0:15

Pushkin previously

0:21

a deep cover sort

0:23

of like I got on a train track there

0:26

was clearly the wrong train track, and at

0:28

some point you're just thinking, crap,

0:30

how do I stop this train from like going

0:32

off the rails? Who went

0:35

missing? Her mama

0:38

was very very upset,

0:40

as if she knew Brooke

0:42

wasn't coming home. The NYPD

0:45

cop caused and says, yep, she's broke. You

0:47

can clear your case. So I

0:49

said, I'm not happy with that. I

0:52

want DNA. When

0:54

she didn't show up to give DNA, she

0:56

was in the wind, John

1:02

Campbell had a million questions, like

1:04

who was this mysterious student at

1:06

Columbia University was

1:09

increasingly convinced that she was not

1:11

really Brooke Henson, that he was dealing

1:14

with an impostor, especially

1:16

after she ducked that DNA test,

1:19

which made him wonder who was

1:21

she? Did she have anything to

1:23

do with the disappearance of the real Brooke

1:25

Henson? And then there

1:27

was the most important question of all, where

1:30

was this mystery woman? Now? The

1:34

obvious first move was to ask Columbia

1:36

for help, So John says

1:39

he reached out to the university's director

1:41

of Investigations in technology,

1:43

then sent him a subpoena explaining

1:45

the entire situation. John

1:48

requested Brooks records, including

1:50

any photos, letters of reference

1:52

essays, student loan forms, that

1:54

kind of stuff. And he started facts

1:56

them down and I got about thirty pages or

1:58

so, and then it just it was like half

2:01

a sheet. And then he called me. He said, lawyers

2:03

walked into this office and ripped him off of the

2:05

whole file, off of the facts. So

2:08

there's John standing by the fax

2:10

machine with some files in his hands.

2:13

He says he got a few documents, including

2:16

Brooks College admissions essay,

2:18

and then the transmission was interrupted.

2:21

What he had so far was tantalizing.

2:24

The essay said she'd grown up in a tiny

2:26

town in South Carolina, and that much

2:29

was true. The real Brooke Henson was

2:31

from Traveler's Rest, But the

2:33

essay also described a super

2:35

religious childhood and that definitely

2:38

didn't match up. So what was

2:40

going on here? John felt

2:43

if he could just get the rest of these files,

2:46

he'd find the clues that would tell him

2:48

who this woman really was and

2:50

where she might be now. So

2:54

John, he was on a mission.

2:56

He just needed to out fox Columbia University.

3:16

I'm Jake Halbern and this is

3:18

deep Cover Season three,

3:20

Never Seen Again, episode

3:44

two, The Starman. According

3:50

to John Campbell, officials at Columbia

3:52

told him that they would no longer cooperate

3:54

with him unless he got a federal

3:57

subpoena. Now this is a technical

3:59

distinction, but it's an important

4:01

one. John had sent a state

4:04

subpoena from Greenville County, South Carolina,

4:07

and Columbia was basically saying, no,

4:09

no, no, we don't recognize that you're

4:11

out of your jurisdiction. We need

4:14

a federal subpoena. And of

4:16

course I said that because they thought, well, some small

4:18

town detective in South Carolina's not gonna be able to get

4:20

a federal subpoena. John may have been a

4:22

small town detective, but he

4:24

did have some powerful connections. In

4:27

fact, he knew exactly whom to call. And

4:29

this becomes really important. So bear

4:31

with me for a sec while I give you a little backstory.

4:37

A few years before this, when John

4:39

first started working on the Brook Henson case,

4:42

he wanted to get an office computer. He

4:44

didn't have one at the time, and he felt

4:46

if he was going to pursue this case seriously,

4:49

he needed one. You know, how to take advantage

4:51

of things like spreadsheets and the Internet.

4:54

So he asked the chief for some money to buy

4:56

one. His chief apparently said,

4:58

sorry, don't have the funds. John,

5:01

ever determined, started making inquiries,

5:04

asking other law enforcement guys, Hey,

5:07

what's the best way to get a free computer, And

5:10

turns out they had an answer for him.

5:12

Call the Secret Service. Yeah,

5:15

those agents with the earpieces who run

5:17

alongside the presidential motorcades. But

5:20

the advice was, don't just ask them for

5:22

a laptop, ask to do a

5:24

case with them, because apparently

5:27

everyone knew do a case with the

5:29

Secret Service. They seize everything and give it right

5:31

back to local law enforcement. You're telling me that, like,

5:34

you work with the Secret Service deliberately

5:36

so that you could if you bust some guys with the computers,

5:38

you can keep it. Yes, that's how you do it on the

5:40

municipal level when you have no money. Now,

5:46

in case you didn't realize this, the Secret

5:48

Service does a whole lot more than protect the president.

5:51

It also investigates financial crimes

5:54

and chases down counterfeiters, you

5:56

know, people who print fake money. And

5:58

John's like, I can find some guys like

6:01

that, because, as it turns

6:03

out, at the time, there was someone

6:05

in trial theer's rest passing out phony twenty

6:07

dollar bills. It looked like

6:09

they were being made with an inkjet printer. Anyway,

6:13

John puts the word out among the local businesses.

6:16

He says, call me if you see anything

6:18

suspicious. So one of the businesses

6:20

was Burger King and this

6:22

girlfriend Burger can call. He goes, hey, those guys are back

6:24

and they gave me a fake twenty again.

6:26

What do I do? He said, tell

6:29

will be a few minutes to their fries. He's

6:32

laughing now, right, but at the time

6:34

he's like, here's my big chance to bust some counterfeiters

6:37

and befriend the Secret Service and you

6:39

know, get a free computer. They're

6:41

waiting for their fries, and we were right down

6:43

the streets, so we come zooming in behind

6:45

them, and we come

6:48

running up to the car and the guys has this big

6:50

water twenties and he crams it down into his drink

6:52

and we grab the drink and everything, pull

6:55

the thing of twenties up and the ink is just

6:57

ripping off these

7:00

guys. He's busted. They're local college

7:02

students looking for some free whoppers.

7:05

John calls the Secret Service tells them

7:07

he's busted some counterfeit and

7:09

the Secret Service is pleased, so

7:12

pleased that they continue to work cases with John.

7:15

Eventually they even give him an award

7:17

for his work on another counterfeiting case.

7:20

So the Secret Service guy said, he is

7:22

such a good job on that they sent a

7:24

thing up to Washington and got me thing,

7:27

a citation thing. So I had that

7:29

on my wall and it was signed by the director

7:32

of the Secret Service. You know, he did a great job.

7:34

What really made John happy, though, was

7:37

back in their dorm room, those counterfeiters

7:40

had a sweet computer which

7:42

soon became John's computer. Score

7:44

right, But the real windfall

7:47

came later. Fast

7:51

forward a few years. There's John

7:54

standing by his facts machine with half

7:56

a set of records from the woman who claimed

7:59

to be Brooke Henson, and he's got

8:01

a big fat snub from

8:03

Columbia University, which was demanding

8:05

a federal subpoena, a potential

8:07

dead end for John. But

8:11

turns out all John had

8:13

to do was look up on his wall at

8:16

that fancy citation thing from the Secret

8:18

Service. And remember he

8:20

had some friends, some pretty powerful

8:23

friends, who could, if

8:25

they were so inclined, tell

8:27

Columbia University to shut

8:29

up and play ball. The

8:44

person that John Campbell connected with

8:46

at the Secret Service is a guy

8:48

named Don Long. I am

8:50

an assistant Special Agent in charge with the

8:52

Secret Service. I've been employed with

8:54

the agency for about thirty years now, and

8:57

I'm currently located in our office

8:59

in Columbia, South Carolina. If

9:01

Don sounds like a clean cut, no

9:03

nonsense law man, well that's

9:06

because he is. Don is not an

9:08

obsessive Files fan or a

9:10

guy who buys into a lot of conspiracy theories.

9:13

In this way, you might say that he

9:15

and John are kind of like opposites.

9:18

Even so, Don is quick

9:20

to give John props. John

9:23

is a very thorough investigator. If

9:25

you had a case that you wanted somebody to really

9:28

turn over every single stone

9:30

to look for a possible suspect,

9:33

you would certainly want someone like John on

9:36

the case. Don says that

9:38

back in two thousand and six he wanted

9:40

to help John if he could, and

9:42

he was intrigued by the Brook Henson case,

9:45

but he couldn't just fire off a federal

9:47

subpoena as a favor to John. This

9:50

was a serious matter, and if the

9:52

Secret Service got involved, it would

9:54

become an active partner in this investigation.

9:57

So Don's first question was, what

10:00

is this case exactly? Don

10:03

says he conferred with the assistant US

10:05

attorney in Greenville, who would be

10:07

prosecuting this case if it went

10:09

forward, and the two of them they

10:12

debated what to do. In the

10:14

end, it was decided that they should open up

10:16

a fraud and identity theft investigation

10:19

and see what was in those files at Columbia.

10:22

And just like that, John

10:24

now had a partner, Don Long,

10:26

the Secret Service agent. And

10:29

even though this was now technically a

10:31

federal investigation, John

10:33

was still, as he told me, a backseat

10:36

driver. I might add, a

10:38

very active backseat driver. So

10:42

off goes that federal subpoena

10:44

kind of amazingly, Columbia University

10:47

rejects it. Basically, Columbia

10:49

just tells the assistant US attorney, a

10:52

guy named Walt Wilkins, sorry, no

10:54

dice, and what lost

10:56

his mind? Are you kidding me?

10:59

Your Columbia University, This is a

11:01

federal grand jury subpoena. If you can't give

11:03

us these records, you come down to talk to the

11:05

judge and explain why. It

11:07

wasn't clear why Columbia was refusing

11:09

to cooperate. Maybe it was just

11:12

trying to protect the privacy of a student, or

11:14

perhaps, as Don Long speculated,

11:17

the university was embarrassed that it had possibly

11:19

been duped by an impostor. I

11:22

reached out to Columbia University, by the Way,

11:25

and they declined to comment. In

11:28

the end, Don flew up to New York

11:30

to speak with officials at the university in

11:33

person, and at long

11:35

last, Columbia relented. A

11:37

little while later, investigators

11:39

had the complete records for one

11:42

Brooke Henson. The

11:49

records from Columbia included a bunch of

11:51

documents. There were two admissions

11:53

essays. Together, they presented

11:55

an intimate portrait of a young woman

11:57

who claimed to be Brooke Henson. I

12:00

asked my producer, Amy Gaines, as she

12:02

would read from these essays. My

12:04

young life consisted almost entirely

12:07

of events that would take place inside

12:09

four church walls. My

12:11

parents didn't feel that a public education was

12:13

the right place to teach their children about the world

12:16

and the skills it would take to survive in that world.

12:19

Along with three other children, my

12:21

brother and I were educated under the tutelage

12:24

of my mother and another woman from

12:26

church. In spite of what

12:28

is considered by others to be a horrific environment

12:31

to educate children. Somehow, my

12:33

brother and I excelled in our academic surroundings.

12:36

Weird right, because the real Brookhanson

12:39

she grew up in a house without a lot of rules,

12:41

with laid back parents. The

12:44

essay goes on to say the moment that

12:46

truly defined her life was when

12:48

her mom was dying of cancer. She

12:50

says she took care of her mother and

12:52

that in her spare time, she found

12:55

solace by playing chess online.

12:58

I loved to dive into a world filled with

13:00

sixty four squares, thirty two

13:02

pieces, and a never ending supply

13:04

of new combinations to learn and master.

13:08

This black and white world made sense to me. I

13:11

was in control of strategy, of risk,

13:14

and ultimately of death. When

13:16

her mother passed away, she said

13:18

something within her shifted. After

13:21

I came to terms with losing her and

13:23

living my life without her, I felt very

13:25

free in a strange way. I saw

13:27

the world as something I could explore and conquer.

13:30

I never really looked outside my little town

13:33

and my little life until that life

13:35

had disappeared. I was no longer

13:37

an option for me. John

13:45

Campbell read all of this with great interest.

13:47

But what was it exactly? Seemed

13:50

like a work of fiction, confirmation

13:52

that they were dealing with a con artist. After

13:55

all, the real Brooke Henson was a free

13:57

spirit who liked to hang out and party

13:59

with her friends, not some Christian

14:01

who played chess. Even

14:04

so, John found himself wondering

14:07

could this possibly be true at

14:09

least some of it, Like did the

14:11

real Brooke Henson have some secret

14:13

life that he didn't know about? Was

14:16

she, for example, a chess player. John

14:19

forced himself to be methodical about the

14:21

whole thing, and just to vet this properly,

14:23

I called Travel's Dress High school and I said

14:27

do you have a chess team? And lady

14:30

over a Travelers risso fell out of the

14:32

chair when she stopped laughing. She said,

14:34

no, honey, we don't have any kind

14:37

of a chess chess club. And Travel's

14:39

rass Travels Dress is for their football.

14:42

I don't have a chess club. They never

14:45

had a chess club. You don't even find anybody

14:47

in this area that plays chess. But even

14:49

if these essays were all lies,

14:52

they were lies that might prove useful

14:54

down the road. He didn't need to be a detective

14:57

to see that. I myself have

14:59

always believed the old adage the

15:01

best liars always stick close to the

15:03

truth, and so maybe

15:06

this imposter, whoever she was,

15:09

was a chess player who was raised in

15:11

a strict Christian home and who

15:13

lost her mother at a tender age. Maybe

15:16

these were clues that needed to be taken

15:18

seriously, a glimpse into

15:20

who this mystery woman really was.

15:24

There were other clues in the Columbia

15:27

records. The young woman claiming to be

15:29

Brooke Henson had gotten her ged

15:31

she had aced the SATs, but

15:34

once she arrived at Columbia, she often

15:36

failed to attend class. In

15:39

an email, she confided in her academic

15:41

advisor, I haven't decided

15:43

whether I will attempt school next year at Columbia,

15:46

but clearly I will need to take a closer look

15:48

at the financial aspects of it. She

15:51

ends by saying, sometimes being

15:53

without my mom is tough when I

15:55

have a big decision to make. The

15:57

picture that emerged was of an ambitious

16:00

young woman who was struggling. At

16:05

some point in the investigation, John

16:07

got his hands on a rather curious photo.

16:10

It looked like it was taken at a military school,

16:13

and it showed a slender young woman dressed

16:16

in a formal gown, the sort you'd

16:18

wear to a gala. The woman

16:20

didn't really look like Brooke Henson. She

16:23

was standing next to several sharply dressed

16:25

cadets. John studied

16:27

the photo closely, so

16:30

I had a loop like

16:33

a photographer's loop, and I had this picture,

16:35

and I'm down on this picture like this. Have

16:38

you ever seen the movie The Good Shepherd. John,

16:40

by the way, loves making pop culture

16:42

references, especially to spy stories.

16:45

In The Good Shepherd, there's this CIA

16:47

agent played by Matt Damon, who

16:50

spends much of the movie analyzing magnified

16:52

images from this one mysterious

16:55

photograph. Anyway, John

16:57

was determined to figure out, among other things,

17:00

where was this photo taken. Kept

17:02

narrowing down based on what was on their uniforms.

17:05

I sent the picture to VMI, the

17:08

Citadel, several

17:11

other places that were military

17:13

colleges. In one picture, you could see they had

17:15

a sash. He said, we don't wear sashes. And

17:17

wear sashes. The architecture

17:20

in the back was an arch Nobody had that.

17:23

And eventually we got

17:25

back to West Point, so there

17:27

was a West Point connection. But John

17:29

didn't know exactly what to make of that. There

17:33

was one other document in the Columbia

17:35

Records that caught the attention of both

17:37

John Campbell and also of Don Long

17:40

at the Secret Service. It was

17:42

a letter of recommendation for Brooke

17:44

from a professor named doctor Shirley

17:47

Fleishman. The letter mentioned that Brooke

17:49

had visited her home, that she was a

17:51

friend of her son. This

17:53

seemed promising. Maybe the Fleischman

17:55

family could tell them more about who this young

17:58

woman really was. When

18:00

I called mister Fleshman, I said,

18:03

I'm John Campbell, I'm with Travels Verst Police

18:05

Department. I'm calling about a girl you

18:07

might know named Brooke Henson. And

18:09

he said, I wondered when you were going to call

18:12

And I said, what do you What do you mean

18:14

when I was going to call him the world?

18:16

How would you know that I was going to call him? He

18:18

said, when my son brought her home, I

18:21

knew she was troubled. According

18:25

to John, mister Fleishman told him

18:27

that this young woman, this Brooke Henson,

18:30

had dated his son for about a year, and

18:32

at that time his son was a cadet

18:35

at West Point. After

18:38

the break, what John Campbell

18:40

and Don Long uncovered when

18:42

they spoke with the Fleshman's So

19:02

far, everything I've told you about

19:05

the mysterious woman fleeing Columbia

19:07

University and then John Campbell

19:09

fighting to get her college records, all

19:12

of that happened in two thousand and six.

19:15

Now we're going to turn back the clock a few

19:17

years earlier, to two thousand and

19:19

one.

19:24

Picture this scene the quad

19:26

at Catholic University in Washington, DC,

19:29

A big green expanse with leafy

19:31

trees and gray stone buildings.

19:34

There were lots of excited college kids strutting

19:36

about. They were here for a

19:38

debate tournament. One of these

19:40

students was a nineteen year old named Ian

19:43

Fleischmann. Ian was a cadet

19:45

at West Point, where he was on the policy

19:47

debate team, and it was

19:49

here on this quad at Catholic

19:52

University that Ian first spotted

19:54

her. She

19:56

was a very attractive woman,

19:59

relatively short, brown hair. She

20:02

had a great smile and

20:04

a fun laugh. I remember that. So

20:06

they get to talking. She introduced

20:09

to herself Natalie. I

20:11

knew her as Natalie. Natalie

20:13

was not competing. She had debated

20:15

another tournaments in the past, but

20:18

that day she was just there hanging

20:20

out with some friends. She told

20:22

Ian that she wasn't currently enrolled in college,

20:25

and that she had a pretty unusual

20:27

job. She introduced herself as

20:29

a professional chess player, which

20:31

was interesting because I had never met a

20:34

professional chess player. Natalie

20:36

said she had a manager in Germany and

20:38

that she traveled around the country playing in

20:40

tournaments. Ian was intrigued.

20:44

Soon after this, they started dating, which

20:46

wasn't so easy because they didn't live near

20:48

one another. Natalie always seemed

20:51

to be on the road traveling for her job, and

20:53

Ian well, he was at West Point where

20:56

he had a strict curfew and couldn't leave campus

20:58

without a pass. So they

21:00

chatted online and talked a lot over

21:02

the phone. Ian remembers

21:05

leaning out his dorm window to get a better

21:07

cell signal and talking late into

21:09

the night, long after lights out.

21:12

His roommate, David Labovich, remembers

21:14

hearing some of these conversations, and

21:17

he also chatted with Ian about

21:19

his new girlfriend. But David,

21:21

he wasn't entirely buying Natalie's

21:23

story, you know. He shared

21:25

with me the little detail of, oh, she's a

21:28

professional chess player, but she's

21:30

got this manager that has all the

21:32

money, and if

21:34

she needs money, she has to email him and he

21:36

has to respond and give her the money. It was this

21:39

really odd and I remember saying that

21:41

to Ian at the time. It's like, yeah,

21:43

man, something about that just doesn't seem right.

21:47

David is quick to add that Ian is

21:49

a really smart guy, extremely

21:52

talented. In fact, Ian was such

21:54

a good student that he was rewarded a set of

21:56

gold stars, which he wore on his

21:58

uniform. There was a term for guys

22:00

like Ian at West Point Starman.

22:03

They were the guys who were going places.

22:06

All that being said, David suspects

22:08

the Ian was perhaps blinded by

22:11

love because he missed other

22:13

slightly suspicious things about Natalie.

22:16

One other kind of odd thing that she did was

22:18

she sent him some cookies and

22:20

said, hey, these are you know, homemade cookies.

22:23

And I remember looking at him and I was like, Ian,

22:25

those are suspiciously round, Like she just

22:27

got the little two cookies and just

22:30

cut them up and baked them. Ian

22:32

says his old roommate, well may

22:34

have been onto something. I mean, like in

22:37

retrospect, where would she have made these cookies?

22:40

Right? Like she was living out of her car,

22:42

traveling the country, going I mean, you

22:45

know, she did always like to

22:47

stay in like extended

22:49

state places. But I doubt you can

22:53

use those kitchenettes to make perfectly round

22:55

cookies. But at that point, Ian

22:57

said he had already bought into Natalie's

23:00

whole story, that she was a chess

23:02

champion with a German manager

23:04

who traveled the country and occasionally

23:07

hung out at debate tournaments. And

23:09

so if you start

23:11

with the acceptance of that as you as

23:14

your starting point, some

23:16

of these small minor things over time,

23:19

I think you know, it's

23:21

easy to gloss over, right, because you've you've

23:23

already accepted the most ridiculous thing

23:26

as true and honestly,

23:29

when you're dealing with somebody that you genuinely

23:32

care for, that you have spent a long time building

23:34

up a relationship with, I think

23:36

it's easy to miss a lot of those,

23:38

you know, smaller things, or to forgive

23:41

them, because you trust

23:43

the person enough to accept the

23:46

excuse or the explanation that they give

23:48

you. Natalie talked

23:50

a little bit about her own family. She

23:52

told him about her mother, who had died and

23:55

whom she adored, and a

23:57

bit about her stepfather too. She

23:59

said that he was abusive, that he was

24:01

stalking her, and that occasionally

24:04

he would find her and she would have to flee.

24:07

At one point, she told Ian about

24:09

an incident that he had found

24:11

her someplace in Tennessee in a

24:13

hotel room and threatened

24:15

her with an iron, like to beat

24:17

her with an iron. All

24:21

of this was upsetting to in. I

24:24

mean, it didn't really have the option

24:27

to essentially run to

24:29

her to protect her, and so that, I mean that

24:31

did tug out my heartstrings. At

24:33

some point, Ian says, she told them that she

24:35

was changing her name from Natalie

24:38

Fisher to Natalie Bowman, same

24:40

first name, just a different last name.

24:43

Ian says, as best as he can recall, she

24:46

said that she was doing this to protect herself,

24:49

which made sense to Inn under the circumstances,

24:52

and for him, it didn't change

24:54

who she was. It

24:57

was the same Natalie. I

24:59

mean, she was the same person, regardless

25:02

of the moniker that she was she

25:04

was using. She

25:06

had the same flaws, the same loves,

25:09

the same laughs. On

25:11

several occasions, Ian brought Natalie

25:14

home to meet his parents. He said

25:16

that his mother, Shirley Fleishman,

25:19

welcome Natalie into their home with open

25:21

arms. I mean, everyone's going to tell you that their mom

25:23

is the most loving and caring person in the world right.

25:26

But for me, my mom is I think the most

25:28

loving and caring person, and she

25:32

unconditionally accepted and

25:35

love Natalie because of the relationship

25:37

that I had with her. And this relationship

25:40

between Ian and Natalie was

25:42

serious and at times

25:45

tumultuous. It was an

25:47

emotional relationship. From

25:50

the moment we met, I think there

25:53

we were, you know, madly in

25:55

love or fighting or

25:57

somewhere in between or both at the

25:59

same time, for the course of

26:02

a year or so before we eventually

26:05

broke up. The breakup

26:07

happened in part because of biography.

26:10

Natalie decided she wanted to go to college

26:12

in California, and she essentially

26:14

gave me the ultimatum of quit

26:18

West Point and moved to California

26:20

while I go to cal State Fullerton

26:23

and get my degree or

26:25

we're going to break up. And I

26:27

seriously considered leaving West Point.

26:30

So there was in a star student

26:32

at west Point, literally a starman,

26:35

and he was going to walk away from that for

26:38

her. Ian wrestled

26:40

with his decision, and then one

26:42

day it all came to a head. One

26:44

of my mentors, you know, from the debate

26:47

team, eventually found went

26:49

out into the field at West Point

26:51

during a field exercise that summer,

26:54

found me in my tent and dragged

26:56

me off into the woodline to yell at me and tell me

26:58

that I was making a terrible mistake if I thought that I

27:00

was going to leave to the military to run off

27:02

to California after some girl, so

27:05

Ian State at West Point, and they broke

27:07

up, but it didn't end aadle. In

27:10

fact, after the breakup, Natalie

27:12

even reached out to Ian's mom, Shirley

27:14

Fleishman, to ask for a letter of recommendation

27:17

to Columbia. Shirley

27:19

was a university professor, so this letter

27:21

would carry some weight. Now

27:23

you may be thinking that's weird who

27:26

asks their ex boyfriend's mother for

27:28

a letter of rec But here

27:30

was the really weird part. Natalie

27:33

explained that to protect herself,

27:35

she had changed her name once

27:37

again. She

27:40

was now going by Brooke

27:43

Henson, Yes,

27:46

the very woman who went missing from

27:48

Traveler's Rest, South Carolina back

27:51

in nineteen ninety nine. So

27:59

Shirley Fleischman agrees to help. She

28:02

writes a letter of recommendation, and

28:04

this is the letter that both John Campbell

28:07

and Don Long find in the Columbia

28:09

records. The letter that leads them to the

28:11

Fleishman's. When they finally connect,

28:14

they learned much of what I've just told you. Ian's

28:17

dad, Fred had been suspicious of

28:19

Natalie for a long time, so

28:22

suspicious that he'd been looking for clues

28:24

about who she really was. He

28:26

shared his suspicions with investigators

28:29

when we spoke to him, Fred

28:32

turned over a very important piece of evidence.

28:35

That's Don the Secret Service agent.

28:37

He says that Fred claimed on one

28:39

occasion he had to move Natalie's

28:41

car. It was blocking his driveway.

28:43

As I recall, it was like a one lane driveway,

28:46

and we went in the car to move the car of the way to

28:48

get his car out. He was a little bit suspicious

28:51

of her anyways, and he looked in

28:53

the club box and

28:56

he found an ID for

28:59

Esther Reid. Esther Reid?

29:01

Now who is that? Once again

29:04

the plot had thickened, The authorities

29:06

scrambled to figure out who Esther Reid was.

29:09

Turns out she was yet another

29:12

missing woman, roughly the same age

29:14

as Brooke Henson, who had vanished from

29:16

Washington State back in nineteen ninety

29:18

nine, the same year that Brooke

29:20

had gone missing. So

29:26

what the hell was going on here?

29:29

John Campbell had an initial hunch,

29:33

Mike, this is a serial killer, because I

29:35

got people who I can't I have

29:38

somebody using somebody's names. I got Brookinson,

29:40

I know, I'm pretty sure it's dead. I

29:43

got Natalie Bowman, I can't find her.

29:46

I got Natalie Fisher, I

29:48

can't find her. She's disappeared. And I got

29:50

Esther Reid and she's a missing person. But

29:56

that theory didn't hold up because

29:58

eventually, with a little more digging, John

30:01

concluded that two of the women, Natalie

30:03

Fisher and Natalie Bowman, were in

30:05

fact alive. As

30:09

how as the investigators could tell, this

30:11

mystery woman was still out there. Maybe

30:14

her real name was Esther Reid or

30:16

maybe not, but she appeared to be a

30:18

serial identity thief who

30:20

just kept on taking over new personas

30:23

the question was why,

30:26

because there was no obvious motive.

30:28

It just didn't make sense. She

30:31

was enrolled in Columbia

30:34

University as brook Hanson. So

30:37

it's an IVY League school. It costs tons

30:39

of money to us there. Why would you enroll

30:42

under an assumed name. It doesn't make any sense.

30:44

As soon as the gigs up your

30:46

degree is worth. You don't have a degree anymore. It's about

30:48

you, So why would you spend all kinds

30:50

of money doing that? John

30:56

felt that all of these deceptions,

30:58

so elaborate, so involved, had

31:01

to serve some grander purpose, like

31:03

they had to be covering for something.

31:06

He briefly considered the possibility

31:08

that this woman was a drug mule, but

31:11

then he turned to another theory, the

31:13

one that he ultimately came to believe was true.

31:16

And here's how he came to it. He learned

31:19

that this mystery woman had dated another

31:21

West Point cadet and a

31:23

Naval Academy midshipman. Hypothesis

31:27

began to form in his mind. As

31:29

he saw it, she was targeting military

31:31

personnel, not just that. Look

31:33

at who Ian Fleischmann was a starman.

31:37

What's more, apparently this mystery

31:39

woman had a manager or a handler

31:41

overseas who sent her money, and

31:44

she seemed to be a master at creating

31:46

and maintaining aliases. So

31:54

John typed up an email to the

31:56

US Army CID, the

31:58

Criminal Investigation Division. He

32:01

laid out all the facts and began to explain

32:03

his most promising theory about

32:05

the mystery woman. At Columbia, he

32:07

read that email back to me. Here's

32:10

part of it. The motives of this

32:12

woman are not clear. It does not appear

32:14

that she uses her stolen identities for monetary

32:16

gain, but actually adopts the identities

32:19

in order to live near US military personnel

32:21

and attend universities. While I am

32:23

not prepared to say this woman

32:26

is a spy acting on behalf of a foreign

32:28

country, her behavior fits the profile

32:31

of a spy far better than that

32:33

of the average identity thief espionage.

32:37

That's what John was intimating, Perhaps

32:40

more than intimating. John

32:42

read over what he'd written to Army investigators

32:45

and then hit send. At

32:55

this point, John had followed his leads

32:58

a very, very long way

33:00

from Traveler's Rest, South Carolina.

33:03

This had started off as a search for Brooke

33:05

Henson, a kind hearted young woman

33:08

who'd gone miss and perhaps

33:10

was murdered. Now it looked

33:12

as if Brooke were just one of several people

33:14

whose identities had been stolen, and

33:17

if John's hunches were correct, the

33:19

perpetrator of all this was

33:21

a spy. John

33:24

held on to the hope that if he could just talk

33:26

to Esther Reid, he would find the answers

33:29

to so many of his questions, and

33:31

that she might have some intel about

33:34

what had happened to the real Brooke Henson, but

33:37

that was a stretch. This was

33:39

quickly turning into a wild goose chase

33:42

following a tip that was taking him

33:44

far away from his original case.

33:48

I remember the Chief asking me, like, how far are

33:50

you going to take this? It

33:52

said Chief, until I can interview

33:55

Esther Reid, I can't clear this

33:57

tip next

34:04

time. On Deep Cover, it

34:07

never occurred to me, quite

34:09

frankly, that I would get caught, or could get

34:12

caught, or that anyone would get hurt. I

34:15

mean, I figured if I lived as

34:17

Brooke for the rest of my life, nothing would

34:19

ever happen. Deep

34:42

Cover is produced by Amy Gaines and

34:45

Jacob Smith. It's edited

34:47

by Karen shakerge mastering

34:49

by Jake Gorski. Our show

34:51

art was designed by Sean Karney. Original

34:54

scoring at our theme was composed

34:56

by Luis Gara, fact checking

34:58

by Arthur Gomfort's Special

35:01

thanks to Milobelle, Greta Cone

35:04

and Jacob Weisberg. I'm

35:06

Jake Albert