Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, it's Jake. Before we get into this episode,
Speaker 1: I wanted to let you know that you can hear
Speaker 1: more ad free episodes from this season of Deep Cover
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Speaker 1: Pushkin Plus. You'll also get bonus episodes, full audio books,
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Speaker 1: Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm slash Plus. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get into it.
Speaker 2: Hey, I am just recording here is it in the
Speaker 2: car outside your English department? And I just got this
Speaker 2: letter which was sent to me by Sarah Kavanaugh. Okay,
Speaker 2: October twelve, twenty twenty four. Dear Jake, thank you for
Speaker 2: sending me the articles and book that you've written. You
Speaker 2: have a distinct style when imposing questions that really makes
Speaker 2: one think about the messages between the lines. Jess and
Speaker 2: I have spoken twice and emailed several times to talk
Speaker 2: about my actions and the consequences. It is important to
Speaker 2: me that you know I know and knew several months
Speaker 2: before my arrest what I was doing was wrong. I
Speaker 2: could not have imagined the laws I was breaking, but
Speaker 2: know now that I was always guilty. What is your
Speaker 2: opinion about my crime? I asked this because no matter
Speaker 2: who we are, we bring biases, and I'd like to
Speaker 2: know what you are bringing to the conversation. Also, I
Speaker 2: have not always thought about others before myself, and will
Speaker 2: always be deliberately sensitive to other people for the rest
Speaker 2: of my life. I'm looking forward to meeting you, even
Speaker 2: if it's virtually Sincerely, Sarah.
Speaker 1: This letter that I just read you. It's written onlined paper,
Speaker 1: the kind I used in grade school, and the penmanship
Speaker 1: is flawless. When I read it for the first time,
Speaker 1: I was in my car outside my classroom at the
Speaker 1: university where I teach, and I found myself just sitting
Speaker 1: there reading and rereading this letter. What is your opinion
Speaker 1: about my crime?
Speaker 3: She asked.
Speaker 1: Now that was interesting to me. It was almost like,
Speaker 1: right from the jump, this woman, Sarah Kavanaugh, had flipped
Speaker 1: the script like she was interviewing me, and then there
Speaker 1: was this line, I'd like to know what you are
Speaker 1: bringing to the conversation. Funny because we weren't even having
Speaker 1: a conversation yet. But looking back, I understand now that
Speaker 1: the conversation had already started and she was already sussing
Speaker 1: me out, tuning in to me and Sarah. She's really
Speaker 1: really good at that. I know that now. Months before
Speaker 1: I got that letter, I got a call from my
Speaker 1: friend Jess McHugh. She's my co host this season. Jess
Speaker 1: is a journalist and an author. In fact, you may
Speaker 1: have noticed in Sarah's letter she makes a reference to Jess,
Speaker 1: and that's because Jess is the one who found this story.
Speaker 4: I first heard about Sarah when I read a few
Speaker 4: articles about her online, just snippets, really, But what I
Speaker 4: read about her was so bizarre, so unusual. I had
Speaker 4: a million questions, so I tracked her down. We started
Speaker 4: sending emails, talking on the phone, getting to know each other.
Speaker 4: From the start, she felt familiar to me. We have
Speaker 4: a few things in common. Actually we're about the same age,
Speaker 4: both from small towns in New England. But also, I've
Speaker 4: become a bit of an expert on women like her.
Speaker 4: I've spent years digging into historical research, reviewing court documents,
Speaker 4: and immersing myself in the world of women who managed
Speaker 4: to live multiple lives. Found so much that I'm now
Speaker 4: writing a book about it all. So yeah, Sarah felt
Speaker 4: familiar to me. But in the most unsettling way. I
Speaker 4: clearly remember one of the first things I wrote to
Speaker 4: her after reading those headlines. I told her, I suspect
Speaker 4: that there is so much more to your story. I
Speaker 4: had no way of knowing just how true that would
Speaker 4: turn out to be.
Speaker 1: There's so much that we've learned since we first started
Speaker 1: talking to Sarah, so much else that she's told us,
Speaker 1: And we've spent the last eight months trying to figure
Speaker 1: out how much of her story is true and what,
Speaker 1: if anything, we could trust, because this story is all
Speaker 1: about trust. It's about what it means to know someone
Speaker 1: or think you know someone, and what happens when reality
Speaker 1: itself seems to dissolve. I'm Jay Colburn and I'm Jess
Speaker 1: McHugh and this is Deep Cover, Season six, The Truth
Speaker 1: About Sarah, Episode one, The Warrior.
Speaker 4: One of the first people we interviewed for this story
Speaker 4: was Catherine Dexter. She goes by dex dex initially met
Speaker 4: Sarah Cavanaugh in the mountains in Montana at a retreat
Speaker 4: for veterans.
Speaker 5: You got to see the sunrise, you got to see mountains,
Speaker 5: and the air was like amazing and crisp and smelled
Speaker 5: a little bit like a campfire.
Speaker 3: So you woke up every.
Speaker 5: Single morning and you saw these mountains and they were beautiful,
Speaker 5: and you were just like awestruck because you were like,
Speaker 5: why don't I live here? And that's where you were
Speaker 5: drinking your coffee at five am.
Speaker 4: Dex had served in the Marines as military police in
Speaker 4: Japan and a couple other bases. When she got out,
Speaker 4: she felt a bit lost.
Speaker 5: So I had kind of steered away from the veteran
Speaker 5: community when I got out, and I was really really isolated.
Speaker 5: So that was one of the big things that I
Speaker 5: struggled with because I had dealt with a lot of
Speaker 5: life transitions.
Speaker 4: The retreat was organized by a nonprofit called Patrol Base
Speaker 4: Abate also known as pb Abaate. Founder started the organization
Speaker 4: because he was concerned about the mental health of veterans
Speaker 4: and their difficulties readjusting to civilian life, and this was
Speaker 4: kind of the exact crossroads Decks was at. So she
Speaker 4: applied to go on one of their all expense paid trips
Speaker 4: to Montana and that's how she ended up drinking her
Speaker 4: coffee and Big Sky Country with all these other vets
Speaker 4: and meeting Sarah. What were your.
Speaker 6: First impressions of her at the time, I liked her.
Speaker 6: I liked her a lot.
Speaker 5: It's all in the context of like what I know
Speaker 5: about her now, But back then I liked her because
Speaker 5: she put out, because she worked really hard, and she
Speaker 5: was really humble, and she didn't walk around saying, oh,
Speaker 5: I'm a woman, and I was in combat. She was
Speaker 5: injured and everybody knew it, but she was still running.
Speaker 1: Part of the ethos of this retreat was you didn't
Speaker 1: brag about the past, focused on now, and you exercised
Speaker 1: a lot. The whole point of this retreat was actually
Speaker 1: strength building. The Vets built a platform that became their
Speaker 1: outdoor gym. They lifted weights here, did squats, deadlifts, power cleans,
Speaker 1: and apparently they were also carrying giant slabs of rock
Speaker 1: up a mountain. Come on, oh shit, leyam push that woman.
Speaker 1: You can hear saying push it. That's Sarah Kavanaugh. We
Speaker 1: found this video of her on YouTube from this same retreat.
Speaker 1: She's in a sweaty gray tank top, has on these
Speaker 1: mirrored sunglasses and leather workmen's gloves. She has blonde hair,
Speaker 1: and her runners build slim and athletics and that soft
Speaker 1: inspirational music that's in there because this is a promotional
Speaker 1: video for Patrol Base of Bate, and in that video
Speaker 1: we see Sarah giving an interview with the Wild Mountains
Speaker 1: of Montana in the background.
Speaker 7: Because there's such an open discussion about what's really happening
Speaker 7: to veterans, right, you know, what are we going through?
Speaker 7: How can we, you know, refit and refresh the skills
Speaker 7: we have and the skills we learned while we were
Speaker 7: serving and apply them to our lives and make our
Speaker 7: lives better now. I think I was expecting just to
Speaker 7: come together and have some fun and work out, but
Speaker 7: it was so much more than that.
Speaker 4: The person who started these retreats was concerned about all
Speaker 4: the challenges that vet's face as they transitioned back to
Speaker 4: civilian life, and he wanted this time in the woods
Speaker 4: to be healing, transformational, even.
Speaker 7: And to the veterans who are coming out here, be
Speaker 7: ready to talk and not talk out loud. But maybe
Speaker 7: you need to talk to yourself. Maybe you need to
Speaker 7: hear what other people are saying and process that and
Speaker 7: come back to yourself and work through some things. And
Speaker 7: I think that's happening here. It definitely is. But I
Speaker 7: think if you can at least be prepared to do
Speaker 7: the work. I think you'll get a lot out of it.
Speaker 4: Vick says that on this retreat there were just a
Speaker 4: few female vets. It was her, Sarah, and another former
Speaker 4: marine named Natalie. The three of them worked out together.
Speaker 8: Dex has this way of like she calls it gassing
Speaker 8: you up, of like being your biggest cheerleader, and so
Speaker 8: she'll be like, man, look at those guns.
Speaker 3: Natalie.
Speaker 1: That's Natalie Markham. She was a clarinetist in the Marine
Speaker 1: Corps band, a self described band nerd. At the time
Speaker 1: of the retreat, Natalie was struggling. She owned a CrossFit
Speaker 1: gym that had been hit hard during the pandemic, and
Speaker 1: she was worried that it might go bust. So for
Speaker 1: her to be here in Montana doing something she loved
Speaker 1: under the open sky with new friends, it was like
Speaker 1: she could breathe. She asked someone to take a picture
Speaker 1: of her with Dex and Sarah to commemorate the moment.
Speaker 8: The three of us are lined up and being female
Speaker 8: and in the military, like do you stand tough?
Speaker 6: Do you stand feminine?
Speaker 8: And then you know we're in a strength retreat, so
Speaker 8: we should take one that looks kind of cute, but
Speaker 8: then we should take one that looks kind of tough,
Speaker 8: and so will flex, and Dex is always the one
Speaker 8: to be like, oh, we have to flex.
Speaker 1: In the picture, the three of them are standing against
Speaker 1: the backdrop of the mountains, all flexing, biceps and triceps bulging.
Speaker 1: Natalie and Sarah are smiling, Dex all business serious as
Speaker 1: can be, and looking at the photo, I could kind
Speaker 1: of feel their energy. I'd never guess they just met.
Speaker 1: They look like they could be sisters, joking, competing, giving
Speaker 1: each other shit, like the Three Musketeers or something. Dex
Speaker 1: told us that this kind of camaraderie is not a given.
Speaker 5: When you're a woman in the military, the competition among
Speaker 5: other women is really intense. A lot of the time.
Speaker 5: You're all trying to be the best, not just be
Speaker 5: the best woman, but you're trying to be the best
Speaker 5: so that the men think you're the best, because that's
Speaker 5: what matters. And you know, men are the ones who
Speaker 5: are always in charge of you. It's their opinion that
Speaker 5: gets you promoted. So if you're falling short, I mean,
Speaker 5: you're already doing one thing wrong because you're a woman.
Speaker 5: So it's like you can't do two things wrong.
Speaker 1: Dex was especially impressed with Sarah. She was somehow doing
Speaker 1: all these really intense workouts while also dealing with what
Speaker 1: seemed like a pretty sious leg injury.
Speaker 5: She also was taking injections of some kind some type
Speaker 5: of medication for her hip, and she was like telling us, like,
Speaker 5: if she doesn't, you know, put this shot in her hip,
Speaker 5: like her leg goes numb.
Speaker 1: Because Sarah was so modest, because she didn't boast or
Speaker 1: advertise about who she was and what she'd done, there
Speaker 1: was an air of mystery about her. Sarah said she
Speaker 1: was a crypto linguist. She'd served in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: She came from a military family. Her brother had been
Speaker 1: a marine too. He was killed in combat and buried
Speaker 1: at Arlington Cemetery. In private moments, Sarah began to open
Speaker 1: up two decks.
Speaker 5: She told me that she had been in a convoy
Speaker 5: and her vehicle was hit by nid you know, the
Speaker 5: humby blew up the door from the humphy like crushed
Speaker 5: her hip, and somehow she was able to like get
Speaker 5: out of the humby.
Speaker 1: As Sarah told her, hip never healed properly from the
Speaker 1: knee down her leg was basically dying. But that's not all.
Speaker 5: While sitting in the tent, she's about to leave and
Speaker 5: we're talking and she tells me that, like, she just
Speaker 5: got diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. And I like
Speaker 5: remembered this because she cried because I got up to
Speaker 5: give her a hug.
Speaker 4: So just a recap. Here's this woman, Sarah, who at
Speaker 4: the time was just thirty years old, already a decorated
Speaker 4: war veteran, strong, modest, whitetly brave, sprinting down these mountain
Speaker 4: trails and giving herself these injections to stem the pain.
Speaker 4: And on top of it all, she also has stage
Speaker 4: four lung cancer. Dex had to coax it out of
Speaker 4: her because Sarah's story came out and dribbed and drabs,
Speaker 4: and it got more tragic incrementally, like a kettle on
Speaker 4: a stove that heats up slowly until all of a
Speaker 4: sudden it starts to boil. So the retreat in Montana
Speaker 4: comes to an end, and the three Musketeers say goodbye
Speaker 4: to one another. They stay in touch, and this, by
Speaker 4: the way, is exactly the goal of this program. Veterans
Speaker 4: forming real bonds that last long after the campfire goes out.
Speaker 4: A few months after the Montana Retreat, in December of
Speaker 4: twenty twenty one, Dex happened to be in Virginia visiting
Speaker 4: Arlington National Cemetery and suddenly Dex remembers that Sarah's brother
Speaker 4: was a Marine who was killed in action. So she
Speaker 4: sends Sarah a text and says she'd like to lay
Speaker 4: a wreath at his grave. Within minutes, Sarah texts back
Speaker 4: with a plot number, but when Dex gets to the grave,
Speaker 4: she notices that this marine he has a different last
Speaker 4: name than Sarah's, and when she looks up his obituary,
Speaker 4: she sees that they're not even the same race. When
Speaker 4: she sends Sarah a picture of the grave, though, Sarah
Speaker 4: confirms that yes, this is him.
Speaker 5: So I'm thinking, if he's not her actual physical brother,
Speaker 5: I don't think she mentioned ever having an adopted brother, And
Speaker 5: then I'm thinking maybe she just meant brother, like in
Speaker 5: the colloquial where all marines were brothers type way, and
Speaker 5: I was like, maybe that's it.
Speaker 4: You can hear Dexx trying to make sense of this,
Speaker 4: but she said she didn't ask Sarah too many questions
Speaker 4: about it.
Speaker 5: That's kind of like if you had a friend that
Speaker 5: told you that she'd had a miscarriage, the very last
Speaker 5: thing that you're going to do to that friend while
Speaker 5: she's crying about losing a baby is ask heroage that
Speaker 5: actually happened, Like this is so insensitive. So I was
Speaker 5: not going to ask this woman these questions because I
Speaker 5: didn't want to be insensitive because we were friends.
Speaker 4: So Dex just didn't say anything. Besides, at this point,
Speaker 4: Sarah was fighting lung cancer and from time to time
Speaker 4: she'd mentioned to Dex that her medical bills were piling up.
Speaker 4: Now the VA wasn't covering everything. Dex wanted to help,
Speaker 4: even from far away. That's when she heard about this
Speaker 4: charity called Hunter seven. Hunter seven helps veterans who struggle
Speaker 4: to pay their medical bills. The reality is many veterans
Speaker 4: face huge gaps in the healthcare. The VA provides wait times,
Speaker 4: denied claims, and charities like Hunter seven come in as
Speaker 4: a stopgap. So Dex tells Sarah she should apply for
Speaker 4: financial assistance. At first, Sarah seemed reluctant. Maybe she was
Speaker 4: just underwater with everything she had going on, So Dex
Speaker 4: offered to step in and submit an application for Sarah.
Speaker 5: I was like, this is what I would do for
Speaker 5: my friends, like especially a friend who's like struggling at
Speaker 5: this level. I was like, I understood really clearly, like
Speaker 5: having a million things going on and all of them
Speaker 5: feeling very intent. So I was like, let me help
Speaker 5: you out because I have a minute, and it's no
Speaker 5: skin off my back to send an email.
Speaker 4: She couldn't know this then, but this simple act of
Speaker 4: kindness would set something in motion, something that would forever
Speaker 4: alter the way Decks saw Sarah.
Speaker 1: Remember Natalie, the third Musketeer from the Montana Retreat, the clarinetist. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: Natalie also stayed in touch with Sarah. In fact, right
Speaker 1: around the time that Dex was visiting the cemetery in Arlington,
Speaker 1: Natalie and Sarah were actually hanging out in person. A
Speaker 1: bunch of vets, including a few from the Montana Retreat,
Speaker 1: gathered at a CrossFit gym in California to have a
Speaker 1: little competition. Well not so little, even for Natalie. It
Speaker 1: was a lot.
Speaker 8: There was one workout every hour on the hour for
Speaker 8: eight hours. Just the grueling nature of eight hours worth
Speaker 8: of workouts is enough to make most people go, yeah, no,
Speaker 8: I'm not doing that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty insane. This was like an ultra marathon for weightlifters.
Speaker 1: They broke down into teams of two. Now, at this point,
Speaker 1: Natalie didn't know about Sarah's cancer, and this is because
Speaker 1: Sarah had never told her. She just confided this to Decks, which,
Speaker 1: as we've come to learn, is kind of how Sarah operated.
Speaker 1: She shared details about her life one on one in
Speaker 1: these small private moments, and so the secrets remained compartmentalized.
Speaker 1: Natalie was aware that Sarah had some issue with her leg,
Speaker 1: but that was about all. Then in the middle of
Speaker 1: the competition, during one of the breaks, they're all kind
Speaker 1: of just sitting around resting, Natalie, her teammate, Sarah, her teammate, All.
Speaker 8: Four of us are sitting on the floor together and
Speaker 8: Sarah says.
Speaker 6: That she's going to have to have her leg amputated.
Speaker 8: And I was blown away, Like, you are in the
Speaker 8: middle of doing an eight hour workout and you have
Speaker 8: to have your leg amputated. It was absolutely unfathomable to me.
Speaker 8: But I distinctly remember her saying, if I'm gonna have
Speaker 8: to have my leg amputated, then I'm gonna make this
Speaker 8: bitch give me every last ounce of what it's got
Speaker 8: to give.
Speaker 1: Natalie is looking at Sarah's leg and it's trembling, and
Speaker 1: she thinks to herself, you are like.
Speaker 8: A whole other level of badassory than I have ever known.
Speaker 1: And the proof was Sarah's team then goes on to
Speaker 1: beat Natalie's team in the competition, and Natalie she's in awe.
Speaker 1: The two women went to another retreat together not long
Speaker 1: after this, and it seemed like Sarah's leg was in
Speaker 1: bad shape.
Speaker 8: We did one workout where Sarah was having a really
Speaker 8: hard time and like at the end of the workout,
Speaker 8: her leg was shaking so badly, and she's like, Natalie,
Speaker 8: will you please help me?
Speaker 6: Can you please help me? Stretch? I took her shaking leg.
Speaker 8: And placed it up on my shoulder and am holding
Speaker 8: her quad in one hand and her foot up here
Speaker 8: and kind of leaning in, and I'm talking her through
Speaker 8: like breathe into the muscle, Like take some breath, exhale slowly,
Speaker 8: picture your leg relaxing, and just remember her like having
Speaker 8: this moment of her leg finally relaxing, and this is
Speaker 8: the leg that she's supposed to have amputated in feeling
Speaker 8: some sense of gratitude that I could help somebody in
Speaker 8: that situation to have some kind of relief.
Speaker 1: Looking back, Natalie still recalls the intensity of this moment
Speaker 1: with Sarah, the tenseness of her hamstring, the tremors and
Speaker 1: her muscles, the pain on Sarah's face. It all seems
Speaker 1: so real. In the coming weeks, Natalie texted Sarah about
Speaker 1: the amputation to see if it had been scheduled, and
Speaker 1: Sarah eventually gave her a date, January twenty sixth. The
Speaker 1: date sticks in Natalie's mind. She keeps thinking about it
Speaker 1: as it draws closer, and then the night before the surgery,
Speaker 1: Natalie can't sleep. She just keeps thinking about Sarah.
Speaker 6: And like, I'm so genuinely worried about her that in
Speaker 6: the middle of the night, I wake up and the
Speaker 6: first thing I think of is I must be waking
Speaker 6: up because I've got to pray for Sarah. I should
Speaker 6: text her and let her know that I'm praying. And
Speaker 6: so I text out my prayer to her and send
Speaker 6: it to her.
Speaker 1: I asked Natalie to read me.
Speaker 8: That text January twenty sixth, twenty twenty two. A prayer
Speaker 8: for you today is what I wrote. Go God, thank
Speaker 8: you for Sarah. Thank you for her intelligence, kindness, humor, bravery, courage,
Speaker 8: and service to the United States, and for her gift
Speaker 8: of friendship. I pray that you will give her and
Speaker 8: her family a deep sense of peace today, even as
Speaker 8: she is under anesthesia, though she already has such a
Speaker 8: deep sense of drive and determination, Pour into her an
Speaker 8: extra dose of perseverance and purpose. Heal her body Lord
Speaker 8: from this and all illness and disease.
Speaker 1: Did she write anything back, She.
Speaker 6: Wrote, thank you so much. I can't tell you what
Speaker 6: this means to me.
Speaker 1: The next day, Natalie shot Sarah another text to see
Speaker 1: how the surgery went, and Sarah explained that they had
Speaker 1: to call off the amputation.
Speaker 8: She said that when she was going into her surgery
Speaker 8: that her blood pressure had dropped and they couldn't They
Speaker 8: weren't able to perform the surgery because of that, and
Speaker 8: I remember thinking at the time, like, that's really weird.
Speaker 8: You would think that if you're going to go have
Speaker 8: your leg cut off, that your blood pressure would be
Speaker 8: sky high. The next day, I was like trying to
Speaker 8: reach out to her, but thinking that she's still in
Speaker 8: the hospital and it's in the middle of me.
Speaker 6: Trying to get a hold of her.
Speaker 8: Then I receive a message from Tom through WhatsApp.
Speaker 1: That guy, she mentions Tom, that's Tom Schumann. He's the
Speaker 1: founder of Patrol Base ABATA, the nonprofit that organized those
Speaker 1: retreats up in Montana. Tom also knew Sarah, and now
Speaker 1: he was texting with an urgent message.
Speaker 8: And he's like, Hey, Sarah is not who she says
Speaker 8: she is.
Speaker 1: Tom says that Sarah has been lying about a number
Speaker 1: of things, and that she may have lied about her
Speaker 1: military service. Natalie didn't know who or what to believe.
Speaker 8: I specifically asked Tom like how do you know this?
Speaker 8: Because now I'm questioning him, like why would you even
Speaker 8: say something like that, like how do you? How do you?
Speaker 6: How do you know for sure?
Speaker 1: But it turns out Tom had his reasons. In the
Speaker 1: weeks leading up to this moment, he'd been digging into
Speaker 1: Sarah's story and he discovered a few red flags, some
Speaker 1: things that just didn't add up. More on that.
Speaker 4: After the break, Tom Schumann first met Sarah Kavanaugh in
Speaker 4: the snowy mountains of Boulder, Colorado, at a Patrol Base
Speaker 4: of Bate retreat.
Speaker 3: We're staying in a canvas tense it was an intimate
Speaker 3: setting where we're spending all day night, which is a
Speaker 3: small group of people. We connected over our intellectual and
Speaker 3: academic and literature interests, had read the same books, talking
Speaker 3: about the same authors. Pretty immediately we started hitting it off.
Speaker 4: This retreat was similar to the one in Montana we
Speaker 4: told you about. Hang out, workout, talk, connect. That was
Speaker 4: the goal. That's why Tom founded pibi Abate in the
Speaker 4: first place. He's a marine and when he returned from
Speaker 4: his tours overseas, he watched his comrade struggle. He told
Speaker 4: us three of his fellow marines died by suicide over
Speaker 4: the course of one month, and that is what led
Speaker 4: him to start pibi Abate. In Colorado, Tom and Sarah
Speaker 4: started to get to know each other. Sarah told him
Speaker 4: she was a professor, which appealed to him. Tom himself
Speaker 4: taught literature at the US Naval Academy. Sarah also told
Speaker 4: him that she had a kid who just crashed her
Speaker 4: pickup truck. She seemed down to earth and genuine.
Speaker 3: Within the first twenty four hours, I felt like we
Speaker 3: had bonded, and then throughout the weekend there were a
Speaker 3: couple of experiences that solidified that bond and strengthened it.
Speaker 4: On the last day of this retreat, a guy named
Speaker 4: Brian Shantosh led them on an adventure workout. Shantash is
Speaker 4: a former marine and a leadership guru famed for his
Speaker 4: wilderness programs, and his workouts have a reputation for pushing
Speaker 4: people to their limits. So everyone, even Tom, was nervous.
Speaker 4: They were told to break down into teams of two.
Speaker 4: Sarah and Tom partnered.
Speaker 3: Up and one of the things that you had to
Speaker 3: do was drag a weighted sled up the mountain and
Speaker 3: back a couple different times. You dragged this on a
Speaker 3: mile loop.
Speaker 4: They get to it, they start pushing this weighted sled
Speaker 4: up the mountain and then back down the mountain on
Speaker 4: this mile long loop, again and again and again. And
Speaker 4: remember this is the Rockies in December, so it's freezing
Speaker 4: and the wind is whipping them as they trudge through.
Speaker 3: I just really respected this this gal who was apparently
Speaker 3: very valorous in combat, still dealing with her injuries from combat,
Speaker 3: toughing it out on the side of the mountain, and
Speaker 3: so I admired that she was being what I felt like,
Speaker 3: pretty courageous through the event.
Speaker 4: Tom's not a very effusive guy. So this is basically
Speaker 4: his version of gushing. He didn't know about all of
Speaker 4: Sarah's health issues, the cancer and the like amputation. Sarah
Speaker 4: had never told him about this, though he would soon
Speaker 4: find out.
Speaker 1: Within a few weeks. Tom hears about Sarah's cancer, then
Speaker 1: he feels like he's got to do something.
Speaker 3: I am a guy of action. I reached out to
Speaker 3: her and I said, hey, I didn't know you were sick.
Speaker 3: We should meet soon to see if I can I
Speaker 3: can help, if there's anything that I can do.
Speaker 1: At the time, Tom lived in Rhode Island, where Sarah
Speaker 1: also lived, so they met up for coffee and talked
Speaker 1: for hours. He learned how she'd seen combat in Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: how our convoy was blown up, and how she'd been
Speaker 1: seriously hurt in the blast, and how despite it all,
Speaker 1: she still managed to save some of the guys in
Speaker 1: her patrol, dragging them to safety even with her own
Speaker 1: crushed hip. How she'd gotten a bronze star for her bravery,
Speaker 1: and now she had cancer in her lungs because of
Speaker 1: the toxic chemicals and that explosion.
Speaker 3: It seemed incurable, that it was terminal. The VA wasn't
Speaker 3: helping because she couldn't prove that the cancer was combat related.
Speaker 3: I was just like, goodness, gracious, like everything that you've
Speaker 3: been through, from your injuries to the cancer, to gonna
Speaker 3: lose your leg, the amount of tragedy that in trauma.
Speaker 3: And I just resolved in that moment like I am
Speaker 3: gonna do everything that I can do to help you.
Speaker 4: And what do you need?
Speaker 3: And she needed employment. She said she didn't have a
Speaker 3: very good job.
Speaker 1: She told Tom that her plan had been to get
Speaker 1: a PhD d in English literature. She'd even been accepted
Speaker 1: into a program at Johns Hopkins, but then the VA
Speaker 1: delivered some shattering news. They told her that she couldn't
Speaker 1: use her GI bill. Why because her life expectancy was
Speaker 1: shorter than the time it would take to finish the program.
Speaker 1: It was devastating, all of it. Tom, being a guy
Speaker 1: of action, was like, maybe I can create a salaried
Speaker 1: position for you at Patrol Base ABAT. At the time,
Speaker 1: the organization was run entirely by volunteers. There were no
Speaker 1: paid positions, but the organization did have donors, some with
Speaker 1: deep pockets, and Tom thought maybe one of them would
Speaker 1: be willing to pay for this. Tom even had a
Speaker 1: particular donor in mind, a woman who lived up in
Speaker 1: New Hampshire.
Speaker 4: So he wants to get all his ducks in a row.
Speaker 4: He asked Sarah for a copy of her DD two fourteen.
Speaker 4: That's the official military discharge paper that all service members receive,
Speaker 4: explaining how and when they left the service. Sarah sends
Speaker 4: him the paperwork. He says he remembers vividly the moment
Speaker 4: he received it. He was sitting in his car in
Speaker 4: a parking lot about to get a haircut. He starts
Speaker 4: scanning through the documents on his phone and something catches
Speaker 4: his eye. The D two fourteen, says Sarah retired as
Speaker 4: a corporal, which is weird because she'd made it all
Speaker 4: the way up to staff sergeant. In fact, he'd seen
Speaker 4: a picture of her with the staff sergeant insignia. So
Speaker 4: he calls her up.
Speaker 3: And so I just said, hey, Sarah, I'm going to
Speaker 3: New Hampshire tomorrow to ask for sixty thousand dollars. Before
Speaker 3: I do that, could you help me understand why it
Speaker 3: says that you're a corporal here. And she's like, well,
Speaker 3: I didn't really want to get into all that, but
Speaker 3: I was sexually assaulted on ship by the commanding officer.
Speaker 3: He had pulled the gun during the sexual assault, and
Speaker 3: I'm the one who got punished for reporting him. I said, like,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry to hear that, but I am now incredulous
Speaker 3: about all this.
Speaker 4: Suddenly, Sarah's whole story, with all its drama and all
Speaker 4: its heroics, is feeling very shaky. Tom knew he needed
Speaker 4: back up, so he reached out to a friend who
Speaker 4: had access to personnel records. The friend, he punches in
Speaker 4: Sarah's DoD number, the military equivalent of a Social Security number,
Speaker 4: does some more digging. That friend gets back to Tom
Speaker 4: with what he's found, and he.
Speaker 3: Said, the Dodd number for this D two fourteen belongs
Speaker 3: to a corporal so and so, and it's a guy.
Speaker 3: And he's like, fifty percent of this document is his record.
Speaker 3: Then fifty percent of this document is altered.
Speaker 4: It looks like she'd taken someone else's records and doctorate them,
Speaker 4: inserting her own name and other details. And this, by
Speaker 4: the way, it's not a small thing. This isn't forging
Speaker 4: your mom's name on a sick note. This is a
Speaker 4: huge deal, felony level huge. Tom is in a state
Speaker 4: of shock.
Speaker 3: That's like, uh yeah, that was I mean that that
Speaker 3: was it. Like at that point, I'm like, I've been bamboozled, hoodwinked.
Speaker 4: Tom goes home and tells his wife. His wife, she's pissed.
Speaker 4: She knows how hard Tom has been working for this woman,
Speaker 4: trying to help her, and now she seems to be
Speaker 4: a fraud. She's like, not on my watch. So she
Speaker 4: goes over in person and reports this whole thing to NCIS.
Speaker 4: That's the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Maybe you've seen the
Speaker 4: TV show. They're the badass investigators for the US Navy
Speaker 4: and Marine Corps. Anyway, the NCIS folks, they're like, okay,
Speaker 4: we'll look into this.
Speaker 1: Around this same time, something else very important happens. Remember
Speaker 1: how Dex, the friend from the Montana Retreat, tried to
Speaker 1: help Sarah with her medical bills, how she contacted a
Speaker 1: charity called Hunter seven. Well, that charity had also started
Speaker 1: digging into Sarah's backstory, and what they discovered prompted them
Speaker 1: to alert both Tom and the FBI. But what no
Speaker 1: one realized, not Tom or Dex or NCIS or even
Speaker 1: the FBI, was just how deep this deception went. None
Speaker 1: of them could begin to fathom it lies tend to
Speaker 1: be fragile, temperamental things. Small ones may flourish, but the
Speaker 1: big ones die, wilting under their own weight. Except in
Speaker 1: this case, the bigger it grew, the more real it became.
Speaker 4: This season is about a betrayal writ large, a deception
Speaker 4: that played out over the course of more than six years,
Speaker 4: not just in Montana, but in Colorado and Texas and Tennessee,
Speaker 4: California and Rhode Island too.
Speaker 1: To this day, much of this story is shrouded in mystery.
Speaker 1: There's no detailed public record of what really happened. What's more,
Speaker 1: most of the people caught up in all of this
Speaker 1: haven't spoken publicly or even to each other, so the
Speaker 1: story itself remains compartmentalized, like rooms in a mansion with
Speaker 1: no doors between them. Jess and I have spent the
Speaker 1: last year or so finding our way into these rooms
Speaker 1: and listening coming up this season on Deep Cover.
Speaker 5: I remember sitting on her couch and like me like
Speaker 5: telling her, asking her is this real?
Speaker 6: Is this real?
Speaker 3: Is this real? Is this real?
Speaker 5: I was like, wait, wait, were you ever in the military.
Speaker 9: I just couldn't brought my head around what kind of
Speaker 9: person would do that to another person, especially that was
Speaker 9: you knew was sick, that was getting treatment, that was
Speaker 9: you know, dying. I've seen a lot of stuff over
Speaker 9: thirty years, and this ranks right up there in.
Speaker 1: The pantheon of Rhode Island fraudsters.
Speaker 6: Can you introduce yourself?
Speaker 7: Okay, I'm Sarah Kavanaugh and I'm originally from Rhode Island.
Speaker 7: I can see where in some ways it can fit
Speaker 7: this aspect of like this huge plan to get all
Speaker 7: this money, like this master plan or something, but I
Speaker 7: never thought about it like that.
Speaker 1: Deep Cover The Truth About Sarah was produced by Amy
Speaker 1: Gaines McQuaid and Tally Emlyn. Additional production support by Sonya Gerwick.
Speaker 4: Our show is edited by Karen Chakerjee. Our executive producer
Speaker 4: is Jacob Smith, mastering by Jake Gorsky.
Speaker 1: Original scoring in our theme were composed by Luis Gara.
Speaker 1: Our show art was designed by Sean Carney, fact checking
Speaker 1: by Anica Robbins.
Speaker 4: Special thanks to Sarah Nix, Izzy Carter, Daphne Chen, Jake Flanagan,
Speaker 4: and Greta Cohne. Additional thanks to Vicky Merrick. I'm Jess McHugh.
Speaker 1: And I'm Jake Halpern my co host Jess McHugh is
Speaker 1: currently researching a book on female con artists.