Speaker 1: Bushkin.
Speaker 2: It all started with a rumor that went like this.
Speaker 2: Back in nineteen eighty nine, at a high school prom,
Speaker 2: a white teenager boasted that he had just committed murder.
Speaker 2: He showed off a fresh tattoo as a badge of
Speaker 2: honor for killing a black man. That was the rumor, anyhow,
Speaker 2: and no one took it seriously until two thousand and four,
Speaker 2: when two federal agents began looking into it. But here's
Speaker 2: the thing. Unlike almost every other murder case, in this case,
Speaker 2: the agents had a suspect but no idea who the
Speaker 2: victim was. In the new season of deep Cover The
Speaker 2: Nameless Man, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jake Halpern tells the
Speaker 2: epic tale of the two federal agents who investigate the
Speaker 2: murder and the story of a family searching for answers
Speaker 2: about why their brother was killed. These two storylines collide
Speaker 2: in a court ruined Philadelphia, where murder, memory, and morality
Speaker 2: go on trial. Today you'll hear a preview from the show,
Speaker 2: and if you want to hear more, you can listen
Speaker 2: to Deep Cover The Nameless Man wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 2: And if you want to hear the entire season, right
Speaker 2: now add free sign up for Pushkin Plus in Apple
Speaker 2: Podcasts or by visiting pushkin dot Fm, slash Plus.
Speaker 3: Here's Jake.
Speaker 4: I've been a journalist for twenty five years and there's
Speaker 4: this little ritual that I do at the end of
Speaker 4: every interview. When it works, it shakes everything up, creates
Speaker 4: a bit of chaos. I call it the hail Mary
Speaker 4: of questions. It's like a last ditch effort to find
Speaker 4: something anything that I might have missed. I just say, hey,
Speaker 4: what's the question I should have asked you. Most of
Speaker 4: the time, like ninety percent of the time, there is
Speaker 4: I don't know. I think we covered it all. But
Speaker 4: every once in a while a person says, well, there
Speaker 4: is one thing we didn't talk about, and then they
Speaker 4: drop a bomb, say something totally unexpected, And at that
Speaker 4: moment I always imagine a door creaking open. That, in
Speaker 4: a nutshell, is what this season is about. It's about
Speaker 4: a guy, two guys actually, who come upon just such
Speaker 4: a door, and on the other side of it is
Speaker 4: a very dark secret. These two guys were federal officers.
Speaker 4: One of them was an FBI agent based in Delaware
Speaker 4: named Scott Duffy and Scott he has his own version
Speaker 4: of the hail Mary question.
Speaker 5: One of the things that like I will routinely do
Speaker 5: is is is there anything that we should be looking
Speaker 5: at that could be investigated that we're not looking at.
Speaker 4: Back in two thousand and four, Scott posed this very
Speaker 4: question to a woman named Patricia Miller. At the time,
Speaker 4: Scott was visiting Patricia at her home in Delaware to
Speaker 4: learn more about her ex boyfriend, a guy named Tom Guybison.
Speaker 4: There had been some rumors that Tom, her ex, was
Speaker 4: plotting to go after a local cop, and the FBI
Speaker 4: had asked Scott to look into this to do a
Speaker 4: so called threat assessment. Scott didn't get that much out
Speaker 4: of this interview with Patricia, but before leaving, he tossed
Speaker 4: out his hal Mary question, and that's when she told
Speaker 4: him about the murder.
Speaker 5: She mentions, well, there is this alleged murder to have
Speaker 5: taken place that when he was in high school, that
Speaker 5: he had committed ad for a black man in order
Speaker 5: to gain access into this white supremacy group within Delaware.
Speaker 4: Patricia goes on to say that Tom, her ex, was
Speaker 4: proud of this murder. It happened back when he was younger.
Speaker 4: A teenager, but even years later, he bragged about what
Speaker 4: he'd done, how he'd driven into Philadelphia late at night
Speaker 4: and shot a pedestrian, a random black man, all allegedly
Speaker 4: so we could earn some street cred as a racist skinhead.
Speaker 4: Scott pressed Patricia for details. Was there any evidence? Did
Speaker 4: she have any proof? According to Scott, she talked about
Speaker 4: a newspaper article from the time about the man's death
Speaker 4: and how it was described as a drug related killing.
Speaker 4: She said that Tom held onto this article for a
Speaker 4: while so we could brag about it, intimating no one knows.
Speaker 1: But I did this.
Speaker 4: I killed this guy. That's what Patricia said. Anyhow, all
Speaker 4: of this got Scott thinking, if this murder really happened,
Speaker 4: maybe it wasn't so random after all. Maybe it was
Speaker 4: predicated on a callous, cynical piece of logic that no
Speaker 4: one would care about this victim, or at least no
Speaker 4: one in a position of power or authority.
Speaker 5: If there's no evidence, and there's no witnesses, no cameras,
Speaker 5: so let's move on, And that's what Tom would be
Speaker 5: banking on, and just be a drug deal gone bad
Speaker 5: that bothered me, that bothered me.
Speaker 4: Scott may have been upset about all this, but he
Speaker 4: was also at a loss. How do you investigate a
Speaker 4: murder when you don't even know who the victim is. Eventually,
Speaker 4: Scott and his partner paid a visit to the Free
Speaker 4: Public Library of Philadelphia. They wanted to find that newspaper
Speaker 4: article covering the victim's death. Scott recalled Patricia, saying it
Speaker 4: was in the Philadelphia Inquirer. They felt like if they
Speaker 4: could just somehow get a hold of that article, it
Speaker 4: might answer so many questions.
Speaker 5: In other words, would this give us a name? Would
Speaker 5: this give us a location? Would this give us a date?
Speaker 5: Because we still didn't have a date. But there's got
Speaker 5: to be countless articles people that were just randomly killed
Speaker 5: in Philadelphia. Not only countless articles, but then you realize
Speaker 5: there are other newspapers. What if she's wrong, it's not
Speaker 5: the Philadelphia Inquiry. It sounds like a fool's Errand I'm
Speaker 5: glad we did it. I'm glad we made the trip,
Speaker 5: but I don't think we found anything nothing.
Speaker 4: So game over right, I mean, this murder, if it
Speaker 4: even happened, would have occurred approximately fifteen years prior. It
Speaker 4: was a cold case. And yet Scott and his partner,
Speaker 4: a guy named Terry Mortimer. They had this feeling that
Speaker 4: if they persisted.
Speaker 5: We might uncover something we're destined to uncover. That may
Speaker 5: sound corny, but I felt something. I think Terry felt something,
Speaker 5: and we didn't know quite what, and it could have
Speaker 5: been absolutely taking us down another rabbit hole of something
Speaker 5: that's just never could be proven.
Speaker 3: So what do you do with that?
Speaker 1: Exactly? What do you do with that? What do you
Speaker 1: do with something that's.
Speaker 4: Yeah and not to be cute, but you can't exactly
Speaker 4: go back to your boss and say that me and
Speaker 4: Terry feel a sense of destiny here right now. So
Speaker 4: this was mission creep big time. Plus it's not like
Speaker 4: there was anyone that they knew of anyhow demanding justice
Speaker 4: for the victim.
Speaker 5: Terry and I could have easily said we're done and
Speaker 5: let's walk away. Nobody's going to be calling us to say, hey,
Speaker 5: Terry and Scott, do you have any updates for us?
Speaker 1: You know we're waiting. Haven't heard back from you?
Speaker 5: That was missing, But is somewhere in the back of
Speaker 5: your head, are you imagining that, like there is a
Speaker 5: mother or brother who's trying to understand or figure out
Speaker 5: what may have happened to their loved one that was
Speaker 5: left for dead. I think that aspect was the driving factor.
Speaker 5: We couldn't just leave it alone. Somehow it was making
Speaker 5: sense that Terry and I were put together for this
Speaker 5: very reason of solving this hate crime, this murder that
Speaker 5: took place on the streets of Philadelphia because somebody was black,
Speaker 5: that we've felt like we had a duty to this person,
Speaker 5: and somehow this person was.
Speaker 1: Drawn us.
Speaker 4: And that's it. You can almost hear it, the door
Speaker 4: creaking open. This is a story about what happens when
Speaker 4: two guys uncover a clue about something terrible, something evil,
Speaker 4: a crime for which there has been no justice, and
Speaker 4: they have nothing to go on. They don't have a victim,
Speaker 4: don't have a body, don't even have a name. I'm
Speaker 4: Jake Halper and this is Deep Cover Season four, The
Speaker 4: Nameless Man, Episode one. The rumor, so to recap, Scott
Speaker 4: and Terry's investigation did not start off as a quest
Speaker 4: to solve a cold case now or find a murder victim. Originally,
Speaker 4: back in two thousand and four, they were asked to
Speaker 4: do a threat assessment on tom Gybison. That's why they
Speaker 4: interviewed the ex girlfriend. At the time, Tom Gobison was
Speaker 4: thirty three years old. He was in federal prison on
Speaker 4: gun charges, but he was about to be released, and
Speaker 4: the Feds had some intel that Tom might be seeking retribution,
Speaker 4: planning to harm the cop who'd put him behind bars.
Speaker 4: This is why the FEDS were called in, and initially
Speaker 4: this was Scott and Terry's top priority to determine if
Speaker 4: this threat was real. But they came up short and
Speaker 4: at some point stopped looking into Tom for the threat assessment.
Speaker 4: But they still have this rumor, this side story that
Speaker 4: some fifteen years prior, back in the nineteen eighties, when
Speaker 4: Tom was still in high school, that he may have
Speaker 4: killed a black man in Philadelphia. Who this man might be,
Speaker 4: They had no idea, but they kept poking around. They
Speaker 4: wanted to see what they could learn about Tom Guybison
Speaker 4: and if he had any connections to white supremacist gangs.
Speaker 4: And this is where Terry Mortimer, Scott's partner, really came
Speaker 4: into play.
Speaker 3: And this is thing about gangs is there are gangs
Speaker 3: and there's like, you know, not real gangs that people
Speaker 3: say they're part of a gang, but they aren't. Kind
Speaker 3: of thing.
Speaker 4: Terry was a special agent with the ATF, the Bureau
Speaker 4: of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He worked in intelligence
Speaker 4: and he focused heavily on guns and gangs. So Terry
Speaker 4: wanted to know what was Tom's deal.
Speaker 3: I knew he of course was imprisoned obviously for gun charges.
Speaker 3: You know, spent a good stint in prison federally. He
Speaker 3: had the I guess prior contact with the law.
Speaker 4: Terry learned that Tom was first arrested at the age
Speaker 4: of fourteen on a deadly weapons charge. A few years later,
Speaker 4: when he was nineteen, he was convicted of reckless endangerment
Speaker 4: after he shot a gun at a moving car full
Speaker 4: of people. At the time, a local newspaper in Wilmington,
Speaker 4: Delaware ran an article on Tom. It described him as
Speaker 4: a hulking weightlifter with a number of tattoos, including a
Speaker 4: clenched fist on the top of his scalp and the
Speaker 4: words born in the USA on the back of his neck.
Speaker 4: In the article, Guy Bison says at one time he
Speaker 4: was a blue collar skinhead. Tom defined this as quote
Speaker 4: buying American, not doing drugs, and not drinking. To be clear,
Speaker 4: there are different types of skinheads. Not all are racists,
Speaker 4: But in the late eighties and early nineties, skinheads were
Speaker 4: emerging as the face of violent right wing nationalism in
Speaker 4: the US. Their notoriety seemed to really pique at that time.
Speaker 4: One headline from eighty nine and the New York Times read,
Speaker 4: violent racism attracts new breed skinheads. So the possibility that
Speaker 4: a racist skinhead might have orchestrated murder it was plausible,
Speaker 4: but that alone wasn't a whole lot to go on.
Speaker 4: Scott and Terry decided to focus on what Patricia, the
Speaker 4: ex girlfriend, had told them. They honed in on two
Speaker 4: clues in particular. The first clue involved a tattoo. Patricia
Speaker 4: mentioned that Tom had a tattoo of a spiderweb on
Speaker 4: his own with a tear drop in it, and that
Speaker 4: he liked to brag that he'd gotten it, essentially as
Speaker 4: a badge of honor for killing a black man in Philadelphia.
Speaker 3: I know enough about gang members is sometimes things aren't
Speaker 3: what they say they are, that they though I get
Speaker 3: a tattoo and purported to be something that really isn't true,
Speaker 3: or just kind of build their rap a little bit.
Speaker 4: Terry was skeptical that Tom had killed someone just to
Speaker 4: join this skinhead gang. Maybe tom was just posing, building
Speaker 4: up his rap as a really violent dude. I mean, honestly,
Speaker 4: maybe this whole thing was bullshit, right.
Speaker 3: I couldn't really establish, you know, intelligence wise, if Tommy
Speaker 3: was part of a skinhead gang. I didn't think he was.
Speaker 3: I think he was kind of more self described skinhead.
Speaker 4: And this raised the question, would a self described skinhead
Speaker 4: acting on his own, really murder someone for what? So
Speaker 4: he could give himself a tattoo? And all of this
Speaker 4: while he was still in high school seemed like stretch. Okay,
Speaker 4: here's the second clue, and it was a promising one.
Speaker 4: According to the ex girlfriend, Patricia, tom had bragged about
Speaker 4: having an accomplice, a guy named Craig Peterson. Allegedly they
Speaker 4: orchestrated this murder together and both of them got those
Speaker 4: same spider web tattoos. Now, if this was true, and
Speaker 4: if they could find Craig and if he would talk,
Speaker 4: well that'd be huge. But that was a lot of ifs.
Speaker 4: So they started combing through public records asking around about
Speaker 4: this Craig guy, the supposed accomplice, and here's what they found.
Speaker 4: Craig was an old buddy from Tom's high school days.
Speaker 4: He also identified specifically as a blue collar skinhead. Craig
Speaker 4: had grown up in Delaware, but as far as anyone
Speaker 4: could tell, he wasn't living there anymore. Seemed like he
Speaker 4: kind of disappeared. And then they got a lead.
Speaker 3: We found out he's in He's in Vermont, like a
Speaker 3: remote part of Vermont. And I remember, I said, this
Speaker 3: dude's hiding. Man, he's hiding. I said, that cat from Wilmington,
Speaker 3: Delaware living in Vermont. Man, I said, dude, it gets
Speaker 3: cold up there. Man, I mean, that's a cold place. Bro.
Speaker 4: So they put on their winter coats and headed north.
Speaker 4: It was now December of two thousand and four. It
Speaker 4: had been about a month since they first heard the rumor,
Speaker 4: and now here they were in the car, driving into
Speaker 4: the chill of a Vermont winter. Temperature was hovering around
Speaker 4: freezing that night, and as they sped along through the
Speaker 4: green mountains, past the darkened forests of evergreens, they had
Speaker 4: no idea what to expect, Like, what are you hoping
Speaker 4: to find out?
Speaker 3: Hey? At this point, we're like, man, whatever he's got,
Speaker 3: he's got to give us something. Maybe because we're again
Speaker 3: we're spinning our wheels. It felt like, man, if this
Speaker 3: has come through, we're I think, honestly, I think we're done.
Speaker 4: Terry recalls on that drive up to Vermont, they talked
Speaker 4: a lot about why they couldn't or shouldn't give up
Speaker 4: on the case.
Speaker 3: So we had great discussions, and that's when I really
Speaker 3: we both realized, Wow, wait a minute, this is not
Speaker 3: an accident that he and I are team together. This
Speaker 3: is like, literally, we didn't do this, We couldn't planned.
Speaker 4: This, and there was a reason for this feeling. Turns
Speaker 4: out there was a strange symmetry to their lives that
Speaker 4: dated back before they ever met. So we're gonna leave
Speaker 4: Scott and Terry in the car heading up to Vermont
Speaker 4: and turn back the clock. For Scott, it all started
Speaker 4: when he graduated high school. He wanted to be a cop,
Speaker 4: but by his own estimation at the time, he was
Speaker 4: too small, too skinny, he wages ninety three pounds, so
Speaker 4: instead he opted to become a priest. He was just
Speaker 4: seventeen years old when he decided to join the seminary,
Speaker 4: but right away when he put on that priest's color,
Speaker 4: it was transformative, both for him and also for the
Speaker 4: way that other people looked at him.
Speaker 5: I would be sitting in a pew, maybe praying in
Speaker 5: a church. Somebody would come by and start confessing, and
Speaker 5: people just start pouring their souls out to me.
Speaker 4: In these moments, Scott was learning how to listen, how
Speaker 4: to suspend judgment, how to be patient as people grappled
Speaker 4: with some burdensome secret, inching their way towards the precipice
Speaker 4: of truth. He spent five years training to become a priest,
Speaker 4: but dreams are stubborn things, and his didn't go away.
Speaker 4: He left the Seminary to become a cop and then
Speaker 4: an FBI agent.
Speaker 5: It is harder to leave than it is to go in.
Speaker 5: And that's ultimately because I think, now you have ventured
Speaker 5: this relationship with God, and now you're afraid of pissing
Speaker 5: him off.
Speaker 4: For Scott, this shifting careers seemed like a natural progression
Speaker 4: for him. The seminary prepared him for this work, prepared
Speaker 4: him to listen and see his way through a messy
Speaker 4: world fraught with moral dilemmas. But when he'd tell people
Speaker 4: about his past, how he'd almost become a priest.
Speaker 5: They're like, oh, my gosh, I can never imagine the
Speaker 5: two are totally opposed to each other. And I never
Speaker 5: understood that.
Speaker 4: But there was at least one person who got it completely. Terry.
Speaker 3: I went to college at a very small Bible College
Speaker 3: and was preparing for ministry.
Speaker 4: From a young age. Terry felt destined for the ministry,
Speaker 4: but later on, when he was in Bible College, he
Speaker 4: had second thoughts. As graduation approached, a friend asked him,
Speaker 4: you ever consider becoming a cop? The short answer was no,
Speaker 4: But on a whim, Terry applied and met.
Speaker 1: With a recruiter.
Speaker 3: And this guy was a He was a hardcore dude.
Speaker 3: I mean he he looked at me. I was back then,
Speaker 3: I was skinny. He looked at me and said, you're
Speaker 3: from where and you want to do what? Like you're
Speaker 3: from Bible College. Man, you have any idea what you're
Speaker 3: applying for, what you're trying to do. I said, no, sir,
Speaker 3: I have no idea.
Speaker 4: Terry was undeterred. He became a cop and then an
Speaker 4: agent with the ATF. And this was not a consolation
Speaker 4: job for Terry. He's very clear about this. He feels
Speaker 4: that God had a purpose for him in law enforcement.
Speaker 4: And that's the thing you got to understand. About both
Speaker 4: Terry and Scott. These are not men who look at
Speaker 4: the world and see coincidences. What they see is much
Speaker 4: closer to fate or God's will. And when they became partners,
Speaker 4: it all seemed meant to be. Here were two guys
Speaker 4: who early on too skinny and earnest to be cops,
Speaker 4: guys who intended to become men of God. Different in
Speaker 4: their own ways. Terry grew up in a gritty river
Speaker 4: town in Pennsylvania, and he kind of feels like a dude.
Speaker 4: You'd play around a mini golf with, grab a burger,
Speaker 4: have a laugh, and then realize only belatedly, that you
Speaker 4: told him more than you intended to. Scott, well, he's
Speaker 4: more formal. He's from Connecticut. Are really Yankee, a man
Speaker 4: who chooses his words carefully, a patient priest who knows
Speaker 4: how to nurse a long pregnant pause. The two of
Speaker 4: them worked well together, complimented one another, the Pennsylvania pastor
Speaker 4: and the New England priest, and I've been calling them partners,
Speaker 4: but they only ever worked together on this one investigation.
Speaker 4: It was an unusual collaboration between the FBI and the ATF,
Speaker 4: and they didn't choose one another. They were kind of
Speaker 4: paired ran though neither of them would say it was random.
Speaker 3: You know, as we started realize we wait a minute,
Speaker 3: we're we're on a mission from God.
Speaker 4: But yep, just like the Blues Brothers.
Speaker 3: We didn't really say that, I'm just making it up,
Speaker 3: but that was the feeling was like, hey, no, but
Speaker 3: it was like, no joke, Like this is a real deal.
Speaker 3: Like it's almost like we're walking through almost like a dream,
Speaker 3: like what is going on here?
Speaker 4: So yeah, even though all they had was a rumor
Speaker 4: of a long forgotten crime that might not have even happened,
Speaker 4: these two almost ministers, the God Squad, as it were,
Speaker 4: still felt certain that they were here in this car
Speaker 4: heading north into Vermont for a reason, and they were
Speaker 4: convinced that something important was waiting for them. That's when
Speaker 4: we get back. Both Scott and Terry had this hunch
Speaker 4: that there was a reason Craig, the alleged accomplice, was
Speaker 4: up in Vermont, up in the mountains, that he was hiding.
Speaker 4: But if so, who is he hiding from and why?
Speaker 4: In any case, they knew they had to be careful.
Speaker 4: They'd learned from police reports that in the past Craig
Speaker 4: had helped Tom clean and store a whole arsenal of weapons.
Speaker 4: Why did he do this Well, Tom had a felony
Speaker 4: on his record, which meant he wasn't supposed to have
Speaker 4: any guns, so his buddy Craig helped him out. This
Speaker 4: suggested two things to the agents. One Craig was loyal.
Speaker 4: He ended up going to prison for storwing those weapons,
Speaker 4: And two, Craig was probably handy with a gun. The
Speaker 4: God Squad was still hatching their plan as they rolled
Speaker 4: into town.
Speaker 1: It was late.
Speaker 5: I feel like we were closing in on midnight, and
Speaker 5: we didn't want to put it off. We were just
Speaker 5: so full of energy.
Speaker 4: It was late for a door knock, very late, but
Speaker 4: their excitement eclips their caution, so instead of waiting until morning,
Speaker 4: they drove right to his house. Their plan was to
Speaker 4: say hello, introduce themselves, and arrange to have a formal
Speaker 4: sit down the following day.
Speaker 3: And when we finally found where he lives, he lives
Speaker 3: literally on top of like if it's on a mountain,
Speaker 3: it's a very very tall hill. It's very tall and
Speaker 3: very steep.
Speaker 5: I remember being very very dark. I don't think I
Speaker 5: could see my hand in front of me. And as
Speaker 5: soon as we got out of our cars, I think
Speaker 5: we got out a few feet and then floodlights I
Speaker 5: just remember, floodlights like we were in a stadium, just
Speaker 5: shined upon us.
Speaker 3: I mean it was like bright as day. He had
Speaker 3: hooked up these spotlights and trees illuminating the whole area,
Speaker 3: and we could see his house dimly up the top
Speaker 3: of the hill. I think I may have made a
Speaker 3: comment to Scott. I said, man, if he had any
Speaker 3: ill intent, he we'd be dead men right now.
Speaker 1: That told me a lot that.
Speaker 5: Wow, you know what is inside this person that he
Speaker 5: has this going on where he wants to be made
Speaker 5: well aware of anybody arriving.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking, man, he does not want to He doesn't
Speaker 3: want to be found.
Speaker 4: Scott and Tears start trudging up the icy, snow covered hill.
Speaker 4: They can hear dogs barking from within the house. Eventually
Speaker 4: they get up to the front porch and Craig walks out.
Speaker 4: He's medium height and stocky with a closely cropped haircut.
Speaker 4: Scott calls out to.
Speaker 5: Him, Craig Peterson, you don't know us, but we're here.
Speaker 5: I'm going to talk to you Federal agents. Can we
Speaker 5: approach you can. We come up to your house, and
Speaker 5: within ten seconds just a very friendly, inviting demeanor, come
Speaker 5: on up and come into my house. This is a
Speaker 5: sigh of relief of that, but definitely a sigh of release.
Speaker 5: First and foremost, we've achieved our first goal is finding him,
Speaker 5: achieved our second goal of being able to be face
Speaker 5: to face with him. Our third goal was to get
Speaker 5: him to come and speak with us at a different location.
Speaker 5: We weren't going to talk to him at his house.
Speaker 4: Craig invites them inside, he introduces them to his fiance
Speaker 4: It's all very normal and Craig he seems unfazed.
Speaker 3: He was very relaxed, very gracious. I mean, just almost
Speaker 3: opposite of what I was expecting.
Speaker 4: Scott and Terry explain that they just have a few
Speaker 4: questions for him about an old matter from the past.
Speaker 4: They keep it deliberately vague, and they ask if he'd
Speaker 4: be willing to meet with them the following day down
Speaker 4: at the barracks where the Vermont State Police are stationed.
Speaker 4: Craig's like, sure, I'll meet you tomorrow after I'm done
Speaker 4: with work. All the while, Terry is studying both Craig
Speaker 4: and his fiancee trying to get a read on them.
Speaker 3: His fiance was way more concerned than he was, Like
Speaker 3: she was like, what's going on, Like what's this about.
Speaker 3: He's not stressed at all, Like there's no stress with
Speaker 3: this dat Like there's nothing. I'm like, this is unbelievable.
Speaker 4: The next day, Scott and Terry are down at the
Speaker 4: barracks of the Vermont State Police and they're just hoping
Speaker 4: Craig actually shows up.
Speaker 3: He ain't gonna show up, Like, what's the odds he's
Speaker 3: gonna show up? Like, and I was like fifty to fifty.
Speaker 4: Yeah, But he shows up affect. He's it early, and
Speaker 4: after a little chit chat, they all sit down and
Speaker 4: get to business. Scott explains that they're here about Tom Guybison.
Speaker 1: Craig.
Speaker 5: We've made a long trip and we've been investigating Tom
Speaker 5: for a possible threat, and during the course of that investigation,
Speaker 5: we've learned that a story was told.
Speaker 4: This is the story they'd heard from Patricia, Tom's ex girlfriend,
Speaker 4: that some fifteen years prior, Craig and Tom had been skinheads,
Speaker 4: that they'd killed a black man in Philadelphia and then
Speaker 4: gotten tattoos to commemorate what they'd done.
Speaker 5: And Craig just looked at us, shocked, almost a sense
Speaker 5: of I can't believe that this is coming back. And
Speaker 5: then he sat back in his chair and said, I
Speaker 5: don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 4: Scott keeps pressing gently, very much playing the role of
Speaker 4: the New England priest, that he almost was concealing any
Speaker 4: signs of judgment, just patiently probing.
Speaker 5: Well, at the very least, would you admit you have
Speaker 5: the tattoo? Why would they lie about the story?
Speaker 1: Would they?
Speaker 5: Would they also lie about the tattoo? So would you
Speaker 5: raise your would you raise your sleeve? And so begrudgingly
Speaker 5: he did. He showed us his tattoo.
Speaker 4: A gothic looking spider web in black ink, with the
Speaker 4: elbow directly at the center, similar to what Patricia had described.
Speaker 4: Craig admitted that he and Tom both had tattoos like this,
Speaker 4: that they'd gotten them together back in high school, and
Speaker 4: Greg admitted that back in his youth, yeah, he'd been
Speaker 4: his skinhead, but it had just been a phase.
Speaker 3: He said, Man, that was a long time ago. I
Speaker 3: was a young knucklehead, and I don't believe that stuff anymore,
Speaker 3: you know, man, I'm up here, I'm working hard man. Guys,
Speaker 3: I work every day, hourly wage. I work as an electrician.
Speaker 3: I've got a new life. I don't want any part
Speaker 3: of this. He just denied the whole thing. But I
Speaker 3: can't overemphasize. I'm watching this cat. I'm like, he's not
Speaker 3: stressed at all.
Speaker 4: At this point. Despite the fact that Craig had this tattoo,
Speaker 4: which offered some corroboration, Scott and Terry basically have to
Speaker 4: let him go. They say, hey, let's keep in touch.
Speaker 4: If you ever come down to Delaware, please let us know.
Speaker 4: We'd like to keep talking.
Speaker 3: He said, yeah, if I come down there, like Jake,
Speaker 3: no one's ever gonna say yeah, yeah, yeah, I look
Speaker 3: your eyes up. If I'm ever down Delaware, sure, like
Speaker 3: we're gonna have a dinner together. I'm thinking nobody does that.
Speaker 3: Nobody wants to talk to their least favorite FBI and
Speaker 3: ATF agent in the world about a homicide they didn't commit.
Speaker 4: In Terry's mind, it was weird how friendly he was,
Speaker 4: and it also seemed difficult to imagine that this guy
Speaker 4: right here, this laid back electrician living in Vermont, could
Speaker 4: be capable of orchestrating a murder.
Speaker 3: If the dude was in the car with the and
Speaker 3: they did a homicide. Well however went down whoever pulled
Speaker 3: the trigger. Thinking, I'm not seeing it. I mean, if
Speaker 3: it did happen and he was in the very car,
Speaker 3: I see nothing nonverbal in this guy. There's no stress,
Speaker 3: there's no deception. I'm looking at his eyes, I'm looking
Speaker 3: at his whole facial I'm looking at everything. I'm thinking,
Speaker 3: this guy's like the he liked the best liar ever.
Speaker 4: So they say goodbye to Craig, They thank the Vermont
Speaker 4: State Troopers. They walk out of the barracks, get in
Speaker 4: their car, and head home, all the while trying to
Speaker 4: make sense of what they've just learned.
Speaker 3: And I said, Scott, I don't think it happened, man.
Speaker 3: He because, what do you mean. I said, there's no
Speaker 3: way that dude, there's no way. I said, maybe Tommy
Speaker 3: did something. I don't know, but I said he didn't
Speaker 3: do nothing. I'm telling you that dude is way too cool.
Speaker 3: And Scott he goes, nah, I kind of think something's there.
Speaker 1: Man, this happened, and we're definitely not stopping.
Speaker 3: I said, Scott, I'm not seeing it, man, I said, dude,
Speaker 3: I said, I think We're toast bro.
Speaker 4: After this time passes about a year and a half,
Speaker 4: and during this stretch very little happens. In this case,
Speaker 4: Craig keeps living his quiet life up in the Vermont Mountains.
Speaker 4: Occasionally the God Squad gives him a call just to
Speaker 4: check in, but Craig never tells him anything new. Meanwhile,
Speaker 4: Tom Godbison finishes serving his time in federal prison. He's released,
Speaker 4: goes back to living in Delaware, where he seems to
Speaker 4: stay out of trouble. Then, one day in April of
Speaker 4: two thousand and six, the God Squad gets a phone
Speaker 4: call from Craig.
Speaker 3: Craig says, Hey, basically, I'm coming down to see my mom.
Speaker 3: You know, do you guys will still talk to me?
Speaker 3: I'm incredulous the dude is volunteering. You know, Nothing's happened
Speaker 3: in the year and whatever months it's been. There's no
Speaker 3: subpoenas as though arrest, there's those search warrants. Nothing. He's
Speaker 3: got to think he Scott free.
Speaker 5: Are you Are you pretty surprised to get this phone call?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean again, I'm like, this is unbelievable, doesn't make
Speaker 3: any sense to me, But I honestly, I literally felt like,
Speaker 3: does he want friends? Does he need friends? There's some
Speaker 3: things that are miraculous. They don't look miraculous, but they
Speaker 3: literally are miraculous. So that doesn't happen in a real world. Man,
Speaker 3: it doesn't happen.
Speaker 4: Terry and Scott are determined to make the most of
Speaker 4: this meeting, and they go for a new strategy. They've
Speaker 4: tried the whole good cop routine and it hasn't worked,
Speaker 4: not really, so time to apply a little pressure. They
Speaker 4: get a subpoena requiring Craig to testify before a grand
Speaker 4: jury about the murder that allegedly took place. This is
Speaker 4: no joke. The subpoena will put Craig on the spot
Speaker 4: because lying before a grand jury is a serious offense.
Speaker 4: They can land you in prison for years. But remember
Speaker 4: they still have pretty much nothing on Craig at this point,
Speaker 4: so the subpoena, it's kind of a bluff. What's your
Speaker 4: mindset going into that meeting.
Speaker 5: Our mindset is this, we had a subpoena, We're gonna
Speaker 5: give it to him. You always have to hand deliver it.
Speaker 5: There was going to be no more will of the room,
Speaker 5: no more postponements. This is now going to be the
Speaker 5: make it or break it.
Speaker 4: So Craig shows up at the FBI's offices in Wilmington, Delaware.
Speaker 4: He's got no idea that there's a subpoena waiting for him.
Speaker 4: What happens next we pieced together from talking to the
Speaker 4: agents and reading their report from that day. Initially, it's
Speaker 4: all smiles. Terry keeps the whole thing really upbeat.
Speaker 3: Hey, we thank you for coming down. This is awesome.
Speaker 3: You know, we really appreciate it.
Speaker 4: They asked Craig again about the rumor of the murder
Speaker 4: down in Philadelphia. They tell him, we don't think you're
Speaker 4: telling us the truth, and this time, instead of denying
Speaker 4: the whole thing outright, Craig concedes that maybe back at
Speaker 4: the time, there'd been some chatter about this.
Speaker 3: I think he said something like, yeah, we heard rumors
Speaker 3: about that, that someone said we did a homicide. But man,
Speaker 3: that's now, that's nothing to it. We didn't do any homice.
Speaker 3: It's a bunch of junk. Didn't happen. Yeah, maybe maybe
Speaker 3: Tommy said that's gonna build our rep a little bit.
Speaker 4: In other words, a bit of bragging, but nothing more
Speaker 4: than that. The agents push Craig tell him we believe
Speaker 4: a homicide occurred and that you participated in it. Eventually,
Speaker 4: when the meeting is almost over, the hand Craig the
Speaker 4: subpoena and kind of hold their breath.
Speaker 3: And again we're shooting blanks. We have nothing right. Well,
Speaker 3: his whole demeanor changed when he got to subpoena. He's
Speaker 3: like what the stress right, went from like zero to
Speaker 3: like he's he's hitting about a ten.
Speaker 4: That meeting ends without a breakthrough. Craig didn't admit to anything,
Speaker 4: but a few days later he calls them back says
Speaker 4: he wants to meet again, have another sit down. So
Speaker 4: they reconvene, and at this meeting, right off the bat,
Speaker 4: the mood is ten.
Speaker 5: When he arrived, I could tell he was depleted, shaken.
Speaker 5: His whole body had changed to a defeatist demeanor.
Speaker 3: He was like completely complete hundred degree change. And he
Speaker 3: literally it's hard to describe. It was literally like an
Speaker 3: invisible hand was pushing him down in the chair. He
Speaker 3: physically got smaller. I saw him shrink like like like
Speaker 3: he was like getting deflated. He started sweating, beads of
Speaker 3: sweat were popping out.
Speaker 5: You could feel the tension, but you can also feel
Speaker 5: like he's about to say something, and then he's He says,
Speaker 5: I'll tell you everything. I'll tell you everything. I'll tell
Speaker 5: you everything. And at this moment it seemed like maybe,
Speaker 5: just maybe they've been right all along not to give
Speaker 5: up on this, and that the truth was finally at hand.
Speaker 5: Coming up this season on deep Cover, we have to
Speaker 5: do our job and we have to find out who
Speaker 5: did they kill.
Speaker 6: Not that any murder isn't disturbing, but this particular murder
Speaker 6: and the reason for it, the hate.
Speaker 3: This was a hate crime. I believe Tom guy as
Speaker 3: Soon is innocent. They had no physical evidence, they had
Speaker 3: no gun, they had nothing.
Speaker 6: We didn't like the speculation the family, and I thought
Speaker 6: that this would be good if we found least what
Speaker 6: happened to them. Can't do nothing about it, can't bring
Speaker 6: them back, but find out the truth.
Speaker 4: Deep Cover is produced by Amy Gaines McQuaid and Jacob Smith.
Speaker 4: It's edited by Karen SCHAKERJI mastering by Jake Gorski. Our
Speaker 4: show art was designed by Sean Carney. Original scoring in
Speaker 4: our theme was composed by Luis Gara. Fact checking by
Speaker 4: Arthur Gomberts. Our story consultant was James Foreman. Jr. Special
Speaker 4: thanks to Jerry Williams, Sarah Nix, Greta Cone and Jake Flanagan.
Speaker 4: I'm Jake Albert something