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Episode 1: The Rumor

Episode 1: The Rumor

Released Monday, 22nd April 2024
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Episode 1: The Rumor

Episode 1: The Rumor

Episode 1: The Rumor

Episode 1: The Rumor

Monday, 22nd April 2024
Good episode? Give it some love!
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Episode Transcript

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0:15

Pushkin. Hey,

0:18

it's Jake. Before we get into this

0:20

episode, I want to let you know that

0:22

you can now binge the entire season

0:25

ad free. By becoming a Pushkin

0:27

Plus subscriber, you can hear

0:29

all six episodes before they

0:31

are released to the public. Sign

0:34

up for Pushkin Plus on the Deep Cover

0:36

Apple Podcast show page or

0:38

visit pushkin dot fmslash

0:41

Plus. Your subscription

0:43

also unlocks more early and ad

0:46

free content from other true crime

0:48

shows coming later this year, like new

0:50

seasons of Death of an Artist and Lost

0:52

Hills, and a brand new true investigation

0:55

called Where's Dia Now?

0:58

Unto the episode,

1:02

I've been a journalist for twenty five years

1:04

and there's this little ritual that I do at

1:06

the end of every interview. When

1:08

it works, it shakes everything

1:11

up, creates a bit of chaos. I

1:14

call it the hail Mary of questions.

1:17

It's like a last ditch effort to find

1:19

something, anything that I might have missed.

1:22

I just say, hey, what's

1:24

the question I should have asked you. Most

1:27

of the time, like ninety percent

1:30

of the time, the answer is I don't

1:32

know. I think we covered it all.

1:34

But every once in

1:36

a while a person says, well,

1:40

there is one thing we didn't talk about,

1:43

and then they drop a bomb,

1:46

say something totally unexpected,

1:48

and at that moment I always imagine

1:51

a door creaking open. That,

1:56

in a nutshell, is what this season

1:58

is about. It's about a guy, two

2:01

guys actually, who come upon just

2:03

such a door, and on the other side

2:05

of it is a very dark secret.

2:14

These two guys were federal officers.

2:16

One of them was an FBI agent based in

2:18

Delaware named Scott Duffy and

2:22

Scott he has his own

2:24

version of the hail Mary question.

2:27

One of the things that like I will

2:29

routinely do is

2:32

is there anything that we

2:34

should be looking at that

2:37

could be investigated that

2:40

we're not looking at.

2:42

Back in two thousand and four, Scott

2:44

posed this very question to a

2:46

woman named Patricia Miller. At

2:49

the time, Scott was visiting Patricia at

2:51

her home in Delaware to learn more

2:53

about her ex boyfriend, a guy named

2:55

Tom Guybison. There had

2:57

been some rumors that Tom, her ex,

3:00

was plotting to go after a local cop,

3:02

and the FBI had asked Scott to look

3:04

into this to do a so called

3:07

threat assessment. Scott

3:09

didn't get that much out of this interview with Patricia,

3:12

but before leaving, he tossed

3:14

out his hail Mary question, and

3:17

that's when she told him about

3:19

the murder.

3:20

She mentions, well, there is this alleged

3:23

murder to have taken place, that

3:26

when he was in high school, that

3:30

he had committed a murder for black man

3:33

in order to gain access into

3:35

this white supremacy group

3:37

within Delaware.

3:39

Patricia goes on to say that Tom, her

3:42

ex, was proud of this murder.

3:45

It happened back when he was younger, a teenager,

3:47

but even years later he bragged

3:49

about what he'd done, how he'd

3:51

driven into Philadelphia late at night

3:54

and shot a pedestrian, a random

3:56

black man, all allegedly

3:58

so he could earn some street cred as

4:01

a racist skinhead. Scott

4:09

pressed Patricia for details. Was

4:12

there any evidence, did she have any proof?

4:15

According to Scott, she talked about

4:17

a newspaper article from the time about

4:20

the man's death and how it

4:22

was described as a drug related

4:25

killing. She said that Tom held

4:27

onto this article for a while so we could

4:29

brag about it, intimating

4:32

no one knows, but I did

4:34

this, I killed this guy.

4:37

That's what Patricia said. Anyhow, all

4:40

of this got Scott thinking if

4:43

this murder really happened. Maybe

4:45

it wasn't so random after all. Maybe

4:48

it was predicated on a callous, cynical

4:50

piece of logic that no

4:52

one would care about this victim,

4:55

or at least no one in a position of power

4:57

or authority.

4:59

If there's no evidence, and there's no witnesses, no

5:01

cameras, So let's move on, And

5:04

that's what Tom would be banking on, and

5:06

just be a drug deal gone bad.

5:09

Bothered me. That bothered me.

5:13

Scott may have been upset about all this, but

5:16

he was also at a loss. How

5:18

do you investigate a murder when you

5:20

don't even know who the victim is. Eventually,

5:23

Scott and his partner paid a visit to the Free

5:25

Public Library of Philadelphia. They

5:28

wanted to find that newspaper article

5:30

covering the victim's death. Scott

5:32

recalled Patricia, saying it was in the Philadelphia

5:35

Inquirer. They felt

5:37

like if they could just somehow

5:39

get a hold of that article, it might answer

5:42

so many questions.

5:44

In other words, would this give us a name, Would

5:47

this give us a location? Would this

5:49

give us a date? Because we still.

5:50

Didn't have a date.

5:52

But there's got to be countless articles

5:54

people that were just randomly killed in Philadelphia

5:57

not only countless articles, but then you realize

5:59

there are other newspapers.

6:00

What if she's wrong, it's not the Philadelphia inquir

6:03

It sounds like a fool's errand I'm

6:06

glad we did it. I'm glad

6:08

we made the trip, but I

6:11

don't think we found anything nothing.

6:14

So game over, right. I

6:17

mean, this murder, if

6:19

it even happened, would have occurred approximately

6:22

fifteen years prior. It

6:24

was a cold case. And

6:26

yet Scott and his partner, a

6:28

guy named Terry Mortimer, they

6:30

had this feeling that if

6:32

they persisted.

6:34

We might uncover something were

6:38

destined to uncover. That

6:41

may sound corny, but I

6:45

felt something. I think Terry felt

6:47

something, and we didn't know

6:49

quite what, and it could have been absolutely

6:52

taking us down another rabbit hole of something

6:54

that's just never could be proven.

6:56

So what do you do with that?

6:58

Exactly? What do you do with that? What do you do with something

7:00

that's.

7:00

Yeah and not to be cute, But you can't exactly go back

7:02

to your boss and say that me and Terry feel

7:04

a sense of destiny here right now.

7:09

So this was mission creep big time.

7:11

Plus it's not like there was anyone that

7:13

they knew of anyhow demanding justice

7:16

for the victim.

7:17

Terry and I could have easily that we're

7:20

done and let's walk

7:22

away. Nobody's going to be calling us to

7:24

say, hey, Terry and

7:27

Scott, do you have any updates for us?

7:30

You know we're waiting. We haven't heard back from

7:32

you.

7:32

That was missing, But is

7:35

somewhere in the back of your head, are

7:37

you imagining that, like there is a

7:40

mother or brother who's trying

7:43

to understand or figure out what may have happened

7:45

to their loved one that was left

7:48

four dead.

7:48

I think that that aspect

7:54

was the driving

7:56

factor. We couldn't

7:59

just leave it alone. Somehow

8:02

it was making sense that

8:05

Terry and I were put together for this very

8:08

re of

8:11

solving this hate

8:13

crime, this murder that took place

8:15

on the streets of Philadelphia because somebody

8:18

was black.

8:20

That we've felt like

8:22

we.

8:24

Had a duty to this person,

8:26

and somehow this person was

8:30

drawing us.

8:33

And that's it. You can almost

8:36

hear it, the door creaking

8:38

open. This

8:42

is a story about what happens when

8:45

two guys uncover a clue

8:47

about something terrible, something

8:49

evil, a crime for which there

8:51

has been no justice, and they

8:53

have nothing to go on. They

8:56

don't have a victim, don't have a body,

8:59

don't even have a name. I'm

9:15

Jake Halpern. And this is Deep

9:17

Cover Season four, The

9:19

Nameless Man, Episode

9:33

one. The rumor, so

9:45

to recap, Scott and Terry's

9:47

investigation did not start off as

9:49

a quest to solve a cold case now

9:52

or find a murder victim. Originally,

9:55

back in two thousand and four, they

9:57

were asked to do a threat assessment on

9:59

Tom Guybison. That's why they

10:01

interviewed the ex girlfriend. At

10:04

the time, Tom Gybison was thirty three

10:06

years old. He was in federal prison

10:09

on gun charges, but he

10:11

was about to be released and the FEDS

10:13

had some intel that Tom might

10:15

be seeking retribution, planning

10:18

to harm the cop who'd put him behind

10:20

bars. This is why the

10:22

FEDS were called in, and initially

10:24

this was Scott and Terry's top priority

10:27

to determine if this threat was real, but

10:30

they came up short and at some point stopped

10:32

looking into Tom for the threat assessment. But

10:35

they still have this rumor, this side

10:38

story that some fifteen

10:40

years prior, back in the nineteen eighties,

10:43

when Tom was still in high school, that

10:45

he may have killed a black man in Philadelphia.

10:50

Who this man might be. They

10:52

had no idea, but they

10:54

kept poking around. They wanted

10:56

to see what they could learn about Tom Guybison

10:59

and if he had any connections to

11:02

white supremacist gangs. And

11:06

this is where Terry Mortimer, Scott's

11:08

partner, really came into play.

11:11

And this is the thing about gangs is there

11:13

are gangs, and there's like, you know, not

11:15

real gangs that people say they're part of a gang,

11:17

but they aren't. Kind of thing.

11:19

Terry was a special agent with the ATF,

11:22

the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms

11:25

and Explosives. He worked

11:27

in intelligence and he focused

11:29

heavily on guns and gangs.

11:33

So Terry wanted to know what

11:35

was Tom's deal.

11:38

I knew he of course was imprisoned obviously

11:40

for gun charges, you know, spent a good stint

11:42

in prison federally,

11:46

he had I guess prior contact with the law.

11:48

Terry learned that Tom was first arrested

11:51

at the age of fourteen on a deadly

11:53

weapons charge. A few

11:55

years later, when he was nineteen, he

11:57

was convicted of reckless endangerment

12:00

after he shot a gun at a moving car

12:02

full of people. At

12:06

the time, a local newspaper in Wilmington,

12:08

Delaware, ran an article on Tom.

12:11

It described him as a hulking weightlifter

12:13

with a number of tattoos, including

12:16

a clenched fist on the top of his scalp

12:19

and the words born in the USA

12:21

on the back of his neck. In

12:23

the article, Guybison says at one

12:25

time he was a blue collar

12:28

skinhead. Tom defined this

12:30

as quote buying American, not

12:33

doing drugs, and not drinking.

12:36

To be clear, there are different types

12:38

of skinheads, not all are racists,

12:41

but in the late eighties and early nineties,

12:43

skinheads were emerging as the face of

12:45

violent right wing nationalism in the US.

12:48

Their notoriety seemed to really peque

12:50

at that time. One headline

12:52

from eighty nine and the New York Times read

12:55

violent racism attracts new breed

12:58

skinheads. So

13:01

the possibility that a racist skinhead

13:03

might have orchestrated murder it was

13:06

plausible, but that alone

13:09

wasn't a whole lot to go on. Scott

13:15

and Terry decided to focus on what Patricia,

13:18

the ex girlfriend, had told them. They

13:20

honed in on two clues. In particular,

13:23

the first clue involved a tattoo.

13:26

Patricia mentioned that Tom had a tattoo

13:29

of a spider web on his elbow with

13:31

a tear drop in it, and

13:34

that he liked to brag that he'd gotten

13:36

it essentially as a badge

13:38

of honor for killing a black

13:40

man in Philadelphia.

13:42

I know enough about gang members is sometimes

13:45

things aren't what they say they are, that they though

13:48

whit, get a tattoo and purported to be something that really

13:50

isn't true, or just kind of build their rap

13:52

a little bit.

13:53

Terry was skeptical that Tom had killed

13:56

someone just to join this skinhead

13:58

gang. Maybe Tom was just

14:00

posing, building up his rap as

14:02

a really violent dude. I mean,

14:04

honestly, maybe this whole thing

14:06

was bullshit, right.

14:08

I couldn't establish, you know,

14:10

intelligence wise, if Tommy was part of a skinhead

14:13

gang. I didn't think he was. I think he was kind of more

14:15

self described skinhead.

14:17

And this raised the question, would

14:19

a self described skinhead,

14:22

acting on his own, really murder

14:24

someone for what so he could give himself

14:26

a tattoo and all of this while he

14:28

was still in high school seemed

14:31

like a stretch. Okay,

14:33

here's the second clue, and it was

14:35

a promising one. According

14:37

to the ex girlfriend Patricia,

14:40

Tom had bragged about having an accomplice,

14:43

a guy named Craig Peterson. Allegedly

14:46

they orchestrated this murder together

14:48

and both of them got those same spider

14:51

web tattoos. Now,

14:54

if this was true, and if

14:56

they could find Craig and if

14:58

he would talk, well that'd be huge.

15:01

But that was a lot of ifs. So

15:04

they started combing through public records, asking

15:07

around about this Craig guy to

15:09

supposed accomplice, and here's

15:11

what they found. Craig was an

15:13

old buddy from Tom's high school days. He

15:16

also identified specifically

15:18

as a blue collar skinhead. Craig

15:22

had grown up in Delaware, but as

15:24

far as anyone could tell, he wasn't living

15:26

there anymore. Seemed like he kind

15:28

of disappeared. And

15:31

then they got a lead.

15:33

We found out he's in He's in Vermont,

15:36

like a remote part of Vermont. And

15:38

I remember, I said, this

15:41

dude's hiding. Man, he's hiding. I

15:43

said, that cat from Wilmington, Delaware

15:45

living in Vermont. Man, I said, dude, it gets cold

15:47

up there. Ma'm I mean that's a cold place, bro.

15:51

So they put on their winter coats and

15:53

headed north. It

15:58

was now December of two thousand and four.

16:01

It had been about a month since they first heard

16:03

the rumor, and now here

16:05

they were in the car driving

16:07

into the chill of a Vermont winter. Temperature

16:10

was hovering around freezing that night, and

16:13

as they sped along through the green

16:15

mountains, past the darkened forests

16:17

of evergreens, they had

16:19

no idea what to expect, Like,

16:23

what.

16:23

Are you hoping to find out?

16:25

Hey? At this point,

16:27

we're like, man, whatever he's got,

16:30

he's got to give us something, man, because we're again,

16:32

we're spinning our wheels. It felt like, man,

16:35

if this has come through, I think we're I think, honestly, I think

16:37

we're done.

16:39

Terry recalls on that drive up to Vermont,

16:42

they talked a lot about why they couldn't

16:44

or shouldn't give up on the case.

16:47

So we had great discussions, and that's

16:49

when I really we both realized, Wow, wait a minute,

16:51

this is not an accident that he and I are team together.

16:54

This is like, literally, we didn't

16:56

do this, We couldn't have planned this, and.

16:58

There was a reason for this feeling. Turns

17:01

out there was a strange symmetry

17:03

to their lives that dated back to

17:05

before they ever met. So

17:08

we're going to leave Scott and Terry in the

17:10

car heading up to Vermont and

17:13

turn back the clock. For

17:20

Scott, it all started when he graduated

17:22

high school. He wanted to be a cop,

17:25

but by his own estimation at

17:27

the time, he was too small, too

17:29

skinny. He weighed just ninety three

17:31

pounds, so instead he

17:34

opted to become a priest. He

17:37

was just seventeen years old when he decided

17:39

to join the seminary, but right

17:41

away when he put on that priest's

17:43

color, it was transformative,

17:46

both for him and also for

17:48

the way that other people looked at him.

17:51

I would be sitting in a pew, maybe praying

17:53

in a church. Somebody would come by and

17:55

start confessing, and people

17:58

just started pouring their souls out to me.

18:01

In these moments, Scott was learning how

18:03

to listen, how to suspend judgment,

18:06

how to be patient as people grappled

18:08

with some burd in, some secret, inching

18:10

their way towards the precipice of

18:13

truth. He spent five

18:15

years training to become a priest, but

18:17

dreams are stubborn things, and

18:20

his didn't go away. He

18:22

left the seminary to become a cop

18:25

and then an FBI agent.

18:27

It is harder to leave than it is

18:29

to go in. And that's ultimately because I think

18:32

now you have ventured this relationship with

18:34

God, and now you're afraid

18:36

of pissing him off.

18:38

For Scott, this shifting careers seemed

18:40

like a natural progression for

18:43

him. The seminary prepared him for

18:45

this work, prepared him

18:47

to listen and see his way through

18:49

a messy world fraught with moral

18:51

dilemmas. But when he'd tell

18:53

people about his past, how

18:56

he'd almost become a priest.

18:57

They're like, oh my gosh, I can

19:00

never imagine. The two are

19:02

totally opposed to each other. And I never understood

19:05

that.

19:06

But there was at least one person

19:08

who got it completely. Terry.

19:12

I went to college at a very

19:14

small Bible College and

19:16

was preparing for ministry.

19:18

From a young age, Terry felt destined

19:21

for the ministry, but later on,

19:23

when he was in Bible College, he had

19:25

second thoughts. As graduation

19:27

approached, a friend asked him, you

19:30

ever consider becoming a cop. The

19:32

short answer was no, But on

19:35

a whim, Terry applied and met.

19:37

With a recruiter.

19:38

And this guy, he was a

19:40

hardcore dude. I mean he looked

19:42

at me. I was back then, I was skinny.

19:45

He looked at me and said, you're from where and you want

19:47

to do what? Like you're from Bible

19:50

college. Man, you have any idea what you're

19:52

applying for, what you're trying to do. I said, no,

19:54

sir, I have no idea.

19:56

Terry was undeterred. He became

19:58

a cop and then an agent with the ATF.

20:02

And this was not a consolation

20:04

job for Terry. He's very clear about

20:06

this. He feels that God

20:08

had a for him in law enforcement.

20:12

And that's the thing you gotta understand

20:14

about both Terry and Scott. These

20:16

are not men who look at the world and see coincidences.

20:20

What they see is much closer to fate

20:22

or God's will. And

20:25

when they became partners, it all

20:27

seemed meant to be. Here were two

20:29

guys who early on looked too skinny

20:32

and earnest to be cops, guys

20:34

who intended to become men of God. Different

20:36

in their own ways. Terry grew

20:38

up in a gritty river town in Pennsylvania,

20:41

and he kind of feels like a dude.

20:43

You'd play around a mini golf with grab

20:46

a Burger, have a laugh, and then realize

20:49

only belatedly that you told him

20:51

more than you intended to Scott,

20:53

Well, he's more formal, he's

20:56

from Connecticut. Are really Yankee? A

20:58

man who chooses his words carefully,

21:00

A patient priest who knows how

21:03

to nurse a long pregnant pause. The

21:06

two of them worked well together, complimented

21:08

one another, the Pennsylvania pastor

21:11

and the New England priest, and

21:16

I've been calling them partners, but they

21:19

only ever worked together on this one

21:21

investigation. It was an

21:23

unusual collaboration between the FBI

21:26

and the ATF, and they didn't choose

21:28

one another. They were kind of paired

21:30

randomly, though neither of

21:32

them would say it was random, you.

21:34

Know, as we started to realize that, wait a minute, we're we're

21:39

on a mission from God.

21:40

But yep,

21:43

just like the Blues Brothers, we.

21:45

Didn't really say that, I'm just making it up, but that was

21:47

the feeling was like hey no, but it

21:49

was like no joke, Like this is

21:51

a real deal. Like it's almost like

21:54

we're walking through almost like a dream, like what is

21:56

going on here?

21:58

So yeah, even though

22:00

all they had was a rumor of a long

22:02

forgotten crime that might

22:04

not have even happened, these

22:07

two almost ministers the

22:09

God Squad as it. Were still

22:11

felt certain that they were here in

22:14

this car, heading north into Vermont

22:16

for a reason, and they were convinced

22:19

that something important was waiting for

22:22

them. That's when we get

22:24

back. Both

22:48

Scott and Terry had this hunch

22:51

that there was a reason Craig, the alleged

22:53

accomplice, was up in Vermont,

22:56

up in the mountains, that he was

22:58

hiding. But if

23:00

so, who is he hiding from

23:03

and why? In any

23:05

case, they knew they had to be careful.

23:08

They'd learned from police reports that in

23:10

the past Craig had helped Tom clean

23:12

and store a whole arsenal of weapons.

23:15

Why did he do this, Well, Tom had

23:17

a felony on his record, which meant

23:19

he wasn't supposed to have any guns, so

23:22

his buddy Craig helped him out.

23:24

This suggested two things to the agents.

23:27

One Craig was loyal he

23:29

ended up going to prison for storing those weapons,

23:32

And two, Craig was probably

23:34

handy with a gun. The

23:36

God Squad was still hatching their plan

23:39

as they rolled into town.

23:45

It was late.

23:48

I feel like we were closing in on midnight,

23:50

and we didn't want to put it off.

23:53

We were just so full of energy.

23:57

It was late for a door knock, very

23:59

late, but their excitement eclipsed

24:02

their caution, so instead

24:04

of waiting until morning, they drove

24:06

right to his house. Their plan

24:08

was to say hello, introduced themselves,

24:11

and arranged to have a formal sit down

24:13

the following day.

24:16

And when we finally found where

24:18

he lives, he lives

24:20

literally on top of like if it's on a mountain, it's

24:22

a very very tall hill. It's very tall and very

24:24

steep.

24:25

I remember being very

24:28

very dark, like

24:31

I don't think I could see my hand in front of me.

24:34

And as soon as we got out of our cars,

24:37

I think we got out a few feet and

24:40

then floodlights. I just remember

24:42

floodlights like we were in a stadium, just

24:45

shined upon us.

24:48

I mean it was like bright as day.

24:51

He had hooked up these spotlights and trees illuminating

24:54

the whole area, and we could see his house

24:56

dimly up the top of the hill. I think

24:58

I may have made a comment to Scott, I said,

25:00

man, if he had any ill intent, we'd

25:03

be dead men right now.

25:04

That told me a lot that Wow,

25:10

you know what is inside this person

25:12

that he has this going on

25:15

where he wants to be made well aware

25:18

of anybody arriving.

25:20

I'm thinking, man, he

25:22

does not. He doesn'tant to be found.

25:30

Scott and Terry start trudging up

25:32

the icy, snow covered hill. They

25:34

can hear dogs barking from within the house.

25:37

Eventually they get up to the front porch

25:40

and Craig walks out. He's medium

25:43

height and stocky, with a closely

25:45

cropped haircut. Scott

25:47

calls out to.

25:48

Him, Craig Peterson, you don't

25:50

know us, but we're here. I want to talk

25:52

to you. Federal agents. Can we

25:54

approach you? Can

25:56

we come up to your house? And within

26:02

ten seconds just a very

26:04

friendly inviting demeanor,

26:07

come on up and come into my house. Is

26:10

this a sigh of relief of that, but definitely

26:12

a side of release. First and foremost, we've achieved

26:15

our first goal is finding him, achieved

26:18

our second goal of being

26:21

able to be face to face with

26:23

him. Our third goal was

26:26

to get him to come

26:28

and speak with us at a different location.

26:30

We weren't going to talk to him at his house.

26:33

Craig invites them inside. He introduces

26:35

them to his fiance. It's all

26:37

very normal and Craig, he

26:40

seems unfazed.

26:41

He was very relaxed, very

26:44

gracious, I mean, just almost opposite

26:46

of what I was expecting.

26:48

Scott and Terry explained that they just

26:50

have a few questions for him about an old

26:53

matter from the past. They keep

26:55

it deliberately vague, and they ask

26:57

if he'd be willing to meet with them the following day

27:00

down at the barracks where the Vermont State Police

27:02

are stationed. Craig's like, sure,

27:05

I'll meet you tomorrow after I'm done

27:07

with work. All the while,

27:10

Terry is studying both Craig and

27:12

his fiance, trying to get a

27:14

read on them.

27:15

His fiance was way

27:18

more concerned than he was, Like she was like, what's going

27:20

on, Like what's this about? He's

27:22

not stressed at all, Like there's no stress

27:24

with this dat Like there's nothing. I'm like, this is

27:26

unbelievable.

27:28

The next day, Scott and Terrier down

27:31

at the barracks of the Vermont State Police and

27:33

they're just hoping Craig actually shows

27:36

up.

27:36

He ain't gonna show up, Like, what's

27:39

the odds he's gonna show up, like you, I was like fifty

27:41

to fifty.

27:41

Yeah, But he

27:44

shows up, affects it early, and

27:46

after a little chit chat, they all

27:48

sit down and get to business. Scott

27:51

explains that they're here about Tom

27:53

Guybison.

27:55

Craig, We've made a long trip and

27:59

we've been investigating Tom

28:02

for a possible threat, and

28:05

during the course of that investigation, we've

28:09

learned that a.

28:10

Story was told.

28:12

This is the story they'd heard from Patricia,

28:15

Tom's ex girlfriend, that some

28:17

fifteen years prior, Craig and Tom

28:19

had been skinheads, that they'd killed

28:21

a black man in Philadelphia and

28:24

then gotten tattoos to commemorate

28:26

what they'd done.

28:28

And Craig just looked at us shocked,

28:37

almost a sense of I

28:41

can't believe that

28:44

this is coming back. And

28:49

then he sat back in his chair and

28:53

said, I don't know what you're talking

28:56

about.

28:59

Scott keeps pressing gently, very

29:01

much, playing the role of the New England priest,

29:03

that he almost was concealing

29:06

any signs of judgment, just patient

29:09

probing.

29:10

Well, at the

29:13

very least, would you admit

29:15

you have the tattoo?

29:17

Why would they lie about the story?

29:19

Would they?

29:20

Would they also lie about the tattoo?

29:24

So would you raise

29:26

your would you raise your

29:28

sleeve? And

29:31

so begrudgingly he did. He showed

29:33

us his tattoo.

29:36

A Gothic looking spider web in black

29:39

ink with the elbow directly at

29:41

the center, similar to what Patricia

29:43

had described. Craig admitted

29:46

that he and Tom both had tattoos like

29:48

this, that they'd gotten them together back

29:50

in high school, and Greg admitted that

29:53

back in his youth, yeah, he'd

29:55

been a skinhead, but it had just

29:57

been a phase.

30:00

He said, Man, that was a long time ago. I was a young knucklehead,

30:03

and I don't believe that stuff anymore. You

30:05

know, Man, I'm up here. I'm working hard, man, guys.

30:07

I work every day, hourly

30:10

wage. I work as electrician. I've got a

30:12

new life. I don't want any part

30:14

of this. He just denied the whole thing. But I

30:16

can't overemphasize. I'm

30:18

watching this cat. I'm like, he's not stressed

30:21

at all.

30:22

At this point. Despite the fact that Craig

30:24

had this tattoo, which offered

30:26

some corroboration, Scott

30:28

and Terry basically have to let him go. They

30:31

say, hey, let's keep in touch.

30:34

If you ever come down to Delaware, please let us

30:36

know. We'd like to keep talking.

30:38

He said, yeah, if I come down there, like Jake,

30:41

no one's ever gonna say yeah, yeah, yeah, I look you eyes up.

30:43

If I'm ever down Delaware, sure like we're gonna have a

30:45

dinner together. I'm thinking nobody does

30:47

that. Nobody wants to talk to their least

30:49

favorite FBI and ATF agent in

30:51

the world about a homicide they didn't commit.

30:54

In Terry's mind, it was weird

30:56

how friendly he was, and

30:58

it also seemed difficult to imagine

31:01

that this guy right here, this laid

31:03

back electrician living in Vermont, could

31:06

be capable of orchestrating a

31:08

murder.

31:09

If the dude was in the car

31:13

and they did a homicide, however

31:15

went down, whoever pulled the trigger, I'm

31:17

thinking I'm not seeing it. I

31:20

mean, if it did happen and he was in the very

31:22

car, I see nothing nonverbal

31:24

in this guy. There's no stress, there's

31:26

no deception. I'm looking at his

31:28

eyes, I'm looking at his whole facial I'm looking at

31:30

everything. I'm thinking this

31:32

guy's like the he like the best liar ever.

31:36

So they say goodbye to Craig, They

31:38

thank the Vermont State Troopers. They

31:40

walk out of the barracks, get in their car,

31:43

and head home, all the

31:45

while trying to make sense of what

31:47

they've just learned.

31:49

And I said Scott, I don't

31:51

think it happened, man, because

31:53

what do you mean. I said, there's no way

31:56

that, dude, there's no way. I said, maybe

31:58

Tommy did something. I don't know, but I said he didn't do nothing.

32:00

I'm telling you that dude is way too cool, ask

32:03

Scott. He goes, nah,

32:05

I kind of think something's there.

32:06

Man, this happened, and

32:11

we're definitely not stopping.

32:13

I said, Scott, I'm not seeing it, man, I

32:15

said, dude, I said, I think we're toast bro.

32:18

After this time passes about

32:21

a year and a half and during

32:23

this stretch, very little happens.

32:25

In this case, Craig

32:27

keeps living his quiet life up in the Vermont

32:30

Mountains. Occasionally the God

32:32

Squad gives him a call just to check

32:34

in, but Craig never tells him anything

32:36

new. Meanwhile,

32:39

Tom Godbison finishes serving his time

32:41

in federal prison. He's released,

32:43

goes back to living in Delaware, where

32:46

he seems to stay out of trouble. Then,

32:49

one day in April of two

32:51

thousand and six, the God Squad

32:53

gets a phone call from Craig.

32:56

Craig says, Hey, basically,

32:58

I'm coming down to see my mom, you

33:01

know, do you guys want to still talk to me? I'm

33:03

incredulous the dude is volunteering.

33:06

You know, Nothing's happened in the year and whatever months it's

33:08

been. There's no subpoenas as though arrest,

33:10

there's those search warrants.

33:11

Nothing.

33:12

He's got to think he Scott free.

33:14

Are you Are you pretty surprised to get this phone

33:16

call?

33:17

Yeah?

33:17

I mean again, I'm like, this is unbelievable,

33:20

doesn't make any sense to me. But honestly,

33:23

I literally felt like, does

33:27

he want friends? Does he need friends? There's

33:29

some things that are miraculous. They don't

33:32

look miraculous, but they literally are miraculous.

33:34

So that doesn't happen in a real world. Man,

33:36

it doesn't happen.

33:38

Terry and Scott are determined to make the most

33:40

of this meeting, and they go

33:42

for a new strategy. They've tried the

33:44

whole good cock routine and it hasn't

33:47

worked, not really, so

33:50

time to apply a little pressure. They

33:52

get a subpoena requiring Craig

33:54

to testify before a grand jury about

33:57

the murder that allegedly took place. This

34:00

is no joke. The subpoena will put

34:02

Craig on the spot because lying

34:04

before a grand jury is a serious offense.

34:07

They can land you in prison for years. But

34:10

remember they still have pretty much

34:12

nothing on Craig at this point. So

34:14

the subpoena, it's kind of a

34:16

bluff. What's your mindset

34:18

going into that meeting.

34:21

Our mindset is this, we

34:25

had a subpoena, We're

34:27

gonna give it to him. You always have

34:30

to hand deliver it. There was going to be no more

34:32

wilder room, no more postponements. This

34:34

is now going to be the make it or break

34:36

it.

34:38

So Craig shows up at the FBI's

34:40

offices in Wilmington, Delaware. He's

34:42

got no idea that there's a subpoena

34:45

waiting for him. What happens

34:47

next we piece together from talking to

34:49

the agents and reading their report

34:52

from that day. Initially

34:54

it's all smiles. Terry keeps the

34:56

whole thing really upbeat.

34:58

Hey, we thank you for coming down. This is

35:00

awesome. You

35:02

know, we really appreciate it.

35:04

They asked Craig again about the rumor

35:07

of the murder down in Philadelphia. They

35:09

tell him, we don't think you're telling

35:11

us the truth, and this

35:14

time, instead of denying the whole thing

35:16

outright Craig concedes

35:18

that maybe back at the time

35:20

there'd been some chatter about this.

35:23

I think he said something like, yeah, we heard rumors about that,

35:25

that someone said we did a homicide.

35:27

But man's now, that's nothing

35:29

to it. We didn't do any homicide. It's

35:32

a bunch of junk. Didn't happen. Yeah,

35:35

maybe Tommy said that's gonna build our

35:37

rep a little bit.

35:39

In other words, a bit of bragging, but

35:41

nothing more than that. The

35:43

agents push Craig tell him

35:46

we believe a homicide occurred and

35:48

that you participated in it. Eventually,

35:51

when the meeting is almost over, the

35:53

hand Craig the subpoena and

35:56

kind of hold their breath.

35:58

And again we're shooting blanks. We have nothing

36:00

right. Well, his whole demeanor changed when

36:03

he got to subpoena. He's like, what the

36:06

stress right? Went from like zero

36:08

to like he he's hit in about a ten.

36:12

That meeting ends without a breakthrough.

36:15

Craig didn't admit to anything, but

36:17

a few days later he calls

36:19

them back says he wants to meet again

36:22

have another sit down. So

36:25

they reconvene, and at

36:27

this meeting, right off the

36:29

bat, the mood is tense.

36:34

When he arrived, I

36:37

could tell he was depleted, shaken.

36:42

His whole body had changed to a

36:45

defeatist demeanor.

36:48

He was like completely complete

36:51

hundred a degree change, and he

36:54

literally it's hard to describe. It

36:56

was literally like an invisible

36:59

hand was pushing him down in the chair. He

37:01

physically got smaller. I saw him

37:04

shrink like like like he was like getting

37:06

deflated. He started wedding.

37:10

Beads of sweat were popping out.

37:13

You can feel the tension, but you

37:15

can also feel like he's

37:20

about to say something, and then

37:23

he's He

37:25

says, I'll tell you everything.

37:28

I'll tell you everything.

37:31

I'll tell you everything. And

37:33

at this moment, it seemed like

37:36

maybe, just maybe

37:39

they've been right all along not

37:41

to give up on this, and that

37:43

the truth was finally at

37:45

hand. Coming

37:51

up this season on Deep Cover.

37:54

We have to do our job and

37:56

we have to find out who

37:59

did they kill. Not that any

38:01

murder isn't disturbing, but this

38:04

particular murder and the reason for

38:06

it, the hate, a

38:09

hate crown.

38:12

I believe Tom Guyberson is innocent. They

38:14

have no physical evidence, they had no gun,

38:17

they had nothing.

38:19

We didn't like the speculation the

38:22

family and I thought that this would

38:24

be good if we found

38:26

at least what happened to him. Can't do

38:28

nothing about it, can't bring them back, but at least

38:30

we would find out the truth.

38:57

Deep Cover is produced by Amy Gaines

38:59

McQuaid and Jacob Smith. It's

39:01

edited by Karen Schakerji mastering

39:04

by Jake Gorski. Our show

39:06

art was designed by Sean Carney. Gal

39:09

scoring and our theme was composed

39:11

by Luis Garra. Fact checking

39:13

by Arthur Gomberts. Our

39:15

story consultant was James Foreman

39:18

Jr. Special thanks

39:20

to Jerry Williams, Sarah Nix, Greta

39:22

Cone and Jake Flatagan. I'm

39:25

Jake Calbert, No

40:10

Sir, the boy beg

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