WEBVTT - Faking Your Own Death: We All Do It, But Why? 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:07.680 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:13.720 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:16.360 shock and it's just us because we don't know where 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:18.959 Jerry is. But that's okay, because this is stuff you 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:19.439 should do. 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:27.240 Oh well, Jerry may have engaged in pseudoside because she's 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:30.080 so tired of working with us. Yeah, then she didn't 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:32.960 want to tell us. Yeah, that's one reason somebody might 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:35.879 want to get out of their life or you know, 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:38.560 not for real. But that's what pseudoside is. It's spaking 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:39.120 your own death. 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:42.640 Yeah, and that definitely does sound like something Jerry would do. 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:45.479 Yeah, Like she couldn't bring herself to tell us, so 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:48.080 she's like, well maybe I could just disappear. 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:51.239 Right, So, yes, pseudoside I'd never known that before. But 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:54.720 pseudo side is a different term for faking your own death, 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:58.480 like pseudo like fake inside death. 0:00:59.320 --> 0:00:59.840 That's right. 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:02.760 So I don't think side means death. I think it's 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:05.640 a little worse than that, but you get the point. Yeah, 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:08.160 And I don't remember what brought this up. I just 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:10.520 had this idea to do this one. I don't remember 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:14.000 what it was. But it turns out that there's there's like, 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:17.520 this is a thing. It's not just something you see 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:20.840 in the movies. Like a surprising amount I don't want 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:22.800 to say a lot, but a surprising amount of people 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:27.399 have tried this. Yeah, and it's probable that even more 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:29.880 people have tried it than we think, because the only 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:32.919 ones that we know about are the ones who got caught. 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:36.319 Presumably there's plenty of people out there who tried this 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:38.759 and were was successful. 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:42.000 Yeah, or tried it and failed but didn't get caught. 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:45.399 Okay, sure, Yeah, that's that's a good point too. I 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:46.400 hadn't thought about that one. 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:48.240 As you would say there are three trunches. 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:52.520 That's right. I wouldn't say that because I love myself. 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:54.000 No, but you're the trench master. 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:58.800 Oh that's so like twenty ten. You rather forgot about that. 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:02.280 Can you believe that was fifteen years ago? 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:04.040 Hey, tronches were hot. 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:09.200 Yeah, they were all raged, So why would anybody do this? Chuck? 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:10.520 I think we should start with that. 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:13.720 Well, I mean one of them, I listed get out 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:15.920 of a personal relationship. I mean I was kind of 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:19.799 joking about Jerry, but you know, it would be probably 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.079 more like I want to leave my fam, you know, 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:25.440 if it's a movie at least, although this happens real life. 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:28.160 I want to leave my family they're so boring, Yeah, 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:30.320 and go set up another life with this new family 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:34.840 that's going to solve all my problems. It seems like 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:38.280 the most common is probably a financial thing. You're either 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:41.040 have some huge debt you're trying to get out of, 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:44.560 or you're trying to commit insurance fraud to get a 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:47.720 big payout or something, or you've embezzled from your company 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:48.679 or something like that. 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:51.800 Yeah. Apparently, so Olivia helped us out with this, and 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.040 she found that there seems to have been an increase 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:59.919 in pseudocides or people getting caught trying their hand at pseudicide, 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:03.120 after the two thousand and eight financial crisis. 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:05.280 Yeah, I mean, speaking of tronchias. 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:11.520 So another big one too is if you are about 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:13.720 to be incarcerated for a very long time and I 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:16.480 happen to have let you out on bail, there's a 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:21.320 higher likelihood that you're going to try this than, say, 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:25.520 you know, when you're gainfully employed and you're sitting around 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:27.680 reading the newspaper fairly content. 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:31.920 Yeah, for sure, very sadly. Of course, one of the 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:37.800 reasons is, like the sleeping with the enemy method, which 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.520 is you're trying to escape some sort of abusive situation 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:42.400 in your home, whether it's a spouse or a family 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:43.400 member or something like that. 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:47.000 Right, or you want to frame your wife like in 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:49.240 the movie Double Jeopardy with Ashley Judd. 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:53.160 Yeah, boy, we're is this two thousand and seven? 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:57.360 You know what? This really feels like earlier stuff you 0:03:57.400 --> 0:03:59.720 should know type episode. So let's do it. Let's do it. 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:04.320 Try unches everywhere Ashley Judd appearances. I will figure it 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:05.120 out as we go along. 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:07.160 Okay, Yeah, our boss is just coming to us and 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:09.360 saying that, like, there's people that want to put commercials 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:11.680 on our podcasts, and we're saying, no, why would we 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:12.200 ever do that? 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:14.920 Yeah, And then the other people are saying, what's a 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:21.839 podcast exactly? So let's see what else. Oh, I think 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:25.040 this one's probably it's pretty niche. But if you're a 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:27.279 lottery winner and you have a bunch of family you 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:30.120 don't care about sure that are coming out of the woodwork, 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:31.840 you might try this as well. 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:35.800 Yeah, that's true. And here's the thing. If you have 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:39.720 that kind of dough, I mean, making yourself disappear and 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:43.080 faking your own death is not cheap, as we'll see, 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:46.680 So it is definitely more common for people of great 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:49.760 means to try this kind of thing. First of all, 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:51.360 they may have the money to pull it off, because 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:53.120 it can be expensive to like really do it right 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:56.960 these days. Or if you're the kind of person who 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:01.400 you know, defrauded someone or a company of millions and 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:04.520 millions of dollars, you know, that puts you in a 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:07.680 certain league. I've never had that opportunity to do. 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:11.560 Something like that, for instance, precisely. So, yeah, it's just 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:14.599 kind of a selection bias almost, you know, yeah, totally. 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:18.440 Men also are more likely to try this or at 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:20.920 the very least or are more likely to get caught. Yeah, 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:23.080 and I could see that being the case. Right, We're 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:25.360 in just being yeah, more likely to do it. And 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:28.520 also again probably because the selection bias a little bit, 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:33.440 finance bros are likelier than others to try this or 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:34.719 at least to get caught too. 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:37.960 Yeah, that makes sense with just the risky sort of 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:41.280 you know, maybe they got into that hot water because 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:45.080 you know, this deal that just couldn't be resisted or whatever, 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:46.680 because it's so much money. 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:50.440 Bro Right, it just didn't work out, bro. 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:56.200 Here's another interesting thing, is it is more common for 0:05:56.320 --> 0:06:00.479 people to come to the United States to like collect 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:03.400 on an insurance policy, like if you're from another country, 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:07.400 and then just go back to your home country. 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:10.800 Yes, and you just mentioned insurance for the second or 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:16.520 third time. The people who work for insurance companies are 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:19.000 well aware of all of these things that we're rattling 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:22.279 off and more. Oh yeah, because as we'll see later on, 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:25.320 there's a lot of stuff that you could do wrong 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:29.120 that insurance investigator is going to pick up on. We'll 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:31.120 talk more about that, but that's a big part of 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:33.359 this whole thing. It's a big reason people do this 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:36.320 insurance fraud, and it's a big reason people get caught 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:38.120 insurance investigators. 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:41.520 Yeah, for sure. And as we'll see, it's way more 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:44.719 common for like the insurance company to hire somebody to 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:48.080 find you rather than the cops to come after you, 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:50.240 because the cops are like, well, you know, surely no 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:52.880 skin off my back, that's right, and the insurance company 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:54.880 is like, well, they just got millions of dollars from us, 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:57.240 so we're gonna We're going to do your job exactly. 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:01.000 We should probably give a pretty big shout out at 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:05.479 the outset here to Elizabeth Greenwood. She's the author. I 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:10.120 think her day job as a creative writing professor at Columbia. 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:13.040 But she wrote a book which, as far as I 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:18.360 can tell, is the most exhaustive look at pseudoside anyone's 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:22.280 ever created. Her book was released in twenty sixteen. It's 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:27.560 Playing Dead, a Journey through the world of death fraud. 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:31.640 And I guess she had a conversation with a friend 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:33.680 about how she could get out of her student debt, 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:36.320 and somebody said, you should fake your own death. She said, 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:38.320 you know, that's a great idea for a book. And 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:42.000 here we are, ipso facto talking about it now. 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:45.160 Yeah, And she actually went through part of the process, 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:47.840 just to actually go through it, to see how hard 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:50.960 or easy or expensive it was to write about it. 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:52.520 She didn't go through with it, but she went as 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:58.280 far as finding out where this is. You know, when 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:01.560 you talk about something sort of unusual like this, seems 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:03.520 like there's always like, oh, well, you need to go 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:07.040 to this place because they just got the market cornered 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:10.040 on that, whether it's like you know, Swiss bank accounts 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:12.520 or offshore accounts, you know, like they have it set 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:14.400 up so you can do this kind of stuff, and 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:17.920 apparently that place for pseudo side is the Philippines. 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:22.120 Yeah, who knew for sure. That's another thing too, If 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:25.440 you died in the Philippines, your insurance claim is going 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:30.400 to get investigated pretty thoroughly just because of that. Yeah. 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:33.280 So Elizabeth Greenwood is not the first person to try this, 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:37.000 but just based on her experience, she found that you 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:41.320 can pretty easily find people who are more than happy 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:43.120 to assist you with this for a fee, and a 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:48.160 relatively cheap fee, especially considering the type of documentation you get. 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:50.800 I think for a couple hundred dollars, you can get 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:56.440 an official death certificate from the Filipino government. And that's 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:59.840 a big part of why the Philippines is so like 0:08:59.880 --> 0:09:03.800 the center of all of this, because you're not getting 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:08.000 forged documents, you're getting false official documents. Yeah, because you know, 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:10.319 somebody's got a friend on the inside and they're taking 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:14.040 bribes and like, so you're getting good actual documentation. It's 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:16.880 just all based on falsehoods. But that's not it. It 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:21.439 doesn't end there, Like, just hold your credit card for 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:24.840 another second, because they're gonna double this offer. 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:28.640 Yeah, I mean, it's sort of like any service. They're like, well, 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:30.480 if you just want the birth certificate, you can get 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:32.760 that for a couple of hundred bucks. But that's probably 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:34.160 not going to be enough these days. Back in the 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:35.760 old days, that was probably all you needed it. You 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:37.480 should be way easier to get away with this kind 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:37.760 of thing. 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:41.960 Yeah, the driver's licenses didn't even have pictures of them exactly. 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:42.920 It's nuts. 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:45.200 But if you really want to, you know, go through 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:48.280 with like the second tier service, you can get like 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:51.760 a kit that may have a new identity for you, 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:53.560 kuind of have like a new passport in there, new per 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:56.760 certificate maybe something like that. Or if you really want 0:09:56.760 --> 0:09:59.719 to go with a like the deluxe package, you can 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:03.160 spend and you know, tens of thousands of dollars to 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:06.520 get somebody like almost like concier service for someone who's like, 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:09.840 I can erase your tracks, I can make it like 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:12.320 you were never here. I can make sure you don't 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:16.040 get caught. I can get people too. We can cook 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:18.880 up a story and I can get witnesses to testify 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:21.160 that they saw this car wreck and pulled your body 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:24.439 out of the wreckage. And you know, we know people 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:27.520 that work in morgues and hospitals, and if you want 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:30.079 to pay the money, we can really really do this thing, right. 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:32.880 Yeah, we can get you an actual dead body. 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:34.680 If you want a dead body, I can get your 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:36.120 dead body by three pm. 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:40.160 Right, and that's gonna probably that's gonna sit in for you. 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:44.160 Apparently this really kind of drives it home. If there's 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:47.640 a kidaver and you're not just missing presumed dead, that's 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:51.840 definitely going to help your your pseudo side become successful. 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:55.920 Like you said, there's black market morgues that essentially, if 0:10:55.960 --> 0:11:00.000 you're unidentified or unclaimed in the Philippines, there's a chance 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:01.960 somebody's going to hang on to your body and you 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:06.880 might be sold to fulfill someone's pseudo side attempt. And 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:09.880 it's not just the Philippines either. I saw at least 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:13.560 one story here in Georgia, I think Coffee County, God 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:18.679 knows where that is. Where this I guess an undertaker 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:21.160 at a funeral home had a ton of bodies that 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:24.280 he supposedly buried that he was selling for this reason 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:26.880 or for other reasons. But also this was one of 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:29.520 the things you could buy a body for. And even 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:33.000 like a legitimate funeral home has an incentive to just 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:36.440 kind of be like, uh, yeah, it's nice to meet you, cousin. 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:36.880 Ed. 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:39.520 Just give me the money and you can take this body. 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:43.000 Right, Okay, now I know where we did this. We 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:47.240 did a video about this. Oh yeah, yep, I knew 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:49.360 we had done something, but I looked up the podcast 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:51.920 and we hadn't. We did something. We did some kind 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:53.679 of video on this because it may have just been 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.440 centered around the Coffee County thing, because as soon as 0:11:56.440 --> 0:11:59.440 you said Coffee County, I was like, wait, there was 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:03.319 a guy there that did this. So yeah, it is 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:04.480 two thousand and eight. 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:07.040 It is all over again. We need to make this 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:08.319 episode twelve minutes long. 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:12.319 Yeah, oh great. Here's my question though. The idea is 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:14.120 that you get this body and have it cremated and 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:18.880 you pass off those human remains or cremains, But how 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:20.760 does that work with DNA? Like, why don't you if 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:22.760 that's the case, why can't you just get cremanes. 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:26.160 I think cremation destroys DNA pretty good. 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:28.280 So why don't they just say, like, here's a bag 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:29.760 of teeth and ashes. 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:33.080 Some people do, Okay, I don't. Yeah, I think so, 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:36.160 Elizabeth Greenwood, those Filipino guys, I guess they're trying to 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:40.800 upsell her, but she said that some like they offer 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:44.400 not just a corpse but a fake funeral. They'll stage 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:47.520 a funeral, a real funeral, but there's like the mourners 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:51.400 there are paid. There's photographs of you know, people at 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:54.360 your funeral that if the insurance company asks for something 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:57.120 like that to document it, you've got it. But she's like, 0:12:57.160 --> 0:12:59.920 this is all very unnecessary, just like what you said. 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:04.640 You you just have the cremains, and it's like, well, 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:07.000 you know, what are you going to do? This is 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:10.760 supposedly the dead person. That makes way more sense. It's 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:13.280 way cheaper, it's way less of a hassle. And like 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:17.120 I was saying, some legitimate funeral homes, like if you're 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:19.720 if the laws in your country say, one of the 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:24.120 roles you play is like taking over custody of like 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:28.559 unidentified people, like say a homeless person who dies, you're 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.880 responsible for giving them a respectful burial. You go to 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:33.920 one of these places and say, oh, yeah, that's my 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:37.760 that's my cousin, and they're they're going to be like here, 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:40.400 give me some money, and you know you can handle 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:41.280 everything from there. 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:44.079 Yeah, and again, if I mean if you're trying to 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:45.920 commit insurance for all it or something that's going to 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:50.840 ramp up investigatory practice, most certainly from the insurance company, 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:52.920 maybe the cops, depending on kind of what's going on. 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:55.680 And obviously if you're escaping justice stuff like that. But 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:58.840 if that's not what you're doing, if you're just trying 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:01.400 to get out of your life for some like sad reason, 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.080 maybe and especially if you go to another country and 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:06.280 do this, law enforcement in America is probably not going 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:07.040 to do anything. 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:10.280 No, they're gonna say god speed because it's not. 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:13.640 A crime specifically, and maybe we should take a break, 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:16.000 and sounds like a good place to leave it a 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:18.319 I agree, all right, we'll be right back after this 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:21.000 with more on sudicide. 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:32.400 Stuff you should know, gosh Man show stuff you should know. 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:46.960 All right, So before we broke, I mentioned before that 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:48.600 it used to be way easier to get away with 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:51.680 this kind of thing. I think this probably happened a 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:54.760 lot more back in the day. As with all crime, 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:56.760 it's just gotten more difficult to get away with that stuff. 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:04.480 Besides DNA facial recogn technology and video cameras on everyone's 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:07.920 front doorstep and the surveillance cameras that cities have employed 0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:09.880 all over you know, major cities all over the world. 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:13.840 It's just really hard to not get caught on one 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:17.000 of these eventually, and someone say, hey, the guy going 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:21.400 into that Italian restaurant there is totally my dad. I 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:23.240 would recognize them anywhere. 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:29.400 Right right. I thought those doorstep cameras were to create 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:31.320 a sense of community, like you would find out what 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:35.080 a great person your ups driver. Isn't that what they're for? 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:37.640 I think so? Because they pet your kiddy. 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:41.920 Right, It just tangentially helps to track people who fake 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:42.520 their own death. 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:46.000 Yeah, or too uh in my case to post on 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:48.240 the internet when when squirrels attack is what I call 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:48.720 my show. 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:50.960 It's a great show. 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:53.040 Emily sent me one yesterday. She was like, hey, take 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:55.920 a look at the doorbell came at twelve eleven and 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:59.920 she tripped going up the stairs in a very very 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:02.600 funny way, and so she made sure I saw that. 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:03.720 Are you gonna post it? 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:04.600 No? 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:07.120 No, no, no, you should post it to Yakity Sachs. 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:11.280 I might do that actually one of the So, yeah, 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:13.360 there's a lot of ways that you can get caught 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:16.080 these days, in ways you might not have thought of. 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:19.240 Here's a word to the wise. If you're going to 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:23.160 try to stage your death, and everybody who has anything 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:26.640 to do with the research of this article says, don't bother. 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:31.680 You're going to screw it up. Probably you had better 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:37.560 researched every single aspect you can possibly think of and 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:41.640 started a long time before. It would really help if 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:44.480 you had thought about this ten years ago. Yeah, the 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:48.920 best time to start planning your pseudo side is ten 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:52.320 years ago. The second best time is today. But it's 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:55.280 not really a good time. Second best. That's the old saying. 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:01.560 But if you started thinking about it ten years ago, 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:04.960 you could have really actually given this identity your new 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:08.000 false identity legs by like getting credit cards in its name, 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:12.240 building a credit history. Like it would be way easier 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:14.520 to step into that life than say, like, you know, 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:17.960 for figuring out what tour is and then buying like 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:21.120 a false identity the same day. You want to plan 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:21.879 it better than that. 0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:24.080 Yeah, I feel like in movies a lot of times, 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:27.679 that's the giveaway is they'll they'll be like, well, you 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:30.800 don't have any credit history, and I really can't find 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:33.760 anything about you. But if you've got a you know, 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:39.720 a list of cable bills and a credit history and 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:43.600 stuff that goes back, you know, ten years. It's like 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:47.000 just having your ID isn't enough if you have a 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:49.679 history already built up. I mean, this guy was an 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:53.960 artist in twenty thirteen named Curtis Wallin who did it 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:56.920 a sort of performance art, like as a project, and 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:00.000 he created an alter ego, and he got a driver's license, 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:03.359 He got an ID certifying him as a member of 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:08.800 a indigenous Native American tribe. He got a boat operator's license. 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.960 Like that, that's kind of a deep cut, I think, yeah. 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:14.240 I think so too. I think, you know, that's the 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:16.960 kind of thing where you like, would a fake person 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:19.280 have a boat operator's license. 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:22.240 For a decade exactly? He got insurance, Like if you 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:24.480 have all this stuff, then all of a sudden, you're 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:27.600 just not as suspicious. I think no. 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:34.480 He went even further, too, Like he disguised his his look. 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:39.600 I guess yeah, by I guess so yeah, for like 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:43.639 your ID, because it would be very easy for somebody 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:47.600 to scan a database of driver's licenses looking for somebody's face. 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:51.199 That's easy pasy these days. But what he did was 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:54.919 he took his driver's license photo and then merged it 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:58.480 with a couple other people's features to create an entirely 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:02.640 synthetic new person. That's what he used for his photo. 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:05.480 I guess it was close enough that if you showed 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:07.480 it to somebody that wouldn't be like, what is this 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:12.720 weird thing? He looks like a Picasso, but like it 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:14.679 would still fool facial recognition. 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:17.520 Yeah. Well, and of course, like you said, he's photoshopped. 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:19.480 These days, it could be very easily done with AI 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:20.280 much quicker. 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:24.520 Sure, I'm old school, though, remember this is twenty ten. 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:28.520 Yeah, that's right. This new photoshop thing is amazing, isn't it. 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:30.199 It is? And I don't know what the heck you 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:30.919 mean by AI. 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:33.719 Someone's going to write and be like photoshopple is created 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:34.879 in nineteen ninety seven. 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:37.960 It probably was, actually, yeah, probably somewhere in the nineties. 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.040 He also the way he started all this was created 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:46.120 an email address. You know, it seems pretty logical. He's 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:48.919 the private tour browser and he got in touch with 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:51.480 someone on Craigslist anonymously and said, I want to buy 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:53.920 this computer. I want to pay cash. Cash, as you'll see, 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:56.320 is a big part of all this. Yes, anytime you 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:57.960 want to do this, have a lot of cash. On hand, 0:19:58.240 --> 0:19:59.880 we're not instructing you on how to do this. 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:02.119 No, it's kind of coming out that way though, huh 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:02.560 it is. 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:07.160 And again, if you're doing something like this, you're either 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:09.560 a bad person who's done something we were wrong, or 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:11.480 you've had something done very wrong to you, which is 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:14.239 very sad. So again we're not making light of it. 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:18.359 But he bought that computer with cash. He sort of 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:21.480 disguised himself when he met up, and then he used 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:25.119 more cash to buy a bitcoin at a computer shop 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:29.320 like a brick and mortar store. So bitcoin is obviously, 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:32.560 you know, converting if you have holdings or whatever you 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:36.480 want to convert to bitcoin, that's a or cash. It's 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:39.359 a better way to do it than obviously having that 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:43.000 in your name, but that's very hard to do these days. 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:45.840 Like everything can be tracked and traced so much easier now. 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:50.920 Yeah, including bitcoin. Although the bitcoin transactions themselves are anonymous, 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:55.600 that or who's buying what is anonymous, the actual transition 0:20:55.800 --> 0:21:01.480 transaction is public and it's publicly listed in the bitcoin blockchain. 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:06.320 And you if your real name is associated somewhere down 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:09.000 the line with say your bitcoin wallet, and the feds 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:11.040