, in Penny's case, I think the same situation was presented when the doctor said Willona wasn't her mother.
I wouldn't take a child (unless I saw them maybe wandering alone) I would call 911 or I would speak directly with protective services and ask them what could I do. What should I do? You can't take pics either without being accused of being some kind of molester or child pornographer.