Speaker 1: Pushkin. I've been a journalist for twenty five years, and
Speaker 1: there's this little ritual that I do at the end
Speaker 1: of every interview. When it works, it shakes everything up,
Speaker 1: creates a bit of chaos. I call it the hail
Speaker 1: Mary of questions. It's like a last ditch effort to
Speaker 1: find something, anything that I might have missed. I just say, hey,
Speaker 1: what's a question I should have asked you. Most of
Speaker 1: the time, like ninety percent of the time, the answer
Speaker 1: is I don't know. I think we covered it all.
Speaker 1: But every once in a while a person says, well,
Speaker 1: there is one thing we didn't talk about, and then
Speaker 1: they drop a bomb, say something totally unexpected, And at
Speaker 1: that moment I always imagine a door creaking open. That,
Speaker 1: in a nutshell, is what this season is about. It's
Speaker 1: about a guy, two guys actually, who come upon just
Speaker 1: such a door, and on the other side of it
Speaker 1: is a very dark secret. These two guys were federal officers.
Speaker 1: One of them was an FBI agent based in Delaware
Speaker 1: named Scott Duffy and Scott he has his own version
Speaker 1: of the hail Mary question.
Speaker 2: One of the things that like I will routinely do,
Speaker 2: is is there anything that we should be looking at
Speaker 2: that could be investigated that we're not looking at.
Speaker 1: Back in two thousand and four, Scott posed this very
Speaker 1: question to a woman named Patricia Miller. At the time,
Speaker 1: Scott was visiting Patricia at her home in Delaware to
Speaker 1: learn more about her ex boyfriend, a guy named Tom Guybison.
Speaker 1: There had been some rumors that Tom, her ex, was
Speaker 1: plotting to go after a local cop, and the FBI
Speaker 1: had asked Scott to look into this to do a
Speaker 1: so called threat assessment. Scott didn't get that much out
Speaker 1: of this interview with Patricia, but before leaving, he tossed
Speaker 1: out his hal Mary question, and that's when she told
Speaker 1: him about the murder.
Speaker 2: She mentions, well, there is this alleged murder to have
Speaker 2: taken place, that when he was in high school, that
Speaker 2: he had committed a murder for black man in order
Speaker 2: to gain access into this white supremacy group within Delaware.
Speaker 1: Patricia goes on to say that Tom, her ex, was
Speaker 1: proud of this murder. It happened back when he was younger,
Speaker 1: a teenager, but even years later he bragged about what
Speaker 1: he does, how he'd driven into Philadelphia late at night
Speaker 1: and shot a pedestrian, a random black man, all allegedly
Speaker 1: so we could earn some street cred as a racist skinhead.
Speaker 1: Scott pressed Patricia for details. Was there any evidence? Did
Speaker 1: she have any proof? According to Scott, she talked about
Speaker 1: a newspaper article from the time about the man's death
Speaker 1: and how it was described as a drug related killing.
Speaker 1: She said that Tom held onto this article for a
Speaker 1: while so we could brag about it, intimating no one knows,
Speaker 1: but I did this. I killed this guy. That's what
Speaker 1: Patricia said. Anyhow, all of this got Scott thinking, if
Speaker 1: this murder really happened, maybe it wasn't so random after all.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was predicated on a callous, cynical piece of
Speaker 1: logic that no one would care about this victim, or
Speaker 1: at least no one in a position of power or authority.
Speaker 2: If there's no evidence, and there's no witnesses, no cameras,
Speaker 2: so let's move on, and that's what Tom would be
Speaker 2: banking on, and just be a drug deal gone back.
Speaker 2: That bothered me, That bothered me.
Speaker 1: Scott may have been upset about all this, but he
Speaker 1: was also at a loss. How do you investigate a
Speaker 1: murder when you don't even know who the victim is. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Scott and his partner paid a visit to the Free
Speaker 1: Public Library of Philadelphia. They wanted to find that newspaper
Speaker 1: article covering the victim's death. Scott recalled Patricia saying it
Speaker 1: was in the Philadelphia Inquirer. They felt like if they
Speaker 1: could just somehow get a hold of that article, it
Speaker 1: might answer so many questions.
Speaker 2: In other words, would this give us a name? Would
Speaker 2: this give us a location? Would this give us a date?
Speaker 2: Because we still didn't have a date.
Speaker 1: But there's got to be countless articles people that were
Speaker 1: just randomly killed in Philadelphia.
Speaker 2: Not only countless articles, but then you realize there are
Speaker 2: other newspapers. What if she's wrong, it's not the Philadelphia Inquiry.
Speaker 2: It sounds like a fool's Errand I'm glad we did it.
Speaker 2: I'm glad we made the trip, but I don't think
Speaker 2: we found anything. Nothing.
Speaker 1: So game over right. I mean, this murder, if it
Speaker 1: even happened, would have occurred approximately fifteen years prior. It
Speaker 1: was a cold case. And yet Scott and his partner,
Speaker 1: a guy named Terry Mortimer, they had this feeling that
Speaker 1: if they persisted.
Speaker 2: We might uncover something. Were destined to uncover. That may
Speaker 2: sound corny, but I felt something. I think Terry felt something,
Speaker 2: and we didn't know quite what, and it could have
Speaker 2: been absolutely taking us down another rabbit hole of something
Speaker 2: that's just never could be proven.
Speaker 1: So what do you do with that?
Speaker 2: Exactly? What do you do with that? What do you
Speaker 2: do with something that's.
Speaker 1: Yeah and not to be cute, but you can't exactly
Speaker 1: go back to your boss and say that me and
Speaker 1: Terry feel a sense of destiny here right now. So
Speaker 1: this was mission creep big time. Plus, it's not like
Speaker 1: there was anyone that they knew of anyhow demanding justice
Speaker 1: for the victim.
Speaker 2: Terry and I could have easily said we're done and
Speaker 2: let's walk away. Nobody's going to be calling us to say, hey,
Speaker 2: Terry and Scott, do you have any updates for us?
Speaker 2: You know we're waiting. We haven't heard back from you
Speaker 2: that was missing.
Speaker 1: But is somewhere in the back of your head, are
Speaker 1: you imagining that, like there is a mother or brother
Speaker 1: who's trying to understand or figure out what may have
Speaker 1: happened to their loved one that was left for dead.
Speaker 2: I think that that aspect was the driving factor we
Speaker 2: couldn't just leave it alone. Somehow it was making sense
Speaker 2: that Terry and I were put together for this very
Speaker 2: reason of solving this hate crime, this murder that took
Speaker 2: place on the streets of Philadelphia because somebody was black,
Speaker 2: that we've felt like we had a duty to this person,
Speaker 2: and somehow this person was drawing us.
Speaker 1: And that's it. You can almost hear it, the door
Speaker 1: creaking open. This is a story about what happens when
Speaker 1: two guys uncover a clue about something terrible, something evil,
Speaker 1: a crime for which there has been no justice, and
Speaker 1: they have nothing to go on. They don't have a victim,
Speaker 1: don't have a body, don't even have a name. I'm
Speaker 1: Jake Halper and this is Deep Cover, Season four, The
Speaker 1: Nameless Man, Episode one. The rumor, so to recap, Scott
Speaker 1: and Terry's investigation did not start off as a quest
Speaker 1: to sell the cold case now or find a murder victim. Originally,
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and four, they were asked to
Speaker 1: do a threat assessment on Tom Gybison. That's why they
Speaker 1: interviewed the ex girlfriend. At the time, Tom Gobison was
Speaker 1: thirty three years old. He was in federal prison on
Speaker 1: gun charges, but he was about to be released, and
Speaker 1: the FEDS had some intel that Tom might be seeking retribution,
Speaker 1: planning to harm the cop who'd put him behind bars.
Speaker 1: This is why the FEDS were called in, and initially
Speaker 1: this was Scott and Terry's top priority to determine if
Speaker 1: this threat was real. But they came up short and
Speaker 1: at some point stopped looking into Tom for the threat assessment.
Speaker 1: But they still have this rumor, this side story that
Speaker 1: some fifteen years prior, back in the nineteen eighties, when
Speaker 1: Tom was still in high school, that he may have
Speaker 1: killed a black man in Philadelphia. Who this this man
Speaker 1: might be. They had no idea, but they kept poking around.
Speaker 1: They wanted to see what they could learn about Tom
Speaker 1: Guybison and if he had any connections to white supremacist gangs.
Speaker 1: And this is where Terry Mortimer, Scott's partner, really came
Speaker 1: into play.
Speaker 3: And this is the thing about gangs is there are gangs,
Speaker 3: and there's like, you know, not real gangs that people
Speaker 3: say they're part of a gang, but they aren't. Kind
Speaker 3: of thing.
Speaker 1: Terry was a special agent with the ATF the Bureau
Speaker 1: of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He worked in intelligence,
Speaker 1: and he focused heavily on guns and gangs. So Terry
Speaker 1: wanted to know what was Tom's deal.
Speaker 3: I knew he of course was imprisoned obviously for gun charges.
Speaker 3: You know, spent a good stint in prison federally he
Speaker 3: had I guess prior contact with the law.
Speaker 1: Terry learned that Tom was first to rested at the
Speaker 1: age of fourteen on a deadly weapons charge. A few
Speaker 1: years later, when he was nineteen, he was convicted of
Speaker 1: reckless endangerment after he shot a gun at a moving
Speaker 1: car full of people. At the time, a local newspaper
Speaker 1: in Wilmington, Delaware ran an article on Tom. It described
Speaker 1: him as a hulking weightlifter with a number of tattoos,
Speaker 1: including a clenched fist on the top of his scalp
Speaker 1: and the words born in the USA on the back
Speaker 1: of his neck. In the article, Guybison says at one
Speaker 1: time he was a blue collar skinhead. Tom defined this
Speaker 1: as quote buying American, not doing drugs, and not drinking.
Speaker 1: To be clear, there are different types of skinheads, not
Speaker 1: all are racists, but in the late eighties and early nineties,
Speaker 1: skinheads were emerging as the face of violent right wing
Speaker 1: nationalism in the US. Their notoriety seemed to really peak
Speaker 1: at that time. One headline from eighty nine and the
Speaker 1: New York Times read violent racism attracts new breed skinheads.
Speaker 1: So the possibility that a racist skinhead might have orchestrated
Speaker 1: murder it was plausible, but that alone wasn't a whole
Speaker 1: lot to go on. Scott and Terry decided to focus
Speaker 1: on what Patricia, the ex girlfriend, had told them. They
Speaker 1: honed in on two clues in particular. The first clue
Speaker 1: involved a tattoo. Patricia mentioned that Tom had a tattoo
Speaker 1: of a spider web on his elbow with a tear
Speaker 1: drop in it, and that he liked to brag that
Speaker 1: he'd gotten it, essentially as a badge of honor for
Speaker 1: killing a black man in Philadelphia.
Speaker 3: I know enough about gang members is sometimes things aren't
Speaker 3: what they say they are. That they though might get
Speaker 3: a tattoo and purported to be something that's really isn't true,
Speaker 3: or just kind of build their rap a little bit.
Speaker 1: Terry was skeptical that Tom had killed someone just to
Speaker 1: join this skinhead gang. Maybe Tom was just posing building
Speaker 1: up his rep as a really violent dude. I mean Honestly,
Speaker 1: maybe this whole thing was bullshit, right.
Speaker 3: I couldn't really establish, you know, intelligence wise, of Tommy
Speaker 3: was part of a skinhead gang. I didn't think he was.
Speaker 3: I think he was kind of more self described skinhead.
Speaker 1: And this raised the question, would a self described skinhead
Speaker 1: acting on his own, really murder someone for what? So
Speaker 1: he could give himself a tattoo? And all of this
Speaker 1: while he was still in high school seemed like a stretch. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's the second clue, and it was a promising one.
Speaker 1: According to the ex girlfriend Patricia, Tom had bragged about
Speaker 1: having an accomplice, a guy named Craig Peterson. Allegedly they
Speaker 1: orchestrated this murder together and both of them got those
Speaker 1: aim spider web tattoos. Now, if this was true, and
Speaker 1: if they could find Craig and if he would talk,
Speaker 1: well that'd be huge. But that was a lot of ifs.
Speaker 1: So they started combing through public records, asking around about
Speaker 1: this Craig guy to supposed accomplice, and here's what they found.
Speaker 1: Craig was an old buddy from Tom's high school days.
Speaker 1: He also identified specifically as a blue collar skinhead. Craig
Speaker 1: had grown up in Delaware, but as far as anyone
Speaker 1: could tell, he wasn't living there anymore. Seemed like he
Speaker 1: kind of disappeared. And then they got a lead.
Speaker 3: We found out he's in He's in Vermont, like a
Speaker 3: remote part of Vermont. And I remember, I said, this
Speaker 3: dude's hiding. Man, he's hiding. I said, that cat from Wilmington,
Speaker 3: Delaware living in Vermont. Man, I said, dude, Nick, it's
Speaker 3: cold up there. Man, I mean, that's a cold place. Bro.
Speaker 1: So they put on their winter coats and headed north.
Speaker 1: It was now December of two thousand and four. It
Speaker 1: had been about a month since they first heard the rumor,
Speaker 1: and now here they were in the car, driving into
Speaker 1: the chill of a Vermont winter. Temperature was hovering around
Speaker 1: freezing that night, and as they sped along through the
Speaker 1: green mountains, past the darkened forests of evergreens, they had
Speaker 1: no idea what to expect, Like, what are you hoping
Speaker 1: to find out?
Speaker 3: Hey? At this point, we're like, man, whatever he's got,
Speaker 3: he's got to give us something, man, because we're again,
Speaker 3: we're spinning our wheels. It felt like, man, if this
Speaker 3: has come through, I think, honestly, I think we're.
Speaker 1: Done Terry recalls on that drive up to Vermont, they
Speaker 1: talked a lot about why they couldn't or shouldn't give
Speaker 1: up on the case.
Speaker 3: So we had great discussions, and that's when I really
Speaker 3: we both realized, wow, wait a minute, this is not
Speaker 3: an accident that he and I are team together. This
Speaker 3: was like, literally, we didn't do this, we couldn't plan.
Speaker 1: This, and there was a reason for this feeling. Turns
Speaker 1: out there was a strange symmetry to their lives that
Speaker 1: dated back before they ever met. So we're going to
Speaker 1: leave Scott and Terry in the car heading up to
Speaker 1: Vermont and turn back the clock. For Scott, it all
Speaker 1: started when he graduated high school. He wanted to be
Speaker 1: a cop, but by his own estimation at the time,
Speaker 1: he was too small, too skinny. He weighed just ninety
Speaker 1: three pounds, so instead he opted to become a priest.
Speaker 1: He was just seventeen years old when he decided to
Speaker 1: join the seminary, but right away when he put on
Speaker 1: that priest's color, it was transformative, both for him and
Speaker 1: also for the way that other people looked at him.
Speaker 2: I would be sitting in a pew, maybe praying in
Speaker 2: a church. Somebody would come by and start confessing, and
Speaker 2: people just start pouring their souls out to me.
Speaker 1: In these moments, Scott was learning how to listen, how
Speaker 1: to suspend judgment, how to be patient as people grappled
Speaker 1: with some burdensome secret, inching their way towards the precipice
Speaker 1: of truth. He spent five years training to become a priest,
Speaker 1: but dreams are stubborn things, and his didn't go away.
Speaker 1: He left the seminary to become a cop and then
Speaker 1: an FBI agent.
Speaker 2: It is harder to leave than it is to go in.
Speaker 2: And that's ultimately because I think, now you have ventured
Speaker 2: this relationship with God, and now you're afraid of pissing
Speaker 2: him off.
Speaker 1: For Scott, this shifting careers seemed like a natural progression
Speaker 1: for him. The seminary prepared him for this work, prepared
Speaker 1: him to listen and see his way through a messy
Speaker 1: world fraught with moral dilemmas. But when he'd tell people
Speaker 1: about his past, how he'd almost become a priest, they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: my gosh, I can never imagine. The two are totally
Speaker 1: opposed to each other. And I never understood that. But
Speaker 1: there was at least one person who got it completely Terry.
Speaker 3: I went to college at a very small Bible College
Speaker 3: and was preparing for ministry.
Speaker 1: From a young age. Terry felt destined for the ministry,
Speaker 1: but later on, when he was in Bible College, he
Speaker 1: had second thoughts. As graduation approached, a friend asked him,
Speaker 1: you ever consider becoming a cop. The short answer was no.
Speaker 1: But on a whim, Terry applied and met with a recruiter.
Speaker 3: And this guy, he was a hardcore dude. I mean
Speaker 3: he looked at me. I was back then, I was skinny.
Speaker 3: He looked at me and said, you're from where and
Speaker 3: you want to do what You're from Bible College, and
Speaker 3: you have any idea what you're applying for, what you're
Speaker 3: trying to do. I said, no, sir, I have no idea.
Speaker 1: Terry was undeterred. He became a cop and then an
Speaker 1: agent with the ATF. And this was not a consolation
Speaker 1: job for Terry. He's very clear about this. He feels
Speaker 1: that God had a purpose for him in law enforcement.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing you gotta understand about both Terry
Speaker 1: and Scott. These are not men who look at the
Speaker 1: world and see coincidences. What they see is much closer
Speaker 1: to fate or God's will, and when they became partners,
Speaker 1: it all seemed meant to be. Here were two guys
Speaker 1: who early on looked too skinny and earnest to be cops,
Speaker 1: guys who intended to become men of God. Different in
Speaker 1: their own ways. Terry grew up in a gritty river
Speaker 1: town in Pennsylvania, and he kind of feels like a dude.
Speaker 1: You'd play around a mini golf with grab a Burger,
Speaker 1: have a laugh, and then realize only belatedly that they
Speaker 1: told him more than you intended to. Scott, Well, he's
Speaker 1: more formal. He's from Connecticut. Are really Yankee? A man
Speaker 1: who chooses his words carefully, A patient priest who knows
Speaker 1: how to nurse a long pregnant pause. The two of
Speaker 1: them worked well together, complimented one another, the Pennsylvania pastor
Speaker 1: and the New England priest, and I've been calling them partners,
Speaker 1: but they only ever worked together on this one investigation.
Speaker 1: It was an unusual collaboration between the FBI and the ATF,
Speaker 1: and they didn't choose one another. They were kind of
Speaker 1: paired randomly, though neither of them would say it was random.
Speaker 3: You know, as we started realizing that wait a minute,
Speaker 3: we're we're on a mission from God.
Speaker 1: But yep, just like the Blues Brothers.
Speaker 3: We didn't really say that, I'm just making it up,
Speaker 3: but that was the feeling. Well hey no, but it
Speaker 3: was like, no joke, like this is a real deal.
Speaker 3: It's almost like we're walking through almost like a dream,
Speaker 3: like what is going on here?
Speaker 1: So yeah, even though all they had was a rumor
Speaker 1: of a long forgotten crime that might not have even happened,
Speaker 1: these two almost ministers, the God Squad as it were,
Speaker 1: still felt certain that they were here in this car
Speaker 1: heading north into Vermont for a reason, and they were
Speaker 1: convinced that something important was waiting for them. That's when
Speaker 1: we get back. Both Scott and Terry had this hunch
Speaker 1: that there was a reason Craig, the alleged accomplice, was
Speaker 1: up in Vermont, up in the mountains, that he was hiding.
Speaker 1: But if so, who is he hiding from and why?
Speaker 1: In any case, they knew they had to be careful.
Speaker 1: They'd learned from police reports that in the past Craig
Speaker 1: had helped Tom clean and store a whole arsenal of weapons.
Speaker 1: Why'd he do this? Well, Tom had a felony on
Speaker 1: his record, which meant he wasn't supposed to have any guns,
Speaker 1: so his buddy Craig helped him out. This suggested two
Speaker 1: things to the agents. One Craig was loyal he ended
Speaker 1: up going to prison for storing those weapons, and two,
Speaker 1: Craig was probably handy with a gun. The God Squad
Speaker 1: was still hatching their plan as they rolled into town.
Speaker 2: It was late. I feel like we were closing in
Speaker 2: on midnight, and we didn't want to put it off.
Speaker 2: We were just so full of energy.
Speaker 1: It was late for a door knock, very late, but
Speaker 1: their excitement eclips their caution, so instead of waiting until morning,
Speaker 1: they drove right to his house. Their plan was to
Speaker 1: say hello, introduce themselves, and arrange to have a formal
Speaker 1: sit down the following day.
Speaker 3: And when we finally found where he lives, he lives
Speaker 3: literally on top of like if it's on a mountain,
Speaker 3: it's a very very tall hill. It's very tall and
Speaker 3: very steep.
Speaker 2: I remember being very very dark, like I don't think
Speaker 2: I could see my hand in front of me, And
Speaker 2: as soon as we got out of our cars, I
Speaker 2: think we got out a few feet and then floodlights.
Speaker 2: I just remember floodlights like we were in a stadium,
Speaker 2: just shined upon us.
Speaker 3: I mean it was like bright as he had hooked
Speaker 3: up these spotlights and trees illuminating the whole area, and
Speaker 3: we can see his house dimly up the top of
Speaker 3: the hill. I think I may have made a comment
Speaker 3: to Scott. I said, man, if he had any ill intent,
Speaker 3: he we'd be dead men right now.
Speaker 2: That told me a lot that Wow, you know what
Speaker 2: is inside this person that he has this going on
Speaker 2: where he wants to be made well aware of anybody arriving.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking, man, he does not. He doesn't want to
Speaker 3: be found.
Speaker 1: Scott and Terry start trudging up the icy, snow covered hill.
Speaker 1: They can hear dogs barking from within the house. Eventually
Speaker 1: they get up to the front porch and Craig walks out.
Speaker 1: He's medium height and stocky, with a closely cropped haircut.
Speaker 1: Scott calls out to.
Speaker 2: Him, Craig Peterson, you don't know us, but we're here.
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk to you. Federal agents. Can we
Speaker 2: approach you? Can we come up to your house and
Speaker 2: within ten seconds, just a very friendly, inviting demeanor, come
Speaker 2: on up and come into my house is a sigh
Speaker 2: of relief of that, but definitely a side of release.
Speaker 2: First and foremost, we've achieved our first goal is finding him,
Speaker 2: achieved our second goal of being able to be face
Speaker 2: to face with him. Our third goal was to get
Speaker 2: him to come and speak with us at a different location.
Speaker 2: We weren't going to talk to him at his house.
Speaker 1: Craig invites them inside, he introduces them to his fiance.
Speaker 1: It's all very normal and Craig he seems unfazed.
Speaker 3: He was very relaxed, very gracious. I mean, just almost
Speaker 3: opposite of what I was expecting.
Speaker 1: Scott and Terry explained that they just have a few
Speaker 1: questions for him about an old matter from the past.
Speaker 1: They keep it deliberately vague, and they ask if he'd
Speaker 1: be willing to meet with them the following day down
Speaker 1: at the barracks where the Vermont State Police are stationed.
Speaker 1: Craig's like, sure, I'll meet you tomorrow after I'm done
Speaker 1: with work. All the while, Terry is studying both Craig
Speaker 1: and his fiance, trying to get a read on them.
Speaker 3: His fiance was way more concerned than he was, Like
Speaker 3: she was like, what's going on, Like what's this about
Speaker 3: he's not stressed at all, Like there's no stress with
Speaker 3: this dat like there's nothing. I'm like, this is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: The next day, Scott and Terry Aer down at the
Speaker 1: barracks of the Vermont State Police and they're just hoping
Speaker 1: Craig actually shows up.
Speaker 3: He ain he ain't gonna show up, Like, what's the
Speaker 3: odds he's gonna show up? Like, And I was like
Speaker 3: fifty to fifty Yeah, But.
Speaker 1: He shows up. In fact, he's it early, and after
Speaker 1: a little chit chat, they all sit down and get
Speaker 1: to business. Scott explains that they're here about Tom Guybison.
Speaker 2: Craig, We've made a long trip and we've been investigating
Speaker 2: Tom for a possible threat, and during the course of
Speaker 2: that investigation, we've learned that a story was told.
Speaker 1: This is the story they'd heard from Patricia, Tom's ex girlfriend,
Speaker 1: that some fifteen years prior, Craig and Tom had been skinheads,
Speaker 1: that they'd killed a black man in Philadelphia and then
Speaker 1: got in tattoos to commemorate what they'd done.
Speaker 2: And Craig just looked at us shocked, almost a sense
Speaker 2: of I can't believe that this is coming back. And
Speaker 2: then he sat back in his chair and said, I
Speaker 2: don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Scott keeps pressing gently, very much playing the role of
Speaker 1: the New England priest, that he almost was concealing any
Speaker 1: signs of judgment, just patiently probing.
Speaker 2: Well, at the very least, would you admit you have
Speaker 2: the tattoo? Why would they lie about the story? Would they?
Speaker 2: Would they also lie about the tattoo? So would you
Speaker 2: raise your would you raise your sleeve? And so begrudgingly
Speaker 2: he did. He showed us his tattoo.
Speaker 1: A gothic looking spider web in black ink, with the
Speaker 1: elbow directly at the center, similar to what Patricia had described.
Speaker 1: Craig admitted that he and Tom both had tattoos like this,
Speaker 1: that they'd gotten them together in high school, and Greg
Speaker 1: admitted that back in his youth, yeah, he'd been his skinhead,
Speaker 1: but it had just been a phase.
Speaker 3: He said, Man, that was a long time ago. I
Speaker 3: was a young knucklehead, and I don't believe that stuff anymore,
Speaker 3: you know, man, I'm up here. I'm working hard, man, guys.
Speaker 3: I work every day, hourly wage. I work as an electrician.
Speaker 3: I've got a new life. I don't want any part
Speaker 3: of this. He just denied the whole thing. But I
Speaker 3: can't overemphasize. I'm watching this cat. I'm like, he's not
Speaker 3: stressed at all.
Speaker 1: At this point. Despite the fact that Craig had this tattoo,
Speaker 1: which offered some corroboration, Scott and Terry basically have to
Speaker 1: let him go. They say, hey, let's keep in touch.
Speaker 1: If you ever come down to Delaware, please let us know.
Speaker 1: We'd like to keep talking.
Speaker 3: He said, yeah, if I come down there like Jake,
Speaker 3: no one's ever going to say yeah, yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 3: look your eyes up. If I'm ever down Delaware, sure
Speaker 3: like we're gonna have a dinner together. I'm thinking nobody
Speaker 3: does that. Nobody wants to talk to their least favorite
Speaker 3: FBI and agent in the world about a homicide they
Speaker 3: didn't commit.
Speaker 1: In Terry's mind, it was weird how friendly he was,
Speaker 1: and it also seemed difficult to imagine that this guy
Speaker 1: right here, this laid back electrician living in Vermont, could
Speaker 1: be capable of orchestrating a murder.
Speaker 3: If the dude was in the car and they did
Speaker 3: a homicide, however went down, whoever pulled the trigger, I'm
Speaker 3: thinking I'm not seeing it I mean, if it did
Speaker 3: happen and he was in the very car, I see
Speaker 3: nothing nonverbal in this guy. There's no stress, there's no deception.
Speaker 3: I'm looking at his eyes, I'm looking at his whole
Speaker 3: facial I'm looking at everything. I'm thinking this guy's like
Speaker 3: the he liked the best liar ever.
Speaker 1: So they say goodbye to Craig, They thank the Vermont
Speaker 1: State Troopers. They walk out of the barracks, get in
Speaker 1: their car, and head home, all the while trying to
Speaker 1: make sense of what they've just learned.
Speaker 3: And I said, Scott, I don't think it happened, man.
Speaker 3: He gus, what do you mean. I said, there's no
Speaker 3: way that, dude, there's no way. I said, maybe Tommy
Speaker 3: did something. I don't know, but I said he didn't
Speaker 3: do nothing. I'm telling you that dude is way too cool.
Speaker 3: And Scott he goes, nah, I kinda think something's there.
Speaker 2: Man, this happened, and uh, we're definitely not stopping, I.
Speaker 3: Said, Scott, I'm not seeing it, man, I said, dude,
Speaker 3: I said, I think we're toast. Bro.
Speaker 1: After this time passes about a year and a half,
Speaker 1: and during this stretch, very little happens. In this case,
Speaker 1: Craig keeps living his quiet life up in the Vermont Mountains.
Speaker 1: Occasionally the God Squad gives him a call just to
Speaker 1: check in, but Craig never tells him anything new. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Tom Godbison finishes serving his time in federal prison. He's released,
Speaker 1: goes back to living in Delaware, where he seems to
Speaker 1: stay out of trouble. Then one day in eight of
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, the God Squad gets a phone
Speaker 1: call from Craig.
Speaker 3: Craig says, Hey, basically, I'm coming down to see my mom.
Speaker 3: You know, do you guys want to still talk to me?
Speaker 3: I'm incredulous the dude is volunteering. You know, nothing's happened
Speaker 3: in the year and whatever months it's been. There's no
Speaker 3: subpoenas as though arrests, there's those search warrants. Nothing. He's
Speaker 3: got to think he's Scott free.
Speaker 4: Are you?
Speaker 1: Are you pretty surprised to get this phone call?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean again, I'm like, this is unbelievable. I doesn't
Speaker 3: make any sense to me, But I honestly, I literally
Speaker 3: felt like, does he want friends? Does he need friends?
Speaker 3: There's some things that are miraculous. They don't look miraculous.
Speaker 3: But they literally are miraculous, So that doesn't happen in
Speaker 3: a real world. Man, it doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: Terry and Scott are determined to make the most of
Speaker 1: this meeting, and they go for a new strategy. They've
Speaker 1: tried the whole good cop routine and it hasn't worked,
Speaker 1: not really, So to apply a little pressure, they get
Speaker 1: a subpoena requiring Craig to testify before a grand jury
Speaker 1: about the murder that allegedly took place. This is no joke.
Speaker 1: The subpoena will put Craig on the spot because lying
Speaker 1: before a grand jury is a serious offense. They can
Speaker 1: land you in prison for years. But remember they still
Speaker 1: have pretty much nothing on Craig at this point, So
Speaker 1: the subpoena, it's kind of a bluff. What's your mindset
Speaker 1: going into that meeting.
Speaker 2: Our mindset is this, we had a subpoena, We're gonna
Speaker 2: give it to him. You always have to hand deliver it.
Speaker 2: There was going to be no more willer room, no
Speaker 2: more postponements. This is now going to be the make
Speaker 2: it or break it.
Speaker 1: So Craig shows up at the FBI's offices in Wilmington, Delaware,
Speaker 1: he's got no idea that there's a subpoena waiting for him.
Speaker 1: What happens next we piece together from talking to the
Speaker 1: agent's and reading their report from that day. Initially, it's
Speaker 1: all smiles. Terry keeps the whole thing really upbeat.
Speaker 3: Hey, we thank you for coming down. This is awesome.
Speaker 3: You know, we really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: They asked Craig again about the rumor of the murder
Speaker 1: down in Philadelphia. They tell him, we don't think you're
Speaker 1: telling us the truth, and this time, instead of denying
Speaker 1: the whole thing outright, Craig concedes that maybe back at
Speaker 1: the time there'd been some chatter about this.
Speaker 3: I think he said something like, yeah, we heard rumors
Speaker 3: about that that someone said we did a homicide. But
Speaker 3: man's now, that's nothing to it. We didn't do any homicide.
Speaker 3: It's a bunch of junk. Didn't happen. Yeah, maybe Tommy
Speaker 3: said that's gonna.
Speaker 1: Build our rep a little bit, in other words, a
Speaker 1: bit of bragging, but nothing more than that. The agents
Speaker 1: push Craig tell him, we believe a homicide occurred and
Speaker 1: that you participated in it. Eventually, when the meeting is
Speaker 1: almost over, the hand Craig the subpoena and kind of
Speaker 1: hold their breath.
Speaker 3: And again we're shooting blanks. We have nothing right. Well,
Speaker 3: his whole demeanor changed when he got to subpoena. He's
Speaker 3: like what the stress right? Went from like zero to
Speaker 3: like he's he's hitting about a ten.
Speaker 1: That meeting ends without a breakthrough. Craig didn't admit to anything,
Speaker 1: but a few days later he calls them back says
Speaker 1: he wants to meet again, have another sit down. So
Speaker 1: they reconvene, and at this meeting, right off the bat,
Speaker 1: the mood is tense.
Speaker 2: When he arrived, I could tell he was depleted, shaken.
Speaker 2: His whole body had changed to a defeatist demeanor.
Speaker 3: He was like completely complete hundred ay degree change and
Speaker 3: he literally it's hard to describe. It was literally like
Speaker 3: an invisible hand was pushing him down in the chair.
Speaker 3: He physically got smaller. I saw him shrink like like
Speaker 3: like he was like getting deflated. He started sweating, beads
Speaker 3: of sweat were popping out.
Speaker 2: You could feel the tension, but you can also feel
Speaker 2: like he's about to say something. And then he's he says,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you everything.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you everything, I'll tell you everything, And at
Speaker 1: this moment it seemed like maybe, just maybe they'd been
Speaker 1: right all along not to give up on this, and
Speaker 1: that the truth was finally at hand. Coming up this
Speaker 1: season on deep Cover.
Speaker 2: We have to do our job and we have to
Speaker 2: find out who did they kill.
Speaker 4: Not that any murder isn't disturbing, but this particular murder
Speaker 4: and the reason for it the hate.
Speaker 3: This was a hate crime. I believe Tom guys Soon
Speaker 3: is innocent. They had no physical evidence, they had no gun,
Speaker 3: they had nothing.
Speaker 4: We didn't like the speculation the family, and I thought
Speaker 4: that this would be good if we found at least
Speaker 4: what happened to them. Can't do nothing about it, can't
Speaker 4: bring them back, but at least we'll find out the truth.
Speaker 1: Deep Cover is produced by Amy Gaines McQuaid and Jacob Smith.
Speaker 1: It's edited by Karen SCHAKERJI mastering by Jake Gorsky. Our
Speaker 1: show art was designed by Sean Carney. Original scoring in
Speaker 1: our theme was composed by Luis Gara. Fact checking by
Speaker 1: Arthur Gomberts. Our story consultant was James Foreman Jr. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Jerry Williams, Sarah Nix, Greta Cone, and Jake Flanagan,
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Albert