0:15

Pushkin previously

0:24

on Deep Cover. I think I got

0:26

a message from Columbia

0:28

Security saying they wanted to talk to me, and

0:31

I was like, oh shit. I

0:33

remember the chief asking me, like, how far are you going

0:35

to take this? It

0:38

said chief, until I can interview

0:40

Esther Reid, I can't clear

0:42

this tip. I went to get

0:45

a U wall truck because

0:47

I had decided I'm freaking getting out of here. So

0:50

I went upstairs, packed the quickest

0:52

bag I could pack, grab my dogs,

0:54

called a cab, and left. Would you do it to U

0:57

haul? Left it here? That's

0:59

kind of crazy. I know, all

1:02

of it's crazy. I was scared.

1:08

When Esther fled New York City. She

1:10

didn't get very far. Basically,

1:13

she just crossed the Hudson River and stopped

1:15

a few miles away in Secaucus, New

1:17

Jersey, got a hotel room. She

1:20

was with her two little shitsus Pouchin

1:22

and Odie, and they were just looking

1:24

at her the way dogs do, as

1:26

if to say, what's the plan? Boss?

1:29

Like, what is going to your brain when you're in that

1:32

hotel room in Jersey? I

1:34

have no idea?

1:36

I mean, that was absolute panic. I

1:39

knew I needed to get a flight and

1:42

so I remember I needed

1:44

vet certificates for my dogs to fly.

1:47

So she finds a vet who basically certifies

1:50

that these dogs don't have rabies or whatever,

1:52

and then she comes up with a plan. She

1:55

decides to fly to Ohio and

1:57

then a few weeks later catches

1:59

a ride to Chicago using a ride

2:01

share that she found on craigslist. Your

2:04

life is like one series of ridiculous

2:06

like yes, logistical challenges like

2:08

your you are on the run at this

2:10

point, that is, that's yes.

2:14

I didn't necessarily view myself.

2:16

I was still hoping that it wouldn't be a big deal

2:18

and they would might be over it. So

2:21

I didn't realize I was on the run. I just

2:23

kept thinking, like, well,

2:26

come on, I mean you you you left

2:28

the U haul in front of your apartment

2:31

and I left your apartment like you. I

2:33

mean, at that moment, I was, but I was

2:35

I should did. I knew

2:38

I was on the run, but I still was thinking I can

2:40

avoid truffle, Like if I could just like

2:42

lay low, this could

2:44

work out. I'm an

2:47

undying optimist, and so I really

2:49

did think, like maybe they won't be able to find

2:52

me, just that it would become a cold case,

2:56

and like they would stop devoting resources

2:58

to it and it might have become a

3:00

cold case after all. At this point,

3:02

Esther was just a missing person of interest

3:05

in a possible case of identity theft

3:07

and finding her it was all about resources,

3:10

like how badly do you want to find

3:12

her? And unless her case became some

3:15

kind of top priority, which it currently

3:17

wasn't, well, then there wouldn't

3:19

be much of a man hunt or woman

3:21

hunt as it were. As far as

3:23

Esther was concerned, she was relatively

3:26

safe. Meanwhile,

3:30

down in Traveler's Rest, South Carolina,

3:32

John Campbell was kind of at a loss. He

3:36

was supposed to be solving the case of Brooke Henson,

3:38

who'd vanished seven years before.

3:41

It was now two thousand and six, and

3:44

this whole other thing with Esther read

3:46

up at Columbia. It was just a lead

3:48

that John was chasing down, a tip,

3:51

a kind of side trail that he'd been jogging

3:53

down in the hopes of finding Brooke or

3:55

at least a clue as to what had happened to Brooke.

3:58

But Esther's trail was getting cold.

4:01

She fled New York City in the summer, and

4:03

by a Christmas time, six months later,

4:06

John still had no idea where Esther

4:08

was, and he was no closer to solving

4:11

the Brook Henson case either. John's

4:13

boss wanted an update. We

4:16

had a new chief of police, and he came in and he said,

4:18

where are we on this Henson tip thing?

4:21

I said, We're dead in the water. I mean, she didn't show

4:23

up to give a DNA sample

4:25

like she said she would. She hasn't been back

4:27

to her apartment. Nobody

4:30

knows, she hadn't been to class, Nobody knows where

4:32

she went. She's in the wind, she's gone. John's

4:35

boss, the chief, had shared some

4:37

information about the case with the local press,

4:40

but apparently they wanted more

4:42

details. So the chief tells

4:44

John opened the file and let the

4:46

press have whatever they want. And I said, all right,

4:48

are you sure? Are you kidding

4:50

because we'd never done that, and he's

4:52

like, yeah, we're an open book. And

4:56

I said, okay, heyman, he's the chief. The

4:59

Travelers Rest Police Department shared

5:01

what they knew with the local press, told

5:04

them that there was this impostor who'd stolen

5:06

Brooks identity and gotten into an

5:08

eye Vy league school, and

5:11

for the first time revealed her

5:13

name publicly. Esther Reid.

5:17

We opened the boat and we told

5:19

him everything we had, and man, they

5:21

took that and ran. This

5:23

decision to open the file turns

5:26

out to be a huge deal. John

5:28

shares the evidence in the case history,

5:31

but also his espionage

5:33

theories, even if some of those theories

5:35

were half baked, and

5:37

I should note not everyone in law

5:40

enforcement was buying into John's ideas.

5:43

Over at the Secret Service, Don

5:45

Long was skeptical, but the Secret

5:47

Service wasn't talking to the media

5:49

John was. The point is, once

5:52

John started talking, he said

5:54

something in motion, a media

5:56

juggernaut. Pretty Soon everyone

5:59

would know about Esther Reid, and

6:01

finding her would become more than just

6:03

a priority for law enforcement. It

6:05

would become a reality TV show of sorts,

6:08

a content test to see who could

6:11

find her first. I'm

6:28

Jake Albert and this is Deep

6:30

Cover Season three,

6:33

Never Seen Again, Episode

6:57

four, a very sophisticated

6:59

gale. So

7:06

the local TV station down in Greenville,

7:08

South Carolina runs its story

7:10

and right away John Campbell's phone

7:13

rings. On the other end was

7:15

a guy named Tom Colbert from California.

7:18

Tom was a former news guy, used

7:20

to work for CBS and Paramount, but

7:22

now he had his own business. He

7:25

worked closely with local journalists. They

7:27

would feed him tips and then Tom

7:29

would pass the best ones along to the big media

7:32

outlets. Tom charged a finder's

7:34

fee, of course, and he gave a cut to the

7:36

local news guys. He was basically

7:38

a middleman and Tom he

7:41

was good at his job. Some people called

7:43

him the gem hunter because

7:45

Tom he found the gems. Anyway,

7:49

Tom gets this tip from a TV reporter

7:51

in Greenville about the Esther read

7:53

story, and right away

7:55

he calls John Campbell to

7:58

get his take on Esther. He

8:00

talked about the potential for being a

8:02

Russian spy going to

8:05

various universities under cover.

8:07

It had so many interest elements, the

8:10

fact that it could be involved with espionage.

8:13

That wasn't clear to me until John

8:15

really laid it out and said, no, I really

8:18

think this gal has a different

8:20

name for other reasons.

8:23

I thought it was maybe just for money,

8:25

trying to get into bank accounts now, and he said,

8:27

no, this is a very sophisticated gal. This

8:30

was John's pet theory that Esther

8:33

was a spy. He stressed

8:35

the fact that Esther had dated several military

8:37

men, including two West Point cadets

8:40

and a Naval Academy midshipman and

8:42

that she seemed to be a master at creating

8:45

aliases and then vanishing.

8:48

Tom was intrigued. I

8:50

mean, there are a lot of people stealing names,

8:53

but something dealing with espionage

8:55

spies, that was a fascinating,

8:58

fascinating development and opened

9:01

my eyes. Tom jumped

9:03

on the story. Within a day or so, he

9:05

sent out a press release. It

9:08

told the story of how John Campbell

9:10

was tracking down a mysterious con artist.

9:13

It quotes John as saying she's incredibly

9:15

bright, articulate, and a conniving,

9:17

manipulative person, almost

9:19

to the point of being pathological. The

9:22

press release also says that Esther seduced

9:26

several military men. It adds

9:28

quote Reid allegedly

9:30

has been funded through mysterious money orders

9:32

for years from sources in Germany

9:35

and Italy. She has told lovers

9:37

she is a professional chess player. The

9:40

press release had a long list of contacts,

9:43

including John Campbell, Esther's

9:45

sister, and also the Fleischmann's,

9:47

her ex boyfriend's parents. Three

9:51

days later, Esther was on the front page

9:53

of the New York Post. The banner

9:55

headline was klepto, brainiac

9:58

id thief scams colleges. The

10:01

article heralded her as a brazen

10:04

brunette beauty. It included

10:06

comments from both John Campbell and Ian's

10:09

Fred Fleischman suggesting

10:11

that Esther was a spy. The

10:14

article ended with a quote from John saying,

10:17

the one million dollar question is where

10:19

she turns up next? And is who?

10:22

It was kind of like the old children's game

10:25

Where in the world is Carmen San Diego,

10:28

only a version that was spy themed

10:30

and a bit sexed up. The

10:33

article had some facts and a lot of conjecture.

10:36

It made for great reading. That's

10:41

what really set off a firestorm of

10:43

the phone ringing. John suddenly had

10:45

to balance being a detective, a spokesman,

10:48

and a dad because he had a

10:50

toddler at the time. I have a little office

10:53

in the police department, and I'd

10:56

be there for hours and hours an hour, So my son's

10:58

like on the floor playing under my desk, playing

11:00

with his hot wheels in the hallway and stuff like that

11:02

while I'm on the phone with the press. For

11:06

a while, it basically became a full time

11:08

job for so anybody

11:10

they call, I talked to anybody they could get

11:12

me on the phone, and I talked for

11:16

days straight. The phone

11:18

rang for days NonStop

11:21

from reporters, and when people couldn't get

11:23

ahold of me, they just published whatever somebody

11:25

else, whatever I told somebody else. There's all kinds of

11:27

things that say, John Campbell said, my

11:30

idn't even talked to that guy in my whole life, not even who

11:32

that is. You know. As

11:34

the newspaper clippings piled up, things

11:37

got serious. A grand jury

11:39

formally indicted Esther. This

11:41

happened in September of two thousand and seven,

11:44

roughly a year after Esther fled. New

11:46

York City prosecutors

11:49

charged her with fraud and identity

11:51

theft. They said Esther fraudulently

11:53

obtained a copy of Brooks birth certificate,

11:56

applied for US passport, and

11:58

took out more than one hundred thousand dollars

12:00

in student loans. And with this

12:03

indictment, Esther officially

12:05

became a federal fugitive.

12:08

Meanwhile, forty eight hours the CBS

12:10

News Show picked up the story. They

12:13

decided to do a full hour segment

12:15

on Esther Reid. In fact, they ultimately

12:17

did two segments, and I want

12:20

to share some excerpts from both of them.

12:23

Capture the Queen to Night's

12:25

forty eight Hours mystery,

12:27

the producers hired a professional sleuth

12:30

to track Esther down. My

12:32

name is Stephen Rombaum. I'm a private

12:34

investigator and I am currently

12:36

hunting for us to read. Over

12:39

the course of his career, Stephen had chased

12:42

after some pretty serious bad guys, including

12:44

Nazi war criminals. Now

12:46

Stephen told viewers about his latest target.

12:49

This is a woman that completely reinvented

12:52

herself from being a chubby

12:54

Montana high school dropout

12:57

to an attractive IVY League

12:59

co ed able to conn her way

13:01

into Harvard, into Columbia,

13:04

going to military balls at West Point.

13:07

She is certainly not above using her

13:09

feminine wiles to get whatever she wants.

13:12

So Stephen the private eye, he

13:14

hits the road looking for Esther. It's

13:16

pretty wild, actually, because at this point

13:19

there's the official law enforcement search

13:21

for Esther Reid being led by the Secret

13:23

Service and John Campbell, and

13:26

then there's the made for TV version

13:28

of this search being led by Stephen

13:31

and along with him one of the show's

13:33

hosts, Peter van Zand how do

13:35

you begin, Well, we begin by finding

13:37

out everything we can about her background,

13:39

her alias's, places, where she's

13:41

lived. Rombaum

13:45

heads first to Esther's last

13:47

known address, the Manhattan

13:49

apartment where she was living as

13:51

Brooke Henson, and then

13:54

we see Steve Rombaum going through

13:56

Esther's abandoned possessions. Thank

13:58

goodness, Sir, Landlord saved all of this. This is

14:00

just extraordinary. It's everything

14:03

a private eye could hope for, a treasure

14:06

trove of documents from Esther's

14:08

life as Brooke. She left

14:10

behind her credit card bills,

14:12

her bank statements, her phone bills, countless

14:16

countless leads. So

14:18

Steve is gathering some pretty important

14:20

clues about where Esther might be. Good

14:23

old fashioned detective work. But

14:25

there are other moments when the story feels

14:28

pure tabloid and it's less

14:30

about financial crimes and more

14:32

about Esther's personal life. Here's

14:35

the show's host, Peter van Zant again,

14:37

and some of her targets were the

14:40

men she was dating. How many men do

14:42

you think esther Rita has gone through. I'm aware of

14:44

about a dozen. They talked

14:46

about her like she was some sort of femme fatal,

14:49

and that's kind of the vibe throughout these

14:51

two episodes. The producers

14:53

pick up on the whole spy theory and run

14:56

with it. They get a hold of some instant

14:58

messages between Esther and one

15:00

of her West Point boyfriends. In

15:02

the exchange, the boyfriend says that he's

15:04

been studying maps and timelines

15:07

in his military science class. Esther

15:10

wrote back, I want to see it when

15:12

you're finished. Steve the

15:14

Private Eye gives his analysis

15:16

on this too. This is a

15:18

classic method of espionage,

15:21

using sex and using

15:23

intimacy to get this sort of information.

15:26

I mean, this is Mata Hari. One

15:28

oh one, Mata Hari.

15:32

I want to dive into this reference for a

15:34

sec Mata Hari was an exotic

15:36

dancer who was accused of being a spy

15:39

during World War One. In

15:44

old photos, she's dressed as a belly

15:46

dancer wearing a jewel encrusted bra.

15:49

Doesn't look a thing like Esther Reid, and

15:51

yet there's some really interesting parallels.

15:55

Mata Hari was actually a Dutch woman

15:58

named Margarita Zella.

16:00

She too was running from a troubled past. Parents

16:03

divorced, mom died. She

16:05

was left with relatives she didn't care for, so

16:08

she invented herself. Told

16:10

some she was a Javanese princess

16:13

and others that she was an Indian temple dancer.

16:18

During the war, a French intelligence officer

16:20

became convinced that she was a spy.

16:24

There wasn't a ton of proof, but

16:26

in the end she was executed by a firing

16:28

squad. Since

16:33

then, she's become a legend, a stock

16:36

character, like the mean stepmother

16:38

or the evil CEO. And

16:41

the thing about stock characters is we

16:44

believe in them, We look for them,

16:46

and we call them out even when

16:48

the facts don't add up. Hello,

16:57

yeah, oh great, Okay, I

16:59

think we're destinesses.

17:02

We're going oh if if not, I'm

17:05

not reducing. I

17:08

reached out to Steve Rambaum, the Private

17:10

Eye. I was still wondering about

17:12

the whole spy thing. Like back

17:15

then, how serious were people

17:17

in the media and in law enforcement about

17:20

this espionage theory. They

17:22

were concerned that, you know, maybe she's a spy

17:24

for Iran, Maybe she's a spy for

17:28

this, you know, Russian. Both of those things actually

17:31

came up. I'll confess I left,

17:34

but not everybody laughed. Steve

17:37

says he never really brought into the

17:39

idea that Esther was a spy

17:41

or a master criminal of any kind. I

17:43

mean, you know, this was not

17:46

a young female Bernie

17:49

Madoff who stole millions.

17:51

You're talking about defrauding

17:54

the scholarship system and

17:57

getting a fake birth certificate and

17:59

building a false identity. I

18:02

can introduce you to probably ten thousand

18:04

people who've done who've done

18:06

the same or worse. So I

18:09

asked him, what was it then about the

18:11

ester Reid case that the media was so

18:13

keen on number one, she was a young

18:15

female, that they were able to make

18:17

it look like she was one step

18:20

ahead of the combined

18:22

investigative forces of America,

18:26

which I have to tell you wasn't true because

18:28

federal agents were working on bigger cases

18:31

and didn't think that this was, you

18:33

know, a major national security event

18:35

until everybody made it look like that. And

18:37

then there was the spy story and

18:40

the whole perception that she was a fem fatal,

18:42

not to mention the fact that she had conned the

18:44

ivy leagues. Basically, as

18:47

far as I could tell, it all just

18:49

made for good TV. Steve

18:52

told me that he didn't want to bad mouth

18:54

the media because of all the good he's seen

18:56

it do. I'll be very honest.

18:58

I'm not going to be hypocritical and deny this. I've

19:00

worked with the media dozens

19:02

of times to get important

19:05

and urgent matters,

19:07

you know, into the public eye and kind

19:09

of nudge law enforcement.

19:12

These were cases where kids had gone missing,

19:14

or where Steve is tracking down alleged

19:17

war criminals, important matters

19:19

that had been overlooked, stories

19:21

that Steve felt should be at the

19:23

top of the media food chain. I

19:26

think moving Esther Reid to

19:28

the top of the food chain was,

19:32

you know, a weed bit cynical. Wow.

19:35

Do you feel like you were a part of that at all? Sure?

19:40

Sure, I mean I was working a case.

19:43

I did not say anything during that

19:45

case to anyone that

19:48

was in the slightest bit exaggeration.

19:53

We'll be right back. When

20:05

Steve Rombaumb was filming for forty

20:07

eight hours and criss cross the country

20:10

tracking down Esther Reid, he

20:12

remained confident in his mission. I

20:14

would be very surprised the Freedom

20:16

Finder. If I didn't genuinely

20:18

believe that, I wouldn't be daring enough to say

20:21

it on television. But by the

20:23

time the first forty eight hours special

20:25

aired in December of two thousand and

20:27

seven, Steve hadn't founder and

20:30

the story, which is getting bigger

20:32

and bigger. Around the same time,

20:34

the legendary TV show America's

20:37

Most Wanted also ran a story

20:39

on Esther and some other female

20:41

fugitives too. They called the

20:43

episode Bad Girls. America's

20:46

Most Wanted was a big deal back then,

20:49

especially if you worked in law enforcement. Like

20:52

if you got your case on that show, it

20:55

greatly increased the chances that you'd catch

20:57

your fugitive because so many people

20:59

watched the show and then called in with tips.

21:02

When I spoke with Don Long, the Secret

21:04

Service agent, he told me he was

21:06

actually surprised that Esther made it onto

21:08

the show, which makes sense to

21:10

me. I mean, she was not a domestic

21:13

terrorist, or a serial killer

21:15

or a bank robber, but be

21:18

that as it may, she was now

21:20

on everyone's radar. The fact

21:22

that this was highlighted on America's Most

21:24

Wanted certainly raised

21:27

or elevated the level here within the

21:30

Secret Service. It also

21:32

enlightened me on some investigative

21:35

steps I could take to highlight

21:37

the case even more within my

21:39

own agency. Don talked to his

21:42

superiors at headquarters in DC and

21:44

made the case that Esther should also be on

21:46

the Secret Services Most Wanted list.

21:49

They agreed and put her on the list.

21:52

The way Don saw it, he had a job

21:54

to do, and this helped him do it. The

21:57

more people that are looking for your suspect,

21:59

the better chance you have of finding them. Esther's

22:02

face and her story were now everywhere,

22:05

and the FEDS had made it clear capturing

22:07

her was officially a priority.

22:12

So you're probably wondering at this point what

22:15

was Esther doing while all this was happening,

22:18

Like, how was she processing this media

22:20

circus? Well, the short answer

22:23

is it took a while for the circus to

22:25

get underway. Esther

22:27

had actually been on the run for a year and a

22:29

half by the time the first forty eight Hours

22:32

story ran, and during all

22:34

this time leading up to that, Esther

22:36

cut off all contact with her

22:38

old friends. Did

22:40

you stay in touch with anyone

22:43

during that time? No? Absolutely,

22:45

nobody knew where I was at nothing.

22:50

Did you make new friends? You

22:53

were just like solo with my

22:55

babies? Yes, with two dogs. Wow,

22:58

that's a long time to be solo. Yes,

23:01

it was a very very bad period. Esther

23:05

stayed at cheap rentals and motels, mainly

23:07

in the Midwest. She says

23:10

she squeaked by for

23:12

money. She had this little trick where

23:14

she bought clothing at J. C. Penny on

23:16

sale and then found a way to return

23:19

the merchandise for the full price. She

23:21

says she was just taking advantage of a loophole

23:24

in the system. I think it's safe to

23:26

say it was a scam. During

23:28

this time, she pretty much became a shut

23:31

in. She says she was laying low

23:33

hoping this would all just blow over. And

23:36

to be honest, this is a part of her story

23:38

that I didn't fully get, Like, wasn't

23:41

she googling herself? Part

23:43

of it may have been denial, but Astor

23:45

also told me that she worried that by

23:48

inputting certain search terms about herself

23:50

that she might tip off the authorities and

23:53

give away her location, so she

23:55

didn't do it. Then one

23:57

day, she was up in Michigan staying

24:00

at a motel. She was in her room

24:03

with her dogs watching TV when

24:05

a very brief segment on Fox News

24:08

came on featuring her. And

24:11

I remember seeing my picture

24:14

and it's saying Esther read

24:17

and I was like, oh shit, like

24:20

literally, oh shit, this isn't

24:22

going to go away. Esther

24:24

says his segment was short, but it

24:26

told her enough. Told her that the

24:28

authorities were looking for her, and

24:31

they had started connecting the dots, uncovering

24:33

at least some of the aliases that she'd used.

24:36

I knew they would probably be able to figure out

24:38

that I wasn't Brookentson, but I didn't think they

24:41

would connect Brookentson to Esther read.

24:45

Up until then, she had believed that her aliases

24:48

would help keep her safe. She held

24:50

on to all of her paperwork, all

24:52

of her fraudulently obtained ideas.

24:54

Yeah, I hold on to everything you had, your

24:57

like Jason Bourne wallet with all your

24:59

IDs. Yes, it was hidden in

25:01

the bottom of my trunk right,

25:03

always kept it. But she realized that none

25:05

of that would keep her safe any longer. In

25:08

fact, those ideas were now a liability.

25:11

Immediately, I went and cut up every piece

25:13

of idea I had on me, and I cut

25:16

it all up like the little scissors, into tiny

25:18

little pieces and flushed them. Wow,

25:20

you were really pretty well. I thought like they might be coming

25:23

right this moment, you know, like I

25:25

don't handle panic very well. Clearly,

25:30

there were so many instances where Esther could

25:32

have come clean, turned herself

25:34

in quietly without much fanfare,

25:37

and maybe straightened everything out. But

25:39

not now. So you

25:42

cut all these up and flushed

25:45

them on the toilet. And then what I

25:48

think? Then? I just thought on the bed and panicked.

25:57

Esther didn't know the full extent of it or

25:59

how it had happened. But this thing,

26:02

this story, it had grown building

26:05

momentum like a tsunami. A

26:07

local TV report ring Greenville, South

26:10

Carolina, had tipped off Tom Colbert,

26:13

the gem Hunter, who then brought it to

26:15

the national media. Before long,

26:17

it was a newspaper cover story, then

26:20

fought her for cable news, and finally

26:23

a full blown hour on one of America's

26:25

best known TV shows. There

26:28

were no longer any easy outs, no

26:31

explaining this away. Yeah,

26:33

sure, maybe she was no Bernie made

26:35

off. And yeah, perhaps the espionage

26:38

theory was just that a theory,

26:40

but at this point didn't matter. The

26:43

public was now hooked, and so were

26:45

people in positions of power. They

26:47

were all looking for the mystery girl, the

26:50

Mata Hari and Esther she

26:52

was it. The question now

26:55

was there any place left for her to hide?

27:01

Next time on deep Cover, I

27:04

mean, we were chasing her around the country,

27:06

and you know, we would look each other out. How are

27:09

we not finding this young

27:11

girl who you know, stole some identities.

27:14

But good grief, guys, we're the federal government here. We

27:16

ought to be able to do that. Deep

27:34

Cover is produced by Amy Gaines and

27:37

Jacob Smith. It's edited

27:39

by Karen shakurge mastering

27:41

by Jake Gorski. Our show

27:43

art was designed by Sean Karney. Original

27:46

scoring at our theme was composed

27:48

by Luis Gara, fact checking

27:50

by Arthur Gomperts.

27:53

Special thanks to Mia Lobell, Greta

27:55

Cone, and Jacob Weissberg. I'm

27:59

Jake Calbern

28:16

s