Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, it's Jake. I hope you enjoyed our season
Speaker 1: The Truth About Sarah. We'll be having a live event
Speaker 1: later this year. It's going to be a conversation between
Speaker 1: me and my co host Jess McHugh, and we want
Speaker 1: to hear from you too. What questions do you have
Speaker 1: for us about this season? Send your questions to deep
Speaker 1: Cover at Pushkin dot fm. That's deep Cover All one
Speaker 1: word at Pushkin dot fm and stay tuned for more
Speaker 1: details on this event.
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.
Speaker 3: Okay, October twelve, twenty twenty four. Dear Jake, thank you
Speaker 3: for sending me the articles and book that you've written.
Speaker 3: You have a distinct style when imposing questions that really
Speaker 3: makes one think about the messages between the lines.
Speaker 4: Jess and I have spoken twice and emailed several times
Speaker 4: to talk about my actions and the consequences. It is
Speaker 4: important to me that you know I know and knew
Speaker 4: several months before my arrest what I was doing was wrong.
Speaker 4: I could not have imagined the laws I was breaking,
Speaker 4: but know now that I was always guilty. What is
Speaker 4: your opinion about my crime? I asked this, because no
Speaker 4: matter who we are, we bring biases, and I'd like
Speaker 4: to know what you are bringing to the conversation. Also,
Speaker 4: I have not always thought about others before myself, and
Speaker 4: will always be deliberately sensitive to other people for the
Speaker 4: rest of my life. I'm looking forward to meeting you,
Speaker 4: even if it's virtually Sincerely, Sarah.
Speaker 1: This letter that I just read you. It's written on
Speaker 1: lined paper, the kind I used in grade school, and
Speaker 1: the penmanship is flawless. When I read it for the
Speaker 1: first time, I was in my car outside my classroom
Speaker 1: at the university where I teach, and I found myself
Speaker 1: just sitting there reading and rereading this letter. What is
Speaker 1: your opinion about my crime?
Speaker 5: 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 were
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 6: I first heard about Sarah when I read a few
Speaker 6: articles about her online, just snippets, really, But what I
Speaker 6: read about her was so bizarre, so unusual, I had
Speaker 6: a million questions, so I tracked her down. We started
Speaker 6: sending emails, talking on the phone, getting to know each other,
Speaker 6: and right from the start she felt familiar to me.
Speaker 6: We have a few things in common. Actually we're about
Speaker 6: the same age, both from small towns in New England.
Speaker 6: But also, I've become a bit of an expert on
Speaker 6: women like her. I've spent years digging into historical research,
Speaker 6: reviewing court documents, and immersing myself in the world of
Speaker 6: women who managed to live multiple lives. Found so much
Speaker 6: that I'm now writing a book about it all. So yeah,
Speaker 6: Sarah felt familiar to me, but in the most unsettling way.
Speaker 6: I clearly remember one of the first things I wrote
Speaker 6: to her after reading those headlines. I told her, I
Speaker 6: suspect that there is so much more to your story.
Speaker 6: I had no way of knowing just how true that
Speaker 6: would turn out to be.
Speaker 1: There's so much that we've learned since we first started
Speaker 1: talking to Sarah jelous that she's told us, and we've
Speaker 1: spent the last eight months trying to figure out how
Speaker 1: much of her story is true and what, if anything,
Speaker 1: we could trust, because this story is all about trust.
Speaker 1: It's about what it means to know someone or think
Speaker 1: you know someone, and what happens when reality itself seems
Speaker 1: to dissolve. I'm Jake Colbern and I'm Jess McHugh and
Speaker 1: this is deep Cover, Season six, The Truth About Sarah,
Speaker 1: Episode one, The Warrior.
Speaker 6: One of the first people we interviewed for this story
Speaker 6: was Catherine Dexter. She goes by des Des initially met
Speaker 6: Sarah Cavanaugh in the mountains in Montana at a retreat
Speaker 6: for veterans.
Speaker 7: You got to see the sunrise and you got to
Speaker 7: see mountains and the air was like amazing, and crisped
Speaker 7: and smelled a little bit like a campfire.
Speaker 8: So you woke up every.
Speaker 7: Single morning and you saw these mountains and they were beautiful,
Speaker 7: and you were just like awestruck because you were like,
Speaker 7: why don't I live here? And that's where you were
Speaker 7: drinking your coffee at five am.
Speaker 6: Dex had served in the Marines as military police in
Speaker 6: Japan a couple other bases. When she got out, she
Speaker 6: felt a bit lost.
Speaker 7: So I had kind of kind of steered away from
Speaker 7: the veteran community when I got out, and I was
Speaker 7: really really isolated. So that was one of the big
Speaker 7: things that I struggled with because I had dealt with
Speaker 7: a lot of life transitions.
Speaker 6: The retreat was organized by a nonprofit called Patrol Base
Speaker 6: Abate also known as pb Abate. Founder started the organization
Speaker 6: because he was concerned about the mental health of veterans
Speaker 6: and their difficulties readjusting to civilian life, and this was
Speaker 6: kind of the exact crossroads Decks was at. So she
Speaker 6: applied to go on one of their all expense paid
Speaker 6: trips to Montana, and that's how she ended up drinking
Speaker 6: her coffee in Big Sky Country with all these other
Speaker 6: vets and meeting Sarah what were your.
Speaker 8: First impressions of her At the time, I liked her.
Speaker 8: I liked her a lot.
Speaker 7: It's all in the context of like what I know
Speaker 7: about her now, But back then I liked her because
Speaker 7: she put out, because she worked really hard, and she
Speaker 7: was really homeble, and she didn't walk around saying, oh,
Speaker 7: I'm a woman and I was in combat. She was
Speaker 7: 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.
Speaker 8: 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 work woman's gloves. She has blonde
Speaker 1: hair and a runners build, slim and athletics and that
Speaker 1: soft inspirational music that's in there because this is a
Speaker 1: promotional video for Patrol Base of Bate, And in that
Speaker 1: video we see Sarah giving an interview with the wild
Speaker 1: Mountains of Montana in the background.
Speaker 9: Because there's such an open discussion about what's really happening
Speaker 9: to veterans, right, you know, what are we going through?
Speaker 9: How can we, you know, refit and refresh the skills
Speaker 9: we have and the skills we learned while we were
Speaker 9: serving and apply them to our lives and make our
Speaker 9: lives better now. I think I was expecting just to
Speaker 9: come together and have some fun and work out, but
Speaker 9: it was so much more than that.
Speaker 6: The person who started these retreats was concerned about all
Speaker 6: the challenges that vet's face as they transitioned back to
Speaker 6: civilian life, and he wanted this time in the woods
Speaker 6: to be healing transfer me even.
Speaker 9: And to the veterans who are coming out here, be
Speaker 9: ready to talk and not talk out loud. But maybe
Speaker 9: you need to talk to yourself, Maybe you need to
Speaker 9: hear what other people are saying and process that and
Speaker 9: come back to yourself and work through some things.
Speaker 10: And I think that's happening here.
Speaker 8: It definitely is.
Speaker 9: But I think if you can at least be prepared
Speaker 9: to do the work, I think you'll.
Speaker 6: Get a lot out of it. Beck says that on
Speaker 6: this retreat there were just a few female vets. It
Speaker 6: was her, Sarah, and another former marine named Natalie. The
Speaker 6: three of them worked out together.
Speaker 11: Dex has this way of like she calls it, gassing
Speaker 11: you up, of like being your biggest cheerleader, and so
Speaker 11: she'll be like, man, look at those guns.
Speaker 8: 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 12: The three of us are lined up and being female
Speaker 12: and in the military, like do you stand tough?
Speaker 8: Do you stand feminine?
Speaker 12: And then you know we're in a strength retreat, so
Speaker 12: we should take one that looks kind of cute, but
Speaker 12: then we should take one that looks kind of tough,
Speaker 12: and so will flex, and Dex is always one to
Speaker 12: 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 is all business, serious
Speaker 1: as can be, and looking at the photo, I could
Speaker 1: kind 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 7: When you're a woman in the military, the competition among
Speaker 7: other women is really intense. A lot of the time.
Speaker 7: You're all trying to be the best, not just be
Speaker 7: the best woman, but you're trying to be the best
Speaker 7: so that the men think you're the best, because that's
Speaker 7: what matters. And you know, men are the ones who
Speaker 7: are always in charge of you. It's their opinion that
Speaker 7: gets you promoted. So if you're falling short, I mean,
Speaker 7: you're already doing one thing wrong because you're a woman,
Speaker 7: 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 serious leg in.
Speaker 7: She also was taking injections of some kind, some type
Speaker 7: of medication for her hip, and she was like telling us, like,
Speaker 7: if she doesn't, you know, put this shot in her hip,
Speaker 7: 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 7: She told me that she had been in a convoy
Speaker 7: and her vehicle was hit by nid you know, the
Speaker 7: humby blew up the door from the humphy like crushed
Speaker 7: her hip, and somehow she was able to like get
Speaker 7: out of the humby.
Speaker 1: As Sarah told it, her hip never healed properly from
Speaker 1: the knee down. Her leg was basically dying. But that's
Speaker 1: not all.
Speaker 7: Will sitting in the tent, she's about to leave or
Speaker 7: we're talking, and she tells me that, like, she just
Speaker 7: got diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. And I like
Speaker 7: remembered this because she cried because I got up to
Speaker 7: give her a hug.
Speaker 6: So just a recap. Here's this woman, Sarah, who at
Speaker 6: the time was just thirty years old, already a decorated
Speaker 6: war veteran, strong, modest, whietly brave, sprinting down these mountain
Speaker 6: trails and giving herself these injections to stem the pain.
Speaker 6: And on top of it all, she also has stage
Speaker 6: four lung cancer. Dex had to coax it out of
Speaker 6: her because Sarah's story came out in dribs and drabs,
Speaker 6: and it got more tragic incrementally, like a kettle on
Speaker 6: a stove that heats up slowly until all of a
Speaker 6: sudden it starts to boil. So the retreat in Montana
Speaker 6: comes to an end, and the three Musketeers say goodbye
Speaker 6: to one another, but they stay in touch. And this,
Speaker 6: by the way, is exactly the goal of this program.
Speaker 6: Veterans forming real bonds that last long after the campfire
Speaker 6: goes out. A few months after the Montana Retreat, in
Speaker 6: December of twenty twenty one, Dex happened to be in
Speaker 6: Virginia visiting Arlington National Cemetery and suddenly Dex remembers that
Speaker 6: Sarah's brother was a Marine who was killed in action.
Speaker 6: So she sends Sarah a text and says she'd like
Speaker 6: to lay a wreath at his grave. Within minutes, Sarah
Speaker 6: texts back with a plot number. But when Dex gets
Speaker 6: to the grave, she notices that this marine he has
Speaker 6: a different last name than Sarah's, and when she looks
Speaker 6: up his obituary, she sees that they're not even the
Speaker 6: same race. When she sends Sarah a picture of the grave, though,
Speaker 6: Sarah confirms that yes, this is him.
Speaker 7: So I'm thinking, if he's not her actual physical brother,
Speaker 7: I don't think she mentioned ever having an adopted brother,
Speaker 7: And then I'm thinking maybe she just meant brother, like
Speaker 7: in the colloquial where all Marines were brothers typeway, and
Speaker 7: I was like, maybe that's it.
Speaker 6: You can hear Dex trying to make sense of this,
Speaker 6: but she said she didn't ask Sarah too many questions
Speaker 6: about it.
Speaker 7: That's kind of like if you had a friend that
Speaker 7: told you that she'd had a miscarriage, the very last
Speaker 7: thing that you're going to do to that friend while
Speaker 7: she's crying about losing a baby is ask heurage that
Speaker 7: actually happened. Like this is so insensitive. So I was
Speaker 7: not going to ask this woman these questions because I
Speaker 7: didn't want to be insensitive because we were friends.
Speaker 6: So Dex just didn't say anything. Besides, at this point,
Speaker 6: Sarah was fighting lung cancer and from time to time
Speaker 6: she'd mentioned to Dex that her medical bills were piling up.
Speaker 6: Now the VA wasn't covering everything, Dex wanted to help,
Speaker 6: even from far away. That's when she heard about this
Speaker 6: charity called Hunter seven. Hunter seven helps veterans who struggle
Speaker 6: to pay their medical bills. The reality is many veterans
Speaker 6: face huge gaps in the healthcare. The VA provides a
Speaker 6: long wait time denied claims, and charities like Hunter seven
Speaker 6: come in as a stopgap. So Dex tells Sarah she
Speaker 6: should apply for financial assistance. At first, Sarah seemed reluctant.
Speaker 6: Maybe she was just underwater with everything she had going on,
Speaker 6: so Dex offered to step in and submit an application
Speaker 6: for Sarah.
Speaker 7: I was like, this is what I would do for
Speaker 7: my friends, like especially a friend who's like struggling at
Speaker 7: this level. I was like, I understood really clearly, like
Speaker 7: having a million things going on and all of them
Speaker 7: feeling very intent. So I was like, let me help
Speaker 7: you out because I have a minute, and it's no
Speaker 7: skin off my back to send an email.
Speaker 6: She couldn't know this then, but this simple act of
Speaker 6: kindness would set something in motion, something that would forever
Speaker 6: 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 11: There was one workout every hour on the hour for
Speaker 11: eight hours. Just the grueling nature of eight hours worth
Speaker 11: of workouts is enough to make most people go yeah, no,
Speaker 11: 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 her and this is
Speaker 1: because Sarah had never told her. She just confided this
Speaker 1: to Decks, which, as we've come to learn, is kind
Speaker 1: of how Sarah operated. She shared details about her life
Speaker 1: one on one in these small private moments, and so
Speaker 1: the secrets remained compartmentalized. Natalie was aware that Sarah had
Speaker 1: some issue with her leg, but that was about all.
Speaker 1: Then in the middle of the competition, during one of
Speaker 1: the breaks, they're all kind of just sitting around resting, Natalie,
Speaker 1: her teammate, Sarah, her teammate.
Speaker 11: All four of us are sitting on the floor together
Speaker 11: and Sarah says.
Speaker 8: That she's going to have to have her leg amputated.
Speaker 11: And I was blown away, Like, you are in the
Speaker 11: middle of doing an eight hour workout and you you
Speaker 11: have to have your leg amputated.
Speaker 8: It was absolutely unfathomable to me.
Speaker 11: But I distinctly remember her saying, if I'm gonna have
Speaker 11: to have my leg amputated, then I'm gonna make this bitch,
Speaker 11: give me every last ounce of what it's got 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 11: A whole other level of badass ory than I have
Speaker 11: 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 11: We did one workout where Sarah was having a really
Speaker 11: hard time and like at the end of the workout,
Speaker 11: her leg was shaking so badly, and she's like, Natalie,
Speaker 11: will you please help me?
Speaker 8: Can you please help me? Stretch?
Speaker 11: I took her shaking leg and placed it up on
Speaker 11: my shoulder and am holding her quad in one hand
Speaker 11: and her foot up here and kind of leaning in
Speaker 11: and I'm talking her through, like breathe into the muscle,
Speaker 11: like take some breast exhale slowly, picture your leg relaxing,
Speaker 11: and just remember her like having this moment of her
Speaker 11: leg finally relaxing, and this is the leg that she's
Speaker 11: supposed to have amputated and feeling some sense of gratitude
Speaker 11: that I could help somebody in that situation to have
Speaker 11: 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 trend 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 11: And like, I'm so genuinely worried about her that in
Speaker 11: the middle of the night, I wake up and I
Speaker 11: the first thing I think of is I must be
Speaker 11: waking up because I've got to pray for Sarah.
Speaker 8: I should text her and let her know that I'm praying.
Speaker 8: And so I text out my prayer to her and
Speaker 8: send it to her.
Speaker 1: I asked Natalie to read me that text.
Speaker 8: January twenty sixth, twenty twenty two. A prayer for you
Speaker 8: today is what I wrote, God, thank you for Sarah.
Speaker 8: Thank you for her intelligence, kindness, humor, bravery, courage, and
Speaker 8: service to the United States, and for her gift of friendship.
Speaker 8: I pray that you will give her and her family
Speaker 8: a deep sense of peace today, even as she is
Speaker 8: under anesthesia, though she already has such a deep sense
Speaker 8: of drive and determination, Pour into her an extra dose
Speaker 8: of perseverance and purpose. Heal her body Lord from this
Speaker 8: and all illness and disease.
Speaker 1: Did she write anything back?
Speaker 8: She wrote, thank you so much. I can't tell you
Speaker 8: what 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 11: She said that when she was going into her surgery
Speaker 11: that her blood pressure had dropped and they couldn't They
Speaker 11: weren't able to perform the surgery because of that, and
Speaker 11: I remember thinking at the time.
Speaker 8: Like, that's really weird. You would think that if you're
Speaker 8: going to go have your.
Speaker 11: Leg cut off, that your blood pressure would be sky high.
Speaker 11: The next day, I was like trying to reach out
Speaker 11: to her, but thinking that she's still in the hospital
Speaker 11: and it's in the middle.
Speaker 8: Of me trying to get a hold of her.
Speaker 11: 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 11: I specifically asked Tom like how do you know this?
Speaker 11: Because now I'm questioning him like why would you even
Speaker 11: say something like that, Like how do you?
Speaker 5: How do you?
Speaker 8: 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 6: After the break, Tom Schumann first met Sarah Kavanaugh in
Speaker 6: the snowy mountains of Boulder, Colorado, at a Patrol Base
Speaker 6: of Bate retreat.
Speaker 5: We're staying in a canvas tence. It was an intimate
Speaker 5: setting where we're spending all day night, which is a
Speaker 5: small group of people. We connected over our intellectual and
Speaker 5: academic and literature interests, had read the same books, talking
Speaker 5: about the same authors. Pretty immediately we started hitting it off.
Speaker 6: This retreat was similar to the one in Montana we
Speaker 6: told you about. Hang out, workout, talk, connect. That was
Speaker 6: the goal. That's why Tom founded Pibiabaate in the first place.
Speaker 6: He's a marine and when he returned from his tours overseas,
Speaker 6: he watched his comrade struggle. He told us three of
Speaker 6: his fellow marines died by suicide over the course of
Speaker 6: one month, and that is what led him to start Pibiabaate.
Speaker 6: In Colorado, Tom and s started to get to know
Speaker 6: each other. Sarah told him she was a professor, which
Speaker 6: appealed to him. Tom himself taught literature at the US
Speaker 6: Naval Academy. Sarah also told him that she had a
Speaker 6: kid who just crashed her pickup truck. She seemed down
Speaker 6: to earth and genuine.
Speaker 5: Within the first twenty four hours, I felt like we
Speaker 5: had bonded, and then throughout the weekend there were a
Speaker 5: couple of experiences that solidified that bond and strengthen it.
Speaker 6: On the last day of this retreat, a guy named
Speaker 6: Brian Shantash led them on an adventure workout. Shantash is
Speaker 6: a former marine and a leadership guru famed for his
Speaker 6: wilderness programs, and his workouts have a reputation for pushing
Speaker 6: people to their limits. So everyone, even Tom, was nervous.
Speaker 6: They were told to break down into teams of two.
Speaker 6: Sarah and Tom partnered up.
Speaker 5: And one of the things that you had to do
Speaker 5: was drag a weighted sled up the mountain and back.
Speaker 5: A couple different times. You dragged this on a mile loop.
Speaker 6: They get to it, they start pushing this weighted sled
Speaker 6: up the mountain and then back down the mountain on
Speaker 6: this mile long loop, again and again and again. And
Speaker 6: remember this is the Rockies in December, so it's freezing
Speaker 6: and the wind is whipping them as they trudge through.
Speaker 5: I just really respected this, this gal who was apparently
Speaker 5: very valorous in combat, still dealing with her injuries from combat,
Speaker 5: toughing it out on the side of the mountain, and
Speaker 5: so I admired that she was being what I felt like,
Speaker 5: pretty courageous through the event.
Speaker 6: Tom's not a very effusive guy, so this is basically
Speaker 6: his version of gushing. He didn't know about all of
Speaker 6: Sarah's health issues, the cancer and the leg amputa. Sarah
Speaker 6: had never told him about this, though he would soon
Speaker 6: 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 5: I am a guy of action. I reached out to
Speaker 5: her and I said, hey, I didn't know you were sick.
Speaker 5: We should meet soon to see if I can I
Speaker 5: 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 got in a Bronze Star for
Speaker 1: her bravery, and now she had cancer in her lungs
Speaker 1: because of the toxic chemicals and that explosion.
Speaker 5: It seemed incurable, that it was terminal. The VA wasn't
Speaker 5: helping because she couldn't prove that the cancer was combat related.
Speaker 5: I was just like, goodness, gracious, like everything that you've
Speaker 5: been through, from your injuries to the cancer, to gonna
Speaker 5: lose your leg, the amount of tragedy that in trauma,
Speaker 5: and I just resolved in that moment like I am
Speaker 5: gonna do everything that I can do to help you.
Speaker 5: And what do you need? And she needed employment. She
Speaker 5: said she didn't have a very good job.
Speaker 1: She told Tom that her plan had been to get
Speaker 1: a PhD in English literature. She'd even been accepted into
Speaker 1: a program at Johns Hopkins, but then the VIA delivered
Speaker 1: some shattering news. They told her that she couldn't use
Speaker 1: her GI bill why because her life expectancy was shorter
Speaker 1: 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 Basabat. At the time, the
Speaker 1: organization was run entirely by volunteers. There were no paid positions,
Speaker 1: but the organization did have donors, some with deep pockets,
Speaker 1: and Tom thought maybe one of them would be willing
Speaker 1: to pay for this tom even had a particular donor
Speaker 1: in mind, a woman who lived up in New Hampshire.
Speaker 6: So he wants to get all his ducks in a row.
Speaker 6: He asks Sarah for a copy of her DD two fourteen.
Speaker 6: That's the official military discharge paper that all service members receive,
Speaker 6: explaining how and when they left the service. Sarah sends
Speaker 6: him the paperwork. He says he remembers vividly the moment
Speaker 6: he received it. He was sitting in his car in
Speaker 6: a parking lot about to get a haircut. He starts
Speaker 6: scanning through the documents on his phone and something catches
Speaker 6: his eye. The D two fourteen says Sarah retired as
Speaker 6: a corporal, which is weird because she'd made it all
Speaker 6: the way up to staff sergeant. In fact, he'd seen
Speaker 6: a picture of her with the staff sergeant insignia. So
Speaker 6: he calls her.
Speaker 5: Up and so I just said, hey, Sarah, I'm going
Speaker 5: to New Hampshire tomorrow to ask for sixty thousand dollars.
Speaker 5: Before I do that, could you help me understand why
Speaker 5: it says that you're a corporal here. And she's like, well,
Speaker 5: I didn't really want to get into all that, but
Speaker 5: I was sexually assaulted on ship by the commanding officer.
Speaker 5: He had pulled the gun during the sexual assault, and
Speaker 5: I'm the one who got punished for reporting him. I said, like,
Speaker 5: I'm sorry to hear that, but I am now incredulous
Speaker 5: about all this.
Speaker 6: Suddenly, Sarah's whole story, with all its drama and all
Speaker 6: its heroics, is feeling very shaky. Tom knew he needed
Speaker 6: back up, so he reached out to a friend who
Speaker 6: had access to personnel records. The friend, he punches in
Speaker 6: Sarah's DoD number, the military equivalent of a Social Security number,
Speaker 6: does some more digging. That friend gets back to Tom
Speaker 6: with what he's found, and.
Speaker 5: He said, the Dodd number for this D two fourteen
Speaker 5: belongs to a corporal so and so, and it's a guy.
Speaker 5: And he's like, fifty percent of this document is his record.
Speaker 5: Then fifty percent of this document is altered.
Speaker 6: It looks like she'd taken someone else's records and doctorate them,
Speaker 6: inserting her own name and other details. And this, by
Speaker 6: the way, it's not a small thing. This isn't forging
Speaker 6: your mom's name on a sick note. This is a
Speaker 6: huge deal, felony level huge. Tom is in a state
Speaker 6: of shock.
Speaker 5: That's like, uh yeah, that was I mean that that
Speaker 5: was it. Like at that point, I'm like, I've been bamboozled, hoodwinked.
Speaker 6: Tom goes home and tells his wife.
Speaker 8: His wife, she's pissed.
Speaker 6: She knows how hard Tom has been working for this woman,
Speaker 6: trying to help her, and now she seems to be
Speaker 6: a fraud. She's like, not my watch. So she goes
Speaker 6: over in person and reports this whole thing to NCIS.
Speaker 6: That's the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Maybe you've seen the
Speaker 6: TV show. They're the badass investigators for the US Navy
Speaker 6: and Marine Corps. Anyway, the NCIS folks, they're like, okay,
Speaker 6: 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 6: This season is about a betrayal writ large, a deception
Speaker 6: that played out over the course of more than six years,
Speaker 6: not just in Montana, but in Colorado and Texas and Tennessee,
Speaker 6: 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 room was in a mansion
Speaker 1: with no doors between them. Jess and I have spent
Speaker 1: the last year or so finding our way into these
Speaker 1: rooms and listening coming up this season on Deep Cover.
Speaker 7: I remember sitting on her couch and like me like
Speaker 7: telling her, asking her is this real?
Speaker 8: Is this real?
Speaker 5: Is this real? Is this real?
Speaker 7: I was like, wait, wait, were you ever in the military.
Speaker 13: I just couldn't brought my head around what kind of
Speaker 13: person would do that to another person, especially that was
Speaker 13: you knew was sick, that was getting treatment, that was
Speaker 13: you know, dying.
Speaker 3: I've seen a lot of stuff over thirty years, and
Speaker 3: this ranks right up there in the pantheon of Rhode
Speaker 3: Island fraudsters.
Speaker 8: Can you introduce yourself.
Speaker 10: Kavanaugh, and I'm originally from Rhode Island. I can see
Speaker 10: where in some ways it can fit this aspect of
Speaker 10: like this huge plan to get all this money, like
Speaker 10: this master plan or something, but I never thought about
Speaker 10: 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 6: Our show is edited by Karen Chakerjee. Our executs producer
Speaker 6: 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 Aka Robbins.
Speaker 6: Special thanks to Sarah Nix, Izzy Carter, Daphne Chen, Jake
Speaker 6: Flanagan and Greta Cone. Additional thanks to Vicky Merrick.
Speaker 1: I'm Jess McHugh and I'm Jake Halpert. My co host
Speaker 1: Jess McHugh is currently researching a book on female con artists,