WEBVTT - Truth 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:03.920 Christine is a longtime special ed teacher in the St. 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:07.720 Louis area. She remembers the day that her son Zack 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:13.360 introduced her to his new girlfriend. Her name was Sarah. 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:17.560 At this point, they had been dating a while and 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:21.640 Zach really likes her. Zach did tell me that she 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:24.520 was a nurse, so I did like that. You have 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:27.760 to be a caring person to be a nurse. Had 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:31.640 told her other things too. She lives in Illinois and 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:35.360 she loved dogs just like me. You may hear one 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:38.599 of them panting in the background here. I asked, Low, 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:41.440 how did you meet this girl? And then he said 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:46.080 e harmony? And I was like, oh, okay, brother. But 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:50.280 that skepticism disappeared when Sarah walked in the door one 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:53.760 autumn day in two thousand and eight, she just had 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:59.560 this right smile, just her eyes kind of gleam. She 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:02.520 said she was working at a St. Louis hospital, at 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:05.640 least for now. She wanted to work in the neo 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:09.920 natal unit of Children's hospital. She wanted to work with 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:14.680 the premier babies. She also said that she was a 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:21.400 camp counselor at the MSD Camp summer camp for kids 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:26.680 with muscular dysgraphy as a teacher. Christine loved the way 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:31.120 that Sarah was so dedicated to children, and I thought, wow, 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:35.800 this is a nice girl. At the time, Sarah was 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:39.080 twenty three years old, she was living back in her 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:44.039 hometown but commuting to St. Louis and dating Zach. Christine 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:47.920 thought that they were getting serious quickly, too quickly, but 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:51.400 she liked Sarah. Christine told us by the way that 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:55.440 Zach preferred for his mom to tell this story, she 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:59.720 got really close with me. We did shopping together, We 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:04.040 did a lot of stuff together that you would do 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:07.320 like with a daughter in law, you know, not maybe 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:11.160 so much the girlfriend. And unlike what Sarah told Aaron 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:15.280 Johnson that her parents were doctors or her college sweet 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:19.160 mates that she had leukemia, the story she told Christine 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:24.720 seemed to be, at least at first, the truth. She 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:28.919 said that she was really into skiing at Hidden Valley, 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:32.120 but not heading to the Olympics. And she talked about 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:35.600 her mom and dad. They got divorced when she was 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:40.320 really young, and she did not ever want to be divorced. 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:44.200 She made that clear. Her dad was a truck driver, 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:47.360 so she never got to see him. Her dad was 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:51.079 not in the picture much, but he did by her car. 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:54.640 While they were dating, she didn't seem to have a 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:58.600 warm relationship with her mom. Zach didn't offer the greatest 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:04.080 endorsement either. He described her as just cold. He used 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:08.520 a bad word. She would say, that's why I love you, 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:14.120 because you're so kind and you're just a total opposite 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:20.000 of my mom. The holidays came, we were baking Christmas cuckys, 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:24.840 and she were talking about her mom almost NonStop and 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:29.440 about how I am the exact opposite of her mom. 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:32.680 That December, she and Zack came over one evening and 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:35.880 said they had some news. Everyone sat down in the 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:39.960 living room on the sofa. She showed me her hand 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:43.680 with this ring and a big old smile. I believe 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:48.520 she started crying. Zach was recently divorced, and Christine was 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:51.680 glad her son had found someone who made him happy, 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:55.520 and most importantly, Sarah really seemed to care about Zack's kid, 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:58.600 who was just a year old at the time. Zach 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:01.520 had a brief marriage that didn't last, but the little 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:03.680 boy that came out of it was the light of 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:08.480 his grandmother's life. For Sarah, marrying Zach would be like 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:13.400 instant motherhood. She really liked this little ready made family 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:18.200 that she had was Zack. The even set for portraits Sarah, 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:22.159 Zach and his son for Christmas, and that's what she gave. 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:27.200 She gave everybody pictures. I said, wow, Sarah, you put 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:31.440 a lot of time an effort and spent a lot 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:35.440 of money, you know, for Christmas this year. And she goes, 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:42.720 she goes, well, I haven't had a family for Christmas, 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:47.400 and I just wanted it to be special. So everything 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:52.359 is wonderful. New Year's Eve is when things start to 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:57.000 fall apart. New Year's Eve, Sarah told her fiance something 0:04:57.040 --> 0:05:01.680 about herself that she had been raped for reasons he 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:06.600 couldn't quite articulate. To his mom, Zach was skeptical. Something 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:10.520 about her story was just too implausible for him. He 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:14.120 just said something seemed really off about it. And I 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:16.520 don't know what it was, you know, he couldn't really 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:20.800 tell me what exactly about it was off. I'm like, 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:24.520 who lies about this? It has to be true. Nobody's 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:29.440 going to lie about something like that. And then I'm thinking, 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:32.919 for Sarah was right? Do you know? And uh so 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:36.200 he was like, I don't know. I said, oh, I 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:39.359 basically told him, don't ruin it. You know she's a 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:46.159 nice girl. The first week in January two thousand nine, 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:51.039 he broke off the engagement. Everybody was mad at Zach, 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:55.000 my dad, my mom, my brother, and my sister in law. 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:57.960 It was a really bad time for him because we 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:01.839 were all like, how did you do this? And she's 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:05.640 calling me and crying and I'm crying, and I'm like, 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:08.799 I don't know what's wrong with him. I was team 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:11.480 Sarah all the way, and so is my mom and 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:14.880 my dad, and oh, everybody was like, how could you 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:17.279 do this to her? I mean, I really felt bad 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:20.840 for Zach. He held his ground. He said, I'm telling 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:27.920 you there's something about her that's just not right. I'm 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:37.640 Laura Beale. You're listening to Sympathy Pains. This is episode 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:43.080 five Truth. In February of two thousand nine, Christine was 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:46.920 still stinging from her son's broken engagement. She had come 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:49.600 to already think of Sarah like a daughter in law, 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:53.279 and now she was out of her life. But Sarah 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:56.200 wasn't going to stay out of her life, not by 0:06:56.240 --> 0:07:02.320 a long shot. Christine came home from work one afternoon 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:05.200 and pulled a plain white envelope out of her mailbox. 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:09.520 The return address was Sarah's, and I'm like, well, I 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:11.640 haven't heard from her a while. I wonder, you know, 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:14.960 I had never received a piece of mail from her before. 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:19.520 There was no note, but something was tucked inside, a 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:26.480 picture of an ultrasound. Christine stared at the image in shock. 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:30.600 Sarah was pregnant, and even if Sarah wasn't going to 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:33.040 be your daughter in law, it didn't change the fact 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:36.680 that this was her grand baby. I immediately go to Zach, 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:40.280 what what's going on? What is this? He says, I 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:43.160 don't think it's real. She's just upset that I broke 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:45.760 up with her, and I was like, oh my gosh, 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:50.240 you better marry her. He was adamant. He didn't believe 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:53.720 her anymore about anything. She's just trying to use this, 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:57.000 so we get back together again. He goes, I don't 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:00.280 think it's real. For the next few months, Chris Dean 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:04.640 and Sarah talked from time to time that summer. Sarah 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:08.280 said she was on vacation in southern California and she 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:12.080 went into a labor early and the baby was born 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:16.320 as a PREMI I was heartbroken that this baby was 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:22.880 born prematurely and is sitting there fighting for life. Sarah 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:26.800 named the newborn Isabella, the name Zach had picked out 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:31.200 if his son had been a girl, Isabella Christine. Her 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:35.280 middle name was after Zack's mom, and Sarah started a 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:38.839 blog to post updates on the baby. And I'm looking 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:43.760 at the blog all the time. There's pictures, and there's 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:50.880 like narratives that she wrote daily, like long narratives. I 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:55.520 was hanging onto every word. Christine's parents and friends were 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:58.720 glued to the blog too. The one person who wasn't 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:03.600 it was Zack. He wasn't even convinced there was a 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:06.720 baby at all. Actually, he told his mom that he 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:10.840 thought the snapshots were of different infants. I'm like, how 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:14.520 can you say that. Being so far away was tearing 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:20.319 Christine apart. She was my baby granddaughter, and I wanted 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:23.760 to see her. I knew I probably couldn't hold her, 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:27.440 but I wanted to see her and I wanted to 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:32.360 be there with her. She called Sarah. I just said 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:35.440 I'm leaving early in the morning, um and driving, And 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:38.400 I said I'll drive twenty four hours straight through. Later 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:42.640 that same night, Sarah called her back and says, I 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:46.520 have some horrible news for you. Isabella died in my 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:54.040 arms tonight. She just couldn't fight any longer. It was 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:57.400 like a bomb had just dropped on my head. I 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:04.360 was devastated. Christine mourned for months. She couldn't even attend 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:08.280 the funeral for little Isabella Christine because there wasn't one. 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:14.000 She spent months grieving the granddaughter she never met. Christmas 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:17.040 came around and Christine found a card from Sarah in 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:21.920 her mailbox and something else, pictures of a baby, maybe 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:29.240 six months old, and it says Merry Christmas from Sarah, 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:36.000 Adam and Isabella. Another bomb hits me. She tried to 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:39.439 reach Sarah in agony, but she didn't answer her messages. 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:45.760 Was this her Isabella? So then fast forward the next Christmas, 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:52.360 I get another Christmas collage and it is a little 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:58.679 girl and it says again, Merry Christmas from Sarah, Adam 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:03.160 and Isabella. Uh. Christine of course had no idea that. 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:06.199 In two thousand and seven, the year before Zack even 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.280 met Sarah, she had started a blog with a profile 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:12.959 picture of herself looking hugely pregnant. She said she was 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:16.360 a student nurse married to the most wonderful man in 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:20.160 the world named Adam. Staring at the picture on the 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:24.319 Christmas card, Christine thought that the baby girl looks strikingly 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:28.400 like her grandson. I'm like, oh my god, that is 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:33.199 my granddaughter. She called Sarah again. This time she answered, 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:37.840 I'm like, what is going on? I thought you said 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:42.160 the baby died. Sarah told her that the baby hadn't died, 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:44.560 but she didn't want her to be raised by parents 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:47.800 who weren't together like she'd been, that she had met 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:51.240 and married a guy who completed their family. I just, 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:54.560 I begged her. I said, I don't have to be grandma. 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:57.640 Can we meet at a park and just like I 0:11:57.679 --> 0:12:00.679 could just be your friend, you know, I just want 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:04.240 to be in her life. It was sad, it was horrible. 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:09.080 I mean, I'm almost crying now. Sarah never sent another card. 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:14.640 It was like, your heart is out there somewhere, like 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:16.920 part of your heart is out there somewhere, and you 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:29.840 have no idea. A few more years went by. In 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:34.480 late summer two thousand seventeen, Sarah started texting Christine again. 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:39.319 The year before, in a parallel Sarah universe, she had 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:42.719 risen from her power chair at Camp Summit, ridden off 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:46.400 in a van when Christine got the text from Sarah. 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:49.040 She was sitting at a Mexican restaurant with her grandson 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:51.839 and a couple of his friends. Just the four of 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:54.920 us were there. We were waiting for our food. I 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:58.840 just I remember, she just starts texting me. You know, 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:02.200 how are you back? I mean, there was some small 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:06.240 talk before that, and she was like, are you still teaching? 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:10.400 And then of course I said, yes, I'm still teaching. 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:17.079 I'm fine. So how is Adam and Isabella? She said, well, 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:22.640 I have some bad news, and then she texted that 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:30.920 Isabella was killed in a car accident. Christine sat at 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:35.640 the table waiting for her food to arrive. Stunned. She 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:37.640 went through the rest of the meal in a daze. 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:43.440 She had lost her only granddaughter. Again, I said, can 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:47.719 I see some pictures of her, you know, before the accident, 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:53.440 and so she sent lots of pictures. A day or 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:57.720 two later, Sarah came over to Christine's house. She went 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:02.280 straight to the couch and then we just started hugging 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:06.959 each other and crying. She told me all of out, 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:11.720 and we boo hooed like her and I were hugging 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:17.480 each other, just bawling, bawling. A couple more years past 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:21.600 with Christine carrying around a granddaughter's sized hole in her heart. 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:25.800 Then in the spring of two tho, she got a 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:28.800 text from her son, You're not going to believe this, 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:33.360 but Sarah was on the Dr Phil show. I just 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:38.280 watched it. Told you guys, nobody believed me. That night, 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:42.120 after work, Christine called up the links on YouTube. My 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:47.640 like jaw was dropped the whole show. I could not 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:52.720 be leave what I was hearing. She was in my 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:57.360 house telling me that my grand baby died two times, 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:02.800 and it was the first time time I believed that 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:10.440 I did not have a granddaughter. Christine was livid, wounded. 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:15.480 She took my trust and people. At the same time, 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:18.680 she felt like Sarah needed therapy. At the end of 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:22.040 the show, it said that she was given a chance 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.520 to go to some place to go get some help. 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:29.280 But even as Christine was watching the video on YouTube, 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:33.800 Sarah had already left treatment and was back home. If 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:36.560 Sarah wasn't going to stop on her own, there were 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:39.320 now plenty of other people who were going to try 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:44.920 to make or see the truth. Chris Conrad is a stocky, 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:48.880 middle aged man with glasses and a high forehead. Today. 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:52.760 He's the city manager in Highland, Illinois. We talked one 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:55.360 day in his office on the first floor of city Hall, 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:58.600 a building with the kind of gingerbread trim that looks 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:01.520 more like a chalet seeing the Alps, and not a 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:05.720 small town in the Mississippi Valley. Highland was founded by 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:10.520 Swiss immigrants. They are pretty proud of their Swiss heritage. Searcy, 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:14.920 Switzerland is our sister city. Not a ton of controversy 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:18.080 in Highland. The day we spoke, Chris was getting ready 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:21.280 for the upcoming charity pie auction in the town square. 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:24.960 Before he was city manager, he was police chief, and 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:27.360 if you go all the way back to two thousand six, 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:30.520 he was a beat cup. That was the year he 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:33.600 got a call from the local FBI office about a 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:39.160 woman and a stolen quilt. They asked that we reached 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:41.480 out to her and find out what was going on. 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:43.760 Was there a part of you that that the FBI 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:46.520 has contacted me about a quilt? Well, you know, at 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:48.560 this point I had been an officer for six years, 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:52.600 and so I understood death by deception. Was he went 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:55.520 by her house and learned that she was away at college. 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:57.880 Had wait till the weekend when she was home, but 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:00.200 then ended up bringing her bringing her in to talking 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:04.160 to her about the issue. She seemed nervous. I remember 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:06.840 that seemed like any other college student that would be 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:10.840 talking to an officer, so I didn't necessarily think that 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:16.200 was out of line. Sitting at the police station, she 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:21.560 said this originally started as doing research for a school 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:25.480 project on s M A, and that she was a 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:29.920 nursing student that in doing that research, she started pretending 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:32.800 to have it and then created another persona on the 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:35.520 chat room that she was the parent of a child 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:38.359 that had it. She didn't really have, didn't really have 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:40.399 an excuse as to why she did it. She was 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:43.720 embarrassed that she had done it, seemed to acknowledge that 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:46.560 had gone too far. I remember thinking as I was 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:49.680 talking to her that she was a little socially awkward 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:52.960 and not a psychologist. But I remember thinking to myself 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:57.000 that it was probably she enjoyed the attention that came 0:17:57.040 --> 0:18:00.840 from it. They didn't press charges, but he told her 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:03.040 he was going to call the college and tell them 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:14.040 she needed a referral for counseling. That day, he sent 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:17.040 an email to Andrea Smith, the computer whiz who had 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:20.560 found out that Sarah was lying. He told Andrea that 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:23.560 he had called a former teacher of hers and it learned. 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:27.560 As he wrote to Andrea, Sarah was always slightly different 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:31.199 and never really fit in with any particular crowd, just 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:35.080 had a lot of problems socially. He also said he 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:37.800 was going to speak with Sarah's mom about, as he 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:42.560 called it, issues that needed to be addressed professionally. I 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:45.040 don't know if this was the first time someone said 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:47.919 Sarah needed treatment, but it certainly wouldn't be the last. 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:50.760 And I don't know how her mom reacted to the advice. 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:54.440 Mental health issues come with such stigma that people are 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:58.359 often afraid to acknowledge a problem exists, even to themselves, 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:02.320 especially in a small town where you can't easily fade 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:07.119 into anonymity. Even when people do seek therapy, they often 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:10.879 face a shortage of providers or insurance that views mental 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:14.479 health coverage as some kind of luxury. The fact that 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:17.600 Sarah didn't get treatment right then and there isn't all 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:20.879 that surprising. In a given year, more than half of 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:26.440 adults experiencing mental illness won't receive care for it. Back 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:30.640 in South Carolina, Andrea was thrilled to get the quilt back. 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:33.159 I sent an email out to the s M a 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:36.280 support chat and asked everybody to write a little thank 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:38.760 you note to Officer Conrad and send pictures of the 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:41.040 kids send them to me, and I put together a 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:43.840 big box and sent it to him. So in two 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:47.760 thousand nineteen, when Andrea teamed up with Liz and Bethany, 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:51.040 she knew who she was going to call. By then, 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:55.960 Officer Conrad had been promoted to Chief Conrad. He referred 0:19:56.040 --> 0:20:02.160 Andrea to a member of his force, the Tromon. David 0:20:02.160 --> 0:20:06.480 Brin's with the Highland Police Department. Tall and friendly, He's 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:09.560 been a policeman for about thirteen years. Came down to 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:13.159 this area for college and like the area so just 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.480 happened to stay. He was named Officer of the Year 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:20.080 once by the local Optimists Club. By the time he 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:24.280 talked to Andrea, David Brines already knew about Sarah had 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:27.879 been getting calls from Liz and Bethany. To investigate. He 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:32.119 obtained records from the Young Survival Coalition, the breast cancer 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:35.280 charity that had sponsored the bike ride where she met Liz. 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:39.240 I found out that the bike had been donated to her. 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:42.080 So at that point we realized that we did have 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:44.840 a fraud, but the crime was out of state, out 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:48.120 of his local jurisdiction. So in the summer of two 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:54.200 thousand nineteen, he called the FBI investigators discovered another stolen bike. 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:59.520 Sarah had ordered a bicycle off of the eBay and 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:02.480 I said, those were several thousand dollars. It was sent 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:06.359 through the postal service after she ordered it in February, 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:09.360 but she told the seller it never arrived and got 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:13.080 her money back. In doing so, she committed mail fraud. 0:21:14.000 --> 0:21:18.520 At that point we had a federal crime. The case 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:23.359 was now in the hands of a federal prosecutor. Lukeweisler 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:26.160 I am an assistant United States Attorney in the Southern 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:28.800 District of Illinois. I've been in this office for about 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:31.720 two years. Before that, I was in private practice for 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:35.200 about six years. Luke is a young guy, late thirties 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:38.399 who coaches the basketball and soccer teams of his three 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:42.240 young boys. He grew up in Springfield, Missouri, the youngest 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:44.960 of four, where his dad was a pharmacist and his 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:48.560 mother was a teacher. He himself taught middle school math 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:51.480 for two years in the Rio Grand Valley before he 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:54.600 went to law school. It was in law school that 0:21:54.720 --> 0:21:57.560 he heard a federal prosecutor talk about how his job 0:21:57.640 --> 0:22:02.040 protects people. It inspired him. Every day here, I am 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:05.280 pushed to do the right thing for the right reasons, 0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:09.320 and so you know, this is a job where I 0:22:09.359 --> 0:22:11.920 feel like I can really make a difference, and that's 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:16.760 that's why I'm here. He specializes in white collar crimes, corruption, 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:20.399 money laundering, identity theft. Now that I've been to this 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:24.159 job for a little while, I am more keenly aware 0:22:24.760 --> 0:22:27.160 of just the amount of fraud that that takes place 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:31.240 in the world. Being a part of the way to 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:33.800 confront that and the way to to resolve it for 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:36.119 people is a really big deal because it it is 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:40.080 something that has a tremendous impact on people's lives. But 0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:42.719 he had never heard of a case quite like the 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:45.360 one that landed on his desk. In July of two 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:49.040 thousand nine, the head of the fraud unit came into 0:22:49.080 --> 0:22:53.840 his office and said, you know, there's there's a new 0:22:53.880 --> 0:22:57.200 case that I want you to handle. There's a woman 0:22:57.280 --> 0:23:02.800 who has faked breast cancer and muscular dystrophe, has most 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:06.680 likely defrauded some nonprofits. You mentioned that that she had 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:11.480 largely confessed to the conduct on national television. I think 0:23:12.119 --> 0:23:16.119 my reaction was probably the same as as most people 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:19.359 that first hear about this case. There's just kind of 0:23:19.400 --> 0:23:23.960 disbelief about what happened. He started looking into the evidence 0:23:24.000 --> 0:23:27.840 that FBI agents and postal inspectors had gathered. When you 0:23:27.920 --> 0:23:31.120 really think about what it takes to commit that fraud, 0:23:31.560 --> 0:23:36.760 that she actually went to a camp, actually allowed counselors 0:23:36.840 --> 0:23:41.239 at that camp to bathe her, to feed her, I 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:44.159 mean to to for those counselors to learn after the 0:23:44.200 --> 0:23:46.320 fact that she was capable of doing all those things 0:23:46.400 --> 0:23:50.320 on her own, that is just devastating. It went from 0:23:50.359 --> 0:23:53.359 a case that I guess, on its face just had 0:23:53.400 --> 0:23:58.040 some bizarre details into a case that was really worth pursuing. 0:23:58.560 --> 0:24:01.520 He had seen his share of medicare scams and fake 0:24:01.640 --> 0:24:05.600 go fund me accounts. This was different. I don't believe 0:24:05.600 --> 0:24:10.080 that her her primary or soul objective anyway, was just 0:24:10.240 --> 0:24:14.080 to obtain money. In most of our cases, that is 0:24:14.080 --> 0:24:17.240 the soul objective, and it's the soul objective. Unusually a 0:24:17.240 --> 0:24:20.720 pretty grand scale, hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars 0:24:20.760 --> 0:24:23.480 are usually at stake. This was not the case here, 0:24:23.720 --> 0:24:26.800 you know, based purely on dollars, it almost wouldn't be 0:24:26.840 --> 0:24:33.040 a federal case. The law says that you can't physically 0:24:33.119 --> 0:24:36.199 hurt another person and you can't take their money, but 0:24:36.359 --> 0:24:39.879 you can take their trust, their love, their faith and 0:24:40.000 --> 0:24:44.560 people and crush it. Luke saw that Sarah seemed to 0:24:44.640 --> 0:24:48.480 choose communities and people who were the most vulnerable and 0:24:48.560 --> 0:24:52.520 the most giving. They're not going to question if somebody's 0:24:52.520 --> 0:24:54.760 in a wheelchair whether or not that person can walk. 0:24:54.920 --> 0:24:57.480 You know, if somebody is going to have the appearance 0:24:57.600 --> 0:25:01.239 of having gone through chemotherapy, they're not going to question that. 0:25:01.800 --> 0:25:05.480 And she exploited that empathy that they have the emotional 0:25:05.520 --> 0:25:11.920 harm here dwarfed what the financial harm was. Something else 0:25:12.040 --> 0:25:15.320 nagged at him too. He walked me through her biggest 0:25:15.400 --> 0:25:18.399 crime in the eyes of the law, stealing the bike 0:25:18.520 --> 0:25:21.560 she ordered off eBay. It was worth more than four 0:25:21.600 --> 0:25:24.960 thousand dollars, so she used her mom's credit card to 0:25:25.160 --> 0:25:30.159 order it. She received that bicycle and then claimed that 0:25:30.200 --> 0:25:33.760 she didn't so she disputed the transaction when when she 0:25:33.800 --> 0:25:38.040 actually did receive the bike and was ultimately reimbursed for 0:25:38.160 --> 0:25:41.639 that money. What really bothered him more than what she 0:25:41.720 --> 0:25:44.840 did was when she did it. She was on Dr 0:25:44.920 --> 0:25:49.040 Phil in April of two thousand. May of two thousand 0:25:49.080 --> 0:25:52.680 and nineteen is when that dispute occurred on the credit card. 0:25:53.359 --> 0:25:56.680 After she was on Dr Phil, vowing to do whatever 0:25:56.720 --> 0:25:59.560 it took to change her life, she stole a bicycle 0:26:00.160 --> 0:26:03.600 and after Dr Phil she signed up for a charity 0:26:03.680 --> 0:26:06.439 swim event, putting her back in the midst of the 0:26:06.520 --> 0:26:08.919 kind of people she had a history of lying to. 0:26:09.960 --> 0:26:13.200 Luke couldn't force Sarah to get help, but he could 0:26:13.240 --> 0:26:17.080 do something to protect more people from getting hurt. This 0:26:17.160 --> 0:26:19.840 was something that she wasn't going to be deterred from 0:26:19.880 --> 0:26:24.160 doing without some sort of intervention beyond what had been 0:26:24.160 --> 0:26:26.240 done to that point, and what had been done at 0:26:26.280 --> 0:26:30.200 that point was significant. She was somebody that that wasn't 0:26:30.200 --> 0:26:36.160 going to be deterred without prosecution. By December of two 0:26:36.200 --> 0:26:40.320 thousand nineteen, I had already met Liz and Bethany. I 0:26:40.440 --> 0:26:44.000