0:15

Bushkin.

0:18

It all started with a rumor that went like

0:21

this. Back in nineteen

0:23

eighty nine, at a high school prom,

0:25

a white teenager boasted that he

0:28

had just committed murder. He

0:30

showed off a fresh tattoo as a badge

0:32

of honor for killing a black man.

0:34

That was the rumor, anyhow, and no one took

0:36

it seriously until two thousand and four, when

0:39

two federal agents began looking into

0:41

it. But here's the thing. Unlike

0:44

almost every other murder case, in

0:46

this case, the agents had a

0:49

suspect but no idea who the

0:51

victim was. In the new season

0:53

of deep Cover The Nameless Man, Pulitzer

0:56

Prize winning journalist Jake Halpern tells

0:58

the epic tale of the two federal

1:01

agents who investigate the murder

1:03

and the story of a family searching for answers

1:06

about why their brother was killed. These

1:09

two storylines collide in a court

1:11

ruined Philadelphia, where murder, memory,

1:15

and morality go on trial. Today

1:18

you'll hear a preview from the show, and if

1:20

you want to hear more, you can listen to Deep Cover

1:22

The Nameless Man wherever you get

1:24

your podcasts, And if you want to hear the

1:27

entire season, right now add free

1:29

sign up for Pushkin Plus in Apple

1:32

Podcasts or by visiting pushkin

1:34

dot Fm, slash Plus.

1:38

Here's Jake.

1:40

I've been a journalist for twenty five years

1:42

and there's this little ritual that I do at

1:44

the end of every interview. When

1:46

it works, it shakes everything

1:49

up, creates a bit of chaos.

1:51

I call it the hail Mary of questions.

1:55

It's like a last ditch effort to find

1:57

something anything that I might have missed.

2:00

I just say, hey, what's

2:02

the question I should have asked you. Most

2:05

of the time, like ninety percent

2:08

of the time, there is I don't

2:10

know. I think we covered it all.

2:12

But every once in

2:14

a while a person says, well,

2:18

there is one thing we didn't talk about,

2:21

and then they drop a bomb,

2:24

say something totally unexpected,

2:26

And at that moment I always imagine

2:28

a door creaking open. That,

2:34

in a nutshell, is what this season

2:36

is about. It's about a guy, two

2:39

guys actually, who come upon just

2:41

such a door, and on the other side

2:43

of it is a very dark secret.

2:52

These two guys were federal officers.

2:54

One of them was an FBI agent based in

2:56

Delaware named Scott Duffy and

3:00

Scott he has his own

3:02

version of the hail Mary question.

3:05

One of the things that like I will

3:07

routinely do is is

3:10

is there anything that we

3:12

should be looking at that

3:15

could be investigated that

3:18

we're not looking at.

3:20

Back in two thousand and four, Scott

3:22

posed this very question to a

3:24

woman named Patricia Miller. At

3:27

the time, Scott was visiting Patricia at

3:29

her home in Delaware to learn more

3:31

about her ex boyfriend, a guy named

3:33

Tom Guybison. There had

3:35

been some rumors that Tom, her ex,

3:38

was plotting to go after a local cop,

3:40

and the FBI had asked Scott to look

3:42

into this to do a so called

3:45

threat assessment. Scott

3:47

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

3:50

but before leaving, he tossed out

3:52

his hal Mary question, and

3:55

that's when she told him about the

3:57

murder.

3:58

She mentions, well, there is this alleged

4:01

murder to have taken place that

4:04

when he was in high school,

4:07

that he had committed ad for a black

4:10

man in order to gain

4:12

access into this white supremacy

4:15

group within Delaware.

4:17

Patricia goes on to say that Tom, her

4:20

ex, was proud of this murder.

4:23

It happened back when he was younger. A teenager,

4:25

but even years later, he bragged

4:27

about what he'd done, how he'd

4:29

driven into Philadelphia late at night

4:32

and shot a pedestrian, a random

4:34

black man, all allegedly

4:36

so we could earn some street cred as

4:39

a racist skinhead. Scott

4:47

pressed Patricia for details. Was

4:50

there any evidence? Did she have any proof?

4:53

According to Scott, she talked about

4:55

a newspaper article from the time about

4:58

the man's death and how it

5:00

was described as a drug related

5:03

killing. She said that Tom held

5:05

onto this article for a while so we could

5:07

brag about it, intimating

5:10

no one knows.

5:11

But I did this.

5:13

I killed this guy. That's

5:15

what Patricia said. Anyhow, all

5:18

of this got Scott thinking, if

5:21

this murder really happened, maybe

5:23

it wasn't so random after all. Maybe

5:26

it was predicated on a callous, cynical

5:28

piece of logic that no one

5:31

would care about this victim, or

5:33

at least no one in a position of power

5:35

or authority.

5:37

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

5:39

cameras, so let's move on, And

5:42

that's what Tom would be banking on, and

5:44

just be a drug deal gone bad

5:46

that bothered me, that bothered

5:49

me.

5:51

Scott may have been upset about all this, but

5:54

he was also at a loss. How

5:56

do you investigate a murder when you

5:58

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

6:01

Scott and his partner paid a visit to the Free

6:03

Public Library of Philadelphia. They

6:06

wanted to find that newspaper article

6:08

covering the victim's death. Scott

6:10

recalled Patricia, saying it was in the Philadelphia

6:13

Inquirer. They felt

6:15

like if they could just somehow

6:17

get a hold of that article, it might answer

6:20

so many questions.

6:22

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

6:25

this give us a location? Would this

6:27

give us a date? Because we still didn't have a

6:29

date. But there's got to be countless articles

6:32

people that were just randomly killed in Philadelphia.

6:35

Not only countless articles, but then you realize

6:37

there are other newspapers. What if she's wrong, it's

6:39

not the Philadelphia Inquiry. It

6:41

sounds like a fool's Errand I'm

6:44

glad we did it. I'm glad

6:46

we made the trip, but I

6:49

don't think we found anything nothing.

6:52

So game over right, I

6:55

mean, this murder, if

6:57

it even happened, would have occurred approximately

7:00

fifteen years prior. It

7:02

was a cold case. And

7:04

yet Scott and his partner,

7:06

a guy named Terry Mortimer. They

7:08

had this feeling that if

7:10

they persisted.

7:12

We might uncover something we're

7:16

destined to uncover. That

7:18

may sound corny, but I

7:23

felt something. I think Terry felt

7:25

something, and we didn't know

7:27

quite what, and it could have been absolutely

7:30

taking us down another rabbit hole of something

7:32

that's just never could be proven.

7:34

So what do you do with that?

7:36

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

7:38

that's.

7:38

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

7:40

to your boss and say that me and Terry feel

7:42

a sense of destiny here right now.

7:47

So this was mission creep big time.

7:49

Plus it's not like there was anyone that

7:51

they knew of anyhow demanding justice

7:54

for the victim.

7:55

Terry and I could have easily said

7:58

we're done and let's

8:00

walk away. Nobody's going to be calling us

8:02

to say, hey, Terry

8:04

and Scott, do you have any updates

8:06

for us?

8:08

You know we're waiting. Haven't heard back from

8:10

you?

8:10

That was missing, But is

8:13

somewhere in the back of your head, are

8:15

you imagining that, like there is a

8:18

mother or brother who's

8:20

trying to understand or figure out what may have

8:23

happened to their loved one that was left

8:26

for dead. I think that aspect

8:32

was the driving

8:34

factor. We couldn't

8:37

just leave it alone. Somehow

8:40

it was making sense that

8:43

Terry and I were put together for this

8:45

very reason of

8:49

solving this hate

8:51

crime, this murder that took place

8:53

on the streets of Philadelphia because

8:55

somebody was black, that

8:58

we've felt like we

9:02

had a duty to this person,

9:04

and somehow this person was.

9:08

Drawn us.

9:11

And that's it. You can

9:13

almost hear it, the door

9:15

creaking open. This

9:20

is a story about what happens when

9:23

two guys uncover a clue about

9:25

something terrible, something evil,

9:28

a crime for which there has been no justice,

9:31

and they have nothing to go on. They

9:34

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

9:37

don't even have a name. I'm

9:53

Jake Halper and this is Deep

9:55

Cover Season four, The

9:57

Nameless Man, Episode

10:11

one. The rumor, so

10:23

to recap, Scott and Terry's

10:25

investigation did not start off as

10:27

a quest to solve a cold case now

10:30

or find a murder victim. Originally,

10:33

back in two thousand and four, they

10:35

were asked to do a threat assessment on

10:37

tom Gybison. That's why

10:39

they interviewed the ex girlfriend. At

10:42

the time, Tom Gobison was thirty three

10:44

years old. He was in federal prison

10:47

on gun charges, but he

10:49

was about to be released, and the Feds

10:51

had some intel that Tom might

10:53

be seeking retribution, planning

10:56

to harm the cop who'd put him behind

10:58

bars. This is why the

11:00

FEDS were called in, and initially

11:02

this was Scott and Terry's top priority

11:05

to determine if this threat was real. But

11:08

they came up short and at some point stopped

11:10

looking into Tom for the threat assessment. But

11:13

they still have this rumor, this side

11:16

story that some fifteen

11:18

years prior, back in the nineteen

11:20

eighties, when Tom was still in high school,

11:23

that he may have killed a black man in

11:25

Philadelphia.

11:28

Who this man might be, They

11:30

had no idea, but they

11:32

kept poking around. They

11:34

wanted to see what they could learn about

11:36

Tom Guybison and if

11:38

he had any connections to white

11:40

supremacist gangs. And

11:44

this is where Terry Mortimer, Scott's

11:46

partner, really came into play.

11:49

And this is thing about gangs is there

11:51

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

11:53

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

11:55

but they aren't. Kind of thing.

11:57

Terry was a special agent with the ATF,

12:00

the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms

12:03

and Explosives. He worked

12:05

in intelligence and he focused

12:07

heavily on guns and gangs.

12:11

So Terry wanted to know what

12:13

was Tom's deal.

12:16

I knew he of course was imprisoned obviously

12:18

for gun charges. You know, spent a good stint

12:20

in prison federally.

12:24

He had the I guess prior contact with the law.

12:26

Terry learned that Tom was first arrested

12:29

at the age of fourteen on a deadly

12:31

weapons charge. A few

12:33

years later, when he was nineteen, he

12:35

was convicted of reckless endangerment after

12:38

he shot a gun at a moving car full

12:40

of people. At

12:44

the time, a local newspaper in Wilmington,

12:46

Delaware ran an article on Tom.

12:49

It described him as a hulking weightlifter with

12:51

a number of tattoos, including

12:54

a clenched fist on the top of his scalp

12:57

and the words born in the USA

12:59

on the back of his neck. In the

13:02

article, Guy Bison says at one time

13:04

he was a blue collar skinhead.

13:07

Tom defined this as quote buying

13:09

American, not doing drugs,

13:12

and not drinking. To

13:14

be clear, there are different types of

13:16

skinheads. Not all are racists,

13:19

But in the late eighties and early nineties,

13:21

skinheads were emerging as the face of

13:23

violent right wing nationalism in the US.

13:26

Their notoriety seemed to really pique

13:28

at that time. One headline

13:30

from eighty nine and the New York Times read,

13:33

violent racism attracts new breed

13:36

skinheads. So

13:39

the possibility that a racist skinhead

13:41

might have orchestrated murder it was

13:44

plausible, but that

13:46

alone wasn't a whole lot to go

13:48

on. Scott

13:53

and Terry decided to focus on what Patricia,

13:56

the ex girlfriend, had told them.

13:58

They honed in on two clues in particular.

14:01

The first clue involved a tattoo.

14:04

Patricia mentioned that Tom had a tattoo

14:07

of a spiderweb on his own with

14:09

a tear drop in it, and

14:12

that he liked to brag that he'd gotten

14:14

it, essentially as a badge

14:16

of honor for killing a black

14:18

man in Philadelphia.

14:20

I know enough about gang members is sometimes

14:23

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

14:26

I get a tattoo and purported to be something that really

14:28

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

14:30

a little bit.

14:31

Terry was skeptical that Tom had killed

14:33

someone just to join this skinhead

14:36

gang. Maybe tom was

14:38

just posing, building up his rap

14:40

as a really violent dude. I

14:42

mean, honestly, maybe this whole

14:44

thing was bullshit, right.

14:46

I couldn't really establish, you know,

14:48

intelligence wise, if Tommy was part of a skinhead

14:51

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

14:53

self described skinhead.

14:55

And this raised the question, would

14:57

a self described skinhead

15:00

acting on his own, really murder

15:02

someone for what? So he could give himself

15:04

a tattoo? And all of this while he

15:06

was still in high school seemed

15:08

like stretch. Okay,

15:11

here's the second clue, and it was

15:13

a promising one. According

15:15

to the ex girlfriend, Patricia, tom

15:18

had bragged about having an accomplice,

15:21

a guy named Craig Peterson. Allegedly

15:24

they orchestrated this murder together

15:26

and both of them got those same spider

15:29

web tattoos. Now,

15:32

if this was true, and if

15:34

they could find Craig and if

15:36

he would talk, well that'd be huge.

15:39

But that was a lot of ifs.

15:42

So they started combing through public records

15:45

asking around about this Craig guy,

15:47

the supposed accomplice, and

15:49

here's what they found. Craig was

15:51

an old buddy from Tom's high school days.

15:54

He also identified specifically

15:56

as a blue collar skinhead. Craig

16:00

had grown up in Delaware, but as

16:02

far as anyone could tell, he wasn't living

16:04

there anymore. Seemed like he kind

16:06

of disappeared. And

16:09

then they got a lead.

16:11

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

16:14

like a remote part of Vermont. And

16:16

I remember, I said, this

16:19

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

16:21

said, that cat from Wilmington, Delaware

16:23

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

16:25

up there. Man, I mean, that's a cold place. Bro.

16:29

So they put on their winter coats and

16:31

headed north. It

16:36

was now December of two thousand and four.

16:39

It had been about a month since they first heard

16:41

the rumor, and now here

16:43

they were in the car, driving

16:45

into the chill of a Vermont winter. Temperature

16:48

was hovering around freezing that night, and

16:51

as they sped along through the green

16:53

mountains, past the darkened forests

16:55

of evergreens, they had

16:57

no idea what to expect, Like,

17:01

what are you hoping to find out?

17:03

Hey? At this point,

17:05

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

17:08

he's got to give us something. Maybe because we're again

17:10

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

17:13

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

17:15

we're done.

17:17

Terry recalls on that drive up to Vermont,

17:20

they talked a lot about why they couldn't

17:22

or shouldn't give up on the case.

17:25

So we had great discussions, and that's

17:27

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

17:29

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

17:32

This is like, literally, we didn't

17:34

do this, We couldn't planned.

17:35

This, and there was a reason

17:37

for this feeling. Turns out there

17:40

was a strange symmetry to their lives

17:42

that dated back before they ever met.

17:46

So we're gonna leave Scott and

17:48

Terry in the car heading up to Vermont

17:51

and turn back the clock. For

17:58

Scott, it all started when he graduated

18:00

high school. He wanted to be a cop,

18:03

but by his own estimation at

18:05

the time, he was too small, too

18:07

skinny, he wages ninety three

18:09

pounds, so instead he

18:12

opted to become a priest. He

18:15

was just seventeen years old when he decided

18:17

to join the seminary, but right

18:19

away when he put on that priest's

18:21

color, it was transformative,

18:24

both for him and also for the

18:26

way that other people looked at him.

18:29

I would be sitting in a pew, maybe praying

18:31

in a church. Somebody would come by and

18:33

start confessing, and people

18:36

just start pouring their souls out to me.

18:39

In these moments, Scott was learning how

18:41

to listen, how to suspend judgment,

18:44

how to be patient as people grappled

18:46

with some burdensome secret, inching

18:48

their way towards the precipice of

18:51

truth. He spent five years

18:53

training to become a priest, but

18:55

dreams are stubborn things, and

18:58

his didn't go away. He

19:00

left the Seminary to become a cop

19:03

and then an FBI agent.

19:05

It is harder to leave than it is

19:07

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

19:10

now you have ventured this relationship with God,

19:13

and now you're afraid of pissing him off.

19:16

For Scott, this shifting careers seemed

19:18

like a natural progression for

19:21

him. The seminary prepared him for this

19:23

work, prepared him to listen

19:25

and see his way through a messy

19:28

world fraught with moral dilemmas.

19:31

But when he'd tell people about his past,

19:33

how he'd almost become a priest.

19:35

They're like, oh, my gosh, I can

19:38

never imagine the two are

19:40

totally opposed to each other. And I never understood

19:43

that.

19:44

But there was at least one person

19:46

who got it completely. Terry.

19:50

I went to college at a very

19:52

small Bible College and

19:54

was preparing for ministry.

19:56

From a young age. Terry felt destined

19:59

for the ministry, but later on,

20:01

when he was in Bible College, he had

20:03

second thoughts. As graduation

20:05

approached, a friend asked him, you

20:08

ever consider becoming a cop? The

20:10

short answer was no, But on

20:13

a whim, Terry applied and met.

20:15

With a recruiter.

20:16

And this guy was a He was a

20:18

hardcore dude. I mean he he looked

20:20

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

20:23

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

20:25

to do what? Like you're from Bible

20:28

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

20:30

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

20:32

sir, I have no idea.

20:34

Terry was undeterred. He became

20:36

a cop and then an agent with the ATF.

20:39

And this was not a consolation

20:42

job for Terry. He's very clear about

20:44

this. He feels that God

20:46

had a purpose for him in law enforcement.

20:50

And that's the thing you got to understand.

20:52

About both Terry and Scott. These

20:54

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

20:58

What they see is much closer to fate

21:00

or God's will. And

21:03

when they became partners, it all

21:05

seemed meant to be. Here were two

21:07

guys who early on too skinny

21:10

and earnest to be cops, guys

21:12

who intended to become men of God. Different

21:14

in their own ways. Terry grew

21:16

up in a gritty river town in Pennsylvania,

21:19

and he kind of feels like a dude.

21:21

You'd play around a mini golf with, grab

21:24

a burger, have a laugh, and then realize

21:27

only belatedly, that you told him

21:29

more than you intended to. Scott,

21:31

well, he's more formal. He's

21:34

from Connecticut. Are really Yankee, a

21:36

man who chooses his words carefully,

21:38

a patient priest who knows how

21:41

to nurse a long pregnant pause. The

21:43

two of them worked well together, complimented

21:46

one another, the Pennsylvania pastor

21:49

and the New England priest,

21:54

and I've been calling them partners, but they

21:57

only ever worked together on this one

21:59

investigation. It was an

22:01

unusual collaboration between the FBI

22:04

and the ATF, and they didn't choose

22:06

one another. They were kind of paired

22:08

ran though neither

22:10

of them would say it was random.

22:12

You know, as we started realize we wait a minute, we're we're

22:17

on a mission from God.

22:18

But yep,

22:21

just like the Blues Brothers.

22:23

We didn't really say that, I'm just making it up, but that

22:25

was the feeling was like, hey, no,

22:27

but it was like, no joke, Like

22:29

this is a real deal. Like it's almost

22:31

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

22:33

what is going on here?

22:36

So yeah, even though all

22:38

they had was a rumor of a long forgotten

22:41

crime that might not have even

22:43

happened, these two almost

22:46

ministers, the God Squad, as

22:48

it were, still felt certain

22:50

that they were here in this car

22:52

heading north into Vermont for

22:55

a reason, and they were convinced

22:57

that something important was waiting for

23:00

them. That's when we get

23:02

back. Both

23:26

Scott and Terry had this hunch

23:29

that there was a reason Craig, the alleged

23:31

accomplice, was up in Vermont,

23:34

up in the mountains, that he was

23:36

hiding. But if

23:38

so, who is he hiding from

23:41

and why? In any case,

23:44

they knew they had to be careful. They'd

23:46

learned from police reports that in the past

23:49

Craig had helped Tom clean and store

23:51

a whole arsenal of weapons. Why

23:53

did he do this Well, Tom had a

23:55

felony on his record, which meant he

23:58

wasn't supposed to have any guns, so his

24:00

buddy Craig helped him out.

24:02

This suggested two things to the agents.

24:05

One Craig was loyal. He

24:07

ended up going to prison for storwing those weapons,

24:10

And two, Craig was probably

24:12

handy with a gun. The

24:14

God Squad was still hatching their plan

24:17

as they rolled into town.

24:23

It was late.

24:26

I feel like we were closing in on midnight,

24:28

and we didn't want to put it off. We

24:31

were just so full of energy.

24:35

It was late for a door knock, very

24:37

late, but their excitement eclips

24:40

their caution, so instead

24:42

of waiting until morning, they drove

24:44

right to his house. Their plan

24:46

was to say hello, introduce themselves,

24:49

and arrange to have a formal sit down

24:51

the following day.

24:54

And when we finally found where

24:56

he lives, he lives literally

24:58

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

25:00

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

25:03

I remember being very

25:06

very dark. I

25:09

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

25:12

as soon as we got out of our cars, I

25:15

think we got out a few feet and

25:17

then floodlights I just remember,

25:20

floodlights like we were in a stadium,

25:23

just shined upon us.

25:26

I mean it was like bright as day.

25:29

He had hooked up these spotlights and trees illuminating

25:32

the whole area, and we could see his house

25:34

dimly up the top of the hill. I think

25:36

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

25:38

man, if he had any ill intent, he

25:40

we'd be dead men right now.

25:42

That told me a lot that.

25:45

Wow, you

25:48

know what is inside this person

25:50

that he has this going

25:52

on where he wants to

25:54

be made well aware of anybody arriving.

25:58

I'm thinking, man, he

26:00

does not want to He doesn't want to be found.

26:08

Scott and Tears start trudging up

26:10

the icy, snow covered hill. They

26:12

can hear dogs barking from within the house.

26:15

Eventually they get up to the front porch

26:18

and Craig walks out. He's medium

26:21

height and stocky with a closely

26:23

cropped haircut. Scott

26:25

calls out to.

26:26

Him, Craig Peterson, you don't

26:28

know us, but we're here. I'm going to

26:30

talk to you Federal agents. Can

26:32

we approach you

26:34

can. We come up to your house, and within

26:40

ten seconds just a very friendly,

26:44

inviting demeanor, come on up and

26:46

come into my house. This is a sigh

26:48

of relief of that, but definitely a

26:50

sigh of release. First and foremost, we've achieved

26:53

our first goal is finding him, achieved

26:56

our second goal of being

26:59

able to be face to face with

27:01

him. Our third goal was

27:04

to get him to come

27:06

and speak with us at a different location.

27:08

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

27:11

Craig invites them inside, he introduces

27:13

them to his fiance It's all

27:15

very normal and Craig he

27:18

seems unfazed.

27:19

He was very relaxed, very

27:22

gracious. I mean, just almost opposite of

27:24

what I was expecting.

27:26

Scott and Terry explain that they just

27:28

have a few questions for him about an old

27:31

matter from the past. They keep

27:33

it deliberately vague, and they ask

27:35

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

27:38

down at the barracks where the Vermont State Police

27:40

are stationed. Craig's like, sure,

27:43

I'll meet you tomorrow after I'm done

27:45

with work. All the while,

27:48

Terry is studying both Craig and

27:50

his fiancee trying to get

27:52

a read on them.

27:53

His fiance was way

27:56

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

27:58

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

28:00

not stressed at all, Like there's no stress

28:02

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

28:04

unbelievable.

28:06

The next day, Scott and Terry are down at

28:09

the barracks of the Vermont State Police and

28:11

they're just hoping Craig actually shows

28:14

up.

28:14

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

28:17

the odds he's gonna show up? Like, and I was like fifty

28:19

to fifty.

28:19

Yeah, But he

28:22

shows up affect. He's it early, and

28:24

after a little chit chat, they all

28:26

sit down and get to business. Scott

28:29

explains that they're here about Tom

28:31

Guybison.

28:33

Craig.

28:34

We've made a long trip and

28:37

we've been investigating Tom

28:40

for a possible threat, and

28:43

during the course of that investigation, we've

28:47

learned that a story was told.

28:50

This is the story they'd heard from Patricia,

28:53

Tom's ex girlfriend, that some

28:55

fifteen years prior, Craig and Tom

28:57

had been skinheads, that they'd killed

28:59

a black man in Philadelphia and

29:01

then gotten tattoos to commemorate

29:04

what they'd done.

29:06

And Craig just looked at us, shocked,

29:15

almost a sense of I

29:19

can't believe that

29:22

this is coming back. And

29:27

then he sat back in his chair and

29:31

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

29:34

about.

29:37

Scott keeps pressing gently, very

29:39

much playing the role of the New England priest,

29:41

that he almost was concealing

29:44

any signs of judgment, just patiently

29:47

probing.

29:48

Well, at the

29:51

very least, would you admit

29:53

you have the tattoo? Why

29:55

would they lie about the story?

29:57

Would they?

29:58

Would they also lie about the tattoo?

30:02

So would you raise

30:04

your would you raise your

30:06

sleeve? And

30:09

so begrudgingly he did. He showed

30:11

us his tattoo.

30:14

A gothic looking spider web in black

30:17

ink, with the elbow directly at

30:19

the center, similar to what Patricia

30:21

had described. Craig admitted

30:24

that he and Tom both had tattoos

30:26

like this, that they'd gotten them together

30:28

back in high school, and Greg admitted

30:30

that back in his youth, yeah, he'd

30:33

been his skinhead, but it had

30:35

just been a phase.

30:38

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

30:41

and I don't believe that stuff anymore, you

30:43

know, man, I'm up here, I'm working hard man. Guys,

30:45

I work every day, hourly

30:48

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

30:50

new life. I don't want any part

30:52

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

30:54

can't overemphasize. I'm

30:56

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

30:59

at all.

31:00

At this point. Despite the fact that Craig

31:02

had this tattoo, which offered

31:04

some corroboration, Scott

31:06

and Terry basically have to let him go. They

31:09

say, hey, let's keep in touch.

31:12

If you ever come down to Delaware, please let us

31:14

know. We'd like to keep talking.

31:16

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

31:18

Jake, no one's ever gonna say yeah, yeah, yeah, I look

31:21

your eyes up. If I'm ever down Delaware, sure, like we're gonna

31:23

have a dinner together. I'm thinking nobody

31:25

does that. Nobody wants to talk to their least

31:27

favorite FBI and ATF agent in

31:29

the world about a homicide they didn't commit.

31:32

In Terry's mind, it was weird

31:34

how friendly he was, and

31:36

it also seemed difficult to imagine

31:39

that this guy right here, this laid

31:41

back electrician living in Vermont, could

31:44

be capable of orchestrating a murder.

31:47

If the dude was in the car with

31:50

the and they did a homicide. Well however

31:53

went down whoever pulled the trigger. Thinking,

31:56

I'm not seeing it. I mean, if

31:58

it did happen and he was in the very car,

32:01

I see nothing nonverbal in this guy. There's

32:03

no stress, there's no deception. I'm

32:06

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

32:08

I'm looking at everything. I'm thinking, this

32:10

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

32:13

So they say goodbye to Craig, They

32:16

thank the Vermont State Troopers. They

32:18

walk out of the barracks, get in their car,

32:21

and head home, all the

32:23

while trying to make sense of what

32:25

they've just learned.

32:27

And I said, Scott, I don't

32:29

think it happened, man. He because,

32:31

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

32:34

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

32:36

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

32:38

I'm telling you that dude is way too cool. And

32:41

Scott he goes, nah, I

32:43

kind of think something's there.

32:44

Man, this happened, and

32:49

we're definitely not stopping.

32:51

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

32:53

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

32:56

After this time passes about

32:59

a year and a half, and during

33:01

this stretch very little happens.

33:03

In this case, Craig

33:05

keeps living his quiet life up in the Vermont

33:08

Mountains. Occasionally the God

33:10

Squad gives him a call just to check

33:12

in, but Craig never tells him anything

33:14

new. Meanwhile,

33:17

Tom Godbison finishes serving his time

33:19

in federal prison. He's released,

33:21

goes back to living in Delaware, where

33:24

he seems to stay out of trouble. Then,

33:26

one day in April of two thousand

33:29

and six, the God Squad gets a

33:31

phone call from Craig.

33:34

Craig says, Hey, basically, I'm

33:36

coming down to see my mom. You

33:39

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

33:41

incredulous the dude is volunteering.

33:44

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

33:46

been. There's no subpoenas as though arrest,

33:48

there's those search warrants. Nothing. He's got to think

33:50

he Scott free.

33:52

Are you Are you pretty surprised to get this phone

33:54

call?

33:55

Yeah?

33:55

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

33:58

doesn't make any sense to me, But I

34:01

honestly, I literally felt like, does

34:05

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

34:07

some things that are miraculous. They don't

34:10

look miraculous, but they literally are miraculous.

34:12

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

34:14

it doesn't happen.

34:16

Terry and Scott are determined to make the most

34:18

of this meeting, and they go

34:20

for a new strategy. They've tried the

34:22

whole good cop routine and it hasn't

34:25

worked, not really, so

34:28

time to apply a little pressure. They

34:30

get a subpoena requiring Craig

34:32

to testify before a grand jury

34:35

about the murder that allegedly took place.

34:37

This is no joke. The subpoena will

34:40

put Craig on the spot because

34:42

lying before a grand jury is a serious

34:44

offense. They can land you in prison for years.

34:47

But remember they still have pretty

34:49

much nothing on Craig at this point, so

34:52

the subpoena, it's kind of a

34:54

bluff. What's your mindset

34:56

going into that meeting.

34:59

Our mindset is this, we

35:03

had a subpoena, We're

35:05

gonna give it to him. You always have

35:08

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

35:10

will of the room, no more postponements. This

35:12

is now going to be the make it or break

35:14

it.

35:16

So Craig shows up at the FBI's

35:18

offices in Wilmington, Delaware. He's

35:20

got no idea that there's a subpoena

35:23

waiting for him. What happens

35:25

next we pieced together from talking to

35:27

the agents and reading their report

35:30

from that day. Initially,

35:32

it's all smiles. Terry keeps the whole

35:34

thing really upbeat.

35:36

Hey, we thank you for coming down. This is

35:38

awesome. You know,

35:40

we really appreciate it.

35:42

They asked Craig again about the rumor

35:45

of the murder down in Philadelphia. They

35:47

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

35:49

us the truth, and this

35:52

time, instead of denying the whole

35:54

thing outright, Craig concedes

35:56

that maybe back at the time,

35:58

there'd been some chatter about this.

36:01

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

36:03

that someone said we did a homicide.

36:05

But man, that's now, that's nothing

36:07

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

36:10

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

36:13

maybe maybe Tommy said that's gonna build our

36:15

rep a little bit.

36:17

In other words, a bit of bragging, but

36:19

nothing more than that. The

36:21

agents push Craig tell him

36:24

we believe a homicide occurred and

36:26

that you participated in it. Eventually,

36:29

when the meeting is almost over, the

36:31

hand Craig the subpoena and

36:34

kind of hold their breath.

36:36

And again we're shooting blanks. We have nothing

36:38

right. Well, his whole demeanor changed when

36:41

he got to subpoena. He's like what the

36:44

stress right, went from like zero

36:46

to like he's he's hitting about a ten.

36:50

That meeting ends without a breakthrough.

36:53

Craig didn't admit to anything, but

36:55

a few days later he calls

36:57

them back says he wants to meet again,

37:00

have another sit down. So

37:03

they reconvene, and at

37:05

this meeting, right off the

37:07

bat, the mood is ten.

37:12

When he arrived, I

37:15

could tell he was depleted, shaken.

37:20

His whole body had changed to a

37:23

defeatist demeanor.

37:26

He was like completely complete

37:29

hundred degree change. And he

37:32

literally it's hard to describe. It

37:34

was literally like an invisible

37:37

hand was pushing him down in the chair. He

37:39

physically got smaller. I saw him

37:42

shrink like like like he was like getting

37:44

deflated. He started sweating,

37:48

beads of sweat were popping out.

37:51

You could feel the tension, but you

37:53

can also feel like he's

37:58

about to say something, and then

38:01

he's He

38:03

says, I'll tell you everything.

38:06

I'll tell you everything. I'll

38:09

tell you everything. And

38:11

at this moment it seemed like

38:14

maybe, just maybe

38:16

they've been right all along not

38:19

to give up on this, and that

38:21

the truth was finally at

38:23

hand. Coming

38:29

up this season on deep Cover,

38:32

we have to do our job and

38:34

we have to find out who

38:37

did they kill.

38:38

Not that any murder isn't disturbing,

38:40

but this particular

38:43

murder and the reason for it, the hate.

38:46

This was a hate crime.

38:50

I believe Tom guy as Soon is innocent. They

38:52

had no physical evidence, they had no gun,

38:55

they had nothing.

38:57

We didn't like the speculation the

39:00

family, and I thought that this would

39:02

be good if we found

39:04

least what happened to them. Can't do nothing

39:06

about it, can't bring them back, but find

39:09

out the truth.

39:35

Deep Cover is produced by Amy Gaines

39:37

McQuaid and Jacob Smith. It's

39:39

edited by Karen SCHAKERJI mastering

39:42

by Jake Gorski. Our show

39:44

art was designed by Sean Carney. Original

39:47

scoring in our theme was composed

39:49

by Luis Gara. Fact checking

39:51

by Arthur Gomberts. Our

39:53

story consultant was James Foreman.

39:56

Jr. Special thanks

39:58

to Jerry Williams, Sarah Nix, Greta

40:00

Cone and Jake Flanagan. I'm

40:03

Jake Albert

40:10

something