Episode Transcript
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0:15
Pushkin. Hey,
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it's Jake. Before we get into this
0:20
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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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