The father of a gifted high school math teacher with Athens ties, whose story of having faked cancer on three occasions in three states appears in a recent national publication, says his daughter is in “psychiatric care” for her condition.

Suzanne Bass, a 1984 graduate of Athens High School and a 1989 graduate of Athens State University, is the subject of an investigative report in the Oct. 3 issue of Glamour Magazine by writer Erin Zammett Ruddy after Bass’ firing from the Webb School, an exclusive private school in the Smoky Mountains.

Bass’ father, Bill Bass of Athens, detailed his daughter’s long struggle with depression and bipolar disorder for Glamour, but declined to elaborate on her condition or whereabouts for The News Courier.

Ruddy writes that she was attracted to Bass’ story because she herself is waging a long-time battle against leukemia and knows the devastating effect her cancer has had on family and friends. Ruddy writes:

“After coming across a Knoxville newspaper story posted online about the scandal at Webb, I was instantly fascinated—and horrified. As a cancer patient myself—I have leukemia, which I’ve chronicled in Glamour’s Life With Cancer column and blog—I have experienced both the devastation of a diagnosis and the roller-coaster ride of treatment. Not to mention the burden of knowing how scared my family and friends were for me. I wanted to understand what had happened here, so I started digging.”

Ruddy describes how Bass was dismissed in the mid-1990s from her teaching job at Tanner High School after she told her family, students and co-workers that she was suffering from non-Hodgkins lymphoma. After a year of bogus chemotherapy treatments, Bass’ ruse was discovered. She was then hospitalized for depression, according to the Glamour story.

Bass then went on to further her education and was hired by Paulding County High School in Dallas, Ga., in 2003. Shortly after the beginning of the school year, Bass told her family, co-workers and school officials that a mammogram had revealed that she was suffering from stage II ductal carcinoma. Because of their daughter’s ravaged appearance and “unconditional parental love,” Ruddy writes that the Basses believed their daughter’s story.

Meanwhile, Bass was nominated for the prestigious Disney Teacher of the Year Award and her principal, Jim Gottwald, was quoted in the Athens State University newsletter as saying, “[Bass] may be the finest teacher/inspiration I have ever been associated with in 32 years of education.”

That quote attracted the attention of a local educator who notified the Paulding County principal of Bass’ history of faking cancer. In March 2006, Bass resigned and surrendered her Georgia teacher’s certificate, according to Glamour.

Bass moved to Knoxville and was hired by the Webb School in the fall of 2007. Shortly, after, she announced that her breast cancer, which she said had been in remission, had returned. Ruddy writes that Bass went to extraordinary lengths, including shaving her head, to mimic the effects of chemotherapy.

A former Paulding County, Ga., co-worker used the Web search engine Google to find out Bass’ whereabouts and learned from an article in the Knoxville News Sentinel that Webb students had dedicated their prom fund-raiser to Bass, raising money for Komen for the Cure by selling T-shirts with the charity’s logo.

Then calls came into Webb officials and Bass was fired in April. Ruddy writes that Bass moved back to Athens.

Her father said she is not living in Athens and it is “no one’s business” where his daughter currently lives, but she is “being treated.”

While Bass left behind many disillusioned former students and co-workers, she is not facing criminal charges because it has never been found that she profited monetarily from pretending to have cancer. In fact, there are indications that through her ruse, whether it was the result of mental illness or not, she raised thousands of dollars for cancer research.

Ruddy interviewed world renowned psychiatrist Marc Feldman, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, who has treated more than 100 women who have faked serious illness. Although Feldman had never met Bass, he told Glamour that he believes she suffers from Munchausen syndrome, a psychological disorder in which someone pretends or “self-induces” illness to gain attention and sympathy.